Learned Helplessness by KimB

Learned Helplessness ¹ is a behavior (or lack there of ) where people/animals cannot avoid painful or adverse conditions. They just give up in the face of unrelenting pain or confusion. We've all had our moments where things are just so horrible, we just "stop". Generally we get going again in some fashion but the dread of repeating the experience stays with us.

It's a well used concept in torture programs ² and features prominently in military manuals ³ with detailed descriptions of how to induce the state where the "fear of pain or deprivation" is more useful than the actual beatings, electric shocks and other pain inducing methods. Although, the sadistic folks who undertake these jobs much prefer the latter to the former.

Learned Helplessness is also very useful in other contexts, not ones normally associated with torture chambers. Some High Tech companies specialize in embedding similar concepts into their software programs in order to "direct" the users into a specific set of behaviors: compulsive use of the programs and dread of not being able to use them.

Humans are very malleable and getting us to do X Y Z is much easier than teaching a dog to sit, stay, don't jump on people, don't run away. etc. etc. etc. Any one with dogs knows that one or more of these commands may not work, especially if you are not a professional dog trainer. Just open the front door and see how well your sit, stay commands work.

Humans though sit, stay, stare at the monitor and punch at the keyboard for hours and hours. We spend hours just "looking" or "checking" our phones. In the last week I've spent 5 hours just "looking" at my so-call smartphone, in case the "smart" part wore off and it failed to notify me of some ultra-important-trivial-item was collected and went un-noticed.

I play on-line video games MMORPGs ⁴ and I don't think anyone who plays regularly hasn't experienced the dread of "New Release Downtime". Just the thought of an announced 24 hour update period that morphs (ahem) into a 5 day outage is enough to make our control trigger fingers twitch even when off line. However, playing a game is not Real Life and a twitching fire button finger isn't the worst, unless you happen to pull an entire mob of NPCs including the Boss prematurely. The old 50 DPK Minus⁵ WoW raid video is still floating about showing what happens when things go pear shaped.

In our modern on-line world, High Tech companies work very hard to make sure we are permanently in a state of Learned Helplessness. It's all done subtly and packaged as convenience using social and cultural conditioning and our own mental processes to achieve the same outcome: to render us Unable to Function unless we are "allowed" by the High Tech software. It's more than just being reliant or dependent, it's the complete inability to do anything at all without it.

Recently a journalist tried to Not Google for a week ⁶. It was one to the saddest indictments of Learned Helplessness I've read. One can be horrified and revolted by the doings in CIA Torture Chambers and those of our Allies and even those of our Enemies but this surpassed the blood and gore by a long way. The man was completely unable to do even a few tasks without the High Tech sadist in his pocket telling him how, when and where to do to them.

The loss of knowledge about how to do anything without Google was condensed to:

You have to hope someone else knows what to do. ^6a

The man was completely unable to think for himself, solve any problem, learn something on his own, experience adventure, discover new concepts or compete even trivial tasks.

It was sad reading.

All through his article, he describes how helpless he felt, adrift in a world where he had no fundamental ideas about anything that had not been imprinted by High Tech and worse yet, the inability to remember anything even when it was imprinted. He couldn't even find his way home.^6b

It's a new form of dementia⁷: Googlezheimer's⁸

What's most sad is that common skills cannot be completed without a request to the Google Mind Monitoring System⁸.

Where to go, what to do, how to do it, what should I do, where am I, cannot be done without permission: Learned Helplessness.

Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer.
With Google, the issue is the answer.^6c

And that's the problem. We don't know the answers anymore. We have lost the ability to think on our own. To solve our own problems.

The most subtle part of Googlezheimer's is that we don't even recognize when Google gives us the WRONG ANSWER.

Oh yeah...
Big Issue...

There are plenty of wrong answers to be presented. We have no real compass to gauge reality anymore. We cannot tell the fake from the real, the imaginary from reality or the repurposed designed to enhance our dependence. We are adrift and we don't even recognize it ... because Google didn't tell us.

There is so much that is good about technology and so much that is really not good. It's in the underlying structure of how we use High Tech. We are fed less and less of what's new and more and more of about what we already know until we are so crippled mentally we cannot even find our own homes.

You can turn a horse loose and he will find his stable.
You can turn a dog loose and he will find his way home.
Cats are notorious for Coming Back ⁹ too.

But not so with Googlezheimer's

As I read the continuing saga of this man's descent into the enormity of what's been lost to him, his main concern was getting back to his comfort zone, to a Googlezheimer's Dormant State⁸. He's not even that alarmed about his incapacity to do things because he's focused on getting back to using Google. There's no epiphany¹⁰ moment for him, no insight¹¹ or Eureka!¹² only a frightened human overwhelmed by what he doesn't know and has no way of finding out ... without Google.

For whatever knowledge he has acquired in his life, it matters only to the extent of his hidden ignorance. Once the ignorance is exposed, the results are devastating mentally.

Google is like an insect: highly specialized; narrow purposed. Humans have greater capacities, except Google won't tell you this ... it's not good for their business.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects."

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love 1973 ¹³

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
   Learned helplessness is behavior that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape from or avoid. After such experiences, the organism often fails to learn or accept "escape" or "avoidance" in new situations where such behavior is likely to be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
   In CIA interrogation manuals learned helplessness is characterized as "apathy" which may result from prolonged use of coercive techniques which result in a "debility-dependency-dread" state in the subject, "If the debility-dependency-dread state is unduly prolonged, however, the arrestee may sink into a defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals
   Details of what's in the public released documents about how the Army and CIA torture people.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
   Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a combination of role-playing video games and massively multiplayer online games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual world.
5. ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
   Published on Dec 8, 2007
   Onyxia Wipe Animation
   NOTE: Video and Animation contain Strong and Vulgar Language and Images.URL fractured to prevent autorun.
6. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/17/would-life-be-happier-without-google-i-spent-a-week-finding-out
   Would life be happier without Google? I spent a week finding out
   Tim Dowling The Guardian Wed 17 Apr 2019 01.00 EDT
   a) “You just had to hope someone else knew”
   b) "When I moved house two years ago, I started to rely on Google for navigation. Now, I am utterly dependent. I don’t just want to know the way – I want to know the best way, as of this minute. I can’t remember the last time I gave a thought to where anything was."
   c) “Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer ... With Google, the issue is the answer.”
   
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease
   Information about Dementia and Alzheimer's conditions.
8. My own definitions:
   Googlezheimer's: Tech induced loss of knowledge.
   Googlezheimer's Dormant State (GDS): A mindless gazing at screens, thumbing or scrolling though apps or screens of information without reading or comprehension or remembering anything about what's displayed. Seen everywhere at anytime except when sleeping or napping; the thumbing motion may still occur from long term habit.
   Google Mind Monitoring System (GMMS): Any system that compels a continuous re-checking behavior. Such systems are based on compulsive behavior creation and are designed to maximize looking or checking of devices. Each access episode provides additional data points and market target details. A successful display will increase checking or viewing times and duration. Successful triggers are noted and used to tailor targeted stimulations.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Came_Back
   "The Cat Came Back" is a comic song written by Harry S. Miller in 1893.
   

   But the cat came back, he couldn't stay no long-er,
   Yes the cat came back de very next day,
   the cat came back—thought she were a goner,
   But the cat came back for it wouldn't stay away.
   

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)
    An experience of a sudden and striking realization
    
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight
    Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a specific context
    
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect
    The eureka effect by Albert Einstein (also known as the Aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept.
    
13. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
    Quotation from Time Enough for Love 1973 by Robert Heinlein
    

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

The Far Horizion

[Editor's Post]

A reminder that help comes in many ways.

Unexpected Blessings by Gigi
[Editor's note: This story was written by Gigi]
Thursday, October 21, 2010

Have a good chuckle as technology attempts to make us all appear "smarter than we are".

Spell Checkers by KimB
[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB]
Saturday, March 16, 2013

April Fool Jokes

The following April fool jokes are from a web site listing many from newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television, and various network sites. There are many sites and if you want a good laugh, dial into one.

April 1998 The newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article by physicist Mark Beslough claiming the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant of pi.

April 1998 Burger King ran an ad in USA Today saying customers could now order left hand Woppers with condiments designed to drip out the right side. Customers not only ordered left hand Woppers, but many asked the 'old' right hand Woppers.

April 1996 Taco Bell took out a full page ad in the New York Times announcing the purchase of the Liberty Bell, to help reduce the country's debt and renamed, Taco Liberty Bell. When the white house press secretary, Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, with tongue-in-cheek said that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would now be known as "The Lincoln Mercury Memorial".

April 1950 The Dutch TV news reported that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.

April 1980 The BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower, known as Big Ben, would go digital. England was shocked.

April 1908 NPR, (National Public Radio) reported that the IRS, in order to assure rebate checks were actually spent, would ship consumers products instead of checks. It also ran false sponsor mentions such as The Soylent Corp that manufactured protein rich foods in a variety of colors with the slogan, "Soylent Green is People".

April 2008 CBC Radio interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokes person announcing plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin. The coin, dubbed a 'threenie' in line with the nicknames of the one-dollar coin called a 'loonie' due to the depiction of a loon on the reverse, and the two-dollar coin called a 'toonie'.

Intolerance

Recently there have been frequent news reports of anti-Semitism and much talk about racial matters. It's a disturbing trend and the following quote might encourage us to overcome our prejudices and practice tolerance.

"We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learned the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical."

The above quote is from writings of Dietrich Bonheoffer, a theologian. As a minister, he was a dedicated anti-Nazi and participant in a plot to kill Hitler. He was executed along with Admiral Canarsis, General Hans Oster, General Karl Sack, General Friedrich Von Raleau, businessman Theodor Strunck, resistance fighter Ludwig Gehre and his brother, Klaus Bonheoffer at Flossenburg concentration camp while Soviet troops were in the vicinity.

Two weeks later, on April 23, 1945 the allies marched into Flossenburg. On April 30,1945, Hitler committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule, then shooting himself.

TANSTAAFL1 by KimB

To Paper or Not to Paper? - that is the modern question. To go paperless or remain in the sea of overflowing paper that represents your life?

Paperless has it's problems because once the disk drive crashes or the data is corrupted or incorrect, you have no method of recovering the information. Paper can preserve things longer but modern paper is poorly made and doesn't hold up very long in a historical sense.

It is a conundrum but a dangerous one to ignore.

Forging or Fakes ² have been around for as long as there has been anything of value to steal with a false document, painting or sculpture. Many of today's museums are filled with forgeries and it seems that every other month a new multi-million dollar ancient master painting is discovered; a production rate which, as anyone who knows or can guess what it takes to make such a masterpiece, is not possible, probable or even remotely theoretical to achieve in a any one lifetime.

The curious thing about masterpiece forgeries is this:

Until the painting is revealed to have less-than-authentic signature, the painting has pride of place on the gallery wall. Articles are written to describe the beauty of the painting, texture, colors and applications etc. etc. etc.

Once the painting has a signature change, it disappears into the dark vaults of embarrassment. Or on rare occasions, moved to the Modern Art section of the museum.

It's the SAME PAINTING...

Modern technology is now able to forge just about anything you can imagine and stuff you haven't even considered that can be forged or manipulated. There isn't much left that cannot be faked.

In old times (and current times), the best method Prosecutors in the USA have to guarantee a conviction is to withhold evidence and documents from the Defense. In the USA that is not what is supposed to happen, but if the Defense doesn't get a document how would anyone know? The lack of a document without knowledge of the existence of it, means a free ride for the Prosecutor, who's livelihood, and political ambitions rely on the number of convictions they get. They figure it's SOK to fudge and not turn over the items that show the Accused is Not The One because it would ding their stats.

90% Conviction Rate - Reelect Me - Make Me President

Sometimes though, this method backfires and someone with a bit of Moral Fiber squeaks and the truth drips out. Generally, not without a whole lot of anguish on the part of the Prosecutor's Victim, and the Prosecutor declaiming They Did It For The Betterment of Society and of course the true winner is the person(s) who actually Got Away With The Crime.

Any Conviction is a Good Conviction
    Innocence isn't Important to getting Reelected

With electronic documents however, there's a wrinkle. They might erase a document but erasing an electronic document does leave holes - tiny future embarrassments when they are found on the Way Back Machine³ or sitting on the drives in Bluffdale Utah⁴.

What is much easier is to alter the documents, video, voice, images or any other electronically stored data. There are now techniques that can create or alter any item without leaving an audit trail or footprint or indication that anything has been tampered with.

Make It So - Make It How You Want It - No One Can Tell

Part of the reason this is a Big Deal is that now a great deal of our society runs on electronic data and as anyone who has run afoul of a "computer error" can attest, fixing a "computer error" is nigh on impossible.

Computers Do NOT Make Mistakes.
    They do EXACTLY what they are programmed to do.

Programmers MAKE Mistakes.
    YOU Pay the Piper.

So, considering how easy it is to create a "deep fake"⁵, this is going to be a big problemo. And one that not too many are thinking about as they calculate that next statistical bump up.

This is something besides the normal trash-level computing that is passed off as Artificial Intelligence (AI) that purports to know you based on some dataset held in Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix private data stores, this in beyond plain old manipulation and greed, it's the complete Falsification of ALL Electronic Data.

If any one piece of electronic data is faked,
    where will you find unaltered data?

Millions of electronic letters or documents become useless once fakes penetrate the database.

Got a Birth Certificate?
    Prove it!
        Fake!

We have already seen the opening salvo of the "fake document" problem but in the world of fakes the problem will go deeper. There either won't be any document at all or the document will have been altered beyond forensic ability to uncover. People with less access to specialists claiming new found ancient masterpieces are authentic, are going to be severely impacted.

Most courts now require electronic submissions of documents, depositions, videos, audio, interviews. When these are faked and the courts stamp these as authentic, how can anyone "Prove It"?

We TRUST Computers
    We do not see the HUMAN in the background

In My Fair Town, there was a community sponsored event to help shred old documents. Gosh knows, I have boxes and boxes of old paper, crumbling and fading in storage boxes stacked one atop another in the garage. Some years back, I was able to take them to an office-supply-store and shred them for a nominal fee, then the fee became not-nominal and so I stopped shredding there. When I stopped shredding the stack got higher and higher.

So, when the community sponsored event came around I packed up some of the oldest of the old boxes and headed to the event. It was extremely well organized. Surprisingly so. Cars neatly tracked into 2 lanes, snaking their way to the location of the big shredders. More folks waiting at the unloading area, taking the boxes, dumping them into security containers and wheeling them to the biggest shredders you can imagine. 10 seconds and my old paper was gone.

And in theory, the now dead and shredded letters and documents make me safer from Bad Dudettes, primarily since paper with names, addresses, IDs, Bank Statements, Utility Statements and every other sort of document is beyond their reach.... It's also beyond mine.

