Are we in danger of running out of names?

This post is not about the interesting problem of googlegangers, a term some have adapted from Dopplegangers, a concept from German that conceptualizes someone who looks like me but isn't me.  For many purposes on the internet and elsewhere, my name is me.  So, a googleganger is a person with my exact name other than me.   No, this post is about name duplication and about applications of a name to very different things.  

This post is about the more common situation where a name is applied to two very different things. Sometimes, confusion can result.  As a teen, I dated Bonnie.  My parents thought I saw her too much. They thought I was too young to get too serious.  I purposely dated another Bonnie so I could date who I wanted, hoping they would assume I was not dating too-serious Bonnie but the other Bonnie.  It worked for a little while..

I read about 11 lines of computer code that was called "kik" and another program elsewhere also called Kik.  The computers didn't distinguish between kik and Kik and trouble resulted.  I think the imaginative and observant French-American academic Jacues Barzun may have expressed the possibility that as science discovered all sorts of new things in our world, we might have trouble inventing new words enough to name them all.  Maybe we will use subscripts when we write our words2

Hydration makes a difference, especially for old people

Both Lynn and I have had some stomach flu in the last few days.  I have strived to keep hydrated during that time.  You know when you are feeling upset, a big glass of water may be the last thing you want so there may be a time when a person wants to pause water intake.  Still, I tried pretty vigorously to get back to my routine of 16 gulped oz. of water at waking up, 16 oz about 2 or 3 PM and various smaller glasses at dinner and afterwards while reading aloud and watching TV.

I am impressed with how little being sick with vomiting took out of me while staying rather hydrated.  I have a suspicion that if humans tend to secure better longevity and better enjoyment of their extra life time, better hydration will play an important part.  The book "Quench" by Cohen and Bria and many other sources can supply ideas and standards.  As I understand it, old people lose some of the ability to tell they are short of water.

Getting there

Had a very good sleep last night.  My appetite is returning, had a normal breakfast.  Lynn and I took a short walk outside.  We will probably finish volume 2 of the Lars Mytting trilogy about life in past times in Norway today.

Now it is my turn

Yesterday evening and today, Lynn has been recovered but I have gotten sick.  It is its traditional level of yuck.  I seem to be making slow progress over the upset.

Who?

Sometimes, we look out our back windows and see deer, usually a doe and her fawn or fawns.  We have seen turkeys in our yards, usually four, a parent and her three.  But lately we haven't seen a single living animal.  Wisconsin has wolves, cougars and bears, both black and brown.  None have ever been seen in our yard.  There have been no humans, either.  But look carefully and you can see disturbances in the snow surface, ALL made by animals! Right outside!!

(Just ignore the finger tip.)

Sick!

The biggest thing in my life currently started yesterday evening.  We, more Lynn than me, had a busy day.  We ate dinner out.  Later, Lynn said she wasn't feeling good. That's not what either of us wants to hear but it was the beginning of a difficult night.  She seems to be on the mend now and we both appreciate that.

Bandicoot

The other day, the name "Bandicoot" came to mind, for no good reason I know of.  I thought it was the name of a character in a comic strip I knew once. I went to the old person's friend, Google Search, and learned that it is the name of a computer game and also the name of multiple species of small mammals, mostly living in the south Pacific.

I don't play computer or online or other mechanical or electronic games but I know young people and old people who do.  So far, I have not tried "Copilot" or other various search "engines" and artificial intelligence.  My experience with Google search and Duckduckgo search leads me to think that alternative ideas and further searches are suggested quite nicely by search services as they are.

Jan.21 and Feb.4

A while back I did some math.  I learned that the 21st of a month is an anniversary in each season.  By convention, each of our seasons begins on the 21 of a month: Dec., March, June and Sept.  So that means that the recent Sunday was the day marking the end of the first third of winter. Many people do not enjoy snow, ice and cold.  Some do. Regardless of feelings, the first third of the winter has passed.

That is one of the dates I mentioned in this post's title.  The other is Feb. 4.  That math I did convinced me that Feb. 4 is the mid-point of the official days of winter.  So, it's coming.  After Feb.4 , winter will be half over.

Separate but united, too

When we were younger, we didn't have much money. We did have love, luck and lots of other good things.  But when it came time to pay the bills, things got a little harrowing.  It seemed to bother me less so I paid the bills. Over time, Lynn agreed to deal with charities and eventually, she took up funding politicians, too.  We have never been big funders but it seems that politicians from all over the American states are willing to accept money from us and to renew requests quite often. Dr. Lynn Kirby seems to be getting faster at tossing requests in the trash but it can still be a pain to deal with dozens of envelopes each day.

