Been distracted from posting. Trying to prep my long-gestating Big Book on Artificial Intelligence! (Isn't everyone writing one?) But let's zoom in on current events.
First off, they are deliberately distracting you from what's important. For example, while I am ticked-off at the blatant banishing of some late-night comedians and the rampage of masked, tattooed gang-bangers and ex-cons kidnapping innocents off the street or even from courthouses... all of that has driven from the news things that are even more important -- much more important.
For example, the Trumpist-KGB gang has severed the sinews of Law, in profoundly dangerous ways.
Only now...
...Now it's JAGs*! The ones who advise generals what's legal. Now why would the Kremlin... I mean Republicans... want to do that?
And then there is the cashiering of 400 Internal Revenue Service CPAs who had been assigned to audit zillionaire tax cheats.
Plus disease researchers at the CDC and universities across America. (And the very idea of universities -- the topmost pride of the WWII GI Bill Generation -- is now under relentless, moronic attack.)
Which brings us to the assault on skilled professionalism that is scariest of all -- the gutting of anti-terrorism and counter-espionage experts, laying us spread-eagled and wide open to enemy attack. (Bush did that months before 9/11 and it sure worked for him.) All of which suggests two terms that you need to look up: - the 'Reichstag Fire'
and
- The Gleiwitz Incident ... and be prepared to chant those words when we hit the streets, after whatever fell tragedy Vlad & his DC stooges have planned for us, to serve as a pretext for martial law.) Still, you might stock up canned foods too. And realize that it may be your turn to praise the 2nd Amendment.
ADDENDUM: Those of you quoting the poem: "First they came for the Jews..." Well, first they are coming for the professionals. Yes, what's happening to immigrants is terrible! But that is not their core goal! Which is to wage all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Now who would want that?
*JAG = Judge Advocate General: the most primly meticulous law folks on the planet, who would make an ascetic monk seem lascivious. JAGs and IGs were the men and women protecting you, even more that the counter-terror folks and soldiers with Javelins. And they have been flushed away. By monsters.
** Vlad and his KGB (sorry, slightly relabeled FSB, with the same commie agents dedicated to the same goal: our downfall) hold kompromat on all high Republicans. Do I need to prove that, when Congressional GOPpers have ALL laid down to allow ALL of this, and so much more?
== End times... again already? ==
Veering in another -- frighteningly related -- direction. A recurring mania is apparently rising again... millennialist declarations that the fervently-desired apocalypse is coming!
It's moronic stuff, of course, recurring every couple of years for the last 2000 or so... and in this essay I laid out for you why the 2030s will be an especially fraught time for those of us with Revelations-obsessed neighbors... or politicians.
Want something even more moronic? Twice per decade since I was ten, recurring episodes of UFO Mania have swamped media, along with declarations that this time all will be revealed, for sure! My fairly recent posting is about the sub-branch of "UAP sightings" by US Navy jests and such. Oh, fer....
Same thing. Upward prayers for a cheat code, rather than do the work to save and improve the first civilization worthy of the stars. One that we crafted, for ourselves.
== Ukraine and now... Poland? ==
Was the Soviet - um, Russian - swarm-probe of drones into Poland 'an accident'? Disproved by extra fuel tanks. Western analysts deem a 'test of NATO abilities &resolve.' A test that Poland and her allies - except the USA - passed brilliantly.
Only the reason for Putin's recent spate of near-attacks on NATO is one more of hundreds of things that were familiar to my parents' GI Bill/ WWII generation, but that time has erased from living memory.
In this case, the root is a tendency of national leaders in war time to assume that the enemy's home population lacks any virtues, including courage.
While this tendentious mistake was shown (somewhat understandably, but still immorally) by Churchill, "Bomber" Harris, Curtis LeMay and R. Nixon, it was a flat out religious tenet of Hitler and the Japanese imperialists... and Stalin. The leaders who ordered devastation of cities all shared a self-satisfying and delusional assumption...
...that the citizens of Antwerp and London, Hamburg and Berlin, Tokyo and Osaka and Hanoi, and now Kiev, would despair and knuckle-under. Instead, they almost always picked their way through the rubble and redoubled efforts in their roofless and windowless factories. (Destroying those factories certainly made sense and worked for the allies.)
Adolf so needed to believe this that he delusionally thought Londoners would buckle in 1944 when a few hundred V1 and V2 flying bombs murdered a few hundred civilians... a small fraction of those who died two years earlier, in the Blitz, inspiring their neighbors to strive harder, in revenge.
For more than three years we have seen Vlad Putin follow exactly this pattern, hurling destruction at Ukrainian cities and civilian populations, blatantly (and publicly avowed) in order to cow them into toppling Zelensky and submitting to Russian yokes. And all it accomplished was to solidify - diamond hard - Ukrainian national identity and passion to resist.
Note that most Ukrainian drone and missile counter-attacks into Russia have been aimed at infrastructure, war assets and strategic materials. Leading now to gas shortages across the whole country. Note also that last winter the AFU could have trashed urban heating systems plunging Moscow etc into dark and cold... ass did happen to Ukrainians. But they did not, because of sapient realization of what I am talking about here... that enemy-inflicted privation thends (not always) to make populations more determined. Though THIS winter will likely be different. Because Russians are by now ready to pin blame where it belongs.
Which brings us back around to Putin's drone probe of Poland. Which not only showed NATO strengths and served as a perfect training exercise. It also revealed Vlad's insistence on the feel-good narrative of enemy cowardice. And 'surely now - after 3 years of insistence 'hey will fold any day now!' It should be obvious to those surrounding Vlad that belligerent insanity is no longer an excuse. Rather, obstinate stoopidity.
== US political in a pathological state ==
I keep seeing calls for restored calm negotiation between parties, even though one side has unambiguously declared phase 8 of the American Civil War. * Now the latest meme spread on on social media? "Debate" training is supposed to calm everyone down?
Seriously? I took two paths in high school. BOTH speech/debate and science. The former was useful, but mostly at appraising my opponents' argument for polemical flaws to attack. The latter taught me the sacred catechism of science: "I might be wrong." With its corollary: "Ain't it cool? Let's find out!"
It's no accident that former debaters like Alex Jones and his ilk are in full-blown attack upon scientists and universities in general. Because facts, well-presented, can crush polemics! As every single position of today's gone mad right can be demolished by actual evidence.
Which is why the MAGA cult - spurred by "ex" commissars in Moscow - wages all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Look, I am all in favor of returning to friendly, fact-centered and courteous argument aimed at negotiation! But it is one side that ended that in America. Look up DENNIS HASTERT! Whose Hastert Rules in 1995 ended all negotiation in DC and declared total war on science by banishing the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. A total campaign that has continued with the gelding of OSTP, the disbanding of most anti-terror and counter-intelligence units, demolishing the audit divisions of the IRS and firing most of the executive agencies' Inspectors general.
Reprising earlier parts of this missive. This is not the GOP of Ike or Lincoln or TR or Barry Goldwater or Reagan, who would spit in the eyes of Kremlin stooges helping "ex" commissars to rebuild the USSR. This cult is at war vs. the entire Western Enlightenment, including the universities that were the pride of the GI Bill generation and that truly made America great.
And no, I will not be calmed down into being nice about it anymore. Not till their Appomattox. Then it will be "malice toward none and charity toward all..."
Which their cult will not show to me, if they win. They have already told me so. And they are telling you, daily.
Appomatox: It might be nearer than we currently think.
ReplyDeleteI see two vectors, or radiants, of development currently happening:
1) The transformation from a democratic to an authoritarian form of government and culture supporting it.
2) The social, economic and geopolitical mistakes mounting and not only causing protest, but also having bad consequences leading to more trouble in the near future.
As long as the second vector grows faster than the first one, it will be difficult for the regime to hold itself in power.
In short, they want too much too soon and alienate the people they would need for their plans.
Heck, even "Tuckyo Rose" Carlsson is a critic of the government now, a dissident, essentially.
In short, they want too much too soon and alienate the people they would need for their plans.
DeleteFascism always eats its own. I suspect that that is a psychohistorical inevitability.
An historic counter-example would be Franco in Spain. Then, however, one could say he was "just" an ultra-conservative military dictator who first used the Falange to install himself in power, then gutted the revolutionary parts of that movement.
DeleteOr he just did not overestimate his abilities and abstained from geopolitical power plays (like Argentina in the Falkland war and modern-day Iran), and maybe Putin.
The Canadian Navy has a great need for computation experts. I mentioned to a friend that I'd like to offer my services in any way needed, gratis. Coffee spewed everywhere. I checked their recruitment requirements. Riiight.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit humbling to grow old.
Heh. Most of us oldsters who find ways to help out do so through contract companies. That's what I've been doing for about 15 years. Lately I focus on keeping adversaries off our systems so the equipment remains usable without the active duty folks having to think about it.
