Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I’m bored.

Miz Gekko wrote about boredom and creativity but this is different.

I like working on/worrying on a problem or a process or simply an idea. I can wander around in the cellar in the back of my head, move the furniture around, blow the dust aside with the air compressor, and make connections or come up with something new. I used to do that all the time while standing in a grocery line or sitting on the toilet or commuting. Somewhere along the way, I lost some of that time.

My need to make some changes to the No Puffin Perspective™ has nothing to do with gaining time to commune with the guys in the cellar.

My need to make some changes has everything to do with what I write about.

I need to freshen my approach.

The Perspective™ has indeed exposed a number of the issues we face, from the general lies, to the Comcast lies, to the political lies in pseudoscience and finance.

Don’t worry, I’ll still point out when we need a new head for the CDC (and for the guy who appoints the CDC Director).

Today in Medicine
We need a new CDC Director.

Norah O’Donnell asked the yes-or-no question on CBS Face the Nation yesterday, “Do we need to mandate the MMR vaccination?”

CDC Director Tom Frieden danced around it but never said yes.

It is a tragedy that the measles vaccine had eliminated measles from the U.S. by the year 2000. Fewer than 100 cases have been reported every year since, but 644 people became infected in 27 states in 2014. 84 cases of measles were reported in January of this year alone. Most are in California where airhead parents listening to their bubble headed, celebrity, political “scientists” have opted out of vaccinations. [<==Note Editorial Commentary]

Public schools do require kids to be vaccinated but California parents can exempt their kids simply by saying they have a “personal objection” to vaccination. Of the 6,236,672 kids enrolled in 10,366 California schools, nearly 200,000 may not be vaccinated against measles and over two million have not received all seven CDC-recommended shots. Those 200,000 put thee and me at risk. Your kids, too.

CDC Director Tom Frieden danced around the question but he never said yes.

Here’s the plan.

Week 1: Random Fancies from the “you just won’t believe this” department.

Week 2: Random Storytelling from North Puffin.

Week 3: Random Truthtelling from the topical news

Week 4: Random Storytelling from South Puffin. (We don’t call it Random Access for nothin’ you know.)

Five week months mean you get a week off. Yay!

Don’t worry, I’ll stay on top of my areas of interest and expertise, from business and marketing, and engineering and real science, to heating issues, to the National Debt, teaching, and, of course, healthcare but next week I’ll tell the story of why we had no telephones at Floodstock.

If you are an editor looking for syndication, the new schedule means you can pick up a monthly spot with light explanations of the unexpected, a twice-monthly pair of tales from the northern- and southernmost points of the Puffin range, or all four. Or any other combination.

Cheers!

 

I Made a Little Listicle

We need a Language Cop.

I may not mean what you think.

English may be the greatest language ever invented. It’s certainly the greatest language ever Darwinned.

OxfordDictionaries.com revels in the language trends behind its latest update to the English lexicon.

acquihire n: buying out a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff
OED pagebinge-watch v: watch multiple episodes of a TV show, one right after the other
clickbait n: content whose main purpose is to draw visitors to this web page
cord cutting n: practice of cancelling a cable or satellite subscription or landline phone
geocache n: Since my kids have been geocaching for so long, it surprises me this didn’t make the list years ago
humblebrag n & v: (make) an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud
listicle n: an Internet article presented in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list
octocopter n: I want one
side boob n: I like them
time-poor adj.: spending much of one’s time working or occupied; I’ve always liked the term “land-poor” for families with more grass than cash
vape v: drag on an e-cig.

I’ll post and tweet some clickbait to this listicle. Two other words in this sentence made earlier Oxford lists.

English may be the greatest language ever.

Linguist Max Müller said, “English spelling is a national misfortune to England and an international misfortune to the rest of the world.”

Nobody ever said it was easy to be great.

• Where else would we find homonyms, homophones, homographs, and heteronyms?

It was a fair day when I went to the country fair to pay the fare for a pair of pears. Fortunately I did not tear the bag which might have caused me to tear up.

• Our resourceful language borrows most every word you or I speak from some other language and prodigiously lends many of them back.

The band played guitars, a mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and bass at the Summer Sounds concert yesterday. Guitar comes to us from the Arabic qi-ta-ra or qai-thara which originally descended from the ancient Greek kithara. A bass is not a fish when it has strings. There were no hazards at the concert other than the threat of rain. Unlike the linguists in France, we can borrow hazard from the medieval French hasart.

