draft
Being rewritten, please try back in a few hours!!!
This is what the Democrats have to do going forward. And let me be clear, any failure to do this will mean that they Democrats will lose at the next election. They have one chance, in my opinion, to redeem themselves from decades of accomodation and of longing for an America that sadly no longer exists.
They must throw out any idea of "bipartisanship" but must stand firm and unyielding and execute a policy based on principles.
Forget legislation, legislation can be dealt with after the right wing Republican nuts have been exposed for the traitors and criminals that they are.
The American people have been subjected to an astonishing array of crimes against their government and the people of this country and of the world. It is time for the Democrats to make clear that this behavior has to stop.
Here is a short list of things the Democrats *must* do to maintain any credibility.
In the following I really dont want to hear any stupid whining about how "why bother to impeach if the corrupt Republicans will just turn their back on truth and justice. Yes, the Republicans are corrupt and will betray America again, but that is not excuse for not impeaching him. Leave the Senate to the Senate, let the House execute its responsibilities for once.
In no particular order.
1. Trump must be investigated for his crimes, or at least a goodly number of them. If appropriate, those crimes may be referred to relevant state departmens of justice for prosecution. If appropriate, Trump must be impeached.
2. Kavanaugh must be investigated and if appropriate his crimes referred to proper authorities. it may also be that he should be impeached.
3. Gorsuch is a right wing nutty boy. He needs to be reviewed by the house, and also, if appropriate impeached.
4. Why was Nunes allowed to betray America and why was he not removed from his position as chair of the Intelligence Committee when the DOJ and FBI begged Ryan to do so. This must be investigated.
5. Why have N. Dakota and Georgia been allowed to use obviously racist measures to disenfranchise voters?
6. Why has Florida failed to be able to reliably hold an election and count votes?
7. Why is the Senate continuing to approve right wing nutty boys for the judiciary as if that was acceptable? The judicial system is being destroyed.
8. What was Pruitt saying behind closed doors for which no notes were kept and the American people are not allowed to know. Let him testify under oath and let those he spoke to testify under oath and let them pay for their crimes.
All of these issues must be addressed before another budget is approved. If that means the government stops then I am all for it. Better we get this cleared up right now, first, before continuing some injustice or abomination.
There are other things as well. Your list may differ. This is all the House should do. If any of them are not dealt with, then as far as I am concerned we, the nation and the House has failed.
The nature of the crisis will be further discussed in a later post.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Why Group Sourcing is Obviously Stupid
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At various times people talk about "group sourcing" on the internet, or of learning from the internet from the sources that people provide for free or even for a fee, as if it will just be there.
This is not only wrong, it is stupid, it is even obviously stupid, as anyone would know if they had actually tried it to learn something seriously that way.
The reason is that the noise to signal is wildly out of balance. And there is no way to judge noise from signal in the general case without a vast amount of time and effort.
Group sourcing is obviously not as good as a credible source with information that has been vetted.
Duh.
I guess the people writing about the Internet dont know what they are talking about or maybe they are just lying to steal the money.
At various times people talk about "group sourcing" on the internet, or of learning from the internet from the sources that people provide for free or even for a fee, as if it will just be there.
This is not only wrong, it is stupid, it is even obviously stupid, as anyone would know if they had actually tried it to learn something seriously that way.
The reason is that the noise to signal is wildly out of balance. And there is no way to judge noise from signal in the general case without a vast amount of time and effort.
Group sourcing is obviously not as good as a credible source with information that has been vetted.
Duh.
I guess the people writing about the Internet dont know what they are talking about or maybe they are just lying to steal the money.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
We Must Help Our Elected Representatives
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Our elected representatives need our help to understand what we want done. Figure out how to contact him/her and let them know. I will be making a list on this blog. You should do the same.
Our elected representatives need our help to understand what we want done. Figure out how to contact him/her and let them know. I will be making a list on this blog. You should do the same.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
How to Contact Glassner & Blinn
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To my astonishment, both Andrew Glassner and Jim Blinn are easy to contact, as they maintain web sites with a contact form.
https://www.glassner.com/
http://www.jimblinn.com/contact/
To my astonishment, both Andrew Glassner and Jim Blinn are easy to contact, as they maintain web sites with a contact form.
https://www.glassner.com/
http://www.jimblinn.com/contact/
What Everyone Who Studies Intelligence Knows about Wikileaks
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Many Americans don't like what they think is the "intelligence" business. There are good and bad reasons why this might be, but its sufficiently important that I think that people should know more about it so that they can make more accurate or possibly nuanced judgments about it. It is, after all, *their* intelligence community and is genuinely working, for the most part, in what they believe is the nation's interest as ordered by the POTUS and the relevant committees of Congress.
Even though there is a lot we can not and will not know about the world of intelligence there are lots and lots of things that we can know by paying attention and knowing the history of these things.
And so, in light of this, here is one comment on current events.
It has been obvious for years, certainly at least a decade and possibly more, that whatever else Wikileaks may be, it is probably also a tool of foreign Intelligence. From the material released and the timing of that release it is likely that Wikileaks has been chosen as the "public mouthpiece" of materials collected by foreign intelligence agencies that have collected the material from one source or another, and are looking for a way to get this material into the world at a time of their choosing to influence some political process ongoing in the West. This has been completely obvious, and if it is not true, a lot of people will be surprised. But what does it mean? What should we do about it? And what does it not mean?
