I'm off Twitter for a while, but there are a few things I've got to get off of my chest:

280 characters is the New Coke of social media.

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting is the same song as Sweet Child o Mine (listen and you'll see)

Until I looked for the next episode this week, I had no idea that was the season finale of The Deuce. If it's not picked up for another season, *please* avoid the obvious pun.

There be beer here! (Watch thic space.)

Off the top of my head, here are a few results of last night's election

These are things that have already happened
Now it's ok to be openly racist, assault women, bully the disabled.
White supremacists are emboldened

These are the things that will happen immediately
Obamacare is gone. (22 milion will lose health care)
Paris agreement is gone. (we've lost our last chance at 2c climate of change)
<2c change="" climate="" p="">We've lost the Iran nuclear deal. (Iran is more likely to get/use a nuke)
Supreme court goes conservative again (we could lose roe v wade, various civil rights, what else?)

These are things that are likely to happen
A trade war + radical deregulation causes a global economic depression.
What if he nukes somebody? (the South China Sea, for example,  is a delicate situation that could escalate fast)
What if he doesn't stand up to Putin in Syria and western Europe?
Deportation from the US could be a humanitarian disaster.
Even more guns, even at schools.

<2c change="" climate="" p="">

Where the US Political Parties Go From Here

Many have predicted that, starting November 9th, there could be a major political realignment in the United States. If this realignment results in a breakup of the two major national parties, here is one way that they may reform:

1)  A European-style Labor Party. The people who were having trouble choosing between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump might be happy in a trade/labor-focused party. The major question is whether or not the US is still too racist for this. It has been tried here before. Poor whites and poor blacks -- even in cases where their interests are perfectly aligned -- have tended not to trust and accept each other enough to create a political coalition. If they can finally do this, the resulting party could end up representing 40-50% of the electorate.

2) A European-Style National-Front Party. The remainder of the Trump coalition may be happy in an anti-immigration-focused, "law and order", white-nationalist party. Based on the professed beliefs of many of his core followers, there could be a 15-30% coalition here. This is not enough to elect a president, but could easily capture seats in congress and play a spoiler role in national elections, even capturing electoral votes.

3) A Moderate Status-Quo "Republicrat" party. The remains of the Republican and Democratic establishments will not go away. If the above two coalitions emerge as national political parties, it is likely that the Republicans will no longer be competitive as a national party. At the same time, losing the Sanders wing will likely result in a Democratic move to the right. Those republicans who are not now a part of the Trump coalition may find the Democratic party preferable to either of the above two parties. Between them, these groups could represent another 40-50% of the electorate.

Here is what I think about Trump supporters

I'm not trying to insult anybody. I've had a hard time understanding why so many Americans are supporting Donald Trump. It would make sense if he was around 20%, but at ~50%, I need to think carefully about what could be motivating them. This is my attempt to do so. 

• They may not actually be racist, but they are certainly Ok with a candidate who says a lot that I would consider to be racist.
• In spite of a lot that I think is good about America, many would prefer to take their chances with a large change whose effect is unknown: a "random restart". It's not clear whether this is due to an honest difference of opinion about which things are good and which are bad, or simply a lack of imagination on their part about how very much worse things could be.
• They must get a lot of their information through watching video rather than reading. Trump is excellent at using his voice, face and body to convey an emotional message. When you read it, however, much of what Trump says does not make any sense. It's not a matter of just being incorrect. He simply makes a lot of statements that either cannot be interpreted via the rules of the English language or have either no informational content.
• A surprising number of people who consider themselves to be libertarian are supporting a candidate who is clearly on the opposite end of the political spectrum: authoritarian.
• I have no reason to call them, as a group, uninformed. They do, however, seem to be Ok with a candidate who has not shown himself to be well informed on a number of critical issues. He often give one of two generic answers: (note that neither of them requires him to have actually even heard of the thing that the questioner is asking about).
• 1) If it seems like a bad thing: "It's a real mess and the current administration has't done anything to fix it. They have, in fact, made it worse."
• 2) If he really doesn't know what the thing is at all: "A short time ago nobody was talking about that. Now it's a big deal. Just amazing."

DO NOT READ THIS BLOG!!!!!

Actually, I take that back. You might as well read it. There's probably some decent stuff (along with plenty of crap) that you won't find anywhere else. What I mean to say it that it's not really going to be updated very often, as I've had very few original thoughts that couldn't be expressed in 140 characters or fewer. In general, the new stuff is at https://twitter.com/originalname37 .

You were working [as a waitress in] a cock[tail bar], when I met you.

These are the things that Meatloaf won't do for love:

forget the way you feel right now

forgive himself if you don't go all the way, tonight

do it better than he does it with you

stop dreaming of you ev'ry night of his life

...mystery solved

[FICTION]

She just looked at him, expressionless, and said "I need to know if you're having an affair." He had three immediate and unhelpful thoughts.

First, vanity: "It's exciting that she's living in a world where I could possibly have an affair. I've still got it!"

