Lift Up Your Hearts!

Do e-mail, SMS, Facebook, Skype, and other quick-and-easy forms of communication, in an increasingly non-literate society, spell doom for the U.S. Postal Service?  We'd better hope not, especially those of us who like to send and receive packages.  If you think mailing a package overseas is outrageously expensive—and I do, except for the great Priority Mail Large Video Box—try using one of the other parcel services.  

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I think one problem the U.S. Postal Service has is that the prices are too low. It costs our daughter twice as much to send a letter from Switzerland as it costs us to write back. (Though they do get to design and print their own stamps for no additional charge!  There's nothing like getting a letter with a picture of your grandchild on it.) And this is what one Canadian eBay seller has to say:

Although I live in Canada, in Winnipeg, I make the 150 mile round-trip to Neche, North Dakota, to mail most parcels ... this allows me to pass on the savings in postage from USPS, which is a lot cheaper than Canada Post (and faster). In fact, it is even cheaper to ship books back to Canada from the USA, [than] it is to ship them in Canada, unless they are very thin!

I don't like the upcoming postal increase any more than the next person, but I'll happily pay more if that reflects the true cost of the service.  Let's continue to expect the best from our postal service, and give them the resources needed to do the job right.

[I know most of you are waiting for Baby News, but as that has not yet been forthcoming, I have to improvise.]

A series of experiments at Notre Dame sheds light on on the perennial "Why did I come into this room?" question.  Here are some excerpts from the Scientific American article, Why Walking through a Doorway Makes You Forget.  Most of the experiments were done in a video-game context, but the same effect was seen in real-life versions as well.

[Participants played a video game in which] they would walk up to a table with a colored geometric solid sitting on it. Their task was to pick up the object and take it to another table, where they would put the object down and pick up a new one. Whichever object they were currently carrying was invisible to them, as if it were in a virtual backpack.  Sometimes, to get to the next object the participant simply walked across the room. Other times, they had to walk the same distance, but through a door into a new room. From time to time, the researchers gave them a pop quiz, asking which object was currently in their backpack.  The quiz was timed so that when they walked through a doorway, they were tested right afterwards.  Their responses were both slower and less accurate when they'd walked through a doorway into a new room than when they'd walked the same distance within the same room.

Usually, returning to the room I started from will remind me of why I left in the first place.  But the researchers did not find that to be the case in their experiments.

[P]articipants sometimes picked up an object, walked through a door, and then walked through a second door that brought them either to a new room or back to the first room.  If matching the context is what counts, then walking back to the old room should boost recall. It did not.

The doorway effect suggests that there's more to the remembering than just what you paid attention to, when it happened, and how hard you tried.  Instead, some forms of memory seem to be optimized to keep information ready-to-hand until its shelf life expires, and then purge that information in favor of new stuff. ... [W]alking through a doorway is a good time to purge your event models because whatever happened in the old room is likely to become less relevant now that you have changed venues. ... Other changes may induce a purge as well:  A friend knocks on the door, you finish the task you were working on, or your computer battery runs down and you have to plug in to recharge.

Why would we have a memory system set up to forget things as soon as we finish one thing and move on to another?  Because we can’t keep everything ready-to-hand, and most of the time the system functions beautifully.

Take heart, distracted mothers!  That which frustrates you so badly was apparently designed to help with the rapid context-switching essential to your vocation.

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Don't forget NORAD Tracks Santa!  (I see they have some new videos this year.)  As I write this, Santa is at the International Space Station.  I'd love to see what a reindeer wears for a space suit.

— 2 —

This is for our children, who never considered themselves Disney fans as the world knows Disney, but who grew up in Mickey's backyard.  Happy memories! (H/T Richard S. and the GGGAMB)

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

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This will be my last 7 Quick Takes Friday, at least on a regular basis.  It's been fun thinking in this way, and I have enjoyed reading other people's Quick Takes.  But it takes a lot of time (it's not "quick" for the writer, at least not for me), and if I spread the work out over the week, well, why not publish immediately rather than wait till Friday?  I think getting seven posts all at once overwhelms some of my readers, too.  Perhaps I'll do more 7 Quick Thanks posts, or gradually collect short posts around a theme for an occasional 7 Quick Takes.

It's probably due more to the season than to my joining the 7 Quick Takes gang, but I've been overwhelmed with spam comments since commencing.  I wonder if it will drop off now (whether due to my dropping out or to the end of the infamous Shopping Season), or if that door has been opened never to close.

Any real, human readers who stopped by via the 7 Quick Takes program are welcome to come here directly.  :)

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Requiem Aeternam Dona Ei, Domine.   One of my strongest memories from 1968 is the feeling of desolation as Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. RIP Václav Havel.

"Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate."

— 3 —

Steven E. Landsburg was a math classmate of mine at the University of Rochester.  I remember him chiefly for his brilliance and for his decision to forgo a bachelor's degree in favor of a master's because the master's program had no physical education and language requirements.  (The link in his name takes you to the Wikipedia article on Steve, which has, as far as I can tell, at least one error—I believe it was his bachelor's degree, not his master's, that he received after becoming a professor of economics at the U of R.  The University of Chicago would hardly have accepted him into its PhD program with no degree at all.)  Steve appeared in the Wall Street Journal last month with this article:  A Short Econ Quiz for the Super Committee.  Here's how it ends:

The government's chief asset—in fact, pretty much its only asset—is its ability to tax people, now and in the future. The taxpayers are the government's ATM. Make a withdrawal today, and there's less available tomorrow.

Now the ability to tax is a pretty huge asset and the government has not (yet!) come close to depleting it. In that sense, there's a lot of money in the bank. But no matter how much you've got in the bank, a policy of ever-increasing withdrawals is nothing at all like a decision to earn more income. It's important to get the analogy right. And it's clear from the blogs and the op-ed pages that not everybody gets this.

Instead, the notion persists that an extra trillion in federal spending can be converted from "irresponsible" to "responsible" as long as it's accompanied by an extra trillion in tax hikes. That's like saying a $500 haircut can be converted from "irresponsible'' to "responsible'' as long as you withdraw the $500 from your bank account. If the super committee loses sight of this fundamental truth, it is doomed to fail.

Once upon a time, the United States had huge assets independent of its ability to tax people.  We had the better part of a whole continent, in fact.  Sometimes I wonder if we were any wiser than Napoleon in disposing of our riches.

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Too Much of a Good Thing? I love Christmas music, and we have a huge collection thereof:  over 500 songs at last count, from Medieval chant to Mannheim Steamroller.  I'm not complaining!  But I do wonder, occasionally, if I might have been richer as a young child, with three or four 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records of Christmas music that I loved dearly, knowing nearly every word, note, and album cover by heart.

