NIN Fans

Nine Inch Nails has a treat for all the fans.
Check out the site for a double album download to enjoy while you're holed up in the house.

https://www.nin.com/

Caveat Emptor

This guy.

So I gotta say if you're taking advice from this guy you very well might wind up sick or dead.

Stay safe, trust the CDC and your own doctor - not this guy.

Afternoon update:

Ya, I get it, its CNN. But still, there are some really good points here.

4 Reasons

Love Is Stronger

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Song of Solomon 8:6

Notes on Power

What happened to fairness and the middle class

* Why aren't unions a "thing" anymore?
     * unions are bad and only protect the worst workers
     * actual corruption of some union structures
     * labor laws changed - (check "The Rich Dont always Win)
     * right to work states
* The Matthew Effect
* Neo-liberal view of economics
* Offshoring
* Income tax rates structure and changes over the last 60 years
* de-regulation - or more to the point - writing the laws for business and against consumers
* socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor

This Makes Sense

Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

"The solution to our privacy problems, suggested Hansson, was actually quite simple. If companies couldn’t use our data to target ads, they would have no reason to gobble it up in the first place, and no opportunity to do mischief with it later. From that fact flowed a straightforward fix: “Ban the right of companies to use personal data for advertising targeting.”

Dark Shadows

Tubi TV has the first season of Dark Shadows free to stream.
Yep, this is what Im doing while staying at home to avoid COVID-19

Whats Important To You?

Posted without further comment.

More Please

This is a breath of fresh air.
More of this please.

Also, calling out a false dichotomy and using small words to do it is a "drop the mic" moment in my book.

Since The Current Admin is Feckless

Since our current administration is packed chock-o-block full of fools and sycophants, the internet is filling the void of logic and information.

This is a good read on where we're all headed: Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

And for a high impact visual on how concerned and serious we should be, here is a snapshot from that article:

That 4.7% "Critical" knocked me back in my chair.
Stay safe out there and if you can - stay home.

Fake it Till you Make it

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do" --- Epictetus

If History Repeats Itself

With the COVID-19 ramping up here in the good ole US of A I thought it'd be fun to visit a corner of the internets that gives a little historical perspective for pandemics thru the ages.

Visualizing the History of Pandemics

Note: Many of the death toll numbers listed above are best estimates based on available research. Some, such as the Plague of Justinian, are subject to debate based on new evidence.

Name	Time period	Type / Pre-human host	Death toll
Antonine Plague	165-180	Believed to be either smallpox or measles	5M
Japanese smallpox epidemic	735-737	Variola major virus	1M
Plague of Justinian	541-542	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	30-50M
Black Death	1347-1351	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	200M
New World Smallpox Outbreak	1520 – onwards	Variola major virus	56M
Great Plague of London	1665	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	100,000
Italian plague	1629-1631	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	1M
Cholera Pandemics 1-6	1817-1923	V. cholerae bacteria	1M+
Third Plague	1885	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	12M (China and India)
Yellow Fever	Late 1800s	Virus / Mosquitoes	100,000-150,000 (U.S.)
Russian Flu	1889-1890	Believed to be H2N2 (avian origin)	1M
Spanish Flu	1918-1919	H1N1 virus / Pigs	40-50M
Asian Flu	1957-1958	H2N2 virus	1.1M
Hong Kong Flu	1968-1970	H3N2 virus	1M
HIV/AIDS	1981-present	Virus / Chimpanzees	25-35M
Swine Flu	2009-2010	H1N1 virus / Pigs	200,000
SARS	2002-2003	Coronavirus / Bats, Civets	770
Ebola	2014-2016	Ebolavirus / Wild animals	11,000
MERS	2015-Present	Coronavirus / Bats, camels	850
COVID-19	2019-Present	Coronavirus – Unknown (possibly pangolins)	4,700 (as of Mar 12, 2020)

From the article at:

‘I Inherited Millions and I’m Hiding It From Everyone’

"I think the biggest thing I’ve learned from this experience, and working for over ten years now, is that your job doesn’t have as much of a relationship to your net worth as many people think. Maybe you go through a divorce and your net worth gets cut in half. Or your parents help you buy a place — that’s like getting an invisible $100,000 raise, but nobody’s going to publicly announce that the way they would a promotion."

Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo

I get butterflies in my stomach watching this. What a thrilling adventure to return to the moon.

All the Glamour

1975
David Bowie
Singing "Fame"
On the Cher Show.

This is all the glamour in the world in one place.

Fame, what you like is in the limo
Fame, what you get is no tomorrow
Fame, what you need you have to borrow

Goop

So Many Good Books

Update #3

Im now completely and hopelessly under the spell of Anand Giridharadas. So, yup- another book on the list.


Winners take all : the elite charade of changing the world
 Anand Giridharadas
Alfred A. Knopf, 2018


Finished
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution Hardcover – by Gregory Zuckerman
November 5, 2010


Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, with art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
Bloomsbury USA, 2009

The Rich Don't Always Win
Sam Pizzigati
(2013-09-26)

On the Nightstand
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature and Daily Life
Steven Strogatz
Hyperion, 2003
 
Not Started Yet
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Number: The Language of Science
Tobias Dantzig
Plume, 2007

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences
John Allen Paulos
Hill and Wang, 2001

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
Jordan Ellenberg
Penguin, 2014

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Charles Seife
Penguin, 2000

A Tour of the Calculus
David Berlinski
Vintage, 1997

First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid [full-text]
Euclid, with annotations by John Casey
Project Gutenberg, 2007

Measurement
Paul Lockhart
Belknap, 2012

The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time
Jimena Canales
May 26, 2015


Winners take all : the elite charade of changing the world
 Anand Giridharadas
Alfred A. Knopf, 2018

Liten to This

One of my new favorite thinkers is Anand Giridharadas and here is a brief talk with Britta Hosman discussing his ideas about our plutocracy.

 

 

Seth Nails It Again

Nailed it.

https://seths.blog/2020/03/the-paradox-of-selfishness/

Its Super Tuesday

Not everyone has had the right to vote.
This is not ancient history - by any stretch.

If you don't vote - you are showing disdain for the battles people waged before you.


One small story out of the thousands that got us to where we are now.

"The woman with the whip" - Suffragette Helen Ogston causes an international stir

Now I Have Two Razors for Quick Evaluations

When you think people are malicious and not just stupid - remember Hanlons razor.

When you forget the difference between possible and probable - remember Occams razor.

Just Curious

If God is real and he sent his only son Jesus to save the world.
Why were the Mayans left out of it all?

Springtime in Phoenix (almost that is)

Look closely.
Above the light
Theres a tiny little nest and two tiny little beaks pointing skyward.

Soon they'll be gone.
Its almost spring.