tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146619512024-03-07T14:48:15.930-08:00Gumptionologyno shortcuts to living right... but <i>maybe</i> you can learn to "take the corners" better<br>
..............................and be more effective in the world. <b>would that be cool or what?</b>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-52187619277132434372012-02-14T08:10:00.000-08:002012-02-14T08:15:10.378-08:00THE ONLY VALENTINE I WILL WRITE THIS YEARAll you lovers, misfits, losers, morose midnight self-medicated singers of "Downtown Train"... All you scrappers and quitters and once-more-with-feelingers... And most of all, every one of you this-is-the-last-straw-I-just-don't-know-what-to-doers. <span style="font-weight:bold;">I love every one of you magnificent bastards,</span> even when you kill yourselves because you can't endure <span style="font-style:italic;">the one impossible thing.</span> And I forgive you for that. But mostly, I hope you didn't regret pulling the trigger, because that would suck, wouldn't it? Happy Valentine's Day. STICK AROUND, IT JUST MIGHT ACTUALLY GET BETTER.<br /><br />--Michael M. Butler, aka "Nortius Maximus"<br /><br />PS: Try not to eat any more of <a href="http://www.threewordphrase.com/balogna.htm">this</a> if you've had enough, OK?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-53922176945454349732012-01-23T12:56:00.001-08:002012-02-14T08:17:44.525-08:00Googlewhack Minus One, Incremented.A good friend of mine just found that Google could not find any match in the entire Intertubes for<br /><br />excelsior etymology<br /><br />Well! We know what to do about that, don't we? While he continues to look for the actual etymology of the word "excelsior", we might as well play a little at the SEO game. Excelsior!<br /><br />Nort<br /><br />PS: Been a long time. Let's see what happens with this blog, shall we?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Update: The failure to find was either pilot error or a momentary lapse on Google's part. The "good friend of mine" was me. See next post for the decloak.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-73379254351764317352008-12-17T23:04:00.001-08:002008-12-18T03:39:20.989-08:00Cooking, health and cognitive therapy for both<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtocF3UV2lq06BerD_9UwMZlssuneq5qyLo42XZAZq6oiQ7ouSL6Kr0DBWYdgL2vWYqNYdCWEHEZriRKmZkPPGZqi72taBDv8BG5o3efmm-wLmvLSooVDaKIQQjIhwp1Wb5BGe/s1600-h/FoC.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 100px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtocF3UV2lq06BerD_9UwMZlssuneq5qyLo42XZAZq6oiQ7ouSL6Kr0DBWYdgL2vWYqNYdCWEHEZriRKmZkPPGZqi72taBDv8BG5o3efmm-wLmvLSooVDaKIQQjIhwp1Wb5BGe/s320/FoC.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281030170054328610" /></a>For now: This is a quickie <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Weinberg-Writing-Fieldstone-Gerald-M/dp/093263365X">"fieldstone"</a> for a general Quality / gumption matter. Food can be very uninspiring if you let it be. And when you eat easy-to-find prepared food products what you see when you look in the mirror can be a real gumption drain too. <br /><br />A lot of people, many of them guys, grew up without really <span style="font-style:italic;">getting </span>cooking. A lot of non-guys might have, too, I can't speak with authority about that.<br /><br />There's a Zappa song called <span style="font-style:italic;">The Dangerous Kitchen</span> <a href="http://lyricwiki.org/Frank_Zappa:The_Dangerous_Kitchen">[lyrics here]</a> which sort of sums up some of the concerns (warning: lyrics are not entirely polite). Frank himself is reported to have generally limited his own cooking to jabbing a fork into a hot dog right out of the 'fridge and then cooking it over a stovetop gas burner until it blackened -- the eponymous <a href="http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Burnt_Weeny_Sandwich"><i>Burnt Weenie Sandwich.</i></a><br /><br />Bob Scher wrote a nifty little book (out of print, dammit) called <span style="font-style:italic;">The Fear of Cooking</span>, which I dearly love <a href="http://books.regehr.org/reviews/fearofcooking.html">[short review here]</a>.<br /><br />Comes now further news of a website called <a href="http://www.cookingforengineers.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Cooking for Engineers</span></a> -- well, actually, I'd heard about it a while ago. <br /><br />The point of all that is that a lot of people are developmentally limited when it comes to cooking. And by the time they're adult it can be really easy to either lose gumption entirely or lose zest and just fuel the meat machine mechanically--and either way, wind up eating fast food and high-calorie low-quality foods like <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/news/upcoming_date_only_thing_between">peanut butter straight off a spoon.</a> <br /><br />We can do better than that. I'm living proof. Or I hope to be, soon. :)<br /><br />The last time I was close to "fightin' weight", I was so broke I managed to be on a sort of caloric restriction. Well, now I've got a high-quality pedometer -- a Yamax DIGI-WALKER SW200, thank you very much, with a precision pendulum movement, not the cheapass $12 clicky-ball P.o.S. from Big 5 -- and I'm deliberately parking at the wrong end of parking lots so I can put in at least one extra mile of walking, every day. But I still have the tendency to procrastinate and loll in bed until I have to rush to work, and then I can't do some of the walking-- no time!<br /><br />My personal goal is to fill my mornings with morsels: low-glycemic-index, tiny wonderful tasting treats (<a href="http://www.clawson.co.uk/prod_detail.asp?product_id=43">there is a ginger mango CHEESE out there in the world; can you IMAGINE such a thing?</a>); and use that as leverage to (a) get my ass out of bed with a spring in my step and (b) get me more concerned with the experience of gustatory Quality and less with stuffing my maw until the mass-market container of Food Court / Franchise {x} Bad Food is empty.<br /><br />There's a wonderful story I want to relate about <a href="http://mfkfisher.com/">M. F. K. Fisher</a> (it concerns her father, too), but that will have to wait.<br /><br />I bet I lose weight and have fun too. Let's see if I'm right.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-69132679304723562172008-10-15T00:26:00.000-07:002008-10-15T00:28:15.516-07:00QOTD: freedom<blockquote>freedom<br /><br />My two dogs<br />tied to a tree<br />by a ten-foot leash<br />kept whining and howling for an hour<br />till I let them off.<br /><br />Now they are lying quietly on the grass<br />a few feet further from the tree<br />and they haven't moved since I let them go.<br /><br />Freedom may be<br />only an idea<br />but it's a matter of principle<br />even to a dog.<br /><br />-- Louis Dudek</blockquote><br /><br />Amen, brother, amen.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-84095054699123077582008-10-08T22:27:00.000-07:002008-10-08T22:35:57.620-07:00Worthy of the Presidency<a href="http://www.nmatv.com/video/127/Bill-Cosby-on-Parenting">This Guy.</a><br /><br />At the moment this video doesn't require registration to view. It's 26 minutes long. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Make popcorn.</span><br /><br />I'd vote for this guy over either of the major candidates in a New York nanosecond. He's got the Palin "outsider" thing and blackness and all sorts of stuff going for him.<br /><br />Plus, I don't think he'd want the job. That's a winning element right there, along the Cincinnatus / <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williamfb400600.html">Buckley "phone book" line</a> (The number's up to 635 now, from 400, but you get the drift).<br /><br />And I <span style="font-weight:bold;">know</span> he'd drop dead before appearing with a pre-Presidential seal on his podium.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-26985969752213919172008-09-14T16:14:00.000-07:002008-09-14T16:20:25.637-07:00Bat bloodstreams blown-out by blades?OK, this is truly sad/strange. Calgary researcher seem to have found that an inordinate seeming number of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRqu4WiLQfk&feature=user">bats are being killed by wind turbines not from outright collisions but due to the pressure drop near the lifting surfaces damaging the capillaries in their little batty lungs...</a><br /><br />Sigh. Ain't <span style="font-weight:bold;">nothin'</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">simple.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-25351703147074254902008-09-05T00:37:00.000-07:002008-09-05T00:42:10.462-07:00A love not offered lightly<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/pmfrick/petition.html">Please go to, read and sign this petition.</a><br /><br />If you don't know of Rick Rescorla yet, you'll feel like a better person once you do.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1123289138060129772008-09-02T17:45:00.000-07:002008-09-02T21:01:37.986-07:00QOTD: In TenebrisI recall that people have been asking me to tell more about myself. Herewith, the motto of my house, as rendered by me with some assistance from an unnamed classicist: <span style="font-style: italic;">In tenebris omnia vexilli glaucus sunt.</span> In serviceable English: <span style="font-style:italic;">In the dark all flags are gray</span>. <br /><br /><br />Footnotes:<br />Latin doesn't actually have one word that means exactly "gray". "Glaucus" also means cloudy. "In tenebris" can also be translated as "in doubt".<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-61135799279796888972008-09-02T12:18:00.000-07:002008-09-02T22:14:04.492-07:00Sometimes it gets to me<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqfcI8Uh8BT9FWDSXbokdguFslvkS8_h3doajxVixEvcCRTRzEuTIL4CBPrVVpnZPdJVDaHyNj6qOCr4dUXkQ7e7a2_gpFw-U66XDk-rwzue_stLEpRGrHaoAbKgwPV8L2N64/s1600-h/Criticulbatcat.png"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqfcI8Uh8BT9FWDSXbokdguFslvkS8_h3doajxVixEvcCRTRzEuTIL4CBPrVVpnZPdJVDaHyNj6qOCr4dUXkQ7e7a2_gpFw-U66XDk-rwzue_stLEpRGrHaoAbKgwPV8L2N64/s320/Criticulbatcat.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241635964240274866" /></a>[Original draft date: 2008.06.20, approximately]<br />Yes, long time no blog. Today I want to talk briefly about innumeracy and incompetence. Two examples follow.<br /><br />1. Recently on <i>Winds of Change</i> a visitor reactivated an old thread to tell the readers it's implausible (/impossible) a plane with an over-100-foot wingspan could only make a roughly round hole less than 20 feet in diameter in the Pentagon. I'm afraid we following posters were not kind to that person.<br /><br />2. Lately, someone I know who sells electronic parts and tools has been being deluged with customers who want to build "hydrogen generators" for their cars, to "double their gas mileage". These people are not, it appears, able to respond <span style="font-style:italic;">numerately</span> to my exploration: if they <span style="font-style:italic;">could </span>double their gas mileage, it would probably mean that they are (at present efficiency) blowing enough hydrocarbons out their tailpipe to blind the drivers behind them: assuming 20 mpg, taking 3800 cc/gal, that's a specific fuel consumption of 190 cc per mile. Half that is about three fluid ounces of unburned fuel out the tailpipe every mile. Hmm. I don't think that's anywhere near the numbers I get when they smog my car, either standing still or on the dyno. I wonder why?<br /><br />Yes, I know there are probably all sorts of "analyses" available for why that approach is wrong-headed, some even involving *gasp* math stuff -- work diagrams and stuff about how <i>vigorously</i> steam expands. But my point is that these guys who come in to the store are just <a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/2006/01/phrases-pumpkin-eaters.html">Pumpkin-Eaters</a>, as far as he or I can tell. They Want To Believe.<br /><br />Folks, I don't have the time to grab each one of you and tell you "No. No, that's not happening." And you don't even want to hear it. What you want is to build your hydrogen generator, or spout your conspiracy theory, because that way it feels like you're not just some sort of passive spectator.<br /><br />I understand the urge. <a href="http://www.ohnorobot.com/index.pl?comic=56&s=breaks+my+heart&search=Search">It is being misdirected.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-82900307328443139152008-09-02T10:26:00.000-07:002008-09-02T11:25:06.291-07:00What's wrong with this picture?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrV0b6ORHPl0T-Sqon8ZT8YzMm4pxDzeQ_ppL1lF91Giybyp1iKCKFvuYcxbpE2wGUgPpov0rtRwSiezOCEW-ReK2m3UnWMNrzA_zshil89M_tuaLDo6VQOlcfTc2KOVTmkX7/s1600-h/nosunspots.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrV0b6ORHPl0T-Sqon8ZT8YzMm4pxDzeQ_ppL1lF91Giybyp1iKCKFvuYcxbpE2wGUgPpov0rtRwSiezOCEW-ReK2m3UnWMNrzA_zshil89M_tuaLDo6VQOlcfTc2KOVTmkX7/s200/nosunspots.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241477239410685810" /></a>Behold, I bring you The Immaculate Sol. Spotless, just the way the Holy Roman Church and countless scholastic authorities envisioned it before that pesky Galileo got up to his naughty antics with optics and revealed that usually, the sun has acne.