Legacy Tools

I built a deck for the screen house at our cabin some years ago.  About two years ago the floor became so rotted that I tore it off.  I kept saying I'll redo it, but I never did.  Finally we asked a handyman to do it.

He and I agreed that the frame was not worth saving.  At least I could tear it apart before he rebuilt it.  I unscrewed all the boards from the posts, cut them up in small pieces, and split those even smaller.  I have put about a half through the chipper until it jammed, probably because the blade had become dull.

The support posts were also rotten and so I pulled them out.  Well, two came out easily, the third took a lot of effort, and the fourth would only go up and down about two inches.  I tried over and over again with a 5-ft. pry bar but made very little progress.  The one-inch steel handle was even bending.

Then I remembered a pickaroon that Bill Zemlin had given me many years ago.  It is a short pick to be used to move logs around.  I swung it against the post and it penetrated enough to make it much easier to pull the post upward.

The post did move somewhat but it still stuck in the hole.  I then laid the pry-bar on the ground and used it as a fulcrum for the pickaroon.  The post came up a bit more.  In several more tries I had the post completely out of the hole.

Sure enough, there was a branch stub right at the bottom of the post.  The posts were from a tamarack that I had cut and squared with a chain saw.  I saw no need to have them square except where the deck frame would attach to them.  Maybe I had even thought that the knob would help keep the post in the ground!



This project and another are reminders of Bill Zemlin and all the tools, lumber, and other items that he or his wife sold or gave to us.

The deck and screen tent are from them.  I don't remember if I rebuilt the deck or just replaced some of the boards.  Bill gave me or loaned me a pair of pipe wrenches for some project.  They came in handy on checking our well.  He gave me a post hole digger and some long pipes to give better turning leverage.  He helped me get the railroad ties that our tool shed sits on.  He sold me the lumber for the tool shed; he milled it himself.

Our history goes back even further.  My wife and Eileen Zemlin met on a subway in Stockholm.  Bill was on sabbatical at Karolinska Institute.  They gave us an open invitation to visit them in Brimson, Minnesota where they had a cabin.  When we moved back to Minnesota in 1977, we kept putting off visiting them because we went canoeing in the Boundary Waters instead.  Finally we took up their offer in 1987 and they introduced us to the Brimson Sisu.  We returned for subsequent Sisu's.  In 1990 as we were leaving, we told ourselves, "We could live here".  We started looking at want ads for country property.

In 1991 we went to visit our son in Japan at Sisu time, but we visited the Zemlins in September or October.  Bill liked to take company out for a drive to many sites near and far.  He took us down one dirt road past a property that was for sale.  We looked around it and took down the realtor's number.

We called the realtor and arranged for a more leisurely look at the property.  To make a long story short, we owned it by December 1991.  We never did build a house on it or move to it permanently, but we did move to Duluth to be closer to the property.  The one-hour drive from Duluth sure beats the four-hour drive from Plymouth MN.

Bill died in 1998 after a long career in many things, including writing a standard text on speech and hearing - "Speech and Hearing Science, Anatomy and Physiology".  A retired speech and hearing professor, from whom I took an unrelated course in University for Seniors last year, still had a copy in his possession.

The good that men do does live after them.  Thanks, Bill and Eileen, for the property, the memories, and the tools.

Viola plays the viola

VEYE-oh-luh plays the vee-OH-lah.

The first is a girl's name derived from the name of the flower, violet.  The second is a stringed instrument, it's name is derived from "vitula", a stringed instrument.

These inconsistencies happen in any language that borrows words from other languages.  Avez vous enjoyé le weekend?

GOP, Make up your mind: Is Government too big or not?

Many in the Republican Party constantly complain that government is too big and inefficient.  On the other hand they want to make the military bigger and bigger, they want increased surveillance of just about anybody, and they want to keep far too many state secrets.

Please make up your mind.  Are we going to have a government that is responsive to people and not corporations?  Or are we going to have a secret government that is responsive to large corporations and ignores the people?

Actions speak louder than words, and news story after news story indicates that corporations and secrecy are more important than open government and people.

Who was standing whose ground?

A big deal is made that a gun-toting "neighborhood watchman" was "standing his ground" in shooting an unarmed black teenager.  Have many considered that an unarmed black teenager was standing his ground against somebody who was stalking him?  Ah, since he didn't have a gun, then he couldn't "stand his ground".  Trayvon Martin didn't have the right to bare fists!

Efficiency (or inefficiency) - generalizations do not apply

This morning I called Consumer Cellular about replacing the landline at our cabin with a Wireless Home Phone Base.  Ezekiel answered before the automated message was done.  He took time to listen and he provided full information to all my questions.

Last week I called the local Sears store to check if they had the Phone Base in stock.  First, I got an automatic response about the purpose of my call.  Eventually I was asked what department I wanted.  I finally got a person; but that person was not in the store, he was who knows how far away.  He didn't think it was available, but before he checked, he wanted my first and last name!  What does my name have to do with my request for information?  I said this is taking too long and hung up.  Once upon a time, one got a store operator who pleasantly asked (generally) some variant of "How may I direct your call?"  She transferred you to that department, and if a clerk was not serving other customers, answered the phone and gave a simple yes, no, or "I'll check" answer.

