Debt

Worthwhile payments not being made

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

And here’s the original tweet:

Let’s throw some numbers on this…

First, I doubt he borrowed the $79 thousand up front. Instead that was probably how much he borrowed across 4 years. So from, I presume, about 1982 to 1986. Which really was one of the worst times to be borrowing money due to inflation.

I’ll also presume the loan was in deferment while he was in school, so interest was being assessed that entire time unless he was making payments to at least keep up with that.

Now back in the 1980s, the total amount you could borrow through the Stafford loan program – i.e., “Federal student loans” – was $2500 per year according to this article. Stafford loans have the benefit of a capped interest rate. They’re still variable rate loans, but they were capped at 8%. In the 80s, this meant the interest rate was less than inflation. But capped interest rate also meant limited borrowing.

Again, it was limited to only $2,500 per year. Yet on average, Dave was borrowing nearly $20 thousand per year. So that extra $17,000 per year he borrowed would’ve come from private lenders and was not Federally insured. Meaning Dave was borrowing at whatever interest rate the banks came up with. And it was likely a variable interest rate as well.

And if the loan was in deferment while he was still in school, he likely accumulated interest across his 4 years in school such that he, in effect, owed about 1.5x what he borrowed in total. So already he was in the 6-figures for student loan debt and he hadn’t even started paying it back.

And that was in the 1980s. Just the principal alone, adjusted for inflation, would be about $230 thousand today. Add in the interest, which likely would’ve been capitalized – meaning, rolled into the principal – when he entered repayment, and that’s the equivalent of $300 thousand today.

And yet, he was paying on average… from late-1986 into 2022, so about 35-1/2 years… about $400 per month. On 6-figures of student loan debt.

And in that time, he’s accumulated $121,000 in interest at a rate of about $285/mo. Meaning the total interest being assessed averaged, given his monthly payment, probably about $675 per month, meaning an average interest rate of about 10%.

To get out from under the loans would’ve required him… probably tripling his monthly payments. Doubling would’ve at least overtaken the interest being assessed and allowed the principal to reduce. But tripling his payments was really the only option to make substantial headway and get the loans paid off in a more reasonable timeframe.

He should also have tried refinancing the loans at the various times when interest rates were at their lowest.

Foreign policy/Immigration/Law Enforcement/Police

The Constitution doesn’t say what you think it does…

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I recently learned of this tweet’s existence:

The Constitution limits the government in its dealings with anyone, whether they are a citizen or not, legal immigrant or not. The Fifth Amendment says clearly “No person…” Something Lippincott would know if he’d actually read it. The Due Process Clause requires an adversarial process wherein a person who is being held by the government can challenge that detention and the reasons for it. Meaning if a person is detained by ICE on suspicion of being an illegal alien, the person being detained must be given a chance to challenge that before some properly appointed tribunal or a Court of Law.

Article Three of the Constitution also says the judiciary has jurisdiction over “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority”. That includes enforcement of Title 8 of the United States Code, which is Federal immigration and naturalization law.

Ethics/Free speech and press/Journalism

Deadspin defamation lawsuit quietly settled out of Court

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

As 2025 was coming to a close, along with the Chiefs season as they finished out with a losing record, there was another Chiefs-related event that went unnoticed. I’m not finding anyone talking about this, at least. And a Google search brings up nothing. And I decided to go looking into the case after being reminded of it recently.

First, let’s rewind to the tail end of 2023. Deadspin published an article by Carron J. Phillips in which he singled out a 9 year-old Chiefs fan with some rather disgusting statements against him and his parents. In response, the family of the 9 year-old filed a lawsuit against Deadspin’s then-parent company, G/O Media, in Delaware, the State where G/O is incorporated.

Not long after the lawsuit was filed, Deadspin was sold off to Lineup Media and their entire staff laid off.

In 2024, G/O tried a bit of a last-ditch effort to quash the lawsuit. And in October 2024, they were slapped down, with the Court saying that the Deadspin article made “provably false assertions of fact”. After that ruling, I said this on a private Facebook post:

Deadspin’s new parent company just needs to settle this. The only thing continuing to fight this lawsuit will do is just cost them more. Talk with the family, come up with a number, create a college and trust fund for the kid, give a heavy donation to the Tribe the kid and his father’s family belongs to, and just end it…

The case is N24C-02-051 – Raul Armenta, Jr., v. G/O Media – filed in the Delaware Superior Court for Newcastle County. After the Court ruled against G/O, the case proceeded to discovery starting later in October 2024. And per typical with discovery in a civil case, motions flew back and forth into August 2025. Then… they kind of stopped.

The last motion in August 2025 was directed at G/O media to “compel G.O Media to produce financial documents, improperly withheld documents, and social media messages”. Opposition to that motion was filed a month later.

Then the docket went quiet.

November 13, 2025, a little over a year since the Court slapped down G/O media, another docket entry. A “confidential petition for approval”. So I guess that “motion to compel” told G/O they were… screwed, and they spent the next couple months negotiating behind the scenes on a settlement.

Which would be approved on December 16, with the case officially dismissed with prejudice on January 6, 2026, with the final order of dismissal filed on January 8.

So one of the most egregious defamation cases in modern journalistic practice was very recently settled out of Court on undisclosed terms. And it really should’ve ended at the end of 2024 and not been dragged out another year.

Crime/Ethics

The problem with “not all”

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Stop saying “not all”!

Why? Let me illustrate with a simple example.

You’ve probably seen numerous times the marketing statement “9 out of 10 dentists recommend”. So… “not all dentists” make whatever recommendation follows that. And it’s perfectly reasonable to say “not all dentists recommend using…” specific dental hygiene product.

However if only 1 out of 10 dentists make a certain recommendation, saying “not all dentists recommend using…” is technically accurate but extremely misleading.

Whenever I hear “not all”, you’re basically telling me it’s a small minority, typically including the person uttering “not all”, who are excluded from whatever follows “not all”. A few more insidious examples.

  • “Not all men are rapists”. So an overwhelming majority are? Absolutely not.
  • “Not all blacks are criminals.” Only a minority of blacks commit crime.
  • “Not all gun owners commit crime.” Again, it’s only a minority of gun owners.

And, more starkly, “Not all gun owners commit mass shootings” is not the same as the far more accurate statement that “The vast, vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners do not shoot anyone”. (I’ve been a gun owner for 16 years and have never discharged my firearm except at a gun range.)

And on this topic is a phrase that I’ve seen come from women a lot: “It’s not all men, but always a man”. Which 1. dismisses the fact that women do commit sexual harassment and assault against men and other women – on which I have personal experience on the former – and 2. pulls the fallacy of making it sound like it’s only a minority of men who do NOT commit sexual harassment and sexual assault.

It’s like saying “It’s not all blacks, but always a black person” (or a black man) when talking about crime. Which makes it sound like the overwhelming majority of blacks, and only blacks, commit crime.

So… yeah… just stop using “Not all” entirely.

Foreign policy

On Venezuela

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Venezuela needs change. Just like Iran, Russia, China, and plenty of other countries around the world. Including Ukraine. And if you don’t know why I’m including them, let me just say that Zalinsky isn’t as friendly as you’ve been led to believe. Remember, the enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend. Anyway…

Venezuela has demonstrably gone downhill since the Chavez government took over in 2002 and started trying to nationalize *everything*. Which that unto itself wouldn’t have been the nails in the coffin for Venezuela, except Chavez – and the later Maduro regime – replaced those who knew how to run the businesses with their political cronies. And when you replace someone who knows what they’re doing with a puppet of the State who ticks all the right political boxes… poverty is the inevitable result.

Just look at their nationalized oil industry. Chavez replaced all the people who knew how to run it with his cronies. And that’s one of the ways Venezuela went from one of the wealthiest countries in South America to one of the poorest in the world. And that’s why socialism inevitably fails… Because those in power favor political alliance over expertise…

So while Venezuela has demonstrably gone downhill and there are numerous human rights violations that likely warrant Maduro being taken to The Hague to stand trial, we should not have gone in and done this without international cooperation. If there was an arrest warrant against Maduro from the International Criminal Court, that’s one thing. But as far as I’m aware, there is no such warrant.

So… this is just about regime change. And the Trump administration installing a puppet government of its own… not a good look on our own domestic front, let alone the international stage.

The United States has tried regime change off and on since WWII. It’s never ended well. Since the fear now is… will Venezuela become another Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq? And by that, I mean, will someone just as bad or worse than Maduro seize power and plunge Venezuela back into extreme poverty after we leave? History leans toward that being a Yes.

Technology

Research before buying

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Almost 10 years ago, a site called, of all things, Motherboard made an article called “PC gaming is still way too hard“, talking about the apparent difficulty of building a PC. I responded to that article and the absurdity it presented. And along with debunking the points it presented, the larger gist of the article is that… tech sites should not be posting articles where the author absolutely has no idea what they’re talking about.

And on that note… a site called How-To-Geek recently published an article by Sydney Butler called “Stop buying mechanical keyboards — my membrane keyboard is better“. And the article is just loaded with issues.

