JB's Place

The Web BeforeTime

Back in the early days of the web, there was an effort to make online communities. They called them “dungeons” and since there were usually more than one person involved in the
server, they added multi-user on the front of it. Put together, you had a multiuser dungeon or a MUD. These dungeons hosted programmed content that created a virtual world. This
was rather like a primitive version of Second Life with no graphics. It was a world served via a protocol called telnet and you simply had to point your client at the appropriate
link to log on. One such MUD was called Lambda Moo.

The Event For Consideration

I was introduced to the Moo by someone who had previously used it at a university they had attended. The host for the Moo I poked about on was a purple crayon server which
I think was originally hosted somewhere at MIT. I came to the scene a bit later than the event that I will here examine although the event under consideration did overlap
with some of my earlier experiences of the web. This Moo that is Lambda Moo was not the Moo I inhabited, but it was within the community of Moos that existed like
an ecosystem before the web as we know it now. The date for this event is December 23, 1993.

The Infamous Date

This date is famous for a bad reason. This is probably one of the first recorded cases of internet hate speech/assault. You can read about the event in detail here.
The really short version of all this is that this Moo had something called a voodoo doll type of avatar, which allowed a user to be in the room but also not be in the room. It
also, with some modification, allowed a person to take over and control the avatars of other users. One of the users somewhat confusingly had a Haiti-voodoo name that was called
Legba. Therefore, we have a situation where the users and the reality and what was virtual became highly entangled. Yet, all the users after what is here described as “virtual rape”
appeared to suffer a sense of trauma as their avatars were forced to do sexual things to one another in text form.

Back In ‘93

So back in the early nineties, people apparently still had sensitivities to the virtual act of rape. Nowadays we would simply call this trolling. How did we get from the point
where we are back in the early nineties to where we are today, when this sort of interaction would probably hardly faze or surprise anyone? Were we more innocent then, or had
we simply figured that the internet was somehow inherently safer than reality? What is especially interesting about the event is the reaction. There are many case studies of
the ordeal. In the end, they discover it is some lone guy in NYU being egged on by what are probably his frat buddies. This sounds a lot like the plotline to “Porkies” or something,
so what was it that caused everyone to recoil so violently in 93 whereas in the world of today we probably would hardly blink?

Loss of Innocence?

My theory is that we have lost some innocence in the intervening time or else been desensitized to stories like this because they have become so common. We are awash in a world
at this point of a thousand sexual acts of questionable morality. So, when someone does something twice removed from reality, we are even less moved by it than we are if it
happens in reality. The female participants involved in the above ordeal seem to feel as though that the virtual rape was tantamount to actual rape. I am sure women who have
been physically raped would likely disagree, but that is not the point. The point is that in the early web, the feeling of having been raped was not really possible to distinguish
from actual rape at least in this case.

Other Meanings of Lambda

An interesting extra point to the discussion is that Lambda has a lot of connotations. One source has this to say on it:

Historians believe that the lambda symbol was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet called ‘lamed’ or ‘lamedh.’
Lamed/ lamedh is the twelfth letter in the Semitic abjad system – a type of prehistoric writing systems in which glyphs or crude drawings were used to signify different consonants. Lamed looked like a slightly tilted version of the Latin alphabet ‘L’ that we use in modern English. If you rotated it 90 degrees clockwise so that the two sides were pointing downwards and away from each other, the symbol would be congruent to lambda letter as used in an uppercase font.

The lamed sign was said to be inspired by a goad. A goad was a type of pastoral staff that was traditionally used for guiding livestock on the field (e.g. to round up cattle or prod oxen that were plowing the land).

However, other semioticians suggest that the lambda symbol in the Greek alphabet is derived from ‘Lam’ in Old Arabic. This is probably because lam bears close resemblance to an inverted ‘L’ and hence, by extension, the Phoenician lamed as well.
Quite interestingly, variations of the lambda symbol can be found in other ancient languages. For instance, in the Cyrillic alphabet, the eleventh letter El
(denoted by the symbol Л) is said to be derived from the Greek lambda. Moreover, the Roman letter L was also adapted from the lambda symbol.^1

They further distinguish that in the Greek alphabet Lambda is the eleventh letter before Mu. Moo?

Here are some other uses of Lambda from the same page as the above:

In modern physics, or even math and engineering for that matter, the lowercase lambda is officially recognized as the shorthand symbol for wavelength i.e. it corresponds to the shortest distance between two consecutive points on a wave that are in phase with each other.

It can also be used to signify the linear charge density. In nuclear studies, small lambda symbol refers to the radioactive or exponential decay constant, whereas, in microelectronics, lambda refers to the channel length modulation in MOSFETs (a type of transistor devices).

Lambda particle, sometimes also called lambda hyperon is a term used in particle physics. It corresponds to an uncharged particle having a mass equivalent to that of 2,183 electrons combined together.

The lambda symbol is also employed in statistics. It is one of the main parameters for calculating Poisson distribution, where it indicates the probability of the occurrence of a certain event in a given period of time.

Lowercase lambda letter is the symbol for latent heat in Chemistry.

You might be surprised to know that the lambda sign is also used in criminology. It shows the total number of times that an individual has committed an offense.

Since 1970, the lambda sign has been associated with the gay civil rights movement. Its use to denote the rights of the gay and lesbian community was first popularized by Tom Doerr, who chose lambda as the symbol for Gay Activists Alliance in New York.

You might come across people wearing the lambda symbol on pendants and charm bracelets to show solidarity with, or identify themselves as members of the LGBT community.

An interesting use case from Hebrew is that Lambda is most often associated with things that have to do with teaching and/or learning. So if we examine everything above, we could
say that the Moo community in question didn’t learn anything and have people re-offending as per all the different meanings of Lambda alone. What is the offense and what is the
time that must be served? Clearly, use of sexual energy and perhaps herds/groups of people. Is everyone going to keep repeating the same story till the cows come home?

