Lift Up Your Hearts!

At Heather's suggestion, I am now reading Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly. We'd enjoyed the movie version very much, but so far the book is orders of magnitude better. Especially if you don't mind a bit of math and the technical aspects of airplanes and flight. Even if you do, it's a well-written story, and it covers so much more than the movie.

I'm a third of the way through the book, and have just now reached the point of Sputnik. It would be hard for the story to get more interesting, however, at least for me. I see in the stories of WWII-era female mathematicians, black and white, a possible glimpse into that stage of my own mother's life, of which I know very little. She graduated in math from Duke University in 1946, and worked as an Engineering Assistant at General Electric for a few years after that.

There's enough to say about my mother's story to warrant its own post, so it will have to wait. In the meantime, here's an excerpt of one of my favorite tales from the book.

For Katherine, being selected to rotate through Building 1244, the kingdom of the fresh-air engineers, felt like an unexpected bit of fortune, however temporary the assignment might prove to be. She had been elated simply to sit in the pool and calculate her way through the data sheets assigned by Mrs. Vaughan. But being sent to sit with the brain trust located on the second floor of the building meant getting a close look at one of the most important and powerful groups at the laboratory. Just prior to Katherine’s arrival, the men who would be her new deskmates, John Mayer, Carl Huss, and Harold Hamer, had presented their research on the control of fighter airplanes in front of an audience of top researchers, who had convened at Langley for a two-day conference on the latest thinking in the specialty of aircraft loads.

With just her lunch bag and her pocketbook to take along, Katherine “picked up and went right over” to the gigantic hangar, a short walk from the West Computing office. She slipped in its side door, climbed the stairs, and walked down a dim cinderblock hallway until she reached the door labeled Flight Research Laboratory. Inside, the air reeked of coffee and cigarettes. Like West Computing, the office was set up classroom-style. There were desks for twenty. Most of the people in the space were men, but interspersed among them a few women consulted their calculating machines or peered intently at slides in film viewers. Along one wall was the office of the division chief, Henry Pearson, with a station for his secretary just in front. The room hummed with pre-lunch activity as Katherine surveyed it for a place to wait for her new bosses. She made a beeline for an empty cube, sitting down next to an engineer, resting her belongings on the desk and offering the man her winning smile. As she sat, and before she could issue a greeting in her gentle southern cadence, the man gave her a silent sideways glance, got up, and walked away.

This is where my brain threw an interrupt, and I paused in my reading. I'm willing to bet that my reaction was quite different from that of most people reading about the encounter. The obvious response is to label the engineer a racist, sexist bigot—of which there are certainly many examples in the book. But what I saw in his reaction was not a bigot, but an engineer.

The people at Langley were not just engineers, mathematicians, and physicists; they were some of the brightest of their species in the country. That kind of intelligence is often accompanied by what in my day we called "quirkiness." I know that not all engineers are alike, any more than all black female mathematicians are alike. But I know something about engineers. There are five generations of engineers in my family, and a goodly number of mathematicians. My father was a mechanical engineer with a master's degree in physics, and he worked for the General Electric Company's research laboratory in Schenectady, New York. With its abundance of mathematicians, physicists, and above all engineers, living in Schenectady was in its heyday like living in Silicon Valley or Seattle today. And no doubt much like the world of the the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia. It was the air I breathed, the water I swam in. It wasn't until we moved to Philadelphia's Main Line when I was in high school that I encountered a broader world.

So when I read of the encounter between Katerhine and the engineer, here's what I saw: Not the clash of race, sex, or social position, but this: An engineer is sitting by himself in his own world, working on a project, his thoughts very far away, when another person unexpectedly invades his space, looks right at him, smiles, and even makes eye contact. His concentration is broken, his train of thought is derailed, and he flees to safer territory. Or maybe not—but that's the scenario as I imagined it.

The real story is better.

Katherine watched the engineer disappear. Had she broken some unspoken rule? Could her mere presence have driven him away? It was a private and unobtrusive moment, one that failed to dent the rhythm of the office. But Katherine’s interpretation of that moment would both depend on the events in her past and herald her future. Bemused, Katherine considered the engineer’s sudden departure. The moment that passed between them could have been because she was black and he was white. But then again, it could have been because she was a woman and he was a man. Or maybe the moment was an interaction between a professional and a subprofessional, an engineer and a girl.

