U.S. credit card debt

“Average individual credit card debt (in the U. S.) stands at $5,331 in 2019. Additionally, on a monthly basis, most Americans don’t pay their credit card balance in full every month – 55% don’t regularly pay in full.”

  • 83% of U.S. adults own at least one piece of plastic.
  • On average, U.S. consumers own three credit cards.
  • Total revolving debt stands at $1.04 trillion – that’s up from $857 billion in 2013.
  • The average interest Americans pay on their cards stands at 16.46%.

Source: TheStreet.com

Mo likes the warmer weather

A perfect day for loving up on neighbor dog Mo (after taking Hattie for a walk).

(Wikipedia) “The Bernese Mountain Dog is a large-sized breed of dog, one of the four breeds of Sennenhund-type dogs from the Swiss Alps. The name Sennenhund is derived from the German Senne (“alpine pasture”) and Hund (hound/dog), as they accompanied the alpine herders and dairymen called Senn. Berner (or Bernese in English) refers to the area of the breed’s origin, in the canton of Bern. This mountain dog was originally kept as a general farm dog.”


UPDATE August, 2024: This is Max. Best Friend to a friend. First photo while a pup… second photo a few days ago (after lots of expensive puppy chow).

Death Book

“A recent project I worked on was this series of illustrations, animated and no, for a short nonfiction piece by Rachel Monroe for Pop Up Magazine. The story is about the author’s mother, who collects phrases from the obituary section of the newspaper in a little black notebook. It’s a therapeutic ritual.”

You can see more of Rebecca Mock’s art here and here.

Viruses

“Any information system of sufficient complexity will inevitably become infected with viruses — viruses generated from within itself.” — Snow Crash

I’m stuck on the role of FB and Twitter as virus vectors. How naive of us to think the worst parts of humanity — racism and white supremacy — would not spread more rapidly than our better natures.

iHeartMedia has revamped one of its AM radio stations to a podcast channel

“The conglomerate’s AM 1470 in Allentown, Penn., will now feature back-to-back podcast programming. The initial podcast selections for this change include several of the flagship shows from HowStuffWorks, which iHeartMedia acquired in September 2018.”

What about commercials?

“It was followed by a massive traditional block of radio commercials: the iHeartRadio app, Bank of America, “Best Fiends” mobile game app, an air conditioning company, Outback restaurants, Capital One bank, Curious Goods (a local store), the Home Depot, a pet store, My Computer Career training program, Walgreens, NAPA Auto Care Center, Choice hotels, AARP, Progressive insurance, and the iHeartRadio app again, this time emphasizing podcasts and introducing the next podcast.”

Radio and Internet News

I seem to recall this being tried back when podcasting first appeared. A San Francisco station? Not sure why I’d want to let this Allentown station pick the podcasts when I can do that myself. Maybe for people to lazy or stupid to do that? Is there an in-car angle?

BBC: His Dark Materials

“The BBC has released a brief teaser for its upcoming adaptation of Philip Pullman’s classic fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, giving us a first look at the series and its characters. The BBC greenlit the show for an eight-episode season back in 2015, and ordered a second season last fall. The series is set in an alternate world in which people are accompanied by manifestations of their souls, shapeshifting animals called daemons. In the first novel, The Golden Compass, a girl named Lyra Belacqua (played by Logan star Dafne Keen) travels to the arctic to search for a friend who has been kidnapped. There, she discovers that a major church has been studying a phenomenon called Dust, an elementary particle that imparts consciousness in humans, something that the organization deems heretical.”

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

“Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong.”

— Technology Review [Additional reading]

Land Rover Service (follow-up)

George had me bring the truck back in for a follow-up to last month’s deep dive. The front and rear axle U-bolts were still good and tight; a tiny leak from the front of the transfer case but we decided not to mess with it. (It’s a Land Rover. You gotta have a leak.) Oil levels in the the transmission and transfer case were perfect.

When warm weather is here to stay we’ll pull the hardtop and replace it with a nice mesh tilt. To make that task a bit easier, we removed the inside panels from the front and rear doors. Had to drill some pop rivets. Getting the hard top off is going to be a piece of cake.

I really enjoy these sessions with George. He patiently explains what he’s doing and why and it’s a great way to get to know the truck (and not fuck it up by trying these things on my own).