Thanks, weather gods.
The long hot spell finally ended a couple weeks ago, and I've been recovering confidence and thinking ability. The two-front barrage from the demonic governor AND from the weather had pushed me down into bare survival mode.

Now I can think more clearly, develop solutions to everyday problems, take control when needed, and make connections.

Here's a connection I couldn't make before.

Why did the Carter Mecher gang choose to pull the trigger on their holocaust during the Trump administration?

I presumed they had to wait until they had blackmailed all the Public Death Officers in the world. But after reading Ibsen's 1900 portrait of a Public Death Officer, I could see that this task was easy. Public Death Officers are always ITCHING to exterminate all life. That's why they took the job. So no prep was needed.

Well, what was special about Trump?

He's germsy.

This was common knowledge before he went into politics.

Germsies NEED ever-increasing layers of protection from the invisible menaces of dirt and germs.

Germsies NEED ever-increasing distance from all surfaces.

Germsies CAN'T IMAGINE immunity. The idea that our body needs constant exposure to the real world is utterly beyond their comprehension.

So Trump was the perfect enforcer for Mecher's specific holocaust.

Reprinting the fable of Artie and Germsy:

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Here's a funny 1949 episode of 'This is your FBI'. A 'germsy' kidnapper who compulsively cleans everything spoils the perfect crime by scrubbing down the abandoned tourist cabin where the gang was holding the victim. Before his cleanup, hundreds of random fingerprints were scattered in and under the dust and leftover magazines and clothing. After his scrubbing, he carefully touched every surface to check for the last particle of dust, and left perfect prints.

Transcribed:

Germsy: I don't know how you put up with it!

Artie: What do you mean?

Germsy: This place hasn't been cleaned since we came here.

Artie: Well, is this a hotel? We kidnapped the guy, remember?

Germsy: That still doesn't excuse the appearance of the place. Where's the sink?

Artie: Right over there.

Germsy: Intolerable. Dust everywhere, clothes piled up, food on the table,...

Artie: It was that way when we came!

Germsy: Oh, what's the use.

Artie: Look, I'd rather be living like this than washing my hands every five minutes like you do! Germs are good for you once in a while!

Germsy: Well, you certainly should be an authority on that.


Artie was SCIENTIFICALLY CORRECT, and most scientifically literate people KNEW IT in 1949.

Environmentalism was the lever that pulled Germsies into positions of power, and the Branded Flu was the final coup. Germsies deny the existence of immunity and hormesis and adaptation and negative feedback and LIFE. They firmly believe that humans are identical passive inanimate mechanisms, incapable of self-repair or self-adjustment or self-calibration. All adjustments must be made externally and invasively with maximum force.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

Last year I was connecting the holocaust to the Karens in general, but not to Trump. Should have been obvious!

= = = = =

Much later addendum: There's a simple reason in the dynastic machinations of modern/medieval politics. This year's holocaust is the THIRD crisis manufactured by the Bush family. 2001 and 2008 were done while George Junior was in office, and the project for 2020 was launched by Geurge Junior in 2005. The Bush family was SUPPOSED to regain the presidency in 2016, but Trump beat Jeb easily. Trump was basically chosen by Hillary, as the Wikileaks emails made clear. The ruling family hated the Pretender To The Throne in a dynastic way, and was doing everyhing possible to discredit him. (This general tendency was obvious.) The Mecher gang was still working for the Bush family. Obama was a loyal servant, so he didn't need to be ruined. Trump was working for the opposite dynasty, so he did need to be ruined.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, endless hell, NOW I SEE

  ¶ 11:12 PM

  Astrometeorology 8, Brahe's Star Castle interior
This is simply an expansion and revision of part 7. At that point I couldn't see how the various instruments were fitted into the domes, and I was wildly underestimating the size of the instruments. So we'll try it again, with a more complete underground structure and more appropriately sized instruments.

First the entire property from front, side, and top, as before.







The square central part was the workroom and residence for Brahe's technician. Fortunately the existing floor plans show a worktable and a fireplace. So I've given Polistra those two items, plus other stuff found in unrelated pictures but appropriate to the place and time. The jugs over the fireplace nicely match Brahe's Persianish architecture.



Another view, showing the worktable. You can also see the stairs up to the adit at the left side of the property.



From the central room, halls branched off into the circular observation rooms. First we'll walk into the Sextant room, which is covered by one of the flat 'sewer grating' domes.



Looking down into the grating toward the sextant:



And here Polistra is sighting down the alidade toward a target star.



Next we return to the central workroom and walk toward the Equatorial instrument in the big dome.



Looking at it from above. The descriptions are unclear, so I've arbitrarily made one pie-slice of the domes transparent. This wouldn't have worked in 1600. Did Brahe have hinged panels, or did he have a crew who lifted each entire dome off when it was time to observe? Most likely hinged.



Here's a closeup of the equatorial in its arena. I had to 'remove' some of the walls to get this angle.



Now you're looking along the alidade toward the pie-slice in the roof.



The Quadrant Magnus occupied the other 'sewer grating', here seen from the top.



And again Polistra is measuring the azimuth and altitude of a chosen star.





= = = = =

Keeping track of the links so far:

Intro: Opening the doors again

2: James Ferguson

3: From Ferguson to Kepler

4: Maragha and astrolabes

5: Qibla

6: Back to Europe

7: Brahe's star castle (first try)

8: Brahe's star castle, revised. (this item)

= = = = =

10/6: Now released as Poser scene on ShareCG.

Labels: Entertainment, Equipoise, Metrology

  ¶ 3:13 PM

  Purely personal
I've been trying to figure out why the ballgags are so FEROCIOUSLY TORTUROUS to me. Most people, even among the sane folks who know that the entire monstrous project is nothing but an exercise in demonic evil, don't have the same wild allergy to the ballgags.

It reduces to two separate aspects of my innate nature and history.

1. Prison PTSD. In 1969 I shared a cell with a psychopath for six months. This gave me some useful survival strategies, and it also left me with an instant HARDASS defensive response to any hint of forced confinement or constraint.

2. A peculiar innate dislike of any object on my neck and face. Back in 4th grade I got eyeglasses for myopia, but refused to wear them until required for driving at 16. Neckties are equally anathema. Two of my jobs nominally required neckties, but I managed to get away without the tie by performing loyally and competently. My lifetime total of Days Under Necktie is countable, probably about 20.

I don't mind seatbelts because they constrain the chest and waist. Just once I rode in a VW Rabbit with an automatic motorized NECK BELT. As soon as it grabbed my neck, I screamed. The driver didn't understand.

= = = = =

Females seem to enjoy the ballgags, for two reasons that are the exact opposite of my two reasons for hatred.

1. Karen types were the first to voluntarily self-strangle. Karens view themselves as submissive courtiers seeking the favor of the Alpha Lords. Psychopathic demons like Fauci are the ultimate Alpha Lords. Look at me, Your Highness! I am wearing 100 ballgags at once, hoping to be Pleasing In Your Holy Sight. May I be privileged to bathe in Your Holy Radiance, Lord Fauci?

2. Ordinary sane women are accustomed to putting stuff on their neck and face. Makeup, earrings, piercings, wigs, choker necklaces. No big deal.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, Jail mode, TMI

  ¶ 7:14 AM

  Paid vs unpaid interactivity
Interactive learning can be active or passive, paid or unpaid.

I've been trying to think of a way to slip payment into courseware, mixing entertainment and reward into the learning experience, but I haven't found it yet.

Most textbooks don't even offer intrinsic pleasure. "Proof left as exercise for reader" doesn't get there at all.

Schools reward learning only with status (grades), which grows up into the tenure system that also runs mainly on status (rank).

Apprenticeships and business-based training schools are closer to the learn-to-earn setup, with guaranteed JOBS on graduation.

= = = = =

I've been noticing and enjoying both types of interactivity in old radio, which led me to think about the same distinction in education.



Four examples of unpaid interactivity:

MacHarrie's Guess What and Mel Blanc's Are you a genius were formatted as self-scoring tests, with no payment beyond the intrinsic satisfaction of thinking and learning.

Blackstone's magic show was on the line between paid and unpaid. Each episode featured instructions for a parlor trick. If you listened carefully and practiced the trick, you'd be rewarded with enjoyment at parties and the chance to win real bets with friends.

Dick Tracy had an elaborate scheme of clubs and codes. You were supposed to decode a message in each episode to 'help' Tracy escape the clutches of fiendish villains. I didn't see any direct payment, but you could send for badges and insignia to reward your club members for superior performance. Using status, as in school.

