My cat has a couple of play cubes, which are less than $4 at Walmart. When she wants to play, she'll let me see her running. Then she'll walk over to a cube and sit inside it until I get the rope we play with. Then we'll play for a while. The cubes have holes in three sides. This week I did something different one night. While she was sitting outside the cube, I pulled the rope through two of the holes where she could see what I was doing. The end of the rope was just over the edge of the hole on my side of the cube about to fall on the floor. I thought she would run through the cube to chase the rope. What she did was run around it and attack the rope from the side.
I thought that was interesting behavior. The cat put some thought into what she was about to do. She didn't make a mad dash for the rope. She considered its spatial location in relation to the cube. There might have been a bit of delayed gratification involved, too, depending on whether or not she thought the fastest way to the rope wasn't a straight line.
I've heard a lot of people say that animals don't think. It was obvious my cat thought about and planned her next move. The cat I used to have could think, too. She was much smarter than my current cat and smarter then any cat I've met so far. It made her a bit mischievous. She would try to get into the kitchen cabinets until I bought some child safety devices. I would have to spray that cat with water when I caught her doing naughty things. I only sprayed her if she was in the act of committing the crime.
If I moved the spray bottle for some reason when she was being good, she wouldn't react to it. However, one day she was sitting near the cabinets when I moved it to the side. That time she ran as soon as I picked it up. Afterward she didn't react to it like that. I concluded she had been thinking about trying to get into the cabinet. She must also have thought I had the ability to read cat minds. :)
So, last week I was talking about shutting down the Amazon store for now. It came down to money. I had a choice of sticking with it or getting real editing for the next book. If I ever want to get a book deal, I need editorial guidance.
I broke a tooth this week. I was chewing chewing gum. It must have been that tooth's time to go. The dentist can't see me until Monday. That's pretty quick. Sometimes it can take a while to get an appointment. It's going to cost probably over $200 in under 30 minutes.
As an aside, dentists in the U.S. don't work on Fridays. I don't know why. I guess they don't need the money. Assuming a dentist's office pulls in $500 an hour, it would make about $800,000 a year. If I did that, I might close on Fridays, too.
Tesla announced their next car: the Model 3. $35,000 base price. At least a 215 mile range. 15 inch touch screen(38.1cm) control panel. Since it's April Fool's Day, I should have used dm, but I did that joke the other day. Rats! I've been wanting a Tesla for a long time. Tragically, I can't afford the Model 3 right now. I need to become rich first. Of course, if that happened, I'd go for a luxury model instead, since they have better range.
My need for an electric car has nothing to do with climate change. It's partly about the dollar and partly about having a cleaner environment. The U.S. economy is in trouble. It has fundamental flaws. The dollar cannot be propped up with tricks forever. When it finally crashes, gasoline will be unaffordable. It's already nearly $2/gallon(roughly €1.67/gallon or €0.44/liter). Electricity prices are more stable. With solar power, electricity would be free. By the way did you see this article? "China has unveiled a proposal for a $50 trillion global electricity network that would help fight pollution and the effects of climate change."
If everything imploded but I had an electric car, I'd still be able to go places. I might could even do taxi work for people who could no longer buy gas. The U.S. oil industry is already selling oil overseas, because they can get more money there. If the dollar crashed, would they sell anything here? I really hope to be out of the U.S. before the dollar collapses.
I should do a separate post about my electric car needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment