Like A Cosmic Rose (screen shot)

I've become a fan of certain programs on public TV. In this case I've been following Nova programs about the universe and what we know - at this time - about its creation. The photo below is a screenshot captured after several tries - since I saved the program on DVR just to do this -  of a shot sent back to us from Hubble. Remember that "failed" space telescope? Forgot about that mission to make corrections/repairs? This is a clumsy version of one of my favorite pieces of photography sent back and used in the program about the Big Bang. 

It's been called the Cosmic Rose, or the Rose galaxies.  It shows two galaxies colliding with each other. Note the faint tip up of stars on the point of the small one closest to the large one. Its light took so long to get here that this is what it looked like 300 million years ago. Or we could just say it's 300 million light years away from us. UGC1810 is the name of the larger galaxy, and from a previous program which mentioned colliding galaxies, it's likely there was so much space between stars that very few had any kind of a physical impact on anything else. Look how far we are from our nearest star. It's not that we'll ever know of course, though we were told our own Milky Way had its own collision with another smaller galaxy, and just judge from that.

Notice the TPT logo in the lower right corner's middle, along with the channel's symbol, illegible in this photo, plus whatever is in the three lines on the far right. At any rate, I make no claims for anything but rewinding and shooting again, and again, doing my best to capture what the screen showed. This is my personal best of over a dozen tries. First my camera over-compensated for a dark room at night. Flash! Then daytime shots tended to be about a second late for a fast-moving screen and wording across it, as well as catching some window glare. Oh well, this is just a teaser anyway. I expect research could get you a much more impressive online shot of the two. Maybe somebody will make and sell posters, eh? I wouldn't mind one, right over my bed.

 

Addendum:  Yes there is an uploadable file and much clearer:

https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/hubble-poster-2024-arp-273.pdf

More "Artificially Stupid Stupidity"

Do they call that "ASS"?  "AI" just seems so tame sometimes.

Somewhere in the depths of this blog is an earlier rant on  AI failing on the job, specifically manning the phone lines at my pharmacy. That is, unless you consider its job is actually to annoy and confuse customers until they either take their business elsewhere, or simply refuse to refill their meds any more and just crawl off and die. 

Sometimes that almost does seem the more sensible option.

There's a lot of uneasiness about AI these days. People are so leery of getting bad information online that Google offers the option of cutting it out of its system completely (just one search at a time though) when you simply add -AI (minus sign with  AI ) at the end of your question. Three key strokes and AI's gone... until the next inquiry when you have to block it again. (Should I repeat that again?)

There was a repeat run of a TV show earlier this week, NCIS  Sydney, where first AI appeared in a much too friendly fridge, creeping certain characters out and amusing others at their expense... because we're supposed to think mean is funny, I guess, It was followed by the main plot of AI being put in drones and killing people it considered a threat. Spoiler alert: it opens with killing a kid. 

In the real world, people as yet unidentified around the Twin Cities apparently fear AI in "flock" cameras so much for tracking them in their cars, that daily there are increasing reports of them being stolen by cutting down the entire pole of them and removing them, a whole "flock" at a time. They get replaced, with tax dollars which could go elsewhere or stay in our pockets. Such is our fear when a system isn't restricted. The three laws of robotics are still just fiction. (Read Asimov.)

My issue is nowhere so scary, just annoying or amusing, depending on my mood of the moment. I'm assuming the big pharmacy chain my Part D insurance approves of is cutting prices by installing machines for routine tasks so they could cut costs from not employing real people. Shame on them!  Every one of the people I've met across their counter has been doing a great job, on their feet all day, non stop, error free over the years. The lines we wait in have gotten longer, enough that they have a twisting pattern of stanchion and rope barricades to guide people back and forth and back and forth while they inch their way forward to get their needed meds,  or occasionally a chat with the pharmacist about a new med and how to take it or what not to combine it with. Were another covid-type pandemic to break out again, even two-foot distancing would be a royal challenge, nevermind six feet, with people surrounding you in all directions. Cozy! Cough, cough, gag, gasp, drop.

Is this a share-your-germs-and-we-can-sell-more-meds program? Just a beta test?

Meanwhile there's an AI manning their phones, very reluctant to give up its power to thwart understanding. The first thing it does, if you as a customer hadn't been paying attention to your meds levels at home, is to call you and remind you that it's time to refill something. Perhaps a few somethings. It identifies each by giving you part of its name, like this: "...starting with lis" or whatever the drug name starts with. If you are lucky, you not only know what it's referring to, you have only one medication starting with those three letters, and know whether it needs refilling yet or not. Perhaps you've been taken off of it for a bit, or have been under medical care in a hospital for a bit, and still have plenty in the bottle. Perhaps your doctor has changed the medication or the dose or even stopped it. Do you want that one?  Are you sure? It's not like you can ask the AI a clarifying question. The AI doesn't give you more than a few seconds to decide if you need that medication in the next few days. My first impulse is always to hang up and go check what's low in my supplies. 

But impulses aren't always actions, or I can be busy, or away from home or in a noisy place. So who knows what I'll do right then in response? There have been times I've responded to "you have three medications..." with a blanket yes and hung up. Even in retirement I can occasionally be busy. It can be sorted out at the counter in the.... OMG! Ten days before it's ready?!?! It really takes that long to refill? Somebody give this staff more human help! 

Oh, right. Sighhh.

Then of course, nobody has apparently figured out how to get AI to correctly pronounce a medication name. My earlier rant on this centered around metoprolol. Humans have enough of a problem with that, usually inserting an "r", reading the first half of the name as "metro"instead of "meto". These days AI can't figure out how to divide longer (as in just 4 syllables) names and just where to accent the syllables. Monotone would be easier to understand most days. But many names are compound words made with one familiar term in it, or at least have a simple word incorporated into a product name. 

Take the category of statins. They keep fats from building up in your blood vessels and clogging them. Everybody who needs to take one can pronounce it with the first syllable getting the emphasis. "STA - tin." The names get more complicated by brands distinguishing their statin from the next company's statin. The "STA-tin" part of the name is still pronounced the same, so the rest of the syllables get accents assigned accordingly, keeping the longer word as simple to pronounce as possible.  The one I happen to be taking these days, because at my age one does take them... or else ...  is atorvastatin. Pronounced uh-TOR-vuh-STAT-in. STA-tin is still emphasized the same for easy pronunciation and identification.

Did you think AI has been programmed to deal with that? Of course not! Obviously either that lesson was skipped or the programmer hasn't a clue how to pronounce the specialized terms of the art it will be used for.

But let's start that day back at its beginning. I had to go pick up some meds for Steve. I hadn't gotten my AI robocall that I had meds to pick up, but thought I'd ask while I was there. Mine was ready, I grabbed both, and drove home.

NOT the end of the matter. Because of course not, or why would I write this?  Or you keep reading it? About an hour after getting home, I got a robocall telling me I had one to pick up.Timing is always fun, right? I had no clue what was to be picked up, whether I had just done so but the programming didn't pick up on outgoing orders to stop calls to "come and get them" after the fact, or there was something else in my cue I needed to go back for.... some other time. That was already a 22 mile trip. Gas costs more then the meds. I'd at least wait until I needed ice cream again.

So I called the store to find out.  AI answered., as expected. Most times there is a way to get it to stop insisting it can handle your order faster and it will (protestingly)  shoot you over to a real human. "Transfer prescription" usually works since it doesn't have any references in its records... yet. You go straight to a human with actual intelligence. For whatever reason I continued to deal with the store AI, asking what did I have ready to pick up? Maybe I was just bored? It's programmed to tell me it recognized  my phone number, and asks me to verify I'm the name they just gave me from their records.  (Hey guys, ANYBODY with my phone could fib and say yes and get my medical info just by calling your machine. You want security? Make me give you the name instead of you giving me the name !!!)  But of course I did verify myself, and the AI provided its own rapid-fire unique version of the medication it still thought was in the store:  "Ah-tor-VAY-stuh-TIN" !

Righhhhhht!  I wonder if a pharmacist would actually understand that if I said it that way. I have met some who couldn't pronounce metoprolol but usually even it's not garbled that badly.

I think it's time to go play in the gardens for a while.

Dastardly Disappearing Diaper Pins!

 It's a mystery wrapped in a conundrum liberally sprinkled with the never loosening pesky glitter of frustration. Where do all the diaper pins go? Especially when I'm the only one in the house who finds a use for them.

I remember decades old humorous writings about other things common in homes that would disappear regularly with seeming no explanations on a regular basis. Things like socks, clothes hangers, pens. Some would apparently transform into others which only grew more numerous. Clothes dryers were regularly blamed, especially for the wild increase in unpaired socks. In this case I'm not buying that laundry is to blame, because even the spare diaper pins have vanished, and nobody (sane) throws  a diaper pin holding several other spare diaper pins on it still waiting years to be used into the laundry. Seriously, nobody does that, right?

First, let's clear the air. I don't use them for diapers. I used to, fifty years and more ago, when I was taking care of my own babies. Pampers were just coming on the market but - and this is a big but - home laundry was much cheaper than shopping for packages every week of disposable diapers. Sure the adhesive tabs were "safer" - if you were ever klutzy and ignorant enough to poke the baby instead of the fabric. Yo, parents: Just slip your hand under the cloth and then push the pin through and up again. Instant education on which direction to send the pin! You bleed until you learn, baby doesn't. Simple.  If you don't do that, baby tells the world you're a monster!

One can also open a pin, check the diaper, and decide it's not soiled yet, so instead of tossing away a whole clean disposable diaper because the adhesive already has stuff stuck to it and won't adhere to anything again ever, one can just pop the pin back and it's as good as it was. One also learns early that opening up a warm diaper for a check on a full baby can easily cool the kid down, contracting the bladder into the newest loveable bathroom fountain. Boys perfect that trick instantly. Use discretion!

One could also rant at length on how all the plastics in disposable diapers fill up the landfills in a growing hazard to the environment. But for me the big drawback was always the cost, with a functioning washer and dryer already in the basement, and a diaper pail with a fairly good seal plus an (alleged) deodorizer in the lid. Dip in the bowl, wring out, and accumulate a load for laundry.

 Have you tried to locate diaper pins these days? One store will have them in the baby department, the next in pharmacy with diaper creams, the third disavows all knowledge of such items. Well made ones are still the best large safety pin available! It doesn't matter why you need a large safety pin, eventually you'll find a reason. Or perhaps it will find you. It's a way to fasten something on a hanger so it stays with the rest of what's on the same hanger. It can hold coils of wire in one spot when the distance between outlet and appliance is a third of the length of the cord and it's tangletown on the floor when you need to replug that phone or laptop or 90 other things. (One assumes a power strip of course.)

It also can keep your pants up. I'm talking the ones without belt loops because fashion doesn't think women need belts. When the waist elastic wears out as it will in, say, your favorite pair of sturdy. old, reliable jeans, they're great. You do know they mostly make women's denim pants without loops, right? And sure, elastic is mostly comfortable. And halleluia that the denim is sturdy enough to last for years, gets softer with age, and the elastic is adaptable as your sizes change. Now lots of other fabrics for pants have drawstring wastes as well as elastic, helping simplify that problem of drooping drawers. And some budgets are flexible enough to cure the problem with another bout of shopping... except that those favorite pants just don't stay on the market with all the features and colors that you fell in love with after you've loved them long enough to wear them out....uh, make them comfortable.

And then of course there's the issue of changing weight. I happened to lose a bunch of it over recent years, mostly with health issues contributing. I've been noticing the summer wardrobe, hung up for 9 months or so, is becoming a star in the "How Fast Can You Drop" contest for pants. Yes, thank you, thank you for your applause and well wishes. but it happens gradually through the day as the fabric molds and relaxes around your shape.  If I'm not paying attention, or mostly just delighted that I can pull my own pants up with just one arm while the other is still in a sling healing, I have been known to ignore exactly how loose the waistband has gotten until I'm somewhere out in public and the legs of the shorts are sliding over the kneecaps.

If you see me clinging to a handful of shirt hem bunched in my fist, you are not supposed to notice that the phone and keys in my pockets are aiming for the floor. On a bad day it's the tissue determined to slither away with whatever it can drag along, And no, it's not full of buggers! Honest! (OK, not full exactly.)

A decade or so ago, after an early weight loss, I hunted and hunted for diaper pins. That's how I know how ignored they are by the shelf stockers. That was back when my knees hated me, hated shopping, and determined to make every unnecessary step agony. OK, even the needed steps. I hate hate hate shopping! even more I hat stores than can't settle in a single place to keep something so I don't have to hunt.

For those pants issues, not trusting a weight loss if forever, I gather a fold over my front (navel) and pin it together on the inside. The pants keep that pin in them through dressing, the laundry, remaining ready straight off the hanger to fit well again. The things never spring open, never poke, don't rust, and only when I'm lucky do they need to collect up a bit more fabric. Since my shirts have been aging in the same manner and for the same reasons, there usually is the same allowance inside them so pins and extra folds don't show, nor the fabric lumps collected therein.

I never used to lose those pins since they stayed where they were placed until adjustments were again needed. I kept the extra pins in the bottoms of some of my shallow southwest pottery bowls on my shelves, handy but invisible in the catch-all where folks were busy either looking at the designs or just scurrying quickly past on their way to the bathroom. But now the pins have started disappearing. Clothes come off their closet hangers sans pins. The bowls no longer hold spares. And pants are sliding, sliding.....

I keep telling myself I need to order some when I put in grocery orders so I don't have to hunt through a huge box store. Of course I forget when I'm concentrating on the right kind of yogurt or chunky soup or raisin bread or crackers. But this morning Steve was putting in an order and asked if I wanted to add something. I finally remembered, and he pulled up the choices. I chose. They arrived! A bit tired from some garden transplanting I was delighted to avoid half an hour in the store. Yesterday's jean shorts needed the security since they were already showing mud streaks from tugging up while I was digging down. 

I took my next break from anything to break open a package while tucking the other two packages in the kitchen hardware drawer. The extras from the opened package went into a pottery bowl while I opened one pin to deal with my pants. Or at least I tried to. 

Has anybody mentioned they're not making them......... as strong as they used to? Maybe because they haven't made then for so long they forgot they needed to be sturdy. The wires in these were bent! 

Now you're scratching your head, envisioning diaper pins, and mentally counting all the bends in them that are need to make them work properly, and wondering just how crazy I am in complaining that diaper pins are bent! Right? These have the straight parts of them bent, and badly enough they come out of the package tangled together. Worse, I had to pull the long ends apart enough to allow the sharp point to come out of the safety cap holding it in place. THAT should tell you just how flimsy the metal in the pins is, if I both need to and can adjust them that way. It sure isn't steel!

I guess, since one is currently holding my pants up, that I'll keep them.  I'll know to use them carefully, and if they won't stay fastened, I'll have to get out and do some quality shopping. Maybe a fancy baby supply store, where I can expect the pins to actually be stocked where every clerk knows where to find them, and they bother to go for good steel pins. Or... I wonder if the several local thrift stores take them in to sell.  We'll see.

Not Something Of Value???

 Morning news was interesting today. There was a complaint against Mike Lindell's disregard of campaign laws in Minnesota.

You've heard the name. He's the "My Pillow guy", and a buddy of Trump. He decided to run for Governor of this state - as a Republican of course. Somehow making pillows which are reputed to be totally uncomfortable for sleeping on, and being a buddy of our Idiot In Chief, qualify him to be our next governor. So far as I know, he doesn't live here and never has - but I could be wrong of course, having been out of the state for a few years. Allowances are made for relocating after an election is won, though the relocation is not always followed through. Oopsie!

Trump's endorsement? Looking over his cabinet picks and their "qualifications", which seem to begin and end in slathering the praise on Trump the way he slathers ketchup on the White House walls, creating numerous scandals and making us the laughingstock of the world, just don't seem to me to qualify Lindell for any carpetbagging office. 

I also wouldn't trust Trump's good wishes for what happens in Minnesota after we had the temerity to put up our Governor to run with Kamala Harris against his slate for President/Vice President last go-round. We've been high on his target list ever since. So anybody Trump endorses for any office starts off with strikes against them rather than any supposition of good will or competence, in general but especially for us.

None of that violates campaign laws of course. The complaint came out of Lindell's campaign people distributing his pillows at his campaign events in the state. The law prohibits exchanging anything of value for votes. It's illegal to buy votes here, as it should be everywhere. Lindell's campaign counters that the pillows are not something of value, within the parameters of the law which put a limit of $5 for the definition of value. $4.99 is legal, $5 not. The pillows which were distributed - per the campaign - sell for $4.99. They are smaller than bed pillows, hence the low price. So no problem, right?

Well, if the claim is true, not a legal one. Of course to buy one a person would have to pay sales tax, meaning the price would be above $5.  Over the threshold in practical terms, but legal? Not my area of expertise.

But I clearly recall the results of a psychology experiment many years back, with results so unexpected at the time that it still resonates.  They were testing for the amount of a reward which had the most power to persuade another person to do whatever you wanted, a detail specified in the experiment, whether it was a specific action, or loyalty, or simple gratitude. The expected results were that a higher gift value would be more persuasive. The stunning result was that a very modest one worked much better. If I recall correctly, the small gift was seen as an act of friendship, no strings attached. In turn, the recipient was much more inclined to reciprocate, a gift for a gift, friendship for friendship. A large gift was seen with strings attached and more likely to cause resentment for its implied obligation.

So perhaps the Lindell campaign knows exactly what it is doing. Unless those pillows are as uncomfortable as the large ones and it backfires, eh? Just what are their value?

Plant Confusion

I went out this morning to dig up the bleeding heart - pink variety, not white - in order to give it away to a more loving home and make room for iris to relocate. Yes, it gets complicated. The rhubarb does have to move out. But I have tiger and Asiatic lilies also taking up space in what needs to be a nearly all iris bed, and they are already sending up several new shoots each from the single bulbs I sprouted indoors and set out this spring. They'll all go into the lily bed, but the available room is in two small remaining patches, one of which just got rid of its bleeding heart plant. The other is still getting rid weekly of its weeds. By hand of course. At least without me falling again. 

                       Tiger lily with dragonfly.

Did I say bleeding heart? Singular? At least that's what I expected after dividing it last fall for my new next door neighbor. As I was digging out the remainder this morning the pieces started falling away from each other. I thought at first I had two plants. OK, no problem, I'd just talked to one of Steve's visiting nurses to see if she'd want them  - why waste any? - and she indicated she'd love them (especially free no doubt) because she lived on wooded land and could use something pretty in it first thing in spring. Great!

 

                         This is it before the 1st division, last year.

So, pull out violets, grass, sorrels, avoid where last fall's bulbs were planted, then start vertical digs around the plant. Lifffftttt.... and SPLIT apart! OK, no biggie, so we had two plants now. There were long fat roots leading off in different directions, but were old plant parts that crumbled into rotten wood as they separated from the ground... and everything else. I walked everything over to the rain bucket to soak and clean up, making them friendly new neighbors for their new homes.  Eventually there were 5 cleaned, shortened, sound roots with their tall dead spring stems cut way back, enough left so even those unfamiliar could tell up from down and approximate depth in their hole. 

We get all kinds of plastic bags around here. Delivered grocery orders come in them, which we've had a lot of this year. Produce comes in their own bags. We put them all to use, hopefully many times. I pulled out the produce bags when I thought there were only two plants. I wound up with five plants in two bags, both bags in a larger one, its handles knotted at the top, ready to go when the nurse left. They'd had a really good soak, enough to last them a good while, and I gave directions to soak them in a pail again before planting this evening. Off they went. 

All the weeds and rotten plant parts left went in the box we're accumulating compost contributions in, to be taken to my son's house. I'll do that tonight, but by this time it was getting too hot for more work in the sun.

That's when I cleaned up and went online. With the plants I intend to move, it was time to recheck variety names and planting requirements. Besides, why hide a 12 inch plant behind a 28" one? I went into last year's records of what varieties went where and what they looked like. It was revealing in how many varieties I forgot I had, much less all their names. I had even noted which company certain ones had come from, just in case they'd sent duds so I'd avoid them. Or to remember if they sent great stock.

I'd google a plant name. I'd get dozens of pictures, often no two alike. Hmmm, looks like anybody can give any plant any name and nobody complains that it's copyrighted or anything. Nobody complains that this yellow one has the same name as that red or orange one, or that single petaled one has the name of this double petaled one, or a different formation from the next or ... or... or.... In other words, I better start keeping better records if I wish to replace something I'd thought by name was different and dug out what should have been a tiny selection of a large set of flowers but turned into the only example, and dang! It was gorgeous! (You've never done that, right?)

