My New Nose Hair Trimmer

Amazon

I just got it, and it works!

I can now breathe easier, and keep a clean nose easier.

Maps are a powerful weapon our Military does not Use Enough

The Afganistan War has been our longest ever, but we have no good maps of this Graveyard of Empires.

We are negotiating with the Taliban, a collection of warlords, each ruling over a small area, while having no idea, what each area is or where it is at.

We teach "Know the Enemy" in our military colleges We made detailed maps of every island we fought on in WWII. But bigger countries are still blank spaces on our maps.

Our map-making should be computerized. That way the view it makes possible could be made as large or small as desired. And access to it could be denied easily.

Open Source is Big Business

But it is big in a special way, that most people cannot understand.

I looked up Red Hat on Wikipedia, this morning as I was having my breakfast and coffee. It was a long read.

The amount of money being swapped around there amazed me, Open Source is idealistic, almost to an extreme. They want to make a better world, by making better people! But at the same, they are making lots of money. 

This is possible in Software. Microsoft, for example, has produced an open-source version of its .NET software framework. And Software Developers are gobbling it up, much to Microsoft's delight!

I hardly need to tell you this is something new in the world of Business.

Buying Votes

My Inbox is full of people asking for money. Some of them for good reasons. I give to the UN Human Refugee fund on a regular basis.

But many of them are from people who want to be elected to office, and their advertising campaigns. These are focused on getting them elected, and an image (or a message) that will do this. This costs money.

But this is countered by other candidates with their own advertising and their own money.

Money is fighting money, and people get lost in the crossfire that results.

The Loss of Understanding

Humans were successful because they could think.

They could sense the world around them, like any other animal. but they could also understand what they saw, put it into an abstract context, and know how to use it.

I am using a lot of words here to describe a capability that is instinctive for people - or used to be instinctive.

A different way to describe this would be to say, they ask the question "What is behind this?" or "How can I use it?" Two different questions. The first has religious implications, while the second does not.

People also organize themselves into hierarchical social structures, with those at the top getting the most of everything.

At present, this tendency is very strong and is inhibiting most people's ability to think. People do not observe, then reason from their observations.

They first ask themselves "What am I supposed to see?" And then see (and act on) that.

How Amazon can sell Defective Products

I just learned about this the hard way - by ordering a defective product from them, going through the hassle of finding out it was defective, reporting this to Amazon, who had me report this to the manufacturer, and when they did not reply, refunded my money to me.

What happened, behind the scenes, must have been this: Amazon asked for their money back from the manufacturer, which gave them the money, because they wanted to continue to do business with Amazon. Amazon then sells more defective products from them. It knows they are defective, but it also knows most buyers will not bother to get a refund.

You gotta be tough when dealing with Amazon.

AI and UI

These are Artificial Intelligence and the User Interface; the two branches of the Software Ecosystem, that is shaping the world. The first is Machine oriented, the second is People-oriented.

Both are part of the Computer Industry that most people know nothing about - including most people in the Industry itself,  This divides Mankind into Computer-aware people and Computer-unaware people (the largest component, by far).

All this began as the Industrial Economy, which still has a big influence on us. Its machines (such as rhe Railroads) made us serve it. But now people want their newest machine, the Computer to serve them!

And for the most part, they are not aware of this conflict.

Tim Cook: ‘If You’ve Built a Chaos Factory, You Can’t Dodge Responsibility for the Chaos’

Medium

This is an easy read, give it a scan.

To Have a Strong Economy, You Have to Like People

This is obvious, I believe. People have to like each other to work together well, And working together well makes everyone rich and satisfied.

But this is not always the case, and people are not always happy at work, or anywhere else.

I just read about the life of Marilyn Monroe on Wikipedia. What a miserable life she had!

How Democracies Die

This is a book I am reading on my Amazon Fire tablet, which I just brought into the Kindle reader on my Laptop, Kindle is so flexible and so cheap!

In the Introduction, (written by two professors of Political Science) they note that the threats to Democracy are now more subtle than they were in the past. And we need more subtle ways to combat them.

This summary is entirely inadequate. and I urge you to buy the book and read it.

I am part of the Company

And this is my strength. If you are less than this, you are nothing.

This is the voice of Industrialization (or Capitalism) speaking, and we need to recognize it. Because it is being replaced by the voice of the Computer, which is entirely different.

This is easiest to understand if we concentrate on Money or Capital. Which is undergoing a profound change,

This began a century ago with Hollywood and the Movies. That was creating a new Reality, with a lot of wealth attached to it. Its sex symbols (Marilyn Monroe) become international symbols and the American Dollar controlled the global economy.

This is changing rapidly, as this article in Bitcoin.com relates.

Ledger Live

The first step was easy: I selected Ledger X as the device I was setting up.

Then the screen on the Device indicated that the battery needed charging - so I charged it up, and clicked the right button.

It then said Power Off. I clicked the right button again.

It then it said Close - Exit control center. I clicked the right button again.

I was back to the Battery display again. The Ledger Live now wanted me to enter a PIN code. I pressed both buttons, but nothing happened.

The Ledger S wanted a different connector, but I did not have one to fit it,

The Bad Effects of the Computer on People

In 1980, the transistor was invented, and my career as an Electronics Engineer was over.

But something else immediately replaced it: the Computer. It took a while for us to realize this: 10 years, in fact. We knew something big was taking over the world, but we weren't sure what it was.

I had become a Tech Writer and got to see the destructive shenanigans that were going on, in company after company in Southern California.

Southern California and Arizona had been the scene of intense aircraft manufacturing during WWII, This what made Los Angeles: Aerospace. Computers were something different, but we were not sure how they were different. We just knew that whatever they were, they attracted a lot of money. And a lot of people, like me.

Aerospace had always attracted the most ruthless people, but the Computer made them even worse. The focus was on the money and nothing else.

IBM had invented the Personal Computer, and company after company busted its balls trying to improve on that. Huge amounts of money went right down the drain.

The Operating Systems of the time could not support the demands that we being made on them. And the Computer scene (and myself) moved Northward to Silicon Valley. The Nineties had arrived, and the Internet Boom took off. 

This when the Computer made things bad for People. It got so much attention (and money) that people were forgotten. In fact, they ceased to exist.

Let me repeat that: People no longer existed - the worst thing that could happen to them.

Now, thirty years later, the Computer Industry, is beginning to realize that people make computers, they do not make themselves.  And they better take care of them.

This was a difficult realization, made more difficult by the arrival of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrencies.

In the middle of all this, people still cease to exist.

Marianne Williamson

Gen

This took me back to the Seventies and Eighties in Southern California, Colorado, and Arizona. Despite the vast distances involved, they evolved similar cultures.

It made me look up Goop (company) in Wikipedia:

Goop is an American natural health company owned by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. It was launched as a "lifestyle brand" by Paltrow in September 2008, beginning as a weekly e-mail newsletter providing new-age advice, such as "police your thoughts" and "eliminate white foods", and the slogan "Nourish the Inner Aspect".[3] A lifestyle website was later added, and then Goop expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, launching pop-up shops,[4] holding a "wellness summit",[5] launching a print magazine,[6] a podcast,[7] and a docuseries for Netflix

I was involved in Gestalt Therapy, which was similar, and involved plenty of sex. 

Andrew Yang

Gen

Andrew Yang, the long-shot presidential candidate who has now outlasted several prominent contenders in the Democratic primary, is the son of immigrants. He was born in Schenectady, New York; studied economics and political science at Brown; and got a law degree at Columbia. After law school, Yang worked at a prestigious law firm, then a few different startup firms, and then at a test-prep company called Manhattan Prep. Yang eventually became the CEO of that company, walking away with millions after it was sold.

Living in a World that Does not Work Very Well

The most popular way of dealing with this is to ignore it, and hope that makes the problem (or at least part of the problem) go away. This sometimes works, but not very well.

A better way is to analyze the problem, and select part of it to work on. This puts us in charge, and not the problem.

As someone who is trying to understand his world, I cannot help but notice that this world is getting harder to understand, in many ways. And the people in it are not very helpful.

Why is this? Is this even a valid question? I think not, Why questions imply something is wrong with the questioner, and this almost always makes them defensive.

We have to reassure them that the problem involves nearly everything. That we are in this together.

But this goes against our Christian heritage and our belief in a benevolent God. And brings up the question of the existence of Evil.

But even more than that - they do not like to think. They like to feel instead.

W2W Attachments

This something men have to get used to - women forming close attachments to other women.

Men have formed such attachments for a long time, and our earliest literature is full of them. Abraham Lincoln, for example, preferred sleeping with men. As did a number of Civil War Generals.

In the little town, I live in now, in Costa Rica, the women here form new attachments frequently.

As an innocent observer, I am astonished.

When a Young Woman from a Poor Country brought Our Family into the American Economy

My grandfather's family on our Mother's side was living in Nova Scotia, where they had been ever since America won its independence from England.

They had been Loyal to the Crown and lost all their property as a result. They were rewarded with property in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia economy remained poor, but the American economy took off.

One young woman in the Sanford family married into a wealthy family in Boston (the Fishers), they owned a Business College, and this made them wealthy. She brought down her brother from Nova Scotia, who learned Shorthand and taught Shorthand in the Business School.

He was able to buy a new house in Summerville, a suburb of Boston, and married one of the Business School students, a recent immigrant from England. They had three children, two girls, and a boy, the second girl was my mother, Mildred.

Self-Destruction

The most destructive act in human history was WWII. And everything that happened after that was related to it.

In Europe, the EU was formed, with its own currency, the Euro. But the UK has decided to leave the EU, for reasons that go back to WWII. It was the head of the British Empire before the war, and it wants that back.

It is determined to turn the clock back. And the US is determined to do the same thing. It came out of the war, the strongest nation in history, and now it wants that greatness back.

But time only runs one way, and this cannot be done. What is happening instead is self-destruction.

How does this work? Why do people turn against themselves? They can see they are not as powerful as they once were, and they blame themselves for this.

You will object that this oversimplifies the situation, and this is a valid objection. I am only saying this theory explains many of the world's problems.

Too Many Responsibilities

You have heard of the problems facing us - but not this one, which in my opinion, is fundamental to them all. We have too many responsibilities, which are global in nature.

If we are dying, this is a person problem that we can all deal with, whether we want to or not.

But if we are told the planet is dying (which it is) we are dealing with a global problem. And we should have a global response for it. But we do not. If fact we have no response at all.

Our ability to respond to life's problems has been destroyed by our having too many of them.

Instead of dealing with our big problems, we dramatize our small ones.

This not a idea of mine, it was proposed as a explanation for Brexit. And will probably be used to explain the global problems the US is in.

Americans are watching the presidential debates (which interest them somewhat) where no one speaks of global warming.

A big problem is the War in Afghanistan, a small one is the Impeachment process. People are being killed in Afghanistan, but the Impeachment only keeps the TV cameras busy.

Science Confirms That the Vagus Nerve Is Key to Well-being

Elemental

Take a deep breath. Hug a friend. Reach for the ceiling and stretch your limbs. Each of these simple acts bestows a sense of calm and comfort. And each works its soothing magic in part by activating a complicated system of nerves that connects the brain to the heart, the gut, the immune system, and many of the organs. That system is known collectively as the vagus nerve.

It is also involved with Chronic Pain. 

Learning Angular

This is a personal interest of mine you may not be interested in, if so, do not bother to read this.

Angular is a software framework, that is very popular. And I decided to be one of those who understand it. I am taking an online course from Edureka that I am satisfied with. But when I read their explanations, my mind draws a blank: I can read the words, but I don't understand them.

The ideas there a so different, they do not register. After sleeping on this problem overnight, I decided to concentrate on what I was reading, one new idea at a time. My progress will be slow, but certain. I am absorbing ideas that took 40 years to develop - from the Eighties to the Tens in Coastal California.

Today, I am concentrating on the Command Line Interface CLI. And my old brain is beginning to understand it.

The Razor Blade

I went to the Barber yesterday. and he did his thing - using a Razor Blade.

First, they use an electric clipper to trim away any extra hair. For some young men, this is quite a lot, but for me, it is only a little. This is the easy part.

Then they unwrap a razor blade. A new one gets used for each customer. And he sets to work, holding the blade firmly in one hand. All the edges are carefully delineated, and all the hair behind them gets shaved off.

You end up with half the skin removed from your face. This is not torture, but it is painful.

You end up looking like a different person but satisfied with the result.

The Interface Between People and the Computer

This is very important. but something most people do not want to know about.

This is understandable because this new knowledge is so difficult for most people (99 percent of the population) to understand. But the remaining 1 percent take to it easily - because they invented it, and are still inventing it.

This has created a gap between those who know, and those who do not know. With those who know, getting richer rapidly.

To the rest, this is not fair. Why should they get so much for doing so little? And they set about punishing them.

This is most easily seen in Crypto. Facebook has invented the Libra currency, and Congress (who is funded by the Banks) is very upset about this but can only order Zuk to cease and desist!

This makes him even richer.

Coping with the Corporation

This morning. two articles about the Corporation popped into my inbox. The first was full of fight and considered the Corporation to be the Evil One.

The second was a keynote at a Software Developer conference, It told the attendees "Mind Your State for Your State of Mind".

The talk concluded with a set of actionable takeaways including "Different applications demand different behaviors from the durable state." So ask yourself, "Do you want it right ("read your writes") or do you want it right now (bounded and fast SLA)?" SLA in this context means Service Level Agreement. This is a sophisticated approach. 

The first spoke from outside the Corporation, the second from inside it. The first is Righteous Indignation, the second takes a Share the Greed approach. 

Both are necessary.





s

Hallmark and the Buena Fe

New Yorker | How Hallmark Took Over Cable Television

Hallmark, in Kansas City, supported La Buena Fe (the good belief) a medical mission in Honduras.

I was married to a daughter of the family who ran the place. She later killed herself and her two brothers are permanently institutionalized in a mental establishment.

But Hallmark is still going strong, as this article relates.

Irish Cream Coffee

This has a terrific odor. The taste is good too, especially when enhanced with Splenda.

And it is cheap, shamefully so.

Merry Xmas from Costa Rica!

Competition on Online Learning

There are plenty of organizations here, all trying to climb to the top.

I just got a notice from Udemy this morning saying they have a new course on Angular (they already have one with a different instructor). I paid my 10 bucks and signed up!

I wish I could tell you how easy my life has become. But I won't lie: I am still lost in the weeds. What is obvious to my instructor is not obvious to me.

What I am looking at was recorded somewhere else by someone who cannot imagine what a mess I am in.

A real class (with a real teacher) is still better, even if they cost much more.

A Cockroach drowned in my Coffee

I left some coffee overnight on the desk next to my computer. This morning I finished it off, and then went to the kitchen for a refill.

I noticed a lump in the bottom of the cup, picked it up, found it was a dead cockroach! They do not swim very well.

There are lots of these fellows in my apartment, but this the first time one got in my coffee.

Crypto makes Social Improvements Unnecessary

I too have been bitten by the Crypto bug. Which promises to make us better, in spite of ourselves.

It might even work (in some areas).

The existing financial arrangement seems to think so, and is fighting it tooth and nail.

To be a Better Software Developer, you have to be a better Person

Actually, this is true of any specialization. But Industrialization made us unaware of this.

If I have any special gift, it is this: I am aware of this problem, and how it has morphed with the advent of the Computer.

For most people. this increased awareness has not happened, but its opposite has occurred: a drastic lack of awareness, to the point of insanity.

I will state this plainly: the Human Race has become insane - something many people have noticed in various ways.

One result of this is very serious, you cannot talk to an insane person about their insanity. But you have to accept them (and talk to them) as they are. What to do?

I will end this posting here. Hopefully, it has made you more aware.

