March 31, 2018
In the Queue...
...are 2 papers for History, a "New Math" test on Monday, a presentation for my Kanji Project, several pages of Japanese homework, a presentation for my International Relations class, as well as a term paper and multiple readings for the same.
In the done file are the Kanji Project, a Kanji Test, a "New Math" test a history paper, lots of readings and the Easter Rush at work.
In neither category are any blogposts at the moment.
Instead, I leave a mystery for you to ponder and hopefully solve,...
Art by Kinchee
Those buckles on her skirt/waistcoat....
What are they for?
How are they fastened without tripping her?
What the hell?
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March 25, 2018
The Right Side of History
We hear much about the importance of being on "the right side of History", however there seems to be some confusion on regarding this. Are we talking about right as in correct, or right as in starboard? If the latter, which way is history facing? If north or south is the answer, is the reference point magnetic, astronomical or axial?
Because of a lack of a reference point, I'm assuming the first definition is the...right one. This has its own problems as it is hard to determine which side history has taken, who history is and what his her or xer motivations are.
To resolve this conundrum, lets examine what side history has been on in the past since it was first determined that History was not a study of the past, but rather, a sentient being whose occupation is something like a Nevada boxing commissioner.
This astounding discovery seems to have been made in the late 1890s when Imperialist liberals like Cecil Rhodes and others like them such as the Fabian socialists, determined that History had a side. It had been moving for about the last 80 years in the direction of an astoundingly fast transition from agrarian to industrial societies and unfathomable advancements in human knowledge. It was then determined by the top minds of society that the right side of history was the side with racism, specifically the innate superiority of honkies to all other races. It was also on the side of empires as well as Darwinian evolution being applied to international relations. Remember, these were the progressives of their day, the central planning guys, they had a plan and history was inexorable in its movement towards progress. Progress was helpfully defined as whatever the Europeans were doing at the moment and this was embraced by the status conscious cliques throughout the world.
So the right side of history is the expansion of the state, racism and unbridled optimism.
Well....
The Fabians and their ilk had to make some tweaks after World War One shattered the European soul, took a generation of youth from the population and forced another generation to grow up without fathers.
So by the 1920s it was obvious that the right side of history was nihilism, despair and big government trying to direct everything. Of course the United States, which was almost never been on the right side of history until recently, was run by a subhuman group of untermenchen called "voters" who ignored the wisdom of the high society types and embraced the wrong side of history until a banking scandal and stock market collapse forced them to embrace the right side of history which obviously lay with tariffs and big government.
So by the 1930's hopelessness and nihilism were universally accepted as the right side of history....
Well, not really, because those aging Fabians and their ilk had determined that history was still on the side of central planning, expansive government and direct solutions those annoying problems that confront us all....
...and so those on the right side of history wisely and virtuously gave support to various strong central governments uninhibited by voter interference who could deal with those issues, most notably the U.S.S.R., which people on the right side of history cleverly recognized as the last best hope.
It's good that our betters figured that out, because it turned out that in the 20th century alone there were about 130 million people on the wrong side of history.
Actually, there were lots more, but the rest of the ignorant bastards got away, in part because the Berlin Wall fell down just as the people on the right side of history knew it would when they woke up the day after it happened.
By the 1990s it was obvious that the right side of history was populated with those who understood that China and Russia were becoming representative democracies and would always be our best buddies and life long pals. The extent to which this has been subsequently borne out by events is evidenced by the way history has provided those on is right side with the twittermob...which, in turn has been emulated and improved upon by China. Of course, Russia, that largest of all nations in land area, which stretches from St. Petersburg to...EastAsia, remains the nation we have always been at war with.
Today the right side of history is populated by those who wish to make the people safer by disarming them,
...those who take seriously the free flow of information and their responsibility to stifle it and, as always, those who acknowledge the utter sub-humanity and atavistic inferiority of honkies...well, the ones who aren't well connected or don't live in Tony zip codes.
...those who take seriously the free flow of information and their responsibility to stifle it and, as always, those who acknowledge the utter sub-humanity and atavistic inferiority of honkies...well, the ones who aren't well connected or don't live in Tony zip codes.
Most of all it seems, those on the "right side of history" are those who don't give history a great deal of thought, or are secure enough in their status that they believe they'll be insulated from the ramifications of their policies and when those policies become history, they'll be the ones writing it.
Here's the thing..
