Good News, Bad News
06:54 Tuesday, 2 April 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 63.3°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 0mph
Words: 339
Florida was in the news again yesterday. Given the ongoing circus/horror show in this state, I'm surprised we're not leading the news every night.
The good news: The Florida Supreme Court decided that two citizen ballot initiatives, state constitutional amendments, will be allowed to appear on the ballot this fall. One is to codify access to reproductive health services, including abortion; and the other is for legalizing recreational marijuana.
The bad news: The Florida Supreme Court also let a six-week limit abortion ban go into effect. Which is bad news for women's access to reproductive healthcare, but it does have the salutary effect of placing what's at stake on the ballot in bold relief.
Republicans have held a monopoly on power in this state for over a generation. Having achieved power in the 90s, they wasted no time ensuring they'd hold onto it in perpetuity. This has had the effect of driving the Republican Party ever rightward, as the only way to win elective office, for the majority of offices, is to be more Republican than your opponent. Essentially winning the election in the primary. Today we have many elected officials who are little more than sociopaths, because cruelty, bigotry and indifference to suffering are character assets to Republican primary voters.
The success of citizen ballot initiatives in granting returning citizens access to the ballot gave them a scare, and they've been working very hard to make it near to impossible for citizen ballot initiatives to succeed, but they're not there yet.
I was worried a state supreme court that's as thoroughly red as its "elected" state government would grant Republicans' wish to keep those two measures off the ballot this fall, because they will drive turnout.
I don't know when, if ever, we'll get a chance to elect a truly representative government in this state, but at least we've been given an opportunity to help keep Trump out of office by mobilizing otherwise disaffected voters in the state.
As April Fools days go, I'll take it.
✍️ Reply by emailTilting at Windmills
10:52 Tuesday, 2 April 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 72.07°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 520
Mitzi does the lawn care around here. It was part of the deal moving here. I bought a condo because I despise lawn care, and I made it clear I wasn't going to do it. She agreed, and for the first few years we had various services take care of our lawn.
They all suck.
Now, I'm against lawns as a general principle anyway, but it's a shame to spend money on them and still have them look like crap. These "lawn care professionals," don't care about your lawn. They spread every weed, fungus and parasite from every other lawn they damage to yours. They scalp the grass, break your sprinkler heads, foul the air and create the most godawful racket.
So Mitzi takes care of the lawn, and she uses all-electric lawn care tools. I tried to encourage her to use Makita brand products, since I already have a bunch of 18v Makita batteries and their chargers!
But, no. She did her research and decided on a particular brand of mower. Separate battery. She did buy a Makita string-trimmer (weed whacker), and tried to use it for edging, but she hated it. So she bought a dedicated edger from the same manufacturer who built the mower. But, smaller tool, smaller battery.
Different charger.
I wanted to recover some space on my workbench so I built a 24" shelf to hold all the chargers. They fit with no room to spare.
Now she's decided she can't stand the Makita string-trimmer, so she's going to get the Stihl. (I think all string-trimmers suck, and she'll be unhappy with the Stihl before long too, but I can't tell her that.)
Different charger!
I bought a 36" shelf, and I'm going to try and fit it in where the 24" shelf is.
But I also just wrote to the National Institute of Standards and Technology and asked them what they're doing about standardizing battery operated portable tool charging connections and chargers. They may not be the right people. It might be the Federal Trade Commission, I don't know. But it ought to be an international standard anyway.
I also wrote to ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy) and asked them what they're doing to encourage development and implementation of an international standard for portable tool battery connections and chargers.
This is madness. Every manufacturer wants to use its own proprietary battery connection to try to lock you into their tool line. Personally, I like Makita tools and I'd find a way to live with their products simply to avoid the proliferation of chargers. But Mitzi does the chores, so she gets to choose. I just have to figure out how to make it work.
But it's insanity.
I'm sure my little web-form communiqués will be little more than farts in a tornado, but at least I feel as though I did something.
Won't have to worry about it for long. But still. Every time I turn around I'm reminded of how monumentally stupid capitalism is and that stupidity is why we're going to lose this civilization.
✍️ Reply by emailGet Low
Current Wx: Temp: 76.21°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 8.05mphWords: 83
I asked ChatGPT what the heck these things are called:
Those yellow, bumpy pads at crosswalks are called "truncated domes" or "detectable warning surfaces." They are designed to assist visually impaired individuals by providing tactile feedback, indicating the boundary between the sidewalk and the street.
Shot it with the black E-PL7 the other morning. Didn't shoot anything this morning. Shot so many kite and cedar waxwing shots that I made too much work for myself. Just concentrated on walking briskly this morning.
✍️ Reply by emailChaos
09:21 Thursday, 2 April 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 35.83°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 98% Wind: 2.08mph
Words: 417
People, in general, aren't stupid; but they are often foolish.
Intelligent people aren't immune to being fools. Indeed, it is their very intelligence that often makes them foolish. A recent case in point is Marc Andreessen and his foolish comments about introspection.
The opposite of foolish isn't "smart," it's wise. Of the two qualities, one is earned the other is intrinsic. There can be elements of temperament that lend themselves toward more readily acquiring or earning wisdom, but we're not born with it. Likewise, there are elements of temperament that lend themselves to foolishness, because foolishness is often more rewarding than wisdom, at least in the short term. Most vices fall into that category.
I was fortunate enough to grow up during a time when our culture had accumulated a certain amount of knowledge, which is a prerequisite to wisdom, but isn't wisdom in and of itself. My choice of career exposed me to certain areas of knowledge, like war and conflict; and my temperament and interests exposed me to certain other areas of knowledge, like math and science, and more particularly for our purposes, chaos theory.
I'm not so foolish as to believe I'm an expert on chaos theory, but I believe I have become acquainted with the broader principles and some of the features like, "sensitive dependence on initial conditions," and "phase space." Most of us grow up with a rather Newtonian, deterministic, "cause and effect" view of the way the world works. Our culture has also indoctrinated us in a zero-sum view events and interactions. This, rather impoverished, view of the world lends itself to foolishness at scale.
War is chaos. Violent conflict is often the result of either foolishness, or the failure of institutional systems, pushed beyond the boundaries of stability. In either case, the outcomes are difficult to predict, the effects are often not anticipated or immediately apparent. Knowledge of this should make the wise very reluctant to go to war.
Donald Trump is chaos. As a personality, his internal "dynamic system," isn't configured the way most of us would recognize. Inputs that might result in one output in an "ordinary" person, yield wildly different outputs from Trump. He's unpredictable. To fools, that's not a bug, it's a feature. To the wise, it's a catastrophe.
We are well and truly fucked.
At some point, our culture is going to have to get serious about education. Teaching people the difference between wisdom and foolishness.
I don't know that we'll get the opportunity.
✍️ Reply by emailOn a Lighter Note
09:51 Thursday, 2 April 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 36.91°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 98% Wind: 4.88mph
Words: 116
I've been wrestling with deciding how we're going to heat and cool this new house. I'm reluctant to buy two systems that can do the same thing, so I'm looking for examples where people have done so already.
This video came up yesterday, and while it's not a completed system, it did offer me a great deal of insight into the design considerations. I've since watched nearly all of the videos in his series, and it has been very valuable. He's at a high elevation in central Arizona, so vastly different climate in terms of humidity. But again, I think we're building in a robust humidity control system so the dew point issue should be manageable.
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