Archives for November 2015

Blog Marathon Called Off Due Extreme Temperatures, Diuresis, Ketosis, Loss of Appetite

November 28, 2015 42 Comments

Post #7 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,265 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

This will count for my last post touted as a “blog marathon.” Seven posts in three days is way above average, but nothing at all like the 12 posts I did the first time, or 20 posts the last time.

I’ve been defeated, so no feats for me!

Bye-bye “blog marathon”

Last week I did a laudatory post on chronic but mild cold exposure, which we really just happened upon. It’s not by any design; it’s simply a tradeoff. But, we were looking at the forecast for this week and saw that temperatures were going to go from mid-40s in the mornings to mid and low-30s. For example, this morning, 5th day in a row like this:

So let me tell you the story of how I failed at this blog marathon. I’ve been trying to work it out in my malfunctioning brain since like 2 am this morning when I had a few hours of sleeplessness. It’s still all a muddle, but I’ll try to tell the story and organize my take on the n=1 data, sloppily filtered through my malfunctioning brain.

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Understanding Paradigms and Narratives is the Key to Enlightenment.

November 27, 2015 6 Comments

Post #6 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,263 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

I doubt Robert Bidonatto has any clue of who I am, in terms of when I took some note of his writing back in USENET in 1994-96, on alt.pholosophy.objectivism and later, humanities.pholosopy.objectivism.

These days, he appears to be doing well. I recently got wind of his Faceboof outlet, and I’m anxious to read his two books: HUNTER: A Dylan Hunter Justice Thriller; and now, the sequel: BAD DEEDS. I’m also anxious to see if they’re Ragnar Danneskjöld-esque. Apparently, the first was a Kindle best seller.

I commented on an introduction to a post he did this morning, like this:

Bidinotto is spot on about this and it’s something I rarely see from the libertarians who basically often strike me as bean counters in the historical/philosophical realm, an obsession with the nuts and bolts of cause —> effect, but never addressing the real story line or explaining it in terms of a true story or narrative. It’s the “tragedy of the intellectuals.”

It’s weird when, someone you don’t even know—I only read some of his posts—comes back and “bites you” over 20 years later.

My narration, above, was over this introduction to a link he was sharing…and let me just say that I stoutly appreciate a man who actually takes a bit to substantially introduce something he’s sharing. I don’t do it all the time, but perhaps I ought to share less and frame what I do share, more.

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While Girls Are Out Shopping For More Shoes, Here’s Two Things Guys Must Have On Black Friday

November 27, 2015 10 Comments

Post #5 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,262 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

Go audacious or go home!

Guys, everybody is out shopping for the latest deals. Why? Because they have a tough time selling all that crap normally. But if you don’t tell the laddies that this is a liquidation sale, they won’t be any the wiser and you just go ahead and smile when they come back home with a car full of shopping bags.

Nonetheless, there are indeed things nearly every man truly needs. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

First up, the Icon A5.

The price tag is $250K, but if you lock up your wife for about 5 years in the dungeon so she can’t shop, I think you’re a pencil sharpening away from amortizing that purchase without having to earn any more money.

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A Ridiculously Short Anti-Shopper’s Guide to Black Friday

November 27, 2015 3 Comments

Post #4 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,261 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

Some may have noticed that I have a handful of “Black Friday” images in the banner rotation of about 100.

When I checked email this morning, the lion’s share were from every merchant list I must have managed to get on in the last 20 years on the Internet. Like my cell phone number from 1993, I still have some very old email addresses.

I must confess that I don’t get it. I’m not a “SALE!” person any time of the year and for some reason, the prospect of being able to by 35% more stuff with the same number of dollars on this one day of the year simply doesn’t entice me.

Two reasons for that. First and foremost, when I want or require something, for whatever reason, I demand to have it NOW! Sure, I don’t mind discounts, good bargains, whatever, but the bottom line is that if I have determined I truly want or need something that is within my means to acquire, even at full retail, then price takes a back seat. Second, my buying behavior is demand driven, not supply.

I’ll elaborate.

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Reflections On Food, Paleo, and The Revolution

November 26, 2015 10 Comments

Post #3 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,260 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

We used to laugh uproariously and poke fun at the articles and authors tagging Paleo as a fad.

“Well, it’s a 2 million year old fad, then.” HaHaHa.

There were right; they are right. It is. I’m not sure it started out that way. I certainly wasn’t trying to make it so, but rather, was participating in what seemed to me like a food revolution based on a really sound foundation…human evolution. And it was powerful. Myself and many others lost much weight. We achieved improved health markers from whatever baseline.

Sometime back I stopped putting my posts into categories or tagging them, and I collapsed all my categories into “No Particular Category.” I have a queer visceral distaste for SEO bullshit and all that stuff. I just want to write and hit publish. Google treats me pretty damn nice in spite of my SEO incompetence.

I don’t recall the exact number, but it was something like 300 or more posts of my cooking in my Food Porn category. Haphazardly, I published some few dozens to Pinterest along the way.

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Free Flight, Bird of Prey and Space Tourism Coming Soon

November 26, 2015 1 Comment

Post #2 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,259 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

Well I’ve given away the theme. But rather than one of my now-&-then, watch me fly a hang glider, I have three interesting instances to cover.

Let’s get the hang-gliding out of the way, first. Saw it this morning. Guy on a rigid-wing Atos in Montecucco, Italy, having a blast flying backwards in the strong laminar ridge life and probably, Venturi effect. Unfortunately, it seems to only be on Facebook.

