Halloween 2025

Valerio Street got at least 30 separate groups, perhaps an average of 3 per group.  I dont know how young the youngest was, but she was very cute and very, very young.

Update on the Military Takeover of the US by Trump

Two updates on the progress towards Trump's military takeover of the US to prevent him losing the midterm elections.

1. Key members of the Trump administration have been moved with their families onto military bases.

2. The National Guard (US Army?) has been commanded to create a 500 person "quick reaction force" for each state.  These units will of course be commanded by officers and staffed with troops that are personally loyal to Trump and not to the Constitution, I presume.

Christine Schoepf ( - 2025)

 

And so now my second friend from Ars Electronica passed away.  You can read my homage to Hannes by following the link.  These were the two people from Linz who I think of as creating Ars Electronica.  I did get in touch with Christine one last time perhaps a month ago.    I am very sentimental and it annoys me when they do this to me.  I thought about going to Austria for the memorial service but I cant afford it.

https://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2021/02/hannes-leopoldseder.html

Exercise in Air Pollution

The following is excerpted from this report by the NCBI.  It addresses whether air pollution affects the health of those doing exercise.

Physical Activity in Polluted Air—Net Benefit or Harm to Cardiovascular Health? A Comprehensive Review

Omar Hahad 1,2,3, Marin Kuntic 1, Katie Frenis 4, Sourangsu Chowdhury 5, Jos Lelieveld 5,6, Klaus Lieb 3,7, Andreas Daiber 1,2,*,†, Thomas Münzel 1,2,*,†

Editors: Paola Irato, Gianfranco Santovito

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8614825/#sec6-antioxidants-10-01787

6. Mitigation Strategies and Practical Recommendations

The individual person can only partially protect his/her health by personal protection measures, as briefly described below and reviewed previously [135]. As suggested by the report of The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Public Health, it is more important that governments and health decision makers improve the protection of the general population, e.g., by lowering legal thresholds for air pollutants [136], which is also strongly recommended by planetary health experts [137]. The problem is that national legislation does not uniformly implement the air quality limits (e.g., average exposure to maximally 5 µg/m3 of PM2.5), as recommended by the WHO [138] and atmospheric chemistry experts [139]. Whereas the legal thresholds for annual mean PM2.5 are currently 12 µg/m3 in the USA, 10 µg/m3 in Canada, and even 8 µg/m3 in Australia, the EU still recommends an average maximum exposure of 25 µg/m3 [32], which is clearly too high, as demonstrated by significant health effects at lower concentrations [140,141]. Three prominent examples have demonstrated the dramatic health improvement and also lowering of health costs by strict adherence to higher air quality standards: (1) the pollution control measures before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games leading to a lower output of traffic and industrial exhaust pollutants, with the dramatic improvement of air quality and beneficial health effects [142] that, however, immediately returned to the same levels as before the Olympic Games when pollution control measures were stopped. (2) A decrease in diesel emissions by new restrictive laws in Tokyo, leading to a 44% decrease in PM2.5 from traffic over the period 2003–2012 and a decrease in cardiovascular mortality by 11% (mainly due to a 10% decrease in ischemic heart disease mortality) [143]. (3) The reduction of air pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the shutdown of major factories and low transport volume was estimated to be associated with a significant decrease of up to 13,600 premature deaths in Europe [144]. Besides the legal thresholds, healthy city design (urban planning) with a lot of green spaces, placing main roads and airports to the outskirts with low population density, short distances between residences, working places, schools, shops and places of social life, and efficient ecological public transportation, contribute largely to better air quality and the improvement of (cardiovascular) health [145,146,147,148]. Providing attractive and accessible urban environments may encourage people to spend more time outdoors and facilitate physical activity. Herein, the quality of the urban green space is an important factor facilitating physical activity in older and the most susceptible populations. Numerous studies have demonstrated that increased physical activity is associated with access to, and use of, green space among senior citizen, working adults, and children. The availability of green space has also been associated with reduced prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, improved mental health and cognitive function, improved pregnancy outcomes, and overall reduced all-cause mortality and increased life span [149,150,151,152]. In addition, the presence of trees in urban green spaces has been related with improvements in air quality, due to trees’ capacity of removing pollutants from the atmosphere [153]. This reduction can occur directly by deposition on the tree surface and/or by stomatal uptake of gases [154]. Due to the shading effect trees have on surfaces and/or the cooling effect of the water they transpire, they can also mitigate extreme air temperatures by changing microclimatic conditions on their surroundings. Thus, increasing urban green space may result in a win–win situation, related to increases in physical activity and improvements of air quality. However, a sustainable and striking improvement in air quality, e.g., by significantly lowering PM concentrations, can probably only be achieved if we quit fossil fuel-based energy sources [14,155,156]. Moreover, recent studies indicate biodiversity to be a cornerstone of human (mental) health and wellbeing. Importantly, pathways linking biodiversity to beneficial human health effects include less environmental exposures, such as air and noise pollution, as well as increased building capacities, such as green space, to promote physical activity [157,158,159].

