Probability or The Story of Google

What are Markov chains? And why are they so useful?
Veritasium

Does a good job of explaining how Google works, which is remarkably simple, all it takes is a bigger computer. If you are just looking at letters, you just need a simple array with room for 26 entries. If you are looking at words, you need an array with a zillion entries, because not only do you are you using all the English words, you're also using all words from all the other languages and all the names and acronyms. And numbers, and punctuation, and symbols. And then, after you have counted all the words and populated your data base, you need to be able to answer a zillion queries simultaneously, which I suspect means you need to make multiple copies of these data bases. No wonder they're building all these data centers in my neighborhood.

And do not forget that all of this is being paid for by advertising. A tenth of a cent times a billion clicks is still $100K, and that probably happens, what? Hourly?

A couple of people mentioned:

Masayoshi Son (1957 - )
Japanese Businessman

Andrey Andreyevich Markov (1856 – 1922)
Russian Mathematician

Pavel Alekseevich Nekrasov (1853–1924)
Russian mathematician

On the downside, he drops in a couple of lines about global warming. I don't know if global warming is a real problem, but I do know that all of the measures western environmentalists have proposed are worse than useless.

It ends with an ad for Brilliant at the 31 minute mark.

Lottery

Oregon Lottery

Just completed a phone survey about gambling. It was kind of obnoxious. The lady claimed she needed to read all of the questions in order to maintain the validity of the survey, or something. There were a few questions about me, but the bulk of the questions were about gambling, and most of those questions were about the Oregon Lottery, which apparently has about a zillion different ways to suck money out of your wallet. The lady asks about each game individually and after we've gone through umpteen games I was getting a little annoyed at having to keep answering 'no'. I was also a little bemused that there were so many games. I'm a little curious as to who was conducting the survey, but right now I think it was part of an advertising campaign for the Oregon Lottery. I mean, gee wilikers, look at all these games they have! You should play one.

Charles Cottar & the Savage .250-3000

1919 Savage Rifle Advertisement

Body of text:

CHARLES COTTAR'S SURPRISE AT THE .250-3000

Is anything much harder to kill than the rhinoceros? His temper is bad, his skin is inches thick, and he weighs close to a ton. He charges on sight, and he will hunt a man as a terrier does a rat.

    Mr. Cottar has killed a number of charging rhino with his little .250-3000 Savage rifle. He has learned to expect it to kill them.

    But when he killed one that ran away-killed it with one shot-striking in the ham and ranging clear forward through the lungs at 175 yards he was really surprised. He didn't think any rifle could do that. 

    Mr. Cottar has been killing leopard, lion, rhino, hippo and elephant with the 250-3000 Savage for four or five years. He has found it the most generally useful rifle for African hunting.

    It is a six-shot, seven-pound, lever-action take-down repeater, with checked extra-full pistol-grip stock and fore- arm and corrugated steel shot-gun butt-plate and trigger. It has the lines, beauty and feel of an expensive shot-gun. And it shoots a vicious little 87-grain Spitzer point bullet 3000 feet a second, straight enough to make possibles on

the 800-yard target and hard enough to penetrate 5/8" boiler-plate or Mr. Cottar's rhino. 

    Look at it and later on buy it at your dealer's, and write us for a detailed description.

SAVAGE ARMS CORPORATION

UTICA, N. Y.

Sharon, Pa.                          Detroit, Mich.

Executive and Export Offices

50 Church St., New York City

Manufacturers of Hi-Power and Small Calibre Sporting Rifles, Automatic pistols and Ammunition

Charles Cottar

Savage Arms Corporation 

Mosques

Hosseiniyeh Ershad in Tehran, Iran

Technically, this building is not a mosque, but it is an old Islamic building. RT has a story about the recent election in Iran. It opens with this:

Hosseiniyeh Ershad in Tehran is not just a religious site for Shiite Muslims, but also one of Iran’s most renowned political venues. Before the 1979 revolution, prominent Iranian intellectual and revolutionary Ali Shariati delivered his fiery speeches against Shah Pahlavi here. On Friday, starting at 8am, this beautiful building with its turquoise dome hosted the largest and oldest polling station in the country.

Remember the Shah? 

During World War II, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran forced the abdication of Pahlavi's father, Reza Shah, whom he succeeded. During Pahlavi's reign, the British-owned oil industry was nationalized by the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had support from Iran's national parliament to do so. However, Mosaddegh was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, which was carried out by the Iranian military under the aegis of the United Kingdom and the United States. Subsequently, the Iranian government centralized power under Pahlavi and brought foreign oil companies back into the country's industry through the Consortium Agreement of 1954. 

The election isn't going to make much difference, the Ayatollah and his cronies are still in charge. Wikipedia has a page about the building.

Streetview Ad

I got the picture at the top from Google Streetview. Pan 90 degrees to the left and you get this message in Persian plastered over the view. Translated* it reads:

1402

Website design and launch shop

Praise for curbing inflation and production growth

Advertisement of your brand and products on the Google map. Registration of your business on the Google map

09126063498

Vahid is stable

Digital publication ID: 13742

Shamad code: 1-1-870037-65-100

Maneh Culture Development Center in Naft Ber Game

www.241.ir

I wonder if they have hacked Google Maps or are they doing this with the connivence of Google? Surprisingly, the website URL works.

al-Nuri Mosque, Mosul, Iraq

Over in Mosul, Iraq, Aljazeera has a different story:

Iraq: 5 big ISIL bombs found hidden in Mosul’s al-Nuri Mosque

Five large bombs were discovered hidden in the walls of the historic al-Nuri Mosque in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, a remnant of the armed group ISIL’s (ISIS’s) rule over the region.

The mosque – famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret – was destroyed by ISIL in 2017 and has been a focal point of the UN cultural agency UNESCO’s restoration efforts since 2020.

The UN agency said five large-scale explosive devices, designed for significant destruction, were found inside the southern wall of the Prayer Hall on Tuesday.

“These explosive devices were concealed within a specially rebuilt section of the wall,” a UNESCO statement said on Saturday.

Streetview takes you inside the mosque

* Translate means taking a screen shot, feeding it to Google Lens, picking up the text and feeding it to Google Translate, stuff that was science fiction 20 years ago.

Super Bowl 58

Watched most of the game this afternoon. Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49-ers by 3 points in overtime. My wife recognized two of the 49-ers from when they were playing college ball in Iowa. She keeps up on college football and NBA basketball, not so much on professional football.

I was rooting for the Chiefs (silently) because Hoovies Garage is in Kansas and because the City of San Francisco is being run by morons.

There was one interesting play. The quarterback laterals the ball a short distance and then that guy threw it back across the field to another guy. Reminds of some movie about some underdog football team coming up with a bunch of goofy plays to beat their arch nemesis. Kicks were going pretty far. Kickoffs were going past the end zone and a couple field goals were more than 50 yards. Some kickers kicked soccer style, some kicked straight on.

Among the tsunami of ads there were a couple that were pretty funny. One starred Christopher Walken with a succession of people imitating his odd way of speaking. Another had Arnold Schwarzenegger saying 'neighbor' while they are trying to film an ad, but Arnold says 'nay-bah' and the director wants him to say 'nay-ber', and then we get Arnold telling him that's what he's saying. Yeah, and they just carry it to absurd lengths.

Taylor Swift and Kelce got flashed on the screen periodically. Taylor is a pretty woman, I'll grant you. Her music doesn't do anything for me. It's like even less affecting than elevator music. It's like nothing. And while we are talking about music, Usher was the half-time show highlight. It was a spectacular show, but it did nothing for me. It was kind of like Las Vegas itself, now that I think about it. (The game was played in Las Vegas.)  All sparkle and flash but absolutely no substance.

The TV signal kept getting interrupted, the screen would go black and we'd get a spinning wheel in the center. It might go a whole quarter without flaking out, and sometimes it would happen half a dozen times in the space of a couple of minutes. Sometimes it would just last for a few seconds and sometimes it would go maybe 30 seconds and then stop and ask if you want to retry. Press OK and the game comes back on.

The Budweiser Clydesdales made an appearance, and Disney might be trying to make amends.

