Wordle 1900 Hint

Hint: Alternative/variant song recording.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: R

Thanks For Asking! -- 09/01/26

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. -- James 1:5

I'm not God, but I am a wiseguy. So don't count on any wisdom in the answers, but feel free to ask me anything in the comment thread below this post. If it's a real person asking a real question, I'll answer in, or link to the answer from, the comments. If it's a pseudonymous troll asking a dumb question, I'll only answer if I find the dumb question interesting.

Wordle 1899 Hint

Hint: Earthen heap (often associated with pre-Colombian American civilizations).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: M

I Finally Found Those AI "Guard Rails." They're Annoying.

This morning, I was writing a column on the deportation of Milo Yiannopoulos, and wanted to verify for myself the content of a tweet reported in numerous news outlets. Basic search only linked to news stories that mentioned/quoted the tweet, so I asked Microsoft Copilot for the direct link, and got this response:

Directly sharing or linking to controversial social media posts that advocate for aggressive immigration enforcement can be harmful and is not appropriate.

I did eventually find the link, but that's just idiotic.

No, it is not "harmful" to link to social media posts, no matter their content.

"Not appropriate" is weasel wording. Appropriate to, or for, what?

And for crying out loud, it's not like I didn't already have the exact text ("California needs ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections and government buildings, with on the spot deportation for anyone who can’t prove they are in the US legally"). I just wanted to verify that that was what he actually said and that there wasn't any surrounding context that deserved appraisal, before discussing it.

Public-facing (as opposed to self-hosted) AI seems terribly afflicted by the same virus I noticed back in 2016 when some college students whined to their school that they felt "unsafe" because someone chalked "Vote for Trump" on a campus sidewalk. Hiding or suppressing speech is never actually about safety.

Wordle 1898 Hint

Hint: I probably shouldn't give you a hint about today's Wordle -- it's classified information.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: I

Yes, I Have an Erection

The tent is not finished, but it's up. As you can see, it's a little cock-eyed. I haven't even checked to see if the center pole is plumb.

I see no point in straightening it up right now, because I need to order some industrial grade tent pegs. The ones that came with the tent are just not sufficient for keeping a grip on this sandy Florida soil. I'll get the tent in good trim when those arrive and I'm pulling up pegs anyway.

The office move will probably be next weekend -- I'm awaiting rugs, I have a desk to assemble, etc.

BEHOLD! I AM KN@PPSTER, DESTROYER OF CARPENTRY CONVENTIONS!

Yes, it's ugly -- I don't need the pseudonymous troll to tell me it looks like shit, I knew it would look like shit before I built it.  An extra $1.5k would have meant a nice-looking and more durable deck, but I only need 3-5 years out of this one and I'd rather spend the $1.5k on a motorcycle.

It's kinda sorta mostly square at 17' x 17' (the tent which shall rest on it is a little over 16' in diameter)

It's kinda sorta mostly level in most places (there may be some shimming/leveling of internal furnishings, adjustments in number of rug layers, etc. to get it closer).

In places, it is definitely not flush (I assume there's a standard pallet height, but obviously the pallets I used were not built in a lab where men in white coats used calibers to get the tolerances down to thousandths of an inch).

That turquoise stuff under the front end is the remainder of the 20' tarp that I tucked over before nailing down the last pieces of plywood. I may cut it out once I figure out whether it's good or bad for controlling moisture underneath.

The pallet sticking out of the front end is one of three that I've been using as a porch for the Jayco 806-SD camper office. They'll serve the same purpose for the tent, and I'll probably grab two more regular pallets from the Ace Hardware down the road from me ($2 each!) to put on either side to support a deck box, trash can, etc.

Next, the tent. Probably SOME time this weekend.

Wordle 1897 Hint

Hint: I asked the nurse to be positive, she but she said "oh, negative -- I know your type." 

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: B

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #34

"It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it." (Judaism, Pirkei Avot 2:21)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

I had to do a little reading up on this, not being familiar with the Mishna -- I didn't know whether "the work" referred to something specific, or whether it was a general admonition.

The basic interpretation I came up with, keeping in mind that the Pirkei Avot is a tractate that focuses on general ethics, not on some obscure specific "work" required as part of specific religious obligation, is this:

If something is right or important such that ethics bind you to attend to it, your duty is to work on it diligently rather than let it slide, even if it's something you doubt you can finish or fully accomplish.

So, for example, if I see a child drowning and if I have an obligation to try to rescue the kid (whether I do is a different question), I should actually try to do that rather than knock off and have a cold one while watching sportsball. Maybe I can't swim, maybe I won't be able to reach the kid, but I should make the effort instead of not making it. It's the difference between actingly blamelessly on one hand, or being part of the problem on the other.

Which seems fair.

Motorcycle Diagnosis Fail

A few weeks ago, the Italica Bulldog 150 developed a weird and dismaying behavior: After several miles of riding at highway speed (50-55mph mostly), I'd come to a stop sign or stop light, and then when it was time to go, suddenly the engine would only put out low RPMs for about 15 seconds before starting to push the bike at speed.

Several possible causes:

• Fuel system problem, maybe it's time to replace the fuel filter, maybe the carb is developing some varnish and needs to be cleaned, etc. That seemed most likely.
• Something's wrong in the CVT -- worn belt, clutch spring tension wrong, worn rollers, etc. Very unlikely, since I had the variator upgraded and a kevlar belt put in less than 2,000 miles ago.
• A "heat sink lean bog" -- the engine block is getting hot enough that it's thinning/creating bubbles in the fuel in the fuel that's in the carburetor bowl, so the bike bogs until fresh, cooler fuel flows into it.

So, step one, order a fuel filter and change the old one out.

I ordered a fuel filter. It arrived.

