learning curve

Why should we bother?

Posted on February 14, 2025February 27, 2025

Technology is the key to our advancement as a species.

We invent things using technology.
We improve them using technology.
We simplify processes using technology.
We overcome society’s problems using technology.

There’s a lot of work, a lot of brains and a lot of money that goes into developing these technologies so that they can benefit humankind.

And yet, sometimes all of that seems so very unappreciated.

And it does seem that parents are particularly unappreciative of the things that could literally save their child’s life.

Like the mother driving her squabbling kids home from school yesterday: both of them 8 or 9 years old and climbing around the footwell and passenger seat of her car – not a seatbelt in sight.

To the parents in Gaines County in Texas,

It seems that in this case, religious beliefs may have been a strong reason behind many of the (now 24) cases: all of whom *shock* are unvaccinated. Gaines Country has a high population of Mennonites, and all of the cases in Gaines can be linked to Mennonite schools. Traditionally, Mennonites reject “modern” technology (which would likely include vaccinations), which is all well and good until it backfires and a wholly preventable measles outbreak maims or kills their children.

According to this from MennoniteUSA.org:

Mennonites believe in simple living but express that simplicity in a spirit of stewardship and awareness of the needs of others rather than completely separating from society

But if I was the parent of a baby in Texas right now (the first MMR vaccination is at 12-15 months), I would be very worried. I certainly wouldn’t be thinking very kindly about the Mennonites and their alleged “spirit of stewardship and awareness of the needs of others” BS.

Look, religious or not, as parents we deserve to give our kids the best chance in life. And that should start with the right to health and life. Willfully ignoring or rejecting the proven technologies that we have developed to keep our children safe and well is tantamount to child abuse. As one commenter points out:

It’s difficult to have sympathy for an adult who refuses a vaccine and then gets the disease.
The children didn’t have a choice.

Yep. The children deserve better.
And everything they need is right there. It’s readily available.

They’re just not being used.

And that does raise the question: Why should we bother?

Make life (a bit) better

Posted on February 10, 2025February 10, 2025

Look, I don’t spend a lot of time on social media.
Maybe I’m just too old for it, maybe I have better things to do with my life.

Maybe both.

But when I am on there, the algorithm tends to give me a lot of similar stuff. In no particular order: football, travel, photography, geography, quiz questions. Those kind of things.

And it was while I was watching a video from an American lady preparing to visit Africa (specifically Nigeria and Kenya), and asking the online world if she should be taking anti-malarial medication*, that I noticed that a local “influencer” – who is not medically qualified, obviously – commenting and saying no, she shouldn’t, because (and here I quote):

They just mask the symptoms of the actual illness.

This is quite clearly bullshit.

Now, we should all be well used to influencers spouting BS, because that’s how they make their money. Honestly, who in the right mind is going to genuinely criticise a brand or product that is paying for their flights, accommodation and everything else? But doing puff pieces for money is one thing (and yes, it’s actually rather iffy, isn’t it?). Giving medical advice – and at that, terrible, potentially life-threatening medical advice to strangers on the internet – when you have no qualification in the field at all, is quite another.

And so I called the local influencer out on it. Now, I should note here that I’m not a doctor either, but I do have plenty (or more) experience and qualifications in Microbiology and Biomedical Sciences.

I’ve also had malaria, and I know that it’s no joke. It can kill you (mine didn’t). You don’t want it.

Anyway, she chose not to reply [colour me shocked], but she did instantly block me on all platforms.

And OMG, it’s been so wonderful. I hadn’t realised how much of her content was being served to me and how intensely irritating I found it.

Are there any downsides to this? Well obviously, yes:
Now I’ll never know about “this secret beach just 30 minutes from Cape Town” that’s actually so “secret” that it’s completely packed every weekend. I don’t get to “guess which airport she’s flying into” from the shots out of the plane window. And I’ll never get to see another composite shot of her in a wood-fired hot tub beneath a startrails sky.

On that note, I took the hint and blocked her influencer boyfriend as well (IYKYK), and now my social media is now like a breath of fresh air.

Well, not that one, obviously, but I don’t go there anymore, anyway.

If you want to find me on those other platforms, look here.

And if you want my advice on how to make the online cesspit just a little bit more bearable? Unfollow all those influencers that are telling you how great so-and-so brand or product is, while not being completely honest, because if they were, they’d not get any more business. Rather look at Trip Advisor for more honest answers from people who actually had to pay their own way to get to where they were going.

* hey lady, hot tip: maybe try asking your doctor?

Patterson Airport, Louisiana

Posted on February 7, 2025February 7, 2025

Much chatter (a single message) this evening relating to Patterson Airport. There was another airport – one I have flown from – hinted at as well, but that was far less interesting.

Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport is a public airport located near the U.S. 90 highway outside of Patterson, Louisiana, United States with the airfield also serving Morgan City, Louisiana. The airport currently has no scheduled passenger service but is served by charter flights.

Which is all rather dull, but then, this:

It has two runways, one of them being water for seaplanes.

And I guess that if you are used to seeing seaplanes, then you’re used to seeing seaplane runways. But I’m used to neither of those things, so this is quite interesting (to me, at least).

And so I had a quick look on Google Maps, and to my surprise (maybe… I’m not really sure what I was actually expecting) the seaplane runway isn’t a demarcated bit of a local river or lake, but a purpose built… canal?

The airport has a long history of local flights, and obviously, the seaplane aspect must have been fairly important for them to go to the trouble of making a 1.4km long dedicated runway.

And as for Harry P(almerston) Williams? A prominent business man, born in Patterson in 1889 (great year), a plane racer, an airline owner, the mayor of the town, the president of the local bank, and a well-recognised socialite. His second wife, Helen, presided as acting Tsaritsa of the Mystic Court at the Duke of Alexis Tableau Ball in New Orleans, 1924. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds important.

He was killed – appropriately? – in an air crash in 1936. Not in a seaplane, incidentally.

The Orange Shitgibbon would likely have blamed the accident on diversity in air traffic control or something, but I doubt that was really a thing in Louisiana in the 1930s.

Or maybe even now.

Anyway: That’s PTN airport.
You live, you learn.

Finito

Posted on January 28, 2025January 28, 2025

I’m fully done today. 18,000+ steps deep into a day that has included some Pilates and then a reasonably quick 5km run. It didn’t feel like the Pilates was enough exercise, but looking back now, the combination of the Pilates and the run was almost certainly too much exercise.

It’s sometimes difficult to find a balance, and I’m clearly not the only one finding that:

I had to rush out and make some urgent purchases – we seem to be spending ALL of the money at the moment 🙁 – followed by a massive cleaning session ahead of a neighbourhood meeting in our house. I’m not in the meeting, I just prepped for it.
Oh, and plenty of driving in some of the most horrendous Cape Town traffic.

All of this in 34 of your South African degrees of heat.

It’s been draining, and my knees and core are feeling particularly drained.
As you might expect.

Thankfully no football tonight to try to tempt me into a late one, although I genuinely don’t think I would fall for their charms. Self preservation is the name of the game this evening.

Tomorrow looks cooler, which is good, as I have a lot of outdoor work to get sorted. And I can get going on that early, because there’s no way I’ll be able to do any exercise thanks to the World Of Pain™ that I am fully expecting to wake up into.

Small – and unfortunate – mercies.