Hey Grandpa, what's for Supper

Dinner today was very "Eastern European".

Split-pea soup with smoked sausage, barley, and baby-lima beans. Seasoning in the soup was salt, garlic, onion and celery that were sauteed with the sausage.

The "slima beans" and barley add mouth-feel.

Mrs ERJ is trying to keep me healthy so I used Eckrich smoked turkey sausage.

Freshly baked, yeast-rising rolls, 1/3 whole-wheat and 2/3 "white" bread flour, served with honey.

Salad of Napa cabbage and shredded carrots.

I am stuffed! Best of all, there is enough for another meal.

Presented without comment

 

No Surprises Here

Elissa Slotkin announced that she intends to run for Michigan's US Senate seat to be vacated by Debbie Stabenow.

The race for Michigan's 7th US House seat was one of the most expensive in the country as the Dems and PACs plowed a lot of bucks into the race:

Spending in the race is nearing $27 million when future ad reservations and outside spending are considered, making Michigan’s 7th the most expensive House general election contest nationwide, according to a ranking by the firm AdImpact.  Source

The blue party outspent the red party by a five-to-one margin. Very curious, that. 

Slotkin won the race, 192,809 to Barrett's 172,624.

The gargantuan bank-roll to outpace the challenger by a mere 5 percentage points becomes clearer IF Slotkin had already been chosen as Stabenow's replacement by the Democrats in their smoke-filled rooms and the primaries are a mere formality. It would be VERY embarrassing if the Queen-Emperor in-waiting had been unable to get reelected as an incumbent in her home US House district.

Slotkin possesses everything the Democrats want in a Senator. She follows directions. She is young and is likely to have a very long tenure in the Senate although if she continues to gain 20 pounds a year she will have to enter the Capitol building through the freight elevator.

Incidentally, if you look at Michigan's voting patterns and the broad shift in the direction of Biden's party (in Michigan) during the mid-term, many conservatives estimate the margin-of-cheat to be in the range of 6%. Whether true or not, it is entertaining.

Heller and Shannon: Covering tracks

Shannon logged into PluggedIn as “Anita” for the last time. She copied and pasted the list of Anita’s connections into an MS Word document where the name, eight-digit PluggedIn ID, Job Title and “company” were placed business-card format so she could cut them into cards to sort at her leisure.

Then she crafted a short message to post on PluggedIn

There may be a delay in my coming to America.

My father recently experienced some losses in his businesses.

-Anita

Anita and Heller spent the evening picking thirty names out of the now over-two-hundred names.

Shaquila Washington the HR person with Shannon's Credit Union and Ce’Diff were the first two names they put into the pile to seed the name-search.

Then, after talking it over with Heller, she sorted the cards into piles based on industry. In many cases it was just an educated guess as the company names were ambiguous.

• Media
• Academic/non-profits
• Government/public service
• Retail/services
• Finance
• Manufacturing

Heller sorted through the titles and culled out the ones he thought were “go-fers”. Then Shannon went through them again and did the same. They were not fishing for flunkies and menials.

Shannon raked through the pile and sorted out the ones that had left her with a major “ick” feeling. She could not define it to Heller. It was an intuition thing.

Shannon rough sorted each pile that was based on industry from “most important” to “middle management” to “least important but being rapidly promoted”.

The final thing they did was to pick one candidate from “most important” in each industry, two from “middle-management” and one from the “least important” level.

A few adjustments were made to bring the total to thirty which was the minimum number that Garth had recommended.

Shannon typed the data into a spreadsheet for Garth. Shannon was a near-world-class keyboard-entry operator. She was so good, and so error free that she could type as quickly as most people can read.

She double-checked her entries as she had been trained.

Then she sent the list to Garth who had agreed to submit the list and pay via his crypto account.

Two hours later, Garth mailed back the results.

PluggedIn had subcontracted the analysis to Gzilla.com which was managed the email and messaging side of their business. Gzilla.com was THE major player in that market. Even if the clients were not using PluggedIn email, there was a very, very good chance that the provider they used was actually Gzilla.com.

Based on the radio-buttons Garth had selected, Gzilla threw a wide net. It surveyed the emails sent-and-received by the thirty parties over the last two months. It “expanded” the set to five-hundred people and then did the nonubiquitous-keyword-string-tracking. It then converted that data to numerical matrices and the AI module selected the Lanczos algorithm to analyze the matrices. The numbers were converted back to names, ids and relationships and the top one-hundred “players” were sent back to PluggedIn.

PluggedIn included a data-visualizer tool to the package and then forwarded it to Garth.

Shannon loaded the app and data on her lap-top using a phone-based hotspot. She and Heller dinked around with it a tiny bit but they could not make heads-or-tails of the results. There were twenty windows and each window displayed a bunch of dots that were connected by lines and constellation of dots pulsed like a heart.

It was late.

Both Heller and Shannon were tired.

Playing with the data could wait.

They had better things to do with the hours they had together.

Slight delay on H&S drop

I have Quicksilver duty this morning.

It is tough to type when the wee-nipper wants to help me and her fingers are covered with banana-goo.

I apologize for the delay.

Biden-n-Harris removal tool

Leg-tricity

I ran into the dad of one of the kids Kubota played soccer with.

He is in HVAC and we stood in the cereal aisle of the local grocery store catching up on the last year.

I asked him his opinion about about geo-thermal systems.

Loud: the compressor is in your basement

Still need a back-up heating system because most systems in Michigan do not have enough ground-loop to get through the entire winter

Work great for air conditioning but they are loud

They don't work when the electricity is off. You might be able to run a conventional furnace with the output of your generator but unlikely to be able to run the heat-pump on your geo-thermal.

They are expensive....and you still need the back-up system.

They are loud.

The alternative to the ground-loop is a double-well system where water is removed from one well and reinjected in the other. That is more expensive than the ground-loop system but does not hit saturation over the winter.

I asked about the energy savings.

My friend said, "Most people put in electric, resistance heating (baseboards) for back-up heat. Sure, they might save money at the beginning and middle of winter, but the dial on the meter sure spins fast at the end of it."

Solar

I am curious about how the folks who had significant solar made out during the outage.

I am 99.9% sure that they have to automatically stop feeding to the grid when it goes down so workers do not get electrocuted. But how many of them are wired so the supply can flow directly to the house's base-load?

In a perfect universe, the controller would have a hierarchy and would drop-out the low value load and feed the high value.

