The Curmudgeon Speaks

I was thinking about the issue of how important perspective is in interpreting situations. Take for example the new oil cartel made up of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.. First, leaders in the U.S. ignore the cheap gas available to those citizens who are still able to travel because of the damage done to the profits of energy companies possibly impacting company employees. These leaders act to raise the price of gas. This is one example of a difference in perspective – your random citizen vs. workers in the oil/gas industry.

Because a deal is worked out among three energy producing countries limiting production somewhat and as a result raising the price of a barrel of crude, the market shifts. I assume this is a collective benefit to these oil producing countries somehow offsetting the higher price for gas that citizens of these countries will pay. However, consider a different perspective. What do you think citizens of Japan think of this manipulation of the oil market? The Japanese citizens pay more and no component of their economy benefits to offset these higher prices.

Is it possible concerns we have when we think businesses and governments in other countries are treating us unfairly are pretty much what citizens in Japan think of the manipulation of what they pay for gas?

This is another of those obvious positions some will twist themselves into pretzels trying to generate a counter-argument. The Republican faction on the Supreme Court was able to twist the law into a pretzel. They required Wisconsinites to vote at polling locations drastically reduced in number partly because the old folks who usually staff these locations were too afraid to show up. Hours standing in line. Just to be clear the argument given that “we have to do it like we said we would” is laughable given the adjustments made to how the vote was carried out. The experience was nothing even close to the experience that was planned.

You know I have a home in Wisconsin and the Governors of both Minnesota and Wisconsin strongly encourage us not to travel across state lines. Citizen groups in “cabin country” despite the loss in revenue were sending the same message to those in homeowner associations. Don’t show up until the situation improves. Since I can stay at my home in Minnesota, this makes my travel to what I consider my other residence nonessential. Home to home. No need to get out of the car until I get there. Still, the concern for my safety and others I could infect if I happen to be infected results in the don’t travel position by governors of both states. Beware of having the wrong license plate on your car when you cross a border.

Still, the Republicans in Wisconsin and on the Supreme Court expected folks my age who spend a couple more months a year in Wisconsin than I do show up to vote on the date originally designated. Other states found a way. Why not Wisconsin?

Newsweek on the Wisconsin voting decision.

I have been a supporter of the Brave browser and more importantly the Brave effort to compensate content creators without ads that rely on the collection and sale of personal information for some time now.

As I look at the mission of this service, I am interested in a couple of indicators of progress. The first, which is difficult to assess for lack of company information sharing, is the proportion of Brave users who are willing to use the money they earn viewing Brave ads or money they contribute directly to Brave to compensate content creators for their work and creativity. The ad avoidance and personal data collection avoidance goals aside, the logic of a fair Internet falls apart unless there is a way to compensate content creators if you expect to be able to consume content. You can’t just be against ads without considering the impact that ad blocking has on those who want to be compensated for their work.

A variable that easier to detect as a content consumer is the participation of content creators. You have to register your sites with Brave if you are open to having your ads blocked and want to receive compensation through the Brave system. This is easy enough to determine as Brave displays an indicator each time you visit a site as to whether that site has registered to receive compensation.

I was pleased to see that the TWIT podcast network has registered with Brave. I have enclosed the indicator in a red square to show where the mark of participation appears. Yes, you might see this same mark when visiting my sites.

It is easy to focus on the Coronavirus in the U.S. and forget about places in the world with far fewer advantages. We had the opportunity to recently spend time in southern Africa and had the opportunity to visit the township of Soweto, I think of a township as a suburb in this case of Johannesburg. The historical characteristics of such townships is not positive as they were part of the apartheid practice of separating blacks South Africans. The political situation has changed, but this does not necessarily result in an immediate change in living conditions. Changes in the law do not change the circumstances from which people have limited opportunities to escape.

Here are a couple of pictures from our trip. Johannesburg is very much a modern city, but the past hangs on and poverty persists.

I was thinking about distancing and having things we need delivered to our front steps and wondering how this would work among the poor of Soweto. I remember seeing lines of men walking by the side of the highway in the mornings to get to their work. What happens when there is no work and you live under such primitive conditions.

Thinking about this I sent an email to our friend who spends some part of each year in South Africa. He responded in short order via video chat and we had a great conversation. He is sheltering very much as we are, but with more stringent conditions. You can leave your home to either get food or to seek medical care. That is it. I expect this extreme isolation was part of the reason for our quick opportunity to interact. He obviously felt isolated. He reported that he spends some time playing bridge online.

When asked about Soweto, he admitted that he did not know what those living in poor townships could do. He suggested that they were not adhering to the expectations because it was simply not practical.

This is likely one of those situations in which everyone must be supported. The desperation of some creates danger of all and yet there seems to be no way to change the world as it is.

So we may now be asked to wear masks when outside our homes and the real masks must be reserved for medical professionals. Americans are supposed to use their creativity. I don’t sew, but people do say I have a different way of thinking about things. Tech guy that I am, I thought I would try some AI to search for options that would not occur to your average mortal. I searched my Google Photos collection of thousands of images to find masks and I did find some possibilities.

The full snorkel look is a little much for your casual walk. My buff should work, but it would be better if I had a color that did not make me look like I am roaming the neighborhood trying to steal purses from old ladies. They are far quicker than you would think and many now use those walking sticks as weapons. The gangsta look just gets you in trouble.

I will keep looking.

So, you are sequestered in your home avoiding people and unable to visit other places. I can’t say this makes me anxious unless I think about why I am sequestered avoiding people and unable to visit other places. So, don’t try to dwell on the problem. Be part of the solution. Find things to do.

