Friday, January 31, 2014
Too much karma
A rather unusual fake "hate crime" in Spokane. (Fake "hate crime" is redundant, of course, since the concept itself is fake and 99.999999% of the supposed examples turn out to be self-inflicted frauds.)
This one isn't as aggravating as most. It has been properly exposed, the perp has been arrested, and karma will take care of justice.
Two Chinese sisters had been running an espresso kiosk. Last week they reported a small burned spot on the building and some spray-painted graffiti: "Go back to China." The writing had a distinctly Chinese flavor to the strokes, so I was immediately sure of the fakeness.
Lots of smarmy liberals made a big point of buying lots of coffee at the stand, to make the sisters feel welcome, which they were already.
Now the cops have arrested one of the sisters for 2nd degree arson, and have stated clearly and firmly that the whole thing was fake. Both actions are welcome and rare. Usually the perp gets away with fraud because Die-Versity Rules All.
The cops didn't need to guess by the shape of the writing; the kiosk's own security tapes showed the sister doing the burning and painting!
Karma, but maybe too much karma. Those smarmy liberals will now feel cheated, and will gain a dislike for Chinese people, though they won't admit it. This dislike will be unfair.
I don't like Chinese people either, but I understand that the 'China problem' has nothing to do with the character of China's population.
We have two separate problems with China, both of which are PURELY caused by American traitors.
One problem is China's intense and all-encompassing 30-year-long espionage in universities, industries and government. This wouldn't have been possible if our universities, industries and government had been properly cautious. When you are penetrated by people who obviously and openly come from a hostile country, and who obviously and openly state their intention to steal your technology, it's absolutely your own fucking fault and your own fucking treason. Entirely different from the earlier Soviet subversion, which was much more subtle and secret, and was mainly performed ... both wittingly and unwittingly ... by Americans.
The bigger problem is outsourcing. Again China didn't force American corporate traitors to move jobs overseas. It just made factories cheap, convenient and available to all takers. Again compare with an earlier situation: Around 1950, European factory workers were highly skilled, desperately available and starvingly cheap. But American corporations chose not to commit treason. Those jobs stayed in America.
¶ 5:59 PM 
Grandma was right 4
A detailed study of bacteria found in an office building finds no surprises, but one interesting detail. The building was Lillis Hall at U of Oregon. Apparently Lillis Hall is the very latest and Greenest of all Green shit on the Greenest of all campuses in the Greenest of all states. It does have one good feature that made the study meaningful: some of the windows open. Most campus buildings in recent times are hermetically sealed.
Unsurprisingly, bathrooms contained poop bacteria, kitchens and dining rooms contained food bacteria, and so on.
The one interesting bit was tied to the openable windows. Offices with openable windows had more soil and plant bacteria than offices with sealed windows. (1) This indicates that faculty are actually opening the windows when possible. I would have guessed the opposite. Modern academic types are extremely busy, and tend to prefer minimum distractions. (2) Soil bacteria are good for us. They make us smarter and happier. Maybe the academics figured this out unconsciously after trying it both ways.
These researchers say their next project is to examine other aspects of buildings: form and dimensions of rooms, materials, hall connections. If I were doing a similar project, I'd focus on one variable that isn't likely to be present in modern office buildings: Open flames. Pilot lights, gas stoves, oil lamps, fireplaces, candles. And I'd bet that rooms with a little flame are significantly healthier than rooms without flames.
Sidenote: When I say grandma, I'm speaking both generically and specifically. My grandma lived in an (originally elegant) second-floor apartment for the last half of her century-long life, and always kept her bedroom window open. Even when it interfered with the air conditioner, she absolutely insisted on sleeping with outside air. Could be part of the reason for a century-long life. She died about 25 years ago; the building is still there, still apparently occupied, and the window is still open!
¶ 4:34 AM
These researchers say their next project is to examine other aspects of buildings: form and dimensions of rooms, materials, hall connections. If I were doing a similar project, I'd focus on one variable that isn't likely to be present in modern office buildings: Open flames. Pilot lights, gas stoves, oil lamps, fireplaces, candles. And I'd bet that rooms with a little flame are significantly healthier than rooms without flames.
Sidenote: When I say grandma, I'm speaking both generically and specifically. My grandma lived in an (originally elegant) second-floor apartment for the last half of her century-long life, and always kept her bedroom window open. Even when it interfered with the air conditioner, she absolutely insisted on sleeping with outside air. Could be part of the reason for a century-long life. She died about 25 years ago; the building is still there, still apparently occupied, and the window is still open!
¶ 4:34 AM
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Let them eat tasers.
Listening to coverage of the Series Super or whatever. Every time one of these giant events happens, TSA and Homeland Security and NYPD and FBI and Delta Force and NSA and EPA and all the other overwhelming jackboots get together to protect it against something or other.
The same jackboots also protect airplanes against something or other.
Who attends the Bowl World? Super-rich people who can slap down $3000 to sit in The Maximally Fashionable Place for a few hours.
Who rides airplanes? Rich people.
Poor people ride Greyhound or drive or walk. Do we get any service by TSA and Homeland Security and NYPD and FBI and Delta Force and NSA and EPA and all the other monstrous jackboots?
No.
All of these forces serve EXCLUSIVELY to protect people who already have their own private security armies.
Those of us who can't afford our own armies are left to find our own protection from something or other. Well, from what?
The answer is obvious at this point. The rich are protected against US, by their own private armies AND by the multifarious evil Heimatssicherheitsdienst. We don't get protection because we're the something or other.
Putting it another way, the rich get service and the poor get serviced.
¶ 6:29 AM
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Constants and variables, BCB DX edition
I haven't done any real DX'ing since moving to Spokane in 1990. Quickly figured out that the reception here was poor, and a nearby powerline created huge QRN. Soon the Web filled the same niche in my life: a source of foreign and alternate viewpoints.
Recently I replaced a crappy Chinese AM radio with an older but nicer Radio Shack unit. It's nothing special, just matches my other Radio Shack audio stuff. I was somewhat disappointed in the sound quality. No better than the Chinese plastic shit.
Couple weeks ago, while trying to tune the local dull money-talk station at 1230, I stopped at a remarkably clear signal. Turned out to be KSL 1160 in Salt Lake. Never** heard it before. Tonight I'm listening to another remarkably clear signal, which is CKWX 1130 in Vancouver. Never heard it before. Must be a DX 'opening' around 1100 kc. I don't know if it's always there, or somehow caused by this winter's conditions.
One thing I know for sure now: The disappointing sound quality wasn't my old ears, it wasn't the crappy Chinese radio, and it wasn't the nicer Radio Shack receiver. It's THE LOCAL AM STATIONS! These non-local DX stations sound twice as good as any of the locals.
**Footnote: Never heard those stations in Spokane, that is. I heard KSL often in Manhattan in the 1960s when I was doing the proper DX thing. Pretty sure I didn't log CKWX, though it was operating then.
Artistic footnote: The shack and antenna are part of this set.
I haven't done any real DX'ing since moving to Spokane in 1990. Quickly figured out that the reception here was poor, and a nearby powerline created huge QRN. Soon the Web filled the same niche in my life: a source of foreign and alternate viewpoints.
Recently I replaced a crappy Chinese AM radio with an older but nicer Radio Shack unit. It's nothing special, just matches my other Radio Shack audio stuff. I was somewhat disappointed in the sound quality. No better than the Chinese plastic shit.
Couple weeks ago, while trying to tune the local dull money-talk station at 1230, I stopped at a remarkably clear signal. Turned out to be KSL 1160 in Salt Lake. Never** heard it before. Tonight I'm listening to another remarkably clear signal, which is CKWX 1130 in Vancouver. Never heard it before. Must be a DX 'opening' around 1100 kc. I don't know if it's always there, or somehow caused by this winter's conditions.
One thing I know for sure now: The disappointing sound quality wasn't my old ears, it wasn't the crappy Chinese radio, and it wasn't the nicer Radio Shack receiver. It's THE LOCAL AM STATIONS! These non-local DX stations sound twice as good as any of the locals.
**Footnote: Never heard those stations in Spokane, that is. I heard KSL often in Manhattan in the 1960s when I was doing the proper DX thing. Pretty sure I didn't log CKWX, though it was operating then.
Artistic footnote: The shack and antenna are part of this set.Labels: Constants and Variables, Danbo, new toy
¶ 7:40 PM
Postal savings returns?
Dayen notes that the Post Office is thinking about bringing back Postal Savings.
YES! YES! YES! Excellent idea!
We had a Postal Savings system from 1910 to 1966; other countries had it much earlier and some still use it. This original 1910 proposal summarized how Postal Savings worked in other countries. The authors seemed desperate to reassure banks that the PO wouldn't compete with them. Repeatedly made the point that Postal Savings intended to serve only "widows and orphans", offering very low interest rates. [Very low = 2%, which is of course unimaginably stratospherically high by today's criminal standards.] The European experience showed consistently that a customer who got prosperous enough to seek higher returns would move up to commercial banks, and the proposed US Postal Savings was designed to force such moves. Obama's new Myra proposal for low-income retirement forces the same intro/moveup paradigm.
Here's a clear description of how Postal Savings actually worked in 1911. You could save up to $500 (about $10k today). Twice a year you could roll over part or all of your account into 20-year maturity bonds, with clippable coupons for 3.125% interest; so your liquid account was limited but your total federal account wasn't limited.
Ideally, a new version of Postal Savings should have the opposite purpose. PS should work hard to corner the market on all banking services because banks no longer offer banking services. Banks no longer want savers. Banks no longer pay interest. Banks no longer want to make loans. Banks are solely playgrounds for the Chosen, who have the unique gene-based privilege of taking all the money in the world AND MORE, plus infinite amounts of counterfeited QE "money" AND MORE, just because they're Chosen.
Thus the Post Office could make a profit from the entire market of poor and working class (i.e. non-Chosen) savers, simply by paying NON-ZERO interest rates and making small loans.
We had a Postal Savings system from 1910 to 1966; other countries had it much earlier and some still use it. This original 1910 proposal summarized how Postal Savings worked in other countries. The authors seemed desperate to reassure banks that the PO wouldn't compete with them. Repeatedly made the point that Postal Savings intended to serve only "widows and orphans", offering very low interest rates. [Very low = 2%, which is of course unimaginably stratospherically high by today's criminal standards.] The European experience showed consistently that a customer who got prosperous enough to seek higher returns would move up to commercial banks, and the proposed US Postal Savings was designed to force such moves. Obama's new Myra proposal for low-income retirement forces the same intro/moveup paradigm.
Here's a clear description of how Postal Savings actually worked in 1911. You could save up to $500 (about $10k today). Twice a year you could roll over part or all of your account into 20-year maturity bonds, with clippable coupons for 3.125% interest; so your liquid account was limited but your total federal account wasn't limited.
Ideally, a new version of Postal Savings should have the opposite purpose. PS should work hard to corner the market on all banking services because banks no longer offer banking services. Banks no longer want savers. Banks no longer pay interest. Banks no longer want to make loans. Banks are solely playgrounds for the Chosen, who have the unique gene-based privilege of taking all the money in the world AND MORE, plus infinite amounts of counterfeited QE "money" AND MORE, just because they're Chosen.
Thus the Post Office could make a profit from the entire market of poor and working class (i.e. non-Chosen) savers, simply by paying NON-ZERO interest rates and making small loans.Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Danbo, the broken circle
¶ 6:31 AM
But he won't
Last night Obama promised to use executive authority to improve the lot of ordinary Americans.
