I sat yesterday watching CNN's blizzard coverage. They were interviewing this family stuck on the interstate in Kentucky...had been there twelve hours in a drift on the road, and no idea when help would come to pull them out. Trucks all around them.....same position. They got to some point in the telephone interview where the host of CNN asked the lady (she was with the husband and kids) if they knew about this approaching blizzard. The lady stated....well....yeah, but they were intending to make it to the very next exit and get off there. I just sat there....shaking my head.
Over the past decade or two.....I've come to note that weather folks now give an enormous amount of warning....sometimes now two days ahead of a blizzard. They put a red screen.....winter weather warning.....telling folks that at 6PM on Tuesday.....it'll hit. Naturally, this being Sunday evening....you've got time to plan and get your act straight.
Then.....folks start to get stupid. Well....let's just see how bad this will go. Then they proceed to continue driving past 2PM when they should have gotten off the interstate and found a hotel....had supper at some greasy spoon operation, and just accepted what was going to come.
But folks just aren't willing to accept that. So they push on....to 6PM when the flurries start coming down, and there around 7PM....when there's an inch on the ground....they start thinking in about an hour....they will stop. At that point, it's too late.
I don't have much sympathy for folks anymore.....when you get 36 to 48 hours warning and start start to challenge common sense.....it's plain stupid.
My guess is that the lady, husband and kids were still in the car....at the 24-hour point, and might even be still there now at the 48-hour point. Maybe cops did eventually come by and offer up some bottles of water....but you kinda have to just sit there and worry about bathroom business and how you'd do it in a blizzard.
Maybe after an episode like this.....people will learn.
Sunday, 24 January 2016
Thursday, 21 January 2016
The Ninth Planet Deal
I probably wasted an hour reading upon the talk yesterday of the new 'discovery' of the ninth planet.
So, onto real facts. No one can absolutely confirm this discovery. What they've done is pour the data into a computer, and with simulation protocols....it concludes that such a planet exists, it's size is related to Neptune, and it rotates about every 15,000 to 20,000 years through our system. Their chatter so far indicates that it was a planet that survived in our system, and then got "bumped".
It's orbit when approaching this area? Between Saturn and Jupiter.
The odds of this being a perfect orbit and repeating orbit path each time it enters our chunk of the universe? Well....that's not yet possible to say. All of this.....is simply theory.
With theory.....you can't name the planet, so it will continue to be called "Planet X". To be honest, it might still be another 1,000 years before we even get to some point of identifying it, the proven path, and then naming the thing.
A big deal? For the planet scientists....this is like the 4th of July. It'll keep them hyped up for months and working on some new theory to explain how the crash occurred and how the spiral turned into some orbit. For the second part of this orbit to occur....it has to slung from another sun-like point (yet to really be identified).
But here's the other part of this story. Who says that we are only talking about one single Planet X? Could there be other planets that got bumped and they are on some 40,000 year orbit? Well....you just don't know.
So, onto real facts. No one can absolutely confirm this discovery. What they've done is pour the data into a computer, and with simulation protocols....it concludes that such a planet exists, it's size is related to Neptune, and it rotates about every 15,000 to 20,000 years through our system. Their chatter so far indicates that it was a planet that survived in our system, and then got "bumped".
It's orbit when approaching this area? Between Saturn and Jupiter.
The odds of this being a perfect orbit and repeating orbit path each time it enters our chunk of the universe? Well....that's not yet possible to say. All of this.....is simply theory.
With theory.....you can't name the planet, so it will continue to be called "Planet X". To be honest, it might still be another 1,000 years before we even get to some point of identifying it, the proven path, and then naming the thing.
A big deal? For the planet scientists....this is like the 4th of July. It'll keep them hyped up for months and working on some new theory to explain how the crash occurred and how the spiral turned into some orbit. For the second part of this orbit to occur....it has to slung from another sun-like point (yet to really be identified).
But here's the other part of this story. Who says that we are only talking about one single Planet X? Could there be other planets that got bumped and they are on some 40,000 year orbit? Well....you just don't know.
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
A Brief Essay on the First Amendment
The Dailycaller put up a piece today.....refering to column written by a Duke University student newspaper.
Normally, I probably would have just skipped it.
But this circled around what he perceived (a grad student)....over America's 'obsession with the First Amendment'. He coined the phrase....that it (the First Amendment) was more or less an expression of white supremacy.
What he wanted to suggest was limits on free speech....in effect....restrictions. Censoring critical speech or hate-speech....would be a much better effort for society to benefit.
It's one of those do-gooder type things you see in Germany now. Facebook has been dragged into such German government meetings and told that it needs to limit free speech....eliminate hate-speech, and that someone could easily determine what was good-speech and hate-speech.