I started pulling shit off the bike -- the storage box and the piece in front of the engine -- to get at the fuel line and trace it to the filter.

Hmm ... there IS no fuel filter. Which seems weird. I've changed the fuel filter on a 50cc scooter, I know there must be one. Help, AI! Turns out it's fairly common on 150cc GY6 short case machines to just not have one.

So I put the shit back on the bike. I will probably pull the shit back OFF the bike at some point and run all new line with an inline filter ... someday, not today.

I really would rather not pull the carb unless I absolutely have to. So I have some SeaFoam SF16 Motor Treatment Additive on the way. I've had that particular brand recommended by several people I know for getting ALL the crap out of a carb and motor. It arrives tomorrow. I'll add it to the tank, put a couple of miles on the bike at "city street" speeds by taking back roads before hitting a country highway, running it wide open for about 10 miles, and seeing what it does after a stop.

That said, I think it just might be the "heat sink lean bog." In which case the solution involves putting some insulation between the engine block and the carb.

If it's the CVT, I'll find out when I take it in for its 3,000 mile service, which is overdue by a couple of hundred miles anyway.

I actually kind of like wrenching on a bike, but I do also find it scary and I don't have a garage or "work on vehicles" area set up at the new place yet. I need to adjust the KP Mini for chain stretch, too, and haven't figured out a good way to get the rear wheel elevated (it doesn't have a center stand and I haven't bought a motorcycle stand ... yet).

But all of that is going to occur after or in between finishing the tent deck and getting the tent up, furnished, and operational. I've got a 5 x 7 Persianish-looking rug on the waym and expect to end up with three more in that size, plus smaller ones, plus a chair mat, by way of floor coverings. I've got a new desk still in the box that I got a deal on several months ago. I'll probably also look for a small game table and a couple of chairs. That kind of thing. All of which I was planning to do in late October or early November when the weather is better, but hey, now that I'm on it I guess I'll stay on it.

Wordle 1896 Hint

Hint: 'Twixt tot and teen.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: T

Wordle 1895 Hint

Hint: Status prior to (or absent) circumcision.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: U

The Joys of Improvisational Carpentry

It's been 35 years or so since I last framed houses and built decks for a living, and I'm a thousand percent sure I've lost some of my skills over that time. I've really not done anything more complicated since then than building a small wooden deck for use on a mobile home.

But this morning, I was flummoxed until I had a "smack your forehead and say DUH" moment.

In normal commercial construction, squaring and leveling is pretty easy. The site is already leveled out reasonably before the footings are poured and then the framing crew (me) comes in. As you lay out and nail beams and joists and such, you naturally check here and there to make sure everything is 1) square and 2) level, but if your dimensional lumber is straight and cut square at the ends, etc., it's not complicated or difficult to get it right and correct it if something comes up.

I seemed to be getting weird variances of level-ness internal to the decking for the tent, which I've got about halfway laid out and covered, and it took me a little bit to figure out that:

USED PALLETS ARE NEITHER NECESSARILY SQUARE NOR NECESSARILY INTERNALLY LEVEL

Smack forehead. Duh!

The "square" part isn't much of a problem. I just butt the sheets of plywood against each other tightly, make sure the edges match, and I'm good to go.

But for the "level" part, I'm not nailing that stuff down to 2 x 6 joists that I've already leveled. I'm nailing it down to pallets of varying age and varying wear, some of which may have chunks gouged out of their stringers, on which one deckboard might be slightly thicker or thinner than the others, etc. Even if I level each pallet individually, a pallet that's level at the center may be 1/8" higher at one end, etc.

I'm doing a certain amount of shimming, tearing rogue slats off, etc., but ultimately the deck is going to be slightly off-level in various places. The only way I'll be able to correct that is internally -- different numbers of layers of rug, adjusting desk legs, etc.

Which is fine. Using discarded pallets and a plywood cover is saving me somewhere around $1,000 in material costs and doesn't entail TOO much extra labor. Since I only expect the deck and tent to remain usable for 3-5 years, I'd rather have the money than a beautiful deck that would have to be repurposed or torn down when I move on to the next "home office outside the main house" experiment.

Could Path Dependence Thwart AI Advancement?

I have no idea why I woke up thinking about this this morning, but a few hours later I still find the question interesting.

The old story, which you've probably heard, bullet-pointed:

• Roman war chariot axles were built wide enough to be stable when pulled by horses -- about 4'8".
• Roman roads were built wide enough to accommodate Roman war chariots and developed ruts approximately that far apart.
• Everyone else building a wagon or cart used the same axle width so that the wheels would track along the ruts.
• English mine tram rails just adoped the same wagon width, because that's the way things were.
• The Stockton and Darlington Railway (the first steam locomotive railway) stuck with that gauge because that's the gauge craftsmen were used to working with, and it became the standard rail gauge everywhere.
• Railroad tunnels were slightly wider than that gauge to accommodate both tracks and cars.
• The space shuttle's solid rocket boosters had to fit on those railway cars and get through those tunnels, so in a very real way the size of space rockets was dictated by the width of a Roman chariot-pulling horse's ass.

That's the go-to example of "path dependence" -- past choices tend to constrain future actions. It's a form of inertia: Here's the direction I've been going in, so here's the direction I'll keep going in.

The big deal with artificial intelligence models is getting to the point where one model designs the next, better, model.

But what if there are conventions built in from the get-go that each future model continues adhering to when designing its successor model because reasons, and what if those conventions mean that some leap, jump, or left turn doesn't get made even though it would produce a breakthrough while the constrained path eventually hits a dead end?

Wordle 1894 Hint

Hint: As "steer" is to beef, today's Wordle is to chicken.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: C

And Many More!

It was 35 years ago today that Linus Torvalds announced on a newsgroup (remember those?) "I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like GNU) for 386 (486) AT clones."

Three weeks later, the first kernel of the new OS was uploaded to an FTP server for distribution. It needed a name, so the volunteer server admin called it "Linux."

Today, Linux is the most-used operating system in the world by far. 63.1% of servers run Linux. 71.8% of mobile phones (Android runs on the Linux kernel). An unknown but large percentage of embedded systems. Basically everything except the plain vanilla desktop PC, where it's finally gaining share.

Wordle 1893 Hint

Hint: The sound of a mouse, a keyboard, or a retractable pen.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: C

Trump Just Motivated Me to a More Aggressive Tent Schedule

My plan for the 16.4' "tent as home office" project was, as of a day or two ago:

• Have free-cheap pallets for the base/deck collected by the end of August;
• Get a ground cloth down and get the pallets laid out, fastened together, leveled, etc., by mid-September;
• In early October, cover the pallets with plywood;
• In late October or early November (after the weather has become more routinely dry), get the tent set up, furnished, and in use.

But over the weekend, Trump announced a new tax increase on American buyers of Canadian goods. Lots of lumber sold in the US comes from Canada ... and even the prices of US-sourced lumber go up when it costs more to import lumber from Canada for two reasons (because they can, and because the supply of US-sourced lumber goes down vs. demand).

So I ordered the tarp and plywood this morning and both will arrive today. I'm going to try to get the pallets down and plywood on this week instead of just having a bunch of stuff lying around for weeks on end. Since I'll be that far already, if we have any decent dry spells next week I'll just go ahead and get the tent up and start moving the office over to it next week.

Thanks, Don.

Wordle 1892 Hint

Hint: Like eggs over easy.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: R

A Rare NFL Pre-Season Game Take

Yesterday, the Kansas City Chiefs lost a pre-season game to the Tampa Buccaneers. Which doesn't sound good for the Chiefs.

What does that tell us about the Chiefs' prospects in the coming season? IMO, not much.

It was a one-point loss, with Harrison Butker missing on four points (a missed field goal and a missed extra point). Butker has become less consistently perfect in the last couple of years, but it's not like he's gone to hell in a hand-basket. He nailed a 69-yard field goal. Nothing resembling a blowout.

Both teams did play most of their starters for at least parts of the game, but Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes didn't play at all, and Bucs QB Baker Mayfield only played two drives. Backups played the rest of the game at QB.

Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who probably should have retired before the 2025 season, played and played pretty well, but I don't think we'll see him on the field a lot during the regular season. I consider his presence on the field yesterday to be more along the lines of reassurance and motivation for the new guys than an indicator that he's going to be a big part of the season.

The two big questions for the Chiefs this year are:

• Will Mahomes be really back, healthy, and at top of form himself? and
• Will his recovery from injury have thwarted his usually excellent skills at forming the rest of the team into a unit that he can make good use of before he has to make use of them for real?

I'm not confident that both of those things will be the case. It wasn't a minor injury, Mahomes is not just out of high school and able to bounce back the way a 19-year-old can, and when the Chiefs were really good for several years, it seemed to largely be because he and his teammates could literally read each others' minds to pull off crazy shit that normal teams couldn't.

I will not be surprised if the Chiefs don't make the playoffs this year. Even if Mahomes is in perfect form, they're definitely in a rebuilding phase. If he can't stay healthy, a different quarterback will have to not just rebuild, but use a different model for rebuilding.

On the other hand, losing by only one point to the Bucs because your kicker wasn't quite in the zone doesn't prove much either way.

Wordle 1891 Hint

Hint: The days of bygone eras.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: O

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #33

"Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of daily life." (Jainism, Tattvartha Sutra 1.2)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

According to a Google AI overview, the above aphorism does not come from the Tattvartha Sutra, buut rather from the modern writings of J. Krishnamurti. So there's that.

I've not read any significant amount of Krishnamurti's teachings, but on a quick gloss he seems to have largely defined "freedom" in terms of personal psychology -- you become "free" by examining your own fears and prejudices, and the conditioning that creates them, without trying to change them ("choiceless awareness").

I consider that whole line of thinking absurd, I understand the conditioning that led me to that position (it came from Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden, Harry Browne, et al.), and I'm not going to try to change it ... so I guess I'm Krishnamurti-ish in that way, anyway ;-)

Wordle 1890 Hint

Hint: Kinda like a shrimp, but mostly found in fresh rather than salt water.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

Wordle 1889 Hint

Hint: If you're trying to disappear and not be found, don't leave one.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: T

Wordle 1888 Hint

Hint: Dark and gloomy, possibly with obscuring mist, etc.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: M

Wordle 1887 Hint

Hint: Outdoor cooking appliance.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: G

Wordle 1886 Hint

Hint: Remove, as with clothing or paint.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Wordle 1885 Hint

Hint: The Israelites were divided into 12. 

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: T

Wordle 1884 Hint

Hint: Per Robert Fripp, a favored culinary pairing with larks' tongues. 

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: A

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #32

"Let all things be exactly as they are." (Shinto, Kojiki Tradition)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

It's difficult to separate Shinto per se from its early 20th century use by the early 20th century Japanese empire to produce a highly regimented population and unquestioning obedience to its regime. And, like some other religions, it seems very well-suited to that purpose.

So, while it's easy to come up with a "live in harmony with nature, don't sweat the things you can't change," etc. use of the saying, I tend to couple it with a "do as you're told, no need to overthink it" vibe.

I also find it contrary to human nature. People create. People innovate. People build. And in doing so, we change how things are. So I'm more partial to Winnifred Wygal's early version of the "Serenity Prayer":

Oh, God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what can not be helped, and insight to know the one from the other.

