2. The minute we started talking about inflation, every company in my life took advantage of it--overnight.

3. I'm with you on the government spending. I understood the money thrown at Covid, but that's done, and the working poor will never see those checks ever again. And I'm no fan of the Infrastructure Bill.

4. If you don't wonder why gasoline prices fluctuate by a dollar hourly at some stations, while making record profits; I don't know what to say.

5. Every large company made record profits during Covid, and we don't know why? They didn't lower prices.

Again the $300 extra per week for unemployed people affected by Covid was a one time thing. Companies might get free money as usual, but not the little guys.

It was conservatives (Trumpy) that passed first 2 trillion stimulious package.

America has just a few badly run "socialist" programs.

I think we all have seen our homeless population get bigger each month.

Oh yea, federal government programs. Basically (Cal-fresh, and medi-cal)have gone back to make qualifying very hard.

Granted, our current president shouldn't have been so negative towards fossil fuels.

That said, he did nothing to create this particular upswing.

My local Chevron gas station 94960 has been fluctuating from $5.50 to 6.40 every other day since Ukraine was invaded.

These oils companies, along with so many other companies, raised prices because they thought they could get away with it. "Let's blame a war. Let's blame inflation.". Oil profits have never been higher. It just smells like cronyism.

I've always wondered why gas prices in the Bay Area are the highest in the nation. While we have huge refineries across the Richmond Bridge.

I was shocked over the amount of tranquility music we sold. Tranquility was nature sounds. I didn't know about white noise back then, but we probally had it. It was basically music produced cheaply that supposedly relazed people.

I got it. People are stressed. Did listening to calming nature sounds help me--no, but listening to AM radio on a boring station does calm me down, or keeps negative thoughts away.

My sleepy time music was Classic music. Pretty much everything.

Even then becoming a musician was as hard as becomming an artist. There was just no formula besides 1 in a million talent, like Elvis, or just sheer luck, and that meant exposure.

(I am thinking about leaving an old iphone strapped to a tree to record creek sounds tomorrow, and plop it on Spotify under "Songs to calm. Natural, and organic music."), or never leave my house and produce it digitally?)

I'm not going to read a 49 page pdf today.

There are two things that really affect supply.

1. Government regulations is number one by a huge margin. We all know what that includes; zoning, persnickety council members who literally debate where a window is placed, the wood or stucco you can use, down to hedges, and even the color of your home. Look at what Bill Mahar had to go through in order to build a shack in his backyard.

(Gavin Neusome made some great changes these last few years. They arn't being used though. Why? It's still dam expensive to build anything. I've noticed a a few well off wealthy guys in my county using ADA units to increase the sq. footage of their homes. But most folks don't have the money to build.

2. The cost of constructing is high. Every-time a new code goes into building it just adds up. And I know how most of you love these safety codes.

The problem with over coding is the law is the law.

My father once got a failed final permit on the electrical Service installation. The law states you need 30" of space around the panel. The Service was in a concrete hallway. He was failed because the panel was 29". The inspector was a childhood friend of my father. Yes--it says something about my father too?

I knew a guy whom was failed a final electrical install because he didn't have the right sticker on two of his receptacle. A sticker. He didn't even know buried in the code there was a law over a missing label. The recepticals were standard 15 amp residential recepticals.

This guy said HUD, and NAHB, are not helping the situation. He is probally right. I did look up NAHB lobby monies for 2021, and it was 3.275 million. Which doesn't seem outrageous.

If this guy's thesis is we need to encourage manufactured housing; I'm all for it. Just pay the guys a union wage.

Housing, and the way we treat our Homeless, are my two big hot buttons. If you don't have a place to sleep, and shower, you are fucked. It's not a big problem. Some "Progressive" jack ass running for something in LA wants to not give a homeless person a room. He wants to house them in army barrack style housing, and using the single room as a carrot if the poor slob is a good boy.

If a guy buys some land, let him do whatever (within reason) with it. And yes, that means putting up a tent on it if he wants.

I'm disenfranchised over our lack of homes in the right economic zones, I don't see much ever happening.

One thing Russia did right during their experiment with Communism is they built those huge concrete apartment buildings. Everyone was pretty much guaranteed a room.

We need those big buildings now. We need to have hard building codes (like foundations, roofing, mechanicals, etc. We then need the soft codes. A guy should have to rip out a Service panel over a 1" violation.

If you are ever interested in what it takes to build anything, watch the community station that plays the local town meetings. I guarantee you will want to throw the remote at the tv.

Even then, I was shocked at the low prices.

I stumbled on this Farmer's Market by accident.

I had this security job guarding the Cow Palace on the weekends. The insurance was less if they had a guy on the premises.

I remember seeing my boss (Bill. The nicest boss I ever had. Never forget this huge man walking towards me on a Sunday in complete darkness besides the emergency lights crying while holding a dead cat. He loved the abandoned cats that neighbors left on the property. The higher ups authorized poisoning the cats. I could feel his pain. When I saw the bait traps I disposed of the poison. I was the only one there during the day so I got no reprimands. I thought I'm fired, while carting my huge box of fruits/veggies, and honey, but he didn't care.

Since that day of shopping at that Farmer's market I was ruined I guess? Everone I have been to since was overpriced.

(Here's something to think about. There is a tiny model of the Cow Palace buried below the auditorium floor. Only a few people knew about it then. It was left there by the architects. I had keys to most rooms, and did my fair share of exploring. Seeing that model of the Cow Palace was something out of a Twillight Zone episode. They even put in tiny cars in the parking lots. It was all dusty, but an exact model of the Cow Palace in Daly City.)

Their screwdrivers arn't as good as Snapon, but neither do they cost a fortune.

My standard commercial job tooling was a side cutter (Klein, or whatever I had at the time), a slotted screwdriver, wire stripper, and drywall knife.

I kept my tools in one pocket of my overalls. I learned pretty quick, I didn't need a bunch of tools to do most run of the mill office wiring.

My "Kleins" were used as a hammer.

Most union electricians really didn't even talk about the brand. They just used their tools.

(Tooling has gotten very good these days though. My days of paying more for a name brand in hand tools are over. I got one, actually two complaints while working on PacPell park. An architect complained to my shop boss over my use of the word "Dykes". My nippers were called dykes by my father, and it stuck with me. The architect thought I was referring to her when I said, "Where are my dykes? He told her that is what some guys we call their side cutters, and everything was fine. The second complain was never tied to me, but I was the one urinating in the finished locker rooms. We were suspose to use the porta potties, but they were always far away, and smelled. Oh yea, my initials are on the top of every locker. I put my initials on the pressed wood before the Cherry laminate went on. When there's a remodel, and those lockers are torn out, they will see my initials. Why? I was bored one morning.)

The watch industry used to vet repair Watch Repair shops on the guise of "Quality Assurance". They would require Watchmakers buy their expensive cleaning machines, and a bunch of other pricy tooling, and requirements; in order to procure parts. 90% of watchmakers couldn't get a parts accout, and the watch companies loved it. it meant more after sales/warranty business.

This was because they didn't want to sell parts to anyone. They wanted to do the repairs

For a few years, certain Watchmakers kept up with the demands from Rolex, and The Swatch Group.

We were just happy to be able to get parts.

About 15 years ago the watch companies just decided not to sell parts to anyone.

That whole Vertical Intregtation consumer ripoff.

I am very leary of any company that wants to vet their repair shops for anything, other than maybe medical equipment.

They will supply the schematics, but they don't want to make it easy.

(I'm pretty sure I'm hellbanned again?)

I know a few people whom keep up on tech trends, even though it has nothing to do with their job.

I follow programming trends, basically through HN, and self study. (I have wasted a lot of money on programming/Computing books.), and I'm basically a Jack of all Trades in life.

I'm a mechanic certain years. I'm a contractor certain years. I'm a Electrician when I am very low on money. I'm a Watchmaker whenever someone asks me what I do. (I hate that last sociatial question. When did it become copacetic to ask for job status, and finances. I guess it came with the Selfie. (I didn't use a question mark on purpose. Too disenfranchised today to care.)

I do miss the days before relying on bloated JS libraries.

I miss the LAMP days for my personal websites.

There was a free server I used to use, but forget it's name.

It allowed full domain names without their branding. Like mysite.com, instead of mysite.com.branding.

I know Git, Google, and Amazon offer a free page, but I just don't like learning their way of putting up a site.

As you can by my verbage, I'm not a professional.

But for some reason I try to stay current on certain aspects of this industry.

I got some stares.

For awhile, I felt some of my neighbors thought I was trying to conceal my identity; but it was just for allergies.

The last thing I wore it for was germs.

If I started a new business, excuse me Start-up, which college applicants hide in for 4 years would have no bearing on my new hires.

And yes--I'm the guy who spent way to much time hiding in college. It was cheaper in the 90's though, and I lived with my dad way too long.

The size of the classes at Berkeley has always had me scratching my head for decades now.

"I found it really difficult to balance CS61A (a massive class of 2000) with CS169A (still a fairly large class of 350), since 169A required a fair bit of work in writing quizzes/exams (5 quizzes, 1 exam), grading open-ended homework assignments, and staff management."

I knew people who went to Berkeley years ago, and was shocked at the class sizes.

I've worked with Berkeley grads, and besides constantly signaling they went to Berkeley; I wasen't impressed with their abilities. (That goes for all the fancy schools though? All the ones we are suspose to be wowed by.)

Then again some of the guys I worked with whom really impressed me were college dropouts, or mainly self taught.

I've kept an eye on him for years, and think he's honest, and trustworthy. He does not appear to be a sellout in the slightest.

Becomming a politician doesn't sound like the life he wants, but we need guys like Louis running our country.

(It's not that crazy. A few years ago Zuck thought he had a chance in politics. His yes men put him on tractors in the midwest with a cowboy hat. I even think they had him sucking on a stick of wheat? All I knew is they picked the wrong guy. Zuck was a joke on so many levels though, --even then. How a young man can make so many ugly decisions so quick is beyond me. I guess that's why he's a 1 percenter? Nice fair people don't become wealthy. He was just about his money, and his narcisstic life. Louis seems just honest, and cares about what's fair. He never asked to be the spokesman for Right to Repair. He was just, like I was, irritated over pricy items we can't fix.)

I was late to Netflix.

The original movies I saw were beyond bad. In every movie they used every plot twist ever invented, and every bit of cliched writing. The overpaid actors just read lines.

It's almost like they locked sober hack writers in a room and told them just write. Write like your audience is an angry/perverted Forrest Gump, and can't speak English. (I threw in sober because even if under the influence--they might have written better?)

They just wasted money.

I understand comming up with original clever scripts is hard.

I felt they could have redone classic movies though--instead of the garbage they threw at us.

I was watching Dog Day Afternoon the other day. The movie aged very well, and is an all time classic. No one is going to top that movie on any level.

Netflix could have tried to remake it though with up to date references, and even change up the script. Sonny, and Sal could have made it on the plane, and go from there.

Dog Day Afternoon is a bad example because it aged so well, but their are other good movies that could have been brought up to date?

I believe it's too late for Netflix.

In retrospect, I would have rather had them throw money at students in film school.

(I don't bet on stocks, but we all saw this comming. Every studio was working on their own pay per view service a year after we started talking about Netflix. Someone brobally made millions shorting that company.)

I wish more textbooks were written like this.

If I was a publisher, I would demand my technical writers lay out what they are trying to convey in a simple straight forward manner.

Hell--I see nothing wrong with using comic book format in order to convey knowledge.

My biggest gripe in college was being given a overly verbose "phone book" from the 80's for a course.

Where are the new texts though?

The arm forces must still have texts they write, but I don't see them on the internet?

I'm assuming there's no copyrights because we pay for the teaching material through taxes?

I'm specifically looking for new texts of Electronics, HVAC, Auto mechanics, Watch Repair, but that one might not be needed anymore, Machining, Programming, Computer repairing, Radio Repair, etc.

(I haven't looked that hard.)

I've been noticing some funny looks at my mask wearing.

I usually walk with my mask on. I have done this way before Covid.

I used to wear it for allergies. My allergies just felt better when I wore a mask.

Tonight I could smell burn't tires on my walk. A older guy happened to be doing a burn out in his Tesla. Yea--I know, not the typical burnout guy. A few Japanese beers might have something to do with the stunt.

I left, and thought about why I like to wear a mask. We have so much pollution in the air, it just seems prudent? I'm not even that worried about Covid right now.

(I do believe we consume way to much plastic, and other chemicals (Dawn Dish soap has 13 chemicals. Why? It cleans well. I am not a great dishwasher though.)

So if you see a "jerk" wearing a mask on Sir Francis Drake look away. I know it bothers some folks.

This tomato sauce recipe goes out the the poor guys here. I imagine we are the minority here?

1. Tomatoes--any kind. You will buy them initially to use them for sandwiches, and maybe a salad, but will be left over with a bowl of soft tomatoes at tge end of the week. The rest left older will start to rot, so why not make tomato sauce.

