Notes From A Bear's Journey

    It's 9 degrees F (-12.7 C) outside this morning, unusually cold for this time of year and definitely a temperature you can feel.  Such temps also makes one appreciate being able to just run back into a warm house or a warm car or a warm anything, this after the chilly reception experienced when taking out the trash or taking the dog outside for the bathroom (it'll "warm" up today to 25 F or -3.8 C).  Where do the homeless go and what do those who may be inside somewhere but perhaps without heat do in such temperatures?  And there are parts of the country that are much colder.  Shelters and such can take in only so many before they fill, and with these temps the demand is likely quite high.  And while I continue to bring food and such to the outdoor shelter, I wondered what else could I do to help?   So off to the thrift store I went, loading my cart with blankets and jackets and sweatshirts of all sizes, not caring if they had a weird logo or ...

   What we perceive as reality is quite likely fools gold, or at least it could be viewed as such.  Software has become quite adept as manipulating what we do or don't see, much in the way that data compression works, both in what we view and what we hear.  A typical MP3 recording removes approximately 70% of the "unnecessary" (to our ears, anyway) audio; and for video it is even more striking as explained in this fashion from Quartz :  Discrete Cosine Transform is then used to “map an image space into a frequency.”  This is where the math gets complicated, though the idea is simple: identify the least-necessary information in the picture and get rid of it.  Low-frequency parts of the image represent gradual color change, like the sky; high-frequency parts represent lots of color changes in a small space, like leaves on a distant tree.  Viewers notice if you skimp on the former; less so on the latter.  The DCT process identifies what you can ...

   That time has come once again, the papers and piles that have rested with comfortable security on my floor now challenging me to clear them out...if I dare.  This has all happened before when I mounted an attack on the clutter that proved Pyrrhic where both sides retreated with smugness; but before long I had to admit that the true victor had emerged and unfortunately it wasn't me.  So why now and why again?  This isn't Marie Kondo or any of the many semi-fanatics (in my mind) which would find my house intolerable as dog and cat hairs float like dust before finding their magnetic attraction to a sleeve of clothing or the arm of a couch.  A slight tap on the dog or cats' bellies and a veritable gasp would emerge from those sterile-lab authors' homes.  Such a summary appeared in a review by Andrew O'Hagan in the London Review of Books , on describing another cluttered (but seemingly typical) home: This was the world I remember very well, the pets, th...

   That word "union" has a far different connotation that the similar word of "unity."  And what struck me in reading the INC. 5000 issue which asked 5000 CEOs of mostly unknown but rapidly growing companies such as its #1 listing of Freestar which grew an astounding 36,680% in a single year) what current world issues concerned them; the two issues among their lowest concerns were gun control and healthcare.  Wait, really?   Here were issues that I thought were on the minds of most people, or at least many of the people I know, and yet it barely registered among the majority of these primarily-young CEOs.*  The top concerns, as with many of my friends as well, was the economy and taxes.   This was not good news to me because it seemed to show that even after so many calamities of random public shootings, sexual abuses by those in "ppwer," human rights violations, bankruptcies due to lack of healthcare, weather disasters, and corrupt politicians, well ...

   Many of you have likely noticed the cover stories and documentaries which tell of the decision and task of landing on the moon, all of this coinciding with the release of archival footage and documents on the 50th anniversary of the accomplishment.  Looking back, one scientist labeled it the greatest accomplishment of the 20th century.  And as with so many historical achievements (the earth is round, the discovery of atoms, refrigeration, etc.) we've come to accept such an effort as almost normal; from here we'll shoot for Mars and beyond, fulfilling our Marvel and Star Trek imaginations in the near future...or not.  Watching the documentary of Apollo 11 (don't groan, it's an absolutely mesmerizing documentary and will give you an idea of just what's involved in a space launch...and that was 50 years ago),  one notices the black & white monitors, the slide rules, the crackly transmissions, the Instamatic cameras, the almost silent determination of t...

    Our trip was winding down as indicated by the weather, the sun retreating after its brief defiance of weather predictions and the rains of fall were returning in force.  Tides switched places and now were fully in by the morning and our turbo-prop flight out of there began to look a bit sketchy if the winds continued; but that wasn't for a few days so what was the worry since we had already learned our lesson coming in (about trying to make a connection in two hours) and had already changed our departure date and time (yes, our change fees had now equalled the original cost of the ticket so that lesson was even more deeply imprinted).  Back home fall was also arriving with temps at night approaching freezing, the days struggling to reach 60F (15C) and dropping to 35F (1.6C) early each evening (such temperature swings are quite normal where we live); it would seem that our days and weeks of desert-like temperatures were now "one for the books."  Those who liv...