Reads the sign along NY 155 / New Karner Road in the Albany Pine Bush. What is all the more remarkable in my mind was that John Wolcott was NOT some kind of government worker – a politician, a government enforcer like a cop, trooper, soldier – somebody who drew a measly paycheck and was granted a sign as a way to make up for dangerous work conditions that lead to death.
John Wolcott was just a community activist, a persistent pest bringing up questions of conservation, history and deed paperwork to government agencies for good, an advocate for Albany’s History and the Albany Pine Bush. I can’t think of any other highway or public infrastructure that was named after such a person. It’s really good as too much of our official narrative revolves around elected officials and government workers and ignores all that civilians do every day.
Or is that the message promoted by the old K-Marts that were victims of Walmart and changing tastes? I don’t know.
I still am a big fan of shopping at Walmart for groceries and most other supplies, in part because it’s a one-shot shop, generally quite affordable compared to other grocery chains, and non pretentious. The colorful woke labels really don’t have a impact on health, my taste buds or the flames when the packaging is turned into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Maybe if I eat more processed foods, then I would prefer the rich selection of processed foods with special artificial spices and ingredients that the supermarket chains sell. Instead, I buy basic ingredients, Walmart store brand is almost always fine – and same as well known brand labels. Not that you really need a label – rice, pinto beans, plain Greek yogurt, eggs – really are pretty much the same whether or not you pay extra for pretty packaging trash. No difference in generic versus label when you buy basic ingredients.
People say that Walmart is an orgy of consumerism. Maybe if you are swept up in a desire to buy things you don’t need but I have a general idea of the basics I want to buy without fancy labels of long ingredient lists. Most of the food I buy is only one ingredient, the magic happens when I get it home, mix and match it into good meals. If you’re not buying processed foods, I hardly see much of an advantage to going to a Market 32 or other woke grocery chain over getting the basics, in larger packages with less plastic at Walmart.
Some people will argue if you like Walmart, then you’ll like the even bigger boxes – the Costco and B. J.’s. Indeed, I regularly marketing materials from those corporations in the mail that soon enough get tossed in the fire. And maybe if I had a homestead, it would make sense, though often I think membership fees and the layout of such stores encourage over-purchasing and waste. A 5-lb bag of carrots is very useful and is unlikely to be wasted but a 50-lb bag of carrots isn’t so good unless you have a root cellar and maybe hogs to finish them off as they start to mold up. Or a very big family to feed. I usually get the biggest package of toilet paper from Walmart and biggest package of frozen fruit and vegetables but there are limits on how much I can store and use in a reasonable time before it becomes waste. Indeed, I did carefully eye over the 30-lb bag of onions at Shauls before settling on a 1/2 bushel.
It’s good to buy in bulk, as it means less garbage and cheaper prices, but not more then one can use in a reasonable time. And for me, that generally means the largest packages at Walmart, but maybe not quite the size of what they commonly sell at Costco or B.J.’s.
I got reading about what people are saying about the woke mind virus. Obviously, that lead me into reading about Peter Thiel and Alan Karp the billionaire CEO and well connected Trump confidents who are using their government connections to sell more business to government agencies.
The details of about what exactly Palantir do is pretty vague, but it sounds like it’s mostly a database and analysis software that takes unstructured data and structures it based on training data provided by the those contracting the software. It looks for patterns based on existing patterns, in many ways it’s likely to be like an ordinary database but with better search and organizing capacity. It likely provides a more friendly user interface, and is a lot more convenient then having to build something in house.
Chances are it’s nothing super remarkable but it’s an easy way for agencies to use something that is already off the shelf, and based on a reliable contractor who can assist when things are broke. Nothing that an individual agency couldn’t build themselves, but it’s faster to have an Off-The-Shelf solution that works out of the box. As somebody who oversees a data division, I can’t emphasize how nice it is when we have products supported out of house by a good contactor. In contrast, in house problems require in house staff to fix and there is no guarantee that it will get done perfectly or we can terminate the contract if we’re not happy. That said, in house software usually is more customized and relevant to our own needs, while when we contract out, we are sometimes finding it necessary to hack in essential features.
Palantir most likely relies primarily on relationships for keeping it’s government contracts alive. And that is probably likely to be at risk at the end of the Trump administration when the next, likely Democratic administration, wants nothing further to do with Peter Thiel and Alan Karp. But if all the data is hosted and built around Palantir’s products, it becomes very difficult to break up with that existing contractor, as moving to a new system is never easy. Shit just breaks when you try to move to a new system. I am not convinced that Planantir is all that great or all powerful, but that agencies are just lazy and want something supported outside of their own staff, that manages, processes, filters and sorts large databases with easy while minimizing the amount of technical support staff they have on contract.
The western slopes are dry, open heath barrens. This year with the West Virigina drought, they were particularly brown in the autumn. In contrast, some of the other slopes were quite colorful, especially the eastern slopes where there are more hardwoods.
Apparently bicyclists are not to be encouraged to make such a connection on over with the new bike path. Probably the DOT decided it was not advisable to having pedestrians or bicyclists cross at that point, being a 45 MPH road. Still this is unfortunate, as I was looking forward to using this new bike path to connect over to McCormick Road and then over to the Pine Hollow Arboretum.
On the other hand, I find the connection from Cherry Avenue to the main Albany County Rail Trail to be very useful both for all points along the Rail Trail from Cherry Avenue and for commuting. The bike trail works well with the traffic lights, with the green left turn arrow sensing your bike when you approach without fail, and the green arrow giving you a a safe, easy to turn on the bike trail. At the same time, leaving the bike trail to Cherry Avenue South is easy, as you pull up to the stop sign, you can see when the light is green for going through, and merge into traffic seemlessly and safely. While occasionally you have to watch for right turning traffic, this direction is very uncommon, as most traffic that would be turning right, instead takes NY 85 at the previous round about rather then turning right there.
At 4:30 AM or maybe 5 AM there is enough minutes of moral and mental clarity before one is assaulted by the endless advertising for plastic and roofing services. And if morning’s echos said we sinned, I won’t be blinded by the light.
Always kind of liked that song by Merille Rush but then again, I’m kind of into that girly music. 🎶 The stuff no real man is willing to admit they listen to as they sing along in their big jacked up truck. Truth is I don’t mind going to bed at 7 or 8 PM and falling asleep, as at the end of day I’m usually tired and the nights are so cold and dark and I’m still refusing to turn on the heat in favor of the heated blanket. 🛏️ Facebook has turned into a major advertising platform, but then again I see more and more ads because I like trolling the ads 🐲 with stupid comments either copied or pasted on advertiser posts. I just hate all of the Facebook trash, especially pitched at the woke suburbanite homeowner.
I was out at 4:45 AM running to Stewart’s to go moo juice 🐮, waking up around 4 AM and starting the pinto beans on the stove. Another plastic bottle full of milk added to that perculator which is empty much too fast. I guess I could make up another pot of coffee ☕ to equal what I drink between home and work, I sure like that new flavored coffee that they have at the office. Kind of like the flavored weed that I enjoy too. It was a beautiful, crisp morning to start deer season this morning, 🦌 I was actually surprised that Stewart’s wasn’t packed with hunters but honestly it’s more of a suburban location here in Delmar. Nice sliver moon.🌛 No breeze this morning either. I often wonder how many of those milk bottles I’ve burnt up over the years. 🔥 Many just disappear without much thought in those white garbage bags and yellow flames. Certainly hundreds, probably thousands. I’ve thought about getting milk delivery from Meadowbrook – it’s excellent milk – but it’s kind of a hastle because he requires you call and leave a message on barn phone. 📞
Thinking this morning once the beans are done, 🫘 I will head over to the Pine Hollow Arboretum for a walk around 🌲 to see what color remains. Also, try out the much hyped Cherry Avenue Bike Trail Connector, that the woke have their penises stuck high in the air, bit by the frost, after they got a state DOT grant to build it. Going to start out the day sunny. ☀️ Then I think I’ll head over in my pickup to the Pine Bush area – I want to visit the Salvation Army and Goodwill in search of shirts for work. 👚 Then ride trail in Pine Bush or maybe some of the Erie Canalway trail? I could do the section through Schenectady, the Niskayuna section is kind of boring. Or maybe just stay in the Pine Bush. I want to get a few supplies at Wally World in Pine Bush too – Market 32 in Guilderland is fine but it’s always so pricey. 🥚 And they don’t have the larger, bulk packages I prefer like with eggs and the 5-lb bags of cornmeal or 4-lb bags of pinto beans. I guess none of that is essential, I could wait another weekend though next weekend I was to get to Bethlehem Sportsmart Sale that the Boy Scouts put on to see if I can get a pair of cross country skis, 🎿 as two years ago the pair I had broke and got turned into firewood and honestly quite a bit of unburnable fiberglass I had to haul out of woods. Not sure what I plan to do with all those pinto beans today, but there are many meals they can be cooked with. They’re more flexible then the green pea soup for sure. 🧑🍳