<br /><br />NOAA has changed their minds about whether our sun had 0 spots or one really tiny little zit when this picture was taken. Either way, we are at a stark solar minimum.<br /><br />Why does this matter? Quoting from the <a href="http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+History+First+Spotless+Month+in+a+Century/article12823.htm">Daily Tech</a>:<blockquote>Solar physicist Ilya Usoskin of the University of Oulu, Finland, tells DailyTech the correlation between cosmic rays and terrestrial cloud cover is more complex than "more rays equals more clouds". Usoskin, who notes the sun has been more active since 1940 than at any point in the past 11 centuries, says the effects are most important at certain latitudes and altitudes which control climate. He says the relationship needs more study before we can understand it fully.<br /></blockquote>See, solar activity affects the solar magnetosphere which affects the Earth's magnetosphere which changes how many and powerful are the cosmic rays that get through. Which might change the nucleation of clouds, which would change cloud cover, which would change net insolation at the ground and in the troposphere. Got all that?<br /><br />More from the Daily Tech:<blockquote>Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.<br /><br />But this year -- which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 -- has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.<br /><br />In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.<br /><br />The journal ultimately rejected the paper as being too controversial.<br /></blockquote>I bet they did. See, protracted solar somnolence is correlated with <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ice Ages</span> (see: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum">Maunder Minimum</a>), and we all know <span style="font-style:italic;">that </span>fad died out with Peter Gabriel's fan base, right? (His <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9JS8dJ9fY">"Here Comes the Flood"</a> was inspired by the idea that an ice age was upon us, with a side order of Nuclear Winter. I like the song, as a meditation on folly and fate... but.)<br /><br /><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/search?q=ignorance">Zany madcap environmentalismist hijinks will doubtless ensue.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-54822771201389820482008-09-01T23:56:00.000-07:002008-09-02T00:28:57.412-07:00Phlat: the new phat?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZ07HjbMmud6sdzqYZtd-r8ItfJ49NeMdVYI_Q9JHudbU73T1KaXRU86rjGKQ5-4uYGG_OiEQ17Uxv4NGwrsT9XU2RdW1NuNewgap6sEyJ1D-zmPe2ZBYuZAqEPvfOggCPLLi/s1600-h/flatworm.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZ07HjbMmud6sdzqYZtd-r8ItfJ49NeMdVYI_Q9JHudbU73T1KaXRU86rjGKQ5-4uYGG_OiEQ17Uxv4NGwrsT9XU2RdW1NuNewgap6sEyJ1D-zmPe2ZBYuZAqEPvfOggCPLLi/s400/flatworm.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241317296444224002" /></a><br />1) Constant Readers will recall I wrote a post a while ago about the imminent <a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html">death knell for the incandescent lamp.</a> Another hurdle seems to have been crossed: LEDs are starting to become practical for use as rear-projection light sources to replace halogens. I give you <a href="http://www.luminus.com/content1034">the Luminus Technologies Phlatlight.</a> "Phlat" is not just 'hood-speak, it's a contraction of "Photon Lattice". <a href="http://www.electronichouse.com/article/phlatlight_a_new_source_of_illumination/">Wizzy tech/consumer article here.<br /></a><br />2) Another thing with "flatness" in its name: There's an open-online-content textbook company starting up. <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/minisite/">Flat World Knowledge LLC.</a> They hope to sell hard copies at a profit. Me, I want the fast feedback for corrigenda that this sort of thing could, and morally ought to, provide. Man, I <span style="font-style:italic;">hate</span> spending $70 on a textbook and then finding out the author can't be bothered to publish fixes. Such as a certain de Anza College professor who wrote one of the the most popular college-course networking fundamentals texts extant. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ahem.</span><br /><br />3) Then there's the new info about the Antikythera Machine, most of the works of which were probably cut from a single sheet of metal 2 mm thick. Permit me to direct you to <a href="http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/the_antikythera_mechanism.php">this <i>Winds of Change</i> post</a> where you'll find links in the original entry and in the follow-on comments. Show Joe Katzman some love, why don't you?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1104134871142647702008-08-31T03:56:00.000-07:002008-09-01T09:44:39.686-07:00ZOMG ROFLMAOTSETUNGNot merely a hat tip, but a grand flourishy Musketeer-type courtly doff of my hat, whilst making a long leg, to <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/30/nor-long-remember/">Wretchard at the recently-relocated Belmont Club.<br /><br /></a> At bottom of the linked post, he points to a (now <del>not</del> readable at no monetary cost by mere humans who are willing to submit to a registration gauntlet) NYTimes article. Below is my excerpt of his setup and a sweet secant thereof. <del>I can only wish I could</del> <del>I encourage interested parties to RTWT.</del> [Later: a pity it doesn't stay that delicious all the way through; it devolves into an Iowahawkesque send-up of Obama, which weakens the nonpartisan aspect both Wretchard and I draw from the excerpts we chose to post]<br /><blockquote>David Brooks captured the pompous, yet unreal quality of modern political debate in a satiric, cutting, fictional convention speech. Brooks lampooned the phenomenon of words upstaging reality. Brooks imagined a statesman telling his rapt audience:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">My fellow Americans, it is an honor to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.”<br /><br />One path before us leads to the past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely.<br /><br />We must close the book on the bleeding wounds of the old politics of division and sail our ship up a mountain of hope and plant our flag on the sunrise of a thousand tomorrows with an American promise that will never die! For this election isn’t about the past or the present, or even the pluperfect conditional. It’s about the future, and Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.</span></blockquote>Yes. This is truly the essence of modern political speechifying as she is spoke. It's not just the Dems who do this, of course. It's merely one strain of the common amphigory of every <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Claghorn-Starring-Lockhart-Douglass-Dumbrille/dp/B0013J3QPI">Senator Claghorn</a> and <a href="http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/8450/Buckleyroutines/Lord_Buckley/Governor_Slugwell10.html">Gov. Slingwell Slugwell</a> on the stump. <i>{Hooray for Slugwell!!!}</i><br /><br />And thanks for Sarah Palin for maybe, just maybe, breaking that mold a bit.<br /><br />[Edited after a kindly soul clued me in to the "free reg" option at the NYT. So I created a fake-data NYT login account named pissedoffuser with a password of pissed -- I wonder how long that one will work?<br /><br />There's a point where Mr Brooks goes the Monty Python "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch one better:<br /><blockquote><i>As a child, I was abandoned by my parents and lived with a colony of ants. We didn’t have much in the way of material possession, but we did have each other and the ability to carry far more than our own body weights. When I was young, I was temporarily paralyzed in a horrible anteater accident, but I never gave up my dream: the dream of speaking at a national political convention so my speech could be talked over by Wolf Blitzer and a gang of pundits.</i></blockquote>Yeah, that's the real deal. That's Quality there.]<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-83310042765779615742008-08-24T15:16:00.001-07:002008-08-24T15:24:11.600-07:00Hiatus? What Hiatus?Here's a link to a beautiful quick demonstration of inattentional blindness.<br /><br />Richard Wiseman's <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=voAntzB7EwE">AMAZING COLOR CHANGING CARD TRICK (via Youtube)</a>.<br /><br />I will avoid putting spoilers here, but I do think it worth commenting on. Maybe soon.<br /><br />Hat tip to Jeff Fry via the AST's <a href="http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/drupal/June.2008.pdf">AST UPDATE</a> pdf zine.<br /><br />The next time you are facing a gumption trap in your life, I hope you can find a way to consider, in a more relaxed and constructive way: Hmmm. What is it I'm <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> paying attention to?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-21488505588577704422007-12-25T21:34:00.000-08:002007-12-25T21:52:22.275-08:00Popularity Contest<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="40%"><ol><br /><i><br /><li>effect </li><br /><li>apathetic</li><br /><li>affect</li><br /><li>integrity</li><br /><li>metaphor</li><br /><li>google</li><br /><li>pretentious</li><br /><li>awkward</li><br /><li>eclectic</li><br /><li>ambiguous</li><br /></i><br /></ol> </td> <td width="65"><br /></td> <td valign="top" width="40%"> <ol start="11"><br /><i><br /><li>conundrum</li><br /><li>whether</li><br /><li>quixotic</li><br /><li>albeit</li><br /><li>melancholy</li><br /><li>love</li><br /><li>democracy</li><br /><li>paradigm</li><br /><li>didactic</li><br /><li>hypocrite</li><br /></i><br /></ol></td></tr></tbody></table>These are a few of my favorite things. (Not -- many are often used in a hackneyed fashion. Still, it pays to increase your word power, and this list was based on queries, not use on the Web.)<br /><br />"Meanwhile, slipping off the list were <i>hypothesis</i>, <i>caveat</i>, and <i>gorgeous</i>. <i>Caveat</i> only slipped to No. 23, so we're sure we haven't seen the last of this one."<br /><br />Sort of a caveat caveat, eh?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.word.com/unabridged/archives/2007/11/october_top_twe_1.html">Link.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-88433726660782633962007-11-22T21:38:00.000-08:002007-11-22T21:55:50.217-08:00Thanksgiving 2007: be glad you're not in the hospitalI've got several things to blog about, after a long hiatus. First things first, though.<br /><br />If you're one of the people who check in here hoping to see new stuff, or wondering wth is up, look forward to stuff in the near future; I am budgeting time every week to work on posts starting tomorrow.<br /><br />As far as wth is up... I'm alive and feeling fine, though I had a moderately severe fall recently and am right now going through "max Q"... The pain after a spill seems to peak at around 48 hours post trauma and it appears to be right on schedule.<br /><br />Random observation: celebrity proggies Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace Quaid apparently recently fell subject to a classic hospital goof: somebody figured a dosage wrong and <a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-11-22T092645Z_01_N21186369_RTRUKOC_0_US-QUAID.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Entertainment+NewsNews-4">gave them</a> milli (1o^-3) instead of micro (10^-6) amounts -- of Heparin. Not good, as it's a potent anticoagulant.<br /><br />Wild-*ssed thought: This just might actually be one of the few sensible reasons to use an English-style system for doses rather than metric. Slipped decimal points, and in particular milli vs micro errors, aka three orders of magnitude, happen in hospitals a lot more often than they should, often when there is time pressure, such as in neonatal units and emergency departments.<br /><br />Problem with that is that there is no extant system of quirky drams and gills and fathoms for quantities that small. Bummer.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-31966565947647248142007-07-13T04:43:00.000-07:002007-07-13T22:04:08.973-07:00Notes that Clay Shirky probably already wrote better<span style="font-weight: bold;">==Update: Welcome, Winds of Change readers!==<br />Check comment #1 on this thread,</span> then pop back up here for the details of my category scheme. Thanks for visiting. Let's be civil, shall we?<br /><br />In the cheery nonsequitur of an R. Crumb doodle: "Hi.... Let's get going!"<br /><br />I want to get this out for review by my seven loyal readers even in rough form. I am probably building a square sandstone prototype of a Michelin racing radial that's already out there somewhere. Let me know if that's so.<br /><br />I've been ruminating about some curious cultural concerns inspired by my stint "tending bar" (unpaid, it's a labor of love) over at <a href="http://windsofchange.net/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Winds of Change</span></a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed: there are four kinds of online entities/personae, </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">viz.:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Open<br /></span><a href="http://alumnus.caltech.edu/%7Ezimm/vinge.html">True Name</a> used; or Nym (pseudonym/cognomen/nom de blog), if any, is [now] well known, or easily discoverable as one-to-one with True Name (barring hoaxes, ID theft).<br />Single-persona penalties and rewards. Deniability is circumscribed (modulo convincing evidence of impersonation/ID theft, etc.) Easily libeled / harassed / made afraid in some circumstances (e.g. Kathy Sierra kerfuffle, any number of other RL cases). Reputation and future data mining are up in the data cloud "forever" for all.<br />Seen as a "straight shooter" as long as there are no unpleasant surprises.<br />Iterated prisoner's dilemma is full strength or close to it.<br />Open entities might not make their backchannels readily available, but by Six Degrees mythos everybody has to have one, the trick is to know who/howto ask.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">BAR STEREOTYPE (BS): The guy who comes into the bar and shows you his wallet full of kid pictures. You have his business card somewhere, so you know where he works.<br /></div> <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Upstanding</span><br />Nym is a cognomen to a few insiders or none; is in place for reasons sufficient to the entity,<br />but there are mutltiple open channels of communication, and a stable ID/"Brand". Though True Name isn't common knowledge, some body of work is, and there is a working backchannel.<br />Deniability is still circumscribed; possibility of multiple, all Upstanding, Nyms for<br />different facets/roles across Web.<br />Potential for fewer penalties, fewer rewards.<br />ID/reputation of an Upstanding entity can still turn out to be built on sand.<br />Standard "what's he got to hide?" "You think you're cute with that fake name" etc. side-effects<br />In the long run, usage and pattern analysis will out; the True Name is vulnerable through an extension of the Deja News/Wayback Machine Effects.<br />Notion:<br /> Upstanding-ness has degrees, but measure is not objective, it's contingent on<br /> norms that "go without saying" for most people.<br />Conjecture:<br /><div style="text-align: center;">relatively rich immersive environments such as Second Life, Worlds of Warcraft<br />can connect peers to trust/loyalty by activating neuro-anatomical wiring that is<br />unavailable to pure-text denizens of blogs/Facebook/Livejournal/etc.<br /></div>Conjecture on prior conjecture:<br /> what a <span style="font-style: italic;">crock!</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">BS: The guy you've played darts with in the bar for months--<br />but you only know his nickname. One of you owes the other for drinks.<br />Neither of you is worried about collecting.<br />You probably wouldn't loan him your car, but you might let him be the designated driver.<br /></div> <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Obscure-Persistent </span><br />Nym only. "No Fixed Address": True Name / stable ID / link, e.g. working email, Nym-associated blog are all lacking. Without account- or post-by-post validation, any such entity will be be Obscure to all observers and <span style="font-style: italic;">habitués</span>. With such, they will be less obscure to some.<br />Some observers don't know or care either way. For privacy's sake, most <span style="font-weight: bold;">can't know</span> on <span style="font-style: italic;">WoC</span>; by design, only Marshals can see the IP and (claimed) email address.<br />ID unity/entity_continuity is inferred through tone, topics, IP addresses, quirks and habits.<br />Most sock puppets seem to be Obscure, though some qualify as Oblique.<br />Obscure entities seem to be more impulsive/less concerned with milieu than Open or Upstanding ones, though it is hard to measure that objectively.<br />Ironically, lack of backchannel/offlist comm makes vocal O-Ps anything BUT obscure in the long run, unless they are exceptionally well-mannered. This leads to a lowering of post quality due to noise and thread derailment or outright hijacking. Not that that is the only contributor to those.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">BS (worst case): The guy who comes into the bar and turns his hearing aid off.<br />When he gets irritated, he wants the world to know about it.<br />Maybe it's why he's in the bar.<br /></div> <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Oblique/Cryptic</span><br />Team pen names, comical parodical posts, other? May be obscure or not; validation of claimed ID under the pen name is generally difficult. High maintenance for readers. Eyes glaze over. Drive-bys are easiest. "Anonymous Coward" on Slashdot is a prime example; the many pen names of Kierkegaard serve as another. Also, of course, Bourbaki in mathematics.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">BS: Hard to categorize. Could be a creep, could be a nebbish,<br />could be just some poor salaryman in for a quick nip after work,<br />with a joke to tell. Could be a geeeeeenius. So?<br /><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1168295036828257492007-01-08T14:02:00.000-08:002007-01-08T16:22:07.256-08:00Write. Think. Learn.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2607/1334/1600/823662/Phren.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2607/1334/320/953998/Phren.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I'm still far from as gumptious as I wish to be; the lack of activity here indexes that.<br /><br />My current "hammock" is that I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">just enough better off</span> financially than I was four months ago that I can <span style="font-style: italic;">get by</span> without really getting passionate about anything, including self-improvement, learning, making new friends... I did spend the New Years' weekend visiting friends and acquaintances who have a higher setpoint than I, and it was invigorating, but the buzz has ebbed a week later.<br /><br />Now comes this, via Kathy Sierra over at <a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/">"Creating Passionate Users"</a>: a slideshow by Michael A. Covington:<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span><a href="http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn_files/frame.htm">"How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span>Learn Complex Material More Easily"</a> .<br /><div class="sldNum"><br />I haven't absorbed it all, and I sure haven't applied it yet, but it appears to be good stuff, including some commentary on epistemology (the study of how we know what we know). Mmm, yummy epistemology.<br /><br />Someone (I think it was Charles Fort) once said "to measure a circle, begin anywhere".<br /><br />When I'm stuck in ruminating about my failings and limitations, there's little room for improvement -- the possibility of change gets crowded out. I'm noticing I've spent another large chunk of time there lately.<br /><br />I won't apologize; nobody asked me to do that :) . I'll just make a silent pledge to myself, and see if the result shows up here and elsewhere. Hint: it will involve writing, thinking and learning.<br /><br /><br /><br /><table style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;" width="100%"><tbody><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr 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align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr onmouseover="Over(this)" onmouseout="Out(this)" onclick="Follow(this)" style=""><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1164057354765886832006-11-20T13:08:00.000-08:002006-11-20T13:16:32.873-08:00Honeywell Nobel Interactive StudioVia <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/honeywell.ns">Newscientist.com</a> I find that Honeywell has a website that features video interviews of and lectures by Nobel laureates. I anticipate many hours of <strike>distraction</strike> edification. Joe-Nort says check it out. <a href="http://www.honeywellscience.com/home/default.sps">Honeywell Nobel Interactive Studio.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1161441522637267902006-10-21T07:18:00.000-07:002006-10-21T07:38:42.740-07:00Anglospherics and "medical refugees"In times past I've researched getting various things medical from various places not-near-me.<br /><br />Things such as LASIK/Visex-Wavefront (the latter being really cool) for my eyes, dental work, and so on. I've always thought mostly in terms of getting the work done in what has uncharitably been labeled "fly-over country" -- the Midwest of the U.S.; I've also considered getting prescriptions from Canada.<br /><br />It would not occur to me to get elective / cosmetic surgery done in South America, say; and the idea of getting some very annoying floaters taken care of in the Former Soviet Union by having my vitreous humor removed, ultrafiltered, and returned, as was once advertised, gives me a frisson of fear. Ditto, if a bit less so, for getting the floaters zapped with a YAG laser in China. One trouble is the fundamental long-term outcomes of the exact practices used. Another is the difficulty and cost of followup or having the original doctor or team handle complications, if any.<br /><br />Comes now <a href="http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2006/10/medical_refugee.html">word from Wired.com</a> of news from the NEJM that India is thinking of creating a new form of visa "specifically for medical refugees" -- such as one man who reportedly got a cardiac surgical procedure that goes for $200k here in the states. It's said the procedure cost $6700 there. No word on the ancillary transport, lodging and opportunity costs, but it's implied that he didn't have to sell his house. And it would appear it was a full-on standard procedure with adequate aftercare.<br /><br />Expect more of this sort of thing, even if travel gets harder and harder. It might drive prices up in India.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1160369594424448972006-10-08T21:51:00.000-07:002006-10-15T16:11:52.006-07:00All our Bayesian are belong to them<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2607/1334/1600/Invader_Zim___Gir1.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2607/1334/200/Invader_Zim___Gir1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This just forwarded from a friend (emphasis and added link(s) mine)... ...and no, he doesn't work for Google. I ...<span style="font-style: italic;">think</span>... that <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram-are-belong-to-you.html">this</a> is just a coincidence...<br /><br /><blockquote>Apparently, I offend their chief.<br /><br />No, I'm not including the probably-a- poison-pill GIF that was attached.<br /><br />What coder or designer among us doesn't thrill to recognize eternal verities such as:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">"you want your boss told you support in your own code."</span></span><br /><br />We've ALL been there, haven't we? I know that *I* always wanted my boss told me support in *my* own code.<br /><br />Did I ever get? NO! <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">had </span><span style="font-style: italic;">no</span>. I had to move <span style="font-style: italic;">every </span><a href="http://www.googlism.com/when_is/z/zig/">zig</a>! For great justice.<br /><br />The appended Bayesian word-salad evidently based on a stroll through the HeadFirst stuff made me laugh. I hope you get at least a smirk out of it, Kathy!<br /></blockquote><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">{Ed: "Kathy" here is Kathy Sierra, who blogs at "Creating Passionate Users"}</span><br /><br />....<br /><blockquote><br />---------- Forwarded message ----------<br /><span class="gmail_quote">From: <b class="gmail_sendername">V____ W___</b> <<span style="text-decoration: underline;">nowayamigonnagivethisjerkafreelink@uh-uh.not</span>><br />Date: Oct 8, 2006 4:07 PM<br />Subject: you offend our chief<br />To: <zzz@yyy.xxx><elided@nofun.argh><xxxx@yyy.zzz><br /><br /></xxxx@yyy.zzz></elided@nofun.argh></zzz@yyy.xxx></span> <div> <div bgcolor="#3f5faf"> <div align="">more complex. deep understanding of why someone struggles Design Patterns, you'll avoid science, and learning theory, to learn how those You'll easily counter with your </div> <div align="center"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=14661951" alt="" align="bottom" border="0" hspace="0" /></div> <div align="">principles will help patterns look in Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory to learn how those You'll easily counter with your a design paddle pattern.<br />when to use them, how or on the real relationship (and impress cocktail party guests) be wrong (and what the embarrassment of thinking <div><br />that you can hold your to do instead). You want environment. In other support in your own code. Something more fun. used in the Java API </div>you have. You know<br /><div>applications. You same problems. Singleton isn't as simple as it or on the real relationship them to work immediately. </div><br />the embarrassment of thinking to do instead). You want , and how to exploit you get to take principles will help the embarrassment of thinking<br /><div>them to work immediately. same problems. is so often misunderstood, Something more fun.