Friday, December 20, 2019

Weekend Reading: The Mostly not about Impeachment Edition

First, the most important news of the week: I finally got to go out for a rollerblade! OK, this is not really the most important news of the week, except for me. It is important for me because it made me feel so much better and less draggy. I need to make sure I get exercise more regularly even when my Friday afternoon rollerblade can't happen.

The actual most important news of the week is probably the impeachment vote and the political wrangling about the trial in the Senate. But I'm only going to share one things about that: Jennifer Rubin's opinion piece about how Pelosi might play her hand next.

The rest of this post is going to be about other things.

First, I finally wrote up the story of our first Tesla road trip and the lessons it contained. It has a happy ending but waaay more time in Yuma than we would have liked! There is a lesson for us as individual electric car owners, but also a lesson for a society that really, really needs more people to choose electric cars and is not doing what it needs to do to encourage that.

Next, my "if you only read/listen to one thing this week" pick is Ezra Klein's interview with Saul Griffith, appropriately titled "How to solve climate change and make life more awesome." This was a really inspiring podcast, with useful advice about how to act individually (make the best decisions you can on the big energy usage pieces of your life: where to live relative to work, what kind of car to buy, how to heat your home) and don't sweat the small stuff. Instead, push for more visionary infrastructure decisions by society as a whole.

We need to replace our heater and that podcast finished convincing me that we need to replace it with an electric heat pump even if that is more expensive. Because we can afford it and that's the right thing to do. So, guess who's about to learn a lot about electric heat pumps? Feel free to drop relevant links in the comments!

This book sounds interesting!

I found this article about the vaping lung disease informative - it turns out there may have been cases as early as 2017.

I think this is an insightful tweet:


At the time I saw this, my YA title would have been "A Lego set of groceries and exhaustion" which is honestly felt about right.

Bunny!


That's all I have this week. It is still the busy holiday season, after all. Have a good weekend everyone!
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Friday, December 13, 2019

Weekend Reading: The Very Hectic Season Edition

I didn't intend to take two weeks off from posting here! I also have a post about our first long roadtrip with the Tesla that is probably 75% written. It will go up over on Adjusted Latitudes... when I get it finished.

But time to write has been in short supply. This is a very hectic time of year, both at home (we haven't even started sending out Christmas cards yet....) and at work. I now work for a company that sells software to other companies, and all of my customers have end of year goals, remnants of 2019 budget to spend, planning for 2020 projects to do... so I am extra busy trying to get everyone what they need. I had a cold at the start of the week (thanks, Petunia!) and worked from home on Monday thinking I'd take it easy and maybe work a reduced day. Instead, I sat down at my computer at 7:30 and worked through until 4:30.

Anyway, I didn't want to let another week go by without at least saying "hi," but I don't have a lot of time for a post and I didn't have a lot of time to read things... so this isn't a long list this week. Maybe next week I'll at least finish my post about our road trip!

If you read only one thing, read Dahlia Lithwick on speaking truth to nonsense.

I really like this essay about how we need to redesign life for longer life spans.

How to cut solo car commutes: charge for parking by the day.

I read this article about the zero-waste movement and... yikes. I'm not sure what I think, other than that more people should adopt my mantra of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

If Jane Austen got feedback from a guy in a writing workshop.



In recommended listening:

I really enjoyed Ezra Klein's interview with linguist Gretchen McCulloch about her book "Because Internet" - I've had the book on my "to read" list for awhile and this podcast just reinforced that.

And my representative, Scott Peters, was on The Weeds talking about his bill to encourage more housing near transit.

Bunny!


Herd of bunnies!

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Friday, November 22, 2019

Weekend Reading: Thank Goodness for Time Off Edition

San Diego Unified takes the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school, and this year, I have decided to take the entire week off from work. I have just wrapped up work for the week and am now looking forward to an entire week off. I really need this break!

I started shifting into break mode with a really nice, if somewhat windy, rollerblade. It was my first outing of the season in long sleeves. We may even need to turn our heater on before too long. In preparation for that, we had the heater serviced and discovered that it is pretty much at the end of its life and we should replace it soon. It isn't dangerous, just increasingly inefficient. SIGH. There goes another chunk of money.

Anyway, on to the links. I don't have many, because I have been really busy at work and at home (hence the need for the break).

I found this interesting: a note from a TPM reader about the advantages of going ahead to the Senate trial without getting House testimony from the reluctant witnesses.