DeleteIf the Russians really were mass targetting civilians in some kind of intimidation campaign, they'd have turned Kiev into Gaza city. The truth is, its been the western liberal democracies with their emphasis on strategic air power that have traditionally been the most enthusiastic embracers of mass bombing campaigns against civilian targets. Chuck Yeager himself admitted the 8th air force gave him orders to go into a grid square and kill anything that moved, be it animal, farmer, soldier, child or woman.
ReplyDeleteIf the Russians really were mass targetting civilians in some kind of intimidation campaign, they'd have turned Kiev into Gaza city.
DeleteYou don't know what you're talking about.
Russia won't flatten Kiev because they want to own it, not destroy it. Kiev is the birthplace of the whole mythology of Russian empire. Russia bombing Kiev to rubble would be like an Islamicist nuking Mecca.
Dirtynapp is as usual a dope. I made clear my disapproval of Curtis LeMay and Bomber Harris. In Europe, the Brits, vengeful for the Blitz, did the night bombing of cities while the USArmy Air Corps tried (with mixed success) to target by day actual strategic things like factories... but all too often did blast cities, too. It was hell and my point was that German and Japanese populaces did what British and Chinese did earlier, shake their fists at the sky and get back to work in roofless, windowless factories, going home each night to rubble, determined to work hard.
ReplyDeleteBut Drt-pretend-ninja never cared about actually understanding the content of things he would yowl at.
Biggest turd from him? That the whole tone of the war had not been set 1st by the Nazis and by Tojo's gang. Feh, what a drip
What Western air power does superbly: Project force against the enemy with a much lower ratio in own human losses. It is better to raze a fortress to the ground instead of sending wave after wave of human soldiers against it- lest support at home falters. (Obviously, this is of no concern of the likes of Putin and Hegseth.)
DeleteAir superiority wins conventional wars, on the base of the technology level, not mass.
We have proven that.
What it does not win, is lasting peace. And while we tried, with new wells and schools for girls, our attempts at winning peace were halfhearted - in the end, we were defeated by sandaled men in motorbikes (and DJTs betrayal during his first term).
Speaking of, he apparently wants Baghram Air Base back....
Speaking of, he apparently wants Baghram Air Base back.
DeleteHe thinks it's in Alaska, and he wants to drill for oil there.
@ Brin What you dont get is that the Russians arent indiscriminately bombing civilian targets. If they were, they would be dropping Oreshniks on suburbs. Kursk and Kiev would look like Gaza. The Russians have *never* made this kind of thing a priority, even in ww2. The Russians will soon be able to launch 1000 drones a day into Ukraine. If they were indiscriminate, the civilian casualties would be in the mid 100,000s
DeleteYou may have let slip the real nature of the UFOs. They're "US Navy Jests." Of course!
ReplyDeleteBob Pfeiffer, Venerable (formerly Ruddock) '76.
"While this tendentious mistake was shown (somewhat understandably, but still immorally) by Churchill, "Bomber" Harris, Curtis LeMay"
ReplyDeleteAs the old saying goes, if brute force isn't working it's only because you aren't using enough of it.
The RAF came very close to imploding the German economy with Operation Gomorrah, the fire bombing of German cities starting with Hamburg. The use of napalm and firebombing tactics (later copied by LeMay against Japanese cities which were mostly made of paper) resultant fire storm reduced Hamburg to ashes.
Albert Speer informed Adolf Hitler that just six more attacks on the scale of the Hamburg raid could halt the Reich's armament production.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incidental in comparison to Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo.
I agree on the brute force attempt in regard to ending opposition warfare capabilities, including leveling the industry.
DeleteI disagree on the effect of sheer might and, dare I say, brutality on the fighting spirit of the population.
A good example are the defenders of Mariupol, which had to be ordered by Zelensky to give up.
Or Harris' Dresden bombing: which became a propaganda tool that the far right still uses nowadays.
Also, winning a war and occupying a country are two very different things, as we found out in the Forever Wars.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philip+ittner
DeletePhilip Ittner, an American in Ukraine, explains time and again why the Ukrainians will fight to the death before ever being in Moscow's thrall again.
It has nothing to do with western proxy wars. It has everything to do with their history.
Speaking of alternate WW2 history, would recommend this three video series:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_4J-hn9lAc
Premise, despite halt orders, the Allied counter attack at Arras, fears of panzers out pacing infantry support, Flanders being lousy tank country, etc. - if the skies over Dunkirk had been sunnier Royal Navy loses to Luftwaffe dive bombers would have made evacuation almost impossible (based on actual ship loses and weather).
So no Miracle of Dunkirk.
The BEF ends up in German stalags.
Faced with such a disaster, Halifax replaces Churchill (who wants to keep fighting) and Churchill is once again blamed for a military disaster worse than Gallipoli. Britain seeks peace terms with Hitler (which in our timeline the war cabinet almost did, deciding to keep fighting by only one vote).
British boys are back home by Xmas and Britain recognizes German dominance of the continent. Minor colonial adjustments follow (Spain gets Gibraltar, Italy gets Malta and Somalia, Suez is internationalized, etc.).
No need to occupy 2/3 of France and its coastline, though chunks of northern France are annexed by Germany along with the Low Countries. Also no Free France, Vichy rules.
More importantly, no Battle of Britain and no losses of German planes and precious pilots. No need to spend resources defending German cities from RAF bombers. The full strength of the Luftwaffe is available at the start of Barbarossa, which is not delayed by a Balkan Campaign or weakened by panzers diverted to North Africa (Rommel ends up commanding a panzergruppe in Russia).
Perhaps most importantly, Turkey is coerced into allowing Luftwaffe bombers to base in Turkey and launch a raid on Baku, crippling Russian oil production (see "Operation Pike", and Allied version of this air attack planned when Stalin helped Hitler carve up Poland).
Also no Enigma machine and breaking German codes as a defeated Britain does not develop Benchley Park.
Barbarossa is not delayed, has the full strength of the Luftwaffe and can cripple Russian oil production on day one. German panzers take Moscow as the snow begins to fall. Stalin and his government flee to the Urals and continue the fight as a massive guerillas campaign - their only other option is enslavement and extermination.
Meanwhile, the Pacific War still happens as a separate conflict. Japanese aggression in SE Asia drives Britain into America's arms and the American oil embargo triggers the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor.
But in this war, the full weight of America's military and industrial might falls entirely on the Japanese, who get crushed a year sooner than in our timeline with Iwo Jima and Okinawa occurring in 44. However, the atomic bomb isn't ready yet, so American can either have a bloodbath invasion of the Japanese home islands or firebomb/starve the Japanese into submission. And America choses the later with the Japanese still holding out until they are allowed to keep the Emperor. Japan never really feels defeated and never really becomes our ally, but that is a problem for later.
America helps Chiang's Nationalists defeat Mao's communists and sends Lend Lease to Russia's guerrilla armies.
Oddly enough, the British Empire reaches its greatest extent by "liberating" Dutch and French colonies in Asia and "administering" them under a UN mandate (founded in San Francisco in 45). But Britain is now firmly in the American camp along with all the English speaking dominions.
After a brief pause, we have what the video calls World War 2.1 between America and the Reich.
Very brief. The US can't tolerate commerce raiding on our east coast or with whoever trades with us in Europe. The only reason U-boats did as much damage to us as they did (in our timeline) is we stubbornly refused to learn the convoy lesson the Brits had already learned.
Deletere: Bagram
ReplyDeleteThat's it? Just Bagram? And just how many troops and aircraft are going to be needed just to defend it out to drone and rocket launch range? We could drop a division and a composite wing in there and still need more.
rumpT is doing one of his standard POOMA declarations without checking with the people who know things. Remember when he was going to reactivate the actual Alcatraz prison? Remember when all the carriers were going to switch back to steam catapults?
Moron.
Pappenheimer
P.S. I am also of the opinion that Trump is in the Epstein Files. In a starring role.
P.P.S. Gotta agree with Celt about strategic bombing; it was way oversold by characters like 'Bomber' Harris, but it can have an effect on economic output. Absentee rates among arms workers in Germany went up as bombing increased, and decentralization of industry slowed production. Of course LeMay's plan for 1945/46 was to burn out ALL of Japan's cities, which were mostly paper and wood and thus vulnerable to incendiaries (and very poorly defended - Japan didn't have the ability to reinforce its AA defenses the way Germany managed). He succeeded to such an extent that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be reserved, as nearly every other major city on the home islands was already in ruins a la Grave of the Fireflies. I won't ever try to defend bombing civilians from a moral (or morale) perspective but I can acknowledge the material effects. A good secondary source is Overy's "Why the Allies Won".
Pappenheimer
Lemay once remarked that if America had lost the war he would have been hung as a war criminal.
