Category: Guest Contributors

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 17JUL2025 – The People’s Food

photog Current Events, Guest Contributors, Tregonsee , , ,

Chemist said

“Finally, as with anything related to NYC, there will also be a ton of graft and outright theft.”

Indeed in a little city near where I live there was an excellent grocery store part of one of the larger New England Chains. It was brand new, had good prices, all sorts of products, including very high quality produce and types of produce (Jicama, Star Fruit, Mangoes, Plantain etc) rarely if ever seen in New England Grocery stores. After about 3-4 years of operation, the chain closed it. I happened to know a person who was a relative of one of the managers. Shrinkage (i.e. Theft) was the main issue. But it wasn’t shoplifting or at the front of the store as they say. It was the back of the store, cases of stuff (canned, produce, meat) would come in the back and go right back out often to be broken up and sold to small stores and restaurants. Now, picture NYC and that Mamdani will try to use these grocery stores as a way to employ the indigent and his pals (but I repeat myself) and picture the scenario I just spelled out. Ultimately the stores would just be another sink hole for NYC taxes; they’d be losing money hand over fist from the day they opened.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 17JUL2025 – Grocery Wars

photog Chemist, Current Events, Guest Contributors , ,

So Mandani wants to have city run grocery stores.
Let’s say he gets his wish.
Grocery stores run about a 3% profit margin. This is for the big boys: Kroger, Safeway, HEB, etc.
The smaller chains have less buying power and can’t get the gross margins the big guys can so they run 1 to 2% profits. I don’t think NYC is going to get the same gross margin as Kroger.
Chain grocery stores employ a lot of younger, minimum wage people.
NYC stores will have to employ NYC city civil servants with all the benefits attached to being a city employee: Higher wages, gold plated health care, pensions, etc.
Pretty sure the 1% profit margin just left the building right there.
Then there is spoilage – because those folks living in the “Food deserts” aren’t going to be buying fresh stuff no matter how much the mayor says it is good for them.
Finally, as with anything related to NYC, there will also be a ton of graft and outright theft.
I predict the stores will run 20-30% in the red
This will be a HUGE debacle. But it might be fun to watch.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 17JUL2025 – The Workers’ Paradise

photog Current Events, Ed Brault, Guest Contributors , ,

Burlington, Vermont, experienced a mini-version of this when the increasingly socialist city government raised property taxes on businesses to the point that all the grocery stores moved out. In response to the “food-desert” crisis, the city tried to lure food stores back, but the restrictions and requirements for what products had to be stocked, how much had to be “organic”, etc, resulted in only one taker, a “Whole-Foods” type grocery, with prices way too expensive for the low-income neighborhoods it was supposed to service.
Reductions in the Police Dept have resulted in some areas of the city becoming no-go zones, and the once-prosperous Church Street shopping district has lost its major anchor stores, and is overrun with panhandlers and homeless.
(Thanks, Bernie!)

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 12JUL2025 – For We Were Young and Sure to Have Our Way

photog Ed Brault, Guest Contributors, Science Fiction / Fantasy , , ,
FSFAug1960
FSFAug1960

I started reading science fiction almost as soon as I learned to read. My folks belonged to the SF Book Club, and also subscribed to Analog and the magazine of fantasy and Science fiction. One of the first stories I remember was called “Callahan and the Wheelies. That got me started and I never stopped. I still read Analog, but in the online version. Been reading it since the early sixties.

Tom’s World – 12JUL2025 – The Joy of Reading

photog Guest Contributors, Literature, TomD , ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

The gift of the ability to enjoy fiction, or nonfiction for that matter, has a requirement: an attention span exceeding a minute or two. And that seems to be becoming increasingly rare. Both my parents were readers, likewise myself and two siblings.

I don’t remember exactly when I started reading Sci-Fi but it was as a teenager somewhere along the line. But I suspect that I’m one of the few people on earth who, while in grammar school, read every single volume of Encyclopedia Britannica cover to cover.

I really wish that Nook and Kindle were available back then. I started with Nook probably around 2010 and now use both. Point being that every book I’ve read in the last 15 or so years is still available to me. When, in 2009, I moved from my last residence in metro Atlanta where I had lived for 20 years, I “donated” a long bed and a half pickup truck loads filled to the brim with mostly paperbacks. What a loss! And that wasn’t the only donation made from that house.

I could have that entire mass of books on around several gigs on a thumb drive with lots of room left.

But at least I have the last 15 years and I find myself rereading. +The device keeps perfect order, organizing by order of purchase, title or author.

Tom’s World – 05JUL2025 – Subject Isolation – Part 2

photog Guest Contributors, Photography, TomD , ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Need a method of picking a subject and isolating it. You can do that with depth of field, lighting or post processing methods.

Picking a subject and isolating it.

DSC7394
DSC7394

Isolating the subject. This is post processing using Photoshop. Sorta like cheating.

BTW: This Dauntless dive bomber is the last existing aircraft to have actually taken part in the Battle of Midway.

DSC03221m
DSC03221m

Isolating a subject. This museum, the US Naval Air Museum onboard NAS Pensacola, is so crowded as to make it extremely hard to come up with an effective photo due to all the visual competition.

DSC00744m
DSC00744m