First Blog

 Shakespere has suggested "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78   How unfair! From the Washington times we learn that "Once the surest path to a six-figure salary and a life of luxury, a law degree in the aftermath of the Great Recession comes with far fewer guarantees, leaving many graduates with mountains of debt while confronted by a rapidly changing legal landscape."   Only 86% of new law grads have jobs.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/17/unemployed-lawyers-sue-schools-over-promises-of-jo/ Oh, what a shame. What a great bunch of folks can't practice their chosen profession of extracting from poor people from all they have left, and billing rich people more than is just. These people, with their (legal) license to steal have an average annual earning of about $110,000.  Considering the numbers making really big salaries, there must be quite a group just scratching out a livi

Some years ago I began writing my thoughts in small notebooks. They were entered as I considered them.  It was not daily, weekly or anything on a time schedule.  When I returned to them months or years afterwards I was amazed.  I came to understand my thoughts, how my mind worked, and how my thinking had changed.  Working definitions:  A diary is a record of events, indications, and particularly feelings made daily or at least regularly.  A journal is more like an account of events, thoughts, or ideas made intermittently.There are lots of these: Travel journals, Diet journals, Workout diaries, Sleep diaries, Tagebuch, War diaries, Fictional diaries, and Unusual diaries.  Some are just newsy, a sharing with friends.  Naturally, many if not most politicians keep diaries and/or journals of their encounters with other politicians, in person or by phone. Have I created a diary?  Not quite.  My notes are more like a journal.    People make them for a variety of reasons.  Some are for

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is arguably the most famous painting of all time.  And many regard it as the best painting of all time.  No doubt more has been written about this painting than any other.  (Google away...) The history of the painting is interesting.  Every single aspect has been studied, the art, the viewers, the locations, even the identity and gender of the sitter.    In this note I only highlight that Leonardo kept the painting through his lifetime, though the sitter has traditionally been identified as Lisa del Giocondo, a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany.  He never delivered it.  Why might that be? Any of us who are involved in creative endeavors of any kind understand that some of our "creations" are not so good, others are good,  and some are outstanding - at least by our own personal standards.  I am a painter, not by profession, and I understand this full well.  Even in my professional life, I see the same.   When it com

Ever thought about how you figure things out? Your marvelous brain has it covered. Indeed, you use six separate systems to make conclusions, see describe them in this order though it varies from person to person. Beliefs/Faith - You have a set of beliefs and a state of faith, both of which which function as guideposts on how to view problems and resolve difficulties.  These are your strongest system, and can override all other considerations.  The two overlap so much, it isn't really possible to distinguish them.  The first is the second, and the second is the first. Random - When all else fails, and all considerations are equal, what do you do? Throw the dice. This means just take a guess.  We all do this from time to time, usually when there is little time to use your more considered systems to respond.   Analytic - This is the logical part of your brain. It channels you through issues using the strengths of logical deduction and induction. You try hard to use accepte

June 20, 2012 Changing Your Mind We all change our minds.  This is a natural part of our life's journey. It happens; we understand how necessary this is - at least on an individual basis. But within our political institutions, this has become a pariah.  Any politicians that do change their minds are accused of flip-flopping, vascillating, or worse.  It seems to have become a stigma, a political black flag, for anyone who even entertains in their thinking what is a natural evolution of thought.  But in political institutions, the art of compromise  (i.e. appearing to change one's mind) opens one up to these withering condemnations.  How many of our great leaders were known as superiour precisely because they were great compromisers?  Many, I believe.  How many of our great leaders have refused compromise at every turn?  Name one. We desparately need someone to emerge that understands compromise  is an essential part of successful government administration. We desparately

June 17, 2012 The Telepathy Game Suppose telepathy is possible; that is, human minds can communicate using some mechanism not among the known senses.    There have been lots of suggestions for the mechanism of information transmission and reception, from brain waves of some form, to electromagnetic waves, to quantum effects, and more.   Let’s agree to ignore this part of the story, and simply assume some type of telepathic communication exists in some type of people under some types of circumstances.   We are proposing a thought experiment, something the physicists like to run. What we consider here are those that may be senders, receivers, both senders and receivers, and neither .    All of the first three categories have something to do with person-to-person interactions; the fourth is not.   A small list follows Senders: teachers, preachers, leaders, actors, parents. Receivers: students, psychologists, doctors, nurses Both senders and receivers: diplomats, politicians

Working on a few blogs.  These take time - particularly on fact checking.  Conjecture is easier. Immortality now.  How does that work? Moods - we all got them.  Damn. UFO's and creationism - what's in common?  Simple answer, probability. What makes a successful stock analyst? What is consciousness?  Difficult question. It's all in communication and how much of it there is.

