Month: December 2022

December 30, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:6

December 30, 2022 /

I think that it is fitting that we end the calendar year on Atlas Shrugged. This has been a monumental review series for me. There has been so much good and relevant content that seems to be evergreen even though it was written in the 1950s. This chapter is no exception.

Hank Reardon’s family tries to backtrack on their relationship with him. They try to apologize to him because the state has seized all of Reardon’s assets and he has no more liquid cash to keep paying them. Reardon’s family wants him to start clearing assets so that he has cash flow to keep supporting them which Hank refuses to do.

The meeting with the government proceeded the meeting with his family. Essentially they were also backtracking because they were afraid that he was going to quit. They were offering what they called an equitable deal by combining all of the profits and dispensing them out by proportional furnace count. This plan was to be administered via the Steel Unification Board just like the railroad. The fact that Reardon had fifty percent more output with a third the amount of furnaces did not sit well and Hank refuses to take the deal.

As Reardon left the meeting he found a riot in front of the gate to the steel factory. The riot was labeled as union driven but was apparently incited by the government reps, specifically Tinky Holloway who was slated to be the head of the Steel Unification Board. I will spare all the intimate details so that you can read the book and all of the twists and turns. Suffice to say, I want to talk about the riots.

There is a term that is called ‘Astroturfing‘. It means that there is something that appears to be organic or natural but really isn’t. In context, it is generally used to describe events such as protests that are often heavily funded or staffed by outsiders. This is what we have with the steel mill riots. where the rioters are not even workers or union members but paid rabble rousers.

Practices like this are used for the optics of the situation. When some event is dubbed the ‘Million Mom March‘ then there darn well be at least one million moms attending or the cause will be deemed illegitimate. You can read the link if you like, I am going to talk about it next.

Wikipedia states that the million mom march organization said that there was 500-750,000 people in attendance. National Park Service estimates 150,000 but the organization’s numbers included 70 satellite gatherings in their numbers as well. If you remember the media coverage, special camera angles were used to make the gathering appear as full as possible and therefore how could it not be one million moms.

This event was a re-branding of Handgun Control Incorporated (which incidentally has been named two other things and is now Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence). So I ask you, what sounds more benign, Handgun Control Inc or the Million Mom March? And what were they really marching for? Were they loving, caring moms or were they trying to impose their political and moral beliefs on others?

Brady has been around since the 1980s and will likely be around forever more. But, their new name sounds a lot like some other organizations like Moms Demand Action; really, not really. If I look at the summary statement when I search the group, I read ‘a grass roots organization’ but on the very same page I see that the parent organization is Everytown for Gun Safety and their actual name is Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Let us just look a little further. When I search Everytown for Gun Safety, I find that the founder of the organization in Michael Bloomberg. I am not going to say that a billionaire cannot be the founder of some sort of organization, but I am going to have a hard time swallowing the ‘grass roots’ definition.

Grass roots means that it starts with you and me. I seemed to have misplaced my 75 billion extra dollars, so I think I am one of the people. What I am getting at here is that every time we see some sort of national political/equity movement, look a little deeper into the origin story like this one sponsoring Black Lives Matter (Tides Foundation).

Just wait until the next chapter, we are going to learn all about ‘shared prosperity’. I am equally enamored by the self titled definition of ‘charity’.

End Your Programming Routine: I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but I am all for equality. My definition of equality is just that, equal. If you remember my analysis of Rights in the American Dream Series then you will remember that Rights are actually subjective. This my friends is getting to where it is at. The fact that Rand laid all of this at our feet seventy years ago and we are too stupid to recognize same game different players is our own fault. More on that as we progress. See you in 2023 for the finale.

December 29, 2022 – AltF4.co Year In Review

December 29, 2022 /

It’s that time again. We need to celebrate our success and condemn our failures. I talk about the things that I think are the highlights, places that didn’t go the way I expected and plans for next year.

