More celebration of how scientists make the world a better place – here’s a new method of producing drinking water from ocean water. Ion concentration polarization, which could give millions of people access to clean, pure water. Low energy consumption, can be powered by a small solar cell, and doesn’t use membrane filters that need cleaning/replacement. Brilliant.

***

I’m about ready to sign up for Masterclass again. Educational, entertaining, and inspirational. One of the best investments you can make.

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Wanna travel through the solar system and not leave your desk? Try this very cool simulator.

***

Good news for UK basketball – hello, Antonio Reeves!

Just booked – a cruise through the Panama Canal in the spring of 2023. Always wanted to see it, and now we’ll get to transit it twice on our way to and from some ports on each side. Should be interesting.

Seriously good article here about permanent shadows on the Moon and the high probability that they contain substantial water in the form of ice. The S Pole on the Moon is where I set my novel, so this qualifies as research for me. And I love the video at the front of the article.

I used this machine translator to take this message as input:

“All these worlds are yours, except Phobos. Attempt no landing on Phobos. Something wonder is happening there.”

Obviously, a nod to 2010 A Space Odyssey. And after 10 automated translations across various languages, the final message back in English was:

“Every country is in the countryside. Try your clothes. Something went”

Pretty funny, and it proves the point that language is a pretty terrible way to communicate. I wonder at which point in the translation sequences did things go wrong? The first, or later? But the original message is so garbled at the end that it’s nonsense. God help us if we ever have to communicate with aliens. Or dolphins.

Posting is gonna be light this week, my consulting gig has gotten very, very busy. Makes me wish I was getting paid by the hour instead of by the day.

Sad to note that my brother Don’s best friend Brian Hicks died unexpectedly. Tough time for Brian’s family and friends. He was a wonderful person and will be missed.

Well, this is embarrassing, for a supposedly veteran traveler. And inconvenient. I was trying to make some US to Europe flight reservations for this fall, and the reservation system required my passport information. Not surprising. Then I noticed that my passport expires in July this year (2022 was always far into the future, every other time I thought about it), and the reservation system would not accept a traveler with a passport expired before the flight date. Soooo…off I go to try and get my passport renewed ASAP, during a time when all government services are worse/slower than ever (COVID). Rookie mistake, and I can only hope that airfares don’t go crazy during the 5-8 weeks it’ll take to get my update.

***

Our little town’s biggest annual event is tomorrow, The Fallbrook Avocado Festival. We’ve missed it the last few years, so we’re going to this one. It’s basically a big street fair, with some good food and the occasional nice bit of art and craft. If nothing else it should be a good chance for some photos.

***

I have to say, the Russia-Ukraine war has me pretty worried about an escalation to nuclear. Putin isn’t rational, and he’s sitting on a big stockpile of nukes, and if he believes he’s losing the war…not good. I would be 100% in favor of a strike team from us or any nation going in for an assassination – that may be the only way to bring Russia back from the brink. It’s very weird to write this paragraph, but the more I look at the situation it’s clear that there is one and only one human being who is threatening the world with nuclear war, and removing that one human would be the right thing to do.

One thing our military-industrial complex does very well is to put movie-worthy names on new weapons systems. Turns out we’re sending a bunch of Phoenix Ghost suicide drones to Ukraine. Hell, even if the weapon doesn’t do much, the name alone should scare the shit out of Ivan. I sure wouldn’t want something like that hovering over my position.

***

Found an interesting article in Time about the quiet death of overtime pay. It really struck a chord with me – I remember time and a half, it was a big deal to my Dad back in the day. And the article is right, it has just quietly been legislated out of existence. More evidence that working class families haven’t kept up with financial progress of the top 20% of earners.

***

I made the mistake last night of reading a really interesting article about the Dunning-Kruger Effect at about 2am. Because it was interesting, I couldn’t get it out of my head to get back to sleep. I rolled around thinking of different ways to plot the data and illustrate different aspects of their study.

