Author: W. Smith

W. Smithhttps://sesquibits.wordpress.com
W. Smith's avatar

Traveling to peace

This past week I decided to stop working on the library science degree.  A big reason was that I don’t have an answer to the “what do you want to do with the degree?” question. However what I want to do without the degree is also a good question.

Today I went with my family to Green Bay. My nephew is getting married tomorrow. Sunday we’ll drive back to Fort Wayne.

There was a horrible wreck on I-69 yesterday.  I was held up over an hour. It was fortunate in some sense that the car burned up where it did because it was possible to bypass the fire by taking an exit ramp and immediately re entering the interstate. Certainly it was a horrible day for the driver’s family so my complaints about not getting to give my speech at toastmasters seem a little petty.

I’m really negative on watching broadcast tv. I like the public tv station and occasionally 3abn but I’m more ok with watching videos from YouTube.  I guess I have more control on the phone. My Sony smart bluray player has interesting video content.  Thanks to Amazon prime there’s a lot to choose in addition to the big selection that the bluray player offers for free.   The bluray player plays Pandora without any ads even though I don’t pay the ad free subscription.

I found PRX remix on the local public radio app which is really cool but it can be just as engrossing as tv.  Also there is always something new starting so it’s always changing.

Cool thing I realized today is that using my phone as a radio doesn’t use up my data plan too quickly. PRX Remix is really appropriate for that. I can bring along my ECOXGEAR  bluetooth speakers and be able to not worry about traffic noise overwhelming the speaker in the phone.

Transcending tricksy reading

I was just glancing over this paragraph and my vision played a trick on me. It comes from IUPUI’s website.

The Office of the Vice President for Information Technology has steering committees in place to help develop strategies and establish priorities for shared administrative and academic systems. The Oncourse Priorities Committee has specific responsibilities for ensuring thoughtful and timely decisions regarding priorities for Oncourse, IU’s online collaboration and learning system, and for recommending policies to guide its effective use. In light of next.iu.edu, the OPC will also provide guidance to the Learning Technologies Steering Committee regarding any future selection of a new learning management system for Indiana University. Below is a list of current committee members:

After glancing at the document, I was certain that I saw the word “transcend” somewhere in it. When I looked it over repeatedly, I found that “transcend” was not there at all.

Perhaps this is along the same line as the mistakes that can be present in eye-witness testimony. One can remember an event that might have taken only a fraction of a second. Over time the event will gradually shift from being a movie to a short story. This short story can be adjusted by people asking questions or reinforcing story facets with feedback and positive reinforcement. Talking with another witness can confound ones memories with the other person’s memories so that both are wrong.

One specific example of this is in police investigations. The police (for the most part) don’t try to manipulate the witness, but they have an effect by asking some questions and not others. Also, they can give reinforcement to certain details with their comments by thanking the witness for their information. In some situations, such as with children, these adjustments are very hard to avoid.

The movie and short story feel equally true, but after a while they won’t match the actual events that happened. As the short story then turns into a sound bite, the eye witness can be wrong, sometimes in catastrophic ways for the plaintiff defendant.

Toastmasters

I’ve been looking for a new social group to belong to. I’ve thought of writing clubs and chess clubs but I haven’t got very far beyond that. I found some writing clubs in Auburn, but they meet on Tuesdays and I’d rather go to an event in Fort Wayne Tuesday evenings.

A friend suggested looking into toastmasters. I had heard of them several years ago, but never went searching for a group.

After the second prompting, I went online and learned a little bit about it. There’s a group that meets Thursdays in Fort Wayne that fits with my schedule really well. They practice public speaking and leadership skills.

The meeting was fun. People were a little bit more formal than I’m used to, but after a little bit it didn’t seem out of place.

We had three people speak as well as some table topics where people give impromptu one minute speeches. The person giving the topics asked if I wanted to answer a question which I did.

The topic I chose was about vanity and how often does one look at oneself in the mirror. I said that that has been a problem because sometimes I leave the house not composed well. I don’t look in the mirror as much as I should have. A couple of times that’s been embarrassing for example, by buttoning my shirt wrong for example. I then did a little non-sequitur and talked about how I look in the mirror a lot when I’m driving.

The one comment the evaluator made was that I said “um” a few times. I asked how to improve that and they suggested to just pause when I don’t know what to say. That sounds like something I can practice.

The toastmaster that evening was dressed really sharply in a white suit and black tie. He was really funny. One topic he shared through the evening was trivia about the movie Casablanca. Since I hadn’t watched it before, his suggestion was to rent it, so I’ve got it by my DVD player waiting to watch.

I’m planning to go back next week and bring an application form. Since they meet every week, I’ll be able to add it to my routine and learn some new skills.

No accident here

I had a little extra excitement driving up from a doctor’s office yesterday. It was getting toward rush hour and the interstate was pretty busy.

There was a large group of cars merging on the next on ramp so I got out of their way by going to the middle of three lanes, thinking I’d be safe. However, another driver merging in apparently decided they weren’t going fast enough so he went to pull into the center lane too!

I don’t think he saw me (or even looked) because he didn’t back down from going into my lane. We were almost aligned so I’m grateful I saw him moving in.

I popped over to the third lane where the really good thing happened: there wasn’t anyone near me in that lane for me to cause my own accident.

I wanted to do some road rage and chase the person, but when the green car drove off speeding, I didn’t chase him and just noticed that he had a special license plate. I have had some bad experiences with people having that plate, so it is hard not to use it as a confirmation that they are all rotten drivers.

Thinking about the incident in bed, it was challenging to not obsess on what almost happened. A little prayer and noticing that there wasn’t any accident when it could have been a really bad multi-car pileup, I was able to let it go.

So, the score is zero accidents, one negligent driver and a grateful accident-free driver.

Positives

I get really frustrated with myself when I notice the negative or put out a dark side of something. It’s not a quality that I want to keep.

It’s tempting to try to delve back into the past and figure out where it comes from. I can get all the insight I want, but insight isn’t going to change me or help me improve.

By FutUndBeidlIt’s more useful to see when it is popping up and try to change.

One of the fellowship’s principles is that ingrained traits like this aren’t going to go away on their own. I can be completely ready to do something different, try as best as I can, and still put out the negative words that I’m trying to move away from.

I’m trying another way and asking in prayer to act on the opposite principles. Perhaps I need hopefulness and optimism. Since I’m not making progress on my own, this seems like a good idea.

An opportunity to avoid putting out negative thoughts is to try to avoid chiming in on the two big U. S. Supreme Court decisions this week. It’s a very divisive subject and I don’t know how to say anything healing or unifying about it. It’s really tempting to point out this idea or reference some explanation that seems logical to me, but I’m still just another wind chime.

Original image: Arrows showing up. By FutUndBeidl [Image license]

Zometool

A few years ago I bought the toy zometool. I bought a lot of different pieces from different collections and now I have more than I’ll ever need. Zometool is really cool because it lets you build things without worrying about “forcing” things to fit. If a piece fits where you want it, then it fits exactly.

A shape

Put together without a plan

This construction was just put together by me picking a few struts and then extending them until they could close back on themselves. This is a hint at the wide variety of shapes zometool lets you create-the opportunity to be creative is endless.

A bunch of nodes

A bunch of nodes

The nodes that the struts are attached have 3 shapes of holes. Triangular that take yellow struts, rectangular that take blue struts and pentagonal that take red struts.

To me the math behind the design of the nodes and the lengths of the struts is very cool. Each color of strut comes in 3 lengths. The ratio between the lengths is the golden ratio (\phi).

One of the properties of the golden ratio is that \phi^ 2 = \phi + 1.

So, if I have one piece that is the golden ratio longer than the second, I have a strut with length 1 and \phi. The next longer strut would be \phi \cdot \phi = \phi + 1. That means if I want the equivalent of the next longer strut, I just need to add one of each of the two lower lengths.

Going Gluten-Free with Xanthan Gum

I cook gluten-free. My sister, some nephews and nieces and I all have negative reactions to gluten.

One thing that’s frustrating about gluten free cooking is trying to make dishes that need flour. Gluten glues flour-containing products together so that they have body and don’t collapse and are fluffy.

A gluten-free recipe doesn’t have that available.

The way I solve that problem is to add either xanthan gum or guar gum. They are sticky and help hold things together. I’m pretty generous with how much I use, so my recipes end up costing more if you’re counting such things.

bottle of xanthan gum

One of the brands of xanthan gum available.

Yesterday and today I had been making cupcakes with my Great Grandma Lake’s recipe. It is a very fragile recipe. It is not very forgiving of mistakes. Although it is totally not PC, when my grandma would make cakes with the recipe that failed in some way or another, we would call them cripples. A sign that it is a hard recipe is that even after years of making the recipe for holidays, she still often made cripples.

The first time I made cupcakes several years ago, everything was cool. It seemed to work like a regular cupcake recipe. Today and yesterday, not so much.

I made a bunch of mistakes. The first batch didn’t have any xanthan gum and the cupcakes collapsed before they were done cooking–it was awful — a few ended up in my stomach but most went in the trash.

Today’s batch went better. But here is where I learned something….

The first pan of cupcakes today fell pretty badly. The second pan was a little better and the third was pretty close to normal. As the batter aged and I waited for the first pans to cook, the batter got thicker and thicker which correlated with the cupcake’s falling less and less.

I have noticed the batter getting thicker when I used xanthan gum to make waffles, but I thought that was just what pancake batter does. Now, I believe that if I let a dish rest before cooking it, I might need less xanthan gum and also the recipe will act more like it was made with whole-wheat flour from the start.

