Just one thought
Just one big convective thought amid lots of convective snow and rain and weariness.

THEORIES ARE LIKE PATENTS.

Both are advertised as encouraging innovation. Both actually HALT innovation.

When a theory is formed, scientists stop LOOKING. They close their eyes to parts of the universe or parts of the body or parts of the circuit or parts of the economy that don't fit the theory perfectly.

The reality of patents is obvious and uncontroversial. Patents are DEFENSES against innovation. Most people who deal with inventions describe the purpose openly, with no irony or sense of contradiction, and use patents for their ACTUAL purpose.

The reality of theories is nearly secret. Theories are DEFENSES against direct observation. Anyone who offers a direct observation, no matter how carefully instrumented and calibrated, will be CLUBBED AND BEATEN by theorists. Even though this process is just as obvious and routine as the patent defense process, you won't find any honest descriptions of the process.

Labels: Carver

  ¶ 11:43 PM

  First impression's matter!
Since Im in the "e-learning" biz, I sometimes get emails or popup ads on the subject.

This one fail's from the start:



Admittedly the little icon giving you a strong hint of the origin, if the sentence structure hadnt already clue'd you in.

The email goe's on:

Learning is a constant process, and direction is often key in helping it to unfold. Today's E-learning platforms strive to deliver their best E-solutions. But, in the midst of all this competitions and struggles, a new question has arisen - what innovation would you bring to your online learning?

Agriya's one-stop online learning solution mixes innovation with an eye to the newest trends. We deliver a multi - level learning experience that is both sustainable and robust.

Well, its certainly buzzword-compliant. You could form these paragraphs from an e-learning buzzword generator. Far as I can tell its not a parody or a simple scam, but Im not incline'd to pursue the matter.
  ¶ 12:20 AM

  Deco radartoon
Trying to keep courseware moving forward while wrestling with two layers of computer replacements. The refurbished unit that I started using a couple weeks ago turned out to be worse than the previous refurbished unit.

SE-LU. Loosen yourself. Cut the ropes.

I loosened up the unnecessary constraint against Windows 10. Bought a brand-new unit with Win 10. So far 10 is hugely annoying but usable; my old stuff still runs OK. Most annoying part: 10 no longer includes the Easy Transfer feature, so I couldn't use my good old Belkin cable to move everything automatically. Probably a good thing in the long run; transferring ONLY specific data and programs means a lot less unknown leftover junk. Also, the new computer has a microphone and Win 10 wants to run Siri or whatever it's called. I need to open the box and remove the mic before serious use. No telescreens allowed in this house.

Thus not much spare brainpower for whatever it is I do in this space. Just to keep things semi-active, a radartoon.



The deco speedlines are probably a radar artifact, but the oddly shaped hole seems to be a real reading. For once I can't manage to find a face or a map in this! It's just weird and colorful.

Labels: se-lu

  ¶ 12:21 PM

  Why don't computer languages handle proportions?
In handwritten algebra, and on a slide rule, you can deal with proportions like

x/3 = 5/y

This situation is extremely common in everything from electronics to cooking. You can vary EITHER X OR Y and see how the other number changes. Aside from proportions, the essential idea of an equation is a balance with both sides able to vary. Change one side and the other changes appropriately to maintain the balance.

You can't do this in any computer language that I'm aware of. Way back when I first learned Fortran in 1966, I had to adapt to the idea that the equal sign is always a one-way street. You have to rerig all proportions and equations so one variable is the output and everything else is the input. I adapted but never bothered to ask WHY.

In 1966 processors and memory were extremely simple, but those limits are long gone. Now it would be easy to write a parser or compiler that treats an equation as a balance. Why not?

= = = = =

Analog computers were based deeply and totally on the concept of balance. Start with a differential amplifier, which is the electronic equivalent of a classic balancing scale. Apply an input to one side, then either manually or automatically adjust the other side to reach zero output. The result you read is not the output; it's the adjustments of the other side. The output is just the equal sign or the fulcrum.

Labels: Asked and unanswered

  ¶ 3:36 AM

  Year-end GAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKK
One of the stupid morning shows on talk radio just reached a new height of stupidity. The possibly "male" host and "his" two possibly "female" sidekicks were dealing with Trendings. The first Trending for today is Boxing Day.

The nominally "male" host declared with unusually firm authority:

"Boxer day originated from the Boxer Rebellion in England."

How many errors in one firm authoritative statement? Jesus.

= = = = =

More stupidity from a less expected source, one of the 'astrology' types on the moneytalk station. Normally the 'astrology' types are firmly in contact with reality. This dude was discussing the weather in terms of commodities and agriculture, and marveled at the weirdness of this year in the Northwest. "Spokane has snow today, and it's 10 degrees! I guess maybe they're in the mountains or something."

Must be confusing Spokane with Seattle.

In fact this winter is pretty much average (SO FAR), and 10 degrees is a tad cool but nothing special. (Note to weather gods: I'M NOT COMPLAINING! Last year had FOUR CONSECUTIVE HARDASS SEASONS. I'm thankful for a return to the mean.)
  ¶ 3:14 AM

  Year-end thingamajig
Time for the year-end thing.

What did I write this year that might be worth preserving?

The best part isn't one article. It's the Aberree chain, which began as an incidental oddity and expanded into a giant change in thought pattern.

Started here when I noticed a monthly magazine published in Enid, a magazine that seemingly "should" have been familiar to me but wasn't.

These two items probably encapsulate the chain.

The final result shows in this piece about harmful hooey vs helpful hooey, which then broadened into a BIG picture about truth vs deception, and a clearer understanding of religion.

From a different angle, the Hart definition of copyright seeded an existing attitude and started the chain of transforming "rights" into DUTIES. The latter item is probably the most preservable output this year.

Outside of the Aberree chain, this item on the perfect falseness of modern economics is original and valid.

The Se-lu theme is fun but not memorable or original.   ¶ 1:03 AM

  Non-barking jungle
After three months of daily confessions and burnings, the Hollywood witch hunt seems to have paused. No new public burnings for the last two weeks. Is this just a pause to gather strength? Or did the Inquisitors accidentally catch somebody who shouldn't have been caught? Previous inquisitions faded when the burners started to torch the wrong people. Everyone in Hollywood and media is infinitely evil, so it's hard for an outsider to distinguish which infinitely evil monsters are evil enough to be immune, evil enough to trigger a Game Over call by the referee.

The RUSSIAN_HACKING witch hunt proceeds at full speed, spreading to Germany and England where Angela and Boris and Theresa have paraded their brainless twatness in oblivious glory. The "investigators" in USA STRONG are roaring ahead, still finding absolutely nothing. Parkinson as always. When the original goal turns out to be futile, a bureaucracy grows even faster, creating new "crimes" that must be "solved" by creating more new "crimes" that must be "solved" by creating more new "crimes" that must be "solved" by creating more new "crimes" that m
  ¶ 11:51 PM

  Non-barking jingle
We're right up against Xmas day, and I haven't heard Jingle Bells Bark even once! What's wrong?

Got to do it!

Labels: Asked and partly answered

  ¶ 5:14 PM

  Citation vs Metrology
Couple days ago I snarked in the combox of an annoying article by Hillary-Worshipping Deepstate Agent Dreher. The article was about meeting potential mates at church, which was formerly possible if not common and now seems to be rare.

The first few comments were the predictable crap: "I'm so wonderful that I didn't need the assistance of church." Yeah, okay, we know you're Superman, but you shouldn't be disparaging the possibility. Others aren't Superman, and might need the help of civilization.

Most of the commenters got DEEPLY involved in an argument about the exact attribution of a chart or graph in the article that Deepstate Agent Dreher was sourcing.

That's where I snarked.

Citation Syndrome is a monstrous problem on the Web. It has always existed in academic circles, but the Web has turned it into a destructive force.

Why is it a problem? Because the instantaneous hammerblow of "CITE YOUR EVIDENCE" is explicitly intended to destroy personal observation.

I remember the first time I received the hammerblow. It was in 1987 in a Compuserve forum that later turned into Townhall.com. Long before the "real Web". There was a discussion of twins, and I mentioned the WELL-KNOWN FACT that identical twins often develop contrasting personalities to shore up a sense of personal identity. IMMEDIATELY one of the NYC Tribal dickheads who dominated the forum SLAMMED me with CITE YOUR EVIDENCE, TROLL! I calmly responded that it was a personal observation, and the HAMMERING got harder from all sides.

Needless to say, these ERASURES of personal variability ALWAYS come from passionate advocates of TOLERANCE and DIE-VERSITY.

= = = = =

How does this differ from Metrology? Simple.

Metrology, whether in science or religious visions, means checking your own observations against REALITY, as far as you can. Know the baseline, try to exclude NOISE, make sure your measurements or visions are consistent. Does this AC voltage look like 60 cycles? If so, it's noise. Does this vision look like something seen on TV? If so, it's noise.

