Friday, November 06, 2009
On changing templates
Andrea Harris at Spleenville just changed her site location. I had to go fix my template.
I'm not picking on her. Web personalities have the right to change domains. In my case I'm overdue for creating a domain. I'm picking on the process.
Fixing the template isn't so hard. What annoys me is having to go through my sidebar links to see if everyone is still where they were; and then, waiting however long FTP is pleased to make me wait to post the new template to the site. What's most annoying is going to someone else's site and finding that most of its links are dead, or that the bloggers linked from that someone had given up or gone barking mad since we last looked.
Maybe there could be a central blogger registry, where bloggers can put their current location. For us consumers of the registry, I would still have control over presentation (I like the mouseover events, myself). But the URL, and other useful information like "last updated", would be controlled by the registry.
Labels: meta
posted by Zimri on 19:41 | link |
The moderate Muslim
I was trolling Jawa after they got a visit from a moderate-Muslim.
The moderate admits that mediaeval Islam includes qital (violent jihad). He even admits that Islamophobes are right about it. The moderate reports that moderate Muslims don't know about their faith's inherent ("orthodox") violence. When you get past the tu quoque, the moderate says:
the difference is that this "extremism" is still part of mainstream Muslim theology whereas it has already been pushed to the fringe in many other religious traditions...the saving grace is, the theology is not known to most mainstream muslims in any detail. sounds confusing, but its true
The moderate does not come to non-Muslim sites with a plan for Muslims themselves to "push to the fringe" the "'extremism' ... part of mainstream Muslim theology".
The moderate comes with a plea for "common sense". What is common sense? For the moderate - it's the end of "zionism", and the loss of "permanence" for the Jewish entity in "Palestine". (Yes, this particular moderate hit that theme three times.) He comes with demands.
The moderate is, also, in solidarity with the jihad against the infidel in "Islamic land". The moderate is, ultimately, a Muslim first.
We can commend the moderate for his willingness to present his case. We cannot treat his case as holding merit. And we cannot bargain with him. He is partly tribal, partly in thrall to a faith. He has not reasoned his way into this position.
Labels: antisemitism, bullshit, islam, propaganda
posted by Zimri on 19:05 | link |
Why is the President getting involved in New York?
According to CBS (h/t Roses): "Obama let it be known he didn't want Paterson to run because Republicans like Rudy Giuliani consistently beat him in the polls
".
That would be fine if Obama were the head of the Democratic National Committee. But he's not. He's the President. The Presidency, like it or not, has a stature beyond partisanship. When The President says that so-and-so should not run, he is saying that this person is bad for the nation. That is a bombshell a President would reserve for the likes of David Duke.
Labels: fascism, obama, presidency
posted by Zimri on 18:22 | link |
Jon Stewart is funny to malinformed people
...and AllahPundit thinks Stewart is funny.
What Jon Stewart relies upon, beyond the parody of Glen Beck himself, is the assumption that Beck is unqualified to opine on Constitutional issues and on American history. And what that relies upon is that these fields require a credential from an organisation which is also accredited according to peer review - in accordance with what Stewart states as the analogy of a medical degree from a decent university.
Unfortunately for Stewart, the liberal-arts side of the whole Western university system has been captured by the radical Left decades ago. For recent history, sociology, and political science the accreditation process is dead. Once you get more recent than the 14th Century, or (for the Middle East) 6th century, I do not start with trust in any college graduate, up to PhD or even (or especially) Nobel Prize laureate, over some anonymous character I'd read two weeks of decent posts from in UseNet.
Beck is a Mormon and I would not trust his judgement on North American archaeology up to 400 AD. However he has proven himself astute on American history from 1800 on. I suspect that Stewart knows this too, which is why he's been drawing deliberately false parallels.
Pity that AllahPundit doesn't know it...
Labels: bullshit, propaganda, science
posted by Zimri on 17:43 | link |
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Fort Hood
[started at 4 PM, bumped] Several people dressed as military have shot up troops at Fort Hood. Death toll is at 12 and rising.
This isn't a sniper up on a clock tower picking people off, or some grunt tossing a grenade into a tent (despicable as those actions are). This is a premeditated attack, with several people involved, and timed perfectly. In addition the perpetrators had to have had military training to get this close. MSNBC says it was a Major who was the ringleader. (h/t, Ace at first - then Drudge.)
This is designed to weaken trust between soldiers and their officers, and to discourage volunteers for the Armed Forces.
Is the date significant - the day of Guy Fawkes? Was it an anarchist? I don't know how much credence to put on the "Arabic sounding name". I think it bears waiting to see what happened. The story is "developing".
Whoever did it, and whyever, it was an act of war.
Pray for the victims.
Ensure it doesn't happen again.
UPDATE 4:13: Malik Hassan, a convert to Islam? Ugh. Jihad successful. I'm starting to get angry.
UPDATE 4:47: Yeah, there were a bunch of posts earlier which were more general and/or lighthearted. I'd written them earlier, before 4 PM. I'm bumping this one to the top of the queue.
UPDATE 5:02: No-one's walked back the name yet. It's distinctive. The name "Hassan" refers to 'Ali's son the Shi'a prince and in its natural habitat it is, still, Shi'ite. A name like "Malik", without the "Abdal" in front of it, implies kingship. Shi'ites until about 1979 or so didn't have a tradition of feeling powerful, and not really until very recently in Iraq; you wouldn't see these names Malik and Hassan together in the Near East. Add to that "Nidal" (Abu Nidal...?). I think we're dealing with a Black Muslim someone who has hated us for a long time, and turned Muslim as a manifestation of that hate.
UPDATE 5:08: If it sounds like I'm calling Charles Johnson a worthless pile of slime, that's because I am.
UPDATE 5:10: I see that the media is insulting Killeen and generally refusing to name the beast. Heckuva job, guys.
UPDATE 5:38: They released his picture... so the end of my 5:02 post was a jump-to-conclusions mat. Corrected. Sincere apologies. I'm leaving the thing up there as a monument to my carelessness.
UPDATE 6:57: My fallback idea was Baathist from Syria or Iraq. Turns out he was Syrian. Not a convert. Mind you THAT mistake wasn't my fault. I think whoever started the "convert" meme was thinking along the same lines I was - that pious Muslims don't prefer the name "Malik". Unless they become pious...
Labels: apology, enemies, islam, race
posted by Zimri on 17:10 | link |
Phantom voters
The Senate is saying that non-citizens count for apportioning Representative and Electoral-College slots, but are leaving alone whether the non-citizens ought to vote. If pressed the Democrats would have to admit that they can't let them vote.
