September 22, 2023 - Yesterday, I listened to a really interesting podcast from RadioLab. The episode, which was from May 12, was titled "The War on Our Shore." The first half of the episode is about 9,000 balloons that Japan released during WWII to float over America. The large, paper balloons were made by Japanese school children, they were released from Japan from November 1944 to April 1945 after the Japanese military added multiple small bombs to hang from them, and about 10% made to to America. Since the balloons had no guidance systems, they mostly ended up falling into fields and forests around the West Coast. The bombs would explode if anyone tried to move the balloons. It was against the law in America to write any news stories about them, since that would have the effect of telling the Japanese where the balloons landed and help them refine their targeting.
The news stories about a Chinese spy balloon floating over America earlier this year made the podcast more interesting.
The second part of the podcast was about German prisoners of war in the United States during WWII. I think I may have written about that before. Hundreds of thousands of German prisoners, mostly captured during the battles in North Africa, ended up in prison camps in the US. And since there was a severe labor shortage, volunteers were allowed to work in farm fields for a small salary (about 80 cents per day). This caused a lot of anger from conservatives who felt the prisoners should be treated the same way European and American prisoners were treated by the Germans. It's an interesting point of view, since the conservatives were arguing that we should have been as evil as our enemies.
September 21, 2023 - The writers strike may end as early as today, according to CNBC. I'm really really looking forward to the return of late-night talk shows.
Meanwhile, I have a different kind of problem that may need solving soon. My car has a CD player, which is now generally considered to be obsolete. As I've mentioned many times, I use the CD player to listen to audio books I downloaded from my local library years ago. Four days ago I finished another audio book and wrote a comment about it. The next book I started listening to turned out to be terrible. It's the first time that has happened with an non-fiction audio book.
So, I had to quickly burn 12 CDs for another book. That left me with just 7 blank CDs. I visited some local stores, but all they had was packs of 10 CDs for $7.99.
I'm not going to spend $9.60 to burn a book onto 12 CDs! The stack of 100 blank CDs I bought some time ago cost just $25, or 25 cents per CD. So, it costs $3 to burn a book onto 12 CDs. And I've got several pending audio books that consist of 23 CDs.
So, yesterday I did an on-line search to see if there was anywhere I could still buy a stack of 100 blank CDs for about $25. Walmart had 1 stack left. I bought it, but when I drove over to Walmart to pick it up, they said they couldn't find the one they were supposed to still have in stock. So, they're going to mail it to me -- if they still have one somewhere.
There's at least one other on-line company that also stocks them. So, I should be able to listen to CD versions all the remaining audio books I have.
The "normal" way to listen to audio books these days is to listen to them on a "smartphone" or an MP3 player. I don't have a "smartphone", and using my MP3 player while driving would require me to leave it and the speaker in my car when I park the car in some parking lot.
Who cares? Probably no one. But it's something to write a comment about.
September 18, 2023 - The writers strike is showing no signs of ending any time soon. The problems seem unsolvable. Fortunately, I collect DVD versions of most of my favorite TV shows, so there's no real problem in finding something worthwhile to watch each evening. Here's a photo I took of part of my collection years ago:
I also keep computerized record of when I last watched a TV series (or a movie I have on DVD), and I have a printed listing in order by the last date watched. Back on Sept. 1, 2018, I bought copies of Seasons 1 through 6 of "The Good Wife" for $4.99 each at Best Buy. I watched Season #1, finishing on October 14, and I thought it was pretty good, but evidently not good enough to cause me to watch the other seasons. Here's how the IMDB describes the show:
Alicia Florrick has been a good wife to her husband, a former state's attorney. After a very humiliating sex and corruption scandal, he is behind bars. She must now provide for her family and returns to work as a litigator in a law firm.So, I watched other things. This was long before the writer's strike, so just watching the nightly talk shows occupied my time 4 nights per week. Then the writer's strike began in May, and suddenly my DVD collection became my main source of entertainment. On August 27, 2023, I finished watching Season #2 of "The Good Wife," on September 1, I finished Season #3, on September 5, I finished Season #4, on September 10, I finished Season #5, and on September 14, I finished Season #6. Wow! It's really an interesting look at courtroom battles and the lives of lawyers.
I don't have Season #7 (the final season), and it costs $42.92 on Amazon, so I moved on to watching "The Closer". I've got Seasons 1 - 4 of the 7 seasons. I'm still on Season 1. If it doesn't keep me interested, I might move on to "Mad Men." I have the first 3 seasons of that one, and I've never watched them.
Of course, there are also a lot of shows on cable that I could watch. I guess I'm just too lazy to go hunting for things to watch when I can see row after row of interesting shows (and movies) right in front of me.
September 17, 2023 - I'm still suffering a very bad case of "writers block." But fortunately, I'm still reading a lot, while also listening to audio books while driving. So, I have something to write about this morning. Yesterday, I finished listening to CD #7 of the 7-CD audio book version of "The Age Of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution."
It's an audio book I "borrowed" from my local library years ago, when you could download a copy of a book into your computer (or into your Kindle), and then "return" a copy of that book the next day, while retaining a copy to read when time permits - in this case, 3 or 4 years later.
I didn't particularly enjoy the book. While I enjoy reading about science and technology, biology isn't one of my interests. This book is about how biology is becoming part of technology: Virus-built batteries. Protein-based water filters. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Mind-reading bionic limbs. Computer-engineered crops.
And it seems clear that bio-engineered machines will become even more important in the future. Computer engineered crops already allow us to grow 177 bushels of corn per acre of land. A hundred years ago, it was difficult to get 17 bushels per acre. We're going to need a lot more corn and other foods as our population continues to increase.