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Brad Smith.  Brad who?  That's what I said.  Our Christmas collection has been enriched by the fact that Janet's massive CD collection largely resides with us, and this year I added her Christmas music to the playlist on the mp3 player that pours out random Christmas treats as we go about our work.  With all the new music, I often found myself thinking, "That's a wonderful arrangement; what's it from?"  Time and time again the answer turned out to be Brad Smith's The Gift:  A Christmas Celebration.  (Click on the link to hear samples.)  A little research revealed that Brad Smith is a master craftsman—a woodworker.  But he is also an artist of a different sort, a musician—a master of the oboe and English horn, as a matter of fact, which explains both his presence in Janet's collection and my captivation with his music.

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 Variations on a Dream (Cookie).   Dream Cookies were a favorite with my family growing up, and equally so with our family now.  I don't know where the original recipe came from; as far as I'm concerned, it's my mother's.  :)  It came a bit later in my life than the other cookie recipes I consider essential for a traditional Christmas, but I'll bet my siblings don't remember a time without Dream Cookies.  Here is the original recipe:

Dream Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened  (Actually, we often used margarine, back in the days when it was considered healthier.  The taste was still good, though different.)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 300°F.  Cream butter; add sugar, and beat until light.  Mix in vanilla.  Sift dry ingredients together.  Add and mix well.  Form into small balls; dip in colored sugar crystals and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 18 minutes until done but not browned.  Alternatively, instead of dipping dough in sugar crystals, try dipping warm, baked cookies in a mixture of ¼ cup confectioner's sugar and 1 teaspoon nutmeg.

And here's the new version I created recently.  It was a huge hit.

Variations on a Dream

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon Penzeys double-strength vanilla (Regular vanilla would probably do.)
• 1 tablespoon Penzeys almond extract (I'm a Penzeys snob, but you could use another brand.)
• 2 cups King Arthur white whole wheat flour (Does anyone else make white whole wheat flour?)
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 300°F.  Cream butter; add sugar, and beat until light.  Mix in vanilla and almond flavorings.  Stir dry ingredients together.  Add and mix well.  Form into small balls (we always did this by hand, but I find my new cookie scoop works very well, too); dip in colored sugar crystals and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 18 minutes until done but not browned.  I suspect the powdered sugar/nutmeg version would not work well with the almond flavor, but who knows?

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Thoughts on the Incarnation.  For years I unthinkingly accepted the admonition that Easter should be a more important holiday for Christians than Christmas.  After all, the resurrection of Christ is the one spectacular event on which Christianity stands or falls.

Or is it?  If it is unique and astonishing that a man so clearly dead should in three days be so clearly alive, and alive in such a new way that he has a physical body (that can be touched, and fed) and yet comes and goes through space in a manner more befitting science fiction—is it any less unique and astonishing that God, the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, should become a human being, not in the shape-shifting ways of the Greek gods, but through physical birth, with human limitations?

Debating which holiday is more significant for a Christian is like asking whether my left or my right leg is more important for running.

A very Merry Christmas to all !

God bless us, every one.

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This is for my Carngie Mellon MechE grad daughter, who loves gears.  Check out the rest of this Celebrating a Simple Life post for more fascinating videos and a TED lecture by kinetic sculptor David Roy.

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One of my favorite lost causes.  Just when the Republicans have about convinced me to vote for Barack Obama in the coming election, along comes Joe Biden to shove me in the other direction.  The Obama administration has given up on the dollar coin.    "Nobody wants them," Biden said.  One would think a politician would know better than to call any voter a "nobody."  I want the dollar coins, very much, and make a point of spending them when I get the opportunity.  I'd like to see two- and five-dollar coins, as well.  What I don't want are 1-, 5-, and maybe even 10-cent coins. and yet "the Mint says it is committed to producing the one-cent pieces."  My Favorite Economist says that is technically an incorrect statement:  The Mint has nothing to say about what gets minted—that is completely up to Congress.  Which is why the dollar coins will still be minted in limited quantities.  It's also a specious argument to say that eliminating the coin will save $50 million per year, without mentioning how much would be saved by eliminating the dollar bill.  I've seen estimates ranging from $183 million to $500 million per year, depending on whether or not we bite the bullet and close down the secondary branch of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Here's more from My Favorite Economist:

Getting rid of the bill makes more sense.  Did we have 10-cent bills when we were kids?  A dime from then (pre-65) is worth over $2.30 in silver now.  Even using the government's own inflation numbers a dollar is down to 13.7 cents from 1964.

Politically, however, the powerful states Massachusetts and Texas are both against the idea.  Massachusetts is where the paper for our currency is made, and the second Bureau of Engraving and Printing—which could be eliminated if the $1 bill were no longer printed—is in Texas.  In this season of "payroll tax holidays" and other stupid PR moves to give the public bread and circuses, reasoned argument does not prevail.

Americans are wedded to the $1 bill because they think if it exists it will still be worth something.  Getting rid of it is a psychological admission that the currency has gone to junk.  Same thing about the utterly useless cent.  Now there is a coin the Congress should eliminate.

You can read more about the benefits of replacing small-denomination bills with coins from the Dollar Coin Alliance.  The EU, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan are among the major countries where the change in your pocket has real value.  If we can't muster the political will to make this change, what hope do we ever have of adopting the metric system?  That switch was predicted to be "imminent" when I was a child ... half a century ago.

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The Tooth Fairy Economy.  It's all well and good to talk about inflation-adjusted dollar values, but what does it all mean?  When I was losing my primary teeth 50+ years ago, the Tooth Fairy routinely left a dime under my pillow (molars earned a quarter, presumably because of their size).  In 2011, according to the Official Tooth Fairy Poll, the average American child received $2.52 per tooth.  (I think the Tooth Fairy should leave coins, not bills, which is a bit awkward when your largest widely-circulating coin is the quarter.)

Do you want to know how the American economy is doing?  Forget Dow Jones and the NASDAQ—check out the Tooth Fairy Market Price:

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My Political Statement.  This year we ended our Christmas newsletter with the following:  I’ve spared you the mundane as well as the bad, the ugly, and a lot more of the good than you see here.  You don’t need to know about work frustrations (but still employed), computer problems (but still functioning), or health issues (but much to be thankful for); no doubt you have plenty of your own.  And you certainly don’t want to hear any comments about the current political or economic situation!  I'm sure that's true of most people, but one friend responded, "I would be very interested in your comments about the current political situation!."  So this is for you, Jamie.  (Not that I have any assurance that he ever reads this blog.....)

