Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Snow scene
First real snow of the season today, about 5 inches. "Weather" bureau fucked up as usual, predicting less than one inch. Greta says we're BURNING, so we can't possibly have snow. "City" dysgovernment fucked up as usual, failing to plow.
Despite the fuckups, a proper family-style snow scene just passed by. A happy train: dog pulling dad, dad pulling kid on sled, everyone enjoying the run.
Labels: defensible times, Heimatkunde
¶ 9:49 AM
Leaders shouldn't be puzzles.
I went back and looked at what I've written about Tulsi. No less than 17 items, a rough road of hills and valleys, a tangled struggle with yes and no. That's better! That's worse! Bye, Tulsi! Hi, Tulsi! DO YOUR FUCKING JOB, TULSI!
Summing up, a leader must be a DECIDER. A leader shouldn't be a philosophical puzzle. A leader is supposed to LEAD. A leader is supposed to present a CLEAR set of principles and a CLEAR set of actions that IMPLEMENT THE PRINCIPLES.
Tulsi offers ONE clear principle, which is the most important principle right now. STOP WAR. Because she's currently in Congress, she has the opportunity to show how her DECISIONS implement the principle. But she fails. She has voted for war more often than against; and her vote on impeachment was an intentional NON-DECISION. Powerless people can and should refuse to participate in fake decisions. Powerful people must DECIDE. If she thought impeachment was a bad idea, the only correct DECISION was to vote against impeachment, not to stay neutral.
¶ 1:25 AM
Yet more Thiel questions
Expanding and probably loosening the Thiel question yet again.
Thiel's evocative original: "Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on."
Loosened: Something that's true that almost nobody else seems to know.
Real-world math is a common thread in these.
1. Math fails to deal with thresholds, which are a vital and universal fact of life in everything from neurons to shrinkflation.
2. Not a fact but a plausible hypothesis that works better than the usual. Cooking started with fermented barley, not with grassfires in the Sabertooth Savannah.
3. Also related to barley, the crucial importance of storage.
4. Debunked the tiresome Tocqueville quote about voters and largesse. (This fits the strict Thiel standard.)
5. Georg Ohm's original idea about heat and electricity turns out to be more correct than the usual metaphors.
6. There is a sharp demographic breakpoint at age 46. People who live hard and fast die at 46.
7. Counting votes by hand isn't slow. In practice it beats electronic counting. The reason for the Electoral College was to make cheating easier, not to compensate for "slow" counting. The reason we're switching to electronic counting is to make cheating easier, not to speed up the count.
8. The only externally observable evidence of awareness is REM sleep, so vertebrates and cephalopods are the only known and proven owners of consciousness. (Tacked this on after mentioning it in another item. This blatantly obvious piece of logic MUST be understood by others, but I've never read it anywhere else, so I'm going to claim it as unique for now.)
Labels: Real World Math, storage
¶ 12:33 AM
Monday, December 30, 2019
Gets it right as usual
I'm constantly disgusted with independents and leftists who think they can use "international law" and UN resolutions to battle Deepstate. Some of these independents are just naive and unrealistic, others may be APs working to neuter the side.
As usual, one of the writers at Strategic-Culture gets it right, focusing on Natural Law instead of "international law", and recognizing that "international law" is just as bad as federal "courts", fully owned and operated by NYC.
He's discussing Mexico and Argentina giving refuge to Morales after our coup:
The coup regime, fearing a groundswell of popular support for Morales and his party, and seeking to detain potential candidates from the MAS leadership who might run in the new elections promised to take place a few months from now, demanded that Mexico hand over the officials (about 20 at the end of November) who had taken refuge in its embassy. They are being pursued on specious charges of “terrorism and corruption,” also fully consistent with the color revolution playbook. President Lopez Obrador very pointedly condemned the conduct of the lawless Bolivian coup authorities as “something that it would not have occurred even to Pinochet to do.” In Latin American terms, it should be pointed out, the terminology to which the Mexican President resorted is anything but hyperbole. Latin American countries have a long history of coups and revolutions and, quite apart from the prescriptions of the relatively recently adopted (1969) Vienna Convention, they have a lengthy tradition of respecting each other’s diplomatic premises as places of refuge where today’s rulers may end up seeking shelter tomorrow. The siege of Mexico’s diplomatic mission in La Paz is therefore doubly obnoxious. It is a crude infringement of a positive norm of international law, but at the same time also violates a deeply ingrained Latin American tradition.Real law, not artificial "law". Real law can't be changed arbitrarily by Deepstate's "lawyers" because it's written in our genes by God. Mexico's response is based on foolish trust in written "law", thus guaranteed to fail:
Mexico will file suit at the International Court of Justice to seek a cease and desist order against the Bolivian authorities. To which the coup regime “interior minister” Arturo Murillo laconically responded: “See you in court.”Evo's crucial mistake was failing to jail or execute his opponents, and failing to buy a few dozen nukes. AMLO may be heading down the same road with his ethereal trust in written "laws".
Labels: From rights to duties
¶ 2:04 PM
Important move
Germany and Russia have OFFICIALLY agreed to keep the NordStream pipeline project going, IGNORING Trump's idiotic and self-destructive war.
Nobody ever asks questions about PURPOSE. When we make war, all of our Satanic politicians and media monsters agree with whatever bizarre nonsense the dysgovernment emits. Nobody asks
WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO DO?
IS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE?
WHAT DO WE HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WHEN IT'S DONE?
WHAT WILL ACTUALLY HAPPEN WHEN IT'S DONE?
All of our wars since 1945 would have been prevented by asking those questions.
Specifically for blockades: In 1960 when we started the blockade against Cuba, we had some reason to think that it would achieve the desired results. Castro proved us wrong, and EVERY SINGLE BLOCKADE SINCE THEN has gone the same way.
Blockades force victim nations to develop their own skills and resources, and force them firmly into alignment with our adversaries.
There was a brief exception in the '90s when Soros had killed Russia. For a few years our blockade of Cuba was sort of halfway working. Cuba had already developed its own resources, but Russia was too poor to buy Cuban exports. After Putin heroically kicked out Soros and brought Russia back from the dead, the exception stopped.
Labels: skill-estate, Sorosia
¶ 1:36 AM
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Asked and answered
A nice asked-answered pair in the email this morning:
Also, by this point it's abundantly clear that Tulsi doesn't intend to win, doesn't intend to GET SHIT DONE. A campaigner who seriously intended to GET SHIT DONE would have quit two months ago, to stop wasting her own time and the money of her customers. GETTING SHIT DONE requires selective effort.
What is she doing? Maybe just gathering money, or maybe Pied Pipering the antiwar dissidents. When people are being attracted and organized toward a PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL, the smell of Agent Provocateur starts to emerge.
Also, by this point it's abundantly clear that Tulsi doesn't intend to win, doesn't intend to GET SHIT DONE. A campaigner who seriously intended to GET SHIT DONE would have quit two months ago, to stop wasting her own time and the money of her customers. GETTING SHIT DONE requires selective effort.
What is she doing? Maybe just gathering money, or maybe Pied Pipering the antiwar dissidents. When people are being attracted and organized toward a PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL, the smell of Agent Provocateur starts to emerge.Labels: #HowToAdult, Askedanswered, Jail mode
¶ 11:29 PM
Great Smith again
Following up on the item about the Great Smith, a surprisingly advanced car invented and made in Topeka.
Needless to say, I had to "build" one. This is far from finished; plenty of details and textures are missing or wrong; but Polistra wanted to try it out.
[Also, by tradition, I needed to take Polistra out of the predicament I depicted yesterday.]
Next up is the truck version, then the factory scene.
= = = = =
Tech sidenote: Forming up the engine focused my attention on a distinction that I had sort of noticed before. Before WW1 most cars had LOW hoods. After 1915, most cars had HIGH hoods and TALL radiators, giving the impression of a locomotive. The extra height wasn't needed for the engine, it was needed for the downdraft carburetor. The upper half of the engine compartment was empty except for the tall stack of carb and air cleaner.
The Great Smith, built in 1906, had a little sidedraft carb way down below the intake valves. The cylinders were separate, and each cylinder had its own manifold pipe. When the intake valve opened, the cylinder had to suck the mixture upward on its own. This was probably inefficient but OK at the low revs of these long-stroke engines.
[Also, by tradition, I needed to take Polistra out of the predicament I depicted yesterday.]
Next up is the truck version, then the factory scene.
= = = = =
Tech sidenote: Forming up the engine focused my attention on a distinction that I had sort of noticed before. Before WW1 most cars had LOW hoods. After 1915, most cars had HIGH hoods and TALL radiators, giving the impression of a locomotive. The extra height wasn't needed for the engine, it was needed for the downdraft carburetor. The upper half of the engine compartment was empty except for the tall stack of carb and air cleaner.
The Great Smith, built in 1906, had a little sidedraft carb way down below the intake valves. The cylinders were separate, and each cylinder had its own manifold pipe. When the intake valve opened, the cylinder had to suck the mixture upward on its own. This was probably inefficient but OK at the low revs of these long-stroke engines.Labels: 1901
¶ 3:26 PM
Kan't keep those raskally Krauts from killing, kan we?
Via RT, Greta has now reanimated the zombie of Hitlerjugend. Kids happily sing "joyfully scandalous" songs comparing old people to pigs who need to be slaughtered to appease Gaia.
This is why Germany was split and occupied in 1945. Any time you let Krauts run things, you get mass slaughter and world-destroying genocide. When you motivate Krauts by the Soros-sponsored environmental genocide movement, things get exponentially joyful.
LET'S ALSO REMEMBER THAT SOROS IS THE ONLY LIVING PEDIGREED ACTUAL GENUINE REAL NAZI, WITH A DIRECT APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION FROM THE REAL ADOLF. HE HAS ALREADY BUSTED THROUGH THE KILL COUNT OF HIS BELOVED MENTOR ADOLF, AND URGENTLY NEEDS TO DOUBLE AND REDOUBLE. THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HIS BLOODTHIRST.
