Record of Sale

I stopped into CVS to pick up a little bag of candy for a present. I took it to the cash register, tapped in my frequent shopper number and stuck my credit card into the reader. Like the Chef of the Future, zip, zip, at that point I should have been done. But I'm a person who likes his receipts. Ever since I got my first credit card, I have collected them after purchases to match up against my end-of-the month bill. Even though I can now get them texted or emailed to me, I still prefer the paper version. I opted for that on the reader, and waited for a short slip of paper. But out spit a receipt that could have served as a guide as to who was tall enough to ride Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

The "receipt" part of the receipt took up precious little space: the actual tally for my bag of candy consumed less than 3 inches of paper. But likely based on my past purchases as noted in my frequent shopper account, the rest of the yard long reckoning contained coupons for shaving cream, Band-Aids, vitamin C and a host of other sundry items that I had picked up over the last year or so. Beyond that there was an invitation to provide feedback. Upcoming promotions. Legal disclaimers. Status of my frequent shopper account. All things I neither needed or wanted. And all those notes add up: estimates are that US businesses generate about 180,000 tons of paper receipts per year. 

But it turns out that at issue is not just the use of trees, but the ink, or more precisely, the coating. Many of those paper receipts are not printed on regular stock, but on coated paper using a thermal process. That's what makes them shiny and liable to fade or smudge when scratched with a fingernail. It's cheap, which is why it's used. But it's also potentially hazardous to your health. That's because the coating on the paper is usually BPA, the same stuff that was banned from baby bottles and sippy cups in 2012, and phased out of water bottles for adults shortly thereafter. That coating also makes the paper unable to be recycled. 

That one-two combo of environmental impact and a known toxin is what led California Assemblyman Phil Ting to introduce a bill that would require businesses to provide electronic receipts by default unless a customer asks for a paper one. Patterned after a similar measure aimed at plastic straws, the bill would give businesses until 2022 to comply. Green legislation? Healthier living? Moving physical assets to electronic alternatives? Adding to California's progressive pedigree? Check, check, check, check. Legislation made in liberal heaven.

Not so fast. The "Skip the Slip" legislation was derailed by the "Keep the Receipt" campaign organized by the American Forest and Paper Association. They and their business associates leaned on the members of the State Legislature to first scale it back, and then eventually kill the bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Assemblyman Ting said, "We are very disappointed. We think this bill made a lot of sense and had clear environmental impacts." But Big Paper went to battle with a full ream. Said Lobbyist Jessica Mause, "We're pleased that legislators recognized paper receipts are not only preferred by the majority of consumers, but are also safe for consumers and employees." Probably helped that they were not writing receipts, but rather checks.

As it turns out, the battle isn't over, just switching coasts. New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has announced his intent to introduce similar legislation banning BPA coated receipts. It would require all stores and banks that issue paper receipts to use recyclable paper, and even for large stores and banks to provide receptacles in which to dump them. Repeated violators would incur fines of as much as $1,000. Soon receipts could join foie gras, flavored e-cigarette and wild bird poaching as outlawed in the Big Apple.

Speaking for myself, even if this becomes law, if I buy a pack of mints in New York City I'll still be able to get my sliver of paper and check it off against my monthly reckoning. And those end of month tallies themselves? They keep trying to get me paperless there as well. They can dream.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has an accounting system that works. Mostly. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Year in Rhyme

It's the week next to Christmas, time to sit back and reflect
On all that has happened till now and what's left
For if Nineteen was a movie it's trailer would be long
Thrills, spills and chills, things right and things wrong

On these shores daily, more sturm and more drang
As Dems and Repubs further hardened their gangs
Trade, guns, immigration, neither side could be swayed
Lots of talk but no listening, whatever the play

In the battle to lead, the president scorching the ground
Throwing insults and tweets, never once backing down
As to who takes him on, will it be Bernie? Mayor Pete?
Elizabeth, Joe or Amy? Who will be the one to bring heat?

The year ends with impeachment, just the third time they say
A Senate trial next year will let all have their say
Yet when all is done, odds are nothing will have changed
We'll be back where we were, just tired and deranged

Across the Atlantic, the story's the same
In Britain with Brexit their situation's untamed
Teresa stepped down, Boris elbowed on in
Now he has a new mandate, we'll see how it spins

Elsewhere the world churned here and there
A whisper in Hong Kong turned into a blare
Yellow vests smothered France, a challenge to Macron
Two tourist destinations, now that appeal is far gone

Assange was arrested, Notre Dame burned like a twig
Bibi was indicted, and Modi won big
Venezuela, Brazil, just two of the spots
Where protests and politics made everything hot

But it wasn't just politics that made all the news
Greta showed that a kid could have very grownup views
Boeing grounded the MAX, Elon's pickup looks pretty sweet
College admissions were bought on the cheat

The weather made news, but it was way more than rain
The swings seemed more violent, it just can't be tamed
In Japan and in India the heat was extreme
In the Bahamas Dorian brought misery not seen

Winners in games with balls big and small,
The Final Four was Virginia, Nats were classic in the fall
Tiger reclaimed the Masters, Toronto turned Golden to tin
Gronk helped Tom take another, Novak beat Roger to win

In eyeballs per contest, more than ever before
We all found a screen to watch US women soar
The queens of the pitch, with Megan on top
Won World Cup honors, they couldn't be stopped

Another Meghan and Prince Harry gave Archie his day
He's sixth after Charles if the Queen ever gives way
But as toddlers to note, he's just one of the rest
A Mandalorian sidekick, Baby Yoda claims best

As always we've lost some at the top of their game
They stood above others, we all knew their fame
Goodbye Toni Morrison, Tim Conway as well
Doris Day, Carol Spinney, Karl Lagerfeld

And that's just a few happenings, there much more to say
It was a year filled with history that was made every day
We could start now to recite, but just too much to list
No matter how long the tally there would be so much we missed

So let's just leave it at that, and let say to you here
Many thanks for reading this space through the year
Merry, Happy, Joyous, may your life have much glee
Best wishes for the holiday, and a happy '20.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford wishes all a safe holiday. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Just Turn It On

Our new television ranks up there with our phones as one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology in our house. Sure, it has a great screen. But it also has "smart" technology, making it as much computer as it is display. It can stream shows from various services. It can search for content wherever it may be. It has voice assistance which enabling it to respond to verbal cues. On top of all that, it can accept content my phone throws its way, it can link up with my Google account and it can tell me the weather. If I were Alexa, I would be very scared.

But for all that complexity it also shares a trait that more and more tech items have, or more accurately, do not have. For in spite of the fact that there is more computing power packed into this slab of pixels than put men on the moon, in spite of its clean lines and minimalist aesthetic, in spite of it weighing less than a labradoodle, it comes with almost no instructions. 

To be fair, it has a safety guide, filled with legalese cautions and warnings, all but absolving its makers of any possible issues. It has a mounting template, showing where to drill holes to hang it up should we forgo the stand. And it has a user guide that at first blush looks comprehensive, until you realize it's the same 20 pages printed three times in English, French and Spanish.

But even within those twenty pages there is little in the way of "instructions." There are descriptions of the buttons on the remote, and a layout of the inputs on the rear. There is a diagram showing how to use the stand, and a troubleshooting guide for when things don't work. And there are pages of technical specifications and compliance notices. But if you were to wonder, "How do I open up the HBO app and find my favorite episode of ‘Game of Thrones?'" you would have an easier time finding information on how to handle White Walkers.

The culprits are many, but top of the list is Steve Jobs. I'm not an Apple devotee, but you have to give credit where credit is due. In his push to make Apple products sleek and innovative and intuitive, he made them simple. Not simple as in limited in intelligence, but simple as in unadorned and free of complications. The result is products that, if you have a basic knowledge of how to interact with "things," function as you would imagine. That's not to say that there aren't myriads of complexities buried under the hood. Apple's operating systems can be, to quote Winston Churchill, "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But to make its products louder you push the volume switch up, and to make it softer you push it down. So there.

It's an infection that has spread in a good way. The result is that, for most well designed goods, things just make sense. That goes for TV's, but also for instapots and phones and vacuums. Should you need to know how to simmer, then braise, or how to connect a second Bluetooth device, or how to add the left-handed underwater deep scrubbing widget, it's all available online, along with tips and tricks to get that deep cleaning power. But if like 99.9% of the users out there, you never go beyond the factory default/out-of-the-box settings, you're good. Turn it on and it works. 

Indeed, reading the manual used to be the mark of an enlightened consumer. But it's a hard habit to break, even if it no longer means anything. A friend told me of her elderly mother who was having a problem with her old car. Carol suggested taking it to the garage, but Mom insisted on reading the manual to diagnose the problem. Carol walked in to find Mom going through the book from cover to cover, after which she put it down, then said, "OK, now you can take it to get repaired." Well, she tried.

