Dysfunctional

"Dysfunctional what?" you may ask.

The answer is "Everything."

You can be forgiven for not believing me. After all, something must be working, somewhere! What about our parent's lives in Ft. Madison, Iowa, or anyplace else in the American Rust Belt? They were doing alright during WWII, and for a while after that, but then things spluttered to a close. 

And with a global economy, everything spluttered to a close. 

"What about the Computer?" You may ask. Hasn't that taken off? 

It has, but is it enough to save us? I don't think so. 

To recover, we first have to realize how bad off we are. And this is not likely to happen. 

The Computer can handle huge amounts of data, but it has to be the right kind of data. And to make it right requires the active intervention of People. 

To make things right, we have to make things right. 

Urgent Care from the Army Corps of Engineers

New Yorker

 

While Trump flails in the pandemic, the military’s builders are getting it done.

This a long, but a good read.

Orosi and the Virus

Orosi is the little town I live in, in Costa Rica. 

It used to have a number of small businesses, but they are mostly gone. 

The Bar in the center of town was the first to shut down. All bars, all over the country, are gone. You can no longer have a beer with your friends. 

Pizza stores also used to be common. They are now gone, everyone. 

We now have a low price grocery store. It has low prices because it only employs one person, on the checkout lane. This seems to be what many people want, except for the unemployed. 

Facebook has a good article un this 

Global State of Small Business

Me and Mr. Coffee

Amazon

This must be the biggest and most complicated Coffee Maker ever made. 

It uses both coffee and milk (an unstable combination). In these drinks, steamed milk is mostly a liquid, and frothed milk is mostly gas. You will see what I mean when you try using it.

Espresso a unique method of coffee brewing coffee in which very hot high-pressure water (steam) is forced through finely-ground coffee. Popular in Europe, it is far richer and more full-bodied than regular drip coffee.

Cappuccino a drink made with 1/3 espresso, 1/3 steamed milk, 1/3 frothed milk.

Latte a drink made of 1/4 espresso and 3/4 steamed milk.

I use Splenda to sweeten all these drinks. 

You gotta be mechanically adapt (or a professional Barista) to use it. 

It uses an external water tank (instead of a boiler) and an external milk tank - that is complicated, with a lever controlling a frothing tube and a rotating dial that controls the milk amount. You gotta see it, and get your hands on it, to understand what I am talking about here. 

But I don't know what the Cup Height Adjusting Tray and the Removablerip Tray and Lid are for.

What do People do at Shopping Centers?

They shop. 

After they park their cars and walk inside. 

I contrast this with a relative of mine who lives in Ft. Madison, Iowa. 

They live on a farm. and could easily go for a walk there, early in the morning, when it is still cool. 

But, they proudly inform me, they drive in their car on a nearby Superhighway and go shopping at a Shopping Center, where they can see the latest Fashions (and all the other shoppers, with their shopping carts). 

They might buy something, but that is not the point, They have done the right thing. 

Week Mind, Week Body

This is Old Age for me. If had more parts they would be week also. 

The mind affects what interests me most: Software, that is advancing at lightning speed. 

When I retired in 2001 there were hundreds of Software companies, most of which did not know what they were doing, now there are four: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and a newcomer: Google. That made itself rich with a new way of doing Internet Seach: finding all the riches that were out there, waiting to be discovered. 

Meanwhile, the people who were benefiting from all these riches were growing stupid, amazingly stupid. 

We don't even know how to talk about this problem. 

It began with the TV, that turned us into Couch Potatoes. This was the Movies brought into our Living Rooms, for free! This was better than the movies: it showed us how to live and think! 

This had never happened before, and we did not know what to do about it. So we did nothing until the TV became a Computer! 

This did not take long and we were soon turned into robots, or bots, for short. 

This was an amazing development, and once again, we did no know what to make of it. Something else was controlling us, but we did not know what that was. 

And did not want to know. This was stupidity on two levels: not knowing, and not wanting to know. 

High School Sweethearts

This is not going to be a long posting. I will only say the obvious - they don't work. 

