Cop Car's Beat

Young and old conversants

Working in the kitchen, I heard Hunky Husband guffawing in his basement den, so I had to go ask him why he was laughing. He showed me an item in a newsletter that he was reading. It illustrated the different ways in which various people use language - particularly when one of the people is young, the other old. I've changed the lead-in, for personal reasons, but not the quote. It sounds like something that HH would have told his troops 40 years ago.

After an aide answered a question, the questioner shook his head and said, “Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me” ... “If she understands, we can keep talking.”

This was a lot funnier than what had happened about an hour, previously. I happened to go downstairs for something and heard beeps and siren noises coming from HH's den. He had somehow come upon a scam: the one that displays and announces messages to the effect that a bad thing on your computer is going to bring down the internet unless you call the given phone number RIGHT NOW! HH was trying to figure out what to do - difficult for anyone to do with all the bells, whistles, and flashing images. While he went into the laundry room to iron his weeks' worth of shirts, I shut down his machine and cleaned it up. Not that it will help, but I did change a couple of his security settings while I was at it.

A favorite songwriter (Tom Lehrer) releases his lyrics to the public domain

Back when the earth was still cooling, I had a friend (Jack Carter) who belonged to a fraternity (Lambda Alfa?) During the summers in the mid 1950s, the fraternity house closed down - except that Jack, who was taking courses in summer school, stayed at the house to provide security. As I was also taking summer school classes, I was invited to hang out with Jack and others of his friends at that house. It was during the first of those hangout sessions that Jack played some Tom Lehrer recordings (33 1/3 rpm vinyl). I immediately developed a taste for Lehrer's satirical music, passing that taste along to Elder Brother (Sigma Nu) and Younger Brother.

On the rare occasions on which we three siblings were together, there was bound to be singing of Lehrer's songs. Alas, Jack died many years ago in a tragic fire and Younger Brother chose to leave us several years ago; but, Elder Brother and I still observe the tradition - much to Hunky Husband's dismay. It isn't that HH isn't a Lehrer fan. He is. It's that he doesn't appreciate Elder Brother's and my fine singing voices. I think HH was spoiled by the fact that his mother and one of his sisters had wonderful voices.

HH's mother, as a young woman, earned money by singing at weddings and such and his sister sang in amateur opera productions in Phoenix, Arizona. I've never heard HH sing, so I cannot attest to his voice. He played clarinet and saxophone in high school, including in a jazz band; but, he tells me that he cannot carry a tune, vocally. On occasion, just to twit him, I sing "Do You Love ME?" from Fiddler on the Roof to him. He invariably answers me "Yes" in his speaking voice.

Back to Tom Lehrer: For your enjoyment, below are mp3 files of three of our sing-along favorites:

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be

Tom Lehrer-We Will All Go Together When We Go (2)

Tom Lehrer-So Long Mom (A Song For World War III)

To see Tom Lehrer's declaration abdicating rights to royalties from his lyrics, go to Tom Lehrer's website. I won't benefit from Lehrer's action - I've never used his lyrics except for my own enjoyment, plus the fact that I own books of his sheet music. In addition, I write non sequitur-ally, over the years I've bought all of his vinyl and CD recordings that I've been able to find.

I hasten to add that I learned of the news through News for Nerds.

92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain (tomlehrersongs.com) 11

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday October 24, 2020 @10:34AM from the national-brotherhood-week dept.

Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and '60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything... Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he's effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay royalties or deal with lawyers... [Most of Lehrer's music "will be added gradually later with further disclaimers," according to Lehrer's web site.]

Lehrer's giving up those royalties. But in exchange, he's trying to give his work a new lease on life, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. "Lehrer, in this case, is basically saying, 'Hey everybody, come revisit my material, come do with it what you want,'" he said... That could mean we'll be hearing more of Tom Lehrer's work, said Jennifer Jenkins, who runs the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "There is empirical research showing that when material enters the public domain, it actually gets used more," she said.
Lehrer's lyrics touched on geeky subjects including nuclear weapons, Wernher von Braun, and one song where he set the names of the chemical elements to a tune by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Wikipedia notes he "largely retired" in the 1970s to become a mathematics teacher at the University of California, Santa Cruz (also teaching the history of musical theatre). In the same decade he also wrote ten songs for The Electric Company, an educational TV show about reading broadcast on America's public television, singing two of the songs himself — L-Y and Silent E.

More from News for Nerds - Healthcare

Print These Electronic Circuits Directly Onto Skin (ieee.org) 13

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday October 22, 2020 @08:02PM from the possibilities-are-endless dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: New circuits can get printed directly on human skin to help monitor vital signs, a new study finds. In the new study, researchers developed a way to sinter nanoparticles of silver at room temperature. The key behind this advance is a so-called a sintering aid layer, consisting of a biodegradable polymer paste and additives such as titanium dioxide or calcium carbonate. Positive electrical charges in the sintering aid layer neutralized the negative electrical charges the silver nanoparticles could accumulate from other compounds in their ink. This meant it took less energy for the silver nanoparticles printed on top of the sintering aid layer to come together, says study senior author Huanyu Cheng, a mechanical engineer at Pennsylvania State University.

The sintering aid layer also created a smooth base for circuits printed on top of it. This in turn improved the performance of these circuits in the face of bending, folding, twisting and wrinkling. In experiments, the scientists placed the silver nanoparticle circuit designs and the sintering aid layer onto a wooden stamp, which they pressed onto the back of a human hand. They next used a hair dryer set to cool to evaporate the solvent in the ink. A hot shower could easily remove these circuits without damaging the underlying skin. After the circuits sintered, they could help the researchers measure body temperature, skin moisture, blood oxygen, heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure and bodily electrical signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) readings. The data from these sensors were comparable to or better than those measured using conventional commercial sensors that were simply stuck onto the skin, Cheng says. The findings have been published in the journal Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Good neighbors are here

Please notice two things in the above photo of our back lawn: 1) The grass was mowed, today. 2) The grass along the fence has been trimmed. Credit Hunky Husband for the first, our neighbor Adam for the second. Adam came to our front door to ask permission to trim along the fence, which I've been reluctant to tackle for fear of damaging Adam's fence (and it's been too darned hot for me to tackle it!) Adam pointed out that no trimming would be needed had he not installed the fence, so he would like to trim it each time he mows their yard. How sweet! However, I told Adam that his kindness did not really make up for his having installed the fence in the first place since it deprives HH and me of the opportunity to see their children play.

Adam made short work of the trimming - the 150 feet took him about four minutes. He said that he had done lawn work to make his money while he was in school. Terrif! While Adam and I chatted (at about 20' spacing), Krista brought Holly (age 4-5) and Reece (age 8 weeks) over - my first real sighting of the wee one, and he's a cutie (but not very large - 8#). Flynn was inside taking his nap - just as was HH.

News on the COVID-19 front: Adam thinks that he has had it. He and his partner (EMTs) had picked up a patient in early March. Shortly thereafter, both EMTs came down with a fever for a few days. As testing wasn't available, then, Adam's not sure. I'm hoping that he has had COVID-19 and that having had it gives him some measure of immunity.

BTW: We are watching to see if we can catch the fledging of the bluebird babies from that nesting box at the extreme right of the photo.

A couple of weeks in review - 1/12/2020

For us old, old people*, for whom time whizzes by on hummingbird wings, it doesn't take much to overwhelm us. During the holidays, we were happy to have Bogie visit us for a few days. We Wichita-area family members delight in having her come visit. However, I'm afraid that Hunky Husband and I played "party pooper" for most of the activities in which the younger three generations participated. We loved seeing everyone; but, fortunately, the younger folks didn't prod us into doing more than that for which we were energetic enough to participate. (Smart youngsters: we old, old people have become even grumpier as we've aged!)

I think that 2013 was the last time I attempted to feed the whole family (four generations) a holiday meal. For 2019, we had Christmas dinner at our house; but, most of the food preparation was done by Dudette and Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD). We had, basically, a chili feed, with my contribution being a Crock Pot full of Tex-Mex style chili, a Waldorf salad, and various standard condiments.

In addition, one night during the holidays, the two older generations gathered here for dinner - dining on left-overs. We kept it that simple!