Mom, no pressure anymore. No manual, no expectation. Do like I did with my new television, indeed what most of us do: plug it in and turn it on. Odds are you'lll be fine. As Elon Musk said, "Any product that needs a manual to work is broken."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford keeps manuals, but never looks at them. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Too Many, Too Much

It was late when Sam and I finished talking, and I flipped on the front flood lights to help him get to his car. As I walked him out, I was surprised that it seemed darker than I was expecting. I glanced up to the corner of the house to see that one of the two bulbs was burnt out. No matter. I made a mental note to grab a spare from the basement and swap it out the next day. 

Checking our stash in the morning, I saw that there was no appropriate replacement. Once again I had done what I do so often: used the last one in our supply, and forgot to write it on a list to get a backup. It's a sin I am guilty of regularly in the kitchen.  I use up the last of the mustard or chicken breasts or peanuts, don't make a note of it, then grouse when I go to reach for the same and find none in the pantry. To paraphrase "Pogo" creator Walt Kelly, I have met the enemy and he is me. 

Thankfully this time no recipe was hanging in the balance. As we all do many times when we need something, I went to my computer and punched up Amazon. As the page loaded, I though what best to put into the search bar to find what I wanted. "Flood light exterior bulb" seemed to capture it. And it must have to them as well, for almost before my fingers left the keys up popped my choices. But not just one or two: as the legend said at the top "Showing 1-48 of thousands of results." 

So it is with much today. Given any choice we are confronted not with a few but with an overload of possibilities. There is almost nothing that you need or want that doesn't have an entire universe of options, any of which will work. It's the same feeling as when you walk into a diner and they hand you a 27-page laminated menu showing every food ever made and several you‘re didn't even know existed. I can never decide between a Western omelet, spanakopita or a garden salad with buffalo chicken, even if all I came in for was a cup of coffee. 

You see it everywhere. At last count 28 people were vying for the Democratic nomination for president. Our cable package has over 425 channels of programming for us to watch. There are 15 different types of milk at our local grocery store: factor in the various sizes from pint to quart to half gallon, and the number of possibilities quickly reaches nearly a hundred. A recent Rasmussen survey found that while 56% of American adults use an online streaming service to watch TV and movies, 34% complain of too many choices. Even within a given service it can be overwhelming: Netflix has over 6000 titles from which you can pick. 

Having more choices may sound like a fine idea, but it actually makes it harder to choose. Alvin Toffler coined the term "choice overload" in his 1970 classic "Future Shock" as when "the advantages of diversity and individualization are canceled by the complexity of buyer's decision-making process." The bottom line is that when confronted with a myriad of choices we are tempted not do chose anything versus choosing the "wrong" thing. Take retirement plans. Studies show that when employees have just 5 options, about 70% choose a plan. But when the options expand to 35, participation actually drops to 63%. I do the same thing when confronted with multiple food stalls. I look and look and look. Do I want Korean barbeque? How about Vietnamese Banh Mi? That Cuban sandwich looks great, as does the Italian sausage and peppers. I want them all, and eventually get so hungry I settle for the one with the shortest line, and almost instantly regret my decision. I'm sure the jambalaya would have been better. 

As to light bulbs, do I want LED or Halogen, two pack or 6, motions sensing or regular? After 15 minutes of looking, I gave up in frustration. Tomorow I'll take out the old bulb, and stop by the hardware store. I'll show it to the guy, he'll show my three options and I'll buy the cheapest. Sometimes less is more.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford often second guesses his first choice. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Give Them The Money

As you read this we stand on the cusp of the launch party for the yearly orgy known as the Holiday Shopping Season. This year will likely be more frantic than usual: due to an anomaly of the calendar, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas will be a full six days shorter this year than in 2018. Indeed, we haven't had a Thanksgiving occur this late into November since 2013. So forget good cheer and fellowship: the only thing more divisive than impeachment will be who gets the last Sparkle Princess Elsa doll left on the shelf. 

Not to worry, there is plenty of other loot that is begging to be bought. There are the practical things, like crossbody handbags, flannel pajamas and barbeque tools. There are the items of questionable utility, such as an agate cheese board, a reusable straw and a self-rolling yoga mat. And there are those aimed at those with very particular interests, like a Harry Potter advent calendar, a custom silk-screened cat pillow or a beauty products mini refrigerator. (Your exfoliating cream will be so much more refreshing when it's cool, or so they say.) 

As always every year, there are the items which are new and unique, but which no one really wants. There's a water bottle with a crystal in it. Other than taking up space for additional liquid and adding weight, it does nothing to keep you hydrated. There are ankle scarves, designed to wrap around above your shoes and keep your joints warm, in case the thought of just wearing boots never comes up when it gets cold. And there are long distance touch bracelets, for you and your mate to don, so you can set the other's to vibrate when you want them to know you are thinking of them. Now you know what your dog feels when he accidentally crosses your invisible fence. 

Not surprisingly, most people want none of this stuff. True, you might actually need a new pair of slippers, or your hair dryer is on its last legs. Perhaps ten years ago you would have toughed it out, then dropped generous hints come Thanksgiving that if Santa was looking for a good idea that yes, you could really use a new pair of black gloves. Now it's far more likely that if anything you own is really an issue, you punch up Amazon, find a replacement that does the trick, and it shows up in 37 minutes at your front door. No reindeer sleigh necessary. 

Perhaps all that is why a recent survey says don't even try and find the perfect aroma candle. Early Warning Services, a fintech company owned by seven of the country's largest banks, just released the latest data from their October survey on the top gift for the coming season. And perhaps not surprisingly, it's not a physical thing at all, but cash. According to Ravi Loganathan, the company's Chief Data Officer, "For the second year in a row, our annual Holiday Survey found that people not only desire money as a gift, but are increasingly preferring it beyond physical gifts." Like almost everything else these days, Loganathan attributes this to our increasing use of technology and the internet: "Today's digital natives have a new understanding of what it means to give and receive." 

Across all generations, money for personal spending is the number one gift when ranked against anything else: 35% of all respondents put receiving money for personal spending as the gift they'd rather receive this holiday season, followed by the gift of an experience (22%), money for an experience (17%) and money for bills (13%). Among younger people, the numbers are even higher: Gen Z'ers are most likely to appreciate money as a gift, with 66% of respondents stating they prefer it because it allows them to spend on whatever they want or need. 

So put down that faux fur stocking cap. Cancel the order for the panini press. And return that weighed blanket. While you may have spent hours finding the perfect sponge holder and its ilk, most of that stuff will only get returned or regifted. Give them what they really want, which is not a replica Benjamin Franklin Kite and Key set, but actual Benjamins. It seems that for most, the best bottom line is really the bottom line.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford wants no bills for the holidays. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Strategic Supplies

I know how the Swiss feel. 

It's not because I'm generally neutral on things: I don't' really have a favorite meal or movie or vacation destination. It's not because I like to keep my financial transactions private: while I do have a Venmo account, it is set to stay mum when I use it. And it's not because I like chocolate: I do. Period. 

No, the reason I feel simpatico with them is that we too have a matching strategic reserve. Those are stockpiles that a country holds because they want to protect their citizens against the potential of a market shortage. For example, in this country, we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or the SPR. Maintained by the Department of Energy, the SPR is the largest emergency supply of its kind in the world, capable of holding up to 727 million barrels of oil. Squirreled away in vast underground caverns in Texas and Louisiana, the SPR acts as a hedge against supply shortages, whether they are caused by political forces or natural disasters. 

While the petroleum reserve is the most well know, it is hardly the only one. The Centers for Disease Control manages the Strategic National Stockpile, which includes millions of doses of vaccines, antidotes, antitoxins, antibiotics, and other medications. Scattered in warehouses across the nation, the idea is to be able to deliver the requisite medications within 12 hours of a natural disaster, disease outbreak and biological terrorist attack. Canada has a strategic maple syrup reserve, which is designed to smooth out supply glitches when maple trees turn fickle. India has cotton stockpiled to the tune of about 2.5 million bales as a, well, cushion against harvest issues. And starting in World War II, we have had a National Raisin Reserve, though it was less about protecting against shortages than in maintaining prices. Indeed, in 2015 the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, and decreed you have the right to let your grapes shrivel without federal interference. 

Still, reserves can serve a vital interest. Consider the National Helium Reserve, which was established in 1925. While the need for the gas has slackened now that dirigibles aren't considered state-of-the-art, it is a handy element to have. Still, in the name of deregulation, the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 started phasing out the Reserve, and even though it was extended by further legislation in 2013, the final stores are set to be sold off by 2021. All well and good, until you consider that this gas, used in MRI machines, research, and the production of fiber optic cables and computer chips, is experiencing a shortage. And without the cushion of a strategic reserve, prices have jumped 135% in a year. So until new supplies are discovered and new plants come on line, expect birthday balloons to droop and the Macy's Parade to be a bit less high flying. 