We can't exactly say the Democrats are abandoning principle. I'm just surprised they're counting non-voters as a full spot and not as three-fifths of one.
We can say that the Democrats are, this time, scoring an own goal. They are allowing Texas to send a pile of extra Representatives and Electors to D.C. who will vote in the proportionate voting of the state's citizens - i.e., Republicans. To a lesser extent (due to the other party doing the gerrymandering) the same is true of California.
The Republicans would be foolish not to exploit this tactical mistake from the other party.
posted by Zimri on 16:43 | link |
The "Terminator" series
I'm watching the "Sarah Connor Chronicles" now.
I loved the second "Terminator" movie when I first saw it. But then I saw the first one, which despite some special-effects problems was far superior to the sequel.
I then started to question the very need for a "Terminator 2". In the first movie there is a character arc for Sarah Connor. The second movie abandons the arc wherein the Connors grow up on the lam. T2 starts with Sarah and John apart, and then puts them back to the endstate of T1. That makes the sequel pointless, no matter how technically well-written and -implemented.
While we're on the subject of James Cameron's filmography, I also saw "Alien" after I saw "Aliens"; the original did not leave me feeling any worse about that sequel.
(I know I've said that it didn't matter how good T2 was, so I probably shouldn't raise any problems with that one as a standalone, but I'll say this here anyway. The bad cyborg in T2 struck me as Bad Movie Science. I had less disbelief to suspend of the baddie in T3; which is sad, because T3 really was a rotten movie which I wouldn't say of T2.)
I think that T2 - beyond the chase-scenes - was aiming for an exploration of whether humanitarian cyborgs have "souls", worthy of moral parity with humans. I don't think that worked for a single movie.
With "Sarah Connor Chronicles", the writers are basically redoing T2 with Summer Glau standing in for Arnold Schwarzenegger. We start with a more natural sequel to T1 (although the storylines of T2 and T3 are referred to). Then, the good cyborg doesn't die as quickly as Arnold dies in T2, allowing for a fuller understanding of the cyborg mindset and ethic.
If you liked "Terminator", you really owe it to yourself to watch "The Sarah Connor Chronicles".
Labels: critique
posted by Zimri on 16:42 | link |
Taxes and the citizen
When the Federal government asserts the right to tax your income or your estate, that makes you a Federally-owned serf.
When other governments assert the right to tax your land, that makes you a tenant of the land which those governments (really) own.
After much thinking about this, I have come to accept land tenancy. The governments have always had the right of eminent-domain. The secular kharaj known as "property tax" seems like a reasonable extension.
If you want "your own house" you pretty much have to move to a houseboat or an asteroid.
Labels: liberty
posted by Zimri on 16:32 | link |
I retract my vote for TX2009#9
I oppose eminent-domain for the purpose of revenue-grabbing. I don't oppose eminent-domain where someone has bought some land, and then the government finds out they need it for truly social purposes.
The classic example would be railways and highways. People settle all over the place. Later on, other people will need to get from one point to another, and despite the best efforts of city planners there is always some old coot who has set up his shack in the middle of things. There's not much the government can do other than to say, "here's some cash to get to another location, now get out".
In that spirit, there's the Gulf Coast. Says Janus, it's all "public". "Public" is a Newspeak expression which means that the State of Texas and, in some cases, USG are sovereign over it. Anyone who "owns" property along the Coast does not own it; he's got a certificate of tenancy (whatever the deed and title documents pretend). That gives the State certain rights.
I am fine with all that. This is an unstable coast; it is subject to tides and hurricanes and, depending on the mood of the Caribbean Plate, tsunamis. The various coastline governmental levels absolutely should be responsible for the coastline. The State of Texas also has an interest in suppressing the population there, so that said population doesn't clog the roads whenever the latest Ike or Rita threatens inland cities like Houston. The Gulf Coast is inherently a bad bet for "private property owners".
I have no hard criteria, yet, for how far this eminent-domain principle should hold elsewhere. I would extend it to San Andreas and other obvious tectonic faults. State-regulated watersheds, for the purpose of efficient water conservation, have a proven track record in New York State; I think I would borrow their model for the drier mountains West (especially as more people settle there). Tornado zones, though, I wouldn't accept as the State's excuse for a land-grab. Anyway at this point I know what I am and I am "haggling over the price", as Churchill might put it. I do reserve the right to haggle.
And I reserve the right to admit where I've haggled for too high a price. TX2009#9 was a frivolous recreational measure, "irrelevant" in the words of Janus. But against Janus I hold that in principle, private property shouldn't hold on the Coast. I voted "Nay" on it but I wish I had voted "Yea". Oh well, teach me to wait for the last minute before learning the issues; and at least it passed anyway.
Labels: apology, constitution, liberty
posted by Zimri on 16:31 | link |
Obama's "shout-out"
President Barack Hussein Obama, you are not a cool cat.
In addition, as "franticflintstone" points out: while we are under attack by existential enemies, it is not the time to opine that America is an illegitimate nation. But then - I've never thought much of your loyalties.
If you want to be seen as Presidential, it's time you started earning it.
UPDATE 4:40 - Upon seeing FFs's comments at Ace's, I posted the latest two parags and then - the comment board immediately went down. Gah.
Labels: bullshit, obama, presidency
posted by Zimri on 16:17 | link |
"I won :)"
(Title stolen from Pamela Gellar.)
To offer some background here, Honduras legally ousted its would-be tyrant Zelaya. LGF denounced that as a "coup". I considered this stance to be unprincipled Leftism. LGF banned me for pointing that out.
Even Obama now understands the legality of the process, although the Associated Press is still calling it a coup (h/t HotAir). There is no principled case to make for Zelaya. There's a "Whig" case, that Zelaya is so super-awesome that he should be El Supremo whatever the law says. But it's not a principled case.
Charles: You didn't ban me; I banned you. Enjoy your new friends at the Associated (With Tyrants) Press.
Labels: lgf, progressives
posted by Zimri on 07:46 | link |
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Joseph Cao needs our help
Another one of the moderates on the list: Joseph Cao (R, LA). He's the guy who beat the corrupt Jefferson last year - he didn't get the majority of the black vote, but enough blacks didn't vote against him that the rest of the district boosted him over.
I hold Cao to a different standard than I hold the despicable Kirk. Cao is genuinely vulnerable, in a district that is going away, and of an ethnicity (Vietnamese) which is not well represented in his own district (or any other). So when I hear the media courting Cao as another "moderate", I view Cao's response more as a cry for help than as a Kirk / Snowe bid for power.