$100 Impulse Buy

Amazon

It's a Fujifilm Instax Mini 9

Phones and Smartphones

Phones were originally cell phones.

Each cellular network had a number of towers that provided coverage over the area around it, called a cell. Each phone and each tower had a radio transmitter and receiver tuned to the same send and receive frequencies. They worked together. These were all low-power devices and could only communicate over short distances of about 50 miles.

Each network had a central computer that kept track of where each phone was, and who each phone wanted to talk to on the network. It kept track of all these conversations and kept them separated. Quite a job, but the Computer could do it easily!

The cellular network did not exist before the computer existed. After it was there, some smart computer people thought up the cellular idea, which made a lot of money for them. Users could travel between cells, and not be aware of all the switching being done for them by the network.

At the same time, the Internet was invented and became very important. It became obvious that the two networks needed to work together. So the phones were modified to do this and became smartphones!

The whole world became one network, and phones became cheap.

Why Bitcoin Is Still so Confusing

Medium | The Startup

This will not interest most people, because asks you to think. If you can do this without too much pain, venture on.

I have, and I now have an expensive hardware wallet I cannot use because I have no way to connect it to my Laptop. I will go to a handy computer store in the nearest large town tomorrow, point to the end of my wallet that I need to connect to and get a cable with the right connectors on each end.

I am still being educated, at a rapid pace by the crypto community. I got this, this morning: How SLP Dividends Can Tokenize Anything, Including the Stock Market.

Crypto is the biggest thing ever, but it is going to take some time for it to take over.

Stages of Cancer

My sister Linda Holder had an operation to remove a lump in her Right Lung.

This was a serious operation and she spent some time recovering in the hospital. Then she went home to finish her recovery. 

Recently, much later, she had an interview with an oncologist, who told her she had Stage 1 cancer.

I looked up Cancer Staging on Wikipedia, which does a good job of explaining this.

My Fear of Software

I have a deep fear of Software, and I think that is normal. It is creating a new Reality which may not be good for us.

This has been a problem with any technology, but Software poses a much greater threat because, with Artificial Intelligence, our Computers are becoming like us.

We should be aware of this problem, but we are not. Indeed, our previous technology, Industrialization, destroyed our awareness.

We have to regress in time and fix its problems before we can move on. And indeed, this is what we are doing, but we are not doing a very good job of it.

I repeat: we have to regress for a few hundred years, and then start over. We should be able to do this if we know this is what we are trying to do.

We have to notice that what we are doing now is not working. And then fix it.

If we don't do this, we are doomed.

The Age of Instagram Face

New Yorker

To research this. Jia Tolentino took a plane to LA. 

I have been impressed by its ugliness, but people here in Costa Rica tell me it is beautiful, and they wear its clothes most of the time. 

For them, anything American is beautiful, and imitate its worst aspects. The traffic in any large city in the developing world is the worst, but more people come there all the time. Even though they can hardly get around. They must feel if everyone else wants their lifestyle it must be better.

They take any popular TV program and copy it, changing the language to Spanish. They haven't copied Instagram yet, probably because it is too American. 

The Floating Utopia of Salesforce Park

New Yorker

Reading this made me feel dizzy. Where was I?

The San Francisco I had been exposed to when I was working in the Valley in the Nineties, was on the way down. This place is in the Stratosphere. 

I had to look up Salesforce on Wikipedia to see what it was. It's the latest force in the money game, that is still blasting along, and San Francisco is, once again, part of it.

The Crypto scene is part of this, but it will take a while before this is apparent.

I feel sorry for all the folks I left behind in the Midwest (most of the population) who haven't a clue what is going on.

Everyone who has power Abuses It

This is why the impeachment process will fail. Everyone knows how power works, and they know the President is following the rules. He is a little crazy perhaps, but extreme power often does this, and has to be tolerated.

There are exceptions of course: we are now less tolerant of sexual misconduct in the workplace. A few years ago, Marilyn Monroe could climb to power by satisfying the sexual desires of movie executives, other important men (including the President), and millions watching the Silver Screen.

This abuse still exists, but it is subdued. We now have other forms of abuse, that are more entertaining.

Starbucks and Chicharoni

This makes an excellent breakfast.

The Starbucks you can get anywhere. but the Chicharoni is a Latino specialty. I'm not sure what animal it comes from, but it is sure tasty.

Patecito

This is a brand of Pate made in Costa Rica. The "cito" ending was added to make it more Costa Rican. I have no idea what the contents are, but I like the taste of it.

Understanding Code

Code is a language a computer can understand.

This was my first attempt at a definition, but after looking at some code this morning I realized it is inadequate. People use Language, it is one of their unusual accomplishments. But nothing else can use it.

Scientists have worked hard at trying to get dolphins to use a language, but they have failed. Dolphins make a lot of social noises (that we cannot understand) but they are not a language.

Computers cannot use a language either. They are just a machine that uses Software, but that is not a language. What is it?

To answer this I would have to go into the history of Computers, and the invention of Software by Ada Lovelace.

Computers and Software just happened, and we have had to live with them, for better or worse. You have to pick one programming style and use it until that becomes too painful.

This is like our use of domesticated plants and animals. We use them, but then replace them with a better model, when one becomes available. This process only takes a year or two in the case of Software.

The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto

bitcoin news

This is heavy stuff but gives you a feel for what is going on in the Crypto world.

They want huge changes, and they may get them!

There are also many interesting articles in the right column.

Understanding Software Development

We must start with a basic fact: most people do not want to do this. They know software is important, and a lot of money is there, but understanding it would change who they are.

They will continue to use their computers (especially their Phones) but they don't want to understand them.

This understanding is not easy, it is hard work. I am learning Angular, and this is an introductory lesson. See what I mean? There is a lot of learning here, but you can probably learn it if you take your time.

People will say "I know Software is important, and I should know how to program it but learning how to do this is too damn hard!"

Actually, they will not say this, they will not say anything - but avoid learning about Software Development, with all their strength.

We have the strange situation of a technology changing the world, but the people in this world, avoiding knowing this!

And avoid knowing about this avoidance.

Mental Ability

This can be contrasted with Mechanical ability. This contrast developed in the 19th Century, with its abundance of machines. But developed further in the 20th Century, with the addition of Radio and Photography.

The result were people far different than they had been a few centuries earlier, Mental skills were now required, and many people did not have these.

Some people had the ability to control other people (such as Hitler) and they went far.

The 21st Century saw the addition of the Computer that required exotic skills never seen before. The gap between the skilled and the non-skilled made communication difficult.

This made most people demand a return to a simpler life that they could understand and control. They elected simpler (but dictatorial) people to high places.

This was not very smart.

What to do with Evil People?

The simplest solution for this is to get rid of them, to kill them. When they are gone, evil is gone! This is the approach used by Americans against Terrorists. The problem here is determining who is a terrorist.

This is an easy solution to this problem in a totalitarian state: the bad guys are whomever the powerful ones dislike.

But even as I write this, it doesn't sound right to say bad things happen because of bad people, and nothing else. There must be things making them bad.

I will use myself as an example. I worked hard to become an Electronic Engineer (U of Illinois, 1959) and after I became one, I specialized in Radar. I helped build the largest Radars (and most expensive) ever built. They were to detect Soviet Nuclear Bombers that never existed!

Later, I helped design a Bomb, so the Army would have one to compete with the Air Force.

All this was part of the Cold War, where immense sums were wasted by the US and the USSR. To the detriment of both countries.

Looking back at it, this waste of resources was evil. But no one saw it that way. We were just showing off our wealth, and there was nothing wrong with that! 

We did end up being poorer collectively, but we successfully managed to overlook that.

My personal conclusion: People can be good or bad, or nothing at all.

They help People with Problems

I went to the Post Office today to pay for my box rent. When I got there, there was a long line, waiting to be served. I decided to come back another day. This was not an life-or-death matter, and it could easily wait.

But another woman, who I didn't know, asked me what I was there for (in Spanish). I showed her the form asking me to pay the rent. She then said I should be in another line, and showed me where to go.

