For the last few weeks, the Hollywood writers have been on strike. I won’t bore you with the details. Like all strikes it boils down to money. The writers feel they aren’t getting what’s owed to them, and the production companies want to hold onto as much sweet moola as possible. Normally I’m indifferent to … Continue reading A Note on the Writer’s Strike
Author: Bakerjd
Professional curmudgeon and relentless skeptic. "Belief" is a bullshit word. You know or you don't know!
A Call for Mandatory Universal Mind Broadcasting
Recently AI has been applied to decoding MRI brain scans. The researchers claim that it’s possible to reconstruct parts of what the scanned subjects are “thinking or seeing.” Despite a laundry list of caveats, and the tentative limited nature of these claims, the misleadia jumped all over this and declared, with bed-wetting urgency, that the … Continue reading A Call for Mandatory Universal Mind Broadcasting
Donald Patterson
A parable by Kline Leopold Hedrös ©2023 After being missing for over a century Donald Patterson’s frozen naked body was found sitting on a boulder overlooking a tranquil lake. His eyes were closed, he was leaning forward, his palms were on his knees, his legs were spread wide, a serene smile snaked over his face, … Continue reading Donald Patterson
Sympathy for Ptolemaic Epicyclers
Histories of science tend to cast “old theory holdouts” as uncouth, backward, prejudiced, and stinky nitwits. If you don’t immediately jump on the shiny new science bandwagon you’re on the wrong side of history and doomed to a legacy of ridicule and disdain. Mind you, these just so histories fail to mention that most new … Continue reading Sympathy for Ptolemaic Epicyclers
Some Modest Proposals for SVBish Bank Bailouts
Here we go again another criminal bank bailout. Don’t even try and argue that the SVB bailout isn’t a bailout. You can tell it’s a bailout from all the frantic explanations the Biden gang is pushing telling us how giving funds, way over FDIC deposit insurance limits, to deposit holders in 2023 fundamentally differs from … Continue reading Some Modest Proposals for SVBish Bank Bailouts
How Many Authenticated Ancient Mathematical Artifacts are Known?
“How many authenticated ancient mathematical artifacts are known?” I recently asked myself this question while researching the history of mathematical proof. Ultimately, all historical theories must answer to the evidence. For mathematics, this means studying surviving parchment documents, cuneiform tablets, bamboo strips, bone markings, Stella inscriptions, calculating boards, and other objects, that inform our mathematical … Continue reading How Many Authenticated Ancient Mathematical Artifacts are Known?
Ethanol is Excrement in the Gas Tank
Like many U.S. government programs, the blended corn ethanol mandate has done little to address its avowed goals, i.e., strengthen energy security, reduce carbon emissions, and lower prices for consumers. By some accounts it, consumes more energy than it produces, increases consumer prices, distorts food production, wastes vast tracts of arable land, and contributes to … Continue reading Ethanol is Excrement in the Gas Tank
For Me in Twenty Twenty-Three
Let’s get this over with! Every year I task myself with a list of publicly declared goals,1 and then in the next year, if I find myself among the living,2 I grade myself. How did 2022 go? Let’s start with my small goals. Goal: Observe as many Messier objects as weather permits and get my … Continue reading For Me in Twenty Twenty-Three
ChatGPT Comments on this Blog
In 2022 reality once again asserted dominance over wishful-thinking naked apes. Governments everywhere gave up on COVID. The virus won, as many cynics said it would three years ago. We now live with COVID, as if we had a choice, and it will kill some of us from time to time. Our transition to low … Continue reading ChatGPT Comments on this Blog
Mission Statements for this Blog
I have a weakness for how to improve your writing books.1 Lately, I’ve been reading Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark. Writing Tools is full of useful advice that I will make efforts to heed. Clark’s Tool 40 motivated this post. Tool 40 advises writers to craft short mission statements2 for their compositions. He provides … Continue reading Mission Statements for this Blog
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 