Friday Notes (Oct 20, 2023)

Friday Notes are fun and fairly easy. (None of the science or technological rabbit holes I love so much — my underground lair?) But I can’t seem to break the habit of posting articles explaining stuff. I guess that’s part of who I am.

As I’ve mentioned, lots of preachers and teachers in my family tree. Number of authors, too, so I suppose there’s no escaping it. And I do put considerable value on the experience of trying to explain something. It really does push you into knowing it better.

But today is Friday (thank God), and I have notes…

From a note so old the ink has faded to near illegibility:

Identity; labels; name calling. When did we change from “Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” Was that always just sheer bravado, or are we less psychologically robust in the face of words these days?

A blogger I know recently posted about the importance of ignoring the opinions of others about yourself. I was surprised (and a little depressed) it needed to be said. (On the other hand, you don’t want to blind yourself to helpful input. It’s one way you grow.)

There is something to be said about the power of words. We say they have “the power to move mountains”, and indeed they sometimes do. The power and persistence of a good idea — or an appealing lie — is well documented in our stories and our history.

All too often, though, we pick a pole and don’t brave the nuances of a middle position. Either words can’t hurt or (the modern position) they can hurt a lot. One modern view is that they can do permanent damage. Per their power to move mountains there is some truth to this.

But only when we allow the foreign opinions behind those words to infect our minds. Some of the fault here lies on the overly sensitive modern ear for insult and outrage. [See I’m Offended!] We often give words of ignorance too much power.

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From another faded note I can barely read:

Two Interwebs. Knowledge Sharers versus Product Sellers. Teachers and Preachers versus Merchants and Whores. Some view shared knowledge as leverage. Some view horded knowledge as wealth. Teaching may be an even older profession than the notorious “oldest profession”. Even animals teach. Selling came later.

It’s a topic I’ve wanted to write about in detail for a long time. I can’t help but view the world from a Teacher/Preacher point of view. There’s hardly an atom of Merchant in me — something I inherited from my parents and most of the people in my family tree. There may not be a lot of hugely successful families in that tree (especially in the past), but I think there are a lot of happy ones.

I’ve seen TV go from small-screen (but big-ish box) black-and-white models that took a minute to warm up to streaming and pocket-sized access to the wide web of the world. And I’ve seen the internet go from a fairly exclusive difficult-to-access club for scientists, researchers, academics, students, and computer geeks to the interweb, an online version of old Times Square filled with residents, tourists, street artists, preachers of all kinds, crack dealers, thieves, con-artists, and whores. It’s a powerful and stomach-turning illustration of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Letting humanity into the club let humanity into the club with all that implies.

The old gang is still here (I’m still here), and many of the new folks bring wonderful things to the table and are more than welcome. But there is so much noise and so much content. The interweb river is very wide, very deep, and very fast. Dipping a bucket into it is like dipping a bucket into Niagra falls. If you aren’t careful, it’s likely to rip your arm off (metaphorically speaking).

As with every big social change, there are pros and cons (an apt phrase in this case). It’s often hard to judge whether the positives are worth the negatives. Like everyone else, I put a very high value on what the interweb provides me. But dear God the negatives give me pause sometimes. The ads on some platforms are bad enough, but the thieves and con artists really make me wonder why I don’t just chuck being online entirely.

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Speaking of which, according to all the spam emails I’ve been receiving, I’m missing dozens of package deliveries every day! Don’t quite know how, since I’m home most of the time.

And don’t get me started again on the $@#&% robocalls.

Is this all, perhaps, just another way some segment of humanity keeps busy? One does have to wonder sometimes about the eventual result of all this activity.

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The notation $25 always bothered me because that’s not how you say it. One says, “twenty-five dollars”, not “dollars twenty-five”. For years I wrote it as 25$ instead (which matches another way of writing it, 25USD, which is nicely international).

But it got complicated with something like $25 million because now what? Verbally, it’s “twenty-five million dollars”, but 25 million $ doesn’t work (25 million USD is a little better but awkward), and 25,000,000$ is too tedious. One has no choice but to submit to $25 million or spell it out as twenty-five million.