We need a Language Cop. We need to keep the languages of our settlers old and new alive but we also need to assure we can talk to each other. Ket, the language spoken in Central Siberia, is vital. Abenaki is a small but significant member the Algonquian languages of northeastern North America. Zazaki is an indispensable Indo-European language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zaza people.

I love that some of our words come from Ket, and Abenaki, and Zazaki.

I see red every time I hear “Press 1 for Ket” from a telephone system.

I’m glad we do include Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians in our culture but if we really want to include Siberians and earlier Americans, and Iranians in our culture, then the phony Liberals have to get out of the way and let the Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians learn to speak to the English and Spanish and Tag-A-Log speakers who live next door. In the common language their adopted country has adopted.

The best way to do that is for us all to learn English, too.

That’s the key. English is the greatest language ever simply because it remains so common, so accessible, so complete.

The phony Liberals are those who insisted the Voting Rights Act include help for “language minority voters.” Hello? Only citizens can vote. Citizens take the oath in what language? The phony Liberals are those who insisted that school textbooks be printed for “language minority students.” Hello?

We do need a Language Cop. We need a Language Cop who will arrest the phony Liberals who insist on shackling the Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians and Spanish and Tag-A-Log speakers so they can’t speak with each other.

Carpe dentum … seize the teeth.
–Mrs. Doubtfire

 

Process

An apparently regular reader (equally apparently “unencumbered by the thought process”) took me to task on Facebook recently.

“The painfully obvious fact [is] that your blog
is just a rehash of other right wing blogs,”
–Annabelle Proctor.

Heh. That statement is oddly pleasing because it tells me two things:
• that visitor reads right wing blogs, something I rarely do; and
• other writers have obviously found the same data and quotes I did.

North Puffin Gallery IconsStill, it means it’s time for another look under the hood at how I do this job and what this job is. Then I get to comment. It’s what I do.

I’ve been a small town newspaper columnist and op-ed writer for more than 30 years. Back in 1997, an online journal asked me for 10-1/2 Hot Tips for Small-town Op-ed Writers. I’m pleased that that advice is still excellent, but it did leave out a couple of tips.
• A story without facts is guesswork.
• A story without a source is a campfire tale.

Yes, I break Rule #3 (“Avoid hot topics in the national or international news.”) more often than I should.

Rule #6. “Every fact requires two independent sources; the editor may not have time to authenticate your original research. Make sure your facts are right.”

Journalism is simply finding a fact, determining its importance, and then sharing that fact. Editorial writing is nearly the same. Find the fact, interpret its importance, and share both.

PROCESS
I don’t write in a vacuum; I do write about what happens to me and around me. That means I generally look to three initial sources for the information I use to underpin each piece:

1. Direct quotes from actual newsmakers. Remembering that I am a small town writer, this is both easier and harder for me. It’s very easy for me to call up a local race car driver or the former governor for an interview because either one may have been here for drinks last week. It’s a lot harder for me to call up President Obama for the same. Fortunately, what national newsmakers say is usually recorded and posted in its entirety online. Google is my friend.
2. Actual print newspapers (I refer to the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post for most national news because they are usually accurate; my other sources are typically local media, including the ones I write for).
3. Television news for the headlines. I generally watch ABC or NBC News in the evening and CBS’ Face the Nation on Sundays. I haven’t seen a Fox News report in over a year.

Given that initial fact, my next job is to find independent confirmation. Here’s how that happens.

Ms. Proctor particularly objected to a piece I wrote in 2009. It was one of many times I have caught Mr. Obama in a lie. [As an editorial aside, I suspect she objects because I don’t pull punches when I catch her hero lying. She, of course, believes everything he says.]

Our discussion was whether some people are better off or worse after the change to Obamacare. Ms. Proctor was both right and wrong in saying “ACA will regulate health insurers until Americans evolve to the point that we demand single payer.”

I corrected her with the fact that we had tried that in Vermont as I outlined here in 2009. Even today, only a small number of the Vermonters clustered in Montpelier demand single payer.

Rather than disputing the facts, Ms. Proctor picked one line of the piece

[In selling his plan, President Obama said, “We have the AARP on board” to endorse the bill. Too bad AARP refuted that statement.]

and opined that my sources were suspect.

Alrighty, then.

I first found the AARP info I quoted in a report titled, “President Obama’s ‘Senior’ Moment?” by Kristina Wong which appeared on ABC News on August 11, 2009. That was the day before my own piece appeared.

“Kristina Wong blogs with a right wing slant,” she wrote. “Finding right wing blogs similar to yours was not difficult.”