Citations are noise because citations are always skewed to serve somebody's purpose. In "science" they're skewed by the orthodoxy-enforcing mechanism of peer review. In language and etymology they're skewed by the narrow viewpoint and prejudices of the first writer to publish the word or phrase. (Normally the word or phrase had been around for a long time before it appeared in print.) In "journalism" everything is purely and intentionally evil.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carver, Metrology

  ¶ 9:47 AM

  Comrade Henry
Via RT: The Communist Party is getting new leadership. Zyuganov, who has been the leader and candidate since the Switchover, finally decided to retire. The new leader is Grudinin, who took over a failing collective farm and turned it into a proper company town:

One of Moscow regions biggest producers of fruit and vegetables, as well as being Russia’s biggest strawberry farm, the Lenin Sovkhoz also takes pride in being a model enterprise with almost communist internal rules. Grudinin’s enterprise provides its workers with free housing, healthcare and school dinners, as well as subsidising many regular payments, such as communal fees. It also actively invests in local infrastructure. Sovkhoz funded the construction of a school building and the renovation of a local clinic.

Sounds a lot like the Social Economy types in America from 1880 to 1920. NCR, Conoco, Weston Instruments, Ford, many others.

The witch hunters and insinuators of Wall Street destroyed the Social Economy movement by associating Ford with Fascism at a time when Germany was the main aggressor in the world. Admittedly Henry made their work easier, but most industrialists at that time were eagerly trading and cooperating with Germany. Henry was NOT unusual in that department. He WAS unusual in his respect for poor people as customers and as workers, and in his refusal to participate in Wall Street. Those were his sins. Those were the reasons why he had to be discredited.

Labels: switchover, the broken circle

  ¶ 12:16 AM

  Yes, but not how you mean
Bubbly headline at ZH:

Will Ethereum Be The Next Facebook?

The scammer author means, of course, that Ethereum is bound by inevitable destiny to be a giant world-conquering stock, running up and up and up and up forever.

Nope. Won't happen. But he's unquestionably correct at a deeper level.

Facebook pretends to give you direct unmediated personal communication with lots of people, in order to gather all our information and monitor all our activities for tyrannical purposes.

Bitcoin pretends to give you direct unmediated personal transactions with lots of people, in order to gather the transaction data for tyrannical purposes.

Both are founded and sponsored by CIA/NSA. Tyranny is the product, we're the raw material.

Labels: Answered better than asked

  ¶ 5:06 PM

  MIssed the best part
This bit of research, linked via TAC, caught my 'professional' attention.

The researchers analyzed 30 years of audio clips from oral arguments by the Supreme Black-robed Demons. They found that higher pitch when questioning the lawyers for one side correlates with a final vote against that side.

Unsurprising. More emotion means more tension overall, which means higher F₀ unless the speaker is really good at controlling vocal output. An experienced stage actor or singer would be harder to correlate.

The authors missed the most interesting variable, which is Clarence Thomas. He never questions lawyers, and he operates strictly on the basis of logic. He simply reads the Constitution and follows it.

Best correlation of all! No emotion = no voice. F_null instead of F₀.

Labels: Asked and badly answered

  ¶ 4:16 AM

  Idiot Rod
I've always been fascinated by the British habit of maintaining ancient offices and ceremonies like....



....Portcullis Pursuivant and Clarenceux King of Arms. One of the ceremonies, the Trial of the Pyx, still has a function. It's a genuine chemical assay of the metals used in coinage. The others have lost their meaning but remain in annual rehearsal, ready to serve when needed.

The officers NEVER get in the news. Today we finally have a newsworthy appearance by one of the officers who has a real function. Unfortunately he's an idiot.

After seven years as Black Rod, the figure responsible for maintaining order in the upper chamber, Leakey told House Magazine: “I know what the risks are here. Knowing the detail that the expert recommendation is that you should do this quick and now, not slowly over time in phases. I know that is necessary in order to prevent another Grenfell Tower happening here. And that’s the point.”

“We will again be accused of sitting on our hands. What an embarrassment and a disgrace it would be to our nation if our Parliament suddenly disintegrated in a puff of asbestos because the steam pipes burst in the cavities around this building and the electricity and the IT infrastructure went with them,” Leakey said, the Independent reports. He went on to say that the state of the Commons is at “red risk” – the highest in terms of the probability of a hazardous situation and its potential consequences.

You've got it backwards, Idiot Rod. Asbestos is EXACTLY AND PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of Grenfell. Asbestos EXACTLY AND PRECISELY PROTECTS YOU from a Grenfell disaster. The Grenfell disaster happened EXACTLY AND PRECISELY because idiot Gaians required buildings to use FUCKING ROCKET FUEL for insulation instead of asbestos.

Asbestos is just like those ancient offices. We're too indescribably hyperbrainless and ferally wicked to use it or reinvent it now, but we should at least have the sense to leave it in place so it can do its assigned job when needed.

Labels: Patient things

  ¶ 2:08 AM

  Halting the pump and dump
Inquisitions and bubbles are the same racket. Pump and dump.

In both cases the organizers pump up a mania, then find ways to make money or power from the mania.

The church and government versions focus more on power, which means money in the budget. Parkinson cycle. Make a problem, "solve" the problem by making more of the problem. Infinite exponential increase in budget.

Sometimes the gov't and church work more directly with money.

In the 1400s the Inquisitors and Indulgencers formed two sides of a protection racket. Inquisitors cultivated "witches" who could curse you any time they wanted, and Indulgencers sold you protection from the curses that the church created.

In modern times CIA and DEA work the money side, especially in the classic mob commodity of drugs. CIA and DEA produce drug addicts, then profit by selling drugs to the addicts and confiscating money from independent sellers. CIA also works in the financial realm, including the Global Warming racket and Bitcoin itself. (Satoshi is openly CIA.)

= = = = =

Why is the bitcoin bubble suddenly reaching the endpoint of its pump, and why are the organizers starting to dump? Tax law. The newly passed law treats crypto crap as a collectible like wine or paintings or real estate. Capital gains tax when you sell. The organizers knew this was coming, or more likely made it happen. They started the final push at the correct moment to maximize their returns before the law takes effect.

Okay. Turn it around.

= = = = =

Can we tax the inquisitors?

Can we make their pumping significantly less profitable?

Yes. We can RESIST their attempts to cultivate matching pairs of alt-right vs antifa and Islamic vs Christian witches.

So-lu-tion = Se-lu. Loosen yourself. Cut the ropes, break the bonds, scrub off the TV toxin, step out of the trap.

If nobody grabs the sting, the sting doesn't work. Result: Very little witchcraft, thus very little need for Indulgencers to "protect" us from the curses.

Labels: Make or break, se-lu

  ¶ 5:06 PM

  Full-wave rectifiers
BBC website has a feature asking who will be remembered 1000 years from now.

The article doesn't really fit the headline; it's about fame in general. Why are some universally famous people forgotten 10 years later, while others are remembered 5000 years later? The analysis is honest and fair.**

BUT: The headline has a bigger point. 1000 years is significant. We can recognize a wave in intellectual history, at least in Europe. The full period is 2k years.

2000 years ago Rome and Greece were full of intellectual activity, which was halted by the rise of Roman Christianity. From 30 AD to 1000 AD people were going about their business, and undoubtedly many of them were thinking clearly and debating various subjects and inventing useful things. But these developments weren't allowed to flower and spread.

The early 1000s marked the restart of written and formalized thinking in the Christian side of Europe. We can't see the thinking directly at first, but we can see it in the reflector telescope of the Inquisition.



The early 2000s mark the end of this phase. We are seeing the end of written thinking in the Christian side of Europe ... plus its newer satellites in USA STRONG, AU, etc. We have a new Inquisition run by the same Insatiables who ran the first one, and burning the same Deplorables. Most of the Insatiables are outside the Church now, but the Church hierarchy is firmly with them. The East and South, Persia and India and China and Africa, are picking up the burden of intellect and morality just as they did during the previous Euro blank period.



With remarkable speed we're shutting down all of the "presses" that print heresy. Carriers like Facebook and Google and Apple are appointing huge armies of human and mechanical censors to ferret out the slightest hint of a .000000001% departure from perfect verbatim orthodoxy as of this picosecond. Since orthodoxy moves at the speed of light, the censors will end up wiping everything. There is no provision for unerasing, no Ctrl-Z.

The moving finger erases, and having erased moves on.

= = = = =

** BBC footnote: This is a consistent pattern in recent years. BBC's features on travel, design, and future are well written and FAIR, separating opinion and fact cleanly. BBC's fake "news" is omnicidal universe-exterminating hypertoxin. How can two departments of the same corporation have such totally opposite purposes and cultures?

Labels: defensible times

  ¶ 5:24 PM

  Thanks, Ralph 471
Listening to the bluster and counterbluster about Trump's latest pointless self-destructive nonsense (Jerusalem stuff).

Ever since the 1989 Switchover, USA STRONG has been bombing and ruining everything except Saudi and Israel. All of those bombed and ruined countries have been building an increasing grudge against USA STRONG.

There wasn't any way to use the grudge until the new Allied side based in Russia and China emerged as a sane alternative about 5 years ago. Since the emergence sane countries have been flipping toward the sane side. When Trump came in, the universal hatred of the "Trump" hologram made it easier for many countries to break away from conventional fashion.

I've noted before that the "Trump" hologram is miraculously accomplishing what the Trump voters wanted, EVEN THOUGH the actual Trump is simply continuing Bush/Clinton aggression.

What if the "Trump" hologram can accomplish Fortress America in the SAME WAY that American blockades and sanctions forced so many other countries to find their own internal confidence and skills? (See Cuba, Persia, Russia, etc.)

What if the other 190 countries unite in a TOTAL BLOCKADE against USA STRONG? Nothing goes out, nothing comes in. All military forces and spies and NGOs must return home and stay home. Any ship or plane or missile leaving the border is shot down immediately. Any radio signal leaving the border is jammed.

We would then have no choice. We would have to DO THE RIGHT FUCKING THING for the first time since 1974.

Would we? No, but it's a constipation devoutly to be wished.

Thanks in advance, Ralph.

Labels: Emersonian justice, skill-estate, switchover

  ¶ 4:19 PM

  Historic first
For the first time ever, the authors of Babylon Bee are completely and stupidly wrong.

Title: Nation Furious Over Giving Government Less Of Their Money

The nation was in an absolute uproar as the GOP tax bill passed Congress Wednesday and made its way to President Trump’s desk, with millions of irate citizens expressing their total fury over the fact that the federal government will now be taking less of their money week in and week out.

Hordes of protesters gathered in the nation’s capital to decry the decrease of government taxation of their incomes, sources confirmed.

Normally BB manages to break through standard partisan rot. This time they swallowed Mitch McConnell whole.

IN FUCKING FACT tax reform ALWAYS leads to lower taxes and higher subsidies for the super-rich who already pay zero taxes and get infinite subsidies. IN FUCKING FACT tax reform ALWAYS leads to higher taxes for ordinary people. This is an absolute eternal constant regardless of D/R labels. Tax legislation is written by the people who will benefit. The Tribe benefits, humans die.

Worst of all, EVERYONE KNOWS that tax reform will ALWAYS increase the growth rate of our debt, which means a secondary bonanza for the Tribe that runs banks and derivatives and credit default swaps.

Christians shouldn't be pushing for increased debt, no matter how it's achieved.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 2:07 AM

  Can we reverse the advantage?
Just noticed something BASIC about the broad divisions of humanity.

Going back 5000 years, you can always identify a few essential occupations. The essentials have split into specialties but the types are constant and innate.

1. Warrior ( = soldier, chief, executive...)

2. Healer ( = doctor, priest, teacher...)

3. Farmer ( = mechanic, engineer...)

4. Trader ( = merchant, banker...)

= = = = =

WAIT. Those four ancient types are constant in mid latitudes, from China to India to Babylon to Phoenicia to Greece to Rome. The Silk Road people, defined ABOVE ALL by trading.

The northern tribes, from Russia to Eskimos to Celts to all of the Americas, had the first 3 but not the Trader type. Same for Africa. They never developed abstract money or merchants or bankers. Russia is still short on the merchant tendency, which is why socialism worked there.

When trader tribes interact with non-trader tribes, the trader tribes are usually able to cheat the non-traders. We have plenty of stories left over from the interactions of trader Spain with non-trader Incas, or trader England with non-trader Algonquin types. (Manhattan for $24.)

In modern times, we have the disputes between trader Hindus and non-trader Africans in big cities. Or the interaction between trader Jews on the coasts vs non-trader Celts (hillbillies) in inland USA.

When the interaction is based on trade, the innate trader tribes always win. Non-trader tribes can learn commerce, but we never master it at the same level as the innate traders.

If non-traders are going to survive, we need to use our strong points to gain an advantage over the traders.

Celts and Russians are especially strong in the farmer/mechanic area. Sputnik showed how Russian engineers could grab the advantage from USA STRONG traders.

Africans are strong in the warrior and priest areas. MLK Boulevard and JesseJackson used African priestly talents backed by a credible threat of African warrior talents to gain advantage over USA STRONG traders.

= = = = =

Later: A proposed solution.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 3:11 AM

  Constants and variables 85, boomy and muddy edition
Another day, another stupid metadata study. This one asks whether the Beatles were "groundbreaking", based on tracking descriptions of styles in Billboard magazine.

Professor Leroi said the data shows a 1964 revolution that was all about music becoming more "aggressive". But The Beatles did not contribute to that change in the music.

"They're not making that revolution, they're joining it," he said.

"This revolution — and you can see it in the numbers in the charts — actually begins long before 1963 ... even earlier, where our data don't go.**"

The conclusion is extremely unsurprising. The Beatles didn't claim to be groundbreaking; they always gave credit to Elvis and Buddy and Orbison and others.

Where the Beatles broke out of conventional trends, they were reclaiming OLD ground, not creating new. British music hall songs from 1910, some classical styling, some '30s swing.

= = = = =

Convective thought: You could also study pop music history through the lens of audio circuitry at radio stations, specifically frequency filters and companders. The attack and release time of AGC and companders, the shaping of bass boost for speech vs music inputs. These ckts changed with the music, and can be seen easily via good old American Radio History, from 1910 to the present.

You can sometimes hear a proper constants and variables difference in OTR clips that were recorded from "nostalgia" broadcasts in the 70s. The announcer, using 70s emphasis ckts on his mic, sounds boomy and muddy. The 1930 radio, played from a transcription disk, is unprocessed and clear.


= = = = =

** Why did you start at 1960? Good old American Radio History has almost every issue of Billboard since 1936, in easily accessible digital form.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Constants and Variables

  ¶ 8:21 AM

  New technology ----> new discoveries? No.
Not writing much here due to weather and work. Just one convective thought before it slips into senile smog....

In building courseware I'm constantly studying to understand what I'm animating. Studying is necessary in neurology because the known and OBSERVED facts are changing remarkably fast.

The facts didn't change much from 1890 to 1990. Now fresh and often astonishing discoveries are coming fast.

Does the new burst come from new technology? Gene splicing, MRI and similar scans?

NO.

Gene fiddling hasn't contributed to these facts. MRI can provide insights, but in fact MRI mostly verifies long-known connections between stimulus and response in a visual form that can be used in academic publications and lawsuits.

The new discoveries result from (1) careful observation through optical and electron microscopes, (2) painstaking experiments, and (3) electrochemistry. (eg what proteins do when ions move in and out.)

Of those technologies, only electron microscopes were unknown in 1890. They became common around 1960.

Electrochemistry was the core of neurology from 1840 to 1890, then went out of fashion.

These new facts are coming to light (literally) because neurologists lost their CONSENSUS and decided to resume LOOKING ABOUT THEM AND TAKING HOLD OF THE THINGS THAT ARE HERE. In other words, resumed science. Why did they lose CONSENSUS? I don't know, but it would be worth finding out.

Labels: Carver

  ¶ 11:52 PM

  Why I use RT as the major news source
The main reason, of course, is that RT comes closer to the truth than any USA STRONG "news".

RT has plenty of biases in the progressive direction. They tend to favor bitcoin and "global warming" and Net Neutrality. But they don't run off into stark insanity with their biases, and they generally see USA STRONG from an objective outside view.

A simpler reason: They do a better job of covering LOCAL NEWS RIGHT HERE.

Screencap from RT right now:



Immediately checked KREM:



Nothing about a train derailment south of Seattle, which is being treated as a "mass casualty incident" according to RT. Instead, KREM's big breaking news is some would-be "terrorist" bumping into the gates of a base in England.
  ¶ 8:30 AM

  Deducting credibility
Assange continues to spoil his own case by misplaced absolutism.

He's pushing back against a couple of Deepstate moves to halt tax-deductible contributions to Wikileaks.

Wrong. You shouldn't WANT tax deductions for your contributions, and you should be GLAD when tax deductions end.

1. The people who can use tax deductions are globalists and Insatiables. Perfect correlation. They are not on your side. You should be seeking contributions from people who can't possibly get tax deductions, people who don't make enough money to itemize or hire an accountant.

2. Tax deductions are a subsidy. An organization that gets a deduction is effectively an EMPLOYEE of the government. You shouldn't want to be employed by the governments you're trying to break. Even without official action, the mixed motive weakens you.

3 Emerson.

A wise man will know that it is always the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, first or last, you must pay your entire debt.... If you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of nature, but for every benefit you receive, a tax is levied.


Later: Assange is also pushing hard to get donations in Bitcoin, the only "currency" that is GUARANTEED to be tracked by NSA. Truly makes me wonder. I've never been entirely sure of Assange. Most of his motives and actions are solidly clean and appropriate, but....
  ¶ 2:54 AM

  The S in BRICS
The switchover of Saudi is a BIG move. In the '80s Saudi was our main external tool in breaking the Soviet system and installing Soros in Russia. Saudi worked with us to create al-Qaeda as a weapon in Afghanistan, and Saudi manipulated oil prices to ruin Russia's oil exports.

The new ruler MBS is exerting necessary force against the older princes, following Sharia principles. Punishing corrupt use of money by taking the money, not by jailing the corruptors. (I suspect these takings are at least partly responsible for the sudden breakup of our own long-standing corruption in media and Hollywood. These princes own major pieces of media and Hollywood. When princes turn to paupers, their power disappears.)

MBS is also starting to deal with Russia in normal commercial ways, buying Russian weapons instead of USA STRONG weapons. Weapons systems tend to lock you into a relationship with the supplier, so this is not just a single purchase.

= = = = =

Most interesting from a Graybill viewpoint: MBS is opening channels to Russia and China to start developing Saudi uranium and thorium mines.

Reviewing Graybill's Law yet again:

The people of Free-Trade countries are therefore driven into the few occupations which are left, by reason of the destruction of their formerly more varied pursuits. Hence those diversified talents with which men are endowed are not developed but remain latent and unused, an incalculable detriment to the prosperity of their respective countries.

