If you are headed for Florida, bring some sweaters or a jacket or the money to buy them. It is already as cold as the winter of 2002-2003. There are warm spells, but this is going to be a terrible winter.Oooo, already I get flak over my “day laborer” comment of last day. To tell the truth, I don’t care who doesn’t like it, for the only time I have use for hired help is when they are doing their job right. But off the job, forget it. They are plain bad, ornery company. They are untrustworthy because owning nothing makes them disrespect the possessions of others. Being always broke-greedy, they appear to invent ways to let you down. Plus, they can’t do a simple favor without getting manipulative.
A recent episode with a library card comes to mind. You think because you lent me a library card you can blackmail me and dictate what I think? Believe it or not, that was actually attempted. Such people often have difficulty understanding why they get shunned and don’t know anything but more of their own kind. They are the type who can only admit you are smart by adding “in the wrong way”. You are smart, but in the wrong way. You see, too smart for them to take advantage. I've always say it is too bad "hypocrite" is such a nice-sounding word.
[Author's note 2015-11-05: the following passage was so unclear, this is one of the rare re-written accounts. When the local library went postal, I borrowed a library card. Folks, if I have to explain why you do not want a record of what you read in the hands of the wrong people, I can't help you. Nobody can. Anyway, I borrowed a card (never mind the details) that had not been used in years. As soon as I did, however, like with most of the peasant classes, that card suddenly became an important issue. So I gave it back.
Ah, it turns out the owner now wanted to rent it out for money. When he did, the borrower took out some "expensive books", left them in a friend's car, and they got lost or stolen. Thus, the card was revoked until the books were replaced. The card-owner tried to say that I was the one who checked out the books. But I never, card or no card, check books out of a library.
What the person in question was planning to do with expensive books remains a mystery to all. Maybe reading up on pollen dust? That would be a $100 book easy. Anyway, the card-owner tried to say I was the one who stole the books and should pay for the lose. Nonsense, everybody with any brains knows that you cannot check out reference material from a library. The books are too easy to "lose".]
I had been reading up on microscopes. I looked at the microscope powers and my memory serves right. Two thousand is the upper limit for ordinary magnification. Purely by coincidence, that power is also a dividing line between what there is to see. Trust me, you won’t recognize anything smaller than that.
The biggest improvement seems to be a new generation of color LCDs that fit into the ocular tube. Instead of swapping primary eye-pieces, you slip in the LCD and view the specimen on a five-inch screen, or more importantly, take a picture or video clip via USB. I wonder what detail would be visible on a HDTV? I’ll make further inquiries as the best scope I’ve ever owned was 800x and it had an unusually poor depth of field. I was much impressed by the quality of some Chinese binoculars a few years back. We’ll see if they make a decent microscope in the $200 range.
Speaking of HDTVs, I saw a cleverly deceiving Blue-ray promotion. They still have not ironed out the problems with blurring, so the producers have learned to fake sideways motion to the viewer. The race cars now round the corner and head toward the camera, the dolly rolls along with the slow-motion actor so she stays near screen center, only appearing to move laterally. It would fool anyone who was not aware of the trickery. All HDTV videos are specially choreographed to hide the defects. They will appear when you play regular videos, read on.
What grabbed me was the claim that these screens will enhance the clarity of regular DVD movies. I’d have to see that for myself. Older movies contain a lot of across-the-screen action and special effects that pixels can’t handle. There is no doubt about better clarity but that is to be expected with higher screen picture element counts. Note HDTV sales racks are never positioned beside any other type of television.
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