The switchover from order to chaos
Via Evolution News, a POWERFUL idea from Neil Thomas.

Here I will make the attempt to drill down even further to the root causes of what appeared to be the Western world’s unprecedented rejection of tried-and-tested philosophers and scientists such as Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, and the physician Galen in a strange capitulation to “out there” philosophic fantasists like Epicurus and his Roman disciple, Lucretius.

It was the would-be rehabilitation of those ancient materialist thinkers by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, in the late 18th century, coupled with the later Victorian crisis of faith and the sudden irruption into this already volatile mix of Charles Darwin which was to result in the particularly strange irrationalism which has stubbornly persisted right up to the present day.

This abdication of normal canons of reason consisted in people forsaking traditional norms of philosophical common sense and (effectively) throwing in their lot with the ancient goddess of chance, Lady Fortuna (or Lady Luck as she was later to be called), that accursed personification of unreliability whom the ancient philosopher Boethius, Geoffrey Chaucer, and many others have arraigned since time out of mind for being incapable of any productive and dependable action on behalf of struggling humanity.

Thomas is onto something big. This change from order to chaos happened in politics when the orderly and genetically determined sequence of hereditary kings was replaced by the random dice-toss of revolutions and "elections". Not coincidentally, the replacers (Robespierre, Tom Paine, etc) were psychopaths devoted to SMASHING order and life, and ENFORCING perfect chaos and death.

Around the same time, science abandoned the quest for order. The Arab and Persian astrologers, trailed by Kepler and Brahe and Chaucer, were observing the heavens to discern God's will. After Kepler, astronomers stopped looking for order and contented themselves with sampling the dots.

Also around the same time, economics was taken over by BETTING MEN who developed statistics to profit from rolling dice and shuffling cards. Previous investment had been based on common sense and personal involvement. Two-way obligations between the investor and the farm or business, and two-way obligations between employer and worker. Sharia codified this arrangement best, but it was also strongly encouraged by Catholic and Jewish economic systems.

The stock market broke up the obligations, turning investment into a fungible and STATISTICAL process with no common sense or human connection. Share Value functions on multi-layer SIDE BETS, not personal judgment of competence.

When the psychopaths took over biology, they abandoned the two-way obligation loop of feedback. Natural selection is explicitly random, bringing in the astronomer's pet randomizer of cosmic rays. Unpredictable particles change the genome, and unpredictable climate events decide which changed version will survive.

Finally in 1906 the psychopaths took over physics and math. Godel and Bohr declared that everything is perfectly unpredictable. We're not allowed to trust our own senses and instruments; we must wait for a Credentialed And Approved Scientist to tell us whether the cat is there or not.

Darwinians assume God is a psychopath just like them. Change the rules, kill the defiant, change the rules again, kill the defiant again, loop forever. Never allow the victim to regain BALANCE or swing with a RHYTHM or form his own FEEDBACK LOOPS with your chaotic torture.

Actual nature has constant rules. The inherited mechanisms of negative feedback (life) interact with the predetermined patterns of inanimate nature (weather, geomagnetic fields, earthquakes) in an infinite pattern of two-way loops.

Two-way? Yes. Every life form alters the inanimate parts of nature. Bacteria dissolve rocks and build new rocks, and create and move clouds. Trees break up rocks and build soil, and change temperature and humidity patterns. Complex animals dig up minerals and food, plant more food, and build hives and houses and dams. Intelligent brains reshape the magnetic field.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, switchover

  ¶ 11:14 PM

  As fucking usual
"Conservatives" constantly support causes and goals that destroy the society they PRETEND to favor. ZERO TAX made Facebook and Amazon possible.

About 10 years ago charter schools were a big "conservative" fad. Allegedly charter schools would use public funds without the crap of public unions and idiocy. I threw some money at the state charter organization back then because I was an idiot.

Every now and then they send me emails. Today's email proves the point beautifully.

Ready for this?

As our world evolves, so too must our systems. At WA Charters, our vision for the future of public education looks like student-centered, community-rooted schools that are equipped to disrupt systemically racist and inequitable policies and practices.

Baionne Coleman, CEO of Rainier Valley Leadership Academy says it best. "Black, Indigenous and Global Majority teachers are needed in large numbers across our nation for all scholars. Our youth need to see Global Majority adults as authority figures and loving individuals, instead of the numerous stereotypical myths that depict Global Majority people as 'less than'."

By advocating for charter public schools to continue to grow in our state and for charter students to have access to fair funding, we can help more schools like RVLA launch and thrive. In the coming year, WA Charters, our partners and community will be leading the charge to help make more antiracist education possible.

Thank you for being a part of our community of support.

Patrick D’Amelio President, WA Charters P.S. Help support more antiracist education through a financial contribution or signing up to be an advocate for charter public schools in Washington state!

Ha ha ha. Gotcha! Or more precisely Got Me.

By now I'm not really surprised. From the start, most of the charters were "leftward" from public schools, not "rightward".

BUT: Under the Global Majority crap there's a diamond. Both "left" and "right" ignore and disdain real Africans. Real Africa is the source of sanity and hope for the world. Tanzania was the only country that firmly resisted the "virus" holocaust on SCIENTIFIC grounds.

And another diamond, or at least a zircon. The plain fact is that integration harmed black people far more than it helped them. Integration broke up the black upper class and disemployed black teachers. After the integration of the 1950s, students were mixed but teachers were all white.

If "antiracists" would recognize these facts in a more objective and less Maoist way, I'd support them wholeheartedly.

= = = = =

Later: This article shows that the "right-wing" movement for charters, sponsored by Betsy DeVos, was directly in charge of implanting the Woke shit. Also not surprising. Defunding police also started in "right-wing" circles.

Labels: infinite STUPID, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 9:10 AM

  Astrocyte Abacus, reprinted
I was searching for 'abacus' inside the blog, just to check the animations for the IBM 650 (DCL). I wasn't sure if I'd replaced a bad frame.

'Abacus' led first to this item from 2019, which turns out to be important and timely.

Meritocracy is one of Deepstate's oldest weapons in the war of attrition against peasants and incorrect people. We are trained to try harder FOREVER to achieve PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE goals. The Enlightenment lies of tabula rasa and equality were meant to kill us in a way that demons find especially fun to watch.

Trying harder forever is UNNATURAL, and we have a specific mechanism to stop wasted effort.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Another astonishing discovery in brain function.

Learning is controlled by an internal abacus.

Via Eurekalert, a study using larval zebrafish.

These two pictures tell the story.



The experimental setup is 'virtual reality' or in old-fashioned terms a flight simulator. The fish is held firmly in place in a small aquarium. A visual landscape is moved forward and backward in response to the swimming motion. In real life each wiggle moves the fish forward, and then the counterwiggle moves backward a bit. (Like a rowboat with incompletely lifted oars on the backstroke.) So the simulated landscape does the same thing.