Shortly following the holidays, we were happy to have Elder Brother (EB) visit, from Colorado. We knew that the weather would be dicey for him to come this way; but, as it turned out, the weather was better for him to drive to our little town than would it have been for him to have driven home from middle-western Kansas where he had spent a couple of days birdwatching. His car, upon arrival, had about a 1/4" ice coating over its entirety. The weather wasn't supposed to improve for about 30 hours so we cancelled out on having the younger generations drive down to see EB. (The trip down wouldn't have been so bad but the trip home, in the dark, might have been dangerous.) HH, EB, & I hunkered down with the left-over chili from Christmas, I fixed a green salad, and we chowed down - followed by various cookies and Chex mix that were sitting about.

Saturday, we hunkered down while receiving flurries of snow. Early this morning, we packed EB off (with 3 pints of homemade chili) and returned to bed. I doubt that HH attained further sleep (I know that I did not), but it was nice to put off starting the day. We declared a "slob" day. HH has started the laundry; but, that's all he plans for the day and I've already put everything back in its place (mostly, we had pulled stuff out for EB - to show him or to allow us to do something, together) and have planned no further great exertion for the day. I should add that EB and Bogie had stripped their beds and gathered the used linens from the guest bathroom - respectively, putting their items down the clothes chute to the basement. Each member of our family is terrific at cleaning up after themselves when they prepare for departure! Oh - let me not forget to mention that for her trip, Bogie had followed my suggestion that she bring a large suitcase - in which she took her quilt home! Enjoy it, Bogie, it was a treat for me to work with you on the design.

__________________________________________________

*Generations are as follows:

Generation 1: Hunky Husband (HH) and Cop Car (CC)

Generation 2: Dudette, WichiDude, Bogie

Generation 3: Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD), Rachie

Generation 4: Next Generation 1, Next Generation 2

A tale of the season

This afternoon, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items - mostly fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only was there a great deal of traffic on the streets, but the grocery store was crowded and bustling. As I placed the last of my items onto the conveyor belt to the cashier, I suddenly realized that my purse was still at home. This is an annoying, but not unusual, occurrence with me. During my years of graduate school, working for a living, and volunteering, I didn't need to carry a  purse: everything fit into my brief case or office bag. Admittedly, on the rare occasion when I toted a purse, I was apt to leave it in a store or restaurant; but, usually, if I forgot about my purse, it was at home.

I would not have minded running home to get the money; but, it would have involved my placing all of the items back into the shopping cart, replacing items on the shelves, going home and returning, doing the gathering again, and unloading the basket again - which, I was sure, the people behind me in line would appreciate ever-so-much. While I was asking the checker if he had a counter check with which I might pay, the woman in front of me turned back to the checker and said, "Put it on my bill." I asked the woman to please write her name and address on my grocery list, thanked her profusely, and promised to get a check into the mail pronto. She had just saved me and several other people an inconvenience - without really knowing that she would ever be repaid.

When I arrived home, it occurred to me that it would be silly to make my benefactor await delivery of a check. I put together two sets of cash - one set for the amount that I owed the nice woman (Pennie) and an equal amount for her to have on hand the next time she sees me (or someone like me) forlorn in a grocery checkout line. I stuck them into a greeting card and delivered it to her house, leaving before she had a chance to open the card - but - not before we had the chance to exchange a warm hug!

They say that no good turn goes unpunished. Pennie has picked herself up a "Secret Sister" for 2020!

 

 

Phishy, phishy

    Men'sTall Traditional Fit Comfort-First Shirt with Coolmax

On August 2, I ordered Hunky Husband a shirt from Lands' End online. Immediately, I received an email acknowledging the order and telling me that they would let me know when it shipped out.

On August 7, I received the "shipped out" email. Five days seemed like a longer "time to ship" than normal; but, perhaps they are especially busy.

On August 9, the shirt arrived in the USPS mail.

This morning, I picked up two emails from Lands' End that had been sent yesterday. I picked them up in reverse order. The first one was time stamped at 7:28PM, August 12. It said:

[CC], your return has been picked up by USPS.

Order number 8492900 was picked up for return Monday, August 12, 2019.

[Link for tracking return]

What???? I didn't send the shirt back. I took it to the tailor, yesterday morning, but did not send it back to Lands' End!

The second email that I picked up this morning was time stamped at 11:07AM, August 12, and said:

We are contacting you today about your recent Order #8492900.

We do apologize, but we may have had a packing error.  Please check your order when it arrives and make sure the items are correct.  If not please email us or call us at 1-800-332-4700. 

Thank you for assisting with this matter and again our apologies for the inconvenience.

What???? The order that I received contained the correct shirt which was the only thing I had ordered. See where I'm going here? I checked that the 1-800 telephone number was not the same number as is given on the Lands' End website. Since it did not match, I picked up their "talk back" email address and forwarded the two weird emails to Lands' End with a note that I suspected an attempt at phishing. Well, it made sense, right?

I got an immediate reply:

Thank you for contacting Lands' End regarding your order. 

Your order was sent to the wrong person.    We realized our error and sent replacements to you.  The email you received about your order being returned was in regards to the first order that was sent out to the wrong person, they sent it back to us but you got the email because your email address is on the order.  Please disregard the email.   We are sorry for any confusion.   

If we may be of further assistance, please let us know.  

That's a relief. My final email to Lands' End:

Thanks, Kevin, for explaining the whole thing. I am relieved that the two emails about which I was concerned were, in fact, legitimate communications from Lands’ End. They surely looked real enough; but, without knowing the whole story, I was not convinced (especially since the phone number did not jibe with the one on your website).

It’s a shame that any of us have to give a second thought to security; but, we do.

 

 

Happy 2019

It is easy for Hunky Husband and me to celebrate each new year: We were married (the first time) on January 1, 1958. Happy Anniversary, Hunky Husband! (We celebrate both anniversaries.)

In the first photo, 1/1/1958, we are setting out in HH's father's Packard Clipper, to take ourselves (and our wedding presents) back to school from my parents' home, where we were married. I am in the midst of my Junior year, and HH is in his Senior year. A day later, HH will return the car to his dad in St Louis, hitch-hiking back to school. (His parents have brought HH's grandmother's car and will return to St Louis in it.) For the trivia buffs among you, the house behind us is the one in which Lee Hart (wife of Gary - the politician, not the wrestler) grew up. Lee (known as Oletha in those days) was one or two years ahead of me in school.

           

The second photograph shows us following our second wedding, 4/23/1988. We have been apart for a bit over 11 years at this point, and it will be a couple of more years before we actually live together again. We were married in my home in Albuquerque NM.

         

One of my favorite photos is of Hunky Husband, following our first wedding. The bedroom is the one that I occupied for several of the years before I left home for school.

          

Here are a couple of photos, one from 1958, the other from 1988, showing all of the attendees at our two weddings.

In the above photo, left-to-right, are: Standing - HH's (now late) father and mother, CC's (now late) father and Younger Brother, (now late) Expert Seamstress (Elder Brother's wife), and Elder Brother; seated on the arms of the chair - HH's (now late) younger sister and CC's (now late) mother; seated in the chair is the elder of HH's sisters; and kneeling behind the gift-laden piano bench - CC and HH.

In the above photo, left-to-right, are: Wichi Dude, Dudette, Wonderful GrandDaughter, CC's (now late) father and mother, HH, CC, (now late) Expert Seamstress and Elder Brother, Bogie, and HH's (now late) father. Wonderful GrandDaughter's sons are now two and three years older than she was in this photo.

In the first photo, 1/1/1958, we are setting out in HH's father's Packard Clipper, to take ourselves (and our wedding presents) back to school from my parents' home, where we were married. I am in the midst of my Junior year, and HH is in his Senior year. A day later, HH will return the car to his dad in St Louis, hitch-hiking back to school. (His parents have brought HH's grandmother's car and will return to St Louis in it.) For the trivia buffs among you, the house behind us is the one in which Lee Hart (wife of Gary - the politician, not the wrestler) grew up. Lee (known as Oletha in those days) was one or two years ahead of me in school.

           

The second photograph shows us following our second wedding, 4/23/1988. We have been apart for a bit over 11 years at this point, and it will be a couple of more years before we actually live together again. We were married in my home in Albuquerque NM.

         

One of my favorite photos is of Hunky Husband, following our first wedding. The bedroom is the one that I occupied for several of the years before I left home for school.

          

Here are a couple of photos, one from 1958, the other from 1988, showing all of the attendees at our two weddings.

In the above photo, left-to-right, are: Standing - HH's (now late) father and mother, CC's (now late) father and Younger Brother, (now late) Expert Seamstress (Elder Brother's wife), and Elder Brother; seated on the arms of the chair - HH's (now late) younger sister and CC's (now late) mother; seated in the chair is the elder of HH's sisters; and kneeling behind the gift-laden piano bench - CC and HH.