What does all this have to do with the Swiss? Well, while the country has strategic reserves of gas, jet fuel and heating oil as well as sugar, edible oils and animal feed, it also has a stockpile of coffee. Saying that the beverage is not "vital for life" it decided back in April to explore phasing out the 15,000 ton stash. And it set November of this year as the date for a final decision. But after a massive outcry, as well pressure from the industry group IG Kaffee and companies such as beverage heavyweight Nestle and supermarket chain Migros, the government just announced that it was reviewing its decision. As one of the world's biggest consumers of Joe, with the populace consuming nearly 20 pounds of coffee beans per person per year, the powers that be are reconsidering just how "vital for life" it is. As many have pointed out, they are waking up to smell the coffee. 

And the connection to me? Open the top cabinet in the kitchen in our house and you are likely to be hit on the head by a pound of two raining down from on high. Yes, honey, I know it's good to buy when on sale, and we will go through it. But at least for now, should the Swiss decide it's not in their national interest to keep a few beans for a rainy day, I will gladly offer up some of our reserve. As for payment, no currency needs to change hands. We have coffee, they have chocolate: need I say more?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford enjoys coffee hot and cold. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Everyday Superpowers

As we got close to show time, I gave the crew the usual warning that it would be their last chance for a bathroom break for a while. Unlike audience members who can get up and leave at any point, those of us responsible to make live shows happen don't have that luxury. From the time the action starts on stage until it takes a breather, we are obligated not to leave our positions. As such, a reminder to all of an available window to take a "bio break" is a standard courtesy for those who toil backstage. 

Also standard is an acknowledgement on the party line intercom system that one is indeed taking advantage of the opportunity. This is so all know that for that brief period of time that you are not available to operate your particular station, be it lights or sound or whatever. It may seem strange that a bunch of adults announces to each other that they are going to the bathroom like a group of toddlers, but it is an action born of necessity, and is part of the usual rituals of the job. 

Usually the report is simple: "Audio off" or "Lights walking away." Likewise, when a person returns, they announce that fact as well: "Video back" or "Switch here." Nothing more is required. But crews are like large families, and the more you work with each other the more you take liberties with routine comments. So it was hardly surprising when Patrick came back on headset and announced "Tape went and back," and then added a postscript: "But I didn't go for everyone." 

Of course, that begged the question: why not? And so a discussion was started: wouldn't that be a great superpower to have? After all, being able to be invisible, or to turn water into ice, or to teleport across a room is all well and good. But what superpowers would be really useful in the lives we now lead? If Patrick could indeed save poor folks from the need to stop what they were doing and go to the necessary room, Rest Room Man would truly be hailed as a savior. But he needed a better name: the consensus choice was Captain Pee Pee. 

It's not like there aren't other established superheroes with talents of questionable use. In "Legion of Super Heroes" there's a guy named Bouncing Boy. He can inflate himself to a giant beach ball shape, which enables him to, well, bounce. Not sure how that would take a bad guy out. X-Force's Gin Genie is able to generate seismic waves, a powerful weapon. Unfortunately the strength of the waves is equal to her blood alcohol level. So the only way she can use her powers is to be drunk, in which case she has no control over them, in which case she mows down her buddies as often as the villains. And then there's Stone Boy. As the name implies, he can turn himself into stone. But that's it. Turns. To. Stone. Unless there's a massive slab about to swing shut on humanity and he makes himself into a doorstop, it's a power of questionable utility. 

So back to Patrick. We decided his rest room powers would be up there with Garbage Girl, able to remember that it's garbage day, with powers to race around the house collecting refuse that morning and still get the cans to the curb before the truck arrives. Or Company Coming Guy, who, when the phones rings to say that someone is dropping by, could dust and pick up super fast before the doorbell rings. Or Laundry Lady, who could sort whites and colors in a flash, and boost the spin cycle to supersonic speeds to get it all done before you leave for work. 

Thankfully the time came for our session to start and we left our diversion behind. We spent the next 90 minutes focusing on the sound, lights and visuals that made for an effective presentation. Some Q&A with the crowd, and we wrapped another session showcasing the latest in marketing credit cards or drugs or something. It was time for a break, but some of us couldn't leave, as we had to rehearse the next session. If only the Captain were there to save us.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford would be known as Nap Man. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Pork TV

They say that this is the golden age of television. Far, far removed from the days of just three networks, there are now more outlets offering up more series than ever before. In fact there is speculation that next year's fall season might just be the last for the traditional roll out of new shows, based on the simple fact that they are rolling out new shows everywhere all the time. It was just a few short years ago that Netflix was revolutionary, becoming the first non over-the-air or cable service to offer up an episodic offering. Now Amazon, Hulu and CBS All Access are not only viable alternatives to traditional outlets, but compete with and even best them as measured by viewers, awards or just water cooler buzz.

To be sure, as in most areas, the field is dominated by a few major players. With production and marketing budgets in the millions, their offerings are the ones you hear about most often. That doesn't mean that they are the best, just merely the best promoted. Take the flagship offering from Apple's new service, Apple TV+. Called "The Morning Show," it stars such bankable names as Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell and Reese Witherspoon. Yet all that talent doesn't make it a "must watch." As one review put it, "It's familiar, which is no sin, but it's unmemorable, which is no asset." It continues: "Apple founder Steve Jobs was fond of the line, ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal.' Thus far, ‘The Morning Show' is not worth calling the cops on." That has got to truly hurt the Cupertino faithful.

"The Morning Show" and its siblings may have unusual parents and unique distribution models, but at their hearts they are still old school TV, be they comedy, drama or some hybrid. Subject matter and sensibilities aside, they would be equally at home on CBS at 9:00PM on a Thursday night. That's not something you can say about a new series that debuted this week from the National Pork Board. Not only you can view it on YouTube, Facebook or even a virtual reality Headset, it's unlikely to be found sandwiched between "Chicago Med, "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D." even if it is also shot in the Midwest.

Filmed in partnership with the Minnesota Pork Board and Christensen Farms located in Sleepy Eye, MN, it's called "Pig Farming: The VR Experience." Shot with a 360 degree camera that enables you to look around the tour progresses, it's hosted by a 7th generation farmer named Maddie Hokanson. She takes viewers on a walk through gestation, farrowing, nursery and finishing barns, and uses animation and line drawings to explain the process that turns piglets into bacon. Hokanson is a natural on camera, not to mention being authentic: she's a graduate of South Dakota State with a degree in Agricultural Education, as well as having been named the inaugural Pig Farmer of Tomorrow in 2017. 

If pigs aren't your thing there are lots of other web series that might interest you. You might have heard of Zach Galifianakis' "Between Two Ferns," or Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee." Beyond that there are ones for every taste. If you are a travel buff, check out "Discover Puerto Rico with Lin-Manuel Miranda." If you like talk shows, listen in on three generations of women on "Red Table Talk" with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris. If you want more traditional Rom-Coms, there's "Sideswiped," while "Sorry For Your Loss" feels more like a big screen film about a young widow. And "Bumbld" is a "raw and unapologetic account of the 'swipe culture' from the female perspective." It's sort of an updated, more profane and funnier version of "Sex and the City" delivered in sub three-minute installments.

Being a mass media consumer used to be easy. The choices were few, the cost non-existent. Now you have options galore, with an ala carte menu that resembles the offerings at a 24-hour diner, and a pricing structure where you spend in increments so small that you don't realize that you've dropped $100 in a month. Viewers are couch potatoes no more, but rather couch commandos, juggling multiple screens and jockeying multiple remotes. Pick what you like, though you should check out Maddie: we all know that everything is made better with bacon.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford would actually rather read a book than watch a screen. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

On Beyond Alexa

Not five years ago, if you wanted to find out the distance from San Antonio to Dallas, you had several choices. You could take an almanac down from a shelf. You could go online and type in your query. Or you could ask your dad.  All three would generally work, though the last would likely result in a digression about the types of barbeque in Texas.

But since a baby named Alexa came into all our lives, we need only to speak and we get a response. Time when the sun is going to set? Weather the following day? Last Nicolas Cage film? Ask and it gets answered. Amazon succeeded in the same way that Apple did, by creating a device we didn't know we needed or wanted, but one that quickly became ingrained in our daily lives.

In relatively short order they spun out a litter of line extensions beyond the original Echo device, including the Dot, the Look, the Show and the Spot. Others followed suit: Google, Sonos and JBL all created so-called smart speakers that listened to your voice and responded. Amazon itself made Alexa a standalone system, so that the voice recognition technology at its heart could be used in phones and cars, enabling you to interact with multiple devices without ever laying a finger on a keyboard.

