From an undated document circa 1989:

The easiest kind of letter to write is one to someone you know well. You know what interests him and what doesn’t. There is little chance of his misunderstanding you, and since you share a common background, there are many things which can be left unsaid. There is no need to chew the end of your pen before beginning to write. The friendship which exists causes the ideas to flow.

When, however, your correspondent is unknown or scarcely known, when he comes from a different country and speaks a different tongue, when you know neither his interests nor his opinions, then the pen is apt to be nibbled for a considerable time. In this case you may find the following hints useful.

Continue reading “Hints on Letter Writing”

You know how toothpaste tubes have a toll-free phone number on the back that invites “Questions?” Well here are my questions:

1. What kind of hosers have questions about toothpaste?
2. Do I use the whole tube of toothpaste each time I brush or what?
3. Why don’t you come out with orange juice-flavored toothpaste already?
4. Why do you sell small tubes of toothpaste? Is there a big market for people who plan to stop using toothpaste soon? (E.g., hospice patients, people getting dentures, etc.)

In an episode of “The Office,” Michael Scott drove his car into a pond when he put too much trust in his GPS navigator. I knew that some of the details could be a little bit off in the real world, but now I know I can’t even trust my Garmin to plan a route. On a recent drive in the New Orleans area, the female voice told me to “Turn right, board ferry.” With all the bridges around, I knew that it did not require a ferry to go from New Orleans to Lafitte. However, this damn device had actually directed me away from where I needed to go just because it thought a ferry was closer. How can I make this navigator plan a decent route? In the setup options I had never seen a checkbox for “favor bridges” or “avoid ferries.” What an annoyance. “Recalculating,” she said as I drove past the entrance to the ferry boarding area. Recalculating is right, you stupid box of electronics. What’s next? “Jump curb for shortcut”? “Activate amphibious apparatus and cross swamp”? “Speed up and jump over missing bridge section”? “Increase speed to 88 miles per hour and enter year 1955”?

The year — probably ’95. The scene — the shop at the residence of my friend. He and I were hanging out as we often did, and we always acted silly. One of my jokes was completely unremarkable: I picked up the telephone handset, listened for a dial tone, and hung up. “It works,” I announced. Later that day, my friend’s sister came home, and she picked up a telephone, put it to her ear, said, “It works” — and she hung it up. Had she been spying on us? No, she was not even home at the time, it seemed. I think fate was just trying to amuse us. I hope so. (Or she did a good job of hiding.)

Later in life I became a telephone company technician. I often had to check dial tones. And then later the sister and I both went to law school.

The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, ”Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that… The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4=50, where E is the absolute temperature of the Earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed … [However] Revelation 21:8 says ”But the fearful, and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. 

Applied Optics, Vol. 11, A14, 1972

The posting of short status messages on services like Twitter is often called “micro-blogging.” The messages are limited to 140 characters. In a ridiculous development I have seen a service called Adocu in which you can post only one word, and the website calls it “nano-blogging.” If this is the trend, then I propose the next step to be “pico-blogging” in which you can only post a three-character code to communicate your status. After that there will be “femto-blogging” in which you can only post a single character. The logical conclusion will be “atto-blogging” in which you only set a flag, a one or a zero (on or off, yes or no). I don’t see how we can miniaturize any further. Micro-blogging is wacky enough already.

I have regrets over missing easy opportunities to see major cities.

Ottawa: I overslept and missed the bus for a college trip. A roommate could have woken me up but thought I wanted to sleep in. I was really planning to go.

Philadelphia: About 30 miles away in the late afternoon I thought I had done enough driving for the day and dismissed the idea of visiting. Now I realize I should have just forged ahead and seen at least a couple of sights.

New Orleans: I had driven a charter bus for a fishing trip less than 30 miles away and the idea of visiting was proposed. Since I had not researched where to drive or park, I was too nervous about the idea to consider it. This was a few months before Hurricane Katrina, and now it’s too late to see the city the way it was at that time.

This is the wackiest receipt I’ve ever gotten from a Bojangles’. First, it came from the “DT PRINTER PRINTER.” The name of the “server” was certainly unique — “Firandy.” Then there is the mysterious message: “PEACE AND LOVE FROM Z CHOPSTICKS 8-5-06 – 10-12-07.”

This may be a boring topic, but house numbers or street addresses are important to the real estate we own, the mail we send, and the pizza we have delivered. We might prefer our own house number to be short and memorable. They are commonplace, everyday things, but there is often mystery in their assignment. The most familiar scheme for assigning is the system of block numbering, and another scheme uses distance, but the details vary. Why do numbers in Athens start at 100 but numbers in Oconee County start at 1000? Why do neighborhoods in Macon have four-digit addresses that all start with the same digit? For instance, in Sherwood Forest, where my grandparents lived, all the addresses start with a 2 followed by three more digits assigned in block style. What does the 2 mean?

These numbers communicate information, but it isn’t always clear what some of the information might be.

Allegedly the caffeine in 57.39 cans of Jolt Cola could kill me.

“How much of your favorite energy drink or soda would it take to kill you?”