He COULD do that. He COULD resume enforcing the 1936 regulations on banks and speculators. (ie ignore the Dodd-Frank Infinite Gift To Criminals and bring back Glass-Steagall.) He COULD order his foreign trade diplomats to cancel all anti-American traitor-treaties like NAFTA and WTO, and impose 1000000000000% tariffs, enforced at gunpoint, on all foreign crap and foreign labor.
Those moves would improve the lot of ordinary Americans. He COULD do those things.
But he WON'T, because he's Massa Goldman's sweet little houseboy.
HOWEVER! On the military/foreign policy side, Obama is doing everything right... or as close to right as a President can get. Pulling out of old wars, not starting any new wars. Breaking away from Israel's gang of bullies and starting to restore normal relations with Persia. Zero problems!
Labels: Zero Problems
¶ 2:42 AM
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Ahh
Unlike most of the country, the Northwest has been blessed with no weather for the last two weeks. Every day is High 30, Low 20, Freezing Fog. Sometimes lots of Freezing Fog, sometimes not much.
The Weather Bureau guys haven't needed to write much in their daily Forecast discussion.
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
30 / 20 / FZFG
Did they get bored? Did they build up a need to handle some real damn weather? Did they finally get a chance today?
¶ 7:26 PM
.DISCUSSION... Tonight and Wednesday...Ahh what a messy situation awaits the region. Very impressive atmospheric river continues to meander toward the Washington/Oregon coast late this afternoon...with a deepening shortwave trough currently moving east of 140w per water vapor satellite. As this shortwave pushes toward the coast it will....Ahh yes. Though I'm NOT complaining about the dull weather, I can sympathize! = = = = = Thought: NWS in Atlanta is being blamed for failing to forecast an unusually strong snowstorm. Maybe NWS should consider a sort of internal crowdsourcing mechanism for spare expertise. I'll bet these bored Spokane forecasters, who have plenty of experience with the signs and portents of snow, could have done a better job than the hurricane-experienced Atlanta guys. Two rules would create the system: (1) If local weather isn't keeping you busy, scan the rest of the country for your specialty. (2) If forecasters from another area tell you that you're missing something, listen. = = = = = Later: In other winters this pic would have been default, not worth the bother of opening the door and clicking the camera. This winter it's special: first really solid snow!
¶ 7:26 PM
What's totally fucked with this picture?
Brief item on news this morning about California drought. Interviewed a farmer in Moorpark who is desperately irrigating his crop with water that comes from Northern California. Most of the water is destined for LA, but some is reserved for irrigation, and the reservoirs are getting dangerously low.
I didn't know Moorpark, so I checked the map.
Hmm. What's that blue stuff? I always thought blue represented water on maps, but obviously I'm wrong. If you had all that water right next to your big city, you'd USE IT instead of pulling water from the mountains 500 miles away. This must be some sort of blue mineral like copper sulfate, so I've labeled it as such.
= = = = =
Just for fun I've been phase-matching 1882. Europe is tracking nicely. How about Calif?
From Sacramento paper, Feb 11, 1882.
Hmm. What's that blue stuff? I always thought blue represented water on maps, but obviously I'm wrong. If you had all that water right next to your big city, you'd USE IT instead of pulling water from the mountains 500 miles away. This must be some sort of blue mineral like copper sulfate, so I've labeled it as such.
= = = = =
Just for fun I've been phase-matching 1882. Europe is tracking nicely. How about Calif?
From Sacramento paper, Feb 11, 1882.
DROUGHT IN THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES. A recent brief visit to a portion of the southern territory of the State convinces us, very much against our will, that the lands of that section, not irrigated, will be almost useless for crop raising the coming season. The fruit-growers of Los Angeles county, having a well-matured system of irrigation, will suffer no inconvenience or loss from the drought, but the lands not irrigated will fail to raise the supply of cereals and provender for animals usually produced in this county. A week's rain, even now, would materially change the grain and hay prospect of this section, but we fear it is too late to hope for such a streak of good luck. A like condition of drought exists, also, in Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties, as well as in the entire lengthy expanse of the San Joaquin valley. Where irrigation is not [present], the land is as dry as a volume of Patent Office reports, or a powder flask minus the powder.Nuff said. ¶ 5:10 AM
Civilization gets a break
Another senile Soviet agent joins his buddies in the Tenth Circle, and Earth is relieved of an evil load. Hot time in the old Hades LLC tonight!
Nothing wrong with singing to make a point. Nothing wrong with singing to complain about perceived injustice. Comrade Seeger's songs were explicitly designed to create a disciplined cadre of civilization-destroying revolutionaries. That's wrong.
Many members of that cadre disappeared into cults in the '70s and came out as soulless robots. Those of us who didn't disappear still ended up with a completely distorted set of expectations, and needed several years to regain reality after the time of evil distortion.
This man ruined millions of lives while living comfortably himself. Raw evil.
¶ 3:09 AM
Another senile Soviet agent joins his buddies in the Tenth Circle, and Earth is relieved of an evil load. Hot time in the old Hades LLC tonight!
Nothing wrong with singing to make a point. Nothing wrong with singing to complain about perceived injustice. Comrade Seeger's songs were explicitly designed to create a disciplined cadre of civilization-destroying revolutionaries. That's wrong.
Many members of that cadre disappeared into cults in the '70s and came out as soulless robots. Those of us who didn't disappear still ended up with a completely distorted set of expectations, and needed several years to regain reality after the time of evil distortion.
This man ruined millions of lives while living comfortably himself. Raw evil.
¶ 3:09 AM
Monday, January 27, 2014
What's with all the boots?
Google's pursuing popups are generally appropriate and sometimes helpful, which means the technique works. When I look on Ebay for toilet seats, Google pops toilet seats at me. When I look for percolators, Google hits me with percolators. When I complain here about problems with SVG coding, Google tries to sell me courses in SVG. All very clever and functional. Occasionally one of those ads leads to a purchase.
Lately, though, Google has been throwing boots at me. All sorts of boots. I never wear boots, never talk about boots, never shop for boots online or outside. I don't even have a fetish for boots that might shape my preference in images. There is no possible connection ...
Oh. Here it is, last week:
"After power returned, the computer gave me a scare. It didn't start up immediately. Thought it might have been fried by a surge. After two minutes the power light came on and it booted cleanly. Must be some kind of delayed breaker in the PS. ... Hmm. Looks like I. Rebooted in. Short sentence. Mode."
You can almost hear the algorithm thinking: "Aha! User writes 'I-rebooted-Mode'. User interested in fashionable boots."
Now I'm going to get slapped with twice as many boot ads! Aaaargggh!
Labels: TMI
¶ 4:03 PM
Sunday, January 26, 2014
The Baroque revival could have started in 1948....
.... but it didn't.
I was ranging through some of the 'singles and doubles' in archive.org's old-time-radio section. This program didn't look promising, but it didn't seem likely to contain any gunshots or screams, so I picked it up and put it at the front of my bedtime playlist.
Most of the program wasn't terribly interesting. The Martha Deane Show, broadcast on WOR, Nov 6, 1948. A rather highbrow art and music show. Began with lukewarm congratulations to the newly elected President Dewey. The hosts clearly preferred Truman, but they put on a game face and halfheartedly cheered for NYC's favorite son. [This is probably why the episode was preserved.]
Toward the end of the hour something utterly amazing happened. Woke me up more effectively than any scream or gunshot, and I had to get up and replay.
Pianist Winifred Jacobson was attempting to start the Baroque Revival all by herself.
At that time most orchestras sludged through one or two Brandenburgs, making Bach sound like Wagner on Walium. It was blasphemous. And that was about it for Baroque.
Jacobson illustrated her point with a now-familiar Scarlatti sonata [K380] and an unfamiliar (to me) set of Purcell pieces. She did them exactly right, with all the precision and delicacy required, and without the academic** fussiness that sometimes infected the Revival when it finally came from conductors like Hogwood and Pinnock in the '60s.
An absolute epiphany, accompanied by a charming and persuasive personality.
Why didn't it catch on? Why didn't she catch on?
Google yields only one reference to her, a brief mention of a concert in her hometown Wilmington paper:
Sounds like she gave up the Revival and slid back into salable territory. Can't blame her.
= = = = =
**At the risk of being academic, my ears catch one quality in Jacobson's performance that belongs to 1930s/40's popular music: Articulation. Careful attention to the attack and release of each note, giving each note a distinct personality. Seems to be rather rare in modern pop or classical or Baroque. Among modern performances of K380 on Youtube, only one matches Jacobson's articulation: Yuja Wang.
Pianist Winifred Jacobson was attempting to start the Baroque Revival all by herself.
At that time most orchestras sludged through one or two Brandenburgs, making Bach sound like Wagner on Walium. It was blasphemous. And that was about it for Baroque.
Jacobson illustrated her point with a now-familiar Scarlatti sonata [K380] and an unfamiliar (to me) set of Purcell pieces. She did them exactly right, with all the precision and delicacy required, and without the academic** fussiness that sometimes infected the Revival when it finally came from conductors like Hogwood and Pinnock in the '60s.
An absolute epiphany, accompanied by a charming and persuasive personality.
Why didn't it catch on? Why didn't she catch on?
Google yields only one reference to her, a brief mention of a concert in her hometown Wilmington paper:
Sounds like she gave up the Revival and slid back into salable territory. Can't blame her.
= = = = =
**At the risk of being academic, my ears catch one quality in Jacobson's performance that belongs to 1930s/40's popular music: Articulation. Careful attention to the attack and release of each note, giving each note a distinct personality. Seems to be rather rare in modern pop or classical or Baroque. Among modern performances of K380 on Youtube, only one matches Jacobson's articulation: Yuja Wang.Labels: Alternate universe
¶ 7:57 PM
See what happens when you LOOK?
Via Science Daily:
Dr Chris Hunt, who is Director of Research on Environmental Change at Queen's School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, said: "It has long been believed that the rainforests of the Far East were virgin wildernesses, where human impact has been minimal. Our findings, however, indicate a history of disturbances to vegetation. While it could be tempting to blame these disturbances on climate change, that is not the case as they do not coincide with any known periods of climate change. Rather, these vegetation changes have been brought about by the actions of people. "There is evidence that humans in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo burned fires to clear the land for planting food-bearing plants. Pollen samples from around 6,500 years ago contain abundant charcoal, indicating the occurrence of fire. However, while naturally occurring or accidental fires would usually be followed by specific weeds and trees that flourish in charred ground, we found evidence that this particular fire was followed by the growth of fruit trees. This indicates that the people who inhabited the land intentionally cleared it of forest vegetation and planted sources of food in its place."What? You mean Noble Firsts Nations Peopleses were invading the Precious Holy Fragile Delicate Endangered Forests even before George W. BushitlerHalliburton enslaved them to his Evil KKKarbon plans? You mean the original pristine extra-virgin untouched condition of these Endangered Forests has ALWAYS been affected by humans? And the Endangered Forests have always recovered from human invasions? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I WON'T BELIEVE IT! Seriously, it sounds like Hunt is trying to make a quiet but firm point, teaching by example. He's not blindly echoing genocidal wacked-out Gaian theories. Instead, he's following the sage advice of an earlier botanist: "Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you." You just might be surprised. More to the point, you just might be doing science. ¶ 6:14 AM
No, it's not religion.
Blair is trying to re-energize the Neocon theory that religion is responsible for the current set of wars in Asia and Africa.
Sorry, doesn't wash. [I went along with those Neocon ideas until 2006, so I can't say "Told you so!"]
Warmakers often use ideology and religion as fuel. Those factors may speed up or enhance some wars. But the primary cause of serious wars is ALWAYS territory.