The question is what's next. Well, this past month Amazon showed its hand, along with its eyes and ears. First there are the Echo Frames. Looking like a pair of chunky Warby Parker specs, these Alexa enabled glasses take a different approach than the ill-fated Google Glasses. Rather than using a camera to interact with the world around you, they have a built-in microphone and speakers that sit right over your ears. Whisper sweet nothings, and they will whisper back to you. It will only look like you're talking to yourself, until you stop and cock your head like Nipper to hear the response.

Should your eyes not need correction, you can get the same serviceability with Echo Buds. Much like the appliance Joaquin Phoenix used to interact with Samantha the operating system in "Her," it's a pair of small earpieces that speak when spoken to. Whereas the Echo Frames look like a "thing," the Buds appear similar to many other earpieces used for listing to music. As such, it's not immediately apparent to others that you are connected to something else. Folks who note your using them will move away quickly, as it will seem as though you are hearing voices. And they won't be wrong.

Then there's the Echo Ring. Not something Frodo would quest for, this packs the same functionality of the former devices into a, well, ring. Put your hand near your mouth and speak, then slide it towards your ear to hear. Or split the difference and assume a contemplative pose with your hand on your cheek, speaking softy while listening to the response. Watch for kids taking SAT tests being forced to remove all their jewelry lest they sneak this one past the proctor.

Have we jumped the shark yet with this? Will there be Echo belts? Echo shoes? Echo underwear? More likely it will go from exterior to interior. Back in college some friends made a spoof film which featured a futuristic phone that wasn't carried, but implanted. You tapped your right temple to answer, your left to put a call on hold and switch to another. The guy in the movie wound up slapping himself silly as he took call after call. It seemed comical then, but seen from the perspective of what has been developed today it was instead prescient. Little did my buddies know then that had they patented the idea back in 1976 they could have been zillionaires today.

Then again maybe it's not the delivery but the voice. Regardless of the type of Echo you use, you'll soon be able to say, "Alexa, introduce me to Samuel L. Jackson." And rather than a neutral female response, you'll get the actor responding to your queries. Imagine the weather, or a cooking timer in his distinctive cadence. Just don't push your luck, or he could come back with a quote from his character in the Avengers: "Given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." So much for machines doing our biding.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford uses his Echo to time his baking. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Leg of Lucy

Like a thousand other ads in "Backstage," this one was looking for just the right cast members. The production company, Spun Gold TV, was looking for "real food-loving families to take part in a new, experimental documentary that asks: ‘How much do we really know about the animals that we put on our plates?'" The concept seemed intriguing: "We're looking for warm, opinionated families who will share their homes with an animal they would normally eat (i.e. a chicken/lamb). For three weeks they'll learn all about the animals whilst living up close and personal with them!" In the world of reality TV, where people are dropped naked on desert islands and filmed trying to survive, a show about people cozying up to critters seems pretty, well, tame. 

However "Meat the Family" was anything but. One analyst called the show "the most transgressive of the year." If you're unfamiliar with term it means "involving a violation of accepted or imposed boundaries, especially those of social acceptability." And once you get the hook, you might agree. 

In the first set of shows, four committed top-of-the-food-chain families took home and looked after the animal which most often ended up on their plates. That meant individual episodes focused on folks taking care of a lamb, a pig, a chicken and a calf. In the installments, the families treat each animal as a household pet, feeding and caring and, indeed, growing to love them. They travel to learn about the food industry, and how their little Porky fits into the greater scheme of things. They are exposed to experts on animal welfare, learn about farming and production, and visit food processing plants. It's all aimed at giving each family a chance to better understand the impact that a carnivorous lifestyle has on the environment and our health, while relating it directly to their animal charge. 

Then, at the end of the three weeks, they get a choice. They can convert to being vegetarians and send Lucy the Lamb to an animal sanctuary to live out the rest of her days in peace. No? OK, they can stay meat eaters, but then they have to kill their pet and eat it. Leg of Lucy anyone? 

It is one of a new type of show that forces regular people to confront ethical questions and behaviors that have remained theoretical to many. Earlier this year Britain's' Channel 4 had "The Great British School Swap." The three-part series followed the lives of two groups of students from different schools with ethnic, cultural and religious splits. Twenty-four kids, half from an effectively all-white school, and half from a practically all non-white, mainly Muslim school, where paired up. They went to class together, and as well as participating in after and out of school activities. While there were certainly some positive moments, filmed interviews with the kids also produced some cringe inducing sound bites such as a Muslim child saying "I just don't like gay people, they make me feel weird" and a white child saying "The burqas are wanting to ban bacon." Disturbing, even if not totally surprising. 

Then there's the new Dutch show called "The Cocaine Trials" and another similar British one named "Doing Drugs for Fun?" Both confront casual cocaine users, showing them the consequences of their habit on the Colombian communities where coke is farmed and refined, and life is controlled by cartels. The idea is to show them the impact that their habits have on others in the broader sense. And there's Australia's "My 80 Year Old Flatmate" which pairs millennials locked out of Sydney's pricey housing market with seniors who have an extra room. Admittedly this one seems less interested in bridging the May-December generation gap that divides, and more intent on looking for the gross out moment that comes from either being too young or too old to care. 

But back to our friends in "Meat." The program is set to air next year, and while it will start in Britain, it is expected to quickly find an international market. For what could have more universal appeal than eating your pet? On the bright side, should Brexit indeed happen, it might cost a premium to see this. In which case you'll have a real reason to skip this red meat and load up on the veggies.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves foods with legs and without. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Cost of Free

The usual state of affairs is for things to keep getting more expensive. That increase can be driven by a number of factors: scarcity, design, materials and even perception all play a part. But it's just as common these days for prices to head in the opposite direction. Especially for items which have become commodities, such as clothing basics or housewares or office supplies, advances in production techniques have streamlined manufacturing so that it can cost less to make an item than ever before. Where it used to take a person sitting at a bench days to make a single pair of shoes, today a factory can churn out hundreds or even thousands an hour. Couple that with cheap labor in Vietnam or China or Malaysia, and a pair of wearable running kicks can be had for less than the price of lunch. 

That's the physical world. Move over to the electronic one and the change is even more profound. It may take a person or team of people hours and hours to code a game for your phone where you get points for collecting cats. But once it exists, copies can be made for next to nothing. Other than distribution and marketing, the actual cost of replicating the final product is effectively zero. In his book "Free: The Future Of A Radical Price" author Chris Anderson put it this way: "In the atoms economy, which is to say most of the stuff around us, things tend to get more expensive over time. But in the bits economy, which is the online world, things get cheaper. The atoms economy is inflationary, while the bits economy is deflationary." 

Indeed, in that deflationary spiral, the ultimate stop is "free." In fact, we've not only come to accept it but assume it. In spite of the tremendous investment in time and/or money it takes to get to that point, once we're online we have come to expect that it costs nothing to be a part of that world. Information? Wikipedia is there for the taking. Communication? Google, Yahoo and AOL all provide options. Travel, weather, friends? TripAdvisor, Weather Channel, Facebook. Just this past week most of the major online brokers, and even some brick and mortar players, lowered their price to trade stocks and their ilk to nothing. Charlie Merrill may have brought Wall Street to Main Street, but Charles Schwab brought it to Gmail. 

Of course, free is not really free. The model is to give something away, and then charge for something adjacent. The orchard has cider, but you have to buy the cup. The razor handle costs you nothing, but you need to purchase the blades. Go to many bars at happy hour, and the snacks they put out are on the house. That said, whoever is cooking in the kitchen uses a lot of salt. Hey, can I buy you a drink? 

In the online model, the equation above is slightly flipped: they don't charge you outright, but rather you give them something of value for nothing. In this case, that adjacent thing is your personal and browsing data. When you sign on or sign up, you give the firm your okey-dokey to watch and track and aggregate all you do for their own purposes. You grant them permission to monetize your activities at no charge to them. Yes, they do ask if it's OK, in the form of a dense legalese posting you have to click on before you can enter their gates. But click we do, usually without a moment of hesitation, and into the fun house we go. And so we can't blame them for doing exactly what they say they will do: making money off of our electronic souls. 

Like addicts hooked on heroin, there's almost no chance we can kick the habit. Pay for Facebook? Be charged for email? Pony up for the weather? Free traffic info has become an inalienable right of the internet age: you can have my Waze if you pry it from my cold dead fingers. It recalls another thing we hear more and more: Big Government, get out of my life, but don't you lay a finger on my Medicare. It's a devil's bargain to be sure, but one into which we willingly enter. So the question is this: free at what cost?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford uses many free services. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

High Times

Used to be that "data" was the buzzword of the moment. Any company that asked for your name, rank and email address said they were in the data business. Didn't matter if they were health care providers, car manufacturers or online retailers. Take insurance giant Allstate. They collect about 11,000 terabytes of data from 1.2 million people every day. Says CEO Tom Wilson, "Allstate is not an insurance company, we are a data company - a customer-centric data company."

Then there was "cloud." Why have anything local when it can reside somewhere else? A market which is projected to reach $214 billion this year means that almost every piece of information you need is somewhere over there, wherever "there" is. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are increasingly the repositories of everything from customer data to product information to patient files. Even your own pocket reaches to the skies: those pictures you took of your cat are safely filed away on a server in Ashburn VA (Amazon) or Maiden NC (Apple) or Pineville OR (Facebook).

If you had to pick the next word of the week, it might not be a word but an abbreviation. CBD can mean Central Business District, as in the downtown area of Bangalore India. Or it can refer to Christian Book Distributors, a company in Peabody MA. Or it can be the designation of a type of accredited midwife, also known as a Certified Birth Doula. But none of those are why the initials are turning up on the shelves of Kroger supermarkets or in aisles at Walgreens. That's because these days CBD generally refers to cannabidiol, a component found in marijuana. And unlike its cousin tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC), it's not known for its psychoactive effects, but rather for its calming qualities.

According to the Harvard Medical School blog, the strongest case for CBD is "its effectiveness in treating some of the cruelest childhood epilepsy syndromes, which typically don't respond to antiseizure medications." Additionally, it may prove to be an option for managing anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain. However, these therapeutic uses are anecdotal at best, as studies are just getting underway and "because CBD is currently mostly available as an unregulated supplement, and it's difficult to know exactly what you are getting." 

Still, as grass and its offshoots have become legal in state after state, CBD products are cropping up everywhere. Its calming properties make it a natural for an almost unimaginable array of items. Topicals are big, like Saint Jane Luxury CBD Beauty Serum, "An antioxidant packed serum with 500 mg of full-spectrum CBD plus 20 potent botanicals that help to deeply hydrate, detoxify pores, and boost skin's natural glow." You can soak in it as well: Vertly Hemp CBD Infused Bath Salts combines the active ingredient with "lavender, lemon and clary sage and you've got good vibes right in your tub." And if it really hurts somewhere you can try a Pure Ratios Hemp Patch which applies "50 milligrams of CBD on a targeted area for up to 96 hours. It's strong, so save it for those bad days when nothing else works."

Beyond that there's a CBD-infused breakfast cereal called Froot Poofs, snacks like Chill Gummies Gummy Bears, and artisanal chocolate bars infused with CBD. Depending on local laws your favorite grocery store might carry Recess Sparkling Water, CBD Pops White Cheddar Popcorn or Flaming Hot Weetos, all boasting of great flavor and that special calming goodness. 

You can even buy CBD infused workout clothes. Acabada ProActiveWear is designed to preemptively sooth your aching muscles with CBD oil. Prices start at $120 for a bra, which can be worn and washed 40 times before the oil runs out. As with most CBD products, proof that it works is sketchy: testers reported "feeling exhausted, as per usual" after working out, but certainly no less sore.

CBD may indeed turn out to be a miracle elixir, once they figure out the right dose, concentration and method of use. But as of now it's just a modern version of snake oil. If you think it works for you, go ahead and rub it on or eat it. That said, sing its praises a little too much and you might need to forgive any inquisitor who asks if you are indeed smoking something.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford favors a hot shower as calming his drug of choice. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Stupid Exercise

For years researchers have reported that working out is good for you. Not only is it beneficial physically, but it helps improve cognitive functions as well. You'd be hard pressed to find a doctor or nutritionist or indeed an expert in any health-related field that doesn't preach the virtues of a physical activity. While opting for the stairs or talking a walk certainly counts, most would endorse having a regular regime a few times a week where you sweat and grunt and raise your heart rate, and it's not because you're lifting a few six packs in or out of the fridge. 

But then there's this: a new study just published in journal Current Biology says that it appears that there is a direct correlation between physical exertion and your brain slowing down. The paper, entitled "Neuro-computational Impact of Physical Training Overload on Economic Decision-Making," studied 37 male triathletes. According to Bastien Blain, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at University College London, half of them were instructed to continue their usual workouts. The rest were told to increase their weekly training by 40%. All were monitored and put through batteries of physical and mental tests. These were paired with MRI scans, correlating brain activity with the results of the cognitive exams. The questions in the tests were designed to reveal whether a person is more inclined to choose immediate gratification or a long-term reward, couched in economic queries such as "Do you prefer $10 now or $60 in six months?" 

Different parts of the brain lit up with more or less activity based on the amount of training the individual did. That was matched against the answers given on the tests. Or in scientific speak, "The activity level extracted from certain regions served as a reference to assess the effects of training overload. As expected, we observed significant conjunction in a bilateral prefronto-parietal network, including the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), with training overload effects were predominant in the left MFG cluster and during the inter-temporal choice task." Or in layman speak (or at least my layman speak), if you work out too much, your brain gets stupider. 

The explanation, according to Blaine, is that while athletes are generally able to play down immediate gratification in favor or longer term goals, training too hard may change that balance. Usually they can ignore their screaming muscles telling them to stop or slow down, with their goal being to win the race. "But when an athlete trains too hard, a sort of brain fatigue sets in and the person has less ability to push their body" says Blaine. 

This conclusion is backed up by other studies as well. Tanja Mueller at the University of Oxford writes that when the body becomes physically depleted, the brain begins to experience "motivational fatigue," which affects decision-making. When that happens, the brain "may not consider it worth it anymore to wait for higher rewards." And Todd Braver, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis writes, "your brain is doing these kind of cost-benefit trade-offs all the time. Is it still worth the effort? Is it still worth the effort? And when it decides it's not, it changes direction." 

To sum it up: workouts are generally good for you. But work out too much, and your brain starts to focus not on the goal of finishing, but on recovering from the punishment you're enduring. It changes your decision making ability so that you focus not on the best outcome over the long term, but on the short term fix. And this appears to carry over from purely physical calculations to other cognitive areas such as economics. 

You know those cautions with certain drugs not to take them if you are operating heavy equipment or driving? Well it would seem from this study that if you exercise vigorously you shouldn't then make important business decisions. My takeaway is this: while it's true that I'm not an extreme athlete, everything is relative. So if you consider my normal exercise is taking a walk, a 30 minute run would overtax my brain big time. And so if I have to work on some budgets later, I would be better off not pushing myself, and just take a nap first. Sometimes I just love science.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to work out, but it doesn't always work out. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Grab Bag

When the United Kingdom put a referendum to its citizens as to whether to remain in or leave the European Union, the "leave" faction triumphed by the slimmest of margins with 51.9% of the vote. Unsurprisingly, the areas around London as well as those bordering the Republic of Ireland (which will remain part of the EU) were among those districts that had the highest totals of those seeking to stay. But also decisively in the "remain" column was a country that nearly split from the UK in 2014, and is now rethinking that position. In Scotland a solid 62% voted to keep ties to the continent, with not a single council area voting to walk away. 

As the Brexit debate has played out, those in the Highlands have watched and waited with no small amount of anxiety. So when Scots woke up to a tweet from the national police urging them to pack a "grab bag" and to get ready to leave, they could have been forgiven for not understanding the context. Was Brexit indeed a happening thing, and they should pack a bag filled with things that would no longer be easily accessible? French wine? German bratwurst? Swiss truffles? 

It turns out that national soul searching about staying within the continent's family of nations had nothing to do with the tweet. Rather, it referenced the need for a true emergency kit such as might be required in event of a natural disaster. On their official Twitter account the cops tweeted, "Emergencies can happen at any time and it's recommended to have a #GrabBag ready containing essential items including medication, copies of important documents, food/water, torch, radio and other personal items." Accompanying the post was a graphic of a backpack containing the aforementioned items, and a link to a checklist at Ready Scotland, a civilian defense agency. 

Because it came not from just any inter-government organization but from the cops, the tweet took on added significance: what did they know that the rest of the country didn't? Why suddenly, on a clear September morning, should people be checking the batteries in their penlights? Was there an imminent danger of civil unrest? Was Boris going to jump the gun and close the ports? Did they have advance warning of a haggis shortage? 

None of that. Seems that September is "Preparedness Month," an international campaign designed to promote family and community disaster and emergency planning. And the Scottish police were just tagging onto the national "#30days30waysUK" social media campaign. Under that banner, various UK authorities posted tips, reminders and conversation starters keyed to this year's theme of "Prepared, Not Scared." There was the Durham Country Council query "Could you stay with family or friends at short notice?" A thought provoker from the Devon Country Council that "If you bank online, how secure is your computer?" And the note from the Northhamptonshire County Council that while "most homes will have the majority of what they need to shelter in place for a few days, it is a good idea to gather some essential supplies for you and your family." (To which @sleepyvicar replied "and not just chocolate.") 

Simple enough, right? Not so fast. Seems that that campaign itself wasn't driven just by a concern for civil defense but by the first company you get when you Google "grab Bags." EVAQ8 is a company that sells emergency supplies, and its co-owner is one of the moving forces behind the campaign in the country. Seems the "30Days, 30Ways" campaign web site is on a server whose Google searches return EVAQ8 at the top when you go looking for grab bags. Just one more of those cases where government and commerce overlap. Thankfully that never happens on these shores. 

Not surprisingly, many reacted by offering up their own versions of grab bags. After all, emergency preparedness means different things to different people. Posts on the social network site Fark included an entry that describe one bag as including "$897.76 cash, 9mm xtra magazines, bus and train schedules, socks." Another more culturally attuned poster said his had "black pudding, haggis and a double nougat." And then there's this: "All I'll need is a few rubber bands, some chewing bum, baking soda and some plastic straws. Anything else I'll pick up on the road." The poster's name? MacGyver.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford keeps a flashlight in his suitcase. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

THE Ohio State University

Is "dog" a verb or a noun or both? What about medical and scientific terms? Is "saute'" English or French? Slang? Abbreviations? Twitter speak? If you're talking the universe of words written, typed and spoken in English, you quickly reach numbers in the one million range. 

A more proper way of counting might be to take a look at one of the iconic dictionaries we use today. Webster's clocks in with close to half a million words, while the Oxford version tallies up nearly 200,000. But each contains words like crepuscular, which means "of or relating to twilight," tmesis, which refers to cutting a word in half and sticking another in the middle, and petrichor, which is "the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell." If you know someone who can use those in everyday speech, well that's fan-freakin-tastic. 

In actual usage, experts estimate that most native speakers have a vocabulary that clocks in around 40,000 words. However, that includes both active and passive words. Passive ones are those that we know but rarely use, while active ones account for the majority of our speech and interactions. If you parse it even further, it's a much smaller universe. According to "The Reading Teachers Book of Lists," the first 100 words are used in 50% of adult and student writing, and the first 1,000 words are used in 89% of everyday writing. 

That means that every one of those 1,000 is valuable. You can argue as to how best to string them together to form sentences, but each is an arrow in your quiver when you try to communicate. Take away any of them, and your ability to convey what you want is severely limited. Imagine not being able to use #928 "bought." Or having to work around not being able to write #697 "smile." Maybe you could live without #534 "count" or #352 "best" or #146 "boy." The good news, of course, is that you don't have to avoid them. They are free to use as you see fit (which is #714 for the record). 

But what if they weren't? What if you had to fork over a royalty for each time you trotted out "whole" (#148) or "she" (#50) or "you" (#5). Imagine if it you owned the number one word in the English language, and were able to demand payment every time someone uttered it or wrote it. It would seem ridiculous, unless that is, you are Ohio State University. Or as they liked to be called "The Ohio State University." And so they filed a claim to trademark the word "The." 

The school was founded in 1870, and was originally called the "Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College" due to its location in a farming community. In 1878, the name was changed to "The Ohio State University." The given reason for including "The" as part of the official name was to give the school stature and show it was a leading institution in the state, and not to be confused with any others – a first among equals. 

Fast forward to the days of big money college football, and it's all about marketing. The school filed trademark protection for the most used word in the English language, as well as the names Urban Meyer and Woody Hayes, two of the school's most well know coaches. According to university spokesman Chris Deavey, it was important to "vigorously protect the university's brand and trademarks. These assets hold significant value, which benefits our students and faculty and the broader community by supporting our core academic mission of teaching and research." 

However it seems they didn't check with the teaching staff at OSU's own Moritz School of Law. Professors there might have pointed out that in order to trademark a common word it has to be used in a unique fashion, like Apple for computers. Just putting an article in front of a name doesn't do it. And that's why their claim was rejected this week. 

So for now at least feel free to use "the" as many times as you wish, knowing you won't have to fork over a nickel every time to the folks in Columbus. But as for Urban Meyer, he might have an issue. He better insist on people calling him "Coach." Otherwise, it's going to cost him.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford uses many words, cost be dammed. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Blocked

Consider this scenario: you go to a movie with friends and are chatting about it afterwards. Someone wonders if the director of the movie, Spike Lee, ever did a crime film. In the past you would have played 20 questions: "Wasn't there one about a bank robbery?" "Dog Day Afternoon?" "No, that was Sidney Lumet. Wasn't it with Clive Owen?" And eventually you would wind up at "Inside Man." Today it's a different story. Unless someone is a movie aficionado who knows the answer outright, no one even tries to guess. Someone pulls out a phone, taps for a few seconds, and up pops every film Spike has ever made. Perhaps not as much fun, not as social, but certainly more efficient. 

It's a situation repeated endlessly in every arena . Food? Geography? Music? Regardless of the topic all you need is to Google it. As long as you have an internet connection, whether you're in a restaurant, a theater or just walking down the street, you can find out the result of your query: as the lawyers say, asked and answered. Access to that kind of knowledge is both a powerful tool and modern marvel that is easy to take for granted. 

For that reason, your phone is almost the most important thing to take with you when you travel. To be sure, it's your connection to share your trip with others and to keep up with the what's going on back home. These days the built-in cameras are first rate, making picture taking easy and producing great results. But if you like to wander and explore as we do, what really makes your phone valuable is its mapping ability and as a portal to access information as you crisscross locales, whether domestic or foreign. 

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to do some research before you go to make sure you are hitting the points worth seeing. It's just that we've fallen into the trap of not having to remember. After all, why bother to store away bits and pieces of knowledge when the totality of relevant data is available at a moment's notice when we want it? On a recent trip to Istanbul we used that connection endlessly, answering the countless questions that popped up as we went from place to place. 

Sitting in a restaurant, we wondered about the bottles of local brew that so many of the patrons were drinking. In just a few seconds we pulled up that Raki was an anise flavored liquor. As we walked through a museum, we were curious if the court painter we were admiring had Italian training. Indeed, Aivazovsky studied in Naples and Rome. Spotting a blip of land as we come around the bend, we wondered what it was called. Turned out to be the Princes' Islands, a place where there are no cars and only horses. And on and on it went. 

But I noticed a curious thing. Almost always the first reference that popped up was from Wikipedia. This internet encyclopedia is a go-to source, very often the first stop for basic unbiased knowledge about almost anything. However, when I clicked those links, they never went through. I tried repeatedly, always having to backtrack and go somewhere else not as concise or direct. I assumed it was some kind of technical connection thing, until I dug a little deeper. 

Seems that Wikipedia is banned in Turkey. Back in 2017, due to an article on the site on state-sponsored terrorism wherein the country was described as a sponsor of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Turkish authorities blocked online access. For sure there are ways around the block, as well as other sites that supply similar information. But it was my first experience with someone telling me what I was allowed to look at and what I wasn't, and banned me from my chosen source. 

It's easy to see this where this can lead, and it's not a good place. With so much discussion underway about disinformation and fake news and trolling, some advocate restricting access. But what gets restricted? And who decides? So if anyone ever asks for me to advocate or back or contribute to keeping information free available – all information regardless of whether I agree with it or not – having had a very small taste of the alternative, I know on which side of the question I stand.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks information should be openly available. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Oh, Snap!

If you're talking insults, you have to talk Shakespeare. The man who is known for some of the finest turns of the English language, who coined "All the glitters is not gold" and "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" and "Jealousy is the green-eyed monster" was also adept at the art of the put-down. From "All's Well That Ends Well" there's "Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee." From "Henry IV Part I" there's "Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!" And from "Titus Andronicus" perhaps the first "mom" joke ever: "Villain, I have done thy mother." 

That set the stage for Don Rickles and "Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?" as well as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "Three months out here supporting Michael Jackson. Do you realize you could have been head movie usher by now?" But these days if you want to get into the thick of it, you don't look to stages at comedy clubs or late night TV, but rather to the arena of politics.

Forget the Congressional niceties of "I yield to the gentleman from Kansas." The present occupant of the White House has upended congeniality in Washington in a way never seen before. From "Crooked Hillary" to "Sleepy Creepy Joe," President Trump tags his opponents and critics with names designed to demean and belittle them. You can argue whether they resonate or not, but from a strictly literary standpoint they are elementary school taunts at best. One could easily imagine a third grader saying "No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet." Compare that with the Sir William's "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" and it's no contest.

But it's not the putdowns from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that define the state of art these days, but rather those utterances emanating from the other side of the planet. For when Trump hated Kim Jong-Un, the ruler of North Korea, and reached into his insult quiver for a zinger, the best he could come up with was "Rocketman." Kim replied with far more, formulating a putdown that included a word that, even if you didn't know its meaning, sounded seriously harsh: "Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say." Surely the Bard himself would have been impressed.

