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| My investment in May. |
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| Today's value: better than most investments that I've made this year. |
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| The Pelosis in 2019 (Chron photo) |
DePape lived with a notorious local nudist in a Berkeley home, complete with a Black Lives Matter sign in the window and an LGBT rainbow flag, emblazoned with a marijuana symbol, hanging from a tree. A closer look reveals the characteristics of a homeless encampment, or what Europeans call “an open drug scene.” In the driveway, there is a broken-down camper van. On the street is a yellow school bus, which neighbors said DePape occasionally stayed in. Both are filled with garbage typical of such structures in homeless encampments. People come and go from the house and the vehicles, neighbors say, in part to partake in the use of a potent psychedelic drug, ibogaine.The Santa Monica Observer (to be fair, the Chronicle says it's a rag that promulgates anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory):
Neighbors described DePape as a homeless addict with politics that was, until recently, left-wing, but of secondary importance to his psychotic and paranoid behavior.
“What I know about the family is that they’re very radical activists,” said one of DePape’s neighbors, a woman who only gave her first name, Trish. “They seem very left. They are all about the Black Lives Matter movement. Gay pride. But they’re very detached from reality. They have called the cops on several of the neighbors, including us, claiming that we are plotting against them. It’s really weird to see that they are willing to be so aggressive toward somebody else who is also a lefty.”
It's been a rumor for years in SF that Paul Pelosi is gay. David Depape is said to be a Castro Nudist. "The lunatic who allegedly assaulted Paul Pelosi is a Berkeley resident and a 'Former Castro Nudist Protester' and hemp 'jewelry maker' ...sounds totally MAGA Republican to me. 🤣🤣" this from Twitter.I don't know what to believe, but this I can state with certainty: the relevant facts won't be revealed in the Chronicle or other mainstream media until after Election Day.
Ok, so here's the theory, as related to me by a source: "Castro Nudists are a group of really radical gay male prostitutes that parade around naked with c--k rings. First of all, the Police did not come in response to an alarm. They come in response to a "wellness check". So someone called them to check on Pelosi."
"When he didn't answer the phone, the cops broke the sliding glass door to get in. Pelosi was struggling with the suspect, who was in his underwear.
Pelosi owned the hammer. Not Depape. Or, the male prostitute was doing something Pelosi didn't like."
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| (Forbes image) |
a surge in demand for the inflation-adjusted bonds has overwhelmed the TreasuryDirect site and the Treasury Department said it cannot guarantee orders will be completed in time.Procrastination is one of my life-long vices, but from sad experience I know better than to count on government systems to function under pressure. You must submit papers or electronic applications a few days before the deadline; you are asking for hours, if not days, of trouble if you don't.
Many investors managed to beat the clock and the tech issues. As of 4 p.m. ET, nearly 69,000 accounts had been created and more than $710 million in I Bonds purchased on Friday alone, Treasury said. That brings this week’s I Bond sales to about $3.4 billion so far, Treasury said. Five thousand new accounts were created per hour Friday, Treasury said.
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| This guy lost billions but is happy today. |
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| In Foster City this intersection next to an elementary school forbids right on red at a specific time on weekdays. |
Washington, D.C. just passed its Safer Streets Amendment Act, which will ban all right-hand turns on red by 2025. Part of the Vision Zero initiative, it was adopted by 50 other cities, including Austin, Texas, Lansing, Michigan, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, and Savannah, Georgia.I've seen drivers turn aggressively on red into oncoming traffic and even when there are pedestrians in the crosswalk, and these drivers should have the book thrown at them.
Has there been talk of this in the Bay Area?
A: Right turns are prohibited on red lights at several intersections in San Jose, usually to improve safety for bicyclists in locations where protected bike lanes lead to an intersection, or when poor visibility makes right turns unsafe.
San Jose data do not suggest right turns are a frequent cause of fatal or severe crashes. The top known cause of such tragedies is speeding, which caused 21% of severe crashes between 2017 and 2021. The next most frequent causes of severe injury crashes during this period were red-light running and unsafe turning movements, at 7% each.
...the city is also tightening right turns at many locations by using temporary or permanent “bulb outs” at corners. Bulb outs make drivers slow down when turning and give pedestrians increased visibility and shortened crossing distances.
