Dollars For Digits

It takes our brains 80 milliseconds to process information. That means we are all living a little bit in the past---probably some of us more than others. So, before my brain turns to mush, I decided to learn something about “Bitcoin,” the digital currency introduced in 2009 by a developer whom nobody knows, because he goes under the pseudonym, ”Satoshi Nakamoto.”

Bitcoin is a peer to peer, math-based digital currency, or for those of you purists, “cryptocurrency.” Peer-to-peer means nerd-to-nerd. These digital coins go person to person via the Internet---an electronic made-up cash system on a computer server.  It allows people to buy all kinds of bad stuff, because it promises anonymity. In 2013 the FBI closed down a server called, ”Silk Road” which specialized in illegal drugs. Stay with me, it gets better. Even my spell-check never heard of bitcoins.

However, since transaction fees are lower than the 2 or 3% imposed by credit card processors, bitcoins are increasingly used as payment for legitimate services or products. Sometimes called, “Blockchain,” a public transaction ledger keeps track of who owns bitcoins, how many transactions are out there, and prevents double spending. People who use their computers to maintain the blockchain are called, “Miners,” but we don’t know who they are. My spell check never heard of blockchain either.

If by now, you want to trade in bitcoin, you will need a virtual wallet---where else would you store invisible tender? Wallets come in apps for mobile devices and computers, hardware devices and paper coins. Paper! Now, that I get! To trade bitcoins you do it on a public key, but a private key address will keep your bitcoins safe---unless your secret code gets out. Then your bitcoins can be cyber-stolen.

Here are some reasons I won’t buy bitcoins:

I’m not a nerd.

I like my greenbacks and transactions to be backed by the U.S. Government, because we have a very big military, with very big guns, that will back up my very hard earned dollars.

I don’t hoard canned goods, or speculate on how many times my neighbor’s dogs will poop on my sidewalk. Why would I hoard bitcoins on the speculation that they will go up in value? Yes, they have, and they have also tanked. There have been large swings in value. One such value collapse happened when people panicked, sold their invisible bitcoins, and froze a trade engine.

Countries with troubled national currencies such as Argentina and Iran have used bitcoins. The People’s Bank of China has recently ordered their banks not to use them as “legal tender.” They can’t breathe without coughing in China, but they know about coughing up money.

There are only 12 million bitcoins, and I think there is a programmed limit to how many will be created. Don’t know who programmed that, because everyone seems to be called by the name, “Anonymous.”

So now you know as much as I do about bitcoin. To sum it up:

Unknown, unaccountable, anonymous people wrote a computer code for imaginary, untraceable currency that exists in cyberspace and Dodos are investing real money in it.

Esther Blumenfeld (“It’s gold for nerds.”) Stephen Colbert

Rank Then File

Late last night, after I pulled my car into the garage, I grabbed an armload of newspapers and dumped them into the recyclable can---along with my car keys. Not planning to drive anywhere until the next morning, I decided to leave the keys filed where I had tossed them. Just like “Extreme Sports,” this is an example of “Extreme Filing!”

Everyone has his own filing system. Margo Kaufman reminds us that, “one person’s mess is another person’s filing system.” A sure way to find what you are looking for is to make 26 copies of everything you type, and then file one copy under each letter of the alphabet.

My husband, who never trusted anyone who had a clean desk, always made 10 copies of everything, and then filed them on the floor---but only after his desks, chairs, and exercise machine could hold no more paper. He claimed he knew where everything was---as long as I didn’t move a thing. I didn’t care as long as I knew he was somewhere behind that mountain of paper.

Filing takes organization. That’s the hard part. A friend and I were recently asked to pull some information out of some files that had been re-organized by a departed member of an association. She had efficiently labeled the files and then disposed of much of the needed information. I finally understood Hercule Poirot when he said, “Touch Nothing!”  That is especially easy to do when pertinent information has been filed under---“ wastebasket.”

