Idiot trick

t-Mobile wants to charge $4.99 to help you not answer your phone!!

I think there are two kinds of people in this world - those who think that every ringing phone must be answered and those that don't.  And neither side understands the other.  I happen to be in the latter group.  If a phone rings and (1) I am responsible for answering calls coming to that  phone, and (2) I am not busy with someone else, and (3) I am not busy with something else that should not be interrupted, and (4) caller ID indicates the caller to be someone I am interested in talking with or at least not someone I'm NOT interested in talking with, and (5) I am not physically in a location where my phone conversation will disturb those around me, and (6) I am not driving a vehicle then I MAY answer the phone.  I don't feel I HAVE to answer that phone call unless my job or health requires it.  I do make sure the call can go to phone mail and I do try to respond to calls as soon as I can so I don't consider my actions irresponsible.

But apparently there are people who can't stop themselves from answering a phone, especially when they're driving. So t-Mobile is offering their technology to help people NOT answer their phone.  Why can't I come up with a service like that?

Point of View

Every good picture taker knows how important location is.  Taking a picture from 20 feet away is not the same as taking a picture of the same subject from 40 feet away with a 2X lens. And sometimes moving just a couple of inches left or right changes the whole picture.  So why do we have so much trouble understanding that our point of view is not and cannot be the same as someone else's?  No one is exactly in the same place as we are.

I was appalled by a little sketch by Rush Limbaugh recently making fun of a speech by Chinese President Hu.  After making a series of jibberish syllables, Rush admitted that he couldn't imagine how how anyone could understand such sounds.  Unthinkingly, he has stated one of the most perplexing problems of this world.  He can't understand Hu and can't imagine anyone can.  He can't understand Obama and can't imagine anyone can.  He can't understand liberals and can't imagine anyone can.

Of course there is something called education.  If Rush learned Chinese maybe he could imagine how someone could understand what Hu was saying.

If we have been close to someone's viewpoint, we might be more able to imagine something close to what he is seeing.

And introducing . . . Spice, the walker with a little Dash

Carolyn and I recently attended a Conference in Palm Springs (about which I really do intend to blog one of these days).  Besides the information and network connections we made there, we purchased yet another walker to help me stay on my feet as long as possible.

The walker is made and sold by the Dashaway Company headquartered in the San Fernando Valley.  I've decided to name her Spice (Dashaway  => Mrs. Dash => Spice, get it).  Spice sort of looks like a walker rearing up on its hind legs and it's height is one of its best features.  The moment I tried it out, I felt transformed.  Instead of arching my back over my walker and being in danger of the walker rolling out from under me, I stood tall and walked almost as easily as I used to pre-Parkinson's.  In fact, in the open spaces of the Renaissance Hotel where the conference was being held, it felt like I was 50 pounds lighter.  I could (and did) walk and walk and walk.  What a difference! The braking system is "reversed" - they're on by default.  You have to squeeze the brake controls to go. That, by the way, makes it a handy device for supporting in place exercise while allowing movement around the exercise facility.

With this walker and a handy bin (not available from Dashaway) sitting on the seat, I was able to walk around the Library for 2.5 hours last Tuesday, picking up books that had been requested. It's been a while since I walked that much and I was really tired afterward but I proved I could do it.

Spice isn't perfect.  Because of the added height she tends to tip over easier when rounding corners.  Her wheels are too small, making mountains out of the smallest of molehills.  And because of her no-tread rear wheels, her brakes are less effective than they might be.  I can easily slide on our entry and kitchen floors.  Finally, she is overpriced, probably because it has been targeted to the institutional market rather than the consumer market.

Obamacare or whatdoicare

Writing legislation must be one of the most frustrating things in this world.  In order to do a good job for the public, the voting legislators must have enough specifics to evaluate the program but  the legislation must have enough "wiggle room" to allow for changes and fixes.  Projections must be made and the projections must be close enough to be reliable.  But how is that possible when, for example, Obama's people were predicting that as many as 375,000 people would have signed up for high-risk insurance by the end of 2010 when in-fact by the end of November only 8,000 people have.  That's only slightly more than 2%.  What does that say about the rest of the bill.

Poems my father taught me

I am not good at memorizing things.  I've been telling myself that for 60 years and have come to believe it completely.  But there are exceptions:  I know the Lord's Prayer.  I know the first line of the chorus of BYU's fight song "Rise and Shout" just in case I find myself at a BYU sports event.  I can play on the piano or organ "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet" just in case I'm playing the prelude for some meeting and the Prophet walks in.  But that's about it.

