My Thoughts on Tariffs

In short, this is not a good development in the short or long term

As with so many things Trump does, the various tariffs he has enacted may or may not stick. But what know is that billionaires will use whatever reason they can to raise prices whether they need to or not. The expected price hikes could be permanent even if tariffs are not. (We saw this happen with the pandemic.)

I bought a few electronics I wanted/needed already and hope not to need anything else this year while we see where everything lands. My car is running well at the moment, and my laptop somehow keeps humming along despite being six years old.

Mostly, I am trying not to buy things period, other than things that go in my mouth. I can't seem to stop buying those (although I could afford to lose 10 pounds). I'm also spending on inexpensive events. A $15 night out is worth it to spend time with other humans and experience something that makes me happy like music or comedy.

Other than that, I need to save money and prepare for lean times. I have everything I need and more, and it all fits in my 500 square foot apartment and has for the last ten years. I know my life has abundance without stuff, and I'm so grateful for that.

I do need to increase my income, though. Last year was very slow. If you know anyone who needs help with their WordPress website or needs a new website built, please send them my way. My clients stay with me for many years because of the personal and attentive service they receive. You can send folks to my website.

💩 Capitalist Bullshit

Protest Signs

I spent some time designing a few “any occasion” protest signs that go along with my anti-billionaire, anti-capitalist theme.

What do you think? Which is your favorite?

I’ll be getting them printed on corrugated plastic lawn signs by a local printing company, but I didn’t have them in time for yesterday’s rallies.

Defund Billionaires Now

I’ve been working on an activist project to help people on their journey to stop supporting billionaires. Part of it is creative, and part of it is educational. All of it is to help remove power from the billionaires ruining our country and the world.

It’s called Defund Billionaires Now, and it will be something I add to regularly to provide more information and updated resources.

In order to get good SEO, I’m using AI (owned by billionaires) to write satirical and insulting articles about billionaires. This one about Mark Zuckerberg came out particularly hilarious! ChatGPT will let you create photos through Dall-e now, but it usually will not make a photo that resembles anyone famous. I was surprised that it gave me images that looked like Zuckerberg and Alex Karp. I’ve been testing out a different AI image creation tool for the images that Dall-e won't make for me.

To come up with the article subjects, I’m using a continually updated list of current billionaires, along with real articles I see in the news. It's easy to find terrible things each of them have done. In fact, ChatGPT already knows all the things!

This is the absolute best use of AI that I can think of… using billionaires’ technology against them.

🦩 Everyday Adventures

Powdered Milk Experiment

I’ve been searching for a way to have latte supplies on hand that won’t go bad. Whenever I get milk for any reason, it ends up going bad before I use it all. I don’t drink lattes often, so I was curious if I could find something shelf-stable to make them.

I decided to try some powdered milk I found online. This seemed like an easy solution. However, the stuff I got did not even come close to dissolving in cold or boiling hot water. You could literally feel the texture of the powder in the water.

Then I had kind of a brilliant idea… why not try the whey protein powder I use? It’s already vanilla-flavored, and it dissolves really well in water.

It worked great as far as dissolving and giving the proper ratio for a latte. The taste is not quite right, though. It’s a little too strong. But it wasn’t disgusting, and it will work in a pinch until I come up with something better.

Then, after all of that, I decided to try one more thing with the powdered milk… to shake it up in a small Mason jar first. (Because Mason jars are the most useful items in existence.) I did that and… it turned out perfect. Except I used half the amount of powdered milk they called for because the actual amount seemed like way too much.

So, now I have my shelf stable milk for on-demand lattes. Plus, I'm going to try it for making mac & cheese, which I also never have milk on hand for.

Cheers for my Cholesterol

I'm proud that I've managed to lower my cholesterol to 247 from a high of 280 in November 2023. I did this by taking plant sterol and guar gum supplements, eating more fiber, and getting more exercise. I’d be very happy to get it to 230 and maintain that. Technically, that's still high, but for me, it's good. Also, my ratios are always good and indicate I'm healthy.

A Dorky Win

It has amazed me for years how much of my job as a web developer I can do on my phone. I can check settings in my client websites. I can log into their hosting. It's frankly unbelievable.

But, up until very recently, the one thing I couldn't do was udpate a page in a website that uses WP Bakery page builder. I use this page builder on almost every website I build because it's pretty comprehensive for my clients to use. I've purchased quite a few licenses for it, and it really blew that I couldn't update pages with it on even my 12” tablet because it wasn't configured for mobile.

I did contact the developer more than a year ago to ask why the page editing can't work on mobile, and now they have made it work. It's really a game changer.

But mostly, it's just absolutely incredible the things a mobile phone can do.

⏰️ Currently

🌴 Wondering how I will ever get out of Florida

🌀 Feeling anxious about what Libby and I will do this summer during hurricane season

🥵 Bracing myself for being out in the hotter weather (which has arrived) and having it instantly drain all the energy out of my body after 30 minutes