Periodic Dosage of Xah (三教九流十八班 —— 李杀)

in social and leadership situations, stupid + confident ≻ smart + unsure

Population Under the Firmament

National Geographic Paints a Pretty Picture (repost)

what is water boarding?

what is water boarding?

it's a torturing method.

you bind the man on a table, put cloth over his face. Pour water on it. sounds mild. The effect is controlled drowning.

the word “water boarding” is new. A euphemism. The method dates to at least 1950.

here's a description from CIA:

In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth… During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths… The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout… You have… informed

you can find more info and references in Wikipedia

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/iZnS6yqttTh

vice.com journal

a friend recommended:

• http://www.vice.com/en_us
• https://news.vice.com/

Vice.com

Vice is a print magazine and website focused on arts, culture, and news topics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the magazine later expanded into Vice Media, which consists of divisions including the magazine and website, a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint. As of October 2014, the magazine's Chief Creative Officer is Eddy Moretti, Andrew Creighton is President, the editor-in-chief is Rocco Castoro[2] and documentary filmmaker Andy Capper is the Global Editor.[3] As of October 2014, 29 Vice bureaus exist on every continent except Africa and Antarctica.

The editors have championed the “Immersionist” school of journalism, regarded as a DIY antithesis to the methods practiced by mainstream news outlets, and the monthly publication is frequently focused on a single theme.

〔Noam Chomsky: Julian Assange deserves applause 2012-08-23 By Noam Chomsky. @ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/interviews/Noam-Chomsky-Julian-Assange-deserves-applause/articleshow/15621507.cms〕

today's Veteran's day. Apropos: Bonus Army eviction. Li Ao on Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989

〔Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems 2014-10-23 By Julian Assange. @ http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447〕

ebola in US: don't touch. don't touch anything touched. If touch, die in 10 days. Ebola virus disease in the United States

I ain't that nigga trying to holla cause I want some head. I'm that nigga trying to holla cause I want some bread.

50 Cent ⭐〈PIMP〉 (rap song) 🎶

1932, USA. What should government do when riot gets big? run tank, or risk revolution? Li Ao on Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989

social network happy meal

social network is such that, when u post strong opinions, u alienate friends. So, posts become happy meals. Would u like to super size it?

i sure alienate lots friends, online or otherwise. One post on puzzy sks politics then boom, half of followers of great white male goody2shoes's gone. One screech about Abrahamic religions fk, boom, half's gone. Then, there's the white male programers “zen ＆ tao ＆ yoga ＆ meditation will save the world” fks. Boom. gone. One nasty about python, and boom, all python loving supporters are wavering. And, there's the Common Lisp fkhds, refusing to die. And, there's FSF and Open Source lying-thru-the-teeth fkheads, human freedom by day, 4chan ＆ pirating by night.

Ferguson Riot Twitter Fight: Amnesty international vs CSIS

xah rumination extempore = psychological pathology

while i was doing my usual 〈xah rumination extempore〉, now and then i go out of my way to validate my validity, just to be sure i'm made of steel underneath. 'tis then, i discovered, rumination is actually a psychological pathology! OMFG, erudition has its costs.

Rumination is the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions.[1] Rumination is similar to worry except rumination focuses on bad feelings and experiences from the past, whereas worry is concerned with potential bad events in the future.[1] Both rumination and worry are associated with anxiety and other negative emotional states.[1]

—Rumination (psychology)

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/LXdRKZ26JCf

humanity's future = uncertain

actually, that's just a figure of speech. As “uncertain” can mean quite a lot of things, and i don't quite believe in any dystopia or catastrophe scenarios, and in fact i think the world is getting better and better, though i hate to admit it. i rather prefer to say it's getting worse and worse.

nevertheless, it's quite a interesting topic to fantasize about, from all aspects. Social structure, sciences ＆ engineering, politics, nation states, morality, wellness… from near future say 5 or 10 years later, to distance future.

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/KxqvEvwx8K5

xah rumination extempore. hatred of idiots

i've spent significant part of my life arguing with idiots. Mostly, the hacker type of programer idiots. When in argument, most of the time, i know what they are talking about, they dunno what am talking about. That is the thing.

when did this start to happen? i think it's around year 2000. Before that, one could consider i'm a learner. A eager one. Read all the stuff i can get my hands on. Have lots questions. Often frustrated by those who don't know what am asking.

after 2000, when i'm master of perl and unix tech, servers, networking stuff, i started to lash out at the hacker idiots. That's when, people started to call me a troll.