I no longer have proof of - anything

I can no longer prove 5 years or 40 years of continuous existence with rent, utility, pay stubs or any other ephemera of modern life.

Do you think that's not a problem?

It is.

Some countries now require their citizens....
    to prove they are citizens.

How can you do that if the data is wrong, gone, altered or misfiled? How can you do that after 5 - 10 - 15 - 30 - 40 years of no paper? Where can you find pay stubs for companies that have gone out of business? Schools that have been closed? Records destroyed? Landlords long gone across the river? Towns that have been abandoned due to climate, water, fire and flood?

As I was snaking my way towards the Big Shred I thought about what a Great Event it was for the community. Old documents of perhaps not much value, safely destroyed, recovering room in my garage, and watching the cars in front of me unloading 5-10-15 boxes of life-long documents being tossed into the maw of a big machine. I wasn't really thinking too hard about the downside of not having a paper trail, like the others in line, I was just happy to get rid of this stuff that the IRS said I had to collect and now had hit its expiration date. I pondered how the community had collected the funds to pay for the mass paper grinding. I figured it was partly from local taxes and a donation by the paper grinder companies and a lot of nice civic minded folks helping one another.

It was a good feeling.
    It didn't last
        I looked behind me



Clovis CA Police Surveillance Van

The reasons for 2 nicely formed lines, slowly filing thru a small lane with no driveways, became apparent.

• The camera was hidden
• The truck was hidden
• The intent was hidden
• The reason was hidden
• The effect can be calculated.

There was no good reason to hide but they did. They hid because they were ashamed (in a way) of what they were doing. They did it anyway, no doubt claiming it was FOR THE GREATER GOOD. They paid for the shredding and in return got more of what they wanted.

They didn't ask. They just took.

In one of my ancient episodes of employment, I worked for company that collected trash cans. It's a big business, people produce lots of garbage and in some places it gets picked up regularly and taken ElseWhere. It's really a fascinating business.

No doubt most folks have seen a movie plot where the bad guy puts something in the trash and the good guys grab the trash can and get it. This happens. Normally the trash truck collects the targeted can and places the contents into a separate compartment and then takes it directly to a special area to hand it over. There's a set of legal reasons that allow it. Once you put the trash can on the street, the contents no longer belong to you.

Once you hand over the box of stuff to be shredded, it no longer belongs to you.

One can guess that the video and license plate reader with face recognition AI marked out some cars and the nice helpful persons unloading the boxes set them aside. There is no way to know if the items handed over really got shredded.

And then there was this...



Clovis CA Tactical Military Vehicle

We don't look so we don't see.

TANSTAAFL - "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" ¹

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL
   "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" The phrase was in use by the 1930s, but its first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the nineteenth-century practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" in order to entice drinking customers.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgery
   Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine
   The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet. It was launched in 2001 by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California, United States.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
   The Utah Data Center (UDC), also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store data estimated to be on the order of exabytes or larger. Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified. The National Security Agency (NSA) leads operations at the facility as the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence. It is located at Camp Williams near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake and was completed in May 2014 at a cost of $1.5 billion.
   
   The data center is alleged to be able to process "all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Internet searches, as well as all types of personal data trails — parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter'." In response to claims that the data center would be used to illegally monitor email of U.S. citizens, in April 2013 an NSA spokesperson said, "Many unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities of the Utah Data Center, ... one of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we are unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens. This is simply not the case." This statement was made two months prior to the document leak that revealed the existence of the PRISM program ....
   
   In April 2009, officials at the United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in large-scale overcollection of domestic communications in excess of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's authority, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake
   Deepfake, a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake", is an artificial intelligence-based human image synthesis technique. It is used to combine and superimpose existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a machine learning technique called a "generative adversarial network" (GAN). The combination of the existing and source videos results in a fake video that shows a person or persons performing an action at an event that never occurred in reality.
   
   Such fake videos can be created to, for example, show a person performing sex acts they never took part in, or can be used to alter the words or gestures a politician uses to make it look like that person said something they never did. Because of these capabilities, deepfakes may be used to create fake celebrity pornographic videos or revenge porn. Deepfakes can also be used to create fake news and malicious hoaxes.

The Far Horizon

[Editor's Post]
Note: Things do have a way of getting behind and misplaced... seems I've misplaced posting reprints :)

Spell Checkers and Word Replacement and Auto Correction haven't changed the simple fact:

I cannot spell or type without errors.

and

Punctuation is Whatever-I-decide-to-put-at-The-End ....

Have a good chuckle as technology attempts to make us all appear "smarter than we are".

Spell Checkers by KimB
[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB]
Saturday, March 16, 2013

You can still sing along for some summer fun here:

Theater: San Jose Jazz Summer Festival by Richard
[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]
Wednesday, September 19, 2012

An old avaiation movie

I've just finished watching an old movie about Charles Lindberg's flight from New York to Paris. He was the first to fly solo, non-stop, in a mono plane across the Atlantic from Roosevelt field on Long Island to Paris, France. The film describes the preparations for the non-stop flight. Weather became a concern as was the weight load the plan's engine would have to lift on take-off.

The film has momentary flash backs about Lindberg's flying career, his obtaining support for the idea of such a flight, and finally purchasing and helping to design a plane for such a trip. The possibility of a non-stop flight had caused a number of pilots to plan and even attempt the trip but without success and Lindberg was very aware that someone might beat him and win the $25,000 prize being offered.

33 hours after taking off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island on May 19, 1927, he landed the single seat mono plane at Bourget Field May 21, 1927 and won the $25,000 prize. The world's imagination had been stirred by the achievement and Lindberg became an instant celebrity. The mother of one of our college friends told us that she had been staying and one of the hotels in Paris when Lindberg made the flight and that she watched from a window as people gathered in the street to celebrate his arrival.

As I watched the actual film footage of the ticker tape parade in N Y when Lindberg returned to the states, (which was made part of the movie), I couldn't help comparing the jubilation the world felt when men first walked on the moon. When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, its estimated that over 20 percent of the worlds population watched. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent more than 2 hours gathering lunar material to bring back to earth, while Michael Collins, the pilot of the lunar module flew the aircraft in an orbit around the moon.

The three men too became instant celebrities and were given ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago. They also went on a 38 day tour of the world to celebrate walking on the moon.

five violins and one cello

The story of five violins and one cello is in the book, Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber. The book has an extensive Bibliography, a list of Sources, a glossary and a price conversion section. Its a well written book and a delightful read.

Stradivari made more than a thousand instruments, but only about six hundred are known to exist.

Even after more than 250 years, his violins and cellos remain the best in the world, but exactly what the quality is that makes them so is a mystery. All the instruments that Stradivari made have names, and those that are written about in the book are: Messiah, Viotti, Khevenhuller, Paganini, Lipinski and Davidov. They are not the most celebrated instruments, but they frame the mystery of Stradivari's genius.

Violins were not invented. They evolved from very primitive instruments made for dance music. Andrea Amati is credited for experimenting and designing the basic frame and process for assembly. He made the first violin in 1564. Stradivari's earliest know violin was made in 1666. Stradivari's birth date is not known, but knowing the dates of his violins, its believed that his birth date is 1644, which means he started making violins at the age of 22.

Who taught him how to make stringed instruments is unknown. He had been working as wood carver and in-layer, decorating instruments with beautiful artistry. He may have decorated Amati's instruments and decided to try making some of his own.

