Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

The math is not math-ing

The San Francisco Unified School District teachers are on a historical strike. Tomorrow will mark the third consecutive day that schools will be closed. As a member of a union myself, bully to those fighting for wages. We understand that in this economy, any increase will immediately get wiped out by inflation. Everybody knows this, except for the reigning President of the United States.

However, from a pure mathematical standpoint, it’s difficult to square away the conflict of a school district that is facing a 100 million deficit for the current fiscal year, and its employees asking for a raise. The math cannot possibly be math-ing here. If labor is already the biggest pie of the expenditure, and it’s set to increase in size, not decrease, that’s not a good start to balancing the budget.

Of course, the school district can increase revenue, but demographics is against that. There are fewer school age children in San Francisco than ever. Furthermore, those with the means to - hello, tech bros - send their offsprings to private school, rather than be at the mercy of SFUSD’s notorious lottery school assignment system. Short of the State of California adding more funding per pupil, you just hope the revenue pie doesn’t continue to shrink!

As a person who works at a public university, I am very familiar with the downstream pains of decreasing enrollment.

Nevertheless: if this were the private sector, asking for a raise when the company is fiscally performing poorly who never fly. You’d know better than to even ask. It doesn’t make sense to further jeopardize an already precarious situation. Salary increase is rather meaningless if the company itself doesn’t survive long enough for you to reap the benefits.

Public sector education is Lindy enough to last forever, right? That’s probably true. But again, it’s just simple math: it doesn’t make logical sense for a district that’s already in the hole - that they must climb out of, to make the hole bigger. Alas, if it’s like anything San Francisco has done previously, I’m sure it’ll be yet another tax measure on the ballot. Should we save BART, or should we save public schools?

No free marketing

You ever walk by rows of parked cars and noticed that plenty of them still have the dealership license plate frame affixed? That cannot be me! There is no way I am giving out free advertising space like that, no matter how excellent the deal was the selling dealership gave me. The positive Yelp review should be a good enough return gesture.

If I can safely de-badge my car - without leaving exposed holes in the sheetmetal, I totally would. Volkswagen should be paying me to advertise that the vehicles they make are worth buying.

A similar befuddlement happens when I see car enthusiasts put stickers of aftermarket part manufacturers onto their cars. Again, you would have to be paying me to have your company logo displayed and driven all over town. Unless of course I got that car part for free, then the gratis marketing is an appropriate quid pro quo.

I’m just saying: don’t give away something for free so easily! Think of the Uber drivers that run advertising boards on top of their cars: you think it’s for charity?

On the same principle, my mother has steadfastly refused to buy any clothing with logos on it. I’ve seen her seamstress hands painstakingly take logos off thread-by-thread, because the underlying shirt was bought on sale. It wasn’t a want of anonymity, but a purely business decision. If the world is run on advertising - see Google, Meta, etc, then us peasants should not give away marketing space for free.

If I ever start a YouTube channel, I’m taping up/blurring all branding, unless otherwise sponsored. Sorry, MacBook Pro: your signature Apple logo will have to go under the gaffer tape.

Two things of awesome

No matter how many times I empty the water tank on my dehumidifier, it never ceases to amaze me just how much moisture it has pulled out of the air. A true wonder of technology that the same heat pump that functions as an air conditioner can also serve to dehumidify a space. What did people do before its invention? Oh right, Chinese people used mothballs - to prevent mold - so much that it became a discriminatory meme.

In humid San Francisco - the city’s famous fog is essentially 100% humidity, a dehumidifier is an absolute must. Especially if you’re like me and live on a semi-subterranean first level of a very old house. I’ve found out the hard way that if not controlled for, humidity will cause mold growth in closets and drawers. Any steel that isn’t stainless will rust.

Another gadget that’s an absolute must in San Francisco is a dashcam. Even for someone like me who does not have a driving commute, having a recorder in the car is cheap insurance against the vagaries of other San Francisco drivers. You just never know if some old lady might plow her car into a bus stop. When actual auto insurance is the complete opposite of cheap, it matters greatly there exists concrete proof of your innocence. (Conversely, if you drive like an idiot all the time, maybe don’t get a dashcam to record your crimes against fellow humanity.)

For what brand of dash cam to buy, this Project Farm video is a fantastic reference. For my particular car - a 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI - I was able to draw power from the rain sensor right above the rearview mirror, using this device. No need sling and tuck a huge length of cable in order to power the camera. The dashcam turns on and begins recording automatically when the Golf’s ignition is pressed. It’s something to setup once and forget about.

Because you really don’t want to have to use it, right? Even if an accident is not your fault, it still requires time and effort to get the car repaired. In my many hours of watching online dashcam fail videos, the best device to prevent collision: brakes. It seems the larger the ego, the less willingness to used the brakes. Me? A bruised ego and temporary indignation is worth the tradeoff for an unblemished car. Drive wisely, my friends.

Old man father

I know it’s going to sound supremely ungrateful, given the rest of the country is covered under layers of snow: did San Francisco really get a winter? It seems like we got one true week of coldness, then it was back to the same mildness we get year around. This weekend it got to the mid 60s during the day! Perfectly comfortable weather. I’ve even stowed away the winter duvet.

