20 November 2007

>> mathematics loses something in the translation.

No, math doesn't purport to translate.
The basic problem is that the state of knowledge is alwaysbounded on the bottom by *phenomenology*. Its not math's fault.
No matter what physicists and mathematicians proclaim, you can always *bug* them by asking, "why" and/or"how", if they're referring to the Universe. If they're just playing chess then its not necessary.
Its like a mole whose thought train is driven by "deeper". You canalways ask him, what's deeper still? And he'll obsessively burrowfurther. (Until he hits the natural gas pocket :-) Mathematicianshave the same problem with the Biggest Number. Add one. Square it.
Slide. Visualize your power animal, and slide.

Of course, I heartily endorse such obsessions, when properly directed,which in XYZ's (and many others') case, it is.

16 November 2007

Why 3 fluid ounces on a plane? Because maybe 12 fl ounces (.5 kg) is enough
to disrupt an 8,000 ft pressurized plane that is at 35,000 feet. And if you
do it enough times, you'll wake Americans up to the violence that their elected
government has done. In a democracy, you're responsible for your government,
which is why the Twin Towers fell. (The pentagon and other flight were
direct military targets, no need to worry about morals there.)

This is the thing: the US wages war, knowing it will kill 10x the civilians as
guilty. So how is it different if freedom fighters elsewhere kill Americans
because American governments have killed them?

The US is the bad guy, the bully. If you can't stomache that, perhaps you
stay drunk, fat, and stupid. Its worked so far, right?
So the TSA goons can't find bomb ingredients. What a surprise.
Stupid parasitic Americans. Slaves, etc.

Rome is going down folks, much faster than you expect. Mercenaries to defend
the Empire, immigrant takeover, overbloated government, foreign wars,
what exactly is the comprehension problem?

OTOH, the dark ages were only bad for the parasites who depended on the
Empire. For the rest of the honest folk, trade continued, without the burden
of overlords.

Fuck your God(s), sweetie.
Apocalypse Now
Dr. Strangelove
Fight Club
Brazil (and other Gilliam films)
V for Vendetta

You need to watch these, multiple times, and ask yourself.
Mitt Romney is Hitler. Its that simple.

Who is more evil, Guiliani or Romney? Not sure. Both need killing or at least
chronic burning in the afterlife that they pretend to (but don't) believe in.

They are both whores who are a waste of carbon.

09 November 2007

I shut off the water to a region of the back yard a while ago,
and when I went to check it I found giant mud footprints
on the plastic groundcover. Raccoon or possum. So tonight
I hear a sound, and am outside, but its only the ~18 year
old cat. He is lucky as I am as tensed as much as my 250 lb
(>60 lb flab) body allows. Don't tase me, cat.

Yes, this is kinda stupid. There are no stupidity checkpoints
on the information superhighway.
Females' perception of their own attractiveness seems to follow
a curve (real vs. perceived) which is different from that of males. In particular,
less than mean-attractive women exaggerate their under-attractiveness
and women who are (significantly, and self-perceived as) higher than
mean attractiveness exagerate the priority of that dimension.
(No one is mean-attractive, they are
less or more attractive; thought what is the "mean" depends on your
upbringing, I suspect "like your mom during a certain
imprinting period" is a relevant input to that individual computation).

If folks had accurate self-images, the curve would be a 45 degree straight line.
Instead, it is warped down below average, and warped high above average.

I was just told that male rats shown pictures of Paris Hilton are less sensitive to pain
than female rats.

Ok.

Maybe pictures of humans stress rats, but male rats are less sensitive to stress.
Stress, pain, it feeds into the same "aversion" system. I asked about controls
(Paris vs. Hitler vs. natural predator) but there were none. The more questions
I ask, the more frustrated I become that attention was given to this crap.
So you did something weird and then found a male v. female response difference?
Why don't you try disco music, or Brady Bunch reruns?

..

PS: Don't you no never mind that Pakistan is about to have a nuclear garage sale.

UBL sez USA support nasty dictators. How could he? How's that waterboarding treating you?
Channel flipping I find someone talking about Alzheimers. How the patient
gradually gets nasty, at first you think its normal relations. Later they are
patently paranoid, delerious (time, date, location), and psychotic (believing
false things are happening, like someone stealing her child, when in fact, the
child's father (and her son-in-law) is walking out the door with his son.) Believing
to the point of threatening to call police (which she was incapable of doing) on me.

I have an undergrad degree in Cognitive Science and know who HM is.
This experience (of several years, several years ago) makes clear that
it was not fun for those who cared about HM.

At least you can watch your favorite movie again, and again, and again.

When my friend with MS got severe, he couldn't read and his memory got
screwed. I got interested in electronic enhancement, and set up a text to voice
system for him. This helped keep him happy for a year. Eventually he took
some cyanide, but told someone and got resusitated (with major brain damage)
and eventually took a second dose, alone, and stopped breathing forever.

Now, I have a male friend who had developed lupus, who had a brain tumor removed.
He has about 5 years. He has a kid under 2 and another the same age (within days)
of mine.

Also had a friend pre-college drive a car into a wall (drunk), and saw another during
a (NSF) science camp (at RPI in Troy) break his neck "garfielding" onto the floor
from a ledge.

Got no living grandparents, saw my great-grandparents though once, they look
like Greenspan. My folks are alive, which is great, and my dad even drinks
wine, which has become my thing too. Though in octaves more than my dad.

My kid has no living maternal grandparents though I have pix of his mat gmother
and him as a wee toddler together. Very nice pix due to the age range. Think 89
year old indian prune and 2 year old whito toddler siting in an oversized
red play bucket in front of her Sari'd self.

BTW, if Saris became popular in the US, all the heavier or variable-weight chicks would
benefit greatly, as the same Sari can be worn at different weight levels. As a male
succeptible to such mass variation I totally appreciate this.

Actually, I am now following the lion diet, one meal a day, which can be arbitrarily
large (though large & dense is bad). Not sure it is optimal for me but it is easy
to follow, and lets me be social with th' guyz at work. The opposite of lion diet is
grazing diet, long periods of low-calorie input.

Over and Mooooo