Notes

It was the reason I had to get out of bed to get them out of the fridgerator and on the stove so they’d have the two hours or so necessary to cook down and make many good meals this week. Pinto beans are my power source of protein, with inflation being so high and all my money going into the SuperDuty.

Bike rode fine yesterday without the dork disk, 💿 though I’ve been careful to keep it out of low and I ordered a new dork disk, chain, and cassette, bitching how it’s going to be another $60 with my yearly phone bill due, I don’t know the stupid bedliner on my credit card and soon enough the final payment for the truck cap. Continuing to straighten out and adjust the derailuer but it’s obvious the cassette and chain needs replacing, so I’ll do that when I install the dork disk. I should fix the low range on my bike but I rarely use it even riding trail. 🚲 After dinner, I rode down to Hannaford and got some eggs, milk and supplies. 🥚 Healthier then taking the SuperDuty out and uses a lot less gas. ⛽

Another nice morning before the rain comes, 🌅 and much cooler weather for the weekend. Having eggs 🍳 this morning with lots of spinach, onions, pinto beans. Then it’s off to work on the bike. 🚲 CDTA transferred the $13.11 balance from my now expired bus card to the CDTA app so I can use it that way. Eventually I’ll probably get another Navigator Swiper Card as it’s easier for boarding the bus then loading the app and showing it to the machine, but I figure I’ll use up what I have on the app, though these days riding my bike 🚵‍♂️ most days to work as a sad desperate person with a SuperDuty it will take a while. Last night for a while I sat back in the bed 🛏️ of the SuperDuty and looked at the stars ✨. Now just waiting for the camper shell to arrive 🚛 and maybe for the black flies to thin out a bit. Decided after looking at price of hood mounts for CB antenna, I should pull the one off the old truck and see if I can make it fit on new truck. And I do like looking at height lights on SuperDuty when I lock the doors after dark. Well I better get in shower, 🚿 and ride my bike to work. 🚲

The transition from “innovation” to “over-optimization” is one of the primary challenges of the 21st century. While modern society is built on the pursuit of growth, we are increasingly seeing that pushing a beneficial technological or policy-driven idea to its extreme creates diminishing returns and systemic failure. In the realms of digital connectivity, urban planning, and public health, the relentless expansion of “good ideas” often results in the very problems they were intended to solve.

In the technology sector, the most prominent example is the evolution of social connectivity. The original “good idea” was to lower the barrier to global communication. However, as platforms optimized for maximum engagement, the quality of that connection eroded. What began as a tool for community-building transformed into an attention economy that fuels polarization and mental health crises. By prioritizing “more” connectivity and “more” data points, tech companies inadvertently created digital environments that prioritize algorithmic outrage over human discourse. The utility of the tool was lost to the scale of its implementation.

Public policy often suffers from a similar obsession with scaling “good ideas” until they become counterproductive. Consider the history of urban zoning and “single-use” development. The initial idea—separating industrial factories from residential neighborhoods—was a breakthrough for public health. However, planners pushed this concept to an extreme, creating massive suburban sprawls where residential, commercial, and social hubs are entirely disconnected. This “good idea” taken too far resulted in the death of walkable communities, a total dependence on automobiles, and a subsequent surge in carbon emissions and social isolation. The solution to one problem became the foundation for several others because it was applied without a limit.

In the arena of data-driven governance, the push for “transparency” and “quantifiable metrics” provides another cautionary tale. Using data to track the performance of schools or hospitals is a sound concept. However, when policy relies exclusively on these metrics, it leads to “Goodhart’s Law”: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Teachers begin “teaching to the test” to secure funding, and hospitals may avoid high-risk patients to keep their success rates high. The pursuit of “more data” results in a loss of the actual quality of service, as the system optimizes for the number rather than the person.

To navigate the complexities of the modern world, we must recognize that technological and political progress is not a straight line upward, but a curve. There is a “sweet spot” where a policy or technology provides maximum benefit. Beyond that point, further investment doesn’t just stop helping—it starts hurting. Effective modern leadership requires the courage to set boundaries on growth and the foresight to realize that “optimal” is rarely synonymous with “maximum.”