Internet Stalkers

I really hate it when internet stalkers create fake Facebook accounts and then try and friend me.  Really, some very pretty 20 something woman I never heard of is going to friend me because......

Yeah, I have Facebook friends I never met that none of my in person friends know, and I believe we share things in common like a love of God, or literature, or whatever.  And yeah, I have some very pretty female friends.  And yeah, some people I never met in person are very pretty and female.

That does not mean I friend every pretty face. 

Anonymous Internet stalkers, like my friend Jay calls "Catfish", need to go away.  Anyone with an opinion should be able to stand up behind it, or, it obviously isn't an opinion worth listening to.

Julian Assange stood up for his opinion on transparency using his real name to protect people who were placed in danger when they made confidential information that they had access to public.  Yeah, nations have charged him with heinous crimes, which, even if true, do nothing to challenge the veracity of either the data he has made available or his opinion on transparency.  If anything, even if these charges are true, these charges demand more transparency.

I doubt very much if any anonymous person ever changed the world, and I doubt if they ever will.  At most anonymous people just become terrorists, maybe assassins, that people spend time and money on protecting themselves against.  What does that do except line the pockets of security corporations from Symantec to Black Water and destroy the lives of people who can't afford the security services and obsess over terrorism?

Eleven people who were anonymous until 9-11 have caused enough havoc that some people claim the world changed, but, did it?  Have the beliefs of people changed?  Did 9-11 do anything like what Martin Luther King Jr., a Republican from a family of Republicans, did with his Civil Rights Protest marches?

No.  Their stated goal was to eliminate western influence from middle eastern Muslim nations.  In fact, there is more western influence in the middle east today then there was twenty years ago.  Did anything change, there or here?  Did people change the way they think?  Are "Americans" less materialistic or less likely to saber rattle?  Did Islam run away and hide?  Did Islam become any more "Holier Than Thou"?

Nothing changed.  People died, people spent money, people became rich, but, on a global scale nothing really changed.

Yeah, people have tried life ruins on me, hacked my e-mail, taken out loans in my name, contacted people and done everything they can to ruin my life.  Maybe someone out there is going to find some new way to try and terrorize me.  Stuff happens.  They won't confront me in person, or using their real names because at heart, they know what they are doing is wrong.

What has it done?  Increased the amount of money I pay for car insurance?  Eliminated people who shouldn't be in my life from my life?  Do I care about these things that they care so much about?  If I cared about the same things they did, would they hate me so much?

Nothings changed, I have the same opinions.  About the only opinion I have had that changed is that when my cousin got married I realized that, yeah, gay couples could legally establish the same rights as married couples, but, it was very difficult, expensive and time consuming compared to becoming married.  As Gay marriage has become more and more popular a gay friend who was against all the marriage hoopla, because couples could establish the same legal rights, has also changed his mind.  I remember telling him about how happy my cousin was when he was married, I think that changed both our opinions.  I'm not sure, but, I believe that.

Over the years I have done a lot to give stalkers a view of who I really am, but, I've come to the conclusion that they really don't care.  They are just "catfish", as my friend calls them.  Bottom Feeders looking to eat shit.  They just need someone to obsess over and hate in their lives and they choose me.

The why isn't important, these obsessive nuts will find a reason to hate and stalk people regardless of their stated reasons or intentions.  No one agrees with everyone about everything and no one disagrees with everyone about everything.  People obsessed with disagreement will find something to disagree about, just as people can find something to agree about if they want to.

I live a transparent life, I post my opinions under my own name because I believe in them.

"Catfish" or stalkers or whatever we call them don't really believe in their opinions, they don't stand up for them.  They hide because they are afraid, because they know they cannot support their opinions.  They hide because, at some level, they know they are "wrong" and will be "punished" if anyone finds out who they are.

So they fight against free speech, censoring opinions they disagree with, not because their opinions are right, but, because they know that they themselves are "wrong".  Why do people do this?

When I was six my father told me I wasn't his kid and he treated me like shit his whole life.  His opinion was based on the idea that the genetics for a cleft chin are dominant. He had a cleft chin and I didn't.  He was wrong, cleft chins are recessive.  So I understand feeling "wrong" and I understand how people treat people who believe they are "fundamentally wrong".

My time in the military was an eye opener.  For the most part I was treated as I deserved, based on my behavior.  I learned that I could be judged objectively based on who I am and that I was not "wrong".  I could do things people thought were pretty amazing, incredible even.

These stalkers never had that self realization and they externalize their "wrongness", as if changing things external to themselves will change what is "fundamentally wrong".  That has never worked, and it never will because there is nothing wrong with these people, except the way they see themselves.

Movie Writer and Special Effects Ignorance

One of the most ignorant movie scenes I have ever seen is where the hero, who has prepared for this, enters into a dark place hunting vampires.  Typically they have a flashlight.  Really?

Get a professional grade 4 stroke leaf blower.  Find a small, one wire, racing 12v alternator producing about 30-35 amps.  Find a sealed motorcycle battery.  Now, assemble them all together on a back pack along with some super bright 12v truck lights.

A 4 horse leaf blower produces around 3000 watts of power, but, a lot of that is used up generating usable electricity.  That means we can expect about 1000 watts max, but, the alternator would only produce around 500 watts.  This gives us plenty of power to spare.

If we were running old school headlights this wouldn't be enough.  With super bright LEDs and HID lighting we can put some serious light out using a backpack generator.  Total weight would run, maybe 50 pounds.  Less if the hero is a really good fabricator.

So...how come all of these geniuses, writers and special effects guys in Hollywood, don't build one?  They have shoulder lights on space suits with LED lighting around the face, but, no vampire fighting back pack generator lighting.

Recently I started wiring my old backpack with a small 12v battery, a solar collector chagrining system and a couple of forward pointing super bright LED lights.  Looking for some vampires I guess :-)

Fact and Fiction and Opportunity

From page 139 of the sixth edition of Invitation to Oceanography by Paul R. Pinet:

"We can taste seawater samples and say qualitatively that this sample tastes 'saltier' than this other one.  But this is a rather subjective technique, and a SCIENTIST (highlighting mine) needs to know exactly and precisely how salty a parcel of water is."

Personally, I think that is rather well put.  The difference between science and everything else is that science is objective and everything else is subjective.  Science is based on fact and everything else is based on opinion.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, many in the scientific community adopt subjective opinion as fact.  This is a huge error in thought process that creates arbitrary and ambiguous limitations in thinking and capability.  I believe this inability to determine fact from fiction is one of the primary reasons why new technology typically takes a generation or more to become main streamed.

Students learn these arbitrary and ambiguous boundaries from teachers in a cycle of defeat by humiliation.  Some teachers become interested in ideas and encourage the next generation of students to accept these ideas so some students in the next generation are prepared to adopt new technologies.

I believe that what occurs, during the cycle of defeat by humiliation students are typically subjected to. develops into a near religious like system of beliefs that students, much like religion taught to children, are typically unable to shake off during their later life.  This system of religious like beliefs, created by the system of defeat by humiliation we call education or "schooling", has to be properly developed in students before new technology can be adopted.  We see this in our studies of continental drift and plate tectonics as well as other scientific theories that took one or two generations to become accepted.

This is actually why I am studying Anthropology and Sociology, particularly the development of religious and religious like beliefs.  Academics often find it necessary to hide their theories for fear other academics will steal them.  This creates another method of defeat by humiliation in our education system.  I doubt if I have to worry about that because there are way too many arbitrary and ambiguous limitations created in thinking within the academic system for my ideas to be held as anything more than "wacked" for a generation or two.

Would it surprise anyone to discover that I think that is hilarious?