It does not mean that the people running Wikileaks are insincere or believe that they are doing anything but what a freedom loving person of the world should be doing. They may be completely uncompromised in their goals. Nor does it mean that they have necessarily committed any crimes, although they may have. But even so, be aware that a crime in one country may not be a crime in another. On the other hand, I think it is likely from what little I know that they very well may have knowingly committed some crimes that are in fact illegal in this country, but that is to be seen.
All I am really saying here is that you should not be so naive as to think that Wikileaks is a completly independent, do-good-for-the-world, totally disinterested organization. They serve a very useful purpose for people who are not friendly to this country. That said, they may provide a useful service for the rest of us, that would depend on your point of view on many other issues.
Many Americans don't like what they think is the "intelligence" business. There are good and bad reasons why this might be, but its sufficiently important that I think that people should know more about it so that they can make more accurate or possibly nuanced judgments about it. It is, after all, *their* intelligence community and is genuinely working, for the most part, in what they believe is the nation's interest as ordered by the POTUS and the relevant committees of Congress.
Even though there is a lot we can not and will not know about the world of intelligence there are lots and lots of things that we can know by paying attention and knowing the history of these things.
And so, in light of this, here is one comment on current events.
It has been obvious for years, certainly at least a decade and possibly more, that whatever else Wikileaks may be, it is probably also a tool of foreign Intelligence. From the material released and the timing of that release it is likely that Wikileaks has been chosen as the "public mouthpiece" of materials collected by foreign intelligence agencies that have collected the material from one source or another, and are looking for a way to get this material into the world at a time of their choosing to influence some political process ongoing in the West. This has been completely obvious, and if it is not true, a lot of people will be surprised. But what does it mean? What should we do about it? And what does it not mean?
It does not mean that the people running Wikileaks are insincere or believe that they are doing anything but what a freedom loving person of the world should be doing. They may be completely uncompromised in their goals. Nor does it mean that they have necessarily committed any crimes, although they may have. But even so, be aware that a crime in one country may not be a crime in another. On the other hand, I think it is likely from what little I know that they very well may have knowingly committed some crimes that are in fact illegal in this country, but that is to be seen.
All I am really saying here is that you should not be so naive as to think that Wikileaks is a completly independent, do-good-for-the-world, totally disinterested organization. They serve a very useful purpose for people who are not friendly to this country. That said, they may provide a useful service for the rest of us, that would depend on your point of view on many other issues.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Notes on Building My Servers
draft
At the end of the day, I ended up with two servers. One running Linux for rendering, machine learning, and other image processing. The other for using the Samsung HMD for VR that my friend Ken Perlin sent me. They are both running the Xeon Silver 4108 8/16 CPU with lots of memory.
Their were two major issues on this build. I kept getting bad parts, many CPUs were bad and much of the early memory was bad. Now I buy the memory directly from Kingston and whatever I was running into with CPUs seemed to be fixed. I also had a bad PSU. It was just endless.
At the end of the day, we settled on memory from Kingston, chassis from Chenbro from Newegg, power supplies from Supermicro directly, Samsung SSDs from Newegg, Nvidia GPUs from Newegg, and Supermicro motherboards from 3rd party vendors through Newegg.
From now on, always test a new power supply for a build, and stay away from two socket motherboards, always going for a single socket and a more powerful processor if necessary.
Never install Windows on a machine with any other kind of data or OS anywhere near.
The built in graphics on the Supermicro motherboards work great for consoles, and it is recommended you have a VGA display of some sort so you dont have to go through a VGA->HDMI converter. All systems are still on the USB ethernet connection which works fine for what I need to do. Ultimately, we will use the onboard ethernet. All systems have a USB3 bay added to the front.
This is the first time I have had reasonable computing that is appropriate for the work in maybe 20 years. It makes a difference.
At the end of the day, I ended up with two servers. One running Linux for rendering, machine learning, and other image processing. The other for using the Samsung HMD for VR that my friend Ken Perlin sent me. They are both running the Xeon Silver 4108 8/16 CPU with lots of memory.
Their were two major issues on this build. I kept getting bad parts, many CPUs were bad and much of the early memory was bad. Now I buy the memory directly from Kingston and whatever I was running into with CPUs seemed to be fixed. I also had a bad PSU. It was just endless.
At the end of the day, we settled on memory from Kingston, chassis from Chenbro from Newegg, power supplies from Supermicro directly, Samsung SSDs from Newegg, Nvidia GPUs from Newegg, and Supermicro motherboards from 3rd party vendors through Newegg.
From now on, always test a new power supply for a build, and stay away from two socket motherboards, always going for a single socket and a more powerful processor if necessary.
Never install Windows on a machine with any other kind of data or OS anywhere near.
The built in graphics on the Supermicro motherboards work great for consoles, and it is recommended you have a VGA display of some sort so you dont have to go through a VGA->HDMI converter. All systems are still on the USB ethernet connection which works fine for what I need to do. Ultimately, we will use the onboard ethernet. All systems have a USB3 bay added to the front.
This is the first time I have had reasonable computing that is appropriate for the work in maybe 20 years. It makes a difference.
