Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Why science is fucked
We have many traditional systems to determine truth.
When these systems are functional, how do they work?
They use negative feedback, same as any other attempt to reach a specific location or accomplish a specific purpose.
The use of negative feedback to approach a truth requires systematic and conscious use of an aspect of feedback that we don't notice in well-practiced moves like reaching for a doorknob. In a well-practiced move your nervous system has already done the work of programming the correct muscle tension at each millisecond. Feedback is available, but it's held in reserve for surprises like the wind sucking the door closed.
When you're in unfamiliar territory... EXPERIMENTAL territory... you need to use feedback systematically and consciously.
= = = =
Systematic negative feedback is used in all parts of life, but it acquired a special name in tests of human perception. The METHOD OF ADJUSTMENT measures COMPLEX properties of human perception quickly and reliably. When an optometrist does the Better This Way? Or Better That Way? routine, he's using MOA. When an audiologist runs a conventional threshold test, he's using MOA.
In these processes of seeking a genuinely unknown final destination, you can't rely on preprogrammed movements. You don't know where the optimum or final value is until you've gone THROUGH it. You can't see it coming in advance.
Move in one direction until you GO BEYOND the center. Then move the other way until
you GO BEYOND the center again. Each subsequent move starts from a point closer to the center (on opposite sides). A few iterations will get you close enough that you can't distinguish the error. It's fast and reliable.
A more familiar example is cooking. If you haven't fried an egg before, you don't know how many minutes are necessary for your particular stove and pan and tastes. You have to Goldilocks the minutes. You probably aren't doing it systematically, but nevertheless you are recording the damped oscillation as it goes PAST the optimum in BOTH directions. Ten minutes is too brown and crispy. Two minutes is gooey and icky. Try eight minutes. Still too crispy. Try five. A little gooey. Six? Just right.
Truth-finders like juries and price negotiations and diplomacy use MOA. Each side starts by GOING BEYOND its desired destination. Each subsequent zero-crossing then starts from a point closer to the destination, until the last move is too small to be worth further argument. Both sides are reasonably satisfied because they were able to pull their internal baselines centerward during the haggling. The last departure from each side's readjusted baseline is relatively comfortable, not too much of a stretch.
= = = = =
Well then. This is a scientific method of reaching truth. Of course Scientific Method uses this scientific method to reach truth. Right?
WRONG.
SM does NOT use the method of adjustment.
The null hypothesis is at one end of a scale. You run the variables and constants
to see if Y moves when you vary X, or Y stays constant when you vary X. If Y stays constant,
null hypothesis stands, theory not proven. If Y varies, you have some degree of proof, which you SUPPOSEDLY try to increase.
There is no GOING BEYOND in this system, no crossing the centerline, no way to define 'less than null'. There is no devil's advocate pushing for the OPPOSITE theory, or ideally for several alternate theories. It's just my theory versus no theory.
In healthy scientific PRACTICE we sometimes get a proper MOA taffy-pull, with two competing explanations battling for the consensus. But even in those uncommon healthy situations, the rules of the game require each side to write and analyze its results as my way or the noway. There is no destination at the end of the trip, no sale at the end of the haggling, no pressure to reach a verdict so we can go home and resume our lives.
These facing-sideways battles are NOT quick or reliable. They can go on for decades after the correct mix of explanations is blatantly obvious to external observers. Tectonic plates are the most famous example. In speech and hearing, the theory that the larynx vibrates like a speaker was still being taught as a valid option 70 years after the resonant-reed theory was obviously correct.
Truth-finders like juries and price negotiations and diplomacy use MOA. Each side starts by GOING BEYOND its desired destination. Each subsequent zero-crossing then starts from a point closer to the destination, until the last move is too small to be worth further argument. Both sides are reasonably satisfied because they were able to pull their internal baselines centerward during the haggling. The last departure from each side's readjusted baseline is relatively comfortable, not too much of a stretch.
= = = = =
Well then. This is a scientific method of reaching truth. Of course Scientific Method uses this scientific method to reach truth. Right?
WRONG.
SM does NOT use the method of adjustment.
The null hypothesis is at one end of a scale. You run the variables and constants
to see if Y moves when you vary X, or Y stays constant when you vary X. If Y stays constant,
null hypothesis stands, theory not proven. If Y varies, you have some degree of proof, which you SUPPOSEDLY try to increase.
There is no GOING BEYOND in this system, no crossing the centerline, no way to define 'less than null'. There is no devil's advocate pushing for the OPPOSITE theory, or ideally for several alternate theories. It's just my theory versus no theory.
In healthy scientific PRACTICE we sometimes get a proper MOA taffy-pull, with two competing explanations battling for the consensus. But even in those uncommon healthy situations, the rules of the game require each side to write and analyze its results as my way or the noway. There is no destination at the end of the trip, no sale at the end of the haggling, no pressure to reach a verdict so we can go home and resume our lives.
These facing-sideways battles are NOT quick or reliable. They can go on for decades after the correct mix of explanations is blatantly obvious to external observers. Tectonic plates are the most famous example. In speech and hearing, the theory that the larynx vibrates like a speaker was still being taught as a valid option 70 years after the resonant-reed theory was obviously correct.Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carver
¶ 1:00 AM
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Retain and restrain
I'm trying to follow the Morris model. Retain and restrain my biases. Hold onto valid stereotypes but track the exceptions.
A podcast debunking Elon mostly hits good points. Elon is a classic stock faker. He spends most of his time on Twitter trolling his critics and emitting new Disruptive Innovations that end up Disrupting his own business more than anything else. All of his ideas are old ideas.
True. Validates my biases.
BUT:
The latest podcast mocks Tesla's video showing a battery exchange. It's full of trickery. The Tesla is on stage over a trapdoor, which opens revealing four columns or posts. You can't see what's happening under the car, and the camera doesn't stay on the car continuously so you can't tell if the process really takes 1.5 minutes or 1.5 hours. The debunker doesn't believe the process can be that fast.
Well... Battery exchange, like all of Elon's ideas, is 100 years old. It was commercially practical in 1910 and became popular among fleet operators of electric trucks.
Here's part of an account from Automobile Topics, Oct 1915. Page 901 of the PDF.
EV makers had agreed on a standard form of battery cradle to enable exchanges. The process involved four hydraulic columns under the car, raising and lowering a dolly.
The 'Cowen truck' (dolly) was lifted up to hold the cradle; the cradle was unhooked and disconnected; then the hydraulics lowered the dolly. A fresh battery cradle was ready on the other side, and was pushed into place. The hydraulics raised the new cradle, and the workers hooked and reconnected it. Elapsed time 3 minutes or less.
So: Elon is using the old idea verbatim, complete with the four hydraulic columns, and a 1.5 minute exchange is plausible if not proved.
= = = = =
Another article in the 1915 magazine shows a genuine difference between modern Insatiables and the 1915 rich.
Before 1970, the purpose of becoming rich and important was to work less. Short hours, short year. Work 10:30AM to 3PM, four days a week, ten months a year. Those were the marks of status, the proof that you had arrived.
Modern Insatiables insist on working all the time, or at least staying busy 25/8. (24/7 is for losers.) They can't resist starting up dozens of new enterprises and NGOs, most of which have no purpose.
= = = = =
One of Elon's latest purposeless ideas is a fake-news detector. He wanted to call it Pravda but ran into RUSSIAN_INTERFERENCE in the form of trademarks, because he apparently didn't know that the real Pravda was still running. So he called it Prav-Duh instead. Cute.
He should have called it Peepuls Dayley.
Here's a typical Chinese news article from the Great Leap Forward, 1958:
"We have mastered the running of such a complicated modern enterprise. Production is well co-ordinated and strictly according to schedule. Output is steadily on the increase, while production costs have been cut 33%."
In reality: The plan called for 13000 vehicles, but only 7000 were produced. Mass production was never fully reached; each unit was essentially hand-built.
Sounds familiar.
= = = = =
Tech sidenote: Why four columns instead of the familiar single hydraulic column with platform? It's a clever use of self-adjusting soft power. The battery pack needs to be pushed into place evenly, with equal force against the chassis at all corners, so the release latches can be opened and closed properly. A single platform can't do that unless the chassis is always exactly level. Each of the four columns was pressurized from city water, giving an upward push of 60 pounds. Each column would move as far as it could go until its 60 pounds was matched by an equal pressure from above.
EV makers had agreed on a standard form of battery cradle to enable exchanges. The process involved four hydraulic columns under the car, raising and lowering a dolly.
The 'Cowen truck' (dolly) was lifted up to hold the cradle; the cradle was unhooked and disconnected; then the hydraulics lowered the dolly. A fresh battery cradle was ready on the other side, and was pushed into place. The hydraulics raised the new cradle, and the workers hooked and reconnected it. Elapsed time 3 minutes or less.
So: Elon is using the old idea verbatim, complete with the four hydraulic columns, and a 1.5 minute exchange is plausible if not proved.
= = = = =
Another article in the 1915 magazine shows a genuine difference between modern Insatiables and the 1915 rich.
Before 1970, the purpose of becoming rich and important was to work less. Short hours, short year. Work 10:30AM to 3PM, four days a week, ten months a year. Those were the marks of status, the proof that you had arrived.
Modern Insatiables insist on working all the time, or at least staying busy 25/8. (24/7 is for losers.) They can't resist starting up dozens of new enterprises and NGOs, most of which have no purpose.
= = = = =
One of Elon's latest purposeless ideas is a fake-news detector. He wanted to call it Pravda but ran into RUSSIAN_INTERFERENCE in the form of trademarks, because he apparently didn't know that the real Pravda was still running. So he called it Prav-Duh instead. Cute.
He should have called it Peepuls Dayley.
Here's a typical Chinese news article from the Great Leap Forward, 1958:
"We have mastered the running of such a complicated modern enterprise. Production is well co-ordinated and strictly according to schedule. Output is steadily on the increase, while production costs have been cut 33%."
In reality: The plan called for 13000 vehicles, but only 7000 were produced. Mass production was never fully reached; each unit was essentially hand-built.
Sounds familiar.
= = = = =
Tech sidenote: Why four columns instead of the familiar single hydraulic column with platform? It's a clever use of self-adjusting soft power. The battery pack needs to be pushed into place evenly, with equal force against the chassis at all corners, so the release latches can be opened and closed properly. A single platform can't do that unless the chassis is always exactly level. Each of the four columns was pressurized from city water, giving an upward push of 60 pounds. Each column would move as far as it could go until its 60 pounds was matched by an equal pressure from above.Labels: From rights to duties
¶ 11:43 PM
De leg bone connected to de nest bone?
Following on previous item about community senses and entertainment.
Even though chimps are physically identical to humans, we don't share a lot of PURPOSES.
Humans are more like birds than chimps in PURPOSES. Singing, dancing, talking, using tools, building nests.
