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Off-topic posts

Open Mike: New Habits

Monday, 06 March 2023

Happy to report that my lifestyle changes are going swimmingly*. My problems are worse than some others have, and not as bad as some others deal with. But they're mine so they're all I can share.

I'm either supposed to do, or trying to do on my own, five things:

  • Go back to my plant-food diet, and stop eating sugar;
  • Wear compression socks;
  • Lose weight;
  • Resume using CPAP; and
  • Exercise.

The Five Doctors (I seem to keep seeing different people) are more or less agreed that I was having heart problems caused by sleep apnea—my heartbeat had become uncoordinated and irregular and my heart wasn't pumping enough blood, so I wasn't getting enough oxygen. This was causing all sorts of symptoms. I've been back on the CPAP for 31 days and the difference is...astonishing. I've gone from extreme fatigue (four naps in one day being the signal that got me to the doctor) to no naps; from oxygen hunger and shortness of breath to breathing normally; from lethargy to energy; from badly fractured sleep (with an avalanche of nightmares) to almost normal sleep; from confusion to normal mental sharpness (such as it is, yuk-yuk).

I've been off sugar and back on my plant-food diet for a mere eight days, and have been working out for only six days, and I've already lost 9.3 lbs. (.66 stone). (I weigh myself first thing in the morning on an excellent scale.) Who knows if the weight loss is attributable to the return of normal heart function, or the diet and exercise, or the resumption of normal sleep, or all those things?

The exercise is interesting. I rather enjoy it. I just take my tablet and read, and that makes the time fly by. I use some combination of a total of five different cardio machines, alternating sitting with being on my feet. I get my heart rate to between 90 and 100 BPM and keep it there. It isn't hard. I'm going to add workouts with dumbbells sooner or later.

Books, books!
I'm really enjoying Bill Bryson's The Body: A Guide for Occupants. I love love love his guided tours of subjects far from my usual field of interest; I lapped up his lovely book on physics, A Short History of Nearly Everything. The Body is equally entertaining, and bits and pieces of fascinating information fly by. For instance, babies who grow up in houses with cats present almost never get asthma. (I'm on the chapter about the lungs now.) His vivid account of how long it took before we accepted that smoking was linked to lung cancer is very telling. There's certainly a parallel to the obesity epidemic: as Dr. John McDougall says, "People love to hear good news about their bad habits."  

Speaking of which, that's what I'm working on now, habits. I'll let you know how it goes. I'll report back in a month or two. I hope I can do this. (I initially mistyped "can't" for "can"...Freudian slip?)

And speaking of habits—to briefly get back on topic—I'm carrying the camera again. Too many pictures were going by in my daily life. From now on, where I go, the camera goes.

Mike

*Except that I'm having trouble with time management.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Keith Mitchell: "I also enjoy Bryson's writing. Despite being a recently retired registered nurse, The Body left me with a sad sense of my lack of knowledge but simultaneously a sense that more work and research will still facilitate big improvements to our health.

"Glad to hear you are on the right side of your health concerns and hope that your new habits become embedded quickly."

Steven ralser: "If you want to read further about one of the reasons why it took so long to recognize the link between smoking (and second hand smoke)and lung cancer, read Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, by Naomi Oreskes [and Erik M. Conway —Ed.]. See also https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org."

JoeB: "Good to hear the phoenix is rising from the ashes. I have found going to the gym an excellent way to organize my day—I enjoy the routine. I also enjoy the results of my workout. The social aspects of seeing the same folks at the same time of day cannot be discounted. Diet cannot be ignored. What and how much is eaten make all the difference in our life. I should have turned green if the saying 'you are what you eat' is true!"

MikeR: "Yay for you! And aren't those sleep apnea nightmares horrifying?"

Mike replies: They certainly are. I didn't think I was going crazy, but I did think the cause was fundamentally psychological. I didn't realize it was a symptom of sleep apnea.

Posted on Monday, 06 March 2023 at 09:51 AM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (7)

Friday, 14 December 2018

David Dyer-Bennet's 'Five' Favorite Sci-Fi Novels (OT)

David Dyer Bennet wrote, in a comment to the "Five Favorites" post: "I've had a list of 'five best science fiction novels' (in my opinion) for forever, and one of my rules has always been that the list could not have five names on it. For years it was four, and a while ago it finally jumped to six, after years. The basic names have remained the same, though, in my case. Anyway—I'm not the person to give you grief over having something other than five items on your 'five best' list!"

To which, sebastel responded: "I'd really like to know what are David's favourite SF novels...."

And Michael Walsh added: "Oh come on—David has to give us his list of six favourite sci-fi novels!!"

So, aiming ever to please, I asked him if he would, and here is his answer. Drum roll....

David Dyer-Bennet: "I should remind people that this has never claimed to be more than my own personal choices; I do not assert any right to decide for anybody else! Also, my list does not include works that I consider to be fantasy (despite the fact that no really solid line between science fiction and fantasy can be established)."

The List

Dune cover

Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert A. Heinlein, 1966)

Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny, 1967)

The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 1974)

A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge, 1992)

Growing Up Weightless (John M. Ford, 1993)."

David adds, "However...as an important article of faith, there are no sequels to Dune!"

So there you have it. Thanks David.

Mike

P.S. The thing I love about lists is when they distill deep knowledge. When somebody really knows a subject, then their list stands a chance to be truly interesting. For instance, wouldn't you love to hear John Camp's list of his five favorite thrillers? John once accused me of "not reading the books," i.e., thrillers, and I protested that I had read six of them to try to get up to speed with the genre. John replied, "Six! Mike, I sometimes read six a week!" I don't need to hear John's list of his five favorite ballets, or his five favorite communist countries, or his five favorite tropical hardwoods, but I'd love to hear his five favorite thrillers because the man really knows his thrillers. I'd love to hear Ken Tanaka's or Jim Sherwood's or Geoff Wittig's five favorite photobooks, too, or see Rodger Kingston's five favorite found snapshots. Or Paul Reed Smith's five favorite guitars. Or JH's five favorite cars. Or my son Xander's five favorite board games.

It's often difficult to get such "deep experts" to make such lists because the more they know, the more they know about what they don't know, and thus the more problematic such list-compiling exercises seems to them to be. But if they'd just relax and play the game (it is just a game, after all), they would do better at it than 99% of the gen-pop.

Think it over—is there any enthusiasm or field or subject you know deeply enough that it could result in such a list? 

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Eamon Hickey: "I just started looking for some new science fiction to read, after many years of not reading it, so this is very timely.

"I have one huge frustration with masterpieces like Dune or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy—you can only have that wondrous, mind-bending, sublime first encounter with them once. If induced, precisely targeted partial amnesia were a thing, I'd pay to have my memories of Dune erased, so I could read it fresh again.

"Of course, I do re-read the masterpieces—I've read Tinker, Tailor and the other Karla books about once every five years since I was 18—and they are still very enjoyable. And as I accumulated life experience, I could appreciate certain parts of them in new ways. But I long for that feeling I had the first time I read them, when every page filled me with wonder and expanded my sense of the power of art and artists.

"The other frustration is that the greats can make ordinary art or craftsmanship hard to enjoy for me. I always know how good it could really be, if done by a master."

Keith: "The thing about favorites is that it can inadvertently affect ones ability to be open to new things. If we define something as our favorite, we bestow upon it a status of being better than all other possible options. By doing so we risk becoming close minded, relegating everything else as being lesser than. To the point of being defensive about our choices, we can stubbornly refuse to acknowledge alternatives as better than our chosen favorite, which would otherwise prove that we were wrong in the first place. While it is common language to define something as our 'favorite,' I try to think of any given group of favorites as simply 'things I really like.' Doing so allows one to grow this list rather than embracing the status quo of a fixed, single or limited group of things based on subjective and biased opinion. That being said, TOP is one of the five photography blogs I really like."

Mike replies: Point taken. I have a list of things that were favorites when I first encountered them that I don't like so much any more. Tastes change. I've noticed that when favorites don't change, it's usually because I decided not to continue engaging with that field of study, or genre, or hobby, or enthusiasm. 

John Kauk: First, thanks for putting David's list up. I've read and loved the first four on the list and just bought the fifth on the Apple Books app. I also would love to see see John Camp's list of thrillers. I first started reading his books when you mentioned them in a TOP post, and before the end of that summer I had read all his books. And continue to as new ones are published. Excellent stories all, so thanks for mentioning them."

JH (Jim Hayes): "Well, Mike, that sounds like a reasonable request, if not a challenge.

"I have a theory about why people have favorite cars—it's tied to experiences they had in their formative years—taking an exciting family trip, getting their driver's license, using a big backseat with their...no, let's skip that one.

"By the way, highly recommended reading for car fans is the Autoweek article on Ralph Lauren's opinions on cars and his collection.

"Now for my list:

Five Favorite Cars

Alfa Giulia TI sedan—my first Alfa, took me across the US several times, from Watkins Glen to Laguna Seca, school at UC Santa Cruz and SUNY Stony Brook. A hundred and seventy thousand miles of great experiences.

That's the Giant Artichoke in Watsonville, California, 1967.

Ferrari 250LM—the first car I rode in at an indicated 300 KPH on the street—this one was a ex-racer converted to the street and owned by a restaurant owner from New Orleans (he's second from the right) who always stopped by to visit the Ferrari dealer where my brother was sales manager.

A Lamborghini Muira was the second one I saw 300 KPH in—and a milestone in auto design too.

Can-Am racing cars of the '60s and early '70s. This is a Chaparral. Unlimited racers—simply awesome. I was a mechanic on a few. By the way, this photo from Laguna Seca in 1997 was taken with a Leica M2 and Elmarit 90mm. How did I do that?

Alfa Giulietta Spider—the car my brother and I raced in the '60s and I rescued from a barn in 1992, restored, and raced for another dozen years. It's still racing—55 years old. (Photo with Miata below.)

Miata—I've owned two and loved them both. In New England, my goal was to drive it with the top down as much as possible and in every month of the year. I made it almost every year.

David Dyer-Bennet: "My hardcover Dune is a first edition. Something like 68th printing, and hence of no particular value, but a first edition.  :-)

"The modern author I maybe should have found a place for is Greg Egan—something back around Distress or Diaspora maybe. Baxter, Banks, Liu, Dick, and even Jemisin haven't really connected for me (Jemisin is on my list to keep trying for a bit).

"Two authors I feel bad about not having included are Lois McMaster Bujold and Edward E. 'Doc' Smith. Smith is in some sense my favorite author, but no particular book seems to me to belong on this list (Skylark Duquesne is closest, but it's the last book of a series). I've probably re-read Smith books more than anybody else. Similarly, the Heinlein book I've read most is The Rolling Stones, which is not the one I list on the 'best' list. In Lois's books I guess A Civil Campaign would be the one I'd put on this list, and it's the conclusion of the rather long arc about Miles' romantic life, you'd miss so much starting there.

"To connect just slightly back to photography, Wikipedia is still using my photos of Robert Heinlein and John M. Ford."

John Camp: "I don't think I could come up with a list of my five favorite thriller books. I'd even have a hard time coming up with my five favorite thriller authors, who between them, if I could actually pick five, might have written a hundred books that I mostly like. The problem is, I've read way too many of thrillers in a sort of analytical way, picking them apart for my own uses—especially those books that I most like, and of course, you always find faults when you do that, things you think were done poorly. When I (rarely) re-read one of my own books, I'm still stuck in that analytical mode, and there are several, frankly, that I wish I could do over. The analytical mode has its own pleasures, of course, but it's confusing when you consider things like picking a top five list. So I ask Mike—do you really think you could come up with your five favorite photographs? I might be able to, because I'm an amateur, and not so deeply invested in them. I bet you'd have a hard time, though. With big expensive objects like cars, it's not so hard, because even an enthusiast may only encounter a couple of dozen great cars in a lifetime; the list of possibilities is much smaller.

"I might be able to pick my top five SF books, but I'd have to think about it. Dune wouldn't be on the list. Herbert reads like he thought he was writing the Bible, IMHO. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Flowers for Algernon, which was both a great short story and a pretty decent novel. On the Beach might be on my list as well. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? I dunno."

Posted on Friday, 14 December 2018 at 11:43 AM in Books, Off-topic posts | | Comments (40)

Wednesday, 28 November 2018

Open Mike: Life Without TV

I've just passed four years without a television. It's the longest time I've ever gone without one.

I've had several stints in my life without a TV, starting in about 1982 when I went for a a little over a year without one. I ended up hastily buying one a few days before the local-to-me Washington Redskins made their first appearance in the Super Bowl. It was worth it—Joe Gibbs, Art Monk, Joe Theismann, Big Dave Butz, John Riggins, and and "the Hogs" and the rest of them routed the Miami Dolphins for their first Super Bowl win.

The trouble with television was highlighted for me two weeks after the Super Bowl, when I found myself mindlessly watching reruns of "Bewitched" at two o'clock in the morning. (I admit I was rather bewitched by Elizabeth Montgomery.) Samantha wiggled her nose and Aunt Clara disappeared and the spell wore off me suddenly; I "came to" and marveled that the little black magic box could be causing me to waste my time on Earth so profligately.

I do miss television occasionally, I can't lie. I would like to watch some of the sporting events, and I do admit I'm less in touch with the news than I was when I watched network news every evening (tip for sleep improvement: watch the early news, never the late news). And when something really momentous happens, like the awful California wildfires, television is still where people like to turn for the latest.

Friedlander TVThe existential oddity of television sets is a leitmotif in the
work of Lee Friedlander, one of my photographic touchstones.

But there are a lot of things I hate about TV, too. The incubated culture of commercialism, very little of which I actually agree with; the constant hectoring yammer of false cheeriness; the torrent of ads and the increasing brevity and mannerism of the bits in between the ads; the glossy surface, seldom with any substance or soul beyond or beneath it; and the unceasing spellbinding distraction it encourages from the life I actually live.

And I see a little TV...just not on TV. Four or five years ago I binge-watched The Wire (which is the legendary Great American Novel in my opinion), and a year or two ago I did the same with the maddeningly inconsistent Downton Abbey, which I understand is being rejuvenated for the big screen next year. With Maggie Smith.