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| The 3.1 aftershock was reported 5 minutes later. |
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| (Image from pet poo skiddoo) |
Dogs are champion sniffers, equipped with 100 to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses—compared with a mere 6 million in our own—and an olfactory cortex 40 times as large as ours. They can be trained to detect disease in human beings, including cancer cells, a latent epileptic seizure, or a Covid infection, just by sniffing—no blood samples, biopsies, MRIs, antigen or PCR tests required.A barking dog can smell your fear. Acting lessons won't help you, and neither, probably, will psychological self-trickery (e.g., meditation).
In a study published in September in the journal PLoS One, Ms. [Clara] Wilson and colleagues tested whether dogs can read and respond to our emotional states, without the benefit of facial expression, tone of voice, or social context...The results offered overwhelming confirmation that dogs can smell psychological states as well as physical ones. On average, the four dogs picked out the stress sample 94% of the time, with individual dogs ranging between 90% and 97% accuracy.
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| The wardens affirm to the Bishop that the new minister is "well qualified." |
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| $10,000 will earn $481 interest in 6 months. Then $10,481 will be re-invested at a projected 6.47% p.a. for the next six. |
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| Prohibited states in red (local news matters) |
“By prohibiting the City from doing business with half the nation, this policy has resulted in significant administrative costs and potentially far more significant contracting costs by limiting bidder competition,” the Tuesday letter said, adding that it is “also unclear if this policy has been effective in changing the policy-making choices of states subject to” the city’s ban.Progressivism and wokeness will never be completely extinguished in San Francisco, but it's encouraging that San Francisco is willing to pull the plug on some policies that obviously aren't working.
Japanese researchers have developed computerised chopsticks that enhance salty tastes, potentially helping those who need to reduce sodium in their diets.Personally, I'd rather employ salt substitutes than run a "weak electrical current" through my mouth, but I'm usually late to the party and could be persuaded to use the chopsticks.
Co-developed by Meiji University professor Homei Miyashita and beverage maker Kirin Holdings Co., the chopsticks enhance tastes using electrical stimulation and a mini-computer worn on a wristband.
The device uses a weak electrical current to transmit sodium ions from food, through the chopsticks, to the mouth where they create a sense of saltiness, said Miyashita.
"As a result, the salty taste enhances 1.5 times," he said.
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| (RS logo from Adweek) |
A Japanese professor has developed a prototype lickable TV screen that can imitate food flavours, another step towards creating a multi-sensory viewing experience.
The device, called Taste the TV (TTTV), uses a carousel of 10 flavour canisters that spray in combination to create the taste of a particular food. The flavour sample then rolls on hygienic film over a flat TV screen for the viewer to try.
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| A robot, a billionaire, and a billionaire-robot hybrid (Euronews image) |
Under the legislation, the council could raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to up to $22 an hour — well above the $15 an hour in the state for employers with more than 26 workers.WSJ, October: Robots are spreading at a record pace
The new standards apply to chains with at least 100 locations nationally.
A half-million industrial robots were installed globally last year, according to data released Thursday by the trade group International Federation of Robotics—an all-time high exceeding the previous record, set in 2018, by 22%.Thanks, California, for accelerating the adoption of technology!
The total population of industrial robots in the world has now also reached an all-time high, 3.5 million, which exceeds the population of every U.S. city save New York and Los Angeles, according to the federation.
“We have really built a world meant for humans to navigate, not for robots to,” says Dr. Webster of Ball State University. “In the future, we will have to make a world that is attuned to the needs of the robot.”
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| (WSJ illustration) |
I got the help I requested—her name is Eve—but I didn’t expect The Boss to make her from one of my bones. I don’t want to hear about the “blood, sweat and tears” that you poured into your job. Mine claimed a critical piece of my skeleton. After that, I stopped trying so hard.Even when Adam "started coasting," the Boss wasn't going to fire him. All he had to do was not do one thing, and he couldn't even not do that.
Eve had a lot to do with it. She’s Gen A but not type A. Sure, she’d help gather apples or weed the orchids from 9 to 5. But stay a little late to check on the new ocelot litter? Forget it. She was, like, “Sorry, I have plans after work.”
All you quiet quitters out there aren’t as original or provocative as you think.
Really? We were the only two people on the planet. She just wasn’t going to go beyond the position’s minimum requirements.
Yet The Boss loved her just as much as He loved me. I know, I know. That’s His whole brand. Still, it was a harsh realization after all my hard work. I started coasting like Eve.
