Filter Bubble and Tainted Information

I am a scientist. I am an observer of people. What I see I must not ignore, for evidence ignored is tainted. As a librarian, we've been learning about filter bubbles, and how social media harms your access to clean information. Being logged into Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Yahoo, etc, skews any search you do, using your profile to filter results, and this profile tracks you and everything you do, every link you click, and even the ones you don't. Allegedly this is to sell you stuff, but Google started with money from NSA. This is public information, although it is somewhat hard to find these days.

Will I see more evil or less evil when the filter bubble isn't blocking the truth? I think I need to see for myself. Maybe I'll feel a little better about people once I do. Or maybe this will simply confirm my plan to avoid getting entangled with the evil around me, and further remind me to keep my relationships shallow to avoid harm.

Sail Away in the Sierras

There's plenty to distract a Californian from evil news in the East. This is why I recommend ignoring the national news and focus on the local and regional. We are having really nice weather right now. Take advantage of it. I like walking. There's audiobooks on chilly mornings, as the sun comes up over the Sierras. Those are really nice while gardening, too. There's also mountain biking, road biking, and hiking. Those are popular here too, though I DO recommend blinking lights and bright colored clothes so cars can see you in time. I've never been hit by a local, but I do my part to be seen. Some of the local junkies ride wearing black or camouflage and have accidents because of it. Some fatal. So use your brain if you ride.

The Sierras are also a great place for hiking and picnics and BBQ on the back deck. Lots of good places to enjoy that here in the Sierras.

There's twisty roads to drive on, and grilled steak with a good but inexpensive Lodi Zinfandel. Thanks to Cesar Chavez for destroying the farm worker's jobs and convincing Americans it was unethical to eat table grapes. Instead those were ripped out and replaced with wine grapes. Zinfandel was the popular one, and the wineries that replaced all those raisins and table grapes farms that Chavez put out of business ended up producing really good Zinfandel. Zinfandel is a spicy red wine that goes well with pepper-steak, but also hamburgers and BBQ. Here in California those go for around $3-9 a bottle, though you can pay more. I find that around $5 a bottle is the sweet spot for value and quality. It tends to have more variation and fruit than Cabernet, and more flavor and sharpness than Merlot or Sangiovese. It is too strong for chicken or fish, however.

The other sport here in the Sierras is boating. That means power boats, row boats, kayaks and canoes, even sailing. Yes, sailing, usually small boats under 20 feet long known as a sailing dingy. Lake Tahoe is a huge lake, and on a breezy day has sailboats crossing its deep waters. Quite a few sailboats anchor on its shores, and more boats are pulled out or put in from the various free or pay boat ramps. It is over 1000 feet deep so does not freeze in the winter, even if the shore gets piled high with snow and icicles. Tahoe holds more water than the Great Lakes combined. Tahoe has lots of public access, as well as fancy pay-docks for those who want to pay for better privacy and security. The catch is the winds aren't very reliable in the Sierras, and there are days it is utterly calm, so a sailboat would be pretty useless then. There's also days when a storm surges in and it would be dangerous to sail on the lake. Having oars on your boat, and a boat light enough to enjoy rowing, would be a good idea if you plan to use one on lakes in the Sierras.

Lake Tahoe is below the map, to the right side. The above lakes are in and around Truckee.

And there's plenty more lakes than Tahoe, though most are smaller and all are shallower. Between all the Subarus with kayaks on their roofs, or bicycles, and pickup trucks with a camper on the back and a boat trailer towed behind in the various campgrounds around the various other lakes, like Stampede Reservoir or Lake Davis, both of which are known for their trout fishing. A motor or paddle or row boat is great for those.

Grouchy wife? Go fishing. 

There's also other kinds of boating, though few people do water skiing anymore. The waters are either too cold or too dirty. Houseboats are great for parties on the reservoir lakes like Oroville and Shasta, being warm in the top foot, and freezing below that. Many boaters in the Sierras and Valley like to fish. More than the classic aluminum rowboat, there's other kinds too. Lots of people have a Bass Boat, which is a dual hull boat with a motor and a swivel seat or two. Those are great for guys who want their lure, beer cooler, fish finder, and use this excuse to get away from their wives. I can't blame them. The heat in the Valley is NASTY this time of year, and even Folsom Lake, which generally has really good bass fishing, and is barely 30 minutes from downtown Sacramento, with several boat ramps, the water temps help cool you off. There's a number of good bass-fishing lakes in the foothills, and a person with a truck and trailer towing one of these is in good shape for a weekend of peace on the water.

Stephenson Project, Weekender (model). Built by hand from plywood, for a few thousand dollars.
Weighs only 450 pounds, so can be pulled on a trailer behind any passenger car with a class 1 trailer hitch. 

Paddleboarding is going out of style. I still see some, but most have figured out its not Zen so much as clumsy. If you want to try it out, renting them is cheap at many lakes. You can also rent rowboats, motorboats, and sailboats like a Laser or Sunfish. The Pico rents at Donner Lake. Tahoe City (north shore) rents out the Melonseed, which can be sailed or rowed. Building a boat out of marine grade plywood is another option, though I recommend renting one first. There's no point building a boat you don't enjoy sailing. Much like an RV, you have to be comfortable with it.

Ultra-light, carbon fiber hull, mast, and sails, only $8500 and weighs 85 pounds.

Some people are just happier with a wetsuit and a really light boat that flips over twice an hour, and that's what makes them satisfied. I've found that a used Laser sailboat (aka a board sailer) and a trailer made for it that will pull behind any car with a Class 1 hitch, is around $500 used. These have common parts and are easy to maintain. The hull weighs 130 pounds, the mast and sail another 30 or so, and you are most of the ballast. They flip over easy in gusty conditions and most people who sail them wear a wetsuit. I learned on a Laser. I liked it, but they only really go fast when they are about to flip over. They're olympic boats, and you'll see them in Rio. Only 14 feet long, they're called a Dingy, or racing Dinghy.

Hand built classic Moth, weighs around 85 pounds, made of 6mm marine-grade plywood.

Conversely, the Classic Moth is a boat type that has been modified almost annually and weigh around 80 pounds, are often made of thin bent plywood with floatation chambers and has wires to reinforce the mast. They also have a bit more ergonomic seating setup than the Laser but you mostly have to build one from scratch. They are most popular in Europe, particularly in the UK and France. However, this is another boat where wearing a wetsuit is typical. I think I'd like a boat a little less likely to flip over, and I researched more types of boats, and boat construction, and learned that whomever knows the math for boat design never shares it. Much like electric cars, its all craft secrets. I have learned that Day Sailers, like the above Weekender (Stevenson Project) might be a better fit for me. While it looks big and bulky, it uses bent and tensioned plywood for its strength and actually only weighs 450 pounds, which is pretty similar to a bass boat.

Weekender on a car trailer, with a flat tire.

I could easily see owning one of these, and with club membership at the Gold Country Yacht Club ($70/year) I'd have a place to park it, legally and cheaply, rather than cutting down a tree and building a gate and a ramp and all the fuss involved with storing it here. That said, a Laser would be easier, though much less comfy on Lake Tahoe. An O'Day day-sailer will be cheaper, since those are common used, but perhaps less entertaining than one of these you built yourself. Just not in the basement, unless you can afford to dig out a wall to extract it.

Trimigrants Busted: 1000 Pot Plants Seized on North San Juan Ridge Pot Garden

North San Juan is a ridge that runs from the covered bridge at Bridgeport, near Lake Englebright, all the way east to the top of the Sierras. It is around 35 miles or dirt and gravel roads, chapparal oaks, pines, and the three branches of the Yuba River. Its rough country, nearly undeveloped, and most of it is BLM or National Forest. Pot growers squat there, camping and growing dope for processing and sale after the harvest in the Fall. The nearest grocery stores are in Grass Valley and Nevada City, so these people rub elbows with us when they come into town. They also borrow books and DVDs so they have some entertainment while they rest. Most of these places have no power or water, so the trimigrants don't have any to spare for washing, thus stink. I'm grateful when they bathe before visiting my library.

Pot is a cash crop and while there are permits which allow for a certain amount of plants for those people licensed to grow, most of the growers only use the license system to protect themselves from arrest, and to play shell games with the deputies coming to seize the plants in excess of the legal limit. Modern pot is 1000 times stronger than the stuff in the 1960's, thanks to selective breeding, and it is possible to OD on it, like with Hashhish. Honey Oil is hash oil, if you didn't know. Making honey oil requires butane and a pressure vessel, and these tend to overheat and burst, causing really bad fires. Most of the structure fires in this county turn out to be honey oil lab fires. Renting out your spare guest cottage to a college graduate could result in the place burning down. This has created serious distrust between the owners and renters, for good reason. The local apartment buildings often reek of dope smoke, and honey oil fires there risk the lives of everyone inside, which could be 50-200 people and all their belongings. Of course, the police don't bust them for smoking dope because the law lets "medical marijuana" exist, so the honey oil fires will keep happening.

Deputies hunt for the violators. Unfortunately, most of the growers are clever and have multiple sites, keep the plants in 1 gallon or two gallon plastic pots so they can move them from site to site and thus sell more than they admit to having. It is all profit for them. Attempts to tax pot growers have failed. They underreport their crops and sell the excess for cash so barely pay any taxes. Despite the risk of major fires (and there's been HUGE fires) caused by processing pot plants into honey oil, these people were processing in a rural area with no fire suppression. It could have burned up a lot of land and cost the county and state millions to fight, just like the Trailhead Fire, nearly out, did. The Butte, Lake, and Alta fires were all caused by honey oil processing labs, and homes were lost. But Democrats remain convinced that dope is harmless and my county suffers. Screw you, Democrats. I hope you get cancer from your dope.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Another American institution was destroyed this week through officially endorsed corruption. And she'll probably be the next president despite being shown incompetent or evil. Apparently, all Democrats in my state don't care and will vote for her since they can't vote for Bernie the Communist. Federal government is a laughingstock. Sigh.