Donald, Why Dont You Shut Up
draft
No one believes you Donald, so why dont you just shut up. We are definitely into the next period of play. I dont know what will happen but I doubt old Donald is going to make it. At the end of the day he is not immune to all the laws of nature and politics although he thinks he is. How this will play out, and how long it will take, and what it will take to fix it if it can be fixed, is of course a mystery. It is for the Democrats and the Resistance to lose.
No one believes you Donald, so why dont you just shut up. We are definitely into the next period of play. I dont know what will happen but I doubt old Donald is going to make it. At the end of the day he is not immune to all the laws of nature and politics although he thinks he is. How this will play out, and how long it will take, and what it will take to fix it if it can be fixed, is of course a mystery. It is for the Democrats and the Resistance to lose.
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Lessons on the Path to Righteousness and the Installation of Tensorflow on Centos
draft
Tensorflow is one of the open source solutions to a machine learning back end. That, with a Keras layer on top, is one of the more popular machine learning environments out there. Among other things, it supports both central and graphics processing on most operating systems.
As in so many things in life, a clever or lucky choice can achieve a goal with no effort, but a similar choice can result in weeks, years or even decades of hell.
There are a number of surprises involved in installing these packages on your operating system of choice, and this note is intended to help you, readers, avoid shooting yourself in the foot or the head as the case may be.
1. Never, never, never try to install from source no matter who advises you to. It is perfectly possible to install from source on a bare metal machine without any virtual environments, or you could just hit yourself with a large hammer for a few weeks. Who knew that there were so many different ways to install Python, or that there were so many Pythons? And that is just the tip of a very nasty set of icebergs.
2. So whenever you are given an opportunity to isolate yourself from the real world by using a virtual environment, whether in Python or anywhere else, take it. In particular, for the Windows 10 version, a choice of the python virtual environment and a precompiled version of Tensorflow/Keras will result in a cpu only version in an afternoon. For some of you, you are done and can move on.
3. For those of us in Linux world, you now have to choose between a few specific versions of Ubuntu and everything else. You who would compromise your integrity and have no aesthetic sense are welcome to use Ubuntu. Go, it is there for you.
4. For the rest of us who might use an adult version of Linux, my operating system of choice is Centos / RHEL 7.5 which is the most recent version. I thought I had to compile from source, but this turns out not to be the case. What turns out to to one of the best paths through this jungle is to use the Docker (container) version as follows.
5. Install Docker by registering as a free user of the Community Edition. Having registered, and installed the preferred package from the preferred repository, you are now eligible to use containers that have been registered with Docker.
6. Tensorflow creates a new version more or less every day in a variety of flavors (no GPU, GPU, etc) and puts them out on the Docker registry with such adjectives as "latest" or "stable" for example.
7. Using these magic words you can create the name of a container you want to run. You use one of the magic containers and it loads that part of the container whose layers are not already local, and if you so specify, you are in a shell, in a container, in which you can go into python, load tensorflow and keras and you are off to the races in a cpu version of Tensorflow.
8. Of course, at this point you are now using containers and you will need to spend a day learning about container file systems and other nuance. Its not too bad though.
9. For those of you who foolishly also want to use GPU acceleration, you have chosen a slightly more difficult path. You will have to install a different version of the "docker" program from Nvidia and Github. But once you do, and once you install the GPU driver on your Linux (a bird of a different feather) you can now use a container with GPU from that list mentioned above.
Good luck!
Tensorflow is one of the open source solutions to a machine learning back end. That, with a Keras layer on top, is one of the more popular machine learning environments out there. Among other things, it supports both central and graphics processing on most operating systems.
As in so many things in life, a clever or lucky choice can achieve a goal with no effort, but a similar choice can result in weeks, years or even decades of hell.
There are a number of surprises involved in installing these packages on your operating system of choice, and this note is intended to help you, readers, avoid shooting yourself in the foot or the head as the case may be.
1. Never, never, never try to install from source no matter who advises you to. It is perfectly possible to install from source on a bare metal machine without any virtual environments, or you could just hit yourself with a large hammer for a few weeks. Who knew that there were so many different ways to install Python, or that there were so many Pythons? And that is just the tip of a very nasty set of icebergs.
2. So whenever you are given an opportunity to isolate yourself from the real world by using a virtual environment, whether in Python or anywhere else, take it. In particular, for the Windows 10 version, a choice of the python virtual environment and a precompiled version of Tensorflow/Keras will result in a cpu only version in an afternoon. For some of you, you are done and can move on.
3. For those of us in Linux world, you now have to choose between a few specific versions of Ubuntu and everything else. You who would compromise your integrity and have no aesthetic sense are welcome to use Ubuntu. Go, it is there for you.
4. For the rest of us who might use an adult version of Linux, my operating system of choice is Centos / RHEL 7.5 which is the most recent version. I thought I had to compile from source, but this turns out not to be the case. What turns out to to one of the best paths through this jungle is to use the Docker (container) version as follows.
5. Install Docker by registering as a free user of the Community Edition. Having registered, and installed the preferred package from the preferred repository, you are now eligible to use containers that have been registered with Docker.
6. Tensorflow creates a new version more or less every day in a variety of flavors (no GPU, GPU, etc) and puts them out on the Docker registry with such adjectives as "latest" or "stable" for example.
7. Using these magic words you can create the name of a container you want to run. You use one of the magic containers and it loads that part of the container whose layers are not already local, and if you so specify, you are in a shell, in a container, in which you can go into python, load tensorflow and keras and you are off to the races in a cpu version of Tensorflow.
