Thiel's question
Via MindMatters.

How would you respond if PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel asked you his favorite interview question: “Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.”

I'd been thinking along similar lines lately. Not exactly true-but-nobody-agrees; more like true-but-nobody-knows.

There are four things I've figured out in recent years that nobody else seems to have figured out. Two are big, two are tiny.

Big 1: Rights vs duties, Paine vs Morris. This probably fits the Thiel question, since many others have examined the subject and reached the opposite conclusion.

Big 2: Broadly the whole subject of real-value economics and skill-estate. Specifically the FACT that GDP and growth are precisely backwards from real value-added measurements. Leftist economists have approached the question but haven't hit the specific point.

Tiny bit of history: Cave Gas. I've been modeling these Lost Places for quite a while. Cave Gas is the only one that nobody else has documented.

Tiny bit of science: Hubbard's E-Meter. I examined the original schematic and noticed that it's not a passive meter but an active stimulator. Then I built the original schematic and proved it, rather painfully.

The last one is most important by my standards because it was an EXPERIMENT.

= = = = =

Sidenote for clarity and credit: The above list includes things I've discovered on my own. The most important thing I've learned from others in recent years, which seems to be unnoticed by anyone else, is the sucker filter. A brilliant observation that explains many otherwise mysterious events. I wish I could remember who wrote about it!

= = = = =

Later sidenote: Thiel has been revealed as a Deepstate monster, but the question is still good. Smart is smart no matter who says it, stupid is stupid no matter who says it.

= = = = =

Added more of these items here.

Labels: Aberree, Carver, From rights to duties, skill-estate, Sucker Filter

  ¶ 8:41 AM

  Before the Age of Adelson
Another item from Prescott's 1888 book on telegraphy, p335 in the PDF.

The Siemens iron pole has been used in many of the countries of Europe and Asia to a considerable extent, and this is especially true of the great Indo-European line, which extends from a point on the Russian frontier near Thorn [Torun] in Prussia, through Warsaw, Odessa and Tiflis [Tbilisi], to Teheran, a distance of 2,850 English miles.

My estimate of the path:



When Germany rebels against Sheldon Adelson's war on Persia, it's following a long tradition of commercial ties with Persia. It's not just being contrary.

And more specifically when Siemens builds projects in Persia, it's following a long Siemens tradition.
  ¶ 6:14 AM

  This is hopelessly STUPID.
This piece of INFINITELY STUPID SHIT was actually published in an actual "scientific" journal.

It's billed as a "major discovery". It's just an obvious fact turned into an obviously reverse causation.

These IDIOTS claim to have found an explanation for Weber's Law, the FACT that most neural inputs are logarithmic. There are a few exceptions in the area of pain and pressure, but log holds true for every aspect of sight and sound.

They ran an experiment where rats were conditioned to point toward the louder of two sounds.

"Our experiments confirmed that the animals' behaviour matched Weber's Law", says Pardo-Vazquez. "Their ability to tell which of the two sounds was louder only depended on the ratio between the sounds' intensities. If the rat had to compare the intensities of two sounds that were played softly, its accuracy was just as good as with a pair of sounds that were played loudly, as long as both pairs had the same intensity ratio."

Then, the team started to analyze in detail how long the rats took to make their decisions, a step that turned out to be critical. "Typically, studies of Weber's law focussed on the accuracy of the discrimination, which is what Weber himself described", Pardo-Vazquez explains. "Surprisingly, the time taken to decide has received little attention." The team realized decision times and the loudness of the pair of sounds were linked - the louder the sounds, the shorter the decision time. In fact, they showed that the nature of this link was unique and mathematically precise, making the decision times observed, for instance, in a discrimination between two quiet sounds, exactly proportional to the decision times measured when the subject discriminated between two loud sounds -- as long as their relative intensities were constant.

The explanation is not mysterious. A louder sound triggers more neurons in the cochlea and in the upper levels of the auditory system. When more neurons are involved, there are more sub-decisions being made, so the sub-decisions accumulate faster toward the major orienting decision. Localizing is based on much more than loudness. With a sudden sound, time of arrival is part of the calculation. Phase differences are also part of the calculation. All of these calculations are easier when the sound is louder. The signal-to-noise ratio is higher, so there are less confounding factors.

This has nothing to do with the log-ness of the comparison, and certainly doesn't explain the log-ness of the comparison. Log-ness is intrinsic in every neuron and in every process.
  ¶ 1:31 AM

  Ohm was right after all, and didn't meet resistance after all!
Ohm's original concept of electricity spreading like heat was dismissed by scholars, but seems to have been used much later by real engineers.

First review and reprint the original:

= = = = = START REPRINT:


Polistra is always cheering for traditional and human-scale measurements. She wanted to find out: Was there ever a set of natural measurements for electricity? Was there ever an English unit of potential or an American unit of resistance? Or did the original experimenters jam everything into the metric prison from the start?

The answer: Well, sort of. Briefly. In the early days of telegraphy, resistance was often measured in terms of length and width of a standard wire, and different nations had different standards. But this didn't last long, and the volt, ampere and ohm were quickly adopted as universal.

Polistra admits reluctantly that this situation makes sense. Food, farmland and fabric were used and measured systematically for thousands of years before theoreticians came along. Electricity was first used and measured by theoreticians and later passed into common use.

While looking for the nonexistent tradition, an interesting forgotten story popped out. Back in 1827, Georg Ohm developed the math of circuits correctly by using an incorrect analogy. Other 'electricians' had already reached a correct understanding of positive and negative charges; Ohm ignored this understanding and used the transmission of heat instead. Because of his incorrect analogy, his correct math was not accepted by the other scientists for many years. Alfred Mayer, writing in 1890, said:

Ohm was led to the conception of this law by assuming that the flow of electricity in a voltaic circuit is similar to the flow of heat by conduction in a rod. Also, his assumptions that the actions of two electrified particles are directly as their distance, and that the electricity is uniformly dense over each cross section of a conducting wire, were directly opposed to the laws and facts well established by Coulomb for statical electricity.

Damned theoreticians. Always the same. Always ignoring truth if it doesn't fit the latest theory.

Ohm assumed that charge was handed off step by step between the 'particles' in the wire, just as the molecular agitation of heat is handed off from one molecule to another. This led him to view resistance as a sort of velocity measurement:

That is to say, both elements reciprocally change their electric state as long as a difference continues to exist between their electroscopic forces; but this change ceases as soon as they have both attained the same electroscopic force. ... The motion is effected in most bodies so rapidly that we are seldom able to determine its changes at the various places, and on that account we are not in a condition to discover by observation the law according to which they act.

If he was observing any delay using the instruments then available, he was probably seeing the result of inductive reactance in a long coil or wire, rather than simple resistance. A low-pass RL filter can easily take a perceptible amount of time to reach full flow.

Why did Ohm's bad assumption work? Probably because it wasn't all that bad! I spent much of my life playing and working with electrical stuff: repairing, designing, building, teaching. I used Ohm and his variants and corollaries daily. I always started with the analogy of airflow or waterflow**, in which the electrons pass between the atoms of the metal at a finite speed, while the charge field acts instantly across space. In the end it doesn't matter which of these concepts is treated as a finite velocity.

Polistra and Happystar try to see Ohm's original view, using a couple of experiments.


First Polistra shows heat conduction in a rod. She puts the rod onto a 'potential difference' between cold and hot, and watches the different molecular agitations transfer at a finite speed, until the rod is at a uniform temperature.


Now Happystar applies the same concept to a (non-factual!) electric circuit, perhaps as Ohm imagined it. Using an Edison iron-nickel battery to create a potential difference, he drops a wire onto the negative end to complete the circuit. The charges transfer at a finite speed toward the center of the resistive load, until the load is at a uniform current.



= = = = = END REPRINT.

Found that Ohm's original idea wasn't dismissed. Here's a use of the concept in 1888, from Preston's Electricity and the electrical telegraph, p340 in the PDF.

The time which it takes the current to make itself manifest upon the galvanometer depends upon the sensitiveness of the latter, consequently, neither the instant when the first portion of the current reaches the end of the line, nor the moment when the current begins to be constant, can be exactly determined. Of two galvanometers, the one which is most sensitive is first to show the passage of a current. In consequence of this the duration of the variable condition cannot be stated with absolute exactness, and we are obliged to confine ourselves to the determination of the time which is required for the current to reach a state that approximates closely to the permanent state.

If we assume with Ohm that electricity flows through a wire in accordance with the same laws that govern the diffusion of heat in a rod which is heated at one end, we are led to the conclusion that the duration of the variable state is in proportion to the square of the length of the line. If, for instance, a certain line is 2, 3, 4 or more times as long as another, then the duration of the variable state is 4, 9, 16, etc., times as long as in the case of the shorter line.

The analogy was clearly familiar and useful to engineers at the time.

= = = = =

Finally, here's a very recent revision of existing concepts about heat, showing from a different angle that Ohm's analogy was right after all.

Via ScienceDaily, researchers at Zurich have made a resonant circuit with oscillating HEAT instead of oscillating electron flow. As with electric LC circuits, and as with mechanical resonators, this resonator continues oscillating for a while after the driving force is turned off.

