Those imitative Russians ... oops
I'm trying to find a new graphics project, so I delved back into last year's frantic pile of stuff, created in a desperate and futile attempt to counterpray the Mecher monsters. It didn't work; the Public Death Officers are still killing and torturing millions; but it did keep me sane.

In my rush to churn out interesting and occasionally beautiful stuff, I left many sideroads unexplored. One fascinating item that deserves more attention is Lukyanov's hydraulic computer.

= = = = = START REPRINT:


The Russians made the most interesting analog computers. They stuck with analog cybernetics long after Westerners had switched to digital.

In 1936 Lukyanov developed a water-based computer to solve complicated functions for engineering and construction. He was working primarily with concrete and soil under freezing conditions, trying to help design dams and pavement in cold places. His machine, and later variants, served many purposes into the 1970s.

I've drawn the 'museum version' of Lukyanov's hydrointegrator. This may have been only the control panel; it diverges from his descriptions of the functional machine. The real machine was modular, with several large blocks of pipes and tubes behind the control panel.

This picture seems to show the real machine in use:


And this diagram is similar, with the plots showing up more clearly:


The cylinders holding graphic plots would normally be plotted outputs, but in this machine they're inputs. The real machine had four optional input variables, along with an implicit time variable.

A typical use was modeling heat transfer through a structure (dam or pavement) treated as a series of layers. Each water column represented a layer, and each column could be programmed to let in water at a specific rate. In other words, each column was like an RC filter in a sequential filter setup, with the visible height (or voltage in the electronic version) representing the temperature in that layer of the dam.



These diagrams clearly show the primary advantage of analog systems, whether mechanical or fluid or electronic, over digital software. In real life each layer or module or neuron or organism is always continuously influencing all other layers, with influence and feedback in all directions at once. Interconnected water columns do it naturally. You can't do it at all with interconnected functions in software. You can pass differences from subroutine A to subroutine B, and pass results back, but there's no way to make the influences simultaneous and continuous.

Electronic version:



The operator used the big lever to follow the curve already drawn on the wrapped graph. As the lever moved up and down, it moved a tank up and down, raising and lowering the 'potential voltage' input to the system. This diagram shows two input variables B1 and B2.



Programs were entered on the three rows of valves in the center of the control panel. The description doesn't clarify the specific purpose of each row, and the upper crank is also unclear. I suspect it was a manual turner or winder for the plot cylinder, which was apparently driven by clockwork.



Here Polistra is moving the big lever to follow the dam plot on the left cylinder, and the tubes are responding with a (purely imagined) output pattern. Another observer would record the heights at different times, or perhaps use a mounted movie camera to make a direct record.

The RC-like effect of the flow would also enable a single transient response to be modeled. After setting the valves for the appropriate pattern of Rs and Cs, just yank the lever upward and watch the columns move for a minute or two.

= = = = =

Footnote: The best descriptions in English are here at Archive.org.

= = = = =

Sidenote after thinking about "devices" and Pied Pipers: another advantage of mechanical and fluidic computers is independence. They can't be hacked or detected from a distance. Only a live spy in the same room can control or read them. Even electronic analogs are harder to penetrate than digital, because they don't emit a readable stream of patterned codes. An RC computer responds when you turn the knobs, then settles gradually into a new condition. No predictable and redundant patterns. Russia understood this point deeply after repeated invasions and penetrations by Krauts and Yanks.


= = = = = END REPRINT.

Returning to the source material, I didn't find any new ideas, but I did find something I hadn't noticed before.

In 1956, twenty years after Lukyanov, MIT got a government contract to build a similar computer and use it for similar purposes, modeling Arctic conditions for foundations and dams.

Similar?





Identical, except that MIT didn't bother to enclose the computer in a platform or case. By '56 we had essentially abandoned analog thinking. We were already retreating into our shell of pure digital abstraction, losing contact with physical reality and industry and muscles and senses.

And why were we imitating Russia's invention? So we could build Arctic missile silos to attack Russia.

Labels: Equipoise, Make or break

  ¶ 10:57 PM

  Two jumps to one conclusion
We have the usual bridge jumper today. In fact we have two today.

Both of them generated multiple copies of the two standard comments:

1. We need a net under the bridge.

2. I hope they get the help they need.

Well, the net is impossible because of state and city laws. The Monroe Bridge is an official Historical Site, so it can't be altered with nets. (Hint: Does this suggest a broader problem with state and local laws?)

And the "help" is also pointless. One commenter has been there and gives the facts:

To be “babysat” by security guards, “cared for” by some who really don’t care, until they can move him out and on. Sad. Hopefully he has it inside himself to heal. That’s really what’s needed in this country today; to be your own best friend, whatever it takes.

On the fucking dot. In an uncivilized wilderness you have to make your own life.

Another pair of comments fits the standard joke about men and women responding to a problem:

1. Someone was on the monroe street bridge a few minutes ago... I was on the bus and couldn't get off I wanted to help but nobody stopped to even try to help. My heart hurts for those who think they have no way out.

2. I’m sure it’s a bit chilly, but at least they fell in a relatively calmer wider section. Although the river is now higher, about 3500 cubic ft/second. It was 500-1000 max, all summer. It’s a ways down stream before any narrowed mini rapids.

Can you guess which is male and which is female? No points for correct guess.

Finally, this one gets to the center and heart of the whole problem.

It's not always a mental health issue. It's a people are cruel issue. Cruel to the point that they feel like they have no other choice. It dosent matter if you fix the mental health situation if the people that are being cruel don't seek the help too. People can only take so much before they give up.

When all governments and corporations and "mental health facilities" and hospitals are run by the cruelest psychopaths in history, there's no alternative. There's only one form of "help" for a psychopath, and the sooner we start applying this "help", the faster we'll heal.
It's Nuremberg time.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 3:40 PM

  Charge of the light Breguet
While trying to find a Breguet cryptograph I bumped into this device. This one machine connects up FOUR of my 'patient machine' sets. An amazingly cross-linked bridge, with a lesson for moderns. The important thing about this device is its HUMAN PURPOSE, not its mechanism.

Tracing the links:

Chappe's semaphore came first.

The 1793 revolutionaries picked up Chappe's visual system and built towers all across France. After the revolution morphed into Napoleon's neocon empire, the system expanded even more.

Around 1832 other countries started to experiment with electrical telegraphs of various forms. France didn't really need to get ahead of this trend, because the Chappe system was faster than the early electrics, and was already built and functioning smoothly. By 1845 the electrical systems had matured to the point where a switch was worth the trouble.

Wheatstone and Cooke offered to build a version of their system, but France rejected it. Wheatstone's setup was fast but delicate:



and above all it was English.

The Breguet dial telegraph was French, and it was especially suitable for unskilled operators.



Breguet was unsurprisingly clock-like. Turning the sender dial to the next character clicked a contactor back and forth, sending pulses to the receiver. When the receiver was pulsed, a solenoid opened an escapement and allowed the dial to turn forward by one letter.

France used Breguet for its railroads, which weren't already equipped with a functional signaling system and trained operators. The Breguet dial didn't require new learning.

To replace the Chappe visual system for their State Telegraph, France made a unique move.



They developed an electrical version of the mechanical Chappe system, based internally on the same principle as the Breguet dial.



The mechanical Chappe had two movable wings on a movable center wing. All three rotated to form 256 possible codes. As the system matured, most of those codes were used efficiently for phrases and words, so the sending was much faster than letter-by-letter.

From Lardner's 1855 book:

When the establishment of lines of electric telegraphs was proposed in France, the old aerial telegraph was, and had been for more than half a century, in operation, and formed a department in the public administration of considerable importance, employing an extensive body of agents, dispersed throughout the country, most of whom were specially instructed and qualified for the business. The commission appointed by the government required that the electro-telegraphic instruments should exhibit the same signals as had been already used in the case of the former telegraph.

This setup is generally known as the Foy-Breguet system.

The sender has two cranks just like Chappe, and the receiver is a miniature 'video display' of two wings just like Chappe.



You can see how the crank moved the contactor back and forth with a cam. The contactor looked like an SPDT switch, but it was actually a two-way SPST. Each side sent a single pulse through the long lines to the receiver, so one revolution sent 8 pulses.

In action, the operator turned the cranks to form each letter, always clockwise. The operator could see the result on her own receiver, or receive signals from other stations.



'Video' displays were common in railroad signal systems, like the splendid Train Describer used in both US and UK. This was a combination of Breguet sender and Wheatstonish display, somewhat like the Foy.

= = = = =

One of the British books on telegraphy has an intriguing picture of an all-in-one Foy-Breguet device, with no accompanying description.



This has the receiver screen, plus two separate pairs of senders, plus a single crank (probably a receive/send/both switch), plus a mysterious snowglobe and two whistles on top! I'll keep watching for more info on this one. It's pure steampunk.

= = = = =

Above all, the Foy-Breguet system PRESERVED SKILL-ESTATE. Foy RE-USED the skills acquired by the Chappe semaphore operators, so they wouldn't be obsolesced by the switch to electricity.

The cranks were similar to the Chappe cranks, and even the little mini-wings were similar to the real wings.



Since they were basically clock hands, they didn't need to be balanced levers pivoted at the center; but they were built that way, with a black 'visible' part and a white 'counterweight' part.

= = = = =

France learned a major lesson from the 1793 revolution. After the EXTREME dose of Innovative Disruption in every aspect of life, the French became the world's best PRESERVERS. They tried to maintain everyday objects and skills instead of discarding them. The tendency was still strong in the 1970s; I don't know if it's still strong now. Unions are certainly strong.

Wars and revolutions and depressions often induce this healthy immune response. America was in skill-preservation mode after the 1930s depression, thanks to FDR's emphasis on work and training and unions. We remained in skill-estate mode until the '70s when Nixon, then Reagan, then Clinton, cumulatively removed ALL the supporting framework and shipped ALL skills overseas.

There's already some indication that the current holocaust is inducing a healthy PRESERVATION impulse for money. Wolfstreet noted a decrease in credit card usage and increase in savings. Bloomberg sees "a new austerity, expressed through pantry stockpiling and delayed big-ticket purchases."

We also need to follow the French model of frugality in skills and knowledge. The long-term goal of globalism is to eliminate all skills and knowledge, and the current holocaust is an EXTREME FINAL step in this process. Jobs requiring skill are "non-essential", and all knowledge of science and logic and truth has been precisely and diametrically inverted and garbled and deleted.

We've got a partial start through Emerson justice. Public schools and major colleges have voluntarily committed suicide "because virus", thus eliminating the main purveyors of ANTI-SKILL education. The field is open for smart operators like DeVry. Will they step up and take advantage?

Probably not. We don't have FDR or Harding at the top to break the litigation and regulation obstacles. Instead we have Trump, Deepstate's most loyal and perfect servant. FDR locked down the banks to enrich the real economy. Trump locked down the real economy to enrich the banks.

The overriding perpetual purpose of the 'enlightenment', from 1776 to 1793 to now, is to obliterate PURPOSE from life. The focus on "rights" instead of duties started the breakdown. The focus on finance and abstraction instead of industry finished it.

Natural Law in its varied forms, whether the Sharia rules or the Soviet Constitution or FDR's four freedoms, always starts with PURPOSE AND WORK. Every aspect of the economy and culture is shaped to preserve PURPOSE for ordinary people. The 'enlightenment' starts with "rights" and "freedom", which means that psychopaths are free to dominate culture and economy, free to eliminate all PURPOSE from ordinary workers and families. The sole PURPOSE of a psychopath is to obliterate PURPOSE.


LIFE IS PURPOSE.


= = = = =

Literary footnote: The Lardner book is OUTSTANDING. Bear in mind that he was writing in 1855, when the telegraph and railroads were pretty much the only modern tech. The telephone and phonograph were 20 years in the future, and everything else at least 40 years away. He explains both the tech side and the business side with absolute clarity and completeness. Several times I've tried without luck to figure out how something was supposed to work, and Lardner clarified it totally.

Labels: From rights to duties, Make or break, Morsenet of Things, skill-estate, storage

  ¶ 3:45 PM

  COOLness rant continued
Continuing the theme that truth and accuracy never matter. Only COOLness counts.

Here's a general rule: Getting real work done is never COOL.

A typical example today in the Renderosity forum for discussion of Poser and other CG apps. The OP is complaining loudly about Poser's lighting system. He shows a picture of a terrain, and complains that it looks horrible. The respondents all know why it's horrible, and add other examples of horrible lighting.

All of them look just fine to me. The first one is unusual, but without a comparison picture showing what it SHOULD look like, I don't know why it's supposed to be wrong.

I know for sure that the makers of Poser will immediately listen to these complaints and immediately fix the "bug" that makes these pictures look "incorrect" to the COOL eye and just fine to the UNCOOL eye.

Complaints about workflow are NEVER heard or fixed. Most workflow issues get worse, not better, with each new version. One glaring problem with the 'hierarchy list' has been around for 20 years, constantly complained about, never fixed.

It's the same with ordinary Windows programs. With every version the file-open system gets harder to use, not easier. Shortcuts are occasionally introduced, but always removed on the next version. Windows 10 is literally impossible to use. It spends all of its time updating via Github, leaving no CPU time available for actual work.

The conclusion is obvious. Work is UNCOOL. Any improvement that makes work easier and faster is INTOLERABLE. Any improvement that causes you to spend MORE time in helpless frustration is COOL.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 11:29 PM

  Point-missing on new neurons
Via RCS, a good readable summary of the benefits of exercise for brain survival. Hits the important points without overly technical jargon.

Toward the end, the authors fall back into the tiresome Savannah Sabertooth crap, more or less defeating the good first part.

“Evolutionally we have a brain designed for laziness. Our ancestors were physically active because they had to be. They had to flee from the enemy and run to get food, but the rest of the time they took it easy to save calories because they didn't know when they’d see their next meal,” he says.

“Our brains want us to save calories. And the brains we have today haven’t fundamentally changed since we were hunters and gatherers on the savannah. It’s still programmed for laziness whenever possible,” says Hjelle.

Sheer nonsense. Straight out of the Tocqueville 47% Largesse mode of non-thought.

No living thing tries to save calories. Measuring calories is something that researchers do because it's a repeatable measurement, not because it connects to purpose. Drunk streetlight.

Living things are intended to WORK and be USEFUL. We need to sleep, but when we're not sleeping we WANT AND NEED to accomplish a purpose, whether physical or mental.

LIFE IS PURPOSE.

Laziness arises from FRUSTRATION. Laziness and depression are two names for the same natural response.

When our need to be useful is repeatedly SMASHED AND PUNISHED by a culture and economy that is furiously and ferociously and intentionally KILLING all useful and meaningful activity, we stop trying and start dying.

The notion that we are meant to be lazy doesn't even agree with the first part of the article, which clearly documents that we are meant to be exercising and working as much as possible from birth to death. If the authors had listened to their own main thesis they wouldn't have slipped back into the standard TED Talk evolution crap.

Labels: AI point-missing, Make or break

  ¶ 9:42 AM

  Encouraging if valid
Via ZH, which makes it dubious...

Americans have responded economically to the total slaughter by GETTING OUT OF DEBT and INCREASING SAVINGS. Much bigger repayment of credit cards than 2008.

If this isn't an artifact or a completely fake number, it shows that normal people are responding to the craziest and most evil thing in history by STRENGTHENING THEIR RESERVES, not by INCREASING THEIR DEPENDENCE. Another form of quiet non-compliance. You want us to be more dependent, and we refuse.

The economic purpose of the holocaust is to make us totally dependent on Goldman, unable to work or make anything on our own. We have DEFEATED this purpose. The best possible IMMUNE RESPONSE to the SIEGE by Goldman and Bezos.

Take that, idiot Repooflicans with your idiot 47% largesse poison.

PEOPLE WANT TO WORK. PEOPLE WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT.

Labels: Make or break, storage

  ¶ 1:49 PM

  STIR-CRAZY, reprint from April 7
= = = = = START FUCKING REPRINT:

Meanwhile, everywhere except Sweden and Belarus, the world is ruled by holocaustal psychopaths making total war against their own people, which will not stop until all the people are dead. Insanity is starting to spread, and there's no natural immunity against a knife or gun.

Last four items at Spokane News:

Monroe and Summit, SPD with a reported self inflicted stab wound and a tourniquet has been used by officers. -CS

600 West 1st, commercial burglary reported at the bank. Male kicked in a window and entered the bank. #Update male used a fire extinguisher in a room and has been taken into custody -CS

5000 North Lacey, reported male walking down the alley shooting a gun. #Update officers have detained a male that was armed with a gun -CS

4200 South Scott, reported arguement with an adult at the location yelling about everyone being "infected with the virus" -CS

Admittedly it's not binary.... some of this stuff happens all the time .... but it's getting more common and crazier.

STIR-CRAZY is a real word describing a real phenomenon. In a real prison the guards can keep this shit under control. In a city where everyone EXCEPT the criminals is under house arrest, it's a lot harder to control.

= = = = =

Language footnote: Modern sources miss the origin of stir, considering it to be a nickname for Newgate Prison. The nickname and the phrase have the same source, given correctly by the 1874 slang dictionary. Stir, a prison, a lock-up; Anglo-Saxon STYR, correction or punishment.

An 1882 Anglo-Saxon dictionary clarifies further. Styrian generally meant move, as stir still does. But in medieval times styrian was specialized for violent or tumultuous or riotous motion. On the fucking dot. We retain the original specialty in phrases like stirring up trouble.

= = = = = END FUCKING REPRINT.

Adding another endless repeat:

MEN NEED TO MAKE THINGS. WHEN MEN CAN'T MAKE THINGS THEY WILL BREAK THINGS.

Louder and slower:

Labels: Jackboot stomping forever, Jail mode, Make or break

  ¶ 4:28 AM

  Good but 40 years late
Congress is thinking about blocking Chinese students from US universities.

Too late. All the damage has been done. China has already sucked us dry, and continues to suck. Idiot US companies continue to send factories to China with the expectation that China will simply do the work. China takes the ideas, sends US engineers packing, then takes the factory.

It's not China's fault. China is just doing what every nation does at some point in its technical development. USA did it in the 1800s, stealing ideas and knowledge from France and Britain.

It's all our fault. We've been allowing it and SUBSIDIZING IT and welcoming it for 40 years. In the early '80s the Chinese methods and intentions were perfectly clear. Chinese students were sent by the Chinese government to gather knowledge, especially trade secrets and military secrets. The students didn't bother to hide their purpose, because they knew we were working for them.

After 40 years we no longer know how to do anything. We don't train, don't learn, don't make. Our corporate masters have accomplished their omnicidal goal, and finished it off with the latest coup. Thrill killers, skill killers.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 10:29 AM

  Good old 47% largesse
An informative Twitter thread from England. The usual "conservative" fuckheads claimed as always that people who are laid off by the holocaust must be enjoying their laziness and leisure. A chain of ACTUAL PEOPLE who are ACTUALLY LAID OFF furiously INSTRUCTED the fuckheads that they would rather be working.

Good old Tocqueville largesse ratshit as fucking always. This bizarre myth was already tiresome 20 years ago but it never stops.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 8:48 AM

  Don't let them pull this trick.
Some demons are trying to revise history, claiming that lockdowns were used successfully in the 1918 epidemic.

Nonsense. It's possible that the same satanic demons who ordered the holocaust this time were TRYING to order it back then, but it DIDN'T HAPPEN then.

For many years I've been reading technical and educational and architectural and military journals and documents from that decade, because the most interesting developments in all of those fields were happening then. In all of these magazines and documents I've NEVER encountered the briefest mention of closed schools or closed businesses or closed anything or enforced separation.

There was a WHOLE FUCKING BUNCH of government force and regimentation in 1918-1920, as Madman Wilson developed Deepstate to ruin the country and invade the world. Schools were required to change curricula to emphasize anti-Kraut and anti-Commie propaganda above all. The tech world was required to apply all of its efforts to anti-Kraut and anti-Commie work. But NOBODY was closed, and NOBODY was talking about "distancing" in any way.

Normal public health was sometimes mentioned 100 years ago. Sanitation was a common theme in schools, and immigrants were being carefully screened for disease. Sanitation and border controls were still the key to normal public health procedures until January 2020, then SUDDENLY everything changed. Now public health is suicide. State of siege. Starve the entire territory. Ban immunity. Kill everyone.

= = = = =

As always, this raises the GUILD question. Why have doctors and epidemiologists supinely allowed their entire field to be represented and iconized by satanic FRAUDSTERS like Fauci and Ferguson? Aside from the permanent CLOSURE of hospitals and clinics and END of careers, why did they agree to let medicine be seen forever after as genocide? It's a giant puzzle. The same public spokesmen who spent many years properly defending their reputation from antivaxers and Laetrile have been the loudest advocates of this transformation of medicine into holocaust.

If we survive, we will inevitably see a huge growth of old-fashioned quacks. Real doctors are closed, and many people will no longer trust the "profession" that ordered mass murder. Laetrile and Brinkley's Goat Glands will be more attractive now. When medicine is outlawed, only outlaws will practice medicine.

= = = = =

Later: Prohibition is a partial analogy, but it's not what the revisers are talking about. Prohibition wasn't a response to flu, and it wasn't an intentional part of Madman Wilson's agenda. It was a Federal formalizing of a movement that had been accumulating in the states for 40 years. By 1920 enough states had their own prohibitions that they could leverage a Federal amendment. Prohibition didn't automatically close anything; most breweries and distilleries were able to switch their output to non-beverage products. Bars and restaurants changed their menus but didn't change anything else.

We might draw a useful analogy from the public response to Prohibition. After a moment of obedience we cheerfully found and developed workarounds, and most police winked at the workarounds because the workarounds paid the police. That's the most optimistic vision of the near future. It's time to resume old-fashioned corruption in ALL fields of endeavor, since ALL HONEST WORK has been outlawed by the holocaust.