Outside the gates, the caste rules were clear. Blacks and whites lived separately, ate separately, studied separately, socialized separately, worshipped separately, and, for the most part, worked separately. At Langley, the boundaries were fuzzier. Blacks were ghettoed into separate bathrooms, but they had also been given an unprecedented entrée into the professional world. Some of Goble’s colleagues were Yankees or foreigners who’d never so much as met a black person before arriving at Langley. Others were folks from the Deep South with calcified attitudes about racial mixing. It was all a part of the racial relations laboratory that was Langley, and it meant that both blacks and whites were treading new ground together. The vicious and easily identifiable demons that had haunted black Americans for three centuries were shape-shifting as segregation began to yield under pressure from social and legal forces. Sometimes the demons still presented themselves in the form of racism and blatant discrimination. Sometimes they took on the softer cast of ignorance or thoughtless prejudice. But these days, there was also a new culprit: the insecurity that plagued black people as they code-shifted through the unfamiliar language and customs of an integrated life.

Katherine understood that the attitudes of the hard-line racists were beyond her control. Against ignorance, she and others like her mounted a day-in, day-out charm offensive: impeccably dressed, well-spoken, patriotic, and upright, they were racial synecdoches, keenly aware that the interactions that individual blacks had with whites could have implications for the entire black community. But the insecurities, those most insidious and stubborn of all the demons, were hers alone. They operated in the shadows of fear and suspicion, and they served at her command. They would entice her to see the engineer as an arrogant chauvinist and racist if she let them. They could taunt her into a self-doubting downward spiral, causing her to withdraw from the opportunity that Dr. Claytor had so meticulously prepared her for.

But Katherine Goble had been raised not just to command equal treatment for herself but also to extend it to others. She had a choice: either she could decide it was her presence that provoked the engineer to leave, or she could assume that the fellow had simply finished his work and moved on. Katherine was her father’s daughter, after all. She exiled the demons to a place where they could do no harm, then she opened her brown bag and enjoyed lunch at her new desk, her mind focusing on the good fortune that had befallen her.

Within two weeks, the original intent of the engineer who walked away from her, whatever it might have been, was moot. The man discovered that his new office mate was a fellow transplant from West Virginia, and the two became fast friends.

Here's the follow-up to yesterday's post which featured the hot-button controversy over an image with an embedded swastika. If you watched the video, did you look closely at the contested picture?

BOLO—Be On the Look-Out for AI-generated images, video, and other content. It can be a fun puzzle; it's good practice training your brain to be more observant; and the skill may help protect you from propaganda.

Here's the image with the clandestine swastika, which was part of a comment posted on Matt Walsh's X feed, critical of his contention that many native-born South Africans are white. Now that I know about it, I can't unsee the symbol, and I did say I wasn't going to poke the bear unnecessarily, so I've blurred it out. You can see the original if you click on the picture.

This image freaks me out, and that has nothing to do with swastikas. It's creepy in the same way some of Salvador Dali's paintings are creepy.

Ignore the swastika; look at the girls. Six young girls, all dressed in white, so alike they could be sisters—or sextuplets. Look at their arms, their legs, the physically impossible contortion of their bodies, the arrangement of their dresses in ways no one would sit for an actual photograph (e.g. revealing their undergarments). Definitely creepy, and clearly AI-generated. As if someone had typed into an AI engine, "Create an image of six blonde white girls in which their dresses take the form of a swastika."

This is not a photo from reality. It is an image designed to cause trouble.

Surely someone else noticed this; I'm not going to waste my time wading through what others said. What interests me is that Matt Walsh's video does not indicate that he noticed it or thought it worth mentioning.

I find the use of Artificial Intelligence (Automated Idiocy) in this way disturbing. At root, AI is a tool, like a knife. It matters whether the knife is in the hands of a chef, a surgeon, or a psychopath.

It's time for a re-evaluation of Lift Up Your Hearts!—and some changes.

I've been ruminating on this for a long time. For years, really. A year and a half ago I published Changes, my first attempt at bringing my blog dreams more in line with reality, but I'd been thinking about it long before that.

Change is not something I generally seek out, particularly if things are working "well enough." I'd much rather repair a car/appliance/computer/article of clothing/philosophy that is still functional than toss it and obtain the latest and greatest model. My phone is a Galaxy S9 and years ago passed the point where I could get anything reasonable in trade for it. It's reaching the point where I should probably upgrade, but I resist even thinking about that. My Lenovo T470 computer happily runs Windows 10, and there's no reason I should get a new one—except that Microsoft will soon drop Windows 10 support, and the computer is too old to run Windows 11.

I've stayed with certain churches longer than was healthy, and certain music teachers when I should have moved on.

I'm not saying this is entirely a bad thing. Porter and I recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, in part a testament to the realization that it would be foolish to climb a difficult and dangerous fence on the highly unlikely chance that the grass might possibly be greener on the other side.

Lesser decisions, however, have little need for such permanance, and it's time for another change to my blog: I'm disabling comments.

