Free in Life

We come once more to the sag of week out. Yesterday was a bit odd as FD SCP and I continued to explore a week out gallop to try and prevent the creaks from setting in. So much of yesterday was spent being boggish. In general a success except that the quest for the Italian ham sandwich of undergraduate days was spurned when the Pasquale’s we entered turned out to only be doing buffet at the luncheon period. Anyway, the weather is supposed to be warming although this morning’s difference was minor; overall, no frost either yesterday or today that I could observe as I spread seed for the dinosaur descendants and their ascendants. The weather beavers have miscarried again!

In keeping with our theme of proper disrespect for false authority, we have a bit of treat this morning. Somehow, I am unsure of the source, I received a most distressing link [Link] to a video of a scattering event. One of the particles is an iPhone 4S and the other is a 12.7 mm round and the collision is fulfilling.

That’s one set of mind chains that won’t shackle a human!

Next, a piece [Link] on the extinction of cognition. Overall a poorly done piece but it does raise the question of whether bogs are creative or not? ANd I am not talking about success in using a Xerox machine or a MegaStone client or even following a recipe. Those are at best craft. Rather, can we expect some act of actual originality from a bog untainted by any substantial fraction of nerd/geek?

If we look at modern lives, of brief awake home occupancy period and the majority of time spent in the workplace, to or from the workplace in transport, or doing consumerish activities varying from maintaining ‘life’ to frivolous destruction of Tellus and its ecosystem, then we find little time or effort on matters creative. Slack time is spent in vacuous activities such as watching athletic or fictional ‘entertainment’ on the audio-visual electromagnetic receiver, perhaps in actual physical activity at gym but again being entertained or mind blanked, not in even the mundane pseudo-creativity of craft that our parents (or grandparents, depending on age cohort) practiced. Even nominally creative activities such as art compositions, are performed in the organized vacuity of a class. No, creativity is rare and perhaps rightly so. The bogs serve a righteous role as graphite moderators in the nuclear reactor of human society. They are not there to generate creations, only to absorb some so that only the best percolate.

Of course, we could take the idea that if a bog is creative then they can’t be a bog – they have to be a geek or nerd. Sounds like the road to slavery.

Science Pseudo-Journalism

OK, into the prime of week out and Saturday is well launched. I managed to rise from my aged slumber, perform ablutions, engage the podcast accumulator, and exit Castellum SCP to spread seed for the remnant descendants of the dinosaurs and their heirs by dint of extinction meteorite. Nothing seems to fulfill this blatantly improbable tale more than watching a confrontation between a crow and a squirrel. The crow is 3-4 times the volume of the squirrel, half again the stature even if the squirrel rears back only on hind legs, and surely  a bit more mass. But when the staring occurs, unless the squirrel is outnumber 3:1, squirrel wins consistently. No wonder some bogs think mammals are the chosen of the deity.

Anyway, having returned from acquiring short breads for the maternal parent, I can now turn my attention to more alleviation of tabs. First, is a lovely article by a Scientific American journalist about what a shmegegi another journalist at the Atlantic (magazine, not ocean!) is about his description of physics. [Link] Talk about one cooking vessel communicating another on absence of albedo! I have to hope that this is an indication that Scientific American has paid some attention to its critics, including in minor detail SCP, about sacrificing scientific accuracy and reader challenge on the altars of socio-political correctness and catering to slime mold level mental habits. I fear that any return to the thrilling days of yesteryear when SA was the paragon of public science communication, challenging adults and children to comprehend science in greater detail than any other amateur source is going to be stillborn. Simply put, Amerikan boggery is largely hopeless until they are once more reduced to serfdom.

Next, over at SEED (magazine) where they posture a lot but produce a lot less so that while SA sometimes is on the maybe-subscribe list, SEED never gets close, they have an article taking off on Feynman’s one-statement-for-after-the-apocalypse. [Link] Now, coming from Feynman, this is supposed to be something simply stated that serves as a watchword for jump starting science after the collapse of civilization. Inherently, this also has to have a social dimension to it because humans, after all, are social, that is, organized and organizational, animals.