End Your Programming Routine: I am a big believer in checking in the rear view mirror. You cant drive forward that way but you can sure see what you have run over. I suppose the goal for every content creator is to do more of what worked better, try hard to do what you plan or say and figure out what you are going to do next. That is what this is all about

December 28, 2023 – Black Eyed Peas and New Years

December 28, 2022 /

If you have ever lived in the south, then this very well may be a nothing burger. The first time we celebrated New Years Day in South Carolina, I found out that it was some kind of tradition. Imagine me, a doe eyed west coaster talking with our strongly southern accented friends asking if we have black eyed peas for New Years.

First of all, I don’t know if I had ever eaten black eyed peas. Secondly, we certainly didn’t have any sort of tradition like eating them on New Years. And more so than that, who puts a dime in the bean pot?

That’s right, the person that gets the dime in their serving gets and extra helping of luck throughout the year. At least that is the superstition. Doing some quick research, it seems like this tradition is very strong in the Carolinas because so much of the low land was strongly Gullah/Geechee west African descendants. As such, black eyed peas, field peas and rice hold a common culinary base for cultural cooking.

These beans can be served bland like any dry and boiled bean or they can be a full meal. Soak the beans overnight, drain the liquid in the morning and go crazy. I like a mirepoix, bacon/fatback, broth and a lot of collard greens, particularly the stems seasoned with some cajun or creole seasoning. You can serve that with some cornbread. It is easy peasy, just have your planning in place.

Today’s nanny state says not to put a dime in the beans. You are going to choke on it and die. Then your estate will sue the host and we will have another blood feud. So much for extra luck. I’ve never done it because I don’t believe in extra luck, but would say just warn people to be on the lookout for something non-edible.

I went down a total rabbit hole when I was looking at traditions for New Years day. What I learned is that there is no real standardization on when a new years should be. Ancient Rome was March 1, India is Diwali (October), China and Islam use a lunar calendar (late winter). A different topic for a different day so, I guess we will stick to the USA. Fireworks at midnight, the Rose parade or black eyed peas. It used to be college football bowl games until the playoff system screwed it all up.

End Your Programming Routine: New Year Day is one of those rare holidays that doesn’t seem to hold much in terms of expectations. At only one week from Christmas, it is so close that I feel like it doesn’t get much attention, traditions aside. I always feel like it is here and gone. So, why not fire up a pot of beans and serve a hearty and hot meal as a new tradition.

December 27, 2022 – Test Post From Rumble

December 27, 2022 /

I got a chuckle out of this… very creative. I thought that I would see if I could embed this for fun. So I did and it works. I also like the fact that it plays natively in my feed rather than moving to another site.

December 26-27, 2022 – Merry Christmas [Break]

December 26, 2022 /

I said it on my podcast on Thursday but I am announcing that I am taking the next two days off. Of course, this is hitting after the actual holiday, but I don’t want to commit myself to getting content up so close to the holiday. The rest of the week is already scheduled to be posted to last out the week beginning on Wednesday.

As I have said many times, I stub out and do a lot of prep before the day that the post actually publishes. I have lots of ideas in the queue but there is so much dependency on getting things in the right sequence that we just have to wait and let things unwind a little bit before I can start writing new stuff. I am not trying to be cryptic but I am talking about Atlas Shrugged. But I am also full up on Christmas activities at the moment and don’t really have the time to do the necessary pre-work. That being said, I will need to spend my uptime this week preparing for another holiday and that is New Years (next week).

I didn’t mention it but we did pass a milestone last week. This is something that I look forward to each year and that is Winter Solstice. This means that we are on the upside of daylight increasing each day. Of course, we wont notice it until February but it is something to be optimistic about because it just feels better to be on the upswing.

End Your Programming Routine: With that, it seems like a perfect time to just take a couple days off. You can spend your time playing with your new Christmas toys and enjoying time with your family, watching movies or sports or even drinking yourself senseless instead of checking in with me.

December 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:5

December 23, 2022 /

This was a long one at fifty pages. The good news is that while there are a lot of words, not that much was really important. A lot of back story and setup was going on. That kind of reminds me of year end. There is a lot going on but none of it is important. We spend a lot of time reflecting on the year that was but all those things already happened.