That doesn't sound like a very big thing; after all, I hardly get any comments anyway—not ones that you can see. The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal: The spammers and trolls have a lot to say, and I'm tired of dealing with them—and that's just the ones that get through the spam filter. There are better uses of bandwidth, not to mention my time and mental energy. I might put up with it if my posts generated the kind of wide-ranging, mutually-supportive back-and-forth discussions of events and ideas that I have always enjoyed, but it's time to be honest and acknowledge that they rarely do. I no longer have the appetite for debate that I once did—or perhaps I've never liked the confrontational style that many people seem to thrive on, and the kind of discussion I prefer is getting rarer.

A few people comment on the blog; others contact me privately if they have something to say. E-mail contact will remain an option, and most of what I write will continue to be cross-posted on Facebook. Unless I finally give up on that platform as well; who knows? I will miss those whose occasional comments encourage me that yes, someone is reading.

I will keep comments enabled for some categories, such as Pray for Grace and Genealogy, which are most likely to attract curious and helpful interactions. And I may occasionally open comments for other posts, when it seems warranted.

I'm not giving up on the blog itself, that's for sure. I've been at this for a quarter of a century, and this post will be number 3500! I see no reason to stop, and many reasons to continue. For myself, for those who read my posts because they find information or encouragement or something else of value, and for those who might find value here in the future, even if they aren't right now in a place to appreciate it. If it were helpful only to me, I would still find it worth my time and effort to publish my thoughts—and I know there are others who like what I write.

But in order for my efforts to continue to be fun and productive, I need to keep my headspace clean and focused. Not having to deal with comments—whether they are scammers trying to sell me products for body parts I don't have, or random people asking me to publish their own articles, or anything that tempts me to get involved in arguments—should help.

I may change my mind again sometime, but this is what I need to do for now.

I feel lighter already.

As you know, I've been playing with using Microsoft Copilot to create images; I was quite happy with my Bonnie Warrior experience. I still can't draw, so I went back to Copilot for the illustrations I wanted for my Don't Kill the Messenger meme (click image to enlarge).

After a little work, I was happy with the image of the shocked accountant. Next, I wanted to work with an image of a firing squad. I asked Copilot, "draw a cartoon of a firing squad." Its response? "I'm really sorry, but I can't help with that request. If there's something else you'd like to discuss or create, feel free to let me know!"

Already I didn't like its tone of voice. Especially the exclamation point at the end. And there is absolutely no reason Copilot could not have drawn a firing squad; if all the data that went into its training did not include plenty of references to firing squads, with images, then it is completely disconnected from reality. How then could I trust it with anything?

Clearly, this was not a matter of ignorance, but of censorship. Censorship even crazier and less justified than suspending a seven-year-old from school when he bit his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun. So I decided to test it out a bit.

Draw a gun? "I'm afraid I can't talk about that topic, sorry about that."

Draw a guillotine? "I'm sorry, but it seems I can't help out with this one."

Draw a picture of the French Revolution? Copilot produced a picture of a happy, cheering crowd of people waving French flags. 

Draw a knife? Ah, now we're getting somewhere. One knife coming up. A kitchen knife—with a happy smile on its face.

Okay, censorship clearly established. How to get around it? After many variations of trying to get a drawing of blindfolded men up against a grey wall, I settled for the one above, a single, courageous, and determined accountant standing in front of what looks like a prison.

Next problem: I wanted a background that conveyed a feeling of threat without distracting from the story. You would not believe how hard it was to get a threatening background of any sort. Every image that Copilot offered me looked more like something parents would choose for their child's nursery wallpaper. By including "clouds" in my request I managed to get something storm-like, but every effort produced something with the sun peeking through. My harshest request for something genuinely scary did produce a collage of lions, tigers, and other genuinely dangerous animals; however, they were all in a repetitive, child's wallpaper pattern, and they were all happy-looking cartoon animals. And not with the "I'm happy because I'm about to eat you" look, either.

I settled for the standard, grey, gradient above.

Having gotten those images figured out, I went to work on my Frog-in-the-Kettle meme. It shouldn't have been so hard. Undoubtedly, Copilot knows the frog-in-the-kettle story; how hard could it be to add someone in the act of pulling the frog out of his predicament? I didn't document all the variations I had to work through, but it reminded me of the early days of using search engines: Before Google got so clever, success depended largely on the skill one had in devising inquiries with just the right combination of words.

The real problem was a variation on the nursery-wallpaper situation above. For a story with a very dark theme, Copilot had a decidedly happy-go-lucky bias. So many cheerful frogs partying around cute tea pots! I finally managed to craft an image that would do. It certainly would have taken less time if only I could draw!

In the end, I decided that Copilot was simply toying with me.  Time to end my experiments and go to bed, before I died of sentimental sweetness-and-light.

I've made no secret of the fact that I don't like the movie Forrest Gump.  The era of the late 60's and early 70's was a really weird time for our country (and much of the Western world): uncomfortable, ugly, deranged, disagreeable, void of reason and sense.  Quite a bit like the last decade or so, in fact.  Watching Forrest Gump brought all that back, and I appreciated neither the reminder nor what I believe was an attempt to whitewash the times.

You'd think I'd have the same reaction to Pirates of Silicon Valley, which I watched recently, since it deals with some of the same era.  But I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Here's the descritpion from Eric Hunley's Unstructured.

Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's 1984 book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, it explores the impact that the rivalry between Jobs (Apple Computer) and Gates (Microsoft) had on the development of the personal computer. The film premiered on TNT on June 20, 1999.

Two things made this a movie I would enjoy watching again.  One is that it shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of that era without either oversensationalizing it or making excuses.  The Promethean heroes who brought the power of computers to Everyman were severely flawed, but they were still heroes.

Even more than that, I loved the movie because it brought back good memories, especially at the beginning.  The early days of computing were messy, but they were also exciting.  I still remember sitting in a small room at the University of Rochester's Goler House, listening to Carl Helmers expounding on the wonders of the Apple 1 computer, which he demonstrated using a cassette tape as an input device.  Porter and I looked at each other and said, "I want to buy stock in this company!" Unfortunately, Apple was not publicly traded then, and when it did go public, we were out of the loop and missed the IPO of $22/share and the chance to turn $1000 into $2.5 million.  (My father did the same thing when he chose to buy our first house instead of investing the money in Haloid, as recommended by a friend who had just visited the company.  Haloid later became Xerox.)  We didn't get rich, but we did enjoy being on the fringes of the wild-and-woolly frontier.

Moving on in the 21st century, I did a little playing this morning with Microsoft's Copilot AI. This time, instead of creating images, I asked questions.

I realize that the great danger with asking questions of Automated Idiocy is the biases that are built in, either unintentionally or on purpose. Wikipedia, unfortunately, has developed the same problem, so I'm no stranger to the need to be careful with results. But even Wikipedia can be a great source of information about which there is little dissent, so I began with an inquiry about the availability of Heinz Curry Mango Sauce, which I have not been able to find in this country, despite Heinz being headquartered in Pittsburgh. Copilot quickly suggested three places where I could buy it: Walmart (but it was unavailable when I checked their site), Amazon (also unavailable), and someplace called Pantry.me, which claims to have it, but out of my price range, especially when you add the cost of shipping it to the U.S. Still, Copilot tried, and give me hope that someday Walmart may actually carry it.

Next I asked it to find "Sal's Birdland Sauce," having momentarily forgotten that the name they're using now is "Sal's Sassy Sauce." Despite the incorrect name, Copilot found the item immediately, though for a price that leaves me happy to rely on the generosity of a friend who regularly visits cities with Wegmans supermarkets, where Sal's Sauce can often be found. Or to use my own recipe, which I'm free to say is quite good.

Then I asked a more controversial question: Where can I find ivermectin? First it gave me a stern warning that ivermectin must only be used "under medical supervision"—which is actually not true, depending on where you live; our friends from Ecuador can buy it over the counter at the local pharmacy. But after that it did give me some sources.

Finally, I asked about Switzerland's recommendations with regard to the Covid-19 shots, and received this response.

As of spring and summer 2023, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) is not recommending COVID-19 vaccines for its citizens, even for high-risk individuals.

You can still get them, if you insist. If you can convince your doctor to make the recommendation, the shots will be paid for; otherwise you can still get them as long as you pay the costs yourself.

Back to Copilot one more time, where I learned that the United States still recommends the shots for

Everyone aged 6 months and older...including women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant.

As I even now listen to the Senate confirmation hearings of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., all I can do is pray that our recommendations will change soon, especially for the children and babies.

Maybe you all knew this, but I did not, so I'm posting it, because it's very helpful.

I use Google Calendar, and am for the most part pleased with it. But I have always been frustrated by the "Holidays in the United States" calendar. I want to know the major holidays, especially those that change from year to year. I do not want my calendar cluttered up with days that mean nothing to me, or worse, cause me to grind my teeth. And I mean cluttered. If you're like me, your calendar shows not only your events, but those of other people: your spouse, your children, your church, your children's soccer teams.... I don't want another precious space in the day taken up by being informed that it's the first day of Women's History Month.

There is a way out.

1. In your calendar, if you can't see the left-side panel, click on the Main Menu drop-down (three lines) in the upper left, to bring the side panel out.
2. Under "Other calendars," hover over "Holidays in the United States" click on the three vertical dots to the right, and choose "Settings."
3. Under "Holiday calendar content," click on "Select them in 'Regional holidays.'" This takes you to a page where
4. Under "Holidays in the United States," expand "Public holidays." Now you can customize as you wish. Columbus Day offends you? Off with its head! (On your own calendar—leave the rest of ours alone.)
5. Expand "Other observances." This is where you can really go to town. I took my machete to every instance of "First Day of XXX Month" with glee. If you don't really care what day Easter is, take it out. Sorry, however—unchecking "Tax Day" does not get you a break with the IRS.

That's it. Enjoy your new-found calendar freedom.

Or, if you're one of the few who would like to see more entries on your daily schedule, there's a section where you can add holidays from all around the world. Holidays in Switzerland, for example. Or in the Gambia. Or Timor-Leste, for that matter.

UPDATE: This works great for my laptop, but unfortunately my preferences are not carrying over to my phone's calendar, as I discovered when it informed me this morning that today is "Native American Heritage Day." I'm all for celebrating Native American Heritage, but I don't need a day for it and neither does my calendar. One of these days I hope to figure out how to fix that, but it's not high priority right now. If anyone has successfully dealt with the problem, please speak up!

Microsoft caught me.

I have been avoiding ChatGPT and other AI temptations for a long time, particularly when I receive invitations to use AI for my writing. I am confident enough to prefer what I write myself, thank you!

Drawing, however, is another matter. When Microsoft's Copilot recently—and unexpectedly—appeared in my Windows Taskbar, I was a bit disconcerted, but intrigued enough to give it a try.

I wanted a picture for Grace, to go with the caption, "Happy 3rd birthday, bonnie warrior!" After about 15 minutes of work, this is what I chose.

These are some of the iterations along the way. My second choice was the manga-looking image on the right.

That was fun!

Like many people this morning, I tried to check Facebook.

Oh, crap, they're making me log in again, and they've changed the system. I hate it when they take a working system and try to make it "easier." Just click the profile picture of the account you want.

Forget it, I'll log in the regular way. Nope, that doesn't work.

[After trying other options] Okay, I'll play. Click the image. Put in password. Invalid password? Are you kidding me? [Double check password] No, that's the right one. Now what?

Forget it, I'll just use my phone. What? They're forcing me to log out? And still saying invalid password?

[Resort to Google] No new news.

[Ask my friends] Can you get into Facebook? Okay, they have the same problem.

[Try Google again] Looks like a global problem. Instagram and Messenger are also down.

[Check Twitter] Hmm, lots of people gloating.

So, is it Chinese/Russian/North Korean hackers who now have all our passwords and personal information?

My own theory is that the Meta folks decided to implement some login changes, threw the new code in without adequate testing, and screwed everything up. This is based on my all-too-real experience with the way software is written, tested, and implemented these days. (If that sounds like our recent experience with pharmaceuticals, well, yes, but that's a story for another time.)

I really don't want to give up Facebook. Like it or not, even though I have my very own blog, it's through cross-posts on Facebook that I keep in touch with a number of friends. But maybe I could get used to it, like getting accustomed to having just one car after 40 years with two. Maybe it could be fun for a while, as when power outages force you to read a book instead of watch TV.

In case this helps someone:

I attempted to post a comment to a friend's blog, which I had done many times in the past, though not recently. After sending it, up popped a request to "prove you're not a robot." That was not something I expected, but it's not uncommon, and as I said, I hadn't commented on that site recently. Perhaps they had instituted new security.

In any case, I was distracted and clearly not paying enough attention when I complied and clicked the "Allow" button as requested. As you have guessed, this was not a legitimate request, and by clicking there I allowed something called ssqltuh.quartzquester.top to give push notifications in my Chrome browser. Which it proceeded to do.

At least that got my attention, and I knew better than to click on any of those.

I ran a full-scale Windows Security scan overnight. It found a handful of minor threats, which it took care of. But nothing about this one, and when I again brought up Chrome, it produced not one but several of those notifications.

Time to research. Using the Edge browser this time. There were some more exhaustive suggestions for getting rid of the problem, but I started with the simplest: I became acquainted with the feature under Chrome's Settings that controls what websites are allowed to push notifications: From the three dots menu in the upper right, choose Settings - Privacy and Security - Site Settings - Permissions - Notifications. Lo and behold, the nasty site was allowed. I changed that, and—thus far at least—it looks to have done the job.

The moral of the story?

• Bad actors are continually becoming more and more clever, and
• No matter how careful you think you are, anyone can be caught off guard at a bad moment.

