Knitting Math by KimB

Knitting is a popular activity. Knitting requires physical, mental and artistic abilities all at the same time. Using colored yarns and various methods of looping the yarn in rows along a sticks of various dimensions and shapes, knitters create clothes, blankets, tapestries, toys and lots of other items. The famous Weasley Jumper(Sweater) being a common holiday gift in the Harry Potter series as an example.

For the most part, knitters concern themselves with the number of stitches and where to make a loop change. They use repeating patterns to create cables and designs. What they don't consider is Physics.

Well, the Physicists are taking notes and it turns out knitting is pretty darn complex. They love it.¹

There are several interesting areas:


Strechiness

Elasticity or Stretchiness. Yarn by itself is not very elastic but when knitted into a sweater or socks it is very elastic and can stretch as much as double the individual lengths. The type and way the loops are formed creates stretchiness.

Material Properties. The end product displays properties beyond that of the base material used. Taking a one dimensional shape (yarn) and turning it into a multidimensional object (sweater). The sweater has many times the strength of the individual yarns or loops.



Smocking Variations²

An embroidery technique called "smocking", used before elastic was developed, gathers fabrics in a way that it can be stretched.² By using various knots, smocking creates a bending energy that translated into stretchiness. A smocked cuff can expand and then contract. A gathered/smocked cuff shirt is almost a required costume for any production of Hamlet.

Knitted knots are interlocking slip knots looped back and forth. A knot pulled to the front is a "knit stitch" and a knot pulled to the back is a "purl stitch". Combining front and back knots creates the pattern and linking them in different ways creates 3D shapes.

Each stitch or pattern yields a different amount of elasticity. Not only does it expand but it returns to the original shape. The amount of "give" depends on how many stitches are linked or crossed over the neighboring loops. Physicists are working out the math that goes into how a single thread of yarn becomes a bendable knitted item and how much stretchiness it will display. Once they sort it all out, they can use predictive modeling for new materials and new applications for knitted items.

Analyzing Weasley Sweaters is just the start.

Knitting Slip Knot

References

1. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/physicists-are-decoding-math-y-secrets-of-knitting-to-make-bespoke-materials/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smocking
   
   

   Smocking Stitches
   A	Cable stitch
   B	Stem stitch
   C	Outline stitch
   D	Cable flowerette
   E	Wave stitch
   F	Honeycomb stitch
   G	Surface honeycomb stitch
   H	Trellis stitch
   I	Vandyke stitch
   J	Bullion stitch

A Story for a Hot Day by KimB

I went shopping mid-morning as the heat was running towards 100+; so nice and cool in the store. I did the rounds of the discount bins and found a few items and I hit a good sale on Fruit Popsicles too.

We recently tried them and they are very good: 100% fruit and no junk. They come in different flavors and sizes. There is a standard popsicle size (4 per box) or a tube size (10 per box). We decided the 10 box smaller one is better as it is just enough when u want a cool pick-me-up and you can have a second one guilt free.

I pay for my small haul and a nice person helps me out to put the bags in the car. The heat hits like a hot skillet as we leave the store for the real outside.

I go to open the doors of my High Tech DNA car and

they do not open

It is 100+F outside and my super fancy car won't open the darn door!!! I tug, pull, and push all the ways I know of to trigger the door to open and ... NADA. I stab all the In Case buttons on the key fob and ... NADA.

I know there is a bypass for an emergency key that I have to find, but

my popsicles are melting!!! YIKES!!!

zho ... the kind person takes my groceries back inside and stashes them in their cold box until I can get things sorted.

I have to uncover the key bypass, which after a bit I manage to do. Now I have the door open and ...

hmmm...

 DNA cars do not use a key to start them

hmmmm ....

What to do Percy?

I make a call to the dealership service folks and explain the dilemma: I am in the car but how do you start it with no key???

They explain there is a voodoo ritual to get the car to start and after a few tries I get the car running. WOOTS!!!

I collect my popsicles from cold storage and make it home PDQ to get them in the freezer. YIPPEEE!!

Now I have to deal with the DNA car and we complete the Jedi Mind Trick again and cruise down to the dealership where they quickly replace a battery in the key fob for me.

A BATTERY??

A BATTERY IN THE KEY FOB???

The whole DNA car depends on a BATTERY???

The story ends well. The popsicles are fine. The groceries put away. I got an adventure and it cost $5.00. WOW!!

If the internet doesn't collapse under its own bloat first, all we have to do is wait for the key fobs linking the internet, cars, and commerce system together to have a $5 battery failure. All those self-driving cars will congeal on the tarmac as their parking-valet systems collapse into a pile of discharged ions.

For the want of a battery the system was lost

The End

New math - A Watermelon Tale by R Cane

I recently bought two beautiful sugar baby watermelons that were on sale at K for 99 cents EACH. Mistakenly the teller rang them up at $4 per pound, so one was $8 and the other was $6 when they should have been less than $2.

My grocery order grand total was $103; I had expected it to be about $85. So I did a quick review of the receipt and showed the checker the error: he charged "by the pound" not "per each" on the 2 watermelons.