I admire the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It is simplistic in nature.
I kinda doubt that you could walk into a room of a hundred grad students today....challenge them with a weekend project to write the text for a new modern version of the First Amendment, and get a simplistic three-line piece of text that is that clear.
Most would write some ten-page amendment which allowed certain things.....forbid certain things....and tried to make end-all-make-all statement.
We are at some threshold of society, where people attend four to eight years of some university operation, getting a certificate of sorts.....then returning to the world with the brightness of a 7-watt light-bulb that you would depend upon to light up some arena.
The white supremacy angle? If you asked the guy to explain the history to America from 1492 to 1776.....it'd revolve around eight lines of information, with Columbus noted two or three times. Beyond that....he would be unable to note the effect of French, Spanish, Dutch, and English settlements upon the land mass. He'd also be unable to project the effect of the Roman Empire upon the four cultural groups mentioned and the thousand years prior to 1492.
To be honest....I am worried about speech in America. It's just that I'm not worried about free speech, hate speech, critical speech, derogatory speech, criticism speech, or fake intellectual speech. I'm worried about stupid speech....where you say something without much value and pretend it has merit.
My humble advice for the grad student....if Duke did charge $120,000 for the past six-odd years of education....you might want to review what you got and maybe ask for a refund. You may not have gotten the best or wisest commentary from the professors.
Normally, I probably would have just skipped it.
But this circled around what he perceived (a grad student)....over America's 'obsession with the First Amendment'. He coined the phrase....that it (the First Amendment) was more or less an expression of white supremacy.
What he wanted to suggest was limits on free speech....in effect....restrictions. Censoring critical speech or hate-speech....would be a much better effort for society to benefit.
It's one of those do-gooder type things you see in Germany now. Facebook has been dragged into such German government meetings and told that it needs to limit free speech....eliminate hate-speech, and that someone could easily determine what was good-speech and hate-speech.
I admire the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It is simplistic in nature.
I kinda doubt that you could walk into a room of a hundred grad students today....challenge them with a weekend project to write the text for a new modern version of the First Amendment, and get a simplistic three-line piece of text that is that clear.
Most would write some ten-page amendment which allowed certain things.....forbid certain things....and tried to make end-all-make-all statement.
We are at some threshold of society, where people attend four to eight years of some university operation, getting a certificate of sorts.....then returning to the world with the brightness of a 7-watt light-bulb that you would depend upon to light up some arena.
The white supremacy angle? If you asked the guy to explain the history to America from 1492 to 1776.....it'd revolve around eight lines of information, with Columbus noted two or three times. Beyond that....he would be unable to note the effect of French, Spanish, Dutch, and English settlements upon the land mass. He'd also be unable to project the effect of the Roman Empire upon the four cultural groups mentioned and the thousand years prior to 1492.
To be honest....I am worried about speech in America. It's just that I'm not worried about free speech, hate speech, critical speech, derogatory speech, criticism speech, or fake intellectual speech. I'm worried about stupid speech....where you say something without much value and pretend it has merit.
My humble advice for the grad student....if Duke did charge $120,000 for the past six-odd years of education....you might want to review what you got and maybe ask for a refund. You may not have gotten the best or wisest commentary from the professors.
Friday, 13 November 2015
The Crazy Story
I wrote this essay in late 2015. I refreshed it, and republished today.
The City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is going to release a report where they indicate via research and polling efforts.....they've determined that one out of five New York City folks....are mentally "crazy", deranged, having psychological disorders, dippy, batty, moonstruck, or flaky.
So you do the math.....8.4 million folks living there, and you come to a minimum of 1.5 million who've got an issue.
The thing that bothers me about this is that New York is trying it's best to outdo Alabama for "crazies". Everyone knows.....that Alabama has more crazies than any other state. My humble guess is that for each three adults.....we maintain a 33-percent average....meaning one in three Alabama folks are plain crazy.
My brother would cite personal evidence from attending college in the state, conversations with co-workers, and noting personal observations from the local region......agreeing that it's pretty near a 33-percent craziness level.
The thing is about Alabama craziness......we have different categories.
We have NCAA-crazy....where 40,000 state residents are willing to break into a fist-fight if you insult their team or their level of play from last weekend's game.
We have satan-crazy....where 16,000 people are charged up on religion and believe satan might be a living character and possible the guy in front of them at the gas station.
We have engineer-crazy.....where a guy has a garage lab set up and spending $20,000 a year to develop a watermelon cannon that would fire rapid shots and up to six miles.
We have Republican-crazy.....where you keep saying Republican moral stuff, but cheat on the wife daily, have a same-sex liaison situation, gamble constantly, drink bourbon throughout the day, use meth, and voted for President Obama twice.
