Bitchin' Dave’s Blog: Bitchin' Dave's Newsletter

August 8, 2023

Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

I am a bit of a soccer fan. Some may find it “boring” and can’t accept that games can end in a tie. But me, I enjoy the subtle strategy and the nuances of the game. These are true athletes, having to play twice a week, running somewhere close to 10 miles in a game while showing agility and a skill with the ball.

Recently Lionel Messi - who may very well be the greatest all time to play football - joined InterMiami. He’s older, and I admit I wasn’t sure how he’d fare …but he had been nothing short of outstanding. And is absolutely worth watching if you get the chance. He is on another level.

And he’s raised the specter of the MLS from an okay league to something enjoyable to watch.

An overdue tip of the cap in memory of Evelyn Granville, one of the original computers at NASA, who passed away recently. Although she wasn’t specifically mentioned in Hidden Figures, she was another brilliant mathematician who helped America get into space.

You can read her obituary here: Evelyn Granville obituary

Recently, 60 Minutes had a segment about a cold fusion breakthrough. The actual event happened back in December, when lasers created an ignition that lasted a fraction of a second. Reading about it is a bit droll, this segment encapsulates it well.

YouTube 60 minutes segment

There are some quirky and odd things that happen at Disney parks. Like the Soarin’ game and being able to continue it after you leave Epcot. I blogged about that here:

Soarin challenge

But there’s also the first pickle of the day at Disneyland which is also fun and amusing. You can read about an adventure to try and get it here:

First Pickle Award

There is this odd story about top researchers being asked to join virtual conferences during Covid-19 to share what they knew .... and now they are receiving large bills for having gotten involved. And they have court orders requiring the payment.

In short, a group of people made up an organization, then proceeded to take advantage of these scientists for their own gain, and the videos they made wound up behind paywalls, meaning they were all pointless in a way.

Scientists hit with massive bills

One Little Spark …

… for your imagination

The state of Florida has a huge insurance issue. The Washington Post did a piece recently hilighting the general issue and focusing in one particular company, UPC, and their insolvency, the states’ utter incompetence in handling the situation, and how the company used parent companies to absolve themselves of liability yet still remain enormously profitable.

All the while, real people got screwed and have damaged homes and lives. And the rest of us who live in the state have to make up for the company’s insolvency by paying an additional fee to help the people who got screwed.

As a reminder to those of you who aren’t paying attention, this all happened under the watchful eye of current governor (and can’t-be-bothered with citizens problems because he simply doesn’t care) desantis. The cautionary tale is that when you elect someone who is only in it for themself, you get someone who is only it for themself.

And the secondary takeaway is that there need to be some guard rails to regulate these companies - because companies can’t be trusted to act in the best interest of anything or anyone other than the people with the largest financial stakes in the company.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/04/how-florida-let-top-insurer-abandon-homeowners-their-time-greatest-need/