… and it didn’t even take 100 years. Those are smartphones there.
A Collector card from 1929
Credit: Museum für Kommunikation, Bern
It’s a poor joke
The media and the blogosphere is aflame with back-and-forth about the two Australian DJ’s who impersonated Queen Elizabeth to get information about the Duchess of Cambridge’s pregnancy. The tragedy surrounding it is that the nurse who took the call, and actually transferred it to the relevant ward, has now passed away – the victim of a possible suicide, although that has not yet been determined.
The two DJ’s, who have voluntarily gone off the air for an indeterminate period, are as distraught as you might imagine; the prank was never intended to succeed in the first place, and things of this ilk are not uncommon in the radio world. While they are being pilloried (and even threatened with mayhem) by the world at large, it’s pretty plain that they never planned to hurt anyone. Still, it raises the question once again of what constitutes a good joke, and what crosses the line. Far too many bullies (to bring up another very hot current topic) excuse their actions by saying, “we were just kidding around – it was just a joke.”
The following has been around for a long time, but I’ve saved it – because it’s the best guideline I’ve ever seen. Despite some human lapses in judgment, I’ve done my best to follow it.
When someone blushes with embarrassment…
When someone carries away an ache…
When something sacred is made to appear common…
When someone’s weakness provides the laughter…
When profanity is required to make it funny…
When a child is brought to tears…
Or when everyone can’t join in the laughter…
It’s a poor joke.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Change or Die
Excerpted from an article by Alan Deutschman
“Change or Die”
What if you were given that choice? For real. … What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn’t, your time would end soon — a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?
Yes, you say?
Try again.
Yes?
You’re probably deluding yourself.
You wouldn’t change.
Don’t believe it? You want odds? Here are the odds, the scientifically studied odds: nine to one. That’s nine to one against you. How do you like those odds?
Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University… turned the discussion to patients whose heart disease is so severe that they undergo bypass surgery, a traumatic and expensive procedure that can cost more than $100,000 if complications arise. About 600,000 people have bypasses every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties — all at a total cost of around $30 billion. The procedures temporarily relieve chest pains but rarely prevent heart attacks or prolong lives. Around half of the time, the bypass grafts clog up in a few years; the angioplasties, in a few months. The causes of this so-called restenosis are complex. It’s sometimes a reaction to the trauma of the surgery itself. But many patients could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery — not to mention arrest the course of their disease before it kills them — by switching to healthier lifestyles. Yet very few do. “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle,” Miller said. “And that’s been studied over and over and over again. And so we’re missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”
———-
While the article above is slanted at corporate leadership and mentions a particular diet plan that was more successful than others, the reason people don’t change is that the benefits of not changing outweigh the prices they are paying.
Every moment is a choice, and every choice has prices and benefits.
I’m currently about 30 pounds above my ideal weight, and that’s because I’m firmly committed to being 30 pounds above my ideal weight. There’s no other reason, no excuse, no story. It’s what I’m choosing.
I’ve released that excess weight twice in my life, and believe you me, it felt awesome. But while I’m committed to getting back to a healthy lifestyle, I may also be committed to staying safe and comfortable, because that protects me from the fear of failure – and the fear of success. Life gets in the way, and it’s oh, so easy to revert to old habits and patterns that serve as protective barriers against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
My body is telling me it’s really time for a change, and I’m feeling like the price I’m paying is higher than I’m comfortable with. Today the scale reads 187. My intention is to get back to 165, which means I’ll have 3 new suits and a whole closet full of pants I can fit into again.
Watch this space; I’ll report my progress.
We’ll see.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Montmartre, 1955
Source: Unknown
Inflation
Just for comparison, my mother’s little stone tablet cost about $750.00 last year, and it measures about 10″ x 16″.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Lion’s Mane, Nomura, and Photoshop
Amazing, isn’t it? Takes your breath away. Despite having been posted over 600,000 times all over the internet, it’s not real.
The Lion’s Mane Jellyfish (cyanea capillata) is big indeed – the largest recorded specimen found, which washed up on the shore of Massachusetts Bay in 1870, had a bell (body) with a diameter of 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) and tentacles 120 feet (37 m) long. A similar-sized beast, the Nomura’s Jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai), grows up to 2 m (6.6 ft) in diameter and weighs up to 200 kg (440 lb).
Lion’s Mane Jellyfish
Nomura’s jellyfish
The photo above gives you a better idea of just how big these jellies can be. They are quite large, but not as large as the one in the picture above.
An article at Forbes give’s a journalist’s analysis of why the first image is a fake, based on the kind of internet research that a journalist would do. Not bad sleuthing – the author, Anthony Wing Kosner, describes how his research led him to this article at io9, and he gives some other supporting data as well, such as a debate over at Snopes.com which began in 2007. However, one paragraph of his article disturbed me. He said,
“I agree with all of McClain’s arguments except the one about the Photoshop “halo.” The image of the diver does indeed seem to be in a different light than the surrounding image, but it is hard for anyone but a forensic image analyst to tell the difference between the artifact-ing that happens naturally through jpeg compression around contrasting edges in an image, and an actual “halo” of extra edge-pixels on a pasted-in element.”
Well, that’s a load of high-grade steer manure. Anyone who has worked with images can spot a blatant photoshop manipulation fairly easily. Enlarge the diver next to the “super giant” and sharpen the image a few times, and that “halo” becomes much more obvious.
Compare this with an enlarged and sharpened version of the real photo:
If you look around the jelly you can see some evidence of jpeg compression and luminosity variances, but nothing like the obvious manipulation around the diver in the first picture. It may be true that high-quality forgeries require photographic forensic tools to identify, but the one in question doesn’t fall into that category.
There are enough wonders in this universe to boggle our minds without resorting to creating them; unfortunately, in the age of Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter, a phony picture will circle the globe nine times before someone says, “Wait, what?”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Senseless criticism
I saw this posted over on Facebook today, on a fan page called “Being Liberal.”
What caught my attention was the prominent picture of the Salt Lake temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I happen to be a member. There were 3,191 comments when last I checked and the debate was in large part your typical flame war between believers and anti-religionsists.
My response at the Facebook page was as follows:
“A picture of this nature is disingenuous and divisive by nature because it cannot convey even a fraction of the big picture. If, for example, you were to put the dollar value of such structures in a chart next to the dollar value of aid rendered by the organization to the disadvantaged or suffering throughout the world, and then in a third column, the dollar value of personal contributions and charitable service to society made by those who belong to your group, that might actually have some statistical value. Since such comparisons are impossible to quantify, the picture has relatively little empirical value other than to engender bitter polemics. If we were to reduce the massive expenditure down to the least common denominator, one could argue that it’s immoral to have a banana for breakfast when millions in Africa have none. One could create a similar montage of vast expenditures by secular organizations and make exactly the same point, so for me the net impact of the picture is an ill-advised and baseless attack on religion for no other reason than a personal bias.”
At the same page, I found this image:
Once again, the LDS Church is targeted. Granted, the conference center (pictured) may have cost more than $350 million to build. At the same time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an organization has donated more than $1 billion in cash and material assistance to 167 different countries in need of humanitarian aid since it started keeping track in 1985, and this is over and above the charitable efforts of its individual members. And from the pulpit pictured above is broadcast to the world on a regular basis messages of hope, of faith, of goodness, of charity, and of service, messages which inspire Church members to live lives in harmony with the teachings of the historical Jesus.
For the sake of comparison, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, built by the avowed atheist and communist Nicolae Ceauşescu, is estimated to have cost over €3 billion.
There’s a better way to spend one’s energy than tearing down organizations that do a lot of good, simply because one doesn’t happen to ascribe to the philosophy or theology upon which they are based. From a social standpoint, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with either faith or atheism – both systems are capable of tremendous human good and tremendous douchebaggery. Quiet service and the creation of positive energy trumps the public mockery of the beliefs of others any day – at least in my book.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
YouTube gives me the nasty.
Hqiz. Got a notification today that a video I posted was removed pursuant to a copyright claim.
I found it here: It’s the third one down.
According to the info on the page where I found it, the ad is in the public domain, so I put it up in good faith.
Someone else thinks it’s not, so I have a strike on my account. I hate legalese, I hate attorneys, I hate the whole copyright madness. Someone might simply have sent me a polite note requesting the movie be removed, but no – I get all this garbage:
I’ve sent an email requesting clarification to the claimant whose email address was provided – I hope they have the decency to respond.
Gah. Dealing with corporate legal hqiz is so unpleasant.
2012 Corruption Perception Index
Infographic from Transparency International.
Click the image to access the full-size version.
The USA is not doing as well as it should, I fear. As for the most-corrupt countries on earth – no surprises there.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
GPS Voices I Wish I Had
I love my Prius, but the GPS voice is pretty mechanical. Better than your average female generated voice, but still pretty sterile. My Droid is even worse.
If I could wave my magic wand, I’d have the following voices on my GPS to choose from (with appropriate personality, as well, if applicable)
1. James Earl Jones
“Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along the last known trajectory.”
2. Alan Rickman
“So like your father. Go back to Exit 29 and try it again, you pathetic fool.”
3. Leonard Nimoy
“Fascinating choice, but illogical for the destination you have selected.”
4. Katherine Hepburn
“Damn it, you’re not listening to me.”
5. Frank Oz
“Pig-headed, this one is.”
6. Cary Grant
“Maybe if you lightened up you could find the right exit without asking ‘permesso’. ”
7. Patrick Stewart
“Set course for I-15 South. Engage.”
8. Peter Lorre
“If you make another wrong turn, you shall make me very angry.”
9. Clint Eastwood
“Just try turning there. Go ahead, make my day.”
10. Robert Eddison
“You chose… poorly.”
Of course, there are so many others. I realize the ladies are woefully under-represented in the list above, but I just had to choose from the ones I thought would be the funniest. Some voices have no particular characterization, but would be just plain awesome to listen to, such as Daniel Schorr, go ndéanai Día trocaire air, or the archetypical yiddische mama (“I told you to turn on 49th street, but did you listen to me? No, that’s fine, just go on about your merry way, I’ll be all right…”)
Whatever the case, GPS voices could be a lot more entertaining than they are today.
Spoken, the Old Wolf has.
Playing in the World Game 