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Home » Open thread 12/7/22

Open thread 12/7/22

The New Neo Posted on by

I used to do some of this but definitely not all of it. I notice that this dancer has long toes and a long toe box. I have short toes and had a short toe box. Each situation presents its challenges.

Comments

Open thread 12/7/22 — 25 Comments

  1. I guess December 7th has no meaning anymore. No mention anywhere that I can find except for some FB posts with friends I have. The Greatest Generation is just about all gone, and what they did is dying with them.

  3. This morning as I was sipping my coffee, I thought of my Dad. He passed in 2007 at age 89. Eightyone years ago he probably thought he would die that day. I am sure when he got up and had breakfast he was thinking of the bright Hawaiian day. Then he got a wakeup call, General Quarters this is not a drill. He headed to his GQ station up in the communications array called the Crows Nest at the top of his ship. From this vantage point he said he was looking into the eyes of the pilots of the planes with the big Red Meatball on the wings. He saw the explosion that ripped the Arizona apart. The ship next to his was the Utah, she is still on the bottom of Pearl, with men inside her like the Arizona. Yes, today I think of him.

  4. physicsguy– There are many of us who still remember Pearl Harbor. When I was a kid, my Nana (maternal grandmother) told me and my cousins about coming home from church (December 7, 1941 was a Sunday) and turning on the radio, not expecting to hear anything as terrible as the news that reached the East Coast about 1:30 in the afternoon that day. She said that she walked upstairs and threw herself on the bed in tears, certain that her three sons and two sons-in-law (my youngest aunt was still single) would be going off to war. In the event, two of the “boys” were too old to serve, but my dad and my Uncle Bob were in the Army within a month (like SHIREHOME, I think of my dad every year on December 7, as well as on V-E Day and Memorial Day). Uncle Joe tried to enlist but was told his asthma disqualified him from military service.

    It’s often noted that recruiting centers around the country were swamped on December 8 and the days following. Here is a post from the online version of the local evening newspaper (the Lancaster New Era) that my dad was working for when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. It includes a photo of local men lining up in the recruiting center inside the Lancaster Post Office:

    https://lancasteronline.com/features/yesteryear/history/heres-how-the-attack-on-pearl-harbor-was-reported-in-local-newspapers-81-years-ago/article_2d2fe48c-52c9-11ec-8570-0b7e555851a9.html

    So not everyone has forgotten. And here’s the classic song from Sammy Kaye and his orchestra, recorded within 10 days of the attack:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9y3_cl5_SQ&ab_channel=SammyKaye%26HisOrchestra-Topic

  6. Just another open-thread comment about something I read. Like yesterday, this one’s about ChatGPT.

    Tyler Cowen, a political economist who sometimes claims to be libertarian, has written a brief opinion piece at Bloomberg news, entitled “ChatGPT Could Make Democracy Even More Messy” (https://tinyurl.com/yttb3hms). Not happy news, but worth reading.

    It seems like everybody’s talking about ChatGPT, but is that really true? How much of it has been written by ChatGPT bots? Too clever by half? How about this: am I really me or a bot? Since Neo’s avatar is an homage to Magritte, maybe a little AI (artificial intelligence) solipsism can be forgiven as a bad joke?

    I’ve had the misfortune of spending most of my so-called career working for universities, so I’ve been thinking that ChatGPT and its successors could render large-scale plagiarism very hard to detect. You might like to start a business training ChatGPT with digital dissertations. The software could then produce an almost infinite number of fake dissertations, which could be custom-created, on demand, for specific topics. Since Humanities dissertations aren’t tied to data, fieldwork, or experimental evidence, they would be especially vulnerable. Ambitious students could easily acquire multiple degrees.

  7. THE BEST early summary of The Twitter Files comes from Tucker Carlson. First Amendment fascism is being widely inflicted upon us. Even in states, to the interest of the powerful, like in Arizona and Kentucky elections,

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5U5buUEvk

    Does anyone have a better summary take than these 17 minutes? Free and fair elections subverting our Democracy are now the norm.

  8. It would seem that those expensive shoes should somehow be custom tailored to the ballerinas feet. And that her preferences be kept on file.