Well, most of the statements gathered were pretty good and held quite a bit of nerdish goodness, except for the last,

“Knowledge is a public good and increases in value as the number of people possessing it increases.” —John Wilbanks is vice president of science at Creative Commons,

which holds absolutely no scientific content and is a sad embarrassment to Creative Commons. It tempts one all too much to dismiss the organization as the creation of an attorney. But rather than be dismissive, we have to recall that creative commons is about law and the slavery of humans, not per se science. So the sadness is once more pointed at the SEED folks for violating their own rules, which seems to be the paean of journalists in the modern age.

And lastly, from Ars Technica [Link] comes a report that the medicalists advise that wee bairns not be exposed to television programming. It rots their brains, among other things.

Given the widespread introduction of television after the Great Patriotic War, this undoubtedly explains the profusion of bogs and the dearth of nerds in modern society.

humans, behavior, journalism, science, stupidity

Driving across Greater Metropolitan Arab

at 0638 in the morning of the ‘first’ frost of the season:

The core difference between a herd and a pack is the dentition.

humans, behavior, animals, biology

Into the Box

I do not usually make political comments. I am not now. I am making a comment about human nature.

One of the Repulsian candidates for cheif executive candidate has proposed a change to a national sales tax of 0.09. This would combine with existing lower level government sales taxes for a total of ~ 0.15 to 0.2.

At this level of unstated taxation, register shock will be severe, resulting in renigs and a general downturn in ‘optional’ purchases. In effect, the current depression (no ‘r’ word here!) will be deepened and extended in duration.

Incidentally at the risk of being consiratorial or even cabalistic, has anyone noted that ’999′ is the flip of ’666′?

Can Free Will exist in absence of Freedom?

OK, boundary time again and the weather beavers are playing horsemen this morning. Actual, sorta, frost! That is, the tips of leaves that are curled up away from the ground actually have a thin layer of semi-solid condensate on them. Happy that I didn’t have to get up three hours ago to go to gym and experience all that in extended form. As is, all I had to do was venture out to spread seed for the birds and squirrels who won’t arrive for a while yet until Sol is fully illuminating the ground.

Meanwhile, I get to start cleaning up tabs. First, an article [Link] quoting Michael Dell,

“We don’t see the PC as going away at all. We see our customers continuing to use the PC as part of the total solution.”

Can’t say that I disagree. The smart phone and/or tablet may replace the desk/lap box for those service folk who trapse into the field, and maybe for the decision makers, but for the vast middle of the organization a more robust and functional infrastructure is necessary.

This brings me to wonder. While I was wandering through my daily readings I came across some journalist waxing doomish over the replacement of “public works” with “infrastructure”, arguing that people know what public works is/are (collective or plural?) and don’t know what infrastructure is (collective.) [Link] I found myself thinking this both too pat and specious. I am quite comfortable that I understand what “infrastructure” is, but I am admittedly fuzzy on “public works”. Is this latter some archaic form of community service that doesn’t involve imposition by a justicer? My point is that while I do have a knowledge of the mechanics of systems, I am GEN X and of moderately advanced age, so how can I credit this hypothesis?

Anyway, returning to the Dell declamation, I am watching with some anticipation. Dell recently slipped from second to third in the PC market and we have the upcoming Windows Ate release that will change the boot infrastructure of the PC in a desperate Apple-like attempt by MegaHard to exclude Linux from the playing field. Meanwhile MegaHard is emulating Apple and Canonical/Gnome with Tile GUI into the realm of smart phones and tablets and alienating the urine of devoted users. Since a significant piece of the refurbished computer marketplace is Linux and home users, and both Linux and earlier versions of Winders don’t pass MegaHard’s legitimacy standards, and number one in that marketplace is Dell, the Chinese curse would seem to be extant.[1]

Meanwhile, the Yankee government seems to still be in fear of Facebook, [Link] which may not be as much in error as the continued persecution and attempted prosecution of Julian Assange. Facebook at least is active instead of passive although it is always amusing when the YG runs afoul of strident capitalism. Some days the emerged association of democracy and capitalism is almost humorous. But the directions on how to disable that abnoxious timeline is welcome as a public service (‘work’?) for those of us who find Facebook increasingly overparasitic and autarkic.