Some of our accounts relate to her only, not to me.  But most deal with mutual uses and needs, more like the household than either of us individually.  Quite a while ago, I decided that at least some of the accounts should carry her name alone and not mine.  I may use the account but it is hers.  This way of doing things, where one person owns or leads or heads the account can be confusing but nearly everything can be confusing.  We like to be somewhat balanced even if it can be confusing and complex.  

Society has to deal with the fact that a married couple is actually two people, with different memories, viewpoints and abilities while capable of conceptualizing themselves as one, AT TIMES, and reverting to separate beings at other times.

Then and now

This morning, Lynn showed me a Facebook video of a young woman dressing for tennis as was done in the year 1885.  I am fascinated by women and their ways.   Their patience and interest in being acceptable seems to radiate out of this video of less than 6 minutes.

Take a sympathetic look.  Then pull up some recent shots of Simone Biles.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0TKWEjSxkKSJ14SZ94i3XDW2r9mZ9Ppd2nvks9EdiEvzLAC47mGUvyGoNci7CoTc3l&id=100058212423136

Photography

It's not just that the process is different, faster and cheaper.  I had a darkroom in the house in about my 4th grade.  So, I experienced working with film and chemicals to "develop" pictures using photographic "film".  I went to the drugstore to buy the film, Kodak film.  I don't remember where I got the chemicals, developer and fixer.  Developer made the image emerge on the paper.  Putting the paper in a 2nd liquid filled tray "fixed" the image in an more permanent state.  The paper needed to be dried in the air.  

Here is a recent photo taken with something called a "smartphone", something you are probably quite familiar with.  

Bowls and mugs that my potter partner made recently.  She used her phone, which she and most people carry in a pocket and keep handy to photograph all sorts of things, at a moments notice.  Not like when I was a kid.

Audible audiobooks

I have about 400 audiobooks in my file.  I used to keep an audiobook of interest ready to go in my car radio but now I don't.  I spend enough time reading and acquiring new and interesting information. I guess many people are avoiding audiobooks because Amazon wants to push Audiobooks down my throat.  When I look up a book, their coding takes me to the audiobook first, without my asking for that form.  I can read and skip and tailor actual reading to my taste better than creeping along a recording.  I estimate I have listened to maybe 20% of the audiobooks I have.

Kangaroo tracks in our backyard

We see tracks out there in an odd place.  Normally, it is undisturbed and free of foot prints but these seemed rather big tracks, definitely farther apart than humans could manage and  they were in smooth snow - must be kangaroos! I realize that the roo is an animal that lives in Australia, far from central Wisconsin. Right.  I read that the sheriff was doubtful too when fishermen called to report a hippopotamus in the Wisconsin woods but there actually was.  He had escaped from a zoo but the escape hadn't been reported.  Lynn says she thinks a fox could do that but we think we just don't know what our wild rabbits can do when they want.

I could untie my double bow shoe laces, put on a pair of boots, trudge out to the tracks and look straight down into them.  That would provide a better view and would probably settle the question but that is too much trouble.

Once again

I just saw a note I made when thinking about poetry.  I wrote the name "George Bilgere" in a list of poets I have paid attention to.  He wrote the poem "Once again, I fail to read an important novel".  He goes on to write "We sit together at the fountain, the important novel and I.  We are having coffee together."  I saw the name during the hour that my book club was discussing the novel "Demon Copperhead".  I did read a synopsis of "Demon" but I had already committed myself to other things this afternoon and never Zoomed in.  It seems poetically ironic that I spotted the name of that poet during the time I wasn't attending the meeting.

I am well known by some for attending book discussions and other events without the usual preparation.

Poetry

I tend to pay some attention to 5 poets.  Two in Wisconsin: Kathy Serley and Patricia Williams.  Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the US and author of several books of poetry.  Mary Oliver, now deceased but often mentioned by Lynn, a poet who concentrates on nature.  Ogden Nash, a clown but a good one, author of the poem I have memorized:

When called by a panther

Don't anther.

I noticed recently that Collins has a new book out: Musical Tables.

I was prompted to check on the ebook form of his new book and found it was priced ok so I bought it.  It is filled with very short poems and I read it all today.  Collins is the author of "Forgetfulness", a poem that Lynn refers to often and easily.  I experience the hallmark of old guys: not being able to think of something, usually a name, that I know I know but can't make the word, the name, come to mind.

You can read "Forgetfulness" if you search for it. 

Keeping up

I can remember what day of the week it is, what day of the month it is, what month of the year it is, and what year it is.  It is pretty easy.  I can recite the names of the week days in order and I know what day of the week yesterday was so I go to the next name in the usual order and that is the day of the week today.  In a similar way, I think of what day of the month yesterday was and just add one and I have the day of the month for today!  Unless that number signals the end of the month, I know that it is still the month it was.  It used to be that the year was 2023 but we had Christmas and New Year's Eve and Day so even that slow changer, the number of the year that we use, changed to 2024.

I have seen some idea that older brains may be slowed and hampered by being too full, like a house with too much furniture or a 2-man tent in which six men are trying to shelter.   But I just looked at Google with 2 0r 3 versions of questions about brains being too full to function well and saw no reference to difficulties from being over-full.

Between my watch, my various devices connected to the internet and other sources such as the front page of the newspaper, there are many ways I can check for information on the four bits of information.  I know that search engines and various news sources could also help but for now, I don't need them.

A blog post from the past

A blog post from the past:

Monday, January 21, 2019

Good day to celebrate Africa's contributions

I think when we can finally shake various fears and biases, we may be able to face the contributions of Africa to our lives.  Even though my appearance can be labeled "European-American", all twenty-two or so branches of the family of humans seem to stem from Africa, one way and at one time or another.  I just have to go a little farther back in time to find the connection between my ancestors and "African-Americans". 

I am glad that my country celebrates the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.and the civil rights activists of the earlier decades.  

I feel as though I can understand the impulse to illegally and immorally capture people and transport them across the ocean from their homes to a foreign land.  I can understand the impulse even while I condemn it.  I can thank those who survived and contributed to the development of my country, no doubt often unwillingly but still mightily and helpfully.  However, when I read Ira Katznelson's "Fear Itself" and saw how generations after the end of the Civil War, people were still cunningly and deliberately keeping opportunity away from African-Americans, I have a harder time saluting the Red, White and Blue.  I have a harder time believing in the good in people. 

I realize that fear and pride and nastiness lurk in our hearts and may emerge at any time and place.  I do hope we can edge toward saluting and appreciating the good, the potential, the achievements, the value, the intelligence, and the beauty of all our citizens.

Storyworth, LIFE & Wisconsin Life

My daughter and her husband got me "Storyworth" for Christmas.  It's a subscription to a service that aims to prompt and guide me into writing views and memories of my life.  They send me questions and if I will write answers, they will collect them and make them into a book. So far, they have asked what alternative occupation might I have chosen and what music brings up memories.

L.I.F.E. stands for "Learning Is ForEver".  It's a UWSP campus organization, one that is a 'retirement' organization.  Because it is connected to a university, it has a tendency to be drawn to the faculty experts and to some extent, that draw obscures the fact that every retired or aged person has a story of importance.  Wisconsin Life is a public tv program that digs out interesting occupations, organizations and adventures in our state and does a short tv feature, usually 10 to 20 minutes long about them.  

I got into meditation from watching students on Semester Abroad that Lynn and I were leading.  I had been reading about Buddhism and I saw connections with Quaker religious practice.  I have found that judicious cutting and pasting highlights from my daily experience plus thoughts plus themes, reading and ideas of interest present material for daily blog posts, very similar to what Storyworth, LIFE and Wisconsin Life do. 

Right up the path!

Watching My Sailor, My Love on Amazon movies, I was impressed by how smoothly the story unfolded.  He is a large, gruff, elderly man.  She is a small, neat elderly woman.  He is an experienced captain of a ship, knows the sea, knows ships, knows men.  She is an experienced housekeeper, cook, mother and grandmother. She knows what it is to be female, a mother, a grandmother.  She knows what needs to be done in a house and family and how to do it. Will they take to each other?  Both are past new parenting age, although not raising kids under special circumstances.

When they first meet, they smile at each other.  Bingo!  That's all it takes.  Each will make the other's day more comfortable, more hospitable.  Many years alone make each pleasure in the other special, wonderful.  Each wants more of that.

I did???

Lynn found that she was spending too much time on video games and internet puzzles.  She started going to the public library more often.  The other day, she came home with The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion.  A book that she likes often gets to be one that I read to her aloud in the evenings but it has happened that the print is too smart for me to read comfortably and naturally.  Small print causes me to make mistakes in word recognition and correcting myself too much. The Rosie Result in the 3rd book in a trilogy featuring a socially hampered physics professor who dates and marries a barmaid who is beautiful and fun but flighty.  I made a note to check if the book was available as a Kindle ebook.  We have already found that sometimes an ebook is not available.

I was quite surprised when I found the helpful sentence on my iPad "You own this item."  I do?  Yes, it is already in my collection of 3373 ebooks.  I bought it 11 years ago.  Really??  I found it in my collection and opened it.  Sometimes highlights I made while reading a book help in recalling it.  But I had made none.  The Kindle also shows "Popular highlights", passages often marked by other readers.

Lynn was a professor of library science and a librarian in an elementary school and in a high school.  I asked her how many books she had in each library.  "Several thousand". So I figure I have purchased a public school's worth of books.  No wonder I can't remember each one.

A common method

When I was growing up, I often heard that it was good citizenship to stay aware of what was going on in the world. During those days, we didn't have Fox News.  We didn't have "social media". Now, we do.  As you know, I am no historian but I want to present an idea of a theme that is permeating thinking in many parts of the globe.  

The theme is "Let's try".  I guess it has been a part of American nature since Europeans and others came here.  I am referring to the period since 1492.  If you were born in South America or Asia, didn't learn English but got the itch to settle in the emerging United States, it would need to be a strong conviction and bravery to come to Ellis Island and become a US resident.

I have noticed what is to me a very strong parallel between dialogue among scientists or inventors or just about any small group of adults with a common interest.  The members of a small group make statements of their observations and ideas.  A good percentage of the statements are not received with enthusiasm or what we tend to call "support".  But some statements strike hearers as good ideas, maybe answers or potential answers to puzzles that members of the group want solved.

So, it seems odd but accurate to me that workers hoeing out in a field, members of a League of Women Voters chapter, people trying to do God's will and scientists looking for other habitable planets follow a similar process to reach their goals.

Dictionaries are too sexy!

I subscribe to Judd Legum's newsletter "Popular Information", a political commentary.  His colum for today

https://popular.info/

says that Escambia School District in Florida has removed dictionaries from school libraries because of laws recently passed.  Any book that depicts "sexual conduct" must not be available to students. Evidently there is such a thing as a parental opt-in available.

I'm a plastic bag nut

I think the idea started when I was in Boy Scouts.  We went on some overnight trips. We were responsible for our own food.  I look for convenience and reliability.  Once, on an overnight on the Appalachain Trail in western Maryland, some other members of the Eagle patrol and I were heating some Dinty Moore beef stew from a can.  Here's the story:

The trail and stew

I got interested in the subject of packing for a hike.  It seemed to me that plastic resealable bags could be good vessels for many foods.  We have plastic containers made of white, rather flexible polypropylene. They work well for many other items besides foods.  I am very ignorant of chemistry but those containers have been handy.  Still, for many foods, plastic bags work well, too.  We have about 10 different sizes in our kitchen.  Nuts, screws, nails, coins, M&M's, all sorts of multitudinous items.

Three movies

We watched "The Holiday", "The Starling" and" My Sailor, My Love".  We saw them all on Amazon movies.  It seems that most movies that we want to watch are about 90 minutes or more.  We were in the habit of watching some show that ran in episodes but lately we have been enjoying movies.  Once in a while, we watch half a movie and the rest of it the following night.  

Lynn gave me a boxed set of 24 James Bond movies and Home Alone and Home Alone 2 for Christmas. We haven't watched any of them yet.  Some of the James Bond and the Home Alone movies we have seen.  

In a way that is similar to not being interested in sex scenes, we are not interested in horror.  Personally, I have never found being scared a  pleasure. Some of the sex and some of the horror is rather hokey.

I recommend the three movies listed above as unusual stories that are worthwhile in a surprising and memorable way.  All three are unusual, not typical stories but all three are imaginative yet civil and believable. I want to add a note that both Netflix and Amazon have tons of movies available so if a title comes to mind, search for it.  That movies may be available.

Two numbers

I look up two numbers every now and then. One is the number of posts I have made to my blog.  That number, before the posting of today, is 5138.  The other is the number of ebooks I have, which as of now, is 3374.  Both are interesting but neither is really fundamental, the way blood pressure or breath rate is. Both will probably keep growing.

Many books printed on paper pages are in a small enough font that I have some trouble reading it aloud.  We read "The Bell in the Lake" by Lars Mytting so we are willing to try the 2nd book in his trilogy set in Norway several centuries back. It was in the public library and Lynn withdrew a copy, a book chosen by her book club. The print size wasn't too bad for me to read but I checked the price of the ebook version and it wasn't too bad so I bought the ebook.  Kahneman and Tversky, the most important researchers for my dissertation, found the human impulse to feel a price was "high" when higher than the initial figure mentioned and "low" when less.  When I first found ebooks on Amazon, they were 9.99.  "The Reindeer Hunters" was 13.99.

Weight and heft  is not a problem with ebooks. I only buy at a low price. Amazon ebooks store my highlights in a single file, two features I like - price and highlight file.

The other number, how many blog posts I have made, will grow as the days pass.  I like finding a topic and creating suitable wording for a post so the other number will grow, too.

Non-similarities

I have been noticing lack of similarity where I might expect some. Take our English interrogative words: what, when, where, why and how.  If I say "what" repeatedly you might think I am having trouble hearing you.  If I say "when" repeatedly, you might say "all of my ideas apply to now" or replace "now" with "tomorrow" or "on your birthday".  But if I say "why" repeatedly, you might think I am three years old and curious about the world or your thinking.  It seems to me that continuous "why" creates chains of inquiry in a way that the other questioning words do not.

I looked up in Google search "What is the typical age for children to fasten onto 'why' and ask why repeatedly?"  The answers were 2 or 3. I have heard of "why" repeatedly but not of "when" or other interrogative words.

In another case, I have experienced getting rejected over suggesting a movie or a book.  The other person says "I 've seen that" or "I've read that". Those responses imply the movie or book is finished, has been consumed in the way my empty beer mug means I have consumed the beer I had.  It is over and done.  But when I sing "Stand up! Stand up for Jesus!", you don't normally say you have already heard that. Repetition in music is ok in a way that it isn't in movies or books.

Riches

My hearing is getting worse. It is not detection of sound but extracting from sound the text of what was said, what it means.  The person who speaks to me the most is my wife.  She gets tired of me asking "What did you say?"  My audiologist says that parts of my brain that convert sounds to meaning are wearing out.

Lynn loves to do puzzles.  Not crossword puzzles so much but Wordle and Connection.  I keep telling her that there are answers in the back of the book for some word and letter puzzles but she would clearly rather wrestle and sweat out the answers without help.  She knows of jigsaw puzzles which show her the disorganized separated pieces and leaves it to her to drag the pieces to the proper place.  I told her I might create an app that takes the presented puzzle and drags a piece to the place it fits. I said, "I might become a billionaire." She said,"Or, a five-onaire".

Gmail and its features

I am confident that plenty of competitors dislike Google.   Plenty of my friends dislike that company as well.  They are rumored to copy my data and sell it!  Somewhat like my heart stopping, it hasn't happened yet (I think!!)  As I read that Woody Allen or somebody quipped: "I plan to live forever.  So far, so good."

When I retired, I wanted to get an email address that didn't cost anything and was reliable.  I imagine if I use that leading search engine called Google or some other, like Duckduckgo, I would find there are lots of ways to get an email address.  I realize that in some circles, email is past its prime and a sign of decrepitude.  It was more fashionable when I started retirement but it is quite good in my opinion.  For browsers, I don't use Microsoft's Edge or the leader Google's Chrome but Mozilla's Firefox instead.  I compose these posts using Google's Docs and store them on Google Drive.  The Google Docs spell checker is the best I have used and I have used several.  These posts would have at least twice as many flubs without that feature.

As I have repeatedly urged, get a Gmail email address and use it.  Begin exploring the nearly 300 tools Gmail permits the user.  I guess that some may not appeal or fit into what you like to do but some will be great.

I got an odd email that said I had purchased such and such

I got an odd email that said I had purchased such and such.  I didn't remember an item like that but I have made several purchases over the holidays and I don't remember each one without examining records.  I said I had not made that purchase and the bank behind that card gave me a new account. Now, I have to delete that account and install a new one with the new account number to pay for items charged.

Don't be a scammer.  You cause trouble that way.

From today’s Numlock News:

From today's Numlock News:

Good Vibrations

A new study is investigating the potential for vibrating diet pills, which have been found to considerably cut food intake in experiments conducted on pigs. The thought goes that vibrations will stimulate nerve endings in the stomach wall that indicate fullness to the brain, and these vibrations might be delivered by means of a 31-by-10-millimeter pill that shakes for 38 minutes upon arrival in the stomach. When inserted into young pigs that were around the size of a human, they found that their vibration-induced hormonal changes were the same as those after consuming a meal, and that animals ate 40 percent less than the control group.

Mitch Leslie, Science

Warmer

So, now we are 2024 instead of xx23.  That's good.  Personally, I am much closer to 24.  It is warmer.  You know, two dozen, 3x8, 6 4's, hours in a day.  It's more familiar, less distant.  I know 23 is prime and that we humans have 23andMe chromosomes and all but still…