The oldest violin in the world, made by Andrea Amati in 1564 as a set for Charles IX of France, along with another for the same set in 1566, is housed in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum in Britain.¹ But the highlight of the collection is shown in a special cabinet by itself. It hangs suspended in its case, visible from all angles. Pristine and flawless as it was when the last touches of varnish were applied by Stradivari's hand in 1716. Its the most famous violin in the world called Messiah²

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_violin
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_Stradivarius

Dog update

The dog we adopted from the pound isn't really our dog yet; we are just fostering it for the time being. The dog will belong to us after she has the neutering surgery which has been delayed due to her being sick with a bug of some kind. The vet says its not kennel cough but she has been coughing and sneezing, so the vet ordered pills which we were to give her every 12 hours.

A few days after the vet visit we discovered 3 of the 4 pills we had given her had been spit out and not swallowed. That meant another visit to the vet who suggested the medicine be given as a shot, avoiding pills altogether. As the last few days passed, she became more and more active and at this point she has not met a person she doesn't like, nor a bed she doesn't like, nor a mud puddle she doesn't like.

Her personality is shining thru and she is very affectionate. She follows us around, always wanting to be with one of us. It took a few days before we realized that she obviously has a herding instinct, and without something to heard, she is actually herding us. As soon as any of us are in our usual places at various times of the day, she leaves one to check on the others. Keeping to her circuit until she's sure all is well, then she will lie down and cat nap for a minute then start again. She acts as if that's her job.

When the vet gives the ok, and after the surgery, lessons with the dog trainer will start. We have had many dogs in our life so we know how smart they can be. Like horses, they read out emotions, but in my opinion, this dog is the smartest one I've ever seen. We are constantly amazed at how she reads our minds, and how she has chosen to listen in to certain phone calls. We can tell who and what she likes by the little docked tail wagging a mile a minute. She even knows who is on the other side of a closed door. If its one of her favorite people she just lies down, sniffing under the door and wagging that tail. No barking just wagging her tail.

She doesn't bark much. She's not going to be much of a guard dog, but hey.... it's early days. If she ever catches a burglar, I'll post it.



Bingo

Bee eye en gee oh, go bingo

Bingo is her name. We have adopted a young female dog from the local pound. She's black and tan with a docked tail. She also has blue eyes. We had been talking about adopting a shelter dog and finally talk turned into action. We went to the local pet store on a Saturday when several of the adopt a pet agencies showcased animals, but didn't find a suitable dog. We wanted one that was house-broken, youngish, but not a puppy, non-aggressive, and healthy, not a special needs dog. None of the dogs that day were appropriate for us, but we were given the web address of three or four different agencies and we spent hours trolling thru all the pictures of available dogs that were kept current each day.

There is a large adopt a pet facility along with veterinary services next door to the local pound and it was suggested we check the pound for the kind of dog we wanted. We weren't too sure about a dog from the pound. They wouldn't know much about the dog's background, but hey... who knows? So we went to the pound.

I had never seen such a big pound. It was like stepping into the lobby of a large medical clinic with a number of people standing around waiting to be helped. There was a long row of overstuffed chairs along one wall and on either side of the center round counter at the back of the lobby there were aisles leading to rooms where you could socialize with a dog if you ere interested in a particular one. One of the aisles led to the door of the room of caged dogs. When that door was opened, you could hear loud barking.

I had to muster up a lot of courage to walk between the cages on both the left and right sides of the hall way. The cages were large but with only one dog to each cage. There were a lot of people in line ahead of me and the dogs barked at each person passing its cage. The line didn't move very fast and the animals stood up with their front legs on the cage bars and the barking just got louder. Some of the dogs looked like they could take your head off they were so big.

It was rather frightening but once you started down the hall, you had to continue to the end where you turned and went down another long hall way back toward the lobby area. About half way along, there was a medium size dog standing at the cage bars but not barking. It was wagging its docked tail 90 to nothin' and I looked at the bent over ears that weren't floppy, but not perky either. A HA! This might be the right dog.??? What to do Percy, what to do?

We decided to adopt this dog, but were told by the front office, that it had already been spoken for and the new owners were to pick the dog up the next day. If by some chance the dog wasn't picked up, they would call us. Oh well, we would just keep looking. But then, a strange thing happened.....we got a phone two days later telling us to come pick up our dog!!!!!

The dog was vetted today and lessons with a dog trainer scheduled. An appointment to have the dog neutered is scheduled for next week. Our dog is very friendly. It's about a year old and is house broken. It scratches the door when it wants to go out. It likes to be petted and knows how to sit when petted. As a mixed breed dog, we wonder what her background is, but she could be anything. Some of her traits indicate a mix of herding, working or guarding. She has short hair and is black and tan. No frills, just plain dog. I'll send reports on her progress... or maybe I should say I'll send reports on Our Progress.




Bingo

The 8th of January or The Battle of New Orleans

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British
In the town of New Orleans


We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico


We looked down a river
And we see'd the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em
Beaten on the drums
They stepped so high
And they made their bugles ring
We stood by our cotton bales
And didn't say a thing


Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets
Till we looked 'em in the eye
We held our fire till we see'd their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
And really gave 'em --- well


Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where the rabbits couldn't go
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf f Mexico


We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs
And powered his behind
And when we touched the powder off
The gator lost his mind


Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where rabbits couldn't go
And they ran so fast the hounds
couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Note: "The Battle of New Orleans"¹ as sung by Johnny Horton² about the last great battle of the War of 1812. The melody is based on a fiddle tune known as the "The 8th of January" which was the date of the Battle of New Orleans³ during the War of 1812⁴.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans_(song)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Horton
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans
   The Battle of New Orleans was fought on Sunday, January 8, 1815. The battle effectively marked the end of the War of 1812.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

US postage stamp issued in 2015 to mark the
bicentennial of the Battle of New Orleans,
which depicts US troops firing on the British
from along Jackson's Line.

Christmas Past by KimB

One benefit of getting farther along on the path of life is that memories become a new dwelling place. A place of mixed rewards. A place full of angels and a multitude of demons. A place of unresolvable anger and of unlimited happiness. It's a place where we can sometimes chose different outcomes or savor our more fortunate experiences. It's a kaleidoscopic sort of place where fragments of events past reside and by turning the wheel a new view is seen. It's not always an easy place to be, the demons of both real and re-imaged events are present. The angels arise when we set aside our normal demons and look at the kaleidoscope from a new angle.

Christmas Past is one of those many events that reside in memory. The memories that flow from years of holidays most often bring a flurry of emotions: excitement, anticipation, surprise, happiness, pride with a dash of disappointment and a touch of envy. For the most part the happy end of the scale remains after the many physical aspects of Christmas Past have disappeared.

The memories fullest of warmth and contentment do not always arise from presents that where so fiercely desired and then received but more often they arise from events that were minor details in the background of ripped paper and exclamations of surprise. They are often the smallest of details that surpass the value of everything else found under a tree, in a sock or next to a menorah.

These are the true presents given by Christmas Past. They are ours alone. They are ours to open every day or every hour. They are reminders of something unique that happens when people exchange something far beyond the physical. They happen when we exchange Love: our greatest token of all that we desire for ourselves and others.

May this holiday and all other holidays fill your memories with Love, for these are the presents that last a life time.



Kaleidoscopes Images

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and the mad rush to get things finished for tomorrow is winding down. Cookies have been baked and mailed along with batches of sugarplums to loved ones across the country, and gifts are wrapped and placed under the tree.

I couldn't help remembering past Christmases as I prepared for this years. In the early years of my childhood, the decorated Christmas tree with lights was part of the Christmas morning surprises that Santa brought. As we children got older we decorated Christmas trees with garlands of paper rings made at school along with strings of popcorn and cranberries that we spent hours making. There were beautiful but fragile ornaments from Germany that were carefully wrapped and boxed and stored away for the next Christmas.

When my children were small, my husband and I spent the night reading instructions on how to assemble some complex toy or other and still have just enough time left to get a quick nap before the kids woke us up to see what Santa brought.

I have wonderful memories of New Year Eve bells ringing in hopes for health, wealth and happiness, and it goes without saying, that I wish all my family and friends a healthy and prosperous 2019.

I hope the country will have a great 2019, but the news isn't encouraging. Too many lies told by government officials.

lies are deceptions
a fact, I merely mention
deception by lies
is my chief contention. ¹

1. Apologies to the unknown poet of Horse Sense
   https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/horse-sense

Bare Blog Names by KimB

[Editor's Post]

Back in the early days of the blog, we opted to buy extra DNS/URL names for the blog. Back-in-the-Day these were just about given away and having a few extra pathways to the blog seemed like a great way for guests to stop by for a nice cuppa while sharing our family stories.

Like many other internet related things, the price of the Name+Extention went from

-> cheap neat!
-> wow!
-> ouch!
-> no longer in the budget

There really isn't any reason for the DNS names to be expensive but the name-granters have figured that those with deeper pockets will pay "whatever the market will bear", which for our blog, has hit: No Mo'Bare.

Our current DNS names are:

• mrsbizzyb.com
• mrsbizzyb.net
• mrsbizzybsayshello.com

And for our other blog:

• elgato2k.com
• elgato2k.net
• elgato2000.com

The cost of the 6 names has now exceeded $300.00 USD. We do not monetize our blogs, and we have no plans to do so, so we have opted to reduce the number of names that we have to pay for out of pocket.

Starting in December 2018, the additional DNS/URL names for the blog will be:

• mrsbizzybsayshello.com
• elgato2000.com

The blog has been active for so many years now; filled with wonderful stories and contributions from family and friends and we plan that it will be around for a whole lot longer, sharing the stories that have yet to be written, after all, families never run out of stories. Our visitors may have to type a few more letters or replace a bookmark to find them.

Cookies are Bad for You by KimB

[Editor's Post]

Everyone knows Cookies are Bad for You but we still consume lots of them.

Years ago, watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, she hosted a guest nutritionist telling everyone around the OprahSphere how to lose weight. The Skinny Dude was telling those of us with Many Shades of Tubbiness how to be Just Like Him: Skinny.

His advice:

If you want a cookie... Eat a Cookie.

Oprah's response:

A Cookie? A Cookie?
It's not A COOKIE, it's a BAG OF COOKIES!!!!

Which goes to show that Oprah knows of what she speaks.

In my few encounters with nutritionists I've noticed that they have always been "skinny folks". The only credible people I've met are people who have Been There Done That ... about a thousand times.

Skinny folks, don't get it.
Fat folks get more than they should.

Which brings me to the topic of the day:

COOKIES are BAD for YOU

Because like Bags of Chocolate Chip Cookies, Computer Cookies are just as nasty. Worse even. A Bag of Chocolate Chip Cookies at least tastes good. Computer Cookies don't have any taste at all yet still manage to clog the arteries of your computer faster than the fake-chocolate, high fructose corn syrup, 200 years worth of preservative Chocolate Chip Cookies can clog yours.

Sort of a race to oblivion.

What are Computer Cookies?

You might very well ask...

Cookies are technically small files that are created and destroyed when you use a Browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge/IE, Firefox and others).¹ The appear harmless in concept but in practice they can be nasty or put to nasty use. They come in many types with different uses and their current use is one reason why the internet is the mess it is today.

Here are just some of the types of cookies you will find when you visit any website:

• Session cookie
• Persistent cookie
• Secure cookie
• Http-only cookie
• Same-site cookie
• Third-party cookie
• Supercookie
• Supercookie (more than)
• Zombie cookie / Evercookie

The average web page contains 20 or more cookies. Only 1% of cookies are strictly necessary. A scan of 330,000 websites found 4,940,969 Garbage Cookies and that's a lot of Computer Cookie Calories clogging up the internet.²

Computer Cookie Calories 2
Average cookies per website	20
Strictly necessary cookies	1%
Persistent Cookies	74%
Websites Scanned	329,151
Cookies Found	6,656,090
3rd party cookies	4,940,969

Cookies are the number one method companies and government's use to track people. The entire Internet Data Mining System is built on Computer Cookies and corporations use them to make Billions and Billions of Dollars from you, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and people you didn't even know you know.

Governments, of course, have many more methods they can use because they are not constrained by Rule of Law - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

Years ago, working in a Start Up in the early Daze of Silicon Valley, discussing some internet protocols with other engineers in our High Tech Environment, the subject of cookies came up. One of the engineers stated flatly that No Cookie was ever going to grace the environment of his computer system and flatly refused to support cookie use. He was one of the few that no other engineer could bamboozle with Internet Hocus Pocus. He knew his stuff. And we all knew he knew too.

I have often thought about that conversation and thought More Fool Me for not recognizing what was really happening. Engineers get rather short sighted while slogging through deadlines and project status meetings and milestones and releases and QA cycles; more often than not, we miss the whole point.

• Engineers are good at doing what they are told to do.
• Engineers are great at building a Never Seen Before Widget
• Engineers are terrible at recognizing what it is that they are really building
• Engineers are horribly gullible and the smell of money and stock options makes them loopy

So what is the fuss about?

• A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user's computer by the user's web browser while the user is browsing
• A cookie is designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember stateful information (such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store) or to record the user's browsing activity
• A cookie can be used to remember arbitrary pieces of information that the user previously entered into form fields such as names, addresses, passwords, and credit card numbers

These are what allow websites to "remember you" and perform "auto logins". They help you avoid the unpleasant necessity of remembering and typing in awkward number sequences and the website takes advantage of this to put all kinds of trash on your system for their own benefit.

Computer Cookies were invented (ahem loose phrasing here) in 1994. Browser Makers created the code and started pushing cookies onto systems everywhere and sort of forgot to mention this to the public until they were outed in a Financial Times article about them on February 12, 1996

So for 2 years, Silicon Valley didn't say nuffin'.

At about the time of the article, the folks in charge of Defining the Internet had already identified third-party cookies as a considerable privacy threat.

Silicon Valley didn't change a single thing. 1996 - 2018 ... 22 years and counting.

Kind of makes you shudder a bit. Silicon Valley is just as forthcoming now as they were then.

Cookies and the Are You You? Problem

In the old days when folks were trying to recognize Friend From Foe there were a whole lot of ways you could tell or get the other guy to tell which side of the battlefield they were fighting for:

Loud Movie Voice:

H A L T !!! Who goes there? Friend or Foe???

Do you really think anyone was stupid enough to answer FOE?

In the internet, our battlefield lies between your computer and the destination computer you want to access. The size of the battlefield is enormous and spans the entire globe, with every government and bad dudette on the planet looking to find a way past each other into your very attractive computer or mobile device.