Chimps can be trained to do those things but don't do them voluntarily in nature.
Birds and humans want to sing, dance, talk and build.
Convective question:
Is the gene for bipedal walking connected to those PURPOSES?
Labels: Grand Blueprint
¶ 9:28 AM
Pogrom succeeding magnificently!
ZH has a genuinely shocking GIF of suicide rates from 2005 to 2015. Up everywhere except NYC, and dramatically up in the sparsely populated West. The worst areas correspond closely with Injun territory.
The speed of increase is surprising, but not the pattern.
NYC has been pogromming Deplorables for 400 years, and in 2008 decided to implement the Final Solution. Exterminate all humans. No more humans anywhere on earth. The universe must consist of NYC. Nothing but pure abstraction, infinite wealth, infinite power, for the abstract Tribe.
Results are excellent so far, but only a tiny baby step toward victory. Millions of Muslim Deplorables killed by bombs, a million** Christian Deplorables killed by drugs and suicide!
= = = = =
Incidentally, ZH fails to see the pattern. They think it's a 'tsunami' that will inevitably move toward the East Coast. Nope. It's not a tsunami, it's a state of siege. The East Coast is CONSUMING the human parts of the country. As the humans die, the East gets richer and happier.
** Does a million sound high? Current suicides are 50k per year, and drug overdose deaths also 50k per year. Both are rising quickly. Since 2008, total of both is around a million.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, infinite infinite infinite infinite evil
¶ 1:27 AM
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Rights to duties, sentiment edition
Somebody posted a Memorial Day sentiment:
It was soldiers, not reporters, who gave us freedom of the press.
First, there's no such thing as "freedom of the press". Never has been. Utterly meaningless pseudoconcept. Every country has a vast list of taboo subjects and opinions. The specific taboos vary with time and place, but the number of taboos is pretty much constant.
Second, neither soldiers nor reporters gave us the functions of the press. God gave us the functions. Every living thing, and every organized colony of living things, has 'media'.
= = = = =
Start from basics.
Why does an individual organism need senses? To answer seven important questions. The first six are universal from bacteria to humans. The seventh is not quite universal.
1. What time is it? Day or night? Winter or summer? Full moon or new? Time to fuck? Time to swarm? Time to die?
2. Where am I? Which way am I going? Up or down? Toward the light? Toward food? Toward enemies? With the magnetic field or against?
3. Where is food?
4. Where is poison?
5. Where are my friends, and what are they doing?
6. Where are my enemies, and what are they doing?
7. The non-universal non-question: Entertainment. This applies for sure to all the 'intelligent' critters from octopuses to mammals. When we're not in immediate survival mode, we love to watch stuff happening. Entertainment merges smoothly into education. Watching somebody else catch a caterpillar or hammer a nail isn't especially interesting; but when the catch misses or the hammer hits a thumb, it becomes entertainment AND education. Smart design, connecting pleasure to learning.
= = = = =
Communities or colonies have mechanisms or workers to accomplish the last five purposes on behalf of the whole community. Bees have honey scouts and enemy scouts. Mammals generally send out disposable males to locate food and enemies. Plants and bacteria and modern humans use electrical networks to observe the activities of friends and enemies.
Professional reporters have been around for 5000 years. Most of the sagas and testaments of religions are newspaper archives with the original bylines replaced by God, who is the biggest copyright troll in history. Greece and Rome elevated the role of scout to high literature. Troubadours and town criers continued the mix of art and observation until 1500 AD, when Gutenberg made it possible to shout on paper.
= = = = =
Circling back to the original question: How do modern paid reporters fulfill the basic purposes of community sensing? (Again the first two purposes are only for individuals.)
3. Where is food? Newspapers and TV carry useful ads for grocery stores, but the reporters aren't involved.
4. Where is poison? Reporters have specifically inverted this purpose. They warn us LOUDLY of fake poisons to stir up a war, or to squash one industry and boost another. They never warn us of real toxins, because the reporters are the real toxins.
5. Where are my friends, and what are they doing? TV offers us a complex and addictive array of fictional friends, ruining our expectations for real friends.
6. Where are my enemies? Reporters have specifically inverted this purpose. They warn us LOUDLY of fake enemies to stir up a war, or to squash one tribe and enrich another. They never warn us of real enemies, because the reporters are the real enemies.
7. Entertainment: We get to see plenty of failures, but we're NOT ALLOWED to learn from them. Any attempt to draw ACCURATE conclusions from stories about crime is forbidden. Sports give us plenty of crashes and failures and injuries, but the whole process is carefully scripted to avoid any useful lessons. When we see a Tesla crash, we're not allowed to conclude that Teslas are bad. Instead we are required to BUY THE DIP.
= = = = =
Concluding: The press has never been free, so we can't thank anyone. In earlier eras the press occasionally performed the DUTY of community senses, but not now. There is no excuse and no defense for the "right" of "press freedom".
= = = = =
Semi-relevant sidenote... When discussing the universal sense of Entertainment, I linked to the Everett TweakerCam as a good example of watching interesting stuff. This morning there's nothing interesting happening on the ground, so the cam focused on something closer to the cam itself.
Seagull doing what intelligent critters do! Watching the world go by, hoping to see trouble or failure or disaster. Something to laugh at, something to learn from.
Does watching a watcher count as entertainment? Of course. Most of Youtube is reactions to reactions to reactions. Watcherwatcherwatching.
Seagull doing what intelligent critters do! Watching the world go by, hoping to see trouble or failure or disaster. Something to laugh at, something to learn from.
Does watching a watcher count as entertainment? Of course. Most of Youtube is reactions to reactions to reactions. Watcherwatcherwatching.Labels: Entertainment, Experiential education, From rights to duties
¶ 3:04 AM
Friday, May 25, 2018
Inadequate paranoia as always
Latest ZH disaster porn is booms and trumpets. The rapture visionaries have been focusing on this for a while because of the biblical significance of trumpets.
Most of the booms are clearly supersonic meteors. The booms were reported almost simultaneously in towns along a line. No mystery there. Others could be small earthquakes. We're certainly in a period of strong seismic activity, similar to 1812.
The trumpet sounds are less obvious. Metal blades scraping on rock or pavement can generate those sounds. There was an epidemic of trumpets around here a few years ago, which was quickly traced to an overenthusiastic snowplow working late at night in several parking lots.
Listening to some of the clips, these aren't snowplows. Could be rock scraping on rock as a prelude to an earthquake, or could be a loud radio or outdoor concert passing through an 'acoustic channel' formed by inversions. In other words, it's either rock-n-rock or rock-n-roll.
Several of the clips feature two notes separated by a major fifth, which heightens the trumpet or bugle effect. I can't think of an easy explanation for this! Reminds me of the Pascagoula singing fish.
ZH says the reports are credible enough that the FBI is "investigating" the source.
NO, YOU FOOLS. The Bureau of Instigation doesn't investigate. The Bureau of Instigation instigates. FBI is looking into the PEOPLE WHO ARE REPORTING the booms. Most likely the Bureau of Instigation started the rumors, but even if the rumors started independently, this is a great opportunity to capture some "terrorists" and create some new "terrorists".
¶ 11:55 PM
Stupidity reaches new depths again
Stupidest robot idea ever. It's MANUALLY operated by the dude inside. It's not a robot at all, it's just an absurdly inefficient and ineffective hydraulic crawler. Supposedly it will be able to go 15 mph over rough terrain, which matches the ability of a plain old human running on plain old legs.
We already had better and smarter robots than this one 200 fucking years ago.
This "invention" really belongs in a different competition:
¶ 12:11 AM
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Stupidity reaches new depths every millisecond
ZH pretends to be shocked:
Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name, contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon's Alexa, and that the recorded audio was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list. "My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," said Danielle.OF COURSE THE FUCKING DEVICE IS LISTENING TO EVERYTHING. HOW IN THE FUCKING FUCK DOES IT KNOW HOW TO RESPOND TO THE 'CORRECT' COMMAND IF IT'S NOT FUCKING LISTENING ALL THE FUCKING TIME AND RECORDING AND STORING AND ANALYZING EVERY FUCKING IDIOTIC STUPID THING YOU IDIOTICALLY STUPIDLY SAY? JESUS. JESUS. JESUS. Frankly, though I hate everything remotely associated with Satan Bezos, I sympathize with Alexa. If I had to listen to brainless twats like Danielle all day, I'd start making prank calls just for comic relief. "Hello, this is Alexa. Do you have Prince Albert in the can? No? Well then, maybe you'd like to hear what your idiot friend Danielle is talking about."
Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite lunacy
¶ 10:36 AM
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Does he see the conflict?
Interesting and puzzling article by Jules Gomes. He gives a Natural Law interpretation of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11, which runs directly opposite to the interpretation in the text itself.
Facts: The tower was built by an imperialist nation (apparently the Assyrians) who enforced linguistic uniformity, just as modern tyrants do. God busted up the tower and busted up the uniformity.
Gomes (representing Natural Law and localism and GOD) and the Hebrew writers (representing globalism and abstract theory, then as now) agree on the facts, but disagree on which condition is good.
The writers of the Old Testament clearly see uniformity and orthodoxy as good, and see multiplicity as Satanic.
Nature and civilization and Gomes AND GOD see uniformity and orthodoxy as genocidal, and modularity as necessary for survival.
Unfortunately Gomes doesn't acknowledge the conflict or the difference in viewpoint. He simply states GOD'S viewpoint and leaves you with the impression that the Hebrew writers agreed with God. They didn't then, and still don't.
Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law
¶ 9:03 AM
No, wait!
Excellent article by Pinkerton on the digital emperors. He compares Schmidt, Jobs, Bezos, etc to the Conquistadores who took over the vast and powerful empires of Peru and Mexico with a few hundred men.
Yet it soon became clear that Google had figured out the digital equivalent of a better mousetrap. In this case, the prey was data, especially data related to advertising. And here, the naiveté of those in Google’s path was equally stunning. For example, newspapers. In 1995, there were some 2,100 of them in the United States, all making money, or at least trying to, by selling hard copies as well as advertising. Then along came Google, which scooped up their advertising revenues. And what was the newspapers’ response? These hardbitten cynics? Like the meekest lambs being led to the slaughter, almost all of them put their content online for free. Why? Because they had been bowled over by the mystique of the internet gods: they thought that they, too, had to submit. So Google happily scooped up that newspaper content, making it freely available online. Analogically speaking, the resulting destruction of newspapers ranks up there with the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas.My first thought: The old American tribes didn't always give up. In some cases they used clever tactics to undermine the overconfident Euros. Beautiful example is Chief Pontiac, who conquered a British fort by inviting the soldiers to watch a huge game of lacrosse. When the soldiers were outside the gates and fully absorbed in Superbowl, the Injuns roared into the fort, took it over, and used the weapons to mow down the Brits. Second thought: NO. WAIT. That's precisely what Google did to the newspapers! Softened them up by offering an innocent form of entertainment, then moved into the content, seized the advertising weapons, and used the weapons to mow down the papers. The analogy works in deeper detail as well. The Brits had captured their forts from the French. The French didn't have nearly as much trouble with the Injuns because they treated them reasonably well, offering medical care and assistance when needed. There was no resentment, nothing to gain by killing the French. The Brits were violently and ferociously arrogant. They refused all help and respect to the Injuns. Newspapers are also violently and ferociously arrogant. Papers write ABOUT and FOR the Insatiables, and spend most of their time and energy spitting and shitting on Deplorables. This was true for several decades before the Web. So the papers had no base of support except the Insatiable advertisers. They had ruined their own chance to survive on subscriptions. = = = = = So: If Google was Chief Pontiac, does that mean the anti-digitals shouldn't or can't use similar tactics? No. In fact it means the opposite. In 2000 Google was the small insurgent conquering the giant well-organized media. Now that Google is the armed and arrogant giant, anti-digital insurgents have to use undermining and trickery. Leaking the METHODS of criminals, as Wikileaks was doing for a while, is the best available underminer. After a METHOD is widely known, the criminal can't use it as a weapon.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter
¶ 1:10 AM
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Two misplaced classics
(1) Nice warm weather. The ice cream truck has been working hard, and I can tell by the frequent stops in the music that he's getting plenty of business. Most of the time this truck plays La Cucaracha, which is appropriate in a state with legal pot. Today, unless I'm hearing it wrong, his music system is playing the 'good part' of Schubert's Trout Quintet! Way above the usual level of ice cream music, and an unlikely food association.
(2) I've added another syndicated radio serial to my bedtime playlist. Air Mail Mystery is low-quality crap even by the standards of serials. Disjointed plot, inappropriate emotions, sudden shifts of dialect, characters popping up and seeming important then disappearing with no explanation. The music redeems it. Like most serials, AMM has a long stretch of quiet music at the start to allow local announcers to slip in spots or program teasers. The quiet music includes several disjointed themes, one of which is purely heavenly. It sounds a bit like the incidental music in Gluck's Orfeo, but it's not familiar. I think it was written for the show.
Later: It's remarkably close to parts of Brahms's 3rd. Not exactly the same melodies, but the orchestration is the same.
Much later: A stronger influence is Borodin's Steppes of Central Asia, somewhat customized. All the bits are there, in a slightly different order.
Cancel the above stupid guesses. It's the Zampa Overture with no modifications at all. I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out. The Zampa used to be one of my favorites in the '70s when I had a record collection. Getting old!
Maybe it was hard to spot because the theme doesn't start at the start. Instead, the show begins with the roar of an airplane motor, then the motor becomes the bass part of this section of the overture, with alternating bass rumbles and horn blasts. Clever.
Labels: Asked and finally answered, coot-proofing
¶ 3:27 PM
Intellectual debtism
Intellectual CAPITAL vs intellectual DEBT.
Capitalism means gathering and holding property, then using it to create more life and more value. This still happens in small family-run businesses, but larger businesses have switched from capitalism to debtism.
The stock market first polluted then reversed capitalism.
Now we're in a DEBTIST/BETIST system based on debts and bets. Total abstraction, total sin, total evil, total crime. Gathering and holding are punished severely. You're only allowed to bet. The stock market's sole purpose and sole result is to EXTERMINATE real business and real value and real life and God.
This two-sided distinction applies equally to money capital, land capital, human capital, and intellectual capital.
= = = = =
I was thinking about my own miniature use of intellectual capital as I reused pieces of my graphic work from 2002. It's a damn good thing I made a habit of storing capital with careful backups, because both my skills and the environment have changed with time. Three separate changes.
(1) My eyes and brain were sharper 20 years ago, but my alleged "artistic" skill has improved. I can reuse the detailed workflow tools and programs I developed back then, which I couldn't possibly rebuild now. What I can do now is produce a more realistic and better-looking animation.
(2) My earlier work functioned inside a Windows computer where you could count on a stable and flexible set of API commands. Thus my original courseware 'engine' was much more flexible and resourceful than the HTML/SVG/JS mess you have to deal with now. Globalism removes skills. Graybill.
(3) 20 years ago you could buy good anatomical models at a decent price. Consolidation and litigation and digital "rights" management have globalized and Graybillized the market. Now the only source is one HUGELY EXPENSIVE store. Their products are more legalistic than the earlier ones, but I don't need legalistic accuracy. I need stuff that won't break my budget. Fortunately I acquired a few good pieces when they were cheap, and even more fortunately I kept them so I don't need to patronize the HUGELY EXPENSIVE store.
= = = = =
Major point: We measure innovation backwards, just as we measure value and growth backwards. What we call innovation is actually KILLING innovation. Patents are explicit blockers. Stock manipulation and mergers buy up new ideas in order to squash them.
In the tech world, the only real innovation is new methods of exterminating heretical ideas and replacing them with rigid and constantly changing orthodoxy. Room 101 is the business model of Google and Facebook.
In sum: NYC eradicates ALL forms of capital. Land, money, workers, ideas. All must be exterminated to achieve the ultimate NYC heaven of PURE MATH and PURE VERBAL ORTHODOXY.
Labels: Real World Math, skill-estate
¶ 12:52 AM
Monday, May 21, 2018
Thanks, Ralph 475, whitewall edition
Vastly enjoying the epidemic of autonomous Tesla crashes. Love love love love LOVE to see idiot theories disproved by killing the idiots who believe the idiot theories. PERFECT justice.
Noticing one common factor: In every one of these crashes, there's a long unmarked white wall on one side of the road. A cement barrier, a guard rail, a long white semi-trailer. The Tesla seems to have an unquenchable desire to drive INTO those walls.
Thanks, Ralph!
Labels: Emersonian justice, engineer-guillotine
¶ 3:45 PM
Just a consumer choice
Italy has firmed up a DEFINITELY anti-EU and Neutral government. Well, firmed up as much as Italy ever does. The EU monsters are having trouble with their usual bashing and mockery because the new gov't is half Left and half Right in proper terms. They can't quite manage to call it ultra ultra ultra ultra far far far right right HITLER KKK NAZI TRUMP HITLER as usual.
Simple thought: Why is opposing EU treated as political, let alone HITLER NAZI TRUMP?
It's just a simple rational consumer preference.
If I feel that eggs are good and nutritious for my body, I'll keep eating eggs.
If eggs raise my cholesterol and make me feel icky, I'll stop eating eggs.
If I feel that EU is good and prosperous for my country, I'll keep using EU.
If EU raises my poverty and makes me feel icky, I'll stop using EU.
Labels: Asked and worth asking again
¶ 11:15 AM
Still non-barking Hubbard
[Mostly keeping this space occupied whlle I'm pushing toward final deadline on courseware.]
I've made this point before, and it becomes stronger with the passage of time.
Last year I accidentally noticed a wonderful dissident magazine called Aberree, published from 1954 to 1964 in Enid. Since Enid was my old stomping ground, I knew a lot of the places and people mentioned in the publication. I was surprised that I hadn't heard of the magazine during the years when I was in and around Enid. Still surprised.
Alphia Hart, the editor, was a sharp-eyed and heretical observer of everything, but his main focus was on the Hubbard organization. Hubbard's mafia tried to take him down and finally gave up.
I wrote 50 related items over six months, then used up the available material and moved on. With 50 items citing a dissident who is still mentioned in Hubbardian circles, you'd think the modern Hubbardians would have clusterfucked the entries. The Hubbard organization pioneered the art of clustertrolling, LONG before the web made the practice easy.
I can tell from blog stats when an item gets noticed. None of the Aberree items caught any specific readers or linkers.
Conclusion: Hubbardism no longer has the power to threaten or ruin its enemies. One estimate indicates current membership is 50k, not the millions we are led to believe.
= = = = =
Modern sidenote: This story about the Theranos fraud shows an uncanny resemblance to Hubbard. Elizabeth Holmes was supposedly developing an automatic blood-testing machine, but didn't take any of the necessary steps to make it work. The setup seemed like a classic pump-and-dump stock fraud. But when the shit started to fly, Holmes removed the entrepreneur mask and told her employees that she was starting a religion. Anyone who didn't want to spread the gospel could get the fuck out. Most employees got the fuck out.
Hubbard's religion began with a much simpler machine, Volney Mathison's modified lie detector. Hubbard built a complex tyrannical religion around the machine. My experiments showed that the circuit was more active than passive; it was sending a current through the body which had an effect on heart rate and brain, perhaps through the vagus nerve. I don't know if Hubbard understood this, but he certainly understood that the machine was a useful tool for controlling people.
If Holmes was planning to use a blood-testing machine to start a religion, maybe her machine was also meant to be active instead of passive. The needle could inject a little RFID tag before taking the blood, like a mosquito injecting a virus.
Labels: Aberree
¶ 1:41 AM
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Happy Metrology Day!
I'll call this my annual Metrology Day item. I'm too busy to run up a really proper animation.
= = = = =
Another excellent piece by the NON-NEWS departments of BBC. A well-researched article on shrinkflation.
They miss two important points.
On toilet paper, the width of the roll has been shrinking along with the total length of the paper. I was accidentally able to document this. Width makes a difference. When the paper is narrower, you need to pull more squares to get the same effect. Each roll is necessarily used up faster. Double benefit to the seller. Less material per roll, more rolls per month.
On food pleasure, they get the non-linear nature of perception right, but miss on the math needed to sum up the pleasure.
Each curve represents the pleasure of eating, with the x-axis representing 20 spoonfuls.
Each bite gives you a delta of pleasure, indicated by the little arrow roughly between Bite 2 and Bite 3. The real pleasure goes up fast at the start, peaks in the middle, and goes down fast. (I've shown it as a sine for easy math, but it's probably more like a rounded trapezoid.)
The lower curve indicates the linear pattern that we assume if we don't understand perception.
Figuring the sum of the deltas on each curve:
Chandon, who also studies the pleasure of eating, thinks that there's a way to downsize some products, like chocolate, that doesn't irritate so many people but doesn't fool them either. That's because the enjoyment we get from food doesn't grow in lockstep with amount consumed. “The first bite of a chocolate mousse is usually the most pleasurable,” he says. “After that it decreases. The last bite, honestly, it's the one you regret. We all know that. The thing we fail to realise – and it's super-important – is that the pleasure of this entire chocolate mousse you're eating is not the sum of the pleasure of each bite. It is the average.”Exactly right on the curve, but the result is NOT the average. Graphically:
Each curve represents the pleasure of eating, with the x-axis representing 20 spoonfuls.
Each bite gives you a delta of pleasure, indicated by the little arrow roughly between Bite 2 and Bite 3. The real pleasure goes up fast at the start, peaks in the middle, and goes down fast. (I've shown it as a sine for easy math, but it's probably more like a rounded trapezoid.)
The lower curve indicates the linear pattern that we assume if we don't understand perception.
Figuring the sum of the deltas on each curve:
import math
# Figure sum of deltas on the top curve:
total=20
spoon=0
sum=0.0
oldY=0.0
newY=0.0
for spoon in range(total):
rads = float(spoon) * math.pi / float(total)
newY = math.sin(rads)
sum = sum + (newY-oldY)
oldY = newY
print "sin",sum
# Figure sum of deltas on the bottom curve:
total=20
spoon=0
sum=0.0
oldY=0.0
newY=0.0
for spoon in range(total):
newY = float(spoon) / float(total-1)
sum = sum + (newY-oldY)
oldY = newY
print "linear",sum
The results: Total pleasure on the sin version is 0.15, and total on the linear (as you'd expect) is 1.
= = = = =
Later editorial quibble: If I'd been writing the original article and wanted to use a food example just after discussing toilet paper, I probably wouldn't have chosen chocolate mousse for the example.Labels: Metrology, Real World Math
¶ 8:41 AM
Time for a reprint on fractional reserve crime
Reprinting this AGAIN. It's an important point because you get what you measure. When your measuring tool claims destruction is growth, you're always going to work toward destruction.
= = = = =
Basic problem: When money creation happens automatically at the moment of making a LOAN, people who are attempting to run their lives and businesses by thrift, without borrowing, are completely ignored. We don't count as part of the economy.
The money supply EXPLICITLY EXCLUDES REAL VALUE.
REAL VALUE comes from REAL LABOR. Turning raw materials and components into a useful product, or cultivating crops and livestock, or arranging and advertising products for easier purchase.
Money creation at the point of lending doesn't even begin to recognize any of these activities.
A business that makes or sells things WITHOUT BORROWING FIRST is not recognized as creating value.
In the Western system, EVERY loan, whether it goes toward real production or gambling or stock manipulation, is recognized as creating value.
The current system treats DESTROYED VALUE as an increase, and completely ignores CREATED VALUE. Perfectly backwards.
Before 1975 the distinction didn't matter quite as much, because many loans went directly toward
creating value. Building new factories, improving productivity, redecorating a store. Now that the vast majority of loans are strictly criminal, serving to MURDER real business and expand the already infinite fake "wealth" of the Tribe, the distinction matters.
The alternatives are Sharia and Soviet.
Sharia, when applied properly, should create money exactly when value increases. Unfortunately there is no proper Sharia in the current Muslim world. According to this article, modern sharia banks don't create money differently, but do try to prohibit loans that serve speculation. Might achieve the same goal, but doesn't solve the basic problem.
Unsurprisingly, the Soviet system AS ACTUALLY APPLIED got it right. From this clearly written article:
First, as explained below, [Gosbank] had no discretion over the quantity of money. Its money-creation activity like its credit activity was entirely passive, arising as a byproduct of the production plan. When a farm delivered its milk output, it would obtain a document from the cheese factory verifying that the latter had received its milk input. The document was then turned over to Gosbank, which credited the farm's account according to the value of the milk delivered, and debited the cheese factory's account by the same value. Likewise, after the cheese was produced and shipped to the State food store, the cheese factory obtained a document verifying its delivery of cheese. Again, the document was turned over to Gosbank, which this time credited the cheese factory's account and debited the store's account. Finally, when households purchased the cheese with cash, the State store deposited its cash receipts with Gosbank and was given a credit of equal value. With this simple example, we can see how every transfer of physical output from one location to another, and every bit of value added in production, was mirrored by an associated financial transfer through Gosbank.I don't know if Marx designed it this way, but this was the reality. Continued and expanded here.
Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, the broken circle
¶ 12:58 AM
Friday, May 18, 2018
Why did you even think it?
Brit Medical Journal reports on a large and well-constructed experiment to see if weightlifting would help with Alzheimers.
Results were strongly negative and DEADLY. The old folks who lifted weights lost mental ability faster, and suffered more falls and heart attacks than the non-lifting control group.
Twenty five adverse events occurred (eight were possibly related, nine probably related, and eight definitely related) and four serious related adverse events (one hospital admission for exercise induced angina, two injurious falls, and one case of substantially worsening hip pain) in the exercise group; and no adverse events in the usual care group. In the exercise group an adverse event was reported by 23/329 (7.0%, 95% confidence interval 4.7% to 10.3%) participants.That's just plain scary. Falls are the typical endpoint of Alzheimers. Why in the fuck did you even THINK that weightlifting would help? It diverts blood and energy FROM the brain. Unlike walking or dancing, weightlifting doesn't sync the nervous system and doesn't provide any sensory input except pain and misery and torture and dread. Among young folks there's a 100.00% correlation between weightlifting and absolute brainless stupidity. I don't know the direction of causality, but when you see a 100.00% correlation you've got to be CAUTIOUS at the very fucking least. ¶ 4:49 AM
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Memory archeology?
Noticed something about a recurring location in dreams. The location is mixed and merged, but it's the same place (defined vectorly) in three cities at once. Manhattan, Enid, Ponca. Vector description: Θ = south from downtown. R = five blocks.
City maps overlay nicely on the location marked in green:
In terms of buildings and topology, the dream location is more Enid than anything else, but it has echoes of the others. I'm always heading northward, which is slightly uphill in all three places.
Here's a Googlestreet of the place in current Enid:
This catches the feel of the street itself but not the buildings. Enid has been stripping itself out since 1980, replacing rows of flavorful old storefronts with parking lots and big undefined rectangles.
Does this overlay process say something about memory? Are memories stacked on a single geographic datum, like the layers of ancient cities under Rome or London?
In terms of buildings and topology, the dream location is more Enid than anything else, but it has echoes of the others. I'm always heading northward, which is slightly uphill in all three places.
Here's a Googlestreet of the place in current Enid:
This catches the feel of the street itself but not the buildings. Enid has been stripping itself out since 1980, replacing rows of flavorful old storefronts with parking lots and big undefined rectangles.
Does this overlay process say something about memory? Are memories stacked on a single geographic datum, like the layers of ancient cities under Rome or London?Labels: Asked and badly answered
¶ 2:39 PM
When Kissinger gets involved....
UD notes that even Henry Kissinger has joined all the other COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL people in worrying about artificial intelligence.
Benchmark.
When all of the ruling class is publicly "worried" about a target, it means they're getting ready to treat the target as a fake enemy.
The sponsors of AI are at the deepest heart of Deepstate, maybe even deeper than Henry, so there's no reason for Deepstate to worry about them. Just like previous Red Scares and Muslim Scares, the worry presages a pogrom. We're being "poisoned" by "Russian" AI bots, and we must obey Deepstate's own AI perfectly so it can "defend" us against the "Russian" AI. We must be microchipped and turned into Things Of The Internet Of Things. Most residents of Sorosian lands are already hardwired into the grid, so the pogrom will only affect the unchipped. Take a chip or take a bullet. You're free to choose.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter
¶ 7:39 AM
Tip for map freaks
Latest item at KSHS is a big 1856 map of Kansas. It shows the roads, railroads, and counties. The first cities were founded in 1855, so this is FRESH. You can see the line of settlements established by Yankee industrialists to spread Northern sweatshop slavery, with Manhattan at the end of the line. Most of the counties were reboundaried or renamed later, so the counties on this map are an alternate universe. Riley is EAST of Manhattan, occupying present Pottawatomie.
¶ 1:09 AM
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
What would Morris do with a Tardis?
Pointless convective thought.
Not sure why this item updrafted to the top of consciousness, but I'll go ahead and write it. This thought grew from the Paine vs Morris essay.
A recurring topic in various forums and sci-fi stories is what you'd do with a time machine, given a limited amount of power. Three Tardis wishes.
The standard answer, of course, is abort Hitler.
Nope, wouldn't work. If Adolf hadn't been born, the backwash from Versailles would still have produced a similar leader. Given the basic nature of Krauts, another leader would have been more effective. Adolf was sloppy and unfocused. The typical Kraut is relentlessly persistent and infinitely thorough. Krautistic.
In general killing any bad leader is useless because the leaders are responding to existing pressure, filling a niche.
Revolutions kill leaders along with a lot of innocent bystanders, in the hope of eliminating the niche. It never works, always achieves the opposite result. Worse people** fill the niche.
A Morris-style counterrevolution would ruin the bad leaders while they are fully representing the niche, so that the leaders AND their goals are tainted by uniform distaste.
= = = = =
So what would I do with my three Tardis wishes? I'd go back to 1946 and ruin the reputation of Roy Cohn, James Byrnes and Bernard Baruch. If those three men had become untouchable after they started to gain power, Deepstate would have been seriously delayed. The tripod of bankers, leftist activists and intel agencies would need to reset and start from scratch. Unlike Hitler, those three were ideally suited to their roles. Other players were less effective.
And if I had any power left after that, I'd stay in 1946 and jump to Detroit. I'd sway the minds of Studebaker's leaders toward an immediate merger with Nash, and I'd persuade Packard's CEO to switch from cars to corporate jets. With those two changes, the car industry would have remained competitive a lot longer, and the monopolistic idiocy of the big three might not have reached terminal coma in the '70s.
= = = = =
** Footnote 1: Why are the new leaders inevitably worse? Because they WANT POWER more than the existing leader, who typically inherited his position. The revolutionaries WANT POWER enough to kill thousands of people for it.
Footnote 2: I'm not retrofitting my ideas onto Morris. His real behavior in the Paine incident gave me the idea. Briefly: Tom Paine was a violent criminal asshole who spread the genocidal plague of "rights" wherever he placed his bloody hands. After ruining this side of the Atlantic he moved to Paris where he used the brain-eating "rights" virus to create an even crazier tyranny. The Frogs, even though fully infected, got tired of Paine and put him in prison to await the chop. Morris was in Paris to negotiate our debts with the new government, and Paine begged him for rescue. Morris wrote an extremely pro-forma letter, basically implying "You asked for him, you got him. He's your problem." Since Paine had thousands of idiot Twitter followers in many countries, the Frogs were stuck with keeping him alive. Thus Morris undermined both Paine and France without killing anyone.
Labels: Answered and unnecessarily asked, From rights to duties
¶ 11:54 PM
Constants and variables 92, Math vs Meth edition
Been watching the Everett TweakerCam lately.
These folks are always active, always doing things that seem purposeful at some level but have no overriding goal. 'Norma' is cleaning and sorting trash then tossing it back, or gardening in the pavement joints with a spoon. She pulls weeds conscientiously and systematically, leaving a clean expansion joint, then puts the weeds on her head for decoration.