In the above photo, left-to-right, are: Wichi Dude, Dudette, Wonderful GrandDaughter, CC's (now late) father and mother, HH, CC, (now late) Expert Seamstress and Elder Brother, Bogie, and HH's (now late) father. Wonderful GrandDaughter's sons are now two and three years older than she was in this photo.

Way to start the week, Hunky Husband!

HH just came up from his lair to show me a couple of things he had found while continuing his review of old paperwork in his quest to rid himself of excess stuff (so the kids won't have to worry about it when we go.)

1) A glowing evaluation for his work for the American Red Cross many years ago - how his statistical analysis and unique systems of control led to superior performance of tasks assigned him and how he took responsibility for tasking that he passed on to his workers.

2) Five crisp, new $20 bills in a bank's bill sleeve - obviously part of the advance money that had been given him during his preparation to go out on assignment with the Red Cross. 

Oh! Did I mention? HH retired from volunteering with the Red Cross at the end of November. At the annual volunteer recognition dinner, he was awarded not only his 20-year service pin, but also the Clara Barton Honor Award for Meritorious Volunteer Leadership – a very big deal! In the 13 years of my own volunteering, I remember only one or two instances of our chapter's having conferred the award. The certificate of award is with my favored framer being matted and framed (under museum glass) for display.

Clara Barton Award

The Clara Barton Honor Award is the highest award the American Red Cross bestows on volunteers. It recognizes meritorious service in volunteer leadership positions held over a period of years. Recipients of the award are inducted into the Clara Barton Honor Society.

Computer ventures

For the past few years, I've spent a small (teeny tiny) fortune with Amazon buying mp3 files of music - mostly for Hunky Husband, but also for myself. Our cars have built-in mp3 players to which I feed flash drives full of judicious choices from all of that music from Amazon. I kept gnashing my teeth because I couldn't rip music from our CDs for this purpose. Now, I'm kicking myself. Why did I assume that, because I couldn't get it to work, it couldn't be done? I assumed that the anti-piracy systems on our old CDs were keeping it from happening. Boy, am I stooooopid!

The local Senior Center hosts various groups of people who wish to play cards, sing, exercise, etc, Monday through Friday 0800-1700. There is a group of women who meet a couple of times each week (Monday PM and Wednesday AM) with each person bringing some sort of needle work (knitting, crocheting, tatting, quilting, embroidery...) to work at as we chat. Monday, a woman unknown to us dropped in on the group. It turns out that she contracts with the Red Cross to teach swimming at the Derby Recreation Center. Somehow, in chatting with her, I lamented about spending so much money on mp3 files of music that I already owned on CDs. She says, "Oh! That's simple if you have a Windows OS." We went into the computer room (10-15 computers are set up in it) and she showed me how! Yay!

Rushing home (it's only a 20-minute walk), I gave it a try. You are kidding me! The commands she was using did not appear when I used Windows Media Player. Grrrrrrrr! However, now that capability had been demonstrated, I went online to see what others were experiencing. Surely enough, there were several different approaches listed that had solved the issue for various people.

After trying a few of the approaches, to no good end, I was becoming discouraged. Plugging on, I tried the last approach - modifying the Registry. Good grief, Lucy, it works! I just had to add one file that contained one character! After getting my desktop set up, I set up my laptop - while I could remember how to do it. That was yesterday.

Today, I've spent 2 or 3 hours ripping music from CDs. HH is excited that I'll be able to rip music off of his CDs for the flash drive for his car. During those past few years, I've assiduously sought an mp3 version of Margaret Whiting's "All I Want Is All There Is and Then Some" - to no avail. A few minutes ago, I made another search. Wonders never cease - I found it! It is the words that I find so fascinating. It expresses my theory of life, so well.

Margaret-whiting-all-i-want-is-all-there-is-and-then-some

I had previously bought a version of the song by Eartha Kitt. (I think that falls under the category of, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.") As much as I like Ms Kitt's voice, I don't like the wording as well and, in this case, think Ms Whiting's voice matches the song, better. You may judge for yourself.

Eartha Kitt-All I Want Is All There Is and Then Some