Ernie’s World
by Ernie Witham
Read more exciting adventures in Ernie’s World the Book and A Year in the Life of a “Working” Writer. Both available at amazon.com or erniesworld.com.
Zoom-Piddie-Doo-Dah, Zoom-Piddie-Day
E
very day millions of people are going to Zoom meetings, classes, get-togethers, sing-a-longs, and various other Zoom-capades. While a convenient way to congregate virtually, not everyone is as... ah... technically astute... which can make it... challenging. Welcome to today’s Zoom class everyone. It appears we are missing a few attendees. Let’s see, supposed to be 50 and we have... 6. Excuse me, I have a call... Simply click on the link I sent you, Stan... in your email... with the meeting ID number. 15 minutes ago... from me... no, I’m afraid I can’t come over there to help. Aren’t there any teenagers in your neighborhood? What’s that, Regina? You can’t hear very well? Just turn up your speaker. No! Not the stereo speaker. You are now blasting everyone with... is that Engelbert Humperdinck? Really? All his records, huh? Wow. Oh good! I see two more people have connected. Actually, one person and what looks like a bear?... Oh, it’s you Irving. Could you please, ah, put a shirt on? Or shave your chest? Thank you. Nice to see a few smiling faces... Oops, please lower your screen, Zelda. All we can see is your forehead and what looks like a chandelier from the 1940s. The Botox injection sites on your forehead are clearing up nicely though. And, Ralphie, you are sitting a little too close and you have something in your nose. Yes William? No. You do not need to show me the invite. Please do not hit the “share screen” button! Shoot. Too late. Wow, you have a lot of stuff open. Yes, we can all see your desktop, William. Or should I call you by your Match.com name, Big Willie? We’ll be starting in just a few minutes, I hope. Whoops, another call... Hello again Stan... What? You asked some guy in an unmarked van who was driving slowly through your neighborhood to come in and help you and he stole your computer? So sorry. Maybe you can connect on your phone? Oh, it’s a landline? Shaped like a banana? No, I don’t know why the thief didn’t steal that, too. Just lucky, I guess. You should probably take a moment and call the police, though. No. Please do not come over to my house to Zoom with me. Here are a few more people. Welcome Reggie. First contact with another human this month? I’m flattered. For next month, though, you may want to 11 – 18 June 2020
Brilliant Thoughts
shower. Or at least wash your hair. Hi Lucille. What? No, we really don’t need to meet all your cats... Okay, everyone say hello to Figaro. And Simba. And Tigger. And Ambrose. And Mittens. Are those Mittens’ kittens? Yes, we all think it’s great that you are using organic kitty litter. Might want to get a box, though, instead of just using your kitchen table.
“Welcome to today’s Zoom class
everyone. It appears we are missing a few attendees. Let’s see, supposed to
be 50 and we have... 6. Excuse me, I
have a call. Simply click on the link I
sent you, Stan... with the meeting ID number, in your email... 15 minutes
ago... from me... no, I’m afraid I can’t come over there to help. Aren’t there
any teenagers in your neighborhood?”
Well, we are still a few minutes from starting, but I guess I could introduce our special guest today, whose subject is “How to make some quick money in today’s real estate market.” Please welcome Tom Schemer who is Zooming all the way from... is that a jail cell? No, the lighting is fine, but the stripes on your shirt are causing a bit of a flicker. Oh sure, mistaken identity happens all the time. Not to worry. We are a little behind though Tom, please don’t go anywhere. Oh, ah, sorry. Great, here are a few more attendees. Wait? Who are you two? No. Sorry. This is not the “Yoga in your chair” Zoom class. Goodbye. Excuse me. Someone is at the front door. Stan. What a surprise. I’m really not supposed to let anyone in to my house. You know, social distancing and all. I see you have a mask. Yes, I see that it says Calvin Klein. I think I can guess what you made it out of. Please sit as far away as possible and no I don’t really want any Blazing Hot Pork Rinds. Or beer. I have a meeting to conduct... Ah dang. Sorry folks. Apparently, Tom Schemer has been taken away for his arraignment. Guess we’ll have to do this another time. What’s that Stan? Oh, it’s down the hallway, second door on the left. Let yourself out afterward willya? I’m going to lay down for a while. A long while. •MJ
by Ashleigh Brilliant Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara since 1973. No children. Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000. Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com
Watch My Line
“The square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.” – Pythagoras
A
t the equivalent of High School which I attended in London, we all had to take basic Mathematics, consisting of Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry. I could do them all, and more or less understand them, but somehow Geometry seemed to make much more sense than the others. Geometry (which means measuring the Earth) had to do with points and lines, surfaces and shapes. Something about it appealed to me, perhaps because it was more visual. You started with imagining a “point,” which had no dimensions at all, and so could not be measured. And it could be anywhere. It was a “nothing.” Then you imagined that point moving, and leaving a trail, called a “line.” If that trail marked the shortest distance between its beginning and its end, the line was called “straight.” That line had no thickness, but it did have length, which – aha! – now gave us something to measure. From there, you could bend the line on a flat surface to make enclosed shapes, like triangles, squares, and circles. (Circles were particularly interesting, because they were totally un-straight, but they gave you straight lines to the center [radius] or all the way across [diameter]). And you could then jump off the surface into the mysterious Third Dimension, making things like cubes and spheres. It was a beautiful system – but what genius created it, and what was it good for? Credit is usually given to a semi-mythical ancient Greek named Euclid, who wrote a book called “Elements,” which apparently was so good that it was used in schools almost up to our own time. The Greek connection explains the use of many Greek terms like “isosceles,” “ellipse” and “hypotenuse,” which you hardly ever come across outside of Geometry. Speaking of hypotenuse, there were of course many other magnificent minds involved in this whole process, and one of them, Pythagoras, is responsible for a theorem in which that word occurs, and which may be the only tit-bit many of us remember from our encounter with geometry. This famous theorem has to do with triangles – but only with one special kind of triangle – the kind in which one corner is perfectly “square” that is, it has an angle called a “right” angle. Angles are measured in degrees, out of a possible total of 360. (The fact that this is so similar to the number of days in a year must be more than co-incidental.) And a right angle is a quarter of that, or 90 degrees. In this theorem, the hypotenuse is the line of the triangle facing the 90-degree corner. And what makes this all so important and useful is that, if you know the length of any two sides, you can calculate the length of the third side. This is the basis of that whole wonderful system called “triangulation” which surveyors are still using to measure the earth. The whole idea is based on making the sides of the triangle into squares, and showing that the two smaller squares, when added together, have the same area as the large one i.e. the square of the hypotenuse. This seems sensible – but Pythagoras was able to prove it. And what also made geometry fascinating to me was that, starting with what you know, you could logically prove, in a series of steps, something you didn’t know. When you get to that conclusion, in a geometrical theorem, you are traditionally entitled to write, “Q.E.D.” This stands for the Latin, “Quod Erat Demonstrandum,” meaning “Which was to be proven.” But at school, we were jokingly told that it stood for “Quite Easily Done.” We were also told – and I don’t know how much truth there was in this – that, in their training, police detectives had to study geometry, because it provided good exercise in logical thinking. In any case, it was this same scrap of knowledge which Gilbert and Sullivan included in one of their most famous songs, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,” (from The Pirates of Penzance). In this aria, Major General Stanley boasts of the wide range of his knowledge in all matters (except military ones). And among his intellectual accomplishments, he proclaims that: “ About binomial theorems I am teeming with a lot o’ news, With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.”
• The Voice of the Village •
MONTECITO JOURNAL
•MJ
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