I did as she suggested, and I presented my form when the next window opened up. The clerk seemed startled by my abrupt appearance, but no one else in the room complained, and she proceeded to process my request. Everyone could see I was suffering from old age, and they wanted to help me out.

I noticed the computers were slow, and this was slowing everything down. Ticos are friendly to people (something I like very much) but they seem to think computers are people also and must be deferred to.

The Business of War

WWII made our family's fortune, and the fortunes of a whole generation of Americans, including mine. My Parents made theirs in Real Estate, selling their home for a lot of money.

As an Electronic Engineer. specializing in Radar, I made lots of money during the Cold War, working for the Military.

The Cold War was a conflict between the US and the USSR, to see who could waste the most money. The US won because it had the biggest economy.

But it continued to have wars: the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Then the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War, which is still going on,

We are beginning to realize that endless war is not such a good idea, but letting go of it is hard.

In 1980, my career as an Engineer ended, because Solid State made the Vacuum Tube obsolete. So I switched to Computers, working as a Technical Writer. This work was not focused on the Military, at first. But lately, it has moved in, with some very lucrative contracts that the Computer Industry could not ignore.

You can read about this in Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech.

Americans have frequently been at war, and today is no different.

Everything in a Crypto Economy is Software

The impact of this cannot be overstated, even though we have been moving in this direction for some time.

Every country has its own economy and its own currency. In the US it is the American Dollar USD. In Costa Rica, it is the Costa Rican Colone CRC. And these can be traded with each other, at conversion ratios that change by the second, just like the Stock exchange.

The ability of a country to manage its economy varies widely, to say the least. And is frequently the cause of riots where hundreds are killed.

The latest practice here was the use of paper money with nothing valuable to back it up. It is called Fiat Money and works fine as long as the country's economy is strong.

Which brings us to Crypto. Which is based on Blockchains which only exist in the Software that forms each chain. These are often used to form cryptocurrencies.

The contents of every block contain the same kind of numbers but must include a cryptographic hash of the previous block. 

It will not attempt to explain what a hash is, but all you need to know is that it works. And the people in the banks that it is displacing are terrified of it.

Banks Are Cutting 75,700 Jobs Worldwide

Bitcoin

Bitcoin.com sent me this notice. It probably feels this shows the growing power of crypto.

I have mixed feelings about this myself. I think crypto will eventually prevail in some areas, but this will take a while.

Any kind of money will have to be regulated, but how this will be done for cryptocurrencies remains to be seen.

Living in the Computer Reality

I am working at this, and it is quite a job! Because it is entirely different from the Reality I am used to.

This is not easy. This morning I am looking at my copy of the ng-book (about the Angular framework) while sipping on my Britt coffee. I'm going to need all the stimulants I can get.

Most people avoid this new world and avoid knowing they are avoiding it. They don't know it exists.

Knowing how to use a computer (something anyone can do) will not teach you how to control them. For that, you have to outsmart them, and most people cannot do that.

This is the sad truth: most people are stupider than their computers, and can only do what they want them to do.

Learning is Hard Mental Exercise

But an exercise that I enjoy.

I am learning Angular now, and Google that invented it is also helping me understand it, with Angular.io,

They make this learning as easy as they can, but my 83-year-old brain has to work at it.

Most people, however, are not interested in learning. and find not learning more enjoyable.

I find this hard to understand.

Insanity is part of the Human Condition

We have a remarkable mind that can do things no other animal can, but it can get out of whack in remarkable ways also.

We need to keep this carefully in mind and consider this possibility in all our interpersonal dealings.

A case in point is President Trump, whose craziness helped elect him. The Democrats who are now trying to impeach him. carefully avoid discussing the subject, because they don't know how to deal with it.

Consider the SmartWatch. or Fitness Monitor (FitBit). Objective tests, involving thousands of people, have shown that they do little good. But they continue to sell in large numbers.

I consider this mass insanity. A mild form of insanity, but a form beloved by corporate market makers. In a more virulent form (the urge to get more) it is the cause of many wars,

War is an important subject and is clearly a form of mass insanity.

People can be crazy in complicated ways, some of them involving Money. Any Church knows this and is very concerned with getting enough of it. When it runs out of money, it dies.

Money, as we all know, can easily drive us crazy. We can't get along without it, and we have a hard time getting along with it.

Ethereum has Vitalik

YouTube

And he is very smart and highly visible. Bitcoin, by contrast, has none of these and is going out of control. Much to the delight of its investors. They want a lot of money right now. Vitalik is thinking of the long term. I am investing in him.

I am investing in too many things in fact, and have nothing in the bank. Tuesday I will get my Social Security ($1400) and get some new things, including a nose hair trimmer and a course on Angular, that I will be using to design Web Pages.

Workers in the Computer Ecosystem

The Computer economy succeeded because it had jobs. Just as the Industrial economy before it.

My ancestors came from Europe in search of those jobs. And felt privileged to get them.

Much later, I went to college and became an Electronic Engineer in 1959. But Solid State made my job obsolete in 1980. I needed a job.

I became a Technical Writer, a job that paid well and I enjoyed it at first - helping users understand the products that they bought. But gradually it shifted and I became part of Marketing - making the company, and its products, look good. Whether they were good or not.

In the Nineties, the Internet arrived and disrupted everything, Eventually, the Industry stabilized with four large companies: Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. But for twenty years, things were very unsettled. During that time I moved to Costa Rica.

If I had been smarter, I would have become a Software Developer, programming in languages such as Java. I would have become a member of the Technical Upper Classes, making a lot of money, and working wherever I wanted.

As it is, I can only watch this happening on my Laptop, in my bedroom.

I can see there are no workers in the Software ecosystem. And I can see no one understands this.

You have to be part of that strange world before you can understand it. I was part of it but didn't move fast enough to become completely part of it.

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection

These events were Christian beliefs, that are being acted out again, in our time.

Christianity succeeded because it introduced the idea of a suffering God to a suffering humanity.

And two thousand years later, they are suffering again, and they are being resurrected again. But are not aware of this.

Let's take suffering first.

This happens, up to the point of suicide. This happens, but no one learns anything from it. Nevertheless, they suffer, whether they know it or not.

But they are aware of, and fight, the many bad guys in the underworld (the Hell) they live in. Milton, with his Paradise Lost, would feel right at home here.

Now, Resurrection.

This is what Artificial Intelligence (AI) is. It does not work very well, but it keeps getting better and better. And it functions in the Cloud, the modern version of Heaven. It didn't exist for a thousand years, but now rules the world.

We have the Social Media (Facebook) that is also creating a Heaven for us.

The world of two thousand years ago has changed some of its clothing, but is still with us.

What Facebook is Doing to Us

MIT Technology Review

This article spends most of its time reporting on events in Silicon Valley and Stanford University.

She says:

But after Harris’s talk at Stanford, I started thinking a lot more about how I get sucked into watching auto-playing ads for bras and shoes that I actually do kind of want to buy. And how I feel when I get a notification on my smartphone that someone liked, or loved, or retweeted, one of my posts on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. There’s definitely a little charge in my stomach and a ping in my brain, and I really, really like it. I crave it, even, after putting up a particularly adorable baby photo or cleverly worded status update, and getting one of these notifications inevitably induces me to open whichever social app it came from to see what’s going on. Am I just going to keep liking photos on Facebook, retweeting funny tidbits on Twitter, and feeding the AI that runs these networks until I keel over and die?

I don't use  Facebook myself, and the reason for this is simple: there are other apps I can use that do a better job. 

For example: Blogger, that I am using right now. I like doing a better job (even if is more work) but most people prefer doing whatever is easiest. I like being myself, but most people like being nothing. 

And this is what Facebook makes very easy: being nothing. 

This what Rachel Metz is saying: the Social Media has got her hooked, but she doesn't know how it does this. And probably doesn't want to know. 

She will keel over and die, we all will. But there is another possibility: we can hide behind Facebook and let the world see it, instead of us. 

