Two Hypotheses on Sudden Delivery Problems

My household has has had a "Walmart Plus" membership for a couple of years now. Since we do probably 2/3 of our grocery shopping at Walmart, the "free delivery on orders over $35" seems well worth the annual membership fee, even setting aside the included streaming media platform subscription (you can choose between Paramount Plus and Peacock). It saves us both extra trips into town and the time we'd spend in the store.

It usually works out just fine. Occasionally an order will be missing an item (and Walmart cheerfully refunds out money). Also occasionally we'll get stuff we didn't order because the driver got mixed up. That's even better because Walmart won't take the stuff back, they just tell you to keep it, and it's usually stuff we do use.

But the last few days have been interesting. We placed an order for delivery Sunday evening, and it didn't arrive. "Delayed due to driver availability issues." Reschedule or cancel.

We rescheduled for Monday evening. Same outcome.

This time we canceled, waited a few hours, and did the same order (plus more stuff we had put on our grocery lists in the meantime) from scratch. I decided to set the delivery time frame to daytime and see if it would actually happen, otherwise we could make a physical evening trip to the store.

It arrived.

Nothing like this has ever happened before with Walmart Plus, for us or for anyone we know who's mentioned using the service. Off the cuff I suspect we've ordered for delivery close to 100 times, with only one "delay" ever and that by only a couple of hours because a driver's vehicle broke down.

What's up with that?

Well, Walmart uses a mix of employee and contractor drivers, and evening delivery seems to lean hard on the contractor end. Considering that, I have two hypotheses:

1. It's college graduation time in Gainesville, Florida. In fact, University of Florida graduation was last weekend. If a lot of the evening contract drivers are students doing it part-time, there may have been a sudden exodus of graduates (and non-graduates going home for summer) that Walmart couldn't replace in a timely manner. 
2. Gas prices are up by 50% since Trump shit the bed in the Middle East. Which means the contractors aren't making as much money unless they're either getting bonuses to help cover the higher price of filling their tanks or are able to increase the number of deliveries they make per trip. Late evening delivery is probably less popular than other time frames, meaning less ability to stack a larger number of orders into one trip.

Any other ideas?

Wordle 1782 Hint

Hint: When you point out a resemblance.

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First Letter: L

Non Sequitur, Vote By Mail Edition

Los Angeles Times letter to the editor headline (paywalled, so I can only go with that headline claim, not any other facts of the writer's situation:

I’m in my 90s and I’ve given up driving. Voting by mail is my only option

Yep, only option.

Except for Uber.

Or a taxi, if those still exist in the writer's area.

Or asking a friend or relative for a ride to the polling place.

Or calling up the local party organization or political campaign of your choice, if they haven't already called you (in urban areas, election day is usually characterized by multiple phone calls offering voters transportation to the polls).

If you're 95 years old, there's a very good chance you live in some kind of "retirement community," ranging from "people have their own houses/apartments but there's infrastructure to support their needs" to full-on "nursing home." Many, maybe most, of those places provide transportion on both an individual basis ("I need to go to the doctor for my appointment") and group basis ("the van leaves for the mall at noon and returns at 3pm") as part of the package.

So it's highly unlikely that this writer's only option is to vote by mail. It's the most convenient. It's the least expensive. It's arguably more secure. But it's not the only option.

Interesting Easement Situation

As I mentioned recently, our household decided to switch from Starlink to Cox fiber Internet. I was happy with Starlink, but the gamers in the house wanted higher speeds and lower latency.

On the initial installation attempt, the contractor said we were just too far from the main node to connect, so we thought it was over. No biggie. But then another contractor came back and said "no, it's fine." He ran the fiber from the node to our house and told us they'd be back to bury it later.

Yesterday, there was a knock on the door that I missed, so I hopped on my motorcycle to go see if they were working on it down at the main road. They were, kind of ...

The gentleman who lives at the corner was telling them they couldn't bury the fiber because the path was on his property.

They kept trying to explain that they were burying it right at the edge of the road, well within the utilities easement.

He insisted that there WAS no easement, that in fact the road ran through his property but belonged to him, and that he just allowed the 10 or so households down it to use it out of the goodness of his heart, but that they couldn't bury the fiber there.

It's a road with a county name and a county street sign, and I showed one of the guys the county works the survey posts where the path for eventual paving are placed (the road as surveyed does not QUITE follow the path cars have actually been traveling, presumably for at least 20 years, but we had our property surveyed last fall and I found the posts in some trees just outside our survey flag).

Which was great, the guy told me, but even if there WAS no actual pre-described "utility easement," there would be an "easement by implication" (due to the long use of the roadway without objection from the property owner) and/or "easement by necessity" (without that road, all those properties would otherwise be "land-locked").

So they ended up running the fiber. Which, presumably, the other guy will never have any reason to notice, since it's buried right along the edge of, and in, the cow path the county says is a "road." So now the kids have their fast Internet (since I use wifi, and it maxes out below the speeds of either Starlink or fiber, the only change I'm seeing is the name of the network I connect to).

Anyway, I can't really blame the guy for objecting if that roadway WAS actually within the survey lines of the lot he bought years ago. But it did seem like a mountain and molehill situation. It's not like they were using a backhoe to trench up the path to his driveway and keep him  from getting in and out for hours. They had a little tracked thing that looks like one of those bomb disposal robots you see on TV shows, and the only evidence it left behind was a thin line in the dirt. Probably blocked his driveway for about 30 seconds.

Wordle 1781 Hint

Hint: It holds the door shut.

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First Letter: L

Wordle 1780 Hint

Hint: What you are when you wake up in the morning.

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First Letter: R

Hypothesis: If I Don't Have Time, Just Add Weight

Around the beginning of March, I decided to re-commit to walking 10,000 steps a day.

Around the beginning of April, I jumped that up to 11,000 steps a day.

Good results so far. Slightly lower blood sugar and my weight is down by several pounds.

But for the beginning of May, I reconsidered the "add an extra thousand steps a day" formula.

Steps are time, and I already commit around an hour a day specifically to walking (above and beyond the steps I take in the normal course of getting things done). Usually in two 30-minute dedicated outings.

Unless I considerably pick up my pace, which is already fairly brisk, there's a limit to how many steps I can take in x minutes. Once I get below 200 pounds for the first time in 25 years or so, I may try to work some running into my daily step count, but between bad knees and an old lower back injury, I have to get the weight off first for it to be doable.

If I could figure out a way to get work done while walking, heck, I'd walk all day. It's been a few years since I did more than 15 miles or so at a stretch, but I'm sure I still could. I found out in the Marine Corps that I'm a genetic freak in that respect. If I'm in anything approaching good shape I can start walking and not stop until told to, with as much weight as I can carry hanging off me. But absent some kind of cool augmented reality glasses with a bespoke work setup built into them, when I'm walking, all I can really do is, um, walk.

So instead of taking more steps per day, I'm sticking to 11,000 steps ... while carrying  barbell plates in a backpack on those dedicated walks.

Just got back from the first, one-hour, 2.x-mile test walk with 22 pounds (four 2.5kg plates) in the pack. Not only am I none the worse for wear, but the weight tends to correct my posture such that my back is hurting less than usual (good) and my quads are complaining some (good).

Wordle 1779 Hint

Hint: Edemic in appearance.

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First Letter: P

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #17

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." (Taoism, Tao Te Ching 64)

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

My thoughts:

A well-known one, and an obviously true one. You can't finish anything without starting it. You can think, dream, plan, but until you actually do the things, starting with the first thing, the things won't get done. I can't think of anything more to say about that, or imagine anything that anything else needs to be said.

Wordle 1778 Hint

Hint: When you go somewhere and take something with you.

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First Letter: B 

I Expect Some Kind of Combat in the Persian Gulf Today

I could be wrong, of course, but here's why I expect it:

• While the war was wholly, completely, and unquestionably illegal from the start absent a congressional declaration of war, there's a fiction under the "War Powers Resolution" through which a president gets a 60-day free pass to do whatever he wants.
• That 60-day period ends today.
• The administration is claiming that the 60-day clock stopped with the declaration of a ceasefire.
• It's in the Iranian regime's interest to establish that no, the clock hasn't stopped because combat operations are ongoing, and the best way to do that is to do something requiring a US military response.

Wordle 1777 Hint

Hint: Consider solving today's Wordle a feather in your cap.

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First Letter: P

Thanks For Asking! -- 05/01/26

No lines, no reservations required, no waiting ... just 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).

I Finally Decided to Join a Veterans' Organization Again

When we first moved to Gainesville 13 years ago, I thought I might either join Veterans of Foreign Wars or rejoin the American Legion. I ended up doing the latter, but the post was pretty distant (15 miles or so) and I let my membership lapse because I really never spent significant time there.

BUT!

For 13 years now, I've passed AmVets post 88 in Bronson on a fairly regular basis. It's less than 10 miles from where we live now and I happen to really enjoy the motorcycle riding west of Archer.

So, on Sunday, I attended an event there -- a barbecue competition, $10 for food from five competitors. Good food. Met some of the members, checked out the facilities, etc. Very nice, very welcoming.

So I joined, and attended another event last night. More food, that was even better, and competitive trivia, and more new friends.

An Amber Bock draft is $2.25. The food, a large serving of spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread, $7.

The way I see it, I often have the urge to get out on the motorcycle and grab something to eat and/or a beer anyway, and I'll probably save more than I'm paying in dues by indulging those urges there instead of elsewhere.

Do I agree with the politics of the organization? Not especially, but not deal-breaker stuff. The two key points I came across are advocacy for more funding for veterans' needs (especially mental health and suicide prevention) and encouraging voting and "civic engagement." It's only to be expected that a veterans' organization operating in the current system would seek to engage with that system to its members' benefit. I can oppose the system without disliking those who take it as it is and just try to get the best deal they can out of it.

Do I agree with the politics of the organizations' "members?" Well, last night I heard one member spouting Democratic talking points, and noticed that the post's past commander was wearing a Trump 2024 hat. Can't say I'm a fan of either.

But I'm not there for political conversation. I get all of that I want elsewhere. I'm there for the beer, the food, the hanging out with new friends, and quite possibly the motorcycle stuff (they have a riding club). Ever since COVID shut everything down, I've noticed I don't get out as much as I used to to just have fun. Hopefully this will address that.

Just Got More Fiber in My (Internet) Diet

I really liked Starlink, and had no complaints whatsoever about the service. But others in the household wanted gigabit fiber and it finally became available. So now we have it.

It doesn't make a lot of difference to me since most of my Internet use is via wifi from the camper office, so the speed is limited to the speed of my wifi equipment. It's plenty fast for everything I do, including streaming video Presumably the gamers in the house will enjoy more speed and less latency. So far, so good.

Since it's fiber that will be buried (right now it's just laying on the ground), the system in general will hopefully be far less vulnerable to outage-causing weather events and so forth. With Starlink, my plan had been to bring the dish inside during the worse parts of hurricanes.

It does save me money, in two ways.

One is that the bundle price is even lower than Starlink with a five-year guarantee. Our previous cable Internet, through the same company (Cox) was more expensive than Starlink.

