Preamble: I’m attempting a simple project here, capturing some of what I’m seeing, reading, and thinking about each month in a semi-organized fashion for future me to look back on. And so, each month:
- A photo to summarize the month (up top)
- NEW! On Repeat – what song I’ve listened to the most this month
- 2 bad things – news or events that should not have happened but did
- 2 good things – work by others who are trying to help improve the world around them
- 2 things I did – small and large, I want to remember the ways in which I spend my time
- 2 things I will do – I want to commit myself to setting down goals each month and tracking them
So, let’s start with the music.
On Repeat: The Decline – NOFX
I vividly recall listening to this song for the first time on my Discman, riding in the backseat of a van on the way back from a Boy Scout trip in high school. It blew my mind then, and hoo-boy has it aged well. Having it pop back into my brain now 25 years later has been… interesting. Turns out I remember like 90% of the lyrics.
The Bad
1: Stabbing Ukraine in the Back
This was a late entry (happening on the last day of the month) but probably the most long-term impactful event of February. Ambushing and humiliating President Zelensky was not only deeply embarrassing as an American, but it also seems to have been the inflection point for a real rift between the US and the rest of the Atlantic alliance. I know many (wrong) people will say that we should take care of things at home before spending money to fight wars abroad (ignoring that most of that money is paid right back to American companies, or that it has been extremely cost effective in diminishing the capabilities of Russia, or that we’ve spurred entire new supply chains and combat capabilities without sending a single American soldier into combat). Or that a “pivot” to Russia is good for peace (ignoring that Putin has no intention or incentives to maintain any peace, or that forcing Europe to rearm itself makes it dramatically MORE likely that there is future large scale conflict, or that by not enforcing territorial integrity in Ukraine we are signaling to China that Taiwan is fair game) or the economy (ignoring the fact that Russia’s economy is smaller than Canada’s, or that pushing Europe allies away will far outweigh the economic benefits of trade with Russia). These people are either fools or liars or both.
2: DOGE’s Dodgy Numbers
I have access to some good databases of government contracts through my work. I’m not an expert, but I know a decent amount about how to read these documents and what the terminology means. A lot of reporting has been done on how DOGE has been misrepresenting its impact as it takes a sledgehammer to the Federal government, but when I first got this list (helpfully compiled by HigherGov.com) that was not the case. It was pretty apparent from even a cursory look at the numbers that they were (I suspect deliberately) inflating their claims, or at least presenting them in unrealistically optimistic ways. To give a very simple example of this, look at this line for “Cyber Synergy Consulting Group”:
| Awardee Name | Current Total Value of Award | Potential Total Value of Award | Delta |
| Cyber Synergy Consulting Group | $492,155 | $4,606,863 | $4,114,709 |
To summarize, this shows that this company was awarded a contract (turns out it was funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the Department of Education) with a potential value of just over $4.6M, but that only $492K of that amount has currently been funded. This is quite common and can happen for all kinds of reasons; in this particular case it looks like the company was hired to provide “custom computer programming services” to the tune of a half million, and that additional funding (up to the “Total Value”) could be subsequently added to continue the services as needed within the period of performance. This DOES NOT mean that the Total Value was expected to be funded in full, nor that the ED would necessarily continue to increase funding at all from the current obligation. If one made the claim that canceling this contract saved the taxpayer the Total Value, they’d be wrong in two ways. First, the savings can’t include the money already obligated for services already performed (the common practice of President Trump to stiff his contractors aside), so the $492K should not be in the savings column. Second, the assumption that the remaining $4.1M would have been paid in full is a bad one, so that shouldn’t be the number either. Turns out, there is actually a lot of nuance in figuring this stuff out, which is why there were entire Federal agencies devoted to doing just this. Which number did DOGE report on its roll-up on the “Wall of Receipts”?
The Good
1: Dear Trump Voters
I’ve followed Some More News on and off again for years. They are generally funny, if long, and can sometimes tip towards a bit obnoxious. This video, however, goes to some lengths to maintain a “reasonable” tone, which I think is pretty useful. I don’t need to be convinced that Trump is bad and watching another hour-long episode to confirm everything I already think has very low utility. It is good though to have a thorough and approachable, well-presented and engaging case that may hold the attention of someone who is not aligned long enough to introduce them to some information they likely aren’t hearing within their typical echo chambers. This video does a great job of avoiding being a lecture without ceding any ground to the other side. Who knows if anyone in America can still learn to change their mind, but if it is possible, this is the kind of material that I think has the best shot at doing so.
2: Josh Johnson on Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl
Josh Johnson is one of my favorite comics right now because he uses a great blend of current events, storytelling, and physicality to get his audience to the points he wants to make, all without beating them over the head with anything. This set below is a particularly good example.