Oh, and I know the words to a delightful Valentine's Day poem that my father taught me half a century ago:

Hearts and Love

 

Hearts and love, love and hearts,

'Twas an unknown poet  started it

And ever since in songs of love

The rest have always "hearted" it.

 

Why should the heart be chosen

As the place for love to dwell,

When any other organ

I think would do as well?

 

"My floating rib is broken."

"My stomach aches for you."

These two simple phrases

Are realistic, maybe true.

 

"Come ease my throbbing left lung

By saying you'll be mine."

Is a charming little couplet

Good on any Valentine.

 

And it really would be nice to hear

Some bright young medic say:

"Sweetspleen, my epiglottis

Shall be yours forever and a day."

When I decided I wanted to include it in the February ward newsletter, I was really surprised I could come up with the complete poem since it has been several years since I last read it or wrote it down. I remembered it slightly different but made a couple of changes I thought improved the poem.

Then I began wondering where my Dad might have gotten the poem.   After all there was no Internet 50 years ago. But there is now.  Googling various phrases in the poem I was getting millions of hits or none.   Finally, using "sweetspleen" as one word, similar to sweetheart, I hit pay dirt.  Although I can't be sure where my Dad picked it  up, the poem was published in the 1928 issue of the Banyan, the Brigham Young University yearbook!  And it was exactly as I had remembered the poem.  The only clue to the author was a set of initials under the poem:  E. C. J.  Too bad it wasn't Elwood's initials E.C.L.

Find the Fallacy #2

A nameless, but certainly entertaining, news commentator recently began his show by stating, while eating a giant bowl of ice cream, that he couldn't believe the experts about inflation but he could believe his gut.  He loves ice cream and a year ago he could purchase this ice cream for $2.19 and now it is selling for $3.69.  This is a 68% increase.  Our country is being hit by double digit inflation!

Fallacy or not?  If so, what is it?

My answer is yes; improper definition or calculation of inflation rate.
Many of us have our own method of determining the rate of inflation.  The government has several, of which the CPI is probably the best known.  All the methods are at best only partially correct and some are just downright misleading.

I learned about the complexity of the CPI when I needed to write a lease with an  "inflation adjusted" rate.  I thought it would be a simple matter of going to the library and looking up what the inflation was for the current year and adjust the rate.  (Yes, we're talking pre-Internet here.)  I found there were many different definition based on "market baskets" whose composition might vary by time and location.  But surely they'd all agree in the long run, I thought.  Wrong again.  See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index for a more complete explanation.

As for our news commentator, I think he should stick to reviewing flavors, not prices.

My pants are in suspense

I may have a waist that is a couple inches larger than I'd like but my almost non-existent hips make up for it.  The result, of course, is  pants that just don't want to stay up.  Like putting pants on a beet, the tighter you cinch it up the more pressure for heading south.

The solution is a pair of suspenders.  This has now become my fashion statement.  This solution would be great if it didn't feel like an eternal wedgie.

Toolbox help

As part of the walker repair, Carolyn brought me the tool tray of the toolbox we have had since we first got married.  Then while I was working on the walker, she started emptying the tray, setting out the wrenches and sockets neatly, like a OR nurse.  When I asked, she said the tool box still stinks of the time when Edward as a baby spit up into it.  Oh, well.  Not my problem.

As I was clearing up, she brought the tray back to the garage to put into the tool box.  Notice anything interesting about the newly cleaned up tool tray?  Hint:  look at the sockets.

Memories

Memories are such fickle things.  I can't remember from day to day what I'm supposed to be doing and I use a checklist system at work to make sure that he reports I produce are valid.  Sometimes, I really think I am losing my memory.

Then, out of the blue,  my memory surprises me.

Last week a colleague was telling our lunch group that he had played something for New Year's Eve that was a lot of fun.  He'd never heard of it before.  Played on a wooden board about 4' by 4' with netted holes on the side almost like pool or billiards but you used your fingers to snap the cue ring rather than a pool cue.

I thought immediately of Carom which we had for years and played once or twice a year on average.  But something stuck in my mind that as a kid I played the same game with a different name.

Four hours later I had it.  Can you remember Crokinole?  Actually, the two games are different.  Conveniently there are two sides to the board.  Crokinole is sort of like shuffleboard or horseshoes in that you take turns trying to occupy the center spot or knocking your opponent out of that spot.  Carom, like pool, has the objective or sinking your pieces in the corner pockets.  They both were fun games.

Long Shot

This is a picture of me wearing a special contraption that allows the doctor and technician to measure the electric and magnetic potentials of my facial muscles as I open my jaw, bite down, clench my teeth, relax, etc.  The idea seems to be that as I move my jaw from a working position to relaxing, I am dislocating it in ways that cause me stress and unbalance the body.  In a couple of weeks I will get a rubber/plastic mold that will allow me to place my jaw where it should be.  With any luck, that will also have a positive effect on my posture and gait.

Apologies are in order

Several days ago I wrote about our "no instruction world" and included as an example Carolyn's iPad which seemed to be a prime example of something which looked powerful but that unlocking that power was troublesome.

Well, it turns out that Apple has written and included with the iPad some very good instructions.  As one might imagine, they are buried inside the iPad making them easy to update and difficult to lose.  They are also difficult to find.

I think Apple should lhave written the following on a big label and  posted that label right in the middle of the screen:

Instructions are available in a location called the iPad User Guide.  Expect to visit this Guide many times while you are learning to use the iPad.  

To display this user guide tap the Safari App (the square icon on the Home Page which looks like a compas overlaid on a blue world map).  

If the Safari App is not visible on the screen press the Home button once.  (This button is located next to the screen just above the recharge/sychronize cable socket.  It has a empty square printed on it.)

After you tap the Safari app, notice the five icons in the  upper left hand corner of the screen.  The fourth one over that resembles an open book will display your Bookmarks.  Tap it.

"Bookmarks" should appear at the top of a drop down box or in the left upper corner of such a box.  If it appears in the corner, tap it so it appears in the center top.

At the bottom of this list is the bookmark for the iPad User Guide.  Tap that title and you will open the User Guide.  You also had some valuable experience in using some of the iPad's features.  We could have made it easier but that would have taken some of the fun out.

It would be nice to also put this on the label.

To make it easier to find the next time do the following:

With the User Guide on the screen tap the 5th icon in the upper left, the one that looks like an arrow jumping out of a rectangle.  Tap on Add to Home Screen.  Click on the blue Add button.  

Please save this label so that you can show it to someone new to the iPad to give them a running start.

That's my suggestion.  It would have saved us hours of frustration.

Find the Fallacy #1

A news commentator (who shall remain nameless so I don't get into a political fight here)  started off his show recently by putting down newspapers as sources of information you can rely on.  His complaint was that you can't trust a newspaper when one article on the front page stated that the economy was definitely on its way up while the headline on a second article on the same front page indicated that the economic recovery had stalled.  He allowed that over time conditions change so that articles from papers a week  apart could reasonably differ.  But how can you trust a paper which contradicts itself on one page?!

Is there a fallacy here?  Is the commentator correct?

If you answered yes; no, at least  you agree with me.  Perhaps because he is a news commentator, this man is confusing fact with opinion.  This is a somewhat non-intuitive example where facts actually appear to be at odds with each other.  That is because the fact of each article is based on incomplete data, not uncommon in the real world.  If the newspaper in this case were peddling opinions, they likely would have altered the conclusion of one or both articles so that they would be more or less in agreement.  Then you could trust this newspaper.  Myself, I like both facts and opinions and I prefer knowing which is which.  It doesn't bother me to see facts contradict other facts if there is a reasonable explanation.  And agreement of opinion between two people may or may not mean their  position is any stronger.

Oh say what is truth?

The CBO, congressional budget office has long been valued for it's nonpartisan analyses of various government proposals.  But recently Speaker of the House John Boehner dismissed their standing with a flippant "the CBO has a right to their opinion".  It isn't their opinion that makes the CBO a valuable resource.

A local Sacramento opinion shaper and father of an autistic child refuted a recent science news article by saying, in essence, we know that our child's autism was caused by vaccines no matter what research shows otherwise.  In other words, my mind's made up, don't bother me with the facts.

In both these examples we see people confusing fact with opinion.  In the preface to Thomas Sowell's "Economic Facts and Fallacies" we read "Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true.  but many other things are believed because they are consistent with a widely held vision of the world -- and this vision is accepted as a substitute for facts.

Is science equal  to truth?  When is science equal  to truth?  Why do respected leaders talk about scientific results as if they were just another "opinion" to be debated in the world of opinions?   

Pedal to the metal

This week I took the wheel from my Walker Matilda in to be replaced.  The clerk, a pleasant fellow, carefully examined the wheel and asked, "Looks like a case of high speed and abnormal wheel vibrations.  Let's see what we can do."

After he and his fellow workers combed their inventory he returned with a heavy duty plastic and rubber wheel that should last forever.  I had to go to Home Depot for a couple of longer bolts because these wheels are about 1/4 inch wider than the old ones.

So I'm back again experiencing high speed and abnormal wheel vibrations.