This might seem scary to you but in fact, laminar flow on a ridge from either prevailing winds or a pre-frontal condition is probably the most safe, predictable flying. Nothing like “bullet thermals” in high-summer desert conditions, landing just as a dust devil is kicking off.

Here’s me flying the exact same rigid wing (#53 off the German assembly line) some years back in pre-frontal storm conditions here in San Jose, off the peak at Ed Levin park, near Mission. In case you think you might not want to watch this 1:30m, know that I bonk the landing and everyone laughs at me, as they should. Justice!

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Happy Thanksgiving. A Celebration Of The Ensuing Bounty From Abandoning Communism

November 26, 2015 6 Comments

Post #1 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,258 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

The idea of communal-style living has captivated audiences ever since people began accumulating assets. It’s rather intuitive. In any population, there exists a spectrum of very capable people down to complete wastes of flesh.

It happens. It’s mother nature, and mother nature usually improves the genetic stock by allowing the least capable to perish. Human society, while laudably compassionate, often seeks to remedy that natural situation and depending on your view, does too little or way too much. Doing way to much comes with adverse consequences in that it tends to encourage parasitism.

The idea goes that if everyone simply produces for the good of everyone else, then things even out—to each, according to his need; from each, according to his ability—and everyone’s happy as clams. Paradise perfect.

The problem is, while we’re social animals to be sure, we tend to mind who we associate with. Moreover, we tend to eschew freeloaders. In that regard, it’s interesting that in advocating free markets, one of the chief arguments against all-out free-markets is the free-rider problem and the tragedy of the commons. Both are similar, but in essence, both are about disproportionate distribution of goods, services, and resources (such as water and mineral rights, etc.) on the sole basis of biology (we’re human), and not on things like merit, intelligence, ability, contracts, property, capital investment, risk tolerance, etc.

But the thing is, no social system more highlights the problems with free loaders and free exploiters than does socialism and communism. In practical fact, it’s a system that breeds both the best.

There’s lots of stuff you can Google about the experiment in communism that was Plymouth, MA, 1620, so pick one and read. I chose this one.

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12th Year Anniversary Blog Marathon Begins Tomorrow

November 25, 2015 11 Comments

I’ve done it twice before. the first time was way back in 2008, when I pumped out 12 posts on December 31, 2008.

Two years ago, I did 20 posts in three days, beginning with Black Friday.

This time, I think I’ll begin tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, in honor of all people “home alone” for Thanksgiving as I’ll be myself, this year. Then, I’ll continue into Black Friday and perhaps even Saturday, until Bea returns from down south with my doggie organisms.

So yea, 12 years blogging. First post went up November 3, 2003. Or, 4,256 posts ago. There are 4,380 days in 12 years.

Beginning tomorrow, follow along if you like. I have no idea yet in terms of any plan or even particular posts. If you’d like me to spew forth on some particular topic, drop a suggestion in comment or contact me by other means.

Accidental Cold Adaptation For Fun

November 24, 2015 15 Comments

I recently blogged about this topic here. It was actually a bomb of a post (it happens). Little to no interest, which kinda mystified me, since it has been such a big deal in times past. But it also happens that I sometimes miss the mark in blogging what might interest me, but not correspond elsewhere (it happens).

Stalwart I am, I’m going to try again, a bit different angle, more experience, and some pics. And, a big qualification to render this as something of curiosity, not something you necessarily want to do.

To recap, Beatrice and I took on a project to live off grid, guard a large property where a fire took place in August, and I may be managing the rebuilding project on site, 24/7. But the important thing is that the view is astounding and it’s 3 miles down the hill to her work. We love it, 4 dogs and all, all camping out in an RV. We regularly laugh at how crazy we’ve allowed ourselves to become.

For instance, when she’s head down, cleaning up the RV, I like to joke that she’s going to tarnish our trailer trash image. We have so much fun poking fun at ourselves, the dogs. It’s a crazy life. Being all together in a 30′ RV every night lends a special touch to simple human contact and closeness…and canine contact, with 3 of the 4 of them playing musical bed & covers periodically throughout the night. Scout (“butt hole”) growls if you change position while sleeping. I could go on and on. We laugh all the time—unless we both tipped a bottle a little too much, and we have a little mini shit-talking fight.

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“Terrorism is to do with everything except Islam.”

November 22, 2015 54 Comments

There are two essential errors of thought that stand in the way of eradicating terrorism—or, simply relegating it to the back of the bus, as just part of the low-level, incidental evil that will probably always measurably unsettle humanity.

The idea that’s it’s somehow not ideologically tied primarily to the religion of Islam.
Hand wringing over collateral death and destruction, leading to the tying of hands in terms of effective and lasting action.

I aim to give you reasonable cause to dismiss both of those.

First of all, understand that the entirety of the schtick that goes ‘terrorists aren’t true Muslims’ is actually an informal logical fallacy known as No True Scotsman. Definition:

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.^[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim (“no Scotsman would do such a thing”), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule (“no true Scotsman would do such a thing”).^[2]

In practical parlance, it takes this form:

Philosophy professor Bradley Dowden explains the fallacy as an “ad hoc rescue” of a refuted generalization attempt.^[1] The following is an example of the fallacy:^[3]
Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person B: “But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge.”
Person A: “Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”

You can find it all the time, even amongst communists who assert that the USSR and China weren’t truly communist countries, or even libertarians who assert that we don’t have true capitalism. The latter charge has merit, and has been well differentiated by decent libertarians and anarchists, but I’ll save that digression for another post someday.

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