Spotting wildlife

Q: Did you spot the leopard standing on the rock?

A: No, it was already spotted when I popped open ERJ's blog.

Random thoughts

Poor White Trash

You gotta be loaded to get away with acting like poor-white-trash now days. Must be inflation.

Cutting brush

I was cutting brush today and got poked in the eye by a twig.

Light duty for ERJ for a day or two.

Sweet Corn

Mrs ERJ informed me that she used up the last of the sweet corn we had frozen in 2020.

I ordered 300 seeds of a main-season sh2 hybrid. "sh2" carry genes that cripple the kernel's ability to convert sugar to starch. That makes them very, very sweet and they have a long shelf-life. It also means that their seeds are very shrunken and are fussy about soil temperature (they like it warm-to-very-warm) and how deeply they are planted. Since I only have 300 to plant I can simply cover them with the appropriate amount of sand and they should have no problems punching through that.

A post on planting the 2020 crop

A post on freezing the 2017 crop

Shopping

Southern Belle asked about the possibility of my buying some sliced deli meat for her lunches.

She is probably my most coachable kid. I explained that I coughed up a hair-ball at paying $12 a pound for sliced deli meat but I offered to buy a rotisserie chicken and she could pick four pounds of meat off of it and make chicken salad for sandwiches. A rotisserie chicken currently costs $8.

Southern Belle was fine with my proposal.

Played?

Remember back to the mid-late 1970s. Do you remember Reye's Syndrome, the dread disease "caused by aspirin" in young people.

The diagnosis for Reye's Syndrome was based on history and symptoms. If the patient had experienced a viral infection in the past three weeks and showed impaired liver and cognitive function, it was diagnosed as Reye's Syndrome.

By 1977 the syndrome was linked to aspirin since 80% of the patients diagnosed with Reye's Syndrome had taken aspirin in the previous 21 days. It was even suggested that previous use of aspirin should be considered as a factor when making a diagnosis of Reye's Syndrome.

Authoritative sources informed us that off-patent aspirin was killing kids on box-car lots and we needed to switch to (significantly more expensive) proprietary Tylenol and Motrin "for the children". Those sources published recommendations in 1980 that children younger than 14 not be given aspirin, ever.

Old-time country doctors scoffed and continued to advise their patients to use aspirin, even on children, when fevers went over 101F and for teething issues. Those old-timers noted that nearly 100% of kids were given aspirin for influenza and that only 80% who developed Reye's Syndrome reported aspirin use. It was the equivalent of blaming breathing or drinking milk as a causal agent.

Diagnosis rates for Reye's Syndrome fell off of a cliff in 1981. There were 555 cases of Reyes Syndrome diagnosed in the flu-season of late 1979/80. In the sixteen years that followed there were approximately 1200 cases diagnosed the the yearly case-dropping below 37/year in  1987.

Currently, between one and two cases are diagnosed in the United States every year.

From this retrospective, peer-reviewed paper:

As to the decline of Reye syndrome, recent literature data reveal that this is related to more accurate modern diagnosis of infectious, metabolic or toxic disease, reducing the percentage of idiopathic or true cases of Reye syndrome.

Reye syndrome is a non-specific descriptive term covering a group of heterogeneous disorders. Moreover, not only the use of acetylsalicylic acid but also of antiemetics is statistically significant in Reye syndrome cases. Both facts weaken the validity of the epidemiological surveys suggesting a link with acetylsalicylic (aspirin) acid.

The "Black Problem"

Story and video HERE

 Disagreeing without being disagreeable

I want to offer an alternative to the viewpoint that "Black Culture" is the problem in our inner-cities.

I propose that "Black Culture" is a symptom and not a cause. Furthermore, I propose that what we now think of as "Black Culture" is fluid and not immutable.

How malleable is culture?

The most ardent supporters of the "Black Culture is the problem" camp contend that culture is not the least bit malleable because of differences in mental capacity.

Those who argue the other way point to the "Black Culture" of 1955-through-1965 as being very, very different from today's BC. History of that period is permanently tinted by the focus on the injustices and poverty of that period BUT intact-families in in the Black community were much higher than today and crime was much lower.

A data-point that I can bring to the discussion involves "Black Culture" in the automotive manufacturing environment: It is not as different from "White Culture" as popular culture (which is aimed at youths) would have you believe.

Maybe it has something to do with having to get up every morning and go to work. It is my impression that a larger percentage of the Black people in auto plants were married and more likely to go to church than pop-culture Blacks.

Cynics will point out that survivor-bias probably has something to do with that.

But isn't that the point? Culture is formed by the requirements for survival!

By historical standards, the developed nations have obscene amounts of wealth where even the poorest people have luxuries that were beyond the grasp of kings in bygone days: Air-conditioning, clean water at the turn of a tap, mile-a-minute transportation, cell-phones, perishable fruits in the winter, modern dental care, antibiotics.

That wealth enables frivolous and wasteful behaviors which shape the culture and change the brain.

Brains rewire to the task. If you are compelled to remember hundreds of seven-digit numbers (phone numbers in the days of yore) then your brain reconfigures by partitioning. 

If your brain encounters trauma it reconfigures. It becomes less capable of thinking about next-week and becomes totally consumed by the dangerous here-now.

If your brain is never challenged to remember anything (social promotions in schools) and if the EBT card recharges every month regardless, if food-pantries will rescue you if you don't keep track of your EBT balance...then your brain spins up like a motor with no load and every fantasy is validated.

I propose that sanity might exist on the other side of the unpleasantness that will result as people find that their "normal" paths to access resources no longer lead them to "the cheese".

• No work will once again mean no food.
• No work will mean no access to the affection of a woman.
• No work will mean living in a homeless shelter or box-car, maybe.
  
• Gratuitous defiance of authority will mean no work, ergo, no food, shelter or affection
  
• Listening to violent music will cause you to be branded as somebody who it is dangerous to associate with.
  
• Using drugs that leave you debilitated for the next day's work will be suicidal.
  
• Your name, good-or-bad, will become your bond.

The nature of charity

In Jesus's Sermon on the Mount he says

...take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

In Jesus's time, the left hand was the "unclean hand". It was the one used to wipe one's ass. To not let your "left hand" know what the right hand was doing was one way of saying to not exploit the recipient of the charity through the expectation of quid pro quo.

And yet that is the entire basis of the "Progressive" movement. They offer "charity" to vast blocks of voters with the only requirement being that those blocks always vote for "Progressive" candidates, that they look the other way when fraud is committed and that they not demand justice with the perp is a "Progressive".

"Progressives" have been able to appropriate many altruistic Christians under the banner of "charity".

Most of those Christians intuitively know that it is not virtuous to offer their alcoholic Uncle Bob a bottle of whiskey but somehow they cannot see that the "Progressive" form of charity stunts the growth of the recipients and that the giver is already rewarded by the feelings of power and feelings of "being better than" the folks who depend on the charity.

It has somehow become an article of faith among those Christians that People of Color are less capable than 9-month-old infants who can crawl over to their bottle, pull off the cap and then know enough to tip it back so the milk flows to the nipple.

It is an article of faith among "Progressives" that People-of-Color are victimized by consequences for their actions. They cannot see that separating any group from the consequences of their choices dooms them to a downward spiral.

I have hope

I have hope that damage that is done can also be partially undone.

Brains that wire one way can be rewired through repetitions.

Thought patterns follow behaviors. When behaviors are changed by necessity for food, shelter and other necessities, then thought patterns will change and "mental capacity" will also show plasticity.

How-some-ever, we have a tough patch in front of us. Make sure you are around to weigh-in via survivor-bias.

Winken, Blinken and Nod

 

Power outages

 

The majority of the power outages are south of us.

All of the news stations are running Public Service Announcements on how to report outages and telling people to stay 25 feet way from downed wires.

I don't know about you guys, but all of my 25' measuring tapes have steel tapes. The last time I looked, steel is conductive.

Hmmmm!

Fake News Friday: Karma is a Bitchma

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Oregon is suing the State of Oregon for damages due to flooding from the excessive rains this past year.

For those of you with short memories, Mr. Harrington was sentenced to jail-time for collecting rain-water. The State of Oregon contended that the water that fell on his 170 acre property belonged to them and won in court.

With that precedent, Mr. Harrison's lawyers claim that the State of Oregon did not control their property, the rain-fall, and are therefore liable for the damages it incurred just as they would be if they did not control a vicious dog. 

Mr Harrington is suing for $7000 for the damage done to his personal vehicle and for $6.3 Billion in punitive damages.

Heller and Shannon: Called onto the Carpet

 

An hour into her shift, Fred asked Shannon to pick up a small, expanding, accordion-sided file-folder out of supplies and bring it into his office.

When she got there, she noticed that Rose was already seated to one side of Fred’s minimalist desk.

As Fred closed the door he said to the two tellers who were still on duty “This might take an hour. Please don’t disturb us.”

“No problem, Fred” the closest teller reassured him. “We got this.”

Shannon noticed that Fred’s face was bright red and she wondered if he had been in the sun the previous evening.

Fred sat down with a sigh. “This is the worst part of being a boss” Fred said.

“I have been directed by headquarters to discipline you because it is alleged that you acted in a manner that reflected negatively on the Credit Union.”

“Rose is in here to be a witness and to ensure that proper procedures are followed. As you know, Rose is very good at not sharing sensitive information. She is here for both your protection and mine” Fred said.

Shannon’s stomach fell. DISCIPLINE? HER?

Shannon knew that Rose would not divulge a secret even under duress. But she also know that Rose was completely loyal to Fred and if push came to shove, it wasn’t going to be Fred who was thrown under the bus.

Shannon took a couple of deep breaths and let them out slowly to calm down.

“I do not recall acting in a way that reflected negatively on the Credit Union, not ever” Shannon finally choked out.

“It appears that Mr Rogers was not too drunk to scan the QR code on one of our brochures. He filed a complaint” Fred said.

“I don’t know what you did to piss off the people at head-quarters, but they flagged it because of your name. I just got off of the phone with a MISS Washington in Human Relations” Fred said.

“But he wasn’t even a customer!” Shannon exclaimed.

“I explained all of that” Fred said. “I also said that he was visibly under-the-influence and was asking for a service we don’t offer.”

Fred shot a glance at Rose who was calmly observing but not participating in the exchange. She was the classic fly-on-the-wall.

Then Fred said “Miss Washington, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion director at HR directed me to dismiss you but I was able to talk her down to a Letter-in-Your-File...a 'Last Chance' Letter.”

Shannon was shocked. “Dismiss me?”

Fred nodded. “I informed Miss Washington that I had downloaded copies of the security films and that dismissing you might reflect poorly on the Credit Union, and on her personally if you chose to contest the dismissal. That is when she changed direction and told me to write the letter.”

“What are you going to do?” Shannon asked.

“I am going to do what I was directed to do and I am going to follow procedures” Fred said.

“First of all, do you remember the incident with Mr Rogers that happened…”

“Yes, I do” Shannon said.

Fred pulled a pad of ruled-paper and a pen out his desk drawer. “I am going to have you write your own 'Last Chance Letter'. It isn’t because I am cruel or sadistic but because you will remember it better if you write it in your own hand.”

“The other reason I want you to write it out by hand is that electronic copies never die. This way, I can time activate it and once it is shredded it is gone forever” Fred said.

Regardless of what Fred said, it seem to add insult to injury but Shannon realized that she was not in a position to complain.

“In the upper right corner of the page write today’s date."

"Then write: This letter documents the events of _______ and the interactions with Randy Rogers in the lobby of this Credit Union and serves notice should another incident occur”

Shannon quickly wrote what she was directed to do. The act of writing calmed her.

“At approximately….” Fred laid out the barest facts of Randy’s entrance, his loud voice and slurred words and then his demands.

“At this time we need to brainstorm what you could have done differently...in fact what you WILL do differently the next time something like this happens” Fred said.

Shannon looked bewildered. She couldn’t think of anything she could have done differently.

“Take your time” Fred advised her.

Fred and Rose sat in silence while Shannon's mind raced frantically around in circles.

“I know this sounds stupid” Shannon started after thinking for two whole minutes “but when you crossed the counter so you were on the customer side, I think I should have taken several steps back, away from Randy.”

“Write that down” Fred said.

After writing a couple of paragraphs Shannon looked back up.

“Anything else?” Fred asked.

“If I had know this was going to happen” she said, gesturing at the pad she was writing on “I would have written it all out yesterday while it was still fresh in my mind.”

“Write that down, too” Fred said.

Shannon wrote that out.

“Hand me the letter” Fred demanded. After quickly reading it, he signed and dated the letter. Then he pushed it over to Rose and she did the same.