He rapidly did some voiding and re-ringing and knotting of brows ... and announced with a grin that the new grand total was now adjusted from $103 to $102!  I was aghast!

Hmm??

How could the required $12 credit be only a dollar less on the grand total?? I was really scratching my head ....

He reviewed his work again, and announced that the $102 was correct so no further adjustment would happen!

I asked for the supervisor, who checked the register tape and redid the math and walked thru the same mumbo jumbo and announced that the new - one dollar less $102 total was really correct!

I said $14 take away $2 = $12 so there should have been a twelve dollar refund not $1!

...25 minutes so far...

Next I called for the store manager; he spent 15 more minutes doing the same ritual dance only to announce the math was correct and the new total was indeed correct at $102!

I was now apoplectic!

... 45 minutes and still ticking...

I mentioned to the manager that 5 people were all standing around chiming in and following it all - wasting time on this erroneous math. I commented that it seemed to me the payroll of 5 employees standing around for 45 minutes versus a $12 credit should have been a no brainer ... he shrugged.

I had already paid the grand total before the error was discovered so I was out the overcharged $12 bux and that was that!! I left in frustrated amazement: The dark forces of new math strikes again!

I just can't believe the sad element here: the insistence, to a point of obstinacy, that the math was correct by FIVE people!

I grew up in a world where the customer was right but it seems that this concept has evaporated along with the American Dream.

I wasn't asking for any special favor, just "the right thing". It makes me ponder how we got to space and the moon with only slide rules ¹ and common sense?

I wonder if two 99 cent watermelons gone wrong aren't a bellwether and portent of dire things to come for our society? I suspect that it's no small chance that our most brilliant minds are coming from other countries and cultures where education is more highly prized. It makes you wonder if our greatest days are in the rear view mirror?

Anyway, those $14 watermelons were actually delicious, and are pleasant memories now. (in spite of/because of, being outrageously priced?)

But the new math and bad attitudes are still with us!



$4 a pound?

References
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule

The Far Horizon

[Editor's Post]

It may take a long time but the end result is from a life time of love.

The 17 Year Spread by Barbara
[Editor's note: This story was written by Barbara]
Saturday, April 26, 2014

Help comes in many ways.

Unexpected Blessings by Gigi
[Editor's note: This story was written by Gigi]
Thursday, October 21, 2010

Birthdays

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I'm a Gemini, and I'm pleased to say, that I've been quite lucky, all along the way. I've never won a lot of money, nor a trip across the sea. I never won a crossword contest, nor a spelling bee. I can't fly an aero plane, nor drive a racing car. I never fished for Marlin, nor swung a trapeze bar. I've never met the President, nor a movie star.

But...I'm very proud to say, I'm a member of this Nation's Greatest Generation!

And I can write cursive!

A quote from the memoir of Pamela Mountbatten

The following quote is from the book, Daughter of Empire, My life as a Mountbatten by Lady Pamela Hicks ¹. The book is a fascinating memoir about the privileged lives and loves of English Royalty and the leading figures of the twentieth century.

"My father was a master at solving problems. When I lied about taking some chocolate, and as I vehemently denied it, puffed chocolate fumes into Nanny's face, she was very cross. "This is very serious indeed Pammy. Wait until Daddy comes home." To me this sounded like a death sentence, and when she added, "I am not going to punish you, we will wait until we tell Daddy and see what he says." I knew I was done for.

My father was not due to come home for several days, and each hour was agony. I couldn't sleep and Nanny maintained a severe expression whenever she looked my way. When my father finally sent for me - a relief in some ways, at least the waiting was over - I braced myself.

"Nanny tells me that you took a piece of chocolate." He spoke in a quiet, reasonable voice. "That was naughty, Pammy. But what has really upset her is that you told a lie. Its very important in life that you don't tell lies. And so you understand why, I'm going to tell you about a nun." I was surprised at the way this conversation was going.

"Now, nuns are good people. They never do an evil thing and the nun in this story had never told a lie. But there came a moment during a war between the Catholics and the Protestants when she was asked to hide a Protestant man. Of course this nun was a Catholic. When the soldiers came into the convent, they asked her, 'Has a Protestant man been here asking you to hide him?' Looking them straight in the eye, she replied, No.' She lied because she knew that the soldiers would kill the man if they found him. And because nuns are always truthful, the soldiers believed her and went away" He paused so the story would sink in.

I was only seven, so probably looked a little blank. My father took me by the shoulders and said, gently, "You see, Pammy darling, you probably only have one, maybe two opportunities in the whole of your life to tell a lie. So don't waste them on chocolate."

That message went in, all the more because he hadn't scolded me, but had told me a story that I could think about. It stayed with me for a very long time and made me very sorry for having lied about something so trivial.

references:

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Pamela_Hicks

A moment in time

 Outside my window

The rainbow colored whirligigs

Were spinning in the rain.

The splashing drops of rain

Ran down the window panes.

As the rain poured down,

And the lightening flashed,

The whirligigs kept spinning,

But the power crashed.

 

 

 

Learned Helplessness by KimB

Learned Helplessness ¹ is a behavior (or lack there of ) where people/animals cannot avoid painful or adverse conditions. They just give up in the face of unrelenting pain or confusion. We've all had our moments where things are just so horrible, we just "stop". Generally we get going again in some fashion but the dread of repeating the experience stays with us.