8. Of course, at this point you are now using containers and you will need to spend a day learning about container file systems and other nuance. Its not too bad though.
9. For those of you who foolishly also want to use GPU acceleration, you have chosen a slightly more difficult path. You will have to install a different version of the "docker" program from Nvidia and Github. But once you do, and once you install the GPU driver on your Linux (a bird of a different feather) you can now use a container with GPU from that list mentioned above.
Good luck!
Friday, November 9, 2018
The Big Lebowski and Carter Burwell
draft
This will be old news to many of you, but it was new to me.
I am slowly developing an appreciation for the movie The Big Lebowski (1998) by the Coen Brothers. I realize it has been out for a while and I am late to see its value.
What I had not realized was that computer music pioneer and composer Carter Burwell did the original music. Carter is distant cousin to my friends Carter Emmart and Jimmy Carter, and its really nice to see just how well he has done. He has worked on a movie that is sure to last as long as movies from our civilization last.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/
This will be old news to many of you, but it was new to me.
I am slowly developing an appreciation for the movie The Big Lebowski (1998) by the Coen Brothers. I realize it has been out for a while and I am late to see its value.
What I had not realized was that computer music pioneer and composer Carter Burwell did the original music. Carter is distant cousin to my friends Carter Emmart and Jimmy Carter, and its really nice to see just how well he has done. He has worked on a movie that is sure to last as long as movies from our civilization last.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/
Monday, November 5, 2018
Its Nice to Know Where You Stand
draft
An old friend is taking the day off work to go walk the precinct for someone he claims is the first openly bisexual candidate in the history of the American Republic, which I doubt. I think that is great, but do I really care if someone is openly bisexual?
He has not had the time to visit me, or for me to visit him, once in the last 10 or is it 12, or more, years.
Its nice to know how much our friendship counts.
No Free Speech on Twitter
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Apparently only the Orange Moron is permitted to express their opinion on Twitter. I am still keeping my account, but probably wont tweet much, too afraid of violating the rules.
Remember the Fifth of November
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Time to blow up Parliament. Oh, too bad! No patriots around here. Just rapists on our Supreme Court!
A First! A Browser Attack on Safari and the Mac
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Well, at least its a first for me. Safari tried to tell me that I HAD A VIRUS and I HAD to do some stupid shit, etc, etc, you know the drill.
Our right wing FBI and Orange-Sack-of-Shit President is too busy putting rapists on the Supreme Court to try and catch these criminals. Hell, the Trump-ola is probably making money off the scam.
Well, at least its a first for me. Safari tried to tell me that I HAD A VIRUS and I HAD to do some stupid shit, etc, etc, you know the drill.
Our right wing FBI and Orange-Sack-of-Shit President is too busy putting rapists on the Supreme Court to try and catch these criminals. Hell, the Trump-ola is probably making money off the scam.
Who is More Stupid, Democrats or Republicans
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Sure the Republicans are evil swine, but the Democrats never learn. I read in the Daily Beast that if/when the Dems take the House they immediately should get in a fight over Nancy Pelosi (yawn) and then be nice to the Republicans.
OH, they say, dont dare go after the Republicans for their crimes.
Idiots, morons, swine. Put the Republicans in jail. All of them. Start with the Orange Bag of Shit and his rapist justice.
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Holy Moly This Hollywood Bullshit Makes Me Mad
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Dear Friends, or not as the case may be.
I dont want your hopes and prayers. I want the money you owe me for getting so much done which you based your enitre careers upon.
Thank you!
Saturday, November 3, 2018
What if We Met The Caravan with Open Arms
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What if it was all a joke and Trump means to have the immigrant caravan met by the US Military with open arms, housing and humanitarian aid!?
Then we would be the angel of the international scene and not hated (as much).
For those who say this is not practical, they are probably right. On the other hand if this country had not welcomed immigrants, I would not be alive.
For those who say this is not practical, they are probably right. On the other hand if this country had not welcomed immigrants, I would not be alive.
Oh That Hollywood Insincerity
Ha Ha!
Another example of a dear friend proving what a shallow and insincere person he/she is. Who knows. Managing expectations is the key, and my expectations have been way too high.
Obviously.
Why do I even bother?
Why do I even bother?
Friday, November 2, 2018
Election Predictions Midterms 2018
draft
What a clusterf*ck this has been.
It has been excruciating to read the mainstream press the last few months as they agonize over numbers that tell us nothing. I have literally read every possible prediction contradicted by some pundit within days.
1. Dems take the house by 20 or so votes. Anything more than that is a victory that makes it harder for the republicans to spin.
1.1 But the Dems need a minimum of 40 votes majority to spin it as a Blue Wave and who knows if they will get it.
1.2 The people who claim that young people will vote, will vote Dem, and who say that women will vote Dem as a block will be wrong. The Women Vote will be mostly dead (except as a slight majority, not a block) after this election. That is my prediction. You will still hear about the youth vote and the women vote because there will be stupid lefties who cant get it out of their heads, but it isnt real. Sorry.
2. Reps pick up at least one seat in the Senate, maybe two. Beto is defeated by Cruz.
3. The Georgia race is too close to call.
4. Dems win Florida governorship for a net gain of several governorships.
5. Nunes and Hunter are reelected.
6. Trump declares victory and voter fraud in the House. He uses that as an excuse to ignore subpoenas.
7. Dems in the House unleash hell but it does them no good, not really.
8. Because the Senate is firmly in Trumps hands and does his bidding.
9. Trump and the Senate continue to place stupid right wing thugs in the judiciary.
10. The Supreme Court starts fucking with our freedoms.
11. Violence increases.
12. The Trump revolution is pronounced real and not an aberration.
13. Most Americans still fail to understand that they live in a dictatorship and that most of the constitution has failed.
14. Mueller indicts Stone and the Wikileaks asshole but what he does beyond that is a mystery to me.
15. Voter Repression goes full force. Right wing courts uphold most of it. Voting rights, fuck that, this is Trump Country now.
It has been excruciating to read the mainstream press the last few months as they agonize over numbers that tell us nothing. I have literally read every possible prediction contradicted by some pundit within days.
1. Dems take the house by 20 or so votes. Anything more than that is a victory that makes it harder for the republicans to spin.
1.1 But the Dems need a minimum of 40 votes majority to spin it as a Blue Wave and who knows if they will get it.
1.2 The people who claim that young people will vote, will vote Dem, and who say that women will vote Dem as a block will be wrong. The Women Vote will be mostly dead (except as a slight majority, not a block) after this election. That is my prediction. You will still hear about the youth vote and the women vote because there will be stupid lefties who cant get it out of their heads, but it isnt real. Sorry.
2. Reps pick up at least one seat in the Senate, maybe two. Beto is defeated by Cruz.
3. The Georgia race is too close to call.
4. Dems win Florida governorship for a net gain of several governorships.
5. Nunes and Hunter are reelected.
6. Trump declares victory and voter fraud in the House. He uses that as an excuse to ignore subpoenas.
7. Dems in the House unleash hell but it does them no good, not really.
8. Because the Senate is firmly in Trumps hands and does his bidding.
9. Trump and the Senate continue to place stupid right wing thugs in the judiciary.
10. The Supreme Court starts fucking with our freedoms.
11. Violence increases.
12. The Trump revolution is pronounced real and not an aberration.
13. Most Americans still fail to understand that they live in a dictatorship and that most of the constitution has failed.
14. Mueller indicts Stone and the Wikileaks asshole but what he does beyond that is a mystery to me.
15. Voter Repression goes full force. Right wing courts uphold most of it. Voting rights, fuck that, this is Trump Country now.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Should I Alert the Humane Society
draft
A woman I know in Oakland sets traps for animals, castrates or neuters them, and then has them killed. Should I alert the humane society? Why bother? They would just attack me for telling them about it. They approve of that kind of thing.
A woman I know in Oakland sets traps for animals, castrates or neuters them, and then has them killed. Should I alert the humane society? Why bother? They would just attack me for telling them about it. They approve of that kind of thing.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Notes on A New Civil War I
draft
A few notes on the upcoming civil war. Time to step up to the line and make predictions, kids. Of course it is all fiction, since nothing like this could ever happen.
1. Civil wars are the most ugly and destructive type of wars that we know of. Expect it to be ugly. More ugly than most people I know can imagine.
2. Just because we live in a new century with new technology does not mean all the old rules are gone. Most of my friends think that. No offense or anything, but I dont agree.
3. Not all Trump supporters are armed or trained in hunting or warfare, but many of them are, and the ones that arent are, in general, not averse to being so trained.
4. On the other hand, I have not met a single non-Trump supporter who knew the first thing about firearms. I dont think I know the general case, however, I think there are many who live outside S. California who are armed or know something. They may not be NRA members, but that is OK. However I would guess that the ratio is 5 - 1 (armed vs unarmed).
5. The tools of surveillance are with the local police forces, and again, I think the ratio of Trump supporters is high, perhaps 5 - 1.
6. So when things come apart, you should presume that the right / Trump supporters will have control of the surveillance systems, and will be heavily armed, and that in general, the left will not be.
7. I have not said a thing about what the armed forces will do.
8. Of former armed force members, it is not clear what the ratios will be, but in general they will be armed, or very knowledgable (they have to be), but not necessarily pro-Trump (although in some parts of the US they will be). I need to do more research on this. For what it is worth, I have not met more than about 5 lefties out of maybe 5,000 who know the first fucking thing about the US armed forces, although I have met many who think they do.
No offense or anything.
2. Just because we live in a new century with new technology does not mean all the old rules are gone. Most of my friends think that. No offense or anything, but I dont agree.
3. Not all Trump supporters are armed or trained in hunting or warfare, but many of them are, and the ones that arent are, in general, not averse to being so trained.
4. On the other hand, I have not met a single non-Trump supporter who knew the first thing about firearms. I dont think I know the general case, however, I think there are many who live outside S. California who are armed or know something. They may not be NRA members, but that is OK. However I would guess that the ratio is 5 - 1 (armed vs unarmed).
5. The tools of surveillance are with the local police forces, and again, I think the ratio of Trump supporters is high, perhaps 5 - 1.
6. So when things come apart, you should presume that the right / Trump supporters will have control of the surveillance systems, and will be heavily armed, and that in general, the left will not be.
7. I have not said a thing about what the armed forces will do.
8. Of former armed force members, it is not clear what the ratios will be, but in general they will be armed, or very knowledgable (they have to be), but not necessarily pro-Trump (although in some parts of the US they will be). I need to do more research on this. For what it is worth, I have not met more than about 5 lefties out of maybe 5,000 who know the first fucking thing about the US armed forces, although I have met many who think they do.
