Category: Pilot

Issues related to my failed attempt to become a licensed pilot

Green Pill Secret: Romance Scams

TimeHorse December 7, 2024 No Comments

The thing about life is, sometimes it gives you lemons and you’re allergic to lemonade. For instance, although the date on this post is the right date, I am only able to write it 48 hours later, which allows me to tell you not just about the frightful topic but also why my telling you about it has been so hard.

First and foremost as viewers of the podcast will know, my dear friend and co-host Cat will be going under the knife to hopefully resolve their neck issues this Thursday and I for one am concerned for my friend and their overall recovery. However, I am confident that they will at some point be returning to the show but most of all I am hopeful for my friend’s swift recovery.

That said, I wasn’t able to secure an alternate co-host for my Romance Scams discussion. I had a wonderful discussion with one of my neighbors who talked a lot about fake male profiles, typically in their twenties, and in uniform, running the typical romance scam. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to schedule a time when she could appear so I did this one, and likely the next one and the last December episode solo. But, I do have something special planned for the Winter Solstice!

Meanwhile, on the job front, my next employment seems to be further delayed and I might not be working until after Christmas. As usual, I refuse to look at as a setback but rather I see it as a wonderful Christmas gift as I head into 2025.

I’ve also been flying recently but my instruction has been forestalled because my fundamentals are still quite rusty. So, while I’m still unemployed, I’m focusing my day-to-day work in studying the PHAK and AFH. I found a great channel on YouTube by Philip J Murphy. The recitations are a little dry, but I find the contents quite educational. I personally think my instructor is a little annoyed with me being so rusty, so I hope the next time I’m able to schedule a flight, I’m able to show great progress. Hopefully, I’ll finish before my FAA license expires on 31 December. I have submitted an extension to the FAA, but I don’t expect the new license to be issued before mid February.

But, the big thing I am most thankful for is that I’ve reconnected with my brother. For the last year, my brother has eschewed my contact, and ghosted me because he went off his meds. His Breton, now ex-wife reached out when he was at his darkest and fortunately we were all able to convince him to get the help he needed, since he filed a medical directive to prevent anyone from helping him save himself.

Now, he has the right meds, is stable with his work, and able to live in his now empty house. He reached out just after Thanksgiving and we made hummus together thanks to his home-made recipe. It was delicious. After we ate and caught up, he made me a custom batch with extra garlic. Yum!

Suffice it to say, I’ve been busy. But, I was able to record an episode in time, right before my semi-annual toastmasters training. I missed the last day of the Reston Farmers’ Market Market and my weekly workout but I had the episode recorded and submitted to YouTube with an hour to spare, at 07:30 on Wednesday. Finally, I clicked to schedule it, and set the schedule for 08:30, which is the time we normally would have released this episode. Only, I got the day wrong as it was supposed to be 7 December, not 8 December! D’oh!

So, I submitted the episode, went to the Toastmasters training, met a beautiful friend from the last Toastmasters social event I was at, hurt my arm, and then rushed home.

Unfortunately, there was no time to check on the episode because my poorly-fitting Airpods fell in my iced tea while I was smiling and eating during my Maryland Science Book Club meeting last Wednesday.

When I went to the apple store to complain, they said just buy a new set of headphones. I tried on a different set but let me just say apple earphones are the worst designed earphones ever built! Sure, the ATMOS sound is cool, but what good is an earphone if it can’t even stay in your ear when you have the temerity to even smile! I mean, isn’t apple just making their 1984 Commercial a reality? Apple is making you constantly frown while you listen to their airpods while a real, professional earphone maker, like Shure, is in skimpy shorts and tossing something and Tim Cook droning on and on and preventing you from even smiling. Touché, apple. I see you!

The point being, my new earphones were scheduled for arrival on Saturday and I spend the time after the training working with the concierge for the missing package to no avail. Since my Denon AV Receiver broke after a power cut just before Thanksgiving and I knew I could replace it with a Black Friday discount. The unit arrived and I lugged it all the way up the 16 flights of stairs because I need to be fitter if I want to attract women. However, I wanted to test the audio out of the old receiver to confirm it was the receiver and not the speakers. Since the Shure earphones are optionally wired, I was able to confirm the receiver was dead and I bought a label maker to perform the rewiring.