Second, concern: "What could make her think that I'm having an affair? Has she lost her mind?"

Third, worry: "Wait, have I done anything that could be considered as a affair? Am I forgetting something? At that bachelor party, a couple of the strippers got surprisingly handsy, but that was years ago and I don't think you could really call that an 'affair'."

On Guilt

What if you were replaced in the middle of the night with an exact replica? They would have the same body, same memories, same thoughts, etc. as you? Would you even know? Maybe it happened last night and you're the replica. You have no way of knowing whether or not that is the case.  So the universe where that happened and the universe in which we are living are indistinguishable.  But in the other universe, *guilt* makes no sense.

Why would I feel guilty about something that happened yesterday?  That was another guy.  I was just born last night. It's true that I am an exact replica of the guy that did that thing.  So I should be careful not to do the same thing as he did. But to feel bad about it (to feel like I'm "bad" because of it) makes no sense.

In fact, those who believe that there are "good" people and "bad" people are really asking for trouble.  Each of us makes millions of decisions over a lifetime.  Some of them will be "good" -- considerate, wise, or courageous.  Some of them will not.  We all will make "bad" decisions.  For those who think that they are "good" people, these "bad" decisions must build a sneaking suspicion in the back of the mind that they really are "bad" people.

Dear @Microsoft, about Excel

Dear Microsoft,

If MS Excel had the following functions, it would be quite a bit more useful:

1) Horizontal Sort
2) Join
3) Use the numerical output of a function as a row-number (or column-name) index
4) Allow the user to compile complex operations for efficiency

There is, of course, some possibility that it already has some or all of this functionality and I just don't know how to employ it.  Please let me know if you need any other information.  I would be happy to serve as the supervisor for this product update. Given a small team of programmers, I predict an approximate 1-year turnaround.

Sincerely,

Originalname37

The Mystery of Consciousness

Consciousness is no great mystery. It consists of the ability to remember what you were thinking two seconds ago and to think about the fact that you were thinking about it. That's all there is.

Humans have powerful, logical minds. This is a relatively new invention.  The mind is surrounded by ancient chemical signals that flow through it and the rest of the body.  The mind believes it is in control of the body just like humans, in general, believe that they are in control of the natural world.

I just started a web comic.

My web comic has the same name as this blog: Originalname37

This is me: https://www.google.com/#q=originalname37

I called into a radio show today and got to ask my question on the air.  You're supposed to turn off your radio during the call because, typically, the radio is a few seconds behind the phone call and this causes problems such as confusion and audio feedback.  Well, in this case, the radio was actually a few seconds *ahead* of the phone call.  It was crazy because, listening to what I was about to say, I was pretty surprised at the way that I was about to phrase things and the words that I was about to stumble on.

THIS BLOG IS DEFUNCT

This blog is (pretty-much) defunct. I'm enjoying the exercise of getting my thoughts down to 140 characters. So I'm mainly on twitter now (http://twitter.com/originalname37).  I may still post here once in a while, or decide to completely re-funk it someday, but for now consider this a dead blog.

Defeating the Gallows

If you were a trained rope performer (Like this lady, for example), and someone tried to hang you, it seems plausible that you might be able to survive by following this course of action:

1) Take a deep breath.
2) Just before they pull the lever, kick your legs up (and forward) so that you fall head first rather than feet first.
3) As the back of your neck hits the tense rope, use your momentum to swing one foot up and twist the rope around your ankle.  Hopefully, as you are upside-down and have quickly decelerated, the hood falls off.
4) Use your other foot to kick the executioner off of the platform as he comes to pull you back down.
5) Pull your tied hands over your butt and legs so that your hands will be in front of you.  This requires you to let go of the rope, swinging backward and back down.
6) Simultaneously, reach above your head and grab the rope with your hands to take up the tension of the rope and avoid a broken neck.
7) Hands still tied, use them and your legs to get to the top of the rope as quickly as possible.
8) Get on top of the gallows' arm and remove the noose.  Breathe again.
9) Use your teeth to get your hands free.
10) Now that your hands and neck are free and you're at the top of the gallows with full control of the rope, you are free to use all of your training to escape.

Space Ships Before Astronomy

It seems like, if our planet had an opaque atmosphere, we could have built a rocket and left the atmosphere before we even understood that we live on a planet that was rotating and orbiting a star.

Republican Pre-Primary Plan

I just talked to a guy who works for the GOP and he told me that they have a one-candidate-per-month plan for the rest of the year. According to him, they plan on having one candidate take the lead for each month until the primaries actually start. It will be:

Michelle Bachmann in September

Rick Perry in October

Heman Cain in November

Newt Gingrich in December

I don't have any idea how they plan to do it (Herman Cain?!?!), but this is how they plan on letting Mitt Romney (the candidate that they expect to actually win the primary) stay out of the spotlight and not have to take the beating that goes with front-runner status.

I'll post more if/when I get more details.