Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@qoto.org

Question regarding Android and call blocking.

For years I've used so-called whitelist call blocking. All calls are blocked except a list of about 20 numbers that will ring through.

There's an organization that has a bunch of different numbers, and the list of numbers sometimes changes, but the caller ID string for all of them is the same: Mountain State such-and such. Is there a way I can unblock the caller ID string so that all the numbers with that ID can ring through?

Seems this feature must exist. It's probably right under my nose and can't see it.

Yeah, I don't know what to say on this. The politicians are obviously grandstanding. "Oh look what we're doing!". At the same time they're shamelessly showing their constituents that they're out-of-touch numbskulls.

It's nonsense and can never work. Ridiculous.

@Free_Press Hmm. That would be great but I can't see the Russians engaging in diplomacy.

An huge number of Russians have been slaughtered already. Obviously, far more more need to be slaughtered for an impression to be made. So, Mk-84s and cluster bombs on Russian cities. Get busy. There are a lot of Russians to be turned into fertilizer.

@theogrin Yes, and lucky me, who has had no medical issues since 1985 is about to get a taste of the health care "system" in the United States. I wish I was back living in Guatemala.

Oh, but that's a "third world" country.

Yah, sure. Whatever, man.

@karlauerbach @ai6yr Just due diligence in case he lost you on the operating table. O.O

@johncarlosbaez @TonyVladusich @dougmerritt That behavior might have been about attracting the ladies. Maybe he was unsure whether there were women who are attracted to nerds. (there are.)

I think I need to trademark the phrase: "I read somewhere that..." I read somewhere that at Los Alamos, all the physicists were so intimidated by Bohr they avoided conversation with him. But not Feynman. He was the only one that would get into loud lively debates with him.

@dougmerritt @TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez My observation is that IQ matters but discipline and perseverance matter more. There are high IQ people out there who do nothing with it. I read about a study done back in the 90s that showed the average IQ of people in prison was higher than the general public.

@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Or perhaps more of a habit or practice than a skill. Mark Twain was highly critical of prolixity. He would take other's writings and "fix them" to show people what was talking about. He'd sometimes take five or six paragraphs and condense it down to two sentences. It's very amusing.

@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Agreed. I am like that, patient and determined to understand no matter how long it takes most of the time. What puts me off about linear algebra (and I've approached it a couple times over the years) is the first several layers seem pretty easy and obvious. Then I reach a level that also seems pretty obvious but when I try to apply it or work on sample problems, I discover that I don't get it at all. This "rubs me the wrong way" and is off-putting / disturbing.

Plus I don't really *need* to learn linear algebra, but I'd like to. I'd like to because I think it would give me a better understanding or visualization of fields, like electric fields, and it's key to understanding Einstein's work I think. Which I'd like to but don't have a pressing need. Haha.

@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Fascinating. I've actually long wondered why I'm not a math whiz. I'm a whiz at just about everything else, everything I've undertaken, but not math, or "higher math" anyway. As an engineer I use math all the time, but my ability hit a wall at linear algebra.

It just seems odd to me that I have any problem with math at all. But I do. Of course at my age it doesn't matter anymore. Hahaha.

Hahaha. I think I've been away from home for too long. This just happened 4 blocks from where I was born. Too much fun. Love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22PORnPB-Yw

@TruthSandwich @fatsam Certainly true, by definition, in the United States. This is what these Trumpites hope to change.

@Jgbird Cool. A "Little Green". I'd see these occasionally years ago in Guatemala.

@futurebird Been there done that in the 1970s. These days it's stamps. (As in decorative rubber stamps and ink.) Hahaha.

@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt I'm glad to see we have certain things in common. The one thing we don't have in common but wish that we did is that I was blessed with great teachers and mentors in science, chemistry, physics, engineering, software, and plagued with terrible teachers of mathematics. It took me years and years of self-study to master mathematics I could have known by 18 years of age, had I had good teachers.

I suspect I know what was wrong. For me to learn something quickly and easily, I have to see a use for the thing I'm learning. I have a mental block against learning things for which I see no practical use. I needed math teachers that showed WHY I need to learn this method or algorithm. But they didn't do that. "Just learn it. Memorize it." This may work for some but not for me.