The currently active wars have one simple cause. The winners of WW1, mainly Britain, imposed a set of false and arbitrary boundaries in the Arab world. WW2 and the US/USSR cold war postponed action on those boundaries, as the major powers propped up their pet Arab dictators. When the cold war finished, the flow of money and weapons faded out. Now the old natural boundaries between ethnic groups are being reasserted. What should we do about it? Exactly nothing. Stand back. Don't fuel the fire with more weapons and money. Let the boundaries re-form.
Blair, toxified by the genocidal leftist theory that All Humans Are Innately Identical, can't understand ethnicity. He has to impute non-innate and "curable" causes like ideology and religion, in order to justify his life and his current fund-raising.
¶ 4:40 AM
Friday, January 24, 2014
Conjunction
An accidental conjunction of headlines on the online Spokane paper.......
A nice comparison between False Value and Real Value, related to electric conductors and charging.
The Tesla article is pure fakery. It heralds a Tesla-only charging station in Ellensburg, which is supposed to "open Spokane to Teslas." Nonsense. Ellensburg is 150 miles from Spokane, so you might be able to drive your Tesla one way, but you couldn't get back without risking brickification. Pure publicity, fitting for a "car" that's pure conspicuous consumption. A $100K item that broadcasts your fake wealth and your Gaian manifest election to all parvenus. Exact equivalent of a $1000 cigar. It says "I can waste huge amounts of money on a thing that serves no practical purpose."
The copper-theft article shows the part that Real Value plays in our fake economy. Americans who formerly worked in industries that used copper, and were formerly paid real money for their real work, are now reduced to stealing copper from abandoned houses and industries, so China can use it for real purposes.
¶ 5:13 PM
A nice comparison between False Value and Real Value, related to electric conductors and charging.
The Tesla article is pure fakery. It heralds a Tesla-only charging station in Ellensburg, which is supposed to "open Spokane to Teslas." Nonsense. Ellensburg is 150 miles from Spokane, so you might be able to drive your Tesla one way, but you couldn't get back without risking brickification. Pure publicity, fitting for a "car" that's pure conspicuous consumption. A $100K item that broadcasts your fake wealth and your Gaian manifest election to all parvenus. Exact equivalent of a $1000 cigar. It says "I can waste huge amounts of money on a thing that serves no practical purpose."
The copper-theft article shows the part that Real Value plays in our fake economy. Americans who formerly worked in industries that used copper, and were formerly paid real money for their real work, are now reduced to stealing copper from abandoned houses and industries, so China can use it for real purposes.
¶ 5:13 PM
TEENY??????????????????????????????????????????
Wired.com features "A teeny house filled with clever space-saving contraptions."
How teeny? 620 square feet.
In the first place, the "space-saving contraptions" are fantastically stupid and even lethal. A table and chairs that swing from ropes, guaranteeing that every single food and drink will spill before you eat it, and guaranteeing that you'll puke up the food from vertigo after you try to eat what little is left in the glass or bowl. A mirror that descends from the ceiling and sits on the floor so you can squat down and do your grooming on the floor.
In the second place, 620 sqft is NOT FUCKING TEENY by any rational fucking standard.
For perspective, here's a 1930 kithouse from the Brown-Blodgett catalog.
Two bedrooms, living, kitchen, full bath, three closets. No need for any "space-saving contraptions" because it's just a nice comfy house that holds your ordinary non-swinging furniture. 24 x 26 = 624 sqft outside dimensions, probably about 575 internal.
What in the motherfucking motherfuck is fucking wrong with these fucking avant garde fucking architects? Spoiled from doing 500,000,000,000,000,000 sqft mansions for hedge-fund Jews? Anything less than a square light year is TEENY? Lesus H. Christ.
¶ 10:48 AM
Two bedrooms, living, kitchen, full bath, three closets. No need for any "space-saving contraptions" because it's just a nice comfy house that holds your ordinary non-swinging furniture. 24 x 26 = 624 sqft outside dimensions, probably about 575 internal.
What in the motherfucking motherfuck is fucking wrong with these fucking avant garde fucking architects? Spoiled from doing 500,000,000,000,000,000 sqft mansions for hedge-fund Jews? Anything less than a square light year is TEENY? Lesus H. Christ.
¶ 10:48 AM
Gotting youred Tottenham News rightly and hereanhereanhere!
A while back I pointed to an odd fake newspaper website called the Tottenham News that seems to be written in a bizarre mixup of English, Turkish and Martian.
Turns out you don't have to go that far to read Martian! From today's KHQ website right here inRiverinRiverinRiver Citically!
Susan Meyer with Spokane Transit Authority says, "it's a way to moving more people in a really environmental strong way because it is electrically charged." The don't call it light rail because in fact there are no rails set into the ground. Meyer says it's a way to move people, powered by an overhead electric infraninfrastructurecally a wire. "Looks like the train a modern streetcar they will be 60 feet long or so and be articulated meaning they have the bendy parts in the middle." Meyer says. "In good weather they'll wear wheel skirts so you won't be able to see the tires it has a very looks it looks just like a streetcar."Mmmmmm! It has a very Martian! = = = = = Dealing with the real subject seriously for a moment: Trolley-powered buses are not a good idea. Some Eastern cities used them for a long time because they 'amortized' the existing streetcar electrical system. For a brand-new system, the huge expense gives nothing but new problems. The bus driver loses the ability to steer around unpredictable obstructions and snow-blocked streets. He might as well be on rails. ¶ 6:36 AM
History as math
Satan, under the guise of Virginia's new illegitimate attorney general, has decided to go against the will of the people and work for what he calls "history" instead:
"And as attorney general, I'm going to make sure that the [people] presenting the state's legal position on behalf of the people of Virginia are on the right side of history and on the right side of the law."
Can't argue with right side of the law. Satan makes our laws now, through his black-robed Federal minions; and Satan dba "attorney general" is perfectly aligned with Satan dba "Supreme Court".
But I can argue with right side of history.
What does history mean? Does it have sides?
= = = = =
There are two generally accepted meanings of history.
= = = = =
Sometimes we take history to mean a list of raw facts. Most school history courses consist of a list of raw facts, but even the teachers understand that they're not really teaching history; they're only teaching the net result of chickenshit decisions by chickenshit curriculum committees.
History as list is like math without the equals sign.
History as list doesn't invite you to draw any conclusions. It doesn't require you to solve a problem or connect anything to your own activities. It's just there.
= = = = =
A more complete and proper definition of history treats the discipline as strictly scientific. It's a narrative of the experiments performed by various segments and groups of humanity, along with the results of those experiments.
What happens when you try to invade a country that has a bigger army? What happens when you invade and occupy a country that forcibly resists? What happens when you let business run wild? What happens when you eliminate business entirely? These questions are generally within the purview of "secular" historians, and "secular" historians do a pretty good job of drawing accurate experience-based conclusions from them.
Other questions are equally historical and equally secular, but "secular" historians serve the elite, and the elite doesn't want these other questions to be considered.
Nevertheless these other experiments have been performed thousands of times by various segments of humanity, and their results have led to conclusions. You can find the conclusions in books we generally call "religious" books. In such books the conclusions are sometimes written in a secular way and sometimes as God's commands, but both forms have the same scientific force. Some of these conclusions are simple public health rules (ie kosher, halal) and some pertain to human social behavior. Among the human behavior conclusions, some commands are absolute [Don't do this!] and others are more quantitative or proportional [Don't do too much of this!].
If you choose to disobey the rules, you must consider the experimental data that caused these rules to be adopted. You must understand that you are following a behavior pattern that has repeatedly led to disaster. You must recognize that you are on the wrong side of experimental data, which means the wrong side of history.
History as list doesn't invite you to draw any conclusions. It doesn't require you to solve a problem or connect anything to your own activities. It's just there.
= = = = =
A more complete and proper definition of history treats the discipline as strictly scientific. It's a narrative of the experiments performed by various segments and groups of humanity, along with the results of those experiments.
What happens when you try to invade a country that has a bigger army? What happens when you invade and occupy a country that forcibly resists? What happens when you let business run wild? What happens when you eliminate business entirely? These questions are generally within the purview of "secular" historians, and "secular" historians do a pretty good job of drawing accurate experience-based conclusions from them.
Other questions are equally historical and equally secular, but "secular" historians serve the elite, and the elite doesn't want these other questions to be considered.
Nevertheless these other experiments have been performed thousands of times by various segments of humanity, and their results have led to conclusions. You can find the conclusions in books we generally call "religious" books. In such books the conclusions are sometimes written in a secular way and sometimes as God's commands, but both forms have the same scientific force. Some of these conclusions are simple public health rules (ie kosher, halal) and some pertain to human social behavior. Among the human behavior conclusions, some commands are absolute [Don't do this!] and others are more quantitative or proportional [Don't do too much of this!].
If you choose to disobey the rules, you must consider the experimental data that caused these rules to be adopted. You must understand that you are following a behavior pattern that has repeatedly led to disaster. You must recognize that you are on the wrong side of experimental data, which means the wrong side of history.Labels: Danbo, Experiential education
¶ 5:25 AM
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Economics as a verb 3
Following on this line of thought.
Big discussion of income inequality today, based on a new poll. Mentions the stereotypical right and left views: Right says ZERO TAXES to make the economy grow, lift all boats. Left says MORE STIMULUS, redistribute false value arbitrarily to the Left's currently defined aristocrats.
We've tried both separately and simultaneously. They don't work because most of the "value" is not Real Value. It's arbitrary numbers typed in by the Chosen Ones through keyboards like the Federal Reserve and LIBOR. The keyboards were created by the Chosen Ones to serve their own purposes, and no alterations in taxes or welfare will change the fact that these are NUMBERS WITHOUT VALUE. These mechanisms run faultlessly to increase the nominal riches of the Chosen Ones, without affecting Real Value in the slightest.
Rising tide can lift more boats if the tide is Real Value, and if the real value is being created by the people in the boats. The water analogy fails at this point, so I'll get down to the verb stuff.
Consider the original meaning of interest. It's a verb.
Inter-est. He is among. He takes part. He has a share.
In concrete form: He plows his land and plants crops. She grinds the wheat and bakes bread. He sells the bread and delivers it. All of these people are among this one line of value-creation. All take part in the increase. All have a share of the creating, and all receive a share of the money paid for the final product.
All of these boats are in the water of Real Value, and all benefit when the Real Value in this particular reservoir rises. When the bread feeds the customers well enough that they feel like having more kids, there's more need for bread. More need for wheat and grinding and baking and selling and delivering. Nobody is standing on the shore betting on the rise. Nobody is getting paid to blame Evil KKKarbon for the rising tide.
The existing analogies are wrong because they refer almost entirely to the bettor and the blamer. Growth means increasing activity at the Betting Parlor and increasing activity in the Church of Blame. (Of course we use different words: we call the betting parlor "The Dow" and we call the Church of Blame "insurance.")
Labels: Blinded by Stats, Natural law = Sharia law
¶ 5:16 PM
Parkinson fails once
I'm always using Parkinson's Laws to explain the action of bureaucracies like NSA. I just now realized that part of the NSA scenario violates Parkinson.
NSA's mission, like all other bureaucracies, is to expand its power and budget and workforce. It has accomplished its mission beautifully for 60 years. Magnificent success.
But what about the competing bureaucracies? The agencies that could be getting more of the overall intel budget if NSA weren't so successful? Why haven't they been fighting NSA? Surely they know better than anyone else how useless NSA's product is.
CIA and Dept of State and the military intel branches run real spies who take real risks and die real deaths to acquire real information about real enemies. CIA does engage in internal spying, but most of its work is immensely valuable and entirely proper for a powerful nation.
