Why are people often surprised and disgusted when you don’t recognize someone they think you should? As a kid, if you couldn’t name the members of the band you liked, it meant you weren’t a true fan. (I memorized the names Joe Elliot, Rick Savage, Rick Allen, Phil Collin, and Steve Clark when I was…
What’s happened to the television season? Back in 1961, there were 30 episodes of the first season of the Dick Van Dyke Show. At an average of 25 minutes per episode, that made for 750 minutes of television in the season. The recent phenomenon, The Mandalorian, has 8 episodes in a season, each coming in,…
ETA: 4/1/2021: I have now posted my code for my daily notes automation script on GitHub. See this post for more details. For nearly a week now my Daily Notes file in Obsidian is generated automatically each night after midnight. I wrote a Python script that creates the note, and having the script running as…
My parents were football fans when I was growing up. My dad still watches football, but perhaps with less enthusiasm than he once had. My brother and both brothers-in-law are football fans. As it happens, none of their teams made it to Super Bowl LV. It’s hard to believe that the Super Bowl is only…
Why is it that people who can spell really well so often lord it over those of us who make spelling mistakes? I make frequent spelling errors. Many are masked by dictionaries, Alexa (if I am feeling lazy) and spell-checkers. Others are caused by auto-correct, and an acknowledged willingness to trade accuracy for speed when…
Cars used to break down a lot more in the past than they do today. I take this as a clear sign of progress in quality improvement. Parts are made better and last longer than they used to. I read recently in Scientific American that cars last 12-15 years these days. I often hear someone…
Two weeks ago, I lamented how I missed ordering the 2021 Field Notes work station calendar, until it was too late, and they were all gone. Over on Facebook, my friend Kevin pointed out that a Canadian stationary store, Noteworthy, had them in stock. I ordered one immediately (I was sure I’d be too late),…
Forget the smart phone. What I want is a smart smoke detector1. I’m not talking about a Nest device. That’s too smart. The one we have in the hallway turns on a dim light when it detects motion. This foils my attempts to sneak off to the kitchen undetected for a late-night snack. My smart…