Friday, July 8, 2016

The limit of infinite error


Joe wanders over. Joe wanders around a lot. Joe needs an axe. He
wants to attack a stump. Now he wants a sledge hammer and a wedge. They’re in the shed. My brother goes in for surgery tomorrow at six AM. I have an appointment with orthopedics myself at the same time but at the VA (I had a total knee replacement and this is the six month assessment). I’ll drop off him off then head on over to the VA. I should make it back before he comes out of the operating room (and I made it back in time. He (Joe) tells me not to rush. Good luck Dave. Don’t chop off a leg, (Joe). Hw starts in on his poison oak story again. Joe repeats and repeats (I've heard about the 2002 tornado at least six time in the month I've lived here). Finally you have to say, I hear the dog barking. Excuse me, I have to check on him. His name is Tail Dog. He weights all of ten pounds. All the girls think he's so cute. He a real chick magnet. What’s his name? Tail Dog – and if I say it real slow and distinct, they don’t make any comment or look at me like I'm kind of weird. Picking a proper pet name is very important. Some think that it borders on cruelty to give a dog an improper name. I always tell them that they can call him 'Mr Dog' if they wish. The little kids giggle. They get it. Children don't know what's weird and what's not.

Broadly speaking [conservation’s] implications of saving and protecting what we own that is of genuine worth, whether of wealth, of health, or of happiness, is inclusive enough to take in all the functions of government – Franklin D Roosevelt

Just as fast as the truth can spread, untruth spreads faster

         Prairie States

Coal trains throb horizon
            To horizon
Big Muddy flows bank to bank
Thunderheads broil
           A light show tonight
Wall to wall
            Heat Lightning


Experience has taught us that material wants know no natural bounds, that they will expand without end unless we consciously restrain them. Capitalism rests precisely on this endless expansion of wants. That is why, for all its success, it remains so unloved. It has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough – Robert Skidelsky – How Much is Enough?, 2012

He hurt his shoulder helping me move. My landlady had her agent tell me three weeks befroe the end of my lease that she would not be renewing it. That she intended to move in her self. You can’t fight that. Even in San Francisco you couldn’t fight that. He tore all the tendons in his right shoulder. Worse damage I’ve seen this year said the surgeon. Keeping him immobolized is going to be the problem. He’s not one to sit still. We’re getting too old for this I said. I ain't every going to move my self ever again. Him and myself both are too old for this shit.

A third of all US home sales are all cash deals and a fifth of those deals are conducted by Mandrian speakers. Overall, Chinese buyers spent $22 billion on U.S. housing in the 12 months through March 2014 buying mostly high-end, expensive homes with a median price of over $500,000

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error - Bertrolt Brecht – Life of Galileo, 1947

The average college-educated head of household under 40 owes $404 a month in student debt payments

I got a watermelon windsock and a propane BBQ grill. The weather is getting hot. The sky is getting blue. Tomatoes are setting and the peppers are turning red. Everyone gathers under my awning during a rain. Or at least those who appreciate prairie thunder and rain on a hot tin roof do. We sit around and  rock. Even Dave is learning to slow down.

That which is cannot be true – Herbert Marcuse

35% of student debt belongs to Americans over 40 years old up from 25% in 2004. Longer repayment schedules, more midcareer workers returning to school and additional borrowing for children's education.

The more people there are, the less one person matters – Isaac Asimov

Warm purple space - room in which one is willing to compromise

No one who starts economics at the age of 40 ever is [a real economist]. There is too much other stuff in one’s head. Economists have to start innocent of all distracting ideas. – Robert Skidelsky – How Much is Enough?, 2012

Antibiotic effectiveness is expected to fall 30% over the next seven years primarily caused by misuse in the medical industry. Already nearly 23,000 people die annually in the United States and nearly 2 million become sick because of improper antibiotic use

Once it had been discovered that labour was the source of wealth, it was the task of reason to mine, drain and exploit that source more efficiently than ever before – Zygmet Bauman –  Liquid Modernity, 2000 p142

Only 20% of scientists that cite an article may have actually read that article

Oh yes, I’ve come off the road. Even I am learning to take it easy. I though I had settled in. I was getting comfortable. Then I was told I had three weeks to get my butt up and out. I looked for a house but it as a buyers market. You would go out and look at a place and by the time you got there, there was already and offer on it.

[He] was one of that uncomfortable class of men whose birth is lowly and who are destined all their lives to serve their betters, but whose clever brains and quick abilities make them wish for recognition and rewards beyond their reach…. Often the thought of what might have been turns them sour; they become unwilling servants and perform their tasks no better – or worse – than their less able fellows. They become insolent, lose their place and end badly – Susanna Clark – Jonathan Strange and Mr Morrell, 2004 p33

A voyeur is someone who peeks in thourgh others’ windows to watch them watching TV

What can be seen in broad daylight is always less interesting than what happens behind a window – Baudelaire – Paris Spleen

At least six Americans have been shot by their dog in the last five years. A third of these incidents happened in Florida. The actual number of such incidents is probably much higher as only incidents reported in newspapers have been taken into account. Maybe Floridians just like to read dog stories.

The slow miniaturization of our terrestrial habitat’s proportions, through the constant acceleration of all paths, is an insidious form of the desertification of the world – Paul Virillio – City of Panic, 2005 p113


69% of the of patients using anti-depressants do not actually meet the criteria for depressive disorder

Modernity knows of no other life but ‘made’; the life of modern men and women is a task, not a given, and a task as yet uncompleted and relentlessly calling for more care and new effort – Zygmet Bauman – Liquid Modernity, 2000 p134

Only 10 percent of American children spend time outside on a daily basis

You get better and better at doing less and less until eventually you become ‘excellent’ at doing nothing.


There is something more important than getting it right: not knowing exactly what getting it right is – James P Carse – Breakfast at the Victory, 2004 p185