One year ago today: May 9, 2020, 500 pounds.
Five years ago today: May 9, 2016, prices have stopped falling.
Nine years ago today: May 9, 2012, brains instead of time.
Random years ago today: May 9, 2015, recategorizing.
This morning I finally read up on Taas, the purported NBT (next big thing). The concept is that you no longer own a car, but rent or lease as needed. Taas means transportation as a system, and we’ve seen how well that works for items like Windows 10. My conclusions so far won’t be any more popular than how right I was about Facebook. The big picture with Taas is that market changes have not been impelled by improvements and innovation like in the past. The stock market reflects how trends can now be dictated by gigantic entities that simply take away the option to do things except their way. First, here is the tree limb [picture] that fell against the house. We’ll talk about that later.
What is behind Taas? It’s something once again this blog pointed out long ago. The entire American system is largely based on gouging the automobile owner. One business in four is concerned with getting money from car-owners. Worst is the insurance industry. No matter what you hear of their margins, they are overcharging you around four times their true needs. The valid points Taas makes include that your car is not used much more than 5% per day, but the system in place charges you most for when you don’t use it. Think parking, insurance, the DMV, and the massive system of handing out traffic fines.
The numbers add up, if you only pay for the times you need transportation, your overall costs drop dramatically. But the system is not built for that model. To catch on, a new industry needs to disrupt what went before. Uber did it, so did Netflix and you are about to have piss-poor electric cars with stupendous price tags and implications forcefully introduced into your body parts. The trick is to guess which place to invest in, which is why at my age I’m even still looking. I need the Taylor Swift of technologies to walk into my life and give me whatever it is I’m just as entitled to. I worded that rather nicely, don’t you think?
Remind me on the 26th, there is not only a total eclipse, but it is happening on a Full Moon, which is rare enough in itself, much less visible from where I happen to be at the time. I’m half-way through the Custer movie, they are getting more balanced about the issues but still from a very lofty viewpoint. Many segments are repeated ten or twenty times. I like those scenes of the cavalry chopping down trees that show distinct chainsaw cuts as they yell, ”Timber!”.
The movie is over two hours long and is a subtle change from mediocre acting to so-so documentary. That was likely ground-breaking for the John Wayne era. While presenting the Indian side, it does so from the way white men would look at it. So they are right but still the bad guys. It shows you how sneaky those Indians are, tricking the white man into giving them worthless desert before they found out there was gold underneath it. What I wonder about is with the Indian belief system of sharing, how they did not notice the frantic desire of the white man for gold and start bartering it for guns and ammo. Most of the tribes were certainly war-like enough.
Gold from Newfoundland (Canada).
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That electric chain saw is a joke, but it served its purpose. It takes up to six minutes to saw through a ten-inch log because the trigger has a safety that, when you let go of it so you have the strength to hold the trigger, the saw likes to stall. I know the saw was light duty, but you can’t get much lighter than slicing up old, dry, dead logs. The day was overcast and I used the time to get lots of yard stuff out of the way, and you get another thrilling report. Fun and action in the 2020s, Florida retirement style. Mind you, I have yet to meet anybody my own age with whom I have anything in common with in the state of Florida.
It got up to 88°F inside the shed, so I made a management decision. I went inside the house, cranked the A/C and put in the top row of drywall in the east bedroom. The one that gave me all the headaches. The hard part is done, I don’t like drywall. No matter how carefully I measure or mark, something always doesn’t line up. Today I got to the last 8 foot piece to discover the last row of screws would not contact the stud. It was fake it, or tear down the piece and put in a backing block. Used a couple of those clips meant to keep roofing sheathing smooth. Hey, it’s not like this place has to be top notch. It was me that chose not to sign a mortgage and move into a cabin. So the tabloids could say I died destitute and all that crap.
It’s more fun just now to hear the Democrats boil over about the audit. Bottom line, folks, if they were honest about the last election being the most fair and secure ever, they would embrace this audit completely. Instead, you can once again tell what they did to Trump’s votes by listening to what they accuse others of. Otherwise, it is the same old “disenfranchising” argument that throwing out the bad votes means this or that minority of the month is not being represented. Democrats are disgusting bunch, trying to get elected by getting the other side to fight between themselves, but once in demanding everybody play nice.
The consensus is that if the Democrats can’t somehow block that audit, something drastic is going to result. They are even saying the UV lights used to examine the paper is a disintegrating ray. But recently they’ve lied too often. And then, there’s those drums in the distance. At first they sound like “boom boom boom”. But as they draw nearer, they say, “Trump Trump Trump”. I’m no supporter of any politician, but I do love to watch when a liberal loses. Salt on a slug.
ADDENDUM
The on-line business (I like to spell it out) we looked at this lowhangingecom.com. This is a rare valid on-line venture in that it involves selling a legitimate product, is not a pyramid scheme, and has produced some spectacular results. That’s the problem with Internet sales, success attracts competition. I’ll break it down into two parts, the hype and the reality. The model is good old drop-shipping coupled with JIT inventory. The product does not exist until it is paid for and you never carry any inventory yourself.
Now the practice. The Internet mug market is over-saturated. These are priced at nearly $20 each where $5 might be reasonable. What’s marketed is the on-line course training you how to make slogans, order, and advertise similar products. The course is $1,500 so you know who is making money. The testimonials are not dated, but we were able to place the latest at early 2020. Since then, thousands of “new” on-line businesses have drained most suckers of their last money reserves. The mug advertising has kept pace, saying if you don’t succeed, you are not coming up with enough clever sayings.
The importance for the Reb & I was how quickly these facts and conclusions were arrived at by joint cooperation. I would point out there is a large difference between the pre-2000 crowd in who was computer-oriented and who was Internet-oriented. I’m the earlier crowd and a veteran recipient of the yet-to-be-named latecomer syndrome. To me, all net-advertised businesses come across as scams. For the Internet, I propose the name “Comic Book Con”, as these so-called Internet scams are really just computerized junk formerly found on the back pages of comic books. “One hundred toy soldiers for one dollar.”
The latecomer syndrome is a bit more complex. I’ve explained it in other contexts, but here’s a refresher for how it works with computers. Okay, in 1980, I get a home computer, ten years ahead of everyone else. I learn programming, coding, maintenance, software, and also notice a growing number of practices I’ll have nothing to do with. This instinct against taking risks is prevalent in my crowd because it is only a generally higher IQ that owns a computer by 1980.
At that point, computers start to enter the office level. Out of the back room department onto the desk of Sally, the filing clerk. Still, Sally has to be trained, so standards sink but they don’t fall. It begins a long, slow decline as software developers notice Sally struggles with basic computer first principles and so begin to dumb-down software. Soon, we got Turbo-Tax and PowerPoint.
The slide continues to 1991, when the ultimate in dumb arrives with the introduction of Internet browsers. Any gorf is not an expert. Here’s where the syndrome rears up. You see, by now, the people with any brains have rejected a lot of the nonsense. I’m with the skilled users who pegged Google and Facebook and Twitter long before they hit the market. But to the bunch who drank the Internet Kool-Aid, we are outdated. We missed the boat. Yeah, well the boat was a digital Titanic and it’s fun watching the rats try to desert the sinking ship only to find they also set the ocean on fire.
So yeah, imagine that. People out there who think I’m stupid because I don’t do on-line games, dating, porno, banking, surfing, or shopping. Yep, I’m glad I never booked a ticket on that shipwreck. They think I overlooked progress, when if fact, it took them so long to catch on, they joined up, from what I can see, out of desperation. How, they wonder, do I ever get things done. The right way, children, the right way.