There’s a LOT published about the DK Effect on the Internet, but it boils down to this (from the essay):

From here the way is short to the conclusions made by the authors: unskilled people overestimate their performance, experts underestimate it, and the less skilled people are, the worse they are at estimating their performance.

Since being published, this effect has been called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and it has received a lot of attention, both academic and from the media. Most of the follow-up research supported the initial results, and generalized them to other cases.

Illustration of the DK Effect below:

One of my late-night thoughts is the hypothesis that the DK Effect is somehow related to evolution. All people are not created with the same intellectual capacity, and those with low capacity, if they are self-aware and realize it, will not be happy. They may not mate, they may not live long, they may be depressed and self-destructive. But those with low capacity AND a low self-awareness can go on happily living their lives in the belief that they’re just as capable as anyone else. So they multiply. And now we have a population selected (evolved) to exhibit the DK Effect. Weird, but it explains a lot.

***

Final thought for the morning, this is very real. I’m finding that the cost of commuting to and from the office, buying and wearing clothes other than T-shirts and jeans, and eating lunch out fairly often is *expensive*. The commute alone is costing me $150/week and about 8 hours/week that I used to have for leisure. Thankfully, I only have to do this for a couple of months, but if I were 30 years old and looking at another 25-30 years of this, I’d be horrified. This is one more big reason that labor costs are going up, and employee retention rates going down.

It’s a great day. Coffee was already made when I got up, Tesla announced record earnings so my stake in them recovered, and Oscar Tshiebwe is still not going pro.

And speaking of Tesla, when Elon Musk isn’t amusing himself with his weird Twitter acquisition, one of his other companies, StarLink, is showing the US military how modern electronic warfare (EW) can be conducted. And helping Ukraine in their war efforts. My first job involved lots of EW technology, and with the tech tools available today, I bet it’s a fun, crazy job.

***

My religious friends and family will hate this (sorry Mike), but this little joke illustrates my point that religion can be very, very divisive.

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” and pushed him over.

McSweeney’s has a good take on Florida’s ridiculous cancellation of over 50 mathematics books. Here’s a sample:

Calculus: We stand firmly against any field of mathematics that requires integration.

Multiplication: We believe only certain numbers should be allowed to multiply with one another.

***

CNN has a pretty interesting story about the Federal judge who ruled that the airline mask mandate is unlawful. She was pulled out of the pack and given a lifetime appointment by Trump, labelled unqualified for the job by the American Bar Association, and is married to a MAGA diehard. And now she’s made history.

***

I’m generally a healthy person, but one malady has made an unwelcome appearance in my life again – sciatica. I’ve lost a few days lately to extended bouts of pain, and pain like that changes you. It takes the joy out of daily living, to the point that all you really want to do is knock yourself out with one drug or another and hope the next day is better. I’ve had two people tell me that yoga is the answer to sciatica, and I’m thinking about it. I would try pretty much anything to be rid of this occasional life-wrecker.

***

Greenland has something interesting in common with Europa. Who knew? I sure hope we go explore Europa soon – we might get the answer to “is there life elsewhere?” by visiting Jupiter’s moon. I mean, I know the answer (of course there is), but it would be nice to have proof.

Going in to the office most days lately, I have a lot of time to think and listen to music – it’s a 91 mile round trip. My playlist these days includes Tame Impala, Cannons, Rush, Billie Eilish, Khraungbin (of course), Jackson Browne, and Pink Floyd, to name a few. I also listen to a lot of NPR, but the constant fund raising gets old.

I just stumbled onto an interesting writing tool, Sudowrite. It works pretty well, though it’s yet another excuse/distraction from “just writing”.

Aaaaand, the airline mask mandate is over, just like that. At least for now. Let’s hope that we don’t get a giant bump in COVID cases as a result. But aside from that, I’m *really* happy that we can go back to air travel being what it used to be – crowded, expensive, and uncomfortable. What a relief!

Given the sign below, no wonder I ended up in this part of Socal.

