Ward Manor Happenings

Hurricane Helene – Yeah, we didn’t get much from the storm. Some rain that came in intense bursts, some nasty wind (which treated us to watching a neighbor’s trash can roll down the street). Overall, not much in our vicinity. Not even a power flicker. So, the good news is that I didn’t have to use my big Ecoflows. Of course, that meant I didn’t get to use my big Ecoflows. As for other folks in my home county? It was the highest storm surge recorded in a lot of areas. Lot of flooding. Lot of damage. The pics coming out of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina are scary. We were very lucky.

Visiting Relatives – Last weekend, The Wife, The Brother, Mom, and I trekked down to Okeechobee to visit relatives. This entailed me driving Mom’s new car – a Kia Carnival. Mom’s had Chrysler minivans for a long while, so it was a surprise when she announced her new one was a Kia. Still, it’s a smooth driving car, and The Wife even said if we had to get a second car, this one could be in the running. My only issue was how much was touch screen style stuff and less buttons/dials. Anyways, we had a good visit with family and went to visit the family grave site to visit Dad and my grandparents. We also stopped and looked at Okeechobee’s Cattlemen Square, which is a group of bronze statues depicting a cattle drive. If you’re in the town, you should go take a look.

Day Job – This is the last week of the current day job before I go back to my old position. This was definitely a learning experience. I’m not going to say that it was all bad, but I learned a lot of what I don’t want to be doing and what I do want to be doing for the remainder of my career.

Monday Links

Yeah, it’s been a couple of weeks. Some of these may be dated. Please see customer service for your refund.

Reason articles first.

Should Fauci be blamed for the pandemic? He certainly didn’t help with his actions. But I dislike mono-causal explanations for complex issues. Fauci was one part. So was political tribalism. So was an advocate media. So were many other things that we won’t fully understand for a generation.

California is going to try to regulate AI. I can see that going well.

No Trump, crime is not on the rise. It’s regressing back to where it was pre-pandemic. There is some evidence that some areas are seeing an unreported increase due to folks just not calling the cops. However, it looks like the trend is going back to where it was before 2020. And we’re still nowhere near the insanity of 1992 when violent crime peaked.

The NYT thinks DIY guns cause libertarianism. Eh, it’s probably more a case of correlation than causation.

Argentina ends rent control. Millions homeless? No. Falling rents and increased supply? Yes.

Now onto a hodgepodge of other items.

New technology keeps storm surge from flooding Tampa General Hospital. There has always been criticism of having Tampa’s main hospital on an island and surrounded by water. AquaFence did an amazing job during Helene. A reporter quipped that the company will now sell a bunch of them. Well, that’s what happens when your product performs that amazingly well.

Bloomberg reports on a new paper asserting online dating causing a rise in income inequality. An interesting thesis, but I’m not sure that it caused as much as accelerated a trend that was already happening.

From TechCrunch, the FDA granted approval for Apple AirPods Pro to act as hearing aid devices. I can see this as the start of lower cost hearing aids coming to market based on earbuds.

The Atlantic has an article on the demise of the minivan. Well, not quite demise, but definitely the dwindling of the market.

CNN article on how kiosks in McDonalds increased sales and need for workers. Again, technology didn’t change the need for workers, but changed what kind of work is needed.

The Verge reports YouTube is pulling songs due to its dispute with SESAC. This is impacting some older Metal Tuesday entries.

Storm Prep Check Time

We have Hurricane Helene passing us by as it strolls up to the Big Bend area. Hoping my friends up in the Tallahassee area come through alright.

While I’m satisfied with the majority of my preps, I was finding some odd holes. A couple were identified last time, but I never got around to filling those.

  1. Portable Air Conditioner – we bought a portable AC, but it’s been living over at the rental. We really need a second one to either keep at Ward Manor or switch out with the one at the rental.
  2. Long ladder – My first inclination for storm shutters is to hire one of the multitude of enterprising folks looking to make money by offering to put up shutters. However, Helene’s fast formation and uncertainty made the window of when to put up shutters very short – and the decision to hire someone to do it much shorter. I’d like a long ladder to do it myself in this sort of situation.
  3. Another air mattress – The guidance we received was in the event of prolonged power outage, get everyone into the great room and just run electricity to there. Maybe a couple of other places if necessary. We thought we had two air mattresses, but in reality we only have one. Considering we have three humans living here? Yeah, we need another air mattress.
  4. Small DVD Collection – Generally, we stream everything. We don’t have any DVDs. I have a small drive that The Brother gave me with some stuff on it. In the future, I will have my NAS with stuff that I can stream locally. I want to have a small collection of our “comfort shows” that we can play if we can’t stream.

I’m sure I will find more holes in my planning as I go along. These were the ones that became obvious this week.

Good news it looks like we’ll get a strong tropical storm, but not nearly the lashing those on the coast will be getting. May not see a whole lot of rain either. We’ll see what happens on the other side.

State of the Writer

I finally sent off my fantasy novel to my few alpha readers. Hopefully, I will hear back from them soon. Still not sure what I’m going to do with it. There’s part of me that wants to submit it – particularly with Rancounteer Press saying they might take novel submissions.

So, what’s in the queue? Irregulars 3 is almost done, and Irregulars 4 is mostly done because it was the original Irregulars 3. I think that storyline will wrap up with Irregulars 5, but I’ve been wrong before.

I have another urban fantasy series that I’ve been world building and sketching out. I also have this irrational desire to write an isekai novel because I’ve been watching way too much of that genre.

We shall see what I manage to get finished with next. Lord knows I surprise myself.

Don’t Let The Bastards Win

Monday Links will return next week. I needed a break.

I saw this meme on the Book of Faces and thought it was a good example of creating a deceptive meme with a false comparison.

The reason is to drive a schism between people. To create outrage in some. To make others feel justified in their position. It’s not to educate, enlighten, or enhance the discussion. It’s just there for emotion.

The point of this meme is supposed to make people think tacos are more regulated than guns and outrage them. Except it’s a false comparison. It’s comparing the regulations of running a business compared to the rules buying a product. You will notice it makes no mention of all the regulations surrounding the selling of firearms. Or the lack of regulations in purchasing a taco.

If I see a meme that makes me angry, it behooves me to stop and ignore it. Because I’m not going to let the bastards win. If someone asks me about them, I will do my best to use my critical thinking skills to find the truth. Because I’m not going to let the bastards win.

Here’s a list of logical fallacies to remember to help with thinking critically.