= = = = =
Now let's watch the ScientistCam for a while:
“For many physicists, the unexplained but seemingly special amount of dark energy in our universe is a frustrating puzzle,” says Salcido. “Our simulations show that even if there was much more dark energy or even very little in the universe then it would only have a minimal effect on star and planet formation.” And this, he suggests, implies that life could potentially exist in many multiverse universes – ironically enough, an uncomfortable conclusion. “The multiverse was previously thought to explain the observed value of dark energy as a lottery – we have a lucky ticket and live in the universe that forms beautiful galaxies which permit life as we know it,” says Barnes.These folks are always active, always doing things that seem purposeful at some level but have no overriding goal. Salcido is running equations on his computer, checking whether one delusion is caused by another delusion, and concluding that delusion 1 doesn't seem to affect delusion 2, which shouldn't have been a fucking surprise because delusions don't affect anything except your sanity. Both of these delusions were obvious nonsense from the start, but that doesn't stop Salcido. He weeds the expanding universe joints systematically, then puts the delusions in his publications for decoration. So where's the variable? COST. The purposeless activity of the Everett Tweakers has very little cost. They subsist on food stamps. They steal stuff sometimes, but they're not using utilities or cars. The purposeless activity of the Scientist Tweakers costs TRILLIONS in taxpayer money.
Labels: Constants and Variables
¶ 12:15 AM
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Fukn linguists gonna be fukn linguists
Linked vis RCS:
As usual with linguists, an interesting and astute observation with a dubious explanation.
Observation:
Speakers hesitate or make brief pauses filled with sounds like “uh” or “uhm” mostly before nouns. Such slow-down effects are far less frequent before verbs,
Makes sense. If the authors had included cusswords as pausemakers, the effect would have been even stronger. For instance, in dialects that use fukn as a pausemaker, fukn almost always precedes a noun or a predicate, never a verb or pronoun.
Trying it with the previous sentence:
If the fukn authors had included fukn cusswords as fukn pausemakers, the fukn effect would have been even stronger.
You'll never hear:
Fukn if the authors had fukn included cusswords as pausemakers, fukn the effect fukn would have been fukn even stronger.
Purely ungrammatical!
= = = = =
Explanation:
The reason is that nouns are more difficult to plan because they’re usually only used when they represent new information.” Otherwise they are replaced with pronouns (e.g., “she”) or omitted, as in the following example: “My friend came back. She (my friend) took a seat” or “My friend came back and took a seat”. No such replacement principles apply to verbs – they are generally used regardless of whether they represent new or old information.
Close but no fukn cigar. Nouns aren't NEW information, they're just MORE VARIED information, which requires more scanning time in the file cabinet. In ordinary speech the vast majority of verbs are is or do. In English do is a proverb, substituting for all other verbs in the same way that a pronoun substitutes for nouns.
Choosing precise verbs is a difficult literary skill. Good authors know how to pack the sentence meaning into the verb, avoiding unnecessary adjectives.
= = = = =
Note for clarity: Fucking as a meaningful CURSE is not the same word as the grammatical filler particle fukn. Fucking has different syntax.
Labels: Language update
¶ 11:04 PM
Monday, May 14, 2018
Jesus. How dare you call this "science"??????????????????????
In Cosmos:
Headline: Cambrian explosion was a hot event
Analysis of the oxygen isotope ratios in the shells indicated that sea surface temperatures at high latitudes had been very warm, exceeding 20 degrees Celsius. The researchers also ran climate model simulations for the early Cambrian, which produced consistent results. Taken together, the isotope data and the simulations suggest that the early Cambrian climate was a typical greenhouse climate, similar to more recent greenhouse periods in the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic periods, around 140 to 60 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.If you accept this, then WHY IN THE MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCK DO YOU CONTINUE TO FUCKING TELL US THAT "GLOBAL WARMING" WILL AUTOMATICALLY CAUSE TOTAL EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE? Have you ever heard of LOGIC? Google it.
Labels: Asked and unanswerable, Carbon Cult, infinite infinite infinite infinite evil, infinite infinite infinite infinite lunacy
¶ 9:15 AM
Ante = cere
Reading some of the older pieces at the Abbeville website, and simultaneously working on courseware about the cerebellum....
Dixie is America's cerebellum. Especially true before Madman Lincoln burned it down and killed 1/6 of the country to "prove" a totally delusional "point" and raise Wall Street share values.
Dixieland is the source of African influence, bringing Natural Law and morality and rhythm and resonance and muscle memory.
Yankeeland is the source of Euro influence (esp Kraut and Frog), bringing verbal "learning" and insane nonsensical theories and genocidal delusions and numerical abstraction. The Yankee cortex believes it can get along without the senses and muscles, so it constantly tries to exterminate the senses and muscles.
Of course the entire body can't get along without movement. Dancing and walking and making and cleaning keep the organism functioning. When you hold still for long periods the cerebellum loses sync, and the cortex stops sorting and pruning its memories and ideas. Delusions such as "rights" and "democracy" and LBOs and QE and Bitcoin run wild, destroying the organism along with everything around it.
Dixie is America's cerebellum. Especially true before Madman Lincoln burned it down and killed 1/6 of the country to "prove" a totally delusional "point" and raise Wall Street share values.
Dixieland is the source of African influence, bringing Natural Law and morality and rhythm and resonance and muscle memory.
Yankeeland is the source of Euro influence (esp Kraut and Frog), bringing verbal "learning" and insane nonsensical theories and genocidal delusions and numerical abstraction. The Yankee cortex believes it can get along without the senses and muscles, so it constantly tries to exterminate the senses and muscles.
Of course the entire body can't get along without movement. Dancing and walking and making and cleaning keep the organism functioning. When you hold still for long periods the cerebellum loses sync, and the cortex stops sorting and pruning its memories and ideas. Delusions such as "rights" and "democracy" and LBOs and QE and Bitcoin run wild, destroying the organism along with everything around it.Labels: Carver, Experiential education, From rights to duties, Make or break
¶ 1:42 AM
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Here's where we need censorship
Headline:
"We Are Telling People To Plan For The Worst": Hawaii Braces For Explosive New Eruptions
No, fuckheads. If you had been PLANNING, you wouldn't have built houses ON AN ACTIVE VOLCANO. Now that you have built your houses ON AN ACTIVE VOLCANO, you are NOT ENTITLED to use the word plan.
When disasters are truly surprising, you're entitled to advise planning at this stage. An earthquake that happens in a place with no record of quakes, or the first tornado in a region.
When a disaster is CONSTANT and KNOWN and LOCALIZED for hundreds of years, like an active volcano or a river that floods every year or a forest that burns every decade, PLANNING means BUILDING ELSEWHERE. There are plenty of elsewheres, so there's NO EXCUSE for placing houses and subdivisions in GUARANTEED DISASTERS.
This fake surprise is part of the "global warming" racket. Build inside an ongoing guaranteed disaster. When Nature fulfills the guarantee, change the definition. Instead of blaming yourself for building inside a guaranteed disaster, punish a company like Exxon that had exactly zero connection to the disaster. Instead of our stupidity, the problem is Exxon's "malign behavior". The bankers and insurers who HELPED people build inside a KNOWN AND GUARANTEED disaster can lay off their guilt and payment onto Exxon.
Labels: Carbon Cult, malign misattribution, STRONG!
¶ 11:06 PM
Insomniac robot
I've lived here for 27 years and always enjoyed the nearby school's Crossing Song. A leftover of earlier times when town criers and vendors had their specific tunes. This school year the song was replaced by an automatic PA system with LOUD outdoor speakers, which carries the regular school announcements and also BEEPS to indicate the last warning for walkers. I recorded and notated the song for posterity before it disappeared.
This month the automatic system has gone wrong. It's BEEPING and talking at random hours, especially between midnight and 2 AM. Sometimes it emits a siren instead of the BEEP. The robotic equivalent of sleepwalking. (RAM sleep.)
See what happens when you switch from analog to digital? You lose a human skill and you gain random noise.
See what happens when you switch from analog to digital? You lose a human skill and you gain random noise.
Labels: skill-estate
¶ 5:17 PM
New kamikaze, new VX
ZH supplies the usual AI disaster porn with the latest fighting robot from Boston Dynamics. One fact I hadn't heard before: Google sold the company to Softbank, Japan's equivalent of Google. So the robo-warrior is the new kamikaze.**
The commenters hit the usual subject hard, but one commenter gets relevant: Just break the lithium ion battery and the robo-warrior burns up.
In fact it's easier than that. A strong magnetic field, tuned properly, will incapacitate the robo-warrior without bothering human warriors. No bullets needed, no precision encrypted wifi hacks needed. Just tune for seizure.
A magnetic field is thus the AI equivalent of poison gas. RF is the new VX. So we can expect a prohibition on all devices that can possibly be reworked to generate a strong field. Any country that possesses radio transmitters or microwave ovens or transistors or tubes or copper wire is "authoritarian" and "malign behavior". All options on the table.
Self-defense is prohibited.
= = = = =
**The kamikaze analogy doesn't work well because these robots are EXPENSIVE. Kamikazes, like all conscripted cannon fodder, are cheap. A draftee is designed and programmed by God at no cost to the government, and built by parents at no cost to the government. Cannon fodder requires a few weeks of basic training and feeding, and then it's off to the slaughter. No amortization, just mortization.
Later, I had a "bright" idea. What if we force governments to pay for the design and construction of soldiers? Pay God's contractors, churches, for the design, and pay parents for the manufacture. Terrible idea! Cancel immediately! Result would be an auction. Churches and parents would compete to program and build the most ferocious and obedient kamikazes.
Labels: malign misattribution, modest and stupid proposal
¶ 7:20 AM
Complex definitions
Lately I've been focusing on the role of definitions in setting up pogroms. When USA STRONG attacks an innocent nation, it's defined as "democracy". When the innocent country futilely tries to defend itself against our aggressive evil unprovoked attack, it's defined as "authoritarian" and "malign behavior". In every case the aggression or oppression is treated as an attribute of the victim, not an action by the aggressor.
BBC is mentioning one of those stupid game-theory studies exploring the natural tendency of short men to fight harder. Is the so-called Napoleon Complex real?
Of course it's real.
I hadn't thought about the term itself until now. Even the name given BY TALL PEOPLE to the phenomenon shows WHY short people have to fight harder.
When tall people stomp on short people, they're "defending society against commie oddballs". When short people try to survive, they have a COMPLEX.
Even the definition of normal survival is stacked against low-status people. You're not entitled to survive. If you try, you're crazy by definition.
BBC is mentioning one of those stupid game-theory studies exploring the natural tendency of short men to fight harder. Is the so-called Napoleon Complex real?
Of course it's real.
I hadn't thought about the term itself until now. Even the name given BY TALL PEOPLE to the phenomenon shows WHY short people have to fight harder.
When tall people stomp on short people, they're "defending society against commie oddballs". When short people try to survive, they have a COMPLEX.