Civilized religion

Two recent newspaper articles struck me today and had me wondering just how far we have to go to be a civilized society.  The first was the assassination of the Pakistani governor of Punjab who, according to his killer, was guilty of heresy because he promoted tolerance of heresy.  The second was the report of infanticide in Ethiopia.  Children were being killed because they were either bastards, conceived without the village elder's notification, or had their upper teeth emerging before their lower teeth.

Surely God is powerful enough that he doesn't need his followers to defend his honor or fight his battles.  Or does he?  Are we respecting God by fighting his battles for him or are we really treating him like we would a little sister and protecting him from the "big bullies"?  Apparently a significant number of Pakistanis know the answer to that. 

As for infanticide - is it any worse than abortion?  Are we any more civilized if our society decides an "early infanticide" is justified if the fetus resulted from fornication or adultery or if the baby will be downright inconvenient? Do our "good" reasons for abortion sound any better than the Ethiopians' reasons for killing babies?

Church web site matures - Part 2

In rolling out the new website, the Church has done an excellent job of including information about how and why of the change.  In some cases it is almost too much information.  For example in the instructions about implementing the new calendar we are given 7 steps.  The 7th is

Step 7: Instruct Ward and Stake Leaders to Begin Creating Events on Their Respective Calendars

• The new calendar poses a cultural shift for most members. The old calendar required everyone to submit events through a single ward website administrator to publish events. With the new calendar, everyone is a calendar editor. You may need to let them know that.
• Start using the calendar regularly in meetings. As you hold your meetings, such as Ward Council or Bishopric, review events from the calendar. If you need Internet in your meetinghouse, implement Meetinghouse Internet. 

Meetinghouse Internet is then defined as

 Implementing Internet in your meetinghouse involves three general steps:

1. Order Internet access from a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) in your area.
2. Install the Church firewall for Internet filtering and security.
3. Establish a wired or wireless network to provide access throughout your building. 

I like the statement "cultural shift for most members".  Talk about an understatement!  From mandating certain callings as "standard" and marginalizing others, from allowing certain people to generate calendars while ignoring others, we will see major changes to unit functioning.  The other major change, of course is the mandate that Internet services be available throughout the meetinghouse so that the church web services will also be available throughout the building.  Talk about a change in function and culture!  This will be an exciting time for the church techies!

Little toys for little boys

This Christmas there was one toy that we found irresistible and so did our grandchildren.  It was a 1/2 scale model of some Black & Decker power tools.  It was done in plastic but with the well known black and orange color scheme.  It just begged the kids to  use it when their dads got out the big tools.  Sure enough, it was a big hit.

Unfortunately, it wasn't immediately obvious to the kids what the tools were for.  Or at least not what they thought them to be for. Camdan set about  using the power drill to (pretend, thank goodness) drill holes in  his head, his leg, and even to carve out another belly button.  Make me glad there were no sharp edges or real ability to carve or drill out anything with the tools.

Church web site matures

Like almost every company in the world, computers were used for fiscal and statistical applications.  When the internrnet came along, it was also used primarily for fiscal and statistical purposes.

Somewhere along the line, most companies also change their direction (often with a change in IT director) and move the focus to a more mission-oriented direction.  This sometimes has two undesirable effects:

1. It demoralizes the fiscal and statistical people who see incorrect major assumptions made about the way they do things and 
2. It tries to provide other program services in the same way as financial and statistical.

The LDS Church has now introduced the next version of their web offering.   You can visit it at lds.org.   It is beautiful.   It is functional.    It is heavenly.  For some functions it may be a nightmare.  Stay tuned.

Updated Monopoly game

I got a chance to play the updated version of Monopoly the other evening.  This is the one that has no paper money in play.  Instead, each player has a credit card-looking card which is used to buy properties and pay penalties.  It is also  used to accept payments from other players or from passing Go.  It looks very hi-tech and gives the game an up-to-date feel without destroying its ancient charm.  But right away we noticed several things:

1. It is much easier for little kids to play because you don't have to count money or make change;
2. There's  either total transparency (if the banker announces the new balance(s)) or total secrecy (if the banker does not).  No more hiding your money and  pleading near poverty.
3. It is easier for the banker to make a mistake by punching a wrong button than by handing back or accepting the wrong bill.
4. There is no audit trail.  Under the paper money system there wasn't either but the actual bills changing hands worked much better than a calculator display.
5. The connection between money and what it represents is stretched even further leaving almost no connection for the players.

Carolyn and I have devised the following spreadsheet to use with the game.  By logging each transaction, the participants get a better feel for the money impact of each transaction.  Thus, we hope to eliminate problems 3 and 4.  We'll have to see if anything can be done about the others.

Player[AVL1]  1 name		Player 2 name		Player 3 name
+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance
Player 4 name		Player 5 name		Player 6 name
+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance