San Francisco Real Estate Battle: Owl Vs Hawk

Finding desirable real estate is a jungle in most cities, especially San Francisco. Mirroring humans, this also applies to the animal kingdom.

In this case, Red Tailed Hawks have been building a nest in Presidio Park, only to have a pair of Great Horned Owls decide to muscle in and claim it as their own. Apparently this is the MO with this type of owl- they don’t make their own nest and seek nests built by others.

In this scene you’ll see the owl swoop in, followed by the hawk having an issue with that. The owl doesn’t budge and the hawk flies away, leaving the owl hooting in victory.

At about the one minute 30 second mark you can hear the screech of a hawk off camera- that if it were translated to English, would probably mean “You think this is over? It aint over!”

 

 

The hawk did what most of us would do, or at least try to do if someone tried to call “squatters rights” on our home.

That was a flawless execution of the Terminator “I’ll be back!” scene- I bet the hawk had it in mind. 😄

 

 

 

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Man Currently Married to at Least Four Women Arrested

 

Just in time for Valentines Day- Some guy stole Cupid’s bow and arrows and has been seriously abusing them.

This guy is believed to be married to at least FOUR women, which means there may be some yet undiscovered extra wives and girlfriends.

If he ever gets out of jail for bigamy, theft, and domestic abuse, he may want to consider writing a book or two that explains how he can sweep so many women off their feet as well as how to logistically handle being married to so many women.

 

Article: Link

 

Child Becomes Millionaire by Simply Playing with Toys

Outside of inheriting money or winning the lottery, one of the keys to achieving wealth is to come up with new ideas, or recycle old ones to appear new and hope it can trigger a trend. Ironically, these are ideas that many typically wouldn’t even consider because they don’t seem promising. The first big idea like this is “The Pet Rock”, which most of us would consider the idea of people paying good money to buy a rock as a pet to be pretty absurd, and yet it became a big seller and made the inventor a millionaire.

The above example shows you don’t have to be a super genius and create a new type of computer or telephone like Steve Wozniak or Steve Jobs. You just need to have that magic mix of creativity coupled with entrepreneurial drive.

A modern example of this is all those taking advantage of social media, and in this case, a family that posts videos of their kid opening and playing with new toys. Now think about it, most people would think showing videos of your kids to others would be boring to non family and only done to trapped audiences such as at home parties. But Ryan’s parents thought otherwise and created a YouTube Channel devoted to their son experiencing new toys to play with. That decision turned out to be a good one, as their channel ranks #1 in earnings at $22 Million for 2018.

Ryan is now in the enviable position of being financially independent years before he actually knows what that means, or even cares. 😁

 

Article: https://www.forbes.com

 

Star Trek Discovery Season 1 Binge Watch Review

 

The latest iteration of the Star Trek universe is “Star Trek Discovery”, which had its initial show broadcast on during the fall of 2017, with the remaining shows playing exclusively on CBS streaming service that you have to pay for (it appeared on Netflix outside of US). As I wasn’t willing to pay to see a series that had always been on free TV, that was the only episode I saw at the time, and I didn’t find it all that impressive to reconsider.

The entire season one recently became available at my library so I got to binge watch it over a few days and now have a full assessment of what I think of this latest small screen version.

The show is set in time 10 years before events in the original series (TOS). That was supposed to allow them to do some plot-line crossovers with characters/places familiar to TOS fans.

The show looks way too futuristic to be a believable precursor to TOS.  It looks more like a contemporary or successor of Voyager or Deep Space Nine. The special equipment they use is also ultra advanced and makes you wonder how they could have access to it when TOS and the other shows didn’t.

The pros are the following:

1. It’s fast paced
2. The plots are interesting
3. There was clearly a big budget on special effects.

Taken as a generic space show, I give it a thumbs up as just about each show was action packed and there were no filler episodes to let things cool down.

The cons are:

These people dress in Star Trek uniforms, live in the “Star Trek” universe, but they are really there in name only as it leaves the path of the main thread of all prior Star Trek series. The quintessential Star Trek show revolved around both a plot and continued character development with dialogue exploring ethics and morality scenarios that challenged the viewer to think how they would respond if in a similar situation. Of course with TOS, the special effects budget was limited, so they were compelled to add more social dialog sequences to fill up the hour, but they did it well. That set the model for successor shows to follow. The new show has little if any of that- just brash decision after brash decision with brief “20-20 hindsight” comments afterwards.

The new show is so chock full of action that there is literally no downtime before the next crisis hits. The problem with this is there is no time for character development outside of the main protagonists and at the end of the season you have no idea what over half the crew are about as they are given very little to do or say. To convert TOS into “Discovery” format, you would take all the main action from its three seasons, compress it into one season and remove all the filler episodes and cerebral discussions.

Another big problem is there is a HUGE focus on one character over all the others- you may as well call it the “Michael Burnham Show”. This character is tasked too many times with saving the day at the expense of everyone else getting a chance to develop their character.

The show is decidedly dark to be a part of the Star Trek universe, where the future was always shown in a positive light rather than a dystopian one. This makes it hard to believe that things will get so much more bright and rosy for TOS in just 10 years time.

Lastly, they don’t appear to respect cannon, as the one recurring guest character they brought over from TOS in one plot seemed completely different from the personality they displayed on that series….. a night and day difference. He was there basically in name with a whole new personality.

The series got mixed ratings on Rotten Tomatoes with professional reviews giving it over 80%, while the avg viewer score was just 50%.

 

I can understand the difference. It’s an interesting show, and I thought it was a good watch, but it’s not really Star Trek- or at least the Trek as defined by all the prior TV series.

 

40 Car “Human Driver” Winter Pileup – Why We Should Welcome Self Driving Cars Rather than Fear Them

When there is talk about self driving cars being put on the road, some speak out against that raising concerns about safety in their belief that these autonomous vehicles will be inferior to human operated vehicles.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. A robot controlled car is focused on just one thing – driving the vehicle and looking out for hazards. Humans can be distracted by an assortment of things like food, texting, chatting, reading, music, grooming, looking at things not on the road, etc.. Then, you have driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or in a charged emotional state. Humans distract themselves in many ways and when I drive I can always count on seeing at least one driver do something nutty like cut across several lanes to not miss an exit, or speeding up/slowing down excessive for no good reason imperiling traffic around them. Automated cars would eliminate the bulk of those risks.

Humans are also notorious for failing to slow down when driving in bad weather, resulting in increased accidents on snowing/raining/foggy days.

Here’s an example of what happens when it snowed in Wisconsin, a State that should be very familiar with snow driving:

Notice that the truck drivers, who drive much bigger vehicles, are the only group of folks driving slow enough to maintain control of their vehicles while you’ll see wave after wave of cars driving way too fast leading to them being forced to drive off the road or crash into stopped traffic.

Don’t be afraid of self-driving cars on the road- be more afraid of the error prone “human” driver!!

 

 

Trump Forced to Capitulate and Reopen Government, Ending Longest Shutdown in History

In my prior post on this shutdown,  I included the following:

“The most directly impacted are those Federal workers who are not getting paid, and as their situations become more increasingly dire in ALL States, including Republicans ones, and the Dems offering legislation to open the government back up without including the Presidents demanded funding, pressure will increase on Republicans to end the shutdown. “

At the 35 day mark, it wasn’t the plight of the poor federal worker losing their homes, or being forced to suffer the humiliation of going to food banks and surviving off charity and impromptu “Gofundme” campaigns that moved the needle to get Trump to back down. The tone deaf response of Trump and his administration shows they absolutely can’t relate to, or be concerned with the needs of non rich Americans who don’t have much saved and live from paycheck to paycheck:

 

Trump tried to come to the aide of Wilbur Ross’s “Why don’t people just take out a loan instead of going to a food bank?” hole that he dug, and proceeded to make the hole deeper:

 

 

So in Trump’s mind, we all live in small towns like “Mayberry” where people are good friends with the local grocer, doctor, banker, etc, who will cheerfully understand their current no pay predicament and allow them to put all their bills on a “tab” that they can pay off later. Or perhaps he thinks the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” George Bailey Building and Loan community type of bank exists that will freely front money to all their customers in need.

So clearly it wasn’t empathy that tuned the tide, as they have proven beyond doubt that anything outside of the world of the wealthy is an alternate universe for them.

The answer is 1) His falling ratings among his core supporters.

His lowest approval rating ever.

2) The start of the complete collapse of the airlines.

Funny thing starts to happen when you stop paying people but still require them to come in to work- after several weeks of this, people start getting stressed out and start calling in sick in large numbers. Airports started having increasing major delays/cancellations due to more and more TSA and Air Traffic Controllers calling in sick. There were dire warnings issued that the safety of the airlines was being put at high risk due to these conditions. We were heading for a dramatic contraction/closing of airports that would have crippled businesses nationwide.

3) Republican Senators started leaving his camp and voted for reopening the government without a wall condition.

Trump had no choice but to concede on his demands that Dems fund his wall as a condition of reopening government. For all the Right Wing pundits criticizing him for giving up,  if he had continued in the shutdown, the airlines would have basically ground to a halt, and the pressure on Republican Senators would have pushed them to vote to open the government in numbers great enough to override Trump’s threatened veto. For Trump to lose in that fashion would be the biggest loss and embarrassment scenario and perhaps damage his Presidency beyond repair. As it is now, he and the GOP have given Dems plenty of material that can be used against them in the 2020 elections. You can be sure the Wilbur Ross, Lara, and Trump statements showing them to be out of touch with the average wage earner will be featured in commercials against Republicans.

