Family proximity

We have had conversations with other older people and heard statements about our good fortune to have quite a few family members living close by.  

I know that the job market, business dealings, scholarships and other opportunities can disburse loved ones all over.  Heck, your daughter can meet a future husband on a plane trip and later announce she needs to move to New Zealand.  So far, most of the rearrangements only involve places on this home planet but who knows how long that will last?

We have a close relative with dementia

Lynn is his physical guardian and sees him often.  I think we have both learned quite a bit from him and his condition.  She and I both spend moments each day gazing at the ceiling, trying to recall a name.  He is more advanced in forgetting.  He sure makes clear how often human memories are important in living.

We are all animals and need movement and mental engagement as much as food and air.  Without memory, it is difficult to hold conversations or enjoy participating in games.  I think there is a need for games that entertain and maybe slightly challenge people with declining mental abilities.

I had no idea

I found out today that yesterday was World Toilet Day and I missed it completely!  Don't worry.  I'll get over it.  

As is often the case, I do have a book to mention in connection with the world day that I completely missed.  You might be interested in "The Big Necessity" by Rose George.  As usual, you can get a copy in Kindle form.  That way, it doesn't add much weight to your library shelves.

Sort

If a student is "at the head of the class", that usually means that student has answered more questions "correctly" than any of the other students.  So, to be at the head, get scores that are higher numbers.  But with a modern spreadsheet, it is easy and quick to sort the list some other way than high score down to low.  If we want to think of errors made, the student with the lowest number of errors may be "best".  If we calculate the mean or the median of the scores and calculate how many points each student is from that average, we can sort our spreadsheet by "distance from the average" quickly and easily.  

I heard a college advisor say that the best single skill a college student could take away for college is the knowledge of how to use spreadsheet software.  The most popular spreadsheet is "Excel" by Microsoft.  You can get Excel along with other handy software for about $150 but you can get "Sheets" from Google free.

20% to 80% Charging

When I look up 20% to 80% charging, I get pages of distractions.  This happens these days with just about any subject I try to look up so I am not surprised.  What I am interested in is charging something like an iPad to less than its full capacity.  A while back, I read a couple of articles about how the batteries in a tablet can last longer if they are not charged to 100%. When I try some search programs, I get pages of irrelevant links.  That is not just with searching about ways to limit the charge.  I often get links to music and maybe concert appearances of a band or musician with that name.  I can sometimes improve my wording to focus more on what I am looking for.

What did I get from teaching "the future"?

I know we can't "know" the future but "The Limits to Growth" was being published, in 1972.  My friend is a wily historian who knows the complete past.  The two of us were interested in what MIT and the Club of Rome had to say.  One thing led to another and the two of us agreed to create a course "Futures" and we did.  Note the plural, one of several nods to our ignorance and the difficulties of seeing into the future.

I have been asked a couple of times about what I learned from reading and from teaching that course.  Basically, I found out that "futurists", soothsayers and fortune-tellers have a propensity to predict dark troubles. I guess it is only natural to want to warn of coming troubles and problems.  I realize that some predictions are that if I have been a good enough boy, I will die and go to paradise, where everything is good and pleasant and there are no negatives.  We'll see.

CNN Photos of the week

Photos this week: November 6-13, 2025 | CNN https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/13/world/gallery/photos-this-week-november-6-november-13?

The link comes up with an agreement you must agree to.  I could not find a way around it.

Read older posts in this blog

I have 5800 posts, beginning in 2008.  Some of them are well written.  Take a look:

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

Anticipator

I don't mean a person who looks forward to a coming event with pleasure.  I mean a person who starts running before the signal, a person who arrives early, a person who comes to the church and sits in a pew the day before the wedding.  That's me.  It can be a handicap to be that way.  Sure, once in a while, it is admirable and helpful.  But the practice of active earliness can definitely be a pain.  Not only that, it can lead to too many periods of waiting for ten minutes to elapse, for the show to begin, for the surprise to arrive.

My website and my blog

The first project we got in grad school was to write a computer program in the computer language Fortran.  We had access to keypunch machines and needed to type each command into one card after another, carrying the cards to the computer building and handing the deck to an operator.  Over night, our cards would be run through the computer and it would print output.  The next day, we could pick up our result and see how our directions worked.  A slow process that used a computer the university rented from the IBM company.  So graduate school and computers went hand in hand for me.

Years later, Lynn showed me what she had learned in grad school: to make web pages.  Eventually, I learned that Google offered tools to make something called a website and a blog.  The blog was run like an article in a newspaper, something like a daily notice.  The website was more   permanent information, often related to lessons I taught in my classes. My website is here: https://sites.google.com/view/kirbyvariety1/welcome-to-my-home-page

And my blog is here: https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

Smart device listening to me

I am impressed when I discover another of my friends has a daily, helpful relation with an intelligent device that talks to them, such as Siri or Alexa.  Usually, when I try to list products of a type, there turn out to be more of them than I knew about.  "Siri" seems to be an Apple product while "Alexa" is an Amazon product.  We can't forget about Google but that giant advanced company doesn't seem to have a cozy female smart speaker.

I don't rely on any smart speaker to assist me or control lighting, answer questions and such but maybe I should.  Maybe I am missing out!!?

Stress v. kindness

I have mentioned David R. Hamilton before.  He has a PhD in organic chemistry and worked with a pharmaceutical company developing drugs.  He noted that in experiments there were often some people in the placebo group that did as well as those receiving a drug.  That observation led him to write "Why Woo-Woo Works" about the mind and its biological powers in the body.  He has other books on the powers of the mind.

He has a new book, "The Five Side-Effects of Kindness".  I have been re-reading "Why Woo-Woo Works" and there he emphasizes that a strong 

tool to deal with stress is kindness.  He notes that people often assume that relaxation is the best tool to destress but he says that kindness is more powerful.