During the oscillation, heat flows alternately from a warmer object to a colder object, and then from the colder to the warmer. The latter half of the cycle 'technically' violates thermodynamics, but not really. Electronic and mechanical and fluidic resonant circuits can (and usually do!) move against the potential gradient for half of the cycle, so it shouldn't be strange that a heat resonator does the same.

Simple example: The guitar string is "spontaneously" moving uphill against gravity for half of each cycle. We understand that this doesn't violate the laws of gravity, so we should think of heat flow the same way.


The finding that heat can oscillate is the strange and interesting thing!
  ¶ 10:09 AM

  Is probably rrright.
In the checkout line at Safeway, a middle-aged man with a deep Slavic accent. Sharp consonants, trilled Rs. The transaction was somewhat complicated, with a coupon and a rain-check. After he paid, the register refused to complete the transaction. Finally the clerk realized that he had misentered the unfamiliar rain-check and apologized.

Man said in joking tone: "It doesssn't like Rrrussia!"

I vouldn't be least bit surprrrised if veb-connected computerrrs trrreatink Slavic names as MEDDLING INTERFERRRING MALIGN BEHAVIORRR TERRRRRORRRRIST.

These are times when we all need some dark Slavic humor.

Labels: Answered better than asked

  ¶ 8:23 AM

  Thanks Ralph 134, Life is Porpoise edition
The 1962 Hix book has an article on Pelorus Jack, a porpoise who decided on his own purpose.

Better detail from a Wikipedia article. Pelorus Jack guided ships through a tricky passage in the harbor of Wellington NZ from 1888 to 1912. When a ship approached the passage, he bobbed up and down several times to announce his presence, then led the ship through the strait. After the hard part, he dropped back and rubbed against the ship ("You're okay now."), then returned to the starting point to await the next ship.

In 1904 an idiot on one ship shot Pelorus Jack and injured him. He survived, but he never guided that ship again. The ship later crashed on the rocks in the strait and sank. Thanks Ralph!

LIFE IS PORPOISE.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 1:32 AM

  False binary
From candidate Yang:

I’ve done the MATH, it’s not immigrants taking our jobs, it’s automation. Instead of blaming immigrants, let's give our citizens the means to thrive through the fourth industrial revolution.

Misses the REAL problem, which is offshoring. Immigrants are taking a few jobs in some places, but those jobs are still done by locals in areas without immigrants. Automation deleted lots of jobs between 1920 and 1980, but not many since 1980. The MAIN problem since 1980 is offshoring.

Doing the math is meaningless if you're ignoring part of the data.

HOWEVER: Yang says some unusually rational and realistic things about human nature and culture. Nowhere near the RIGOROUS PRECISE realism of McAfee's observations, but considerably above the bizarre lethal brain-dissolving hyperhyperhyperdelusions emitted by all other politicians.
  ¶ 12:28 AM

  A scrap of sanity
An interesting bit of sanity amid the lunacy!

The Navy has figured out that digital controls lead to confusion and collisions. So they're reinstalling analog physical controls for steering and throttle on some ships.

Following the incident, the Navy conducted fleet-wide surveys, and according to Rear Admiral Bill Galinis, the Program Executive Officer for Ships, personnel indicated that they would prefer mechanical controls. Speaking before a recent Navy symposium, he described the controls as falling under the “‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ category,” and that ship systems were simply too complicated. He also noted that they’re looking into the design of other ships to see if they can bring some system commonalities between different ship classes.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Bravo.
  ¶ 11:52 PM

  Wrong premise
A recent turd of satanic toxin in """"Nature"""" is mostly the usual FUCK TRUMP FUCK TRUMP SLAUGHTER DEPLORABLES SLAUGHTER DEPLORABLES, but in this case even the historical parallel is factually false.

But now that attitude is changing, and researchers need other ways to make their voices heard.

Scholars found theirs in the 1950s, when nuclear technology was at risk of proliferating without safeguards because of the cold war arms race between the United States and the then Soviet Union. Albert Einstein and the philosopher Bertrand Russell created a manifesto warning of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction.

They were wrong. Proliferation creates PEACE. Deepstate wanted treaties so we could enforce them against all potential competitors while breaking them ourselves. As we have been doing ever since.

It's not clear that all of those idiots were intentionally serving Deepstate, but we know for a fact that Bernard Baruch, a major driver of the """"peace"""" movement, was the dark heart of the rejuvenated Deepstate in 1946.

In the current world we have many nicely controlled A/B experiments showing that proliferation leads to peace. North Korea still exists because it has nukes. Syria was obliterated because it didn't have nukes. When Qaddafi stupidly got rid of his nukes, he was immediately killed and Libya was reduced to ashes.

Ideally EVERY country should be bristling with thousands of warheads, all hair-trigger aimed at DC and NY. Then DC and NY might stop destroying the rest of the world. But probably not. Salvation can't happen until all of those nukes are triggered, removing the East Coast from the earth. Peel it back to the Appalachians. Then we'll have peace.

Labels: imprecatory psalm

  ¶ 8:33 AM

  MATW
Several commenters on the Epstein mess wonder if he set up a tripwire data dump in case of murder. They compare with Assange, who openly claimed that he had a tripwire. If such a mechanism exists, why was Epstein killed anyway?

Good question, no obvious answer.

The tripwire is often seen in fiction, but recent history shows that it never happens. In fact the opposite happens. When secret-holding leaders are assassinated, the data goes farther underground. It doesn't suddenly appear after death.

Best hypothesis: Among the leadership class everyone functions by Mutually Assured Dumps. The people who could possibly release Epstein's dump are bound by a dozen other blackmails and NDAs. When a leader dies, his power dies with him. He is no longer a vector pulling toward release, and all the other vectors are pulling toward concealment.

None of the data is in a place where outsiders or non-NDAs could get to it.

Assange's situation is technically different, but so far the result is the same. When he was impounded in the Embassy, releases stopped. When he was transferred to jail, nothing new came out. If he had any tripwires, none have been tripped yet.

= = = = =

Later thought: This item and previous item are both about what happens when you remove a relay, and both show that the real effect is unexpected! When Bell wired around the telegraph relay, he expected the sound would get worse because he thought the sound was being carried by digital impulses. When Epstein's data relay was de-energized by death, commenters expected the open relay would stop providing power to the concealment mechanism. In fact the relay was in parallel, not series, so all the other concealment relays continued powering the mechanism.

Labels: Morsenet of Things

  ¶ 5:10 AM

  The first long distance call
From Scientific American in 1876, when it was actually about Science instead of CLIMATE CHANGE and lunacy.

An account of Bell's first long-distance call, and first demonstration outside his lab. He used a private telegraph line owned by Walworth Manufacturing, running two miles from their office to their factory. Both ends had full telegraph equipment with a full set of batteries.



Pure experiment. Learning by trying. Removing the relay shows that they didn't fully understand the difference between binary switching and analog waves yet. If the sound was being transferred by switching, the relay should have improved the transmission. I'll bet they understood the difference more clearly after noting the result.

Labels: Carver

  ¶ 11:13 PM

  Tornado?
Having a stormy night. Not much sleep. Spokane mostly got missed so far; we had about 15 minutes of heavy rain and a couple of lightnings in this neighborhood. Nothing special. I've been watching radar to see if anything else is coming. Doesn't look serious upstream, but just now Wunderground radar is catching a tornado near Rathdrum. The Weather Bureau doesn't seem to be noticing it.



The indication is still there 20 minutes later...
  ¶ 10:58 PM

  More bizarre language
Headline:

AG Barr "Appalled" By Epstein's "Suicide", Orders Inspector General Probe Into Mysterious Death

This is like walking into the kitchen, turning on the faucet, and then ordering an investigation into the mysterious unprecedented shocking APPALLING LIQUID SUBSTANCE that mysteriously and appallingly appeared from nowhere. RUSSIAN_POISON! RUSSIAN_MALIGN_BEHAVIOR! INVESTIGATE!

Seriously, why do they always emit these absurd noises? They're not fooling themselves, they're not fooling the media, they're certainly not fooling any of the criminals (ie themselves) and they're only fooling a handful of the public. Why bother?

This sort of shit worked pretty well up to 1965. After the Warren Report it stopped working.

Later, noting a inconsistent pattern in the responses. Sorosian media DW and France24 agree that "Disgraced financier committed suicide." Deepstate agent Dreher agrees that "Disgraced financier committed suicide".

But Sorosian BBC is unusually objective: "Disgraced financier found dead in prison cell." Subhead, "Officials said his death was an apparent suicide. The FBI is investigating the incident." That's proper news reporting. Stating the facts, not treating an obvious lie as a given fact.

Also, Twitter's censor machine is unusually balanced. The Trendings include more Clinton associations than Trump associations.

Labels: malign misattribution, Shared Lie

  ¶ 11:25 AM

  Delicate language
The journal bizarrely called 'Nature' has been publishing some oblique articles about trust and facts in science. The science racket doesn't want to be moral or trustworthy, but feels that it needs to make these noises for PR purposes.