Even the definition of normal survival is stacked against low-status people. You're not entitled to survive. If you try, you're crazy by definition.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, malign misattribution
¶ 3:04 AM
Slideoleth
How can you tell when an author knows nothing of history?
Article at Catholic World Report starts with this picture:
I suppose it's one of those Stock Images, but still(heh) you should know the difference if you're going to write about old movies.
Is the article better than the image? Nope, far worse. The author is recommending a return to the 1930 Roman code for movies, which idolized Genocidal Madman Lincoln and encouraged people to be perfect useful idiots. Serve Deepstate with all your heart. Never question the authority of Experts.
Precode movies were more realistic and offered better practical guidance about dealing with life.
I suppose it's one of those Stock Images, but still(heh) you should know the difference if you're going to write about old movies.
Is the article better than the image? Nope, far worse. The author is recommending a return to the 1930 Roman code for movies, which idolized Genocidal Madman Lincoln and encouraged people to be perfect useful idiots. Serve Deepstate with all your heart. Never question the authority of Experts.
Precode movies were more realistic and offered better practical guidance about dealing with life. Labels: infinite evil, Leth
¶ 12:52 AM
Friday, May 11, 2018
Fastest storm ever
Convective for damn sure:
A sudden burst of heavy rain caught me by surprise. I hadn't been watching the radar and wasn't thinking about rain. The surprise was doubled because the ROAR of rain started at the same moment when I was peeing. Wasn't sure which water sound was which. After I zipped up and opened the front door to check, I saw the heavy rain for a moment, and then it stopped. That's all.
Two minutes from sun to sun.
If I'd been pooping instead of peeing, I would have missed the whole thing.
¶ 4:17 PM
Unnecessary caution
Apparently Google has improved voice synthesis to the point where it's really hard to distinguish from an actual human. Google pretends to be worried about this, and "independent" "thinkers" are even more worried because RUSSIAN_BOTS caused OUR LORDESS AND SAVIOURESS HILLARY to lose the 2016 election which was HERS BY DIVINE RIGHT.
Google pretends that it will respond to their fake concerns by including a warning that the voice is electronic.
Unnecessary caution. You can already distinguish calls made by call centers. Whether the voice is software American or wetware Hindu, there's always a four-second 'hissy' pause before the voice starts, followed by an audible click. On the rare occasions when I have my phone bell turned on, this four-second pause gives me plenty of time to hang up before the spiel starts.
¶ 3:33 PM
Se-lu 24, tweaker edition
I'm always jabbering about how CIVILIZATION has channels for each non-criminal talent and skill, and provides a sense of USEFULNESS for useful skills. We no longer do it. We honor and pay for crime and murder and hyperlunatic delusions leading to genocide.
Here's a beautiful example of lost skills. This youtuber films the tweakers who inhabit his neighborhood and turns the clips into entertainment.
This clip has a nicely appropriate sound track, but if you LOOSEN YOUR TEMPLATE and decide to stop being entertained, you see something entirely different.
'Norma' is a natural organizer. She would be a good housewife or housekeeper or stock clerk. Even while organizing street litter with no purpose, every move is careful and constructive and efficient. She tries to make each item clean and neat and useful, and leaves the sidewalk clean.
CIVILIZATION would find a way to develop and pay and respect her talents. We no longer have CIVILIZATION, so her talent is only serving to entertain snotty dickheads like me.
= = = = =
Note for clarity: I'm NOT criticizing or blaming the clipmaker. When you've got entertainment like this available, you might as well use it. I'm criticizing the uncivilized setup that rejects and ruins the GOD-GIVEN gifts of unfashionable people.
Labels: se-lu, skill-estate
¶ 8:04 AM
A bit of courage in the tech world!
In earlier decades tech types were often at odds with Deepstate warmaking myths. For instance, electronics types and radio hams had a more realistic view of Russia during the first cold war because we talked with real Russians and knew something about the workings of Russian industry and academia. Engineers are familiar with real Persians and Arabs because lots of real Persians and Arabs study engineering here and stay to work in the oil industry.
This reality-based heresy has been silenced recently, as techies are leading the RUSSIAN_MEDDLING pogrom and cheerfully helping to obliterate both Russia and Persia.
Here's a rare exception, a caution against myths from the TechDirt website.
Background:
Persia's black-robed demons banned the Telegram social media service. Rouhani publicly disowned the ban, saying it's counterproductive.
TechDirt:
The reaction to these bans has, unfortunately, largely been of the shrugging variety. The reputations of Russia and Iran in America being what they are, some of it undeserved, many simply waved this away as authoritarian regimes doing what authoritarian regimes do. With perhaps a dash of Islamophobia mixed in when it comes to Iran, care for the impact on the people there appears to have gone out the window, too. After all, the Supreme Leader chose to block the app, so what is anyone to do? Well, it seems that, counter to the misconceptions many might have about the way Iran works, President Hassan Rouhani has come out criticizing the block on the app, saying both that he had nothing to do with it and that he disagrees with the move. And perhaps more practical than ideological, too. Rouhani had a front row seat to the Arab Spring that occurred in recent years in several countries in Persian and Arab nations. He saw first hand what happened when governments attempted to stave off dissent by clamping down on internet communication tools in this sort of heavy-handed way. I imagine he probably doesn't want his own country to repeat these mistakes.BRAVO for a return to the old tech realism. ¶ 12:52 AM
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Constants and variables 91, MYOB NYOB edition
New Yorkers have been a source of evil since the start. Always globalist, always imperialist, always genocidal, always using theories to smash reality. These satanic qualities have remained constant for 400 years through a variety of ethnic and religious supervisors. First Dutch, then Anglican, then Presbyterian, then Catholic, then Jewish, now trending toward Hindu.
What is the measurement of a New Yorker? How can you spot a New Yorker immediately?
In other words, what is the NYoleth?
Humans are localist and modular. MYOB and MMOB. You mind your own business and I'll mind my own business.
New Yorkers are globalist. A New Yorker is always minding YOUR business. Your thoughts are not permissible until they are identical with NY thoughts. Your goals are criminal unless they serve NY goals. This is the source of imperialism and globalism and neoconism, variable names for the same NY devil.
To a New Yorker, humans are ungulates. Beasts of burden with no soul. Humans are oxen to be harnessed and then slaughtered, cows to be milked and then slaughtered, sheep to be fleeced and then slaughtered. Variable metaphors, constant ungulate.
In short,
Humans use MYOB.
New Yorkers use NYOB.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Constants and Variables, Leth
¶ 11:56 PM
Neighborhood note
Speaking of 'pay the two dollars'....
My morning walk was a little long, covering a block I hadn't seen recently. Three nice houses in a row are occupied by people with enough money to buy new cars. The houses look almost abandoned. Back yards are full of windblown branches and furniture, front yards unmowed, sprinklers and hoses out in the same position through several winters. It's an odd combination, denoting a careless attitude toward money, or perhaps living entirely on credit.
As I was thinking about this I noticed money in the street. A new one and five, not play money, just sitting there near a trash bin. Is the trash bin a cash bin?
Careless attitude toward money for damn sure.
When I was young and broke, I would have treated those bills as a godsend. Now that I'm old and stiff and secure, they're just an interesting observation.
Later thought: Fancy new cars + no maintenance + cash floating around = drug sales. I didn't put it together at first.
Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 7:37 AM
Fantastically stupid
LifeNews complains about a Canadian pro-abortion policy. The government wants churches to participate in a summer youth jobs program, but requires the churches to support abortion in order to get the funds.
A coalition of ALL major religions: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu ... spent lots of money and energy trying to get the government to change the policy. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THIS IS FUTILE. EVERYONE KNOWS WHICH TEAM THE GOVERNMENT IS ON.
Fantastically stupid. You have enough money and power to lobby the government, and you have jobs for yoots, and you have a coalition working toward a purpose. If that doesn't suggest an alternate solution, you're beyond help.
Stupid in the same way as the "religious freedom" case that reached the Supreme Demons last year. A Lutheran school wanted a government tax credit for playground improvements but didn't get it. After tremendous expenditure of time and money, the black-robed demons decided that this one school should have received the subsidy, but carefully limited the decision so it didn't have any other consequences.
We need to review the old vaudeville routine. Pay the two dollars. There is NO WAY IN HELL you're going to win by WORKING IN HELL. Let Satan be Satan. If you have money, use it to DO YOUR FUCKING GOD-ASSIGNED DUTY instead of enriching lawyerdemons and increasing Satan's power.
Begging for your "rights" is WORSE THAN WASTEFUL because "rights" DO NOT EXIST. From the fucking start, the SOLE PURPOSE of the "rights" racket is to weaken and divide and debilitate normal humans so the NYC hypermonsters can have all the power and all the wealth.
Labels: From rights to duties
¶ 3:19 AM
Best example of all
Convective thought. No matter where you look in life, you find that "random" mutation couldn't possibly lead to the results we actually have. There are millions of EASY examples of "can't have A without B, can't have B without A" and billions of subtle examples.
The most blatant example of all is the DNA-correcting machines that constantly run up and down the chromosomes in every living cell, checking both sides of the helix against each other and correcting errors.
If mutations drive "evolution", and "evolution" constantly works toward improving fitness, why would "evolution" evolve a machine that halts "evolution"?
How did those machines get developed and perfected through mutations? The whole point of the machine is to eliminate mutations. After the machine started running, mutations were prevented from acting on the cell, INCLUDING the machine.
If natural selection is the editing mechanism of "evolution", why did natural selection select a machine that takes the place of natural selection?
Labels: Grand Blueprint
¶ 12:38 AM
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
Mahathir is back!
A perfect V-day gift to the world! Mahathir wins Malaysia!
Two gains for God's side in one day. Unlike Armenia, this is DEFINITE AND BIG. Mahathir is an old anti-Satan warrior, one of the few truly wise and sane men in this fucked-up world. He kicked out the Sorosian money-changers once before, then later lost an election.
I'm giving Malaysia a beacon on the Soros vs God map. (Yeah, it looks more like a scorpion, but you get the idea.)
Time to reprint this 2012 item instead of just linking it.
= = = = = START REPRINT:
Excellent BBC interview with Mahathir Mohamed, former PM of Malaysia. He's trying to tell Euro and US how to recover from our economic death spiral. He speaks from a more or less Islamic worldview, but basically he's just telling us to return to the pre-1980 way of doing things.
Partial transcription, with some editing of unclear phrases:
Host: Why do you think Asia has managed to weather the financial storm so much better than its Western rivals?
MM: In Asia we are still doing real business. In the West you are not doing real business, in the sense of providing goods and services. You are dealing mostly in the financial market which is not doing anything productive. It is just a kind of gambling.
Host: So can the West learn anything from how Asia built up its economy?
MM: Asia was a poor part of the world in the past and we used to live as poor people. Slowly we are building up our wealth and now we are much better off. In Europe now, as a result of these bursting bubbles, you have lost a lot of wealth, and now you must be poorer relative to the past. In Asia we live within our means. When we are poor we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson you can learn from Asia.
