I'm Considering a New Office ...

... and instead of a larger camper, I'm considering something like this:

That particular one is $665 at Amazon, but I may just work out the parts list and hit Lowe's if I think it will save significant money. It works out to about 163 square feet, so more spacious than my little pop-up (117 square feet, but that includes the popout bed spaces -- the actual floor space is only about 55 square feet). This would have plenty of room for bookcases, etc. without feeling cramped.

Of course, the dome is not the only cost. I'd need to come up with some kind of deck/flooring scheme. Probably just a flat deck made of pressure-treated 2x6s, sealed, and some rugs for the inside floor.

If I don't buy one of these pre-made ones with a clear PVC cover, I'll have to figure out a way of covering it, and if I do go with something like this one, I'll want to paint it except for a "skylight" up top, and perhaps a window or two.

Then a number of sheets (I haven't calculated it yet) of foam board insulation that I'll cut to fit the triangles inside the cover, and another paint job, this time on the inside.

And if I'm going to do this, I might as well do an 800-watt solar system -- panels, charge controller, battery, inverter -- at the same time, so call that another $1500.

I suspect I'm looking at $2,500-$3,000 dollars.

If necessary, I might wait on the solar setup to keep initial costs down and just keep using an extension cord/UPS setup for a little while, but it would be really nice to have the place be independent except for plumbing.

In fact, I suppose I COULD buy and assemble the dome, use it for storage or whatever (a greenhouse even!), then build the deck and move the dome onto it later. That modular approach would save me money if I decided before moving office into it that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

Not included in the costs above would be, over time, installing a mini-fridge, coffee brewer, etc. Usually if I go in the main house during working hours, it's to grab a soda or snack, and that would cut down on the trips back and forth. I'd also probably keep an eye out at thrift stores for a curved instead of rectangular desk to optimize the space a little more.

I've always thought geodesic domes are cool, so this sounds like a fun project ... as long as I can make the case to myself that it will be useful enough to justify the cost, work, and time investment.

Wordle 1837 Hint

Hint: When the sentence for eating homework is lenient because the perpetrator is, after all, a juvenile.

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First Letter: P

Wordle 1836 Hint

Hint: Raw/unrefined (as with oil right out of the ground).

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1835 Hint

Hint: The "host" at a public entertainment event.

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First Letter: E

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #25

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit." (Aristotelian Philosophy, Nicomachean Ethics II.4)

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

My thoughts:

I'm aware of many quibbles with this idea, ranging from religious beliefs in predestination to non-religious beliefs on genetic or environmental affects on character, but it rings true to me.

Ethics, as such, seems to me to presuppose both free will and an effect of "becoming" over time based on how we exercise that will. A "person" who can't become a "better person" isn't a "person," it's a "robot."

From a non-religious perspective, the reward for "excellence as a habit" is no more, and no less, than just living a good life, and that seems a like sufficient incentive in and of itself.

On the religious side, some sects, especially in the far east, encode that idea across more than one life -- actions in this life affect the circumstances/environment of rebirth into a next life, generally as part of some kind of ascent up the ladder of enlightenment.

Wordle 1834 Hint

Hint: Unit of ice cream measurement.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1833 Hint

Hint: Two opposites of today's Wordle, for different meanings thereof, would be "chronic" and "obtuse."

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1832 Hint

Hint: Aristotle held that a good drama requires today's Wordle with respect to time, place, and action. 

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First Letter: U

Interesting Bike Discovery ...

This is the X-Pro Navy 150 (not an affiliate link) at Walmart:

Looks a lot like my Italica Bulldog 150 (except in gray -- there's not a yellow model on offer).

Because, for all practical purposes, it is an Italica Bulldog 150. Same engine, same frame, structurally identical and, except for some exceedingly minor styling differences and brand name, otherwise identical.

Oh, and it's about $500 cheaper. That doesn't include the assembly I got when buying the Italica through my local dealer, but definitely not a bad deal if you'd like a Honda Navi but aren't willing to pay twice as much for the Honda name and a smaller engine and can do some fairly easy assembly work yourself.