As long as the landscape moves, the fish moves forward in bursts. Swim for a second, rest for a second. When the experimenters turn off the motion, the fish tries harder for about 30 seconds, then gives up entirely.

This is rational behavior for all animals in all** situations. Modern human dysculture aka "meritocracy" turns us irrational by persuading us that forward motion is ALWAYS necessary regardless of our observed gains relative to the status landscape. If you're not gaining, you need to try harder. We keep trying harder, wasting exponentially increasing quantities of energy and soul, until we violently burn out and die.

The experimenters were trying to determine how the fish decides when to quit. Is it just a buildup of charge or neurotransmitter on a comparator neuron?

What they found is ASTONISHING. The action is controlled by a specialized type of glial cell, not by neurons.

Here, we found that the fish analog of the mammalian astrocyte is a central computational element of a circuit implementing a behavioral-state change after integrating sensory information.

Specifically, radial astrocytes in a subregion of the brainstem in larval zebrafish temporally integrate noradrenergically encoded failures to accumulate evidence of futility before inducing a state of passivity (giving up). This behavioral pattern has a familiar combination of features: trying to achieve a goal, repeatedly failing despite trying harder, giving up temporarily, and then trying again. Fish swim more vigorously in open loop (i.e., ineffective swim attempts), become passive, then swim again.

First try harder, then give up for a while.

Using whole-brain imaging, we found that astrocytic calcium was elevated just before and during passive states. Activation and silencing experiments established that these glial cells are required to trigger the passive state. Neuronal imaging and manipulation showed that the NE system encodes an expectation-outcome mismatch signal, which activates Ca2+ signaling in radial astrocytes. Thus, behavioral failures are detected by NE-MO and integrated by glia, which, after accumulating sufficient evidence of motor futility, trigger a passive behavioral state via GABAergic neurons. Once passivity is triggered, its persistence may be due to sustained effects of the glial cells on neurons, or a lag in the reactivation of swim circuits.

In other words, the astrocytes serve as a kind of scorecard or abacus outside of the neurons. The neurons click up the astrocytes, and when the number of raised beads reaches a threshold the neurons tell the muscles to stop swimming.

= = = = =

** Later thought: It's obvious that frustration is universal, but why is it universal? Why do so many situations need this calculated give-up response? Specifically, why would zebrafish need to know when their attempt to swim didn't result in forward motion? Virtual reality experimental setups aren't exactly common in the real ocean. A headwind in the current would be the main reason for lack of progress. When you're moving against a headwind you do have to try harder, but I'd think the frustration response would include something like gliding down to the floor for stability until the current slows down, or turning around to swim with the current.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

We're seeing millions of people reaching the last bead on their abacus. Some jump off bridges, most just stop actively living. It's even happening in China, where it's called Lying Flat.

A sane and SURVIVABLE civilization recognizes that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT, and guides each type of person into an appropriate niche where his particular talents lead to ACHIEVABLE goals.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 2:36 PM

  Lodge on science
Last year I was focusing on the work of Oliver Lodge, including his 1906 essay on creation vs Darwin. The latter concluded with a clear picture of demons, and a plea to keep demons out of power:

"The essence of mind is design and purpose. There are some who deny that there is any design or purpose in the universe at all: but how can that be maintained when humanity itself possesses these attributes? Is it not more reasonable to say that just as we are conscious of the power of guidance in ourselves, so guidance and intelligent control may be an element running through the universe, and may be incorporated even in material things? If we could grasp the entire scheme of things, so far from wishing to shatter it to bits and then remold it nearer to the heart's desire, we should hail it as better and more satisfying than any of our random imaginings.

Today a 1925 essay on science has appeared at American Radio History.

It is devoutly to be hoped that in the long run, when present international troubles have subsided, the power of rapid communication will surely conduce to better understanding among the nations, and will lead in due time to the much-desired but long-delayed era of universal peace. To this end much more than physical and material progress must contribute, for nothing can replace the whole-hearted desire for cooperative advancement of all nations on terms of mutual amity and good will.

The interchange of discoveries between the nations has long been in operation. All scientific discoverers throughout the world virtually pool their resources and communicate to each other their results, except indeed those of a destructive and inhuman character. Secrecy is alien to the spirit of science; and all true wealth increases in value when freely shared. Indeed, that is the test of true wealth, as Ruskin long ago pointed out — namely, that the more it is shared the more it is possessed and the greater value it has for everybody. Witness the broadcast distribution of music and drama and works of art generally. These are not things for private possession only, but can be shared and enjoyed by all. Things of this sort constitute the true wealth of humanity, and to that category scientific discoveries belong.

The spirit of nationalism is wholesome enough if it be held reasonably and without flaunting claims to superiority. The spirit of emulation is also wholesome, for it is by no means the same as competition.

Emulation is the desire to do something better than has been done before, and better than others have as yet learnt to do it; while competition is mainly the effort to monopolize some activity, and to do things instead of others.

In extreme cases unfair competition may prevent others from taking their due share in the beneficent work of the world. Hence progress surely lies in the direction of co-operation all round, each nation and each individual doing his best, and not seeking to prevent others from doing theirs. Nations which interchange scientific discoveries might also wisely interchange commodities, since not every locality is equally suitable for producing everything. Division of labour, of this sane and salutary kind, might be recognized as good.

And international jealousies, based on mere rivalry and competition, ought to cease, especially rivalry and competition in armaments and instruments of destruction. Civilization ought to have progressed too far by now for the perversion of ingenuity responsible for the construction of diabolical and otherwise useless mechanism, and for the artificial increase of those natural evils among which it is our lot to live and against which it is our business to contend.

Sorrow and sighing there must be in plenty during this planetary existence, without our trying to increase their sum, without adding to each other's difficulties, and without bringing about those horrors of death and torture and destruction which, when they occur by inadvertence or by accident or by the unconscious and uncontrolled forces of Nature, arouse worldwide feelings of sympathy and desire to help.

Until the will of man is brought into harmony with what we can gather of Divine intention, humanity cannot be called really and effectively civilized, although it may achieve marvellous feats of locomotion, and although it has extended the range of human speech to distances undreamt of by our ancestors. Now that we are able to travel farther and faster, we should travel to some good purpose. And now that we can speak across a continent, let us see to it that we have something worthy to say.

The overall spirit is the same from 1906 to 1925. It also sounds a lot like Harding and Hartness in the same period. Important people had ACTUALLY LEARNED from both WW1 and the excesses of the Gilded Age. The latter learning quickly disappeared in US, as Coolidge reactivated the Gilded Age based on Share Value. FDR finally brought both sides of the lesson into harmony.

The WW1 learning persisted even through WW2, as we clearly recognized the difference between imperialism and defense. Deepstate had to work hard in 1946 to break down the WW1 lesson and resume imperialism.

Labels: Equipoise, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:19 AM

  AI missing a BIIIIIIIIIIIG point.
In MindMatters as usual, Stephen Berger explores the ethical problems of 'Creative Destruction'.