Remember the Eiggghtiiiess?

Growing up in the eighties, most of the /images of Russia in my world were limited to submarines, hammers and sickles, and many, many spies. The word “comrade”
was meant to make you perk up your ears, and the word “revolution” when it came to Russia was about the same as referring to Nazi Germany. In other words,
we were mostly taught the USSR was over there, and was most often unfriendly. My family had a set of encyclopedias from the 1960’s which were not especially
helpful concerning what the USSR was up to. New countries had come and gone, and basically I learned that if you heard a Russia accent in James Bond films,
there was a good chance that person was “not a good guy”.

Russia Politics Back Then

So, I picked up Autopsy on an Empire with some hesitation in the sense that Russian politics are about as clear as mud to me from that time period. I knew
a whole lot of things went down in a very small amount of time. I remembered Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and a little bit of a shirtless Putin wrestling bears
or something, but that was about it. Part of my ignorance on the subject matter was, I think, because Russia had such a foreign system compared to the
US when I was growing up. The names sounded very different, and the institutions were radically different. It is hard for me, as an American, to truly
understand the dialog after say Tsar Nicolas II. Why? Cause commies, that’s why! America(tm).

I Did Not Understand Squat Back Then

Reading through Autopsy on an Empire gave me an appreciation for the tremendous pressure Gorbachev was under. He had to try to do something new and different
while also attempting to make sure not to alienate a base that wanted neither. He was trying to hold the center such that the entire country could roll
into a new kind of unity that it had not had previously. Some of the old would have to be carried over, and a lot of it would have to be chucked out the
window. At any given moment, it was difficult to tell what should be retained and what should be chucked. It is to Gorbachev’s credit that the entire
country did not erupt into a bloody massacre.

Political Pressures

In essence, Russia had outgrown communism, but it wasn’t sure what it wanted to be when it grew up into what it was becoming. What was apparent was that the Revolutionary economy
was not going to cut it anymore, and Empires were more of a liability than an asset. What caught my attention in this book was the tension between Gorbachev
and Yeltsin. Gorbachev had to be the “let’s sorta hold the old together” which allowed Yeltsin to be the “Screw it, rip it all up” guy. Though they were often
rivals, I am not sure things could have gone as they did without their two personalities being involved. Yeltsin could afford to be more radical BECAUSE
of Gorbachev. Gorbachev needed some foil like Yeltsin to show the regular party members what would happen if they didn’t figure things out. Interestingly,
and somewhat worryingly, Yeltsin was mostly trying to get Russia to unify as per a UN understanding of what unity among nation-states looked like under
that model.

In The End…

In the end of the book, Gorbachev isn’t being radical enough fast enough to keep up with Yeltsin, and so Yeltsin winds up taking the point and essentially
ousts Gorbachev as a relic of communism when in reality Gorbachev certainly did not care for communism. Gorbachev becomes little more than a reminder of the past
of Russia, although without him it is unlikely any other meaningful change could have occurred. Certainly, the Revolution would have been bloody yet again.

My Interpretation

I found the book a little hard to follow, but that was more because my mind drifted across Russian words that I did not fully know. I had to remind myself
what was being done and why. In about the middle of the book, it was like all that cleared up, and everything made sense in terms of the nation changes
that started to happen. Toward the end, Matlock gives you a “the rest of the story” about what happened after everything unified. Matlock, the author of the narrative,
was the US ambassador who wrote his impressions of the fall of the USSR.

Q Movement Links

I think it is likely that the Q movement referenced this book because the United States as at a not dissimilar point to the USSR in the sense that we have
to put up or shut up. Nations periodically change, and it is time for the United States to become more of what it should be and less of what it should not be.
As can be seen, free speech has been hushed up with regard to the movement, and now there is nearly a terrorism label if you question certain narrative lines.
None of those are inherently American values, regardless of whether in practice that has been the case in the past or not. Matlock keeps up the dialog with Reagan and
Bush Sr. with what is an American adversary and the result is that the whole thing implodes and changes. While I think there is an advantage in speaking to
an apparent adversary, like the USSR in the 80’s, I also think there are times and places where no discussion or diplomacy is applicable. I am not sure that the US
is not in a place where we are past the point of discussion. I’d like to think there is still the ability to have freedom of choice, but it is beginning to feel
more and more like the only freedom you can have is the freedom that is available at the tip of a sword.

Book Takeaway!

My feeling is that this book ought to be read by anyone who lived during the time periods wherein the USSR was a super power. It will give you a different
insight into what was happening during a time when the “Iron Curtain” was large and cold. It might also help you understand some of the stuff you lived through
without knowing it, and it might as well show you what can happen to any super power that cannot roll with the punches.

The Words of Solon

In the ancient world, stories were told as parables and aphorisms. Whether or
not the subject matter was literally true, it was true in the eyes of wisdom,
and so was true nonetheless. In some ways, one could argue that these stories
were “truer than truth”. One such story concerns a King and a person who was
usually accorded the quality of wisdom–Solon. I will quote the story below:

“Well, my Athenian friend, I have heard a great deal about your wisdom, and how
widely you have travelled in the pursuit of knowledge. I cannot resist my
desire to ask you a question: who is the happiest man you have ever seen?”

King Croesus was already certain that he was in fact the happiest man in the
world, but wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of hearing his name parroted back
to him from such a venerated sage.

But Solon, who was not one for flattery, answered: “Tellus the Athenian.”

The king was quite taken aback and demanded to know how such a common man might
be considered the happiest of all.

Tellus, Solon replied, had lived in a city with a government that allowed him to
prosper and born fine sons, who had in turn given him many grandchildren who all
survived into youth. After enjoying a contented life, he fought with his
countrymen, bravely died on the battlefield while routing the enemy, and was
given the honor of a public funeral by his fellow Athenians.