The Cookie was an attempt to create a system where the Web Page knew You were You and didn't go blabbing your personal life to anyone else. This is sort of moot at the moment as web pages no longer need to blab much as entire corporations are spewing their data repositories containing every item they've collected about World+Dog to any FOE who wants to see it for FREE. If you are FRIEND you have to pay big bucks for the same data.

It was not the only way to do it this and like the stupidity of Friend or Foe, it didn't take long for the Foes to pretend to be Friends.

It was known 20 years ago. It is known now. It's not new news.

It's just the folks making a lot of bucks off of you DO NOT want YOU do know what to do about it.

Challenge of the Cookie

The internet battlefield is strewn with the corpses of good ideas and punctured balloons. It's like trench warfare: the lines move by inches back and forth. We gain some and we lose some. There isn't any "final victory". Foes are clever and they figure out new ways to pass through to their desired destinations.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between FOES:

Governments   Corporations   Bad Guys

They work the same methods and use the same techniques. There are no Knights in Shining Armour there.

What there are, are folks pushing back against the FOE Lines to minimize some of the damage they do. The damage is greater than advertised. Google recently shut down their Google+³ system due to:

Pick the Google answer you think best fits the topic:

1. Low usage.
or
2. Major Software Bug allowing Private Data to be exposed.

Was it due to cookies?   Yes.

Because cookies ARE methods by which private data is collected and then exposed not to mention a lot of other bad news coding. It was sooo bad they folded up the entire shop because there are some new laws (mostly in the EU), that make it very expensive when these eruptions happen. Facebook's MarkZ got a nice grilling in Congress⁴ and actually had to put on a suit and tie for similar reasons. I'm sure MarkZ was more upset that he couldn't wear his tee-shirt to the BBQ.

Recently, there was a new Internet Directive for browser makers involving removing cookies on demand or when a setting is checked that tells the browser to clear all cookies. Google sort of forgot to clear their own tracking cookies.⁵ When it was noticed (and it was noticed pretty fast) the official response:

Google:
Oh..   Ahhh...   Ummmm....
We thought you meant the OTHER GUY'S cookies.
Surely you want to keep OURS...

Corporations don't want to make things better for you. Only for themselves. In the Friend or Foe battle, corporations jump lines all the time. Even when you get a message saying "Cookies are cleared" that doesn't mean anything. All it means is you got a message with that text. It's a FOE claiming to be FRIEND.

So here are some things you can do to Challenge the Cookie and they are not painful or hard.

1. Check for Cookies
   Look at each web page you visit and check what kind of cookies are being pushed. This ability varies by browser. Some make it easy to see what's being dumped to your system. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser.
2. Turn OFF the settings to automatically accept all cookies.
   This varies by browser. It's hidden in some and right up front in others. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser.
3. Set up Your OWN List of FRIEND sites
   Set up Your OWN privacy list of webpages where cookies are OK Most people visit a small handful of webpages where they really want to have their data harvested. Most people visit a lot of webpages just to Surf. Use the Privacy Options to create your own list of who gets FRIEND status. Everyone else will be FOE by default. Change the list as needed.
4. Reconsider which sites you go to
   There are so many sites with similar information select the ones that aren't FOE makers. Put them on your FRIEND site list.
5. Turn off JavaScript
   This is the BEST thing you can do. It's the most armour you can get. Without JavaScript setting cookies is much harder. Never underestimate FOEs but it will push them back a long way. This setting is often hidden in the browser configuration file.
6. Accept there will be less flashy page layouts
   If you DO NOT allow ALL cookies and/or JavaScript some sites are gonna barf. Yeppers, sites that cannot get their cookie fix might choke. Many times it doesn't matter that much you can still use the site OKish. Some fancy stuff might not work but do you really need the fancy stuff?
7. Clear your History, your Cookies and your Browser Cache
   This varies by browser. It's hidden in some and right up front in others. It is most often in the Privacy Settings Page of the browser. There is often a direct button for this on the Browser Menu too. Clear your Trash Can too.
8. Clean out Temporary Files.
   Temporary files never make it to the trash can. They are normally managed by the operating system. Cookies and Junk can accumulate in the Temporary File Storage Area. This an advanced housekeeping action. DO NOT attempt to do this without completely understanding which files you can remove. Clearing out the wrong files can disable your computer. You can find information on the internet on how to do this for your system.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
2. From a research website that extracts and analyzes cookie usage.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%2B
   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/08/google-plus-security-breach-wall-street-journal
4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/zuckerberg-hearing-facebook-tracking-questions-house-back-foot
5. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/25/chrome_69_google_cookies/

Wanna Cookie?

Names of Things

Names of Things


When drops of moisture in a cloud
grow big and round and fall
to ground, it's called rain.

When a trunk with bark and
leafy limbs shade the sun in
summer's heat, it's called a tree.

When blades of grass grow
green and tall then cut down
to grow again, it's called a lawn.

When red petals on a thorny
bush casts an odor pleasing
to the nose, it's called a rose.

When mountain streams create
a river running wild and free
then stops and pools, it's called a Sea.

Marion
August 2018

Entertaining the Computer by KimB

[Editor's Post]

It's that time when the nearly useless requirement rolls around for us to tell you how your are tracked.

You are not tracked by us.
But you are tracked: relentlessly and ruthlessly.

There! Done!

It is no longer possible to evade the tracking. You can put some dampers on it but we now permanently live under surveillance: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from -9 months (more or less), to day 0, until the day you die and even that won't stop the tracking. You might be worth more dead than you think.

So on the good news side of things: LOTS and LOTS of folks are doing as much dampening as possible.

On the bad news side of things: There are MORE trackers than you could possibly imagine. Even the 5EYES haven't figured out all the trackers that are tracking them - which makes them very cranky indeed.

One of the interesting changes in human-computer relationships is how our roles have been reversed so quietly that hardly anyone notices.

Computers were promised to be tools for Human use.
Humans are now tools that Computers use.

It's rather interesting to see the ways in which we have become indentured ¹ to computers.

An indentured person has signed a contract for a particular fixed time in return for a fixed benefit. The contract can be sold to someone else and the indentured is obligated to work out the contract.

Gee, if that doesn't sound like a Smartphone Cellular Contract: where you agree to pay for an expensive device and agree to charges that are not ALL the charges as they pile in a few they forgot to mention or glossed over, and you are obligated to use their system with all of the add-on charges that they glossed over and you cannot exit before your time has expired.

So we willingly indenture ourselves not to a company but to a system of computers. We carry it because "we must". We pay for it because "we have to". We live years of our lives supporting a system of computers because "we have no choice".

In the days of Old Empires people lived their lives in support of Pharaohs and Emperors. Now we live our lives in support of massive computer systems.

Gee ain't that grand!

In every store, everything has a bar code ² and all sorts of nice graphic 2D matrix codes and often RFID chips in their products. They can be in boxes and clothes and shoes, in cars and even in people. Some companies offer "free RFID chip inplant days". While not "mandatory" and often "illegal" in some locales, employees queue up ready to be branded so the computer can follow them easier. Stock clerks feed the computer information similar to feeding an infant. They scan tags and ids and even use images to show the computer what it cannot see for itself: that the items are not only placed according to their tracking location but that the products are "front facing" or "positioned" exactly how the computer indicated on the layout diagrams.

There will be no deviation!