Labels: Jackboot stomping forever, Make or break

  ¶ 5:21 AM

  Thrill killer = Skill killer
Here's a little more detail from Africa, via New Anti-Scientist.

[Branded Swine Flu] cases across Africa have continued to occur at much lower levels than on other continents. After many African countries took quick action to stop the virus spreading, attention is now turning to what will happen as several nations begin easing lockdown restrictions in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

South Africa has some of the continent’s most stringent lockdown measures, including a ban on cigarette and alcohol sales and a lockdown that only allows people out to get food or medicine. Its government is taking a very gradual approach to relaxing these restrictions. Ghana is at the other end of the spectrum: against expectations, lockdown was lifted in the capital of Accra and the city of Kumasi after only three weeks.

Of course New Anti-Scientist tells the story with an anti-science bias, but I'll have to assume the basic descriptions are true.

First, Africa is less vulnerable to flu viruses because flu viruses don't like warmth. That's REAL SCIENCE, which New Anti-Scientist will NEVER NEVER NEVER tell you.

Second, as usual most African governments are trying to be sane. Tanzania is not only sane, but BEAUTIFULLY ELEGANTLY SCIENTIFIC.

Third, as usual the ANC government in South Africa is an exception to overall sanity. ANC slavishly follows US/UK Deepstate. ANC was installed by US/UK Deepstate, and continues to serve the same Masters.

Looking at ANC from a skills viewpoint instead of an ideology viewpoint clarifies things. Why did Deepstate hate the previous white government in SA? Because it allowed blacks to earn a living. Deepstate's primary goal is to slaughter all Deplorables and leave only the psychopaths alive. ANC was installed at the same time as Share Value and Offshoring in US/UK, and serves exactly the same purpose. Integration and globalism ALWAYS serve the same purpose. Obliterate the jobs a MAN can do, especially the jobs a BLACK MAN can do. Obliterate all honest productive skills, leaving only the Deepstate skills of mass slaughter and blackmailing and counterfeiting.

1980 started a gradual erosion of industrial skill. The 2008 TARP Coup finished off industry. The Branded Swine Flu Coup finished off the jobs that were supposedly non-offshorable.

It's all done.

Labels: Jackboot stomping forever, Make or break, skill-estate

  ¶ 11:15 PM

  Slow-motion armed robbery
My next-door neighbor moved out suddenly today. He had been running a photography studio, which was non-essential by Thrill Killer Inslee's made-up "laws", and thus killable. He couldn't work since the lockdown.

I don't know what triggered the move-out, whether he lost his mortgage or decided to move to a sane state.

I hope it's the latter. He's a good man and deserves to DO HIS JOB and make money in a sane place.

This is ARMED ROBBERY by Thrill Killer Inslee, aided and abetted by his chickenshit cowardass accomplices in City and County "government".

Old TV cop shows always started with an ordinary person doing ordinary work or going about ordinary life obeying all the laws,



Then the MASKED outlaw broke into ordinary life and grabbed everything.



On TV the cops came along and caught the MASKED outlaw. Justice was served.

In real life the MASKED outlaw is the governor, who never obeys any laws or rules. He makes up new rules every second, and applies those rules by force to the innocent victims.

Labels: Jackboot stomping forever, Make or break

  ¶ 10:47 PM

  Speaking of MAKEFORCE....
Via Eurekalert, a sharp observation about otters. The proposed theory is probably wrong, like all theories, but the correlation speaks for itself.

Zoo visitors are often enthralled by the otters' playfulness. Surprisingly, very few studies have investigated why otters are so keen to juggle stones. Our study provides a glimpse into this fascinating behaviour. While hunger is likely to drive rock juggling in the moment, the ultimate function of the behaviour is still a mystery."

The team found that both juvenile and senior otters juggled more than adults. The authors suggested that the function of the behaviour may change over an otter's lifetime - aiding development in juveniles while potentially keeping the brain active in seniors. Otter parents may have been juggling less as they did not have the time while looking after their pups. However, rock-juggling frequency did not differ between species or sexes.

Crucially, otters juggled more when hungry, indicating that juggling may be a misdirected behaviour in anticipation of feeding time.

Every intelligent creature finds ways to exercise its mind. Youngsters do it for development, oldsters do it for survival. In the middle, there's no need to spawn new neurons. Foraging and reproducing and caring for kids are all the exercise you need.

In the zoo situation, hunger is the only source of anxiety. The play serves to use up anxiety so it won't consume you. It's not about hunger, it's about anxiety.

= = = = =

Incidentally, here's a new and excellent article on the whole subject of brain plasticity and fresh neurons.

Labels: coot-proofing, Make or break

  ¶ 1:14 PM

  When the whole world existed
Now that the Ancestral Clocks project is released, I'm looking for another old 'patient' technology to study and animate. Need to keep the brain and hands busy with MAKEFORCE.

Running through old science publications, especially French, is good exercise for the language gland.

One thing that stands out DRAMATICALLY in these pre-1914 journals is the total lack of polarization. There is no distinction between Capitalist vs Communist, Democracy vs Fascist, Republican vs Democrat, Masked vs Unmasked. All countries are included on equal terms, and all inventors and researchers are praised or criticized objectively. Good work is good work no matter who you are or where you are. Crappy work is crappy work no matter who or where.

The BIG division, of course, started in 1946 when US and Britain put up the Iron Curtain. It was briefly torn in the '60s when Brits treated Russian science on equal terms, but the rip was re-welded in the '70s.

Since then, absolutely everything is treated by Witch Hunt standards. Any fact or opinion or import from Witch People or Witch Ideologies or Witch Places is not merely bad; it's NONEXISTENT. Outside the Holy Universe is VOID AND NOTHINGNESS.

= = = = =

Example of CRAPPY idea:



If you can send signals by telegraph, why not send packages and RESCUE CAPSULES? And why hasn't Elon re-invented this one yet? Definitely in his wheelhouse.

In case the crappiness isn't obvious to modern eyes: Telegraph lines always ran next to railroads. In the 1880s trains were fast and frequent. This proposal seems to have been hand-cranked. Even if the mechanism worked (which it wouldn't) there's no way you could beat train service.

Labels: Alternate universe, Make or break

  ¶ 10:48 AM

  Striking the target
Berenson posted an email from a young New Yorker who was getting ready for a teaching career, now mothballed by the holocaust.

The commenters give the expected mix of proper empathy and triviality, but one stands WAY above the rest.

Until people understand livelihoods are just as important as lives this won't change.

YES. Most important statement of the year, and beautifully phrased. Actually the most important statement of the last 40 years. We pretend to value every life while killing every livelihood.

Offshoring and Share Value and now Lockdowns are aimed primarily at destroying livelihoods, destroying real business, removing all possible ways to be PRODUCTIVE AND USEFUL. When productivity is gone, PURPOSE is gone. When PURPOSE is gone, we die.

LIFE IS PURPOSE.

Looking at this commenter's twitter feed, he doesn't seem to spend much time on heavy matters; mostly he discusses details of the graphics industry. The one time he said something heavy, he struck the target perfectly.

Labels: Experiential education, Make or break, skill-estate

  ¶ 10:05 AM

  Remarkable intelligence
UncommonDescent has found this rather old video of a Stickleback fish building a nest. It's a real eye-opener, forcing me to expand my definitions of intelligence.

UD is mainly discussing genomes and such, interesting but not the main point.



Watch the way the fish surveys the location, excavates the hole, then selects branches from a nearby water plant and mortars them into place. He's not just running a reflex subroutine as you'd expect. He has a plan in mind. He knows how he wants the nest to look, and rejects branches that don't fit well.

This is a 3-inch fish with a 1/2" brain, showing vastly more intelligence and PRODUCTIVE talent than our 6-foot-long governors and presidents who only know how to DESTROY.

I probably won't edit my usual statement:

MEN NEED TO MAKE THINGS. IF THEY CAN'T MAKE THINGS THEY WILL BREAK THINGS.

But it really should say MAKERS NEED TO MAKE THINGS. ... with MAKERS as an expandable category of species.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Make or break

  ¶ 1:56 PM

  Instant response, instant disproof.
Thursday afternoon: Holocauster Inslee made his first micromove in the right direction. Lord Inslee graciously and kindly allowed "essential" construction to restart.**

Friday morning: Construction instantly restarted right here on 4001 W Crown, the vacant apt building that was supposedly turned toward renovation two years ago.

Just before the holocaust, contractors had been measuring the place and stacking materials on the ground. Then the holocaust struck and work halted.

On Friday the work resumed. They're filling in some windows and resizing other windows.

In other words: Before the lockdown they were casing the joint. Now they're casing the joint. (Har har har! Taint funny, McGee.)

= = = = =

As fucking always, the IMMEDIATE response disproves the TIRESOME conservative ratshit about Tocqueville and 47% and largesse.

FACT: Real humans DO NOT WANT to be paid for sitting.

FACT: Real humans WANT to work for pay.

FACT: Real humans WANT to pay for work.

Real business is an intrinsic and innate part of humanity. Balanced transactions are an intrinsic part of our nervous system and soul. EQUIPOISE.

Conservatives and Liberals refuse to comprehend EQUIPOISE. Both believe that people would rather sit than work. Conservatives dislike the Shared Lie, Liberals like it. Both are lethally wrong.

= = = = =

** Semantic footnote: Why is he Holocauster and Lord in the same paragraph? I made a vow and I will keep it. Also see the Binary Name Principle.

Labels: Equipoise, Make or break, Shared Lie

  ¶ 7:34 AM

  Irrelevant venting
Just venting a couple of related but totally irrelevant annoyances. One is current, one isn't.

1. Some of the commentators on the current tyranny consider genocidal monsters like Inslee and Newsom to be nerds gaining revenge on jocks. Not a good diagnosis. Nerds and politicians are distinct types from birth. Politicians are smart and get good grades, but they don't spend all their time doing science and math crap. Politicians spend their time exerting power. They don't need to gain revenge on jocks because they have always been allied with jocks against nerds.

2. I was uneasy about Jordan Peterson's motives. He smelled like an Agent Provocateur or a cult leader. He was pulling in alienated nerd types, telling them to BE INDEPENDENT! TAKE IT LIKE A MAN! This is a good goal but not the first task on the todo list for alienated nerds. The first task is to find a productive job. After you gain experience in using your skills productively, independence and confidence come naturally. Unfortunately productive jobs have been hard to find in recent years because of offshoring. Productive jobs will be beyond impossible now. Simultaneously Peterson was getting the followers to DEPEND on his guidance. This is the same trick that feminists pulled in the '60s and '70s, advising alienated young women to seek independence in a way that guaranteed failure and dependence on the feminist leaders. I never did figure out his motives, but fortunately he disappeared from leadership after it was revealed that he was a drug addict. Telling the nerds to TAKE IT LIKE A MAN while he was TAKING IT IN THE ARM. This is an extremely rare example of real Natural Justice, outside of the "legal" "system".

Labels: Emersonian justice, Make or break

  ¶ 11:34 PM

  Structure is the savior 2
Headline: Jap park beheads 100k tulips to prevent people from walking around and enjoying the beauty.

This is why I'm emphasizing the importance of MAKEFORCE, the need to CREATE more structured beauty as an immune response to the jackboots who are KILLING beauty along with life.

This is why I keep turning out my pointless little animations of patient technology, reminders of a saner time, courseware without a course.

= = = = =

An interesting experiment on unlikely animals shows the connection.

Researchers took a large population of lizards who communicate by pheromones. They placed the lizards on an island where they didn't have to fear predators.

Freed from the need to communicate urgent warnings of approaching killers, the lizards soon developed a wide variety of olfactory art expressing their feelings and identities.

Humans are somewhat more complex, with more decision-making and more intentionality. We can send urgent warnings AND make art at the same time. We understand the role of art and music and writing as self-defense and community defense against an occupying force that intends to kill us all.

Therefore we are OBLIGED to do what we can in both areas. Create more life, more value, more beauty.

Don't let the predators RESTRICT us to the urgent warnings.

Labels: defensible thymes, Jackboot stomping forever, Make or break, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 10:27 AM

  Both kinds of immunity
Well, more Berenson. This is a point from one of his readers. It's a little heavy on therapeutic jargon for my taste, but it makes a STRONG argument.

When you're naturally anxious, the cure is to face the anxiety-producing situation and learn that it's not worth the trouble. Avoiding it only lets it fester.

You don't have to face EVERYTHING. This only applies to necessary or enjoyable parts of life. If you can get along without a specific "risk", or if you never enjoyed it anyway, just let it go.

I figured this out 30 years ago in my own peculiar way, when the choice was life or death.

The stay-home orders, whether strictly enforced or not, prevent you from facing the anxiety. When enforced, you have no choice. When "recommended", it's too easy to stay inside.

Getting out and walking, or going to the store and having normal contact and conversation, allows you to gain IMMUNITY to the anxiety along with IMMUNITY to the virus. You LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE that you've been in "risky" situations many times and you're still not sick. The two immunities are perfectly parallel and mutually reinforcing. Virtuous circle.

Labels: Experiential education, Make or break

  ¶ 10:14 AM