"Famous author ripped after trashing the Bible"

The headline comes from an article is on Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/media/famous-author-ripped-after-trashing-bible-work-fiction-fertile-ground-for-hypocrisy), but I got it from MSN (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/famous-author-ripped-after-trashing-the-bible-as-a-work-of-fiction-fertile-ground-for-hypocrisy/ar-AA1mViRw) 

From the article:

"Oates declared, "The bible, as you call it, is a work of fiction; or rather, an anthology of fictions. It is not ‘the’ bible for much of the world's population & those who claim it as their own select those verses that appeal to them while ignoring other verses. Fertile ground for hypocrisy."

Various right wing and religious people weighed in.  My own feeling is simple.  Joyce Carol Oates is renown as a brilliant author.  Who better to recognize a work of fiction, an anthology based on the variety of styles, and the use of selected quotes for misuse?

I rest my case.

Trust Jealousy/Lenny

Aria Yang's article ("When I get jealous of people, I use that envy as a guidepost. Here's how it led me to quit my prestigious Big Law job" https://www.businessinsider.com/big-law-associate-quit-job-jealousy-career-life-goals-2023-12) puts a neat twist on jealousy. In her case it showed her what she really wanted to do.

It made me think have I been jealous of someone? I remember being envious of a childhood friend who knew when he was only eleven that he wanted to be an electrical engineer. It might not qualify as jealousy because I realized all the dedication that went into his success.

He was a good story.  To avoid the draft he got a job in a defense company.  He remarked, "It's amazing:  they're paying me to do this stuff."  He was the living embodiment of the saying, "If you never want to work a day in your life, do something your love."

He'd "steal" parts from work, work on them in his home lab at night, and bring them back to work.

He was kicked out of his college's honors program because he was working at the same time.

Besides the "stealing" the incident which stands out to me was his buying a stereo system which had a hum.  He diagnosed the problem, fixed it with a resister or capacitor, and sent them a bill for his labor. (Memory says it was a McIntosh component.)

Rest in peace Lenny.

"Incompetent dumpster fire"

 The quote in the headline was from a quote from Dawn Beattie, a state committee member in  an article about the Michigan Republican Party.  (https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/politics/michigan-gop-financial-turmoil-infighting-invs/index.html).  

My first thought was, is an "incompetent dumpster fire" better or worse than a ""competent dumpster fire"?  (Youth wants to know.)

It is remarkable that Joel Studebaker, the party’s deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying “We come to the table with almost no political experience and we don’t view that as a bad thing, but it does increase the learning curve in terms of politics.” 

The article makes it appear that the party is riven with factions accusing each other of conspiracies.

My own take is that it makes it more obvious that politics is reflective of a national mental health crisis.

Giulia Cecchettin's Killing Sparks Italian Reckoning Over Femicide

The title is a BBC headline (www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67514334).

Giulia Cecchettin was stabbed to death by a possessive ex-boyfriend, Filippo Turetta . From the article:

"Ms Cecchettin's sister Elena said she had been concerned about his possessiveness, but never imagined he could hurt her.

She pointed to a patriarchal culture of violence and control over women that normalises men's dangerous behaviour.

"Filippo is often described as a monster, but he's not a monster," Elena told Italian media. "A monster is an exception, a person who's outside society, a person for whom society doesn't need to take responsibility.

"Monsters are healthy sons of the patriarchy and rape culture," she added."

Once again I don't understand.  Was it a conscious act, rage, or something for which I have no term?  It doesn't make sense.

The Advance Man - Jerry Bruno

I thought I'd check on the critical reception of Jerry Bruno's "The Advance Man" before submitting a recommendation for a book on politics.  I expected to be writing "Although the critical reception was disappointing, I felt the book was an unvarnished insider's look at politics, with a Jeff Greenfield polish.  

The first link that came up was The New Yorker story.  The first thing I saw was the typo or was it a scanning error?  I'll see if I can find the microfiche.

Photopea - A Piece of My World Crumbles

For every semester each course gets a new image in our LMS (learning management system).  One course, the gaming course ("The Art and Science of Computer Games"), took a bit more time because I'd program a list of objects to create a pattern, e.g., a list of fish with each fish rotated slightly from the previous one.  The only concern was getting the image cropped and resized.  

For many years, Photopea.com, a free online graphics editor was a quick reliable way to do image editing.  The default file type is PhotoShop's PSD file.  For the minimal needs of myself and my students Photopea was fine.  By minimal I mean cropping, magic selection, and exporting an image at different qualities to see the relationship between file size and quality.  Everything else was, as far as I was concerned, a bonus for those who had artistic ability.

When I tried to use Photopea yesterday the app froze, weird things happened when I tried to crop the image.  I loaded the image (left below), used the magic wand to select and then delete the background.  The crop started out fine, but froze when I tried to remove the pixels (right below).

||

I thought it might be my computer - it's about 6 years old, but I had the same problem with the laptop which is newer.

In the end I searched for free online graphics editors and eventually found a far from intuitive Total Photo Editor  (freetoolonline.com/photo-editor.html) with which I created the image I needed.

What had been a 10 minute dalliance (the graphics editing being an excuse to listen to music) turned into about 4 hours of frustration.  Sigh.

And speaking of entrails ...

There are economic indicators and then there is this from the last day in July in 2023: an index which tracks the price of luxury watches on the secondary market.  Finance.yahoo.com led to a story by BusinessInsider (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/rolex-recession-luxury-watch-market-prices-falling-fed-interest-rates-2023-7) entitled "The great Rolex recession is here: How the Fed crushed the luxury watch boom". 

Some talking heads believe it augurs ill as it indicates the wealthy are so concerned that they aren't spending wildly.  Others contend it is people coming to their senses.  Still others think it is "flippers" who bought watches intending to resell them for more who have learned that not all investments go up.

And I?  Well, given that I didn't even know that WatchCharts existed, I just find it amusing and look forward to erstwhile MBA students undercovering correlations with my favorite economic indicator, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) (tradingeconomics.com/commodity/baltic).

New York Times Cheesecake?

A reference to female swim suits in a NY Times article a few weeks ago about a female marketing executive instigated an online search about swim suits.

Since then ads with attractive young women in bathing suits have appeared in my browser on a wide variety of sites.  I certainly didn't expect this to appear in the middle of the page of NY Times on line:

I appreciate the eye candy, but it was, in this instance, just one more thing I had to scroll past.

Cleaning My Desk

This was originally started sometime in late 2022.

In languid preparation for an office move I started sorting the papers on my desk into check later, store, and recycle.  

There was an end-of-year financial statement from 3 years ago - not the sort of thing I'd normally leave around,  a lot of hard copy quizzes (some were pretty clever), and the sort of flotsam I treasure: scrap paper - paper with parts of an essay written by an unknown hand - on which I scribbled something. 

There was part of a treasured verse from James Alley Blues by Rabbit Brown I first heard sung by Willie Watson:

I done seen better days, but I'm putting up with these
I done seen better days, but I’m putting up with these
I would have much a better time, but these girls, now, is so hard to please

His take is more mournful than the original:

I done seen better days but I'm puttin' up with these
I been havin' a much better time with
These girls now I'm so hard to please

On the back of lined paper which had an assignment dated this past January from a student whose name I didn't recognize (she must have dropped the course) I saw this:

As I typed in "fairtale of" into the search text box Google up popped:

 Isn't that wonderful?

Wait!  There's more: "Aaron Schiller - charred house on Martha's Vineyard"   It seems to be named Chilmark House after the adjacent pond( https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5915/5799/e58e/ceff/6b00/005d/newsletter/2016DS52.485.jpg?1494570849).  Looking at it now I can't understand why I made a note of it.

it might have been the next story about Anthony Esteves using the Japanese shou sugi ban technique to burn boards for a house he built in Maine (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/t-magazine/design/anthony-esteves-soot-house.html).  Now I know why this attracted me.  The transparent structure in the background will be "is a classic New England barn — to be finished in soot-paint, of course — which will serve as the family library, home to their collection of over 7,000 books."  
Yo

u had me at 7,000 books.

Napolean / La charge à Eylau

At the beginning of a trailer for the film Napolean with Joaquin Phoenix there's a depiction of a cavalry charge.  Right away I remembered a clip of a cavalry charge from a film starring Gérard Depardieu, but couldn't remember the name of the film

It took an inordinate amount of time, but I went through Depardieu's filmography until I found the wikipedia entry for Le colonel Chabert (1994).  What made the film so memorable was the depiction of the cavalry charge.  At one time I thought the clip could be used in schools to have students imitate the cavalry officers by trying to hold their arms up for the duration of the charge.

That clip from Depardieu's film is on YouTube: "La charge à Eylau" -Le colonel Chabert (1994)

Book Flotsam

 Stuff I got from the web about books:

The best decoration is a room full of books.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Them: You have too many books.
Me: More like not enough shelves
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing says "I mean business like using a shopping cart in a bookstore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I tried everything to get to sleep last night.  Well, everything except closing the book and putting it on the night stand.  Let's not get too crazy,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Books don't just go with you.  They take you where you've never been.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love without Disguise/She's Gone

Posted as a comment to Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson Greatest Hits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOVJZhOHMVI)  Could not find the reference for  quote by AguiaImperial.  Later I found this was a lyric from Willie Nelson's "She's Gone".

She is gone
But she was here
And her presence is still heavy in the air
Oh what a taste
Of human love
Now she's gone and it don't matter anymore
Passing dreams
In the night
It was more than just a woman and a man
It was love
Without disguise
And now my life will never be the same again.

Skate Parts [sic]

 As a congenital proofreading non-social media person it finally dawned on me that the way to communicate with authors is through their social media accounts, not an email or a comment to an article online.

I spotted a typo in John Blake's article, "Predictions about the decline of Christianity in America may be premature" (https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/08/us/christianity-decline-easter-blake-cec/index.html).  The article stated that church buildings were converted into skate parts instead of skate parks.

There was no place to post comments.  Clicking on Blake's name took the browser to a page showing links to Facebook and Twitter.  So there it rests, a typo.

Maybe I'll ask someone with an account to let him know.  On the other hand, maybe not.

Disney Advertisement / ChatGPT

Billing itself as the place "Where Technology, Imagination and Innovation Collide" it seems that an unintended consequence of the collision was a grammatical displacement.  

A link on the NY Times website lead to Disney Advertising (https://www.disneyadvertising.com/technology-innovation/).  Just a brief scroll down where Disney touted its "strategic approach" to "quality measurement providers" they demonstrated a woeful inability to master common English language advertising idioms, e.g., partnering WITH more than 100 ..." was garbled.

It is unlikely that the AI program ChatGPT would create such an egregious grammatical error.  

Somebody paid good money to setup that web site and play for the graphics. How can people, professionals in their field, make such stupid errors?

And lest someone repeat a Grammar Nazi accusation with overtones of superciliousness, let me add that when I notified Disney Advertising there was a typo in my subject line.  It happens.

Knots Palomar

I found this video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCkOQpjbn8k).  It made me wonder whether I should learn a knot a day.  Is there a benefit?  Perhaps I should just find out an efficient way to tie stuff down on top of the car.

I'm expecting that in a few weeks one of the techs will take a last fond look at crates full of old extension cords, video connectors, and such and ask me if I want them.  I'll be unable to say no.  What then?

Perhaps the Fine Arts department will have a need.  Time to check with them.

"Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tirade"

 The title comes from The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/21/newsmax-lara-logan-qanon-conspiracy-theory), but other outlets have similar headlines.

Lara Logan, a former correspondent for 60 Minutes and CBS News gave a bizarre interview on rightwing Newsmax with claims that "open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and that the world’s elites “want us eating insects [and] cockroaches” while they “dine on the blood of children.”   Here's a link to the video https://youtu.be/3vfGHPLturQ

I had several concerns:  

1. What type of children?  Free range?  Non-GMO?  White?  Non-white?(I'm guessing that some might encourage the eating of "those other children".  You know the ones.  (Not OUR kind.) )
2. Are the children fattening?  (Does it go to your thighs?  I hate that.) 
3. Is that really her speaking?  There is a fear of deep fakes - technology being used to manipulate audio and video to make it seem that what didn't happen did.

The third item is probably not a fake because multiple media outlets reported it.  But curiously, searching the Newsmax site for "Lara Logan" there is no mention of the incident:

 It will be interesting to see how this is spun. 

HG Wells / AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship in Action

The unhurried mechanics of loading and firing the weapons reminded me of H.G. Well's story, "Land Ironclads" "AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship in Action" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wj6kCxT0mM) .

It's another day at the office for the guys handling the shells. Terror and destruction from above delivered with matter-of-fact competence.

Old Newsletters in the library

I was going through some stuff in the library. In other houses the room would be called my father's study, but for us it was the library. With his father-in-law my father built shelves along the length of the interior wall with cabinets at the bottom of each end.

I grew up with the wall packed with Chemical Abstracts, thick white volumes with blue lettering on the cover.  Those were the days when an ordinary person could afford a subscription to Chemical Abstracts.  Or maybe because my father did translations for them he got copies for free.  

The library and Chem Abstracts loom large in the family mythology for many reasons.  The most salient occurred when my father asked quotes for a paint job.  I wasn't there.  My father said that the painter broke down crying when he saw the wall of Chem Abstracts.

The painter had always wanted to be a chemist.  But there was the Depression and ends had to be met.  The painter saw someone living his dream. 

The story is a graphic example of what can happen if you can't follow your dreams.

But that's not why I started this post.  Going through the shelves I found newsletters my mother got.  (We like to say that "She's a dietician, but she's better than that." My brother and I were too young to know that "force of nature" was the term we should have used.) The earliest was from 1974.  I wasn't going to read them.  Before I put them out for recycling I thought I should do something to document them.  Hence this image showing different mastheads:

There are some NY Times articles stacked on the lower shelves.  Time to give them a once over before recycling.
 

Counter-Attack Against Mind Control

This Facebook post would normally be followed by a comment about tin foil not being wrapped tightly enough. But not this one:

"I will be launching the first counter-attack against mind control in human history.

"I want to be very clear, this will not be an active shooter event. I will be executing some of the people responsible for activating active shooters.

"If I happen to survive, please visit me in prison, only to see the same man you’ve almost known. I will gladly die to expose this.

"If I can help another targeted individual fight back against telepathy, then the sacrifice will be worth it." 

Stephen Marlow followed up by murdering 4 neighbors  (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11089359/Police-Suspect-slayings-4-Ohio-arrested-Kansas.html)  August 7  2022

Cheating on a CPA Ethics Exam

You can't make this stuff up. Correction: you can make this stuff up, but why bother.  Quoting Pat Sky: "Reality is bad enough.  Why must I tell the truth?"  

The accounting firm is Ernst & Young

(Italics are mine.)

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that a "significant number" of the accounting firm's auditors cheated on the ethics portion of the Certified Public Accountant test and other courses needed to maintain the licenses.

To make it even better, a press release from Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, included this:

"It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things."

On the other hand, some might view cheating on an ethics exam as another challenge to be passed. It calls to mind a Non Sequitur cartoon where someone touts the ability of his accountant by claiming that the IRS named a loop hole after her.

There is also the classic 2 + 2 joke (www.jokesoftheday.net/joke--nbsp-What-Is-Two-Plus-Two-/201512164, www.jokesoftheday.net/joke--What-does-two-plus-two-equal-/201605279, www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/how-much-is-two-plus-two/82597645/, etc. although my favorite version involves a philosopher, a physicist, and an accountant being considered for a job.) The punch line invariably has the last candidate for a job, after carefully insuring that no one else will overhear what is said, asking in a whisper, "How much do you want it to be?"