Random Thoughts

Allegation - a new -ism Having marked my return to blogging with one new word - egestatism - I thought I may as well invent another. We already have handwaving and whataboutery which appear to be de rigeur in any scientific or political discussion.  And now, may I present - roll of drums - allegationism. Allegationism, which in the 21st century must be spelled #allegationism for some unfathomable reason to do with winning an election, is the art of generating smoke in order to draw attention to a non-existent fire.  After all, there's no smoke without fire, right?  On the other…

The Neglected Majority In every nation, state or county that I am aware of there is a tendency for lawmakers to discriminate against the poor, whether directly or indirectly. Some politicians favour tax reductions for the wealthy.  The flip side of that coin appears to be a belief that everyone else should pay for the nation's needs. In any social group it is a statistical certainty that, in relative terms, a significant majority of people will earn less than the average income.  A few millionaires and billionaires can skew the graph to make a nation of underpaid serfs appear to…

Dear Awareness People: Shut the F......... (1) I'm begging you. I already have more than enough to be aware of. Even more than I'm aware of.  You try walking around Manhattan unaware. You won't be walking for long. Nope, there will be the usual horde of coked-up delivery guy lunatics whizzing around on bikes (sidewalks only, please) just praying for the opportunity to be the first to run you over.  But now, it's even worse than that. A few years ago Mayor Bloomdope decided that it was a good idea to take up even more of our hideously overcrowded streets to put in bike…

This is a warning especially to East Asians, most of which have never seen anything like this, because in China for example, there is no such thing and it is unheard of. Now they are warned to avoid Western European cities such as Berlin, London, and Paris. There are No Go Areas in those cities, but the authorities deny this, and so there are for example no warning signs posted around such areas! We are told, for example by airlines (below is a picture of a page from Air China's inflight magazine "Wings of China") and East European governments (see here, using the term No Go Zone), that in…

As an old time chessplayer who's stopped competing in tournaments, I often entertain myself with the odd blitz game in some internet chess server. And more often than not, I play rather crappy chess. So nothing to report there... However fluctuations do occur.I just played a combinative-style game which I wish to share, although I did not have the time yet (and I think I won't have time in the near future) to check the moves with a computer program. So my moves might well be flawed. Regardless, I enjoyed playing the game so that's enough motivation to report it here. My handle on FICS is "…

In an essay for The New York Times, (September 28, 2002) Joseph Epstein wrote: "According to a recent survey, 81 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them -- and that they should write it. As the author of 14 books, with a 15th to be published next spring, I'd like to use this space to do what I can to discourage them."     Christopher Hitchens had a similar sentiment: “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.”        Despite that advice, I decided to write a book, a novel, and I’m here to recommend the exercise…

After more research into the roots as well as the current realities of certain issues, I have removed some articles and revised many (as I usually do, but even more). The US does not have a prison or gun problem; it has a problem with certain races. Since separation (segregation) is no longer possible, the US is forced to build more incarceration facilities. It also needs far more holders of concealed weapons - that such is not necessary in certain other places is no argument against such but rather strengthens the case for that it is necessary, and it becomes so all over the decaying West…

Brexit, if it happens as we all fear will make the UK the Puerto Rico of Europe. No, not really... Puerto Rico has more rights as a commonwealth of the US than Britain will have in association with the EU. Puerto Rico can stay outside the union while people of that semi independent nation are full citizens of the union with free trade, free movement, and even serve on our supreme court.  All they need to do to join is hold a binding referendum and have statehood win with a 2/3 vote on a high voter turnout. Yes, I know. Some have compared Puerto Rico to Greece.  Those who…

In my 2014 article about large systems I wrote that "what makes a system large is our inability to observe everything within the system".  Large systems theory has been one of my personal thought experiments for a long time because I have long wondered how much of a system you would have to map before you could understand (more-or-less correctly) how it worked.  This was a consequence of having wiped out a few large data files on computer systems back in the days when it was neither easy nor simple to create a backup for your data.  When you have to write software that…

The few of you who regularly follow this blog may be rightly wondering why I have not published new posts in the last two weeks. The reason is overload. I have a few deadlines on January 31 that I need to meet, and several other errands to attend in the meantime. Hence I have decided to leave the blog behind until the end of this month.Besides, January is a rather uneventful month from the physics point of view. Experimenters from the big CERN collaborations are sharpening their tools in the wait of new 13 TeV data which could mean a lot to particle physics... if only the 750 GeV diphoton…