= = = = =
Later: WDR, the network that sponsored this atrocity, is trying to play the "only a parody" game. This is an especially nasty modern trick. Parodies and fables have always been around, and have often been used as methods of carrying 'coded' information in a repressive regime. This song is not a parody or a fable. This song is emphatically NOT making fun of environmentalists. There's nothing coded or obscure in it. This song is an undisguised militaristic war-chant. It states explicitly and categorically that old people need to die, and orders the listener to kill old people.
Parodies and parables are old, but the switcheroo is new. In USA it was developed and perfected by Rush. He intentionally labels parts of his program as parody so he can escape blame for the parts presented as truth. When he gets in trouble for some of the "truth" parts, he accuses critics of failing to appreciate parody. The trick may have been developed independently in Germany.
The switcheroo is proving effective in other contexts. Elon used it to escape from Unsworth's libel trial, and now Maddow is trying it in a different libel trial.
Labels: Carbon Cult, Deadthink, Sorosia
¶ 5:14 AM
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Fake surprise always has a reason.
For some reason various websites are focusing this week on the rapidly moving magnetic pole, which is heading quickly for Russia. Why the sudden focus? The movement itself has been known for hundreds of years and the acceleration has been clear for 10 years. It started in 1974, like everything else, but there weren't enough data points to see a pattern at first.
This movement is the most likely cause for the somewhat unusual weather in recent decades.
Why the sudden focus on a phenomenon that has been old news for a decade? Fake surprise always has a purpose.
Is Trump getting ready to sanction Russia for "meddling" with compass readings? Will he freeze the assets of all companies that make magnets and inductors?
Labels: Carbon Cult, defensible times
¶ 7:51 AM
Loonier than expected
I remembered that the Romneycare mandate is due to expire at the end of this year. Or more accurately, the mandate will remain but the penalty for disobeying it will be zero dollars. You're still violating the law by not having "insurance", and the government can still prosecute you in other ways.
New Jersey's governor recognizes this distinction without a difference, and Jersey will continue enforcing the mandate with its own penalties.
Got curious to see if this was mentioned in the "news". Sometimes we get year-end "news" stories about upcoming changes in taxation.
Checked Bing, found out that the situation is even crazier. An appellate blackrobe has just now upheld a decision by a district blackrobe which "legally" eliminates the mandate itself, not just the penalty amount. As usual, "both" "sides" are screeching the usual hypercrazy shared lies. The Repooflicans are opposing Romney, and the Dems are supporting Romney.
Since this throws the whole situation into the senile lunatic laps of the Supreme Blackrobes, who will spend several decades "deciding" the matter without ever deciding it, we can assume that IRS will postpone removing the penalty. Can't do anything while the matter is still in litigation. All matters are always in litigation, so we can't do anything at all.
Even worse, the perpetual litigation will prevent anyone from pushing toward single-payer Medicare For All. The Dems who pretend to be for M4A will heave a sigh of relief. No need to pretend sanity when litigation takes the matter out of their hands. And ordinary Americans will continue to die.
First kill all the lawyers.
Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy, Shared Lie
¶ 6:11 AM
Thursday, December 26, 2019
MIssing his own point
Quibbles among Christians are way out of my department, but this one shows a simple misunderstanding of facts and information.
Nazworth, a Christian editor, has resigned in a hissy fit because the magazine's board wouldn't go his way, wouldn't fully align with Deepstate. This is normal and proper. Each of us has to preserve his own integrity. But he misses a vital point about modularity and branding, and his own resignation proves the point he misses.
They've chosen to represent a narrow (and shrinking) slice of Christianity. That might be a good business decision, short term at least. But it's bad for Democracy, and bad for the Gospel. It means there will be one more place where readers can go for bias confirmation, but one less place where readers can go to exercise their brains on diversity of thought.Leaving aside the delusional nonsense about "Democracy", Nazworth is simply wrong about business and wrong about religion. Readers don't go to a MAGAZINE to get diversity of thought. A magazine, whether paper or digital, is like a jar of pickles. You don't buy a jar of pickles in order to get cookies, and you certainly don't want the jar to be half pickles and half cookies. You buy a jar of pickles because you want pickles. If you want cookies, you buy a box of cookies. There are plenty of cookie brands available. Websites that try to mix pickles and cookies don't last. They lose subscribers quickly. A few websites manage the mix by separating the "diverse thought", so readers know it's not being endorsed by the brand. Unz does this with a fenced-off section "Discussing External Articles." Christians don't go to a CHURCH to get diversity of thought. A church, whether bricks or digital, is where you go to get CHRISTIANITY. Churches that contain Gaia or Satan inside a building labeled "Christian" are losing customers fast. People who want Gaia or Satan don't need to go to church. You can get Gaia and Satan EVERYWHERE. It's the water in our fishbowl. By resigning, Nazworth acknowledges that people pay for ONE THING. He realized his board was paying for pro-Trump editing, and he's anti-Trump, so continuing to serve as editor would be misbranding his work. ¶ 11:04 PM
Doing Satan's work
All the usual "leftist" useless idiots, including RT, are piling onto Bloomberg because his campaign used prison labor to make calls.
There are a thousand excellent reasons to pile onto Bloomberg. This is NOT one of the reasons. This is the ONLY thing Bloomberg is doing right.
People need to be needed. People need to be useful. Time spent on useful work is the EXACT OPPOSITE of "exploitation".
LIFE IS PURPOSE.
Giving useful work to prisoners is the BEST thing you can do for them. Call center skills may not be directly marketable in the outside world where India does most of the call center work, but ANY skill is worth developing.
Now that you've caught Bloomberg's attention, he will send the work to India instead of Oklahoma.
DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?????????????
The "leftists" are working for Satan on this issue, just as they work for Satan on Green shit.
Labels: Jail mode, skill-estate, Sorosia
¶ 6:09 AM
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
New package, same great GOC
A long historical article on UFOs misses the obvious explanation. The article describes a new for-profit "company" founded by a rock-n-roll "musician". The "company" has hired several "former" intel and military officials who are "disgusted" with the government's "failure to take UFOs seriously".
The article correctly notes that the pattern is familiar, but fails to see the real parallel.
Every output from Deepstate is meant to serve Deepstate's purposes. When "former" Deepstaters start giving info on UFOs or any topic, they are attempting to shape our mindset. When Deepstaters collaborate with entertainers, they are EXPERTLY shaping our mindset.
Back in the '50s the UFO craze was caused by our own experimental aircraft. The government mobilized the Ground Observers Corps, nominally to watch for enemies, but actually to check the stealthiness of our own experimental flights.
Same thing now. This company called 'To The Stars Academy' is just the good old Company pulling its good old tricks.
Labels: constants and constants
¶ 11:51 PM
Constants and variables 142, Julianist edition
Assange's cult followers are constantly defending his "right" to publish, but they obviously didn't READ what he published.
The DNC emails contain a whole bunch of unsurprising constant material. Politics is totally corrupt, the media works for DNC, DNC works for CIA, elections are rigged. If you've been watching carefully, you know all of these facts. Some have been true forever, others true since 1946. All are unremarkable.
The one new VARIABLE in 2016 was the apparent UNRIG of the Repooflican primaries. Before the election started, it was clear to me that Jeb and Hillary would run, and Hillary would win. This is the way both parties have always done things. The result is predetermined. The primaries are just a way to pull in more money, especially for the media branch of Deepstate.
But the Repoofs seemingly disobeyed Manweller's Rule. They allowed VOTERS to pick Trump, who was NOT the predetermined heir.
The DNC emails explained this apparent exception. Trump was Hillary's puppet. His Pied Piper performance does far more good for DNC than Hillary as president. His actual policies are a seamless continuation of Bush/Clinton/Obama, and his wild verbiage helps to bring Deplorables out of the woodwork so they can be EXTERMINATED effectively.
If Hillary had been sitting in the office, she would have done the same evil things. Zero tax, infinite debt, zero real economy, infinite Dow, infinite war. The people would have grown more and more disgusted with the same evil things, and the people would associate the evil with the D brand. When Trump is doing the same evil things, the people associate the evil with the R brand.
Assange's cultists didn't read Assange's publications. They hate Trump in the same way that ordinary D partisans hate Trump. They support impeachment "because it will restore Hillary", which is simply counterfactual. They don't understand that the impeachment drama is INTENDED to keep Trump in place, just as the "unrigged" primary was INTENDED to elect Trump.
Labels: Constants and Variables, Shared Lie
¶ 6:56 AM
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
$s/P
BBC's culture section has an article on the origin of the dollar sign. They favor the S over P origin, and so do I. I didn't find that image convincing until I looked at some very old ledgers:
= = = = = START REPRINT:
KSHS has resumed adding new items regularly. One of the new items, a store ledger, triggered curiosity which led to a much more interesting older item.
A ledger from the store that was outfitting fur traders in the Louisiana Territory around 1812. It's in French, with some plain English. Deeply fascinating to an old bookkeeper. I'm sure real historians have answered all these questions, but I'm having fun trying to solve them.
Title on first page:
La Compagny des Fourures du Missoury dans son Avanture.
Here's the top few lines of an account for trader Brice Arnold, showing the ledger structure clearly.
The debit column (Doit) is equipment sold to the fur traders, the credit column (Avoir) is furs bought from the traders. Note the Avoir column is closed out with "Your bill given this day."
The money units are puzzling. The two columns are P and S. My first thought was Poids et Shillings, but it appears that Pesos were the dominant currency in the territory at that time.
The S unit is 100ths of the P unit, not 8ths or 20ths. According to online sources, the peso would have been divided into 8 reales at this time, and centavos didn't start until 1863. No firm answer to this question. Was it just US dollars and cents, labeled P and S by tradition?
We have the $ sign on totals, which meant pesos before it meant dollars. One credible explanation of the symbol traces it to a habit of writing an abbreviation for Pesos as a big P with a little s as a diacritic on top. These clerks were precise with their pens, and their dollar sign always had a big belly and a little head. You can almost see a big P with a little s riding on it. They clearly weren't thinking of the complete symbol as an S with lines through it; their uppercase S is entirely different.
Note the marks after each number. Decimal points? Nope, ditto marks. The clerk meticulously repeated the ditto after each number in each column, indicating that all the left numbers were P and all the right numbers were S.