Poor Chris, Old Chris, Go Away Chris

So I have a reasonable discussion with my former friend Chris C.   I am very fond of Chris.  He has contributed many things to my life.  But he tends to have what I think of as "psychotic breaks" directed at me.  We talk, he stews, and next morning he lets fly his mighty hammer.  "What a bad person you are", he says to me. "You must go away and never talk to me again".

I am not sure what causes this but I suspect it has to do with his obsession with psychotherapy and the fact that I reject it as pseudoscience.  So he takes something I say to mean that I renounce my old beliefs and accept psychotherapy as the true path and then is infuriated when he discovers that this is not the case.

I just dont like being zapped by lightning bolts after listening to him complain all night.

We must do a better job of choosing friends.

People tell me that the visual effects industry is filled with weird and competitive assholes.  Maybe that is true, or maybe it is just an unfortunate sample from a larger group of nice(r) people.

Ellison Wonderland

How could I have lived in Los Angeles so long and not know that Harlan Ellison's old house is a landmark.  Not open to the public, it is nevertheless maintained and listed/marked on Google maps.  Good for you Harlan, rest in peace or in hell as desired.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIuUgh9T0PJ/?hl=en

I came across Harlan's house on Google Maps when I was researching Fossil Ridge Park.

Fossil Ridge Park and Corruption in Los Angeles

In researching places within striking distance where I can walk at high speed and get good aerobic activity and yet minimize toxic waste input.  As you might imagine this can be difficult in the greater Los Angeles area unless you are in a few well understood regions: for example near the beach or in the Santa Monica mountains.  There are some other regions too, often mediated or enabled by so-called micro-climates.  

So one obvious general area is south of here in Van Nuys in or near Mulholland Drive.  I came across a park I had never heard of before: Fossil Ridge Park.  What I did not realize is that this park, although difficult to visit and use, features one of the great attributes of Los Angeles: corruption in the service of real estate development.

But be careful, what you read on the always useful and informative Internet may be nothing more than self serving bullshit.  See for example:

https://thepregopizza.com/top-sights/fossil-sherman-oaks-ca/

 

HL Notes for Cleanup

On a dreary day I started my usual bs of oversharing and HL told me she wanted to hear none of it.  May be I should go to a synagogue, she suggested.  I think I will ask her if she has ever been to a synagogue, and, if not why she should suggest it.

LW notes for Cleanup

Its all part of tidying up the messy life.  I once asked LW to help me find a job and he laughed at me and told me I was pretty much worthless.  A lifetime of friendship and this is what you get.  Oh dear.  Well he is dead now and he suffered and I had nothing to do with that.

Cleanup is that part of the work where we discuss some individuals and how they acted.

Almost Done With Kaiser

I had heard mixed things about Kaiser and I can tell you they are all true.  Not the slightest compassion, or humanity.  Good vaccine coverage.  In the absence of anything else, probably a good choice. Met good people at the lower levels who really tried.  But the doctors themselves, those in charge, did not help.  Stay away.

But the reality is if you're on Kaiser you don't have insurance anywhere else which I needed today I could have died no one would have cared least of all Kaiser. At

Corrupt & Stupid Healthcare

By law, the stupid healthcare systems  ask the patient if they feel safe.  But how can anyone feel safe with the rapist pig as president?  What are they even thinking by asking this question.  How stupid, how bureaucratic, how useless.

No of course I dont feel safe.

The iPhone and the Doggy

My girlfriend is playing with her dog.  Suddenly the iPhone wakes up and starts chatting with her about how great it is to have a "furry friend" and giving helpful advice.  Is this our future?  Your appliances spying on you 24 hours a day and sending reports to local law enforcement.  Officer!  I heard Jill playing with her dog!  

What a nightmare this world of AI will be.

Into the Gutter

I can not afford to come to one of my favorite persons farewell party

I am not a good friend therefore, 

I am weak and poor

I never had the chance to do some sort of show for the dome with carter

whether orion or any other mythological creature or astronomical structure

I live in a degraded environment with dirt and filth in the air 

and degraded humans outside slaves to late stage predatory capitalism 

as we all are

what can I do to make this better

in a failed authoritarian america?

The Original Antifa Logo

For those of you who do not already know it, while there is no Antifa in this country there is, or was, one in Germany after World War 2.  Here is, what may be, their original logo.

Yay My Blog Got Censored

I was so happy to hear that the Nazis at Blogger/Blogspot censored this blog and deleted a post.  Ha ha, the joke is on them, I was going to pull it anyway.  What a bunch of losers!  Would you trust your entire body of work for 15 years to these idiots?  I dont recommend it.

Advice for Dealing with Doctors

The following guidelines are compiled from 30+ years of wrestling with the medical profession.  Some of what is suggested here may result in a better medical outcome but in general the following, if it has any value, it is because it may lower your frustration level and maybe help you avoid some pitfalls.

1. No matter how good and reliable the system that you have set up may be, it will eventually self destruct.  You may wish to plan for this in advance.

2. As part of above, doctors do not last forever.  They wear out, retire, get weird, or other.

3. You may potentially extend the service life of your doctor(s) by minimizing what you tell your doctor.  The worst thing you can do is to honestly explain what is going on, it is likely to freak them out and cause them to "get clever" and make your life worse.

4.  If you tell them too much, they will just use that information against you.  Do not give them that opportunity.

5. Although the doctor(s) think they are in charge, in fact you are the one making decisions here.  Just like a lawyer ultimately it is your responsibility, not theirs.  

6. The best advice anyone can give you is to have a lot of money.  The health system can be made to function somewhat without money, or with less money, but it is much harder.

7. At any time, the doctor upon whom you rely may choose to make your life miserable and, for example, make it impossible for you to work.  Do not think that they give a hoot, they do not.

Good luck!

(insert notes about different doctor cultures)

Oh I Get It, the President is a Pervert as Well as a Rapist

As we all know, Global Wahrman is censored by some right wing internet keeper of morality.  Can you imagine how its little algorithmic mind will explode with the next little tidbit of a post?

Because  the evidence is clear.  The rapist pig who is the president also associated with a known pedophile and there is reasonable evidence that he is a pedophile himself.   America will always live with this shame.  This is what the conservatives & republicans have done to our Republic.

Trump the pedophile.

Ancient Rumors about RAND Dismissed

There are two old rumors about RAND that I think anyone who cares already knows are not true, but just in case, and because sometimes publishing on a blog can have long term archival uses, lets go over them.

1. I always liked the rumor that there was a tunnel under RAND to make it possible to get things or people in and out without being seen.  Presumably this tunnel would have gone to the promenade somewhere, but not necessarily.  This would have been the old buildings which no longer exist of course.  I dont think this tunnel ever existed.  There was, or rather, is, an underground river that passes underneath RAND or the general area and empties into the ocean.  Or so I was told by Facilities.

2. There is a belief that Dr. Henry Kissinger worked at RAND.  I don't think so.  It would have made sense for him to have occasion to visit now and then for a seminar or a meeting.  He was, after all, a senior academic in the national security apparatus.  It is even possible that he was briefly a consultant, although I dont know that for sure.  However, I dont think he was ever an employee the way some people believe.

Am I Really Looking for Input

Among other things, I write for a living/profession.  In my life I have regularly been attacked for what I write.  Note: not critiqued, I said attacked.  Therefore if you think I am dead wrong for saying something and you dont think what happened was just a mistake on my part, may I suggest that you put your comments on YOUR blog and not bother me with it.

The fact is that at this point I am pretty sure I know what I am saying.

It wont be easy to fix this collapse into Fascism (3/3)

Ultimately none of this matters because Americans dont have the guts to fight for democracy.  But if we did fight the hardest part would be it would be necessary to execute the fascists.  Nothing else would work and it wont happen.

Too bad.

Who am I who says such things?

It Wont Be Easy to Fix the Collapse into Fascism (2/3)

It is a waste of time for me to write up these notes.  Very few people will read them and those who do will not have the power to do anything.  The best I can say for this is that it might have some minor psychological value to put this out there.  

The introduction to this discussion of "things to fix" is here.

1. The Electoral College

None of this would have happened if we did not have a dysfunctional electoral college. Remember, the supreme court threw the election to Bush in 2000 through this device.  Gore won the popular vote and was well on his way to win the electoral vote.  It was because of this coup d'etat that we got Alito and Roberts on the court.

2. Fixing the Supreme Court and the Judiciary

This situation was created in large part because the right wing nuts on the supreme court installed citizens united and gutted the voting rights act.  On top of that we have the ridiculous immunity decision.  We have the failure of them to correct the obviously unconstitutional actions by Trump to go against the power given to Congress to fund or not fund government agencies.  And of course we have various members of the court committing perjury to congress when they discussed what they would do with Dobbs.  Therefore all these decisions have to be reversed and the people involved ejected from the court.  We also have right wing nuts throughout the judiciary (remember Cannon?).  All of these people must be removed from the judiciary and their decisions reversed.

3. Pardoning Insurrectionists

Trump pardoned those who were convicted of attempting to overthrow the government of the United States.  The convictions need to be restored and those people put in jail to serve their time.  The abomination of the insurrectionist being given honors by the Air Force needs to be reversed.  

