Diary (January 21, 2021)

Online diary of Karl Jones for Thursday January 21, 2021.

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Diary

A Cape for Hulk

I made a cape for the Hulk once, from a half-meter-thick sheet of Kevlar anti-ICBM armor.

Stapled it onto his shoulder blades with an industrial nail gun.

Lost half my workers during the rampage.

OSHA fines up to *here*.

Never again.

A Cape for Hulk (published in US as Hulk Needs Cape!)

• Post @ Twitter

CO2 scrubber fantasy

"... emergency deployment of a fleet of CO₂ scrubbers using DAC technology .... a wartime level of funding from government and business would be needed."

1. Wartime level of funding from government 2. Profit—!

Former four-step process now only two steps. Efficiency!

• [ Post] @ Twitter

Ted Cruz sarcasm

I think Cruz is being sarcastic here, not stupid.

What I see is a lot of media headlines about his ignorance. I suspect it's unwarranted, and I further wonder if he exploits or even deliberately cultivates other peoples' attitudes about him.

If an intelligent man tricks you into believing he is stupid, he has a powerful advantage over you. I read this somewhere about some lawyer from the Deep South who tricked Yankee-type lawyers by playing up lazy slow stereotypes, lulling his enemies into underestimation.

Cruz perhaps simply doesn't give a shit what people think about him. He seems ... what's that word, with nuances of "driven" and "dogmatic" but utterly humorless and unsympathetic .... "ruthless", that's it. I suspect Cruz of ruthlessness.

Jack Nicholson Blood Coca-Cola

A movie-length commercial for Coca-Cola

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Starring Jack Nicholson

Product placement— Coca-Cola's new "Jack Nicholson Blood" Coca-Cola, with 3% real Jack Nicholson blood.

• Post @ Twitter

Angels unaware

Could be one of those "angels unaware" situations ... hidden messages, invisible angel-ink ... you know, tattooed on your flesh using lemon juice, and later you hold your arm to the fire.

Never agree to disagree

Never "agree to disagree" with people who want you dead.

For that matter, never "agree to disagree" with *anyone*.

People who want you dead: extreme case.

But the same principle applies to people who want your *ideas* dead.

When you are right, demand that the world make way.

• Post @ Twitter

Tom Baker

Tom Baker owns 90% of the world's known reserves of Boyish Charm.

• Comment @ Facebook

Rand Paul

Well that's a relief— Rand Paul is not a human-cantaloupe-Trump hybrid.

I am less thrilled by your blithe invitation that I should chew Rand Paul's leg.

For God's sake, man— what if his succulent Trump-orange flesh turns me into a Zombie-Racist-Ophthalmologist—?

• Post @ Twitter

Violence against activists in Colombia

Last year, 87 activists were killed by illegal armed groups in the country despite the coronavirus pandemic and quarantines, and the recent murder of Gonzalo Cardona, a leading expert and guardian of the Yellow-eared Parrot, in a territory controlled by dissidents, highlights that Colombia’s ranking as the second-most biodiverse nation on the planet continues to be tarnished by extra-judicial murders of nature’s defenders.

• For Colombia, one hundred hippos is one too many (20 January 2021)

• Conservation Biologist Murdered In Colombia Saved Two Species

Doll houses all the way down

Doll houses all the way down

Maladaptionalized

Maladaptionalized

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is highly intelligent, that's how stupid I think he is. (Princeton University and Harvard Law School.)

He is on the wrong side of the Enlightenment. I say this as the New Voltaire.

But joking about his lack of intelligence misses the mark.

• Post by Ted Cruz @ Twitter
• Comment @ Facebook

No Honor Among Parasites

No Honor Among Parasites

Differential equation linearity

A first‐order differential equation is said to be linear if it can be expressed in the form y' + P(x)y = Q(x)

where P and Q are functions of x.

It's the machine learning, oxymoron

It's the machine learning, oxymoron

Topology is destiny

Fraa Jad stood up and, in the same motion, stripped his bolt off over his head. Some of the hierarchs gasped and turned their backs. Nothing happened for a little while. I rummaged in his shopping bag and found a pair of drawers, which I handed to him.

“Do I need to explain this? ” I asked, pointing out the fly.

Fraa Jad took the garment from me and discovered how the fly worked. “Topology is destiny, ” he said, and put the drawers on. One leg at a time.

—Neal Stephenson, "Anathem" (2008)

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles