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.