Shortages begin. Jim gloats to Dabny about his acquisition of d’Anconia Copper but all of the sudden the mines are blown up, presumably Djanneskjold. Emma Chalmers (aka Kip’s Ma) is promoting Soy Beans over the traditional grain crop of wheat. For that reason, the rail schedule is being manipulated by Cuffy Meigs to favor getting soy beans to market rather than wheat. Trains are not staged and the wheat crop is ruined.

This series of events begins an entire chapter of civil unrest. Murder, succession, riots and all the things that go along with shortage of basic food stuffs and supplies. There are multiple incidents of mechanical failure which are the triggers to such events and it is implied that the cause is the shortage of copper wire.

Sometimes a national diet is the result of a necessity and sometimes it is a result of a decision that someone else makes. Take for instance ancient China. Diets consisted of vegetables, local protein and rice in the more southern region. Cultures that grew to a large population had a large agrarian component for obvious reasons. A society needed a huge amount of calories to sustain growth. Those calories largely came as a result of carbohydrates.

Contrast these relatively huge population numbers in Asia against protein oriented cultures such as Mongols, Germanic barbarians or prairie native Americans. Those populations were tiny in comparison. Part of the reason is that animals contain a large number of calories compared to carbohydrates by the acre but they also have a degree of chance related to procuring food. It was not practically possible for these societies to grow to such a large size given their efforts to survive.

Something quite transformational happens when a society becomes agrarian. They also become docile and weak. No longer is freedom valued over security. The individualistic characteristic starts to become an identity of a collective. This is not an exhaustive treatise on the types of societies or their diets per se but an argument with the generalities of such.

It is sort of ironic that the American stereotype of a farmer is a hard scrabble, protagonist of sorts. When in reality, they have silently become the serf in the collective machine. They are the foundation of big food which is the fuel tank of the imperialistic regime. Not only do they feed the world but they are the first advocates of the patriotic propaganda. Talk about the slaves proud of their chains.

Lest you think that I am picking on farmers, I am simply saying that they are the enablers to the agrarian society. It’s not that I don’t think they work hard, they sure do. If I had a choice to hang out with the red, white and blue crowd or the high earning liberals you can guess who I would choose. The real problem for me is that I don’t belong to either.

So, where does this leave us? I believe that the soy bean reference is an homage to the versatility of the legume as a food source and the Asian origin a hotbed of communism in the 1950s. At least the classical definition of communism contained a 100% planned economy and society which included a diet steeped in classical diet. I don’t know for sure, but I would be willing to guess that North Koreans have limited choices when planning meals.

It is the sociopath that want’s to rule others. And by ruling others doesn’t just mean creating the laws from a legal standpoint but also how big their house has to be, how much rent is too much rent to charge, how fast you can drive, what is too big to fail and let us not forget what to not eat. The way the new world order is going, meat is on the out just like surcharging portion size. We literally have the ‘food plate’ to guide us on a diet that leads straight to obesity and diabetes.

I am speaking off the cuff and I should do the research rather than speak in speculation but I don’t have the time at the moment. Soy has been linked to phytoestrogen and the feminization of America. We colloquially call them ‘man boobs’ but it is much more than that. An increase in allergies and obesity and heart disease for a high soy diet which ironically we have with a highly processed diet.

Here is one to whet the appetite because I felt bad about just speaking in platitudes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soybean-fertility-hormone-isoflavones-genistein/

All that being said, I am relatively sure that if you ate soy beans every day there would be no real consequences. But that is not how we use them in our diet. More on that another day.

End Your Programming Routine: Dangerous speech filtration is now protecting us from seeing the truth or even lies. While we can still read whatever books we want, we are a society that is becoming too lazy to bother. On my recent flight to Indianapolis, not a single reading light was on, including mine which was broken. Maybe they all were but I estimate one in thirty lights on a typical flight. Everyone is on a device or built in screen on the plane. The longer we live with portable electronics, the less reading lights are on during flights.

Reading is not the solution, but the indicator of critical thinking. TV is called programing for a reason. It is entertainment not stimulation. I think fiction is a healthy part of being well rounded but too much fiction becomes fantasy. And, when we live in fantasy, we forget to question whether a soy based diet is the right choice or even a proper choice.

