TODAY'S NEWS IN PREPOP-LAND

Alexa woke me from deep sleep at 7 AM to tell me that Elon Musk is trying to take over TWITTER, but "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" 

I love our automated assistant - most of the time. It's like having a sycophantic personal assistant at your beck and call.  Just like those rich folks, or those folks who pretend to be rich.

How does Alexa function?  Well, it takes some marvelous computer programming.

That reminds me of a time in the "dark ages" when I was a young computer programmer.  I wrote an interactive program on my own, in an attempt to mimic what happens in an interview with a "shrink."

You tell the program entity the things that are bothering you and the program responds with questions or with "canned" statements.

For instance:

Human:  "I feel sad."

Program: "Why do you feel sad?"

Human:  "Because my girlfriend 'dumped" me.

Program:  "Why do you think your girlfriend "dumped" you?

Human:  "Because she doesn't love me anymore."

Program: "That's sad."

Do you get the picture? There are clever tricks designed to fool "humans."

I did not go very far with this because it required filling my personal computer's small amount of space with lots of "canned" statements.  But it was a fun programming exercise.

Now we have Alexa and Siri whose programmers have expertly created computer code, combining voice and visual effects to cause people to think of these automated creations as real persons who actually think like us humans.

This is fantastic!  What will be the next step?  Holograms of these creations as humanoids sitting right next to us?

Goodbye Seymor

Last night I saw Seymor Spider happily sitting in his web.  However, next to him was his girlfriend, Shirley.  Seeing both of them, I knew I had to take action. 

I was reminded of when I was bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider.  The extremely painful wound took over a year to heal after many visits to hospitals, including Baltimore's famous Johns Hopkins facility.

If Seymor and Shirley produced an army of little biters, they might decide that I was a good target for their fangs.

So, I hurriedly scooped my little friends into a container and dumped them into our yard.  That way, they had a chance for more life - if the birds don't eat them.

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 ALL KINDS OF STUFF

Ou est Seymor?

Where is my little arachnid friend.  At 8 AM, he was busily reinforcing his web.  At 10 AM he was nowhere to be seen.

Had he gotten tired of his unsuccessful efforts to get himself a nice meal and traveled to a better location?  I looked all around the room but didn't find him.

At noon, I checked again. There was a very small gray spot near his web.  Had he died of starvation and shriveled up?  I'll look some more later.

 

Why do people hate?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has published their annual hate crime documentation.  They list 733 hate groups operating in the U. S. in 2021.

I was disturbed to find several Baptist Churches in the group. (You remember Westboro.)

I spent a few years attending Sunday School and being baptized in the First Baptist Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts and I never noticed any hate activity, except when I brought a pack of playing cards to a church Halloween party. The female "protector of the faith" accused me of worshipping kings and queens.  She scared the hell out of my eight-year-old psyche. 

I pray that someday people in hate groups will "see the light" and "get a life!"

But, if each of the current 733 hate groups had 300 members, that would only be about 22,000 idiots out of the millions of Americans who are disgusted with these groups as I am.

Belief

The Week magazine wrote in 2012:

"A congressman who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology has dismissed 'evolution, embryology, and Big Bang theory' as 'lies from the pit of hell.'

Speaking to a church group, Rep. Paul Broun (R. Ga.) said that the earth is only 9,000 years old, and that science keeps people 'from understanding that they need a savior.'"

 Surprisingly Paul was (or still is) a physician. He served as a Representative for Georgia from 2007 to 2015.

Belief is a funny thing.  The hate group members probably strongly believe that their "cause" is right. The Baptist lady believed she was right. Rep Braun knows his beliefs are proper.

I believe that we should all love one another, and I know that my belief is the only thing that will save this planet.

Tout fini!

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 ATTONEMENT

To make up for yesterday's blogging fiasco, I will dip again into my files and try to find something of interest.

Eat your veggies, or ...

In 2013. Chuck Shepherd wrote about "The Clean Your Plate" app.  Using the app and connecting via location devices "One diner could offer to clean another's plate or have a stranger rush to his own table for scraps,"

I doubt that this app lasted very long.

Tattoo Expert

A New England Patriots fan had his calf tattooed with a congratulatory message for a "sure thing" win by his favorite team.  Alas! They lost.

He should have learned his lesson earlier when he had his chin tattooed with his girlfriend's name.  Alas!  She dumped him.

I can only imagine what his next loser's tattoo will be.

Which one are you?

Russian-British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin (1907 - 1997) wrote in an essay back in 1953:

"There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.'"

The words indicate that the fox, with all its cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense (spines).  But Berlin relates it to humans, those who concentrate on one facet of life and those whose thoughts encompass a universe of ideas.  He also mentions authors such as:

Dante - hedgehog

Shakespeare - fox

Dostoevsky - hedgehog

Joyce - fox

Think about this distinction when you listen to radio commentators. 

Taxes again

French politician Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619 - 1683) wrote:  

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing."

 

Google with your glasses

In 2012, Google Glass was released to the public.  The idea was good, allow someone to access internet apps by talking to your eyeglasses.

The product didn't sell, and Google Glass was "pulled" in 2019.  The software had bugs and the glasses looked clunky.

This product worked great when surgeons needed special information during an operation.

When Google Glass was discontinued, Microsoft introduced HoloLens, glasses that show holographic images related to Windows 10.

 Amazon sold a (kind of) similar product for a while. OculusRift, a virtual reality (VR) eyepiece sold for from $200 to $500.  I have a similar VR eyepiece that I paid a lot less for. But, you guessed it - I never was able to get it to work.

I'm sure we will see more of these types of products in the future.

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GRRRRRR!!

This is a slight revision to yesterday's goofy blog entry.  

This computer just destroyed two hours work on a blog entry about "The Tactic    Known Only To The Emperor!"

So, just so I don't break my long string of entries, I will show you some of the works of my Wordsmith friend, Bob Hale, whom I wrote about recently.

Malarky; Piffle; Gerund

There are many more of Bob's grammatic renditions that I will show you in the future. (I'm too grouchy now.  I just might throw this so-called  "computer" out the window.)

Meanwhile, today was the second time I didn't solve the daily WORDLE puzzle until the sixth try.

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 SPRINGTIME

(First, before I forget:

"Enjoy Palm Sunday"

"Hab a sheynem fskh"

"Happy Easter"

That reminds me of a Jack Benny show where he and his girlfriend said "Happy Easter" hundreds of times and to anyone they met on the show. It is great fun and the show is still available - I recommend it.)

Now - back to Spring:

"Spring has sprung,

The Grass has riz,

I wonder where the flowers is!"

Yesterday I picked our first daffodil.  It isn't yellow, it's bloom is white with pink in the middle.  A very beautiful flower that Elaine planted several years ago.

Last night we talked about the miracle of hundred of daffodils appearing every year, even though only a dozen bulbs were planted.  We also planted over one hundred very expensive tulip bulbs but none ever grew.  I suspect that Sylvester Squirrel dug them all up and stashed them away for winter-time repasts.

It is amazing to us that the tiny seeds that my beautiful daughter, Diane nurtures each Spring and  turn into enormous flowering plants in just a few short weeks.

PRIMAVERA

"Alla primavera" is Italian for "in the style of springtime."

I'm sure you have seen the beautifully painted "Primavera" by Sandro Botticelli in the fifteenth century.  It has been called one of the most controversial  paintings in the Western World.

Biblical Reference

(From The Song of Solomon)

"For, lo! The Winter is past,

the rain is over and gone;

the flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds has come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."

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 EVEN MORE ODDS AND ENDS

As I get older, I cry a lot.  In the past, I always cried at weddings or when members of my family had problems or passed away, but now I keep handkerchiefs soaking wet when I watch tear-jerking movies or when I hear about other people's misfortunes.

As I've mentioned, I am an "empath" and I actually do feel other's pains.

I'm not ashamed to admit that most of my tears these days are related to the atrocities being done to innocent Ukrainians, especially to the children.

But, since I have no power to change world events, I continue on with my blogs, so that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren can learn what it was like in their Prepop's life. 

So here goes:

1.  Sweatsuits

A Smithsonian magazine article from 2016 mentions that MIT researchers "have incorporated living bacteria into a synthetic fabric, creating a material that responds to body moisture" of the person wearing it.

When a person sweats, bacteria expand and release skin heat.  When the skin dries, bacteria contract to retain body heat.

I wish this had been available for use by the sweat-soaked denizens that I sweated for when I worked in the sweat-filled dungeons of the New Bedford, Massachusetts YMCA.  I can still smell the sweaty sneakers, the sweaty gym socks, and the sweaty gym shorts!

"A la recherche du temps perdu"

2.  Movie Ratings

The Week magazine in 2016 reported that British movie censors had to sit through a 10-hour film of white paint drying.  They rated it "suitable for viewers age 4 and over."

Elaine and I recently encountered a movie from a "Faith Based" company that had this rating:'

"Drug use, nudity, sexual scenes and foul language"

We decided not to watch it.

As I've mentioned many times, a good movie should not have to make everyone, including children, use the F-Word just to get a film rating that they desire so they can suck more money out of our spoiled rich teen-agers.

Yes, I am somewhat of a prude.

3.  Winter-time Aids

Lenore Skenazy writes that one can now buy products to make the winter season easier to handle.

Snowman Family Fun Kit  ($25) - includes toy glasses, fake carrots and buttons. A warning says that it should only be used with adult supervision.

The Sno-baller ($9.95) -  "This ingenious gadget produces perfect snowballs that disintegrate on contact, so they can't hurt like hand-packed snowballs," 

I guess our kids are so connected to their cell-phones that they don't have time or the effort to learn what to do with snow.  They miss out on a lot of fun!

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THIS AND THAT

More items from my files:

1. Whale Play

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz reports that in summer, male Baluga Whales blow bubble rings "swatting to change their shapes and swimming through them as though they were hoops."

Biologist Michael Noonan says, "This is a species that makes its own toys."

Balugas are mammals and humans are mammals. Noonan says, "... I think we can assume that we are more similar than different."

2.  Joy and Purpose

In Japanese, iki means "to live" and gai means "reason."

Japanese "celebrated" neuroscientist, broadcaster and author Ken Mogi, wrote: "Awakening your ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day."

Mogi writes:  "Ikigai resides in the realm of small things, the morning air, the cup of coffee, the ray of sunshine, the massaging of octopus meat and the American President's (Obama on Sushi) praise are on equal footing."

Mogi describes the five pillars of the ikigai way of life: 

Starting small

Releasing yourself

Harmony and sustainability

The joy of small things

Being in the 'here and now' (Mindfulness)

This interests me and I just ordered Mogi's book for my Kindle.

3.  Big Bird?

The English census-taker handed Farmer Brown an abacus and congratulated him for siring nineteen children, but then said, "Why don't you throw a rock at the damn stock and chase him away?"

Farmer Brown replied: "Aw, 'e ain't doin' much 'arm, 'e's just kiddin' around."

I know, I know, not very funny.

Elaine tells me that from her hospital window she could see a big white bird circling around!

A seven-year-old boy asked his mother where he came from.  She was embarrassed and replied: "A stork brought you."

"Where did you come from?"

""A stork brought me."

"And where did Grandma come from?"

"A stock brought her too."

Later, the boy mentioned to his friend, "I just found out that there has not been a normal birth in our family for three generations."

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