4. Enforce the constitution on insurrectionists in government.

5. Fix the problem of the executive orders

6. Remove anyone from ICE and DOGE from the US Government and make it impossible for them to return.

7. Set standards for national elections.

8. The DOJ and FBI were weaponized.  Everyone involved in that needs to be arrested and prosecuted and barred from government.

9. The ability of Fox News and others to lie outrageously to pervert the government and political process needs to be solved.  We proved that the civil justice problem is not sufficient.

From Liz Cheney

Or is this really from Ms Cheney? How do we tell these days.

'

Dear Democratic Party,
I need more from you.
You keep sending emails begging for $15,
while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.
This administration is not simply “a different ideology.”
It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.
And you?
You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.
That won’t save us.
I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.
I want strategy.
I want fire.
I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.
Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.
Surprise.
Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying,
“Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”
I call bullshit.
If you don’t know how to think outside the box…
If you don’t know how to strategize…
If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…
what the hell are we giving you money for?
Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.
Some of us have military training.
Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.
Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.
The speeches? Nice.
The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.
That was great for giving hope.
Now we need action.
You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years.
We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.
Look at the disappearances.
Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.
If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.
So here’s what I need from you — right now:
⸻
1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.
I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.
Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.
Make it public. Make it unshakable.
Let the people drag the rot into the light.
If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.
If Congress won’t act, let the country act.
This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.
Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.
And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.
You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.
The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.
⸻
2. Join the International Criminal Court.
Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.
You cannot control what the other side does.
But you can control your own integrity.
So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.
Join.
If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.
Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.
Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.
And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.
Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.
⸻
3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.
Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.
Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.
If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.
If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.
This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.
Stop campaigning.
Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.
We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.
Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.
And let’s be clear:
The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.
They prepared for this.
They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.
They built a machine while you wrote press releases.
We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.
It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.
You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029 —
a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.
You should be publicly laying out:
• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again
• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine
• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable
• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador
You say you’re the party of the people?
Then show the people the plan.
⸻
4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.
If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.
Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.
Give people tools, not soundbites.
We don’t need more slogans.
We need survival manuals.
⸻
5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.
Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.
They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.
Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.
Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.
And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.
Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.
That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.
If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.
Get creative. Go underground. Go global.
If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.
⸻
6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.
Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.
Some are scared. Some want out.
Build the channels.
Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.
Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.
And while you’re at it?
Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.
Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.
We are not the bullies.
We are not the ones filled with hate.
And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.
They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.
But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.
We don’t need purity.
We need numbers.
We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.
⸻
7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.
You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.
They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.
They went after the structure.
The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.
They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —
until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on.
And his power crumbled beneath him.
You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,
every aide who defies court orders,
every communications director repeating lies,
every policy writer enabling cruelty,
every water boy who keeps this engine running.
You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.
You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.
⸻
Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.
They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.
A M E R I C A N S.
And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.
We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.
We want backbone.
We want action.
We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.
We are watching.
And I don’t just mean your base.
I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.
I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.
Often when I speak, it echoes.
But when we ALL
speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.
We need to be deafening.
You still have a chance to do something historic.
To be remembered for courage, not caution.
To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.
But the clock is ticking.
And the deportation buses are idling.

It Won't Be Easy to Fix the Collapse into Fascism (1/3)

This is part 1 of 3 parts.

As a former Democrat, I admit to being surprised and maybe annoyed at how badly our party has done.  Failure like that does not happen by accident, you have to work at it and be talented at failing.  This talent comes in a variety of forms one of which is a consistent unwillingness to take a stand on principle.  That is not the point of this blog post, which has a different purpose, except to say that I see no reason to think that the Democratic party, as it is formally defined in this country, has a prayer of being able to fix this many dimensional disaster.  They had plenty of opportunity to serve their country and make changes to head off this situation and they chose one stupid reason after another not to do so.  From Merrick Garland and Jack Smith's failure to competently prosecute the rapist pig to Chuck Schumer's choice to surrender the budget, we had literally hundreds of proofs that the Democratic party is not up to this fight.

Furthermore, I have no reason to think that the American people want democracy enough to fight for it either.  I have seen example after example that shows that many Americans are stupid or venal or both.  In fact it seems to be impossible to explain to the Trump supporter that it is not the policies of their rapist pig president we object to, although we do, it is the fact that they still support this asshole after all this.  Trump will go away, but we will still have the Trump supporter and  other idiots to deal with.  I dont think that is going to work out so well and it is one reason why I am sure that this collapse into fascism will only get worse.  America, as an experiment in government, has utterly failed and it is pathetic that so many people do not realize it.

The following is an incomplete list of things that have to happen to rebuild this country to a democracy.  I do not think the list is complete, which is too bad, it is long enough.  The problem I see is that I doubt that pretty much any of this doable, but I think they are all required.  Every last one, not necessarily in this order.  And in many cases there are probably "other solutions" that have the same effect as what I am proposing below.  Maybe.

