Projecting probability of lithic artifact distribution across time in the Americas.

I would suggest that, by using proved statistical theory regarding atypical distribution of data it may be possible to determine a rough understanding of the minimum time frame of human occupation of the Americas.

Lithic artifact distribution in the Americas is probably related to population density.

To do this, we must ignore the arbitrary classifications of historic and prehistoric so that we can understand the distribution of population, and therefore artifact, density.

The density of artifact distribution is probably going to be a left skewed distribution where the distribution falls off suddenly when lithic technology is replaced with newer iron age technologies brought over from Europe, or when population density is decimated by European diseases.

We can assume that the modality of the distribution of lithic artifacts will be around the period of highest population density. When did Native Americans first encounter Europeans and European diseases? Vikings? Columbus? When did the population of the Americas begin to drop?

We can further assume that the farther left of the modality the less probable the discovery of artifacts is.

The farther we move from the mean, or the modality, the less probable it will be that we will find an artifact.

This implies that, if we find an artifact, the artifact is within the higher probabilities of the distribution of artifacts. In the case of a skewed distribution a discovered prehistoric artifact is probably between the mean, which will be on the left of the data point which the artifact represents, and the modality, which will be to the right of the data point the artifact represents.

This has some interesting implications. Some data points have been discovered as far back as 30-35 thousand years before present. Do we assume that these data points are to the right or the left of the mean? Chebychev’s Theorum describes the minimum probabilities of finding a data point in non-Gaussian distributions, however, it is not as easy to determine the probability of discovering a specific data point within the distribution without understanding the shape of the distribution.

Chebychev’s Theorum allows us to say, for example, that the highest possible probability of finding a data point between 2 and 3 standard deviations on either side of the mean is about 14%. However, with a left skewed distribution the probability of finding a data point to the right of the mean is higher than the probability of finding an artifact to the left of the mean.

Tom Clancy's The Divison by Ubisucks Massive

I love gaming.  Uncharted and Assassin's Creed are my two favorite game series.  I like 3rd person shooters.  1st person shooters tend to give me PTSD nightmares, but, I like Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2.

Lately I've been playing Tom Clancy's The Division by Ubisoft, the publishers of Assassin's Creed.  Awesome potential and incredibly bad implementation.

The game is a semi-massive multi-player.  Players start out playing a campaign game while interacting with other players at various social sites called "safe areas".  There is no pause because various missions can be played by teams.  Playing campaign solo there is no reason for the game to stay connected to the Ubisucks servers, but, the game can't be played solo campaign unless it is connected to the Internet.

The first thing that is most obvious to me is a lack of overall management direction.  Every game is going to have multiple development teams working in different areas.  Division is so complex there are a crap load of different development areas with inconsistent goals.

The biggest problem is the elitist, "survival of the fittest", concept which is designed to eliminate less "fit" players from the game.

As expected, this works and reduces the number of people playing the "massive multi-layer".  We could call this a "minuscule multi-player" instead.

Of course, since their "survival of the fittest" concept worked players have been leaving the game in droves.  The other early morning I was running around the dark zone and didn't see any other players for about a half hour.  Of course, the first time I did it was a higher level rogue and it killed me.

The game actually rewards players who kill lower level players in the Dark Zone, which is all multi-player.  In the campaign game Non Player Characters, NPC, are generally the same level as the player.

If the game wanted to encourage player to player competition, players would be penalized for attacking lower level players and rewarded for attacking players of the same level or higher.  Instead, consistent with the "survival of the fittest" ideology killing off "weaker" players is encouraged.  How dumb is that?

There are tons of really bad and very inconsistent development ideology decisions being made are driving players away in droves.

Naturally, some of the players are really angry because they have essentially wasted money on a game that is self destructive.  Someone gave me the game so, I'm not out any cash money.  Think about that, trying to have a game that depends on lots of players where players are deliberately eliminated because they aren't as "strong" as other players.

Anyone interested has read about all the player complaints surrounding Division so I won't beat that horse.

Today, I'm just pointing out the stupidity of developing a "survival of the fittest" game" and expecting to attract and keep players.  The entire concept of "survival of the fittest" is to eliminate players until the last player, or few players, are left.  Everyone else "dies".  The game becomes a minuscule multi-player and Ubisucks loses their investment.

Anyone who invested in a game designed to eliminate the majority of players from playing is an idiot. 

Of course, I doubt if even Ubisoft actually realized what "survival of the fittest" really meant.  Ubisoft management probably threw the term around like a football never even thinking that eliminating players meant eliminating profits.

That is the kind of ignorance that really amazes me.

The Give Wall Street a Payday Act, also called "affordable care act"

Back on January 2nd, 2009 I decided to create a portfolio on Google Finance using publicly traded "health insurance" stocks.

For those of you who don't know, there are essentially four kinds of health insurance companies and none of them insure health.  They all insure that health care workers are paid, not necessarily that people who by "health care" insurance will be healthy or even have access to affordable health care.  I'm on Social Security Disability for a heart condition and I can't afford health care.  My prescription prices have gone up to where I can't afford them, even with the insurance I am forced to pay for.  That's not really off subject.

The affordable care act did not make health care more affordable, it made health care less affordable and I am a practical example of that.  Digoxin, a really old medicine made from the Foxglove plant (when I say really old, I mean people were using this a thousand years ago) went from $10 for a 90 day supply to $90 for a 90 day supply.  Once I pay a $250 deductible I have to pay a co-pay that is more than $10, so, pretty fucked.  Where I once paid $40 for Digoxin I now pay about $130 a year.

So what happened on Wall Street?

In case you are wondering, this represents a %17 annualized return.

Yeah, that beats the street.

I wish I had had the $32K to invest back in 2009.  If you are wondering if I am cheating, feel free to check the January 2nd 2009 stock prices and create your own fake portfolio.  Here is a screen grab to show the historical price for Aetna, AET

I used this website for the annualized return formula.
http://www.asecurelife.com/annualized-return-formula/

I used this website to calculate the days between today and January 2nd
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=01&d1=02&y1=2009&m2=7&d2=20&y2=2016

I used this website to calculate the return on the DJIA, %13.5
https://dqydj.com/dow-jones-return-calculator/

The "Affordable Care Act" was just a way for Obama and other politicians to screw the American Public and pay off Wall Street.

Health Care insurance doesn't insure health care.  It insures that health care providers are paid for services, regardless whether they perform them or not and regardless of whether those services improve the health of those the services are provided to.

Obama care should be called the "make sure Wall Street and corporate Health Care providers are paid off act".

Back to the four types of Health Care providers.

The first is non-profit.

The second is private for profit.

The third is privately owned by a private or public for profit conglomerate.(public means stock shares are publicly traded, not that the government owns the conglomerate)

The fourth is a for profit publicly owned, meaning stock shares are publicly traded.

