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When the Berlin fell (was torn down!) and the USSR tossed itself onto the ash heap of history, Francis Fukuyama suggested that it might be "the end of history."
After the 2002 elections when the Republicans gained seats in the House and Senate while there are was a Republican President, some suggested that it might be the end of the Democrat Party.
Now, with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats in majority in the House and Senate, some are saying that it's surely the end of the Republican Party.
History is on-going. The Democrats managed not to collapse into nothingness after 2002. Why should 2008 or even 2009 be any different for Republicans or conservatives? It's all rather silly. The form may (and rightly should) change. But "the end" it is not. I'm not about to predict an automatic Republican resurgence in 2010. It's quite possible for them to screw up - just take a look at how well they did with NY-23 where they swerved so far off course that when a third candidate started gaining, the supposed Republican dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat. Unless that third party candidate was "caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl" that is a Career Limiting Move. If they repeat that performance, they will likely get the same result.
It's just that I've been seeing many posts or comments about the end of one party that seem silly to me. I've seen the exact same thing from the other side not that long ago. And I remember. It's not the end. It's just different for a while is all. The population that got tired of Republicans can, and will, eventually get tired of Democrats and almost certainly for about the exact same reasons. The details will change, but the cause-effect relationship will be pretty stable. And time marches on.
I went rummaging around the attic yesterday looking for something that as far as I can tell isn't up there. But I did find some other things, including the rabbit ears I was looking for a few months back, not that they'll do me any good anytime soon. I also found a couple old 'personal music players'. One was a cheapie GPX AM/FM radio and the other, to my surprise, was an honest to goodness Sony Walkman (WM-FX301 if model numbers have any meaning for you). It's no mp3 player, but it has AM/FM and the tape player is even auto-reverse. I had forgotten I had such a thing. I'm not even sure how I wound up with such a thing.
As if that wasn't enough, this has to have been sitting for oh, about 8 years I'd guess and the cells were still good. How did I manage to forget this, with a set of lithium cells in it yet? I don't know.
I used it last night while doing a few things about the house. The advantage is that I can listen and not disturb ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jmaynard. The AM band was full of noise, hardly a surprise in a house (or world) full of computers. FM didn't have as much noise, but aside from some of the programming on Public Radio, FM broadcast is pretty much junk. So I grabbed a tape. One that seems to have stuff on it from about 1984. I hadn't listened to it in some time.
One tune was Mark Russell singing about how "Fritz Can't Win Come Election Day" when it was plain a couple weeks before the election that Walter Mondale wouldn't get far. Another was Garrison Keillor going on about the loss, "We're Never Gonna Run For President Again." I suspect he'd be less than thrilled if Tim Pawlenty ran - and won. Another tune was about alternate energy and was clearly before the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hysteria as it belittled everything but coal - and fusion when it finally is made to work - and there was no concern at all about carbon dioxide. I'm tempted to copy down the lyrics of some of these to see what folks might have to say about them.
The Walkman seems big and clunky now, but it is mechanical and not all that much larger than the tape it plays. I'd still like to have a personal mp3 player, but I have something workable right now.
When I was a kid I would see things in old movies that were pretty much like the things around me. There were differences, but some stuff still used tubes. Music that wasn't on the radio often was from a phonograph. Cameras used film. Phones had rotary dials. But things have changed. The last few vacuum tubes in the house are the picture tubes (CRTs) and the magnetron in the microwave. Camera now means digital. Phones have buttons. Music is from... a CD maybe, but more often mp3. Even the lights are changing from incandescent to CFL or LED depending on the application. Those old movies were old, but they didn't seem all that foreign. I suspect that to someone who grew up with the modern replacements of things, such films seem all that much more ancient. For them, the continuity is more broken than it was (and is) for me.
Vacuum tube electronics
Record players and records
Rotary dial telephones
Film cameras
Incandescent lights
What did I miss?