The culture wars get more wacky. I would love to see some of the examples of the now-banned 41% of Math textbooks in Florida. Math textbooks?! What could possible be so prejudicial in a math book?

No travel this month, but we kick it into higher gear starting in May. At that point we have trips every month until the end of 2022. With that in mind, I really hope conditions are such that the airline mask mandate can be ended in May. I get it, COVID is still a risk, but airports and health care facilities are the last situations where masks are still required. Long flights with masks and people fighting about it have gotten very tedious.

UPDATE, Monday afternoon: Well, well, well, a FL judge has ruled that the CDC’s 2021 airlines mask mandate is unlawful and unenforceable. That might be the first news from FL that I agree with in years.

And in anticipation of said travel, I get my new iPad Pro today. About 2-3x faster processor and 4x more storage. Gotta have room for a lot of books, music and 4K movies.

Here’s a weird little treatise on writing from an unexpected source. I like it, but…still deciding if there’s any real insight here or just a recitation of common sense.

Final travel thought. This trip would definitely be worth taking. I like river cruises, and I love the Rhone region. If I had to pick a spot to live outside the US, southern France is in the top five choices. Haven’t traveled on a Viking ship yet, but their reputation is solid.

Happy Easter! I’m not much of an Easter celebrator, but I wish I was with the grandsons to enjoy it with them and through their eyes. I’m sure they’ll get to chase some hidden eggs today. Here’s a shot of their Easter outfits this very day.

In other news, CJ Frederick will finally be in the lineup for KY this fall. That’s good news. Our team will come together a little bit at a time, all through the summer. Dreams of titles, here we go again.

This is a topic I don’t write about much, but given that Kentucky has made national news here, it’s worth a mention. KY is the first state to effectively ban all abortions. Makes me sad, but then I know how conservative most of the state is. I’m not going to get into the sophistry of when life begins and what or when should be the dividing line, but it 100% seems wrong to me that a government can say what a person can and cannot do to their body. That goes for vaccines, tattoos, piercings, haircuts, body mods, etc. A person’s body is theirs and theirs alone – no one else should get to decide what is done to it.

The escape clause in this logic is that the government of KY might say “Well, you can still get an abortion, but you can’t get it here…”. Sort of OK, but what happens when KY law becomes US law? Not everyone can afford to leave the country for a medical procedure.

It’s a sad state of affairs. I respect those who are trying to protect “the unborn”, but I would think our first priority is to protect the rights of the born. Mandating that women carry all pregnancies to full term and become mothers whether they want to or not is just…crazy. It demotes women to second class personhood, which I suppose is the point. Thanks, Kentucky.

Thought for the day: “Some people are like clouds, once they disappear it’s a beautiful day.”

***

Engineers do it again! Here’s a new invention, a device that converts heat directly to electricity with no moving parts. One more way to generate power without burning dinosaurs. But I have to wonder, if not concentrated sunlight, what is the heat source?

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We’re getting a pink full Moon for Easter. Nice!

Joke of the day: “It’s probably my age that tricks people into thinking I’m an adult.”

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Louisville isn’t the only place with a great food scene. My hands-down new favorite chicken sandwich is from Cross Street Chicken. I visited the one on Convoy Street yesterday for lunch, and wow – world-class hot chicken sandwich, Nashville interpreted by Koreans! I made the mistake of eating the entire sandwich, but at least I didn’t need any dinner.

***

My Wordle trend has reversed. 3/6 the last two days. I’m not entirely dim after all.

***

I finished Emily St. John Mandel’s amazing book, Sea of Tranquility, in the middle of the night last night. (A testament to my ever-worse sleep habits). It’s still with me; I may need to read or just peruse it again to think about some of the ideas and characters. So many big ideas, all playing in the background of the story of a hapless man’s enlightenment and development. I wouldn’t even know how to start writing such a book. I’m happy I read it.