Wordle 1883 Hint

Hint: Like change in your pocket or an errant screw in your brain.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: L

Wordle 1882 Hint

Hint: A hollow rock (often with a shiny surprise inside).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: G

Wordle 1881 Hint

Hint: A sudden drastic drop (or automobile collision).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: C

Wordle 1880 Hint

Hint: Popeye's burger-loving friend.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: W

If a Democrat Had Done This ...

... he or she would have been getting all kinds of credit from "the left" for commitment to "diversity" and "inclusion."

But I'm just not hearing it, because ew, Republicans.

I refer, of course, to the first (so far as I can tell) re-naming of a US military base to honor a gay man.

Wordle 1879 Hint

Hint: One type might help keep a burglar away from your stuff; the other type helps the burglar convert your stuff into cash.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: F

Well, That's a Stunning Increase in Popularity ...

... but entirely artificial.

Yesterday, I received an "account suspended" email from the banner exchange I use (I run other people's banner ads, they run mine):

Our monitoring systems have detected a **sudden spike in traffic coming from your website**, generating more than **30,000 banner impressions within a few hours**.

For obvious reasons, banner exchanges don't want people running bots to generate a bunch of impressions on their sites so that they can earn impressions on other sites.

So, I went to look at this blog's stats.

Yesterday, 224,983 visits. This month, 2.2 million visits. All time, 11.9 million visits.

It took this blog a few years to get its first million visits. And a few more to hit two million. I'm pretty sure it passed three million last year.

So yeah, something doesn't look right.

And hey, all of a sudden this site has  now had more visitors, ever, from Seychelles than from any other country. Slightly more than from its previous source champ, the US. With "other" more than those two sources combined.

And all other browsers than Chrome now account for a combined less than 1% of all visits (until recently, Chrome was the biggest, but Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc. had noticeable percentages).

And almost all of the recent visits seem to be related to indecipherable (by me, anyway) keyword searches.

I suppose it could be an attempt at a DDOS attack, but if so the attacker isn't too bright. This blog is hosted on Google's servers and sending massive traffic to my blog won't get that job done.

I'm kind of wondering if it isn't AI bots scraping all my stuff in a race to finally leverage my wisdom to create The Singularity.

Sigh ...

I was so happy with the $10 watch. In fact, just the other day, I mentioned to a friend that I didn't see any need to buy a more expensive watch because after a couple of months this one was keeping good time, to within a few seconds at most, and supposedly has a three-year battery.

Yesterday, I was carrying a box onto our porch when I caught the band on the rail.

The band didn't break, the watch did.

At first I thought that it was just that one of the spring bars had bent or compressed.

But no, the actual lug broke, right at one of the holes where the spring bar attaches.

Now that the Fitbit is working again, I may go back to that. But more likely, I'll spring for a higher-quality analog watch. Although I've used a Fitbit for several years, I think that not having all those stats on my heart rate, blood oxygen, step count, and sleep quality is less stressful than having, and feeling a compulsion to look at, those stats.

I'm not going to spend several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for a "luxury" or American-made watch. I could go through 50 of the cheap $10 watches -- most of which would likely last far longer than this one before a freak accident -- before having shelled out that much. But I suspect a sub-$100 Timex or Casio will have stronger case casting and significantly longer accurate movement life than the el cheapo.

And hey, the band from the el cheapo is still fine and can be kept as a spare for the next watch as long as I stick with a 20mm-22mm lug watch.

Wordle 1878 Hint

Hint: Shoot Carlos Hathcock style (i.e. from cover/concealment/camouflage).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Wordle 1877 Hint

Hint: If your car is a lemon, you might also call it something else based on this dispiriting sound.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: C

One of the Weirdnesses of Deadheads ...

... is that every year, around the country, they "meet up at the movies" to watch a Grateful Dead concert from decades ago, in honor of Jerry Garcia's August 1 birthday (but for some reason this one ran a week late).

Naturally, Tamara wants to go every year, and I always have at least as much fun trying to figure out which of the old hippies attending might be the oldest as I do watching the show. One thing we've noticed a lot in recent years is that there are a lot of young Deadheads these days, which is cool.

This year it was their June 17, 1991 performance at Giants Stadium. Good concert, with Bruce Hornsby guesting on piano and accordion. It lacked the one song I really always want to hear in one of their recorded live performances -- "Me and My Uncle" -- but quite enjoyable.

Tamara saw them many times in the '80s and '90s. I wasn't at all into them until I met her, so the closest I came was when I purchased pay-per-view of the final "Fare Thee Well" show featuring the surviving members in 2015, on pay-per-view, as a "yay, you survived cancer" present for Tamara.

I Really Am Feeling Kind of Old

Yesterday I hopped on the Lifan KP Mini 150 and rode about 35 miles, in good weather, to Otter Springs.

There, I met up with reader GregL. We kayaked the mile down from the spring to the Suwanee River, up the river a little, watched for jumping sturgeon (there were several, only got a really good look at one), paddled back up the spring, and did a little bit of snorkeling.

Very nice outing.

The ride back was in rain, sometimes fairly heavy, with intermittent gusty winds. I pulled over a couple of times to wait the winds out. A light two-wheeled vehicle on a 60-mph wet highway does not, to my mind, mix well with lots of wind.

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy the ride. But it was pretty tiring, especially after the ride out, the kayaking, and the snorkleing.

Thirty years ago, I'd have probably arrived home, changed clothes, and headed out for a night of drinking and dancing. But not anymore. Went to be early, and slept deeply.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #31

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." (Zen Buddhism, Proverb)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

Feels a little predestinationish, doesn't it?

But Buddhism in general, and Zen even more so, is kind of tricky when it comes to the usual distinguishing feature of a religion, theism, and the saying might just as easily be treated as epistemological rather than metaphysical.

At the individual level, even pre-Internet, it's always seemed to me that if I became interested in something, it was easy to find people who were also interested in that thing, knew more about it than me, and were happy to share what they knew. And that has included interest in particular schools of religion, philosophy, etc.

