Category: observations (Page 1 of 3)

accidental Photography

2024-01-03 / ron

I’m not a photographer.

I can take decent snapshots with a decent camera. Fortunately, modern smartphone cameras are decent or better. Still, my photographs are functional at best. But hey, accidents happen. I took this photo while doing a survey of my new home so that I could annotate the photos with dimensions. It was some time later, when I was looking for something else, when I realized that I had taken a picture with some composition and meaning. This is from my back deck, looking out toward the ocean. It hasn’t been edited or enhanced in any way, beyond what the phone does automatically.

shower temperature control knob

2023-07-02 / ron

When I first heard about 3-D printing, one of my first thoughts was that it could be used to make repair parts for any equipment that has small, specialized plastic pieces (usually injection molded) that are difficult to produce, stock, inventory, catalog, and sell. In the glorious future I foresaw, appliances would come with .stl files for all their little proprietary plastic parts. It would enhance repairability while unburdening the supply chain from having to manage all the little pieces that are then saddled with high logistical costs. Continue reading

Sock-Eating Shoes

2022-12-31 / ron

tl;dr a sprinkling of baby powder curbed my shoes’ evil sock-eating tendencies

I have been plagued with foot pain for as long as I can remember. As a consequence, I have tried countless different kinds of shoes, from cheap to pricey, but have worn flip-flops or gone barefoot most of my life. I’d estimate I have spent over $10,000 on shoes and never found a comfortable pair… until last year. I had been wearing some Oofos flip-flops that I found remarkably comfortable, and discovered that they sold shoes as well. I decided to try a pair.

a three hour tour

2022-03-12 / ron

The plan was to hike the Dipsea trail, a delightful 7+ mile walk from Mill Valley, California to Stinson beach. Wikipedia says:

The Dipsea is well known for its scenic course and challenging trails.^[32] The race starts on Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley, near Miller Avenue, in front of the old train depot (now a bookstore). After traversing a few blocks in Mill Valley’s downtown, runners climb 688 stairs^[33] (now 700 stairs, after the renovation of the middle section in Nov 2017) leading up the side of Mount Tamalpais, and then pass through Muir Woods National Monument, Mount Tamalpais State Park, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

eyes above the mask

2020-08-16 / ron

Last month I took a road trip to Denver, about 1,100 miles each way. I wanted to visit one of my longest, dearest (never “oldest”!) friends who had contracted COVID-19 in early March and who had largely been in isolation since with severe aftereffects (a class of patients who’ve recently gained the moniker “long-haulers”). Continue reading

Black Lives Matter

2020-07-30 / ron

twenty-one hour boxing day odyssey

2019-12-29 / ron

I was invited to an epic Christmas party in Pasadena. I was watching the weather all week, since a major storm was predicted and I feared that I-5 at Tejon Pass (“Grapevine Hill“) would have chain restrictions.

More Junk Science

2019-04-05 / ron

Well, it happened again. I was attending a group on management of adolescent behavior. I was there to observe and participate. Nobody knew I was a behavioral neuroscientist. I stayed quiet, until the group facilitator said “Science has proven that video games and social media contribute to behavior problems in adolescents.” I couldn’t keep quiet for that: I spend a great deal of time following the literature in this field, and there is no quality science that backs up that claim. In fact, believe it or not, the bulk of good scientific evidence (not observational reports or anecdotes) show a favorable effect of video games.

wishful lines

2019-02-03 / ron

not a CAPTCHA!

I love biking to work, but there are ways that the county government makes it challenging. One thing I run into daily is traffic lights. Often, crossing the street at a light will mean dismounting, walking my bike over to the pedestrian crossing button (often involving lifting the bike over a curb), waiting, then either walking my bike across the road in the crosswalk or crossing back over a right-turn-only lane so that I can ride across legally. Drivers in automobiles sometimes get angry either way: “why aren’t you riding!” if they have to wait for me while I’m walking in the crosswalk, or “get out of the road” if I’m going back to the main traffic lane after pushing the button.

thought innovation

2018-10-28 / ron

Sometimes, it’s simple things. We’re surrounded by wonders like smart phones and miracle drugs, but sometimes innovation can come entirely from just thinking about a problem differently. If you took an iPhone X 30 years into the past, it wouldn’t do much. Oh, it might be a shiny curiosity, but its function would be limited. Nor would someone in 1988 be able to disassemble it, discover its “secret” and make more of them: the main secret is layer upon layer upon layer of incremental improvements in processor design, chip fabrication, wireless technologies, display mechansims, battery capacities, operating system architecuture… the list goes on and on.