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| This 1960's film also has insight about getting ahead |
Gone are the days when an ambitious person would take a job, any job, with a growing, profitable company and through hard work, smarts, and service to colleagues and bosses work his way from the mailroom to the executive suite.Economic stability: a wage that’s enough to afford food to eat and a place to live, health insurance, transit credits or discounts. Economic mobility: learning new skills, career development, cost-of-living adjustments, a path to advancement or promotion, bonus or commission structures. Equity, respect and voice: regular check-ins, affinity groups, two-way feedback sessions, a willingness to listen and change.
The robot features morphing limbs that can adapt their shape, stiffness, and behavior to the environment. The limbs use variable stiffness materials and artificial muscles to transform their shape when transitioning from one environment to another.I saw the Transformer movies, and I know how this ends.
In its legged state, ART can traverse land with a variety of four-legged terrestrial gaits. Upon reaching a body of water, ART can then morph its legs into flippers, enabling it to swim with lift- and drag-based aquatic gaits.
“You can almost think of [adaptive morphogenesis] as a form of evolution on demand,” wrote Karl Ziemelis, chief physical sciences editor for Nature.
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| The rat brain with the human part glowing. |
Neuroscientists at Stanford University transplanted tiny blobs of neural tissue known as organoids into the brains of newborn rats. The human cells grew and made functional connections within the rat brain, generating hybrid neural circuits, the researchers said in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.Don't worry about human-rat creatures growing in labs. Scientists would never let anything harmful escape. You're not a science denier, are you?
...Such research could probe the molecular underpinnings of hard-to-study psychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, neuroscientists said.
That promise will need to be weighed against ethical concerns about animal welfare and how to classify animals with chimeric brains, or brains that have both human and animal cells, some researchers and ethicists said.
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| Ancient history: Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher, Tom Bosley's Sheriff Amos Tupper, and a pay telephone. |
Though Jessica was initially conceived as a somewhat flighty character, Lansbury said she fought to portray her as a strong, successful single woman.After the turn of the century characters like Jessica Fletcher became passé. Detective shows spent more time on forensic science, violent action, and soap-opera-ish season-long character arcs. Those series are entertaining and stored on the videorecorder, too, but lately Murder, She Wrote has been at the top of your humble blogger's list.
“In the first place, she was shown as a rather kooky character,” she told Australia’s Studio 10 in 2018. “That’s all right up to a certain point, but I thought, ‘No, let’s make her a smart woman.’ And by the time we were finished she got back her sense of purpose as a woman, she was attractive, she had boyfriends, she had a nice wardrobe. She became much more of an everywoman rather than a kook.”
Sending a thumbs-up can be seen as passive aggressive and even confrontational, according to Gen Z who claim they feel attacked whenever it is used.The wisdom is age-old: don't try to speak, or text, or employ emojis to make the kids think you're au courant. Leave the pictograms to others, and communicate the way you were taught. The kids will respect you more.
Whether the chat is informal, between friends or at work the icon appears to have a very different, 'rude' meaning for the younger generation.
A 24-year-old on Reddit summed up the Gen Z argument, saying it is best 'never used in any situation' as it is 'hurtful'.
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| A Columbus statue in Pittsburgh awaits its fate (AP/WSJ) |
“This goes way beyond public speech,” Mr. Sague said. “From the time that Columbus met the Taino, my ancestors, his mind was thinking, how can I exploit these people mercilessly.”Columbus thought he could find India by sailing West, and he persuaded the powerful Queen Isabella of Spain to finance his voyage. He was probably composing his excuse to the monarch who started the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 and not thinking about how he could "exploit" the "Indians" he encountered.
The Second Vatican Council, which opened 60 years ago on Oct. 11, 1962, was the most important Catholic event in half a millennium. Its achievements were many and notable; it was also followed by ecclesiastical upheavals that continue to roil the Church today.Jewish and Christian history is replete with great men and women like Pope John XXIII, whose background and training made them seem singularly unequipped to lead people out of the wilderness.
After Vatican II, Catholics worshiped in their own languages, rather than in Latin. By urging Catholics to become more biblically literate, the council inspired lay communities of spiritual renewal, some of them robustly charismatic. It also led to greater lay participation in all aspects of Church life: liturgical, educational, managerial, evangelical. The council fully inserted Catholicism into the ecumenical movement’s quest for Christian unity, even as it dramatically reconfigured the Church’s relationship to its religious parent, Judaism.