 

Shocking Coincidence: 1958 TV Show Features Man Named “Trump” Selling Town People a Wall for Protection

Do we live in a computer simulation where past events repeat in different events, like deja vu?

Amazingly, there was a 1950’s show called “Trackdown” that had an episode that featured a man named Trump who came to town and offered a wall to the people for protection.

As if that’s not enough of a coincidence, listen to the mannerism of speech and legal threats made by the “Trackdown Trump” – eerily similar to the current WH Trump.

Do you think perhaps Trump saw this show as a child, and could be living out his memory of the show???

 

Are we in the MATRIX???

Is it Cold Enough for You? Icy Winter Temps Blast US

Ice cold air from Canada decided to pay the US a visit this week with sub zero temps.

Here are the icy temps from Monday morning:

 

Here’s the wind chill effect temps- what it feels like:

That’s cold!

Here’s the wind chill in Celsius:

 

Hot summer temps seem like a distant memory…..❄❄❄☃🥶

Bitcoin Bear Market – Millennials Experience their Own “Dot Com” Meltdown/Boom-Bust

After the go-go heady days of 2017 where Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies took off to the moon, 2018 was a cold dose of reality as the value crashed back down to Earth. While its current value is nothing to sneeze at in the $3K – $4k range, compared to its all time high in 2017 at $19,065, Bitcoin has lost over 80% of its value.

The tragedy lies in the fact that many people got swept up in Bitcoin mania in 2017 as prices went parabolic and bought in at levels much higher as prices skyrocketed. Many people new to the world of investing started putting money into Bitcoin and believed there was little if any downside risk- sentiments very similar to folks entering the dot com boom 20 years earlier, or the housing market boom 10 years earlier. With their lofty dreams came lofty egos – I tried warning some eager Bitcoin enthusiasts of the inherent danger when prices begin to go parabolic, but I was dismissed as someone who “just doesn’t get it”.

More experienced professionals got sucked in as well, as noted by an article detailing the sad case of investors buying into a fund at double the cost at the very top of the market because they were so frantic to get into the market no matter the cost.

One thing I have learned in the market is that they always run the same pattern related to greed and fear. You have fear of missing out, followed by a greed to make as much as possible, followed by a fear of losing money and closing out for a loss. The pattern of fear and greed is consistent throughout generations:

 

Look at the above charts similar curves.

Here’s the dot come bust chart in detail:

 

The reason why similar market moves keep repeating is that people to fail to learn lessons from the past, and then are replaced by new generations of investors to motivated by our ancestral fear and greed, fall into the same boom and bust investment behavior.

Bad Decision Theater: DON’T Tell Roommates You Won the Lottery BEFORE You Turn in the Ticket

Piles and stacks of money – coins and US dollars

Imagine this- you purchase a lottery ticket and find out you won. What do you do next? Tell all your friends, neighbors, and family, or keep it to yourself and perhaps only those closest to you until you are able to turn in the ticket and claim the prize?

Logic says we live in a world where people will threaten your life just from the daily amount of money in your purse or wallet, how much more for a tidy lottery payout- so it’s best you keep news of winnings on the down-low at least until your winnings are secured.

This gentleman committed bad decision #1 when he won a scratcher lottery ticket, and decided to share the good news with his roommates that he won $10,000 prior to turning the ticket in.

The next day he goes to a lottery office to turn the ticket in, but there’s a problem- the ticket he has isn’t a winning ticket. He then realized that one of his roommates must have replaced his winning ticket with a losing one while he slept. This immediately brings up bad decision #2 – why would you let the winning ticket be apart from you to allow someone to pull the “old switcheroo”? Clearly this guy is trusting/naive to a fault. 🙄

The guy then posts a criminal complaint with the lottery office, and the winning ticket number is flagged so that it will get extra scrutiny if/when someone turns it in.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before one of the roommates attempted to turn in the lottery ticket, and the lottery ticket is actually much more that $10,000. This brings up bad decision #3 – failing to learn to read correctly or being able to identify number values as noted in print. The guy whose ticket was stolen thought it was for $10,000, but he was off by 3 factors of 10- the ticket was worth $10 million!!! 😲

Since the ticket had been flagged as stolen, the criminal roommate was arrested when he tried to cash in the ticket. Then they reviewed the store video recording to confirm the victim was actually the rightful owner of the ticket.

So the story has a good ending, but I’d be worried about the guy holding onto his money with a track record of so many bad decisions…

 

Article details: Link