“Now I want you to write your name on the folder you brought in with you and place this letter into it” Fed said.

Looking over at Rose he asked “Can you attest that Shannon was disciplined in full compliance with the Credit Union’s employee handbook and that a “Last Chance Letter was placed in her file?”

“Yes I can” Rose said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Now, Shannon, you and I are going to place your folder into storage” Fred said. “Rose, I want you to stay in this office.”

Rose nodded her assent.

“Pick up the folder with your letter in it and follow me” Fred said.

Shannon did as she was told. She had assumed that all of the personnel files were electronic but it was possible that some of them were still ink-and-paper out in the sticks.

She followed him out into the main lobby area and Fred walked over to the shredder. “I want you to ‘file’ your folder into the slot marked “for secure documents” Fred said.

Shannon was sure Fred was joking.

“Go on. Check to make sure the letter is secured within the folder and then ‘file’ it” Fred demanded.

Shrugging, Shannon fed the folder into the shredder and heard the whirring as the machine turned the folder and the letter contained within it into high-fiber spaghetti and tumbled them into the secure-destroy bag.

“If anybody from Headquarters asks, tell them I did exactly as directed to do by H-Q. But inside of this building, never forget that I am boss and I will run things the way that I think is right. If you do right by my lights and you take care of our customers, I will have your back.”

From the Comments

I was recently asked for advice on how to beat the house when visiting a casino.

I must confess that I am not a big fan of casinos. There have been very few vices that I have tried that I did not like. It is not like the house is trying to fool you. You have to know that the cheap food, the entertainers and all of the glitz is paid for by net-losses from the people who visit them and play the games.

BUT I must admit that I found a warm place in my heart for the one-armed bandits.

I don't play the penny, nickel or dime OABs. Nope I play the...

Random thoughts

Eaton Rapids Joe explaining "Faster than Light" travel, how the internet works or applied mathematics

The backstory on this video is that the "professor" is a professional actor who specialized in commercials. He was hired by Chrysler to act in the production of a "promotional" film. The cameraman was twiddling with his camera setting up focus, sound and brightness when the actor ripped off this masterpiece of bullshit to warm up and get in-character.

The cameraman kept recording and the rest is history.

As a writer of fiction, I have to make decisions about how much detail (bullshit) to include. Sometimes it is a matter of pacing. Good stories start at a pedestrian but entertaining pace and speed-up. Other times it is to provide a lesson or to help the reader suspend disbelief..."Well, that could happen"

 

Wisdom from plumbers

Shit runs down hill
Never work with your mouth open
Don't bite your fingernails
Don't eat the last bite of sandwich
Payday is on Friday

The primary use of leather is to...

Keep the insides of animals inside and the outsides outside.

Bill Staines

Bill Staines was a folk singer who is a great favorite of Mrs ERJ and Quicksilver.

We were playing The First Million Miles when Mrs ERJ asked me "Where does he live?"

A quick check of the internet suggests that he now resides in a cemetery, having passed away near the end of 2021.

Native of New Hampshire. 

A couple of selections for your enjoyment

Garden report

 

A bit of freezing rain over the last 24 hours. I chipped the ice on the concrete apron in front of our garage when I put Zeus out in the kennel. It is about 3/4" thick.

We are as snug as a bug in a rug here. No power interruptions although it flickered a few times last night. We are expecting a high temperature in the upper 40s this afternoon so much of the ice in the trees will come down.

How are you folks west of me doing?

Garden update

I stuck about a dozen rosemary sprigs yesterday. I did a quick-dip of 1000 PPM borax solution as some literature suggests that boron helps rooting.

The onions are sprouting. If you enlarge the picture you will see very pale, worm-like shapes. Those are the onions. I have a red LED on the pepper seeds which raises the temperature from 65F to almost 80F.

The war on fertilizer

I wonder how much of the elites' war on fertilizer, specifically nitrogen, is tied to the fact that nitrates are a keystone resource in the manufacture of high-explosives?

If I were an elite and I anticipated a class-war, Us-against-the havenots, I would outlaw nitrates and ammonia (which can be converted to nitrates).

Blackpowder is 75% potassium nitrate by weight. Smokeless powder is cellulose nitrate. The first "T" and the "N" in TNT is "Tri-Nitrate". RDX, the primary explosive in C4 also has three nitrate groups bound by a nitrogen ring and so on and so forth.

A pound of C4 or TNT properly configured on the bottom of a manhole cover will breach any armored vehicle made today.

"But you can collect nitrates from chicken-shit" you object...

Don't look now, but elites don't like chickens, either (somewhat tongue-in-cheek)

Bananas and babies

Southern Belle informed me that this is how all of the cool mothers feed bananas to their infants.

They cut them into quarters and then expose about a 1/2" to 3/4" of the edible part. It gives their child and easy-to-grip handle.

Quicksilver is into "finger foods" like strips of toast, firm scrambled-eggs and dog kibbles.

Women can read minds

 

Mrs ERJ caught me staring at this sign that was posted at Alive, the gym in Charlotte where we walk when the weather in inclement.

She said "Don't you DARE!"

How did she know that I was thinking that the last sentence was a "testable hypothesis"?

Heller and Shannon: Acquiring the target

Satiated, Garth pushed himself away from the table. “Good thing I don’t eat like this every day or I would have to change my name to “Girth”.”

He knew that he was getting buttered up. He knew that Shannon was going to ask him for a favor.

Frankly, he wasn’t pissed off. At least he got a good meal out of the deal, and if she asked for too much then he could always say “No”, like the time Ce’Diff wanted him to run ethernet cord through her whole house because she wanted more security than WIFI offered. Not only did she not want to pay him, but she implied he could "borrow" the cable from his employer and save her to cost of materials.

Belching, he cocked his head and said “What is on your mind?” to Shannon.

“I have a business idea…” Shannon started out.

“Lot’s of people have ideas for businesses” Garth said agreeably. Given that most of his peers were in “business” and they had a more entrepreneurial bent than most he had been sounded out for involvement in many “great investment opportunities”.

Mostly, he was unimpressed.

“I have a list of names of people who have shown an interest in this kind of product and I think they are the best sources of funding” Shannon said.

Garth perked up. That was a new twist. Shannon wasn’t going to try to sell him on the idea. She didn't want HIS money.

“How many names do you have?” Garth asked.

