Progress was made on Sheldon's college enrollment today. He now has to wait one business day for the next step. F got approval to register. Now he needs an appointment with an adviser. I didn't follow up with Fang today, but I can catch him tomorrow.
They can register for this fall and next Spring all at once, which will be nice. It's kind of late for the fall semester, which starts mid-August, so options may be limited, but at least they can start on something.
Sheldon has a few credits, maybe four classes, from back before Covid.
Street light or traffic light? I kind of remember what traffic lights are from living in Lancaster, PA. We have one traffic light in our entire county :) Street lights are 17 miles away in Franklin, WV. Which also has the one traffic light.
I grew up in Lancaster County, PA. We bought a farm in WV 26 years ago. I live halfway between Franklin and Monterey, VA. Highland County, VA has one blinking traffic light in Monterey. Highland County is known as the 'Little Switzerland of VA'. The entire county has something like 2,500 residents, with something like less than half being full time residents now. My wife was just in Scotland and she was astounded that certain areas looked just like where we live up in the mountains. I guess that's one reason we have a history of so many Scots/Irish settling here.
Lots of my ancestors settled from England/Scotland/Ireland and Germany in those areas. Names like Jackson, Marshall, Rucker, Roger, Brake, Sharpnack. The latter part of the Westphalia German migration of Tunkers/Bunkers pre Mennonite in Germantown PA. Most settled a bit more west than your valley
It’s an interesting question, Doug. It may be a relative feeling, too, as opposed to just a statistical definition set by academic or government demographers.
A big chunk of my fascination with China has to do with what happens when 100's of millions of people urbanize. In a little more than a single generation, nearly a billion people went from living in small, crude and nearly self sufficient villages to vast cities of dozens of millions. Our city is only 16 million, mid range in China. The countryside is now being monetized for tourism to show newly urban Chinese where they grew up and how they lived only a few years ago. There's an interesting moral and storyline in there somewhere.
I'm proud of my students! They checked luggage at the hotel, their rooms are not ready until 4pm, but it is too hot to go out and do anything, so they collapsed in the hotel lounge. Rather than look like a war zone the hotel chose to start admitting them now.
I had offered a group of six the ability to crash in my apartment for a few hours, but they declined. Hey, it's not like I brought water balloons with me, this time!
Like Rev J, we’ve lived in them all. Now we live in rural SC. We spent yesterday in Charlotte visiting our granddaughter. There, we saw a small robot going down the sidewalk, Amazon can come in 2 hours and they can Door Dash anything. We can walk to see a concert at the stadium. We ate at a sleek new restaurant then stopped at the firehouse so B could say hi. Saturday here, we took a short boat ride to eat breakfast at the fish camp. Tackle is hanging on a board behind your head. I swear I think the little man charges women less than men, I can’t be sure. Nothing is ever over $7 and you never leave hungry. Where Hubs is from in TN, they pipe in sunshine. My FIL, now dying in hospice, ran a Schwann’s route forever. He had the keys to dozens of homes so he could load their freezers with their purchases every 2 weeks. There, “going to town” is gonna take you some time.
I remember the insulated box we had right outside our back door for the morning milk delivery. I do not remember the name of the dairy. But it was a real thing. We also got cottage cheese, I think. There was a list you could mark and hang on the doorknob to specify what other dairy-type items you wanted. Then they'd bill you for what was delivered.
Good morning. 76 now with a high in theosophy 80s. Rain predicted most of the day. We had a heavy rain last night.
The mothership is looking the conflicting assessments of the air strike n Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are still preliminary — but that hasn’t stopped Trump from claiming “total obliteration”. The FP is headlining “Glastonbury and the purge of the Jews”, reporting on anti-Semitic chants at a. British music festival.
The mothership teed up the LUK question "How do you personally weigh varying intelligence assessments when it comes to something like the strikes on Iran?".
The phrasing is a little strange. Do they really mean "how do I weigh" or do they mean which assessment do I think is right? In any case, the question is annoying in that it is really just teeing up the commenters to take sides. Cynthia had the most like comment, which made fun of the the LUK. That was perfect.
I find the question deliriously funny. HTF does anyone, anywhere, have the idea they're privy to intelligence assessments and what ought to be done about it...?!? Why would any American think they know what's going on?
