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611 on individualism

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Here in America, we value a thing called individualism. An individual is a free citizen—a beacon of liberty. For us, personal freedoms must come before all else. We shall not be enslaved. We are the land of the free, the home of the brave. However, individualism comes at a cost:  Inefficiency. Serving one person requires more resources per person than serving a group of people.  Think about an everyday consumer object like a toaster oven -- sorry, an air fryer. If you set out to build one of these small ovens custom, just for yourself, even using parts off the shelf, it would take a long time and cost quite a bit. So, we buy toaster ovens made in factories, probably made by robots at this point—though humans are likely involved somewhere in the process. That air fryer is made on an assembly line, which is the opposite of individualism. And it's cheap to buy. Now, play that out on a societal scale. Individualism calls for us all ...
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610 totally unrelated

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At top, a bicycle built for golf. Mid-drive, even. Kinda spendy at $7k, but this is golf. Apparently they're selling.  We're talking about Bikes and Batteries today. This is a, um, what was this?  Right, a swappable battery.  Sounds a lot like a dorado battery with a new design. Having uniform parts between different manufacturers will help us consumers. (Imagine if your car only worked with one brand of gasoline.) So this thinking is in the right direction-ish. Throw a golf bag holder on the front and they could charge more. ;) There's gold in them thar batteries. (Or at least some rare earth minerals.) The question is, how do we get them out, and then back in?  At least we can haul them about in this.  It's funny how some designs look bad while others look good. In my eye, that's a pretty good looking box for moving other boxes.  ...
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609 Maybe they're right

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Well, the big news nationally is the election. My guess is it isn't going to be that close. The enthusiasm for #45 just isn't the same. Around where we live, that looks like this: supporters who took their old 2020 signs and cut them in half, removing the date and the old running partner. The big news locally is a battle for control of our city hall. It's a little difficult to parse out exactly what's going on, and I won't bore you with the details, but it's basically the good old boys versus the newfangled technocrats, although all on the right side of the political spectrum. (Basically the same as our national politics.) It's a funny, sad show. I'm not saying technocrats are always right, and I love things that don't change, but embracing going backwards isn't going to work. Outside of our memories, time seems to move in one direction. Forward. There's no going back. Ever. The past is gone. ...
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