Latest:

Second, the number of countries with a strong science base is growing, which inevitably leads to greater heterogeneity in cultural norms with respect to research ethics, and to more diversity in the approaches of regulatory authorities.

Third, science is being conducted by a shifting cast of commercial entities — either independently from, or in collaboration with, traditional research institutions. Such organizations might not have the same ethics culture and systems of regulation as traditional universities.

Heterogeneity in cultural norms = China doesn't give a fuck.

Might not have same ethics culture = Zuck doesn't give a fuck.

It's way too late to do anything about China since US universities have been welcoming and supporting Chinese spies for 40 years. We've outsourced our skills in science along with everything else. The science racket doesn't WANT to do anything about Zuck because he serves as a convenient cutout to bypass pesky ethics committees.

So we meekly and delicately complain about our colonial masters, knowing full well where the money is.

Labels: Carbon Cult, Ethics

  ¶ 6:08 AM

  Five Eyes and Four Is
Five Eyes = Deepstate. Four Is = Israeli, Irish, Italian, Injun.

Here's a long and overly detailed history of the universal mob that spawned Epstein along with every powerful figure in US and UK. The details really aren't needed. It's everyone and everything, with a couple of notable exceptions.

The Prohibition mob involved Israelis, Irish, and Italians.

Trump's mentor Roy Cohn is a pivotal figure, but the historical center of the story is the Bronfman family who picked up the Israeli side of the Prohibition mob.

Bronfman is perfectly parallel to the Kennedy family, who picked up the Irish side of the Prohibition mob. Both turned somewhat legit, both controlled foreign policy and funded terrorists in the old country. Bronfman funded the Irgun that created the state of Israel, Kennedy funded IRA in Ireland.

What's missing in this history is the Italian equivalent. Giuliani and D'Amato are mentioned, but there isn't a major dynasty in the modern era, no attempt to control foreign policy, and no support for Italian revolutionaries. I guess the simple answer is that the Italian part of the mob didn't bother to turn legit. It continued controlling the traditional industries of smuggling and casinos.

= = = = =

Another missing element is the Injun mobs that now control most cities except Vegas and NYC. They seemingly sprang up out of nowhere in the '80s. Mobs don't work that way. When a new mob starts up, the old mobs resist. Why didn't we see a war? Probably because most of the places now owned by the Injun mob were not previously connected.

Oklahoma is the exception to that rule. Italians, allied with local hillbillies, retained control long after the national end of Prohibition because Okla remained dry until 1959. The Italian influence was strong in Enid, a low-crime place that was safe for ordinary people but dangerous for would-be competitors. Enid still doesn't have an Injun casino. One branch of the Cherokee mob is trying to get approval for a location in the old black part of town, but apparently hasn't succeeded yet.


Returning to the title, we have four Is controlling the country, but only the first two (Israeli and Irish) are involved in Deepstate. Injuns came to this level of power late, so they probably missed the brass ring. Italians were part of the Prohibition mob, so their absence is more of a puzzle.

= = = = =

Update four hours later: Well, the whole story has now been surgically removed from media and "courts" by the usual method. Not very creative, but desperate times call for desperate measures to halt the outflow of documents. The question now is why Deepstate bothered to open the can if they were just going to toss most of the contents. Which leader changed course after the pop-top? Which leader is unmentioned in the first document dump but likely to be mentioned in the second? The timeline suggests Boris, but that's just a guess.
  ¶ 2:24 AM

  Hypothesis
I'll bet a thousand dollars that none of the "ideological" mass shooters are smokers.

In personality as in weather, smoke and soot help to control sudden outbursts and panics. This is not mysterious. Cult leaders who WANT to generate sudden outbursts and panics always forbid smoke. Environmental agencies who WANT to generate cloudbursts and droughts always forbid smoke.

Smoke-free zones and gun-free zones are equally destructive.

(For clarity: Affection and respect would be even more effective, but those are totally unavailable to low-status males. Legalizing prostitution would also help, but that will never happen. In a collapsed chaotic savage feral omnicidal anticivilization, tobacco is the most realistic refuge.)

Labels: immodest and imperative proposal

  ¶ 1:25 AM

  Can't stay ahead of it
Can't stay ahead of this shit!

Via ZH, an implementation of the idiot big-head "future".

Called Neom (a mix of the Greek word for “new” and Arabic word for “future”), the project aims to construct a $500 billion city, covering 10,000 squares miles of coastline and desert in northwest Saudi Arabia. With its mixture of high-tech amenities and luxury services like restaurants and shops, the goal is to build what the Wall Street Journal describes as a superior to “Silicon Valley in technology, Hollywood in entertainment and the French Riviera as a place to vacation.”

The in-development Saudi Arabian city-state will have robot maids, flying taxis, and glow-in-the-dark sand, according to confidential planning documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. An artificial moon will light up the sky every night, and a Jurassic Park-style island will let visitors mingle with robot dinosaurs.

Straight out of big-head sci-fi. Humans freed from everything that makes us happy and useful and smart.

As usual the "reporters" know nothing of plain old geography:

In addition, we are being told that this will be “the world’s first independent international zone”, and many are concerned about what exactly that is going to mean.Mohammed bin Salman originally came up with the idea for the city when he “pulled up a map of his country on Google Earth and saw its northwest quadrant was a blank slate.”

Not the first independent international zone by a long fucking shot. There have been plenty of independent neutral zones devoted to trade and tourism. See Danzig and Trieste for Euro examples.

One of the biggest neutral zones was RIGHT FUCKING THERE.



The kingdom of Hejaz, created by the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, later joined with Nejd to make Saudi. A couple of smaller neutral zones between Saudi and Iraq lasted until 1975 in practice, and until 1991 on paper.

This wild robotic celebration of rich demonic fuckheads is the EXACT OPPOSITE of sharia law. It's a huge insult to God.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:52 PM

  The same stupid myth
This is familiar old sci-fi shit, from a 1937 British science magazine.



Text:

The human brain will be the most important part of the anatomy, and indubitably the most developed, both in power and size. All of us today acquiesce in the hypothesis that man is becoming more and more intelligent, more mentally developed from generation to generation, but how many, who admit at the same time that physical effort is becoming proportionately less necessary, realize the inevitable outcome of these facts.

Hopelessly dumb, and not just by currently known facts. Dumb by 1937 facts, which were generally truer than modern facts.

1. Smart people don't have big heads. 1937 example: Einstein. Normal-size head, normal-size body. Older example: Leonardo daVinci, supposedly the man who knew everything. Normal size. Go farther backwards. Stereotypical Neanderthals had big heads. Chimps and apes have the same proportions as modern humans. Head size is simply an irrelevant variable.

2. When people have servants doing all of their work, they don't atrophy, they get fat. Labor-saving machinery wasn't fully developed in 1937, but labor-saving servants were universal among rich and middle-class folks in both Britain and US. Aristocrats weren't pictured as delicate, they were pictured as fat. Most ordinary people aspired to become aristocrats so they could lay around and get fat. Now we've achieved our dream and it's a nightmare.

3. Evolution doesn't favor people who require machines or servants to do all their work. Evolution favors people who can take care of themselves and their families. This was known by 1937 Darwinians, and still true today. Whether you buy the mutation part of evolution or not, the natural selection part is unquestionably true. A head without a body ... especially a female head without a body ... doesn't reproduce.

4. Even the machine was stupid, ESPECIALLY in 1937 when streamlining was a BIG DEAL. In the 20 years from 1917 to 1937, every tech product was 'closed in' and smoothed out.



Extending the curve, the products 5000 years from now should be microscopic spheres, not identical to the 1917 radio!

= = = = =

The modern autonomous cult makes exactly the same mistake, defining the Destination Of History as all head and no body. We must be freed from mundane chores like steering our own cars so our HUGE 300 IQ BRAINS can be free to think vastly complex intellectual hyperthoughts, incomprehensible to mere non-autistic normals, about a vastly infinite complex array of subjects: Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change, and other, except there isn't any other.

= = = = =

Finally, we know one fact now that wasn't known in 1937.

We know how to ACTUALLY EXPAND YOUR BRAIN, how to generate new neurons. You can't get there by thinking. Here's how:

Labels: Alternate universe, infinite STUPID

  ¶ 11:53 AM

  Plums
Noticed while taking out the trash... The small trees on the west side of my lot have produced exactly three plums. I don't see any others, just one branch with a cluster of three neat little plums.

In the 1990s these trees were active producers, but gave up at some point. Fruit trees do that as part of aging. This spring and summer have been strictly average, resembling the 1990s. Lots of cool days in summer, until this week which is the strictly average few days of 100s. Not sure if that has any connection. It's not the fanatically sprinkling neighbor; he's on the opposite side of the lot.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 11:41 AM

  Forging signatures used to be a skill
From the Spokane News FB page, the usual item asking folks to identify a criminal caught on surveillance cameras, and the usual totally useless picture. Police took a low-quality picture OF THE SCREEN showing the security footage.

