One year ago today: September 23, 2014, 152 people I dislike.
Five years ago today: September 23, 2010, really early retirement.
Six years ago today: September 23, 2009, on paperback character names.
MORNING
As you read below, you may notice a passage in a different presentation format. This blog was originally written using fairly strict publishing guidelines. I didn’t know any better but I knew I did not like the “block” style of web page, which I still blame on sheer laziness by those authors. And also the lack of a proper well-rounded education on behalf of the magnificent morons who designed HTML.
I predicted that even the slightest intellectual substance would be enough to wean any intelligent person back here once they saw Twitter for what it is. Those who did not return should probably have not been here in the first place. But yes, Ken, Theresa, you can stay. Because I know this blog’s very existence infuriates you. It’s “mind control”. Ha, what a joke.
I have dedicated readers who have been here over ten years. During that time, and it has been a long time, folks, the blog format adapted to what looked better on a small screen, a departure from the printed page. I already know this does not follow guidelines as printed in the university rule books, but I feel it has to look right to be right. Hence, you’ll see concessions I’ve made, such as many short paragraphs, usually three sentences. And a new indent after a list. Plus many short phrases in quotation marks, but very little dialogue, which I consider dreary to read on-line.
I have a drawer full of nearly-new e-readers if you want some. Reading conversation on a computer monitor just doesn’t do it for me. Here’s a picture of a $500 e-reader I tried out and all I can say is no thanks. It is much too small to watch a full length movie, except maybe in desperation. Like waiting in line at the DMV where all the flat screens are not in English. What? Well, of course, without illegal immigration, those offices would be empty. I go in once every ten years or on the rare occasion I buy a vehicle. The DMV loves illegal immigrants because the place is always full.
Further, the reader is not that great for color, it is that e-ink technology and it has a ways to go. It is more of a pastel effect than real color. I cannot see myself reading an e-book of any length on one of these playthings. Stick with black and white unless you have a pressing desire to spend a lot of money for half-results.
I refuse to go see the foreign movie about Marlon Brando, or really, movies about the “struggles” of anyone born pretty enough to be a movie star before 1970. Such movies are barking up the wrong tree with me. Struggles indeed. Consider for a moment the factors that must have come in to play, including living near enough to a casting studio to get “discovered”. Ain’t no talent scouts in New Boston, Texas.
Message to the New York Times. You are correct, the wall will not solve the illegal immigration problem. It is not intended to solve the immigration problem. It is intended to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants while the problem is solved by other means. Besides, if you deny there is an immigration problem, then why should you even care whether the wall works or not? Unless, unless . . . you are working for the other side. That would be stupid, because the majority knows there is a problem and nobody like you is going to talk them out of believing there is.
Sometimes when I fire off a blog entry like this (26 minutes write time), and go back to review it next day before publication, I gauge the caliber and “speed” of the content—it is important to not get too deep that the entertainment value is lost. So I often wonder why I don’t write filler for something like “Reader’s Digest”. All I’d have to do is eliminate any useful information and cook up a lot of “Ten Things You Should Know About” lists.
NOON
The club adjourned over to Agt. M’s place, who has excellent air conditioning, cable movies (not the same as watching TV), and zillions of spare parts. Normally, two things of equal gravity are banned from club meetings, which are unshelled, unpeeled peanuts and religious philosophy. Mainly because both cause a deleterious effect on things that need doing. But we were busy most of the day, so religion wormed its way into the conversation.
This computer had two problems. The controller, being pointed to in the top panel, and a disk drive that would not boot in the lower picture. The computer, in the background, is booting from a generic replacement drive. This computer had gotten damp, not surprising since it had spent several years at a license bingo parlor.
My incentive is to recover many of the interesting sound effects which I had edited onto the drive. I never bothered to make backup copies, since those sound tracks were not considered important at the time. Many of them have since disappeared off the Internet and now I want them back.
We had a discussion about the growing censorship on the net. Good examples of what is being targeted are videos like this which don’t seem to be biased, but are obviously very offensive to those who control the media. Many of the most factual presentations that remain uncensored now require a log-on to view them.
Warning, this video is not for those with weak stomachs. For the record, I am not much for or against any particular religion, but I am against censorship. If you want to see an utterly sickening 3 hour video before it is banned, here is a typical example of one that won’t be allowed to exist much longer. (If you do watch it and suddenly loud 1920s music comes on that is obviously not part of the sound track, kill the link, turn off your computer, and reboot. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It won’t harm your computer, but play it safe.)
EVENING
For this evening you get a redacted e-mail sent to a buddy who thinks that Florida is “high and dry” all year around. Wrong, the summers here are as wet as the winters in Seattle. Keep in mind this is entertainment only and the recipient knows I am not a silvaculturalist.
On the contrary, Florida is raining all the time. Especially in the summer, where it often rains every day for months on end. The climate is sub-tropical, so I have an easy time comparing to the actual tropics. Southern Florida is particularly wet because of proximity to the Everglades and the huge Lake Okeechobee. In Thailand, I've seen the rain forest evaporate in the heat, rise up to a cloud just 50 feet higher, which is downpouring at the same time.
The Everglades is nicknamed the "Sea of Grass", since it is really one gigantic slow-moving shallow lake. So slow, you cannot see the water flowing, but the quantities are enormous. Yet a foot above the water, it can be so dry that practically every year there is a grass fire stinking up miles around, so large they have to let it burn out.
Toward the southern end, you get bald cypress, the funny-looking tree you see in old prison escapee movies. But in the early 1900s, the swamp was seen as a wasteland. Developers brought in an Australian tree with deep roots to "dry out" the area. Like most introduced species, the Malaleuca got away on them. It is a spindly tree, useless for lumber or paper making and nearly impossible to kill. Oddly, the tree is sometimes called the "paperbark". The method used is to send workers into the fringes, drill a hole into every tree and dump cyanide into the core.
I don't know if you've ever lived in the tropics, but the rising sun each day begins to evaporate huge amounts of moisture into the air. Okeechobee is the second largest lake in the US, after Michigan. By late afternoon, the atmosphere is saturated and the sun starts setting. This cooling effect causes a downpour pretty much every day, from 4:00 to 6:00. But, the harder the rain, the shorter it lasts. It isn't a storm.
However, lately it has been storms, usually coming in off the Atlantic, or swerving up the Gulf from the south and being pushed in from the west by the prevailing westerlies. Normally we'd get a hurricane or tropical storm warning, but lately nobody knows why these persistent rainstorms arrive and stay for days on end. Global warming?
The problem is also the runoff. A lot of Florida is 18 inches above sea level, so there really isn't anywhere for the water to go. As shown in the pictures, the sewer system is quickly flooded up in the first few minutes. It usually stands around for hours before slowly subsiding into the coral based terrain.
Here is a picture of a stand of dead Malaleucas. Even when dead, the unsightly stumps linger for decades. The live trees crowd out local species, forming monospecie forests of hundreds of thousands of acres. These cannot be burned off as the leaves contain an explosive oil which scatters something like 4,000,000 seed spores per tree.
ADDENDUM
I thought of an uncanny parallel in my life and two groups. The European migrants and retired people with no money. When I was in college, I took part in all manner of studies and the one that stands out here was where they divided the room into random pairs. Then they explained the rules to everyone. One person in each pair was given ten dollars.
The rule was he had to offer the other person some portion of the ten dollars, but if the other person rejected the offer, neither of them got anything. Man, you should have seen the fur fly. The room quickly dissolved into three hostile camps of about the same size. Here’s where the fun began. The first group, I’d call the migrants, felt that half was the only “fair” settlement, but could not say why. The retired people felt one dollar was a good donation since the other guy was not the lucky one and a dollar made him better off than he was before. For their generosity, they were still called greedy.
Oddly, only one pair divided the money 50/50 and it turns out they had taken the test before. Ah, lest I forget, there was one pair in the room that I would have classified as my family. The guy was weird, he insisted on getting $9, since the other guy “got it for nothing”. The recipient should be the one happy with a dollar. He would rather both get nothing than see the other man benefit. Family.
What do I see as the solution? Build a wall, read on.
I spotted the problem as a condition built in to the test. The person who did not get the $10 was aware of how much the other person had received. I feel a fairer test would have been if they did not have that knowledge and could not be motivated by greed. Then again, I’m a Libertarian who believes a person is entitled to as much privacy as he pleases.
There are countless statistics published on this test, but I was there and saw for myself that 50/50 is not the default behavior. I’ll further that by telling you I dislike the part of retirement of having to stay home because nobody else has any money. If I don’t pay their way, they can’t afford anything. I see this situation as similar to the test, but let me tell you, the reality is far from hilarious. The only thing faster than warp speed is how quickly the lazy can adapt to your level of charity.
This is also why I am against income tax. It is based on your perceived ability to pay, and nothing could be less fair. I must pay tax on the same dollar income as the guy who gets if free from daddy. The fairest tax is a user-pay sales tax on consumption. Then, the only way to pay less is to consume less. Some say that is unfair. They don’t know what they are saying and have some ulterior motive. Like maxed out credit cards.
The fact is, those who say a consumption tax hurts the economy are simple-minded. It is a benefit when people are motivated to live within their means and become very cautious discerning shoppers, demanding bang for their buck.
Last Laugh
(It takes a moment to spot this one.)
(Hint: click to "enlarge".)
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