Croesus was perplexed by this explanation but pushed on to inquire as to who the
next happiest man was, sure that if he wasn’t first, he had to be second.

But again Solon answered not with the king’s name, but with a pair of strapping
young Argives: Cleobis and Biton.

Known for their devotion to family and athletic prowess, when their mother
needed to be conveyed to the temple of Hera to celebrate the goddess’ festival,
but did not have any oxen to pull her there, these brothers harnessed themselves
to the incredibly heavy ox cart and dragged it over six miles with their mother
aboard. When they arrived at the temple, an assembled crowd congratulated the
young men on their astounding feat of strength, and complimented their mother on
raising such fine sons. In gratitude for bestowing such honor upon her, the
mother of these dutiful lads prayed to Hera to bestow upon them “the greatest
blessing that can befall mortal men.” After the sacrifices and feasting, the
young brothers laid down in the temple for a nap, and Hera granted their
mother’s prayer by allowing them to die in their sleep. “The Argives,” Solon
finished the tale, “considering them to be the best of men, had statues made of
them, which they sent to Delphi.”

Now King Croesus was livid. Three relative nobodies, three dead men were happier
than he was with his magnificent palace and an entire kingdom of his own to rule
over? Surely the old sage had lost his marbles. Croesus snapped at Solon:

“That’s all very well, my Athenian friend; but what of my own happiness? Is it
so utterly contemptible that you won’t even compare me with mere common folk
like those you have mentioned?”

Solon explained that while the rich did have two advantages over the poor – “the
means to bear calamity and satisfy their appetites” – they had no monopoly on
the things that were truly valuable in life: civic service, raising healthy
children, being self-sufficient, having a sound body, and honoring the gods and
one’s family. Plus, riches tend to create more issues for their bearers – more
money, more problems.

More importantly, Solon continued, if you live to be 70 years old, by the
ancient calendar you will experience 26,250 days of mortal life, “and not a
single one of them is like the next in what it brings.” In other words, just
because things are going swimmingly today, doesn’t mean you won’t be hit with a
calamity tomorrow. Thus a man who experiences good fortune can be called lucky,
Solon explained, but the label of happy must be held in reserve until it is seen
whether or not his good fortune lasts until his death.

“This is why,” Solon finally concludes to Croesus, “I cannot answer the question
you asked me until I know the manner of your death. Count no man happy until the
end is known.”

Croesus was now sure Solon was a fool, “for what could be more stupid” he
thought, than being told he must “look to the ‘end’ of everything, without
regard for present prosperity?” And so he dismissed the philosopher from his
court.

While the king quickly put Solon’s admonitions out of his mind, the truth of it
would soon be revealed to him in the most personal and painful way.

First, Croesus’ beloved son died in a hunting accident. Then, blinded by hubris
(excessive pride), he misinterpreted the counsel of the oracles at Delphi and
began an ill-advised attempt to conquer King Cyrus’ Persian Empire. As a result,
the Persians laid siege to his home city of Sardis, captured the humbled ruler,
and placed him in chains on top of a giant funeral pyre. As the flames began to
lick at his feet, Croesus cried out, “Oh Solon! Oh Solon! Oh Solon! Count no man
happy until the end is known!”

There are many ways to interpret this parable, but one thing that comes to attention here for me is the accounting of time. 26,250/70 = 375.
Hence, on average, we know that a solar year by the ancient calendar was equaling somewhere near 375 days per year. That means there are 10 extra days,
on average during the life of Croesus. 10 X 70 is then 700 days, which is nearly two years more than we would regard someone who was 70 by our accounting of time. So, we would
conclude that Solon might be telling us that Croesus, richest man in Lydia, was actually 72. This number comes up frequently, as there are 72 years
per one degree of precession on the Earth. This means that the Earth wobbles about and the background stars appear to change such that the pole star
itself eventually changes by one degree every 72 years. Approximately every 26,000 years, the pole star shifts into some other star at this rate of precession.

Do you think it is a coincidence, then, that in English there are 26 letters? There are also systems of thought that appertain to letters mapping to numbers, such as in
Hebrew Gematria, where 26 = to the sum of the letters of YHVH.

So, what does all this have to do with Croesus? Well, there are many people happy on the Earth with riches who may well die in a fire. If that is so,
then though they were very happy for a long time, dying in a fire is gonna leave an unpleasant mark on the experience. One simply cannot say that a life was
either good or bad until the end is known–and with our above understanding of time the end may be SOONER than we anticipated since the accounting
of time from an ancient perspective may be different. We are assuming many constants that may well change. A different take on accounting for time
according to Solon may be found here: Quantum Leap

Lincoln: Circa 2019

After what seems to be an unacceptably long time, I was finally able to finish the book on Lincoln that I got back in 2019 by Goodwin.
I was not sure where to post this review as in the past I have used Goodreads, but I a sick of everyone else owning the information I write, so I
figured that the best spot would be here on my website. I can always “syndicate” the content OUT from here if I feel like being especially social.
As I mentioned before, this blog is less social, and more “here is a microphone on a platform” oriented. Back to the book!

2019

My church took a trip to see the Lincoln museum in Springfield Illinois. This was in the deep beforetime of all the Covid nightmares which seems like quite
some time ago. The museum offered us the chance to join some sort of Lincoln Friends of the Museum club which they referred to as the Time Traveler’s
package or something like that. The idea was that you could come into the museum with special privileges since you were a time traveler and bring guests.
Neat gimmick, right? Right. So we joined, as a church. For joining, you got to pick from several items, and one of the items availabe was this book. I
therefore procured this book, and it got left in the back seat of my car up near the back window for about a year as everything went topsy-turvy with lockdowns
and what I would term “cluster fucks”.