Recorded history goes back in fits and starts 6 to 8 thousand years. Depending on where one draws the line, humanity has been settling an building for at least twice that and depending on how one defines civilization human history goes back hundreds of thousands of years.
The age we live in, the technology we possess, the prosperity that allows the intellectual decadence of our supposed betters, is a 200 year aberration in that time. A curious and atypical blip that resulted from the combining of several different philosophical and religious concepts to form the enlightenment. For all of human history except for a few short lived aberrations such as Kanazawa, slavery was near universal. The notion of universal human rights that ended slavery is a product of the cultural bank shot that was Christian beliefs intersecting with the enlightenment and the liberating power of the steam engineering the latter made possible. None of this is or was ordained or inevitable. If history is any guide, then the opposite is true. Indeed, barbarity (as we've seen in the Balkans, the Somme, Auchwitz, the middle east as well as the dark, ignored corners of Telford and Rothenam) stands forever ready to return from the darkness it was so recently consigned to.
All we have, this great technological edifice in which we reside, is made possible by a cultural and educational framework that is far more fragile than any of us want to believe.
The very knowledge we possess is increasingly not preserved even in such transitory mediums as parchment or paper but on electrons interacting with magnets. When the Gods of the Copybook Headings return, the resulting collapse could be quite far and quite hard indeed. Note that the societies that may currently be best positioned to survive such a disruption, are not the ones that value free expression, inquiry or liberty, but they are not stupid enough to forsake useful tools or disarm themselves.
The anomalous nature of all we hold dear and its utter uniqueness throughout history cannot be overstated. If history has picked a side, then everything that is good stands in defiance of it.
Choose your side carefully.
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March 24, 2018
Heroes for a Post-Literate Age
After the debacle that was RWBY's season 5 finale, I really expect nothing from Rooster Teeth except for dashed hopes and shame.
But this has my interest for reasons I cannot fathom.
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March 19, 2018
Well....These Two are Kind of Impressive
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March 17, 2018
Happy St. Patrick's Day
DISCLAIMER: This actually has nothing to do with the holiday but is superficially Irish looking and cute.
Art by Tyuga
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A Different Perspective on the Holiday
"...and THAT'S why our ancestors left Ireland for America"
Artist Unknown
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March 14, 2018
The Universe Just Got a Bit Dimmer
Five and a half decades after being being told he would be dead in two years, Stephen Hawking expired in his sleep this morning at 79. Long confined to a wheelchair by his terrible disease this unlikely but undeniable badass divided his time between keeping death at bay through sheer force of will and making tremendous strides in expanding mankind's knowledge of how the universe works.
This obituary seems to have gotten short shrift as the news today is cluttered with stories of domestic politics, international crises, celebrity asshattery, and the fact that it is snowing in New England in March. However, (if we don't blow it all up) the contributions of this man will be celebrated and studied long after all the other news of the day has faded into the dusts of time.
Fair winds and following seas Dr. Hawking.
Few have fought so hard and so long against the twin darknesses of death and ignorance.
Thank you sir.
UPDATE: Issac Arthur has an overview of Hawking's discoveries, rather more in depth than I'm capable of.
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March 11, 2018
On a Lighter Note...
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That Train's Not Coming
Not unless and until it's fixed...and that's going to take some work.
more...
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March 07, 2018
This is a Useful Tool!
-site:pintrest.com
Removes Pintrest from a Google image search result
Just type it before your search query.
This keeps one from getting bogged down with Pintrest results rather than the actual source.
Pintrest, of course is not, despite what google says, an image credit.
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March 04, 2018
A Quick Overview of Putin's Atomic Superweapons
This past Tuesday R.F. President Vladimir Putin gave a State of the Federation speech. The speech is actually interesting for a number of reasons, including a surprising disquesition on the rising poverty in The Federation. Towards the end of the speech Putin mentioned several new nuclear weapons that he says are coming into Russian service in the near future....which is pretty much all anyone is talking about.
In fairness, they are, shall we say, interesting.
SARMAT: The most conventional of the weapons mentioned, this is an ICBM replacement for the R-36 (NATO codename "SS-18 Satan") missile. In the speech , Putin seemed to confirm what has been reported elsewhere; that it has a 10 ton throw weight and that its range is antipodal, that is, it can hit any point on Earth. This means that it can hit shoot at the U.S. over Antarctica and hit North America from the South. SARMAT seems to basically be the old Soviet FOBS missile but larger and much more capable. 10 metric tons is enough for a lot of 'splody, reports suggest that it will carry 10-24 warheads. Some of them may be manuverable hypersonic warheads.
Kinzhal: This hypersonic weapon may have a non-nuclear warhead option, It appears to be separate from the hypersonic manuverable reentry warheads tossed by SARMAT. It is not new, in fact the technology was enthusiastically pursued by the U.S.A. some years ago but it was put on the back burner for a time, and now the U.S. is playing catch-up.
Status-6: Putin asked for a public vote on what the name should be and, not being Brits, the names chosen were not Nuky McNukeface. If unleashed, it's a huge nuclear powered torpedo carrying a huge warhead, specifically, the warhead is alleged to be based upon the Tsar Bomba, the highest yield weapon ever tested. That device yielded either 50 or 58 megatons depending on the source and was a clean/half yield test of a warhead that was intended to have a 100 megaton yield. (Later, when it was briefly considered as the payload of an abortive ICBM the physics package was described as a 150 megaton weapon). So this is basically a torpedo with an atomic waterjet that carries a 50-150 megaton warhead into a harbor that will utterly destroy and irradiate it. This weapon appears to be either operational or in advanced testing.
Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile: A supersonic missile powered by a nuclear ramjet, it appears to have similarities to a weapon that was developed in the United States and abandoned for several reasons that included but were not limited to the difficulty of testing a weapon that would spew radioactive death as exhaust and the issues of firing a weapon that spews radioactive death across continents. It has the advantage of being able to fly low for long periods and evade intercept radars by coming in from unexpected directions. In the video, it is shown to do a tactical dogleg...around Cape Horn, which shows how much range the nuclear engine gives.
It has been suggested that this weapon explains some anomalous radioactive readings detected in Alaska recently.
With the possible exception of Status 6/Kraken none of these seem to be operational and are unlikely to be so in the next few years.
So don't be alarmed. Our near future is unlikely to look quite like this.
From the Art of Fallout 4
...because our cars are not nearly that stylish.
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I Have Been Wrong
For two years now, the SyFy Channel has been running a show called The Expanse.
During those two years, I did not watch it.
This was a grievous error in judgement on my part which I only recently rectified.
Now, having purchased both seasons on DVD and having watched every single episode (some twice), I can say that this is a remarkably good show.
The Expanse follows the crew of the Ice Freighter Canterburry and its crew of working class stiffs as they do their mundane, difficult and absolutely necessary work of hauling ice from Saturn to the frontier metropolis that is Ceres.
Despite a limited budget, the show makes considerable nods to hard science, both with its depiction of spin gravity...
OK, actually, that implies a much smaller spin radius than that location should have, but hey, coriolis!
...and the pernicious effects of its absence. That and a myriad of other little sciency details are remarkably realistic in their depiction and well handled plot-wise in this show, which follows Josephus Aloisius Miller, a cynical, somewhat corrupt police detective on Ceres. Saddled with a 'wandering daughter job' he makes a series of discoveries that blow upon the dying embers of his conscience and idealism threatening to rekindle them both. This could be a fatal affliction on Ceres.
Despite a SyFy channel budget, Ceres, a major waypoint between the inner and outer solar systems just works as a sort of Noir Dodge City, if Dodge city were a company town where one had to pay for air.
Where The Expanse really breaks the mould is in its setting which ought not to work but does. This, after all, is a show about the Byzantine day to day intrigues and machinations of one Chrisjen Avasarala, a 70 year old, high level bureaucrat in the Earth government who uncovers a vast conspiracy. This unlikely protagonist is brilliantly portrayed by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who just knocks it out of the park.
Space opera generally requires visually spectacular space battles, which do not comport with scientific realism or SyFy Channel budgets, The Expanse solves both problems by remarkably good writing and pacing. While certainly not super accurate it does have an internally consistent and realistic looking way of portraying space combat, as is to be expected from a show that revolves around a plucky group of Martian Space Marines, and their blood knight squad leader who their ship's captain is trying to keep from starting a war.
Having now watched the 23 episodes that make up the first two seasons I can say that this show is at least as good as Babylon 5, and that's not something I say lightly.
Now of course the show is not without its faults, the biggest one being that season three has not started yet.
That looks like it will be rectified on April 11.
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March 03, 2018
Painting By Numbers With Pixels
Well, this review is almost two months late, but RWBY Season 5 has ended and it probably warrants some comment.
Perfunctory is the word that comes to mind.