Commenters hit the usual point:

Why is it that we can read a license plate on a car from space, but a store security camera cant get a decent picture from 10 feet away?

Our phones take better video than this. Maybe they should download a camera app and tape a bunch of iPhones to the walls... would be better quality

Two commenters hit a different point:

Until retailers and banks change security on using plastic I don't care. Anyone can push credit and no pen required. This is a bank issue. Quit wasting my time

It seems like checking ID and signatures would help, when I worked retail I had to.

Would that make any difference? Probably not. Nobody has a signature now, so checking signatures is meaningless.

Before 1961 signatures were unique and constant identifiers. In 1961 JFK spoiled it. I'm no better than anyone else. My signature follows the JFK model. Initial letter of each name followed by a line.

Compare previous item, the illuminated check:



Or these signatures on the Topolobampo utopian scam:



Or these from the Missoury Fur Traders in 1812:



Or more modern, ET Starkweather on the 1933 Clay Center scrip.



When you know how to use a PEN, you don't need a PIN.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 11:00 PM

  Here's one Hix missed
Hix liked to feature unusual checks and documents in 'Strange as it Seems'. Here's one he missed, from Railroad Dispatchers Bulletin in 1911.



A dispatcher here in Spokane contributed this illuminated manuscript to a fund for a celebration of apples.

Think this would get through a modern OCR scan?

Labels: Entertainment

  ¶ 10:44 AM

  Oblivious
Neighbor is powerwashing my house again. I already asked him to control it, and he did for a while. He's just oblivious. In the name of civility I won't ask him again. It wouldn't do any good. Time for earplugs.

Later: The last time I needed earplugs was 20 years ago, when the neighbor in the same house kept a constantly barking dog next to my window. (Different resident now, but same problem.) Fortunately I didn't throw away the package of earplugs. They're still fresh after 20 years in the package. And my muscle memory is still fresh after 20 years in the cerebellum. As soon as the fingers touched the earplugs, the fingers rolled up the plugs into the peculiar shape to fit the ear canal, pulled back the pinnas, and inserted the plugs.

The "evolutionists" who insist that energy efficiency determines fitness are crazy. The cerebellum stores thousands of procedures without losing a millisecond of the timing or a millimeter of the motions. The energy required to maintain all of this DRAM, most of which will never be used again, is totally wasted by "evolution" standards. It's not wasted by God's standards. God wants us to be ready in case we need the skill again, or in case somebody else needs the skill again.

Labels: coot-proofing, skill-estate

  ¶ 9:02 AM

  Interesting find, dubious explanation
An intriguing bit of ancient knowledge about magnetism.

The people of Monte Alto didn’t live in isolation. Though Chinchilla says the sculptures at Monte Alto are the “most impressive,” several potbellied sculptures were found distributed around the coastal region of what is today Guatemala, El Salvador and the Mexican state of Chiapas, suggesting the Monte Alto influenced other cultures in the region.

At least some of the stones used to craft sculptures were hit by lightning at some point in the past, magnetizing the material, according to the research conducted on 11 basalt figures. Moreover, the potbellied sculptures were carved in such a way that protruding features had the strongest magnetic forces, suggesting the artisans knew which parts of the material were most magnetic.

The team found that the navel area of four potbellied sculptures displayed the most magnetism, and all three of the colossal head sculptures had strong magnetic anomalies around their right temples and cheek areas.

Lightning wouldn't explain localized magnetism.

Also, I can't imagine how the sculptor was always able to carve out the correct piece with the hot spots on the temple and belly.

I'd guess that the statues were magnetized by human interaction. Worshippers or supplicants came in with magnets and rubbed the official sacred spots on the statue, giving the statue a magnetic tribute or kiss. Sacred actions are ritualistic, so all the rubbing would be in the same direction.

You'd believe that your own magnet had been tuned or synchronized with the gods, so you could use it for healing. And maybe you'd be right. I'm not inclined to doubt it. Magnetic healing is a fact that gets discovered and forgotten repeatedly. Within recent times it was discovered in 1840, forgotten in 1920, discovered again in 1980.

Greek magnetic rituals around 300 AD had a similar flavor. The 'sympathetic' movement of magnets showed that you were aligned with the will of the gods.
  ¶ 7:08 AM

  Just be honest
There's a pointless little squabble or squibble about NYTimes changing a headline because it wasn't harsh enough on Trump.

Before 1946, newspapers were honest about their biases and affiliations.

NYTimes has ALWAYS been the house organ of the Dem Party. From the 1920 NW Ayer index of newspapers:



Ind Dem. When you officially label your brand, you don't have to waste time pretending you're the generic universal truth. You're Democrats. Your sole job is to boost Democrats and destroy Republicans. Everybody knows who you are. Just be honest.

Later thought: It's odd that we require food to have detailed labels and warnings about various ingredients, but we DON'T require the most dangerous and murderous product of all to be labeled. Media is the most genocidal product of all. The SOLE PURPOSE of media is to generate war and crime and mayhem and brain-dissolving idiocy. When consumed as instructed, media kills you or turns you into a killer.
  ¶ 6:38 AM

  Dubious thought on language and culture
Random and dubious thought about skills and culture and language.

First the definitely true parts:

0. Reviewing what God says about skills:

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.

1. Russia and China are winning because they never offshored their skills. US and UK are losing because we fanatically offshored our skills to China and India and other places, starting in 1957 and accelerating in the '80s.

2. The Soviet system was ALL about maintaining and maximizing skills at the expense of possessions. Everyone had a job, all training was free, science and math education were done the right way. Housing was provided, but housing was secondary. This didn't start with Marx; it was a smooth continuation of Russian feudal tradition.

3. The Western system is ALL about maximizing possessions at the expense of skills. We had a brief period of emphasis on skills, from 1920 to 1975. Before and after the Union Age, we simply maximize the possessions of the robber barons. Jobs can be temporarily allowed when no other tools are available, but since 1971 the robber barons have been free to create money from nothing, so jobs can be exterminated. Our education system forcibly excludes all mention of real skills. We train students to chant currently fashionable slogans about "rights" and "democracy", in order to legitimize the pirates.

Now the dubious parts:

4. Language doesn't shape culture as the Sorosians believe. Language sometimes reflects culture. Western languages are firmly centered on HAVE verbs. In all modern Teutonic and Latinate languages, old verb forms were partly replaced by HAVE-phrases. In English, which is half Teutonic and half Latin, HAVE-forms dominate, and GET is the most fruitful semantic root. Russian goes the other way. Russian doesn't even use HAVE. Instead, possession is indicated by the preposition u, roughly meaning 'at' or 'around'. English "I have a car" = Russian "У меня машина." Literally At me [is a] car, loosely A car is in my vicinity.

5. In short, we're all about HAVE. Russia is all about DO.

Labels: From rights to duties, Language update, skill-estate

  ¶ 10:41 PM

  Contradiction
Interesting contradiction.

1. When all the media demons are blasting the same story, it means Deepstate wants everyone to pay attention. Everyone is supposed to argue about this story, and everyone is supposed to take either Side A or Side B. Deepstate doesn't care which side you take because Deepstate runs both sides and knows which side wins. The goal is maximal chaos and war. No conscientious objectors, no neutrals, no playing outside the lines.

2. BUT: When we have a media event titled "election", Deepstate wants the opposite. Media demons work hard to drive people away from the subject entirely. The goal is to prune both "sides" stringently, leaving only the reliable partybots.
  ¶ 4:57 PM

  NOW.
On the bus this morning I sat behind an old fellow who was heading for the VA hospital. He was clearly on the way out. Extreme suffering. Bones and muscles failing, not able to sit upright. But still in the game, still unfailingly polite and disciplined.

Old? Old? Probably no older than me. Probably about 70.

The military kills men. Fast or slow, it kills.

We need to STOP MAKING WAR RIGHT FUCKING NOW,

and switch ALL of our war budget to taking care of veterans. ALL of it. NOW.

Labels: immodest and imperative proposal

  ¶ 8:32 AM

  Constants and Variables 137, purpose vs paycheck edition
O'Sullivan's Law in original form:

All political and cultural organizations will eventually converge to the left unless they are specifically designed to remain on the right.

Not an exact quote, but what he meant.

The effect has grown much stronger since he wrote it. Design and intention no longer matter; and the terms 'right' and 'left' lost their meaning a long time ago. The only directions that matter now are globalist vs localist.

Current version:

All PAID political and cultural organizations converge toward globalism.

Design and intention are irrelevant. The only thing that counts is PAYMENT. Any writer or organization PAID to express or support an opinion will end up working for the bankers.

I'm noticing two immediate examples: Turley and TAC.

Turley is an academic observer of nationalist trends, a rare "social" "scientist" who uses the jargon and methods objectively. About a month ago his Youtube channel started to feature commercials for companies other than his own books. About a month ago Turley stopped being a source for objective info, and became a standard Repooflican. Now he celebrates Trump because Trump raises share value. Infinite Dow and ZERO TAX. The exact opposite of populism.