Under the USA STRONG empire, Saudi's sole skill was oil. Developing other skills is the deepest form of rebellion against USA STRONG. Some countries didn't get around to development until we forced them with sanctions. Saudi is breaking Graybill BEFORE it was forced.

So far this heresy hasn't been punished. In fact we no longer have the power to punish Graybill violators. Russia and China have been training and encouraging Graybill heresies everywhere, and it's too late for us to stop the enlightenment. We will screech and skrawk but it won't matter.

The S in BRICS will soon be redefined as Saudi. South Africa is still locked into the ANC setup that we imposed on them in the '80s. Reform may come at some point, but it's not happening now.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, skill-estate, switchover

  ¶ 1:59 AM

  Can't argue with Bergoglio!
For once Bergoglio is saying something that makes complete sense.

Pope Francis has urged that "news be communicated with serenity, precision and completeness, using a calm ‎language in favour of a fruitful reflection; thoughtful and clear words, which reject the tempers of ‎allusive, clamorous and ambiguous speech, Pope Francis told representatives of Italian periodicals on Saturday. “It is important that the criteria of judgment and information are offered patiently and methodically so that ‎public opinion is able to understand and discern, and is not stunned and disoriented,” ....

“There is no need to fall into the ‘sins of communications’: misinformation, that is saying only a part which is calumny and which is sensational, or defamation that seeks out things past and old and bringing them to light today.” “They are very grave sins that damage the heart of the journalist and damage the people.”

Journalists don't have hearts or souls, but otherwise it's a proper and timely lecture. I don't catch any of Bergoglio's usual "allusive, clamorous and ambiguous" winks and nudges. He's not implying that "fake news" equals anti-Deepstate and anti-EU news, as he has done before.

Labels: Zero Problems

  ¶ 6:51 AM

  Invincible Insatiable Ignorance
Stupidest "metadata" study of the minute: (I won't say year, because these studies are all fantastically stupid. The latest one is always guaranteed to be the stupidest yet....)

Rainy weather has long been blamed for achy joints. Unjustly so, according to new research from Harvard Medical School. The analysis, published Dec. 13 in BMJ, found no relationship between rainfall and joint or back pain.

By contrast, the newly published analysis led by Anupam Jena of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, used a “big data” approach, linking insurance claims from millions of doctor’s visits with daily rainfall totals from thousands of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather stations. The study examined Medicare records of more than 11 million primary care office visits by older Americans between 2008 and 2012.

IGNORANT INSATIABLE IDIOT!!!!

Deplorables CAN'T visit the doctor on the same day when they have pain. Deplorables have to wait at least a month to see the doctor, so they mostly don't bother. [This is one of the few accidentally good parts of a totally fucked and lethal medical system... it slows down hypochondriacs like me!]

If you had counted ER visits instead of "primary care physician" (whatever the fuck that means) visits, you might have come closer, but older Deplorables don't call an ambulance every time their knees hurt more than usual.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Blinded by Stats

  ¶ 11:55 PM

  Constants and Variables 84, magic hand edition
Going back to the 1887 Henry Lea book on the witch hunters of 500 years ago...

It's clear that the common people in those years were better at analyzing constants and variables than modern TV-injected common people.

The inquisitors, just like the modern Federal Bureau of Inquisition, were tasked with cultivating witches and creating false witnesses. Unlike moderns, they were hampered by popular resistance on one major question:

If witches are as powerful as you say they are, why are witches poor and powerless? If they can do anything they want, why aren't they queens and duchesses? Why aren't they married to bankers and landowners? If witches can control everyone's mind, why are you able to arrest them?

The FBI of 1500 felt the need to develop a theory:



A witch's power magically turns off at the moment when the hand of the law arrests her.

We don't know if this satisfied the people, but it apparently satisfied the constables and judges.

= = = = =

Later thought: I missed the MOST OBVIOUS parallel. Lady Edgar, who founded the modern Inquisition, was an extremely typical Roman in ALL aspects, and surrounded himherself with other typical Romans. The modern Inquisition was nearly all Roman until Lady Edgar died.

Labels: Constants and Variables

  ¶ 6:26 AM

  Neighborhood note
The vacant apt at 4001 W Crown is still for sale. The realtor is having trouble keeping up with the increasing vandalism.

I've been passing by the building every morning since I started my regular walk routine in 2011. I've occasionally seen footprints in the snow, but never any actual occupants ... until today. Looked like a young male and female. Came out and closed the door and started walking down the street just like proper residents.

When squatters act like residents, you know things are declining fast.

Later thought: Boarding all the windows and leaving one door unsealed = security FOR squatters. They can occupy one of the first-floor apts, use battery or propane lights and heaters, and nobody can see their activities.

Jan 21, 2018: Still no sale. Squatters are getting braver, occupying one of the second-floor apts with a broken window, putting up plastic "curtains" over the window.

Jan 24: SOLD!

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 8:16 AM

  No, I don't want it, you miserable fuckheads.
Email from Wash State Repoofs:



=================================

No, filthy fuckheads, I do not want "my" $2000 and I wouldn't spend it if I got it. I'd save it. I don't have enough income to get refunds anyway, so it doesn't matter if I want it or not. When I did have enough income to get refunds, I didn't want a bigger refund. Most people should pay more taxes so we can get rid of government debts. Ideally the government should operate at a profit so it doesn't have to rely exclusively on taxes.

In terms of practical Wash state politics, I only want one thing. Remove alien demon Ferguson from the office of Attorney General and replace the demon with NOTHING AT ALL. You are not capable of finding a non-demon; your previous Attorney General McKenna was almost equally demonic.

The current demon is wasting state resources by filing a new lawsuit every minute against Trump actions. Immigration, trannies in the military, Net Neutrality. Most of these Trump actions are attempting to undo executive orders by Obama in his last year in office, which means they're restoring the status quo during MOST OF OBAMA.

Demon Ferguson has been in office since 2012, and he wasn't filing any lawsuits against the earlier Obama policies WHICH ARE THE SAME AS THE TRUMP POLICIES. The Trump orders, WHICH ARE THE SAME AS THE STATUS QUO BEFORE 2015, are wrong because the wrong party is enacting them.

This is insane. This isn't ideology or politics, it's plain old bigotry.
  ¶ 2:27 AM

  Rectangular to polar conversion
In an attempt to break up the pointless Columbus arguments, I've often tried to focus on the world as seen from the North Pole.

Even thinking within a purely White European perspective and a specifically Northern perspective, there's no reason to defend Columbus. He never touched North America. He found some Caribbean islands and thought they were part of Indonesia.

History has verified the vastly earlier and deeper Euro connection made by the Norsemen, which is wildly unsurprising.

If you look at the world from the North Pole, you can see that America, Asia, Europe and Greenland have always been linked by ice and linked by the Northern tribes. No need for epic journeys of exploration. The longest land-to-land jump is Faeroes to Iceland, about 200 miles. Many of the jumps are a short walk on ice or an easy day of rowing. Eskimos to Yakuts to Lapps, all pretty much the same people, and they've been migrating and trading forever.

The Danes settled Greenland by 1000 AD, and from the west side of Greenland it's overland to either side of Hudson's Bay. River crossings, not ocean crossings. Here, for instance, is Ellesmere Island as seen from Greenland.

Plain fact: There wasn't any discovery of this hemisphere. It's a null concept. As long as people have been wandering the world, they've been circling through both sides of the globe.

= = = = =

The new Silk Road shows this change of focus clearly.

The original Silk Road connected China and Indonesia to Venice and Madrid and Lisbon. At that time the flow of resources was one-way going west. Columbus and Magellan were sent out to find a shortcut for the Silk Road, so that Venice and Lisbon could get resources from Indonesia and China without passing through Turkish and Arab territory.

They blew it, but their mistake led to a new and better source of tropical goodies for Europe.

Columbus and Magellan worked with a rectangular view of the world, and reinforced a rectangular view. They obviated the Silk Road and factored both China and Russia out of the world-trade picture for several centuries.

When you see the world like this:



the paths from Europe to NYC or Europe to Cuba are dominant.

But when you see the world like this:



the Silk Road and the Arctic are dominant, and the Americas are no longer needed.

As I noted above, the circumferential trade and migration around the Arctic is OLDER than the horizontal trade between Madrid and Cuba or London and NYC. The new Silk Road reverses Magellan's factoring and falls back to the older form.

When you see the world in polar form, it's clear that the Eastern Hemisphere no longer needs the Americas. When you can carry resources BOTH WAYS between China and Europe overland without interference, you don't need a shortcut. When you can drill oil and move oil around the Arctic, you don't need Suez and Panama and Houston and New Orleans.

= = = = =

Later thought: Looking at that LITTLE red ring around the Arctic raises a couple of questions. Why is Canada sticking with USA STRONG's loony evil crusade against RUSSIAN_HACKING? Canada has a big part of the ring, and could benefit by turning its oil pipelines northward instead of southward. MUCH shorter pipe that way. Same for Denmark, which is idiotically fighting the Russian Nordstream pipeline through the Baltic Sea. There's a lot of Danish territory on that ring. Greenland, Faeroes. If the West was still capitalist, those links would be seen as beautiful opportunities. The West is no longer capitalist. We're debtist. Those links would increase actual business, which is the ULTIMATE SIN ABOVE ALL SINS in the eyes of the banking tribe.

