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Here are some more mini reviews of books. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: Simon Thorn Series by Aimee Carter

This was a good book, but I recommend against reading it, unless you read German. Because it is a 5-book series, but only books 1-3 are in English. I read book 1 then book 2 and liked them. We have book 3 but it was while reading book 2 that I realized I could not get books 4 and 5, so I didn’t bother reading book 3 because then I would have been farther into the story. So I decided to cut my losses.

If you do read the first book, which is the Wolf’s Den, then just stop at that because you get enough to appreciate the story. Save books 2-3 until books 4-5 come out. Or learn German.

Next up: In the Blink of a Screen by Terry Pratchett

I was wondering what Terry Pratchett book to start with to introduce me to his writing, when I saw this book at our library. It’s a collection of short stories, so I figured that was a good way to dip my toes in the water.

For the most part, the stories were engaging and not objectionable. I do remember thinking that one or two of them were inappropriate, but I don’t remember any details of what or why at this time, so maybe they weren’t that bad.

Next up: Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Our library website shows recommended books to its patrons. I’m not sure if it is personalized based on your reading history, or if it’s just whoever paid to have their books promoted, or just randomized. But we got a thing touting the book Starter Villain by John Scalzi. It looking interesting enough that I looked into John Scalzi a tiny bit, and people seemed to prefer his earlier book Kaiju Preservation Society better, so I thought I’d start with that.

The book had an interesting premise and clever writing and a good story. Everything you would want in a book.

Except it was full of foul language and the characters seemed to have come from a DEI checklist. It wouldn’t have been so bad except the one person who was a “they” but I didn’t realize it so I read a whole chapter thinking it was about a group of people but no, the “they” was one person, so I had to re-read that chapter and then pay extra attention in subsequent chapters.

Anyway, the very many bad words is the reason I recommend against this book. And then I looked up John Scalzi’s other work, and some of the reviews mention the language. Normally sci-fi writers seem to avoid a lot of objectionable content, but that is apparently Scalzi’s calling card that he wants to be known for so, as best I can tell, all his books have foul language and so I will not be reading anything else by him. I returned Starter Villain to the library unopened.

What would be good is if we could get like the TBS or USA Network version of this book. They are famous for editing out bad words when they broadcast a movie – making the movie more family-friendly when they air it. Someone should do that for Scalzi’s work. He might disagree, but I don’t think the story would be harmed at all by replacing bad words with milder words.

Last up: I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

This one I think I saw in a review by World Magazine. I wish they would have a section on their website with all the books they’ve reviewed. With not much to go on and never hearing of Peter S. Beagle before, I just jumped in.

It was a good story and was very entertaining. My only complaint is that just before the end of the book, he had to put one bad word in there. There was nothing foul before then, and it seemed out of character for the book. Like she could have used the word “dung” instead and that would have fit better, to me. It’s like how for some reason the ratings people decided a PG-13 movie could have one F-word and still be PG-13. How does that make sense – if the word is bad then it’s bad.

Anyway, if one s-word is enough to keep you away the you have been warned. With kids wearing shirts with bad words on them these days, I feel people in general are desensitized to bad words. But that’s another discussion for another day. Overall, I still enjoyed the book.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

Every year we go ice skating in the winter. We usually hit up an ice rink during the holidays with family. And then when our pond freezes the boys will go out there some times and skate.

And we did all those things this year, but then we also made a trip to Toledo. Toledo has a fun place called The Ribbon.

The Ribbon is a skating path. Here is what it looks like from above:

They have roller skating in the summer and ice skating in winter. It is cooled, so they can keep it frozen throughout the winter season even if the temperature goes above freezing.

And there is a slight elevation change, just a few feet overall and gradual. It’s most noticeable on the back stretch coming back to the rink, where you don’t need to do anything because gravity propels you down the path. Not too fast, but enough that you can stand on the skates and keep going.

The skating path is wide enough for 3 people, which is good because couples tend to skate together and you still have room to pass them.

And they have a nice firepit in the middle of one of the arms, so you can take a break and warm up if you want.

And if you want to host a party, you can rent a cabana. When we were there, we saw a couple of cabanas rented, with people hanging out. Plus some people had roasting forks with marshmallows, so I’m guessing the cabana rental includes an option for smores.