As far as I'm concerned all Health Care services should be non-profit and this includes insurance.

Society has become dependent on water, communication, electricity, heating energy, groceries and health care.  All of these should be exclusively non-profit organizations.

Corporations should not be able to profit from those things which people depend on to survive.

Aside from my personal views, which some people would say are "left wing" because their intellects are so small they only see in binary dichotomies, I suggest investing in health care.

I should have predicted the pharmaceutical issues, but, I missed that.  I focused on insurance providers.

Black Lives Matter

I don't get why people think saying "Black Lives Matter" is racist. Truthfully, I don't believe there is any such thing as "Black" as far as people are concerned. Yeah, I know I live in a world that makes a distinction between skin colors, but, really?

What is "Black"? I read a definition the other day, "Black: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa." In logic this is called a circular definition, a logic fallacy. That's what racial division is, a logical fallacy. In fact, scientifically, race does not and has never existed. 

"Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past."

So what makes "Black Lives matter" racist? No one is saying "Black Lives Matter More Than Other Lives", which would be racist.

If I said, "Oranges taste great", would that mean "Apples taste like crap"? Would anyone infer that apples taste like crap if I say "Oranges taste great"?

In the same context, the people saying "All Lives Matter" aren't saying anything exactly wrong, but, there is the issue of invisible privilege.

What is privilege? Privilege is when a Black friend tells me that a company isn't hiring and I put in an application and I'm hired when my Black friend isn't. White privilege exists and I was fortunate enough to have benefited from it, and know that I benefited from it.

Saying "All Lives Matter" is a lot like saying "Let them eat cake", it is a comment that identifies a lack of understanding of privilege.  The legend is that Marie Antoinette believed that everyone had access to bread or cake and if there wasn't any bread they could eat cake.  Similarly, the statement "all lives matter" echos the belief that all people are treated equally.  In reality people are not treated equally.

Peter Dinklage said something while playing Tyrion Lanister on Game of Thrones, "When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar.  You're only telling the world that you fear what he might say".

I've had a lot of internet bullies stylizing themselves as "hackers" censor my words over the years because they hate what I have to say, they hate free speech and they hate everyone who doesn't think exactly like them.  Fascists who are incapable of accepting the concept of freedom.  They censor people because they can, like the hall way bully locking kids in lockers or knocking books out of a kids hands, they do whatever they can get away with because the rules don't apply to them.

When we stylize terms like "Black Lives Matter" as racist because they don't include "White people", when the truth is the term does not exclude white people, we are demanding a privilege that is not ours to own.  We are claiming that our lives are more important than theirs.  We are bullies knocking the books out of people's hands.

Most of the people I know honestly believe that All Lives Matter, but, they don't understand how the invisible privilege of their skin color, their socioeconomic status, their education, have influenced their thinking.  They actually believe that Black people have the same opportunities that White people have.

"All Lives Matter" comes across a lot like "Let them eat cake" to those of us who understand the damage invisible "White" privilege has done to the "Black" community over the last 400 years.

I think race is a psychotic delusion that results in destructive behavior.  Like anyone dealing with a bunch of psychotics I have to deal with them, I need to challenge their psychosis, I need to listen to them, sure, but, I don't need to sympathize with them or humor their delusion that people are different because of their skin color.

We do tend to segregate people into different groups based on ethnicity and appearance.  In fact, people adopt specific appearances when they want to be accepted as a member of a particular social group.

We don't need to do that though.  We don't need to force people into particular social roles based on their appearance, it is just something we do.

And we need to stop doing that.

Delusion and Race and psychosis

I looked up the definition of delusion on Google today and this is what came up:

de·lu·sion
dəˈlo͞oZHən/
noun
noun: delusion; plural noun: delusions

    an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.

Then I went and looked up the Biological Aspects of Race.  This is what I found at: http://faculty.wwu.edu/rcm/Power/Power%20first/Race%20Science_files/Biological%20Aspects%20of%20Race.html

There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

 Okay, so a delusion is believing in something that isn't real and race isn't real.

Interesting.

So I decided to look at what psychosis is.  I looked at http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Early-Psychosis-and-Psychosis

Psychosis is characterized as disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn’t. These disruptions are often experienced as seeing, hearing and believing things that aren’t real or having strange, persistent thoughts, behaviors and emotions.

Psychosis is characterized as difficulty in determining what is real and what is not real.  Race isn't real.  Race is a delusion.  Someone who believes race is real is psychotic.

This is really straightforward and satisfies Occam's Razor.

However, people like to complicate things and since they want to believe in Race and don't want to think of themselves as delusional psychotics at the same time we make shit up.

Race is a social construction. Race is a reality of society.  Race is real because we make it real by thinking and talking about it.

That's the biggest bunch of bullshit.

Race isn't real.  Race is a psychotic delusion and the actions predicated on that delusion, Racist acts, Racism, are the actions of psychotics.

period.

Psychotics will self justify anything and everything. They will invent the most convoluted and ridiculous explanations why they are the sane ones and everyone else is psychotic.

Ain't buying it.  Race ain't real.  Believing race is real because we believe race is real is a circular fallacy.  It's bullshit.

Psychosis is characterized as disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn’t. These disruptions are often experienced as seeing, hearing and believing things that aren’t real or having strange, persistent thoughts, behaviors and emotions. - See more at: http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Early-Psychosis-and-Psychosis#sthash.18Sj5QNv.dpuf

Psychosis is characterized as disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn’t. These disruptions are often experienced as seeing, hearing and believing things that aren’t real or having strange, persistent thoughts, behaviors and emotions. - See more at: http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Early-Psychosis-and-Psychosis#sthash.18Sj5QNv.dpuf

Psychosis is characterized as disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn’t. These disruptions are often experienced as seeing, hearing and believing things that aren’t real or having strange, persistent thoughts, behaviors and emotions. - See more at: http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Early-Psychosis-and-Psychosis#sthash.18Sj5QNv.dpuf

life on other planets

What are the odds of life developing on a planet?

That actually isn't the big question, but, people imagine it is.  The big question is, what is the probability of two intelligent, technologically astute, civilizations interacting?

Let's suppose the timeline of life on Earth is typical with a standard deviation of a million years.  Earth is 6 billion years old.  Life, 3.8 billion.  Humans 6 million.  Modern, technologically, nuclear, humans, 70 years, so far.

Let's suppose our species lives 5,000 years in a state of technological advancement during which we can recognize extra terrestrial, intelligent, life.

Anyone familiar with statistics can see where I am going.

There isn't any guarantee human advanced civilization will last 5,000 years.  It could last 100,000 or 1,000.

A standard deviation of a million, 0.1%, sounds reasonable when discussing the development of life.

