Many years ago, a friend and I were on the Palatino “fast night train” from Paris to Rome. In the morning, the Sleeping Car Porter came to our compartment to ask if we wanted anything for breakfast. My reply was, "Si signore, dos cafe con leche, si’l vous plais ".
My friend was convulsed with laughter because I had managed to compose a sentence consisting of words in three different languages. The joke was on him when the porter delivered exactly what I had wanted, because almost all Europeans are fluent in several languages–unlike so many Americans who struggle to communicate grammatically in their own native language.
@MikeInNH There were no computer science courses available when I was an undergraduate. My advanced calculus class used a book titled “Higher Mathematics for Physicists and Engineers” by E.S. and I.S. Sokonikoff. The problems for our assignments were really challenging for me. However, there was great satisfaction in spending hours working through the assignments and solving the problems. Thinking through the application of mathematics to the word problems was a good foundation for me when I studied computer science.
Late 70’s had computer classes with punchcards and fortran. First assignment, write a program to start a car.
Unlock door
open door
sit in seat and place key in ignition
Pump gas pedal
turn key clockwise and hold until start. etc.
SUre I missed a few steps. like close door
I recall one such incident, where the line apparently wasn’t moving quickly enough for one particular customer at the back of the line. So the customer rudely commanded those in front of them to “move forward!!!”, loudly and repeatedly, like every 30 seconds, as if that would make the line move any faster.
I am able to accommodate that sort of thing; after all that’s a problem with the customer, no WalMart. The worm turned with Covid. For some unexplained reason the staff there won’t wear their mask so that it covers both their mouth and face. It’s no longer one of my vendors.
Maybe just my imagination, it seems more hospitals are running out of beds than in round 1. I wear a mask sometimes now, had oil changed the other day in my car, no cares as in past such as we will sanitize and take all precautions to ensure safety.
Science and engineering too. My mother’s parents came from the Balkans in the early 1900s. My grandmother never learned English and couldn’t talk to anyone outside the family, except at church maybe. I think immigrants would all do well to learn English. It’s a big help integrating into our society.
I know this is a bad subject that Barky brought up but there is plenty of evidence, just is not publicized by the major media or CDC. Even Dr. O from Minnesota admitted in one of his CIDRAPS that the standard masks don’t do much unless someone is spitting at you. But then said the N95s but are so uncomfortable no one will wear them. Then a few weeks later when it was pointed out the pores in the N95s are too large he said yes but they are treated.
We were in the clinic this week and they required them and CDC signs all over and “keep your distance” in the chairs-except the chairs were tight together. But go ahead if it makes you feel good but use common sense also. This thing will be mutating for years to come looking for fresh candidates. That’s what virus’s do. The sooner they start pushing effective treatment instead of trying to stop it the better. I had faith in these people for years but no longer.
It seems some people huff anything with an organic solvent. I’ve had to be approved to buy spray lube. I put on a crazed look, stick it up my nose, say ‘57 trips for $2.18!’
I flew from DC or LA a couple weeks ago for work. I bought N95 masks without a valve from Home Depot, 8 masks for about $18. It hurt the bridge of my nose after fitting it. I discovered that the sharp bend of the metal band over my nose bridge was not bent for a good fit. I bent it flat and bent it again with a radius that fit me properly. I wore it going home from 5:45am in Cali to 5pm DC time, over 8 hours without removal. It was comfortable for the entire trip. I did pull it down to eat and drink, but wore it for an overwhelming part of the trip. If you like, I’ll tell you the brand name so that you can have them too.
I don’t like Wal Mart either. However, the options around here are somewhat thin. For instance, if I want to buy a new TV I have 3 choices.
Wal Mart Supercenter
Order online sight unseen
Make a minimum 130 miles round trip to a Best Buy which is the closest TV retailer.