I brought a set of pan horns to work today and put them on for a few minutes this morning. Carefully arranging my hair, I managed to hide the twine that held them in place. I then went to few different folks and said that I didn't think much of the hype some folks seem to have about today's date, "after all, it's not as if anything really unusual happens" and see if they had any reaction. I got a few smiles and a couple chuckles.
And then that was enough of that after a few minutes. If someone wants to consider a really beastly June 6, it was in 1944. XM channel 4, which normally plays music from the 1940s (and 1930s) had some D-Day broadcasts which I found quite interesting on the drive to work. The tone was quite intense.
Monday there were some helium balloons left and since I'd never tried talking with helium, I went to the trouble of untying one. There was some change in voice, but I caught myself trying to talking in a higher pitch. I wonder how much is the helium and how much of the effect is from "helping" the helium along. After that, KT, JJ, Chaka, and I went out in search of breakfast or lunch.
( Space Center, Chaka & Chaka, and a party )
That movie has been showing now. Even Fairmont's little theater did the bit with selling tickets late at night and then showing the picture just after midnight. I am planning on seeing it, eventually, though only to have an idea of what many are going on about rather than as a true fan. While I was around and aware of the first Star Wars movie, I didn't see it then and when I finally did see it, I had what might be called a Weird Al Moment - the realization that I preferred the parodies over the original.
This will be the opening weekend, which will be crowded and thus something I'd rather avoid. While many like the crowd experience, I am not one of that many. To me, the best theater experience is when the theater is about empty. I like private screenings where there is no distracting crowd.
But there's a possible problem. I'll be off to RCFM the next weekend. It's not that I expect it'll stop showing. After all, Episodes I and II showed for some time and they were generally regarded as lacking, while supposedly III is a better film, at least according to the True Fans. No, the problem is I fear someone might have the bright idea to see the movie at RCFM and try to drag me into it, especially if I've not seen it. Now, I said I planned on seeing the picture. But at RCFM I have better things to do. I can see a movie anytime. I'll only be in Huntsville a few days. I would rather do something that I couldn't do anywhere else. Why watch fantasy spacecraft I can see at almost any moviehouse when I could go see real spacecraft I can't see just anywhere?
So maybe I should see the movie before leaving for RCFM - and not the night before I leave. That would at least get rid of the "Well, you haven't seen it! You need to see it!" nonsense. The more someone says I "need" to see something, the less apt I am to enjoy it - and remember I'm not a True Fan of the series of pictures. I'm not expecting to be entertained, really, I only want to get some context for the inevitable references that will be added to our so-called culture from the picture.
I wonder what the best time would be. One of the weekend matinee times? The last showing on a Sunday night which would be a school night, so it might cut the crowd some? Some other time, that I don't need to take off from work for? Or just forget it and figure it won't be a problem? Perhaps I'm thinking about this too much and worrying about a non-problem. I hope so, really.
When I was born...
12 May 2005 08:55...interracial marriage was a crime in some states of the U.S.A.
...the U.S. Supreme Court was made up of only white men.
...LSD was legal, if barely, in the U.S.A.
...there had been no successful heart transplants in humans.
...Israel had never controlled the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, or the Sinai peninsula.
...Swedes drove on the left side of the road.
...the Dow Jones Industrial Average had never closed above 1000.0
...NYSE stock performance was given in eighths, not in decimal.
...the 747 had not flown, nor had the Concorde.
...ARPANET (and therefore the Internet) was still in the future.
...nobody had been to the moon.
...NASDAQ did not exist.
...voting age in the U.S.A. was 21.
...Amtrak did not exist.
...Walt Disney World had yet to open.
...the microprocessor had not been invented.
...there were no UPC labels.
...no U.S. President had ever resigned the Presidency.
...there was no trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
...there was a country, the Republic of Vietnam (or South Vietnam) and a city, Saigon.
...smallpox still existed "in the wild."
...food and medicine packages did not have special anti-tampering seals.
...AT&T was the long-distance phone company in the U.S.