Vatican II was also the moment in which Catholicism fully realized its claim to be a global (“catholic”) institution, as churchmen from outside the Church’s historic European core began to take prominent roles in shaping the Catholic future. The extraordinary growth of the Catholic Church in sub-Saharan Africa—where Catholicism now counts hundreds of millions of adherents, many of them first- or second-generation Christians—was accelerated by the council’s promotion of native African clergy and religious orders, its disentanglement of Catholicism from colonialism and its insistence on the Church’s essentially missionary character.
....From his historical studies and pastoral experience, John XXIII knew that the defensive Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation, however successful a salvage operation, had run its course. It was time to raze the bastions that Catholicism had erected and turn its robust institutions into platforms for evangelization and mission in order to engage a deeply troubled modern world. The Church, he believed, existed to proclaim and compassionately witness to Christian truth for the world’s healing and sanctification. It could not hide that truth like the frightened servant in Christ’s parable of the talents (Luke 19:12-28).
...John XXIII often spoke of his hope that Vatican II would be a “new Pentecost,” recalling the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. The council he imagined was not a business meeting in which the branch officers of a global enterprise discussed ways to increase market share in a stable cultural and social environment. Pope John intended Vatican II to be an event in the realm of the spirit: an experience of the love of God breaking into the world anew
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| (Mercury News photo) |
Sudden nausea, profuse sweating and blue tongues — these are just some of the symptoms associated with the ‘One Chip Challenge,’ the latest social media trend to trigger warnings in Bay Area schools.It's not unusual for people to chase fame by risking life and limb; now they're experiencing gastrointestinal damage and courting near-universal derision from thousands of their peers.
Since 2016, Paqui chip makers have promised to “shock” consumers with their annual “One Chip Challenge.” The directions are simple: Eat one of their pepper-laced chips, sold in individual coffin-shaped packages, and see how long you can last before “short circuiting” and seeking relief...
The 2022 chip is laced with Reaper and Scorpion peppers, which both contain more than 1 million Scoville units of heat (the average jalapeno pepper contains less than 8,000 Scoville units). The company says the seasonings will turn your tongue bright blue.
Multiple teenagers have reportedly been taken to the hospital after ingesting the chips, with one TikTok user posting a video of herself in an emergency room that has been watched more than 15.7 million times.
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| The hot springs of Hot Ditch (Chron photo) |
Recent water testing of a popular California hot springs destination called Hot Ditch in Bishop (Inyo County) reportedly found that the same brain-eating amoeba that killed an 8-year-old boy in 2018 remained present in the water.It's tragic enough that a boy died in 2018, but it's worse that nothing has been done by the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power in the intervening four years, according to a lawsuit:
Dutch Benjamin Abbott and his parents visited Hot Ditch, a series of man-made water ponds in Bishop in October of 2018. Several days after they returned to Los Angeles, he experienced pain that he described feeling as if a “drill was going through” his head, according to the family’s lawyer, Scott Boyer.
He died a few days later.
Health officials confirmed he was infected with Naegleria fowleri , an amoeba that primarily enters through the nose and spurs an infection that’s fatal is 97% of cases, according to the CDC.
The lawsuit claims DWP has failed to properly monitor, regular and chlorinate the water, warn visitors to the danger, and utilize a filtration system capable of protecting them...The lawsuit alleges that Keough’s Hot Springs’ practice of dumping their waste water into what’s called a diversion, which then mixes with the natural water, has created a breeding ground for the amoeba.No one will be fired, and any damages will be covered by the ratepayers. It's good to work in the public sector.
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| Natural wines for beginners (Chronicle) |
The obvious case against “funky” is that it’s too broad. Does it mean that a wine has a specific microbial flaw, like the spoilage yeast brettanomyces or the mysterious defect known as mouse? Does it mean that it smells earthy, like soil and mushrooms, rather than fruity, like apples and oranges? Does it describe sensations that recall cider or kombucha? Does it just mean a wine that tastes different, new, unlike what you’d find at the grocery store?It's easier to describe natural wines by stating what they are not. [bold added]
“Conventional” winemaking — shorthand for non-natural wine — is defined by technical intervention. In the vineyard, that intervention comes in the form of pesticides and herbicides. In the cellar, intervention generally comes in the form of lab-grown yeast (to control the fermentation process and regulate flavor), acid (to increase the wine’s acidity, which in turn can help the wine age better), and sulfites added at the time of bottling (to preserve flavor). Many winemakers also add sugar, which doesn’t make the wine sweet but instead, through turning into alcohol, creates the perception of “body.” (It’s common practice in Burgundy, Lefcourt notes.)Your humble non-oenophile had assumed that natural wines were distinguished by their cloudiness and un-crispness, in other words, funkiness. Obviously, I was wrong.
