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 |   Tales from real life |
| Well, if they're not true, they oughta be! |
Those of a certain age, who grew up without internet and social media, may not be adept at searching URL's, but they may be better qualified to judge the results. I'm a product of the Mad Men advertising age, when commercials broke free of product constraints and the medium became the message. The story that convinces a consumer to buy is actually the product in today's marketing world. There's no longer any connection between the advertising claims and the performance of the product. And, who really cares about quality, price or functionality when the act of buying is the real object of commerce? The immediate gratification of buying anything outweighs the long-term satisfaction of having something. Why worry about having a CD when you can buy the stream over and over? Most physical products are quickly tossed in a landfill anyway. Before Twitter and Facebook, people would forward emails instead of retweeting. The forwards would feature a joke of the day or an apocryphal news item with an embryonic clickbait image. Photoshop was just becoming a verb at that time and there were many gullible people who took the pictures at face value. One in particular showed an air-sea rescue with a coast guard helicopter winching up a basket just inches above the gaping maw of a lunging shark. It was well-done, but still an obvious fake due to the apparent size of the shark. The scammers soon upped their game and began assuring the reader that "this is a real image, not Photoshop!" Well, if you have to start with a claim that you're not lying, then that's pretty much an admission that a lie is coming next. The problem with disseminating misinformation via email, however, was the difficulty in monetizing the product. The pay-per-click advertising model of today's internet is one solution. And social media provides another. Now, your 'friends' can sell you products directly, and they can start off inside your circle of trust. And that's the big red flag for Truth Social. By definition, the user must trust the community and accept any dubious claim at face value. But, just like a photoshopped shark, if you need to put the word truth in the title, then that's pretty much an admission that there won't be any in the content. |
I enjoy making up book titles and author names that are amusingly similar and appropriate. My goal is to find titles and names that seem plausible when taken by themselves but generate a laugh when put together. For example, Queen of the Limbo is a real book title and Lois Barr is a real name. Both can be found with a Google search. It's only when they're put together, Queen of the Limbo by Lois Barr, that a smile results. Of course, these have been around for generations. I remember some from my childhood, titles such as Yellow River by I. P. Freely or Guide to Breathing by Justin Hale. You can find more if you google 'Books Never Written'. So far, I've resisted reading them online because I want to make my own. I'm sure there are similar variations that are created independently, and I can't guarantee that all of mine are unique, but I hope that at least a few are original with me. I've done a cursory internet search and haven't found a specific term for this kind of wordplay. Perhaps it's up to me to create it? After deep analysis and serious reflection, I'm proposing the term synaptonym to describe these literary gems. It's a combination of syn (similar), apt (appropriate), and the Greek suffix -onym which is used to designate a particular class of words or names. Google doesn't bring up any current usage of the term, so it's available for this purpose. However, I am open to other suggestions if anyone has a better idea. Now, if I could only figure a way to monetize this odd pursuit . . . Building an Off Grid Privy by John Carpenter Making Pounds Disappear by Penny Weiss My Left Feet by Robert Kent Waltz Understanding Longitude by Easton West The Power of Millions by Megan Watts Salty Lips & Icy Sips by Margarita Glass A Savage Ordeal by Ellen Bach Beginning Leatherwork by Tandy Hyde Conservative Bias by Eileen Wright In Defense of Heaven by Pearl E. Gates Foodborne Pathogens by Sam N. Ellis Hops and Lagers by Amber Brewster Sneaks and Cheats by Upton O. Goode Elements of Traffic Management by Carson Rhodes See also: "More Books I'd Like to See"  See also: "Still More Books I'd Like to See" |
The Seattle area had a record overnight temperature Wednesday, the highest low ever for the date. The daytime high was in the 90's and clouds moved in during the afternoon. The fluffy sky blanket sealed in the heat like putting a lid on a boiling pot. It was an uncomfortable 80 degrees outside at 11 o'clock. As I lay awake in the darkness, I thought back to a long-running discussion at work. The subject then was also temperature, but it took place during a cold snap in January. One of the guys made the claim that his car was colder inside that morning than the temperature shown on his outdoor thermometer. We're all engineers and our expertise varies by degree, but the consensus was that Bill must be crazy. Either the sensor in his car or the thermometer must be defective. It seemed intuitive that the car was warm when it was parked, then gradually cooled overnight to match the ambient temperature outside. If it was really well insulated, then it might remain slightly warmer, but no way could it be colder! After a spirited discussion, we finally did some research and found that our consensus was defective. Bill was absolutely correct, and the laws of thermodynamics backed him up. To understand why, we need a quick review of heat transfer. Heat can be radiated like the rays of the sun, it can be conducted through direct touch like cuddling in bed, or it can be carried by a stream of gas or liquid like in a convection oven. The night of the freezing car was very still, so convection played no part in our mystery. We all thought that the heat inside the car would be conducted through the steel and glass to the surrounding air. When the temperature inside matched the outside, then heat transfer should stop. Our reasoning was correct, but we forgot about radiation. The radiation of heat depends on the temperature difference of the sending and receiving objects. Think of how direct sunlight feels on your face when you stand in front of your house on a cool day. The sun is the warmer object, and the temperature difference is immense. The sun's radiation easily overpowers conduction. Walk around to the back and stand near a shaded wall. Now your face is the warmer object, and the sensation is actually cooling. That's what was happening to Bill's car. The car was parked in an open driveway and the view through the windshield was unobstructed by buildings, trees, or clouds. The sky was crystal clear all the way to the infinity of deep space, and the temperature of that space is close to absolute zero. Bill's car was still 475 degrees warmer than outer space even when its interior temperature matched the chilly ambient of 20 degrees Fahrenheit. So, the car continued to radiate heat to outer space all night. The steel and glass of the car insulates the inside from the outside, so conduction doesn't replace the heat lost by radiation until there's a measurable temperature difference. Of course, this cooling effect isn't seen when the car is parked inside a garage or under tree cover. The cooling is similar but exactly opposite to parking your car in direct sunlight. Our 27 million-degree sun radiates a large amount of heat into your car through its windows. The interior temperature can rise to a lethal 120 degrees Fahrenheit before the process of conduction removes as much heat as is added by radiation. I like to tell this story because it demonstrates the power of science. I was humbled by my poor understanding of college physics. It reminds me to question what I think I know and remain open to learning. Certainty is not a substitute for knowledge. |
I suppose I should be grateful to Bertha Bartell. She was my wife's grandmother and, coincidentally, my dad's neighbor when he was young. The elder Bartells moved away before I was born, after a family named Gardiner bought their farm. I didn't meet granddaughter Debra until we had classes together in high school. Her father, Edward Bartell Jr., had a small truck farm about 15 miles from the original Bartell homestead. We rode separate school buses from different directions and met in the middle. I was the class clown and Debbie was a band geek. I thought she was kind of a prude and she thought I was kind of conceited. We didn’t really talk, but I enjoyed her blushing dismay when my friends and I teased her. We didn't start dating until we were both in college, and even then, I didn't make the connection that Deb was related to the old battle-axe that I'd heard stories about. Most people knew Bertha as a somewhat unpleasant woman, sharp-tongued and frugal to a fault. She’d been a schoolteacher before marriage and never seemed to enjoy the role of farm wife. Bertha ruled her family as a strict matriarch and paid little attention to the granddaughter who shared her birthday. My dad liked to tell a story from one summer when he joined in to help Edward Sr. put up hay. It was common back then for neighbors to gather together with equipment and teams of horses. They'd move from farm to farm and help each other with the big job of cutting and stacking the hay. The men worked hard, and they expected to find a hearty lunch at midday. There was often fried chicken with potatoes and gravy, fresh garden vegetables, or even a roast ham. Dad said they were disappointed at the Bartell’s house. Bertha served them a platter of fried eggs and little else. The first guy in line dished up three or four and then Shorty Thompson took a half dozen. He looked at the nearly empty platter and then glanced around the table at the remaining four men. It didn't take a mathematician to see that there wasn't enough food. Shorty felt embarrassed at taking so many eggs. And, according to dad, he broke them all up with an exasperated "Well, fug around Willie, ain't ya got any more eggs?" It was a line I heard many times when dad thought someone was being overly cheap. Things finally clicked for me after I proposed to Debbie and Bertha sent my new fiancée a letter advising against the match. “Oh, your grandma is that Bertha.” It was a long letter with a detailed list of the faults and failings of 'those Fishers'. She explained how her brother, Debbie's uncle Pete, was always arresting them for drunkenness and other petty crimes. To be fair, some of my uncles and cousins did enjoy 'whooping it up', but an actual arrest was rare. Their ‘crimes’ were so minor and from so long ago that no one else even remembered them. Pete Larsen wasn't even Sheriff anymore. Bertha closed her letter with a dire warning that the Fisher boy would never amount to anything, and our marriage would certainly come to a bad end. Well, with a challenge like that, Deb had no other choice. She had to marry me, if only to prove her meddling grandmother wrong. And the letter didn't really upset me, I enjoyed telling Debbie my dad's egg story. Bertha was in a rest home then and her health didn't allow her to attend the wedding. Deb felt duty-bound to buy Bertha a box of mints and insisted that we interrupt our honeymoon to visit her. I smiled and played along like a good husband should. There was no mention of the letter, no apology forthcoming, and little thanks for the mints. It was my first and only meeting with Bertha, and all I remember is being greeted with "What, no wedding cake?" We probably would have married anyway, but that letter really sealed the deal. It's been more than 44 years, Debbie's still waiting to see if I'll amount to anything, and I'm still grateful to have her. Thanks Bertha! |
What's the difference between not paying taxes and shoplifting from Target? Both are technically illegal, and both are quite common, but there's a huge difference in how these crimes are perceived. On the one hand, we have rich, old white guys who profit from the infrastructure, economic strength, and customer base provided by American freedom. For example, Bill Gates didn't create billions of dollars by himself, he collected billions from an affluent society that could afford his product. But he at least acknowledges the idea of giving back. Not by paying taxes, of course, but his charitable foundation does some good. Bill Gates, however, is the exception. Most of the wealthy elite feel entitled to take billions in revenue but feel no obligation to contribute anything to the system that feeds their success. They use charitable causes to avoid taxes or even to enrich themselves at the expense of gullible supporters. These career criminals are highly respected, held up as self-made heroes, and are even elected to the highest office. Protecting the rich from taxes has become the cornerstone of conservative politics. On the other hand, there are the lower-class ethnic types who are bold enough to dash out of the store with merchandise they didn't pay for. They feel entitled to take what they need to feed their drug habit, or their kids, without working to enrich those old white guys who are selling them their beer, cigarettes, and opioids. These self-made entrepreneurs have found a daring way to beat the system that holds them in perpetual poverty, but they get no respect. Instead, shooting despicable protest looters has become a heroic part of the conservative agenda. The only real difference between looting Target and looting government is who commits the crime. And perhaps in the lies they tell to justify their bad behavior. Lies such as 'stickin' it to the man' or 'it's just good business'. When my dad caught me in a lie he'd say, "You can go to hell for lying just like you can for stealing." Why would we admire those who do both? And don't forget that tax cheats come in all sizes. The next time someone boasts about how they 'put one over' on the IRS, picture them sneaking out of Target with a laptop under their jacket. It's the same sin in the sight of God. I'm in favor of prosecuting shoplifters who steal bits and pieces. I'm even more in favor of prosecuting the smug bastards who steal billions. But ironically, justice belongs to those who don't pay for it. |
| I listed some intriguing book titles in a previous post "On the Bookshelf" Well, here are some more: The Simplicity Paradox by Les S. Moore Decision Point by Willie R. Knott Elements of Education by Reed N. Wright Lightening in a Bottle by Dinah Harris Uncertain Motives by Miss Terry S. The Feral Feline by Allie Katz Making Water by Doug Wells The Chattering Birds by Maggie Pye Authentic Creole Chicken by Berndt D. Byrd Shallow Streams by Wade A. Cross Spanking Games by Rose E. Cheeks Finger Foods by Cornyn D. Cobb Weight Training for Women by Barb Bell Moving On by Van Driver Too Much is Never Enough by Morris Baeder Beginners Guide to Dermatology by Lance Boyle |
We're having a spell of hot, dry weather in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures in the nineties (yeah, I know, but it's hot for us). And, after weeks without our typical drizzle, the local paper is predicting a possibility of petrichor later this week. I hadn't seen the word before, so I had to look it up. It's the delightful smell that rises up for a few minutes when raindrops stir up heat-baked dust. Who doesn't enjoy the scent of fresh rain on parched ground? We have instinctive reactions of relief and even joy when the earthy aroma reminds us that there's life after drought. This weather phenomenon is as old as vegetation itself and has been present throughout the entirety of human history. We may be genetically programmed to appreciate the smell. The distinctive odor was described by T. L. Phipson in 1891. He theorized that it came from essential oils exuded by plants during dry weather. The oils are absorbed by soil particles and are then aerosolized by falling raindrops. The word petrichor was coined in 1964 by Australian chemists Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas who corroborated Phipson's observations. Petrichor is a combination of the Greek words petra (rock) and ichor (blood of the gods). What an elegant and apt word for a beautiful phenomenon! |
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