O-Dark-Thirty

The pond this morning is like glass, not a ripple anywhere. The trees around it reflect perfectly in the water. I saw a duck land on the pond a few moments ago. Ripples rolled away from it as it paddled toward the north of the pond and disappeared. The minor disturbance from these ripples flowed across the pond, marring the reflections I could see. Not by much. I did notice something though. As the ripples touched our shoreline, they reflected back, and they cancelled themselves. The water became calm again. The shore didn't move, and wasn't affected. Come to think of it, neither were the real trees, standing monoliths on the edge of the lake. They remained untouched. Only the reflections, the perceptions of reality, wavered because the duck landed. Were I only watching the pond, I might think that my world shook for a moment. Watching the trees, I know it did not. So a couple thoughts came to mind. I need to stand firm, like the shoreline, and ripples won't affect me. I ne...

The Youngest went with us to lunch the other day. As we were leaving, I held the door open for a cute little girl, probably about three or four years old. I continued to hold it open for the girl's mother and grandmother. They thanked me. An elderly gentleman followed in their wake, using a cane to walk slowly to the door. Of course, I held the door open for him also. He looked into my eyes just before he passed through the doorway. "Thanks," he said. "Us old guys need to stick together." I stumbled over my reply, something like "You're absolutely right." The Youngest grinned widely, chuckling. Really, do I look that old?  I mean, I know I'm getting up there, but ... These are the stories that make life fun.

Communication is hard to do well. Speaking is a poor imitation of thinking, so I'd rather be silent. Sometimes we have to communicate. There are certain basic principles for ensuring that we understand and are understood. Listen Actively For some reason people think this means to interrupt and complete other people's sentences. It doesn't mean that at all. It means keep your mouth shut and your ears, eyes and mind open. Show the other person you understand that they have strong feelings by listening to what they feel strongly about and why they feel that way. Yes, they might be saying something you disagree with, perhaps to a large degree. But you have to listen to understand and you must try to hear what they mean . One of the smartest things I ever heard anyone say about communicating was to start with the sentence "I agree with you" and then listen carefully for where you have common points. Be Heard Now you have the chance to be heard. ...

I know I do my links on Wednesdays, but these were so good I just needed to do an update. Yeah, they are all from Wired. I might have to change my Wednesdays to Thursdays if they keep this up. No, this isn't it. Not only did he (or she) make a virtual 3D printer in Minecraft, the video explains in detail how he did it. That's almost as amazing. AND he has a link to download the Minecraft world. How awesome is that? Here's the direct link to the YouTube video where the download is . There seem to be quite a few Minecraft 3D printers on YouTube now. I'll have to peruse them later. Foot fins - even better than flippers. These allow you to swim like Aquaman , but you won't be able to psychically control fish, so don't try that. A Lego Hot Rod that actually runs . Remember the amazing thing about the dancing bear is not that he dances so gracefully, but that he dances at all. There are two amazing things about this hot rod: it's made ...

This is a pretty slim week, and I might skip next week (since it will be Christmas Day and I'll probably be exhausted from those three spirits who always visit me the night before Christmas). Today, three years ago, Darling's Mother passed away in the hospital. She was an amazing woman, though she and I had some tough interactions. That happens when you live with someone so hard-headed for a decade (you decide who I mean). If you're short of Christmas presents, you could give that special someone a copy of my book, My Mother-in-law Misadventures . You can buy the Kindle or get the paperback (and thanks! Let's get sales into double digits!). China landed on the moon. I think that's a most important story. It's all over the internet, but here's one link to the story . China is now the third country to make a soft landing on our natural satellite, the first soft Moon landing in 37 years. You'll read about it anyway, so I might as well a...

Pope Francis was named Time's 2013 Person of the Year , and it's even top news on CNN . Rightly so. I have to admit I like the guy. Maybe I should invite him over to dinner on Christmas. I wonder where I should send the Christmas card? It seems that Curiosity found evidence of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars . A little terra-forming and we could turn the Red Planet into a Green Planet. And people are already volunteering to migrate to the new world! About 200,000 people applied to live on Mars , and I guess the application cost about $40 USD apiece. Crowd-funding a trip to Mars… What a good idea. You can look at some of the profiles of people who applied. Technical and funding problems abound. There will be a two year delay , though, at a minimum. So the first few humans could be on Mars as early as 2025 - but don't hold your breath on that one. This is one of the better financial planning pages on the Internet, in my opinion. Put in your data and you...

