Joke for the last day of July

What do you call a cow with only two legs?

                 Lean Beef

Mampus (n)

Another English Gibber: Mampus.

An unused word for 'crowd'

Part of me thinks they are making these words up.

July 30 Joke

Can your cowculator tell you why a milking stool only has three legs?

                         The Cow has the udder.

The Problem with the Google of Today

I remember about 8 or 9 years ago, when Google was really growing, I was having a lot of trouble with Yahoo's email system. Buttons weren't working. They were pioneering a new look I didn't happen to like. It was slow, and plastered in moving ads. And their radio system, still my favorite I've used, disappeared. It was getting a little glitchy, so I decided to try out the Empire's offering: Gmail.

What hooked me to Gmail wasn't the interface or the design, which I can get side-tracked with. What really endeared me to the system was the service. When Yahoo refused to allow me to download, forward, or otherwise save my old messages unless I paid them, Gmail went in and got them for me. All kinds of features other servers wanted payment for, Gmail would do for free. Google could provide almost any digital service I could want, somehow for free. The economics of this still escapes me, but it's valuable to a penny-pincher or the poor. It was very egalitarian. Sure, they were a monolithic economic empire, which was bad, but they provided. Which was nice.

They are still a monolithic empire, but the Google of today is moving ever faster away from that service-first mentality. Examples abound over the last few years. When Plus came out, with it's horrible name and unproven support, they began cancelling other services which already had their built-up user-base, like Buzz and Reader. Almost as if they were trying to force people into something else. Not by adapting them together, not by slowly merging and supporting the features of each, but by taking away the other platform. Today, G-Calendar has quit sending SMS notifications. Because most people have smartphones. And those who don't just better get one! There will be a "fresher and faster version of Drive soon. Get it now or make sure you are ready for it later." That sounds like a threat. So far, this new fresh and fast Drive loses, or makes more difficult, functionality I have come to rely on.

Perhaps it's easy to forget in that monolithic techie tower of theirs, further and further away from their humble beginnings, is that only most people have smartphones. Only some people are fed up with Facebook. There still are the poor, there still are the Luddites. There's still a bunch of people who do not want, and cannot get, calendar notifications through their apps. People will not respond to coercion when there are options. Instead, we'll just go somewhere else because we cannot rely on Google anymore; hoping that there is someone else out there we can rely on.

That's what it really comes down to. reliability. The Google of Yesterday was reliable. The Google of Today is trying so hard to be on the bleeding edge, so hard to be as fancy and easy-to-use (and useless) as Apple, their reliability is suffering. With Google, one of the only things you can rely on is that, someday, they'll get tired of a project and cancel it, leaving you without mobile notifications, or encouraging you to use someone else's online calendar program. Either way, they will be hacking off another collection of their user-base like an unwanted toe.

Why would you become part of that user-base?

The thing that frustrates me most about this is the wasting potential. I am less and less of a fan of Google stuff, but I still see Google as having the best position to make great tools. Apple is so invested in form, they are useless to me. Plus they are the 1% -- They really don't need more money. Worst of all, Apple is committed to taking away user freedom in favor of corporate control, just a little bit each day so we don't notice what we've lost. They are primary drivers in trends that take control away from their users like we're naughty children. They neurotically close up their systems, and have been forcing people toward Apple-only homes since their inception. Even their customer support is autocratic. Microsoft has two-decades experience making the most frustrating systems I've used. Google at least has some intact open-source principles and community driven development. Anyone can design apps for Drive, Gmail, Android, Chrome, et cetera. Once, they had lab features, to make your system a little customized. Once, they listened.

Perhaps I am naive, but I still believe that, as a majority, Google still believes in humanitarian ideals. Their Company Philosophy is written with it; their old, often ridiculed motto "Don't Be Evil" is still around. Perhaps its only my imagination. They don't make software like they used to, 'tis true, but I find it still better than most. For a little re-invigoration, that philosophy should be looked over again every other month or so and their software could improve again.

My ember-like optimism, but I also believe that Google has gotten to where it is because of that "Don't Be Evil" motto. If the company is able to reclaim an image as good-natured, it will inspire loyalty. And the best way to be perceived as good, is to be good. Just not-being-evil isn't quite good enough, we need goodness--especially in the corrupted wealthy world. Evil still prevails when the good do nothing; we need corporations which say: "enough! we will do good." To be as revolutionary as the American constitution was in its day.

Remember: "Evil prevails when the good do nothing."

Be good.

You're Better Off Volunteering

A group called "Independent Sector" calculates something they consider the 'value of volunteer time'. If you happen to use volunteers for anything (directing visitors, sitting under a tent), you can account for their donation of time with a monetary value. Because that's the only thing anyone ever seems to care about. Even though it means nothing.

Such as in this case. Independent Sector has created a very depressing situation: volunteers are valued more than employees.

In Colorado, the attributed value for a volunteer-hour is $25.68. Or 312% the value of a minimum wage employee.

Why should anyone go to work? This means my hour standing around in the Butterfly Pavilion talking to children about invertebrates was among the most valuable work anyone there was doing. In a way, this is true: this is what the Pavilion is there for. Education and child control is their mission. So it is the most valuable work. But I wasn't extensively trained. I never learned my way around. I wasn't qualified to be a primary source for invertebrate information. Not like the people who worked there; who were definitely not making that much money. Whether ladling soup or walking around collecting signatures, calling donors, you might be more valued as a volunteer.

Maybe just because they don't have to pay you. Which is infuriating.

An organization could quickly make themselves appear big and important. But it's obvious they don't really value volunteer time like this. Ever tried to volunteer? Sometimes it's hard to be accepted. It's often more difficult to process your paperwork than it might be worth. No one ever turns down a $25.68 donation. Even if it did take 3 hours to earn it, before taxes.

It's a ridiculous number. As much of a lie as saying Warren Buffet earned all his money. It shouldn't be tolerated, let alone propagated. Minimum wage in Colorado is $8.23. Which, while obviously depressed from its actual value (the living wage is supposedly around $10.79 for a single individual), should never be less than the value of a volunteer. What Independent Sector is really calculating is the average value we assign to any labor. All the hourly earnings of every production employee. Even those with 20 years experience, those in skilled labor, factory workers at Ball. Everyone working for in private, non-farm, non-supervisory positions.

Refulgent (adj)

A good ol' Latin like word to know if you're studying for a test or going through a traditional school system which cares more about old, dead, unchangeable words that no one uses than the language people speak today.

Know your history: Refulgent. From fulgere - to shine. It is a good descriptor for any writer, especially those in archaic genre's like fantasy.

Synonyms to narrow down your use: resplendent, gleaming, radiant, lustrous, reflecting a brilliant light, shining. Like a diamond in the rough, she was refulgent.

The Senses We Have

Far more than 5, or even the 7 I had once thought of. The original 5 can be an obvious class of their own: We have many, many senses. If you're a splitter, you might come up with 29 or more (though the expert splitters still only have 21). Here's a quick, organized, look at them:

External Senses, or sensing incoming information from the environment. These are what we traditionally think of when we think of senses. Aristotle still missed one.

Sight Suite

Color

Brightness

Taste Suite

Sweet

Salty

Sour

Bitter

Umami (sensing the amino acid glutamate)

Touch Suite

Pressure

Itch

Thermoception (hot / cold)

Nociception (pain)

Cutaneous (skin)

Hearing (I have not seen this broken into loudness and pitch, et cetera)

Smell (combines with taste to produce array of flavors)

Magnetoception (sense of direction using the earth's magnetic field)

Boundary Senses. I couldn't decide if these were external or internal. In a way, they are both: keeping track of the body in relation to the environment or itself. they are more than just internal monitors.

Proprioception (sense of where your body is)

Equilibrioception (balance, acceleration, directional changes, gravity; also known as the "Vestibular labyrinthine system")

Chronoception (sense of time. This one is under debate - there is no understood mechanism, but we have a demonstrated accurate sense of it)

Muscle tension

Internal Senses, or senses of the body. These are your status managers, making sure that everything is running fine.

Hunger

Thirst

"Stretch"

Full lungs (breathe out)

Full bladder (go pee!)

Full stomach (stop eating)

Full colon (go poo)

Blood vessels (this sense is implicated in headaches)

Chemoreception (detects blood-born hormones and drugs, oxygen levles... and triggers vomiting)

Thermoception (Internal body temperature)

Nociception (pain)

Somatic (bones / joints)

Visceral (organs)

Joke for July 28th

How does a cow do math?

                With a cowculator

Abulia (n)

The native state for most of my family.

Joke for July 24th

Do you know what a Cow's favorite subject is in school?

           Cowculus, of course.

Omniferous (adj)

Not omnivorous, it is a little more akin to omnipotent, or omnipresent. You might think it means "all iron", but it is rather more like being all things, having all parts, or doing all things.

It's poorly understood, unused word.

(sometimes spelled "Omnifarious" in America where the word is never used....)

Octothorpe (n)

Gibber English for "Ampersand" or "pound sign"

#

Majuscule (n)

Gibber English for a capital letter.

jusqu'auboutiste (n, adj)

Gibber English for a tool, a douchbag, an asshole, a moron, a sadist...

Crichton (n)

"A person who excels in all kinds of studies and pursuits."

Like Michael Crichton. 

or "a person of an inferior social status or lower place in a hierarchy who is far more talented and capable and has more natural authority than his or her superiors."

Like just about everyone...

Is that too judgmental?

Nurdle (v)

I couldn't understand this for a while:

"To work the ball away gently, especially to the leg side; to accumulate runs slowly by this method."

Then I saw that these are cricket terms.

I still don't understand. But I'm not British. And I don't play cricket.

Temerity (n)

Refusing to reschedule a trip even when your destination is on fire.

First Joke in July

Beginning the great series of Cow Jokes!

What does a Greek cow say?

               Mu.

Abature (n)

Here's a spiffy and well underused word. I'm surprised one doesn't come across it more often in fantasy or old-world set literature where people hunt a lot.

Maybe I just don't read enough hunting stories.

I can also imagine using "abature" metaphorically for following someone's paper trail in a detective novel or spy film. In this context, I think I leave a pretty wide abature.... I best not be committing any crimes.

The NSA and tech companies have become experts at following paper abature these days, too: one doesn't have to leave a very wide or obvious one to be followed around creepily.

Dragoman (n)

Gibber English for an interpreter.