It's a well used concept in torture programs ² and features prominently in military manuals ³ with detailed descriptions of how to induce the state where the "fear of pain or deprivation" is more useful than the actual beatings, electric shocks and other pain inducing methods. Although, the sadistic folks who undertake these jobs much prefer the latter to the former.

Learned Helplessness is also very useful in other contexts, not ones normally associated with torture chambers. Some High Tech companies specialize in embedding similar concepts into their software programs in order to "direct" the users into a specific set of behaviors: compulsive use of the programs and dread of not being able to use them.

Humans are very malleable and getting us to do X Y Z is much easier than teaching a dog to sit, stay, don't jump on people, don't run away. etc. etc. etc. Any one with dogs knows that one or more of these commands may not work, especially if you are not a professional dog trainer. Just open the front door and see how well your sit, stay commands work.

Humans though sit, stay, stare at the monitor and punch at the keyboard for hours and hours. We spend hours just "looking" or "checking" our phones. In the last week I've spent 5 hours just "looking" at my so-call smartphone, in case the "smart" part wore off and it failed to notify me of some ultra-important-trivial-item was collected and went un-noticed.

I play on-line video games MMORPGs ⁴ and I don't think anyone who plays regularly hasn't experienced the dread of "New Release Downtime". Just the thought of an announced 24 hour update period that morphs (ahem) into a 5 day outage is enough to make our control trigger fingers twitch even when off line. However, playing a game is not Real Life and a twitching fire button finger isn't the worst, unless you happen to pull an entire mob of NPCs including the Boss prematurely. The old 50 DPK Minus⁵ WoW raid video is still floating about showing what happens when things go pear shaped.

In our modern on-line world, High Tech companies work very hard to make sure we are permanently in a state of Learned Helplessness. It's all done subtly and packaged as convenience using social and cultural conditioning and our own mental processes to achieve the same outcome: to render us Unable to Function unless we are "allowed" by the High Tech software. It's more than just being reliant or dependent, it's the complete inability to do anything at all without it.

Recently a journalist tried to Not Google for a week ⁶. It was one to the saddest indictments of Learned Helplessness I've read. One can be horrified and revolted by the doings in CIA Torture Chambers and those of our Allies and even those of our Enemies but this surpassed the blood and gore by a long way. The man was completely unable to do even a few tasks without the High Tech sadist in his pocket telling him how, when and where to do to them.

The loss of knowledge about how to do anything without Google was condensed to:

You have to hope someone else knows what to do. ^6a

The man was completely unable to think for himself, solve any problem, learn something on his own, experience adventure, discover new concepts or compete even trivial tasks.

It was sad reading.

All through his article, he describes how helpless he felt, adrift in a world where he had no fundamental ideas about anything that had not been imprinted by High Tech and worse yet, the inability to remember anything even when it was imprinted. He couldn't even find his way home.^6b

It's a new form of dementia⁷: Googlezheimer's⁸

What's most sad is that common skills cannot be completed without a request to the Google Mind Monitoring System⁸.

Where to go, what to do, how to do it, what should I do, where am I, cannot be done without permission: Learned Helplessness.

Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer.
With Google, the issue is the answer.^6c

And that's the problem. We don't know the answers anymore. We have lost the ability to think on our own. To solve our own problems.

The most subtle part of Googlezheimer's is that we don't even recognize when Google gives us the WRONG ANSWER.

Oh yeah...
Big Issue...

There are plenty of wrong answers to be presented. We have no real compass to gauge reality anymore. We cannot tell the fake from the real, the imaginary from reality or the repurposed designed to enhance our dependence. We are adrift and we don't even recognize it ... because Google didn't tell us.

There is so much that is good about technology and so much that is really not good. It's in the underlying structure of how we use High Tech. We are fed less and less of what's new and more and more of about what we already know until we are so crippled mentally we cannot even find our own homes.

You can turn a horse loose and he will find his stable.
You can turn a dog loose and he will find his way home.
Cats are notorious for Coming Back ⁹ too.

But not so with Googlezheimer's

As I read the continuing saga of this man's descent into the enormity of what's been lost to him, his main concern was getting back to his comfort zone, to a Googlezheimer's Dormant State⁸. He's not even that alarmed about his incapacity to do things because he's focused on getting back to using Google. There's no epiphany¹⁰ moment for him, no insight¹¹ or Eureka!¹² only a frightened human overwhelmed by what he doesn't know and has no way of finding out ... without Google.

For whatever knowledge he has acquired in his life, it matters only to the extent of his hidden ignorance. Once the ignorance is exposed, the results are devastating mentally.

Google is like an insect: highly specialized; narrow purposed. Humans have greater capacities, except Google won't tell you this ... it's not good for their business.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects."

