Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts
Someone said, “I’ve been watching Hallmark Christmas movies. I watched three yesterday.”
Surprise went through me. Had I missed Halloween and Thanksgiving? I replied, “What month is this?”
Another said, “We put up and decorated our first Christmas tree. We usually put up two, one in the living room window, and a larger one in the family room. That’s the one we put up.”
I was staring out at the sunshine and leaves. Many were still on trees, their chlorophyll declining, losing their green colors, letting other colors emerge. Autumn, in other words.
As others continued talking about their Christmas-themed activities, I thought, I’m really out of touch.
I’m still celebrating autumn.
Monday’s Wandering Thought
Despite being a well-fed person, he ate his food and so enjoyed it that he stared at the plate, looking for crumbs, sad that the food was gone.
Mild Rant
Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.
Take One: Atlanta home demolished
That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.
Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished
Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.
From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’
It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.
Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents
Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.
TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS
DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET
The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.
This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.
Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)
Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.
Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.
Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.
And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.
Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers
Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
I’ve been thinking about spiders the last few days.
I don’t love or hate spiders; they’re another critter inhabiting the spectrum of our existence. I’ve been thinking abut them more because we don’t kill spiders in our household. We co-exist with a decent size population of them, including black widows. The biggest thing about all these spiders is that we end up with a lot of spider webs. I sometimes clean the webs away, which often displaces some. I don’t kill them as they run away from the cleaning, but I do apologize to them. No one likes being forced to move from their home.
Anyway, I turned on the kitchen light last night and headed for the sink. A windowsill rests just above the sink. A spider sitting on the window sill bolted away, as if I’d frightened them. About a quarter inch long, dark brownish with red legs, I don’t know what kind of spider they were.
Maybe the light spooked ’em, I thought, completing my task (which, not surprisingly, was washing the cats’ food bowls). Watching that spider tear along the window’s length prompted me to wonder again, how well does that spider see? I had the impression that despite eight eyes, they were running blind, maybe yelling, “Run away! Run away!”
Spider vision preoccupied me the night before. While cleaning away webs on the front porch, a spider dropped from the ceiling to the floor and scurried away. This was a ‘daddy long legs’. We have about seven hundred billion living around our house, I think.
That drop was about eight feet. Well, when the spider was dropping from the ceiling to the porch, did they have any idea of what was below them? Think about the courage that must entail. “Well, can’t stay here, gotta get out of here, so I’m just letting go. Wheee.”
Yes, I know that since they have so little weight and mass that they don’t have issues with gravity as we do, but still, dropping like that when you don’t know where you’re going?
Made me think of paratroopers in WWII.
Of course, on the other hand, spiders proably never learned to fear dropping to the ground. Not like us speaking before a crowd. Before we speak in a public gathering, we often absorb what people say about speakers. Lot of times, it’s mocking and casual insults. Listening to those things indoctrinates a fear of what they’ll say about us while we’re speaking, or how we might mess up and OMG, embarrass ourselves.
I conducted brief online research about spidey vision. Which reminds me; when Spiderman was created, why didn’t he grow eight eyes and eight limbs? How was he just limited to his spidey sense, making webs, and being a creepy crawler?
Articles I read about spiders confirmed what I suspected. Spider vision varies and often isn’t real great. Their hunting and nesting roles, along with their socializing skills and hunting style, guide their vision development and how the eight eyes generally function. (BTW, not all spiders have eight eyes.)
That spider may have kind of running blind, depending on those factors, but it was’t totally blind. Their running blind is more like if a human with vision problems who need corrective lenses might be running if they weren’t wearing those lenses.
Now I can imagine a spider with glasses sitting in a web, talking with another spider about how glasses improved their life.
Like other creatures, spiders present complicated and fascinating life form variations. I still don’t understand why they terrify so many people. Yes, they have venom and can bite and others can die from those bites but that’s not all of them.
I guess that’s another matter which I need to research.
