So currently in my life I am helping out a few friends and relatives who are either elderly or disabled, and I have some serious concerns about how commercial technology is infiltrating every aspect of the things they depend on.

A lot of people can't process app-based door locks or the hoops needed to jump through to prove their identity for accounts needed to 'summon a ride share to a doctor'.

For most of us, it's simple and convenient; but for them, the world has become impossibly complicated, beyond their ability. Failures in government and tech are creating an underclass of folks who can't 'just watch TV' or 'get into modern apartments' without tech support.

If #davidbrooks was writing in the late 1930s:

"I don't like Hitler, and he's very mean to some of his own people, but we can't deny that he has been a powerful visionary for modernization in central Europe. His decisive actions against the backwards and repressive Polish government have awakened hopes of good times ahead in an otherwise stagnant geopolitical landscape."

25 pounds in 25 weeks! Almost entirely from tracking and limiting daily calories to 1600.

Honestly, limiting calories is 'easy' since it only takes a few minutes a day and I can do it asynchronously. The real challenge is going to be adding exercise. My days and evenings are far too hectic and unpredictable to block out time for it, leaving mornings (ugh) and nights (too tired).

I might try setting a bedtime so I can do mornings. This will turn me into a superhuman, but at the cost of my only reliable 'alone time' to be a nerd.

#weightloss #exercise #introvert

There was big news about the air-to-air refueling tankers being flown to the Middle East, presumably to fuel Israeli jets so they could fly over Iran. What I haven't seen any articles on is the absolutely massive and ongoing movement of military cargo planes from the US to Europe and the Middle East.

It's been a week of non-stop C-17s, A400s, and C-130s bouncing all over the skies of half the planet.

It appears that we are planning for far more than giving Israel reconnaissance and refueling. It looks like we're moving a LOT of on-the-ground resources all around the Middle East. Presumably these are munitions and other stockpiles to beef-up bases?