= = = = =

Two contrasting examples of paid interactivity:

The big national quiz Truth or Consequences was too much like Powerball. The prizes were astronomical** and the odds were astronomical. The questions were NOT educational.

The Chicago-based Calling All Detectives was a far more practical and winnable lottery. Much more like actual work, pay for value. Each local station called a listener every day, asking a question about a detail of today's episode. Especially in smaller markets, your odds of winning were 'imaginable'. The prize was also realistic. On WGN, the originating station, Sealy Mattresses offered a new mattress. Everyone can use a new mattress, and it's a prize worth EARNING.

= = = = =

I went in search of a trade journal with templates for such lotteries. I started by looking at Broadcast magazine from the same month as the best Detectives episodes.

Immediately I found the opposite! At that exact moment the FCC was making a big push to HALT such lotteries, which explains why I hadn't heard them in more recent shows.

Broadcast Magazine said:

The FCC is embarrassed because it stubbed its bureaucratic toe on its proposed giveaway ban. It has made a hasty and strategic retreat. But the war isn't over. There appears to be no question now that the FCC lacks jurisdiction over lotteries and gift enterprises, per se. Congress, without fanfare last June, repealed the lottery section of the Communications Act, along with the section dealing with obscene, profane and indecent language. It transferred jurisdiction to the Department of Justice, under the revised Criminal Code, which becomes operative Sept. 1. Why the FCC's highly-placed lawyers muffed this one becomes a matter of administrative concern for the FCC itself.

But broadcasters shouldn't delude themselves. What the FCC cannot do directly it probably can achieve in other ways. The FCC is the licensing body. It can take judicial notice of violations of any statutes. It determines the qualifications of licensees. It may be a longer, more tortuous course, but it's there.

Any broadcasting designed to "buy" the radio audience, by requiring it to listen in hope of reward rather than for the quality of entertainment should be avoided. Voluntary adherence to that precept will do it. In one fell swoop, it will achieve everything the reputable broadcaster has sought for a quarter century. It will make good programming the yardstick. It will disarm the Government's crusade toward greater program controls. It will quell the Congressional clamor for tightening up of the law. It will end the free rides of manufacturers who give things away like mad for the air credits. It will create new business for radio.

Note the realistic grasp of Parkinson. Bureaucracies don't use laws. They do what they want to do. The response is also realistic. Lobbying is pointless. Just obey and hope to bore the demons.

We aren't allowed to think realistically now. We are required to blame The Horrible Other Party for the permanent laws of power. If only we can elect more of My Wonderful Party, all problems will magically disappear.

But the magazine was STUPIDLY WRONG when it called giveaways disreputable. These PAID LEARNING EXPERIENCES were deeply educational. Each of these surviving programs contained serious and accurate representations of geography and history and science. Even if the subject matter was typical soap opera, the MENTAL EXERCISE of strategic listening would be good for your brain. Blanc and MacHarrie urged you to listen with paper and pencil in hand, invoking MUSCLE MEMORY.

Whether you earned the mattress or not, you were earning learning. And that's a vastly better prize than a mattress.


= = = = =

** Astronomical: At one point the Truth or Consequences prize was: A new house, new furniture and appliances, a complete wardrobe every year for life, a complete set of jewelry, a new Buick convertible, a yacht, and an AIRPLANE. For most listeners, the Buick and the clothing would be a net gain, but the rest would throw you into bankruptcy. (New house = maintenance, insurance and property taxes every year, not covered by the prize.)

Labels: Entertainment, Experiential education, Parkinson

  ¶ 11:17 PM

  Lots of money sloshing around!
As the fall semester starts, I'm getting the first courseware debug requests. Last year I sorted out most of the real internal problems, so I'm expecting Murphy stuff now. Inadequate instructions or misunderstood instructions.

The steady rentalization of the world is affecting my debugging ability. Blackboard, the biggest and best of the e-learning systems, has always offered a free 'testbed' where developers could try out and debug their products without any actual students. They've ended the service now, so I'm trying to find alternatives.

As usual with web services, there's no middle ground, no correlation of quantity and price. Pay for value is obsolete.

Before the web, most services had analog prices. For instance, you could get 1000 copies of a pamphlet printed for about $100, then after the setup you could get the second thousand printed for another $20.

The web has eliminated the concepts of price per unit and amortization. You get nearly full service for free, or full service for MEGABUCKS.

How MEGA is Blackboard? They don't publicize their pricing structure, but one author acquired a close estimate from 'sources'. An average university pays $150k per year to Blackboard, or about $1200 per student.

That's MEGA. Entirely out of my range.

I've been using a 'bite-size' service from ScormCloud for many years, costing about $1000 a year. This service is fully professional. It can handle any amount of courseware, and (IIRC) about 20 students. So the cost per student is $50, not $1200. A very small training school or business OJT class could function with this level of service, and some do.

BUT: ScormCloud doesn't have the same peculiarities as Blackboard or Moodle or Canvas. ScormCloud is more resilient. A project that runs perfectly on ScormCloud will NOT necessarily run on the major commercial services. So I'm still looking for a bite-size way to test with the ACTUAL peculiarities of Blackboard.

Later thought: ScormCloud also offers larger-scale services for larger bucks. I don't know their pricing, but their service would be a better deal for the same price BECAUSE of the broader resilience. More flexibility means less hassle for instructors and developers. Oddly, their marketing runs backwards.... they advertise that their service is stricter than the big brands. They say that if the package runs on ScormCloud it will also run on the other brands.

Labels: Bemusement, Experiential education

  ¶ 5:54 AM

  Reprint from 2012
Linked this 2012 item in previous. It's worth a full reprint.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Uncommon Descent makes a neat comparison between the experts of yesteryear and the Experts of today.

Quotes several of those famous dismissals of new ideas, like IBM declining to use the invention of xerography because a machine that makes copies of documents "couldn't be a feasible business."

Then this:

One difference between this year’s feted expert and yesteryear’s is that this year’s model is demanding belief for bizarre stuff, either without evidence or contrary to evidence. He’s not saying that there couldn’t be a giant hologram, but that we in fact are ourselves giant holograms.

Exactly.

Parallels this point that Polistra has made at least 26,715,189 times with the following quote from the 1938 WPA Guide to Kansas:

Recent years of almost unprecedented drought have led to the often expressed belief that the climate of Kansas is changing. Geologists and meteorologists, however, point out that weather runs in cycles, the most pronounced being about a third of a century in length. Conditions during a cycle are easily mistaken by laymen for permanent changes. Despite year by year fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, recorded evidence shows that general climatic conditions remain unchanged.

1938 experts were cautious and scientific. They understood that Nature runs in cycles, and they understood homeostasis and feedback. Modern experts are superstitious, psychedelically psychopathic, and locked into linear extrapolation, while modern common folks are more likely to be cautious and sane, more likely to have a feel for cycles and feedback.

Because the 1938 experts had their eyes open to cycles, they could pick up the "third of a century" cycle in climate. A few of today's climate realists are finally starting to re-discover this cycle, which WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MOTHERFUCKING NECESSARY IF WE HADN'T MOTHERFUCKING CENSORED AND INQUISITED EVERY MOTHERFUCKING FACT WE EVER MOTHERFUCKING KNEW.

= = = = =

Sidenote: I wonder how the Arab scholars of 800 AD felt when they were trying to preserve and build on the vast stock of knowledge that the Greeks and Romans had abandoned? Were they fiercely pissed at the waste of human culture, sad about the tragedy, or satisfied to be the sole carriers and creators of learning?


= = = = = END REPRINT.

The incidental note about those old Arabs has grown into something of a mission.
  ¶ 11:35 PM

  Couldn't do it now
This 1948 episode of 'Calling All Detectives' is unique at two levels. At the character level it portrays the conflict between real science versus the highly competitive team sport of academic science. At the plot level, the detective USES real science to find the culprit.

A geologist who runs a seismology research station has been killed. The prime suspect is a real scientist who dislikes the team sport. Our detective clears him by narrowing down the time when the murder occurred, and showing that the prime suspect wasn't there at the time.

How did he narrow down the time? After hanging around the facility and observing the delicately balanced seismographs, he realizes that the falling body would have made a blip on the graphs, which wouldn't be seen in other seismograph stations. Sure enough, they find a twitch during the relevant interval, which isn't matched by other stations.

Granted, a stabbed body wouldn't necessarily fall ... but the writers couldn't get overcomplicated in an 8-minute drama. Still, it's an accurate use of Constants And Variables, and an accurate representation of how real science works.

Modern TV and movies couldn't handle either level. All "scientists" must now be represented as pure altruists, even though the team sport is now UNIVERSAL. In reality, any scientist who puts the purity of measurement before the advancement of his career wouldn't get past the tenure committee.

And modern writers couldn't do real Constants And Variables even if they understood the concept, because it might feed the trolls. Heretics might start thinking in proper scientific terms about Holy Sacraments like lockdowns and distancing and ballgags. CRIMETHINK!

Those 1948 writers didn't realize they were the last of a breed. In 1946 Deepstate began its multi-front war of total destruction, founding CIA and NSF and WHO and CDC to obliterate science and civilization.

Labels: Constants and Variables, Entertainment, Equipoise, Metrology

  ¶ 10:13 PM

  It's a long long road to Nuremberg
Here's a possibly interesting development. I've been noting steadily that doctors from India seem to have a monopoly on sanity. There are only a few dozen credentialed non-demons in the world, and 90% of them have Indian names.

Now India's Bar Association has filed a suit charging WHO with committing mass murder.

The specific cause of action is WHO's prohibition of Ivermectin, which is apparently quite effective in preventing infection. A controlled experiment was done accidentally, with some provinces obeying the WHO prohibition and other provinces using Ivermectin. In the latter provinces, the virus was wiped out.

Acting for the Indian Bar Association, Dipali Ojha said the WHO official is accused of misconduct because she used her position as a public health official to further the agenda of special interests to maintain an Emergency Use Authorization for the lucrative vaccine industry.

Dipali Ojha further stated that the Indian Bar Association is bringing action under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and others, for murder of each person who died due to obstruction of treatment of Covid patients with Ivermectin. Punishment under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code is death or life imprisonment.

This cause of action wouldn't apply in the West, where all real medicine was banned everywhere. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to watch what happens in India. It's hard for lawyers and judges to ignore a suit filed by the Bar Association.

This is a long long way from Nuremberg, but at least it's a solid and meaningful charge by a solid and undismissable organization.

= = = = =

Personal footnote: Before I had the EXPERIENCE of the Moderna vaccine, I was neutral or agnostic on the subject of drugs like Ivermectin or HCQ. I learn by EXPERIENCE. After enduring the possibly permanent side effects of the Moderna vaccine, I'm no longer agnostic. This vax has vastly more pain than gain.

A similar pattern happened in the '50s with gamma globulin for polio. Globulin worked well to prevent infection, but it needed to be given at the right time. The polio vax was permanent. IN THAT CASE the permanent effects were definitely worth the trouble. Polio crippled and killed healthy young people, and polio was a real epidemic. The currently fashionable virus is a disease of the old like Alzheimers. We're doing everything possible to RUIN THE ENTIRE WORLD, making total war on all health and immunity, in order to "save" people who were already inevitably dying.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, endless hell, Experiential education

  ¶ 12:10 AM

  Stability again
Halfway following from previous item about squashing competition....

I've talked a lot about the myth of meritocracy, the false idea that human nature is an infinitely malleable blank slate.

A secondary semi-false idea always runs along with meritocracy, but it doesn't have a name. The semi-myth tells us that economies are not zero-sum, that business grows by adding new innovations.

Not entirely false. Brand-new products do occasionally increase the production of real value.

Mostly, though, increased value is simply an increased quantity of the same product. Grow more wheat, make more washing machines. Historically there's a not much correlation between newness and increased production. A good product like Campbell's Soup or WD-40 or the Jeep can gradually increase its production without major change for many decades. When you factor in the development cost of a new product, the net result strongly favors continued production of an old product.

Real growth, like real learning, requires STABILITY.

The nonzero sum myth is easiest to debunk by looking at patents. The myth tells us that solo inventors in their garages get patents to grow the economy. Thus patents are the measure of innovation and growth.

False on all counts. Gradual innovation comes from established labs and workshops inside corporations, or sponsored by a group of corporations. Patents are NOT used as weapons to spur innovation. Patents are used as DEFENSIVE weapons to block competition.

This myth has a parallel in the area of military war and conquest. Commentators on both sides assume that we invade nations to gain resources.

This WAS true, at least as a pretext, before 1920. It's no longer true. Most of our invasions are pure evil, with no economic purpose at all. Invasions with economic purposes are aimed to STOP the production of a resource, not to STEAL the resource.

We can see this myth in operation right now. Commenters are assuming that we invaded Afghanistan for the lithium, and China will now invade for the lithium. The first part is obviously false. We did nothing at all with minerals in the 20 years of occupation. The second part is half true. China will now create mines and processing plants in Afghanistan by peaceful capitalism, sharing the profit and wages with Afghans. China doesn't invade and doesn't blockade. China INCREASES real value and real production, giving benefits to the local businessmen and workers along with benefits to China.

  ¶ 6:23 AM

  Not replication, just dumb
Is this another Replication Crisis? Not exactly.

From Buzzfeed, seen at UD.

Renowned psychologist Dan Ariely literally wrote the book on dishonesty. Now some are questioning whether the scientist himself is being dishonest.

According to the 2012 paper, when people signed an honesty declaration at the beginning of a form, rather than the end, they were less likely to lie. A seemingly cheap and effective method to fight fraud, it was adopted by at least one insurance company, tested by government agencies around the world, and taught to corporate executives. It made a splash among academics, who cited it in their own research more than 400 times.

That leaves Ariely, who confirmed that he alone was in touch with the insurance company that ran the test with its customers and provided him with the data. But he insisted that he was innocent, implying it was the company that was responsible. “I can see why it is tempting to think that I had something to do with creating the data in a fraudulent way,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I can see why it would be tempting to jump to that conclusion, but I didn’t.” According to correspondence reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Ariely has said that the company he partnered with was the Hartford...

Sounds like Ariely is naive and unrealistic, not dishonest.

The academic side of “social” “science” has been disconnected from reality since 1910 or so. Insurers and marketers have been running real experiments with a real profit motive, so their own findings about behavior and motivation are accurate. Insurers have learned how to judge honesty from BILLIONS of real experiments.

Scenario: When Ariely asked Hartford to run this little study, Hartford ACCURATELY JUDGED that Ariely was both influential and naive. They figured that his “results” might lead competing companies to adopt a counterproductive way of judging honesty, thus giving Hartford a competitive advantage. And their little meta-experiment worked. "At least one other insurer" did adopt the dumb trick.

This brings us back to the Trinity House theme. Trinity House WAS the insurer, so its own funding of science was motivated toward realism and honesty through a direct feedback loop. If better foghorns or better radio communication helped to keep a ship from crashing, the ship would reach harbor safely and Trinity House would receive a fee for keeping the ship safe.

= = = = =

Semi-relevant sidenote: Trinity House was developed to catch and eliminate Wreckers, criminals who built false beacons to lead ships onto the rocks so the criminals could loot the wreck. The interesting interactive radio show 'Calling All Detectives' had one episode about a modern Wrecker.

Labels: Trinity House

  ¶ 10:33 PM

  Grandpa said it
Continuing from previous item.

1. The sequence of events is a good example of evolution by subtraction, which is the way Nature, language, and human inventions work. The first genome, or the first language, or the first version of an invention, has all the features it needs. As the genome spreads into different places and creatures, or the language spreads to different people with different tendencies, or the invention tries to seek a global audience, the product simplifies.

My 2004 loader had all the features needed. Some of them were later incorporated into Poser itself, and some of them were copied in the plagiarizer's loader.

2. Fast change destroys creativity. When rules and programs and browsers are constantly changing, you have to carve away pieces of your product or mind or soul on each side to remain alive. Adapting to all possible countries and all possible users forces rigid conformity.

3. Rentalism is an alternate form of globalism. When you don't have direct control of the product or house or life, you can't learn or create effectively. Learning and creativity require a STABLE SITUATION so you can distinguish between constants and variables. When the machine or culture is constantly stealing control from your own hands, you eventually give up and stop trying to create.

Reminds me of what my dying grandpa tried to tell me in 1962.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

This line of thought originated from a specific conversation with Grandpa in 1962. Grandpa was dying early from alcohol and tobacco, and the family went to visit him one last time. As we hung around Grandpa's house, or visited nearby parks, Grandpa kept saying true things, and parents kept trying to Rectify him, nervously painting over the facts with conventional leftist crap. I wasn't sure what to think. Grandpa's observations matched what I saw with my own eyes, but didn't match what I'd always heard from parents and TV and books.

I think Grandpa got tired of being painted out. At one point he decided to go for beer and cigarettes (yeah, those were killing him, but it was too late to stop) and took me along. No parents, just me. I don't remember most of the conversation but I remember one emphasized item that seemed to summarize his intentions.

We were talking about his old '52 Ford Mainline. I must have been asking why anyone would want a plain car with no power steering, no radio, no automatic, none of the 'exciting' stuff that 'everyone wanted' in 1962.

Grandpa pointed to the manual choke. He told me that Ford was the only car that still offered a manual choke. He said it was important to have a simple car that you could understand and fix by yourself, and it was important to have direct control over the car.

Extend car to life, and there's the message.

Same as Carver's message.

Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Talk to them. Let them talk to you.

Dying old engineer trying to pass the key to young potential engineer. He succeeded. I've done a shitty job of following his advice, but I've always remembered and tried.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

Labels: Carver, defensible cases, defensible times, Grand Blueprint, storage

  ¶ 2:10 PM

  You already have what you need.
One of the small pleasures of life is pulling an ace from your sleeve.

One of the BIG pleasures is creating independence and self-sufficiency, defeating the all-consuming Github.

I use Poser intensively for work and play, for courseware animations and blog stuff and just plain entertainment. About a year ago, the makers of Poser decided to turn it into a rental property. You can't use the program at all unless you're connected to the web right now, and the connection CAN AND WILL remove anything the landlord doesn't like.

The change got AGGRESSIVELY PERSONAL when the latest version (12) cut off all usage of old-style Python.

This immediately obsoleted 20 years of hard work.

In the early years, much of my hard work was released to the Poser community, and other programmers started from my examples and monetized their work without giving me credit or royalties. This was annoying, but as long as I could keep using and amortizing my own work for my own purposes, it wasn't DESTRUCTIVE.

When the change forced me to switch all of my own work to the new form in order to USE IT FOR MY OWN PURPOSES, I said no. Demanded a refund and cancellation of the license for v12. Without warning, this also cancelled the license for v11, which would have been usable otherwise.

NOW I'M SERIOUSLY PISSED.

So I fell back to v9, which was the last non-Github version.

But then v9 abruptly suffered an entirely separate Github obsolescence. It somehow used Adobe Flash to run its file system. When Adobe killed Flash, v9 became partly usable. It would load premade scenes, but not any of the parts needed to build a scene.

There was a workaround, a loader developed by one of those monetizers who began with my work. Damned if I'm going to honor a monetizer.

So I returned to the loader I'd written in 2004, which does more than the Adobe shit was doing, and does more than the plagiarized version. I hadn't been using it, because the Adobe-based file system, built into the program, was easier. Now the choice was between my own superior file-handler or the plagiarized inferior file-handler.

No contest, no split decision. It still works.

A meaningful victory against Github 'phone home' tyranny, and a petty personal victory against the plagiarizers.

Polistra sings along with Tycho:



BE YOUR OWN BEACON.

You already have what you need.

Resonate with reality using your own INSTRUMENTS and your own SKILLS and your own SENSES. Don't surrender to the centralizers or the plagiarizers. Don't let them steal your SKILLS or monopolize your SENSES.

Labels: Equipoise, skill-estate

  ¶ 2:46 PM

  Counterforce to Machiavelli
In previous item I wished someone would write a counterbalance to Machiavelli's advice for rulers. How should we survive the various forms of torture that rulers impose on us?

This question and answer on Quora does the job pretty well.


Q: Why do the Chinese widely consider Zhuge Liang to be the greatest strategist in Chinese history even though his side never won conclusively on the battlefield?


A:

Because for Chinese, the side which survives the longest is the victor by default, even if it did not ever win on the battlefield.

This is probably the biggest single difference between western and Chinese strategic military thinking.

All of the writings of Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong (On Prolonged War) are based on this simple fact. If one side is militarily weak, and it is fighting a militarily much more powerful enemy, the only path to victory is by lasting longer than the opponent.

When George Washington was fighting the British in the War of Independence, and the Vietnamese were fighting the Americans, and more recently, the Taliban fought the Americans, it is this simple fact which offers the only path to victory.

This obviously applies to ordinary people facing a well-armed and demonic ruler. In fact it's basically the same as my experience-based strategy for surviving when trapped in a cell with a psychopath. Outlast him. Don't excite him. Hope he loses interest in the battle and moves on.

In other words, follow Booker T.

EXPERIENCE SURVIVES. THEORY KILLS.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, Jail mode

  ¶ 11:14 PM

  7 days in flies, 7 days in humans
In previous item, researchers found that seven days was enough to cause Mecher's intended lockdown damage, in fruit flies.

Reprint from Oct 2020:

= = = = = START REPRINT:


An article in the Canadian Patent Register for 1886 has an insight about the psychopaths who are killing the world. Before Freud and Skinner took over, REAL social science was trying to observe REAL human types. They had an overemphasis on skull shapes, but their descriptions of criminal behavior were sharp and precise.

The description includes one element that I hadn't thought about in this form, though it's actually obvious.

There is another class, who are led on by a wild passion for the destruction of the old and the creation of something new. They need restless activity: their present condition seems the worst possible.

As a rule, too, they are very fond of notoriety. They are in love with crime. The pain of others is a keen satisfaction to them: its horror attracts them. The French revolution shows such types.

The need to cause harm is common to most criminals, but revolutionaries have an extra wild passion for the destruction of the old and the creation of something new.

These are the pure psychopaths, the Bezos class, the Creative Destruction class, the Innovative Disruption class. Force obedience, change the rules, force obedience to new rules, change the rules, force obedience to new rules, change the rules. Github. Room 101. Bezos.

Another observation is more familiar:

The modern socialists, anarchists and dynamiters no doubt contain an element of these hereditary criminals, who use the political object as a mask for their instinctive tendencies to lawless outbreaks. In some cases the introduction of such a criminal element transforms a purely political organization into a band of outlaws: the Molly-Maguires are an example of this.

This connection has always been known but (of course) never cited in modern discussions. Those French revolutionaries crashed the Bastille to recruit their ordinary criminals. It showed up again in Deepstate's preparation for Madman Lincoln's War, when most of the "anti-slavery" activists were ordinary outlaws. And again in the 1960s, when the Black Panthers were a gang operating under an "anti-racism" flag. And again in today's "anti-racism" riots, where most of the arrested violent suspects are ordinary criminals, familiar to the cops, with long records.

The 2020 "virus" holocaust is ALL ABOUT DESTRUCTION OF THE OLD. Old medicine and public health knew how immunity worked, knew how viruses worked, knew that the best way to handle a virus is to strengthen the immune system. All of that knowledge, acquired by costly experience over hundreds of years, has been Creatively Destroyed in a Github instant. Now no scientist has heard of immunity. Immunity never existed. T-cells are a "controversial theory". All previously known properties of viruses are Unproperties, deleted and replaced by properties of witchcraft. The new rules and purposes change every two weeks. Force obedience, change the rules, force obedience, change the rules, force obedience, change the rules. Never let the victim adapt to the new. Github. 101. Bezos.

= = = = =

Metrology footnote: Two weeks is an unfamiliar time constant. It's clearly the 'pendulum period' of the current holocaust. I don't think it's been used explicitly before, though it might have been used without mentioning it. Previous Deepstate projects were asynchronous at this long-term level. The seven-second rule has always been used by TV to break our short-term adaptation. Clearly the holocausters have figured out an intrinsic aspect of memory and adaptation. Two weeks is half of a moon cycle, half of a menstrual cycle. Karens are mainly pre-menopausal women. Is the pendulum designed to phase-lock Karens?

I'm tempted to associate it with memory consolidation, but a quick google skim doesn't find any explicit mention of a two-week constant. It takes about one week for a short-term memory to transfer from hippocampus to cortex, where it grows links to other memories. Possibly a two-week Github breaks a crucial point in that transfer??

= = = = = END REPRINT.

There's the seven days.
  ¶ 11:14 PM

  Excellent finding, wrong focus
Carter Mecher and his hellish crew of superdemons know exactly what they're doing. All the doctors and Public Death Officers and mayors and governors and presidents know exactly what they're doing. This holocaust has been designed and planned for 15 years.

It's interesting to see that the mechanism Mecher is mechanizing runs deep in our genes. I'm sure Mecher's mechanics already know this particular detail, along with the more obvious correlations. Deepstate is always ahead of Academia.

It's also interesting that the researcher who is EXPOSING the connection is Chinese.