More evidence of The Big Grift comes out. I would actually classify this as espionage, not just bribery. Done on a massive scale, and pretty much right out in the open. From Letters From An American:

But those stories pale in comparison to the news broken last night by ​​David D. Kirkpatrick and Kate Kelly of the New York Times: six months after Trump left office, an investment fund controlled by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), invested $2 billion with Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, despite the fact that the fund advisors found Kushner’s new company “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” At the same time, they also invested about $1 billion in another new firm run by Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.  

Kushner has little experience in private equity, and his firm consists primarily of that Saudi money; no American institutions have invested with him. The Saudi investment will net Kushner’s firm about $25 million a year in asset management fees, and the investors required him to hire qualified investment professionals to manage the money.

It certainly looks as if Kushner is being rewarded for his work on behalf of the kingdom, and perhaps in anticipation of influence in the future. Kushner defended MBS after news broke that the crown prince had approved the killing and dismemberment of U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Kushner helped to broker $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, even as Congress was outraged by MBS’s war in Yemen. Most concerning, though, is that Kushner had access to the most sensitive materials in our government. Career officials denied Kushner’s security clearance out of concern about his foreign connections, but Trump overruled them.

***

Here’s a new way (at least it’s new to me) of thinking about our cultural divide and how it might be bridged. Bad Faith Communication has become the norm in America, and somehow we have to reverse that. The article lays out a framework for how and why we’ve gotten here, but not really any plan for fixing the problem. And a nice insight – the endgame here is chaos, a completely dysfunctional society, not one side winning. From the article:

Given well-documented advances in the field of information warfare, there should be no illusion: today’s culture war cannot be won by any side. Mutually assured destruction is now the name of the wargame.^[6] The saturation of bad faith communication throughout culture is steadily increasing, like a kind of dangerous background radiation emitted from scientifically engineered memetic weaponry. Public political discourse is quickly becoming a toxic warzone, leaching externalities into families, friendships, and identity structures.

***

Life sadly imitates art. Wolverines.

***

If the amazing trailer for the next season of Stranger Things doesn’t give you chills, then you might want to adjust your meds. Love the show, love the characters, and it looks like the 2022 version will be epic.

And since we’ve segued into media, here’s a podcast/audiobook that I think I’ll like. Sounds like The Office updated for 2022 and on Mars. Machina, on Realm.

Two rival tech companies compete for the chance to bring AI to Mars. 
WHY YOU’LL LOVE IT: If you enjoy a gripping story full of corporate espionage, high-stakes science, and robot dogs that are well-versed in mixology, then this fictional workplace drama is perfect for tuning out your real-life version of it.

Joke of the day: “I don’t mean to brag, but I finished my 14-day diet food supply in 9 hours and 20 minutes.”

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I may be getting dumber. My consecutive Wordle results the last few days are 2/6, 3/6, 4/6 and 5/6. Ugly trend.

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More on crypto; this time Bitcoin. We’re a cult, absolutely.

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Thanks to McSweeney’s for making it clear that we probably don’t want smart toilets. Flush that idea.

***

I’m airfare-shopping a lot lately, and one thing is certain – airfares have gone up, way up. My unscientific estimate is that fares are up 30-50% relative to a year ago. I’ve looked at Southwest, United, American; inside the US and international. Our traveling life just got more expensive. Right now I’m looking to get to England in late October to catch the ship ride to Norway and the Northern Lights. Then maybe a side trip over to Scotland on the way back, mid-November. Now that I write this, a side trip to Scotland in mid-November doesn’t seem all that smart. I’ve played golf in Scotland in late May during frigid snowstorms. Maybe Scotland on the front end of that trip…

My go-to sites for international travel shopping are Momondo and business-class.com.

***

Picture of the day: Little Buddies at the Beach

Spent the day yesterday with friends on a 40 foot sailboat cruising San Diego Bay and the open ocean beyond Point Loma. Great day, great sailing partners and some great memories.

