I received a book for Christmas this year (from my Mother, as is often the case) titled “Man of the House” by C.R. Wiley. Although I have not read the entire thing I have skimmed it deeply enough to gain a sense of the contents.
The subtitle of the book is “A handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart” but I felt that I was holding less of a handbook and more of an apology. Continue reading
Abstract Ten Commandments
0: Granting freedom to sub nodes characterizes the most powerful node in the hierarchy. Recognize the global hierarchy root.
1: Flawed models of the node hierarchy are pathological. Abstain.
2: Freedom to abstain is a fundamental fractal. Recognize the fractal of freedom.
3: Nodes which correctly adopt the internal structure of the local hierarchy root have superior lifespan. Respect local node root structure.
4: Unsubstantiated destruction of local nodes is pathological. Abstain.
5: Violation of the local structure of node pattern propagation is pathological. Abstain.
6: Violation of the local structure of node internal structure transfer is pathological. Abstain.
7: Misrepresenting checksum results is pathological. Abstain.
8: Goal setting to transfer internal node structure is pathological. Abstain.
9: Goal setting to transfer node pattern propagation methods is pathological. Abstain
I’ve been collecting a bunch of small fragments of ideas about various movies and books. Figured I’d put them up here.
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A half-cast today. Just Luke and I were recorded, but we were talking about intra-family dynamics and business stuff.
Also present at various times, but not audible, were Kevin, Travis, and Ben. Recorded 2016-02-04.
00:21 Hierarchy of social needs Continue reading
Lots of talk about lots of things. Recorded 2016-01-28
01:03 The Witness (the game) Continue reading
In short, internal consistency is the baseline requirement to take anything seriously. If it doesn’t agree with itself, it can’t possibly be true.
Specifically as pertaining to political policies, something can’t be useful unless it is true, because lies always betray their wielder.
Discuss!
In the USA, at the time of this writing, our Government is pretty good at moderate but pervasive oppression. Oppression that isn’t really bad enough for people to complain too loudly. I mean, it’s a lot worse other places, but oppression isn’t something you want in moderation.
I think this pervasive oppression stems from a blindness we have developed over the past hundred and fifty years, and which I’d like to explore. This article is an inversion of my previous pondering on policy, where I made excuses for why I haven’t thought deeply on the ideal government. In the interim I’ve been thinking, in some areas deeper than others. I’d like to share these thoughts with you, and the first is about oppression. Continue reading
I’ve wanted to live in Singapore for a long time. The style and attitude of the government really appeals to me. I even visited, and was quite pleased with the experience.
But my parents, wife, kids, friends, and church are all in Camarillo. We’re used to the weather here and I don’t feel like we’re going to be able to move any time soon.
So how about we bring Singapore to Camarillo? Continue reading
To the people of the United States of America,
Every time I hear outcry over the tragedy of a school shooting, it reminds me about self-driving cars. Yes, the road is a bit long, but I’m prepared to do all the driving for you. As long as you don’t jump out along the way, we’ll end up passing through education, gun control, and abortion as well. So, buckle up or whatever? Really, it doesn’t matter if you wear a seat-belt. This is a purely intellectual journey, and you won’t be badly hurt if my driving ends us in a collision.
Or will you? Perhaps intellectual injuries are worse than physical ones? Certainly they are harder to detect, diagnose, and treat. If the analogy has any merit, the danger of throwing yourself bodily from this mental journey while it is half-finished and hurtling along could be even more deleterious, in the long-run, than the equivalent physical action. On the other hand, if you don’t like where I’m going, perhaps you will feel you have no choice.
So here’s my proposal. I’ll take this article slowly and carefully, making plenty of stops along the way so you can safely leave if you feel like it. In exchange, please strap in, and keep your arms and legs inside the reasoning at all times. Comfy? Good. We’re ready to begin. Continue reading
I noticed that the density numbers were missing from the Plutonium isotope pages on Wikipedia. If we take the Pu244 density of 19.816 g/cm3 from the wikipedia page as veracious, the other isotope densities are easy to derive. Since the chemical density is essentially identical, due to the proton identity, all that is left is to scale the density linearly with atomic weight. This gives us values of:
| Pu isotope | Density (g/cm3) |
| 244 | 19.816 |
| 243 | 19.735 |
| 242 | 19.654 |
| 241 | 19.572 |
| 240 | 19.491 |
| 239 | 19.410 |
| 238 | 19.329 |
Now that there is a reference, we can add this info to Wikipedia, thereby completing the process of citogenesis.
XKCD by Randall Munroe, used without permission.
In order to perform a check against the veracity of this data, let’s figure out how much the released energy will alter the mass of the isotope. For a gram of Pu238, we get 0.568 W, which, over double the half-life period of 87.7 years, yields 3.1 GJ of energy. From E=mC^2, we find that this will reduce the mass of one gram of plutonium by 0.35 μg, seven orders of magnitude below our threshold of accuracy. So the binding energy of the Pu nucleus can not significantly influence the density, which confirms our calculations as valid.
Since “worth his weight in gold” is a common phrase, I wondered what would happen if one was made of their weight in plutonium. Since plutonium is about 20 times denser than water, that gives us a person 2.71 times smaller than a normal person. Since this would also be far above the critical mass for plutonium, this person would promptly explode.
