David Custis Kimball - blog
You: Why Dave; why now?
Me: Well, I've got a couple of kids; the younger asked that I stop with the lectures and asked, 'Dad, can I help you set up a blog?' Moments later 'Yea, that's a great idea, thinkin' they might just read it someday, me - Gaarr of Blog'
Personal comments on Art, Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC), Common NonSense, Dance, Design, Environment, Fable, Food, Frog Sense, Hegel, History, Horse Sense, Human Affairs, Humor, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Music, Nerd Stuff, Physics, Psychophysics, Real Estate, Science, Science Fiction, Software, Swimming, Technology, Theology, Uncommon Sense, and Waldo, alphabetically.
Just use 'Search' for the topic of choice or Waldo, perhaps.
Matters of Import & Timely Expertise
avoiding gossip and hate-speech.
A Ponderosity: exclusively recalled:
To say: "He is a man of truth," is to say nothing;
2 say: "He is a man of of," is to state an elementary truth of logic.
Winston Davids, 1969 - Trinity College Valedictorian - 1970; last known endeavor: actuarial contributions to the Donald.
| website-hit-counters.com |
Psychophysics, Human Affairs, Science, History
It is a wonderful thing when science can claim a ‘confirmation’ of the long list of ‘theories’ that are taken as ‘science’.
This might even permeate the realm of psychology … that ‘1st impressions, of sufficient power, give lasting memories’. It is also a danger signal for the power of the Press, TV, politicians, circuses, artwork, songs, and yes, the opposite sex. Looking your best to make a good 1st impression, often thought your mom’s nagging advice or edict, may be an important contributor to your success or failure in the eyes of the outside world…. especially if you deal in sparkly images.
It is also sounds a blast of caution to those who would project the best, but within and searching details reveals a horrible hypocrisy. On the political horizon are of course the detractors of: Israel, Geert Wilders, and even Amy Adams in a movie ‘Sunshine Cleaning’, where she confesses that her job ‘makes things a little bit better’.
And we should never forget the genius of J. A. Scott Kelso , several years ago, proclaimed ’ Nerves that fire together, wire together.’ There may actually be a democratic majority ruling your mind. And beware of what you subject your mind and body to (I loath going to a heavy metal concert) as the afferent power can affect the efferent connections and subsequent actions and mindset as you go forward.
Double positives
History, Human Affairs, Humor
No kidding.
The eminent linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin of Oxford once gave a lecture in which he asserted that there are many languages in which a double negative makes a positive, but none in which a double positive makes a negative — to which the Columbia philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser, sitting in the audience, sarcastically replied, “Yeah right.”
Psychophysics, History, Human Affairs
Well I didn’t think George was interested in my comments about ‘Equality of Condition’ … but that is the goal of those who want to give a trophy to everyone … the logic, the beauty … that everyone is equal (not in rights, fairness or under the law), but in success in ability … in condition. Struggle will make them ‘unfair’, misery will make them ‘depressing’, etc.
We must protect our children, as the government must protect us … protection as ‘guarenteeing us a living, tweedle dealtle dumb.’ And so the grasshopper sings and dances … the ant works … and when winter comes, the ant has savings, but the grasshopper expects to be paid for singing and entertainment all summer.
Equality of condition is impossible, and even if it were possible, the result is not satisfying.. as the original thinker and worker is not rewarded, but penalized, and the lazy and dishonest is exhaulted … ‘look at what he has overcome … just to be here’ some egalitarians exclaim. So just be there and you will be equal in status … in condition … and all we expect is a vote for us, now and then when we ask, Kapish?
History, Sport, Human Affairs, Design, Real Estate
From the tragedy to the triumph, the Olympics today benefits with the better access, camera quality and audio and clocking… The tribute to the fallen sled athlete from Georgia (the country) was adequate and sincere. Design improvements like the mandatory cushioning of uprights and higher walls if only nets could have saved him on this super fast course, including the 50 50 curve, where only half of the people made it.
There should be better standards for safety and more competition to fulfill the building contracts, even if all within one country, the host.
Love the woodwork…the tapestry of humanity at its best … yeah, and who are you to horn in on any of the wicky wickie. That’s all.