Berger has solid empathy for the drivers and assembly workers who are displaced by DESTRUCTIVE DESTRUCTION (correct name) but he doesn't remember the world before Share Value.

Applying the Golden Rule to AI-driven innovation means being mindful about how AI is introduced and what jobs it replaces, especially initially. If the impact of AI is to take old junkers off the road, that is probably a societal benefit unless you are the owner of the old junker, now on the shoulder of the road, and it is the only way you have for getting around.

The problem is that AI is developed using that other Golden Rule, “He who has the gold rules,” and it is developed in a competitive environment with other AI developers. The most appealing business cases are the ones that will get funded. These business cases are seldom a secret. Other innovators see the opportunity and develop competitive solutions. The first company to bring a solution to the market will enjoy a very significant advantage. Who has the time or energy to worry about social impacts? If you don’t develop the system others will and you will be out of business. The focus is drawn to competitors and winning with little room left for contemplating the impacts of innovative AI technology.

This situation is relatively new, beginning around 1980. Before globalization and Share Value, the invisible hand WORKED. An industry that eliminated its workers, or moved its plants to China, would quickly feel the impact of the lost wages IN ITS OWN CITY. The feedback loop was CLOSED.

Industrialists didn't need to be nice or altruistic. Their own PROFIT forced them to maintain and increase employment, and to maintain loyalty by decent salaries and decent treatment.

Globalization broke the feedback loop with employees. A company that sells everywhere has no motive to maintain employees in one location or plant.

Share value broke the feedback loop with customers. Investors want to see ZERO PRODUCTION AND ZERO CUSTOMERS AND ZERO EMPLOYEES. Investors want to see pure math, pure stock manipulation, with no physical limitations.

So the only real solution is to constrain both globalism and share value.

Return to the laws and regulations of 1939. Delete all laws and agencies formed since then, restore all laws and agencies of the New Deal.

Labels: AI point-missing, Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law, the broken circle

  ¶ 4:48 PM

  Fractional-reserve criming
Another random connection, this time spawned by an accidental juxtaposition of two Quora questions.

First question: How do banks print money?

Under the fractional-reserve setup, a bank creates money every time it gives a loan. The loaned value didn't exist before. Printing has been disconnected from money creation for more than a hundred years. Long before digital, the vast majority of money moved as checks and ledger entries.

Second question: Do you approve of stings?

Seeing this question immediately after the first question led to a connection.

The vast majority of stings are designed to CREATE criminals who didn't exist before. A sting sets up an easy opportunity to commit a crime, which wouldn’t happen in real life. The victim isn’t strongly inclined toward crime in real life, but the invitation is too tempting to resist.

So a sting or an agent provocateur is fractional-reserve criming.

= = = = =

I've discussed real-value economies at length before. In a real-value economy, the total amount of value circulating is directly tied to the amount of real PRODUCED value. The Soviet system created more money in response to the value-added tax. When food is grown or cars are manufactured or cars are repaired, new currency is inserted into the economy to keep the currency unit constant. Loans are rare, and loans don't affect the money total.

A real-value court system works the other way. It tries to REMOVE criminal value from circulation. It distinguishes between professional criminals and opportunistic lawbreakers, and keeps the professionals out of circulation forever. Executions or life sentences are equally appropriate, but the life sentence sometimes provides a chance for the professional to be a productive citizen inside the walls, where he can't create new criminals.

In this 2017 item I was suggesting a Trinity House approach to crime, based on the profit motive of insurers. Definitely parallel to the Soviet VAT approach to currency.

Labels: Jail mode, Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law=Soviet law, Trinity House

  ¶ 2:41 PM

  Wolf as usual
As usual, Wolf points out that MOST of the economic shit comes from long-lasting corporate treason and crimes. SOME of it comes from the 2020 holocaust. The pattern is consistent, 70% old crimes, 30% new crimes.

As usual, Wolf shows it with facts and the best graphs in the world.

Today he features a whiny complaint from a railroad baron:

“Nor did we anticipate that a lot of the people were going to decide they didn’t want to work anymore. So attrition was much higher in the first half of the year than what we had expected,” he said.

Before the railroads blame the 33% cut in the workforce on the pandemic, let’s point out that by February 2020, just before the pandemic, their headcount had already been cut by 46,000 workers, or by 26%, to 128,000. Only 12,000 workers were cut during the pandemic.

The resulting deterioration in service triggered numerous complaints from shippers. But one of the big benefits was that the workforce could be slashed, which fattened the profit margins at the railroads. Wall Street analysts loved it, and it was good for railroad stocks.

GOOD FOR STOCKS.

SHARE VALUE IS THE UNIVERSE. NOTHING ELSE EXISTS.

Also as usual, Wolf's commenters know what they're talking about:

Yup, railroads have been cutting jobs for decades in Canada. And now with the latest wildfires they will have to rehire brakemen as a freight train most likely started the Lytton disaster fire. They will now have to slow down and also monitor. They substituted instrumentation for brakemen…and as a result there have been some absolutely dreadful accidents the last 10 years.

The basic permanent fact is that people DO want to work. People desperately want a two-way contract with employers, where both sides have obligations and both sides must PAY FOR VALUE. People are terminally tired of giving 110% and then being tossed like toilet paper to add .000000001 micropenny to ALMIGHTY SHARE VALUE.

Labels: Equipoise, Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law

  ¶ 10:26 PM

  Astrometeorology 5, Qibla
I'm still not in the mood for graphics, but sometimes you have to MAKE something to break out of dull moods. So I'll continue with a review of previous segment.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

This is the tool that archeologists call Instrument 3. It's a simple sighter for both azimuth and altitude. Polistra is trying to realign with the beacons of the universe.





The sighting bar with two pinholes or gunsights is the alidade. It's the key element of these instruments and astrolabes.



= = = = = END REPRINT.

This instrument to sight on both azimuth and altitude spawned more specialized instruments for each direction. Previous item covered the altitude part, the astrolabe.

Today I'll hit the azimuth part, the qibla finder, which has a special purpose in Islam.

Qibla is simply the direction from your location to Mecca. It has been precalculated and mapped for all locations, using Great Circle methods. The qibla finder uses a map based on the precalculated directions, or just lists cities around a circle.

Here Polistra is holding a more deluxe round qibla finder, in parallel with the azimuth of the big instrument.



And here she's holding a little pocket-sized square qibla finder, which happens to look a lot like a certain modern device. And in fact modern Muslims typically use an app that turns the screen of the modern device into a qibla finder similar to this one.



Closeup look of the square finder. All proper finders have two elements, a magnetic compass and an alidade. The alidade can be used two ways. First line the top of the finder with north, like a regular compass. If you don't know the qibla direction for your location, you can sight to the sun at sunset and use a table to determine the qibla direction. This is obsolete, since all locations are known. The more practical way is just to turn the alidade so its pointer hits the name of your location on the map, and then face from the pointer inward toward Mecca. The original of this model appeared to have some city names, so I just showed a compass grid.