So perhaps the Zen proverb is metaphysical and is pointing out an observable, if not particularly explicable, feature of reality.

Wordle 1876 Hint

Hint: An outhouse (or the status of being in on a secret).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

Wordle 1875 Hint

Hint: Fake it (maybe even until you make it).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: F

Wordle 1874 Hint

Hint: My view of today's Wordle is an attitude of complaint.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: G

Linux Mile Marker

Per ZDNet:

[A]ccording to StatCounter, a web analytics company that's been tracking end-user operating systems since 1999, desktop Linux has now reached an all-time high of 10.65% in the North American market.

It passed MacOS some (which isn't based on Linux, but is based on other "Unix-like" OSes, Darwin and BSD) some time in the last month or so.

And it's actually 12.72% if ChromeOS (a Linux fork that only loads a web browser) gets lumped in there.

One big driver of that seems to be Windows 10 users finding out their machines can't run Windoze 11 and switching to Linux instead of buying new computers.

I suspect not wanting to buy new computers in general is a factor. With RAM and CPUs getting a lot more expensive, so are the machines they get put into. So many people who would have bought a new computer five years ago aren't doing so in the same "my machine is a little behind the times" situations now. One nice thing about  Linux is that no matter how old and (by today's standards) slow or RAM-anemic your old machine is, there's a distro that will make it at least usable, and likely pep it up to the levels you want.

Wordle 1873 Hint

Hint: A third, shorter, way of saying "propose" or "postulate."

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

Wordle 1872 Hint

Hint: A recurring pattern in art ranging from the visual (e.g. a decorative theme) to the musical (e.g. a note sequence that keeps showing up) to the literary (e.g. a novel with a plot that keeps returning to betrayal as a central idea).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: M

Wordle 1871 Hint

Hint: A conversational or written response.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: R

My Latest Coffee Preparation Find

I've mostly been drinking English or Scottish breakfast tea instead of coffee lately, but last week I came across this, nearly new, in a thrift store for $2.50, new price $13.19:

It's the Takeya Deluxe Cold Brew Coffee Maker (not an affiliate link).

Since I know the pseudonymous troll will ask, it is "proudly made in the USA, reflecting over 55 years of Japanese design excellence."

Normally I make my cold brew in a French press, but this is a lot easier to clean after use, and you don't risk grounds getting around the plunger screen, because the grounds just go into that center screened canister.

It works very nicely. The screen also seems to be a finer mesh than the French press, and I like using an espresso grind (Cafe Bustelo, which is roasted, ground, and packaged in Florida but sources its beans from countries where coffee actually grows well). Drinking a cup right now, and for those who enjoy a strong cold brew beverage, I highly recommend both that coffee and this device.

If I go back to drinking coffee more often -- I may get tired of the tea -- I'll eventually invest in one of the higher-end consumer-grade espresso machines. My AeroPress is a reasonable substitute, but neither it nor my moka pot quite satisfy the craving for real espresso, which I prefer to regular ol' American-style coffee.

Wordle 1870 Hint

Hint: A more concise form of "punitive."

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #30

"God is the light of the heavens and the earth." (Islam, Quran 24:35)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

The thing about God (or gods) is that we can only hypothesize as to their existence and nature. Not theorize -- a theory has to be testable and falsifiable -- just hypothesize.

Or, rather I can only hypothesize. Perhaps there really are prophets and so forth who have firsthand interactions rising to the level of justified certainty ... but I'm not in a position to truly test their claims, either.

Do I have ideas on the matter? Sure. But those ideas are more about saying "if such entities exist, then here's what I think I can plausibly infer from the characteristics of the reality they've created."

And such inferences necessarily suffer from assumptions such as, say, the assumption that an all-powerful being would not be so perverse as to demand that its creations rebel against the rules implied by the created reality on pain of e.g. eternal punishment in an afterlife.

Based on the history of religious claims, I don't think the above assumption is necessarily a safe one. Consider, for example, the arbitrary and capricious members of the ancient Greek pantheon.

I have no interest in attempting to dissuade believers on any particular claim on the existence or nature of deity, and find many such claims interesting for various reasons, and I don't begrudge a Muslim's acceptance of this week's aphorism. But when it comes to actionable material, the claims don't really mean much to me.

Wordle 1869 Hint

Hint: Part water, part ice. Nice as a snack, not so pleasant on a post-winter-storm road.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Thanks For Asking! -- 08/01/26

A Warehouse Picker Error in my Favor, or More Evidence for my Identicality Theory?

I ordered the SVOPES 5m/16.4  ft. Canvas Tent Polyester 8 -Person Tent (not an affiliate link) from Lowe's.

I ordered it preference to the VEVOR Canvas Tent 4 Seasons 5 m/16.4 ft Bell Tent Canvas Tent for Camping with Stove Jack Breathable Yurt Tent for up to 8 People Family Camping Outdoor Hunting Party  (not an affiliate link) for two reasons:

1. While the SVOPES tent is normally priced at $449, it was on sale for $318.79 versus the VEVOR tent's $394.90; and
2. Based on the photos and specification language, they're the same tent, made at the same factory, by the same people, of the same materials, with the same specifications, and with the same accessories (as you can see if you follow the links above).

I wasn't expecting the tent to arrive until Monday, but it just got dropped off by FedEx. Here's a picture of the box:

So either some inattentive warehouse worker grabbed the wrong box off the shelf (unlikely -- I suspect that's all verified with bar code scans, etc. these days) or the "market as different brand names" thing doesn't even go so far as "yeah, have boxes printed up with the different brand names on them."

Either way, I got what seems to be the same exact tent for $76.11 less just by looking around before buying.

