Supersonic stuff and more.

 

Hi Carolyn,

 

 

 

Wow, after reading your July 20th entry,  I can't believe just how significantly one can be affected by " switching hands" as it were. Your recollections about just how fundamentally taxing  those activities were that we all do without thinking was genuinely alarming at times.

 

 

 

 

 

I figure your left-handed piloting of a motor-vehicle was probably better than  the norm out there in this world of almost institutionalized  distracted-driving that technology has had a hand in producing.


Mind you, your talk about riding the bus did make me think that if you actually do so you may find its a treasure trove from the people watching, and banking of images and ideas standpoint. Should you find yourself back writing there could be things you'd see that would be helpful in plotting and describing events in your own stories later on. You might even be there first hand for something that would be the kernel of a future sweet story.



Your mention of international co-operation about future space-based resource development set the direction for the next part of this blog.



At first, I figured that the idea of countries co-operating in the development of resources in a new arena, was not gonna fly well at all. I guess I was thinking too historically. The colonial period and even before that, the spice trade struggles,  stuck in my head. I'm seeing countries more interested in planting their economic flags in lucrative new vistas than countries cooperating for the greater good.




Okay, that's a cynical student of history viewpoint, I agree. But there was so much empirical evidence to back it up that I wasn't ready to look further right away.

 Well then I thought about it further and
started to think that here in the twentieth-century and beyond we have come some distance in terms of international co-operation .


 Although,  very recent events in more than one international theatre might contradict that .




The International Space Station certainly makes a great case for multi-country co-operation in the interests of technological progress.


Then I realized that one of my most favorite aviation icons was also a charter example of this very same concept. 




The Concorde supersonic airliner  ( a Franco-English effort )  hit the skies just before I hit matrimony. I remember riding down to the Toronto waterfront for the annual air show and almost riding off the road on my motorcycle because the Concorde was landing at Toronto International just as I was going by. I must have been one of tens of thousands of distracted drivers as that majestic aircraft touched down within eyesight.


I am surprised that there weren't any accidents on the freeway when it touched down.


Do you suppose that the folks who did the Hobbit movies looked at this when they thought about how Smaug would look touching down?


Anyhow, flitting about the net to refresh myself on Concorde led me, of course, to Gizmag and a couple of items about " Son of Concorde " and boy, is it cool.


" It" in this case is a supersonic executive jet , the  S 512 , being developed by Spike Aerospace for approximately 2018. They have a very sweet and slick web presence including lots of info on this jet. I have to admit I got so thoroughly and totally sidetracked and mesmerised that I'm immediately launching a business career that will feature a meteoric rise to the top of the corporate ladder by 2018, just so that I can have one of these puppies in my executive garage.  ( I wouldn't be the first, now, would I! )



For me, at least, the absolutely knock me down coolest part of this whole aircraft is the total lack of outside windows.  Aerodynamically they have always been a drag ( pun thoroughly intended ). They are replaced by cameras that project a spectacular vista of what's happening outside the fuselage onto screens that flow down both sides of the cabin and are inter-connected with web-based data generators from anywhere and everywhere.







 



It is flabbergastingly cool to think that this is for real stuff.







So, our trip to the big city and the big doctor place is done. It only took a couple of days but when I got back I did feel that I had come back from a much longer journey. Those changes in diet and fitness that I was talking about a bit ago seem to have made some impact. The PSA stuff has receded to previous levels and seems to be stable said the good doctor.


Gee, I believe you told me that such a thing would take place.
Carolyn, be sure to include " prescient " on your next CV update.



I'm gonna sit down soon and restock the riddle larder, too

bye for now.

Don

 
 
 
 

Traveling with adult children and Curiosity

Good morning, Don,

I hope that you got your pickling done. I love homemade pickles but I have not tried to make them. There is a special technique to it and I don't think I've got the knack for it.

We took a couple of days and went to Steamboat Springs with our son and his wife. The last time I was in Steamboat Springs, it was a very sleepy little ski town. Not so today. I was overwhelmed by the waves of people that were crawling in and out of the shops, standing on the sidewalks – the traffic was overwhelming. It felt like I could not turn around without bumping into somebody. And what I was looking at on the rack was instantly snatched up by somebody else.