Unless humans  and at least one other species exist as a technologically advanced species for one standard deviation on the "life timeline" the odds of humans and another species being able to interact socially are minimal.

Then there is the distance issue, which I addressed in my blog entry discussing the infinite monkey theory.  Let's assume 1/10 solar systems have a planet capable of supporting intelligent life.  Let's assume an average distance between planets of ten light years.    A range those ten solar systems in a spherical distribution around Earth.  Let's assume a fifty/fifty chance of intelligent life.  We need to travel 20 light years to find a planet with intelligent life, and there is a 1/200 chance, based on our stdev of 1M and 5k civilization span, that we find a concurrent intelligent species so we need to travel 4,000 light years.

Let's suppose parallel universes are governed with the same assumptions, 1M stdev, we will assume 20K of civilization, 5K intelligent civilization, 50/50 life develops at all.

1M/20K = 1 in 50 universes with concurrent civilization.  1 in 200 with advanced technology.  Double that cause of the 50/50.  We would explore 400 universes to find one similar to ours.

There are "infinite" universes so there could be one where things are almost identical to this one, but, then we run into the same scale of odds that we had with infinite monkeys banging on an infinite number of 101 key keyboards producing all of Shakespeare's plays, which are an average of about 80,000 characters.  1/keys*1/characters.

Astronomical.

Sliders, alternate universes, etc.  All crap.

In addition, if you tried to travel to an alternate universe you would have to travel to where the planet in the alternate universe would be, not where it is.

Let's suppose the solar system is moving just 100,000 miles an hour.  It moves faster, Google how fast you are moving when you are standing still.

Okay, suppose it takes 1 second to travel to a different universe.  You are now 30 miles (more like over 150 miles, but we agreed only 100Kmph ) from where you started.  Not thirty miles on the ground.  Thirty miles along a tangential line drawn from where you started before the Earth turned under you, spun along the axis of the solar system and the galaxy and the universe, which is expanding.  You are falling like a rock towards the planet, exactly like a skydiver without a chute.

Toward a planet where you have about a 1 in 400 chance of finding technologically developed civilization.

Okay, so you do your work.  You invent a craft capable of traveling at the speed of the Earth moving through the universe, which is wicked faster than you probably believe and way faster than people have traveled so far.  You plug this supper engine on a shuttle capable of landing and taking off from a planet and figure out a way to jump between universes.

Our space ship, which unlike the ship in Interstellar does not need a rocket to escape Earth's gravity, and like the space ship in Interstellar can land and take off other planets without a rocket.  The Interstellar ship only needs a rocket to escape Earth gravity because it's fictional.  We have a "real" fictional ship that doesn't need a rocket to leave any planet.

We have to play catch up with the alternate planet which was traveling past us, if we are smart enough to avoid getting t-boned by another planet or the sun.  We wave to travel several million miles "up", away from the plane of the Earth's orbit just to avoid the sun, which is coming at us like a bullet train, and it's gravitational pull.

Yes, our velocity and direction of motion remains the same

Imagine even microscopic variations in velocity or direction of motion between alternate universes that have had billions of years to magnify.

So, travel to alternative universes is out until we can predict planetary motion in alternative universes and we have craft capable of velocities that allow us to correct for the travel time differentials between universes.  Once we do that...We have to deal with our odds, as explained earlier.

This is wicked complex and most people have no clue how complex this really is because fiction makes it seem as if it is nothing.

Just dealing with travel to other planets is, literally, dealing with astronomical odds, even if we try alternative universes.

biogas digesters in poverty level communities

I like biogas digesters.  They offer an incredible tool to eliminate diseases caused by contact with waste products while generating a natural gas which can be used for cooking and heating as well as a high quality organic fertilizer.


Sociological studies show that people living in poverty tend to be predominantly Kinesthetic learners.  This makes sense because our success depends a lot on how well we get along with other people, which depends on our learning and communication style.

Biogas digesters are not "set and forget" systems.  They require discipline and constant maintenance.  Digestible waste products must be added every day.  Using a biogas digester requires a commitment to shovelingfresh shit on a daily basis.

Biogas digesters often fail, primarily because of improper use and maintenance.  I would really like to find a teacher with expertise in kinesthetic education who can develop a training program for using and maintaining a biogas digester system.

Generally, documentation on these kinds of projects is absent.  That represents a challenge.

To address the problems with improper use and maintenance would take several steps.   The first is documenting failed biogas projects.  The second is documenting the type of digester used and the proper use and maintenance of the digester.  The third is developing a kinesthetic program to educate operators in the proper use and maintenance of the systems.  Fourth is to actually teach.  Fifth is to constantly review and improve the education system.

Archaeology, Sherlock Holmes and Metacognition

I'm going to take another class in archeology, which means I am probably taking a class with an instructor who learned basic logic watching reruns of Sherlock Holmes movies.

Sherlock Holmes rarely used deduction.  Holmes used abduction based on induction.

Lets take a common scene.  Super detective notices a man with some specific details, for Holmes in the 1890s this could mean what appears to be drips of wax on his coat cuff, shaggy, uncut hair, a hat that appears to need brushing.  Notice "appears".  We can't make absolute statements based on simple observation.  What looks like wax probably is wax, but, might be something else.  Holmes "deduces" that the man is unmarried because no self respecting wife would allow her husband to leave the house in such a state.

First, this is induction because it moves from the specific to the general.

Second, this is abduction because the conclusion uses an unproved hypothesis as the basis for the conclusion.  There is no evidence that wives actually care about their husbands or that caring for a husband means grooming them or that men are incapable of grooming themselves.

Because fiction refers to this process of "abduction" as "deduction" most people can't tell a fact from bullshit.

Anthropology and Sociology are primarily deductive meaning, typically, the study moves from the general to the specific.  We want to understand a community so we study the community and then we study individuals within the community.

Deduction always results in a fact.  Induction always results in a probability.  Abduction is speculation, which is why we generally don't discuss abduction in science, except in the context of fiction like the super detectives on television.

This is not to say that an Anthropological or Sociological study will always result in a fact, just that anthropology and sociology can develop facts.

Archeology is necessarily inductive.  Archeology examines something specific, an artifact, and induces probabilities about that object based on studies of community.

Archeology also  uses a lot of abduction or speculation based on probabilities theories.

Reading books by Dillehay, Meltzer and Adovasio and their focus on how their abductive inferences are "true" is a hilarious ride through egotistical and logical stupidity.

Not looking forward to trying to deal with this stupid bullshit.  They call themselves archaeostars!  Adovasio does anyway.

Fortunately, there has been some common sense and logic injected into the process and the application of archaeological theory is called "archaeological inference", meaning that the application of archaeological theory to specific artifacts creates inferences, not facts.

