From The Verge. Does an already saturated e-bike market need another $4,000-plus premium model?
The answer is yes. I’ll take a helmet too.
Question to Ponder
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Category Archives: Modernization
Localism Is The Answer
Increasingly, it’s obvious that the more “plugged in” to the news, the more “on-line” one is, the worse their physical/mental/spiritual well-being because media algorithms know that outrage is the surest way to attract and keep eyeballs, and thereby sell advertising. As a result, outlandish opinions dominate. And once you and I are sufficiently outraged, we can’t unplug.
So if you and I want to maintain whatever sanity we have, we should intentionally tune out the news. Learn to leave our phones behind on occasion. Step away from our keyboards. Not watch as much t.v., or more likely, stream television clips.
Ignorance may in fact be bliss, but it also empowers those in power, because the more uninformed people are, and the more apathetic, the more free elected officials are to do as they please.
So what are we to do? Localism is the answer. Or a variation of the popular phrase that you no doubt remember, “Think globally, act locally.” Instead, maybe we should, “Think locally and act locally.” I’m advocating for a type of grassroots accountability, starting with ourselves and then branching out to where we live, trusting that if we do right by those we’re in closest relationship with, our county, state, country, and world will be okay in the long run.
So, in this way of thinking, we don’t get embroiled in fighting about national policies or current events. Instead, we recognize that our attention and energy are finite; consequently, we focus on being better partners, parents, and friends to those we live with, next to, and near. We go to the farmers’ market and initiate conversations with those closest to us.
Recently, someone, on-line ironically, asked a great question that gets to the heart of localism. They asked, “Do you know the name of the person that delivers your mail?”
I don’t. Why? Because I’m usually on my computer when she visits each morning.
Clearly, I have a ways to go.
My Phone Is Now Obsolete
My “friends” like to bust my chops for buying and selling cars too often. And yet, they give me no credit for my seven year old iPhone. The whole lot, consistently inconsistent.
One of my besties visited last week from CA. While in the kitchen, he glanced at my ancient iPhone XS Max on the counter, smiled, make that laughed, and asked, “Do you still keep it in a tube sock?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When you first got it, you used to keep it in a tube sock!” followed by more guffawing.
Damn if I hadn’t repressed that memory. It started to come back. Walking into Department meetings slinging a tube sock on the table next to me. Too bad I can’t rewind that tape. Had to have been the phone before the ancient phone and I vaguely remember waiting on a proper cover. Still, hard to live that down. Damn his very good memory.
I just watched a vid of tips and tricks to customize the brand new IOS 26. Only one problem, IOS 26 only works on 11s forward. Tim Apple, what are you doin’ to me, a longtime investor?
Yeah, it’s probably time to upgrade, but I don’t like being pushed. I wanna jump into the new tech pool of my own volition.
The AirPod Pro 3 reviews are smashin’. I will get those despite the 2’s still being fine. The bonus being that will give my “friends” more fodder.
How Is It Playing?
According to “insiders”, that is the Mad King’s default question. Not, what is the right thing for the common good, how is it playing?
Cut to John Gruber:
“Having an ignorant conspiracy nut lead the Department of Health and Human Services is angering and worrisome, to say the least. But it’s also incredibly frustrating, because Donald Trump himself isn’t an anti-vaxxer. In fact, one of the few great achievements of the first Trump Administration was Operation Warp Speed, a highly successful effort spearheaded by the US federal government to “facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” Early in the pandemic experts were concerned it would take years before a Covid vaccine might be available. Instead, multiple effective vaccines were widely available — and administered free of charge — in the first half of 2021, only a year after the pandemic broke. It was a remarkable success and any other president who spearheaded Operation Warp Speed would have rightfully taken tremendous credit for it.
But instead, while plotting his return to office, Trump smelled opportunity with the anti-vax contingent of the out-and-proud Stupid-Americans, and now here we are, with a genuine know-nothing lunatic like RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. God help us if another pandemic hits in the next few years.”
Of course, as we’re already seeing in places like West Texas with a measles outbreak, the public health threat isn’t limited to a possible pandemic.
Elon Is Getting His Ass Handed To Him
From Reuters by way of Yahoo Finance.
He’s such a sympathetic character, you have to feel sorry for him, don’t you?
“In the first 18 hours after the YU7 went on sale, Xiaomi received some 240,000 orders that it considers locked in, with buyers having paid either a hefty deposit for ready-to-deliver cars or a smaller deposit for cars still to be made.
. . . As domestic rivals increasingly win over Chinese consumers with snazzy new features, Tesla’s share of the Chinese EV market has fallen from a peak of 15% in 2020 to 10% last year and then again to 7.6% for the first five months of 2025.
