The Gus Hall Dossier – The Drollest Communist

Update many years later:  All we get a choice of is either Bolshevik or Zionist.   Reagan was called "Red Ronnie" in the 1950s

I remember watching Gus Hall on one of the UHF channels near Youngstown Ohio when I was a child.  Gus lived in the Youngstown area for quite a long time.  His show would come on and he would groan on in a way most boring to a child.  In contrast I remember how Reagan caught and kept my attention when he narrated "Death Valley Days" prior to being elected governor.  Even then I could tell on some visceral physical level the difference between a socialist and a capitalist.  Socialist don't seem to have much of a sense of humor.  I wonder if there is a tendency towards basic chemical depression in socialists. 

                                                           Does not appear creative, witty or comical

I am currently searching for video of him to prove my point that Howard Dean and he share some subtle demeanor.  After all they are both communists.   I found a page here with video that might have a sliver of him on it.

Note the title of his book:  Ecology: Can We Survive Under Capitalism?

Its all about how we capitalist class are killing the world.  Never mind that we are all a member of the capitalist class whether we like it or not and only leave it upon death.  But then these environMENTAL cases do an advocate environmental death lottery.

If you want to see a load of doo doo Google the title of Gus's book.    Notice all the stuff about radical ecology where YOU are the criminal.  With ecology as their basis the radicals can do anything they want !   All that much better than picking on people because they are Jewish. You might run out of Jews.  But with radical environmentalism you never run out of people to demonize.  See someone you don't like?  They must be eco-criminals!

Derivation of the Normal Gaussian distribution from physical principles – Maximum Entropy

Research Links

 

In many physical systems the question arises what is the probability distribution that describes a system with a given expected energy E  over the interval from -infinity to + infinity?     Again you will use the maximum entropy principle to determine this.

The constraints are as follows:

 

Yellow Caterpillar on Creosote Bushes – White lined Sphinx moth – Hiles lineata

On my run today I noticed alot of yellow with black stripe caterpillars on the creosote bushes along the jeep trail at south mountain park.   

I found this photo on the web.  It is a bit more green but is the caterpillar I saw.  Common Caterpillars of SE Arizona   ( amazing photos of Arizona Caterpillars )

White-lined_Sphinx_and_Columbine_04

This is what he turns into later in life.  

I have always liked moths.  They aren't as showy was a butterfly but they get the job done.

White-lined Sphinx moth, Hiles lineata

Focus Fusion Google TechTalk Take Away Points

Research Links

Original notes from 2008 below.

You can watch the focus fusion Google TechTalk here – ( the link died but I leave the text for old times sake.  It was on our long dead friend Google Video ) 

  • We need cheaper energy not more expensive alternatives.
  • In order to merely provide the rest of the world with european level power will require 4X current energy investment.  We won't get there from here.  That includes fossil, nuclear, solar and wind power.  All together insufficient.

 

 Currently popular alternatives are not energy dense enough to get the price of energy down.  Material costs are too much.  Added benefit?  If we can make it work it will lead to propulsion that will allow sending probes to the nearest stars.

…….It's been a long time – Still nuttin as far as I can tell. 

What is Entropy?

There are many mathematical definitions of entropy.  The mental picture I find most useful is to imagine the following:  

  • you are put in a room and your job is to label everything in the room with a sharpy indelible marker and masking tape.  
  • You are asked to label everything in the room using the binary numbering system.  This binary number will be that particular objects I.D.

As you go about this you may want to number the objects you most commonly refer to with the lower digits that have less length.  That way since you mention "FORK" much more often than "NUMBER 6 SCREW" you will end up having to say less digits.

The measure of entropy in this room is the number of binary digits required to number all the objects.  This is entropy.  The formula for this sentence that I just said is:

             Entropy ~= log2N    where N is the number of different types of objects in the room

Now in a probabalistic situation with outcomes  x1 , x2 ….  xn    with P(xi) = probability of xi

…..more

Hey you – Get out of there!

A friend of mine had a very loud voice.  As we were driving he would spot someone keying the lock on their own car or house.  He would shout in the loudest voice possible:  "HEY YOU …. GET OUT OF THERE".   The funniest part is that it worked.  People would jump and look guilty as if they were breaking into their own homes!