No offense or anything.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Looking for Amie Slate
draft
If anyone reading this happens to know how to contact Amie Slate, could they please get in touch?
A documentary is being done on Mike Gribble (of Mike & Spike Animation fame) and they are hoping that Amie might have or know where there is archival footage of the Electronic Theatre of Siggraph in 1988.
A documentary is being done on Mike Gribble (of Mike & Spike Animation fame) and they are hoping that Amie might have or know where there is archival footage of the Electronic Theatre of Siggraph in 1988.
Thank you.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Notes on Installing Windows 10 and Google Tensorflow (CPU only)
draft
This is the third time I have installed Windows 10. These are my notes from the experience.
1. Based on previous disaster, all other disks were unpowered when installing this OS. The only disk it could get to was the one that it was to be installed on.
2. Based on previous disaster, this disk is connected by SATA because the poor little piece of shit, Windows, cant install on USB (a marketing decision we are sure).
3. You need a Microsoft account to do this.
4. You sign an agreement which says in so many words that you are stupid for running MS software and if anything goes wrong you should go fuck yourself.
5. It reboots itself without telling you to remove the USB boot disk.
6. You must give it a device PIN.
7. You do have the option of turning off Windows Cloud, Cortina and weird non-privacy options.
8. It does not let you change the resolution on your screen.
9. When you install Firefox, it complains and tries to make you use its own stupid browser because of course it does. This is Microsoft.
10. Even though you turned Cortina and MS Cloud off it is still running, because of course it is.
11. When you download the Nvidia driver you have no choice but to load the "GEFORCE Experience" and wait 20 minutes while it downloads. The driver itself is at most a 1 minute download. Hey dont worry, my time doesnt matter.
12. One of the things I find fascinating is how slow it is. It is running on 8/16 fairly fast processors and essentially infinite memory, on an SSD drive at SATA 3 speeds and it is still slow.
13. Installing the NVIDIA driver was trivial, but ... here I am waiting for it to reboot. Will it reboot? Will it ever leave the SETUP screen? Oh Oh. Second reboot and it comes up just fine on the Nvidia card.
14. Must sign in with PIN. Weird. No way to turn it off that is obvious. Whatever they think they are doing with their control panel settings, it isnt helping. I cant find anything.
15. Now to install VLC for Windows (my preferred video player) and then we get to the good stuff. Tensorflow and Unity. OK VLC worked but forgot to turn off metadata download. Later.
16. Tensorflow ... two versions... CPU only and w/GPU. It says that beginners should only do CPU. So I install pip, virtual env, follow instructions for virtual env (one mistake in doc), run virtual env, load tensorflow via pip, run it and it fails! But wait, it fails because I skipped a step, the "MS Visual Development blahdy blahdy blahdy".
17. So I sign up for visual developer, which means a c/c++ compiler I think, and it also has a python development system and it tries to download 2 GBs. So I pause it, cut off everything but what I need the core and python, and that is a mere 380 MBs. Fine. Installed.
18. Reboot. Need to reboot twice to get Windows to run. Second time this has happened weird.
19. But now when I run tensorflow (cpu only) in python, in virtual environment, it works! Yay!
20. Installed matplotlib.
21. OK we are almost where we were a month ago.
22. Science Marches On!
12. One of the things I find fascinating is how slow it is. It is running on 8/16 fairly fast processors and essentially infinite memory, on an SSD drive at SATA 3 speeds and it is still slow.
13. Installing the NVIDIA driver was trivial, but ... here I am waiting for it to reboot. Will it reboot? Will it ever leave the SETUP screen? Oh Oh. Second reboot and it comes up just fine on the Nvidia card.
14. Must sign in with PIN. Weird. No way to turn it off that is obvious. Whatever they think they are doing with their control panel settings, it isnt helping. I cant find anything.
15. Now to install VLC for Windows (my preferred video player) and then we get to the good stuff. Tensorflow and Unity. OK VLC worked but forgot to turn off metadata download. Later.
16. Tensorflow ... two versions... CPU only and w/GPU. It says that beginners should only do CPU. So I install pip, virtual env, follow instructions for virtual env (one mistake in doc), run virtual env, load tensorflow via pip, run it and it fails! But wait, it fails because I skipped a step, the "MS Visual Development blahdy blahdy blahdy".
17. So I sign up for visual developer, which means a c/c++ compiler I think, and it also has a python development system and it tries to download 2 GBs. So I pause it, cut off everything but what I need the core and python, and that is a mere 380 MBs. Fine. Installed.
18. Reboot. Need to reboot twice to get Windows to run. Second time this has happened weird.
19. But now when I run tensorflow (cpu only) in python, in virtual environment, it works! Yay!
20. Installed matplotlib.
21. OK we are almost where we were a month ago.
22. Science Marches On!
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Buddhist vs Ultra Reform Jewish Response to Trump
draft
A Buddhist friend of a friend on Facebook says we must not be angry about Trump and his stupid followers but must follow a path of non-engagement. Or something like that.
My response was:
I am a former wanna-be Buddhist (never really a buddhist, but aspired to be as a youth, read books, you know the usual jewish white boy contrarian shtick...), but now I have returned to my Virginian ultra-reform assimilated Democratic nonJewish Jewish roots, and I call for the Tetragrammatron to smite them with a lightning bolt of patriarchal vigor!
Tensorflow on Hold After Weeks of Wasted Effort
draft
Time that could have been spent learning machine learning has instead been spent trying to get Tensorflow to work on Centos 7.5. Its been a neverending nightmare, a labyrinth of conflicting requirements, installation programs, neurotic programs that require specific versions, complications of using a GPU and so forth. I feel like I am living the Reagan "Star Wars" nightmare of software that is one bridge too far.
Let there be no doubt I made this worse for myself in a variety of ways. This computer has to serve a lot of purposes, not just one. Google Tensorflow makes a precompiled version for Ubuntu, which I despise, and makes the source available for other Linux's including Centos (Centos == Redhat for those of you outside that world).
Without doubt, the biggest problem here involves Python and its wacky Pip installer. Look, I know that if you are immersed in the Python culture that this all works for you kids. But I am not immerse, I want to use Keras and Tensorflow, Python is just along for the ride.
I had it working for normal CPU work and it was painful but not impossible. When I went to use it with a GPU, though, it all fell apart and now I can not get back.
The good news is that I do have CUDA working, which is a non trivial accomplishment. Of course, X is broken.
This nightmare has to end.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
The Supreme Court Crushes Freedom
draft
Any question you may have about whether or not the Supreme Court is just a right-wing tool of oppression should now have been answered.
1. Roberts has said that the Secretary of the Commerce does not have to answer questions about whether he lied to congress (perjured himself) during his nomination process.
2. Gorsuch is planning to assist the destruction of the census. The census feeds into everything else this country does when it comes to helping people. It is far, far more than a census in a simple sense of that word.
3. Roberts has stayed the progress of the children's crusade on global warming.
4. The supreme court has refused to act to end the insanely illegal violation of voting rights in Georgia, N. Dakota and other states. This means that the upcoming midterm elections will be invalid.
5. And of course, the right wing thug Kavanaugh lied to congress, is a complete shit, and was confirmed for the supreme court.
That is the end of the matter. Do what you will with this information, this is not new, this is just overt. There is no valid justice system in this country.
1. Roberts has said that the Secretary of the Commerce does not have to answer questions about whether he lied to congress (perjured himself) during his nomination process.
2. Gorsuch is planning to assist the destruction of the census. The census feeds into everything else this country does when it comes to helping people. It is far, far more than a census in a simple sense of that word.
3. Roberts has stayed the progress of the children's crusade on global warming.
4. The supreme court has refused to act to end the insanely illegal violation of voting rights in Georgia, N. Dakota and other states. This means that the upcoming midterm elections will be invalid.
5. And of course, the right wing thug Kavanaugh lied to congress, is a complete shit, and was confirmed for the supreme court.
That is the end of the matter. Do what you will with this information, this is not new, this is just overt. There is no valid justice system in this country.
What I Dont Understand
draft
I do not understand why, after the last two years of hell, the Democrats are not crushing the Republicans at the polls. I do not understand why they are not expected to win the Senate back. This is causing me to lose my faith in the American people.
I do not understand why, after the last two years of hell, the Democrats are not crushing the Republicans at the polls. I do not understand why they are not expected to win the Senate back. This is causing me to lose my faith in the American people.
Friday, October 19, 2018
Constitutional Failure, What Changes Should We Make?
draft
Since the constitution has obviously failed and we are living in semi-dictatorship, or moving in that direction, (see note), it seems reasonable to discuss how we can change the constitution to improve it and prevent such things in the future. But since our elected leaders and political elite have failed to step up to this challenge, I will do it for them. For those of you who say I am completely unqualified, my response is "too f*cking bad". I have endured two illegal presidents in my lifetime and now we have a bunch of right wing thugs in the judiciary and while that is obviously OK with you it is not OK with me.
You want a country? You want a democracy? You failed to do anything and your opportunity is over. Now lets see what someone else can do.
As Putin has said, paraphrasing here, "America has made too many mistakes" and he is right. Our first mistake was to allow the Republicans and Fox News to exist.
Note: OK, if it were a true dictatorship, it wouldnt matter what I said, and of course it doesnt matter what I say, now does it? See! But seriously folks, we have one fucked up country here and I am not seeing our political elite responding in a coherent and holistic way.
Note: OK, if it were a true dictatorship, it wouldnt matter what I said, and of course it doesnt matter what I say, now does it? See! But seriously folks, we have one fucked up country here and I am not seeing our political elite responding in a coherent and holistic way.
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Roberts Claims the Supreme Court will be Independent
draft
Roberts claims that the supreme court will be independent of politics and just do the right thing. See for example see this article in Politico.
But he is, of course, lying. Remember, it was Roberts who voted to put their right wing thug, George W. Bush into office over the obviously elected Al Gore. The ostensible reason, if you recall, is that there can not be bad delays in determining this vote. Oh, really? No voting rights for this court, I suppose.
But now today when we have overt voting rights suppression in at least Georgia, Florida and N. Dakota, notice that the Supreme Court does nothing. The legitimacy of the election system is being challenged in a very real and overt fashion, but the Supreme Court does not act. Why not?
Could it be because this suppression helps the right wing Republican Party exert their control over the majority? Could it be that the right wing thugs on the Supreme Court are just playing the partisan game and just paying lipservice to the idea of doing the right thing?