And lastly, as a bit of that hoarfrost on the tips of the leaves, I have to make note of a lovely piece in Scientific American, mostly because it is so rare that SA has a nice, pleasing article. [Link] The piece deals with those sadly strident handicapped who cannot do maths because of their parents’ (and now their) deficient genome. The article also demonstrates the widespread presence of these people in journalistic trades,

Admittedly a bit dated, but then the time scale of defective DNA in humans is centuries, not years.

One may only hope the Repulsiveican candidates for Chief Executive candidate do not see this. They seem to have enough problems with primary and secondary sources, much less reality stuffs. Certainly the maths we have seen from both they and the Demolitionats is self-serving, diversionary, and genetically deficient.

[1]  For those unaware, “May you live in interesting times.” For all, my apology for sullying the blot with the “I” profanity word.

humans, behavior, computers, capitalism, genetics, extinction

After Wednesday

Yesterday was a bit harrowing. In fact, before I had gotten down off Whitesburg Mountain onto the flood plain of the Tennessee, I had a realization:

“The Stupid are with us always, even with the self-attrition.”

And the day was well commenced and I was able to deal with all manner of nonsense and aintelligence.

The question arises in this regard, of course, of whether Strugeon’s Rule applies. It would seem to but with the supplement that the 0.1 who are not cannot be agreed upon. What constitutes stupidity is evidently not a stationary idea. Perhaps this may come to be referred to as SCP’s corollary to Sturgeon’s Rule.

The morning is not as nasty as I had expected from last nights gloating declamations of the weather beavers on local broadcasting, but it is more than sufficient in the wake of a summer inaugurated by the April tornado blitz. Of course the only blitz left is the newsreaders and politicians making much of the depredations and otherwise doing nothing. Given the nerve grating effect of of that little it is perhaps for the best that they do nothing although it is hideously difficult to construe that inaction as a mitzvah.

Much is being made of the release of Ubuntu 11.10, primarily in the American geek and British press. [Link] I find that the disappointment is expressed by inaction. Numerous accessory clients I depend on have not yet updated their repositories and my fulfillment of a switch to XUBUNTU is incomplete. The reason for that switch, as previous mentioned, is “a pathological inability to adapt to a better way of doing things” as expressed by a pundit who either finds the cell phone GUI of Unity rewarding or is being bought off by the OSMs. [1] I have resolved, for the moment at least, that when I have the XUBUNTU box up and working I will install UBUNTU 11.10 on my experimental box and give it a couple of weeks to see if it will adhere. For the sake of mental objectivity I shall not think on this further, if possible.

I will consider however, the irony of the name. Given the tardiness of developers supporting their accessory clients, I have to hypothesize that their support of tiling is also lacking. In such an instance, the selection of the appellation ‘UNITY’ is ironic in contrasting the rigidity of the GUI to the seemingly large number of users and developers displaying their opinions and assessments by absence. Contrariwise, I have not yet witnessed the forking of a G2BUNTU as advanced by Master Linus. 

Meanwhile, the world wonders.

[1]  OSM – Operating System Manufacturers

humans, behavior, computers, OS, nonsense

Ich Bein Ein Autist

Twosday is here. I was informed yesterday that the Greater Metropolitan Arab shul system is desessioned for fall discontinuity and that is why the gym is so blissfully absent of educationalists. I still continue to find it intriguing, even humorous, that educationalists do not need exercise except when shul is in session.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for the absence of strident, hostile, overloud conversation but that did not make any of the podcast episodes today any more memorable. Twosday is science podcast day and while the information was sometimes attractive, such as the 100 KYA cave painting tool set recently found and reported on the SCIENCE podcast, they are not really the stuff of brain flatulence leading to commentary.

