Kondo the condo
09:18 Tuesday, 5 February 2019
Words: 1030
In a kind of "cheese sandwich" vein, we're moving.
Mitzi and I were married a year ago last October, and we've been living in what was formerly Action Dave's Cool-Guy Bachelor Pad since about April of 2017. Before moving in with me, I had the place gutted and completely remodeled and I must say, it looks awesome.
But...
It was still kind of more "mine" than "ours," and she was interested in something that was "ours."
So I told her, "Whither thou goest..." and she's been looking, on and off, since last summer. She stopped at one point during the fall, because the more we looked, the more we liked the location we were in now. It's just hard to find something at the beach that is as convenient as this place. But Zillow kept sending emails and one thing led to another and a couple of weeks ago she took me across the ditch to a planned development called Nocatee, and an over-55 community built by Del Webb/Pulte Homes.
The clubhouse sold me. It's HUGE! Indoor olympic size lap pool, indoor hot tub, lots of activity rooms and lots of activities. The house is nice, it's not built yet, but the model was nice. Our lot backs up to a wooded area off the intracoastal waterway. I checked the NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer, and we should be okay for at least three feet of SLR, it'll start getting interesting at that point. I suspect we may live in that home long enough to potentially worry about it, but we won't be alone. We're actually higher here, but we're east of the intracoastal and storm surge could be problematic. We have evacuated twice before, in '16 for Matthew and '17 for Irma. Areas west of the intracoastal often aren't evacuated, but if a storm is projected to be a direct hit, I supposed we'd have to leave even there. But for the most part, we should be fine.
It's not as walkable as here. I walk to Publix nearly every day, and there's a Target, Ace Hardware and Books-a-Million in the same shopping center. I've even walked a bit farther to Home Depot, a UPS store, Staples; you get the idea. I can walk to go buy something I need, which I often do.
But they permit golf carts, and have bike paths, so while retail is a bit farther away, there are healthy or environmentally friendly ways to get there without jumping into a car.
The lot and the design of the house seem favorable for a rooftop solar array. It's not ideal, but I think it's in the realm of being practical. I'm going to do some more research, but my intention is to have one installed as soon as I can.
It's supposed to be ready to close sometime in June or July, so we're excited about that.
But, I have to sell this place!
Mitzi started watching the Marie Kondo shows on Netflix, and she got the bug even before we knew we'd be having to get ready to show this place. I did a purge of old clothes as part of the new year review. So the closets look much larger now, at least.
There's a loft in this place, and I had some built-in cabinets installed and some counter-top desk space. I intended to use it for my Apple II, retro-computing hobby. But I have more computers than I have desk space even still, and I've been busy with political stuff and doing some civic things, so the machines have largely sat there untouched for about a year.
There's a room in the new place that we think will be my "Dave cave," but it's a bit smaller than the loft and it has a bunch of windows, so only one wall is really usable for storage space. It also happens to open off of the kitchen, so Mitzi has certain expectations about its appearance.
Well, last night I had one of my occasional bouts of insomnia, and I was trying to figure out how I could downsize my inventory and have one or two machines in a smaller space. I wrestled with a number of different ideas, but I finally concluded that I had to do the kind of Warren Buffett thing and just ruthlessly abandon my retro-computing hobby. I just don't have enough time for something that I don't value as much as the work I'm doing on climate change and resilience.
Of course, that led to thoughts of how best to dispose of it all. I've collected stuff for about four years now, and it amounts to quite a bit of hardware, software, books and magazines. I have no patience for selling stuff and haggling over price, boxing it up and shipping it, and no time for it either. So I got up early since I wasn't sleeping anyway and posted on Facebook in a Florida retro-computing interest group that the first person who would commit to coming to pick it all up could have it for nothing. I was somewhat amazed that at around 5:30 a.m. I had three people responding within seconds that they'd be willing to come get it. So I've got a primary and two alternates in case anyone falls out, and this stuff will all be gone a week from Saturday! So that's actually a bit of a relief.
In some ways, I'll be sad to see it all go; but I'll also be glad, because it's always just sitting there, looking lonely and I feel unhappy for not using it. But it's clearly not as important as the other things I'm doing, or even photography. So better to clear the desk and the decks for more productive pursuits. And it's going to make the design of the workspace in the sun room a hell of a lot easier.
