James Lee Stanley

The other night I chanced across an interview of Peter Tork (of Monkees fame) who mentioned a friend of his, James Lee Stanley, and what Tork considered one of JLS's sense of humor:

Since food has replaced sex in my life I can't even get into my own pants.

In one of JLS's videos (Vicki Abelson's Women Who Write, Big Sur, 8/25/12) as part of giving the audience liberty to do what they wanted with videos of his performance he said:

Should you begin to make serious money selling copies of my shows would you please contact Beechwood Recording Studios in Los Angeles California and tell them how you did it.  Because they don't know.

After a comment about his career being in the witness protection program he offered a line which I'm sure many will be able to use:

If my wife hadn't worn bangs I would have seen the 666 on her forehead.

I'm sure he's a fine song smith, but his song's didn't appeal to me. 

I like his banter though.  In another video he describes being inspired by Carlos Santana, a lid of marijuana, and a medical-pharmacological encyclopedia to write the first genuine Latin Boogie in 2,000 years, most of the words stemming from the Latin and coming from the encyclopedia.

As with his songs, the concept seemed better than the execution.

A Memorable Semester

On the day after Christmas, as I drove up to the Comp Sci building emeritus prof Dr. I  drove over to ask how the semester went.

Although a dozen things contented for comment, I chose the word "memorable".

At the end of Christmas day I was able to congratulate myself for not whining on and on about the semester's frustration.  Not a single word.  There wasn't much opportunity.  Nobody asked, hey how was your semester and I didn't prompt the question by asking, "Doesn't anyone want to hear how my semester went?"

Today I told the prof that only one student in my Computer Architecture recognized the name Linus as belonging to Linus Torvald and not Linus from Charlie Brown.  He shook his head and said, "Yeah, they don't know history."

Linus Torvald	Linus van Pelt

I wondered about it during the semester. Was it important? It is unlikely that their lives would be saved, when challenged in a dark alley to identify the person who originated the Linux operating system, but it might be something which would come up in a technical interview. Being unable to identify the person responsible for one of the seismic shifts in computing would be a serious mark on an applicants escutcheon.

Given the opportunity, the next time I teach the class I will probably have a 50 question trivia quiz worth a total of 5 point toward the final just to expose them to tribal legends of Computer Science. Most people with a computer can identify Steve Jobs, but the geeks should recognize "The Woz".  Those students with dreams of entrepreneurship and dreams of entrancing venture capitalists should certainly know the name, Ronald Wayne.  Anyone involved in computer graphics should recognize the name of Playboy’s Miss November 1972, Lena Sjööblom .

Looking For Book Storage Ideas

Here's what my searches netted.

I'm not particularly enamored of pebble beaches, but this could be my dream vacation site:(http://www.lalibreriaimmaginaria.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1112.jpg):

This vista evoked contradictory reactions: attraction to the books and repulsion at the bare space.  The seating might be comfortable, but I'd feel too exposed for comfort. (www.lalibreriaimmaginaria.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/335450_10150629348599517_169723374516_11932632_1944801617_o.jpg)

I could imagine sleeping here, although I don't see where I would get my reading light at night. That might be  a light visible on the lower surface of the shelf above the pillows.  It reminds me of the reading lights in airplanes.  My preferences are for a tensor lamp or an old swing arm drafting lamp.  (www.lalibreriaimmaginaria.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/335450_10150629348599517_169723374516_11932632_1944801617_o.jpg)

And this floor to ceiling books is the type of interior vista I like, except I'd be concerned about the cost of heating and the wasted space.  On the other hand I'd like to rise to the challenge of filling the space.

I Don't Need Drugs

I was reading the comments to an NPR story, "Comedian Faces His Addictions To Food And Alcohol" about comedian Jamie Kilstein (http://www.npr.org/2013/10/20/236950670/comedian-faces-his-addictions-to-food-and-alcohol) when I came across Jim Fetter's comment about addiction: 

"Well the alcohol I don't understand, because I never could acquire a taste for something that would operate my automobile."

I hadn't thought of it that way.  My usual response to the question as to why I don't drink is one of the following:

1. Drinking is for grown-ups.
2. It all tastes like Nyquil to me.
3. I never acquired a taste for it.
4. I'm too cheap.
5. I make money being the designated driver.

Now I can add that I try not to imbibe anything flammable.

I don't need drugs or alcohol.  My brain is addled enough.  (My neighbor and I have a standing joke.  In response to one of us saying something loopy, the other will pretend to examine the speaker's eyes, shrug and say, "Dunno.  The pupils aren't dilated.)

As an undergraduate I lived with the hippies and associated with the drug users.  I can honestly say that I didn't use drugs but I got to share their paranoia.