Mid season, this show was looking to be really good. It was paced very differently from previous seasons, though the collection of quiet character studies was reminiscent of parts of season 4.
This whole cour had been expertly developing tension that promised a solid payoff and by about episode 8 there were roughly 5 cliffhangers in the plot queue that promised to come together in an intensely satisfying manner. Notwithstanding those, the episodes generally kept a methodical pace as characters were further developed and the cards of the various players were put on the table for the audience to see.
The final battle, in which the heroes are trapped by the villains who have them completely overmatched in numbers, power, and experience is beautifully set up and the first few minutes of it are absolutely riveting.
This whole scene with the villain's entrance was just sublime.
Annnnnd thennn the battle drug on for FOUR freaking episodes during which the pacing was set to glacial. This was particularly weird because the season ended up with 14 episodes, an odd peculiar number given that the previous seasons had been 12 without the short expository ones. There doesn't seem to have been any reason to pad it out and kill the pacing. It's almost like they were parodying a Shounen Jump show. (There's some irony here. Season three revolved around a sports tournament storyline, which is usually a kiss of death for plotting and pacing, yet that season transcended the trope and was superbly paced and moves the show's story ahead dramatically).
This? The remainder of the show lacked the dynamism of the show's earlier fight scenes and was punctuated by tedious dialog which is all the more aggravating because there was some STELLAR voice acting delivering these uninspired lines. There were one or two neat moments, mainly due to the delivery rather than the direction, pacing or choreography, but they couldn't overcome the disjointed and padded out nature of the season's last four episodes. If they'd just gone with 12 and compressed this fight it would have probably been better.
To say this was dissapointing does not do it justice. In addition to the excellent voice work, the technical aspects of the show were impressive and improved in many ways. The season had been quite good until it face planted.
I do wonder if this season was intended to be much more tightly paced and this finale was supposed to be the halfway point. I engage in this unfounded speculation because RWBY had always been touted as a 5 season show, with a possibility for a spin-off or sequel, and it appears that that was indeed about how much plot they had, because it looks like Rooster Teeth going for six seasons. This is, in fairness not unreasonable since in the show's lackadaisical ambling through the four episode finale, there were several plot threads left dangling (an actual resolution to the main story being the most notable one).
RWBY Season 5 was good enough until the very end that I do intend to watch it next season, but I look forward to it with a sense of apprehension.
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This is It
This is the end.
It seems that our self appointed betters in Silicon Valley have a new fad...
Now at first glance, there's nothing wrong with that, until one reads five words into the standfirst...
Their pampered birds wear diapers
Oh.
MY.
GOD.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!?
So first off, these...individuals... presumably have to get special chicken diapers. Cloth diapers seem geometrically unlikely and safety pins are a dubious prospect with Chickens. And face it, Pampers do not take widdles into account. This is horrible.
if you want to have a pet bird not live in a coop, there are probably better ways than to have the poor thing soak its hind feathers in its own poop.
Get a duck.
They're smart, they can be house trained, they...
Wait....
Can chickens be house trained like ducks?
I've never pondered this before.
It would seem not, 'cause these acknowledged geniuses in Silicon Valley are putting BIRDS, in DIAPERS.
Huh...
Let's do a bit of research...
Oh.
Now in fairness, this involved involved nearly 1.5 seconds of using something called "the internet", which may not be an option that naturally occurs to a Silicon Valley Tech Exec...
....huh.
Perhaps we should follow up...I mean it's possible that the answer to " how to housebreak a chicken" is "You can't." so lets look at...Nope.
A quick perusal of Amazon would further indicate that Chicken Diapers do exist.
So yes.
We're doomed.
Full disclosure: I don't care if these people keep chickens. I used to live in a trailer park and many of my neighbors kept rabbit hutches and chicken coops, until the local zoning board tore them down (along with my neighbor's home, which was damaged by the backhoe in the process) and fined them into oblivion after learning that they did not possess the Hipster Douche exemption to asinine zoning laws.
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Three Out of Four
more...
Banality lurks below the fold. For those uninterested in my Walter Mitty lifestyle, here, instead, are two girls eating Spaghetti while camping.
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March 01, 2018
Because We Still Can
" I disagree."
"Find the thing you love and stick to it."
It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up their residence there...It was absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of "Leader") to live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless, some of the animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds.
N > 2
Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
" I disagree."
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March 11, 2018
The Train's Not Coming
Not unless and until it's fixed...and that's going to take some work.
more...
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