Not so some work coming out of the Land of Golden Earthquakes Institut of Technology. [Link] This work claims to demonstrate that folks with autism are unconcerned with social reputation. The experiment was to take neuronorms – folks absent autism – and folks with autism and solicit them to make contributions to a politically loaded charity with and without a bell ringer. The claimed results were that the norms gave larger amounts if the bell ringer was present while the autistic were unchanged.

This is claimed to be a demonstration that the autistic are unthinking about their social reputation? With a charity that is questionable politically? This rather smells more of social engineer political pseudo-science. Strength of will is obliviousness? Self-determination is sociopathy? Yes, that is the message of the social engineer, is it not?

My experience is that the bell ringer has both positive and negative effect. Many of the folks I know will reduce or cancel their donations if the charity attempts a guilt trip. That is solely the province of Southron mothers, regardless of religionist sect. Charity, I was taught and firmly adhere to, is a matter of personal conscience and as such any outside criticism, real or implied, should be irrelevant and is negative, a thing to be resisted.

So if this behavior is patent evidence of autism, then the nerds I know are all autistic. And I suspect, proud to be so.

Incidentally, the Salvation Army knows this. Their bell ringers never express any guilt loading. And they don’t charge the troopies for doughnuts, unlike the Red Cross. But evidently psychologist academic social engineers in the land of Golden Earthquakes don’t.

humans, behavior, autism, charity, academia, stupidity

Adamantium Slime Mold

Back to gym. Week in has returned and with the weather beavers doing an occupy! Seems that the cold front coming in midweek will be a real dipster. I am not sure if that is why the gym was rather sparsely populated this morning. The temperature was quite clement this morning but most of the educationalists were unpresent. Not that I am complaining, mind you, but it does present a natural opportunity for our see-thing-that-aren’t-there brains to imagine conspiracy.

On which note, the podcast this morning was an episode of the CBC’s “Best of Ideas”, this one dealing, by title, with being a muslim in the West. My suspicion is that the program was intended to be a semi-balanced presentation trying to justify acceptance of diversity, because that is basically how liberl the program is, but it had the effect of impressing me with how supremest and Nazi muslims were presented. Of course, I tend to view many sects as supremist and Nazi in their evangelism. I respond rather similarly to used car salesmen who purvey motorcars absent transmission (operating) and tyres.

I have known a few muslim, mostly in the college environment. None of them were as evangelistic as the christianists, but then physicists tend to not be pushy about religion. Physics, yes, but not religion. If anything we are more anti-gravitational about religion. What can be neither tested not falsified is not to be trusted.

But the thought that the program provoked was that people here in the old Confederacy are perhaps more conforming than most? Yes, eccentricities are abided but they need to be kept hidden, with the possible exception of within the precincts of the local MalWart. This put me to considering the recently enacted immigration law and the whole grrr brrr about it. I noted on the audio-visual electromagnetic receiver that there were all sorts of rallies yesterday, most of which I gather are in favor of illegals. That latter is at the root. If I think as a rule follower in this matter, then the Sowth as a whole is more stolid than a lump of adamantium based slime mold.

But the practice of proper disrespect requires that both sides sometimes be disrespected. Certainly the oligarch politicians in Muntgum have some self-serving scheme. They seem to always have such and this seems likely to be consistent. But on the other hand, as Big Jim told us on the audio-visual electromagnetic receiiver, back when it was only monochrome, is that he (and the rest of the band of thieves in Muntgum) is our thief and we can do without thieves of lifestyle and society from further sowth. As my mother is want to say, anyone whose people did not fight for the old Confederacy are Yankess by exclusion and in this case life might be better if these Yankees went elsewhere. If nothing else it will reduce the level of sound pollution since none of their motorcar stereo systems have a volume control.

After that however, I listened to a National Public Wireless – why is it called public if only liberals and social engineers get to talk? – episode supposedly on science but actually an eulogy of the tyrant Steve Jobs. The program consisted of the mediast for the network interviewing other mediasts, but no real geeks, at least before I got tired and switched to IT news. The main reason I did so was that the mediaist being interviewed claimed that Hewlett Packard was never counter-culture like Apple.