This morning I also called Gopher State One Call http://www.gopherstateonecall.org, a non-profit that dispatches utilities to locate underground pipes and cables before an excavation.  We want to plant a tree close to a buried gas line.  I had to wait for several minutes to talk to Gabe, but he was thorough and friendly about getting all the information that he needed to dispatch someone.  He said it should be done within 48 hours.

This afternoon I looked out the front door and noticed a yellow line and a small yellow flag in our front yard.  Comfort Systems, our water and gas utility, had already marked the location of the buried pipe.  Comfort Systems is part of the City of Duluth's Public Works and Utilities Department.

On the other hand, after many weeks and many calls, our internet connection with CenturyLink is now stable and staying above 75% of the "up to 7Mbps" speed.  One of the round and round discussions I had was about getting a new modem.  We still are using our eight-year-old or so modem.  It seems something was done in our area that none of the customer service people were made privy to.  The customer service was all over the map as far as ability goes.  See "Round robin service robbin' my time".

I'm still waiting for a local store to respond to a question I emailed them a couple weeks ago.

Again, it is not the financial form of an organization, for-profit corporation, non-profit corporation, or government agency, that determines the level of customer service; it is the people and leadership of an organization that determines these.  If customer service is an organization's priority, revenue will follow.  If the bottom-line is an organization's priority, customer service will suffer.  Unfortunately, in the latter case, there are often not enough choices for customers to easily switch to another organization.

Second quote of the day - health care

"[W]ho do you trust more, the company that is answerable to a few shareholders or the government all citizens can choose to elect or choose to fire?"
- "Real Doctor Smacks Down Koch Brothers Obamacare Ad (Video)", Egberto Willies,

Another thought, who elected the Koch brothers or Grover Norquist to make public policy.  Aren't they among those who "live by profit" and "deceive and oppress the public."

Quote of the day - theory and hands-on

"The theory of computer science is maths, but the practice is a craft, like carpentry."

"World's cheapest computer gets millions tinkering", Judith Evans, PhysOrg

In other words, you can know all about designing a house, but you have to know a lot about carpentry, electrical work, and more to actually build a house.

The author loses a few maths points; she used "almost infinite".  If you are almost to infinity, then that means infinity has an end.  But infinity means without end.

The computer is called the Raspberry Pi, and the producers web site is http://www.raspberrypi.org/

A bonus quote from the Raspberry Pi website: "SD cards don't last forever! Always have at least one backup of any data important to you."

"Free marketers" deceive and oppress again

Large banks are buying commodity warehouses and then moving goods from one warehouse to another to increase their profits.  Apparently some international agreement allows them to do this.  Although this movement only adds a fraction of a cent to a beverage in an aluminum can, the huge number of cans used puts this cost to consumers in the hundreds of billions.  What's this about "you'll get ahead by hard work"?  I guess it is hard work to think of schemes to "deceive and oppress the public"*.

See "A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold", David Kocieniewski, New York Times,2013-07-20, also reprinted in Star Tribune, "Banks schemes adding hidden costs to consumers", 2013-07-20

* See "The Invisible Adam Smith"

A Facebook reminder for forgetful husbands

I received email this morning from Facebook reminding me that my wife's birthday is this week.

Are there that many forgetful husbands on Facebook that Facebook needs to remind them of their wive's birthday?  Or did a forgetful software designer neglect to put in such a check?  Or did we ourselves neglect to note we were married to each other?

Inquiring minds aren't going to bother to check.

My followers increase by 25%!

I had a major increase in the followers of this blog this weekend.  My followers went from four to five!  Thank you to the newcomer and the other four.  I hope you find something interesting here often.

Hey, Roger!  Are you still a follower or was that a one-time thing as you showed off your iPhone?

This "dramatic" increase of followers reminds me of a mathematical joke another friend told.  A car dealership says its sales increased 50% from the previous month.  My friend then asked if that was from two cars last month to three cars this month.

Leon, do you remember telling this joke over forty years ago?  If so, drop me a line.

Disconnect on surveillance?

As I easily stopped for a yellow light this afternoon, a driver in the other lane came whipping by me and went through the light that had already turned red.  If there had been a surveillance camera at that intersection, he or she would soon be receiving a ticket.

However, many consider robo-cops a bad idea, an infringement of rights, etc. etc.

My question is, of the people who protest about being caught disobeying a traffic law, how many are all for the excessive NSA surveillance of telephone and internet usage?

In the first case, a person is caught doing something illegal.  In the second case, a person may only be thought to be doing something illegal.

Whether one is killed or injured by a terrorist with a bomb or killed or injured by somebody running a red light is rather a moot point.  One is just as dead or hurt by either illegal activity.

Surveillance Allowed Days

In its first 24-hours, "No Surveillance Allowed Days" had only seven page views, fewer than most of my other blog entries.  I guess it is not a very popular idea.  I'll consider keeping to some of its tenets on No Surveillance Allowed Days, but I won't be rigid about it.  Sort of like paying cash for most of what I buy, I'll pay with credit or debit card when it is more convenient.

