Warm and Productive

Today, though snowy, sleety, and rainy outside, was warm and productive inside. Didn’t even go out except for mail and trash can retrieval. Mail was well worth the walk: got another book on the Arduino (of which I read three chapters earlier).

Paid monthly bills which both pisses me off and makes me glad that I’ve made it through another month.  After the bills I read Arduino books and played with the circuit board all afternoon.

Had my first bottle of homemade beer. Taste is a little yeasty; kind of like sucking on the crust of a rye bread. Still, the beer really does taste pretty OK. Have already found two bottles whose caps didn’t sit right and they haven’t carbonated. I will try those later. If they are flat but taste like beer, I can use them for cooking. (Will check into glass bottles with caps instead of this plastic set.)

Newswise, my angry little heartjjjjjhjk98               (Buddy break)
“4\\

Buddy on the keyboard again. (Actually, the above was really followed by eight pages of carriage returns.)

As I was saying before being so fuzzily interrupted, newswise my angry little heart rejoiced at the capture of Mr. Ethan Couch, the “affluenza teen” from Texas. Authorities nabbed him and his mother in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Apparently the pair even had something like a bon voyage party before skipping the country. 

I’m thinking the more significant members of the family’s “club” will feed this particular  boy member to the sharks. First, they get rid of a conspicuous problem that draws attention to them; second, it’s “proof” that the rich can be brought to justice just like you and me. His momma might be rich, but the piranha legal system will be gouging huge chunks of those assets.

His momma is back in the U.S., having been deported from Mexico but the Mexican authorities are holding the boy for awhile because his lawyers have filed motions of some sort.

Any questions as to why these two Texans want to carry guns?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law allowing the open carrying of handguns in public and of concealed handguns on state university campuses, his office said. Abbott, a Republican, said the measures secure Texans’ rights to bear arms guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. “Today, I am proud to expand liberty in the Lone Star State,” Abbott said in a statement.

Despair

They have nothing. They live in pockets of loneliness, despair, and violence in giant stone prisons incarcerated every bit as much as their imprisoned relatives and loved ones. Amidst the ruin and grime they stand with steel cores of self-respect, unbowed by the forces that beset them. Disrespect, however slight, is perceived as an assault against their very beings, and can draw swift, violent reactions. (You’ve taken everything else; you will not take their self-respect.)

Catch-Up

Thank the Universe I had some antidepressant left from when K got sick. Decided to take it again to get me through the holidays. Finally seems to be working. Depression lifting.

One of the more interesting things over the slow-news holidays was a piece by Reynard Loki for AlterNet titled: Sorry You Can’t Have Fries With That: 10 Foods That May Disappear Thanks To Climate Change.

Here’s the list: Apples, avocadoes, beer, chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, potatoes, rice and beans, seafood and wine!!!!! (Eleven items actually. Beans and rice are sufficiently different to me.) I don’t know about anyone else’s eating habits but taking those items off my grocery list is a pretty severe hit.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about a couple of days back. Changing weather patterns are already changing the national landscape of our crops.

I think future—and much more limited selection—crops will be owned by a select few families who have had the resources to commission science-driven predictions by experts of future climatic impact. I suspect they already own huge swaths of land in areas their reports tell them will be arable. (Some of us may be lucky enough to work the land for them as indentured servants but with computerized machinery doing all the planting and harvesting, jobs will be relatively few.)

A select few are already prepared to ride out the coming storms in their hidden fortresses tucked away discretely in hard to-access-areas that can provide water and fuel as needs arise.

The futurist guys over at Meland headquarters think the super-rich West Coasters have fallen back into two lines. The first line likely composed of the really rich who straddle the crests of the ridge of mountains extending from central Oregon down the eastern side of California. Others may be hidden in the national forests at the feet of those hills. (It really isn’t too much of an exaggeration to suggest that many of the properties of the really rich will be coastal in the foreseeable future. Any of today’s rich folk who hide in the hills on the west coast of California from a Gold Beach to Medford line, down through the Six Rivers National Forrest to north of Santa Rosa, will find themselves on an island.)