DeleteWorld War 2.1
ReplyDeleteThe Germans were not idle as America defeated Japan. The Kriegsmarine begins a massive ship and U-boat building program (Plan Z), even building air craft carriers.
The Luftwaffe continues its development of the jet fighters, the intercontinental Amerika bomber, V1, V2 and other wonder weapons, but remains a decade behind the Americans in the development of the only wonder weapon that mattered - the atomic bomb - due to Jewish scientists fleeing to America.
America has a half dozen a-bombs ready by late 45.
America and Britain also have their own jet fighters (the Gloucester Meteor and the Sabre) which are a match to the ME-262. Their next generation strato-bombers can fly higher than any German interceptor.
The Holocaust still occurs, not as quickly but far more extensively than in our time line.
The Reich rules Europe from the Atlantic to the Volga and half of Africa through its fascist puppets. America and the British Empire/Dominions have the Western Hemisphere, Asia, the Middle East and the other half of Africa.
Finding the build up of American forces in Britain to be intolerable, Hitler orders an all out air attack - this timeline's Battle of Britain, fought with jets and missiles - and attacks on British shipping with the new advanced U-boats.
The German surface fleet doesn't' survive long in a battle off the Azores but the U-boats nearly cut Britain off from America. The Luftwaffe loses the Battle of Britain but reverts to missile attacks slowly turning British cities into rubble. A squadron of Amerika bombers makes it to to New York and bombs Manhattan.
Rommel invades the Middle East oil fields from Turkey and wins early victories against green American troops (like at Kasserine Pass in our timeline). The Italians invade Egypt armed with German equipment.
Patton rallies American forces in the Middle East, defeats Rommel and pushes him back into Turkey. Montgomery sweeps the Italians and the Vichy French out of North Africa.
FDR had died the year before and Harry Truman is now president.
In any timeline, Harry Truman is unafraid to use atomic bombs.
Berlin (twice), Hamburg, Dresden, Essen, and Munich get nuked. Secondary cities are reduced to ash by RAF firebombing. The German economy implodes as more fire bombings and atomic strikes occur, the Reich being held together only by the Gestapo.
Allied diplomats inform Italy, Vichy, Spain and other axis puppets that atomic bombs will be dropped on Rome, Paris, Madrid, etc. unless they quit the Axis. They all switch sides. When American and British force land in Sicily and Normandy they meet no resistance.
Hitler, having been missed by the atomic bombs is killed by his own officers as he hides out in his Wolf's Lair bunker in East Prussia, A brief civil war follows between Wehrmacht and SS units with the Army winning. A military junta with Goring as a figurehead surrenders to the Allies.
Stalin reoccupies the Kremlin and advancing Allies uncover the death camps.
The war ends with civilization almost extinguished in Europe.
My primary disagreement with your alt.history is it underplays the Russian willingness to die to avoid German occupation. Even in our timeline, they died in droves. MOST of the deaths in Europe were on the eastern front. The role played by the other allies was peripheral... by design.
DeleteI think the alt.russians would have kept Reich bleeding going a LONG time.
Hence their refusal to surrender and continue a guerilla war, one made more effective by American Lend Lease after the loss of Russian farms and factories.
DeleteCorrection: First American fighter jet was the Shooting Star not Sabre
DeleteRe: UFOs:
ReplyDeleteI sometimes entertain the thought that - at least for story purposes, the following could have happened:
Councillor T'Paun was in his meditation chamber when the Buzzer informed him of an urgent message. Slightly annoyed, he answered the call, and a flood of hieroglyphic symbols - each representing several sentences of meaning - filled the air around him.
Apparently, a ship crashed in a quarantined system, all hands lost. What filled the councillor with dread was the classification of the third planet as a life-bearing planet with a type 4-2 (Basic understanding of nuclear physics, volatile tribal society) civilisation.
One of the crazies. the councillor thought. He studied the data of the planets atmosphere and noticed a sharp increase in greenhouse gasses and a suddenly presence of nuclear particles. Most likely to filter themselves out in a century or two.
He looked at the ships registration - indicating a "Free Research Ship" ...and suddenly was filled with anger.
"Of course.Who else would try to sneak in?"
The ship's crew had initially landed on an Asteroid in the way into the system with enough Metals in the composition to foil the Coalitions network of sensors and surveillance drones safeguarding the system from intruders.
That was a hazardous maneuver, because asteroids heated up when entering a star system, causing eruptions of gas and rock.
As it was in this case, ships riding the asteroid could be damage and even destroyed by the unpredictable behaviour of their "mount".
Despite all warnings, people tried. For various reasons, but the one most often encountered was - curiousity. And greed.
Fully quarantined systems like this one were cut off from the galactic society at large and had to rely on Data provided by the few, cautious and stealthy surveys the Coalition sanctioned. There was a black market for researchers demanding more, and this was the area "Free Research Ships" thrived.
Maybe we are lucky, and the ship crashed in a way without repercussions on the culture of that world. That would be bad. Not the strange cults that would emerge, but the race to the stars in a few decades. And possibly self-replicating AI in a century or so.
He informed the other Councillors of the Coalition, they decided to increase the security measures, and T'Paun resumed his well-needed meditation time.
"Look, I am all in favor of returning to friendly, fact-centered and courteous argument aimed at negotiation! But it is one side that ended that in America."
ReplyDeleteIt's futile to negotiate with people who are obsessed with portraying themselves as strong and view compromise as a sign of weakness.
well, one of the guys who liked argument was just shot in the neck in front of his family while his opposition celebrated.
DeleteThat guy wanted to publicly execute my sister for being gay.
DeleteThat guy considered dead school children to be a small price to pay for the second amendment.
well, one of the guys who liked argument was just shot in the neck in front of his family while his supposed-supporters monetized his death.
DeleteI fixed your spelling.
well, one of the guys who liked moral assertions was just shot...
DeleteI think you missed this part. 8)
Celt's scenario is remarkably similar to one I explore in my scathing book review of Christopher Priest's well-written and deeply evil novel The Separation. I think it is in THROUGH STRANGER EYES..
ReplyDeleteAlfred Differ:
ReplyDeleteMy primary disagreement with your alt.history is it underplays the Russian willingness to die to avoid German occupation.
This isn't what you were discussing, but the same is true of Ukrainians' willingness to die to avoid Russian occupation.
I sure hope so. It takes that kind of tenacity to show just how insane conquest is in the modern age.
Deletehttps://bsky.app/profile/rudepundit.bsky.social
ReplyDeleteSinclair will not air ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ upon its ABC return Tuesday: "Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.”
Fortunately, the ABC station in Chicago is not owned by Sinclair. I will be staying up way after my usual bedtime to see if Jimmy Kimmel has been neutered, or if he's allowed to return with a South Park-like vengeance. That in turn may allow me to re-activate Disney+ at some future time.
https://bsky.app/profile/rexhuppke.bsky.social
Deleteit's important to make these companies more afraid of people with empathy and good sense than they are of weird fucking brigading authoritarian babies
we outnumber these assholes by a wide margin
Just sayin'
I was disappointed that he agreed to come back. Anything less than a Cobertian "Go F- Yourself" directly into the camera will be a capitulation.
DeleteI was disappointed that he agreed to come back.
DeleteI'm more conflicted on the response. If the point of a boycott is to get Disney's attention and make them realize that pissing us off is worse for them than pissing Trump off, then there has to be a carrot as well as a stick. Otherwise, we're acting like the Dearborn, Michigan Arabs who declared that even if President Biden were to defund Israel and recognize a separate Palestine, it is already too late and they'd never support him. The only sane response to that being, "Well then fuck you. You no longer affect my decisions."
I did join the boycott of Disney+, and my decision on whether to maintain that will depend on what sort of conditions have been placed on Kimmel's return. If it seems as if he's on a short leash, then I'll agree with you that he shouldn't have returned to the network. If it's more like, "We took the worst Trump could send our way and came through unscathed," then we'll see.
Am I the only one suspecting that Trump is expecting a bribe from the corporate owners of Tylenol, after which he'll announce that pregnant women should take a dose with every meal?
ReplyDelete"The only reason U-boats did as much damage to us as they did (in our timeline) is we stubbornly refused to learn the convoy lesson the Brits had already learned." Jon Parshall (Shattered Sword" and his upcoming "1942") has demolished this argument (especially "the only reason" part) numerous times. Perhaps you'd like to discuss the subject with him? Be prepared to have your ass handed to you.
ReplyDeleteI don’t mind being corrected. I look forward to learning experiences.
DeletePeople are overly reflexive about Tylenol. Since almost everyone uses it including most pregnant women, it could be hard to tease out any correlations and it could harm us all if there's actually something there and the MAGAs could say "I told you!" I'd rather say "You got nothing but crap, so far. But this is at least something worth close checking, unlike most of your gabage.
ReplyDeleteKimmel returning is a dare to Two Scoops, "What're you gonna try next?" It implies TS has peaked. And we want that implication to spread.
Since almost everyone uses it including most pregnant women...
DeleteMy wife and I discussed that last night. Their "research" is equivalent to an assertion that women who birthed autistic babies drank water and breathed air during their pregnancy, so water and air must contribute to autism.
My son is autistic and I’ve seen these assertions often enough to get very annoyed.
DeleteIt’s the mercury! Science is done and no correlation is found,
It’s the MMR vaccine! Science is done and no correlation is found.
It’s bad mothers! (Don’t snort. It’s a thing. No science to be done though.)
No. The underlying truth is they lack trust in the fact profession and our discovery processes.
Tylenol isn’t an issue. Most likely this will come down to damage inflicted on the fetus by an immune response at the worst possible time when brain development is in full swing.
No. The underlying truth is they lack trust in the fact profession and our discovery processes.
DeleteNormally, I'd agree. And I won't make statements for the US. But I have seen enough examples of practioners in the neurology/psychiatry field (which is usually combined here) to say that most of them are in the fraud and power trip business, not in a fact based profession.
I have literally seen careers end when a young physician tried to incorporated the results of the newest study into the daily work in that field.
Surgeons have often a massive ego supported by a substance abuse supporting it, but in contrast, they have inhuman schedules to complete.
A part of the problem ist that they form somehow a pillar of public security (and welfare only at a distant second rank) and they work in an area people normally are happy to overlook, were results are often unclear and bad outcomes can be attributed to external factors or the clients themselves.
I am quite sure that research into autism had the same funding than say, erectile dysfunction, we wouldn't talk about quacks today.
Tik Tok seems to be full of people talking about the Rapture happening this week. What is the actual percentage of people that have succumbed to this cult? (I suddenly also have to think of Jonestown and the Sunday Templars.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think more and more that nihilism is the fuel of the current chaos happening, especially with the CK assassination.
Tik Tok seems to be full of people talking about the Rapture happening this week
DeleteI don't get the impetus for setting these sorts of expectations that inevitably turn out to be wrong every time.
Then again, I hear there is a market for promises to look after the pets of the chosen once those pets have been left behind. Cash up front, of course.
Also, don't those who fail to be raptured today have to wonder, at least a little bit...
DeleteMaybe the Rapture should happen. In taking all those fundamentalists with him, Jesus can fix the chaos he created. We then can fix the world easier. Win-win.
DeleteMy Summer Daydream is that those who think they will be Raptured actually are. I mean them no harm, but see it as a win-win. They get what they want, and we get a world without right-wing hypo-Christians.
DeleteLike Tevye imagining life if he were a rich man, I fantasize about the good that could be done with the permanent Democratic majority in congress and the 3-0 liberal Supreme Court who would be Left Behind.
As John Lennon didn't sing:
"Imagine there's no Republicans. It's easy if you try."
Re today's 'scheduled rapture event..." a couple of links. First, Patrick Farley's incredibly fun/scary intro to the Book Of Revelation, where all the armageddon crap is based, a pyrotechnically hateful acid-trip-rant that is diametrically opposite to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, which real Christians - like Jimmy Carter - prefer over the BoR's manic toxxicity. (BoR was including in the Christian canon at one council by ONE vote! That of a pagan prince; it was despised by Martin Luter BTW.)
ReplyDeleteSee https://www.electricsheepcomix.com/apocamon/
Regarding the apocalyptic ravings that seem to happen several times per decade, ever since John of Patmos had his 'dream'... here is my own, detailed appraisal of these recurring end-of-the-world manias, which will only get worse in the 2030s.
https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2011/05/whose-millennium.html
Any chance you can get Patrick Farley to finish his Book of Revelations manga? I would really like to see more.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/opinion/jimmy-kimmel-free-speech.html
ReplyDelete...
But Michelle, you hit on something very important, and that is how the right is very good at keeping the troops together. You could have 100 Democratic politicians say all the right things — from Obama all the way through — expressing lament and grief at Charlie Kirk’s assassination. You could have all the mainstream media, you could have The Nation, or was it Jacobin magazine, editorialize against the Charlie Kirk murder. This is Jacobin — that’s not mainstream; that’s left. And then there’s a teacher in Portland who gets on TikTok and celebrates it, and they’re like: Look, this is what the left is doing.
...
In response to the whole "The Democratic Party is losing support because you guys celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder" bit.
Well, the anti-vax crowd does have one thing right: just why has autism exploded over the last 25 years?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, the changed diagnosis criterion explains some, but not nearly all of the increase. The anti-vaxxers think the answer is the vaccine protocols. If they're wrong, what is the explanation?
It's definitely a question public health agencies need to answer.
For example, the Amish don't seem to be getting autism. Why? Is it lack of medical care, which means they're not getting diagnosed? Or is there something in their lifestyle that prevents autism. Or is it just rare in their gene pool?
Autism rates have skyrocketed in the last generation and a half. It's damn time someone figured out what the hell is going on.
Autism - it's like being left-handed - it's not only the "changed diagnosis criteria" - it's also the changed INCENTIVE to diagnose
DeleteAll of those people who were just "difficult" are now being diagnosed as being "Autistic"
Like being left-handed the numbers "diagnosed" will rise and then level out at the actual levels
Which look like being 3% in total
Maybe it is just because the Amish live in a regimented, medieval society were cases are covered up and no one speaks about it, even if it is diagnosed.
DeleteThere two other explanations:
DeleteCompetition and student doping. The promise of social upward mobility for everyone is practically dead and buried, and parents tried to give students every advantage they could get, chemical or otherwise.
Also, it could be that that generation of parents simply cared more about their kids, which created demand with psychiatrists/neurologists to come up with answers, and maybe really reading the papers available for a generation or two.
(But als see my rant, above.)
It's quite possible there are other factors that are increasing autism aside from increased diagnosis. But identifying those is not an easy task. There's quite a lot of environmental factors that have changed in the last few decades that could potentially be a contributing factor, and it's difficult to isolate those. It's not like there haven't been lots of studies on a variety of things, but not all conditions are easily traced to a single cause - there are often genetic and environmental factors that combine to trigger or increase likelihood.
DeleteWhat does seem to be reasonably supported at this point from research is that autism is likely something that is present prior to birth and is therefore very unlikely to be related to vaccines. The reason people got so focused on vaccines had to do with children typically getting vaccines around the age group they are normally diagnosed with autism.
It IS a public health issue. It is costing communities a fortune!
DeleteProblem is... with every prediction made so far... they fail. When I was first new to this the blame was place on mercury in the vaccines. Thimerosal was the preservative used. Science was done showing it wasn't to blame, but vaccine producers swapped it out to avoid appearing insensitive or risk lawsuits with juries empathetic with struggling parents. Swapping it out should have caused the rate to decrease, no? If 'tobacco science' was being done with vaccines, then removing the preservative should have shown up in the numbers. Fast forward a few years and... Oops! It didn't decrease.
It's not just that the anti-vaxx folks get it wrong, though. They have a f*ckin axe to grind! I KNOW this from being in very close proximity. They almost sucked me in after my son's diagnosis! They honestly think they mean well, but if they have their way we are royally f*cked!
Okay. I get a bit emotional about this topic. Don't be shocked. I'm deeply, deeply envious of all of you with neurotypical kids. I want something for my son he simply can't have. The fact that there are people working at demolishing useful medical science bugs the sh*t out of me.
Oh... and that belief that the Amish don't suffer this issue? Nope. That's not true either. They are better at not talking about it openly.
What is it caused by? Science has narrowed that down a bit. Something happens during fetal brain development that injures the brain. I speculate that it is a mother's immune response to some event. Our immune systems are quite capable of killing us in an over-zealous or confused defense. (Mine almost did 12 years ago.) Harm the fetus' brain at just the wrong time and crap happens later when they begin to need a neurotypical response to keep up with the other kids.
Look at Amish quilting and tell me with a straight face that there are no autistic Amish. Amish autism rates are correlated with *detection* not *prevalence.
DeleteBut having some ignoramuses come up with half-cocked theories with no proof only slows down the search for the reason.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention cutting research funding because the President wants to punish the universities for things that have absolutely nothing to do with autism research.
It gets worse. Some of the research they want pursued is deeply unethical.
Deletehttps://www.threads.com/@stonekettle
ReplyDeleteTrump now says Ukraine should take back all its land and NATO needs to shoot down any Russia aircraft that intrude on its territory.
I feel like Magneto in Days of Future Past: Whip. Laaash!
Gotta love the 1980s X-Men reference.
Over the years, astronomers have spotted holes and large pits dotting Venus’ surface, suggesting the existence of lava tubes. Venusian lava tubes, may be especially large, arrayed along volcano rims, and the most extensive subsurface cavities in the solar system. https://futurism.com/space/venus-lava-tubes-tunnels
ReplyDelete1. Drop automated CO2 extraction facilities into the upper atmosphere of Venus in a floating gondola, each equipped with a rail gun.
Delete2. Place solar powered satellites at a Venusian Lagrange points L2, L4 and L5 (being only 0.72 AU from Sol, Venus solar power is twice that per area as that of Earth) to power the facility and the railgun.
3. Mine the Venusian atmosphere for carbon to make bundles of carbon fiber, a material stronger than steel that is currently used to create everything from tennis rackets to 747s.
A recently developed carbon extraction process (aka "diamonds from the sky") shows how this can be done:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/A-Novel-Way-to-Pull-CO2-Our-of-the-Air-and-Turn-it-Into-Jetliners
"The process takes place in an electrochemical reactor, where nickel and steel electrodes are immersed in molten lithium carbonate at 1,380 degrees Fahrenheit (750° Celsius). Researchers then send in an electrical current and add regular, ambient air. The result: pure oxygen forms at the nickel electrode, while carbon nanofibers form like tiny bundles of steel wool at the steel electrode." This process will be even more efficient in the hot CO2 heavy atmosphere of Venus.
4. Place an assembler facility at the L1 point (slightly closer to the Sun to compensate for the pressure of sunlight).
5. The resultant bundles of carbon fiber can be launched into space via railgun from automated factories floating in the Venusian atmosphere. These bundles can be directed to the L1 point between Venus and the Sun to form a sunscreen over time - or elsewhere in the solar system to provide building materials for space ships, facilities, habitats, etc.
6. The carbon fiber can also be used in the Venusian atmosphere itself to make even more floating carbon extraction factories - doubling their numbers until there are literally millions of factories mining carbon fiber from Venusian air.
7. Assemble a massive sunscreen at the L1 point blocking out solar radiation and rapidly cooling the planet.
8. The massive (4.8E+20 kg, about 94x that of Earth) Venusian atmosphere is mostly CO2 (96.5%) with some Nitrogen (and by "some", I mean 3x the nitrogen found on Earth). CO2 (mol wt 44) freezes out first at -109 F, followed by Nitrogen (mol wt. 28) at -321 for liquid N2 and -346 F for solid N2). So freezing the atmosphere results in layers of easily separable nitrogen on top covering CO2 beneath.
At 4.63E+20 kg mass of CO2 and a density of dry Ice of 1,560 kg/m^3, freezing out the CO2 would cover the 460 million sq km surface of Venus with about 0.65 km of dry ice.
9. Establish surface mines to extract solid N2 and CO2, shooting these bundles off into space to be used for rotating habitats and Mars (lacking in Nitrogen) and carbon nanotubes to construct habitats, shipyards solar power satellites, space ships, facilities, etc.
DeleteThe few humans needed to run these mining operations can take up residence in these massive lava tubes. Same for human living on Luna and Mars or in the tunnels mined out of Mercury to mine metals for a Dyson swarm, or inside asteroids, etc.
Lava tubes appear to be a better place to to up residence instead of floating Venusian cities which would have no protection against radiation (the necessary shielding would make them too heavy to be buoyant).
The oxygen released by the formation of carbon nanotubes for CO2 would also freeze out solid and get deposited on top of the upper layer of frozen nitrogen.
10. For about 1,000 years (usually the time needed to terraform a planet) valuable Venusian resources of carbon and nitrogen can be mined out leaving behind a massive atmosphere of almost pure O2 (put up the "no smoking" signs!).
11. Frozen hydrogen (about 4.21E+19 kg, equivalent to a frozen ball about the size of the dwarf planet Ceres) from the Jovian worlds can be dumped into this O2 atmosphere to create water oceans with a volume of about 25% of Earth's oceans. These would be extensive but very shallow seas given Venus's flat topography.
12. Partially dismantle the sun screen to allow Venus to warm again to a comfortable temperature, while regulating day/night cycles, etc.
13. Introduce microbes, plants, animals and people.
Viola! A terraformed Venus (a second home for humanity) created in a mere millennia with its valuable carbon and nitrogen extracted to build a solar civilization.
Or we could, like Paul Birch proposes, use the Bosch reaction (CO2 + 2H2 -> C + 2H2O) to rapidly terraform Venus in less than a century. And on paper it looks like a possibility since the process is relatively simple, but the size of the task is truly staggering. For example, when you crunch the numbers, would need a ball of frozen hydrogen slightly larger than the dwarf planet Ceres.
DeleteGranted, this massive reaction would create an ocean nearly as large as 1/4 of the Earth’s ocean, but it would also result in the deposition of a layer of graphite with an average thickness over the entire surface of Venus roughly equal to a 40-story building (0.123 km).
Then we could land on the cooled, jet black surface with its shallow oceans and strip mine the now separated carb to make graphene and nanotubes (maybe even Venusian space elevators made of nanotubes to cheaply deliver loads of carbon to space). While living in those massive lava tubes.
The atmosphere will still be dense, almost 3x that of Earth, and mostly nitrogen - which makes great fertilizer for a soil that is mostly barren and sterile. So have fertilizer plants operate along side the carbon mines and nanotube factories.
There aren't enough water bearing asteroids to provide all of the hydrogen we will need. So we would have to mine hydrogen from the atmospheres of the Gas Giants and Ice Giants or retrieve comets from the Oort cloud.
But in only a few centuries we have a lush green water-rich world we can colonize and huge amount of raw building materials for building the infrastructure of a solar civilization.
P.S. forget about the fertilizer factories. Just plant genetically modified legumes and other nitrogen soil fixing plants everywhere the carbon has been strip mined.
DeleteThere was an interesting article on "free speech culture" shared with me that I thought articulated some interesting points on the topic in light of recent events. Figured folks here might find it interesting:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.popehat.com/p/how-free-speech-culture-is-killing-free-speech-part-one
Thanks, that was good.
DeleteDarn! Left Behind again.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Kimmel thanked me personally in his monologue.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that the "Larry" he thanked was me.
CB: Free Speech is not a religious principle - though it must be defended AS IF it is. I study history. And the principle goal should be ERROR DISCOVERY AND CORRECTION. And only one method ever achieved that - piercing the inevitable morass of DELUSIONS foaming about every individual and group and yes, AIs.
ReplyDeleteThat method is vigorous competitive criticism. And you cannot get that without Free Speech.
One problem. Unless the GOAL of error correction is kept in mind, then free speech has no corrective function. STUF MUST BE DISPROVABLE! Not to shut people up. But to embarrass those who are wrong into shifting their freee speech to other criticisms that will be more useful to us all.
But what do we do in this age, where there are those who are neither truthful nor embarrassed when they are shown to be wrong? When defending their "tribe" is the only goal? :(
DeleteI think there are hierarchies to human rights. For example, my free speech right would allows me to insult you, but the "Personal Honor" limitation as Well as the overarching "Human Dignity" right would allow you to sue me.
Delete(Unless the court finds you are right. The AfD has lost several cases against the Terms "Fascist" and "Nazi").
Likewise, the right of being not infected beats the violation of personal freedom through mask mandates.
And so on.
Der Oger,
DeleteThat honor right used to allow men to shoot each other over insults not that long ago. Our sense of what is allowed has been shifting over many generations as many of us now view such acts as murder.
I to agree on a kind of hierarchy. I suspect most of us do... except (maybe) those who adopt a quasi-religious point of view for rights. What we ALL likely disagree upon are exact levels and limits. Fortunately, most of us agree most of the time and that's just enough to ensure the world doesn't burst into flame.
Alfred,
DeleteHuman Dignity is a Cousin of Honor, though they are not the same.
Honor is an external value, often granted by the status of birth, sex etc.
The Nazis often used the term " has forfeited his/her honor" in their verdicts.
Human Dignity, in the other hand, is an internal value that is (ideally) granted to each individual in the same form, manner, and quantity.
A short definition is difficult, but it demands that one (especially the state) may not regard people as objects (Kant), and must grant the minimums of existence, personal freedom, freedom from strong and persistent pain and a minimum of self-worth.
It has obvious grey areas, but it mandates the abolition of torture and capital punishment, a working welfare state and limits on what I can do with the other rights granted, e.g. free speech.
But at the very basic level, it is to recognise humans as humans, as equal on a fundamental level, not as tools, subhumans, parasites, vermin, slaves, or life unworthy of life.
Der Oger,
DeleteI suspect we mostly agree even if we quibble on details. For example, no one can grant me dignity. I can claim it and they can respect my claim. Much like Rights, we respect more than we grant because an actual grant presupposes an authority TO grant... which I reject.
The keystone that holds up the arch we created in the Enlightened West requires respect for each person's liberty (I must be inclined to let you do what you choose to do... within reasonable limits) and their dignity (I must be inclined to respect your choices even if I think you've screwed up... or will... within reasonable limits.) These two inclinations are what changed a few centuries ago and made those who took steps in their direction wealthier. Even the average person among them became wealthier. So... I'm all for them since income and wealth tend to make historical problems look like paper tigers to our grandchildren.