Now some history on my part. I currently use a mechanical keyboard. Custom mechanical keyboard, actually, that I built in the summer of 2023:

I am considering replacing the key switches with Gateron white switches, which have a lower actuation force and travel. But they are double-spring switches, which will be an interesting feel. At minimum I’ll swap out the letter keys to try them out.

I used a Das Keyboard Professional Model S with Cherry MX Red switches I bought back in 2015. (Model No. DASK3MKPRORED – not available anymore.) It became my go-to keyboard while working in an office.

Around that same time, I bought a Razer gaming mechanical keyboard to use at home. After the COVID lockdowns, I stopped using the Das Keyboard until I spilled something on my Razer and now it doesn’t entirely work right – I should consider pulling it apart and seeing if I can repair it. And one of the switches on that Das doesn’t work right either, and I’ve considered seeing if I can swap that out. Though I do also want to swap out the all-black keycaps with white keycaps.

So all that just to say … I have a bit of experience with mechanical keyboards. They aren’t for everyone, and aren’t without their downsides. Membrane keyboards allow for more compact keyboards – though low-profile switches have been around for a few years now. They also tend to be far less expensive. But they do also tend to require more actuation force and are far more difficult to actually clean – and yes, you do need to clean them periodically just like with mechanical keyboards.

But going back to Sydney, he does highlight two additional issues that… aren’t really issues if you look around and research the totality of options that are available. Of which it’s painfully obvious reading his article that he… didn’t.

So what are those issues? Key travel and noise. Let’s start with the first.

I have to press down how far?

I’ve tried various types of switches, and, of course, people will point out that the switches that are generally good for gaming aren’t going to be the best for typing, but honestly, the problem hasn’t mainly been how the switches operate, but just how much travel is involved in depressing a key,

“Tried various types of switches”? Yeah I don’t buy it. Or otherwise he would NOT have used tactile standard profile switches.

But first, here’s a slight reality check: membrane keyboards actually have more key travel compared to mechanical keyboards. And, as I highlighted above, require more actuation force compared to mechanical keyboards.

Sydney’s selected keyboard has Cherry MX Brown standard-height switches. It’s as if he didn’t bother looking at low-profile options. Cherry has two low-profile options: red and silver, with silver having less travel than red. Both also have less travel compared to Gateron’s low profile switches, but we’re talking fractions of a millimeter.

You do need to research your options and, preferably, go to an electronics store with a variety of keyboards available to try them out. Micro Center is a great option if you have one nearby. Regardless of whether you’re looking at mechanical or membrane, or whatever other types of keyboards are out there, go to an electronics store and try one out if you can. Don’t just pick a keyboard and go with it.

And Cherry MX Brown switches are, arguably, the worst option to start with if you’re not used to a mechanical keyboard. Linear switches are the better option – e.g., the Gateron Red switches I mentioned earlier.

Okay, no, Cherry MX Blue switches are worse still. And if you’re someone who insists on using a blue-key mechanical keyboard in an open office, you might as well just … end it all yourself to save yourself the arguably worse fate your coworkers are planning under the radar…

And why would that be?

Click-clack…

Typing on a mechanical keyboard, even the model I bought which is supposedly one of the quieter options on the market, is a source of constant annoyance to me. I bought my wife the same Keychron to replace her old mechanical keyboard, and it was a big improvement in noise level, but I can still hear her through the wall. I need noise-canceling headphones just to tolerate the keyboard in front of me.

What’s rather sick about this paragraph, let alone this entire article, is How-To-Geek links to this “related” article from Sydney’s: 5 Ways to Get the Benefits of a Mechanical Keyboard Without the Noise. To Sydney’s credit, however little he deserves, he said he tried his mechanical keyboard for a year, and that “related” article was published in March. Still, some collaboration between the two would’ve been worthwhile as it would’ve saved Sydney from making a blanket statement about mechanical keyboards.

But would he have needed to try his keyboard for a year to determine whether it’s for him or not? No. Most who switch to a mechanical keyboard usually take to it pretty quick (like me and my wife) or determine pretty quickly that it isn’t going work out. A year with a keyboard is not required. Or you decide that a mechanical keyboard will be great for you, but not the specific keyboard you started with.

Which is why, in actuality, if you’re going to switch to a mechanical keyboard, going with a gaming keyboard is the place to start. Since they all tend to have linear switches. Since they don’t have the noise problem of tactile swtiches.

And near-silent linear switches have existed for several years as well. Which is a great segue to my wife.

After her gaming mechanical keyboard suffered a similar fate to mine, I decided to build her a custom one over going with a prebuilt. I’d been curious about the custom scene for a while and decided she could be my guinea pig. Here’s her bill of materials – everything coming from Micro Center:

  • Glorious GMMK 2 96% White Ice bare keyboard
  • Glorious Aura Keycaps v2 – White (v3 available)
  • Redragon Bullet-QL Peach switches (A113QL) (5 x 24 switches)
  • Glorious Coiled Cable 4.5 ft. – Nebula

The Bullet-QL switches are the main feature here. They are whisper quiet. I considered them when building my mechanical keyboard due to the lighter actuation force. But I need the keypress noise. I’m too used to it at this point. It’d take me way, way too long to get accustomed to near-silent switches.

And other quiet options exist. You don’t have to live with the noise.

Research first

So options abound in the mechanical keyboard scene. If you’re considering a mechanical keyboard, absolutely do some research first. There are a myriad of options available. And consider the custom mechanical route as well to get a keyboard that is best suited to your needs. You can even mix switches, combining tactile and linear. Or combine switches with different actuation forces so you can have, for example, light switches for the main keys and heavier switches for the keys you use less often – or vice versa if you want that.

Just… don’t go with tactile switches unless you’ll be using them at home and you live alone. Otherwise I’ll presume you have a death wish. Especially if you’re inconsiderate enough to use blue or, worse, green switches in an open floor office.

Server projects

Single-node Kubernetes “cluster” on Fedora 42/43

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Just putting this out there for those who might need it. This will install Kubernetes from the official repositories, using containerd.io from Fedora’s repositories as the container runtime and Calico as the network fabric. It will also pull in Helm for deploying Helm charts.

Note: This is for development or learning use, and hobbyist depending on your use cases. These commands will get you started. They will require tweaks for security and/or performance if you need Kubernetes for production.

Make sure the system is up-to-date (sudo dnf update -y) before running this. This is best run on a fresh install.

# First, set up the Kubernetes repo and install the packages. Change the 
# version to whatever you want to use. Latest is 1.34 as of this writing.

kube_version=1.34

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v$kube_version/rpm/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v$kube_version/rpm/repodata/repomd.xml.key
EOF

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install -y \
    kubectl \
    kubelet \
    kubeadm \
    kubernetes-cni \
    containerd \
    helm

# Make sure swap is off. Only needed if you installed Fedora with a swap
# partition or you're using a swapfile.

sudo swapoff -a
sudo dnf remove -y zram-generator-defaults

# In most other tutorials for setting up Kubernetes, you would be disabling
# the firewall here, but whether that is necessary will depend on your use
# case. For a single-node "cluster", that isn't necessary. And for a
# multi-node cluster, you can can allow through the ports you need rather
# than disabling the firewall entirely.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/99-k8s.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables  = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
net.ipv4.ip_forward                 = 1
EOF

# Turn off SELinux

sudo setenforce 0
sudo sed -i 's/^SELINUX=enforcing$/SELINUX=permissive/' /etc/selinux/config

# Reboot!

After this, reboot to ensure everything takes. Sure, there are other commands that you can run to pull in the changes without rebooting, but rebooting is a near-guaranteed way to ensure everything takes and loads as expected.

Next is setting up the “cluster”:

# Change the CIDR and subnet to whatever you want to use.

kube_subnet="192.168.2.0/16"

# Make sure the CNI configuration in the containerd config is pointing to the
# right path. This prevents the CoreDNS pods from getting stuck in
# "ContainerCreating".

sudo sed -i 's/\/usr\/libexec\/cni/\/opt\/cni\/bin/g' /etc/containerd/config.toml

# Enable and start containerd. Enable but do NOT start kubelet. Kubelet will
# be started as part of kubeadm's initialization.

sudo systemctl enable --now containerd
sudo systemctl enable kubelet

# Pull base images and initialize the control plane

sudo kubeadm config images pull
sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=$kube_subnet

# Now to set up kubectl to finish the setup

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

# Set calico_version to the latest available:
# https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/releases/

calico_version=3.31.0

# Apply the Calico network fabric and "taint" the control plane node.

kubectl apply -f "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/refs/tags/v$calico_version/manifests/calico.yaml"
kubectl taint nodes --all node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane-

After this, run kubectl get pods --all-namespaces and, eventually, you should see something like this (the “vbox” in the names is because I was running the above on a VirtualBox VM):

NAMESPACE     NAME                                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   calico-kube-controllers-5766bdd7c-b2j58   1/1     Running   0          2m31s
kube-system   calico-node-rjpff                         1/1     Running   0          2m31s
kube-system   coredns-66bc5c9577-5zdl9                  1/1     Running   0          2m58s
kube-system   coredns-66bc5c9577-pkz4b                  1/1     Running   0          2m57s
kube-system   etcd-vbox                                 1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-apiserver-vbox                       1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-controller-manager-vbox              1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-proxy-b8mtq                          1/1     Running   0          2m58s
kube-system   kube-scheduler-vbox                       1/1     Running   0          3m4s

And now you have a single-node Kubernetes “cluster” on Fedora 42 against which you can deploy new pods or Helm charts.

Free speech and press

Will Ricciardella calls for eliminating the free press

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Quoting the tweet in case it’s later deleted:

News outlets that hid behind “anonymous sources” to sell the Russia hoax and the Ukraine call narrative have no credibility left.

They weren’t misled, they were complicit in manufacturing political scandals.

If journalism wants to rebuild trust, it starts with one rule: no source stays off the record for stories built on power or politics.

Go on record, or don’t publish.

No! No! No! Holy motherfucking No!

Yes, journalists can use the cover of “anonymous sources” to manufacture stories to have their bylines attached to something potentially big. Yellow journalism has always been a problem. The “Remember the Maine” narrative that led to the Spanish-American War came about because of yellow journalism and competing newspapers manufacturing details via “anonymous sources”, driving public support for the US going to war with Spain. (It was later determined to be purely accidental.) And there are likely other instances across history where yellow journalism and manufactured stories has caused harm.

But requiring all journalists to reveal their sources for “stories built on power or politics” is not the way to go on that. The whole point of a free press is to allow anonymous whistleblowers to come forward and reveal corruption within the halls of power, and be protected by the journalists reporting on that.

No. Absolutely No. Holy motherfucking No! And will never NOT be No from me on that. Holy shit, tell me you no longer want a free press without telling me!

Crime/Free speech and press

Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t wrong

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I first discovered Jimmy Kimmel back when he was the co-host of Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central. He would later go on to host The Man Show. I watched some of the former, none of the latter. And eventually Kimmel made it to his own late-night talk show.

On his monologue on September 11, Kimmel said this:

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

If you look at everything that happened in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, what Kimmel said is… correct. He’s 100% on point with this. Where Kimmel’s statements fall short is simply the fact that… their characterizations were also correct. But that’s also because at the time Kimmel made his statements, there were still some details about him that were up in the air.

Two days later is when Kirk’s alleged assassin was apprehended by police. It was only then that full details about who he was and what led up to the assassination could be pinned down. And in that, the “MAGA gang” was eventually proved correct.

But what Kimmel said is also correct.

The “MAGA gang” was doing everything they could to characterize the assassin as not being right wing. The left, on the other hand, was trying to desperately say the killer was right wing, and kept pushing that idea until they largely no longer could. Despite the fact the engravings on the rifle cartridges that were reported on very early showed the assassin very clearly was not right-wing.

However the assassin may have been raised, that was definitely not who he was when he formed the intent to kill Charlie Kirk.

And the right very much also tried to score political points from it. And seize more power.

Crime

On Jeffrey Epstein, again

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Oh where to start…

First, did Epstein commit suicide? Yes. As I mentioned a few months ago talking about Virginia Giuffre, I still whole-heartedly believe he did. Nothing about what has come out changes my point of view on that. On which there isn’t much that’s come out anyway.

This is my speculation, but I think what happened is the guards, in whatever interaction they had with him, drove Epstein to kill himself. And if he had any interactions with other prisoners, they likely fueled the fire as well. And then turned a blind eye and didn’t bother trying to save him when they discovered he attempted. Negligence, yes, but not murder. As I’ve already explained, suicide attempt and completion is alarmingly common among the prison population. And Epstein had at least one prior suicide attempt on record.

So then… what of the infamous “client list”?

First, the infamous “black book” has been leaked online. A redacted version is available with a Google search, and some more digging might lead you to the unredacted version. I’m not linking to it here, nor giving any details beyond that.

But the “client list” I’m pretty sure never existed. Assertions of its existence were made, along with assertions of other evidence that could’ve brought down powerful men in the world. People get a little bit of information and form wild conclusions, then won’t listen to anything that contradicts that conclusion and end up believing that anything that proves their conclusion is being “covered up”.

“I’m right, but the government is covering up everything proving me right.” Sound familiar?

“So why is Maxwell in prison if there’s no client list?” Umm… she was charged and convicted of trafficking. For Epstein and those the “black book”.

So Trump made promises on the trail that he’d declassify and release information related to several events that have driven conspiracy theories – Epstein for a few years, others since before I was born. And when that information is finally released, it’s… not what people presumed to exist. So… cue the continuation of accusations that things are being “covered up” because their assumptions aren’t being confirmed.

Instead, now, the Epstein case should just die off just like him so the whole thing can fall into obscurity. But… yeah, that’s not happening.