The second line of our hiding nobles will be the string of super-rich fortresses decorating the spine of the Rocky Mountains like monstrous, concrete bunkers. They are high and hidden. (Somebody knows where they are: builders, maids, security, chefs, suppliers. Somebody.)

Another line of super-rich will be found along the crests and valleys of the East Coast mountains running from northern Maine to Georgia’s northern border. Rising tides will push back the eastern coastline and people will be compressed between that mountain range and the new approaching outline of the sea. Florida will become nearly intolerable from the heat and disappearing land so most of those folks will be pushing up northwest. The Gulf is dead and those rising waters are going to reclaim huge portions of the southern states whose residents will head north also. (Sure there will still be people in all these areas but they are likely to be survivalist types who get along just fine eating snakes and alligators.)

The Southwest is going to be like an oven that’s been put on pre-heat: it’s going to start out hot like it typically is now (116 degrees not rare), and ratchet up to some lethal levels. Racist as it might seem, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Texas, New Mexico and Arizona repopulated almost entirely by South Americans and Mexicans. Americans may huddle in the major southern and southwestern cities constricted by limited bubbles of air conditioning, but the baking land will be populated by men who have endured the sun’s fire for hundreds of years already.

(On the upside, there will be jobs for persons willing to endure the hellish heat to install solar farms. If we’ve screwed things up so much that we are about to suffer massive weather changes, we better learn how to take advantage of all the sun’s excess energy real quick.)

If we lose California as a food source—and the deep south including Florida—food available to each of us becomes far less; far, far less. In a society used to unlimited bounty this will create major stress. This stress will have within its clutches the most heavily armed nation in the world. Let the culling begin.

The SR (Super Rich) will need a few followers to ensure their existences but the rest of us pretty much have to go away so that we don’t burden the food chain. The compression of all Americans into smaller land mass (with those Americans all armed to the teeth) is bound to bring out the best in us.

Buddy Disappears

Buddy the cat finally took his revenge for all those exercise programs I have been iiiiiiiiiiesigning— (sorry, Buddy walked across the keyboard)—designing for him. He simply disappeared.

Buddy

I’ve wondered for some time if Buddy might be magical. I’ve already pointed out his propensity for Star-Trek-like teleportation. Mostly these teleportations are of short duration: 15 – 30 minutes between changes in location. (I have yet to witness any significant energy exchange at the moment of transport so I have no rational explanation for his powers.)

Buddy’s appearences/disappearences is one of his many quirky traits. I’ve grown attached to him more quickly than I would have guessed. He is the epitome of his name. Often he will stay close by if I seem to be limiting my movement to a particular room. When I wash dishes I have to be sure to look down before I move because he is often curled near my feet. As of late, he has taken to stretching on the keyboard. If I’m working mostly with the mouse (oh, something weird word-wise going on there), his presence is welcomed because I can still get work done; if my activity is keyboard intensive, I either have to shoo him or rub his cotton-soft belly.

None of this is to say that Buddy is “soft” as in “dependent in nature.” He’s a 14-year-old (we think) adult who is secure enough in his self-perception to provide everybody some “alone” time. He often sleeps an afternoon away on his cardboard boxes upstairs. He is totally comfortable here already. He knows this is his home. He can do what he wants, when he wants. (As long as his input/output functions are handled on an acceptable level of civility.)

Not seeing Buddy for an hour or two is not unusual, but as a rule he drinks a lot and pees a lot so there is much back-and-forth traffic between water bowl and litter box. Prolonged absences often end because he needs to visit the john. I couldn’t recall any recent traffic on his part.

After getting on hands and knees and peering way back into the corner under the red recliner to find he wasn’t there, I loudly called his name. He almost always comes to his called name to see what the ruckus is all about. No response. Go to the bottom of the stairs. Call his name. Still nothing. Climb stairs to the library (dozens of boxes crammed with books) which is where he likes to lounge on an empty box. No Buddy. He doesn’t seem to be here. Call his name in bedroom and storage space. Back downstairs. Open cellar door, turn on light, call to cat. Wait.

Concerned. Can’t seem to find Buddy, and, with no response to ever-louder calls to him, I become more and more anxious. I even started to get morbid thoughts: did he crawl off to die alone after getting sick? I did give him new food today.