i introspect a lot. that is to say, to a degree that's considered pathological. (it's one of the characteristics of schizoid personality) So, on this issue, i've considered, to extremes, from whether i'm a idiot, or they are, or, what exactly is happening, why does it happen. Like, a deep analysis, of all facts and facets.

i do have some conclusions. It happens because, mostly it's a personality induced thing. That is, my personality. More concretely, unable to chichat, smooth things out, say things in a agreeable manner. But, the other thing is, excuse me for saying so, most these people are idiots. No, rather, i'm a bit ahead, like, 10 years ahead the time, as sometime that's said to some mad scientists. (of course, by saying this myself in a unashamed public way, i win more enemies and ridicule. that's ok.)

you know? you read a lot of things. No, i read a lot of things. Not just programing or math stuff, but psychology, sociology. And one of the most fascinating to me is brain washing, marketing, propaganda, influence, kinda things. Or, leadership. That fascinates me. You see? you can be a great mathematician or scientist or programer, but if you are a leader, you raise a army at your heels, willing to do whatever you want them to do. (as cult leaders, or to a lesser degree politicians) There are tons of books on these topics. One thing common in these thread, is that if you want to lead, to influence people, to negotiate, to be a smooth operator, get people to believe you, trust you (as con man is good at)… that one thing, is to not offend, and from there you can lead, or trick people, that they become your followers.

you have to follow the way people think, and smoothly go from there. persuade them, handhold them — lead them.

but that's something am not sure i want to do. That's the bottom of it. Somethings in life is not a matter of decision or choice. If you are born a harlot, you are likely to be a harlot.

harlot

the les miserables, the depressed, the fuckedup, they live in a place invisible to the all-seeing social networks.

i cant help but feel, that some big free porn site is run by FBI.

Knowledge is Power my Hindquarters

they say, knowledge is power. But that's humanity speaking. Take you, for example. Suppose you study math, and is god at it. What's your fate? You'll be a professor at some university, at best. A junior javascript web monkey of will make more than you. Say, you are top of the game, you won prestigious math awards. Thy power will be below a toilet mopper at Google, who have better car than thee.

lets put superhuman powers in you. Say, you not only is a genius of math, but is a master of world history, politics, humanities, sciences, arts, equivalent to say 10 university degrees. Well, there are quite a lot people like that. Even seen the Jeopardy show? they are house wifes or mob toilets at McDonalds.

cut off pussy and wear as hat. I learned in 1992 in a American History course at Foothill College. White American Atrocity on American Indians

A Old Friend, on the Run for 14 Years, Captured by FBI: Juggler Neil Stammer

the bike sheding problem

xah's rumination extempore: on bike sheding problem

(xah's rumination extempore is when i type as fast as i can, you rip the incumbent fruit)

there's a problem called bike shed problem. that is, people tend to spend dispproportional time on trivial stuff.

the story is roughly this: nuclear power plant has lots decisions to make, but the problem most people spend time and argue about, is the design and size of the parking lot. Because it's a issue everyone can understand and have a opinion. (you can Wikipedia for detail)

this is quite interesting. worth a laugh. but it's also true. (is it scientifically true? as can this be verified or already confirmed in social science? i don't doubt it's true, but that's another topic)

so, it's quite a interesting issue. am thinking, how to classify, or address, this? like, first of all, is it a problem? if so, how can we solve it? has this problem plaque humanity throughout? like, you'd want overall view of the issue, exam its validy, degree of seriousness, its nature, and finally if there's a solution, if needed at all.

ok, but there's other similar things. Such as white female problem. I forgot what's the proper phrase, but basically, whenever some date rape or kidnap happens in USA, when it's a cute girl, the whole nation gets involved. While, much worse happens daily to black girls, or guys, everyday.

the bike shade also happens in programing. Mostly idiots argue about syntax. (i'll have to add a personal touch here: freshmen thinks syntax is most important, because that's what they see. After they graduate, they become sopho-morons, realizing that semantics is more important, because that's what computes. The ultimate sage will tell you, syntax is most important, because that's what language is. All the rest is side effect.)

ok, after thinking about these for about 20 min, i think i have a conclusion. The thing is that, human animals, and their thoughts and activities, are a process. For example, do you actually plan your life and try to optimize what you do according to a goal? WHAT is your goal? Strickly speaking, none of us had any goal, and there's no ultimate meaning of life. We live, and do things, as we go. We might have a goal today, short term or long term, such as get a degree, or open a business, or be better at something, etc, but it's not set in stone, changes, and different for everyone.

if, for example, for some reason all of us has a definite goal, of making the world a better place, as absolute, else we'll die within a year, then, bike sheding and lots other problems will be resolved, automatically. Unfortunately, no god's gonna effectively tell us that. So, even if we realize there's bike sheding problem, but so what? that's part of life. Gossipe, watch tv, go to bars, fool around, or whatever, have fun, they said. That's what we do.

so, in conclusion, the bike sheding problem isn't exactly a concrete problem. It is as problem like watching tv is a problem, or wasting time in general. It is simply a phenomenon of human behavior, human nature.

hunger or purity?

i get offers to have “guest posts” on my website, for about $100 bucks a piece. My delima is, hunger or purity.

If you look at the successes, such as Mark Zerker scmbag, or the tons of sites that's well known today (and you see it shared everyday on social networks), then perhaps, it's wise to take the offer.

sometimes, the things in life is simple. For vast majority of people, judging by their deeds, money is the only concept. Very very few, statistically abnormal, such as Richard Stallman, takes a stance. In general, you don't fare well that way.

crackpot letters

John Baez's sample of crackpot letters he received.

see https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/Ej2giAWZXwK

now and then i receive them too, i guess because i've been desperate to sell how smart i am on my websites for almost 2 decades now.

it's kinda strange and interesting that there are these people around. Sometimes you wonder if they are sincere or hoaxing, but apparently at least many of them are, as one can easily read tons of literature about UFOs and occult and conspiracy theories. (you can read Wikipedia for days on it.)

i'm a logical person. So, sometimes i give a hard try to read what they have to say, thinking that i'll have a solid analysis of the situation. But, basically it's just bizarre and doesn't make sense. Try to read what John posted and you'll see.

sometimes, some of these people are my readers or fan. So, that puts me in a awkward situation. If i show any hint of displeasure or disbelief, then perhaps i'd jeopardize a supporter.

some of these involves God, some psychology stuff.

one of the instance is when around 2001, a angle-trisector contacted me, and eventually met me in person, several times, he always treat for lunch, and paid me to help him publish his work. I end up doing some drawing for him. This is the most concrete crank that i actually came to know.

because i mostly write about programing that offends the hacker types of coders, i'm considered a crank by some. Though, think most of them are not serious.

However, there are a few who have become Xah Haters, who would take any opportunity to diss me online, when my name is mentioned. They would say i'm a idiot or dismiss my writings, in general bad mouth me. Usually, i've never ever responded to them. That usually made their behavior worse. (by the way, human nature is sometimes too predicable. As soon as i responded to them in some nice way, they go away. But, i pretty much NEVER.)

but, on the other hand, in the programing community, my maverick style also attracted a few that have crazy ideas. We'd communicate thru email, but then, i start to realize they have some strange ideas they want to tell me about or tries to get me involved. Psychology stuff, or religious, or …. It's really hard to describe. And, often they are secretive as well. I always prefer real name, and meet face to face or voice chat. But, typical hacker types are not even willing to disclose real name. So, it's nearly impossible to actually communicate with these guys for real. For example, some believe deeply in buddism... (no, it's not just that, but as i said it's hard to describe.) Then, there are one who believes in some kinda psycho therapy or something like that…

actually, a lot people in emacs community is pretty out there. I think it's because emacs and rms himself attracts very weird types.

but anyhow, i think in some philosophy aspect this is not too weird. Because, when you think about it, it's quite amazing that any 2 person can communicate at all about complex ideas. For example, let's say 2 animals, let's say 2 cats or a cat and dog. They can communicate anger, fear, submission, etc. How does the cat know what the dog is thinking? Easy, because the dog can't think of much of anything, except anger, happy, aggressive, passive, etc.

But for humans animals, we can communicate complex political ideas, philosophy problems, size of the universe, physics, mathematics, history, future. And in philosophy, at core is the mind body problem, free will problem, consciousness problem. I guess what am saying is that, the concept of thought is elusive, how can one possibly quantify possible human thoughts or beliefs (like a somewhat systematic thought set). Even some accomplished mathematicians, such as Godel, believes in ghosts and stuff.

a Google autonomous car just whisked by, with giant laser rotor spinning fast atop. i cant help but feel being violated to the bone.

become popular

to become popular is to sell lies. e.g. say things people like to hear, and utterly avoid anything that doesn't further that goal. All media, companies, are doing that.

That's something i refuse to do. But've been thinking.

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/9ciYkmKhiXY

in gaming community, there's a thing called SWATTING. That is, when you are playing game (usually some sort of military gun battle) and while broadcasting it live, someone who hates you (⁖ a rival player) calls police and make a false report that you got bombs etc, so that actual SWAT team burst into ya door, and it's all in video, streamed live.

supposedly this SWATTING prank happens more frequently since last year, even FBI's website has a page about it.

i've been in Second Life playing combat from about 2008 to 2010. Most of them are teens or early 20s. Yes, they are, idiotic of the idiotic. Yet, in game, there's nothing you can do. It is aggression and nonsense hell. It is, Lord Of The Flies.

the guy in the video is Jordan Mathewson (aka Kootra). He runs a company named The Creatures LLC, as a video game related entertainment business.

here's more info about “SWATTING” and this incident:

FBI page about “SWATTING” http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/february/swatting020408

Wikipedia article Swatting

here's a interview of the guy being SWATTED. The Full Interview with Gamer Kootra (Jordan Mathewson) with GM

by the way, if you have seen a article about the teen pransker name Paul Horner got sentenced to 25 years, that's a fake article. That article has spread on the internet. The Paul Horner fake report seems to originate from a site called National Report. The courte video used by National Report is actually of a real case where a teen killed a toddler, see http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/local/2014/01/10/dylan-schumaker-sentenced-for-toddler-death/4407071/ (and WGRZ seems a valid news agency, see WGRZ)

also, there's another article from “The Epoch Times” that debunk the fake Paul Horner article. Note that The Epoch Times is a frontend of Falun Gong. See:

• Falun Gong Front Groups
• Scientology and Falun Gong

so far, the prankerof the Kootra case haven't been caught. The case is ongoing.

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/2UGp8raWfn4

Ukrain Unrest

if you only read one piece of politics about Ukrain event this year, read this one, by Brennan Young. https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/aWDkg1rP8JQ

here's his full post:

I don't support either ‘side’, and I object to being asked to choose. However, I think NATO's motivations are more sinister, and less transparent than those of Putin. Russia is not actually ‘hitting’ Ukraine with any firepower, whereas the Ukrainian army really is shelling the russophone communities of eastern Ukraine. I invite you to check these details, and (especially) watch the sources if you can.

I believe NATO/Washington wants to control all of Ukraine (as part of a greater strategy for control of resources in the middle east, getting Iran to bow to the Washington Consensus etc.) They would rather that we all forget that eastern Ukraine is mostly populated by russophone communities.

There's no doubt in my mind that NATO/Washington cares not at all for the ordinary Ukrainian people, or their rights, so we're basically getting a lot of crocodile tears, while the bombardment of civilians in Eastern Ukraine continues, with Washington's backing.

Putin, meanwhile, is trying to prevent Russia being completely surrounded by offensive NATO bases, which is (I think) quite reasonable. It's absolutely equivalent to USA taking control of Panama, which is apparently quite acceptable for the western mind.

I was encouraged by the Maidan uprisings in the beginning, because Ukraine was (and still is) run by gangsters and puppets loyal to either Washington (e.g. Tymoshenko) or Moscow (e.g. Yanukovic).

Unfortunately any of the anti-authoritarian activists who wanted to change the succession of puppets and gansters, were routinely beaten up by the ultra-nationalist, authoritarian thugs. There's a very good, but overlong, account of this (from March) here:

http://www.thepolemicist.net/2014/03/charge-of-right-brigade-ukraine-and.html

The recently installed Ukrainian leadership are part of this ultra-nationalist minority and are supported by (and therefore loyal to) NATO/Washington. The Ukrainian president dissolved the government last week, so western Ukraine is basically run by NATO at the moment.

NATO and UK psyops have been operating in Ukraine for some time, as revealed by documents leaked by Snowden. This is documented here (from end February):

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/02/28/massive-psyop-employed-against-ukraine-by-gchq-and-nsa.html

The intense amount of western psyops activity in Ukraine make me distrust any story which is too black and white, especially when Putin is painted as the big evil guy, and the Ukrainians are painted as the poor victims. The only people who have been killing Ukrainians over the summer has been the Ukrainian army. And western journalists seem quite ok with that.

Full disclosure: My wife is Ukrainian, from a Russian speaking family, but she loves the Ukrainian language and (to some extent) the culture, which shares much with that of Russia. We have both Russian and Ukrainian friends. Our son speaks Russian (and English, and Danish).

We are especially dismayed by the culture of hate that is being generated from the propaganda from Washington and Moscow. We are afraid of a repeat of Yugoslavia, where friends and neighbours were turned into mortal enemies for the sake of strategic power plays at the top.

facebook is banning xvideos dot com. I was posting asking about the domain and got this.

after some testing, it also ban'd “youporn.com”, but not “pornhub.com”. Strange.

Open source american left liberal human animal scumbags. camcast monopoly! https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/ShAKYQXZhjA

Edward Bernays

David Blaine

i think a lot people have problem with me. e.g. i can see it when new people post comments, their style.

Why do they have problem? It's because, when they read my site, first thing people notice is a stinking stance, weirdness, and a spite towards the norm. Thus, many, mostly geeks/hackers (as they are my main audience), sometimes respond in kind, or even attack outright, on whatever i was writing about, when they disagree or most often just want to let out their own steam on “related” issue.

should i change? Why, should i become the normal, the pleasing, the for the good of humanity, help women, help children, tech is making the world a better place, be inspiring, encourage not demean, and et al?

Like, the fk gazillion advertisements on TV, big organizations like google facebook verizon at&t comcast and banks who has spent billions on how to please people and get money out of it? Would you like fries to go with it?

like, be positive for the good of humanity and over thousands of years it's not getting better anytime soon and drones and fbi and cia and 1984 and all?

but, on the other hand, surely it's not right to encourage everyone to be negative, pessimistic, pulling things down?

i'll tell ya what. i think a few nutcase like me is fine. Look yonder Richard Stallman and Linus! Wow, what heroes. All hell to heroes.

if you have infrared eyesight, what would you see? wait, let's rephrase. What would a person tells us, if he had worn infrared goggles all the time for a month?

Jay Dugger says: Changes in blood flow to the face might help understanding facial expressions

that's a good point. It means the person can detect lies or other emotional change that we normally wouldn't.

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/ido4kKgVFzA

which super power is most powerful?

solly 4 life

Art of Robert Crumb

Survival. A concept am deeply enamored with. And, while i'm in this state, i need to write about it, like those weird classic captain's log or travelogue. Because, when you don't need to worry about survival, your thought process, views, are completely different.

Human Animals Need Ass Kissing to Survive (emacs vs vi)

i just had the most amazing, surreal dream in my life. But i dont' remember the detail, but lets try to write what i can possibly recall down.

it has something to do with job interview. There are monsters… The feel is somewhat like that movie Pan's Labyrinth or Tim Burton's stuff (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas). It also involves transportation, as am going somewhere… it also involves flirting, and choices to make. Have to marry one of them, while the girl also had to choose. One girl/wife is some past life. They are all attractive. The people in the dream are kinda semi-human, or perhaps some of them are things that talk. Pan's Labrinth or Dali like. like a Sepia tone'd film. I think one of them got stabbed, as, perhaps on his/her/creature's stomach and maybe there's, like, a hole with blood there. We or i, have are trying to overthrow something or some like that. Near the end, i discovered it's all setup (as: it's just a dream), but some realities are still there, and they let me know i have to make a choice. (the whole dream is a positive experience, as if in a fantasy adventure game. (like Zelda Occarina of Time (but isn't a cheerful color)))

while i was semi-awake, i was thinking that i rate this dream the best in my life. Was thinking making a careful judgement because i know there are quite a few best ones, but was too busy to make fair judgement (⁖ can't take time or brain space to recall what best dreams i had). Now, am fully awake, and i can't do because i don't even remember much of the dream. The dream is lucid, as most my dreams are.

…wasn't sure am gonna write this one out because i don't remember most of the dream. The above is perhaps just 30% of the theme, and 0% actual detail/content, and i just typed out as fast as possible. Whatever it makes out.

A Whiteman's Disease

Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation @ 6:10 ♥ http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/b6cwb3/sport-report---professional-soccer-toddler--golf-innovations---washington-redskins-charm-offensive

go Colbert! I ♥ Your show.

Sincerely,

Xah Lee, Chair of Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation

#CancelColbert #chinese

Why Doesn't Wikipedia Uses imdb.com for Movie Rating Anymore?

there's a interesting phenomenon. imdb.com used to be the granddaddy of movie review/rating site. (it originated in 1980s from newsgroups, later somehow acquired by amazon) Wikipedia article on movies used to refer to it for ratings. But since few years ago, it started to also use Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Today, it doesn't even mention imdb's rating at all.

For example, see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire#Critical response

i am not familiar with Rotten Tomatoes nor Metacritic. Does anyone know why Wikipedia started to use them and not even include imdb? (preferably, if anyone can point to a policy page on this, or a discussion)

comment at https://plus.google.com/+XahLee/posts/Z9AphhgX3pE

#wikipedia #movie

The Hunger Games: Inspired by Iraq War and Reality Show on TV

Collins says that the inspiration to write The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and the idea for the book was formed

you can still see it in this video of the official site where the author Suzanne Collins talk about it. http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/videos/contemporary-inspiration.htm

many other sites, will just say the inspiration is from Greek Mythology.

the Hunger Games. how i love this theme.

primal, desperation, survival, reality, admist a decadence of fabulousness ＆ debauchery

Arcade Fire ⭐〈Abraham's Daughter〉, 〈Hunger Games〉 Ending Credits Song 🎶

Currently watching: Catching Fire

there exists this thing, call melodrama. Which, comprises of beautiful people acting out crannies of life. Examples in English of 1980s are Dallas, Dynasty, Another World, and countless today's ones, Downton Abbey?

but, it's not just in Western sphere. In Asia, particularly China, South Korea, it's perhaps even more rampant.

it's fascinating to watch. You see these people, all walks of life, all ages from teen to old, and including the rich, or those on wheelchair, or vagrant, but, they are so beautiful! You can't tear the eyes off of them.

