Author: Joel Gross

The circumference of the world is 40,000 km. I have ridden my bike on Zwift 24,000 km. 5 years of exercise on that bike and I’m only a little over halfway around the world. The world is humongous!

The most important thing to understand about the internet is that it has stopped being a separate place. In the early days, we thought of it as a frontier where the physical rules of geography didn’t apply. But as the internet became the operating system for society, it inherited all the problems of the physical world, plus a few new ones. … read more “America Needs a Great Firewall”

UBI is mostly just socialism with a fresh coat of paint. To understand why it fails, you have to understand what money actually is. Money isn’t some mystical resource that appears out of nowhere. It is a way of representing favors. It is a much more efficient way of trading a website for a bag of potatoes than actual bartering, but it only works if it represents real value created by someone.… read more “Universal Basic Income”

Romney published an Op Ed and says, “No one countenances cutting benefits for current or near retirees. But Social Security and Medicare benefits for future retirees should be means-tested — need-based, that is to say — and the starting age for entitlement payments should be linked to American life expectancy.”

This unfortunately has been the philosophy of those in power for the last 50 years… basically they want to subsidize benefits for themselves at the expense of our children and grandchildren.… read more “America Today”

We have a major scam in Washington state making ALL housing go far higher in prices. Most building projects are now required to do an “archeological survey”, which costs $10,000+ for ANY project that will touch the ground. This is basically a racist scam designed to transfer money from the rest of us to the politically powerful organized tribes.… read more “Archaelogical Survey Scam in Washington State”

EngineDIY sent me only part of the $200 engine order then wanted to charge me to send me the rest.

https://youtu.be/2J4aF0hRGhA?si=vyQNViOYRsusIgfE

Dentist:

I went to a dentist’s office I hadn’t been to before and had a bad experience. Most of my appointment was spent at the front desk confirming my insurance would work. The dental hygienist did a rushed job scraping my teeth and the dentist barely pulled open my lips to look at my teeth and said, “Everything’s fine!”… read more “Two Contrasting Experiences”

I want a simple farm shop where my farm guys and my kids and I can repair our equipment and store stuff. The nearest neighbor is well over a mile away. This is about the simplest type of building you can imagine outside of a shed or carport.

When I first started investigating this project, I was really enthusiastic about the Grant County handouts that allow people to do their own work.… read more “Grant County, WA Planning Department”

I recently had a product from a major manufacturer fail that cost around $500, and it caused around $10,000 of damages. I submitted a warranty claim to the company involved, and they refused to honor it and pay the $500. So I pressed harder and told them that under strict product liability they were liable for all of the $10,000 in damages.… read more “$10,000 Settlement After Product Failure”