Here is an idea. Virtual everything is in so why not visit other places virtually. I found this way to be virtually in Times Square. It is kind of interesting for maybe 5 minutes. I guess maybe others have used up their five minutes because there were only 4 other people virtually visiting with me. I will have to come up with something else tomorrow.

Here is another kind of fun thing to do. If you are old (like me) and have been many places AND store images you have taken with your phone in Google Photos, search for Times Square and see what you can find. Plenty to choose from here. I think I will call this activity – where in the world WAS Mark. I found some photos from 2014 and 2008. I am guessing I not did have a phone with geolocation before then.

When you are limited in where you can go and what you can do, any variety amounts to a small victory. We have this gazebo off our deck that looks cool, but we haven’t used it that much. Mostly we pay someone to fix things. The windows were leaking and the bottom small windows all around had to be replaced to salvage the building. I always thought it would be ideal for watching Sunday football and baseball in the evening. It was often just too hot. 

We had a very nice day today with the temp hitting the low 60s. The sun is even out. We brought out the vacuum cleaner and attacked the dust and are now justing sitting and enjoying the sunshine. 

What you can’t see well is the solar panel I just laid on this small back deck and the converter and small battery. It generates enough power to run an Echo for music and a laptop. The wireless in the house reaches this far. A perfect place to read and write. 

Social distancing. [I wonder if this expression will make any sense in a few years.]

We seem to be in one of those “when it rains it pours” times of our lives. We are sequestered in our home waiting out the world COVID pandemic and our fridge/freezer goes out. I first identified there was an issue when I spotted the water that resulted from the ice in the ice maker and dispenser melting and running into the refrigerator. We pulled the freezer out from its enclosure under the cupboards hoping we could unplug and then plug it in to see if that would help. It often works for computers. No such luck.

We do have the unused beer fridge in the garage and after throwing much of what was in the freezer compartment out, we filled the beer fridge with actual food. I wonder if old refrigerators have a preference. Maybe living on as a beer fridge in some dusty garage is not the way to end your cooling career. The pandemic has made me very empathic.

No, it is not an unused beer fridge because I am anti-beer. This is Minnesota and stuff freezes even when kept in a fridge

Did I mention that the door leading from the house to the garage is broken? You can lock it from the outside, but not from the inside. So you walk around the house when you want to use this door and unlock it. Carry stuff to the garage. Lock the door again. Use the other door to get into the house. Not that handy when all you want is an apple.

By the way, finding a repair person is a challenge and a risk. Still working on that.

All this aside, what a great adventure. This may be the major adventure of our lives. I grew up on a farm burning corn cobs for heat during a couple of winters. We lived through the flood that required the evacuation of Grand Forks as the entire city went under. Interesting stories to tell our kids and anyone else who will listen. Still, nothing like this. This is a real opportunity.

Did I mention we had an actual thunderstorm last night and then it snowed? Actually, it was hauling stuff to the garage in the middle of a very cold rain that reminded me of sandbagging in the cold rain in the flood and thus the opportunity to have stories to tell today. I just can’t waste an opportunity to turn such a thought into a blog post.

BTW – if you have heard that you are getting $1200 and think this is not nearly enough, it is useful to recognize that this is more than the minimum wage in some states. This is (7.50 x 40 x 4) = 1200. In the future, if you are complaining about those low-income folks who want more money for the work they do, it might be useful to keep this in mind.

When it rains, there is possibly the opportunity for the stories of a lifetime. Take the time to write them down.

We considered spending some of the time we have been requested to isolate ourselves at our cabin in Northern Wisconsin. Our place is isolated, has Internet allowing us to do our work and keep in touch, and we purchased the house from a couple who lived there full time. It is not a rustic cabin.

However, the local leaders have announced they don’t want people to use their cabins because local services would more likely overloaded in the event of a surge in medical problems. I do understand this, but I also understand I am more vulnerable to becoming infected in a populated area. This is an interesting and complicated ethical problem.

We have been doing lots of shopping from home these days. I am accustomed to seeing boxes from Amazon in front of my door, but now we even order groceries.

The state of the economy in this time is understandably not ideal. Survival of humans must come before capitalism in whatever form the country decides to apply it. I don’t happen to believe that the bailouts to large corporations will actually benefit those in need of funds. I am on the side of getting money directly to people and I am not convinced that the history of funds for corporations demonstrates that the tax relief and direct gifts of money from the government in this fashion is the best approach. The trickle down concept seems to involve so much overhead that what ends up at the bottom is very much a trickle.

Anyway, there are a few businesses I value and I see the employees and the business as pretty much the same thing. There is a small coffee shop in Webster, Wisconsin, that I visit nearly daily when we spend time at our lake place. I go there to work and drink their coffee. Yes, I could drink the same coffee at home and less expensively, but I am willing to pay for the social experience even though I very rarely say a word to anyone after placing my order.

I can’t really spend time at this coffee shop now and I decided to see if I could continue to do my part to keep them in business at a distance. Sure enough, they have a web site and sell their coffee online. They roast their coffee in these weird air roasters that generate one pound at a time and if you can wait 20 minutes they roast it while you sit and drink a cup of what they are offering that day. When the shop first opened, I told the owner I had heard that some foodies liked to roast their own coffee and did so in an air popper. I was referencing the similarity between the roasting devices they used and the approach I had read about. He smiled, turned around, and pointed to the popcorn air popper on a shelf behind him. His start.

I ordered two pounds of Tanzanian Peaberry – my favorite coffee and what I see if they have no matter where I am. Twelve dollars a pound for peaberry coffee is a great price and this is good stuff. The problem is the way they have to get it to you. Ten dollars for 2-5 day express delivery. The coffee did show up in two days. It was not an urgent matter, but this must be the way they have to get it done. Money just can’t be the only thing that matters. Consider it a random act of commerce.