I didn’t actually watch the Super Bowl this year, and so hadn’t seen Kendrick’s Halftime Show, but after watching this I did have to find it. I can’t say for sure that I would have picked up all of the subtext without having heard Josh’s retelling first. It’s not that it’s hidden or hard to follow, but it helps to have the context; I’m not that up on Kendrick and his career. In any case, I enjoyed both this set and the Halftime performance quite a lot.
Things I Did
1: Danced My Butt Off – 90s Style
Amy and I hit up the Paradise Rock Club to see Tinzo + Jojo on their “Dial-up Tour” and it was a blast. The brother/sister duo have been DJing sets on YouTube for a couple of years now as the founders of Book Club Radio, and I’m a fan of their manifesto:
- Come for the music.
- Be open to unfamiliar music and sounds.
- Respect one another.
- Face each other instead of the DJ.
- No phones allowed on the dance floor.
- Dress to express yourself.
- Dance your heart out.
I was a big fan of the 90s/00s theme and it is always a good time to go back to the ‘Dise; I’ve probably seen more show there in my life than any other venue. Obviously, we have no photos from the dance floor (thankfully), but it was fun to dress up and dance in a crowd again, something I haven’t done in a long time.
2: Crunching Numbers for Lowell Makes
I’ve been on the Lowell Makes Board for almost 10 years now, serving in each officer position at one time or another. However, the past few years I have had significantly less direct involvement in the operations of the organization than I once did. As I said last month, I want to get back to directly contributing, and I’ve started a project to do this.
Lowell Makes opened in late 2013 with a $49/mo membership, which granted you 24/7 access to a basically empty 6,000 sq. ft. basement with a drill press, a contractor saw, and a few Raspberry Pis. The standard Maker Membership is still $49/mo today, but this gives you the keys to a 26,000 sq. ft. building that we own with more than a dozen workshops and workspaces, professional grade equipment, and a community of over 400 makers, artists, tinkerers and tradespeople. It’s to the credit of the dedicated members and volunteers that this all works, and I’d argue there is no better value membership in the region (yes, I am biased).
While it is our mission to be as accessible to the Lowell community as possible, we are contemplating updating the membership structure to (among other things) support the hiring of staff. I’ve started diving into this, which has led to me digging up a bunch of old spreadsheets I had put together five years ago while I was serving as President. This is not particularly sophisticated exploration, but it is still interesting to look at the numbers behind an organization that I know intimately and see how these can shed some insights into the health and trends therein.
It’s very much a work in progress, but I enjoy building out some simple models that project how different changes to our price structure will impact our members and finances. Ultimately, I hope to present a plan or recommendation to the board (and eventually the full membership) that charts out a course for the next ten years, achieving our goals sustainably.
Things I Will Do
1: LLM My Way into a Coding Project
I’ve been messing with ChatGPT/Gemini on some small coding projects I have wanted to write for a while. I don’t know python, so I’m sure that the results will be jank as hell, but a few tests I’ve done already have worked well enough.
I’ve been collecting old issues of I.D. Magazine, a design publication that ran from 1954-2010. When it launched it was “Industrial Design Magazine,” but it subsequently changed its name to “International Design Magazine.” As you may expect, it was a periodical that focused on design; the process, influential designers, new materials and fabrication techniques, etc. I was a subscriber for the last few years of the run (unfortunately, I discarded most of my issues during a move a few years later). I’ve since gone back, trying to acquire old issues to make a complete set of the print run.
One project is to make a script that can run through a gallery (say of a bunch of photos of magazine covers), looking for some characteristics like color palette or (through OCR) common words and phrases. The idea is that it might be interesting to see trends for common colors or buzzwords over the five decade long print run. I’ve already started testing out pieces of this script and I’m fairly pleased with the results. I wouldn’t be able to dedicate the time to build this all out by myself, so I want to use this as a test of whether “AI-assistance” can actually get me to the point of something marginally useful. We’ll see.
2: Prepare for Spring
Living in downtown Lowell, my green space is limited to several pots and planters on the deck, which I very much enjoy. Each year I say “I should plant some seeds indoors this Spring so that I can get things ready to go in the planters as soon as it is warm enough” and each year I fail. I get a lot of pleasure out of growing a small garden, and I suspect I would get even more pleasure if I grew at least some of that from seed. So this year I want to build out a small greenhouse with a grow light, just something big enough for some herbs and a few flowers to get started in April and May. I also have a few indoor houseplants that I would like to propagate, like these little Alocasia and Pilea I split up last fall (a few of which have survived):
