from Bruce
Anecdotes
Death
• After Thomas Jefferson took over for Benjamin Franklin in France, he was asked, “It is you, sir, who replace Doctor Franklin?” Mr. Jefferson always answered, “No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor.” By the way, Mr. Jefferson wrote his own epitaph: “Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.” He also charged his heirs to obey his wishes: “Not a word more.”
Education
• While attending Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, Stephen Wozniak found the electronics classes to be very easy, so his teacher, John McCollum, arranged for him to spend Wednesday afternoons in the computer room of GTE/Sylvania Electronics, where young Steve was able to learn something about electronics. Steve built a computer in a friend’s garage. While working on the computer, he and his friend drank quarts of cream soda so they decided to call the computer the Cream Soda Computer. When the computer was built, Steve’s mother called a newspaper to come out, take a photograph, and write a story. Unfortunately, when Steve turned on the computer, sparks and smoke filled the air. The story was never published, but Steve didn’t mind since he knew the fault was not his. Instead, the disaster occurred because of a faulty computer chip. Later, Mr. Wozniak co-founded the Apple Computer Company.
• As a student in elementary and high school, Bill Cosby was lacking — although he did go on to earn a doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts in 1976. Often, before he became serious about getting an education, he would read a comic book in class instead of his textbooks. Sometimes, he would get caught, and the teacher would take the comic book away, saying, “You’ll get this back at the end of the school year.” Bill would then ask the teacher, “Why? Does it take that long to read it?” By the way, early in his career, comedian Mr. Cosby played a club that was so small that it didn’t have a stage. Instead, management placed a chair on top of a table and Mr. Cosby did his act from there.
• For the first time, a young novice went out of the monastery, but in the company of an old Buddhist monk. The novice saw a young woman selling vegetables, and he asked the old monk, “What is that?” The old monk replied, “A tiger.” Later, the novice saw a real tiger, and he asked, “What is that?” The old monk replied, “A young woman.” When the novice and the old monk had returned to the monastery, the head of the monastery, knowing that the novice had seen a woman and a tiger on his trip outside, decided to test the novice. He asked the novice, “What did you like best of all the things you saw outside the monastery?” The novice replied, “The tiger.”
• When comedian Kate Clinton was a teacher of “at-risk” children, a nun came in to observe her class. Ms. Clinton knew the nun was going to observe her, so she alerted all her students to come to class on time — especially one student who was notorious for his tardiness. The student stayed up late the night before to watch a baseball game, forgot about the nun, came to class tardy as usual, and said, “The f — ing Yankees suck.” Then he noticed the nun and looked at Ms. Clinton, who told him, “Steve, you need to apologize to the class for what you said.” Steve said, “I’m sorry I said ‘suck.’ Twice.”
• Comedian Jay Leno declines to act as if he is better than other people. Once, while boarding a plane, he pushed himself in front of an old lady in a wheelchair, who waved him on and said, “Oh, go ahead, dearie.” This made him feel terrible. He said, “I felt like the guy on the Titanic who puts on a dress so he can get in the life raft first.” After that, he acted like a normal person instead of like a big shot. By the way, in 1968, comedian Jay Leno graduated from Andover (Massachusetts) High School. In his yearbook, he wrote that he wanted his future career to be “retired millionaire.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Break My Fall"
Album: LOWS AND HIGHS
Artist: The Nautical Theme
Artist Location: Dayton, Ohio
Info:
Tesia Mallory: Vocals, Keys
Matt Shetler: Vocals, Guitar
“The Nautical Theme is a modern-Folk duo featuring the ebb and flow of male/female harmonies and honest, straightforward songwriting ringing off ivory keys and steel strings. Based in Dayton, OH, The Nautical Theme was formed in March of 2017 by Tesia Mallory (vocals, keys) and Matt Shetler (vocals, guitar). The duo loves to write, record, perform, and make connections with their original music, classified as modern folk, Americana, and indie-pop.”