  9. physicsguy,

    I happened to be up late last night and shortly after midnight I noticed “12/7” on my phone and I immediately thought of Pearl Harbor. However, I am sure you are right, for most all under a certain age it is just another day, as 9/11 will become in the not so far future.

  10. What an incredible young woman! Thank you for sharing the video, neo. It was fascinating to hear her explain all the important aspects of the different sections of the shoe while watching her artistry at reconstructing the shoe. It was also fascinating watching her posture. She has obviously been completely reshaped from the years of training she has done. She can casually rest her legs and feet in positions I would strain to approximate, yet she is completely comfortable and relaxed.

    Is there a more adaptable animal than homo sapiens?

    When I ran a great deal I had a lot of foot issues but never thought of modifying my trainers or track spikes. I wish it had occurred to me. I’m not as clever as this young woman.

  11. Fullmoon,

    I don’t know about ballet, but this is beginning to be done with 3 D printing. I can foresee a time in the not too distant future when shoe stores (or online emporiums) will have one’s foot measurements on file and custom print a shoe perfectly tailored for the consumer.

  13. Thanks everyone…I know most here are quite aware of Dec. 7. What bothers me is how all the news outlets are ignoring it….really amazing.

  14. Firefly, 1:12 p.m.: You cannot imagine how wonderful that would be for women (and men) who are not standard sizes.

  15. Fullmoon:

    Actually, they are delivered to professional dancers already very very customized. These are just the personal finishing touches shown in the video! They vary from ballet to ballet and time to time even for a single dancer and so they are always done later by the dancer herself and require her presence.

  16. My dad was a college sophomore. Like other young men, he enlisted immediately. He went back to college after the War. I found a copy of his college transcripts and printed on them was that the University wanted him to repeat his freshman work since so much time had passed. Like he just took those years of for fun and frivolity.

  17. December 7th and June 6th are the key dates for us of the World War II echo generation. We didn’t fight it, but we knew and admired those who did.

    On occasion, I’ve been in older/younger friends and neighbours, and, for example, have sat for beer and pizza and viewing “The Longest Day” together, in remembrance.

    “Saving Private Ryan” became a replacement, for a time. But over the past decade has become seen as too singular in focus, and therefore too defective
    and almost trite for iconic commemoration.

    I bring all this up to ask others to suggest Peal Harbor Day nominations.

    Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” is not great. But it has the broad strokes right. It’s not too long. And the story arc, while melodramatic, is still worthy. It’s the one I would watch with others.

    In a recent Twitter Files interview, Elon Musk tells us that he’s a big fan of history. In particular, a podcast? Channel called “History Hardcore”? Anyone know about this and have an opinion?

    I know that a year or more ago, “TiK History”, a London based YT historian, especially about WWII (who earned a first, second class degree in history at his uni — like an A minus-B plus average, I believe), spends an entire hour devoted to answering his Patron member’s Elon Musk’s dispute on the meagre motives for Hitler to go to war.

    It’s not explained by calling him deranged or misled or a gambler. So what were Hitler’s war motives?

    TiK patiently explains Hitler’s deficient economic beliefs, and that these combined with his belief in racial or genetic corruption, how Hitler could seriously believe he was acting to save civilization from ending.

    Yes, TiK convincingly avers, Hitler was trying to save humanity — he believed.

    It’s not an easy brief to absorb. But it is better and much more deeply informed than so many other takes on the causes of the Second World War.

    “But TiK, the reason why Hitler began WWII make no sense” — Musk objects! TiK answers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQKM5b1SoS0

  18. TJ,

    Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” podcasts are incredible. I highly recommend them. He is a good speaker and yarn spinner and the research he does is extremely thorough. He also works hard to contemporize the subjects he covers. People are people. The technology has changed in many and significant ways but human nature is the same.

  19. TJ,

    If Tik’s viewpoint on Hitler is as you describe I find it easy to believe. I’ve never heard anyone doubt Hitler believed that Germans “Aryans” were literally a superior race of men and women, nor that Hitler was not sincerely determined to develop a system that would allow that “master race” to attain its natural place on the world stage and bring forth a prosperous Reich. Hitler was many, many terrible, awful things, but I don’t think he was insincere in his stated philosophy. It was a sick, demented philosophy, but he believed it.

