One Mile Walk

#1079495

November 4, 2024 at 11:51am

My fiction stories occur in a framework of history. I use spreadsheet mathematics to relate dates and time intervals for character’s births, schools, marriages, story events, etc. Five years ago I started History_Timeline.xls of significant historic events so I can use real happenings to influence my storyline. I use History.com to fill in the major events and ChatGPT to nail down precise times and places. I now have 2700 entries; some current, a few back to Roman times, but most in the... [Read more]

#1079031

October 27, 2024 at 10:16pm

Twenty years ago, I used to read 15-20 novels a year. Most nights I'd spend a couple hours reading in a favorite blue chair beside my desk. But, not so much lately. You see, that chair is stacked high with research records, drafts, flash fiction efforts, memoir sections, instruction manuals, articles, and just about any other junk printed off the Internet. I have a mental difficulty in understanding what I read directly from the monitor. I have to print it and hold it in my hands to r... [Read more]

#1076969

October 24, 2024 at 8:14am

I've revisited my blog entry "Predictions" #1024228, about Qualia. Even though it was viewed 48 times, there were no comments. I have a favorite memory from my early childhood, probably 1945 when I was two. I was sitting on the running board of our car while Dad was changing a tire. In front of me was a short field, a fence, and an airplane between trees. Men were walking all around it. At two years old, I shouldn’t have known what the plane was or why it was near the roa... [Read more]

#1059966

November 24, 2023 at 10:35pm

As I've said before, on my blog, to my engineering colleagues, and several environmental alarmists, 'The plastics pollution in the ocean will be solved by some entrepreneur who finds a way to make money with it.' Well, according to the December Scientific American, p 18, I believe there is now a way. Removing the plastic pollution has morphed into political and engineering problems; to up-scale the techniques, capture the raw materials, and sell the project to the financial/go... [Read more]

#1058084

October 25, 2023 at 11:02pm

If you stand on the South Pole, right on the Earth's axis, there is no direction other than north. If you stand on the surface of a Black Hole, (if you could), there is no direction other than out. Now that takes a little fiddling with the current assumptions about Black Holes, Event Horizons, Schwarzschild 1 radius, and a few other cherished theories. But with one simple change, all those sidebars disappear. Black Holes, also referred to as 'Singularities' suck in everythin... [Read more]

#1050569

June 4, 2023 at 1:09pm

My memoir has lain dormant for too long. So, yesterday I went to the 603 Writer's Conference at SNHU in Hooksett, NH to get inspiration. The conference was created by the New Hampshire Writer's Project (NHWP) and had a great program, Keynote speaker, and food (gosh I like chocolate dipped strawberries and double brownies) . The attendance was fair, I'd guess a dozen or so tables seating six. I signed up for Robin Baskerville's Workshop "The Readable, Writable Memoi... [Read more]

#1036610

August 18, 2022 at 5:13pm

Yesterday, I finished reading "Philosophical Writings of Peirce." 378 pages. Gosh! What a pile of words. Many of his comments about consciousness are similar to today's, but he didn't have modern technical terms to express them (simulation, physical learning, nurture-emulation, 1/2 sec pre-cognition response). His understanding of evolution was firm, but in his last chapter, he was burdened with the GOD (or similar) interpretation. I see life as an abstraction of the Gai... [Read more]

#1029820

March 31, 2022 at 9:46pm

I had my six month followup appointment today. The doctor said, "Boring... your blood work is boring... your BMI is approaching optimum... your pants are down 2 sizes... BP Sys and Dia are kissing normal... you are on track with Maderna shots and boosters... boring. No Gout or kidney stones... boring. Don't you ever do anything risky? Break a bone? Fall down stairs? Anything?" "Nope... or, maybe... once shoveling snow, but everybody falls shoveling snow." "Hurt... [Read more]

#1028710

March 25, 2022 at 10:52pm

Yesterday I started my walk just as the snow started. Temp was about 29°F, but no wind. Soft, fuzzy, flakes, most were maybe a half inch big, and less than a foot apart. The sky was bright, clouded, but as the snow fell past the distant, dark evergreens, I could see what the term 'countless' means. The scene was mesmerizing. Half an hour later, when I returned home, the walk and driveway way were just starting to turn white. By morning there was four inches built up. It took 90 min... [Read more]

