Again?

 

I Remember It Well

We met at 9
We met at 8
I was on time
No, you were late
Ah yes
I remember it well

MAGA? How well do you remember the past?

Memory is an opinion, not the Truth. That is why a jury of twelve peers is asked to judge the memory of trial witnesses, and still sometimes gets it wrong. It is why the memories of individuals can be different which is the plot of many movies such as Rashomon and the Last Duel. Memories get cloudy with age. Which is why old men since ancient Greek times have complained about the young.

What is evidence tomorrow might contradict the memory of yesterday. That is why hard evidence like written records are valued and why banning of books is so dangerous. The Texas Revolution which included the Alamo might have been fought over the ability of landowners to own slaves while the Mexican government was abolishing slavery. Wiping something from memory, such as the Tulsa Race Riot, does not mean that it did not happen, only that it is not remembered.

Before you rely on AGAIN, make sure that AGAIN is based on TRUTH and not merely on memory. Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Patience

 

You Can’t Hurry Love

No, I can't bear to live my life alone
I grow impatient for a love to call my own
But when I feel that I, I can't go on
These precious words keeps me hanging on
I remember mama said
… No, you just have to wait
She said love don't come easy
It's a game of give and take

And remember to always listen to your Mama!

Goodness, we are an impatient species.  We want it right now.  But we have to remember to have patience, young padawan. You can’t hurry anything.  Being patient is NOT being boring. Settling for the first thing that comes along, not waiting to see if things change, picking the biggest thing instead of the most valuable thing shows immaturity.  Don’t be immature. Don’t hurry anything.

When I was young, comedian Alan Sherman had a hit record with Camp Granada, a parody set to the tune of the Dance of the Hours.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yFTOvO0utY.  He wrote the parody because he observed that when he sent his son to summer camp, his son wanted to come home immediately instead of giving it a chance, and his son would tell the most outrageous lies to get home.  Learning to wait, be patient, give things a chance, not to hurry anything, is just as valid today as it was when I was young.  Yes, Mama.

Election 2024 II

 

Its All In The Game

Many a tear has to fall but it's all in the game
All in the wonderful game that we know as love
You have words with him and your future's looking dim
But these things your hearts can rise above

An election is an important game, but it is still only a game.

What can Game Theory tell us about the results of an election? The outcome of any game between two equally matched contestants is win, loss AND tie. It is customary in most contests to employ some tiebreaker so that if the game ends in a tie, then it will still ultimately result  in a win or a loss. If there are two equally matched opponents it is probable that they will still have different policies and characters.

If Candidate 1 has policies that are preferred by 60% of the voters but has a character that is preferred by only 20% of the voters, then Candidate 2 must have the opposite. If wins and losses are determined by policies alone, then  Candidate 1 will win. However that is only 2/3 of the electorate. The remaining electorate, 1/3, will have to employ a tie breaker. If that tie breaker is character, then Candidate 1 will have a vote total of 47%, 60% of 2/3 plus 20% of 1/3,  while Candidate 2 will have a vote total of 53%, 40% of 2/3 plus 80% of 1/3. Candidate 2 will win. Candidate 1 may complain that only policies should have been the tie breaker or that ties should not count, but that is the math if character is the tie breaker.

That is the popular vote. The electoral vote depends on the outcome in each state weighed by its share of electoral votes. If the preference of each candidate’s policies and character differs among the electorate in each state, then the outcome in each state will be different.

The state share of electoral votes being “winner take all” is a custom only, not a constitutional requirement. If the House share of a state’s electoral votes are awarded by the vote in each House congressional district, as is the case in Nebraska, then the electoral vote will be more in keeping with the intent of the founding fathers. IOW all states should award electoral votes like Nebraska, not Nebraska should award votes by “winner takes all” like other states. Then the winning Candidate will have a majority of the voters AND broad representation among the United states.

In any event Candidate 2 should focus on character NOT policies, if character is the tie breaker. Focusing on policies alone plays to Candidate 1’s strength. Play the game correctly.

Absolute Zero

 

Key's in the Conch Shell

It's the third thatched roof on the right
Right beside crystal blue water
First wave of the day
Almost got away but my sail board caught her.

Let’s talk about that first wave.

There is a tendency to dismiss zero. But there are two kinds of zero, a relative zero and an absolute zero. An absolute zero CAN be dismissed, but a relative zero CAN NOT be dismissed. What is meant by a relative zero? Think of temperature. 0º Celsius ( 32º Fahrenheit for you non-STEM Americans) is the freezing point of water. But it is 273.15º on the absolute Kelvin temperature scale. The reason being that when measuring temperature on the Celsius scale, negative numbers are allowed. -40º Celsius means that it is cold, not that there is negative temperature. On an absolute scale there is no temperature less than zero. So there is a world of difference between a relative zero, e.g. 0º Celsius, and an absolute zero, e.g. 0º Kelvin. While it is convenient to act like ‑500º Celsius has a reality, in fact it is less than would be allowed on the Kelvin scale and thus is NOT real.

Why does this matter. A complex number is a+b*i. If b=0 is an absolute zero then it can be ignored and only the real coefficient, a, can be a concern. However if b=0 is a relative zero then it should NOT be ignored. This has a bearing on all forms of mathematics. This is because there are different solutions for linear regression, statistics, calculus, the quadratic equation, Pythagoras Theorem, relativistic dilation, etc. when that zero coefficient of an imaginary number is dropped or retained.

Pythagoras’s Theorem is c=√(a²+b²). This is true because c²=a²+b²+0²i where there is an absolute zero coefficient of the imaginary component of a complex number. But this needs imaginary solutions when a²+b² is negative. However if that zero is a relative zero and the surface is hyperbolic then the solution is c=ln(cosh(√((a²+b²))±sinh(√((a²+b²))) and no imagainary solutions are required. The hyperbolic solution is approximately √(a²+b²) most of the times that matter to us, 83.3%, 5/6, of the time. A hyperbolic solution when x is less than 16.7%, 1/6, away from the absolute will look like a parabola any way.  It is only as it nears the absolute that the approximation breaks down and it looks like a hyperbolic curved line that never approaches the absolute.

If the absolute is a wave, then it may be approximately true as you get further away from the start of that wave, even if that wave will infinitely repeat. However the approximation may break down in the first wave, before it repeats, where you are closest to the absolute. It is true that the solution to ln(cosh(x)±sinh(x)) is equal to both x and -x. However that is true only if x is larger than 1x10^-15 (at least according to Excel Microsoft Office 365 Apps version 2409)    Less than this value, the sharp discontinuity required by the approximation at x=0 appears to smooth out and the solutions are no longer equal. That first wave is different.

 

 

Climate Change IV

 

Sinnerman

Well, I run to the river
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', all on that day
So I ran to the Lord
I said Lord, hide me
Please hide me
Please help me, all on that day

You mean like the day climate change hits?

The devastation that hit western North Carolina, especially Asheville, was ironic because it struck hard against people who were fleeing sea coasts and the impact of climate change.  However this did NOT save them from the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. Hurricanes are named after the Mayan Storm God, Huracán.  Maybe they should have against the Lord to hide them after all?

Human perception of reality is an illusion that different things exist, that things exist independent from one another. Huracán, who the Mayans also say created the world, would only damage himself by damaging his creations. Hurricane season every year should remind us that human beings are NOT independent from nature but part of it. And like Hurácan, if we damage nature, we damage ourselves.

Small

 

It’s A Small World

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

But just because you are also small, that does not mean you are the world.

You are NOT the world.  WE are the world, as the song goes. 

Growing up in Rhode Island, my native state, I can attest that the inhabitants can forget this.  Almost everyone in Rhode Island can run into someone else in Rhode Island.  But that does not mean that is true for every state. When I moved from Rhode Island to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I remember a neighbor telling me that he had a cousin in Pittsburgh, PA. With all seriousness he said that when I run into him say hello. 😏 Just because Rhode Island is a small state, does not mean that every state is small. I bicycled back and forth across the width of Rhode Island one afternoon.  I don't think I could do that in Pennsylvania.

The complaint that Kamala Harris was sorority sisters with Lindsey Davis, one of the moderators of the ABC debate with Donald Trump, also gets this wrong.  They were sorority sisters, along with 360,000 other members of that same sorority.  They went to college 15 years apart and attended two different colleges hundreds of miles apart.  Yes they were sorority sisters, but the complaint could not have been that they were both Black, could it?😏

Currency

 

Slow Hand

‘Cause I got a man with a slow hand
I got a lover with an easy touch
I got somebody who will spend some time
Not come and go in a heated rush’
I found somebody who will understand
When it comes to love, I want a slow hand.

But sometimes you need not just slow but NO.

Slow inflation at 2% APR, is still inflation. It means that each and every year your money is worth less and less.

“The Boiling Frog Syndrome describes the effect on a frog being put into boiling water and being slowly boiled alive. A frog suddenly put into a pot of boiling water, will jump out to save itself.. But if the frog is put in lukewarm water with the temperature slowly rising over time, it will not perceive any danger and will be cooked to death.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lessons-from-a-burnt-out-psychologist/202406/the-boiling-frog-syndrome-a-metaphor-for-burnout

The Nixon Shock of 1971 made the international currency, which was the US Dollar, no longer convertible to gold. Meanwhile the amount of USD in circulation was pegged to the domestic economy, and it effectively ignored the international economy. Nixon made the classic mistake that everything is either/or. It is not. There is a third way which is both.

Prior to 1933, the US dollar, USD, was on the gold standard. But once the ownership of gold was made illegal by US citizens, it became a fiat currency. The problem is that it had already become a bank note currency merely backed by the commodity of gold.  International trade prior to WWII was based on a country’s gold supply. But during WWII so much of the international gold supply was stored in the US to prevent it from being stolen by the Nazis. In addition so much was lent by the US, that the US effectively had most of the gold anyway. The Bretton Woods conference was made to foster international trade, and it eventually made the USD, at a fixed price of gold, the international currency over Keynes's preferred Bancor. The Nixon Shock may have looked like it was returning to an international commodity currency but Bretton Woods had already made the USD the international bank note currency and this only changed it from being fiat bank notes to commodity bank notes. Unfortunately, the supply of US Dollars was fixed not to the needs of both the international AND the domestic economy, the USD in circulation was based ONLY on the domestic economy. The result was too few USDs in circulation for the demands of domestic AND international trade. And the result was major inflation in the 1970s and declining but still persistent inflation since that time.

As long as the USD is the international currency yet the supply of USD is based only on the domestic economy, inflation will be with us. Inflation, even if it is slow, may eventually kill us just like that frog. If we want NO inflation and, the USD is to be the banknote of and  international currency, then the USD in circulation should be by fiat and that should be based on the demand of the domestic economy AND international trade. Let’s not be content with being slow boiling frogs.