Category: Elsewhere

Posted on

Mega City Projects Gone Wrong

AI image of a City

I came across a video on the mega city projects.

There’s a lot of ambitious talk about building crazy cities and all of them seem awesome on the surface, but a lot of them forget about human nature. Someone needs to revisit Hershey, Pennsylvania, which got its start as a private town for Milton Hershey’s employees.

It’s one of the few “private” towns that were successful. But what made it successful?
Economy makes everything work. This means some sort of production or export that can bring people in. For Hershey, PA, it was a factory and subsequently, a theme park.

Also, Hershey allowed the sale of houses. Ownership also helps to make people stick around. Also, allowing business to run in the town also helps a little too. This brings in more employment, and more people.

It is my (ever to be humble) opinion that a town has to grow organically and you need to start with some form of resource to mine or create. Then give the employees the option to buy their apartment. After that, they own the spot, they can sell it to whomever they want, or even rent it out.

Also, make sure there is a place that businesses can also purchase or lease, allowing for more employment.

And of course, you need a tourist attraction. Some of the mega projects are attractions in themselves, but a little affordable amusement park wouldn’t hurt.

Obviously, it’s not that simple, but it seems to be a good start. Who knows, maybe someone will figure it out and we’ll start seeing working cities of the future sooner than later.

Posted on

Under Maintenance

MODx Backend

Not this site, but Zherosha.com is out for a day. It was late by the time I backed everything up and reinstalled the CMS. I need to sleep occasionally.

I should have it up and running sometime tomorrow.

Posted on

Why TikTok is a bad idea (and it’s not what you think it is)

This is why I don’t post on TikTok anymore. This guy is very gracious, but I believe some malicious troll kept reporting his videos. Trolls can harass whomever they dislike by simply using bots to mass report channels. A similar thing has been happening on Twitter, which is what finally prompted me to delete my old account I had since 2007. When Elon Musk announced his bid for Twitter, drama ensued, and I couldn’t resist opening a new account to watch.
Censorship is a problem, not because of the first amendment (that is actually to restrict the government, private companies can do what they want), but because of how easily trolls and bullies can abuse it. Some bully can easily just report videos/posts just because they know it would have an effect.
That said, if companies want to be strict with what people post on their site, then they need to find a way to stop abuse, but I’m not sure if that’s possible. At least, not without hiring more people and even then, you are subject to the mood of the mod.
I’m also on Minds and yes, the crazies are on there, but there are some really awesome people there. Some were banned only because there were enough reports to get them banned, but the material they posted was benign, only to be intentionally misconstrued to justify banishment – something that can’t be done on Minds.
Elon Musk said that he is for free speech, but we’ll see. Right now, “Free Speech” is lucrative, so it very well may be that he’ll turn Twitter into a free speech platform.
Time will tell.
Posted on

New Update: Car found!

Jeep

So my mother-in-law messaged me a few days ago, letting us know they’re retiring and probably not going to need their Jeep anymore. If we want it, we can go pick it up.

This is great news! I mean, we’ll have to wait until August when we go to Vermont for the memorial. That said, It still will  a lot of cost money to go, especially with the prices of gas going up. I still need to get that funding.

In somewhat related news: I’ve updated my links page to include the update and my BookBub profile link. If you are a fellow author and you follow me there, I’ll follow you back.

Posted on

Need free stock images?

Black-Eyed Susan

My Pics on Pixabay

Not everyone has money to spend. Not everyone is talented enough to take all of their own photos.

Enter Pixabay, a community-based stock image repository. People from all around the world (including myself) upload their photos for the public use for free.

Although it would be polite to, Pixabay doesn’t require you to link back to them.

 

But, if you are feeling generous, there’s a way to buy the artist coffee.

I’ve used many images for blog posts and even some for my ebooks. and they give you a link to share, if you want to. 

 

Featured image (it’s mine):

Image by Nancie Neal from Pixabay