Fortune Cookies

 All time fortune cookie:
The great pleasure in life 
is doing what people say you cannot do.


 Fortune cookie of the week:
A person of words and not of deeds
is like a garden full of weeds.


 Watching the sunrise outdoors statistically increases your odds of having a good day. And needing a nap after lunch. Firefox.7.11.17

The plural of anecdote is not data. :)

Tara Goddard
@GoddardTara

Don't tell me why it won't work.
Tell me what you tried that didn't work.
Carlin Black, DuPont, 1966 

To try and fail is at least to learn; 

to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

 Chester Barnard

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized.  
Daniel_Burnham

But I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.
Lazarus Long

It's not the mistakes that count,
it's what you do after them that counts.
-Thelonious Monk

Thanks Paige Wroble for the find.

The weather right now in Seattle is cold and rainy.
It will get better--about April.
Horizon Air preflight announcement.

If it is to be it is up to me to do it.
John Tee-Van

 He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes;
He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much:
Those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else
Cyrus H.K.Curtis

 Wisdom is knowing what to do next;
Skill is knowing how to do it;
Virtue is doing it. 


 Learn from the mistakes of others.  
You haven't the time to make them all yourself.


 Minds are like parachutes: 
they function only when open.




"Butterflies are not insects, they are self-propelled flowers."
Captain John Sterling. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Robert A.
Heinlein, 1985.

 

Sprichwörter

 My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light.
Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
James Baldwin

 

Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things,
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that,
Robinson Jeffers 

Note to self:
You can't control how other people recieve your energy.
Anything you do or say gets filtered through the lens of whatever shit they are going through at the moment.
Which is not about you.
Just keep doing your thing with as much integrity and love as possible.
- Nanca Hoffman

Posted on Facebook by The Earth Tribe:
Edit J'C


What some call luck
Is simply pluck
And doing things 
Over and over

Perseverance and skill
Courage and will
Are the four leaves
Of Luck's clover
Anon per Google


There is no such thing as luck;
There is only adequate or inadequate preparation
To cope with a statistical universe. 
Dr. Samuel C. Russell, Have Space Suit - Will Travel, RA Heinlein, 1958

The Virile Mind

One of the most striking things about the virile mind is that at the end of its thinking there is always a question mark.  The ignorant man finds it easy to convince himself that what he does not know is not worth knowing.  It is only those who are willing to go on learning, who becoome aware of how vast are the realms of to be explored beyond the farthest reach of their own understanding.
Peter Fletcher

"What makes my truth mythology and your mythology truth?"
A Hopi "Cathy"

Quoted on Facebook by friend Brian King

 “Where's your church?”

“We’re standing in it.”

“But this is a bookstore and it’s a Friday.”

“Yes, but you might also choose to see it as a cathedral of the human spirit-a storehouse consecrated to the full spectrum of human experience. Just about every idea we’ve ever had is in here somewhere. A place containing great thinking is a sacred space.”
 From Forrest Church’s A Chosen Faith

In biology when an experiment goes wrong it stinks. 

In chemistry when an experiment goes wrong something blows up. 

In physics when an experiment goes wrong nothing happens. 

Hat tip to Paul Lewis on Facebook

I like to feel that I've paid rent on the piece of earth I'm using.             Hilda Burroughs.  The Number of the Beast, R.A.Heinlein, 1980.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Memorable Quotes

“Slow up!  I don’t ‘believe’ in anything.  I know certain things—little things, not the Nine Billion Names of God—from experience.  But I have *no* beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.”  Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love, Prelude II, Robert A. Heinlein, 1973.

BRITANNIUS (shocked):

    Caesar, This is not proper.

THEODOTUS (outraged):

    How?

CAESAR (recovering his self-posession):

    Pardon him, Theodotus: He is a barbarian, and

    thinks that the customs of his tribe and island

    are laws of nature.

                                                        Caesar and Cleopatra, ACT II

                                                                —George Bernard Shaw 

 

 

How on earth does a guy with this much disposable income manage to not pay the housekeeper on time *or* even mop a floor to maintain a property in the city he lives in.  Send him back to his mom; he’s broken.   Ishie Bay on Facebook.

