My previous post brings up the question of just what my wife and I riding when we go electric? My wife rides a Tern GSD. www.ternbicycles.com/us/bikes/473...

globalnews.ca/news/1060652... Could E-bikes give you a break financially? The answer is probably. Even in car dependent in LA our e-bikes come close to replacing the car. Living in a more compact city, the potential for e-bikes to replace cars is even greater.

Yeah, it's a Monday. Thank goodness it's a holiday tomorrow.

www.reuters.com/investigatio... This is a big reason why I left Facebook.

Amedeo is not bothered by the return to the standard time. He's still gonna get his sun.

Best title for an academic paper this week: "A Less Terrifying Universe? Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox" Read it here: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.22878

Take a break from fighting fascism with Amedeo.

www.briefingbook.info/p/how-cuts-t... Work from and old professor and his gang. They'll shiv you with a Difference-In-Difference in a in faculty lounge for sure. They bring an important aspect of health care subsidies that's often missed.

If you wind up with imaginary numbers in economics and policy, you are doing something very wrong. On the other hand, using fictitious numbers is just fine.

Amedeo is hibernating in anticipation of another brutal LA Winter.

Jago wakes up, smells the coffee, and decides not to bother.

Word of the day "Poka-Yoke". I gotta love a profession which has vocabulary like this. It's a Japanese term referring to safety design.

The world isn't all bad. Thanks to AI, cats can now take selfies.

The administration wants to change 401K rules to allow you to invest in private equity? Should you? The answer is that it depends. Private Equity (Hedge Funds) operate outside the reporting and enforcement rules of the SEC. That's not necessarily bad. But, it involves taking on more risk.

I'm a little sad today. I finally deleted my Facebook account. This is small amid the violence today and that which many are promising for the future. I'd been putting off deleting the account for a while. Truth is that I met some neat people through FB and renewed many a friendship.

Startling realization: Bowtie Diagrams are the Feynman Diagrams of the Risk and Safety world. It's the graphical representation of the Path Integral of Peril for any socio-technical system.

In other news, LA now has an "alien church". For reals! Alien Jesus & everything. I swear sometimes it's like living in "Transmetropolitan". Especially since the 2028 election will likely pit "The Beast" against "The Smiler".

One of the tough things about doing policy work is dealing with the Statistical Value of Human Life, aka Valuation of Statistical Life. This is part and parcel of any safety and risk analysis. It's pretty much the devil's work but the devil does get to weigh in here.

www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-was-f... This is why I'm sitting AI out for the moment. I'm not a Luddite; I fully intend to use Machine Learning and some other types of AI in my analytical work. But, LLMs to write code? Well, I'll be very careful.

Wow. AOL is ending dial up service. Wonder if they're finally decommission the modem banks I installed back when I worked for them.

More reasons why shouldn't fear an AI uprising. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWsb...

My jobs tend to build an esoteric bookshelf that intimidates and intrigues normal people. For example, I still have my book on spacecraft dynamics. Today, I'm adding a book on The Bow Tie Method. Which is a method for risk and safety analysis.

My new job is already giving me some equally new perspectives about regulations. Conservatives decry most regulations as unnecessary and say they stifle innovation and growth. On the other hand, it's said that behind every regulation, there's a dead body.

Today's insight: History is made and implemented in long and mind numbing meetings. Dramatic battles and innovative construction are only the outcomes of those meetings enacted. And, people like me have to stay awake through these meetings and contribute something intelligent to arc of history.

I'm in the process of getting the manuscript of my fourth book ready for publication. I self publish to retain control of my work. So that means setting up a Patreon page to solicit help. Can my writing pals recommend good practices for Patreon? I'll get my author Bluesky site up soon as well.

In this time of universal brouhaha, at least we have Amedeo.

In other news, Trumped killed both my job and my wife's job this year. Luckily, I found another job almost immediately. My wife is a Biologist is a very specialized field and she'll have a far longer job search. How did this happen?

Trump has taken the first step to eliminating the government institutions which can deliver bad news to him. He fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This agency is responsible for reporting on unemployment and creates a vast array of useful economics numbers.

I'm attending No Kings's event, “One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...

I searched for Michael Lucas, the writer today. Forgot his middle initial. My top hits were several articles about "Gay Porn King, Michael Lucas". Guess every writer needs a day job. Or I need to be very specific in my searches.

My new salary is going to let me get a new bike sooner than I expected. I'm riding an REI Co-Op ADV 1.1, but I want something a bit more snazzy and my bike is eight years old now. I think REI is discontinuing the brand so you can find these on clearance for a song. They're good, solid touring bikes.

The bad news this summer was that I lost a job I loved due to federal insanity and inanity. The good news was that I was only out of work a week before getting an offer to work in state government. I also got a nice little staycation as the hiring process chugged forward.

An outpatient surgery turned into an overnight hospital stay due to complications. But, I'm back. And I just accepted an offer from the California Public Utilities Commission to work for them as a regulatory analyst. I'll be doing studies of all kinds and generally working as a regulator.

Will your community have enough warning for the next flood? www.ecowatch.com/trump-usgs-c...

What with all the weirdness this year, I wasn't able to out into the water til last week. But, it's been worth the wait. I've been using my fast hand plane pictured here. I have a catch rate of around 75% out of all the waves I try. Too bad Slyde went out of business.

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.

I understand that my spellchecker might have problems with the constructed language I made to generate character names. So I added those names to the dictionary. What I don't understand is how my spellchecker has a smaller vocabulary than most US eighth graders.

Amedeo nesting.

Years ago, I was a regular at the Santa Monica Travelling Rings. Haven't had time since graduation, but I might have a chance to get back on them this summer. If my shoulder holds up.

I man the front lines of a police state. I am a child of my moment in history. To be competent, I have to be complicit. I do not drag human beings from their homes, I drag historical outliers. I don't fire into unarmed crowds, I fulfill the will of history. Quote from an oddly relevant video game.

I deleted a post with an opinion I am very entitled to have. Why? Because this is a public feed and I'm applying to state jobs. We're in a nasty space right now where you can't be too careful what you say.

Civil Service exams are grueling. I've been hired for high level jobs with a nod and a grunt (literally in a network engineering position).

A terrifying escalation:

Just where are with the anti-ICE protests on a scale of Life in LA? This gauge sums it up well. Wish I knew who made it; I just stole it.

Life in LA is beginning to feel like the end of Andor, Season 1.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that it is 'reducing sample'. This means they will be collecting less data and making more inferences (read as 'guesses'). This is a sign I was waiting for and dreading.

Why support Public Broadcasting? Well, were it not for KCRW, I would have discovered "Nation of Language". Which is an awesome synth band that sounds like it escaped from 1987 and did sound tracks for a John Hughes film. Not something you're apt to hear on regular radio or streaming.

Back when tactical dog harnesses were a thing, I googled for 'tactical cat harness'. Sure enough, someone makes such a thing. And Amedeo looks sharp in his.