3/01/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a quiet weekend here at The Gulch with no major doings having taken place and the most exciting thing taking place being breakfast with my ex and my mom at one of our favorite diners.

Not that I mind a quiet weekend now and then. About the only chores I attended to this weekend were a trip to the dump and taking care of laundry. It allowed me to kick back and not have to worry or deal with anything of import, giving me a chance to recharge my batteries before returning to work on Monday.

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Does anyone need yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences and how California’s AB-5 anti-gig law is a extinguishing a long-standing music festival enjoyed by patrons for 40+ years.

“...the Lake Tahoe Music Festival will call a wrap to our summer festival with two performances in August 2020,” the Festival announced in an email that we received.

“New CA employment law AB-5 requirements add to the challenge of meeting our financial goals and create the final stressor on our small non-profit organization. For several years we have experienced the same slowly eroding philanthropic support of cultural life faced by other small arts organizations in our state.”

“We now join many who also face uncertainty regarding increased employment costs and infrastructure needs associated with AB-5. So we will bring our festival to a close with pride in our long-time contribution to community life in North Tahoe and Truckee.”

This is what happens when poorly thought out or poorly motivated legislation is ramrodded through with little thought and lack of questioning the motivation of those pushing the legislation.

While originally aimed at Uber and Lyft, the effects of the legislation have been far reaching, affecting workers all throughout California and costing many of them jobs that fit their needs. The independent trucking industry in California sued, getting a court to stay implementing AB-5 in regard to the trucking industry based upon its conflict with federal regulations. That doesn’t help freelance writers and photographers, software contractors, and a whole host of other contract employees that have seen their jobs disappear not because of economic conditions, but because a nanny state government figured it knew better what the people needed...but it was wrong and citizens it was supposedly helping are now losing their jobs because of the legislature’s willful ignorance. It doesn’t matter if the intent was good. The outcome was the opposite of what was expected, except by those who were going to be affected.

Welcome to the Pyrite State.

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The mortality rate for coronavirus is now 5.5% based upon the most recent figures released by the Iranian government.

That’s still quite high, but a lot better than the original 20% it seemed to be.

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A sad side-effect of the coronavirus?

A survey has shown 38% of Americans asked are avoiding Corona beer because of the similarly named virus.

Would these same Americans avoid Coors beer if there were a coorsvirus, or PBR if there were a pabstvirus, or Sam Adams if there were an samadamsvirus?

Probably. *sigh*

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It’s about time and now we can all breathe a sign of relief.

Democrat Presidential hopeful Tom Steyer ended his campaign after spending over $3000 per vote received and an endless series of boring, insulting, misleading and arrogant campaign TV ads. He gained zero delegates after spending a little over a quarter of a billion dollars on his campaign.

He would have been better off if he’d given me the $253 million he spent as I would have used it more wisely and created a lot of jobs in the process...and we’d never have had to see those gawdawful campaign TV ads.

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This is just sick and shows just how far we have fallen.

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Is there anything 5G isn’t going to be able to do?

While promises about 5G capabilities range far and wide, I have to wonder how much more it will really do that 4G/LTE isn’t already providing. Depending upon the applications and physical location, I honestly don’t see how much different it will be than what we presently enjoy. This is particularly true in rural areas, and specifically on farms.

For those of you who are less technically inclined, the 5G many are oohing-and-aahing over won’t exist in rural areas. That’s because of the short range nature of the new 5G radio bands. In urban and thickly/moderately settled suburban areas the high speed 5G deployments make sense. Because of the large number of 5G cells required to provide service as compared to 4G/LTE, the Return-On-Investment exists to make the deployment worthwhile. But in more thinly settled suburban and rural areas, the ROI doesn’t exist, so there isn’t likely to be build-outs of high speed 5G cells in those areas.

But what gets me is that the claim that 5G would “revolutionize farming” is the exact same claim that was made for 4G/LTE. What makes 5G any different? Nothing, really. It all boils down to what the farmers decide they’re going to do with the technology already available to them to help them use “wireless sensors… to monitor field conditions and detect when crops need watering, pesticides, or fertilizer, experts say. It could also help with tracking livestock and guiding agricultural drones and self-driving tractors.” The smart farmers are already using much of this technology. Adding 5G isn’t going to change any of that or make it any easier than it already is.

Not that 5G isn’t cool. It will offer a lot more bandwidth than 4G, provide higher speed fixed wireless links to the Internet, and be able to connect more wireless users than at present. It will offer and incrementally larger number of new services, but nothing earth-shattering.

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Now that the South Carolina Primaries are out of the way and the Democrat field has been thinned a bit more, it’s time to prepare ourselves for Super Tuesday, an orgy of media pandering and self-congratulations. I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be devoutly ignoring Super Tuesday until it’s over and done with. I know I am. But then I’m still feeling burned out from the New Hampshire Primary last month.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’ll be going from below normal temperatures to above normal temperatures in a matter of a couple of days, the snow has finally melted from the roof here at The Gulch, and where we’re soon approaching a much anticipated return to Daylight Savings Time.