I have a good friend who is a Librarian. She shared this with me. I have a sister-in-law that is a Library Director. We have done work many libraries throughout this area where the Librarian or Library Director are friends from our past work together. This is an important issue for Libraries and you should consider contacting your legislator about it.
The flier above gives information for legislators in Pulaski County. Since most of my lurkers are from Marshall County, our State Senators are:
Ryan Mishler if you’re a resident of District 9 in NE Marshall County
200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9467
or 317-232-9400
Email: Senator.Mishler@iga.in.gov
Mike Bohacek if you’re a resident of District 8 for the remainder of Marshall County
200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9467
or 317-232-9400
Email: Senator.Bohacek@iga.in.gov
And our State Representatives are:
Jack Jordan if you’re a resident of District 17, which covers the majority of Marshall Count
200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9841 or 317-232-9651
Email: H17@iga.in.gov
Jake Teshka if you’re a resident of District 7, which covers a small part of Marshall County west of LaPaz
200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9841 or 317-232-9981
Email: H7@iga.in.gov
Like almost everyone I know, I’ve become a cell phone junkie. That said, I hate to talk on the damn thing. I’ve considered stealing a voice mail message I heard once: “Hello. This is Kevin’s phone. If this could be a text, hang up and text me. if you absolutely must leave a message, I’ll listen to it… eventually… and maybe decide to reply. if it’s still relevant by then…” To paraphrase Gary Gulman, the phone is just a seldom used app on my phone and if you call me on it, I’m immediately mad. How dare you!?!
I use the camera on my phone… though not for the selfies that most people do. I generally am using it for work. I’m a big fan of Twitter. I’m currently managing 6 twitter accounts and I strive to change the voice of each. I use Instagram… and Facebook… but mainly because I think I need to for work. If I know it’s your Birthday, I’ll probably send you a text. I don’t do the smarmy, self-congratulatory Facebook wall posts. Facebook is way to saccharin for me. I prefer the sarcasm of Twitter and I’ve recently found Reddit which I like as well. Reddit can be REALLY harsh… And those people are darkly funny!
Despite my love of the technology and the wild west of Twitter and Reddit, I’ve always had concerns. All the stories of scams and phishing concern me. Some are overblown, but when you’re offered a “flashlight” app that requests access to your contacts… well, that just doesn’t seem right.
So when our government tells me that TikTok is full of spyware, I don’t have a lot of trouble believing that. They have banned it on all Federal government devices. Even Indiana has banned it on State devices. While I’ve watched more than a few TikTok videos sent to me by friends, I have no desire to add that app to my phone. Yes, I’m pretty boring, but I still value at least a little bit of my privacy. As attested above, I rarely give out my cell phone number because I don’t want calls on it, but I’m starting to get more and more calls on it and a lot of spam calls on it. Is that because people I know are downloading TicTok and “Flashlight” apps and giving access to their contacts? Is that how my number is getting out there?
Even with all the warnings, use doesn’t seem to be going down. TikTok remains the trendy thing. I am disappointed that institutions that should know better continue to push it. We attend the Notre Dame Women’s Basketball games and they do a TikTok challenge. Often they’re bringing little girls out to watch videos made by the players and asking them to emulate them. You know that those kids immediately want to have the app and be like the big girls they idolize… I was at a local town meeting and a young (20’s) participant said that Culver needs to expand their social media presence to include TikTok. She said that she was embarrassed to admit that she, like many in her generation, is on the app 2 or more hours a day. This is someone I consider smart and with her drive, she has a bright future. Is she at risk because she has things on TikTok that could come back to stymie a future political career or job opportunity? Not that there isn’t a risk of that with any social media, but we’ve been told that this TikTok is specifically harvesting information for a hostile foreign government. If reports are correct, Chinese children on the app are bombarded with STEM encouragement. American children are bombarded with mindless drivel and worse, things that are causing body dysmorphia and the resultant depression. That’s problematic.
I guess this isn’t too surprising when millions of Americans are sending off DNA samples to trace their ancestry, despite the accompanying sign-offs that say the company can do what they want with the DNA information provided. How much more personal can you get? At what point will that information be available to employers, insurance companies, divorce lawyers and others that may use it to harm us? At what point will it become common place enough that it’s required? Will the history questionnaire at the Doctor be replaced by a tube to spit into, at which point they’ll know anything they want about you and your ancestors?
As with anything, it is the camel’s nose under the tent… And doesn’t that metaphor really shows this has gone on forever!?! Bad things would be stopped if they happened all at once, but work up to them bit by bit and most people will go along.
Inside Indiana Business reported that three Indiana Cities took positions in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Ten Places for Remote Workers: Evansville was #3, Lafayette was #5 and Fort Wayne was #10. The topic of remote workers comes up often at the Culver Crossroads meetings. While Culver has done a lot to become attractive to remote workers, I’m not sure we’ve done much to actually attract remote workers.
Culver saw a lot of remote workers during the pandemic. Not surprising that a community of second homes became a desirable location to shelter-in-place. One advantage that Culver had over the cities listed above (for sheltering in place) was our small size. We have many of the necessary amenities without the large population. We undoubtedly missed an opportunity to capture more of those remote workers.
