the vampire population increases geometrically, wet flowers
October 31, 2007 at 6:53 am | In culture, photography, science | Leave a CommentCinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality – Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies
We will ignore the human mortality and birth rate for the time being and only concentrate on the effects of vampire feeding. On February 1, 1600, one human will have died and a new vampire will have been born. This gives two vampires and 536,870,911–1 humans. The next month, there are two vampires feeding, thus two humans die and two new vampires are born. This gives four vampires and 536,870,911–3 humans. Now on April 1, 1600, there are four vampires feeding and thus we have four human deaths and four new vampires being born. This gives us eight vampires and 536,870,911–7 humans.
By now, the reader has probably caught on to the progression. Each month, the number of vampires doubles, so that, after n months have passed, there are
2323 . . . 32=2n,
n times
vampires. This sort of progression is known in mathematics as a geometric progression—more specifically, it is a geometric progression with ratio two, since we multiply by two at each step. A geometric progression increases at a tremendous rate, a fact that will become clear shortly. Now, all but one of these vampires were once human, so that the human population is its original population minus the number of vampires excluding the original one. So after n months have passed, there are
536,870,911–2n+1
humans. The vampire population increases geometrically and the human population decreases geometrically.
So we’re either all vampires or there are no vampires. The authors also explain why the physical laws of motion and force would prohibit the existence of immaterial ghosts.
memories of autumn, embracing fear and the irrational
October 30, 2007 at 10:37 am | In Philosophy & Religion, literature, news, photography, photoshop, progressive | Leave a Comment‘In summer, when the days are long, Perhaps you’ll understand the song: In autumn, when the leaves are brown, Take pen and ink, and write it down.’ ~ Through the Looking Glass, Ch. 6: Humpty Dumpty – Lewis Carroll
I remember the occasion with extreme vividness. The water was boiling, and everything was prepared, and the sound of his “zuzzoo” had brought me out upon the verandah. His active little figure was black against the autumnal sunset, and to the right the chimneys of his house just rose above a gloriously tinted group of trees. Remoter rose the Wealden Hills, faint and blue, while to the left the hazy marsh spread out spacious and serene. ~ The First Men in the Moon , Chapter 2 – H.G. Wells
These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance–blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked into rather than at. ~ A Pair of Blue Eyes, Chapter 1 – Thomas Hardy
Hello pet shop. Have you got any more puddy tats? I’m all fresh out ~ The cartoon character Tweety Bird. Which has nothing to do with Fall. At least not that I know of.
And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.
All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
Related, epistemology.
chain mail – how fools communicate, shiny and new, new rembrandt goes for 3 million
October 29, 2007 at 11:56 am | In art, culture, history, photography, photoshop, progressive | Leave a CommentThe extent of it and the weight they give it is funny in a pathetic kind of way, How Fools Communicate – Right-wing internet chain mail,
From the beginning, the vast majority of these Internet-disseminated rumors have come from the right. (Snopes lists about fifty e-mails about George W. Bush, split evenly between adulatory accounts of him saluting wounded soldiers or witnessing to a wayward teenager, and accounts of real and invented malapropisms. In contrast, every single one of the twenty-two e-mails about John Kerry is negative.) For conservatives, these e-mails neatly reinforce preconceptions, bending the facts of the world in line with their ideological framework: liberals, immigrants, hippies and celebrities are always the enemy; soldiers and conservatives, the besieged heroes. The stories of the former’s perfidy and the latter’s heroism are, of course, never told by the liberal media. So it’s left to the conservative underground to get the truth out. And since the general story and the roles stay the same, often the actual characters are interchangeable.
“A lot of the chain letters that were accusing Al Gore of things in 2000 were recycled in 2004 and changed to Kerry,” says John Ratliff, who runs a site called BreakTheChain.org, which, like Snopes, devotes itself to debunking chain e-mails. One e-mail falsely described a Senate committee hearing in the 1980s where Oliver North offered an impassioned Cassandra-like warning about the threat of Osama bin Laden, only to be dismissed by a condescending Democratic senator. Originally it was Al Gore who played the role of the senator, but by 2004 it had changed to John Kerry. “You just plug in your political front-runner du jour,” Ratliff says.