...Coca-Cola was just Coca-Cola with no variation - unless you mixed it yourself.
...U.S. television had monaural sound.
...there was no tunnel under the English channel.
...Hirohito was Emperor of Japan.
...ChloroFluoroCarbons were common refrigerants and aerosol propellants.
...there were no "Happy Meals" sold at MacDonald's.
...there was a wall dividing Berlin, and an "Iron Curtain" dividing Europe.
...Eastern and Pan Am were major U.S. airlines.
...there was apartheid in South Africa.
...the U.S.S.R. existed as a superpower.
...Johnny Carson hosted the Tonight Show.
...there was an edict of Inquisition against Galileo Galilei.
...the F.W. Woolworth Company was in business.
...the Peanuts comic strip was in its original run.
...Volkswagen Beetles were rear-engine rear-wheel-drive vehicles.
...all manned spacecraft were government owned.
...no spacecraft had visited Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, any comet, or any asteroid.
And history isn't over yet. I plan on seeing quite a bit more of it happen.
An Odd Thing To Miss
2 May 2005 10:50Ever try something or experience something and find you didn't much care for it? But then years later get this strange craving, or the feeling that something is missing when you notice the absence of whatever it was?
So help me, I'm actually missing the EBS tests a bit. I know the EAS (Emergency Alert System) does the same job, and better, but it's not the same - which is the point, of course. It's only a matter of time before someone asks what the deal is with Screeaeaeaeaeaeaeaea... "This is a test. This is only a test. Had this been..." screaeaeaeaea... And EBS will fade from memory as CONELRAD has.
While on the treadmill Tuesday evening I watched a NOVA about a search for the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The program was interesting enough, showing how things progressed by exploring and mapping an underwater area, searching more within it, and finding ruins that were interesting if perhaps not the original things sought. Some of these were brought up to land from the sea floor, to much celebration of everyone, not just the researchers.
One thing that was mentioned was that many Egyptian structures used stone from earlier structures as each new ruler wanted to put his own mark on things seemingly without too much regard for whoever came before. That got me to wondering what someone from ancient Alexandria would make of the researchers and the effort to bring ancient artifacts to light. What such a person would think is unknowable but does make for interesting speculation.
Would there be pride, that something of that age or era was still of interest all these centuries later? Would there be amusement at that, since they tended to change things around, so what's all the fuss about? Would there be astonishment that modern folks bothered at all with things so far past in what would surely seem an age of miracles?
There I was, an ordinary person, not a ruler or noble of any sort, exercising because my daily routine for living lets me easily consume more calories than I need to burn to work and stay alive. I was watching this show, which was recorded, on TV. The station had a feed from a geosynchronous satellite. The divers had tanks of compressed air and regulators that let them spend much time underwater. The boats were power driven, with no sail in sight and no sail needed. Position measurements were recorded with GPS, then maps made with computers. Some work (ashore) could be done at night with electric lighting - and electrical power is simply assumed, almost everywhere. At night the city was bright with lights. Some people likely arrived by jet airplane from far across the globe. They likely slept in hotels with air conditioning. Probably none have encountered diseases that once plagued mankind. Likely a few had some serious ailment or injury in their lives that had been treated with ease. And all this was perfectly normal, routine, even boring. The amazing things were the getting of government permission to do the dives, the discovery of lost artifacts, and their being shown on land.
I have to wonder, what would the ancient Alexandrian think of it all?
There's likely a simple, though maybe not easy, answer that I've just plain missed. One of the things I've wondered about is what could be called the bootstrap problem. How can crude tools be used to make less crude tools?
That is, you start with sticks and stones, and you eventually end up with precision machined parts accurate to tolerances that may be too small to see. It can be done. That much is plain since humanity did it. But although it's been proven possible, it seems counter-intuitive. It requires crude things to make finer things, repeatedly.