Reflections

So, Lincoln kept staring at me from the reflection in the back window of my car and I kept thinking “Boy, I need to read that.” Between working on
some computer networking and doing some grounds keeping, though, it seemed I rarely got the chance to do any reading. When I finally DID get to start
reading it, 2020 was coming to a close and the fun of 2021 had begun.

What About The BOOK?

This book is well researched in the sense that it contains some interesting perspectives and source details on Lincoln. For instance, it mentions a barn
fire where Lincoln kept his horses in Washington, which is not a frequently mentioned matter. The characters are brought to life in a multidimensional way
such that their characters feel organic. We learn about the facets of the characters around Lincoln as well as those within the Lincoln family. Mary Lincoln
makes some appearances, but hers are fairly narrow in scope and do not seem to be able to avoid the standard interpretations of what Mrs. Lincoln was or
was not like. Mostly, the standard vituperative hell cat is present when it comes to her. Occasionally, the author says that perhaps her actions were
warranted given climate X.

What Lincoln Was Reading

What Lincoln was reading and why is often a topic of discussion as well within the book. Against the backdrop of Stanton, we learn just how pissed off
this made everyone because they regarded Lincoln’s sense of humor as being some impropriety to the post. Of course, had Lincoln been as grave as the
undertaker, it is likely they would have also found that objectionable since he would have been as humorousless as a stump. What you learn about the
history of the Civil War is that everyone is extremely opinionated about something, and someone else is to blame. The buck stops, of course, at Lincoln’s
desk for most of the stuff people wanted to complain about. First, we learn, Lincoln is not radical enough. Then, later, he is too radical. Still later,
he is too conservative. Later yet, he is not conservative enough. Mary Lincoln falls under a similar light. Everybody has some bitching to do, and of course,
everyone knows how to solve the problem except no one appears to be doing it EXCEPT Lincoln and that is only after wrestling with what is essentially the
entire nation.

Risks In Scholarship

Goodwin avoids taking any especially risky steps in her scholarship except addressing the ridiculouss claim that Lincoln was gay because he slept in the
same bed as Joshua Speed. Shocker, he was not gay. That is about as far as her risk taking from the standard Lincoln narrative goes. Why is that disappointing?
Well, I will tell you why.

Everybody Wanted Lincoln Dead

Everybody around Lincoln had a reason to want Lincoln dead since everyone saw him as an impediment or some chess piece to be overcome or used. However,
the guys responsible for the death of Lincoln are primarily two: His Secretary of War–that is to say Stanton, and his Vice President–that is to say Johnson.
There were plenty of others who were complicit in his murder such as some of the Radical Republicans. They all somewhat knew what was going to happen
at the theater that night, since nearly everyone refused to go sit in the box with the President and Mrs. Lincoln. Standard scholarship does not address
these matters because it paints the history of the US in a very, very distinctly different light from the story that is handed down. When you understand
Stanton was actively plotting the death of Lincoln so he could, in his mind, become President you understand why he was weeping so much after his death.
His own sin was before him. Likewise, you understand why Johnson seemed like some drunkard during his speech. He was drunk with the desire to become
President which he would later do.

But THE SOUTH!!!

Yeah yeah, the south had reason to want Lincoln dead, but Lincoln was literally wounded to death in the house of his supposed friends due to ambition
and envy. Then, the story was covered up. Goodwin does not get into any of these matters, but I cannot believe it was because she did not encounter
any of the evidence of these issues in her research. Rather, nobody wants to make movies about the truth as a general rule, because the truth makes
people squirm in their seats when they learn that all these “Fine Christian men” plotted a murder of the man who brought them through the most troubled
time the nation had then known. Booth, in the end, was just a patsy who thought everyone would love him for what he did. He did not think he would simply
be another pawn in the crimson red game of chess being played.

Still…

Still, even though Goodwin did not have the courage to go into the eye of the storm on these issues, that hardly makes her unique among Lincoln authors.
All the ones that DO go into these subjects seem to wind up marginalized. It is a little like the Russian Collusion narrative concerning Trump. Whatever
the truth of it is, you better not go near it because it is as radioactive as a subject matter as you can hope to find. Wouldn’t that normally make you
suspicious? Anytime there is something so touchy that just the mention of it makes people bristle, somebody, somewhere is trying to hide something.
If you do not believe me, just catch your children with the hands in the cookie jar.

When Murderers Get Along…

Murderers get along when they are facing a common foe. It was so with Lincoln and his Cabinet. When the danger has passed, though, that is when the “chickens
come home to roost”. Indeed, the chickens all plotted and schemed to get the war over with Lincoln at the head, and then everyone thought that they could
do the job of Reconstruction. Instead, they all caused a rift in the nation that still has not fully healed to this day. Great job, guys!

Do You Think It Is Any Different Today?

Do you think, today, that the world is any different? Everywhere things do not make sense, someone is hiding some motive for some reason. You cannot
swing a dead Talaco–ahem, I meant CAT, without hitting something that does not make sense. Conclusion? Some very ambitious people are still trying to
do the Lincoln act. Problem is, they, and by extension everyone else, is out of time for that.

Check Out The Book…

If you wanted detailed, cowardly scholarship that is not taking many risks. In other words, check it out if you want to basically understand a modern
academic understanding. Other than that, you would be better off reading something like Dark Union which is courageous enough to advance another sort of
thesis. Right or wrong, at least that work tries to explain something that has historically made little sense.

Github of Yore

Human beings are inherently social creatures, for better or worse. When they are NOT being social, it is most often the case that there was some reason
that led inexorably to their new default unsocial state. Github, then, the version-controlled codebase which is social, would seem to be the most
prosocial network ever invented for a usually inherently anti-social people–computer programmers.