As of Kavanaugh and the huge number of right wing thugs put at all levels of the Federal Judiciary, justice is over in this country until these people are impeached. Let me repeat that, in case I was vague. There is no justice in this country until further notice.
Which leads to my first platform promise: if elected, I will work to impeach all the right wing thugs put on the judiciary by the Republicans and replace them by honest lawyers who have the country's interests at heart.
Roberts claims that the supreme court will be independent of politics and just do the right thing. See for example see this article in Politico.
But he is, of course, lying. Remember, it was Roberts who voted to put their right wing thug, George W. Bush into office over the obviously elected Al Gore. The ostensible reason, if you recall, is that there can not be bad delays in determining this vote. Oh, really? No voting rights for this court, I suppose.
But now today when we have overt voting rights suppression in at least Georgia, Florida and N. Dakota, notice that the Supreme Court does nothing. The legitimacy of the election system is being challenged in a very real and overt fashion, but the Supreme Court does not act. Why not?
Could it be because this suppression helps the right wing Republican Party exert their control over the majority? Could it be that the right wing thugs on the Supreme Court are just playing the partisan game and just paying lipservice to the idea of doing the right thing?
As of Kavanaugh and the huge number of right wing thugs put at all levels of the Federal Judiciary, justice is over in this country until these people are impeached. Let me repeat that, in case I was vague. There is no justice in this country until further notice.
Which leads to my first platform promise: if elected, I will work to impeach all the right wing thugs put on the judiciary by the Republicans and replace them by honest lawyers who have the country's interests at heart.
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
In Response to a Post by Mary Lou Jepson
draft
Mary Lou Jepson asked if there was something you could tell your younger self that might change your degree choice or your path, what would it be.
So I said:
"Right now, people are treating you well in spite of your lack of credentials, but that is a temporary phenomenon, sadly. There will be a time when people will judge you based on what is on paper, and by then there will be those who like you and those who dont. Therefore, you are encouraged to get the best credentials you can now, while you have the cachet and while the various advantages society makes available to those in this stage of their career are available. If anything goes wrong, you will wish you had those credentials".
Mary Lou Jepson asked if there was something you could tell your younger self that might change your degree choice or your path, what would it be.
So I said:
"Right now, people are treating you well in spite of your lack of credentials, but that is a temporary phenomenon, sadly. There will be a time when people will judge you based on what is on paper, and by then there will be those who like you and those who dont. Therefore, you are encouraged to get the best credentials you can now, while you have the cachet and while the various advantages society makes available to those in this stage of their career are available. If anything goes wrong, you will wish you had those credentials".
A Suggestion for the Justice System
draft
You see, here is the problem. When you destroy the justice system with your right wing goons, like Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Roberts, Thomas and a whole slew of nutty boys in the Federal system whose names we may not even know, then when a judgment happens that is obviously unjust, such as the one that just happened against Stormy Daniels, then we assume that the fix is in. We cant assume that justice was done because we dont trust the justice system.
You leave us no choice but to put as many of our partisans on the court as we can, as a countermeasure. Yes, you fucked it up.
Dont complain when it comes back to bite you in the ass.
Footnote: The day after the defamation suit against Daniels is dismissed, Trump calls her "Horseface". Dont you love justice in America?
You see, here is the problem. When you destroy the justice system with your right wing goons, like Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Roberts, Thomas and a whole slew of nutty boys in the Federal system whose names we may not even know, then when a judgment happens that is obviously unjust, such as the one that just happened against Stormy Daniels, then we assume that the fix is in. We cant assume that justice was done because we dont trust the justice system.
You leave us no choice but to put as many of our partisans on the court as we can, as a countermeasure. Yes, you fucked it up.
Dont complain when it comes back to bite you in the ass.
Footnote: The day after the defamation suit against Daniels is dismissed, Trump calls her "Horseface". Dont you love justice in America?
Monday, October 8, 2018
Voter Disengagement or Brain Disengagement
draft
Some friend of a friend on Facebook tells me that I am a part of "Voter Disengagement" and that I am part of the problem. This is in response to me saying that I might vote, but what I really wanted was a plan that was going to work. We voted, I pointed out, we won and it didnt work.
So he calls me part of the problem.
My point is, we cant win with stupid assholes like this. We have just encountered a right wing coup d'etat and he says I am part of the problem for pointing out that voting did not help.
I mean like, what the fuck?
Some friend of a friend on Facebook tells me that I am a part of "Voter Disengagement" and that I am part of the problem. This is in response to me saying that I might vote, but what I really wanted was a plan that was going to work. We voted, I pointed out, we won and it didnt work.
So he calls me part of the problem.
My point is, we cant win with stupid assholes like this. We have just encountered a right wing coup d'etat and he says I am part of the problem for pointing out that voting did not help.
I mean like, what the fuck?
The Little Baby Jesus Gonna Rip Their Heads Off Now
draft
The little baby Jesus gonna rip their heads off now!
The little baby Jesus gonna rip their heads off now!
The little baby Jesus gonna rip their heads off now!
The little baby Jesus gonna rip their heads off now!
Gonna Rip McConnell's Head Off Now!
Gonna Rip Grassley's Head Off Now!
Gonna Rip Kaveneauh's Head Off Now!
Gonna Rip the Orange Zit's Head Off Now!
The little baby Jesus gonna rip their heads off now!
etc.
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