Hunky Husband and I have, over the years, supported three institutions of higher learning, including endowing small scholarships at two of them. Each school has a way of telling their donors thank you. This past week we received hand-written thank you notes from four students who had benefited from the scholarship that we established at Missouri School of Science and Technology - with photographs of the youngsters. I wrote "hand-written", but they were hand lettered, one assumes because cursive is no longer taught in primary schools in many of our states. (I wonder if lettering is still taught in engineering drawing - called drafting in our day - classes or if they learn only to use software.)
I must say that the current crop of youngsters looks no dorkier than did their predecessors of HH's and my generation.
Fairly recently, I've added a blog to my Favorites:tehachap | Life is good! (wordpress.com).I don't recall how I found it, presumably because the owner had left a comment on one of the blogs that I visit. I would give credit were it possible. I was drawn to Tehachap for two reasons: 1) Tehachapi CA is one of my favorite places in the USA, and 2) I thought that I might have "known" the owner some years ago when I was newer to blogging (it turned out to be a different person). My visit turned out to be fortuitous. As I've mentioned previously, Hunky Husband has, for the past few years, been heading down the road in Dementialand - most probably Alzheimer's as his mother's autopsy confirmed that she had it. Tehachap's husband is also on a road in Dementialand. In the short time in which I've read her blog, Tehachap has provided links to many helpful websites. Yesterday, I added one of them to the 4 FUN & ENLIGHTENMENT Typelist in the right-hand column. I highly recommend the site to anyone who wishes to know more about dementia. *
The following is from the When Dementia Knocks website, from which site I have lifted the term "Dementialand".
About the Author
Dr. Elaine Eshbaugh is a professor of Gerontology and Family Studies and has coordinated UNI’s Gerontology program since 2007. She has a master’s and PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from Iowa State University, and has been published in research journals such as the Journal of Poverty, Journal of Community Health Nursing, Gerontology & Geriatrics Education, and the Journal of Community Psychology. Dr. Eshbaugh has more than 30 research publications in empirical journals. She teaches courses such as Research Methods, Family Relationships, Psychology of Aging, and Families, Alzheimer’s & Related Dementias. She has collaborated with various continuing care communities, adult day services, and hospices.
In her free time, she enjoys doing semi-adventurous things with her husband (Bill), running, documentaries, hanging out with dogs of all sizes, and students who bring cookies to her office.
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* I should mention that Bonnie of BLB writes about her life with her husband Wil's walk down the road in Dementialand, providing insight into the process they are experiencing.
In the photo, below, there are a lot of gages, dials, switches, and buttons, but there probably isn't one of them that I couldn't figure out with a moment to ponder. (I'll grant you that past experience and training make this so and if my pondering isn't productive, I have a friend on whom to call - eh, Stu?) They are unambiguous to me - I know which switch I need to flip/push/turn and what will happen when I flip/push/turn it.
Compare the above display to the onscreen display, below. The display, below, is clean, uncluttered, and has few toggle buttons* on which I might click. I've seen similar displays hundreds of times, as I'm confident have most of you. So why can I not interpret the meaning? Why do I not know whether each item is in a "disabled" or "enabled" state?
This lack of comprehension on my part is undoubtedly an error in the wiring of my brain. My brain readily accepts the task of interpreting a toggle button that has both options listed and a means of indicating the button's current state, but faced with the above toggle buttons, I am flummoxed. I don't know whether the label indicates the current or desired state - until I've studied the heck out of it. (And, even then, I'm not sure.)
Confession: It took me decades to be able to visually determine the state of the electrical circuit controlled by a rocker or push-button switch on an appliance when the options were labeled as shown, below. What in the world do "O" and "|" mean? It's a mystery to me. Yes, sometimes I feel like a complete, gibbering idiot; but I'll wager that I'm far from alone.
How did this all come to mind? I was getting ready to write about having solved a household problem...which led me to thinking of "Hints from Heloise" that was a feature in our local newspapers for years and years - 'way back when. I searched on that title and was amazed (goodness knows why) to find a Hints from Heloise website - that promptly assaulted me with a demand that I allow it to use cookies. Hoo, boy - that set me off on Pet Peeve #19.
ADDITION of 3/25/2022 - Toggle Button
This (below) is how I wish to be led by the hand. (From an email from Apple - available here.
A toggle switch operates in changes in the system. Think dark/light modes on the iOS settings, or a privacy mode in a navigator. The toggle switch represents a decision that can affect all screens of the app or device – this means that switches deal in system states.
Find a grand variety of toggle switches on the Justinmind UI kits page!
In contrast, a toggle button refers to a change that only takes place on that screen. Think flight dates and search filters. Toggle buttons are meant for contextual states.
Someone from Eddy's Lincoln service shop will be picking up my car, tomorrow morning, to take it into Wichita for tire replacement. In preparation, I unloaded all of the "stuff" that I normally carry in my car - for two reasons: 1) They shouldn't have to be bothered with all of my junk, and 2) If I am missing something when the car is returned, I want to avoid any thinking on my part that "they" might be responsible for it. I lose stuff, all on my own, and don't need to be blaming anyone else. I started the cleanup in the trunk.
My normal complement of stuff in the trunk includes one fake leather tote (with jumper cables and windshield shade/cover), one duffle bag (with electric air pump, basic hand tools, and a good tire gage), one wool blanket, one terrycloth beach towel (full bed sized), and two bussing trays. I started by stacking the bussing trays, as they were nearest to me, and hauling the fake leather tote toward me and into the top bussing tray. The photo, below, is how the inside of my car's trunk looked.
Do you see what jumped out at me? I'll give you a close-up, below.
OMG - that's the top to one of our gasoline "cans" - missing since early November - My fun for the morning. My puzzlement over what happened to that cap has been settled. See? I lose stuff all on my own. No need to blame anyone else although I've always felt (and told my friends) that the sooner I accuse someone else of taking something from me, the sooner I shall find it. Finding the cap at this late date goes to show that it has been months since I've delved into the nether regions of my car's trunk - although the bussing trays have seen much use when I was picking up groceries, taking donations to Goodwill, or taking electronics to the e-cycle place. Obviously, I had done a poor job of looking for the cap in my car's trunk in the first place!
I can now put away/give away the new gasoline can that I bought as a replacement and not have to use pliers to unlock the pouring spout each time I wish to refuel the lawn mower from it. We're back to having two easy-to-use gasoline cans - a bit less safe, I know.
One should never air their dirty laundry in public...or so I was taught. Despite Mom's & Dad's best efforts, I am breaking the rule. Below are some photos showing our pantry.
The other day, there was a reason that I was delving into our pantry: I needed ingredients for making Seafood salad - and the recipe called for capers. Aha! See the closeup, below, with the cap to the capers circled*. There they were.
Upon opening the little jar, I thought that the capers smelled a bit different, but merrily measured out two tablespoons' worth and chucked them into the bowl. Only when I started to put the remaining capers into the refrigerator did I discover my error. The jar had been in the correct spot in our pantry. The lid was the correct size and the bottle was the correct shape. Why in the world would I have purchased Green Peppercorns?
It tasted dreadful. The result was that I pitched the whole bowl of seafood salad. Fortunately, I had not yet included the shrimp, only the less expensive fish.
I frequently fail to follow my hand with my eyes, leading me to pick up something that was adjacent to the desired object. I am left-eyed and right-handed. The only time that I remember my hand/eye coordination's being great was after my first cataract surgery. I wore a protective device over my left (surgery site) eye, forcing my right eye to dominate. The right-eye/right-hand combination worked well.
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* Obviously, the photo is a re-enactment. I was not prescient enough to take the photos beforehand.
The video, above, was stolen from Bluebird of Bitterness (BoB) while she wasn't looking. I could make a cheeky comment, "What else could they do with toolboxes that are empty?" and comment that their wrenches are nice and shiny and unnicked - as if no one had used them - at least not as I would have as prybars or hammers. Those guys've got rhythm! Thanks BoB.
Speaking of tools, our little town, once again, has an Ace Hardware (photo, below). The current heat wave has me so distracted that, although Hunky Husband kept asking me, "How many days?" leading up to its opening last Friday, I missed the actual opening - and haven't, yet, made my way up there. When HH first realized what was moving into the space that is only 1/2 mile from us, he started teasing me that he would henceforth always know where I was were I to disappear. A bit later in the year, when it cools down and the sun comes up a bit later, I shall be able to hit the hardware store during my morning walks! (Not shown in the photo, but off to the left, is their outdoor supplies department - mulch, etc.)
