Chains of influence and consequence

We went to a discussion by a professor of wildlife on the subject of the wolves of Wisconsin.  Our local university specializes in natural resources such as our soils, water and wildlife.  The professor said that there are about 850 wolves in Wisconsin.  The population has risen in a satisfactory way since wolves moved back into the state from Minnesota.  Our Department of Natural Resources estimates that at the time of the first white explorers in the state, we had 3-5 thousand wolves.

We have Lyme's disease in Wisconsin.  It is a dangerous disease that is usually easy to treat if caught early.  However, it is often not caught early and then the bacteria that cause it can spread to the heart and the nervous system.  The author Amy Tan describes in her book of essays, The Opposite of Fate, her mental difficulties before she was finally diagnosed with the problem.  Once the bacteria have spread in the body, they can be difficult to eliminate.

Researchers have discovered that increases in the wolf pack result in decreases in the number of coyotes in the state.  Fewer coyotes results in more foxes.  More foxes mean fewer mice.  Fewer mice mean less Lyme's and other tick-borne disease.

Our lives are filled with unexpected consequences.  A nurse makes a remark during an operation and the patient hears it despite being anesthetized.  He walks away from the hospital carrying an idea about his health that is invalid but his unconscious mind received and is accepting the comment.  One of the reasons history is interesting is that over time, we get to find out about consequences that are a surprise but still matter, sometimes matter very much. Ask the Native Americans who accepted blankets from white settlers and contracted deadly disease from doing so.

Sometimes in the complex age of computing, we find a combination of steps and applications in programs that surprise us.  Modern tools and ideas are sufficiently complicated that no one can know the result of all the combinations of yes and no decisions in setting the software options.  Often, it easier and more economical to simply try to see if a given procedure works than to figure out beforehand what it will do.

We hear about similar problems with diet and dietary supplements.  There are so many combinations and people carry so many different genetic and individual propensities that research cannot test them all.  We often find out about a result because we stumbled on it or are faced with its effect as a surprise.

Of course, we have many expected consequences, too.  I turn the steering wheel to the left and the car goes to the left.  I smile at her and she smiles back.  I eat some chocolate with sea salt and get a strong taste of a wonderful flavor.

I have just downloaded "The Science of Consequences" by Susan Schneider, which has very positive reviews.  I wonder if the book will teach me anything new and useful about consequences.  I will see what the consequences of reading the book are for me.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

The day after Thanksgiving

I am a person who gets into a routine easily.  I like to figure a good thing to do and a good way to do it and then stick with my figuring.  So, the odd Thursday holiday springing up after a more or less normal beginning to the week gets my attention.  And the odd Friday hanging around afterwards is another unusual feature of the holiday.

It seems natural to me that an energetic, nervously mobile group like the Americans, would want to find something to do with that odd Friday.  When I was a kid, special sales on George Washington's birthday (actually February 22) were notable for being especially low priced.  Somehow - and I imagine the full history is laid out somewhere - that odd Friday got to be a sales day, too.  The sales start early in the morning, 6 AM.  No, 2 AM.  No, Midnight.

Of course, more and more stores want to start special attraction sales as early as 8 PM on Thanksgiving day.  No, 6 PM.  I just received an email from the largest online retailer in the world advertising special, wonderful, amazing real-deal deals right now, at 10:08 AM on Thanksgiving Day.  I feel confident that if I click on the right buttons, I can indeed buy the amazing X for the astounding price of Y at this very time.

When I was a kid, I had heard of Black Monday, a bad day in the stock market in 1929.  It was a name for an unpleasant day, for many much worse than "unpleasant" and the effects of the market crashes at that time lasted for many years and affected many parts of the world. So, how this odd Friday after Thanksgiving got to be called "Black", seems to be in some dispute.  I can understand it being a sober day after a crowd of shoppers stampeded into a store in 2008 so violently that they killed a store employee.  But the name seems to stem from the sales which are hoped to put the businesses in the "black" (profits) or from the inconvenience of extra traffic and crowds lured out that day by the sales.

