Thumbs up for iPhone

This week I upgraded my phone to iOS 10 and it pushed me into setting up the fingerprint identification system. I resisted that with the older OS, where it was simply an option; I continued to just swipe to get in. But now, it seems, my only choices are an ID by fingerprint or entering a six-digit passcode. Fingerprints seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

Let me save you a few days of bother. Set it up so one of your fingerprints is a thumb.

I didn't, at first. But after a day or two, I found that using an index finger was awkward and inconvenient. But then, realizing that my thumb also had a print, and noticing that I usually had my thumb on the home button anyway ...

It works. Awkwardness solved (although it sometimes still demands my passcode instead.)

Whale heading north - read all about it

http://www.thespacewhale.com/project/

I love what I do. For example, I just got off the phone with Lindsay Adams, a guy with “a wide skill set,” as he puts it, who is deeply involved in the creation of a life-sized humpback whale for this year’s Burning Man. A degreed electronics engineer, he has had a lot of hands-on experience in many fields over the years, and says he’s more of a woodworker than a metal worker. Up until a couple years ago, Adams was primarily involved in software development. But in 2012, he signed on as technical director of The Generator in Sparks, Nev. The Generator is a 34,000 square foot facility that provides free space, as well as access to a host of hand tools and power equipment, for artists to use in creating whatsoever they wish.

Adams is also the go-to guy for a new plasma cutting table, provided earlier this summer by Torchmate as a beta test for its new 4800 series equipment. The bottom line here is that these artists now are using a top of the line piece of equipment, and because it’s so easy to pick up, they’re not batting an eye at its capabilities. That’s a pretty good acid test, if you ask me.

Anyway, Lindsay tells me his group’s Space Whale leaves on Sunday for Burning Man, the once-a-year festival held in Black Rock City, Nev., a temporary “metropolis city in the desert” some 120 miles north of Sparks.

But here’s one of the interesting little connections that makes what I do so much fun, namely, the surprising things that emerge from researching the background. Skrillex came to Reno on May 27 and held a benefit concert for the Space Whale project. You can read about it here and see a 7½ minute video that does a great job of summing up a lot of what’s going on. Now that’s remarkable enough, but for me it turned out to be a wee homecoming of sorts. Huh? You might ask. Or perhaps, who or what is Skrillex?

Back in 2012 when I started this freelancing odyssey, I blogged about working for a day in a Bangladeshi sweatshop. That turned out to be my introduction to dubstep, and although Skrillex wasn’t cited in that post, that’s when I remember first learning about him. How delightful to stumble across him, and dubstep, once again in the context of the Space Whale! It all comes around…

Meanwhile, this is one of the oddest alternate routes I’ve seen in Google maps. The blue line route from Sparks to Burning Man is 114 miles (about 2 hrs). Or, you might prefer the gray line route, out to the left, which loops through Northern California and is 294 miles (5.5 hrs). Exactly why would I want to consider that western loop?

Addendum: Just found this preview of Burning Man 2016 - featured on Flipboard August 27 - that talks about the Space Whale. https://www.fest300.com/magazine/big-ass-burning-man-art 

Lexicon sampler, 2016 Q1

Discovering a previously unknown chunk of the English language is one of the joys of doing work in a new field. And the more I notice such terms accumulating, I find that listing them brings the pleasure of focus, helping me count my blessings, as it were.

Thus, this short list of newfound words and phrases culled, or perhaps gleaned, from this spring's work in healthcare finance.

opine - a shorter way of saying someone is giving an opinion

hypervirulent - easy to grasp the concept of this one, but only if you know what virulent means

armamentarium - surprised I was to find this in the dictionary, keeping company with armaments and arsenal

dyad - although a perfectly good word to describe something with two parts, it has a decidedly snooty sound

evince - more familiar than some of the others, but just as rarely used by this writer

drug-eluting stent - a phrase with quite a ring to it, but which does not lend itself to a one-line summary

combinatorial complexity - a poetic way of describing having way too many cooks in the kitchen to be able to figure out what actually ended up in the soup

comorbidity - a frequently used term, apparently well understood, but with which I do not want to be associated (or be described)

CMS, CMI - the institutions behind Medicare that are frequently in the news but that I never before understood, and I'm still not sure I do

bonus/malus - which referred to a French incentive/disincentive plan I came across while working in a different field (this pair probably wouldn't have made me blink if I had taken Latin way back when)

So there. Let us continue our quest for clear and precise communication. :)

The 8 gig episode

The other day I thought I had lost my mind. You know how they say "the memory is the first thing to go"?

As it turns out, I left it in the pocket of my khaki trousers.