I got my Lifan KP Mini 150 with the X-Pro branding, and since the experience with that has been excellent I'm not scared of buying that brand.

Even after I move up to a larger motorcycle, I think I will always want one of these around the house for in-town and short-distance rides. I might go with this one, or with Italica again, or find a used Navi, but they're just so convenient and fun to ride that I'd hate to live without one.

Wordle 1831 Hint

Hint: It used to be considered an insult; now it's a fairly common self-descriptor. 

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First Letter: Q

Wordle 1830 Hint

Hint: The Portuguese brought chili peppers to India -- then India brought this kind of food to the world. 

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First Letter: C

Decisions, Decisions

My son somehow managed to drop the Italica Bulldog 150. Fortunately, on the grass, in the yard, at slow speed. No major damage -- busted mirror (I had workable replacements), busted headlight fairing.

I'm looking for a replacement fairing, but may just go ahead and replace the whole headlight with a nicer looking round can style as part of my desire to make the thing into a more "cafe racer" looking bike.

Or maybe not. My daughter says she's taking her motorcycle license class next weekend, and I told her she could have the Bulldog if she got the license for it. Maybe I'll just let her deal with the fairing.

Also this weekend, I saw my first Bulldog "in the wild" other than my own. It's the 2025, I think. I'd personally not prefer a white motorcycle, and the post-2024 models don't come in the lovely yellow I have.

Wordle 1829 Hint

Hint: Maybe or maybe not an egg, but definitely shaped like one. 

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First Letter: O

Wordle 1828 Hint

Hint: When you couldn't have done something because you were elsewhere.

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First Letter: A

Hopefully the Changes Will Remain Minimal

Back when streaming really started to be the big thing vs. cable TV, I went through the three major offerings and quickly settled on one.

• Amazon's Fire TV stick seemed like a natural fit since I was a prime member, but it was kinda meh, and also back in those days Amazon and Google would periodically argue and YouTube would disappear from the Fire TV menu.
• Google's early-version Chromecast was cheap, so I gave it a try, but I didn't like the interface as much as Amazon's and found it basically useless (I never bought the later versions of the device).
• Then I found a TV on a pretty good sale ... and it had Roku built into it. Loved the interface, and the offerings, from the start.

These days, every TV-size screen in our house, except for my two computer monitors (which are Amazon Fire TVs but never used as such), is either a Roku TV or has a Roku device plugged into it. Roku handles all the streaming platforms we have subscriptions to (including Amazon Prime TV), with lots of free options and periodic good intro deals on things we consider trying.

Now I hear that Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion.

Fox seems to be saying that the only really visible change to expect is more emphasis on Fox's own streaming channels (and, I expect, a concomitant lessening of emphasis on its direct competitors -- CBS's Paramount+ and NBC's Peacock) when Roku is making suggestions, and probably integration of The Roku Channel and Tubi into the Fox brand. The devices will continue to be open to all the streaming apps one might care to add.

That seems like the smart way to go. Roku has developed a damn good user interface and made itself (IMO) into the most usable and useful streaming device option by far. If Fox starts messing with that, either someone new will come along, or Amazon/Google will up their games, and the golden goose will end up wounded or dead.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #24

 "The wound of a friend is better than the kiss of an enemy." (Sikhism, Guru Granth Sahib 600)

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

My thoughts:

I guess it depends on whether the friend in question is really a friend, or just someone posing as a friend.

A real friend may sometimes wound you by telling you truths or offering observations that you find hurtful, but when a real friend does so it's for the purpose of trying to help you fix a problem or correct a flaw.

A fake friend may wound you in the guise of trying to help you, but only for purposes of plausible deniability, when he or she does not in fact have your best interests at heart. That "friend" may actually be an enemy, or just a manipulative type incapable of true friendship.

The aphorism presupposes an honesty/clarity regarding who's a friend and who's not, when such honesty/clarity isn't always the case.

Wordle 1827 Hint

Hint: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck ... and if it's an adult duck, there's a slightly more than 50% chance that it's one of these.

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First Letter: D

Wordle 1826 Hint

Hint: Face with tears of joy! Red heart! Thumbs up!