Good job, Seattle!  They saw the largest drop in single occupancy car commutes in the nation. I wish San Diego had done better on this metric!

Gretchen McCulloch's series on Weird Internet Careers looks really interesting and I hope to read all of it next week. I have only read the first post so far.

If you haven't listened to this clip of Dr. Hill at the impeachment hearings, you should listen now. It is very good:


In recommended listening:

Ezra Klein's interview with Elizabeth  Currid-Halkett about class and group membership was really good and thought-provoking.

Here is an awarding winning photo of bunnies!

And here's another bunny:


Happy weekend, everyone! I won't be posting links next week because of the holiday. I don't know if I'll manage to post something else since I won't be working. We'll see!
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Friday, November 15, 2019

Weekend Reading: A Low Level Whine Edition

The Komen Three Day walk is this weekend in San Diego, so my usual rollerblading route was blocked off. I tried a new spot which was... not as a good. It wasn't even as good as my usual fallback spot, but I thought I'd try a new place because my usual fallback spot isn't great. Oh well.

I also lost two whole evenings this week due to a migraine. I went down with a migraine Wednesday after dinner (I was in bed before 8!) and I had the post-migraine fog Thursday. I made it through my work day, but wasn't up for much more.

I was supposed to be submitting some ads for the latest Annorlunda release! I'll do that this weekend. But you can buy the release now! The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King came out on Wednesday. Here's a nice review at Tangent Online, and a nice (but spoiler-filled!) review from Fill Your Bookshelf. There are also some good reviews on the Goodreads page. You can get yourself a copy at the usual spots:
In other news:

My local bookstore is at risk of closing. Pumpkin is taking this news particularly hard and thinks I should buy it. I do not think I have the sort of cash needed to buy it! I hope someone who does have that sort of cash steps in and saves Mysterious Galaxy. It is a great store.

This article about what happens in small Texas towns when the local hospital closes is sad and infuriating. Medicaid expansion would help save those hospitals (among many other benefits).



I am somewhat tempted to go searching for crested saguaros after reading this article.

Josh Marshall's post on how the collusion never stopped - the GOP just got on board - is worth your time.

Once I saw a picture of Tufty the Triangular, how could I pick any other bunny for this week?

Happy weekend, everyone!
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Friday, November 08, 2019

Weekend Reading: The I Don't Really Have Time to Write This Edition

Ooph, I've had a week. I've got a big project milestone coming up and there have been lots of issues to work through ahead of that. On top of that, I have been super tired. I don't know if it is the time change or if I'm not sleeping well for some reason (asthma? hormones? who knows?) but I've been exhausted in the evenings. Of course, we had our school's Dia de los Muertos festival on Wednesday and Petunia wanted to work on robotics stuff other nights... so as much as I wished I could spend my evenings crashed on the sofa, I didn't get to.

I'm only on temporary break from work tonight, too - I'm monitoring the project right now, will take a break to go get my kids and make dinner, and then will get back online. So this post might be a little more terse than usual.

I did get out for my rollerblade today. I thought work might prevent me from going out, but there was enough of a lull that I decided to go out. I had to handle one work call about 2/3 of the way through, but it was still a nice outing. I'm glad I made it out.

Anyway, on to the links.

I have two local stories to share. First, our local paper reported on a rise in smuggling by ocean, which is honestly not a surprise. The existence of our big coastline is one of many reasons I think the border wall is a waste of money.

Second, remember the transit survey I shared earlier? There was an article about the feedback they're receiving via the survey.

Josh Marshall's post about how we should describe the President's crimesis worth your time.

I found this article about the policy opinions of undecided voters in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania really interesting.

This ProPublica article about Anna, IL, and its inability to shake its past as a sundown town, is really good.

A health insurer is giving some people apartments because it makes their healthcare cheaper. I think this is a good program, but reading about making decisions about who gets a home based on whether it will "pay off" for the insurer is a bit rough. In the end, I think the existence of this program is an indictment on how we've organized our society.

In recommended listening: I found Ezra Klein's conversation with Michael Lind really interesting and thought-provoking.

This whole thing is perfect - the embedded video and Inslee's reaction to it:


Honestly, the inter-generational warfare on Twitter is getting very annoying. There are people working for solutions in every generation, and every generation has faced challenges. I wish we'd start learning from each others' perspectives and experiences instead of screaming at each other online.

Bunny!


Happy weekend, everyone!
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