Begging for some audience participation. I stalled out on one of my short-stories and need a nudge. I need some
Our lives are oversupplied with sources of "information" that buzz and chatter but have little actionable information. Many of them are echo-chambers that mindlessly repeat information of dubious value or the information has been overcooked and lost context.
How would you characterize the human sources of information who you can count on to give you authentic information? Information they personally observed. Information that might not be totally cutting-edge but has enough value that what it loses in timeliness it gains in value because the information is not perishable.
I am not asking who provides the best analysis. That is up to each individual to process. I am asking who seems to have their fingers on the local pulse and is willing to share it with you.
Hair-dresser or barber? Bus driver? Mailman? Librarian? Bartender? The aide at the local playground? Plumber? Clerk at a convenience store?
Who?
If you were into antisubmarine warfare, I am looking for people who are the equivalent of towed sonar antenna arrays.
Thanks in advance.
For me - the mail man is a great resource. Also, the folks at the local 'big' grocery store provide a lot of good information too.
ReplyDeleteAgree mailman and Walmart folks. They are most accurate. 2nd place is a friendly Sherriff over a cup of coffee I often buy.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the Sherriff has limits on what he can share.
I have to go with my wife's former hair-dresser. Former because we moved. Small independent shop, all female. A LOT of scuttlebutt passing through there, most of it accurate.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, two--well, maybe two and a half friends (still alive--I hit 70 this year) whose personalities and inquiring minds really mesh with mine. We send each other info we find, some on the web and some not. An example--
Trump arrives.
https://coldfury.com/2023/08/25/never-give-in-never-give-in-never-never-never-never/
Biden arrives (first video)
https://ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.com/2023/08/visage-trois-1642.html
I'd say anyone who interacts with a wide range of people, some one time only and others on a regular basis. On that model I'd say taxi drivers, delivery truck drivers, grocery store clerks, gas station clerks, all people in retail-driven businesses. A hairdresser or grocery clerk are good for time-series data since they probably see the same customers over time.
ReplyDeleteI know it is obvious what I am going to say but perhaps it is worth saying anyway: sonar "listens" to EVERYTHING. It is the analysts decision to separate information from noise.
ReplyDeleteIn this sense it is, I think, a great analogy to what to do in real life. But through this analogy you already answered your own question: there is no one such person - you need to listen to everyone and make decisions on your own.
wojtek
My pastor. Small town, his finger is always on the pulse. Trusted on social media. He is "friends" with everyone.
ReplyDeleteFor very localized info, people who walk their dogs. My guy (Great Pyrenees) try to go most weekdays. We see into cars, open garages, houses thru windows and doors, backyards. We see houses that are neat, but we know no one is living there. We stop and chat with other walkers, and probably on first-name basis with most other dogs in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteSorry I can't help Joe. Only antisubmarine work I ever did was trapping muskrats and beaver. I just looked for bubbles under the ice. Not too high tech but it works. ---ken---
ReplyDeleteAdd'tl comment, rural areas. When I wore the Sheriff's hat, stop and chat with the farmers working fields and fence lines. Even if blocking the road with equipment, just smile, wave. First off, they vote. (grin) Second, they're out a lot and *see a lot*. They network too, church, local diner, that info can get passed on to you. "Keep an eye on the Simkin's boy, he's got a fancy new jacked up truck, but no job." "Old man Harshmann been seein' folks get water from his pond." (homeless camp)
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked, I was amazed at witness accounts, everyone saw the same incident, yes from different angles, but none of them processed the info the same. Sometimes when I could find a video of incident it was shocking what people thought they saw.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand when I worked on a trash route in the 80's that guy knew everything that went on.
Trash men, janitors, any service person who nobody notices but can go everywhere. I'd include mail people but they are tied to their union and FedGov so I'd consider them a questionable source.
ReplyDeleteMy wife is an Optician and when your fitting someone with glasses, your sitting 6" inches away from them. They seem to open up about all kinds of things. Everyone has a story to tell
ReplyDeleteThe receptionist/secretary at the county seat was very knowledgeable, she's better than a fortune teller (knows all, sees all, tells more).since she doesn't BS. There's a couple volunteers at the church that are pretty good as well.
ReplyDelete7 AM gas station clerk
ReplyDeleteSchool bus driver
Mortgage loan officer (funnily enough, how I learned there was a 'problem' with one of the school librarians making certain books available).
I make about $25,000-30,000 a month online. It was enough to comfortably replace the income from my old job, especially since qq I only worked about 10-13 hours a week from home. I was amazed at how easy it was after trying it out, copy it under the website…
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I too think about good sources of local intel, the lady that rides her bike around the neighborhood is a source I need to exploit.
ReplyDeleteHairdresser/barber, they know the pulse of the community. Grocery clerk in small stores. Postman.
ReplyDeleteCan't help you on a towed array, but here's a guy showing how WWII sonobuoys worked and what they picked up:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/IDvHT9MncW4?si=j4UGTEeSLuu15yC3
He has a series about how bombers worked against U-boats.
Nah. The towed array did two things that are analogies for what is needed;
Delete1) it went "under the layer" that was "observable" from the surface
2) It was passive - listening only- your barber or your hairdresser is not; "Joe was just asking me the other day about..."
Caveat Emptor
Boat Guy
The church secretary who takes calls for the pastor and produces the weekly bulletin with the prayer list and activities. The group of 4 guys in the town north of me who get their mail then join up at the coffee house everyday around 8:00 am - everyone in town knows where to see them. The retired army officer who still gets up early and goes early every day to the library to read the times and shoot the breeze. The little town mayor who also runs the hardware store - that's true in my town - everybody goes there to complain about what happened at the zoning meetings, or whether they are allowed to have chickens (yes but no roosters). The volunteer ambulance guys who know Marcie had the twins early and mother Brown had another stroke. Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks to all for the awesome replies.
DeleteI really like the idea of the trash-man. He knows when the Amazon boxes stop showing up and when the family starts buying the economy dogfood and kitty litter. The only downside of the trash-man is that he never stops moving so it will be hard to paint a convincing scenario of how they develop a relationship. I suppose this is the one time when I could hold-my-nose and have the protagonist and the garbage collector know each other on social media.
The dog-walkers is a great idea and I will probably run with that. I might add in the barber or hair-dresser even though they are more polluted by media input...they have the ability to take the temperature of the general public.
Again, thanks for the overwhelming amount of participation. Lots of great information for those of us who try to cultivate networks of boots-on-the-ground with ears and eyeballs.
Here's another trash-man angle, told to us here in the DFW area. In a certain municipality, home builders took notice that somehow building inspectors started showing up, IIRC, just as new windows were being installed (permit required). Turned out the city had an under the table agreement with the trash company to rat out the builders they observed on their routes.
DeleteTrash experience served me well. Once children's services asked me to go to a door with them to check for a couple of kids the family was shuffling so the state couldn't take them.
DeleteRough neighborhood, couple of young female white social workers. We literally walked past two women so busy with a crack pipe they almost shot a brick when they finally saw us .
No response at the door, on the way out I simply opened the trash can lid that was at the curb, packaging for toys and kids clothes.
Never got a recall and I have no idea which situation would have been better for the kids.
Was glad to remove more than a few in my career.
Our local liquor store owner - for events both celebratory and sorrowful most everyone comes through their store so they hear a lot from a fairly diverse group
ReplyDeleteA friend, who has done a lot of carpentry for me over the years and now cuts my grass, has a side business emplacing and removing “for sale” signs for realtors. He is up and down a wide swath of mid coast Maine, and knows the general market in all the towns he services. (Slowing but still good, as of today, because people are fleeing New York, Massachusetts, and so come here).
ReplyDeleteMy last month paycheck was for 11000 dollars… All i did was simple online work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day / 95 bucks every hour…..>
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Our ups guy was delivering a package to the vet clinic, when he encountered a couple he had never met before. Looked at their one eyed dog and immediately knew where the lived. The large animal vet and the fire department guy also have everybody’s phone number, or know how to get it!
ReplyDelete