A devastated, but once advanced, civilization should in theory be able to recover faster than it built itself up the first time - if it permits itself that rebuilding. What's needed to do this? A good many things are only "obvious" after the fact. By the time a civilization understands something well enough to bring it to perfection, that civilization has likely discovered something else that even though imperfect is so much better that the first thing is rendered obsolete. But the knowledge of earlier technologies isn't useless - if nothing else, it'd be useful to rebuild fast and skip all the fiddling around between advances.
There are a few cartoons that stand out as memorable to me. These I remember though I haven't seen them in years. Some I saw in newspapers, and a couple I saw in the yearly supplements to an encyclopedia. Here are descriptions of a few:
From a 1950s supplement: A kid stands with crutches and watches other kids running and playing as he wonders, "Why didn't my parents get me the Salk vaccine?" (I think it said Salk, but it might have just said polio.)
From a 1950s or maybe 1960s supplement: A personified world, a man whose head is the globe, looks at smallish rocket in the first panel, "The missile." He, a bit unnerved, looks a bigger rocket in the next panel, "The missile to stop the missile." He looks, now worried, at an even larger rocket in the next panel, "The missile to stop the missile to stop the missile." I no longer recall how many panels there were, but in the next to last panel, the personified world has fallen backwards and is sitting, staring up at a huge rocket, "ad infinitum" or such. The last panel has a technician in a lab coat running into a hanger-like building, arms extended, shouting "It's coming back!"
One of the few Peanuts cartoons I remember, from the late 1970s: Charlie Brown panics at it starting to snow, until someone explains that it is just snow. He had thought it was fallout.
From a newspaper in the 1980s: A lone house is labelled "Europe" in the first panel. In the second panel a figure, the USSR, pushes a large nuclear bomb up to one side of the house. In the next panel a USA (Uncle Sam?) figure pushes a similar nuclear bomb up to the other side of the house. In the final panel, a personified Europe is out of the house and yelling "Warmonger!" towards the U.S.
From a newspaper in the 1980s: Uncle Sam is walking away, possibly brushing his hands together, having just hit Libya. Two well-dressed gentleman, representing France and Italy, watch. One says to the other "That Sam, such a ruffian!" Meanwhile both have documents in their pockets, "Secret deals to let terrorists go."
From a campus newspaper, I think: Some scrap haulers are about to remove a junk pile when they're interrupted by a well-dressed fellow, "Stop! That's the Art in Public Places project. The junk heap is over there." And he points to something that doesn't look quite as bad as the alleged art.
On the wall outside a physics professor's office door: A scene of protesters with signs denouncing animal research. The caption reads, "Thanks to animal research, they'll be able to protest an average of 21.4 years longer." I might have the number wrong, but I think I have it close.
We knew it years ago.
29 July 2004 18:35Or, "Hey kid, that joke's old enough to vote now."
For a little while now there's been a bit going around about how this picture of Saturn's satellite Mimas resembles an item in a certain movie. This is amusing, but not for the reason that those posting it of late might claim.
The big crater, Herschel, on Mimas has been known about since 1980 or so. Cassini is not the first spacecraft to image Mimas. Voyager 1 got a picture and that has appeared a time or two.
With the Voyager 1 image which is a bit sharper rather than fuzzy, it's easier to distinguish the reality of a cratered moon.
Last night I was listening to another CD in the Spike Jones box set I bought this past Saturday. There was a tune I heard on the Dr. Demento show, but had forgotten the title. This tune, Black Bottom has no vocal but it does have a joke of sorts in it. The joke depends on knowing one way that a record can fail or be damaged. There is a point where a bit of the music repeats several times fairly quickly, and then there is a *thump* like someone hitting something, and then the tune proceeds. When that was recorded the joke worked because everyone knew what it was.
People of a certain age (I don't know the limit on that) will get joke immediately upon hearing it. I suspect that some people now might never have encountered that problem and might not have picked up on it from cultural references and wonder what that was all about. If that's not the case right now, I expect it will be in not all that long a time.