Some time in grad school I realized that I'd distanced myself from the scene when it dawned on me that I didn't recognize the names of the drugs being tossed about.  Not only that, I didn't want to know.  A fellow grad student claimed to have stopped smoking pot because he didn't have any free time.  And, if he had the free time, he said, he had other stuff which needed doing anyway.  (Life's a bummer.)

Musing on a Pear

Pears were on sale this week and thus several came to reside in my refrigerator.  I couldn't resist.  This one reminded me of Picasso's Femme or someone I once knew.

I had to laugh: Lemmings with Suicide Vests

I haven't been in a joyful mood lately: Every day I don't teach is spent prepping for class, some labs I'm trying to create along with another prof are taking forever to get done, there are legal matters which are similarly crawling along, and then there is the House of Representatives being held hostage by Tea Party Republicans. (I've taken my position from  On The Media's coverage, especially James Fallows' comments.)

I actually laughed out loud when I heard Rep. Nunes' sound bite (from the Washington Post):

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had choice words for fellow House Republicans who are willing to see the government shut down over their opposition to Obamacare: "Lemmings with suicide vests," he called them.

Transformation Forever!

I spotted this in CIO magazine:

"You can't operate under a banner of transformation forever.  You've got to declare victory." - Louie Ehrlich CIO of Chevron and president of Chevron Information Technology (http://www.cio.com/article/704095/Chevron_s_CIO_Talks_Transformation_and_Why_IT_Leaders_Should_Smile)

It echoes Louis Armstrong, who when asked where he thought jazz was going, replied, "If I knew, I'd be there already!"

Which leads me to chat on about learning to program computers.  The connection being knowing where you're going.

People new to programming start with simple problems.  While this makes sense from a pedagogical perspective, it also hides the necessity of analysis.  Many beginners with an aptitude for programming "grok" the problem - the solution seems obvious without a need for analysis.  (The Car Talk guys would say that the solution was "not encumbered by the thought process.")

The ability to solve the introductory problems intuitively can lull a beginner (take this as a true confession) into thinking he's a "computer genius", surely an archaic term now.  As problems become progressively harder the need for planning become more obvious as those who charge ahead find that their code requires reworking and more reworking.  (From my casual observation the few female computer programming students I've seen plan more than the male students.  The result is that it will take the female students longer to code the early programs because the guys just whale away at the code until it works.  The problems at the end of a first semester course usually require the type of analysis and planning the female students seem to use from the start.)

Cynthia Nixon and Augusten Burroughs

As always, bit behind in my readings. 

The Lifestyle section of the May 26^th contained 2 articles which concerned sexuality. The actress Cynthia Nixon got flack from the homosexual contingent for statements questioning the idea that sexuality was fixed. She can serve as her own posterperson (my own coinage) as someone who went from a long term heterosexual relationship to marriage to a same sex partner. The article contains a quote which with the appropriate word substitutions should be applied to most statements in the blogosphere.

“Different strokes for different folks,” she said. “My view of my sexuality is just my view. It has nothing to do with your view of your sexuality or even my view of your sexuality.”   

 There was an article by Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors) about the loss of the word "boyfriend" now that he married his agent.  He classified the both of them as "bad gays" because they did not  fall into the pattern of tastefully married gays: no tasteful wedding, aspirations for children, or a honeymoon.

His statement

A man who frequently smells like cheeseburgers and makes me laugh hard every day and makes me want to be worthy of being his husband. 

gets at what people find attractive and bonding in each other.

Lena Sjööblom, Miss November 1972

In the process of getting images to demonstrate image sampling techniques I found myself reading, once again, about Lena Sjööblom, the most Mona Lisa of computer imaging.

From: electronicimaging.spiedigitallibrary.org/article.aspx?articleid=1100033
Nonadaptive sampling:	quasirandom	farthest point	importance-driven farthest point
Adaptive sampling:	bandwidth	coverage	importance-driven coverage

The May/June 2001 editions of the IEEE Professional Communications Society Newsletter had a nice write up of the origin of the original and subsequent use (www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/pcs_mirror/may_june01.pdf):

Lena Sjööblom, a Swedish native working as a model in Chicago in 1972, was Playboy’s Miss November that year. She would return to her native country, marry, and raise children before learning that her centerfold picture had become the ultimate laboratory rat. Not only that: Lena became for the engineers something like what Rita Hayworth was for U.S. soldiers in the trenches of World War II.

What I didn't find find was a link to the legal arrangement by which Playboy allowed Lena's copyrighted image to be used by graphics researchers.

The same newsletter issue provided this: You know it’s a “No Frills” airline when:

• They don’t sell tickets, they sell chances.
• All the insurance machines in the terminal are sold out.
• Before the flight, the passengers get together and elect a pilot.
• You cannot board the plane unless you have the exact change.
• Before you take off, the flight attendant tells you to fasten your Velcro.

