The Operating System of My Dreams

Suppose a letter arrives in the mail and you want to read it. You pick up the letter. That is the whole procedure. Nobody has ever opened a letter by first going to the closet, getting out the letter-reading machine, plugging it in, waiting for it to warm up, and then asking the machine to go find the letter.

Fussing Over Stamps

Nothing on this website is "productive". Nobody is paying me. Oh, I suppose I could put ads on the site. But I hate that on other sites; I'm not about to do that to mine. So there is no margin, no buyer, nothing here that anyone could resell for more than it cost to make. It is a jiggle. I put it there for the joy of self-expression, and then I kept it because I liked it, and those are the only two reasons I need anymore.

The Mathematical Paradox of Tolerance

Sooner or later somebody hits me with it, usually while smiling: "You're the one always going on about tolerance, so how come you won't tolerate me?" This challenge usually comes from someone who is literally wearing an "Make Bigotry Great Again" cap and a T-shirt that says "All Lives Matter" on front and "Defund Medicaid!" on the back. It sounds like a checkmate. It feels like one, too, if I try to answer it with my feelings. The reason it isn't a checkmate has nothing to do with which of us is the better person. It has to do with arithmetic.

Methyl Folate

I was soaking in a hot spring in Tonopah, Arizona, mildly depressed and trying not to think about it, when a friend who was studying to be a pharmacist asked me a question that changed my brain chemistry. Not metaphorically. Literally. He asked why I wasn't taking methyl folate, and within two days of adding it to my supplement stack, the gray fog I had been living under began to lift.

Liposomal Glutathione

Of the heaping handful of supplements I take every day, most are acts of faith. I swallow them because the research sounds plausible, or because I read something persuasive at three in the morning when my judgment isn't always at its best, and the tab for Amazon is right next to the tab for YouTube, and when it arrives of course I take it and hope for the best. After all, at worst most impotent supplements are harmless if not helpful.

But there are a few exceptions, supplements I took that made a noticeable difference in how I felt. Liposomal glutathione is one of those exceptions. It is one supplement I know works, because the day I first took it, something changed that I could feel in the middle of a sentence.

Creativity, Mark 2.0

In kindergarten I wrote stories using the twenty or so words they had taught us, getting Mom to spell the rest. One of those words was "Gulf," as in the gas stations, so every story included a stop for gas. At a Gulf station. I was five, and already understood the value of product placement. I have been creating things ever since—stories, code, books, websites—and the tools I use to make them have changed so completely that the five-year-old with his workbook and the seventy-five-year-old with his AI would not recognize each other's instruments.

A Man On A Galloping Horse

My grandmother, Dorothy Weems Brown, was a font of sayings and aphorisms, many of which would be all but incomprehensible to young folks of today. Born in 1901, she lived through the transition from gaslight to fiber-optics with a keen, observational eye that never blinked.

Skills of an Author

Everyone thinks they have a novel in them. Most people are wrong—what they actually have is an anecdote in them, which is a very different animal, the way a goldfish is a very different animal from a blue whale even though they both swim. But for those who genuinely do have a novel in them, the hard truth is that having the novel in your head is not the same as being able to write it. Writing fiction requires at least six distinct skills, and most writers—including published, award-winning, commercially successful writers—are really good at two or three of them and faking the rest.

75: A Seer Without Peer

I turned 75 today. Most people celebrate with cake. I'm celebrating by tallying up the technologies I've invented in a novel thirteen years ago—and discovering how many of them have since walked off the page and into reality.

Zen and the Art of Senior Maintenance

I used to hike. Real hikes—the kind where you pack a lunch and come home with blisters and a sense of accomplishment and possibly a sunburn shaped like your backpack straps. I played tennis (badly). I've bodysurfed in Florida and Maui. I white-water rafted through Grand Canyon four times. I backpacked Yosemite's high country and kayacked with my grandson off Santa Catalina Island. I've snorkeled off Key West, waded to Percé Rock in Gaspé, Canada (when it was legal) and camped for 18 months on a remote part of Maui for the duration of the pandemic.

Sweatin' With The Oldies

In fifth grade at Cathedral Parish School in Panama City, Florida, first period was P.E. It was already muggy by 8 AM in late spring, and I'd just walked a couple of blocks from home after a nice big bowl of Cheerios with banana. Sister took attendance, and we headed across the parking lot to the old Lyceum building, where Coach Drozd promptly got us out of his hair by sending us on a morning run. Down the street we went—right past my house, which I could see but not escape to—and back again. And with the heat, and the running, and the sweating, I threw up the Cheerios and bananas on the sidewalk in front of God and everybody. I also hate throwing up. But not as much as I hate sweating.

And When I Die

What happens when I close my eyes for the last time? Humanity has spent millennia arguing about that question, and we're no closer to an answer. What we have is a remarkable collection of theories, beliefs, hopes, and fears—some contradictory, all unprovable, most unfalsifiable.

See Pappy's CPAP

From Jay Kyser's frank advice about CPAPs and dates to my own middle-of-the-night gasping, I've had an intimate relationship with sleep apnea for a quarter century—and the technology has changed almost as much as I have.

The Sleeping Prophet's Report Card

In 1970, in the Spiritualist camp of Cassadaga, Florida, I met a woman named Marguerite Card. She was a medium, a teacher, and the first person who ever handed me a book about Edgar Cayce. I was 19, and open to anything that did not require me to sit in a pew. I read the book in two days. Then I read another one. Then I started ordering the actual readings from the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. I have been studying Cayce's work, off and on, for over fifty years now. Long enough, I think, to offer a report card.

The Fisetin Burst

Back in the 1980s, I had a dream. I was on the Enterprise D—because of course I was—and Geordi had figured out a way to use the transporter as a medical device. The idea was elegant: beam a person out and back in, but put a filter on the rematerialization circuits that could identify cells with damaged DNA and simply not rematerialize them. The body would then fill in the gaps naturally with new, healthy cells. Instant rejuvenation. I woke up thinking, that is the best idea I have ever had, and then spent the rest of the day slightly annoyed that I did not actually have a transporter.

If This Is An Emergency, Please Hang Up!

I am seventy-four years old. I take more pills than a Pez dispenser at a children's birthday party. I have doctors for things I didn't know had doctors. And I spend more time trying to make appointments than I spend at them. Not trying to make it on time—trying to get the appointment to exist. Because somewhere in the last twenty years, every medical office in America fired its receptionist and replaced her with a phone system apparently designed by someone who has never been sick, never been old, and never been in a hurry in their life.

But Is It Code?

A few days ago I wrote about whether AI-assisted images qualify as Art. Short answer: yes, because Art lives in the vision, not the brush. Now I want to talk about another third of my creative life—the third that most people would not consider creative at all, which only proves they have never done it. I want to talk about code!

Copy, Paste, Regret

Every few days, one of my Facebook friends posts something like this, filled out with their own answers, and invites everyone to copy, paste, and do the same. It looks like harmless fun. It is not harmless fun. It is a phishing operation dressed up as a chain letter, and the fish are your mother.

The Informed Patient

My doctor is a good man. He keeps track of my prescriptions, orders the right labs at the right intervals, and does not visibly flinch—much—when I show up with a typed list of the forty-odd supplements I take daily. But when I mentioned senolytics at my last visit, he gave me the same polite, slightly glazed look my mother used to give when I tried to explain why BASIC was better than FORTRAN. (To be fair, she hadn't asked.)

But Is It Art?

Personally, I wouldn't mind if an AI liked my prose so much it reused some of my more clever ways of putting things. In fact, I'd be flattered. That would mean my writing had actually had an impact on society, which may be the only form of immortality we can prove exists. And what would have happened had Shakespeare's contributions to the language never been repeated? Our language would be a poor thing, a bare bodkin of expression, a world out of joint—stripped of the richness he smuggled into our everyday speech.

The Grumpy Barber Joke

I love this folk joke (from at least the mid-20th century) that so perfectly illustrates how important it is to approach experiences with an open mind and an awareness that one's attitude can influence how we experience things. If we let it!

Global Warning

Hopefully a lot of us have figured out that a meme doesn't necessarily equal truth. After all, they're usually anonymous, and never include any kind of citation. Sadly, there are so many people these days who either can't tell a truth from a lie, or celebrate the lies. (I'm talking to you, supporters of the orange shitstain who recently won a debate, according to the media, by not uttering a single true statement.) But a high school friend posted the above meme on Facebook today, minus the disclaimer. And I feel motivated to answer each one of these lies.

Text Slaves

Alex, where are you? I've got the tickets. If your name isn't Alex, and you've gotten this text message on your phone, isn't your first impulse to let the person know they've got the wrong number? After, all, it sounds important. But if you do, you are not talking to anyone in any kind of line other than that of a phone bank. And that person is an enslaved victim of human trafficking, probably in the far east.

Dying Slowly

Thanks to the Internet, a poem attributed to Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda called Dying Slowly went viral in 2000, nearly 30 years after his death. However, Magdalena Edwards, a Brazilian writer, claimed authorship of the verses, providing evidence that the poem closely resembled her work in Portuguese titled A Morte Devagar (To Death Slowly), which was published in 2000. However, no matter who wrote it (Edwards!), it is a moving reminder to embrace life fully, break free from routine, and savor every moment.

Joyous Ostara

Western culture is harrowingly time-centric. We really like to put a tag on a single 24-hour period and call it "Christmas" or "Easter" or "the Spring Equinox" but none of those things take place in 24 hours, not really. Sure, Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth; but everyone knows it didn't happen on December 25th of any year ever (lambs are born in the Spring, not the dead of winter). Similarly, Easter as a commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ is inextricably tied to the Passover meal after which he was arrested. But what all the world's seasonal celebrations this time of year are really about, is the Spring Equinox. And how can Easter even come before Passover (as it does this year)?

Being Human

As I age (excuse me, mature) I find myself pondering a lot of things that I've always taken for granted. One of them is the meaning of the word, human. It's one of the most common and familiar words in the English language, but also one of the most complex and controversial. What does it mean to be human? How do we define and identify ourselves and others as human? How do we use the word human to divide or include different beings? How has the meaning of being human changed over time and across cultures? And where might its continued evolution take us in the direction of an expanded collective consciousness?

Meatless Balls

I am not vegan, but my eldest grandson, Zach, is. So there's a lot of frozen, vegan foodstuffs in the freezer. But Zach has moved to Paris, and that stuff is taking up space. Plus, it's not going to get any fresher. So I decided to make a non-vegan meal out of some of it.

Verbing Nouns

I love language and am an amateur linguist, more in the sense of how languages evolve than in actually being able to speak many. Or any, other than one. (When I've traveled to foreign countries, I make a point of learning Please, Thank you, Where's a restroom? and Excuse me!, which actually cover 90% of my interactions with locals.) But I've become fascinated by the idea of the same word doing double duty as a noun and a verb.

Technically Speaking

One day, some 20 years ago, I came home from work to find my mother in a state of annoyance. "What's wrong?" I asked her, worried that something serious had happened. "The lady from the bank was so rude!" she exclaimed, clearly upset.

Simulation

The simulation theory is a concept that has been explored in various forms throughout history. One of the earliest appearances of the simulation theory can be traced back to ancient philosophy, particularly in the works of Plato. In his famous allegory of the cave, Plato presents the idea that what we perceive as reality is actually a shadow of true reality, and that true reality can only be apprehended through philosophical contemplation.

The Fact of Difference

I saw Black people for the very first time when I was about five years old. We lived in New Jersey, and once every few months my parents would go shopping at a department store called Two Guys. I say my parents went shopping, because they always left my sisters and me in the car for the hour or two they spent inside.

Scents and Sensibility

Comparing dog brains and human brains, the percentages devoted to smell and vision are reversed in each species. In humans, we rely on our vision for nearly all our information about the external world, with smell the least important. A human can lose their sense of smell and often not even notice it.

Artists as Tool Users

Throughout history, artists have always relied on tools, assistants, secretaries, and amanuenses to create their art. These aids helped artists to produce works that were more accurate, efficient, and detailed. In this essay, I will explore the different types of tools and aids that artists have used throughout history, from Vermeer's Camera Obscura to modern-day spell and grammar checkers, and how ChatGPT can assist writers.

Babel

Some 40 years ago I had an idea for a humorous short short story ("short short" is actually a technical writing term) but to do it properly would have required I learn the proper use of a lot of jargon from different disciplines and I've just never had the time to do it justice. But now we have ChatGPT to help with the heavy lifting. I decided to feed it a description of the story I wanted to write and see if it couldn't do the research I was too lazy busy to do. And I have to say I was beyond pleasantly surprised.

A Chat with ChatGPT

I felt experimental this evening and decided to really try out one of those new AI-powered chat bots that claim to be able to write anything you want, from a sonnet to a computer program to a college thesis. So I picked ChatGPT, created a login for it, and hunted for where I was supposed to type, as it's about time for me to get a new pair of glasses. But I found it, and said hello.

Who Domesticated Whom?

The scientific evidence that dogs domesticated humans (rather than the other way 'round) comes from the Paleolithic era, as early as 10,000 BCE. The relationship between wolves and humans is well-represented in the fossil record. During this time, wolves, which are as happy scavenging as they are hunting, would have been a natural part of the human environment; and evidence suggests that humans used wolves for a variety of tasks, such as hunting, herding, and protection. This evidence is supported by archaeological discoveries that suggest that wolves were kept in human settlements and were treated as part of the human family.

It's The Bee's Knees!

One of my favorite tales of linguistics begins with early Roman explorers who sailed south along Africa's west coast. Around the Congo River they encountered an animal they'd never seen before. It was four-legged, boxy like a horse, but it had a single horn growing out of its head. Since most horned animals have a matching pair of horns, the captain of the expedition named the new creature after its most unique feature: its single horn. The Latin word for "one-horn" happens to be unicorn.

Layers of Reality

Today's topic is one I've been wanting to cover for a number of months, now. It requires the reader to willingly view things from a different perspective, yes, even different from what you think of when you think, "different perspective". In fact, we're going to try on several different perspectives. But first, I must ask you to spend 9 minutes watching this short film, which I first viewed in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. Trust me, it'll save a whole separate pre-essay on the topic of very large and very small, all by itself.

Dogma vs. Science

As a kid in Catholic school, attending catechism class, I first encountered the dichotomy of dogma versus open-mindedness, in that some teachers taught dogma—that these are things we must believe, or go to Hell—while others taught us to think for ourselves, albeit within the constraints of the approved belief structure. The problem with that approach, of course; is that the constraints are soon seen for what they are: artificial blocks to being truly open to wherever the pursuit of knowledge might take us. Thus, I left the Catholic Church at 19, and Christianity shortly after that.

Do Not Get A Lone Little Doggie

The poignancy is presented by this poor dog who has, presumably, been sitting at the door for 8 or 9 hours, waiting for its human to return. The cruelty is that this is completely unnecessary. Please allow me to consolidate the rules for having a relationship with dogs.

Research Scam

Most of us want to be good citizens. And if we understand science and modern medicine, it can be very tempting to volunteer for a vaccine or other medicinal study. And to sweeten the pot, it's normal to pay study participants. After all, if the new medicine turns out to be effective, the pharmaceutical firm stands to make billions of dollars; and they can't make a penny if sufficient volunteers cannot be found. I've done a couple myself.