My Github Entry

I came into Github back when their structure was officially this:

GitHub, Inc. was originally a flat organization with no middle managers; in other words, “everyone is a manager” (self-management).]
Employees could choose to work on projects that interested them (open allocation), but salaries were set by the chief executive.

In other words, I started participating lightly in that community back when people could work on what they wanted to. A few years later they would
trip over hosting something like 3 million files and then after that in 2018 Microsoft swooped in and bought them up.

I have had to rub elbows with people who have had to rub elbows with those in the upper echelons of Microsoft in the past. I did not like the company
in the 90’s, I and still don’t like it now. I don’t like it for precisely the reason they bought Github. They come in and have infinite amounts
of resources that they offer to buy the work of people who otherwise are going on about the business of coding, and they introduce the Golden Apple
of Discord right on into Paradise. When they get done, everybody who was formerly doing their own thing have turned into some sort of Microsoft Borg
collective. For this reason, I hate dealing with Microsoft and so I rarely use their products.

Linux and Microsoft

Lately, though, Linux and Microsoft had been in bed with one another in odd, disturbing ways. For Microsoft, the advantage is obvious–they want to find
some way to take all the “Free code” out there and look like they are being some kind of open source philanthropists because they “love the community”
so much. Linus helped develop git, which is the version control system implemented to help share code with others collaboratively.

My Latest Go

When Github announced that Microsoft was taking it over in 2018, I deleted all my files I had hosted there. I moved the bulk over to Gitlab. The
problem? Well, the Federation. The wha? Did you just move into some Star Trek domain, JB? I suppose so.

Github

Github is an excellent “walled garden” in the sense that it allows you to share code with most anyone in a way most people now understand. Gitlab is a
self-hosted alternative that is not as widely adopted, but also is not owned by Microsoft and is instead owned by CERN folks. Given the choice between
the makers of such items as the Atomic Bomb and the Internet and Microsoft, I will pick the former. That gives you an idea of how much I hate Microsoft.

Git Changes

It has been some time since I used Github, and had cause to today since I wanted to “Fork something” and then make a “pull request”. Basically this meant
I wanted to pull some code, branch it, change something about it, and then merge it back to where I got it from with the change included. Trouble is, I
don’t use Github for much of anything and instead tried to use Gitlab. Guess what? Gitlab and Github don’t “federate”. In other words, Github, in specific,
won’t let you play with other services. How Microsoft of them!

Github and Tokens

When I was younger, occasionally we would go to Show Biz Pizza place. There were lots of robots there that played various songs and many games that
would spit out tickets. To play the games, you had to have tokens. Kids enjoyed it, but it was pretty much an adult nightmare. When I got done with
Githubbing the stuff I needed to Github, it told me that my password technique that I use to access the service is only something old foggies do. Apparently
all the cool kids are moving on over into “tokens”. I have seen tokens in other applications, and I have also seen the use of SSH for all manner of
networking needs. So, I get it from a security perspective. On the other hand, I felt like I was back in Show Biz with the creepy robots and the
“fun” all the kids ought to be having in the ball pit. There was always something vaguely disturbing about the seeming natural combination of kids
and robots. Nowadays, with all the discussion concerning “sex robots” for human beings, I think that perhaps Show Biz might have had more sinister
undertones than any of us imagined back then.

Github and Changing Too Much Crap

Github and other technology places are changing things so frequently that it is hard to keep up. Most of this is in response to the web warfare raging,
but it is not as though Microsoft was not warned about this frequently and ignored it. One only need to recall the hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow
to remember how all the warnings fell on deaf ears. Instead, Microsoft threw money at PR to say there was no problem, until it was undeniably in a
situation where the problem was all too evident. The web itself is an infrastructure that is not secure nor what is really designed to be. If you want to
fix that problem, it is going to take more than Show Biz pizza tokens.

In Summary

When I got done using Github, it reminded me a little of having gone to Show Biz as a kid–like I ate a little too much cheese pizza, played a few
too many games that cost too much–didn’t have enough tickets to get anything cool, and like I needed to watch my six at all times for any incoming
bogies. Oh, and let’s not forgot the feeling of seeing a bunch of robots on stage…

Once Upon A Time

When I was about 16, I was elected as the state representative of Kentucky to go to Whitewater, Wisconsin and discuss World Affairs. I was one of two people selected to go,
and it was, among other things, a very memorable experience. The time period of this journey was during the Clinton years, and there were two large things going on as far as
regional concerns/competitions at that time. One of those was the thing for which I mentioned I was chosen above, and the second thing we had going on was something called “APES”
which stood for “American Private Enterprise System” or something pretty close to it. Right around the time I was preparing to go on this trip, they had another conference for
APES where they sent who was the acting county attorney to come talk to us. He decided, among other things, to argue about the morality of the Clintons.

Whitewater, Clintons…

In Whitewater, we were also discussing the Clintons as the scandal involving President Clinton’s sexual proclivities was becoming known. The height of that scandal would come a few
years later, but people were already thinking about what was or was not impeachable with regard to the conduct of their Commander in Chief. I was not a Clinton fan then, nor am I
one now. Back then the hot topic issues concerned Free Trade and Constitutionality of what was or was not impeachable.

The Attorney Arrives

I remember the attorney arriving to speak with us, and he decided he would argue the sexual morality of the Clinton’s with us. While we were discussing the matter, I referred to the
definition of the Commander in Chief concerning having a “moral core”. In other words, it was widely known and also defined somewhat in the job description of the President of the
United States that he also had the duty to be the chief moral citizen of the country. In other words, he did not have to be perfect as a human being, but he ought to be trying
pretty hard to live the values of the United States in an ideal sense within his life.

The Rebuttal of Mr. Miller

Mr. Miller, which was his name, replied that he was “not aware of any moral clause” that concerned the morality of the Chief Magistrate of the land. Now, had we been in a court of law,
we know that a court would say ignorance is no excuse when it comes to legal matters, but Mr. Miller used this ignorance as his raison d’etre for dismissing my argument. If I had
given him commentary from sitting presidents, do you suppose it would have mattered? How about the Constitution and then the duties of the president as defined in that document?
Here is the role of “chief citizen” which encompasses having a “moral core” defined somewhat: https://8rolesofthepresident.weebly.com/chief-citizen.html
In other words, throwing a baseball is part of the “chief citizen” deal–along with the American ideals that go along with whatever that game represents.

Meanwhile In Whitewater

Arguments ensued about Adam Smith’s economic theories and whether “invisible hands” really governed the flow of things and was the right way for economy to be wrangled and how such
ideas did or did not work against matters like NAFTA. Since everyone there was relatively young and from across the entire world, most all arguments were being driven by ideals of
one kind or another. Most people of the Democratic mindset were quite concerned about the environment and saving the Earth from impending climate change. There were keystone speakers
who spoke on certain topics and some had interesting perspectives and some did not. Regardless, everyone was given a chance to speak. I left the event with a much larger view of the
world as I had met people from all nationalities and I understood something of the trouble the world has when it comes to governments. I did not feel, however, that we really accomplished
anything other than talking about variables that ultimately we would have no control over unless we somehow convinced other people who were not there, and did not have the frame of
reference, to listen to our experiences.

And It All Came Down To Mr. Miller

And the problem all ultimately came down to Mr. Miller. At a local level, attorneys are paid to win arguments. They should have a code of conduct and understand basic constitutional
premises, but they do not necessarily care to do that or have a need to do that since they are not there to represent the people. Though I had seen the national level, the local level,
it seemed to me, was the place to start making a difference.

Mr. Miller and His Personal Life

The little town I lived near at that point was always gossipy, and so there was some less than pleasant gossip concerning Mr. Miller and his own sexual inclinations. I would learn
about this matter later, and I suppose it would not matter to me except for the fact that was the very thing he was arguing. I am left to wonder then whether he had a vested interest?
Was he arguing the situation to help teach us, or to defend something about his own life that would threaten his position potentially?

Which Brings Us to a Central Point

What you choose to do with your sexual life is your own choice. However, when you are a public figure, when your own choices are interfering with world policy, I think you are an
unfit leader and constitutionally should not be allowed to continue in your position. At both points, there was a sexual discussion going on that should have had nothing to do with
political matters. Our leaders, one through being drunk on power and the attorney who I would say was drunk on winning the argument no matter how silly his objection to my argument
was, are really both microcosms of each other. I do not know whether they were also both Democrats, but that would be another layer to the analysis.

And The Biggest Point of All

If everyone with power is weaving a web to cover one another’s asses because they can’t control what they put their dicks in, they REALLY cannot represent the people of the United States
and this land. We would not put up with that behavior out of grade school children, so why do we rationalize it at national levels? I understand human beings are multifaceted and
sexual things happen, but in the friggin’ OVAL Office? Come on now. Ignorance of the law, Mr. Miller, of what the US Constitution does or does not say should have disqualified you
from teaching kids and practicing law.

Some Days It Feels Like You Wake Up In The Twilight Zone

Today, one of the first things brought to my attention are various articles about how HIPPA does not prevent a business from asking about your Covid vaccination.
The first thing that I thought about that was “Well, duh, HIPAA is mostly law about how hospitals and medical places have to handle your medical data.” In other words,
if you transfer medical information around, how are places that get that data to handle the info? The legislation says “Very carefully!”. So no, a business asking about
your vaccination status has nothing to do with a HIPAA violation, because you would be voluntarily giving them the info. They do not all ready have access to said info
from your healthcare provider. On the other hand, we can imagine a situation where it is a violation…hang on to your hats!

Excuse me, M’am, I Was Wondering If You Had An Abortion?

WHAT? HOLY SHIT! GET THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES! CALL IN THE NATIONAL GUARD AND TEN ATTORNEYS! HEADS WILL ROLL! HOW DARE YOU! 9th and 14th Amendments!

See what I did there? I simply changed the situation a little to discuss ABORTION–you know–killing the unborn because it is inconvenient in some way or another and with instant
clarity you know your rights. Hell, you even get a slogan “My Body, My Rights!” Really? So like, I don’t HAVE to get the shot? Do you HAVE to get an abortion?

But That’s NOT the Same!

Sure, you say that your decision not to murder your child is your choice and it does not affect anyone else, right? What about all the people the kid could have interacted with,
or societal things they might have done? You might just have deprived humanity of a Nobel prize winner, or a future politician who can help mend broken things. So, your abortion
and your choice does, in point of fact, have a consequence to me. Let us not mention the whole “murder, guilty feeling” you are going to have that will form the nexus of the rest
of your life experiences. In the same way, getting or not getting the vaccine affects others potentially. Why is that? Well, for certain abortion affects life in a way that you
cannot undo it. The vaccine, though we cannot get firm science saying it works, most affects whether or not YOU personally get COVID. Why just you? Because at a certain point, as
any doctor can tell you, herd immunity kicks in. If it does not kick in, something else is going on. So, at a certain saturation point of people with immunity which can came from
getting the vaccine or not–whether you get the vaccine or not matters only to your life. Your body, your choice! Don’t like that fact? Too bad. My body, my choice! Right?

A Little Education On the Amendments

The 14th Amendment disallows discrimination to classes of people in addition to outlawing slavery. We fought a whole war over it. You should look it up sometime. The Ninth Amendment
concerns protection of rights not otherwise written into the Bill of Rights. In other words, just because we could not think of every right does not therefore mean there are other
rights which the document does not protect. When you put these things together you get fun legal precedent such as “A woman (gender class 14th amendment) has the right (9th amendment)
to choose what she does with her body. (murdering the unborn). By the same magic we can say “People who do not want the vaccine (14th amendment) have the right (9th amendment) to
refuse it. But it affects other people who might die? Tough shit! Give me back the Nobel Prize winner who would have come up with the vaccine to this within the first week that you
aborted! Can’t do it? Well then, maybe this whole thing is more like a cultural kind of retribution from a power much greater than anyone here discussing things. Might oughta have
a chat with /him/her/it and see what /he/she/it thinks. I did not capitalize those pronouns you noticed, because for all I know you may pray to a shoe.

As An Aside

Usually plagues have a certain curve to them. They do not keep “changing form relentlessly” especially when the news cycle shifts into a story that might be more interesting than the plague.
If you are not yet smelling something rotten in Denmark, my guess is it is only because you all ready could not breathe.

Those That Build

Before I even begin writing this post, there is necessary background. It comes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, the classics.

With this deep viewing follows a necessary axiom: Your users will never want nor be satisfied with what you build. Ever.
Here is the next one: You are going to rebuild a tower over and over and over and each time you are going to convince yourself the software or solution is better.
It isn’t.

What Do I Mean?

Recently, I was thinking about the internet and social interaction. Historically, I was thinking about how pubs were the places that people would go in order to interact with others.
When you were physically at the pub, it was understood that if you started talking in a manner that you should not, some guy might just beat the shit out of you. If he did not do that,
he might challenge you to a duel. Either way, what you spoke was potentially going to have consequences.

A 24hr Pub

The internet, I am afraid, has turned into a 24 hour pub. The problem with that is that not everyone knows they are on a pub or that they might have had too much to drink. Likewise,
they do not understand that what they are doing in the pub does not go away when you “leave the pub” for the simple reason that you can never leave the pub. Since you cannot see
your fellow pub patron, you do not necessarily know when you might have spoken in a way you should not have. Worse, it could be the case that because you cannot see the pub patron,
you do not really care how they react to anything you do or say. This could create some situations, clearly, that would have resulted in the old pub backdrop in getting your face
punched or your guts shot. In other words, there was some very established norms of behavior and solutions for those problems.

Enter the Indie Web

So something that seemed like it might solve some of these concerns are the ideas behind the Indie Web. The problem though, is I was all ready on the Indie Web in 2004. We had tracebacks,
callbacks, webmentions or whatever you want to call them. We also all had blogs. Then, smart phones came onto the scene, and the attention span shrank to the size of the flea. Blogs
basically dried up, along with all the blogrolls and so on that were present. The idea behind the Indie Web movement though, is that you have a definite identity that is yours. If you
start talking smack, I can hunt you down and see who or what you are talking to. You have skin in the social interaction game. That seems positive, right? Well of course it is. The problem,
though, as I mentioned, is that in 2004 we all ready went through all this. We built a tower, and it fell into the swamp. Before that, Geocities had us building a tower, and then that too
fell into the swamp. Then we started giving away all of our personal info to be social and that model is in the process of falling into the swamp.

I Do Not Want the Indie Web on This Blog

On this particular blog, I do not want the Indie Web. Why? Because it is not inherently social. If anything, it would be selectively social for comments I felt like advanced the conversation
of the material present. That, however, puts the onus on me to regulate those comments. I have enough to do in my life all ready. Figuring out whether some comment is genuine or from
a bonafide douche bag is down on my list of things I enjoy undertaking. yet, all this underscores something about the nature of this blog. This blog is more like a platform where someone
has a microphone. It is my identity, and you get to listen/read my speeches. I do not want nor care to hear what you have to say back in most cases unless you write me an email. Even then,
if it is not on the topic of the matters I am discussing, I do not care to receive your email.This is a marked difference to the Indie web idea of “Let’s all be in a community and read one
another’s stuff.” And yet, there are some things that are only germinated by such an interaction–like the American Revolution.

The Solution?

The internet began as a kind of academic web. The identity of the user base was pretty easy to understand. Nowadays, we are trying to have too many identities in too many different ways
that do not really an identity make. If you own a domain on a server, that is a unique identity. You have a website. Yet, with that identity, you might not want to be a part of the model
of interaction that has been promulgated. The only thing left at that juncture is to fragment your identity across different solutions–hence all the different social networks we have.

The Actual Solution?

We still have not totally integrated technology into our lives in a reasonable way. We use it in our careers and for social reasons, but we are simply not made to be in a pub that
is open 24 hours–let alone one with a perfect memory and no immediate accountability to quickly, and ironically, kick our asses or shoot our guts out. It gives us the illusion that
our words have no consequence. After all, if you get rid of some social contact that lives across the country, do you really miss them all that much? Not as much as if you saw them
each day. That, at its core, is why the internet is a weird thing to try to exist upon, and why the tower will always be rebuilt and fall into the swamp. The problem is in the wetware,
not the software.

A Podcast On A Previous Domain

In about 2015/2016, my wife and I conceived of an idea to have an online podcast show. We decided to call it Nearly Sacred. As I mentioned on another post on this site, that website was attacked and then the domain was stolen. Keep in mind, this happened before Trump and de-platforming had become a common occurrence.

The podcast discussed sacred matters such as things hidden and plain sight as well as the daily news and speculated on whether something may or may not be a conspiracy theory. Answer: A group of people did conspire to take down the podcast and to steal the domain. As the company who wound up with the domain’s founder says–he was just a greedy guy who liked money. So, evidently, somehow, someway, our podcast must have been threatening someone’s idea of money–or else they were trying to keep us from monetizing our content.

Later, Our Store Also Faced This

Later on our brick and mortar store also faced the same process. Local police and law enforcement along with government were useless. Actual threats were made. What is your recourse when the legal avenues that are supposed to work for enforcement are lackadaisical? Same thing with government institutions.

Society Sometimes Goes Crazy For Awhile

History is replete with examples of society periodically losing its mind. So, the natural thing to do is to get another website and start over. The problem is, though, if something is rotten at the level of the Domain, you cannot start over since censorship inevitably comes through another means. The web is supposed to enable everyone to speak, but what about when it does not, where do you go?

Well, You Can Go Decentralized, Sorta

So this site along with many of my other sites is decentralized. It is easy to push and pull the code and the only expense I have for it is strictly the domain name itself. If the domain name goes down for some reason, I just link it on up to some other form of domain name. The problem with this is that many places that help serve decentralized sites may not be so decentralized. Github, for instance, is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft is not known for its support of freedom. The bigger issue even before all that is you need a connection and some place that provides internet service.

The Web Was Supposed to be About Freedom of Information

The web was supposed to be about freedom of information and FREEDOM from tyranny. The same thing was true with the Declaration of Independence. Other documents that have something like that in mind might be the Covenant in the Bible. This new world we are inhabiting is allowing the technology to “wag the dog”. There are places like IPFS out there, but “normal” people cannot use those places. There are cryptocurrencies out there, but “normal” people struggle to understand the vocabulary.

I Finally Built A New Domain

After all of the above trouble, I was able to eventually build a new website domain. The trouble with getting there though, was immense. First I tried Heroku, and it promised a free domain but it proved very difficult to point any other domain at it without paying additional fees. Then, it seemed it would work if I had the latest “Flat DNS Alias” record, but then it did not after changing name registrars. In essence, there was a lot of “being run around” for something very straight forward. Keep in mind, my degree is in IT and if I am having trouble, you better bet your ass someone else who does not have a degree in IT would have serious difficulty.

Ultimately…

Ultimately I went with a hosted platform that I installed things to, but even there there were several glitches. I really just wanted to host my stuff on my own webserver at home, but the ISP I use made that impossible by their agreements and crippling the router used.

We Have A Serious Free Speech Problem…

I have always been told that we are free to disagree with people, but the weight of the arguments should help us decide the truth. What we are not supposed to do is “silence people” even those with whom we disagree. If we are going to start doing that, then where do we stop silencing people? What a boring world that would be–where everyone agrees with you or is abducted from their home in the middle of the night because they do not. That is not a way to build consensus. It is not even American. Maybe Soviet. Not American. The people who do this are traitors and should be treated as so and deported from the United States to some other regime that their actions might gain them favor. If we do not do this, how is anybody ever supposed to build anything to have a life? If I can come in and knock down everything you do and then “shut you up” by censoring all of your means of communication and then further not having any law enforcement do anything about any of it, then what good are rights? Answer: They are useless. I do not care what rights you fought for. If this fundamental right is gone, none of the rest matter.

Learning IT

My suggestion is to learn a basic form of guerrilla IT. What would you do if you were in a Third World Shit Hole where some dictator is coming in targeting the local population? How would your infrastructure work then? You can use the established channels, but have these other means of broadcast in mind. You never know when your life could suddenly be ruined because you have run afoul of the thought-police. Of course, they also never known when their time is up…

Open Source Astrology Software

I have, in studying the realms of astrology, come across different programs or had cause to use one more so than another. I have always felt since the universe gives you your chart
for free, the basic information ought to be available for free. Analysis, of course, requires expertise and experience. Such a thing is something that does not come for free since such a
skill set is acquired at the expense of time.

Time Is Money

Astrology is quite literally a reckoning of time. The orbit of the planets dance in predictable way. These dances form cycles and patterns that in turn can be helpful in understanding the nature of the life
of the person who has the chart in question. Many people read these patterns with various success and multi-faceted intent. My specialty appertains more to soul evolution. It is something I have developed
in the over fifteen years I have read charts.

Tools I Use

Fist of all, I do not tend to use windows for much of anything. I have, in the past, used Solar Fire on Windows XP/7. Certainly, it is a great capable software, but it also comes at quite a high price tag. Since I rely more on Linux types of OS’s,
I am interested in software that comes for free with the open source movement. For that, it narrows the field to Openastro. Openastro does not build on current Ubuntu distros well as of this writing. On the other hand, Arch Linux distros run
Openastro quite well out of the AUR user repos. The issue I ran into that apparently someone resolved in the AUR concerned library versions in the tarball source files when I tried to run the software on Ubuntu. If you are on Arch, install an AUR helper like yay. You
do that by typing pacman -S yay or something close to it. After you get yay installed, then simply run yay -S openastro and you are off to the races. The nice thing about yay is that it takes care of all of the package dependencies of Openastro. No downloading of
Ephemerides and so on for you! That’s for Schmucks!

How I Use Openastro

I use Openastro mainly for Natal charts although there are many other options present. Certainly there are not as many options as SolarFire, but what do you expect for free? If you have 90% of the functionality and zero the cost, that sounds like a pretty good deal
to me.

The Other Thing I Use

Now we move on to the other thing I use. Most of the rest of the Linux tools out there for astrology have not stuck with me. However, using wine as an emulator for Astrolog I can get any other functionality I might need. Astrolog has
many fixed stars that it will display. It is not a Linux native application, though, which ideologically somewhat diminishes it. Still, for free, this thing can do some pretty amazing things some of which is not necessarily in commercial level software. With these two
basic tools and an Arch linux distro, I can get by and get the majority of anything I might want to get done for free.

Free Ain’t Free

Of course, I all ready said time is money. Hence, people working on this software are investing time. If you want them to continue to do that, you should give them something to show you value that time–and not “less” because it is free. Do you want a world
where people only pay more because everyone demands at least $400 for their skill set? Why not simply get into a Mexican standoff and point gun at each other and have an auction for who will get to fire their bullet? Right. So value the free stuff! Help the labor of loves out!