Friday Hodgepodge

Four Things

1. I have mentioned that I am eager for a decent non-iOS Android alternative. So, too is Google, it turns out:

Android can't be changed to properly manage background tasks because all the apps are written to do background processing the way you do it on a desktop computer. Fixing Android would break all of the apps that depend on this working, which is most of them.

If this effort (called Fuchsia) succeeds -- and fixes some of the insane weird bugs that seem to evolve with each Android update -- I could hope to be content again with my smart phone some day.

2. The Guardian takes a look at what it's like to be a "super recognizer":

It was only as she got older and started using social media that Seo became self-conscious of her skill. "I would start a new class in uni or I would meet people through social gatherings and I would remember visually what kind of photos I'd seen them in. I'd already be so familiar with them and I'd know in my head: 'Oh, you are that person's sibling, or you used to date so-and-so,'" she says.

"But I also knew it'd be really creepy if I said that out loud, so I'd keep it on the down low and just say: 'Oh, nice to meet you.'"

When I first learned about super-recognizers, I took an online test hosted by a research group interested in the subject. According to those results, I might be a super recognizer.

I lean to not, though: Most people I do remember pretty well, even despite a brief or passing acquaintance and years passing, but I have known a handful of people over the years that I simply can't pin down. The worst is the mother of a good friend of my son. I often bump into her and completely fail to realize who she is.

I remain more of a charcoal guy, but have learned to appreciate convenience... (Image by Joshua Kantarges, via Unsplash, license.)

3. I usually have lots of trouble giving an answer when my wife asks me what I might want for my birthday each year. But this time, hurricane season gave me a good idea.

Ian brought the threat of tropical storm or low-end hurricane-force winds to our area ahead of my birthday. That meant I had to clear the yard of missile hazards and anything that might get blown over or easily damaged by the wind.

And so it was that I had to move our aging, heavy, awkward grill through the house and into the garage -- that grill had moved with us from Baltimore and had wheels too small to roll through grass, and probably wouldn't have made it through our narrow gate, anyway.

Knowing that my father-in-law had a nice, small, portable grill, I took a look at what was available, and found this beauty.

I love it, and have outfitted it with an adapter hose so I can use a decent-sized propane tank with it.

I hadn't had traveling with it in mind, but I am pretty sure it would fit on our luggage rack, too.

4. When I was a kid, a friend of my father's who had moved to Mississippi from Texas did me a favor by telling us something interesting and mentioning in that conversation that he had been reading a history of the state.

I thought little of Mississippi then, but that conversation broadened my perspective enough to realize that familiarity was not the same thing as appreciation, let alone a decent level of knowledge.

I have had an antenna out for interesting stories about my home state since, and I recently bumped into another one.

This one got my attention as interesting cuisine I had no clue about when I lived there, and in that context fits right in with the invention of comeback sauce by Greek immigrants, the "unexpectedly good" chow mein to be had in Clarksdale, and the wide variety of good food to be had in gas stations across the Delta.

That said, there's much more to this, as the opening attests:

His name was Juan Mora, but on Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, they called him Big John.

Mora, born in Mexico City, hopped trains across the United States in the 1930s looking for work. Eventually, he came to Jackson. Farish Street was then a bustling center of Black life. Mora was welcomed. He set up a stand on the street selling tamales. In 1939, he opened a restaurant: The Big Apple Inn.

Nearly a century later, the Big Apple Inn is still open, selling tamales along with hamburgers, hot dogs, bologna and "smoke and ears." The restaurant moved across the street in 1952. The blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson II once lived in the building. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers had an office above, and would hold meetings at the Big Apple Inn.

I'm more interested in trying a pig ear sandwich, but even though I'm not a big tamale guy, I'd try those, too.

-- CAV