Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - October 10

  

October 10, 2023 Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

The world is very peculiar at times. I'm not trying to be a downer, but this war in Israel really is quite something. Its in no way simple, and as a result the media is at a loss to really explain it. As a nation, we typically side with Israel, especially because "the enemy" (Hamas) has been labeled a terrorist organization.

Clearly, this is a complex problem with many nuances. But the relative ignorance and looking for an easy way to talk about it is not limited to just the media. The calls to annihilate that enemy from some (notably Senator Rubio) is problematic in its own right, and doesn't really address the larger issues. And then there are calls from others (like Congresswoman Talib, who is Palestinian) suggesting there needs to be more attention paid to the way Israel treats Palestine; this sits on the other side of the way the US has positioned itself.

As educated, fair-minded people, I would encourage us all to study the details and seek to understand the underlying problem, and don't let sound bites determine how we feel about it.This applies here, and to other complicated situations. The more we know, the better off we all will be.

  

Last week, I mentioned that there's a desire to rapidly launch a rocket. It appears as though one of the rockets that was launched by Firefly may have punched a hole in the ionosphere. The interesting thing is that this may have happened with other launches as well. The questions are why this happened, and what the long term impact might be - especially if it happens frequently. Read More on Newsweek

I always enjoy when science can unlock a mystery. In this case, there was a Babylonian tablet that was believed to be over 3,500 years old. But they were unable to decode it. Work continued until they had a breakthrough and determined that this tablet contained a table of entries that, essentially, explained trigonometry. And based on its age, that would mean the Babylonians had mastered trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks figured it out. Translated tablet

Disney is in a tough spot. All their media platforms are struggling. Sports is expensive and not generating the returns they'd hope to see. Movies continue to disappoint. And theme park attendance remains down. Bob Iger this week said the company was in worse shape than he thought it was upon his return, and its a very uphill battle to get things right. And then there are the outside voices who have issues with the direction of the company. In particular, billionaire Nelson Peltz, who owns a substantial stake in the company and has strong opinions about it, is asking to be on the board of directors so he can influence what Disney does next. And the management may have little choice but to allow it to happen in order to correct course. There is much work to do going forward, and I think Disney will be making some pretty major changes in the coming months.

Right to repair laws are gaining traction in various states. As a reminder, car companies are trying hard to force consumers to only be able to repair vehicles by the dealer; they are are hoarding information on the computer info to make this happen. But now comes a new angle from the car manufacturers: the ability to repair. By making more fully integrated components, unibody construction, and other things that make parts "irreparable" they are trying to force consumers to simply buy another vehicle, and letting insurance companies eat the cost of a totalled vehicle. This certainly can't last, I'm sure the insurance groups will do what they can to change the course of this. Ability to Repair

One Little Spark …  … for your imagination

There is much discussion about shopping and retail theft, and general "bad behavior" in various settings.  Surely, theres some spillover effect from the pandemic.  Many people stepped out of social situations for around a year, and then people drew lines about how they felt about all of it, and "Karens" became a thing.

As a case in point, there was an odd story about Home Depot investigating retail theft, and finding there was a Florida-based (of course) religious-type who was orchestrating a $3 million ring to steal from the stores, and re-sell merchandise online.

But here's my take on a possible solution.  Companies should stop focusing on the bottom line and resume a strategy of providing great customer service! Engage people. Delight them.  Make them want to come to you and do business.  Self checkout may be helpful in some cases, but forcing people to use it as a primary option achieves the opposite.  And then modifying the policies that are less consumer friendly exacerbates that. 

Do that one thing really well, and I think you'd see a change in behavior as a starting point.

Dave’s latest video

Here's the most popular video from my Lost & Found series: John Lennon & the Lost Weekend. https://youtu.be/hm8tDZj120U

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Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - October 3

  

October 3rd, 2023 Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

One thing that currently drives me crazy is reward points. Companies a few years ago wanted to reward customer loyalty, and thus offered programs to delight and excite their customers. And the rewards were pretty generous, with freebies and assorted offers to their loyal customers.

This came at a cost. As the customers accumulated points, they were a liability of sorts; customers could redeem these points at any time, and they counted against the bottom line in some way. A few people I worked with and I created a solution and patented it, but unfortunately it never went anywhere; the ability to exchange these points seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I digress. Companies in the meantime took a different approach and decided to stop rewarding overall loyalty and instead decided to reward consistent spend (which is a very different thing). Gone were the freebies and many promotions. The number of points required for things went up, and they now have somewhat arbitrary (and often unknown) expiration dates.

I suppose that all goes along with the notion of lack of customer service. Why try and get anyone to do business with you at all?

  

The company Firefly has been working with the US Military to create a "rapid response" launch program. They started 2 years ago with a go for launch, and were able to turn around and liftoff within 21 days. Around 2 months ago, they were able to get from the go to actual launch within 24 hours. Unfortunately, the launch was not successful, so there are still kinks to iron out. But you have to love the sense of purpose. Finally, a week or so ago, they did launch, but there are new concerns about the launch process, the cost, etc. But those things may work themselves out. The pace is staggering, but considering current technology and having rockets literally at the ready, it makes some amount of sense. You can read more here: ARSTechinca

I remember being in school in the 1970s and hearing about advancements in Science. We saw plenty of films on topics that ran the gamut. One particular subject was about cloud seeding to provide rain and "control the weather." Films we saw were like this one: Cloud Seeding (1968) And here we are in 2023, and there are climate conditions that are impacting everything. And so what's old is new again, and they are talking about cloud seeding in Utah at ski resorts. Cloud seeding in Utah I am a bit skeptical of their claims (3% - 10% more snow compared to ... what?) and their methods (atomize something and heat it ... how exactly?), but I am willing to see what happens. It appears to be mostly environmentally harmless activity. And of course there has been 60 years of research into it. So maybe it will help in some way. But then again, maybe this magic rock will cause more snow to fall this year!

ESPN, being one of the first neworks to produce content that people wanted to see, made a deal with every cable provider to be included in a "base cable package" for $4 per subscriber. It was nearly twice the amount that any other network charged and a huge windfall for ESPN. Disney purchased ESPN years ago, knowing this was a generous revenue stream. But then came the idea people going without traditional cable TV and going to streaming services. Disney is trying to figure out how to reposition themselves for profitability. For ESPN, one idea is to allow people to subscribe to a streaming ESPN service. Their proposed price point? $23. I can't decide if that's good business or just greed.

Vox has an interesting take on Facebook account hacks. They suggest that these unending hacks are sometimes an attempt extort money from users, or take any payment methods stored. But more often, these account takeovers are to used to establish some "legitimacy" for crypto scams. The hacked users have longer tenure, more history, and some personal info that the hackers use to set up accounts to move money. And of course to solicit others to try and get rich too. Who knew there was a whole black market for stolen Meta/Facebook accounts?

One Little Spark …  … for your imagination

Voting rights are something worth talking about.  A few years after the civil war, formerly enslaved citizens were granted the right to vote by the 15th amendment.  But voting proved to be no simple task, and they needed a little help.

Congress created something called the "Jim Crow laws" as a means to ensure that these newly created citizens be offered the same opportunities as the white citizens always had.

It helped to a degree to have these laws, and they led us directly to the civil rights movement over 100 years later.  And then after 150 years, the Supreme Court decided we didn't need these laws anymore, and eviscerated them.  

But as you may notice today, voting rights for blacks are still lacking and always under assault.  As exhibit "A" just looking at the voting maps that the state of Alabama has been trying to draw which severely under-represent the black population. (more on that topic here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-supreme-court-will-let-alabamas-congressional-map-be-redrawn-to-better-represent-black-voters)

But who was Jim Crow?  A quick summary is that Jim Crow was a character created by a white man with black face who performed as a stereotypical (as defined by the whites of the time) black man.  Its absurd and very, very racist.  

You can read more about the history in these links:

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/what.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Dave’s latest video

Here's a mostly unknown story about the history of Boca Raton: The Boca Raton army air field. 100,000 people training to fly - and learning to use radar https://youtu.be/CCW6BUGv8dw

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Sports on TV

I think sports are about to be in a tough spot. Fewer networks want to pay out large sums. 