I should have known better.  "No Surveillance Allowed Days" had as much chance of success as my attempt to get 90% voter turnout or better at every election.

State security without proof

"I assert, he said with a calm and low voice, I assert that Mr. Colomban has responsibility for an act that has put our country within two fingers of its loss. The case of Pyrot is secret and must remain secret. If disclosed, the most cruel wars, pillage, devastation, fires, massacres evils, epidemics, will be brought immediately on Penguinia.  I would consider myself guilty of high treason if I uttered one word more." - General Greatauk, "L'Île des Pingouins", Anatole France, 1908, my translation with help from Google Translate

Colomban is Emile Zola who strongly defended Dreyfuss (Pyrot) in the press.  For more on the Dreyfuss affair, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair.

Does this sound familiar a century after the Dreyfuss affair?  At that time there was extreme anti-semitism.  Are we now in a time of extreme anti-muslim paranoia?

The original French:

Je laisse, dit-il avec calme et d'une voix peu élevée, je laisse à monsieur Colomban la responsabilité d'un acte qui a mis notre pays à deux doigts de sa perte. L'affaire Pyrot est secrète; elle doit rester secrète. Si elle était divulguée, les maux les plus cruels, guerres, pillages, ravages, incendies, massacres, épidémies, fondraient immédiatement sur la Pingouinie. Je m'estimerais coupable de haute trahison si je prononçais un mot de plus.
- EBook #8524, Project Gutenberg

No Surveillance Allowed Days

This entry was inspired by "FAQ: What You Need to Know About the NSA's Surveillance Programs" by Pro Publica, reprinted in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2013-07-11.  You can find a long list of similar stories by Pro Publica with the search terms "FAQ: What You Need to Know About the NSA's Surveillance Programs" "Pro Publica".

If you think government has overstepped its bounds on surveillance, you can protest in a "simple" way: don't use a phone, the Internet, or a debit or credit card each No Surveillance Allowed Day (NSAD).  If the usage of these drops significantly every Wednesday, the large corporations such as Google, Yahoo, Verizon, AT&T, Visa, and many others will certainly notice.  I am sure you have noticed that large corporations have more clout with Congress and the Administration than we ordinary citizens.  No Surveillance Allowed Days could manipulate the large corporations to influence the government not just for their benefit but ours!

This won't be "simple" because many of us need to use the telephone and the Internet for work and for other matters that can't wait until another day.  But you might find some things among the following ideas that you can do to make a small contribution to make the large corporations notice.

If you live outside the United States, especially in a country with heavy-handed censorship, you can stage your own small non-violent resistance with little fear of government retaliation.

On No Surveillance Allowed Days, think twice about any phone calls you might make, especially cell phone.  Can the call wait until tomorrow?  Does the call even need to be made?

On NSADs, avoid using the Internet.  Can you look up that burning question with Google on Thursday instead?  Can you make that online payment that is due on Wednesday a day early?  If you read newspapers online, can you buy a paper copy on Wednesdays instead?  If you don't buy a paper copy, you you could catch up online on Thursday.  If you must use the Internet, avoid clicking on any ads and avoid any sites that give you a short advertising video before showing you what you clicked for.

Oh gosh!  Our Social Security checks are deposited on the fourth Wednesday.  I guess we don't need to check online that they are in our accounts that day.  We can assume that they are there.  Besides, if we're avoiding the Internet, we won't be making any online payments until Thursday.

Finally, pay cash on NSADs instead of using a debit or credit card.  Or can you wait until Thursday to make that big purchase with one of your cards?

If we spread the word that we are doing these things in protest of the National Security Agency's wide-ranging snooping on our lives, we might get the attention of the large corporations who control our phones, our Internet use, and many of our purchases and payments.  If they are being hit in the pocket book, even one day a week, they might make a big squawk that will be heard in Washington.

No matter how much you plan to participate, would you at least spread the word about No Surveillance Days?  If you do so, please pass on the link to this entry (http://magree.blogspot.com/2013/07/no-surveillance-allowed-days.html).  That will give me some idea of how well this idea is catching on.  I'll periodically post how many views have been made of this entry.

Thanks, and may you sleep well, knowing you have done your part to stop excessive government snooping.

Whatever happened to foreign students and foreign languages?

I wrote the above title and the text below in response to "On campus beat: University of Minnesota and EMC team up to teach world languages", Lydia Coutré, Star Tribune, 2013-06-25.  http://www.startribune.com/local/212860091.html  I submitted it as a letter to the editor, but the Strib did not publish it.  Apropos foreign languages, the Strib put the accent mark on Coutré's name.

When I was in college students coming from another country were foreign students.  They were welcomed by many and considered part of the student body.  I remember eating often with three Arabs whose conversation went beyond their complaints about Israel.

Now their grandchildren studying in the U.S. would be called "international students".  But if a student body at a U.S. school included students from other countries, wouldn't all the students be international students?

When I worked and lived in Europe, I wasn't an international worker but a foreigner.  I was called Ausländer, utlänning, étranger, straniero, and various forms of American.  And gaijin (outside person) when I visited Japan.