The other is that I had been meaning to buy a second Starlink kit ($300+ last time I checked) so that if something got broken I wouldn't be down for days awaiting a replacement. Now I don't need that. I'll stow the Starlink gear away and in any kind of long-term Cox emergency I can set it back up and reactivate the service. I've also got that service paid up through the 16th of May, so I've got a couple of weeks to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong with the fiber.

Wordle 1776 Hint

Hint: As cookware goes, today's Wordle is kinda slow, but literally down to earth.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1775 Hint

Hint: "Out in the country."

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First Letter: R

Wordle 1774 Hint

Hint: A charlatan/mountebank.

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First Letter: Q

OK, I Support Trump's Ballroom, But Only With Conditions

Some people seem to be taking post-assassination-attempt claims from US president Donald Trump and various administration officials -- to the effect that the reason the old East Wing of the White House needs to be turned into a ballroom is because it's unsafe for the president to venture out to e.g. the Washington Hilton -- as evidence that the assassination attempt was a sham/false flag that happened entirely to justify such claims.

In the absence of any real evidence, I'm assuming it was an actual attempt by an actual whackjob, and that the "we need a ballroom" whining is just opportunism.

BUT!

On those specific grounds, I think it's worth making a deal:

1. The White House gets the big ballroom, where the Secret Service controls security 24/7 and has a facility they're familiar with every nook and cranny of. In return,
2. Whoever's president hunkers down in the White House (and on its grounds) for four years instead of creating a public nuisance every time he or she wants to go somewhere via motorcade, Air Force One, or Marine One. He or she walks in  on January 20 after being elected in November, and walks out on January 20 four years later to get sworn in again or pass the baton. In between, no outside excursions except for medical treatment that can only be provided at a full hospital rather than in-house.

If necessary, let the White House buy up some of the surrounding land for a nine-hole golf course, etc., instead of the mere putting green it has now. I have nothing against presidential comforts (other than preferring to have no presidency at all).

Bonus points h or shee also shuts the fuck up and does the job of the president, which is to sign or veto bills, hold cabinet meetings to ensure his or her underlings are doing their jobs, and occasionally issue a "State of the Union" report to Congress, which can be (and used to be) delivered in writing rather than in person.

It would be wonderful if the President of the United States left home in a public manner even less often than Punxsutawney Phil.

A Nice Tool for the Alternative-OS-Curious

It's called Ventoy.

1. Install Ventoy on a USB.
2. Copy the .iso files for any and all operating system you're interested in to that USB.
3. Boot your machine from the USB.

At that point, Ventoy presents a menu and boots into whatever OS you choose from those you've put on the USB.

It's an easy way to play around with various operating systems before pulling the "install this to my hard drive" trigger.

At the moment I've got five or six Linux distros on a Ventoy USB. Although I'm pretty settled on MX Linux as my non-systemd distro, I'm still looking at Alpine, Adélie, Devuan, etc. I've also got some systemd distros just to look at because reasons (I've already decided I don't like Pop! OS and haven't yet booted elementary OS).

Anyway, it's a nice little tool for those considering OS changes.

Wordle 1773 Hint

Hint: That "hair on the back of your neck stands up" feeling.

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First Letter: E

Even I Can Admit That Tariffs Occasionally Produce Good (Unintended) Results

Yes, really.

I don't support tariffs, and the results of tariffs will always be overall bad for most people.

However:

In 1983, Ronald Reagan announced 45% tariffs on Japanese motorcycles with engine displacements of 700cc or more.

He did that for an openly protectionist/crony capitalist reason. Japanese motorcycles were cleaning Harley-Davidson's clock. Harley was coming in at the rear of the motorcycle sales pack and nearing bankruptcy. Reagan wanted to give the company a chance to get competitive again ... but making its competitors artificially more expensive.

Which, of course, is a bad thing. It meant that American consumers had to pay 45% more for big bikes from Japan, which gave Harley a cushion to keep its own prices high.

So, what was the up side?

Well, the Japanese companies decided to re-orient their production to smaller motorcycles ... and engineer more power and better performance into those smaller motorcycles. Instead of a 45%-tariffed 750cc, you bought a non-tariffed 699cc bike ... and you probably loved it.

Harley did make the most of the situation in terms of improving its own product and regaining market share, and survived when it probably shouldn't have (it continues on and off to have real problems with its business model and profitability).

But in the meantime, a whole generation of riders got a dramatically improved experience in the "mid-size" range. Speaking of which, Harley itself is now promoting a "Street 500" model.

I'm still riding small bikes, but I'll eventually move up into the 350-650cc range, and performance-wise I'll likely be getting a better bike than I would have if Reagan hadn't robbed American riders in the early 1980s. I don't agree he should have done that, but hey, silver linings.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #16

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." (Buddhism, Dhammapada 20:28)

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

My thoughts:

Many religions include an introspective element aside from appeals to deity, and many schools of philosophy focus on the thinker's internal mental state rather than on action or external stimuli (some philosophies even doubt the reality of the latter).

But this particular aphorism really works in all such settings to the extent that "peace" is itself a mental state, presumably equating to "happiness" or "calm" or "contentment." You may or may not be able to affect things external to your mind in ways conducive to that mental state, but most people, most of the time, can probably work directly with that mental state to quiet the roar of negativity.

Wordle 1772 Hint

Hint: Superficial shine.

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First Letter: G

Wordle 1771 Hint

Hint: They're more than half the population, but -- contrary to the conventional wisdom among the other fraction concerning driving skill -- are involved in less than half of auto accidents.

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First Letter: W

An Almost Guaranteed Way to Make it Rain ...