Furthermore, having been on top of these issues for 25 years and being more correct about what was going on than just about any politician I know of and certainly better at this than anyone I know, I am going to modestly and humbly suggest that I am more qualified than any of these wankers to suggest what has to be done.  That wont happen, and I certainly wont get any respect, and this really is a waste of my time to even bother to write some of this up, but here we go anyway.  

Part 2 and Part 3 will be here when they are written.

Khronos Notes 8/28/2025

 

I am unclear about what is going on with Khronos especially as it affects OpenXR and WebGL and the various browsers.  

1. Khronos appears to have 23 active standards including OpenXR and WebGL

2. Each of these standards has a working group.  Most groups are 4 people or less.  All of the members of the group are affiliated with a company that is a member.  However these groups are tiny and probably do not represent the "real" working or advisory groups, which are not listed on their web site.  There are no individuals listed.

3. There are 4 levels of membership for companies and 1 for academia.  Costs per year vary from $90,000, $22,000, $9,000 to $4,000 plus.  Academic membership is $1,000 per year.  There is no way for an individual to join.  NYU is not a member nor is UC, CMU, MIT or Stanford.

4. As all members of the working groups are by definition employed by a member company, I do not know what it means for them to be a "volunteer".  

5. I know that the working group for OpenGL was much larger than anything mentioned here, on the order of maybe 30-50 members so obviously there is something I do not understand here.

6. Meta is a contributing member, but I am told is not a supporter of OpenXR.

7. It is not clear whether WebGL is a volunteer or a supported activity at each of the various browser companies.  Given the potential for performance and stability issues it seems difficult to believe that it would be a pure open source, volunteer activity but maybe it is.  WebGL is essentially a repurposing of OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 so maybe there are robust implementations that can be trivially incorporated.

8. It is not possible for an individual to be a member of Khronos.  It is possible that they can be invited onto a working group (or other advisory group).

To be updated.

Jeff Kleiser & Coco Conn at Hotel Figueroa

At the Hotel Figueroa, at some SIGGRAPH, date unknown.

This photograph may already be on the blog, but if so, I am not sure where.

Civilization VII Notes

Rarely do I spend so much time with a game cursing it every step of the way.  Whatever may be going through the heads of the developers of Civilization VII, I dont much care for their choices.  This is not a review of the game, look elsewhere for that.  This is just a list of things I find annoying.  Your mileage may differ.

I do not know if the issues I discuss here are to be considered bugs or features.  

1. It is not clear what the differences are between different versions of this game.  Civilization V vs Civilization VI vs ... why a new version?  What have they learned?  It isnt clear.

2. The cartography is dreadful although colorful.  It is impossible to get a simplified version that shows you an overview, for example.  It is awkward to get to the different versions that do exist.  There ought to be a simple way to cycle through the options.  There ought to be a way to pull back much farther to get a better feel for the comprehensive view.

3. It is tedious and difficult to figure out where your air assets are. 

4. It is tedious to move your air assets from airfield to airfield.

5. Very little thought has been given to organization and scalability of the armed forces.  There are army, navy & air commanders that are supposed to provide some sort of higher level organization but I didn't find them very useful.

6. The issue of where one can found a city is badly documented.

7. The cultural issues between civilizations are shallow.

8. It is very difficult to evaluate who is winning and why.

9. It does not seem to be possible to advance the game without going through endless random details.

10. It does not seem rational how the units move on the board.

11. So I take it all the way through, and without warning, even though I crushed my enemies, I am told I am defeated.  And this after I forebear from nuking everybody.  What a piece of shit this game is. Obviously you dont need much talent to be a major league game designer.

"War Hero"

 
I think we can all wish that we had peace and that we were not going to "study war no more" but if I were you I would not hold my breathe waiting for that.  In the meantime, given that Mr. Bone Spur tells us that he is a war hero, we can ask ourselves if this moron and traitor actually knows what a war hero is.  I doubt it.  For those of you who may not have given it much thought, I can recommend the citations of the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMOH) as a way of making this abstract concept somewhat real.  

There are several rules about getting a CMOH and they include: (a) there have to be living witnesses of the event, (b) whatever the candidate did has to be beyond doing their job bravely and competently, (c) the commanding officer has to recommend you, (d) one of the congressmen from wherever our candidate hero is from has to sponsor it and (e) congress has to vote for it.  The CMOH is not without controversy in its 164 year history, but its track record is pretty good.

So, for example, you do not get a CMOH for merely advancing against the enemy while being shot at.  Everyone is expected to do that.  However, you might get a CMOH if, while your unit is under fire, you single handedly take out an enemy machine gun nest while the rest of your platoon is (sensibly) sheltered for cover and praying.  And then, having eliminated the machine gun in single combat if you do it two more times before they kill you, then you *might* get a CMOH, posthumously.