What a hole full of stercus! Once more mediaists demonstrate their ignorance of content. For its day, HP was very counter-culture. The HP-35 was more disruptive than all the iP* that Apple has pressed out. And much more productive. What they miss is that HP was counter-culture in a work mode while Apple may be counter-culture in an entertainment mode. Certainly their products are not very useful for doing work whereas HP’s products, at least until the last decade or so, have been very work useful.

Oh! It’s a great start to the week. Lots of folks worthy of disrespect out there.

religion, stodgyness, politics, them, computers

Rotten Cherries

Yesterday, I ran across this cartoon [Link]

that raised several questions.

Question 1: Does the old adage of “don’t believe half of what you see and any of what you hear” or Sturgeon’s Rule “0.9 of everything is stercus” apply to television. Simply put is 0.5 or 0.9 of it drek? We know it has a high fecal content, but which is it?

Question 2: The association of alien abduction and political campaigns is intriguing. So is it the (modern) democrats that are the aliens and the (modern) republicans who are the abductees, or visa versa? Certainly neither group has very much congruence or relevance with even bogs, much less nerds and geeks in the Yankee republic.

humans, behavior, humor, politics, extinction

Sundae with Cherries

Now is the time of our discontent, as the ongoing slug slide of parametric time abuts the boundary between week out and week in and of needs I have to clear tabs and do other bits of information and computer-keeping. To start with, I noted last week an attracting article [Link] entitled “U.S. Government Issues New Classified Information Protection Policy”. This is not normal for the Yankee government. Usually changes in security policy are not broadcast to the electorate. In this case it may be justified since the root cause of the changes has already done all the embarrassment it can and there may be some benefit to be gained by this rather tardy response.

Sadly, the trump blast announcing is almost all of the content of the article. No details of how they are going to close off loopholes and alleviate poor morale that permit these disclosures by disenchanted insiders. Not that I think they can since they won;t do what they need to do, which is to solve their people problems by making the folks undisgruntled. But big organization can’t do that very well. Good at punishment, clueless at leadership.

Next, the Globe and Mail gives us a lovely exposition on how hard it is to do science when you can’t d experiments, and how easy it is to cause damage when you get arrogant. [Link] It speaks, of course, of economists. It should be a case of ’nuff said but I cannot resist noting that the physics of a group of particles whose individual behaviors and constituencies are well known cannot be done exactly. So what makes economists think they can do better with particles that aren’t understood?

And speaking of particles. just as we were beginning to get into the delicious challenge of the faster-than-photon neutrinos a reasonable arguments seems to have arisen that the measurement of the distance between the collider and the detector was inaccurate. [Link] Seems that GPS was used to make the measurement and the canned algorithms used to do this were flawed. If this be the case, one more reason why we should be leery of using canned software for critical things. Especially proprietary software. If we can’t see the code how do we know the interstices are doing what they are supposed to. Of course slaves and serfs aren’t supposed to think about such things. Upsets the master class, no end. Until they can kill off a few serfs and slaves.

The wonks at Aix-Marseille U have discovered what they calm is the largest virus found to date. [Link]

What attracts about this is that the size is stated as 1.12 Kilo-Genes or 1.26 Mega-base pairs. I would have expected a physical dimension since largest usually refers to length, volume, or even mass. But if all base pairs are about the same in volume and/or mass, then this may be an equivalent? But the question that arises is are genes of similar constancy?

And lastly, the folks at McGill U have given us some neat observations of pulsars in the Crab Nebula. [Link] This one falls into the category of tooth aching impressive and aside from the neatness of the physics, I am moved to include the picture

which is way cooler than anything the computer graphics guys can do. It also makes my bones hurt as wel because it reminds me of those long nights in observatories that were so cold and miserable you couldn’t appreciate the beauty.

government, economics, science, beauty, software