In Asia, i know there are tons of people, typically house wifes, who'd rent them, watch all the episodes, from dawn to dawn, teary eyed, like addiction. Then, repeat with another soap show. There are tons of these soap operas, filling large libraries. ALL BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

i, too, cannot escape this fascination. I'm obsessed, to pathologically stare at their faces, their beautiful smiles, their mannerism, the genuinely acted shine and tears. It is, eternally fascinating.

“i want to look good naked” — American Beauty

〔➤ American Beauty Screenshots〕

what a great aspiration in modern life.

my new years resolution has always been to fuck a blonde. Maybe i should ratchet down a notch and look good naked first, physically.

so, look good naked. Would that be your resolution in life?

Lets Forgive Our Dead Enemies: the Pardoning of Alan Turing

wikipedia is not without controversies in its reliability. However, in general, if you are a learned man, and read it frequently, you basically know by heart which parts is not trustworthy.

when you are a learned man (as in, you have several degrees, or is a scholar, and often minimally knowledgeable in diverse fields from sciences to humanity, such as philosopher), you can basically tell when you read something that came across as funny, wikipedia or not. Because, you know what you know and what you don't know, and you have good experience of seeing questionable content.

And, if you do use wikipedia a lot, you also know which type of article, or part of the writing style, is red ink.

gratuitous links:

• The Heart of Wikipedia: Why is Wikipedia Successful?
• Lispers and Wikipedia
• Wikipedia Morons
• Encyclopedia, My Experiences
• Death of Encarta
• Links to Wikipedia from Xah Sites

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.

—Nelson Mandela

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

—Mignon McLaughlin, author (1913 〜 1983)

〔➤ Xah's Favorite Quotations〕

Nelson Mandela (1918 〜 2013)

Gadla (Nelson Mandela's dad) was a polygamist, having four wives, four sons and nine daughters, who lived in different villages. Nelson's mother was Gadla's third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, who was daughter of Nkedama of the Right Hand House and a member of the amaMpemvu clan of Xhosa.[8]

…

Mandela and his co-accused were transferred from Pretoria to the prison on Robben Island, remaining there for the next 18 years. (1962–1982)

In March 1980 the slogan “Free Mandela!” was developed by journalist Percy Qoboza, sparking an international campaign that led the UN Security Council to call for his release.[149] Despite increasing foreign pressure, the government refused, relying on powerful foreign Cold War allies in US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; Thatcher considered Mandela a communist terrorist and supported the suppression of the ANC.[150]

Jeremy Hammond, a hacker, got 10 years.

Jeremy seems to be a good person. The “crime” he got 10 years for, is the 2012-13 Stratfor email leak, published by wikileaks. The leaked info is full of government spy stuff.

I care. but in our complicated modern society, it seems there's little one can do. One either minds his own survival, or become a full time activist or politician.

the obsession of efficiency of stirring coffee and fluid dynamics

every time i stir coffee, i can't help but think of turbulence, and the most efficient way to stir.

turbulence, for example, you can see the fascinating aspect of it, when a ink drops into clear water. That's not exactly turbulence, but diffusion or such, but still, the concept is fluid dynamics.

now, efficiency of stirring… for example, when you mix with a chopstick. Is it more efficient if you just keep going circular, or is it better to go side by side… or circular with reverse direction per circle… then we need to define what we are allowed to do. For example, is it minimum energy spent, or minimum motion of the tip of chopstick, or other. And, we have to consider speed. What speed are we allowed. Also, when thinking about this, you have to consider the size and shape of the cup, vs the size and shape of the stirring thing, ⁖ it can be a stick or spoon (long thing spoon or wide bottom spoon…).

then, my mind went into the most efficient way to stir with consideration of the ease to remember that fact. For example, if way A is most efficient, but way B is close but far more easy to remember, then, with B should be the right choice with respect to practicality. lol.

this isn't just stirring coffee, but whenever i need to mix things. And, when i see concrete mixer, design of the middle spindle of cloth washing machines, or consider the shaker bottle used by bar tenders to mix drinks.

so yeah, shake. For example, when i have a bottle of Starbucks coffee, often you need to shake. So, i have to consider the most efficient way to shake it. One way, is to hold the bottle, then twist your wrist. Another way, is to shake it vigorously up and down as do bar tender with their shaker. So, if minimum energy is our goal, which way is more efficient?

a piece from the now dead Aaron Swartz https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget

Aaron mentioned suicide, in 2008.

online, you don't know how fucked up some admirable people actually are.

Aaron, being a celebrity, he's got a gaggle of programers following him. If Aaron farted something, the entire programing community is in concurrence. Hacker News Reddit idiots.

it has become my nature, my mission, to despise any celebrity and anything fart from the hacker news reddit shit. Mostly because they are brainless farts.

this piece by Aaron is also quite idiotic. Yeah, get the job he's got, then jump off the bridge.

What's Aaron like in real life? a piece of cock. you can smell it from a thousand miles.

but, i'd say, he's like what he is is mostly inborn. It's his nature. Perhaps, he's pre-ordained to kill himself since he's born.

so, it looks like the idiot Sarah Palin is on the news again….

every time i see her, i can't help but think how idiotic she possibly could be. And that George Bush. Though, i think one person i highly respect, Camille Paglia, seems to have voiced support of Sarah. I don't understand.

but anyway, let's assume Sarah and Bush are clowns of high order. Then, it's a interesting question, whether politics thru-out history are like that? and to what degree?

from what i know of Taiwan politicians, i think it's equally farcical.

i don't have expertise in history to say more, but it seems it's like that almost everywhere most of the time. (well, probably only in modern times, since in older time it's kings and the average citizens don't get to see the ruler's everyday life idiocy.)

since we made conclusion before evidence, let's just go on a bit.

it seems, it has to do with some complex social reasons and human nature…

anyhow, am thinking, first of all, politicians are those who are interested in power and or leadership. It is not usually of people with expertise or knowledge. People adept at leadership also usually require human skill, meaning, influence others, make others like you, support you. To some degree, it's a manipulative power to begin with. (as opposed to, being the scientifically optimal choice for the supporters's advantage)

the other thing am thinking is that, politicians are like that in part due to the general crowd being stupid. It's like this. You have a crowd, and statistically you can divide their IQ or know-how into sectors. By definition, the vast majority, 80%, will be below the 20%. (LOL. we have a stat fiat here!) So, politicians need to make the 80% happy. This is how things necessarily work in democracy.

nevertheless, it's interesting to know if in the whole American history, how do people see the politicians, what nature are they, are they stupid, selfish, and circus like?

since i became minimally acquainted with US politics since 2000, it's pretty much all circus like. Shallow issues, drama ….

don't bother with info that came passively

If something is on TED, don't believe it, don't watch it, don't lend your mind to it.

a more stringent theorem is: don't ever read any thing that came to you passively, such as on social networks. Read, Seek, things only yourself.

but won't that take away 90% of things you'd be learning? Yes, and that reflects the poverty of the state of your brain.

Intro of Ayn Rand and Her Philosophy, in Comics Strips

there's this character, named Ayn Rand, with her culty objectivism.

Her height of fame is around 1950s to 1970s. (she's born 1905, died 1982, aged 77). Though, she is somewhat popular among hacker type programers. I first heard of her around year 2000 by programer colleagues.

Her idea, that selfishness ＆ capitalism are supreme, i much agree with. However, this “objectivism” smelled cult to me. Though i never knew much of her, other than that she wrote some novels called 〈Atlas Shrugged〉. amazon

there's this fascinating 66 pages intro/bio about Ayn Rand, at http://activatecomix.com/162-1-1.comic by artist Darryl Cunningham

it's a bit long, but is a very good, condensed intro and bio about Ayn Rand and her ideas. Highly recommended.

if you have time, you can also checkout Wikipedia:

• Ayn Rand
• Nathaniel Branden
• Barbara Branden
• Alan Greenspan

on the idiocy of comments of blogs of the tl;dr syndrom

xah's edu corner, extempore❕ episode 2013-10-03T11:47:17-07:00

there's a pesky problem of online comments. actually there's lots, but one am addressing today is the “tl;dr” syndrom.

as a online writer, often you get senseless comments to your blog/post/essay, where the answer is right in the article. People didn't bother to click the link, or, they did but just spend 10 seconds to scan it.

this happens to me often. On ranty or opinion oriented pieces, it's more understandable, but sometimes it happens on short technical programing piece.

if the article is long, it's understandable. but sometimes people ask questions that is specifically and intentionally answered by a short article.

it's hard to battle the problem.

you can tell them gently “did you read it” or “it's answered in the article”, but often even that is a bit too rub on one's nose.

it's a social problem of the online era… i wanted to comment on the grand scheme of things of human history but am not sure what to say. It's … must be something in history too, related to human nature, the nature of discussion, conversation. In digital age, this easily happens, because most human animals more enjoy conversation than some formal discourse. Before digital age, people have to write in by snail mail to comment on editorials. That is hard, so the comment is high quality. Each will take several hours to do, counting the careful reading of the article.

anyhow, i myself am susceptible to this silly behavior. Sometimes, when reading a post of interest, i want to comment on it. But, sometimes the article is long, and i don't really have time to spend a hour to read it among the ten thousand tweets posted online daily.

so the question is, to comment or not comment?

if the author i support, i usually tend to comment anyway. Because, in general, to support a writer, it's better to have comment than none, even if the comment is low quality.

ad-blocking and consequences

xah's edu corner, ad-blocking and consequences, extempore! episode 2013-10-01T16:48:36-07:00

so, there's this issue of ad-blocking.

there are these open source freedom loving folks, by day sings freedom of humanity, by night steal movies and blocking ads by the chant of the like of info wants to be free.

so, lots of them use ad-blockers (while, putting Google ads on their blogs).

one can give lectures about it all day, but as human animals, it won't work. However, it seems vast majority of people (outside of the hacker circle), are not bothering with ad-blockers, so all the sites on the web are currently safe.

but, it seems, it might get worse, if not already very worse. Many went with membership only (as in porn).

so, the consequence is that, sooner or later, nobody will create content. What you'll have is content the likes from hacker idiots, where, links are broken, things won't work.

that's quite a interesting scenario actually. I guess it already happened, where, daily people posting thousands of links to these crass sites, where they all repeat and refry the same info. (⁖ vast majority of major news outlets, and also all the gif animations stolen from somebody's video on youtube… You know? for example, Time mag used to be real quality mag, but now their site is 99% of garbage, counting random photos (none original), cute things, random gossip, just like every other site)

ok, now i've thought about this, i guess nothing much worse would happen. Because i was thinking there's some point where something would happen.

ok, but anyway, am writing this originally to say something i learned. That is, there's a counter to the calamity scenario. That is, these content creators will start to mix in ads with their content, so there's no telling of which content is ad, which part if any is not.

again, that's already happening. for quite a number of years. There's text ad links… where the so-called blackhat CEO sell/buy links. For example, if you write blogs, people will pay you to have their link on your site, without any indication it's a ad or paid link. This market is huge, and the money you get per link is some ten times than actual ad.

ok, so it's actually all happening already, nothing special here.

now, the interesting question is what will happen if this gets worse and worse.

humm…. i can't think of anything particularly standing out. I guess then that people will start to buy books instead, and again this seems also been happening. namely, amazon kindle.

prison life = great work?

took 15 min and read about prison life. I don't think i wanna be.

i always had a fascination with prison life. I mean, quite a few great mathematicians, author, did great work in prison.

so, i have idolize it as a environment to horn your character. Solitary confinement, with the most basic subsistence. Which, is not much different from the life i lead.

but, modern prison, isn't like that, i don't think. But actually, i am not sure in older times it's better. So, how's it possible for several historical figures doing great work in prison? dunno. For one thing, it's statistically rare. So, it's like someone won lottery. Sure it happens, but would happen to you as you'd hit by a asteroid…

2013-09-07T20:51:54-07:00

i heard a loud boom. 1 sec later, again, then again. Power's gone, for the whole blocks of neighborhood. no power = death

this is Mountain View, California, USA. 2:15 afternoon.

3 loud booms outside. Electricity out. All neighbor you've never seen came out. Firemen came first, then PG＆E. Fixed on 2013-09-07T20:51:54-07:00.

perhaps around half mile radius's electricity's out. Not sure what's the cause, probably some tree cutter. The PG＆E guy i asked said the circuit breaker jumped (something like that).

in modern society, in a city, when power's out, it mean, death.

all refrigerator ceases function. That means, all food'll go rot. Not just in your home, but all super markets.

there's no stove to cook neither (unless you are of the richer that uses gas fire stoves).

hot water's gone too.

and, while was enjoying Bach and sipping coffee and coding great code, boom, no more computer. No more internet. And, this means, the coders ceases functioning, and thus website starts to bitrot.

when the sun sets, pitch dark Becometh my sight. Basically, all activity after sunset is gonna be done for.

and not to mention zombies…

White American Atrocity on American Indians