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Bodling
@Bodling@deacon.social
mastodon 4.4.3Do you like Bodling?
Can't say. I've never Bodled before.
Retired librarian. Retired Lutheran pastor. Semi-retired Lutheran. Appalachian Trail hiker. Concordia graduate.
Probably the least important person on Mastodon at the moment.
164 Followers
206 Following
50 Posts
Joined December 31, 2022
Book recommendation::
A.G. Sertillanges, "The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods" Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 1987
Replying to
@reb@retro.social @ifixcoinops@retro.social Hey, the things still work (mostly), why would I need a new one?
Several neighborhood guys hanging out just down from our house this morning. Acting suspiciously. Probably up to something.
(Odocoileus virginianus)
#NaturePhotography #White-tailedDeer
"The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouting of a ruler among fools."
Ecclesiastes 9.17
Replying to
@Nonilex@masto.ai I've been wondering whether he thinks there are some hidden trans men in the ranks and that this will help find them out. Of course they'd likely be on HRT which would skew the results.
Replying to
@karlauerbach We're not quite that old or technologically infirm, but a woman of a certain age told me just yesterday that she really really disliked the 2-factor authentication that kept constantly (in her mind) requiring her to find her cell phone and copy over a 6 digit number "just to get into a website."
Replying to
@ScottEdelman All I've got is this post from back in 2010 by some guy named Scott Edel.... no, wait a minute.... never mind.
But good luck with the search, mate. Maybe some Brit will recognize the art. Or, better yet, a British #librarian Anything on the reverse side that could be a clue?
https://scottedelman.livejournal.com/197540.html
Roger Summit, who invented an early online search service, named "Dialog" has died at age 95.
You remember Dialog, don't you? You'd have a research question. So you'd go talk to the librarian who has been trained on how to formulate efficient search queries. (You need them to be efficient because you paid by the search. Or was it by the number of hits you got?)
The librarian would do all the Boolean operator magic and check the punctuation, then press "Enter." And, yes, it was amazingly fast. But you'd likely need to wait until tomorrow to get your printed out results because the computer terminal was on a shared dial-up connection, and because your request was in a queue with other requests.
These were the good old days. Nothing artificial about the intelligence of those librarians, either.
#ComputerHistory #InformationScience #Librarians #Libraries #Dialog #Computers #Databases
"We don’t know what’s going to happen – so live beautifully regardless."
Why? Because...
"I think we are in a liminal moment: we know the present set-up can’t hold, but we don’t know what’s going to come next. We are basically at the top of this very sharp bell curve, just in the moments before it tips down the other side. Everything that has been going up and up and up – population, wealth, the price of oil – are about to dip."
--- Sarah Wilson interview in The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/29/sarah-wilson-book-interview
I'll tell you what. It's hard these days to read the biblical Book of Proverbs without thinking a lot about national politics.
Maybe it's always been that way, I don't know.
Washington Post: "The Senate took a key step Wednesday to withhold members’ pay during government shutdowns, a move that some lawmakers hope will give their colleagues fresh incentive to avoid them. ....
"Senators voted 99-0 to advance the resolution, introduced by Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana). Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska) did not vote. The Senate still must take several more votes to pass the resolution unless lawmakers agree to speed up the process, but the unanimous vote on Wednesday suggests it will clear the chamber easily."
Well that's something. Can anyone imagine the House doing the same?
Oatmeal is heart-healthy, right?
#oatmeal #cardiovascularhealth #beer
David French opinion piece in the NY Times: "It turns out that there really is a difference between a military led by James Mattis and a military led by Pete Hegseth. One is among our most militarily astute and politically deft battlefield commanders; the other is a former Fox News host who possesses limited military experience and seems to think that defeating wokeness (whatever that means) is a principal part of his job.
"But his bench presses are genuinely impressive. I’ll give him that."
_The President Is Giving a Master Class in What Not to Do_. May 28, 2026.
Did I miss something? I'm reading "The Colour of Magic" wherein Twoflower shows up in Ankh Morpork unable to speak the local language, but can converse with Rincewind in another tongue.
Then, suddenly, Twoflower can converse with anyone in the story.
When did he learn to speak the (apparently) common tongue?
"What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!"
Merton, Thomas. "Rain and the Rhinoceros." (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O'Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, page 217.
He wasn't a backpacker when he wrote this, but every backpacker knows this magical feeling when they've made wise choices along the Trail and camped alone in an isolated spot, even (especially?) if they're on a crowded trail like the Appalachian Trail.
Replying to
@Nonilex@masto.ai When you don't like the numbers you're getting, and they won't let you change the numbers, just ignore them and stop collecting the numbers.
You know, like when you're doing your tax return.
Or reviewing the national budget.
Or just doing science.
Really uneven wear on the soles of my shoes. Am I walking that unevenly? Do I look goofy when I'm walking?
NPR: "President Donald Trump's plan to put weapons in space — pitched as a "Golden Dome for America" missile defense program — is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a 20-year period, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a far heftier sum than the initial $175 billion price tag he gave last year."
YET ANOTHER "bait and switch" by the current lame duck president. Has he EVER announced a number -- a cost, a timeline, a realease date, an inauguration crowd size, an end of war date -- that was even close to the actual number? Or does he always just make numbers up out of thin smoke?
I wonder how many Russians are calling it (under their breath, certainly!) something like "Victory [Just Not in Ukraine By Any Stretch of the Imagination] Day"
Gasoline prices sky high at the same time US domestic oil production is also sky high. What gives??
"If a country produces more oil than anyone else in the world, shouldn’t fuel be cheap? Yet Americans frequently face high gas prices at the pump, even during periods of record domestic production. The explanation lies not in a single cause, but in a complex mix of engineering constraints, global market dynamics, and structural mismatches within the U.S. energy system, compounded by Donald Trump’s war with Iran."
Details in this short podcast:
Richard M. Ransohoff, writing in the Washington Post:
"Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health recently put out a guide for non-scientists who want to read research publications. I’m glad the school did that, if only because laypeople who say they are “doing their own research” often are actually relying on other laypeople trying to interpret the research. If you truly want to make your own judgments, the best way is to read the research yourself. That requires investing some time.
My recommendations for reading and understanding the studies differ somewhat from the Hopkins recipe. Here’s my advice:
Look at when and where the study was published. Check for signs that it appeared in a “predatory” journal, which is a journal that charges academics to publish and fails to provide peer review and other hallmarks of scientific legitimacy. Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to do research on the research.
Take some time to really read. Scientific studies are not things you can skim or scroll through on your phone. In time, you will be able to get the gist of a study by reading the abstract — but not at first.
Read the introduction. This tells you what knowledge gaps the researchers were trying to fill.
Skip the methods and statistical analyses. These are highly technical and less useful for laypeople.
Go to the discussion section. That’s where the authors will describe what they found and what they think it means.
Read the limitations section. It’s important, because scientists and their academic editors care deeply about their work not being misunderstood or exaggerated."
---So far Ransohoff---
In other words: DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH by actually reading actual research studies, not some news story and NOT just gabbing away at a coffee shop with your pals
What if the cure for the 'epidemic of loneliness' was solitude?
"There is a certain real loneliness if you say yes and all your old friends are saying no. So be prepared when your old groups, friendships, and even churches no longer fully speak to you the way they used to. But I promise you that those confusing feelings are far outdistanced by a new ability to be alone--and to be happy alone. One of the great surprises at this point is that you find that the cure for your loneliness is actually solitude! Who would have imagined that to be the case?"
Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011, page 143.
Replying to
@badbede I've had many trail days where I've planned and plotted how I was going to need to sleep wrapped in my tent (or something similar). But I've never had to do that in the end. The trail has always provided.
Replying to
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io So, they're saying the price could go up 100 or 200%. Or down 100, 200, even 500 or 700%?
I've heard that math before.
Replying to
@tanyakaroli@expressional.social @georgepenney@sunny.garden Small human in the library: I hear you loud and clear; I feel quite the same way!
News headline: Reflecting Pool Repairs to Cost $13.1 Million. Trump Had Promised $1.8 Million.
Nagging question: has Mr Trump ever once announced a number that was later verified to be at all close to correct? Or does he just make up numbers for everything at the spur of the moment?
Replying to
@evan Is the possible drunk wearing pants during the work video call? The lack thereof would increase the likelihood of an intervention.
Replying to
Replying to
@libreoffice@fosstodon.org I hope those independent developers are intelligent and not, ya know, _artificially_ intelligent.
Replying to
@strog @MostlyHarmless@thecanadian.social Thanks! I'm basically a cultural illiterate post-1950 (and not all that in touch pre-1950, truth be told).
Replying to
@ryan@m29.us @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io That "save up to" advertising copy always fries my grits. Adding "or more" just burns them back to elemental carbon.
Don't know that I ever heard of Ceuta before yesterday.
But, wow, for that many people to cross the border that quickly with "nothing but the shirt on their back" -- and, judging from the news photos, often not even that! -- that is really something. Hard to imagine how the situation can be managed justly.
Wash Post reports: "Pentagon recruiting troops to watch White House UFC fights, memos show
"Internal messages reviewed by The Post stipulate that military personnel must pay their own way and meet strict physical requirements to be eligible."
So ... What would the "strict physical requirements" be to watch a fight? Well, "Officials are seeking junior enlisted personnel and junior officers specifically, according to internal messages that make clear travel will be “member-procured.”
"Junior troops make up the military’s lowest pay grades.
"One memo, circulated within the Air Force, stipulates that to be eligible, personnel “MUST MEET CURRENT WAIST-HEIGHT RATIO and current physical fitness standard.” Troops will be required to wear their short-sleeve dress uniforms, the memo adds."
Replying to
@molly0xfff Based on what he did to his own casino business, I'm not sure I want him to be thinking that the whole world is a casino.
Robert Reich in the Guardian on
1. why Trump and his appointees are a REGIME and not an administration;
2. how Trump should not be referred to as the President;
3. why Trump and his regime’s disregard for law is so monumental that it negates what we have come to understand as a “government of laws”. And that a better word for it is LAWLESS; and
4. that the test of the success at the job is how much better off are the American people and how much stronger is our democracy. And by these measures, Trump and his regime are not just lawless. They are a CATASTROPHE.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/25/american-presidency-trump
Replying to
@Legit_Spaghetti@mastodo.neoliber.al @mattblaze@federate.social Which raises the further question of just when an assassination plot becomes an assassination attempt.
Replying to
@mattblaze @Legit_Spaghetti I can see that. In the present case, the lobby seems to be pretty close to the ballroom. But if the accused had stayed in his hotel room, it would only be a plot. And, perhaps if he'd stayed at home if would have been something less, maybe a threat.
Replying to
@Jgbird@mas.to Jealous of that nest placement! We have scores of her ruby-throated cousins here, happy to eat in the garden and from feeders, but have never seen a nest.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak at the backyard feeder just now. Always a lovely bird!
And, apparently, Canada is still on fire.
I don't think I've read anything about all that since the US president played his Tariffs card to try to block the wildfire smoke at the border. Also, since France and Spain started burning.