It will die, everything does, but we will live on in the Cloud that contains everything that ever was, including Facebook. 

We will be Crucified, but rise again. 

The TV, from Entertainment to Education

Movies were the ultimate form of entertainment. The usual dosage was one movie a week.

But with Television, people could easily watch several shows an evening. The TV became part of the family. An important part of the family, that showed the rest of the family what to buy and how to behave.

I rebelled at this and refused to watch it, but most people accepted its advice gratefully. Even my mother, as domineering a person as ever there was, accepted its guidance.

The Consumer was born, and most people could see nothing wrong with this role, especially if they lived in much of America (the Midwest and the South), where nothing much was going on.

The Shopping Center appeared, surrounded by vast parking lots, where people could park their cars and go inside to see the advantages of having an affluent life.

The Computer (with its Internet and Cellular Networks) was next, and would also change who we were.

My Tongue and my Coffee

I enjoy having my coffee first thing in the morning. And I enjoy being particular about the taste of my coffee, while I read something interesting on my laptop.

This morning it's Does Who You Are at 7 Determine Who You Are at 63?  And I have to admit that this mix of High and Low Tech (Coffee and the Computer) suits me well.

Here is a sample of his writing:

To spend time with a child is to dwell under the terms of an uneasy truce between the possibility of the present and the inevitability of the future. Our deepest hope for the children we love is that they will enjoy the liberties of an open-ended destiny, that their desires will be given the free play they deserve, that the circumstances of their birth and upbringing will be felt as opportunities rather than encumbrances; our greatest fear is that they will feel thwarted by forces beyond their control. At the same time, we can’t help poring over their faces and gestures for any signals of eventuality — the trace hints and betrayals of what will emerge in time as their character, their plot, their fate. And what we project forward for the children in our midst can rarely be disentangled from what we project backward for ourselves.
I open a can of Garbanzos con Carne de Cerdo, the local version of Pork and Beans. Latinos know how to eat well at a low cost. This is the taste I acquired when young: simple home-cooked food. I was born during the Depression (in 1936) and this enforced our simple life.

We did not drink coffee, however, this was considered sinful. And I am now leading a sinful life.

Crypto, What is it, and Where is it Going?

Crypto is built around Blockchain and Decentralization (two big subjects). It has many enthusiasts, mainly young men, but it is too early to tell if it will become economically important.

It has produced many cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, that have had plenty of problems. But they also have plenty of possibilities. Their future probably lies in an application that has not been thought of yet.

Its development might be similar to the phases the Internet went through. A boom, a bust, and then a recovery, where many uses have been found for it, that didn't exist before.

Facebook is trying to build its own currency: Libra, which has generated intense interest from the Banks, mainly negative. They are afraid, for a good reason.

Crypto is entirely abstract, it is not physical at all. Which gives it its intense appeal, like that of Religion.

The Ethereum currency also includes Smart Contracts, and I am tempted to buy some, so I know what is going on there. It has good documentation here.

Inside the Underground Baby Trade in the Philippines

ZORA

The Philippines, let me remind you, were once a possession of the US and they did not gain their independence until after WWII. They were the possession of Spain and we took it from them, in 1898, in a war that also gave us Cuba and Puerto Rico.

There was a huge debate about what we should do with them. We could have simply given them their independence (what they wanted) but we decided to subjugate them instead, in a long and violent war.

Some Americans thought our presence there would civilize them and make them like us. What happened instead was a humanitarian disaster - that we were responsible for.

They Don't Exist, They Don't Understand

Sometimes I am like this myself. I hate people passionately and want to destroy all of us. Because we are so awful.

I have spent some time trying to understand this myself: when did it start? How did it start?

But I think it is best to just recognize that it exists, and we can do nothing to change it.

This last phrase is important: we can do nothing to change it.  we have to live with it the best we can.

We have to begin by defining what it is. And this is a huge job.

Or is it? We get through life by making many small decisions. "What shall I eat for breakfast?" If I don't know what it is (a big question, for sure) this will not make much difference. I can just eat whatever is available for breakfast.

Was Humanity Simply Not Ready for the Internet?

Team Human

The seemingly God-like abilities offered by the net were productized. The World Wide Web of personal homepages gave way to Facebook’s consumer profiles. Intelligent agents through which users were to gather information became the algorithms that monitor and modify our behavior. The internet went from town hall to the shopping mall. As a result, instead of seizing the interactive potentials of digital technology, most people engaged with this stuff as if we were still in our previous roles as consumers of media.

The Fishburns adopted Amira Zapata

Now that I have lived in Latin America for a while, I can understand how this happens.

Every adult here wants a child to take care of, If they don't have any children of their own, they take care of someone else's, there are plenty of children to go around.

This works the other way also, children (and their families) are on the lookout for adults who will take care of them better than they can.

This is probably what happened in Amira's case. Her mother let the Fishburns take care of her. Amira didn't have an education, but she didn't need one, because she had herself, an attractive young woman. She also knew English.

As part of the Fishburn family, she had many of the advantages of being an American, including access to American young men.

People who do not Think are now the Usual Kind

There has been a huge shift in human behavior. We were once the animal who thought, we are now the animal who used to think. And we are not aware of this difference.

There is another alternative: crypto. These people believe a new world is dawning where people will take control of their world, as soon as they understand the complicated mathematics required. Which is the same as saying "As soon as they recover their normal intelligence, and become a smart animal again."

The chances of this happening are slim.

We can watch as the world goes through a huge change, and perhaps understand why it is going through this change.

A Historical approach may help. There was an Ancient World, the Middle Ages, and then the Modern World. Does this help our understanding? Maybe, but not much.

What about diet? There are people who try the strangest diets, without much effect.

The difference must happen in the mind, that seems clear enough. But here again, we are stuck asking ourselves "What are the necessary changes?"

Dad's Haitian Girlfriend

Dad was in the Marine Corp from 1930-34. And his unit was sent to Haiti, to protect American business interest's there (rich Americans had acquired the best land in Haiti, and where hiring Haitians to operate it, for low wages).

It was a common practice at the time, for rich countries to exploit poor countries, and protect this arrangement with their military. This how England acquired the riches of India.

Dad took advantage of this opportunity to learn French. Haiti had once been a French possession, operated by slave labor, but the slaves had revolted and won their independence.

He found a teacher who would teach him, French. She had a daughter who was Dad's age and they developed a romantic relationship. We don't know what this relationship amounted to, but she must have hoped Dad would marry her, and take her home to the States. Dad never made it clear to her that this was impossible.

They continued to correspond, in French, after Dad married. Linda found their letters in the attic and asked her French teacher in High School to translate them for her. She refused because they were too hot. Soon after this, the letters disappeared. probably destroyed by our mother.

After Dad died, Mother opened his strong box, and discover a letter in it from the Haitian girlfriend, written in English! After I was born, she realized she didn't have a chance and was terminating their relationship.

The Rise and Fall of Evo Morales

New York Review

This will help Americans understand Bolivia - the Americans who are well-read and want to understand their world, a small percentage of the population.

This is no easy job because Bolivia is so different from the US. But he does a good job of it.

I had to read it twice, to absorb some of his viewpoint - that of an American living with his family in Bolivia. A strange situation to be sure, but a necessary one to understand the subject.

It's too bad more people, especially those in Bolivia, will not read it. 

Computer companies made themselves useful to Legal Companies

My brother was a lawyer, a partner is a successful law firm. Money seemed to flow naturally in his direction.

His firm bought laptops for each of its lawyers and subscribed to a service that indexed every legal decision in the past, which made it easy for them to reference them in any case they had pending.

They could see that information (properly processed) was essential in their profession. The trick (as with all Artificial Intelligence) was in understanding the processing that made it useful. If you did not understand that, you could end up looking stupid.

This had always been the case (you had to be smart, to look smart) but now lawyers had to understand computers (or actually computer software), a skill set entirely different from their own.

This is true for any profession now, you have to understand computers, and they keep getting harder to understand.