But most of my attempts to ignite an interest in popular series splutter, fizzle, and fade out. I tried, but I couldn't get into Breaking Bad or The Sopranos.

Besides, if you're a snooker fan like I am, there isn't time for watching much else.

I'm used to life without TV now, and I doubt I could go back. My friend Jim, whom I've known since we were seven, hasn't watched TV since the 1970s. It is possible. (They keep a TV and a DVD player in the closet and bring it out occasionally to watch a movie.) Anyway, I prefer to listen to music, or the waterfall, or the silence, and to read rather than watch. Most of all, I think I like being here, as opposed to letting myself be transported to some Wizard of Oz fake world where there's no there there*.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the often off-topic Editorial page of TOP, in which Yr. Hmbl. Editor contemplates life. It appears on Wednesdays.

*"There is no there there" is the best-known quote of Gertrude Stein's; she was referring to her childhood home in Oakland, California, when it no longer existed. The line appears in Chapter Four of her book Everybody's Autobiography, which continues her most famous book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Stein, like Samuel Johnson and Oscar Wilde among others, was one of those authors who suffer the bittersweet fate of being more interesting than their works.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Khürt Williams: "If Netflix is TV then...I am lost. But Jim [in another comment —Ed.] has a point that 'computers, cell phones and similar devices' are just as effective time-wasters."

Mike replies: I certainly didn't mean to claim that I don't waste time!! Just that I don't own a television set, that's all.

I have two computers (one is reserved entirely for writing, and is only online so I can do quick research as I write), an iPhone, a laptop I never use except on my infrequent travels, and an iPad. I read on my phone and tablet. I watch shows and movies occasionally on the 27" computer (not as often as once a week, although sometimes I rise to that—I let my Netflix subscription lapse a few years ago), and I watch an awful lot of YouTube—most of it snooker matches from around the world. I can't watch them in real time, but since I'm very far removed from the world in which snooker is a "thing," I don't run much risk of hearing the outcomes beforehand. Being a British sport, snooker matches can go on for hours—I mean as much as six or eight hours over multiple days—so to watch even a fraction of a tournament can be a very significant time commitment. I would file that under "entertainment" rather than wasted time, like other people watch football or soccer, but that might be rationalizing!

Posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2018 at 10:25 AM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (57)

Wednesday, 14 November 2018

Open Mike: Teavivre (Tea Update) (OT)

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It appears with iron discipline on Wednesdays. So is today Wednesday?! It is!

That's the story and I'm stickin' to it. —Yr. Hmbl. Ed.]

-

Teavivre

Bao Jia Cun Organic tea garden in Zhe Jiang Province of China
where some of Teavivre's teas are sourced.

...And the adventure continues. So far I've tried about 25 different kinds of green tea.

I don't like green tea very well yet, but it's healthier than coffee. The caffeine dose in the coffee I like messes with my heart (I've had a-fib). I had to prove that to myself: stayed off coffee for a week or three, then had my usual mug. Sure enough, I could feel the effect. Not good.

So that's it for coffee for me. (I don't like the idea of decaf.) I was a daily coffee drinker for most of 45 years—even roasted my own beans for a few years, which was delightful, a real pleasure.

But life is change, and ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

First step with green tea was to get away from teabags. Processing and handling dried tea leaves results in a certain amount of dust, flakes and bits, and those are used in teabags where what you can't see doesn't hurt you. Tea dust over-extracts easily, resulting in bitterness and astringency (that sourish taste with a "dry" mouthfeel—the goal with tea brewing is to extract for as long as you can before tasting any astringency. This requires some experimentation; good suppliers give you a starting point, but don't let it end there. Experiment for yourself). I did find a few teabag teas I like. One was in a sampler from Stash Teas that, alas, I've never been able to find again, and another was Tazo Organic Pan-Fired Green.

But loose leaf tea is the way I'm going to go.

Second step was to work out a brewing method. I got that lovely Willow & Everett electric kettle with temperature presets which is a fantastic luxury—it works perfectly and is surprisingly accurate. It was a good purchase; I love it. So nice to be able to heat water to just the temperature I want. (The 205°F setting is perfect for pour-over coffee, too.) And it turned out that the little glass teakettle I bought has a large oversized strainer that happens to fit perfectly in the top of my old Shaker Village mug I've had since I was nine years old. The glass top of the teapot covers it nicely. So the pot itself was prematurely retired and I brew tea right in the mug—it makes about 15 ounces, which is two of the traditional American "large" cups of tea. (Our cups of tea are about 8 ounces; Asians tend to drink cups of 3.5–4 ounces.)

Mug-smallBrewing tea. (Here's that timer. It's weighted so it doesn't slip around.)

I've tried a number of sources such as Harney and Sons, Tea Source which Ctein likes, Teavivre, Têtê Tea (from the Himalayas in Nepal, which I think is cool), Clearview Tea Co. which is owned and run by the wife and daughter of a Canadian TOP reader, and several others.

I've settled on Teavivre as my chosen source, for four main reasons:

  1. They offer free samples of your choice with your first order. Very nice. You can buy samples too, with enough tea for two American cups or four Asian cups. Good for exploring.
  2. You can choose for your tea to be delivered in a tin. If you buy the smallest (3.5 oz.) amount of tea, the tin only costs a few extra bucks and will hold 6–12 ounces of tea. They're high-quality tins with double-seal tops. You only need a few for the favorite teas you'll keep in stock, but it's nice to be able to get these cheaply.
  3. They offer a wide variety of teas, good if you want to experiment to find the ones you like best. (Têtê Tea by contrast offers only three, white, green, and black.)
  4. They're based in Fujian province in China, which is where the people who own my favorite local sushi restaurant come from. Through that connection I know several people from Fujian province, and I've gotten interested in it and have learned some things about it. So I like that connection. Of course that's just me.

Many of the teas come direct from China when you order them (all the samples and tea in tins come from China, for example), so it takes 8–10 days. Teavivre does have a new American warehouse now, in Arizona, so certain teas in zip bags bags come from there and take less time to arrive.

I've found a few I like, but I won't mention which one I've settled on as my daily drink. It's got a flavor I love and is low in caffeine. My choice isn't a big secret or anything, but everyone should choose according to their own taste and everyone's taste will be different. I'm certainly no tea expert. (I don't even have a very acute sense of taste.)

Finally, I should mention in passing that I like the language on Teavivre's website. It reads like expressive English written (or translated?) by a Chinese person, which seems honest to me. I hope they don't change that. It's perfect just the way it is.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

TC: "The community college where I teach photography recently had a field trip for teachers, taking us out to a tea plantation in the mountains of Pinglin, Taiwan. There we not only listened to presentations on the tea-making process, we were able to pick and process some tea ourselves.

"It was very interesting, and gave me a renewed appreciation for tea even though I drink it every day."

Antonis R.: "Easy to see the underlying connection to TOP. Teavivre founder Angel Chen writes: 'My husband, Chris, also my partner, sometimes would laugh at me, Since all earnings are spent on more trips to further discover great tea. In return I would say: 'Why don't you talk about upgrading your camera?'"

David Evans: "That is a beautiful kettle, but I would be lost without a water level indicator. Also I'm amused at the claim that with a 1000-watt element 'your water boils in a fraction of the time compared to a normal kettle.' In the UK a normal kettle is 2000 to 3000 watts."

Mike replies: Yes, but I would assume that you in the UK know best when it comes to tea kettles!

Mani Sitaraman: "The Internet really is a fount of knowledge. Here's a detailed explanation that is a good follow-up read to David Evans' comment about electric kettles in Britain as compared to those in America, titled 'Why Kettles Boil Slowly in the US.'"

Mike replies: And here's an explanation of "fount of knowledge" vs. "font of knowledge."

Posted on Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 02:22 PM in Followups, Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (26)

Wednesday, 07 November 2018

Fog Lines (Apropos of Nothing) (OT)

Foglines-small

Supposedly, sixty-year-olds know four times as much as twenty-year-olds. (But not always about the same things.) But I'm still surprised at all the things I didn't know.

For example, they're resurfacing the highway up the hill. Did you know that the white lines at the edge of the road are called "fog lines"? I never knew. Fog lines mark the edge of the legally driveable portion of the pavement, which we all knew, but their original purpose was to assist you in staying on the road in conditions of low visibility...such as fog.

In this picture, they've striped the fog line on one side of the new road but not the other side.

Fog lights

Fog lights on the model of car I drive

And the "fog lights" on your car, those little extra lights set below the headlights? They're not for helping you see through the fog. They're to help you see the fog lines in the fog.

I tell ya, we're gonna know it all one day.

Mike
(Thanks to Jerry L.)

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jack Stivers: "While in grad school I frequently visited with my 90-year old landlady who would be sitting on her front porch in the evenings when I came back from class or work. She had a fantastic memory and would share things about the past, such as her grandfather being a 16-year drummer boy in the Union army during the Civil War. Once I used the phrase 'live and learn,' to which she quickly replied, 'then you die and forget it all.'

"At times, I'm convinced that I've got a jump on death and have already forgotten more than I ever knew. And when I learn 'new' things I get this déjà vu feeling I'm relearning them. Good thing I enjoy learning regardless of whether or not it is really learning or re-learning. The results are the same, again and again."

Steve Rosenblum: "I have read that the 'fog line' for roads was first developed by Edward Hine and used in Warren, Michigan. He also is supposed to have invented the center line for roads. Michigan also claims the first expressway, the Davison Freeway, which was a below ground freeway that opened on November 25, 1942. Reportedly, travel time to and from Detroit improved from approximately 15 minutes to around three to four minutes. I suppose that none of this is surprising given Michigan's historical role in the development and manufacture of automobiles."

Speed: "A locomotive has two 'ditch lights' mounted low on the front originally designed to, well, light the ditches. First appearing in Canada, it was noticed that when the ditch lights were on while approaching a road crossing, motorists assumed the train was closer and didn't attempt to beat the train when crossing the track. After investigating their effectiveness in reducing collisions with automobiles, regulations were drafted requiring the ditch lights be illuminated whenever the train approaches a level crossing. In time this practice was adopted in the United States."

John Krill: "Believe me those fog lines can save your life. I spent some time in North Carolina in the '60s and their two-lane black tops didn't have fog lines and when it rained you couldn't see the edge of the road. A few marines lost their lives going off the road into the trees. As a marine photographer I had to go out and document the scene. Not a pretty picture."

Eolake: "Amazing fact: when somebody first had the great idea to make the fog lines, traffic accidents in inclement weather in the area dropped dramatically. (I forget how much, but it was a lot.) So the rest of the world adopted them. The idea was that in fog, drivers used the middle line to navigate from, thus getting closer to opposing drivers...."

Posted on Wednesday, 07 November 2018 at 08:10 AM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (31)

Tuesday, 30 October 2018

Open Mike: Election Day (OT)

["Open Mike" is the Editorial Page of TOP. It appears once a week or so.]

Not one but two apologies before the fact: one for temporarily transgressing this site's "gentleman's agreement" proscribing the discussion of politics. And the other for closing the comments. Forgive me for that last, but I lack the emotional fortitude to field and hold everyone's feelings about the current state of national and world affairs. And I'm happily busy these days, not least with a book which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

But this merits saying:

Where "American" = of or pertaining to the U.S. of A.,

A good Republican is an American first and a Republican second (or third, or fourth, or fifth); and

A good Democrat is an American first and a Democrat second (or third, or fourth, or fifth).

Country before faction. The other way around is bad citizenship, and traditionally un-American.

The proper, right, good and best analogy for political parties and factions should come from sports. Democrats and Republicans should be like rival college football teams from different States or schools, such as Oklahoma vs. Nebraska or Army vs. Navy or Harvard vs. Yale. No matter how fervid a fan we are, no matter how much we hope our team might win, no matter how much we detest our opponents, no matter how hoarse we scream ourselves cheering or booing, the whole object is to beat the other team fair and square and with good sportsmanship on the field of play and then shake hands afterward...not to blow up the other team's bus and kill everyone from the coaches to the ballboys dead for real, leaving grieving families weeping by fresh graves.

This deserves saying too: The less united we are, the weaker we are as a nation. The conservative opinion columnist David Brooks wrote an essay on October 15th called "The Rich White Civil War." In it he discusses a report that "breaks Americans into seven groups, from left to right, with names like Traditional Liberals, Moderates, Politically Disengaged and so on. It won’t surprise you to learn that the most active groups are on the extremes—Progressive Activists on the left (8 percent of Americans) and Devoted Conservatives on the right (6 percent)." He goes on to say that both of those groups largely consist of old rich white people whose views are intransigently the opposite of each other's.

The rest of us need to strive to put unity before divisions. The less united we are, the weaker we are as a nation.

It's one week till Election Day. Go team.

This concludes TOP's political coverage for the election season.

The Editor

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Posted on Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 02:18 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (0)

Friday, 19 October 2018

Open Mike: Oh, Tea! (OT) Mark II

KettleWillow & Everett Electric Gooseneck Kettle

The clever title is Ctein's. I'll list the links to all of Ctein's posts on tea at the end of this post. As you may or may not recall, depending on how long you've been with us, Ctein (pronounced "kuh-TINE," long "i") was the former longtime ~weekly columnist for this site; he departed in 2016 for a new career as a novelist.

Reader D. Hufford wrote yesterday, in part:

"I am going to go out on a long, sturdy, near unbreakable limb and suggest that changing from coffee to green tea is not gonna do an awful lot for your health."

Given the number of comments responding to my aside about coffee and tea, I guess I'd better explain this. I suffer from what I call "EMA's"—early morning awakenings. No matter when I go to bed or what other protocols I follow, I would wake up spontaneously very early, like between 4:00 and 5:30 sometime; occasionally I could get back to sleep but usually not. EMA's are ordinarily believed to be a symptom of mild, chronic depression.

It's been very persistent, and a real bother. Contrary to folk belief, you don't need less sleep as you age. You just get less sleep, and sleep more poorly, because of age.

Caffeine: friend or foe?
I've never drunk coffee after 3:00 p.m.—I learned way, way back that it would interfere with my sleep. Then I took to drinking coffee only when I got up in the morning and no other time. Beset with increasingly persistent EMA's, within the past year or two I cut down from two large (16-ounce/473ml) mugs of coffee per day to one.