...than is walking the dog twice a day the “life’ of of a man who bosses a planet-wide corporation between those walks—even though to a being from Arcturus III those walks might seem to be the tycoon’s  most significant activity — as a slave to the dog.  

Editorial comment. Stranger in a Strange Land. Robert A. Heinlein. 1961.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

 There is no such thing as luck;  there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.   Dr. Samuel C. Russell. Have Space Suit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein, 1958.

 

Toledo is where you find Velveeta on the gourmet counter at the supermarket.  Gael Greene, Restaurant Critic. 

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” – George Carlin 

Elegies

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Sleep well, Christopher. Thank you for sharing your father's dreams with us.

Kevin Black for Christopher Tolkien Facebook, 2020

Attribution:
It's Bilbo's final version, recited right before he falls asleep in his chair at Rivendell after the Ring has been destroyed. J.R.R.Tolkien, Return of the King, 1965, p266

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die.    

 And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:    

“Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

 And the hunter home from the hill.”

Requiem.  R.A. Heinlein, 1935.

From

This is the epitaph Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) wrote for himself. It is carved on his gravestone at Vailima in Samoa.

Blackie and the Belt Drive Pulley

Somewhere, lost on a floppy, is the contemporaneous recount of this story.  It is too good to be lost. Doing my best to recreate it here.

 

 After a wonderful Backpack on the John Muir Trail with our four small children, Cousin Peter and J'Carlin were returning to LA via 395 on Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  About Lone Pine, which is about as close to the middle of nowhere as one can get, the Chevy we were in began to overheat and make funny noises under the hood.  We turned onto a side road to a campground hoping to find at least a safe place to stay and maybe a phone.  Alas, a few hundred yards in the Chevy quit in sight of the sign to the campground 2 miles.  Peter and I were matching pennies to see who would trek to the campground when a  well used Jeep pulled up behind us. A gentleman jumped out and asked if he could help? We said probably not but a lift to the campground to get the kids a place to sleep while we waited for repairs or whatever after the weekend would be nice.  He introduced himself as Blackie, and said that when camping season was over he was a car mechanic and would be happy to help both with a camp and possibly with the car.  He looked under the hood and quickly found that the drive belt pulley was torn off its mounting. He sighed and said he would need an new one and the junk yards were closed, but maybe he could find one tomorrow. He said there was plenty of room in his campsite and towed us all to it with the Jeep. 

 Once there he introduced his camping clan of a dozen people, and they invited us in to share dinner. All hints of payment were waived off, with a “Happy to help!” With what, we didn’t know, as all we had was a couple of credit cards, and the small change we were matching with.  After dinner and the kids were down Blackie’s story was told.  He was well known mechanic in the LA basin, and never lacked well paid jobs, but as soon as camping season opened up he left the crowds and hassles of LA for his Lone Pine Campsite.  The camp had a well stocked general store, and was close enough to Lone Pine for other necessities, so camping season was free of pressure and worries and Blackie and his clan could do as they pleased.  

 On Sunday Blackie disappeared for the Junk yard, and all of us were treated as part of the clan, our meager remains of trail food were refused with a thanks but no thanks, we eat better than that here, and you are welcome as friends of Blackie.  Later he returned with the bad news that no part could be found but that all was not lost as he knew the home phone of the Chevy Dealer, who would have the part.  After a brief conversation about the dealership being closed on Labor Day Blackie said “you live next door, meet us at the parts door.  We need to get these people back to work on Tuesday.”  A brief contretemps about payment, since we didn’t have that kind of cash and the banks weren’t open on Labor Day, No ATMs then, which was solved by Blackie personally guaranteeing the credit card payment.  

 Labor Day morning Blackie and I picked up the part, he had the car fixed, road tested and ready to go by noon, but insisted that we stay for the afternoon barbecue.  We agreed only if we could provide the meat.  We bought the store out of their best cuts, and dropped them in the cooler.  Much less than the cost of the repair, but the store had a limited supply.  As a result we arrived home early evening, with a repaired car, full bellies and wonderful story of human kindness.  

