January 7, 2018

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 7, 2017, still roughing it . . .
Five years ago today: January 7, 2013, okay, it was me.
Nine years ago today: January 7, 2009, the apology as a weapon.
Random years ago today: January 7, 2007, was I that skinny?

           Before we continue, this is a picture of Julie Houts. I believe she is a writer. I’ve not read a thing by her, I’m just saying I find her totally attractive in the chemistry department. Maybe we’d hate each other in person, so all I’m saying, Julie, is if you ever get down this way, from one writer to another, maybe we could collaborate on, you know, some independent research concerning basic human behavior. Julie, babe, any time you want out of the bush league, I’m just letting you know I’ve already made up my mind.

           Bitcoin is back in the headlines. The premise of these crypto-currencies is that everybody who uses them is watching to ensure nobody else is cheating. For that reason alone, some governments hate them. The reasoning is simple, money is power and the government wants to prevent you from cheating while retaining the right for themselves to do so. In the USA, this is done by the government printing up all the money it needs to pay its bills. But if you do the same, that is counterfeiting. What’s that smell?

           I was up late reading, which included the atlas. I don’t want a big trip this month, but as I look over the areas of Florida, there are so many I’ve never seen. The panhandle, I don’t care about, but I’d like to see the land north from Deland, along the St. John River. Or is it St. Johns. It’s probably more of the same, but for a winter trip, no sense going up into Siberia. I threw on a video that had those scenes from the 1930s or maybe 40s. I wonder, did people really go to those dreary night clubs where you sat at tables and watched big bands play those cheerless songs about unrequited love all night long? Or is that just the way the era is portrayed by Hollywood?
           One thing, if there was a place people gathered to do a little ballroom dancing, I’d have found it by now. I’ve never even seen such a club and it stands to reason there should still be a few around. Mind you, I remember when cabarets were big. Out west most hotels who had a bar also had a cabaret and the music was nicer. The drinks were a quarter more but that kept out the riff-raff. And those were my formative years with music. I don’t really have that bar band influence in my background to anything like the degree I’ve seen it since I got to Florida.

           Let me pause to think, have I ever seen a really nice dance spot in Florida. Judy and I used to dance ballroom at our cabarets. She like to be the best and youngest dancers in the room, and that was often by 30 years. Her favorite was the Samba, which looks like a polka to the untrained eye. Those were the days. Let me thing about Florida again. Yeah, I’ve been to all the nice places but the emphasis was always on food, not dancing. Sigh, because I know I’m twenty years out of practice. Yet there was a time when if you let me dance even five minutes. I’d score with the best dame in the place. That was then.
           Somewhere I have a set of 30 pics of my dance partners back then. These were dames from the studio, or other teachers who liked to get away from teaching and just meet up to dance where there were no students. We knew all the favorite haunts and it was always four or five women to each male dance instructor. I still remember the studio nicknames of the best looking ones. Taylor, StepBaby, Debs, Foxy, and Hanna-Banana. Who can forget the day Harry turned 20 and we descended on his place for the best of all birthday parties. I brought six women myself, the week after I broke up with Judy. That’s the same Harry as in the phrase, “Living like Harry” of when was it, 2010.


           [Author’s note: living like Harry was a referral to the allowance Harry got from his parents. How he could go out and spend his last penny on the last day of the month because he knew like clockwork he’d be getting his allowance next day. Ah, to be living like Harry.]

           It’s an acquired eccentricity in me, but even though I could, I can’t live like Harry. I’ve learned the hard way never to spend my last cent. So even though I built, in my own lifetime, the infrastructure where I could spend everything, I don’t. I imagine if I became rich, people born with money would spot such traits in me, as an individual, I must be chock full of them without knowing it. What brought this up was last month. For the first time in, wow, I can’t remember, but it’s a long time, my operational account was drained down to 5 cents. That’s correct, in December an account where the minimum balance is $500 was down to a nickel.
           The buffer was always there to ensure against overdrafts. But my system has become so fine-tuned that I was really taking no risk at all. I knew exactly how close it came taking a hundred bucks out on New Year’s Eve at a strange ATM. I was over at the Fun Bar in Winter Haven with GG, off duty. We get along but we don’t do the wild thing. It was a good time, and that was one of the rare times I used a debit card, as mentioned last day. Even though the machine is in a pub, the transaction is recorded as the “JB Food Market”. Rather a nice touch.

Picture of the day.
Montana.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Years ago I studied the Bayesian theorem, a way to use the best available information to have statistics determine a result. Don’t pooh-pooh this formula, it is more like using statistics against itself. And that is no mean feat. This formula has been used to locate missing submarines in the middle of the ocean against all odds. So imagine my surprise to learn it was used in 1944 to predict German tank production. German tanks had, on average 32 wheels, which were cast in molds by a well-known process. The theory was used to calculate backwards that Germany could max out at just under 300 tanks per month. After the war, this figure proved more accurate than the figures provided by the entire spy network.
           I made it to the Davenport bookstore. It is 39.8 miles away by the nearest route. Gives me time to think and here’s one for you. I’ve got a question that demonstrates the shallowness of the Internet and its guiding principle of truth by majority rule. Face it, if 50 million schoolchildren are taught that a certain wrong answer will pass the exam, in another few years it is established fact. So, the question is, “How do you read an electric meter?

           You’ll get fifty million results all saying the same thing. When the needle is between two numbers, you read the lower number. But did any of these people actually read a meter, or are they parroting the answer that passes the test? Here’s how you tell. Ask them back, okay, the needle on my meter is between the 9 and the 0. Which is the lower number? It’s a non-question, but do it just to see the blank looks on their so-recently authorative faces. Then, to ensure they remain as stupid as ever, tell them it depends on which way the needle is turning. Because they all know the numbers change direction. Man, I used to have fun back in Texas.

ADDENDUM
           The only thing I bought was the current issue of the MIT Technology Review. That’s the GMO/OMG volume 121. It is particularly inspired this month, albeit with that pesky liberal bent. I like my technology unmixed. There is a new round of genetically modified frankenfood about to hit the market that has not regulated for safety. The original law, now twenty years out of date, applies only to food that has introduced foreign DNA and exempts food where the natural DNA has been altered. There are two technologies available that can ‘turn off’ certain natural genetic features. It is this food that is finding its way onto your dinner plate.

           My view is simple. Without saying the food should be banned, it should be clearly labeled if it has been artificially changed in any way. Then let the consumer decide what makes to the grocery shelves. And to me, artificial is any process that alters the speed of natural evolution except via selective breeding. The warning label should be both distinctive and on the front of the product. These GMO companies are pushing against disclosure. Monsanto isn’t about to tell you that a all manner of weeds have evolved that are immune to Roundup.

           There was an article on Artificial Intelligence, a topic guaranteed to get me reading. But it was interlaced with derogatory remarks concerning what the intelligence could not do. That’s your liberal bias at work. The example given was a computer booking a table for two. The computer has no concept of dining out, so instead of trying to book at a restaurant, it might try at the Mayo Clinic. You are supposed to chuckle. But that isn’t funny when you consider that is the precise type of error that unintelligent humans make all day long.
           Several other MIT articles take the same stance, that artificial intelligence must be guided toward the public good. What I don’t buy is why they are singling out AI as if it were inherently evil and needs to be chaperoned. Their argument is that the research is driven by the profit motive for the benefit of executives and shareholders. Again, why are they ignoring the fact this takes place with almost every other innovation. Because, they say, this one will eliminate human jobs. Well, so did the bulldozer and sewing machine. Always taking one side of the story and ignoring the other is what makes them into liberals.
           In my own lifetime I’ve seen various technologies emerge that caused society to change its habits. It’s a common thing and people are constantly being displaced. It happened to me. But to stop that process is to hold back progress. The liberals are implying technology is bad unless it is tempered by concern for its effect on people. Nonsense, I say. History is full of the flawed results caused by policing technology. Here is a list of the top ten things introduced to mankind by people who try to twist things to please everyone.

                     1. Ghettos
                     2. Space shuttles
                     3. Monsanto
                     4. Toilet selfies
                     5. Microsoft
                     6. YouTube ads
                     7. Bank lineups
                     8. Subscription cards
                     9. Justin Beiber
                   10. Justin Bieber Anime Justin Bieber.


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