Think of a wide multi-pipeline running mostly on land around the edge of the Arctic. It would need serious maintenance and security, but it would be a steady permanent carrier for oil and gas in both directions.

Another later thought: 20 years ago China was rectangular, focusing on improving the Magellan path. China bought the Panama Canal and started building a new wider and easier canal across Nicaragua, which we had started in the '30s and abandoned. Now China has also abandoned the Nicaragua crossing, factoring out the Americas.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 1:14 AM

  Religion's little revenge
Hearing the usual secular Xmas music from businesses and commercial radio stations and giant annoying yard displays.

All of the secular songs refer to Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas or Saint Nick or the reindeer. They think they're escaping from Horrible Religion by skipping the songs that name Jesus or Mary.

Oops! I'm pretty sure Saint Nicholas wasn't sainted by CIA or EPA or ACLU or Soros or other secular godheads. Saint means Sanctus, holy.

Well then, we'll just say Happy Holidays! Oops again. You just said the days are holy.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 6:20 PM

  Pakistan kicks out Soros!
I was scraping the barrel to find slight moves in the positive direction. Finally a SOLID MOVE by a BIG COUNTRY!

From Reuters:

Pakistan has told at least 10 foreign-funded aid groups to close, an umbrella agency said on Wednesday, including a charity founded by hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, the group said.

Time to revise the map and add Pakistan to God's side:

Labels: Zero Problems

  ¶ 7:55 AM

  Se-lu 19, me-not-lu edition
Switching to a new computer has given me a severe attack of assuma. I've done this switchover routine often enough to develop a set of firm assumptions about the best way to do it, the problems to expect, etc. Most of those assumptions are wrong as usual.

The biggest assumption of all is the good old 'sunk cost' or 'amortization' rule. After I've invested a couple of days in the tiresome process, I don't want to switch back, because switching back will "waste the time investment."

This is just DUMB.

I need to use Poser to revise an animation for courseware. Poser isn't properly installed yet on the new, and I'm waiting on Smith Micro to respond to the error ticket.

The sunk cost rule says Keep Waiting.

SE-LU, DAMMIT.

SOLUTION = SE-LU = LOOSEN YOUR FUCKING SELF. UNTIE THE ROPES.

It may take two or three days to get a response from Smith Micro. It will take about 30 minutes to move the various plugs and peripherals between the two computers so I can use Poser on the old one.

There are situations where amortization is a valid concern. This ain't it.

= = = = =

Later: Did the round trip with the plugs and such, modified and rendered the animation, copied some other stuff that I'd forgotten the first time. Total task EXACTLY 30 minutes.

And later again: Still suffering from assuma. I ass-u-me-d that the installer for Poser wasn't on this computer, because I hadn't intentionally copied it. Turns out that it was already here in an obscure location, because last year's transfer of 'system-level' stuff included it. Running the installer made Poser run properly. I didn't need to check with Smith Micro after all.

= = = = =

12/26: Enough! I made Poser function, but now it turns out the "new" computer won't run Amapi and UVmapper. I need both for REAL WORK. I can't afford to spend half of my work time fucking around with wires and plugs and USB transfers.

It also turns out that the "new" computer is slower and noisier overall than the "old" one, and I can't find a way to damp the noise with foam as I did with the "old" one. Ordered a NEW computer from Dell, not a refurbished one, similar to the "old" Inspiron. Why did I order this refurbished unit last year? Because I wanted to stick with Windows 7, and the last legit Win 7 computers were about to disappear.

SE-LU AGAIN, DAMMIT. SUNK COST AGAIN. There's no strong reason to stick with Win 7. The consensus is that 10 will still run anything that ran on 7, so it's not likely to be a real obstacle. Struggling with a used and defective computer is a real obstacle.

Labels: se-lu

  ¶ 5:14 PM

  Inner light
Speaking loosely of astrology, and speaking tightly of the beauty duty....

Xmas lights have returned to this neighborhood after two years of stormy exhaustion. The dominant fashion this year is lights inside the window, not lights on the eaves or trees. One of the nice Cape Cod types with a usable attic has created serious beauty ... perhaps without even trying. The attic has a big window facing the street. The owners have strung white LEDs randomly on the angled ceiling just inside the window.

From the street the effect is stunning, recalling the Ptolemaic starry firmament. A proper New Testament image achieved subtly, without the trite cradles and shepherds and big cross-shaped stars.
  ¶ 7:55 AM

  Where are the Carverites?
Recently I've written some items along this theme:

= = = = START REPRINT:

"Scientists" jail you for questioning "science".

Astrologers don't jail you for questioning astrology.


MDs force you to follow orders by withholding life-sustaining prescriptions. (In any other context this would be called extortion.)

Alternative healers don't force you to do anything.


Social "scientists" design and operate torture chambers.

Psychics and faith healers don't.


Non-smokers jail you for smoking in the wrong place, which is pretty much every place.

Smokers don't jail you for not smoking.


= = = = END REPRINT.

You can hear the difference clearly among the various commentators on stocks and money. The "strictly scientific" types, who consider themselves to be rational realists, are ALL IN for BUY BITCOIN BUY AMZN BUY TSLA BUY AMZN BUY TSLA. The astrologers, who listen to the stars instead of the TV, are loudly and powerfully condemning the bitcoin bubble for exactly the right reasons.

"Science" is just another fashion, just another bubble, just another evil racket. "Scientists" are racketeers or at best the unknowing shills for vile nasty bigots and criminals.

Astrologers and "non-traditional" types are rational and skeptical.

Granted, there have been plenty of hucksters among the astrologers and visionaries.

Right now the simple observers, the true scientists, are found on the astrology side of the fence.

Right now the witch hunters and universe-exterminating genocidal hypermaniacs are found on the other side of the fence.

Labels: Aberree, Carver, Fucking asked and fucking answered

  ¶ 7:46 AM

  Tech note on EasyTransfer /// EDIT: Zinstall works beautifully after all......
My 2014 computer has been gradually failing for a while. I bought a newer one exactly a year ago and started transferring stuff, then got busy and left it aside. The main problem with the old one was in the USB connections and audio, which have been flaky all year. This week the sound gave up entirely, so it was time to finish the transfer.

Remembered that the EasyTransfer setup was tricky, so looked for possible better solutions. Zinstall promised fast and convenient transfer with any Ethernet cable, so I bought it.

Nope. Doesn't work. Zinstall requires BOTH computers to be connected to the Web AND connected to each other. Each computer has just one Ethernet plug, so the BOTH/AND is impossible. Also, Zinstall requires you to UNINSTALL your antivirus on both computers. I ain't gonna do that. Too much trouble.

After two hours of screwing around behind the desk, plugging and unplugging monitor and keyboard and mouse and Ethernet and Web, decided to try the old method after all.

Using a Belkin cable that I've had for many years, the regular Windows EasyTransfer finished the transfer in 15 minutes. Most of the job was already done last year. No web connection needed, no uninstall of antivirus.

Even if you had enough plugs to make the BOTH/AND work, the Zinstall program doesn't have any special advantages over the builtin EasyTransfer. Both have pretty much the same set of choices for transferring everything or just selected items.

= = = = =

UPDATE: I figured out a way to use Zinstall, and it worked splendidly. It copied EVERYTHING (150 GB) in about 1.5 hours, including all the settings and installations and registrations. All the programs that used registry settings or Users / Roaming etc were filled in smartly. They all work just the same as before, with no manual fiddling needed. The only thing that didn't cross over was AVG, and I was then able to download and register it from the web normally.

The connection trick is not described in Zinstall's online data, which implies that a direct Ethernet cable is the only way to go. I was stymied because each computer has only one Ethernet hole, so I couldn't connect both together AND both to the web. BUT: The cable modem has several Ethernet holes. I connected both computers to different holes in the modem, and that was all Zinstall needed.

More precisely: Ethernet cable from each computer to the modem, so that both can use the Web at the same time. Run Zinstall on both, tell it which is new and which is old, and GO. The rest is wonderfully automatic and INTELLIGENT. (I tried the 'selective transfer' but couldn't make it work. Turns out there was no reason to go that way; when the total takes 1.5 hours, the partial wouldn't save a meaningful amount of time or labor.

Labels: Nonzero problems, Zero Problems

  ¶ 3:23 PM

  Was this Agnes?
Among the new arrivals at American Radio History is a typical local 'radio guide' from Los Angeles in 1944. Not especially interesting except for the cartoon on one of its regular features.



Why is this interesting?

The style looks a LOT like Alphia Hart's wife Agnes, who did the page art for the Aberree.




Agnes met Alphia in the Hubbard organization in Phoenix around 1950, and the rest is history.

Was this Agnes? Sure looks like it. Identical style and flavor, similar purpose for art. Locations and dates are "not inconsistent" as they say.

Labels: Aberree, Asked and sort of answered

  ¶ 10:13 AM

  Copyduty, beautyduty
Going back to Alphia Hart's attitude about copyright, which started my thoughts about the need to switch from "rights" to duties. When I wrote this a few months ago I hadn't quite assembled the theme:

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Reviewing Hart's view of copyright, which was unique in 1954:

Copyrighting everything you write is a confession that you have little faith in your ability to continue producing salable stuff--and that there may come a time when you'll have to fall back on your own, protected material to make a living. When we can't produce new copy for The ABERREE, The ABERREE ceases to exist, because we're certain no one wants to read what we said yesterday and today tomorrow.

