Important Logical Principle

     Remember, a thing does not have to exist for no one to have seen it.

Try This

     Smile at someone today.  Do them a small good turn.  Let them in in traffic or something.

     If you need motivation, bear in mind that they may spend a long time wondering why you'd do any such thing.

I Got Your AI Ap

     Here's what I want: AI that plays podcasts while I'm in the bathtub, and pauses them whenever my ears are below water.  It's got to do so in a way that keeps creeps from peeping, because I refuse to be blamed for an outbreak of uncontrollable nausea in the sicko-hacker community.

     Get your AI solving that, and maybe I'll consider it something more than an investor-scamming BS machine.

Busy Day

     So, not much of a blog post.  Tomorrow will be busy, too, but maybe I'll come up with something.

It's The Year Of The Dragon!

     In honor of the Lunar New Year, I had a nice, garlicky breakfast: breathing fire!  We each do what we can, after all....

It Appears To Be True

     The saying circulating on social media is the real deal: In Norway, one way to respond to "How's it going?" is to say you're "Up and not crying."

     It may be a low bar, but it's a worthwhile state.  Especially at this time of the year, with the shorter days and stressful holidays, being awake, on my feet and not weeping is about as good as it gets.

Recovery

     Recovery from this cold is about as slow as I have ever experienced.  My lungs and sinuses are still emptying.  And I'm still pretty tired.

     I got up early this morning to bring in a grocery delivery, then spent the morning in online meetings of a fiction-writing group.  That took me until mid-day, at which point I was about done for the day.  I managed to put together some spicy pork roast with vegetables and it has been simmering all afternoon.  And I'm trying to get caught up on laundry.

This Is Fine

     After working today, I'm off all this week.  Tamara K has been sick since Friday, a rattling cough that got worse and worse.  It appears to be a cold, not RSV or covid, but it's been miserable for her and we have been avoiding one another in the house as much as possible.  Which is not very, but I'm not in the shared office or her attic, and we're not having meals together.  As of this morning, she is feeling better.  Still sounds pretty awful, but on the mend.

     I have to work today thanks to short-staffing and schedule conflicts.  This coming Saturday, I have been invited to appear as part of a panel of "authors" at a local event.  So I don't want to get sick.  

     Author?  Don't look at me -- I'm a writer.  I don't even own a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.  But I'll go along.  Still, I consider writing as I practice it to be more of a skilled trade than a profession.  I'm happy to cede "author" to the people with MFA degrees, no few of whom are excellent writers, but I'm an amateur carpenter among sculptors, content if I can build tables that don't wobble and simply aspiring to a mastery of the craft.  If the result is Art, great -- but my aim is competence.  The event organizers gave the invited authors a list of questions and I'm putting together notes about the answers on 3x5 cards so I don't have to wing it.

Another Week

     ...Another five days spent at work just trying to keep things from getting any worse.  Not making any real headway, but we spiffed-up the work areas so it will be all shiny for the big brass and managed to keep the place from going off a cliff at the same time, so I am calling it a win..

Five Of Them Are Clicking On The Link

     A sure sign that clickbait is becoming more and more difficult:

     And just think, you're probably watching yourself when you sleep....

Use It Up, Wear It Out...

      "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."

      If your parents were Depression babies like mine, you heard that more than once growing up.  Now, there's a possibility the "influencer" trend might be getting a little bit threadbare.

      There is a cycle to such trends and there are generational differences.  Sometimes frugality is ascendant, other times we're urged to aspire to conspicuous consumption.  Mass-market stuff or handmade, artisanal items?  It's a trend -- or, often, a necessity cloaked as a preference, especially when the economy gets tight.

      I am (mostly) the child of my parents.  I'm still using Mom's old Revereware pots and pans, some of them gifts from her wedding in 1949 and others more recent presents from my Dad, merely thirty years old.  On the other hand, I've got three trendy cookpans from an on-line start-up, so I can't claim to not have been influencered;* on the other other hand, they're supposedly lifetime purchases.  And on the fourth hand, Mom would doubtless have pointed out that I already had perfectly good skillets and stewpots.

      The culture: we're swimming in it.  Probably better to shower afterward instead of pretending we're above it all.
__________________________
* This cannot possibly be a word.  I'm not sure if it should be.

Bored?

      Why not make a clay dragon?  Or a cardboard sword and shield, with your very own coat of arms!  Better yet, help a kid make 'em.  English Heritage will show you how (see the tabs at the top of the linked page.).

      The sun might set on 'em these days, here and there, but the Brits aren't beaten yet.  Terry Pratchett's gone but his spirit lives on.

Happy Birthday, Tamara

      Tam is [undisclosed] years old today!

      And remember, dear friend, a restaurant can have a senior discount even if they don't have a senior menu.

No, We're All Like That Now

      I'm home today, having done something wretched to my back, either by spending an hour at floor level going after trimmings from copper-pipe deburring that were at risk of being sucked into the air intakes of one of my big electrical machines at work or by a week of looking after the (scoopable) litter for my neighbor's (five) cats, which involves a lot of bending over and lifting (her usual cat-helper took a week off).  Or possibly both.  Whatever, I presently have two speeds, Molasses Slow and Full Stop, both of which involve more groaning than is seemly.

      I had groaned my way to the kitchen for a lunch-like snack (gherkins and buttered saltines) when I heard a delivery truck pull up and idle.  I eased my way to the front window and peeked out through the gap between the curtains from several steps back: one of the big-name package haulers, with a box two feet on a side waiting up front, the driver nowhere to be seen and a series of it's-around-where-somewhere noises from the cargo section.

      Pretty soon the driver appeared and carried the big box towards our porch, out of my line of site.  Setting-down noises followed and after a short pause he said, "No, I'm an idiot."

      Driver and box reappeared and went back into the back of the truck.  Then he showed up with a much smaller box and dashed up our sidewalk again.  I went to the door and took it, thanking him.

      It's not just you, delivery-truck driver.  We're all trying to keep up and dropping the occasional stitch.  You're not an idiot, only human.

The Universe Is Not Locally Real

      At least at a certain level it's not "real" in terms of having inherent characteristics until you measure it; and it's not "local" thanks to quantum entanglement: stick a pin in a photon here and one waaaaaay over there says, "Ouch!"

      What this means is the physics insights of the philosopher Charles M. Jones were correct: when Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff, he is perfectly safe until he measures his state by looking down -- and then it's too late.  It also explains why the Road Runner can anticipate the coyote so well, and make things go wrong for him with nothing more than a quizzical look: the "spooky action at a distance" the theory implies (and which everyone suspected all along was breathing on the dice and making toast fall butter side down) is hard at work.

      This now joins the Frederic Bean "Tex" Avery theory of subjective reality, in which our perceptions show us not the real world as it is, but an image of it deeply affected by our own notions.  Maybe you did jump out of your shoes with fright (and right back in).  Maybe it only felt that way.  Maybe you'd better check.

      Just don't look down.  You may be higher up (and less well supported) than you think.

What I'm Thankful For

      I'm thankful for a lot, but most of all, I'm thankful things haven't been any worse.

      I'm thankful Russia hasn't managed to start World War Three, at least not yet.

      We had a horrible global pandemic and a lot of people reacted to the whole thing in suboptimal ways, but it could have been a lot worse.  I'm thankful we were as lucky, clever and occasionally wise as we all averaged out to be -- and luck was certainly not the smallest element in that.

      Despite a period of national-level political conflict not seen since the Civil War, we managed to not start another one, in the face of very strong emotions and considerable physical conflict.  It wasn't good, but it could have been a lot worse.

      So here's to not screwing things up past the point of recovery.  Let's aim higher in the future, while being grateful we've got a future at all. 

      I'm grateful for good friends and good food, too.
      Here's the traditional Roseholme Cottage Thanksgiving feast, turducken roll, mashed potatoes (from scratch), bacon gravy and roasted vegetables.  Not shown, apple compote: half a large tart apple, diced, with a little sugar, butter, cinnamon and cloves, plus a handful of unsalted fancy mixed nuts, put in a covered grill pan and allowed to simmer for over an hour while the turducken and vegetables were cooking.

Busy!

     More later, I hope.

Unpopular Neutrality

      As disparaged as it is in this day and age where you're got to be "strongly for" or "strongly against" every single darned thing, one of the great advantages to being agnostic is that when a friend or acquaintance shares something they believe their faith or deity wants people to do or say, or not do and so on, I can smile, respond, "You might be right," and mean it.

      That is not to say I'm going to go along; I have made my own deal with my own ethics and my own conscience, which I'll abide by.  But I have no magic insights into the infinite; for all I know, you might be right. Mark Twain and I have our own opinions about imponderables; they don't invalidate yours and vice versa.

A Universal Trait

      Scolds of the world -- Left, Right or apolitical, religious, irrreligious, atheistic or agnostic -- have all got one thing in common: The heartfelt conviction that no matter how bad they feel about their own selves, they can always elevate themselves by making someone else feel worse.

      They think it's all relative and if they can make someone else feel small or worth less, why, that's the same as making themselves feel better.

      It's not -- but you'll never convince them otherwise, and it's only too easy a trap to fall into.  In fact, I may have just done so myself.

      As do we all, sometimes.

Took The Day Off

      Other than cooking, cleaning, changing the sheets, doing laundry and fretting over my aching lower back, I took the day off.  I ignored the Sunday morning talking head shows (Meet This Week's Press Facing The Nation!) and played with the cats.

      I sure needed it.