THIS IS FOR FAMILY WHO NEVER SEE DINO-YOU GET THE PICTURE THE FIRST 30 SECONDS...

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-DIDN'T YO MOMMA SAY SHARE!

I was listening to a lecture by Steven Johnson on TED. He has a new book out called, "Where Good Ideas Come From". He showed a photograph of the first coffee house (circa 1650) in England. It opened at the beginning of "The Age of Enlightenment", a time when great ideas spewed forth. He gave a great explanation for the timing of the coffee house and the age of enlightenment. Up until the time of the coffee house, the water wasn't potable. The only beverages available for drinking were alcoholic. Wine in the morning, beer with meals, gin and more wine in the evening. When coffee (and tea) was brewed and made drinkable, this coffee house opened and people gathered there in a huge, chaotic mass. And guess what? They weren't smashed!!!

Coherent, creative and brilliant ideas flowed with the non-alcoholic drinks! Mr. Johnson claimed little wonder at the exchange of ideas on architecture, politics, religion and so on, by bright, sober minds at what history has come to call the age of enlightenment.

He discussed something else interesting. He talked about the launch of Sputnik way back in the day. The Russians had done it! They had placed a satellite in orbit. Meanwhile, back at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University located in Laurel, Maryland, a bunch of cute (I'm certain) geeks were sitting around discussing the geekiness of it all and loving it. A couple of them, while sitting in the cafeteria (probably not too different from that chaotic, idea-passing coffee house in 1650 London) wondered if they could hear the satellite. Obviously it was making a noise...they wondered if they could find it. So, they asked their coworkers and they said they hadn't thought of doing it, but it sounded interesting so lets try it! So, Geyer and Weisenbach (that were their names) go to Weisenbach's office to play around with his stuff. Weisenbach is a "microwave" specialist...so they "microwaved" their way through the atmosphere in search of a sound. They found the bleeps and started to record their time stamps...I suppose that's what you would do..whatever that is....you would do it.

Now they're wondering if they can track the location of that satellite based on its beeps and time stamps. So, they went to their offices, Geyer and Weisenbach, and by using the Doppler effect relative to their own location, they could discern its trajectory and figure out its orbit and location at any given time. Sure enough, they did. Not long after that, they were called in by their boss. He said he had heard that they were playing around with the beeps of Sputnik and could locate a moving location in space from their fixed location at the APL in Maryland. They said, "sure" and he asked them if they could "reverse" it? Could they locate a fixed location on the ground from the satellite? So they went back to their offices and sure enough, they could do that. In fact, it was even easier to find something on the ground from a satellite than it was to find the satellite from the ground!

That was good, said their boss, because he had just built an entire fleet of nuclear submarines and it was difficult to put a missile in downtown Moscow when you didn't know where your sub was. And THAT, is how GPS was born.

"The same GPS that your cell phone may have used to find the nearest coffee shop", Mr. Johnson said...it goes round and round and round.

The point being, intellectual property is typically "protected" and hidden, when in fact, it needs to be shared and built upon, so that we all benefit. Mr. Johnson ended his talk with this quote, "Chance favors the connected mind".

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-09-21&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email.

WE GOT US A 10-37, POSSIBLE GANG OF ELDERLY MORMON CAR THIEVES. MAKE THAT A 10-96, MENTAL SUBJECT...AND THAT'S THE COP.

On Saturday, as I was driving along the 15 South, I noticed two cop cars sitting on the side of the road (my side). They appeared to be talking to each other while in their cars. That's just how it appeared. It was a "big" shoulder. So, I was in the far right lane but...just kept driving because, why wouldn't I, right?

As I passed them, in a matter of about 2 seconds, one of the cruisers pulls out and begins to travel behind me. I thought, "okay"....because I'm a child of the 70s and that stuff still gets under my feathers....

I thought, "no current tickets, my tags aren't expired and while the actual little sticker is missing, it's a matter of record that I paid for it and I'm registered so no harm, no foul...but still...what's the problem...?"

And then he starts maneuvering like he's "hiding" or acting covert. I'm all, "?", but I kept driving without changing my speed...or lane....still in the right hand lane....

He speeds up (OVERTLY), then gets behind a white pick-up truck in the lane to my left and behind me...like-really close behind pick up guy-then swerves to the lane behind me, then swerves back behind the white pick up. It was ridiculous. I thought, "maybe he's a new recruit and he's practicing his 'skillz' or something"...for real, I actually considered that.

This kept up for several miles. By this time, I was sweaty. The poor white pick up guy swerved over and exited...leaving me and Super Trooper on this now lonely stretch of 56 West because yes, he exited with me from the 15 and followed me toward the 5 South to LaJolla. What the freak? How far does his jurisdiction go? What kind of profile do I match? My car is a 5 year old SUV. I'm a little old blond lady with nerdy glasses...for real?....is there a gang of elderly Mormon car thieves hitting up San Diego County?

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), there was fender bender on the east bound lane so he finally exited and got on the over pass to see what good he could do there.

My guess? Super slow Saturday......

DESIGN CHALLENGE-COULDN'T SPEND ONE DIME!

Above is my bedroom. There are still some rough places, but I'm almost finished. My design "challenge" was to redecorate without buying anything and not spending a dime. I figured that out after I did it. Yea, don't go down that rabbit hole. You'll need a time machine and a psychiatrist. Basically, our room was a storage facility with floor to ceiling boxes. Hideous boxes. The worst part was, the boxes weren't even mine, they were the hubs. And now they're gone. Well, they're in another bedroom, but not the one where I spend most of my time in. Yay! Also, I discovered that I'm a skosh Bohemian.
Above is the shelf I designed. Actually, it's a piece of very old wood from an antique armoire that Peter disassembled. It's way over 100 years old and the individual pieces are quite lovely, but it's a behemoth and not for our room. Anyway, I took this piece of wood, found some lovely old books of mine from about 20 years ago and made a shelf out of it for my attached bathroom. I loved the extra space it gave me and I thought it was creative problem solving. Ouch! Cramp in my upper arm from patting myself on the back...
Other angle to see the detail of the old wood....
Then I used those hooks that you put over doors for towels and robes and I placed my necklaces and bracelets on it. It's right by my closet in my "getting ready" space, so it works perfectly.
Close up detail. Plus I like shiny things. The bracelets are on the top hooks and the necklaces are along the bottom hooks.
Here's the "working" corner of the room. How nice that I left the Dew on the "table" I made out of stored water containers. That's an old quilt covering them, but they made a nice table for my Mac and printer. The "seat" is actually the foot rest for my papasan chair in the living room. The table is an old table we've had for awhile. The white clothes underneath were made by hand by a physician I used to work for. There's lots of hand stitching. The silk scarves on top are pure silk from China and were gifts from my daughter, Emmy, about 5 years ago. The baskets next to it are old baskets I've had for years.
Details of the table top. Everything in here is definitely for function, but I did cave on this. It's purely sentimental. The candles are romantic, that's my momma, the record is something my dad wrote and recorded for the love of his life, (my momma), and it may be difficult to see, but my wee tee tiny white cast iron pig with wings is on the table. This little inspiration tells me that I WILL get my doctorate...I WILL!!!!
The record....
My dresser/night stand. I also got this from the physician I worked with (that made the tablecloths). She is a pathologist. The top of this is all broken china dishes. Beautiful.
Detail of top of dresser.
This is my favorite picture of all...detail of the lamp with the pale blue silk scarf over it. It's also cast iron-ish with crystal droplets hanging off the shade. I giggle when I look at this room. No one bothered me. I got to do whatever I wanted. No influence. No nuttin. All me. Only took a little over 5 decades....

:)

LOYAL VS DEAD

They look dead. They're not. They're just sleeping. Ever sleeping. At my feet. Always and forever...where ever I am, there they are. So I thought I would snap a pic of the two of them, Tink and Boo, right there next to my chair. Loyal, not dead.

ONE BATHROOM VS MULTIPLE BATHS/FAMILY UNITY OR SPACE?

I woke up, because basically it's something I do every morning, and I thought about my morning regimen. I typically don't leave my room until the bed is made and I'm showered, dressed, and have make-up on. Yes, there is a bath in this master bedroom I inhabit. I feel I am psychologically ready for the day if I walk into the rest of my house "prepared" like that. I virtually never leave my bedroom in my pajamas or with bedhead. Not because I'm vain, but it messes with my own space/time continuum of energy and focus.

This reminded me of when I was growing up in our little suburb of Columbus, Ohio. No one had more than one bathroom. Even though all the houses had three bedrooms, not one family in the neighborhhood had more than one bath. It was located at the end of the hall. We all had to share. Even my parents used that bathroom. I remember seeing my father's shaving paraphernalia in the medicine chest (I believe that's what it was called in our day). I remember seeing my mother's "cold cream" (and I still don't understand why it was called that). I remember how it smelled (flowery) and that it was pale pink and pretty. I remember my sister's Bonnie Bell products were in there for her adolescent skin. The only thing my brother and I had were toothbrushes. That was all we needed. Mom kept our Flintstone vitamins in the kitchen cupboard along with the aspirin. I still do this, as do my daughters....

That said, because there was only one bathroom, this forced us to leave our rooms and congregate in the dining room or living room in various conditions of dress. We still have pictures somewhere of my bro and I in full pajama-wear on the day after Christmas. He was witnessing me receiving a birthday present-which that year was bigger than usual. We had hideous bed-head and my brother had his typical bed-face-swollen eyes, etc. He was 11. I was now 12 and a year older than him. That was the best gift, we were no longer the same age. We're less than a year apart so during a portion of December, he was annoying as all get out.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is as architecture and housing design became more modernized, we compartmentalized our families. I have noticed that my daughter and her husband's master bedroom is a place where the kids shower and play on their bed-so I think that normalizes things there. But otherwise, it's easy to create borders. On the other hand, maybe kids needs their own space for those things. Maybe they like decorating their own bathroom, having just their "stuff" there.

I don't have an answer, I'm just comparing time and culture to now...because I'm old and have more life experience so I get to do that stuff....I'm just thinking of my own medicine cabinet and wish I could see my dad's razor and my mom's Ponds and some Bonnie Bell...

Or maybe I'm just killing time before I get out of this bed and start the day.....

THEIR SUPER POWERS=PSYCHOSES IN THE REAL WORLD

There's a new show coming out this fall about a regular, normal-type family that takes a vacation to a rain forest, experiences turbulence on their flight, and returns with super powers. Thus they return to their home as super heroes. One of the characters, I believe it is the adolescent daughter, has the new ability to hear peoples' thoughts. She's psychic. She goes to her mother with this information and her mother explains what being "psychic"means. She can now hear what everyone around her is thinking. I considered this. What if, on any given day, I heard voices and assumed they were coming from the people around me? What would I do? I COULD go to my mother, but it would end up a rather idiotic post because my mother loves me dearly and she would say, "Really? Come to mah jong with me and tell me what everyone is thinking then let's go to lunch and talk about it". Mom would totally use it for its fullest entertainment value. I, on the other hand....not so much.

If I seriously thought I could hear disembodied voices coming from peoples' heads, I would speak with a physician and a psychologist. I would want an MRI, and x-ray, and a CT scan. I wouldn't think I was psychic, I would think I had an acoustic tumor or a brain tumor (if I was lucky), or (if I was unlucky) I was experiencing a psychotic break.

I guess that's the difference between real world and Hollyworld. I would get a bill from a doctor, and they would get a cape.

Nice.