Do I Like the Computer?

I keep trying, but it's not an easy thing to like. 

It is trying, but I'm not an easy person for computers to like. 

As a way out of this, I am asking myself how I got interested in Computers in the first place. Was this my fault, or its fault? Or neither one? 

Back in the Fifties, I became an Electronics Engineer (U of Illinois, 1959). which meant I became an expert on vacuum tubes. These were just what their name implied: glass tubes with a vacuum inside them. That allowed electrons to flow through them. Hence the name: Electronics.

Electrons could move fast, making them high-speed devices, suitable for controlling Radio waves. And Radar was born. It would fire short bursts of radio waves and then wait for a reply. The time for a reply indicated how far away the target (an airplane) was. 

Very useful, and they were rapidly improved, and I had a lucrative career in the Cold War. 

We are Animals

Who are in danger of becoming extinct (as the result of our own actions) as many other animals have. 

Mormonism was Crazy

And still is. 

Many of you will ask "Is this a problem?" And to be truthful with you, I am not sure. 

A certain degree of insanity, in some cases, maybe beneficial.

What are these cases?

Mormons can point to their history when their leader was killed by an angry mob. "Not good." they will say. And we will have to agree. 

They can also say "This was crazy," and we would have to agree. They could also say "He was replaced by Brigham Young, a more capable leader." True enough. 

At this point, my mother would be screaming her head off "But he was a bad man, and should have been killed!"

If she had lived 100 years earlier, she could have been part of the mob. 

Wet Wipes

 These are Clorox Disinfecting Wipes.

They will make your anal area smart - but clean. 

How the Church Tried to Destroy Me

The Church I grew up in was the RLDS, which was not considered such a bad church. But it was bad for me. How was this? 

The reason was common enough: it was Sex. The combination of Religion and Sex is especially potent. 

This was especially true for the founder of Mormonism: Joseph Smith. who believed in Polygamy. His LDS church abandoned this belief when they became a respectable part of the USA, later in the 19th Century.

The founder of the RLDS church, Joseph Smith III, had three wives - but only one at a time, for a total of 15 children. He was just as sex-crazy as his father but managed to look respectable. 

They did not believe in Dancing but had many bizarre activities in Central America. 

The Human Reproductive System

This complicated system is entirely contained in young women. From whom we all were all born. Kicking and screaming. And headed straight for the breast. 

Accidents happen in this system, especially in first pregnancies, and they are called miscarriages.

 Some women cannot have children, so they adopt them and are happy with them (usually). 

What Mormonism can tell Us

Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith in 1920 after he had written (and published) the Book of Mormon.

He wrote it to make money, but could not sell it. Some of his followers (he always had plenty of those) took it to Industrial England, where the workers there took an immediate fancy to it. And proclaimed the writer a Prophet of God. 

England had a literary establishment, who had no interest in the Book of Mormon. But it also had many industrial workers, who could barely read but could understand the book's simple messages. And they needed a Prophet. 

They boarded a steamboat (that had just been invented) and become more of Smith's followers. They also had a message, "You are a Prophet!" And a Prophet he became. This was a powerful idea and caused his death in 1844. 

It is worth examining just what this idea was. It made its believers important, and they were willing to die for it. It made its believer's religious fanatics. It created a new religion: Mormonism, or Latter-Day Saints (LDS). 

After Smith's death, another Prophet, Brigham Young, led them across the Rocky Mountains, in the longest religious journey in history. 

And it sees no sign of weakening. 

Construction and Destruction

These are the two most basic human attitudes. They are easy to detect and have profound effects. 

What more need I say about them?  Except most peesople are not interested in them!

If humans die, as a species, this will be a slow process, and not one people alive nowwill have to warch.

There are plenty of other endings that might happen quickly (if our planet gets hit by another planet, for example) but we are not worried about these either. 

We are only worried about events that might happen soon, if not right now. 

If we are hurting now, we want this fixed, right now! 

And we assume our doctors can do this for us - whether they can or not. 

ASUS, Amazon, and Me

I'm on the bottom of this Totem Pole. 

I got a new ASUS laptop from Amazon, that does not work at all. I was pissed, to say the least, but decided to pass the problem along to Amazon, who has a procedure for doing this. 

You go to your Orders in Amazon, where it has a spot for you to report your problems. This reporting process is not as easy as it should be, but I got the job done. 

Now I am waiting, trying not to get too frustrated. 

Doctors don't always Know What's Wrong with You

I was lucky, I got my Appendix operated on. If I had been born a few years earlier I would have died of its inflammation and rupture, because I was one sick kid. 

The house I am living in now was bought by an American family who operated a vegetarian restaurant here, with the husband cooking the cuisine of different countries each day of the week. 

Then he got sick and the local doctor (who had been trained in the States) did not know what was wrong with him, so he sent him to the regional hospital. 

They didn't know either, but they operated on him anyway, and he seemed to be getting better. Then he got sick again and died. 

Down here, you can't just be put in a box and buried. A funeral ceremony has to be performed, and they are expensive (about $1000). 

The rest of the family (the wife and two daughters) went back to the States. 

The Revolution of the Car

This was the revolution of my Father's time. 

It was made possible by two additional inventions: the internal-combustion engine, and the pneumatic tire. It could navigate steep curves easily. And was enlarged to become the Truck and the Bus. 

In early America, the biggest obstacle to the way West was the Allegany Mountains. At first, this was thought to be the Potomac River, and a canal was built alongside it. One of its investors was George Washington. 

Bur the way became too steep for it to continue. This convinced George that surveying was necessary, and he became a surveyor himself. 

The Jeep became popular during the War, and shortly after it. My father bought the first Civilian Jeep and it got a lot of use. 

I wish I had a photo of it 

Industriallzation produced a Prophet of God

How this happened we do not know, but it did happen. And the result was the several varieties of Mormonism, beginning with Joseph Smith and his LDS church. 

This connection is not recognized by the Mormons themselves, who prefer miraculous explanations. 

This, however, led to Smith's death at the hands of a mob. 

Our Dislike of Other People

This is one of our strongest urges, but it is almost unknown to us. Because we know we should not have it. 

Most people never feel it, and don't want to feel it. 

I am reading the hook The Precipice, written by the British intellectual, Toby Ord. Should I recommend it to you?

I recommend you read How close is Humanity to the Edge? first. 

Brits and Americans are different, and this will help you understand the difference.

If we Do Not Exist, We have No Problems

This is not true, but most of us think it is. Most of us. 

And there is not a damn thing we can do about it. 

I am sitting behind my laptop, which is telling me (and billions of other people) the same thing. 

But no one is listening.

The Urban Slum

This has become a common component of today's cities. Certainly, in our large cities, and more and more in our smaller cities. Such as the West End of my hometown of Ft. Madison, Iowa. 

President Obama was an example. As soon as he graduated from Harvard, he went straight to Chicago's slums, as a Community Organizer. 

He met a representative of the Banks, who offered to finance his run for the Presidency if he would reduce Bank regulations. This he did and caused the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. 

The Savior of the Urban Slums ended up in the White House. 

The best way tu be Smart is to Hate People

This is not true, but most people think it is. Why?

This short question requires a long answer. But a shorter answer would be that most people have become unable to tell the difference between the truth and a lie. Note that I said most people. 

In my family, we have a family church: the RLDS church. That our parents worshiped. Not the people in it, but the church itself. 

The young people in the church are not too fond of it. Which their parents cannot understand. 

Defective, Dysfunctional, and Similar States

Defective certainly applies to my latest Laptop, which I got from Amazon. 

You can see it here. 

I went thru the proper turn-on procedure, but it will not turn on. 

I want to take a sled-hammer to it, but I don't have one. 

I keep telling myself "Don't get too upset,  these things happen!"

What does it Take to make Something Smart?

First of all, it has to be computerized. Which means much of its functioning must be caused by the computers inside it. I was looking at the sparrows this morning, each one of which is far more intelligent, but they can not be considered smart.

The first time I was aware of this was when the Smartphone was invented. The first Phones used cellular technology and were correctly called Cell Phones. Each cell was an area covered by an antenna tower, which provided a radio coverage of about 50 miles in radius. 

Soon these were springing up all over the place since many of them were necessary to provide wide coverage. The other side of this technology was a little hand-held device that you could talk and listen to. A little computer with a touch interface instead of a mouse, and a radio transmitter and receiver. It also included a digital camera. This was such an amazing combination, most people did not know what they were using. They just used it, without thinking about it. 

This combination was a network, with all of its advantages. Everybody had to be on it, to talk to everybody else. 

It had many computers: including a master computer that told each tower which device to talk to. 

Then Apple invented the iPhone, which connected their Phone network to the Internet. Immediately every Phone network did the same, and the Smartphone was invented! 