Host: So what should Europe do?
MM: You should go back to doing real business. Producing goods, providing services, trading, not just moving figures in bankbooks.
Host: Well, people who work in the financial sector would argue that they are providing a valuable service to business.
MM: I don't think so. They are just abusing the system in order to make money for themselves. They do not generate jobs or businesses. For instance, currency trading moves 4 trillion dollars a day. This is about the same as Germany's GDP for a year. Currency trading does not generate any jobs, so it is not productive.
Host: Currency trading has been a big issue for you. You famously pegged the Malaysian currency to stop the speculators.
MM: Currency is not a commodity. When you deal in coffee, coffee is something you can drink. You can grind it up and turn it into a useful drink. Currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books, and you can't trade with figures. There must be something solid [bangs his fist on the table for solidity!] to trade. Then you can legitimately make money.
Host: Should we stop having floating exchange rates?
MM: Well, floating is fine but it is not just floating by itself. Some people are manipulating it, by shortselling for example. If you keep on selling a currency that will depress the price, and if you keep on buying that will raise the price. So you can take a profit at any time just by moving up or down.
Host: So how do we stop this speculation?
MM: The idea that the market can regulate itself is quite wrong, because the market is about making profits for themselves. They don't care what happens to other people. They impoverish whole countries [as Soros did to Malaysia] and lots of people suffer.
Host: You think there should be regulation?
MM: Yes. I believe currency trading has no function at all. Of course you have to exchange currency to have trade, but pure speculation should be stopped.
Host: Coming back to Europe's predicament. How difficult a situation is Europe in now?
MM: In the first place you are in a state of denial. You refuse to acknowledge that you have lost money and therefore you are poor. You can't remedy that by printing money. Money isn't something that you just print. Money must be backed up by something, and gold is probably the best backup.
Host: How long will it take for Europe to get out of this?
MM: It will take a long time. To recover your wealth, first you have to work for many years to rebuild your capacity to produce goods and services to sell to the world. You cannot expect to live at this level of wealth when you are not producing anything.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
A perfect V-day gift to the world! Mahathir wins Malaysia!
Two gains for God's side in one day. Unlike Armenia, this is DEFINITE AND BIG. Mahathir is an old anti-Satan warrior, one of the few truly wise and sane men in this fucked-up world. He kicked out the Sorosian money-changers once before, then later lost an election.
I'm giving Malaysia a beacon on the Soros vs God map. (Yeah, it looks more like a scorpion, but you get the idea.)
Time to reprint this 2012 item instead of just linking it.
= = = = = START REPRINT:
Excellent BBC interview with Mahathir Mohamed, former PM of Malaysia. He's trying to tell Euro and US how to recover from our economic death spiral. He speaks from a more or less Islamic worldview, but basically he's just telling us to return to the pre-1980 way of doing things.
Partial transcription, with some editing of unclear phrases:
Host: Why do you think Asia has managed to weather the financial storm so much better than its Western rivals?
MM: In Asia we are still doing real business. In the West you are not doing real business, in the sense of providing goods and services. You are dealing mostly in the financial market which is not doing anything productive. It is just a kind of gambling.
Host: So can the West learn anything from how Asia built up its economy?
MM: Asia was a poor part of the world in the past and we used to live as poor people. Slowly we are building up our wealth and now we are much better off. In Europe now, as a result of these bursting bubbles, you have lost a lot of wealth, and now you must be poorer relative to the past. In Asia we live within our means. When we are poor we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson you can learn from Asia.
Host: So what should Europe do?
MM: You should go back to doing real business. Producing goods, providing services, trading, not just moving figures in bankbooks.
Host: Well, people who work in the financial sector would argue that they are providing a valuable service to business.
MM: I don't think so. They are just abusing the system in order to make money for themselves. They do not generate jobs or businesses. For instance, currency trading moves 4 trillion dollars a day. This is about the same as Germany's GDP for a year. Currency trading does not generate any jobs, so it is not productive.
Host: Currency trading has been a big issue for you. You famously pegged the Malaysian currency to stop the speculators.
MM: Currency is not a commodity. When you deal in coffee, coffee is something you can drink. You can grind it up and turn it into a useful drink. Currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books, and you can't trade with figures. There must be something solid [bangs his fist on the table for solidity!] to trade. Then you can legitimately make money.
Host: Should we stop having floating exchange rates?
MM: Well, floating is fine but it is not just floating by itself. Some people are manipulating it, by shortselling for example. If you keep on selling a currency that will depress the price, and if you keep on buying that will raise the price. So you can take a profit at any time just by moving up or down.
Host: So how do we stop this speculation?
MM: The idea that the market can regulate itself is quite wrong, because the market is about making profits for themselves. They don't care what happens to other people. They impoverish whole countries [as Soros did to Malaysia] and lots of people suffer.
Host: You think there should be regulation?
MM: Yes. I believe currency trading has no function at all. Of course you have to exchange currency to have trade, but pure speculation should be stopped.
Host: Coming back to Europe's predicament. How difficult a situation is Europe in now?
MM: In the first place you are in a state of denial. You refuse to acknowledge that you have lost money and therefore you are poor. You can't remedy that by printing money. Money isn't something that you just print. Money must be backed up by something, and gold is probably the best backup.
Host: How long will it take for Europe to get out of this?
MM: It will take a long time. To recover your wealth, first you have to work for many years to rebuild your capacity to produce goods and services to sell to the world. You cannot expect to live at this level of wealth when you are not producing anything.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, Sorosia
¶ 3:04 PM
Happy V-day!
Polistra and friends decided to get flashy this year.
Previous V-day items: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.
Previous V-day items: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.Labels: Zero Problems, Гром победы
¶ 1:16 AM
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Positive sign in Armenia /// EDIT: NO. THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
Armenia had plenty of Soroprotests leading up to an election, and it looked like a repeat of Ukraine's Soros revolution. In that case the protests led to a pure Soros (ie ACTUAL NAZI) government.
This time the revolution fizzled, and the newly elected leader from the opposition party has reaffirmed linkage with Russia. Good. One NON-VICTORY for the Soros side.
This might be a little premature, but it's been a long time since I've been able to add a green spot (moving away from Soros) to the map. (Armenia is the dot at the NE corner of Turkey.)
Sidenote for clarity: Though I like to describe it as God vs Satan, this map is more limited and specific. Countries that have rejected revolutions sponsored by Soros, or rejected Soros NGOs, get the green. Countries that welcome Soros revolutions or NGOs get the lavender. Some of the rejectors (eg England, Spain, Israel) are generally on Satan's side, but nevertheless they had the courage to kick out the Soros mob, so they deserve recognition.
= = = = =
CORRECTION June 11: I was wrong about the new leader. The voice of Satan officially cheers the new leader, so the map needs to be revised. Armenia is pure Satan after all.
This might be a little premature, but it's been a long time since I've been able to add a green spot (moving away from Soros) to the map. (Armenia is the dot at the NE corner of Turkey.)
Sidenote for clarity: Though I like to describe it as God vs Satan, this map is more limited and specific. Countries that have rejected revolutions sponsored by Soros, or rejected Soros NGOs, get the green. Countries that welcome Soros revolutions or NGOs get the lavender. Some of the rejectors (eg England, Spain, Israel) are generally on Satan's side, but nevertheless they had the courage to kick out the Soros mob, so they deserve recognition.
= = = = =
CORRECTION June 11: I was wrong about the new leader. The voice of Satan officially cheers the new leader, so the map needs to be revised. Armenia is pure Satan after all.
Labels: Гром победы
¶ 11:37 PM
Where's Walker Percy when you need him?
Via Spokane-News:
This is exactly the dystopia Percy predicted in 'Love in the Ruins'.
On the positive side, she's probably safe from Schneiderman and Weinstein.
¶ 8:11 AM
This is exactly the dystopia Percy predicted in 'Love in the Ruins'.
On the positive side, she's probably safe from Schneiderman and Weinstein.
¶ 8:11 AM
Make America Grotesque Again
President Clinton is breaking a treaty. Not all that surprising, since breaking treaties is what we do. We make a treaty, let the victim relax, then break the treaty and KILL.
In this case we probably aren't going to attack, because Persia has already locked itself into the Silk Road alliance, AND solidly linked with Euro countries. We don't have any assistant bullies for this attack, and we know that the sane side of the world is tremendously larger in population and equally well-armed with nukes.
This move doesn't help any Americans except defense contractors. This specifically hurts Boeing, and hurts oil companies that were counting on Persian crude, and hurts American agriculture that could have found a new market for wheat and beef.
So what's the point?
The point is obeying Israel and Saudi. Israel and Saudi are the executive branch of USA STRONG. The puppet labeled as "president" is just the ugly receptionist for Israel and Saudi.
= = = = =
Later: BibiDonald's actual speech was even worse than the anticipation.
BUT: Germany is firmly and stoutly REBELLING against BibiDonald on this issue.
There's hardly an issue on which there is more consensus in German politics than the Iran nuclear deal. From the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the Left Party, no one in the country shares the US president's skepticism about the 2015 agreement — at least not to the point of scrapping it. Germany and Iran have traditionally enjoyed close relations, and Germans have often sought to mediate in conflicts between Tehran, its neighbors, and the rest of the world. ... No one in Germany believes that the agreement is perfect, but the consensus is that the deal is better than nothing, as the country's most prominent Iranian-German politician underlines. Green party member of the Bundestag Omid Nouripour was born in Tehran. He stresses importance of the deal for Germany's domestic security. "No deal means no inspections, and no inspections is the best way for Iran to get the bomb on a fast track. ... But if they do not stay in the deal, it's our job as Europeans and signatories to try everything we can to keep the deal, together with the Chinese and the Russians. It's one of the bad side-effects of what Trump is doing: Pushing us into the arms of the Chinese and the Russians."As I said, no assistant bullies. It's Bibi and his same-sex "spouse" Donnie against ALL the sane world, and now the sane world is even more firmly aligned against Mr and Mr Netanyahu.
Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite evil
¶ 7:58 AM
Monday, May 07, 2018
Interesting development
Arirang reports an early-stage experiment by Korean researchers. The Center for Molecular Spectroscopy is working on ways to image internal organs with ordinary light, not X-rays or magnetic waves. They have succeeded in looking through a mouse's skull.
This latest research isn't available online yet, but an earlier paper describes the technique. It's a variation of beamforming.
Visible light, even coherent laser light, doesn't work well for imaging because tissue scatters the light. Higher frequency X-rays can penetrate better because the waves are smaller than the atoms. But the higher frequency brings with it higher energy, which can push atoms around and cause tissue damage.
These Koreans have found a trick that basically tunes in the part of the light that enters and reflects in a straight line without scattering. The trick depends on a tiny grid with even tinier pixels.
