What to Hunt on Archive.org

 Idires Shah

Robert Anton Wilson

Travel List

Canada-  Montreal NYE, Toronto and Trip through the Canadian Rockies

Mexico-- Playa del Carmen, Cancun, and Cozumel

Bahamas-  The Princess Many years

Dominican Republic

Haiti

Grand Cayman Island

Little Cayman

Curacao  - Cruise with Grandma

Costa Rica- cruise stop

Honduras-Cruise stop 

Us Virgin Islands- all three

British Virgin Islands on Windjammer

Culebra and Virgin Gorda on Windjammer.

Germany

Switzerland

Sweden

Austria

Italy

Portugal

Spain

Guam 

Palau

Disney Cruise When Young

Panama Canal Cruise during college years.

Windjammer-  Departed from El Conquistador in Puerto Rico, bathroom phones and all

Palau/Yap Livaboard

Belize multiple times.  

Basics of Gender- Notes from a PBS documentary

Intersex births are a fact of life that has been around forever.   There have been no real changes in frequency.

Currently many children with ambiguous parts, both sets of parts, or deformed or problematic costs, receive surgery very shortly after birth.

Gender Identity

Gender Expression

Sex parts.

These three don't always match!

Some of these children assigned to one gender or the other grow up with a brain that feels a gender that doesn't match.  The brain sends a signal that doesn't  correspond with the body's parts.

It is well known that there are crucial periods in neonatal development.  One such is when the fetus is exposed to estrogen or testosterone levels.   When those levels are too high or too low, various biological events happen.

It is currently thought that a gender sense develops in the brain in everyone.  For most, this sense matches our exterior parts.  For many it doesn't and that is proven to be biologically based.

Many other individuals report identical symptoms to the previous cases yet do not easily fit the above explanation  

State laws about when the below are available vary:

Puberty Blockers

Hormones

Surgery- Male to Female most common.

Cleanup at Harmonica Joes- His aunt's death.

 When my friend had a triple bypass in 2023, he didn't have a lot of family nearby.  However, he did have an aunt that lived 45 minutes away.  She was short and feisty, and I liked her.

Since Joe was recovering from having his chest sliced open, he needed to get a bunch of stuff out of his house and his yard to make it easier to get around.  To make that happen, he needed some friends to help.

It was Ron Smith's birthday, and when I asked him what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to go help Joe.  I was so proud of him.

When we arrived an empty dumpster was there and we got to work.  The aunt, Dale (a great singer who i had not met), and I got to work hauling stuff and tossing it into the dumpster.   Ron started out with some enthusiasm but quickly wanted to do a lot of talking and not a lot of lifting.   Much of what was there was heavy and dirty.  It was not fun to lift, move, and toss in the dumpster.  

Ron kept asking me questions and sharing his thoughts on what Joe should do.  I eventually said, "if you are done helping, just take a seat somewhere.  I'll get you home as quick as I can but there is more to do."

Ron kept talking more until Joe's aunt said, "shut up and let the man get back to work.   He's getting stuff out of here that needs to go."

Joe was living with her at the time.  I visited once to deliver a chair with Matt.  We chatted on the back porch and her ankle high dog came out to investigate us and waddle around.   She was a blessing to the man when he really needed someone. 

She just died.  It is shortly after the death of Billy Buchanan, someone that he had known for a long time.  

I feel bad for him.

He also had one of his outdoor cats die recently, shortly after birthing 7 kittens.  His plan to take them in has rapidly turned into a plan to just have 7 more cats.

That brings the grand total to 13,

which is far too many cats.  

Bias and Performance

Imagine a new referee is needed for the Steelers Bengals game.   Who would a Bengals fan want?  Who would a Steelers fan want?   Who would be best?

The best is obvious.  The best choice would be a judge who lived in Alaska for all his or her life, and had never met anyone from either place.

The bad news is that nobody can find a judge like that.   Nobody can find a ref like that.   Imagine that the only choices are people nominated by Bengals fans or people nominated by Steelers fans.   This isn't so bad.   Either side might nominate someone from Montana or Canada, Rhode Island or Guam.

Neither of them do that.   The only nominees are lifetime residents of either town, residents who have attended multiple home games.   When a job comes open, it is either a Cincinnati boy or a Pittsburgh one.

In this example it is no big deal.   Now imagine someone from Pittsburgh gets to hire whoever he or she wants, imagine the job is a lifetime appointment, and imagine that hire has a Pittsburgh forever tattoo on his arm.




(POORLY WRITTEN) 


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Regarding bias....

Anyone who thinks a person can't have a strong feeling and still do the job, ought to ask a teacher if they have ever failed a student they loved to have in class.

The non delegation theory in constitutional law- Notes from A Jon Stewart Podcast about the SEC

 This legal view is a tool of right wing jurisprudence.

Congress makes the laws.  However, those laws must be vague in order to cover as many eventualities as possible.

How should we handle something like financial regulation or environmental regulation?  Should Congress, completely non specialists write these rules and vote on them?

That is impossible.   It's pragmatically impossible.

What is typically done is this: Congress writes a law to create an agency that will get into the necessary weeds.

Create an agency to foster capital formation and investor confidence.  That's the SEC.  It must have some political independence like the DOJ.  It must be a cop on the beat.

The current theory is that such a statement of intent is not clear enough.   

If this is the case almost all regulatory agencies are under threat here.  

Everything is Obvious- How Common Sense Fails Us

EVERYTHING IS OBVIOUS- HOW COMMON SENSE FAILS US

by Duncan J Watts
c2011

As sociologists are fond of pointing out, many of these aphorisms appear to be direct contradictions of each other.   Birds of a feather flock together, but opposites attract.   Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight out of mind.   Look before you leap, but he who hesitates is lost.   -17

In countless experiments, for example, psychologists have shown that an individual's choices and behavior can be influenced by "priming" them with particular words, sounds or other stimuli.   Subjects in experiments who read words like "old" and "frail" walk more slowly down the corridor when they leave the lab.  Consumers in wine stores are more likely to buy German wine when German music is playing in the background and French wine when French music is playing.   Survey respondents asked about energy drinks are more likely to name Gatorade when they are given a green pen in order to fill out the survey.   And shoppers looking to buy a couch online are more likely to pot for an expensive, comfortable-looking couch when the background of the website is of fluffy white clouds, and more likely to buy the harder, cheaper option when the background consists of dollar coins.  -39

And they are more likely to believe a written statement if the font is easy to read....