The More You Know. Please don’t buy anything from a social media ad.
Why.
Taking Up Space.
The Kármán Line defines “space”, you know, everything outside of Earth’s atmosphere. The line is at 100 km, or 62 miles above Mean Sea Level. The very lowest satellite is hanging out in orbit at 104 miles. The International Space Station maintains a low orbit altitude of approximately 250 miles. The moon is an average of 238,900 miles away from the surface of the Earth.
Earlier this week, Blue Origin sent Gayle King, Katy Perry, and four other women on an 11 minute ride in one of their tourist capsules to the Kármán Line. During this 11 minute ride they were weightless for approximately four minutes. The weightlessness was not because they had escaped Earth’s gravity, far from it, but rather because of the trajectory and velocity of the Blue Origin capsule.
The same weightlessness could have easily been achieved in the “Vomit Comet”, an aircraft which performs the same trajectories between 24,000 and 32,000 feet for a lot less money.
I was going to write this Blue Origin flight as just another rabid publicity stunt in this age idiotic publicity stunts, but the news keeps covering it because there’s been such a backlash about the stunt. I did not watch the event, I mean, why would I want to, but apparently Katy Perry kissed the ground like she was just returned to the Yanks after being a POW since Vietnam, and everyone on board took selfies for most of the trip. Gayle King has been defending the trip, asking the camera, “Have you been to space?”
OK Gayle, let’s calm down. You barely touched space at the upper reaches of the atmosphere, you didn’t do a damn thing but sit in or float above a seat, and honestly, what you did was absolutely no different than piling into a Waymo and taking a ride to the edge of Phoenix to go to Safeway. In fact, the Waymo ride would have been longer.
Hell, I’ve stood in line for Space Mountain longer than that gluttenous flight.
The flight this week costs millions of dollars, money that could have been used to do some great things right here on Earth. I find it incredibly insulting that everyone is now claiming these six passengers are “astronauts”*, and that it was an “all female crew”.
They weren’t a crew. They didn’t push any buttons, spin any knobs, didn’t navigate, nothing. They were cargo at best.
Claiming this idiotic flight was an all female crew is insulting to the incredible female astronauts NASA is firing from its rosters and scrubbing from its websites under the direction of the current administration.
This week’s Blue Origin flight was an example of the gluttonous tendencies of the rich, the idiocy of influencers, and the dichotomy of the American public.
You’re insulted, Gayle? I’m insulted that the news wasted space on this circus, orchestrated so Katy Perry could show off her next tour’s set list. Trying getting grounded, Gayle.
Now that I have that off my chest, I was going to link to the Wikipedia page listing all the women astronauts, however, it includes the six passengers from this Blue Origin spectacle earlier this week. While I guess they are astronauts because they ‘touched’ the Kármán Line, I find it insulting that they’re included in this list since they were simply passengers.
One woman that I will always consider an astronaut, even though she didn’t make the technicality, is teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986. She trained for the flight, was going to conduct experiments, teach classes, and was going to be a functional member of the crew as part of the “Teacher in Space Project”.
Her participation in that fateful Space Shuttle flight was the stuff that dreams were made of during my senior year of high school. I was genuinely excited to see what Christa was going to achieve in space and incredibly saddened by the turn of events.
(image from Wikipedia)
It’s the science, not the spectacle that advances humanity to the stars. What Blue Origin did this week, under the guise of “feminism”, was nothing more than a spectacle.
*I have since learned that the term “astronaut” was modified in 2021 to include a “non-NASA vehicle as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety, or contribute to human space flight safety”. This is a commercial astronaut. Not the same thing, and I would hardly call the folks that flew on Blue Origin earlier this week as crewmembers. I still maintain they were cargo.
Lifeless.
Yesterday we went for a longer-than-anticipated road trip. It’d been a while since we had been on one of our long rides and I thought we’d head up into the area where the Storm Prediction Center said there was a slim chance of thunderstorms.
We didn’t see any thunderstorms.
However, I did take a bunch of photos and video along the way, as I’m putting together a video review of my latest camera, the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. I’ll be sharing a link to that episode when it is available on my YouTube channel.
During our travels we passed through the town of Morenci, which is situated along US Route 191. While seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, Morenci has a population of around 2000 people. The biggest employer, by far, is the Morenci Mine. US Route 191 passes right through the middle of this mining operation. It was our first time in the area.
The speed limit along the roadway through the mine varies between 15 and 25 MPH. In many places, one can see nothing but the mine. It is a huge.
As we were making our way through the mine, we could see large trucks passing designated roadways, moving the results of the mining operation of where they needed to be.
I kept looking around and saw nothing but a mine. There were no trees, no birds, not even a scrub brush or anything resembling a living plant. I doubt any wildlife lived in the area.
While the area was bustling with activity, I couldn’t help but notice how incredibly lifeless the area seemed to be.
I know Morenci and nearby Clifton are nearly completely dependent on the economy generated by this mine. And I know there wouldn’t be a mine if there wasn’t a need for the copper coming from the mine. After all, it is one of the largest copper reserves in the United States.
It just makes me sad that the landscape has to be so drastically changed, and seemingly made lifeless, to accomplish this task.
Meh.
I see Katy Perry, Gayle King, and some other folks are heading up on a Blue Origin rocket later this month. Apparently it’s an all female crew and they’ll be going up 65 miles before coming back down to Earth.
The International Space Station rides along around 253 miles about the planet’s surface. Low Earth Orbit goes up to 1240 miles. Satellites in Geostationary Orbit are around 22K miles above the Equator.
Not to minimize the Blue Origin mission, but it’s basically a very large, loud roller coaster ride. I hope it goes well for them.
I don’t know what the purpose of this ride is other than publicity, which seems like a very expensive publicity stunt, but then again, I don’t get the culture of any of this (waving around) very often so maybe some people are moved by this event. I am not. It seems like a waste of resources.
I suppose my driving around looking for tornadoes or flying airplanes is probably a waste of resources as well, so there’s that.
I hope they have a safe journey.
Distracted.
I have been making a point of stowing my iPhone when Earl and I going out to dinner. By ‘stowing it’ I don’t mean I put my phone upside down on the table but still within eyesight. I put the phone in my pocket and try not to think about it while I’m enjoying spending time with my husband.
The other night we went to an outdoor eatery. I was looking around the restaurant when I noticed a family of four walk in. Mom and Dad had two toddlers in tow. The young ones appeared to be both less than three years old. There were various accoutrements coming along for the experience, things like diaper bags, booster seats, and the like. The hostess escorted the family to a corner table; the family got situated. When the booster seats were in place, both toddlers were strapped in and mom promptly put an iPad in front of each of them. Both iPads were in brightly colored cases with chunky carrying handles and the like. The toddlers were instantly mesmerized by the colorful images on the screens. Mom and Dad talked while the kids chomped on some Cheerios or equivalent from a cup and remained transfixed on the images flashing by on their respective iPads.
I found this sad.
Oftentimes in public I see kids practically being trained for dopamine hits when a family is out and about. I get that the parents need a break from time to time. I also get that I’m old fashioned about this sort of thing, but I’m fairly uncomfortable with the thought of the next generation being completely raised on iPad content. I equally feel bad when I see folks out walking their dogs while the dog does their thing without any human interaction, because the human is too busy playing with their phone to pay any mind to them.
Again, perhaps it’s because I’m old fashioned, but I feel like our electronic doodads, while absolutely necessary for this modern life that never brought us flying cars, have become smothering, distracting, and overwhelming.
I’m happy I keep my phone in my pocket when I’m out and about with my family.
Numbers.
My last hiking video mentioned that I thought it was a bad idea to start reducing staffing levels at our National Parks. I fully believe this; a society built solely on productivity is a society rapidly headed toward complete burnout. We need our National Parks, we need to preserve our National Parks, and we need informed, educated people to do keep our National Parks thriving. Having Mother Nature available to us is a beautiful thing, and preserving as much of Mother Nature as possible is even a better thing.
We are visitors on the blue and green marble, and we would be much better off if we respected and honored that marble instead of trying to rape it for all its minerals and other marketable materials.
Apparently my sentiments were not well received as I lost a larger number than usual of subscribers to my YouTube channel since posting the video.
I know I shouldn’t care about the numbers, because I’m not looking to turn my videos into a revenue stream, but I still care about the numbers a little bit. Even if it’s just to coax the YouTube algorithm to start suggesting my videos to other users.
I like to spread inspiring content through my channel, even though YouTube prefers to spread negative stuff to ramp up the dopamine. Scrolling is the goal of YouTube, because it leads to revenue. And revenue is the American way.
I was alerted about the subscribers leaving when I suddenly had a number of emails from folks suggesting ways I could improve my viewership, complete with red lines and circles pointing to low subscriber counts and numbers of views. For a small(?) fee I could work with a consultant (or four) and bump those numbers up, uP, UP!
I’m just a guy that likes to make videos. I appreciate the channels of other folks that seem to be authentic and just want to make videos. I’m looking for the passion of the presenter, not influence. I was watching a video the other day and I’ve always been on the fence as to whether the presenter was authentic or not; in their bloopers at the end they yell “line” and three people come out of the shadows to help them get through the scene.
And here I thought they were a one person show like me.
My videos are planned, shot, produced, edited, semi-scripted, and put together by me and me alone. Once in a while I’ll ask Earl to hold the camera if I’m doing something spur-of-the-moment in a storage unit or something, but otherwise I do all of my video art completely solo. And I’m rather proud of this. I hope the viewer sees the authenticity I’m feeling.
If you haven’t seen my latest video and have an interest, here it is. I didn’t realize how “moody” my landscape shots were until I edited the video together a couple of weeks after the hike.
Moody is good. If you’re interested in my content, please feel free to subscribe to the channel so the algorithm can be convinced to let other people stumble upon my channel. I’m not one for algorithmic games.
Maybe I’m old.
https://youtu.be/Oj9eTC2D8Ts
Buttons.
This is the control panel of the environmental controls for our rental vehicle, a VW Tiguan. The car is not bad to drive. It has a bit of pep, is fairly comfortable to ride in and does what it’s suppose to do.
When we were looking for a new car in 2023 we looked at the Tiguan, but we found it a bit cramped for a liking and opted for the Nissan Rogue instead.
Volkswagen has decided to replace all the buttons on their environmental controls with touchpads. Everything you see in the photo is a touchpad. There are no buttons. We still haven’t figured out how to reliably adjust the temperature, so we tap and slide around until we see a number that’s relatively close to what we’re looking for.
We had to pull over to the side of the road to figure out how to turn down the fan.
This touchpad madness is not conducive to safe driving. I don’t know if Tiguan owners adapt to sliding their fingers around on a smooth surface with absolutely no feedback without looking at the controls, but I couldn’t figure it out.
I hope something changes in the world so that we can start having buttons again. It’s bad enough that I scream at auto correct on my iPhone on a daily basis, I don’t need to crash into things on the road while trying to get a little heat.
Determination.
When you share your work publicly you will run across people that are simply inclined to knock you down. The seems to be especially true in the mid 2020s, but it’s always been the case. It’s just that getting your work, or your art, or a video, or whatever, in front of the public is much easier with the advent of these series of tubes known as the Internet.
One has to have a thick skin. As my friend Shirley was fond of saying, “toughen up cupcake”. Honestly, it’s the only way you’ll successfully be able to navigate this new version of U.S. society.
A lot of users on various forums, and I suspect a surprising number of them are originating from warehouses somewhere in the middle of third world countries, will drop “hit and run” comments on videos or writings on a blog or social media posts. There are a lot of bad actors out there that just want to tear people down. This is limited to the bots in box types, there’s plenty of miserable people out in real life who like to hide behind a perceived cloak of anonymity and say rude and unproductive things to folks they would never approach face-to-face, let alone utter a word of criticism. But as the idiocy of too many folks on the Internet, particularly in the social media space, invades real life, one is left to wonder if this is just the appetizer to an American society with a complete lack of respect for one another. It’s this type of mindset that has resulted in the current political chaos we have going on.
This is why I have been focused on trying to be positive in my videos and talk about inspiring one another. While it may seem like I’m dwelling on the cynical here, the truth of the matter is, there’s still a lot of good people to be found from “sea to shining sea”. I’m hopeful people will burn out on being nasty all the time, or the fabled rapture will happen, or something will change this tendency of nastiness we’re seeing online and, to an extent, in real life today.
We can’t all be Nellie Oleson.
I have been reading “The Obstacle Is The Way” by Ryan Holiday. I stumbled upon a video critiquing Ryan’s book as well as his general approach to Stoic philosophy. I’m not going to share a link to the video, but the main point seemed to be that Ryan is doing Stoicism wrong.
It seems to me that if someone has shared writing the inspires others and no harm is to be found in the practice, why waste the energy of being critical of it? Can anyone in the 21st century truly say exactly, and I mean to the letter, what the Stoics said and felt and meant in their teachings nearly 2000 years ago?
Cynicism sells in the 21st century. Clicks are important and so is getting a VPN connection from our latest sponsor.
Don’t worry, nothing I do in the way of writing or making videos or anything is sponsored.
The chaotic will be chaotic and the critics will be critical. We can choose to ignore, though some will ponder why others choose to be chaotic and critical.
I’m just determined to do my thing.
Walmart.
I am asking anyone and everyone that sees this post to share it far and wide. I have winced while walking under this sign in too many Walmart stores for too long. Let’s get this fixed and save the apostrophe.
Dear #Walmart,
For the love of god, please fix these signs in your stores. “Boy’s” indicates the department belongs to one boy.
The boys’ department should be shown as “Boys’”.
This makes your store chain look stupid, and it’s not a good look.
Driving.
I’m fortunate. I have been in all 50 states, and aside from Seattle and Denver, I’ve driven in all the major and many of the smaller cities in the United States. Not to focus on the negative, but the worst drivers in my encounters have been found in Omaha, Nebraska. Driving that city is maddening, because it’s like the folks there have been given a bunch of freeways and don’t know what to do with them.
Denver, Colorado comes in a close second.
Denver has a myriad of freeways throughout the metro area. One of the big trends in the area is toll based Express Lanes. Instead of HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes found in most major cities, the Denver area charges a toll to use these “express lane”, which is just a striped off lane from the rest of the freeway. The tolls change based on popularity.
This is not what makes driving Denver freeways maddening.
The growing trend of “camping in the passing lane” is gaining steam in the area. Drivers will hang out in the second to left lane (because they don’t want to pay the toll) and then shoot across the remaining lanes to get to their exit at the last minute. Or motorists will bang on their brakes for no reason. There’s no one in front of them. There are no exits coming up, but for some bizarre reason, Denver area drivers like to randomly bang on their brakes.
The Colorado Department of Transportation, like many other states in the United States, believes that only Interstate numbered freeways should have numbered interchanges. If you’re on a freeway that’s carrying a U.S. Route Number, there’s a good chance you’re not going to know how far it is until your exit if you’re not using GPS because the interchanges are not numbered to the mileposts. It’s only when you’re a mile or less from the interchange that you realize you need to start moving to the right. That’s when you discover that folks will continue to bang on their brakes in random fashion.
Another thing I noticed is that folks either strictly adhere to the speed limit (which changes quite a bit) or they are wildly ignored. The ones adhering to the speed limit tend to stick to the passing lane as an act of defiance to the rest of the world, deluded into thinking they’re doing some sort of public service by crunching up traffic behind them, all the while bang on their brakes at random intervals.
And don’t get me started on whatever they’re trying to do with this Peña Blvd. taking you to Denver International Airport. But as a quick aside, I will never understand why airport authorities like to design the road signs on their property to look as completely different from standard road signs as possible. I want to get to Terminal West, not enjoy the creative design of some bored designer throwing road sign symbols around in Microsoft Paint.
Yes, Denver, you are not the worst drivers I have encountered. That title solidly belongs to Omaha, Nebraska. But wow, do you come in a close second.
Take your foot off the brake and drive on.
