Following up my posts Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests and Two personal bests in a week: Freedom—and, speaking of health and fitness, New resting pulse: 38 bpm—I forgot to mention I finally achieved my third 70-pound Turkish Get-Up. For the meaning of the achievement, read the first link above. It’s funny that after at least a year of thinking about and planning it, the first one[…] Keep reading →

The building with the clock tower in the picture below is my local public library. The iron fence behind the guy in the white hat encloses a park behind the library. It had two crab apple trees in it. As far as I could tell, nobody else knew it produced crab apples. The branches were higher than you could reach or even see the crab apples since they were the[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs: I watched this documentary when they released it during the pandemic. I remember thinking it seemed too critical for me to handle. I felt: sure, there may be problems with solar, wind, and other energy sources, but they must not all be deal breakers. Some must be surmountable. Watching it now, and reading reviews and follow-up research, combined[…] Keep reading →

I got my annual checkup yesterday. They took my vital statistics. Here was the final pulse reading from the ekg: Here’s the full ekg page: Reading 1: the blood pressure machine As usual, my resting heart rate was lower than they’re used to. The nurse taking my blood pressure saw my pulse was showing 42 bpm while the blood pressure machine was doing its pressure cycle. I was looking forward[…] Keep reading →

This photograph shows a guy employed by a local “business improvement district” to pick up litter, the “BID” on the gray trash bag and his coat/uniform show. How do we reach this level of failure? In principle we shouldn’t litter. For that matter, with all the talk about circular economies and reaching “net zero,” shouldn’t we not produce goods that could become litter? Doesn’t New York City have a sanitation[…] Keep reading →

The first drafts of all my past books were long, followed by many rounds of editing, including a lot of cutting. My latest draft is around 80,000 words with maybe 20 percent more to write. At 275 words per page, that’s pushing 300 pages. Not bad for a first draft. Except for some good news. My best writing, or progress, tends to come not when I’m writing or at the[…] Keep reading →

Americans are divided over health care. Since everyone knows about the controversy there, I’ll share some properties about it, then connect to sanitation. For comparison: health care People on the left want socialized health care. Everyone gets sick, no one wants to, so to them it makes politically, morally, and economically to provide health care to all. It spreads out the costs no one wants to pay but everyone has[…] Keep reading →

I see these plots a fair amount from people on the right. They come from Bjorn Lomborg. They’re a straw man and a distraction. Global warming is a problem, but it’s one of many. As I’ve written, I recommend Only specify fixing climate and carbon if you want to wreck everything else (forests, biodiversity, rivers, etc) because that happens when you do. There are other places where our behavior mediated[…] Keep reading →

The news keeps covering that population is growing less fast than before. Note that it is still increasing, just the rate of increase is slowing. They overwhelmingly treat it as a problem. They say so because they use economic models built to show population growth always helps, which is wrong. Their models saying something is a problem wouldn’t necessarily mean it was a problem even if their models weren’t wrong.[…] Keep reading →