This is different from the application of scientific analysis of artifacts which produces probabilities, like age and specifics like composition or DNA analysis.

These facts about an artifact are collected.  Archaeological theory is applied and abductive inferences about the artifact are developed.  Supposedly archaeologists know that these are not facts, they are inferences, but, reading the egotistical arguments in Dillehay, Meltzer and Adovasio tells me that these people actually believe their inferences should be accepted as "fact" or "truth" or "reality".

It makes me want to puke.

But, at least there is a semi reasonable process we can call kind of scientific.  Not that I expect any archaeologist I meet to actually understand the difference between reality and speculation.

Thus, metacognition or knowing the difference between knowing what we know, what we believe and the difference between knowing and believing.

Einstein is full of shit

The problem with infinity is that most people cannot comprehend the concept.  For example, there is the infinite set of integers and the infinite set of real numbers between each and every integer.

So the infinite set contains an infinite set of infinite sets.  A lot of people would consider this fairly useless mental masturbation, however, understanding the difference between infinity and practical limits is wicked critical.

For example, mathematically if we start at zero and calculate the distance between point A and point B as "D" and attempt to use division, as in B=(B-A)/2, to define the steps necessary to reach B we enter the infinite set between the finite set of (A,B) because we are using that infinite set as a function, or a portion, of the finite set.

In reality though what we have done is confused units from the finite to the infinite.

It is like the old joke about the engineer and the mathematician, the math guy can't talk to a pretty girl because he moves towards her in a proportional function of the finite distance which results in a curve that can never achieve intersection.

The engineer uses an interval function which results in a straight line that intersects.

The engineer meets the girl while the mathematician becomes stuck in an infinite loop.

So the question is, when accelerating do we move based on the addition of energy or do we move based on the multiplication of a proportional velocity or mass?

In fact, since energy is mass, as we expend energy to achieve velocity we reduce mass because we are working, from a practical application, with the addition of energy and the subtraction of mass rather than the multiplication of proportional velocities and proportional masses which can only result in an infinite mathematical loop.

And that is why Einstein is full of shit.

Christ is a Fat, depressed, drunk?

If Christ came back as a fat, depressed drunk carrying a sidearm would you flock to him?

Matt 11:19 describes Christ as a Glutton. If I described an emaciated man as a glutton people would think me crazy. The idols, or icons, we make generally depict an emaciated man, but, if Christ had been emaciated describing him as a glutton would have destroyed the credibility of those describing Christ. Scripture describes Christ as being a glutton, overweight, fat.

Luke 7:34 describes Christ as a winebibber. Someone who drinks too much wine. A drunk. This is not as easy to prove as a being overweight, but, it doesn't matter. Christ is perceived as, and described as, a drunk by people.

Isaiah 53:3 tells us that Christ is a man of sorrows, rejected and despised. Depressed in the current language.

Luke 22:36 describes Christ as telling his disciples to sell their clothes and buy swords, the popular sidearm of the era. We know one of the swords belonged to Peter, John 18:10. Who carried the other sword? Was a Christ a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of guy or was Christ a “do as I do” kind of guy? If Christ is a “do as I do” we can assume he carried that second sword. We know he attacked people in the temple with a scourge, similar to what he was whipped with. John 2:15

Scripture describes Christ, arguably, as a fat, depressed drunk carrying and using a weapon.

In our culture, and many others, this description is derogatory and truthfully the reason Christ was crucified, despised and rejected because people perceived of him as being a “bad person”.

I figure history repeats so when Christ comes back he will be perceived of as a bad person by most people, just as he was two thousand years ago.

I'm ready for that because God opened my eyes. I look around and I see many people who have their own idea, just as the Jewish people did, of a conquering hero rather than a fat depressed drunk. I know God does things God's way and is not really interested in submitting to the will of people.

 

I don't depend on my understanding of how Christ is going to be when Christ comes back. I'm going to depend on recognizing Christ's voice, however people describe Christ.

Firearm liability and black markets

Some idiots are trying to sue the group that manufactured the rifle used in the Sandyhook elementary school shooting.  Bushmaster is owned by Cerberus Capital through a subsidiary called "Freedom Group".

This is a frivolous lawsuit.  The suit itself cannot be won, it is intended as an intimidation device to be used to extort money from a firearms manufacturer.

The problem is that these kinds of situations increase black market activity.

It is not illegal to use the justice system in the United States to cost corporations money by suing them.  It is a misuse of the justice system, a perversion, a way of causing damages legally.

Lawsuits are expensive to address and there are many, many different tricks that some lawyers use to cause damages to other legally.

This creates anger and sometimes a desire to obtain revenge.  Since the misuse of the system was designed to stop a manufacturer from making something, some of those people who have been unemployed, or consumers who enjoyed the products produced by the organization, as a result of the immoral and unjust acts of extortion can obtain revenge by manufacturing the products in hiding.

This has been true of alcohol, recreational drugs like ecstasy or meth, revolutionary pamphlets and weapons.

When people engage in excessive punitive activities, as determined by those being punished, consumers, employees, supporters, those being "punished" often rebel.  Make no mistake, "fans" identify with the object of their attention and feel "hurt" when what or who ever they are fans of is "punished", especially unfairly.  Sometimes with hidden, impotent actions like spitting in food.  Sometimes by blowing up federal office buildings.   Often doing something inbetween these extremes.

These actions may very well cause Bushmaster to go out of business, but, the unfair way that the legal system is being misused will cause animosity.

This is incredibly stupid and it will backfire.  Most people are like me, they will just go build their own.  Some people are not, some people are wacked and some people are going to do wacked things because they are angry about inequity.

Electromagnetic firing pin

What happens if we use an electromagnetic tubular push solenoid as a firing pin?

No, I'm not going to explain specific forces required.  I am not exactly sure what I used or of the legality of this exactly or the liability if some idiot tries this at home.

It is a home made gun and that much is legal.  I used a 24 inch long pipe so the barrel would be legal.  The gun couldn't be carried since it required a car battery and I dissembled it years ago.  I built it from junk I had in the garage one night about twenty five years ago, just something to do.  I showed a couple of friends, but, it was fricking LOUD!  and reasonably useless, so just an experiment.  Motorcycle backfire can be a excellent excuse for loud noises.  Just make sure your neighbors know that you work on cars or motorcycles so they aren't surprised at loud bangs.

There is discussion about this on the web and there are a lot if idiots suggesting that anyone who tries this should be nominated for the Darwin awards.  People have done this.  I've done this.  No trouble, just be smart about it, or you could blow yourself up, so, don't do this at home.

The force required to activate a primer is a funny thing, it is actually pressure, not really force.  Pressure is force distributed over an area.  We call it force, 21psi of force, 15 newtons of force, etc, but, really, pressure is force distributed over area.