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First Letter: E

Well, At Least They Didn't Make Him Do It In A Railroad Car

I wasn't especially surprised when Trump launched his war of naked Hitlerian aggression against Iran.

I wasn't surprised at all when he lost that war.

But I'm at least a little surprised that he agreed to sign the instrument of US surrender in, of all places, Versailles.

Reconsidering Mega

I don't use a lot of cloud storage with sync to a desktop folder (kilobytes, not megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes), and my preference for what little I do use would be for Proton to get their damn Linux desktop client out already.

I've been using Dropbox for most of my needs in this respect, and I have no real complaints with it, but yesterday I decided to have another look at Mega (not an affiliate link). I had largely written it off years ago because I didn't know if founder Kim Dotcom's legal problems would end with the service (and the data stored on it) disappearing.

At the moment, I'm only using the storage/sync functionality, as I'm quite happy with Proton's VPN and password manager offerings.

So far so good. The only down side I see is that there's one application I use that doesn't offer Mega as a cloud storage option for loading/saving. If I decide I prefer Mega to Dropbox, I guess I'll look for another app.

In theory, Mega offers better encryption than Drobox. That's not a big issue for me as I don't store anything sensitive in the cloud.

Mega also offers a lot more storage than Dropbox -- 20Gb vs. 2Gb -- but like I said, my sync data is measured in kilobytes.

So this note is really for you and about your needs. If you need cloud storage and sync, Mega looks like a pretty good option, and its sync client does run on non-systemd Linux distros like MX Linux.

Wordle 1825 Hint

Hint: Like a one-way door opening inward.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 1824 Hint

Hint: Types within the world of cryptocurrency include (among others) utility, governance, and non-fungible.

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First Letter: T

Wordle 1823 Hint

Hint: In one word, astonish. In two words, labyrinth.

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1822 Hint

Hint: Flank steak, cooked London-style.

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First Letter: B

IMO, Sewer Politics is a Cesspool

Abut a decade ago, while out on a bicycle ride, I happened to converse with a gentleman who was, at the time, mayor of Archer, Florida. His big goal for the city was a sewer system.

While I'm not a big fan of "collective action" via government, he made a strong case for a sewer system down in the fairly densely populated part of the small town, more for business reasons than due to any residential problems. In particular, he cited the town's only bar/restaurant (at the time), which could only operate about half the week because its septic system couldn't handle the seven-day levels of effluent and apparently couldn't be replaced with a stand-alone system that would. The mayor felt that lack of a sewer system was holding back the town's economic development.

I didn't think much more about that conversation, even after we recently moved to Archer's zip code.

Then, last week, I saw a news story: The town is getting its sewer system.

"Phase 1" of that system will cover the aforementioned densely populated section of the town (population 1,100 or so). They'll be running a main pipe about ten miles to the nearest treatment plant and hooking up that "core" area to it, probably by 2030 at the latest.

"Phase 2," which may implicate my household, is what I'm concerned with -- it does appear to come all the way out to our house.

From what I can tell, it will be mandatory, require the homeowner to pay at least mid-four, and possibly low-five, figures for trenching, septic tank removal, and hookup (either up-front or as a property tax add-on for 20-30 years), and of course come with a monthly bill forever after.

Apart from that initial huge bill, sewer might actually "pay for itself" versus the cost of periodically having the tank pumped out.

But ... that phase doesn't really seem to make much sense otherwise.

The area I live in is most of two miles from any densely populated area, and most of the two miles the sewer main would run to get to this area would just be running through farmland with an even lower population density. We live on a cowpath which terminates at a farm to the east of us, with a tree farm south of us, another regular farm west of us (just past a narrow and poorly-maintained paved road), and a couple of similar cowpaths north of us before yet more farm and high-voltage power-line right of way. The houses out here are all hundreds of yards apart, and (at least according to the testing we had done when buying the house) the water quality is great.

Of course, there's always the possibility of a development explosion and big increase in population density, but most of that, if it happens, will probably start quite a distance from us and take many years to reach us.

It seems like "Phase 2" is more about getting (from federal, state, and county grants) and spending millions of dollars for the sake of getting and spending those millions of dollars than about any "health" or "development" reasons. While the homeowners will pay the costs of trenching from the main to the house, etc., the revenue generated by that main will likely take decades to justify the cost of installing the main in the first place. Having lived in a town ruled by politicians with grand schemes for constantly expanding the things they can be in charge of (is there any other kind?) was a primary motivator for us to get back to living "in the country."

One person I discussed this with wanted to talk all about the environmental damage a leaky septic tank can do to the environment, the aquifer, etc. He suddenly went silent when I asked him whether a leaky septic tank here and there was likely to do as much damage to the environment, the aquifer, etc., as a burst sewer main aggregating the effluent from hundreds or thousands of homes.

Fortunately, "Phase 2" is still "un-funded" and will likely not reach us for several years if it does get the green light. It's one item that will go on the "do we sell and move even further out of town, and if so, when?" list.

Wordle 1821 Hint

Hint: The brown tone of old photographs.

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First Letter: S

Poor Shipping Practices or Poor Tracking Software?

I'm awaiting delivery on a package sent via US Snail.

It left Miami, about 335 miles from my house, on Wednesday.

It arrived in Jacksonville, about 85 miles from my house, on Thursday morning.

It arrived in Gainesville, about ten miles from my house, on Thursday evening.

It arrived in Archer, about 1.8 miles from my house, early yesterday morning, so I expected it to arrive yesterday or maybe today.

Checked the mailbox (it would probably fit in there), and the front porch. No dice.

A few minutes ago, it arrived in Jacksonville, about 85 miles from my house.

All of that according to online tracking, of course. So it's possible that some or all of the information is incorrect.

It wasn't any kind of important or rush shipping thing, so no biggie, but it does make me wonder what the hell is going on.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #23

 "Let no one be called happy before his death." (Greek Philosophy, Herodotus, Histories 1.32)

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

My thoughts:

Two things worth noting, to start:

1. Herodotus (an historian) wasn't saying this in the first person. He attributed it to Solon, the "father of Greek democracy."
2. It's not the whole aphorism. There's a second sentence: "Till then, he is not happy, only lucky."

Solon took a ... long view ... of life. Happiness, as an external observation from others, he believed shouldn't be thought of as a judgment of a moment, but as a description of a whole life.

The person who seems happy at noon may have received word that a loved one died, or that his bank account was emptied by thieves, by 1 pm. So while he might appear happy at noon, he was actually just in a moment of good fortune before his luck changed.

I don't personally see much utility in this aphorism. Unless I know others' futures, I'd rather just accept their apparent happiness while it's there, and be happy with and for them. I do find a lot of utility in long-term thinking, but not in this specific case.

Wordle 1820 Hint

Hint: What police try to do versus "unrest," "disturbance," or "riot."

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First Letter: Q

Wordle 1819 Hint

Hint: Brief work stoppage.

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First Letter: B

Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but when I think of Norton Motorcycles, I think of the older, legendary bikes like the Commando 850 (this one's a 1973, quite possibly the model my brother rode, while keeping it a secret from everyone in the family that he even owned a motorcycle -- photo by Piero at Dutch Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license):

I suspect most people think of that kind of bike when they hear "Norton." And there seems to be a big market for "retro" type motorcycles -- it's Royal Enfield's bread and butter.

So seeing their new models is kind of depressing. Randomly picked, but it could be any of them,  here's the Atlas (I couldn't find a "free to use" image).

It looks like every other consumer slop motorcycle of the current period, all kinds of fairings and touchscreens and science-fictiony sharp edges. And that seems to be true of all their current models.

Not that I'm the "new Norton motorcycle" target market. If I buy a motorcycle that's expensive new, I'll be buying it used ... and I doubt I'll ever find a used Norton in my price range, and I wouldn't even bother contacting someone selling one of these particular models used.

If I wanted a motorcycle that looked like the Atlas, I'd save myself a whole bunch of money and go with a cheaper Chinese brand. The idea of Norton in the public consciousness is "1970s or earlier outlaw," not "bit mobile assassing part in some cheesy 2025 action movie."

Maybe -- maybe -- a more comfortable suspension than in the old days, and alloy wheels instead of spoked, but otherwise the platform I'd want to see -- and think most potential Norton customers want to see -- is something visually comparable to the old Commandos. Just sayin'.

This is What True "Trump Derangement Syndrome" Looks Like

Any threat against the president is taken very seriously by the Department

That's an Interior Department spokesperson referring to some stains on some grass marking out the numbers "86" and "47."

If you think "8647" is "a threat against the president," that thing you're doing that you think is thinking isn't. The whole idea isn't just stupid, it's batshit delirious hallucinatory babble.

When, As Occasionally Happens, a Republican Gets Things Even Partly Right ...

... you can expect it to be held against him (or her, but in this case him), and against the GOP in general:

The reason we’re in trouble is because over seventy-four percent of federal spending is on autopilot -- mandatory spending, that is your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and things like Social Security -- they have to be adjusted and fixed. We have a plan to do that next year.

That's Mike Johnson (R-LA), Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

He seems to be high-balling mandatory spending somewhat -- the percentage I came up with is about 60%. It may be that he's including interest on the loans he and his fellow politicians have taken out (the "national debt"), which comes to about 13%.

But it's a fair point, and Johnson is right:

If the US government ever wants to stop running operating deficits every year (adding to that debt, and to those interest payments), either those programs have to take in more money (via tax revenues), or those programs have to spend less (through cuts).

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to say that if you want your party's candidates to do well in elections, because the many of the beneficiaries of those entitlements happen to also be among the most wealthy and politically powerful demographic -- "senior citizens."

Suggesting any reduction in Total Boomer Luxury Communism is political suicide, and likely will be until the the system delivering those bennies (effectively the US government itself) actually, unavoidably, inevitably, and totally collapses.

If you don't believe me, look up the name "Dan Rostenkowski." As chair of the US House Ways and Means Committee, he proposed adding "catastrophic health coverage" to Medicare. The idea being that if something really bad happened to you, Medicare would kick in more to keep hospital bills from bankrupting you. It was very popular, and it passed.

Then Medicare beneficiaries discovered the catch: They had to pay a little more -- $4 a month in 1989, rising to $10.20 per month in 1990, after which it would be indexed to inflation -- for that extra coverage. Here's well that was received:

"Cat health" was repealed the following year, reminding politicians that you do not expect senior citizens to pay for anything, ever, nor do you even hint that Uncle Sugar might knock a car or two off the end of the gravy train.

Johnson was right, and brave to be right, but that statement will almost certainly show up in Democratic campaign advertising between now and November, and Republican candidates will find themselves pointedly asked whether they agree with it at town halls and such.

All that said, one of the first things that could be done to bring government spending into line with tax revenues is to make deep cuts to the (entirely "discretionary") "defense" budget, which is probably at least ten times the size needed for actual "national defense." But that's got its own set of electrified rails.

Wordle 1818 Hint

Hint: Pop Quiz -- what's a one-word way of saying "impatient and irritable?"

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First Letter: T

Wordle 1817 Hint

Hint: Straighten up and take a side!

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First Letter: A

I'm Still Getting Most of My Daily 11,000 Steps In ...

... by mowing.

After deducting the house, outbuildings, hedges, trees, and the side yard area that I'm in the process of "re-wilding" from our 1.7-acre lot, I've got about an acre to mow.

I could use a riding mower -- the one the previous owner abandoned isn't running and it doesn't seem to just be the battery, I suspect squirrels ate some of the wiring, but I've got another available for the asking -- but so far I've been using a push mower, and I'm able to keep up with it, even now that we're getting some rain.

About an hour a day seems to get me to more than 7,000 steps, so a pleasant, fairly short evening walk and the walking I do in the natural course of the day gets me past the 11,000 mark.

I'm also considering doing more Friday hiking in the area's many state and national park areas, but not this week (Tamara will be traveling for a few days for work).

I have pretty much stopped carrying 25 pounds of weight in a pack while walking, mostly because I was using barbell weight plates in a backpack and they shift around a lot and aren't comfortable. I'll stick to using the pack to carry gear when I'm camping, which I'm also planning to do some of. I may buy one of those "weight vests," the 30-pound version, for the walking.