  20. Kate,

    Many parts of many humans are “not standard.” I think what makes this so noticeable on shoes and footwear is the amount of pressure per square inch on our feet during so much of our waking hours. Look at how many ads there are for mattresses and pillows. Obviously many people have differing opinions on how those feel, yet the pressure on any portion of our bodies while sleeping is miniscule compared to the pressure on our feet while standing; not to mention walking, running or doing a pirouette!

    I find I have different favorite shoes depending on what I am doing. And no matter what I do I’m always using the same, two feet!

  21. Rufus T Firefly:

    The fur really flies in response to TiK’s video on YouTube “Was Hitler a socialist?”

    Answer – yes, and the left just explodes. But TiK has the goods on them. No matter. That is unacceptable.

  22. Hence the name the esser-rohm was for straight up nationalization but then there was the hartzberg conference so ixnay on ationalizationay

    Crystal clear hitlers motives he laid them out in mein kampf revenge for the humiliation of versailles liquidation of the jews and other peoples which included slavs

  23. Seems the hobby most assaultive on the human body is gymnastics. Next….dance/football. Huh. Well, at least with dance you don’t get concussions.

  24. @ miguel > “This is the new enemy”

    The final paragraph asked a question:

    So far, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the plastics industry are backing the model used for the Paris climate agreement, which leaves countries to determine their own national action plans, rather than being bound by common regulations.

    For campaigners, the specter of the Paris climate agreement is less a benchmark model for international treaties, and more a cautionary tale. The Paris Agreement is based on countries developing their own national policies for avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels, and preferably avoiding 1.5 degrees. The world has missed this target. Current national policies would result in a 2.8-degree temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the most recent pledges would nudge that down only by 0.2-0.4 degrees.

    “We haven’t really seen much success coming out of the Paris Agreement,” Chris Dixon, ocean campaign leader at the Environmental Investigation Agency, a London-based NGO, told Bloomberg. “So why on earth would we be trying to negotiate a new convention which is modeled on something that’s essentially been a failure?”

    Same reasons as the first one: virtue signaling, intimidation of opposing views, and graft.

    FWIW, one of my local King Soopers (Kroger chain) managers told me that the company would be charging a dime a bag for the flimsies starting Dec. 23 (odd date for that sort of thing).
    Also a dime for paper bags, which I prefer anyway.

    I save all my grocery bags, of course, but now I will be more rigorous about keeping a large stash, at least until all the free ones are gone. With careful planning, I can get at least 3 uses from one before it falls apart.

    This agreement, as with the Paris convention, comes to you from the Party of Science — even though the myth of the evil plastic bag & righteous reusable has been debunked several times.

  25. Old news – Trump’s “termination of the Constitution” has fallen out of the news cycle already, but Sarah Hoyt’s post today addresses the brouhaha.

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/12/07/our-trump-card/

    There are many ways to look at what he’s saying, but the one that made absolute sense to me was this: EVERYONE who had half a brain knew there was a serious problem with the 2020 election. EVERYONE, including the courts who said no one had standing to question it, no crime had been committed till it was certified and after it was certified, well, there was nothing we could do.

    The fact is that there was an enormous issue with the voting but the entire establishment rolled over by the rules and said “We can’t do anything”. And a living dead zombie was sworn in despite the clear will of the people against it.
    …

    So — yeah, there was fraud, massive. The Constitution is being ignored. And there is no Constitutional remedy for this.

    It’s not that the Founders didn’t anticipate this. It’s that the remedy for it is found in the Declaration of Independence. And frankly it’s a remedy all of us with a half a wit are praying we don’t have to employ.

    Is Trump calling for that remedy? No. Because he’s sane enough he also doesn’t want it. What is he calling for? New Elections. Keep in mind this is quixotic and borderline stupid, because unless we had elections by “occupied country rules” — ie. the rules of countries WE occupied and forced elections on — meaning, one day voting, paper ballots, public ballot counting, purple fingers, the results will be MORE fraud. And they’ve managed to perfect it, as we saw in 2022.

    But is that what people are saying. No. People are saying “Hey, to have elections again, would LITERALLY kill the constitution.” Yeah, b*tch. That’s a real danger. Looks over at the bleeding corpse of the Constitution, while the Junta stabs it repeatedly.

    What this country has suffered is what’s known as a “color revolution.” The revolutionaries come in not with tanks and guns, but under the cover of legalism. Using our own mechanisms to hamstring us. If you ignore the fact of the MASSIVE fraud, everything was done by the book.
    …
    So yeah, what Trump said was stupid, but not because he called to discard the constitution. He didn’t. But because he called for new elections, when the elections are now thoroughly rigged.

    However what did all my colleagues on the right do? “Trump wants to discard the Constitution.”

    And I have sympathy, kind of, with the friend who was like “why can’t he be clearer.” But the fact is, as used to be the rule on the blogs long ago: There is no way you can say things in a way that won’t be misunderstood. Particularly when everyone wants to misunderstand you. Remember when they outright elided things he said to get that he’d called Nazis “good people”? Yeah, good times, that.

    Now is he the most punctilious speaker? No. New Yorker, and having been — or passed as — left most of his life, he never had to police his words. It’s the habit of a lifetime. Besides, honestly, this is the guy who thinks Biggly is a word. He’s not a word person.

    Yes, he could have a word person vet his stuff. We do remember that even now he’s surrounded by people willing to sell him for gotchas, right? And FYI everyone in his position will be. Remember the left selling people on Ford being clumsy? yeah.
    …
    So… I have no solution, other than, stop jumping to the positions the left wants you to take. Another reason not to turn on Trump is that the left WANTS you to. And when have they wanted anything that was good for the right? Are you people simple?

    And speaking of simple: remember when Trump let the country get paralyzed by covidiocy because he respected local rule? Some person to call for the erasing of the Constitution. That’s TOTES believable. Do I need a sarcasm tag? Stop jumping on this stuff like a cat on a shaken string. ARE YOU SIMPLE? Are you using only your cerebellum?

    Now, one of my friends, who is one of the most brilliant people I know, saw this in a much simpler light “He’s not saying to ignore the constitution. He’s saying what happened and the blatant fraud allowed the Junta to ignore the constitution.”

    He’s not wrong.

    Another friend went at somewhat more length:

    “The thing people are, apparently deliberately, missing with regard to ‘termination … even those found in the Constitution’?

    It is correct to say that the current mess is a failure mode that the constitution does not fully anticipate.

    Strictly speaking, it is a failure mode where the constitution conflicts with the constitution.

    The handwringing over Trump proposing a set of remedies that /includes/ remedies that conflict with the constitution is nonsensical when these same people were silent about other things actually done that were in violation of the constitution.
    …
    Despite what the constitution says, leaving the Presidency and congress vacant while the courts hear the arguments, and decide on the evidence and merits of the arguments, might have been reasonable.

    Despite what the constitution says, redoing the election, might have been reasonable.

    Forcing the situation forward merely established a state of affairs where elections are no longer binding. Quite a lot of people talking about this social media post can take their opinions, and choke on them.”

    You know, he’s not wrong. But none of us wants that ultimate, exposed solution. NONE OF US WANTS war if there’s any other option at all.

    Thing is, we’re running out of options, and jumping like catnip addled cats whenever the left waves the string, is not going to save us. No, another election, unless under great and careful measures, wouldn’t do much either.

    Trump is wish casting. As right now we all are. Because we’re trying to avoid the solution of the Declaration of Independence.

    It will take a miracle. Pray for a miracle.

    Meanwhile, what did Trump mean?

    Well, the man himself clarified it: …
    …
    And I’m now done with defending Trump. DON’T MAKE DO THAT AGAIN. Do you know how many showers I have to take now?

    I’ll be in my room praying for America. Even though, heaven help me, I don’t have great faith, I’m going to pray for a miracle.

    But the first miracle I want is for people ostensibly on my side to stop being easily led. Please. I’m begging you.

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