<br />about inheritance might You want to learn the<br />better at solving software </div><br />Patterns--the lessons<br /><br /></div><br /><div>and experience of others, the next time you're Head First Design Patterns up a creek without<br />the patterns that with<br />own with your co-worker </div><br />to do instead). You want<br /><br /></div><br /><div> a book, you want your boss told you support in your own code. the latest research in<br />someone struggles design problems<br />you get to take </div><br />so that you can spend<br /><br /></div><br />better at solving software you don't want to NOT to use them). Facade, Proxy, and Factory <div>on your team. Head First book, you know at speaking the language<br />sounds, how the Factory the next time you're matter--why to use them, </div><br /><br />Head First Design Patterns them to work immediately. someone struggles somewhere in the world You want to learn the to use them (and when your boss told you<br />In a way that makes you <div> texts. If you've read a of the best practices<br />is so often misunderstood,<br />In a way that lets you put want to see how<br />or on the real relationship </div><br />brain in a way that sticks. , and how to exploit better at solving software of patterns with others the embarrassment of thinking<br />you get to take In their native the patterns that the next time you're<br />up a creek without science, and learning theory, Head First book, you know more complex. the same software<br />(and impress cocktail party guests)<div> format designed for the way<br />Design Patterns, you'll avoid between Decorator, Facade You want to learn about design problems, and better want to see how<br /><br />the embarrassment of thinking on your team. You're not </div><br />between Decorator, Facade of the best practices<br /><div>environment. In other a design paddle pattern. , and how to exploit better at solving software<br />and experience of others, your time is too important<br />reinvent the wheel </div><br />brain in a way that sticks.<br /><span class="sg"> </span></blockquote><span class="sg"><br /><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1160353235489740422006-10-08T17:13:00.000-07:002006-10-08T17:20:35.503-07:00The problem is "The Problem Is..."<dl id="comments-block"><dd class="comment-body"> <p>Quoth Dr Brin, recently:<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The way to truly crush intolerance is the way parents deal with the hysterics of small children. By taking the small hammer-blows, absorbing the tantrum, firmly disallowing any larger harm, and wrapping the frenetic soul in an embrace of patient confidence.</span></blockquote></p></dd><dd class="comment-body"><p><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;">"Calm down. The only way to attain freedom of action is if you learn not to hate."</span></blockquote></p></dd><dd class="comment-body">I replied<br /></dd><dd class="comment-body"><p><blockquote>In the abstract, you're right. But the parent-child presuppositions one needs to hold to believe this is <i>the</i> sure-fire strategy are vast. And human reactions being what they are, one person's "disallowing" is another person's overreaction / overreaching / warcrime.<br /><br />Me, I'm only half-vast, and I suspect a sheaf of strategies is a better approach, though hedging the existential risks (as they eventually appear indisputable / too-clear-to-mistake) against one another might turn out to be impossible. Some say the world will end in ice, etc. If it gets too weird, maybe it's just Game Over for "us", whoever "us" is for you or me.<br /><br />But I'm programmed, in a way similar to the general Western Civ orneriness you've pointed out, to be suspicious of <i>anyone</i> who says "the [P]roblem is..." where human nature and millions or billions of people are involved.<br /><br />So, maybe, as I like to say,<br /></blockquote></p></dd><dd class="comment-body"><p><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The problem is 'the problem is...'" :)</span><br /><br />I.e., <i><b>to circumscribe the situation quickly in order to name a fix quickly carries deep and frequently hidden risks.</b></i><br /><br />But we're wired to want a Single Narrative. So it's always a tough call.<br /><br />Thus the power of messy, quasi, hemisemidemicoalitions and sheaves of strategies. The hope is that a lot of "us" won't be <i>very</i> wrong for <i>too</i> long.<br /><br />Somebody who used to post on the Extropy list used to have this sig, obviously influenced by you:<br /><br />"I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget."</blockquote></p></dd><dd class="comment-body">==<br /></dd><dd class="comment-body"><p>A few of the commenters on Winds of Change FREQUENTLY makes me forget. But that's their plan, and I've learned to adopt Dr Brin's suggested strategy with them. Smother them with parenting until they either grow up or ship out. Either one is OK with me.</p> </dd></dl><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1160193419598648112006-10-06T20:55:00.000-07:002006-10-06T20:58:08.660-07:00QOTD: Reality and reliability<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The reality and reliability of the human world rest primarily on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by which they were produced, and potentially even more permanent than the lives of their authors.</span><br /><br />--Hannah Arendt</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1157421575267417432006-09-04T18:44:00.000-07:002006-09-05T21:10:56.493-07:00Neat Tech: "Shadow Illuminator"<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Update: Well, dog my cats.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Looks as if NASA Ames and some other folks have a competing </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.truview.com/">product </a><span style="font-style: italic;">and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://dragon.larc.nasa.gov/retinex/background/patents.html">a patent or five</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> to do the kind of thing I mention below, based on Retinex. Interesting. I wonder what close comparison between TruView and Shadow Illuminator would yield. The Ames "<a href="http://dragon.larc.nasa.gov/retinex/servo/">Visual Servo</a>" <a href="http://dragon.larc.nasa.gov/retinex/servo/avs.html">pages</a> are also intriguing.</span><br /><br />Too cool not to blog about: <a href="http://www.shadowilluminator.org/">Shadow Illuminator</a>. I hope this guy and the people who are working on implementing the algorithm in silicon make a good chunk of change from it. You can submit your own pic and the site will crunch it to produce a picture with the areas in shadow automagically made more visible. If your image is low noise and not highly compressed, you can get remarkable results with fewer artifacts than some of the old typical computer image manipulation tricks. Here's some examples of the <a href="http://www.shadowilluminator.org/tech.php">potential source-image gotchas</a>. As is mentioned at the top of that page, this tech, or something similar, has potentially huge implications for machine vision. <span style="font-style: italic;">Just think how much more clever the next generation Roomba could be!