Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

DON’T BUDWEISER MY BLOG. I REMOVED THE SECOND INSTANCE OF DYLAN MULVANEY.

When I went in to give birth to second son, we were — son and I — put in a dangerous situation because the doctor was misinformed, and therefore misdiagnosed the moment.

To make it clear, I don’t blame the doctor — not exactly — since we were the idiots who gave him access to the report of our first son’s birth. That said, he should have been able — I think — to read between the lines and figure out that the first doctor was covering her ass. Because unless that woman was much better at writing than doctoring, an experienced Obgyn sound look at it and go “something went seriously wrong.”

On the other hand, I also get doctors trusting other doctors over their patients. They’re in many ways a closed fraternity.

So the doctor accepted that the first birth had been incredibly slow and then stopped for no good reason after three days. I never read the report, so I have no idea, but I’m going to assume it wasn’t there that the baby crowned in an hour, and then the birth stopped, so I was in hard, unproductive labor for three days. The reason for it being that the doctor thought if a little pitocin was good, a lot was better. And excess pitocin stops the contractions and causes the uterus to fibrillate uselessly. (I got yelled at for not being able to tell when the contractions were, because I was in continuous extreme pain. Yeah.)

Anyway, so believing the report, when I presented 3 centimeters dilated and with about-normal-period-level-cramp-like-pain on the day I was scheduled to be induced, the doctor logically thought he didn’t want me in forever labor. So, over my protests, he gave me “just a little bit of pitocin, to make sure you’re ready to give birth by this evening.”

The pain took the freight train to hell, and the baby was crowned less than an hour later, over the shouts of nurses for me not to push — I found when experiencing full contractions it’s almost impossible not to push — and the doctor barely made it there in time to catch the baby, still wearing a three piece suit (the doctor, not the baby. He’s not the three piece suit kind.) The doctor admitted he’d been wrong to give me pitocin, and said the next one he wouldn’t, and also he’d wear a catcher’s mitt. (No other baby made it to term, alas.)

The entire birth took an hour and a half from admission to being in a room resting. Which is fine in a way, but did some damage which I won’t describe, and could have literally maimed me or killed me. Possibly the baby too, if there had been some complication like cord around the neck, because the doctor wasn’t even there yet, and the nurses were panicky and not functioning. I might not be the only mother of a vaginally-born baby who had a perfectly round Caesarean-baby head, but we’re a small club. His head never conformed for the birth. He was pushed out too fast. “Like a cannonball” the doctor said.

So, what is the point of this story? Ah, it is because we — the whole world, but mostly this country — are in the middle of this situation, writ large and figuratively. (Mostly figuratively. The shit and the blood of such a birth, as well as the pain, screaming and danger are real.)

So I told you…. going back 12 years at least that we were in the middle of catastrophic societal change. Why catastrophic? Because normally things change very slowly.

We like to imagine that our lives will be more or less like our parents’ lives as we perceived them as small children, only maybe a little better.

The rhythm of change was already too high for that when I came on the scene. Even if I hadn’t kicked the beehive over by moving here it would already have been too much change for that time period. Now–

Well, the internet and the ease and speed of communication made things even faster. And changed them in ways we can’t fully understand. Also took the clamps that the establishment had put on arts and sciences to slow down their development and channel them along predictable paths. Because people of various avocations could communicate and find funding on line. Or sell directly to the buying public.

By the mid nineties I could already see it coming. It was blindingly obvious. And portions of it were already worrying me to death.

Like, I could see the working from home revolution coming, but then what would happen to all those empty office buildings? More importantly, what would happen to the cities that relied on having people come in to work, and having to live in reasonable proximity? For the love of Bob, what would happen when you could outsource jobs to much cheaper countries and didn’t pay enough to allow people to live and work in more developed countries. (For those who don’t know this — does anyone not know this? — cost of living in the US varies WILDLY among states. It’s more so like that internationally.)

