When food is the top story, you know it was a quiet day. Here’s today’s Trump breakfast. I’ll forget if I don’t say so now but tomorrow is a food anniversary for me. It will be six years since I’ve regularly eaten peanut butter, chocolate, avocado, or had a milkshake, sundae, or bacon. There’s a difference between what I said and dieting, but generally my parameters are plenty strict enough (since unlike dieting which cuts down, I can completely cut out items, like pasta.)
With my brekky on the table, you see I’m ¾ of the way through “Les Miserables”. I’m on page 260 and Marius still hasn’t done the wild thing with Cosette. What a wimp. The plot is like the Internet without electricity, where every person from the Bishop down to the washer woman expends enormous mental energy scrutinizing other people’s behavior. Why did he hang his hat that way? Is he Corsican? Call the authorities. Open his mail. Send a runner for the Mayor. Listen for footsteps.It surprises me that there are still people who don’t know how to work a spreadsheet. I gave a half-hour lesson this morning. The extra effort many people need to learn this application is a result of deep-rooted lack of general general. Well-designed spreadsheets should resemble easy-to-read reports, but that’s not going to help the muttonhead who never learned what a report was back in fourth grade. I’m staggered by how many adults can’t properly define a report (see below).
The club meeting [last evening] was inconclusive. I have no more money [for supplies] and Agt. M won’t drive at night because his dash lights are shorted out. This may not be club business, but it goes a long way to show that networking or pooling of skilled labor is still the winning ticket. It is always nice to have an organization backing up what you do, and c’mon, who’s the best non-career organizer in this town?
Then, I see robot copters flying in formation. The commentator, in Japanese, describes their use in monitoring volcanoes. Well folks, I’m not even going to mention a year ago when this very blog described the use of an expendable drone to fly into a burning building.
But it is more than curious how robots, after languishing along since ninety-something, suddenly in the past year began moving rapidly in parallel at the same speed as ideas generated right here, in writing. Yes, I am aware that all is fluke and chance. But now explain how come . . . on second thought, I’m not going to ask that question yet. I will maintain that if there is even one common factor, such events are not random.
I’ve reviewed the list given to me by the new band. I have an aversion to highly specialized tunes, such as “Come Together”. I consider such songs as mood music. One has to prep the audience before they appreciate this kind of thing, never a good plan. The guys want “Polythene Pam”. I’ll ace it, but such music is hardly on my agenda. Whereas I like to hear that song every other year, I’d rather catch a nap till it’s over.
Several sources have mentioned the “Your Not That Special” grad speech. The guy is right, but this blog has promoted that same theme for over thirty years. Back in the 80s the women at work were on this “children are the future” kick. I point out that my children are the future. Their children are “the next generation of car thieves and unwed mothers”. The “everyone is special” crowd has yet to prove anyone is unique, much less special. Even when they try, it is a matter of definition. For example, to me, all bitchy women are alike no matter what they look like.
Have you seen the spate of law suits over people who rank their lovers and post on-line? As usual, such posting is a joke until it happens to somebody with the power to hit back. Which has more clout, the right to privacy or the right to free speech? I chose the right to privacy, because usually only one person is affected. Keeping your own affairs private is less likely to harm another than free speech. I feel current defamation laws fall short of protecting the general public.
Gossip is in total, far more harmful to society than most slander cases. Laws that favor any group should not be tolerated, yet slander and libel laws protect only those who claim certain brands of “reputation”. There is also the issue with truthfulness as a defense because it is illegal use either truth or lies to cause harm—in theory.
But to me, defamation is a privacy issue. We don’t have tight enough privacy laws. I favor prescribed damages. The telling issue would be the circumstances under which something was a secret before being made public. That means a queer or sleaze might be able to collect if they had one lover who talked, but not if they had ten or twenty. There’s a big difference between expecting one person to keep hush-hush and half the town.
[Author’s note: prescribed damages are where you can sue for a fixed amount without having to prove financial loss. Such laws already cover some areas of copyright infringement and illegal telemarketing. Having the same for defamation would move the awards away from compensatory toward punitive. To keep things lively, I would allow revelation of a source as a defense. That means everybody gets off except the originator. I’d believe we’d find most smut is started by the same few persons. Such laws, in the case of my family, would put the bigmouths right out of business.]
ADDENDUM
Today's question is, "What is a report?" This is a repeat for me, but a repeat that is apparently overdue. A report consists of, in this order:
1. A title at the top, usually centered.
2. A date, usually top right
3. Any number of detail lines on the left
4. A matching column of numbers on the right
5. A total at bottom right
6. A signature (virtual or implied) at bottom right.
Thus, if you look closely, this receipt is also a report. Run the checklist. Except for the signature, it qualifies. But it is poorly designed, as the date is in the wrong position. This tells us the dimwit who designed this receipt didn’t know what a report was, meaning he (always a he) graduated after 1981 when college standards fell below recovery levels. Receipts for larger amounts, like the rent, usually have a signature, think about it.It is now clear that there are reports everywhere, such as a TV guide or the bus schedule. In my classic examples, I ask if your paycheck or a letter to your mother are reports. Yes, just run the checklist. (The title of the letter is implied, and the total “Love, Dexter” does not have to be a number.)
Those who fancy themselves clever and depart from this format are showing their ignorance. Part of dumb is getting fancy when you don’t need to. Stick with the tried and true when you are trying to get an idea across. If you want to see what happens when dumb bastards get hold of a report, try to make sense out of a tax form or your phone bill.