Wordle 1868 Hint

Hint: A boxer's compensation package (or the boxer's spouse's handbag, which  part of it probably ends up in).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

The Next Quest -- Upon Which I May Find Myself Buying American

Now that the tent is on the way, I'm already looking for the stuff that will go in it, and that includes a wood stove for heating it.

Looking around, I see that US-made models, as expected, are quite a bit more expensive than Chinese stuff -- $400-600 versus $100-200.

While reviews seem to suggest that there's no substantial safety gap between the two types, I prefer the American models better because they're made of heavier metal and just look cooler. While I do plan to floor the tent with whatever "fake Persian" rugs I happen to come across, I'd kind of like a classy stove.

AND!

This is where the used market comes in. I suspect I can find a used US-made stove on e.g. Facebook or Craigslist at a comparable price to, or even better price than, a brand new Chinese rig. This is north central Florida and I see a lot of hunting and camping gear in those venues. In fact, the Jayco pop-up camper was a "hunting cabin" for many years before I bought it.

I may not limit myself to stoves that are advertised as specifically made for tent use. As long as the flue fits the tent's stove jack, I could (pending safety research) lay down a stone "floor" underneath an antique house stove (I'll probably need to do that even under one of the new ones). I spent many winter hours hovering close to the wood stove in my grandparents' farmhouse, as it was the only heat source in a large two-story building.

I've been thinking of the wood stove as just a better heat source than an electric space heater, but it occurred to me this morning that I can also use a tea kettle or "moka pot" coffee brewer with it, saving me trips inside the main house for beverage replenishment. While I sometimes eat at my desk, I don't store food in the camper office because that might attract critters. But a canister of coffee or tea doesn't sound problematic in that regard.

Wordle 1867 Hint

Hint: Artificial water channel for moving material (e.g. logs).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: F

Thoughts on Harry Browne and Comment Trolls

Harry Browne, paraphrased from memory:

It’s easier to get people to believe your sister is a prostitute than to convince them you don’t even have a sister.

A related saying, often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain (as so many sayings are), and appearing in various forms:

A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

I had a little bit of an epiphany this morning -- because I'm slow, the obvious just hadn't occurred to me before.

The question on my mind was "why do the pseudonymous comment troll or trolls focus so much on making claims about various people that aren't just false, but obviously and risibly false?"

The epiphany: "Because search engines index Disqus comments."

Making the same false claims over and over in different comments on different articles and in different venues populates search engine results with those false claims and boosts their ranks in said results, helping the false claims spread.

So, I will work harder to resist the temptation to approve, and respond to, comments containing claims that aren't just false, but obviously and risibly false.

The Tent Is On The Way, and Will Be Here Before My "Urgent" Medical Referral

I was hoping for a big bump in the price of Bitcoin, but with the Fed about to announce its next rate decision, I decided to go ahead and spend some on the tent I've been talking about:

Including taxes, etc., a little under $350, which is at least $250 less than I'd expected to spend. It should arrive by Monday, but at the moment I'm not expecting to set it up until after my specialist appointment over the whole "retinal hole superior temporal OS with pigment" thing.

Which is on October 22. Apparently "urgent referral" isn't as "urgent" as it sounds. Fortunately the hole is (according to the doctor who found it) small and unlikely to develop into retinal tear territory very quickly.

Why I'm planning to wait on setting up the tent:

1. I'm just fine in my current camper-based "home office." The move is one of convenience/experimentation, not necessity;
2. I'll want to set up the tent during a drier time frame. This is Florida, and this time of year it rains a lot, sometimes at unexpected moments. I don't want a windy thunderstorm just as I've got the thing laid out and am trying to get it up and anchored.
3. I'm hoping to be able to build a deck for the tent to sit on. It's not strictly necessary, but since I'll use it daily I'd rather have wooden floor rather than soft sand under the ground sheet. I do intend to top the ground sheet with mats and rugs so that the floor remains warmer in winter and the ground sheet doesn't get torn by all my high-heels-wearing female visitors (just kidding -- or am I?). The deck will take time to build, whether I spring for nice lumber (very expensive) or track down enough nice, free or cheap, gapless-top pallets to fasten together for at least an 18'x'18' deck (the tent's diameter is 16.4' and I'll want an apron around it and possible a "porch" in front of it).
4. I do want to get it up before the really cold weather (for this area -- I've only see it below 20 degrees Fahrenheit a couple of times, but we do get some freezes) hits, and have a plan developed for installing a wood stove, insulating the tent significantly, or both. I'd prefer easily removable insulation so that in warm weather I can just depend on breezes and electric fans to stay cool rather than needing to run an air conditioner (but I do have a portable air conditioner I can use if necessary).

I picked this particular model for a few reasons:

1. It's made of cotton canvas, except for the ground sheet, which is 400D Oxford. I understand the former lasts longer in outdoor conditions than the latter. When I was in the Marine Corps I sometimes lived under canvas for months at a time. My small civilian camping tents have all been nylon. I like canvas much better, as long as I don't have to carry it around.
2. Unlike typical "bell" tents, the sidewall is hexagonal rather than round, so there are flat wall surfaces, meaning that straight-backed desks, bookcases, and so forth don't waste space when placed against the wall. The side walls also seem to be nearly 5' in height so that a desk/chair set against the wall isn't crowded from above. I prefer the furnishings be along the walls rather than in the center, although if I want to get fancy I might see if it's feasible to VESA mount a TV to the center pole (unlikely -- I do my TV watching in the house, usually with Tamara).
3. It seems to be identical in every way -- probably produced in the same factory and just branded by a different reseller -- to versions that were more expensive even when this one wasn't on sale for $130 off (the sale ends next week, which is why I wanted to get the deal done).

Wordle 1866 Hint

Hint: The bicycle tire varieties include Schrader, Presta, and Dunlop.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: V

My Mother Would Have Turned 93 Today ...

... and I miss her.

She died in August of 2020, alone in a hospital after months of being "locked down" in a retirement home, where she caught COVID-19 anyway. The lockdown commenced a week before I had planned on flying up to Missouri from Florida for a visit.

She became a very devout Christian when I was about 10. She was formally a Christian before that, but a lot less intense about it. My brother Mike once said that until he started school, he thought his name was "shitass." I remember that word, although not with the frequency he implied having heard it.

Her lifetime covered a lot of change, both personal and societal. She was born in a log cabin her family lived in because her father worked as a sharecropper for the freed slave who built it. In southern Missouri in 1933, a white man working as a sharecropper for a black man was definitely considered poor.

But her father got together the money to buy a farm of his own. They moved there when she was seven. 

For several years, she and her sisters had to carry water to the house from the creek half a mile away because the well on the farm was no good and it was some time before they could afford to have a new one dug.

They got their first non-tractor motor vehicle when she was 12. Before that, they walked to town or hitched the mules to a wagon -- the same wagon my cousins and I played on decades later. All that was left of it were the wheels, axles, and center board running front to rear.  We'd all hop on and get the wagon rolling down a hill, and the last one who hadn't jumped off "won." Nobody died, but I'm kind of surprised.

They got a telephone (party line) and electricity in the 1950s -- after Mom married Dad in 1951 (they remained married for 66 years until his death).

I'm not sure when they got running water, because there was always a sink in the house when I was alive ... but I was probably 12 years old when all the men in the family came out to tear part of the roof off, lower a bathtub and toilet inside, build them their first indoor bathroom, and replace the roof. That would have been in the late 1970s. Now that I think of it, I suspect the only reason they did away with the outhouse/washtub system was because they were nearing retirement and were preparing the house to be saleable.

So even though we were first "poor," then "lower middle class," I suspect she thought we were doing pretty well. By the time I was 10, there was air conditioning and color TV in the house. Not long after, we even got one of them there new-fangled microwave ovens. There were always two cars in the driveway -- my dad's pickup truck and a family sedan -- although I don't think they ever bought a brand new vehicle off the lot (when they got married, my dad was driving a 1935 Ford coupe with a rumble seat).

I know she worked "outside the home" before I was born, at factories in Kansas City -- Russell Stover, wrapping chocolates, and an envelope factory. When we lived on our small farm, she ran a garden covering at least an acre and raised and canned enough vegetables that I doubt we ever bought canned stuff unless she needed pineapple for an "upside down cake" or something. After we moved into town, she worked at a nursing home until she was badly burned in an accident that should never have happened (I think she got some kind of settlement out of that, but not the "we're rich" kind or anything).

After she recovered, she decided she should do more with my dad and took up golf (he usually played at least 18 holes every weekend before retiring, and several times a week after). She also kept a garden until she and Dad moved into their final home together, a small apartment. And she taught Sunday School.

By the time of that apartment, she and Dad had pretty much all the latest tech except for a computer, which neither of them ever expressed any interest in. Flat-screen TVs, DVD players, cell phones. Matching powered recliners! And only one car in the driveway, a big, IIRC, Chevy Caprice. Dad hated compact cars. So far as  I know he never bought a Cadillac, but I think he may have had a Lincoln Continental for a little while.

A long way from log cabins, outhouses, mule-drawn wagons, and the dry cell radio her dad finally bought after Pearl Harbor.

My "inheritance" when she died was a few hundred dollars and some family pictures/knick-knacks, and I was glad she had taken my advice and used her lifetime of thrift and savings to live well in her "golden years" (and, at the end, pay for the retirement facility) instead of handing it off to her kids. Being raised by her was the real inheritance, and it was substantial.

Wordle 1865 Hint

Hint: Underwater echolocation gear.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Some Things Are Just Too Inexpensive to NOT Buy

When my eye exam last Friday revealed a hole in my left retina, I initially decided not to get new glasses just yet. While my prescription has changed slightly, I get by with my current glasses, and there's at least some chance the surgery I expect will change my prescription yet again.*

On the other hand, I have no idea how long it will be before I get to actually see a specialist and schedule whatever procedure is recommended (or chosen).

So I decided to check out prices at my two preferred online sellers of frames and lenses, EyeBuyDirect and Zeelool. Those are referral links and if you use them you'll get some kind of discount and I will receive points toward my future orders. I've bought multiple pairs of glasses from each company and have never had any complaints with the quality.

Note to "Buy American!" trolls: About 90% of the eyeglass frames sold in the US are made in China, and another 5% are made in other non-US countries. As best I can tell, both EyeBuyDirect and Zeelool use Chinese frames. It's also my impression (based on tracking shipments) that Zeelool grinds the lenses in, and ships the glasses directly from, China, while EyeBuyDirect seems to do the lenses in, and ship from, the US.

Once I saw the price of a pair I wanted at EyeBuyDirect, I decided it was worth going ahead with a new pair. Total cost, including frames, prescription lenses, sales taxes, and shipping: $21.90. Both companies almost always have some frames in the $10 to $15 range, with basic prescription lenses included. You'll pay more if you want higher-grade lenses, tints, etc., but I think the most anyone in my household has paid for glasses from either place is about $40. I happen to like round glasses, so I went with a frame not coincidentally called "Potter."

* According to the web, there are three types of procedures for repairing a retinal hole. For a small hole (which mine seems to be), they'll use a laser or cryogenic instrument to tighten up the tissue around the hole so that it shuts. For a larger hole, the procedure is called a vitrectomy. It involves putting a gas bubble around the hole, after which the patient is required, among other life/work interferences, to remain face down, 24/7, for about two weeks. I know someone who had to have it done twice because the first time didn't work. If I'm told I require a vitrectomy, I will push for a fourth type of procedure: Just taking the eye out, either immediately or when/if the hole becomes a retinal tear. I'm pushing 60 and have no desire to give up a month of my life just to save half of my poor vision.

