Month: March 2021

March 5, 2021 – We Must Be Dumb: How Entertainment and Opinion Has Become News

March 5, 2021 /

I almost wrote about this yesterday but I didn’t want to break tradition with ‘Tacticool’ Thursday. Usually, one of the first things I do is scan the headlines on the Bing homepage when I log on. I still like to be informed and well rounded. There were at least four articles concerning whatever hullabaloo is happening with the TV show ‘The Bachelor’.

Admittedly, I clicked on one of the articles to try and determine how serious whatever issue is happening could be with so many stories in the headlines. From what I could tell, it seems to be a whole lot of nothing. Not only did I not learn anything, I looked at a couple more articles to see if it was just poorly written – which I see a lot of these days and got about the same level of information.

I did some more research for the purposes of this article where it seems like one contestant did something in her past that is now considered racially insensitive and apparently the host put out a defense of the contestant and both of them, including the TV show is now on the ‘Woke Blacklist’. Wow, I invested my time for that?

For the record, I find these shows and their ilk to be trashy and vapid. I root for their demise. On the side of freedom, entertainment and choice I have no problem with their existence. That being said, the lines between news, entertainment and opinion almost don’t exist. If you actually look at my screenshot there are four articles on ‘The Bachelor’, four other entertainment articles, three ads and two on politics. That is my ‘front page’.

Granted, there is no specific guarantee what Bing is presenting, there is some sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI) running to present customized view based on previous clicks. I suppose that the application of the definition of news is subjective as well. I looked up the definition of news for clarity.

Giving the smell test about ‘The Bachelor’ information

1a. The event is recent

1b. The information is previously unknown to me

1c. It does not have influence to me, but unfortunately it has the appearance to effect a lot of people.

2a. It was reported on a ‘news’ aggregator Bing.

2b. Honestly, I cannot defend this definition.

Here is where the rubber is going to meet the road, so to speak. In my opinion, applying the five sub-definitions of news ‘The Bachelor’ story fails to meet two of the five definitions. Additionally, I give a conditional pass to being displayed on Bing, however given the preponderance of all of the articles I would wager don’t fit the definition either and actually discredit Bing as a valid provider of news. Just because I don’t know something that just happened is a flimsy excuse to call anything news.

Another opinion, but the two most important definitions are worthiness (2b) and specified influence (1c). Admittedly, those two have some subjective aspect to them. One person’s worthiness is not necessarily another. But, let us take a look at that definition.

Now, applying ‘Worthy’ to the situation

1a. No

1b. No

2. No

When we play word games, if there is one definition that fits then we say it meets the definition ignoring the others. I think that is where we are getting to with news. It is actually a word game that meets one definition, it is a recent, unknown event.

I am going to credit Glenn Beck for bringing to my attention that we all have bias. I am surely not objective, I have already stated my opinion on the show and this article that I am writing is categorized as ‘opinion’ to begin with. That is fine, I can accept that. The problem is when bias is used to manipulate the facts to propagate an agenda, without transparency of doing so.

Let me circle back to the premise. I guess what disturbs me is not that there is a mixture of articles both what I think is important and not. For instance, I often look at sports articles which I would argue are not important as well. But, the weighted number of articles are skewing the entire page as irrelevant.

Within my circle of concern, I feel as though people are bombarded with information that is not worthy without the transparency of how their individual view is made. If they chose to have their ‘news’ be 90% entertainment but could resolve a different proportion if desired, then I would be more fine with it. Just like 1984, information either makes people believe anything they are told or nothing. I fear that it is more the former than the latter.

Without getting too conspiratorial, I feel we are being programmed. It is the very premise of this site “End Your Programming”. I won’t speculate why even though I have my own opinions. My hope is that we occasionally get critical about the world around us and how we interact so that we make choices rather than be led.

March 4, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

March 4, 2021 /

I finally made it to the range last weekend. It was the first time since August and I had some goals that I wanted to accomplish. For one, I have had a rifle that I have owned since 2016 and have only test fired, not sighted in. I also made changes to some of the parts and I didn’t really know if those changes effected the function or not. This trip was planned for April of last year before the pandemic closed the range so I have been looking forward to this for quite a while.

One of the problems for a reloader with a semi-automatic rifle is that spent brass is flung out of the rifle as it is fired. In the past, I have been able to find most of the brass, but sometimes it is muddy or you step on them as they are fired which is less than ideal. Fortunately in the AR platform, Caldwell has a solution for this. This range trip was also a first for this gadget as well.

I have to say that it worked pretty well. I didn’t get close to the 100 rounds before it was full. I would say that by about twenty or so, the weight was heavy enough to pull it out of place but it is pretty easy to unzip the bottom and empty it. I could have made some effort to make sure that the device was mounted more securely but I was mostly shooting off of a bench and working on sighting in so I rolled with it.

One downside I would say is that the brass catcher interfered with visibility of the action. I cant say for sure that it actually interfered with the function but I did have a few issues.

On two out of three magazines, I had issues with initial charging. That very easily could have been the magazine. I have heard that people typically load 28 instead of 30. Again, this is the second time I have shot this and I haven’t even tried all the different magazines I own. I did experience one failure to eject. At this point, I am going to attribute that to the brass catcher. I suspect that it can interfere with the flight path of the empty casing.

In the following years to come, I will pay more attention to all of these variables. The goal of this trip was to function fire all of the changes and get the sight reasonable at 100 yards. A firearm that is not sighted in is really not useful beyond point blank range. Plus, with the ammo shortage, the cost is astronomical at this point so I am going to put off more heavy shooting until things calm down a bit on the market.

My plans for the next range trip is to spend some time on shotgun slugs and sights. I have some new sights that I want to get sighted in and I figured that zeroing on a slug would be the best way even though I would primarily plan to use buckshot with it. After all, a shotgun is most advantageous with shot because I have better rifles.

Even though I have the shotgun interlude planned for next month, my goal this year is to get my Rossi 92 tuned up. It needs sighting in as well as it shot 10 inches to the right at fifty yards. I didn’t have a punch to make the necessary adjustments as this was the first time I have shot it beyond 25 yards. I need to spend some time deburring sharp edges and probably will spend some time smoothing the action as well. Those will be iterative efforts. Both this one and the AR were supposed to be more plinking toys with inexpensive ammo. So much for that.

March 3, 2021 – 1984 1:4

March 3, 2021 /

Chapter four was an interesting chapter. It was really kind of a day in the life of Winston at work. We have seen a little bit about the people that he works with but not necessarily what he does or how he does it.

We learn that work is Winston’s greatest pleasure, how newspeak is decoded and how you would go about putting it into function. We also hear speculation that people may work on the same items and after submission, the best version might be chosen for use. There is no way to tell exactly.

I suppose that the greatest refining that is done in this chapter is the description of what the propaganda is that Big Brother generates and how it is put into play. Below are the concepts that I drew as the highlights in the chapter.

Double standards – As with many totalitarian societies, the propaganda arm engages in the very activities that it prohibits the members from owning or viewing. The Ministry of Truth is involved in making material for the proles that has severe punishment for party members.

I do not know exactly why that is done. But I could speculate that it possibly brings in cash to the government. Likely, also the higher ups probably have access to the prohibited material and probably enjoy it at their whim. The principle being that control is much more important than actual morality.

The unperson– Individuals that cross the party risk becoming an ‘unperson’. Speculation from Winston is that person is dead rather than becoming reprogrammed. But it also means that all references to that individual are expunged. They sort of disappear through the Newspeak process.

Hero building – Comrade Ogivly– In some cases, it is necessary to to build people up in Newspeak. Interestingly enough, Winston is given some discretion to to create a character with (potentially) false commendations and a romanticized background. He knows enough about the system to carefully craft the hero’s bio because getting too extravagant can cause a lot of extra work and potentially causing Winston problems in turn.