I mean, look guys, if 40 year old me was looking at this and going “This is headed for us within ten to twenty years” — counting on natural human fighting of change — “and it’s going to have very bad echoes down the line, as well as good things” how come the people in charge didn’t see it? Because they clearly, blindingly, missed it.

I mean, look, take the writing field, because I know it and can give you the best examples: as gravity shifts from publishing houses to indie publishing, as is already happening to be fair, writers who produce regularly will make a much better living. However, meanwhile, every other step in the chain — if the market were functioning properly which it isn’t for various reasons, including fiction publishing being an appendage of much bigger entertainment conglomerates — would be out of a job or making less. Like, yes, a lot of publishers and editors, but also printing plant managers, printers, maintenance workers, etc. etc. And because the losses would be concentrated while the gains weren’t, A particularly city would be hit hard (To be fair, it’s being hit hard.)

This type of change would be hard enough on society — because most people don’t even realize the change is already in process when it’s happening. Which is why in the days of Noah people married and were given in marriage. And in our days, journalism schools are still full — even distributed over 20 or 30 years. Which it would normally have taken.

But then the idiots in charge, who are blind fools attempting to graduate to mere morons, decided to manipulate a bad flu eruption into locking down the entire country’s population and economic armagedon. Because this would allow them to steal the election and give them POWAH!

They did succeed at their immediate purposes. Sort of. It involved in front of G-d and everyone cheating at the last minute, but hey, they got it, right? Yay! Now they get everything they want, right?

They don’t get everything they want. It’s falling apart even as they try to push it.

But worse than that, because of the means of power grabbing they chose, they have sent the already catastrophic tech-driven societal change into full tilt boogey into hell.

People are not — no matter ho pushed — going to go back to the offices after years of being forced to work from home. Yes, sure, okay, some people want to go back, but entire fields are populated with introverts who don’t wanna and are not going to.

And this has so many knock on consequences. Like the fact that cities are outright dying. I read an article about the federal government being shocked their buildings are empty. The complete idiots. Like it wasn’t predictable! But so are private companies’ buildings. And the sunk costs of the empty buildings are enough to sink some of our big corporations already.

For regulatory reasons, they can’t easily or cheaply be converted into housing, even in housing starved areas.

And on, and on and on, it just keeps going on. The lockdowns also sent the implosion of mass education into full roaring freak out, because parents saw what was being taught. And add to it a completely jaundiced view of “experts.”

What’s collapsing is the blue model ratcheted onto the republic by FDR almost 100 years ago. It was always unnatural, never took fully, and was always going to fail and fall away.

However fast change is always bad. It was bad implementing it, and overall, it wasn’t that fast (and never fully took, or we’d be soviet.)

It will be bad, bad, bad losing it too fast. Really bad. And 20 years was too fast, while this will be more like five.

Particularly since the idiots in charge aren’t seeing the problems or mitigating them, but instead are trying to pile on the disintegrating tower of central control by adding the green bullshit to it, and trying to break the parts of the system still more or less working.

Imagine a tsunami long held off and rushing back in, but there are tornados on the tsunami and whirlpools sucking people into unkown depths.

Or if you prefer, you’re about to give birth, and some idiot just gave you pitocin, so everything is rushing, it hurts like hell, and idiot nurses are yelling at you not to push, while you can’t help pushing.

It’s all going to come out, baby, shit, blood and fluids, in an almighty rush. It’s going to be a hell of a cleanup. And it’s going to rip you from stem to stern in the process. If you’re lucky the essential parts can be reconstructed into functionality but it will take a while to heal.

That’s what we’re looking at. There won’t be anyone who isn’t affected by this. You have to stay awake (but not woke, which is the opiate of the masses, designed to make you fight the curtains while the sofa is on fire) and aware, and know what’s changing and how fast. (It’s easy to reason from causes. I mean, if I can reason it, anyone can.)

You have to have wide knowledge, and the ability to move and do things before what you’re counting on changes. Or find a place you won’t be touched and fortify your position. It’s one or the other.

This one is going to hurt like a mother. Literally.

But once you’re in it, you’re committed. There’s no way out but through. Shut up and push.

**************************

I have some free images leftover from funding days.

And because I’m getting a lot of donations with “we didn’t know this was happening” remember I’m not closing any of the funding instruments, and they’re available at the top of the blog. Also listed here.

Whew! It’s the last day of rattling the can, at least for now. All together it probably comes to around 25k. I won’t lie and say I didn’t hope for more because that would be stupid. Of course I was hoping to fully fund. However, the methods of donation plus a couple of other ways to donate will now be on the website and once every three months or so I can remind people of them at the bottom of posts. You know, in case one of you wins the lottery.

And I’m convinced Chapter House will gain more followers overtime, particularly after fun with doctors is done, and chapters are more regular.

As to why I’m doing this? Well, I do the work, I should get paid. How much honestly is based on what people who do syndicated columns get paid per year, but also … well, it really is a lot of work, even if no one holds a gun to my head to do it.

The total at Give Send Go is the desired total for everything. No, it’s not going particularly well this year, but a bit always trickles in through other means. Oh, and we’re starting (if the emails don’t get blocked again) to pay off on pledges from last year, but I still have a month on USAian story collection. And mass (and math Ah!) deaths will take place as more books get written. As will tuckerizations. If you gave enough last year to get a Moose and Squirrel mp4 it should be in your mailbox. Check your junk folder.
I’m going to try to assemble Usaian collection this weekend, the creek not rising.

The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.

’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.

And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.

Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold coins. Just package those really well.

304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107

The pretty pretty pictures are the result of my playing with midjourneybot and teaching it to sit up and beg. (Grin.) And they’re free for whatever you want to use them, though you might have to run them through an embigenning AI.

And for Monalisa Foster who tells me she has a type….

Okay, this one might be too purty for her, but them’s the breaks. You can’t have everything you want. Where would you put it? Who would dust it?

I was thinking of Phantom’s post yesterday, and it occurred to me it never fails: when people create big, overarching dreams, they fail to take in account some small detail of mundane reality.

Usually too, what they purport to “solve” either is a problem that doesn’t exist, or one that was already being solved when they stomped in to impose their shiny idea.

Socialism-Communism, Environmentalism, Centralized Public Education and probably a million others “grand unified solutions” are usually solutions looking for a problem.

Someone woke up one day and came up with this entire system in their head like “How to abolish private property and make everyone absolutely equal will bring about paradise.” Or “Wouldn’t it be great if the Earth could be perfect, like if there were no humans” and then went poking around looking for a reason to impose their shiny, beautiful just-so-story-with-attached-system on the rest of us.

In the case of environmentalism, those of us who are old enough remember d*mn well that when the Earth was freezing — which switched seamlessly to boiling, with no space in between — the solution was exactly the same: Let some jackwagons who have no comprehension of engineering, or energy, or frankly where food comes from engineer the entire life of everyone on Earth, banishing things that work like fossil fuels, so that we can live in harmony with nature. Or go extinct. Honestly, more and more I think that’s what’s at the back of the green nutbars’ heads. Their contempt and hatred for us is barely disguised. And by us I mean the entire human race. Sure, they pretend it’s only those who oppose them, but dig deeper and they hate everything that walks (even occasionally) on two legs, including but not limited to great apes. (Or even so-so apes.)

Which is why their “solutions” increasingly seem to involve the destruction of all life on Earth. Honestly, I think it’s because they have a vague idea none of it works like their beautiful shiny system and that pisses them off because the system is beautiful and perfect, and d*mn it, why won’t it work?

They’d rather have their system than reality, and therefore they’re willing to destroy reality to pretend their system is perfect.

The same, of course, applies to never-sufficiently-damned Karl, the angry inkblot, Marx. His solution was so beautiful and perfect. Everyone would just “naturally” give up on property or even competitiveness over sex, and it would all be perfect and paradise. (If this sounds to you like “I wanna be rich and sleep with every woman who won’t have the ability to tell me no” this only makes Marx like every communist ever.)