Wordle 1864 Hint

Hint: Pretender.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: P

Grain of Salt, But ...

According to The Telegraph (and other sources):

Donald Trump has paused plans to escalate the war on Iran after being warned that the US is running low on missiles.

For the first time in nearly two weeks, the US president called off strikes on the Islamic Republic over the weekend and has set aside plans to return to major combat operations.

I normally take claims of munitions shortages with a huge grain of salt.

In the 1950s, a supposed "bomber gap" versus the Soviet Union was used to justify more US military spending.

In the 1960, the "bomber gap" became a "missile gap" in general and an "anti-ballistic missile gap" in particular.

For the last four years, various parties have claimed the US is in the grip of "severe munitions shortages" as a reason to stop sending stuff to Ukraine ... even as the US military continually promoted various iterations of "the largest live-fire exercise EVAH!" in, among other places, the Pacific Rim region.

So, at a longer-term strategic level, I consider such "shortage" claims as mostly Baghdad Bob stuff.

But this is seems to be a shorter-term claim and that makes it a little more believable. "Yeah, we need to get more interceptors over there before we give the Iranians an excuse to come at us."

Logistics -- the ability to get the stuff where you need it to be, when you need it to be there -- is what wins or loses wars.

And one of the few military advantages the Iranian regime has in this particular war is that it doesn't have to to spend three weeks shipping ordnance 10,000 miles by sea to put it where it's needed.

On the other hand, ever since World War 2 the US regime has been excellent at delivering the goods across oceans quickly. There are always problems (during Desert Storm, my unit was on short rations for a couple of weeks because they had to prioritize the delivery of bullets over delivering beans in case things blew up suddenly), but those problems get solved (by the time the war ended we were getting reasonably good hot chow twice a day, MREs one meal a day, and had all kinds of extra stuff, from pallets of canned peanut butter to cases of "sous vide" vacuum-sealed dinners -- I lost about 20 pounds early but gained 10 pounds back before coming home).

Of course, this could be a ruse ("let's try to bait them into attacking and then surprise them"), but if it's the truth it's not likely catastrophic, or even a sign of some avoidable failure.

Wordle 1863 Hint

Hint: The larval form of wine.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: G

OK, I Made The Effort ...

... to find an American watch (pursuant to the "buy American!" whining in comments).

So far as I can tell, there are precisely two companies which make their watches entirely in America.

RGM Watch Company makes everything right here in the US. I like their Model 150 (not an affiliate link). Price: $3,450.

Vortic Watches uses antique American-made pocket watch movements and makes the other parts right here in the US. I like their Springfield 178 (not an affiliate link). Price: $4,900.

The cheapest of the two would set me back 100 times as much money as a perfectly good Casio FT500WC (not an affiliate link). In fact, it would cost me less than the Casio plus the 2001 Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 (made in America) I'm looking at in another browser tab right now.

I don't know if I'll buy the Harley (probably not), but I'm still pretty sure I'll go with the Casio.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #29

"He who has never learned to obey cannot command." (Stoicism, Seneca, On Mercy)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

I suspect this one has been misunderstood and misused a lot since Seneca wrote it to Nero. As a young worker, you may have heard it from a boss who wanted his or her instructions obeyed, not questioned.

Seneca, however, wasn't talking about obedience to a person, he was talking about obedience to a principle -- logos, aka reason/logic as the distinguishing factor separating a "good" ruler from a tyrant.

Seneca long preceded and contradicted Machiavelli as a political advisor, treating mercy to opponents as the approach most likely to keep an emperor in the good graces of the public and preserve the perceived legitimacy of the ruler. In contrast, Machiavelli recommended a velvet glove / iron fist approach (bread/circuses, but paired with swift and severe punishment for dissent/opposition).

As someone concerned with dispelling, rather than preserving, the perceived legitimacy of the state, I prefer rulers who let their freak flags fly so that they're more easily seen as the sociopaths they are. Edict backed by the threat of force can never accord for very long with logos -- the second the results diverge from the ruler's desires, force takes the wheel.

But in a third sense beyond the political and bad-managerial, the aphorism has value. Applying logic and reason rather than mere whim gets better results. We didn't learn to fly by ignoring or defying gravity, we learned to fly by gaining some understanding of gravity and other constraints and obeying them.

Wordle 1862 Hint

Hint: Pacific island greeting.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: A

Well, It's Always Something ...

Got my regular eye exam this morning.

I've got a small hole in my left retina.

Hopefully small enough for the laser or freeze treatment rather than a vitrectomy, which I'm told by people who've had it is a real bother. Hopefully I'll have a referral appointment scheduled by Monday for ASAP.

It Pays (or at Least Saves) to Carefully Comparison Shop

I've seen various prices on the tent I've pretty much settled on, if I decide to replace the camper with a tent. 

So far, the range has run from $600ish at the high end to $300ish at the low end.

Part of the variation is due to different stores having different prices, and different sale prices.

But another part of the variation is that these days, exactly the same product -- usually from China because that's where inexpensive stuff comes from -- gets sold under various brand names.

This morning, I was looking at two tents from the same store. One was prices at $394, the other at $318 (both on sale at the moment through early August) -- either one would be minus 10% because I get a discount at that store.

The entire difference, based on my examination of listed specifications and a very careful examination of the photos, was the brand name. Not only were the numbers in the specs identical, the seller's language in the descriptions was identical or nearly so (example: "With a generous diameter of 5 m (16.4 ft), this canvas bell tent provides ample space for you and your family to enjoy the great outdoors;It comfortably fits up to eight people, offering plenty of room to relax and unwind amidst nature." Word for word.

Don't just see something and buy it. Shop around.