Moto X4 and Project Fi

I took advantage of one Black Friday deal this year, for a new phone and carrier service.

My old phone was a Samsung Galaxy S5, which was starting to show its age. I got it last year as a refurbished sale, which was cheap but I knew it wouldn't last for long. It's been acting up recently, with battery issues and needing reboots regularly. As my carrier, I was using H2OWireless, a budget outfit which only cost me about $10/month. It mostly worked, but I had occasional connect troubles, especially when traveling. And I had to very carefully watch every MB of data to avoid high usage charges, which got annoying sometimes.

Google has a fairly new phone service offering called Project Fi, which seems to cover exactly what I'm looking for. It's a bit more expensive at $30/month, but has much better coverage and significantly more data allowance. They credit your next month if you don't use all your data, which I expect will be the case for me more often than not.

I don't need a high-end phone, so I went with the budget option that Google recommends: the Moto X4. $400 with a Black Friday sale giving $100 credit on the Project Fi service. The reviews of the X4 are good for a budget smartphone - some small issues, but nothing that will affect that way I plan to use it.

The hardware arrived today and everything's working as expected so far. I'll be testing the new phone and service out over the next few months, but I don't expect any significant issues. And if anyone decides to try out Google's Project Fi as a service, let me know and I'll share a ref link that gives us both some credit.

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked up Underground Airlines on a friend's recommendation after he saw that I'd read The Color of Law. Both deal with racial issues in America, though otherwise the books couldn't be more different: fiction vs non-fiction, thriller novel vs historical research.

Underground Airlines takes place in an alternate reality where the Civil War was prevented, just barely, by a compromise that left slavery in place as an institution in the South. Over time, it shrunk to only four states, but also modernized and scaled up like any other industry. Giant plantations with thousands of "Persons Bound to Labor" feed demand for cheap cotton and other goods.

There's plenty of action and suspense in Underground Airlines, as our protagonist searches for an escaped slave and eventually makes his way into the lion's mouth of a slave plantation. But I found the development of his character and revelations about his history to be just as interesting as the action. He assumes identities as needed in the work, never showing the deeply scarred mind underneath...except to the reader, of course. We never even learn his real name, only that he barely remembers hearing it from his mother before being taken from her.

I was struck by how many of the differences in this alternate world seemed to be of degree rather than kind. For instance, in one scene a white woman and black man are checking into a small hotel, and the (white) clerk asks her if she is all right, obviously assuming that she's being forced. Or when a free black man in a free state is harassed by police. Or how neighborhoods are described as white or colored. We've made progress in racial integration and equality in our world, but we still struggle with those kinds of issues.

Underground Airlines is a great read just for the mystery and action, but it's even better due to the alternate reality setting. Every reader is likely to find something to make them consider our own world in a different light.

Car Shopping

After my 2010 Toyota Yaris lost its battle against a deer, it was time to go car shopping.

I don't enjoy vehicle shopping. To me, a car is a tool to get from point A to point B, with as little fuss as possible. I don't much care about looks, high performance, fancy interiors, and just about anything else that a salesman is trying to sell the customer on. My selling points are reliability and economy, which means I'm about the lowest commission that they're likely to see. But, it's a necessary evil, so I made the rounds.

That deer did me no favors, but at least the timing wasn't too bad. Now is a pretty good time of the year to be looking for a new vehicle. The dealers still have some 2017s sitting around that they're wanting to get off the lot, so they can show off the 2018 models. And everyone has Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Year-End deals getting off the ground.

There's no lack of places to look for a car in my area of West Michigan. Within a 15 minute drive, there are at least 7 different dealerships. Drive another 10-15 minutes and you can double that. In a couple of days, I stopped in at a variety of brand dealers: Chevy, Ford, Honda, Toyota, and Kia. Plus a couple of used lots. And looked at just about every local dealership's online listings.

