HeyJaredRandom Thoughts
Welcome to my personal Substack where I post essays about social and political matters, personal observations, or just something that crossed my mind. Some are pieces I've written in the past, but have meaning in the present.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 16, 2026
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- Jul 3, 2026
Latest issues
The Thing About Transparency in HOAs (opens the original)
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Homeowners’ Associations (HOAs) are a fact of life for many homeowners today. As corporations, HOAs require structure and discipline in their management. In HOA governance, as in politics, we often hear calls for total transparency. While such demands make great sound bites, they belie the underlying reality that our intellectual capacity as humans requires us to filter information, and our vision is often polarized. Balancing openness, honesty, and the common interest is a far more practical pu
Personal Lane Departure Warning System (opens the original)
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As an engineer, I tend to be a problem-solver. As a self-aware person, I consider it a good day when I solve more problems than I cause. All too often, though, I see a problem and want to fix it. Equally often, it’s someone else’s responsibility or concern. As Socrates and/or Plato allegedly suggested over two millennia ago, “mind your own business,” and “necessity is the mother of invention.” Inspired by those thoughts, my innovative Personal Lane Departure Warning System will keep me from butt
Carrots and Sticks (opens the original)
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Some time ago, it occurred to me that the concept of “carrot and stick” motivation could have more than one meaning, so I decided to figure out what it meant. The most familiar and accepted interpretation is that it’s a metaphor for incentivization by a combination of reward (the carrot) and punishment (the stick). The current madministration seems to have mastered a more diabolical version of the latter. Motivation is important to civil society, and proper motivation is vital to the balance of
Mangled Metaphors, Idiotic Idioms, and Silly Sayings (opens the original)
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Over the years, I’ve come up with a few expressions and twisted a few established ones into what I call Morganisms. Some I made as simple signs, and some I’ve developed into cartoons. Warning - there’s nothing serious to see here! Here are a few:<im
Resistance Is Not Fruitile! (opens the original)
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Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of noise about the possibility that Speaker (In Name Only) Mike Johnson may hold the 119th Congress open and delay the transition to the 120th Congress in an effort to subvert the will of the voters in the likely event of his party’s loss of its majority status. I am by no means a Constitutional scholar, nor an attorney, but I do consider myself to be capable of occasional discerning thought. To that end, I reached out to AI 😉. As I’ve previously
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