It’s Not Important Unless It Is

I think it unwise to define everything that one doesn’t care about or doesn’t understand as being unimportant AND still think that they understand everything that is important. To me, that is the definition of ignorant.

Anyway…I’m sure this is not important in the grand scheme of things (whatever that means), but it’s important to me. I began the playoffs for my computer football league yesterday. AFC Wild Card Buffalo, 8-9-1 after starting the season 0-5, played at the only team in the conference with a winning record, 15-3 Toronto.

After three quarters the score was Buffalo-16, Toronto-7. Toronto quarterback Davis Mills, after throwing just four interceptions the entire regular season, threw three in the first three quarters. Add that to Buffalo blocking a Toronto punt and it was only the stellar Toronto defense that kept the game close.

Buffalo continued to struggle to move the ball; half of their offensive output for the game came on two long catch-and-run plays. Toronto kicked a field goal with about 8 minutes left to cut the lead to 16-10.

The Argonauts (what else could I call a Toronto football team?!) intercepted Jacoby Brissett with a little over 5 minutes left on their own 24-yard line. Of course, a Buffalo score of any kind at that point would almost certainly have doomed Toronto. The Argos methodically drove down the field and Mills threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown with 28 seconds left. Ka’imi Fairbairn made the extra point, not a given with him, and Toronto escaped with a 17-16 win.

Being in the same division the two teams had played twice in the regular season. Toronto won both, but by the same relatively small margin both times: 16-10 and 26-20.

The game, which took only about an hour (I don’t have to pause for commercials and halftime), was very exciting to me. Yes, I know it was not a real game, but watching the game unfold in such a manner is the reason I enjoy these simulations.

Only six playoff games remain before the season comes to an end. I will not play more than one playoff game in a day. As I have written more than once, I have lived most of my life in my head and not in the real world, per se.

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As 2022 comes down to its last 60+ days I decided to submit a question to WordPress help about whether or not the Classic Editor would still be available in 2023. Granted, this answer came from a “Help Engineer” and not someone making the decision, but the reply I received was, “There are no current plans to retire the Classic Editor.” You guys may be stuck with me a little longer.

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More football…as of yesterday the Over/Under for the Iowa-Northwestern college football game was 31.5 points. A person can bet on the combined point total of the two teams. If I bet the “Under” on this game then I think the total score will have 31 or fewer points.

Why am I mentioning this? As far as anyone can tell, it is the lowest Over/Under line for any college football game ever. In its first 7 games, Iowa has scored 98 points or 14 per game. Northwestern, after its “upset” win over Nebraska in the season opener with the Huskers defense coached by–at the time–the worst defensive coordinator in major college football, has lost 6 consecutive games scoring a total of just 99 points. I don’t think I will watch this game.

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Although I think the Saturn Sky is a slightly better looking car than the Pontiac Solstice (and they are the same car under the skin), I am now leaning towards buying a Solstice if/when the conditions are right. Why? I have a long history with Pontiac and none with Saturn.

Remember that my first car was a 1967 Pontiac GTO (pictures unnecessary as they have been shown often) and the car I have owned the longest, nine years, was a 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix. Just as the pull of the first family car I remember, a 1956 Buick Century, as well as the fact that the car was built in the country where my parents were born led me to buy a Buick Cascada, at this point in my life personal connections matter at least as much to me in buying a car as the car’s specs. Different strokes for different folks, DSFDF.

2008 Pontiac Solstice GXP Convertible | T20 | Kissimmee Summer Special 2020

By the way, specs still matter, which is why I would only buy a Solstice GXP, the turbocharged version.

#It’sNotImportantUnlessItIs

#ComputerFootballSeason

#SaveTheClassicEditor!

#SkyvsSolstice

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Sunday Sermon

Just because an idea or concept is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because something is frightening doesn’t mean it’s false. You can bury your head in the sand to avoid the unpleasant, but all that means is that you are more likely to have something bite you in the ass.