The round finder is more typical, with a real map. I've got the pointer aimed at France.



This is poorly written, but will have to do for now. Sorry!

Labels: Equipoise, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:16 PM

  Bryan again
An old thought leads to a new 'data visualization'.

Old thought. This is one of my Thiel questions, one of the relatively unknown facts I've figured out by research.

Jennings Bryan was a faker like Trump. The other populists of that era were following Bryan and proposing the same fake solution, but I'm pretty sure most of them didn't understand it was fake.

They diagnosed the PROBLEM of globalism brilliantly. Graybill stated it elegantly. Their SOLUTION, more debt and looser money, was precisely backwards.

More debt and looser money means more power for bankers. More savings and harder money means more power for real business, including farmers.

Bryan was smart enough to know this. He was also working toward a goal, using the populist appeal to catapult him into power. After he got into the Wilson administration, he IMMEDIATELY abandoned populism and started making foreign wars and designing the League of Nations. Total betrayal, just like Trump.

= = = = =

This basic rule about savings vs debt was NOT NEW, to put it mildly.

DON'T LET THE BANKERS CONTROL THE WORLD.

Jesus taught it firmly and violently. Mohammed and his economic writers put the principle into complete and logical form.

So there was no excuse for missing it. The lesser populists were most likely swept along on Bryan's coattails, eager to gain power and not thinking deeply about the principles.

Visualization: Storage and savings and experience and culture are on the real axis. Just-in-time and debt and theory and Room 101 are on the imaginary axis.

When you stay within known cultural and economic territory you're always on solid ground, always sure of your steps. When you think you're Innovating and Changing The World, you're on IMAGINARY TERRITORY, always vulnerable to psychopaths and scammers who are CREATING FAKE MAPS for you.

EXPERIENCE SURVIVES. THEORY KILLS.

= = = = =

Later and alternative thought. Returning to the Pied Piper theme. We know that Trump's purpose was to guarantee that no American would EVER consider any agenda besides Soros and Bezos. Like all the other "terrorists" created by Deepstate, he made populism look HORRIBLE.

Bryan was designed for the same purpose, but the Piper pooped out. Wilson took globalism to the extreme with Bryan's full collaboration, and took internal tyranny to the extreme via Lady Edgar. The people saw the problem and chose Harding, who tried to break down both sides of globalism. Deepstate scandaled him and possibly killed him, so Coolidge and Hoover reverted to norm. But the people still remembered, and FDR finally got past the assassins and started to solve problems for the first and last time in our miserable fucked vile history.

Did Trump take the HORRIBLE too far by piling the "virus" on top of all the pre-existing panics and depressions? We can't tell yet. Some factions in the Biden administration appear to be vaguely Hardingish, attempting to dial down the panic.

Labels: Answered better than asked, Carver, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:11 AM

  Astrometeorology 4: Maragha and astrolabes
I'm running slow on graphics lately. I'm weary and used up. Now that the holocaust is starting to ease, maybe I can recover my graphical gumption.

Continuing the theme of astrometeorology, focusing this time on a side trip into the Islamic history of astronomical instruments. I'll return to the main theme of solar magnetic fields in the next entry.

Astrolabes were developed first in Greece at the time of Ptolemy. The Arabs and Persians picked up the subject and the instruments around 800 AD. They expanded the subject and the instruments in their tireless effort to measure and predict the patterns of weather and civilization.

An astrolabe is an observational instrument AND an analog computer, all in one. Ordinary telescopes are only observers. Slide rules are only computers. I can't think of a similar combined tool in other areas of science, at least before the electronic era. (The anti-aircraft sound detector was an acoustical astrolabe, developed after electronics but not using electronics.)

An observatory at Maragha near Tabriz in northern Persia was a center of study and invention. Maragha built small Greek-style astrolabes as well as huge building-size instruments. Archeologists have restored it and figured out how the various instruments worked.

This is the tool that archeologists call Instrument 3. It's a simple sighter for both azimuth and altitude. Polistra is trying to realign with the beacons of the universe.





The sighting bar with two pinholes or gunsights is the alhidade. It's the key element of these instruments and astrolabes.



Below is a scope-like tool. It didn't include a lens; the scope was apparently just to shield your eyes from ambient light while observing moon and stars in partial daylight.





Why no lenses? My first thought was that glass wasn't available, but that's exactly wrong. Glass technology was highly developed in that part of the world 15000 years ago in the Bronze Age, and many practical and artistic glass items were found in the same place and era as the observatory. Even worse, some of the scholars who wrote about the observatory ALSO wrote in detail about glass technology. So refined glass tech was right there in the same place and in the same minds. Why didn't they look at the moon through the bottom of a bottle and think Eureka? We'll never know.

= = = = =

Later addition: Instrument 11. This one was unique in its ability to switch measurement modes.



The vertical measuring stick pivoted on the horizontal rod so that it could be used two ways:



When the measuring stick was horizontal, it measured the azimuth:



And when the measuring stick was vertical, it measured the altitude of the alidade:





= = = = =

Here Polistra is using an astrolabe inside one of Maragha's giant azimuth dials.



= = = = =

Astrolabe makers were highly valued and famous artisans. One of the best was a Syrian named Mariam, here in a picture from the 1001 Islamic Inventions website.



Also from that website:

The making of astrolabes, a branch of applied science of great status, was practiced by many including one woman from Aleppo, Mariam “Al-Astrolabiya” Al-Ijliya, who followed her father’s profession and was employed at the court of Sayf al-Dawlah (944 - 967 AD), one of the powerful Hamdanid rulers in northern Syria who guarded the frontier with the Byzantine empire in the tenth century.

Hmm. Aleppo. Sounds familiar. Isn't that one of the horrible anti-womxn Muslim places that Hillary enlightenedly bombed down to bedrock in order to bring Enlightened Womxns Rights to the horrible primitive anti-womxn Muslims? Yes indeed, it was. I'm sure glad we got rid of those primitive simian anti-womxns. We wouldn't want any womxns to learn a useful craft. And we certainly wouldn't want a womxn to gain a justified reputation as an astronomer and instrument-maker. All womxns must spend all their time drinking to blackout, shouting incoherent Correct Slogans, and beating up peasants, following in the staggering footsteps of Our Most Noble Goddess Hillary.

= = = = =

Now back to the astrolabe itself.

A typical astrolabe has a static mater (the outer ring) containing a separate and removable plate, the inner map. The plate could be switched out for use in different locations, or to provide a different set of curves and functions for the movable parts. The mater corresponds to the base containing A and D scales on a linear slide rule. The part that looks like a horse was called the horse for mysterious reasons. Descriptions are unclear on its function; maybe it was a cotterpin to hold the movable parts.



The starmap pointer is the rete (net), including specific labeled extensions for major stars. The upper circular part is used in calculations, and can be turned independently on some versions. The rete corresponds to the slider (B and C scales) on a slide rule.