Or to choose another example, if you are known to be a complete screwup until your first combat mission whereupon the bomber you are on is set upon by waves of enemy fighters, the fuel tank explodes, 5 of your crewmates are hit by enemy fire and are bleeding out on the floor of the bomber, and then, suddenly, demonstrating behavior no one would have believed you were capable of,  you spring into action, alternate between putting out the fire in the center of the airplane, shooting at enemy fighters and driving them away, tending to the wounded to stop the bleeding, getting at least three of them into parachutes and out a hole in the fuselage to hopefully save their lives because the plane you are on is certainly going to explode and/or crash and kill everyone at any moment.  And somehow the bomber survives and you land.  And then when the brass comes to give you your medal for improbably saving the day, no one can find you because you are in the kitchen peeling potatoes as punishment for some other screwup for which you are well known. If you do that you might get a CMOH and plausibly be considered a "war hero".

Trust me, whatever DJT, the rapist and felon may be, he is certainly not a "war hero"  

A Parlor Game

Prediction is hard, especially about the future.  It seems obvious to me that the American System has failed and will not be recreated in its flawed but occasionally just form anytime soon.  I doubt that even 10 percent of the American people understand that it is over, the system failed, and they live in a right wing authoritarian country, arguably fascist and a dictatorship.  However this is an opportunity to show off skills.  There are many other shoes to drop.  I invite my friends to suggest some of those shoes which will be obvious to some people only in retrospect.  You should assume that the courts are corrupt at the highest level, that the press is useless and complicit, and that most politicians dont really care, at most pay lip service.  Much of what is easy to predict is not so much an obvious bad thing that has happened, but merely that it is made more public.  For example, it is obvious that the secret police is attacking and deporting people who are legal to be here, but how many of those people are raped in prison and/or murdered.  So one prediction is that this is eventually made public, and that some people voice dismay and outrage, but in fact nothing happens to change the situation.  It will be 50+ years before we know how many people we murdered, if we ever do. I see this as just obvious, the American Republic has murdered innocent people on a regular basis over the decades, although I think it ebbs and flows.  There are a dozen such trivial examples.  Another example is that a pillar of right wing strength will be grotesque gerrymandering to disenfranchise voters.  It is easy to predict that of course the supreme court will take a stand and support this gerrymandering for one stupid pretend reason or another.  The friend who suggests the most of these that have not previously been noted will win an exciting $25 gift certificate from Amazon.

27th Year Reunion of Hayden Planetarium

It was kindof a reunion of some of the Digital Galaxy Protect from 1998.  Although many people were not there, Carter Emmart, Dennis Davidson and myself were there and I had a completely fabulous time. Loretta Skeddle may have been in the audience somewhere and Benjy Bernhardt was in Italy.

You can not imagine how sad I am that I am not able to be involved more with the Hayden.  

Final Death Blow of the American Republic

I consider the new justices nominated by the racist pig to be the final death blow of the American Republic. The only thing that makes sense is to flee the country or live in a fascist society. This society will not recover for a minimum of 25 years and probably more like 50 or more. There will never be term limits. There will only be fascist judges and a few leftovers. That's it. I hope to flee the country if I can put together the visa and the finances which is, as you know, doubtful. So I will probably die in a fascist dictatorship. It's not that the story ends there: there will be other blows; there will be other compromises; and there will be other failures. But this is a good one and a good place to draw the line. Too bad the rapist pig is also a pedophile but then there was evidence of that all along. What a joke this country is. What a dangerous joke and how many people will get hurt? All because Americans wouldn't stand up for their rights and their freedoms. 

The wages of sin are death. 

A Preferred Guide For Those Who Would Ghost Us

Those of us who are ghosted realize that we have no rights in the matter and that you can ghost us whenever you like for whatever reason you like. But consider....

Ghosting causes us to worry.  Did we say something wrong?  Is my friend in trouble, possibly in bad health? Maybe in the hospital?  Maybe dead?  Are they not getting the messages?  Should we "ping" them again?  Would that be annoying?

Far better would be to notify the individual that you are going to be out of touch.  Say you are working on something important and wont be able to talk much over the next year or two.  Try to let us down gently and warn us that your silence does not imply that you are dead or in trouble.

That would be much more polite and courteous.

Even better is to reply to one out of maybe 3 or 4 emails.  An email that you can easily reply to and which demonstrates good will.  After a while, we will realize that you dont want to talk much and will accept that yet we are still in touch.  The best people I know, those who are far more successful than I, do that and I appreciate the courtesy.

Remember, this is not just about you.  We have made an investment in good faith in time and energy.  We have put up with you, maybe you can put up with us.

Is Soros a Class Traitor by Supporting Mamdani?