Good morning world! It's a bright sunny 100 here in Roma. It's so hot even the terrorists want to chill for awhile! Students are flying in now, so they send me a text letting me know they arrived. It's going to be fun. We gather in about four hours for orientation. Students cannot enter their rooms yet, so they are sleepy and jet lagged, yet full of FOMO. Sort of like Zombies on too much caffeine. Or teenbros, it's pretty much the same thing.
The Romans are smart. They leave for the mountains and the beaches in the summer, leaving Rom to those dumb American tourists. (Full disclosure: I was once in Rome in July. 🙂 )
Our forecast high today is 90, and it probably won't rain. I have some accounting stuff to do today, and I think my brain is sufficiently recovered from camp that I won't make a total hash of it.
"Policies that appeal to citified people will eventually become blanket national policies—even if they are incompatible with rural life."
I think smaller government, less interventionist, more libertarian policies should appeal to everyone. Nobody likes government drones telling them what they can't do all the time. The problem is that a lot of people like government drones telling other people what they can't do (say, think) all the time.
People who stand to make lots of money off AI are pushing it aggressively on everyone, and pretending it's totally wonderful, can handle everything for us better than we can, and has no downside at all. So it's hard not to be pessimistic.
I've started experimenting with typing messages in search fields suggesting that AI-generated responses would not be welcomed. They deserve pushback--they put all sorts of sneaky little "try AI now" messages and popups in the corners of screens trying to tempt me to accidentally say "OK" when I'm not completely paying attention.
I predict that we will all be expected to pretend that whatever the AI says is accurate, because we who are able to find out the correct information won't be the high-status, credentialled people.
Yes, there's that. Control of the Free Stuff - the ability to take from Peter and give to Paul, minus a 48% transaction cost - is a critical power of government.
To echo Cynthia above, if government, especially federal, had less power, then people would be less incentivized to use it to beat the other side and grab goodies for themselves. The pendulum would have less momentum. But there is zero chance that genie is going back in the bottle.
The genie back in the bottle phrase from Arabian Nights of course, but saying it reminded me of the very funny movie "All Of Me" with Steve Martin and the scene where the mystic is trying to put "Edwina back in bowl".
Occasionally an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" gets recorded by my DVR, and that classic screwball sitcom sometimes has plots involved with her being stuck outside the bottle, or stuck inside the bottle, and things like that. But the inside of the bottle is very nicely decorated and comfortable, and may be (like Doctor Who's TARDIS) bigger inside than outside.
Thought experiments aside, Mr. Rawls, what happens in the real world is a swinging pendulum from This Group's efforts to control everything to That Group's somewhat different efforts to control everything, until we're all depressed and bonkers.
Progress was made on Sheldon's college enrollment today. He now has to wait one business day for the next step. F got approval to register. Now he needs an appointment with an adviser. I didn't follow up with Fang today, but I can catch him tomorrow.
They can register for this fall and next Spring all at once, which will be nice. It's kind of late for the fall semester, which starts mid-August, so options may be limited, but at least they can start on something.
Sheldon has a few credits, maybe four classes, from back before Covid.
Offrange... Reading for agriculturally and rural minded folk.
https://mailchi.mp/a4a789bd35a6/the-rancher-and-the-wolf-a-parable-9167581?e=477f5bf38b
Beats the daily flogging of current events...
Curious how Rural is defined by folks. I think in the US, we might have a different definition than in China, different than Africa.
Here, maybe some Xyz distance to buy gas and/or milk and bread?
5 miled for me to a Circle K
11 and 14 miles for me to the nearest gas stations/grocerettes. 60 miles to the nearest Walmart. Requires exquisite planning :)
I'd call you living in a rural area ! I'm 9 miles to the 1st grocery store - and 5 miles to the first street light :)
I would say, in a 1 sq mile area, centered at our house are 5 humans in 4 houses
Street light or traffic light? I kind of remember what traffic lights are from living in Lancaster, PA. We have one traffic light in our entire county :) Street lights are 17 miles away in Franklin, WV. Which also has the one traffic light.
I forgot you are a fellow West Virginian! and we are not alone… I think Marquee also? in Monroe city.
Did you also grow up in WV? or move to the idyllic Franklin later?
6.5 miles to 1st stop light here
I grew up in Lancaster County, PA. We bought a farm in WV 26 years ago. I live halfway between Franklin and Monterey, VA. Highland County, VA has one blinking traffic light in Monterey. Highland County is known as the 'Little Switzerland of VA'. The entire county has something like 2,500 residents, with something like less than half being full time residents now. My wife was just in Scotland and she was astounded that certain areas looked just like where we live up in the mountains. I guess that's one reason we have a history of so many Scots/Irish settling here.