For example, no one can grant me dignity. I can claim it and they can respect my claim.
DeleteKurt Vonnegut sees (saw) things differently. He argued that dignity is something that only other people can grant or withhold from you. We fail as a community or a society when we refuse to recognize human dignity in others.
Larry,
DeleteWe fail as a community or a society when we refuse to recognize human dignity in others.
See the recognition in what you just said? 8)
In the end the result is the same. The only reason I quibble about it is that the ACTUAL historical change wasn't a grant. It was a begrudged recognition. When some vulgar, unwashed clown saves your community by acting in a way you find moderately objectionable, you don't grant the clown dignity. You grimace, grind your teeth, and decide to accept that they helped... this time... but they still stink.
It was these begrudged tolerances that started it off. They only snowballed in parts of Europe where authorities weren't strong enough to steal the claims from the vulgar masses. (The long war the Dutch waged against Hapsburg Spain was one such place.)
I know we’ve moved on from the recent AI thread, but I had an experience last night that made the hairs on my neck stand up. Both spooky and exciting and I want to report it.
ReplyDeleteI maintain a small java library at GitHub. (Clados.) It is a labor of love that no one shares right now, but I’m fine with that. Occasionally, I work up enough inspiration to update it, add capabilities, fix bugs, and so on. When the inspiration fades it sits there for next time.
I’ve been doing this for about 25 years now, so the GitHub repo is just the latest in a long string of ways we used to do such things. My first build scripts were literally make files, then I transitioned to Ant, then fudged along in whatever the IDE offered, and now I’ve got a Maven project slapped together. Same kind of progression applies for the IDE over the years. As a result of all this, my repo has a lot of old cruft because my inspirations rarely involve cleaning barnacles off the ship. 8)
So… last night I was trying to make a maven target work. A REAL simple one. Clean. It scrubs out the local workspace so you can do clean builds, tests, and so on. (Those of you who are developers already know all that… probably better than I do.) The target was failing and I couldn’t quite figure out why… so I asked the AI panel buried in my IDE. I asked more than once because the suggested fixes didn’t make any difference. Eventually, though, between it and me we hit on the solution. The version of the plugin I had named had been removed from Maven’s repo when they moved on. I just had to catch up. Okay I said. The AI extended me as a centaur and together we worked it out.
I moved on to another target that produces API documentation. That didn’t work either. This time the AI offered to run the actual maven targets so it could also directly read the output. It actually asked for permission. I thought a bit and realized it couldn’t do any harm. I was working in a branch of my repo and didn’t need to commit anything it did. So… I said yes. The AI’s suggested fix didn’t work, but it noticed that and suggested a correction it could try. So… I said yes. That didn’t work either and its suggestion got complicated. I said yes. After about six tries we nailed it and my API docs got generated. After all that it had backed out many of its earlier suggestions and settled on something that was pretty close to what I had. My initial config wasn’t wrong by much. Okay I said. THAT version of the centaur was a different mix and horse and human parts… but it still managed to fix in minutes what might have taken me most of the night… or not… depending on serendipity. What the LLM could do was sift through VASTLY more information in seconds than I could. No need for serendipity.
After I (in centaur mode) did a few other things I poked hard at the repo running my tests a few times. It all worked as advertised, so I committed the result and went to bed pretty happy with the outcome. I realized this morning that I’m still inspired to work on the library. My enthusiasm didn’t get consumed chasing configuration minutia as it typically did in previous years. So… I plan to work on it a bit more.
This is a VERY different world we live in now than when I started my labor of love. VERY different.
I could have done what the AI did for me last night. Eventually. I didn’t have to.
What the LLM could do was sift through VASTLY more information in seconds than I could
DeleteThe problem is that the general masses DON'T KNOW THAT.
Hmm. I don't understand the precise circumstances, but cleaning out workspaces is what unit test setup/teardowns and virtual environments are supposed to do.
DeleteTony,
DeleteExactly that.
Now imagine a gray beard like me who learned to develop apps long before virtualization and automated testing. I remember learning about timesharing OS's and how they allowed for more access than the old batch style mainframes. This is all stuff I've had to pick up on my own over the decades and my self-imposed requirement to do this helps keep me mentally limber.
It's a lot, though, and my brain isn't the young thing it once was. I'm not ready for a rocking chair yet... not even close... so I appreciate the learning videos people post to You-Tube and the old fashioned FAQ's and tutorials and... you get the idea. My centaur moment last night enabled me to do more and faster, but I also picked up on how the AI was learning from it's previous errors which helped ME learn from both our errors.
This is a very different world.
The Enlightenment at its core is an exercise in maturity. Learning to take a punch, take a joke (as Kimmel said last night), and even to lose a fact-based argument is the whole point.
ReplyDeleteI once got shredded in class by a prof who pointed out the glaring holes in my anti-statistical mechanics argument. It was humiliating. The eye-rolls from classmates stung. He kept me after class to give me the ad astra per aspera talk and then shook my hand. Made me feel ten feet tall.
Lady Embarrassment is the second best teacher we know.
DeleteHer lessons are harsh, but they stick so hard they impact the people around us who were not directly subject to her glare.
And my argument could now stand up to Boltzmann for 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds.
DeleteSorry for stepping on your lovely post about Centaurs Alfred. I didn't check if the road was clear first, as I usually do.
BTW Those beautiful vector graphics games of the late 1970s are making a dramatic comeback:
https://bsky.app/profile/vectrexofficial.bsky.social/post/3lyh7tdvc6c2k
Heh. No problem. My post is a little late to make it on-topic. I just had to share it... but now I'm going to go write more code. 8)
DeleteWow great stuff! Alfred I believe you have my email. Please email me and I'll send you the 1st 8 chs of my AI book. I'll be offering more glimpses soon.
ReplyDeleteWill do. I look forward to it.
DeleteGPT4.1 is currently fussing over my pom.xml file. I want my test coverage stats to work again. I feel like I'm in a student-led study session where no one really knows the answers, but between us we work it out. 8)
As for those who think colonizing lava tubes and tunnel on the terrestrial worlds and various moons of the solar system would be a dreary existence, Tolkien has a rebuttal:
ReplyDelete"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
Underground is the most cost effective means of planetary colonization and transformation.
https://www.newser.com/story/294977/the-moons-lava-tubes-can-fit-entire-cities.html
"Looks like Mars and the moon contain huge lava tubes that offer protection from solar radiation and meteors—which makes them possible homes for future explorers, LiveScience reports. A new paper says Martian tunnels appear to range from 130 to 1,300 feet in diameter, while the moon's are 1,600 to 3,000 feet and reach such heights that the world's tallest building, Dubai's 2,720-foot Burj Khalifa, could fit inside. "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometers"
So a good sized Martian lava tube can hold a sky scraper and provide about 40 square kilometers of living area. (the island of Manhattan is 59.1 square km - so somewhat smaller than a major city).
Venusian lava tubes are even bigger.
This raises the possibility of a new type of para-terraforming. Instead of pure terraforming (remaking the entire planet) or para-terraforming (enclosed domes on the surface) we could use these tubes for holo-terraforming
As in holograms.
Take a tube large enough to hold a large city, build a city of this size, seal the tube and pump it full of a breathable atmosphere with temperature controls and fake breezes and winds generated by blower systems, fake lakes and rivers, etc. Colonists can walk around in their shirt sleeves. You can even have weather or seasons if you want.
Then cover its walls and ceiling with photo projectors that create the illusion of living out under the open sky. VR technology should be advanced to the point where a holographic image of the sky and horizon can be generated. The illusion would be made perfect by an artificial "sun" that traverses the "sky" on a 24-day cycle and acts as a grow light for crops and plants. Or the projectors can transmit images of the actual sky above the underground colony. Except for the gravity, it's identical to home.
Terraforming and colonization done cheaply with pre-existing tunnels and virtual reality.
Where natural lava tubes don't exist, we can make our own by the tunneling required by mining operations.
if we tunnel out Mercury for metals to make a Dyson swarm we can turn the entire planet into an underground ant hill for colonization. In fact - since Mercury is as hot as Hell - if we organize the tunnel system into nine levels, we can name each level after Dante's Inferno. Starting with Limbo near the surface, and down through Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and finally Treachery near the molten core. With artificial sealed environments and hologram virtual reality each level could be a paradise.
This would be much cheaper, easier and safer than trying to build on Mercury’s surface with solar protection (shade structures or taking advantage of Mercury’s slow rotation by putting a city on tractor treads or railroad tracks powered by the sun heating and expanding the rails that could keep the city always on the dark side).