The Boom that Never Happened

Back about 2000, American Real Estate Developers looked down at the beautiful Orosi Valley, and they saw money!

Other Americans would want to live here, build houses, and build a new life for themselves.

Now, twenty years later, this has not happened.

There are large housing developments full of small, inexpensive houses that Ticos can afford, but Americans do not want. The ones who were here have gone back. And the little businesses that were built for them have closed down.

I live in a house that was owned by an American couple who opened a vegetarian restaurant.
The husband died and is buried just up the road. The wife and daughters have gone back to the States.

I have a small Social Security retirement income. Once a week I take the bus to Cartago, the nearest large town, and get packages that I bought from Amazon, and were delivered to Miami, and then flown to Cartago. And get some groceries from a Walmart store.

If I get sick, I use the National Medical Service, which costs me $50 a month.

I am living on the remains of a boom that never happened, but set things up for me.

The Advantages of Self-Destruction

This can happen when a powerful external force makes destroying ourselves advantageous to it.

Such a force as the parents over their children, or that of any strong person, or a dictator. Powerful people can still function, but only within the limits set by law.

The individual will be made weaker, but the group, of which he is a member, will be made stronger.

However, there are also internal reasons for destroying oneself. We should be carefully analyzing what these are. Why did the US elect Trump?

Sometimes I wish I Never Learned to Read

I feel this way right now, as a sit down to read "Hope and High Drama: A Year With Two New Democratic Congresswomen" in the NY Times Magazine.

This kind of writing makes me feel better about Democracy in America.

But at the same time, I can feel the Information Overload. My brain can only process so much, and it is crammed already.

Most people have a sensible solution: they do not read. They stopped doing that hundreds of years ago, and they are not going back.

Winners and Losers of the Democratic Debate

NY Times

A clever idea, that will give us information overload. Here is its description of one opinion writer:

Jorge Castañeda (@JorgeGCastaneda), Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2003, is a professor at New York University and the author of “Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War” and a contributing opinion writer.

A Fire Engine and a Snake

The Snake was 8 ft long and weighed 45 pounds. The Fire Truck was the usual huge red thing from Paraiso the nearest town to Orosi, where Ray and I live. It had a crew, wearing their usual heavy gear. All for one nonpoisonous snake!

The roof of our house is corrugated sheet metal with some translucent fiberglass panels to let the light in. Below these are plastic panels in the ceiling to let the light into the rooms. The snake had been living in the ceiling over my bedroom for some time.

I just saw it this morning, resting on a plastic part of the ceiling, and it took me a while to figure out what it was.

Ethereum turns Me On

The basic idea behind Ethereum is Decentralization. An idea I like, but many people dislike, often intensely. They feel something else must be in control, and not them.

We now have something new: blockchains, people agreeing to follow certain mathematical rules. These are explained at ethereum.org.

The previous solution was provided by religion, and finding a substitute for religion is hard. Usually, an authority figure appears in this space, and people give their power to him.

This is now Donald in the US or Boris in the UK. Democracy is not working very well.

Cryptocurrency could probably manage part of this problem, the money part. And this would be a strong move in the right direction.

But people don't understand it.

Understanding it would have to be done in small steps, the first one being "Do we want to be in control of our lives>" The second one follows immediately "How do we do this/?"

Most people are not sure. But there are plenty of other people now debating this question online. I recommend btcmanager.com and bitcoin.com.

The RLDS Church

This is the church my family was in. And this is a history of that church.

It originated from the LDS church, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). They were named Mormons from the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, who became the Church leader.

When Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, many men tried to lead the Church, with Brigham Young being the most successful. He led his followers across the Rocky Mountains and they settled on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. They became the most successful LDS church, by far.

Some rich farmers in Northern Illinois wanted their church back and formed the Reorganized LDS church (RLDS). They had some church buildings but needed a church leader. The obvious choice was Joseph Smith III, the oldest son of Joseph Smith, who was living in Nauvoo, Ill, that had been built by his father but then abandoned. But he was not interested at the time.

However, he was a married man with a family to care for, and no other employment opportunities. He accepted the appointment of the Church leadership, in 1860, along with his two brothers.

He concentrated on getting new members and was successful at this.

The Church headquarters moved to Lamoni Iowa, on land purchased by the farmers, and then to Independence, Mo also the home of President Truman.

After JS III died, it had poor leadership and eventually became the Community of Christ church in 2001.

Being Good is not Enough

You have to be smart also.

And the kind of smarts you need gets greater all the time.

My family are Mormons, which means they are not too smart about Mormonism.itself. They are good people if you overlook some of their sexual practices.

My brother's son, and his wife. were active in the church, and were missionaries in Eastern Europe, someplace the church knew nothing about. They had the smarts to terminate that relationship. But will say nothing about why they terminated it.

This is happening to the Church in many ways, it is changing but the church members are not aware of this.

This is true of Americans in general: they are changing, but are not aware of this.

Americans do not Like People

I met a fellow-American yesterday who was eager to tell me his story.

Whenever he is in the US, he suffers from terrible pains that disable him. When he is in Costa Rica, those pains go away.

I did not say anything, but I could have sympathized with him and said America was a hard place to live in, and that was why I was no longer there.

He went on, and I could see that much of what he said I could easily discount. But not all of it. What is left can be described as Psychogenic pain.

I have frequently said to myself "Our world is self-destructing!" And other people have been saying the same thing, in various ways.

I ended up in Silicon Valley, in the Nineties, because that was where the money (and the jobs) were.

This is a strange place, as the people there will readily admit. Bur to them it is strange in a good way. Because of all the money there.
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But the same could be said of Rome, 2000 years ago.

The Romans destroyed the Jewish state completely. and formed a new religion: Christianity.

The Computer industry is doing something similar, with Dolly Parton, instead of the Virgin Mary.

North America Exploits Latin America

This is an assumption of Liberation Theology.

They get mad when they see a clever commercial. Because they will say, "Latinos are innocent people and more susceptible to deceit."

A newly born child is probably innocent, but that does not last long. To survive, they have to think of themselves.

This can easily be overdone, If we do not help others, we will not get much help ourselves.

IOST- In Relentless Pursuit of Blockchain’s Fullest Potential

BTCManager

IOST is a new cryptocurrency, that is not doing too well.

This article explains why it should - and also explains the problems all cryptocurrencies face.

They all exist to eliminate the Banks, which is why the Banks hate them.

All the Computer companies are getting into the Banking business anyway - because that is where the money is, and blockchain makes it safe.

Use Money to Transfer Value or Create Value?

I once lived in a remote tribal area in Guatemala, where they showed me how to live a simple life.

During the day, men (mostly from outside, and bringing lots of cash with them) dominated the marketplace. If you wanted something expensive, like a sewing machine, this was the time to come.

Value was being made. This is what the men were there for. Buy low, take it somewhere else, and sell high.

At night, the women took over, each bringing the goods they wanted to barter. What impressed me most was how quiet the place was then. There was no fighting, everyone knew what a fair price was and all trades were made at close to that price. Value was being transferred.

What about employment. Where people were bought and sold? The same principle applied.

Everyone knew what a fair price was, according to the skills required.

Framework

Application framework used to implement the structure of an application for an operating system (Wikipedia).

These are now very popular, so popular and used for so many things, they have become hard to define. What are they?

Software developers will tell you, upfront, that this framework is similar to that framework, but is better (or worse) in these situations.

They then expect you to try them out for yourself. And tell others what you found, or even write a book about it!

Computers are so sensible! They have to be, they are only machines. And they don't have to worry about being cooked up for dinner.

People are not so sensible, they will write a poem and not worry about what it means.

My Early Life History, 1936-1947

My brother Steve asked for this yesterday, my 83rd birthday.

I was born in 1936, in Ft. Madison, Iowa, my father's hometown, in an inexpensive house owned by my father's mother. It has since been torn down.

My father had joined the Marine Corp in 1930 and was sent to Haiti, where he had a Black girlfriend, much to the horror of his family back home!