We have Democrat-crazy.....where you talk like a Democrat twenty hours out of the day, but you tend to freak people out by quoting Reagan constantly, and support the NRA.
We have meth-crazy.....where you do enough meth to marry some gal over the weekend but you can't remember who was or what she looked like.
We have people-who-are-touched-crazy.....who claim they worked for the CIA, knew Castro, and flew fighter jets in Vietnam.
We have other-people-who-are-touched-crazy....who say they saw Jesus over the weekend, and he convinced them to have a second wife, and burn down the house.
Generally, we don't say much when in the company of such crazies.....we try to respect them and give them as much freedom as possible. They might be neighbors, friends, relatives, or fellow-church-members. They might be psycho.....but friendly-psycho.
So, when you read this news item and get all worried about that many crazy folks in New York City....don't worry, the best they can do is number two, and Bama will forever have a majority of crazies around. This is not a case where some fraudulent NCAA bowl committee can rearrange things and bypass us as number one.
Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Are People More Stupid Than They Used to Be?
Typically, this is a question that you'd ask at a Alabama bar-b-q and to be thrown out to several individuals who claim some rural-intellectual status. Some will admit they attended some state university for six months before they discovered the instructor was actually a third-cousin of Einstein (so they claim). Some might even say speak up that they know sixty different math equations that relate to some electrical charge but then admit they don't know much about some Chaucer-guy from English literature or how the Sun radiates the Earth. And a handful through farming will claim enough common sense to make up for four Einstein-guys and their limitations.
There is some basic belief by brilliant people and journalists that we've surged ahead over the past fifty years and have lots of smart people around today.
Generally, ever since the mid 1980s....I've gone with the philosophy that being able to assemble information, determine values from the information, prioritize, and come to a basic summary which explains the best choice.....is the key point where you can grin and admit you are more smart than stupid.
The rest of this book-smart stuff? Worthless.
I've sat through sixty odd university-related classes via University of Maryland, Louisiana Tech, two community colleges, and the Air Force. I came to realize after reading a fairly deep summary of Greek tutors from over two thousand years ago....that education alone doesn't really do much. You need to have some ability take that information and make use of it or rationalize the big picture.
In this way, my answer is that most people probably are more stupid today....than what existed decades ago. Oh, they may have some certificate and claim to have finished such-and-such university....but beyond that....there's no comprehension.
The brighter crowd? The engineer brings in the formulas and relates them to his work. The scientist with an analytical view will be able to gauge what he sees and bring some solution to a problem. The analyst with some respect for questions will ask enough until there's nothing left in front of him except an answer.
We live in a stimulating age....where kids are hauled off from high school to a university....pay down $10,000 to $30,000 a year and get some status in life of being smarter. So far, no one much goes to challenge that behavior and we've developed this to a national stage....where kids graduate from such-and-such school....must be offered $80,000 a year for a master's degree but their measurement in wit or brightness would equal some Chinese seventh-grader. It's bad enough now that we have headhunters, who only specialize in people in this position....helping to find idiots in companies, who will hire new fresh idiots out of graduate school.
The eventuality? We probably will eventually produce enough stupid people to tell us that we need more smart people, but can't really identify the ways from which you'd produce such people. That's when you know we've gotten pretty screwed up.
There is some basic belief by brilliant people and journalists that we've surged ahead over the past fifty years and have lots of smart people around today.
Generally, ever since the mid 1980s....I've gone with the philosophy that being able to assemble information, determine values from the information, prioritize, and come to a basic summary which explains the best choice.....is the key point where you can grin and admit you are more smart than stupid.
The rest of this book-smart stuff? Worthless.
I've sat through sixty odd university-related classes via University of Maryland, Louisiana Tech, two community colleges, and the Air Force. I came to realize after reading a fairly deep summary of Greek tutors from over two thousand years ago....that education alone doesn't really do much. You need to have some ability take that information and make use of it or rationalize the big picture.
In this way, my answer is that most people probably are more stupid today....than what existed decades ago. Oh, they may have some certificate and claim to have finished such-and-such university....but beyond that....there's no comprehension.
The brighter crowd? The engineer brings in the formulas and relates them to his work. The scientist with an analytical view will be able to gauge what he sees and bring some solution to a problem. The analyst with some respect for questions will ask enough until there's nothing left in front of him except an answer.
We live in a stimulating age....where kids are hauled off from high school to a university....pay down $10,000 to $30,000 a year and get some status in life of being smarter. So far, no one much goes to challenge that behavior and we've developed this to a national stage....where kids graduate from such-and-such school....must be offered $80,000 a year for a master's degree but their measurement in wit or brightness would equal some Chinese seventh-grader. It's bad enough now that we have headhunters, who only specialize in people in this position....helping to find idiots in companies, who will hire new fresh idiots out of graduate school.