... is to take a motorcycle ride of more than a few miles. So I should have known that when I took the Italica Bulldog 150  out for a 50-mile round trip today, I'd end up running into precipitation.

I'm not complaining, mind you. It wasn't much, certainly not enough to be any great trouble while on the road.

In fact, I may take a long ride on the Lifan KP Mini 150 tomorrow and see if I can get a real thunderstorm going. We need it -- we've had multiple wildfires in the area this week. None have been especially close to the house, but the longer the dry weather continues, the more we have to worry about that possibility.

Wordle 1770 Hint

Hint: Please don't drive in this condition. 

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First Letter: D

Wordle 1769 Hint

Hint: Even people who finally stopped calling X by its old name usually still call an X post this. 

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First Letter: T

Did SegWit Really Fix Anything?

When Bitcoin Cash came out as a fork of Bitcoin, I thought the former would work better, and for several years used it preferentially.

The debate that led to the fork was over how to speed up transaction times. The Bitcoin Cash solution was to double the block size. The Bitcoin "main" solution was something called "Segregated Witness," which separates signatures from transaction data so that more transactions fit into a block.

It's probably been at least a year or so since I did a Bitcoin Cash transaction, but they're quick. I don't think it's ever taken more than 5-10 minutes for the necessary confirmations.

During REALLY congested times, I've seen Bitcoin "main" take more than a day. Right now, I'm awaiting a transaction confirmation that's been sitting in mempool for more than an hour and has been saying "~30 minutes" away from confirmation for most of that hour. I could increase the miner payment to supposedly speed that up to "~12 minutes." For $62 worth of BTC. On a $300 transaction. No thanks.

I've had friends who do prefer SegWit to increased block size, and therefore BTC to BCH, explain why they consider the latter less reliable and/or more vulnerable, but really I just want speedy transactions unless there's some really severe problem with the BCH way of doing things. To me, the ideal is still being able to buy a soda at a convenience store with crypto.

I may start moving back toward Bitcoin Cash.

Periodic Complaint About Proton Drive, w/ Petition Appeal

I am a Proton Mail user (yes, that's an affiliate link -- if you try it, like it, and sign up for a paid account, I get some credit toward my own).

I am a paying Proton Mail user. I like the service, including not just the email client, but also the VPN, password manager, and calendar.

I want to like Proton Drive. I want to use Proton Drive.

But 5 1/2 years after Proton Drive's introduction, there's still not a working desktop client for Linux.

They've got one for Windoze. They've got one for MacOS. They've got one for Android. They've got one for iOS.

But they don't have one for Linux.

Apparently they briefly had one a couple of years ago, but then deactivated it.

According to an informal, non-scientific Reddit poll, 28% of Proton's users are Linux users.

I suspect the Linux percentage of paying Proton users is even higher, just because there's considerable overlap between 1) Linux users and 2) privacy-enthusiastic computer users, and Proton is big on privacy.

I still haven't completely cut ties with Google's various offerings, but over the past few years I've tried to minimize my use of them.

For file syncing, I use Dropbox ... because Proton Drive doesn't have a Linux desktop app that lets me sync a folder on my hard drive to a folder in Proton Drive.

If necessary, I'd be willing to pay a little more per month than I already do in order to have that feature. I like one-stop shopping. It's the one missing link in the "everything via Proton" chain.

Therefore, I have created a petition. That'll show'em. Sign if you think it matters. If you don't think it matters, well, sign it anyway.

Wordle 1768 Hint

Hint: A way of sawing logs that requires no trees and produces no lumber. 

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1767 Hint

Hint: A clod or cluster.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1766 Hint

Hint: It's good when you do it with yarn, but bad when you do it on the road.

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First Letter: W

A Rather Dry April So Far

Alachua County Florida, long-term, averages 2.8 inches of rain each April.

Total so far this April, per the weather station at Gainesville Regional Airport: 0.1 inches.

And there's no rain in the forecast for the rest of the month.

Up sides:

1. Not as frequent a need for mowing.
2. Time to de-tarp the Jayco pop-camper and remediate leak problems without worrying about a sudden storm. I've already given the roof one coast of elastomeric sealant and may get the second coat done today. Since I'm not willing to spend three figures on brand new canvas for the pop-outs, I'm looking at various tarp alternative that hopefully won't be quite so ugly.

Down side:

There aren't really any natural water sources for the wildlife for at least a mile in any direction (I'm assuming any small, non-obvious streams are dry at the moment).

We've got a bird bath that I keep filled, and the "tiny pond" as well (I've seen small mammal tracks around it, but can't tell how much water loss is evaporation versus drinking), and I'm also keeping (and cleaning/refilling each day so it doesn't provide mosquito habitat) a five-gallon bucket out in the yard, which does seem to be down significantly each morning after being filled in the evening.

Wordle 1765 Hint

Hint: The highwayman's alleged first and adamant comand (the second is "deliver").

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First Letter: S

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #15

"Who is rich? One who is content with his portion." (Judaism, Pirkei Avot 4:1)

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

My thoughts:

There are at least three ways to read this one. In no particular order:

• As a quasi-Buddhist caution against striving/desire, linking enlightenment as "riches" to avoiding ambition and the chase for material wealth.
• As a classist "don't try to rise above your station in life" admonition.
• Or, far more simply, an invitation to let one's self experience happiness whatever one's situation may be

The first two rub me the wrong way. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I tend to find my happiness in the setting of goals and process of achieving those goals. More so, often, than in my subsequent enjoyment of whatever benefits the achievements deliver. Not even big goals, necessarily. Like Steve Jobs said, "the journey is the reward."

As for the third, well, yeah. It's better to be happy than not, and if there's something in the "current portion" to be happy about, use that.

