Life.Currenttoday.com - 2 Cents

I received a phone call several years ago before everybody on your street had a computer.

The older librarian at a university I was attending called me for help with the new computer they had installed to connect with other libraries. She couldn’t get it to do anything she had been trained to do with it.

Well, I didn’t have a clue about the software she was using, but I’m usually a good problem solver. So, I started asking her basic questions to figure out what she may be doing wrong.

“What are you unable to do?”

“I can’t move the mouse over anything I want.”

“The mouse won’t move?”

“No, the mouse moves. I just can’t get it to move over anything.”

“What does the mouse do when you try to move it over something?”

“It just goes anywhere it wants.”

“So, when you try to move the mouse over an object it moves where ever it wants?”

“Yes, anytime I move the mouse it goes all over the place. I can’t move it where I want.”

This went on for several minutes before I finally started to realize what was happening.

I asked her, “What happens when you push the mouse to the right?”

“It goes down to the left,” she said.

“Where is the cable that hooks to the mouse pointing?”– I asked her.

“Well, it’s kind of pointing toward me,” she told me.

“Ok.” I responded. “Turn the mouse so the cable is pointing toward the computer and the buttons are by your fingers.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “It works now! Oh, my goodness. I feel so silly. Thank you so much.”

You can imagine I had a good laugh when I got off the phone. I could hardly fathom someone trying to use the mouse backward.

Well, the other day, one of the guys at work grabbed his mouse backward. You guessed it. For a split second, he tried to use it. For sure, he switched it around quickly enough. But not before issuing a “what in the world is going on?” in the same split second before he switched around his mouse.

In the next few moments our “you can’t use a mouse like that” acknowledgment turned into an attempt to use the mouse like that. After a chuckle at complete failure, we went on about our business. As we went back to work, I told him about the older librarian I just told you about. And, then, the incident was over.

A little later that day, I remembered that my father had always played his harmonica backward. Why? Because it’s how he picked it up the first time. He even lost a bet when he was in the army saying the high notes were on the left side of a piano, because of how he had picked up the harmonica the first time. He played it backward until his death.

In the same second I remembered my father’s backward harmonica, I thought about the older librarian picking her mouse up backward. I wondered what would have happened if she didn’t have help. Would she have learned to use the mouse backward?

Are there people out there using their mouse sideways? Does someone use their mouse backward?

I can’t imagine it, but I’ll bet you it’s true. Someone out there right now has the cable on their mouse pointed at them.

“How else would you use the mouse?” they would ask you.

Here a mouse, there a mouse. Everywhere a mouse, mouse.

Regards.

Several recent experiments were funded by a 12.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. Results from these are showing strong evidence that a reduced calorie diet consistently produces conditions associated with longevity in the body.

Prior clinical studies had shown this to be true in rodents.

The resulting conditions for longevity are cited here from the Press Release:

“Results from a controlled clinical trial indicate that overweight people who cut their calories by 25 percent for six months have reduced fasting insulin levels and core body temperature, two markers for which lower levels have been associated with increased longevity in humans. ”

Furthermore, the studies indicated less DNA damage, known to be associated with cancer and other diseases.

The Press Release stipulates the conclusions for longevity in rodents were true when the lower calorie diet was maintained for much of the rodent’s life. This extended testing has not been performed on humans, but testing will begin this year. Until this study begins, effects of such an intervention on human aging are unknown. But, current indications point to effects similar to those in rodents.

“Beyond its effects on fasting insulin levels and core body temperature, the low calorie diet also resulted in changes in some, but not all, of the metabolic factors that have been related to longevity or aging.”

Anyone willing to step out on an edge with me and venture a guess as to why these things are true?

Here’s my theory:

I think we’ll find a very simple mechanism at the core of why there is less DNA damage. So, simple as to be over-looked.

Why do we use chemotherapy? Simply stated, we bombard cells with enough poison to kill any cell that isn’t very healthy. This only leaves the strong cells living.

I believe a similar mechanism is at work in a lowered calorie diet. Since the bodies sources to supply its processes with needed ingredients are cut down, the body cuts down on processes. Weaker cells and components within the body will die and break down. Only the strongest and healthiest cells will continue to survive. Sounds a lot like chemotherapy doesn’t it?

)))see my comment about all this below((((

OK, now, let’s go crazy over the edge with this outlandish conjecture.

I think after this mechanism is discovered, we will find that a process very similar to chemotherapy will yield the same results.

)))see my comment about all this below((((

OK, now, let’s take it over the top.

I think the people using rotten food therapy to combat cancer have accidentally discovered these very things. I believe we will find they have many of the same changes for longevity as a side effect as well.

Sound crazy? Maybe so. But you heard it here first. Sit back and watch.

Regards.

Most any of us that work in an office, manage a shop, run a business, or deal with co-workers in today’s world have grown accustomed to depending a great deal on our computers and email.

I remember the chuckle we had when our company was threatening to remove the privilege of email and internet from anyone who continued to abuse the privilege.

What a joke. They would take away the tool to perform the job they wanted us to do and leave us doing what, digging through and old Thomas Registry and snail mailing clients and vendors? It was rather laughable. Take the hammer from a carpenter and try to build a house.

Email has become an indispensable tool for many, if not most of us today.

Email is a love and hate relationship for me. I can’t work without it, but I can’t get much done because of it.

It really amounts to a tool that we need to learn to use all over again now that our world’s have sucked it in to the point that we use email rather than managing jobs, projects, and people.

OK, what do I mean by needing to learn to use email all over again? What do I mean by using email rather than managing jobs, projects, and people?

Well, how often do you dig through your sent box or archives? Only every day, right?

Why?

Sometimes it is for that tad bit of information you misplaced. Sometimes it is for that company name or email you need. But, I’ll bet you dig through it as often to prove you sent an email, or prove what someone actually emailed you!

That’s right. Email has become the ultimate ‘cover my butt’ tool in most work environments.

I work in a company with manufacturing facilities all over the country. We often have projects that have to be coordinated between facilities. It becomes an email quagmire.

There, that kind of rhymes, doesn’t it: Email Quagmire.

I have a friend who is an excellent example of those who avoid technology. Not because he is stupid, but because he doesn’t want to take the time to learn it. Yet he has become the Email King.

He hasn’t mastered storing and retrieving things, so he prints them. He will print an email and staple it to a work order and file it. For the information? NO. Because he needs it? NO.

He does it to cover his butt. It’s just to prove he told them to do it and what he said and when he said it.

So, this wonderful tool for communication has turned into management by proof of blame.

How do we fix it? I don’t know.

If you find out, send me an email.

Regards.

Yes, I must say, it was very nice to bond two pieces of plastic together and see the good bond we were always used to having.

What am I talking about.

IPS changed the mix in their methylene chloride. I’m not personally sure why. I was told it was because California law restricted their use of the trichlor they had been using.

Anyway, we had to search for a replacement to Weldon 3 and Weldon 4. We actually lost a lot of time and money over this–not to mention some mad customers. Don’t get me started on that. For this article, let me just say we only found out the formula was changed when it failed to perform as it had been.

So, for all you plastic fabricators, let me save you some time and effort. Mostly, just search for a supplier whose chemical manufacturing is not in California.

I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but Craftics Acrylic Cement methyl works for us like IPS Weldon used to. You’ll find them here.

You can thank me sometime when you get the chance.

Regards.