Most firing pins, centerfire, are rounded at the end.  If you look at solenoids you might discover that they have different ratings based on the diameter of the rod the solenoid is moving.  A "1000" gram solenoid becomes "2000" grams when the diameter of the rod is smaller.  454 grams are roughly a pound of force.  A 2000 gram solenoid is roughly, 4 pounds.

If you get a double head nail, double head nails are the "McGyver" home gunsmithing "easy peasy" firing pins, cut the head off and round it or just round the point of a normal nail.  Put it in an electric drill, have someone hold the drill and file the point round.  That makes a fair firing pin for any zip gun

By reducing the area of the force, you have increased the mechanical advantage.  Truthfully, a 2000 gram solenoid will probably punch right through some primers once it is attached to a firing pin.

Now, depending on what someone is firing the rest of the rig is important.  Shotgun shells are not really high pressure, smooth bore, all that.  Still, they need something strong enough to absorb the recoil.  3/4 inch black pipe with a pipe cap will do, but, make sure the rounded point reaches the primer.  I've filled the pipe cap with different things.  I like rubber hose washers, make sure the cap threads on securely and the pipe washer pushes the shotgun shell firmly into the barrel.

If you attach the nail to the solenoid it will move in and out of the hole drilled in the pipe cap.  Use a fired shell to set the distance from the pipe to the solenoid.  I used U clamps for pipe into a 2x4 for the pipe.  The solenoid was square.  I had to notch the 2x4 for it and I used a simple C clamp to hold the solenoid in place.

I C clamped the thing to my work bench and I used shotgun shells I had pulled the shot from.  Getting the alignment and the stroke right was the hardest part.  I only fired it a couple of times and it did work.

I also considered drilling a couple of holes in the primers on fired shot gun shells and using nicrome wire or Estes rocket igniters to set off the reloaded shot gun shell, but, I never did do that.

Doing stuff is fun, building stuff is fun.  Messing with guns can be dangerous, so if you ever do any home gun smithing or reloading remember that it's dangerous and be careful.  Shove a hunk of 1 1/4 pipe over the 3/4 pipe if you are worried about the breech pressure.  Some epoxy will keep it in place.

Now, some idiot is going to claim I "encouraged" some other idiot to do something stupid.  I'm not encouraging anyone to do this, I'm just explaining how I did it and how it can be done.  So, don't try this at home.

"righteousness", genocide and Internet Stalkers

One of the things that amazes me is people who have no control in their lives.  These are the abusers, the people who are constantly trying to force people to abide by their beliefs.

Parents beating children into submission.  Anonymous blackmailing, extorting and intimidating people.  Bullies at school.  Politicians.  Religious fanatics.

I'm opinionated and I'm not shy about sharing my opinions.  They are generally well thought out, and when they are not I generally learn something from an exchange.  I'm not perfect and I fall into the same traps others fall into, I just do it less often and I spend more time educating myself.

But, there are those who cloak themselves in "righteousness" and they stalk people, abusing them, "for the greater good".  They become the inciters of genocide, killing those people "who are not right".

I've always been amazed at them, the older I've gotten the more amazed I have been.  I thought it hilarious when righteous fanatics in anonymous adopted the image of a righteous religious fanatic who tried to kill King James for having the Bible translated into English.

Like most of us, Julian Assange, anonymous, are not perfect.  In some cases they do a lot of good.  Wikileaks is a perfect example of an organization which increases public transparency of oppressive organizations.  Extorting popstars or whatever is a perfect example of oppressive scum.

Like ignorance, abusive behavior is something we all engage in.

The word "schooled" is a synonym for "humiliating defeat" because teachers, those we entrust to educate ourselves and our children often humiliate students.  We see it in movies.  We see it in classrooms.  We laugh.  We do the same things, like teachers, like parents, we bully, ridicule and humiliate each other.

Christianity is interesting because, alone among religions, it teaches forgiveness through faith.  All other religions teach punishment.  Christ teaches that if we have a problem with another person we shouldn't have anything to do with that person.  Matthew 18.  There is no punishment in the New Testament.  Everyone who repents and believes is saved, regardless of their sins.  The last becomes first and the first becomes last because all are equal.

Most Christians don't hear that.  They hear the same old story from all other religions, karma, law, good behavior, social hierarchy, secures a place in paradise and they demand punishment.  It is sad.  The book is there, most can read, few actually think about what they read.

We see what we want to see.  We see our own righteousness and without being psychotic there is no way to be completely emotionally detached and totally objective.

We can train ourselves provided we decide we will learn.  Few do, and that amazes me.

Friearms Restrictions

Firearms restrictions

It is basic economics that the market in any product is driven by demand and the ability to provide a supply.

There is a demand for a cancer cure and people willing to supply that demand so there is a market in cancer cures.  Do they work?  I'm no medical professional, but, I would say most of the cures for cancer being sold are less than effective.  This is simply an example of demand creating a supply.

There is a demand for recreational drugs and there is a supply.  We call this the "war on drugs".  Prescription drugs are widely available in this black market despite attempts at rigid market controls.  Precursors for meth are controlled and meth is still available because there is a demand and there are people willing to supply that demand.

The United Nations has been battling illegal firearms manufacturing for years.  When the British were occupying Israel the Israelis built hidden, illegal, factories that produced firearms and ammunition.  Google "illegal firearms manufacturers" and read about busts of people illegally making guns here in the states.

As market controls increase, black market activity increases.  As long as there is a demand there will be a supply.  Period.  Increasing regulations will only increase black market activity and create a "war" that makes the "war on drugs" look like a playground fight.

U.S. Genocide

U.S. Genocide

The United States has participated in at least two genocides, Africans and Native Americans.  Both of these were politically supported primarily by the Democrats.  Andrew Jackson used a donkey to represent that he was too stubborn to be swayed by abolitionists or those advocating for Native Americans.  The Democrats still use that symbol.

It is very much like having the NAZI party around.  During WW2 the Democrats controlled the government and rounded up ethnic people, Japanese, German, Italian, and put them in camps.  I don't know exactly how many died during that round up, but, genocide is defined by targeting and killing people based on ethnicity.  I don't think there is a specific number attached.

Although, calling the rounding up of people and causing the death of,  hundreds, thousands, A genocide does seem to detract from the genocides of Africans, Native Americans and Jews....

Judging...again

 I have news for anyone who claims to be Christian and is talking about how people get what they deserve.

People are judged the way they judge.  All have fallen short of God's glory.  If you believe people get what they deserve, I guarantee you will get what you deserve.

Do yourself and everyone you witness to a favor.  Start witnessing the Good News of the Forgiveness of Sin by Faith.  Forgive and you will be forgiven, and incidentally, you won't get what you deserve, you'll be forgiven.