In days gone by, in market squares people would exchange coins for goods. You can see this antique setup still working at swap meets and yard sales where passersby will pick up a discarded item and pay the seller for it. Other than robbery and the weight of the coins, one of the biggest drawbacks was that people had to know how to:

• count
• add
• subtract
• figure multiples

It's all really complex how we got to:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• 1 + 1 = 2
• 5 - 1 = 4
• 2 * 4 = 8

but we managed and we were able to buy 1 chicken, 2 apples, 4 tomatoes and 8 potatoes for a very long time. ³

The tradesperson would figure out what each of the items was worth including the required taxes and levies and tell us what we owed. In many cases a handy dandy side of entertainment was included by "bargaining" ⁴ for a better exchange. If both parties agreed then the exchange took place.

Of course if you couldn't count or add, subtract or multiply fast enough things might not turn out as you expected. Depending on which way the scale tipped you either got a Great Deal or A Rip Off.⁵

After the Civil War the Cash Register was invented ⁶ and this allowed both the seller and buyer to watch the counting without having to worry that someone forgot to Carry the 1. The total appeared in the window and That Said John Was That.

Still there was a problem: You might know that you were owed $4.90 but if the buyer gave you $5.00 ... well What To Do Percy?

It seems that being able To Count³ is not the same skill as Making Change⁵ .

So cash registers became computer Point of Sale Systems ⁷ linking RFID codes to pricing, adding up the totals with all the taxes and levies and displaying the value of the goods. Once the buyer handed over their money the machine would tell the cashier how much to return to the customer.

Years ago I was dining at a small breakfast establishment that had a newly acquired POS (it's officially called Point of Sale but the software is often a Piece of S#@% and that name works too.). The customer ahead of us paid their bill and while the cashier struggled to deduct $11.25 from a $20.00 bill, the computer showed the exact amount owed to be returned to the customer: $8.75. I watched as the owner scolded the cashier for taking $8.75 from the till and forced her to re-count the entire cash transaction by verbally counting out the change from $11.25 to $20.00

The bill for your party is $11.25.

.75 cents makes $12.
$1 dollar makes $13.
$1 dollar makes $14.
$1 dollar makes $15.
$5 dollars makes $20.

Thank you.

The exchange took longer than it took to eat the pancakes (which were quite good by the way).

When I asked the owner why the cashier wasn't allowed to give the change indicated by the computer register, I expected it was because they didn't trust the computer (not a bad thing in truth), but I was surprised when the reason was: The cashier cannot count change properly.

Evidently the cashier didn't know what 3 quarters, 3 dollars, and a fiver looked like.

So now we have POS systems everywhere counting quarters and fivers and the number of steps the serving staff took to go from the kitchen to your table and how long you had to sit there hoping the food was going to arrive hot. The POS system tells the chiefs how many flapjacks you want and some clever systems can even weigh the garbage and calculate how much was wasted because while the flapjacks came hot, there wasn't any syrup on the table and it took 30 minutes to open the TimeLock on the storeroom door to find a new bottle of Not-Maple Syrup, all because the computer didn't tell them to replace the empty one.

Education no longer matters!

While marketing at the local super, I've watched the cashiers move away from even handling monies. Of course paper money is fiat money (it's just a piece of paper) and the coins used to be real metal but are now some amalgam recast from old dental fillings ^{8 9}, but there was actually something physically in your hands and pockets. Now we all have plastic cards that we stuff into the maw of the massive Financial Computer System whenever we hope to make a purchase.

We HOPE we can make a purchase because we never really know what the Payment Computer System is going to agree to. There are numerous screens of numbers or requests that you have to pass through and while the systems crosscheck the POS, DEBIT, CREDIT, ATM, and ACH Financial Systems to verify your ability to exchange invisible fiat paper worth $4.90 for a loaf of bread. ^{7 10}

While standing by helplessly but hopeful that the card won't burp up You Shall Not Pass, there is nothing anyone can do. The cashier cannot do anything because unless the computer agrees, you won't get your loaf of bread. The store manager cannot do anything because the computer didn't indicate it was OK.

We await upon the pleasure of the System.

Not that long ago, while waiting for the computer to process the people ahead of me in the line, I noticed an elderly woman. She had no groceries but she had a card in her hand. When she got to the point where the computer/cashier could process something, there was a quiet exchange between the woman and the cashier. Being too far away to hear the exchange I saw the cashier shaking her head no, the woman looking a bit frazzled and the cashier pointing a an ATM across the corridor. One of those ATMs that charge you double the amount you take out. The woman made her way to the ATM.

The impatient people waiting behind her, heaved big sighs of relief and quickly queued up their goods and shuffled their mortal coils through the Dance of The Debits; continuing along their Happy Track Day jabbering away on their smartphones, because of course, THAT was what one DOES when you are IMPORTANT!

Being more than a few people behind in the queue with my loaf of bread, I watched the woman attempt to use the ATM. She wasn't having any success. Soon a clerk come to help her. Together they shook their heads. The woman looked distraught. The kindly clerk took her to his checkout counter and pointed to the Payment System and I watch while the Dance continued. It wasn't going well at all.

At last being within earshot of the first cashier I inquired:

What is the woman trying to do? What's the problem?

She wants Cash Back from her account.

Is there an issue?

We cannot give Cash Back unless you buy something for more than $1.00.

Ohhh Ahhhh Hmmmmm

The Horns of a Dilemma

There was only ONE thing to do.

I reached into my Mad Money pocket and pulled out a REAL FIAT $20.00 bill. I told the cashier to give the $20.00 to the old lady so she can buy something, which will then qualify her to put her card into the Payment Computer System so she can get her Cash Back. The kindly clerk looked at the $20.00 and at me in complete puzzlement. I said,

Sell her a packet of gum for a buck so she can get her cash back.

Light Bulbs are now LEDs but there was Illumination.

Computers are not Humans. They don't care.

Most humans don't care either but Computers don't care about them anymore than they do the rest of us.

I play several computer MMORPG video games ¹¹ with varying degree of success. Early games were tests of human - machine interface and used simple menus to accomplish "game stuff". Advanced games provide images that look like real world ones and some activities that mimic real world actions. There are lots of variations from basic, to neat, to wonderful all the way to creepy, weird, and totally yucky.

One of the most common secondary activities in these games is to use a scripting language to automate the game play.

So... lest this small sentence get lost in the flow:

They automate game play so Their Computer can play The Big Server In The Sky without human interaction.

It's a bit like the 1983 movie WarGames ¹² where you get your computer to run a simulaton against another computer because the Big System In The Sky cannot tell the difference between a simulation and reality. It cannot tell a human from another computer.

Ok there's a bit of a fudge here because every game system eventually has to work out HOW to tell if a human is actually playing or are they just pretending to play. But for the most part automated scripts work extremely well and play the game much better than any human. It's the nature of the computer: it never blinks, breaths, takes a bio, or misses a scripted action. You just rollout the script and sit back and watch Netflix while your computer plays the game for you.

In one of my games we had a fishing derby. Fishing is a popular item in many games. The goal was to catch A LOT of fish. It ran for 48 hours (that's to allow world time zones to participate). Of course there are no real fish in the game. It's a fishing simulation. Sometimes you get a fish, sometimes you don't. The simulation is designed with just enough fish rewards to encourage you to sit and click the fishing icon - in this case for 48 hours.

At a mid-way check-in by the Event Team they hoped that everyone was Having Fun and Enjoying the Event. I said,

I don't know about any people having fun ...
but I'm sure the fishing scripts are having a blast.

There is a difference, albeit small, between

Assisting a human to play
and
Eliminating the human from play.