“One-hundred-and-sixty” Shannon admitted. “It is an overwhelming number and I was wondering if there was a smart way to narrow it down.”

Garth was hooked. He liked Shannon. She lacked many of the pretensions most of the other professions wore like a suit of clothes. She had always treated him with respect. That, and she asked for his opinion about finding “a smart way” to process data.

Garth prided himself on his intelligence. He favored elegance over brute-force.

“Where did you get the names?” Garth asked.

“I pulled them off of PluggedIn” Shannon admitted. She was afraid that he would look down on picking names off of a popular social media platform.

“That might make it very easy” Garth said. “Can you tell me a little bit more about the deliverables of this analysis? What are you looking for?”

Warming to the subject and Garth’s interest, Shannon said “I believe that there are a handful of opinion-makers in any group. If I can sell the pitch to any of the opinion-makers then the rest of the candidates will fall in line and invest in the idea.”

That sounded plausible to Garth.

“When you say ‘handful’, how many are you thinking?” Garth asked.

“I dunno. Maybe three or four alpha-players. But I don’t know how to pick them out” Shannon said.

Then she pointed to Heller “Heller reminded me that titles on org charts don’t always align with how things really work in organizations and such.”

“Why don’t you just buy that analysis from PluggedIn?” Garth asked.

The silence was profound.

“What do you mean, ‘just buy it from them’?” Shannon asked.

“Does PluggedIn charge you to have an account?” Garth asked.

“No. They are free” Shannon said. Everybody knew that.

“How do you think they make money?” Garth asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe advertising?” Shannon said.

“Can you remember a single ad that ever ran on PluggedIn?” Garth asked.

“Noooo….” Shannon admitted.

“They don’t make their money from advertising. They make their money from YOU. They sell your data” Garth said.

“Well, that is not strictly accurate” Garth amended his thought. “Data is everywhere and without context it doesn’t have much value.”

“PluggedIn slices-and-dices the data and sells the analysis to people just like you...people who want pre-mined and highly refined data.” Garth said.

“What can I get from them?” Shannon asked.

“That depends entirely on how much money you have to spend” Garth said.

“The cheapest analysis is the what-goes-with-what. It is exactly like when you order an item on-line and the retailer suggests other products: “Other customers who bought that item also bought these items”.

“The next most sophisticated analysis is Principal Component Analysis. That breaks down sub-groups within the population by various functions.”

“What does that mean in plain English?” Heller asked.

Garth was warming to his subject. He was pursuing his Masters in Applied Mathematics and this was one of the topics he had studied as an IT weenie.

“You might have a large group of people who work in the same place. But some of those people will be in the same golf league, some might have kids the same age who play on the same teams. Or some of them might go to the same church or play video-games together or belong to the same professional association. Or they might be joined together by other types of affiliation that is completely invisible to outsiders” Garth said.

“So if I am hearing this right, Shannon could give PluggedIn her list of one-hundred names and they could give her back a thousand and tell her which ones were the leaders?” Heller asked.

“Or more” Garth agreed. “It is all in what you ask for and how much money you have to pay. The more names you give them, the more they charge. The more names you want back and the more Principal Components you want back the more they charge.”

“I still can’t see how this Principal Components thing works” Heller objected. “I just can’t get a picture in my head.”

“Ever play a guitar?” Garth asked.

“I dinked around with one when I was a kid” Heller admitted.

“Did you ever notice that it sounds different depending on where you pluck it?” Garth asked.

“Yeah, but I never thought about it” Heller agreed.

“A string has a bunch of modes it can vibrate at. It can have one hump, or two humps or three humps. Each way it vibrates has a different frequency, more humps means a higher frequency. Where you pluck the string make a huge difference in which frequencies you excite” Garth said.

“Principal Component analysis picks out those different ways of interactions...those shapes...by analyzing interactions between members” Garth said.

"But I still can't see how they do it" Heller said.

"Well, one way would be to track strings of unique key-words in emails" Garth said. "Somebody sends an idea up the food-chain, drilling straight up and then the BSDs send commands back down and it fans-out. It might take the email a week or a month to drill up through each level but only take minutes or hours for the BSD's commands to cascade down through each level."

Over a bottle of Templeton Rye Whiskey, Garth, Shannon and Heller negotiated the particulars of the analysis.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

The theme of today's Fine Art Tuesday is "Samson".

Most people are familiar with Samson's death. Weakened and blinded, he was chained to the pillars holding up the temple of his people's enemies to be mocked and scorned.

Samson, a man of legendary strength asked God for his strength back for just one moment. He used that strength to topple the pillars crushing both the enemies of his people and bringing about his own demise.

The story of Samson is significantly more complex than just his death. It is Tragedy in the classical sense. He is irresistibly drawn to Delilah, the agent of his destruction even though he has more than ample evidence of her wickedness. Every reader can see what will happen before it becomes clear to Samson.

It is analogous to the horror movie where the entire audience is screaming "DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!!!"

Samson killing a lion. A slow day at the office for Samson

Samson slaying a multitude of his enemies with the jawbone of an ass. Now we elect them (the asses) to office.

Delilah cutting Samson's hair, the source of his strength

The blinding of Samson after his hair was cut

The story of Samson can be found in Judges Chapters 13-through-16

Med-compliance in violent people

If you spend much time at the local police department, you might notice a steady stream of people coming in to give urine samples. In many cases, it is a condition of their parole or plea-deal that they submit to random sampling. They are sent a text and they have a certain amount of time to respond and submit a sample to show that they are drug free.

It seems reasonable to me that if a violent offender is offered leniency on the expectation that they will remain meds-compliant for anti-psychotic or antidepressants then a similar monitoring plan should be implemented as a matter-of-course.

It is amply documented that medicines used for mental health issues have a very high degree of patient non-compliance. The drugs have side-effects (weight gain, sleepiness, difficulty in climaxing during sex). The patient has little evidence that they are working (even if it is crystal clear to those around them). They will undoubtedly have a half dozen "friends" who tell them that they don't need no steenkin' drugs.

You might point out that there is nothing to stop the violent person from having a bottle of the pills available and taking one when he gets the text and then to lolly-gag as long as possible so it shows up in his urine.

I have no qualifications in pharmaceuticology but I believe that there are many substances that are partially metabolized by the liver and then excreted via the kidneys into the urine. I believe this is a MUCH slower process than the direct oral-blood-urine path. Five minutes of fishing around on the internet uncovered one such pathway "Glucuronidation".

I hate to give Big Pharma any more money, but it would be valuable to society if some of the heavy-hitters like Risperdone (currently off-patent and not profitable) were compounded with suitable "chemical urine markers" to indicate that the patient had been meds-compliant many hours before they got the text informing them it was time for their random urine drop.

Dis, dat and the udder-ting

I planted my onion seeds a couple of days ago. I also planted my Aji pepper seeds. They are in an east window and the tray is covered with a translucent, disposable grocery bag to hold in moisture and moderate temperature.

Onions

Onions grow well around here and are grown commercially on the muck-farms near Eaton Rapids. I have never been very motivated to grow onions in a big way because I could drive down a two-track to a packing house and buy fifty pounds for $10 out the back door.

Onions add flavor to nearly every savory dish and store well.

I planted a variety named "Patterson" which is a long-day onion. That means it initiates bulbing based on day-length and does well in the North but not so well south of St. Louis, Missouri. Eaton Rapids is about 250 miles north of St. Louis so I should be OK.

I am not sure if I am late or early in planting those seeds. My thinking is that onions are cold resistant and I can put them in a cool place to slow them down if they get ahead of me.

Aji Peppers

Aji peppers are a different species of pepper than the common chili or sweet pepper. Aji peppers are Capsicum baccatum and originate in Columbia, Venezeula and Peru.

They are slow, lazy germinators, even by the standards of peppers and chilis. I will plant the rest of my pepper and chili seeds in a couple of weeks.

Donating blood

One of the local organization has a blood drive tomorrow.

Southern Belle needed four units when she brought Quicksilver into this world. I have two more units to donate before I have that paid back. Yes, I know that is not how that works but it still feels like a debt I can help with. Somebody will need that blood.

Bishop in Los Angeles shot

Several years ago one of my friends told me that he had a conversation with his priest/rabbi/pastor and the conversation turned to our fraying social order.

My friend asked "When do we slip the leash? How will we know it was the starting shot of the war?"

I cannot be sure if the answer was partially tongue-in-cheek, but the response was "When they start executing clergy"

Prominent citizen were hung from telegraph poles beside the railroad to serve as an object lesson to those who might object to the Deep-State's power during the Mexican Revolution 1910-1920.

Auxiliary Bishop (Roman Catholic) David O'Connell was shot to death in his home on Saturday. There are lots of reasons why people get shot: Robbery, romantic entanglements, drinkin'-n-druggin', feuds, grudges, envy, power, bad-luck....

I hope this is not the start of a trend.

Mom report

Mom was really out of it today when Southern Belle and I visited at lunch.

I wondered if she had a stroke.

The good news was that her hearing aids had not been charged the night before.

Forty-five minutes on the charging ports and mom was back to normal. Amazing things, batteries.

Incidentally, it has been suggested that one reason I am as smart as I am is due to the Lithium batteries in my head.

Before you get too impressed, you need to know that "Lith" is Greek for "Rocks".

For the Football Fans

 Note to Mike:

The color (Whining Blue) is definitely Detroit Lions.

Feb 20 training run report

40:50, actual.

I took the usual "split" stops to adjust wardrobe. I pause my stop-watch and restart my run where I stopped the watch. 

My first mile is typically the slowest part of my run. Today my stride smoothed-up within fifty yards of starting and I ran z 13:26 mile. The second split was 26:40.

I ran a marked 3.1 miles (5k) rather than a shorter distance and scaling the times.

Heller and Shannon: Tangled webs woven

Ce’Diff started going into the lobby of her favorite fast-food restaurant last week after her primary credit card had been declined. It had been embarrassing to be in the drive-through line and pass the cashier card-after-card looking for one that still wasn’t maxed-out.

The yahoo in the truck behind her had even honked his horn at her. Bastard!

Now it was just easier to go into the restaurant and run cards till she found one that still had some room-to-run.

Unfortunately, it was getting more and more difficult to sign-up for new cards because she was getting fewer offerings in the mail and the hoped-for raise had not come when she expected it. The boss gave her some bullshit about inflation and all that.

To say Ce’Diff lived hand-to-mouth was an understatement. She had been applying for, and getting additional credit cards from when she had been in college. She would run them up to the max and then apply for another, paying just the minimums on her existing cards.

She put EVERYTHING on the cards. She set up automatic deposit on her paycheck to sprinkle the income into the accounts of the creditors who were hounding her the worst.

Since all of her income was going to credit cards, and since she was being denied new ones based on her credit score, she needed a way to increase her income.

Punching the buttons on the kiosk in the restaurant, she selected four Deweebi sausage-with-egg muffins. Then she selected double sausage...protein is good, right.

Her normal order was six Deweebi muffins but she had to economize. It wasn’t just the cost of the food. Her clothes were getting uncomfortably tight and she wasn’t in the position to buy a completely new wardrobe.

That made her more angry than anything else. Her position demanded that she look professional and clothes that were not flattering were definitely not “professional”.

Going to her table, she sipped sparingly at her orange-juice and removed the buns from the sandwiches. She scraped the melted cheese from the muffins and piled it on the sausage patties. Then, using a knife-and-spork, she daintily transferred the meat, cheese and eggs to her mouth. There was not enough food to satisfy her. She eyed the cold buns with the curdled cheese and butter but decided against them. Too many carbs.

Closing her eyes and leaning back, she had an inspiration. She had been following the student in Indonesia who wanted an internship in Michigan. By all accounts, her daddy was loaded.

Ce’Diff hated Anita at a visceral level. Ce’Diff had only the vaguest memories of her father. And based on the contradictory images in her head, she now assumed that her mother had lied to her and told her that the boyfriend du jour was “her father”. 

 

In fact, it would be safe to say that Ce'Diff hated nearly everybody. She hated those who were better-off than she was with a fiery hatred and she looked down upon those less fortunate than herself with total contempt.

Ce’Diff had no qualms about fleecing the well-heeled foreigner. And, given her connections, Ce’Diff was sure she could collect a handsome finder’s-fee if she kept the “tender vittles” safe until she was delivered her to some deep-pocketed client with an urge to scratch that particular itch.

Ce’Diff resolved to “get connected” to the foreign girl that was creating the buzz on PluggedIn. She would tell her that she could finish her degree on-line and she should not waste time in whatever backwater hellhole she now lived in. That would be one way to get the inside-track on getting close to her.

