Soul Meets Body was released in 2005

I was lucky, or maybe not lucky so much as greatly enjoyed the fact, that I entered Kindergarten in the year 1999. Among the few things I remember about Kindergarten besides my teacher being Mr. Abbott who happened to attend our church, was being confused when we returned to school post winter break and he changed all four numbers on the wall signifying the new year and being confused why I had to utilize a capital letter for the first letter of my name only and not any other part of my name. This also meant that every grade of school completed would coincide with the last digit of the year in which the grade was completed.

Skip forward to 2024 (where I would be in 24th grade – or grade 24 as the Canadians might refer to it) and I am listening to SiriusXM radio on my laptop which allows access to their large library of programs and live recordings. Death Cab for Cutie apparently performed live in 2005 and one of the songs that comes through my bluetooth earbuds is Soul Meets Body. The words of the chorus immediately call to my memory being in sixth grade where I was a part of a special cohort of students in the G.A.T.E. program which allowed us a special elective class that would change each half of the semester for a total of four different classes one of which was an accelerated Art curriculum that introduced to many contemporary artists and newer methods of art creation coupled with a history of art styles. In the art class room was displayed various projects and assignments of the various class periods and grades one of which was a calligraphy assignment that a student decided to quote the song by Death Cab. I was really into the FM radio station 97.3 Radio Alice which at the time had the morning show with Sarah and No Name. I am pretty sure Death Cab also performed live in that studio at one point.

I think to myself, wow was that really in 2005 that the song was released? Then I do the mental work of remembering details and sure enough, I was in that art class during the second half of the fall semester of my sixth grade year (which was approximately between September 2005 – December 2005)…

Almost twenty years later, the song still hits IMHO. The recording of their three song live performance ends and I see that there is another recording they did with SiriusXM nearly a decade later in 2015. I only recognize the first song, Black Sun which is when I would have completed 15th grade in the spring and started 16th grade in the fall… lol – probably better to just say that I was already attending university in Santa Cruz and I was in my fourth year of university.

At this point it seems futile to refer to one’s age with reference to the school grade one is/would be in. It’s crazy to consider that Soul Meets Body was released twenty years ago and then a decade ago Death Cab released a new album and that I was already in my fourth year of my college years. But I know that I hope to live to complete at least 110th grade.

Corporate Fast Food Franchising deserves to die

Yet another Yahoo Finance article bashing any notion of workers rights or economic gains fails (yet again) to uncover exactly how much profit corporate management pilfers from local “entrepreneurs” and communities. Each time I see any headlines on Yahoo Finance railing against wins for hardworking people, my eyes can’t roll hard enough at the failure to consider perspectives other than those who believe that corporations are people with god given rights. Let’s dig in.

The article details that a Fosters Freeze location in a rural California town will be shutting down because the state minimum wage for fast food workers increased to $20 on April 1, 2024. The manager of the local franchise in Lemoore, California waited until April fools day to text all the workers the location would be shutting down because he “didn’t want to ruin their Easter Sunday” which implies that the layoffs were well known ahead of April 1st. The story got me wondering how much it costs to start a Fosters Freeze location and I found this on their corporate franchise website:

Franchise fees alone are $45,000 – which i suppose decreases if an individual proprietor decides to open multiple – all for basically branding and legal support. The work is still carried out by the individual proprietor or whomever gets hired to do so. And that’s just the “initial” franchise fee. I imagine it gets higher over time as corporate investors seek higher returns “due to inflation”. All of this means that less money stays in local economies and the pockets of individual proprietors/investors. A quick search for how much it costs to start a fast food restauraunt in Orange County California offers that $1million is the starting point according to some reddit restaurant owners:

The first cost that owners cut is labor. This is probably why boots and AI are such a hot topic for those who desire to own capital and amass individual profit.

Anyways, this whole post is just a rant against people and Yahoo News for unquestioningly presenting rhetoric and viewpoints against workers rights and gains. But if any of these capitalists really understood their own system, they’d understand that innovation is required for profit gains and every innovation that has succeeded in making huge gains considers how to make people’s lives easier, not harder. Restaurant owners that can’t afford to stay in business should reconsider the viewpoints presented by corporate powers that be instead of blaming and belittling the very people that directly affect their precious profits in the first place – workers and customers. I become further entrenched in this belief every time I read any article published by Yahoo Finance. In their beloved systems, they say that businesses which fail to innovate, that products which consumers decide they don’t want to spend money on, ultimately should fail except it seems where corporate and individual owner profits are concerned.

It’s also high time that workers are offered the same opportunities to become owners of the types of businesses where owners prioritized profits over people and ultimately failed. Employees and workers hold power in their collective knowledge and labor, but individual franchise owners and corporate institutions love to make the public believe otherwise.

