Tag: TBT

Lazy Sunday CCCXCV: America 250

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Dr. Wife and I enjoyed a productive and delicious Independence Day yesterday. We both slept in fairly late, then she made us a delicious breakfast for lunch. We continued the Sisyphean task of unpacking, until Dr. Wife started getting stir-crazy, so we took some loads to Goodwill and grabbed a couple of ice cream cones at Chick-Fil-A. Dr. Wife made us an incredible dinner of hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked beans, and watermelon, and after our evening walk, she made strawberry shortcakes, which she presented with sparklers!

We didn’t get to see any fireworks—apparently, the big local fireworks displays happened a few days ago—but we heard plenty of them. The dogs don’t get riled up by them, which is a blessing. I imagine we’ll continue to hear fireworks for another evening or two as folks use up the last of their Fourth of July stash.

As such, here are some recent posts about Independence Day:

God Bless America!

—TPP

TBT^340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456: Happy Birthday, America!

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’ve finally reblogged a single post enough that the “TBT^x^2” broke Windows’s calculator program, so I had to use calculator.net‘s Big Number Calculator to solve 18,446,744,073,709,551,616^2. I have no idea how one would even enunciate 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 aloud.

The United States is celebrating another big number in two days, it’s 250th birthday! With the move Dr. Wife and I have failed to put patriotic bunting and miniature American flags, and I’m woefully unprepared in the borderline illegal fireworks department, but we’re looking forward to a relaxed day celebrating our nation with hot dogs (and our normal dogs, Murphy and Nugget).

I don’t have quite the same unbridled optimism that I did a year ago, but I think the debacle in Iran has had the positive side effect of waking up our president to the pernicious influence of the foreign policy hawks around him. It will also hopefully result in the United States playing a more muted role in the Middle East, leaving Israel to tend to its backyard without us stepping in, golem-like, every time an Arab sneezes in the direction of Tel Aviv. That whole exploding pagers things suggests the Israelis have the tech and ingenuity to handle things on their own.

Regardless, I’m feeling the Spirit of ’76. God Bless America!

With that, here is 3 July 2025’s “TBT^18,446,744,073,709,551,616: Happy Birthday America!“:

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TBT^4: A Discourse on Disclaimers

The Portly Politico1 Comment

In surveying the vast expansion of the much-discussed Overton Window last year, it seemed like things couldn’t get any better. After a decade of oppressive wokery, people were suddenly letting it all out in a cathartic moment that felt incredible.

A year on, it seems to be getting even better. Maybe that’s because I’m using Substack more, which basically takes all the hot takes of X and transforms them into pseudo-intellectual essays (the writing on Substack is really good, by the way). People on there have zero qualms about saying anything, which makes it a pretty exciting intellectual environment. When no idea—even the bad ones—are off-limits, everything gets discussed—and exposed.

It’s refreshing. I remember how bad things got in 2015-2016, when even here in super conservative South Carolina you couldn’t audibly espouse support for Trump in mixed company, and certainly not in a professional setting. Now people are like, “Trump hasn’t gone far enough.” I mean, look, I agree; it’s just wild how we can say it out loud now.

So, no more equivocating, folks, no more disclaimers. Let it all out in a flurry of free speech!

With that, here is 26 June 2025’s “TBT^2: A Discourse on Disclaimers“:

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TBT^16: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Dr. Wife will finish residency officially in eight days, and she’s excited to be here at our new home all the time. We have a good bit of unpacking to do since the multiple moves over the past few months, but it will be so much more enjoyable to do it together.

We’re also looking forward to doing some traveling in the future. We have an excursion planned for mid-July, before she starts her “big girl job,” as I call it, as a rural family medicine doctor. Beyond that, it will probably be a bit before we hit the road again, as she’ll settle into her new schedule and I’ll get settled into my new quasi-freelancer life.

One trip, however, that I hope we can take one day is up to Maine for this tour of the The Maine Solar System Model. It might be awhile before we are able to take the time to do it, but I’m thinking summer will be a great time to cruise across the Solar System—so we can escape the South Carolina heat!

With that, here is 12 June 2025’s “TBT^4: Touring the Solar System in the Rural Maine“:

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TBT: The Joy of Coffee

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Blogger Esoterica over at Existential Ergonomics has once against inspiration for today’s post. She posed a fun question to readers in her post “Q&A: Are you a tea or a coffee person?“

It’s a smart title because it’s dripping (no pun intended) with engagement potential. Naturally, the comments section was poppin’—and yours portly was not shy about discussing coffee (and tea) with the other readers, especially after purchasing a new coffee grinder (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you):

That got me thinking about a post I wrote way back in 2021. I looked it up, and was shocked to find that I’d never featured it in a TBT. Well, it’s time to change that and look back at a post about my favorite breakfast beverage.

With that, here is 24 March 2021’s “The Joy of Coffee“:

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TBT: Retro Games Website

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Before it became overrun with AI slop and bots, the Internet was the good kind of wild frontier, brimming with jokes and otherwise lost content. Well, the Internet is still that, there’s just a lot more trash to wade through to find the good stuff.

One website that provides “the good stuff” is RetroGames.cz, which makes possible the playing of some classic games via emulation in your browser. I spent a good chunk of time last year playing through the old Dragon Warrior game; eventually, I’ll get around to loading up my save state and finishing it. It’s the grindiest RPG I’ve ever played!

Occasionally, I find myself nostalgic for the rudimentary, homemade websites of the late 1990s and early 2000s, wherein website design philosophy consisted of cramming as many animated GIFs onto the homepage as possible, and everything was typed in Times New Roman font. The formality of the font contrasted with the frivolity of the overall design, to the effect that webpages in those days were akin to early digital folk art. The amateurism—which, it must be remembered, still required a good bit of working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript at the time—leant those websites a certain charm, even if that whimsical form came at the expense of function.

Well, enough of my waxing artistical. Go play some good games.

With that, here is 4 June 2025’s “Retro Games Website“:

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TBT^16: Zelda Game & Watch

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Summertime is upon us, and yours portly is all but done with the academic year. That means it’s time for video games.

Civilization VII dropped its huge update, which brings some major changes to the game; I’m hoping to sink some hours into that again soon. I’m also hoping to get back into Old World, which devoured so much of my time back in April with its deep gameplay.

Of course, I still have my lovable Zelda Game & Watch by Nintendo (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link, which means I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). I haven’t played it in awhile, but it still keeps time like a tiny Hyrulean champ.

With that, here is 22 May 2025’s “TBT^4: Zelda Game & Watch“:

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TBT^2: Mystery in the Blogosphere

The Portly Politico6 Comments

What happens when a blog dies, especially a long-established one? Further, what happens when the blog’s author also goes missing, leaving no digital footprint behind?

The latter question seems almost impossible in our hyperconnected world, but it’s the case with Trinidadian blogger Renard, the proprietor of the now-gone Renard’s World. Renard and his little avatar, which looked like a character from The Boondocks, was so ubiquitous, he seemed like the unofficial mascot of WordPress. Here was a writer who churned out quality content every day, and like “Tom” on MySpace, he seemed to follow and be followed by everyone on the platform.

Then he disappeared.

The mystery has, as I wrote last year, “endured.” In attempting recent searches for “Renard’s World,” the same speculative blog posts show up as did last year. I even hopped onto Substack to see if our boy had made an appearance on that platform, but no dice.

Could Renard be blogging under a completely different identity? Or did he hang up the work for good?

There are, of course, the darker speculations, that Renard met with some unfortunate fate beneath the Caribbean sun. But the coordinated shuttering of all of his social media and online presence seems like something difficult to do if you’re dead and your relatives are fumbling to get into your accounts.

I pray that Renard is okay. I didn’t know him that well, of course, but I wish no ill upon anyone.

That said, if any readers have any updates on Renard’s whereabouts, leave a comment or contact me. I’m intrigued to know, although I suspect none of us will know for sure on this side of Eternity.

With that, here is 15 May 2025’s “TBT: Mystery in the Blogosphere“:

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TBT^256: SimEarth

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote about how bogus Darwinian evolution is as a theory.  It’s one of those concepts that sounds both so radical and logical that it must be groundbreaking and true.

Then you start to examine it more closely and realize it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.  There’s an entire Facebook page that just shows weird animals with hyper-specific “adaptations” that are so outlandish, there’s no conceivable way they could have gradually “evolved” to that state.  Any median point in the process would have made the creature unfit for the conditions.  Sometimes, the animals have some odd characteristic that doesn’t even do anything in particular.

That said, the concept of evolution is fun in video games and science fiction.  Sure, maybe that’s just pro-Darwinist propaganda embedded into popular culture, but evolution works well in the context of a video game, where progression is encouraged through rewards.  I’ve always liked games with a grand scope that require incremental improvements over time.

Of course, even those games prove intelligence:  the development of a species, or a civilization, or someone’s neighborhood in The Sims, is itself a process of intentional, ordered choices.  Granted, players aren’t God, but they get to guide development over many turns or rounds or what not.

That’s all to say that I loved playing SimEarth back in the day.

With that, here is 8 May 2025’s “TBT^16: SimEarth“:

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TBT: The Post-Boomer Collapse

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Lately I’ve been reading more pieces about the approaching succession crisis that will be the long-delayed hand-off of power from the seemingly eternal Boomers to the rapidly aging Gen Xers and Millennials.  That will release a massive bottleneck of jobs and wealth that should—if AI doesn’t put us all out of work—lift those generations to higher levels in the corporate and academic worlds, while also allowing the unfortunates of Gen Z a chance to get a job.

Writer Aaron Renn has covered the topic:  https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/the-boomer-paradox-jeff-giesea

He also helpfully linked to a trilogy of essays by Jeff Giesea detailing the ramifications of what I call the “Post-Boomer Collapse“:

Each of these essays gives a sense of what will come as the Boomers continue to grow older and, ultimately, die off.

For all the vitriol poured on this generation (and I’m guilty of it as well), their passing will bring with it major shockwaves.

It’s why I advocated a year ago that the Boomers still lingering in leadership positions should go ahead and step down.  If they do so thoughtfully over the course of the next few years, they could groom successors and assure a smoother transition.  If they stubbornly cling to their roles (“I just love to work!”), I fear that we’ll experience a competency vacuum on an unprecedented scale.

We all know stories of post-colonial African nations in which, having ousted the colonizers, the local people don’t know how to maintain the advanced infrastructure left to them.  Maybe a few folks know how to keep existing systems running, but as they retire or die off, no one is proficient enough to keep things running.  The power plant coasts for a few weeks with whatever coal was shoveled in last (I don’t know in detail how power plants work, so don’t crucify me over this illustration), then people wonder why their lamps don’t work anymore.

Heck, if all the nuclear engineers disappeared today, I wouldn’t know how to run a nuclear power plant (see the prior paragraph, which used a coal-burning plant, but you get the idea).

Similarly, if we lose huge amounts of institutional knowledge over the span of ten years without trained successors, we’re doomed.  Thankfully, many organizations have engaged in succession management, but I suspect we’re in for a world of pain—or, at the very least, some unpleasant ruptures.

All the more reason for the Boomers to loosen their grip and let the next generations have a turn at the wheel.

With that, here is 26 April 2025’s “The Post-Boomer Collapse?” (original on SubscribeStar):

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