I try to keep my papers in reasonable order, but sometimes it is impossible. That is when I use file folders labeled, “Other,” “Miscellaneous,” and “Stuff.” Works for me!

I once had a summer factory job substituting for office workers when they went on vacation. One assignment was to stand for 8 hours at a table filing orders into the “In” or “Out” baskets. The room was dingy, dusty and dark (alliteration being the best part of the job). After the 6^th hour, I didn’t care whether orders were “In” or “Out” as long as they were filed. The factory workers went on strike the next day, and I was hesitant to cross the picket line, until one worker called out, ”It’s okay, Girlie. No one wants your job.” Neither did I, but I needed the money. Happily, the boss put me behind a typewriter where I could mess up sitting down.

Some people file everything on their computers. That is okay, unless they die taking their passwords with them to the “Great Beyond.”

Everyone is required to file tax returns. When frustrated, I always recall that Albert Einstein said, “This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher.”

My friend, Sally just tosses her papers into a big box, hands the mess to her accountant and says something such as, ”This is really going to make your day. File away, Old Chum!” Her accountant must be a philosopher.

Esther Blumenfeld (File and print!)

Thinking Outside The Box

When Sir Isaac Newton noticed that apples don’t fall up, he discovered gravity. When I was 4-years-old and stuck a scissor into an electrical outlet, I discovered that electricity doesn’t like scissors. I never did that again, but also never lost my inquisitive nature.

Dorothy Parker said, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Maybe there is no cure, but there are plenty of people around whose mission, it seems, is to squash it.

Young children have an insatiable appetite for wanting to know things. That’s why their favorite word is; “Why?” And, of course, once they get an answer, it only raises other questions. A parental, “Because I said so!” is never satisfying, and only re-enforces the notion that parents are really dumb---which usually lasts until children are parents themselves.

My son, Josh was never a destructive toddler, but his curiosity often involved touching things better left alone, such as a huge Buddha made out of butter at a fancy restaurant. It only took a little poke from a tiny finger to give Buddha a second belly button. I couldn’t prove that Buddha didn’t have two belly buttons before we came, and Josh was wearing his innocent face, but as Steven Wright said, “Curiosity killed the cat, but for awhile I was a suspect.”

When Josh grew to manhood he discovered in graduate school that prodding and prying is called research.

Curiosity is tricky. It pushes us to achieve, but can hold us back because sometimes we are so curious that we keep searching and don’t carry through. That is called procrastination. Steven King said it well; “The scholars greatest weakness is calling procrastination research.” Albert Einstein was modest when he said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” And look where that got him.

I recently read that the Chinese are not good at innovation and creativity. Not so surprising! Being curious and questioning in a repressive society can land you in jail.

Solving any mystery starts with curiosity---trying to put a puzzle together to see how the pieces fit. It’s not surprising that the one-ton space lab that landed on Mars is called, Curiosity. The landing could not be tested from start to finish because NASA scientists couldn’t simulate all conditions on Mars.

I get it! But why wasn’t anyone curious about all those apples that don’t fall up, until Isaac Newton was in1687? They were probably just too busy eating them, and not curious about them at all. After all, they were just apples

Esther Blumenfeld (What if? Why? What Now? What matters? and Where do we go from here?)

Go Fish

Fishing is a sport that no one in my family or my husband’s family ever attempted. Well, that’s not entirely true. When my husband, Warren was in college, the story goes that he was asked to carry a case of beer for a fishing trip. But, when he jumped into the rowboat, it sank. A young woman screamed, “I can’t swim!” So Warren suggested that she stand up, since they were still at shore. Heroically, having his priority straight, he fished the beer out of the water, and was the only one to catch anything on the whole trip.

When our son, Josh was 4-years-old, we visited with our in-laws in Florida. They lived in a sub-division that was crisscrossed with water canals. Rumor had it that these canals were stocked with fish. Why else would people find alligators in their backyards? Of course, Josh’s grandpa Chuck could never say, “No!” to his favorite and only grandchild. So when Josh said, “Let’s go fish,” grandpa rigged a fishing pole out of rope and a broom handle. For bait, he used kosher salami. I didn’t know if alligators ate kosher salami, but found out that ducks love the stuff. Surrounded, by fowl, Josh, yelled, “You’re not fish!” tossed the fishing pole into the water and ran home as fast as his little legs could take him.

Dave Berry said, “Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it’s disgusting.”

I’ve gone fishing a couple of times in my life, and found that sitting around doing nothing on a sunny day, on the bank of a river, is just as good as sitting around the house. Of course, Steven Wright reminds us: ”There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”

I think there’s a certain romance in fishing, except no one ever told that to the fish, and drowning innocent worms seems not so nice. Fishing is a little like golf, except it’s only acceptable to hit a fish with a club if you are out in the middle of the ocean, and no one can see you.

If I remember the theory of evolution correctly, creatures came out of the sea and acclimated to dry land. Had man paid attention, we could have learned some lessons from this experience. Fish don’t have any problems until they open their mouths.

Eating fish can be a dangerous experience. The Japanese have a delicacy called “Fugu.” (poisonous Pufferfish). It is very expensive and can be more deadly than cyanide if not prepared correctly. I don’t know how it tastes because I’m not partial to cyanide, but Fugu appears on more than 80 menus in Japan. The chef has to be a licensed Fugu cook. I don’t know if you have to sign a release before eating the dish, but if it isn’t prepared correctly, your lips swell and you die before you can send it back to the kitchen.

On a happier note, I thought I’d give Josh a chance to redeem himself after the salami escapade. This is what he said: “The last time I went fishing was with a neighbor in New York City. We went out in Sheepshead Bay near Coney Island. I think I actually caught a sheep’s head. It was on a party barge, without the party. You could keep what you caught, including any diseases inhabiting the fish. Going fishing in New York City is kind of like owning a Porche convertible in Alaska---it’s possible, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Esther Blumenfeld (angling for a Carp-e diem.)

Order In The House

If your mailbox isn’t stuffed with catalogs this Holiday Season, your mailbox is the one floating around with the International Space Station. Those wiseacres, who predicted the demise of catalogs due to online sales, forgot the fact that you can’t make sales if you can’t reach your customers.

According to the Direct Marketing Association, catalog distribution has grown to over 20 billion pieces of mail, and I suspect that mailmen and chiropractors have a very symbiotic relationship during this season of peace, goodwill and bulk mail deliveries.

It is believed that Benjamin Franklin was the first cataloger in the United States. In l744, he produced the first catalog that sold scientific and academic books such as: Flying Kites in Lightening Storms—A New Way to Remove Fungus From Between Your Toes.

He also offered the guarantee, “Those persons who live remote, by sending their orders and money to B. Franklin may depend on the same justice as if present.” Of course, if the order was lost in the mail, he could always blame it on the pony.

In 1872, Aaron Montgomery Ward of Chicago produced the first mail order catalog---a single 8x12 sheet of paper with a price list, pictures of merchandise and how to order it. He was able to lower prices by removing the middleman at the general store.

The first Sears Catalog was published in 1888. By 1895, it had grown to a 532- page book  “illustrating the largest variety of goods ever imagined,” and if you didn’t want any goods, you could always use the book to pump up your abs.

The Homestead Act of 1862, and America’s westward expansion, was followed by the development of the railroad. Also the postal system allowed a better postage rate of one-cent—as well as the advent of Rural Free Delivery in 1896. All this made the distribution of catalogs economical.

My daughter-in-law, Barbara looked at the pile of catalogs that had been stuffed in the mailbox and said, “Why would we want a catalog called, 'Dogs Are Us?' We have a cat!'"

Retailers hope that from the comfort of your own home, you will fall in love with catalogs that you didn’t even know existed, and you will become so enthralled with the merchandise that you will overlook the thousands of trees that died so you can order a dog costume---even if you don’t have a dog.

Esther Blumenfeld (Got to go. I need to order shoelaces that glow in the dark from Senior Living Essential.)