On top of the rete is the rule, corresponding to the cursor on a slide rule.



The unique part is the alhidade, on the back. As with the big instruments, you sight through the pinholes to determine height of a star or sun. You could also lay the astrolabe flat on a table or pillar, line up with north, and use the alhidade to sight an azimuth.



= = = = =

Jumping from 800AD to right now:

I bought an astrolabe kit from Dreipunkt in Germany. They make a variety of kits and learning toys. The kit is an interesting mix of old materials and new methods. It's entirely made of wood. Even the axle and joining pegs are wood. The wood comes in a hi-tech form, three VERY thin laminated layers, and the pieces are cut by lasers. I built it in one hour with no errors, despite my complete lack of wood skill. No tools or glue needed, except for some careful hammering of the joining pegs. Dreipunkt must have done some heavy Murphy testing on their instructions if even a wood-idiot like me can get it right!

Real astrolabes were kit-like. The horse cotterpin allowed you to remove any of the pieces, or switch the starmap plate to different maps or latitudes. Dreipunkt custom-printed a starmap for my location, labeled Spokane!

Back side with alhidade:



Front with rete:



Blurry closeup of the location:



I tried following the directions to determine the time of day, which isn't really useful now but would have been routine in 800 AD before clockwork.

I used the Alhidade to measure the height of the sun over the horizon, sighting through the two pinholes. 18 degrees above horizon.

Then I re-used the Alhidade to locate the 'starsign date' from today's date. June 6 = Gemini + 16 degrees.

Then I turned the Rete to line up Gemini+16 with the great circle for 18 degrees on the Plate. 18 is between 10 and 20, with no finer lines, so this didn't feel very accurate.

Then I turned the Rule to the same Gemini+16 on the Rete, and read off the time on the Mater. Appeared to be about 6:05. The clock time when I sighted the sun was 6:13 standard time, so this isn't too bad for a first try! (Later, used an online calculator to get solar time from standard time, and the astrolabe is about 15 minutes from solar time.)

= = = = =

Astrolabes should have spawned circular slide rules but for some reason they didn't. The linear slide rule developed from Napier's Bones, and the circular slide rule or wheel chart developed much later. None of those rules included the measurement tool, so astrolabes (and their descendants like sextants) are still unique.

= = = = =

Later footnote: Yes, the horse was a cotterpin.

This duty would be originally discharged by a pin with a large head at one end, and a slot at the other through which a cotteril or wedge passed to hold it in place; this wedge is sometimes made into the shape of a horse, and is so called.

Labels: Entertainment, Equipoise, Metrology, Natural law = Sharia law, new toy

  ¶ 9:12 AM

  By the Booker Book
Yesterday we finally got the first REAL relief from the holocaust locally. It's partial, but worth a celebration.

I made my usual hellish store trip, muzzling in the bus and muzzling in the store, carefully keeping the Time Under Ballgag to an absolute minimum number of milliseconds. I noticed that Safeway no longer had the MUZZLE UP signs outside, and then CAREFULLY read the new inside sign with disbelief melting into relief.

"Masks ENCOURAGED for non-vaccinated customers."

Well, I'm vaxed, so I'm strictly legal. I yanked off the ballgag and enjoyed shopping without immediate danger of tripping and falling over boxes on the floor, and above all without the horrible SATANIC DEVICE SIGNALING COMPLIANCE. First freedom in a full fucking year.

This is a partial relief, but it's the majority of the hell. The bus system still absolutely requires ballgags, but the total time on bus is only four minutes, compared to 20 minutes in the store.

Most of the store employees are also unmuzzled now. Their relief must be INFINITELY larger, since they've been gagged 8 hours a day for 14 months. Employee strangulation started in May, customer strangulation started in July.

Time for a bit of celebration, even if it's a partial victory!



[Graphic note: I've added the Chumbe lighthouse to this scene as a tribute to the BEACON provided by heroic martyr Magufuli and the ONE SANE COUNTRY of Tanzania.]

= = = = =

I've been playing this shit strictly by the book, never taking advantage of unofficial "tolerance".

Partly the caution arises from personal experience with psychopaths. After spending six months locked in a prison cell with a demon, I understand how they work, and I don't want to be the one who triggers the killing frenzy.

More broadly I'm following Booker T's book.

When you're at the bottom of the status stack, YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING. Unofficial tolerance is NOT FOR YOU. If you try to push the unofficial limits, YOU WILL BE THE SCAPEGOAT. Low-status people have to survive by obeying and serving, not by sneaking past the Gates.

As it happens, I first learned the Booker lesson from the prelude to the prison experience. I had thought I was just another hippie. I saw some of the high-status hippies openly dealing drugs and getting away with it. I thought I could try using pot since there was "unofficial tolerance". Nope. A "friend" bought his way out of jail by framing me.

Many years later the lesson emerged from a different angle. In 1969 my parents "had to move" out of Ohio "because" of the shame I brought on the family. In 2000, my mother finally told me the disgusting truth. My father was leaving ANYWAY because he was in a tenure-track position and hadn't published anything. After three years without Publishing he was automatically Perished in the same month when I was framed.

The real framing and reputational framing may be connected, since there was a suspiciously close relationship between the abovementioned "friend" and my parents. Did my parents trigger the whole pile of shit? We'll never know.

Labels: Carver, Jackboot NOT stomping forever, Jail mode, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:04 AM

  Astrometeorology 3: from static Ferguson to magnetic Kepler
Picking up from previous post on James Ferguson.

Previously I showed a couple of science entertainments using static fields to drive gadgets. Ferguson's main focus was orreries or planet simulators.

He began with another static-driven toy:



From the top:



In action:



A simple orrery, not intended to be accurate, using 'electrical spray' to drive the earth and sun. Each pivot represented a center of gravity, and a pointed pin on each concentrated the overcharge and let it spray, like a reaction rocket.

= = = = =

Now I'll use Ferguson's real orrery as a branching point to a larger topic. (In later parts I'll return and use the orrery for more specific conjunctions and oppositions.)



This is a geocentric orrery unlike most modern types. The earth is the central pivot, and the sun and planets orbit around it. The mechanism is driven by a clockwork motor in the can under the sun.

Running through a year in fast motion:



And the same from above with other stuff cleared out, showing only the planets:



= = = = =

Detour into determinism vs freewill.

There's no way to figure out which is ultimately right. Most indications tend toward determinism in most things. We may have freedom of decision in small things, but negative feedback should pull us back toward natural law.

Islam says that since we can't know the real combination for sure, we have to assume determinism.

Christians were totally for freewill, and the Endarkenment of the 1700s got SERIOUS about freewill, (see "rights") in order to give full range to the Innovative Disruptive psychopaths of the French Terror.

Assuming determinism leads to a happier and healthier culture. If you know how things are supposed to run, you can detect departures from Natural Law and steer back into the lane. If you don't resonate with a natural pattern, you're vulnerable to every new monstrosity. As we see now.

= = = = =

Back to astronomy:

Islam picked up astronomy from the Greeks around 800 AD, and refined it tremendously, always aiming to know the will of the universe by reading the patterns of planets and stars.

When Euros came back to astronomy in the 1500s, they picked up the Islamic work and resumed along the same lines. Early astronomers were purely astrologers in the modern sense.

Kepler was interested in the stars for useful purposes. He designed a system of weather prediction, and was also thinking about human influences.

He explained the motivation for his work:

A most unfailing experience of the excitement of sublunary natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets, has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.

The excitement of sublunary natures includes everything that happens on earth.

At that point in history astrology WAS a science in the precise sense. Astrologers observed and measured star and planet positions in order to predict weather and cultural changes. Other scientists observed and measured the positions and shapes of electrostatic fields and magnetic fields. Others observed and measured the positions of small physical objects in order to predict and build engines and mousetraps. Same practices, same methods, same focus on USEFUL RESULTS.

Nature is lawful. Nature is determined. If we can figure out the laws, we can use them reliably.

At that point in history, astronomy on its own was ENTERTAINMENT. If you just wanted to see the stars and paint pictures of them, you were having fun, not trying to do useful work.

The two purposes FLIPPED, by a mysterious and accidental coincidence, at the same time as the French terror. Robespierre and Marat needed to abolish all beacons, all external influences and predictive laws, so they could be perfectly FREE to destroy minds and culture and people. So they declared purposeful science to be "unorthodox science" and banned it.

= = = = =

And back to Ferguson's geocentric orrery.

Holding the earth steady makes it easier to chart and visualize how planetary angles cause sublunary influences. In a heliocentric model everything is moving, so it's much harder to see.

The interplanetary magnetic field is shaped by the motions and magnetic pulls of all the planets. For the sake of modeling, I've drawn the magnetic field as a surface below the planets. Venus has a positive pull and Mars has a negative pull. This corresponds to one Kepler-derived scheme of planetary influence, attributing raininess to Venus and dryness to Mars.

When Venus and Mars are in opposition across Earth, a sharp gradient is formed:



When Venus and Mars are more distant and off-angle, there's no particular gradient around earth, so no particular influence:



This field does a good job of modeling the influences found by Kepler and his followers through experiment and observation.

What's the mechanism? The interplanetary field shapes long-term weather patterns in two ways, one definite and the other speculative.

1. Definite: The field directly moves and shapes our semi-liquid iron core, which moves heat into different areas of the globe. The icecaps are melting FROM BELOW, not from above. The Gulf Stream is being redirected FROM BELOW, not by the atmosphere.

2. Speculative: Bacteria and other plankton are magnet-driven. They navigate by the declination of the field, riding a declination line up or down. When the declination lines change, as they are doing now, bacteria move in different ways, redistributing shade and photosynthesis and nutrition in the ocean. Think Nino/Nina.

The magnetic field shapes human behavior in two ways, both speculative.

1. Our cerebellum has an antenna for electromagnetic fields. We don't do a lot of navigating, but we respond in unknown ways to changes in the planet-scale field. When it's stronger, we may be more synchronized and harmonious. When it's weaker, we have less guidance. As now.

2. Bacteria again. Our digestion is performed by bacteria, which are presumably responsive to magnetic fields like the ocean bacteria. When the field weakens or strengthens, they will behave accordingly. Right now the earth's field is weaker, which means the bacteria are confused and sluggish. See Obesity.

The next part will dig into the Islamic approach in more detail.

Labels: Entertainment, Natural law = Sharia law, Trinity House

  ¶ 6:40 AM

  Should be a lesson, won't
Spending way too much time on Quora lately. It's unhealthy but hard to resist, especially when I'm too weary to do serious work on courseware or graphics. Just one more cigarette, just one more little drinky...

Quora is dominated by hero-worshipping autists. They see only the top, and they believe fervently that they deserve to reach the top INSTANTLY. Nietzsche, Rand, and Seneca are the goal-setters. How do I make a billion dollars in a week? How do I create the next world-changing innovation?

Until two days ago Elon was the capo di tutti capi. Everyone wanted to be Elon, everyone wanted the privilege of kissing Elon's ring or other parts.

Suddenly the field has reversed. Now Elon is Trump.

Why? Elon said bad things about Bitcoin, which is the Holy Eucharist of the superstar autists.

The worshippers should learn a lesson from this, but they won't. Superstar status is instantly reversible. You may reach the top, but one wrong word will cancel you. This isn't new.

When you do what you're MEANT to do, whether it's coding or cooking or car-washing, your position is much less fragile and you have more real freedom.

Potential energy applies to status as well as gravity. Some people are naturally higher than others. Stretching beyond your natural height is fragile, and elasticity has a limit.

Labels: defensible spaces, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 8:47 AM

  Got the poke.
The process itself was quick and simple and free. I waited until it was available in a pharmacy near me so I wouldn't have to spend a long bus trip under muzzle to get there.

First dose May 11: So far the side effects (Moderna) are weird but small. Non-weird: The arm muscle is sore, which is a natural result of any shot. Weird: In the first few hours, I went through brief phases of side cramps, headache, slight fever, slight chills, and general fatigue. I don't remember having any of those effects from a previous flu vax a few years ago, but none of them were serious.

Update: Second dose June 9 was noticeably worse, as many others have reported. One day of real misery, fever and chills. Pretty much done the second day, but still not feeling quite healthy.

A week after the second dose, an odd delayed reaction. I got a mosquito or spider bite on my leg. Bug bites always itch for a day then go away. This one grew into a six-inch red rash, which stayed for about a week before fading. THIS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN 71 YEARS OF BUG BITES.

And a month later (7/15) I went into Holocaust central for my annual prescription renewal theater. I've been doing this for 10 years. They always take some blood to satisfy their vampire urges. This year, for the first time, the blood test caused a bruise. Technicolor, lasted THREE WEEKS, finally faded out August 5. THIS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN 10 YEARS OF THE SAME TEST. Constants and variables: Consistent with previous effects of vax, inconsistent with previous effects of the blood draw itself.

= = = = =

Why did I do it? Three reasons.

1. Consistency. As a non-psychopath and non-demon, I'm bound to hold onto real science and keep my promises. Leave the Room 101 fast switches to the demons. Unlike all the other satanic "measures", vax is part of real public health. I've said several times in this blog that I'd be glad to do it, so I did it.

2. Consistency from the opposite angle. Along with willingness to do REAL things, I'm also bound to reject the false flags on my side. The German skeptics have fallen under the spell of RFK Jr, who is unquestionably an AP. He's still a major officer of Gaian organizations, and he's pushing anti-vax more than anything else. This is the classic two-sides trick. Deepstate always draws the skeptical side into violent and inverted acts, in order to make the skeptical side look horrible. Trump did the job for populists, and RFK Jr is doing the job for real scientists.

3. Lottery ticket. At the moment some of the national demons are temporarily implying that they might grant tiny micromicroprivileges to people who have been vaxed. Possibly we might be graciously allowed to gather in groups of 2 instead of only groups of 1 for a few milliseconds, and possibly we might be allowed to distance only 874.39 kilometers instead of 874.40 kilometers. Superdemon Inslee will never go along with those dangerous and unorthodox risks, but at least I can look at the rest of the country and imagine what it would be like. The odds of a change here in Superdemon Inslee's Superhell are roughly Powerball Cubed, but if I don't have the ticket I won't be in line for the one in a quadrillion probability.

= = = = =

Next day: CDC has gone all the way FAKELY, stating that fully vaxed people can live a normal life EXCEPT WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. This is a classic political trick. Congress has been playing this game forever. One branch passes a "law" that sounds good, knowing perfectly fucking well that the other branch will erase it. Trump played the game with executive "orders", writing "orders" that sounded good until you read the fine print. In fact every "order" suggested that agencies might consider doing the right thing unless they wanted to do evil. So they continued doing evil.

Labels: #WholeOfSociety, endless hell, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:22 PM

  Reprint on Don't Be There
Reprinting this item from 2018 to maintain my own resolve.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Puppet show. APs versus APs. Both dangling from Deepstate strings. One set is called "Patriot Prayer Puppets", other side is called "Antifa Puppets".

The script says Antifa wins, so Antifa wins.

The lower-level participants are unaware of the scripting. They believe they're "moving the world" or some such shit. The only thing they're doing is strengthening Deepstate. Deepstate uses CONFLICT to justify more spying, more tyranny, more extermination. Parkinson, Parkinson, Parkinson. PAY ATTENTION.

At this moment the Antifa participants are accidentally more honest, since they are OPENLY defending CIA, NSA, Goldman, and Military. They doublethink that they are "resisting" something or other by openly supporting CIA, NSA, Goldman, and Military. Perhaps one or two of them will realize the doubleness and give up, but I doubt it.

If you want to "change the world", there's absolutely no ACTIVE way to do it. The best you can do is AVOID strengthening Deepstate. All you can do is STAY THE FUCK AWAY from these atrocious fake puppet shows. Don't invite "controversial" speakers, don't join protests, don't join movements. Speak the truth when possible, do your duty.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

Survive. Be medieval. Be useful.

Labels: 2000=1000, From rights to duties, Natural law = Sharia law, Parkinson

  ¶ 2:08 AM

  Speaking of rules
Partial reprint from last July.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Thus I'm left with two explanations that aren't immediately disprovable.

1. A bar bet between Bezos and Soros. Hold my beer while I destroy the world. Who can reach the ultimate finish line first?

2. A test of all humans and human leaders, performed by God or Satan or an alien civilization.

For now I'm going to run with the test, because at least it provides a survival purpose for those of us who are trying in various ways to expose and oppose the holocaust.

It also fits with the old Sharia view of Natural Law.

The Almighty has created this world as a trial and test for man; every person has therefore been made to depend on others for his living. No one in this world can live independently as regards his needs and requirements. A person of the highest rank turns to the most ordinary to fulfill them. In other words, every single person has an important role to play, without which this world cannot continue.

This role depends upon his abilities, intelligence and inclinations as well as upon his means and resources, which vary from person to person. In fact, it is because of this variation that a society comes into being. Consequently, laborers and workers, artisans and craftsmen, tillers and peasants are as indispensable as scholars and thinkers, savants and sages, leaders and rulers. Every individual is an integral component of the society and contributes to its formation according to his abilities.

By creating various classes of people, the Almighty is testing whether the big and the small, the high and the low create a society based on co-operation and respect or create disorder in the world by disregarding the role each person has been ordained to play.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

It's a direct contract between God and humans. God gave us the infinite gift of life and order and beauty. In return we're expected to maintain and increase order and beauty. Pay for value. Equipoise.

This still makes more sense than the Christian crap about "original sin" and "image of God". It explains the setup with no unnecessary entities.

Here's an instantiation of the test code, from one of the hadiths:

Whoever of you sees an evil must then change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then he must change it with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then he must change it with his heart. And that is the least of faith.

Directly follows from the variation in abilities and RESOURCES.

When Bezos and Soros cranked up the most massive evil in the history of the world, EVERYONE who could have changed it by hand (economic and political bullypower) joined the evil. Legislatures, courts, churches, businesses. ALL eagerly joined the holocaust. NONE even momentarily pretended to oppose.

This doesn't relieve the duty for those of us who can only oppose by tongue or heart. We still have the duty because we received the gift. Pay for value. Equipoise.

Labels: Equipoise, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:32 PM

  Random skill-estate thought
I'm studying the old science of astro-meteorology in my usual way, by trying to animate a machine that performed the function. There are several clear books about the various systems, differing in details and agreeing in broad outline.

As I start to understand the systems and their experimental basis, I'm starting to imagine the analog computer that would have implemented them.

It turns out that I 'built' a similar machine a few months ago as a branch of the bridges and balances theme, but didn't use it in those blogposts. It didn't quite fit the theme.

Lesson, which isn't surprising by now: Never discard a more or less finished idea or product. Keep it around, and keep enough documentation so you can return to it with some understanding.

This is the skill-estate version of STORAGE.

The modern psychopaths, the Innovative Disruptors, consider 'sunk cost' to be absolute anathema. They tell us to pull away from every experimentally proven skill or workflow or thought or device or invention. Amortization is a mortal sin.

EXPERIENCE SURVIVES. THEORY KILLS.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law, skill-estate, storage

  ¶ 11:44 PM

  Copyright violates natural law
Convective counterintuitive thought:

If you want to leave a legacy, don't copyright your work.

After previous item on Aberree and astrology, I was thinking again about Alphia Hart's uniquely CONFIDENT view of copyright:

Copyrighting everything you write is a confession that you have little faith in your ability to continue producing salable stuff -- and that there may come a time when you'll have to fall back on your own, protected material to make a living. When we can't produce new copy for The ABERREE, The ABERREE ceases to exist, because we're certain no one wants to read tomorrow what we said yesterday and today.

I reached a similar conclusion a long time ago in making courseware. The restrictions of 'digital rights' get stricter and more tangled every year, but they don't bother me because I have CONFIDENCE in my own ability to produce new images and animations.

= = = = =

Despite his probably fake modesty, Hart did leave a legacy. His work is still eminently worth reading 60 years later.

BUT: If he had copyrighted his work, or even failed to EXPLICITLY turn off the copyright, his legacy would be GONE.

Thanks to recent anti-Hubbard types who found the collection and scanned and uploaded it, all of Hart's work is readable. If he hadn't made a point of turning off the copyright, those blessed preservers couldn't have done their job, and his work would be lost.

A similar situation exists in the recordings of old-time radio. The obscure syndicated shows are better preserved and more available than the big network shows. Why? Because the networks still exist, so a copyright could be enforced. This makes it possible for one of the OTR vendors to play copyright troll games, forcing the other vendors and the free service at Archive.org to delete items it wants to sell. Even though the one trollish vendor has no inheritance rights to the recordings, the potential of a copyright makes the big network shows harder to find and hear. And because they're less widely distributed, they're likely to disappear when that one trollish vendor goes out of business.

A much more important application of this principle was already operating at the time when those radio shows were made. Local stations and small syndicates and small civic orchestras were able to play live music as long as it was classical. Modern copyrighted music could only be played by networks who had enough money to pay the royalties. THEREFORE: Classical music has been performed and enjoyed and remembered much more widely than modern copyrighted music.

We have a dense and constantly performed legacy from composers who worked before copyright laws. Similarly with literature and visual art.

Not everything is great, but some work that was considered trash when written has been appreciated later because it was PRESERVED in some form. PRESERVED work can be revived and re-judged.

When the work is copyrighted, it has much less chance of being preserved and reprinted or replayed, no matter how good or mediocre it is.

Natural law and Sharia law agree: Use it or lose it. Everything in nature is meant to be useful, meant to serve. Copyright prevents use, so copyright guarantees loss.

= = = = =

Later addition: I was forgetting one specialized but important form of loss. Forgetting is peculiar because I've personally experienced this form!

When a publisher owns exclusive copyright, the publisher may go bankrupt or merge, or it may simply decide to stop selling the item. At that point there's no automatic procedure to revert the item to public domain, or to return it to the author's possession. Sometimes a revert contract is written, but big corporations don't obey laws. They can and will prevent ANYONE from using the material, even though they're not using the material either. Total and permanent loss.

= = = = =

See also storage vs JIT.

Labels: Aberree, From rights to duties, Natural law = Sharia law, skill-estate, storage

  ¶ 10:43 PM

  Opening the doors again
Speaking of Fairness Doctrine in science, here's an unusually fair historical piece from Physics Today. It treats unfashionable views and unfashionable cultures with fairness and respect.

I've been lobbying for a return to astrology as science. This article goes even farther, pointing out that astrology did a good job of predicting weather for hundreds of years.

Astrometeorology was developed by Islamic scientists, then picked up by Euros in the 1400s and developed farther. Almanacs continued to mix planetary patterns and seasons, and some may still do it.

Islamicate astrometeorologists were the first to replace the ancient practice of observing only short-term signs, such as clouds and the flight of birds, to predict weather. They based their action on the hypothesis that weather is caused by the movements of planets and mediated by regional and seasonal climate conditions. Improved calculations of planetary orbits and updated geographical and meteorological information made the new science possible and compelling.

The prospect of acquiring reliable weather forecasts, closely linked to predictions of coming trends in human health and agricultural production, made the new meteorology attractive in Christian Europe too. Considerable pride shines through medieval Christian accounts of the weather questions that they could now start to answer. Central among them was one that classical meteorologists had failed to figure out: How can weather vary so much from one year to the next when the seasons are caused by regular, repeating patterns produced by Earth’s spherical shape and its interactions with the Sun?

How did it work? Some of the details are lost, but:

Astrometeorologists noted that the angular relationships between planets were important for determining their mutual effects. Planets facing one another across the zodiac were negatively related; an angle of 45° was also problematic and likely to produce an atmospheric disturbance. However, planets at 60° or 120° would interact more positively and produce more moderate weather. When planets were close together, the intensity of their effects would increase depending on the natures and placements of the planets involved.

In other words, plain old vector algebra.

One phrase caught my eye:

The techniques in al-Kindi’s method required that forecasters confidently judge which factors would have the greatest effects and for how long, and they accepted that experience was crucial in making a successful prediction. Experts put their trusted methods on record for the benefit of others. Especially influential was al-Kindi’s application of the concept known as “opening of the doors.” The treatises do not explain the phrase, but it hints that rain was caused by an almost physical change in the atmosphere, driven by specific combinations of planets and their movements in relation to one another.

Opening of the doors.

Here's the Ridhwan clock, designed by and for those Islamic forecasters, combining science with religion and entertainment. By some descriptions, the upper dial rotated seasonally to show the current arrangement of constellations. I didn't try to animate that part.



Each hour opened a door revealing the number of the hour. The 12 houses behind the doors may have dispensed something to the priests or people. (The balls transferred to the birds were stacked up like a vending machine, so similar devices for the little houses would have been possible.)



Happystar appropriately illustrates.

HOW did planetary position control our weather? The astrometeorologists were correct given the state of their knowledge:

Astrologers believed that the planets and the fixed stars, including those making up the constellations to which the houses of the zodiac were linked, had special affinities with individual elements and qualities. Those qualities determined the nature of the effects each planet would have on the terrestrial world as it moved through the heavens.

Affinities with elements = magnetic field. The planets pull and shape the field of the entire solar system, giving it a different 3D graph of intensities and declinations for each configuration. As the earth passes through this field, the intensities influence the distribution of heat in our core, cause static fields through the dynamo effect, and influence bacteria in the clouds and nematodes in the soil. Not mysterious or metaphysical, unless you're a follower of the modern astrology that attributes all long-term weather to OrangeTrumpQanon Witch Carbon.

Labels: 2000=1000, Aberree, Carbon Cult, Entertainment, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:59 PM

  Naomi, I deeply apologize.
A super-powerful article by Naomi Wolf on the only subject that matters.

She's talking my language here:

Masks break human beings’ ability to bond face-to-face and enjoy human contact, smiles and jokes. Masks turn down the effectiveness of human “technology,” by making it hard for us to “read” each other and to pick up social cues.

Many Covid policies seem designed to ensure that humans will have no “analog” space yet or “analog” culture left – no way to feel comfortable simply gathering in a room, touching one another as friends or allies, or joining together.

Lastly, driving all human interaction onto Zoom is not only a way to harvest all of our tech, business secrets and IP – it is a way to ensure that intimacy and connection in the future will be done online and that human face-to-face contact will be killed off.

Wolf cites her own previous writings, which have been running along this track for a long time, fighting Deepstate for a long time. She's not a sudden convert to reality by ANY means.

I didn't know this.

In the '90s I was mindlessly blindly following Rush and Fox, who constantly mocked Naomi Wolf. I didn't have any particular reason to look at her from a different angle, so I didn't.

Sorry, Naomi. You were on our side all along.

The big question is why Rush and Fox found it necessary to mock her. She had advised Al Gore at one point. Was she trying to steer him away from the digital side? Was Rush trying to make analog thinking look awful?

A similar pattern happened with Cynthia McKinney. Rush and Fox mocked her. I didn't have any particular reason to check the information, so I didn't. After I read her actual writing, I realized instantly that she's a strong and independent intellectual. I agree with her on some points and disagree on others, but she's definitely on the analog side of reality.

Continued...

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:50 AM