Famous arias

t.ly/LUBLY  Famous arias - link to search

The music department of UWSP and the Monteverdi Chorale cooperated on an evening of operatic arias.  I knew I would recognize some but I don't know their names or the context.  Today, I woke up with the Queen of the Night from Mozart's The Magic Flute singing in my head.  I looked up the setting and the translation into English.  The first words I read about the aria were that it made a fine earworm.  You may know the term for a snatch of music that won't leave your head, that arrives without an invitation and keeps coming to mind without permission.

CNN Photos of the week 11/9/2025

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/world/gallery/photos-this-week-october-30-november-06

The page that comes up requests agreement to accept CNN cookies.  I could not find a way around it and I don't want to accept it.  There are other collections of photos on the web.

What was his name?

In groups with people around my age, we spend many minutes with one or more heads tilted back, looking upward with raised eyes.  That is a typical posture of an older person, trying to remember.   The elusive item is often a name.  What was the name of that theorist?  This morning, Lynn asked me about the little dogs that were often in photos of Queen Elizabeth.  She said the elusive breed name began with the letter "C".

Sometimes, every one waits while the recaller tries to recall something he knows he used to know but the name will not come to mind.  If others try to say the elusive name but fail, the names spoken may be a distraction that lessens the probability of recall. On the other hand, if the other members of the group just wait in polite silence, the awkward moment can cause the forgetter to be embarrassed, lessening the probability of satisfying recall.

The size of libraries

A basic question about a library is not how tall it is or how much it weighs but how many volumes it has.  When Lynn got the job of being the school librarian for a new school, the answer was none.  Happily, another school librarian had already ordered a basic selection of books for that new elementary school.

I have more Kindle e-books than I have old form books printed on paper.  One of the main advantages of Kindle books is that they are just about weight-free and they take up no space.  They are usually lower priced than books with paper pages. So, I have more of them than I have ever had of paper books.  I have many Kindle books that have been paid for and downloaded but never read.  I am guessing that I should keep going over what I already have before getting more.  When I include the idea of re-reading what I deeply enjoyed or have never read, I think it is possible that there are no more Kindle book purchases for me.

Training robots

On many keyboards, there is a key that says "Num Lock".  That's the key that makes numbers print instead of a collection of various marks.  Some people dislike numbers.  They often lead to mathematics and calculation and headaches.  When I was in elementary school, I didn't like numbers since I sometimes got assignments of umpteen addition or multiplication problems to complete.  Over the years, I changed, especially when spreadsheets enabled me to do all sorts of calculations quickly and accurately.

There is a morning news item that I almost always read called "Numlock News".  It includes items from the news that have to do with numbers and related subjects.  This morning, one of the Numlock News items was this:

Arm Farms

Lots of companies want to program robots to do chores that are comparatively easy for humans with full mastery of their motor skills, such as loading dishes or folding clothes. For entities made of steel, copper and actuators, these skills have proven evasive. There's actually a reason why you might have a washing machine and a dryer but not a folder. To rack up the visual data used to train a robot for these tasks, data labeling companies (dubbed "arm farms," often operating out of India) need to strap GoPros onto human workers and have them do common household chores. These "arm farms" then send hundreds of clothes-folding videos to clients in the United States. Objectways, one such company, has over 2,000 employees, about half of whom are labeling sensor data from self-driving cars and robots. Several other employees were responsible for sending 200 videos of towel-folding to an American client. 

Nilesh Christopher, The Los Angeles Times

Does this need charging?

In this time of smartphones, tablets and ereaders, one device or another may be low on electricity or altogether out of juice.  I have read in several places that many devices that rely on a re-chargeable battery can serve longer if they are charged only to 60 or 80% of their capacity.  I am still aware that my laptop computer is considerably more powerful than my other devices.  But despite being relatively lightweight and portable, my connected devices have more limited choices on each page than the computer.  I have more choices on web pages, choices that I make use of with the computer.  Besides, I keep the computer connected to electricity continuously.  I don't have to check the computer's power level.  It never needs charging.

The searches of others and Snopes

When Google and other search software began showing others' searches that are similar to what I am searching, I found that the ideas and directions of others were a help to me, too.  But with Snopes, a website that shows mistakes and unfounded rumors for what they are, I found after a while, that it was better for me not to read worries and inventions of others. Some of them tended to lodge doubts and fears in me that I didn't want and could do quite nicely without.

Wealth and gambling with books or streaming shows

When I look at a picture of library shelves or think of the movies and shows available when we "stream", I think of great wealth.  Not of money but of thrills, understandings, mental adventures.  But I tend to forget about the gambling part.  Yes, the library has many fine books but some of them aren't.  I face a gamble when I pick something to read or watch.  My choice may turn out to be wonderful, memorable but it may also be a dud.  I realize that I can try again but I am hoping very much that my choice will be a good one.

A repeat message

With or without my early message, you probably caught up with the end of daylight savings time.  It also contained a CNN photos link like this:

.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/30/world/gallery/photos-this-week-october-23-october-30

Back on standard time, CNN photos

Don't forget: Daylight savings time is over.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/30/world/gallery/photos-this-week-october-23-october-30

A big preparation

Today is the first day of November.  We just finished with groups of children dressed as witches and monsters, but it is a different sort of day for artists.  It certainly is for members of the artists cooperative on Main Street in Stevens Point.  Today is the day for setting up the Christmas display in Gallery Q.  You may still have fake tombstones in your yard and a big bag of little leftover candies in the kitchen but the Gallery Q people are busy arranging photos and paintings and jewelry and ceramics artfully around the gallery. Christmas is coming!