I decided that I have to let the last post go, as doing more work on it is pointless. As it is, when I do face splits, it is very rare to get any alignment at all, but when the eyes, nose, mouth and head shape all line up, it is a bingo in my book. What about plastic surgery? They can’t do much, but they can do some. With Bill Hicks, for instance, it was apparent that they inserted a piece of plastic or something in the nose to straighten it out. But the nose was still in the exact same location on his face. They cannot change that. They cannot change the shape of the skull or location of the eyes, most critical in making comparisons. They cannot raise or lower ears – they can only tuck them.

What about when a person ages? It does not change alignment of features. They are hardwired in our skulls. Fat accumulates in eye sockets, ears elongate, chins double and then triple, but it is the same face underneath.

With Sam Cooke I found what clearly was a set of twins, and set it up as follows, one photo of Twin #1 superimposed on five of the other:

None of them align! In fact, the all misalign in the very same manner. What does that mean? It’s easy: Two of them.

Continue reading “Iksrakot” →

I am going to talk about something that I’ve never written about before, but to preface the remarks, it’s not private, and though it was at that time of my life, it is not important.

It has to do with becoming a CPA, and what it takes. At the time I passed the exam, in the early 1980s, it was a completely bluebook pencil-driven affair. We answered multiple choice questions; we wrote essays; and solved long problems in a show-your-work style.

It was my understanding at that time that only five percent of candidates did as I did, and passed all five parts on first attempt. I’ll get that part out of the way, in the “what it says about me” department. One, it means I’m pretty smart, at accounting anyway. I’m not terribly smart in many ways. But more than that, it says that I knew how to take a test. I didn’t sweat it, never sweated tests in college, and yet, for sure, I did not ace them all, not even close.  I was not an A student. However, I was always relaxed, and on tests usually done before everyone else and busy checking and rechecking my work. Some people I knew sweated and panicked. Even though they were smart and capable they were not good at testing. That’s a shame. There should be a better way for those who study hard, have the knowledge, but do not test well. I do not know the answer there.

Continue reading “Bouncing off rocks, landing in a beautiful pool” →

While we were vacationing in France, I had the pleasure of meeting Jan Spreen, an occasional commenter here. He allowed me to publish a couple of his pieces, here and here, while we traveled, and I have put his blog up on the blogroll. I advise caution, however, as much of his blog is written in French, and those French, as Steve Martin once reminded us, “have a different word for everything.”

Jan and I discussed books of importance, and I told him that I have a problem with retention, that I had read many book and that after I remembered nothing. This came to the fore this year when I put great effort in transcribing portions of the book Public Opinion, by Walter Lippman. I use 3m flags to highlight important passages, and then use a transcription program to read those passages into a Word file. I have accumulated scores of such files, and I occasionally consult them.

I have too many books and not enough space, and so was thinning them out and selecting many to give away to our local Community Nest. Or to toss. I came across another copy of Public Opinion. I had flagged that copy as I had the other, but had not transcribed it. I then realized that I had read and flagged the book twice, transcribed portions once, and not retained a word of it!

Continue reading “Yellow highlighters and the art of memory maintenance” →