Dad sent all his money home to his mother, and when he came back, he used that money to buy a photography studio. But because of the depression, he made little money.

WWII changed everything. Since Dad had the only studio in town he made lots of money and moved his studio to a better location. We also moved one block, into a better house, And I went to Richardson Grade School, which still exists.

Our house occupied two city lots, the other half was used for a Victory Garden and a Hen House. This was an upscale area because the street was paved with bricks, and we had a bus service!

Dad's family had left town because of a Railroad strike, and his father had a stroke that crippled his left side. But they returned, and Grandmother worked as a cook for the Santa Fe Reading Room. Grandfather was a teamster in the original sense of the word. He had a team of horses, one of the best in town. He was always surrounded by his animals; pigs, chickens, and rabbits.

On weekends I could take the bus uptown to Dad's studio, which was right next to the Library that had a section for children's books. I read all of the Wizard of Oz books.

In 1947, when I was 11, we moved across the Mississipi River to my Mother's hometown of Nauvoo, Illinois. A beautiful fruit-growing area with lots of grapes and apples. 

Is he (or she) Like Us?

This is the question most people will ask themselves as they vote.

They will not ask themselves "Will he (or she) be good for us?" This is a difficult question that requires a lot of thought.

Asking "Is he like us? Requires no thought at all.

Sensemaking

I was relieved to discover this entry in Wikipedia. I looked up books by Karl E Weick on Amazon, and settled on Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm, by Christian Madsbjerg.

I was not exposed much to the Humanities in college since I studied to become an Engineer. But I am making up for this in my old age, by spending time reading and writing on my Laptop. 

I have been interested in this subject because most people are focused in the opposite direction: they are determined to not make sense. Because this is the way most people are. 

Liberation theology

As Wikipedia states, this has helped Latin America liberate itself from North America.

But the situation there has been complicated. As you will see.

I met my last girlfriend (Delores) when I was working in Silicon Valley in the Nineties She was a Mexican/American and she was nearly killed when she was in a parade led by a Liberal Bishop in Mexico. She and her girlfriend moved to the Valley and established Spanish curriculums in several of the colleges there.

This girlfriend had seduced her when she was still a nun! But then had abandoned her for another woman. Delores decided to change her sexual orientation by having sex with me!

This did not work (she was incredibly ugly) so I fixed her up with another man and at his insistence that got married!

After I moved to Costa Rica, I used to call them once a week to see how they were getting along! Until they stopped answering my calls.

North Americans want Latin Americans to follow their lead and in many ways this a good idea. The garbage is collected right on schedule in Orosi, using American garbage trucks. But Ticos are much better at caring for their small children.

Crypto Breaking Out

Altcoin Magazine

This kind of stuff interests me. A mix of human interest and technical interest.

Some intelligence is required, but no too much.

My Fitbit is Full of Shit

The publicity for this thing has been enormous, and that is why I bought it for $100 from Amazon.

What I got was the Fitbit inspire, which has inspired me to take a huge shit, and write this review.

Does it work? Not for me.

It does have online documentation that makes it seem better than real.

Get started building on Ethereum

Google

I am now interested in cryptocurrencies, and one of these is Ethereum.

Google makes it fairly easy for you to do this. It is not really easy, only fairly easy. 

I Can't Believe the Computer Junk You can Buy Now

I just spent $500 on a new Laptop that at is not worth a damn.

All I got for my money is a chance to badmouth it on Amazon. Which may or may not make a difference.

I don't know why I am surprised. When I worked in Silicon Valley in the Nineties we cranked out the same stuff and hired a specialist to keep our stock prices up. And no one saw anything wrong with this.

The next 30 years saw most of these companies disappear, but they're still is some crap left.

Interest in Software

An interest in anything has to be innate and/or acquired.

All you can say once you have an interest is something, is that you have it, or it has you.

The first person to have an interest in Software was Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, who understood its effect on people.

She did not foresee the strong disinterest in Software that also developed. Some people like logic, but some do not. And would rather die than be logical.

The Computer can Make People Better

If they want to be better, many of them don't.

I am learning the Ethereum Blockchain software now, which is making the participants in its networks honest, as long as most of them are honest. As always. the devil is in the details (the mathematics) behind this.

One result is the cryptocurrencies that are springing up like weeds. These people want to let the people control their money, instead of the Banks.

Many of them are losing money but they are getting smarter also.

And there is a lot to be said for that.

What do People think of Other People?

I have been obsessed with this question all my life.

Right now, I am 82 and it is the middle of the night, and I woke up asking myself the same question.

And I answered it by going over some of my life's history when I was a young man and just married.
I got up and turned on my laptop so I could write this down.

I remember how crazy Beth, my young wife was. I should have left her, but I felt responsible for taking care of her!

I was working for the Army at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, making an Atomic Bomb. The story was more complicated than that, but those facts will get us started. Beth also got a job there. Not long after I started to work in the morning when I got a desperate call from her manager "Would I please come up and get my wife, she was tearing up the office!"

I hopped in the car and went up there. Sure enough, Beth had freaked out and was looking at the rest of the people in the office in horror. I didn't know what else to do, so I took her to a doctor. I waited while she was in his office, and when she came out, she was calmer. The doc gave me a prescription to be filled.

So we went to the drugstore. While we were waiting, Beth passed out and they called an ambulance, Off it went to the hospital, with me following in the car. They called the doc, who told them he had given her an injection, and there was no crisis, so I took her home.

I knew Beth needed to see a psychologist, but I could not find one in the entire county. But Beth solved this problem by deciding we would move to California!

I did not question why, we just drove across the country, stopping to visit my brother who was going to college in Indiana. His wife was taken by Beth in her Nightie. She always attracted men and women, but women especially.

Regulating Cryptocurrency

This to a hot subject one that generates a lot of interest on the Web for a few people, because it is so technical. No one else knows what they are talking about.

Consult the Wikipedia entry for BCH to see what I mean.

I am taking a course from block geeks, with the same objective; trying to understand what is going on.

I am reminded of when I worked at a gold-mining camp in Nome, Alaska when I was going to Engineering School at the U of Illinois.

This had been a Soviet airport during WWII. The US was manufacturing airplanes in Southern California and Arizona, in huge numbers, Some of them were sent to the USSR and used to destroy Nazi Tanks. Russian lettering was still over the doors.

Joseph Stalin was responsible for more deaths than anyone in history. Hitler was responsible for 2 million deaths, mostly Jews. Stalin was responsible for 200 million, mostly his own people! But he was an American ally during the War.

A special Airforce was formed of women pilots to ferry the planes from Arizona to Nome over some of the worst flying terrains in the world! If you have ever done any flying yourself, you knew the weather was your worst enemy.

Many of those planes (and their pilots) did not make it.

The Appeal of Evil

Evil is created by people. and only created by them. And can only be perceived by them.

We can easily conceive of a War against a wide variety of Evils. And we seem to be happiest when engaged in a War of some kind.

Even a War against Evil itself. 

There was recently an ambush where 9 Americans were killed by a Mexican Cartel. The Cartel is Mexico's contribution to the vocabulary of Evil. Americans prefer to speak of Gamgs and Gangsters.

No doubt there are equivalents in other languages, such as that spoken by the Ancient Hebrews in the Bible, where murders of all kinds were common.

We are a violent species.

How Mexico’s cartel wars shattered American Mormons’ wary peace

Washington Post

This story has importance for my family, who are members of a Mormon community, and also have lived and vacationed in Mexico. But they have not lived in any rural areas. 

A related story is the Wikipedia entry for Mitt Romney, who was part of this family but left Mexico and did not go back. 

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Determined to Not Understand the Computer

Not understanding the Computer would be understandable, it's a brand-new thing like we have never seen before.

But this attitude of being determined to not understand it is alarming. Why has this social bias showed up so strongly, without being noticed?

By understanding it, I mean noticing its effect on people, which has been profound.

The Computer has changed who we are, in a way that makes it impossible for us to notice this.