When I was in school and beyond, languages other than English were called foreign languages; now it is the fashion to call these other languages world languages, no matter how widely they are spoken.  I would consider only a handful of languages world languages; English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are spoken in a large number of countries.  Swedish and Japanese would be local languages, spoken almost exclusively on a daily basis only in their countries of origin.

No matter what you call other languages, Lydia Coutré is right to point out that Americans are woefully illiterate in foreign languages.  We need to stop considering foreign languages a frill.  Being multi-lingual gets you friends, business, and security.  I wonder if there would have been fewer terrorists if our schools could have provided more Arab speakers.

U.S. oligarchy, history repeats itself

"The Penguin democracy was not ruled by itself: it obeyed a financial oligarchy that put its opinions in the newspapers, and held in its hand the deputies, ministers and the president.  It was the final power in the finances of the republic and directed the foreign policy of the country."

Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate

"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."

Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose

Frunds in the bank?

I received an email today with the subject "RE: FRUNDS IN THE BANK!!"  This has to be spam!  "Re" for a subject I never used in email.  All caps.  Double exclamation marks.  And the sender used the title "Mr."  How many emails do you send with any of these in the header?  Maybe caps once in awhile.  "Re" only generated automatically when you respond to another's message.  Misspellings!  Lot of us make typos that we miss, but "FRUNDS".  Could this be a Freudian slip; the writer meant "FRAUDS IN THE BANK"?

Microsoft Outlook allows me to peek at the text of a message without opening it.  Sure enough, the writer has carefully investigated me and would like me to assist in a money transfer of several millions of dollars.  Gosh!  If he claims to be with a Hong Kong bank, doesn't the bank have the connections and resources to transfer large sums of money without calling on complete strangers, by email no less.

I wonder how long my list of blocked senders has become.  I block at least four a day from all over the world.  I wish I would get a commission from all those vendors of email addresses.  They could easily do it by putting my commission in my PayPal account.  As far as I know, I'm the only Melvyn Magree.

A surreal apologia for "free enterprise"

Saturday's Duluth News Tribune had one of its Pro/Con pairings of opinion; they were titled "Can free enterprise boost the nation's economy?"  I would have liked to have read them then but I didn't want to do it on my wife's cell phone, our fastest web access at the cabin.

Today I did, and oh, boy!  The pro was an unbelievable, non-critical, paean to "free enterprise" that I just have to comment on.  It was written by Steve Van Andel, co-CEO of Amway and chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.  The con was a standard piece about the government needing to do more to regulate the economy through stimulus and other measures.  The latter was written by Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

I found so many clichés in Van Andel's piece passing off as received wisdom that I have a hard time picking a few of the most egregious.

"When employers and entrepreneurs are successful, they indirectly share that wealth by expanding opportunities and creating jobs for others."  Success has too often been measured by stock price, and stock price often means cutting jobs rather than creating jobs.

"Businesses wanting to remain successful always strive to do better."  Too many successful businesses ignore their customers.  Just look at the support boards of Apple, Microsoft, Google, CenturyLink, and many others.  Users complain about the same problems for years and they don't seem to be fixed or responded to.

"The truth is that government doesn’t create opportunity, equality or success — the private sector does."  Let's see!  Federal government purchases of computers led to further development of computers; for example, the first UNIVAC was sold to the Census Bureau.  ARPAnet led to the Internet; ARPA was Advanced Research Project Agency, a part of the government.  An NSF grant led to the creation of Google.  How many private weather forecasters depend on the Federal Government for their raw data?

"When our leaders attempt to reach deeper into the affairs of businesses and individuals — through overregulation and higher taxes — they breed uncertainty and stifle growth."  Just what is "over-regulation" - requiring proper labeling on food, reducing power plant emissions, requiring easy-to-understand contracts?  What are "higher taxes" - taxes sufficient to enforce the laws, taxes sufficient to rebuild our infra-structure, taxes sufficient to have a "strong" military?

Van Andel's article is copyrighted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has been reprinted in several newspapers besides the Duluth News Tribune.  The links that I found include

The original article was published by McClatchy – http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/03/195685/more-economic-independence-will.html

Others include

Centre Daily Times – http://www.centredaily.com/2013/07/07/3680519/column-more-economic-independence.html
Arizona Daily Star – http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/can-free-enterprise-boost-the-economy/article_7236fff9-82d0-5f0a-8c3a-0a6adada2c53.html
Deseret News – http://www.deseretnews.com/user/comments/765633503/More-fiscal-independence-will-push-the-economy-to-new-heights.html

The comments to all of these are mostly critical of Van Andel's view.

A good critical letter appeared South Coast Today, but a search of South Coast Today for "Van Andel" did not turn up the original opinion piece.

Declaration of Independence is still a work in progress

For its July Fourth celebration of 1852, the city of Rochester NY invited Frederick Douglass to speak.  Danny Glover gives an impassioned reading of that speech.

The accompanying notes intimidate the speech didn't go over so well but gives no further information.

But according to one account, it went over quite well.  A letter to Douglass was "Dear Sir-The Ladies of the "Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society," desire me to return you their most sincere thanks for the eloquent and able address delivered in Corinthian Hall, on the 5th of July. Anticipating its speedy publication in Pamphlet form, they request that you will furnish them with one hundred copies for distribution:
In behalf of the Society,
SUSAN F. PORTER, President.

See http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2945

As I suspected, the Danny Glover version is a shortened version of Douglass' speech.  Few 19th Century orators would give an eight-minute speech.

I admit it, my 20th Century eyes don't have the patience to read through the complete speech.  Now, will I get back to it before I read all the Federalist Papers or the Wealth of Nations?  I have my doubts I will read completely through any of the three.

Do I detect a disconnect on taxes?

Many conservatives have been touting a consumption tax as a more desirable tax than income tax.  So, Minnesota puts a higher sales tax on tobacco and a sales tax on business equipment.  I haven't noticed many conservatives cheering this development, but many conservatives are calling these taxes unfair and business-unfriendly.

See "New sales tax hurts rural broadband proponents say", Adam Belz, Star Tribune, 2013-06-30.

Could the real problem with broadband expansion be that the basic cost even without taxes is a deterrent to many potential buyers.  I know that I don't want to pay $30-$50+ plus for internet access for two to three nights a week in our cabin.  I would rather just cut back my use to the limits of my patience with 25kbps dial-up.  I'll just do one or two things that I can accomplish in, not thirty seconds, but ten minutes!

The learned wanted, learners need not apply

Back in the bad old days before the Internet was ubiquitous, I was the sysop of the Genealogy Roundtable on GENIE (General Electric Network for Information Exchange).  It had a very primitive typed command interface that many users had difficulty mastering.

One user either couldn't print or couldn't save a file from the Genealogy Roundtable.  My being in the Twin Cities and he being in Cleveland made it very difficult for me to know exactly what was on his screen.  I went to Cleveland for personal reasons and as a side trip, went to his house.  I forget what terms were on his screen, but he had a completely different idea what those terms meant than I did.  Once I explained them to him, he was able to do what he wanted.

During this same period, I wrote a genealogy program called Family Events.  One user complained that certain printed charts had lines that shouldn't be there.  I couldn't visualize or understand his problem because my printed charts looked OK.  It wasn't until we were both at the same genealogy conference that I understood the problem.  He was using a non-Apple printer and I was using an Apple printer.  As a shortcut I had given unneeded lines a negative length.  The Apple printer didn't print these lines; the non-Apple printer printed them as long extraneous lines.  I think once back home I recoded the problem in about an hour.

It's sort of like the urban legend of the kid who solves the problem of the truck jammed under a bridge: let some air out of the tires.

Once I wrote the above paragraph I thought of a related subject that I wanted to write about - the "shortage" of "high-tech" workers.  From this thought, I changed the title of this entry from "More on problem solving" to "The learned wanted, learners need not apply".  This "shortage" has been going on for decades.

The basic problem is that too many employers want somebody who can begin working on complex problems on day one.  Once those problems are solved, you may be replaced by someone who can begin working on the new problems on day one.

I've never had a job that I did not require some training after I was hired – from grocery clerk to bus driver to main-frame computer programmer.  My very first computer job I had to teach myself the basics of programming the company's computer.  For my nearly 20-year job with Univac it was constant change and new things to learn.  I didn't know FORTRAN, but I was set to finding and correcting errors in the compiler and its library.  In fact, our supervisor, John Macgowan, never did learn how to write a FORTRAN program, but he was a real whiz at finding and correcting errors in the compiler.  I won't bore you with the details, but it was nearly 20 years of constant learning and change.  I burned out when microcomputers came on the scene and I didn't feel like Univac was keeping up.  So, I started my own company and learned how to program several microcomputers without the benefit of special training.

What I didn't learn was how to run a business.  Then I learned that businesses don't want new employees who will learn.  That is, learners need not apply, we want the learned.

See "So-called high tech shortage".

Curious advertising

As we carefully lifted our teabags out of our mugs and put them in a small dish without spilling a drop, we thought of the slogan "Good to the last drop" for Maxwell House coffee.  How did anyone know if that last drop was any good?  The ad always showed it falling out of the cup onto the table or some surface.

An old joke about problem solving

The problem of Microsoft Outlook causing a disabling of the keyboard/trackpad made me think about an old joke about a tough automobile problem.  See "Computer withdrawal resolution continued".

Decades ago, an auto dealer gave his wife her choice of cars on his lot.  She happily drove away in a nice new model but was back in an hour because the engine was running so roughly.

The mechanics tested everything they could think of and found nothing.  She drove off again but was back again in another hour.  Same problem of engine running roughly.

The mechanics pulled out all their diagnostic manuals and tried all the suggestions.  Again, the engine ran quite well for them.  She drove off again but was back again in another hour.  Same problem of engine running roughly.

The head mechanic decided he should ride along with her.  When they got in the car, she pulled out the choke and hung her purse from it.

Modern cars have automatic chokes and we don't think about such things anymore.  We might if we have certain small engines that won't start unless the choke is pulled out, and we know once the engine is running, the choke has to be pushed in to get full power.

Computer withdrawal resolution continued

I sent the following as part of the Geek Squad customer survey:

Malcolm was very courteous and cheerful throughout his explanation of the tests made.

However, I think the Geek Squad didn't have an odd bit of information to explain the problem of my keyboard/trackpad being unresponsive.  These worked fine yesterday evening after I brought my Mac Book Pro home.  But this morning, it started going dead again.  I wondered if Outlook, which was acting slow and squirrelly might be the problem.  I quit Outlook, and maybe rebooted, and I haven't had a problem since.  I also duplicated the Main Identity and reorganized it.  Outlook now runs much faster and I'm still using the keyboard and trackpad without problem.

There always seems to be one crucial piece of information a customer doesn't supply.  See http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/tech_shortage_1999-10-14.htm.  Outlook was the missing program that none of us thought of.  At least this problem didn't take months to solve, if indeed it is solved (crossed-fingers).  Also, if I hadn't brought my laptop in to the Geek Squad, would I have thought of this solution???

Thanks, folks, for your help!

See also
Computer withdrawal symptoms
Good news about a large corporation
Computer withdrawal resolution

More wacky magic!

I went out this afternoon on a few errands.  Just before I found a parking spot at the supermarket, a heavy downpour started.  Even with the umbrella on the seat beside me, I wasn't going to venture out in that cloudburst.

I sat and played sudoku on my iPhone for a while.  Then I thought I had better call my wife to let her know I would be delayed.  Before I finished the sudoku puzzle, the rain let up considerably.

When I checked out the cashier asked how I was doing with the weather.  I told him that I made the rain stop by calling my wife.  He asked if I could keep it from raining until his shift was over.  I asked if he had an hour or two.  He looked at a clock and said more like four hours.  I replied that I couldn't make my magic work that long.

As I walked out to my car, I remembered an old incantation from Boy Scouts.  Just say "Oh-wah, Tah-guh, Siam" over and over again until the rain stops.  If the rain hasn't stopped after fifteen minutes, start saying the incantation faster and faster.  If the rain doesn't stop, you should get a message.

Computer withdrawal resolution

This is a follow-up to "Computer withdrawal symptoms" and "Good news about a large corporation".

I picked up my Mac Book Pro at Best Buy this morning.  The repair comments from the Geek Squad were:

"Unit passed all hardware testing, including trackpad diagnostic.  Unit did not display any issues with the trackpad or keyboard.  Mission complete!"

So, wha' happened?  Did I inadvertently make some preference reset?  Did my Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad get too close to my laptop?  That shouldn't be a problem because Bluetooth is turned off.  Did I accidentally turn it on and somehow turn it off again?

Maybe the problem was cured by the laptop being off for an hour or so.  Maybe it was cured when we ran it on battery at Best Buy.  Maybe the twists and turns of carrying it jiggled something just right.  Maybe my computer withdrawal anguish made the computer feel sorry for me.

As I wrote a few days ago "Magic really works!"  Taking your computer to a technician makes the problem go away.

Good news about a large corporation

Yesterday I wrote about my problems with the keyboard on my Mac Book Pro.  See "Computer withdrawal symptoms",  I didn't expect to see my computer again until tomorrow.

A few minutes ago I got around to checking my email.  Best Buy had sent me an email that my computer was ready for pickup.  The message was sent at 6:15.  I looked at the message after store closing!  I guess I'll hightail up there tomorrow after we run all our morning errands.

I have this strange feeling that the Geek Squad found nothing wrong.  That my moving it from home to the store jiggled something into place.  We shall see.

I have always had respect for The Geek Squad, ever since they started at Washington and Plymouth in Minneapolis a couple of decades ago.  After they fixed one problem with my Apple whatever that handheld was called, I should have taken it back to retrieve data when it bit the dust sometime later.  All those wonderful notes of wisdom that were lost:)

Computer withdrawal symptoms

Come on, Mel, how can you have computer withdrawal symptoms when you obviously are posting something to the web.  You can't do that without a computer!

True!  I am using a "computer" but it is not my very familiar laptop.  I'm using my iPad to write this and I'll probably use it to post this.

But it is not the same as using a laptop with hundreds of applications and many gigabytes of storage. Plus, even with my Logitech compact keyboard, my fingers are challenged even more to hit the right keys at the same time.

This morning, my Mac Book Pro suddenly decided not to move the cursor.  Nor accept any keystrokes on the keyboard.  I could reboot it and get some reaction for awhile.  I don't remember whether it was through my iPad or one of the few times the keyboard worked, but I found that one supposed fix was to mangle your fingers on reboot on the option, command, R, P, and turn on keys.  This, according to some advice in one of the Apple Support Communities, would reset the PRAM (Programmable Random Access Memory) and put things right.

This worked for one or two times for about fifteen minutes.  Then there was no way I could put things right.  I could use the USB mouse from my wife's computer to have some access.  But then she wouldn't be able to use her computer.

After awhile, my system kept looking for a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.  I wasn't using one, and I could find no way in System Preferences to change this "demand".

So, off I go to Geek Squad at Best Buy where I bought the laptop less than two years ago.  I was unable to find my receipt, but Best Buy had the record and I had a three-year warranty.

When I get there, guess what?  The touchpad worked, the keyboard worked, and everything seemed hunky-dory.

The Geek Squad guy was very helpful in the sense of courtesy and understanding.  We agreed that it would be best to leave my laptop with them to more thoroughly check what may be going on.  He said that would take a day or two, but they might have to send it to their repair center if there were more serious problems.

I feel like the local priest in "Babette's Feast" turning away suitors for his two daughters.  They were his right hand and his left hand.  I have the feeling that I've lost my "right hand".

P.S.  Google on an iPad has made me feel like I've lost my "left hand".  Google just would not respond properly to Safari on my iPad.  When I went to my wife's iMac and used FireFox, I saw about six copies of this entry.  I've deleted all but this copy, and now I'll see if I can open it up to my loyal reader.

For the rest of the story and its resolution see
"Good news about a large corporation", "Computer withdrawal resolution", and "Computer withdrawal resolution continued".

If all else fails, follow instructions

After much rain and with grass that was growing like a beanstalk, I thought I had better mow our lawn.  I had made an attempt a few days ago and decided the grass was too wet.  I felt the grass and it seemed reasonably dry.  OK, let's get it done before supper time.

Digression: Last year I had traded our gas lawnmower in for a light-weight electric mower.  The old lawnmower's wheels didn't really grab going up the short but sharp incline in front.  It was a lot of work to heave it around and I didn't want to pay the repair bill to get the clutch readjusted.  Even though the electric mower didn't cut as wide a swath, it sure beat heaving the gas mower around.

I started mowing and the blade would slow down.  I banged the mower up and down and big chunks of grass would fall out.  Repeat.  And again.  Then the mower stopped and the gauge showed no power!  What have I done?

I took the battery inside and plugged it into its charger.  Then I started looking for the instructions.  And looking, and looking, and…  I found an update on charging the battery.  The only info I got was that it should take 8-14 hours to charge.

I looked again for the instructions, and looking, and …   Finally I found them, sort of in an obvious place, but under something else.

I looked under "Trouble shooting" and found three important pieces of information.

If the grass is too dense, it might trip the circuit breaker.
If the grass is too dense, raise the height of the deck.
The circuit breaker is located at this place on the handle.

I found the circuit breaker, pushed it, and it went in and stayed in.
I raised the height of the deck to its highest, three inches.
I put the battery back in and worked the controls to get the engine running.

I was no longer shaving the lawn but I was making it look more even than it had.

The time and energy to cut the grass was less than the time and energy to find the manual and make the correct adjustments.

Panic and frustration can be such time wasters!  When will we ever learn to be calm and focused in the face of unexpected problems?

Have I learned my lesson?  Probably not!

See also "If all else fails, read directions".

Quote of the day: A rebuke to an insult on ancestry

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."
- Alexandre Dumas, French author and playwright, his father was the son of a French aristocrat and a slave in Haiti.

The French version is:

"Mon père était un mulâtre, mon grand-père était un nègre et mon arrière grand-père un singe. Vous voyez, Monsieur: ma famille commence où la vôtre finit."

In 2002, French President Jacques Chirac has Dumas' ashes re-interred at the Panthéon of Paris.  Chirac remarked that Dumas was the most widely read French author.

If regulation is bad for business, then…

Why are so many breweries opening in Duluth and elsewhere in Minnesota?  See "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle".  Alcohol production and sale is very highly regulated.  Why are so many other small businesses opening, if they don't compete with giant corporations?  See "Big corporations hinder little corporations".

This blog entry was inspired by an interview with Niall Ferguson about his book "The Great Degeneration".  The interview was by Lauren Lyster "The Daily Ticker" and entitled "The 1.8 Trillion Tax You've Never Heard Of".  This huge tax is the supposed cost of all the government regulations.  Among other indicators for increased regulations is the increased number of pages in the Federal Regulations.

The premise is if we only cut back on regulations then we'll free up businesses to be more productive.  What Ferguson doesn't say is less regulation pushes costs off on everybody else.  Yep, if businesses were free to pollute they would be more productive and their prices would go down (or would it be the CEOs salary would go way up).  But if they were free to pollute what would our costs be in health?  If they were free of regulations in construction then rents would be less (or CEO salary…).  But if they were free of construction regulations how many of us would die when their buildings collapsed or caught fire?  Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anyone?  Bangladesh garment factory?  Salvation Army building collapse?

Regulations have increased not because government is eager to have more control.  Regulations have increased because we live in an ever increasingly complex and compact society.  Regulations increase because we understand more about the harmful effects of many activities and substances on ourselves.  Lead in gasoline was seen as beneficial because it reduced engine knock.  But then lead was seen as harmful to growing brains.  Factories could dump whatever pollutants into nearby streams and lakes, but then people realized that the pollution was killing fish and costing cities more to clean up the water for drinking.

A counter to Niall Ferguson's position can be found at "Niall Ferguson Cites Flawed Evidence to Stoke Regulation Fears", Albert Kleine, Media Matters for America.

This article cites an Office of Management and Budget report of the costs and benefits.  Two of my selections from this report follow.

"The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 2001, to September 30, 2011, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $141 billion and $691 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $42.4 billion and $66.3 billion. These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated."
"It is important to emphasize that the large estimated benefits of EPA rules are mostly attributable to the reduction in public exposure to a single air pollutant: fine particulate matter. Of the EPA’s 19 air rules, the rule with the highest estimated benefit is the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule, issued in 2007, with benefits ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year. While the benefits of this rule far exceed the costs, the cost estimate for the 2007 Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule is also the highest at $7.3 billion per year. In addition, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CAIR Replacement Rule (2060-AP50)) has benefits ranging from $20.5 to $59.7 billion and costs of approximately $0.7 billion."
- 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities

Magic really works!

My wife has been having difficulty accessing her bank account online.  She had me look over her shoulder as she signed on.  Of course, it worked!  I said, "Of course!  You showed me."  She replied, "It's like taking a car that's making a noise to a mechanic."

Canoe give me a Bent Paddle?

Bent Paddle Brewing is one of the many new locally-owned breweries in Duluth and in Minnesota.  I had a pint of their IPA when we went to Sir Benedict's for pasta and drinks tonight.

The first server I said "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle" to when I ordered it was so busy with doing three things at once that she didn't even notice.  The second server threw back his head in laughter and repeated it to another server.  The owner, Antonino Coppola, also enjoyed the pun.  I don't know if this is original with me, but I hope I am one of the very first.

The Bent Paddle I was served was an IPA (India Pale Ale) with a strong but not overwhelming bitterness.  I think I might be ordering it in the future over a brown ale from another regional brewer.

This incident also is another of the two degrees of separation that one often finds in Duluth.  We know the parents of one of the owners of Bent Paddle Brewing.

Big corporations hinder little corporations

Not quite always, some little corporations do grow into big corporations and some big corporations buy from little corporations.  But think how hard it is for people to start a company in many fields.

When I grew up in Cleveland, there were many grocery stores in walking distance of one place we lived and there were many drug stores and grocery stores in another place.  By walking distance, I mean less than ten minutes, more like five minutes.  Since we moved to Duluth fourteen years ago, a state-wide drug store has closed, a city-wide drug store has closed, and only two independent pharmacies are left.  All the others are in large chain stores and medical centers.

Now suppose you start a small company that makes a skin medication.  How are you going to get it into all those chain stores?  Will the local managers of those stores have the authority to buy local products on their own, or will they have to get corporate approval?  It depends on the company.  But if you had access to locally-owned stores, you would have a greater chance of getting in the door.

I'm only writing based on observation and not personal experience.  I know people who know people who are active in such a small company, and I have observed their marketing results.  The company is Apolonia B, a maker of a skin ointment.  When it first came out, it was available at the city-wide pharmacy, Falk's Pharmacies.  Falk's closed all of its stores rather than compete with the big chains.

As my own jar was getting low, I wondered where I would get a refill.  I checked Apolonia B's web site and found one retailer listed - Whole Foods Co-op (not to be confused with the national chain Whole Foods Market).  Bias warning: we are two of many owner-members and we shop at Whole Foods Co-op regularly.

I can only surmise that being a locally-made natural-ingredient product, Apolonia B was an easy sell to the buyers at Whole Foods Co-op and was probably too time-consuming to try to sell to the big chains.

Our choices for buying locally are dwindling.  At least we have a great choice in locally-owned restaurants and even locally-produced beer, many local hair salons, several locally-owned coffee shops, three or four locally-owned hardware stores, and one locally-owned camera shop.

Minority births now surpass white births! So what?

News organization after news organization reported recently that minority births now surpass white births or that white births are less than white deaths.  Among others, see "Census: Minorities Now Surpass Whites in Births", Hope Yen, Associated Press, 2013-05-17

Duh!  Given our attitude of "one drop" and of nationality what would you expect?

More and more couples are "mixed": "blacks" marry "whites", "whites" marry "Asians", "Native Americans" marry "whites", and so on.  Fewer people are concerned about racial "purity" than ever before in U.S. history.  And what are the offspring of "white"-"whatever" couples called in our society?  It ain't "white".

Sometimes people self-select the non-white designation; sometimes others make the designation for them.  For the first case, look at all the tribes that will allow a person to enroll if only one grandparent was "Indian".  For the second case, look at all the people that too many designate as "black" because one grandparent was "black", or even one ancestor was "black" many generations ago!

Not all of my parents' descendants are "white".  Boy, would my father's mother be horrified!  Three lines have married "Asians" and another may marry a "black".  As far as many of my generation and after are concerned, all of these "non-whites" are most welcome into our family.

Sorry, white supremacists, we will all be "brown" some century from now.

King Canute and the House Republicans

King Canute, king of England, Denmark, and some other places had followers who thought he could do anything.  He had his throne placed way out on a beach at low tide and commanded that the tide not come in.  Of course it came in and he had his throne moved back a bit.  The tide kept coming in.  Repeat move.  Repeat incoming tide.  Finally Canute declared that only God could control the tides.  One hopes that his followers were appropriately chastened.

The House Republicans have followers who want them to do certain dogmatic things.  The House Republicans have voted 37 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  The Senate has not acted on this or has voted against the repeal.  The House Republicans are ignoring the tide of history that eventually most of the world will have universal healthcare, where rich and poor will have adequate health care at a minimal personal cost.  Will this tide drown the Republican Party?