And then for those who don’t like the contraints of The Ribbon, it is attached to a small rink.

It’s a nice little respite from The Ribbon, in that you can stop and not be in anyone’s way.

I chose the above photo because it shows the decorative tower between the rink and the river. I’m guessing it looks better at night.

The Ribbon is 1000 yards long, so about 2/3 of a mile. It didn’t seem that long because it loops back on itself so everything always seems close.

There is a natural ice path (not refrigerated, so it’ll melt on sunny days) in Muskegon at the luge adventure sports park. That one is only 1/4 mile long, but it is in the pine forest and is a little more spread out. I haven’t been to that one, but it’s another option.

Then of course there are a bunch of ice skating paths in Canada. And in looking up these places, I found a place that makes them. So you can petition your own city to install an ice skating path.

For my PT Cruiser, I have a set of summer tires (all-seasons, not actual summer tires) and winter tires. They each have their own rims for easier swapping.

The difference is that my summer tires are on the PT Cruiser rims and the winter tires are on Volkswagen New Beetle rims, so the PT hubcaps don’t fit on the winter wheels.

The problem with that is that with no hubcaps, the axle nut is exposed to water and dirt and salt. Here in Michigan they get rusty and corroded enough even with hubcaps, leaving them exposed is just asking for trouble next time you need to pull the knuckle or axle. So I wanted to cover them up.

So I measured the axle nut and I already knew my bolt pattern (5×100, same as VW New Beetles and Toyota Prii), so I got to work in Tinkercad.

I came up with these thingies. The center bump needed to be large enough to accommodate the axle nut protrusion. And the mini hubcap needed to be large enough to fill in the concavity containing the lug nuts, to effectively keep splashes of whatever from trickling into the axle nut. No, it’s not perfect, as stuff on the outer rim can trickle into the middle. But it’s a spinning wheel so in theory anything viscous enough to drip into the middle would have already been flung off the wheel during driving. Ideally.

I also wanted to lower the print time, so I was going to reduce the material used. I started to make extra holes in the outer skirt, but then that would have allowed stuff to splash in. So I made the material thinner in spots but not holes all the way through.

It did take me about 3 iterations to get the size of the lug holes right (hard to measure well with that taper so it sits snug against the nuts but doesn’t get pinched enough to crack) and to account for the cotter pin variance on the side I didn’t measure.

I printed it in PETG instead of the PLA we normally use. The main reason behind the PETG is better UV resistance. These hubcaps are going to be sitting outside the whole time, lots of sunlight exposure, so UV stability is good.

The end result was this:

And for those of you who are interested enough to print your own, here is link to the STL file for the mini hubcap.

Enjoy!

This post is going to be my collection of thoughts on the news story that happened a few weeks ago, regarding the shooting of the UHC CEO and more specifically the reaction to that event.

Let’s start with some basic information. Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare (a health insurance company) was killed in NYC. A couple days later, Luigi Mangione was arrested as the suspect in that shooting.

At first, people were shocked at the shooting of an executive in plain sight in a public space. But then as people realized why the shooting occurred and why Thompson was the target, public sentiment shifted to start supporting Luigi Mangione.

And then other people started reacting to that reaction, by wondering what was wrong with people who would support a killing.

So now I’m going to react to that reaction to a reaction.

First up, are you allowed to be happy when a bad guy gets killed? Proverbs 11:10b says “And when the wicked perish, there is joyful shouting.” And in general Americans were rejoicing when Osama bin Laden was killed. I don’t remember anyone saying the shooter was the bad guy and the victim was not the bad guy in that case. But that doesn’t make it right, the Bible is saying there what happens.

Second up, it is believed that Thompson was the target because he was the head of one of the largest (and worst, in terms of denying claims) health insurance companies. And that’s enough for some people to consider that Thompson was not an innocent victim.

Third up, the government is allowed to take out bad guys, but can individual people? That question is left as an exercise for the reader. I would argue it is not.

Let’s consider the various evil guys that everyone is glad are gone – Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, etc., etc. You should be able to get a pretty good consensus that those were bad guys. But as far as you know, did any of them personally kill anyone? No, they were bad guys that the world was glad to be rid of, because they led their organization and directed others to cause people harm or to suffer or to die.

Now if we take that statement and apply it to health insurance CEOs, you can say they haven’t personally harmed anyone, but they lead their organizations and direct their subordinates to cause people to suffer or to die.

“No,” you may say, “their organization is meant to help people.” Which is ostensibly true. But CEOs don’t get profits and bonuses by helping people, they look out for the well-being of the company, which means directing their employees to find ways to charge more and pay less. And we saw that with lawsuits and such against UHC for increasing their denials of claims. More claims denied = more people suffering, the leader of the organization causing an increasing in the suffering of people is a bad guy = UHC CEO was a bad guy. And that’s the thought process by which people thought the killing was not all bad.

And one could argue that the CEO is helping all the employees in the company by making the company perform better. But does that excuse the CEO from harming other people, or does that make the company’s employees complicit in the harm?

I will argue that both people did wrong, in that both were doing things that God does not like.

Proverbs 3:27 – Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in your power to do it.
The UHC CEO certainly had the power to provide good to those who deserved it, or at the very least provide the services that people paid for, and yet he withheld it.

Proverbs 6:16-17 says that the Lord hates hands that shed innocent blood.
This one is a stretch, as I just argued that Thompson was not innocent. Ok, how about this verse?
Romans 12:19 – Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
I suppose one could argue that Mangione was the method by which God exacted His vengeance. That would be a tough one to prove, and I’m not even going to try. Because my point in this post is to show why people are siding with Mangione, not to agree with what he did.

In summary: he took out a bad guy, heroes take out bad guys, therefore he is a hero to the people.

Now that no one is talking about the Fontopian font anymore, it’s time to announce that Font Grill has released a new font.

Introducing: Thorndyke Font

Go download Thorndyke.

I was inspired by the opening credits of The Love Bug movie. Like this:

The story of why the font is called “Thorndyke” is at the link to the font. But I will take this space to say that both the first and second Herbie movies had an great set of cars. Someone should have preserved all the cars that were in the races. Not because they were in the movie, but just because they were fun cars.

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.
The 2024 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• ITP: 67%
• MPWHFA: 65%
• MYW: 65%

This was the first time in a few years that MPWHFA was not the top percentage. The NFL is setup to promote parity, with the draft setup in reverse order and teams’ schedules setup with like teams. So there shouldn’t be a big disparity with a bunch of teams at the top and a bunch at the bottom. But this year was an outlier, with more good teams having really good records and more bad teams having really bad records. Not by a huge margin, but noticeable. And that situation favored the ITP method, which follows win trends.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 62.7% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

There was news recently that Jeff Bezos was to spend $600 million on his wedding. He denied it, which these days is part of the PR script for modern celebrities or companies – something gets leaked, the main character denies it, then it turns out to be true. But in this case the supposed wedding date came and went and there were no follow-up reports of said wedding actually happening. Which if a wedding did cost $600,000,000 you would think it would be hard to hide it.

Anyway, before it was denied and subsequently didn’t happen, there were a lot of reactions to the news. So now you’re getting my thoughts on the matter.

My first thought was how do you spend that much money on a wedding? Maybe buying a private island and making that the destination for a destination wedding, but the reports said it would happen in Aspen CO.

After digesting various reactions, my conclusion is that it would have been good for him to spend that much money on a wedding. Yes, it is ridiculous, but he has ridiculous amounts of money so that should be par for the course.

No matter what you think of Bezos or other billionaires, the fact is that he has that money. The options now are he can keep it or he can spend it. Of those options, isn’t spending it the better choice for the general economy?

I imagine the money would have gone to a number of local businesses in the Aspen area. Certainly not all the money, but even a small percentage of half a billion dollars would be noticeable to area businesses. And yes other areas besides Aspen would probably need it more, but my point is the money is moving from a billionaire to non-billionaires.

Some of you may be thinking that sounds like trickle-down economics and you don’t like trickle-down economics, but again what’s the alternative – you’d rather Bezos keep that money to himself? I know some people may have other ideas of what should be done via new laws or such, but I’m looking at this based on how things are today.

And yes, he could give the money away to charity like Gates or Buffet are doing, but I see that as a subset of the spending option. Or maybe I should call it the not-keeping option. Either way, you’re giving money to someone else for them to do something with it. The difference between charity and not is if the giver receives a tangible benefit. But to the general economy, there’s not much difference – $600m moves from one person to an area. Better the money moves that direction than the other.