“The duo loves to write, record, and perform their original music that could be classified as modern folk, Americana, or indie. With a focus on melodies and harmonies based around straightfoward songwriting and arrangements, our hope is that this music connects with those that have open ears and hearts.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $10 (USD) for 10-track album
Genre: Folk
Links:
HIGHS AND LOWS
The Nautical Theme on Bandcamp
The Nautical Theme on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Part 2
Bruce’s Stories
Among any group of people, of course, most members of the group will be angels and a few will be devils. Usually, one student will be high-maintenance and ask for special privileges such as handing in papers late without penalty or missing many classes without penalty. Let’s face it, not everyone is competent. Some people can’t work well on their own, or with others, and their supervisors sometimes feel such people can’t walk unless the supervisor tells them which foot to use to take the first step.
Here’s an example of one of the students who failed one of my classes. The student missed my class one day, and so he sent me an email giving an explanation of why he missed my class: His alarm clock didn’t go off. Hmm, the class met at noon!
Of course, sometimes students have better excuses for missing class. One student met with me before class started and asked to be excused because she fell nauseous after another class during which her professor had dissected a human leg. I excused her, but I also said that in a future year the leg being dissected might be mine because I have donated my body to the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.
One student wrote this memorable evaluation at the end of one quarter: “If I ever have just one hour left to live, I hope that I spend it in David Bruce’s class.” Of course, I felt pretty good reading this, but then I read the next sentence: “One hour in David Bruce’s class lasts forever.”
Some of my students had email addresses other than their email address at Ohio University. Once in a while, a student would have as their email address drunkguy111@hotmailcom or partygirl111@gmail.com. Let’s hope that they don’t use these email addresses on their resumes.
Of course, any student can make mistakes. A student once sent me an email that began, “Hell, Bruce.” No, he wasn’t angry at me; he simply didn’t proofread. He had meant to write, “Hello, Bruce.”
Also, of course, you don’t have to be a student to make a mistake. Channel 4 (Columbus, Ohio) News once gave a quiz to help determine if you are a hypochondriac. After giving the quiz, the news co-anchor, Colleen Marshall, said, “If you think you are a hypochondriac, you should see a doctor.”
By the way, Columbus, Ohio, radio deejay Bob Simpson once asked listeners for silly pet names. One caller had a friend who had named his cat “Stir Fry.” Why? “It’s a threat.”
Back when I was a student at Ohio University, my roommate and his best friend wanted to go on Spring Break in Florida, but they had hardly any money, and certainly not enough money for food. They ended up stealing apples and brownies from the cafeteria. (Students were not allowed to take cafeteria food back to the dorms.) Of course, the brownies grew hard and stale, and they grew tired of eating apples, so they stole food from stores. They would go in a store, unwrap an ice cream sandwich, shove half of it in their mouth when no one was looking and then shove the other half in their mouth when no one was looking. God, of course, was looking, and God punished them with incredibly painful brain-freeze.
By the way, one of the students in my dorm had no morning classes, and so he slept late. However, his student meal card included breakfast, and so he would set his alarm, go to the cafeteria in his pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers, eat breakfast, and then go back to his room and sleep.
Also by the way, Ohio University frequently hosts such special occasions as Moms Weekend, during which students’ mothers come to visit them. I once got a big laugh at the beginning of a class by saying after one Moms Weekend, “I must be getting old. Some of these OU moms look hot!”
Kids Are Not Always Angels — Buy
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Before the verdict
The below was written before the verdict was delivered, but I always enjoy Evan's writing style and his take on things:
At one point, he asked (https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1458857807990571008) the courtroom to give a round of applause to one of the defense's witnesses, because that person is a veteran. You know, TOTALLY NORMAL courtroom stuff.
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Halfway through this grand sumo basho.
Hollywood Walk O'Fame - #2,709
Salma Hayek
A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring Salma Hayek Pinault for a career that has included receiving a best actress Oscar nomination was unveiled Friday in advance of the release of her latest film, "House of Gucci."
During the ceremony in front of the box office of TCL Chinese Theatre Hollywood IMAX, Hayek Pinault recalled the doubts some had about her succeeding in America as a woman from Mexico, and she thanked those who opened doors for her, sharing advice to people following their own dreams.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, actor Adam Sandler and Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao joined Hayek Pinault in speaking at the ceremony
The star is the 2,709th since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the first 1,558 stars.
Salma Hayek
Kicked Out of the Room ‘Several Times’
Film Crew
Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorney said that he booted a Tucker Carlson/Fox News video crew filming a documentary on Rittenhouse from the defense’s room “several times” during the weeks-long trial of his client, who shot three people, killing two, at a racial justice protest.
Not long after news broke that a jury acquitted Rittenhouse on Friday, we learned that Fox News host Tucker Carlson had sent a film crew to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to document the trial. A Carlson interview of Rittenhouse is scheduled to air on Fox News this Monday night, followed by a streaming documentary airing in December. The documentary, Fox breathlessly bragged in a press release, will feature “exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Rittenhouse and his defense team.”
But that “exclusive behind-the-scenes access” irritated Rittenhouse’s defense attorney Mark Richards, who told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday night that he “did not approve” the film crew’s presence.
“I did not approve of that,” Richards responded. “I threw them out of the room several times. They were — and I’m not suggesting that Fox or some other network — I don’t think a film crew is appropriate for something like this.”
Richards went on to say that the film crew’s presence was approved by people who were fundraising to compensate Rittenhouse’s attorneys and experts who testified for the defense. “But the people who were raising the money to pay for the experts and to pay for the attorneys were trying to raise money. And that was part of it,” Richards said. “So, I think — I don’t want to say an evil, but a definite distraction was part of it. And I didn’t approve of it, but I’m not always the boss.”
Film Crew
95th Birthday
Gerber Baby
Original Gerber Baby Ann Turner Cook, whose famous face has been printed on countless products over generations, is celebrating her 95th birthday.
"A very happy birthday to the original Gerber baby, Ann Turner Cook!" the company posted Saturday on its social media pages.
Cook has been the face of the company since 1928, when her neighbor Dorothy Hope Smith entered a charcoal sketch of the baby into a contest for an advertising campaign, according to the company website. The artist said she would finish the portrait if she won, but Gerber decided to use it as is.
The sketch was so popular that Gerber made the chubby-cheeked tot its official trademark in 1931.
The Gerber Baby's identity was kept a secret until 1978 and the company said that over the years people speculated that it might have been a sketch of Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Sen. Bob Dole and Jane Seymour.
Gerber Baby
Intimate Details
Amazon
As a Virginia lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah has studied internet privacy issues and debated how to regulate tech firms’ collection of personal data. Still, he was stunned to learn the full details of the information Amazon.com has collected on him.
The e-commerce giant had more than 1,000 contacts from his phone. It had records of exactly which part of the Quran that Samirah, who was raised as a Muslim, had listened to on Dec. 17 of last year. The company knew every search he had made on its platform, including one for books on “progressive community organizing” and other sensitive health-related inquiries he thought were private.
Samirah was among the few Virginia legislators who opposed an industry-friendly, Amazon-drafted state privacy bill that passed earlier this year. At Reuters’ request, Samirah asked Amazon to disclose the data it collected on him as a consumer.
Seven Reuters reporters also obtained their Amazon files. The data reveals the company’s ability to amass strikingly intimate portraits of individual consumers.
One reporter’s dossier revealed that Amazon had collected more than 90,000 Alexa recordings of family members between December 2017 and June 2021 – averaging about 70 daily. The recordings included details such as the names of the reporter’s young children and their favorite songs.
Amazon
'Dark Money Scheme'
Sheldon Whitehouse
For the ninth time this year, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse gave a speech this week blasting right-wing anonymous donors whom he believes have "captured" the Supreme Court and "built" its current 6-3 conservative majority.
"Our Supreme Court is awash in dark money influence," the Rhode Island Democrat said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. "The American people may not be able to see all of the rot, but they can see enough to know that something is rotten over there across First Street at that court."
Unlike some members of his party, Whitehouse has steered clear of reform ideas such as adding more seats to the bench or setting term limits for justices. Instead, the three-term senator has been vehemently pushing for financial transparency in the third branch of government to expose how it's been influenced by a far-right conservative agenda.
Whitehouse, who chairs a key panel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, calls it a three-fold "scheme" — private groups use anonymous donations to groom Supreme Court candidates, promote and defend these nominees with political ad campaigns and later try to influence these justices in legal briefs filed without any financial disclosures.
According to the senator's findings, the effect of this operation is being played out during Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure, which has handed down at least 80 partisan decisions that advanced conservative interests.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Lawyer Appointed
Election Board
In January, lawyer Cleta Mitchell joined a phone call with then-President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) as he pressured Georgia's top election official to "find" enough votes to overturn his defeat in the state, playing an important role in Trump's attempts to subvert the 2020 results.
Nearly a year later, the longtime conservative has been appointed to the advisory board of a federal agency with a mission to help states conduct secure elections.
Her surprise appointment to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's (EAC) Board of Advisors shows how once-fringe "election integrity" activists are trying to gain footholds in U.S. institutions in the run up to next year's congressional elections. And it illustrates Trump's continued dominance over his party as Mitchell and other backers of his stolen-election falsehoods win support from powerful Republicans in Congress.
Mitchell, part of a small network of Republican lawyers who have for decades pushed the idea that U.S. elections are vulnerable to rampant fraud, left her partnership at law firm Foley & Lardner days after the Georgia phone call. She has since been focused on championing "election integrity" as chairwoman of the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). She began work at the EAC advisory board on Nov. 3.
Mitchell's appointment, which was made in August but only came to light this week after a tweet by a reporter with non-profit media organization Votebeat, alarmed Democrats and voting rights groups. Although the 35-member board is an advisory body and does not have any specific powers over voting procedures, critics said the appointment gives legitimacy to someone they accuse of undermining faith in the democratic process in the United States.
Election Board
Can See Around Corners
Holographic Camera
It sounds like something out of Star Trek: the doctor aims a camera at your chest, and a computer generates a hologram of your heart and blood vessels. She enlarges the image and takes a look at some of your smallest capillaries, each beautifully rendered in sub-millimeter detail.
But thanks to a team at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, that may soon be a reality. They’ve created a prototype technology capable of seeing around corners and through everything from fog to the human skull. Their results are published in the journal Nature Communications.
“It’s like we can plant a virtual computational camera on every remote surface to see the world from the surface’s perspective,” explained Florian Willomitzer, first author of the study. “This technique turns walls into mirrors.”
This is the area of science known as non-line-of-sight (NLoS) imaging, and, in the era of self-driving cars and cutting-edge medical breakthroughs, it’s big news. They work – in extremely simplified terms – using a sort of visual sonar: they send out a pulse of light and measure how much it’s changed by the time it gets back.
The technique uses what the researchers call a “synthetic” light wave, created by merging two lasers with different wavelengths. This light wave hits the object of interest and gets scattered away so that, under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t be able to see it. That can be because it’s around a corner, behind a wall of fog, or inside our body – from an engineering perspective, it’s all basically the same question, Willomitzer explained.
Holographic Camera
Last Bastion Of Forest Elephants
Gabon
Loss of habitat and poaching have made African forest elephants a critically endangered species. Yet the dense forests of sparsely populated Gabon in the Congo River Basin remain a “last stronghold” of the magnificent creatures, according to new research that concluded the population is much higher than previous estimates.
Counting forest elephants is a far bigger challenge than surveying plains-dwelling savanna elephants from the air. It takes difficult and dirty scientific work that doesn’t involve laying eyes on the elusive animals that flee at the slightest whiff of human scent.
Instead, researchers have been trekking for years through dense undergrowth collecting dung from Gabon’s forest elephants and analyzing the DNA from thousands of samples to determine the number of individual elephants in each plot of land examined.
Now the survey by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Parks of Gabon, released Thursday, has concluded that the central African country of about 2.3 million people harbors about 95,000 forest elephants.
Herds have nearly been decimated elsewhere in the region Gabon shares with conflict-ridden countries such as Cameroon, Congo and Central African Republic, according to researchers.
Gabon
Weird Quantum Effect
Pauli Blocking
A weird quantum effect that was predicted decades ago has finally been demonstrated — if you make a cloud of gas cold and dense enough, you can make it invisible.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used lasers to squeeze and cool lithium gas to densities and temperatures low enough that it scattered less light. If they can cool the cloud even closer to absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), they say it will become completely invisible.
The bizarre effect is the first ever specific example of a quantum mechanical process called Pauli blocking.
"What we've observed is one very special and simple form of Pauli blocking, which is that it prevents an atom from what all atoms would naturally do: scatter light," study senior author Wolfgang Ketterle, a professor of physics at MIT, said in a statement. "This is the first clear observation that this effect exists, and it shows a new phenomenon in physics."
Pauli blocking comes from the Pauli exclusion principle, first formulated by the famed Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. Pauli posited that all so-called fermion particles — like protons, neutrons and electrons — with the same quantum state as each other cannot exist in the same space.
Pauli Blocking
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