We are getting a good handle on the dreary landscape of Winston’s world. Hero’s are not real, what we see is a made up as an uber caricature of the values of society. Villain’s do not exist other than the fictionalized and amorphous, race representatives. The effects of propaganda are working as all the misinformation leaves people to believe nothing.

For all of you Newspeak fans out there, I leave this today.

March 1, 2021 – Goalsetting Versus Priorities

March 1, 2021 /

I just realized that for the entire month of February, I had titled the date as ‘2020’ and not ‘2021’. I guess that I have been in la la land. Now that error is corrected, we can go on in peace.

I feel like goalsetting is a skill that I have a pretty good handle on and a source of pride. Like most people, I have been guilty of saying goals and not actually doing anything about them. In that scenario, the goal is actually not on a path to completion. For instance, I have said right here in this forum the following things

  1. Q1 I am going to develop a business and marketing plan for this sight
  2. I announced last fall that I was going to build front yard garden beds
  3. My current first priority is to build an office to work from

All three of these things I have made almost no progress. My first regret is that planting season is about six to eight weeks away. If I do not get garden beds made, even one, then I will not be able to keep practicing my food producing skills. Furthermore, this is the time to start seeds so that they can get into the ground. I am weighing whether I should even start seeds because I have a competing priority of building an office.

At least I have some excuses for the office project. I am waiting for a proper paycheck to start buying materials. However, there are tasks that require no money at this point such as clearing the space to build, producing the design and plan are essentially free. What it boils down to is priorities.

Most of yesterday, nearly half of my weekend I was pre-occupied with another task. I won’t get down into the nitty-gritty details but it had to do with my kids returning from an overnight camping trip. The stated issue was that there were some gear failures during the trip. We went through the gamut of not participating again to why this current gear wasn’t good enough. In one example we have gone through four different sleeping bags, none of which are adequate.

Again, this was a long conversation (and day). The problem with the gear failure is not the gear but the mindset of the use. Or said another way, it is my son’s toolbox fallacy. If I only had a better sleeping bag, then I would be comfortable instead of improving shelter skills or making a better bedding foundation or picking shelter location.

Bringing back to priorities, my priorities override my optional goals. Being a father is much higher on the list than building an office of a garden bed or setting up a business. Being a husband overrides being a father sometimes because that relationship will span longer than raising children. And without stability in those cases, it is difficult to be successful with goals.

I also consider my career as part of priorities of both husband and father. I wish that I was in a financial position to keep working on building a business rather than working a job, but that is not a reality at this time. In order to consider additional want’s and desires into the priority matrix, they must fit into my existing priority scales. Of course time is a limiting factor that we all have.

Here are some tips that I have for this scenario

  • Set your priorities first, that way you have the ability to triage how you handle your life.
  • Periodically review your priorities and compare them to recent events to determine if you are living according to your values
  • Set reasonable goals realizing that there is only so many things that you are going to be able to accomplish after priorities are handled.
  • Periodically review your goals to determine your desire to achieve them and the validity as actual goals.
  • You have the ability to refocus milestones within goals and deadlines (for the most part). To me, the most psychologically import aspect of achievement is making progress.
  • If you are not making progress be honest with yourself about how much effort has been made or maybe your milestones are too broad and need to be redefined to show progress better.

I also believe in accountability as a technique for success. If you state your intentions and someone is watching or waiting for results then you are less likely to to skip or do things half-hearted. It is true that some cases are successful with personal accountability, but that means that it has to be something that you really want. I know that has been part of my issue. I was hoping that when I say that I want to do something, it would push me to get it done even if I am dragging my feet.

Ultimately, desires wax and wane. I am periodically evaluating my goals against my priorities. But, goals also have to have priority. So, I haven’t fully decided what exactly will change but I can’t possibly do everything as fast as I would like to have it done. But, I am not going to feel bad about it because they are my goals, not anyone else’s.

I am going to go prune the apple tree that I was going to cut down during the winter now.