Truth to tell, the real reason I was so distracted that I missed the hardware store opening, was that I pretty much destroyed our zero-turn-radius mower. I don't recall why it was, but I had decided not to raise the deck of the mower while mowing "the deep back" next to our woods, a week ago. (I seem to recall thinking that HH had told me that he never did - in fact that he always mowed "the deep back" with the deck lower than for "the good grass" - AND - several of the swaths that I was mowing extended from "the good grass" into "the deep back".)
At any rate, at one point, forgetting that the deck was lower than normal, I got into mowing in the roughest part of the yard - the area on a rather steep slope that used to host our compost pile and a bunch of trees (photo, below). Carefully guiding the mower astraddle one of the short stumps left from trees removed in that area, I was jarred by the thunk when the blade bit into the stump. OMG. By hook and by crook, I was able to nurse the poor machine up into our driveway where I shut down the smoking engine to let it cool down in a non-flammable area.
After HH and I got through laughing about my idiocy, he agreed with me that the simplest thing to do (since I still had some of "the good grass" to mow) was for me to call up Jim's Tire and Auto. [I ask you: How could I not love a guy who can laugh over such things with me?!] I asked Jim's to send me out a new machine (same model as the old, which I had given HH just 18 months ago) and pick up the poor broken, old thing. Jess delivered the new machine Friday morning and I finished mowing "the good grass" which is why I wasn't thinking about the hardware store opening.
HH received a phone call from Jim's, yesterday - they are holding a check for me at the office. That's all HH could tell me about the call; so, I don't know whether the check is for the previous (old old) mower that they had picked up when they delivered the then-new old mower 18 months ago or for the one they picked up Friday. (Each was to have been fixed up and sold, on consignment.) When Jess had been here, Friday, I had casually mentioned to him that we had never heard anything about the old old mower once they had it. I believe the check may be for that mower. It's a bit soon for them to have been able to replace the deck and blades and, maybe, the spindle on the new old mower and get it sold, already.
BTW: Hunky Husband has, a couple of times, told me that he "...would be proud to escort...." me to the hardware store when I am ready to inspect it. I'm hoping that the new store will have good employees. I've frequented Hupp Hardware, up in Wichita, for many years because they have great stock and great people; but, being able to have equivalent service so near our home would be so much more convenient in my declining years. Slowly, I've been changing over my medical and merchant services to Derby, as such services have become available over the past several years. For instance: Within the past two weeks, a Schlotzsky'shas opened up just two miles north of us.
ADDITION of 3 hours later: I am now $819 richer. The people at Jim's said that they had to cut a new check when Jess asked about our old old mower. The expiration date on the original check had passed. Neither HH nor I knew that it was waiting there for us until the call yesterday.
Since all of my errands had gone so well this morning, I did (no surprise to HH) stop by the new hardware store. Neither was it a surprise to him when, my having handed him a bag with candy in it - for him, I answered his, "Is that all you got?!" with, "The rest is in my car trunk." I told the cashier that I would have my monthly Social Security check sent to the hardware store so that I could just drop in to play. My big purchase was a Craftsman battery-powered leaf blower to replace the corded leaf blower that is about 25 years old. I'm tired of dragging around and untangling 100 feet of heavy electrical cord.
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NOTE: Except for whatever business I, personally, throw their way, none of the commercial businesses linked in this posting knows that I exist nor do they pay me or endorse me. OTOH, excepting the new hardware store that I've yet to check out, each of the businesses linked is worthy of recommendation by me.
Posted by BeauHD from the well-that's-ironic dept.
The Tech Support Scams YouTube channel, operated by host and creator Jim Browning, was deleted after a tech support scam convinced Browning that the only way to secure his account was to delete it. The Register reports: "So to prove that anyone can be scammed," Browning announced via Twitter following the attack, "I was convinced to delete my YouTube channel because I was convinced I was talking [to YouTube] support. I never lost control of the channel, but the sneaky s**t managed to get me to delete the channel. Hope to recover soon." To fool Browning, the ruse must have been convincing: "I track down the people who scam others on the Internet," he writes on his Patreon page. "This is usually those 'tech support' call frauds using phone calls or pop-ups. I explain what I do by guiding others in how to recognize a scam and, more importantly, how to turn the tables on scammers by tracking them down."
Browning has made a name for himself with self-described "scam baiting" videos, in which he sets up honeypot systems and pretends to fall for scams in which supposed support staffers need remote access to fix a problem or remove a virus -- in reality scouring the hard drive for sensitive files or planting malware of their own. "I am hoping that YouTube Support can recover the situation by 29th July," Browning wrote in a Patreon update, "and I can get the channel back, but they've not promised anything as yet. I just hope it is recoverable."
Whether Browning is able to recover the account, and the 3.28 million subscribers he had gathered over his career as a scam-baiter, he's hoping to turn his misfortune into another lesson. "I will make a video on how all of this went down," he pledged, "but suffice to say, it was pretty convincing until the very end."
Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler spent years illegally colluding to slow the deployment of cleaner emissions technology, says the European Union, which is dishing out fines as a result. From a report: The EU's executive branch hit the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi and Porsche) and BMW with a collective $1 billion fine on Thursday for their role in the scheme. Volkswagen Group must pay $595 million, while BMW will pay $442 million. Daimler, however, evaded a $861 million fine of its own because the automaker revealed the collusion to the regulators.
The scheme described by EU authorities is separate from the Volkswagen Group's massive Dieselgate scandal, in which the company installed software on its diesel vehicles that helped fool environmental regulators into believing they were compliant, when in reality, they were polluting far more than the legal limit. Dieselgate ultimately led to nearly $40 billion in fines, buybacks, and legal fees for the Volkswagen Group. Daimler also installed software on some of its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests and has paid billions of dollars in fines. BMW was careful to point out Thursday that, unlike the other companies it was caught colluding with, it had not cheated emissions testing.
Posted by BeauHD from the hot-tub-time-machine dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York. "The lake is so warm you feel like you're in a hot tub," Abi Buddington, who lives near the Greenidge power plant, told NBC News. In the past, nearby residents weren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Today, they're lucky if a small fraction does. Most of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas solely to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.
Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station's total 108 MW capacity. [...] The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that's large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it's into one of those rivers -- the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing -- that Greenidge dumps its heated water. Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70 F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don't bother fishing when water temps get to that point.
Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108 F in the summer and 86 F in the winter. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant's daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98 in summer and 70 in winter. That water eventually makes its way to Seneca Lake, where it can result in tropical surface temps and harmful algal blooms. Residents say lake temperatures are already up, though a full study won't be completed until 2023.
Posted by BeauHD from the pandemic-side-effects dept.
Americans gobbled up fewer fossil fuels in 2020 than they have in three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The Verge reports: Consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal dropped by 9 percent last year compared to 2019, the biggest annual decrease since the EIA started keeping track in 1949. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for much of the fall as people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus and used less gas. In April 2020, oil prices nosedived below zero because there was so little demand. The U.S. transportation sector alone used up 15 percent less energy in 2020 compared to the year before. Higher temperatures last winter also helped to cut energy demand for heating, according to the EIA. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels plummeted to a near 40-year low.
That downward trend will have to continue in order to stave off the climate crisis. Upon rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to slash its planet-heating pollution in half this decade from near-peak levels it reached in 2005. That's part of a global effort to keep global warming from surpassing a point that life on Earth would struggle to adapt to, a global average temperature that's roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. To hit that goal, there should be no further investments in new fossil fuel projects, according to a recent landmark report from the International Energy Agency. The oil and gas industries are already feeling the crunch from lawsuits and activist investors forcing them to move faster toward more sustainable forms of energy.
Other than Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method, and Disjointed, I have seen and enjoyed (some to a greater, some to a lesser extent) Lorre's sitcoms. I still watch re-runs of The Big Bang Theory though I can recite the dialogue - without having the TV audio engaged - in most of the episodes. (I admit to deliberately avoiding several episodes that I find annoying - usually because of writing that presents characters Sheldon and Wolowitz in truly obnoxious ways. They are obnoxious enough without the extra effort that someone seems to think is required.) In addition, because of conflicts with my schedule or the TV schedule I missed most first-run presentations of Mom, I am now catching up on those presentations, in re-runs.
My complaints about Lorre's writing is his reliance upon cheap sexual innuendos that are most unfunny and his insistence upon keeping characters infantile beyond their years. That said, for the most part, Lorre's writing is still above the standards set by others in sitcoms that see the air on our major networks. I am a fan. Or, perhaps I am merely jealous of anyone who has discernible eyebrows?
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