I think we all remember those strange months of March and April of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic begin to hit in earnest and things like toilet paper and hand sanitizer disappeared from the shelves. Just when those things began to reappear on the store shelves, albeit with strict limits on how much any one individual could buy, other things ( Read more... )

Does it seem like food gets consumed more quickly? Are you wondering if someone in the family is sneaking some midnight snacks?

It may actually be "sneakflation." Faced with price resistance, especially on non-essentials, companies try to slide inflation past consumers by shrinking package sizes. A one-pound bag of veggies becomes twelve ounces, ( Read more... )

Colonial Pipeline has restored service after a ransomware attack crippled operations. However, they warn that it will take some time to get back to normal, since a pipeline doesn't just come back on like an electrical line ( Read more... )

It's that time of the year again. As if it's not hard enough to be a night owl in a world built by morning people, for morning people, always treated as lazy or at least suspect simply because my natural circadian rhythms run later than most people, everything now starts an hour earlier, just because someone a century ago thought it would help the ( Read more... )

Ever since the first stay-at-home orders went out, I was worried that the eviction moratorium was only delaying the inevitable ( Read more... )

When I was young, I was a voracious reader with a persistent shortage of books to read. So I tended to read anything that even slightly aroused my interest, right down to the cereal boxes on the breakfast table. And the women's magazines that tended to be in the waiting rooms of various medical offices, or in the living rooms of the friends and ( Read more... )

I went to bed last night after a hard push to get a new e-book up, and this morning I wake up to find the world's gone crazy. I mean, I've heard of GameStop, and I think I've seen one or two in town (although it's also possible that I saw them while on the road to one or another convention, back in the day when those were still happening and we ( Read more... )

I've been expressing concern about the housing situation ever since I heard that a third of US renters did not pay their rent at the beginning of April. I haven't heard any statistics on how many renters failed to pay their May rent, but I'm expecting that it's been even worse as people run through their savings and their stimulus money ( Read more... )

It appears that initial viral load may play a significant role in how a COVID-19 case progresses. A small, brief exposure may give the body enough time to mobilize its defenses and produce antibodies, while massive or sustained exposure can overwhelm the immune system's defenses. This would explain why so many health care workers develop serious ( Read more... )

For many, bankruptcy is a dirty word and a shameful event. However, it is also arguable that American bankruptcy laws are one of the things that have made our success possible. They make it possible for financial failure to be an event rather than what someone is. By making it possible to get a fresh start after a catastrophic failure, it makes ( Read more... )