5 Things for morgan_lafaye

[fbhjr]

This is for that meme where you ask for 5 things to write about in the
comments.  These are the ones that morgan_lafaye gave me.

History:
Most people I know think of history as memorizing battles, names, and dates
of important events.
To me, History is stories and I love stories.   And, if you look at history
as stories, you get into a lot more of the who and why questions than the
what and when.
France invaded Germany because the king’s girlfriend thought it was a good
idea?
Henry the 8th couldn’t get a divorce because his wife’s nephew was holding
the pope hostage?
The stories of history I find fascinating.  I have no more inertest in
memorizing when the Spanish Armada set sail than anyone else.

Ethics:
The world is not fair.  It never has been and never will be.
It is at least possible in my mind that it could be ethical.  It won’t stop
natural disasters, illnesses, accidents or other tragedy.  But, if folks
were ethical towards each other, it could still be a nicer place.
Of course, then you get into the question of what is ethical.  I think my
own ethics are pretty good, but other folks might find them horrible.  (I
have, after all, broken all contact with my aging mother.  Some people
might think that out of the acceptable range.  I won’t even get into the
things I did when young.)
I do like to think I play by a fairly consistent set of rules.  And, that
is one of the things I do think is important to ethics, a set of rules that
is consistent.

Nature:
That’s a pretty open ended subject.  So, I’ll go off and run with what
first came into my mind.
I don’t believe the whole nature vs nurture argument to be valid.  It’s
like saying in chocolate milk you need to determine which is more
important, the chocolate or the milk.  You just can’t have chocolate milk
without both.
People are a product of their genetics and their environment in the exact
same way.  Arguing over which is more important won’t get you anywhere.

Numbers:
I’ve always had trouble with numbers.  Some people seem surprised by that
since I am an engineer.  But, what I am good with is shapes.  Shapes can be
defined by numbers and that is all well and good.  But, it is the shapes I
am good with and use it to get the numbers.
When I took calculus in high school I wasn’t very good at it.  I had been
good in all the math classes leading up to it, but only had a C- to D grade
in that class.  (It was the lowest grade I ever got in public school.)
And, it was because it was just numbers.  The teacher put equations on the
board and said “do it like this”.  It made no sense to me, so if I made a
mistake I couldn’t tell.  As my dyslexia is actually stronger with numbers
than letters, I often made problems and couldn’t correct for them.
Three months later, I took calculus in college and did fairly well in it.
Why?  Because very early in that class the professor explained that we were
using calculus to determine the shapes of curves.  Once said, I saw how the
two linked together and got much better at it.  Because, now it was shapes,
and I can tell when shapes look wrong.  (Can’t always fix it, but that’s
another story.)

One of the reasons my dyslexia is worse with numbers also goes to shapes.
Words have shapes.  Numbers tend to look the same.  They’re all the same
height.  They don’t have punctuation other than the decimal point.
Words have far more character in terms of shapes.  Like with integrated
curves, I can often see when one is shaped wrong.  Doesn’t mean I can fix
it, only ID it.  And, then only if the shape is wrong.  Order of letters
the same height, nope, that won’t help.  Tall letters and small not the
right place, that I might see.

Dreams:
My brain defrags just like everyone else’s.
I don’t tend to remember it.  There are times I do.  When I do I tend to
remember a whole lot for a while.
As it is my brain defragging, it can be interesting to see what data gets
pass along.  That can remind me of things I’ve forgotten or missed.  It can
make me think of things I might not have otherwise.  But, I generally don’t
think it means too much.
I do not believe that anything in dreams has a rock solid meaning.  Maybe
people raised under very similar conditions, exposed to very similar
conditions might dream of similar things and have it means something in the
same ball park.  But, for the most part, I think that folks have their own
meaning that is fairly unique.
I do have regular places that show up in my dreams.  Generally all hotels
in my dream are variations of the same one.  Shopping malls are all based
on the same model.  Forests are all based on another place.
They’re all real places I’ve been.  But, they are changed by my brain to
fit the dream.
The hotel is at: 37.434671/-121-891837
The mall is at: 42.254671/-71.169229
The outdoors spot is: 42.227248/-71.04928 (but before they built the
artificial lake.)