December 22, 2022 – Festivus, For the Rest of Us

December 22, 2022 /

I’ve got a lot of problems with you people. This is my annual airing of grievances. Some of it is pretty serious and some of it was kind of light hearted. But, I like the tradition of Festivus and the airing of grievances. Get ready to get punched in the face if you are taking a stand against me, cause it is on. We will settle this with the feats of strength.

One correction for the OSU Beavers basketball. They won three games, not two. That was my fault for not researching my facts (including my own blog) before speaking. I still contend that this is the worst team in history due to the total number of losses.

End Your Programming Routine: Sometimes there is no changing the programming. Today, I am enjoying some old fashion bitching. That is part of the tradition of Festivus in the first place.

December 21, 2022 – Stealing Time

December 21, 2022 /

Thou Shall Not Steal.

Unless you are taking wasted time and converting it into productivity. I have talked about this before but one hour a day adds up to seven hours a week. All of a sudden, you went from doing nothing in a week to almost one full workday’s worth of productivity. The key is setting goals and making your time productive.

What I mean by that is that if you can break your work up into bitesize chunks, then you can batch similar operations into short bursts. As an example, it takes time to setup the table saw. What you definitely don’t want to do is spend your one hour setting up a particular cut and then changing it as soon as you are complete (unless you are only cutting one of a particular setup). You may spend one hour setting up and then the next hour cutting everything.

I find if you start thinking this way, they your work becomes much more efficient. The added advantage of batching is that you have times between your work where you mind starts playing ‘job Tetris’. What can I do in an hour? What do I want to do to setup for the next session? How many of this operation do I have to do? Am I setup to get make the best use of my time?

A change that I have done to make my life easier is getting my tools on mobile bases. I don’t have the luxury of everything having a dedicated station so I have to move things around. This allows me to setup and clean-up without as much of the excuse of moving things around as a barrier. This has been a problem in the past because I say to myself, ‘I don’t want to start this because I will have to move everything to get the machine setup. I am want to do X and I only have the time to do Y which means it will be in the way until I can get back to it. Who knows when that will be, so some other time.’

Often times I have found that if I start to get project momentum, I start to cheat on my dedicated time and add 15 minutes more. Fifteen becomes thirty sometimes and before you know it, things are done. I would say rarely does one hour become forty-five minutes or less. That only happens when you don’t really have time and you try to push it.

I have started to steal time in the morning. My biological clock is trending toward early to bed and early to rise. On the weekend, if I get up at 5AM I may have three or four hours before anyone even wakes up. This is the perfect stolen time.

Before I had this revelation, I didn’t waste this time. It was time that I spent working on the blog and even doing some extra posting. But there are only so many hours in the day and I already spend a lot of time each week on this endeavor, so I want to use this time in the shop. I have created time in the shop that I didn’t have.

If there is one downside, it is that the shop door faces the bedroom window. That means that a lot of machine noise tends to easily carry toward my sleeping wife. Some operations particularly joining long boards, it is much easier to do with the door open. After confirming that this is an issue, I now try to guard against making a bunch of machine noise before six or seven. With that, I can turn the heater on and do quieter things or not start until a more reasonable time.

Maybe not a downside, but when I first open my eyes and kind of check the clock, I often see that it is time I can get up and I am motivated to get the day going. This sometimes takes a toll on getting a little extra sleep because my mind starts working.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t have time is a common excuse for me. Sometimes it is true while most of the time it is not. I need to get to point where I am saying ‘How can I’ rather than ‘I can’t because’. You all know that I am not one to sit and watch TV or the phone. I can barely sit through one movie with my wife. That being said, we can all do better with the time that we have so look for that time you can steal.

December 20, 2022 – Fly Tying Basics

December 20, 2022 /

I am not tying flies yet. Let’s see if I can shake the cobwebs off enough to get started. On my 18th birthday, I got a class where my dad and I went to a fly tying class for a term. That was a few weeks shy of thirty years ago, I think that was close to the last time I did this. The good news is that this is no longer a dark art. With YouTube and websites, the information should be readily available. I still have my old manuals too.

I suppose the good news is that this is not expensive to get into. Some of the introduction kits are around $50 and have everything that you need to start and move on from there. Even the supplies are pretty inexpensive. But a word of warning, as with all fishing tackle, some things are hot at particular location and/or time. It really is best to tie for the situation and not just amass a huge pie of potentially useless flies (unless you just like doing it).

What I am showing in the picture above is the result of two kits plus some additions. Without much ado, here are the required items.

  • Vise
  • thread
  • fish hooks
  • scissors or X-acto knife
  • materials appropriate to the pattern.

These are the strongly helpful items

  • bobbin
  • hackle pliers
  • head cement

That is it. It is really not that difficult to get started as long as your dexterity is reasonable, you have an adequate workspace with light and space. Some people use a repurposed desk, I am using a dedicated bench, I have tied plenty of flies at the kitchen table and even a card table in front of the TV.

There is more to know with materials, but I think that I will save that for another day. With that, you cannot really separate flies and fishing because that is the whole point. So, I am going to cover some terms that you will come across.

  • Wet Fly – This a a whole class of flies that are meant to spend time under the water.
    • Nymph – this is a type of wet fly that simulates a larva
    • Emerger – This type of fly is when the larva is changing into an adult
    • Streamer – This is a flashy wet fly used in steelhead fishing
  • Dry Fly – This is a whole class of flies that are meant to float on the water. This would be the classic fly.
  • Popper – these are flies that make noise. They are wet flies but make a sound when you are stripping them back in. Bass plugs do this as well.

The world of fly fishing can be confusing because they use some of the same equipment as conventional angling, but call them different names. For instance conventional fishing would call this item a ‘bobber’ while in fly fishing, it is called an ‘indicator’. I think that this is part of why fly fishing appears pretentious along with the catch and release ethic among other things.

A dry fly traditionally used natural materials like hair and feathers. It seems like the whole movement has loosened up quite a bit with flies called ‘dirty flies’. They might have suggestive names or they may be made of any kind of material. This is things like craft materials or rubber legs and things significantly departing from hair and feathers. I guess what I am trying to say is that what used to be very rigid rules about what to wear, what to use and how to do it seem like it is slowly changing.

I have always liked streamers. These flamboyant flies are imitating baitfish. This is where I am going to start because it uses a big hook. This will give me opportunity to practice technique at the same time I have some room to work.

End Your Programming Routine: Next stop, actually tying flies. Of course as I said at the beginning, these first couple are just to get my head right. I am not going to worry about them actually being fishable. That means the right fly for the fish and environment. I think for 2023, I am going to set a goal of catching a fish on a fly that I have tied. I should say try to catch a fish on a fly that I tied.

December 19, 2022 – Christmas Eve is Coming Soon…

December 19, 2022 /

I am changing a couple things up in the upcoming weeks. One is that I have Friday and next Monday as holidays. Since I have already queued the Atlas Shrugged review, that will end the week. My normal Monday podcast is moved to Thursday so that I can coincide with the actual date of Festivus.

I will be taking next Monday off as I deserve a little time off too. That makes the next podcast on Tuesday the 27th of December. However, I have decided to move the podcast to later in the week, the exact date is to be determined. Right now, I am up in the air about whether I will post on January 2nd or not. As of now, it would be slated as a podcast day. If I change my mind, the podcast will come out on Tuesday, January 3.

Things are a little crazy lately. My work is getting ready for a big software release so I am way busier than normal at this time. Last week for instance, I spent all week in Indianapolis. Family is still on normal, breakneck speed and I need to finish holiday tasks. Oh, did I mention that my wife is having surgery today and will be out of commission for the next week at least.

I will also likely be away from home the first two weeks in February. Right now, I am queuing evergreen type posts to handle my weeks where my schedule is beyond my control. But, I have only been gone one week at a time up until now. I may do a combination of queued posts and real-time or I may just be skinny for a couple of weeks. I just depends on how things go between now and then.

End Your Programming Routine: There is a colloquial saying that is equated to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Nothing is constant but change”. In this case, I made changes so that some days line up with the activities that I want to present. I will go back to a more familiar schedule after the holidays are over. I do self identify as a Grinch but I am making an effort to try and be present with my family. Enjoy the run up and whatever traditions you put into effect this season.