NSA takes no risks at all; it expands technology and consumes vast amounts of money and electricity and land and water to acquire exactly zero real information about real enemies. It acquires nearly infinite amounts of raw data about our own people, which it presumably uses for blackmail.
And that one word is probably the answer to this puzzling question.
¶ 8:41 AM
Could be good
Miraculously, Spokane's Board of Ed has approved plans for a new charter school. This will be the first charter in Wash state. Satan dba "Teachers Union" ruthlessly smashed charter plans in Seattle, but for some unknown reason Satan sheathed his bloody claws here in Spokane.
The new school has been assembled by a team of experienced teachers and educrats, so it's likely to operate on realistic expectations. Its curriculum will be fashionably focused on STEM, which could be a good thing if it's done properly or a useless thing if it's done the normal way. Properly, of course, means HANDS FIRST. The normal way means HEAD FIRST.
In either case ... good or useless ... at least a STEM curriculum won't be actively evil. Unlike, say, a "Transcultural arts" curriculum.
= = = = =
Update six months later: The mystery is solved. Satan allowed the school to go ahead because the school is Satan's own property.
¶ 6:12 AM
I shouldn't focus entirely on Ponca.....
.... because Spokane has its own version of emptied-out areas, its own version of Total Pointless Residential Destruction. It's called the North-South Corridor. A bypass highway that was desperately needed in the '50s and finally built in the 2000's.
In the '50s, Kaiser Aluminum had a huge processing plant north of town, and its thousands of workers had to get there via city streets and country roads. The EPA Terrorist Army bombed Kaiser down to bedrock in the 90s, so by 2000 there was no reason to build a new highway leading to Kaiser. Therefore, the idiot state govt started ripping out houses and putting down concrete around 2000, with great fanfare. Finally Spokane gets the highway it has so desperately needed! Huzzah! Huzzah!
It would be a perfect O Henry story if it didn't cost so many innocent people so many billions of dollars that could have been used for meaningful purposes.
And now it appears that the idiot State has finally switched from its manic building impulse to a sullen and sensible depression. Good. Leave the fucking monster as a huge pointless fucking monument, a fucking Ozymandias.
Labels: Loughnerian Logic
¶ 3:36 AM
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Where did it go?
Another of those emptied-out areas in Ponca. This one genuinely shocked me.
Note the area outlined in green. I used to call it the Circle Drive area, because it started from the roundabout called Circle Drive. I think it was properly called the Belmont Addition, but that could be wrong.
This was NOT a poor or black area. It was solid middle class in the '70s. Tree-lined curved streets, neat Cape Cod houses. I wanted to live there but couldn't afford it. The 1940 Census showed it as a new subdivision, not yet completed, and distinctly upper middle. The residents were white-collar Continental employees with titles like engineer, tester, and foreman; their salaries would be in the $60-70K range in today's money.
The east side of Lucas was a business district with corner stores and gas stations, and the blocks to the east were solid working-class residential.
Seen from above on Google today:
WHERE DID IT GO????
You can see 4th St running down the middle, but everything else has been regraded to parkland.
Here's Googlestreet driving down 4th, roughly where I drew the orange arrow on the map. 4th is narrow because it wasn't meant to be an arterial; the main traffic flow was (and still is) along Lucas, the east leg of the triangle.
Emphatically NOT the usual boom-bust ratchet. This was intentional and complete destruction. The whole area has become an Unarea. Its central street was airbrushed to eliminate all indications that people ever lived here. Ha ha ha. You thought this was a pleasant old suburb? Why would you think such heretical Unthoughts? Everyone can see this was always a smooth park with a single unbroken street running through it. Eastasia, Eurasia. Eurasia, Eastasia. Eastasia, Eurasia. Eurasia, Eastasia.
Can't find anything about it online. It wasn't Superfunded or Brownfielded; it was turned into something called Standing Bear Park. There is some info about the park online, but nothing mentions how the land for the park was acquired and cleared. It was just always there. Eurasia. Eastasia.
¶ 12:11 PM
Note the area outlined in green. I used to call it the Circle Drive area, because it started from the roundabout called Circle Drive. I think it was properly called the Belmont Addition, but that could be wrong.
This was NOT a poor or black area. It was solid middle class in the '70s. Tree-lined curved streets, neat Cape Cod houses. I wanted to live there but couldn't afford it. The 1940 Census showed it as a new subdivision, not yet completed, and distinctly upper middle. The residents were white-collar Continental employees with titles like engineer, tester, and foreman; their salaries would be in the $60-70K range in today's money.
The east side of Lucas was a business district with corner stores and gas stations, and the blocks to the east were solid working-class residential.
Seen from above on Google today:
WHERE DID IT GO????
You can see 4th St running down the middle, but everything else has been regraded to parkland.
Here's Googlestreet driving down 4th, roughly where I drew the orange arrow on the map. 4th is narrow because it wasn't meant to be an arterial; the main traffic flow was (and still is) along Lucas, the east leg of the triangle.
Emphatically NOT the usual boom-bust ratchet. This was intentional and complete destruction. The whole area has become an Unarea. Its central street was airbrushed to eliminate all indications that people ever lived here. Ha ha ha. You thought this was a pleasant old suburb? Why would you think such heretical Unthoughts? Everyone can see this was always a smooth park with a single unbroken street running through it. Eastasia, Eurasia. Eurasia, Eastasia. Eastasia, Eurasia. Eurasia, Eastasia.
Can't find anything about it online. It wasn't Superfunded or Brownfielded; it was turned into something called Standing Bear Park. There is some info about the park online, but nothing mentions how the land for the park was acquired and cleared. It was just always there. Eurasia. Eastasia.
¶ 12:11 PM
Thanks, propane!
Three-hour localized power outage this morning, covering only a few blocks. Cause unknown, but it can't be weather! We haven't had any weather lately; just high 30 / low 20 / fog. Probably transformer failure; there was a brief blink last night.
My old propane rig came through nicely for coffee and soup. Flashlight decided to give up, but candles served well enough.
Had one leftover short candle and no holder for it, so tried putting it in the kitchen sink where it couldn't cause problems. Turned out to be an excellent idea: the sink served as a reflector.
After power returned, the computer gave me a scare. It didn't start up immediately. Thought it might have been fried by a surge. After two minutes the power light came on and it booted cleanly. Must be some kind of delayed breaker in the PS.
Hmm. Looks like I. Rebooted in. Short sentence. Mode.
¶ 5:55 AM
My old propane rig came through nicely for coffee and soup. Flashlight decided to give up, but candles served well enough.
Had one leftover short candle and no holder for it, so tried putting it in the kitchen sink where it couldn't cause problems. Turned out to be an excellent idea: the sink served as a reflector.
After power returned, the computer gave me a scare. It didn't start up immediately. Thought it might have been fried by a surge. After two minutes the power light came on and it booted cleanly. Must be some kind of delayed breaker in the PS.
Hmm. Looks like I. Rebooted in. Short sentence. Mode.
¶ 5:55 AM
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Do we understand?
We understand this:
And we understand this:
Do we understand this?
Strong disclaimer: This was a subtle and dubious observation! But it's an interesting observation.
After cutting a tomato at lunch time, I came back a few hours later to make supper and found that the whole tomatoes had developed wrinkles on the side facing the cut tomato. These tomatoes don't ordinarily wrinkle. They get soft after a few days. Is this their way of mourning? We'll never know.
And we understand this:
Do we understand this?
Strong disclaimer: This was a subtle and dubious observation! But it's an interesting observation.
After cutting a tomato at lunch time, I came back a few hours later to make supper and found that the whole tomatoes had developed wrinkles on the side facing the cut tomato. These tomatoes don't ordinarily wrinkle. They get soft after a few days. Is this their way of mourning? We'll never know.
Labels: Smarty-plants
¶ 7:52 AM
When workers were indispensable
From the massive buildup of WW1, the ultimate expression of a bold new industrial power:
Wanna city? We'll build it! Exactly $686,590.
I don't think Aladdin ever got a contract to build a complete city. The WW1 boom disappeared quickly, leaving a giant depression. But Aladdin did fill quite a few neighborhoods with decent low-priced houses for workers, until it faded around 1940.
¶ 5:01 AM
Wanna city? We'll build it! Exactly $686,590.
I don't think Aladdin ever got a contract to build a complete city. The WW1 boom disappeared quickly, leaving a giant depression. But Aladdin did fill quite a few neighborhoods with decent low-priced houses for workers, until it faded around 1940.
¶ 5:01 AM
What's wrong with this picture?
News item:
It took Google $3.2 billion in cash last week to snatch up digital thermostat company Nest. And it took a small startup about 24 hours to hack together a working equivalent of Nest's signature product a few days later. That would be terrible news for Google - if the search giant's chief interest in Nest was hardware. But as is the case with its purchase of robotics heavyweight Boston Dynamics, or even its dabbling in self-driving cars, Google's acquisition of Nest isn't just about creating new revenue opportunities - it's about expanding the nodes and sensors it uses to collect data on our world. After the blockbuster sale, Spark in Minneapolis, a Nest competitor that makes kits so folks can build their own smart devices, managed to put together a similar Internet-connected thermostat that senses when you're in the room.Think about this from the viewpoint of these supposed "left libertarian techies". The "hacker spirit". The "maker spirit". Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog. What should a hacker be doing? He should be developing ways to AVOID the Biggest Brother Of All. Nope, that's not what these "hackers" are doing. They're developing ways to HELP Biggest Brother gather EVEN MORE data, hoping to nibble off a little slice of the massive profits that arise from Knowing Everything. From the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the Profitariat of Dictatorship in 30 short years. Marvelous. Of course these things don't always end the way they start. Stalin started out the same way as Google. He persecuted uncool people and got all the cool people on his side. But after a certain point there weren't any uncool people left, and it was necessary to start grinding up the cool people. Parkinson's Law as always. A bureaucracy never stops, it always grows, and always repurposes itself when its original target is shot full of holes. = = = = = Later: Someone discussing the NEST takeover on the radio said "Well, just think about how far we've come. Back in the '50s, if you had imagined programming your thermostat to come on at certain times, it would be science fiction!" No. Exactly wrong. Timed thermostats were common in the '50s. One of the houses I rented in Oklahoma had a day/night timed thermostat controlling its floor furnace. The thermostat was probably installed in the late '30s. and it still worked in the '70s when I was there. Obviously it wasn't connected to any sort of net; in fact it wasn't even connected to the AC mains. The thermostat was 'microvolt-powered' from the pilot light, and the clock part was mechanical, something like a little parking meter. The house is still there and looks remarkably well maintained. Wouldn't be surprised if the thermostat still works. Can't find a picture of this thermostat online. Fancier versions with real clocks are well represented on Ebay and elsewhere, but the simple windup timer isn't there. ¶ 2:33 AM
Monday, January 20, 2014
Justice vs justice
Speeches honoring Comrade King today illustrated the tragic consequences of following Comrade King's approach instead of the GW Carver / Booker T approach. Black ministers harshly criticized the current government for cutting unemployment benefits. One of them said that Justice requires giving a share of our current prosperity to the people who made the prosperity possible.
Justice? No. That's exactly the problem. The current "prosperity" WAS NOT MADE POSSIBLE by the black and white working class, so the poor can't properly claim a piece of it, even if the prosperous ones would deign to give it to us, which they wouldn't.
The current "prosperity", which is completely counterfeit and fraudulent and criminal, results from a constant flow of deals and blackmail between the political elite (which is partly black at the moment) and the economic elite (which is always Jewish.)
Booker T and Carver wanted a different arrangement, and thanks to Ford and FDR we did have a different arrangement for about 50 years. Black ex-slaves and white ex-sharecroppers became INDISPENSABLE for REAL prosperity. They didn't need to claim "Justice" in the form of welfare because they were being paid for MAKING AND GROWING THINGS. The country would grind to a halt without the workers, and the elites knew it.
Quoting again from the example of Carver's scientific writing that I used in previous piece:
"This better method ... is demanded by every consideration of business prudence, and of justice to the
generations that are to follow us."
Justice. Justice derived honestly from labor and intelligence and prudence.
How do we get there from here? How do we return? How do we shift the helltrain into Reverse? Damned if I know.
Obama had a chance to re-use FDR's experimental data. He faced the same crash manufactured by the same satanic speculators. He could have closed them down and rebuilt the legal walls to shut out future speculators. It worked before, and could have worked again. He could have rebuilt the tariff and customs walls to slow down outsourcing and outlaboring. It worked before, and could have worked again.
But he didn't. I don't know if he faced an unfathomable blackmail threat, or if he was just hopelessly weak. In either case, he enslaved himself to the speculators and continued giving them infinite "Justice" from the government's printing press. He continued the Gramscian Deal whereby aristocrats get all the cultural power, all the political power, and all the money, and foreigners get all the jobs. What do the formerly indispensable working Americans get? Precarious service jobs, always in danger of replacement by robots and software. Mostly we get credit cards.
¶ 5:44 PM
On the other hand......
This is a Small Event, emphatically Not Shown On TV, that will have major Real Effects on a huge part of the world. It's not an attack or a sport thing or a celebrity wardrobe malfunction or even a sudden and total change. Nevertheless, it signals a complete turnaround, a 180-degree flip in tendency.
The EU is turning away from Gaia, and turning toward INDUSTRY.
The European Commission is beginning to shift away from its current climate policy: “For an industrial renaissance”, the needs of the economy should play a key role in setting environmental objectives in the future. The EU Commission has re-discovered the importance of industry for economic development. On Wednesday, it will adopt a message that is entitled:”For an industrial renaissance” and states: “Without a strong industrial base, Europe will not be able to prosper.” Industry is “at the core of European economic revival and competitiveness”, says the text.Still sort of holding my breath on this.... but if it's carried through, it will turn a major part of the world back to sanity, and will open vast horizons of opportunity for ORDINARY FUCKING PEOPLE. Canada and Australia have already abandoned the Gaian Crime. Some parts of the UK government appear to be ready to turn, but waiting for EU orders. If this isn't just a trial balloon, it should allow Britain to flip into the sane column. And it will certainly give relief to those parts of EU that have been trying to restore normal economic activity against the previous Satanic opposition from EU. EU has been the guiding light and a major funding source for the Gaian crime. If the light moves elsewhere and the funding fades, the crime will finally fade and this poor old world will finally have a chance to recover from the terminal Gaian cancer.
Labels: Carbon Cult
¶ 12:27 PM
Big events, real effects
Big Events, As Shown On TV, often have very small Real Effects on ordinary lives.
The 9/11 attack seemed Big to me because I was living inside the TV tube at that time. Later on, after I escaped from the TV, I looked back and tried to find Real Effects in my own life.
I could only find one change that was unquestionably caused by 9/11. Before 9/11 I could carry my backpack into stores without any problem. After 9/11, one store (CompUSA) required me to leave the backpack at the entrance. That's it.
Other types of TV events have slightly larger Real Effects on my own life.
I think there was some kind of big TV sport thing yesterday. SuperSeries or WorldBowl or HockeyFest or something. It involved something called The Hawks, which is a ball or a bird or a stadium or a helmet or a team or a loud noise or something. I heard people talking about it on the radio, and apparently there was a fashion for people to eat lots of chili while watching the WorldHelmetBall or whatever it was.
Today I looked for chili powder in Safeway. Not one single container. All the brands are out. McCormick, Schilling, Safeway Generic, Safeway Organic. All gone. No chili powder at all.
This is a Real Effect on my Real Life. It means I'll have to use my Reserve Container of not-very-good chili powder until Safeway restocks!
Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 9:25 AM
Sunday, January 19, 2014
God exists.
News item:
Why are lawyers killing themselves? One by one, state by state, bar associations say the tally is rising: Lawyers are killing themselves. ... Prominent lawyers keep turning up dead. They came one a month in Oklahoma around 2004. South Carolina lost six lawyers within 18 months before July 2008. Kentucky has seen 15 known lawyer suicides since 2010.Ours not to reason why. Ours but to LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND SING PRAISES UNTO THE LORD! ¶ 5:02 PM
Best tongue-twister of all
UK Guardian has an article about utility customers who lost money in a "botched switch" between companies or coverage plans or something. I couldn't get into the content because I literally can't get past "botched switch".
I'm only moderately susceptible to tongue-twisters; I can handle most of them with a little practice. This one absolutely kills my speech circuits. First time is fine. Second repetition, I skid out and splash into Burtation Creek. Third rep is impossible because I don't have any speech left.
The effect is something like
Botched Switch. Botched Soooooooouuuttrdnyarrr. _______ ______.
Each time it comes out different, but the skid always occurs just after the S in the second rep.
If I leave out the middle /t/, as in "botch switch", it's easy enough. It's the /t/ that pops my mental gears.
¶ 12:14 PM
Extreme because average
NCDC time, boys and girls!
When you look at California's current dry year, it's unquestionably the driest single year on record, but not tremendously worse than a couple of previous peaks.
Taking it apart by month, a more complex picture emerges.
No single month is unprecedented. May through Sept are actually on an uptrend from several low years. But the whole year comes out at a minimum because no month is unusually high. Previous dry-side years had some especially wet months to keep the whole year out of the trough.
Separating by region gets even more complex, but the same general impression holds. The months of this year are low, typical or a little high, but none are abnormally high.
I dare you to find an Evil KKKarbon pattern among these months, i.e. a steady upward or downward trend over the last 30 years. No Evil KKKarbon. Sunspots don't fit either. We're in an especially low sunspot phase, which should let in more cosmic rays, thus more particles to trigger precipitation. Should be wetter than normal if sunspots were the main influence. If there's any long-term pattern at all, it must be merely a converging set of troughs in the various decade-scale oscillations.
No single month is unprecedented. May through Sept are actually on an uptrend from several low years. But the whole year comes out at a minimum because no month is unusually high. Previous dry-side years had some especially wet months to keep the whole year out of the trough.
Separating by region gets even more complex, but the same general impression holds. The months of this year are low, typical or a little high, but none are abnormally high.
I dare you to find an Evil KKKarbon pattern among these months, i.e. a steady upward or downward trend over the last 30 years. No Evil KKKarbon. Sunspots don't fit either. We're in an especially low sunspot phase, which should let in more cosmic rays, thus more particles to trigger precipitation. Should be wetter than normal if sunspots were the main influence. If there's any long-term pattern at all, it must be merely a converging set of troughs in the various decade-scale oscillations.Labels: Carbon Cult
¶ 8:03 AM
Happy 150th, Carver!
While the elite and the officials commemorate the birthday of a Communist who did great harm to his own people, Polistra and friends are saluting the 150th birthday of a great Christian experimental scientist who did the opposite.
By most calculations, George Carver was born in January 1864 near Joplin. 150 years this month. He was born in the last year of official slavery, to a mother owned by a German farmer named Moses Carver. Soon after George was born, his family was stolen and held for ransom by outlaws; Moses Carver paid to get them back. After emancipation, George's mother went elsewhere and Moses raised George and brother James as his own kids. From the start George was a man on a mission, and he seemed to have a talent for finding the right people and places to help with his mission, and steering around people who wanted to obstruct his path.
He moved to Kansas, which was more open for ex-slaves; attended Highland College near St Joe, then headed west into Ness County to homestead. He wasn't interested in plain farming; he set up experimental plots on his acreage and began breeding and hybridizing crops.
Later he finished a college degree at Tuskegee and became a teacher there. His mission continued. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Improve the crops that Southerners, and especially black Southerners, could offer to the world. Improve farming methods to make labor more efficient.
Carver was the exact opposite of the Communist who is officially celebrated today. The Communist's mission was to force the world to accept everything his people offered, without any attempt to improve their offerings. When the world has to accept you and reward you for everything, your worst impulses and worst performance quickly come to the surface. An aristocracy always degenerates. It's human nature.
A brief passage from a routine report on a routine experiment in a USDA bulletin shows how Carver's mission informed everything he did:
Beyond his massive opus of valuable work, Carver left us one huge quote (which I've already noted and used in the top icon). The most perfect and complete definition of science.
Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. Talk to them.
= = = = = = = = = =
Footnote for clarity: The Carver / Booker T approach was meant to make American blacks more prosperous by using their special talents and training, mainly in agriculture. Prosperity is good in itself, and it would also make blacks indispensable to the overall economy. The agricultural approach might have worked, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Henry Ford unexpectedly came along and opened industrial work to blacks. Model T replaced Booker T. Then in the '60s Comrade King and Comrade LBJ opened a new and false horizon, replacing economic power by political power. Comrade Jackson gave the political power a new flavor derived from the Soviet regimes in post-colonial Africa: political power based on force, corruption and blackmail. And that's where we are now. Since then our industries have been destroyed by the other side of the Gramscian pincer, so there's only a very limited industrial path to prosperity for blacks or whites. Political power and financial power are the only pieces still on the board. At the moment a small Jackson-descended black elite holds the political piece, but the Goldman piece is getting increasingly irritated with their performance.
By most calculations, George Carver was born in January 1864 near Joplin. 150 years this month. He was born in the last year of official slavery, to a mother owned by a German farmer named Moses Carver. Soon after George was born, his family was stolen and held for ransom by outlaws; Moses Carver paid to get them back. After emancipation, George's mother went elsewhere and Moses raised George and brother James as his own kids. From the start George was a man on a mission, and he seemed to have a talent for finding the right people and places to help with his mission, and steering around people who wanted to obstruct his path.
He moved to Kansas, which was more open for ex-slaves; attended Highland College near St Joe, then headed west into Ness County to homestead. He wasn't interested in plain farming; he set up experimental plots on his acreage and began breeding and hybridizing crops.
Later he finished a college degree at Tuskegee and became a teacher there. His mission continued. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Improve the crops that Southerners, and especially black Southerners, could offer to the world. Improve farming methods to make labor more efficient.
Carver was the exact opposite of the Communist who is officially celebrated today. The Communist's mission was to force the world to accept everything his people offered, without any attempt to improve their offerings. When the world has to accept you and reward you for everything, your worst impulses and worst performance quickly come to the surface. An aristocracy always degenerates. It's human nature.
A brief passage from a routine report on a routine experiment in a USDA bulletin shows how Carver's mission informed everything he did:
Beyond his massive opus of valuable work, Carver left us one huge quote (which I've already noted and used in the top icon). The most perfect and complete definition of science.
Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. Talk to them.
= = = = = = = = = =
Footnote for clarity: The Carver / Booker T approach was meant to make American blacks more prosperous by using their special talents and training, mainly in agriculture. Prosperity is good in itself, and it would also make blacks indispensable to the overall economy. The agricultural approach might have worked, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Henry Ford unexpectedly came along and opened industrial work to blacks. Model T replaced Booker T. Then in the '60s Comrade King and Comrade LBJ opened a new and false horizon, replacing economic power by political power. Comrade Jackson gave the political power a new flavor derived from the Soviet regimes in post-colonial Africa: political power based on force, corruption and blackmail. And that's where we are now. Since then our industries have been destroyed by the other side of the Gramscian pincer, so there's only a very limited industrial path to prosperity for blacks or whites. Political power and financial power are the only pieces still on the board. At the moment a small Jackson-descended black elite holds the political piece, but the Goldman piece is getting increasingly irritated with their performance.Labels: Carver, Danbo, Experiential education
¶ 5:36 AM
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Yay!