Then I started on CPAP in August and started sleeping quite a bit better. I could get back to sleep in the mornings a bit more easily, and started actually feeling rested occasionally when I got up.

But the EMA's persisted. So I tried a number of things as experiments, one of which was switching to green tea. To my surprise, whenever I drank tea I either slept through the night (usually till 7:00–9:00 a.m.) or was able to get back to sleep after waking up early. And here's the kicker: every time I switched back to coffee for a day, I would wake up early the next morning. This happened when I switched back just for one day. Almost every time I drank tea, I wouldn't have an EMA the next morning—and many of the times I did, I've been able to get back to sleep.The correlation was not absolute, but nearly so.

So, Q.E.D.

I drank coffee more or less every day from age 16 (one-six) to 61 (six-one). But the time for that is over, so I'm leaving it behind now.

I went back and read over all the posts Ctein wrote for us about tea and brought myself up to speed. On his suggestion I went to TeaSource and ordered some green teas.

I've ordered this electric kettle (pictured above), which has a setting for 180°F water. I plan to use a 450ml Hario Cha Cha Kyusu "Maru" Japanese teapot for brewing one (12-ounce/355ml) mug of green tea at a time. The teapot appeals to me because it lets the loose tea and the water circulate freely together, and it looks easy to clean. I'll use my iPhone as a timer.

Bookin'
As for coming up to speed about brewing tea, I tried to turn to Scott Rao. Scott wrote a great book about brewing non-espresso coffee. It's called Everything But Espresso and, like some women I remember, it's short and sweet and hard to get. Highly recommended if you want to raise your coffee-brewing game. However, although Scott Rao admits in that book to being a tea drinker himself, he apparently hasn't written a book exclusively about tea. So I ordered his The Professional Barista's Handbook: An Expert Guide to Preparing Espresso, Coffee, and Tea.

Ctein on Tea:

The Art of Tea

The Art of Tea (for Two)...Pu Erhs

Teas, Please!

Tea With Jon and Bill

Oh, Tea!

Mike
(Thanks to D. Hufford)

T1-2small

UPDATE Friday evening: Wouldn't you know it, right after I finished this post, the teamaking gear arrived from Amazon (not even 48 hours after I ordered it, which, you have to admit, is good, given that I live way out in the sticks).

T2small

The presets on the Willow & Everett kettle make it obvious that it was made for heating water for tea and coffee. Some reviews say they don't like that the presets "limit" you, but I much prefer them, because now I don't have to remember which temperature goes with which kind of tea. I have a bad memory for numbers generally.

T3small

The Maru teapot with its strainer basket inserted.

T7small

The teapot is tiny, good for one mug's worth of tea at a time. (The strainer basket fits neatly right in the top of my mug, though, so I might be "skipping the middleman.") The "mug" in the background of course belongs to Butters, my faithful Attention Hound.

T5small

Load the strainer basket with loose tea...

T6small

...And we're good to go!

We'll talk about the new rangefinder in the morning. After I've had some tea.

UPDATE #2, Saturday morning:

T8small

As I mentioned yesterday, the strainer-basket for the Hari teapot fits like a glove right into my mug (it's in place in this pic). Since I'm only fixing tea for one person, and one mug at a time, I can't think of any reason not to brew the tea directly in the mug, as you see in progress here. By the bye, I've had that mug since I was nine—I bought it during a visit to Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, near Harrodsburg, with my Polk cousins and Aunt. The other thing I bought there was a sample of penmanship by a woman who gave demonstrations writing beautifully with a quill pen and inkpot, but that is long since lost.

The electric kettle works great.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP. It usually appears on Wednesdays.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Hugh Crawford: "I think there is an opening for a T-stop joke* here as you go from dark to light hot beverages so as not to lose focus on the nominal subject of TOP, but I can't seem to find the grounds.

*A new leaf joke would be strained I am afraid."

cathy: "Did you include decaf coffee or tea in your experiment? I'm wondering if there is something about green tea besides low caffeine that helps with sleep."

Mike replies: I didn't, no. For some reason I don't like fake or ameliorated or adulterated products; I don't know why. Decaf coffee just doesn't appeal somehow. I don't think this is rational.

Tom Burke: "Mike, I like the care with which you've approached your switch to tea drinking. I note however that you have not mentioned taking any advice from the greatest tea-drinking nation on earth—the British—and I think you're right to take this approach. As a Brit, let me explain the 'Way of the Teabag' as perfected in England.

"First, prepare your mug (not cup—none of that porcelain nonsense—you need a mug). The mug should be prepared by using it for tea-drinking for some time—a couple of years is fine—and never, ever washing it. Just running it out under the tap will do. You'll know it's ready by the brown stains all over the inside. Ideally, you'll keep your mug for years—losing or breaking a mug is a cause for genuine grief. It's a bit like losing a member of the family.

"Next, you need to prepare your drink of tea. For this you need boiling water, a tea bag, milk and a sweetener.

"The tea bag can be bought from any supermarket in the country. As for selection, the cheaper the better—don't bother with any of those fancy teas.

"Having placed your tea bag in your mug, fill your kettle from the cold water tap (don't bother with filtered water—spoils the flavour) and boil it. Make sure it really is boiling—let it do so for a couple of minutes. (In the case of an automatic kettle, this may mean holding the switch on when it tries to turn itself off.) Then, while it is still actively boiling, quickly pour the water into the mug and onto the tea bag until the mug is full.

"Leave it for a few minutes, to stew.

"Then, just to make sure it's strong enough, use the tea spoon to squeeze the tea bag against the inside of the mug. Doing this several times with considerable pressure on the tea bag will ensure the tea is strong enough. Discard the tea bag after this.

"Next step is to slosh a quantity of milk into the mug. By happy chance, removing the tea bag from the mug will have lowered the level of tea so that there will be room for the milk; if you want more milk than this permits, just pour some tea away. There is an art in this—the best practitioners let the tea run down the outside of the mug before dropping into the sink. (This practice has the added benefit of wetting the bottom of the mug so that when you put it down, e.g. on a table or a sideboard, it will leave marks on the furniture.)

"Stir in the milk with your tea spoon.

"Even at this stage there could be some genuine tea flavour left, and this will not do! Fortunately, this is easy to remedy—a saccharine sweetener tablet will do the trick. If you add one, you will need to stir the tea with your tea spoon again. (Actually, real experts don't bother stirring in the sweetener. Leaving it unstirred produces a mug of tea with increasing sweetness as you drink it because the sweetener will only have sweetened the tea at the bottom of the mug.)

"Finally, drink and enjoy. Delicious!"

Mike replies: There'll always be an England.

Ernie Van Veen: "To Tom Burke—have you been spying on me?  ;-)  "

Posted on Friday, 19 October 2018 at 01:47 PM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (49)

Monday, 15 October 2018

Music Notes: Strange Bedfellows (OT)

David Sanborn and Jools Holland once had a television show called "Night Music" that typically juxtaposed two very different musicians with disparate styles. Sometimes the combinations landed with a thud and sometimes they soared, and you were never sure which you were going to get.

Here's a strange combination and a musical nugget you might never be aware of if you're not a deep fan of either: the Grateful Dead once performed a concert with Ornette Coleman, of all people, as a guest. My friend Terry alerted me to it. The concert took place at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on the 23rd of February, 1993, and you can listen to it on Archive. org. If you have a good tolerance for unconventional music or you're just an Ornette Coleman fan (did I just say the same thing twice?), Ornette joins the band on "Space," "The Other One," "Stella Blue" and "Turn On Your Lovelight" from the second set...although some of the other songs from that evening are pretty spacey too—"Drums" features didgeridoo zapping from one stereo channel to the other.

Ornette was repaying a favor—he had enlisted Jerry Garcia, a longtime fan of his, to play on his 1988 album Virgin Beauty. This was one of two concerts for which Ornette joined the band. The concert took place just two and a half years prior to Jerry's untimely demise, and Jerry's voice sounds worn and hoarse, sometimes struggling to stay in tune—it gives his performances a worldly, weary feeling with hints of ruin, like late Billie Holiday.

If you don't know who Ornette is, here's a primer (the word in its meaning of "a short introduction" is pronounced "primmer," not as  "prime" with an "r" at the end).

If you want a concert with guests that were easier to integrate, try this legendary 1970 show at Fillmore East with the Allman Brothers Band and Peter Green sitting in. (Ten life points if you know who Peter Green is.) Start with "Not Fade Away."

Mike
(Thanks to Terry)

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

R.A. Krajnyak: "I'll take Blues Guitarist Extraordinaire and Fleetwood Mac founder for 10 life points, Alex. B.B. King said of him, 'He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.'"

Rick D: " I remember 'Night Music'! My top two discoveries watching were John Hiatt and a Bulgarian wedding band (really!). We gathered our culture where we could."

Gordon Lewis: "I remember 'Night Music' well. One of my favorite pairings was Leonard Cohen singing 'Who By Fire' backed by Sonny Rollins on tenor sax and the Was Not Was singers on background vocals. It will give you goosebumps even in the summertime."

Mike replies: Yes, that one was sublime—

Posted on Monday, 15 October 2018 at 09:34 PM in Music Notes, Off-topic posts | | Comments (28)

Wednesday, 10 October 2018

Car Magazines (Completely Pointless OT)

Before leaving the topic of autos (sorry for the detour!), two more crusty car-related opinionations (besides for my ongoing pet peeve, which is that I want some tire in between my wheels and the road):

  1. Biggest change in car magazines since I was a kid in study hall: cars are all now track-tested instead of road-tested. Call me old-fashioned—outmoded, frumpish, dated, old, passé, démodé, behind the times, obsolete—but I drive on public roads, not racetracks. I do not care how fast a car goes around the bleedin' Nürburgring. Do. Not. Care.
  2. Biggest complaint about car mags and fansites today: Completely uninterested in supercars. Could not give a flying fig if a million-dollar 1,200-HP so-called car "beats" a half-million-dollar 800-HP so-called car. Wouldn't give a nickel from the couch-cushions for a top speed of 200 MPH vs. a top speed of 160 MPH. Doesn't apply to me, never will, don't care, don't care, don't care. They can all fall into the sea. Sick and tired of 'em.

"Excess ain't rebellion."
                                                          —Cake, "Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle," 1994

What's the title of this blog again?
Mea culpa, this little blurt is completely pointless on a photography blog, but...now I feel better.  :-)

Mike

P.S. Oh, and to end on a positive note: as I've opined here many times, my favorite kind of car has two seats side-by-side, rear-wheel drive, a naturally-aspirated engine located in front, a convertible top, and and a manual transmission. A genus known as roadsters. There is at least one roadster being made today that it is possible to buy new, and for 2019 it got just the right horsepower bump. I can't afford one, but it exists, and for that, I am grateful: the world still contains exciting possibilities for the likes o' me. /Waxing lyrical.

And now for a little Insight

And now for a little Insight

P.P.S. Despite the above, this will probably be my next car.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bill Mitchell: "Amen, Brother; amen!"

John Holmes: "This article is related to cameras. Just replace the word 'car' with 'cameras,' and think in terms of all of the emphasis on the top-end capabilities of the latest and greatest cameras...also the same with magazines. It also applies to all of the emphasis on testing of cameras and lenses, but not under real, most common, uses, and that being the primary subject of photography blogs."

Joseph Reid: "Your complaints about car mags seem to have parallels in the photo community: Cameras and lenses tested exhaustively in the 'lab' with MTF charts and whatnot, and the fixation on the latest super-high-power-resolution-blahblahblah bodies that only a slim minority of photographers will ever need. Drive to go somewhere, shoot to show something others haven't seen. Forget the test tracks and the test charts."

Mike N. (partial comment): "I'm never going to buy a 100-MP medium-format camera that costs as much as a German luxury car, or even a top range full-frame DSLR new, but it doesn't mean I don't like reading about them."

Bernd Reinhardt: "Something I find ironic is that Los Angeles probably has the most supercars in America. Have you seen LA traffic and the condition of our roads?"

Mike replies: Slow car fast is better than fast car slow.

Roger Lambert: "If you like the Insight, why not opt for the Clarity PHeV? Same basic car but about 45 miles (about 60 miles if not on highway) of electric-only miles per charge. And that charge can be overnight on a regular 110 outlet. Gets about 42–44 mpg on the highway, a tad less than the Insight, but the electric miles represent 95% of driving for most people. Very good reviews of Clarity—very nice interior, ride, quietness. Full Federal $7,500 tax rebate on the Clarity, $1,700 NY State rebate, possibly local electric company rebates?"

Mike replies: Um, because I didn't know about the Clarity before I read your comment? Truth. Actually, I'm not car shopping...my Acura gets paid off soon (next April 15th, no kidding!) and I plan to drive it for another five years of no car payments. If all goes as foreseen I'll be car shopping for real in about the Spring of 2024.

A hybrid does make a lot of sense for where I live, though. Population is sparse and everything is far away from everything else. I make routine drives that are anywhere from 15 miles round trip (nearby Penn Yan) to 122 miles round trip (Rochester, nearest big city). So saving on mileage would multiply quickly up here.

Charles Rozier: "Couldn’t agree more. Would like to add that those low profile tires may not even increase cornering grip, just change looks and feel. For example, a common track mod on the Lotus Elise was to substitute smaller, not larger, diameter wheels."

Ashton Lee: "A well-maintained 10-year-old 911 is just as lovely and practical as a Leica M6. And, no, I can't get the full performance out of either. But they both bring joy into my life at a tiny fraction of their original cost."

Michael Matthews: "Oh, how I wish you hadn’t included the link disclosing the increased muscle added to the Miata. I had fully rationalized my four-year fling with Miata as a delightful experience, over and done with, compartmentalized and put away as a fond memory. Rats.

"It’s clearly the end of the line for car magazines. Gave up on them decades ago but was lured into free subscriptions (lingering, unusable amounts of frequent flyer miles paid the bill) to Road & Track, Car & Driver, and Automobile. All that space devoted to Koenigsegg and Bugatti Veyron. After about a year the magazines began going directly from the mailbox to the recycling bin. Sic transit four color print—dead at the hand of its own irrelevance."