While we have boosted our amenities, we can’t compete with small city amenities such as colleges. (Though to some extend, Culver Academies fills a lot of that gap. That’s not necessarily obvious to someone looking in from the outside.) What we should do is promote our proximity to these. Two of the above cities, Lafayette and Fort Wayne, are within 75 miles of Culver. Lafayette gives us proximity to Purdue. South Bend and Notre Dame are 45 miles away. Chicago is only 76 miles away! Michigan Wine Country is only 76 miles away. We’re only 100 miles of Indianapolis. Yet we only continue to promote Culver as a destination. The Culver Visitors Center promotes itself as Find Culver.
What if we were to also promote Culver as a hub? Marshall County Economic Development Corporation has been doing this with manufacturers for years, pointing out the manufacturing centers and vast population within a 200 mile radius of Marshall County. (One of those interesting statistics is that there are more people within 200 miles of Marshall County, IN than within 200 miles of Atlanta, GA.)
I know we’re still working on things and there are some issues, such as broadband, yet to be solved, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about why Culver is a great place to live, not just a great place to visit. This is an across the board thing. Look at the sign CabinetWorks has promoting working in Culver (above) and the image from their website promoting Culver itself (right). How do we extend their suggestion of working in Culver to living in Culver. Culver assisted Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks bringing in workforce housing. They are in the process of helping two other developers bring in upper income housing. Is it possible to broaden the Culver Visitors Center’s mission to include finding new residents, not just visitors?
We attended the Vex Robotics Competition at the Plymouth High School Gym on Saturday. We have attended a few times in the past and it is always interesting.
I’m no expert, but here’s what I have gleaned from a few competitions I’ve observed.
The competition on Saturday was multitasked and was called “Spin Up”. Two teams of two robots competed – a red team and a blue team. The field of play is approximately 10′ x 10′. In two opposing corners there were two goals – a high goal and a low goal. In the alternate corners there were spinners with blue and red sides. scattered around the playing field were yellow disks that were collected to score points in the high and low goals.
Robots were sent to the spinner corners and they attempted to turn the spinner to show their color. Then they also had to defend the spinner so the other team couldn’t turn it back. Meanwhile they were also collecting disks and for lack of a better term, were spitting them into the high goals. To make that more interesting, the red high goal was over the blue low goal and vice versa. This meant that a missed shot scored for the other team. A score in the high goal was worth more and was safe from removal, but there was also the ability to remove disks from your opponents low goal, reducing their score. There was also a skill demonstrated where the robots shot out a string with a ring on the end, which appeared to be a strategy to tangle up your opponent, but that wasn’t clear and not all of the robots did this.
For those of you familiar with Battle Bots, this is a much less aggressive competition, i.e. no flame throwers, chain saws or axes, but there was still some mixing it up between the robots as they jockeyed for position and attempted to get the better of the opposing team.
There was obviously a lot of strategy, variation of design and some teamwork that made differences. Most of the robots spit the disks from fairly close and one at a time. One robot we watched tossed three disks at a time and didn’t miss until the upper goal was so full that disks were falling out, while another shot from across the field with pretty decent accuracy. Some had no trouble climbing over the small curbs defining the low goal, while others used that curb as a stop to set up their shots. The decisions between offense and defense were interesting as well. They were not allowed to “pin” their opponent, so a strategy of pushing and blocking was generally employed. We observed one team that would time a bump of the shooting robot just in time to throw off its shot, with every miss being a point for them in the low goal.
My understanding is that while most teams are school sponsored, that’s not a requirement. There were some teams that were quite obviously wearing school colors and were adorned with school mascots, while others were more creative in their team attire. Whether school affiliated or not, there was obviously a lot of non-traditional learning going on. Aside from the obvious STEM connections, the teamwork and strategy demonstrated were impressive. After qualifying, teams must form teams with other competitors in order to move forward in the competition. This is a process of evaluating their opponents and assessing skills that could add to their own. Negotiating and selling skills were employed!
There were several hundred spectators there. Most assuredly, the majority were family members of the competitors, but I would recommend taking the time to watch a competition, if you get the chance. We had no horse in the race, but enjoyed the competition just the same. These kids are future engineers and programmers, and seeing those skills put to work at the high school level is impressive. Well worth the time and price of admission (free)!
DST: Marco Rubio for President?
March 13, 2023
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Rants
Community, DST, government, Rants
It’s another grumpy Time Change Monday. I guess on the positive side, I beat the DST Heart Attack spike. (24% on the Monday after the Spring time change.) I think I beat the 8% spike in strokes, but since I’m a bit groggy today, I’m not as confident about that one!
My lurkers know that I’ve written (bitched) about DST here before. My stance against it hasn’t changed. Some of my past posts have exonerated Ben Franklin’s culpability in this, Exonerated Cows in this, shown that DST is not universal and celebrated Marco Rubio’s championing of ending this.
I have read that the Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate unanimously last year and then stalled in the House. I understand it passed the Senate again this year and is now in the House. If Senator Rubio declared his candidacy for President and promised to ditch the DST time change, he’d rocket to the top of the heap in my estimation. I know, as much as I liked Governor Mitch Daniels, I still curse him for his part in pushing DST for Indiana.
Not much to do at this point, but suck it up and muddle on. It will be better in a week or so. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though…
If you want some history on DST, Accuweather has a nice write up here.
0 comments