Extraordinary Claims

That’s Carl Sagan. The guy from whom most of Generation X learned about space. A precursor to Neil deGrasse Tyson if you like. One of Mr. Sagan’s famous quotes is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Let’s just say that there’s an election coming up. Party A is running Candidate A. Party B is running Candidate B.

Imagine if you will, that Candidate A claims that Candidate B will, oh, I don’t know, institute a death penalty for jaywalking (notwithstanding that jaywalking in some places can be deadly without judicial action). Wow, that’s pretty extreme. Now you might be having one of several reactions: maybe “wow that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”; maybe “well it doesn’t surprise me that Party B would run someone with that kind of plan” or “well I always knew something was off about Candidate B”; and just maybe, you think “that’s kind of weird, maybe I should look into that a little further.”

If you thought the last thing, congratulations! You noticed an extraordinary claim and are at least looking for evidence, preferably the extraordinary kind.

You’ve got another week until Election Day. Go ahead and use that extraordinary brain of yours! Find out if Jewish Space Lasers or government hurricane control satellites are real. Learn what political parties and their candidates really think about guns instead of what their opponents claim they think. Take a read through Project 2025. Peek at the actual voting record and positions of your elected officials. Read about the Federal Reserve (from an actual reputable site, please). Learn how many houses sell in your area in a typical month and how many are available right now; come to your own conclusions about why housing costs what it does. Learn what an ectopic pregnancy, and read for just a few minutes about fatal birth defects (ah, you won’t want to spend a lot of time on that because it’s extremely sad and can be upsetting).

You’ll notice I’m not feeding you links. And you know I love links! I hope you’ll spend time on some relatively neutral sites like Wikipedia. When you go to the websites of the political parties, pay attention to what they want and ignore what they claim the other guys want. Don’t pay any attention to celebrities; they’re not running for anything. That includes the people on certain TV channels that claim to present news. If a candidate has a giant gap between what they say and what they do, pay attention to what they do.

When you are done, maybe you’ll be firmly convinced your initial opinion was correct. Maybe you’ll be looking for more information still. And just maybe you’ll have changed your mind about a thing or two. Whatever you decide, remember that what you do on your ballot is your business alone. It doesn’t have to align with your family or the sign in the yard, just with your heart. Whatever you learn, do the right thing.

Flu Season Officially Begins

Okay, I know the virus has actually been out there a while. And yes, I am monitoring the bird flu situation in a professional capacity.

While the vaccine currently out there is not perfect, it is better than the alternative to getting vaccinated: nothing. I urge you — both personally and professionally — keep your hands clean, get vaccinated, and stay home if you are sick. Remember that year we did a lot of things to keep from getting COVID? The flu rate sure was low that year!

Stay safe out there!

On Electric Cars

A couple of years ago I wrote this about electric cars. What I said holds up.

I can now add almost two years of experience actually driving one to the mix. Here are my observations.

Choose the person who installs your outlet or charger with care. Not all installers know what the heck they are doing. Some will try to “help save you money” (or cut corners) by using materials not rated for the draw. This can result in charger failure, or fire. Likewise, pay attention to signs that things are not as they are supposed to be. I do not regret choosing a plug in rather than a hard wired charger; heaven forbid it dies, I order a new one on Amazon. It arrives in a day or two, I bolt it to the wall, and I plug it in.

Choose your manufacturer with care. I have no regret choosing Ford over Tesla for many reasons, not the least of which is “easier access to trained repair people.” There is only one Tesla dealership in town, and there’s several Ford dealerships. Same logic applies to Toyota, even to Jeep.

It’s not hard to actually pay attention to your remaining charge. Now if you were the person who put off gassing up your regular car until you were running on fumes, maybe electric is not for you. And if flying cars are ever a thing? Absolutely not for you! That meme online of the Tesla being charged by the side of the road using a gas generator is the same idiot that would have been waiting for AAA to show up with a gallon of gas.

The weather will absolutely effect your range. In very hot or very cold weather expect to lose a bit of range. Plan accordingly. EVs might not be the right choice for those of you in very cold climates yet.

Road trips and towing are possible, but challenging. I’d still recommend using gas, hybrid, or PHEV for those uses. Sure, range is improving and access to charging is improving. I am having a hard time imagining a future where you charge to 100% in the time it takes to fill a gas tank. For my use case that’s ok, but it’s not for everyone.

EVs are still probably not an option for most apartment dwellers. Sure, there are complexes that have a charger. Maybe two. For over a hundred units. And public chargers do exist. But, well, see all of the above.

It’s going to take a serious amount of time to solve these issues. We need infrastructure. And the law of supply and demand makes that a chicken and egg issue: there won’t be massive demand for EVs until there’s massive ability to quickly charge them, which won’t be cost effective to build until there’s massive demand for EVs and the ability to charge them. I won’t pretend that’s anything other than a hard, expensive problem to fix.

EVs are still not for everyone. But at this time, they work for me.