We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I am used to working from home. I have done it once a week for close to 6 years, sometimes twice a week, but rarely that often. I was much more productive working from home that often. It helps reset your mind, helps keep you out of office politics, is relaxing and allows you to concentrate.
That said, I've now been working from home for 2 months straight. I'm comfortable doing it, but I will admit the productivity question is an odd one, and I would like to know if others think they are more productive, about the same, or less so.
Here is how I view the situation. I'm about as productive as I was at the office, but I take more time doing the work because I have to. So, by that standard, I'm LESS productive. I find myself working earlier and later, with more breaks than I would have at the office. Most of my daily 'ad-hoc' work shows up at 5pm, as people realize things need to get finished or as the West Coast sends in requests prior to end of day. I don't like to leave my work undone for the day, I prefer an empty email when I shut down. However, this situation is such that I've found myself responding to emails at 11pm, even midnight.
Working from home reduces access to co-workers who may have answers or assist (it takes longer for them to respond), it reduces access to information (the rapidity at which we shifted limited how many files I was able to move to a shared drive), it reduces brainstorming opportunities, it reduces camaraderie (sorry, Zoom meetings 'for fun' are not fun in any way, shape or form).
So I'm curious - how has the lockdown affected those of you who are working from home? More, less or the same in terms of productivity?
Master the fundamentals of drawing with this discounted course bundle. Get the bundle for $40.
Painting is a fine challenge, but drawing is the basic visual art form. This is excellent, and I have no talent for it. I did it before it went on sale. All it takes is a pencil and piece of paper. No tech, no paint, no cameras.
I remember working with charcoal and pencils in secondary school, and I loved it but never pursued it.
Drawing has been the foundation of the visual arts for over 50,000 years, and it still is.
Mike Rowe, who has plenty of life experience, had a good podcast yesterday about safety. I'd vote for him for president or for anything else.
His point is that "Safety First" is just a reminder to be careful. If people took "Safety First" seriously, nobody would drive a car or take an airplane trip, much less do all of the hazardous jobs (like fishing or construction) that people do.
If you actually live by "Safety First," you will not have much of a life.
Rightly or wrongly, Trump and other national leaders took the advice of medical experts when they offered terrifying predictions.
Experts are of course fallible, but another problem with expertise is the tendency to view things through their specific lens. Safety experts, for example, might wish the max speed limit to be 35 mph. It would save many lives.
Last weekend was emptying a storage closet. 95% of what was in there ended in the trash. Even some good stuff, but never needed.
As in Babar, we found an old Father Christmas in there, and, stuffed in the furthest back under the eaves, two boxes of Christmas decorations and ornaments. Forgot we had them, but we do less-decorated Christmases these days.
Yesterday's project was the kitchen drawers. Just for a few examples, we found my wife's grandmother's walnut pasta rolling pin, her mother's rolling pin, and of course, ours. I think we have enough kitchen tools for three households. And I found two sets of meat-injectors (I guess I couldn't find the other one so bought a new one), and three basters. One steel, two plastic. Clearly, could not find a baster so got new.
And you know those great tongs you use to take pasta out of the pasta pot and dump directly into the sauce? We had three. The thing with cooking tools is that there are many of them that you use rarely, like meat thermometers or meat injectors, so they end up invisible in the backs of drawers, so you say the heck with it and just make do without.
Virus projects. We are not on any sort of phobic lockdown, but there aren't many places to go except for hikes and horses. Have we been home-cooking more? You betcha. Twice/week takeout from our favorite places, but otherwise, more.
I am a fan of John Constable's work. I will admit this is something I picked up from my father, and something I continued on with while studying in London in 1983. I did several papers on his work that semester, and spent a great deal of time in the National Gallery. I will, quite selfishly, say I was very happy to have my father join me and my class as we did presentations on various pieces. That day I did a little piece on Constable's "The Hay Wain" and having him there made me very nervous.
So, I was very pleased when Mrs. Bulldog told me about the Frick Gallery's "Cocktails with a Curator" which featured Constable's "The White Horse" today (May 1, 2020). It's part of their series during the idiotic isolation. But I HIGHLY recommend this. It may be one of a few good things that come out of this waste of time. Please, if you like art, and even if you believe Frick was a jerk (as I do), it's worth watching.
My relationship with Constable took an interesting turn in 2018. Mrs. Bulldog and I were lucky enough to travel to London for Wimbledon. We went for a week, and she planned a 'literary walk' not unlike Maggies' Urban Hikes. It started with a walk through Hampstead Heath (a favorite Constable locale), to Kenwood House to view the artwork, then to The Spaniards Inn for a drink, and through Hampstead to see the homes of various great literary figures. Orwell, Keats, Waugh, Ian Fleming, Bram Stoker, among many others. One stop, for Stoker, was an old church at the end of Church Row in Hampstead. He wrote a good portion of Dracula while sitting in the church courtyard. H.G. Wells had also lived on Church Row.