This puts me in an awkward position: I can understand the Computer. But I am surrounded by people who cannot, and don't want to.

This not understanding is not complete, many people can understand it a little. But only a little, and nothing on earth will make them learn more.

There are two social movements going on at the same time: rapid software development, and a strong movement against it. The first is conscious, the second is unconscious.

Cartago in the Rain

I took the bus there to get my packages today. But dammit, it started raining. And when that happens it is hard getting a taxi.

I spent hours standing in the rain, trying to keep my umbrella from turning inside out. My wet clothes are now hanging on the clothesline.

My wet packages are on the sofa, waiting for me to open them. One is a new Laptop, that cost me $400 into Miami. But cost me another $100 in Cartago.

Tomorrow I will pay $50 for my health insurance. The first of the month is hard on my pocketbook.

The Fall of the American Midwest

I know what I am talking about here because I lived through it myself.

Right after WWII, the American Midwest (everything between the Appalachian and the Rocky Mountains) produced most of the world's products. Now it is best described as a Rust Belt.

One of the candidates for the Presidency, Mayor Pete, knows this and is tolerated because he speaks for it.

I was raised in Ft. Madison, Iowa, part of Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. As Midwestern as you could get. It is now part of a huge tragedy, that is unaware of itself. 

There are no Tourist Buses, exhibiting the remains of Scheaffer Pen because no one wants to see them. This would be too depressing.

The West End of the town, where we lived, was Santa Fe town, and there is even a street sign saying this. It had many small businesses, such as Barbershops and Whorehouses. It is now a slum, where the houses are in bad repair. And many of them, such as the house I was born in, are gone.

Most of the Midwestern Manufacturing has gone to China.

Being Smart and Stupid at the Same Time

I have made the decision to be more social. And my first step here was to have a conversation with Allen.

How did I first meet him? I can't remember, but when I did, he was living in one room in a low-priced place used by backpackers. That was all the housing he needed: one room. I got a distinct impression that he was dimwitted.

He also went for long walks by himself and was a friendly guy.

We both ate at a fast-food place (called a Soda in Spanish) downtown. Neither one of us spoke Spanish, but he did not seem to realize this, and he would flirt (in English) with the women there. He moved to this place, where he also had one room and ate simple meals, and was pleased by the low prices. I went there to buy their chicken burger, which had everything in it.

Then he decided to go back to the States, and when talking to me about this he mentioned that he had been a schoolteacher up there. He left, and I never expected to see him again.

Eight months passed before I unexpectedly met him again, in the store next to the Soda. He had decided this was the place for him, living just as he had. I was so astonished, I didn't know what to say.

But since I had decided to be more social this was a good place to start. A few days later, I asked him about his experiences as a teacher. He really lit up when telling me about this! I could tell he was a natural-born teacher and this where he belonged: teaching grade school in America.

We also talked about programming, something I know about myself. He knows about this and makes some money now using his Laptop to do this. I could not be more amazed!

But he wants to get married and married down here. When he doesn't know Spanish!

The Coffee Industry is in Bad Shape

The Coffee industry has two Components: Growing Coffee and Processing Coffee. And both are in bad shape.

Coffee farmers always want make more money, and to do this they have produced new varieties of the Coffee plant to produce more Coffee. Originally it was a plant that grew in the shade; underneath the large trees that formed the canopy of the forests. These new varieties will grow in the sunshine, and can produce more coffee. But they are more delicate, and susceptible to more diseases.

A virus has appeared that infects the Coffee leaves. The farmers have to spray for this, and  this spray costs money. They have also added fertilizer to this spray, which produces more Coffee, but costs money. The bottom line: they are not making more money.

Now I turn to the second component: processing the Coffee.

There used to be two large Coffee processing plants in the Orosi area, one in Orosi, and a huge one in Cachi. Now there is one. Processing plants are now more efficient, cheaper, and employ fewer people. Bottom line: less money is made here.

The big plants welcomed visitors, but the new plants do not. So I am not certain of its location.

Women have a Powerful Effect on Men who are Close to Them

I am reminded of a cousin who was married to an executive in the  Men's Wear business.

He was passionate about this business, and after his company went out of business, he killed himself.

What she should have done was said:

"Honey I know Men's Clothing is important to you, and you need to get a business of your own. And I (and the children) will support you fully in this."

He would still have been alive, and her family would have been alive.

We live in a fast-moving world - too fast in fact

I was just reminded of this in a brutal fashion. I was lying on the floor, unable to get up.

Now that I am 82, this happening more frequently. I bent over to pick something up, and splat! I was laying on the floor.

"That is all?" You may be saying, "A temporary discombobulation?" Yes that is all, but when you are the one it is happening to, it feels much worse, like the end of the world.

How is this related to a fast-changing world? Like all animals we were part of our world, an intimate part of it. And if it changes, we have to change with it. And change is stressful.

We have recently added that word to our vocabulary: stress, because we have so much of it. But we have added another complication - we are not aware of this!

The software industry has made this clear with a saying of theirs: "Move fast, and break things!"

But lots of people are wondering, if breaking things is such a good idea.

Coping with Collapse

Today Ray is cleaning up the mess I made in my apartment yesterday. I don't know what I would do without that guy.

"What happened." You may ask.

Damned if I know, I ended up on the floor in the middle of the night, in a pile of shit.

I have a balance disorder, and sometimes I get so dizzy I fall down. And my guts are affected too.

I am learning about blockchain, which is about that same problem in software.

The people down here have their own solution: find a child to take care of. Maybe that is what Ray is doing: and I am the child.

Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley

New York Times

About a dozen venture capitalists recently took a bus tour through the Midwest, and a funny thing happened: They caught the heartland bug.

But they did not go to Ft. Madison, Iowa, my hometown. People have left there and they are not going back. It reached its peak in the Fifties and has been going down ever since. 

This is not for lack of building space, there is plenty of that. But the people there are not eager to advance. They are stuck, and they like it that way. 

Not Interested in Computers

And not interested in knowing this.

What are you interested in? Shopping and shopping Centers. And Authoritarian leaders.

This last item is puzzling, because it implies that thinking is involved. When this is not true at all; only believing is involved, and passionate believing at that.

They are emulating the early days of Christianity they will say, when they know almost nothing about this period of Christian history.

Another Tech Bubble Could Be About to Burst

Financial Times

This is about private markets and public markets. What companies try to get before they go public, and what they can get after that. Usually, it is much less.

I worked for a company in Silicon Valley in the Nineties (Adaptec) It benefited greatly from being an established company with a good track record - and the Tech Bubble that was about to burst.

I knew something was fishy, But everyone else was so happy stuffing money into their pockets, they didn't want to hear any bad news.

It did burst, and I saw accountants bagging groceries in the supermarkets. And young hopefuls going home with empty pockets, and college debt they could never payback.

Google is acquiring Fitbit for $2.1 billion

TechCrunch

You read that right - billions, not millions. Anything worth anything nowadays has that many zeros behind it.

Amazon has it for $144. You can buy a watch like the one I am wearing for $20.

These companies are getting in fast, while there are still obscene profits to be made.

Wikipedia says: In those who are overweight or obese, a 2016 study indicates that the use of wearable technology combined with standard behavioral interventions results in less rather than more weight loss after two years of use when compared to usual weight-loss interventions.

Our Transition from Industrialization to the Computer

This has been a difficult transition, and may never be made successfully.

The Industrial Revolution took hundreds of years and changed who we were. And a big part of this change was the inability to recognize that this change had happened. We went through a big change but were not aware of it, because the change was so big and so enticing. Who could resist a car with a huge engine and tail fins?

This was true for most of us - who are not interested in the Computer now. Computer people, of course, are. And they are busy telling anyone who will listen about their latest inventions.  They are aware of this transition because they are making it.

They are interested in the Computer because it is them. Take a look at this Consensus Mechanisms video. Aren't these computers acting like people?

Networked Computers are acting more and more like persons. So much so, they may replace us.