I've read a few older (well, they're older than I am) books, which I generally find more informative than many recent books. But sometimes an assumption is made that "everyone knows that" which throws me as I, several decades later, have no idea what is really meant since I'm missing that critical "common knowledge."
Another example is a bit in some old movies. One bit that I recall seeing was someone hearing a shot, except it wasn't a shot. It was a light bulb breaking. Today, that doesn't make much sense. Sure, if you broke a bulb it would make a noise. But you wouldn't mistake it for a shot. The technology changed is what happened. For some time now, light bulbs have been filled with gas. With the pressure about the same inside the bulb as outside, if they break, they just break. Those early bulbs weren't gas-filled but held vacuum. When they broke, the atmospheric pressure pressing in caused a sharp implosion. That implosion is as good as an explosion as far as the kind of sound it made.
Those sort of things makes me wonder what I'm missing or not getting because of the "everyone knows that" assumption not working. I also wonder what that is taken for granted now will seem oddly unexplained in the future.
I've been rereading Hypnosis by George Estabrooks which mentions how some things are done because of belief. One example is the classic demonstration of the hypnotic subject's body going rigid enough to seem like a board when held up only a pair of chairs, one chair at the head and shoulders and the other at the feet. If the hypnotist asides to someone "Of course it's possible, anyone can do it" then it will work since the hypnotic subject has overheard that it's possible and what the hypnotist says is true - or at least close enough. But if the hypnotist tells someone near him "It's all nonsense, nobody can do it. The stage demos are rigged up like a magic act" then the subject won't be able to do it. The only difference in the hypnotic subject is the matter of belief. In one case, "anyone can do it" and so therefore can he. In the other, nobody can do it so neither can he.
Another bit Estabrooks mentions is that to get a desired change, the most effective means is to act as if it has already occurred. It's not a matter of going to change, but a matter of having already changed. Things just are the desired way. This same idea shows up in visualization techniques that don't label themselves hypnosis. They say to picture the end result and focus on that. It doesn't matter what it's called, it's the power of belief being harnessed. It is a quite powerful tool, if you have it. Belief in oneself, self-confidence, is good at least up to a point. Misapplied, it gets overbearing.
That and a recent conversation suggested something to me. I do not intend to belittle anyone or claim that what they believe is wrong. I just have a possible explanation for something that I find interesting:
Imagine it's a long, long time back, prehistoric times. Suppose you've realized how powerful self-confidence is and want to help your friend(s) (family, tribe, whatever). But you hit the problem of self-doubt. "Oh, I could never do that." That's a hard barrier to get past. You probably beat yourself senseless trying to get rid of that barrier. Then it hits you like a feather. Specifically, like Dumbo's "magic feather." You can invent a lucky charm, a talisman. Your friend doesn't have to believe in himself, he can believe in the trinket and will then act as if it worked. It's all placebo effect and you can't explain that bit of "magic" without destroying it unless your friend is really ready to believe in himself. If you have a few like this, then even those who are in on it, if you dare tell them and trust them to stay quiet, have to go with the act. If they don't, the others might get suspicious and soon the whole works is ruined.
There are still problems. The trinket doesn't really work, and your friend will still run into problems. Making more talismans only works for so long, and what if it gets lost or damaged, or maybe stolen?
It's time to invent something that can't be lost and has a built-in explanation for not always working. You invent an imaginary friend. Maybe it's a general "energy" or maybe it's a collection of powerful beings, or maybe just one powerful being. This thing, this Great Omniscient Deity, will help your friend. But not always. "See, it.. well, he - it makes talking about it easier - while he's powerful, he also is all-knowing and will sometimes not help, or maybe not help in the way desired. It's not that there's anything wrong with you or him, it's that he can see the big picture." Now your friend can believe in this Great Omniscient Deity and get by, and even when things aren't going right, well, maybes it's the Grand Plan that it shouldn't work out. That's what you say.