Wordle 1764 Hint

Hint: A sycophant or flunky.

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First Letter: T

I've Pretty Much Made Up My Mind ...

... to keep the Jayco 806SD pop-up camper as my home office, rather than upgrading to a larger camper.

When I got it, I pledged to give it at least six months before deciding to 1) keep it, 2) buy a larger, non-pop-up, camper, or 3) just move my office back into the house.

It's only been four months, but the little camper has proven to be plenty large for my office needs, and my various climate control experiments have been educational enough that I expect, over the summer, to be able to get it really well insulated, de-drafted, etc. at fairly small expense. Might as well go that way as mess with a complete change of venue.

I've got elastomeric roof sealant arriving today so that I can pull the tarp off the top and get that taken care of. When I first got the camper, there seemed to be one (invisible to the naked eye on inspection) tiny roof leak that allowed a very small amount of water into the main compartment, so the tarp went on for the winter.

Now I've got dry weather (very dry weather, and no rain in the 10-day forecast) to take care of that, and to start figuring out a better way to remediate the crappy canvas in the pop-outs. One solution is to just remove the pop-outs and frame the thing in at both ends, but I don't know if I will do that or something else.

In lieu of the larger camper, I am mulling the idea of looking for a cheap but mechanically sound van with tow capability. I haven't owned a four-wheel vehicle in decades, but I was thinking the other day how cool it would be to have a vehicle that I could roll one of my motorcycles into the back of, strap a kayak to the roof of, hook my camper to the rear of, and drive off for camping, etc.

On the other hand, I may just save my pennies and, later this year or early next, start looking at larger motorcycles. I'm starting to see reasonable prices on my preferred brand (Royal Enfield) in the used market, and I expect those prices to fall further because it's now been a few years since that brand started really penetrating the US market ... so there should be some Interceptor 650s that are reaching the "this takes up garage space but I hardly ride it, might was well sell it" age group.

Wordle 1763 Hint

Hint: A beautiful woman; or, a B-17 bomber named for Memphis.

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First Letter: B

Another Thing I Didn't Know About MX Linux

Technically, I began using Linux in 2002, with an ill-fated attempt to install Fedora on a PC -- not my daily driver -- just to see how I'd like it. I didn't. I don't know if I did something wrong in the installation or if that's just how Fedora came back then, but all I got was a command line and I wasn't going to move away from MacOS and Windoze unless I got a nice GUI interface.

As a practical matter, I began using Linux in 2003, when my Windoze computer got a boot sector virus that none of the usual tools could seem to destroy, and I had a couple of CDs a friend had sent me with Mandrake Linux on them. In an 18-hour period, I went from finishing my workday, to nuking my Windoze PC's hard drive, to installing and configuring Mandrake, to teaching myself enough to get by, to starting my next workday, with not a lot of sleep in between.

Since then, I've use a lot of different Linux distributions. A few that I can remember, after Mandrake, in no particular order: Debian, OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Puppy, openSUSE, Slackware, Arch, Manjaro, Knoppix, Raspberry Pi OS, and Mint. I've used some of the previous ones in different versions, GUI setups, etc., and those are not nearly all of them. I've probably at least live-USB-previewed 50 or 60 distros.

And until I went looking for non-systemd distributions, I don't ever recall even hearing of MX.

So I found this headline on my "new tab" page a few minutes ago quite interesting:

3 reasons why MX Linux is more popular than Ubuntu, Fedora, and Zorin OS

I'm not sure the headline is really 100% truthful.

Distrowatch's "Page Hit" rankings have MX third behind CachyOS (which I've never used and barely heard of) and Mint, which indicates a lot of interest, but not necessarily more interest than many distributions that people get other than by visiting the distros' own web sites. It's worth noting, however, that that home page popularity long pre-dates the systemd controversy. Clearly, a bunch of people have been interested in MX Linux for quite some times.

And ranked on the basis of ratings by DistroWatch readers, MX comes in 26th of 34 distributions and behind two of the three in the headline (Ubuntu comes in 31st).

So I wouldn't put it in the "more popular than" league, necessarily. A lot of people get their Linux pre-installed on new machines (especially Ubuntu), or buy one of those "flash drive with 17 Linux distributions" things on Amazon, or get a USB from a friend, or whatever.

Also, the "three reasons" are kinda BS. There are all kinds of Linux distros that work great on all, or under-powered, hardware, that are easy to install/configure/update/maintain/use, and that fit offer "persistent live booting" if you want to run them from USB.

MX is, however, a bigger player than I assumed it was. And it deserves to be. It's a solid Linux distro.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Joseph Solis-Mullen at the Libertarian Institute:

For decades Washington has advertised its air and naval supremacy as the indispensable guarantor of global order. Recent events have shown this to be little but increasingly expensive theater. The 2026 Iran War has paused not with Iranian capitulation but in a cascade of humiliations that have permanently altered the strategic landscape. Washington’s vaunted power-projection capabilities proved unable to shield even its own forward bases, depleted critical munitions stockpiles, and ultimately ceded effective control of the Strait of Hormuz to Tehran. These lessons will not be lost on Beijing or Taipei.  If the United States cannot impose its will on Iran, or previously the Houthis, it cannot credibly claim it could defend Taiwan against the far more formidable People’s Liberation Army.

Disclaimer: I am a non-interventionist. In my view, the US has no business meddling in China-Taiwan affairs. This isn't about what I think the US should do; it's about what the US can do.

What Solis-Mullen seems to be missing is that in a Chinese attack on Taiwan, an analogy to the current war would have China as the equivalent of the US and Taiwan as the equivalent of Iran. It would be China attempting to project force to achieve particular objectives as "victory" conditions, and it would be Taiwan that only had to frustrate those objectives to "win."