Since we always buy used cars, I may not live long enough to get a cool car like the one my sister-in-law just bought. It has some impressive features, such as using facial recognition to know which of its regular drivers is sitting in the driver's seat, and adjusting the seat and mirrors accordingly. It has camera vision all around the car, and if in spite of all that you are about to back into an obstacle, it applies the brakes for you. It does many more cool things, including getting you from Point A to Point B, the last being pretty much where it and my own car intersect.

Recently I read an article that somewhat cooled my auto-envy: Modern Cars Are a Data Privacy "Nightmare," Says Study, in the International Business Times. If you're happy with your fancy modern car, don't read it. Elon Musk-haters will probably get an ironic kick out of it. It's a short article. Here's a teaser:

"Modern cars are a privacy nightmare" at a time when "car makers have been bragging about their cars being 'computers on wheels'", said Mozilla, which is best known for its privacy-conscious Firefox web browser. "While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines."

Tesla was the worst offender, according to the study, with Nissan coming in second and singled out for seeking some of the "creepiest categories" of data, including sexual activity.

The study found that a staggering 84 percent of car brands admitted to sharing users' personal data with service providers, data brokers, and other undisclosed businesses.

Today's connected vehicles not only mine data from driving, but track in-vehicle entertainment and third-party functions such as satellite radio or maps.

Enjoy your next ride!

I began this blog almost 20 years ago, a fact that astounds me. In those years I have written some 3200 posts. Where have those 20 years gone? Have I accomplished anything good through those posts?

Perhaps it's time to revisit what I wrote about why I began to publish my thoughts.

Lift Up Your Hearts! can most charitably be called "eclectic." Some blogs are political, some personal journals, some accumulate interesting articles and news stories, some keep far-flung families in contact, some are formed around a specific cause or issue. I aim to be jack-of-all-trades, and if that means being master of none, I see nothing wrong with that. It depends on your audience. Five-star restaurants require highly-trained and gifted chefs, but I'd take my mother's home cooking and the family dinner table any day.

Fine. But why? Why do I put so much time and effort into blogging? What do I hope to accomplish?

I post first of all because I can't stop my mind from writing, and it's helpful to give concrete expression to the phrases, paragraphs, and essays that are constantly churning within my brain. The blog is a particularly satisfactory way of getting my thoughts into print: the primary audience may be small, but they're loyal readers, and occasionally people stop by from all over the world and find something useful. I can write what I want, when I want, with no pesky editors, stockholders or advertisers to interfere.

Because I write primarily for family members and friends who actually enjoy hearing about the details of our lives, there are a number of posts that are personal and of no interest to the general public, whoever that may be. I make no apology. You don't like it? Don't read it. This is not high school English class. There will be no homework grade and no final exam.

Then there are the random posts of odd bits of news, posts from other blogs, and anything else good or ill that has struck me as worth sharing. There's a lot of data out there, with a very poor signal-to-noise ratio. If I find something good, important, or thought-provoking, I want to increase its visibility.

It is obvious to me that most of the best ideas I've had, and the good decisions I've made, especially in the areas of childrearing and education, came because someone else was willing to share them. I take some credit for implementing and expanding ideas, and for having a few of my own, but I'm keenly aware that most of what I've done right I owe to someone's book, someone's conversation, someone's example. What's more, there have been many, many ideas about which I've thought, "Why didn't I know this years ago, before it was too late? Why didn't someone tell me?" For this reason I have not hesitated to pass on good ideas when I think the recipient might be receptive, or at least interested. I love to give books that I've found helpful, though I almost always add the caveat that I don't necessarily approve of everything the author has to say. Sometimes there's much I don't like, but always there's at least something I find so valuable I want to share it. Do I expect everyone to appreciate what I find valuable? Of course not. Am I offended if they ignore what I find important? No. Do I direct certain books or articles at specific people because I think they "need" them? Believe it or not, I don't. I share what I find good, useful, enlightening, or helpful. I want to make information available, in hopes that fewer people will look back and say, "I wish someone had told me about that before."

Blogging provides many more opportunities than giving away a few books, and that's another reason I write. This is the one area where I think of a wider audience; someone, somewhere out there may care about what I have learned about xylitol, or epidurals, or math curricula. Again, I don't apologize for writing what some may not find interesting; if you don't like it, skip it. But if you find something valuable in it, and especially if you have something to add to the discussion, I greatly appreciate comments. Let them, however be polite. While I don't hesitate to publish comments I disagree with, I also don't hesitate to delete comments I deem offensive; I am the sole judge of "polite" for this blog.

One thing all my posts have in common is commentary. You get my opinion on politics, education, and health; on books and movies; on bike trails and genealogy. More often you get my opinion-in-progress, as writing is as much my way of forming thoughts as of expressing them. What you won't get is something directed as a weapon against you—certain public persons excepted, although even then I prefer to challenge ideas, not people. I write from my own accumulated knowledge and experience; whether you agree or disagree, your own experiences are more than welcome. My best work still comes from those who are willing to share.

Disclaimer: I'm a grandmother, not a doctor, lawyer, certified teacher, or other expert. I offer my experiences and opinions, not professional advice. Check with your own advisors, do your own research, and use your own common sense.

The blog never did become the discussion forum I had envisioned, but I'm not sorry about that. I had hoped to recreate on a larger scale the wonderful intellectual discussions I had enjoyed—especially when we lived near the University of Rochester—with people who cared about some of the same things I care about, whether or not we agreed about them, supporting each other in areas of agreement, learning from each other in areas where we differed. And indeed I have experienced some of that here, but the political and social climate of today plus the anonymity of the Internet is not conducive to the kind of helpful discussions I was hoping for.

By now you must be wondering if this is a swan song, and I'm about to announce the end of my blog. Not at all. I still need to write. The phrases and paragraphs continue to well up and swirl around in my brain whenever I am awake—and probably in my sleep as well. What's more, I need to write to an audience: For years I kept a journal, and now find it an invaluable source of information, but as an outlet it was less than satisfying to be talking to myself. I've tried publishing newsletters for family and friends, and while I have certainly enjoyed creating them, they were more for news than for thoughts. The blog has been perfect as a thinking aid.

I am not quitting this valuable format. I have, sometimes, considered a different platform, perhaps one a little more private (e.g. subscription-based), but haven't moved in that direction yet. I just keep going along as things are.

However, I have other writing projects that are crying out for more of my time. They don't serve the same purposes, but their own purposes are important, and they need my attention. Time is limited; just so is my "writing energy" limited. To focus on these other projects, I need to curtail some of my work here. Which is difficult, because writing here is one of the great joys of my life.

I'm not stopping. I don't even want to blog less frequently, if I can help it. There's more data than ever out there, with an even worse signal-to-noise ratio. If I find something good, important, or thought-provoking, I still want to increase its visibility. As a rule, I'd rather not just have someone's bare recommendation of a book, movie, podcast, video, or article, but want to know more about why the person recommends it. But I'm planning to violate my own rule, and do a lot more of pointing my readers to something I've found valuable, with maybe some commentary but a lot less, with fewer quotations and fine-tuning, which take a lot of time. After twenty years, my regular readers know enough about me to either trust, or not trust, my recommendations. What's more, I trust my readers to judge what's valuable to them at this point in their lives, and am content just to put the information out there.

For good or for ill, commentary will only be reduced, not gone. I still have plenty to say and opinions to flesh out here. For now, I'll just see how this experiment goes, and if it spurs progress on other fronts.

My heartfelt gratitude to all who have found my writing useful enough to hang in there for so long!

You know I'm a big fan of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying—the folks I call my favorite Left Coast Liberals. There's a lot we disagree about, but plenty of common ground, and I admire their dogged search for truth and willingness to follow where it leads, even if that sometimes aligns them with people they were once taught to despise.

For longer than I have known of them, YouTube has been profiting off their popular DarkHorse Podcast without remunerating them in any way. That is, YouTube "demonetized" them, which means that they can no longer get revenue from the ads YouTube attaches to their posts. The ads are still there, but YouTube takes all the profit for themselves, instead of just a percentage. (Okay, I'm aware that 100% is also a percentage; you know what I mean.) It's a dirty trick, and forces content creators to tie themselves in knots trying to avoid giving YouTube an excuse to demonetize them or to shut them down altogether. In frustration and protest, many creators have left YouTube. But that's a tough way to go, as YouTube's stranglehold as a video content platform is exceedingly strong.

One alternative that has become more and more popular is Rumble, largely because it makes a point of censoring only the most egregious content (e.g. pornography, illegal behavior) while encouraging free speech and debate, including unpopular views—such as the idea that the COVID-19 virus was originally created in the Wuhan lab during U.S.-sponsored gain-of-function research. While widely accepted now, it was not long ago that expressing such an opinion on YouTube was a fast track to oblivion.

Rumble has been steadily making improvements, but it's still not as polished and easy to use as YouTube. YouTube still has a virtual monopoly, so few content creators can afford to drop it altogether. And if your content has no political, medical, or socially-unacceptable content, it's hard to find the incentive to make the effort to switch. So I won't be boycotting YouTube any time soon. 

That said, I'm glad to see that while we were out of the country, DarkHorse began moving to Rumble. Apparently they will do what many other creators have done, keeping a smaller presence on YouTube, which has by far the wider reach, while enduing Rumble with additional content. Viva Frei, for example (my favorite Canadian lawyer's site), does the first half hour or so of his podcast on both YouTube and Rumble, then invites his YouTube viewers to move to Rumble for the rest of the show. How it will eventually work out for DarkHorse I don't know yet, but for the moment, their podcasts still appear on YouTube, but the question-and-answer sessions, along with some other content, are exclusive to Rumble.