Vancouver 2010 winners’ podium designed by James Lee & Leo Obstbaum. The podium was constructed from donated wood and finished by new wood workers in the inner city of Vancouver. The design reflects the topography of Canada and the collective spirit of the games, as seen in the construction of multiple pieces coming together to create one form. (via Orange Element Insights)
Humor, Human Affairs
Damn, I’m going to miss that Sasha-Avatar-LoveDaddyMama.
To offend or not to offend a GagaZillionaire, is that the question?
History, Human Affairs, Theology, Fable
Wilders is now ‘free’ to journey to Jolly Old England, whereas Dr. Michael Savage, author and talk-show host, who emphasizes ‘Language, Borders, Culture’ has told us enough of the dangers of Islam to make many pay attention, continues to be banned to travel to Islamophilic England, you remember the country that sent the convicted terrorist who blew up Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, back to Libya … ‘cause he didn’t feel good.’ And after killing some 280 Americans … he’s still living in luxury, a hero in Libya. Oh, that was for an oil contract, some say… or maybe just another grateful pagan to escape England’s Socialized HellthCare.
Alack a day, swim apples, swim.
Which brings me to another rant: forcing or fining those who do not wish to have healthcare, as well as being Unconstitutional, is a step closer to that ‘tax’ that ‘infidels’ pay to Islamic governments to live peacefully within the great comforting minds of those who worship death, hate and terror and just a little extra money from infidels.
Dutch anti-immigration party gains ground in vote - washingtonpost.com
Humor, Physics
Well you heard the other joke, the correlary (man, I can’t spell that, Lary), it was that Pi +mp = Pimp … and that’s a naughty word, right ACORN? And then here’s to dedicating Jodie Foster, in the Carl Sagan inspired idea of ‘Time in a bottle’ , you all loved it, CONTACT … where she gets to go visit Der auld Dad, back in the place where you can stroke the sky and stir the clouds, pluck a star or two. ….. we’re talkin about those 46 billion light years hence where ya have to be a real tweet of a lad to peak so far behind, or were you just an update of another before, all cycled not so randomly, but to them, randomly works for ya.
Anybody want a ride to Hooters?
Environment, Humor (E.T.), History, Theology
And I can say, since a child, ‘I’m glad cows don’t fly’. Now the ‘meat flakes raining from the sky’ discovered as Bambi flakes, makes you want to reconsider ‘your old Kentucky home,’ to say nothing of redesigning umbrellas so they turn inside out and stay there to ‘ketch up stuff’, or at least have a little hollow handle for a ketchup bottle.
Well the only question is now, isn’t it easier to accept Moses’s stories of ‘manna’ falling from heaven. ’Man alive’ must be where we get that hip expression. I sure hope it wasn’t ‘Egyptian Pharoah’s Soldier Flakes’. Man alive.
Hundreds of fish fall out of the sky over remote Australian town of Lajamanu | Mail Online
Science, Design, Environment, Humor (motivational)
Let’s say you were storing Nitro Glycerine in one place… and to securely move it to another, or a Finicular, going up hill, or in the snow. If the squares were really small, then the ‘washboard’ roadway wouldn’t be a problem for large round wheels either…. you might need planetary wheels (like Mercedes Unimog) to get the square things small enough, but if these were steel in a roadbed, you’d have the efficiency of steel - steel which is hundreds of times easier rolling… and there’s plenty of resistance when you break. My Sweet Washboard Imbed Motorway (SWIM). That’s right little fishes, SWIM.
(via smoot)
Science, Environment, History, Humor (seriously)
Well, if you add the 2004 Sumatran 9.1 quake that shortened 6.8 microseconds/day to this Chilean 8.8, then someone born today would have lived 80 years, they will actually now live 80.25 or get 91.3 additional days to live. Now, this is perceptual as the actual hours lived will be the same.
Another question is how much mass accumulates upon the earth, slowing the rotation, or the reverse effect of the quake, which seems to settle the mass deeper into the crust? All the energy bombarding the place, has certainly increased the mass… with much of it on the surface or above with grand trees, and now skyscrapers, etc. Am I assuming something here?
And so, is the day gradually edging longer and longer … until one day it snaps, and whallah … earthquake? Say I planted a laser on a big rock and selected a time where it would hit Polaris -whack, dead on. Then round and round we go, … whee … until the next day …. wack and measure that interval of laser on Polaris aka North Star. (of course we are assuming Polaris is sitting there with nothing going on… duh). The moon is moving away at about 3 cm per year … and what’s that doing … well let’s see…
Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says - Bloomberg.com
The families seek to enforce their judgment against assets of Iran, including the Alavi Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit, and ASSA Corp., which is a partner with the Alavi Foundation in the ownership of a Manhattan office tower, according to the lawsuit. ” -
History, Law, Human Affairs, Theology
It’s a start, then move on to the $500 billion or so for the World Trade Towers, by the 15 Saudis funded by Saudi princes, the Muslim Brotherhood of Hamas and the Bin Laden family, many of which live in Iran. And then Islam itself and every ‘conspiritorial’ member of the mafia organization according to RICO standards.
Wait, but in 1979 we hired the Muslim Brotherhood and OsamaBinLaden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan (see Charlie’s War) … and then Saudis paid them NOT to come back to Saudi Arabia according to John J. Loftus, of the Justice Dept., who’s written books and here’s a blog to summerize.
Families of Killed Marines Sue Alavi Foundation (Update2) - BusinessWeek
Humor, History, Theology
The lines are drawn still for the Jew vs. the Murdering Suicidal Arab. The Jew will waste his on walnuts and coconuts in this world, and the Murdering Suicidal Arab will continue his abuse of the 72 year old virgin of Prof. Dershowitz’s choosing or if you think, the 72 of some age, virgins .. perhaps newborns. The good news is that Jews will only violate living walnuts and coconuts, and Murdering Suicidal Arabs will only abuse dead virgins.
My vote remains for the civility of the Jew, though not for his (it must be) swollen pride. The Arab to justify his Suicidal Murders on the useless destruction of dead virgins given him by an Allah, who, to any normal god, must be a pedophile, and rapist, is sufficient proof that Islam is a Suicidal Murderous Mob and cult and so should not be considered among credible diety influence, therefore Islam should not be considered a religion by any credible society or individual. Maybe that is why they were expelled from Europe as early as the 700’s AD by Charlemagne as they invaded and abused the population. The ‘La Chanson de Roland’, France’s 1st work of literature, speaks to this noble cause with some tragedy, but continues to laude good faith and its complexities and paradoxes.
Lou Charloff, “Herschel the Magnificent Jew”
Lou Charloff was born in Romania and moved to New York (specifically, the Bronx) when he was two years old. He speaks five languages and served as an interpreter for the military government of occupied Germany after World War II. Four years ago, he decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy in Los Angeles, making him, simultaneously, one of the oldest and one of the newest comics in the business.
Environment, Design, History, Bucky, Real Estate
This post goes with the previous one. My original photograph from U. of Ark. in 1978, with notes when I was a Hazard Mitigation Specialist with FEMA in the mid-90’s. In memory of Bucky Fuller, and domes, like cellular walls are protection for each of the trillions of cells that we call ‘Me’, (well you call ‘You’) … and it might just be language that prevents us from emulating the economy and effectiveness of this design, dare I say ‘intelligent.’
Real Estate, Design, Environment
It’s a terrible tragedy in Haiti that 300,000+ souls are lost in a disaster 512 times smaller (7.0) where in Chile a 8.8 shake seems to be about 1000 times fewer. My math tells me there is a 500,000 factor differential. Wow. But that’s what happens with materials and the ways you put it together. For example the dissociative constant for gypsum (drywall) is over one million times less than for calcium carbonate (cement)… which means drywall dissolves in water over a million times easier than a seashell or cement does. Which one should you build with?
Of course if you don’t connect them with any ‘stringy’ stuff that keeps together when the units are being pulled apart (tensile strength) … then you are just building a ‘disaster waiting to happen’.
‘Connections’, a sexy word, which we should all keep in mind as we look at anything we are going to go inside of and sleep or whatever. Many think that a ship is ‘connected’ and sexy. That’s true… it can be bounced around and no big deal. But as soon as we tie something down to the earth and rely on that earth to ‘connect’ the bottom of the structure together … we had better connect it to a single rock … or massive foundation …. or here’s an idea … forget the connection to the ground and make it really connected to itself in secure (beyond nails). Bucky Fuller domes have this going for them. When Bucky was asked ‘How did you think of the dome’. He responded, ‘Have you ever looked at an orange?’
Well, as a tribute to Bucky, the U. of Ark. Architecture School displayed this photgraph of a dome made from 20 sheets of plywood. Anchoring it for hurricanes is easily accomplished with lines or cables from nodes to steel reinforced foundational pours or anchored in rocks.
Any comments, additions … at a cost of less that $1 per sf, this would be a semi- and organically expandable solution for the poverty stricken in Haiti or anywhere. Another idea is that the wood should be treated for insect ‘untastiness’, using borate and copper. Forget the arsenic. Then sealed on the outside with perhaps modified bitumen,and/or fiberglass with epoxy after installing panels on the pentagons and triangles.
Chile’s quake 500 times more powerful than Haiti’s - latimes.com
locus communis: Why Californians are marching on March 4th
Economics, History, Human Affairs, Real Estate
The real problem with repealing the tax benefits of Prop 13 is that since 1978, the value of CA’s real estate has increased due to this law and the incentive to own property. It would seem not a stretch that you don’t own any property.. so you just want to benefit from another’s misfortune of your own making … a win -lose proposition. This would not help the economy of CA.
Here in FL we have a 3 percent cap on our home taxes, but that doesn’t prevent them from raising the rate. If you own another building, the tax is evaluated every year for the market value of the building. I owned a rental property where the tax base of 2.5 percent was being raised about $40k per year, until the crash … and now they raise the rate… so the taxes stay high. But this has kept the value of homes lower. For example, a corner house in the same neighborhood, same size lot, same age is going for about 200 percent less that it sold for in 2005. A $700k single family house, 1600 sf is going for $200k today … from a bank ‘short sale’ because the property is being taxed and insuranced out of all proportion. Home insurance can be $5000 per year and manditory if you have a mortgage. Taxes accelerated to about $8000 to $10,000 per year when the house sold for the $700k. The only good news is that FL has NO income tax.
Years ago, in 1978 I was looking for a home near Cambridge, MA. Basically, I could find building for about $30,000. Wow, that’s cheap I thought; then I realized that property taxes in ‘Taxachusetts’ were 10 percent of the market value … wow that’s $3k … so I kept renting at $247 a month in a rent controlled flat in Cambridge, Sousa Sq., Now, in 2007, I return with my daughter to college and my dog to the park. Where I see and talk to former workers at my dear old company … who sold out of Cambridge and moved to Billerica, AS&E. I heard and confirmed that properties now were $500k to $700k for an old place in Cambridge, but the property taxes were $1,500 per year … wow … if I had only bought at $30k and survived to see the lowering of the taxes…. see -saw . Value and taxes …. if you raise them, people will flee, if you lower them property values will soar … and will attract those who can land a good job, etc. But who wants to fix up anything if the tax rate is 10 percent, 5 percent, or anything over 3 percent.
So CA has had a downturn, but not a catastophe as is caused by FL’s ONLY home taxes capped at 3 percent. And everything else, sky’s the limit. But no INCOME tax. Or is your group going to be marching here next… another crisis, another economy to rape.
You might want to be reasonable and try a 2 percent tax on all property per year … for the next 5 years and then it would go back to status quo. Thereby current owners wouldn’t panic and feel they have to sell. Of course if you have George Soros or another gangsta who wants to buy it up, and you can hope to minipulate it down once you own the place, then good luck, as your Obama’s Rahm stated ‘Don’t let a crisis go to waste”, adding that that’s especially important for the ones that you create.
So if you’re not part of the gang that has the billions to buy up the property and you’re not going to make a few million$ yourself, I would recommend being a ‘stooge’, ‘ignorant facilitator’ , or ‘obliging idiot’, as where your economic policy would seem to be taking you.
Why Californians Are Marching on Sacramento on March 4th, 2010Share Today at 7:49amOn March 4th, 2010, Californians are marching on the state capitol, Sacramento, to tell politicians we are sick and tired of dysfunctional state government that can’t balance its budgets and cuts huge economic…