Brazil, Home of the $30 Cheese Pizza

"In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could." ~Rudiger Dornbusch, an economist who spent his last 27 years at MIT.

I was led to the quote from a NY Times article about the high cost of living in Brazil, "Prices Fuel Outrage in Brazil, Home of the $30 Cheese Pizza" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/world/americas/prices-fuel-outrage-in-brazil-home-of-the-30-cheese-pizza.html), then through an English translation of a Braziliam economics blog (The Drunkeynesian: thedrunkeynesian.blogspot.com/)

I imagine that when someone waxes lyrical about Ipanema, its sparkling beaches and heavenly weather, I'll be prompted to add, "And the $30 pizza."  Consumer anger has been fueled by a law requiring retailers to detail on receipts how much tax customers were charged.  The article cites one $92 grocery bill, $25 of which was tax.

Joanie and Johnny Together

I owe a small debt of gratitude to Doonesbury's video of the day.  Today's video linked to Johnny Cash and Joanie Mitchell singing "The Long Black Veil".  Joannie added a high pitched part to the chorus that I don't believe I've heard before.  She does it the first about the 1 minute mark.  Enchanting. 

How Old is Too Old? - When to Refresh Student & Facutly PCs

It does not give one confidence when an educational bulletin doesn't know how to use a spell checker.

I know it happens.  I know that I notice typos more than most, but it is still annoying.

In the past, when I spotted a typo I'd send a message to an editor suggesting that if they put someone's liver on a pike I'd bring the fava beans and a nice chianti.  I used to paraphrase Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI" (Let's kill all the proofreaders) until I realized that few proofreaders were left.

Typesetting is gone.  A piece is written electronically, sent, and then posted without the mediation of experience.  It impresses me that mistakes, obvious mistakes, mistakes underlined in red get through.  I've seen it myself in my PowerPoint presentations.

I'll be in front of the class when -- Ooop!  I stop the presentation, fix the spelling error, save the file, and continue where I left off.  Sometimes its worse: a real error of fact gets through.  Ooop.  That's wrong.  Very embarrassing.  I take time to tell the class that they should pay attention and try to think about what they're being told because some of what they'll be told may be wrong.  The instructor may misspeak.  In editing, a "not" gets misplaced.

One of my PowerPoint techniques is to duplicate a slide or group of slides and then edit them.  Occasionally stuff gets left lying around: stray text, an extra slide, or the wrong reference in the notes.  I would have thought I'd learn my lesson, but I don't.

(This might be the appropriate point to quote someone to the effect that education is the process by which knowledge is passed from the notebook of the instructor to the notebook of the student without passing through the mind of either.  Unfortunately the provenance is unclear (quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/17/lecture-minds/).  An updated version might say that knowledge flows seamlessly from the publisher's PowerPoint presentation to handouts stuffed into student Trapper™ portfolios.)

Installation Blues

Another instructor lent me a PC, a Dell Optiplex 745 with Vista installed.  Not a problem.  I have a genuine Windows 7 SP 1 DVD to install a newer operating systems.  Rushing right ahead into the update routine, I became reacquainted with the Microsoft installation nonsense.

 I'll let others bash Microsoft.  All I need to say is that when installing Linux, I'm presented with a whole bunch of screens and choices up front.  Once I click the Install button I don't have to do anything other than wait and then install the 300 or so updates required, but it's essentially painless.

Microsoft reboots several times and ask for user input.  The most annoying part of the installation is that the screen will go black.  Because I wasn't playing close attention, I would think that the computer was in the process of rebooting.  It was only when I tapped a key the screen would light up and display a dialog box giving me the choice of continuing or cancelling.  Sigh.

It was more annoying than stressful, but then the installation rejected my product key.   I figured I'd do something to get a Genuine Windows seal of approval or contact the Dream Spark people to get an alternate key later.

The first order of business was to install newer browsers etc.  Oh simple soul.  Internet Explorer gave me a few raspberries in the form of DLL exceptions in DLL's as did MSPaint.  The Dell site displayed updates for the hardware up to Vista.  Sigh.

As I write I've reinstalled Vista and am waiting for the 102 updates to install.  Sigh.

An Interview with Terence Stamp

With the "Unfinished Song" soon to be released, Terence Stamp was interviewed on NPR by Scott Simon.  When asked about his social exploits (Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Shrimpton), Stamp responded, "They were after the pill and before AIDS. You know, a good time to be a young lad."  He was asked what it was like to work with Vanessa Redgrave who'd had her daughter, brother, and sister die within a year's time.  Stamp replied, "I saw a woman who was kind of very familiar with change of cosmic address."

Not a bad turn of phrase.  I wonder if the post office would forward mail?