I just read an article that baseball and the ballys network are about to part ways (Ballys used to be Fox sports regional networks before Disney bought out the Fox name; and recently ballys sports declared bankruptcy)

They have no real solutions for what to do about baseball and probably will go back to the model of the teams negotiating for local broadcast rights and losing out on thousands of games making money in a non regional sense. Though they would still be streamed through MLB TV or whatever. 

And the bigger problem is that means less revenue. And less revenue sharing. 

Surely it will affect other sports as well. 

Then there's the Disney/espn problem. Cord cutting hurts. 

Disney made about $4 per subscriber on cable. With no ability to opt out it was a cash cow. Now it's a problem. 

Disney is considering a bunch of options. One is to provide a standalone streaming service for all espn content. And they suggested the price might be around $24 per month. 

Worth it? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - September 26

  

September 26, 2023 Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

In the early days of the pandemic, when we were asked to stay home, I decided that I could get a little fresh air and exercise daily by taking my bike out and going for a ride. And in the almost 3 and half years since, I still go out almost every day for a ride.

Its a great way to start my morning. I spent an hour or two riding around, clearing my head, and going anywhere from 5-10 miles on the bike. Sometimes I stop at a park, sometimes for coffee.

But the best part is, its time away from the computer. Its truly "me time," and I relish it. I'd like to encourage you to find time for yourself, offline, too.

  

NASA had an ambitious mission to land a craft on an asteroid, take a sample of the asteroid, and then return the sample to Earth for further study. This past weekend, the sample landed in the desert in Utah and will be studied in the coming months. Its exciting and interesting. Asteroid return But there is more to this story... Queen (the band) guitarist Brian May was involved in the program - he's an astrophysicist after all - and was an integral part of the plan to bring home the rock. Brian May story Photo from ABC News

There's a group of academics who suggests that we have been mis-interpreting Newton's first law. Of course, Newton wrote in Latin, and we have translated it into many different languages. In short, their belief is that QUATENUS should be translated as "insofar" instead of "unless" which would mean that Newton understood that everything would affect the motion. Lex I: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare Which has been translated commonly as: Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon. As a quick aside: bear this in mind when reading something that has been translated. Some words may not be "correct" or might have a slightly different meaning than what was intended. Scientific American Article

Brightline (a privately held company) debuted high speed rail between Miami and Orlando this week. You may recall that this was originally intended to get passengers easily between South Florida and Disney World, but was modified to go to Orlando International Airport...and from there you are on your own. The cost is around $160 round trip per person, and will take close to three and a half hours (nearly the same as driving). I'm not quite seeing the value proposition - but I'm willing to let it play out for a while, and I may even want to try it out sometime myself.

There's an odd story about a fictitious company that somehow managed to get into the airplane parts market. They sold parts that had forged paperwork (that looked "correct"), but which weren't OEM and didn't pass the standard checks. And after taking in large sums of money, the company has disappeared. But these parts were sold to most airlines around the world, and were installed in many aircraft. They're being removed, but it did pose a public risk. You can read the whole story here: Phony airline parts

One Little Spark …  … for your imagination

Private schools in Florida are doing their part to ensure the teaching of black history is not lost, as it is in public schools.

Eric Smaw of Rollins college is glad to see it, “If we inadvertently or intentionally make the mistake of telling them that some of the most egregious and immoral acts that we participated in had good outcomes, then they might see those acts as less egregious, less immoral." 

The principal of Monarch Learning Academy in Orlando, Marguerite McNeill, said “I don’t know what the fear of knowledge, I don’t understand fear of knowledge. I have more of a fear of lack of knowledge, right?” 

Monarch - and others - teach the AP African American History that is now not allowed in Florida public schools.  And they take field trips to places like Alabama, so students can see first hand what has happened in our past.

Rather than thinking it makes some people uncomfortable, and literally whitewashing history.

We need a lot more of this kind of leadership in the world.

Dave’s latest video

I've got a short video where I'm talking about EV charging, and how adoption is going. https://youtu.be/Qpu_sLO6pqI?si=0KvBgL7XVEqNA_qz

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Soarin challenge

I felt the need to return my player to first place. Why? Just because. 

And along the way, I noticed several times that my player, and the others in the top 10, had points taken away. 

For reasons I can't explain.