Friday’s Wandering Thoughts
Technology fascinates me. It has since I first read about microwave ovens and satellites in the mid sixties, when I was less than ten years old. That’s why I want to spread the word about the latest technology I’ve heard about.
Ever have confusion about what you thought was just said? For example, your wife suggests you go for a ride, and you think that she wants something fried? Or you hear something that sounds like a gunshot and she claims that she didn’t hear anything. Instead of sitting there, listening for a repeat of the sound, or wondering if she’s deaf or you’re crazy, you can access a small device and have the last ten minutes of sound repeated for your benefit.
Sounds crazy? Did to me but this help is being offered out there in the form of a new AI system I spied on a television commercial the other night. I’m seriously thinking about buying it.
This miracle device is called Whazaid. Here is a brief description. First, a control interface is downloaded onto a phone or laptop. A rechargeable device that’s about the size of a U.S. nickel will record everything being said around you. How far around you can be adjusted. It’s said to be so effective, Whazaid can capture the sound of pet kibble hitting the floor in another room.
That depends on where your put your Whazaid. It has a tiny clip that lets you put it on a shirt collar, hat bill, or a bra strap. Anything kind of fabric, really, like the top of your pants or a shirt or pants pocket. It can even be clipped to an ear lobe. The thing is, wherever it’s placed, its effectiveness is depended on not being blocked so it can pick up sounds.
The device can record 28 hours worth of conversations before it needs to be charged. The inventors say that’s about three days for most people but it can vary. Although it has a terrabyte of storage, recordings will stay on your device for thirty days unless otherwise marked by the control device. A subscription can be set up so that everything recorded is backed up on the cloud.
Whazaid’s AI feature has a smart filter that will separate sounds being heard. This is where the AI, which is based on IBM’s Watson, comes in. As the system records and identifies sounds, you can taylor sounds you want recorded. For example, you probably don’t want to record television shows or movies, and exclude them.
Then, the AI will learn your preferences and modify your settings for you, if you wish; that’s something set up on the control. Whazaid will also attach the speakers’ names and mark conversations with subject, date, and time. If you allow the optional location feature to be turned on, Whazaid will also mark the location.
Using Bluetooth hooked in your ear, you can also give the device verbal commands. So if an argument starts about who said what, you can tell Whazaid to playback a specific recording by subject, time, or speaker(s). It’ll play it back privately but can be mated with laptops or phones so it can be played via those devices and their speakers so everyone can hear the recorded conversation.
For example, my wife and I had a frustrating exchange about what was being said about plans for this Friday. The moment devolved into a classic he said/she said disagreement that left us both dissatisfied and irritated. If I had a Whazaid installed, I could have resolved it right there.
Another advantage, though, is that it can record lectures. A disadvantage is the danger presented to classified information, or comments confided to you in private.
Whazaid isn’t cheap at about eleven hundred US dollars, the early adopter price. But the technology entices me. I’m getting older and it seems like disagreements about what was said or heard are multiplying. So I am very tempted.
I might wait until it’s available at Costco, because they usually have better prices. If I do buy Whazaid, I’ll let you know how it goes. How ’bout you? Are you interested in Whazaid?
NOTE: Whazaid is totally fabricated. It only exists in my mind.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
Received a sharpish wake-up notice this morning.
At about 6 AM, I was pulled out of a dream at Papi’s request. He needed to go back out. Papi, aka the ginger blade, likes to come in and nibble some kibble, and then go back out to see if anything has changed outside.
Letting him out, I shrugged off the dream to think about it later and nestled back under the covers. At that point, I felt and heard Tucker get off the bed. A minute later, I heard him crunching kibble.
Silence came.
Litter box scratching followed.
That’s when I came fully awake as Tucker did some business and launched a stench that exfoliated my skin.
Had to immediately empty that. The good news, I told myself, is that last year’s COVID bout didn’t seem to affect my sense of smell.
Good to find those silver linings, even if they’re in a litter box.
Michael Seidel, writer 