He came up with this entire system, then tacked it on to “current day injustices” which even at the time he wrote were already in the process of being addressed/mitigated. And which, anyway, would have gone away much faster without his poking around and intervening.

As for centralized education: since it’s been a federal matter here, has it got better?

What if I told you it’s exactly the same in every country that centralized education?

Education and more importantly learning was improving everywhere, creating a vast and productive middle class. And then the governments took them over. It’s been in decline ever since, and heading back to pre-history where people can’t read, or not functionally.

But on paper it works really well. It’s a perfect system, with everyone entitled to education, and becoming a better and more functional person thereby.

And that’s the hallmark of all these systems (and there are a ton more, big and small– correction, they all bet big –) They work marvelously on paper.

Except the megalomaniac cretins who designed them don’t actually know anything about the systems they’re trying to replace.

We have people who want to stop oil extraction, who don’t realize all plastics, lubrication and a good deal of food processing go away, which means their magical windmills won’t work either, even they could get them fabricated without oil, which they damn well can’t.

We have people who want to “smash capitalism” who think the government can provide them a living while they write bad poetry and never think of where the food they eat comes from.

The other thing — and why they get big — is that these perfect systems are never limited to the one thing, even if they suck at the one thing. They have to expand to include everything.

Like, “green energy” — I have no beef with if they just limited themselves to creating alternative forms of energy and telling us how great it is. But no, it has to grow to include everything, from whether people have to eat bugs to how you grow your garden, to the houses you are allowed to have, to the left’s obsession with choo choo trains, to– ad infinitum.

Because these perfect systems depend not only on “If only everyone” — which has never worked in the history of ever — but also “if only everything.” And since they don’t know where everything comes from, what everything does, let alone what everything IS, they dream big, unaware that “if only everything” has also never happened, and if it did it would kill them deader than their sense of reality.

Intellectuals, the creators of these “in the air” “systems of everything” are the most dangerous things on Earth.

They’re just smart enough to create these mental constructions and fall helplessly in love with them, completely unaware of the fact that their monstrous creations can never life in reality.

We need to get better at spotting “systems of everything” and telling the idiots “no” before the death and destruction starts.

And we must — must — make everything as small, as local and as MERITOCRATIC as possible, so we’re less in the power of idiots running around with systems of everything, and no idea of what’s under their feet.

And chapters of Witch’s Daughter also later, on Chapter House.
I need to go get dressed now, because today is “Fun with doctors.” (sigh.) Again. For both of us this time, because why not.

Meanwhile, an important PSA: Those who contributed to blog last year: we’re sending things out and we have confirmation it is sending and arriving. What we just sent out was the Moose and Squirrel MP3. If you donated enough to qualify for that, look in your junk mail (sometimes it ends up there, from the people I know who got it.) It will be coming from SAHSwag.

Next we have questions for those my assistant unnervingly calls “Aspiring Dead” — those who donated enough to be killed in mass (or math) casualties. And the Tuckerized ones. And in the next couple of day we will send an inquiry for addresses to send physical stuff to.

The collection might not be till first week in August, because fun with doctors. BUT since by the original terms I have to the end of August, that’s fine.

Anyway, check your junk mail. I’ll post here when the other stuff goes out.

Yes, I am aware Day By Day pushed my fundraiser, and I’m extremely grateful to Chris Muir!

In very short: I’m doing the blog fundraiser, not because it’s an emergency (yeah, we could use it, like who couldn’t these days, but it’s not an emergency) but because I do the work, and I want to get paid.

The total at Give Send Go is the desired total for everything. No, it’s not going particularly well this year, but a bit always trickles in through other means. Oh, and we’re starting (if the emails don’t get blocked again) to pay off on pledges from last year, but I still have a month on USAian story collection. And mass (and math Ah!) deaths will take place as more books get written. As will tuckerizations.

AND THE CHAPTERS FROM WINTER PRINCE WILL BE DONE TODAY. I’d forgotten today is Wednesday, so you know, I had to go write a post for Mad Genius Club. I thought it was Tuesday….

Now on how you can donate:

The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.

’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.

(For subscribers: I’ve first-personned (totally a term) Winter Prince, and finishing 2 new chapters now. More on Friday.)

And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.

Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold coins. Just package those really well.

304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107

Oh, and while funding looks really low, I found in the past that about half comes in after I close. I don’t know why. I think it’s people keeping it in mind then finding the money. So, it will be lower than last year, but not THAT low. Probably. I hope.

And now more pretty pictures which are free for you to use, which someone mentioned might be suitable for screen savers (though I think you’ll need AI embigenning for that)

Bearings make the world go round by The Phantom

It occurred in a blog post at Small Dead Animals regarding windmills and why so many of them seem to be broken, that people generally don’t understand how basic machinery works.

This is entirely expected. Education, in my Boomer generation and ever since, does not talk about machinery. At all. I believe this to be part of the hidden class-warfare against the Commoners in our society, the sort of pervasive disdain for plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and workmen of all sorts that permeates the media and Academia, but that is a topic for another day.

Today’s topic is bearings.Dead windmill in PEI. See that brown crap on there? We’re going to talk about that later.

Ten thousand years ago, some guy in ancient Sumeria got sick and tired of pulling a big bag of wheat behind him on a travois. That’s two sticks tied at one end and pulled along, dragging on the ground.

That un-recorded genius decided to put something that ROLLS on the end of his travois. So he whittled a piece of wood round, put a hole in it, and invented the wheel. He also invented the axle and the bearing, but nobody talks about that.

And then, after a little while of enjoying the beauty of reduced friction that the wheel brings to our lives, he discovered that his wheel had worn the axle in half because his bearing really sucked. His next invention was probably grease. Remember that, it’s important.

(Truthfully the first wheels were probably potter’s wheels, but bear with me, I’m on a roll.)

It took a long time for his idea to take hold, but eventually animals and people pulling carts became the way of the world. Humans got really good at wheels, axles and bearings. They made them out of special harder wood, and eventually out of bronze and even iron. And they used grease too.

Fast forward a pretty long time, and we find the Egyptians using logs to move huge blocks of stone. Everybody knows this, right? Of interest here is that everybody spends a great deal of time focusing on the logs. Nobody seems to realize the log is only half the story. The other, and more important half is the ROAD they’re pulling the block along. That can’t be a dirt track. You get a ten ton rock and try to pull it across your backyard, the first thing that happens is the logs dig into the dirt. Those roads in ancient Egypt had to be smooth, they had to be flat, and they had to be hard. They also had to be cheap to make and maintain. That’s important as well.

Fast forward a little farther, and we find that the Romans got really good at roads. Whatever the Egyptians did to pull off their moonshot, building the Pyramids, the Romans copied it and conquered Europe with it. 

Probably not coincidentally we find the first use of ball bearings that we know of. ~40BC, in a luxury ship recovered from Lake Nemi in Italy. Used to make a rotating table, of all things. Probably fantastically expensive, because both the ball and the track that it runs in must be smooth and hard and flat. You really can’t get a round track flat and smooth without some pretty special tools, and the fitment has to be just-so. Not too tight, not too loose. The balls were metal, the tracks were wood. Super expensive custom work.

Fast forward some more, we find detailed drawings of ball bearings and bearing races from Leonardo DaVinci and Galileo. Their designs were wooden, and Leonardo included spacers between his bearings. 

John Harrison invented the caged roller bearing in 1740. Philip Vaughan patented the first ball bearing system in 1794, for trains. 

Of note is Isaac Babbitt of Massachusets, who developed his famous Babbitt Metal for use in poured machine bearings in 1839. The majority of industrial machinery and trains, boats etc. used poured bushings in their moving parts because that was the only way they could get enough precision at an affordable cost. Pre-1940s cars all have Babbitt bearings throughout, except for wheel bearings. Babbitt won the race for a long time not because it was the best, or the longest lasting, but because it was Good Enough and it was cheaper.

After that, FAG began precision grinding bearing balls in 1883. In 1898 Henry Timken received a patent for the tapered roller bearing. In 1907 Sven Wingquist patented the self-aligning spherical ball bearing and race. After that, everything switched to ball and roller bearing because Babbitt wasn’t cheaper anymore, and also because roller and ball bearings were better. So much better.

It’s fantastically expensive. Affordable only because they make many, many units. But as one might imagine, you do not want to have to change out that bearing. It’s meant to last the lifetime of the machine.

Which inevitably leads us to all those idle windmills around the country, and the reason they are idle. Brinelling. Named after August Brinell, the creator of the Brinell Hardness Scale. Long story short, Brinell tested hardness by pushing a metal ball of known hardness into a metal surface with a known amount of force, then measured the diameter of the dent it made. The harder the metal, the smaller the dent. 

It turns out that if you load a ball bearing or roller bearing with a static weight, the balls or rollers will make a dent in the races just like a hardness tester. Particularly if you bang on it, or vibrate it. That’s Brinelling.

Brinelling occurs in windmills if they stand still. This is because although the roller is large, the part that is touching the race is very small. Just like the log digging into your lawn, the roller will dig into the race. Think of a knife pushing down on a piece of cheese. You don’t have to push very hard, because the knife is thin. The cheese will hold up your finger, but not the knife.

Under the types of loads common in the largest windmills, hardened steel will behave like cheese. It’ll bulge, flatten, dent, bend, do all the sorts of things you don’t want it to do. This problem is solved the same way our ancient Sumerian fixed his problem, grease. In the windmills they use oil pressure to keep everything rolling nicely and keep the bearings from digging into the races. If the windmill has to sit still for a while and be buffeted by the wind, it can survive if the oil pressure is kept up. 

But if the reason it is sitting still is because the oil pressure failed? Oh, that’s bad. Because now your 20 foot diameter main bearing race has divots in it, and your six-inch rollers are all flat-spotted, and she ain’t going to roll no more.

According to the CBC article we were talking about way back at the beginning, six out of ten windmills installed at a Prince Edward Island wind power facility in 2014 are now defunct. Busted. Not turning. No word on why from the Powers That Be. The CBC is mystified. What could it be?

Brinelling. That’s what.

THE DAILY POST IS BELOW!

Hi!

My name is Sarah A. Hoyt and I run this blog, in addition to writing novels, cleaning the house, managing to keep the mathematician in touch (eh!) with reality, writing the occasional short story, attempting to manage my publicity and publishing. I’m tired. very. And frankly there are — right now — weeds in my front flower beds that are taller than my sons. (Who are both over six feet.)

The main reason to run this fundraiser is that I write this blog and treat it as a job. So, I think I should get paid.

The secondary reason is that I’d like to contract out some of the stuff, particularly the stuff I am really bad at, like putting links on this blog/blog maintenance for both here and MGC, and setting up of my writer site and…. other sites, as well as publicity and all that. Which necessitates money.

The tertiary reason is to keep paying my assistant who does things like remind me of anthology deadlines and book medical appointments for me and/or the cats, because otherwise it will eat my life. (Yeah, she’s not expensive, but she’s very good and deserves to be paid also.) Also to pay my copyeditor. Because you REALLY don’t want my books with all their typos upon them. Those of you who subscribe to Chapter House are probably getting a feeling for how bad those typos are.

I’d like to get enough of this delegated that I can sleep in on alternate Sundays. Maybe.

Anyway, mostly it is “I do the work, and would like to get paid.”

We think we found a way to mail out rewards (They’ll be coming from SAHswag) and I’m going to assemble that collection of USAian shorts this week, well before the due date at the end of next month. It might take me a little longer to kill all of you who paid to get killed. And mailing out physical books WILL be the end of next month, for various reasons. (Mostly time.) So, watch your mailboxes, real and virtual.

This year, for various reasons, but mostly because Give Send Go Forbids it, but also because I’m trying to simplify life, not complicate it, I’m doing either “no reward” or “Reward is obvious from subscription.

The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.

’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.

(For subscribers: I’ve first-personned (totally a term) Winter Prince, and finishing 2 new chapters now. More on Friday.)

And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.

(For the subscribers on Patreon: I ended up making the doughnuts, and they are just as good as I remember. Downside: ate too many. They’re very More-ish.)

Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold coins. Just package those really well.

304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107

Oh, and while funding looks really low, I found in the past that about half comes in after I close. I don’t know why. I think it’s people keeping it in mind then finding the money. So, it will be lower than last year, but not THAT low. Probably. I hope.

And now more pretty pictures, which someone mentioned might be suitable for screen savers (though I think you’ll need AI embigenning for that)

It has been many years since any of us bought the narrative: literally or figuratively. Though I’ll point out that I spent ten minutes, this morning trying to figure out if I should subscribe to the local newspaper — in paper.

Why, in heaven’s name? you ask? Well, because I’ve found it’s easier to clean the quail housing — the trays underneath at least — if I line them with newsprint. And for a hot minute there, it looked like the newsprint would be cheaper from the local rag, with print on it. It might still be. But I’ll let it ride another month and then figure out.

Anyway, so this is where official means of information, aka “Main Stream News” is at with me, and I suspect it’s more or less the same for all of us.

And yet, you know, we still sometimes find ourselves defaulting to the narrative, because — well, because honestly it’s what we grew up with, and old habits die very, very hard.

So, take the fact that we of course know most of Antifa and BLM is lily white. (No, seriously, these people are more of the Legion of the Pale than the Mormon church whom my Mormon friends jokingly call that.) And yet, you’ll hear people, even thinking people on our side rant on about how black people are torching things, and falling for communism.

Honestly, I don’t even know how many black Americans voted for Obama. I know what it looked like, but I also know right after the elections they tell us both that the youth/minorities voted en masse for the leftist, and that they didn’t turn out to vote. So, what’s the truth? I don’t know.

I know in the end, whoever voted, the fraud won and won by miles. I mean, unless you truly, in your heart of hearts believe that black people turned out in massive numbers to vote for Biden. Because, you know, Biden is such a call to their hearts and minds. (Rolls eyes.) Yeah, sure thing, Kamala. I have yet to talk to a single black person who considers that creature black. (Mostly because she isn’t unless you are what you eat.)

Now, of course, in my circles, all black people were 100% for Obama. And Biden. And whoever the leftmost candidate is. But my circles are writers and intellectuals. (Excluding political commenters, who are also intellectuals but at least theoretically right. And those weren’t for Obama or Biden, but were still against Romney and Trump. Because that’s required to be “intellectual” after all.)

But almost everyone will still start ranting about black people and torching neighborhoods.

While I’ve said that if the EBT cards stop, the recipient of welfare will torch their own neighborhoods then sit around looking photogenic waiting for the TV cameras, note that this is EBT users of all races.

Are they mostly black? I doubt it. The majority of people in this country, despite all the tales about the demographic replacement are still white. And a high portion of them, relatively, are still on welfare.

Do we know? Well, no. Of course we don’t.

We know a lot of what we’re told are lies, but we have no way of figuring out the truth. Like, for instance, we know that “every black person” was for Obama, and is all in on CRT. This is supported by the people shown on TV, etc.

But then we remember Tea Parties, which were considerably less white than Antifa. (Or BLM.) And we remember that to paint this picture, the MSM must pick and choose very carefully. And always avoid showing the truly angry black parents fighting CRT. You’ll only see those online. And there are a lot of them. (And they’re right. Because it’s poison particularly aimed at their kids.)

However, do we know what proportion of black people are as painted by the media? No. How would we? When the media picks and chooses whom to show; our voting is corrupt and insane and no one knows what the true votes are; and our polling is a joke?

Take a non-racial thing: how big is your city?

This is relevant to me, because the city I moved to feels — AT MOST — half the size it claims to be. Maybe less. And people say “Well, it’s spread out.” Not as much as Denver it’s not. I’m used to sprawled-out cities. But even taking that into account, this feels much smaller than advertised.

As I mentioned it other people started talking about the size of their cities….

So?

It seems like not even the census is very good at counting city population. It seems like at some point there was a guesstimate, probably in the 50s or 70s, and since then it’s all adjustments, based on move ins and move outs, but no one knows for sure. Franky because there are several fudge factors on all censuses.

But wouldn’t people know based on who pays taxes? Yeah, you’d think. But if they know, the population is enough smaller than advertised that no city wants to confess it. They just like doggo.

Someone found how many people a grocery store serves on average to be viable and we ran that times the grocery stores in our towns, and it would be consistent with about half the population. But the fudge factors in that are inside including “How many small towns come here to shop?” and “How many people actually shop for food?”

So, how can we know? We can’t.

And that’s the problem. We know the stream is polluted, but we must still drink. So even people who know better default to MSM assumptions when talking about something they’re not experts in. It’s like a form of Gell-Mann amnesia.

If you find yourself talking about all the looters as being black and all the defenders as being white — which of course is what the MSM projects, because all leftists are enormous racists — remember that Kyle Rittenhouse is mixed race, while the three terrorists he had to take down were considerably whiter than most of us.

And if you find yourself saying some part of the country deserved what “they voted for” remember you’re buying by implication that Biden got 81 million votes (my ass.)

And if you find yourself buying that there are just so many people everywhere and that the underclasses are overtaking the productive, remember that a) we don’t know how many people are being born. b) we don’t know what people are what race, or even identify as it. c) we don’t know how many people are working, particularly if they’re smart (but we know there’s a war on the productive and the working) d) yeah, there’s a ton of children born to people on welfare, because you get more of what you pay for. But these are usually short lived/impaired. e) all statistics and polls are suspect. f) we don’t even know how many of the illegals coming in stay. We know since Obama caused la Grande Salida that there’s a flow the other way too, but we don’t know how many stay, or what percentage.

Now, is it insane that we don’t know? Sure. Did I say it wasn’t? It’s like the thing in Puppet Masters when the aliens have captured the means of mass information, and people can’t even tell there’s an alien invasion going on.

But the truth is we don’t know. We just don’t know.

And turning what the MSM tells us on its head is probably just as wrong as buying it wholesale.

The information stream is corrupted. We can’t trust it. Before you cite it for anything, think on it. And think of any signs against it.

DON’T trust. And verify.

TODAY’S POST IS BELOW THIS.

With more pretty pictures.

(My prompt for this was “muse of novel writing.”)

Anyway, yesterday I figured out a way that hopefully will actually work to get stuff to ya’ll. And I found out I’m NOT late on getting the collection of USAian stories to those that contributed enough to get it. Turns out I gave a deadline of August 23. I’m still trying to get it out of the way soonest.

Meanwhile, of course this year it’s all different…

(And this is the muse of science fiction. No wonder my head hurts all the time.)

As for why I should get paid. Well, mostly because I do the work. And I treat this blog as a job. Yes, I need a few more ways to get paid. Those will appear on the blog eventually, now I got a wordpress-o-mancer. (No? Look at the links: latest books are in. If you look at the top, all but the collections and Musketeer mysteries are there too. And I think the links to donate are there too.) I mean, I fear for the man’s soul, but he’s good. (Next up Mad Genius. No, the blog. Though he’s probably a mad genius, right enough.)

(This is more my idea of a muse, but no one asked me. Also, he looks young enough to be my kid!)

The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.

’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.

And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.

Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold coins. Just package those really well.

304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107

Oh, and while funding looks really low, I found in the past that about half comes in after I close. I don’t know why. I think it’s people keeping it in mind then finding the money. So, it will be lower than last year, but not THAT low. Probably. I hope.

And now more pretty pictures, which someone mentioned might be suitable for screen savers (though I think you’ll need AI embigenning for that)