But I can truthfully say, that I will go back to Steamboat Springs in another season to see what it's like. It is quite possible that that area would be a place that I would retire to if I ever choose to retire. One of the things that really drew me was fishing. I have not fished in at least 100 years – but being in a place that has lots of lakes and rivers brought back a lot of childhood memories. And fishing was one of them. Another was skiing, but I don't think I'll be taking that up again. However, Steamboat Springs does have a hot springs, and it also has a college. It's a thought.

I found traveling with our son and daughter-in-law to be interesting. There were times when it felt like we could not make up our minds as to what we wanted to do – as a collective mind we had no focus, no destination. That made for a lot of wasted time. None of us could really say that we wanted to do "this thing" and feel comfortable about it. My husband did finally manage to say that he wanted to go to Steamboat Lake, and the rest of us agreed, thankful that we had a direction. By the time we got to the evening music, which my son and his wife wanted to do, both my husband and I were so over peopled, that we chose to go back to the motel. Introverts surrounded by lots of people tire easily.

The other thing that I find interesting is that by the time we get over the parent and child communication problem, our son and his wife will return to China where they are teaching. I feel I have missed out – and most of it could be my fault. I am the mother, I take my job seriously, and even though my son is over 35, I want to know that he is okay. As he is not forthcoming with information, I ask a lot of questions and that becomes our form of communication. I still have a lot to learn about being a mother.

We've always been told that the parents are the role models. Is there a time in the lifespan between parent and child, that that changes? I know that watching my son and his wife shop is an experience in patience for me and an exercising of their curiosity for them. They have visited so many different cultures, I'm sure that there is a constant comparison going on in their minds and also in their conversations.

I know that I have lost, maybe it is better to say I have focused, my curiosity. I am curious about certain things, but I think I have lost or maybe stuffed down the childlike wonder. As I have gotten older, and I feel like time is shortening for me, I focus on want I to see, where I want to go, what I want to experience. I rarely wander aimlessly.

Curiosity is an interesting subject. Can you plan an exploration to satisfy your curiosity if you don't know what you're curious about? If you have no idea what sparks your interest? After your exploration, you come away dissatisfied – because you weren't looking for anything specifically, you didn't have a focused reason to look in the 1^st place; we did not know what to hunt for. We are not trained to look for lessons, to see the small integral pieces and parts and how they fit together; we have become a civilization of hunt, find, stay in the box.

As to stepping out of the box and being left-handed, there are no great insights to report this week. I have days when I can really focus, organized, on top of it; and then every now and then a day slips in where I'm lucky if I can chew gum – forget the walking and chewing gum. Those days are really exhausting and embarrassing. 3 more weeks – I should get the hang of being left-handed by then.

Thanks Don, for getting Jeroen's ghost story edited. I can't wait to share this story in September. My other editor had emergency surgery so I will finish off Tammy's story this afternoon. The 2 stories are thematically tied even though these authors don't know each other. September is going to be a great Transport. I'm hoping to get back to the riddle contest – that may have to wait until I can do things a little faster.

Have a great week everyone,

Carolyn

Left-handed stumbling, Amazon canals, Privatization of space resources

Good afternoon everyone,

Remember the free book on the Wormhole website! And take a look at all the other great offerings we have! 

I got my hard cast on Thursday and had to have it redone on Friday because it was wearing a blister on my wrist. Now that that's been taking care of, I am doing great. I have use of 4 fingers – the thumb is encased in a hard cast and sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. I chose purple so that when my students complain, I can hold up my hand and honestly say "I don't want to hear any excuses as to why the homework is not done, or why they're not in class."

It has been an interesting week being left-hand dominant. At 1^st my brain and body welcomed the challenge, and I did great. I thought that the crossover of the brain to more left side of use was going smoothly. I was able to make decisions, words can easily, walking was not a problem… But in the last 24 hours I feel like my brain and my body are rebelling. I think my body is tired of not being able to do things instinctively, and I know my brain is tired of having to watch out. I have spent the morning having trouble getting my priorities straight which is unusual for me. According to research, this has to do with switching to using the right side of the brain as dominant instead of the left side.