In a web search for images of Jean Shrimpton I found a Guardian interview with Jean Shrimpton  from April 2011.  An indifferent student, rocked to fame as the first supermodel, a succession of men, eventually one introduced her to culture (museums, art, and literature).  She's been a hotelier since her 30's and, if the interview is to be believed,  doesn't seem to miss being in the public eye.

Looking at her pictures, now some 50 years old, I was struck by how artificial the hair seems now.  Were people aware of that then?

 

(Photo from http://www.fanpix.net/picture-gallery/jean-shrimpton-picture-17322359.htm)

Bernanke's Princeton Commencement Address

Ben Bernanke delivered a marvelous commencement speech to Princeton undergrads on Sunday, June 2nd.  The video is on vimeo.  My favorite quote:

3) Those who are luckiest also have the greatest responsibility: "As the Gospel of Luke says (and I am sure my rabbi will forgive me for quoting the New Testament in a good cause): 'From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded."

He gave the Biblical quote an academic spin. "Kind of grading on the curve, you might say."

Biology profs will surely quote number 9:

9) On choosing a partner: "Remember that physical beauty is evolution's way of assuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites."

 The text of the enumerated parts of the the speech can be found on cnn (http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/02/news/economy/bernanke-princeton-speech/index.html).  The video can also be found on bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ben-bernanke-s-ten-suggestions-for-princeton-grads-hTsARou6S7md1VCuYjHN1A.html).  I was impressed that the video's time indicator was in Princeton orange.

CIO's Universal Vendor Translation Machine

I discovered a seven year old CIO magazine (June 15th, 2006) while rooting around for things to put out for recycling. I flipped through quickly and found this gem of a hype decoder on the back page. I would normally put a link to the original but I had an odd feeling that the original page might disappear.  You can follow the link to the CIO page or you can read it below. 

(I always suspect that I'm the last person to hear something humorous, but for some odd reason, I'm one of the few who remember a joke.  It's certainly an odd feeling to explain to someone that the joke they're laughing at is the one I originally heard from them.  The entry for "24/7 customer support" feels like a classic.)

I was going to go the long way around by putting the page through an OCR scanner when it dawned on me that the article was probably on line.  As partial penitence for being so stupid I formatted the text as a description list by hand without benefit of search and replace. 

“Fully redundant”

When the product fails, your IT staffers, working by the light of kerosene lanterns, may be able to restart the system using a length of stereo wire, some Juicy Fruit and a car battery.

“24/7 customer support”

You’re welcome to call and talk to our automated phone system any time you want.

“Begins shipping later this quarter”

We use the terms “quarter” and “decade” interchangeably here.

“The leading provider of…”

Just got the venture capital firm’s check last week and finally moved the company out of the dorm room.

“Backward compatible”

Version 2.0 is guaranteed to read files created by Version 1.9 for at least five (5) business days.

“Merger of equals”

We actually believed our own sales forecasts, opening us up to a hostile takeover. In six months, no one will remember our name.

“Ajax-driven Web application”

Guaranteed to crash your browser.

“Open source”

You’ll be relying on Latvian high school drop-outs for upgrades.

“Integrated security”

We bought a little firewall startup and grafted their code onto ours.

“Conceptually, we’re a Web 2.0 company”

Desperately trying to resuscitate ideas from the dotcom era.

“Ensures SOX compliance”

When your CEO and/or CFO winds up behind bars, we’ll send brownies.

“Free six-month trial”

After trial ends, salespeople will call you, e-mail you, IM you, rent blimps to fly over the links while you’re golfing and, if necessary, camp out in your outer office until you agree to buy the product.

“Enterprise-grade”

Too complicated for consumers or small businesses to use.

“Robust”

System runs beautifully as long as no wackos attempt to change the configuration, delete a user or add a record.

“Intuitive user interface”

After two weeks of offsite training, several of your brighter employees will have figured out how to log on.

“Positive ROI within 12 months”

By uninstalling our hardware after 364 days, your time will be freed up to work on more productive things.

Soap/Forge of Empire

The image for Forge of Empires popped up on Pandora.  It reminded me of several things: a hilarious analysis of drawings featuring women who's underpants fell off and the most important invention in the world.  I know I need to explain this.

In reverse order, one of my profs maintained that the single most important thing mankind devised was soap.  I know little kids don't appreciate it, but soap allowed people to remove dirt and contamination from their body and implements.  With (or without) your permission I'll skip over a review of saponification except to say that the expression "wash your mouth out with soap" stemed from horrible experience: early soaps still contained un-neutralized lye which can do horrible things to tender membranes.

Wealthier people could afford scented soaps which also had the lye neutralizing.  Still, the popular depiction of historical characters usually show them at our modern level of cleanliness.  (Some reviewers of a show about John Adams made a point of commented that Paul Giamatti, playing John Adams, was made up to have dirty finger nails.)

Which brings me to the image.  How likely is is it that someone the age of the woman depicted would not be grimy from the woodsmoke and dust?  (I would quote from Farley Mowat's description of smelling Inuits before seeing them, but much of his writing has been documented as fanciful in detail.)  Grime does not come off without soap.  You can trust me on this.

On another matter, how likely is it that the left halter cup would stay in position without support?  I'll let woman and clothing designers debate that.


But the unlikelihood of her top staying the way it is depicted  reminded me of James Lilek's humorous analysis of Art Frahm's illustrations: An Artistic Study of the Effects of Celery on Loose Elastic http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/). Frahm's illustrations featured shapely women experiencing catastrophic elastic failure in a public space resulting in underwear bunching at their feet. (The reference to celery is that most of the pictures had celery poking out of the woman's shopping bag.)

If you need a gentle laugh, James Lilek's blog, http://www.lileks.com.

What the bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Tourette's

I was listening to an interview with a person who had Tourette's syndrome when there was a bleep which kept on going.  I thought "Whoa!  That's one huge string of obscenities." 

The announcer finally broke in to apologize for a technical problem with the audio feed.

Two Gay Things

The recent revelations that the pro basketball player Jason Collins was gay (/sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/)  might have prompted a recent discussion among high school students in the pool's locker room.

The general consensus seemed to be that they didn't actually care who was gay or not, but they'd want to know to avoid awkward situations.  In their case it ment avoiding asking a lesbian out for date or using the wrong language around a gay kid.  They each professed to know someone who was gay and had no problem with him. 

I wondered what their use of the term "that's so gay" means.  I think they mean something is dopey or uncool.  It'll be interesting to see if the phrase is still around or if the meaning changes in the next few years.

On a related note, I finally heard what must be a camp classic: "In Spring a young man's fancy turns to fancy young men."

Personal Financial Advisors or a Fool and His Money ...

Perhaps as a nod to gender equality the saying should be modified to "Fools and their money are easily parted."  But, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I was listening to a rebroadcast of an On the Media interview, How Personal Finance Led Us Astray  with Helaine Olen, author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry  Her position was that the only people getting rich in the financial advice business are those giving the advice.

Nothing new here.  In 2009 Jon Stewart famously took on Jim Cramer ("If I only followed CNBC's advice I'd have a million dollars today -- provided I'd started with $100 million.").

Besides the big names, Jim Cramer and Suze Orman, there was one name, which had a faint ring:  Dave Ramsey.  A quick web search found Financial Peace U:

Sounds hokey to me, but what stays with me was an NPR interview a year or so ago with a Christian clergyman who gave financial advice.  I think it was with Ramsey.  What I remember so distinctly was a clip from a female caller.  the woman was asking for advice so she could become financially independent and leave her marriage.

I searched in vain for  the interview on line because I think the phrasing was critical.    Her husband had said something like "You'll never be able to make it by yourself."  The adviser's response startled me: "Does he beat you?"

"Yes."

Anyone in social services might have been just as quick to recognize the situation, but it stunned me.

I usually associate faith-based financial dealings with scams.  Web searches may turn up a link to Christian Financial Credit Union which advised their members about a scam using their name:

Need more?  There's a January 2011 post, "An Overview of Religious Financial Fraud on http://christianheadlines.com:

It's a sad compendium of embezzlement, investments coverups, insider deals, fraudulent tax shelters, flipped property fraud, excessive compensation, and insurance fraud.

The article is not exhaustive. The scams run from Brazil ($2 billion (yes that's a "B") for the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God), to America (claims of $1 billion was money laundered annually at Oral Roberts University, yes, again a "B"), to Ukraine ($100 million business venture fraud).

Makes one think seriously about going back to worshiping trees again.

(In this regard, I remember with great fondness a line from one episode of Mash, the TV show.  Trapper and Hawkeye created a fictitious personnel record for a new doctor.  For religion they list, "Druid", then change it to "Druid reform - he worships at bushes" - a clear reference to reform Judaism.)

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

This may be really old, but it's new to me. It's a line I'll have to use in class with attribution. From the Madam and Eve comic strip from early in March of this year:

Kwame Kilpatrick Guilty of More Than Stealing

Unless I'm mistaken Kwame is mixing stripes (on the shirt) with plaid (on the tie).

You can read about how he went bad at the Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/12/how-kwame-kilpatrick-went-bad.html).  Nothing new, except that the corruption (misappropriation of funds and kickbacks) occurred as the Motor City was going down the toilet.

Rich Little's Impersonation of Brad Pitt

The Sunday, January 20, 2013 issue of the NY Times carried a story about Rich Little, premier impressionist in American comedy.  I was struck by his comment:

“It’s much easier to do Humphrey Bogart than Tom Cruise,” he says. “How do you imitate Brad Pitt? George Clooney? Wouldn’t mean anything.”

He's right.  What would be imitated?  The great voices are gone.  Have stars have become character actors?  Frank Caliendo - a name I didn't recognize - gave credit to Rich Little and said that his impersonations are of sports figures.  I doubt that I'd recognize them.

After thinking about it for a moment (I couldn't hold the thought much longer) I wondered if the most recognizable impressions would be of characters or the impression of a political figure acting as a famous cartoon character.  It wouldn't be a superfluous effort with so many of our politicians doing their own unhinged imitation of an elected official.

Traditional Values/ William Rees-Mogg

The obit of William Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times of London contained this passage:

He incensed some Times readers in 1967 with a lead editorial in which he attacked the severity of jail sentences imposed on the Rolling Stones’s Mick Jagger (three months) and Keith Richards (one year) for drug offenses.

“If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity,” Mr. Rees-Mogg wrote, under the headline “Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?”

Also in the article was a ripost which can be tuned to many occasions.  (I suspect I've seen variants on this before.)

Lord George Brown is a better man drunk than the prime minister is sober

It's a near relative of Winston Churchill's reply to Lady Astor exclamation, "Sir you are drunk!": "And you are ugly.  However, in the morning I will be sober."

Benedict XVI Resigns

The world has not been waiting breathlessly for my comments about the February 11th announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he would resign on February 28th, but, inasmuch as I've not put anything up for a while, here goes:

The end of John Paul II's life was alternately described as a pathetic old man clinging to life unaware that his time had passed or "a testament of faith".  The last being a statement of a Catholic nun.

I'm sure that in relevant religious communities "a testament of faith" is clear enough description by itself.  Not to me.  After web searches and reading descriptions of testaments of faith in several religions I sort of get it: it's the will of God and the individual will take the lumps because that's what God is dishing out.  The individual recognizes or accedes to God's will (as if there were a choice).

I decided many years ago that the simplest explanation for why bad things happen to good people is because that's the way it is.  It doesn't require anything divine.  It doesn't require a divine plan.  Stuff just happens: brakes fail, metal fatigues, someone goes postal.

Back to the pope.  For some reason I think of the two popes as JP2 and Benny.  (I think the "Benny" comes from a "Prairie Home Companion sketch in which Guy Noir, the private eye, guided the Pope around incognito.)

My guess that Benny saw how the organization lost direction under JP2's decline and wanted to avoid doing the same.

In my opinion the best joke about the Pope's resignation came from Father James Martin, cultural editor of the Jesuit magazine America: "Boy he's sure .. certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." (The official NPR transcript reads: "And my second response was, boy, he certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." ~http://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/172175231/how-will-catholics-react-to-popes-rare-retirement)

News 12 Helicopter Video

In the aftermath of yesterday's snow storm Newsday posted a News 12 video on its site (News 12 is a Long Island all news TV station): Chopper 12 over abandoned cars in Lake Grove.  As the camera zoomed in I fully expected the flash of a drone strike.

 

What does that say about our world?

On the Internet, nobody cares if you're an imbecile

This whole thing of "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" has gotten a little out of hand and has morphed into "On the Internet, nobody cares if you're an imbecile."

~ http://www.weeklystorybook.com/comic_strip_of_the_daycom/2012/05/ask_clique_and_claque.html

I was grading a student's drawing I noticed that the arcs didn't seem to join flush to the horizontal lines. 

Zooming in and sure enough.

A look at the top revealed a gap and the lines which should have ended at the horizontal lines extended beyond.

When I asked the student why the dimensions were off he responded:

I was just eye balling, I didn't realize how serious it was to follow the units, I thought they were just reference

I didn't and still don't know how to respond.  He's an Engineering student.  In my mind that means something.  All manner of snarky comments suggest themselves from a lament about American higher education to the hope that he, like many students, will change his major to avoiding domestically produced goods.

When is a Fetus Like Schrodinger's Cat?

Q: When is a Fetus Like Schrodinger's Cat?

A: When a Catholic hospital in Colorado defended itself in a law suit.

If a pregnant woman dies would you rather be responsible for a single death or for three? (She was bearing twins.)  One family's tragedy is a source of humor for the shameless. Of course now the health care system and its lawyers have to confront a doctrinal debate: Catholic doctrine has life beginning at birth.  Colorado law has life beginning at delivery.

And while I'm at it - don't look for a logical association - P.G.Wodehouse is quoted as saying after reading Norman Mailer's novel "The Naked and the Dead"

Isn't it incredible that you can print in a book nowadays stuff which when we were young was found only on the walls of public lavatories.

- NYTimes review of his letters by Dwight Garner (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/books/p-g-wodehouse-a-life-in-letters.html)  Garner liked Wodehouse's novels, but not his letters.

eBook: A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science

Among the perks some faculty enjoy are getting free books, or at lease looking at free books.  Most of society probably would not describe this as a perk, but something of a workplace hazard similar to black lung disease or carpal tunnel syndrome.

For some of us books are treasures which keep on giving.  eBooks?  Well, ebooks done right have one undeniable advantage over regular print books: the search feature.

Although I dd not see this first hand, one of my college acquaintances told me about a favorite prof's library and the prof's uncanny ability to support his statements by quickly finding the book and the relevant passage in that book.  (The student's last name was Barnes, first name now forgotten.  I don't know if I ever knew the prof's name.)

Sometimes the prof just knew.  Barnes felt it must have been a quote he'd used many times.  Other times the instructor had marked the book, either his own index inside the cover or bookmarked pages.

But I've strayed.  It is possible for instructors to get access to books online.  Certainly, for reviewing a book for course selection, online should be fine, because most of the books arriving in faculty offices, especially for survey/distribution courses won't be adopted.

I'll skip the argument about glossy picture books pandering to functional undergraduate illiterates on one end of the scale and abstract, impenetrable tomes at the other, and get right to the point:  if a book's genesis came from notes written for a specific course the content is perfect for that course, but the audience is limited to the captive audience of that school.  Expanding the content to seek a wider audience and authors have to include material to make the book more salable.  Paradoxically, the effort to make the book more appealing may do just the opposite as an instructor may regard material outside their course assignment as superfluous and not worth their student's money.

But that's not why I started this post.  No?  No.  I've had two interesting experiences with ebooks.  In the first, the first several pages of A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science by David Reed present an interesting challenge for the reader.

It took a little bit before I realized that what I was seeing was not just a botched image, but text where the letters v,w, and y were missing.  And not just missing, but missing from only some segments or fonts in the text.  Looking at the example, you can see that "w" and "y" appear in the italicized text, but not the standard text.

One of my students in Engineering Drawing turned in several drawings which were missing some lines.  It turned out that those lines were missing from the ebook version of the text. It was as obvious as the difference between these two:

Water Index

A link on the Yahoo Finance site described the creation of a water index by IBM and Waterfund, LLC.  The index intends to be for water what  the Case-Schiller Index is for housing.

IBM needs no explanation.  Waterfund on the other hand "is developing Software-as-a-Service solutions to measure the financial risk of supplying freshwater. Waterfund is also pioneering the first financial risk management products catered to the needs of the water industry."  Make of that what you will.

The story reminded me that someone I knew had put a great deal of money into a company named Pure Safe Water Systems (PSWS).  He'd had business dealings with the company, was favorably impressed, and expected his investment to provide a comfortable retirement.

From time to time I'd checked on the stock because I've been interested in water for a several decades since a newsletter from my local water service showed that the cost of providing potable water had increase several fold over time.  Most of the increase seemed to come from testing and purification, not from infrastructure costs.

Shortly after that I heard of a bet between two eminent economists concerning the cost of raw material/commodities over time.  The details are fuzzy now, but I think the one who said that commodities actually got cheaper with time bet that the other economist couldn't identify a  number of commodities whose cost would increase over the next several years.

When I heard that, I said I would take that bet with everything I owned and bet on the cost of water.  Potable water is getting scarcer around the world.  Just look at the rising consumption of bottled water over the last few decades.

PSWS which among other things makes portable water purification systems seemed poised to take advantage of the increased number of natural disasters.  Prognostication should be so simple.

The first time I checked the price, the stock was selling for about 25¢ and the person was expecting the price to go to $1 in a few years. 

It was not to be.  There have been some interesting money-making opportunity when the price went from 10¢ to 15¢ and again 6.5¢ to 10¢, but in general, the price has gone down.

My heart sank when I saw the closing price today: 0.0021 0.0002(8.70%).

By any measure whatever money he'd put in was now worth less than 1% of what it had been when he first told me about the company.  (For those who avoid math at all costs, it looks like this:  for every dollar he invested he now has less than a penny)

I Learn Too Much About File Cabinets

Ordered to vacate an office (translation: get all your junk out of the office) I started hauling out all my accumulated shelving and cabinets.

Now I use "my" to indicate stuff the school discarded and I salvaged.  "Discard" means that someone wrote "Discard" or "Trash" on a note and stuck the note on the object and I, always cautious of running afoul of  regulations, would ask the janitor or an administrator if I could have it.

The usual justification for allowing an individual to take an unwanted piece of furniture stems from the fact that the school doesn't have an office of surplus equipment to recover some of the costs.  If furniture is actually discarded the school incurs additional costs assigning workers from Facilities to take a truck to pick up the stuff, bring it to a compactor, and then pay a carter to haul the trash away.  Letting an employee haul it away is far cheaper.

I performed my usual feats of strength and leverage getting the stuff down the school stairs (ramps are for sissies), into and out of a van, up and down my stairs.  That would seem to be end of it, but the fact that I'm writing this tells you otherwise.

My modus operandi for getting file cabinets down the stairs involves removing the draws to reduce the weight, align a pair of long 2x4's to serve as rails, and then with the file cabinet on its back, gradually slide the cabinet down the stairs.

All went well until I had difficulty putting the draws back in.  Three went in with no problem, but the fourth was a real problem.  I though that I might have put them in the wrong position.  (The file cabinet frame can get deformed slightly, but just enough to make it difficult to get the draw in it's original position.)

I tried swapping draws and then something happened.  I pushed too hard or pulled at the wrong angle or something, because I heard little pinging sounds as ball bearings popped out of their races and dropped into the draw below or flew against the side and fell to the floor.

Yes dear friends, I faced the mechanical equivalent of forcing toothpaste back in the tube.  The lighting wasn't good so it was time to find the trouble light and an outlet and a way to hang the trouble light so I could find the bearings.  It took a few minutes of searching to find all but 5 of the 60 missing ball bearings.  I don't have images, but the ball bearings were held in place by very thin lips of metal so it wasn't too difficult to pry up the metal, put the bearings back, and then, carefully bend the races back to hold the bearings.

The next file cabinet I moved used rollers instead of ball bearings.  Even better, the rollers were on a frame which could also be removed to make the file cabinet even lighter. 

The take home message is to be careful when sliding the file cabinet draws.

eBook Shock and Puzzle

As an instructor, I can review books on line at CourseSmart.  The first book I looked at started with a great quote from Einstein and then presented this challenge in the first two paragraphs:

Yes, dear friends, when I looked at the eBook preview of A balanced introduction to computer science by David Reed––2nd ed. the letters 'w', 'v', and 'y' were missing.

Perhaps only the preview lacks the letters, but I was not in the mood to investigate.

The Problem with College for Men

According to Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) on NPR the problem with college education for men is that at that point in life that they're interested in the opposite sex and, best of all, their zits have receded increasing the probability that their interest will be reciprocated.

They also mentioned that they're being investigated for taking performance decreasing drugs.

17 Hollow Way/Voyeur by Invitation

Garage and estate sales fascinate me.  Where else can you paw through or look at such intimate stuff?  (Yeah, yeah, you see it all the time on TV or at the checkout counter.  Or maybe you read a tell all book about the fiery love story between Justin the Heart Throb and Tiffany the Good Girl.  But those are celebrities, public people.  I'm talking about ordinary, or maybe not so ordinary people, but generally those whose names won't be recognized.)

A few weeks ago there was an estate sale on an estate.  Google maps put it I looked it up on the peninsula.  If you look at the map you can get some size of the estate by comparing the size of the house to the size of the grounds.

I didn't catch the name of the people who organized the sale, but they knew how to do chicken right.  Their green signs started 5 miles before the location and were located just beyond the intersections to guide you there.  I made a point of telling them that I appreciated their signage.

If nothing else, the sign on the brick pillar set the tone. 

There really wasn't much there for me.  I got a few (3) books.  The library wasn't large and seemed to have tomes on business success and romantic novels.  His and hers I'd guess.  After making quick work of the books I went looking around.

There was the usual abbreviated history electronics: VCRs, DVD players, and generations of wireless phones.  I didn't find much else of interest.  I never know whether the good stuff had been skimmed already or if the family wasn't interested in high-end cutlery and cookware.  There were several pieces of furniture which appeared extra-ordinary.  (Please take my word for it.  I left the camera in the car.)  There were a number of what appeared to be stuffed eagles.  Wasn't that illegal.

What was interesting was that I didn't have exact change so I had to wait for the guy with the "slicked-back hair".  When he appeared (and his hair didn't looked the way I expected slicked back hair to appear) I couldn't find the bill.  There I was holding 3 books and looking between the books, on the floor, searching my pockets - obviously flustered.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.

I paid. He put the books in a very nice new shopping bag.  Very classy.  I then reprised my fumbling looking for the receipt.  "Is this that you're looking for?" he asked, pointing to the bill sitting in plain sight (and all alone) on the table.

"Yup." 

After I got back to the car I got my camera to take the pictures.  One of the people leaving had one of the birds.  It's OK he said, it's not a real eagle.

I looked up the property on a real estate site.  In brief, 5 bed, 6.5 bath, and $1,799,000.