Back through the entire house—only this time, looking for the body of small fluffy friend in every room, every space in every room, top to bottom. Still no sign of the cat.

With adrenalin pumping, one starts to entertain many a possibility as to why the cat has apparently disappeared to include: teleportation, kidnapping (the front door was unlocked and I may have heard something earlier that I left uninvestigated), a split in the universe which is suddenly veering in a Buddy-free direction, punishment from a god angry at my skepticism, or even a mental-anguish experience forced on me as the specimen of an experimenting AI.

Determined to comb the cat-proof cellar with all the attention I had been devoting to the remainder of the house, I started looking from the foot of the cellar stairs. I walked toward a lit, hanging lamp like mechanics use illuminating the far-end wall. Scanning to either side I nearly reached the back wall when there was a flicker of motion low to my left. There it is, a slightly less-dark patch than the dark enveloping it. Another quiver. I step back, look down, and there, peering up from between two piles of stuff, was his highness looking up with eyes that asked “Hey dude, what’s up?”

So happy and fulfilled to have him back as opposed to what it feels like with him absent. Binary states; as basic as it gets. Later, long before I sort out all of the cause-and-effect lines of thought mentioned earlier, I’m gonna pull him closer to me on the desk, encircle him in my arms and nestle my head on his soft, fuzzy wonderfulness. There I will dream of a future universe in which Buddy is with me forever. We two aliens—bonded by curiosity—will pilot this small house/time-ship to far-flung adventures in the future.

Me and my Buddy.

Dancing the Night Away

It was going to be our first Christmas Eve going out to a restaurant rather than making a homemade feast. My brother would drive to a Chinese restaurant of his choice taking his wife, our mom, and me. We were supposed to leave about 5:30. Around 5 I got a text from my sister-in-law saying: "Bro's hungry. Can you leave now.?" I replied, "Sure." Her reply: "We're on our way."

Being a considerate older brother, I decided to wait outside (in freaky summer-like weather and a full moon) at the end of my driveway to save them the time to drive in an honk for me. My brother lives on top of a hill across the street from me, and, with no leaves on the trees, I would be able to see them descending the hill. When I spotted his purple headlights coming down the hill I decided to cross from my mailbox at the end of the drive to directly across the road. I figured I could save bro some time by having him pick me up on the side of the road.

I watched until he reached the bottom of the hill and turned right to approach me. I waited until his car was half the distance between the intersection and me when I crossed the road. He was going pretty slow and I wanted him to see me in the lights. He put on his left turn signal as he approached. To make picking me up a little more interesting and festive, I broke into a dance routine as I was crossing the middle of the road. It was a compilation featuring Walk Like an Egyptian, Electric Boogaloo Slide and Psy's Gangnam Style.

The car decelerated (probably in admiration of the show and trying to prolong my dance moves), I moved to the side of the road and prepared to board the car when it stopped. It continued to slow until it reached me then picked up speed, turned left onto the public road abutting my land, and disappeared into the night. Apparently a complete stranger witnessed my routine. What I considered to be an amusing antic, was probably viewed as a spastic elephant having some kind of seizure or who over indulged in the eggnog.

My family arrived about five minutes later. We had plenty to laugh about during dinner.

Great day already today (3 p.m.). Mailman brought several holiday cards, a book from Amazon, couple of notices from Social Security that brightened the day.

A couple of interesting things I wish to bring up.

The first is Norwegian comedian Daniel Simonsen  on Russell Howard's Good News. A very strange man who is funny as heck. But strange. Did I mention strange?

The second thing is this wonderful picture which has light photons displaying properties both as particles and as waves. So cool.

To quote NanowerkNews: "Early in the year, the first ever photograph of light as a particle and a wave at the same time went viral — but we soon learned the truth was a bit more nuanced than that. Created by a research team led by Fabrizio Carbone at EPFL, the experiment added a twist to the classic photoelectric effect, which explains why, for, instance, UV light hitting a metal target emits electrons. To wit: light exhibits both particle- and wave-like behavior.