So I'll do the Marie Kondo thing, thank it for the joy it gave me, and let it go to someone who may be able to make better use of it than I can.
All The Feels
13:00 Monday, 5 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 54.01°F Pressure: 998hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 89
A post from Dave Winer enters the timeline:
Everyone's watching and listening to Fast Car this morning. It's a time capsule for so many of us. 1988. A window back to good times.
So I google (duckduckgo, I guess), and get the NPR story. I watch the embedded X-post video and I'm bawling my eyes out. I don't know why.
I wouldn't say 1988 was such a great time, but that's subjective. Better, in some ways, than today I suppose. In an "ignorance is bliss" context.
✍️ Reply by emailDeath and Taxes
17:16 Monday, 5 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 57.33°F Pressure: 998hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 20.71mph
Words: 359
There's an effort underway by Florida's generation-long ruling political party to consider eliminating property taxes. Property taxes are relatively "progressive." That is, people with greater wealth generally own more property, or more expensive, highly-valued property, and therefore the tax represents less of an overall burden. Sales taxes are regressive in the sense that everyone pays the same amount, regardless of ability or proportion of overall net worth.
I have to wonder to what degree that climate impacts, including sea level rise, are placing pressure on future property values and motivating this effort. While much of Florida's population may migrate from the coast, the truly high-value properties are mostly located there. If retreat isn't properly planned and managed, it is likely to leave a landscape of derelict properties and a significantly diminished tax base.
I don't think there's a sales tax rate that could make up that lost revenue. While "no property tax" probably sounds as appealing as "no state income tax," it would have consequences. I would expect a serious degradation in government services, public education, public health (already a joke), regulation and oversight and so on. The goal with Republicans is never to improve government services, but to eliminate them. Eliminating their funding source goes a long way toward achieving that goal. Public safety, mainly law enforcement, would probably be spared from significant cuts, except in regions where Democrats may hold local sway. I'd expect those regions to be cut significantly. There will be all kinds of games played with how sales tax revenue is distributed.
A progressive state income tax would address many of these concerns, while simultaneously eliminating what can only be described as an "attractive nuisance," which helps draw 1,000 people a day to Florida, placing greater strain on its environment and infrastructure.
I'd say the idea of moving to a higher sales tax rate is a non-starter, but we're talking about a ruling party that hasn't been accountable to the electorate for a generation. Anything is possible.
Anyone considering moving to Florida would be very wise to reconsider their plans. We are a few short years away from chaos here.
✍️ Reply by emailCategory Six Shit-Storm
11:52 Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 76.14°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 157
The day after the Orange One was inaugurated, I posted about the shit that was about to hit the fan. We're only entering the third week of this reign of error. We've got about 205 more to go!
Well, the point of that post was that it doesn't do much good to complain fecklessly (Is that redundant? Probably.) on your blog or in your social media posts. You're not changing any minds. Old posts by Doc Searls (that I was unable to locate, his archives don't go back that far) notwithstanding.
So, what I did this morning was email my congressman and my two senators and asked them why an unaccountable tech billionaire and his civilian employees were being given unfettered access to federal systems and assets? And altering the code!
Probably doesn't help either, but it's better than just bitching about it online.
Maybe if everyone emailed their senators and representatives, it might get their attention.
✍️ Reply by emailOff The Wall
17:37 Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 71.73°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 142
I have a photo of the property survey of Winterfell, and I have an overhead shot from my DJI mini. I wanted to overlay the photo over the survey, and make the photo semi-transparent.
I have a Freeform document open for the move up north, and I tried doing it in that. You can overlay images, but you can't adjust the opacity of the image overlay. Seems like kind of an obvious feature.
I'll spare you all the dumb ways (far too complicated) I tried to accomplish the same thing, and instead give you the simple and easy answer: Pages.
I was able to rotate and scale the image to align with the features in the survey. It's not ideal, but it looks close enough.
I want to get a better digital scan of the survey, but that'll have to wait.
✍️ Reply by emailPerformative? Moi?