I will say the climbing of 16 flight, or 40 flight if I move to the apartment across the street, even if they made the most awesome flat a three-bedroom well outside of my budget. I still need to figure out if I want West-only or South-East exposure and my dilly-dallying is my way of saying I’m willing to forsake either while I consider my job situation.

Okay, I seem to have lost my train of thought again. Maybe I’ll talk more about how I have two red flags against me because I’m bald and not six-foot tall. Meaning, women already have a lot of good reasons to reject me and why I’m mainly attracting scammers and lower quality women. I’ll leave it at that, as I want to talk about Hypergamy in a different episode.

Anyway, I was unable to get the earphones after the training, and then I had a Tesla Light Show event with the Maryland Tesla owners. We got 190 cars for our part of the display in the Christmas lightshow. I have video from both up close and on a hill, though on the hill the audio is somewhat messed up because people were talking near the camera.

After that, I had a special neighbor party organized by an absolutely gorgeous women who is a good friend but is very much not in any way, shape, or from attracted to me and is utterly disgusted by the prospect. Did I mention Hypergamy?

Thus, I wasn’t able to confirm the video uploaded all day Saturday, and had some things to take care of on Sunday so I wasn’t able to see until last night that it was posted and it wasn’t until now that I could write this long updating post to you. If you read this far, I thank you. Now, go enjoy the episode where I talk all about how I, personally, was scammed.

The Green Pill Secret: Sunk Cost Fallacy

TimeHorse October 19, 2024 No Comments

If you ever read about economics, you’ll no doubt have heard about the sunk cost fallacy. The thing to remember is that this isn’t a general rule. In fact, nobody says it better than The Gambler, as sung by Kenny Rogers: You got to know when to hold them, and when to fold them. Know when to walk away, and when to run…

The long and short of it is that you need to look toward the future. For instance, with my job, I could see that I was working insanely long hours and never being given credit for all my hard work, with the final spoils of the assessments going to junior coders to my detriment. I don’t have any animosity, mind you, even if I feel most cheated about them never moving the office to Reston Town Center, as promised, after a fifteen months of working there. I’m very proud of the work I did and my contributions. And I have no regrets when it came to a head of me needing a vacation and them not granting it, so me happily signing my resignation.

Or, consider my 25 year relationship with my ex. I still consider her my friend and don’t regret the time we had together but the sunk costs were piling up with no sense of return to come in the future and I knew it was time to get out when she tried to lock me in a room. As a single man, I can very easily forgive and forget and know my worth is more than that and be willing and able to move on, with no intention of ever being more than friends because those memories will never fade, they just don’t hurt as much as they used to.

But, there are many reasons to persist. I’ll never be able to pick locks if I give up before I’ve mastered the skill. I need more than 12 flight hours to become a pilot as well. These aren’t sunk costs because they have a definite goal and a path to get there. The cost only becomes sunk when you only see more of the same ahead and no hope for anything different or to change.

So, whatever your burdens are, just take a minute from time to time to reassess. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel, then consider persisting, but never continue throw time or money after a lost cause. And that’s my best advice.

The Green Pill Secret: Your Inner Critic

TimeHorse October 6, 2024 2 Comments

As some of you may know, I have been going to therapy on-and-off for a number of years. The main reason for this because, like many young men of today, I left college with nothing, and couldn’t get a date to save my life. When I finally did find someone who would date me, I clung on as if my life depended on it. In hindsight I know this was unhealthy, but I also recognize as a neglected child and baby, according to my parents, that it’s no wonder I have abandonment issues and historically had a Anxious Attachment style. Of course, naturally I was most attracted to rejecting women who recapitulated my childhood neglect and finally married someone with an Avoidant Attachment style. Therapy has helped me get through this, and helped me stop hating myself and helped me become someone who is more secure in his attachment.

Now, I’m hoping to do into more depth on Attachment Styles in a subsequent episode, as well as therapy, but this week, my wonderful friend Cat returns for the first of 6 topics of discussion. This week, it’s all about that Inner Critic. That inner critic who makes me think no woman will ever find me attractive because of all my recent and historical romantic failures. That inner critic who makes me think I’m not a real cosplayer because I don’t make my own outfits. That inner critic who says I’m an awful composer. That inner critic who says I’m never going to be a pilot after two and a half decades of trying. That inner critic who tells me I can’t deliver a good speech. Celle critique de la interior que dit que je ne parle pas français, oder Deutsch, o italiano, или русский, 日本語または 中文. That inner critic who says I’m a failed Physicist because McGill didn’t even give me credit for the 3 years I studied the discipline. That inner critic who reminds me I’m a software engineer without a job. And that goddamn inner critic that reminds me I’m not a successful author because I’ve only had a few of my short stories published and I’ll never be as successful as Stephen King, or even Nev Fountain or Martin Wilsey.

Now, should you always ignore your inner critic because it’s shit-talking you? By all means, no! The critic is there to keep you from embarrassment. But sometimes, when you’re constantly rejected romantically, and having trouble finding the time to finish the first draft of your novel, and realizing how long it’s been and you still don’t have a pilot’s licence, or your sewing machine sits idle, don’t sweat it. Because I may not be the best, but have been on some successful dates, I do cosplay, I do write music, I am licensed to fly, I ran a great Toastmasters last Thursday, I practice my linguistic skills when I travel, I run a science book club and have read over 100 science books, I’m a very skilled coder with sufficient clearances which make me expect I will have a new job soon, and I have my own Amazon page if you want to read some of my work. And I fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, for a National Popular Vote, and Electric Car access, especially for National Drive Electric Week!

And this channel, well, I hope it will grow too. I don’t mind only 10 subscribers oas of this writing. I’m happy that two of my shorts got over 150 views. So don’t let that Innere Critic Rule you, making you fall into self-sabotaging behaviors. Control your Inner Critic, and just don’t let it control you!

To Sleep, perchance to dream

TimeHorse April 24, 2024 1 Comment

Last year, I read the book Outlive by Peter Attia, MD in my Science Book Club, and although it is cliché, this book did indeed change my life. The TLDR is simply this: to live a healthy you need four pillars of living today to be ready for tomorrow: improved strength, good balance, cardiovascular improvements, and sleep! I have 10 lb / 4.5 kg weights I need to start pumping one of these days for strength. I need to do more yoga, like Saturdays at 11:00 in my apartment, but alas that’s during my Saturday Morning Review. But, for cardio, I climb all 15 flights every time I leave my apartment, typically at lease once a day, and have made a rule to never take the elevator up when I can find the staircase (though I do take it down).

As for sleep, I am epicly failing and it’s really getting to me. But, to fully lay this story out, let’s go back to March of 2024.

Eclipse Planning

I had been planning for the 2024 eclipse for years. I even wrote a presentation about it which I shared with my Toastmasters and Westminster Astronomy Society, Inc (WASI). In it, I talk about how back in 2023 I tried to get a hotel room on Lake Buchanan in Texas, and wasn’t able, but found this state park, right in the centerline of the Eclipse path, in the driest part of the county, just outside of Austin, TX. I worked out with my new job at CACI (which, BTW, is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had and a wonderful place to work and will always be my scheduling priority) that I could change my work location to Austin for the first two weeks of April 2024, and then booked a hotel in Cedar Park so that I would be close to work (actually two hotels were books and I only chose which one I would stay at in March), and got a TxTag so I could use the toll roads around Austin.

I spent March giving that presentation, scheduling a month of Green Pill Podcast episodes and posts (so I wouldn’t have to deal with them in Austin) and cleared my calendar for those two week, only allowing the most important commitments to bother me on my working-vacation. Since I was doing this myself, I used my own money to stay at the hotels, and wishing for adventure, I decided to take #NoSO2TeslaP三D down. (Fortunately, FSD (Supervised) V12 dropped just before I left.) And, I checked my Doctor Who watch log and prepared to watch the mostly missing The Mythmakers on the way there, The Dalek Masterplan while in Austin, and The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve on the way back. My dad contacted me about borrowing his DJI Camera and I scheduled to pick it up two days before I left, the same day I tried to help a pregnant camper with the Green Cab group I’m a part of—which didn’t work out because I just couldn’t pick up the camera and get to the patient in time.

I put in my contacts and readied myself for the long drive.

Driving to Austin

I got up at 03:00 to watch my daily Doctor Who, and left at 04:00 on Friday, March 29. On the way, I attended many work meeting en route and nearly killing my hotspot fast-speed limit on the way. I first hit the Raphine, VA supercharger around 06:30, well before work began. Then, I drove to Atkins, VA, leaving around 10:30, and got my work computer set up for my work meetings. Around noon CDT—I’d crossed the time zone—there was some serious stop-and-go traffic on I40, in Kodak, TN, just outside of Knoxville, and I got rear-ended by an uninsured driver who didn’t leave me his name—I still have to get this fixed. I pulled into the Knoxville, TN supercharger about a half-hour later. I then attended the rest of my work meetings before arriving at Nashville/Charlotte, TN around 15:30, made it to Jackson, TN around 18:00. From there, I was lucky the Brinkley, AR was next to a hotel so I was able to sleep for 6 hours after charging my car to 100%.

I got back on the road around 04:00, arriving in Little Rock, AR around 05:00 with about 60%. I then hit Nash, AR before finally hitting Nash, TX, just outside Texarkana, around 07:15. I then drove a bit west of Dallas to the Royse City, TX supercharger at a Buc-ee’s, arriving around 09:45. I hit Abbott, TX around noon. Because I made such good time, and was looking to get to the hotel before check-in, I decided to instead head toward the Lake Buchanan park to scope it out for Eclipse photos, posting photos to instagram without revealing my location to keep it from being swarmed—and allow me to change my mind. Finally, I made it to the Cedar Park Supercharger, queued for a charge, and checked into my hotel around 17:30.

Working Vacation in Austin

Fortunately, I was able to cancel all my Saturday Morning Review meetings on transit days, committed to on the second Sunday morning there (the first Sunday was Easter and I just spent the day doing touristy things) and on my trip back to The Hourlings, attended my Reston Writers over Zoom (including one on the highway coming back from the Eclipse), attended my EVA/DC board meeting, my WASI meeting, a regularly scheduled Toastmasters meeting, and the Division E Toastmasters Evaluation Contest! I really didn’t want to participate in that while I was on vacation but I kind of fell into it by winning in March, so my Saturday morning before the Eclipse was toast. And that is, for me, a paired down commitment. I wanted to spend as much time as I could in Austin and focus on that, and not worry about what I would deal with when I got back, just in time to run the Science Book Club meeting in person. And I had to wash my car, twice.

I’m not going to talk about my actual eclipse experience here, just that I was not able to view the bats under the Congress Bridge in Austin and the Toastmasters contest and Testing the DJI Camera with a solar filter—which I hadn’t had a chance to test until that point—as well as getting enough charge for my ride, meant I really wasn’t able to do any tourism the weekend before the eclipse, and I was exhausted. But, I did get a call from our Toastmasters Area New Club Director about starting a club at CACI. Unfortunately, my reading glasses broke, the lens fell out, and I had to replace them, looking in H.E.B. and Walmart. I spent about a half-an-hour on the phone while I selected a pair I really liked for about $30.

I spend my last days in Austin meeting some of my awesome Austin colleagues, and attending drinks with the head of the office that Friday night, causing me to go to bed late.

Returning to Virginia

I got up at 03:00 on Saturday, 13 April, watched my daily Doctor Who, finished my Orange Juice, and hit the road around 04:30. I was too tired to take pictures at my first charging stop in Corsicana, TX, driving through the back roads of Texas. But I did get photos in Sulphur Springs, TX, in Hope, AR, in Little Rock, AR (again), in Memphis/Germantown, TN, in Dickson, TN, in Nashville/Charlotte, TN (again), and stopped at the Crossville Buc-ee’s. Unfortunately, the last stop was at a buc-ee’s and because I have mean old Tesla Insurance, it was 22:00, and I couldn’t drive anymore and had to sleep in my vehicle. My air mattress didn’t properly inflate for the first hour but, around 01:00 I hit the head in Buc-ee’s and got it properly inflated, getting a net of about 5 sleep before hitting the road again at 04:00.

I crossed the timezone and made it to Bristol, VA, at a lovely Royal Farms, right on the Tennessee border, around 07:30, just as the sun was rising. The sun looked amazing as I drove up I81 but when I got to Washington County, VA, I got my first speeding ticket in over a decade, all while going the same speed as the traffic around me. I guess the county is short on cash. Anyway, that delayed me arriving at the Sheetz station in Salem, VA, where I was subsequently late setting up the Hourlings Zoom, burning through the last of my hotspot bandwidth before they throttled me because the Sheetz wifi didn’t work. I got pulled over one more time outside of Salem because I accidently breezed passed a cop on FSD but I apologized as I didn’t get to the car and override in time, and he forgave me. Best cop ever! I’m glad he was safe. I then made it to the Mt. Jackson, VA supercharger around 14:45, which I had previously visited on my trip down Shenandoah National Park last Autumn—I was almost home! I didn’t have time to take a much needed shower, but I did have time to get to the car wash before attending my 17:00 meeting at the Panera. I finally had my shower when I got home, and I slept—fitfully.

A Killer Workweek

The main problem with not getting enough sleep is my productivity drops off. Combine that with 2 days of driving and looking at my calendar and seeing events not just 2 days the following week, not just 3 days. Not even 4 days, but 5 days, one every day of the week leading up to Earth Day and that weekend before Earth Day being chocablock with events too, about 3 per day! Combine that with 43 hours of work and you can see why I’m very frazzled.

My first day at work I did my best to move to my new cube (we moved cubes the day I got back) and was so tired, when I tried to recycle my soda and sandwich bag, I had the soda and my glasses in one hand and the sandwich back in the other, intending to recycle the soda and the bag but forgetting the glasses were in my hand too. When I tossed the soda bottle and everything else in my hand, I was confused to see the bag in my other hand. I stared at the trash, wondering what else was in that hand if not the sandwich bag. When I got home, I realized it was my reading glasses. I had to rush home to run Reston Writers’ Review, and I started cursing abominably because I was late and I needed my glasses to read the pieces and write my notes. I met one of my writers in the lobby and he tried to calm me down, but I had to trudge all the way up to my apartment, fetch my old, cellophane taped glasses to run the meeting. I then had to drive back to work, dig through trash, unsuccessfully, and then buy a cheap replacement in Walmart, driving home past the high insurance 22:00 point! That was just day one!?

The rest of the week wasn’t much better. Tuesday, I drove to Columbia for the April Tesla Tuesdays. Wednesday I met with my therapist, missing about half of a work meeting because I couldn’t get sound to work in the car, then drove to the EVA/DC monthly meeting. On Thursday I had Toastmasters, where I was the General Evaluator. And on Friday, I drove down to Regency Furniture Stadium for a secret Tesla event! Meanwhile, at work, my branch had gone out of sync with the main branch, and I had to soft reset it to get it back in sync, but when I did, I forgot to copy all my old commit messages, which had all my notes from my work up until that point. Again, I need sleep because my productivity sinks when I’m tired.

Insane Weekend

Next, I look at my weekend schedule for the first time because, when could I have looked at it sooner. I had a Tesla event in at the Starr Brewery at The Perch (to see a CyberTruck but I saw one in Texarkana so I was good), another in Clarksville Common, and a cosplay event in Ellicott City. I decided to attend all three but I screwed up royally because I forgot to pay for and get a ticket to the Cosplay event, and didn’t check the web page for where the munchie squad would be so I ended up crashing, uninvited, and almost got kicked out of the group which I had been one of the founding members. And thus, I wasn’t able to obtain any photos of that event. And that was just Saturday.

One Sunday, I had a writing seminar with The Hourlings, and then an event in Herndon to promote vegan and sustainable living. I attended the last two hours of the Herndon event, since I was double-booked, then went home for the movie discussion with the Maryland Science Book Club. I was going to meet my friend Lisa that evening but, since she was organizing a very important event taking place today, which I sadly can’t make because of work, we agreed that we were both too busy to make that happen. But, I hope to see her Saturday!

Overscheduling and Undersleeping

Needless to say I was even more exhausted after all that and was happy to cancel the Monday night Reston Writers meeting, quite sleepless, even forgetting my daily weigh-in! I went from a week where every day I had an event to a week where I only had one evening event. Bliss? No, because I have fallen behind with my work and my boss has noticed and put me on warning in our quarterly touchpoints. This is very not good. So, I’m going to shut up now, and get back to work because nothing, but nothing, right now, in my life is more important to me than my job!