If you review the progress of this invention (which consists of many parts), you cannot help but be amazed. It should have made us smarter also. 

But this does not seem to be the case. 

Between Friends

This book is about life in the Kibbutzen in the Fifties.

I got the Kindle version, and I can recommend it if you are interested in People, which most people are not. 

F#

This interests me. 

It's from Microsoft and uses the .NET library, but I can use it easily on my Chromebook laptop. Google and Microsoft are powerful competitors but can also cooperate easily. It's refreshing to see this in action. 

Microsoft also provides excellent documentation, that even I (with my feeble old mind) can understand. 

I will not say more, because you can easily read it for yourself. 

Pepsi Once Owned the World’s 6th Largest Military Fleet

 Better Marketing

17 Soviet submarines and 3 battleships

You know your economy isn’t doing well when you’re trading battleships for soda cans.

When People are Nothing, Nothing can be Done

And this is just fine for most people. 

At one time, before we changed, this was fine. We had everything we needed. But then we changed, we became Human and could talk to each other. 

This simple invention: Language, has never been repeated. We are the only species in the universe that has it. 

"So what?" You may say.

We have to live with Language (including Computer languages), that's what.

And we can use it to lie, very easily.

The Origins of Totaltarianism

This book, by Hannah Arendt, is a masterpiece. One can hardly believe that English was her second language, and America was her second country. 

Equally, it is obvious that she was Jewish, and smart. 

I have another Arendt book The Hannah Arendt Reader, which has a critical review of Origins, which I can recommend.

It's easier to read than she is.

Disapproval of Yourself

This is a common problem almost everywhere. And is one of the common (but unknown) problems of our time. It certainly is one of mine. 

This mental deficiency actually causes you to have the problem you would rather not have. 

From the Industrial Revolution to the Information Economy

My hometown of Ft. Madison, Iowa is a good example of a town that did not make this transition satisfactorily. It became part of the Rust Belt instead. 

The critical event for my Fathef's generation was WWII. Or, to expand my time scale, WWI, followed by the Depression, followed by WWII. The first half of the 20th Century. 

My generation was given the last half of that century, and I must say we made a mess of it. 

This is strange, because we also invented the Computer to manage all the Data involved in our growing economy. But that did not make us like each other better. 

This problem may be solving itself by using apps such as Microsoft Teams to help us work together. But I must emphsize the may in that sentence. 

Americans who Moved to Costa Rica and then Moved Back

This is the usual situation. They can't stand the US, but then they find they cannot live without it. But some stay with no problem. 

I would like to analyze this, but I don't have enough data (or expertise) to do it. 

I did visit my cousin, who lives in Northern Virginia, and found the situation there is too unusual to draw any conclusions from. 

I can only notice that most Americans have made it very hard for anyone to understand them. 

Angular

Angular is Software, written by Google, who also has written software to explain it, that you can find at angular.io. 

I find this attractive, but you will probably be offended by it. You can easily find out which camp you are in, by trying it out. 

If you can stand it, you will quickly understand many modern software practices. 

Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem"

New Yorker 

What everyone remembers is her statement after watching too much of this show trial: 

The Banality of Evil. 

You have Something they Want

And want badly: your attention. We live in an Attention Economy, and their Computers can tell easily enough if you are paying attention to them, or something else.

We now live a world divided into People who understand Computers (20 %) and those who do not (80 %) and this is a conservative estimate. 

They can not ony tell how smart you are, they can tell who you are. You have a number, and they know what that number is. 

Not too long ago, the world wanted dumb consumers, because they would buy anything. The world is smarter now, and it wants smart people, because they can make money for them. 

Yes, you read that right - smart people make money, and a lot of it. 

Wanting to Be Wonderful

As I was waking up, I gave this some hard thought. I suspect this is not the best of intentions, but where does it go wrong?

What do I mean by being wonderful? Is a celebrity wonderful, by definition? If she loses this, what does she (or he) lose? 

She loses their admiration, which is quite a lot. But is that everything? Yes and No, because you never get something for nothing. If she gets their admiration, what does she pay for that? How does that limit her? 

Let's take a common example: sex. A celebrity confers her approval by consenting to be viewed. This is not sex but is possibly its beginnings. Once I was walking up a street in Bali, watching a woman keeping her little son from walking out in the street. by rotating her breast to attract his attention. It was working, but when she saw I was noticing it too, she froze. She did not want to attract me sexually. 