So, in summary, my conclusion is that when I make a dish with xanthan gum, I should let the dish age for 20-30 minutes for the xanthan/guar gum to begin to be sticky and then start cooking.

Here’s the recipe for the brave and curious Grandma’s Cake. The recipe gets really dry if you overcook it at all. I use a lot toothpicks when I’m cooking this.

Lightning Adding Machine Company

Mom and dad went to some auctions this past week. One of the things they bought was a Lightning Adding Machine. There are a lot of different models of the calculator.

Mechanical adding machine

Lightning Adding Machine Co. ca. 1953

Looking at the different versions online, mine appears to be the version that was made in 1953. This version has instructions to do addition and subtraction painted on it. It also has a lever that will clear the calculator quickly.

I’m not much of a collector and decided to use it to track my expenses today. I *really* like it. The mechanical clicking of the dials is very satisfying.

My Nokia internet tablet has a really nice digital tape in the calculator. I like that and used the tape often, because I often made mistakes with that calculator. With the Lightning, I make fewer mistakes. Usually, if I’m going to make a mistake, I realize the error as I am entering the addend.

I really like the mechanical feedback of rotating the dials. Mine doesn’t have any of the original attachments like a stand, stylus or instruction book. I’m using a ball point pen for a stylus. If I take the ink cartridge out of the pen, it should be an reliable stylus.

The only drawback I have found is that if I get distracted in the middle of adding a list of numbers, I don’t know exactly where I stopped… Was I in the middle of a value or which number was the last I entered? I have to start over. For a long list of numbers, I make subtotals of parts of the list and then add the subtotals which helps avoid that problem.

The Anti-Placebo Effect

There’s been plenty of information about the placebo effect the past few days. Some researchers are investigating the genetics of the placebo effect. Even the idea of drug-placebo interactions are on the table for discussion. I’ve seen the suggestion that it makes sense to have an additional treatment track in a drug trial: the drug, the placebo and a new “no treatment at all” track.

xkcd today has this amusing take on evaluating the placebo effect.

They work even better if you take them with our experimental placebo booster, which I keep in the same bottle.

xkcd May, 19, 2015

I had some recent experiences that might hint that there is an anti-placebo effect. With the placebo effect, the mind’s expectations modulate the properties of a pill. So, it seems to follow that normally effective drugs might have negative properties that are modulated by the mind.

This is different from the placebo/anti-placebo are imaginary or “all in your head.” A placebo is effective because there are biological consequences of the act of taking a medicine beyond the chemical properties of the drug.

I was talking to a nurse from my cardiologist’s office about headaches. I mentioned the headaches earlier to her earlier and she wondered why I hadn’t yet talked to my primary doctor about them. Almost immediately, my headache became worse until the phone call receded from my attention. A few days later, my doctor prescribed a medicine. Its effect of increased pain is similar to what happened after the conversation with the nurse. My symptoms get worse when I take the prescription medicine. An anti-placebo effect could even increase the likelihood of the side effects of a medicine developing.

So, with my headaches, I’m finding taking a small dose of Tylenol is more effective than the prescription medicine. I don’t think the dose I’m taking is enough to really have any direct effect and part of its effectiveness is a placebo effect.

How I discuss that with the doctor escapes me. “Hi doctor, I’m taking this tiny dose of acetaminophen and it working a lot better than the prescription medicine you ordered. I think part of its effectiveness is that it is having a placebo effect on my headaches.” I can only imagine that conversation going badly. “Err, we should try a different medicine that doesn’t have the same effects as the medicine I’m avoiding. Don’t take the Tylenol.” How do you talk to a doctor about placebos being effective in my case?

I’ve read that doctors think of the placebo effect as “cheating” or somehow improper. An anti-placebo for a specific individual might explain the appearance of side effects of a medicine.

Would an anti-side effect placebo be able to prevent the anti-placebo side effects of a regular drug? Perhaps an anti-side-effect placebo can be a good idea in patients that respond well to placebos.

It seems plausible.

Flowers

Mom and Dad came down yesterday to help me with my landscaping. They were a lot of help.

In addition to the mulch, mom pruned some bushes. She also brought some tomato and pepper plants.

While we were working, we noticed that my neighbor had some beautiful calla lilies in her yard. I don’t remember ever seeing that kind of lily before. The neighbor has much more of a green thumb than me. My biggest problem is the 20 feet from the sofa to the door. I don’t go out when I need to pull weeds or water things.

Lilac bush by house

Trimmed Lilac

Mom trimmed back my lilac bush that had just finished blooming. It’s going to be a lot smaller next year. They grow really fast, so it won’t be long before it’s giant again.

Peony from 2007

Peonies from 2007


          I have really big pink peonies at the corner of my house. They haven’t blossomed yet, but they’re getting close to opening up.