Delayed aptronym alert
Thinking about architecture and astrology and Philip dying at 99, converged to Grandma, who maintained her NYC lifestyle in Oklahoma, and lived to 99 by spiritualism and astrology.

She adhered to Mary Baker Eddy's "Christian Science" and consulted a seer or prophetess. I often heard stories about the predictions given by this seer, but until right now I never noticed the NAME of the prophetess.

Mrs Early.

LATE EARLY APTRONYM ALERT!

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 10:11 PM

  Real science from Belarus
Last week I got twitchy, trying to read tea leaves and entrails. False idiotic alarm. Lukashenko is unquestionably holding firm.

Best of all, Belarus has just connected its new nuclear power plant to the grid, after about 8 years of careful construction and one year of testing.

China and Russia have been adding new REAL nukes in the last few years. The most recent new operational nuke in USA was Watts Bar in North Carolina, an additional reactor on an existing site. (And a nice aptronym.) This happened quietly in 2016, after a decade of pure destruction.

Later: Well, maybe there's reason for twitchiness after all. Lukashenko seems to be wavering on the "virus" after holding perfectly steady and normal for 8 months. Still hard to determine, still remains to be seen.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, infinite GOOD

  ¶ 8:34 AM

  More verification that the brain never stops growing
Via RCS:

Lazarov and colleagues looked at post-mortem hippocampal tissue from 18 people with an average age of 90.6 years. They stained the tissue for neural stem cells and also for newly developing neurons. They found, on average, approximately 2,000 neural progenitor cells per brain. They also found an average of 150,000 developing neurons. Analysis of a subset of these developing neurons revealed that the number of proliferating developing neurons is significantly lower in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.

There's some Kuhnian resistance to the idea. Many generations of scientists have grown up with the firm notion that brains stop growing at 21. This latest bit of straightforward histology should help to overcome the non-plasticity of the non-plasticity advocates.

150K developing neurons isn't an impressive number compared to the billions that develop in the first year of life, but it's still a firm disproof of the non-growth theory.

Conclusion: KEEP WALKING. KEEP DANCING.

(Also, Lazarov is a nice semi-aptronym!)

Labels: Aptronym Alert, coot-proofing

  ¶ 5:11 AM

  Thanks Ralph 128, 821 hplaR sknahT noitide
Mark Spiegel, a "libertarian" who normally does an excellent job of observing reality, misses half the Emerson on this one. He observes AOC and Liz and others proposing to break up technoid monopolies:

As you know, I despise her and everything she stands for, yet I take a certain pleasure in seeing the hypocritically politically correct, conservative-banning fucks who run Silicon Valley get dismembered by the very same Democratic party they bend over backwards to serve, lol.

Emersonian justice for sure. But there's equal and opposite justice on the other end. Bezos and Zuckerberg were enabled and celebrated by the ZERO TAX "libertarians" and Repooflicans who see tax evasion as the only moral imperative.

Bezos/Zuck thanked the enrichers by censoring and deplatforming them.


In schematic form:

+1. Repoofs empower Bezos
-1. Bezos deplatforms Repoofs

+2. Bezos empowers Progressives
-2. Progressives deplatform Bezos

Ralph would deeply appreciate this mirrored two-way justice, nulling out all the differences.

A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. The world looks like a multiplication table or a mathematical equation which, turn it how you will, balances itself.

Unfortunately Spiegel doesn't see the mirror because he's inside it, and AOC doesn't see the mirror because she's inside it.

Which makes Spiegel an aptronym.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Emersonian justice

  ¶ 11:55 PM

  Signs that Satan has finished work
Two signs that Satan has finished his job on this utterly fucked former "nation". His workweek is over. It's Happy Hour. TSIF. Now he's just amusing himself. We're just entertainment for Satan now.