My therapist sent my an article which exemplifies my conundrum: How to Stop Overscheduling Yourself.

Take care gentle reader and remember, tomorrow is another day, and another chance to get a good night’s sleep!

Jeffrey’s Jammin Birthday Bash

TimeHorse June 24, 2020 4 Comments

Join me to find out how I like my new job, the exciting plans I have for the upcoming year, and so I can give a personal thanks for your personal friendship!

Please note, the official start time is 20:00 because I want to make sure not to start it before I finish my first full day of work at the new job. If I finish sooner, I will open the room earlier. This is, after all, an exciting time for me. My first new job in 18 years, and the first of four steps on the route to make me a better man, and much, much happier!

This event is opened to everyone who claims to know me! All of my software colleagues, all of my fellow authors, fellow science readers, fellow Doctor Who fans, fellow cosplayers, fellow Electric Car drivers and enthusiasts, all of my Equal Rights Amendment sisters and brothers in arms, all of my National Popular Vote Interstate Compact supporters, all of my avid gaming friends, all of my friends abroad except those in Europe—have your kip, mates—all of my fellow Toastmasters, all of my fellow aviators, all of my fellow musicians, tous mes amis qui parle français oder Deutsch или по-русский o italiano, my acting friends and my friends who eschew meat!

The only thing I ask is you be respectful, kind, and know that I hope you all consider any friend of mine a potential friend of yours!

There is a password to this event. It’s not hard to guess if you know me but if you want to know, and you are reading this on from Twitter, message me, on Tumblr, message me, on LinkedIn, again, message me, or join me via the Facebook event. Or, just comment on this blog, with your email address, and I will mail it to you.

See you all next Wednesday!

[zoom_api_link meeting_id=”83969414860″ link_only=”no”]

Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1

TimeHorse May 20, 2020 No Comments

Finally!

TeslaFi had been spamming me with news about TeslaOS 2020.16 for a while and I’ve been itching to see what, after giving us the amazing stop at a stop sign in the last minor update.

Turns out, not much. I am mostly unimpressed by Tesla with this update, though nonetheless very appreciative. Autoformatting a DashCam drive—I wonder if it supports 2TB yet—and a better layout for Easter Eggs are, after all, improvements, even if the Easter Eggs aren’t really hidden gems anymore.

The coolest new feature, though, is the new SuperCharger filter, allowing the driver to only see Version 3 stations and filter out all the slower ones. I love the fact that I have free, lifetime SuperCharging, and one of these days, I’m gonna cross the continents with that perk.

Overall, I’m not disappointed despite being underwhelmed. And one rumor is that this, or a soon to be released version will add V2G to the Tesla. I can’t wait until that rolls out as the Tesla Battery Pack may make for a new, mobile Powerwall. Mind you, even if #CO2Fre could do V2G, my house isn’t equipped for it anyway. So, even if it doesn’t have V2G, it’s still a cool update!

Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1
Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1 adds a new toy box interface, a SuperCharger filter, and auto-formatting of DashCam media. © 2020, Jeffrey C. Jacobs

Gentle reader, if you have been keeping up with me since 11 February of this year, you know that I have been posting once a day since then. As such, today marks a hundred days of a hundred daily posting. Through that, I’ve shared with you exciting electric car news, updated to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, my struggles to get the Equal Rights Amendment to be our Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, written about my many works of fiction, and the many books of nonfiction I voraciously read to be a better scientist. I’ve shared with you my cosplay adventures, and my love of Doctor Who, my love of games, and a bit of my speaking in tongues as well as delivering speeches and singing to my heart’s content. I’ve talked about international travel and how I love to fly there in my own plane, discussed my acting and my dietary needs. And most of all I’ve told you I’m an excellent coder who is always keen for new work. Thanks for riding with me as we cruise upon the cloud to another one hundred posts!

Covid-19: Remember the Women

TimeHorse March 13, 2020 No Comments

One thing that has been sincerely bothering me about this whole Covid scare that I mentioned a couple days ago—as if it wasn’t all over the media already—is how it will most adversely affect women who can least afford it.