Robert: "Car magazines are more important now than ever. Videos have replaced the photos and are better at communicating the sounds of a car. But they can’t explain how a car feels to drive. For that you need good writers. Read Car, Evo, Car & Driver, Octane and particlulary Sam Smith at Road & Track."

John Ironside: "Our BMW i3 had no new car smell when we got it four years ago. It has no automatic transmission either, just a single-speed. Although very quiet, it can accelerate very fast when wanted. Fuel cost has been near zero all summer. We need to remember to brake hard every week or three, because the brakes get so little use. Moderate deceleration is always regenerative, unless the battery's chock-full. We do have the version with the scooter engine-generator to hold the battery charge steady, so longer journeys are manageable, but do require planning.

"I've got lots of niggles about it, but I wouldn't go back to a car with an engine."

Jim Arthur (partial comment): "We do love our cars. We spend so much time in them that they become an extension of our home…but with the option to roam.

"I think the seat height issue is just a side effect of the American desire for a big broad car to drive across a big broad country. A big car is comfort. A big car is luxury. A big car has room for all our stuff. I think many people were never thrilled with the trend toward smaller and smaller cars made of plastic and aluminum. Big is a better fit, in many ways. Those who like the smaller roadsters and motorcycles are always in the minority but these are the only vehicles that let you stay in touch with the road and be a part of the world you’re traveling through."

Posted on Wednesday, 10 October 2018 at 08:30 AM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (57)

Tuesday, 09 October 2018

Open Mike: Why Are Crossovers So Popular? (OT)

Ever wonder why so many people are buying SUVs and crossovers these days?

I've long thought that there are two reasons. First, height. It's nice to be up high; you can see the road better (and see over, or through, all the other tall vehicles). And second, conformity. We buy whatever everybody else is buying.

This second reason actually makes some sense, because whatever vehicle is mainstream at any given time gets the most R&D money and engineering and manufacturing expertise poured into it.

Want the truth? We can't handle the truth
But I was wrong, turns out. Jalopnik, the automotive site, recently let us in on the truth. "Don’t get it twisted," they say. "The real reason SUVs and crossovers are performing so well isn’t as much about cargo space, all-wheel drive for bad weather or our desire to own vehicles that project an image of rugged, outdoorsy individuality: it’s just that for an aging and increasingly unfit population, they’re just easier to get in and out of."

I had to agree. I've only ever bought one SUV, a 2012 RAV4 that I got tired of after three years, but that was the reason I bought it.

Don't think I'm being holier-than-thou. I found this BMI Calculator at the Mayo Clinic website, a good one because it takes girth into account. (To measure your waist, use a tape measure at the level of your belly button with your stomach relaxed.) According to the calculator, I am just a wee bit over the line between overweight and obese, and I have "an unhealthy waist size" that puts me "at very high risk of developing obesity-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease." Yeah, okay, but not for lack of trying.

Subaru Crosstrek

Crossovers look nimble, lithe, and active, but their best
trick is that they don't remind us that we're not

At about the same time I bought that RAV4—which, not coincidentally, was about the time my weight peaked (at 273—I'm 233 now)—I got to sit in a Ford GT at an auto show. Whew, what an ordeal—it was like shoehorning myself into an undersized coffin sitting on the floor. Took some doing.

I also used that BMI Calculator to figure out what weight I would need to be to get into the range they call "normal." It's exactly what I weighed in my last years in high school and first years in college.

Shimmy in, slither out
"It’s easier to get in and out of a vehicle with seats about two feet off the ground," says Keith Knudsen, Ford vehicle architecture manager, quoted in an article in The Detroit Free Press. "Seat height is key," he continues. "People like to be able to slide in, not lift themselves up or down."

It's also the reason why SUV and crossover seats tend to be flat: easier to slide on to...and no telling how wide the butt is that has to fit on it. I sympathize there too: I test drove a Honda Civic Si a few years back, and the radical seat bolsters, which felt like they were designed for a slender Asian twentysomething, literally didn't fit my body. I sat half on top of the seat bolsters, and the back bolsters poked me right in the kidneys. (Best seats ever? The old VW GTI VR6. But it's not like I've tried everything.)

This is not something manufacturers are going to be talking about much, as both articles note. But the truth is, while we like vehicles that project an image of youth and vigorous athletic and outdoor activity, the really important thing about them is that they're easy to get into and out of. Otherwise, they'd remind us that we're fat and out of shape every time we got behind the wheel. And we can't have that.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP, wherein we let the Editor out of his kennel and let him stray. It appears either once, twice, three times, or no times per week, usually on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim Grey: "Cars are actually returning to form. The 'longer lower wider' era that began in the 1950s turns out to be a 60-year fad that has now ended. Did you know that a RAV4 has about the same exterior dimensions as the 1949 Plymouth station wagon? The RAV4 has a lot more interior space of course. I wonder how long before we stop calling these SUVs or CUVs and just call them cars."

Mike replies: Good point! Note the comments about the 1940s Chevrolet woodies in this post.

Jeroen Pulles: "It's the full-frame of cars; You don't really need it, but it's a safe choice. By the way, mounting surf boards on the roof of a SUV, as in the Subaru promotional photograph, is very unpractical. Don't forget to keep a ladder in the trunk. That's why you want a VW Transporter: just pop everything in the back."

Mike replies: I read an article recently that made the case for vans being the most practical cars—in practice much more useful for most people than pickup trucks or SUVs. The average pickup truck owner uses the cargo bed just four times a year, and the average SUV owner goes off-roading fewer times than that. Just ask yourself which you'd rather have, a van or a pickup truck, if you were moving and it was threatening to rain. The only problem is that they have a terrible image...somewhere between commercial delivery vehicle and soccer-mom kid-hauler. If only some carmaker could figure out a way to make vans macho.

Not THAT Ross Cameron: "They’re also popular with parents of young children for the same reason. Easier to lift ‘em out than bending down into a standard car."

Dennis Mook: "I shoot with Fujifilm APS-C and Olympus Micro 4/3 cameras and drive a minivan and I’m proud of it! Just returned from a 30-day road trip from Virginia to the Rockies and back. The minivan, which I bought for road trips after I retired, is the perfect vehicle. My wife and I can sleep in it if necessary, I can load a 4x8' sheet of plywood flat on the floor and seat eight as well. It is quiet, rides smoothly with comfortable seats, got me spryly over the Rockies and the best tank of gas gave me 31.2 MPG. The 5,700 mile trip overall averaged 27.9 MPG. Oh! The Fujifilm and Olympus systems, with their small and lightweight but extremely high quality lenses, are the perfect travel cameras as well! Be different, be proud and don’t go along with the crowd!"

Dan: "To be clear, the Mayo BMI calculator does not take waist circumference into account in the BMI number. BMI is still just weight divided by height squared in kg/m^2. But in addition to giving your BMI, the Mayo calculator also tells you if you have an 'unhealthy waist.' For guys, that's greater than 40 inches, for gals, 35 inches. (I spelunked into the Javascript and verified this.)"

John: "I've owned a great number of cars, including a 528 BMW, a SAAB 9000 turbo, usually with manual transmissions, and probably over a dozen motorcycles, but the only car I ever fell in love with was my Ford Aerostar [van]. Easy to get in and out of, great vision, unbelievably comfortable seats, and loads of space; once it carried a 17-foot rowboat in the back for a short distance. I almost cried when it had to be taken to the wreckers with a broken engine and transmission."

Rob L.: "I still want a truck, but my Toyota Sienna [minivan] is the best car I've had. Reliable, tough, carries all my stuff—even better, I don't have to unload everything after a camp out, or deal with covering stuff, etc. The only vehicle that would truly give me an advantage over my van is a full-length Suburban, in that it would have 4WD and ground clearance and about the same room, but at twice the price and half the MPG."

Posted on Tuesday, 09 October 2018 at 12:53 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (73)

Tuesday, 04 September 2018

Open Mike: What's That Smell?

"Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, except when it doesn't.

 

I've got a modest little suggestion that just might have the power to change your life. It's just something I've been noticing lately.

But permit me a little digression first. Many years ago I had an English professor at Reed College whose didactic method was to cite the titles of books. He would mention an idea, remember a book that expounded further on it, and leap to the chalkboard in a state of excitement to scribble down the author and title.

I, of course, being impressionable (I am still impressionable), wrote the authors and titles in my notebook, resolving to seek out and read them all.

That project foundered quickly. The gentleman was an endless waterfall of book recommendations. By the end of the first week of class my list had reached twenty titles, and I was already doubting my ability to follow through with all that semi-curricular reading. When my list reached sixty titles, somewhere around the third week, I threw in the towel. 

But I did read a few. One book I did read from his list, and was glad I encountered, was William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity. Empson was an Englishman, born in 1906, perished in 1984, who was allied with John Crowe Ransom's so-called New Criticism. When I went to the Amazon page for it just now and looked over the table of contents, the musty smell of the old volume in the Reed College Library came back to me so powerfully that I almost believed I was experiencing it again.

EmpsonBet you can't smell this. But I was startled to find that I could, for few seconds.

Anyway, recently I've become aware of certain types of statements, by me and by others. It's a kind of statement that can have two meanings. Psychological meanings, in this case. I don't know what type of ambiguity that would be, in Empson's terms.

It's when we make a statement about ourselves that seem to reflect fear or anxiety, but might also be mistaken for intention or resolve.

For instance, "I'm never going to find a job."

You might suppose that the speaker is saying "I'm afraid looking for a job will only lead to rejection or failure." / "I'm worried I won't have an income." That's the fear/anxiety meaning. But on the other hand, the exact same statement can be looked at from the intention/prediction angle: "I'll be damned if I'm going to get a job!" / "I don't know about you, but I refuse to work."

Which is it? Sometimes, even when I hear these statements in person and take in the context of the person's expression and surrounding statements, I still can't tell.

Here are just a few more examples, taken from real conversations I've heard recently:

Every boyfriend I find is a jerk.

People always let me down. It never fails.

I'll never be able to afford a new car.

I'm always going to crave cigarettes. 

I can't win!

Do some of these statements somehow contain both meanings at once? Partly fear—partly determination?

If you start listening for them, see if you don't begin to hear statements in this form from others. I've only been listening for them for a few weeks, and it gets easier as I go. Now they pop out at me.

And I have to warn you about something a little less comfortable. When you start listening for them in others, you might occasionally hear one coming from your own mouth! Then you might really want to try to resolve the ambiguity and figure out which meaning is more pertinent. Is it fear/anxiety/pessimism/lament—or intention/resolve/prediction/desire?

For instance, I recently heard myself saying, "I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life." Hmm. So am I saying I fear I'll always be alone—please prove me wrong? Or that I want to be alone and I dang well will be? Which is it? Or is it both at the same time somehow?

See if you can learn to listen for this type of statement from others. And see if you can notice it when you do it yourself.

The power of language
I do wonder about the power of language. When we make statements, are we telling ourselves things? "Things keep getting worse and worse for me," one friend told me not long ago. Well, that's a lament, for sure. But it can also be viewed as a prediction. Does stating the prediction over and over set it in our psyches, and help the prediction come true?

And, if that's so, well, then, can you regain power over it by using language to your advantage?

When I used the "I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life" example above, what sprung to mind was that in 2012 or so, I started telling people something I wasn't quite sure I believed myself: "I'm looking for a wife." I'd only say it where it was appropriate, and I'd say it to random people who I sometimes had only glancing contact with, like a saleswoman at a furniture store. But the strangest thing happened: women started coming out of the woodwork; female friends began introducing me to single friends.

And I noticed that all women were being nicer to me. Even attached women started treating me differently. If you think about it, the phrase "I'm looking for a wife," contains some powerful messages. The clearest ones are: I'm single; I'm not scrounging for casual sex; I'm ready and able to make a commitment. It also implies that you're not trying to hit on someone whose status you don't know. The saleswoman at the furniture store introduced me to her divorced mother.

And two years later, very improbably, I got to have a yearlong relationship with a woman I had always considered to be my long-lost "dream girl." It didn't work out, but that's another story. Just the fact that it happened is more than a little amazing. Did I help it along with that little five-word statement I kept saying to people?

When neighbors, acquaintances, friends and strangers hear "I'm looking for a wife," the takeaway is far, far different from "I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life." But the two statements aren't actually incompatible. They could both come from someone who's in the same place in their life.

Dare to spin it differently
So back to that person who said, "I'm never going to find a job." What if, instead, he started saying "I'm going to find a new job soon"?

You might argue that he doesn't actually know if he's going to find a job soon. But I'd counter that he doesn't actually know he's never going to find a job, either. Both statements are similarly provisional.

But "I'm going to find a new job soon" has very different takeaways for those neighbors, acquaintances, friends and strangers who hear it. It says, "he's looking"; "he's optimistic"; "he's working on it"; and "he might not be available for long." It implies that somebody's going to snap this guy up soon.

Not long ago I heard myself saying, "I could lose my house."

Ew. Wrong thing to say. Anxiousness, or prediction? Our minds are suggestible. When I looked at that title page for Seven Types of Ambiguity, I actually thought for a fleeting second that I was smelling something real—that the smell of a musty old book I read in 1980 was being replicated, somehow, by something nearby in the house. Of course it wasn't. It was a memory. But it shows how powerful our minds are, and how formidable the power of suggestion can be.

See if you can catch yourself repeating a pessimistic statement about yourself that might also be interpreted as a declaration of your intent. And if you do, don't let it slip thoughtlessly past. Grab on to it, hold it up to the light, examine it—and dare to turn it around! Even if you don't quite believe the one with the positive spin. Even if it's nothing certain. Figure out how you can transform the language into a statement that's positive, optimistic, and hopeful. And start saying that instead.

See what happens.

As for me...well, I'm going to have my mortgage paid off soon! 

:-)

Mike

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Jason Melancon (partial comment): "Unconscious aspirational lies fit into this discussion also. The extent to which we unwittingly reveal ourselves is startling once you learn to listen for it. I tell people this, they don't believe me, then they try listening for it for a while and often then tell me how well it works.

"When someone makes some moderate to strong statement about their character or behavior using unconditional terms, they are quite often expressing their recognition of their failing and their desire to overcome it. This is overwhelmingly true if the conversation they were in didn't really require them to comment one way or another on themselves.For example, if someone says 'I'm very good at keeping secrets,' you will make long-term money betting that that person cannot keep a secret.

"If someone says 'I'm really good at juggling a bunch of different tasks' you can be confident that that person really really needs to focus on just one thing at a time. If someone says 'I'm an especially safe driver,' you can be sure that at any time they are not actively thinking about driving safely they will be way too close to the bumper of the car in front of them.

"I used to call this the Big Lie. And I'm not pointing fingers; we all have roughly the same genetic code. After I became aware of this I caught myself gratuitously telling people how I was good at managing time and being on time, and I believed it as I said it. But when I caught myself in the act I immediately saw that I aspired to be a great time manager because that is what I am not."

Michael Perini: "If you try to think, speak and act as though the thing you want is already true, it will more likely become true (as long as you are willing and able to do the work required to achieve it). Making your intentions known and working toward them is a very powerful thing. As James Allen said, 'Move confidently in the direction of your own dreams,' which is really the power of intention. People who wake up every day determined to make progress toward a goal are far more likely to achieve it. Announcing it to the world in a kind and thoughtful way, will bring you unexpected help. As you point out, there are different ways to say the same things, the way that displays your intention and willingness to work toward it will bring more satisfaction over the long run...I've seen it play out a thousand times. Does it always work? Of course not, but it works better than the alternatives."

James: "Talking of smells and ambiguity...I am trying a new deodorant stick today. Instructions say 'remove cap and push up bottom.' I can hardly walk but when I fart the room smells lovely."

Mike replies: All right. You go to the back of the class and sit facing the wall, James.

Posted on Tuesday, 04 September 2018 at 12:25 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (31)

Saturday, 18 August 2018

Your Shot of the Day (OT)

Chris Melling's insane runout—three "shots of a lifetime" in one rack. In competition, no less. The first shot (my favorite but the one the announcer makes the least fuss over) is so inventive most players would never see it; the second shot is the kind of trickshot YouTubers try over and over again until they get it; and he tops it off with a four-rail called shot through traffic that you have to see to believe. Eight ball and out.

It would be fairly amazing to have any one of these shots rescue a runout in competition. To have all three in one rack makes this a must-see and fun even for non-fans.

Chris Melling, born 1979, is a two-time World Rules British 8-Ball champion from Keighley, West Yorkshire, England.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Joe B: "Mike, Pool, well here we go again...not interested in pool. Watched the short video and I have to tell you those three shots are something for the ages! Impossible, must be a trick video. But, no, real they were and probably will not be seen again soon. Thanks for the OT entry. Well worth the side trip."

Benjamin Marks: "Astonishing!"

David Brown: "Wow!"

D. Hufford: "I watched that. I suppose it showed some good shooting, but I would not know. But what I do know is that for the next three weeks, the idiot algorithm at YouTube will recommend every pool (or is it billiards?) video ever made to me. After three weeks, maybe I will be able to discuss the shot more intelligently."

Mike replies: Oh, yeah, you're complaining! I'm effectively an Internet researcher. Just in the last five days I've been to pages featuring: the sales figures for the Lexus RC-F; Aretha Franklin's top hits; pictures of the Ricoh GXR; the charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale; floorstanding home stereo loudspeakers in not one but three price ranges; the difference between elks and moose; CPAP machines; Harlan Ellison's books; the height of corn (which apparently has to be specified as "corn-on-the-cob" in Europe, as they call corn what we call grain); and the difference between "market cap" and annual sales for corporations. And believe me, that's only the very topmost tippy-top of that iceberg. You should see what the video, advertisement, and content algorithms think I'm interested in!!! It can be quite bizarre, and sometimes untraceably mystifying....

Since you asked, "pool" not only consists of many mostly imperfect games with fluctuating rules, but it doesn't even have a real name. "Billiards," as pool is sometimes half-correctly called, is, strictly speaking, three-cushion billiards, a game played on a table with no pockets that was hugely popular when Babe Ruth was playing baseball yet is essentially unknown today. The little bastard zygote name "pool" comes from betting pools. And by the bye, a "billiard" is "any shot in which the cue ball is caromed off an object ball to strike another object ball." Willie Mosconi, a dignified and conservative man who worked hard  to raise the tone of the game, attempted to establish the name "pocket billiards" for "pool," but the English (or rather, those English who voted in favor of Brexit) ruined that. They felt obligated to, as it fell under the cloud of their gleeful but insecure national pastime of making fun of all American sports.

John Daw: "The video was shot with an A7III...just saying...."

Posted on Saturday, 18 August 2018 at 03:15 PM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (21)

Friday, 10 August 2018

Open Mike: What I Did On My Day Off (OT)

Awake
Well, I had a pretty amazing day yesterday. I'm in a 12-step fellowship, and yesterday I finished one step and took three more. Progress! (If anyone wants to know more you're welcome to contact me privately.)

There are many 12-step programs. Wikipedia says, "twelve-step methods have been adapted to address a wide range of alcoholism, substance-abuse and dependency problems. Over 200 self-help organizations—often known as fellowships—with a worldwide membership of millions—now employ twelve-step principles for recovery." In many of these, one of the steps is: "Made a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves." I was determined to be as thorough as possible, so the inventory step was hard on me. I have a lot of unresolved anger and also a lot of defenses—grandiosity and rationalization and the like—mental bad habits that were blocking me from a realistic self-appraisal. As I worked on the step, as the anger came out and as the defense mechanisms, one by one, became exposed and had to be stripped away...well, it's been a tortured, turbulent stretch.

The last step I took yesterday is the relief step. And I'm feelin' it. Feeling happy today. So glad to be looking at the inventory step in the rearview mirror.

Asleep
The other thing I did yesterday, as if that weren't enough, was to get fitted for a modern CPAP machine. I met in a conference room in Geneva with a well-spoken and agile-minded nurse named Lori. I have sleep apnea, a malady that causes you to stop breathing intermittently during the night. Which doesn't sound serious, but (as with the use of addictive substances, come to think), it's a curious affliction in that it runs the range from trivial to lethal. It contributed to the death at age 43 of the great Eagles and Packers defensive end Reggie White, for one.

I tried a CPAP machine once before, in 2013, but wasn't able to adjust to it. But, as with many things, technology has marched on, and the new machines are much better than those of only a few years ago. The one I'm "renting" is a ResMed AirSense 10 (pretty sure it's available only with a doctor's prescription). It has a humidifier and a heated air tube, and it's very quiet.

I haven't adjusted to it yet, but after waking up for a while in the middle of the night, I slept till 10:30 this morning, which is amazing. I'm never able to sleep that late any more.

I'm not very close to getting used to this machine—gotta be patient—but let's just say I have high hopes. 

Before you know it, I'm going to be ready for the onset of old age! Yeah, yeah, I know, it'll probably kill me eventually. I've heard that about it. But bring it on, baby.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the anything goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is let out of the cage for a spell and allowed to wander around unsupervised.

*That's not quite as bad as it sounds, because my sponsor spends the winters in Florida, a very handy excuse for procrastination that lasted many months.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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fred: "How did the sleep apnea diagnosis come about for you? I'm curious about the signs of this malady and what to watch for. Stay well Mike!"

Mike replies: My primary care doctor ordered a home sleep study because I complained of chronic early morning awakenings. The study diagnosed mile OSA, severe when I'm sleeping on my back (which I do sometimes because my shoulders hurt! Ah, youth, where didst thou go...). Do read Michael's comment below, Fred.

Michael Sebastian: "Mike, glad you got your CPAP fitted. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is probably the most common cause of cardiac failure in people without blocked coronary arteries, and is a significant contributor to high blood pressure (hypertension) and atrial fibrillation. It’s truly a silent killer, and under-appreciated for its carnage until recently. I know this because I’m both an OSA patient and an anesthesiologist; this stuff is right in my wheelhouse. OSA poses quite a few challenges, also, when someone comes to my OR for an anesthetic.

"When you airway obstructs during sleep, your sleep patterns (REM et al) are disrupted, so you are never truly rested. During obstructions, your blood oxygen levels drop precipitously, and your carbon-dioxide levels rise. These changes cause blood vessels in the lungs to constrict, which means your heart has to pump blood through your lungs against a much higher than normal resistance. After a time, the lung blood-vessel changes become irreversible, and spill over onto the heart itself.

"I’ve been using CPAP for nearly a dozen years. I always snored like a sawmill, even at a fit 175 pounds as a high school athlete. But as the years and pounds accumulated, it got much worse, until my wife issued an ultimatum: sleep testing, or sleep on the couch. My OSA was so bad they stopped the test after only four hours, and put the CPAP on me. I would likely be dead by now if I hadn’t gotten treated.

"I’ve always used the 'nasal pillows' rather than the full face mask, and never had much problem adjusting. I recall waking up the morning after my first night of CPAP; no headache, felt rested for the first time in years. No more nodding off at the wheel with the afternoon sun in my face.

"So guys, if you snore heavily; if you have a thick neck and/or too many pounds; if you stop breathing at night; if you wake up frequently with a headache; if you are often tired and sleepy during the day; if you have hypertension or atrial fibrillation or other heart disease—be sure your doctor tests you for OSA.

"And Mike is correct: CPAP requires a prescription."

Tim Smith: "I'm still adjusting to the idea that one can become acquainted with a complete stranger via a computer. Over the years I've witnessed your breakthroughs, challenges, parenting experiences, vacuum purchases, and medical issues, and many more tales of a very personal nature. While it's true that I have made other 'friends' via social media (people I've never met in person but consider a friend), you are the one that is closest to 'celebrity.' Now I want to say something like 'In real life...' but it has become increasingly difficult to separate what happens while walking and talking from what happens when typing and scrolling. Whatever facet of reality this is, I wish you nothing but success and easy, good fortune."

Mike replies: Thank you Tim, and back at you.

Posted on Friday, 10 August 2018 at 02:55 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (16)

Monday, 30 July 2018

Open Mike: If You Are Depressed (OT)

I won't lie—I've been going through a tough time lately. To my huge relief, though, my depression seems to have lifted in the past day and a half. I'm back to feeling blessedly...normal. A fragile-seeming state, which I dearly hope will last. And so, before I depart for my regular Monday-morning pool group, a brief public service announcement for the benefit of other people like myself....

My brother Charlie and I play a game in which we try to name the biggest changes of our lifetimes. (He was born in 1959, I in '57.) Personal computers took the number one slot for a while, then the Internet; now it's smartphones. But we each have other ideas as well. For example, the improved reliability of cars makes my list. Well, Charlie's a medical doctor (double-boarded in pediatrics and internal medicine), and one of the items on his list is the effectiveness of antidepressants.

I should write a book about the vagaries of language and their semi-unconscious effect on our con- and perceptions. One negative example is the fact that "depressed" is common slang (yes, slang, when used in this context) for "feeling kinda low." We all have mood swings. It's truly too bad that we say things like "I'm so depressed!" when we don't happen to be feeling happy, bubbly, and full of fun. Clinical depression, which I've suffered from intermittently since early adolescence, is not a normal or ordinary state. It's a different beast altogether.

And it's not remotely benign, either. To put it simply, depression kills. It's a big killer, too. It deprives sufferers of hope, and hope is one of the essential necessities of life—a mental/psychological one, yes, and maybe not quite as essential as air or water, but right up there with shelter and group alliances. The statistics are not hard and fast, but roughly as many U.S. Americans will die of suicide caused by depression this year as will be killed in automobile accidents.

Help exists, and it's getting more effective. If you, or especially your children (who can't demystify it for themselves) are suffering from persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, I urge you to seek medical help. Working with a prescribing psychiatrist (i.e., no accompanying talk therapy), I was on a course of antidepressants from about 2001 to mid-2005, and it changed my life...it "raised my low" considerably. Although I still have a tough time with the disease from time to time (can't lie), I can honestly say that I never get as depressed now as I used to get all the time.

It's no accident that TOP started just after mid-2005, after my doctor decided the course of antidepressants had been successful, and I had slowly become convinced that the black dog was safely in abeyance.

It's very tough to see hope when it's been taken away from you. But if you too are depressed, there is hope. Seek it.

More soon. I'm very excited to see my pool-playing friend Norm today—he finally shot below his age last week on the golf course! An 89 at age 93. His longtime goal. Awesome*!

Mike

*Translated to British: Brilliant.

"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, off-topic Editorial page of TOP. I'm on very shaky ground mentioning that it's supposed to appear on Wednesdays.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Dan Gorman: "Many thanks for this, Mike. I've never suffered from clinical depression myself, but I have family members and close friends who do, and from what I've observed, your explication is spot on. Your honesty and empathy are part of what makes TOP so special. If only a handful of your readers take your advice and get medical help, then this may be the best post you've ever written. Best wishes."

Richard Parkin: "Awesome*!

*Translated to British: Brilliant**

**Translated to English: Not half bad***

***Translated to Yorkshire: Champion."

Tom: "I learned only yesterday that an old friend had chosen to end her life after many years of depression and spells in and out of hospital. I feel a sense of guilt that I could not help although rationally I know there is little I could ever have done. Thank you for this post Mike, there's nothing I can add by way of comment other than to say I stand in solidarity with you."

Mike replies: Sorry for your loss Tom.

Posted on Monday, 30 July 2018 at 09:40 AM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (42)

Monday, 09 July 2018

Devilish Question

I've been watching some of those little blips from the Jimmy Kimmel show where they go out on Hollywood Boulevard and ask awkward questions of passers-by. Most of the questions are essentially fluffy ("Did you have sex last night?"), but one of them has had me puzzled for two days:

"What's the most interesting thing about you?"

I've been thinking about this, and am forced to conclude there's nothing interesting about me!

How would you answer this? It's a bit devilish I think.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Kurt Shoens: "Finding interesting things to say about ourselves is as hard as finding interesting photographs of our everyday lives. It's so familiar we forget what's unique and interesting. Then something abruptly changes about your life. Maybe you move from a medium sized town in Wisconsin to a small out of the way place in New York. And then, if you're like me, you regret the pictures you didn't take of the old place now that the opportunity is gone. So you might think you're uninteresting, but you've held my attention and that of many others, for years about a range of topics, many photographic. But what's interesting about me? I haven't a clue."

Adrian Malloch: "The problem with that question is that it is asked of the wrong person. Interestingness is in the eye of the audience, not the actor. The question is as mis-directed as the breathless reporter asking of a bystander who disabled a gunman, 'Are you a hero?' Of course he/she does not perceive of him-/herself as a hero. They did what they did because that was the best thing they were able to do in the situation—not because of some vainglorious motive. It is for others to appreciate and value the selflessness of their actions."

Peter: "That I got my wife to marry me. Not enough? Consider that she also supports my camera purchasing habits. Interested now?"

Mike replies: Hold on to her.

Bill Tyler: "If there is truly nothing interesting at all about you, that fact would be very interesting indeed. 'A paradox? A paradox, a most ingenious paradox!'"

Stan B.: "Me and the wife always ponder what we would say to Alex Trebek when he asks every contestant to reveal a little something about themselves during that particular segment on every show. We mercilessly ridicule each and every contestant for being more sensationally boring than the previous—while admitting we're hard pressed to come up with anything even remotely better...."

Mike Plews: "I can curse in Morse code?"

Eric Rose: "I'm not allowed to tell you  ;-)  ."

Michel: "Dude, it’s staring you right in the face. You’re your own boss. You created your own business. You had a few print sales and bought a house! As for me, well, one time I juggled on the radio."

Richard Parkin: "To bring this back to pool, the real subject of this blog, I must reference Steve 'Interesting' Davis, six times world champion snooker player. He was nicknamed 'Interesting' due to his unflashy/unexciting style of play, perhaps particularly in contrast with that of his contemporary Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, though Wikipedia seems to think it was only his monotonous interview style. His Wikipedia entry has 23 uses of the word 'interesting,' which is interesting and may be a record."

Posted on Monday, 09 July 2018 at 11:57 PM in Off-topic posts, Reflections | | Comments (42)

Friday, 06 July 2018

Open Mike: The Old-Style American (OT)

I had a lovely two days off. The weather was Summery yesterday, but beautifully cool-ish and brilliantly sunny today. I feel revived and rejuvenated. We didn't even have that many firecrackers this year, praise God. Hope you had a nice Fourth, if you celebrated.

Sisters-small

Mormon missionaries from Idaho, the Philippines, and Texas at the
Peter Whitmer Log Home Historic Site in Fayette, New York.
The roots of Mormonism are in our area.

As you know, a lot of TOP is off-topic. Photography is an offshoot of my interest in the world, and we touch on this, that and the other thing from time to time, just as I find fascination in all manner of the things that can be seen with a camera.

In 2013 I even regaled you with a story about...a washing machine.

I know—Mike, right?

Well, settle back. It's been a touch more than five years since then, and I have an update.

As you can read if you visit or revisit that link, my old machine was a 1972 Maytag made in the American small town of Newton, Iowa. I inherited it in 2000 when it was an impressive 28 years old.

Even more impressively, despite its age, I used it for 14 more years without a single problem. At that point I intended to keep it through thick and thin, and see how long it would continue to soldier on. Basically just out of a sense of gratitude. And curiosity—how long could it go on?

(Search "Elections: Anger In The Land" on YouTube if you want to see the 2009 "60 Minutes" piece involving Maytag that inspired that first post in 2013.)

But alas, I sold that house in 2014, and the real estate agent put the kibosh on my fealty to the Maytag. "The laundry machines should convey," she decreed. And so they did. Most probably the new owners of the house replaced them—they remodeled the whole house—but I haven't checked with them to find out.

Cut to now
So here's the other bookend of that sad story: my current laundry machine just came within a hair of getting totaled. By a broken power switch button. At the ripe old age of...six.

SIX.

It's a front-loading Kenmore. Here's the story as far as I've been able to figure it out: Kenmore is not a manufacturer, it's a rebrand or relabel. Various manufacturers make Kenmore products for Sears. My Kenmore was made by LG—specifically, the Home Appliance and Air Solution Division of LG Electronics, which is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. With 82,000 employees worldwide, LG is the fourth-largest "chaebol" in South Korea. Wikipedia defines chaebol as "a large number of diversified affiliates, controlled by an owner whose power over the group often exceeds legal authority." Gulp.

Going from large to small, the power switch on my washing machine is a round plastic button on the front of the unit.

...Which broke. It stopped popping back out after you press it in. Sometimes it gets jammed and causes the machine's electronics to temporarily go haywire.

No problem, right? It's just a little button switch. Just replace it.

Not so fast.

To begin with, I should mention that the machine has already had one horrendously expensive repair, in January of '17. Something went wrong with a part called "the board" and the replacement and its installation cost more than half of the retail cost of the entire machine. A/C surges were blamed—described to me as "a known problem"—so I got a surge protector. For the washing machine.

This time, it turns out you can't just replace the faulty button. You have to replace the entirety of something called "the panel." A new "panel" and its installation was going to cost me "hundreds."

For a faulty power switch.

Yikes, right? But again, not so fast. Come to find out, "the panel" is no longer available. If the machine required a new panel, even at the cost of hundreds of dollars, too bad. Can't be had.

You're getting this, I'm sure: if anything on "the panel" breaks, a Sears Kenmore washing machine bought new in 2012 can longer be repaired at all.

Why? Well, this is supposition, not fact, but anecdotal evidence suggests that apparently "the panel" was breaking left and right on this particular model of LG front-loader two and three years into its model lifespan, and the warranty replacements were costing LG too much money. So, being a huge multinational with vast resources, LG cleverly solved its problem. It just stopped making the replacement part. Voilà, no more expense! Ain't business school grand?

So anyway, to keep my now obsolescent six-year-old washing machine limping along into the future, I've figured out a workaround. I snipped the pin off a plastic push-pin and Crazy-Glued it to the on-off switch. If I'm gentle with it and push it just so, I can get the power to turn on without having the button jam. Meanwhile, though, I have to be aware that the next time the bloody little basta stops working, chances are fair that my whole machine's goose is cooked and a new sh!##% washing machine will have to get drained out of the "non-recurring recurrables" line in the budget. (That's my brother Charlie's term, and I like it. Life is full of non-recurring recurrables. The term basically means "something unforeseen is gonna cost you a big chunk a' money at random every now and then, and you never know what.")

So what's the most reliable brand of washing machine these days? Answer: none of them. American clothes washing machines from the post-war period were made to last 20 years routinely, and often lasted for 30 years. When last seen alive, my ancient Maytag—an outlier, a survivor—was 42 years old and still going strong. It's possible it was dispatched to the landfill still working! Now, they're all designed to break within ten years. Some last longer than that, but just as many don't make it that long.

They want you to have to buy a new one. Bad for you and me and our budgets, and for the environment, but good for business.

As for me, it's absolutely true that I might be a Luddite, but give me that old-style Maytag, man. I'm an old-style American, and I still hew forlornly to the quaint old obsolescent belief that the purpose of an economy is to support a society, rather than the other way around.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It usually appears mid-week.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Benjamin Marks: "Arrrrgh. I say, again, 'Arrrgh.' I just replaced a Kenmore dishwasher, that had multiple problems over the ten years we owned it. The 'board' was replaced three times. The 'panel' twice. We were something like $10 away from having used so many repair services that we would have been entitled to a new machine under the terms of our old service contract.

"In fact, we spent three times as much as the retail cost of the machine on service contracts guaranteed to keep us in 'boards' and 'panels' until Kingdom Come. Until, that is, the Mother Ship announced a price increase in the service contract. 'That's It!' I cried, and pronounced that the next problem with the 'board' or the 'panel' would be the machine's last and that it would be sent to the 'farm' along with a dog of my wife's family that bit a neighbor's kid (not too badly, but still...).

"Having made this announcement, the infernal machine bided its time. It developed non-terminal ticks. It developed eccentricities. Its penchant for trouble coincided eerily with three-day weekends and times when plumbers might be less likely to be working. Christmas. It took an unexplained three day Yuletide hiatus and then, as I reached for the phone to seal its fate, mysteriously recovered. It began blinking at us from the corner of the room and emitting dulcet beeps at irregular intervals. The beeps bore an uncanny similarity in pitch and tone to the alarm indicating that our septic system pumps had failed. I would wake in the night, attuned to the house's arrhythmia, only to find that it was the dish washer beeping, muted, without pattern, in the night.

"We considered having a local shaman come and work his magic,or at least to intercede for us in reasonable tones, or as a last resort to make threats of astonishing specificity and violence. Two days before this past July 4th, the machina infernal declared its own independence. Its indicator lights started cycling (Morse code?)and its control buttons were dead to our touch. Our standby black magic of 'turning it off and turning it on again' at the basement fuse panel/junction box had no apparent effect.

"And so its fate was sealed. As of yesterday, an anodyne Bosch sits in its place, placid and silent. It is so quiet when it runs, it has to shine a little red LED towards the floor to visually announce its functioning status. 'We hardly have any trouble with these,' said the installer, in chipper tones. We shall see. We. Shall. See."

Mike replies: That comment was better than the post.  :-)

russell: "Ain’t it the truth...they don’t make 'em like they used to. I have Sears washer and dryer bought in 1991 that have gone through two boys. Both boys now have their own kids. About six months back the washer would not turn on. I searched the 'Net with brand and model number. Lo and behold there are at least four sites with how-to-fix-it instructions and videos. Turned out to be the safety switch on the lid. Had to take the thing apart to replace the switch and without the video instructions I would never have figured out how to do it. A month back the dryer would only supply heat for ~five minutes—back to the 'Net. Turned out to be a couple of faulty values—$43 in parts, two hours on the garage floor and several banged knuckles later...it's fixed.

"Plus, I found $4.35 in loose change in the bowels of the machine."

Robert Harshman: "Yeah, they really used to build things to last. My Mom still has a toaster—I know, not nearly as complex as a washer, but—she got it as a wedding gift over 75 years ago. It still works just fine. Still makes toast just fine, even though it can not 'print' designs on the toast like a few modern toasters can. It simply works as intended for over 75 years and was pretty much in daily use over that time. Given my family size and number of years at home based on say 2.5 toasted pieces of bread per day that's almost 70,000 toasted successes over it lifetime.

"The toaster is in a kind of retirement now. It's still with her, but since she moved into a retirement home last year it has not been used. Once she passes away, I'll take it and see if I can get to 100 years of toast!"

kirk tuck: "Hand made Swiss washing machines are the best. Here's the link you need. Multiple kinds of currency accepted. You pay shipping. Built like an Alpa. More expensive than my car...but boy are my clothes ever clean."

Mike replies: You have one?!?

Kirk replies to Mike: "No, I have a Kenmore from 22 years ago that my repair person advised me to keep forever. Just thought the idea of a Swiss washer and dryer would so hook many of your readers that I could not resist...."

Craig Yuill (partial comment): "If you really like the old top loaders then consider Speed Queen top loaders, which are still being built in Wisconsin. I understand that they are based on an Amana model built around 1990, and know from first-hand experience that they are built like old-fashioned top loaders."

Mike replies: I'm certainly no expert in washing machines, nor an enthusiast of them, but there are enthusiasts of them, and apparently there is a tempest-in-a-teacup controversy about the new Speed Queens: the 2018 top-loaders were apparently designed to use up front-loader parts—at least according to three guys named Harley, Spats and Sharkey—and are not Speed Queens to the manner born.

Speed queen guyHarley relating the group "epiphany" (his word) about the 2018 Speed
Queens. I would tend to trust these guys, because what's there
to gain from faking being a fanboy of washing machines?

Can't trust anything, eh?

Posted on Friday, 06 July 2018 at 01:01 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (66)

Friday, 29 June 2018

A Guide to Optical Magnifiers

Dealing with batteries the other day—and battery packaging—I came up again against an age-related annoyance—it's getting harder and harder for me to read small print.

So I looked into getting a magnifier.

Turns out it's one of those things where there's just too much choice. A plethora of different types and hundreds of different options. The many different powers of magnification, simple lenses, doublets and triplets. Coatings usually aren't mentioned. And there's such an avalanche of really cheap, mass-produced options that it can be hard to find anything else because it all gets lost in that vast seething stew of cheap stuff.

And as you might expect, unlike most casual consumers in this category, I'm not that interested in cheap. I'm more interested in good.

Here are a few common magnifier types:

Magnifying glass

Your basic classic magnifying glass. Used for reading and to kill ants.

InspectorMagnifying glass. The "iconic" (sorry, but think Sherlock Holmes) single-element, large field simple lens on a handle, usually 2X, that police inspectors in old movies and cartoons use to signify that they're busy inspecting. In real life, however, the classic magnifying glass is mainly used for reading. And killing ants on the sidewalk, an activity that's fun exactly once if you're not older than six (or are going to grow up to be a serial killer).

The problem with magnifying glasses, these days, seems to be that there's no money in them. The lowest-common-demominator model is practical—it incorporates a light and two lenses of two different powers—but it costs basically as much as two cups of coffee, so how good could it be? My guess is, just short of almost adequate, like most such barely-good-enough but super-cheap-so-they'll-sell types of products. Maybe I shouldn't judge.

As far as the classic types like the one pictured above, I've found that 2X isn't very useful—too close to no magnification at all. I'd consider 3X to be the baseline for a reading glass. Here's a decent one of those for $11.50.

Celestron set
If you live in a home, however, not a third-grade classroom, meaning you want to leave it out and you want it to look nice, try the Celestron Ambassador set pictured above. $50.

Kalt loupe

Common stand loupe

Loupe. A "loupe" can be any eyepiece magnifier, but in photography and editing the baseline is a loupe like the dreaded Kalt 8X (above), a super-cheap plastic simple lens on a clear stand that is only sharp in the middle of its field. These were all over the place back in my student/teacher days, because they're cheap as chocolates and they serve, sorta kinda, for seeing if a B&W negative is sharp or if you've got the grain focused in a B&W print. They cost $9.50 so it doesn't matter too much if one falls behind the sink or wanders off in a student's backpack. I kinda have a genial low-lying loathing for these overly-familiar cheap-crap knuckles of plastic, so I'm not going to link to it. There are already enough of them in the world. We don't want to encourage their further proliferation.