07:44 Thursday, 5 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 7.86°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 3.53mph
Words: 257
Jack's a little grumpy this morning.
I’m bored with all the performative quitting going on. What do you want, a medal?
Nope, got a few of my own already, thank you very much.
Of all the things I've been feeling recently, "bored," doesn't make the top ten. I'd pick a higher number, but how many "feelings" are there anyway? Let's try and find out...
Rage, angry, afraid, frustrated, desperate, depressed, sad, hopeless, troubled, astonished, bitter, uncomprehending, lost, well that's thirteen. Nope, no "bored" for me.
Is quitting Amazon performative? Am I doing it for a participation trophy? To receive the validation and adulation of my so-called "audience"? I get about three or four emails a year for things I post here. I have no illusions about the "influence" of the marmot. The marmot doesn't have influence, it has insignificance to everyone but me.
Nope, it's just something I can do, something within my span of control. And sharing it here is just putting it out into the ether, like everything else I write here. Hopefully maybe contributing to the net-vector sum of... something. (Again, with the three periods, just to flip the bird to all the typography aesthetes. Fuck 'em.)
Scott Galloway has a far larger platform than I'll ever have, and I'm not especially confident that even he can "influence" enough people to make a signal strong enough for the spineless, lickspittle corporate America to notice.
But it's better than doing nothing.
Better than being "bored" anyway.
Bored is the emotion of the privileged.
✍️ Reply by emailFurther to the Foregoing
08:02 Thursday, 5 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 9.16°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 3.53mph
Words: 184
Looks like Fallout wrapped last night. And since I deleted all my credit cards from Amazon, my "ad-free" experience was deleted as well.
For my next act, I'm deleting the Prime app from my AppleTV. Awards, medals and trophies can be forwarded to the Mad Orange King on Pennsylvania Avenue.
And Fallout was a big meh. I won't miss it.
I'm hesitating on deleting my Amazon account, because I'm not certain how that affects my Kindle library. At this moment, I'm thinking I'll keep the account semi-active (undeleted) to maintain access to the books.
I went through a rather difficult divorce a couple of decades ago. I know that everything can be taken from you. Fortunately, I kept my pension and my job. But I know what it feels like to lose nearly every material thing you valued or treasured. Hurts for a while, then you realize it didn't matter. If I deleted the account and lost access to the books, it'd hurt for a while and then it wouldn't matter.
But for now, I don't really need to add another feeling.
✍️ Reply by emailI've Got Mail
08:11 Thursday, 5 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 10.17°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 3.53mph
Words: 349
The other day I bitched about the stupid Intuit ads in Apple News+.
But I didn't just bitch, I wrote a rather vituperative note to Apple in the Feedback app. I don't know if that's included in all MacOS installs, or if it came with my performative Developer account. I use it from time to time to bitch to Apple about just whose experience was supposed to be "improved" by one change or another. Like when they rolled Puzzles into Games and ruined the experience I had competing with my brother. Never heard back from them on that.
But I did get an email from them yesterday:
=========================
Hi David,
As a result of your feedback, there are software changes in the latest beta, iOS & iPadOS 26.3 (build 23D125), that have resolved this issue.
You can see the software build your device is running and check for the latest update by tapping on Settings > General > Software Update.
If this issue is not resolved for you in the 23D125 build, please file a new feedback report.
Feedback ID FB21855478, Intrusive Ads Ruin User Experience and Apple's Reputation
Do not reply to this email. Please login to Feedback Assistant and let us know if the problem is fixed for you.
==========================
So I installed the latest build, and sure enough, I wasn't getting unintentional, undesirable ad launches in News+, though Intuit still seems to have purchased the entire ad space for News. I think they dialed back the responsiveness or sensitivity to the ads, because I can "touch" an ad while scrolling now and it won't launch, I just keep scrolling.
I rather expect I wasn't the only person who bitched about that, but I was very surprised to receive any reply at all. And pleased that they fixed it.
Now if they could just train Photo's stupid AI to remove power lines. Seems like the simplest thing, and they have yet to do it right once. I send feedback every time. We'll have a new house higher on the hill so they'll be below the horizon before they get that one fixed.
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