Columnar accounting belongs to the Roman era, not to the modern place-value era. Monetary units were mostly non-decimal, so the tradition of recording each unit in its own independent column made sense, and there was no reason for decimal points. Note that some of the S numbers are followed by fractions, which was still common in US pricing up till WW2 when inflation made fractional cents meaningless.
Roman and Arabic coexisted in the clerk's mind. Note the efficient use of both in month names. September is 7bre, October is 8bre, November is 9bre, and December is Xbre. Minimizing penstrokes.
There were some big names among the fursellers on the Avoir side. Chouteau, Clark, Gratiot, O'Fallon, all recognized as towns or streets.
The equipment sold to the fourures includes lots of guns as you'd expect, plus gun equipment like coups de poudre and balls. Guns are either pistoles, carabines, or "N. W. Guns". This thorough website lists all known gunmakers in that period; there are lots of Ns, often combined with other initials, but I don't see anything that could be NW or N and W. Did it just mean "Northwest Guns", guns suitable for the Northwest Territory?
The ledger doesn't list categories of merchandise, but one category emerges implicitly from the grouping of sales.
Beads, Blankets, Chemises, Pipes, and Wiskit.
Category: Equipment to impress and oppress the injuns.
Wiskit is an odd spelling, not seen anywhere else that I can find online, but it comes in Pintes and Bottes, so the meaning is obvious enough.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
¶ 11:54 PM
The debit column (Doit) is equipment sold to the fur traders, the credit column (Avoir) is furs bought from the traders. Note the Avoir column is closed out with "Your bill given this day."
The money units are puzzling. The two columns are P and S. My first thought was Poids et Shillings, but it appears that Pesos were the dominant currency in the territory at that time.
The S unit is 100ths of the P unit, not 8ths or 20ths. According to online sources, the peso would have been divided into 8 reales at this time, and centavos didn't start until 1863. No firm answer to this question. Was it just US dollars and cents, labeled P and S by tradition?
We have the $ sign on totals, which meant pesos before it meant dollars. One credible explanation of the symbol traces it to a habit of writing an abbreviation for Pesos as a big P with a little s as a diacritic on top. These clerks were precise with their pens, and their dollar sign always had a big belly and a little head. You can almost see a big P with a little s riding on it. They clearly weren't thinking of the complete symbol as an S with lines through it; their uppercase S is entirely different.
Note the marks after each number. Decimal points? Nope, ditto marks. The clerk meticulously repeated the ditto after each number in each column, indicating that all the left numbers were P and all the right numbers were S.
Columnar accounting belongs to the Roman era, not to the modern place-value era. Monetary units were mostly non-decimal, so the tradition of recording each unit in its own independent column made sense, and there was no reason for decimal points. Note that some of the S numbers are followed by fractions, which was still common in US pricing up till WW2 when inflation made fractional cents meaningless.
Roman and Arabic coexisted in the clerk's mind. Note the efficient use of both in month names. September is 7bre, October is 8bre, November is 9bre, and December is Xbre. Minimizing penstrokes.
There were some big names among the fursellers on the Avoir side. Chouteau, Clark, Gratiot, O'Fallon, all recognized as towns or streets.
The equipment sold to the fourures includes lots of guns as you'd expect, plus gun equipment like coups de poudre and balls. Guns are either pistoles, carabines, or "N. W. Guns". This thorough website lists all known gunmakers in that period; there are lots of Ns, often combined with other initials, but I don't see anything that could be NW or N and W. Did it just mean "Northwest Guns", guns suitable for the Northwest Territory?
The ledger doesn't list categories of merchandise, but one category emerges implicitly from the grouping of sales.
Beads, Blankets, Chemises, Pipes, and Wiskit.
Category: Equipment to impress and oppress the injuns.
Wiskit is an odd spelling, not seen anywhere else that I can find online, but it comes in Pintes and Bottes, so the meaning is obvious enough.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
¶ 11:54 PM
Year-end roundup
Instead of trying to find a few good items here for a year-end roundup, I'll just reprint one. This wasn't a major item with lots of illustrations; I asked a question, didn't follow up, and forgot about it. Happened to bump into it yesterday when I was writing about the 1906 Great Smith and its unique synchromesh, an invention that didn't get noticed or imitated. 20 years later GM "invented" synchromesh, but it still wasn't tremendously important in terms of sales.
This item from September manages to gather up my focal points this year.
= = = = = START REPRINT:
Random thought, probably wrong but I want to pull it out for further examination.
In my long and emotional piece on the Chappe telegraph I wrote:
This system required considerable skill and brute strength. The stationnaires were expected to work 12/7/365 for 38 francs a month, roughly $150 now. They had to watch up and down the line for messages from other telegraphs, and then twist their wrists and bodies to resend the message. No wonder they were easy to bribe.
By contrast, the early dial telegraphs required no skill and no strength, and Morse requires considerable skill and no strength.
Raises an interesting question: Successful systems required either physical strength or mental skill. Telegraphs that anyone could operate didn't succeed.
Is this a general rule? We presume that every improvement in convenience, every decrease in strength or skill, should be immediately popular. In fact it doesn't work that way.
I can think of several examples in the history of automobiles. Synchromesh made shifting much easier, but it wasn't a major selling point. The first full automatic by Sturtevant in 1905 didn't even get noticed; Reo's Self-Shifter in 1933 didn't sell; Hydramatic took 10 years to become popular. Power brakes, relieving effort and improving safety, appeared on most big cars in the '30s then disappeared, and didn't return until the mid '50s.
In household appliances: Automatic ironers were introduced after WW2. A few people bought them, but most preferred the manual way. Kitchens of the '20s were designed so the housewife could sit down while washing dishes or cooking. Later kitchens returned to full standup, and nobody complained.
The same presumption is behind the current push toward "autonomous" cars. Again it's pretty clear from sales and polling that most people would rather do their own driving, and most people are exactly right. In this case the "innovation" is NOT innocent and misguided. The "innovation" is genocide.
LIFE IS PURPOSE.
Within limits, most creatures would rather accomplish their purpose by using and improving their own skills. An invention that eliminates dangerous or extreme exertion will succeed, but an invention that goes beyond the optimum will fail.
= = = = =
This is intimately related to the idiotic Repooflican Tocqueville cultists, who constantly tell us that politicians win because they give free LARGESSE to the "47% Takers". I decisively and definitively debunked Tocqueville. In fact people vote AGAINST largesse, and vote FOR real jobs.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
Labels: Grand Blueprint, Morsenet of Things, skill-estate
¶ 11:38 PM
Let's compare.
Let's compare a typical US infrastructure project with Russia's Crimea bridges.
During WW2 the Kaiser aluminum plant north of Spokane grew massive for war production, and remained massive afterward. Traffic heading north on Division and Market was constantly snarled. A superhighway was proposed and planned.
In the '80s, EPA and offshoring killed the aluminum plant. It's still nominally there, but not much bigger than a machine shop. Dozens of employees, not thousands. No reason for a superhighway.
In 2000 the superhighway finally started. Whole neighborhoods were bought out and torn down to make room for the project. Every section required environmental impact statements and archeological digs to check for ancient relics. Nobody worried about the modern Deplorables who were kicked out, because Deplorables are EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE.
The project has been on hold for a year because the next scheduled section formerly included a railroad yard that might have allowed a few drops of oil to penetrate the ground. Gaia won't allow us to TOUCH deconsecrated ground, so the section needs to be re-engineered as a skyway.
Now the whole project has been halted indefinitely because of Tim Eyman's latest idiot ZERO TAX referendum. The halt leaves several major intersections CLOSED indefinitely, "preparing" for construction that won't happen. So the project ends up massively INCREASING congestion and accidents, after wasting two billion dollars on NOTHING.
So we have a highway that goes nowhere and COULDN'T SERVE A PURPOSE EVEN IF COMPLETED, and we have thousands of displaced Deplorables, and the "legal" appeals and counterappeals and countercounterappeals and countercountercounterappeals continue to make lawyers rich.
If Eyman's ZERO TAX permanently halts EVERYTHING, including the bureaucrats and lawyers, maybe it will serve a good purpose after all. But we know that won't happen. Bureaucrats never stop. The legal process will continue forever with no purpose, just as the construction continued forever with no purpose. PARKINSON.
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy
¶ 6:09 AM
The Great Smith
Latest item at KSHS opened a window into a bit of history I hadn't heard before. The item is just a gas-tank dipstick, not intrinsically interesting. The description mentions that it was from the Smith Auto Company, based in Topeka.
Was Smith a manufacturer or just a dealer?
Manufacturer. Smith operated from 1902 to 1910. Unlike most carmakers outside the Rust Belt, Smith was NOT just an assembler of off-the-shelf parts. They designed and built their own cars from scratch.
The 'Great Smith' was typical of the period in appearance:
but had several unusual features. The chassis was wood, built something like a railcar:
The brake pedal automatically released the clutch. The steering column was telescoping. The throttle pedal was a rocker without a spring. You could push it either way, and it would hold its position.
Smith had two transmission options, a planetary version similar to the Ford T, and a unique sliding-gear transmission.**
KSHS has a number of books and catalogs from Smith. The 'Treatise and Catalog', written by Clement Smith, covers the history of autos from 1600, and describes the Smith innovations in loving detail.
Clement and brother Lucius were already successful as makers of medical devices, and the auto business seems to have been a side interest. After inventor Terry Stafford left to start his own company in KC, the Smith car business faded and the brothers continued with trusses and braces and such.
The Smith factory was located at 10th and Jefferson in Topeka, next to the railroad.
Googlemaps finds the location nicely.
The factory must have been inside the loop. Fortunately Google's camera car went around the loop, which is the sort of place I enjoyed exploring when I was young and foolish. The old narrow street is still there, but the factory is gone.
120 years ago this site was humming with invention and innovation.
Been there, done that, got the billboard. Nothing else.
= = = = =
Later: A crude 1940 map of Topeka shows a S???? Auto Factory on the north side of 10th and Madison. (Looks more like Stout?)
This disagrees with the Smith book, which definitely says 10th and Jefferson, and also disagrees with the drawing of the factory, which clearly has the railroad in the background. The Smith books don't show a map but their description fits where I've put the question mark. My initial assumption of the 'loop' doesn't fit as well.
