Pen and paper handy

With poor hearing, it can be a help to write. Besides, the use of head and hand to make a note can be valuable exercise.  We make a shopping list that hangs on the refrigerator and we made a list of new shows we might try on our streaming television.  

A person can make many  notes on a single 8x11 in. piece of paper.  I can fold a single sheet and have it in my pocket.  Sometimes, it is possible to borrow a pen or pencil from somebody nearby but I have tried carrying a Palm ballpoint by Bazic.  They are much shorter and more compact than other ballpoints.  https://www.google.com/search?q=Palm+pen+by+Bazic

My main complaint is that the cap is too easily knocked off, possibly inking my pants.

Beyond poor hearing, I experience "senior moments", those times when I cannot recall a name that I know I know.  If I wait five or ten minutes, the elusive name often comes to me but who has five or ten minutes?  Often a concept I may want to write about is abstract and very forgettable.  I have a practice of noting five topics as candidates for the day's blog post. They are often abstract and are quite easily forgotten.  I can often forget an idea while searching for paper and pen.  I have read that anybody traveling through a doorway increases the chance of forgetting what he is thinking.  

My collection of blog posts and my websites serve as helpful repositories of ideas and my history.   I have two spiral notebooks of possible blog post topics.  I am getting ready to start a third one.

Who? Me?

Between changing times and modern communication, I see more examples of what may be sloppy guilt by association.  I do think if I am often seen with gang members, it makes sense to at least suspect that I am a gang member, too.  However, I may be a sweetheart of a guy, the one trying to steer the gang into charity and helpful, healthy activities.  Before you discount my morals, try to check with me or my friends.

You might want to do similar thinking and checking if you find my background includes criminals and people with acts or activities in their history that are shady or criminal.  I realize that much of humanity paid attention to family descent so that the son of the king was next in line to be the ruler.  Similarly, people may well feel that if I am descended from Jack the Ripper or Jesse James, I might carry criminal tendencies within me.  Two parents each have parents so I have four grandparents.  During my life, I only met two of my grandparents as two were deceased before I was born.  But, again, criminals and misfits related to me might still leave me personally innocent.  

I get a sense that it is the current fashion to steadily deny any misdoing, any accusation of committing a wrong.  Still, it may be that I truly am innocent.

Tax needed

Some group is poised to institute a baloney tax. Probably the Depublicans or Repucrats.  I realize that levying a tax is an expensive operation but I guess the country is ripe for some work to be done on exaggeration, out-of-control use of language and dangerous wording.  It was our box of prunes that made me notice the surprising extent of language shenanigans in our society today.  

Our box says "Enjoy living life to the fullest" with these prunes.  There are various avenues of discussion that are frequently used in our country and increasingly, those lines involve widespread happiness and beyond.  We can find sources that imply that there is happiness of a more or less standard sort and happiness "to the fullest", where you all want to be if you can just reach it.  

With the proper mission, government monies can improve the lives of many citizens who lack useful education.   The young, the elderly and the gullible could benefit from monies gathered from the baloney tax, administered by the Agency Reining In Expansive Claims (AREC). 

Not now!

We got an old-fashioned item today: a phone book. I think it was Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and another name I just found, Ronald Wayne, t.ly/iwfnn who managed to severely restrict phone books and their usefulness. Across this very large country, it took a while to string lines and create the company I heard about as a kid: "AT&T".  The American Telephone and Telegraph Company spread across America and stimulated other nations. The telegraph and the telephone each have interesting stories and backgrounds.  Being able to communicate almost instantly from California to New York at first seemed impossible and now we take it for granted.

Years later, the Apple Computer Company came along.  There were predecessors, as there usually are.  Apple already had small computers that were far more portable than the cabinets of disc drives.  But iPods, pocket sized audio players that could hold unusually large numbers of musical compositions, morphed, in the cellphone age, into really portable individual phones.  Excellent design sparked today's scenes of groups of people all looking at their "smartphone" pocket-sized computers.  

Current scripts of movies and television shows make much use of the abrupt phone call.  Our gorgeous heroine is driving along when her own phone rings.  She has a modern interface in the car that allows her to answer the phone without taking her eyes off the road.  Her caller has wonderful news or terrible news and the message rocks the storyline.  

