Regulations are good: for our competition

So-called free-marketers are constantly complaining about regulations.  Donald Trump claimed he would get rid of two regulations for every new regulation,.  Gosh, do you think he would drop the regulation of concealed-carry in the White House?  But that is a whole ‘nother subject.

What triggered this little outburst of mine was an article in the Reader Weekly from Wisconsin Public Radio ("Trade Dispute May Have Mixed Results for Wisconsin”).  It contained a story “Wisconsin Lawmakers Consider Sales of Home-Baked Goods Once Again”.  You can find the original story at https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-lawmakers-consider-sales-home-baked-goods-once-again.

“In previous sessions, food industry advocates have brought up concerns about food safety…”

It would be interesting to know who these “food industry advocates” are and if they have ever complained about government regulations for the safety of their own products.

To be fair, many recall articles do state how a company is working with the government to improve.  After all, good companies are always concerned about their reputation for quality.

Only in dreams does beer not spill

In a dream I knocked over a full glass or bottle of beer. Not a drop came out.

The above is from a note in May 2014.

How do we dream something physically impossible but in the dream believe its reality.

For years I haven’t had any flying dreams or dreams of levitating over a floor and skating forward.  Could this mean I’ve settled down and no longer think I can do everything?

Sometime in the last two months I’ve had a recurrence of dreaming of a glowing fire in something that should not be burning.  In the dream nothing is consumed.

I heard on a recent “To the Best of Our Knowledge” that thoughts can be captured from one animal and replayed in the brain of another animal, inducing false memory.  Will sometime we be able to capture our dreams and replay them when we are conscience.

What are the legal implications of this?  Could the authorities read our minds?  Could the authorities put a false memory in our heads and get us to confess to something we never did?

Paranormal events

Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge had an hour devoted to ghost stories recently.

One of the sections was on people who think of someone dying at another place and they are proven right.  What too many people don't consider is all the people who thought of someone dying and no such thing had happened.

I woke up one night certain that a friend had died.  This was almost two decades ago and he is still alive.

Too often people are incredulous about some "miracle" but completely ignore all the times the "miracles" didn't happen under similar circumstances.

One of the anecdotes I read long ago was a picture of a shipwreck where survivors were huddled on shore.  Supposedly these survivors had prayed they would reach safety.  The cynic asked about all those who prayed to reach safety but drowned.

Contradictory thoughts on contradictory thoughts

"Apes and Humans" was one of Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge" (TTBOOK) broadcasts for 2013-06-09.  One segment was about the so-called "monkey girl", a five-year-old girl kidnapped in Columbia and then abandoned in the jungle.  Supposedly she survived with the help of monkeys who "adopted" her.  She, Marina Chapman, and her daughter, Vanessa James, wrote a book on Marina's experiences – "The Girl with No Name".  Philip Sherwell of the Telegraph was asked to go to Columbia to check up on her story.

There were some inconsistencies in the stories he heard, but considering the events were fifty years ago, he would have been concerned if they were consistent.  He came away not establishing anything that would make him "believe that she'd made it up…"

In other words, by compiling a mosaic of thoughts, Sherwell came away believing Chapman's story in general.

On the other hand, in the preface to his satire, "L'Ile des Pingouins", Anatole France claims if you have a "fact" about certain events from one person, you should believe it, but if you have reports from several people then their reports are always contradictory and always unreconcilable (my translation).

Unfortunately, too many people today rely on one source of news, and whatever is said by that source must be true.  They just don't want to believe that some of what the source says may be true, some may be partly true, and some may be completely false.

Corporate Whimsy

Facebook, that time gobbler that so many can't do without and so many hate, is at it again changing the way it works.

Yesterday I posted a picture on Flickr and then wrote a note on Facebook with a link to the picture.  When I clicked return, the picture was showing on my message list.  A few friends commented on it and I saw the picture above their comments.

Today as I scrolled through my list of messages, the picture was gone but the text remained.  I left a comment about it, and one friend said she hadn't seen it before and now she did.

One of the first rules of good human interface is consistency.  If I do a certain thing in a certain set of circumstances, I should be able to get a similar result each and every time.

Facebook is not alone in inconsistent user interfaces.  Microsoft, Apple, and many others confuse users time after time.

Through iTunes I download Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge" podcasts, receiving two each week.  Suddenly, about four weeks ago I was getting only one.  Last week I got none.  This week I got one.  With a little email help from the TTBOOK host, Jim Fleming, I figured out that iTunes or somebody has decided that I don't need podcasts that I've already downloaded, even if they were from two or more years ago.  TTBOOK does rebroadcast programs and thus republishes the podcasts.  But shouldn't I be the one to decide that I don't want to listen to an old program again?

Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac had programmable macros with an extensive, easily used description for each available function.  Microsoft decided to take macros out in Office 2008.  They said users should write AppleScripts instead.  I'll just say that AppleScript is a byzantine programming language.  Microsoft decided to put macros back in Office 2011, but many old macros don't work or only work erratically.  And the descriptions of the functions are often incomplete.

I'm sure many readers have their own tales of frustration about how software, computers, cars, and customer service departments work.  So many of what we depend on may be produced efficiently, but do we get effective results using them?

Memory and coincidence

Last Thursday I listened to a "To the Best of Our Knowledge" podcast from 2012-06-17.  One of the segments was on the brain.  It was rebroadcast of an interview with David Eagleman, author of "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain".  One of his points was how we push problems to our sub-conscious and an answer may just pop into our heads later, like after a good night's sleep.

I've often felt this, but one incident after the show really emphasized the truth of this.

I was trying to remember the name of a singer we hosted years ago when she gave a concert in Duluth.  I could even picture one of her albums that we have.  Nada!

Friday night we were on Skype with our son and he was talking about his July visit to Minnesota.  He mentioned that he wanted to attend a concert of his friends, the duo Patchouli.  Bingo! Claudia Schmidt!  She's still performing.

I should reconnect our record player and run through an LP or two of hers.