life

I went to my first large concert since the onset of covid-19 last week. The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie were great. The show was at Merriweather Post Pavilion. I grew up nearby and it has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. It’s much more modern than the rustic bandstand in the woods that it used to be and is still a great place to see live music.

I’ve been keeping a journal on and off for over 30 years. It has never been a literary work, merely a recounting of what was going on that day, what was good, what wasn’t. A few years back, I started to make sure I wrote what I was thankful for each day. There is always something to be thankful for, even if it is just being alive. I’m glad I’ve kept with it because it’s fun to look back sometimes and see what I was doing and thinking about all those years ago.

I used to travel quite a bit for work. I’d been in the top tier of an airline frequent flier program for years. Until now. The pandemic changed my work travel habits indelibly. It really isn’t necessary to travel for work when most of the meetings you attend in person have somebody attending remotely. Why not spare yourself the hassle of travel and also attend remotely? I’m less into personal travel as well.

This article on the metric system in the US is great. I’ve read a lot of history but I’d never heard the story about pirates capturing a French scientist who was on his way to bring a meter and a kilogram to the US at the request of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a very interested in a new system of measures to replace the crazy quilt of measures we inherited from the UK but the scientist never got there.

Three years ago, scientists identified the first strain of covid-19 in China. I remember hearing vague rumors of a new virus going around in China starting around late January 2020. It seemed bad, but there were other viruses like the avian flu and swine flu that also seemed like they were going to spread but never got going. It’s almost unbelievable how much change was wrought by one tiny virus. Just about everyone I know has had it.

The FTC has proposed a rule to ban non-compete agreements. This is great. A employer shouldn’t be able to prohibit people from pursuing their career wherever they want. Non-competes give employers way too much leverage over their employees. The evidence is clear that it suppresses wages and working conditions. Trade secrets and the like can still be protected. That’s company property and should not be abused by ex-employees. But, it’s un-American to deprive someone of their pursue Happiness and switch to any other job they might prefer for any reason.

I always wondered why when you use a card for a purchase you are asked on the screen “Debit or Credit?” Doesn’t the machine know? Isn’t it encoded in the card? This nifty article by Patrick McKenzie explains that and more about how ATMs work. It’s much more complex than I had thought but makes a lot of sense. Essentially debit and credit use two different networks for payment so the question is really about which network you want to use.

If all you read are the headlines, you would think that the world is going to Hell in a coal-fired hand basket driven by Vladimir Putin. However, there is some good news out there. Future Crunch has a great article pointing out some of the good stuff that is happening in the world. It’s a much needed jolt of positivity as we enter into the winter darkness. My Top 10 are 1, 11, 12, 39, 41, 49, 69, 70, 82 and 87.

I’m inconsistent at best about writing on this blog. The primary reason I persist in doing this is that the best way for me to learn something is to write about it. Even if you aren’t an expert (and I’m not on most of the topics that I’ve written about), it’s OK to write something and expand upon it as your interest and knowledge grow. The secondary reason is to have a journal of the stuff I’ve been interested in that is easy for me to refer to in the future.