Alas, most asteroids are too crumbly/friable to support tunnel drilling. But the next best thing can be had with carbon nanotube mesh - like a sausage casing - placed outside the asteroid. Start it spinning and the rocky materials fly apart and cling to the inside of the nanotube mesh. Size appropriately and you have sufficient rocky material to provide radiation shielding and the foundation of building and landscaping on the interior walls. Add water from asteroid ice, nitrogen and oxygen and you have O'Neal cylinders done cheap and easy that could be cranked out like.... sausages.
So how many sausage cylinders could we build?
ReplyDeleteAssume we use most of the asteroid belt except Ceres and Psyche (about 40% of the total mass of the belt) - reserving them for water and steel production - and throw in Jupiter's Trojans and Saturn's rings for good measure.
You could build almost 140 million cylinders, each housing 3 million people for a total population over 400 trillion people - about 45,000 x Earth's current population.
2.40E+21 kg Total mass of asteroid belt
-9.40E+20 kg Total mass of Ceres
-2.29E+19 kg Total mass of Psyche
1.44E+21 kg Remaining mass of asteroid belt
4.80E+20 kg Total Mass of Jupiter Trojans
1.50E+19 kg Total Mass of Saturn's rings
1.93E+21 kg Total available mass for cylinder building
1,750 kg / m^3 Density of compacted soil (1,500 to 2,000)
1.10E+18 m^3 Available volume
10 m Thickness required for gamma ray protection (1 m) and landscaping, foundation, etc.
1.10E+17 m^2 Available surface area
1.10E+11 km^2
Standard O'Neal Cylinder Dimensions
4.00 km radius
32.00 km length
804.25 km^2 surface area
137,278,244 each Number of O'Neal cylinders (almost 140 million)
3,000,000 each Population per cylinder (3 million people)
411,834,730,644,443 each Total cylinder population (over 400 trillion people)
9,000,000,000 Current Earth population (about 9 billion)
45,759 x About 45,000 x Earth's population
It makes Kirk's Federation and Darth Vader's Empire look small by comparison
Idea for 'Neal cylinder internal architecture: Instead of massive footings and deep foundations for tall buildings, suspend them like chandeliers from the central axis that the the cylinder is spinning around. Tether at the bottom a few meters from the interior cylinder walls to prevent them from swaying. No need for really thick cylinder walls to provide sufficient depth for building foundations.
ReplyDeleteBut then nobody gets a basement.
When I imagine O'Neill cylinders, the basement is between the inner Garden and the outer hull - where you put all the "ugly" stuff like engines, storage, factories, docking bays, engineering etc.
DeleteWhen I imagine O'Neill cylinders, the basement is between the inner Garden and the outer hull - where you put all the "ugly" stuff like engines, storage, factories, docking bays, engineering etc.
DeleteHeard on the Stephanie Miller radio show:
ReplyDelete"Tylenol researchers have found a disturbing connection between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein."
I recently had a weird thought: What If Trump does not protect himself, but Putin?
DeleteI mean, Don Vlad had a journalist killed after he suggestedthat he is a pedophile.
Is Putin in the files?
O'Neill colonies were the transcendental fixation of my 30s. Nerd-gaga before video games truly hi. And now it's AI and immortality.
ReplyDeleteIt will be hard to 'seal' the lava tubes.Possibly with spray foam but ideall ywith glass. Making one wonder about small underground nukes, sending waves of heat down channels in both directions....
It will be hard to 'seal' the lava tubes.
DeleteTwo ideas:
1) Create a parallel shaft and start in the middle. Build a floor and a ceiling, then pressurize it through the construction shaft. Repeat for the next levels.
2) Build a "Catheder" with two (better more) blocking balloons. Pressurize the area between the balloons and start construction of the permanent elements. Transport goes through the catheder.
Why stop at O'Neal colonies?
DeleteThe next size up are Bishop Rings.
There is enough carbon that can be extracted from the Venusian atmosphere that can be used to build massive carbon nanotube structures, from a giant sunshade that cools Venus and makes it livable (once all of the CO2 has been mined) to giant Bishop Ring habitats each providing the land area equivalent of India and all together providing living space equal to a dozen new Earths. The original proposal suggested a radius of 1,000 km and a width of 500 km, giving it a living area comparable to that of India or Argentina. Give it a 10 meter wall thickness for rugged durability and assurance against tensile failure caused by spin.
Bernal spheres are the size of towns. O'Neal cylinders are the size of cities. Nested/matryoshka O'Neal cylinders (with multiple cylinders inside each other at about 2 km radius intervals with each cylinder each providing a different level of g force) have a living space the size of a state. Bishop rings are the size of a large nation.
And unlike other theoretical megastructures (McKendree cylinders the size of continents having a radius equal to the distance from LA to NY, Earth rings providing a surface area equal to Earth and having a radius equal to Saturn's rings, Banks Orbitals with the surface area of 24,000 Earths and a radius of 4x the Moon's orbit, and Niven rings with the same radius as Earth's orbit and a surface area of 3 million Earths) can be built with existing materials - carbon nano tubes and graphene.
So the Trumpist position is that calling someone a Nazi is incitement to violence against that person and therefore prohibited speech? But acting the way Nazis do--including but not limited to inciting and even committing violence against their opponents--is not a problem?
ReplyDeleteThis despite the fact that the Constitution enshrines freedom of speech and not freedom of thuggery?
As Dave Sim once said, "Strange f***ing planet, man."
Trumps decrees are the actual constitution now.
DeleteAt least, that is what they want to achieve.
Watch out for the term "Self-defense of the state".
I can finally agree with a rumpT proclamation. He has indeed resolved the Azerbaijan-Albanian War, and there is peace between these two countries.
ReplyDeletePappenheimer, who had actually had to look up the footage to ensure this wasn't a hoax. He said that. Truly we live in the dumbest timeline.
P.S. I am also of the opinion that Trump is in the Epstein Files.
He didn't actually pronounce Azerbaijan correctly, did he?
Deletehttps://bsky.app/profile/rudepundit.bsky.social
ReplyDeleteWhat a weird-ass Rapture. Only the Constitution disappeared.
True dat.
Re the escalator.
ReplyDeleteLet's be fair. They were his hosts. He was their guests. There is no excuse for such a self-indulgent act that did more harm than goos. Whoever did it should be fired, along with their supervisor. We're the adults here. And while I am proud of Newsom getting under DT's skin (!) even deliberate immaturity should be outcome calculated and have some degree of honor.
True if they did it. It looks like one of Trump's people may have accidentally done it.
DeleteI watched his speech, especially the part were he spewed lies about us (Germany). I assume that he did that to hurt Annalena Baerbock, our former Green Foreign Secretary and now President of the UN Assembly.
DeleteTo quote her, "The UN Teleprompters work very well."
I saw claims that they may have been using their own teleprompters.
DeleteOne possible explanation I heard was, since some words in Trumps papers where written IN VERY LARGE LETTERS, they wanted to obscure Trumps current reading and visual capabilities.
DeleteApropos Albania:
ReplyDeleteThey appointed the world's first AI Minister.
https://www.politico.eu/article/albania-apppoints-worlds-first-virtual-minister-edi-rama-diella/
From the Military Times, about the possibly looming government shutdown...
ReplyDelete"Active-duty troops, including reserve component personnel on federal active duty would be required to continue to report for duty in the event of a shutdown, but their paychecks would stop until a new funding deal is reached, based on previous guidance."
I guess that whomever inserted this bit of golden guidance didn't review the history of Italian city-states that didn't pay their soldiers...
Re: O'Neill cylinders, in my youth I built paper models of a few using the Prof's guidelines, then realized years later that the only way they would be that nice and livable is if the owners lived there. Also, the only way to avoid a lot of extra rems from peak solar weather* is to either have no windows and massive shielding or build in low earth orbit, with more atmospheric drag and none of the stability of a Lagrange point. Also, you can't just have ONE cylinder, as often depicted (see Babylon 5).
*yes there is a section of the US military that monitors solar weather, and it still appears to be part of the USAF weather service. Thought it would have been nabbed by Space Force.
Pappenheimer
P.S. about the only way rumpT could have sounded more deranged at the UN is if he had announced he was ordering the US Rapid Reaction Force to the Straits of Dover to collect seashells.
Australian Senate Leader Penny Wong, at the UN, said Trump's ravings were 'about what she expected'.
DeleteThanks to exterior pv arrays and interior LED lighting windows are no longer needed to capture refected sunlight as in the original design. Removing windows also doubles interior living space
DeleteI'm not clear why we're about to hit a government shutdown in the first place. Wasn't the point of One Big Beautiful Bill (tm) to pass a budget, however deranged? What happened?