The thing is, women aren’t just paid less for equal work in most professions and by many companies, but women also often have to make ends meet in the lowest paying jobs, taking the double hit of low-wage work and lower pay than their male counterparts.

Add to that self-quarantining that South Korea, Italy, and now the United States are doing, at least in a patchwork of states. Many white-collar jobs offering benefits like telework and paid sick leave. But on the lower end of the economic scale, you have women working jobs in the service industry, such as in restaurants or retail. Although some retailers are also offering paid sick leave, it looks like Congress will not require it and so workers are at the whim of their employers when it comes to containing the virus.

Consider, therefore, for a moment, what a single mother who is working in a restaurant. She is paid below minimum wage, a practice under the dangerous assumption that she can make it up in tips. Add to this she has her children home from school so even if she’s healthy she may still need the time off. If she gets the time off, even paid time off, though, she’s still deprived of her tips.

Interestingly, under Virginia law, a server can be paid as little as $2.13 per hour, under the assumption she will be making at least $5.12 per hour in tips. As long as the net is $7.25 per hour, the Virginia state minimum, the Restaurant doesn’t need to pay her the full state minimum wage. Of course, when she takes off, assuming she’s paid, she’ll be paid the minimum wage of $7.25, but now the at best understaffed, and at worst closed restaurant has to pay her $5.12 more per hour to cover the lack of tips.

Keep in mind most restaurants fail. Thus, a two week slowdown or closure could leave a struggling establishment to deeply in the red to recover and if the restaurant fails, that single mother is out of work.

I’ll admit, this isn’t something I’d expect to be a rampant problem in the specific context I’ve just laid out, but consider it one of the many knock-on effects of a fortnight of closures could have on the U.S. Economy. After 9/11, all U.S. commercial air travel was ceased for the rest of the week, only recommencing on Friday, 14 September. Likewise, the New York Stock Exchange remained closed until 10:00, Monday, 20 September. The effects of just those closures on our economy were noticeable though nothing to cause an economic crash, though it did cause as much as $31.6 billion in losses to the insurance industry.

It’s hard to say exactly what the consequences of a fortnight of bringing the U.S. Economy to a grinding standstill, but there will be consequences. And consequences in a quadrennial election year. No-one knows for sure. But one thing we can almost certainly be sure of: it will hurt women the most.

18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather

TimeHorse February 14, 2020 3 Comments

This book was a joy to read. Christopher Dewdney whips up an exciting tale filled with allegory and literary references to ground the reader in the mysteries of our atmosphere. Whether it’s the numerous names for clouds, or the way storms change the course of history, Dewdney spins a wonderful narrative interwoven with science.

One thing I always appreciate is the geologic history of things, and Dewdney doesn’t disappoint with the origin of the atmosphere and its layers, and what happens when neutron lasagna (Kurzgesagt) falls to the center of the earth (assuming it doesn’t instantly expend to enormous size one freed from the gravitational pull of a neutron star). And speaking of stars, the tantalizing layers of the atmosphere inspire this failed pilot, as well as a fascinating theory on contrails.

For excitement there are stories of the storm, hurricane, typhoons, and the thunderous squall. From a gentle rain to the most deadly twister, it’s all there. How the Atmosphere is split into 3 northern layers and 3 southern layers is also explained, giving us our Jet Streams. I loved reading about the north and south, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Gyres which drive the oceans and the effects of El Niño and La Niña on those currents. The names of the winds and the 6 seasons also fascinated me. I like the idea of 6 even though they don’t seems equal in length from the reading.

Finally, no book about weather would be complete without mentioning global climate disruption. Though not much time is spent on this important issue, it is covered in one chapter and pushed further with the Gaia hypothesis in the final chapter.

If I was to ding this book in any way, I would only have to comment that Îsl Réunion is in the middle of the Indian ocean, not the Pacific. Indeed, there’s no way it could have affected the movement of India across the Tethys Sea if it was all the way over in the Panthalassic Ocean, which became the Pacific.

18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather
18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather

Other than that, though, great book! Now, on to The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities.

See you later, my friendly fellow sapiosexuals!