I have seen more than one reference to America's 'orgy of consumerism' on the day after Thanksgiving.  I don't know much about orgies of the sexual kind and I have never heard any of my experienced and sophisticated friends say they know much about them either.  "Consumerism" and general consumption are broad terms that seem to be reserved for statements complaining about waste, poor judgment and childish fascination with cheap junk.  As I watch the struggle for small businesses against very large ones and the battle between this very large one and that very large one, I feel sympathy for the shopper who is simply hoping for just the right Christmas gift for each loved one. Just like the protester who drives a gasoline engine to a protest against 'big oil', we all enjoy and take pride in our possessions of many kinds, including gifts that will give each family member and friend delight.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Being thankful

There are far too many things to be thankful for than we can count.  Here are a few you might not have thought of:

The Mediterranean island called Thera or Santorini experienced a volcanic eruption 1600 years before the common era (BC or BCE).  The eruption threw a great deal of soil and rock into the atmosphere in one of the most powerful and debris-carrying eruptions in the history of our planet.  The eruption deposited 200 feet of ash on the island.  Those close to Mt. Helens when it erupted know about hot ash and the difficulties it creates for usual modern human life. Similarly, I understand that Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) sits in the mouth of a volcano that seems to be late in erupting, according to what scientists have worked out about its past.  The last eruption, about 60,000 years ago, deposited 15 feet of ash in Kansas, hundreds of miles away.

If you can get in and out, maybe with a little rain, ice or snow to deal with, you can be thankful.

A friend has a daughter who is in her 50's.  The daughter and 7 girl friends went to the South Pacific to dive.  While snorkeling, the party's boat accidentally ran over the daughter, giving her very severe injuries in several parts of her body.  That happened a couple of weeks ago.  The daughter was quickly flown to Australia, where she healed enough to be flown to the US.  The woman is in excellent shape, is an athlete and has run many marathons. She and family and friends have been supportive and upbeat throughout.

If you haven't been sliced up by a boat propeller, far from home, you can be thankful.

A friend loves the violin, especially fiddling music.  She writes that Joshua Bell, a world-class violinist gave a concert, using a 3.5 million dollar violin.  Tickets averaged $100 each.  The next day, he played the same music again on the same instrument in the subway tunnel.  No one showed any recognition of him or the Bach music.  A few people dropped money by him, totaling $32.

If you have enjoyed great music, appreciated the skill, years of study and practice, and value of the instruments used, you can be thankful.

Might be of interest:

A non-cheesy guide to gratefulness: What to read and watch | TED Blog

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Mindfulness everywhere

What is mindfulness, anyway?  Discussions often equate being mindful with being aware.  When you think about it, most everybody is aware of SOMETHING all the time.  Does that mean that most everybody is mindful?  No, because the quality meant is something like a second order of awareness.  Not the first level, the road that I am driving on, not the blog post I am writing but more of an awareness of my own mind, what it's doing, what it's feeling while I am driving or writing.

Doubters, scholars, investigators are likely to mentally step behind assertions to ask "Where did this assertion come from?"  Who is the author of this statement?  I can think of that sort of source awareness as a form of attention being paid to the background or motives or contributing influences of a statement or source of information.  The Mindfulness Revolution is about similar awareness of and attention to the background of one's mind, one's thoughts and feelings as they occur.

The best known methods for increasing one's awareness of one's own mind are meditation practices.  Focused attention on a given anchor is the crux of most modern, popular methods for increasing one's mindful attention to what a person is doing with her own mind.  Intending to keep one's attention on a given resting point is involved in the practices of many religions.  Once I commit myself to five or ten minutes of steady attention to something to look at or listen to or attend to such as my own breathing, I have a way of noting when my attention has slipped off my intended focus.  When I note that my attention has slipped, I bring it back to my focus.  As Jack Kornfield notes, the actions and steps involved are very much like house-training a puppy.  Keep bringing my attention back, over and over, and pretty soon, I notice more immediately when it has slipped.

The most developed practices, the most extensive discussions and writings of developing and using mindfulness are associated with the Buddhist religion.  But, as Jacob Needleman shows in "Lost Christianity" and the writings of many Sufis and Jewish mystics show, practices that increase one's awareness of what one is doing with one's internal attention, have been an important part of the practice of many religions, especially among the more devoted adherents and followers.  The thing was probably Hindu before it was anywhere else.

Nowadays, the practice of increasing one's sensitivity to one's own mental workings is being shown to matter in virtually every field of human endeavor.  From medicine/nursing/healing to police training to improving student performance, mindfulness training is everywhere.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Jenifer is spelled correctly here

It is not a favor to people to praise them in print while misspelling their names.  I am correcting the spelling of Jenifer Ebel here.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Jenifer Ebel and the Fabulous Fashionistas

Jenifer Ebel posted a link to the 47 minute video on YouTube and other places about the Fabulous Fashionistas, 6 women with an average age of 80.  Lynn was interested and watched it and I was led to do so, too.

All six live in Britain and five are British born.  The 6th was born in America.  All are elderly and all are spirited.  It seemed to me that the common statements from them all were

• that they didn't give a damn about other peoples' opinions of them and
• that their lives, activities and dress were not about looking younger.  Looking younger is a pet peeve of Lynn.  She often expresses irritation that the AARP magazine and other sources that are focused on older people spend ink and pictures emphasizing how young someone looks for their age.

The Fabulous Fashionistas emphasize their love of color and of clothes they actually enjoy wearing and feel they look good in.  It is clear that they do have some sensitivity as to others' opinions of their dress but it is even clearer that they are willing and able to focus on their own judgments and their own opinions of what would be fun to wear and what looks outstanding.  They are quite capable of pushing the boundaries and living an exciting, fulfilling life.

Physical activity in the form of dancing, yoga and jogging is important to them, although it appears that the 91 year old mostly walks.  Life for many in Europe and the rest of the non-US world is more automobile-free than we are used to.  Standing gracefully and securely on one foot, raising the other and grasping the heel and holding it while fully straightening the raised leg is something I would never attempt and have never been able to do.  

Living alone and enjoying life a major part of their lives.  One has a much younger husband but all are acquainted with death of a longtime partner and all chose to live actively and consciously and fully.  The loss of a longtime partner is sometimes considered the hardest blow one receives in life but these women show that one can take the blow and still savor what one has and is.

Jenifer Ebel posted a link to the Fabulous Fashionistas on Facebook, which is clearly a large part of many of my friends' lives.  She herself is a wonderful yoga teacher and my model of what a yoga instructor should be and do.  We regret that Ebel is semi-retired and only offers weekend retreats once in a while.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Too many, too much

Like many others, I like chocolate.  So, I thought attending the local chocolate fair would be fun.  It was and I am glad I went.  I thought I would be strongly tempted to taste and buy.  When I saw so many chocolate confections, I had the opposite reaction.  It felt as though a tap had been opened in me and all the desire for chocolate was drained right out.  Too many choices!  I could sense what I would feel like if I took even a tiny bit of each offering.  I was without any pull toward any of the items.

When I was in the 2nd grade, my parents moved us into a storefront house.  The house was in the back and the confectionary store was in the front, on the street.  I liked candy very much and there was so much of it on sale.  I was literally a kid in a candy store!  Before I could start pestering them for a little bit of this or that, my parents agreed that I could now have an allowance, a dollar a week.  In those days, I was especially fond of nonpareils, little chocolate circles with small white sprinkles on them and of candy corn.  A good sized box of candy corn cost a dollar and I spent my first allowance on such a box.  I immediately ate the whole box and the very thought of candy corn still is horrible for me, to this day.

I think my brain did a fast calculation of what I would feel like if I tried a few too many samples of the chocolate goodies and turned me off.  However, the sheer number of choices can also be a turnoff by itself.  A mature student told me once that she and her husband had driven 60 miles to buy a VCR.  At the store, they found dozens of models and the number of choices prevented them from choosing any of them.  Too many!  They didn't know what to pick and so picked nothing and drove home.

A good restaurant in our neighborhood used to show diners their dessert tray.  The serving sizes on the tray were super, super large.  The enormous piece of carrot cake by itself was a turnoff for me and I rarely ordered anything from the tray.  Too many choices and too large a suggestion!

I like to have a choice between 2 or 3 alternatives but 2 or 3 million can be a puzzling, paralyzing obstacle to any choice or selection.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

strength through description

An important benefit from writing a journal or a blog is the review in self-selected words of one's thoughts and experiences.  Martin Seligman, often cited as the father of positive psychology,  in his book "Flourish" says that one of the most researched practices he knows in the area of positive psychology is that of listing three parts of one's day that were positive.  He reports that his classes often found quite strong benefits from doing so and continued doing so long after the course ended.

I have been doing that daily for about a year now and I agree it is very worthwhile.  I am often surprised at the events that take a little while to come to mind and how positive they can be, despite the fact that it took me a minute or two to bring them to mind.  That is the same thing I found throughout life with books and movies: some that I had no easy recollection of were totally wonderful at the time of occurrence and in retrospect when I did recall them. I imagine that just as our basic protective wiring design is aimed more at detecting and avoiding danger than at savoring positive events, my memory can bring to mind negatives and complaints and fears more easily than the good parts of a day.

Normally, I can't really recall each breath that I took during a day but each is a complex miracle, chemically, physiologically, and mechanically. I have stored away the act of raising my hand as I would in taking an oath as a sign to myself of the steady supply of wonders I experience.  Being able to raise my hand and arm is definitely a good thing and I know many seniors with difficulties and pain in trying to do that.  Emails from friends, smiles of greeting and appreciation, central heating in Wisconsin winter, a car that runs and fuel I can afford - no doubt about it, I have plenty around me that is positive.

Taking a moment to look over a mental inventory of the good things I have and stating a few of them, describing what some positive is and how it feels to experience it increases my ability to focus on the positives and mentally balance them against the negatives.  The practice of realizing and describing something clearly positive is helpful in increasing my sensitivity to what is good in and around me.  In fact, describing our houseplants and my wife's steady care of them increases my insight into the positive side of her contribution, the plant's beauty and steady life, the fascinating way it quietly grows right in front of me in a way that I can't immediately detect and all sorts of beauties and delights that normally pass beneath my notice.  Our shoes, adding another day or hour to my life, the daily newspaper - virtually anything I pick has fascination and intriguing complexity in it, on it, by it, through it.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Invasion

During the last few days, Wisconsin has been experiencing an invasion.  Armed men and increasing numbers of women are arriving from other states.  Tomorrow morning at sunup, the gun season for deer begins.  Bright orange clothing appears in the woods as people begin patrolling for a chance to "take" a deer.

The hunting I am referring to is the gun season, although there is a separate season for muzzleloaded guns and a longer season for bow hunting.  The "gun" (rifle) season traditionally runs from the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after at sundown.  When we moved to Wisconsin more than 40 years ago, I had no experience with the social aspects of deer hunting.  I didn't know that generations of hunters, often the male members of a family, arrange for vacation time from their jobs, meet at a cabin in the northwoods built by a grandfather years ago and have fun for several days.  I didn't know that the women plan shopping and sometimes a tavern evening together, with an occasional set of male strippers thrown in.

I have never been shot but the idea comes to mind easily for me.  When we first moved here, I was surprised at the low number of hunting accidents there are.  During the 2011 season, there were 6 (none fatal) while there were more than 600,000 deer hunting licenses sold.  I was surprised at the number of heart attacks being almost equal to the number of accidents in the year we first moved here.  I understand just walking unaccustomed distances and moving the body to where it can be put in vehicle are two aspects of the hunt that can be taxing.

I have never hunted with a gun but I did one time with a friend during the bow season.  He got a shot and we found a blood trail but never found the deer.  Modern compound bows and crossbows can be precision instruments and have very strong power.  I read long ago that the Pope once forbade the use of crossbows by the faithful on the grounds that it was an inhuman weapon.  When you think that tremendous power can be held at the ready and released with a trigger, you can see it is a different deal.  The Wisconsin government recently passed a rule allowing crossbows in some parts of the hunting year.  The fact that the weapon may require use of the legs and feet to be loaded or may be loaded with a block and tackle, bypassing the old restriction of the hunter's arm, back and chest strength to draw the bow underscores the power of a modern crossbow.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

The world of sound

I started reading "The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind" by Horowitz at just about the same time as the local campus School of Communicative Disorders offered a four meeting class once a week on "aural rehabilitation."  I attended two of the sessions and the thing that got my attention was electronic enhancement and assistance for my hearing.

I don't notice any special limitations on myself when it comes to hearing other than understanding speech.  It isn't a matter of background noise, the subject that usually comes up.  It is a matter of speech speed, volume and distinctive pronunciation.  It may be related to "semantic nets", brain associations of sets of words, where I can recognize "ankle" better and more confidently if I have just heard "knee" or "turning" or "sprained".  I just talked to a retired professor of audiology who knows about my hearing and he said he is confident that the my loss of high pitched hearing often deprives me of the consonants in others' speech.  I think he is right.  I am reminded of what I have heard of the original of the word "barbarian".  The Greeks heard strange languages and they tended to sound like "bar bar bar".  For me, it is more like "ar ar ar".  

The Horowitz book discusses the vital need bats have for good hearing since they locate their food by sound and echo.  It discusses the Mars probes and attached microphones to let us hear the soundscape of that part of the red planet.  Nobody thinks it odd to have the landers take pictures of the area but collecting the sounds seem more far-fetched.

Prof. Horowitz says that he is working on a book on listening and I am looking forward to it.  Through Twitter's suggestions, I learned about the World Listening Project.  I just listened to a street in Shanghai at 6 AM local time.  

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Grabbing and going for it

We often hear that young people learn to use electronic devices quickly and deeply while older people struggle with them.  There is lots of truth to this idea, as anyone can see if they look in on 4 yr olds using iPads.  Teenagers often assist their grandparents with learning to do this or that with a smartphone, a tablet or a computer.

I work with both young people and senior citizens.  There is some truth to the notion that the oldsters don't learn such devices as quickly but aside of any slower speed of learning, I find several other reasons at work, such as older people have more wealth and they are naturally cautious about incurring law suits or damages, allowing scoundrels and thieves into their accounts and files.  It seems to be that they respect the trickiness of world more and want to know more (often than is reasonably possible to know) before they say Yes or click on a link.

We have noted that those under about age 30 use the verb "grab" more than older people.  Oldsters don't want to be impolite and "grab" things while the young are interested in being of good service and getting what needs to be done accomplished quickly.  That picture of speed for the young and more attention to the flavor of an act seems to fit with others we have of the older and the younger.

However, I notice that the young are prone to use the expression "Go for it!", not just in exhortations calling for genuine effort and push but also in small things.  I might say "I think I want vanilla ice cream and a young person says "Go for it!"  Of course, expressions come and go.  For a while, "you got that right" seemed to pop up quite often but has lost some popularity.  Still, I am interested in what might be called the fear and caution level among the young.  As the world becomes more complex and its complexity is more readily advertised, I suspect that young people feel the need of a little psychological push these days.  Maybe I could move to a new location, find a good marriage partner, become a parent, start and sustain a business, learn a new language.  With more communication and more advertising, it is easier to get the idea for a change in my life, for some impressive advance or attainment.  When others hear of my dream, their "Go for it!" may be just the encouragement I need.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Doesn't gloat well

I seem to be an inferior gloater.  Maybe I am just not sensitive enough.  Maybe I overthink the problem.  Maybe I am not a real man.  I am thinking about how to do better and watching for opportunities to train myself to a higher level of gloating.  

Our governor recently advised his political party not to gloat about the difficulties of their political opponents.  The word "gloat" caught my eye.  It doesn't seem to be a word I use much.  Noticing that fact was my first clue in evaluating my gloatability.  I use the word so little that I may be overlooking a good opportunity to broaden my communications.  It reminds me of "goat" and "groat".  

As I thought about it, I remembered the "bwa-ha-hah" of the various cartoon villains the kids see in their cartoons.  The evil villain is usually careful to announce his character and undefined but nasty intentions with a bass note, ringing and reverberating "bwa-ha-ha-ha-hah" laugh.  That sort of person is clearly an advanced gloater who could easily earn an A in gloating.  We recently saw a production of Carousel (1945), including the song "If I Loved You".  The lovers state that they don't love each other but explain what things would be like if they did.  They would be poor at loving, and "let their golden chances past them by". That is what I am afraid I am doing, letting some of my best chances to gloat really well, really impressively pass me by.

I just read today that poor behavior seems to be more contagious and travel through society more quickly and easily than good examples do.  Most of the great religions advise against gloating, on the grounds that it is cruel and also difficult to do well, since one looks so foolish when one finds oneself in just the situation one has recently gloated about having escaped.  But that is another thing that exasperates me: Gloating is supposed to be natural and easy to adopt and yet I don't seem to be up to the standard of good gloating.  Yes, maybe I am insensitive as a stone, maybe I am a fake man and not a real one.  Maybe I should just take the gloves off and wade into the best gloat I can do and not think about it.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Progress vs. change

It is easy to think of change as growth or improvement.  Conscious, deliberate, thought-out change may well be improvement toward a given goal.  However, if the context or conditions change drastically, what was an improvement could be a deficiency or liability.  Sometimes, the general success (so far) of humans is attributed to their flexibility, their ability to modify under changed conditions.

The well-known illustration of the evolution of humans shows what is easy to read as a progress from inferior or limited up to superior, maybe even perfected.  Yet, in truth, the ape may well have been closer to optimal for some conditions and some tasks and challenges.

We like to think that "every cloud has a silver lining" or that there is some good to be found in every event and every tragedy or loss.  I think but I'm not sure that most of the time, we can find some advantage in what seem to be negative events, failures, and shortcomings.  Even if we have to wait for years or several generations to see an effect of one difficulty or error or another, we can usually find something positive.  In thinking about ways to improve education and instruction, I was struck by the occasional student who said he wanted to be a teacher because he had a teacher who was so inferior or nasty or disorganized that the student wanted to do the job properly himself.  Thus, I saw that negative examples inspire, too.

There are textbooks, courses, associations and fashions in manufacturing and organizational studies and efforts that go by the name of "continuous improvement".  Even some exhortations and prayers ask us to strive to be better.  Careful analysis of processes in instruction, sales, making autos or computers or whatever does indeed lower costs, increase speed of production, decrease waste, etc.  What seems to be progress toward a goal is often just that, actual improvement.  However, in a time of vigorous change and innovation, it can help us to keep our feet on the ground and maintain a good perspective if we keep the idea that progression toward a goal is relative, not absolute.  

I imagine the manufacturers of buggy whips were as surprised as the manufacturers of video cassettes when despite the careful progress and hard work, the goals changed, wiping out the relevance of a goal.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Aural therapy

I have finished "The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind" by Seth Horowitz.  In the final pages, info on the author included links to his web site, company and special project of Aural Therapy.  I have hearing loss, especially in the high frequencies, like screeches and some bird song.  Like many other older men, I have trouble hearing some girls and young women and at least as much trouble making out what they actually say.  As I have written, I am fascinated by the effects that regular meditation can have.  Deepak Chopra and many others point out sound, as in humming "Om", or repeating the Rosary or other uses of sound and voice to train attention and to worship. When I use my breath as a point of focus, I like to listen to the sound of my breathing as a continuous anchor of attention.

Prof. Horowitz mentions in his book how proud he was to have created a sound sequence that make some people, including his boss, nauseated.  He wasn't trying to inflict misery, just researching connections between mind and sound.  The link above to his Aural Therapy web site goes to free sounds, one each for improving one's ability to focus, improving one's awareness of the present moment and feeling and appreciating where you are physically right now, and finally being refreshed and relaxed and recharged.  I saw that there is a TED talk about sound analysis of voice as a pretty good check to see if a person is suffering from Parkinson's disease.  So analysis of sound that comes from a body might be helpful, too.  Of course, the very sign of a physician is a stethoscope (hearing!) around the neck.

Sound can be funny.  I just started following Cheryl Tipp on Twitter, whose startling job is "natural sounds curator of the British Museum".  Some of my advanced singer friends love to sing advanced modern vocal music, since it is a challenge to sing, but they don't enjoy hearing it!

I am confident that some valuable and surprising things lie in store for our ears.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Research and leftovers

A friend said that he wanted to buy a tablet computer for himself.  I showed him mine and explained some of what I liked about it.  I know that some Samsung tablets are popular and Microsoft has its Surface tablet.  He said he thought he was most interested in the Kindle Fire and the iPad.  I think he has enough money so I said that maybe he wanted to buy both and see what he thought of them.  He laughed at the idea but I wasn't trying to be funny.

There have been several occasions when it seemed to me that research and exploration notions led to the idea of expenditures just for the purpose of good comparison and deeper experience.  One possible outcome might be that my friend makes use of two or three tablets, originally bought for comparison.  He might find different strengths and features in different machines and use them in circumstances where they have their own advantages.  He might find that he likes one best for nearly everything but that keeping one at his office or in his travel bag or other likely place provided a handy backup for unexpected use.

He might find one fitted in with his needs and desires so well that he basically never touched the others.  If that happened, he would have leftovers, new machines that work pretty well.  He would realize that it would be a shame to waste them and might think of loaning or giving them away.  Or reselling them.

I am interested in equipment that has been tested and compared and judged not the best.  Sometimes, such equipment is so poorly designed, as opposed to the best available, that it can be an impediment to loan it out, where its awkwardness or slow speed or high complexity interferes with others learning to use the technology.  A friend was brilliant but never mastered the idea of the internet and its vast stores of information and assistance.  Someone gave him a computer but it was an old one: slow, limited storage, lacking many of the features of newer machines.  I always wondered whether his attempt to learn to use it featured in his continued fear and rejection of computers.

I see cars on the road that come from the 1920's or 30's.  I am confident that enthusiasts can find such old machines and fix them so they run.  But I wonder how the safety, comfort and convenience of such cars compares to the current models most likely to meet the needs of today's drivers.

Another possible outcome of research and comparison is that the devices are found to be similar enough that it essentially doesn't matter which is used.  One could be selected to be the machine of use and the others, or some of them, would be found to be essentially superfluous, redundant.  In that case, perfectly good equipment is available for donation to others.  I loaned a friend a Kindle and I bought one to take its place.  I didn't pay attention when ordering it and got the model with a five-way directional switch instead of a touch screen.  It took about a day or so before I found the lack of a touch screen a sufficient impediment to using it that I decided it was worth it to me to buy still another Kindle with the touch screen.

I hadn't realized that using an iPad or other touch screen device made such a difference.  I have never felt that my typing or hand or finger use was all that great and I thought it wouldn't matter.  I was wrong.  For me, the touch-screen technology is one of those innovations that matters.  It makes a difference that is significant and important to me.  I realize that it may be that a very fast processor is part of the reason the touch works better since I can open a program, use it, close it, open a second, use it, close it and return to the first as faster or faster than I can simply open a program on a standard laptop.  As with my body and my mind, I am not always able to note and appreciate all the components of an experience or an ability.  I can only skim the surface and try to note what aspects of conscious experience seem to matter.

It can be surprising what can turn up as leftovers or donations these days.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Less realism, please

An expert in the history of writing, Prof.Marc Zender, went out of his way to emphasize that the study of ancient writing and language owes much to line drawing.  He said they are cheaper to create, transmit and print.  I am interested in modern programs and apps that take photos and change them into art.  I wanted to get something that could make just a line drawing with little or no shading from a photo but I couldn't find something that was quick and cheap.  I did find the iPad app "MobileMonet", which is actually made to create a more complex and Impressionist-type version of a photo.  

I realize that sometimes my greatgrandchildren are more attracted to a cartoon movie than one shot with real cameras of real scenes.  Prof. Zender emphasized that line drawings can emphasize something while omitting distracting detail.  The camera can get the exact curve of a line much more accurately than I can.  I imagine that the children take some comfort in watching images that don't seem all that real (and menacing).

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety