Doing some errands last week – had been raining all day. Waiting for the left-turn arrow at an intersection, I noticed that on the berm between the street and the parking lot, the automatic sprinklers had turned on.
Thinking of all the technology we have these days (people on the moon, 3-d printing, chatbots, apps that can track your heartrate – the list goes on and one), why can’t they program automatic sprinklers to know when it’s raining?
Any absurdity bothering you this week?
Trail Baboon 
Isn’t Trump an absurdity? Aren’t Republicans in general absurdities?
LikeLiked by 4 people
Agreed. I too was gonna go with absurd politics.
So to add to my “Trumpist” nickname for supporters of XXXpresident Donny, there are DeSantinistas and Nikkylodeans.
LikeLiked by 4 people
DeSatan.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Not all Republicans are absurdities. I would’t count them among my personal heroes, but there have been Republicans I’ve liked and respected.
LikeLike
And yet, when it comes to choosing a position, they side with the lunatics.
LikeLike
Maybe the ones that are actually holding office.
LikeLike
They don’t get there by themselves.
LikeLike
They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t make a good five-cent cigar!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Probably not the same “they”.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yeah, I suppose that’s the biggest problem with all of the technologies and what they can and cannot do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Husband and I can’t estimate volume. For some odd reason we bought 10 lbs of Green Arrow pea seeds when we only needed 5 lbs. I am bringing the surplus seeds to work for any who want them. It reminds me of the time I inadvertently bought a lifetime supply of bay leaves from Penzeys.
LikeLiked by 3 people
You’re not alone with this problem. I just ordered three huge jars of crystal salt because it was so much cheaper per ounce to get three of them and I figured “well we always need salt”. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see the end of these three jars.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was just thinking… dangerous, I know, but I still do it.
Most of us have been living through the fastest technological revolution in history. When we were kids, some homes didn’t have television and my own family had a party line. We watched the advent of air travel, the sudden growth of the federal highway system, the change from AM to FM radio, from 78s to CDs, then to digital music, and the explosion of personal computers and cell phones. I know I can be very idealistic, but it seems like our generation grew up expecting the world to get better and better – that one improvement would follow another. Suddenly it seems like the improvements are false hopes, and that each new development brings with it a new set of challenges. We don’t seem to have grown together as a society as much as we have grown technologically. In a sense, we need to catch up with ourselves. I know this is not very well thought out. I just think that we were a generation of optimists, with good reason, and that now as we are nearing the end of our time to be influencers, everything seems to be going the wrong way.
It’s easy to see people bickering about nothing online. Yesterday people in Northfield were bickering about why the air quality was so bad. People needn’t bicker about everything but they do. It seems that we can’t agree on anything anymore. That’s what I find to be absurd. We can build all of this technology, then just use it to tear each other down. Disappointing, to say the least.
I’m sorry if I seem to be negative. Sometimes I just feel like there isn’t much hope for the future. I might need to talk more with some very bright young people.
What’s not absurd is the joy I’m getting from watching the orioles and hummingbirds!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Good, you’ve noticed that technology and culture and quality of life do not all equate! That’s a realization a lot of people are trying very hard to avoid. You might find “After Progress” by John Michael Greer to be of interest.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks!
LikeLiked by 2 people
You summed up the technology situation very well, Krista, in that first paragraph! I’m copying it into a file… (she said, in the same hour she said she was going to clean up her computer files…)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Your musings bring to mind this quote by Tom Waits: “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.”
LikeLiked by 4 people
All of your comments remind me why I opted out of the neighborhood app last year. I sat down and tried to think if I had ever gotten one useful piece of information from anyone’s comments on the app, and realized I never had. So when people started whining about the roundabouts down on 66th St., and especially the one just south of 66 street that got painted in rainbow colors last summer, I thought “I am so done.”
LikeLiked by 3 people
Exactly! I was reading comments on the NextDoor app for Northfield. I can’t believe how many nasty remarks are made about everything. It’s discouraging. I like it for recommendations for services but beyond that, it’s pretty much worthless.
LikeLike
One comment on Nextdoor today that made me laugh… “ATTENTION!!! RANDOM GENERAL COMPLAINT!! Be on the lookout for some shady people going around breathing all of the air. They are a diverse group, some wearing hoodies, some in suits. All shapes, sizes and colors. THE NERVE!! I felt this was the forum to broadcast my observations of this nefarious crew. What is this world coming to…”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I like to read the Nextdoor comments because it gives me a snapshot of a cross section of folks that live in this area. Do I like them all? Hell no. Many of them can’t write a coherent sentence, and some of them gripe about every little thing. I just scroll on.
There are also those that a thoughtful and well informed about what they write about – unlike many that simply blame everything on Mayor Carter, the Met Council, Public Works, or whoever else they hold responsible for their complaint . We’ve just finished the the season for complaining about the poor job of clearing city streets of snow and pot holes. What’s next?
Others make comments that try to inject a little humor into the conversation or promote ideas for being more neighborly. Some ask for help, others generously offer it. Occasionally there’s information that’s actually helpful.
My only complaint about it is that I don’t always get things that are posted in a timely matter. It’s of little use to learn of an event three days after it has happened, or two days after someone needed a hand with something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another one to copy – perfect!
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s a great quote from him.
LikeLike
Have to read later – I accidentally got on a nephew’s FB page yesterday, spouting all the absurd conspiracy theories you can imagine about Biden, necessity for guns, Democrats in general. It makes me so sad, and it makes me so mad.
LikeLiked by 2 people
As I have said on here many a time before: the lawn is the highest expression of American culture.
How absurd is it, all that water and chemicals to grow something we are then afraid to use too much. My apartment building spends I do not know how much money to make a few strips of grass look good and I am sure they need to, the only use of which is a dog toilet.
Clyde
LikeLiked by 5 people
I’m happy to report that the “more flowers less grass” plan has almost come to an end out front. I think maybe in another year I will be at the “All flowers no grass” stage. We do still have grass in the back because of the dog but you can’t call it a lawn.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Tina Turner died. Absurd.
LikeLiked by 1 person
She suffered a stroke a couple of years ago, and had other physical challenges. I don’t begrudge her a good long rest after 83 years of giving it her all.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Oh my, end of an era.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I admired her. I will miss her in the world. I STILL miss Robin Williams being in the world, wondering what he is doing next to make me laugh.
LikeLiked by 4 people
My husband lost his keys this evening, so he used mine. I found his keys in the door knob. 🙄. Again.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Almost every time YA uses my keys to open the back door, she leaves them in the lock (this usually happens if she wants to get into the house faster than I do when we’ve been someplace together). This is so common that whenever I don’t find my keys in the basket where they normally live, I check the lock. 99.9% of the time.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Kind of like always finding the tea in the microwave…
LikeLiked by 4 people
Snort!
LikeLike
In the door knob is my favorite key storage place. On the inside of the double-cylinder deadbolt, that is.
LikeLiked by 4 people
One linguistic thing that has been vexing me lately is the phrase “lived experience”, which I hear everywhere. What other kinds of experience are there? Encountered on Facebook experience? Warned about by a friend experience? Read about in a book experience?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Suspect it might actually be an urban legend experience?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Another word that seems to be popping up all over is curated. I have a hunch that if something has been curated it adds $10.00 to the purchase price.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Living document”. This phrase has driven me crazy for years.
LikeLiked by 1 person