DeleteSenator Scott Wiener knows about the Reichstag fire, and thinks this Executive Order is the moment it was lit:
ReplyDeletehttps://bsky.app/profile/scottwiener.bsky.social/post/3lzpijiglrc2j
re: O'Neil cylinders
ReplyDeleteOne solution is to keep the cylinder pointing at the sun along its long axis with a non-spinning disc as a radiation shield in between the end of the cylinder and the sun
Non-spinning means no real strength requirement so can be made of any old crap and would be a good place to store raw materials and waste
The required sunlight would be directed by mirrors - which will reflect visible light but not high energy crap
IMHO the BEST place for the first few cylinders is in Mars orbit to use the raw materials already there waiting for us (Deimos and Phobos)
Mars would be useful for aerocapture to Mars orbit
A pattern emerges:
ReplyDeleteViolence or embarrassing eff-up happens to a right-wing personality.
The right, including the occupant of the Oval Office and the DOJ vow fire and brimstone vengeance against the radical left
It turns out to be a MAGA white guy responsible for the event
The right, including the occupant of the Oval Office and the DOJ vow fire and brimstone vengeance against the radical left
Rinse and repeat
The problem with this executive order is that it will summon what it claims to banish.
Delete@Larry,
ReplyDeleteThe OBBB sets priorities, but doesn't actually appropriate the funds. Each year 12 appropriations bills have to be passed. The 12 Regular Appropriations Bills
1. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration
2. Commerce, Justice, Science (covers things like DOJ, FBI, NASA, NOAA)
3. Defense (Pentagon, military operations)
4. Energy and Water Development (DOE, Army Corps of Engineers)
5. Financial Services and General Government (Treasury, IRS, courts, SBA, SEC)
6. Homeland Security (DHS, Border Patrol, FEMA, TSA, Coast Guard)
7. Interior and Environment (EPA, National Park Service, BLM, Fish & Wildlife)
8. Labor, Health and Human Services, Education (HHS, Medicare admin, NIH, DOE)
9. Legislative Branch (funds Congress itself)
10. Military Construction and Veterans Affairs
11. State and Foreign Operations (State Department, USAID, international programs)
12. Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
Currently none have been passed for the 2026 fiscal year which starts Oct. 1st.
https://bsky.app/profile/newsjennifer.bsky.social/post/3lzpb5k7e4s2f
ReplyDelete"Former U.S. attorney [ from Illinois! ] Patrick Fitzgeral[d] will represent Comey in the case."
This will be quite a match-up: Trump's personal attorney who has never tried a case vs former Chicago U.S. Attny Fitzgerald who among other things "went after the Gambino crime family, al-Qaida and even the White House in court — not to mention several Illinois politicians"
Oh, my. Popcorn time?
True, although Roy Cohn, criminal(!) lawyer and Trump's early guiding light , was prone to say "I don't need to know the Law, I need to know who the judge is!"
DeleteCan't help but worry about the meeting of military brass in DC with Hegseth. Has the feeling of a takeover of sorts. If this is any way effectively done (whatever they do) I'd really like to know who is designing these attacks on the US. I know he's treasonous buddies with Putin. But who is the go between?
ReplyDeleteI think it is not a "who", but a "what": Ideology.
DeleteI feel reminded of the moment when Hitler demanded an oath of loyalty to him (not that most did not willingly swear it) and Milleys own "No Kings" speech.
Prepare to loose 150-200, possible more, generals & admirals, maybe in a shameful way.
These officers will have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, which (literally) trumps any demands for personal oaths of loyalty. Such a scenario would make for an interesting conversation in the room.
DeleteI doubt that they will do anything as blatant as seeking personal loyalty oaths but if they do the generals could arrest Hegseth and possibly even Trump for sedition. I don't think this would be covered by Presidential immunity.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/opinion/maga-trump-debate-kirk.html
ReplyDelete...
Here I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 address at Cooper Union, where he defends his opposition to the expansion of slavery. Responding to Southern critics who insisted that the Republican Party was a conspiracy to abolish slavery, Lincoln said that the truth of the situation was that there was nothing either Republicans or the entire North could say, short of outright submission to the slave South, that would calm Southern anger or assuage the South’s paranoia:
What will convince them? This, and this only: Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them.
We can say something similar of our time. Neither Trump nor the MAGA right wants to discuss or deliberate; it wants to dominate. American politics is no longer a fight over policy; it is a fight over the character of the nation itself. The task of this moment, then, is to defend the old vision of a more perfect union — of a more democratic and egalitarian American republic — not hope that one can avoid the fight by having the right conversation.
Sounds about right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/business/media/daily-caller-opinion-violence.html
ReplyDelete...
The [Daily Caller] column, written by editor at large Geoffrey Ingersoll and promoted near the top of the site, argues that “patriots” should use force because law enforcement officials do not adequately protect conservatives, including Charlie Kirk, the activist assassinated this month.
“Is this a call for violence?” the third paragraph says. “Yes. Explicitly it is.”
“I want blood in the streets,” he added in the column, which ran with the headline “Enough Is Enough … I Choose VIOLENCE!”
...
OMG, they're quoting Cersei from Game of Thrones as a role model now.
* * *
Are liberals fed up with ICE atrocities also justified in being so fed up we choose violence? I didn't think so. The meme from this administration is that violence motivated by a thirst for justice is terrorism, and violence motivated by support for thuggish authoritarianism is justified.
"The world is upside down," and this time not in a good sense.
The Burning Platform has chosen to honour Dr Brin's wisdom in its quotes-of-the-day section, linked below:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/09/26/quotes-of-the-day-3072/
Best
Speaker Johnson's refusal to seat new Rep. Griljalva is not just about 218 votes to force the Epstein papers public reelase - it is also a trial run to see if he can refuse to seat the next Congress after possible GOP losses.
ReplyDeletehttps://electionlawblog.org/?p=152266
POTUS declaring war on my hometown of Portland is not about using "full military force" against "Antifa," it is a test run of martial law to prevent the midterms.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddmn6ge6e2o
SecDef calling 800+ flag officers and their most senior staff NCOs in for a well-publicized meeting in person is an invitation for a decapitation of the military, either via the drunk SecDef purging the ranks and demanding loyalty oaths (Night of Long Knives) or via a terror strike on the officers as they assemble.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/hegseth-generals-surprise-meeting
The GOP is trying to end all possible democratic resistance to Trump's autocracy right now, in unsubtle ways.
Re: Flagg officer meeting:
ReplyDeleteDid I understand that correctly?
Hegseth invites possibly thousands of trained soldiers, some of them Special Forces, to the same location, were they could get proof that their civilian commanders violate the constitution they are sworn to protect?
Did the guy with military press corps training and substance abuse problem think that through?
Also, being an hotel owner in that area must be a very busy time ... All those Chinese and Russians tourists suddenly rushing to the area...
Another cheerful thought: A lot of them have 20+ years experience in battling insurrections ... That is certainly an area of proficiency that can be used in different ways.
Delete@Der Oger, yes, I'm kinda holding my breath wondering what all of those militarily-proficient career officers whose oath is to defend the Constitution might accomplish.
DeleteI know our side is supposed to play it cool and not encourage or support defying the authorities, as anything of that sort that we say will be used against us in the court of public opinion. But I'm reminded of the truism that Anne Frank was breaking the law by hiding, and whoever turned her in to the Nazis was obeying the law. When the law becomes tyranny, rebellion becomes duty.
The president may legally take control of our states' National Guards, but he cannot legally commandeer municipal or state police or county sheriffs' departments. I'm starting to wonder if a new Civil War looks like California police enforcing the no-masks law by arresting ICE agents, and what an armed standoff or armed confrontation between such groups would look like,
We might find out soon.
If the governors of blue states seize the opportunity, they have a large pool of experienced and well-trained future employees at their disposal.
DeleteAs will those nations who value them over the fickle relationship they have with the current regime. Canada and Denmark may have a special interest, as well as Finnland and the Baltics.
Calling them all together isn't very smart. They'd be able to compare notes and decide as a group whether or not they'd been given an illegal order. The toughest thing about those decisions is standing out, so issuing one to a group makes it much easier.
Deletehttps://bsky.app/profile/rexhuppke.bsky.social/post/3lzrhaapuac2t
DeleteHegseth at meeting with U.S. generals:
“I’m here to explain to you what it means to be a warrior.”
**hair gel drips into his eye**
“Ow! Get me my makeup towel!!”
**reaches for towel, flask falls from pocket**
“I would say I’m sorry, but that’s WOKE!”
**trips and knocks over “WARRIOR!” sign**
Wouldn't that be loverly?
I have the distinct feeling Hegseths confidence and courage will be ... found lacking if he looses his position and encounters someone he can't bully.
DeleteHuh. While I don't remember explicitly saying that - as cited by locum - it certainly is something I WOULD say.
ReplyDeleteRonan Farrow does a very brief dissection of the farthest right movements in the USA that eagerly seek to bring down every aspect of the nation that we have known.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.instagram.com/reel/DPFFecdANLE/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
onward
ReplyDeleteonward