In historical fact, you can make a case that the Hermit Kingdom is perhaps the world's preeminent superpower in insults. Nearly 50 years ago they laid into LBJ as a "war maniac" and a "living corpse" and haven't taken a deep breath since. Leader after leader has come under the verbal barrage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. George Bush was described as a "tyrannical idiot" and "political imbecile who lacks even an iota of elementary reason, morality and ability to judge reality as a human being." Barack Obama was somebody who "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being." John Kerry had a "hideous lantern jaw" while "his behavior fully revealed once again the U.S. inveterate nature as a hypocrite who has deceived and mocked mankind with all sorts of gimmicks." And after Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a "whack job" the DPRK hammered him as "a man mixed with human dirt who has lost basic judgment and body hair." Ouch.

More recently they took aim at South Korean leader Moon Jae-in: "He truly is a shameless man." And they were just getting started: "We even question if his thought process is sound when he mentions 'talks' between North and South while playing out war scenarios that plan to destroy most of our armies in 90 days." And then the kicker: "that kind of thinking is enough to make the boiled head of a cow laugh." Say what you will: that is the long ball of insults.

They might have a "beautiful friendship" now, but when it sours - and it will – Trump better step up his game. If the best you got is "Lyin Ted Cruz" and "Leakin' James Comey," it's game over when the other side trots out this about a defector: "Despicable human scum, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal." As Sir William might say, "Forsooth! Thy tongue doth have sting!"

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves a good put-down. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Get Me Rewrite!

As a person who struggles daily with spelling and grammar, I'm hardly one to be throwing stones at that particular glass house. No matter how many times I check these weekly efforts, I (and others) find transgressions galore. It's not like I want to have misspellings, incorrect subjects and verbs that don't agree. It's not that I delight in typos that now seem obvious but which I didn't catch even on the third reading. That said, I welcome it when people point out my errors. One, I learn from them. And two, it proves that at the very least they are reading this space.

My excuse is that I am a one-man band. Once the writer (me) is done, it goes to the copy editor (me again) then to the style editor (yup, me) and finally to the executive editor (that would be me as well). In the wider world, where there are multiple skilled individuals and multiple sets of eyes scrutinizing the product, gaffes should be less common and are less forgivable.

Still, they do happen. Newspapers are particular susceptible to this. While there are multiple steps to insure accuracy, deadline pressures conspire to sometimes throw the train off the track. How else to explain a headline about the debut of the first baseball pitcher to throw with either arm rendered as "Amphibious Pitcher Make Debut." Or the science note "Human Brian Is Still Evolving." Or the continuation of a story about the NY Jets on another page:" Jets Patriots jumphead goes here barllskdjif fkdasd fg asdf." 

But the most egregious errors would seem to be ones that go through monumental proofing, and still slip through. The latest example comes courtesy of the Republic of Ireland. More specifically it comes from An Post, which is the state operator of postal services in the Emerald Isle. Along with their responsibility for collecting and delivering the mail, they issue stamps to affix to letters and packages. And when you are creating ones that will be seen and licked by an entire country you would think that they would be proofed into the ground. Then again.

Timed to coincide with the recent 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a series of stamps was issued to commemorate spacepersons with Irish ancestry. The stamps feature images of various spacecraft along with the likeness of astronauts Cady Coleman, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Eileen Collins. All good so far. But with Irish (or what we Yankees call Gaelic) being the official language of the country, the stamps bore their commemorative statements in both that and English. So under the "The 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing" was the phrase "Cothrom 50 Bliain na Chead Tuirlingthe ar an nGaelach."

Just one problem. The Irish word for moon is "gealach." But the stamp spelled it "gaelach." That transposition of letters changed the word from that thing orbiting our planet to a word meaning "attached to Irish or Irish culture." So effectively the stamp says in the country's native tongue "The 50th Anniversary of the First Landing on the Irish." The Sea of Tranquility was never so green.

At least it was caught early, and corrected in subsequent printings. Contrast that with what happened in Australia. In May it was revealed that on Australia's' new $50 banknote, which was released last year and bears a picture of Edith Cowan, the first female member of the Australian parliament, there was a misspelling in the background. What looks like a lawn behind Ms. Cowan is in actuality rows of text containing a quotation from her first speech to parliament. "It is a great responsibility to be the only woman here," is repeated numerous times. However each time the fifth word is rendered as "responsibilty" with a missing "i." Not a change in meaning, but an embarrassment to the national treasury, especially since the $50 bill is the most widely circulated denomination. And there are now 46 million copies of that error floating about the country.

Both errors, while embarrassing, aren't deal breakers. Still it is nice to get it right. After all, had Jackie Gleason made the same mistake as they did with the stamps, his famous come back to his wife would have taken on a different meaning: "Bang! Zoom! To the Irish, Alice!"

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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to catch errors, but sometimes he Mrs. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

"Death Calling"

They say it's the future. They say it makes things more efficient. They say it opens up whole new ways to control technology. And indeed, when it works, it is just this side of magic. Talk to your phone or your car or your home assistant, and its ability to listen, understand, respond in kind and do your bidding is truly remarkable. 

In fact, when you look at it in terms of its impact, speech recognition, and its more advanced cousin, voice transcription, has become perhaps the most important computing advance since the mouse. It fundamentally changes the way we interact with the technology that is embedded in our lives. It frees us from having to work on flat surfaces that support keyboards, and from even having to look at the devices whether on a desk or in our hands. Made possible by all the buzzwords of the moment – artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, neural nets – it has the potential to unlock access to almost infinite problem solving for all, even if you can't even read or write. 

However anyone who has ever tried it knows that the future isn't always now. While the systems have gotten much better, with error rates approaching the same as human transcribers, they seem to fail spectacularly as often as not. Add in noisy environments, like cars and trains and sidewalks, and the results can be downright comical, if not exasperating. Or as Gerald Friedland, a Principal Data Scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory noted, "Depending who you ask, speech recognition is either solved or impossible." 

Just try asking your phone to do something for you. If you hit it just right, if the background sound isn't too much, if you have a solid connection, if you speak clearly and distinctly, the results can be impressive. "OK, Google, send an email to Brian Jones." In seconds, she responds: "Sure, what's the message?" You dictate, "Please call me about the Boston job." She parrots that back to you, adding a final, "Do you want to send it or change it?" You reply the former, and off it goes. HAL 9000 would be impressed. 

But note the many "ifs." The potential points of failure add up to as many misses as hits. How often have you asked it to call a person you speak to often and it comes back with "I'm sorry, I can't locate that person in your contacts." Try again, saying it slower and louder, and you get "I'm sorry, there is no one in your contacts with that name." Try it a third time, and it will either repeat the familiar refrain again, or just as likely, "Millard Fillmore was the 13th president of the United States." Well, let's not waste this moment of triumph: get him on phone. 

Numerous postings online show just how far afield the process can go. For every success there is an epic fail that makes you wonder what the underlying original request or statement could possibly have been, "Hi again This is Michael. So calling from Ralph there. Volkswagen lasagna." Well, sure. I guess better than Chevy tacos. Or how about, "I just wanted to let you know so that you weren't surprised if you come back for shower tomorrow that my cousin is girlfriend, maybe." That will be an awkward Thanksgiving dinner. 

The systems seem to have better success when the universe of words involved is in its original wheelhouse. Ask Alexa to set an oven timer and it never misses. Tell Siri to dial a series of digits, and you almost always get through. But then again, sometimes she (and yes, the voices are all female by default) seems like she's just messing with you. How else to explain a transcription like this: "Hi Allen my name is White and my number is area code (626) 523-8023 once again the number is (562) 652-3808." 

Then again, there are times when you want to avoid a call and not talk to the other party. In that case perhaps it is better that you let it go to voicemail and not get engaged. Or at least that would seem to be the case for the following. One wonders who was really calling. But if it was transcribed correctly? Then better to have not answered, "Hi Kelly. Death calling."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has yelled at his phone many times. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Spreading the Wealth

In the many idle chats we've had on the road, Brian has learned about my favorite foods and I about his. Two areas we have in common are barbeque and peanut butter. And indeed, on our last trip, he located a good ‘que place near the hotel. But he topped that bit of foodie acumen when he showed up on site, reached into his luggage and pulled out a jar for me of his favorite PB from Peanut Butter and Co. He had been waxing rhapsodically about the taste, the various favors and texture. On a recent shopping trip he picked up an extra jar for me, a very thoughtful and generous thing to do. 

There was only one issue: we were in Dallas. As with many road warriors, I have a familiar routine to make the frequent travel easier. I know where to park at the airport and where to sit on the plane. As for luggage, it's always carryon; checking is a cardinal sin. That's 20 minutes at the other end I'll never get back, assuming they don't lose my luggage in the first place. So I weed out any non-essentials, buy little tubes and bottles of whatever I need, and make sure it will fit into the overhead bin above my seat. 

Indeed, I had flown in the night before, and carried on my luggage as I usually do. I thanked Brian profusely, but had a forbidding feeling. Sure enough, a check of the TSA website confirmed that they treat peanut butter as a liquid. That means you can't have any more than 4 ounces in your bag, or else it has to go in the hold. And this jar was most assuredly bigger than a mini shampoo bottle. 

I figured I had several options. I could give it back to him, explaining I couldn't carry it home in my preferred configuration. I could spend our remaining night in my hotel room eating the entire jar. Or I could simply dispose it, and tell him how good it was, knowing he would never be the wiser. 

But throwing out perfectly good food, especially a jar of peanut butter, seemed wrong. I also couldn't down an entire jar in my room (actually I probably could, but I resisted the temptation). The next day as we grabbed a car to the airport, I considered fessing up and returning it to him, but that just seemed rude and ungrateful. And as just stated emphatically, checking it went against my very core. It was beginning to look like disposal was the most likely last resort. 

We were flying on different airlines, so the car dropped him off first. After we said goodbye and pulled back out to head to my terminal, I had a thought. I said to my Uber driver, "This is kind of as strange out-of-left-field question, but do you like peanut butter?" He confessed that he did. I told him of Brian's kind gift and my dilemma. Of course, he asked why I didn't just check my luggage, but I demurred, citing my bias. "This might sound strange," I said, "but have you ever been tipped in peanut butter?" He laughed and asked if I was serious. I indicated I was. Sure, he said, he was game. I added just one proviso: he had to drop me a line as to how it was. He agreed, and took the jar. 

When I landed a little after midnight, the first thing that popped up on my phone was a text: "This is Nick, your Uber driver." Strange, I thought. I had driven to the airport, so no car should be waiting for me. But then I read on: "The peanut butter is AMAZING! It's buttery smooth with no thick aftertaste and tastes very fresh. I am definitely hooked!" And as for me, I was able to concur. When I got home I found a jar sitting on the counter, courtesy of my wife who had picked one up after I related Brian's recommendation. 

To Brian: thank you for your generosity. I was touched by your thoughtfulness, and hope you will forgive me for giving away your gift and spreading the wealth. To Nick: thanks for the ride to the airport and for the note. And to Peanut Butter and Co: you have one – no, two – new fans.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves all things peanutty. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

On Deadline

What motivates you to get something done? Maybe it's money: finish the job at hand, and you get compensated for it. For some, it's recognition: never underestimate the power of an "attaboy" to drive people to complete something. Then there's fear: the consequence of not getting it done pushes a lot of people across the finish line. But for many, myself included, perhaps the most compelling motivator is a deadline. 

That's the driver behind the 48 Hour Film Project. Since starting out in 2001, the program has expanded to 130 cities and involved nearly 400,000 people. Filmmaking teams gather for a kickoff event, and are given the 3 elements they have to include in their movie: a character, a prop and a line of dialogue. Each then draws a genre from a hat: horror, sci fi, etc. They then have just 48 hours to conceptualize, script, shoot and finish a 4 to 7 minute movie. 

When you think about it, it seems counterintuitive. Filmmakers are generally obsessive types, fussing over creative details far beyond what audiences see or care about. Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson and Akira Kurosawa are legendary for their attention to the details in their movies. Michael Cimino shot more than 1.3 million feet of film totaling nearly 220 hours of footage for "Heaven's Gate," pushing the movie millions of dollars overbudget. Forget 48 hours: he was five days behind schedule by the sixth day of shooting. 

Yet some thrive on tight deadlines, and it can actually be a powerful creative stimulus. Take Guy Olivieri. Guy is an actor, writer and filmmaker. While he is working on more traditional projects, like a TV pilot and other scripts, he has been participating in the 48 Hour Project for with his partners at Giant Cookie Films for 4 years, and in fact has won the New York division two of those years. Still, considering the lack of financial reward and the limited accolades that can be gained, why put himself through this particular meat grinder? "Well, the best advice I've ever gotten as a filmmaker (and maybe as a human) is ‘Finish.' Having things you want to make, and never finishing them because they're not perfect is my absolute least favorite feeling. With this project, it just has to get done. So, it gets done. With the unexpected requirements, I find myself pushed into corners I didn't know I could find stories in. We, as a group, find ourselves with technical issues: we just have to address them and shoot. And then in a few days, it's done. Love it or hate it, it's done." 

To some that might sound more like a forced march than a fun and creative exercise. Guy sees it differently, as on the job training for him and his filmmaking partners. "It keeps us sharp. None of us went to film school. We're mostly actors who have decided to start making things for ourselves because no one was casting us in mainstream showbiz. So this is like film school. And like school, the pressure is low. If we mess it up, eh, so what? It's only one lost weekend." 

As to this year's lost weekend, Guy and his pals pulled the genre "Family Film." Added to that were the other requirements for those competing in New York. The prop that had to be included was a dog leash. There had to be a character named John or Joan who was an architect. And the script had to include the line "Life is all about a relationships."  How did Giant Cookie do? Judges are reviewing the entries, so they'll have to wait to see if they win and are invited to the global finals in Rotterdam next year. 

If you're a filmmaker (or a musician or a painter or even a column writer) you look for opportunities to ply your trade, pay and payoff be dammed. Guy again: "Creative people are just dying to work - myself included. One thing that I notice about this project is that I'm always really nervous to ask people to do it, because there's no pay, the hours are awful, and (for the actors) there's a chance we might not use you at all. But no one ever says no. Bottom line is I love giving people a chance to do what they want to do. Again, myself included."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford hasn't missed the deadline for this column in 24 years. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Heat is On

Most people would kill for the chance to be in Paris, home to art and crepes and romance. But this year is different. Records were shattered as the French capital hit the highest temperature ever recorded there with a mercury-popping 108.7 Fahrenheit. As a point of comparison, at the same time in Tucson it was 102, El Paso was 98, and Miami was a comparatively chilly 91. 

Like much of the continent, the heat (or more specifically, relief from it) was made worse by the dearth of air conditioning. According to a 2018 report by the International Energy Agency, while more than 90% of the households in the US have air conditioning, that number plummets to 10% in Europe as a whole, and down below 2% in Germany.  Indeed, one could speculate that that lack of cool helps to explain the Germanic temperament. 

The only other country that has AC penetration rates as high as we do is Japan. And in some respects they go one better. Remember, it was the land of the Rising Sun that brought the world the Walkman and instant noodles and karaoke. They have a reputation for taking existing technology and twisting it in some unexpected way to give us all something new we never even knew we needed. So while Willis Carrier may have invented air conditioning in 1902 so that the colored inks used to print the humor magazine Judge would line up and dry properly, it took the Japanese to adapt that technology to your pants. 

Since being developed back in 2005, Kuchofuku, which translates as "air-conditioned clothing," has gained a small but devoted following. Alibaba, the Chinese online retailing behemoth, now features goods from 11 different manufacturers. While the first products were shirts, you can now get jackets, pants and beyond. There are air conditioned seat cushions, motorcycle helmets, or a cooling pad that fits between your backpack and your back. You can even buy a standalone unit that clips onto your belt and aims up at your back, enabling you to retrofit that favorite Black Sabbath tee shirt. 

All the products on the market today function essentially the same way. They don't lower the temperature of the air around you so much as keep it moving, effectively making you feel cooler. As described in a Japanese technology blog, "Small fans about 10 centimeters in diameter are attached to the right and left sides of the back of the clothing. The fans draw in a large amount of air and help to vaporize sweat. As the perspiration evaporates, heat is dissipated, bringing down the wearer's body temperature. Sweating is the human body's natural air conditioner, and air-conditioned clothes are designed to give this mechanism a boost." Effectively it's like taking a shower, then laying down on the couch and having a fan blow you, minus the shower and the couch. 

Taking a different approach, a startup accelerator program backed by Sony is crowdfunding something called the Reon Pocket. About the size a deck of cards, it fits in a pocket on a specially made tee shirt, and is designed to be worn under your regular clothing. Rather than pump air about you as do the other devices, it gets hot or cold, and is supposed to make you feel warmer or colder through the Peltier effect. This thermodynamic principle used in refrigeration is based on transferring cool or warmth to adjacent areas. It's the same idea as holding an ice cube your neck, and letting that feeling spread over your entire back. The Rocket can be controlled by your cell phone, and has a battery that last for about 90 minutes. It will cost about $130, though it will only be available in Japan when it begins production next year. 

Whether you believe it's a natural cycle, or that we humans have something to do with it, there is no doubt that planet is getting warmer. Just as elevators made tall buildings possible, air conditioning has enabled us to expand our presence in places less hospitable than more. But until it gets more widespread, perhaps we have to think about carrying our personal cooling solutions. A cold drink certainly helps, but air-conditioned pants may be the answer. Otherwise, with apologies to Rick and Ilsa, we may not always have Paris.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes to be cool, temperature wise. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.