This seemed positively revolutionary, since a cornerstone of quantum mechanics is that you just can’t see both particle and wave aspects at the same time. As Ben Stein explained at Inside Science News, the image is actually lots of photons (the elementary particles of light) imaged together, with some acting like particles and others acting like waves. It’s not the same photons exhibiting their dual nature simultaneously. Maybe it wasn’t as earth-shattering a breakthrough as the Internet originally thought, but it’s still a pretty darn cool picture."

And from the Gizmodo website:

Earthly Cities Grow Like Galaxies

"One of the nifty things about a good mathematical model is that it can reveal hidden connections between two systems that, on the surface, appear to be very different from each other. Two cosmologists, Henry Lin and Abraham Loeb, uncovered just such a surprising correlation, demonstrating that the way galaxies evolve from variations in matter density in the early universe is mathematically equivalent to the way cities grow from changes in population density on Earth.

Their analysis centers on a well-known scaling pattern known as Zipf’s law, observed in everything from personal friendships to the population density of cities. As Gizmodo’s Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan wrote, “Basically, the city with the highest population in a country will be twice as large as the next most populous city, and three times as large as the third most populous city, and so on.” The same holds true for galaxies, it seems. Loeb and Lin took a mathematical formula describing how galaxies form and evolve and applied it to the evolution of cities on Earth. The two systems proved remarkably similar. The scientists think that similar mathematical tools could be used to better model the spread of epidemics, among other applications."

How cool is it that we have progressed from hunting animals for food to figuring out that cities and galaxies have similar mathematical characteristics.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

The mind is everything. 

What we think, we become. 

--- Buddha

Today was a usual Saturday. Cleaning day, pay bills day, visit day, groceries day. And right now, play day.

Finished up all of my chores by 2 and realized that I could start playing with my new drone and the Arduino kit I got.

I started with the drone. First thing I had to do was track down some AAA batteries. That done, I read in the manual that the drone itself had to be charged. Luckily that can be done off any USB port on a computer and I have a free port at the left end of my keyboard. Plugged it in and let it charge. Later in the afternoon, I was curious if the drone would work. Detached USB charge cord, turned drone on, turned on controller.

At this point, I should have checked the manual to see how to make it fly with the controller. But all I wanted to see was if the drone recognized the controller. So I pushed a button; or two; and maybe some combinations. Mostly nothing happened until the darn thing jumped off the desk into the air, climbed at a 45 degree angle until it hit a wall, then crashed to the floor BEHIND the TV and its stand, a printer and its stand, the computer desk and its myriad wires. I shut the controller off. Peered over the printer to look down behind it and saw the little glowing LEDs on the drone's base. Better still, it had fallen between some wires and the wall and snagged on the wires. I just picked it up and shut it off. Back to the manual.

Of equal fun/frustration was the electronics kit. Before I could do anything, I realized that the tiny print in the tiny manual was too small to read even with a magnifying glass. So I had to enlarge the pages. I scanned a picture of the open manual from the printer into PhotoShop, blew up the image, fitted it to 8.5 x 10 paper. Printed it out. Enough pages to get started.

Assembled the Arduino motherboard and breadboard (a board for making an experimental model of an electric circuit). The next step was too download the Arduino software. Having had years of experience with software installation (since 1979), I expected problems. The first problem turned out to be that the operating system on my desk unit was too old. (I could upgrade it for free but then many of the programs I use regularly will no longer operate.) Which is why I have a laptop running the latest version of OSX. I downloaded the Arduino software quickly and without hick-up. Double-clicking the Arduino icon launched the program.

I gathered the components I was to use in the first experiment only to discover I was missing a couple of items: a 10 mm LED white bulb and four 2-pin headers which I needed to pin the circuit diagram to the breadboard like a template. Went to the Arduino website but couldn't find the missing pieces, just whole kits. Started searching on the Web. The LED was easy to find but the tiny headers were nowhere to be found. After extensive searching, I came across something called a "Header - 2x23-pin Male (PTH, 0.1")"

After reading about this item, I realized that each link was a 2-pin header and that you simply broke off the number you needed. I ordered this and the LED. 

When I was repackaging the kit to keep it together, I came across a piece I hadn't really noticed before, even though I had been looking directly in each component envelope for the 2-pin headers. It was a bar of 2-Pin Headers! Now I will have two of them.