While this internet trend shouldn’t be ignored the things they’re saying have simply moved from mass mailings, regular chain mail, some church related activities ( such as the late Jerry Falwell), TV, AM radio and small special interest magazines onto the net. Sure there is probably a gullible now and then, but mostly its a reaffirmation of that already have a certain bent. Part of the reason that more moderate Americans have such a difficult time debating them in forums is not because your facts are wrong, but because you’re literally challenging the Right’s version of the truth. They’ve invested their entire being into myths about Senator Kerry, the Clintons and of late all the world’s Muslims. So when you for example bring up the fact that the Pentagon and the Department of Defense found that John Kerry did in fact have a distinguished military career it is as though you threw a stone at their front window. They don’t want to hear that, they refuse to digest it, yet have little problem rationalizing away George W. Bush ducking into the Guard to avoid the draft.
A painting valued in the vicinity of 1,000 euros has been sold for thee million. The piece, now thought to be a Rembrandt self-portrait, had hung on the walls of the owner’s house for years.
This even though the Rembrandt Research Project, THE experts on Rembrandt has yet to examine it.
Interesting look at balancing being an achiever and taking time to relax, Less Homework, More Yoga, From a Principal Who Hates Stress
lena heady’s butterfly tattoos, military lawyer blows whistle, fog ville, china’s glasnost problem
October 27, 2007 at 12:34 pm | In culture, economic, history, movies, news, photoshop | Leave a Comment
lena heady. you might remember her from the excellent short film No Verbal Response (2003) or as Blanche Glover in Possession (2002). She’s currently slated to be in a biopic of the early life of Antonio Vivaldi.
Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn ‘unconscionable’ detention
An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are “enemy combatants”.The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as “unconscionable”.His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned.
China’s syndrome of lawless growth
Political and social challenges are mounting. For the CCP, the present transitional period is correctly seen as a period of immense significance in terms of the future of its authoritarian rule in China.The credibility problem for the regime: There is growing evidence that the regime’s authority and capacity to govern are declining (in addition to its legitimacy). This is occurring for two main reasons.First, although it is clear that increasingly allowing the operation of free markets was seen as therapeutic rather than transformative in terms of Chinese politics and society, the authority of the CCP is based on an insecure strategy of inefficiently using resources to fuel a bubble economy. Moreover, the solution – to grant the private sector greater and greater access to this wealth and control of critical sectors of the economy – would accelerate the irrelevance of the party……senior CCP members are increasingly becoming part of the new wealthy elites as a result of their privileged position within a China growing richer. Moreover, as part of the tactic to co-opt the new and emerging urban elites, the senior leadership has neglected the poor and especially rural populations, to their detriment. It is easy to forget that there are still about 900 million rural inhabitants in China (and only 100 million to 150 million in the middle and upper classes).[ ]….Social unrest in China: Officially reported instances of social unrest (involving 15 or more people) have risen from 8700 in 1993 to 87,000 in 2005 (the latest available figures). This is about 240 instances each day.The first important point about the rising instances of social unrest is that it indicates a citizenry that is increasingly defiant or unafraid of the authoritarian coercive apparatus.
It’s great news that the central communist party leadership is losing its power and China is going through its own version of the old Soviet Glasnost, but the void of some strong central stabilizing institutions leaves room for everything from street gangs to organized crime – a worse case scenario would be a Chinese Napoleon stepping up to the plate. This article doesn’t speculate as much as I would have liked on suggestions for the inevitable transition of China to a more open society and how they’re going to maintain their economy and a stable society in the process. The CCP is primarily older men who may be deluding themselves thinking they can have bits of Glasnost while retaining some parts of the old central authoritarianism which they can just wipe out like a Swiss army knife if things get out of hand. That kind of thinking from a nation that owns most of America’s debt ( also goes into why what happens in China effects our everyday finances)would not be a good thing.
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