1. First openly homosexual candidate for president: Peter Buttigieg.

2. First openly homosexual gayor of Chicago: Lori Lightfoot.

There have been several gayors of big cities so far, but no aptronyms. The gayor of Portland had a boyfriend named Beau Breedlove, but the gayor himherself had an ordinary name.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Entertainment

  ¶ 6:04 AM

  Now vs Then 2
In an age of infinitely fake outrage and fake action and fake every fucking thing, it's hugely refreshing to see genuine RAGE by officials who HAVE THE POWER TO DO SOMETHING about the rage.

= = = = =

Now: William Alsup, The Only Legitimate Federal Judge.

“Usually a criminal on probation is forthcoming and admits what they need to admit. You haven’t admitted much,” Alsup told lawyers for the company at a hearing Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco.

“There’s a clear-cut pattern here: that PG&E is starting these fires.”

Most important is what Judge Alsup DIDN'T say. He DIDN'T say "Global warming started these fires", because Global Warming DIDN'T start these fires. PGE started these fires. It's possible for a utility company to AVOID causing fires, as Avista has proved. PGE did not follow Avista's example.

For the first fucking time in modern history, we are placing the blame for a weather-related event on the CORRECT CULPRIT. It wasn't RUSSIAN_MEDDLING or ALT_RIGHT MEDDLING or GLOBAL_WARMING or SMIRKING_WHITE_PRIVILEGE or any of those nonsensical mythical ENTITIES multiplied by Deepstate to create chaos and exterminate Deplorables and MISPLACE BLAME.

The fires were caused by PGE, and a Federal JUDGE placed the blame on PGE. Historic first. Unprecedented.

= = = = = =

Then: A new item at KSHS. Another item in the huge pile of correspondence to Governor Capper around 1915. This caught my attention because of the name. I was snortling and chortling at Mother Bickerdyke Home For Widows. Aptronym Alert! Ha ha ha! After I read the letter I stopped snortling. The county attorney at Ellsworth visited this state-run home and saw things he couldn't forget.

Edited some for spelling and punctuation:

Dear Governor,

I write you in regard to the numerous complaints that have been made to me by the inmates of the Mother Bickerdyke Home. ... This man Chase who is in charge of the Home at the present time is tyrannical, overbearing and insulting. I have had three separate complaints made to me by inmates. "Pauper, prostitute, liar and thief" are some of the stock phrases that he uses in talking to the old ladies.

... The inmates are perhaps a bit childish and fault finding, but this man Chase lacks the tact and inclination to handle persons of that character. Had you been present today, Governor, and saw these old ladies sobbing out their grievances, you certainly would agree with me that something should be done, at once. These women are in terror of this brute, and he makes life Hell for them, and you know that is not the Kansas way. These wives of old soldiers are entitled to every comfort and the respect of all. Now Governor, I hope that you will take this matter up at once and fire this man so hard that he won't recover from the effects of it during the rest of his natural life.

Serious hardass outrage, expressed as a Biblical curse. Unfortunately the item doesn't record what the Governor did in response.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, imprecatory psalm, malign misattribution

  ¶ 5:01 PM

  Aptronym alert 2

Another science feature from Gernsback, Feb 1930.



Stimulating a human heart with mechanical ultrasonic vibration at 300 kc to 2.5 mc. Unfortunately the writeup doesn't say what the heart actually did, but the diagram claims to show a beat in response to the vibration. 300k is WAY above any frequencies in the nervous system, so this can't be an expected response.

I don't think anyone followed up on this. It might be useful to see if hearts are affected by magnetostriction induced by RF fields. Lots of iron in blood!

Best part: The experimenter who applied mechanical vibration to a heart was Dr Newton Harvey. Can't beat it.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 11:51 AM

  Se-lu 15, Origins edition
Haven't returned to this theme for a while. Now that I'm LOOSE from deadlines for a few days, it's time to hit the point again.

Rehashing the etymology: Solve comes from Indo-European se-lu. Loosen yourself. Untie yourself. Cut the ropes. You can't solve a problem while you're wrapped inside it; you have to cut and untie the assumptions and biases that arise automatically when you're inside.

I've approached this particular point from two angles before, but didn't stand far enough back to finish it.

Make a syllogism from two observations I've discussed often:

1. Unquestionably the 1776 Revolution did more harm than good. The separated twins of Canada and USA STRONG show that Canada's natural Parliament has done a better job of adapting to changed realities. It's not a dramatic NK/SK difference, but it's there.

2. Prison taught me that the people who want freedom most are criminals. Freedom means laws don't apply to me.

THEREFORE: Revolutionaries, emphatically including Washington and Jefferson et al, are criminals.


We glorify the Founding Criminals because they were willing to risk their lives (plus a whole lot of INNOCENT LIVES) for "freedom", especially "freedom" from laws and taxes.

We punish lesser criminals because they're willing to risk their lives (plus a whole lot of INNOCENT LIVES) for "freedom", especially "freedom" from laws and taxes.

What's the difference? NO DIFFERENCE. Null hypothesis validated.

We shouldn't be surprised that USA STRONG has mostly been ruled by mobsters. (With the still mysterious and unexplained exception of 1933 to 1945, when FDR tried to control BOTH of the ruling mobs and succeeded.)

SECURITY IS FREEDOM FROM THE PEOPLE WHO WANT FREEDOM.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Natural law = Sharia law, se-lu

  ¶ 12:53 AM

  Aptronym Aptronym alert alert
Accidentally continuing with visual perception...

KSHS has added a series of stereographs made by Underwood and Underwood in Ottawa, around 1903.

Underwood and Underwood, of course, is the perfect aptronym aptronym for a maker maker of stereographs.

The brief description says that U + U were immediately successful, and moved to NYC with branch offices in many major cities.

Hey! Where is our 3D television? Never happened. Where are 3D movies? Happened for a little while then faded. For that matter, where is Smell-O-Vision? Promised repeatedly for 60 years, still hasn't happened.

Plain fact: News and culture in 3D were VASTLY MORE ACCESSIBLE in 1903 than now. Stereograph viewers were common from 1900 to 1960, then disappeared.

We've lost an interesting way of seeing things. Yeah, we have VR, but that's expensive and specialized, nowhere near mass entertainment.

= = = = =

Later thought: This is the only situation where sound technology jumped ahead of visual technology. We got 3D sound in 1958, and it quickly and permanently turned universal. All forms of sound media are transmitted and stored in stereo, whether we actually use two speakers or not.


= = = = =

Later: KSHS now has a picture of an Underwood and Underwood stereoscope. It's an odd mixture of crude and professionally made parts. Note the rounded rectangle viewports, presaging TV!

Labels: 1901, Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 5:02 PM

  Who will disrupt their delusions?
As the picture of the latest mass shooter slowly crystallizes through the dense fog of nonsense, two facts emerge. Both facts SHOULD BE unremarkable and unsurprising, but our fog machines will not allow either "side" to understand these two facts.

1. This is a workplace dispute. Paddock (nice horsey aptronym!) was a pro gambler, and casinos were his workplace. He was aggrieved by the intolerable fact that the house always wins.

2. This is genes at work. Paddock's father was a serious pro criminal as well as a pro gambler, with a long record of violent crimes and dramatic escapes.

So we have a super-violent crime with a dramatic escape at the end, gaining revenge against the casinos that disrupted the delusion of a pro gambler.

Both "sides" are physically unable to see genes as a cause. It must be ideology. Paddock must be Antifa or he must be ISIS. (Both Antifa and ISIS are Deepstate inventions, designed to replace genetic tendencies with ideology.)

Both "sides" are firmly devoted to gambling and owe their existence to gamblers. Stock bubbles, Bitcoin, fractional-reserve banking, military adventures. All are purely destructive gambles that produce nothing and kill millions, looking toward the ever-receding utopian horizon when we will WIN EVERYTHING, BY GOD.

Those forms of gambling are practiced by the Correct Sort Of Persons, so they are angelic. When an uppity Deplorable like Paddock tries to horn in on the Holy Occupation Of Insatiables, we must simply ignore it.

When will the Insatiable Gamblers be faced with their delusion? Never. When you Own all CONversations, no counterarguments exist.


Later: One commenter came up with the best possible explanation, which fits ALL the known facts of genetics and locations and lifestyle. Paddock was a professional hitman. That's why he had a steady million-dollar income, which you don't get by gambling. (The casinos don't let you win that often!) That's why he had a low profile and no criminal record. Pro hitmen work for mafias and governments who know how to protect their best employees. And that's why he had lots of different guns and knew how to transport them and use them. Only one question is left unanswered: Who was he working for this time?

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 7:57 AM

  Aptronym and aptroborough alert
Seattle news:

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars through the prostitution of Asian sex workers.

Hayes says Fang Wang of Queens, New York was the apparent leader of the operation. Wang was arrested in Columbus, Georgia.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 4:08 AM

  More ambiguous grouping
Continuing the theme of ambiguous grouping...

Article at Quartz describes a labor lawsuit that turned on a badly positioned comma. The court decided in favor of truck drivers against a dairy.....

On March 13, a US court of appeals determined that certain clauses of Maine’s overtime laws are grammatically ambiguous. Because of that lack of clarity, the five drivers won their appeal and were found eligible for overtime.

According to state law, the following types of activities are among those that don’t qualify for overtime pay:

The canning, processing, preserving,
freezing, drying, marketing, storing,
packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.


Is packing (for shipment or distribution) a single activity that is exempt from overtime pay? Or are packing and distributing two different activities, and both exempt? If lawmakers had used a serial comma, it would have been clear that distribution was an overtime-exempt activity on its own. But without the comma, wrote US appeals judge David J. Barron, the law is ambiguous...

...so the judge ruled in favor of the drivers. They were working overtime hours, and the law didn't clearly exempt them from overtime pay, so they deserved overtime pay.

Problems like this could be resolved at the start if legislatures hired some programmers to write parallel versions of the code.

In Python:

# = = = = =

def IsExempt(activity,product):

    ExemptActivities = [
    "processing",
    "preserving",
    "freezing",
    "drying",
    "marketing",
    "storing",
    "packing for shipment",
    "distribution"]

    ExemptProducts = [
    "Agricultural produce",
    "Meat products",
    "Fish products",
    "Perishable foods"]

    decision = 0

    if  (activity in ExemptActivities) and (product in ExemptProducts):
        decision = "No overtime"

    else:
        decision = "overtime"

    return decision

    # end definition of function IsExempt

# = = = = =

# Test for a specified combination.....

activity = "distribution"
product = "Perishable foods"

print "for %s of %s, %s" % (activity, product, IsExempt(activity,product) )

# = = = = =

(The above is real code. You can copy it and run it.)

The programmers could then test all of the potential activities and products to see if the result was as intended. Later on, courts could use the same code to resolve questions reliably without using arguable and changeable grammar rules.

The best part: You don't even need a computer. After testing, the Python version can be read with perfect reliability by humans.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Patient things

  ¶ 4:42 AM

  Inaptronym of the year
Recalled for E.Coli contamination:

A second child in Washington has become seriously ill after eating a soy nut butter product included in the nationwide illness outbreak and food recall.

The Washington State Department of Health is urging the people of Washington to double-check their shelves for any variety of I.M. Healthy SoyNut Butter, I.M. Healthy Granola, or Dixie Diner's Club Carb Not Beanit Butter, and to throw it out immediately regardless of purchase date or the date listed on the container.

I.M. Healthy. Inaptronym of the year.

Also, the mysterious Dixie Diner's Club Carb Not Beanit Butter has to be the most ambiguously grouped name ever. You can pair up the words in all sorts of ways to get different meanings. Is it a Carb made by the Diner's Club in Dixie, which is not Beanit but Butter? Or is it a Club Carb owned by the Dixie Diner, which is not Beanit Butter? Is a Club Carb a fizzy carb like Club Soda, or is it a carb that clubs you into a sugar coma like Sachertorte? And if it's not Beanit Butter, what IS it? A pyramid? A llama? A samovar? A hammock? Since Beanit Butter is not an actual thing, saying this is NOT Beanit Butter tells you less than nothing.