The Brexit vote for the UK is still having a ripple effect in the stock market. I remain unclear on which businesses will be impacted by trade and currency-influenced pricing changes and tax differences now that Britain is leaving the EU. Some say it will take 2 years for Britain to exit the EU, but others a few months. I suspect its closer to months. The impacts I've read about so far that actually matter are import and export paperwork increases. That means Carney-paperwork so cross-border excursions get more expensive and slow, thus reducing such projects. Top Gear benefitted from the EU agreement, according to Clarkson and May. Every camera needed Carney paperwork before the EU and they'll need them again. This may affect planning for the Grand Tour program since they'll be crossing borders often, and it might be beneficial if they move their headquarters to an EU country, officially, and retain mobility and simplicity.

The Grand Tour, the new motoring show from the Top Gear staff now on Amazon, is still going to be about cars and travel, and while the new Top Gear on BBC has flopped spectacularly, which is unfortunate, the old crew with new funding and no feminist Man-Haters screwing with their budget or trying to get them killed, Clarkson and May and Hammond should be offering a proper show, eventually. As a fan of their prior program I await it with interest.

Other impacts of the Brexit are less certain. Britain is a major grain exporter to the EU. Increased taxes on their grain, often a retaliatory consequence in such cases, will mostly hurt the EU poor rather than British farmers. Famine and food riots can be avoided by money, but the UK escaping the Derivatives Bubble in Spain, Portugal, Italy and most especially Greece, caused by German bankers investing in bad real estate scams in those countries, then demanding that British and French bankers bail them out? Could France exit the EU next? What about the Scandinavian countries? The Southern EU nations, with all the real estate bubble debt, are the ones who gain the most by bailouts of their bad investments, although in many cases the investments were by foreign bankers and real estate scammers who funded the purchase of land and construction of all those apartments and homes, many of them empty today. As a resident in a region famous for Ghost Towns, I am quite familiar with this. Cities only exist when there's either a resource or geographic reason to stay there, preferably both. When its ONLY a resource, that place empties when the resource is gone. In California that often means either gold or water supply. And water supply isn't often enough by itself. Geography is usually more important, thus the old Real Estate Agent saw: "Location, location, location!" Paying for these apartment complexes in Spain and resorts in Greece, which only existed because a plane ticket from Heathrow and Berlin to these warm and sunny resort towns was cheap 10 years ago (and that price increase ended the trend), is the primary boondoggle of the entire derivatives market mess for the EU. And its still trillions of Euros, which basically bankrupts entire currencies and means instant replay of the 1929 stock market collapse, only today there's way more unemployed young people, religious extremists, and serious potential for both genocide and nuclear weapons use. It would be bad. Islamic fundies have made themselves and their families targets for the rage of all those Catholic youth without jobs. They could be utterly wiped out, not just from Europe but possibly everywhere. As far as Europeans are concerned, a war of religious genocide is better held overseas than turned into ever more vicious wars at home. WW2 could be replayed, after all. It was the German Bankers that caused the collapse. I don't think the young people have forgotten that, even if their banker-owned media don't talk about it. Angela Merkel was elected using German Banker money, and its why she's so loud about demanding EU bailout money for her sponsors, rather than letting them Eat Their Failure. Sigh.

The USA and UK have reasonably good ties, and I suspect that the Jaguar and other UK cars will get cheaper thanks to the falling Pound. This will be good for them and us. While Clarkson and May tend to mock America, they also express a certain awe for just how LARGE America is, and how many roads there are to drive on, and how you can cross borders without stopping, unlike the EU. I know that neither candidate is likely to make much headway on maintaining those roads, since most of that work is contracted, and managed by the states involved. Still, I can hope that sane people will ignore the collapsing federal government and stick to maintaining the critical infrastructure as long as they can. Our roads and bridges need to stay up. Collapses like the St. Paul bridge shouldn't happen again, but probably will. It was typical communist indifference that caused that. The inspection funds were diverted to more populist socialist programs like children's cheese, and 80 people died. That sort of viciousness is what Socialism is really about. Think about that the next time you vote.

Adaptation: Chronicles of Shannara

There's an adaptation of the Elfstones of Shannara called the Chronicles of Shannara on Netflix. MTV made it, of all people, and managed to do a quality production, 10 episodes, 40 minutes each, covering the full contents of the novel, which is 576 pages long. It read it back when it hit the paperback shelves in 1982. The adaptation was done with full permission and involvement of the author, and a few changes were made to some of the characters. The human rover girl is more desperate and talented and interesting than she was in the book. The downside is the first season covered the contents of the entire book, and from what I read of the second season it is unclear if they're going to do the next book, which takes place 20 years later, or if they'll turn this into a mushy teen drama like Game of Thrones, a show I ignore. I liked the actress they have playing this girl, Eretria. Turns out Ivana Baquero was the girl in Pan's Labyrinth, only she grew up hot and sexy and offers lots of enthusiasm for the role. I hope to see her again, which could certainly be the case since her (character's) daughter, Brin, is described as the spitting image of her mother so if they do the next book (Wishsong of Shannara), she can play the character without any problem.

Ivana Baquero (right)

In any case, I firmly support this having been made, properly, and such things are so rare.