Yaaaay! Not quite the Rapture, but good enough for today.
Finally solved a strange problem in HTML/JS/SVG. I'd been using an 'object' tag to contain a switchable piece of code, so the courseware could turn pages. This worked about 60% of the time, in a completely irregular way. I couldn't tell which pages were 'good' and 'bad' because the sequence was never the same. Start up once, and get pages 1,2,3. Start up again and get pages 1,5,11.
Most of the online forums seemed to recommend 'object' for this usage, so I left it in place way too long. It turns out that 'iframe' works perfectly here and 'object' sort of halfway works. Jelly on a tree.
¶ 6:40 AM
Yaaaay! Not quite the Rapture, but good enough for today.
Finally solved a strange problem in HTML/JS/SVG. I'd been using an 'object' tag to contain a switchable piece of code, so the courseware could turn pages. This worked about 60% of the time, in a completely irregular way. I couldn't tell which pages were 'good' and 'bad' because the sequence was never the same. Start up once, and get pages 1,2,3. Start up again and get pages 1,5,11.
Most of the online forums seemed to recommend 'object' for this usage, so I left it in place way too long. It turns out that 'iframe' works perfectly here and 'object' sort of halfway works. Jelly on a tree.
¶ 6:40 AM
Friday, January 17, 2014
20 different words
The common notion that Eskimos have many different words for types of snow has been debunked... it's not different words, it's just phrasal descriptions mashed together as 'words' by arbitrary spelling techniques.
Still, the underlying concept is pretty good. If you're accustomed to one natural event or substance, you become a connoisseur of its subtypes. Pattern recognition requires adaptation and templates, and an occasional event doesn't let you build a template.
This winter Spokane has (so far!) been blessed with very little snow. Not quite the absolute minimum record, but could end up there if nothing changes. Instead of snow, we've had freezing fog. Almost every day. As it relentlessly continues, it shows subtle variations that wouldn't have been observable among the usual scattered handful of instances. Some days the FZFG is easy for walkers and hard for all cars. Some days it's only hard for small pickup trucks. Ford Rangers have to pull over and give up. Some days it's impossible to walk and easy enough to drive. Some days it's worst on sidewalks, other days it's worst on streets. Some days the FZFG is only bad on east-west streets and okay on north-south streets; sometimes vice-versa; sometimes equal in all directions.
Maybe not 20 words, but close to a dozen!
This winter Spokane has (so far!) been blessed with very little snow. Not quite the absolute minimum record, but could end up there if nothing changes. Instead of snow, we've had freezing fog. Almost every day. As it relentlessly continues, it shows subtle variations that wouldn't have been observable among the usual scattered handful of instances. Some days the FZFG is easy for walkers and hard for all cars. Some days it's only hard for small pickup trucks. Ford Rangers have to pull over and give up. Some days it's impossible to walk and easy enough to drive. Some days it's worst on sidewalks, other days it's worst on streets. Some days the FZFG is only bad on east-west streets and okay on north-south streets; sometimes vice-versa; sometimes equal in all directions.
Maybe not 20 words, but close to a dozen!Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 5:22 AM
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Might as well conform to Google's stereotype.
Might as well continue 1940-censusing disappeared places. Especially since Google has algorithmically figured out what I'm doing. Each time I visit Youtube now, it "recommends" a whole bunch of abandoned-places clips!
Following up on this little story about the rented house on South Lincoln in Ponca. Here's a floor plan. The main rectangle was about 24 by 18 feet. The kitchen was added on, possibly in the '50s, a few steps below the rest of the house. Sunny and spacious, it was the only pleasant room in the house. Before it was added, the little passage on the right must have been the kitchenette. When I lived there, it was just wasted space. Note also the wasted space in the hall. Dead ends both ways, not formed into closets.
This house does appear in the 1940 census. At that time it was owned and occupied by a husband and wife about 50 years old, plus the wife's 80-year-old mother. The husband is listed as "interior decorator", which seems to have meant "painter" in Census coding. Presumably the phrase hadn't yet acquired its fairy connotation.
Even if the back kitchen was already added then, I can't imagine three people in such a small space! But living alone was EXTREMELY rare in 1940. After skimming lots of pages, I'd estimate that only 5% of dwelling units had a single occupant. Most of those seem to be single-room apts, i.e. hotel rooms labeled as apts. Nearly absolute rule: A residence with more than one room housed more than one person.
¶ 2:36 AM
This house does appear in the 1940 census. At that time it was owned and occupied by a husband and wife about 50 years old, plus the wife's 80-year-old mother. The husband is listed as "interior decorator", which seems to have meant "painter" in Census coding. Presumably the phrase hadn't yet acquired its fairy connotation.
Even if the back kitchen was already added then, I can't imagine three people in such a small space! But living alone was EXTREMELY rare in 1940. After skimming lots of pages, I'd estimate that only 5% of dwelling units had a single occupant. Most of those seem to be single-room apts, i.e. hotel rooms labeled as apts. Nearly absolute rule: A residence with more than one room housed more than one person.
¶ 2:36 AM
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
JR of the Bakken 2
Police have more or less finished investigating the execution-style murder of a high-rolling businessman in Spokane. It's pretty much what it looked like at the start.... a paid hit. The common thug who pulled the trigger has been arrested. He was supplied and commanded by another high-rolling businessman in North Dakota, who hasn't been arrested yet. Complex but well-written story from KXLY.
¶ 6:09 AM
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Always valid
It's an old theme and an old tune, but always valid. Woody Guthrie put it in an oddly delicate way: "Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
The standard intro of the 1952 TV series 'Racket Squad' puts it much more accurately: "The carefully worked-out frauds and schemes by which confidence men take more money each year from the American public than all the bank robbers and thugs with their violence."
Certainly fits my own experience. I've been robbed with digital fountain pens several times, totalling more than one year of income. A couple of debit-card identity thefts, $6000 in lost interest on savings, and right now JPMorgan is snatching part of my annual royalties to satisfy its hostile-takeover debts against the bankrupt publisher.
I've been physically robbed only once. It was tiny and nonviolent, and left me feeling more guilty than angry.
In 1974 I was making good money for an unskilled dickhead, somewhere around $9K per year, or $40K in today's Bernanke Bucks. (Old Economy Steve, spot on.) I lived simply, in a Ponca neighborhood well below what I could afford. Every week I'd cash my paycheck, put most in savings, and keep a rationed amount in green rectangles. Paid bills in person when possible, or with cash in envelopes in the night-drop boxes of utility companies. One night I came home from work, left the prepared envelopes in my unlocked VW Bug (of course) and went inside to eat. When I came out to run the cash-drop errand, I saw that the envelopes had disappeared. Called the cops and learned that the cops already knew about the theft. The kids across the street had seen and grabbed the cash-filled envelopes. Their mother had immediately reported the event to the police. The cop and I went across the street where I identified the envelopes and took them back. Cop wanted me to give the kids a lecture, but I couldn't muster up any anger. Clearly the mom had already administered sufficient punishment.
These neighbors needed the money much more than I did. They were truly struggling for survival, and the kids were probably happy to bring home a little windfall. Mom thought it was more important to raise law-abiding kids than to have 30 extra dollars. Heroic. Nothing less.
= = = = =
This is where my rented house was. Another emptied-out neighborhood!
Boom-bust ratchet again. Ponca is in a big bust now, and might not recover soon. Enid, with income from wheat and oil services and an Air Force base, always bounces back from oil losses. Ponca has nothing but Continental, and now Continental has moved all its offices to Houston.
¶ 5:36 PM
Boom-bust ratchet again. Ponca is in a big bust now, and might not recover soon. Enid, with income from wheat and oil services and an Air Force base, always bounces back from oil losses. Ponca has nothing but Continental, and now Continental has moved all its offices to Houston.
¶ 5:36 PM
Monday, January 13, 2014
Class had a different meaning
A brief follow-up on my 'digital reconstruction' of the mysterious Big Horn in Enid.
Tried to find the Big Horn in the 1940 Census. Unsurprisingly no luck; the census lists only residences. I thought the nearest house might show up, because the occupant of that house in 1972 was also the owner of Big Horn. Possibly my memory of seeing a ref to Big Horn in a 1938 city directory is misdated.
Here's a 1940 census page for those blocks:
Pretty much the same as '72 in class and density. White working class, mainly working at Champlin or the elevators. Note that 1329 has a live-in housekeeper!
1329 is gone now, subsumed by the same junkyard that covers part of the Big Horn property. 1434, the north end of the block and the northernmost house in Enid at this longitude, seems to have been a big place in 1940. It was absent in 1972 and present again now. I lived in a rental house at 1426, which was absent in 1940, present in 1972, and absent again now. The boom-bust ratchet in action! (Assisted by the 1966 tornado, which sliced through these blocks.)
= = = = =
Just for fun, I decided to compare with another currently emptied-out part of Enid, the former black part of town.
Here's a 1940 census page from East State Avenue.
This page is typical of the area.
First: You can't tell the race by the names. There are no black names or white names. Only correctly spelled English names, written in a heartbreakingly beautiful Palmer cursive. In a modern list you could tell the color instantly and certainly by the Brytneis and Taelyrs and Nevaehs in the white list and the Qunaishas and LaShrandas and TyQuandios in the black list.
Second: Everyone has a job. Women are maids, men are mostly porters (black laborers) or WPA workers. This was typical until Comrade LBJ ripped black neighborhoods apart to create his private welfare army, replacing work by guaranteed welfare.
Third: Notice three schoolteachers on this one page. This was also typical. Every block in the colored area had at least one teacher or preacher or doctor. Working-class white areas had no professionals at all. In other words, a porter had more daily contact with educated people than a laborer did.
Fourth: On these two pages, blacks owned 2/3 of their homes, while whites owned about 1/2. This isn't quite typical; a quick scan through other pages in both zones shows white working-class and blacks about equal at 60%. Hmmmmm. Haven't we always heard that blacks weren't allowed to own homes?
What the area looks like now... In this case the boom-bust ratchet was assisted by the 1973 flood.
Sidenote of total puzzlement: Every time I look at the 1930s Depression in a 'close-to-home' context, focusing on places and people and numbers that I know something about, I find a lot less trouble and poverty and drought than we've been led to believe. We have lots of photographic and numerical evidence that the decade was a terrible time for some people and places. Obviously there was a there there. But when I try to pin down the there, it always turns out to be a small and slippery there. My ancestors were right in the middle of the Dust Bowl, and they got through it by scrimping and saving and gov't work. These working-class Enid folks, black and white, kept their homes. Probably the same way my ancestors did.
= = = = =
Update 1/18/14: I just took a magnified look at the name on 1329 N. 12th. I hadn't focused on it before. Bingo! He still lived there in 1972. I remember the name from the mailbox. He was about 70, which fits... and I'm fairly sure he was the owner of the Big Horn. (I don't remember if I picked up the connection from direct conversation or from 2nd-hand hearsay.) So there's part of the mystery solved, but I still don't know whether the place ever operated as a business.
¶ 7:09 AM
Pretty much the same as '72 in class and density. White working class, mainly working at Champlin or the elevators. Note that 1329 has a live-in housekeeper!
1329 is gone now, subsumed by the same junkyard that covers part of the Big Horn property. 1434, the north end of the block and the northernmost house in Enid at this longitude, seems to have been a big place in 1940. It was absent in 1972 and present again now. I lived in a rental house at 1426, which was absent in 1940, present in 1972, and absent again now. The boom-bust ratchet in action! (Assisted by the 1966 tornado, which sliced through these blocks.)
= = = = =
Just for fun, I decided to compare with another currently emptied-out part of Enid, the former black part of town.
Here's a 1940 census page from East State Avenue.
This page is typical of the area.
First: You can't tell the race by the names. There are no black names or white names. Only correctly spelled English names, written in a heartbreakingly beautiful Palmer cursive. In a modern list you could tell the color instantly and certainly by the Brytneis and Taelyrs and Nevaehs in the white list and the Qunaishas and LaShrandas and TyQuandios in the black list.
Second: Everyone has a job. Women are maids, men are mostly porters (black laborers) or WPA workers. This was typical until Comrade LBJ ripped black neighborhoods apart to create his private welfare army, replacing work by guaranteed welfare.
Third: Notice three schoolteachers on this one page. This was also typical. Every block in the colored area had at least one teacher or preacher or doctor. Working-class white areas had no professionals at all. In other words, a porter had more daily contact with educated people than a laborer did.
Fourth: On these two pages, blacks owned 2/3 of their homes, while whites owned about 1/2. This isn't quite typical; a quick scan through other pages in both zones shows white working-class and blacks about equal at 60%. Hmmmmm. Haven't we always heard that blacks weren't allowed to own homes?
What the area looks like now... In this case the boom-bust ratchet was assisted by the 1973 flood.
Sidenote of total puzzlement: Every time I look at the 1930s Depression in a 'close-to-home' context, focusing on places and people and numbers that I know something about, I find a lot less trouble and poverty and drought than we've been led to believe. We have lots of photographic and numerical evidence that the decade was a terrible time for some people and places. Obviously there was a there there. But when I try to pin down the there, it always turns out to be a small and slippery there. My ancestors were right in the middle of the Dust Bowl, and they got through it by scrimping and saving and gov't work. These working-class Enid folks, black and white, kept their homes. Probably the same way my ancestors did.
= = = = =
Update 1/18/14: I just took a magnified look at the name on 1329 N. 12th. I hadn't focused on it before. Bingo! He still lived there in 1972. I remember the name from the mailbox. He was about 70, which fits... and I'm fairly sure he was the owner of the Big Horn. (I don't remember if I picked up the connection from direct conversation or from 2nd-hand hearsay.) So there's part of the mystery solved, but I still don't know whether the place ever operated as a business.
¶ 7:09 AM
Saturday, January 11, 2014
La Niñita
So far this winter is a sort of La Niñita. A miniature version of the 2008 Hellfest. Same events in the same order .... snow followed by harsh cold followed by windy and warm ..... but only about 25% of full strength.
In 2008 the result of this sequence at 100% concentration was lots of collapsed roofs and flooded houses and ruined lives. This year's HO-scale version is sort of scary to watch but not especially harmful.
Today was the windy and warm part. 50/50. 50 degrees, 50 mph. The 2008 version was 60/60, but it happened at a time when ice dams blocked outflow of a 30" snowpack. Result: floods inside and outside.
Result of this year's HO-scale: No problem on roofs, just swampy yards and perfectly dry streets.
The full-scale version nearly killed me. The HO-scale version just gives me nice walkable streets for the first time in a month. Nature doesn't do linear. Nature does sigmoids.
Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 4:22 PM
They should have stopped after the first sentence
It's been obvious for 60 years that the current arrangement of Big Science (publish or perish, tenure, grant requests, etc) is atrocious and destructive. It keeps getting worse, even though the correct solution has been offered for 60 years.
Here's a newly offered solution that gets close, but misses badly at the end:
The system involves giving all scientists an annual, unconditional fixed amount of funding to conduct their research. All funded scientists are, however, obliged to donate a fixed percentage of all of the funding that they previously received to other researchers. As a result, the funding circulates through the community, converging on researchers that are expected to make the best use of it. “Our alternative funding system is inspired by the mathematical models used to search the internet for relevant information,” said Bollen. “The decentralized funding model uses the wisdom of the entire scientific community to determine a fair distribution of funding.”Fixed annual funding is the correct solution. It must be allowed to accumulate, which this proposal doesn't seem to mention. The need to spend all of a granted budget each year leads to tremendous waste. If a researcher can buy only what he needs, at the moment when he needs it, the waste will be eliminated. The bit about crowd-funding decided by other scientists is a terrible idea. It will reinforce orthodoxy and fashion even more strongly than peer review does. EXACTLY what we don't need. PRECISELY wrong. Encouraging open public crowd-funding would be a good idea. This already happens for some projects, but it seems to be difficult to arrange and is probably forbidden by some universities or states. If open crowd-funding is one of the options provided by each university's grant control office, with assistance in arranging publicity, a lot of unfashionable (i.e. good) projects could be done. ¶ 3:54 AM
Refreshment
I'm feeling a bit EMBATTLED AND BELEAGUERED this week by deadline pressures and bad weather and short sleep.
Thus it's a refreshing treat to see a strong and sane response by scientifically literate people to a piece of standard wacked-out insanity. Some bizarre alien creature named Max Shapiro (alias Max Tegmark) writes a standard predictable piece of toxic schizophrenic word salad in Anti-Scientific Anti-American.
It's good old genocidal tyrannical Plato as always: "The universe consists of math." I was preparing a cogent response until I started reading the comments. Almost unanimously the commenters crush Shapiro/Tegmark's nonsense from every possible angle. The crush is so comprehensive and decisive that anything I could add would be a net subtraction, because it would dilute the force of superior writers.
Good, by god.
¶ 2:11 AM
Friday, January 10, 2014
Big boy blew it.
Christie just lost his brand.
The correct response to this "scandal" is as follows, verbatim: "Politics is a violent game. Only bullies get things done. I'm a bully, therefore I get things done. You got a problem with what I did to this disloyal mayor? Watch out. You're next."
Regardless of ideology, ordinary Americans are DESPERATELY HUNGRY for politicians grounded in reality. Until this point, Christie appeared to be grounded in reality. Now he's just another mincing squealing fairyboy.
¶ 4:23 AM
Vowels and splines
Dream this morning was trying to tell me something useful.... need to write it down before it disappears.
The setting was completely unoriginal. I was working as a technician in an engineering lab, helping a prof set up an experiment. This is what I did for work during the '80s. The experiment had something to do with acoustic properties of various shapes, which was unimportant. (The dream generator explicitly marked these pieces as unimportant.)
Here's the important bit: The prof was telling me that he had worked with grad students from different countries on this type of experiment. He said that the students who came from areas that pronounced certain vowels in certain ways tended to favor linear point-by-point solutions, while students who came from areas that pronounced the vowels in other ways tended to favor solutions by "thirds or fifths", which were closer to nature.
The dream generator was having word-access trouble, which isn't unusual; I can often tell that the story-maker is able to find concepts or pictures but not words. In this case the generator handled the unreachable words in two different ways. It offloaded the missing nationalities onto the prof, who was supposedly being euphemistic; and it used the nearest available terms and blackboard pictures for the missing solution styles.
After waking, I was immediately able to fill in the missing words from the vowels and pictures. Students from Northern European or Teutonic cultures used FIR or LPC solutions, while students from Muslim cultures favored cubic splines, which were more natural. Alternately, "thirds or fifths" could refer to musical intervals, chords, harmony.
I'm pretty sure the message relates to my futile attempts to think about economics in a more or less Islamic style. Not sure yet how a cubic spline (or a chord) will help, but it's clearly an offer of assistance from the dream generator.
¶ 2:19 AM
Thursday, January 09, 2014
MMT is a fraud.
I've been reading various explanations of 'Modern Monetary Theory' with an open mind and with considerable sympathy. I wanted to find a system that could improve things. The people who are pushing MMT seem to be reformers. They seem to be opposed to standard US/UK economics, genuinely opposed to Krugman and Bernanke and Yellen.
After reading several explanations, I've reluctantly concluded that MMT is just a scam, just another Useful Idiot trick. The difference between MMT and the usual economics is just a dose of crack.
Krugman/Bernanke/Yellen economics consists of the following set of ten elegant autistic axioms:
(1) STIMULATE! (2) STIMULATE! (3) STIMULATE! (4) STIMULATE! (5) STIMULATE! (6) STIMULATE! (7) STIMULATE! (8) STIMULATE! (9) STIMULATE! (10) STIMULATE!
MMT extends those axioms to this larger set of turbo-autistic axioms:
(1) STIMULATE! (2) STIMULATE! (3) STIMULATE! (4) STIMULATE! (5) STIMULATE! (6) STIMULATE! (7) STIMULATE! (8) STIMULATE! (9) STIMULATE! (10) STIMULATE! (11) STIMULATE! (12) STIMULATE! (13) STIMULATE! (14) STIMULATE! (15) STIMULATE! (16) STIMULATE! (17) STIMULATE! (18) STIMULATE! (19) STIMULATE! (20) STIMULATE! (21) STIMULATE! (22) STIMULATE! (23) STIMULATE! (24) STIMULATE! (25) STIMULATE! (26) STIMULATE! (27) STIMULATE! (28) STIMULATE! (29) STIMULATE! (30) STIMULATE!
Neither theory has any answers to the basic questions that a leftist or populist economic view should handle. Neither theory does anything for working men and ordinary families. Neither set would impose 1000% tariffs on all imported or outsourced materials and labor, neither theory would wipe out the EPA, neither would torture and execute feral bankers and feral lawyers. Both theories steal everything from the poor and give everything to the superrich. MMT does it twice as fast.
If you want to solve our problems, you have to start with Mohammed's concepts, if not all of his details. Start with labor as the sole source of value. Shape the system to encourage productive labor and discourage counterfeiting, borrowing and abstractions.
Labels: MMT, Natural law = Sharia law
¶ 9:09 AM
Pluto drives!
As long as we're doing anthropomorphic dogs, here's a Spokane news item about a chihuahua who enjoys driving....
Ormaechea said she stood up as soon as she was bumped. “When I looked up, there was no one in the car, just a little dog up on the steering wheel peeking over looking at me. I was shocked, I didn't know if I was crazy, or if this little dog had taken a joy ride.” That is exactly what happened.Fortunately the whole thing happened at low speed and nobody was hurt. ¶ 5:41 AM
No Nonomom
The AT&T anniversary show mentioned in previous entry covered a lot of territory with no obvious logic or connection, including the Dionne Quintuplets. They were big news in 1935, so I suppose they had to be mentioned.
Led me to think about the distorted version of multiple births in recent years. Sudden realization: The trend has stopped. Octomom was the killer app. After Octomom, there was not a Nonomom or a Decimom or an Undecimom or a Duodecimom. End. Fini. No more.
Thank God.
But why? I can't imagine that publicity-seeking females voluntarily gave up the game. The competition was firmly established, with hormone-juiced multiple births every week for many years.
Did medical and pharmaceutical types quietly decide to quit providing the tools for publicity-seekers?
¶ 2:34 AM
Pluto talks!
The Pluto/Goofy divide is one of the eternal and unsolvable puzzles of all literature. But it wasn't always a firm divide. In 1935 Pluto briefly crossed the line into anthropomorphism. He didn't quite become a human, he simply became a dog who talks like a human.
It was in the middle of a monumentally corny Salute to the 50th anniversary of the Bell System. I'm accustomed to '30s hokeyness, but this program blows all the gaskets.
Starting at 18:00 in the clip, there's a musical medley/rhapsody based on songs about phones, starting with Hello My Baby. In the middle of this medley/rhapsody, for no particular reason, we hear the following conversation in Sprachgesang form:
Ring, ring, ring.
Mickey: Hello, hello, hello?
Operator: One one one niner, please hold the liner.
Pluto: Hello, is this Mickey Mouse?
Mickey: Yes, this is Mickey Mouse. Who's calling up MY house?
Pluto: This is Pluto. Your doggie Pluto. I won't be home tonight. Woof woof!
Mickey: Well, watch your step now. Don't get in a fight!
No, it doesn't make any more sense in context.
Pluto's voice here is just what you'd expect from a working class dog. Nothing like Goofy's retarded country-hick human.
¶ 2:00 AM
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Moore's Law? Bah. Less's Law.
Supposedly computing speed continues to increase. Nonsense. In terms of actual time from keyboard stroke to results, computing speed slows down by a factor of 2 for every new generation of computers.
I've got a reasonably up-to-date desktop. Dual core, 64-bit, 3GHz processor. This is NOMINALLY 1000 times faster than the original Radio Shack PC I used 30 years ago. In FACT the new computer is about 1000 times slower for most basic operations.
When I hit Ctrl-O to open a file, I can see the steps happening.
Computer says: "Hmm. User has depressed CTRL. Let me ring up Bill and see what this means. Hello, Mr Gates? User has depressed CTRL. Oh, okay. This means that the next key belongs to the CTRL series as opposed to the Shift or normal series. Thanks, Mr Gates. Bye-bye. Now User has depressed an O. Hello, Mr Gates? Now User has depressed an O simultaneous with the CTRL. What does ... Oh, you say this Allows User To Open A File? Okay. Bye-bye. Open a file... open a file... this implies that I need to find the currently active folder... Oops, the file drawer was a little tight. Need to oil that drawer. Where's the WD40? There. Spritz, spritz, spritz. Much better. File drawer is open. Now I need to build one of those tiresome Window things on User's screen. Here's a frame: top side ... left side ... right side ... bottom side. Now here's a blank area in the middle of the frame. Add a couple of buttons on the bottom. One button, two buttons. We need labels on the buttons. Open on the first one, then.... I guess Cancel on the second one. Does that look right? I suppose. Now I need to fill in some files. Whoopsie! We seem to have some folders here along with files. What do I do with folders? Hello, Mr Gates? Okay. Bye-bye. Find some folder icons for the folders. First one, second one. Now I have, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Did I count right? Try again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Six files to list. First one. It seems to need an icon. What kind of icon? Hello, Mr..."
Well, you get the idea. On my old 1984 Tandy PC all of these activities happened in a few milliseconds. Instantly to my eyes. There was no possible way I could separate the steps. On my 2010 Dell, supposedly 1000 times faster, I can see each of these operations and I can count TEN FUCKING SECONDS while they all ever-so-slowly complete. After several file operations the computer seems to improve with practice, and the time slips down to one or two seconds. But if I do something else for a while, the training is lost and the computer has to ask Mr Gates how to respond to a keystroke all over again.
In terms of total keystroke to action time, THIS IS SLOWER THAN A MECHANICAL ADDING MACHINE.
Or an even closer analogy: FINDING A DIGITAL FILE ON THIS SO-CALLED COMPUTER IS SLOWER THAN FINDING AN ACTUAL FUCKING PAPER FILE IN AN ACTUAL FUCKING METAL FILING CABINET.
The problem is not at the OS level. My old courseware, which uses DOS-level directory functions to build its own directory listbox, runs just as fast in W7 as in earlier Win versions. Also, some Norton-Commander type directory systems run instantly. The problem is in Explorer, and in all progs that use the top-level file dialogs.... which is ALL major progs. Many forums have discussed this giant bug, but none have offered a solution that works. I've tried them all.
In terms of total keystroke to action time, THIS IS SLOWER THAN A MECHANICAL ADDING MACHINE.
Or an even closer analogy: FINDING A DIGITAL FILE ON THIS SO-CALLED COMPUTER IS SLOWER THAN FINDING AN ACTUAL FUCKING PAPER FILE IN AN ACTUAL FUCKING METAL FILING CABINET.
The problem is not at the OS level. My old courseware, which uses DOS-level directory functions to build its own directory listbox, runs just as fast in W7 as in earlier Win versions. Also, some Norton-Commander type directory systems run instantly. The problem is in Explorer, and in all progs that use the top-level file dialogs.... which is ALL major progs. Many forums have discussed this giant bug, but none have offered a solution that works. I've tried them all. Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Danbo
¶ 4:13 AM
Early winner 2
Yesterday we were able to give out the 2014 award for the most fantastically idiotic stupid moronic brainless dangerous fatal genocidal piece of so-called alleged accused quote """"science"""" unquote. Now we already have a winner for the most fantastically idiotic stupid moronic brainless dangerous fatal genocidal piece of Gaian doctrine.
Ready? Here goes.
Professor David MacKay, the energy department’s chief scientific adviser, said that electronic equipment and cars should be kept for as long as possible and then disassembled so that components can be recycled. Householders “buying lots of stuff and then throwing it away” make it “difficult” for ministers to reduce the country’s energy consumption, Prof MacKay said.This is especially aggravating because MacKay is about 50% right for 100% wrong reasons. Before 1980, US and UK MADE OUR OWN STUFF and we made it REPAIRABLE. This was a better situation all around. MAKING THINGS is CREATING VALUE, and it was possible to pay a livable wage to the people who MADE THINGS and REPAIRED THINGS. Now we have stopped MAKING THINGS. We enslave children in Bangladesh to do our making, and we design things for complete disposability. Prices are lower than before and wages here are MUCH lower than before and the badly designed shit has to be tossed quickly. This is good for the Chosen Ones, of course, because it forces non-Chosen people to live by borrowing from Chosen Ones. We DESPERATELY NEED to return to the pre-1980 condition, but NOT because it would appease Gaia's wrath. We need to return to the pre-1980 condition because it was GOOD FOR OUR OWN FUCKING PEOPLE, especially good for the non-Chosen who have better hand skills than math skills. No amount of STEM training, no amount of "pre-K education", will make the slightest improvement in this basic pattern. PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT, and the DUTY OF A FUCKING NATION is to provide USEFUL EMPLOYMENT for the GREATEST FUCKING NUMBER of those people. Blessings to the Telegraph commenters, as always. They have exploded High Priest MacKay's genocidal poison from every possible angle, including one big point I hadn't thought of. A large part of outsourcing and disposability was forced by MacKay's own Gaian genocide. Superfund lawsuits, EPA emission laws, "Endangered" "Species" "Laws" and brownfield laws smashed US factories. Anti-Freon laws and sealed emission systems on cars made repair impossible.
Labels: the broken circle
¶ 2:24 AM
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Nice exception
A pretty good rule for digital stuff and digital services: You don't get what you pay for. In general there's very little correlation between cost and quality. Open source freeware and shareware is often better than high-cost "reputable" software and services.
Finally found a positive exception to the rule, in a rather specialized area.
SCORM is a semi-vacant jungle. Most of the activity has been locked inside "authoring systems", leaving the independent developer at loose ends. Lots of dead links, abandoned projects, websites untouched since 2003.
I've been trying all the free and open Scorm "testbeds" and "players". None of them work. The "player" from reload.ac.uk sort of halfway works, but doesn't seem to register results. I've been wrestling with this tree-jelly for many days, trying to determine if the problem was in my code or not. Felt like driving on ice with an opaque windshield and a crescent wrench turning a rounded-off steering shaft.
The positive exception is ScormCloud. Their minimal service, called "little", costs $75 and it's already worth every cent in my first day of usage. It's easy to upload your ZIPped package, the system understands everything, excellent live help is available, and it lets you know for damn sure what's happening. If there's a problem, it's on my end now. If I'm pretty sure that a function should work, it does work in ScormCloud. If I'm pretty sure that a function shouldn't work, it doesn't work in ScormCloud.
Ah. Blessed certainty! It's still icy driving, but now I can tell which of my turns leads into a skid!
¶ 7:40 AM
Early winner
Only one week into 2014 and we can already give the prize for most fantastically idiotic stupid moronic brainless dangerous fatal genocidal piece of so-called alleged accused quote """"science"""" unquote.
Ready? Here goes:
Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23, which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities. The study is an analysis of national survey data from 1997 to 2008 of teenagers and young adults, ages 18–23, and their arrest histories, which run the gamut from truancy and underage drinking to more serious and violent offenses. The study excludes arrests for minor traffic violations. Most striking are the race differences revealed in the study, Brame says. In particular, the research points to a higher prevalence of arrest among black males and little race variation in arrest rates among females. “A problem is that many males – especially black males – are navigating the transition from youth to adulthood with the baggage and difficulties from contact with the criminal justice system.” The study’s key findings include: By age 18, 30 percent of black males, 26 percent of Hispanic males and 22 percent of white males have been arrested. By age 23, 49 percent of black males, 44 percent of Hispanic males and 38 percent of white males have been arrested. While the prevalence of arrest increased for females from age 18 to 23, the variation between races was slight. At age 18, arrest rates were 12 percent for white females and 11.8 percent and 11.9 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively. By age 23, arrest rates were 20 percent for white females and 18 percent and 16 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively.And the coup de disgrace:
“As a society, we often worry a great deal about the effects of children watching television, eating junk food, playing sports and having access to good schools,” Brame says. “Experiencing formal contact with the criminal justice system could also have powerful effects on behavior and impose substantial constraints on opportunities for America’s youth.Experiencing formal contact with the justice system. Apparently this is an event that just sort of happens, like getting bit by a mosquito or catching a virus. Nowhere in the whole wacked mess does it mention that the "justice system" usually has a reason for biting you. Cops may stop you and talk to you for minor reasons, but if they actually arrest you, there's a very strong chance that you've done something specific and illegal. The goal of this %$#^%&%^&*^%*%^ is obvious. Next step: CDC will declare "contact with the justice system" to be a disease of epidemic proportions, and will mobilize all social workers and shrinks to "cure" the "disease". How will it be "cured"? By training the virus (i.e. the cops) to completely ignore all black males. Finally, all of this unspeakable poisonshit will safely divert our attention from the REAL FUCKING PROBLEM, which is the lack of factory jobs. Our satanic corporations can safely continue outsourcing all low-skilled work, and can safely focus their attention on proper American business, i.e. sucking trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of counterfeit "dollars" from Janet's gray and wrinkled tits. ¶ 6:05 AM
Monday, January 06, 2014
Reversed prices
Along with juiced measures, we have an epidemic of reversed prices.
I hadn't thought about this until I heard a brief news item about the new Colo pot markets. The 'recreational' markets are selling pot for twice as much as the previously formed 'medical' markets.
This is how it SHOULD be. What do we supposedly want? We want people to go through approved channels. We want them to get prescriptions for drugs, and we want them to have health insurance.
The Colo pot market is the ONLY market that enforces what we supposedly want.
Everywhere else we do the exact opposite. We make brand-name drugs vastly more expensive than generics. We make American-sold drugs vastly more expensive than foreign-bought drugs. We make all American products vastly more expensive (and generally lower quality) than foreign-made products. We make Romneycare premiums twice as high as pre-Romneycare premiums. We make Romneycare premiums 12 times as high as the penalty for not using Romneycare. We make legally bought cigarettes vastly more expensive than illegal (untaxed) cigarettes.
And then we pretend to wonder why so many people choose the illegal or non-approved way of doing things.
The only logical conclusion is that our laws are made by the gangs who benefit from illegal transactions. Good old Bootleggers and Baptists.
¶ 4:52 AM