There's actually a good version, the Peak 8X stand loupe, for $49. If you want one, get that instead. I had a professor who wore one around his neck on a string.

If you want a very high-quality pocket loupe, there's a "Leica option" (I mean that like "a Rolls-Royce option," not something actually made by Leica): the lovely 7X Hastings Triplet (coated) made by Edmund Optics. Flat-field, corrected for three colors, and mm-mm good. $99. There are higher-power options available too.

Linen tester

Linen tester. A variation on the stand loupe is the linen tester, which I'm including here mainly because I like that name. It's a folding, open-sided stand loupe meant to inspect the thread-count of fabric. Most are of slightly lower magnification but better quality than a plastic-fantastic Kalt-type loupe. $9.

Dome magnifier

Dome magnifier

Globe (or dome) magnifier. These are intended to be placed on a flat surface to magnify whatever's underneath them. They look nice—like glass paperweights—but it's hard to get the light just right and I don't think they work very well. A good way to put it is that they're 50% useful and 50% annoying. I'll link to it because I used the image and fair's fair, but I can't quite imagine someone buying one and then being happy with me for getting them into it. As an alternative action plan, try this: first, put off buying it till tomorrow, and after that, forget about it altogether.  :-)

Headband magnifier

The Donegan OptiVisor, a widely used headband magnifier

Headband magnifier. Used by jewelers and modelers—these are what we used most in the modeling room at Model Railroader magazine. Obviously, the main draw is that they're hands-free, comfortable (the lenses flip up to get them out of the way when you don't need them), and nice for their intended purpose. They'll take up a fair amount of room in a kitchen odds 'n' ends drawer, though, and, for general here-and-there use like reading the small print on medicine bottles, they might be overkill. Here's another good one.

Brightech lightview

A desktop magnifying lamp

Desktop magnifying lamp. There are about a zillion variations on this theme—remembering what I said above about high quality, this Brightech model is one of the very best and, at $70, much more expensive than even good-quality garden-variety options. Desktop magnifying lamps are widely useful for many things, especially because they are lighted so well. Most can double as plain old clamp-lamps as well, quite aside from the magnifying function—this one even features a little cover for the lens to help make it look like a normal lamp. [UPDATE: Michael Matthews points out that this is also a safety feature. Just as a magnifying glass can be used by small kinds to fry ants, it's also at least possible for it to catch stray sunlight and wreak mischief unintentionally. Unlikely that everything would align properly at random, but when the downside is your house burning down, it's worth thinking about. —Ed.]

Only possible problem? Appearance. This would look fine in a utility room, on a garage or basement workbench, in a student dorm or study room, or any kind of workroom (or room at work); it's just that it might not be perfectly at home in the perfect home. You might not like this at the other end of the table from your reproduction Louis Tiffany, or clamped to the edge of your beautiful solid walnut leather-top desk.

The Brightech LightView pictured has an unusually high rating on Amazon, with 609 five-star and another 39 four star reviews out of 670 total. It has a 2.25X magnifier that's five inches in diameter, and the light is dimmable and features adjustable color temperature. The light is LED, not fluorescent, and is claimed to last for 20 years. The lamp also comes in white. Brightech is a U.S.-based, family-owned business, if that matters to you.

Levenhuk magnifier

What Mike bought: Since I just need a decent-quality general-purpose magnifier to help me with the fine print on small objects, I thought I'd try this Levenhuk Zeno 500 from B&H Photo.

Why? Well, it seems well made, it has eight LEDs in a ring around the lower side so it should be able to throw some light on the subject, and the 3.5X magnification is probably enough for most tasks while not having too narrow a field. And it takes the selfsame rechargeable AAs that started all this.

Judging by the case, it's probably made in the same Pacific-rim factory where all the other magnifiers are made. Not that that's a bad thing.

Is it good? Don't know. But I'll revisit it after I've had a chance to try it.

Have a nice weekend!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

robert e: "May I point out that your iPhone is a handy magnifier as well? Just call up the camera. Even my ancient 5c is around 2X at a couple of inches, I'd say, and of course you can snap a photo and zoom in and scroll around at your leisure. It also has a big advantage over old fashioned optics-only magnifiers in that, thanks to its picture-taking ability, it can see around corners, in crevices, and even behind things. And of course you can save the image for future reference. Other tricks: you can enhance the image for easier reading, do OCR, and translate text. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of. Of course, it's just plain fun to hold up a magnifying glass, and they do go better with pipes (the smoking kind)."

Mike replies: Thanks for the reminder. To enable the magnifier app on the iPhone, go to Settings > General > Accessibility, then toggle "Magnifier" to "On." to access it, triple-click the home button.

I should have remembered that! (Also, I added "Optical" to the post title.)

Allan Ostling: "The Hastings 7X Triplet looks like a fine product. Most magnifiers in that range are two-element lenses, which provide a good view with little fall-off of sharpness at the edges. The Hastings, with three elements, should be even better. The focal length of the Hastings is 40mm, and the objective diameter is listed as 0.875", or 22mm—it is therefore a 40mm ƒ/1.8 lens. You probably don't have one of these in your collection of unused lenses. But if you have a 50mm ƒ/1.4 laying around somewhere, you can use this as a 6X loupe, of very high quality. It would not be as convenient (or as powerful) as the Hastings, but for some, it will suffice."

Tim Bradshaw: "I have the Peak 8x loupe which I can vouch for. I got it specifically for looking at 35mm negs and contact sheets, and it is ideal for both. I also have a linen tester, which I use to focus a large format camera: it's not better than the Peak loupe, except that it folds flat, which is quite nice."

Larry Gebhardt: "My favorite loupe is the Mamiya 3X for 6x7. Seems it's now out of production. I bought it for darkroom work, but find I use it for a lot around the house. I like the OptiVisor if I need to manipulate a small object. Finally, a regular pair reading glasses is my most used magnifying solution."

Mike replies: Was the Mamiya originally made by a company called "Cabin"? That's how the boxes were marked anyway, once upon a time. The earlier version was 3X and the later, 3.5X. Like the Pentax 5.5X, you can still find these on eBay.

Adam Richardson: "I have a Mamiya 3.5X loupe that I originally got for looking at 645 transparencies. It's absolutely gorgeous—visually, optically, haptically. But a bit large and cumbersome for your average grab-and-read need. It's a shame I don't shoot transparency film any more as I rarely have a need to use such a wonderful object."

William Schneider: "I have many of the magnifiers that you mentioned, but my favorite one dates back to my darkroom days. I continue to use it now for things requiring a bit more magnification than most magnifiers. It is an Edmund Deluxe 6X Wide Field Magnifier with two achromatic groups, and AR coated. It has a wide field of view and decent eye relief. I just looked on the Edmund Optics website and it is still available. It's hands-down my favorite, and I often wondered why I didn't see more of them around."

Mike replies: That one's another classic, but expensive enough that it was predominantly used when somebody else was paying for it, e.g. in graphic arts departments.

Tom Hassler: "This post made me grin. In 25+ years of large-format studio photography, we used magnifiers of all types for everything from close inspection of chromes and negs to verifying focus on 8x10 ground glasses. I still have a drawer full of them. The expensive ones were not always the best either. In the end my personal favorite was a small magnifying glass which (wait for it...) I wore on a string around my neck!

"Here's a little trick to make the 'plastic knuckle' loupe more usable: flip it around and put the 'wrong' end up to your eye. Move your subject closer or farther away until it appears sharp. Now, by moving around your head and/or the object being viewed, you can get sharp focus almost anywhere."

Bahi (partial comment): "I have a (cheaper, fluorescent) version of the desktop light and it has been phenomenally useful for fixing stuff. Back when I used a DSLR, it needed occasional focus adjustment and without this lamp, I'm not sure I'd have managed it."

MikeR: "What about just plain readers? Over-the-counter reading glasses from your local drugstore."

Herman: "If you wear glasses, the clip-on flip-up magnifying glasses work well. They generally come in strengths of 1.5 to 3 diopters."

Tom: "Deserving of an honourable mention is the Nikon magnifier, the staple of picture editors until the arrival of digital. It came complete with lanyard and the wise wore it around their neck to stop it walking. Mine also had my name painted on it in a belt and braces measure. It was properly 35mm shaped, unlike the linen tester. My personal watershed came when I found myself on the telephone to Apple support pointing out to the help that the engraved serial number on the back of my iPod, without which he would not help me, was too small to be visible to my then 40 year old eyes. Tail between my legs, I used a magnifying glass to read it over."

Mike replies: I do vaguely remember that Nikon magnifier, but I can't find a picture of it online. Was it just like a linen tester, but with a 24x36mm opening?

hugh crawford (partial comment): "If you want the finest possible loupe, and happen to have an old 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens sitting around, and boy do I ever, congratulations, you already own it."

Mike replies: I used to keep a 50mm ƒ/1.4 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar (screwmount) around for that purpose. Wonder where that went? Pretty narrow field, though.

Bill Tyler: "Did you happen to notice that the name on your magnifier, 'Levenhuk,' echoes 'Leeuwenhoek,' the early Dutch microscopist?"

Mike replies: Good call. Does make you wonder.

Eolake: "Yes! Thanks for this, for years ago I tried to find a really good magnifier, and I was never satisfied with any of those I did find, not really. Usually I manage to sniff out the quality stuff, but not that time."

Mike replies: Yeah, this category is tough. And complicated by the fact that most magnifiers are tailored to various different purposes and uses. One that's perfect for one task might be fairly useless for another.

Michael Matthews: "Another purpose for the lens cover on that desktop magnifying lamp is to block sunlight. If you leave one uncovered in the path of direct sunlight and it happens to be in just the right spot you may be frying more than ants. I found that an old, circular Tupperware container top serves admirably for the magnifying lamp on my wife’s drafting table."

Mike replies: Good point. I should add that to the text of the post.

Imre Karafiath: "Did you look in your camera bag? Nikon and Canon offer two-element close up lenses. My Nikon 6T is a better magnifier than any other that I have tried."

Mike replies: These two-element close-up "filters" (as you say, they're really lenses) are also discontinued, but still find-able. I always thought they were admirably useful for people who understood what they were good for and how to use them (and had only a small penalty in the camera bag), but long experience as a teacher and writer taught me that most people would just decline to buy one. You're right about them though.

GKFroehlich: "Very useful post, Mike, thanks! Of course, this one’s likely to cost me! If you find yourself needing higher magnification, you might consider this BelOMO 10x triplet. I’ve had mine for several years now, and have yet to see its equal. The field of view is pretty wide considering the magnification, there’s no perceptible distortion, and the image is sharp from edge to edge. In fact, I keep one in my car, one at my desk, and I carry one in the field."

Mike replies: That's very much like the Edmund Optic version but for a fraction of the price. Thanks.

Posted on Friday, 29 June 2018 at 01:42 PM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (52)

Thursday, 28 June 2018

Woo Hoo! Deal of the Day (OT)

You might remember my enthusiasm for the Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner. At the time, many people said they thought it was nice but too expensive. Well, today Amazon has refurbished units on sale. [UPDATE: sold out now.] New price: $630. Refurbished price, today only, until they're gone: $230. That's 41% off the regular refurbished price, and the cheapest price as you're likely to find on this excellent vacuum. (Just used it this afternoon.)

Here's my old post about this. I'm a fan.

I would have posted this earlier but I just saw it. We now return to regular programming....

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Posted on Thursday, 28 June 2018 at 05:23 PM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (6)

Thursday, 21 June 2018

Songs That Remind You of Other Songs (Music Notes) (OT)

A few songs that have been in rotation here at TOP World Headquarters lately—

I've been on sort of a jag for slow-drag R&B with a hip-hop or World flavor lately. Caro Emerald (Caroline Esmeralda van der Leeuw) is a Dutch torch/pop singer with a touch of retro campiness.

Caro emeraldCaro Emerald

The lyrics of her song "A Night Like This," for instance (which sounds for all the world like a pre-existing standard, but isn't), were "based on a specific scene in the 1967 Bond movie Casino Royale." [Wikipedia]. And sounds like it. Both songs come from her 2015 debut, Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor.

Jhené Aiko's "Sativa" sounds like a cross between Sade and Tom Waits to me.  :-)

Mike

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Posted on Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 12:48 PM in Music Notes, Off-topic posts | | Comments (9)

Friday, 25 May 2018

A Real Retro Motorcycle (OT)

Okay, I am not going to buy a motorcycle Kim, I am not going to buy a motorcycle Kim, I am not going to buy a motorcycle Kim, I am not going to buy a motorcycle Kim (Kim, of C60Crew fame, is a friend who loves guitars and motorcycles). But if I were going to buy a motorcycle, I'd buy a retro motorcycle, and this is it, this is the one, here it is:

Yamaha sr400

It's a Yamaha SR400. Four hundred cc, fuel injection and kick start (!). This is a note-perfect channeling of pure 1970s two-wheeler style if you ask me. Might be the most perfect retro anything ever. HypothetiMike would get this.

But I can't pillage the hypothetiMiata savings account.

My younger brother Scott forbade me to get a motorcycle when I was in my 20s...he said I am too absent-minded and that I'd for sure kill myself. I figured he was probably right, and have never owned a motorcycle. Scott is pretty wise.

I did used to tool around Washington D.C. on my family's moped, which was pretty hairy because it couldn't keep up with traffic except on slower roads. I got very good at looking into parked cars to see if anyone might be about to open a door. I wouldn't survive on that moped today, what with all the pickup trucks and SUVs all over everywhere. I'd be picked off by some F150's driver's-side door opening in front of my face at 37 mph.

Thus endeth the first-ever and last-ever motorcycle post on TOP. Back to regular programming! Cheerio.

Mike

UPDATE Kim Kirkpatrick responds: "Michael, honestly you are the only longtime and true friend I have not suggested buy a motorcycle but now that you have brought it up...I really think you should go through the NYSMP class and get a license. We can discuss which used BMW to purchase after you pass that."