Lots of my ancestors settled from England/Scotland/Ireland and Germany in those areas. Names like Jackson, Marshall, Rucker, Roger, Brake, Sharpnack. The latter part of the Westphalia German migration of Tunkers/Bunkers pre Mennonite in Germantown PA. Most settled a bit more west than your valley
It’s an interesting question, Doug. It may be a relative feeling, too, as opposed to just a statistical definition set by academic or government demographers.
Just enough time to have a mimosa with strawberries you picked.
A big chunk of my fascination with China has to do with what happens when 100's of millions of people urbanize. In a little more than a single generation, nearly a billion people went from living in small, crude and nearly self sufficient villages to vast cities of dozens of millions. Our city is only 16 million, mid range in China. The countryside is now being monetized for tourism to show newly urban Chinese where they grew up and how they lived only a few years ago. There's an interesting moral and storyline in there somewhere.
I'm proud of my students! They checked luggage at the hotel, their rooms are not ready until 4pm, but it is too hot to go out and do anything, so they collapsed in the hotel lounge. Rather than look like a war zone the hotel chose to start admitting them now.
I had offered a group of six the ability to crash in my apartment for a few hours, but they declined. Hey, it's not like I brought water balloons with me, this time!
Kudos to your hotel!
Well done!
Like Rev J, we’ve lived in them all. Now we live in rural SC. We spent yesterday in Charlotte visiting our granddaughter. There, we saw a small robot going down the sidewalk, Amazon can come in 2 hours and they can Door Dash anything. We can walk to see a concert at the stadium. We ate at a sleek new restaurant then stopped at the firehouse so B could say hi. Saturday here, we took a short boat ride to eat breakfast at the fish camp. Tackle is hanging on a board behind your head. I swear I think the little man charges women less than men, I can’t be sure. Nothing is ever over $7 and you never leave hungry. Where Hubs is from in TN, they pipe in sunshine. My FIL, now dying in hospice, ran a Schwann’s route forever. He had the keys to dozens of homes so he could load their freezers with their purchases every 2 weeks. There, “going to town” is gonna take you some time.
Taking a boat ride to eat breakfast makes it an adventure.
We had a Milkman for years. He let himself into the house ebcause we never locked it. He put stuff in the fridge, and was done, on his way.
And there was whey on his way, right?
I remember the insulated box we had right outside our back door for the morning milk delivery. I do not remember the name of the dairy. But it was a real thing. We also got cottage cheese, I think. There was a list you could mark and hang on the doorknob to specify what other dairy-type items you wanted. Then they'd bill you for what was delivered.
Our "Wengert's Dairy" milkman was the husband of my cub scout den mother. We also had a mennonite "egg man" who would come to the door occasionally.
I would never call my town “urban.” Its population has remained constant the past 30 years, between 10-11K. The county hovers around 35K.
Good morning. 76 now with a high in theosophy 80s. Rain predicted most of the day. We had a heavy rain last night.
The mothership is looking the conflicting assessments of the air strike n Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are still preliminary — but that hasn’t stopped Trump from claiming “total obliteration”. The FP is headlining “Glastonbury and the purge of the Jews”, reporting on anti-Semitic chants at a. British music festival.
The mothership teed up the LUK question "How do you personally weigh varying intelligence assessments when it comes to something like the strikes on Iran?".
The phrasing is a little strange. Do they really mean "how do I weigh" or do they mean which assessment do I think is right? In any case, the question is annoying in that it is really just teeing up the commenters to take sides. Cynthia had the most like comment, which made fun of the the LUK. That was perfect.
Well, it was a ridiculous question.
I find the question deliriously funny. HTF does anyone, anywhere, have the idea they're privy to intelligence assessments and what ought to be done about it...?!? Why would any American think they know what's going on?
Teeing up the audience for a tussle....IS RIGHT!
I have lived in the city, a small town, and in the country. I love them all.
Same here!! Boston. town of 900. Suburb. town of 40,000. country where the nearest gas station is 6 miles and no neighbors for 40 miles North or East
Good morning world! It's a bright sunny 100 here in Roma. It's so hot even the terrorists want to chill for awhile! Students are flying in now, so they send me a text letting me know they arrived. It's going to be fun. We gather in about four hours for orientation. Students cannot enter their rooms yet, so they are sleepy and jet lagged, yet full of FOMO. Sort of like Zombies on too much caffeine. Or teenbros, it's pretty much the same thing.
The Romans are smart. They leave for the mountains and the beaches in the summer, leaving Rom to those dumb American tourists. (Full disclosure: I was once in Rome in July. 🙂 )
We went in early June, 2006. It was so hot and no a/c in our VRBO overlooking a loud piazza.
I stayed in a nice little hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps — but no AC.
We were over in Trastevere, “Known for its cobblestone streets, lively nightlife, and authentic Roman atmosphere.” I’ll say!
That's where I am! But, the little street I am on, I'm opposite end of the piazza, so it has been quiet for me...
Now you got me researching exactly where we stayed. I found the building, I have photos of my girls sitting in the window on the second floor of the building on the left with the green shades. The building matches my photos. We were on Trilussa Square right across the Tiber. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/trastevere-bank-tiber-murals-trilussa-square-rome-italy-fountain-fountain-ponte-sisto-also-known-as-68109925.jpg?w=992
Our forecast high today is 90, and it probably won't rain. I have some accounting stuff to do today, and I think my brain is sufficiently recovered from camp that I won't make a total hash of it.
"Policies that appeal to citified people will eventually become blanket national policies—even if they are incompatible with rural life."
I think smaller government, less interventionist, more libertarian policies should appeal to everyone. Nobody likes government drones telling them what they can't do all the time. The problem is that a lot of people like government drones telling other people what they can't do (say, think) all the time.
And next it will be AI government drones, so eventually there won't even be humans involved in deciding what you can and can't do.
That's so encouraging.
People who stand to make lots of money off AI are pushing it aggressively on everyone, and pretending it's totally wonderful, can handle everything for us better than we can, and has no downside at all. So it's hard not to be pessimistic.
I've started experimenting with typing messages in search fields suggesting that AI-generated responses would not be welcomed. They deserve pushback--they put all sorts of sneaky little "try AI now" messages and popups in the corners of screens trying to tempt me to accidentally say "OK" when I'm not completely paying attention.
Yes, I get those popups, too. I don't want AI to do stuff for me. People keep saying, "ChatGPT is great!" and I think, "Just do your own work."
And I think "I hope people will soon be paying me to find AI's mistakes." I'm not optimistic about that, but it's what I think ought to happen.
I predict that we will all be expected to pretend that whatever the AI says is accurate, because we who are able to find out the correct information won't be the high-status, credentialled people.
Welcome back from camp!
Thanks. Overall, it was fun, but very hot.
People also like governments to give them Free Stuff, which entails Big Government and regulations on the Free Stuff.
Yes, there's that. Control of the Free Stuff - the ability to take from Peter and give to Paul, minus a 48% transaction cost - is a critical power of government.
Yes. Government policy is something one strives to inflict on one’s enemies…
It's a good question: What happens, in a Rawlsian sense, if the other side gets to decide what you can/(cannot) say/do all the time?
Which side are we on? I forgot...
That's exactly what we have today. Pendulum Right tells Left what to do and back again.
You have to give to let live. Now an anathema to MAGA America
To echo Cynthia above, if government, especially federal, had less power, then people would be less incentivized to use it to beat the other side and grab goodies for themselves. The pendulum would have less momentum. But there is zero chance that genie is going back in the bottle.
The genie back in the bottle phrase from Arabian Nights of course, but saying it reminded me of the very funny movie "All Of Me" with Steve Martin and the scene where the mystic is trying to put "Edwina back in bowl".
Occasionally an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" gets recorded by my DVR, and that classic screwball sitcom sometimes has plots involved with her being stuck outside the bottle, or stuck inside the bottle, and things like that. But the inside of the bottle is very nicely decorated and comfortable, and may be (like Doctor Who's TARDIS) bigger inside than outside.
OK, I admit it. As a pre-teen when the show was popular, I was smitten with Barbara Eden.
Not so long ago, it was Pendulum Left telling the Right what to do.
This darn pendulums never stop in the middle. . .
No, but the amplitude used to be smaller, possibly because we knew less about what The Other People were doing.
Thought experiments aside, Mr. Rawls, what happens in the real world is a swinging pendulum from This Group's efforts to control everything to That Group's somewhat different efforts to control everything, until we're all depressed and bonkers.
How are things in Yurp today?