Punctuation can be a pain.

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In technical and scientific illustrations, the stand-ins for putative actual people are often named Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, and Eve. The last one often representing an eavesdropper on the other parties in communications and cryptography examples.

For a while now, I’ve been using Alex, Blair, Chris, Drew, Ed. The original names reach for parity by alternating obviously male and female names, but the ones I use are gender ambiguous. (I’d actually like better ones for Chris and Ed but haven’t come up with any yet.)

Which gets me wondering about unisex names from other cultures. Suggestions? “Anyone? Anyone?”

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There are certain songs that easily get stuck in my head for days (earworms). Sometimes all I have to do is think of that song, and it’ll be playing in my head for days. I have to be careful about listening to: In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel), Bohemian Rapsody (Queen), Hotel California (The Eagles), … there are others.

Speaking of music and catchy tunes, after a long silence due to burnout, last week I put on and really enjoyed the Traveling Wilburys. (Volumes 1 & 3 — I wish I could find Volume 2, though. Can’t remember where I put it. Might have loaned it to someone and never gotten it back.) I’ve really enjoyed other old albums I haven’t listened to in a while.

I’m still loving Amazon Music, which I’ve been subscribed to all year. (But I raved about Apple News, too, and that sure ended badly.) Having access to all the music (and that I’m generally pissed at Apple) has kept me out of my iTunes lately. I’d gotten a bit burned out on that music collection anyway, so Amazon Music has been really refreshing. Kid in a candy store, though. So much music!

Speaking of subscription services, Netflix still a great deal, but WTF is going on with Hulu? Two price changes recently. Bumped from 12.99$ to 14.99$ last November and bumped to 17.99$ starting this November. I’m still paying 9.99$ for Netflix. (Amazon Prime is 16.06$ and Amazon Music is 9.63$). I’m asking myself if it’s worth keeping Hulu. Does have shows I like, but do I like them enough?

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On the Numberphile YouTube channel, a recent video is about Evil Numbers: irrational numbers with decimal digits that, as you add them one by one, at some point sum to exactly 666.

For example, pi (3.14159…) is evil because: 1+​4+​1+​5+​9+​2+​6+​5+​3+​5+​8+​9+​7+​9+​3+​2+​3+​8+​4+​6+​2+​6+​4+​3+​3+​8+​3+​2+​7+​9+​5+​0+​2+​8+​8+​4+​1+​9+​7+​1+​6+​9+​3+​9+​9+​3+​7+​5+​1+​0+​5+​8+​2+​0+​9+​7+​4+​9+​4+​4+​5+​9+​2+​3+​0+​7+​8+​1+​6+​4+​0+​6+​2+​8+​6+​2+​0+​8+​9+​9+​8+​6+​2+​8+​0+​3+​4+​8+​2+​5+​3+​4+​2+​1+​1+​7+​0+​6+​7+​9+​8+​2+​1+​4+​8+​0+​8+​6+​5+​1+​3+​2+​8+​2+​3+​0+​6+​6+​4+​7+​0+​9+​3+​8+​4+​4+​6+​0+​9+​5+​5+​0+​5+​8+​2+​2+​3+​1+​7+​2+​5+​3+​5+​9 = 666

But the square root of 2 (1.41421…) is not because: 4+​1+​4+​2+​1+​3+​5+​6+​2+​3+​7+​3+​0+​9+​5+​0+​4+​8+​8+​0+​1+​6+​8+​8+​7+​2+​4+​2+​0+​9+​6+​9+​8+​0+​7+​8+​5+​6+​9+​6+​7+​1+​8+​7+​5+​3+​7+​6+​9+​4+​8+​0+​7+​3+​1+​7+​6+​6+​7+​9+​7+​3+​7+​9+​9+​0+​7+​3+​2+​4+​7+​8+​4+​6+​2+​1+​0+​7+​0+​3+​8+​8+​5+​0+​3+​8+​7+​5+​3+​4+​3+​2+​7+​6+​4+​1+​5+​7+​2+​7+​3+​5+​0+​1+​3+​8+​4+​6+​2+​3+​0+​9+​1+​2+​2+​9+​7+​0+​2+​4+​9+​2+​4+​8+​3+​6+​0+​5+​5+​8+​5+​0+​7+​3+​7+​2+​1+​2+​6+​4+​4+​1+​2+​1+​4+​9+​7 = 667

“Missed it by that much!”

This, though, is in base ten. What about other bases? What about base thirteen? (Because 6*9=42 in base thirteen.) The thing is, 666 is something else in other bases (it’s 1232 in base eight), so is it that the string of digits “666” is evil in any base? (Any base above six, anyway. Bases from one to five don’t have the digit “6”.)

Or is it the value 666 that matters? (Which, for example, is 1010011010 in base two and 29A in base sixteen.)

[I love that 42 — a number beloved by science fiction fans because of a book — in base two is 101010. Alternating bits (but not a palindrome).]

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From a much more recent note (the ink is sharp and crisp):

Disconnection from Consequences. Movies, TV, video games, and much of life (politics and big business, especially). Justice seems rarely served in modern life.

Perhaps we see life too much as a story, game, or reality show. We’ve lost our sensibility and sense of shame or honor.

Values! What are ours as a society?

I do think modern life disconnects us from nature in general, and that includes the natural consequences of foolishness, either physical or legal. Modern life is pretty cushy, and that has some consequences. We’re on our way to the futures depicted in Wall-E and Demolition Man.

Earlier prescient visions include Brave New World (1931), by Aldous Huxley; The Marching Morons (1951), by C.M. Kornbluth; and Harrison Bergeron (1961), by Kurt Vonnegut. There are many others that warned against, not an awful dystopic future, but an awful utopic future.

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Some more notes from that old notebook I found recently:

Language and math are vehicles of complex — and sometimes imaginary — abstract ideas. They are also a means of communicating and recording.

Well, yeah, obviously. I plead youth. These notes are from high school and college. I can tell from the handwriting (and pretentious use of a fountain pen) that this one is from high school. Even so, I might have meant these more as words for reflection than words of revelation.

But the importance of language (and math!) in human affairs cannot be overstated. It’s one of the fundamental differences between us and all other animals, and it’s one of the things we’d look for in other forms of possibly intelligent life. (To my mind, another is art.)

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The note is too incoherent to copy verbatim, but I once had the notion of writing a health book after the fashion of a car maintenance manual. The graphics would be like engineering blueprints, and there’d be lots of body/car part analogies.

I lived in Los Angeles back then, and L.A. is hugely a car culture. There’s a sight gag in Steve Martin’s wonderfully warm and funny L.A. Story where Martin’s character goes to visit his best friend who lives half a block away. He drives the half block because, notoriously, “no one walks in L.A.” (a joke I suspect hasn’t aged well).

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I simply won’t believe that a God who gave us pepperoni pizza, Häagen Dazs Rum Raisin ice cream, 70 mm Dolby Stereo, barley for beer, marijuana, or Bruce Springsteen meant for us not to use and enjoy these things. The cerebral way is not the way.

We are measured, I believe, by what we do and how we do it. By how we relate to the world around. This means the things that really count are how we treat people and things.

You close the door to the world around you the minute you think you are the most important thing around you.

Sentiments I still generally very much have.

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One more: “The man who became a dolphin.”

It was to be a “raised by wolves” story about a guy (or gal) kidnapped by dolphins while trying (unsuccessfully) to sail around the world. He (or she) finds them highly intelligent — too smart to get involved with humans, generally, but sometimes they help lone humans out of boredom or a desire to talked about.

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Here’s a little poem for the times. I worked really hard on this. (For at least 10 minutes.)

It sucks in a bucket,
You really can’t duck it,
When lucks you no got it.
Then you just say fuck it.

I never claimed to be a poet. (I have, in fact, claimed I’m not.)

Stay out of the bucket, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

∇