BS: Old dogs learn new tricks

Subject: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Dec 23 - 01:26 PM

New things, skills or talents that are thought to diminish with age is a fallacy in my opinion.
My wife at nearly sixty was functionally blind when young without awareness. She missed the critical learning period for developing 3D vision which became a disability for things like driving. After therapeutic treatment at an experimental NIH program, she has regained 3D and refined her vision to the point where she has gotten her driving license.

The biggest problem is finding an affordable used car that isn't much cheaper than a new car. I bet many of you have learned new things if you think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Dec 23 - 02:53 PM

Wow, that's fantastic!

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Dec 23 - 03:01 PM

That's wonderful Donuel!
All my life I've had arachnophobia. But last year (at the age of 73!) I visited a new place near our village called 'Bugz UK'. They have several small enclosures with huge hairy tropical spiders, and if you pay a bit more after entry, you can hold one of these monsters gently.
Well, I gritted my teeth and did it, with husband watching in amazement. What I felt actually was pity for the poor creatures shut in a kind of prison for the rest of their lives.
I now have no fear at all of big spiders in our house - cured!

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Dec 23 - 07:03 AM

The process involved a virtual reality headset and training video, injections that benefitted neuronal processes, and using one's own baseline for measuring improvement. While no one got placebo treatments there were different procedures to measure effectiveness.

Our brain is not merely plastic, it is like modeling clay.
This ability has strengths and sociological weaknesses regarding individual help and political brainwashing in my experience.
I learned about about experiments that my wife just had almost 10 years ago. I imagine that my 3D is still better than hers because generally speaking healing is rarely the same as good as new.

The biggest surprise was that she kept her driving education and license a secret until last week! She is a clever if not genius 'girl'.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Dec 23 - 01:25 AM

Huzzah, Senoufou!

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Dec 23 - 08:15 PM

Today she got her present of a Subaru Forester and drove it home.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 23 - 11:10 AM

That's nice about the driving and the car! And Senoufou, I won't say I was afraid of spiders but I was a bit surprised the first time I found a tarantula in the house when I moved to this area. I have a system now, since they usually turn up in the den - I keep a couple of clear plastic food storage containers in there to drop over to top of any spider, then slide a piece of cardboard under and transport it outside. I've caught spiders for the neighbors a few times also (versus them killing the poor things.)

I'm learning to "drive" a new computerized sewing machine. All my life I've used analog machines (the newest of the two old ones does zigzag and uses cams for various stitches, a couple of dozen total). The oldest machine sews straight, forward and back, with some fancy attachments (that I rarely use because they are highly engineered and very fussy to set up). The new machine is like learning to drive all over again - it isn't like a Tesla with self-driving, though it is self-threading (which is pretty magical!) but it has several buttons to learn to use now for specific moves. Needle up, locking stitch, etc.

The new skill that will be practiced with the new machine is quilting; there's a lot to choosing fabrics, patterns, measuring (carefully! in sewing as in carpentry, measure twice, cut once!) and then putting it all together. This should be good exercise for my brain.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Dec 23 - 04:32 PM

Wow your machine can do tricks you have never done before. It is fortunate that you can read the instructions. It would be too challenging for a man who never even keeps the instructions let alone read them. I suffer from noninstructionitis with cameras, car features, YouTube posting, and rules in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 16 Dec 23 - 10:32 PM

> I suffer from noninstructionitis

So do most computer users these days. When all else fails, RTFM.

Meanwhile, back at the new tricks: Herself has realised that she *can* sing after all; and I've learned how to help her do so. Our respective ghasts are well and truly flabbered.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 03:44 AM

Hubby asked me to do a simple sewing mend on an item of clothing. I told him he just needs to use the accelerator pedal on my 60 year old machine and steer the cloth through, under the needle. With the look he gave me you'd think I was telling him how to navigate and steer a moon rocket.

He has no trouble driving a manual car so the sewing should be a breeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 03:46 AM

So do most computer users these days. When all else fails, RTFM.

But so many instruction manuals are only available on-line. If you can't get on-line in the first place, how are you supposed to RTFM?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:29 AM

Ah, the old Catch-22!

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:49 AM

We have a related problem, Doug:

* We have a strange problem with our mains electricity: whenever it rains heavily, every third house in our road loses its power. We're one of said set.

* We've just been converted to fibre-to-the-house, which requires mains power to run the electronics. (I did ask for battery-backed kit, but no show.)

* Neither of our cellphones works well enough to get us through the menu system to report a power-out.

* Upshot: When our power goes out, we have to go to a neighbour's house to phone the electricity company to tell them to replace the fuse in the substation. They then ask for a phone number to ring back telling us what they've done.

.... There was a similar comment on The Now Show, where they said that if you're having problems getting online, the GPO (or whatever they're called this week) have written a web page telling you how to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:57 AM

Or the even older, "there's a hole in the bucket" problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:27 PM

> you'd think I was telling him how to navigate and steer
> a moon rocket.

From a discussion on whether Macintosh GUIs are intuitive:

"Intuitive" is merely a synonym for "familiar".

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:32 PM

He won't get familiar with the machine if he won't even go near it.

Maybe it's a boy thing. Sewing machines are for girls. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 23 - 09:06 PM

Must disagree! Sewing machines aren't just "for girls." Look online, you'll see a number of men with Instagram accounts showing their design and sewing. I was at Home Depot one day looking for a tool, and to describe what I was looking for to the guy who worked in hardware I compared it to something to do with sewing. He didn't bat an eye, he knew exactly what I was trying to describe. The scale of sewing may be generally smaller than construction, but the rule is still important to "measure twice, cut once" and piecing fabric is equally artful as piecing lumber.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 18 Dec 23 - 11:27 PM

Maybe if I bought a new computerised sewing machine my now-retired IT Coordinator Hubby would be more interested in learning how to use it. :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 21 Dec 23 - 02:42 PM

Sewing machines aren't just for girls. I've two kites in our garage, both of them truly massive, which I put together on my mother's sewing machine while I was, erm, resting. Sadly, I had to withdraw the kites' airworthiness certificates when each in turn took one too many prangs, and I've not fixed them because nobody's sent me a sufficiently round tuit.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 21 Dec 23 - 03:25 PM

Ah yes! Kites! I made a few in my younger days and loved flying them, but they all have been hangar-bound for many decades, except on my 60th birthday picnic, although I used bought ones because the old ones are falling apart. I was especially pleased with the winged box kite. That was a good challenge to make.

The Penguin Book of Kites by David Pelham, 1976 was my go-to book, and I used it so much back in the day that it fell apart and I had to punch some holes in it and tie the binding back together, and then I bought a new copy a couple of decades later.

And ah yes, the round tuit! I never have enough of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 22 Dec 23 - 10:22 AM

Thanks, Helen: now I know what I got those kite designs from, and what to ask for for next Christmas. My father's copy also became a loose-leaf edition ("Don't read so hard --- you'll wear the words out").

Does anyone know the history of the round tuit? The first one I saw was in the porters' lodge of King's College Cambridge, around 1973; and no, it wasn't singing.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 22 Dec 23 - 12:54 PM

I don't know the history of the round tuit, but scroll down to this section What’s A Round Tuit? for an explanation relating to wooden nickels.

I think I first heard the term in a comedy routine on TV, maybe. That would have been possibly in the '70's.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 22 Dec 23 - 10:23 PM

The kites I bought were from the Aldi supermarket. They sell them maybe a couple of times a year.

If you do an internet image search for "3D kites Aldi" you can see some of the designs. I particularly like the Butterfly kite with very long streamers. The good news is they are relatively cheap. The bad news is you don't have the joy of making them yourself ... but they are fun to fly.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Dec 23 - 04:13 AM

From a discussion on whether Macintosh GUIs are intuitive:


    "Intuitive" is merely a synonym for "familiar".


I always remember the old Mac evangelists laughing at PCs using the "Start" menu to close down. And didn't bat an eyelid when I remind them that to eject the floppy disk you dragged the floppy icon into the trash can!

Which one would you try hopefully and which would you think long and hard with at first sight? Neither intuitive, but ..............

Switch off power and which is fail safe?

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Dec 23 - 04:33 AM

UK seaside novelty shops were selling "Round Tuits" in the 60s - dinner plates with logos. I would wager they are earlier than that.

Searching on-line (because I got round tuit) shows scant evidence of early usage except some very authoritative and clearly false dissertation on why King Arthur, with his "round" table, issued round tuits to his knights when they sallied fort. And you can buy genuine copies of round tuits with texts in English (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon aka Frisian)!

And AI will trawl through that - so now the story is de facto.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Dec 23 - 03:01 PM

I've never made kites but years ago I started making windsocks (ornamental to hang on the porch), using ripstop nylon (parachute type cloth). I still have some of that and have been meaning to make some more. Who knew that the rainbow windsocks from years ago would have so much more meaning now?

I spent two hours in a one-on-one tutorial with the teacher at the sewing shop (sales and repairs) and came away with a lot of ideas about how to do things I've been planning.

Subject: RE: BS: Old dogs learn new tricks
From: Helen
Date: 27 Dec 23 - 03:18 PM

SRS, I didn't know about ripstop nylon back when I made my kites so they looked good but fell apart fairly quickly. I started using it when I made my first harp cover, and then another one a couple of years ago.