A Brief History Of The Man Who Brainwashed America: Edward Bernays

I would really like to see the Biden administration and the majority of Congress accused, tried, convicted and locked up in jail for their crimes of corruption. But you know what? I don't think any of that is likely to happen. I am afraid that the incompetent Democrat mafia has a lock on all the levers of power and our slide toward the abyss is just going to continue - it will continue to get better for those on the inside and continue to get worse for those on the outside. I don't know if Trump could change our trajectory, but given that most of the Republicans seem to be members of the Democrat mafia, I doubt it. 

There are two ways to make money. One way, the Republican way, is to build an organization that produces useful stuff, stuff that people can use to improve their lives. The other way, the Democrat mafia way and the technique preferred by third world dictators the world over, is to simply squeeze the peons until they bleed and then squeeze them some more.

If our slide toward the abyss ever results in the total collapse of society that would be very bad, but I suspect it will never happen. We will just become more and more like Latin America where we have an elite layer floating on top of a mass of peasants.

If you, me, or anyone, ever hopes to break the Democrat mafia's lock on power, we will need to fire up our own propaganda machine. So far all we've got is a few fringe websites and they only reach people with the energy and brain power to go poking around in the ether. TV is still the dominant force. That may change in another generation or two, but given the proliferation of stupidity, maybe not.

Trump might be an asshole, but he's the one leading the charge. Will he be able to break the Democrat mafia's stranglehold on America? Not if the Republicans keep squabbling amongst themselves, and given that half of them are actually Democrats, that's not going to stop until the party is purged of these Rhinos*.

* Rhinos - Republicans in name only.

Miller Lite, Coors Light & Blue Moon Big Game Commercial | The High Stak...

Miller Lite, Coors Light & Blue Moon Big Game Commercial | The High Stakes Beer Ad (Extended)
Miller Lite

Saw this ad while I was watching the Portland Trail Blazers beat the snot out of the Houston Rockets last night. Thought it was pretty entertaining. Damian Lillard scored 71 points, which is more than half of what his team scored. It is a new personal record for him.

Troppo

Pretty great. Murder mystery set in Cairns in northeast Australia, which is well into the tropics. We've got crocodiles and venomous snakes and cast of oddball characters. The scene is reminiscent of Crocodile Dundee. And then we have people using snake venom like a recreational drug to get high. Sounds sketchy, but it might be a real thing. Shoot, knowing how weird people can be I'm sure it's a real thing somewhere.

The show got me to thinking about how lucky I am to have a family. I didn't see much of my family when I was in my twenties, but they were still there. People who don't have a family, or have a useless one, are going to have a much rougher time. Not sure what can be done about that. That's probably where cults get their members.

On Amazon FreeVee for free, but with ads. I don't know why it's not available without ads on Amazon Prime. There were only a couple of short ads in the first episode, as we go along there were more and longer ads. It got to be pretty obnoxious toward the end. They do post the amount of time remaining on the screen, which is nice.

Publicity

I usually play 0hh1 three or four times a day. It's fairly mindless, takes about three minutes to play. During the last few days I've getting an announcement at the end of each game asking me to "share" it, as it will help them "grow". Struck me as a little curious because there are no ads on the page, not when you start, not when you are playing, none. So how would sharing it help them grow? If enough people play it, their server / hosting costs might rise above negligible, in which case they might be able to take it to an adverstising agency, like Google, and sign up to have ads on their site.

Or maybe they're just doing for the glory, and if the costs rise, well, that's a worthwhile price to pay for fame.

🟦🟥 I played 3000 games of 0h h1 💪

🟥🟦 It's fun, free and has no ads.

3,000 games at 3 minutes each would be 9,000 minutes which 150 hours spread over, what? five years? No, at least seven years.

Spam

Spam

Once every couple of months or so I get a spam comment on one of my old posts. Yesterday I got a comment from a pest control company in Hyderabad India on a post I put up back in 2014. I do not understand this. If it was a recent post, or the comments appeared regularly, I could understand it. But why on just one ancient post? Most of these type of comments come from India and Pakistan. Are my posts being circulated on some south Asian forum? It's just weird, man.

Saab 35 Draken - Rahal Racing - Miller Beer

Saab 35 Draken - Rahal Racing in town for a Indy 500 race back in the 90's.

The Saab Draken is a 1950's era jet fighter. Rahal Racing has become Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. It is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, former television talk show host David Letterman, and businessman Mike Lanigan. This paint job is obviously a promotion for Miller Beer. 

Here's an old Miller ad that includes the jet.

Bobby Rahal Miller Genuine Draft IndyCar Commercial (1994)
gamblour
Don't know what happened to this airplane. It was registered to one James R. Merizan in California, but he passed away in 2021.

Old Beer Ads

Flares Into Darkness posted a bunch of old beer advertisements. Very enjoyable. Here are a few I though worth mentioning.

Presumably a WW2 era ad for Schlitz beet.
Notice the gun on the bow.

The Bottoms Up game is apparently still available.
It's a drinking game and is available in the USA, UK and UAE, which surprised me.
Could it be that Muslims are not all the teetotallers they're made out to be?

That is one impressive stack of radio equipment.
I'm sure there were aficionados who had rigs like that.
I wish I knew who they were. 

AMEX NBA Ad

NBA | Trade Up | American Express
American Express
I was watching a bit of NBA basketball this evening and this ad showed up at halftime. I laughed out loud! I couldn't imagine anything more ridiculous: trying to recruit credit card customers by offering them free trade ins on their favorite players basketball jerseys. Or maybe that's just the viewpoint of someone who is too much of a cheapskate to be a fanatic basketball fan.

I never cared for clothes that carried a logo or a name. Possibly I got it from my mother: why should you pay for clothes that carry advertising? They should be paying you to wear their clothes.

Whatever. Obviously I am not one of the cool kids. I suppose wearing these kind of clothes is sort of the same kind of thing as standing in line at Starbucks to get your morning fix of caffeine - it gives people a sense of belonging. People need something to believe in. Me, I believe I'll have another drink.

Flying Horses

Ash and smoke from Popocatepetl volcano seen from Puebla, central Mexico

A KLM flight from Amsterdam to Mexico City turned back because of a volcanic eruption near Mexico City. You may remember when all flights over Europe were shut down a few years ago because of a volcano erupting in Iceland.

Eleven hour flight to nowhere

This one made the news because the flight was already over North America when they turned back which meant the passengers enjoyed an eleven hour flight to nowhere. You might think they could have landed in New York or some other big airport (I certainly did), but when you compare the inevitable hotel bills and the hassles with immigration with the actual cost of the flying the airplane, maybe turning around makes sense. Then you add in horses and all of sudden I have no idea.

Flying Horses

Seems they had a big cargo of horses as well as humans.

KLM Boeing 747-400 Combi Floor Plan

Mobil Oil Flying Horse Logo

If you remember ever seeing this sign on your local gas station, you might be old.

P.S. The Prague Zoo is flying horses to Mongolia. I do not know why.

Via Flight Aware

Quote of the Day

Renshobo on Horseback by Hakuin Ekaku

“What is the sound of one finger clicking?” - BJ Campbell

Link goes to good story about how modern journalism works, or fails to. Previous post of mine on the same subject.

I am beginning to suspect that war is a necessary component of human society. If we don't have one often enough or close enough, we'll manufacture one. If there is nothing to fight about, we'll make up a reason.

Outrage Industrial Complex

Bogus Time Magazine Cover

It just occurred to me that much of the outrage we see and hear in our digital information world is fueled by advertising. I suspect outrageous headlines get more clicks than clear ones, which means the ads on those pages are going to get more clicks, which means more ad revenue and maybe even more sales. Advertisers want clicks, so they are going to pay more for sites that post outrageous shit. Of course, the more outrageous the claims, the more people are going to be outraged and respond in a similarly outrageous manner, so it becomes a cyclone of outrageousness.

So most of what is being talked about is not what's important, but whatever will generate the most outrage, and that is totally determined by advertising dollars.

Vin Mariani

Vin Mariani Poster

Vin Mariani was a tonic and patent medicine was made from wine and coca leaves. It was created about 1863 by Angelo Mariani. It inspired the predecessor to Coca-Cola.

Pope Leo XII Endorses Vin Mariani

Vin Mariani wasn't successful just because it contained cocaine. Mariani engaged in extensive promotion including sending a case to a number of famous people, including the Pope.

Via Detroit Steve

425

Oh Henry 4:25 Candy Bar

Rumor has it that 4:20 was the time a group of stoners would get together to get stoned. Getting stoned sometimes results in getting the munchies, and Oh Henry is capitalizing on our restored freedoms.