How do I gather these links? They are the ones I find most interesting during the previous week, and I don't want to lose them. So - I share! Incoming package! The technology is available to deliver packages by drone , and that is certainly a much better use for drones than seek and destroy missions. However, the procedural problems might hinder the expansion of this idea into the realm of reality. We'll see. Amazon says they are committed to having this ready as early as 2015. I can wait that long to see if it works. I'm more interested in drones that can save lives . Some bits of the comet ISON might have survived the close encounter with the sun. Scientists don't have enough data yet, but we'll keep an eye on that. Three is the charmed number! SpaceX now has a satellite in geosynchronous orbit on its third try. I love this one. Years ago I read a book called Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy , a classic Futurist book where a society defeate...

I have a story, but I'll save it... Thursday is Thanksgiving Day here in the USA. Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends, to everyone celebrating the holiday, and to everyone in the world. I'm thankful for all the good people I know, the good times I've shared with others and the quiet times with my God. Oh, and for Turkey dinner. Sorry, Turkey. Friday is Native American Heritage Day. That's a mouthful, but here are some pictures from the early 1900s of Native Americans . All of them were taken by Edward S. Curtis. Some Native Americans say Thanksgiving reminds them of the genocide of the Native Americans . Actually, it was one of the first recorded times when the Native Americans and settlers worked together for mutual benefit. What ravaged the entire Native American culture, even before the colonizing of the country, was disease. The fantastic book 1491 by Charles C. Mann delves into the Americas before the coming of the Europeans and how the...

We all know that JFK was assassinated fifty years ago (I won't even put a link - stories abound). It makes me feel old. Anyone alive can tell you where they were when they heard of the assassination, much like 9-11. I was a barely six and the lady who took care of me after kindergarten cried while she watched television. "The President died. Someone shot him." That's all we watched for days on our tiny television, in black and white. "A second plane crashed into the Twin Towers." My company set a TV up in the lobby. We all watched, in color. Some incidents shape our world. Hug the ones you love. PS4 or Xbox One? That's the current game console debate. I was wrong in my Wednesday post when I said they were both available. They are now, though. Bottom line? Wait a while if you can; prices will eventually go down for the consoles and the number of good games will go up. If you can't wait then you probably already have a preference. Wire...

Zarya Well, the last fifteen years have been a wild ride in orbit around the Earth. Fifteen years ago NASA successfully out the Zarya module to the International Space Station into permanent orbit. NASA completed the ISS a few years ago and it now houses six astronauts full-time. Congratulations to everyone involved! Go have some cake! NASA has a new spacecraft, MAVEN, heading to Mars , too. It launched on November 18. CNN has a nice video for the MAVEN mission. NASA also transmitted an image of the Mona Lisa to a satellite orbiting the moon using a laser . The transmission rate was only 300 bits per second, but I remember using that speed when I was starting graduate classes a few decades ago. You have to start somewhere. President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address a hundred and fifty years ago. His original manuscript is still preserved, using modern technologies to keep it from degrading. Darling's new phone is Android. After years of using an iPho...

Computer Virus Discussion, Computer Bits and Pieces I used to teach Advanced DOS classes at a local community college. For you young folks, that's "Disk Operating System" not "Denial of Service." One of the main topics I always had to cover was viruses (there is no plural for the Latin word virus). Computer viruses are just as bad now. The computing power of all the machines on the planet is astounding, so it doesn't surprise me that there are internet viruses infecting machines and installing zombies. Zombies are small programs that allow the virus master to use his bevy of machines to do simple tasks, like send messages to a particular web site to crash it (that's a Denial of Service attack). The really bad part is that many of the viruses can be installed as a drive-by. What that means is that you can visit a web site that will install the virus without any input from the user at all. A better explanation is in this article , where th...