TAC has gone through the convergence process several times, first as a paper magazine and then as a website. The latest convergence was channeled through a Soros project called the Quincy Institute, designed to shape the opinions of populists and non-interventionists to serve Soros. TAC is all in with Quincy, steering the movement toward the rocks. Dreher, their most prolific writer, has been on Satan's side for a long time. Now it's complete.

= = = = =

Putting it another way, O'Sullivan's Law is now O'Dillinger's Law.

Why do you obey banks? Because that's where the money is.

Labels: Constants and Variables, Sorosia

  ¶ 4:37 AM

  Maybe the old cartoons were right?
Via Eurekalert, an intriguing bit of research.

In the face of diabetes, a common condition in which glucose and levels of destructive inflammation soar, whole body vibration appears to improve how well our body uses glucose as an energy source and adjust our microbiome and immune cells to deter inflammation, investigators report.

For the first time they have described how regular use of whole body vibration can create this healthier mix by yielding a greater percentage of macrophages -- cells that can both promote or prevent inflammation -- that suppress rather than promote.

In earlier decades, whole-body vibration was supposedly used for weight loss. These vibrating rollers and vibrating belts:



were often seen in movies and cartoons. I've never seen them used in real life, and doubted that they could do any good.

Maybe these machines did some good after all. How?

Our microbiome, like a casserole, is in layers and one way whole body vibration may work is by rearranging those layers, Baban says, but they reiterate that no one is certain just how whole body vibration works in this or other scenarios....

Makes sense. The machines were allegedly breaking up the fat around the gut, but they were ALSO vibrating the gut itself. Like flossing, breaking up a biofilm stops the damage.

Labels: Asked and partly answered

  ¶ 11:37 PM

  The BEST book on communication
Manual of Signals, 1866 by the Signal Corps. Covers the ENTIRE subject from perception to construction of codes to construction of devices. The parts about perception are remarkably accurate and complete. Nothing discovered in recent decades has invalidated any of this material. Invites the readers to experiment and invent their own alphabets and codes and systems, and gives many hints for how to do it. Anyone who is thinking about communication should read this.

Labels: infinite GOOD, Morsenet of Things

  ¶ 3:49 PM

  Wrong "theory"
Via ZH:

Known as the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), the experiment will spray calcium carbonate particles high above the earth to mimic the effects of volcanic ash blocking out the sun to produce a cooling effect. The experiment was announced in Nature magazine last year, who was one of few outlets to look into this unprecedented step toward geoengineering the planet.

Needless to say, ZH is touting this as proof that the chemtrail "geoengineering" crap is true.

Nope, that's not the "theory" it proves.

THESE MONSTERS HAVE JUST ADMITTED THAT THE EPA CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING.

They've admitted that POLLUTION was keeping us cooler ... and possibly healthier ... during the coal-burning era.

If they go through with this artificial pollution, there's no telling what will happen. Calcium carbonate supposedly reacts with CO2 and water to make calcium BIcarbonate, but there's not much water in the stratosphere.

Cleaner air isn't the basic CAUSE of the current weather. The current weather is simply one phase of a long-term cycle in the sun's magnetic field, driving changes in the earth's iron core and volcanic activity. But it's clear from the data that pollution DID keep us cooler, and the loss of pollution after 1970 accelerated the resulting warmth.

Also, pollution tends to smooth out rain patterns both spatially and temporally. When clouds are 'ready' to rain, soot helps to seed the rain. In a situation where sun-heated land triggers convection, dust slows down the convection. Without the soot, droughts and storms are accentuated.

Was the EPA's role accidental? Of course not. These functions of dust and soot have been understood for 200 years. EPA was just doing what bureaucrats do. "Solve" a problem by making it worse, to "justify" more budget and workforce. Parkinson.

= = = = =

Polistra and Happystar are rejoicing in the new recognition of reality!

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 8:48 PM

  Three explanations
UD discusses the unsettling finding that some genes, suppressed during life, start to activate hours or days after death.

Simplest explanation: Synchronized activity no longer matters at that point, so there's no advantage in syncing the activity.

Hardass explanation: Bacteria made the world and bacteria run the world. We are just lively and colorful cars for our gut bacteria. After the vehicle is totalled, the bacteria need to recycle its parts.

Optimistic explanation: Many religions have a well-formed idea of a second existence after death. This existence usually happens in a "spiritual place", but not always. Some religions believe that the second existence is suppressed while waiting for a future event. Messiah, Tribulation, etc. Is this reactivation the vestigial remnant or the preparation for the second existence?
  ¶ 3:41 PM

  Only half the problem
Unz has a lengthy article on the power of blackmail, triggered by the Epstein mess.

Unz misses more than half of the story. He assumes that leaders do bad things because they're blackmailed into doing bad things. Single cause-effect.

Blackmail is certainly a force, but it's not the primary driver.

First, not everyone responds to blackmail. Deepstate likes to hire leaders with messy personal lives because they're easier to subdue. Some messy people turn out to have guts. Sometimes Deepstate has to go ahead and kill the disobedient leader, as they did with Harding and JFK and a hundred others.

Second, leaders have power. Some leaders are naturally evil, and all leaders can engage in counter-extortion. Unz says that Lady Edgar was blackmailed into going easy on the mob because she didn't want her tendencies to be exposed. Nonsense. The FBI was a mob from the start. All Federal "law" "enforcement" agencies are mobs, sometimes cooperating with other mobs and sometimes fighting them, as mobs do. Lady Edgar was the BEST blackmailer in the country, able to subdue most presidents.

Third, the whole country was founded by mobsters and pirates and smugglers. For the first 30 years after the revolution, much of our tax revenue came from officially authorized piracy. A potential leader who isn't already a mobster doesn't get very far, and doesn't WANT to get very far. As with any job, people without the proper qualifications don't pass the exam; and people without the proper passions leave the job when they realize they don't belong.

= = = = =

Speculating on why some messy people have guts.... I think we're conflating two distinct types. Blackmail works best on living contradictions like Vidocq or the arsonist fireman. Working both ends of the same spectrum at once. Blackmailers can control the respectable end of the life by threatening to expose the criminal end. Most people with messy lives just don't give a flying fuck about public approval. They have enough confidence or enough depressive cynicism to simply do what they think is right. Blackmail doesn't work well on this type.

Looking at the effective leaders I've been discussing lately, Salvini and FDR belong to the confident type, while Putin and Harding belong to the depressive cynic type. Orban and AMLO are not blackmailable at all. Both have clean and simple personal lives. Their public lives are unfashionable, which doesn't provide a handle for the extortionist.

Labels: Constants and Variables

  ¶ 1:33 AM

  Changing your mind is possible
Watching RT hammer the usual RUSSIAN_MEDDLING crap. Media are calling Tulsi "Putin's Puppet".

I was saying similar things back in 2008.

In this item I had reached a point of maximum confusion and cognitive dissonance. I had already recognized that Deepstate started with Wilson, recognized that Saudi was our boss and enemy, recognized the "blood for oil" fallacy, recognized that Bush was serving Deepstate loyally. But I was blaming Russia for Bush's treachery and treason:

The current occupant of the Oval Office, Putin's dear soulmate, has followed the Wilson delusion more feverishly than Wilson himself. He spends thousands of lives and trillions of dollars to "bring Democracy" to the Middle East, and in the process he makes resources even harder to reach. He won't even claim our OWN offshore territory for oil extraction; he defines allies as enemies and enemies as allies; he kisses the ring of our Saudi attackers when he should have depopulated their country and claimed its oil as American property.

None of the current candidates will question the Wilsonian delusion; all of them take the bizarre position that Putin's soulmate is fighting this war with maximum strength and loyalty. Some promise to stay on the current path until we are totally bankrupt and exhausted (though they don't say the last part of the sentence) and some promise to surrender quickly and cleanly. Since those are the only available choices, quick and clean surrender is preferable. At least we will know where we stand, and we will not be spending the next 100 years in a long terminal illness.

Bush was Putin's soulmate. Sounds a lot like Putin's puppet. Ouch.

This attitude ran strictly contrary to what I had learned MUCH EARLIER about Russia and Russians. But I was still watching TV in 2008, so I wasn't able to return to my own experiential learning about both Russia and Islam. I returned to full experiential sanity in 2011 after unplugging the TV.

Changing your mind is possible, but not while you're connected to Deepstate via TV.

Labels: Experiential education

  ¶ 11:08 PM

  1906 radar
From Telegraph Age, 1906:

An inventor in Dusseldorf, Germany, has designed an instrument which he terms a "telemobiloscope." By its means, it is claimed, a pilot is enabled to detect a ship near at hand in a fog, depending upon the fact that electric waves are reflected when they strike a metallic object.

The apparatus consists of a long box or tube, pivoted at one end and open at the other, containing a spark generator near the pivoted end and two lenses for collecting the electric waves. A suitable motor turns the box horizontally on the vertical pivot. As the box, slightly inclined toward the water, is swung around, the electric waves are projected outward, and if they strike an object containing metal they are reflected back, acting upon a receiver similar to that used in wireless telegraphy. This receiver is influenced only by return waves. When a vessel is discovered, the apparatus is turned until the reflection is strongest, when a good estimate of the distance can be made.

