Google Sheet Number Formatting

Google Sheets has fairly good formatting for displaying numbers and dates.

But I often use Google Sheets to create data for exporting to TSV files (for importing into markdown files).

Apparently I do it the wrong way because I often try to turn calculate dates that can be formatted. In the past, I tried to do lots of things, as illustrated in this table:

Here are the calculations used to make each column:

The thing that annoys the Hell out of me is that column y-m-d (pays no attention to leading zeros) uses the values in the month (calc) and day (calc) columns but loses the leading zeros. This drives me crazy.

However, much to my surprise, I recently tried making the date-n (formatted) column, which I formatted using the following method, works!

I’ve also figured out how to do it with some truly weird calculations.

This table:

is formatted with this crazy calculation:

and it works, too!

Here’s the calculation:

=CONCATENATE(YEAR(A2),“-”,RIGHT(CONCATENATE(“0”,TO_TEXT(MONTH(A2))),2),“-”,RIGHT(CONCATENATE(“0”,TO_TEXT(DAY(A2))),2))

To add a leading zero to a number, I concatenate the string “0” (not a number) to the number (itself converted to text) and then chop off everything but the two righmost digits. Ie works.

Summer Brake

A friend of mine (not a native speaker of English) (not that native speakers or even spelling correctors know any better) sent out this message:

« … on a besoin d’un petit repos… Summer brake! »

I thought about “correcting” her, but then I became aware of the poetry in this “misspelling”.

The word “should” be spelled “break”, and, yet, “brake” is kind of perfect, too! I mean, we need to slow down in the summer, don’t we?

Romantic technologies and ideologies

I’m intrigued by this article “That Deep Romantic Chasm”: Libertarianism, Neoliberalism, and the Computer Culture because it reminds me of the old days on the Whole Earth Catalog, Computer Lib (which I still have), etc. It’s interesting because of the tie-ins between computer culture, neoliberalism, and, for example, Google’s latest attempt to suppress the open web.

Moreover, the word Romantic triggered my memory of Arthur Miller, who called Communists “the last of the romantics” because they believed in human perfectibility (I read it in an analog Washington Post a couple of decades ago while visiting a friend in DC).

PITY THE NATION

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007

Pity the nation whose people are sheep And whose shepherds mislead them

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

Pity the nation that raises not its voice Except to praise conquerors And acclaim the bully as hero And aims to rule the world By force and by torture

Pity the nation that knows No other language but its own And no other culture but its own

Pity the nation whose breath is money And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed

Pity the nation oh pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away

My country, tears of thee Sweet land of liberty!

copyright Lawrence Ferlingetti

Basho’s poem, Even in Kyoto

Robert Haas’s translation

I believe that Haas’s translation is far from literal since the last line simply simply names the cuckoo, but it is far and away the most beautiful translation in English. However, there are others.

Even in Kyoto

Hearing the cuckoo cry

I long for Kyoto

read by our daughter-in-law

some other trasnlation

• Even in Kyoto / longing for Kyoto / the cuckoo (© Jane Reichhold) (I suspect this is the most literal translation)
• Even in Kyoto, / I miss Kyoto very much / when I hear a cuckoo. (© Toshiharu Oseko)
• Even in Kyoto, / how I long for old Kyoto / when the cuckoo sings (© Sam Hamill)
• In Kyoto even / For Kyoto I yearn - / A little cuckoo. (© Takafumi Saito & William R. Nelson)

A funny comment about the poem

I can’t find the name of this commentator, but these are some very enlightening comments about the poem

A silly video

私たちの日本への旅行

War in Ukraine - an explanation

I’ve finally found the clearest and most convincing explanation of why Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Maidan

The first step to understanding is to learn about the Maidan. I’ve been hearing the name for a long time without bothering to find out what it was and why it was so important.

I finally listened to this lecture by Marci Shore, Associate Professor of History at Yale University:

PBS Frontline interview with Timothy Snyder

Once I knew what the Maidan was, I was prepared to follow this truly extraordinary interview with Timothy Snyder, where he discusses the historical reasons leading to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and 2020.

I was especially surprised by his explanation of why Putin invaded again in 2020. Americans were involved, but not in the way you have ever imagined!

I’m afraid I haven’t even bothered to determine the date of the interview, but it is timeless: