Musing

By The Numbers

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TAVR &Adventure By The Numbers

1 Surgery Scheduled
7 Surgery Performed
3 Daily Pills Consumed
21 Daily Pills Consumed
2 Days in hospital expected
28 Days in hospital
14 Days in rehab center
59 Days with Mom
0 Days spent kicking all painkillers
5 Visit from dogs
4 Days with no memories, total blackout
9 Cardiologist MDs, that I’m aware of
3 Other MDs
3 Home visit RN nurses
18 Both facility RN nurses, that I remember
6 Nurses that assisted with taking a bath
1 Birthdays with no memory
7 Relatives visiting
5 Hours spent withTV entertainment, total
22 Days without bathing
1 Outdoor walk
5 New scars
26 Pounds lost
28 New stitch lines from sternum cracking
4 Average number of daily walks in hospital
2468 Emails backed up
654 Spam or political emails

PS, Numbers from contributes

1 Life saved
108 Pages filled with notes (should have been up in the main. This is what I did instead of watching TV.)

Scambled Eggs Question

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On Quora, a person asked about the necessity of mixing eggs before putting them in a pan for scrambling.  There are several thoughtful answers. But why did the person ask? Why rely on what people on the Internet say? Eggs, for a non-impoverished person in an industrialized country, are cheap.  This is a question one can easily answer for oneself. This is a question that answering for oneself brings benefits beyond having the knowledge. My answer is:

Since you’re asking this question on Quora, I’ll assume you’re a citizen of an industrialized country. I’ll further assume you are not an impoverished citizen. The rest of my answer rests on the foundation of those assumptions. In essence, I assume you can afford to spend the money to buy a dozen eggs and possibly “ruin” a few of them.

Eggs are cheap. With relative ease you can get the answer for yourself. Buy a dozen. Each day for six days make a pair of scrambled eggs for yourself changing the mixing time, maybe the heat level. Pay attention to how you do it each day and how you liked the results. Try to not forget too much.

On the seventh day review your notes and/or memories. You will then know with absolute certainty if you really need to mix the eggs before pouring in order to have scrambled eggs prepared the way you like.

Fundamentally, why ask when you can easily get a more authoritative answer via direct experience at trivial cost?

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

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Fight or Flight, That’s the recognized responses to “perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.” How was freeze left out of the discussion?

You’re familiar with “deer in the headlights”? Maybe you’ve seen one. Perhaps you’ve seen another animal, a rabbit maybe, frozen, waiting. A flight may follow, but freeze comes first.

Perhaps, also, you’ve seen people in high-stress situations just curl up. They follow the path of no-action as a response to the harmful event or perceived threat.

Why this doesn’t get more recognition and attention is a mystery to me.

Translations

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If you’ve ever set out to learn a foreign language you know how tricky translation can be. Even professionals have a tough time. This Vox video details some of the problems faced around the world when translators took on Harry Potter.

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon has been translated from Japanese to English multiple times. It is interesting to compare translations. I’m currently doing just that, with the versions by Ivan Morris from Columbia University Press and Meredith McKinney of Penguin Classics.

Differences appear from the very beginning.

McMinney:

In spring, the dawn — when the slowly paling mountain rim is tinged in red, and wisps of faintly crimson-purple cloud float in teh sky.

Morris:

In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud train over them.

Great translators are a gift.