The eventuality? We probably will eventually produce enough stupid people to tell us that we need more smart people, but can't really identify the ways from which you'd produce such people. That's when you know we've gotten pretty screwed up.
Thursday, 22 October 2015
An Unshockable Nation
This week, the New York subway folks were asked to evaluate and hopefully accept some women's underwear advertisements from Thinx.
Well, the evaluation team looked over the poster and the words....then came back to the company to say that it was 'inappropriate' and 'suggestive'. In other words.....maybe if you tone it down a notch....we might accept it for putting on the interior of subway cars as hundreds of thousands of New York City gals travel each day.
I looked at the ad myself, and maybe ten years ago.....I would have agreed on the 'inappropriate' nature. Today, I don't see a big deal. Some gal in some some cotton underwear leaning back on a handmade Mennonite-made chair? Nothing much to get sweaty about....if you ask me.
Now, I agree....if this were being displayed in Red Bay, Alabama or Monck's Corner, SC....in some local catfish restaurant or in some local newspaper.....well, it might disturb some folks. But we are talking about New York City where you just can't shock folks anymore.
It's a curious trend about society today.....we are becoming unshockable. This Jenner guy flipping over to a lady-status? After about a week, it wasn't much of a shock anymore. This basketball player in Nevada who flipped out and almost died on herbal Viagra while paying $75,000 for a three-day hooker episode and asking for lady-guy hooker? It didn't take more than forty-eight hours for us all to accept the story and say it doesn't freak us out (well, unless you were a die-hard Baptist). Joe Biden saying he won't run for President? That took eight minutes for us to accept.
Some people will say that it's a recent trend. I would disagree. You can go back to the 1920s and look at what happened to society after WW I and find literally hundreds of revolutions going on within the American society and our shock levels were being tested on a weekly basis.
These underwear guys? I'm guessing they will go back and use the same picture but some different wording and get some acceptance to run the ad on the subway. After a week......no one much will say anything because it's just not that much of a shock anymore. Frankly, if you were paying more attention to the attire or lack of attire of the New York passengers....you'd be entertained to a higher level (my humble opinion).
Every American ought to pack up a bag and go to New York City once in their life. I'm not talking about a long trip....just five days. After that, your unshockable values will double and nothing will really bother you much.
End of Mythbusters
I came to have this curious interest in 2010....upon arriving in DC and having cable TV.....of the TV show "Mythbusters". It appeared on the Discovery Channel and I came to appreciate the way that the two 'mad-scientists' would take some conceived notion of the public or science, and then explain it in garage-like lab.
Today, it's been announced that after being on the air for fourteen years.....Mythbusters is coming to an end. It'll end in 2016.
The two guys....Savage and Hyneman....impressed me with the way that you could convey a massive amount of science into bit-sized pieces....for a mortal with no real understanding of science....helping us get into the topic and actually enjoy the rich nature of science.
Presently, there are roughly 240-odd episodes and if I were a high-school science teacher....I'd put one of the episodes up each week for entertaining the students.
Around the end of 2011....they did an episode where they discussed the idea of a motorcycle being more environmentally friendly than a car. It's the kind of topic that four guys at a water cooler would chat about for hours and hours....debating the finer science principals of motors. The final conclusion of the team? Car evolution on emissions has progressed faster than motorcycle evolution, and you can't make the motorcycle cleaner, with the present set of mechanical standards. A shocker to most guys, but it ends the water cooler debate....at least until a new round of motorcycle developments occur.
My humble guess is that we will go through a five-year period without Mythbusters, and then be thrilled to discover that a new show will be fielded and we get more science in a nice tidy package for public consumption.
Today, it's been announced that after being on the air for fourteen years.....Mythbusters is coming to an end. It'll end in 2016.
The two guys....Savage and Hyneman....impressed me with the way that you could convey a massive amount of science into bit-sized pieces....for a mortal with no real understanding of science....helping us get into the topic and actually enjoy the rich nature of science.
Presently, there are roughly 240-odd episodes and if I were a high-school science teacher....I'd put one of the episodes up each week for entertaining the students.
Around the end of 2011....they did an episode where they discussed the idea of a motorcycle being more environmentally friendly than a car. It's the kind of topic that four guys at a water cooler would chat about for hours and hours....debating the finer science principals of motors. The final conclusion of the team? Car evolution on emissions has progressed faster than motorcycle evolution, and you can't make the motorcycle cleaner, with the present set of mechanical standards. A shocker to most guys, but it ends the water cooler debate....at least until a new round of motorcycle developments occur.
My humble guess is that we will go through a five-year period without Mythbusters, and then be thrilled to discover that a new show will be fielded and we get more science in a nice tidy package for public consumption.
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