Drosophila are social creatures. The fruit flies forage and feed in groups, serenade one another through complex mating rituals, tussle in miniature boxing matches. And then they conk out: flies sleep 16 hours each day, split between a languorous midday nap and a full night’s rest.

So when Wanhe Li, a research associate in Young’s lab, began investigating the biological underpinnings of chronic social isolation, she turned to the gregarious and well-studied fruit fly. For the study, Wanhe Li first compared how flies fare under various lockdown conditions. After seven days, flies housed together in groups of varying sizes produced no anomalous behaviors. Even two flies cut off from the crowd were content with one another. But when a single fly was entirely isolated, the lonely insect began eating more and sleeping less.

Seven days is enough to start the effect, which also appears to induce gene expression. So it may be a multi-generational effect. I'm sure Mecher knows this as well. He intends to ruin the entire universe for the rest of history.

The researchers do the usual Darwin speculation:

One possibility, Young says, is that social isolation signals a degree of uncertainty about the future. Preparation for tough times may include being alert and awake as often as possible and eating whenever food is available.

Not quite. Isolation doesn't signal uncertainty about the future. Isolation directly creates uncertainty and paranoia by removing external feedback from Nature and other humans. Sensory deprivation leaves the individual totally susceptible to official sensory input and official commands. Our media-centered world has already moved us halfway into this mode several years before the lockdowns.

This article is focusing on overeating, which isn't the important variable. Overeating is simply a familiar immediate effect of sleep loss. Under normal conditions, one sleepless night makes you ravenous. Sleep deprivation is the critical weapon of psychopaths and cult leaders. When we lose sleep we lose confidence, lose immunity, and lose coherence. We are ready for total command and control.

Hungry for food, hungry for sense input, hungry for coherence. The demons supply all three in their preferred form.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, AI point-missing

  ¶ 10:40 AM

  Much to be modest about
This new attempt to categorize life is vague and sloppy. The authors, for once, are appropriately humble about the highly tentative stage of their understanding.

What REALLY caught my attention in the article is The Unavoidable Typo:



For some reason this particular typo evades all proofreaders. Leaving aside words with plausible alternative spellings, Sante Fe is the champion typo. Anticipatory coarticulation.

The authors see the problems clearly. Taxonomy stopped working a long time ago. Concepts like species and individual simply don't fit the real world. A forest or a field of grass is an individual and a huge group of individuals. Functional modules are sometimes separated by cell boundaries and sometimes not. Many "species" have turned out to be different settings of the variable epigenes, not different settings of the constant genes.

Using this definition vastly increases what can be seen as life, to include concepts such as culture, forests, and the economy. A more traditional definition might consider these as products of life, rather than life itself.

"Human culture lives on the material of minds, much like multicellular organisms live on the material of single-celled organisms," Kempes explains.

Based on their new definition, the researchers argue that life has emerged many times on Earth, and that we in fact are co-existing with many forms of current life.

They are trying to steer away from crude physics and materialism, but their proposal is still too static, too materialistic. It appears to pivot on the tired notion of energy efficiency:

For example, life uses many gradients of energy production using the level one constraints, but all of these must adhere to the level two constraint of the law of thermodynamics. "No cell will be found to contain more internal structure than can be accounted for by the total free energy available from the environment," the team writes in their paper.

Is complexity limited by available energy? No. MAINTAINING a more complex structure doesn't require more energy. The right structure for a PURPOSE may be simple or complex.

A modern car uses much less gas than a Model T. A cellphone uses much less battery energy than a 1950 tube-based computer. There's no correlation.

So these authors aren't anywhere near a usable redefinition, but they are starting the process with a healthy humble attitude.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 11:57 PM

  Back to full medieval mode
After about six weeks of partial gagging, Demon Inslee has now predictably returned to full gagging. This is how demons work.

Not surprising now; he gave warning two weeks ago with a "recommendation".

I vented my emotions at that point. No emotions now.

Just survival.

The weather gods have provided mercy again, finally ending the hot spell without any dramatic windstorms.

Bless you, weather gods.

Every new STOMP knocks you down and ruins your confidence. It's easier to get back up when you aren't buffeted on all sides by heat and storms and power outages.

Back to medieval mode. Try to keep the torch of real science illuminated, try to fight ugliness with beauty.

THEY KNOW IT'S A HOAX BECAUSE THEY MADE THE HOAX.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, 2000=1000, endless hell, Jackboot stomping forever

  ¶ 9:54 PM

  Finally reading Machiavelli
I've been recommending Machiavelli for a long time. I've been hammering repeatedly that "civics" classes and political thinkers shouldn't waste time on bizarre mythical delusions like constitutions and laws and elections. Instead they should use and modernize sources of hardass reality like Machiavelli and Parkinson.

I've read Parkinson deeply and repeatedly, but I've never read Machiavelli aside from citing some already cited familiar pieces.

Finally settled down to read the Prince. I skipped his specific personal advice to specific real princes, and stuck with the general parts.

Unsurprisingly, he's absolutely realistic and objective. He wastes no time on ideologies and laws and organization charts.

I was surprised by the SCIENTIFIC METHOD of the book. Machiavelli starts by tossing out the constants like ideology and religion and systems. Then he separates out all the real variables of PERSONALITY and runs a separate 'experiment' on each variable. What happens when a prince is more lenient or more strict with the people? More lenient or more strict with the courtiers? More generous or more stingy with the people? More generous or more stingy with the courtiers? More aggressive or more businesslike with foreign nations?

He forms a verbal graph or transfer function for each variable on its own.

The concluding chapter hasn't been overquoted, so maybe it's worth a quote. In this chapter he treats the biggest variable of all, the rotations and variations of the universe, aka Fortune.

It is unknown to me how many believe that worldly events are so governed by fortune and by God, that men cannot by their prudence change them, and that on the contrary there is no remedy whatever, and for this they may judge it to be useless to toil much about them, but let things be ruled by chance.

This opinion has been more believed in our day, from the great changes that have been seen, and are daily seen, beyond every human conjecture. [SOUNDS FUCKING FAMILIAR, DOESN'T IT?]

When I think about them at times, I am partly inclined to share this opinion. Nevertheless, that our freewill may not be altogether extinguished, I think it may be true that fortune is the ruler of half our actions, but that she allows the other half or a little less to be governed by us. I would compare her to an impetuous river that, when turbulent, inundates the plains, ruins trees and buildings, removes earth from this side and places it on the other; every one flies before it, and everything yields to its fury without being able to oppose it.

And yet when it is quiet, men can make provision against it by dams and banks, so that when it rises it will either go into a canal or its rush will not be so wild and dangerous.

It happens similarly with fortune, which shows her power where no measures have been taken to resist her, and turns her fury where she knows that no dams or barriers have been made to hold her.

But limiting myself more to particular cases, I would point out how one sees a certain prince today fortunate and tomorrow ruined, without seeing that he has changed in character. I believe this arises in the first place from the causes that we have already discussed at length; that is to say, because the prince who bases himself entirely on fortune is ruined when fortune varies.

I also believe that he is happy whose mode of proceeding accords with the needs of the times, and similarly he is unfortunate whose mode of proceeding is opposed to the times. For one sees that in those things which lead them to the aim that each one has in view, namely, glory and riches, men proceed in various ways; one with circumspection, another with impetuosity, one by violence, another by cunning, one with patience, another with the reverse; and each by these diverse ways may arrive at his aim. One sees also two cautious men, one of whom succeeds in his designs, and the other not, and in the same way two men succeed equally by different methods, one being cautious, the other impetuous, which arises only from the nature of the times, which does or does not conform to their method of proceeding.

HARDASS and perfectly accurate.

Expressed in my peculiar language: When you've built enough dams and stored enough material and human capital, you're free to act more impetuously. When you tear down dams and grain elevators, when you operate on debt and JIT, the floods of fortune will always be in control, and you won't be free to improvise or think or create.

Thinking of balances and bridges, it would be interesting to see a counterpoise book written as advice for peasants. Separate out the same variables and graph the same transfer functions for the opposite side of the balance. When the prince is generous with the peasants, how should the peasants behave to maximize the generosity and encourage the prince? When the prince is murderous, how should the peasants minimize the damage and discourage the prince? Machiavelli sometimes describes how the peasants typically respond to the ruler's behavior, but he's not on our side.

Labels: Constants and Variables, Equipoise, Parkinson, storage

  ¶ 6:56 AM

  Not blinded by stats!
Here's a refreshingly HARDASS critique of the FRAUD called statistics, in a mainstream science mag. Bruce Bower tells the history of the 'p-value' that allegedly measures significance. Unsurprisingly it began shortly after WW2, like all the other frauds and crimes of science.

By calculating just one number from their experimental results, called a P value, researchers could now deem those results “statistically significant.” That was all it took to claim — even if mistakenly — that an interesting and powerful effect had been demonstrated. The idea took off, and soon legions of researchers were reporting statistically significant results.

Bower states the solution clearly:

Keep it simple, Loftus advised. Remember that a picture is worth a thousand reckonings of statistical significance. In that spirit, he recommended reporting straightforward averages to compare groups of volunteers in a psychology experiment. Graphs could show whether individuals’ scores covered a broad range or clumped around the average, enabling a calculation of whether the average score would likely change a little or a lot in a repeat study. In this way, researchers could evaluate, say, whether volunteers scored better on a difficult math test if first allowed to write about their thoughts and feelings for 10 minutes, versus sitting quietly for 10 minutes.

Graphs, graphs, graphs. Let readers SEE what's there. Don't smash the graphs into one number that collapses the time axis.

= = = = =

Calibrating: I played the p-value game once. I wrote some rather neat software for one of the speech grad students at Penn State. She wanted to try computers in teaching foreign languages. (This was 1988; sound handling was still a new trick and an expensive option on computers.) She used the software with a fairly large number of students, and taught the same words the old-fashioned way with a control group. She got ambiguous results, which isn't surprising. Tech is NOT magic. The old-fashioned way is often better! As the deadline for her thesis got closer, she wondered if I could use a neural net to reprocess the results. I did, and the significance looked better that way.

I'm proud of making the sample-and-compare software, which was original at the time. I'm not proud of playing the p game.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carbon Cult, Carver

  ¶ 2:04 PM

  Sometimes history doesn't just rhyme
Well, it appears that we are actually OUT of Afghanistan.

This is a positive event whether it was deliberate or not. I was assuming that Biden would do the usual fake pullout "justifying" a massive new war. So far there's no evidence of the latter. We're just OUT.

Every exception to Parkinson is a good thing. Every breakdown in perpetual idiocy is welcome.

Orlov undoubtedly appreciates this specific event. He pointed out that the Soviet failure in Afghanistan precipitated the final death of the USSR. Now the US failure in the SAME Afghanistan is helping our collapse. Not a metaphor, not a rhyme. The same failure in the same place for the same stupid reason.

The media on "both" "sides" are decrying this good event. The R side is predictable, since everything done by D is bad in R's eyes and vice versa. The D criticism is more interesting. They're quoting Bush Junior verbatim, repeating his original idiotic justification for the war, warning that the "terrorists will follow us home."

= = = = =

I want to add a couple of earlier rhymes that aren't generally recognized.

In 1918 we invaded and occupied part of Russia. We were propping up the Mensheviks. When we pulled out, the Bolsheviks immediately won BECAUSE THE MENSHEVIKS WERE SEEN AS FOREIGN OCCUPIERS.

In 1946 we occupied part of China. We were propping up Chiang. When we pulled out, Mao immediately won BECAUSE CHIANG WAS SEEN AS A FOREIGN OCCUPIER.

The same happened in Vietnam.

Now the same has happened in Afghanistan. We invaded and occupied and propped up our own puppet. When we pulled out, the Taliban immediately won BECAUSE OUR PUPPET WAS A FOREIGN OCCUPIER.

103 years of miserable infinitely stupid infinitely deadly poetry.

And I need to add an external rhyme that may be relevant. Bush Junior is coming back into popularity on "both" "sides" of the media. The very same Bush Junior who LAUNCHED THE VIRUS HOLOCAUST IN 2005. Are we seeing a behind-the-scenes coup?

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, infinite STUPID, Parkinson

  ¶ 4:47 AM

  Three Parkinson workarounds
One major problem, maybe the deepest problem and source of most other problems, is the Parkinson loop. Governments and corporations seek only GROWTH, not SERVICE or SOLVING.

When an institution has a healthy negative feedback loop to its customers or citizens, it works to gain more customers and to make the customers richer and better. Seeking profit forces a business to treat its customers and employees well. Loyalty is the key to profit.

Henry Ford, who was NOT a nice altruistic man, expressed this loop clearly. He wanted his employees to be able to buy Fords. So he treated them well, paid them well, and tried to improve their lives. In return they stayed on the job, improved their skills, and performed more efficiently. Loyalty for loyalty, respect for respect.

Now corporations seek GROWTH, so they move fast and break things to maximize SHARE VALUE.

Parkinson is most obvious in bureaucracies, which create problems in order to justify more power and budget to create more problems.

= = = = =

How do we break out of Parkinson? I've discussed two ways extensively.

= = = = =

A strong leader who genuinely wants to solve problems and improve the company or country can break up the structures that maintain the death loop.

FDR knew exactly what he was doing. He was facing the three legs of Deepstate: Banks, Intel agencies, and Activists.

1. On his first day in office he started breaking and constraining the banks.

2. He then repealed Prohibition, which removed the Parkinson loop from FBI and ATF. Those agancies could no longer build gangs to provide "problems" that would be aggravated by building more gangs.

3. He then started to solve the overall economic problem, which relieved the stresses that were driving millions of working-class men into fascist and socialist activism.

= = = = =

I've also discussed an unusual and perhaps unique exception to Parkinson. Trinity House was founded by Henry VIII and still operates with its original purpose intact. In 500 years it never lost track of its PROBLEM-SOLVING goal, never descended into pure growth-loop.

Trinity House succeeds because its income depends strictly and precisely on SOLVING one particular problem. Its purpose is to keep ships safe. It maintains lighthouses and radio beacons, and it has sponsored research in fog warnings, radio communication, and optics. Trinity House is funded by a tax on every commercial ship that docks in Britain. If ships are failing to reach port, its funding decreases. So it runs on a pure and simple profit loop, like a non-stock business.

= = = = =

Yesterday I noticed a third workaround while thinking about Brahe's work.

Tycho thus fits firmly into the tradition of Follies that serve science. Follies fade quickly after the rich owner dies, but the contributions to the work of other scholars remain and grow.

An institution that fades can't undergo the Parkinson process. Unlike bureaucracies and foundations, it can't turn to crime and corruption. The product grows without interference from the now-corrupt institution.

This is Nature's way of avoiding Parkinson. A person or a company or a bureaucracy dies when its purpose is done. The influence, if carefully cultivated by heirs and successors, can remain and grow, seeding more service and solving.

We've been blocking two of those natural deaths. We no longer allow a major company to go bankrupt when it loses its connection to customers. We maintain the loop by bailing out the worst and most destructive companies. And we never repeal a bad law or dissolve a bad agency. We just keep pumping more money into the evil monsters.

And we partially block the function of personal death by keeping old monsters in office long after they should have retired. Within an institution, retirement breaks the personal blackmail loop of a demon. Younger executives take his place, starting fresh on blackmail. Occasionally one of the new executives may even turn out to be a problem-solver like FDR or Putin.

Labels: Parkinson

  ¶ 8:03 AM

  Might be worth reading
Review of a book that might be worth reading. 'Speechless' by Michael Knowles.

From the review:

In abiding by such speech codes for the sake of politeness, Knowles argues that conservatives unwittingly cede the core of their arguments to progressives.

Not sure about this. PC censors have always been around, and there's always a way to state the truth without breaking a speech code. Especially true now when most censorship is done automatically by AI. When you use forbidden words you will be censored AUTOMATICALLY and nobody will get to read what you say. When you say it without the forbidden words, you stand a better chance of being published. AI is literal and mechanistic. AI doesn't get metaphors and fables. (Come to think of it, human censors were always literal and mechanistic. Metaphors and fables have always been workarounds.)

Stronger point:

To undermine political correctness, Knowles urges conservatives to move toward a more muscular form of argument capable of accusing the Left of more than mere hypocrisy. “Politically correct radicals have committed a greater offense than hypocrisy,” he writes, “they have redefined vice as virtue and virtue as vice.”

Consider the Right’s response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s dinner at the French Laundry in violation of his own coronavirus guidelines. Newsom was certainly hypocritical to violate his own lockdown regime, a fact that conservatives were quick to acknowledge. More important than pointing out Newsom’s hypocrisy, however, was stating that the governor’s guidance inflicted untold social and economic misery on the residents of California. The conservatives who focused on Newsom’s hypocrisy to the exclusion of the underlying principle at stake ironically helped to validate the governor’s lockdowns.

Well, it's not ironic. The Repooflican cowards clearly want the lockdowns just as much as Newsom and Inslee and Whitmer. Bezos is a LIBERTARIAN, not a socialist. Repooflicans understood that their Randian hero Bezos was the main economic beneficiary of the lockdowns. Some legislators also received nice juicy bribes to maintain their approval.

Knowles does hit the important point. Lockdowns and muzzles are a HOLOCAUST designed to destroy immunity and confidence, and to destroy real science and real medicine. A perfect reversal of vice and virtue.

I've been pointing out that these off-camera moments illustrate KNOWLEDGE, not hypocrisy. The rulers KNOW that the lockdowns and muzzles have nothing to do with viruses, and they KNOW that there's no real epidemic or real risk. They live according to their ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE, not according to the murderous rules they impose on the peasants.

THEY KNOW IT'S A HOAX BECAUSE THEY MADE THE HOAX.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, endless hell

  ¶ 12:40 AM

  Good question.
A good question seen on Quora:

Can our immune system kill insects?

Obvious answer: No.

But when you step back and ask why not, the question gets more interesting.

Plants have an immune system that does repel and kill insects, in complex and effective ways. When an insect starts chewing on a leaf, the plant sends toxins through its circulatory system to repel the bug. And then the plant tells its neighbors to start fighting this type of insect. The signal goes through stolons or through fungal 'wires' or through the air, depending on how the plant is connected up.

Why do animals lack a similar ability?

I can only think of one reason, which is unsatisfying.

Mammals and birds can shake off an insect, or knock it off with a leg or tail or beak. But this doesn’t seem nearly as effective as the plant method.

Labels: asked and worth asking again, Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 10:32 PM

  Astrometeorology 7, Brahe's Star Castle
In the 1500s Europeans were starting to pull away from Rome's monopoly on power and thought. Tycho Brahe was a rich aristocrat who became fascinated by Arab and Persian astronomy. He shared the Islamic motive of learning how the universe ticks (literally) so we could predict and align our activities better with the universe. His aristocratic rank enabled him to get a commission from King Frederick of Denmark to build an official observatory, initially to improve timekeeping.

From David King's history:

He became interested in astronomy after observing a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the cause, he thought, of the great plague in 1563. He found that planetary tables were in error by several days, and there and then decided to make their improvement his prime concern.

In 1576 Tycho started building his Star Castle, following Islamic architecture and Islamic instruments as seen at Maragha, but with improved and enlarged instruments for better accuracy.







The function of the domes is unclear. King says they housed some of the instruments, guarding against wind and weather.... but the drawings from Tycho's book seem to show solid roofs, not retractable or glass roofs. Two of the circles have semi-open 'gratings' over them, which would probably be sufficient. The big dome has a semi-open chamber at the top, but the ribs would block practical use.

The floor plan of the underground part is clear. An adit on the left led downstairs to the rectangular middle part, which served as a residence for the technician. Passages from the middle led to the observation chambers, which might have housed instruments.



I've included several of the instruments aboveground for visibility.

First, the default structure was just a rotatable globe with some kind of mounting on top. The globe was protected by a cone when not in use. Experimental instruments could be mounted on the globe and rotated to various angles. An astronomical breadboard.



There were several armillary spheres, mainly for calculation and visualization, not for sighting.



The Islamic instruments had alidades instead of lenses. Tycho continued the practice, and improved the accuracy with a vernier marking on top, anticipating the tick marks in later sidereal time instruments.

One of the Maragha instruments:



Tycho's version of a simple altitude sight:



This machine had a fine worm-gear crank to adjust with greater precision:



The Quadrant Magnus, with both altitude and azimuth adjustments:



Quadrant in use, sighting a star through the alidade:



The Sextant had three axes of adjustment, altitude and azimuth and a separate rotation of the alidade.



The Sextant in use:



An equatorial instrument pivoted on a 23 degree axis, anticipating the more complex equatorials of the 1800s. It had two independent alidades, for use in opposite directions.



Polistra thinks this instrument would have been hard to use!



What happened to the Star Castle? Again from David King:

Tycho had an imperious and fiery disposition which made him many enemies among the nobles of Denmark, especially those who envied him his large estate and high salary. After his benefactor's death, these individuals naturally counselled the young King Christian against his father's astronomer, already in some disfavour for having ill-treated one of his tenants.** After the coronation of King Christian in 1596, Tycho found his allowances gradually curtailed, even to the pension, so that he felt, as never before, that both he and his work were unwanted.

Eventually, his troubles became so acute that he was happy to leave Hveen, taking with him servants, students, instruments, and printing-press. After a short stay in Copenhagen, he left Denmark for ever, seeking safe domicile in Rostock, Wandsbeck, and Wittenburg until, worn out in body and spirit, he settled in Prague.

The castle's decay was hastened by his successors, who appear to have pulled down some parts in order to provide building material for new dwelling-houses. By 1652, there was scarcely any trace of the original buildings.

Tycho thus fits firmly into the tradition of Follies that serve science. Follies fade quickly after the rich owner dies, but the contributions to the work of other scholars remain and grow.

An institution that fades can't undergo the Parkinson process. Unlike bureaucracies and foundations, it can't turn to crime and corruption. The product grows without interference from the now-corrupt institution.

= = = = =

** Footnote: Can you imagine a modern aristocrat receiving disfavor for ill-treating one of his tenants? Now it's the other way around. Aristocrats lose Share Value when they accidentally treat their tenants and employees decently. Only ill-treatment is allowed.

= = = = =

Keeping track of the links so far:

Intro: Opening the doors again

2: James Ferguson

3: From Ferguson to Kepler

4: Maragha and astrolabes

5: Qibla

6: Back to Europe

7: Brahe's star castle (this item)

Labels: 2000=1000, Entertainment, Equipoise, Metrology, Parkinson

  ¶ 2:09 PM

  Another meme that hits the point

Labels: 2000=1000

  ¶ 1:33 AM

  Afghanistan weirdness
Biden fakely pulled out some of our troops so we could justify sending more troops back in. This was drably predictable. Parkinson. Create a problem so we can waste more money creating it again.

We never leave a country after we invade it. We always occupy forever. Leaving is unthinkable because leaving ends the flow of money to the Pentagon and mercenaries. Parkinson.

The media response to this predictable move is NOT predictable. I don't watch regular media, but Quora typically gives a good echo. Quora bots are flooding the zone with messages favoring a hard and heavy return to Afghanistan to obliterate the Taliban. A verbatim repeat of Bush's idiotic message in 2001. If we don't wipe out the terrorists, the terrorists will follow us home.

In Persuasion, Jonathan Rauch defends our 20-year occupation and says it was worth the effort. Rauch has been a clear and objective observer of politics for a LONG time. He has been uniquely correct about many important trends. But he's missing the point on this one.

I'm VASTLY less wise than Rauch. I take entirely too long to figure out political crap. But this particular piece of crap was obvious even to my dull mind, four years before I got rid of the whole anti-Islam poison.

Later: I've been narrowing down my input too much. Mental OCD, trying to ward off all hints of tyranny. Broadening the horizon and looking at some comments on other videos about Afghanistan, it's clear that the vast majority of people understand the futility and stupidity of the war. Many of them are seeing it in Parkinson terms. Experts who try to defend the war are given no slack.

Later again: Now I'm seeing some Quora questions that openly idolize Bush by name. Makes me think these are generated by an organization serving the Bush family. In other words, CIA.

Labels: Bemusement, Parkinson

  ¶ 8:10 PM

  New record for converging to orthodoxy
Saagar and Krystal started their Breaking Points show about one month ago. They made a good start in the direction of independence, bashing CNN and MSNBC and FOX equally. Today they converged to MSNBC. As fucking usual. I wasted $10 on a subscription, always hoping to get value for money. Should have known better. Independence is always fake. Canceled.

This really fits into the category of editing and selecting. The converging episode wasn't their own work, it was some other asshole. They selected it as suitable for their brand.

When people pay for a magazine or a show or a food product, they are paying for a container of a specific substance. When the jar is labeled as gluten-free, the jar shouldn't contain wheat. When the jar is labeled CNN-free and FOX-free, the jar must NEVER include anything that could be seen on CNN or FOX. Otherwise why bother paying for the jar?

Labels: Editors, infinite STUPID

  ¶ 1:54 PM

  Breeds, not species
Previous item mentioned the Neanderthal tribe. Here's a new DNA finding about the Denisovan tribe.

Neanderthals seem to have become most of Europe, especially around modern France and Germany. Denisovans seem to have become part of Polynesia, in the Phillipines and New Guinea.

Viewing these groups as tribes or breeds is more logical and 'orthogonal' than the standard Darwinian species division.

Breeds happen as a result of selective breeding. They're not stages on a timeline.

Thinking in dog terms removes some of the overlay. Denisovans are Labradors. Nice, loyal, always aiming toward friendship. Neanderthals are German (of course) Shepherds. Strict, organized, hierarchical.

Other major groups would be Oriental, Middle East, Siberian/American, African. These would have been forming in the same era as the Denisovans and Neanderthals from an earlier 'wolf' stock.

Dog breeds were formed by the EXTERNAL influence of human culture. Human breeds were formed by the INTERNAL influence of human culture.

In this view, each of the groups was formed BY CULTURE, through assortative and selective mating.
  ¶ 6:38 AM

  Dropping wells
UD has mentioned again the 'color fountain' that seems to have been a religious or cultural focus for humans of the Neanderthal tribe. On the previous mention I connected the material of red ochre with its long religious and cultural significance.

This time the 'color fountain' reminded me of something else. The Dropping Well of Harrogate, which was beautifully dramatized by Hix in 1940.

An older reference to the well leads into a specific religious and cultural connection that didn't seem important when I had discussed the well before. In 2017 the well's petrification talents seemed more important. Now the colors seem more important.

The first in importance is the Harrogate Dropping Well, the most remarkable spring known in Great Britain. Situated in what is known as the Long Walk, and close to a part of the river's course where the intermixed charms of rock, wood, and water, combine to render the scene one of great beauty, the tourist whilst wending his way to this noted spring, enjoy that sequestration and repose which, according to local tradition, proved so fascinating to that celebrated Yorkshire sibyl, Mother Shipton.

Mother Shipton is reported to have been born near the Dropping Well in July, 1488, and here is still shown the cave in which she is said to have worked her charms, composed her rhymes, divined her mysterious prophecies, and told credulouis folk their fortunes.

Here's a strongly written biography of Mother Shipton.

When Nature displays beauty that seems to have significance, humans will always try to read it and seek its advice, directly or through a paid translator.

Beacons are crucial in crazy times like 1488 and 2021, when imbecilic insane demonic rulers smash civilizations for their own perverse pleasure. Some seek beacons in the stars, others seek geological beacons.

Labels: 2000=1000, Equipoise, Metrology

  ¶ 11:02 PM

  Restoring sanity....
I took an extra walk to clear out the NAZI DEMON vapors and restore sanity after the NAZI STOMP.

Normal humans, both black and white, are sitting on porches and doing lawn work. Nice sanity. I should resume the habit of extra walks, which I stopped in June when afternoons got too hot.

A neighbor has a brand new Subaru with a bumper sticker:

Destroy the patriarchy, not the planet

Well, let's see how the purchase accomplished the goal. Subaru is a Japanese company, and Japan is one of the few remaining real patriarchies in the world. Women have specific subordinate roles. Buying a new car uses vastly more materials and energy than keeping an old car. Driving a car uses oil from Saudi, another REAL patriarchy, and oil from Texas, viewed as a patriarchy by the hippie idiots. We don't buy any oil from 'progressive' countries or states.

Good work! Subsidizing an actual patriarchy and wasting material and energy!

This is an old and tired trick. Back in '68 my rich roommate drove his Mercedes to an Alpo dog food plant, along with many other rich hippies in Cadillacs, to protest the "fact" that poor people had to eat Alpo. Aside from the obvious irony, canned dog food is more expensive than Campbell's Soup, so poor people DON'T eat dog food.

Fortunately this type of slogan is so stupid that even the hippies eventually realize what they're doing.

Labels: Bemusement, Equipoise

  ¶ 9:08 AM

  NAZI DEMONS ADVANCING
The muzzle situation in stores hasn't really changed despite Demon Inslee's latest "recommendation". The signs still say Muzzle Encouraged, and the customers are still mostly unmuzzled.

This morning the muzzle situation on the bus abruptly got worse.

For 14 fucking months I've been obediently wearing my homemade muzzle, which does everything a muzzle is "supposed" to do. This morning an officious FEMALE (of course) DEMON suddenly decided that only official muzzles are allowed. I had to pull out one of their official ballgags and put it on. I cussed at the demon, who disapproved of the cussing but didn't toss me off.

The official muzzle actually doesn't cover the nose and mouth as well as my homemade version, so there is (of course) no reason to prefer it except RULES RULES RULES RULES RULES.

NAZI DEMONS. NAZI HOLOCAUSTERS.

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Labels: #WholeOfSociety, endless hell, infinite infinite infinite evil, Jackboot stomping forever

  ¶ 7:38 AM

  Not me? No, me.
For several years Academia.edu has been teasing me with 'mentions' of my name. A few months ago I finally bought a membership, which has proved TREMENDOUSLY valuable in finding interesting historical works that aren't available elsewhere. My current astrometeorology stuff is based on material found through Academia.

With membership comes the ability to see those mentions up close, and mark which of them are really me. Today's batch of 'mentions' finally includes some definite NOT MEs along with some recognizable cites of my work.

The doppelganger has the same last name and the same first initial, a highly unusual combination. I can't see the first name, which may be different. The team and the location are people and places I've never known.

And then I looked more closely at the team, which initially seemed to be all unfamiliar. The lead author was a Korean who had been in the Penn State acoustics lab when I was working there, and the project itself was familiar, even though it was written up later in a different place.

Me after all. No doppelganger.
  ¶ 6:26 AM

  More accuracy
I'm encouraged when I see hints of a trend away from holocaustal orthodoxy. Last week I noted this James Hankins essay on the decadence of philosophy.

Nathan Smith writes on the decadence of economics as an academic field. He slams the mind-destroying effects of tenure:

Moreover, it remains hard to open people’s eyes to the stupidity of much empirical economics, because the econometrics treadmill is useful as a make-work and credentialing program for tenure seekers.

“Publishing” is really the wrong word for what journals do in the age of SSRN. They certify work, for a fee, the return on which may consist in a “peer-reviewed” publication leading to tenure.

If journals are sometimes as boring to read as a stack of resumes, that’s because they largely serve the same function. Job applications masquerade as science because perverse customs make original scholarship—however trivial, wrong, and/or unread that scholarship may be. That’s the price of admission to a career explaining demand, supply, and market equilibrium to undergraduates.

Job applications masquerading as science. On the fucking dot.

Concluding, Smith approaches my theme of science as entertainment, attempting to rebuild science as a hobby outside of the OFFICIAL TEMPLE OF WAR AND GENOCIDE.

What do you do when the emperor has no clothes? Other people need to step up and provide leadership. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Enlightenment sprang not from established universities, but from gentleman soldiers and courtiers and statesmen, popular writers and clergymen, bohemians and sponges, who boldly called themselves philosophers and lived up to the name. Today, similarly, economics’ best hopes lie in uncredentialed economists from business, journalism, and government, abetted by academic mavericks.

Now that we see where the Enlightenment led, it's time for a counter-enlightenment. The enlightenment bred the myth of Free Will and Meritocracy, which allowed psychopathic monsters to justify their holocausts. It began immediately with the French Terror in 1789, and continued seamlessly through the "Virus" Terror of 2020.

The pre-1700 idea of reality was accurate. The universe has unchanging resonances. Our job is not to defy the universe and create chaos. Our job is to find and measure the real resonances and try to swing with them, joyfully and loosely.

LOOK ABOUT YOU.
TAKE HOLD OF THE THINGS THAT ARE HERE.
TALK TO THEM.
LET THEM TALK TO YOU.

Labels: Carver, Entertainment, Equipoise

  ¶ 10:03 AM

  Seen unbeauty
This outfit has been advertising its "services" lately. They're latching onto the trend of super-rich securitization of "art". As usual they're trying to suck in some not-so-rich suckers.



ART?

No actual designer would ever produce this shit, even on his worst day.

This is evidence of serious brain damage. That's all you can say about it.

The real tragedy is that THOUSANDS of EXCELLENT artists are working their hearts out, trying to sell in places like Etsy, and making small amounts of money. Some are able to survive full-time, most aren't.

All the money and power belongs to brain damaged bloody psychopaths.

This is a definitive and comprehensive diagnosis of our current situation.

Labels: Editors, Sucker Filter

  ¶ 6:05 AM