I was glad to see at least one not publicly traded fast food restaurant vowing to keep prices the same for now with the new law: In n’ Out. While this company cites the Bible on their food packaging, they seem to actually believe and act out the teachings about money. The owner seems to understand what makes the company great: good products and good people.

I’ll end with this: Blaming workers wages as being the sole reason for business failure will always indicate to me that the business owner priorities were wrong in the first place. I will never find inspiration in a sob story of any individual business owner or corporate entity who dug their own grave. I will always take more inspiration from the hardworking people who may have been excluded from the hegemonic economy and have done more with less, always with dignity and humanity for others that may be different than themselves.

Technology’s Progression

First it was:

“I want to see more” and so the lamp and then the lightbulb was created.

Then it was:

“I want to communicate more” and so the telegraph and telephone lines were installed.

after that it became:

“I need instantaneous information from the comfort of my home” and thus the internet was born.

Now we’ve so much information and convenience than ever before with more disconnection occurring at increasingly unfathomable rates.

Meanwhile, rich men look to the sky and other planets instead of around at the flora and fauna being left behind and destroyed.

End of Year Cheer – for Landlords

As I wait in line at a local branch of the Orange County’s Credit Union on December 1st so that I can get a cashiers check for rent, I reflect on the fact that I’ve performed this act twelve times this year alone.

I can see the two men ahead of me both wearing construction safety vests – and one is even wearing a hard hat – are holding personal checks (presumably for depositing into their own bank accounts) with “Rent” in the memo. I had hypothesized recently with a friend that it seems most blue collar workers who are buying houses work in the trades and my observation of these two men bolsters the evidence. Yet, both men seemingly still need tenant subsidized incomes to exist in Orange County.

To do nothing and receive profit is the unsustainable American Dream.

Things (un)forgotten

The phone number which contained his PIN number (and the code he used for just about everything since it was his birthdate 6-7-71)

The monthly emailed statements from Xoom, messages on Viber, video calls I wish I’d screenshot or recorded somehow

The YouTube playlists full of rock love ballads in English and Tagalog

The random trips to AT&T to get you the newest phone using your military discount to then ship to the Philippines

The motorcycle and air-soft parts, references to your army buddies AKA “Uncle Sam’s Lost Children”

The drive between Kirker Pass and Fair Oaks Dr, just to then drive to look at new cars in Livermore/Pleasanton

The years of spending many nights playing Playstation 2 and Xbox 360 eating Banquet microwavable TV Dinners, Cup of noodles, hanging out at Fair Oaks Drive doing nothing but feeling secure and happy

The homemade videos you used to make in the 80s with your cousins at Susie Way: https://youtu.be/CUPqYb4RPZA

These things are nothing compared to the love I know you had for all of your family members

I miss you.

Sendoff song

When all of humanity has finally

Nailed the coffin of Earthly human existence shut

And buried upon our mother planet,

The remaining humans will leave for another place

And the song felt in their minds and souls as they depart

Will be a song by

Whitney Houston

Military Recruitment

An email from a Marines recruiter

If we do the math using the figures in the email from a US Marines recruiter, $3500 for 6 weeks of training equates to $14.58 per hour and $5500 for 10 weeks of training equates to $13.75 per hour.

How is it that the Department of the Navy can receive $212 billion in the 2022 US Budget and then proceed to pay less than $15 per hour? The US Marine Corps requested almost $50 billion for its operations alone. Military contracts to private military contractors is how they’re able to pay personnel so little.

National Defense magazine outlined that: “Some $700 million has been reallocated toward “investment priorities,” [which includes] long-range precision fires, networks and sensors as well as $20 million for updating manpower systems, and $150 million for training and education programs”

Each of these line items has a slew of private contractors who profit off of the idea that America’s naval might is flailing in comparison to China’s specifically. Very few dollars is allocated to in-house development of these line items.

The military industrial complex remains alive and well yet simultaneously somehow, Americas military might is somehow losing its power.

Maybe the idea of privatizing and outsourcing military should never have been a thing at all. Maybe it’s time to reconsider allocating so many dollars to war mongering across the world.

Or at least pay those who want to serve in the Military better

Life Objects

The objects we acquire and use in a lifetime
Each object touched, stored, cared for, worn
At one time were touched by some other human hands
If not at least thought about for its inception

Media objects: An audio CD compilation created by a friend
Or a long defunct organization of people
Some software lost to its epoch
Records never to be enjoyed or perceived again

Memories with objections to discarding an object
Knowing fully well that if one truly loves it, liberate it
Anthropologists can’t begin to fathom our waste
Which will remain forevermore long after we’re gone

Memory too holds the feelings carried in each object
To be vicariously lived and felt in the cosmos of “death”
But while the objects and objections exist, we can
Cherish, enjoy, recreate, share, admire, and release.

Linguistic Diversity

Take a look at the below maps of Europe and North America side by side:

Side by side maps of Europe and North America

Each share the same scale, yet Europe has a lot more linguistic diversity than the North American continent. This was intentional on the part of Western European colonizers. California itself used to be home to over 300 indigenous languages with travelers unable to go more than 5 miles and communicate in the same language in some parts of California. While some efforts to unify all of humanity under one language time and time again (e.g. Esperanto) for various reasons have failed (I’d conjecture the main reason being that humans tend to exhibit bias in preferring if not loving the language and communication system which they are born into…), it should be noted that even when I communicate with others in a shared language that it doesn’t necessarily result in common ground or even a proliferation of ideas. This becomes apparent in politics where people who share the same language find themselves at odds with one another despite sharing the same language. So too in a household a child may share disagreement and discord with family members who share the same language.

Thus it behooves us as a species and existence in our universe to ensure that a diversity of languages exists and can be learned by all humans. To this extent, I believe that multi-lingualism is needed in today’s world to ensure that the most marginalized languages and communities and the ideas and worldviews contained therein are not lost forever as has sadly happened to many indigenous languages of the North American continent. Science has proven that monoculture is devastating to natural environments. I imagine the same principle can be applied to linguistic diversity. To ensure that we have as many ideas that can be understood and accounted for in a linguistic ecosystem should allow for a better world.

Using Raspberry Pi Zero W with a CRT TV

Ever since I first learned of its existence in 2018, I love Raspberry Pi and all of the community surrounding it. I was gifted a Raspberry Pi Zero W by a family friend who received it for free with a purchase at a local Micro Center and wasn’t sure what I would do with it. It sat on my desk for almost a year before I finally found the time and energy to consider it.

Ultimately, I had always loved that rPi still maintains a TV out port (AKA RCA or composite) connection on all their boards. The second rPi 3B+ I ever had, I turned into a RetroPie connected to an old Samsung CRT TV that I picked up at a local Goodwill to experience old gaming on the intended screen (HDTVs make old console gaming look terrible IMO). I ultimately gifted that rPi3B+ to the same family friend who had given me the rPi Zero W. Once I finally found the wherewithal to think about rPi Zero W projects and learning about what others have done with it, I ultimately decided to use it as a home entertainment device for the Samsung CRT TV which is located in the bedroom at this point.

As a side project, I had been playing around with connecting an rPi 4 to CRT and struggled with the overscan settings on and off for about two months. At first I thought it was because pi4 vs pi3 hardware. When it turned out to also be a problem with the rPi Zero W composite out, I researched the issue on and off for about two weeks. Then, one unnecessary rPi 3B+ kit purchase later, (I say unnecessary because the supply of standalone rPi boards don’t exist at the moment in the USA with the continuing supply chain issues), I confirmed that something between Buster and Bullseye had changed. Turns out that Buster and Bullseye kernels handle overscan settings differently. Eventually I found the solution and then proceeded to think about how to connect the rPi Zero W to CRT.

First, I took a dive into (re)learning how to solder. Once I felt comfortable and confident enough, I went ahead and soldered all GPIO pins onto the rPi Zero W. It’s not pretty looking, but it got the job done. After acquiring the correct product for composite video connection using rPi Zero W from Adafruit, I tested the TV out connection, configured the config.txt, (modifed Bullseye for overscan settings according to the solution) and it worked! I was finally able to connect the rPi Zero W to the old CRT only to realize a major oversight in all my tinkering and learning: sound out to the TV. I found many a tutorial and many a pHAT that would suffice ultimately settling on Adafruit’s I2S Audio Bonnet for Raspberry Pi – UDA1334A.

The rPi Zero W case which I had purchased was not going to allow the wires to sit properly given the low clearance with the audio pHAT. Thus I decided to strip the wires and direct solder them to the TV out pins (and ground). Since I was at it, I also soldered the RCA audio jacks to the audio pHAT. With that, the rPi Zero W had both audio out and TV out connections.

Configuring the sound to work took a little while, but ultimately, I had to manually add in two lines of code to the config.txt manually (I have copied that portion of the tutorial below):

---

If you see a line that says: dtparam=audio=on

Disable it by putting a # in front.

Then add:
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac
dtoverlay=i2s-mmap

Save the file.

---

I use VNC Viewer app on my phone as a remote, but I suppose a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard or remote might suffice instead. I suppose to I might look into Kodi on rPi Zero W, but for now, Raspbian seems to work (except for some mp4 files for some reason…)

What a wonderful world we live in. Now I can watch old shows from my networked HDD on my CRT TV in my room at the end of the night . The 480p or lower quality of the older TV shows (Invader Zim and Spongebob at the moment) suddenly looked very sharp like I remembered watching it growing up. Thus completes the cycle of life I suppose seeing as my grandparents (who are now in their 80s) still watch TV in their room on a CRT TV every night.