category: General

I joined Bluesky a month or so ago and one of the things that has caught my attention is that it seems a lot of folks who post there are posting the books they’ve read, are reading, or plan to read. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I have been known to do that myself. What caught my eye, though, was the number of people who boast about the number of books they’ve read or, as the new year begins, have set goals for how many books they will read this year. Can I just say I think that’s the stupidest thing you can possibly do? ...

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. Not only because of the holidays, but because my brain has been on a massive overload of information. I love learning and tend to be very curious about, well, damn near everything. While mucking around in my office/shop I pulled out my MeshTastic devices and started playing around with them again. That required that I do a bit of research to get up to speed and add to my understanding of that technology. And down the rabbit hole I went. In looking for information on MeshTastic I ran across MeshCore, so I started researching that and went through the process of installing that on my devices and experimenting with that technology. ...

It’s hard to believe, but in a few days, I will celebrate sixty-seven trips around the sun. I have now lived longer than both of my parents and several of my uncles. Given a family history of deaths at younger ages for the men, I’m just a tad surprised that I’m still kicking. And kicking well! It’s odd, though. I don’t feel 67. I feel more like 25 or 30. Well, except for the bad knee and tweaky shoulder. In fact, I actually feel better today than I did, say, twenty years ago. ...

For the past ten years I have worked from home. Although I interacted regularly with students and other faculty, those interactions generally took place by email (my preferred method) or, when interactivity was required, by phone, Teams, or Zoom. Actual face-to-face interaction was very limited. I liked it that way for, as odd as it may seem, I don’t actually like dealing with people directly. I say that’s odd because I have spent my entire career in a field that required not only face-to-face interaction but, as a nurse, often that interaction required intimate contact with others. And, while I did need to interact on a one-to-one level in the hospital, teaching allowed me to interact with students on a more generic level. Speaking to a class or conducting on on-line lesson is easier and less stressful for me than meeting one on one with an individual. ...

Using the Right Tool for the Job Back in the late 1980’s, when I first began working with computers, there were a fairly wide variety of devices and OSes from which to choose. TRS-80, Commodore (I had the C-128), MS-Dos based PCs, Apple, Amiga, and so on. The challenge was to determine which device worked best for your intended use. DOS based PCs were best for office type work, Apple was the choice if you were doing multimedia, Amiga for gaming, etc. While you could do anything on most of those devices, each had particular strengths and weaknesses. The question you faced in making a purchase was, “which device is best for what I want to do?” ...

Confusing Fiction with Fact I swear some people can’t keep track of reality. While browsing Amazon for something to read in the vein of philosophy I ran across a book entitled The da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth is Stranger than Fiction by Robert M. Price. The book purports to debunk the “many misleading claims found in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code” according to one reviewer. That statement and several others made by various reviewers suggest that somehow Brown was intending to provide accurate historical information regarding the Christian Church. Funny, having read The Da Vinci Code I don’t recall Brown ever claiming that the book was historically accurate. For someone to take the time to write a book to refute claims that were never made seems, well, stupid. Apparently, Mr. Price (or I should say Doctor Price, given his PhD) has difficulty comprehending that fiction is by definition not fact. Fiction writers often base their works on some variation of an idea or concept and follow the “what if” process. That is, “what if” there really is an Opus Dei 1 with sinister underpinnings? “What if” Jesus and Mary Magdalene really did have a child together? and so on. Fiction writers take some fact and embroider it with the lace needed to paint an enticing picture that tells an entertaining story. Few set out to present history (or any other topic) factually. ...

My Wife Always Wanted to Marry a Pilot A Bit of Background I became interested in drones in the spring of 2021. My wife was preparing to retire from her teaching gig and considering a new career in real estate. After 15 years in our relatively small town in the mountains of North Georgia, we were planning a move to a little larger town with fewer challenging hills and more conveniences. We were building a new home in our soon-to-be new town. This was, I thought, a great time to explore my interest in drones. After all, I could document the progress of our new home and, if she did go into real estate, I would be positioned to do some of her photography. Win! ...

Why I Think Crypto is Stupid I recently read an article on Wired about Faruk Ozer, The CEO of Turkey’s biggest Cryptocurrency business. That article outlines how tens of thousands of Turkish people were victims of Ozer’s theft of their crypto wallets and all of their assets. The thing that stood out to me is how easy it was for him to simply download their accounts onto a thumb drive and be off with their money. In the wake of the crypto crimes of Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) and Changpeng Zhao (Binance) I fail to understand why anyone would trust their financial assets and future to something so easily stolen. Unlike banks, there is no FDIC insurance. Unlike stocks and bonds there is no physical document to show ownership. (Yes, I realize that most transactions exist in the ’ether’ but using a reputable trading house provides a level of safety that they are unlikely to steal your money. ...

I Don’t Trust Gmail. Here’s Why. I have had an email address with Gmail for probably 20 years. I mean my email address is my name @ Gmail. No numbers, no weird abbreviations, no strange punctuations, just my firstnamelastname @gmail.com How long has it been since that was possible? Three or four years ago I began receiving emails to my address that were clearly intended for another person with my same name. Their email was literally my email address! At first I thought it was just an glitch in the system. Later I thought perhaps they had simply mis-typed their name (maybe left out a letter or something) or had made up a name so that they did not get spam emails. However, many of those emails were for legitimate purposes – receipts from Tractor Supply or from their cell phone provider. What gives? ...

Doing the Same Thing And … You’ve heard the saying “the definition insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” And I think you’ll agree that this ‘definition’ is commonly true. But, what about those times when you do the same thing each and every time and get a different result? That, my friends, is the definition of randomness. And, it’s far more common than you think. ...