Lynn is back from Florida so I cannot easily blunder into her life with another phone call.  More than once, I managed to call just as she was pulling up to tollbooths and parking lot gates, asking for her precious attention at just the moment when she was trying to retrieve a ticket for the lot or admission.  My grandfather never made such ill-timed interruptions.

Imagine that!

My friend, Dr. Riggs, encouraged me to learn about what scientists are learning about the human brain, conscious and unconscious minds and related subjects.  I think the two most memorable and affecting books I have read about that are "Incognito" by Eagleman and "7 and ½ Lessons About Your Brain" although Lynn and I started with "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Doidge and others.  We often hear how wonderful and complex our brains are.  Still, I can see the difference between imagining or remembering and actual presence in reality.

It only takes a few investigative questions to grasp that imagining my sister picking raspberries and seeing her do that are not the same.  Was she in the act of picking when I saw her?  Which hand was picking?  What time of day did it seem to be?  My book group recently read "Remember" by Dr. Lisa Genova, neuroscientist.  She makes an emphatic point that if you want to remember, you have to pay attention.  When my sister and I picked raspberries, I didn't pay attention to which hand she was using at the moment.  Genova stresses that if I don't pay attention to where I park my car, I won't have a memory of its location later.  

I have been thinking about acceptance of life and circumstances vs. the modern urge to improve.  Several of my friends and I are getting on in years and we wonder about afterlife.  The more we explore what would Heavenly bliss be like, the more clearly we see that bliss is excellent in spurts but we seem to be constructed to face intermittent problems and disappointments.  So, as we apply our imaginations to our hopes for a very fine Heavenly experience, we feel a need for attention to details.  We are thinking of enrolling in harp lessons but we may need to practice our suffering high levels of heat, too

Clever milk

Just about eight months ago, I visited a local community's wastewater treatment plant.  Maybe eight or so people from our local campus "learning in retirement" organization drove the 40 miles to visit. 

We learned that several products are labeled "flushable" that aren't.  They don't dissolve well and can clog pipes, especially when there is a mass of them.  Toilet paper dissolves well and doesn't cause a problem.  

We also learned that the plant has a new robot that climbs through a network of pipes and transmits pictures of what it was finding.  The employee who told us sounded quite pleased with the new-found possibility of seeing what the robot finds.  

I didn't realize that the mental image of that robot crawling through pipes would strike me and stay with me.  Dan Buettner's "Blue Zones Kitchen", about the diet that extra-long-living residents of the world's Blue Zones eat, helped me decide to have many breakfasts of the same cereal, Heritage Flakes.  I like them enough to buy a small bulk order from Amazon.  A bowl of those flakes, along with banana slices and blueberries, makes a nice and complex network of crooks and nannies, ins and outs.  Yet my milk, poured right from the gallon jug, finds its way through them all, every morning!

Let's invent some rules

I think the last few years have been instructive for me.  I feel I understand political processes a little better from them.  One of the angles of seeing and understanding comes under the heading of "bylaws".  

A carpenter joins a carpenter co-operative, a group aimed at sharing work opportunities and the ups and downs of making a living together.  Say, a new member, or maybe one of the originators of the group, starts wearing very, very short shorts. Some members don't think his way of dressing is appropriate and he can pick up their disapproval without any words being exchanged.  At lunch one day, the subject of appropriate on-the-job dress comes up.  Another originator pulls out his copy of the group's bylaws and reads Section 4.2 aloud.  It says that on-the-job dress is recognized as an individual matter and the group shall make no rules impinging on the individual's choice of work costume.

Until this section of the bylaws was drawn to the members' attention, some had not read the by-laws.  Several had no idea that the group had any bylaws.  Some of the longtime members remember the long discussions of the proposed bylaws.   Some of the longtime members felt at the time that several of the bylaws were wrong, badly constructed or unduly restrictive.  As members of the group began to read through these bylaws, some felt they were out-of-date while some liked the ideas expressed and admired the language used.

As far as I know, this cooperative of carpenters does not exist.  I made them up.  None of them said 'bylaws, schmylaws, I didn't write them or agree to them and I ain't following them.'

Spreading beyond humans

I sometimes hear that humans have language and that is a tremendous advantage.  I agree and much of my life is about speaking/listening to speech and reading/writing written words.  I think speech developed among humans long before writing, although making meaningful marks goes back a surprisingly long way.

I guess no animal can speak in the human sense of doing so as well as a parrot can.  Lynn showed me a short video clip on Facebook of a parrot speaking over an open phone line to another parrot.  Very impressive and thought-provoking to me.  I use Facetime and Zoom to see and talk to people far away.  Maybe parrots are going to start doing the same thing.  I guess, for now, they need human help but who knows what's ahead?  Think of Alexa, Siri and Cortana.  

I googled "Can parrots use Alexa?"  (https://www.google.com/search?q=can+parrots+use+Alexa)  I guess some parrots have ordered themselves treats with Alexa's help.  My wife uses Siri, another voice-based assistant, to search with Google.  I haven't seen frightened comments about dark and frightening future events featuring wi-fi technology and other species but I suspect that many animals don't like the deal they have been getting from humans and their habits and their habitats.  

If some experimenters record commands and make a mechanism for animals to play the recordings, non-speaking animals could send orders, too.   Just something to think about.

Where does this book go?

I read that the internet was preceded by scientists linking computers together remotely to quickly share and compare data.  I also heard a college job placement officer say that these days, one should not graduate from college without knowing how to use a spreadsheet.  It is amazing to take a long list of names and have Excel, or OpenOffice or Google Sheets alphabetize the whole thing in seconds, with, of course, NO errors.  

I considered writing today's post on books I have read that have influenced me strongly but I have done similar things quite often.  I will do that another day.  Thinking of fast spreadsheet and computer operations did bring to mind the surprising book by Judith Flanders called "A Place for Everything" subtitled "The curious history of alphabetical order"  When I first read that, I was surprised.  I felt I could grasp what a book was about if it focused on the history of our alphabet.  The letters and how to shape them took a while to develop, I imagine.  But a history of alphabetical ORDER?????  

Then, I learned that old libraries, such as the famous one in Alexandria, Egypt, had no plan for storing books in an orderly, convenient way to find them.  I read that if you wanted a particular title you thought might be in the library, the best thing to do was ASK THE LIBRARIAN where to find that book.  Then, somebody said storing books on shelves was a fine chance to please God so put them on the shelf in the order of their importance to Him.  Sometime later, somebody got the idea of arranging them, not by size of the book nor the color of the cover but by the first letter of the author.  I guess it took years before some genius offered the idea of using all the letters in the author's name, not just the first one. 

Different stamps

The computer I write on runs Microsoft Windows.  Sometimes, it is helpful to be aware of what company's product you are using.  In this case, as in most, it is Microsoft Windows that is the operating system of this computer.  When I mail my blog, I basically have two pieces: the title of the post and the content, in addition to a mailing list of email addresses.  With a Windows computer, I can copy more than one item at once and have either ready to paste.  The key on laptop Windows keyboard that looks like it is meant to represent a window can keep different items copied and ready to paste, much like having two separate rubber stamps:

You load up one image at a time but holding down the Windows key and pressing V, a typical Paste key, gives the choice of which Window to paste.  This operation is sometimes described as using two clipboards.  It is handy to have the ability to stamp the subject line and to also have the ability to stamp the whole body of that day's post.

This page t.ly/46Ao (short link using Firefox browser tools) says I can have up to 24 separate stamps using Windows-paste.

Tweeking my feelings

I read years ago that when two researchers were constructing a scale trying to measure shock and stress, they used the death of a longtime spouse as the strong hit many people take.  When Lynn went away to tend to her brother, I was surprised at how disoriented I felt, despite knowing about the researchers.  This time, I was better prepared.  

I realize that the timing for a day of flying from a branch airport involves getting up early and disrupting the normal schedule of a day.  Being tired all by itself can do funny things to a person, especially if the person has gotten on in years.  I have stayed aware of all my feelings and confusions this time and it is going more smoothly.  Also, I am gaining respect for my ability to see into myself.

I have gotten some good from Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett of Cornell University.  She has a book "How Emotions Are Made" and a TED talk on the same subject.  It may sound odd but she says that our emotions are predictions made by our brain as to how we feel and accept things.  She writes:

Let's unpack an example. Suppose that you are in an airport waiting for your close friend to arrive for a visit, her

first one in a long time. As you stare at the exit gates and await her imminent arrival, your brain is busily issuing

thousands of predictions based on your concepts, in milliseconds, all outside of your awareness. After all, there

are a host of different emotions you might experience in such a situation. You could experience the happiness of

seeing your friend, the anticipation that she's about to appear, the fear that she won't arrive, or worry that you

might no longer have anything in common. You could also have a non-emotional experience, like the exhaustion

of your long drive to the airport, or the perception of tightness in your chest as a symptom that you're coming

down with a cold.

Somewhere, Prof. Barrett makes clear that the social group and culture we learn affects us, too.  I feel learning that has helped me modify my emotions into feelings that I want.

DNA and me

I recommend that you have your DNA analyzed.  There are several ways to do this and there are several companies that will do the analysis.  I have had mine done four times but two of them are no longer available.  

I think it is fun to think back on the chain of creatures that produced offspring all the way down to me.  I think it is amazing that all people had a mother and a father, even if they don't know very much about one of those contributors or maybe both of them.

I have not been very interested in whether I descend from royalty or famous people.  The important fact for me has been the long, long descent line.  If you are interested in humans and genetic lines, you may look at the 23andMe company but there are several other groups to check you out.  

I like to say that I am descended from blue-green algae and cockroaches even though people who know what they are talking about may be able to show that that is not really possible.  An interesting book I have read related to this subject is "The 10,000 Year Explosion" by Cochran, Harpending and others.

I am willing to kill

I figure I weigh more than 600 times his weight.  I ought to be able to defeat him.  But he has youth, great physical speed and wild instincts on his side.  He has better hearing  and sense of smell. I met him the other day on the way back from the mailbox.  There he was on the doorstep in front of the door into the house, looking like he wanted somebody to open that door and let him in.  

He was a fine looking chipmunk. I thought yelling and banging things about, striking a mop handle against various objects would terrify him and send him off in a panic.  The garage door was open but he seems reluctant to use it.  I chased hither and yon but creeping at the ready with my mop handle at the ready, I spotted him hiding behind some garden tools.  I opened the side door and that let in a strong breeze.  I thought the breeze might encourage his exit. I tried to hit him with my mop spear but of course, I missed.  He took off for the side door and ran into the woods.  

Durned if I didn't hear him banging into things again this morning when I went to get the newspaper.  The little pain!  Again with the side door.  I went and got a mouse trap, one of the special kind that is an improvement on the traditional model.  It is larger and sensitive over a greater area.  Alluring peanut butter in place and the trap is designed to strike if he even tries to sniff the bait.  He may be strong enough to carry the trap off with him or wily enough to wiggle out after getting struck.  I am willing to keep fighting. 

Nerdy search

CNN's Five Things had a short comment and link to a situation in a Mexican soccer match where a goalie grabbed an attempt to score and kicked the ball all the way into the opposing goal.  Two of our greatgrandchildren are rigorous and devoted soccer players so we have many chances to see a game.  When a goalie makes a save, most of both teams of players are fairly close by.  In the Mexican game, no one was defending the opposing goal.  Why should they?  All the action was on the other end of the field.

t.ly/fRrT - click on this short link if you want to see the play.  Scroll down the page for the video

The goalie's kick travels the entire field and rolls into the unprotected goal at the other end of the field.

Every time I look at the video, I can feel a sense of wonder and exhilaration shoot through me.  In typical nerd manner, I wondered what was happening inside me that I so quickly and strongly felt exhilaration. I searched "exuberance" and "good excitement".  I thought dopamine has to be involved and yes: "If you have a high dopamine level, you might feel: Euphoric. Energized. "  Euphoric is exactly the word. 

Passwords

When I am zipping around the internet, I come to a screeching halt when I suddenly come upon a window for a password.  I try to keep straight about what I use but I often have to click on Forgot.  After I jump through hoops to get set up properly again, I fail to write down my new credentials.  When I don't fail, I use a scrap of paper which then gets thrown away, ground up or kept in the wrong place. 

Sometimes, I am forced to use 19 step verification.  Before I finish, I get distracted or discouraged and find something else to do.  Later, I remember what I was trying to do  and go through the whole deal all over again.  This problem reminds me of yesterday's blog post that mentioned people with the same name as I have. The whole deal with passwords is about getting the right person to the right data.  So, we have the use of the face, the fingerprints, and all sorts of attempts to use the body for verification that I am indeed the account owner and I have full permission and should be let in.

So far, I think hackers have not found a way to duplicate my physical body or parts of it to get them into places they have no business being.  I do have some sympathy for hackers, though.  The other day, I checked one of my bills.  I was surprised to find that a hacker had gotten confused.  Being vulnerable to clever page layout and demanding wording, the hacker coughed up the funds and paid my bill for me!

It's me, not him!

To get around the internet, one needs a browser, like Edge or Chrome.  I like the one called Firefox. It has a history that includes early work and it includes easy links to Pocket.  The more I use it, the more I collect free interesting and useful articles from many publications.  Today, I saw an article called "Why Are So Many Asian American Women Named Connie?"  

t.ly/Rg2Zp (short link, provided by Firefox)

A Chinese American woman was told by her parents that she could select an American name for herself and she chose "Connie".  She knew about the newswoman Connie Chung and liked her.  She was in a shop one day and her name was called to pick up an order that was ready.  The call used her name but the order was for another Chinese American woman, who had the same name she did. Back at her dorm, she did some exploring of names of students at her college and there were many with her name.

I read about 50 years ago that Kirby was the 511th most common name in the US.  I learned the term "Googleganger", formed after the German word "doppelganger", literally "double-goer", another person, unrelated but who looks very much like me.  A Googleganger is a person who also has my name.

I have known for a while that there are many other living Americans with my first and last name, spelled the way I spell mine.  There was a joke in a TV show, where a person explained the members of her family: "my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl".  Normally, we use names to keep people straight and parents would not name two children with the same name.

These days, the business of identity, identification is very much alive as I try to show a computer that I am the right guy.  Middle names, addresses, phone numbers, zip codes, birthdates, location and other bits of info connected to me are often used to identify me.

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I recommend "Call the Midwife" on Netflix and wherever else you can watch it.  That show and Acorn TV 's "Doc Martin" (the app "Just Watch" says Doc can be seen on Apple TV, too) are our standbys these days.  Especially the Midwife show emphasizes how mothers figure centrally in our existence.  Hope you are having a good Mother's Day.

If you are in the mood, take a look at CNN's Photos of the Week: t.ly/4942

My book club selection

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky warned me back in 1968 about anchoring.  They said that when a painter offers to paint my room for $100, that price of $100 may well serve as an anchor for my thinking.  Offers for less are "cheaper" while offers for a higher price are "more expensive".  The anchor serves much like the zero on the Farenheit temperature scale, a reference point.

When my book club decides on the next book, my brain refers to a price for the book using the reference point of $9.99 for an e-copy.  That price or lower is ok and higher isn't ok.  If I am not enthusiastic about a book and the price is above my reference point, I often look for a summary of the book.  Cliff's Notes are still around but there are alternatives sometimes.  I am persnickety and don't want a long summary.

The club discusses a book, which is a complicated social event. It can involve a wide range of questions and comments.  I try somewhat to be a good member of the group but even knowing the book by heart doesn't guarantee that I will contribute valuable comments.  I realize that I make some contribution by showing up and commenting when appropriate.

A participant in a talk I gave recently said that he saves money and gets ideas about a book from YouTube.  He said that between authors, booksellers and publishers promoting a book  and comments and presentations related to it, he picks up plenty of information about a book and even its effect, reception by others and opinions about it and related works.

Books and activities to increase enjoyment of life

Tan, David, Lisa and Larry

I keep reading about the stress of life.  I am sorry for difficulties but I am afraid that too many people fail to use tools they have at hand to lower their stress level and deal with what is left.  Let me mention tools and authors who can be very helpful.  

1. Chase-Meng Tan  - Author of Search Inside Yourself and Joy on Demand.

2. David Eagleman - Author of Incognito

3. Lisa Barrett Feldman - Author of 7 and a ½ Lessons About the Brain and How Emotions are Made

4. Larry Rosenberg - Author of Breath by Breath

#1 will help you develop the habit of meditation.  Tan says you need a mind and one conscious breath.

#2 will help you appreciate how much of you isn't part of your conscious, aware mind.

#3 will help show what else goes on in your body and brain.

#4 shows how to use that ever-present breathing that you do to be more in touch with all of you, including parts that get to choose how to feel about your situation and the deal life gives you.

You can get all six books for $26 if you buy used versions from Amazon.

You are a miracle in yourself, even if you don't want to hear that.  You can select how you want to feel and feel that, even if you don't believe that.  I am not saying that everything will be rosy at all times.  Since you have never had everything be rosy all the time, you haven't experienced that situation.  It's true that you need a little counter-rosy, a little anti-rosy once in a while but when you do, you can arrange to find and experience it a bit and then get back to rosy.

Charged with being an information junkie

My wife of more than 60 years says I am an information junkie.  t.ly/YiZdC  (short Firefox link to "information junkie").  I prefer the description: curious.  As I look over the first couple results of that linked search, I find that several of the links would take me to information (!) on how to stop being an information junkie.  I feel, as I guess many junkies do, that my curiosity is under reasonable control.  I am not seeking to be less curious.  

I read that Google search will soon include a link to the much ballyhooed ChatGPT, the bot that can answer questions.  But I have found that sensible questions and weird ones both can be answered or extended right now with Google search and with Duckduckgo search.  Not long ago, I searched "How can I get her to love me more?" As usual, I got some responses from experts, advisors, nuts, and sensible scholars, too.  

When I search in Google, I get a number that represents how many results the search has turned up.  I don't get such a number in Duckduckgo but maybe it is available somewhere somehow.  I just put "information junkie" in Google and got the number 38,400,000 for the number of results.  With a somewhat typical search like that, I wouldn't bother trying to see all the results.  I imagine that after a dozen or so pages of results, the relevance would drop plenty.  I don't have the interest or the stamina to go very far into the results.

There have been some searches that only reported a few results.  

If you are interested in being a search junkie, look at "The Joy of Search" by Daniel M. Russell.  He is a Google employee and works in search.  He heads a group that participates in searches, much like people on Jeopardy participate in answering questions.  I get notices from Russell every now and then but the topics have not been of interest.  

Google often shows questions that people have asked about any topic of search.  Reading the questions often suggests related topics and avenues of thought that are valuable.

Did he know?

I told my friend, a member of an Orthodox synagogue, that I didn't know much about Kosher laws or rules and that is true.  I saw a headline recently in the Pew religious newsletter about 'Kosher electricity'.  He asked if I thought that was funny.  I said it could be.  

I have been reading "Einstein's Fridge" by Paul Sen.  I know that it took a long time for scientists to understand electricity as much as they do and to also understand power, such as electrical power, power in sunlight and mechanical power as in a windmill or a combustion engine.  

I taught a course called "Futures" for several years.  I feel that I firmly grasp the difference between the past, the present and the future.  That course was also taught by partners, one a historian of science and one a specialist in the environments of the earth and natural resources.  The title is purposely plural since it can be important that predictions are often incorrect and that different predictors come up with different versions of future events.

To me, it is not wise to expect insightful people in the past to have foresight about events, practices, discoveries that happen centuries after they live.  The science writer Carl Zimmer wrote "Planet of Viruses" and described the discovery of viruses, life so tiny that the existence of viruses had to be inferred, not observed, with the tools of that time.  The beginning of that work happened in the 1840's, more recent than the founding of our country.  Working hard to find a way of interpreting the writings of Nostradamus so that we can feel that Nosie foresaw viruses is a waste and misleading, I think.

A friend phoned

She did what is logical: she called a friend who might know. She wanted a "phone number" for a friend of hers.  The phone situation can vary and it is different from my childhood and early years.  We talked briefly and "phone book" was mentioned.  t.ly/Qoz_b

In the 1950's and 60's, phone books were still distributed by the local phone company.  The list was in alphabetical order by last name and showed the last name, the first name, the street address and the phone number.  We understood that phoning that number makes a phone ring in that household.  When a family member answered, you stated who was calling and who you wanted to speak to.

t.ly/szJz

Here, we still have what is called a "landline" now but used to be the household phone and very likely, the only phone in the house.  We like our landline since it provides a single number that we can both use and it connects to an answering machine that will record a voice message.  Maybe ¾ of the calls we get these days are labeled "spam risk" and we usually don't answer those calls.  We have read that some spammers and scammers are able to fake numbers and names but we have not knowingly experienced anything like that.

Since a large number of people carry their (only?) phone in their pocket, you may need their own individual number to arrange a conversation with them.  But, carrying that phone right with you means that whatever and wherever you are, you can be interrupted, even at very wrong times, by a phone call.  Such immediate moments of contact are frequently used as dramatic or comedic tools in today's movies and television shows.  

Economically, it can help businesses and bank accounts to advertise.  Our postal systems will deliver flyers to individual houses but you need addresses to send them.  So, email is currently popular as a cheap, quick way of explaining the wonderful sale your store is about to offer, if you have email addresses.  Texting is probably cheaper than emailing but emails can deliver pictures which matter in human communication.  Still, for phones and texting, one needs phone numbers.

Changing times

Once in a while, I learn of something that seems really different, things that my grandfather would never have heard about.  One such item is parrots talking to other parrots using Zoom or Facetime-type software.  Look it up.  The topic is a current one and I am confident that Google or other search programs will supply links to what has been happening.  When I read "What Hath God Wrought" by the historian Gordon Walker Howe, I learned that the amazing feat of communicating with someone in California while being in New York City was nearly completely beyond belief.  In an attempt to explain how that could possibly be, one explanation was that people were using lightning to accomplish such "talk".  Today, we are much more comfortable with the notion of electricity and its uses.  But at that time, many people had zero experience with anything 'electrical'.

Another, somewhat futuristic topic, at large today is chatbots.  The one that has gotten plenty of press lately is ChatGPT.  There are all sorts of predictions that this type of Large Language Model will upset many practices and ideas.  If you take a large library and connect it to a powerful, fast computer, you might have a research assistant that can quickly answer a very broad range of questions.  I have been advocating making similar use of the Google search "engine" and asking questions of interest and seeking topics and subsubjects related to what happens to be on my mind.  

I read today in the Numlock News newsletter that money managers made .8% profit while a chatbot made 4.9% profit working with stocks.  That is just the sort of event that worries people about emerging artificial intelligence.

Warmly walking

It is overcast and about 74°.  We just got back from a walk of a mile or so.  Stevens Point has a Green Circle that is handy for walking and biking.  

We were overdressed for the walk wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants.  Several pairs of walkers and bikers as well as individuals passed us as we walked.  We often feel young, strong and energetic at the beginning of a walk and fatigued but virtuous at the end.

We know that authorities and experts recommend exercise to continue to live well and sometimes we follow such recommendations.

Some Sundays I send a link to CNN Photos of the Week but I didn't think they were especially good today.  Mobs, crowds, disasters and sports events can all furnish examples of excitement and strong emotions.  So I look for unusual sights and shots.  Personally, I think our media and our culture is a bit too set to dismiss anything that is not astounding as unimportant.  Much of the beauty and inspiration in life is quiet and subtle.

It is asking a lot

I had more than 60 years practice writing the numerals to designate the year by beginning with a one and a nine as in "19".  It has been 23 years since I could do that and I am still uncomfortable.  Very often, when I write a date, I try to catch myself before I spoil the document with a "19" date.  

It is asking a lot to give a person decades of practice doing one thing and then after only 23 years, expecting him to use a different set of figures.  The days of the week have the same names.  The months have the same names.  I think it is impolite to change a good way of writing the digits for the year all of sudden.  

I propose that we take to the streets in protest!  We need crowds and banners and shouting!  We have given this silly 20 a good test and it is uncomfortable!  If we put our brains to the problem, somebody can come up with a handy and elegant solution.  There are many charming and evocative events that are 1900 years in the past.  Let's start numbering from one of them.  Are you with me?  Let's print up some catchy t-shirts!

That one pump

We live on the outskirts of town and most of our trips are into town for one thing or another.  From our house into town, the route we take includes going right by a BP gas station.  That place has 6 gas pumps.   One of them has signs on it that explain profits from that one pump are donated to the local public schools.  

The station is right on my way for many trips and purposes and I like the idea of using that pump and contributing to the schools.  I needed gas this morning and I stopped by that station.  A car was pulled up to that pump so I pulled over more or less out of the way and waited.  It can sound dumb but I am actually trying to improve my waiting skills.  So, here was a chance!

There were four or five cars on the lot, which includes the pumps, a convenience store and a separate drive-through car wash.  It is quite possible to pull up to that pump, overlook the signs and get some gas.  So, I watched with interest to see if my car standing out there, doing "nothing" attracted any curiosity.  It seemed that the driver at my desired pump realized I was just waiting.  When there are several other pumps available, why would someone go to the trouble of waiting to use that one?

I don't know that woman and I don't remember the car.  I think there is only a very small chance that I will ever be in a position to ask her or to explain. 

I looked up the topic "BP gas pump donating to local schools" and found reports of similar situations from several gasoline companies at many US locations.  t.ly/cVmS

I went to see my nurse practitioner

I went to see my nurse practitioner today. She would like to see me gain a little weight.  I am going to try to consume a few more calories each day.  I had my blood pressure checked and the sound of my breathing. I will probably live another few months, at least.  

Well, what she actually said was that I am doing well but it might be good if I lost a few pounds.  

I have never lived to this age before and I am finding what happens interesting.  I don't plan to live to a great age but what I plan and what happens are often different.

I don't like using the term "nurse practitioner".  I want to use "doctor" or "physician" but I know that would be misleading and against typical usage.  I have spent plenty of time thinking about the effect of education and the use of degree names like "MD".  I haven't got a term that fits and that I like

Link to search result

My friend had cataract surgery. We have been told by physicians that cataract surgery is one of the most popular surgeries.  It is rather quick and the recovery is usually fairly speedy.  

I am a fan of Mozilla's "Firefox" browser.  One of several features that I use often is its short link maker.  In the upper right corner of the Firefox window is a blue chain link icon.  Clicking on that icon immediately creates a short link to the page being viewed.  It is handy and the link is compact.  I have had cataract surgery in each eye and several other surgeries.  I did a search of my blog for "surgery" and this is a short link to the result.  

Here is the short link to the search result.  The search resulted in 45 printable pages so I am confident that you won't want to read it all.

t.ly/sIVM

Important moments

I have been looking over the titles of Kindle books I own.  There are several thousand of them and I don't know my own collection very well. I often have the experience of learning of a book that sounds interesting, looking it up on the Amazon website and seeing a little note that I own that book.  That has happened often enough that I am trying to go through them and read ones I have skipped and re-read ones that strike me as worth a second look, now that I am old and wise.

Books by the deceased author Robert A. Johnson are charming, unusual and informative.  I have re-read "She: Understanding Feminine Psychology" ($10.99 in Kindle format) and I am half-way through "He: Understanding Masculine Psychology"($13.99 in Kindle), both by Johnson, who has several other books.  Johnson and Carl Jung paid much attention to myths and worked to see important facts and trends in them that apply to our lives.  

Young people of late high school, early college years, say from age 15 and beyond for many, often cannot tell very clearly when they come upon a pivotal moment in their lives.  When you are living along, everything seems important and mundane at the same time.  Inspired by "He", I thought of what seem to be pivotal moments in my life.  I have mentioned them in several posts in this blog.  Going to college was one and to graduate school was another.

When my high school teacher asked us about plans, I wrote "the Navy and college after I save money".  A few days later, our guidance counselor said "Go to college."  After teaching the 5th grade for a couple of years, I learned that I needed an advanced degree to continue.  Once I had those goals in mind, it was fairly straightforward to reach them.

News sources

Five Things - not available on Saturday, from CNN

Numlock News - paragraphs about items that involve numbers

Google News

NPR News

Heather Cox Richardson

Popular Information

A person doesn't need too much news but it can be fun to read daily reports.  Some things are definitely unpleasant such as disasters, wars, disease and crimes.  We do get the local newspaper, which has shrunk.  It is often just a few pages. I am interested in what subject the headlines and front page are about.  Recently, I knew a couple of people listed in the obituaries so I have begun looking at them.  

I don't have any scientific or objective method for deciding on sources.  I like reading more than watching news on TV and if I feel I am being wrongly guided or limited, I switch.  

I remind myself that many news items are generalities and close examination might change the impression I leave with.  My state has about 5 million residents, my country 332 million and the world about 8 billion.  Many people keep their thinking on their work or a special set of projects and interests.  Neither they nor I can know much about anything so the news is filtered and shaped.  It has to be to make sense.  I currently feel that the sources listed above do a fairly good job for my tastes and interest.