Spherical Cow

Giant Train Signal
Chris Boden

I got a chuckle out of his line about brakes on a train.

Entomology

A sculpture by artist Pete Beeman depicts a Megarhyssa "stump stabber" wasp atop a microscope, symbolizing the entomology labs at the North Valley Complex facility. Photo by Samantha Swindler.

The North Valley Complex is in Wilsonville, Oregon, about 15 miles south of Portland.

Old & New Computers

Artificial Intelligence - Intelligent or Stupid?

Two of my favorites posted about old computers today. The Silicon Graybeard included the above quote about Artificial Intelligence. I think it's spot on.

The posts:

• Stu Savory: Podcast: AI in the 1980s
• The Silicon Graybeard: Blast From the Past

America’s new caste system

Interesting take on the hostility shown in the recent political campaign:

America’s new caste system - The education gap has dented democracy by Mark Lilla

He starts off quoting the opening paragraphs from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:

“Of all the novel things which attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of conditions. I had no difficulty in discovering the extraordinary influence this fundamental fact exerts upon the progress of society; it sets up a particular direction to public attitudes, a certain style to the laws, fresh guidelines to governing authorities, and distinctive habits to those governed.

“Soon I came to recognise that this very fact extends its influence well beyond political customs and laws; it exercises no less power over civil society than it does over the government. It forms opinion, creates feelings, proposes ways of acting, and transforms anything it does not directly instigate itself.”

Malcolm X

Malcolm X

I've been seeing a number of stories about people getting out from under the yoke of the Democratic war machine lately, and I can't tell if there really is an upsurge, or it's just normal, but those kind of stories were overshadowed by the runup to the election. In any case, I like this story from RT. It has a couple of points:

1. Malcolm's family is going after the FBI & CIA for their role in the assassination, and
2. It's got a brief history of Malcolm and his extremist views. I'd kind of forgotten about that part so it's good to be reminded.

Introduction to the story:

CIA and FBI sued by family of Malcolm X

Three of Malcolm X’s daughters have filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, and New York Police Department, accusing the agencies of complicity in the assassination of the militant black activist.

Filed in a Manhattan court on Friday, the suit alleges that the CIA, FBI, and NYPD were aware of a plot to kill Malcolm X, but did not act to stop it. It claims that the NYPD arrested his security detail days before the assassination, while the CIA and FBI’s undercover agents – who were present on the night of the fatal shooting – stood by while the militant leader was gunned down.

The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between the agencies and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents.”

Malcolm was killed in 1965.

Special Ops: Lioness - Amazon Series

Special Ops: Lioness Season 1 Trailer
Rotten Tomatoes TV

This show is just insane. Tough girl joins the Marines, gets recruited by the CIA, goes undercover in Kuwait to infiltrate filthy rich family in order to get close to the patriarch, a terrorist for hire. Black Ops, helicopters, operators dispensing death and destruction left, right and center.

Unlike many of the shows we watch, the soldiers here are competent. They're also cowboys. They know what they are, they know their jobs and how to work together and that's all that counts.

It's weird how the amount of money you have available can completely change your view of what's important. Poor people squabble over a dollar. When daddy has a zillion dollars you don't flinch at paying a thousand dollars for a T-shirt because it's 'cute'. Actors have to mimic both kinds of attitudes and the entire range in between.

Ballerina - Netflix Movie

We watched this again this evening. We watched it once before exactly one year ago. Entertaining but I guess there isn't much substance to it because I didn't remember any of it.

Once upon a time our girl had a friend who was a ballerina. She gets a phone call from her one night, hasn't heard from her in a long time, so she goes to pay her a visit. When she gets there the apartment is apparently empty, so we take a look around. The apartment is something like you might expect if Barbie were Korean. It's wild. Meanwhile the ballerina has committed suicide and is floating in the tub. She leaves a cryptic note asking her to avenge her. Okay then.

There were a number of entertaining bits.

• The movie opens with four thugs going into a convenience store and being thugs. In the middle of this robbery our girl walks up to the counter to buy a snack. The cashier, understandably flustered is unable to make change, so our girl pulls out the change she needs from the thug's bag of loot, and then all hell breaks loose. The thugs are armed with knives and our girl is armed with canned goods. Naturally she lays them all out flat in short order.
• Choi, the chief villain, is exceptionally strong. He demonstrates this by performing some full body pushups while doing a handstand. He is also a sexual pervert who is into BDSM.
• The bad guys have taken over a small hotel and turned into a private brothel where they keep a harem of young women. The decor in the rooms is beyond gaudy.
• At the hotel, when our girl gets into a fight with Choi, the couple from the front desk show up to put a stop to it. The woman shows up with a shotgun and lets loose multiple shots, none of which hit our girl because she is so freaking fast. Also because she is lucky, or the mattress is shotgun proof.
• Our girl escapes down the hall, but the guy from the front desk shows up with a chain saw. He's running down the hall when a door to one of the rooms is flung open into the hall. He runs into it, falls and cuts his foot off with the chain saw.
• Now our girl needs some guns, but this is Korea and guns are illegal, but she has contacts, which she uses to arrange a meeting. The meet is in a big open field. The gun dealer shows up in a largish, battered van. The dealer is a pleasant elderly couple, they look like somebody's grandparents. The open up the back of the van and reveal that it is carnival game booth. They have drawers crammed full of all kinds of guns. The girls, because our girl has picked up the girl who flung open the door at the hotel, pick out some handguns, a derringer and, wait-for-it, a flamethrower. I mean, why not? Grandma demonstrates its use by shooting a flame out 20 or 30 yards. The field looks to be dried grass which ought to catch fire easily, but the flame goes out horizontally and never touches the ground. Imagine that.