Or consider me, on the other side of the world, in my role as an Electronics Engineer. Women there evaluate my position (and me) by different standards. 

To evaluate the worth of any situation, you have to consider what you pay for it. 

I have become Depressed

And I know why: the Computer world has become too complicated for me to understand it. I just got the book Eloquent Javascript and it says much the same thing. 

I have reviewed the history of this industry for the past 30 years, and am convinced I am right. 

To see what I mean, look at Borland in Wikipedia. I was at the bottom of this totem pole, but I knew something strange was going on above me. 

It makes me wish I has an honest record of employment I could refer to. 

The Computer and Us

For most of us, the Computer has had little effect - we think. Or more accurately, we are determined to think. 

When, in fact, it has changed our world (and us) completely. To which you may reply "But not fundamentally, we are still what we always have been." 

I won't argue with you, but note (to myself) that you are wrong, and wrong about an important subject. 

Back in the Fifties, when I was in High School, I was going to become a Scientist. I became an Electronics Engineer instead. I became an expert in Vacuum Tubes, which were just that: glass tubes with a vacuum in them thru which electrons could flow freely. Control Elements in them could control the flow of these electrons. Hence the name: Electronics. 

Vacuum Tubes were made in all sizes. The display of a TV was a tube with a flat face. The largest of these was 5 feet in diameter and was dangerous to handle because they could implode explosively. They were the output display of Radars, at which I became an expert. This was during the Cold War, which made a lot of money for me. 

The Computer was made of semiconductors, mainly Silicon. Hence Silicon Valley, where I worked in the Nineties. Where the emphasis was on Software. 

And people-oriented, because only people can make Software. 

Software is a New World

And for that reason, unexplored by most people. It's too strange. 

They are not aware of this, but in my opinion, this is their basic motivation. 

This morning, for example, I decided to learn some more software. Immediately I had a problem: whar Software should I learn more about? There is a lot of software out there, each waving a flag, saying "Learn me!" Any of which would be useful in advancing my career, if I was still working. 

But I am not (I am 83 years old, living in Costa Rica). I can learn anything I want. I decided on Angular, which is up to version 10 now. I have my choice of IDEs. I am tempted to try some new ones by Amexio, but decided to go with the AngularIDE by CodeMix. It's a long download, and it's not working.

Meanwhile, I am cooking pasta with pesto. 

But notifications keep showing up on my laptop, telling me how this or that app would make my life so much better. Maybe or maybe not. 

I have to live in a world that wants to make me better, by encouraging me to venture into this New World. 

How Trump Lost

 New York Review

If he'd governed as he ran in 2016, as an economic populist, he would likely have been re-elected. Instead, he reverted to the Republican playbook. 

This was written by a professor of Political Science, who takes people as they are, not as they should be. 

The Computer and its Teachers

It's amazing how many teachers have shown up. On their own and with organizations, such as Coursera. 

One has to assume that students have shown up as well. Things have changed, at least in the Computer world, where people are teaching and learning on their own. 

Even I am doing this, in my blog, one of the millions out there. 

The world has been divided into Computer people and all the rest. What will the future be for all of us, with Computers getting smarter all the time? And people getting dumber? 

The Gap will continue to widen, but a different Gap. Between those who control our Computers, and those who do not. This is something that has never happened before, and we cannot predict what will happen. 

Civilization

We know when this happened, where it happened, and how it happened. With the use of Clay, that could be used for making houses and walls, and even writing. 

It was then forgotten. 

It was rediscovered by interpreting its writing on brick tablets. Brick was Clay that had been baked, to turn it into a ceramic that would last forever. There was so much of this, they were used by the British as Railroad ballast. 

But it was not interesting at first, because it was boring: long lists of Temple offerings. Gradually, it became more interesting, because novels were written. Some of the characters in these novels were Temple Prostitutes, which may never have existed, but made for a good story.  

But the favorite story was that of a relationship between two men. And believe me, it was interesting because one man was turned from an animal into a man (with the help of a woman). Which seemed reasonable, to the readers of the time - who were determined to be entertained. 

Sex is not Love

There is nothing wrong with sex, it's a pleasurable body function that produces babies, but it is not loving. 

"No problem," you may say, "Just take the Pill (or get a vasectomy) and forget about the babies." I ought to know, I got a vasectomy myself, and it was the smartest decision Beth and I ever made. 

Then why is so much sex going on in the Workplace? Because this makes the Workplace more valuable. 

The Workplace, not the People in it, who are miserable, but unaware of this. 

Control in the Computer World

I am feeling nutty this morning. And I know who to blame: the Computer. 

Computer technology is advancing at a rapid pace - faster than most of us can keep up with it. And this is driving us nuts. Not all of us, but most of us (maybe 99%). 

But we do not know this. In fact, we are confident that we have everything under control. When nearly everything is out of control. 

We have unbelievable control over the Computer, but little control over anything else. 

Oculus Virtual Reality

I bought the Oculus Rift S, and a high-end Windows laptop to go with it. Both of them ended up in the Trash. Close to a thousand bucks gone. 

Now there is the Oculus Quest, with lots of accessories you can buy to go with it. 

Facebook, which owns the company, now owns another sure thing. But I think I can pass this time.

High Tech but Low Sociability

This is what I experienced in Silicon Valley, and I did not like it. I worked for many startups that destroyed themselves, and could see nothing wrong with that.  

I now live in Costa Rica, which is more sociable and less technical, but is also devasted by the coronavirus. 

The most important thing to consider, anywhere in the world, is the virus. I have a special mask for protection that Amazon flew to Miami and Aeropost flew to Cartago, Costa Rica. It had better work, or I, at 83 years old, am dead. 

America and the Computer

The American Government we have now was designed in 1789 by the American Constitution, and now most countries have one. 

A lot has changed since then (to say the least) but our Governments have not changed much. 

The biggest change in the world was the Computer, which has completely changed our Global Economy, and who we are. 

The Computer is about Information and is capable of containing all the information about America, the country who made it, and its networks  (such as the Internet). 

But we have not updated our Government to take advantage of the Computer. This could easily contain a  Database containing all the information for all of its citizens. 

The part of the Database containing information for each citizen would be duplicated in a smartphone app owned by each citizen and copied by each computer he owns. 

When messages are sent between the National Computer and Personal Computers, they would be encrypted, so no one else can understand them. Voting could be done this way also.

This would bring us up to the 21st Century.

I was Mentally Defective

And I still am, but not as much.

How do I know this? Because I can compare my behavior now with what it used to be. And I can see I am smarter than I used to be. Not a lot smarter, but smarter. 

How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System

New Yorker 

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

Myself, I have wondered why we didn't know more about the latest virus to bother us. But this article showed me we already did. Believe me, after you read it (which will take some time) you will too. 

And like these expert immunologists, you will wonder how we ever made it.  

Power Struggles are part of the Human Condition

How can I explain this? It's only natural. We are careful to not offend other people - especially authority figures, such as our parents. and many people want to occupy these positions of power. 

Ar the same time, we must develop our own personalities and skills. Which authority figures do not want. They want to be in power. 

Every one of us most must find his position in society. Which for some is simple - they do not have much. 

They Hate all Computer Things

They consider all of them the same, and all equally bad. This is stupid as it can be, but this seems to appeal to them. 

I am reading about the PowerShell (the most esoteric thing you can imagine) but it appeals to something unusual in my mind. 

They want something usual, I want something unusual. And the two will never meet. 

Pricilla Chan and Facebook

Chan functions as Facebook's protection agency, and is a very effective one at that. She gives away most of the company's huge income. 

Her husband, Zuckerman, can do whatever he likes, with complete immunity. 

Look her up on Wikipedia. 

Hatred of the World we Live In

We live in a bad world and we know it - unconsciously. But this knowledge stays down there, and only affects us indirectly, causing us to destroy it in a number of ways. 

We won't do good things because this would make this bad world last longer. 

We do bad things, and justify them in a tremendous number of ways. 

Many Americans come to Costa Rica, hoping to build a better life for themselves. But they leave after a few years. Why? Because they cannot resist the battleground of American Life. Where America is being destroyed by Americans. 

This would make a good title for this talk: The Battleground of American Life. Most Americans love it, and cannot live without it. 

What do We think of People?

The First Industrial Revolution caused us to value machines over people. Several Revolutions later (after the Computer Revolution) we are beginning to value us - but only beginning. 

We have to recognize that we have an ambivalent attitude toward ourselves. Sometimes we like ourselves, sometimes we do not. And we have to remain aware of this. 

I hardly need to tell you, for most of this us this seldom happens. We are unaware, and will stay that way. 

Our technology (often referred to as Tech) also telling us this. We are making some amazing stuff. But much of it is weaponry.