Cornucopia of FoodTuesday, September 9, 2025
When I am home, I have several food options — food my family cooks, food I can reheat, and food we have in our cabinets. When I travel, food options drastically increase, with foodat hotel breakfast buffets, conferences, in planes, and in airport lounges. Add to this, I am often on an expense account so I can basically go into any restaurant and eat for free,and even without an expense account, many Postgres companies pay the restaurant bill for the entire table. I can go days not paying or expensing any money for food.
Some people get excited about free food — there is no friction in picking up the food and trying it — and this can lead to weight gain when traveling. I long ago found that foodwhile traveling is, on average, no different from food at home, so there is no value in trying every free food item you are presented with. In fact, to maintain my weight, I like toavoid eating meals at least one day a week, and this can be a challenge if people expect you to attend meals. I often think about the coming week and try to identify days I can skipall meals.
Everyone Lied AboutCovidSaturday, June 7, 2025
Thisvideo explains the scientific, political, economic, and media forces the disregarded the lab leak origin ofcovid. Itanalyzes how these institutions let down the American people at a critical time.
Post a Comment Plastic Recycling Is GarbageThursday, June 5, 2025
Thisvideo explains very clearly that plastic recycling isn't economically viable and that 95% of plastics sent to recycling are notrecycled. This has been konwn for a while but this might be the clearest explaination. The video doesn't cover paper and glass recycling, which is much more effective.
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Philadelphia in DeclineThursday, April 17, 2025
I am old enough to remember when major U.S. cities were in bad shape, particularly during the1970's. It looks like Philadelphia is heading in that direction again,with significant retail closures:convenience stores,department stores. The stores and traditional media don't seem to be mentioning the causes, but they are acombination of
The first one reduces profits, and the others reduce customers. It is hard for a city to prevent decline with so many negative forces. The city government can improve the first twoitems, but they don't seem to be evenmentioning these as causes (punishing somecrimes is discouraged), which means things will get worse until the actual causes are addressed.
It is possible the last two negative forces are so strong that there is no hope of recovery, and the government is just going to ride the train to the bottom. Speaking of trains, thePhiladelphia regional transportation authority (septa) is planning a 45%service cut to reduce its deficit — ridership has not recovered topre-covid levels, and there is no anticipation it ever will.
Update: Seems manycities are facingsimilar challenges.2025-04-24
Update:Analysis ofsepta's problems2025-08-20
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Plausible DeniabilitySaturday, March 29, 2025
If Donald Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, his second term would have been similar to his first, though likely less energetic, as second-term presidential terms usuallyare. Because he lost in 2020, he had four years to reflect on his first term, and consider how he could do better in his second. Living in Trump's second term, we can now see theresults of this planning — a pace of change that is unprecedented in modern history.
The opposition Democrat party is struggling in how to respond to an increasingly popular Trump second term. How do they slow down Trump or make him less popular, and how do they do itwhile looking noble? Normally, some plausible goal like "saving the children," "preserving the environment," or "protecting marginalized groups" is used as cover to promote actionsthat harm your opponents. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they can't seem to find any plausible goals to attack Trump's agenda, so they have latched on to an action that runs counterto some of their previously stated goals.
Destroying Teslas is meant to show theirdisapproval of Elon Musk'sDOGEeffort to reduce wasteful government spending. However, such action runs counter to several previously rational goals, and opens the question of whether Democrats ever really believedin these goals:
With the popularity of the Democrat party already athistoric lows, it seems being associated with andnot condemning Tesla attacks will lead the party to be associated even more negative characteristics: environmental damage,government waste, and property crime.
Even the individuals perpetrating these crimes are choosing to attack something that will likely cause them to becaught — a vehiclethat has its ownconstantly-on surveillance cameras. They might hope that local prosecutors will not charge them for politicalreasons, but because these crimes are clearly intended to intimidate owners, the federal governmentmight prosecute those who local prosecutors refuse to prosecute.
Today is aday of planned, coordinated protests — let's hope they are peaceful. None of thisends well for anyone: Telsa owners, Telsa workers, Tesla attackers, and the political party that thinks these attacks will harm Trump's agenda. The only winner in all of this isTrump and his party, who look like the only rational actors in this mess.
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Armenian Genocide VideosSaturday, February 22, 2025
As an Armenian, I have heard about theArmenian genocide since I was a child, but always in pieces. These four videos(1,2,3, and4) give a comprehensive summary of the event. For example, my relatives left Turkey for New Jersey in 1895, and many other Armeniansalso came to the Philadelphia area during that time, but it was never clear to me why. I learned from these videos that it was theHamidian massacres that prompted them to leave. Those massacres were a precursor to the genocide which would happen 20 yearslater.
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