Figuring things out is taking me twice as long as usual. I also have noticed that my awareness of space is just a little off with the close-up stuff like pouring a cup of juice. This means that my space awareness is off more than usual with the big stuff like walking. Interestingly enough, this space awareness problem has not cause any problems when driving or parking the car.

I practiced driving yesterday and did all right. No big problems. But I did notice that just driving through the neighborhood was tiring. My better half is recommending that he take me to work instead of letting me drives the 15+ miles twice a day until I build up more stamina. I'm going to check into bus schedules so that I'm not such a burden.

I've noticed that it takes me 3 times as long to do things as normal. For instance, just doing the laundry – turning the knob on the washing machine so that I can fill the machine with water and soap takes a lot more time because my left hand keeps getting in the way of the numbers for setting how many minutes to wash; getting the laundry into the washing machine itself takes 3 trips because I can only carry one arm-load of stuff at a time instead of the usual 2 arm loads of stuff; feeding the dog is a study in perpetual motion – I guess I should not complain as I am getting better and eventually the cast will go away. In the meantime, I'm developing billions of new neural connections which should give "old stagnant brain age" a good shove into my 90s.

I have been reading a lot of science articles this week. The one that I just finished was about canals being built in the Amazon area before there was a rain forest. It is believed that these canals were built about 4 to 6000 years ago when that area was still the savanna instead of a tropical rain forest. That puts a whole new spin on the concept that maybe our current civilization is the 5^th of such civilizations throughout time. There have been ruins uncovered in Turkey that are suggesting that there were several great civilizations before now.

I also read that the Earth's magnetic field is weakening over the Western Hemisphere while it is strengthening over the southern Indian Ocean. No one seems to know why but there could be a link between the shifting of the magnetic poles. It was originally thought that it would take 2000 years for the poles to shift, but now it looks like it could happen within the next hundred years or so. The magnetic fields are used to protect us from cosmic radiation from the sun.

I also read a great article by Andrew Peek about a new space race. I remember when Sputnik went into orbit and how that galvanized the United States into a major player in the space race. The article suggests that not only should the United States support private companies developing space flight capacity, but the US should also encourage private industry based on resource extraction. Peek suggests that private companies will take the risk to invest in space projects that will have a financial gain. That gain could be as simple as figuring out how to mine an asteroid. These companies will need policy, law and regulation support – why can't the US provide this?

It is a fascinating thought! Years ago, only the US and Russia block countries had the economical support for a space race. Now, there are many countries that could step into a position of supporting and helping to develop laws and regulations for the mining of space. Hopefully the US will be involved – otherwise we truly will become a 2^nd world nation.

Can you tell I haven't decided what to research along side my research students this quarter? Previous civilizations, switching side dominance,a possible new space race or The Wired Generation? Choices, Choices,Choices. 

Have a great week folks. Iwent back to work this week to work with almost 100 new students. I'm living the adventure!

Carolyn

no pictures - it takes too long to decide!

Pickled and loving it.

Hi Carolyn,




Is it me or is this summer just absolutely throttling along at warp 9.5?  The natural world sure seems to be coming back with a vengeance from the bigtime deep freeze of last winter, too. Don't know about down your way but up here I seem to have contracted some kind of perverse  Midas thing whilst out tending to and contending with  the scenery and greenery - everything I touch turns to earwigs. They're harmless and all, but they are  powerful ugly and seem to appear in superabundance in every crack and cranny I see. Pretty sure that if I had even one tenth of a cent for each earwig on the premises, I'd be able to live a lifestyle that would make ole' King Midas come off like the most lowly of  paupers.





This time of year has its upsides , and for all of the senses. Today, in the Braithwaite kitchen, it was round one of the pickling games. The cukes have appeared at the local farmers markets and so has the dill weed.

 Sooooo.... its dill pickle time, amigos!


It's a great time to own a fully operational nose for sure. Just the mingling of the brine, the garlic, the dill weed and vinegar in the air makes the house smell so great.

I cannot get enough of it.








Can you imagine what it must smell like to the canine schnoz?? 



 It's about the only time I wish I was a dog.

 

 

There are always at least two "go's " of dill pickles per season and one or sometimes two of sweet dills as well. Each of them is nirvana for the nose.






 
 
 
 
 We've managed to refine the process considerably in the almost four decades that we've been doing
this. It's certainly ninety-five  percent the efforts of my LSBH, but I have managed to have some creative input. First off, there should be a five to one ratio of small cukes to larger ones. The biggies are fine to slice for sandwiches, burgers etc but the petite ones are the most piquant by far.





One trick learned early on was to ice the cukes for a couple of hours before actually pickling them. Put them into a big roaster or other container and surround them with ice. It seems a little fastidious, I know, but it results in pickles that, even months down the road, will do that crisp snap of your teeth thing as you chomp.

 Ahhh , pickle perfection!







 
 
In fact, Carolyn, I don't think I can effectively communicate in mere words alone,  the quantum leap  difference between those off-the-rack dill-ish approximations  that populate the grocery store shelves and the end product of our yearly pickle-fest.





 Let's just suppose that pickles were cars.  Guess which one would be ours.

 

 

 



Right now I am well into the Scottish ghost story you referred to last time around and am finding it chilling as well. In fact, there are times when I can almost feel the damp all-penetrating atmosphere of a medieval castle. 


 Plus, it makes me want to visit Scotland someday.


Okay, enough of the pickle-ish proselytizing. I was gonna throw in a pickle riddle here but that would be too easy. The riddles are still about, though.  Make no mistake, They shall return.



Hope your back to school time goes well, Carolyn.


Don




All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - abugblog.blogspot.com

Fig. 2 - onlinevoicecoaching.com

Fig. 3 - www.treehugger.com

Fig. 4 - chickensintheroad.com

Fig. 5 - urbanhennery.wordpress.com

Fig. 6 - trip.wow.tripadvisor.com

Fig. 7 - oncarnews.com

Roadblocks and Seeing Red

Hi Carolyn,



I'm glad to hear that the first and most critical days of adjusting to your underhanded situation are going "tickety-boo" as the Brits would say.  That " neural block " thing you mentioned is kinda familiar.  I'm pretty sure that every time I have caused an accident around the place it was because my brain and the part of my body that was supposed to carry out the orders  were simply not fully  in contact with each other, and hence, the catastrophe .




I'm pretty sure that it won't be long before you are ambistrong and  fully dexterous.

Two things you mentioned last time  around are on my list of favorites. They would be siestas and needle nose pliers. The siesta thing has always been a-ok for me.  45 minutes to an hour is my preference. 

 Lotsa people I have dealt with over the years have been visibly snobbish about it however. They seem to see it as an admission of guilt or weakness to stop and grab a recharge. I always figured that  their reaction was just a side-effect of a Judeo-Christian work ethic running amuck and that their personal priorities were egregiously out-of-whack.


 Gotta listen to that body and if it says time to put'er in neutral for a spell - don't feel guilty about it - JUST LISTEN to your bod and  feel rejeuvenated once its done.

Farley Mowat pointed the way in Never Cry Wolf - its something that the animals do naturally.







Needle nose pliers are also in the cool column pour mois. Maybe it's  because my dad was a watchmaker and boatbuilder or because they are among the prime instruments used by inveterate tinkerers. There are decidedly more than a couple of pairs of them in my toolboxes and on the wall in the shop.












Finally, this would be in the " Son of a gun - I didn't know that " soft-science file for me. Just happened to catch a snippet of a did-you-know type item on the weather channel recently that had to do with readheads. Apparently the red hair era is drawing to a close, for reasons that weren't made totally clear but apparently have a lot to do with climate change. 

 It caught my ear for a variety of reasons. I'm in the midst of that story about ghostly activities in Scotland that you mentioned in your last blog and a full head of arresting red hair is a key visual element in that tale.  Also ginger follicles are anything but uncommon to my world.






My mother was a kick-derriere readhead in her prime. My better half was nicknamed "Red" in her growing up years for the same reason. Our son has dark hair but the beard he nurtures every winter would make Eric The Red a tad envious.

 

 

So, it was with something akin to consternation that I absorbed this article about how the red hair gene is supposedly on the way out. Apparently Scotland has the highest proportion of gingers at 13% with Ireland not far behind at 10%.  In the item there was a flurry of pseudo-scientific fuddle-duddle about why the gene is on the way out. I didn't catch much of it. I did do the Google-boogie about the whole thing earlier tonight, though and  some equally authoritative-sounding types poo-poohed the whole notion and feel that red hair is " not due to go away anytime soon." 


This  added a bit of fuel to my suspicion that weather channels hype stuff up like their brethren in the hard news world,  just to keep your eyes on their screen. 



Have to say that the weather, when taken on a planet wide perspective, is making quite enough news on its own recently, so such fluffing seems to be superfluous.


Much ado about nothing perchance but it kinda reminded me, for some reason, about a fridge magnet I have stuck on the door of my basement workshop.

I could do great things

if I wasn't so busy doing

little things

Not necessarily words to live by but a small study in perspective none-the-less.




Okay, the philosophesizer has left the building.



Hope your week goes well Carolyn,




Don



All images sourced from Google Images



Fig. 1 - www.screensteps.com

Fig. 2 - www.fineartamerica.com

Fig. 3 - www. wolvesontario.org

Fig. 4 - www.automationdirect.com

Fig. 5 - www. geonice.com

Fig. 6 - thisthattheseandthose.com

Ambidextrous and going strong

Teeth. I'm sure my dentist is just waiting for me to give him a call because I damaged my teeth opening the toothpaste or holding the end of the Ziploc bag trying to slide open the zipper. I can truthfully say that there are a number of things that are invaluable at this particular time: my husband without whom I would probably starve to death; needle nose pliers; grip it twister grips; wet dishcloths; salad shooter; ice; Dragon.

The surgery went well. I had what is called a neural block. That deadened my shoulder all the way to the tips of my fingers. The anesthesiologist said the block should last 20 hours – 15 hours later, in the middle of the night, my fingers start tingling and my thumb ached. So I took the high-powered prescription to dull the pain – it did okay for the 1^st 24 hours. After that it made me so dizzy that I was nauseous and I couldn't eat or drink so I couldn't take medication... Needless to say I picked up Tylenol PM and Advil PM and have been doing great since.

So my hand is wrapped in a soft cast and my thumb is nothing more than a nub sticking out on the side of the wrapping and my other 4 fingers are nothing more than fat little sausages hanging out the end of the wrapping. My hand looks like it belongs to a cartoon character.

Everyone says to keep the hand up above the heart. That is a wonderful idea. Not practical, makes sleeping difficult, but it is a great idea. I slept the 1^st 2 nights in a recliner with my hand propped up across my chest in a sling and the dog sleeping between my feet. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep. That's okay – I'm getting into naps.

The one thing I'm not used to is being baby sat. I have not been babysat in over 50 years. In fact, I was babysitting other kids by the time I was 11. So having people come over and "watch out for me" while my husband is at work is rather disconcerting. I mean, it is nice to have the company, but couldn't they come at a time when I was more mentally available? To watch me doze and drool while we were watching movies just doesn't seem like a very uplifting meaningful visit. Maybe for them it was.

I have gotten into resting after lunch. I know that many European countries have siestas, now I understand why. It is a great relaxing way to beat the summer heat. I've been watching all those movies I said I would watch when my husband wasn't home. I'm also catching up on some reading. I finished a unicorn Western and I'm working my way through the last book of my wired generation research. Don, you mentioned being ambidextrous – I'm learning how to take notes left handed. And actually my writing is improving! My left-handed granddaughter would be proud of me.

On to more interesting topics. Dylan Love wrote an article that stated "By 2045, the top species will no longer be humans, and that could be a problem". The new species that he is talking about is robots. It appears that we are on that cusp that could take us in a direction we, as humanity, are unprepared for.

Lewis Del Monte, a physicist, wrote a book called The Artificial Intelligence Revolution and he explains that by the end of the century people are more likely to be cyborg. Machines could very well see humans as unstable and incapable, creators of wars and wiping out machines with viruses. The most interesting thing I learned was that in 2009, in an experiment in the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in Switzerland, computers actually lied to each other in an attempt to keep beneficial resources to themselves. Hmmmm – it appears the machines we have created are not much different than we are. 

Some of my other reading includes the stories we will be publishing on Wormhole in September. Tammy has sent in an incredibly creepy story called Detour that has left me Creeped out. Magnificent story. And one of our new European writers, Jeroen, sent in a magnificent Scottish ghost story. I haven't quite finished his story but I can say it did a great job of creeping me out too. It looks like the stories for September are great precursors for October.

Have a great week folks!

Carolyn

http://www.wormholeelectric.com  

 Article by Dylan Love retrieved from

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2045-physicist-says-top-species-123359838.html

all images downloaded from Google images

Fig 1 – babysitting retrieved from www.schools.manatee.k12.fl.us

Fig 2 – L a siesta retrieved from hotelyaramar.es

Fig 3 – national robotics week 2015 retrieved from www.nationalroboticsweek.co

Fig 4 – artificial intelligence in the future of humans retrieved from futurehumanevolution.com

Ambidextrous and Jersey Boys

Hi Carolyn,




Very glad to hear that you are getting ready for the short stint of  single-handed life and livelihood.  I was thinking just a couple of days ago, while cutting the back  lawn ( a couple of hours of prime idle thoughts time, it seems ) about your impending situation, and about the " training " you're doing that you referred to in your last blog.



" Who knows, " I mused as I herded the cranky old gas mower along, " she could end up ambidextrous after this! "  One of the first things, oddly enough, that popped into my mind was Gordie Howe. He could shoot the puck with equal accuracy and ferocity from either side, I remember reading as a hockey kid.



 Being two handed to the max,  sorta strikes me as an advantageous condition in more than a  couple of ways. Any kind of precision work like fine carving, fixing intricate devices or creating artwork would probably be easier and more effective if the left hand and right hand could switch jobs seamlessly.  A thousand situations come to mind for me when that kind of ambidexterity would be helpful and welcome.




Being ambidextrous would put you into some pretty fast and impressive company too.  The list of folks who were ( and are )  equally adept at being a lefty and a righty includes Einstein, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Napoleon, Tesla, Queen Victoria, Maria Sharapova and good old Sir Paul himself. Not exactly a motley crew, you must admit.

 So, Carolyn, do not slacken off on your left-handed training, young Jedi! And do not let any of that left brain/right brain mental paraphernalia get in the way, either.



 Got to see Clint Eastwood's screen adaptation of the stage play Jersey Boys and I did enjoy it a bunch. There is an informal sort of barometer that I use about whether something is a fair, good or great movie ( we all can tell within a few minutes if what we are watching is cinematic compost, can't we ) At the end of the flick if I feel I would like to sit right down there and then and watch it all over again then that tells me it was a good or great one. At the end of the two Star Trek movies with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, I felt that way, for example.  I didn't feel that when the lights came up after catching the last James Bond offering. Doesn't mean it was a dud, just that it wasn't a knockout, either.

 

I did feel this way at the end of this one, though. A number of the mainstream reviews were not too nice I found out afterwards - I try not to read reviews before going to see a movie. Surprisingly, one of the most upsetting things to more than one reviewer was the fairly frequent breaking down of the fourth wall that was used in the movie.  I didn't get to see the stage production in " Tranna" but I would guess that part of this reflects the fact that this was, after all, an adaptation of a stage musical. One review I ran into even referred to it as a documentary.

 

 

 

 I admit that I was taken aback at first but after a surprisingly short while I came to appreciate and even wait for the characters to speak to the audience in that omniscient manner. I even found that there were a couple of places where I was waiting for it to happen and it didn't. Christopher Walken was great, BTW. I would not be surprised to see him mentioned in the supporting actor area when the Oscars roll around.

 

 

 

Anyhow, that's what's shakin' around these here parts at the moment. The weather has been gracious enough to allow us out to beat back the overgrowth from a wet and verdant spring. Trouble is, it seems to take longer and longer to do those kinds of things each time around.

 

 

 

Enough with the whining, Don.

 

Catch ya later,

 

Don 

 

 

All images sorced from Google Images

 

Fig. 1 - scholarspoon.com

Fig. 2 - famous101.com

Fig. 3 - www.cinemastance.com

Fig. 4 - www. broadwayworld.com