Remember Job and how God reacted towards Job's 3 friends who told Job that God was righteous and Job was getting what Job deserved.

Something I want to point out, a lot of people teach the commandments of men as doctrine.  God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a fruit to be desired to make one wise, and people will say God wants us to pray for wisdom.  Solomon did exactly that and ended up worshipping other Gods.

An Apostle is one sent by Christ with the message, there were at least 70 and their genders are not specified, yet people teach there were only 12 and they were all men.

If we read the Southern Baptist Conventions resolutions on abortion over the years, first in favor of legalized abortion in some cases, later against all abortion, none of those resolutions address Exodus 21:22, the only scripture which addresses abortion.

I could list a hundred things people teach as doctrine that are not scriptural, yet, people twist scripture to support.

If you Google "even if a brother has done us wrong" you might find some essays about scripture, including the ideas that one should not discuss the issue because it would damage the credibility of the brother.  This is common Catholic and Protestant theology, based on John 13:34, "love others" scripture.

Now, suppose people behave badly towards an individual.  Teaching Biblical falsehoods, lying, treating a person badly and they pretend righteousness.  Suppose the individual points out these sins, maybe once out of a hundred, and the vilified person is even more vilified.

Based on that scenario, how does God judge the people involved?

The truth is, God doesn't.  Grace and the forgiveness of sin through Christ covers those who believe.

But, do people who teach false doctrines actually believe in Christ or do they believe what people say about Christ?

I say, stick with prayer and scripture.  Believe in receiving direction and instruction and what we ask for and believe we shall receive.  This way, we learn to depend on God and we are not cursed by trust in people.

Here is another of those things people can only understand through Christ's perspective of Grace.

People will be judged as they judge.

If one judges as Christ, which is to say not at all since Christ is about the Good News of forgiveness of Sin by Faith, one is forgiven as they forgive.

But, if one judges by Law, one is held accountable by Law.

People will be separated into sheep and goats.  People whose faith is in Christ, who forgave, who listened to Christ and know Christ's voice, follow Christ and end up with the sheep.

Those who depend on their understanding of scripture, who judge by the law, who do not know Christ's voice, they end up with the goats.

The issue is, to refuse to judge people and allow people to judge for themselves is a judgment.  People will be judged as they judge.

This is a statement like, the first shall be last, which happens when everyone is equal.  The first become last and the last become first.

But, to place faith in my explanation would be to place trust in people, which Jeremiah tells us is wrong, cursed be the man who trusts in man.  Even if people believe what I say about Christ, their belief is misplaced since they are believing in what I say rather than in Christ.

Scripture is pretty simple, we just need "God glasses" to read it, easily found, completely free and delivered on demand by the Holy Ghost.

pi is pie?

Obama endorsed a pie maker on pi day.

And this is why the United States is failing at Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

We have a president who believes pi is pie.

A president extolling on how wonderful flour mixed with lard, filled with sugar mixed with fruit is during an obesity epidemic.

And people actually believe the guy doing this an intelligent person.  No wonder people are voting for trump, we live in an Idiocracy.

Steps to reduce violence

Steps to reduce violence.

This goes back to communication, socialization and a really, really poor educational system.  At the core, social violence is an income/power/communication issue.

How successful people are generally depends on how well they communicate with others.  Poverty level people tend to be predominantly Kinesthetic in their learning and communication styles.  Typical "talk and chalk" education doesn't address kinesthetic learners, so, students in poverty level communities tend to feel that being "schooled" is to suffer a humiliating defeat.  (Listen to M.C. Hammer's "can't touch this" for an example of the popular use of the word "schooled").

We actually train each other to ridicule and dismiss learners who are predominantly kinesthetic.

Properly educating and socializing people improves their employment possibilities, which helps stabilize society more than almost anything else.

In addition, Pavlovian behavior modification, "punishment/reward", works only when it is rigidly consistent.  Typically values change from teacher to teacher,  and teacher to parent.  Normally students learn to adapt to the current authority figures values.  This doesn't work well if the parents and teachers have different value systems.  The adaptive authority process often teaches disrespect for parents, typically becoming "critical" around teen age years.  Students often learn their parents are not the predominant authority figures in their lives and feel no obligation to listen to them.

To address the problem we need to address kinesthetic learning styles and be more adaptive to individual students learning styles.

Standardized tests are helpful in this regard because they identify students that are not responding to standard educational processes.  Rather than use them for identification of non-standard students, teachers and school administrators often use them to humiliate students and then complain about being forced to humiliate students rather than implement expensive alternative or individual education.

Once we address learning styles, we need to stop using "punishment/reward", Pavlovian behavior modification.  We need to replace it with positive reinforcement and pretty much eliminate punishment, except for violent situations that result in bodily harm.  Pavlovian punishment/reward creates a dependence on authority structure.

Third, we need socialized medicine with comprehensive mental health care so that people with issues can receive help when they need it.

Fourth, as income inequality increases society destabilizes.  IRS SOI Tax Stats for 2013 publish the Adjusted Gross Income for 2013 collected from 1040s.  The range, 99.7%, is $1M to $0.  That makes the middle $500,000.00.  85% of returns report an income of less than $100K.  There is no middle class in the United States.

Compensation should be limited to 100 times the compensation of the lowest paid worker, including temps and contractors.  Minimum wage should be increased to a living wage.  Henry Ford overpaid auto workers and the results of that action are historic and non-intuitive.

Disposable income is critical to social stability and economic growth. Personally, I'd make a flat tax of 50% of all income over the previous years 75% range.  In 2013 about 75% of people made less than $75K.  I'd tax the upper 25% at 50%.  Someone making $100K would pay $12.5K in taxes and someone making $1M would pay $462,500.00 in taxes.

This places the tax burden on those who are less likely to spend all their discretionary income.

These are sweeping changes, and the resistance will be extreme, but, it's pretty much change or die.  There might be alternative solutions capable of achieving the same results, but, I have not heard them.

At the core, social violence is an income/power/communication issue.

If we keep doing the same things, we'll get the same results.  If we oppress people more, they will rebel more.  To battle social violence we need to improve our community socialization institutions, schools, provide free mental health care and reduce income inequality.

Why mass murders occur

Why are Middle Eastern terrorists attacking us? No, it isn't to destroy our way of life, it is to maintain their own way of life.

Western Industrialized multinationals seek out resources and markets that they can use to expand their for-profit business interests. Incidentally to this process we export Western culture and value systems, which we hold up as standards even while we violate them ourselves.

For example, sexual equality, we (Western Industrial nations) treat women as less than men and then demand equal rights for women in other nations.

As these people see their traditional values being destroyed by "do as I say, not as I do" hypocrites they get angry, just as we would.

Now, most people don't go around killing other people when they get angry, so our hypocrisy does not excuse their behavior. Generally, what happens is that some individuals, a very, very small percentage, who have been treated unfairly, "experienced excessive punitive action", act out against their oppressors.

This is true of most mass murders, from high school shooters to terrorists. The percentage might be 1 in 1 million, or 1 in 100,000. Our population is growing and so the number of individuals who will react violently when confronted with "excessive punitive action" will increase, not matter how small the percentage is.

Most cultures have a concept of "fair". When an individual experiences "excessive punitive action" by other individuals who ignore the rules they are supposed to be enforcing, or who enforce rules unequally, they act out.

If we are going to use Pavlovian conditioning, punishment/reward behavior modification, it must be consistent and equally applied. The less consistent and the more unequally applied the more of these mass murders will be created.

I believe that as our population grows the less consistently and more unequally we are applying our Pavlovian standards.

This begins in our education system and our education system must change if we want to reduce the potential for future mass murders.

Gun control

I don't hate the idea of gun control.  I think gun control is stupid.  There is no evidence it reduces violence.  1934, 1968, violence increased.  Correlation isn't causation and to even infer causation, correlation must be consistent.  Gun control legislation is not consistent when correlated with reductions in violence.  People doing silly things doesn't upset me.  I expect silly, self destructive behavior.

I do hate the idea of a deadly black market where submachine guns that are similar in quality to crack or meth, which is cooked by people who flunked chemistry, are produced by people who flunked metal shop and are just as easy to buy as crack.

For over 30 years I've warned people about the danger of a black market in guns.  I watched as people started building guns during the "assault weapon" ban and I built an AR15 myself.

I've watched as we went from guys like me who enjoyed home gunsmithing fabricating guns to people having "build parties" where people who have never learned anything about metal work fabricate their own assault rifles.

Every time a market is restricted, the black market in that commodity increases.  As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply.

There isn't anyway to put the cat that we let out by passing the stupid assault weapon ban back in the bag.  We can hope it doesn't get worse, but, it looks like it is going to get a lot worse.

And when I say a lot worse, I mean low quality Saturday Night special submachine guns as easy to buy as a crack rock, and the deaths that go with that kind of market.

Nina Jablonski and "Skin"

There are some videos of lectures by an anthropologist named Nina Jablonski on the web.  Ted talks, etc.  Essentially she argues that skin pigmentation is a result of evolutionary pressures based on ultraviolet radiation.  Total bullshit of course, but, people eat that shit up without thinking about it.

"survival of the fittest"!  In reality, evolution is determined by reproductive fitness.

Survival of the fittest is defined as:- a nineteenth century concept that the strongest survive. Often called "Social Darwinism." "Survival of the fittest" misrepresents the process of natural selection. The mechanism of natural selection is reproductive fitness, those who produce offspring. Social Darwinism refers to being the most powerful, which is not the mechanism for natural selection.

Natural selection is the evolution works.  Mutations in species which contribute to the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce become predominant in a species.  The key here is surviving to reproduce.

The age of reproduction is about 13 in human beings.  If skin pigmentation offered an evolutionary advantage based on geographic location we would see children living in the wrong geographic location die.  Black children would die in Europe.  White children would die in Africa.  Both would die where evolution selected brown people, places like the Middle East and the Arctic circle.

What amazes me is that a so obviously flawed hypothesis is so eagerly accepted by academics who are supposed to understand the theory of reproductive fitness.

What a bunch of ignorant bullshit.  Dr. Jablonski tells us, in one of her video lectures, that her team worked for 15 years on this "theory" and no one ever explained reproductive fitness and natural selection to her.

Un frickin believable.

Thinking about propaganda

The problem with propaganda is that it generally fails to last historically. There are notable exceptions which are recognized to be B.S. by advanced scholars and which are still commonly held to be "true" by the general population. The idea that people believed the Earth was flat before Columbus for example.

More recently, people ignore the fact that the Democrats are politically responsible for multiple genocides. Andrew Jackson the first President elected as a Democrat after the Democrats changed their name from Democratic Republicans, committed genocidal atrocities against both African Americans and First peoples. More recently, most democrats in Congress voted against the 1964 Civil Rights act.

If we go further back, we can examine the propagandistic concept that the Church was responsible for the Aristotelean theory of the Geocentric Universe when the conflict between the Church and Galileo/Copernicus was really an academic conflict between the prominent educational institution and some researchers challenging academic cannon. At the time of the Renaissance the Catholic Church was the primary publishing house, the primary provider of education and the primary religion of Europe.

Or we could examine the idea of the "Dark Ages" where people claim "the entire world was plunged into intellectual darkness by religious fanatics" when in actually it was only Europe. Priests in Europe have always been Scholars and many priests have been responsible for educating researchers (like Copernicus and Galileo) and/or researching new ideas. The biggest problem after the fall of the Roman Empire was that Rome sucked at technical documentation and excelled at religious and political documentation. Technical information was passed along by word of mouth through apprenticeships. As the technical experts responsible for amazing achievements like the aqueducts, the Colosseum and Roman roads died off the technical lessons learned by those experts died with them. The practice of maintaining technical secrets (closed source technology, ala Microsoft) creates a potential for a similar collapse. Fortunately Open Source addresses that and minimizes the potential for a "dark ages" should a cultural collapse occur.

So, while many of these issues are understood by various advanced scholars, these propagandistic ideas still permeate our education and academic circles.

It would be cool to see what people believe about the worlds political leaders of today in a thousand years, the differences between what is taught at lower and more advanced academic levels.

Capitalism, why does it exist?

Earlier this year I exchanged some e-mails with an Anthropology professor at the University of Toronto who blames some of the ills of the world on Capitalism.  Bogus, just a way of transitioning blame from greedy assholes to some ideological concept.

Humans are sociobiological animals.  A guy named E.O. Wilson developed his theories on sociobiology while studying insects and then applied that theory to mammals, including primates, humans.

Many mammals exist in social groups with a rather flat hierarchy where an "alpha" pair controls the most desirable resources, generally some kind of food.  The communities tend be very small and all of the members interact together.

Humans form smaller communities, churches, families, businesses, villages, etc, and as those communities grow and grow the social hierarchies become more and more rigid and more and more stratified.

Capitalism is a way for us to continue that sociobiological need for social hierarchy where "alpha" members accumulate the most desirable resources.  In some communities those resources are skills, mental or physical, power or charisma, the ability to convince others to do what one wants, knowledge, memory.  The lowest common denominator is money and that ends up being the most desirable resource among the largest portion of the community.

Money often follows charisma, not always, but often.

So, capitalism exists as the primary economic system because it allows humans to support their sociobiological predisposition to establish social hierarchies where alpha members can accumulate desirable resources.

We would need to have a different "lowest common denominator" to establish a different economic/sociobiological social hierarchy based on something other than capitalism.

Why the wall of separation between church and state is stupid

Separation of Church and States was incorporated into U.S. policy primarily because of religious discrimination is the 1878 Reynolds decision which incorporated the phrase, "separation of church and state" into public awareness.

Reynolds was a Mormon from Utah who had married more than one wife.  Reynolds argued that the First Amendment protections regarding religious freedom allowed him to marry more than one wife.  At the time there was a great deal of concern that, like most original States of the Union, Utah would adopt a State Sponsored Religion, Mormonism.  Massachusetts was the last of the original thirteen States to stop sponsoring a religion in 1833.  At the time of Federal Constitutional ratification most of the States had State sponsored religions.

In order to suppress the possibility of Mormonism becoming a State sponsored religion in Utah, the Justices used circular logic and poor supporting arguments in their opinion.

First, SCOTUS used a law, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to make a law, "states can't establish a religion" that they were specifically forbidden from making.

Further, SCOTUS used writings of Thomas Jefferson, an individual who was not involved in the writing of the Federal Constitution, concerning the Virgina State Constitution and a personal opinions of Thomas Jefferson written in a personal letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

Unfortunately, this support means little to nothing for two reasons.  The first is that Jefferson was not involved in the Constitutional Debates recorded in the Federalist Papers.  The second is that the framers of the constitution wrote the First Amendment while the States they represented had State sponsored Religions and those States, Including Virginia, had State sponsored religions at the time of ratification of the Federal Constitution.  We can assume, based on the lack of immediate response by the Federal Government in forcing States to cease religious sponsorship that there was no intent to prevent States from sponsoring religions.  All of the original States did eventually write religious freedom clauses into their State Constitutions, and it is by these State constitutions that State sponsored religion is forbidden.

The Reynolds decision violates the Federal Constitution in two ways. First, it employs circular logic and poor support to subvert the intentions of the First Amendment.  Second, it takes a power specifically reserved for the individual States unto the Federal government, violating the Tenth Amendment.

This was done specifically to prevent Utah from establishing Mormonism as a State sponsored religion and as such the decision violates the intentions of the founding fathers to establish a nation of religious freedoms.

I won't address whether I think this decision is morally right or wrong.  My only point is that this is illogical, illegal and deliberately discriminatory and firmly establishes the influence religious beliefs, both discriminatory religious beliefs and favorable bias.

Faster than light travel

I've been writing a story about faster than light travel and trying to stay within the boundaries of what Einstein's worshipers believe is possible.

There are three basic parts of the system:

The first is a long range scanner capable of detecting even tiny space debris traveling at speed.

The second is a camera system which records star positions and identifies them using spectroscopy.  This allows the ship to maintain a record of its position relative to a location.  This becomes tricky, more on that later.

The third is a "wormhole" projector.  Yeah, I know, this sounds kind of wacky.  Essentially the ship projects a wormhole that allows it to travel as far as the scanner system can see in an instant.  Lets say 1,000,000 kilometers or 600,000 miles.

Once the ship makes a jump the scanners identify the exact position based on relative position of the stars.  The reason this is tricky is that traveling 600,000 miles creates a slight difference in the way we see things.

At 100 meters, a one degree variation results in about 25mm of variation.  A kilometer, 250mm of variation.  10 kilometers, 2500 or 2.5 meters.  10,00,000 is 250,000 meters.  Precision becomes very important in relative location, and after jumping what is, essentially, 3 light seconds, everything moves.

While the rear scanners are locating the ship precisely, the forward scanners are scanning for any space debris that could cause problems.  If the space is clear, another worm hole is projected and the ship jumps.

The velocity of the ship is based on the time it takes to calculate and the range of the mass scanners.  The faster the processing, the further the scanning range, the faster the velocity.  3 seconds scanning at about 1 million kilometers is light speed.  1 second at 1M is 3xL.S.  .1 second is 30xL.S.

Anyhow, still working on it.

Getting rid of a body

I was writing a short story about a guy who kills people in the Detroit area, generally for the mob, but, realistically for just about anyone.  I write stories, I don't submit them anywhere, I guess you could say that I'm still practicing.  I am going to get rid of a body.  I came up with a couple of different ways.

First, wrap the body tight in galvanized chain link fencing. Perforate the body using an icepick.  Attach three 5 gallon buckets filled with cement and dump it in at least 50 feet of water.

Second, cut the body up into several pieces.  Wrap each piece in galvanized wire mesh, "chicken wire".  Attach an anchor to each piece and spread them out in water at least 25ft deep, dumping a piece every five minutes while running the boat about as fast as it can.

Third, dig a hole about ten feet deep in the middle of a narrow, 20ft long trench about six feet deep.  Put the body in it.  Fill the hole in about four feet.  Drop a 20 foot long piece of steel pipe with a welded connector in the middle.  Refill the trench.

Fourth, pretty much the same as three except bury a large dog above the body.

Fifth, power wash the body with a 1:25 bleach solution.  Wrap it in plastic and dump it in a dumpster.

There is always the "feed it to pigs" solution.  I thought about that, making the perpetrator a pig farmer with a butcher shop, all sealed cement and tile with a large table and a large, sealed, band saw.  During deer season he butchers deer for local hunters.  Huge walk in freezer, smoke house, etc.  He also buys cos at auction and butchers them.

I thought about a butcher in a city, but, that sounds too much like the Soprano's.

If the guy was a pig farmer and a butcher he would have a reason for a pickup with a freezer in the back to deliver meat.  Maybe a false bottom with a winch under it, to drag the body into the freezer.

When I start dealing with boats it becomes more complex, I know, writers always make it seem like this stuff is easy, but, I'm a little too obsessive compulsive for that.  Details.

If the guy had a freezer truck and a commercial fishing boat, the freezer truck makes sense.  Things just seem complicated at that point.

I kind of liked the idea of a plastic wrapped area for dismemberment, but, I think a cordless sawzall would work better than knives.  Completely disassemble the device after use and wash with a hot bleach solution.  Completely dry and reassemble.  Why people think things can't be disassembled and cleaned is beyond me.  Sure, there are some things that can't be disassembled, but, by and large, everything can be disassembled and cleaned.

The plastic and disposable coveralls, etc, would make a rather large package for disposal.  Maybe an incinerator with a scrubber system?  Maybe even having the emissions bubbled through water?  Maybe the pig farmer could have an external boiler system that uses dual fuel technology, biomass (wood chips) and natural gas?  The water bubbler scrubber (aeration) could be a carbon sequestration system to minimize the carbon footprint of the heating system.

The water could be used for irrigation of apple trees.....which would generally be used to feed the pigs.

Still working out the details....