It's the perfect opposite of Jabberwocky, where solid syntax tells you what each unknown word means. Here all the words except Beanit are familiar, but the syntax is perfectly opaque.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 6:09 AM

  Good heavens!
British politicians are generally better than American because the Parliamentary system sorts and sieves them far more effectively and speedily than our non-functional non-system.

The current situation should have been an easy opportunity for competent leaders to show their competence. Instead, they're pointlessly squabbling and bitching like Americans.

Situation: All three main parties were caught on the wrong side of Brexit. Nobody had been listening to the actual people of England.

Opportunity: Now that the majority opinion of the actual people has been expressed, at least one party should take the side of the actual people.

Ideally this one party should be Labour, since EU damages Labour-type people, and Labour-type people were the deciding majority for Leave.

Squabbling: Labour is stuck with Corbyn, an American-level subidiot who may have halfway favored Brexit but spoke for Remain. The rest of the party opposes Corbyn because they want EVEN MORE EU TYRANNY, but Corbyn won't step down.

The Conservatives aren't stuck because Cameron, showing proper English competence and sense for once, stepped down. The other likely candidates for PM are acting even crazier than Americans. Gove has consistently favored Leave, but he's an inadequate leader. As I've noted before he often does the right thing for weird reasons. Boris had stepped in at the last minute to push for Leave, but until that last minute he had been bashing all nationalists and offering to kill Trump. Now Boris has pulled out of the leadership contest but his sister is making openly libelous accusations against Gove. It's probably down to May, who was firmly and consistently for Remain. The quasi-aptronymic Leadsom is with the people but doesn't seem to have a chance.

Result: England will be left AGAIN with all parties opposing the people. Not a good result.


= = = = =

Relevant sidenote: Columnist Janet Daley, who is often brilliantly perceptive and sometimes annoyingly partisan, hits the perceptive side today with a nearly complete understanding of Graybill's Law.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, skill-estate

  ¶ 3:09 AM

  Upscaled a bit
Latest pic from KSHS: A Watkins Products salesman around 1900. Looks tired and dusty. Usually a picture of a Man And His Ride will show pride of ownership. Hand on fender, hand on back of horse. Not here. Just tired.



These narrow one-man buggies were popular with peddlers and postmen and aptronymic postladies but have dropped into obscurity. Rarely seen in advertisements or paintings from the era. The horsey version of a business coupe. Note the complex harness, with reins passing through holes in the dashboard.

Watkins Products is still around, still in the same basic line of business, considerably less tired and dusty now.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 10:06 AM

  Aptroglitch
Few days ago I noted a constant glitch in the UK Express website resulting from Responsive Web Design. At closer zoom settings, the caption on one specific rectangle always copies onto the rectangle to the left. This is usually mildly funny because the right rectangle tends to hold heavy war news and the left one holds clickbait.

Today it worked out just right. The RWD equivalent of an aptronym:



Of course the Tory MP won't get anywhere. BBC is Satan's antenna. There's no way it will ever allow even the tiniest subparticle of truth or sanity to leak out. Nothing but raw bloodthirsty genocide.

5/16 update: Looks like Express has noticed and fixed the constant glitch. I've been watching those rectangles every day for potential chuckles, but the captions have been correct for several days in a row.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 1:49 AM

  Status morse
Curbside Classic has a feature on a peculiarly mismatched '64 Chevy this morning. Got thinking about GM's long-standing habit of marking status by adding more elements to a sequence. It's an ancient technique but still functional. More notches on your bow, more ribbons on your uniform, more feathers in your headdress = higher status. For many years you could reliably distinguish Chevy's top model by counting taillights. You could distinguish Buick's Roadmaster by counting portholes. Chrysler got into the game briefly and halfheartedly, with one light for Plymouth, two for Dodge, and three for DeSoto. Ford, the populist company, never played the counting game.

Studie played it just once but it was hardly worth the expense.



For some reason I started reading those lights in Morse.

Chevy hit the Morse Aptronym jackpot in '65.



The Chevy II had .. .. = ii.

The SS (and other Impalas) had ... ... = ss.

If you read vertically and diagonally, you can see more complicated patterns.



'60 CaDDy = DD. '57 Plymouth = NA. The absolute zenith of Morsable cars was the '42-48 Buick. If you start from the reflector and read through taillight, directionals/stop, taillight and reflector, you get ENKAE. Doesn't spell anything, but it's complex enough that it could have been used for steganography. Some modern cars with patterns of LEDs and sequential flashers could send whole paragraphs.

Polistra is talking about Caddies.



Question: Is there a car that could spell its own name if it wanted to? I can't find any 'serious' examples. All four-cycle engines are 'Otto-cycle' engines, especially in German; but no actual car was called Otto. [Oops, spoke too soon. Google spinoff is developing on Otto-nomous truck!] Brazil had a modified Lotus called the Emme. That's about it for fully symmetrical names. I think the longest Morse palindrome is 'waiting', but that's an unlikely car name except maybe in Japan. Austin comes DAMN close with just a slight gap in symmetry.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Danbo

  ¶ 5:13 AM

  Aptronym rambling
Noticed a new item at Kans State Hist Soc. A hundred-year-old mugshot of a prisoner. Reminded me of my great-grandfather. Tried searching for more info, quickly realized it's an impossible search. The prisoner was named Warren Jury and he was arrested and tried in Leavenworth. The name Jury leads to every trial in history, and Leavenworth leads to nearly all Federal prisoners, even though this dude was not a Federal prisoner.

I'll bet the courts and newspapers had fun with his trial. If the Jury trial was a jury trial, all sorts of strange things would happen.

"Are you on the Jury jury?" "No no, I'm not not. Why why are you you st-st-st-stuttering?"

"We the jury find Jury guilty."

Was he suspected of Jury jury tampering? Jury jury rigging? Was he a peeping Tom, entitled to trial by a jury of Jury's peering peers?

And if the Jury trial wasn't a jury trial ... but how could a Jury trial not be a jury trial? When it's a Jury trial by judge.

= = = = =

How far could a trial descend into aptronym hell? Jury is not an especially common name, but Court, Judge, Clerk, Foreman, Rule, Record, Justice and Law are common names.

Judge Judge ruled against Lawyer Rule and in favor of defendant Rob Banks, but Foreman Foreman objected and Clerk Clerk read the objection to Attorney A.T. Law, transcribed into the Court Record by Court Recorder Court Record.

= = = = =

Later, a little more searching inside KSHS found a little more info. Warren Jury was in for Assault with intent to kill. Aw poop. No fun at all.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 8:48 AM

  Way beyond aptronym
NYTimes article "fact" "checking" the Repoofs on HEALTH CARE.

Written by Margot Sanger-Katz.

Nice to see those fine old genocidal names are still conducting the family business. Kill the poor, enrich the Chosen.

Needless to say, the article is the opposite of fact-checking, unless you use the sports meaning of "checking", blocking or tackling the fact.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 1:46 AM

  Unfortunate aptronym
News:

John Crump says his neighbors dog Bones went missing in September. He helped him look for it, but when they found Bones they were shocked. "It was a dump site," Crump explains.

Along with Bones' body, they found the skeletal remains of other dogs in the mountains near the Canadian border. They says Bones had been shot three times with a high-powered rifle.

Crump ... discovered that dozens of owners had found their dogs dead. He estimates as many as 90 dogs have been killed so far, and says dogs in the area continue to go missing.

It's a truly tragic story, but leading off with the bones of Bones makes it hard to suppress a laugh, hard to take it seriously.

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 4:43 AM