Image result for Funny Ostrich Head in Sand

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Whither Italy? For much of this year this blog had a consistent daily number of views from Italy. For awhile in 2022, more blog views came from Italy than from any other country except the US or Canada. In mid-June, though, those views from Italy virtually disappeared.

Since this blog’s inception in January, 2018 it has been viewed by people in more than 100 countries. Not surprisingly, the US has accounted for the highest percentage of views, by far, at about 90 percent. That proportion, though, has declined over time. Canada is next at about 4 percent. In case you’re interested, or even if you’re not, Israel is third, but at less than one percent. With the departure of L Weaves Words from the blogosphere (believe it or not, due to a technical issue that WordPress could not fix despite much effort), I suspect views from Israel will stagnate and that India will move into third place in all-time views by country.

Although I often complain about what I perceive to be a lack of views relative to the quality of this blog and about the marked decline in views and visitors since February of this year, it is amazing to think that Disaffected Musings has had hundreds of thousands of views from well over 100 countries. I do still enjoy writing, but in the back of my mind I cannot shake the fear that WordPress will cut off access to the Classic Editor despite the fact that the new editor has not been as widely adopted as they had hoped, not even close in actuality. When blogging becomes a chore, as it would with the awful new editor, I will have to stop.

My intent when I write about declining views or the awful block(head) editor is not to threaten my readers that they better step up or else. Even though my identity is unknown to most readers, I think I have been very transparent about most things that are blog related and even life related.

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Yesterday my wonderful wife and I drove to the weekly car gathering that is the longest running such event in the US. We arrived about 20 minutes before it is supposed to start, but unlike the custom at most similar events in this area, hardly any cars were there. We also learned first-hand that the difference in elevation in the Valley Of The Sun really does make a difference in the temperature. Of course, the fact that the event is held in the parking lot of a large shopping center without much vegetation makes it hotter as well.

The elevation at this event is about 1,300 feet above sea level. Our house is about 2,100 feet in elevation. With the dry, adiabatic lapse rate being 5.38° F per 1,000 feet in elevation, that means our house should be about four degrees cooler, on average, than the shopping center where the car event is held. I can tell you when we got out of my wonderful wife’s Corvette it felt like opening an oven door.

We waited in the shade near a building for awhile to see if more cars would arrive, but they didn’t and eventually my wife could not avoid the siren song of White Castle as we had seen a marquis indicating that the famous Midwest slider place was nearby.

See the source image

This is the first White Castle location in Arizona. In its first year of operation more than 4.2 million sliders were sold there, making it the top location in the entire 360-plus store chain.

After my wife ate a couple of sliders and fries, we drove to the Penske complex that I visit quite frequently. We had a good conversation with Michael, one of the sales people. Oh, you want to see some pictures. OK, these are from the event and from Penske…

The second photo is Camelback Mountain, perhaps the most famous landmark in the area. I have shown pictures taken from the mountain before.

The bottom photo is, of course, a Maserati MC20. You won’t see this car in the Hall of Very Good Cars series because it is highly likely it would be a member of my Ultimate Garage 4.0, not that it’s likely that will ever be published. Even trading in my Z06 for this, I would consider purchasing this car to be too imprudent, too impractical.

As always, I welcome thoughtful comments. Thanks for reading.

#SundaySermon

#SaveTheClassicEditor!

#FutureOfDisaffectedMusings

#WhiteCastle

#MaseratiMC20

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Brownian Motion Thursday

Brownian motion is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas). In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper where he modeled the motion of pollen particles as being moved by individual water molecules, making one of his first major scientific contributions.

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From an Israeli newspaper comes a story with this title and sub-head: “Israeli study: Babies born to vaccinated moms have COVID-fighting antibodies. All 40 infants in Jerusalem research have antibodies, suggesting they are born with immunity to coronavirus, according to Hadassah doctors.”

The caveat that the presence of antibodies in newborns doesn’t prove they will protect against the virus is noted in the piece. However, Dr. Dana Wolf, head of the virology department at Hadassah Medical Center, strongly believes they will.