It's not clear what the "lenses" were, but this would have worked in a general way. It was already the same basic principle as radar, with the same physical setup of a rotating scope. Makes me wonder why development paused for 25 years before the Brits started over with tuned waves and timed pulses. Those features weren't quite ready in 1906, but they would have been ready in 1914.

Most likely the full development of CRTs in the late 20s made the idea attractive again, but XY plotters were available in 1906. The Telautograph was an XY plotter, and mirror galvanometers were fast and sensitive.

Labels: 1901

  ¶ 2:25 PM

  Jesus, look at this idiotic nonsense.
A closeup picture of Tesla's fake "solar roof", made in Buffalo.

Look at it!

Every shingle has its own control box, with a cable and a plug leading to the next column of shingles. Hundreds of PLUGS capable of wiggling loose and losing contact through corrosion. Hundreds of CONTROL BOXES capable of failure and hacking and lightning damage. Each shingle rests precariously on the box, with no support or glue around the rest of the edge.

Because of the control boxes, each shingle is about one inch above the sheathing, leaving room for bugs and water and ice and mice to invade. Guaranteed ice dams. Ice and wind can pry up the entire roof.

Currently available solar panels leave the regular roof intact and have only one cable to go wrong. Also, a free-standing solar panel can be angled for best 'reception', which the Tesla idiocy can't.

Perfect contrast with previous item about Buffalo. EXPERIENCE SURVIVES, THEORY KILLS.

Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy

  ¶ 6:55 AM

  Patient DXers, patient roofs
The indispensable American Radio History has uploaded 50 YEARS of biweekly newsletters from the National Radio Club, a BCB DX club based in Buffalo.

The publisher's address looked residential, so I got curious and Googlestreeted it. I hoped to see a forest of antennas. Nope, the original publisher must have died, BUT:



Can you guess which house was running a business for 50 years that involved lots of radios and a VariTyper and a Multilith press? Three phases, and the first two don't count.

As I slid through that neighborhood trying to spot the exact address, I also answered a question that has bothered me for a long time. How does Buffalo deal with 100 inches of snow every year? We never see reports of disasters. All of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the '20s, all have solid and straight roofs and gutters. You can't reach those roofs with a rake. So the roofs are holding up with minimum attention.

What's the secret? Turns out to be the same thing I observed in Spokane a few years ago.

Steep roofs with occupied attics. Cape Cod.

Modern writers insist that you need PERFECT INSULATION and a COLD ROOF to avoid ice dams. Nope, the old builders found the correct answer by EXPERIENCE. A warm steep roof melts the snow almost immediately, so it doesn't get loaded down and doesn't form dams.

And for a perfect contrast, Tesla's all-theory idiocy, which by a neat coincidence is "manufactured" in Buffalo.

Later, more from the NRC newsletters: Though based in the northeast, two of their main correspondents were in familiar spots. Their TV editor was in Ponca. At that time Ponca had a hard time picking up the TV stations in Tulsa and OKC, so everyone with a TV needed a good antenna. All TV was DX. Another regular correspondent was in Spokane, right in this neighborhood. His house was near the cliff with a clear view to the south, and most of his DX was from the south.

Labels: Aberree, Asked and answered, Patient things

  ¶ 6:00 AM

  How do we get another FDR?
Still thinking about the violent contrast between Sorosian dysleaders and the GROWING number of competent anti-Soros national leaders.

Good leaders can't survive under the current setup in US/UK. Any leader who tells the truth about anything will be discredited and smashed. A good leader has to emerge accidentally, or by transformation after selection.

Putin's path to power is one way to get there. Yeltsin was our SOB, planted by Soros and Sachs to crash Russia so Soros could short it. After several years Yeltsin somehow came to regret his treason, and sneakily proposed Putin as his successor. We didn't know much about Putin, so we accepted him.

Salvini reached power by a peculiar mechanism known as "election". This mysterious and arcane technique can't possibly transfer to US/UK. Italy has a multi-party system with government typically by coalition, so there's room for a competent leader to slide gradually into power. US/UK have one party with two labels. The British system is nominally more flexible, but in recent times it hasn't worked properly.

How did we get our ONE competent leader who survived long enough to GET SHIT DONE?

I'm thinking the process was vaguely like Yeltsin to Putin.

Here's a narrative that sort of makes sense:

Harding was a low-level political hack. He was meant to be a smooth obedient caretaker. Instead, he turned out to be a radical who weakened Deepstate, and got destroyed and possibly killed as reward. It's not clear whether he secretly intended to do good from the start, or had an epiphany after he got in. He was not an insider, so he could have been shocked by the way things really worked. "Sweet Jesus! This is a pile of shit, and I can't take it!" After Harding removed most of Wilson's agencies, Coolidge wasn't inclined to rebuild them. Hoover was Deepstate. He wanted to rebuild but the crash caught him off guard. At that point we were ready for FDR, who fully intended to solve every problem. He succeeded.

= = = = =

If this scenario is valid, we should be looking for another Harding, another John the Baptist to prepare the way. Obama might have started the trend when he fired Hillary and halted our wars against Cuba and Persia; but Deepstate bounced back. Hillary got her revenge with Pied Piper Trump. Now we're worse off than before.

Labels: modest and stupid proposal

  ¶ 12:20 PM

  Darwin is Leviticus, not Leviathan
I've said this plenty of times. I'm only saying it this time because the "clever" title happened to pop into what's left of my mind.

The Darwinians have always told us that natural selection favors the strongest and nastiest creature. Red in tooth and claw.

Nonsense. Darwin wasn't talking about individuals, he was talking about species and populations. A population survives when it CONTROLS ITS APPETITES. A population must LIMIT or ELIMINATE the most ferocious predators, because the most ferocious predators will EAT ALL THE FOOD and KILL THE REST OF THE POPULATION.

The experiment has been performed thousands of times, and (as I've said thousands of times) we have the logbook of the SURVIVING populations. Natural Law is the fittest law because it survived. Hobbesian societies didn't survive.

Darwinians want us to think that Hobbes and Nietzsche represent Darwin, because Darwinians are the same genocidal NYC demons who developed "rights" and "constitutions" to defend their insane predation. In fact Leviticus and Sharia represent Darwin.

Leviticus, not Leviathan.

Labels: From rights to duties, Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law

  ¶ 6:52 AM

  Nicholas and Putin
The non-Sorosian leaders of today's world are DOERS and TRUTH-TELLERS. From Putin to AMLO to Salvini to Mahathir to Duterte, all of them are GETTING SHIT DONE for the PEOPLE of their own countries, and all of them are TELLING THE TRUTH about what they're doing.

It's an old recipe for good leaders. Say what you're going to do, explain it fully and truthfully, and then DO IT. Works every time. Those leaders are approved and re-elected by 70 or 80 percent.

Duterte is the extreme test case. He's telling truths that are deeply troubling and insulting to the Pope-loving Filipinos, but because he's GETTING SHIT DONE, the people want him to continue GETTING SHIT DONE.**

Sorosian leaders get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING DONE, and emit a bizarre ever-changing word-salad of incomprehensible delusions and garble.

= = = = =

In reading old tech history I've noticed that the Tsars of the telegraph era, especially Nicholas 1, had the same qualities as Putin. Nicholas encouraged new technology to advance the interests of Russia. He tried to set up a national telegraph network in 1816. The invention wasn't ready then. Later he established a full system when the tech was mature.

Modern globalist writers dismiss and denounce Nick in EXACTLY the same words they use for Putin. This made me suspect that he was similar to Putin in other ways.

Tech writers in the 1850's hadn't yet been infected by Wilson or Soros, so they had a clearer view of the TRUTH-TELLING tsar.

From Shaffner again, p 790 of PDF. This is an overlong quote, but I can't condense without losing the tone and purpose.

The telegraphs of Russia are all government lines and under the minister of public buildings, ways, and communications. The lines were built by private contractors, and surrendered to the government from time to time, as completed. There have been no efforts to extend the telegraph under private companies, nor is there any probability that such will be the case.

To some readers many of the rules governing the transmission of dispatches on the lines in Russia, and other parts of Europe, may be considered as too severe and arbitrary. Practically such is not the case. In Russia the lines are open to individuals for their private business. Commercial affairs are not restricted. Full liberty and protection are given to every person in the transmission of domestic, social or business dispatches. It is to prevent the abuse of those privileges that the government has adopted the rules, which to the American reader may be regarded as too stringent.

The dispatches transmissible over the telegraph, shall be divided into five categories, viz.:

1st. Orders from, and reports to, His Majesty the Emperor. Dispatches to and from royal families.

2d. Government dispatches, such as from the commander-in-chief, minister of foreign affairs, military governor-generals, governor-generals, military and civil governors, military commanders, and reports to the government.

3d. Dispatches of the administration of the telegraphs.

4th. Dispatches of the minister of public buildings, ways, and communications.

5th. Private dispatches, without regard to rank or condition. (The private dispatches of public functionaries belong to this class.)

