Occupation of Independence

In my line of work, it would not do to be afraid of heights, and I'm not.  But it is actually an advantage to freak out when seeing mining shafts or strange holes in the ground.  A pleasant walk along a new arroyo can suddenly get a little dramatic when encountering a strange hole.   We were walking downstream when this hole came along.  I was so glad my little cutie was on a leash.  At first the hole seemed like it was part of an old mine, but after all, it was in the middle of the "water channel." What would it look like from the opposite side, the downstream side? OK, so it was a strange-shaped hole made by water.  Whenever you see something like this, you wonder what was so unusual about the rocks that caused such a strange shape. In general, reading an article on Wikipedia is no help.  The geology articles are just jargon and memorization.  I want to understand processes, and how the geology shaped the landscape -- that is, things I can see a...

Have you seen photos of those fires in LA?!  And yet, they say only 16 people have died.  To have such a low fatality count must mean that somebody is doing something right. But given such a low count, is it not possible that too much attention is paid to the LA fires?   Or does that sound cruelly indifferent?  Even one human death that is unnecessary is a tragedy, after all. But if that is true, why have Americans been completely indifferent to the half million unnecessary deaths in Ukraine that their own government is responsible for?  That tragedy might be winding down, finally.  But the American government is also largely responsible for the tragedy in the Mideast, which could get far worse. But it's not just a matter of numbers, you say.  The dead in LA are my countrymen.  But are they?  I don't consider the Left Coast to be my countrymen any more than Ukrainians or Gazans, and these latter peoples are suffering much more.  It makes...

  Sometimes it isn't helpful to be too good at being a 'late adopter' of new technology.  Until recently I resisted tablets because they were overpriced and too redundant with a laptop.  I just did not appreciate how much easier it is to relax with a tablet, while consuming media.    I even relax better while reading books with the tablet, compared to using a handheld eBook device like Kobo or Kindle. There is something about the keyboard of a laptop that makes me think I am working in an office.  I have tried covering the keyboard with paper or something, in order to escape that overly serious mindset.  But it didn't work. Adding a separate keyboard to a tablet will virtually make it a laptop-replacement.  But I resisted this.  Let the tablet stay in relaxation mode!  Let it maintain a separate personality.  It might be milking the act a little to say that the tablet has been 'transformative,' but it has. In case you are wondering ...

So, Trump wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."   Will he also rename the state of New Mexico, New America?  I'll give him credit for trying to get the USA to focus on North America, rather than places 6000 miles away on the Eurasian continent.   It seems that Trump 2.0 is just going to be a re-run of Trump 1.0.  He will spend his days as a publicity hound and loud-mouth.  What do you expect from a "leader" who has no real political ideals, and who only wants to be president in order to be the Entertainment Celebrity in Chief?