What really grates on me are some of the people hanging around the fringes for whom panhandling is a career choice. One guy with a sign (homeless. need food, God bless you) has been there on and off for roughly 10 years…
Me too. One of my aunts was like that. She lived in the street by choice. We went on a week long vacation in the 1960s and came back to find her living in our basement after she broke in. She fit society so poorly that she couldn’t hold a job, and living on the street was the only alternative, besides sponging off us, of course. We could generally ignore her, but her presence hurt especially bad when the kids on the school bus teased us about her. I didn’t say anything, and I guess the expressions of pain led them to stop.
No, you’re wrong if you think we didn’t try to get her psychiatric help. She refused it and was not so unfit that she should be committed to an institution. I suspect that’s the case with a lot of street people.
I’ve done this successfully with a washer, refrigerator, and oven. I bought brand names whose reviews I could find in Consumer reports from reputable vendors. I received a pre-damaged washer but had no problem returning it, other than hauling it into and out of my pickup.
“Denying a Diagnosis,” by Rachel Aviv | The New Yorker is an excellent account of a previously-sane woman who refused all help, even from her mother, sister, and daughter, for years, eventually dying of starvation in an abandoned house. She didn’t beg.
Albuquerque built a ‘tiny homes village’, has found tenants for only 2 of the 40 ‘homes’, despite all the homeless living in the empty lots, under overpasses, etc.
That’s interesting. Always people that think they know best for someone else. OTOH I was talking with a teacher friend the other day about high school kids that are essentially homeless or in incredibly bad situations. Just would be nice if they had such a place to crash in for a day, week, month or whatever that would be safe and warm.
Some years ago our pastor was on an intervention kick. People he identified as needing an intervention for alcohol or whatever, would come home to a group that shuttled him off to a treatment facility of some kind. Always wondered about those poor guys and if maybe there was a reason for their habit. Of course these days an intervention could be done for any number of wrong thoughts.
I told it before but a guy had disappeared. The Sheriff found him and the family wanted to know where he was. The Sheriff just said he is OK but a guy has a right to disappear if he wants. Family was confused. This is the USA.
The home depot N95 masks might not be medical grade but they should be pretty good.
You have to get fitted for a medical grade N95 and then it works great. There are online videos on how to test them for leak. Anyone using one, should watch.
The medical grade N95’s are good for even when you are producing aerosolized droplets from the patient. Me being alive is a testament to that!
You don’t need an N95 to work on your cars, for the most part (just to make it car related!).
When I inhale the mask sucks in, and billows when I exhale. The final test is that my glasses don’t fog. I also have to feel the edges completely surrounding my nose and mouth, but the two conditions listed first aren’t possible without the snug fit.
There weren’t when I graduated from high-school also. Many colleges did have Math classes that you had to write Fortran programs in (Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Statistics and a few others. By the time I got out of the Army after Nam there were several colleges offering computer science degrees. And some colleges would give you CS and MA credits for classes like Linear Algebra. You could take the non CS Linear Algebra, or the CS one. If you took the CS one then you got credit toward a CS degree or Math degree (or both).
Far as I’m concerned the overwhelming majority of those panhandlers hanging out at WM are just scamming.
Case in point. About 3 weeks ago some guy had his Jeep Cherokee parked by the lot entrance. He had a “Traveling, broke, please help” sign. The Jeep had a Texas plate on the front. At the rear there was a lawn chair and cooler stacked against the vehicle and the rear plate was difficult to see because of the chair and some adjacent shrubs.
It looked a bit odd to me so when I left I swung by very close and he had an Oklahoma plate on the rear.
Three days ago was by there and Mr. Traveling, broke, please help was out there again.
About a year ago a mid/late 20s girl was panhandling and no car in sight. The usual “Traveling/broke…” sign. When I was leaving I saw her crossing the lot so I stopped to see what kind of wreck she was driving. It was one of these 38 footers so it’s gonna take a lot of donations to get it across town…
I think that this type of scamming is universal. Back in the early '70s I was in Mexico City for several days, and there always seemed to be young women panhandling around my hotel. I was just beginning to think I should give them a few pesos when I saw a couple of them being picked-up at the end of their “working day” by guys driving late model full-size American cars. Clearly an organized scam operation.