I basically had three choices. One, buy a new car: most expensive but least risk of problems in the near term. Two, buy a lightly used vehicle from a dealer: a bit less expensive, but slightly more risk of problems. Three, buy a cheap older used car: almost free after my insurance payout, but highest risk of problems cropping up.

In the end, I decided on the lightly used option. I really didn't want to deal with the maintenance issues of an older used car, so that eliminated option three. I wouldn't have minded a new car if the right deal had come along, and there were some fairly decent deals available. However, there was a 2017 Chevy Cruze with 30k miles on it at the dealership right down the road that still beat the new car prices by several thousand dollars. A good chunk of the manufacturer's powertrain warranty remaining, only one previous owner, and certified by the dealer service department. The only downside was that the previous owner was a rental car agency, but the dealer certification and limited warranty that goes with it mitigates that concern.

The new Cruze, at home in the garage.

So now I'm mobile again, hopefully for many years with minimal maintenance. And no deer encounters.

Oh Deer

I hit a deer.

It’s a dark Sunday evening, and I’m going about 50 along Broadmoor Ave, which in that spot is a 4-lane divided highway. A deer comes running left to right from the median and across in front of me, so I reacted by swerving a bit left and hitting the brakes. Which meant that I hit the second deer, right behind the first one, broadside right on the hood. I had no idea it was there until I hit it, and I had to still be going about 45 at impact.

It doesn't look too terrible...

Good news: No human injuries. The car coasted a good quarter mile down the road to a convenient parking lot entrance, so I didn’t block traffic. I didn’t go back to check on the deer but the road looked clear, as best I could see in the dark, so it probably survived. I called my auto insurance folks at State Farm and they handled roadside assistance. Both the state trooper who came to report the incident and the tow truck driver who picked up the car were awesome. They made the reporting and towing process as painless as possible under the circumstances.

Bad news: The engine died immediately and wouldn’t restart. The hood crumpled up, and one headlight shattered. Deer > car.

The tow truck dropped me off at home and I settled in to deal with insurance and repairs. I had no major plans for the next couple of days, so having no transportation didn't hurt me. By Monday afternoon, the car had been moved to a repair shop (also arranged by State Farm). And by Tuesday afternoon I had a preliminary estimate...lots o' money, likely enough to total the car.

...but a closer look shows that the front bit, with the air filter, is badly bent and pushed back into the section behind.

Why so high on the estimate? This little Toyota Yaris is a very compact car, and all the space under the hood is used very efficiently. Which means that when something impacts the front and crumples it up, it also damages engine parts. The body damage would be bad enough, but add engine repairs and the cost skyrockets.

Yep, that thing is hosed. "Twisted" is a bad look for engine parts.

So, now I'm just waiting on the official estimate and then the insurance verdict. I'll be shocked if they don't just call it totaled. Meanwhile, I'm doing a month-long rental to give myself time to figure out my car situation without too much time pressure. Not exactly the kind of holiday shopping I'd intended, but the deer didn't ask if it was a convenient time!

Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters Craft Fair

There was a craft fair today held at the Byron Center high school. I heard about it from a friend, whose wife had a display booth for her artwork.

A herd of wooden reindeer, one of many craft items available. Managed to snap this in a rare moment when no child was trying to climb on them.

I showed up expecting a few dozen exhibitors, probably set up in the gym, and hoping I could do a bit of Christmas shopping. This was a gross underestimate. The first sign was the completely full high school parking lot - I had to park on a nearby road and walk in. There were not a few dozen booths in a gym - there were over two hundred booths set up in two gyms and lots of hallways and other areas. Hundreds of people crowded through the halls and around every booth. Clearly this is a major event!

All the cars. They had a shuttle to a nearby middle school for even more parking.

All kinds of craft art was on display. Paintings, wood carvings, clothing of various kinds, pillows, and so on. Several booths had collections of rock pieces. There was a group selling "yard yahtzee" with giant wooden dice, and several with various versions of the cornhole beanbag-toss yard game. And food, of course, from kettle corn to bake sale tables. It was not hard to fill a few spots on my Christmas list!

One of two gyms full of people. Not to mention all the hallways.

The fair benefits the Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters, which is a volunteer organization that raises money for fine arts programs like theater, band, and choir. I'm always happy to help out those kinds of causes, though it does sadden me a bit that it's necessary. Personally, I'd be happy to pay a bit more in taxes so all schools could have this level of support for these kinds of programs, not just the districts that are wealthy enough to support organizations like the Fine Arts Boosters.

I did not purchase the Batman pillow-and-blanket combination. But it was tempting.

My visit to the craft fair was a fun couple of hours, and useful in the annual holiday shopping quest. I'll be keeping it in mind for next year, too.

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Color of Law makes the case that racial segregation of African Americans in the United States was largely enacted by government action, and has never been sufficiently addressed.

Much of the book is devoted to explaining the many practices, at all levels of government, that caused segregation that persists to this day. From zoning boards to police to union regulations to school boards, discrimination and segregation has resulted directly from government actions or refusal to halt unconstitutional citizen activities. I don't think there are many people who would disagree that this was the case from the Civil War until the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Rothstein takes the argument further, though, explaining how the results of segregation have caused lasting harm to those affected. Explicit racism has largely been eliminated through legislation and the courts, but very little was done to correct the results of decades of government-sponsored segregation. Generations of African Americans have lower wages, less housing equity, and fewer educational opportunities than their white counterparts. Those disadvantages compound over time, and have never been corrected.

Today's policies may no longer be explicitly based on race, but many still effectively target African Americans due to the legacy of segregation. Public services based on property values, for instance, will provide lower funding and service levels for low-income areas, which is where many African Americans still reside. Government provides more support to affluent suburbs (the mortgage interest deduction is one example), which are largely white. Even programs which support low-income citizens have restrictions which serve to keep those people in the same locations and professions...segregation in all but name.

Rothstein puts forward a few ideas for making corrections to this inequality, but he himself says that it's highly unlikely that any would be enacted. Allowing African American buyers to purchase houses at a discount proportional to their income (vs equivalent white residents), for instance. That might be correct some of the historical discrimination, but would assuredly be seen as favoritism in today's political climate.

I must admit, I found The Color of Law to be somewhat depressing. The extent of the racial discrimination in the history of our country, and the impact it still has to this day, isn't easy to face. But I think it's important to recognize these kinds of flaws, both to avoid repeating past mistakes, and to have perspective on current issues. If more people recognized this history, we might find more support for the kind of policies that can begin to undo the damage.

New Game!

New Game! is an anime series about a girl who gets her dream job as a video game character designer right out of high school.

The series follows Aoba Suzukaze, who is starting her first job at a video game company. She's working alongside the designer of her favorite games, learning the ropes as she goes along. We see the daily lives of Aoba and her co-workers as they proceed through the game development schedule.

Most episodes focus on one aspect or another of Aoba's adjustment to the working world. It was a bit nostalgic for me, watching her go through situations that I remember from my own first days in the workplace. Who hasn't locked themselves out of the office by forgetting their badge, or unknowingly caused trouble for another team because you didn't know the right processes to follow in your own work? The parts about over-working hit particularly close to home.

Pretty much every character in New Game! is female, which isn't uncommon in seinen manga and anime. There are some minor yuri references, but for the most part these are co-workers and friends, with no romance angle. The art style reflects that, with only minor fan service aspects. Very little in the series would have to change if they'd chosen to go all-male or mixed genders, which I appreciated. A sign of good writing, in my opinion, not relying on tired over-the-top sexual tropes for drama and humor.

I really enjoyed the initial set of twelve episodes. Later on, in the second set of twelve episodes, I felt that the quality went downhill a bit. The show began to feel repetitive, and very similar to other shows of the same type. The fan service was more pronounced, too, though still not anywhere near as bad as many other anime shows. I still liked it, just not quite as much in the second half.

Despite the weaker second half, I had a lot of fun watching New Game!. I'd be happy to see the creators do additional similar series.