I'm also considering a new mower. The current one is only a couple of years old, but it's a corded electric, and dragging around 200+ feet of extension cord is a bother. I haven't decided whether to go with a gas mower or a battery-powered electric unit.

As I've detailed in more than one column, I have no love for the custom/tradition of trying to replicate the English aristocracy's "lawn" fetish, and may start replacing grass with something more low-maintenance at some point ("perennial peanut" looks good and requires mowing about once per season).

On the other hand, it strikes me that one section of the front lot would serve well as a croquet course or lawn tennis court, which I guess is aristocracy-like. Or maybe a baseball diamond. Get it set up with a nice backstop, then bring my projector out and screen Field of Dreams when friends come over to toss the ball around.

I'm also planning to plant palm trees. We've only got one, and we don't really have that one -- it's down in the jungle out front that's technically a county road easement if they ever decide to replace the cow path with pavement or whatever. I rescued a seedling from another right-of-way yesterday, potted it, and am hoping it will do well enough to go in the ground. I'll be looking for others.

Anyway, I'm at only 10,731 steps for the day, so I think I'll go check the mail or something now.

Wordle 1816 Hint

Hint: When your ship comes in, here's where you'll board it.

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First Letter: W

Tea Bleg

Aside from the occasional iced tea in summer, I've never been a big tea drinker.

Some time back, I stopped at a Starbucks to try the new rage, matcha (I got an iced matcha latte, and it was ... okay), but for the most part I've just been a coffee guy.

I've decided to try mixing my morning routine up a little, though. Tea it is, at least until I tire of it.

I have some Taylors of Harrogate English Breakfast Tea in the shopping cart for our next grocery delivery, and did a little research as to how to brew and drink tea like an Englishman (if I'm going to drink their tea, it makes sense to try it their way),

Any other tea types I should consider? Anyone know what the most "coffee-like" tea is? I'm not switching to tea because I don't like coffee anymore, just because I thought it was time to try something at least a little different.

Wordle 1815 Hint

Hint: This thing of certain Sicilians.

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First Letter: M

Wordle 1814 Hint

Hint: Some people have a green one; others should avoid gardening.

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First Letter: T

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #22

"Die before you die." (Sufism, Hadith Qudsi)

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

My thoughts:

Ascribing the aphorism specifically to Sufism rather than to Islam generally seems erroneous to me, but I can see why it's more associated with Sufism than with other Islamic schools.

Why it's somewhat erroneous: The Hadith Qudsi are a separate category of Hadith. Briefly:

• The Quran is considered by Muslims to be a direct revelation from God, delivered via Muhammad.
• The Hadith, generally, are a collection of sayings attributed to Muhammad or to his inner circle (the "companions").
• The Hadith Qudsi are in between. They're sayings that purport to be, like the Quran, attributable directly to God, albeit via Muhammad. So they're more like the Quran than the other Hadith.

Why it's more associated with Sufism specifically:

Its implications associate easily with eastern religious teachings (Buddhism and Hinduism), and Sufism is highly informed by those eastern teachings, which tend toward killing the ego ("the false self") and replacing it with something "higher."

There is, in fact, a Christian analog: Baptism. Not the post-Paul "sprinkling" stuff, the dunking like John the Baptist gave Jesus. That's described as a second birth of sorts ... when you go under the water, your old self dies, and when you come back up it's a new self joined to the deity.

I've always found the whole idea embodied here interesting, but I'm not sure I buy into it very well. I'm at least somewhat skeptical that there is or can be anything else than the ego to "self." But I can't say for sure whether that's a matter of good reasoning skills on my part, or just a matter of my disinclination to let go of said self.

I Don't Miss Living in a Big City, But I Do Enjoy Visiting

Kind of a one-day "vacation" -- Tamara had a conference to attend in Clearwater, Florida yesterday, and I tagged along to do other things. We drove down Thursday evening, then in the morning checked out of our hotel. She went to her conference, I grabbed an Uber on into Tampa.

My Uber driver was an Iranian and very much interested in talking, so I got an -- not "the," "an" -- Iranian perspective on the current situation with all that. He was actually visiting Iran during the last round of anti-regime protests before the US attacked.

Summary: He believes the higher estimates of people murdered by the regime forces. He said that the last part of his visit was mostly consumed by helping friends and acquaintances to the hospital after they were injured in the protests. He doesn't like the war, but he does hate the regime -- he regards the Revolutionary Guards as murderous thugs and the theocratic politicians as corrupt oligarchs (and wonders why his country calls itself a "republic" when it has a "supreme leader"). He doesn't particularly like "Crown Prince" Reza Pahlavi himself, but found that the guy is more popular there right now than he would have expected.

Very nice guy, and a live-action reminder that just because someone is "from" Place X it does not mean that that person's ideas and observations will conform to whatever we think we "know" about Place X and the people who live there.

Once in town, I met an online acquaintance whom I know from another job and attended the Friday sermon and afternoon prayer at his mosque with him. While I've known Muslims, have been "around" Muslim communities, etc., that's the first time I've been invited into a Muslim house of worship. Quite interesting.

One thing I found particularly interesting was that the sermon, apart from the scripture being the Quran and many references being to Muhammad and his companions, etc., it could just as easily have been preached from a Protestant pulpit. To inadequately summarize, it was about  "thinking with one's heart," treating people well, and leaving harsh judgments of one's opponents to a higher power.

Another thing I found interesting was the obvious size of the Muslim community in the Tampa area. This is not the only mosque in the area, but its campus (including an associated K-12 school) was easily as large as what I'd expect to be a Catholic equivalent in, say, Boston.

At a rough guess, there were at least 200 men (quantity of women unknown -- there were a lot, but when they were together for prayer they were not visible from the male area) attending prayers on a Friday afternoon (for religious purposes, think of Friday as the equivlant of Christian Sunday).

After the service, my host and a friend of his took me out for an incredible Mediterranean meal (hummus, tabouleh and a giant "meat grill" with vegetables and rice all baked into a light crust).

Then the three of us drank and talked at a local Yemeni coffeehouse. There are several in the area, and apparently they do well for several reasons. One is that Starbucks seems to have got itself sideways with the "pro-Palestinian" movement. Another is that Yemen is smack-dab in the middle of the area where coffee first became a thing and they do it incredibly well. I had Mufawar, a fine-grind coffee spiced with cardamom, because it's served with cream. The basic "Yemeni coffee," the barista told me, doesn't work with cream because the particular spice blend tends to curdle it.

A fine time, a very generous and engaging host, and then I met with Tamara after her conference ended and we drove back home.

The part about not missing living in a major urban metro is, as you might guess, the traffic. Over many years in St. Louis, we got used to racing all over various bumper-to-bumper road networks, but when you don't do it every day anymore, you understand how nerve-wracking that really is. Purely from a driving standpoint, we were glad to get back to "country highways" with reasonable numbers of fast-moving vehicles.

Wordle 1813 Hint

Hint: What a shapechanger does.

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First Letter: M

Wordle 1812 Hint

Hint: Gallantly or high-mindedly.

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First Letter: N

Wordle 1811 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is to metal as crossbreed is to dog.

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1810 Hint

Hint: In the Old West, gunslingers supposedly memorialized kill counts by putting these on their pistols.

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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: N

Wordle 1809 Hint

Hint: What you find when you get to the bottom of an issue or subject.

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First Letter: B

Max Borders is Always Interesting ...

... but I've found last Thursday's Underthrow Podcast especially interesting over multiple listens.

You're welcome.

The Horns of a Strange Dilemma by Max Borders

Underthrow Podcast: Many-Worlds Hypothesis vs. Simulation Theory

Read on Substack

Wordle 1808 Hint

Hint: The official state dish of Texas (smart move, since they can't compete with Memphis on barbecue).

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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

Thanks For Asking! -- 06/01/26

Monthly AMA thread time! Ask me anything in comments and I'll answer in, or linked to from, comments (applies to regular people -- pseudonymous trolls/bots are required to ask interesting questions to get answers).