At this point, you're asking "What's this got to do with Constable?" Well, that's the interesting part. In the church courtyard is a list of everyone buried there. I was most excited to learn John Harrison, the 'discoverer' of longitude was buried out front. (At this point, Mrs. Bulldog is saying "What a nerd I married") But also included on this list was John Constable! Sheer luck had led us to some rather interesting historic locations, and I was totally wrapped up in the moment. I was further pampered by getting to spend several hours in the National Gallery yet again, revisiting many of my old friends.
If you like art, please check out this series on YouTube. I promise it's worth your time, and make sure you have a cocktail in hand.
There have been times in my life when I would have preferred being a serf safely working a lord's cabbage fields instead of taking on all of the risks and responsibilities that I have done.
I tend to do most of my thinking in the morning shower where there are no welcome distractions. This morning, some of my thoughts had to do with virus panic and the desire for a risk-free life, if not a death-free life. Most of all of our ancestors were serfs, slaves, or something similar, for thousands of years.
Maybe it's dreams of childhood, or dreams of Eden, or some vision of utopia or Heaven that inspire. One thing diseases do is to remind us to be humble in the face of nature. Two days ago an asteroid passed close to earth, which could have eliminated much of civilization not to mention millions of humans.
Are governments supposed to have the powers to do the job of an all-powerful, merciful, and loving God? I kind-of thought so, or hoped so, in my youth, but no more. Life, even as a peaceful serf with others well-armed to protect me, was no free life. Relatively safe, but no freedom or opportunity.
Fears of injury, damage, financial ruin, or death? Most of us have those. Rightly so. But there is probably a Bell Curve (as with most things) of fearfulness and risk-aversion amongst humans. An ordinary pandemic, like the Hong Kong flu of 1968, or another Chinese bug of 2020, highlights that as you can probably see in the people you know. There is such a range of fear.
There is prudence of course, but in the end there is no safety in life if one lives with energy and adventurousness. The most dangerous things I do in life is to drive my car and tractor, ride my horses, and to invest.
If you want a risk-free life, try another planet or become a timid mouse.
Do we all agree that nobody knows what the future holds? Or do I have to prove it to you? I ask this because there are some well-studied media effects which suggest that simply appearing in media provides credibility. There was a well-known series of excellent studies by Stanford researchers that have shown, for example, that children take media literally. If you show them a bag of popcorn on a television set and ask them what will happen if you turn the TV upside down, the children say the popcorn will fall out of the bag. This result would be amusing if it were confined to children. But the studies show that no one is exempt. All human beings are subject to this media effect, including those of us who think we are self-aware and hip and knowledgeable.
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them...
You can see where Mao came from. His horrors were just normal before him. Of course, this is historical fiction but Fraser tried to make it feel realistic. Sir Harry, I feel, was the original James Bond.
From Amazon:
Lusting after a clergyman’s wife, smuggling opium to Hong Kong, coupling with an Amazonian woman river pirate, groveling before a ruthless warlord, and becoming the sexual plaything of the most beautiful and evil woman in the world, Sir Harry Flashman, the supreme antihero of the Victorian era, is ready to rise to the occasion to matter what depths of dishonor he must plumb. In this uninhibited and uproarious adventure, Flashman is once again at his irascible best.
Yesterday (3/18) I was watching CBS Morning News. I do tend to watch in the morning before I catch my train, usually not more then 20 minutes to see headlines. Now, working from home, I have tended to watch the entire 3 hours (I watch the local morning portion from 6-7 as I work). I'm no longer surprised at the hyperbole and panic in their reports. Normally it shouldn't matter, but in these unusual times with people watching TV constantly, it's very concerning.
Yes, they do pepper in 'feel good' stories of people giving away products, time, and effort (this morning, a distillery that has shifted to making and giving away sanitizer) in order to limit the panic reporting. These are of a particular type, though. All are about people voluntarily giving of themselves. Key word "voluntarily", something which is rarely mentioned in reporting. I often wonder why.
I found out yesterday when one of the CBS anchors, Jeff Glor, exposed his massive ignorance with this statement (may not be exact, but close enough). "It's nice to see people putting capitalism aside and focusing on cooperation." Wait - WHAT?
