Opining Online

I hate it when my husband or father asks me to look for car or truck information on the internet. It’s not so bad when they have a part number. I can find dealers and prices with no problem with that information.

But when they want information on… say… how to improve gas mileage on an ‘84 Mazda b2000, the internet is not so friendly. In part, I know it’s because I do not understand exactly what information they want well enough to define good search terms.

What’s really frustrating is their “man on the moon” attitude. Just because we can put a man on the moon doesn’t mean somebody has written and posted on the internet a way to increase gas mileage in a specific vehicle.

Sure, I can find plenty of site that will tell me how to make that truck run on water. That just screams SCAM to me. The idea that the hydrogen can be separated from the oxygen and used as a fuel doesn’t sound nearly as far-fetched as the idea that somebody is going to sell me that knowledge for $49.  For only double that amount I can learn how to make a fortune in real estate.

Amba tagged me last week and I’m just now getting around to posting Seven Seven Facts About Myself.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

Like others before me, I first read that as “marital” discord. Now that I’ve read it correctly, I can think of no better example of martial discord than the militancy of hippies. Here’s my image:

Seven Facts About Myself

1. I’m inordinately proud of my children, step-children, and those they have chosen for mates. I am, without doubt, one of the most fortunate people on the planet.
2. I remember living without electricity and indoor plumbing. It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford it so much as it was simply not available that far up in the mountains.
3. I have seen a forest fire “close-up.”
4. I am both shy and friendly. I am shy about revealing too much of myself to others and friendly in wanting everyone to feel welcome wherever I am.
5. I like rocks. Bryce Canyon is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been.
6. Though thoroughly female, I like vanilla much more than I like chocolate. Unless it’s rich, dark chocolate. Then I must have both.
7. I have an ancestor who fought for both the Union and the Confederacy. He also served time in prison camps on both sides, dying in Andersonville.

Now… about tagging seven other people. As noted here, I don’t know five people to tag and now I’m supposed to tag seven?

Venomous Kate spewed a meme my way.  

The rules:

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?   I’d just quit the best job I ever had to go to the worst one I’ve ever had.

What are five snacks you enjoy? 
1. Popcorn, cooked on the stove (no microwave!) in corn oil, unbuttered but well-salted
2. Dark chocolate
3. Chunks of good cheddar or jack cheese
4. Chips and salsa, preferably both homemade, but I’m not really picky
5. Cheetos, the crunchy ones

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. (sorta stolen from wg, but I’ve thought about it before) Pay off all my children’s mortgages.
2. Build a big house with a dining room big enough for all my children and grandchildren for Thanksgiving dinners, and with ‘guest’ cottages for each family.
3. Start a non-profit called “Through The Cracks” for people who need help but don’t qualify for medicaid or welfare.
4. Hire a maid, a butler, a chauffeur, a pool guy, a gardener, a personal secretary, etc.
5. Buy at least four congressmen and two senators.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Wearing my pajamas all day
2. Letting dishes pile up in the sink
3. Smoking
4. Procrastinating
5. Not having any other bad habits

What are five places where you have lived?
1. Montrose, Colorado
2. Saguache, Colorado
3. Chama, New Mexico
4. Hallsville, Texas
5. Shreveport, Louisiana

What are five jobs you’ve had?
1. Sales clerk at a music store
2. Manager of a Denny’s
3. Admin Ass at a non-profit for the mentally ill
4. Secretary for a geophysical consulting firm
5. Typesetter and layout assistant for a newspaper (before they used computers)

Five people I tag:
Like wg, I’m sort of anti-social, so…

oh wait! I’ll tag Sarah of Just 26 More Miles!

I have read some (by far in the minority, but enough to be easily noticed) horrid comments about Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor diagnosis - intimations that he deserves this because of past actions or because of his liberal politics.

Enough already. Very young children get malignant, non-operable brain tumors. What did they do to deserve theirs?

What did I do to get lucky and have a treatable benign brain tumor? I’m no better than those children, I guarantee you.

This is the same type of thinking that considered AIDS a punishment for being homosexual.

The  polity needs to grow up.  

UPDATE: DJ Drummond says it more eloquently and nicer than me.

…Cancer is a damnable enemy which respects no moral boundaries. It will attack a Republican just the same as a Democrat, a man or a woman with equal energy. Cancer is a horrifying malady, one which seeks to kill its victim, but only after excruciating torture. I know it too well, from my own cancer to my mother’s recent return of Breast Cancer, to the deaths of old friends and some new ones (and children - the damned thing goes after children as if it were the devil himself). No one deserves Cancer, and any victory over Cancer is a good one, one to celebrate.

Are Big Brains Smarter?

Since yahoo stories tend to disappear, more quoting than usual.

One thing scientists do agree on: A big brain alone doesn’t equate with smarts. If it did, elephants and sperm whales would win all the spelling bees. Rather, scientists look at brain mass relative to body mass in order to make any speculation about a creature’s cognitive abilities.

So while an elephant noggin, at 10.5 pounds (4,780 grams), could squash a human think box in a purely physical battle of brains, you and I take the cake in a war of wits. Our brains, which weigh an average of 2.7 pounds (1,200 grams), account for about 2 percent of body weight, compared with an elephant’s under one-tenth of a percent.

Studies have shown that across species relatively large brains “do seem to provide some complex cognitive skills, such as innovative solutions to ecological problems, more efficient resource mapping and food acquisition, and more complex social strategies (such as deception),” said Nancy Barrickman, a graduate student in Duke University’s Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy.

Differences in brain size within a species, such as humans, are relatively small, making it difficult to tease out the effects of brain size and the effects of other factors. For instance, the difference in intelligence between an organism with, say, a brain that’s 1,100 grams and one that’s 1,400 grams (which could be found in humans) is confounded by other variables, including differences in density of neurons, other structural brain differences and socio-cultural factors.

Density of neurons could be interpreted as density of links. What makes a website “intelligent”? The sheer mass of data, or it’s internal links that relate that data?

Via Mr. Heh himself, surely we’ve all heard about TSA’s inept inspection of a time-pressed traveler’s MacBook Air. Of course, they were just doing their job.

An obviously unenlightened (as to bureaucratic procedures) commenter suggested TSA could spend time training inspectors on new technology. What a silly suggestion that knowledge leads not only to efficiency, but a better “understanding of what may be out of place.”

Perhaps the reason that this Amazon item is out of stock is that the TSA has bought them all for training purposes?

(for more fun check out the “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed” section and the other Playmobil items.) 

I first met Mary in 1999 on an AOL message board about the Right to Keep and Bear Arms shortly after the Columbine shootings. We never quite agreed; she was for more regulation than I am, though we weren’t that far apart. We emailed and chatted online for years.

Last year, I finally met her in person. We shared a bottle of wine and box of chocolates and laughed most of the night. She talked a lot about her son and daughter, who I know are missing her terribly.

She helped me through some very rough times with my son. She didn’t just commiserate and give me moral support, she came through with concrete ideas and connections that helped put my son back on the right track. I will be forever grateful.

I will miss her insights into human nature and her wonderful sense of humor. She was far too young to die.

If there’s one thing I’ve got, it’s an opinion about nearly everything. I’ve decided to take advantage of this trait and try to earn a little money by signing up to write paid blog reviews.

This does not mean that there will be less original, unpaid content here. It doesn’t mean you won’t be subjected to more photos of my darling grandchildren and cute little puppy. I will still write about whatever catches my eye.

In fact, writing paid reviews requires original, unpaid content; lots of it. Perhaps more than I’ve been doing lately. Keeping my blog interesting in order to get paid will likely make it better.

One thing I learned about myself years ago is that I’m not a good salesperson unless I truly believe something is worthwhile, worth the money, and a good deal overall. This attitude will limit my reviewing opportunities. For example, you probably won’t find any reviews of internet dating services here. I am simply not interested in them and not a good enough writer to fake it.

On the other hand, if I find the opportunity to write about a product I’ve already used and like, or one that I’m considering using and know something about, I’ll jump on it.

I suspect I will also find out about products and services that intrigue me enough to further investigate them. I may actually learn something and if I do, I’ll try to pass that knowledge along to my readers. That would be a win, win, win situation.