Dispatches containing [stock] exchange news may contain ciphers, but the sender must explain the meaning of each cipher to the administration, and sign the same, giving a satisfactory guarantee as to responsibility.

In no case whatever can a political dispatch be received.

Government dispatches are not within the control of the station officers of the telegraph, and they cannot be stopped.

Private dispatches containing anything contrary to the laws, or incompatible with the public good, or containing objectionable language, cannot be transmitted. All such dispatches are strictly forbidden to be sent, and it is the duty of the officer of the station to transmit them forthwith to the minister of communications. Payment for them is to be refused.

Is this "repressing dissent"? By the standards of modern rights-mongers it is. The only difference is that modern "free" media DON'T TELL YOU THE TRUTH about what you are allowed to send. We use the Hundred Flowers principle. Delude people into thinking they can say anything, then jail them for saying the wrong thing as defined by this microsecond's arbitrary rules.

When you think you're participating in "free speech", you aren't inclined to leave the system. You continue to provide data points and blackmail material for Deepstate. When you know exactly which kinds of speech are allowed in the system, serious dissidents can avoid generating blackmail data.

Note Shaffner's clear understanding of the RULE OF LAW, which you won't find in any modern publication on "either" "side".

Nicholas and Putin are LAWFUL rulers. They tell you the laws, and explain why the laws are in place, so you can behave within the laws.

= = = = =

** Footnote: The Duterte experiment firmly disproves the standard globalist propaganda that Populism means "telling the people what they want to hear." Duterte specifically tells his people everything they don't want to hear, but he's giving them SECURITY, which is the MOST IMPORTANT DUTY OF GOVERNMENT. Criminals want freedom. Normal people want to be FREE FROM CRIMINALS.

Labels: #desistance, 2/3, From rights to duties, Sorosia

  ¶ 12:38 AM

  Constant pattern
Russia's friendships are strictly rational. Russia is LOUDLY maintaining FIRM friendship with Cuba. Maduro gets a much more cautious and tentative embrace.

Why? Competence. The Castro regime is competent. It knows how to serve its people, and has done a remarkable job of breaking Graybill's Law for 60 years now. Maduro wants to be on Russia's side, but does a shitty job of serving his own people.

This reminded me of the calendar. I looked up 7/26** to verify that this month is the actual 60th anniversary of the revolution, and found an astonishing fact.

Castro was originally a CIA asset.

Batista had been loyal for a long time, but after Castro began to make inroads, Batista attempted to answer the people's complaints by nationalizing the oil company. This displeased CIA. We placed sanctions on BATISTA, and CIA sent Frank Sturgis (later famous for other things) to train and organize Castro's ragged band. With improved training and weapons, Castro was able to defeat the disloyal Batista. But soon after victory, Castro started to serve Cuba instead of CIA. He was now just as bad as Batista, so we reimposed sanctions and kept them in place, with a brief break in 2015.

I was listening to shortwave in '59, so I picked up the general sense that Castro had switched from Our SOB to Russia's SOB, but I'd never heard or read the Sturgis connection until right now.

= = = = =

This pattern repeats over and over. We always train the revolutionaries to weaken a government that displeases us, then we smash the revolutionaries after they disappoint us.

The most famous example is Osama, but history is full of hidden examples, from Robespierre in 1789 to Khomeini in 1979.

More subtle question: Clearly we haven't learned anything from this pattern. We keep on supporting revolutionaries, and they keep on disappointing us or even attacking us. Have the revolutionaries learned? Yes, in some cases. Castro and Khomeini have served their own people well enough that they were able to resist our smashing. The initial support may have been worth the later trouble.

= = = = =

** Fussy footnote: I had always thought of 7/26/59 as the finish of the revolution. That's not right. 7/26 was the start of the revolution in 1953. The culmination was less precise.

Labels: defensible times, From rights to duties

  ¶ 5:58 AM

  Tuning the magnet
A couple more items from Shaffner's Telegraph Journal, published in 1854.



Note that the sender "adjusts his magnet carefully." It's not clear what he was adjusting for, or how he could tell when it was adjusted properly. Was he listening to resonances?



Note that OK unquestionably meant All Correct in 1854. It was familiar enough to become part of the protocol. This gives full weight to one of the disputed etymologies. Must admit, I'd been favoring the Choctaw origin until now.

Note 73, which is still in use now, long after the numbers were replaced by Q-signals.

Also the indications of what we'd now call work-life balance. SFD, SFT, SFP. Tea must have been more familiar than coffee. (Cups in signal 35 referred to battery cells, not tea. Early wet cells were glass cups.)

Labels: Language update, Morsenet of Things

  ¶ 3:17 PM

  Bridge without ramps
This is a strong argument, and a good and necessary argument.

Kreeft is concerned that we will give in to the ancient temptation to idolize the work of our hands: symbolic logic and the computers it gave rise to. But if we do so, we will lower ourselves to the level of the beasts, and neglect those powers of the mind recognized by classical logic as what makes the difference between humans on the one hand, and animals and computers on the other hand.

The takeaway from all this is simply to remind us that scientific thinking in the sense of symbolic logic is not the only kind of thinking or knowing that there is. Engineers of all people should recognize that they do their work in the context of human society, which is forever beyond the grasp of symbolic logic to analyze or comprehend. Something more is required. We can call that something classical logic, or wisdom, or even faith. But to limit ourselves to the kind of logic that computers can do is to leave our humanity behind.

Like a well-built bridge without ramps, this argument misses some steps at both the start and finish.



At the start:

Before we can worry about the limitations of logic, we need to worry about simple failures of METROLOGY in our machines. GIGO. Economic calculations can be good math and good logic, but they're based on totally imaginary figures. When you use inflation and unemployment figures that have no connection to reality, your result will have no relation to reality. When you hold a natural variable like interest rate constant, your equations can't even begin to work. Polls may use statistical formulas correctly, but they ask atrociously loaded questions. Everything is based on shared lies.

At the end:

Mechanical engineers and civil engineers do understand the limitations of math and logic. Engineers (except for "software engineers", who are just programmers) have to deal with the real world. They work with the real world in their college classes, and learn HARD lessons on the job. They understand deeply that steel has a breaking point, concrete can be undermined by water and tree roots, wood can be destroyed by termites, etc. The logic of tree roots belongs in the realm of wisdom, not Boole.

Even competent programmers understand that Boole is a poor representation of real-life decisions. We learn quickly that the human versions of IF, AND, OR, XOR are not at all the same as the Boolean versions. A useful program has to adjust for these limitations in order to take advantage of the rigorous and fast logic-math that computers can do.

And finally, "animals and computers" DO NOT BELONG ON THE SAME SIDE of the bridge. Smart animals are much closer to God's wisdom than smart people. Smart people do in fact think like computers, or actually the other way around. Digital computers are Boolean because they were designed by Boolean-brained people.

= = = = =

Later contranote: I wrote that human IF, AND, OR, XOR are not the same as the computer versions. This is only 3/4 true. Computers use Boole for AND, OR, XOR, so they disagree with human actions. The computer version of IF is much closer to the human version than the Boolean.

The Boolean IF in symbolic logic doesn't start with a cause and lead to a result. Implication examines four different T/F combinations of cause and result, and assigns a validity to those four combos. The validity ratings are weird and completely useless for analyzing or making real decisions.

A computer's IF is like a non-subjunctive IF in language, or more simply a WHEN. Check the cause or current situation. WHEN the cause matches expectations, implement one result. WHEN the cause doesn't match expectations, do another result, or do nothing.

Labels: Metrology, Shared Lie

  ¶ 5:14 AM

  Pointless non-thought
Totally random non-thought, "inspired" by mentioning in previous item that I'm getting enough protein from eggs and cheese.

The standard TEDX "evolution" line says that we descended from apes who mainly ate fruits and nuts and bugs, so we should be able to get along on fruits and nuts and bugs.

Why not eggs? When you're hanging in trees, bird nests are everywhere. Eggs are there for the taking just like apricots and acorns. Eggs are seasonal, but so are apricots.
  ¶ 1:22 AM

  Vicarious vegetarians REPRINT
The idiotic BYND fake meat is in the news again. For some idiotic reason I dreamed about this tonight, so it's time for a reprint.

The point here is the same as previous item: DETECTING FAKES BY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

= = = = = START REPRINT:


It's been clear from the start that Tesla cultists are not truly green. They're rich fuckheads who fly and drive all the time. Owning a Tesla is a plenary indulgence that shortens their time in Gaian purgatory.

The latest Innovative Disrupter shows the same disconnect. BYND is a "new" fake meat made from soy and other stuff. BYND is claiming that its form of fake meat is new, and above all it claims to make the product more available by placing it in the meat department.

Real vegies with real experience know that both claims are false.

How do I know? I've been mostly vegy for most of my adult life. Vegy from 1970 to 1990, then part carny from 1990 to 2010, and now vegy again. The weakly carny period exactly corresponded to my TV-watching period and my neocon period. Not surprising. When you're locked into TV's forcible injection system, you aren't running on natural tendencies.

Though I pretended at first to be following "moral" principles, vegy is just easier for me. My guts don't like meat and don't handle it well. I'm healthier without it. I don't claim or believe that everyone should be healthier without meat. PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.