Let's Play Roulette - Just for Fun June 14, 2012 The other day it occurred to me I could double my money at Roulette if only I was willing to play a large enough numbers of times, even with possible losses building up before the ultimate win.   So, I decided to try this by simulation. Here’s the game.   You have a table with 36 number slots, half red and half black with two additional green slots, zero and double zero.   This gives a total of 38 possible outcomes for American roulette.   The table is circular, something like a bowl. A steel marble is sent a spinning in one direction and the table is sent spinning in the opposite direction.   When everything slows down, the marble settles into one of the slots.   That number pertaining to this slot is the winner.    You can bet on any number, or perhaps bet a red or black number will come up. In our game we will always play red. The payoff for any number is 36:1, and the payoff for red is your bet, 1:1.     We always bet

June 13, 2012 Climate Change Of course there is climate change.   The climate is always changing.   Actually, what would it mean to say the climate is not changing? So, when people talk of climate change they are implying “man made global warming,” a term that has been tarnished of late, not to mention a couple of record cold winters in various parts of the world also of late.    For climate change, there is lots of evidence.   Ice packs are receding, sea levels are rising, and temperatures are up in the last century.   Researchers use even finer measures that look back centuries using data from ice cores, tree rings, and corals. Moreover, they use indices of volcanism, solar variability, changes in GHGs (Greenhouse Gases), and tropospheric aerosols.   Then, they build models based on all this showing that standard deviations are terrifically small for the nine centuries prior to the 20 th   where the changes took place.   They conclude that “most of the warming must be du

June 12, 2012 One claim made by many pundits these days is that the United State has too many regulations,   that regulations are stifling to the economy, that regulations are so arcane they are difficult to penetrate.    True or not, let’s look at the situation.   It is a fact that regulations are necessary for the proper administration of government.   A population of 250 million is too large to handle by local and arbitrary means.   Regulations can serve to stave of legal actions of almost every variety.   Second, with too many regulations there are a number of unanticipated consequences.    A couple of definitions: Policy: A consistent guide to be followed under a given set of circumstances. Procedure: A procedure is a sequence of steps for completing a given activity. Regulation:   Statements to explain the technical, operational, and legal details necessary to implement laws. Law: A   system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to gove

I am always on alert to any political party where there is the near certainty there is a political elite who dominate its power, precepts and principles.   These types of political movements almost always give strong words to the equality of the people, while the leaders themselves believe they should be part of the party’s elite, the good shepherds of the movement.   It is all the others who are the sheep.    Such people justify themselves in their self-appointed roles as uniquely able, uniquely caring, and uniquely qualified.    All of this serves to make them fully self-satisfied and fundamentally good – in their minds.   Make no mistake, when someone in political power feels fundamentally good,   be concerned.    Such parties, upon assuming power, invariable become corrupt, morally and materially.     After all, when doing so much good, skimming a little by way of perks is only just.   And, helping our like-minded friends with beneficence is merely the right thing to do.   Moreove

Thomas Henry Huxley* (1825-1895) maintained that “Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed**.”  This is not exactly so.   In the definition cited below, a creed is " A system of belief, principles, or opinions."    Sounds like science to me, though we might better say science is " A system of belief, principles, or opinions supported by evidence."    To do science and mathematics well does in fact require the scientist to believe in the strongest possible way the present tenets of his/her science.  The science is the creed.  The creed provides the guidance and rails upon which the research proceeds.   Without the firm beliefs in place, the research will flip and flop between competing firmaments.  Nothing happens then.  Seldom does any research project begin with the goal, “I want to prove this or that is wrong.”  That comes much later in the venture – long after the scientist has tried everything to support it and cannot find clear evidence to do so.

A familiar state of mind is comfortable, whether it be confusion, fear, anger, happiness, contentment, optimistic, pessimistic, worry, or anything at all.   Familiarity is comfortable.   Without proper control, the mind will seek the familiar state, regardless of other factors.    This holds disregarding importance, relevance, desires, evidence, advice, and all. “Familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt,” to modify a common aphorism. A “healthy” state of mind perpetuates itself, and ditto for an “unhealthy” state of mind. As you know some folks are just plain unhappy and continue to be so, even though their life is good or not, whether they prosper, whether they love, whether they have power or not, whether they progress or they decline.   This (unhappy) state of mind becomes familiar (= comfortable).   They deal with it on a daily basis.   They sustain it! Breaking free is incredibly difficult. We call this the Law of Permanence.  

This blog is about used ideas. Nothing new is ever proposed.   Heaven forbid. The thoughts herein are re-cycled, re-interpreted, re-mixed, re-hashed, re-viewed…   New ideas are both the salvation and scourge of a stable society. This brings me to the comparison with new (aka modern) architecture.   So much of it looks great in the original drawings.   It is easy to sell, It is new, innovative, uncommon, bursting with energy, and the like. But so much modern architecture just doesn’t play well with the eye upon construction.   It just doesn’t have an esthetic geometry.   After the eye becomes accustomed to it, the eye says no, "I don’t like it."    Moreover, some of it does not age well.  It looks worse with age.   This is what makes the Frank Lloyd Wright’s of the world so fantastically great. Such architects/artists have aesthetics, geometry, longevity, design, and beauty in mind from the onset. Many channels of the brain are needed to achieve this; difficult to lea

Bulletin:   School test scores are down.  Students aren’t learning math. Students can’t read very well.  Students come to college much underprepared.   The United States scores near the bottom at many assessments of math competence (e.g. PISA test*).  (Gee, even Washington politicians speak at the 10th grade level.) The alarm is raised.  Educators from the highest levels in Washington to the States, to the School Districts are concerned.  They are lost on what to do.  They are lost on how to repair these problems.  They suffer a decline in the number of capable teachers entering the field; they endure the exodus of teachers from their ranks; they embrace alternatively certified teachers hoping some of them will last.   All write scholarly white papers, convene meetings,  try to link the schools and colleges.  Nothing works very well.  They are truly lost. What does a huge infrastructure do when faced with insoluble problems, with conditions they don’t understand, with issues that k