Please leave a comment if you think otherwise. 

Writing for the Computer and Writing for People

These are two different activities, but there is considerable overlap.

As any software instructor is quick to point out. 

I am taking a course on F#, a computer language, which interests me - but not most people. 

It is teaching me, once again, there are two kinds of people: Ordinary people and Computer people. 

The two can meet, and probably should meet, but are not likely to meet.

Pudgy Uncle Bob makes me Laugh

Because he talks about Programming. 

"He doesn't make me laugh, "You are saying, "And people like him should be dealt with severely! Telling things the way they are should not be permitted."

Goodness! You are saying "Don't do this! To show how to do it." 

I will make this statement even stronger: "Programmers should be Killed!"

The Desires of Margaret Fuller

New Yorker

Margaret Fuller was once the best-read woman in America, and millions knew her name. Her writing and her correspondence have been readily available for almost forty years, and she is a rock star of women’s-studies programs. Yet a wider public hungry for transgressive heroines (especially those who die tragically) has failed to embrace her.

Highly Superior People

These people are aware of their superiority - highly aware of it. And look down on those with ordinary superiority. 

This is the first thing I want to emphasize - they exist and have a big effect on the rest of us. This began when we became civilized and invented War, one of our favorite activities. 

This was made possible by the use of Mud (or Clay) from which everything can be made. Houses, walls, everything. Even Writing, examples of which abound in the Museums of the world. When baked it turns in brick, which lasts forever. 

Unfortunately, this writing was boring, lists of offerings made to temples, bookkeeping.

But one of these temples featured Temple prostitutes, and things became interesting. 

The Drama at my Grocery Store

This is operated by a Chinese family, as many grocery stores are in Costa Rica. They speak Chinese (I'm not sure which one) and Spanish. They were the first store in town to wear masks. 

The in-store politics is lively and vicious. The work is simple: you scan each item purchased, which is immediately shown on the display, collect the money, and pay the refund - which is calculated for you. 

It's a stupid job, well-suited for a stupid, bur attractive young woman. 

Then a new store opened in town, which has lower prices. It has floor-to-ceiling merchandise, but only one person, at the checkout counter. I don't like the place, but many people do. 

I went back to my Chinese market, which has good customer service. 

The Future of Programming

This a YouTube article by "Uncle" Bob Martin. It is mostly about the past of Programming, which according to him, started with Turing, not Ada. 

It is excellent.

A Tech Writer and a Programmer

This was me in the Nineties. 

I was both, but nobody noticed this. Because no one had a clear idea of what either one was. It would take 20 years (2000-20010) for this to be cleared up. With most of this clarification coming late in the next decade (in 2020). 

By then, it would be common for Software Developers to make Presentations, explaining what they were doing. Everyone (including Satya Nadella) was explaining everything. 

Working in an Office is Depressing

This what most people are already doing, How can they stand it? By changing who they are. 

They have become a different kind of people, super people that are hard to describe but easy to be. 

I am thinking here of a cousin of mine, who went to college to become a Social Worker. But found, to everyone's amazement, that he could not work at that. He was living in Ohio, probably in the Cleveland area. He was married, with children. His wife took the kids and left him. 

Fortunately, he had a sister and her husband who were living in Northern Virginia, in the DC area. They invited him to live with them, while he got his life straightened out. 

He took Adult Education courses, that included tests to find out what kind of work he was suited for. These indicated he would make a good surveyor, so he took surveying classes, and got a job doing that. 

He was a success! He had become a different person. 

What about the rest? That, my friend, is another story. 

My Brother and the BIA

My Brother was musically inclined, he had a fine voice and graduated from the U of Indiana as a music teacher.

What happened next is hard to explain, but he ended up on the Navaho Indian Reservation, trying to teach in the schools provided by the BIA (the Bureau of Indian Affairs) a large Federal institution. 

The conditions there were terrible. They didn't even have enough toilet paper. My Brother became a Community Organizer, trying to improve the Navaho (and their schools) whether they wanted to be improved or not! 