Citi analysts said in a note to clients that it may have to cut prices further, offer its ‘Full Self-Driving’ (FSD) driver assistance software for free and offer more financing incentives if it is to compete successfully with Xiaomi.”
I Drive A Tesla (E)
Hi, my name is Ron, and I drive a Tesla.
I’ve labelled this “explicit” because DanDanTheTranspoMan is the last person in the room with some semblance of clean cut, Midwest values. And he doesn’t like it when I write like George Carlin talked.
I bought a red Model Y with a tow hitch for the two-wheelers two years ago. The frictionless purchase process makes you wonder why anyone ever subjects themself to the conventional dealer experience. Brilliant.
And it’s outstanding transpo. Utterly amazing. There are are innumerable things to criticize the CEO (in name) about, but those who criticize the cars are being disingenuous.
Two weeks in, I somehow avoided a crash in Bend, OR as a result of one of the computers which stopped the car much more quickly than I could’ve. I also dig how it silently and ever so smoothly and slowly creeps in and around parking lots and in inner city Oly. With the home charger, it’s always ready for a good time. And it’s a fast motherfucker.* Rest assured, I’ll never be pinched in entering the fwy.
Of course, there are a few downsides. The insurance costs. The automatic wipers have a mind of their own, so much so, I have to manually set them. Oof, and most especially, the depreciation.
Oh, and I almost forgot, there’s the enriching of one of the most loathsome of the 8.062 billion people alive today.
And the increasing grief that comes with being associated with him. Which just recently started with this winsome greeting from a fellow driver, “You fuckin’ douche bag.” I told friends, I didn’t recognize him, but he obviously knew me! And yesterday, a woman on the other side of the road flipped me the bird.
Normally, being a modern, sensitive guy and all, these “greetings” would leave a mark. But these are not normal times. Both times I was picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy for my ailing wife. Caring for her has changed me. What constitutes a problem keeps getting redefined. The bar, for what gets to me, keeps getting raised.
The other day, on a cycling reprieve, I got soaked in much more rain than I had anticipated. I thought to myself of the revered philosopher, Jay-Z, and his “99 Problems” treatise.
I’ve got ninety-nine problems, but being soaked, cold, and filthy ain’t one I thought to myself.
Maybe that’s why I laughed to myself when the rando woman flipped me the bird yesterday at the Fifth Street circle.
Then I thought I should probably prepare for the next encounter and the next. My plan is to channel the restaurant or Airbnb owners when they get scathing reviews. Something along the lines of, “I am sorry my car purchase has angered you so much. But thank you very much for your feedback. Please know I will take your middle finger and/or invective into consideration as I work to be a better person.”
No doubt my mix of zen and humor will disappear if and when my car is vandalized. If I parked it downtown with any regularity, there’s no doubt that would happen sooner than later. I have a $1k deductible, so fuck you in advance.
So maybe I should trade it in for something more socially acceptable. Which of course, doesn’t solve the larger problem. Still, in prep for that possibility, please let me know which carmakers you approve of so I may avoid offending you in the future.
*Now that DDTTM isn’t over shoulder, I feel freed up.
The City Of Angels Needs Some
Exactly 40 years ago, fresh from student teaching at Dorsey High School in South-Central Los Angeles, I drove wide-eyed in my VW Bug onto LA’s wealthiest high school campus, Pacific Palisades, to start my second required student teaching stint. Due to my youthful good looks, a ripped security guard stopped me and lit into me for parking in the faculty lot. This week, Palisades Charter High School, with over 3,000 students, burned down.
Seven years later, I temporarily moved into a friend’s palatial Pacific Palisades house to do my doctoral research at the Venice Foreign Language/International Studies Magnet School. We are no longer in touch, and I would be surprised if his family still owns the house all these years later, but based on the photos and video of the devastation, I’m guessing it’s gone too.
The average home in Pacific Palisades is valued at $3.4m. That knowledge will limit some people’s empathy, as if it’s a finite resource that should be parceled out judiciously on a sliding scale. Two things can be true. Many Palisades residents will be financially okay once the dust settles while never fully recovering from extensive personal loss.
I am struck by the tremendous interconnectedness of homeowners. Sparks jumping from house to house like dominoes. Given the density of homes in Malibu and along the Pacific Coast Highway, and in the Palisades, as the locals say, it wouldn’t have mattered if a few homeowners cut back their vegetation and hosed off their roofs before evacuating. The one-two punch of the Santa Ana winds and their next door neighbors’ burning houses, sealed their fate.
Intense individualism is the defining feature of life in the (dis)United States. But not this week in Los Angeles County. To borrow from John Donne, “No house is an island.”
Paragraph To Ponder
“So here is what the Democrats should do. Tomorrow morning Chuck Schumer should put on the floor of the Senate a law mandating strict background checks for all gun purchases. Perhaps tie it to a reinstitution of the 1994 assault weapons ban that Republicans allowed to expire in 2004. Give it a name like the ‘Anti Political and School Violence Act’. Make Republicans shoot it down. Make them say, as Trump himself did after a school shooting massacre in Iowa this year, that we ‘have to get over it, we have to move forward.’ It’s not just an outrage when your right-wing authoritarian hero gets his ear nicked by an assassin’s bullet. It’s an outrage when anyone is shot by a nut with a gun.”
Pause and reflect on the last mindless phrase in an otherwise thoughtful paragraph. . . “a nut with a gun”. Consider an alternative description. A desperate, socially isolated person with nothing to hope for in the future, and therefore, nothing to lose.
An experienced former FBI investigator speculated on the shooter’s motives in ways that made imminent sense and will likely prove correct. The gunman was bullied in school, eccentric, and most importantly, socially awkward and isolated. The investigator called him “The Invisible Man” and compared him to Hinckley who wasn’t political at all. Hinckley shot Reagan to get the attention of an actress.
The Invisible Man can only take so much invisibility and commits a horrific act of violence to be seen. By any means necessary. Now, everyone knows his name and he will be remembered. Extremely negatively of course, but remembered nonetheless.
Ever notice the similarities among mass shooters? White, male, working class, bullied in school, socially isolated, parent(s) with guns.
The descriptor “nuts” suggests a randomness that defies reality. Reality is not every white, male, working class, bullied in school, socially isolated young adult with access to guns decides there’s nothing to lose. But what if 1 or 2 percent do?
That’s the country we’re living in.
Privacy Is So Yesterday
This is how the story starts:
“NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University said Monday that it has removed three administrators from their positions and will keep them on leave indefinitely after finding that text messages they exchanged during a campus discussion about Jewish life ‘disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.'”
Do not mistake what I’m about to write as exonerating the admins. I am not shedding any tears over their dismissals. Be prejudiced and stupid at your own risk.
That said, there’s a troubling story within the larger troubling story. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is more troubling.
The story is that none of the reporting I’ve seen raises a single question about the method used to bust the admins. Someone sitting behind them used their phone to take pics of one of the dismissed admins’ phone on which a group text was running amok.
You may have seen the recent story of some guy on an airplane wearing a wedding ring who allegedly hit on and hooked up with a fellow passenger. A nearby busy body passenger filmed the whole shady thing and then uploaded it to her socials. It went viral, people found his wife, and I don’t know how it turned out. I don’t even know if the vid was edited with the hope of going viral.
Way more interesting than the actual case study was the difference in how the story was told. Specifically, there was lots of conversation about what might be referred to as “electronic etiquette”. More to the point, whose actions were more egregious, the alleged philander or the budding movie maker? That’s an issue upon which reasonable people can disagree, but the point is her total ignoring of his privacy was a part of how the story was written up.
But not in the case of the Columbia grouptexters.
The larger question is whether we want to live in a world where everything we think and write—whether in public, semi-private, or private even—is subject to public approval or disapproval or not?
I can’t help but conclude, based on the complete non-questioning of the surreptitious phone texting photographer’s methods, that few people are sweating the end of privacy.
Maybe all that’s left of the privacy crowd is a sad sack Boomer with a humble blog.
The Upside Down
Somehow, I’ve stumbled into a Stranger Things episode. And thanks to Biden, Trump, and the Lakers, I can’t get out.
Democratic Party leaders and Biden officials say I shouldn’t trust what I’m seeing and hearing. They know what I, a certified bed-wetter, don’t. The President is not aging. The debate was a one-off. His voice, energy levels, and communication skills are all fine. And will continue to be throughout a second term. He continues to be the exact right person for the job at the exact right time.
Following the debate, the Serial Liar said, “As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reporters and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of North Korea Presidential Debates. They all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!'”
Cue JJ Redick, the Los Angeles Lakers’ new head coach who today said, with a remarkably straight face, “Rob (Pelinka) and I did not give Bronny anything. Bronny has earned this. … Bronny has earned this through hard work.”
Bronny, who is shorter than me, averaged 4.8 points on 36.6% shooting (26.7% from 3), 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19.3 minutes per game at some loathsome college. But the Lakers are saying I shouldn’t trust that sample set and that they would’ve picked Bronny even if the team wasn’t desperate to make his dad happy and resign him.
Biden’s Reelection Team, The North Korean, and the Los Angeles Lakers all think we’re too stupid to think for ourselves. So they’ll do it for us.
Our eyes, ears, and brains be damned.
Pressing Pause 