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love 1973 ¹³

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
   Learned helplessness is behavior that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape from or avoid. After such experiences, the organism often fails to learn or accept "escape" or "avoidance" in new situations where such behavior is likely to be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
   In CIA interrogation manuals learned helplessness is characterized as "apathy" which may result from prolonged use of coercive techniques which result in a "debility-dependency-dread" state in the subject, "If the debility-dependency-dread state is unduly prolonged, however, the arrestee may sink into a defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals
   Details of what's in the public released documents about how the Army and CIA torture people.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
   Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a combination of role-playing video games and massively multiplayer online games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual world.
5. ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
   Published on Dec 8, 2007
   Onyxia Wipe Animation
   NOTE: Video and Animation contain Strong and Vulgar Language and Images.URL fractured to prevent autorun.
6. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/17/would-life-be-happier-without-google-i-spent-a-week-finding-out
   Would life be happier without Google? I spent a week finding out
   Tim Dowling The Guardian Wed 17 Apr 2019 01.00 EDT
   a) “You just had to hope someone else knew”
   b) "When I moved house two years ago, I started to rely on Google for navigation. Now, I am utterly dependent. I don’t just want to know the way – I want to know the best way, as of this minute. I can’t remember the last time I gave a thought to where anything was."
   c) “Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer ... With Google, the issue is the answer.”
   
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease
   Information about Dementia and Alzheimer's conditions.
8. My own definitions:
   Googlezheimer's: Tech induced loss of knowledge.
   Googlezheimer's Dormant State (GDS): A mindless gazing at screens, thumbing or scrolling though apps or screens of information without reading or comprehension or remembering anything about what's displayed. Seen everywhere at anytime except when sleeping or napping; the thumbing motion may still occur from long term habit.
   Google Mind Monitoring System (GMMS): Any system that compels a continuous re-checking behavior. Such systems are based on compulsive behavior creation and are designed to maximize looking or checking of devices. Each access episode provides additional data points and market target details. A successful display will increase checking or viewing times and duration. Successful triggers are noted and used to tailor targeted stimulations.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Came_Back
   "The Cat Came Back" is a comic song written by Harry S. Miller in 1893.
   

   But the cat came back, he couldn't stay no long-er,
   Yes the cat came back de very next day,
   the cat came back—thought she were a goner,
   But the cat came back for it wouldn't stay away.
   

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)
    An experience of a sudden and striking realization
    
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight
    Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a specific context
    
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect
    The eureka effect by Albert Einstein (also known as the Aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept.
    
13. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
    Quotation from Time Enough for Love 1973 by Robert Heinlein
    

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

The Far Horizion

[Editor's Post]

A reminder that help comes in many ways.

Unexpected Blessings by Gigi
[Editor's note: This story was written by Gigi]
Thursday, October 21, 2010

Have a good chuckle as technology attempts to make us all appear "smarter than we are".

Spell Checkers by KimB
[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB]
Saturday, March 16, 2013

April Fool Jokes

The following April fool jokes are from a web site listing many from newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television, and various network sites. There are many sites and if you want a good laugh, dial into one.

April 1998 The newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article by physicist Mark Beslough claiming the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant of pi.

April 1998 Burger King ran an ad in USA Today saying customers could now order left hand Woppers with condiments designed to drip out the right side. Customers not only ordered left hand Woppers, but many asked the 'old' right hand Woppers.

April 1996 Taco Bell took out a full page ad in the New York Times announcing the purchase of the Liberty Bell, to help reduce the country's debt and renamed, Taco Liberty Bell. When the white house press secretary, Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, with tongue-in-cheek said that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would now be known as "The Lincoln Mercury Memorial".

April 1950 The Dutch TV news reported that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.

April 1980 The BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower, known as Big Ben, would go digital. England was shocked.

April 1908 NPR, (National Public Radio) reported that the IRS, in order to assure rebate checks were actually spent, would ship consumers products instead of checks. It also ran false sponsor mentions such as The Soylent Corp that manufactured protein rich foods in a variety of colors with the slogan, "Soylent Green is People".

April 2008 CBC Radio interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokes person announcing plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin. The coin, dubbed a 'threenie' in line with the nicknames of the one-dollar coin called a 'loonie' due to the depiction of a loon on the reverse, and the two-dollar coin called a 'toonie'.

Intolerance

Recently there have been frequent news reports of anti-Semitism and much talk about racial matters. It's a disturbing trend and the following quote might encourage us to overcome our prejudices and practice tolerance.

"We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learned the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical."

The above quote is from writings of Dietrich Bonheoffer, a theologian. As a minister, he was a dedicated anti-Nazi and participant in a plot to kill Hitler. He was executed along with Admiral Canarsis, General Hans Oster, General Karl Sack, General Friedrich Von Raleau, businessman Theodor Strunck, resistance fighter Ludwig Gehre and his brother, Klaus Bonheoffer at Flossenburg concentration camp while Soviet troops were in the vicinity.

Two weeks later, on April 23, 1945 the allies marched into Flossenburg. On April 30,1945, Hitler committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule, then shooting himself.

TANSTAAFL1 by KimB

To Paper or Not to Paper? - that is the modern question. To go paperless or remain in the sea of overflowing paper that represents your life?

Paperless has it's problems because once the disk drive crashes or the data is corrupted or incorrect, you have no method of recovering the information. Paper can preserve things longer but modern paper is poorly made and doesn't hold up very long in a historical sense.

It is a conundrum but a dangerous one to ignore.

Forging or Fakes ² have been around for as long as there has been anything of value to steal with a false document, painting or sculpture. Many of today's museums are filled with forgeries and it seems that every other month a new multi-million dollar ancient master painting is discovered; a production rate which, as anyone who knows or can guess what it takes to make such a masterpiece, is not possible, probable or even remotely theoretical to achieve in a any one lifetime.

The curious thing about masterpiece forgeries is this:

Until the painting is revealed to have less-than-authentic signature, the painting has pride of place on the gallery wall. Articles are written to describe the beauty of the painting, texture, colors and applications etc. etc. etc.

Once the painting has a signature change, it disappears into the dark vaults of embarrassment. Or on rare occasions, moved to the Modern Art section of the museum.

It's the SAME PAINTING...

Modern technology is now able to forge just about anything you can imagine and stuff you haven't even considered that can be forged or manipulated. There isn't much left that cannot be faked.

In old times (and current times), the best method Prosecutors in the USA have to guarantee a conviction is to withhold evidence and documents from the Defense. In the USA that is not what is supposed to happen, but if the Defense doesn't get a document how would anyone know? The lack of a document without knowledge of the existence of it, means a free ride for the Prosecutor, who's livelihood, and political ambitions rely on the number of convictions they get. They figure it's SOK to fudge and not turn over the items that show the Accused is Not The One because it would ding their stats.

90% Conviction Rate - Reelect Me - Make Me President

Sometimes though, this method backfires and someone with a bit of Moral Fiber squeaks and the truth drips out. Generally, not without a whole lot of anguish on the part of the Prosecutor's Victim, and the Prosecutor declaiming They Did It For The Betterment of Society and of course the true winner is the person(s) who actually Got Away With The Crime.

Any Conviction is a Good Conviction
    Innocence isn't Important to getting Reelected

With electronic documents however, there's a wrinkle. They might erase a document but erasing an electronic document does leave holes - tiny future embarrassments when they are found on the Way Back Machine³ or sitting on the drives in Bluffdale Utah⁴.

What is much easier is to alter the documents, video, voice, images or any other electronically stored data. There are now techniques that can create or alter any item without leaving an audit trail or footprint or indication that anything has been tampered with.

Make It So - Make It How You Want It - No One Can Tell

Part of the reason this is a Big Deal is that now a great deal of our society runs on electronic data and as anyone who has run afoul of a "computer error" can attest, fixing a "computer error" is nigh on impossible.

Computers Do NOT Make Mistakes.
    They do EXACTLY what they are programmed to do.

Programmers MAKE Mistakes.
    YOU Pay the Piper.

So, considering how easy it is to create a "deep fake"⁵, this is going to be a big problemo. And one that not too many are thinking about as they calculate that next statistical bump up.

This is something besides the normal trash-level computing that is passed off as Artificial Intelligence (AI) that purports to know you based on some dataset held in Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix private data stores, this in beyond plain old manipulation and greed, it's the complete Falsification of ALL Electronic Data.

If any one piece of electronic data is faked,
    where will you find unaltered data?

Millions of electronic letters or documents become useless once fakes penetrate the database.

Got a Birth Certificate?
    Prove it!
        Fake!

We have already seen the opening salvo of the "fake document" problem but in the world of fakes the problem will go deeper. There either won't be any document at all or the document will have been altered beyond forensic ability to uncover. People with less access to specialists claiming new found ancient masterpieces are authentic, are going to be severely impacted.

Most courts now require electronic submissions of documents, depositions, videos, audio, interviews. When these are faked and the courts stamp these as authentic, how can anyone "Prove It"?

We TRUST Computers
    We do not see the HUMAN in the background

In My Fair Town, there was a community sponsored event to help shred old documents. Gosh knows, I have boxes and boxes of old paper, crumbling and fading in storage boxes stacked one atop another in the garage. Some years back, I was able to take them to an office-supply-store and shred them for a nominal fee, then the fee became not-nominal and so I stopped shredding there. When I stopped shredding the stack got higher and higher.

So, when the community sponsored event came around I packed up some of the oldest of the old boxes and headed to the event. It was extremely well organized. Surprisingly so. Cars neatly tracked into 2 lanes, snaking their way to the location of the big shredders. More folks waiting at the unloading area, taking the boxes, dumping them into security containers and wheeling them to the biggest shredders you can imagine. 10 seconds and my old paper was gone.

And in theory, the now dead and shredded letters and documents make me safer from Bad Dudettes, primarily since paper with names, addresses, IDs, Bank Statements, Utility Statements and every other sort of document is beyond their reach.... It's also beyond mine.

I no longer have proof of - anything

I can no longer prove 5 years or 40 years of continuous existence with rent, utility, pay stubs or any other ephemera of modern life.

Do you think that's not a problem?

It is.

Some countries now require their citizens....
    to prove they are citizens.

How can you do that if the data is wrong, gone, altered or misfiled? How can you do that after 5 - 10 - 15 - 30 - 40 years of no paper? Where can you find pay stubs for companies that have gone out of business? Schools that have been closed? Records destroyed? Landlords long gone across the river? Towns that have been abandoned due to climate, water, fire and flood?

As I was snaking my way towards the Big Shred I thought about what a Great Event it was for the community. Old documents of perhaps not much value, safely destroyed, recovering room in my garage, and watching the cars in front of me unloading 5-10-15 boxes of life-long documents being tossed into the maw of a big machine. I wasn't really thinking too hard about the downside of not having a paper trail, like the others in line, I was just happy to get rid of this stuff that the IRS said I had to collect and now had hit its expiration date. I pondered how the community had collected the funds to pay for the mass paper grinding. I figured it was partly from local taxes and a donation by the paper grinder companies and a lot of nice civic minded folks helping one another.

It was a good feeling.
    It didn't last
        I looked behind me



Clovis CA Police Surveillance Van

The reasons for 2 nicely formed lines, slowly filing thru a small lane with no driveways, became apparent.

• The camera was hidden
• The truck was hidden
• The intent was hidden
• The reason was hidden
• The effect can be calculated.

There was no good reason to hide but they did. They hid because they were ashamed (in a way) of what they were doing. They did it anyway, no doubt claiming it was FOR THE GREATER GOOD. They paid for the shredding and in return got more of what they wanted.

They didn't ask. They just took.

In one of my ancient episodes of employment, I worked for company that collected trash cans. It's a big business, people produce lots of garbage and in some places it gets picked up regularly and taken ElseWhere. It's really a fascinating business.

No doubt most folks have seen a movie plot where the bad guy puts something in the trash and the good guys grab the trash can and get it. This happens. Normally the trash truck collects the targeted can and places the contents into a separate compartment and then takes it directly to a special area to hand it over. There's a set of legal reasons that allow it. Once you put the trash can on the street, the contents no longer belong to you.

Once you hand over the box of stuff to be shredded, it no longer belongs to you.

One can guess that the video and license plate reader with face recognition AI marked out some cars and the nice helpful persons unloading the boxes set them aside. There is no way to know if the items handed over really got shredded.

And then there was this...



Clovis CA Tactical Military Vehicle

We don't look so we don't see.

TANSTAAFL - "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" ¹

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL
   "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" The phrase was in use by the 1930s, but its first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the nineteenth-century practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" in order to entice drinking customers.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgery
   Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine
   The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet. It was launched in 2001 by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California, United States.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
   The Utah Data Center (UDC), also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store data estimated to be on the order of exabytes or larger. Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified. The National Security Agency (NSA) leads operations at the facility as the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence. It is located at Camp Williams near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake and was completed in May 2014 at a cost of $1.5 billion.
   
   The data center is alleged to be able to process "all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Internet searches, as well as all types of personal data trails — parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter'." In response to claims that the data center would be used to illegally monitor email of U.S. citizens, in April 2013 an NSA spokesperson said, "Many unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities of the Utah Data Center, ... one of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we are unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens. This is simply not the case." This statement was made two months prior to the document leak that revealed the existence of the PRISM program ....
   
   In April 2009, officials at the United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in large-scale overcollection of domestic communications in excess of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's authority, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake
   Deepfake, a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake", is an artificial intelligence-based human image synthesis technique. It is used to combine and superimpose existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a machine learning technique called a "generative adversarial network" (GAN). The combination of the existing and source videos results in a fake video that shows a person or persons performing an action at an event that never occurred in reality.
   
   Such fake videos can be created to, for example, show a person performing sex acts they never took part in, or can be used to alter the words or gestures a politician uses to make it look like that person said something they never did. Because of these capabilities, deepfakes may be used to create fake celebrity pornographic videos or revenge porn. Deepfakes can also be used to create fake news and malicious hoaxes.

The Far Horizon

[Editor's Post]
Note: Things do have a way of getting behind and misplaced... seems I've misplaced posting reprints :)

Spell Checkers and Word Replacement and Auto Correction haven't changed the simple fact:

I cannot spell or type without errors.

and

Punctuation is Whatever-I-decide-to-put-at-The-End ....

Have a good chuckle as technology attempts to make us all appear "smarter than we are".

Spell Checkers by KimB
[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB]
Saturday, March 16, 2013

You can still sing along for some summer fun here:

Theater: San Jose Jazz Summer Festival by Richard
[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]
Wednesday, September 19, 2012

An old avaiation movie

I've just finished watching an old movie about Charles Lindberg's flight from New York to Paris. He was the first to fly solo, non-stop, in a mono plane across the Atlantic from Roosevelt field on Long Island to Paris, France. The film describes the preparations for the non-stop flight. Weather became a concern as was the weight load the plan's engine would have to lift on take-off.

The film has momentary flash backs about Lindberg's flying career, his obtaining support for the idea of such a flight, and finally purchasing and helping to design a plane for such a trip. The possibility of a non-stop flight had caused a number of pilots to plan and even attempt the trip but without success and Lindberg was very aware that someone might beat him and win the $25,000 prize being offered.

33 hours after taking off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island on May 19, 1927, he landed the single seat mono plane at Bourget Field May 21, 1927 and won the $25,000 prize. The world's imagination had been stirred by the achievement and Lindberg became an instant celebrity. The mother of one of our college friends told us that she had been staying and one of the hotels in Paris when Lindberg made the flight and that she watched from a window as people gathered in the street to celebrate his arrival.

As I watched the actual film footage of the ticker tape parade in N Y when Lindberg returned to the states, (which was made part of the movie), I couldn't help comparing the jubilation the world felt when men first walked on the moon. When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, its estimated that over 20 percent of the worlds population watched. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent more than 2 hours gathering lunar material to bring back to earth, while Michael Collins, the pilot of the lunar module flew the aircraft in an orbit around the moon.

The three men too became instant celebrities and were given ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago. They also went on a 38 day tour of the world to celebrate walking on the moon.

five violins and one cello

The story of five violins and one cello is in the book, Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber. The book has an extensive Bibliography, a list of Sources, a glossary and a price conversion section. Its a well written book and a delightful read.

Stradivari made more than a thousand instruments, but only about six hundred are known to exist.

Even after more than 250 years, his violins and cellos remain the best in the world, but exactly what the quality is that makes them so is a mystery. All the instruments that Stradivari made have names, and those that are written about in the book are: Messiah, Viotti, Khevenhuller, Paganini, Lipinski and Davidov. They are not the most celebrated instruments, but they frame the mystery of Stradivari's genius.

Violins were not invented. They evolved from very primitive instruments made for dance music. Andrea Amati is credited for experimenting and designing the basic frame and process for assembly. He made the first violin in 1564. Stradivari's earliest know violin was made in 1666. Stradivari's birth date is not known, but knowing the dates of his violins, its believed that his birth date is 1644, which means he started making violins at the age of 22.

Who taught him how to make stringed instruments is unknown. He had been working as wood carver and in-layer, decorating instruments with beautiful artistry. He may have decorated Amati's instruments and decided to try making some of his own.

The oldest violin in the world, made by Andrea Amati in 1564 as a set for Charles IX of France, along with another for the same set in 1566, is housed in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum in Britain.¹ But the highlight of the collection is shown in a special cabinet by itself. It hangs suspended in its case, visible from all angles. Pristine and flawless as it was when the last touches of varnish were applied by Stradivari's hand in 1716. Its the most famous violin in the world called Messiah²

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_violin
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_Stradivarius

Dog update

The dog we adopted from the pound isn't really our dog yet; we are just fostering it for the time being. The dog will belong to us after she has the neutering surgery which has been delayed due to her being sick with a bug of some kind. The vet says its not kennel cough but she has been coughing and sneezing, so the vet ordered pills which we were to give her every 12 hours.

A few days after the vet visit we discovered 3 of the 4 pills we had given her had been spit out and not swallowed. That meant another visit to the vet who suggested the medicine be given as a shot, avoiding pills altogether. As the last few days passed, she became more and more active and at this point she has not met a person she doesn't like, nor a bed she doesn't like, nor a mud puddle she doesn't like.

Her personality is shining thru and she is very affectionate. She follows us around, always wanting to be with one of us. It took a few days before we realized that she obviously has a herding instinct, and without something to heard, she is actually herding us. As soon as any of us are in our usual places at various times of the day, she leaves one to check on the others. Keeping to her circuit until she's sure all is well, then she will lie down and cat nap for a minute then start again. She acts as if that's her job.

When the vet gives the ok, and after the surgery, lessons with the dog trainer will start. We have had many dogs in our life so we know how smart they can be. Like horses, they read out emotions, but in my opinion, this dog is the smartest one I've ever seen. We are constantly amazed at how she reads our minds, and how she has chosen to listen in to certain phone calls. We can tell who and what she likes by the little docked tail wagging a mile a minute. She even knows who is on the other side of a closed door. If its one of her favorite people she just lies down, sniffing under the door and wagging that tail. No barking just wagging her tail.

She doesn't bark much. She's not going to be much of a guard dog, but hey.... it's early days. If she ever catches a burglar, I'll post it.



Bingo

Bee eye en gee oh, go bingo

Bingo is her name. We have adopted a young female dog from the local pound. She's black and tan with a docked tail. She also has blue eyes. We had been talking about adopting a shelter dog and finally talk turned into action. We went to the local pet store on a Saturday when several of the adopt a pet agencies showcased animals, but didn't find a suitable dog. We wanted one that was house-broken, youngish, but not a puppy, non-aggressive, and healthy, not a special needs dog. None of the dogs that day were appropriate for us, but we were given the web address of three or four different agencies and we spent hours trolling thru all the pictures of available dogs that were kept current each day.

There is a large adopt a pet facility along with veterinary services next door to the local pound and it was suggested we check the pound for the kind of dog we wanted. We weren't too sure about a dog from the pound. They wouldn't know much about the dog's background, but hey... who knows? So we went to the pound.

I had never seen such a big pound. It was like stepping into the lobby of a large medical clinic with a number of people standing around waiting to be helped. There was a long row of overstuffed chairs along one wall and on either side of the center round counter at the back of the lobby there were aisles leading to rooms where you could socialize with a dog if you ere interested in a particular one. One of the aisles led to the door of the room of caged dogs. When that door was opened, you could hear loud barking.

I had to muster up a lot of courage to walk between the cages on both the left and right sides of the hall way. The cages were large but with only one dog to each cage. There were a lot of people in line ahead of me and the dogs barked at each person passing its cage. The line didn't move very fast and the animals stood up with their front legs on the cage bars and the barking just got louder. Some of the dogs looked like they could take your head off they were so big.

It was rather frightening but once you started down the hall, you had to continue to the end where you turned and went down another long hall way back toward the lobby area. About half way along, there was a medium size dog standing at the cage bars but not barking. It was wagging its docked tail 90 to nothin' and I looked at the bent over ears that weren't floppy, but not perky either. A HA! This might be the right dog.??? What to do Percy, what to do?

We decided to adopt this dog, but were told by the front office, that it had already been spoken for and the new owners were to pick the dog up the next day. If by some chance the dog wasn't picked up, they would call us. Oh well, we would just keep looking. But then, a strange thing happened.....we got a phone two days later telling us to come pick up our dog!!!!!

The dog was vetted today and lessons with a dog trainer scheduled. An appointment to have the dog neutered is scheduled for next week. Our dog is very friendly. It's about a year old and is house broken. It scratches the door when it wants to go out. It likes to be petted and knows how to sit when petted. As a mixed breed dog, we wonder what her background is, but she could be anything. Some of her traits indicate a mix of herding, working or guarding. She has short hair and is black and tan. No frills, just plain dog. I'll send reports on her progress... or maybe I should say I'll send reports on Our Progress.




Bingo

The 8th of January or The Battle of New Orleans

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British
In the town of New Orleans


We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico


We looked down a river
And we see'd the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em
Beaten on the drums
They stepped so high
And they made their bugles ring
We stood by our cotton bales
And didn't say a thing


Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets
Till we looked 'em in the eye
We held our fire till we see'd their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
And really gave 'em --- well


Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where the rabbits couldn't go
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf f Mexico


We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs
And powered his behind
And when we touched the powder off
The gator lost his mind


Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where rabbits couldn't go
And they ran so fast the hounds
couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Note: "The Battle of New Orleans"¹ as sung by Johnny Horton² about the last great battle of the War of 1812. The melody is based on a fiddle tune known as the "The 8th of January" which was the date of the Battle of New Orleans³ during the War of 1812⁴.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans_(song)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Horton
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans
   The Battle of New Orleans was fought on Sunday, January 8, 1815. The battle effectively marked the end of the War of 1812.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

US postage stamp issued in 2015 to mark the
bicentennial of the Battle of New Orleans,
which depicts US troops firing on the British
from along Jackson's Line.

Christmas Past by KimB

One benefit of getting farther along on the path of life is that memories become a new dwelling place. A place of mixed rewards. A place full of angels and a multitude of demons. A place of unresolvable anger and of unlimited happiness. It's a place where we can sometimes chose different outcomes or savor our more fortunate experiences. It's a kaleidoscopic sort of place where fragments of events past reside and by turning the wheel a new view is seen. It's not always an easy place to be, the demons of both real and re-imaged events are present. The angels arise when we set aside our normal demons and look at the kaleidoscope from a new angle.

Christmas Past is one of those many events that reside in memory. The memories that flow from years of holidays most often bring a flurry of emotions: excitement, anticipation, surprise, happiness, pride with a dash of disappointment and a touch of envy. For the most part the happy end of the scale remains after the many physical aspects of Christmas Past have disappeared.

The memories fullest of warmth and contentment do not always arise from presents that where so fiercely desired and then received but more often they arise from events that were minor details in the background of ripped paper and exclamations of surprise. They are often the smallest of details that surpass the value of everything else found under a tree, in a sock or next to a menorah.

These are the true presents given by Christmas Past. They are ours alone. They are ours to open every day or every hour. They are reminders of something unique that happens when people exchange something far beyond the physical. They happen when we exchange Love: our greatest token of all that we desire for ourselves and others.

May this holiday and all other holidays fill your memories with Love, for these are the presents that last a life time.



Kaleidoscopes Images

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and the mad rush to get things finished for tomorrow is winding down. Cookies have been baked and mailed along with batches of sugarplums to loved ones across the country, and gifts are wrapped and placed under the tree.

I couldn't help remembering past Christmases as I prepared for this years. In the early years of my childhood, the decorated Christmas tree with lights was part of the Christmas morning surprises that Santa brought. As we children got older we decorated Christmas trees with garlands of paper rings made at school along with strings of popcorn and cranberries that we spent hours making. There were beautiful but fragile ornaments from Germany that were carefully wrapped and boxed and stored away for the next Christmas.

When my children were small, my husband and I spent the night reading instructions on how to assemble some complex toy or other and still have just enough time left to get a quick nap before the kids woke us up to see what Santa brought.

I have wonderful memories of New Year Eve bells ringing in hopes for health, wealth and happiness, and it goes without saying, that I wish all my family and friends a healthy and prosperous 2019.

I hope the country will have a great 2019, but the news isn't encouraging. Too many lies told by government officials.

lies are deceptions
a fact, I merely mention
deception by lies
is my chief contention. ¹

1. Apologies to the unknown poet of Horse Sense
   https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/horse-sense