Well, at least it went to a good gardener who should be very happy with what it actually turned into, and who'll nurture it well. I better remember to give her the correct name though, for what that's worth.

Meanwhile we need to teach the plant world that there are more words needed for so many different plant types, and for growers to just go out and find some! Thesaurus maybe? Meanwhile never, never, never  buy or sell your flowers without accurate photos that actually match the flowers in question, OK? Got it? Everybody?

Now: make note to self.....

Are You A descendent Of Richard And Rebecca Maxson?

I'm told I am, and therefore my descendants as well.  I was sent an ancestry chart that listed my name. Unfortunately it had several errors in my data, including the supposition that I married my father-in-law. No, I married his son, and we named one of our sons after my then husband with a "Junior" attached.

For me, that brings into question a whole lot of other details in the chart. Let's just start with, first, I'm pretty easy to find. You're reading about me right now. My life is pretty well recorded. But nobody ever asked me a few simple important questions, or a chance to make corrections in the "facts" listed. I tried to contact the source of the list I was sent, never heard back, no clue if corrections were made, and assume nobody actually cares.

Why should anybody care? I mean aside from the idiocy of reactions to where I appended Rosa as my last name after my first marriage and kicked off the former middle one, keeping the "Maxson". That is causing problems, but only recently. It was never a problem before since no fraud was intended. I just joined a long time-honored history of similar behaviors.  I grew up with family stories on my father's side that went way back to before America was founded, some to William Wallace's time causing various relocations and name changes, all of which may be apocryphal. Somebody give me a reliable time machine and modern healthcare to take along, and I'll let you know. Just don't forget the healthcare!

My father was named after the first in our known line to be born this side of the Atlantic. His father arrived in Massachusetts as an indentured servant in the very early 1600s with a seven year obligation of work to fulfill. He was essentially owned by the Puritans who held his contract. Once those seven years were paid, he was kicked out of that community, not for any crime other than being - Horrors! - a Baptist. So those honored first arrivals came here for religious freedom... only for themselves. Somehow it tarnishes their noble quest for freedom, doesn't it? We got ours, now you have to join us or scram!

Humans!!!

Of course it has become a time-honored tradition in this country, where groups tribalize to "I've got my sacred freedoms, now you go scram and find your own if you can earn them but we get to decide that for you!" Our national history is a long tale of "US" versus "THEM", with, of course, every "US" being unquestionably superior... in all things.

That ancestor scrammed all the way to the island of Rhode Island. Every time that tale was told "Island" was strongly emphasized. Make no mistake, it was only and exactly that island. The ancestor married, they had a son who held the distinction of being the very first white child born on that island,  and who was named John Maxson. (Don't leave off the "s".) My father was named after him, but with a middle name added, from elsewhere in the family, of "Dufty". He hated it, since he grew up teased by other kids who turned it into bathroom humor. When he was drafted into the army in WWII to serve in Europe, he hated his middle name so much he was willing to swear, even risking perjury, his middle name was a single initial only, a "D". He was buried with that initial in Fort Snelling Cemetery, showing he never got in any trouble with the military for it. He chose to be named with a single middle initial only for the rest of his life. His mother, Jane Elizabeth (Price) Maxson, spilled the beans to me. She was proud of the family name and wasn't going to diminish it to a mere initial. 

Of course, she in turn hated the "Jane" and was always known as Elizabeth. I only knew about "Jane" when I read a copy of her autobiography after she'd died which she wrote as a young adult. At one time I held paper copies of it in my hands. I have no idea where those papers got to. Luckily, I took photos of each page and store them in my photo library, right next to all the photo pages from one of Dad's sisters proving her eligibility to be a member of the DAR. As her niece, I could join, as could my daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. If they ever wanted to of course.

When I needed to get a copy of my first marriage license from St. Paul to help prove my identity after moving back to Minnesota, having all my documentation still locked up in a PODS sitting in Arizona, they got my dad's middle initial wrong! I was too annoyed by all the documentation hassle at that point to even notice it for a few days, much less consider trying to point it out to them and get it corrected. I needed my driver's license and all the other duplicate ID crap to get on with life back in this state. I'd qualified for all that Real ID stuff when we moved to Arizona years before with the same kinds of documentation, but MN insists AZ didn't do it "right enough". It wasn't a problem with my documentation, just that it came from Arizona. Start over!

I'm pretty sure in the distant future if/when people are trying to trace me in the genealogy - particularly since I married into a (partly) Mormon family with at least one member who relishes keeping all those records - I'll be a mystery and/or source of confusion. I'm already sure it's a problem because I can't get everything all together enough to qualify for Minnesota's version of Real ID. I have an ordinary ID. I can't get a passport without hiring an attorney. I can't get on a plane without either a passport or a Real ID, either way requiring hiring an attorney and jumping through expensive hoops. 

Good thing I can still pretty much drive wherever I really want to go. My shoulder surgeon approves on behalf of both arms now.

As a result I can't put too much blame on whoever has been keeping the family tree from way back for allowing stupid errors to creep in. I've been assured all the claims of descendance from Charlemagne are hogwash, for example. Even his many bastards were thoroughly documented, along with theirs, and theirs.... I've forgotten some of the errors specific to me, but the idea of my marrying my father-in-law was just so repulsive I've never forgotten it. (Incest!!! ICK!!!) I bet if anybody was keeping up they'd miss my divorce (in Georgia) and second marriage (in Arizona) as well. But it's still me, and I'm still a piece of that lineage, where ancestors got scalped, and all sorts of other human things happened... and some were gotten wrong in the telling or writing. 

But if you're keeping those records these days, and are interested in fixing one teensy part of them by the person who lived it, go ahead and reach out. The state of Minnesota  can find me if you can't. So can the FBI, though I haven't given them a reason for years now, except to be cleared for carrying a hidden gun or as responsible for paying rent. I'm still around. And mildly annoyed.

In addition, I'm chuckling a bit at the absurdity of it all. It's fun to think you know this long line of people who resulted in you, hearing their alleged stories making them more than just names and probable dates on paper somewhere. Someday I'll be just a name and probable dates on paper - or a file of electrons - or some new technology - where even the people who knew and loved me weren't keeping track of those kinds of details, just the bits that impacted their lives at whatever level. That will be my legacy, for whoever cares. I know somewhere way back in history there is a string of humans (or near humans), themselves preceded by strings of cells put together from molecules made from patterns of protons, neutrons, and electrons, preceded by.... who knows? Just like everything else. Various zigs and zags resulted in me. I've continued the chain by producing descendants, and my atoms or ashes will enter other chains which may or may not ever become parts of humans ever again. I might be billions of years as part of some layer of rock. Talk about immortality!

Right now people still exist who try to keep track of those chains. But as long as they still find it important, why not do their best to get it right?

If You Could Just Mix Tech With Clothing this Way....

 I caught a flash of a commercial this morning - no clue what it was for, of course, aside from the usual "buy something" - that looked totally weird. I know I didn't actually see what I thought I saw, and it wasn't at all whatever the commercial was about, but trying to figure out what I had seen got me thinking.

What I thought I was was somebody wearing a shirt where a hole went through it - and them - showing what was behind them  and changing as the person moved. You know, like a window through the person. Since the person was apparently alive and unhurt, there was obviously no window/hole through their torso. But oh, what an illusion/delusion!

I bet somebody could put the current tech we have together and make a shirt that would create that effect. You'd need matching coverage, front and back, pick a shape: circle, rectangle, oval, irregular with edges shaped like a cannonball or shotgun blast had gone through. 

The back of the shirt would need  some kind of camera(s) catching the shape lined up facing back as if there really were a hole there, with wiring under the shirt coming around the body or over the shoulders to display on whatever the "hole" screen shape was. They'd have to match in real time as well as angles of course, so as the person turned the view would instantly match, just as if you were actually seeing through a hole in their torso. If somebody walked behind them you'd see that part of them pass as if through a window.

In its simplest it would just be a weird party trick. Think something like a window frame with a view matching the person's movements. But think of what one could do with it for Halloween! One would need a border that appeared to be the dimensional sides of the hole - all with apparent edges gory with blood, bones, organs as if you were seeing through the person... who was still apparently alive, not noticing they must have died.

Or were they undead?

I'll be waiting to hear somebody managed to make it work. No fees will be asked, though I'd love to see it in use.  

Anybody?