Trouble with Homophone: Significant?

I'm noticing more and more I've trouble with homophones (i.e, for those who have forgotten high school English, words with the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning, like "its" and "it's", "knew" and "new") and with completing words correctly (i.e., by writing "ful" at the end of "meaning" rather than the "less" I intended, or, as just now, typing "the" when I meant "than").

A quick google brings up this research but doesn't confirm my layman's belief that such a decline in functioning is significant, at least of old age if not of dementia.  But whatever.

I bring this up because our illustrious President has caught some flak over a tweet in which he spelled "heal" as "heel".  I don't know whether he can't spell, whether he's getting old, or showing early signs of dementia.  None of the alternatives are correctable at this point.

"The Olds"

Ran across a phrase in the Post this morning: "the olds".  It's the "s" which makes it different; not sure why, maybe someday a language person will explain.

Anyhow, ran a google search, and found the Post has an explanation and a quiz.

As one of the commenters on the piece/quiz says: "I am an old. I do not object. More of these questions should have included the option "I have no idea what this means" so that I could have qualified as "super-old."

The explanation: "In popular Internet parlance, "the olds" are essentially people who don't quite get "it," whatever "it" may be: the funniest meme, the latest Internet slang, the fact that you shouldn't comment on your child's every Facebook post. It's less about age, and more about digital zeitgeist."

Waning Enthusiasm for Pro Football

I don't know about the rest of the world but I'm gradually seeing my enthusiasm for pro football wane.  A decade or more ago I would watch every play of every game on Sunday, particularly the Redskins.  And I would be very much into the game, yelling at great plays, rapid heartbeat, etc.

But over time it's become easier for me to miss parts of games, or even the whole game. Yes, when I'm watching and the team is doing good, I really enjoy it. And I still read the Post articles and check the stats.  But...

Why is it?  20 years ago or more, actually more, the Redskins were a good team.  Since then they haven't been--don't think they've won a playoff game the few times they've actually made the playoffs.  So there's that.  There's also the consciousness of injuries, particularly concussions.  And the game is slower, what with replays and challenges and more ads.  Used to be a 1 o'clock game would end before 4, but no longer.

There's also age--my supply of interest seems to be shrinking generally.  I no longer read every story in the newspaper, for example.

Age might be the determining factor.

Software "Containers" and Object-Oriented

Back when I exited the field, "object-oriented" software was the buzzword of the day.  If I remember, the idea was that a given software "object" was self-contained; once the object was coded and tested, you could count on it.

So 17 years pass and now the NYTimes describes some outfit doing software containers as the hot new thing.  Too much time has passed for me to understand the difference, except for a vague idea that software containers may be more independent of their operating system and programming language than the old "objects'. 

Seems I'll have to add "containers" to "string theory" as cases where the advance of knowledge has left me in the dust.

Old Men

Eugene Volokh at Volokh Conspiracy posts a Kipling poem, which I'm going to steal:

"And it put me in mind of one of Kipling’s poems, The Old Men:

This is our lot if we live so long and labour unto the end –
Then we outlive the impatient years and the much too patient friend:
And because we know we have breath in our mouth and think we have thought in our head,
We shall assume that we are alive, whereas we are really dead.
We shall not acknowledge that old stars fade or stronger planets arise
(That the sere bush buds or the desert blooms or the ancient well-head dries),
Or any new compass wherewith new men adventure ‘neath new skies.
We shall lift up the ropes that constrained our youth, to bind on our children’s hands;
We shall call to the waters below the bridges to return and to replenish our lands;
We shall harness (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands.
We shall lie down in the eye of the sun for lack of a light on our way –
We shall rise up when the day is done and chirrup, “Behold, it is day!”
We shall abide till the battle is won ere we amble into the fray.
We shall peck out and discuss and dissect, and evert and extrude to our mind,
The flaccid tissues of long-dead issues offensive to God and mankind –
(Precisely like vultures over an ox that the army left behind).
We shall make walk preposterous ghosts of the glories we once created –
Immodestly smearing from muddled palettes amazing pigments mismated –
And our friend will weep when we ask them with boasts if our natural force be abated.
The Lamp of our Youth will be utterly out, but we shall subsist on the smell of it;
And whatever we do, we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it.
Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the Perfectest Hell of it!
This is our lot if we live so long and listen to those who love us –
That we are shunned by the people about and shamed by the Powers above us.
Wherefore be free of your harness betimes; but, being free be assured,
That he who hath not endured to the death, from his birth he hath never endured!

This seems like Kipling in an unduly grim mood, and I don’t really buy the message, at least if taken at face value. Still, I think it’s a great poem."

The line particularly apropos for this blog is: "We shall make walk preposterous ghosts of the glories we once created"

My Best Line of the Day

In commenting on a Wonkblog post about whether Americans knew where Damascus and Syria were, I wrote: "Surely the question is not whether Americans know where Damascus is, but whether our targeters know where the Chinese and Russian embassies are."

I thought it was good, but then I realized Ezra Klein is so young he probably was in grade school when we hit the Chinese Embassy during the Kosovo action.   

No one should be that young.

Sentence for Today

"Profligacy turned out to be one of my core skills"

From John Phipps discussing life transitions as he ages.

We Were More Cultured in the Old Days

Erik Loomis posts the lists of best selling books in 1969 here.  Roth, Nabokov and Vonnegut were on the fiction list; serious stuff on the non-fiction list.

Ads I Hate

For some reason I don't like the ads on the Weather Channel, these two categories in particular:

1. the law firms trolling for those who suffer from asbestos or various medicines so they can mount a class action suit.  Not sure why they bug me; maybe I remember in the old days when it was both illegal and unseemly for lawyers and other professionals to advertise.
2. the medical device makers, particularly the motorized wheelchair ones.  Here my puritan soul is aggrieved: you should make do with crutches or walkers, not sit on your butt in a device my tax dollars help pay for.

My burst of aggravation was triggered by this NBC news piece on no. 2, and maybe the fact spring is late this year.

Nostalgia Day

John Fea labels this image: "Prehistoric Googling".

Best Sentence of the Day

"I have always been quite happy with the skin I’m in, though I will now admit that there is more of me in the skin than before."

Beauregarde on growing older.

Google Reader Is Doomed, and So Am I

One of the problems of growing old is maintenance.  Just getting going in the morning takes a while.  Have to do my 15 minutes of back exercises each day just to keep from having a sore back on a regular basis.  (It works--one visit to the doctor has averted lots of pain, but doing the routine is a pain...)  "Maintenance" also includes the obsolescence of one's knowledge. 

Back in the day when we first got our telephone it was a party line, and you had a crank to turn to ring the bell.  One long ring got you the operator, and a combination of longs and shorts was the code for each of the four or five other households on the line.  Now I was never physically coordinated, so when I first had occasion to use the phone my ringing was atrocious. I'd stutter on the long ring, making it sound like two shorts, etc. so you'd have to apologize to the person who answered because it was the wrong number. 

Anyhow, after time and practice, I finally got good with the phone.  Then of course we got it replaced with the old dial handset, which required a new set of skills...etc. etc.

What triggered this nostalgia? Almost anything these days gets me going but the announcement that Google was killing its Google software this summer is the trigger.  I've used it for years to follow a bunch of blogs and some other websites.  And now I'm faced with finding a new RSS reader, and learning it.  That's maintenance, and that's a problem.

We Once Had Self-Driving Transport

This is inspired by a post at Freakonomics, which discussed trains.

In my case, I'm referring to horse and buggy.  It's true horses don't require nearly the amount of close attention that cars do.  My mother would remember driving into Binghamton with a load of cabbage and potatoes, spending the day, and allowing the team to find their way home that night.

I'm enthusiastic about the idea of Google (and others) self-driving cars--especially important with my declining abilities as I age, but I'm not ready to go back to horses.

The Geezers and the Future

The Times has an article today arguing that Social security is in worse shape than we know, because the actuaries at SSA don't have a good grasp on demographics.  The authors present a lot of graphs and seem rather convincing.

However, I've my own theory, based on simple economics, so it's probably wrong.   

Everyone points to the facts that the baby boomers are getting older, and mostly they're living longer, while the working population is not increasing as fast.  The result is each geezer dependent is and will be supported by fewer workers, meaning the taxes on the workers will have to go up to provide the pensions the geezers have been promised.  That seems sound logic.

But, the geezers don't and won't live on their pensions, not on paper money, they will live on bread and butter and real things, produced by real people during the days and months they're living.  So what happens?  If I understand economics, when the supply (produced by workers) gets small, and the demand (from geezers with fat pensions) is large, the effect will be to boost the wages of the workers.  That should bring more workers into the system, whether by geezers finding it rewarding to work longer or to work parttime, or by workers having two jobs and working overtime, or by immigrants coming into the country.

The one problem I see is the indexing of pensions for inflation, because this process of adjusting the economy would go a lot faster if the pensions weren't indexed.  Perhaps the alternative will be for workers to be paid in intangible benefits, stuff which benefits them and makes work more attractive but which doesn't get reflected in the cost of living indexes.  Is that what's happening in Silicon Valley, with all the fringe benefits? 

Peak Oil, Not So

Sharon Astyk writes well.  She does locavore/food movement things, while raising a family and taking in foster children. She and her husband have big hearts, for which she deserves much praise. She's also  a peak oiler, who has in the past predicted gloom and doom: our economy is falling apart, running out of oil, etc. etc. This year though she's decided not to make predictions.

I think this is a sign of the wisdom which comes with age.  I'm sure wisdom comes with age, it doesn't have much else to recommend it. 

A Form for Autonomous Vehicles

Be still my heart--a form, a sure-enough honest to goodness form.

 I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I can turn my driving over to an autonomous vehicle like Google's.  As I may have said previously here or in some comment somewhere, I'm aware my capabilities are diminishing: my attention span is shorter, I'm more easily distracted and upset, and my reactions are slower.  All of which means the day is coming when I should no longer drive, which means a considerable blow to our lifestyle.

But it seems the great state of Nevada, blessed be its name, has actually come up with a form, an application for permission to test autonomous vehicles.  As any good bureaucrat knows, once you have a form, the rest is downhill all the way.

[Update: hat tip, Eugene Volokh at Volokh Conspiracy.}

I Smell

Research proves that old people smell [different than younger people].

Google's Driverless Car Comes to Washington

Here's a Politico report on the car's success in navigating Capitol Hill streets, not the halls yet. It includes this question:

But there are questions about its viability — will consumers buy into losing control behind the wheel?

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76459.html#ixzz1vEYR7joD

Speaking only for myself, I could see buying it--I'm nearing the point where my self-confidence is my driving ability is starting to fade, so an old geezer I've love the ability to delegate 99 percent of the driving to a computer.  I suspect that's how the innovation will come; something like Segway which was promoted as revolutionary but has turned out to be a niche filler.  Between geezers and drunks there's a big niche to fill.

You're Getting Old When...

The star of  a movie  is playing a role in which she fears she has Alzheimer's and you remember when her mother left her husband to begin the affair with her father which resulted in her birth.

It was a great scandal then, wouldn't be one now.

George Will's Baseball Quiz

George has a quiz on baseball history here.  I got a couple right: Whitey Ford and Stan Musial.  I guess that shows my age.