So far as I can tell, the only material assistance Iran is thought to have received from allies has been some missile attacks from Yemen on shipping, and supposedly some satellite targeting assistance from Russia.

Suppose that (despite a dearth of amphibious troop transports) China decided to attempt to invade, conquer, occupy, and annex Taiwan tomorrow. Taiwan would certainly reasonably expect at least some material support not just from the US, but from Japan and possibly other allies. That material support would likely be more robust than Iran has received. Satellite targeting assistance would be the least of it.

As ugly as both the Iran war and the war in Ukraine are, each has a silver lining in that Xi Jinping is presumably looking at how they've gone for the US and Russia and not wanting that kind of thing for his own regime.

Site-Specific Problem ... MAYBE Related to MX Linux

Over a period of about two weeks, my experience with MX Linux as a replacement for Linux Mint (and systemd) has proven almost uniformly excellent. It's at least as fast to install, and as easy to use, maintain, and update, as any Linux distribution I've tried, and anecdotally it seems to hog less RAM and less CPU time, and run lower CPU temperatures than, Mint.

One, and only one, exception.

I use (and recommend) InoReader as my RSS reader. Since much of my work involves finding/blurbing/linking content online from a (fairly) stable source pool, it saves me a lot of time and trouble.

Lately, it's been intermittently opening links very slowly after clicking, sometimes to the point that I'd even classify the behavior as a "freeze."

Because the problem is intermittent, I have yet to determine whether it's behaving that way only in MX Linux, or only in my usual browser, or only on this particular matchine, or more generally (the latter would point to a problem with my Internet connection or with InoReader itself).

On a little bit of search engine work, I'm not seeing any similar reports from other InoReader users, so I suspect the problem isn't with them. So it could be something with MX Linux. It's not disruptive enough to my workflow to justify another OS switch, but worth taking note of.

Wordle 1762 Hint

Hint: What has six palms but only four fingers?

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First Letter: C

Mass Production Does Not Necessarily Imply Uniformity

Tamara's had her 2006 Honda CR-V for a few years now, and other than some initial work to get things tip-top (because the previous owner didn't keep up with things like replacing a CV axle that had been spraying grease all over the engine compartment for quite a while), it's been a solid car. No reason to suspect that it was a strange, rogue variant.

Until she started having a brake problem that turned out to involve the proportioning valve inside the ABS pump.

It turns out that this particular car was built in the United Kingdom, that it was not built for export to the US, and that this particular year used an ABS pump that is not, and is not compatible with, the ABS pumps CR-Vs made everywhere and everywhen else, and that for some reason is difficult to find. It's turned into a real pain in the ass and even once it gets resolved, I suspect she's going to sell the vehicle and get something else.

As for how a UK-built Honda that wasn't made for sale in the US got to the US, my working theory is this:

At least at one time, members of the US armed forces who got assigned "permanently" -- that is, for more than some minimum amount of time -- got a neat little perq in that if they bought a vehicle overseas, when they were reassigned back to the US, the military would ship that vehicle over for them at no charge.

Back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, after he spent a couple of years at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, my brother had his 500cc Honda motorcycle (the replacement for the Norton 850 he sold before leaving the US) shipped back to his new duty station at MCAS El Toro. As soon as it arrived, he took some accrued leave and rode it from California to Missouri ... in January.

So I'm guessing that a US Air Force member spent some time at one of several US installations in the UK, then got transferred to e.g. AFB MacDill and had his shiny new Honda sent over.

The Mark of the Boast

That phrase happened to pop into my little pea brain this morning, and I had ChatGPT turn it into an image. Behold:

Wordle 1761 Hint

Hint: It's not over yet. But it's already started.

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First Letter: B

Wordle 1760 Hint

Hint: Three kinds of today's Wordle -- uni, bi, and motor.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1759 Hint

Hint: Like Legolas or Galadriel.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 1758 Hint

Hint: Not quite a proper street (but if it's covered it's an arcade).

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First Letter: A

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #14

"Happiness comes to those who bring happiness to others." (Zoroastrianism, Yasna 53:3)

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

My thoughts:

Another version of the Golden Rule, but as observation rather than prescription.

The observation seems valid to me -- "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar" -- but your mileage may vary.

The more interesting thing to me is that the Yasna seems to pre-date Jewish, Christian, and Muslim versions of the Golden Rule by quite some time. It's hard to say for sure, since the Yasna wasn't published in written form until the 5th century AD (so it's possible that this aphorism arrived late to the script), but its oral transmission began, historians think, in the second millennium BC, more than 1,000 years before Hillel and Christ.

I suspect variations of the Golden Rule go all the way back to the beginning of humankind communicating ideas with each other.

Wordle 1757 Hint

Hint: A proper prissy pearl-clutcher.

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First Letter: P

Hopefully Helpful Definition

 trade deficit, n. a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Wordle 1756 Hint

Hint: When you're on the rebound.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1755 Hint

Hint: Handle today's Wordle with care -- it's loaded.

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First Letter: L

IMO, It Doesn't Matter Much Who the "Real" Satoshi Nakamoto Is ...

... but if it is Adam Back, as John Carreyrou claims in the New York Times, I have to say:

Job well done, Mr. Back.

Not very many people really, noticeably change the world, even fewer change it for the better, and even fewer knowingly in advance change it for the better.

The writings (on e.g. the Cypherpunks list) of both Back and "Satoshi Nakamoto" display both a clear understanding of what "the better" is, and a clear desire to accomplish it, and Back has a discernible record of working to do so over a long period (supporting PGP and opposing the US regime's attempts to prevent its spread, for example -- I'm old enough to remember that fight, and to have sent a copy to a friend abroad just because the regime said I mustn't).

We've got Satoshi's work product, and we're far better off having it than not having it.

Knowing his or her "real" name or not won't change that, and I'd personally prefer that his or her privacy be respected. I hope Mr. Back isn't given a hard time by the paparazzi and so forth. But I'm sure he will be.

Wordle 1754 Hint

Hint: An arm, but made of water.

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First Letter: I

Another Benefit from the Change of Linux Distributions

I wanted to give it a few days just to make sure it was a permanent feature, not a temporary anomaly. It's the former:

MX Linux (XFCE desktop version) is easier on my computer than Linux Mint was. According to psensor, I'm running noticeably lower CPU and drive temperatures.

I suppose that could be because I've installed less stuff -- stuff that might leave rogue processes running even when the apps themselves are supposedly closed -- but my recollection is that Mint ran higher temperatures than I'm seeing now even upon install.

Not that Mint was red-lining my CPU temp or anything. But presumably lower temperatures on a regular basis should mean longer CPU -- and fan -- life.

Wordle 1753 Hint

Hint: Thick (as in "as a brick").

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First Letter: D

Wordle 1752 Hint

Hint: Bound by oath.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1751 Hint

Hint: Not quite an ambassador, but more than a mere chargé d'affaires.

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First Letter: E

MX Linux, Day 2 Observations

OK, I've had a full day plus since install to put MX Linux through its paces, meaning I've been able to do pretty much all the things I do on a computer with this operating system. Still liking it. I've only really got two observations, one very positive and one very mildly negative.

Positive Observation: This morning, the little task bar icon that means "it's time for updates/upgrades" turned green. I pressed it. A window opened and showed me a list of OS and app updates/upgrades available. I pressed the OK button, entered my password ... and 20 seconds later (by my count) it informed me that it was done downloading and installing them. Since I did a full update/upgrade on install, there wasn't a lot for it to do. I'll expect downloads to take longer when there's a full new browser version or whatever. But it was easy, and the post-download installation/check was very fast.

Negative Observation: Several times, my task bar has just ... disappeared. It seems to have something to do with power management. It happens when the screen goes dark from inactivity. It's easy to get the thing back (about 10 seconds in settings -- I put the particular function on the desktop after the second or third time it happened), and I expect there's a permanent fix for it that I'll research, find, and implement, but if you try MX out, let me know if it happens to you too.

Other than that, it seems at least as stable, reliable, and easy to install, use, and maintain, as Linux Mint and other good distributions. Which means it's a lot more stable, reliable, and easy to install, use, and maintain than Windoze.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #13

"The wise man is one who knows what he does not know." (Taoism, Tao Te Ching 71)

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

My thoughts:

To me, understanding the limits of one's own knowledge seems like a basic requirement for survival, or at least for flourisihing, rather than an indicator of wisdom as such. But I could be wrong.

Wordle 1750 Hint

Hint: Like a desert ... or a beach.

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First Letter: S

And The Winning Candidate Distro Is ...

MX Linux.

After messing around with Devuan as a live USB, I did the same with MX Linux, and I just like it better. 

The install to hard drive is as easy as it should be (as easy as Ubuntu or Mint, much easier than Windows), it has a nice intuitive app installer, and so far everything I've mess with has worked easily (for example, setting up Dropbox).

All of this was by way of moving to a non-systemd Linux distribution (MX gives you the choice between systemd and sysvinit), but I was also looking for something "Linux Newbie Friendly," and MX qualifies:

1. Download the iso you want (I chose the one with the XFCE desktop/GUI, but you can also go with KDE or Fluxbox);
2. Burn the iso to a thumb drive;
3. Boot your computer from the thumb drive;
4. Mess around with MX a little and see if you like it;
5. Click the "Install" icon on the desktop and follow the easy instructions;
6. Enjoy!

I considered installing MX next to Mint and Windows, but then I had a better idea: I had it nuke the whole hard drive and just completely take over.

Why? Since I've had this computer, I've used Windows two or three times ... to play Starcraft. If I really want to play Starcraft, I'll do the Wine or virtual machine thing. I'm tired of wasting hard drive space on Windows and after logging into it this morning to grab the product key just in case, I hope it's the last time I ever do that.

Wordle 1749 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle burns, but just a little.

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First Letter: S

Immediate Ergonomic Improvement!

Preemptive for the economically delusional: According to Amazon's AI, "[t]he product information for the HUANUO Dual Monitor Mount [not an affiliate link] doesn't specify the country of manufacture," but I can reasonably surmise that the item is "cheap Chinese junk."

In this case, I went for the cheapest option not beause I'm unwilling to pay more for exactly what I want, but because I wasn't sure if monitor arms of any kind were exactly what I wanted.

I thought putting my monitors on adjustable arms instead of stationary risers might improve the ergonomics of my desktop setup, but I wasn't sure, so why spend three times as much on the fancy-schmancy gas spring, etc. stuff as a first step?

If the cheap ones worked exactly as I hoped, I'd have spent less money and got what I wanted.

If they worked, but not as well as I liked, I could hand them down to someone else in the household after buying better ones.

If I decided I just preferred risers to arms, I could still hand them down and not buy the better ones.

Evaluation after one day of use:

They work pretty much exactly as I'd hoped. The more expensive ones might be a little easier to adjust, but these do a fine job. Instead of either:

1. Accomodating my body position to the height and distance of the monitors; or
2. Spending a lot of time moving risers back and forth, stacking or unstacking stuff underneath the monitors for height, etc., I
3. Sit comfortably for myself at the moment and just reach out and put each monitor where I want it in a couple of seconds.

