This is not a blog. It’s a website populated by fictional characters, whose writing should not be taken as expressing the opinion of any real person, company or organization. It’s a work of entertainment. If you’re not entertained, read something else. Even when the author of a post is a real person, fact and fiction are intermingled, and are not always clearly labeled, so don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Read more →
Stop the Presses!
California Fast Food Restaurants Shed Thousands of Jobs after $20 Minimum Wage Hike https://t.co/TwFBK03Imc — Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 6, 2024 Who could have seen that coming?! Read more →
The Skeptics Were Right Again
I Know Why You’re Not Getting Hired
I can tell you why you’re not being hired but you know already. People like to hire people who look like themselves and fit in with the group. My experience with that was when I moved into the “white, male, over 40” group. I didn’t look like a typical software engineer anymore (a young person’s profession), I didn’t fit in with the group, and I wasn’t adding any diversity points. (Age doesn’t count as diversity, it’s just age.) The saving grace is that my profession is performance oriented so if you know things that others don’t know and you can solve problems that others can’t solve, which is demonstrable at interviews, you can get hired. I do not have a solution to your problem but I wish you the best. Read more →
Do the Right Thing
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elite Sports Solutions | Jack Tabb III M.S. (@elitesportsos) Read more →
What You’re Missing on BlueSky
An example of the elevated intellectual discourse currently taking place on BlueSky: Read more →
Love Will Return in Another Way
A story I read in a Facebook post: At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, was walking through a park one day in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her. The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.” Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life. During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable. Finally, Kafka brought back the… Read more →
Working Remote is Not All Good or All Bad
The posts I read on remote work are too black and white: remote work is good or remote work is bad. I’ve worked from home. I liked it and I understand why people like it. But it’s not without problems. Off the top of my head: decrease in corporate culture, cybersecurity issues, isolation, distractions, slower work, difficulties in onboarding and training, communication, work-life balance, people are burning out on Zoom calls. IMO, anyone writing a post on how great remote work is should be required to address the obvious problems. Thus spoke The Programmer Read more →
Employee Loyalty
This is deplorable conduct obviously, but I see a lot of “if companies continue to act this way, there will be no employee loyalty” posts and I always wonder if employee loyalty is a real thing. I have to admit here that while I’ve always tried to do my best work as a matter of personal pride, I’ve never made a decision in life based on my loyalty to a company, e.g., I’ve never said, nor can I imagine myself saying, something like “What you’re proposing would improve my financial situation, but I can’t do it because it would be disloyal to my employer.” Does anyone really do things like that? Read more →
What Rights Do Men Have That Women Don’t
What Could Cause This Behavior?
The election results? https://t.co/uzepYVG62w — Paul Epps (@paulepps) November 15, 2024 Read more →
Don’t Steal My Joy
You may have to go to X to hear the audio. I’m not hearing audio when I play the video here. Yes. This here is the single best video on the internet right now… ???? pic.twitter.com/sSJBnRagCH — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2024 Read more →
Don’t Alienate Family and Friends Over Politics
Does this only go in one political direction? I don’t feel insufferable hate toward people who disagree with me and I don’t understand people who do. Don’t Alienate Family and Friends Over Politics by Ana Kasparian It’s a blueprint for losers, by losers. Read on Substack Read more →
You Want Censorship and I Don’t
Money for Nothing
Outrage at MSNBC after Al Sharpton took cash from Kamala pre-interview https://t.co/fPKsGCA8eX via @MailOnline — Paul Epps (@paulepps) November 14, 2024 Sharpton has been doing this for decades — giving his blessing to people, companies and organizations in exchange for money. Given his history, why anyone would want to tout his blessing is a mystery. The payments to Sharpton’s organization came as part of a $5.4 million fund the Harris campaign dished out to black and Hispanic advocacy groups to help bolster her candidacy among minority voters. Given that minority group voters migrated en masse to Trump, I think Harris should be entitled to a refund. I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think Trump paid anyone to endorse him or give him a softball interview. Read more →
Democratic Governors Launch Pro-Democracy Group Four Years Too Late
Democratic governors J. B. Pritzker (Illinois) and Jared Polis (Colorado) revealed on Wednesday that they will spearhead a national gubernatorial initiative to protect against threats to democracy. — nationalreview.com These guys are a little late to the party. If they really cared about threats to democracy, the time to take action would have been the last four years, in which the government was censoring political dissent, censoring “misinformation” (i.e., facts that would expose government lies), criminalizing, prosecuting and imprisoning political enemies, trying to put the Republican presidential candidate in prison before the election, trying to remove his name from the ballot so no one could vote for him. The electorate has already solved these problems by voting out the dictatorial regime that was causing them. Read more →
You Know You’ve Got a Great Country
And Nothing Is Forever
Promise you’ll be with me in the end Say we’ll be together and that you won’t forget However far away (However far away) You will remember me in time — “And Nothing Is Forever,” The Cure Read more →
Women’s Rights Are More Than That One Thing
I also voted for my daughter’s rights. I voted for her right to free speech. I voted for her right to practice her religion. I voted for her right to peacefully assemble and protest a tyrannical government, regardless of her political leanings. I voted for her right to bodily… — Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) November 5, 2024 Read more →
Thomas Jefferson: Election 2024 TL;DR
We’re tired of being condescended to by the Obamas, by Oprah, by rich celebrities, by corporate media people with multi-million dollar salaries, all with large homes in which they live, paid off along with their summer homes in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, telling us the economy is doing very, very well. We only think that we’re economically struggling because we don’t understand the data. We’re tired of being insulted. We’re not Nazis. We’re not garbage. We want to be able to buy things. We want to be able to walk around our neighborhoods without being harassed or robbed or killed. We don’t want unchecked immigration. We are trying to improve our lives and our jobs and our communities and no one is listening because they’re too busy posting selfies with Alex Soros. We have a government telling us that they’re defending democracy while simultaneously doing things that we thought… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Luis Tiant
Luis Tiant won 229 games, with 2,416 strikeouts, a 3.30 ERA, 187 complete games and 49 shutouts. He was a three-time All-Star for and four-time 20-game winner. He was the American League (AL) ERA leader in 1968 and 1972 and the AL leader in shutouts in 1966, 1968, and 1974. In today’s game, where you can win a Cy Young award with zero shutouts and zero complete games, those stats would send you straight to the Hall of Fame but Tiant was not elected to the Hall of Fame. In 1968, Tiant Led the American League in ERA (1.60), shutouts (nine, including four consecutive), hits per nine innings (5.30) and strikeouts per nine innings (9.22), while finishing with a 21–9 record. His .168 opponent batting average set a new major league record, and his 19 strikeout/10 inning performance against the Minnesota Twins on July 3 set the American League record… Read more →