17 parts of the modern world ancients didn't have

Railroads, telegrams, telephones, electricity, refrigeration, cars, radio, movies, washing machines, airplanes, tv, internet, personal computers, smartphones, Google search, ebooks, artificial intelligence

"City Reading" and city living

“Though New York’s urban texts did not level incomes, instill ethnic harmonies, bridge neighborhoods or promote political consensus, they bracted these ruptures within shared experiences of public space by rendering by rendering much of the city legible to strangers and facilitating forms of access and interaction that did not require personal acquaintance, face-to face contact or recognizable individual authority.” I wish I had written that sentence.  It is long and complicated but when trying to describe human experience, it sometimes has to be.

My friend grew up well in a small Wisconsin town while I grew up in the large-ish city of Baltimore, Maryland. Because we worked together, I have had a chance to gain some understanding of her life and compare it to my own.  The professor of history, David M. Henkin wrote my opening sentence in his book “City Reading”.  The title refers not to use of public libraries or urban bookstores but to signs, handbills, labels and other opportunities that someone with the ability to read the local language finds in today’s cities.  Of course, the existence of public schools and the basic curriculum of ‘readin, writin’ and ‘rithmetic’ moved much of humanity from not having any code decipher-ability to many minutes looking at some alphabet and getting ideas from that activity.

Is it enough to matter?

Back on May 28 of this year, I looked up how much does Google earn on an average day.  I found the answer $877, 107, 397. 26.  Lynn said that she was glad to know about the 26 cents.  Her statement related to a difficulty I had teaching steps in doing experimental research for a master’s degree.  If you are dealing with 877 million, whether there is an extra 26 cents or not is a rather small detail.  

Deciding whether a detail matters is often a matter of opinion.  For verification of a deposit, all the digits may be important.  But if a quantity is large enough, 26 cents may be insignificant.

66 years

That is not my age.  It is the number of years Dr. LSK and I have been married. Today is the anniversary of our marriage.  

Her parents were driving her to the church but they got into a traffic jam and were late.  We had no cellphones but I figured she was on her way.  She was and it all worked out, quite well!

My father-in-law arrived for my wedding about 40 minutes late with my current wife fretting in the backseat.  But I have forgotten all about that by now.  - from my blog March 26, 2021.

Patience and the spectrum

The TV series “Patience” on WPS, our state public tv service, is about a young woman who works in the Records department of the York, England Police.  It takes a while for her to show her talents, which lie in the areas of reasoning and searching enormous shelves of records.  She is “on the spectrum”, which is also communicated these days by stating she is an “atypical neurotype”.  

Such persons are often uncomfortable simply speaking and even more so, explaining or defending an idea against opposition and doubters.  I looked up the question of whether there are more individuals then there used to be and the answer was yes but it noted that more people are aware of the condition of ‘being on the spectrum’ then there used to be. Patience is played by the actress Ella Mavis Purvis, who is herself on the spectrum.  I have seen a man I love and admire, who displays spectrum characteristics stand beside a table at which several other people are seated without taking a chair or seeming to notice uncomfortable looks from those sitting.

Artificial hydration

The doctor said to drink more water.  Since then, we both have drunk more water but we find that doing that makes us have to visit the bathroom every time we stand up.  When I was told to drink more water, I had allowed myself to just fall from a walking position into a full-bodied collapse while thinking that I need not bother keeping upright.  It was a false but dreamy feeling that I could just stop trying and fall, as one might do onto a mattress. It may seem like a small demand but I suspect my body is actually ready to stop living but I am taking measures to continue anyhow.

Fall tomorrow late in the day

8:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 7:05 p.m. Central Daylight Time.

Universal Time (UTC): 00:05 UTC on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.

Meaning: The Sun crosses directly over the Earth's equator heading south.

Season Shift: Marks the official astronomical start of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. [1, 2, 3]

In the words of the internet item: “the length of day and night are nearly equal”.  According to my results, sunset here will be 6:56 PM.

Correlate, not cause

One of the factors human minds sometimes are misled by is correlates that are not causes.  Let’s say that we find that pickpockets are more often ambidextrous than the general population.  So: does favoring the use of both hands equally lead one into pickpocketry? 

That idea might be the focus of research for a while.  I am not trying to start a rumor about ambidextrians.  The internet says that genuine ambidextry occurs in about 1% of people.

One sentence

These days, I can open a book, read one sentence and wrestle with it, ponder it, oppose it, support it for quite a while.  The other day, something that Garrison Keillor wrote included these words:

“We live in interesting times, which sometimes are so absurdly interesting repeatedly day after day that a person gets tired of all fascination and takes a keener interest in the ordinary, such as I did last week …”

It may be the times but I think being older and having digital and electronic communication all have some effect, too

My first ride in a self-driving car

Friends picked us up for dinner last night.  They gave us our first ride in a Tesla self-driving car.  It was a little weird to see the steering wheel turn and twist with no hands on it.  The car had to take us through a busy intersection with a tricky traffic signal and then immediately turn left across a lane of traffic coming the other way.  It was smooth and impressive.  I am grateful for the experience.