The BIA had a teacher's union, and he became a union organizer, leading parades in Indian towns!  As I write this, I can hardly believe this happened. 

He realized to be effective he needed a law degree, so he went back to school (in the ASU) and got a law degree, and joined the Arizona Bar. 

But there were no jobs doing this kind of work, so he went back to work on the other side of the fence, defending organizations from their employees! There was money doing this, and he became part of a Law Firm, in Flagstaff, AZ. 

Working hard, but making lots of money - to the delight of his family. 

Play

I feel uneasy about some of the newer uses of this word, which make it synonymous with "having fun", or even "being stupid". 

In my job as a Technical Writer, I frequently had to explain things, But I found many people did not want to understand what I was trying to say. 

I saw there were people who wanted to learn and those that did not (the larger group by far). 

The companies I worked for wanted to sell as many of their products as possible and thought I was responsible for the poor sales. 

It was a while before they learned what was going on - that most people cannot understand how a computer works. 

They are stupid in this context. And they are likely to stay that way. 

The Move from Small Business to Big Business

This was a huge change that few saw happening and that most people are still not aware of. 

In the 20th Century, we had WWI, then the Depression. and then WW II. Then for 20 years, we had a boom economy, with lots of jobs, where lots of people bought new houses and new cars and went to college. It was all so easy!

President Teddy Roosevelt noticed this and acted strongly against it. But he was ahead of his time. 

Soon only Big Businesses had any jobs. This happened gradually and was not commented on (it was bad news). 

It was not in the News, but almost everyone knew about it and acted on it. An office culture developed where people (as individuals) were abused. This was bad news on steroids, but was not noticed!

Ir was accompanied by a change in technology, to Computers. 

Ordinary people, who were not too bright, to begin with, were overwhelmed. 

My Family and the Church in the Fifties

This Church was the RLDS church, that we knew was the right church. And everyone else supported us in this belief. 

The LDS church was still out west somewhere and did not bother us. 

I went to Graceland College, the Church college, a two-year college in those days, and then transferred to the U of Illinois. 

What a shock! No one knew of our church or our college.  But they knew about Engineering and had a fine Engineering school. They also paid for my Appendix Operation, because Health Insurance was included in the tuition, which was low already. 

I worked my way through college, as many other students did. I rode a Bicycle, that my father had used also. 

Life becomes a Struggle as We Age

This is normal, but not always pleasant. Eventually, we need help in getting around. 

I notice this especially in Costa Rica because I don't have a car and I don't live with a family. 

I depend on strangers to help me carry my packages. Usually, they are available and glad to help. 

USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)

Wikipedia

On 12 July 2020, a fire started in a lower deck while the ship was undergoing maintenance at Naval Base San Diego. Despite intensive efforts, it took until 16 July for firefighters to fully extinguish all fires aboard the vessel. The cause of the blaze is under investigation. The damage was extensive and the future of the ship remains uncertain.^[5]

The Transition from Hardware to Software

This marked one of the major changes in the Industrial Revolution. Which, as usual, was not noticed by the People involved. Because it was too big. 

I will relate this to the Religions of the time. Especially Mormonism, the religion of my family. 

I will start in the 17th Century, with the Sailing Ship, which operated by Wind Power. 

This was replaced, in the 18th Century, by the Steam Ship, powered by Coal. The workers who produced these machines worked in incredibly difficult conditions, many hours a day. This affected their minds and made it difficult for them to think. 

The Mormons, as they were called, were Industrial Workers who believed instantly in the Book of Mormon. And knew it was written by a Prophet of God. 

The next transition, from Hardware to Software, is still happening and is not understood any better. 

The State of the Human Race

I won't keep you waiting long, but get down to the basic facts - we are in bad shape, and don't seem to be getting any better. And don't seem to care.

Why is this? Why don't we care? 

I can only guess at the answer, but it seems to be this; our problems seem too big for us to solve. In fact, they are too big for us to even describe. 

Perhaps the phrase "too big" is not the right one. Maybe "too subtle" would be better  Or even "too much". 

Our solution for this is, is to bring it down to size, so we feel able to work on it. 

This will take some leadership, so we can work on this together. 

The Truth is hard for people to Know

Maybe I should make that stronger - the Truth is very hard for most people to arrive at. There is something about it that makes it hard to grasp, which makes it hard to understand. 

I will use the Religion of my family as an example: Mormonism, and the Book of Mormon specifically. 

Joseph Smith wrote it himself and millions now believe in it, or anything affiliated with it. 

I have to ask: what is going on here? You can say "This typical of Religion and cannot be explained. And is typical of many other things, that cannot be explained." 

There are at least two kinds of things: Scientific and Nonscientific. And the Noncientific are now more popular. 

Uncle Lee

He was not my Uncle at all, but my Mother maintained an elaborate story, pretending he was. 

Now that she is dead and buried, I can finally reveal her elaborate cover-up story, involving a woman who died before I was born. 

My Mother's family came from Nova Scotia (they were Loyalists, who had the supported the Crown, and were forced to leave, and abandon their property, for which they were given property in Nova Scotia). 

Eventually. one daughter came to Boston, ane married into the rich Fisher family. I don't even know her name. This family owned a Business College. A new ideat at the time, that increased their wealth. 

She sent for her brother to teach shorthand at the Business College. He married one of his students, who had recently immigrated from England, and she became my Mother's mother, my grandmother. They bought a new home in Summerville, a suburb of Boston. They had it made!

But grandmother had a dream where she saw Boston going up in flames, and heard a voice telling her "Flee to Zion!" 

They moved to Independence, Missouri, where grandfather got a job working in the financial district in Kansas City. Their move had been a success, at least for Grandmother! 

Their next move was nor a financial success -  to Nauvoo, Illinois. Where Grandfather died. My Mother was only a young woman at the time, but she took this hard, and got married herself; to Harold Smith in Ft. Madison, Iowa. Where I was born in 1936, in the depths of the Depression!

My father had joined the Marine Corp and served from 1930-34 in Haiti and had a Haitian Girlfriend to which he wrote many passionate love letters (in French). 

When my mother's family moved to Nauvoo, rhe Sister from Nova Scotia moved there also and her husband became my Uncle Lee!  You might want to read that again, because everything depends on it. 

It's the final ending of a mystery story, with my mother in the middle of it.

Let me make another pass at this. the man I knew as Uncle Lee was the husband if the Sister of my Grandfather.

From wanting to Know More, to wanting to Know Less

Washington Post

Opinions you may have missed.

By Fred Hiatt  Email “All you really need to know about Tony Fauci,” one of his acquaintances told The Post’s Molly Roberts, “is that, at five-foot, seven-inches, he was the captain of his high school basketball team.” Well, that may not be quite all you need to know about the man who grew up to become America’s most trusted doctor — and the recent target of the Trump administration’s bizarre anti-science campaign.  But once you read this illuminating Opinions Essay, you may appreciate in a new way the extraordinary role Anthony S. Fauci has played, under six presidents, in forging a national truce between science and politics — and why it matters that the truce has broken down.

The Racist Origins of U.S. Policing

Foreign Affairs

One of the sons of my older Sister is a policeman, and a good one. His wife recently left him, taking their son with her, because he never got a raise. When I noted this to my Sister, she could not see a connection!

She should read this article, but will not. 

Why do we Hate Ourselves?

Most people are nor aware of this attitude, but it exists and is strong. 

I ask myself the usual questions about it: when and where and why. As an American, I have to begin in the late18th Century, but acknowledge our debt to the English, whose history (and language) begins much earlier. 

I also have to acknowledge the effect of Mormonism on my family. Which began early in American history, about 1820. 

Now, early in the 21st Century, we find ourselves in a very strange situation, we cannot understand in the least. 

To return to the original question "When did we start hating ourselves?" We have to say it was a gradual process and was caused by our environment. 

I have to ask about that strange animal Facebook, which has become very important, overnight. What does this say about us? 

Perhaps it is saying we have become dependent on (and identified with) our technologies. 

We are now part Human and part Computer, a strange mix that does not work very well, 

It's too Hard to Understand, so I won't even try

Foreign Affairs

This what I thought, after spending a lot of time reading this. 

And is what most people think nowadays about many things. Life has become too complicated for them, and they don't know how to fix it. 

Starbuck's Coffee

This is new to me, but I like the flavor. 

This is packaged in a pod you put in your Espresso machine. When the pressure is high enough, Bang! out comes your coffee.

Ir is not cheap, however. 

Self-destruction

A self-destructive person is not aware of this - or much of anything else. 

When did this start? It must have existed when Buddism started, which was quite a while ago. And has intensified since then. 

So what we should be talking about is a situation that is getting worse -  quite rapidly. 

I might as well get personal about this. I was living in Silicon Valley, where everything was happening at once, it seemed. Bur where People were not as important as Computers. 

I could see how important Computers were, I was no dummy, but I could also see people were more important. Not so with everyone else, they thought Computers had taken the place of God. They were everything, and People were nothing! 

This was an Old Testament view of God, brought up-to-date technically. And the two did not mix very well. 

The Valley was full of Therapists, every kind. and a new kind was invented every month. I was part of a Men's group, where everyone worked in the Valley. Once a week we got together and told our Therapist about our problems. Everyone agreed that life was Hell, but the pay was good. 

I decided to get out, and I did a search to discover where to go to. Costa Rica was indicated, so I got on a plane going here. On the taxi from the airport, I could see the people here liked other people! I had found the right place, and I stayed. 

Software is Different than anything Else

This makes it difficult to explain - very difficult to explain. 

In this way, it is like the Computer. which we made, but is not like us at all.

Consider the difference between a Steam Engine and an Electric Motor. Two different things entirely, right? With two entirely different kinds of people behind them. 

Here you can differ with me, and use the example of the Hybrid Electric car. This contains an internal combustion engine and an electric propulsion system, connected together for maximum efficiency. 

The driver does not feel this happening -  she only knows that she can drive in the fast lane. 

Software also allows you to drive in the fast lane, in a number of ways. 

This number of ways takes some getting used to. You have many possibilities, all saying "Use Me!" This forces you in the middle, to make a choice - or make many choices.

When you are done, you can brag about how good your software is 

This goes back to Joan of Arc, who could brag about how good her amour was. 

Having children without a man

Men seem to be going out of style. Women can easily do without them. 

Sex is still popular, as entertainment, but not as a necessity. And I want to explain the difference. 

It used to be that couples married to have children. Children appeared naturally, but legitimate children took some serious social arrangements. 

But what about children that just show up without any prior planning? I'm glad you asked because this is a common occurrence. Cleopatra, for example, had many children born this way, to some important men. The Bible is full of stories of important men and their concubines. 

Everyone wants children, but only a few could afford them. 

What happens to the rest? That depended on God and his Chosen Ones. You better be on the right side of Him, or you got your balls cut off.

Week Mind, Week Legs

I got both, and I do not know which is worse. 

I went to Cartago yesterday by bus, wearing my face mask to protect me from the Virus. 

The government has declared a state of emergency, and things are far from normal. I should have stayed home. 

When I got off the bus, coming back. I could barely walk. I got a friendly young man to carry my bag of groceries to my house, where Ray scolded me like I was one of his dogs. 

People do not want to be Smart

Why? I can think of many reasons, but it's most important to notice it is happening. It has become normal behavior. 

Why has intelligent behavior become uncommon? Perhaps because people want to conform, to be like everyone else. This how we learn a language - as small children, we do this automatically and unconsciously. 

And we continue to do this, when as we learn as adults. Unfortunately, we also learn how to be stupid, because everyone else is. 

For some reason, we went from being smart to being stupid.  

We need to know how, when, and why this happened. 