Of course it wasn’t. When the President
of the United States lies, it goes viral.

What sources did Jake Tapper and Rachel Martin use to assure the accuracy of Ms. Wong’s report? The two most obvious ones were ABC’s own recorded video of Mr. Obama stating he had “the AARP onboard” in the health insurance reform “town hall” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Interestingly, that wasn’t the first or last time he said that as this video and as his own published remarks show.

AARP Chief Operating Officer Tom Nelson issued this statement, “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

Rule #6. “Every fact requires two independent sources.” Done. Dusted.

COMMENTARY
“Inaccurate”?

Unfortunately, that page is no longer on the AARP site.

Further, then-White House spokesman Robert Gibbs backed away from Mr. Obama’s lies in New Hampshire. Asked if the president misspoke, Mr. Gibbs answered simply, “Yes.”

“Misspoke”? Nice spin.

What have we learned?

1. My piece was accurate as written and its thrust is accurate today. For the record (after heavy political lobbying), AARP did announce its endorsement of the Unaffordable Care Act on November 5, 2009, three months after my piece appeared.
2. Ms. Proctor normally accepts ABC News as a trusted source. Except when they don’t confirm her bias.

“Obama might have offered an opportunity for real reform had it not been for the right wing obstructionists and their enablers,” she wrote, “including a media more interested in sensationalism and gotcha journalism than in truth and accuracy.”

Now I get it. The NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, as well as ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS News are all “more interested in sensationalism and gotcha journalism than in truth and accuracy.”

Critical thinking. Random House defines it as “disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.”

It’s too bad naysayers like Ms. Proctor are unable to bring any level of critical thinking to their own responses.

 

Burning Maples

The All Arts Council opens the Bakersfield & East Fairfield Caravansary Art Festival with a reception at the new East Fairfield Arts Center today at 5 p.m. The show will run through Sunday.

For centuries, travelers on the Silk Road stopped in “caravansaries,” the bustling caravan stops that were the center of cultural as well as commercial exchange. Caravansaries brought together adventurers, artists, entertainers, monks, nomads, pilgrims, and traders from around the known world to share their art, their music, and their stories around a bonfire.

Burning Man.

70,000 “Burners” will come together on August 25 in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada to create a community of art, music, self-expression, and self-reliance. They will disappear September 1, having left no trace whatsoever.

That week will see sculpture, installations, performance, theme camps, art cars, and costumes all with the caravansary theme.

We can preview some of the traveling art and music at the Bakersfield & East Fairfield Caravansary Art Festival as well as a quartet of art cars plus the All Arts Council’s own burning art exhibit.

The AAC burning art exhibit includes a pyrosculpture by Vermonter Kate Pond, a dish flambee from Kitten Ellison, and the Burning Bush, a new image by Highgate photographer David J. Griggs.

Rattlesnake BikeIt’s all about the camel. Or the wheel. Caravans require one or the other (it’s a law) so the event will feature the Austin Bike Zoo fresh from Spark! Mesa, Arizona’s, Festival of Creativity. Bike-builders, puppet-makers, and performers have created a nine- or ten-seat bicycle with a frame as thick as my thigh, eight-foot tall wheels, an old-fashioned bike bell, and training skis, just in case. They will bring butterfly bikes that range from 10-18 feet in height plus animated bat and owl bikes. The centerpiece is the giant rattlesnake bike that measures 80 feet in length and will offer rides for all attendees. There is no truth to the rumor it will be pulled by a camel.

“We have to have music!” Maple Festival main stage organizer Andre Maquera said.

Bassnectar, the Mutaytor, and the March 4th Marching Band will share the stage with a one-night only reunion of 8084 plus a special solo performance on the big screen by jazzman Will Patton,” he said.

“I’ve spent the winter working on dub-step,” Mr. Patton said from Paris, France. He has also been exploring house, witch house, dub, hardstep, dancehall, dance-floor, punk, post-punk, “Noise,” new wave, nu wave, No Wave, emo, post-emo, hip-hop, conscious hip-hop, alternative hip- hop, jazz hip-hop, hardcore hip-hop, nerd-core hip-hop, Christian hip-hop, crunk, crunkcore, metal, doom metal, black metal, speed metal, thrash metal, death metal, Christian death metal, and, of course, shoe-gazing, among others on the mandolin. He expects to have several other local musicians back him for this set.

Joni Mitchell and Grace Slick are scheduled to appear later in the week in a series of acoustic music and other performances at the new East Fairfield Arts Center Camp Café.