2. In any pot, put in 1/4 cup of olive oil.

3. Put in handful of fresh onions in the hot oil. (You can use dehydrated onion. Many commercial kitchens do.)

4. Add a few teaspoons of fresh garlic, or dehydrated garlic.

5. Add couple of teaspoons of salt, and a pinch of honey, or sugar. I used pancake syrup last night because I ran out of anything sweet.

(add a pinch of cayenne pepper, or black, if you like it spicy.)

Using a potato masher smash it all down. Cook 40 minutes on low.

You now have pasta sauce, or pizza sauce, for the week. Add butter when using it on pasta.

You now have sauce for noodles. Add a few pats of butter for pasta. Your guests won't know, but will like your sauce. Belive me restaurants use a lot of butter, and salt. There's a happy medium. A 1/2 tbs of butter will not kill you. The vegan in the group can use vegetarian butter substitute.

You want pizza?

You need dough?

1. luke warm water added to a large bowl. Add the yeast. Amount doesn't matter. A few teaspoons usually.

2. add some sugar, honey, or whatever. Last night I used pancake syrup.

3. Add high gluten flour if you can find it. Add any flour will do if that's all you have.

4. In the bowl mix it like you dislike it. Add more flour if necessary. Add more water if too dry. Just do it.

Pound that dough. After 20-30 minutes it should be the consistency of a male boob. (I have man boobs, and couldn't think of a politically correct example, but we have all all felt a fatty boob. It's just adipose tissue, and skin. Enough of my analogies you will never hear out of any cooks mouth.)

5. Cover that dough with a wet towel, saran wrap, or foil.

Let it rise in a warm kitchen. Since most of us don't have the right kitchen temp, turn on the oven for a a minute, and turn off. You want the temp between 80-120 degrees.

Put a pot holder on the rack and the bowl of dough goes on the rack. The pot holder acts as a gasket between the warm metal grates, and your bowl.

5. Let it rise for an hour. It's now ready to use for pizza dough, or freezing. You could punch it down again, and let it rise, but unless you have all the right quality ingredients, it dosen't matter. (you could add some oil oil to the dough.)

I'm poor, and have been cooking for myself, and my mom for years.

I was trained at Zesto's Cafe in the 80's by a owner who always accused me of stealing. I was unbelievably honest/ernest at the time. I didn't know how the wealthy lie, and cheat, daily.

I guess because I was in high school, with long hair. I did know other employees whom were stealing, but never said anything. I'm no rat. Then, or now.

Trust me tomato sauce, and pizza dough are easy to make.

Making good bread is very, very hard though.

So hard, I have heard French/Italian chefs gave up, and only buy from their baker. Something about the yeast in the air, and the right climate, along with the right stove.

I have stuck with subpar pay because I liked my bosses, and didn't hate comming into work.

I have quit high paying jobs, with union representation.

(And yes--those bastards will eventually drag us all back. I thought Jamie Diamond's demand that if you want to work here show up to the office. Even Diamond retreated. Might be the only war he ever lost? Then again Diamond might be feeling less immortal? He had his aorta replaced a year ago, and is a survivor of throat cancer. I don't know why I'm writing so much about Diamond. Maybe--because if I had a do-over, I would have gone into finance, and hopefully retire early?)

2.

3. Raspberry Pi's are cheap. You could buy a few.

4. You could wrap the Pelican case in multiple layers of tin foil, or sheet metal.

5. Connectors can be stripped, and wires twisted together.

I used to work for Marin Bagels.

Hated the owner, but that's not my point.

Making bagels last more than a day is difficult task.

Real bagels need to be boiled.

These boiled bagels that are only flour, water, and salt. (there's so much yeast in the air of a bagel shop they don't need to add anymore.)

These bagels are only fresh for a few hours, and need to be freezed if you want anything resembling a fresh NY bagel.

My point is bagels are hard to make. That is good bagels. Good bagels need to be made daily.

Bagels in the store are basically white bread.

I still think there's a market for fresh bagels flash frozen. I noticed one company doing it, but the price point was too high.

Russian criminals were stealing rich boys million dollar yachts a few years ago.

They would board the ships when the skeleton crew was off the ship.

They would take the transponder, and put in model hobby ships.

The owner, and authorities thought their yacht was exactly where they left it.

The Russian thieves would take the yachts back to Russia.

(I thought is was clever. They stole millions of dollars in terms of yachts, and were eventually caught buy Interpol.