1. We have a Democratic president, many of whose policies I think are disastrous.  I pray for him daily.
2. We have a Republican state governor, many of whose policies I think are disastrous.  I pray for him daily.
3. In our most recent election I voted—with pleasure—in our non-partisan city mayoral race for someone with whom I have many areas of disagreement but who I believe has done a good job in the past.  I pray for her daily.
4. I wish I could make more political decisions as in #3.  I am not holding my breath.  But I'm still praying.

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A Plug for Penzeys.  Is is possible to have a political disagreement over spices?  Bill Penzey frequently writes essays in their catalogue that have political implications with which I disagree strongly.  (I've tried to engage in conversation, but for some reason he's too busy—providing the seasonings I love—to write back.)  That doesn't change a bit what I've said before:

Penzeys can be considered the Cadillac of spices.  You can certainly find herbs and spices for less money elsewhere.  But there are times when it's worth paying a little extra for quality, and quality is where Penzeys excels.  Variety, too—they have exotic herbs and spices I'd never heard of, plus a stunning variety of their own excellent blends.  They even excel in quantity, from tiny jars for the spices you use rarely, to large bags (at a commensurately lower per-ounce price) for greater needs.

My recent Penzeys experience deserves a public accolade, so here it is.

I was seeking a small gift that would say "thank you" to some people whose kindness I had particularly felt recently, and was having a hard time finding something that would be (1) appreciated, (2) healthful, (3) consumable, and (4) a little different.  Then my Penzeys catalogue arrived.

Their latest promotion, the Kind Heart gift box, is billed as "the perfect gift for those whose little acts of kindness have brightened your life."  Voilà!  I picked up the telephone.  When the representative told me the total price, I said, "That can't be right."  She replied, "Oh, if you think it's important to thank these people, it's important to us, too.  All you pay is the shipping charges."  That wasn't advertised!  It sure brightened my day, not so much for the savings, though they were appreciated, but for the delightful surprise and the attitude.  Of course you can't stay in business for long that way, and Penzeys is a good business.  What's particularly encouraging is they don't find any contradiction in being simultaneously committed to good quality, good business, and good deeds.

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Oatmeal Season.  Our weather has been warm again for a while—in that lovely range when the HVAC blows neither hot nor cold—but the first cold snap of the year was sufficient to reset my breakfast habits.  In the hot months I eat (homemade) granola, and in the cold, oatmeal (steel-cut Irish, or "old fashioned" rolled oats; not <shudder> the flavored, instant variety).  I really like oatmeal cooked in milk, but I use water to make clean-up easier, and add dry milk powder at the very end.  To me, oatmeal requires raisins.  The other flavorings I use include maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, cinnamon sugar, Penzeys Cake Spice sugar, various jams—or nothing at all (the steel-cut oats have a wonderful taste by themselves).  It's great to have a food that I love to eat and is good for me!  I'm not sure why oatmeal has such bad press, unless it's because of those packets of over-sweetened, over-processed mush that bear the same name on the grocery shelves....

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Thanks to the Occasional CEO, I now understand more about the new generation gap in communications.  Previous communication gaps had more to do with content than method, but this one is fundamental.

E-mail is a wonderful means of communication for those of us who love language and communicate better when we have time to think.  It has most of the advantages of postal mail but is much faster.

Our nephews (and their parents) text all the time.  I'll agree that texting has its place, but in my world that place is small and limited.  Since my cell phone doesn't do e-mail, I like texts when I'm away from home because you can send a message without (needing to) interrupt the recipient.  (It's even better when communicating with Switzerland, where texts are free for the recipient and for the sender cost a whole lot less than calls to a foreign cell phone.)  But even with a full keyboard (which my phone doesn't have), you still have to peck out a message one letter at a time, leading to incomplete sentences, lack of punctuation, and abbreviations, which are like fingernails on a blackboard to me.  U C?

Using the word "blackboard" reveals my age also, neh?

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A Facebook discussion set me to pondering what I have learned through the years about necessary and unnecessary stress at Christmastime.  Yes, I think there is such a thing as necessary stress.  The discussion was prompted by this quotation from Ann Voskamp:  Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ. Any weight in Christmas has to be of this world.

I appreciate the point, but I beg to differ, slightly.

The Christmas season, like all other seasons, has its own burdens and blessings. The work that goes into it, like the work that goes into life, can be delightful and can be stressful. I don't think it's a sign that we're doing something not of Christ just because it's stressful or burdensome.  Good things take work.  Labor, as in the birth of a baby.  The more effortless a work of art looks, and the more joy it brings to others (inspiring musical performance; smoothly-running household; creative, confident, well-behaved children), the more labor you can assume went into it.  Yet there's no denying that we can get so caught up in the effort that we miss the point, be it Christmas, or a wedding, or life itself.  (More)

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Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, but I wish we celebrated it in October, like the Canadians.  For one thing, winter weather would be much less likely to interfere with "over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go."  Okay, in this case, it's Grandmother who does the travelling, but you get the point.  October is a better time to have a harvest festival, anyway.  And since the commercial interests have already declared that the entire last quarter of the year is the Christmas shopping season, they could kick it off with Thanksgiving the way they used to.

— 2 —

It's almost impossible to celebrate the succession of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany in modern America.   Another benefit of moving Thanksgiving to October would be that it it would no longer step on Advent.  We almost always miss the solemn and lovely First Sunday in Advent because of our Thanksgiving travels.  Worse, it's difficult to concentrate on reflection, self-examination, repentence, and anticipation of Christ's return when everything around you—including most churches—is shouting, "Christmas!"  It's also unneighborly to be fasting when others invite you to a feast.

Then, when the anticipation has reached its height, and Christmas has been welcomed with bells on the midnight between December 24 and 25, and you are ready for a twelve-day-long celebration, the rest of the country stops caring.  Abruptly.  Around noon of the 25th.  The atmosphere becomes positively Grinchy.  Christmas trees, many having been decorated since before December began, are back in the attic, if not the trash, before Epiphany.  Epiphany?  What's that?  Perhaps one benefit of our growing Hispanic population will be a rebirth of the Three Kings holiday.

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So, we compromise.  I'm thankful to be in a church that celebrates Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.  But I do try not to be Grinchy myself, and to go along with this peculiar admixture of Advent and Christmas.  Unless we live in a cloistered community, it's unfriendly, not to mention quite against the spirit of the season—especially Epiphany—to shut ourselves off from our neighbors' joy.  Besides, we'd miss some of the best music of the year!

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Christmas in the Park.  Every year on the first Thursday of December, the Morse Museum brings some of its beautiful Tiffany stained glass windows, along with the Bach Festival Choir, to nearby Central Park to celebrate Christmas.  For Morse members, this was preceded by a reception at the museum.  The food was good, but we recognized no one, not even the musicians.  Nonetheless, a woman came up to me and asked, "Do I know you?"  I couldn't place her at all, not that that means much, given my memory for names and faces.  But it was my brown and white sweatshirt she knew.  "Did you go to Westtown?  I graduated from Westtown, and so did my husband."  I explained that it was my nephews that went there, and I got the sweatshirt.  Amazing, I said, that we were talking about the same Westtown.  Drawing herself up, she replied, "There is only one Westtown."  Then she laughed, and added, "Only one brown-and-white, Quaker Westtown, anyway!"

After the reception we walked to the park, and met up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while.  It's a good thing we had cell phones, because the park was so packed with people we couldn't even get a good look at the famous windows, let alone find someone in the crowd.  The window depicted to the left is Christmas Eve, ca. 1902.  If God the Father looks a bit like Santa Claus, that's no coincidence:  the window was designed by the son of Thomas Nast.  There's some debate over who that figure is meant to be—it may be St. Nicholas—but I'm siding with those who call it a depiction of the Father, to complete the Trinity; it's hard to tell in this small view, but the Christ Child is holding a dove.)

It was a great concert, as outdoor performances go, beginning with standard carols and then branching into more interesting and lesser-known songs.  The audience was invited to sing along, and the four of us had a blast singing all the verses of our favorites.  We even did pretty well with the Hallelujah Chorus, although it's hard to keep track of the parts without music.  (We made a quartet:  soprano, alto, tenor, bass.)

Winter Park is as close to a European city as you can find around here.  Walking along, we were reminded of last year's Christmas adventure in Strasbourg, France—only more crowded and without the chance of slipping on the ice and sliding into a frigid river.

— 5 —

Advent Lessons and Carols.  Three days later, we were back in Advent, at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke.  Sadly, there are reasons we can't make that our home church, but it has the best music in town.  We sang not one contemporary "praise song," but instead:  Come, Thou Redeemer of the Earth; Creator of the Stars of Night; Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding; On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry (second time that day); Sleepers Wake! and O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  All verses, even of the last.  Interspersed with these were Scripture lessons and offerings from the choir that included works by Bach (Lord Christ, the Only Son of God), Palestrina (Advent Matins Responsory), Heinrich Biber (thee of his Rosary Sonatas), John Rutter (Nativity Carol), Javier Busto (Ave Maria), Peter Mathews (Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem), and Benjamin Lane (Advent Vespers Responsory), plus a spiritual (My Lord, What a Mornin'), a Medieval English Carol (There is No Rose), and more!

As an unplanned bonus, we met and sat with our favorite elementary school music teacher.  It was good to catch up with her.

— 6 —

Speaking of elementary school music, here's a version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus from some fifth graders in Quinhagak, Alaska.  Since it was a computer project done by students, I can forgive the misplaced apostrophes, usually a pet peeve of mine.  (The teacher commented, "I now have a very teachable moment once we start school again.")  I wonder, however, what was the source of their text.  Can you spot the two interesting errors I found?

UPDATE 8/15/19:  At some point over time, the end of #6 and the beginning of #7 went missing.  I have no idea why.

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We will never forget.

A day that will live in infamy.

Forever is a long time.  How long will it be, I wonder, before the most recent unprovoked, surprise attack on American soil is as distant a memory as the one before?

I usually judge society's remembrance of an event by how often it is mentioned in the comic strips.  Back in 2006, BC and Mallard Fillmore were among the few that commemorated the day.  Today, I found none at all.

But a 70 year anniversary deserves recognition:  Today is, and will always be, Pearl Harbor Day.

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(In)Security.  Here's another of the TED talks I accumulate from various places; unfortunately I no longer remember who to credit for the tip.  Security expert Bruce Schneier speaks on our models of security, our feelings of security, and why these often differ from the reality of our security.  I wish he had given more concrete examples, but it's still a good talk, especially at the beginning when he makes the point that all security decisions are tradeoffs, and the proper question to ask is not so much, "Does this make us safer?" as "Is it worth the cost?"  He's probably thinking about national and computer security, but the application that immediately jumps to my mind is parenthood.  Whether it's airport body scanners, tamper-proof bottles, or removing tall slides from playgrounds, it's important to realize that security—or even the illusion of security—comes at a cost.

UPDATE 8/15/19:  At some point over time, a large chunck of this post—numbers 2-7—went missing.  I have no idea why.  The video below obviously went with one of the missing posts.

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No time for Seven Quick Takes, so here are Seven Quick Thanks:

• Extended family who love getting together and enjoying our similarities and differences,
• All of our grandchildren, with their unique personalities,
• Home-grown potatoes,
• Home-grown music!
• Our eight-year-old grandson, whose birthday is today!
• Watching that same grandson with his nose in a book that I loved as a child,
• That all of our children, grandchildren, and nephews love to read or to be read to.

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Cultural differences.  We're still reading the Sunday New York Times we picked up in Naples.  The Sunday Times may cost a whopping $5, but there's a book's work of matierial to read.

From Russia with Lies should be read by anyone doing business with—or dating—someone from another culture.  Author Elena Corokhova, a child of Communist Russia, explains vranyo, a culture of lies that everyone knows, but no one admits, are lies.  Everyone except the naive foreigner, that is—and Russians born after perestroika.

Putin was lying to us, we knew he was lying, he knew we knew he was lying, but he kept lying anyway, and we pretended to believe him. ... While I envy this uncommunist generation, I do see one deficiency: They have lost the ability to detect a lie.

My husband works with people from many different cultures:  north, south, east, west, and midwest in the U.S., and countries as different as China, India, Italy, Nigeria, and Australia.  One of his Chinese colleagues told him candidly something everyone needs to know when dealing with China:  culturally, it is not only acceptable, but admirable, to best a competitor by cheating and deception.  If the victim is not Chinese, so much the better.

My in-laws lived and worked in Brazil some 30 years ago.  Perhaps the culture has changed, but back then what we would call "taking bribes" was simply the way business was done.  If you did not participate, not only did you not get your business accomplished, but you were considered ignorant and rude.

My point is not to be disrespectful of other cultures, and certainly not to imply that every Russian is a liar, every Chinese a cheat, and every Brazilian corrupt, but to ask two questions.

• How can we be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves" when interacting with foreign cultures?  Acknowledge the risks in dealing with people whose mores differ from ours without being (or becoming) racist?  Maintain our own integrity while adapting to life and work in a foreign land?
• What are the aspects of American culture that trip up foreigners?  What makes it difficult to deal with Americans?  What do we take for granted as "normal" that others consider bizarre, rude, or even immoral?

— 2 —

A Rally I Can Believe In.  I can't ever see myself participating in a Tea Party rally, much less the more chaotic and uncivil "Occupy" events.  But if I'd been in the area, I'd have gladly taken part in the Raw Milk Freedom Riders' Caravan and Farm Food Freedom Rally on November 1^st.   I'd have made my first public act of civil disobedience, too, joining the mothers who bought raw milk (legally) in Pennsylvania and transported it (illegally) to Maryland, where they drank it in front of the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Silver Spring.  Speakers at the rally included Joel Salatin, David Gumpert, and other heroes of the battle for liberty as it touches what we eat, where it comes from, and how it is produced.

The mission of the Farm Food Freedom Coalition is, "to inspire, empower and facilitate consumers into action until everyone can procure the foods of their choice from the producer of their choice."  Here are some links for further information on the FFFC and the rally.

A good summary of the event from The Compleat Patient.

A pre-event post from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, with videos of some of the speakers (not from the rally).

Pictures from the rally (again at NECSC).

The Farm Food Freedom Coalition.

— 3 —

Is this a good place to point out that I am apparently incapable of understanding the Quick part of 7 Quick Takes Friday?

— 4 —

Okay, here's a quick one.  Not many e-mail forwards are worth passing on, but I couldn't resist this.  To understand its appeal, first you have to know something about my family tree.  My grandfather, my father, and two of my siblings are engineers.  So is one of our daughters, and both of our sons-in-law (who themselves come from engineering families).  Most of the rest of us are mathematicians.

— 5 —

Election Day fun.  I don't talk about politics all that often, and when I do, it may or may not tell you something about how I cast my ballots.  For one thing, I try to elect the best person for the particular job, which may mean voting for someone who is not my first choice, or someone with whom I seriously disagree on matters that only tangentially impact his capacity for filling the office in question.  For another, I really believe in the importance of the secret ballot.  But today I'm making an exception.

I am a conservative Democrat (which is not quite an oxymoron).  As such, I find myself more often than not these days voting against my own party.  So it was with a peculiar kind of glee that this week I cast my ballot in our mayoral election for a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT.  At least, that's what her opponent called her, in a blitzkrieg campaign that annoyed me enough I'd have voted against him in any case.  But in actuality, I voted for the incumbent rather than against her opponent—and believe me, it's quite a pleasure to be able to cast a positive vote for a change.  Ours is one of the nicest, most beautiful cities in the area, our taxes are low, and the city is debt-free.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it seems like a pretty good conservative attitude to me.

— 6 —

Ten is the new two.  That's how Free-Range Kids advocate Lenore Skenazy describes Amtrak's decision to raise the age at which a person can ride the train without an adult babysitter from eight to twelve.  And 13- to 15-year-olds have severe restrictions as well.  I can't help remembering our trip to Liechtenstein a few years ago, when we saw schoolchildren who were probably in the five to eight range travelling on public transportation—knowing where to get off, and more importantly, where not to get off—completely unaccompanied.  Granted, that's not the same as a long train trip, but Amtrak's restrictions seem ridiculous to me.

What are your experiences with train travel and children?  Somehow I can't picture the Europeans requiring a 15-year-old to wear a special wristband marking him as an unaccompanied minor—but I may be wrong.

— 7 —

Fighting ICD (Internet Compulsive Disorder).   CNNHeath asks, Does life online give you "popcorn brain"? and answers, alas, in the affirmative.  It's of particular concern to me because most of the work I do requires using the computer.  (Not that people did not, for example, do genealogy research before computers were invented, but it would be silly not to use this most helpful of tools now that we have it.)  I imagine there's a difference between what happens to the brain when you use the computer for research and when you use it for Facebook or to play an interactive multiplayer game, but that's not clear.

[S]tudies show multitasking on the Internet can make you forget how to read human emotions. ... "Human interaction is a learned skill, and they don't get to practice it enough."

The human brain is wired to crave the instant gratification, fast pace, and unpredictability of technology. ... "I never know what the next tweet is going to be. ... But I know what's waiting for me in my garden."  [Who needs the Internet for this?  All you need is a few children around the house.]

"We can't just sit quietly and wait for a bus, and that's too bad, because our brains need that down time to rest, to process things."  [Not me, despite all my computer use.  I'm more than happy to sit quietly and process things.  But with music and, increasingly, video blaring everywhere (even on buses), it's not easy to do.]

Over time, and with enough Internet usage, the structure of our brains can actually physically change. ... Researchers in China did MRIs on the brains of 18 college students who spent about 10 hours a day online.  Compared with a control group who spent less than two hours a day online, these students had less gray matter, the thinking part of the brain.

Not that any of this is the reason I'm announcing a blogging slowdown.  The next three months will be extremely busy for me, so my "7 Quick Takes" may not happen every Friday for a while.  I may have to adopt IrishOboe's "7 Quick Thanks."  :)  I'm not disappearing entirely—writing is actually one of my most important vehicles for the above-mentioned processing time.  But for anything involving an online presence (blogging, Facebook, e-mail) I'll be more than usually unpredictable for a while.

It's time to rebuild some of that grey matter, as well as real-life relationships.

— 11-11-11 —

And here's a bonus.  How fitting for a special day to fall on a special date.  For veterans of all wars, all current and past members of our armed forces, and all whose calling is to stand between others and harm, including those among our friends and family who serve as fire, ambulance, and police First Responders, I offer my favorite verse of our national anthem.

Oh! thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

— 1 —

One thing I learned from our stay at a Waldorf Astoria:  There's a limit to how much luxury I can appreciate.  I've become leery of cheap motels (especially along the notorious I-95 corridor) with their reputation as the lodging of choice for bedbugs and manufacturers of crack cocaine, but to stay at a Hampton Inn (Hilton's low-rent district) or Fairfield Inn (Marriot's) is all the luxury I want.  For me, the higher-end hotels add little.  In fact, they take away:  The big guys charge (a lot) for amenities that matter to me, whereas the price of a room at their poorer relations includes unlimited tea, cocoa, and coffee (and sometimes cookies!) in the lobby, a breakfast buffet, and in-room Internet.  It seems the more you pay for your room, the more they expect you to pay in miscellaneous charges. Mind you, the higher-end hotels are nice, just not worth the extra cost.

— 2 —

One notable difference between the Waldorf and a Hampton Inn that did matter to me:  Instead of a USA Today at the door in the morning, we received the Sunday New York Times.  Now there's a newspaper that still carries content!  About a month's worth of reading, I'd say.  Part of that content is the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, which has always intimidated me as the epitome of difficulty.  But no more.  It was no harder than the three-star (highest difficulty) puzzles in my World of Puzzles magazine.  And, alas, no more free of pop culture clues.  Reference an obscure vocabulary word or something in Shakespeare I don't know, and I'll happily look it up and thank you for the lesson—but spare me current movie and popular song trivia, please.

— 3 —

Gee, thanks, bank.  Here's the good news from one of our credit card companies:

We are always looking for new ways to meet your borrowing needs on your terms.  Effective January 15, 2012, you may receive new promotional offers that include an increased Minimum Payment Due, which can help you pay the promotional balance down faster.

Silly me, I thought you could always pay your balance down faster by remitting more than the minimum payment due.

George Orwell would be proud.

— 4 —

Babies are born geniuses, as Buckminster Fuller and observant parents could tell you.  Scientists are finally catching up.  Here's Looking at You, Kid is a not-to-be-missed article on the research of Richard Aslin, professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester.  Advanced technology has enabled his team to back mothers' intuition with reproducible data.

[B]abies just months old have mental capacities formerly believed to be the domain of children much older.  “We knew babies could learn—I mean, obviously they can learn. Your grandmother knows that,” Aslin says. “It’s the rapidity, the ease, with which they learn things that I think has just been startling.”

The key is measuring and interpreting babies' eye-gaze patterns.  For example, the idea of object permanence—that something continues to exist even when it is hidden—had been thought to develop by nine or ten months, because that's when a child will reach out and reveal a covered object.  It turns out that children as young as two months, who don't have the physical ability to remove a cover, already understand the concept.

A baby's language-learning capacity is particularly dramatic (emphasis mine):

[A recent study] conducted on infants, showing them multiple objects and giving them the name of the object in a sentence, demonstrated that they could pick out the object and learn its name by six months of age rather than the expected 17 months. While other such studies conducted elsewhere have given babies the words in isolation rather than in the context of sentences, ... the complexity of conditions in [this] experiment may account for the babies’ performance—the more complicated task of picking the word out of the sentence may actually have been easier for them because that’s the way they hear language every day.

[In another study, researchers] brought babies to the lab, where the children encountered a simple nonsense language the researchers had created to ensure they wouldn’t bring any prior knowledge to bear on the experiment.  “We wanted to find out what they could learn in the lab, not what they’d already learned in the environment,” Aslin says. The children listened to the language, “and then we tested them to see whether or not they’d learned the underlying structure of this little language.” They had.

“They learned the language in just a couple of minutes—and just by listening. Nobody was telling them what to listen to. They were only eight months old.”

When you consider that only 50 - 60 years ago scientists were asserting that newborns are blind and deaf, it's a good thing that mothers have been in charge of their babies all along.

— 5 —

The Stradivarius of Windchimes.  A scene from our recent trip to the gift shop at Bok Tower Gardens:

"Come listen to these beautiful windchimes!  Aren't they wonderful?  Just don't look at the price; leave it to me to desire the most expensive chimes on display."

"But you hate windchimes."

"Are you crazy?  I love windchimes!  I have since childhood."

"But I disinctly remember you saying how much you dislike them."

"Hrumph.  Must have been one of your other girlfriends."

After this exchange with my husband, we determined that perhaps he was remembering a conversation with his sister, or our friend who is also named Linda, or our neighbor.  I sure hope it wasn't our neighbor, because someday there will be windchimes gracing our back porch.  I gravitate to any windchime display I see, listening and pondering, though I haven't yet gone so far as to make a decision.  Maybe now that we have that little misunderstanding cleared up....

The chimes that so captured my heart are made by Music of the Spheres in Austin, Texas.  Choose "Chime Tunings" from their main menu, and you can hear recordings of their chimes in various tunings (Pentatonic, Quartal, Chinese, Mongolian. Westminster, Hawaiian, Japanese, Balinese, Whole Tone, Aquarian, Gypsy) and sizes (Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, and more).  Here's a link to the Japanese mezzo-soprano.  And the Gypsy soprano.  I can't stop myself:  The Whole-Tone tenor.

The price?  There's more than one reason they're called the Stradivarius of Windchimes:  from $90 for a Soprano (any tuning) to $2950 (plus shipping) for the 200-pound Basso Profundo.

— 6 —

Educators, please don't miss this post on innovation from the Occasional CEO.

Children in America used to want to become cowboys and Indians, doctors and firemen, astronauts and acrobats.  Now they want to become entrepreneurs and innovators.  They are told they must change the world, often before they enter it.

But 90% of the population should not become innovators.

It’s not because they can’t do it well, though that’s possible too.  It’s just that innovation can cause great damage to the things we love.  To the guy making the fries at McDonalds or the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks: Don’t innovate.  To the person building the next lot of iPhones from which I’ll be purchasing one: Please don’t innovate.  To my tax accountant: Do Not innovate.  The mechanic fixing my car.  The pilot flying my plane.  To the fine people at Apple: For goodness sake, stop sending me updates and new operating systems.  I hate em.  Just when I get everything the way I like, you innovate me into something that costs me two hours at the Apple Bar.  Where, incidentally,  I want zero innovation from your hip kids in blue shirts.  Just follow the FAQs and fix my iPad.

When we complain that schools are not teaching our kids to innovate, I say: Bravo!  People who can innovate will always find ways to innovate, while most of the rest of us need a serious tutorial in how to follow directions.  Show up on time. Do our jobs. That’s not something that comes naturally for many human beings.

There’s nothing less intelligent or inferior about people who practice consistency.  Consistency takes extraordinary talent, just like innovation. ... We have made innovation glamorous and consistency somehow mundane and less worthwhile. That’s our fault, not the fault of talented people whose consistency, attention to order, willingness to show up all the time and insistence on a little good ol' tradition improves our lives.

Here endeth the lesson; the following is my editorial comment:

Children do not need to be taught to be innovators and inventors.  They need to be taught the facts and skills that will become the tools with which they can innovate, practice consistency, or both.  Then they need freedom and time and opportunities to learn to use those tools effectively.

— 7 —

Those of you who enjoyed the TED talk by Temple Grandin, or the movie about her life, or any of her books, will probably like this TED lecture on the importance of perception, by Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning, synaesthetic, autistic savant who is also an artist and a writer.

Our personal perceptions ... are at the heart of how we acquire knowledge.  Aesthetic judgements, rather than abstract reasoning, guide and shape the process by which we all come to know what we know.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

What was Hallowe’en like when you were a little girl, Grandma? 

No one has as yet asked me that question, but if things run true to form for most Americans, someone will, someday, after I am past being able to respond.  So I will answer it now.

My Hallowe’en formative years were in the 1950s and early 60s, in a small village in upstate New York.  Contrary to what we’d like to believe, it was not an idyllic and crime-free time.  One of my first (and worst) Hallowe’en memories was of the teenaged thugs who thundered onto our porch, grabbed our carefully-carved jack-o-lanterns, and smashed them to bits.  I lived a sheltered life:  this was my first view of senseless, wanton destruction; my first encounter with people who get pleasure from breaking the hearts of little children.  Our tiny village did not escape teen gangs and vandalism, which seemed to be more widespread, if much less dangerous, in those days.   At least they attacked property, not people.

That was the only scary thing about our Hallowe’ens.

The most important difference between Hallowe’en then and now is that the occasion was first, last, and always for children.   A few adults dressed in costume for the neighborhood parade and party, but the purpose of the event was to entertain the children.  The only excuse for anyone over 12 going out trick-or-treating was to escort the younger ones—every once in a while a compassionate homeowner would give us a piece of candy, too.  Now, when high schoolers come to my door, I give them candy if they’ve made any attempt at a costume, but I pity them, that at their age they are begging door-to-door for candy instead of helping younger children to have a good time.

On the other hand, teenaged trick-or-treaters is a clear improvement over teenaged vandals.

The Hallowe’en season began several weeks in advance of October 31.  No, not because Hallowe’en stores began popping up all over town, and shelves everywhere sprouted candy in yellow and orange.  Because of the costumes.  Store-bought costumes were largely unavailable, and anyway, who would have wanted one?  Hallowe’en was an occasion for great creativity.  Merely deciding what to be could take a month.  (Decisiveness, I’ll admit, was never my strong suit).  Those who come to our door today are mostly beings—a cat, a princess, a Star Wars character—but we favored things:  one might be a rocket ship, a pencil, or the whole Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (no relation to the present-day Tea Party, as mad—in either sense—as they may be).  The challenge was to create a costume from whatever we could scrounge around the house without actually having to spend money.  No problem—we had not yet forgotten what any five-year-old knows:  the cardboard box is the most universally useful of all materials. (More)

— 1 —

Porter planted a wildflower garden in our front yard.  The excuse was to cover a patch where the grass, and even the green weeds, had long since stopped growing.  We think it is a definite improvement over boring grass! (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

— 2 —

Now that my daughter's birthday has come and gone, I can reveal the exciting news:  Speculoos à Tartiner, a.k.a. Biscoff Spread, is now available at Publix!!! And at a couple of other local stores as well.  This pleasant development came only just in time:  Our supply, generously imported for my birthday—from France via Switzerland—was running dangerously low.  Oddly enough, it's in the peanut butter section; perhaps not so oddly, as that's where they keep the Nutella, too.

If you've never experienced a Biscoff cookie, you're missing one of life's higher pleasures.  (For a long time I thought they were limited to flights on Delta Airlines, but the grocery store now sells the cookies, too.)  Speculoos à Tartiner is even better.  Making a spread out of cookies was a brilliant idea.  Think of the possibilities:  Oreo, chocolate chip, Girl Scout Thin Mint....

— 3 —

Seeds are amazing. When we feed our worms, it's generally with food that has been chopped rather vigorously, as that makes it more digestible for them, and hence they convert garbage to fertilizer at a faster rate.  Nonetheless, after one butternut squash meal last year, I noticed a large number of sprouts that grew vigorously in the worm bin, despite maceration and a total lack of sunlight.  Such persistence deserves some reward, so I rescued a few of the seedlings and planted them in our garden.

The plants appeared to thrive, putting forth healthy leaves and a multitude of blossoms.  However, perhaps due to it being the wrong season for growing most vegetables in Florida (too hot), or our persistent nematode problem, or a lack of water when we were on vacation—for whatever reason, the fruit that set would grow for a little while, then drop off.  The three squash you see here were the entire crop.  Even the largest is much smaller than those you see in the grocery store.

When cut open, the smallest was revealed to be too dry for use, but I cleaned and cooked the other two.  What a surprise!  The largest was very good, and the middle-sized (which was actually quite small) was the most wonderful butternut squash either of us had ever tasted.

My view of zucchini completely changed once I realized it was better to pick them small than large, and now the grocery stores have also realized that bigger isn't better.  But I can't buy butternut squash this size to determine if that's what made our squash taste so good.  Perhaps we'll have to try growing our own again, in a different season.

— 4 —

Picking squash before it is fully grown may be a good idea, but the same is not true of plucking human babies prematurely from the womb.  The steady rise in mothers and doctors who believe otherwise has prompted the March of Dimes to campaign against elective Caesarians and labor inductions before the 39th week of gestation.

Studies have shown that as many as 36 percent of elective deliveries now occur before 39 weeks, and many of these early deliveries are contributing to an unacceptable number of premature births and avoidable, costly complications. ... This is not to suggest that women should panic if labor begins earlier on its own. “It’s a whole different story when a woman goes into labor early than when labor is induced" ... [T]he textbook definition of “term pregnancy” as one that lasts from 37 to 41 weeks “is arbitrary—it has no biological basis. If a woman’s water hasn’t broken, if labor hasn’t begun on its own, if there are no medical or obstetrical problems, there’s no reason for a woman to be delivered before 39 weeks.” ... The recommendation applies not just to women whose labor is induced, but also to those having a scheduled Caesarean delivery. Too often, women are mistaken about when they got pregnant, which can throw off the calculation of their due date. Even when a “dating” ultrasound is done during the first trimester of pregnancy, there can be as much as a two-week margin of error.

Why on earth would someone without medical complications want to deliver a baby prematurely?  (Besides the obvious discomforts of late pregnancy, that is?)

Well-educated women may be more inclined to want to schedule birth at a convenient time for themselves and other family members. Doctors, too, may suggest an elective delivery so that birth occurs at a time that best suits their schedules, including office hours and vacation times. Sometimes doctors, fearing a malpractice suit if something should go wrong if a pregnancy proceeds to term, choose to deliver babies early when they are alive and well.

The March of Dimes wants to make the "well-educated" mothers more educated about the dangers of induction and elective Caesareans, confident that no mother will deliberately choose convenience over the long-term health of her child.  Sounds good to me.  Maybe they should enlist the help of midwives, who have been preaching against such practices for a long time.

— 5 —

Do you have trouble falling asleep?  Perhaps you should ditch the Ambien and reach for an ice pack.  Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh designed special "cooling caps" and studied the sleep patterns of volunteers.  Why?  Insomnia is associated with increased metabolism in the frontal cortex, and cooling decreases the metabolism.

Patients with insomnia who were treated at maximum cooling intensity for the whole night took about 13 minutes to fall asleep and slept 89% of the time that they were in bed, the researchers said.  That's similar to the sleep enjoyed by healthy study subjects who didn't have insomnia (who took 16 minutes to fall asleep and also slept 89% of the time).

Maybe it's just a placebo effect for me, but an ice pack really does help me fall asleep when my brain won't get out of high gear.

— 6 —

Speaking of drugs, it turns out that cannabis can induce symptoms of schizophrenia in healthy people.  Healthy rats, too:

[T]he drug completely disrupted coordinated brain waves, which are essential for memory and decision-making, in the area across the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. ... The resulting brain activity was uncoordinated and inaccurate ... The rats exposed to the cannabis-like drug were left unable to make accurate decisions....

Having grown up in the infamous 1960's, let me just say that this explains a lot about modern American society.  :)

— 7 —

Here's a 7.5-minute video about a mood-enhancer with positive effects on your brain.  It makes you happier, it makes others happier, it makes them think more positively about you, it has no calories, and it's absolutely free.  You could try to listen to Ron Gutman's TED talk without smiling, but I wouldn't recommend it.  It may be the healthiest thing you do all day.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

— 1 —

This. Is. Not. Good.  It's only my third Quick Takes Friday, and I had not written word one before today.

It's Google's fault.  Picasa made me do it.

— 2 —

I had experimented with Google's Picasa back in its early days, and still had a version of Picasa 2 on my machine.  I never used it, except occasionally for the image viewer, because I hated the way it took over my machine, and consumed so much space on my hard drive with its thumbnail images.  But a friend recently raved about Picasa 3's face recognition ability, and as I was (am) in the middle of working with a large batch of photos, and had been recently blessed with a new 500 Gb drive, I decided to try it out.

WOW.

True, the &*^%$ program still takes over the machine.  The first thing Picasa did was spend several hours examining and cataloging all my images, and then at least as long analyzing them for faces.  As far as I can tell, there is no way to stop the process other than shutting down the program.  Even now, if Picasa is running, even minimized, it will occasionally take up so much of the CPU that it looks as if the machine has crashed.  (Mostly, if I'm patient, it will eventually come back.)

But oh, the face recognition is incredible!  You train Picasa by identifying "unknown" faces, and it catches on very quickly.  Soon it begins offering you suggestions for the identification, and after a while makes its own decisions, asking only that you confirm or correct them.  It's really, really good.  Occasionally it mistakes one of my daughters for the other, but mostly it's spot on.  It is eerily able to extrapolate from a childhood picture to the same person as an adult, and vice versa.  It recognizes family relationships:  if it makes mistakes in the identification of a child, the suggestion is almost always the mother, father, sibling, or sometimes a cousin.  This is what makes Picasa addictive, resulting in the problem noted in QT#1.  You'd think the process of adding, correcting, and confirming identifications would be tedious, but it was difficult to pause, even for meals and sleep.  I was constantly calling to my husband in the next office, "Come here!  You have to see this.  You won't believe it!"

I'm finding that it's not quite as impressive now that it's store of possibilities is much larger, but it's still incredible.  And hopefully will be incredibly useful.  Note that this is not an overall endorsement of Picasa.  I haven't used it enough to make a judgement of the software as a whole.  But if the police have resources like this, it's no wonder the can identify criminals from security camera photos.

— 3 —

Do you ever get stuck on a project and can't get back into gear because it keeps growing and growing and you can't deal with the new stuff because the old stuff hasn't been dealt with and it keeps preying on your mind but you can't make yourself get back to it because it's all so overwhelming?  That's the situation my photo collection was in.  Never mind all the physical prints from years back that I still have to identify and label; I'm talking about our digital photos since early 2009, when thousands of pictures from our daughter's wedding caused my system to overload and crash.  Not the computer; me.

I'd already learned the lesson about how much can be accomplished if you tackle a project in small, but regular, sessions.  ("How to you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.)  But I couldn't get started.  This week I finally learned another important lesson: Sometimes a mighty effort can break a log jam.  I decided to spend four, concentrated hours working on the wedding photos, and made arrangements to have as few interruptions as possible.

As usual, things take much longer than expected, even with relatively few interruptions:  In four hours I didn't even finish preparing and organizing the photos, much less do any sorting, analyzing, culling, or labelling.  But it was enough to break the mental block, and I'm back on track to finish in, maybe, 2020 or so.

— 4 —

Speaking of overload—at the risk of being a bit incestuous by referencing a post at Conversion Diary, which hosts 7QTF, Jen's post on how she deals with feeling overwhelmed rang so many bells with me I thought I must be caught in a clock tower at noon.

I have a personality type that leads me to feel overwhelmed a lot. I’m ambitious but lazy; I have a latent perfectionist streak that comes out at unexpected times; I’m an Olympian procrastinator; and I’m so non-confrontational that I often find myself saying “Yes, I’d love to help with that” when what I should be saying is, “I CANNOT EVEN FIND TIME TO BRUSH MY HAIR RIGHT NOW, LET ALONE SIGN UP FOR ONE MORE FREAKING THING.”

To her excellent four-step survival plan—Get your physical environment in order, Get some sleep, Pray — preferably outside of the house, and Talk through it—I would add one more:  Exercise.  Because exercise takes extra time, it tends to go out the window when I'm feeling pressed.  I can whittle a two-hour shopping trip down to 30 minutes if I drive instead of walking.  When deadlines loom, even a half-hour run seems too time-consuming.  But just as with prayer, sleep, and order, it seems that the busier I am, the more important physical activity becomes.

— 5 —

I haven't had time to play with it much (see QT#2), but I've discovered AreYouInMyPhoto.com, a site for identifying old (and not-so-old) photographs and the people in them.  If enough folks get involved, this could become a great resource for genealogists and others with mystery photos.  I'm hoping it will also save old pictures from being tossed simply because no one knows who might appreciate them.

— 6 —

Another genealogical resource that can be fun for almost everyone is FindAGrave.com.  Thousands of volunteers have scoured cemeteries and uploaded gravestone information, sometimes with photographs.  Do you wonder where suffragist Susan B. Anthony is buried?  If, like me, you went to the University of Rochester, you know her grave is in nearby Mt. Hope Cemetery.  But ordinary mortals can find out the same information through Find A Grave.  Would you like a photograph of your great-grandfather's gravestone but can't manage a trip to Nebraska?  Check it out; someone may have done the work for you already.  Find A Grave is always growing, and I have often hit a brick wall in my research only to come back three months later and find exactly what I needed.

— 7 —

Thirty-two years ago, as I write this, I was within seven minutes of the culmination of a 20-hour ordeal.  Only a saint can see the glory to come while yet in the midst of suffering, but it's a lesson first-time mothers never forget.  Happy birthday, Dearest Daughter!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!