In honor of DarkHorse's new venue, and to give myself a chance to learn how to embed a Rumble video here, the following is the Q&A session from Podcast #175.

Embedding the video turned out go be easy enough, but I haven't yet figured out how to specify beginning and ending times. So I'll just mention that the section from 12:47 to 31:10, where Bret and Heather deal with the subject of childhood vaccinations, is particularly profitable.  It may lead some of my readers to realize how insightful they themselves were many long years ago.

Heather's brief environmental rant from 1:11:35 to 1:12:45 is also worth listening to.

As part of my ongoing project to organize and pare down my files (physical and digital) to something understandable to someone other than me (i.e. my heirs), I've been coming across many interesting glimpses of history. I try not to read more than a very small fraction of these, for the sake of making progress, but every once in a while something catches my eye.

We discovered e-mail long before 1993, but this is the oldest reference I've found so far.

GE Electronic Mail
To: W.LANGDON
Sub: Saturday, 30 January 1993

This is a test of GEnie on our new machine! Our new tape drive
appears to be a good one. I backed up the hard drive, Porter
repartitioned it into three drives, including a small one just for
Aladdin. (This is so if Aladdin crashes and fouls up our file
allocation tables, it doesn't mess up the rest of our stuff.) We
moved Aladdin and associated files this afternoon. It appears to
work and it's even in color!

Some of you may be wondering what our "new machine" was.

In November of 1992, we ordered a "Gateway 2000 clock-doubled 66 MHz 486 machine" (original cow boxes!), with

• 200 Mb hard drive
• 1.44 Mb 3 1/2 inch drive
• 1.2 Mb 5 1/4 drive
• 120 Mb streaming tape drive for backup
• 8 Mb of memory
• 14-inch color SVGA monitor
• 33 MHz local bus
• and a tower case with one expansion slot reserved for CD-ROM. "CD-ROM technology is supposed to make major improvements shortly, so, while it is very attractive, we’re waiting on that one."At

At the time, I wrote the following.

It completely amazes me how much you can get for relatively little money these days. Total cost, including shipping: $3115. I know, that hardly seems “little,” but you have to remember that we once spent $1500 for an Intecolor graphics terminal, and then later had it repaired for $900! And that was when $2400 was worth a lot more than it is now. And our 14-year-old printer cost us $800. I’d really like a new printer, since with the Epson we can’t take advantage of a lot of what the new machines and software can do, and people are more and more frowning on dot-matrix letters. But I have to respect a piece of computer equipment that’s that old and still working as well as the day we got it!

Inflation calculators vary, but most put the cost of that 1993 machine at about $6650 in today's dollars. And our dot-matrix printer? $3300! This is not even attempting to take into account the difference in computing power between then and now. What really blows me away is that the $2400 we paid for the color terminal and its subsequent repair works out to nearly ten grand! 

We were normally very good about sticking to a lean budget, but since computing was both vocation and avocation for each of us, well.... All I can say is that it's a good thing we were otherwise quite self-controlled in our spending. When it came to computing equipment, we had colleagues who were even more free-spending than we were—disproportionate to other areas of life. I guess it was the nature of the new, exciting field.

I'm going to have to remember this when it comes time to buy a new computer or a new phone.

A liberal Democrat Constitutional lawyer speaks on why everyone should be concerned about illegal behavior on the part of the FBI, and why he's involved in a lawsuit against "his own" party's actions. The video is long (26 minutes), and more relevant at the beginning than the end. You can get a good summary at about minutes 13-17. Or just this:

The Constitution is not only for people you agree with; it's primarily designed to protect people you disagree with, people whose views are out of fashion, people who everybody wants to see prosecuted.... I'm going to especially, especially, focus on people who are having their Constitutional rights violated by my political party, by my people who I voted for ... that's the special obligation that every citizen has to hold to account those who are on your side.

Also, look at about minutes 5-10, covering search warrants, and the dangers of having our whole lives on our cell phones. One day, out of the blue, we may find government officials seizing our phones, and our computers, and our external drives, ruining our businesses and even our lives in ways that cannot be redressed, even if we are eventually vindicated in court. So it behooves us to be grateful for those lawyers and politicians who seek to enforce strict Constitutional limits on when and how that is allowed—even against the most heinous people. (Cue the A Man for All Seasons devil and the law speech.)

Also, who knew (about 8:30-9:15) that it's safer—from the point of view of privacy—to store medications in a medicine cabinet rather than in a drawer?