What’s it like to see your parents visibility age? I was recently shocked to noticed my dad have turned into complete old man status, replete with balding head and entire grayness of hair. The relationship has reversed now: instead of parents taking care of me, it’s my turn to return the favor. Physical and mental decline is a great worry when small mishaps can now easily morph into disaster. The mortality rate for falling and breaking a hip is alarmingly high.

You know how we complain about old people driving on the road? Yeah, my father is of that age now. It’s tough: the more you don’t do it, the faster the skills decline. But there’s got a be a certain threshold where you take the keys away before the risk becomes too high. Whether the parent will willingly give up said keys is also a challenge.

Which I think the fast emergence of self-driving taxi services will be a timely solution to that problem. For my parents who seldom need to drive, the few times that they do can be covered by calling a Waymo. The service will only get cheaper, with better coverage, over time. It of course helps to live in a city with solid public transportation options, and in a neighborhood with shops.

Atrophy comes for us all. We can only do our best to stave off the worse consequences by practicing excellent self-care - diet, sleep, exercise - as much and as early as possible.

Ends to a mean

Isn’t the best part of a workweek day going home time? Our servitude towards money is temporarilyy over. The hours left truly belong to us. The world is infinitely our oyster.

At least that’s how it feels. No matter how many chores are on the list, or how much attention the child is asking for, anything is better than being at work.

Sometimes I walk by the mall, and I can see the literal relief of service workers at the end of their shift. Fold away that apron for the day and moving on to happy hours. Best of all, service workers truly do not have to think about work while they are not at work.

Not so lucky for those of us in the knowledge economy. The higher you are on the ladder, the higher your pay, and more responsibility you’ve got. There’s no turning off the work brain even when it’s time to go home, because a problem on that ongoing project still needs solving. So you’re going to thinking about it all through dinner, and for the rest of the evening.

That’s why they get paid a salary: a facade to avoid actual calculation. Perhaps if one is to add up all the hours that brain signal is being used towards work, the knowledge worker might not be that much higher paid on a per hour basis than the service worker. Especially in California where the fast food minimum wage is unusually generous.

But those are the tradeoffs. Sacrifices have to be made to make more money. Even the illegal drug dealer has to stand in the corner for many hours, risking police capture. Often times I think what I want is to be like Ralph Fiennes’ character The Menu: a plain chef making a plain cheeseburger. Nothing extraordinary, nothing status-seeking. Every day you leave work, you truly leave work.

Plus, He’d get paid at least $20 per hour here in California!

That's crazy

Masked federal agents of the State essentially executed a person in broad daylight. All caught in 4K. And the executive in power is suffering zero consequences from it. That is some crazy shit! The party of anti governmental boot-licking is surely doing a ton of that right now. Don’t tread on me, but other people, that’s cool.

Why has Minneapolis become such a flash point? I didn’t realize it was a bastion of illegal immigration that the feds have to mobilize with such ferocity. Or perhaps it’s one of the few where the local populace is fighting back. Border States with more favorable views towards the current administration might be more cooperative when fresh Homeland Security goons roll into town.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I think the tech ruling class made a faustian bargain with the current President to leave our cities alone. Thank you, Zuck?

This seemingly overwhelming show of force against foreigners in this country can’t be a good thing for the upcoming World Cup this year and Summer Olympics in 2028. I would absolutely think twice about visiting America for the games. If ICE agents are checking papers in and around the upcoming Super Bowl - the biggest sporting party for our country, why wouldn’t the same happen for the two biggest events in the world?

Unless something drastically changes, Foreigners should treat this current American administration as hostile.

Price of doing business

I think we’re all so used to free shipping these days (thanks, Amazon) that when we actually do have to ship a package, the actually pricing and be rather alarming. Absolutely nothing is immune to the recent high inflation. Parcel delivery shall not be exempt. It begs the question just how “free” free shipping really is. Surely the cost is baked into the (hefty) margins.

That, or retail giants have such enormous economy of scale that they get a hefty discount from logistic companies. Meanwhile, peasants like us have to pay the full freight.

I erroneously bought a part for my VW GTI. In order to get a refund I needed to pay for shipping back to the seller. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the item weights eight pounds, and I had to send it all the way to the opposite American coast. UPS Ground - the cheapest option - was $55! That is quite insane. If the part wasn’t worth magnitudes more than that shipping fee, I would have simply eaten the cost, or resell it on eBay.

It’s just the cost of doing business.

There may or may not be a solid business reason for coffee chains to sell a cup of drip coffee for nearly $4 these days - I simply don’t care. Paying that much for a plain cup of Joe is inconceivable. Because I’m old enough to remember when it was under $2. $4 was fancy latte territory. Even if I can afford it, my conscious won’t allow me to pay that much for store coffee. Thank god that same $4 can still buy you a hot dog and a slice of pizza at Costco.

My Keurig coffee maker and compostable coffee pods from San Francisco Bay Coffee will suffice nicely until deflation happens. If it happens.