Capitalism requires cooperation. Yes, competition is often pointed to as the hallmark of capital. Competition keeps prices down, competition produces innovation, competition leads to forward thinking and proactive behaviors. Competition is critical to capitalism. However, every company would fail if its workers didn't cooperate. Every exchange would fail if the two parties involved did not cooperate because every exchange has to be based on mutual benefit. Every deal between businesses would fail if there wasn't cooperation. Cooperation is essential to every facet of capitalism. I'll compare it to any team sport. The competition between the teams yields high levels of performance from the teams themselves (front office down to the field), but requires the cooperation between teams to set rules, engage in trades, and agree on method of determining winners. It also requires cooperation on the field between team members to make the competition itself intriguing and interesting to watch (or engage in).
This failure on the part of journalists is increasing daily, and it was happening before the panic of the pandemic. It's becoming more common. After all, they are playing to the fears every day. We were told that, at this stage, the number of deaths would double every day. Yesterday, 104 people in the US had died. Today, it's 155. That's close to a 50% increase, which is the highest it's been, and while the number of dead is likely to increase, we shall see if the rate increases. However, the 'model' is still what we're comparing to, and even in regions hardest hit the 'model' hasn't played out. Total worldwide deaths still haven't doubled every day, even with the worst hit places being accounted for. We haven't even topped 10,000. So panic is the only way to describe coverage. We do not know real mortality rates, mainly because we do not know real rates of infection. For what it's worth, I am still convinced I had a very mild form of it already, and several other friends believe they did, as well. None of us have been tested, and I see no reason to be tested.
Jeff Glor's statement, in my opinion, is starting to look more and more like the reason behind the panic. There is an agenda being pushed and it's incumbent upon us to be aware of - and push back against - that agenda with every opportunity we have. Keep informing people that journalists are just tools and these tools are often poorly employed and poorly informed.
Marat's eulogy was given by the Marquis de Sade, a rather fitting person given the ideologies he promoted, which led to the Reign of Terror.
As I spoke with a friend this morning, we discussed the 'freak-out' and I immediately flashed to one of my favorite movies, so I thought I'd share. Wonka loved a good freak-out, and used it to his benefit to get to what he wanted. I don't think it's far-fetched to believe something too dissimilar is going on now. The boat ride was frightening, most of the participants were disturbed, uncomfortable and angry. It seemed the world was ending. Then...destination arrived, all was well and life went on, though not quite as before.
An interesting side note: none of the actors were told what would occur during this scene as it was filmed, many of the reactions are real. The children, unaware that Wilder was going to sing, thought he was going crazy.
We have superb speakers, extravagant. Living room and bedroom. We happily live with no TV out in the country. Music-lovers, on a Brahms kick now. Live music is better, but how often? And I do not like to waste my time on live music unless I have heard it at home a few times first to get the idea of it. Otherwise, first time is too complex for me to process.
Computer music is good enough for pop or folk, but not for serious "adult" music. Try buying a good 6-CD player now to run through your fancy amp and fancy speakers. I have 1000 CDs, all important to me. Many operas. My player must have gotten the coronavirus, because it seems to have died.
I have tried "used" or refubished players. Not a good idea, sadly. That is from experience.
I welcome your ideas. The ones I find cost almost double what they used to cost. Do I need to spend $500 for a CD component? I have two great old amps which have lasted forever.
Pretty good advice for Liberal Arts students. A quote:
What follows is advice I would offer to any student with the good fortune to study such a course. You enjoy a remarkable opportunity—afforded inside what Oakeshott called “the interim,” a sunny recess between the sheltered world of childhood and adolescence, and the onerous responsibilities of adulthood—to enjoy without distraction an induction into a great inheritance. It is unlikely you will get it again. I hope the thoughts I have assembled here will help you make the most of your experience. They are not exhaustive and they are not gospel. You can judge their value for yourself as you pursue your studies.
A long read but worth every minute: 
I am a fan of John Constable's work. I will admit this is something I picked up from my father, and something I continued on with while studying in London in 1983. I did several papers on his work that semester, and spent a great deal of time in the National Gallery. I will, quite selfishly, say I was very happy to have my father join me and my class as we did presentations on various pieces. That day I did a little piece on Constable's "The Hay Wain" and having him there made me very nervous.
Yesterday (3/18) I was watching CBS Morning News. I do tend to watch in the morning before I catch my train, usually not more then 20 minutes to see headlines. Now, working from home, I have tended to watch the entire 3 hours (I watch the local morning portion from 6-7 as I work). I'm no longer surprised at the hyperbole and panic in their reports. Normally it shouldn't matter, but in these unusual times with people watching TV constantly, it's very concerning. 
Opening the books on running a restaurant: 
CDs are our basic home music.