When I come into contact with Louisianans, or read about the place, it usually involves something ugly like ruling against miscegenation. As a result I suspect that Louisianans put Cao alongside Jindal and slap the label "diversity quota" on that box. This frees them to ignore the weaker Cao over the prominent Jindal. This attitude is depressingly common. I expressed a "concern-troll", you might call it, over at Ace's; one "tmi3rd" helped me gain some perspective on the case. But he's one good guy in a state with a lot of bad guys.
It will be difficult to overcome some of the attitudes I've seen in that state. I think that Cao knows it, and that Cao is telling his Party not to take him for granted. He wants to be seen as someone who listens to his constituents (even if they're wrong). In short, he wants a career as a Louisiana Republican. I think he can help the Republicans, and the nation, in that capacity.
I hope that non-bigoted Louisianan conservatives are involved in their local precincts, or can at least write to someone, who can then get in contact with Cao and help him build a deeper foundation as a Louisiana conservative.
Labels: conservatives, race, republicans
posted by Zimri on 17:10 | link |
Rep. Mark Kirk's dereliction of duty
The so-called "Cap And Trade" bill which passed the house in June was a mistake. It was a job-killer as written (where it was even written), but that doesn't even matter so much. Worse than that, it had gaps where there wasn't even any text.
It's theoretically Constitutional to send a bill with a title and a demand to fill-in-later, to the Senate; but it shames the House to do it, and thereby it shames the entire government and so the nation. Some actions are so stupid that they shouldn't even be illegal. Some politicians deserve Darwin Awards.
(LGF's endorsement of this bill was one of the "WTF Moments" which pushed me out of that blog. I was barely able to spin the Von Brunn shooting as cultural-rightist. Not so here.)
Mark Kirk deserves his Darwin as much as any other.
Kirk was one of eight "Republican" rodents who pushed this swiss-cheese bill through the House. So when I see him (with fellow "capntr8or" Mike Castle) mulling healthcare nationalisation, I expect he's pulling an Olympia Snowe. He gets in payment for his perfidy: fawning news stories, national recognition, a primary endorsement from the RNC, and grovelling from other Republicans in office and on campaign.
Kirk is running for the Senate next. I think his aim is to establish himself now as the "electable" guy; and once in the Senate, to be the next "moderate" swing-voter who holds the real power and who gets the bribes and the accolades.
Illinois Republicans need to bounce Kirk from consideration now before he builds up a machine.
Labels: energy, lgf, republicans
posted by Zimri on 17:08 | link |
Military government in Texas
The military and civilian definitions of "order" differ; and in healthy nations there are strict roles for each, and even stricter rules for how they are to interact.
As a general principle, we don't want to live under martial law. Battlestar Galactica, in its second incarnation and earlier seasons, offered as good a reason as any: if the army is in charge, it becomes an occupation force, and an occupation force has to see the occupied civilians as the enemy. Eventually some punk will skateboard, or tag, somewhere it shouldn't and people will get shot.
Civilians revere the military when it's not ruling over them - and IMO, rightly so, as the enlisted servicemen and women have proven their loyalty to the people. Robert Heinlein understood that, and used this understanding in a bid to promote virtue in political society: that veterans should receive the franchise (and no-one else). This blog has had lukewarm-to-kind words to say about Heinlein's system here and here.
Somewhere between martial despotism and veteran aristocracy, we have the prospective of rule by military personnel who haven't yet earned their honourable discharge papers. This is the system which Texas has approved with its 7th constitutional amendment this year (hereby, "TX2009#7").
This is a VERY BAD idea, and even Heinlein wasn't proposing it. You can find a good argument in Janus's anti-endorsement.
I should have read the amendments weeks ago and raised a stink then. I did vote against it, and before that I directed readers over there; but that was clearly too little too late.
The Federal Government should implement a Constitutional clause which bans individual states from incorporating articles like TX2009#7. States which do as Texas has just done, have proven that they don't have the political wisdom to be States. A strict definition of honour would demand that our Senators and Representatives suspend their voting rights as long as TX2009#7 defines our State - and it's a sad observation of our current political situation that we can't afford to do that.
In the meantime the Oath Keepers, Sipsey Street Irregulars, Three Percenters and other pro-Constitutional groups need to get on this and see that Texas undoes its stupidity.
Labels: constitution, fascism, liberty
posted by Zimri on 17:05 | link |
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
A better Tea Party?
Well, this is heartening. (h/t, Insty.)
You'll recall that I went to the 3 July shindig, most of which offended me to the point of revulsion. I'm glad to see that the movement has improved.
Labels: conservatives, liberty
posted by Zimri on 23:55 | link |
Post-mortem on NY-23
Here's what Drew at AoSHQ had to say about NY-23: "the 'roof top highway' and year round navigation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Hoffman and his surrogates really didn't address that. It may rankle the independent streak in this area.
"
Sometimes "local issues" boil down to "pork", a cutesy way of describing "federal-scale larceny". When voters pull that card, and my preferred candidate loses, I blame the voters.
I can't blame the voters here. Maintaining the St. Lawrence is inherently a federal issue. It involves dealing with Quebec, and with Canada in general. It also involves Pennsylvania and other states upstream who send their own traffic past NY-23. Hoffman should have been up to speed on all that.
If Hoffman wasn't the most-informed candidate, then it should have been up to his aides to help him. Unfortunately finding decent help for non-executive candidates, like prospective Representatives, is supposed to be the job of the Republican Party which, in this case, invested in that left-wing fraud "Scuzzy" Scozzafava. The RNC has a problem understanding outlying provinces.
And Palin and Thompson, and Beck, and (granted that I don't like him) Limbaugh all should learn a few things about how to endorse candidates. Hoffman's allies did great at destroying Scozzafava, but as they were doing that they forgot to build up Hoffman. Hoffman needed help also to tailor his message to the area. They didn't give that help; they instead made Hoffman look like an imposed outsider.
As for Owens: what did he even do in this campaign? It seems to me like he just sat back and watched the Republicans and Conservatives get stupid. Owens ended up, by comparison, looking like the safe sensible moderate.
As a (very?) minor postscript: we have the Man Who Would Be Kingmaker; the Markos Moulitsas to Hoffman's Ned Lamont - Robert Stacy McCain. Not, in the end, as helpful to Conservative candidates as some bloggers imagine.
Labels: horserace, republicans
posted by Zimri on 22:34 | link |
Why Earth?
I am trying to divine the motives of a V-type race. We are here dealing with aggressive conquerors. At the same time, the conquerors do not act by bombing the planet back to the Triassic.
That means they're not primarily concerned with our natural resources. They want live and friendly humans.
In other science-fiction epics, like Star Control 2, other races come to uplift us because they are looking for help in a trans-stellar war. An allied and independent race can be relied on, to settle planets and to defend them; allowing the other races to concentrate on other flanks.
If there is no such war (and the Vs claim there isn't), then the Vs need the warm bodies for something else. Food is possible, or incubators for their young a la Alien; but those strike me as clunky. Surely the Vs have technology to deal with that.
The option that I think most likely: the Vs have an ethical problem with doing the "hard work" themselves. They want serfs. Humans of high IQ would be great at helping to terraform other planets, or to do dangerous tech work in asteroid mines.
Labels: progressives
posted by Zimri on 21:14 | link |
Newt Gingrich, it is time to leave
This isn't much of a pro-Newt blog. I believe the only real comment I've made of him here was "I can ignore Gingrich", since he is "a bomb-throwing loudmouth who doesn't speak for anyone but himself
".
I was a Newt fan in 1994-5, but then... I grew up.
I've always heard about how "smart" Gingrich is. From what I've seen, this involves sponsoring "enterprise zones", school vouchers, free computers, Greeeeen Jorrrrbs and the rest of that rot. Time was when I agreed with this Jack Kemp ethos, the "neocon" platform, Conservative Means To Liberal Ends. With the exception of vouchers, which is DOA wherever public-sector unions are legal, no-one serious thinks anymore that this pile of tweaks and wonkery will do squat for the urban poor. Kemp-style wonkery, I've found, is more about making Republicans look like they are Trying and that they Care. It's all about playing to the Stuff White People Like set. This is how Jack Kemp himself ended up on the Bob Dole ticket in 1996; we all saw how well that went.
While we're on the topic of Gingrich's sooper geniosity, Michael Moore (yes, Michael Moore) managed to pwn him on TV Nation: about all the pork / federal spending Gingrich was bringing back to his district. If you let yourself be Alinskyed by Michael Moore then, for all I am concerned, you don't deserve a spot on any media outpost this side of FailBlog.
Newt Gingrich is a man of no ideas who wants to be treated as a thinker. He has tarried too long for the good he does. For the love of God, go!
Labels: republicans
posted by Zimri on 18:09 | link |
Enough is enough!
"things were so slow at a Kingwood polling spot that eight hours elapsed before anyone noticed a copperhead-looking snake coiled in the corner.
"
Samuel L Jackson was not available for comment.
Labels: snark
posted by Zimri on 18:00 | link |
Election watch
I voted here in Houston at 9AM-ish. The Houston Press is having a laugh at how uninspiring this race was. I can attest to a lack of long lines and general interest.
I'll be watching V at 8 PM EST, as aforementioned, but I hope that the Republicans (and, in NY-23, Conservatives) in the East will take time to ensure that the Democrats don't CHEAT so bad this time around. Put the show on TiVo if you have to - be around to place calls and make a general stink if there is something going wrong. For those who aren't in the thick of things, you may as well watch V and chill out for an hour...
Labels: horserace, republicans
posted by Zimri on 17:47 | link |
V
This evening's plan is to watch V. I saw the first eight minutes online already. It looks pretty clever so far. I am crossing my fingers that it will be good. And that the regular season doesn't kill it.
[9:10 PM] Okay - seen it. 'Twas good. I hope the upcoming episodes are good too. I'm a little worried. The logic of this show is anti-Utopian and, therefore, anti-Progressive and anti-Obama.
The show exposits that the Vs have always been with us, creating the crisis that they're now here to save us from. That's an interesting idea... for anti-Progressives. In the real world, for the most part minus the lizard people, this is the argument anti-Progressives made against (for instance) the Community Reinvestment Act, and against ACORN and other exploiters of liberal government programmes.
Labels: liberty, media, progressives, propaganda
posted by Zimri on 17:44 | link |
The disastrous centralism of the Republican National Committee
Conservatism is regional and I think that the RNC has been inept in all regions.
I live in Texas, and here the RNC doesn't have much sway. We may or may not have more libertarians and social-conservatives down here than they have up north, but our culture (at least among whites and the more rooted hispanics) is more friendly to these strains of conservatism. The conservative candidates are already here. The RNC here hasn't got to do much more than give them money.
From what I've seen of the Northeast (and the West Coast), libertarians and social-conservatives lack such a cultural voice. As a result, these guys don't win downticket races in their districts, and when it comes time to pick upticket candidates the Republican Party lacks a slate of experienced people. The RNC has more influence up North than it wields down here in Texas. The RNC often has to choose the candidates.
The Republicans' problem here in the South is that we have people like Huckabee, and I'd argue Perry and Jindal, who have identified anti-intellectualism as a social-conservative value. Huckabee is pretty open about ignoring fiscal conservatism as long as he can float (Protestant) crosses through his advertisements. Perry likes to play loose with taxpayer money too. You'll forgive me if I don't trust Jindal the Exorcist after watching these two. The RNC's problem here is in not doing enough to slap down their appeals to obscurantism. They're letting Jindal's weirdness taint RNC candidates up north.
In the northeast, the RNC figures that no form of overt conservatism will win - so they pick "Not A Democrat" to run against "Incumbent D".
The RNC has proven that it does more harm than good to conservatives up north, and down south it doesn't do much of anything. Much of this can be put down to misunderstanding how local races work and how they affect non-Republican perceptions elsewhere. This is a known problem with central committees. The RNC may even do better not picking candidates in the first place.
Labels: republicans
posted by Zimri on 17:40 | link |
Monday, November 02, 2009
Apostasy and tribalism
The Jawa Report has a quote from Wafa Sultan about how she's being treated as a Muslim apostate. Rusty, the commenter, then compares that to how Mormons treat their apostates (nerf-bat harassment) and Fundamentalist Christians theirs (passive-aggressive threats, shunning).
I am not about to belittle the Muslim penchant for violence, which is real and terrible. But it's not what these religions do to their apostates which hurts the most.
The trauma comes when you find out that your former friends - Muslim, Mormon, Christian, whatever - only ever saw you as another mark in the tally.
If you lived your life for your friends, and then a theological disagreement causes you to be harassed or shunned: you learn quickly that all you did for your friends, didn't matter. They never cared about you as a person. You may as well be dead to them.
Is the shunning worse than death? I'd prefer the shunning, myself, but then I've been called a sociopath on several sites. Most humans are social creatures.
Anyway Islam seems to offer the death along with the shunning. That makes the question somewhat moot.
Labels: islam, misanthropy, personal
posted by Zimri on 18:10 | link |
The deadliest sin for a blogger is sloth
I got lazy last weekend. The laziness didn't start on Sunday; it started on Saturday. The two posts I did then, I had started on Friday. On Sunday I had nothing to do. One could put that down to a desire not to work on the Sabbath. But I'm not that hardcore of a Christian. And if I were, I'd prefer the Sabbath be observed when Jesus observed it - Saturday. This quietitude had no excuse; it was sloth.
Because I'm always up for adding to my list of shortcomings, I'll go with hypocrisy with this post.
I went hunting around for other secular Right blogs. I found the SecularConservative in Houston; and The Conservative Humanist Association, and (although this title's a mite more strident) The Atheist Conservative.
I can't put any of them in the sidebar. Janus at SecularConservative seems to be burning out. ConservativeHumanist hasn't been posting regular updates either. The Atheist Conservative does little but paste others' content lately. If they don't much like their own blogs, how far can a visitor like those blogs?
I don't think this says anything about secularists or the Right. There are also a-plenty of lazy religious believers; and it's not as if the Left quite gets its base of support from the Hardworking-American Community, either.
People just get into slumps where there is nothing to say.
For awhile I had a LOT to say, that I'd been sitting on for two and a half years, some of which I was NOT ALLOWED to say (and it wasn't just that one external force). I don't know that I've said it all, yet.
I'll let you know.
posted by Zimri on 16:30 | link |
Endorsements (for Texas and Houston)
I'm in Houston, which is not one of the exciting places like NY-23 or Virginia or New Jersey. I haven't been paying much attention. I was tempted not to vote at all.
But I'm a Right-leaning secularist, and I found another blog with similar views, so I'll outsource my endorsements to Janus for tomorrow's election.
Labels: liberty, republicans
posted by Zimri on 16:14 | link |
Saturday, October 31, 2009
On flu shots
I don't distrust the idea of the State saying that influenza vaccines are a good idea. If the State wanted to control us with injections, they could sneak stuff in to the other vaccinations: polio, measles, etc.
As for the hucksters claiming that vaccines cause autism, I see them as enemies. Behind that claim is the assumption that people on the autistic spectrum are diseased. I am on that spectrum myself and I take that talk personally. Beyond that, the claim is bumcombe; autism is genetic. Extreme forms of autism are a problem, but they won't be solved by lies.
(Some disclosure here: I was a regular at LGF's Parachat lounge, whose regulars migrated to Table 9. When LGF went with a pro-vaccine stance - which, I must add, opposed conspiracy-theorists on the Left as well as Right, here - the people in both lounges mounted an insurgency against it. For that, Charles Johnson shut down the former lounge. I am, like Moldbug, a believer in sovereignty. I applauded Johnson's decision and I still support it. I have more mixed feelings about the attendant mass banning since dubbed "The Night Of The Vaccine Needles". But all that is over and done with now.)
I'm more concerned about the State mandating who can get the vaccines. And, yes, there is a concern that the State might force a shortage by its own policies; and to fight the emergency, demand control over the healthcare system. In the Left's history of the past decade, Bush used 9/11 as a pretext to curtail civil liberties. The Left has been casting about for its own emergencies to do the same. The economic crisis has already led to mass takeovers of our industries and banks. Global warming is another supposed crisis, but the people have been losing faith in that.
H1N1 could serve as the next "manbearpig" that we all have to Unite Against. But, so far and touch wood, it's not acted as our generation's 1918 pandemic or even as SARS. H1N1 has just acted like... the flu.
Labels: bullshit, enemies, lgf, progressives
posted by Zimri on 17:54 | link |
The gay Jesus, again
The latest Biblical Archaeology Review has revived the corpse of the gay Jesus. We may as well brace ourselves for another round of That Flamewar.
To introduce our Conservative guests to this dustup: one Morton Smith - who as far as I know is not related to Joseph Smith the discoverer of the plates of Moroni - went to the monastery of Mar Saba and found a copy, the ONLY copy, of a purported letter written by Clement of Alexandria. In it, Clement is discussing two rogue texts of the Gospel of Mark, neither of which are or were in any version of Mark available to the general public. One text talks about Jesus meeting with a young man, alone, to teach him "the mystery". The other makes it explicit that both men were naked. Clement endorses the former, "mystery" text against the "naked" text and against our text; and he tells the reader, don't let this secret leave these walls.
A decade or more ago, I'd made public my opinion that these versions of Mark were unknown even to Matthew and Luke. That is: they were forgeries. I thought that Smith had found an authentic letter of Clement and that Clement was telling the truth up to a point; I just figured that someone had screwed with the text of Mark before Clement read it. This was not unknown in Judaeo-Christian literature; the Gospel of Matthew is such a plagiarism, standing in relation to its source much as Chronicles stands to Kings, the Book of Jeremiah to Septuagint Jeremiah and so forth.
More recently I've grown to wonder if the forgery might be datable... a little later. I first showed my hand in 2005. I carried this on here, and I put down a Morton defender here.
Since Helmut Koester, a grey eminence of Biblical scholarship, is not backing down from his endorsement; we skeptics are pretty much left to the "withholding judgement" argument. This is cowardly and lame of us, and (for the Christians amongst us) even Pascalian. But it's either that or get dragged into a dispute over a text with many problems for all sides.
I won't get into all the problems here, but I have one: that we haven't seen mention of the rogue Marcan texts from Clement's contemporaries. Even if we accept that these texts were available only to Egypt, the sex-averse Gnostics in Nag Hammadi should have said something. Maybe one day we will uncover an Egyptian bathhouse with a well-preserved library.
posted by Zimri on 17:06 | link |
Friday, October 30, 2009
Ismism
"Ism" is today a marker for a school of thought. This is a classic exploration of the theme, which I first viewed in the Alamo Drafthouse out on highway 6, west Houston.
The new Biblical Archaeology Review (35.6) has Steve Mason's article on Ism. X-ismos comes from the Greeks, up to 2 Maccabees and Ignatius. When I was in school, I learnt this in the context of "Medism". It was the act of X-ising; becoming X. It was never the marker for the ideology of X. For that, the Greeks had the construct X-ia; "sophia" for the domain of the wise, for instance.
This article, being a BAR piece, riffs on "Judaism". It claims that the term applied to one who was not at first a Jew; but was Judaising into one. This didn't happen much in antiquity, the Jews then being a marginal bunch who didn't take to converts; but Hanukkah changed everything. That is why the word crops up in 2 Maccabees.
Mason blames the Ism-ism of Ism on Tertullian; which he used to define Christianity ("Christianism").
In that light I'm tempted to take back the Ism. The construct X-isation for the act of X-ising has never sat well with me; it's a mix of Greek -iz and Latin -atio. Now that I know, or have been reminded, that it's just -ism; I can put down that misbegotten seven-digit horror.