Current occupants of the 10th and Madison location provide an accidental echo of the original factory:
= = = = =
** Footnote on the transmission: It's described fully in patent 830460 by the car's inventor Terry Stafford. It seems to have an automatic clutch and synchromesh, beating GM to the sync by 20 years. Moving the shift lever disengages the clutch, then slides a constant-mesh gear onto a beveled spline, then re-engages the clutch. The 'treatise' claims that you could shift up or down at any speed without touching the clutch pedal, and "without the objectional burr-r-r-r of the gears which is so common in other transmissions." Did it work as claimed? I can't find any road tests in magazines of the time, though they do mention the car and the claim.
Incidentally, this reinforces my rule that all major inventions happened before 1910. Synchromesh joins the list of improvements that supposedly happened later but really happened before 1910.
but had several unusual features. The chassis was wood, built something like a railcar:
The brake pedal automatically released the clutch. The steering column was telescoping. The throttle pedal was a rocker without a spring. You could push it either way, and it would hold its position.
Smith had two transmission options, a planetary version similar to the Ford T, and a unique sliding-gear transmission.**
KSHS has a number of books and catalogs from Smith. The 'Treatise and Catalog', written by Clement Smith, covers the history of autos from 1600, and describes the Smith innovations in loving detail.
Clement and brother Lucius were already successful as makers of medical devices, and the auto business seems to have been a side interest. After inventor Terry Stafford left to start his own company in KC, the Smith car business faded and the brothers continued with trusses and braces and such.
The Smith factory was located at 10th and Jefferson in Topeka, next to the railroad.
Googlemaps finds the location nicely.
The factory must have been inside the loop. Fortunately Google's camera car went around the loop, which is the sort of place I enjoyed exploring when I was young and foolish. The old narrow street is still there, but the factory is gone.
120 years ago this site was humming with invention and innovation.
Been there, done that, got the billboard. Nothing else.
= = = = =
Later: A crude 1940 map of Topeka shows a S???? Auto Factory on the north side of 10th and Madison. (Looks more like Stout?)
This disagrees with the Smith book, which definitely says 10th and Jefferson, and also disagrees with the drawing of the factory, which clearly has the railroad in the background. The Smith books don't show a map but their description fits where I've put the question mark. My initial assumption of the 'loop' doesn't fit as well.
Current occupants of the 10th and Madison location provide an accidental echo of the original factory:
= = = = =
** Footnote on the transmission: It's described fully in patent 830460 by the car's inventor Terry Stafford. It seems to have an automatic clutch and synchromesh, beating GM to the sync by 20 years. Moving the shift lever disengages the clutch, then slides a constant-mesh gear onto a beveled spline, then re-engages the clutch. The 'treatise' claims that you could shift up or down at any speed without touching the clutch pedal, and "without the objectional burr-r-r-r of the gears which is so common in other transmissions." Did it work as claimed? I can't find any road tests in magazines of the time, though they do mention the car and the claim.
Incidentally, this reinforces my rule that all major inventions happened before 1910. Synchromesh joins the list of improvements that supposedly happened later but really happened before 1910.Labels: 1901
¶ 1:12 AM
Monday, December 23, 2019
Leading by serving
Russia Insight has this LONG video about the new railroad bridge to Crimea. The highway bridge was completed last year.
This is mainly a rail fan video, only partly a Putin fan video. Since I'm both a rail fan and a Putin fan, I enjoy all of it!
Putin appears in the middle part of the clip. He's standing in the cab of the tram along with several officials involved in the construction. As usual, Putin leads by listening. He lets the officials and engineers describe the planning and technical details, never interrupting.
He undoubtedly knows more than they do about the planning and management, and doesn't need to know the tech details, but he understands ONE BIG THING. These men have accomplished a HUGE TASK, using and developing their SKILLS to the zenith. Their magnum opus SERVES RUSSIA. Now is their moment to show and tell. Putin, who also SERVES RUSSIA, wants to let them shine.
No US president in my lifetime came remotely close to leading by serving. No US President ever listens to workers or encourages them to display their skills. Putin does it all the time.
Among the publicly visible national leaders right now, only AMLO shares this unique way of leading.
Labels: infinite GOOD, skill-estate
¶ 11:43 PM
Ths is rdcls.
Popup ad seen just now:
Elon's CYBRTRK is alrdy strtng to INFCT the dfctve imgntions of ad-wrtrs. Thy assme th CYBRTRK is th drm cr fr all rdrs. Nte espcly tht th CYBRTRK lves in a ttlly Eucldn CYBRWRLD, whr th spnsr's Eucldn trs ar th SLTN fr skddng nd sldng. All vwls nd rnd objcts mst b XTRMNTD.
Elon's CYBRTRK is alrdy strtng to INFCT the dfctve imgntions of ad-wrtrs. Thy assme th CYBRTRK is th drm cr fr all rdrs. Nte espcly tht th CYBRTRK lves in a ttlly Eucldn CYBRWRLD, whr th spnsr's Eucldn trs ar th SLTN fr skddng nd sldng. All vwls nd rnd objcts mst b XTRMNTD.Labels: Entertainment
¶ 1:42 PM
Pre-hoc
Random thought after viewing the Aussie PM's stern and solid response to Greta's hysteria.
We're taught that 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' is a fallacy. Bad teaching.
In fact post-hoc is usually a good indicator when used properly. If A and B are plausibly related, and B always seems to move in response to A, then you've got a pretty good case that A causes B. You need experiments to prove it for sure, but the experiments will be worth trying.
Post-hoc fails when it tries to connect things that aren't demonstrably or visibly connected, or when it looks at one brief interval of correlation and ignores long-term disconnection. There are lots of accidental short-term correlations in the world.
The "climate" fraudsters are committing a vastly more serious fallacy, the pre-hoc fallacy. In the actual record of earth's temperature (as opposed to THEORY) temperature moves first, followed by CO2. Post-hoc thinking tells us correctly that CO2 increases when the oceans are outgassing more. In this case the post-hoc relation is DEMONSTRABLY true from the ACTUAL RECORD. The fraudsters want us to believe that CO2 moves first, which does happen in simple closed systems like a glass-enclosed greenhouse. It doesn't happen in the history of Earth.
Labels: Carbon Cult, Carver
¶ 5:19 AM
Sunday, December 22, 2019
First mention
Via ZH, the "attorney" "general" has called out Soros for running satanic candidates for city persecutor jobs.
There's this recent development [where] George Soros has been coming in, in largely Democratic primaries where there has not been much voter turnout and putting in a lot of money to elect people who are not very supportive of law enforcement and don't view the office as bringing to trial and prosecuting criminals but pursuing other social agendas,"This has been going on for a LONG TIME. I don't doubt that Soros is involved, but he didn't start this specific crime. Bloomberg started it. Bloomberg has been buying up entire cities for many years. Bloomberg focuses on eliminating self-defense, which is the main task of his pet persecutors. Still, I think this is the first time a government official has even mentioned Soros in a vague delicate semi-quasi-negativish way. Previous mentions have been violently idolatrous, stoutly defending Lord Soros from all "conspiracy" facts. Even if it's just a diversion from Trump's good buddy Bloomberg, it's an interesting change of tone.
Labels: Sorosia
¶ 10:23 PM
Others know the Seven Second Rule
Apparently I'm not the only one who understands the Seven Second Rule.
Polistra's seven-second rule: When you tune into a radio program, you know what it's about in seven seconds. You don't need to go beyond. Repooflican radio: Seven seconds to ZERO_TAX. Dem radio: Seven seconds to RUSSIAN_MEDDLING. BBC: Seven seconds to CLIMATE_CHANGE. NPR: Seven seconds to LGBTQQ2AIZBUPEX.
Via Guardian, front-running stock satans understand the rule.
Eight seconds may not sound like a long time. But in the modern financial world, it’s a valuable head start that can give traders a crucial edge. That’s why the Bank of England will be mortified that some traders have been listening to its press conferences before the rest of the City was able to. Traders who had shorted the pound, having seen the grim forecasts, would have suffered losses as it strengthened. But a speculator with their ear pressed to the Bank’s hacked audio feed could swiftly sell dollars and buy pounds when they heard Carney sounding optimistic, then do the opposite at a profit once the rest of the market caught up.The hacker Satans were able to gather enough Satan-info in eight seconds to place their Satan-bets before other Satans. ¶ 9:55 AM
Holland sucks Greta's dick
Most "supreme" "courts" are Satan. Ours turned criminal in 1803, dissolving the "constitution". Some "courts" may still be sane, but Euro countries certainly aren't.
Poland has been trying to restrain its Satans, with some success. EU is trying to restore the evil, so far without much luck.
Latest bit of suicide comes from Holland, where the Supreme Satans have required Holland to immolate itself as a burnt sacrifice to THE MOST HOLY GODDESS GAIA AND HER PROPHETESS GRETA.
Via France24:
The Netherlands' Supreme Court upheld a ruling Friday requiring the country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 25 percent below 1990 levels within a year. Climate campaigners call the decision “an immense victory”. In a case that had been making its way through the Dutch courts for more than four years, the country’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled that under the European Convention on Human Rights the Netherlands must act “on account of the risk of dangerous climate change that could also have a serious impact on the rights to life and well-being of residents of the Netherlands”.As always "human" "rights" is the mark of the beast, specifically the Soros part of the beast. Dutch farmers have been protesting against the Gaian tyranny for a couple years, using their tractors to block roads. Now they have even more reason to protest, and the dysgovernment has even more reason to treat them as "terrorists" worthy of EXTERMINATION. "Human" "rights" means no farms, no industries, no plants, no food, no work, no life. "Rights" means genocide.
Labels: Carbon Cult, From rights to duties
¶ 7:42 AM
Jesus! Idiots beyond belief.
ZH clickbaits an IDIOT article by Statista, home of the stupidest EXPERTS in the world.