My friend Seth Haberman has some important points to make about the alleged Marxist running for mayor of NYC, this Zohran Mamdani character.  My friend points out that rich people have contributed to his campaign but that in fact Mamdani is only pretending.  This is my response on Facebook.

Michael Wahrman

I am a little confused although obviously you have some important points to make. Is the problem that some of the rich are supporting a Marxist and are therefore class traitors? As we all know, only rich people can elect their candidates to office, that is the way the system works, so it is a travesty when the rich support someone like this? Or are you saying that your rich friends only think they are supporting a Marxist who wants to expropriate the wealth of the rich and have the workers own the means of production, but they are deceived as this is just a rich kid pretending to support the proletariat who will actually turn away from his stated beliefs when elected like all the others before him? Either way there is a grave problem here.

The Supreme Court Fails to Defend the Constitution

And so the Supreme Court fails its moment and its purpose.  They accept the robes and privileges and want to be treated with respect but no one in law school told them that this sometimes requires that they do more than show up and scratch their balls.  The Geheim Staatzpolizie in  unmarked vans attack and round up those who have been cast out but labor in our fields.  The head of a Special Unit has informed the elected mayor of Los Angeles that she should "Just get used to it, honey".  And our Supreme Court acts all innocent and unawares.  

It is said that even the most perverted and depraved of liars and hypocrites can find redemption but I dont believe it.  The Supreme Court had their chance, the issues were not subtle and their duty clear.  But the court failed us.  Worse is to come.  The Supreme Court is letting the rapist - pig and his cult destroy the government and purge the security forces of anyone who does not swear loyalty to der Fuhrer.  Congress has failed to honor its oath and now so has the Supreme Court.

People keep hoping that the situation is not as bad as some of us say.  But it is bad, it is very bad, and if history is a guide, it will get much worse.

Russia has a tradition of elite units disobeying orders and supporting the people.  Americans seem to have the belief that the constitution is some magical force of good and that somehow people and institutions that have already failed are going to "repent" and defend the people.  

I have got bad news for you.  I am going to predict the future.  As it is at the beginning, so it is at the end.  Those who are hypocritical swine and liars will continue to be so, and nothing such as the constitution or their oath matters to them.  We are fucked.  

Ken Perlin's Lab at NYU

On this last trip, a fast visit to Ken Perlin's Future Research Lab (FRL) at NYU. I think of it as his new lab, but he has been there for 9+ years.

The first thing I noticed was all the extra space and high ceilings.  A lab like this needs to be able to do an instrument grid in the ceiling.  I also noticed a real kitchen and several couches to sleep on for exam week or project crunches.

Ken showed me his Augmented Reality (AR) work with the Meta Quest 3.  For the moment, we will ignore that Meta / Facebook is run by fascists who helped Trump  get elected in 2016 by supporting the Russian disinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton.  I have always felt that this was cause enough to go  to war with Russia, but not everyone agrees.  

The work with Quest 3 was compelling.  I never got a headache although I was using one for at least 1/2 hour or possibly longer.  

The reality view was perfect, the synthetic imagery was stable.  There were some  issues as you might imagine for a research lab but it was perfectly presentable.  

Mysterious Lockheed Constellation at JFK

When I arrived at JFK on June 24th and walked out of the terminal, across the way I was greeted by the sight of a Lockheed Constellation in TWA livery before the TWA terminal.  What it was doing there I do not know but when I left two days later, June 26th, it was gone.  Some people think this is one of the most beautiful airplanes ever designed.

Here is a picture of it in its WW2 USAF C-69 form.

By USAF 
http://www.edwards.af.mil/gallery/html_pgs/cargo3.htm

Public Domain, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=230534

Booking.Com and the Death of Customer Service

I had a wonderful trip to NYC at the last minute thanks in large part to my friends at the American Museum of Natural History.  In another post I will talk about all the wonderful parts of the trip but this post is about warning you off of an internet scam called Booking.com.

I make the plane reservation with Google who sent me to Booking.com.  I thought nothing of it.  I made my hotel reservation with Priceline.  This worked perfectly.

But when I got to LAX I discovered that booking had put my trip in July and the return trip to Ontario, not LAX.  I dont know how they did this.  I always said June, that was the whole point.  I never said Ontario, why would I want to go there.  So Jetblue, at the gate, puts me the plane I wanted at a very reasonable price on top of what I had paid Booking, of course.

Then started the nightmare of trying to reach booking to see what could be done.  The short version is that you can not reach customer support.  It is obviously deliberate, they just found another sucker, me, stole the money and that was that.

Jetblue was able to recover some of the money and I could fly home at a reduced rate, no thanks to Booking.com or to Google.

Caveat Emptor, I suppose.