#1027188

February 21, 2022 at 10:46pm

Last night I finished reading The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose, every single page of 581, written 33 years ago. I could follow each sentence, most paragraphs, and some chapters as a whole. But in a few places I was just bewildered. Near the end, I think he is referring to the transcendent grasp of reality that evades a simple description in words or language. A feeling of correctness without proof. He spent 400 pages showing the methods of mathematical proofs, a smattering of q... [Read more]

#1025323

January 24, 2022 at 10:35pm

Working with the reading I've done lately, I think it would be a good idea to resurrect the term Aether, not for electromagnetic waves, but for the matrix sometimes used to describe what is 'waving' in Quantum Physics. It gives the wave nature to matter and photons. Then we can use it to support my idea that light speed is not constant. Aether is like a 3-D net thrown by the Big Bang and continuously unfurling over time. Where the farther away from BB the higher the tension is ... [Read more]

#1024228

January 5, 2022 at 2:34pm

My interest in consciousness lead me to read an article in The Atlantic, 'A Neuroscientist Prepares for Death' last week. The crux of David J. Linden's article: The field of neuroscience has changed significantly in the 43 years since I joined it. I was taught that the brain is essentially reactive: Stimuli impinge on the sense organs (eyes, ears, skin, etc.), these signals are conveyed to the brain, a bit of computation happens, some neural decisions are made, and then impulses... [Read more]

#1023847

December 30, 2021 at 2:44pm

Doing a bit of research I've found some stuff that supports my repeated memories observation. It's called the Hebbian Doctrine . From Wikipedia, discussing the brain at the neuron cell level, we have: The theory attempts to explain associative or Hebbian learning, in which simultaneous activation of cells leads to pronounced increases in synaptic strength between those cells. It also provides a biological basis for errorless learning methods for education and memory rehabilitation... [Read more]

#1023635

December 24, 2021 at 11:05pm

I have been reading about consciousness since the first Personal Computers came out in the late 1970s. I developed a crude operating system for an Intel 8008 chip project in 1973. There weren't many texts on operating system design back then, so I had to experiment and try new things on my own. The first thing I had to do was create a Bootstrap Loader. Enter five commands by hand, then let the chip read those commands and load the rest of the code, overwriting the manual commands as it ... [Read more]

#1023374

December 18, 2021 at 9:26pm

We're expecting snow this afternoon, so I took my walk early. I stopped to chat with a neighbor two doors up. We got into a discussion of gadgets and software. I said I have five Alexa devices in my house. He was flabbergasted... and against using Google Echo Dots anywhere; at home, at work, at school, anyplace. He fears security, privacy, and big brother listening in. I think we have no real privacy any more... for some time...so why not use the gadgets. They can a quite helpful. ... [Read more]

#1023094

December 11, 2021 at 10:12pm

From electronics notes: What is DRAM technology? https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/electronic_components/semiconductor-ic-memory/dynamic-ram-dram-technology.php As the name DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, implies, this form of memory technology is a type of random access memory. It stores each bit of data on a small capacitor within the memory cell. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged and this provides the two states, "1" or "0" for the cell. ... [Read more]

#1022903

December 6, 2021 at 11:51pm

I looked up qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia and it turned out to be over 20 pages of heavy philosophy. I have four of the references they quoted (out of 76) in my library. Those guys use better words to say about the same thing as I was referring to Sunday. Even the computer engineer/philosopher, Roger Orpwood, used a programming technique to support his views on qualia. My only contribution is the required dynamic reinterpretations of experiences through re-experiences and r... [Read more]

#1022790

December 5, 2021 at 3:05pm

Reflections while walking Friday but life got in the way. Just what is consciousness? Let's first consider the academic notion of consciousness. (Looked it up when I got back home.) consciousness - noun The state or condition of being conscious. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group Special awareness or sensitivity. The American Heritage® Diction... [Read more]

#1022712

December 2, 2021 at 10:30pm

It wasn't hard to figure it out. The instructions are on a single picture card with a lawyer type legal pamphlet of the device... in 10 languages. The card should have been all I needed, but sometimes I want a little more than that. Like, does it use both WiFi frequencies? Can I have a second TV setup on another dongle? I looked it up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromecast and read the whole site. The install went smoothly,... except it took over an hour because my Internet conn... [Read more]

#1022658

December 1, 2021 at 7:12pm

After my trek, there was an Amazon box on my porch. I had seen the truck go by, and the driver waved to me, but I didn't know he had gone down my block. Oh, gosh, I hope the wife didn't see the delivery. Darn Alexa didn't say to be expecting anything before I left. Well, it was my set of gifts to wife... and a little bitty thing for myself. Put it in the side door of the garage before I went in the house. At which time, Alexa was saying, "Your package has been delivere... [Read more]

#1022576

November 30, 2021 at 4:22pm

I don't write letters. Well, maybe you can consider journaling as letters to myself. My handwriting is really just fast lower case printing. The only thing I do in cursive is my signature. And that now is becoming infrequent with the advent of the electronic finger wave. Rather than letters, I'm more comfortable with email and blogs. I can prep my response, fix faux pas, and check spelling (I'm seriously dyslexic) before sending it out. How anyone can type realtime in a chat... [Read more]

#1022537

November 29, 2021 at 9:45pm

Bright sun in the face, 38°F, no wind, and clear sky. Why can't people be like that? Pleasant, a little reserved, don't talk incessantly about themselves, and will discuss any other topic intelligently. Sort of rules out most newscasters. I see andiprescott is restarting his blog 'Returning'. Sent him a comment: Yep. I did the same thing. Quit doing much on WDC many years ago. Couldn't afford the $49.95/yr for an upgraded account, so lost most of my stuf... [Read more]

#1022485

December 1, 2021 at 7:16pm

Ops, not much today. Being the housekeeper has levied a claim on my activities. Didn't even get to walk the mile. I had a conversation last Thursday, with my big daughter, about the future of work and the economy. What happens when the pandemic is over? I say there is a precedence to look at. The women who went into industry during the WWII had to do the work while the men were all out being killed. It had to be done. But when the war was over, most put down their welder hoo... [Read more]

#1022419

November 27, 2021 at 2:58pm

About 11:00 I asked, "Alexa, walking?" It said, '30°F, overcast with 20% chance of wet snow. Take a good coat.' Oh, I like gadgets. Before deciding if I should do the 1 mile, I shoveled the walkway... Not bad, took 10 minutes. Biggest problem was the leaves I didn't rake up last month. Wasn't too cold, as long as the wind stayed low. Do I need this exercise? There's a warm bed just inside the door. Well, I went anyway. The town sent a... [Read more]

#1022382

November 26, 2021 at 10:48pm

It was 38°F and misting when I left at 10:30 this morning. It wasn't hard raining, wasn't below freezing, and the wind not bad. I thought a simple coat along with a wide brimmed hat would do for the walk. There were no puddles, but the cars made that hiss passing by. Just sort of raw. There were three nearby houses yesterday with an above average number of cars around them. Today they are gone. I hope the T-Day gatherings were for love and not obligations. How confusing ... [Read more]

#1022296

November 25, 2021 at 11:06am

Let's say the speed of light is 'faster' now than far back in time. An equally simple interpretation would be if the light speed was maybe 'slower' back then. An object would appear not quite so far away, but receding faster, if you measure it using our local faster speed of light. The speed of light may still depend on the 'tension' of the spacetime matrix. But like the frequency of sound goes 'down' the looser the string is in a guitar. Now I ... [Read more]

#1022269

November 24, 2021 at 8:20pm

Now, I'm an engineer, not a scientist. Engineers are not usually seeking to understand how the universe works. We are normally only looking for ways to build or fix things. We use the laws of physics to do that... usually. But, if the physics is too complicated, we have been known to use guesses and extrapolations of simplified physics to approximate solutions. Sometimes we get burned without good physics. But, if you can build it, and it works, fine. Let the physicists figure out... [Read more]

#1022187

November 23, 2021 at 10:28am

Last Friday I came back home and the wife asked, "What's new out there?" I thought about a minute, then came up with a dozen small things I had notices in the last month or so. Here's one: "The neighbor, two houses down, hooked up to city water. I wonder if it's because the state tested some wells and found PFAS contamination one point above the limit." "Should we do the same?" "Are you kidding? That'll be $6,000."... [Read more]