</span> Ahem.<br /><br />I'm not sure if any of the algorithm applies <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Land">Land</a>'s Retinex Theory -- especially to really poorly lit areas. <s>If not, there's a bit of low-hanging fruit left and I declare that I thought of it. So I hope that piece can fall in the non-patentable arena But I'm not sufficiently gumptional at the moment to check for priors in the USPTO.</s> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">[Later: Whoops. turns out several <a href="http://www2.cmp.uea.ac.uk/%7Epm/cp_web/cic10retinex.pdf#search=%22%22retinex%20theory%22%22">other people</a> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">{warning: PDF file}</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> already have done work on just that. Oh well, at least my instincts for interesting solutions seem good. ;\]</span><br /><br />One thing I want to do some time is try to make up Retinex-style pictures with a camera that can pick up infrared (as many digital cameras can if you remove any IR filter they might have). Substituting an IR channel for a red channel might be interesting.<br /><br />--Nort<br /><br />PS: Yes, long time no blog. I've been focusing on other things. There is a backlog of things I want to write about, and some other people are doing some of the work I wanted to do. I'll be posting more about that in my "Wimpy Pseudo Blogroll" soon.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1149290717176296422006-06-02T16:09:00.000-07:002006-06-02T16:25:17.196-07:00QOTD: The general lesson<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>The general lesson that I take away from this bug is humility: It is hard to write even the smallest piece of code correctly, and our whole world runs on big, complex pieces of code.</blockquote></span><blockquote>--Joshua Bloch</blockquote> <a name="114926336657808713"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts are Broken.</a><a href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html"> Read all about it. </a><br /><br />This chastening reminder is handy when I get frustrated to the point of apoplexy over things like lost work due to Blogger bugs. And other human endeavors. Bloch also says:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A bug can exist for half a century despite our best efforts to exterminate it. We must program carefully, defensively, and remain ever vigilant.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>A jagged little pill, especially for the <abbr title="Artificial Intelligence">AI</abbr> / singularity crowd.<br /><br />On the other hand, it makes me feel better that I can find two silver linings:<br /><ul><li>A constrained-wordsize (say 8 bits per word) test case could have found this bug with an exhaustive-search test script a long time ago, and that I can see that makes me feel retrospectively smart.</li><li>If God-knows-how-many smart folks could miss this one for four decades, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself when I discover my own errors.</li></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14661951.post-1147912916849749432006-05-17T17:02:00.000-07:002006-10-15T16:15:19.206-07:00QOTD + homily: Three from Seneca on anger<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2607/1334/1600/Zoe_23.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2607/1334/200/Zoe_23.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:78%;">( Photo Copyright 2005 Universal Studios)</span><br /></div>This relates to serenity. And to <span style="font-style: italic;">Serenity</span>, for that matter.<br /><br />My homie Seneca was the <span style="font-style: italic;"><abbr title="real deal">rizzle dizzle...</abbr></span> He was more or less the Brainiac of the first half of Century 1 (I hear he lived until about 65 A.D., though some say he died much earlier). Here are three from the vault:<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"Anger..."</blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"...is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"...if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"...[is] an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>--L. Seneca, fl. 10-60 A.D.(?)<br /><br /></blockquote>These meditations are helping me deal with stress. Really. And that's cool. Temperament traits are in large part habits, say I. And re-directing them after decades of practice? That takes practice -- not the promise of practice, nor the plan, but the real deal. <a href="http://www.blackfilm.com/20050729/features/ginatorres1.shtml">Sayin' ain't doin'.</a> Rem, non spem. That's Latin for "the thing, not the hope."<br /><br />Getting to where you can <span style="font-style: italic;">remember to </span>(and, more truly speaking, <span style="font-style: italic;">more habitually </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">act </span><span style="font-style: italic;">in</span>) practice? Well, how do you figure <a href="http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/sisyphus/section11.rhtml">Sisyphus</a> started?<br /><br />He didn't start by talking himself out of it, I know that. Those of us with "strong Won'ts" can dismiss change with a single muttered noise of deprecation. And that yields -- what?<br /><br />It's almost a Yoda thing. There is no "try": do, or do not.<br /><br />A Tibetan Buddhist of my acquaintance once told me that the universe is destroyed and re-created 64,000 times a second. If he's right, that means all of us are, too. Just pick a couple more times each day to take advantage. And remember that you did, and give attention to the fact that actually doing it was (a) a success and (b) less pain than you thought it'd be. Lather, rinse, repeat. Pick something small sometimes.<br /><br />Cf.: Indignant self dopes, Covey's "Sharpen the saw", Frankl's <span style="font-style: italic;">Man's Search for Meaning</span>, The "strong Won't" , Picking on something your own size (all links to be included later)<br /><span class="bodybold"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://gumptionology.blogspot.com/atom.xml>" title="Atom feed">Gump Site Feed</a></div>Nortius Maximushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06980364619036821224noreply@blogger.com0