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Heiser
CHRISTMAS NEWS
http://members.aol.com/dickheiser/
December 2002
Lack of Dates
Blamed on the Economy
Many of you have
been getting a box of dates from us, but not this year. Dick blames the stock
market. He hopes the dates will return, but is careful not to say which year.
Friends
Outside
Dick has been
volunteering at Friends Outside, a counseling and support agency in Watts. Sam
Spicer, the case manager, helps ex-prisoners with job referrals and a variety
of social services. Sam organizes monthly orientation sessions to explain the
services, and Dick likes to help out at these well-attended meetings. Friends
Outside also organizes a Christmas party for kids and bus trips to the women's
prison so kids can visit their mothers.
Arts and
Learning
PLATO is the
learning-in-retirement group Dick joined at UCLA. It has been extremely
stimulating, and he enjoys participating in classes enormously. There are
monthly lectures too. He has studied the brain, anthropology and photographers.
Next is American art 1940-1990; it should be very good. He's also attending
lectures at UCLA and Caltech and enjoys many free and low-cost concerts around
town. He exhibited one of his digital photos in the Getty's basement, for Getty
Underground 2002. This
was the first time docents could participate in the show. You can see that
photo on our website.
War in Iraq?
Dean Demory and
his mom Dorothy inspired Dick to join them on a bus trip to San Francisco for
an anti-war rally October 26th. It was a great experience, with
loving people and lots of creative home-made signs. His favorite signs: "Stay
glued to the TV, you hysterical brainwashed fool!", "Unreasonable Women for
Peace" and "Regime Change Begins at Home".
We think you'll
like a recent movie clip at: http://www.dubyadubyadubya.com/
So, what's Loretta up to?
Loretta is
teaching piano and cello lessons. Last year she gave eight teas, using her
collection of china and creating a Victorian environment in the front room. She
also has been making paper, from which she designs collages and greeting cards.
Recommendation
Barbara
Ehrenreich's best-selling book Nickel and Dimed is a readable story of what it feels
like to be working and poor. What's heart-breaking is the inefficiency of poverty: people are spending $50 per
night for a hotel room because they don't have $1,000 to move into an
apartment. It's like going to a loan shark.
More Recommendations
Sean Penn's
I Am Sam is our
favorite movie this year. We had no idea Sean Penn was so talented and
sensitive.
The Onion (www.theonion.com)
and Ironic Times (www.ironictimes.com) are hilarious,
brief, weekly, free satirical newspapers. For
example, "Picture of Post-War Iraq Emerging: Daylight Savings Time, right turn
on red light, martial law." -Ironic Times
A New Kind
of Science by Stephen Wolfram is an enormous and
wonderful book. Dick easily completed the 900-page main text. Wolfram made the
graphic illustrations using the Mathematica language he invented. Wolfram laid
out all the pages himself, so no figure numbers are needed; his references to
"the opposite page" are always correct. In fact, Dick found only a single
typographical error in the whole book. As with fractals and chaos theory, we
are beginning to understand how complex behavior can emerge from simple roots.
He identifies four levels of complexity patterns. Once you exceed a very low
threshold, systems become universal computers, capable of simulating any other
computer. Adding more complications after that doesn't increase the complexity.
Chapter 8, Implications for Everyday Systems, makes especially interesting reading.
The Segway
Human Transporter, now
for sale at Amazon, is high on Dick's wish list. The Segway joins the Benson
Gyrocopter, which has been on Dick's list for 50 years. The Segway sounds like
a like a magic carpet; the Amazon review says going downhill produces a "dreamy,
floating feeling". Then Dick
remembers that it would not only be cheaper but healthier to go bicycle riding
instead.
Playing the Disconnect
Tone found at http://home.attbi.com/~dakine/defeat.htm
on your answering machine may delete you from telemarketer lists.