The Arts Center is a multi purpose organization and building that includes prime performance space for music and art exhibits.

According to the rule of desert hospitality, the Festival will provide free entry and water for travelers who stop at our tents. The Bakersfield & East Fairfield Caravansary Art Festival is open to all and admission is free but you need a free ticket to get in the gate. Tickets, schedules, and other background materials are available at ticketmaster.allarts.org. Admission is FREE but you must have an advance reservation to participate. Proceeds will benefit local art projects in Franklin County.

This event is not sanctioned by the 334 Green Mountain Burners (find them on Facebook) or the Bruleurs de Montreal.


Visit my site at dickharper.com for more events in April.

 

Puttering

I hate to reinvent the wheel.

(As an aside, that probably explains why I don’t like to drive the same road back that I take to the store, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.)

Roller ChainLiz Arden and I were discussing using off-the-shelf widgets in product design. We mostly do that all the time. A conveyor builder, for example, would no more design a proprietary chain or sprocket for the electric motor than build a fiberglass cow to straddle the conveyor belt in a book factory. See, someone else has already invented the roller chain and you can buy as much as you want at any industrial hardware store.

This story is about websites.

I mentioned this preference for off-the-shelf stuff because I’ve been jinkering with the North Puffin Gallery. That’s my site over here that acts as a portal to my mom’s paintings and scratchboards, my own portfolio of interesting work that may be for exhibit only, and the emporium where I try to separate art afficionados from their moolah.

Lazy I am. I like slideshow gallery presentations but I hadn’t bothered changing from my static display, mostly because I really didn’t feel like reinventing the wheel. Or writing the code.

There are 29,763 freely downloadable slideshows available online.

Lazy I am. I like slideshow gallery presentations but I hadn’t bothered changing from my static display, mostly because I really didn’t feel like wading through all that code.

OK, I started wading.

First things first. The design parameters.

Any slideshow must “fit” the other pages on the site.
The “slides” had to be easy to update as the exhibit changes.
Slides should link to descriptive (or sales) pages.
The show should have navigation buttons.
The page cannot use Flash™.
The code had to be open source and easy to change.

The original source code of “open source software” is freely available and the owner allows all users to use, redistribute, and modify it.

Flash™ is common on sites but (fortunately) many designers are moving away from it in applications like this. It is sloooooooooooooow loading. The back buttons are difficult (or impossible) to make work. Basic text functions like copy-and-paste don’t work. Adobe doesn’t even use it on their own site. And it doesn’t scale well to mobile devices. I decided right from the start to use standard HTML and Java coding.

I found a bunch that fit my list.

Sample Page No. 1This is Ger Versluis’ Carousel, a page that has that displays multiple images in a 3D, carousel style. It has a number of lovely tricks for code that was written a decade ago. The slides slide in from either right to left, or left to right. I can set it to have pretty much as many images in view as I want (I chose three for this sample). Each image can have its own associated link. The carousel pauses on mouseover. And the script works in all browsers introduced since about 2001. Cool.

But it doesn’t have a way to title the images and there are no navigation buttons.

 

Sample Page No. 2Patrick Fitzgerald developed this script about the same time Mr. Versluis released the carousel. It doesn’t have the multiple images sliding around that we see on other pages but I made my own custom Start and Pause buttons, and moved the other links to match my page layout. The best part for me is the dropbox that lets you go to any slide in the show and then restart the flow from there.

 

Sample Page No. 3Book Flip is another image slideshow from Mr. Versluis. This time he simulates a page being turned to reveal two new slides at once. It is indeed an impressive display. I set it to flip horizontally because our browsers and monitors mostly display in landscape but it can work vertically. Each image can have its own associated link. The carousel pauses on mouseover. And the script works in all browsers introduced since about 2001. Cool.

But it still doesn’t have a way to title the images and there are no navigation buttons.

I like the carousel in number 1 and the book feel of number three but I love the controls and added text in number two.

Blog Contest:
OK, OK, it’s really a survey. I really want to know which of the three slide shows you like better. Click one of these links to drop me a quick email to let me know or leave a comment below.

Sample #1         Sample #2        Sample #3
Something Else
A winner (chosen from among all the entries) will receive a free lifetime subscription to the No Puffin Perspective™1!

And if you want to look at the code to tell me how to add the buttons to Number 1 or Number 3, that’d be great!

Next up, why the remote control for your TV doesn’t speak to your BluRay player.


1“Lifetime” in this case means the life of the world, the Internet, or this online column, whichever ends first.