On top of that, there are more than 60 approved additives that American winemakers can use to manipulate their wines without listing them on the label.
Just because a wine was fermented with native yeast, unfiltered or treated with limited additions of sulfur dioxide doesn’t mean it will necessarily taste like a dirty dairy barn.As with any niche product that explodes in popularity, definitions must become precise, and standards must be set because....big money is at stake.
So “funky” is on its way out. Yet it has a likely successor that may inspire even more vitriol: “f—ed up.”"F--ed up", IMHO, is a descriptor that is even more imprecise than "funky," and its vulgar origin won't play in Peoria.
Nelson, of Habibi Bar, said he hears this term a lot from customers now, as a way of expressing their preference for a natural wine. It seems to go one step beyond “funky,” which could be interpreted as merely describing an unconventional wine. “F—ed up,” instead, implies a desire for an all-out faulty wine, jacked up with bacterial defects.
The IG first alerted Labor to the scope of the problem with reports in February and June last year, identifying $16 billion in potentially fraudulent payouts to large and small operators of unemployment scams. A new IG memo last week identifies $30 billion more in fraudulent payments—for a total of $45.6 billion. That’s three times what the U.S. has spent to help Ukraine fend off Russia.Your humble blogger takes solace in the fact that, while government fiscal controls are a hot mess and the IRS is over a year late in processing returns, our election systems will operate smoothly in less than a month to record our satisfaction with the way things are going.
The various benefit scams are well-known, and the IG revised upward the tallies of each category. Individuals who fraudulently claimed benefits in more than one state got away with $29 billion. Con artists who used suspicious email services designed to hide identities have claimed at least $16 billion. Swindlers using the Social Security numbers of ineligible federal prisoners and dead Americans landed some $400 million more.
Five current or former Internal Revenue Service employees were charged with schemes to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The defendants allegedly obtained funds under the federal stimulus programs, authorized as part of the CAREs Act, by submitting false and fraudulent loan applications that collectively sought over $1 million, according to court documents. They then used those funds for cars, luxury goods, and personal travel, instead of the purposes authorized by the PPP or EIDL Program.
Elon Musk has offered to close his acquisition of Twitter Inc. on the terms he originally agreed to, a sudden and unexpected comedown for the billionaire entrepreneur that could end a monthslong battle he waged to get out of the $44 billion deal...Your humble investor-blogger had bought a few TWTR shares for $51 in May and had given up hope of turning a profit. Although the purchase agreement was supposedly ironclad, Elon Musk was the richest man in the world. At the very minimum his expensive lawyers and bankers could get Twitter to cut the price, but he abruptly conceded.
Twitter confirmed receipt of the letter and said it intends to close the transaction at the original price of $54.20 a share.
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022
One reason savers haven't shopped around is inertia; another is the "headache" of switching. A third reason, IMHO, is that we've gotten used to making $thousands on the stock market, and scratching around for $hundreds in interest doesn't seem to be worth the trouble.Mortgage rates doubled this year to nearly 7%, and it has become more expensive to get a car loan or carry a credit-card balance. Yet the interest on savings accounts barely budged. In March 2020, the average annual yield on a standard savings account was 0.1%, according to Bankrate.com. It fell to a pandemic low of 0.06% after Americans’ personal saving rate peaked, and is now up to a wan 0.14%.
The interest on my $45,900 money market fund rose
from .16% to .25% between August and September.
Sheer laziness was the reason I didn't do better.
...[banks] still paying out meager interest can count on customer inertia: We fail to take advantage of better deals, because switching banks seems like a headache.
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| (Drawing from instantfp.co.uk) |
they got people to rate technologies that appeared at different times, from audiotape cassettes and video recorders to email and cell phones. There was a sharp difference between technologies that appeared before or after people were 2 years old, which is around the time we make our first lasting memories. People thought that technologies that appeared later were more harmful.One man's status quo bias is another woman's reasonable caution.