I reached a similar conclusion a long time ago in making courseware. The restrictions of 'digital rights' get stricter and more tangled every year, but they don't bother me because I have CONFIDENCE in my own ability to produce new images and animations.

= = = = = END REPRINT.


Now framing it as "rights" to duties: The newer Disney versions of copyright law show the insanity of "inherent rights" more perfectly than other applications. In this dyslogical delusion, every "creative" product has the "inherent right" to be held and sold. When everything is automatically "protected" without any form of registration or payment for title, raw force is the only determinant of title. In plain reality, the Disney law gives total freedom to the mafia with the largest army of consiglieri, which mysteriously and astonishingly turns out to be Disney.

When you start with the GOD-ASSIGNED DUTY to create order and value, the selling is secondary. You can try to sell your created products for money, and customers can buy them. You can't transfer the DUTY OF CREATION to a publisher because the publisher didn't create the item. You can pay the publisher to disseminate your product, or you can persuade the publisher to bet on your product, splitting the profit by negotiation. The publisher is not the owner, it's just providing a service for you. (This is parallel to the sharia paradigm of capitalism, which STRONGLY encourages you to USE your capital instead of hoarding it. Land should be USED for growing crops. Money should be USED to make products for people to USE. Skill should be USED to invent and develop more products and services for others to USE.)

= = = = =

An excellent essay by Gregory Wolfe published this week in Imaginative Conservative brings beauty into the realm of duty:

Whereas I once believed that the decadence of the West could only be turned around through politics and intellectual dialectics, I am now convinced that authentic renewal can only emerge out of the imaginative visions of the artist and the mystic. This does not mean that I have withdrawn into some anti-intellectual Palace of Art. Rather, it involves the conviction that politics and rhetoric are not autonomous forces, but are shaped by the pre-political roots of culture: myth, metaphor, and spiritual experience as recorded by the artist and the saint.

No argument with the above. Some argument with this part:

Thus I was forced to account for the fact that many conservatives had succumbed to philistinism. Why did they utter these blanket condemnations of “modern art”? Why would anyone demand that art—a subtle medium, characterized by the indirections of irony, ambiguity, and hidden meaning—preach the “truth” directly? Why categorize artists and writers as good or bad in terms of ideology, rather than of imaginative vision?

The root of the problem, I believe, is a misunderstanding of, or aversion to, the nature of the imagination itself. Part of this can be traced to the Puritan and pragmatic strains in the American character. Conservatives have, by and large, focused their energies on political action and the theoretical work necessary to undertake action. The indirection of art, with its lack of moralizing and categorizing, strikes the pragmatic mind as being unedifying, and thus as inessential. Insofar as the great artists and writers of the past are admired, it is for their support of some idea, rather than for the complex, many-sided vision of their art.

Here Wolfe is short on knowledge. Part of the Repoof condemnation of "modern art" was specifically GENERATED by CIA as part of its campaign to use chaos as a universal smasher and wrecker of civilization. CIA's salesmen to conservatives (eg Buckley and Skousen) made sure that conservatives spent lots of energy attacking COOL shit. When everyone sees that Repooflicans are UNCOOL and Democrats are COOL, Deepstate wins public support.

On the question of indirection and subtlety, there's no difference between the sides. Since the '70s, ALL publicly visible "art" has been moralistic and preachy, devoted solely to political action. Nearly all of this comes from the Left because the Left owns all the media. There are a few equally preachy and clunky productions from the non-Left (eg Christian movies and Christian rock music) but those preachy and clunky productions lack the quality and punch of the Left's preachy and clunky productions, so the Left wins it all.

Above all, I don't buy the basic assertion that art is supposed to have "irony, ambiguity, and hidden meaning", because I don't buy the implication that only trained and professional artists can produce art.

Everyone can produce beauty. Everyone is MEANT to produce beauty.

A janitor who buffs a tile floor to a mirror finish every night produces INFINITELY more beauty than any professional artist of any description. His beautiful floor allows YOUR imagination free rein to see the sun and the furniture and the people from a new angle. A car body man or a house renovator who restores order after the chaos of a crash or a flood is generating INFINITELY more beauty than the TV "comedian" demon who mocks the car body man for being UNCOOL. The repaired house or car grants you the ambiguity and indirection of USING the house or car to satisfy your own creative ends. Before the repair the house or car was incapable of serving your desires.

Life is purpose. We are indescribably complex artworks, created directly or indirectly by an indescribable source of purpose and order. Our DUTY is to make more life, more order, more value, and more BEAUTY.

= = = = =

A later and perhaps more useful thought along the Hart lines.

Labels: Aberree, From rights to duties, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:44 PM

  Se-lu 18, insolvent edition
Headlines in the 'econ' websites: Bulgaria confiscated a large amount of Bitcoin in a raid on criminals last year, and now the Bitcoin is "worth" enough to pay off a meaningful fraction of Bulgaria's national debt.

Let's return to the definitions of solve and solvent:

I always pay paper cash in stores now, partly because it's fast and certain, partly to remind myself that I'm firmly SOLVENT and don't need the bad old credit.

SOLVENT. Seems like a completely inappropriate word for 'got money'. How did that happen?

The etymology is beautiful.

The original Latin solvere meant 'loosen, untie knots, split apart.'

The most common meaning is untying the knot of a problem. Latin solve = Greek analyze = determine where to cut the rope. Slightly less literal but still easy.

Solvent as 'got money' was later and more metaphorical. Around 1600 when banks and currencies started to branch away from gold, solvent came to mean able to cut the ropes of debts, able to clean up obligations.

Is Bulgaria more solvent now? No, because trying to "sell" 3 billion at once will mess up the wildly swinging "market" for Bitcoin. The value will drop in the middle of the transaction.

Same thing happens when gov't confiscates old-fashioned criminal assets like heroin or stolen jewels. The heroin can only be sold on the criminal market, so it has no value in legit circles. The gov't is obligated to return the stolen jewels, not fence them.

Therefore: Bitcoin is not an asset for people who are operating legally. It doesn't make you more solvent because it can't be used reliably to untie or loosen the ropes of debt. The Bulgarian government is stuck with an "asset" that it can only hold and watch. Unlike heroin and jewels, it doesn't even have direct sensory enjoyment value.

Labels: se-lu

  ¶ 11:07 AM

  The only peacemaker
Putin goes to Syria and declares peace. The war is mostly finished, and Russia is pulling out most of its troops.

If the world had a Peace Prize, he should get it. The Nobel monstrosity is the exact opposite of a peace prize, so he shouldn't get it and he won't.

Since Nobel's death in 1896 there have been exactly two intentional and successful PEACEMAKINGS. WW2 was finished by Russia, US, and Britain working together. This action by Russia alone is the second peacemaking.

All the other wars in those years ended without a deliberate and successful effort to end the war. Most ended in a forfeit when one of the warring parties simply gave up. Some (eg Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq) never properly ended.

THIS IS A MASSIVELY IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENT. THE BIGGEST POSITIVE EVENT OF THE DECADE.

Will we hear about it through our mediademons? No. It doesn't exist. It didn't happen.

Instead, we are still hearing about the witch hunts pursuing absolutely nothing and ruining millions of lives for absolutely no purpose.

We are pure crime. We are pure evil. We are pure sin. We deserve to be removed from the universe.

Labels: imprecatory psalm, infinite evil

  ¶ 4:20 AM

  Lost Shepardson
Shepardson in 1901 discussed feeding plants with electric charge, treating the subject as common knowledge. It's not common knowledge now!



How long had it been common knowledge?

Here's an enticingly brief description of a French application in 1755.



Transcribed: In the apparatus illustrated below, a hydraulic motor was employed to drive two frictional electrical machines which supplied electricity to the flower stand mounted on insulators. The apparatus was built in 1755.

The "hydraulic motor" is an unclear term, and the picture doesn't help. The static generators look like Vandegraaff types, apparently charging up the entire base for the potted plants, thus creating a strong field between the plants and the ambient air.

But what happens when the shoppers touch the railing? More likely the static machines were 'sprinkling' charge over the plants. The picture lends some credence to this guess.

From a newly posted Gernsback mag at American Radio History.

= = = = =

Later: Immediate answers to the questions posed by Shepardson, and to the practicalities of 'electric cultivation', in another issue of the same newly posted Gernsback mag. See p 39 of the PDF for a detailed set of experiments and answers.

Labels: 1901, Alternate universe, Answered better than asked

  ¶ 3:43 AM

  Deliver us from bad metrology
The latest idiocy from Antichrist Bergoglio shows that he is a perfect source of error and falsehood and evil on all subjects.

When he spews fashionable ratshit in secular areas, like "global warming" or "nuclear proliferation", we can sort of halfway understand why he's wrong but we can't forgive the constant spewing of AUTHORITATIVE AND INFALLIBLE LIES from an alien monster who is still unfortunately obeyed by millions of useless idiots. He should MIND HIS OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.

This one is NOT understandable, because it's a falsehood at the precise base of his authority. Unlike Bergoglio, Jesus didn't give a lot of direct orders. One of his few direct commands is to pray in the form that we typically call the Lord's Prayer.

Bergoglio wants to authorize a mistranslation of a text that has been carefully translated by sane and godly people over the ages.

When Bergoglio gives commands on shit that he doesn't know at all, Roman writers respond in typical partisan fashion. The Sorosian bishopdemons and their Sorosian sycophantdemons agree ferociously with Bergoglio, so they cheer. The few remaining Christians in the "church" disagree cautiously, basically saying that he should mind his own fucking business.

In this case the response from Roman writers is especially strong and consistent, because this IS his business.

Jason Bermender clears the question with pure metrology. Know your baseline, calibrate your instruments, know the limits and faults of your instruments. The baseline is the Jewish and Greek traditions that JC was trying to reform. The instruments are the original texts. The limits and faults are the translators and translations in various languages.

To render the main verb of the sixth petition as “fall” is not only a mistranslation of the Latin and Greek texts but also an imposition of an improper theological viewpoint without trying to understand the meaning of εἰσενέγκῃς/inducas in its proper context. In other words, understanding εἰσενέγκῃς/inducas as “fall” is based upon a reaction to the modern understanding of the word “lead” apart from its proper theological context. It is better to try to understand what εἰσενέγκῃς means in its context instead of trying to change a theological phrase or notion that is uncomfortable to us because Job’s sufferings permitted by God, a virgin giving birth, a man coming back from the dead, and God becoming man are all just as jarring.

Good work. Spiritual metrology.

Labels: Language update, Metrology

  ¶ 1:29 AM

  Ante visum II
Tech tyrants constantly use buggy whips as an example of industries that needed to go away. I've already debuggied the idea.

Well, what about buggy whip litigation?

From the wonderfully clear and cogent Thomas Atkins Street, 1906:



Summarizing: The defendant advertised his horse as docile and well-behaved, and by all accounts his belief was correct when he owned the horse. For some reason the horse didn't like the purchaser. He behaved wildly when pulling the purchaser's buggy, leading to injury.

Hopelessly old-fashioned? Can't happen with cars? Cars are mere machines, incapable of personal bias?

Nope. CAN HAPPEN EASILY with cars driven by Google. What if your autonomous car doesn't like you? Given the source of the "moral codes" implanted in their software, it's GUARANTEED that autonomous cars will dislike some passengers and pedestrians.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

  ¶ 4:13 AM

  Ante visum






Suff dict.

= = = = =

Footnote in English: Granted, all political assholes deserve to be removed from office, and all of Hollywood deserves to be removed from positions of power and influence, and some of McCarthy's Soviet agents deserved to be removed from government, and some of the heretics in the 1500s deserved to be excommunicated. But those removals need to occur for the right specific reasons, not as part of a frenzy that ruins millions.

Labels: constants and constants

  ¶ 3:12 AM

  Were Canadians stockier than Americans?
As long as I'm doing odd bits of history today...

A Collectible Auto article on the Canadian versions of Ford and Mercury mentions:

In his announcement at the 1946 shareholders meeting (Ford of Canada stock was publicly traded on the Toronto exchange, something no other Canadian carmaker could claim) company president Douglas Greig said etc.

In USA the situation was reversed. There were 10 significant and separate automakers at that time. Ford, GM, Chrysler, Nash, Hudson, Willys, Studebaker, Packard, Crosley, Kaiser. Ford was the only company that was NOT stock-based. Ford didn't "go public" until 1956, and even now a member of the Ford family is still on the corporate board.

How did Ford of Canada end up as a separate corporation with a separate form of ownership, while the other Canadian divisions were just divisions?

From wikipedia:

The Ford Motor Company of Canada [founded in 1904] was not a subsidiary or a branch plant of Ford Motor Company - rather, it was a separate organization and had its own distinct group of shareholders. At its formation, Ford Motor Company was not a shareholder of Ford Canada, but its twelve founding shareholders directly held 51% of Ford Canada's shares, and Henry Ford himself owned 13% of the new company. The Company had gained all Ford patent rights and selling privileges to all parts of the British Empire, except Great Britain and Ireland.

Okay, but still doesn't explain why Henry decided to leave it separate, while GM and others turned their Canadian operations into divisions. GM's northern branch started as an unrelated company using Buick engines in its cars, then merged.

Labels: Asked and badly answered

  ¶ 5:16 PM

  Injun QC
Latest item at KSHS opens a piece of history you don't normally think about. The picture isn't interesting, just some fragments of ceramic. The caption is interesting:

These pipestone elbow pipe fragments were excavated in 1986 during a highway salvage project at the Mem site, undertaken by Kansas Historical Society archeologists and Kansas Anthropological Association volunteers. The Mem site, in Marion County, is a Great Bend aspect, protohistoric Wichita village site. The soft fine grained material of pipestone enabled the pipe's maker to carve it into its elbow-like shape. The three pipe fragments on the top row were manufactured on Kansas Pipestone. Pipes were used during trade negotiations and to mark special occasions. In Kansas, these pipes are generally made by American Indians between 1650 to 1850. However, all of these pipes were broken during manufacture and were never smoked.

When we think of Injuns making pots and pipes and arrowheads, we don't think of factories with QC inspectors! We're wrong.

Labels: Answered better than asked, tonto

  ¶ 2:24 AM

  GRRRR.
Via Sputniknews:

The United States Department of Homeland Security is going to conduct a test for the kind of biological warfare that might be used during a wide-scale terror attack on a city in Oklahoma. However, the residents of Newkirk, OK were only notified of their town’s guinea-pig status by local newspaper ads. The test will involve a "low-level outdoor release of inert chemical and biological simulant materials," the notice reads. The notice provided no other explanation, but rather led readers to a science-heavy website.

With a notice like this, what could possibly go wrong?

GRRRRR.

More complete story from KAKE in Wichita: The tests won't be in Newkirk; they will be on the campus of the former Chilocco Injun School, which is north of Newkirk close to the Kansas border. Given prevailing winds, the toxins will mainly affect Ark City.

The Abandoned Okla site has this warning:

WARNING: Chilocco Is heavily guarded by both 24/7 security as well as a large pack of guard dogs. This is not a place for you to get in you car and go visit. This is for your online viewing pleasure only. Because this land is being used by law enforcement as practice and training grounds, it is governed by federal police; not local police. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO VISIT CHILOCCO INDIAN SCHOOL.

Isn't it just sweet and wonderful to know that """"law"""" """"enforcement"""" has its own concentration camps?

GRRRRRRRR.

I know Newkirk fairly well. Used to drive through there often, did some repairs on the local grain elevator when I was working in Ponca.

Unlike Ponca, Newkirk is NOT an oil town. Unlike Blackwell, Newkirk is NOT a factory town. It's not accustomed to thinking of pollution as a necessary compromise. Ark City is less 'virgin', with a large meatpacking plant that smells like a meatpacking plant.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, defensible spaces

  ¶ 1:59 AM

  Insatiables vs Deplorables from the start
An interesting bit of history from the Lea book on the Inquisition that I was citing earlier. This part isn't emphasized in conventional wisdom nowadays.

Before the Inquisition ran wild and expanded into an all-consuming pogrom of Deplorables, it began as an academic fight between Rome and one specific heresy. Why was Rome so concerned with this one heresy? Because Rome, then as now, was filthy rich and massively corrupt; and because Rome, then as now, felt the need to rape logic by retrofitting its peculiar evils into the Bible.

Rome insisted that Jesus and the disciples were rich, thus requiring the successors of Jesus to be rich.

The heretics (including the Franciscans and my old friend Billy Ockham) insisted that Jesus and the disciples were poor, which is pretty fucking clear** from the written record. Ockham continued fighting for sola scriptura and rationality, and wasn't imprisoned or burned. (The barbecue grills didn't run at full speed until the next century.)

This issue served as the theoretical springboard for larger questions of state vs church, especially in France. Luther and Hus were picking up the rational side of this same dispute.

In other words, Rome invented the Prosperity Gospel.

= = = = =

**The later apostles included some influential and rich men. It's fair to say that Christianity wouldn't have taken root without the money and status of men like Luke and Paul, but that doesn't affect JC himself. Scripture clearly depicts his family as middle-class artisans of low status.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

  ¶ 11:31 PM

  Volney and cockatoos
I've been enjoying some clips about a Russian 'office cockatoo' who is the ruler of the roost. He has complex moods, sometimes luxuriating in affection and sometimes grouchily striding down the hall barking orders to the help.

This clip incidentally shows something else, clearly a machine in regular and unremarkable use:



Is that a modern digital version of the Mathison E-Meter? The grips are nearly identical to Volney's originals. The machine isn't just holding the fingers apart while the cosmetologist does the nails; the client is clearly getting some kind of treatment via the machine.

Labels: Aberree

  ¶ 4:01 AM

  False binary
Subhead on a ZH article boosting Bitcoin:

Good ideas don't require force. That describes the Internet, mobile telephony and cryptocurrencies.

Cute misuse of logic. You're supposed to think "Bitcoin is an idea that was spread without force, therefore it's a good idea."

No. Stop.

Which innovations required force to spread? None.

Are all unforced innovations good ideas? Not by a fucking country mile. The vast majority of unforced ideas are stupid or trivial or fraudulent. The fact that Bitcoin spread without force doesn't separate it from hula hoops or Cosmic Disks or Segways or goat gland transplants.

Which ideas DO require force? Force.

The only idea force can spread is force.

When we invade a country that didn't attack us, we're NOT spreading "capitalism" or "democracy" or Bitcoin or the internet. We're spreading bullets and bombs and misery and starvation and disease and death. Force.

Or witch-hunts, as I've been discussing lately. The idea of executing an innocent person because the Bureau of Inquisition wants to execute the innocent person was new at one time. It wasn't an innovation in the same category as wheels or clocks or steam engines. It was just murder. Just force.

= = = = =

Footnote for clarity after rereading: I'm not saying that force is always bad. Sometimes it's necessary to protect your life or your family from the EFFECTS of bad ideas. I'm only talking about how ideas and concepts are propagated.
  ¶ 12:20 PM

  Parkinson and witch-hunts
News: The Church of Zuckerberg has appointed TEN THOUSAND inquisitors.

= = = = =

Let's look back at another time when the dominant church had a similar number of inquisitors, using a detailed 1887 book by Henry Lea.

= = = = =

How did the practice of witchcraft spread? By Inquisition.



= = = = =

How did the trials run?



Sounds familiar, because our Secular Bureau of Inquisition has generously preserved and maintained the fine old classical methods. Pope Zuckerberg doesn't need to reinvent; he can just copy modern Best Practice.

= = = = =

And now the fun part! From Turberville, 1921: After you set up the assembly line for accusation, torture, confession, and execution, you can boost your budget and workforce TO INFINITY by a neat bit of magic, similar to QE or MMT.



Anyone you suspect is automatically jumped forward to execution, because being suspected is identical with committing the heresy. An action by the Inquisitor magically switches to an action by the accused. Again our Secular Bureau of Inquisition has sharpened this technique to a fine art. When the Bureau decides you're a heretic, you're automatically barbecued. From the feedlot to the grill without a hitch.

= = = = =

How did it end? I noted earlier that the English version of the Inquisition faded after a judge turned out to be the source of one witch's power.

In France, it ended when too many of the Correct People were being burned. Share value (or in those days the value of nobility) was starting to drop. As long as the Insatiable inquisitors were burning Deplorables, other Insatiables admired the purpose of the project. When the limited assets of Deplorables no longer satisfied the Insatiable greed, a few People Who Counted were starting to burn.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

  ¶ 11:11 PM

  Capitolism
This morning's fake "news" appears to be about a peculiar bit of cartographic redefinition. The leader of Country 1 has declared that the capital of Country 2 is in the wrong place and needs to be moved to a different city. Country 2 agrees, and in fact Country 2 has been wanting to redefine its capital for a while.

Normally this sort of thing happens after Country 1 has DEFEATED Country 2. After WW2, Country 1 redefined the capital of Germany from Berlin to Bonn.

In this case Country 2 is the owner and Country 1 is the slave. So why does Country 2 need to have approval from the slave? Why doesn't it just move its own capital?

= = = = =

Come to think of it, remote-control capitolism could be a good idea.

For instance: Country 3 could decide that the capital of Country 1 should be in Coyville



instead of DC. Coyville has streets named after states just like DC, so it should be a plug-n-play replacement. Country 3 would demand that Country 1 must move its government out of DC and into all the existing government buildings in Coyville immediately. If Country 1's government can't fit into the existing Coyville buildings as shown above, Country 3 would then remove DC from the planet so that Country 1's capital would be the null set and the world would be saved from infinite evil forever.

Consummation devoutly to be wished. I pray for it every hour.
  ¶ 12:59 PM

  Have a frosty Corona!
Freezing fog can take all sorts of forms, but this morning's version is unique. Every blade of grass, every plant stem, and every chainlink fence, is coated with half-inch long frost thorns. Flat surfaces like cars and streets and trashbins have a light patchy coating of flat frost.





Is it the smallness of the objects? No, it's exactly the curvature that matters. I noticed this neatly on a neighbor's Xmas decorations. The annoying display includes a giant fake 'ribbon' tied in a bow with several sharp bends and several flat areas. The flatter parts of the ribbon were uncoated, and the fake wrinkles had thorns. Good experiment.



Here's a less impressive picture, taken at 11AM after it started to melt. You can see the thorns on the edge of the trash bin, and none on the flat or curved parts. The rule seems to be that every curve with a radius less than 1/2 inch gets thorns.

It's a frost corona!
  ¶ 11:43 AM

  Missing title
A 1933 broadcasting trade magazine was discussing a pointless squabble between the old wire services and the new radio news. AP and UPI were blocking radio from using their bulletins, forgetting that many radio stations were owned by newspapers. The bulletins still got out. The article mentioned that FDR's May 7 speech thanked radio for providing an immediate channel to the public, thus scoring a point against the papers. Or at least that's how the radio trade journal chose to see it.

His May 7 speech was described as the 2nd Fireside Chat and also as an "account of stewardship".

"Account of stewardship" has completely disappeared from online references. It's a good title with constitutional resonance, so it needs to be represented online, which I just did.

The speech itself is worth reading. It shows a determined problem-solver enlisting the nation's help with his solutions. He explains the problems accurately and honestly, lists his intended solutions, and repeats often that the solutions will require considerable trial and error. The entire New Deal is there in a few paragraphs. All of it was achieved, by hook or by crook, and ALL OF IT WORKED, thank God.

Step by step, sentence by sentence, the correct solution is there. Step by step, sentence by sentence, FDR's administration applied the solution and eliminated the problems. Step by step, sentence by sentence, later presidents faced with the same problems applied DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE answers, which predictably made the problems worse. Genocidal monsters.

Labels: Zero Problems

  ¶ 3:50 AM

  80/20? More like days/minutes.
A good example of the old 80/20 thing. Up till now my current courseware project hasn't required any new JS/HTML/SVG programming. I've been able to use the control modules I built for an earlier project, which means I've been doing FUN stuff. Making 3d pictures and animations, fitting them into the given text, rewriting the text where needed to amplify the animations. Definitely fun. Constant forward movement, constant creativity with satisfying results.

Now the author wants to incorporate some full-fledged videos and audios in a separate 'case study' chapter. The videos and audios need to be interleaved and segmented, with text and images in between.

Programming needed. Never fun to enter the overgrown jungle of JS/HTML/SVG, but initially looked like a one-day task. Three stages: Embed the video, make the video turn the page automatically when done, do the same for audio. The stages looked about equal in difficulty.

They weren't equal. Organizing the material and embedding the video took 30 minutes. Making the video turn the page when done took SEVEN DAYS. After the solution was established, doing the same for audio took SEVEN MINUTES.

Anyway, now I can get back to the fun part.

Labels: se-lu, TMI

  ¶ 3:24 AM

  Gold to gold 2
Looked at a 1968 issue of PopTronics from American Radio History.

The issue contains an article that runs directly into previous item, where I proposed that Russia should do for the Olympics what it's already doing for economics. Reinvent, secede from EU/US/UK.

The 1968 article focuses on Soviet electronics.

First, this is a good example of another point I made recently...

Especially among techies, Cold War I was distinctly different from the current Cold War II. Tech types had strong reservations about going to war. Why? Biggest reason is obvious. Older tech types in the '50s had served in WW2 and knew what war was like. They didn't want another war. War experience didn't affect the younger tech types, including me. Why were 1967 techies so much less SWARMY than 1917 and 2017 techies? Best guess: Shortwave. Hams and SWLs had direct contact with foreigners, including Soviet Bloc foreigners. We knew that Russian techies didn't get to "vote", but we also knew that Russian techies got more respect and better treatment than our techies. We also knew that Russians were not ferocious war-seeking monsters, which made us wonder about the standard depiction by our mass media.

From the article: Russia doesn't need to reinvent the proper Olympic spirit. Russia was already there. Here's a Russian techie sport pursued with the same national pride and pro-am approach as the Olympic sports:



Radio fox-hunt. Geocaching before GPS. Note that the participants were not locked into gulags; they were rolling their own transmitters, wandering around fields, and transmitting without a license. American techies knew that this sort of thing was common, so we were immune to the Deepstate media portrayal.

Since I'm packing all of my recent themes into this item, let's add the rights to duties theme.

Instead of begging for the "right" to participate in IOC, Russia should be carrying on its own traditional DUTY of sports. The PURPOSE of sport is to prepare men for war. In a technical era, war requires a wide variety of skills. Direction-finding is a radio skill that played a major part in both WW1 and WW2. Turning it into a sport helps to select and develop a group of youngsters who are ready for DUTY when real war comes.

Labels: From rights to duties, Гром победы

  ¶ 5:16 PM

  Gold to gold
RT has been focusing today on the latest bear-baiting by EU/UK/US, the ban from Olympic competition.

They're missing an opportunity.

Economic sanctions against Russia were an opportunity for Russia to strengthen its own skills and industries, and to link more closely to China. Breaking Graybill's Law.

A secondary result of economic sanctions is the formation of an alternate currency system, linking rubles and yuan and based on GOLD, unlike the EU/UK/US system which is based on Goldman.

Here's your chance. Why would anyone even WANT to be associated with the IOC, which is made up of the same power-mad senile monsterblobs as EU/US/UK? You can restart the original Olympic idea, getting somewhat closer to proper amateurism. Base the competition on skills instead of advertising dollars.

You've got economic gold, now go for Olympic gold.

Labels: skill-estate, Zero Problems

  ¶ 12:11 PM