“It’s puzzling to me that if the economy is doing so well and that we’re so close to full employment, that consumer confidence is up … that we haven’t seen the numbers move much in people’s ability to save,” McClary told Yahoo Finance. “I find it very troubling that people can’t come up with $1,000 in a savings account to cover expenses without borrowing money.”You grotesque mindless evil monster. You know PERFECTLY FUCKING WELL why we don't save, because you "economists" designed and enforced the reason. Your goal is to kill us all, and you're succeeding magnificently. The reasons for non-saving are complex and subtle. After heavy thought and long research, I've listed the most important 100 reasons. There may be others, but these probably cover most of the territory. 1. ZIRP 2. ZIRP 3. ZIRP 4. ZIRP 5. ZIRP 6. ZIRP 7. ZIRP 8. ZIRP 9. ZIRP 10. ZIRP 11. ZIRP 12. ZIRP 13. ZIRP 14. ZIRP 15. ZIRP 16. ZIRP 17. ZIRP 18. ZIRP 19. ZIRP 20. ZIRP 21. ZIRP 22. ZIRP 23. ZIRP 24. ZIRP 25. ZIRP 26. ZIRP 27. ZIRP 28. ZIRP 29. ZIRP 30. ZIRP 31. ZIRP 32. ZIRP 33. ZIRP 34. ZIRP 35. ZIRP 36. ZIRP 37. ZIRP 38. ZIRP 39. ZIRP 40. ZIRP 41. ZIRP 42. ZIRP 43. ZIRP 44. ZIRP 45. ZIRP 46. ZIRP 47. ZIRP 48. ZIRP 49. ZIRP 50. ZIRP 51. ZIRP 52. ZIRP 53. ZIRP 54. ZIRP 55. ZIRP 56. ZIRP 57. ZIRP 58. ZIRP 59. ZIRP 60. ZIRP 61. ZIRP 62. ZIRP 63. ZIRP 64. ZIRP 65. ZIRP 66. ZIRP 67. ZIRP 68. ZIRP 69. ZIRP 70. ZIRP 71. ZIRP 72. ZIRP 73. ZIRP 74. ZIRP 75. ZIRP 76. ZIRP 77. ZIRP 78. ZIRP 79. ZIRP 80. ZIRP 81. ZIRP 82. ZIRP 83. ZIRP 84. ZIRP 85. ZIRP 86. ZIRP 87. ZIRP 88. ZIRP 89. ZIRP 90. ZIRP 91. ZIRP 92. ZIRP 93. ZIRP 94. ZIRP 95. ZIRP 96. ZIRP 97. ZIRP 98. ZIRP 99. ZIRP 100. ZIRP
Labels: infinite STUPID
¶ 12:53 AM
Me-first, You-first
Yesterday I was bored enough to read quora.com for a while. Quora is a good place for cross-cultural comparisons, often asked as "What habits of nation X are shocking to Americans?" I happened to read some items about Spain that did actually surprise me. Spain is definitely a Me-first culture, where everyone minds everyone else's business and nobody ever yields or thanks.
Quora writers from India are disgusted at the You-first habits of England and non-NYC America. They can't understand why we waste time on gratitude or waste money on paying people for service.
Reminded me that I'd written a pretty decent defense of You-first recently, at a time when my prose generator was working well.
= = = = = START REPRINT:
Tulsi's campaign is emphasizing RESPECT:
I really want you to hear this, David: It doesn’t need to be this way. In our movement, we not only respect, but deeply appreciate, that our great nation is made up of a rich diversity of views and attitudes. That progress cannot be made when we fear differences of opinion, resort to cancel culture, or when we allow our leaders and the media to fan the flames of division. On the campaign trail, Tulsi has the opportunity to meet people from across the political spectrum, from all walks of life and with all different (and often very strongly held) points of view. We do our best to ensure that at our gatherings, we create an environment of aloha and respect that is so lacking from our political discourse. We may respectfully disagree, yet we are still able to look each other in the eyes and have a conversation.It's nice that your bot calls me by name, Tulsi, but frankly I don't see any of that shit in daily life. In this neighborhood, Tulsi, most people mind their own business and treat others with respect and kindness. We are the exact opposite of NYC, which never gives, never pays, never makes, never thanks. We try to yield and tolerate, and we try to be thankful when others yield and tolerate. Are we really unusual or unique, Tulsi? Maybe, but I doubt it. This area is thoroughbred Deplorable. Lower middle to poor, struggling single parents and comparatively comfortable oldsters. Quite a few homeowners are taking in boarders or hooking up RVs in their yards. Mixed race, about one black family on each block, a lot of NW tribes. No NYC types, no Randians. [The city is dysgoverned by a Randian NYC carpetbagger who has done incalculable damage to the place and the people, but fortunately he doesn't condescend to enter Deplorable neighborhoods.] So I say yet again that RESPECT is nice, but we're already there. We're doing our job, Tulsi. Talk is cheap, and the old uniter not divider shit is the cheapest of all. = = = = = END REPRINT. Tulsi, of course, hasn't improved. She's still all talk and no action. I gave up on her a long time ago. A more important question: How do cultures become Me-first or You-first? It's not simply or clearly genetic. China and Japan are genetically and culturally close, but China is extreme Me-first and Japan is extreme You-first. China's Me-first isn't new. Earlier writers observed it, and my father observed it when he served in Shanghai in WW2. So it's not just a product of Mao. The Spanish writers at Quora believed that Spain's Me-first started from the 1936 revolution. Seems possible. Earlier accounts of Spain showed an extreme You-first. Latitude may be more important than genes. The Me countries tend to be warmer, and the You countries tend to be colder. One particular set of genes seems to carry You-first. The old tribes of Siberia and America are vectors of You-first. The You-first parts of USA were strongly influenced by the old tribes, and the Me-first parts are more purely Euro. This would also hold true for Japan, where Han Chinese mixed with Siberian genes. Since these genes tend to stay in northern latitudes, this may be the real cause of the latitude connection. Again, these correlations are weak and breakable, subject to change by major cultural shifts.
Labels: Asked and sort of answered
¶ 12:30 AM
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Neighborhood note
For some reason the local homeowners aren't doing Xmas lights this year. Only a handful of lit houses. The usual annoying suspects are dark.
Can't think of a good reason. We haven't been hit by any disasters this year. The economy seems to be a bit better than usual by my measurements. Less vacant stores on NW Blvd, less parked RVs substituting for housing.
This winter is EASY so far. Only a few bite-size snowstorms, each melting quickly. Total around 12 inches. Normally we'd have 30 inches by now. Temp yesterday was 52, right now 50.
It's a puzzle.
Labels: Asked and unanswered, Heimatkunde
¶ 8:12 AM
Friday, December 20, 2019
Boris is starting to GET SHIT DONE!
Via SkyNews, Boris has passed through Parliament the first ABSOLUTE LEGAL REQUIREMENT for Brexit to occur Jan 31. He removed all the wiggles and options and poison pills that had been in previous proposals.
I was wrong, and I'm damned glad I was wrong.
I almost wish I had placed a public bet, so I could pay some real money as punishment for being unnecessarily cynical.
Bravo to Boris for GETTING SHIT DONE, for the first time in three years. Bravo to Farage, who has been pushing ONE CONSTANT PURPOSE for many years, using all sorts of devious and SUCCESSFUL tactics to shape the government toward the will of the people.
Most of all, BRAVO to the PEOPLE of Britain for sticking with their LEGALLY EXPRESSED INTENTIONS. The ghost of Churchill is proud. We shall nevah nevah nevah stop voting for Brexit.
Poop on me for continuing to doubt.
(Admittedly there's still room for fucking around, but this move looks MORE real and MORE unbreakable than any previous move by May or Boris.)
Labels: 2/3
¶ 1:26 PM
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Small bit of common sense
The notion that iPhones are bad for you because they emit blue light never made sense. They're bad for you because of the content they bring in from Facebook and Twitter, not because of the color.
Now an academic is returning to sense on this subject.
According to the team, using dim, cooler, lights in the evening and bright warmer lights in the day may be more beneficial to our health. Twilight is both dimmer and bluer than daylight, they say, and the body clock uses both of those features to determine the appropriate times to be asleep and awake.Not just twilight. Moonlight and starlight are blue. Our retinas favor blue so we can get around at night. A blue-dominant rectangle may pull our visual system toward night modes of thinking, hacking the dream center. If this is a meaningful effect, it's not new with iPhones. Real TV screens in the B/W era were blue. The colors on demonic "news" cable are blue to purple. When I notice one of those giant wall screens inside a house as I walk by, I'm always jolted by the strong violet. ¶ 11:39 PM
Big lie, no lesson
"Religion" writer Emma Green pulls the usual Gotcha trick. She writes a mainly sympathetic feature on the traditional Catholic community in St Marys. Trads follow Natural Law strictly, with men making things and women making people.
Toward the end, the inevitable Gotcha.
But there is peril in the premise that we would all be better off living among our own. Democracy depends on the friction that comes from encounters with difference. The movements for abolition, enfranchisement, labor dignity, and civil rights all stemmed from factions of Americans demanding rights and basic respect from their neighbors. If the country’s most fervent believers, whether Catholics, evangelical Christians, civil-rights advocates, or environmentalists, were to simply give up their visions for a better nation, the American project would stagnate.FALSE. Demonstrably provably documentably false. "Democracy" is a null concept. It doesn't depend on anything because it doesn't exist. Most of those movements, with the possible exception of "labor dignity", were funded and organized by NYC bankers and Deepstate. They were not natural outgrowths of belief. Specific to Kansas, I've documented how the abolitionists were run by NYC industrialists to expand the territory of sweatshop employment and make war against non-sweatshop employment. Evangelicals are NOT an exception. Evangelicals have always been around, but they didn't become a major force until they linked up with NYC to boost Israel. "Visions for a better nation" is nonsense. The only way to have a better nation is to allow far more modularity, which is exactly what St Marys is doing. A small town with its own internal standards and "visions". People who don't fit those visions aren't punished, but they aren't explicitly welcomed either. You can't have an us without a them. In the current globalist setup there are NO modules. There is ONE set of beliefs and standards for everyone, and people who don't fit are KILLED.
Labels: defensible spaces, Shared Lie, Sorosia
¶ 5:38 AM
Big lesson, big lie
12/19 was the endpoint of my 1969 jail experience at Mansfield. Looking back is bad luck, so I'll close off this 50-year thing with a forward-looking question.