Smiling for the first time that day, Ce’Diff went back to the kiosk and ordered four more Deweebie-muffins (double sausage). She had reason to celebrate. The first thing she was going to do when she got to the office was to send a request to connect with that Anita chick.

***

The young man who entered the Credit Union had clearly enjoyed a liquid-lunch. His movements were not very steady and he spoke loudly.

He asked for Shannon by name.

When Shannon finished with her customer, the customer who was next in line motioned to the drunk that he could cut in line ahead of him. Apparently that customer had no wish to cross the drunk and wished him on his way as quickly as possible.

Shannon got a blast of beer-breath as the man introduced himself. “Hi, babe! My name is Randy and I heard you visit job sites and issue building permits” he said.

“Ummm...not quite, sir” Shannon said. “Are you a customer here?” she asked.

“Not yet. But I could be” Randy said, leering at her breasts.

“If you can just give me your name, I can check and see if you have an account here” Shannon said. “...but I could be…” might mean that he had a dormant account. She had to check.

She felt more than heard the teller next to her slip back into into the offices. She didn’t expect any problems but it was nice to know that her coworkers were escalating appropriately.

“Yeah, sweetheart. My name is Randy Rogers and I am a contractor. I do mostly interior work and I specialize in bedrooms” he said.

“I am sorry sir, I checked our database and we do not have a Randy or a Randell Rogers listed as a customer. I can hook you up with a customer service representative if you would like to fill out an application and open an account here” Shannon said. Shannon instantly regretted using the words "hook you up" based on the reaction in Mr Roger's face.

Shannon could here footsteps behind her. Looking at the reflections in the plate-glass partitions, she could see Fred had moved over to the opening that connected the teller’s work-space with the lobby where the customers were.

Brigid had moved back to her window and was making strained small-talk with her customer, the one who would have been Shannon's if the drunk had not been allowed to cut to the front of the line. Brigid’s left hand was not visible so Shannon assumed Brigid had her hand on the alarm button.

“I don’t wanna fill out no forms. I just want you to check out my job and gimme a permit” the man slurred.

“I am sorry sir, our Credit Union does not issue building permits” Shannon said.

“That ain’t what my cousin Vernon said. He seen ya at writin’ one up for his boss” Randy said.

“Sir, that is not something our Credit Union does. The county issues building permits” Shannon persisted. She had dealt with drunks before and the best thing to do was to stick to the simple facts and not argue with them.

“Are you calling my cousin Vernon a liar?” Randy challenged.

“No sir. But he might be mistaken” Shannon said.

The drunk started cursing. “Stupid bitch” and started flexing his muscles.

Fred spoke up from where he was standing, which was now on the customer side of the opening. “Sir, even if you were a customer we would not serve you because I just witnessed you being abusive to my teller.”

“You can walk out the door now or you can explain to the police why you did not leave when you were directed to do so” Fred said.

That is when Shannon noticed that Fred’s right hand was not visible.  That was not something she would have noticed before spending time with Heller at the gun range. "Hands kill. Watch the hands."

 

For that matter, the customer that Brigid had been chatting with had moved off to the side so he was not behind Randy and one of his hands was also not visible.

“Fuck you. Fuck you all. You are just trying to keep the little man down. Alls I wanted is to get what you were giving the big contractors…” as he slammed the glass door behind him.

Fred watched the video monitor to verify that he entered his truck (a battered pickup truck) and left the grounds before his right-hand became visible.

The other customer stuck around for another five minutes before he, too left.

Who said working at a Credit Union was boring?

Hope remains

 

About a two-and-a-half minute play-time

This video is rumored to be blocked on some social media platforms.

The camera work shows the reactions of various athletes and audience to the National Anthem as it is played.

Biden negotiates away US Autonomy

Driving home from Mass today, Mrs ERJ read an article about the Biden Administration making a deal with the World Health Organization to let them "manage" the United States in the event of an epidemic.

The Constitution gives the power to make treaties to the US Senate. Biden bypassed that requirement through trickery, according to the article, by agreeing to enforce the "treaty" while it was in "provisional" status. That is, they agreed to enforce the WHO directives BEFORE the language is passed by the Senate.

Meat

Looking at just Covid-19, according to the CDC it has been documented as infecting the following species of animals:

• Cats 
• Dogs
• Hamsters
• Ferrets
• Lions
• Tigers
• Snow Leopards Otters
• non-human primates
• Binturong
• Coatimundi
• Hyenas
• Hippopotamuses (Hippopotamii?)
  
• Manatees
• Mink
• White-tailed deer
• Mule deer
• Black-tailed marmoset
• Giant anteater 

Corona virus other than Covid-19 are documented as infecting cattle and hogs.

One of the concerns, from an epidemiological standpoint is that a virus changes when it bounces from species-to-species. It almost always becomes less infective and has lower mortality than a straight human-to-human transmission. That is how distemper vaccine was developed, the distemper virus was used to infect ferrets and the "new" virus was similar enough to generate immune responses in canines but not similar enough to make them sick.

Even within a species, virus tend to become more infectious and less lethal. It is not in the virus's best interest to kill of the host before it has had a chance to spread and in the case of humans, it is even better if the infection is symptom free so the host continues to mingle with other humans.

Let them eat Lobster

It has been observed that in a universe of near infinite numbers, the improbable becomes inevitable.

Each infected human carries approximately 50 billion discrete Covid virus at peak infection. That is a pretty big number. 

There are roughly 70 million hogs in the US and about 30 million cattle. If they each can carry a similar number of virus then that is a lot of throws of the dice.

And then we have influenza which we know can infect poultry, wild birds and hogs.

It is likely that the WHO will "manage" pandemics at some point by ordering the livestock in the United States be destroyed preemptively as a precaution to reduce the likelihood of hyper-virulent strains from developing.

The World Health Organization is one of the UN Family of Organizations and other parts of the UN have already communicated that they are anti-meat. My confidence is less than 100% that the WHO will be unswayed by other UN initiatives in the use of their new authority.

Lion King movie released by Disney in 1994

Simba and Nala on Pride Rock with Rafiki the baboon holding their cub

Did it ever occurred to you that Simba and Nala are half-siblings?

Mufasa was the father of all of the cubs in the pride and therefore the father of both cubs.

Does that count as normalizing incest?

Fruit trees I like

I like fruit trees that produce heavily and produce every year.

I like fruit trees that ripen their fruit later in the season when it is cooler and the yellow jackets and wasps are slower and less aggressive.