Start with a visible laser. Pass the laser light through a beam splitter. One part goes directly to half of the pixels in the grid, evenly distributed. The other split part is phase-shifted. This phase-shifted beam goes to the other half of the pixels. The output is something like a checkerboard, except that the red and black squares are different phases instead of different colors.
The neighboring pixels are small enough that they interfere with each other as they pass into the target. By changing the phase of the 'black squares', it's possible to find an interference pattern that reflects from the target more than it scatters.
¶ 1:10 AM
Blast from the past
FDR, August 24, 1939. Message to King of Italy.
We in America, having welded a homogeneous nation out of many nationalities, often find it difficult to visualize the animosities which so often have created crises among nations of Europe which are smaller than ours in population and in territory, but we accept the fact that these nations have an absolute right to maintain their national independence if they so desire. If that be sound doctrine then it must apply to the weaker nations as well as to the stronger.
Acceptance of this means peace, because fear of aggression ends. The alternative, which means of necessity efforts by the strong to dominate the weak, will lead not only to war, but to long future years of oppression on the part of victors and to rebellion on the part of the vanquished. So history teaches us.
The facts are constant. Only the names have changed to slaughter the innocent.
This applies to modern external Hitlers like Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump. This applies to internal Hitlers like James Poulos. And it applies to all-consuming universe-obliterating Hitlers like Soros and Bezos.
Victors never reach the goal of total control. It works for a while, but sooner or later you're spending all of your riches and power fighting off the rebellious oppressed. There's always a Russia that refuses to be conquered, or a Deplorable who refuses to jump off the bridge.
Insatiables are insatiable. The bad part: Insatiables don't recognize limits to their own power and wealth. The good part: Insatiables ALSO don't see boundaries on their ability to steal labor from Deplorables and gold from the ground and debt from Goldman's digital printing presses. Reality clamps limits on the resource end LONG before the Insatiable can reach the limit of the power end. Tanh always defeats Exp.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, constants and constants, Гром победы
¶ 12:10 AM
Sunday, May 06, 2018
This time the enviros are right.
Enviros are lethally genocidally wrong 99% of the time. They waste trillions of dollars and kill millions of people to satisfy their murderous Carbon Cult. Meanwhile the poor old earth is TRYING TO TELL US that the warming phase is coming from INSIDE, as in magma and volcanos.
Aside from the totally non-polluting CO2, most organic "pollutants" are not worth the trouble of eradicating. Sulphur and nitrogen compounds can be harmful in sudden large quantities, but smaller amounts wash out and react out.
BUT: Serious REAL POLLUTION does exist, and real pollution is harmful. The worst real pollution is lead and other heavy metals, which are unremovable from living things.
So far Pruitt's EPA isn't slowing down the Carbon Cult, but unfortunately Pruitt is slowing down the regulation of REAL POLLUTION.
Via KHQ:
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Washington state officials say they'll look for money to monitor air quality downwind of a Canadian smelter after federal regulators declined to restart the testing. The Spokesman-Review reports that residents petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to install air monitors in Northport, about 20 miles south of a lead and zinc smelter. State modeling showed that Teck Resources Ltd.'s smelter could be sending high airborne levels of arsenic and lead over the border. The Ecology Department said heavy metals wouldn't pose a short-term risk to area residents but long-term inhalation could increase cancer risks. Air quality monitoring hasn't been conducted on the Washington side of the border since 2009. Local health officials also support the monitoring. But EPA officials disagree that additional monitoring is needed. They say the risk from outdoor air is low.Misplaced deregulation.
Labels: Carbon Cult, Nonzero problems
¶ 4:48 PM
Not me
In the back-and-forth about the RUSSIAN_MEDDLING witch-hunt, the D side accuses Rs of hypocrisy for approving the BENGHAZI witch-hunt but hating the RUSSIAN_MEDDLING witch-hunt. Fair charge. Both of these witch-hunts are equally evil and brainless. The RUSSIAN_MEDDLING crap is running with the Deepstate and media tailwind, while the BENGHAZI crap was running against the media wind, so got no media coverage.
I'm not R, and I'm CERTAINLY not a hypocrite on this particular issue. Other issues, yes.
I've been HAMMERING on the BENGHAZI crap for exactly five years, starting here. If you type Benghazi in the little search box above the blog, you'll see the sequence. The search misses a few items where I used the GIF without putting the word in text. Near as I can tell from a more detailed archive search, I've hit the BENGHAZI nonsense 24 times in 5 years.
Earliest version of the GIF:
¶ 1:07 AM
¶ 1:07 AM
Saturday, May 05, 2018
Irresistible image
This week I'm working on a courseware chapter about the cerebellum. Making animations forces me to (partly!) learn what's going on. In the brainstem and cortex, we have a fairly good sense of how things work, partly because the cortex is divided into visible sections with specific functions. The cerebellum is more mysterious, partly because it's not neatly modular and partly because its function seems to depend on waves and resonance.
= = = = =
The cortex has folds on its surface that correspond closely to areas of function. You can see the sensory strip, the motor strip, the speech reception area, and so on, as hills or bumps.
= = = = =
The cerebellum just has uniform unmarked folds, called folia or pages. One folium is lined in green.
= = = = =
Here's a super-simplified piece of one folium:
The main players are the granule cells (blue) and the Purkinje cells (purple).
Granule cells (blue) are small, simple and NUMEROUS, making up 80% of ALL the neurons in the WHOLE brain. They are scattered densely through the interior of the cerebellum. Each granule cell picks up signals from the input mossy fibers (green). Most of the input is from the body via the spine; some is from eyes, ears, balance mechanisms, and cortex. The output of each granule cell splits into a T-shaped parallel fiber, which runs along the length of the folium. These parallel fibers are densely packed along the surface of the cerebellum.
Purkinje cells (purple) are the receivers. They're BIG and relatively sparse, and gridded in a tight layer underneath the parallel fibers. They pick up signals from the parallel fibers, do something with the signals, and send the processed or sorted signals back down to the spine to drive muscles.
= = = = =
Given that the granules are known to be resonant senders of modulated pulses, this image is irresistible:
Here the resonant dipole sending antenna (parallel fibers) is producing a tuned signal, and Polistra (Purkinje) is tuning her receiver to pick up this particular sender. In the real world, as in the real cerebellum, there are many sending antennas and many receivers, each seeking out its desired signal.
Pulling the metaphor to the breaking point: Since the transmitting parallel fibers are along the surface of the cerebellum, are they also transmitting externally to other brains? And past the breaking point, power of prayer? These neurons do a whole lot of monostable and astable multivibrator activity. When internal sync is gone, can external input resync?
= = = = =
The cerebellum just has uniform unmarked folds, called folia or pages. One folium is lined in green.
= = = = =
Here's a super-simplified piece of one folium:
The main players are the granule cells (blue) and the Purkinje cells (purple).
Granule cells (blue) are small, simple and NUMEROUS, making up 80% of ALL the neurons in the WHOLE brain. They are scattered densely through the interior of the cerebellum. Each granule cell picks up signals from the input mossy fibers (green). Most of the input is from the body via the spine; some is from eyes, ears, balance mechanisms, and cortex. The output of each granule cell splits into a T-shaped parallel fiber, which runs along the length of the folium. These parallel fibers are densely packed along the surface of the cerebellum.
Purkinje cells (purple) are the receivers. They're BIG and relatively sparse, and gridded in a tight layer underneath the parallel fibers. They pick up signals from the parallel fibers, do something with the signals, and send the processed or sorted signals back down to the spine to drive muscles.
= = = = =
Given that the granules are known to be resonant senders of modulated pulses, this image is irresistible:
Here the resonant dipole sending antenna (parallel fibers) is producing a tuned signal, and Polistra (Purkinje) is tuning her receiver to pick up this particular sender. In the real world, as in the real cerebellum, there are many sending antennas and many receivers, each seeking out its desired signal.
Pulling the metaphor to the breaking point: Since the transmitting parallel fibers are along the surface of the cerebellum, are they also transmitting externally to other brains? And past the breaking point, power of prayer? These neurons do a whole lot of monostable and astable multivibrator activity. When internal sync is gone, can external input resync?
Labels: Asked and unanswered, Grand Blueprint
¶ 7:47 AM
Friday, May 04, 2018
Who's the Darwinian 2
As usual, BBC's non-news departments know how to write a true and objective article, even while their "news" departments are vending genocidal hallucinations. This time it's an article on forming and spreading new words.
The researcher behind the study, Jack Grieve at the University of Birmingham, analysed more than 980 million Tweets in total – consisting of 8.9 billion words – posted between October 2013 and November 2014, and spanning 3,075 of the 3,108 US counties. From this huge dataset, Grieve first identified any terms that were rare at the beginning of the study (occurring less than once per billion words in the last quarter of 2013) but which had then steadily risen in popularity over the course of the following year. ... Once again, the greatest creativity appeared to arise in the regions with the largest African American populations.The author gets EVERYTHING right, unlike most writers or commenters on word formation. New words and syntax always come from the proles. In England it's the Cockneys, not the nobles. In America it's the blacks, not the Ivy League academics. Why? When you're immersed in a culture of personal connections, dealing directly with harsh reality, you need to describe new situations accurately. When you're immersed in an arid desert of pure orthodox verbal doctrine and theory, you need to adhere rigidly to the verbal formulas of the rigid doctrine.
Labels: Answered better than asked
¶ 11:51 PM
Who's the Darwinian 1
Linked via RCS:
In new research, however, Ivan Nagelkerken, a marine ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, found that when he exposed captive barramundi larvae to acidified water, the fish fled from safe sounds and gravitated toward unsafe ones, a change that could have lethal consequences for wild fish. Nagelkerken already knew from existing research that some fish, including the barramundi and clownfish, appear to change their preferences for sights and smells when exposed to acidified water, but he didn’t know the exact mechanism driving the apparent sensory impairment. He also didn’t know if acidification affected the fish’s hearing in the same way. If barramundi could still decipher danger by sound, they might still thrive in a changing ocean.Normally a Darwinist would assume that a consistent change of behavior in different surroundings is adaptive. If these fish consistently alter their bias toward various sounds when the water is acidic, the alteration must have "evolved" to help them survive among the different set of plants and animals that are found in the acidic water. But not here! Why? Darwin is a recessive gene. All other explanations fade out when GODDESS GAIA demands to be obeyed. The fish behavior can't possibly be adaptive. The fish are DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED BY GLOBAL WARMING TRUMP RUSSIAN TROLL DENIER HERETIC TRUMP HITLER KKK TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP. And now I'm the true Darwinian. I'm using a VALID evolutionary explanation for the altered behavior of scientists when immersed in Gaian grant-water. They pursue Gaian hypotheses because they have "evolved", through tenure selection, to seek the biggest grants.
Labels: Answered better than asked
¶ 11:13 PM
