I’m in favor of ordinances that restrict builders from clear-cutting raw land during site development. A percentage of trees (50%?) should be incorporated into the lot design. So much waste for little gain.

It looks like The Wall Street Journal has turned off almost all commenting on articles. Good for them!

Brave Browser on iOS finally supports bookmark syncing. I visited 3 websites and it blocked 239 ads and trackers. Brave is my new default web browser.

The sound of thunder is incredible.

This Meg Meeker book is all that it’s cracked up to be.

My normal routine is to get up early in the morning and walk while my family sleeps. I spend my walking time listening to various podcasts. I didn’t do very much walking in the past six weeks, and my backlog of podcasts is longer than it’s ever been. At times, I was tempted to declare podcast bankruptcy, but instead I chose to preen the podcasts to which I subscribed.

Honestly, the main criteria I used when deciding to keep or dump a podcast was its advertising. I’d prefer if podcasts were like library books, free for the public. I understand why some are ad-supported, and its clear there are many different ways to do ads. I prefer for ads to have good levels and sound mixing, but low amounts of production. I want it to feel like its a conversation, not a pitch.

I think that Manton and Daniel on Core Intuition do the best job with podcast ads. There’s a little jingle before and after the ad, which helps me mentally follow along with the whole timeline of the episode. They read the blurb that’s prepared for them, and then they talk about the products. Since they actually use the products that they’re advertising, it’s a very comfortable and fluid experience. It flows naturally.

I don’t think that Rene Ritchie on Vector does as good of a job. Vector is a video podcast, but he also shares the audio feeds. He slides the ads in without a break or audio cue, which I find to be disjointed. I’m also not sure if he personally uses the products he’s advertising, which lowers the trust for me.

The podcasts from the Wall Street Journal are about as good as a mass-market podcast can do. There’s an opening ad, and an ad somewhere in the middle. Not always relevant, but voiced by the normal WSJ voiceover people, and always clearly marked.

The podcasts that I unsubscribed from had not just too many ads, or overly produced ads, but ads that didn’t even make sense. I was subscribed to a podcast on espionage, and they advertised for Sherry’s Berries. That kind of stuff drives me nuts.

Podcasts present a great medium for the sharing of knowledge and ideas, but the ad format can make or break a show. If you must do them, please only advertise for products that you use yourself and make it as conversational as possible. Talk about how you use the product and why you enjoy it. Make it authentic and natural.

Google’s Advisory Board Crash and Burn - WSJ

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, who is usually circumspect in public, last month said Google’s work “indirectly benefits” the Chinese military. AI in China, he said, will “help an authoritarian government assert control over its own population” and perhaps help China steal U.S. technology.

This is an opinion piece, but the quote is from the news division.

My recent road trip to Chicago was my first in a vehicle that had the complete current suite of driver assistance technologies, namely adaptive cruise control with autonomous braking, lane departure warning with lane keep assist, and blind spot monitoring. To be honest, it make the trip significantly less stressful and much more pleasant.

I had the adaptive cruise control on for the entire trip, with it typically set to give me four seconds of spacing between me and the vehicle in front of me. At full highway speeds, it seems that the four seconds is the right amount of spacing to give maximum flexibility for emergency maneuvering.

We’ve been talking a lot about driverless cars, but my experience illustrated the limits of automation in cars. Frequently drivers would see the space between me and the car in front of me and move over. The systems adapted in a less fluid way. While in manual mode, I would simply lay off the acceleration. Instead, the system stuck to its spacing requirement and braked, which may be unexpected for the driver behind me. Driver assistance systems always err on the side of safety, but human drivers to not.

When a car in front of me moved out of the way, the cruise control was also fairly slow on the acceleration. I could tell this also caused consternation with some drivers behind me, some of whom zoomed around to pass on the right. Slower acceleration is clearly preferable from a mechanical and fuel economy perspective, but humans are seldom rational when behind the wheel.

I’ve concluded that autonomous systems aren’t fully compatible with manual drivers. They may be excellent at forward collision mitigation, but I can easily foresee an increase in rear collisions by drivers who aren’t anticipating its abundant caution.

I’ve been so busy this year that I haven’t had the time to make my March Madness bracket. I think I’ll have to sit down on Sunday afternoon and knock it out. 🏀

Pope Francis sure took his time, but Archbishop Gregory is a great pick to lead Washington.

My family has been close to Dr. Heather Wilson since she and my dad attended college together. They served together in the Air Force and have remained close friends since. I have met her and her husband several times throughout my life.

You may have heard her name recently or read it in the paper. Dr. Wilson has been the Secretary of the Air Force for the past two years. Prior to that, she was the president of the South Dakota School of Mines. She was a member of Congress for a decade and later did some contracting work. She was a cabinet secretary in the New Mexico state government. She was a Rhodes Scholar and served as an officer in the Air Force for nine years.

Without a doubt, Heather is intellectually brilliant, and a skilled politician. She is a person who knows the system, and has served the public for the majority of her professional life. She’s an accomplished woman with an excellent reputation.

Last night, she was appointed the new president of The University of Texas at El Paso. There has been some opposition to her appointment. Knowing Heather and her biography, reading the articles opposing her appointment are really eye opening.

Some say they want someone from academia. She’s a Rhodes Scholar who’s been the president of a public institution of higher learning before. Some say that she doesn’t have the experience to lead a diverse campus of 25,000 students. She has led the United States Air Force, which has over 665,000 members and another 150,000 civilians. Some don’t like her voting record on social issues. Fair, but no one can point to a pattern of behavior, let alone a singular action, that has her treating someone unfairly due to their personal beliefs.

What really strikes me is a lesson for all of us. We read these articles day in and day out about figures in politics, sports, media, and entertainment. Terrible things are said and written about them. Accusations come a mile a minute. Regardless of what’s said or written, these are people, real people. They have families, hopes, and dreams, just like you and me. And much of the stuff that is said about them may or may not be true.

Maybe it’d be better for all of us if we spent less time worrying about other people’s lives and just focusing on being the best that we can be. Maybe instead of celebrating their misery, we should hope the best for them. And if we read an article, or want to engage on an issue, let’s first gather facts on our own before sitting down to our keyboards.

The HOA had some trimmers out today cutting down dead trees. These guys were old school, climbing up the tree with a chainsaw and cutting it down in pieces. Very intense.

A delicious afternoon treat.

Just going through my olds posts and realized I’ve been off Facebook for over a year. Can’t say I’ve missed it one bit. But, geez, that was like 82 Facebook scandals ago.