The Generalist

One's identity is far more than one's profession.

Recent Posts

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Onward to Key West

 

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Two days before leaving Austin, we get an email from a new Pennswood resident, Nancy Arnold. The joy of Pennswood is that we keep meeting interesting, engaging people. We learn that Nancy’s brother Carl and his wife Irene live in Austin. He’s an adolescent psychologist. Irene’s in charge of the Science textbooks for the state of TX. They agree to meet us for dinner—delightful people we definitely want to introduce to Adam and Caroline. They live in a neighborhood near the Griffin School. [Read more…] about Onward to Key West

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Austin or Bust!

Winter Journey  (1/19/15)

Dear friends,

IMG_1417blog sizeMany of you asked that we again write a blog about our winter journeying.  This year’s trip will be quite different I suspect—more internal than external.  We’ve decided to stay in three locations for a month at a time, using our RV as home base.  Many also wished us a much less adventurous start than last year.  Read on and see. . .but if you don’t have time or interest, that’s OK too. [Read more…] about Austin or Bust!

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Gail Reeves Fisher’s Card

Graphic Arts (1 of 1)In organizing family photos for an historical family photo album, Gail Reeves Fisher found a charming old print showing family members out for a wagon ride in about 1912.  The photo and the story about it were just too good not to share widely, so she created these wonderful note cards.

Photoshop was used to improve the contrast and definition of the faces, and to enlarge the tiny original.  The cornermounts are also photoshop images that were rotated and superimposed over the cropped original photo image.  The background is a photo of parchment paper.

The old-time sepia color is authentic; this is a four color reproduction of a sepia print.  Congrats to Gail on creating a card that will be a conversation piece and a bit of family history.

Printed by Bibliograf.com

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Effortlessly Organize Your eMail

I have a lot of subscriptions (NY Times, WP, etc.), and various vendors send me flyers. All of it used to swamp my one email inbox.Even though I used MS Outlook to sorted it by setting up complicated sorting rules, each new sender required a new rule and I soon fell behind.

Then I got smart. I had a disused email account (rbshreve2@hotmail.com) and I began using that when I subscribed to anything and also whenever I ordered stuff online. It was easy to automatically route everything from that secondary mailbox to a new special folder. When bulk mail arrived at my primary correspondence box, I’d unsubscribe; or when I actually wanted it, I’d change the preferences settings on my account at the sender.

Before long just about all the bulk stuff was arriving in the Hotmail account folder where I could deal with it as my time permitted. Now I don’t have the clutter of 20 to 30 low priority subscription items amongst the important stuff; yet everything is still there when I wish to read an item. I ask my friends to use the Hotmail address when they cc me.

Many email programs have a filter that allows you to screen emails addressed to more than one recipient. Use that filter to move the mail that’s broadcast to many people to a bulk mail folder.

Oh yes, another tip, Hotmail has a filter that checks to see if the sender is in your Hotmail address book. Use that to separate the mail sent by those you know from those you don’t — the stuff from strangers is held in the spam folder.

With tricks like these you can tame the flood with ease and avoid most of the mailbox housekeeping chores.

Don’t have two email accounts? — open a free one at gmail.com or yahoo.com.

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RSAnimate

The RSA website is fascinating.  Chock full of great reading and visual material, it is one of those web destinations that you will want to bookmark and spend some time browsing.  But the jewel of the RSA experience won’t be found on the front page (TheRSA.org) it’s tucked away here.

These YouTube videos are actually essays read aloud and accompanied by the drawings of what is known as a “graphic recorder.”  As the narrator reads, an illustrator draws.  Time-lapse techniques allow the white board drawing to keep pace with the words, and the overall effect is both entertaining and an aid to grasping and retaining the content. Check out the samples below …

Re-Imagining Work – ‎The Truth About Dishonesty – ‎The Divided Brain – ‎Videos

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Join Marguerite on the Climate Change March

Imagine_PeaceSeptember 18, 2014

 Dear friends,

I’ve been in a fog about the Climate Change March in NYC due to my computer’s being hacked and all my addresses contacted for a scam (sorry if you were one of them—no, I am not stranded in Manila on vacation, and thanks for not sending me money!).  Anyway, I just woke up to the fact that I didn’t have a seat on the train to and from NYC, so this morning at 6AM I was wide awake putting the pieces together.  The train from Trenton is already sold out, and I got two of the last seats from Princeton (luckily I’m close to both stations now that we live in Pennsylvania).

We’re all absorbed in the necessary and important things we fill our days with—yet we must also act to assure a livable future for those who come after we are gone.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, people from all over the country will be coming together in NYC for the People’s Climate March.  The March is anticipated to be the largest climate rally in history.  This is our chance to influence world leaders before the UN Climate Summit to support a comprehensive global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming pollution.

If you’re coming too, let me know!  If you can’t come, please join me in prayer for the sake of our children and grandchildren.  Look for me in the crowd and let’s pray for the loving, life-giving changes the world community must choose.

Blessings,

Marguerite

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Internet Fraud

Internet scams are so common that phrases like “Nigerian get rich quick” are a cliche.  Yet as Marguerite’s experience demonstrates, there seems to be no government agency interested in deterrence.  All that I have encountered seem interested only in investigating after an actual loss has occurred. [Read more…] about Internet Fraud

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Marguerite’s Email Hacked

Marguerite opened an email that appeared to be from Apple. Although she doesn’t recall the details, it was very authentic looking and she never doubted it’s authenticity.  She followed the instructions and though nothing of it.

But the email was a “spoof” and allowed the sender to capture Marguerite’s iCloud credentials and log in on her account and steal her address book. Using the stolen addresses the thief sent a fraudulent appeal for money to everyone in the address book.

Here is the full story: (click here)

Here is a news item about the scam: (Guardian Article)

Richmond

 

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Conspiracy Thinking

More than a half century ago, when I was a teen, I enjoyed reading science fiction. It was the 1950s and reports of flying saucer sightings regularly hit the news. Tabloids carried accounts of alien abductions. The movies and fiction writers exploited the public’s interest and produced all manner of fanciful entertainment that speculated about what it would be like if space aliens were among us.  There was a TV comedy staring a Martian.  Not surprisingly, there was a fringe of believers who speculated that aliens had secretly taken over the US Government. [Read more…] about Conspiracy Thinking

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Ross Bentley

Ross Bentley has written a series of excellent books on high performance driving (hpd). He’s been very successful in coaching successful racers and he makes a living sharing what he has learned.  Here is a recent email providing links to some of his current offerings. [Read more…] about Ross Bentley