This is a powerful idea. It's a useful idea. People no longer need to believe in themselves, they can believe in the Great Omniscient Deity that will help them. Since he can do anything, they can do anything. Oh crap, they will try to do anything, even if it's not really a good idea. Gotta fix that. To much ability without any responsibility. Let's see...
"Oh, yeah." you might say, "I spoke...er.. I had a vision... from the Great Omniscient Deity. He says 'Don't do anything to anyone unless you'd like them to do the same to you.'" A moral code, or the beginnings of one. Someone asks "And if we don't?" and more has to be invented. You could come up with karma, or reincarnation, or some sort of unverifiable reward program to keep it all going. If it really gets out of hand, you could even add a punishment rather than a reward to the mix. Maybe even invent a story about how there is a Tempter trying to mess things up.
"Why aren't we rewarded now? Why can't he make it all right now and be done with it?" You can't tell them that the reward is their own confidence - it'd ruin the effect, just like explaining the lucky charm. Aha! The big picture thing again. You say, "He works in mysterious ways" and things like that.
Good things get credited to the Great Omniscient Deity. Bad things, well, there's that mysterious plan. It's for the best, somehow, right? This grows. It grows until you can't stop it even if you want to. Anyone who realizes what's going on, well... they'd better watch themselves. People don't want to stop believing in the Great Omniscient Deity. That would mean far too much responsibility. No more "The Tempter tricked me into doing it!" Sometimes things in life would be *horrors* purely random.
Maybe others in other places hit on the same idea you did. Or maybe the people you told go and tell others and the stories change a bit with each telling. After a while it becomes "My Great Omniscient Deity is the real one, not yours! Your story is wrong!" "No, yours is wrong! Great Omniscient Deity is on my side!" and then, well, just look around. By this time you're long gone from the scene. You meant well. You just wanted to help your friends see that, yes, they could venture over that next hill. Yes, they would survive this storm, or this winter. Yes, they would find something to eat if they just kept looking. It wasn't supposed to drift into this mess.
And that's the idea. That religion might have started as a psychological crutch. There's no problem with using a crutch - it's a useful tool and lets you do more if you need it. But it shouldn't be used to beat others over the head. Did all this start because of some prehistoric psychiatrist, or a string of them through history?
On this day in 1942, a group working in Chicago and led by Enrico Fermi started the first man-made sustained nuclear chain reaction, and also stopped it. This controlled reaction did not itself release significant power. It did however show that controlled nuclear chain reactions were possible and that parts of the Manhattan Project could proceed. The title of this post was the code message sent to indicate the successful operation.
Automotive History
5 March 2003 14:55This isn't a history of the automobile as such but a history of those I recall. There are mostly likely omissions. It might also be dull to everyone except possibly pharwarner.
( As we glide on our motor trip... )
In no particular order, a non-exhaustive list:
Cocoanut Grove fire
Triangle fire
Chicago, Peshtigo, etc.
Chelyabinsk (Mayak)
Three Mile Island
Chernobyl
Jamestown
Shuttle Challenger
Shuttle Columbia
Windscale
Bhopal
World Trade Center, Sept. 11
Oklahoma City
Minamata
Sultana
Titanic
Edmund Fitzgerald
Texas City ship explosion
Boston molasses flood
Halifax explosion
Port Chicago explosion
Thresher
Aloha flight 243
Pan Am 103 - Lockerbie
Tylenol poisonings
Influenza
Tambora
...and plenty others as well.
And life goes on.
Terms that had to replace the original.
A couple nights ago on IRC, kinkyturtle mentioned a few of these. Not all terms have completely changed (for example, mail) but the gist is there. I've been trying to add to the list...
Term Old term Reason -------------------- ------------ ------------------------- World War One Great War WWII Hardcover book book paperback Snailmail mail e-mail AM radio radio FM Manual transmission transmission automatic transmission Manual typewriter typewriter electric typewriter Black and White TV TV color TV Conventional weapons weapons nuclear weapons, chemical?
So, what's missing from the list?