I like fruit trees that hold their fruit well so if I am not able to pick it today, it will still be on the tree tomorrow or next week.

I like fruit that keeps well and tastes pretty-good. I would rather have a tree that produces 80 pounds of good tasting fruit than a tree that produces 10 pounds of excellent fruit.

When I have the ability to provide supplemental water during the growing season I like dwarf trees. If I do not have the ability to provide that level of care I like slightly larger trees.

If you dropped me into the middle of B.F. mid-Western State I would plant:

3 Liberty apple

2 Gold Rush apple

In my opinion the 35%-to-45% tree size is optimum unless you have poor or sandy which will tend to runt-out the trees. Then larger is appropriate.

I would plant them on whatever Geneva apple rootstock they were offered on. I could tolerate Bud-9 (smaller) or Bud-118 or MM-111 (larger) if I had no other choice.

I would plant every tree, regardless of rootstock with a 4" diameter, Black Locust fence post to reduce tree-whip. Trunk flexing causes carbohydrates to add wood rather than trip buds into fruiting.

I would plant

1 Korean Giant (aka Olympic) Asian Pear

1 Chojuro Asian Pear.

Asian pears are intrinsically tidy, economical trees and are not fussy about rootstock. These two varieties are very similar. Neither of these varieties are likely to over-set fruit and produce runted, low-sugar fruit.

For "minor" fruits I would pick

1 Pozegaca European Plum

2 American Plums, seedling from a select source

1 American Persimmon...I-115, Juhl/Yates and Lehman's Delight have done well for me.

1 Kerr "crabapple" for jams and jellies

1 Illinois Everbearing Mulberry on the north end of the orchard. They grow tall and will shade other trees if planted anyplace else.

MAYBE a peach tree...perhaps Madison 

"Marge" Elderberries, Titania black-currants, Polana or Joan J raspberries and assorted hazelnuts in the windbreak around the orchard.

I would sprinkle some horseradish plants and rugosa roses amongst the trees to feed parasitoid wasps.

If I was in Zone 4 I would substitute Haralson or Keepsake apple for Gold Rush and substitute Mt Royal plum for the persimmon tree. Illinois Everbearing Mulberry would really struggle in Zone 4 and I might substitute a portfolio of Amelanchier cultivars to use in pies through the summer.

If I were in the warmer parts of Zone 6 or hotter I would ditch the Liberty apple and plant a different variety, maybe Querina, Galarina or Enterprise.

No apricots or cherries. They ripen in the heat of the summer and can be labor intensive to pick. No hybrid or Japanese plums as they are fussy about pollination. No quince or medlars. No European pears because I am sorting through them. If a gun was held to my head I would suggest Kieffer although almost nobody else would. Kieffer grows to be a very large tree, so this is a good one to plant on the north end.

I freely admit that there are hundreds of varieties that are as good or potentially better than the ones listed. And I also believe that there are thousands of varieties that are less worthy.

Safety: Hierarchy of Controls

 

Stolen from Dad's Deadpool Blog

I saw this meme on Dad's Deadpool Blog and thought that it was worth sharing with some of my progressive, female acquaintances.

Within minutes, one of them responded "Joe-very old idea.  Women’s restrooms have posters like this all over.  Especially in lg urban areas and campus communities"

There is very little I can say to contradict that. I avoid large urban areas and areas near "campus communities".

But I might be able to "add value" by discussing the preferred hierarchy of responses to safety concerns.

According to The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), 

training is second-from-the-bottom of the list and "signage" is not even included in the Hierarchy of Controls.

In my opinion, the primary reason for that is that countermeasures need to have 99.999% effectiveness and not be perishable in the sense of not requiring frequent human interventions to maintain their effectiveness.

Since 99.999% reliability is very difficult to visualize and to test for, what if we used 95% as a metric. That is, if more than one-in-twenty fails then the system (as currently configured) does not meet the requirements.

Imagine that you are the manager of a bar in East Lansing, Columbus or Madison.

During the course of your five-minute, pre-opening meeting you read through the sign that will be posted in the Lady's room.

What is your confidence level that all of your servers would be able to recite, from memory what actions are required if a customer orders an Angel Shot if they were asked a week later? Half of them? A quarter?

Three months later, what percentage of that staff is still likely to be working in your bar or restaurant? In many food-service businesses 30% of the staff will have turned-over. Was there a plan to train the new people coming in? I bet not.

Durability of signage

Restrooms in bars are a hostile environment for signage.

The cleaning chemicals are harsh. Customers are sometimes drunk and destroy property.

The walls often have residue on them from cleaning and tape does not form a solid bond to the walls.

"Break in case of fire" hammer is missing and inspection sticker is a year out-of-date

What is the confidence level that a sign installed in the restroom of a college bar will be there four weeks later? Is it over 95%. That would mean you could inspect twenty restrooms a month after the signs were handed out and nineteen of them would still have legible signs mounted.

Maintenance

The sad reality is that most progressives are oblivious to the fact that systems require maintenance and maintenance requires resources. Redundancies and safety measures that are assumed to be in-place and healthy...but are not...are one of the factors that will contribute to the speed of our collapse when shit gets real.

If you point out the need for maintenance and resources, the typical progressive is likely to brush off the concern saying "That is not in my swim-lane. I am an idea-person."

But if it is not their responsibility, then whose responsibility is it? And who is responsible for inspecting to ensure those "ideas" didn't evaporate.

The last set of rabbit holes

The last set of rabbit holes I went down on this sign was the realization that involving the bar in "Calling an Uber" or "Calling 911" when 99% of the women have their own phone and should be capable of making the call themselves.

What value is there in involving the bar?

I got schooled when I asked somebody who had been sexually assaulted on a date. This person is one of the toughest people I know so I had to respect what they were saying.

Paraphrasing what they said "The bar can slow-walk the bill until the Uber or the Cops show up."

"But more important from the standpoint of the intended victim, most victims lock-up like a rabbit with a fox sniffing around. Hitting those three numbers 9-1-1 might be beyond them. They need the human connection. They need somebody to step-up and be their advocate because they cannot believe this is happening to them. We are in denial and we need somebody who is outside the victim-perpetrator role to judge "Yes, 9-1-1 is not an over-reaction" or "Sure, there is no shame in getting an Uber ride from a bar".

Summary

Even though the sign has many shortcomings in terms of durability and reliability, it has utility according to those who walked through that particular hell.