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Recently, most of the country changed the time on their clocks to move into Daylight Savings Time. According to a report from CarInsurance.com, data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that the few days following the change is the second most dangerous period to drive in the US. Take an hour of sleep away from a sleep-deprived country and…

In general, driver fatigue, caused primarily by lack of quality or quantity of sleep, is among the leading causes of traffic accidents in America. My marvelous mom was an intelligent person. She used to rail against the bi-annual clock changes. The fact that Arizona doesn’t engage in the foolish practice was not a reason we moved here, but it is a nice bonus.

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I always knew I wasn’t the only WordPress blogger who disliked the Block Editor and favored the Classic. This post is called “[T]he tyranny of the new and shiny at wordpress.” By the way, the post author is way more adept at using a computer than I am. He has also been blogging on WordPress since 2013.

I have also thought that the WordPress push to move every blogger to the Block Editor–or Blockhead Editor, as I call it–smacked of tyranny, while granting this issue is not really important enough to use that description. Once again, I have to state that it is likely I will discontinue blogging on this platform if I HAVE to use the new editor.

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From BMW CEO Oliver Zipse via Phil LeBeau of CNBC: “BMW has no plans to stop developing internal combustion engines because demand for ICE vehicles will remain robust for many years to come.” Finally, an automotive CEO who understands the real world!

The “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach to EVs taken by so many car companies ignores reality. First, well over a BILLION ICE vehicles are being used all over the world with millions more still being manufactured every year. Second, some segment of the vehicle-buying public will continue to prefer them for “many years to come.”

Do we really want to put all of our transportation chips into the EV basket given that makes us extremely dependent on raw materials from other countries? In addition, upgrading the electric grid to accommodate millions of EVs being charged every night will not happen overnight. For the nth time, blind adherence to ideology is almost never a good idea.

A picture I took of an example of a very famous BMW, a car that influenced design and has become legendary despite only 252 examples ever being produced, the 507:

In what I consider to be a practical policy, BMW has committed to having half of its new vehicles being electric by 2030. Remember that, at present, EVs have only a 2%-3% market share and that share has not really grown much in the last few years. (Hybrid sales have increased, however.)

Although I won’t be around to see it, I think it’s very likely that EVs will become the dominant paradigm in personal transportation some time in the future. However, ignoring the realities of the present is fraught with peril. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Oh, history is replete with examples of the folly of human beings trying to predict the future.

#BrownianMotionThursday

#AlbertEinstein

#COVIDMoms

#DaylightSavingsTimeIsStupid

#SaveTheClassicEditor!

#BMWRealists

#BMW507

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Imperfection

In my opinion, life is almost always about choosing among imperfect alternatives. People who think they can/will get 100% of their way 100% of the time are delusional.

This delusion, however, has permeated American politics. What used to be the great American art of compromise has disappeared. Each side wants all of its policy prescriptions implemented now with no debate, no deviation. Once again, I think the only solution is dissolution.

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In an automotive context, this design exemplifies imperfection for me:

See the source image

From Hemmings a picture of a Ferrari 575 Superamerica that was for sale. To me–and yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder–that hood scoop is too obtrusive and ruins the face of the car. Otherwise, I think the car has nice lines and proportions.

What do you think? Is chasing perfection a noble goal or a fool’s errand? Is it something in between, perhaps?

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I don’t know how many days are in the countdown, but my days as a WordPress blogger are numbered. They have made using the Classic Editor even more difficult to find/use, with a second change in just the last week or two. They have even published “guidance” that states using the Classic Editor is not recommended.

I predict that WordPress will lose about 20% of their bloggers when the Classic Editor is no longer available. I guess they don’t care. Those software developers have to “earn” their keep. <end sarcasm> Oh, the choice among imperfect alternatives can always be not to choose, but to bow out.

#Imperfection

#Ferrari575

#SaveTheClassicEditor!

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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