These types of MMORPG Games are not cheap to play. They have micro-transaction stores and subscriptions and many other means to separate you from your fiat money. It's not uncommon to pay $200-$600 or more to play just one MMORPG style game. The companies that produce the games make Billions and Billions through various purchase mechanisms.¹³

Scripting has become very sophisticated and nearly every move in any game can be scripted. Your computer no longer needs YOU to play the game. Scripting allows you to pay a lot of money just so your computer can have fun playing with other computers.

Leave the power on.

HAL will contact you when your funds run out.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Matrix_(2D)_barcodes
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Example_images
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_numerals
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bargaining
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-making_problem
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_problem
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_register
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_metals
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_(United_States_coin)
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupronickel
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgam_(dentistry)
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_card
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACH_Network
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-grossing_video_game_franchises_of_all_time

Click to Fish

It's Time

It's Time


The time has come the people said
For us to change some things,

Like electing a president
Who won't act like a king,

Who will tell the truth, and
Treat lying like a sin,

Who has respect for everyone
Regardless of their skin,

Who can praise equality
And the rule of law, while

Planning for the common good
And create security for all.

Marion
September 2018

Natchez Trace

Friends of my son are planning a vacation trip to Tennessee in the next several weeks, and I asked if they were going to drive the Trace.  They had never heard of it.  Its an historic corridor of 444 miles, (710km), from Natchez Mississippi to Nashville Tennessee.  It links the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers.  Its known as the Natchez Trace Parkway and Bridge.

Its an old forest trail that follows a geologic ridge line that prehistoric animals used as they grazed the dry ground going north to the salt licks of Tennessee.  Foraging bison, deer and other large animals created paths that native Americans used.  Indians blazed the trail still further and it became a well established path.

Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, met his death while traveling on the Trace.  In October, 1809, he stopped for overnight shelter.  He had been distraught over many issues, possibly caused by his use of opium, and its believed he committed suicide with a gun.  There is some question as to whether it was suicide.  His mother believed he had been murdered, and rumors circulated about possible killers, but Thomas Jefferson and William Clark accepted the report of suicide.  He was buried near an inn along the Trace. 

A monument honoring Lewis' life was erected in 1858.  On the bicentennial of Lewis' death,(2009), the first National  public memorial service honoring Lewis was held as the last event of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Today, the 444 mile Trace is enjoyed as a scenic drive, for camping, biking, hiking or horseback riding.  The path is commemorated by the Natchez Trace Parkway and Bridge.  Their web site gives information about the history and the current facilities available for visitors and vacationers.  Maps and current weather reports are also available. 

   

Traveling Tales by KimB

MrsB's post on My song of the week: Give Me Forty Acres reminded me of another song.

Traveling tales of misadventure are a common theme in traditional music. It seems that one writer is always trying to one-up another. One of my favorites is an Australian song: 5 Miles From Gundagai ¹.

While crossing The Outback,² not only does the driver have problems with his team of oxen;³ his dog doesn't help the situation much.⁴

Like all good songs there are lots of variations.

5 Miles From Gundagai
also known as 9 Miles From Gundagai

I'm used to punchin' bullock teams across the hills and plains.
I've teamed outback for forty years through bleedin' hail and rain.
I've lived a lot of troubles down, without a bloomin' lie,
But I can't forget what happened just five miles from Gundagai.

'Twas getting dark, the team got bored, the axle snapped in two.
I lost me matches and me pipe, so what was I to do?
The rain it was coming on, and hungry too was I,
And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.

Some blokes I know have stacks of luck, no matter where they fall,
But there was I, Lord love a duck, no bloody luck at all.
I couldn't heat a pot of tea or keep me trousers dry,
And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.

Now, I can forgive the bleedin' team, I can forgive the rain.
I can forgive the damp and cold and go through it again.
I can forgive the rotten luck, but 'ang me till I die,
I can't forgive that bloody dog, five miles from Gundagai.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundagai
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outback
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox-wagon
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullocky
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_on_the_Tuckerbox



Maxwelton wool transported by Bullock Team pre 1908
Maxwelton Queensland Australia

How I Spent Labor Day

Back in my childhood days the first Monday in September was the beginning of the school year. Labor Day as a holiday didn't have much meaning other than getting ready for school. No more going barefoot and playing outdoors all day. The days of going to the swimming pool every morning until lunch and back again in the afternoon were gone until the next summer.

My brothers and sisters, and I had new school clothes and shoes; and dressing that morning was always chaotic. After we passed inspection, Mom drove the smaller ones to their school, but we older ones had to walk to our school buildings in another part of town. On the way we joined neighbor children going our way and chatted enthusiastically about the classes of our higher grade.

We looked forward to finding out who our new teachers were going to be, looking over the books being issued to us, and jostling for seats near our best friends. It was only a half day session, but when it was over, we were expected to be in the right class room, at the right time, with the right teacher the next morning.

It rained all day this Labor Day. I slept until 9:30am. Ate a light breakfast while watching TV. I checked the progress of my various knitting projects and decided I'd better get back to working on the afghan with the Saxon Braid motif. I had put it aside while I waited for the yarn I needed to come in the mail. These days when you run out of yarn, all you have to do is put in an order online and it's mailed to you. I had the yarn now but I was not in a hurry to start knitting. Counting the stitches in one row of the afghan is a lot of work.

So I watched TV and planned my origami crane tree.¹ I have been folding cranes and plan to make bonsai trees with them. I make tiny cranes and a few slightly larger ones in all colors. I like folding ninja stars, etc. but nothing really complex.

Today though, I spent the afternoon watching and learning how origami is used in the fields of physics and engineering. Until recently the folding a single sheet of paper with out cuts or tears into a particular shape has been rather simple with only 10 to possibly 30 steps. Now scientists are discovering that using math to make the folds they can involve tens, hundreds, and thousands of folds to achieve a goal.

NASA engineers are experimenting with origami to find ways of sending needed instruments into space. While touring various web sites, I came across one showing how to fold a Herringbone Tessellation.² Now I'm trying to make one. It looks easy watching someone in a tutorial but doing it is not so easy. I'll send reports on how I make out.

All in all, its been a nice Labor Day.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origami
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origami_crane
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herringbone_pattern
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation

My song of the week

I, my son and a friend turned our conversation to recalling names of old-time country songs that we liked.  I mentioned the one about the Johnson Boys that ate peas with honey, they have done it all their life.  It makes the peas taste kind of funny, but it keeps them on the knife.  Several songs were mentioned, but my son mentioned one that I had not heard before, now its my song 'pick' for the week.

Give Me Forty Acres

 

It was his first trip to Boston in a big long diesel truck

It was his first trip to Boston , he was havin' lots of luck

But he was headed the wrong direction

down the one way street in town

And this is what he said when the

Police chased him down

Give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig around,

It's the easiest way

that I have found

Some guys can turn on a dime

 or turn it right downtown

But I need forty acres to turn this rig around

When he finally found where to unload

he had a dreadful shock

His trailer pointed toward the road

and his cab right to the dock

And as he looked around him through

The tears, he made this sound

Oh, give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig around

And when he finally got it unloaded

He was glad to leave this town

He was feelin' fairly happy goin' back to Alabam

And up ahead he saw a sign you are northward bound

He said give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig around

He was driving down the right lane

When ahead he saw a sign

He had to make a left turn, but he couldn't get in line

Now the tears were streaming down his cheeks

And the all heard him YELL

Give me forty sticks of dynamite and I'll blow this rig to hell