When is the easiest, because there was a big change between the Ancient world and the Modern world. A change that took a thousand years. And this has been the basis of our classical education, which included the learning of Greek and Latin.

At the end of this time, people had changed, and they became used to change. 

The Big Advantage to Not Being

You cannot be hurt. 

How is this? Because the world we live in is focussed on just this; destroying us.  

There must be some complicated reasons for this - but take it from me: they are out to get you. 

"This is paranoid!" You will say. I agree. 

It's not just paranoid, it is very paranoid. 

What does Everyone Want?

What everyone else wants. 

Simple, huh? Bur this made Computer Search possible. And made Google very rich. 

Before this, the Computer had to know what you were searching for. Two young programmers, however, started out by crawling the web, recording everything they found, indexing it, and storing it in a secret database. They formed a company, named Google, that owned this database. 

When someone wanted to find something on the Web, Google could look it up on their database. And give him the result quicky- for free! 

This was a new revolution to add to the Industrial Revolution. And everyone had to have it, 

My Brother and Change

My Brother is a normal person: he has no idea what is going on around him. He reacts to these changes without thinking about them. 

This is not unusual. Life has become more difficult for us, but our ability to understand these changes has not improved very much, 

We should be firm about this: No changes without the ability to understand them!

Instead, we nave constant changes, because this makes us buy more, whether we need them or not. 

Depression, Software, and the Virus

This is going to take some explaining, and I am not sure I am up to it. 

I will start with the first part: Depression, a mental state that is all too common. It is caused by our Modern Life that our cave-dwelling minds cannot understand, and do not want to understand. 

The result was the Industrial Revolution (several revolutions, in fact) we can barely understand or cope with. This produced two World Wars and the Bomb. 

This situation was made worse by the Computer and its Software. This made us smart (with its Artificial Intelligence) and stupid at the same time. And Depressed. 

Things could not get worse, we were sure, Bur we were hit by a Virus, that made it hard for us to work together. 

How to win in Afghanistan

Kill the Taliban, using advanced aircraft, made for this purpose. 

This would be done in these stages: 

• Photographic map-making to determine where they are. 
• Selection of targets, this would be determined by people on the ground.
• Destruction of everyone in those targets: men, women, and children. 

The aircraft would contain high-speed machine guns. designed to kill many people quickly. 

After one of these air-strikes, negotiations could be done with the survivors. 

Understanding the Computer

Most people (99 percent of the population) cannot do this - and do want to do this. 

I can barely do this myself. Microsoft says "Do this our way!" And everyone else says the same thing. 

Do it any way you like. If you crash and burn, you can always say: "It made me do it!::

The call of Fanaticism

New Yorker

I sometimes ask myself "Why don't people read more?" This article points to a possible answer: "because what they read is very unpleasant."

I'm sure this is not a complete answer, there is much written about Programming that people will not read either - even though they know they should, and it is moderately interesting. 

Perhaps the answer is in the title of this essay: people like radical solutions to life's problems. Religious solutions, for example. Ordinary solutions don't have as much appeal. 

Global Warming

There are two responses to this. It is not happening or it will happen. 

If it will happen, it will happen a long time from now, like a hundred years. 

A shorter time is possible, but not likely. 

Nothing has to be done right now. 

Their History is Sacred

I am reading Brigham Young, the third biography of his life. 

I was struck by this passage: 

For the Latter-day Saints, their history is sacred. Mormons venerate their ancestors who first responded to the gospel, who pioneered there way across the American continent, and their church devotes considerable resources to maintaining its historical sites, preserving its documents, and defending the reputation of its former leaders. 

My family belongs to a smaller Mormon church (the RLDS) but their attitudes are similar. 

What does the Computer mean to Me?

This question now applies to everyone, whether they want to answer it or not. 

For most people the answer is easy: it means nothing to them. It's just a tool they occasionally use, whenever necessary. 

They have no idea how it works - and don't want to know.  

But for other people it means a whole new way of doing things, that opens up vast possibilities. 

They know how the computer works, and how to make it work better. 

The Beginning of the End of the RLDS Church

The RLDS was formed by members of the LDS church. after Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism was killed. His oldest son. Joseph Smith III became its president. 

He was living in Nauvoo, Illinois with his mother and her second husband, and with his brothers, their wives, and children. 

Keeping track of all the family relationships of this large family, has always been difficult. But they began by trying to convert members of the LDS church in Utah. This was a total failure, and their employers, the RLDS in Nothern Illinois, insisted they move there. Their mother stayed behind in Nauvoo. 

The RLDS then bought property in Southen Iowa, founded the city of Lamoni, and moved there. This move to Lamoni was critical to the history of the church. 

While in Lamoni, JSIII consolidated his control of the church. The original members of the church, from Northern Illinois, disappeared. 

He made his son, FM Smith, the next president of the church. This set a dangerous precedence: the President of the church had to be a member of the Smith family. The LDS church in Utah had no such restriction and they grew rapidly. 

Is the Computer too advanced for Most People?

Sometimes it is for me. When I tried to move to my Laptop, just now. I fell down on my ass. 

Nothing got hurt, but sometimes I am not so lucky. And I end up going to the hospital in an Ambulance. 

If my mind gets fuddled, some doctor will run me through a bunch of tests, then tell me I have had a seizure! 

I am nice when they use such stupidity, but I want to scream at them.

But I got off the track - I started to talk about Computers, and how they can be too advanced for us. 

YouTube is full of people telling you this is not the case. Computer people can be stupid also. 

And sniffing them out is not too hard. 

Investopedia

I have no idea how I got this. It just popped up out of nowhere when I was researching Facebook, which is its model app. 

The audience is Millennials, who want to squeeze the most out of their money. 

Everyone, large and small, wants to use their Computer to make money.

Why do we like Being Stupid?

Because this destroys the Computer. If we are stupid, the Computer cannot function, because it depends on us for its very existence. 

The Computer now includes the Internet and the Cloud, that the clever among us are developing at a rapid pace. 

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) noted how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool. The Computer Industry (which is now very wealthy) is finally accepting her viewpoint. 

Passwords

Passwords are a clever way to improve Computer Security.

But there are many ways of doing this, depending on the Operating  System. 

Like many people, I started off using the Windows Operating System made by Microsoft, which was updated many times. It is now at Version 10, which still has plenty of problems. 

I am now using a Chromebook which uses the Chrome OS, made by Google. It updates itself automatically, and I am satisfied with it. 

You can go to the Settings menu there, and set up automatic Password Management. Very handy!

What to do, after you have a few too many Children?

This what happened in my family when my sister Linda came along 10 years later. What to do?

An abortion was out of the question, all they worried about, was how to make it seem natural - as if it had been planned all along. 

A Paradise wiih no Money

NY Times Magazine

This was Sri Lanka in the Sixties. 

I was there as a traveler along with many surfboarders from Australia. 

I was staying at a hotel on the Beach. when Sampson showed up and invited us to live at his house. 

Jobs were so scarce, the people who had them had to retire after only a few years of work. The young women there were desperate to find anyone with a job. 

The food was excellent. Sampson would pick the leaves for each day's meals, and grind them in a large pestle. His wife would cook them, using simple utensils. We would also drink the local Tea. 

We didn't know it, but we were living in a timebomb, that would soon go off. 

Help when Growing Up

Everyone needs help when growing up, and most adults are willing to help them with this. They can remember when they got help themselves. 

Grandparents are willing to help parents in this vital work. If they limit the number of children to be taken care of.  

People and Computers

We need to give this relationship some more thought. What do we think of them? 

For most people the answer is simple: they do not want to think about them and avoid this as much as possible. For them, the Computer has only made their lives more difficult and complicated. 

They hate them, although they will never say so. 

We can take that as a realistic starting point: People hate Computers, and they are out to kill them. 

And this explains many of today's problems. The Computer has been forced on us (we think) and we resent its greedy presence. 

This is crazy, but we cannot see this. Our values have been reversed and destructive feels more like constructive.