  

Heinlein’s Unusually Competent Women

 Heinlein’s Juveniles appealed to me in my youth because of the “unrealistically” competent female women. I was raised by a family of extremely competent women in the WWII years and the post war.  In those days women who were competent in anything outside of homemaking were almost invisible in society and strongly encouraged to conform to aspire only to the MRS. degree even while in college. 

 They are not unrealistic, just not common.  I eventually married one.  I learned early on in our relationship when we were both in High School that she had two aspirations: A Nobel Prize and successful children. If I didn’t intend to actively support both I should look elsewhere.  I went to a top tier University and dated normally but my choices were those seeking the Mrs. and non-breeders as they bought into the prevailing culture norm that successful women didn’t plan for children. As a result when she graduated with an honors STEM degree we married to cooperate in both endeavors.

 All Heinlein’s competent women were enthusiastic breeders, and many of his stories contain ways to provide appropriate care for the children of competent women.  Hint “All MEN should be able to change a diaper,...”   I learned that skill for the first middle of the night feeding.  When the baby cried, when she was half awake she asked me to bring him to her and was asleep when I got there to hang him on an available teat.  When he was finished she was fast asleep and I had no choice but learn to change the dirty diaper. Thereby establishing the parenting rule:  When she was asleep, at work, or busy I was a single parent.  Conversely when I was at work or busy she was a single parent.  As both of us were in high paying, demanding jobs we needed and could afford the best daytime nanny.  Until both children were in school, one of us worked for free.  We could have afforded an Au Pair, but parenting was a priority for both of us and we arranged our work schedules to fit. I was the morning parent getting everyone up, fed, and off to school or work, she was the evening parent with a lot of help from me. Our joke was that we split the parenting 60/40 with both of us doing the 60%

Paranormal collection post

Psychokinesis or telekinesis is a barely useful feature of some young people and the forces it can exert are minuscule. As a result it atrophies unless continually practiced. I have witnessed a run of 95+ of 100 coin spins controlled several times by several people to a called result before the spin. Teenagers all, and once shown that it could be done, did it reliably. Other than fun, a useless skill, but many have it. A related skill and more useful is the ability to control the fair roll of fair dice to 7. Very useful in informal craps games, if used sparingly, and has been done in casinos. The long runs that casinos advertise may be house players with the ability, although used very sparingly can change the odds favorably for the adept person.

Telepathy is a more common skill but generally useful only for people in close groups performing a desired common task. Most common in musical groups, cults, and mobs. And also the coordination of flocks of birds, Primarily used for synchronizing tempos or responses. I have not yet after many years of observing the phenomenon determined whether it is the group reading the mind of the leader, or responding simultaneously with a neighbor, but the microsecond timing of the responses cannot be explained by reaction as the time lag between observation and reaction is measured in deciseconds and in music microsecond lags are noticeable and disconcerting. (Why zoom choruses are impossible without computer assisted audio and video synchronization of individual players.) As a lifetime choral singer I theorize that most synchronize with a leader but correct by synchronization with neighbors(s). The baton is merely a telepathy aid, as the reaction time of different members is different enough to ruin the synchronization if sight response was all there is.

More rare is some telepathy in intimately bonded couples, under some situations, but many bonded couples can reliably win the dropped bill bar bet. Reaction time insures that a dropped bill cannot be caught between thumb and forefinger held open over the portrait, even if the fingers holding the drop are observed closely. But if the intent to drop is read telepathically reaction times are cancelled out and the bill is caught near the portrait. I have observed a couple win with their backs to a common wall, the bill held in a doorway in the wall.

It is also well documented that dogs read a human companion’s mind, and apparently some non-companion minds. “Don’t trust anyone your dog doesn’t like.” Dogs going to the door when their companion steps off the bus no matter if it is the usual time or a later time or when the car turns the corner into the home street is usual behavior. At obedience trials dogs respond to cues, visual or verbal, before any response time lag. I am not familiar with horses, but riders tell me that horses respond the same way.

Customer service stories

 Reminds me of an unpaid phone bill a long time ago when I was cross country courting and a phone at my new address was not being installed when promised. I was working long hours and couldn’t wait past their 2 hr window.  I came home to a hanger on my door saying I was not home when they got there and would have to reschedule, many times. When they dunned me about a substantial phone bill I asked for a payment window then went after hours and put a hanger on their door saying I tried to pay bill #### but they weren’t open. After several iterations, someone called and asked if I was having trouble getting a new phone installed?  Yep, I  said.  Install my new phone as agreed and you will get paid.  Surprisingly the next installer was on the minute.

Only a Child Can Do It.

 Practically everyone over fifty hated the old math and does it poorly and inaccurately without a calculator.  Because of the way they learned it they are incapable of learning the New Math. ( A whole class of Stanford Seniors learning New Math for a teaching credential, failed a 4th grade review quiz on a midterm.) If you didn’t learn the new math in grade school ferggettaboutit.  You can’t even discuss it intelligently.

Post Office Banking

From Bernie Sanders first POTUS campaign: 

I have sponsored legislation to let the Postal Service find innovative new ways to shore up its finances. I have proposed that the U.S. Postal Service offer banking services—“postal banking”—which was provided until 1967, and is still a reality in many foreign countries.

Simply put, the Post Office would offer basic banking services to customers—like low-interest savings accounts, debit cards and even some simple types of loans. The USPS already takes in more than $100 million in revenue each year by selling postal money orders.

Not only would this help the U.S. Postal Service, but also a lot of low-income people. If you are a low-income person, it is (depending upon where you live) very difficult to find normal banking. Banks don’t want you. And what people are forced to do is go to payday lenders who charge outrageously high interest rates. You go to check-cashing places, which rip you off. And, yes, I think that the postal service, in fact, can play an important role in providing modest types of banking service to folks who need it.

An estimated 68 million people live in “bank deserts,” areas without access to financial services. The banks don’t want to serve these people because they’re mostly poor, leaving them to be gouged by check-cashing shops and payday lenders. 

Postal banking could save low-income families thousands of dollars per year, AND provide a new revenue stream for the Post Office.

J’C. Great idea.  I will remind him once we have a working Government. 

Rocket Science

When I was early in my rocket science career I was asked to design a sounding rocket with certain mission characteristics by the boss at noon.  He wanted the preliminary design by mid afternoon.  I was in my cubicle working frantically with my slide rule so I didn’t notice the crowd gathering around me.  Shortly Bob Truax came in and said “What are you doing with the slide rule, I thought I asked you to design a rocket.” “Er, working on it, Sir.” “Well, what is the diameter?”  “11.5 inches, Sir.” “OK! The circumference is 3 feet.” What is the length?” “22.5 feet, Sir.” OK, 70 square feet, what is the thickness.?” In ten minutes we had the design. “Now give it to the guys with the calculators.  That’s what we pay them for.”

Raising all boats

The trickle UP economy is the only one that raises all boats the littlest ones the fastest

Unexpected Dining Excellence

I lived 23 years in New York and eating out was our favorite luxury as we both had demanding careers.  So too many elaborate meals to count from moderate to exorbitantly priced.  But the most memorable was in Danville PA.  I arrived, exhausted, at an unpretentious Interstate motel after a long drive just after the poolside burger bar closed.  I was told the only choice was the restaurant but I had better hurry.  I looked at the menu headline “Our specialty is Flambé dishes.”  Oh, great I thought, if you can’t cook burn it. I ordered Chicken Piccata.  After the surprisingly elegant appetizer a rolling brazier pushed by the chef came to my table with a bunch of small dishes surrounding the sauté  pan.  The chef proceeded to make the sauce one ingredient at a time, gently sautéing the filleted chicken breast at the proper time finishing up with the wine and brandy for the flambé.  Delicious to say the least.  Breakfast was crepes flambé.  After work I got the story from the chef. I compared his dinner to Lutèce and he said I might have eaten one of his dishes as he was sous chef there but missed his home in the Poconos and convinced Sheraton to let him run a catering business out of their Interstate motel kitchen.