I might not even have to change a lot of what I've written about Islamism or Progressivism. Ism is inherently progressive. It never gets to Dr Utopia's promised land; it is always a Whig journey. Given that Marx never quite managed to define what the end state of his Ism should look like, even that old Communist might have got it right.
That still leaves the non-Whig ideologies - and we do need new words for them. Jew-hating, for instance, is not inherently progressive. The conservative mindset (as opposed to the sundry reactionary ideologies) is anti-progressive by all definitions; it cannot contain the "Ism". "AntiSemity" and "Conservaty" would be better, at least befitting the Latin, but these terms look like a joke even to me.
Labels: antiquity, linguistics, progressives
posted by Zimri on 18:00 | link |
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Weather advisory for Harris County
This is what we've got coming for us:
Updated: 3:40 PM CDT on October 29, 2009
Wind Advisory in effect until 6 PM CDT this evening...
Flash Flood Watch in effect through Friday morning...
Tornado Watch 782 in effect until 9 PM CDT this evening...
Niiiice.
Labels: personal
posted by Zimri on 18:44 | link |
CAIR package
Someone shot a couple of Jews in a parking lot. The cops don't know why; but given LA, the suspicion is Sudden Jihad Syndrome. The 24 Hour Rule would apply here.
Just in case, though, CAIR have a press release. That much is fair game.
This reminds me of what I was saying earlier about criminal enterprises. You get a group which is inherently criminal, like the Crips. But not all the crimes the criminals do in Crips are what that gang actually wants. Here, CAIR doesn't want the headache of addled Muslims puttin' a jihad on bystanders.
CAIR used to get on TV and say "ofcoursewecondemnthisattack BUT! Palestine, Zionists, al-Aqsa, Jerusalem blah blah". That but-headedness turned off the American people. They're not doing that anymore, which means they've learnt something.
They are still a terrorist organisation though.
Labels: bullshit, crime, islam
posted by Zimri on 17:36 | link |
Banned Bibles
According to the AP, 15000 Bibles were confiscated in Malaysia. (h/t WrathOfG-d from the blogmocracy.) It was because they used the word "Allah" to translate "God".
Putting the aspie / nitpicker's hat on, I somewhat agree with the Malaysians in that “Allah” is too Qur’anic for use as the name for God. I’d prefer al-Ilah to stand in for the Hebrew El. (And al-Rabb for Lord / Adonai / the four letters.) But that's a distraction.
"Allah" is the translation that the Middle Eastern Churches demand of their Bibles, ever since they moved away from Aramaic. So it's not controversial. And I doubt that any Christians have sponsored a conference considering exactly what word they should use in Malay Bibles. It’s obvious that Something Else Is At Work in the Malays’ anti-Bible drive.
It's safe to say that what's at work is Malay and Muslim intolerance.
Labels: islam
posted by Zimri on 16:57 | link |
Why freedom?
Conservatives, if they argue for freedom (as American Conservatives do), tend to justify it as a gift from God which no man may alienate. Liberals take God away and then proceed to alienate people of their freedom. Is this inevitable - are secularists bound to be crushers of peoples' dreams?
I think not. There are two arguments I can come up with, which support individual liberty against serfdom. This should work even for secularists.
Ayn Rand had one: morality can be constructed from the axiom “human life == good”. Liberty allows humans to live their lives; oppression does not. We might call this the mathematician’s libertarianism. It’s kind of... cold, but that’s Ayn Rand for you.
There’s also the school of thought that people have two innate drives: to avoid being crushed under someone else’s boot, and to be the person crushing others under your own boot. Libertarians understand that there are a limited number of job openings for boot-crusher. They also understand that even if they got to be one of the boot-crushers, they would no longer be able to enjoy the society of their peers; it’s a life of fear. So, liberty is better because it’s just easier and more fun to live that way.
I used to believe the former but I am leaning to the latter these days.
Labels: liberty, misanthropy, secularism
posted by Zimri on 16:40 | link |
Click it or ticket!
Another signboard: On the left hand, a chalkboard with repeated lines, "I will fasten my seatbelt". On the right hand, a plain message: "OR GET A TICKET!"
It's the same mentality as the commercial featuring a flock of tickets, flying toward a car wherein is some hapless middle-aged white man who has not done his Civic Duty.
Or: the commercial wherein a longer-haired white man is stopped at a light, and slowly surrounded by cop cars. He tries quietly to put on his belt. At that point all five, or more, of the cops turn on their lights. He is caught!
This isn't even a public-safety message. This is just the State saying, do what I say or I will punish you. It's the message of the lord to his serfs.
Under Mayor Bill White, Houston doesn't care about fighting real crime. Houston cares only about fighting that perception.
Under White, Houston is all about criminalising the violation of ordinances. They want the cash from "violators". They want the appearance of being strict. Most of all they want to run up the stats for Group A so it doesn't look so bad when, or I should say if, they should arrest a member of Group B who is committing (say) a mugging.
I've already dealt with this. But it's getting worse.
Labels: bullshit, crime, propaganda, race
posted by Zimri on 16:37 | link |
Lost battle
In 2003, Amir Taheri called out hijabis and niqabis as being political extremists, and not merely devout Muslims. I cannot find the original article but many clips survive. The upshot is that the head-cover first came into being in the late 1970s.
One rather hilarious expression came from Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He announced, "scientific research had shown that women's hair emitted rays that drove men insane
". I'm not disputing the existence of insanity-inducing radiation from women, but I'd always assumed it was emitted from the cleavage. (Maybe Iranian women have different DNA.) At any rate the Hair Ray became part of the Right-wing lexicon over here, labeled a "Zionist hair ray" by LGF at the time.
Anyway that was in 2003. Nowadays the hijab is everywhere. I saw a black lady in line at the local Fadi's. She was wearing the black hood... and beneath it, a skin-tight and revealing outfit. Which, you know, I have no objection to. But it defeats the purpose of Islamic modesty. So why the hijab? Something Else Must Be At Work.
She was just showing off the numerical strength of Islam, even though she clearly did not believe a word of its moral injunctions. She was expressing "brave resistance" against the American cultural majority.
Labels: islam
posted by Zimri on 16:36 | link |
Oldspeak, Newspeak
The LGF dictionary is gone now. This represents the end of a shared language amongst that community.
The old language represented, for the most part, a community of friends with a shared set of values, and its enemies were shared among enemies of all civilisation: Iranian extremists ("hair rays"), Left-wing trolls ("mobies"). Some were assumed to be insane and naive ("moonbat").
A new lexicon has emerged. This represents a new community. Its enemies are personal enemies of that blog ("downding", "stalker"). Some are assumed to be insane and evil ("bad craziness").
Labels: lgf, propaganda
posted by Zimri on 16:30 | link |
Republicans as a third-party
Given the three-person races in New Jersey and New York district 23, I am now hearing excitable Conservatives describe the Republicans as being the "third party" in 1860. I do not think it fits.
This is based on a memory of early nineteenth-century politics: the pro-Congress Whig Party, versus the strong-executive Democrat Presidencies of Jackson and Polk. The memory is accurate enough... up to the Compromise of 1850.
They're forgetting that the Whigs were dead by the mid 1850s. Even looking at the 1856 map shows that the Republicans already existed, already had a base of support, and were already the effective second party as of Election Day that year.
By 1860 the Republicans had an even more consistent and electable platform than they had in 1856. No-one else had their degree of organisation, will to power, and popularity. So they were not a "third party".
What happened in 1860 is that it was the turn of other "third parties" to shatter the Democrat coalition. There was a North Democrat, a South Democrat, and a Constitutional Union.
So, were the Republicans ever a third party? Maybe in 1855. There were Congressional races up to then wherein the former Whigs played around with, for instance, the American Party. But most of this was shaken out of the system by 1856. And it wasn't caused by a challenge to the Whigs; the Whigs had already collapsed.
Labels: republicans
posted by Zimri on 16:18 | link |
The unwinnable debate
I tried to wrestle with Gödel Incompleteness last night. I had to define a few terms, so I cut that part out, and will try again here.
Gödel says, if I'm reading it right, that if any given branch of mathematics is big enough to handle basic arithmetic - then that branch is already too complicated for all theorems in it to be decided true or false. An insoluble problem in that branch might be solved using other branches, but then you'll run into the same underlying flaw with those branches. Nothing in this universe can solve all the problems in mathematics.
This is separate from those debates gone Pascal-complete. (Those debates do have their resolution; the side which invokes Pascal is the loser.) Some debates have no resolution under the terms laid out. It's a sobering thought and, yes, there are religious implication to that as well. Gödel himself thought that God existed. (Gödel's God would have sentenced Pascal to Hell, if he was just, but that is quite another rant.)
Labels: algorithms
posted by Zimri on 12:37 | link |
Proofs and algorithms
I mentioned below that an argument is a class of automaton. I may have jumped ahead a little bit. Really what an argument is, is a chain of reasoning. In mathematics, arguments are conducted in a more formal means. We call these arguments, "proofs".
A mathematical proof assumes that its audience accepts base mathematics and logic. To communicate these findings means that mathematical proofs must be laid out in terms of a "formal language" which all mathematicians are bound to accept. In short, a mathematical proof is itself a mathematical object. That means we might be able to prove things about ways to express mathematical proofs.
That is how we get from arguments to automata; even bad arguments, like Pascal-complete debates, follow these rules.
Labels: algorithms, science
posted by Zimri on 01:25 | link |
Renewable energy
I mentioned it in passing below, but Understanding E = mc2 bears posting again. What it boils down to, is that "renewable energy" doesn't scale for a population of our size.
Solar energy is good only for dealing with peak daylight usage; and it doesn't solve the problem of the baseline energy we must use when the air-conditioning isn't running and the offices are powered off (at night).
Geothermic, wind, and hydro power together won't make up that difference.
There's another equation to keep in mind here: total energy = number of people x energy use per person.
Environmentalists have a principled case to levy against coal and oil (less so, natural gas). If we find a principled environmentalist, who is fine with our population the way it is, and wouldn't mind lower energy bills: he would then support nuclear power. However we don't see this amongst the Al Gore set. Something Else Must Be At Work.
That Something is that these "environmentalists" are not, in fact, environmentalists. They are simply a coalition of those who would set a ceiling upon the nation. Here, the ceiling is allowable power usage. With total energy capped, the number of people becomes too high, and energy use must be rationed.
The Left wants either fewer people, or a return to the Dark Ages - except for the Left elite.
Labels: bullshit, energy, progressives, propaganda, science
posted by Zimri on 00:59 | link |
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
We are not ready for this
Daily Mail says: we can create a sperm cell from a stem cell, and an egg cell from a stem cell.
The article claims this was done through embryonic stem cells; which I'm against, as a pro-lifer. But it could just as easily have been done through stem cells in the bone marrow. The researchers are talking skin cells. So I am not going to get into the embryonic / pro-life dispute here. What is going on here is bigger than that.
I see here humans being cloned by strange humans, humans who have no genetic relation to the humans being cloned. This scenario is not exactly new; there was always rape, most bluntly, but also (since 1978) we could have had forced harvesting of eggs and sperm, and in vitro fertilisation. But those methods were crude and difficult to implement. Now someone can have the needed cells when he bumps into us on the subway.
I see here the fulfillment of The Abolition Of Man (CS Lewis) toward the Brave New World (A Huxley).
If human society worldwide, the technologically-advanced nations anyway, all took part in stable, contractual unions for the purpose of procreation then I would be embracing this discovery. (I have supported government discrimination for the sake of heterosexuality; but supporters of gay marriage and even polygamy should agree with me here, within their equivalent unions.) Human society would enact laws worldwide that mandated that only a stable family had the right to this technology. This would end the curse of infertility; at the same time, no child would be born except to parents who loved them.
But if there is a theme to this blog (this month anyway) it is this: human society is not inherently nice. We are higher primates; the act of being good is a conscious effort. There are evil people in the World Jungle, who don't bother; there are even evil nations. An evil nation of high IQs - I have in mind here, North Korea - can and will use this to mix and match the genes the nation wants. They will use this to create a genetically engineered caste of bastards. Worse than bastards; they will not even know a mother's love, and their real father will be the Dear Leader.
Labels: fascism, misanthropy, science
posted by Zimri on 23:46 | link |
The SHOCKING x That y DOES NOT WANT You To See
Are there people who still fall for that? To me it is obviously both an appeal to one's natural curiosity for "forbidden knowledge" ("x"), and an appeal to the hatred the audience has for their common enemy ("y").
It is likely technically true that person y doesn't want to bother with x. On the assumption that y is like most non-sociopaths, and x a pile of crap, then y would prefer that belief in x is minimised. I may not be a good example of a non-sociopath, but even I don't want you to be watching Expelled, dabbling in UFO theories, or hunting down copies of the Protocols. There are enough malinformed lunatics in this nation without adding to the pile of People I Must Avoid.
Or maybe I'm in on it! Oh noes!
Labels: bullshit, misanthropy
posted by Zimri on 17:06 | link |
And Another Thing
Actually that's the title of a new book. It's by Eoin Colfer. "PART SIX OF THREE", it announces; the "three" being a reference to the funny byline to "Mostly Harmless" ("increasingly inaccurately titled trilogy").
A lot of the features of this book are like that. They are references to the original that aren't played for more than fanservice. "Goosnargh", etc. It kind of reads like the fanfic I wrote in seventh grade which, I suspect, I burned.
His ear isn't entirely tinny. There's good stuff alloyed over it. Bronzy, one might say.
Labels: books
posted by Zimri on 16:43 | link |
Yay, flu shots
I had a flu shot yesterday (not H1N1 - this was the vaccine for the normal flu). It made my right forearm sore. Now I feel sore all over and a little headachy.
Bah.
Labels: personal
posted by Zimri on 16:40 | link |
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Former market-dominants
GNXP, and now Van der Byl in UR, have commented that the Mesticos in Angola - a mixed-race bunch - are now the overclass in an ostensibly Marxist nation.
This is notable because before that the Mesticos started out as the most pro-Portuguese bunch in the colony. They remind me of the mixed-race people in Haiti. In Haiti, famously, the Whites wanted what we might call a unilateral declaration of independence and a slave state; the Blacks wanted blood. Mixed-race people are a natural middle group - they know they don't stand a chance without help. In Haiti this group supported France.
What pushed the Angolan Mesticos to Marxism was Salazar the dictator, in the mid twentieth-century. Salazar had exported a lot of Portuguese trash to this colony. There they predictably set to discriminating against the locals. The former elite resented that.
Mestico Marxism followed the Russian "socialist worker" model and not the Chinese peasants'-party model. They knew that a peasant-party would be indigenous and, if the worst happened, Haitian. In effect the Mesticos found new colonial masters, in Moscow.
Labels: misanthropy, progressives, race
posted by Zimri on 22:05 | link |
Slicing pi
Okay, say you've got a number you're trying to find, but it takes too long to get there. Like: you want to find the 31st prime number. Or, the 1,000th digit of Pi.
In the classical methods, you just go and... grunt out all the prime numbers up to #31 using the Eratosthenes Sieve. Or, you calculate pi to 1000 digits.
There are certain things you'd like to do in number theory - like density. You'd like to know if the distribution of numbers in a sequence is random. Dealing with digits in an extended transcendental number, like Pi: if the digits are truly random, in the same density no matter what "snapshot" you take (digit 200 to digit 300, say) - we call that number normal. We don't know if Pi is normal. Because it just takes too long to get as far as digit 200. We have to keep calculating digits 1-199 first.
One David Bailey has got us part of the way, with Pi at least - he wrote a computer programme, with which one Simon Plouffe found a sum which can get you to the place you want to be in the Pi sequence, a lot faster. (If you don't mind hexadecimal; but in the field of computer nerdery, who does?)
We don't yet have that ability to plug in a number and get that sequential prime, though.
Labels: algorithms
posted by Zimri on 19:33 | link |
Quit torturing your kids
I was thinking about longhand multiplication of multidigit numbers. (Even worse: the aptly-labeled Long Division.)
Say you are multiplying 234 x 567.
Here are the steps as we learnt them in, I think, fourth grade:
- 1. Make a mark below the underline below the two numbers - at the right.
- 2. Set your position to the right-hand digit on the bottom row.
- 3. Set your position to the right-hand on the top row.
- 4. Line up the digits in these positions (4 and 7).
- 5. Think back to the multiplication tables you memorised in third grade. (If you're me.) (Here it's 28.)
- 6. Add whatever number you had to "carry". (Here, nothing - first digit and all.)
- 7. Write down the right part of that number at the mark mentioned in #2 (8).
- 7. "Carry" the rest - (Put the 2 above the next-to-left digit on top, which is the 3.)
- 8. Set your position to the next-to-right hand digit on the top row.
- 9. Go back to #3. Repeat until out of digits on the top.
- 10. Awesome, we have a number on the bottom (234 x 7 = 1638).
- 11. Now set your position for the SECOND number, one digit over to the left. (Instead of 7, we'll be working with 6. Or, you know, 5, once we get there...)
- 12. At the same time, shift where you plan to start the next single-digit multiplication result.
- 13. Go back to #2. Basically, do the whole thing over again except 234 x 6, or 234 x 5.
- 14. Those three multiplication results? Add them up. The way you learnt in second grade.
If you ask me, this is about the worst algorithm in the worrrrrld.
For a start, you're telling your brain, on multiple occasions - "quick, what's 4x7?" Most of the time you're also dealing with "carried" numbers which means, in addition, "2+1, STAT!" Every time you go to memory, it's a headache. It's a neural SQL call: connect, SELECT.
Worse, it doesn't scale well. With m digits on the first row and n on the second, the work is on the order of m x n. For my two three-digit numbers I had to do nine sweeps. That includes recalling times-tables, and fer cryinoutloud addition-tables. I particularly enjoyed feeling like a retard when I didn't get them immediately. Nine times to make that double neural SQL call. Computer geeks call this a polynomial-time problem. I call it a pain in the rear.
At least it's soluble in polynomial time unlike that damned rodent problem we had last fortnight; so your computer can manage it. Also it guarantees an exact result (if you did it right). Still, Sammy would never have put up with it.
Nor should you. Here's a better idea: get a slide rule.
I never got to use one of these puppies. By the mid 1980s we had the notion that the Calculator was going to save us. But calculators get stolen, and broken, and run out of battery life. No-one's going to do that to a slide rule and they are cheaper anyway.
A slide rule runs on a logarithmic basis. If you are trying to do 234 x 567, it's the same as doing exp[ln(234) + ln(567)]. In layman's terms -
- Find the log of the first number.
- Find the log of the second number.
- Add those two logs. (This is also a recursive process - it runs as many times as the number of digits in the smaller of the numbers.)
- Reverse the log of the total.
So instead of O(n^2), where n is the number of digits; we've got O(n)! And the original had twice as many "SQL calls" (mult and add) as the slide rule did (just add). There are SIGNIFICANT savings here especially if you have a lot of digits and/or a lot of numbers.
You sacrifice a little in accuracy but this is worth it. Numbers that big don't usually have to be that precise.
PS. Also note that polynomial-time processes can be done, in some cases, in linear time...
Labels: algorithms
posted by Zimri on 18:14 | link |
Too much stuff
When the blog gets over 1000 posts and a span of seven years... it gets harder to tell if I've posted about an issue before.
I'd thought I'd dealt with gay marriage and apparently, I hadn't. At least not in an existential way. I had to use the search feature of Blogger to find that out.
And I'm not even particularly prolific. I have huge gaps in the record. We've just returned from one that lasted, what, two and a half years?
Labels: meta
posted by Zimri on 00:26 | link |
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