I also have a lot of options that I wouldn't have at all with monitors that sit on bases and risers. If, for some reason, I want to tilt a monitor 90 degrees on its side, I can do that. If I want to add a third or even fourth monitor (perhaps to run two computers simultaneously?), I can buy separate single arms and mount the additional monitors to the sides of the desk. And so on, and so fourth.

It was a good use of $25. I probably won't bother "upgrading," at least for now. 

Wordle 1748 Hint

Hint: Sersly ossifer, I ain't drank a drop (hic)!

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First Letter: S

I Happened to Be Thinking About Coffee ...

... because of this story at the National Post:

U.S. researchers found that people who regularly drank two to three cups of coffee or one to two cups of tea per day had a lower chance of developing dementia than those who drank little or abstained altogether. Though caffeinated coffee intake was “significantly associated” with lower risk of dementia, the same wasn’t true of decaf, according to the study.

Challenge accepted. OK, not really. I already drink two to three cups of coffee per day. I'm on my third at this very moment.

So why not blog about coffee because reasons?

Tamara and I do not drink the same coffee. In fact, I don't recognize the stuff she drinks as coffee.

The most important difference between what she drinks and coffee is that she drinks "decaf," so what's the point?

She also drinks, at strongest, a "medium" roast, regular grind, and sometimes even goes off into "breakfast blend" and "blonde roast" territory.

And, finally, she prepares her coffee using a Keurig machine, which is really just a pretty fast drip method. I'll do the k-cup thing when it's all that's available, but I barely consider it coffee under the best of circumstances.

Since I like to both taste my coffee and get an energy boost out of it, I go with a dark/bold roast in an espresso grind (usually Cuban, such as Cafe Bustelo), and if I use the Keurig at all, it's just to heat some water.

Because cheap espresso machines just aren't very well-made and don't last very long in my experience, I use one of three methods:

1. French press. I use that if I want cold brew. Throw in the coffee, add hot water, let it steep a little, throw it in the fridge. The next morning, press and pour it. It's not a pressure-brewed espresso, but the time factor does give it a nice, strong flavor.
   
   
2. Moka pot. It's technically a percolator, but a pretty pressurized one and makes a nice cup of coffee. Not really espresso, but pretty nice.
   
   
3. Aeropress. I got a good deal on an Aeropress Go, their travel model, a few years back (current price is twice what I paid), and bought an after-market "flow control cap" so that it takes pressure to get the water through the grounds instead of just being a compact drip unit. I'm still not sure I'd call the result real espresso, but it's pretty close.

I've mostly been using the Aeropress lately. It's quicker than the moka pot, I don't have to remember to prepare things the day before for cold brew as with the French press, and overall it produces the best quality brew IMO. But as the weather warms up, I'll probably switch to cold brew.

One thing I finally got to decide against is the "Nespresso" line. I'd been wanting to try one, and finally got the opportunity during a recent hotel stay where that was what they had for in-room coffee. The damn thing sounded like a Mack Truck coming down the road and produce, IMO, an inferior cup of ... well, something. I'm not even sure what brew they were going for with the particular pods included, but it just wasn't very good. I ended up going downstairs each morning for a cup of Colombian dark roast from those thermosy things.

One of these days I may buy a "real" espresso machine, but they tend to run several hundred dollars minimum and that seems like a mal-investment to me, at least for now.

Wordle 1747 Hint

Hint: Like a carbonated beverage.

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First Letter: F

Thanks For Asking! -- 04/01/26

Can I get an AMEN ... er, AMA?

Ask (in comments) and it shall be answered (applies to regular people pseudonymous trolls/bots are required to ask interesting questions to get answers).

Wordle 1746 Hint

Hint: Politicians live there and love it (but constantly claim they're going to drain it).

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First Letter: S

Another Recommendation for Prospective Linux Converters

It's one I knew about but hadn't noticed or thought about in a long time, because when I want to install Linux on a computer, I:

1. Look into various distributions online for the features I want;
2. Download a disk image of the distribution I choose;
3. Burn that image to a USB flash drive;
4. Boot my machine from that USB flash drive;
5. Check out the distribution and, if I like it, use the "install" option to permanently install Linux on my hard drive.

I had basically forgotten that there's a cheap (and less time-consuming) way to shorten the process:

1. Look online for a USB flash drive that already has Linux on it (they generally run $15-$25);
2. Order it and wait for it to arrive;
3. Go to step 4 in the previous sequence.

Since I haven't used the one I'm about to discuss myself I can't necessarily recommend it, but in terms of bang for buck:

I see that Amazon offers a 64 Gb USB flash drive with 17 different operating systems -- Windows 11 and 16 Linux distributions -- on it, and supposedly that flash drive boots into a menu that lets you choose whatever one you want to run direct from the USB to audition and maybe install.

It's $21 (not an affiliate link).

You can try out all of those Linux distributions right from the USB (they will probably run a little slower from USB than they would if installed to your regular hard drive) without affecting your computer's permanent setup. That way you get to know for sure you like one before you commit.

And when you do commit, you can either keep that flash drive in the ol' drawer in case you ever want to change or need to reinstall, or just format it and have an extra 64Gb flash drive for other uses. It looks like empty flash drives of that size cost nearly as much, so the whole thing seems like a no-way-to-lose proposiation.

Preemptive note to pseudonymous trolls who pretend they don't use Chinese stuff: According to Amazon's AI, "the specific country of manufacture isn't listed on the product page." My guess would be that the drive itself is Chinese; where the people who put the distros on it and resell it are located is anyone's guess.