Before I disconnected the Arduino from the laptop, I ran the software program for the first experiment (making a led blink on and off) and saw that the Arduino board already had an LED fpr pin 13. (The breadboard must reflect what the board itself is doing.) So I uploaded the short program—called a "sketch"—and watched the LED blink. As I used to program in C++, it was easy to see what the sketch (subroutine) did and how it did it. For fun I changed the duration of the blink times from one second on/off to five on/off, compiled the new sketch, uploaded it and watched it work. Very cool.

Quite a day.

The mailman was very generous. Two packages! One turned out to be a surprise Christmas gift in the form of a Mosquito Drone from the M family in AZ; the other package was the Arduino kit I ordered. (Wiki: Arduino is an open-source computer hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures microcontroller-based kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical world.) I had planned to play with the kit to kill the hours over the holidays. Now I also have the drone to experiment with to see if there is potential in it being used in some sort of new exercise program for Buddy the cat. (I should tell you of our new game: Irish Roundabout. Another day, perhaps.

As if getting two great items in the mail wasn't enough to make a very good day, the first thing to jump off the news Net is that Martin Shkreli resigned his CEO job at Turing. Things are looking pretty serious for him, but as one writer pointed out, he's likely to suffer relatively little "hard time" for whatever he's charged with. He'll have lawyers; $2 million worth if he sells that Wu-Tang Clan album for what he paid. I think this saga is just beginning. If I was more paranoid, I'd wonder if Shkreli has had the 1% slam the doors shut on his upward-clawing fingers. (He's unfit for membership so let's make him a lightning rod of privilege? Allowing him to be crisped will give us a little more time?) Are the emperors tossing a victim to the lions for entertainment as a distraction? From what?

Already pleased as punch over Shkreli's predicament, I then come upon Google’s Quantum Dream Machine by Tom Simonite in MIT Technology Review. It tells of quantum computing within a few years as possible. (Guys like John Martinis are inspiring. They make their lives matter in man's historic advancement through technical achievement.) A technical shift in in the near future. Again. It's a little scary. Some of the doors about to be opened by quantum computing (whether within an optimistic two years or a frustrating ten years) will be very big, very fast, and possibly one-way steps to a whole new existence. Sounds like a bifurcation to me.

About to call it a day when I bump into:

Donald Trump Doesn't Seem To Be Concerned That Vladimir Putin Kills Journalists

"I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe."

 12/18/2015 09:46 am ET | Updated 7 hours ago

• Sam LevineAssociate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post
• 
  

This is one of the reasons I don't like Mr. Trump. His big mouth. (Declaration without substantiation is simply blowing smoke up rectums.) To declare (as GOP frontrunner) that the leader of America's greatest foe is better than the one we currently have is a giant WTF! A couple of days ago Trump and Putin blowing kisses to one another! Both admirers of astute leadership in the other. What a crock of shit. Putin would LOVE to see Trump as president. But not because he thinks Trump would be a great leader. See how he smiles at discussion of a Trump presidency? He would eat Trump whole on toast for breakfast. Trump's idea of tough is yelling "You're Fired!" or perhaps participating in Twitter sniping after being wounded by some disrespectful reporter; Putin's idea of tough is injecting radioactive substance into you to kill you while you are in a foreign capital city. (That way he doesn't ever have to hear you again. Ever. How many friends you got willing to stand up to express outrage at your death knowing you were murdered?)

Put those two in a room alone (with iPhones to translate) for a half hour and when the door opens I predict we would see either: them shaking hands with both men smiling and Trump declaring "that I'll be making Vladimir some GREAT deals"; OR, Putin will be smiling and Trump will have blank look, a slight twitch and wet pants. We can assume these "deals" will  be even better than the just GREAT deals. (Note: Remember to buy stock in Preparation H.)

Didn't think I'd feel like writing today but here I am, pulled out of my funk by the arrest of Martin Shkreli that dirt bag former hedge fund manager and current pharmacutical company CEO who raised costs of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750.00. Then he has the balls to spend $2 million on a one-only record album by Wu-Tang Clan. Shkreli's arrest is on every single site I visit in the news sweeps.

Think I'm a little harsh about the way he spends his money? After all, it is his money, right? Here's a piece of an article as published in The Atlantic by Spencer Kornhaber who is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering pop culture and music.

"The news that Wu-Tang Clan had recorded an album of which there would only be one copy, sold for millions of dollars at auction, with the stipulation that it couldn’t be resold, has inspired debate for more than a year. Some people, like RZA, have argued that the plan is a radical statement on behalf of the value of music and the album format. Others have argued that it’s an insult to fans, a capitulation to traditional ideas about exclusivity and power that rap once railed against, and a demonstration of how capitalism can hurt art.

The debate is now settled. Wu-Tang has made a horrible mistake.

Once Upon a Time in Shaolin  has been sold to Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old pharmaceutical executive who triggered outrage worldwide earlier this year when his company increased the price of a drug used to treat some AIDS sufferers by 5000 percent—from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. He recently said he wished he’d raised it more. He appears to have bought this album in hopes of scoring dates, and for now, he does not seem interested in letting the public hear it."

Here's a 1% wanna be in all his glory.

I am so proud to be an American. How many men have died in the military defending this shitburg's "freedom" to manipulate complex financial processes to enrich himself at the expense of others? 

I asked Dr. K, head headologist in Meland, what he thought of Shkreli. After reading of his exploits and hearing Shkreli himself during interviews, Dr. K came to the conclusion that Mr. Shkreli "has something missing." There appears to be no empathy within Shkreli. He feels nothing for others. They are players in his universe. Were we to look inside his brain, we would likely find the robot who operates Shkreli's body sees the universe as intersecting spreadsheets from which all decisions are made."

Or perhaps Shkreli is just so used to playing with big numbers in his career path that he becomes inured to the plight of others. That's it! The poor lad is a victim of the dreaded rich-man disease of affluenza!! Just like that kid in Texas who seems to have "gone missing." Another example of a member in good standing of the "All For Me" Club.

Texas authorities fear ‘affluenza’ teen who killed 4 and got probation may have fled country

December 16, 2015

Naheed Rajwani
Dallas Morning News 
DALLAS — He's 18 years old, but the wealthy Tarrant County teen who killed four people when he drove drunk in 2013 is still a juvenile as far as the legal system is concerned.

Ethan Couch, whose case made "affluenza" a household term, is back in the spotlight again, two years after a Fort Worth judge gave him 10 years' probation instead of sentencing him to jail.
Couch is wanted now for allegedly violating the terms of his probation — and officials say they won't let him off easy this time.
"Any mess-ups from now on, he's going to be over with us," said Terry Grisham, the spokesman for the Tarrant County sheriff's office. "He's going to see what the big-boy jail is like."
But Couch is nowhere to be found, and authorities worry he may have fled the country.
"With the wealth and the wherewithal that his family has, it's going to be a tough assignment for us to find him," Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Wednesday.
Earlier this month, a video claiming to show Couch violating the terms of his probation — by allegedly playing beer pong at a party — reignited the public outrage surrounding the case.
On Tuesday, Couch's attorneys announced that the teen's probation officer hasn't been able to reach him and his mother for several days.
Tarrant County's probation department has ordered authorities to take Couch into custody if they see him. The district attorney's office has said he could be jailed for up to 10 years for violating the terms of his probation.
"It's one of those times when you hate to say, 'I told you so,' but I told you so," the sheriff said. "I knew he was going to end up in more trouble."
Justice for the crash victims' families, Anderson said, now hinges on Couch's arrest.
"He ruined a lot of lives," Anderson said. "We're determined to make sure he's fully accountable within the boundaries that are set in the case. He needs to be brought back."

Nice kid. Kills four people (!!!!!!) while he's driving drunk and walks away on probation. (Apparently, if you're a rich, white Texan you can get away with killing people.) Then, if you think probation is too tough—what do you mean no alcohol? Are you kidding?—you can always just skip the country and piss on the state that allowed you to get that way in the first place.

Oh my gosh! Here I am on a Texas tear and I come across this:

Season’s beatings: Texas GOP official threatens to slap next person who wishes him ‘Happy holidays’

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller may be taking the so-called “war on Christmas” a little too literally. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the Republican official said that he would “slap” anyone who wished him “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”