Yeehaw Another War

There are people in this world who incorrectly believe that America just loves to go to war and will do so on the slightest pretext and without much thought.  Of course that is not true!  And we can trust Trump, the moron king, to only do what is good for America!

Biographical Sketch Written for ACM SIGGRAPH

Apparently ACM SIGGRAPH keeps a web page of biographies of a sort for those who volunteer.  They provide a list of questions.  Here is what I wrote:

1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?

Its very nice of you to ask.  Whatever it is I do now is different from what I did then.  The world was a different place and it is hard to explain.  No one thought that computer animation would be useful for much.  There were some of us who felt compelled to show that it was useful in various diverse ways.  Some of these true believers had to sneak around and publish ideas and hope their management never found out.  Some of us postponed graduate school or took a cut in pay or otherwise did career damaging things that seem irresponsible in retrospect.  

So I did some of those things.  I wrote an animation system (primarily a renderer) for a leading production company.  That software, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be the prototype for a system that got used by 500 studios worldwide and won a Science and Technology award from the Motion Picture Academy.  Then I helped friends produce a short animated film that featured behavioral animation as a way of supporting my friend Craig Reynolds who was publishing on that topic that year.  After that, being unemployed, I got into business with my friend Brad deGraf, starting out in his garage, and that was pretty crazy.  We ended up hiring everyone we knew and helped produce a real time character for SIGGRAPH with one of the earliest SGI workstations and then did a bunch of other productions for theme parks and feature films back before CG was used for that.  

The point is that whatever my role may have been in those underfinanced exercises in idealism, they didn't pay well nor did they lead to normal employment.  It was fun but not very practical.  Now, everyone does this stuff and for many years I have been looking for things to do that might be valued in society, like money laundering or destabilizing governments.  While I wait to win the lottery, I try to keep busy by making pictures with computers and teaching a class now and then.

2. What was your first job?

My first real job was with the RAND Corporation. They put me on one of those well-meaning social research projects from the 1970s.  They paid my way back to school and let me work with some amazing people and gave me access to their facilities. 

3. Where did you complete your formal education?

I have degrees from UCLA.

4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?

Suzy Landa of RAND hosted the Los Angeles chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH in a conference room there. This was perhaps 1976 or 1977.  That is where I met Larry Cuba, John Whitney Jr, Gary Demos, Richard Hollander, Art Durinsky, Craig Reynolds, Doug Kay, George Joblove, Bill Kovacs, Jim Blinn, Pat Cole and others. My management at RAND insisted that I attend at least one academic conference per year and so I suggested the national SIGGRAPH Conference.  

5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?

Most of the national conferences took place for me in a haze of sleep deprivation and fear. 

At the conference in 1980 I went to hear a talk by someone named Dr. Ed Catmull on the topic of what he had learned running a CG lab at the New York Institute of Technology.   I went up to introduce myself afterwards and he spent about an hour talking to me about what he wanted to do next which was to make feature length, narrative-driven, animated films with computers. At the time, very few people thought that would be possible.  Ed and friends went on to found PIXAR.

The technical reception was small enough that you could meet people.  Three of the young people there in what might have been 1981 carried a notebook with test pictures.  They had just graduated from college. They were Carl Rosendahl, Richard Chuang, and Glenn Entis, the founders of Pacific Data Images.  

I sat next to Larry Cuba when his film “Calculated Movements” premiered at the Electronic Theatre.

Trey Stokes, Brad deGraf and I performed the synthetic opera in real time at the Electronic Theatre of 1988.

6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.

Just want to say hi and thank anyone who helped out who I might have forgotten to thank at the time. 

7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?

I wonder what restaurant and who is picking up the check?  Will someone provide a translator to come to dinner with us in the case that our guest does not speak modern English? A few names come to mind as potential candidates.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Eric Blair, Evelyn Waugh, Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georges Danton, Maimonides, Hugues de Payens, Malcolm X, the Marquis de Lafayette, Karl Marx, Oleg son of Rurik, Crazy Horse of the Lakota, Richard Henry Lee of the Virginia Continental Congress, Charles Darwin, Dr. John von Neumann, Kandinsky, Man Ray and others.  Maybe we should have a dinner party?

8. What is something most people don’t know about you?

I don't think I should talk about that.

9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?

The great American author Louis L’Amour, in an airline magazine, once said that you should never tell your age.  There is too much ageism in America.  

Willis Ware of the RAND Corporation showed me a 16 mm film shot off the screen by someone named Ivan Sutherland.  It was part of his thesis project, I think, about something called Sketchpad. 

10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?

My parole officer

11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?

Pride is a sin

 I was very happy to create a simulated version of the original RAND Corporation buildings which were removed when the new structures were built. Mao Tse Tung said that there can be no construction without destruction but I was still very fond of those buildings. Unfortunately I do not seem to have a link to that work, it may no longer be active. Memento Mori.

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