Did I learn anything? I learned ONE BIG LESSON but then failed to apply it.
I learned FORCEFULLY from the front and the back that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Professional criminals are not the same as incidental lawbreakers.
After getting out, I tried yet again to do college, and failed yet again. My father forced me to go out and get a job, which was the best thing he ever did for me. But parents and friends hadn't learned the BIG LESSON and didn't follow through, didn't encourage the choice.
The correct path at that point was to forget about college and continue in typesetting and printing. Parents and mentors considered this job to be lowly and temporary. One mentor even called it "occupational therapy." They pushed me back toward high-status college, and I didn't know enough to resist.
I can't blame them for missing the point. All available sources in the media and culture shouted the BIG MURDEROUS LIE that PEOPLE ARE IDENTICAL. You can be and do anything you want. If you fail, you need to try harder.
If the same events had happened now, with correct information easily available, including the correct description of introverts, I might have resisted the external pressure, might have followed through on the one thing I learned.
I learned FORCEFULLY from the front and the back that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Professional criminals are not the same as incidental lawbreakers.
After getting out, I tried yet again to do college, and failed yet again. My father forced me to go out and get a job, which was the best thing he ever did for me. But parents and friends hadn't learned the BIG LESSON and didn't follow through, didn't encourage the choice.
The correct path at that point was to forget about college and continue in typesetting and printing. Parents and mentors considered this job to be lowly and temporary. One mentor even called it "occupational therapy." They pushed me back toward high-status college, and I didn't know enough to resist.
I can't blame them for missing the point. All available sources in the media and culture shouted the BIG MURDEROUS LIE that PEOPLE ARE IDENTICAL. You can be and do anything you want. If you fail, you need to try harder.
If the same events had happened now, with correct information easily available, including the correct description of introverts, I might have resisted the external pressure, might have followed through on the one thing I learned.
Labels: defensible times, Experiential education, Jail mode, Shared Lie
¶ 12:00 AM
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Comparatively sane
Today's example of sanity:
Hijacking a train is equally purposeless, equally self-defeating, but at least it doesn't kill billions of people.
Later: The full story is even weirder, but he's still infinitely saner than anything in NYC or DC.
¶ 11:59 PM
5600 East Sprague area on the train tracks behind Home Depot, Deputies were in a brief foot pursuit of a male on the tracks that was arguing with a train conductor and reportedly tried to high jack the train. Male is now in custody.Compare this to NYC and DC where infinitely loony infinitely evil monsters are trying to hijack the entire universe.
Hijacking a train is equally purposeless, equally self-defeating, but at least it doesn't kill billions of people.
Later: The full story is even weirder, but he's still infinitely saner than anything in NYC or DC.
¶ 11:59 PM
SES on "impeachment"
Trying to ignore the "impeachment" stageplay. An eminently sane commenter on Twitter manages to encapsulate the whole idiotic mess in one splendid Self-Explanatory Sentence.
Here's a thought experiment: If Trump had asked the Ukrainians to investigate @BernieSanders, would we be here?
BANG! Says it all.
Labels: SES
¶ 11:39 PM
More beautiful art in science
Article in Smithsonian on using ancient birch bark chewing gum to gather the entire genome and microbes and diet of the chewer.
The exact purpose of chewing is unknown, but birch bark contains salicylic acid, so it would have been medicinal and pleasant.
Artist Tom Björklund has created a masterpiece, showing the girl evoked by the DNA, along with the duck she has just killed and the hazelnuts she gathered. She seems to be saying This is my duck, for my family. If you want to take it, you've got a fight on your hands.
Magnificent.
Compare with the equally beautiful painting of a Denisovan type, which is more purely artistic and less contextual.
¶ 3:58 PM
Dumb idea but not a new idea....
Viral today is a fantastically stupid sloping toilet. Guaranteed spillage, guaranteed serious injuries when people slide off while concentrating.
Reminds me of an ad in an 1875 magazine:
= = = = = START PARTIAL REPRINT:
While you're helplessly sliding backward to a point where your output will inevitably miss the mark, to put it mildly ... you can dream about moons with hands emerging from the water to mock you.
CHRIST ALMIGHTY! WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK WERE THEY THINKING? OR SMOKING? OR SNORTING?
= = = = = END PARTIAL REPRINT.
While you're helplessly sliding backward to a point where your output will inevitably miss the mark, to put it mildly ... you can dream about moons with hands emerging from the water to mock you.
CHRIST ALMIGHTY! WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK WERE THEY THINKING? OR SMOKING? OR SNORTING?
= = = = = END PARTIAL REPRINT.
Labels: Entertainment
¶ 2:13 PM
Should have said it here
I wrote a comment at Soros-funded TAC, which will probably be deleted. Some idiot was defending Yang's UBI, and the commenters were opposing UBI "because it's communism". Both are lethally wrong.
I wrote there:
It's the exact opposite of communism. In the actual Soviet system, everyone was expected to work. Jobs were provided for all kinds of skills because the USSR never offshored anything. Everyone was useful. In return, most of the basics of life were free or very cheap. Income from work was more 'disposable' than our income, so most Soviet citizens had sizable savings accounts instead of debts.
The purpose of UBI is to free up the bankers to eliminate ALL real value economy. No products, no employees, no profits, no usefulness. People who are not needed die fast, so the UBI is neatly self-limiting. Yang knows what he's doing and who he's serving.
I've covered the real Soviet system already. The last sentence is something I hadn't thought about before.
UBI is falsely advertised as "providing freedom". The designers of UBI know what they're doing. They know that men die when deprived of usefulness. UBI is like leaving a dish of antifreeze on the porch. Tastes sweet, kills fast. UBI will be the cheapest genocide in history.
Labels: Natural law = Soviet law
¶ 7:03 AM
Tesla testing
Tesla is testing its "solar" "roofs" under tents.
The whole purpose of a roof is to shed rain and snow.
The whole purpose of a solar panel is to turn sunlight into electricity.
Testing a "solar" "roof" under a tent avoids both kinds of input, so it is NOT TESTING.
This is equivalent to road-testing a car on the rack:
or taste-testing wine by sniffing and sipping the label:
In short, these aren't roofing roofs, these are trading roofs. Testing is nothing more than sniffing the label, and that's enough for Lord Elon's cultists and investors. They are NUMBEROIDS. They are totally disconnected from physical reality and totally immersed in pure numbers and specifications.
or taste-testing wine by sniffing and sipping the label:
In short, these aren't roofing roofs, these are trading roofs. Testing is nothing more than sniffing the label, and that's enough for Lord Elon's cultists and investors. They are NUMBEROIDS. They are totally disconnected from physical reality and totally immersed in pure numbers and specifications.Labels: $TSLAQ
¶ 6:03 AM
Monday, December 16, 2019
Are they learning?
Dem candidates may give up the next "debate" because a union is striking the venue. They don't want to cross the picket line.
"Debates" are super-meaningless parts of the meaningless "election" puppet-show, but this decision may be somewhat meaningful.
Are the US Dems learning something from Labour's defeat? Are they putting the human capital of the union ahead of the money capital that owns the media?
Later: No, of course not. They went ahead and crossed the picket line.
Labels: skill-estate
¶ 11:20 PM
Why does London favor Remain?
A revealing feature in Politico.eu. A writer who recently emigrated from Romania does an undercover day of ditch-digging work. He fits in easily with the other Eastern Euro migrants.
His unsurprising point is that the London upperclass depends on CHEAP foreign labor, which is exactly why they ferociously favor Remain. The rich fuckheads are constantly improving their houses, trying to gain equity in a rising but risky market. They also consume lots of other CHEAP services like child care, again mostly foreign.
How CHEAP is it? He was paid 50 pounds for a 12 hour day. That's about 80 dollars.
Compare this with Henry Ford's 1914 decision to pay $5 for an 8-hour day, which soon forced other factories to follow suit.
$5 in 1914 = $125 current dollars for an 8-hour day = $15/hr.
The foreign workers are getting $80 for a 12-hour day = $6.70/hr.
Unsurprisingly again, Gilded Age 2 is an EXACT replay of Gilded Age 1.
Labor unions, and the Labour party, used to defend the skills of BRITISH workers from cheap foreign competition. Now the unions are gone and the Labour party is solely defending the cheap foreign competition. Defending real estate against skill estate. And they can't figure out why they lost.
Labels: skill-estate
¶ 2:37 PM
Required reading
Spokane-News asked what people want for Christmas.
If you think we have a "great economy" and a "great justice system" and a "great health care system", read these. Nuff said.
Later, along the same lines, an apt bldg on East Sprague was filled with carbon monoxide, sending three people to the hospital. Why? The landlord failed to pay the electric bill for months, so Avista shut off the power. Tenants responded by using gas generators inside their apartments. Stupid, but they had no choice. If they could buy a generator, they had enough money to pay for electricity; but their money didn't count because the landlord was criminally negligent.
If you think poor people "should try harder", read this. More than nuff said.
¶ 1:28 AM
Better question
Supposedly an easier way to solve quadratic equations.
I can see the logic of the method, and I'm always in favor of understanding a situation deeply enough that you don't need to memorize a formula.
But in this case the derivation is harder to remember than the formula. There are a couple of counterintuitive steps that defeat the purpose of non-memorized understanding.
Bigger question: Do we ever NEED to solve quadratic equations? I've been doing bookkeeping and electronics and graphics for 50 years, using quite a bit of math, and often using the basic manipulations of algebra. I've never needed to solve a quadratic equation.
I use lots of squares and square-roots, in the context of RMS or reactance or polar to rect conversion. Those processes don't turn into quadratic equations. In the slide-rule era they could be solved with trig functions, and in the computer era they can be programmed directly.
Labels: Asked better than answered
¶ 12:45 AM
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Satan gets tired
Satan dba "Rod Dreher" is normally a sneaky slithery slimy Satan, serving Soros stealthily.
Yesterday, writing at Soros-sponsored TAC, he pulled his usual sneaky stuff. He discussed a "friend" who was having theological qualms about accepting the ABSOLUTE UNIVERSAL TRUTH OF GODDESS GAIA. Commenters immediately popped in to defend God from Gaia, so Satan dba "Dreher" posted an update saying that he would instantly spike all comments attempting to defend truth or God.
It's always nice when Satan takes off the Walker Percy mask and lets us see his horns and hear his roar and smell his Soros sweat.
Later he apparently got tired of spending all his time Rectifying, and just removed the whole article.
Labels: Carbon Cult, Leth
¶ 10:59 PM
Breaking Manweller? Maybe.
An interesting observation, related to Manwellerism, from a ZH writer.
The UK now has leverage over the EU. For the past three years, a disunited UK government has been met by a united EU. Now, the roles will be reversed. The UK has a strong majority government – effectively first in ten years – while the EU’s division on how to approach the UK will be exposed.When a leader is GETTING SHIT DONE, he has 2/3 of the people with him. Boris hasn't actually done anything yet, but he managed to convince 2/3 of the voters to take his side. How did he convince them? By promising to serve BRITAIN instead of a bizarre combination of external crazies. Now that he has 2/3, he's free to do the right thing. Will he? Still unclear. I'd LOVE to be proved wrong. France and Germany and US are still in total stalemate, with leaders depending on a weird coalition of meaningless trivia. Merkel and Macron and Trump are unable and unwilling to solve any real problems FOR THE NATION, because solving a real problem might dislodge one pebble in the pile of junk that barely sustains their non-ruling coalitions.
Labels: 2/3
¶ 8:12 AM
No mystery
Via Eurekalert:
When people learn that a charitable contribution they earmarked for a specific project was used for another cause, they feel betrayed - and often punish the charity, new research from Washington State University indicates. Those donors were less likely to give money to the charity in the future or do volunteer work for the organization. They also were more likely to say negative things about the charity, according to the research published in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research and available online. The findings held true even when their contribution was directed to another worthwhile cause, said Jeff Joireman, a professor in the Department of Marketing and International Business at WSU's Carson College of Business. "The whole idea that a charity could activate a sense of betrayal is quite novel," said Joireman,NOVEL? What in the fuck is wrong with you? "Social science" betrays its alleged purpose 100% of the time. Supposedly "social science" is intended to help us make better decisions and create better lives. In fact "social science" does three things. 1. Trains torturers and runs torture chambers. 2. Spouts bizarre nonsense that contradicts all known facts. 3. Restates wildly obvious tautologies and calls them "science". This particular "finding" falls into the benign but useless category 3. When will grantors and other contributors decide that "social science" betrays all of their intentions? The answer is horrible. Grantors are not betrayed, because government agencies know what they want. They want torturers and manipulators, and "social science" obliges. = = = = = Later and calmer: Good charities already know how this works, and use it to advantage. DonorsChoose is fanatical about maintaining YOUR SPECIFIC INTENTIONS. You donate to one teacher's well-defined project. If the project doesn't reach its goal, the money is NOT sent elsewhere or absorbed in a fungible pool; it goes back into your account, where YOU can choose to send it to another well-defined project. ... Which reminded me that I haven't donated for a while. Found a project that includes soldering, donated.
Labels: Answered better than asked
¶ 6:28 AM
Friday, December 13, 2019
Memoryholing humans
Following on yesterday's note about British paper ballots.
There's a strong parallel to my recent discussions of pre-electric semaphore systems and scrip.
In all cases the official myth treats electricity as magic. When a system switches from manual to electronic, we automatically assume that the old manual way was INFINITELY slower. We can't possibly return to a method that takes "many months" to transfer messages or transfer money or complete a count.
In fact the changeover didn't improve speed and the old way didn't take months. That wasn't the real purpose of the change.
Yesterday's Brit election showed the speed of human counters. Each constituency counted about 100k ballots in real time and finished checking within an hour after closing. The whole nation was done five hours after closing.
Rehashing my discussion of semaphores:
= = = = = START REPRINT 1:
Electric telegraphs began around 1830 when visual semaphore systems were already widespread in Europe and Russia. In those countries, news traveled much faster than horseback but somewhat slower than electricity. Why didn't USA copy the idea? For 50 years those systems were well known and highly functional, but we didn't use them. We made do with horses and runners until Morse and others persuaded the government to try the electric system.
Why were semaphores slower than electric telegraphs? The obvious answer is because electricity... but that isn't the real answer.
Two reasons, one of which could have been solved with existing technology.
(1) The moving parts of semaphores were big and heavy, requiring considerable strength and time to overcome inertia. The keyboards of the first electric telegraphs acted easily and instantly, with negligible mass and momentum. This could have been solved with the compressed-air technology of pipe organs. The English six-panel system would be best because its action was binary. Each key would valve air into its own combination of pistons, each flipping one panel. When the key was released, the spring-loaded panels would snap back to default.
(2) More subtle but unsolvable. The first telegraphs were NOT significantly faster than semaphores. The Chappe system, with a dense network of stations and highly skilled operators, was able to send a message from Calais to Paris in three minutes under ideal circumstances, and one hour in typical usage. Early telegraphs shared the limitation of frequent human intervention. Batteries at each station had to overcome the resistance and reactance of long wires. The message might travel about 5 miles to the first receiver, where the operator would have to copy the complete message and then resend it. This is identical to semaphores except for the inertia and momentum. Telegraphs became instantaneous after the invention of the relay, which automatically transferred the information to a new circuit with its own batteries. Relays act instantly, so a well-formed and well-maintained line could send a message through unlimited distances instantly. There was no conceivable way to develop a relay for visual systems. It would be possible right now using video cameras and OCR technology, but it wouldn't have been possible even 20 years ago.
= = = = = END REPRINT 1.
Rehashing the discussion of scrip:
= = = = = START REPRINT 2:
Hawala or scrip is the economic implementation of a principle that's painfully familiar and even trivial in other areas.
Decentralizing works ONLY when the modules or units share a common ground.
A trust network holds up ONLY when the units are built with a shared purpose. Ideally each unit should be physically incapable of harming the network.
When you can count on the units to follow the same rule in the same situation, you don't need a central controller sending commands to the units, and you don't need a lot of communication between the units.
When the modules have different grounds or different limits or different operating systems, you need a strong central controller, and even then the overall system will be inefficient. Most energy will be chewed up in the contradictory and redundant operations of the bureaucratic control system.
= = = = = END REPRINT 2.
We conveniently skip semaphores and scrip. They are entirely omitted from our history of tech, just as analog computers are omitted.
Well then, if speed isn't the main distinction between manual and electric, what's the real difference?
SKILL AND CONTROL.
Manual methods give work and utility to people with a common culture. Electronic methods make people redundant, make culture redundant, and require everything to be controlled from one center.
Manual methods are necessarily MODULAR, with activities organized by level. Each module does its own measuring or counting using an agreed-on culture, and each module protects its own calculations. There's no choice.
Electronic methods can be modular, but big tech always requires globalism. Each module must be instantly and invisibly monitored and controlled and hacked from the global control center.
All of our thoughts and histories have been Rectified to make human functions and skills look horrible. We can't possibly go back, because we'd lose all of our efficiency and speed.
Nonsense.
BIG TECH IS GENOCIDE.
= = = = =
Sidenote for future ref: In the earlier discussion on semaphores I asked: Why didn't USA copy the idea? I didn't answer the question, and still can't see an answer. We obviously weren't waiting for electric telegraphs, because they didn't even start developing until 1830. We had plenty of contact with France in those years. Our inventors and politicians often visited France for inspiration and financing. Chappe semaphores were EVERYWHERE in France, and they were dramatically visible. American writers commented on the 'flying wings' of Chappe, but we didn't adopt them. It's a strong puzzle.
Labels: Deadthink, defensible times, Morsenet of Things, scrip, skill-estate
¶ 10:54 PM
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Three out of three
The Remainers have lost three referendums now, each stronger and clearer than the previous.
Will Boris actually do it now? Will he GET THE FUCK OUT OF EU? Hard to tell. I'll be genuinely (but pleasantly) shocked if he turns out to be serious.
The one DEFINITELY GOOD thing about all British elections is that they prove the superiority of PAPER BALLOTS COUNTED BY HAND. The entire country was counted the CORRECT WAY, and it took FIVE HOURS to settle and determine the vote.
We use a mix of crazy electronic shit. It takes us much longer than five hours to determine a city or county election here in Spokane, even though most of the votes already came in by mail before the counting day.
Along the same lines, BBC has a neat PHYSICAL graphic of the results. A huge map of Britain:
Each constituency is a hexagon tile, and each is replaced with a different color as the results are settled. [I'm pretty sure this wasn't CG, though it can be damned hard to distinguish. You could see the tiles sliding a bit as the girl stepped on them. I don't think CG creators would go that far!]
= = = = =
Later note from BBC: some constituencies make fast counting a matter of pride and competition.
Each constituency is a hexagon tile, and each is replaced with a different color as the results are settled. [I'm pretty sure this wasn't CG, though it can be damned hard to distinguish. You could see the tiles sliding a bit as the girl stepped on them. I don't think CG creators would go that far!]
= = = = =
Later note from BBC: some constituencies make fast counting a matter of pride and competition.
Sunderland is normally the first to declare its results but in 2017 it lost out to its neighbour Newcastle Central. This year, a new constituency threw its hat into the ring. Blyth Valley wanted to steal the crown and was aiming to declare in 44 minutes. But that result was delayed because it needed a recount (It turned out to be the first shock result - with the Tories taking the seat from Labour for the first time since 1950.) So this year Newcastle managed to hang on to its title - declaring at 23:26.They counted 35000 votes within the polling day, plus 26 minutes after the close for summing and checking. Hand counting is FASTER than electronic counting, and VASTLY more reliable. The paper ballots are still there for a recount, and there's no invisible way to hack them from a distance. Obviously there are plenty of ways to hide or dump paper ballots, but all of those ways are VISIBLE, and all require PHYSICAL PRESENCE by the cheaters. Britain killed its own industrial skills even faster than USA, but at least Britain continues to celebrate and develop human bookkeeping skills!
Labels: Patient things, skill-estate
¶ 11:54 PM
Both backwards as usual
Spokane doesn't pop up in the big political websites often. This article at TheIsraelist is a rare exception.
The incident was a conflict between a "progressive" school and a "conservative" Christian preacher. The school was doing one of those idiotic Drag Story Hour things, and the preacher tried to get into the school and pray.
I don't doubt that the incident occurred, because most elements of the story seem correct; but it didn't make a splash here. I didn't hear anything about it from real people, or through comments on the Spokane News FB page. Presumably the Rush-branded radio talkers were discussing it, but I turned them off 10 years ago.
Elements that seem correct:
1. The city persecutor went after the preacher hard. This is standard procedure. The city government is pure Satan, pure NYC. The persecutor tries to overturn all parts of Natural Law. Professional criminals are good, normal humans are bad.
2. The county judge dismissed the case immediately and slapped down the persecutor. Again standard. The judges here are remarkably sane and rational. I've seen it in the news, and verified it in my three jury experiences.
Element that seems dubious: I strongly suspect the preacher was not just praying. Ordinary cops are pretty careful, and they don't get involved unless someone is seriously disruptive.
= = = = =
Bigger point: The "progressive" school and the "conservative" opponents are pushing in the wrong direction as always, defeating their own ends by using a Shared Lie instead of truth.
When kids see a topic presented IN SCHOOL WITH OFFICIAL APPROVAL, it becomes dull and aversive. It loses fascination. The quickest way to stop an adolescent fashion is to turn it into required classroom material.
So the "progressive" school is lowering interest in its current favorite topic, and the "conservative" preacher is making the topic COOOOL and fascinating.
Labels: Emersonian justice, Shared Lie
¶ 8:24 AM
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
An idea that didn't get picked up
From an unexpected and obscure source, namely a Sylvania in-house publication in 1936.
A 4-axis graph of tube characteristics, built in solid touchable plastic.
Why didn't this idea take root and develop? Similar graphs for hard-to-see functions could have been interactive. They could have been built from bent wires with sliding cursors, like giant multidimensional slide rules.
Specialized circular slide rules came close to the idea sometimes, but they were always strictly flat.
= = = = =
Separately, from a 1953 issue of the same Sylvania publication, their first description of transistors. Sylvania had been first to mass-produce the germanium diode in 1945, so they expected to be among the first in transistors, and they were right.
The peanut was clever graphics.
Their broader predictions were typical. Underrated in most ways, overrated in one:
A 4-axis graph of tube characteristics, built in solid touchable plastic.
Why didn't this idea take root and develop? Similar graphs for hard-to-see functions could have been interactive. They could have been built from bent wires with sliding cursors, like giant multidimensional slide rules.
Specialized circular slide rules came close to the idea sometimes, but they were always strictly flat.
= = = = =
Separately, from a 1953 issue of the same Sylvania publication, their first description of transistors. Sylvania had been first to mass-produce the germanium diode in 1945, so they expected to be among the first in transistors, and they were right.
The peanut was clever graphics.
Their broader predictions were typical. Underrated in most ways, overrated in one:
The transistor should be considered as a distinctively different component, not a replacement for the vacuum tube. There is no reason to believe that this electronic device will make the vacuum tube obsolete. The fact is that most types of vacuum tubes definitely will not disappear.Pretty accurate up to 1970, but the FET and CMOS broke all of those barriers.
[Transistors could enable] small, vest-pocket and wrist watch radios, almost as good as table models, occupying less volume than present hearing aids and running off one set of batteries fo over a year, or perhaps someday even running indefinitely from the heat of the user's body;Accurate, but the promise of running radios and hearing aids from thermocouples was never fulfilled, and AFAIK never seriously tried. It could be done now with CMOS.
[Transistors could enable] giant digital computers ("electronic brains"), filling about a tenth their present space.Again accurate as of 1970 until FET broke the rules. Now it's more like a millionth, not a tenth.
Labels: Real World Math
¶ 10:30 PM
How many awarenesses?
Just noting a bit of evidence for separate mental spaces in dreams. I spent some time on this subject a few months ago, and didn't return to it.
In today's noon nap, I was getting ready for a meeting, as often happens in dreams. I was expecting to do the meeting, then come out and go home. Instead, the timer snapped forward and skipped the meeting and going-home parts.
Snaps and skips are not unusual; time is distinctly non-linear in dreams. Normally the action simply proceeds after the snap, without any recognition of the snap itself. In this case a separate layer of awareness realized the snap had happened, and I went around asking various people where the segment of time had gone.
Labels: defensible spaces
¶ 2:20 PM
Two ways to fail
Vaguely related to previous item on success vs failure, and closely related to experts who know less than we do.
In the usual discussion of Lord Elon vs Reality, one of the Elonites quotes Michael Jordan:
Ben (and $TSLAQ) do not understand the value of "failure". "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life." -M. Jordan
Giant disclaimer: Sports is EMPHATICALLY NOT MY DEPARTMENT, but I might understand what Jordan is saying.
Here's the important difference between Jordan's failure and Elon's failure:
Jordan is using skills that he has practiced millions of times, which were built on the training of millions of previous athletes who practiced trillions of times. When he fails, it's NOT because he's trying to do something stupid that can't possibly work. He fails because other athletes, equally talented and practiced, happen to perform better during this game.
When Elon fails, it's because he is INTENTIONALLY IGNORING all previous skills and knowledge. He is turning untested theories into fantasies, most of which don't even reach the prototype stage.
The "cave submarine" is the perfect example. Anyone who has been in a real cave knows IMMEDIATELY that the metal tube won't work and can't work. Elon had never been in a real cave, so he went ahead and built a thing that was GUARANTEED to fail in a real cave. He tested it in a swimming pool, which proved that it was watertight and nothing else. When the real cavers told him it wouldn't work, HE HAD NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT. He assumed they were just enemies and short-sellers.
Labels: $TSLAQ
¶ 11:01 AM
Subtle difference
Some articles are comparing 1919 with 2019 in terms of globalism vs populism. It's a weak comparison.
One important point is missing: The populists of 1890-1920 were fakers. Jennings Bryan and his equivalents in the prairies diagnosed the problems of finance-centered capitalism correctly, but offered a prescription that would INCREASE the power of banks. They promised easier borrowing and looser money. They were pluponents, not opponents.
The tools and measurements are different today. Bimetallism no longer makes sense because we abandoned ALL metals in 1971. ZIRP and QE were unthinkable in 1920. But the direction is the same.
Real populists today are NOT fakers. The non-Soros side of the world is getting out of debt and returning to the gold standard.
Among the populists in Sorosia, there's one subtle difference that I didn't notice when I was discussing this a couple years ago.
Jennings Bryan's campaign diagnosed the problems correctly and prescribed wrong. Voters who truly understood the situation had enough info to make a proper decision.
Trump's campaign rhetoric diagnosed the problems correctly AND prescribed correctly. His campaign advocated tighter money, higher interest, and less emphasis on the Dow.
He switched to pluponent AFTER he took office. His real base in NYC knew all along that he would serve them, because he's been serving them for 40 years. They kept quiet for strategic reasons.
Later footnote: Bryan's Pied Piper role is verified. His job was to gather up the dissidents and lead them off the cliff.
Labels: MMT, Pluponents
¶ 7:06 AM
Self-explanatory Scotch
Haven't done a SES in a while. Self-explanatory sentences, or one-sentence biographies, are short phrases that tersely and concisely contain an entire life or culture.
Here's a good one from today's ZH clickbait. Along with ductaped non-bananas, rare booze is going up up up up up in "price". Obviously this booze is undrinkable. The bottles might as well contain water because nobody will ever be allowed to open or test them. "Value" arises solely from name and provenance.
Here's the SES:
Becky Paskin, a scotch consultant,
No need to finish the sentence. The fact that we have scotch consultants finishes our culture.
Labels: SES
¶ 1:30 AM
Get your goddamn tenses right.
Tulsi makes talking points from the "surprise" revelations about Afghanistan. She wants Congress to do something.
Shit. You've BEEN in Congress. These facts are not new or secret. With your military experience, you KNEW these facts directly and completely. Why didn't you try to do something about it earlier?
I'm ferociously tired of fake surprise and misplaced tenses. Everyone is shocked by "learning" what they ALREADY KNEW, or "learning" what they ALREADY DID.
If you're in a position of power and knowledge, you are OBLIGATED to tell us everything you know as soon as you know it. You are OBLIGATED to do the right thing as soon as you determine the right thing.
Your attempt may not succeed, but that's life. Success is never guaranteed. Failure is guaranteed when nobody even TRIES to do the right thing.
You are NOT ENTITLED to come out later and urge OTHERS to do the right thing.
Labels: defensible times
¶ 12:36 AM
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Everyone is equally ignorant
ZH mocks a college that replaced alumnus by alumnx.
The x business is hopelessly stupid, but the ZH article, and its source at College Fix, are equally stupid.
Alumnus (pl alumni) is strictly male, not 'common'. Alumna (pl alumnae) is female. Before gender-neutrality was the rage, colleges were extremely persnickety about using both terms separately.
Actual Spanish speakers have a better way of doing the gender-neutral shit, at least in print. Instead of saying 'hermanos y hermanas', the modern version is 'herman@s'. Nice graphic merging of a and o, not unlike the old scribal abbreviations. I don't know how it's pronounced.
Labels: Language update
¶ 4:52 PM
Practical alternative?
The ideal solution is to kill all the lawyers. PlainSite has a more practical idea, honestly self-serving but worthy of attention.
Since you can't trust ANY lawyer to take your side, you have to represent yourself. If you're going to do it effectively, you need training and support. PlainSite offers a support service to look up documents, much cheaper than Lexis.
He cites retired judge Posner, who has gone into private practice with the goal of improving court treatment of pro se litigants.
¶ 7:06 AM
Jesus.
Via ZH: Unsworth's lawyer wasn't incompetent, he was bought off. He was intentionally playing to lose. Unlike most traitors, he has come out and joyfully joined Satan's side, congratulating Satan and hoping to work for Satan in the future. He loves Big Brother Elon. He always loved Big Brother Elon.
All lawyers are Satan. All lawyers work for The Tribe.
First kill all the lawyers. Then we can discuss other changes, but the First one will probably take care of everything.
Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite evil, infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy
¶ 12:03 AM