During the 1970-1990 period I used fake meat made by Morningstar. It was easily available in regular grocery stores everywhere, including beef-loving Enid and OKC. When I resumed vegy in 2010, I started using the stuff again, then a quick experiment proved that it wasn't adding any nutrition, so I stopped. I'm getting enough protein from eggs and cheese. Fake meat is pretty damn expensive for nothing more than taste and texture.

Morningstar is a big company that has dominated the niche for 50 years because its products are EASILY AVAILABLE and good. Not all of the items taste convincingly like meat, but all of them are easy to cook, tasty, and satisfying to eat.

So the traders and cultists who are boosting BYND clearly don't understand the market. They don't know (1) the niche is already occupied (2) vegies are satisfied with Morningstar (3) serious vegies won't buy fake meat from the meat counter because they don't want to endanger their souls by touching the real thing. This is true of genuinely religious vegies from Muslim to Adventist.

In other words, there's a damn good COMMERCIAL reason why fake meat isn't sold in the same freezer with pig knuckles and T-bones. Stores and distributors haven't simply been missing an opportunity for 50 years. Distributors don't miss opportunities. They know what they're doing.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

  ¶ 12:41 AM

  Constants and Variables 136, Fake fake-detection edition
A classic trick of REAL racketeers and REAL evildoers is the fake cop or fake detective.

Some (not all) of the detectors of fake news are fake cops.

In previous years these bad detectives channeled our attention to fake "on-location" reports. TV reporters often stand in front of a stage set simulating the Capitol or the Courthouse. Supposedly this makes their report fake. No, it's simply irrelevant. Truth is truth no matter what image is visible in the background. Falsehood is falsehood no matter what image is in the background.

When we focus on the staging, we forget to focus on the INFORMATION. Does the verbal output of the newsreader agree with OUR EXPERIENCE at the points where we can check it? If so, the newsreader is likely to be trustworthy on other points.

More recently these fake detectives of fakery are channeling our attention to fake identities, like this example on ZH. Somebody created a "financial expert" using a stock photo and made-up credentials. We're supposed to disbelieve what this expert says because her front is fake.

Again this distracts us from the INFORMATION. Does this expert give rational advice and predictions? Or does she say the same bizarre lethal genocidal turbowacked hypernonsense as all "real" paid economists? The article says that the fake expert is simply advertising a credit-repair company. Well, everyone who writes for a paycheck is advertising some company or another. THAT'S A CONSTANT. The only variable that MATTERS is the INFORMATION. Does her advice agree with reality and common sense? The article doesn't bother to ask the only question that matters.

Labels: Constants and Variables

  ¶ 10:47 PM

  No, wait
Getting ready for grocery store trip. Thinking it sure would be nice to have a car, so I could pick up a larger load. When I had a car...

No, wait.

When I had a car I rarely used it for grocery trips. I walked or biked. The car was reserved for bad weather or big hardware-store loads, not groceries.

I've never been much of a driver. I've always been a walker.

= = = = =

As long as I'm in random gratitudinous mode, Polistra and friends offer a salute to KEDIT, the ALL-powerful programmer's editor.



Been using Kedit since 1987, through DOS and Win versions. Mansfield Software, the maker of Kedit, keeps trying to abandon updates, but the user base won't let them give up entirely.

Nothing else even APPROACHES the power of Kedit for dealing with program code and other formatted data files. The 'ALL' command is magical, and the block-edit capabilities are supreme. Without Kedit my editing and revision would take three times as long, and would be ten times as frustrating.

A few newer editors (eg Zeus and Hessling) claim to be in the same category. I've tried them. They don't have the 'ALL' command, so they ain't got shit.

Labels: coot-proofing, Patient things

  ¶ 7:11 AM

  Airships
In radio shows and short movie serials from the '30s, flying machines are always called airships or just ships. This is especially noticeable in adventure serials focused on flying, but also shows up in other contexts. For instance, an Ex-Lax ad in a 1940 'Strange as it Seems' episode compares the regularity of Ex-Lax to the scheduling of airships. "You know the Chicago ship will arrive at 3:45." [Pun intended? Probably not. Dirty words weren't at the front of most minds in those days.]

By the '50s, airship was entirely absent, replaced by airplane. Did this happen during WW2? The Google ngram thingie answers the question nicely.



Just after Pearl Harbor, both airplane and aircraft replace airship. Later on, airplane fades out in favor of aircraft.

The change is so sudden that I wonder if media received an official order.

= = = = =

A pretty good marker for the transition point is the 1940 non-interventionist spy serial K-7. All flying machines are airplanes or planes. The transition comes in especially handy in this episode about bombing planes stowed on ships.

Agent Pat shouts:

"Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also planes aboard the other ship!"

This would have been tricky in the previous vocabulary....

Pat: "Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also ships aboard the other ship!"

Z: "I'm sorry, Pat, your message is ambiguous. Could you elucidate?"

Pat: "There are also vehicles which rise from the ground using the Bernoulli Principle aboard the other vehicle which floats on the surface of the ocean using buoyancy!"

Z: "Too late, it already exploded."

Labels: Asked and answered, Language update

  ¶ 1:26 AM

  Simplify, simplify, simplify
Boris and Trump are pretty much the same man with different accents. Why not simplify the situation?

McAfee!

Can a person run for, and be, President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain simultaneously? Yes. Absolutely. Without question. But I believe I am one of the few people stil alive who could qualify for the combined position.

He's the same kind of man as both BoJo and Trump, he's the same age as most candidates (but a lot older than Boris) and he's crazier than both combined. Plus he's in trouble for tax evasion, which makes him the ideal Tory and Repooflican.

Perfect choice.

Labels: Entertainment

  ¶ 3:51 PM

  Thanks, Nature!
I just finished a long and annoying revision of the current courseware project.

The last lesson concluded with a discursive lecture by the author, reminding the students of the utterly unbelievable magnificence of the human brain and speech mechanism.

I'm always in that mood when I illustrate or animate this stuff. Every item requires a certain amount of study, and when I study I learn more about the fantastic and unimaginable PURPOSE and DESIGN.

After the month-long editing task I stood up and stretched, and looked out the door for fresh air and visual perspective. The first thing that moved and caught my attention was a TINY insect, some kind of leafhopper, crawling on the door glass and glowing gold in the sunlight.

This entire creature is smaller than ONE of my spinal neurons, yet it does pretty much everything I do. Walk, see, smell, feel, hear, eat, talk, think. And then it did something I can't do: It flew away.

Thanks, Ma Nature.

Emerson:

The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity -- all find room to consist in the smallest creature. So do we put all our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, infinite GOOD

  ¶ 9:09 AM

  Well, if this is what it takes....
Via Eurekalert, a lunatic way of accomplishing a simple task.

Headline: To prevent another world war, researcher suggests changing how we think

"Adversaries think in such terms, you either get what you want, or you do not," West said. "Can a different way of thinking produce a different outcome? If either/or is the only way of thinking then a person would be either a protagonist or an antagonist, but in reality a person can be both, either, or neither, and often is. Recognizing that opens the door to novel solutions."

The authors suggest that by using both/and thinking a dynamic resolution can be achieved. The Army has initiated this strategy with the introduction of the gray zone, in which an adversary's aggressive acts do not warrant a war response, but neither can they be interpreted as peaceful and benign. Responses to acts in the gray zone, challenge traditional either/or thinking, requiring an appropriate measured and yet unpredictable response. On an individual level, this translates into an understanding that a basically selfish individual can also be a hero, a consequence of the complexity of being human.

In other words,

TO PREVENT A WAR, DON'T START A WAR.

It doesn't require a complex mathematical model. It's EXTREMELY FUCKING SIMPLE.

NEVER ATTACK. ALWAYS DEFEND.

More specifically, DON'T LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO WANT YOU TO ATTACK. Don't listen to Adelson. Don't listen to Soros. Don't listen to Bolton. Don't listen to Israel. Don't listen to Saudi.

There. That's all the math you need.

But if the Army has to reach the simple goal by this lunatic path, then I'm okay with it.

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

  ¶ 12:16 AM

  What does it do?
This thing was being discussed on some science websites:



It's being discussed, OF COURSE, because it's supposedly a measure of Trump's CO2 pollution, delivered backwards into the Cretaceous Era by witches riding on Tardis broomsticks.

This thing should be discussed for its FANTASTIC shape. Those things on the outside are described as protective scales, but they don't look like any other scales in nature. Scales are variations on rectangles or diamonds. These things look like differential ring gears. A toothed circle with a bridge spanning the open center of the circle. It can't work as a 'shingle' because it can't overlap and doesn't cover.

The bridge part vaguely resembles a stapes:



but the ring gear part doesn't resemble anything else.

LIFE IS PURPOSE.

This machine can't serve the purpose of a scale or protector. It must be doing something else. Does the bridge part act as a trap for smaller microbes? Bacterium floats into the center, bridge contracts and pulls it in for digestion?

Labels: Asked and unanswered

  ¶ 7:49 AM