It was a rough start. We got stuck on a sand bar just 30 minutes into our excursion. None of us knew the harbor at all, and we were at extreme low tide, so not surprising in hindsight. But embarrassing at the time. A Good Samaritan in a small Zodiac offered to help pull us free. After 20-30 minutes we broke free and fled the scene. We paid the guy handsomely for rescuing us.

A while later, our grounding faux pas behind and sails unfurled, I watched people watching us from shore as we cruised by beautiful downtown San Diego. Many times I’ve stood onshore and watched majestic sailboats cruising with mysterious people aboard and wondered, “who are those lucky people out there?”. And then I realized that this time, I’m one of those people. That was fun.

Just a mile or two offshore, outside the protection of Point Loma, we sailed in much rougher waters. At that point our experienced Captain decided to let me steer the boat. It was terrifying. My every instinct was wrong. We were tacking (I think that’s the right word) hard, and to stay on course I had to fight the wheel and keep us tilted sharply, maybe 20-25 degrees over. We had waves breaking the bow and water rushing right up to the low side of the deck, where the rest of us were clinging on. Captain Terri was nonplussed and kept telling me we’re fine, the boat won’t turn over, when every neuron in my brain screamed “Yes, it will! We’re going over!” Even the slightest twitch of the wheel right or left felt like it was going to be my last mortal act. After about an hour of that I was completely drained. Our relaxing boat trip had become a consequential lesson for me – I’m not a sailor. Being at the helm and experiencing the power of just everyday, average (actually, I really hope for my own ego they were above average, but I don’t know) offshore waves and wind, I would never have made it across the water in the Magellan days. Going mano y mano with the ocean is not for me.

After I gave up the helm I went below to decompress and downed a quick beer (I really wanted something stronger). It took me a good 30-40 minutes to calm down. I don’t think my friends realized how stressed I was; I didn’t shit myself or anything, though I had to check. But I’m now 99.99% sure I’ll never sail offshore again in any boat smaller than a football field.

Quote of the day: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is what you get when the ventriloquist dies but the dummy still talks.”

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The gift that just keeps on giving. Of course the records are missing.

***

This is…interesting. Not the Peace Corps, but the Digital Corps. A two-year paid fellowship working for Uncle Sam, if you’re a young techie. It makes some sense. The Peace Corp was about sending Americans to some of the worst places in the world to help people in those countries better themselves. The Digital Corps will send young Americans to help specific federal agencies, agencies that could easily qualify as the worst places in the world.

***

Sixty really could become the new thirty. Sign me up.

***

The short heat wave is supposed to be over today. Went from 66 to 99 in less than a week.

Thought for the day: “Common sense is not a gift. It’s a punishment because you have to deal with everyone else who doesn’t have it.”

Yesterday our high temperature was 99 degrees, against a normal of 75. And a previous all-time high of 88. Yikes. Will be the same again today, though I’ll be ensconced in an air-conditioned conference room.

The media coverage of Tiger Woods playing at Augusta today is pretty amazing. It *is* big news in the sporting world, and it’s a nice counterpoint to all of the horrific news from Ukraine, tornado alley in the US south, and everything from Congress.

Very busy weekend with a lot going on, but I’ll be tracking Tiger’s progress throughout. Everyone loves a good redemption / recovery story.

Humor for the day: Just once, I want a username and password prompt to say, “close enough…”

Big heat wave coming the next few days. Afternoon temps going up 20-25 degrees during a strong Santa Ana – it’ll be close to 100F here on Thursday and Friday. I suppose spring is over.

***

When I read articles like this, I realize that (a) digital cameras are really complicated and I’m not sure I want to be an expert at this depth, and (b) this kind of technical trivia has almost zero to do with being a good photographer. It’s interesting, but only really useful if I want to be a camera designer or a writer for DPR.

***

We’ve spent a lot of time lately updating our family trust, will, powers of attorney, etc. I think we’re finished, and I hope to get back to doing something more enjoyable, e.g. a tooth extraction or a five-day fast. Just sayin’…

***

On that thought, I realize I’ve pretty much quit playing golf, and I don’t know why. It’s good for me, gets me moving and outdoors, but lately I haven’t gotten the itch. It’s consistent with my general unexplained lassitude these days. Sounds like a good place to start and get my ass off the couch recliner and up moving around. Fore!

I read a long Bloomberg article about cryptocurrency last night and I think I understand how the crypto economy is thriving in spite of all the corruption and nonsense involved. The answer is gambling – people love to bet, and the crypto markets have become the equivalent of unregulated dog races held a billion times per day.

There are professional investors gamblers who have made billions in the market, mostly by creating the very infrastructure that all the rubes use to invest gamble. The article I read was about the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, a very interesting billionaire. Fried made his first millions by noticing that Bitcoin was consistently worth 10% more on Japanese markets than on US markets. It isn’t unusual for currencies to have slightly different values at the same time in different regions or markets, but it’s usually a penny or a tenth of a penny. A 10% variation is a gigantic arbitrage opportunity. So Bankman-Fried set up a system where his company bought bitcoin in the US and sold it in Japan, daily. Take $1000, multiply by 1.1 every day and at the end of 90 days you have $4.8 million. After 6 months you have $23 billion! (Illustrates the power of geometric growth.)

Eventually the US-Japan arbitrage window was closed, but Bankman-Fried created hundreds of new betting opportunities with his second company, FTX. It’s ostensibly a crypto exchange, but in reality it’s a virtual world betting platform. Buys and sells, options, futures, swaps, complex derivatives…bets can be placed on every cryptocurrency combination imaginable. It’s a 24×7, lightly regulated virtual currency trading betting platform. And that’s what accounts for the growth in crypto – the desire of the masses to bet.

I have a lot of respect for Bankman-Fried and what he’s done, the genius in how he’s done it, plus more respect for his philanthropy. We need more entrepreneurs like him.

Thought for the day: “Sometimes it takes me all day to get nothing done.”

And this is likely to be one of those days. I didn’t solve the Wordle today for the first time in a couple of months. May have had something to do with the inordinate number of brain cells I killed last night.

I need to reload my iPad with some new books. I’ve definitely hit some kind of limit; can’t find any new books that I think I’ll like. Maybe I’m stuck in an author rut or a recommendation engine loop. Time to ignore Amazon’s infernal recommendations and do some random exploring. But reading a book and taking a walk are my big goals for the day.

This NPR article was a real eye-opener for me. Yesterday was the beginning of Ramadan for approximately 25% of the world’s humans. 25%! I had no idea that 1/4 of all of us are Muslim. That makes the Muslim-hating part of American culture seem even more naive, more wrong. With those kinds of numbers, we would do well to understand and embrace, not demonize. Inshallah.

This is exactly the kind of thing that drove me away from my childhood religion, the Baptists. According to my “teachers” at the time, all 1.8 billion of those Muslims living today will burn in hell for all eternity. I couldn’t accept that, and it’s still a toxic and dangerous point of view held by many. It bothers me a lot that millions of innocent kids are still being taught things like that. Some of them will think their way out of the indoctrination, and some won’t.

It’s Final Four weekend. I bet $20 on Villanova because I hate all three of the other teams.

In December Kentucky beat North Carolina by 29 points, 98-69, on a neutral court. A good ole ass-kicking. At the end of January, Kentucky beat Kansas 80-62, on Kansas’ home court. But those two teams are playing in NOLA this weekend and we’re home waiting for next year, again.

When we played well, we could beat anyone. And then we got Cindarella’d out of the tournament in round one. Yeah, I’m bitter about it. Go Villanova…

Thought for the day on April Fool’s Day: “It’s weird being the same age as old people.”

Stock tip of the day: I’m buying Tesla shares. Should have done it a couple of months ago, but I think there’s still a lot of growth potential – you get a renewable energy company, a battery company and a car company for one price.

Random picture of the day: