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?"

14-year-old dies after falling over gorge in Niagara Falls

 An NBC affiliate, WGRZ-TV Buffalo, posted a story which appaeared on MSN.com  The first paragraph read:

This is ostensibly a mental health story, but I was drawn to the grammatical error. It should have been "who had fallen into the gorge" or "who fell into the gorge".

The deterioration of learning started well before the COVID lockdown.  

When I checked the WGRZ website the text had been modified to "had fallen"

What's Missing From the Latest Mass Shootings?

May 24, 2022

American exceptionalism at its worst:

10 days after 10 people were killed in a racist inspired shooting May 14th at Topps Friendly Markets in Buffalo 19 kids and 2 teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Maybe I missed it, but i didn't hear the classic, now-is-not-the-time-thoughts-n'-prayers from supporters of the NRA.  Why has the playbook changed?  

Is it that nobody is fooled?  Nobody cares?  Or, maybe, it's the futility of action in the face of blind acceptance of mundane days becoming nightmares.

Inverse Occam's Razor

 There are are a number of news stories about right wing, anti-vaccine, COVID deniers claiming that their illness after attending maskless, anti-vaccine mandate rallies was due not to contacting the virus, but instead was due to a deep state bio-attack.  (Sample story: https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-stars-joe-oltmann-jovan-pulitzer-fantasize-theyve-been-attacked-with-anthrax)

I asked one of the Philosophy prof I know to ask if philosophers had a term equivalent to an inverse of Occam's Razor.  The answer was in light of the current environment there was a lot of discussion of the phenomenon, but no, there was no existing expression.

Six Types of Retirees/Lingerie

 As I was scrolling through an article on MarketWatch to read about Nancy Schlossberg's six type of retirees (Adventurer, Continuer, Easy Glider, Involved Spectator, Searcher, and Retreater) something changed on the right hand side of the screen,

My second thought concerned the pattern recognition algorithm that placed the ad.  My first thought was kinky? Why would a porn site buy space on Market Watch?  Scrolling up I found that the images were ads for Macy's.  

Back to the second thought: Is there a correlation between people scanning retirement advice ads and women's lingerie?  Perhaps the correlation involves jumps in the stock indexes and retirement articles.  Time to retire and buy something intimate for the chick on the side?  Was I flagged as a member of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement?

It would be a revelation if ads gave you a hint as to why an ad appeared.  ("You looked so sad we thought that some pictures of intimate apparel might cheer you up.")

Sherpa Blanket and Kryptonite Lock and Books

 Some time ago I found a Sherpa blanket blanket on freecycle.org.  We exchanged a few emails trying to decide when I should pick it up because the weather looked iffy.  We eventually decided on the weekend.  On the morning I was going to get the blanket someone offered a Kryptonite lock.  Surprise!! It was the same guy.  He'd stick the lock in the same bag.

What could go wrong?  How about a spell which transformed the parkway into a parking lot?  So it was after a detour that allowed me to spot a used book shop and the cheapest gasoline in a 15 mile radius that I finally arrived at Beechwood Street.

I parked in front of the house, but seeing the house number across the street I figured I'd walk a little way, getting a little aerobic exercise and saving a smidgen of gas by parking in the first available space.  

Beechwood street is numbered randomly, not the way normal suburban streets are numbered with odd numbers on one side, even numbers on the other with numbers increasing or decreasing in a regular pattern,  I thought my mind was failing because the numbers didn't make sense.  Fortunately, a lady who had just pulled out of her driveway, told me that I was probably looking for a house that way as she pointed in the direction where I had parked. 

It turned out that I had parked right in front of the correct house but I'd been fooled by the sign number of the house on the other side of the street.

On the way back I stopped into the book shop.  I'd been there browsing around for a few minutes when the owner was surprised that I was there.  After the usual what type of book are you looking for I browsed around for quite a while.  

I told the owner that there were some books in the wrong sections.  He didn't care.  The only thing which really appealed to me was a boxed set of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy.  Usually prices are negotiable.   In this case he checked on line and raised the price from the price in the books.  I passed. 

I'd said something early on about looking for engineering drawings for a class.  He mentioned that when he increased the price.  It was his right.  I passed.  

Got a God intolerance?

The full quote from By Molly Young's article, "Better Living Through Stoicism, From Seneca to Modern Interpreters" (www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/books/stoicism-books.html) :

Got a God intolerance? Try Epictetus!

The article was primarily concerned Mangling her sentences, Young wrote that for a meaningful secular existence, Stoicism might be "swapped in for religion like Lactaid for regular milk.  (Got a God intolerance? Try Epictetus!)"

Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher.  (*I had to look it up.)  It seems that the Stoics had their own version of Winston Churchill's “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.

One of the premises of Stoicism is that it will help you assimilate horrible events with equanimity. The proper way to respond to catastrophe, the Stoics will tell you, is to perceive it as a training exercise. Or, as Seneca put it: “Disaster is virtue’s opportunity.”

 It brings to mind a Garrison Keillor script where the narrator describes not being bothered by his wife ran off to Paris with some guy and his daughter dropped out of medical school to pursue a career in dry cleaning.  No, because by being a writer, it's all material.  

A good deal of my philosophy derives from bumper stickers, T-shirts, and coffee mugs.  Sherry Ross, an old acquaintance had a mug with the slogan, "Grin and ignore it."  Sometimes I act that way.  I know it infuriated a much despised former boss that I relayed bad news with a grin.