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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[Dr.] Geoff Wittig: "Hah. I owned a motorcycle extremely similar to the above 'retro' model back in 1979. It was Honda's plain vanilla 360cc four-stroke model. Kick-start, manual everything, so simple mechanically that even I could tune it up. Not very big, but still more than fast enough to kill yourself on it. After two years of happiness and a few close calls, I sold it to pay for an engagement ring for the woman I'm still happily married to.

"Since then I have intermittently entertained the notion of buying another motorcycle, this despite seeing plenty of harrowing injuries and fatalities in my 30+ years of emergency room experience as a physician. The last time I mused about getting a motorcycle to my long-suffering wife, about five years ago, she agreeable said, 'Go ahead. Just make sure when you crash it you're killed outright so I don't have to change your diaper and push your wheelchair.' Followed by her sweet smile.

"So, I crossed that off my list of wants."

Mike replies: My doctor brother calls them "donorcycles."

Can I still want an electric Morgan three-wheeler for my runs to the grocery store in Penn Yan?

Ben Rosengart: "Calling it now: Mike is going to buy a motorcycle."

Mike replies: Shut up shut up shut up shut up  :-)

JG: "I recall the ER doc who stitched me up after I parked my father's Honda 750 into the front of a car at 35 mph (or viewed another way, the driver of the car parked it on top of my father's Honda 750 at 35 mph) telling me I didn't need any painkiller because I rode a 'murdercycle' and therefore was tough enough to grit it out."

Mike replies: That's a little harsh, not to mention somewhat anti-Hippocratic. But I hope you answered "f--k yeah."

John Longenecker: "Retro motorcycle: get a Ural w/sidecar two-wheel drive. You can ride in the snow. It's more or less a 1930s BMW but new. Sit Stay Ride is a good sidecar/dog movie."

Mark Sampson: "Not quite a non sequitur here. I was just out running errands (in the car) when a rider on a Ural-with-sidecar combo pulled up next to me at a traffic light. Riding in the sidecar was a life-size plastic human skeleton...at least I think it was plastic."

JohnMFlores: "Having owned both Miatas (yes, plural) and motorcycles (yes, way too plural), I'd say that they are both excellent ways to explore the countryside. But there's something special about two-wheeled travel. You make yourself vulnerable to the world on a motorcycle and that vulnerability is rewarded ten times over in the immersiveness of the experience and the camaraderie with fellow motorcyclists. After twenty years of riding (including my share of accidents), the reward has far outweighed the risk."

[John, who visited TOP World HQ in 2016, writes for RoadRUNNER magazine. —Ed.]

Bruce Rubenstein: "The SR400 is not a retro '70s motorcycle. It is Yamaha's second take of a British '50s 'Thumper' (4 stroke single-piston) motorcycle. The first Yamaha retro-thumper was the SR500. I worked in a Yamaha shop from 1976–80. I bought a SR500 the first year it was introduced in 1978, and modified it for club level road racing. While it looked like a wonderful reincarnation of an English cafe racer, it had the mediocre handling of a mid '70s Japanese motorcycle. Its primary virtues were low maintenance and high reliability. My race buddy and I won trophies numerous times in endurance races. Neither the SR500 or SR400 were all that interesting to ride, but a wonderful concept, they didn't sell well, but became cult bikes.

"I am sure if you bought a SR400, drained the gas out of it and put it in your living room you would enjoy it very much. Riding a motorcycle probably isn't a wise bucket list item for someone over 60 unless they are rather athletic."

Mike replies: I'm often mistaken for a top athlete. People think I'm pool champ Buddy Hall.

Tim Smith: "What? A Japanese bike? No. They're fine and all, but jeez, for a tube amplifier guy, you surprise me. You've become confused somehow. It must be a Triumph. Or, if you have to, a BSA. They are the complete and total shizz. They even smell good. Plus they come with a guaranteed oil drip from the crankcase and a wonky electrical system that will challenge even the best scientist from NASA. But, if what you want is old school cool, they absolutely reek of it. Think Leica M4 with a gas tank. Seriously."

Mike replies: I should have mentioned—I don't actually know anything about motorcycles.

kirk tuck: "Ducati or walk."

Dave Levingston: "I was a life-long motorcyclist. I gave it up a few years ago because I became afraid. I'm old enough now that my reflexes aren't what they used to be and I kept thinking about some close calls that wouldn't be close calls today. Before, drivers would often not see me. Today, they aren't even looking as they stare at their phones.

"But I rode for many years, crossing the country several times. I usually did long tours with my best friend who I met in photo school. He photographed and wrote for Rider magazine...still does now and then. I was often the model for his bike photos and as a result have been on the cover of Rider. My friend wrote stories about our tours that were published in the magazine. This resulted in my fleeting 15 minutes of fame as other riders started to recognize us when we were out on trips.

Yamaha 650 twin

1975 Yamaha XS650B twin (via XS650.com)

"But, if you want a real retro bike, find an old Yahama 650 twin. It's the Miata of motorcycles. The Japanese looked at a Triumph 650 and said, 'We could make that work.' and they did. The Yahama didn't leak oil and the vibration didn't loosen your fillings. Later the Japanese looked at an MG-B and turned out one that worked, called the Miata."

Mike replies: Actually, the "father of the Miata," Bob Hall, was channeling the Lotus Elan, but I take your point. (By the way, Bob thinks the new ND post-2016 MX-5 is the best Miata ever, according to an interview on Automobilemag.com. But I digress.)

Mark: "Might I suggest a look at markonabike.com. Mark Wallace, a photographer and educator, having produced and starred in a few hundred Adorama videos teaching every aspect of photography over many years, embarked on a solo around-the-world motorcycle trip. Truly great read.

"I owned a Kawasaki 650SR in my teenage years and into my 20s. After emerging relatively unscathed from two accidents, I divested of it before strike three. That hasn’t stopped me from an occasional drop in of my local Harley dealer though. I decided on a 911 instead."

Mike replies: Very sensible.

Posted on Friday, 25 May 2018 at 12:02 PM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (46)

Sunday, 15 April 2018

Open Mike: Musical Tastes

["Open Mike" (no karaoke) is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP. It appears on...ohthehellwithit, it appears whenever it appears, I give up. —MJ]

Most of this has surfaced on TOP before, here and there, but repetition never hurts and what's more, repetition never hurts.

Musical tastes...everyone's is different. I was mainly into later '50s jazz for about 10–12 years. Now I’m back to listening to some pop and rock for the emotion, but my tastes are eclectic. I listen to a fair amount of classical but my tastes in that area are pretty circumscribed, basically instrumental music from the Baroque to the late Classical period, favoring smaller-scale over larger. I went through several years in the '80s obsessed with Bach. Almost addicted: if I didn't get a Bach fix every three or four days I started jonesing. Favorite: BWV 1052, which Robert Schumann considered among the greatest of masterpieces. A window to the heavens of great God.

I have a turntable in the family room with a few hundred old albums, including the first one I ever got when I was seven years old, “Something New” by the Beatles, a USA-only packaging, bought new in the Summer of '64. Although I grew up with it I don't really like rock that much, and I don't care much any more for blues, other than roots blues, although I used to. By far my favorite period of rock is '90s grunge. About three times better than the '60s if you ask me, although the '60s were also pretty good.

I have about 14,000 music files* but overall they don’t really reflect my tastes…more my explorations.

It takes an awful lot for a whole record to break through into “favorite” status and it doesn’t happen very often. Some favorite albums that I b'lieve are all from the 2000s:

Post War by M. Ward

Small Town Heroes by Hurray for the Riff-Raff

'Sno Angel Like You by Howe Gelb (of Giant Sand—he hired a gospel choir for the project, and the result is zany but completely enjoyable, to me anyway). Howe Gelb is an isolated and neglected genius.

Continuo by Avishai Cohen (jazz)

The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas by the brilliant Courtney Barnett, a young Australian singer-songwriter. In her natural state she sounds like she's high.

You Had It Coming by Jeff Beck. Soundtrack to my life during an important year. Strange it didn't damage my hearing, except maybe it did. After my GF bailed on me, I was afraid to listen to this again for a long time, but when I finally did it wasn't too bad.

That's enough of that. Nobody works in albums any more.

I listen to a fair amount of pop too but it's like gum, sweet at first chew but pretty soon you want to spit it out. Songs with words are problematic if you ask me, because it adds a whole 'nuther layer the artists have to get right. A lot of musicians suck at lyrics. There's a legend that Paul McCartney's original lyrics for "Yesterday" started with "scrambled eggs," but John and George Martin jumped all over him, insisting the melody was way too good for stupid lyrics. (This is why some people do better work in bands.) Another example: "Seaweed" by the Fruit Bats. Gorgeous melody, instrumentally perfect (the intro of the banjo at 1:23 breaks your heart, just lovely), but the lyrics are so go**amned horribly shi**y it makes me want to wring Eric Johnson's neck every time I hear it. A potentially brilliant gem of a song ruined. If I were rich I'd pay him a lot of money to write new lyrics for it, and I'd hire a guy to stand there next to him and hit him with a stick every time he started drifting off into stupid. (I blame Weezer and "the Sweater Song," which kicked off a brief fad for willfully stupid, trivial lyrics**, as if it were cool...fortunately pretty soon people realized it was just stupid rather than stupid-as-cool.) Lyrics are like color in photographs: a whole extra layer that has to be right or ruination results. /rant

A few recent-ish favorite songs or cuts:

  • "Fade Out Lines" by The Avener, a deep house rework of "The Fade Out Line" by Phoebe Killdeer and The Short Straws that was a hit in Europe. (But, again, if you're tempted to listen too hard to the lyrics, best not to.)

Lorine chiaLorine Chia

  • "Eve's Perspective" by Lorine Chia. This might be a lesbian anthem for all I know, although I don't know anything about Lorine. But I've been listening to a fair amount of hip-hop and rap recently and I'm naturally drawn to the slowdrag melodic stuff such as Geto Boys' "Six Feet Deep" which rechannels Marvin Gaye. I'm over this now ("Eve's Perspective," I mean) but the cut had legs for a whole year for me.
  • "Destiny" by Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker (Zero 7). Bobby Burnett turned me on to this, and it alone is enough reason for all the people who made it to have been born.

  • "Turiya and Ramakrishna" by Alice Coltrane (jazz)
  • "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" by Porcupine Tree. A long, dramatic, almost operatic cut, in the style of high-period Pink Floyd. A good example of the importance of primacy in art: if this had come out in the '70s it would have been as famous as Tubular Bells. But despite being completely amazing no one's ever heard of it, or heard it.
  • "Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad #16 Blues" by Arlo Guthrie. A stone folk classic, but I just discovered it last year, waiting in the line at the car wash. Whatever's old is new the first time you hear it.

My two favorite musicians, in any genre, are Coleman Hawkins and Hank Jones. (Both have huge discographies. To sample, try the Hawk's Here and Now, an Impulse disc from '62 which has both "Quintessence" and "Apache Love Song." If you have Amazon Prime you can stream it for free on Amazon; otherwise better get it on iTunes, as it's pretty thoroughly out of print. For Hank, try any Great Jazz Trio record or one of my faves, "Bluesette." I love Mr. Hank, he is a paragon of taste and modesty and chops that never stop. R.I.P.

Finally, a few amazing videos everybody should see:

  • Tash Sultana, "Jungle," (bedroom recording). New discovery to me, compliments of a woman I don't know named Isabella.
  • Marquese Scott used a spell of homelessness, living on the street, to work on his urban dancing, and this vid earned him an apartment and a BMW. Or so I heard, and I like the story so I'm not fact-checking it. The music is a Dubstep version of the controversial "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People from 2010.
  • Imogen Heap's virtuoso one-woman "Just for Now" is a must-view.
  • Ibeyi's "The River" is simple but stunning, very creative, and I love the song.
  • If you're into dance compilations, there's a great one of Christopher Walken (who dances in just about every movie he does), and a film preservationist did a mashup of dance clips from old movies set to "Uptown Funk" that's pretty wonderful
  • Finally, compare this one and this one. Threads, it's all threads.

Obviously this conversation could continue. Music is a consumable as far as I'm concerned. I need fresh, and it's a constant exploration, a constant search. It's possible for someone to love music and not like a single thing I've mentioned in this post. An ocean, fortunately, and you can't drink up it all. Suits me.

Mike
(Thanks to M.D.)

* I'm sorry, but nothing by Leonard Nimoy.

** The prototype is Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park" from 1968—even Webb himself was put off by its bloated, bombastic, over-the-top arrangement violently yoked to dopey, meaningless lyrics. Wikipedia tells us that comedian Dave Barry nominated it as the worst song ever written. Listen to the original Richard Harris version for the full-on treacle of the arrangement. One hopes its great popularity had mostly to do with audiences' appreciation of its campiness....

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Wolfgang Lonien: "What a coincidence that you bring up music. I used to be a bass player when I was young (almost like in another life), but lately—short before my 61st—I've begun online jamming again—and 'published' an album. Listen to it here if you like. And honest critique is welcome, tho please keep in mind that this is a) only some jammin', and b) I'm missing some 35 years of practice, so I'm like a bl**dy beginner...."

Mike replies: I wonder if I have the right page...it sounds very accomplished to me, not much like jamming. Good on you for getting back to it and getting yourself out there in any case! I'm always impressed by that. I hope my novel will be like that.

Ken: "Your tastes in music, cameras and photography are seemingly (mostly) the opposite of mine. Maybe, for me, that's one part of what makes TOP interesting to read. Better that than an echo chamber."

Mike replies: Yes, that's why it's so important for reviewers to be honest and open about their tastes and prejudices. That way, readers can learn from them even if they don't agree with them.

Speed: "Re: Scrambled eggs. Keen to not forget his magical dream melody, McCartney wrote some temporary lyrics for the song—about scrambled eggs, and named it after the breakfast dish. They went: 'Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs.' Scrambled Eggs became a running joke between the band for 'months and months' ... 'We almost had it finished when we made up our minds that only a one word title would suit and, believe me, we just couldn’t find the right one. Then, one morning, Paul woke up, and the song and the title were both there. Completed!' See the article here."

Posted on Sunday, 15 April 2018 at 01:25 PM in Music Notes, Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (31)

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