Wonderful Dream

Ted Kennedy had a vacation home in Nova Scotia. An old cantilever bridge was near his house. The bridge was in bad shape and was supposed to be torn down. Kennedy wanted the old bridge preserved and protested its impending destruction.

For some reason, George W. Bush got involved on the side of tearing the bridge down. That side eventually prevailed in court.

On the day of the scheduled demolition, Bush, Kennedy, and Kennedy's good friend Al Gore all showed up at the bridge. Because of the notoriety of the persons involved, it became a news item, and I was watching the scene on television.

The three politicians stood near each other. Gore, with lots of finger pointing, began to give a speech decrying the loss of such a historic structure. He declared that he wouldn't allow such a travesty to happen, and he and Kennedy opened their suit jackets.

Both were wearing vests made of dynamite. They took Bush hostage and forced him to climb with them up into the trusses of the bridge.

Some stuff I have only a hazy memory of happened, and then a newscaster came on. He said that because of the importance of the persons involved in the hostage crisis, authorities were using every conceivable resource available.

Accordingly, they had ordered complete gene sequences of the three men to see if any useful insight could be gained. To the surprise of all, the gene sequences revealed that George Bush was really a chimpanzee and that Al Gore was a space alien.

I woke up laughing.

Stand on Zanzibar

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner is an incredible exercise in speculation, one of the most impressive SF masterworks ever, but I believe it is wrong about two of its central conjectures--that population is going to keep increasing out of control and that we are going to face diminishing resources.

As for population, we have good contraception and are developing better contraception. Once a society reaches a certain level of wealth, its members appear to be willing to use that contraception. The entire First World, and I believe most of the former Second World (the old communist countries), now have birthrates below replacement level. Some people speculate that the forces of natural selection will again start forcing the population back up, but I fully expect that societies will forcefully intervene if it looks like excessive breeders are going to turn the world into a hell.

As for scarce resources, I think we are going to be awash in increasing resources for the rest of our perhaps long lifetimes. There might be temporary recessions or even depressions, but I think the overall trend is going to be upward. Personal services will get increasingly expensive, but material wealth will get increasingly inexpensive. I will give some examples I've seen on the science-news sites lately.

The news out of photovoltaics looks great. The price is falling. The efficiencies are going up. There are several different new technologies coming online. There is lots of venture capital.

The news out of biotechnology looks even better. Prices aren't just falling; they are plummeting. There is at least one big story out of biology every week. See this site for examples. It certainly looks like that within five to ten years, whole genome sequencing is going to be a consumer item.

The number of simultaneous experiments that biologists can run keeps going up by orders of magnitude. The rate of experimentation, of course, is one of the things that paces the rate of scientific discovery. I could go on, but the site I recommended does a better job than I can in a short blog entry.

Then there is robotics. Progress has been slow, but robots and automation have steadily gotten better, and they are starting to look really good. Replacing human labor lowers costs and increases production, and those are the factors that increase wealth. You can now get consumer robots that are actually useful and inexpensive enough for the middle class. They can vacuum and scrub your floors and mow your lawn.

There is an abundance of most metals we use in building things. The big bugaboo is petroleum. Some hysterics are predicting peak oil and the end of civilization. If humanity does something stupid, civilization might end, but it isn't going to be because of crude oil. There are many ways we can work around petroleum shortages; I'll spin just one scenario. Consider that we already know how to build breeder reactors. Uranium-235 is fairly rare, but the earth has lots of U-238 and thorium. Breeder reactors can turn those into useful fuel. Therefore, if we wanted to, we could easily provide electricity for the entire planet through nuclear fission.

Lack of petroleum for transport fuel would be a pain in the butt for a while, but with lots of electricity and only current battery technology we could still get over a hundred miles per charge for rechargeable vehicles. Transportation might be more inconvenient, but it certainly isn't a civilizational risk. The above assumes current batteries, but batteries are another technology that is attracting venture technology. The way to bet is that we are soon going to have good batteries.

In short, I see lots of good news coming out of science and technology and not a lot of bad news. Anyway, for those readers who are interested, here are some of the sites that provide my ideas:

FuturePundit
Al Fin
Science Daily
Advanced Nanotechnology
Biosingularity

Blank Slaters

The defining characteristic of a blank slater is the belief that human intelligence, personality, and physical attributes are largely trainable and conditionable. The definition of largely is of the I-know-it-when-I-see-it variety. So far as I know, there had been no formal definition of blank slater attempted by anyone who uses the term.

If you care about mine, I believe that intelligence differences in adulthood are somewhere between .6 and .8 heritable in First World countries, with the true factor most likely being toward the .8 end. See here for a short summary of the latest Minnesota Twins Studies findings.

Anyone who believes that intelligence differences are only trivially heritable, say less than .3, I would most likely consider a blank slater.

I believe that broad personality differences are about .5 heritable. Again, I would tend to classify as a blank stater anyone who believes they are significantly less than that.

I believe that there are other intellectual capacities, such as musical ability, that have a large genetic component. I know of no study that tried to measure it.

I believe that athletic abilities have a huge heritable component. Take, for example, a persons ration of fast twitch muscle fiber to slow twitch muscle fiber. That is ratio is inborn, and it has a major effect on what sports a person can be good at. I would characterize anyone who thinks a good athlete can be created by taking a random student and making him practice a lot as a blank slater, good being defined as, say, a high-school star.

I used to laugh at the people who declared that blacks average so much better in basketball than whites because blacks play so much more basketball as kids. No, white me can't jump because white men are usually born with less fast twitch fiber in their legs than people of West African descent.

Now, the average person, when asked, isn't going to be willing or able to provide his heritability estimates on demand. One can, however, recognize blank slaters by what they do. Using NCLB again as an example, one can see that the congress that passed it and the media who continue to treat NCLB's goals as reasonable are working from blank-slate assumptions.

Those who believe that different races, sexes, and ethnicities would be proportionally represented in a given job if hiring were free of discrimination are working from blank-slate premises.

Those who believe that their schools are failing black students who score about one standard deviation below white students on academic tests are working from blank slater premises.

The fact is many human differences are inborn. They are either genetic or the result of something that happened in the womb. They are intractable. Pretending it isn't so doesn't make it not so. It just gets in the way of doing things that might actually work.

Metaweb

This sounds interesting. Also see the NYT article.

It reminds me of what I read about twenty years ago or so, AI researchers trying to build huge databases to give computers context of the natural world and the human social sphere. This idea, if it takes off, would harness the information and skills of millions of participants.

Furthermore, Google is trying to build an AI, and I'm sure the Google AI would be just as happy to slurp up the Freebase database as Freebase is to slurp up Wikipedia and other databases.

Folks, we are building God.

If you aren't paranoid, you haven't been paying attention.

One needs to get used to the fact that, unless civilization is crippled, there are going to be huge archives of data collected about everyone. The government is already starting to make it illegal to erase these archives. Growing computational power will make it increasingly simple to search, collate, and analyze these archives. Some examples:

Your cellular telephone company is going to track the location of your phone at all times. This "service" will be sold to the public as useful for 911 calls. It might already be implemented; I haven't kept track of the issue.

Your phone company keeps track of all the numbers being dialed from your phone and calling to your phone.

Your cellular telephone can be used as a bugging device.

Your friends, acquaintances, coworkers, rivals, etc. are going to take your picture and make videos of you with and without your knowledge. These photographs and videos are going to get posted to the Web. As computational resources get better and cheaper, it is going to become increasingly easy to identify you, even if you currently aren't identified. The coeds who get a little crazy during spring break this year might have to answer some tough questions ten years from now when they are trying to make partner at the law firm. (Or not, the mores might change as everyone's skeletons get pulled from the closet.)

If you get mentioned in the local paper or written about in the company newsletter, it is going to available forever. It might not be posted to the Web, but it will be there to be searched if someone subpoenas it. The same will all of your business emails. Remember it is becoming increasingly illegal for businesses to delete anything.

Businesses right now make certain privacy guarantees, but all of them will roll over for the government, and their guarantees aren't necessarily honored if the company is acquired. Sure, Real Doll guaranteed your privacy, but when Sony (or Hustler) buys them out, they made no such promises to you.

Everything you buy with a credit card is part of your permanent record.

Everything you buy while using a store loyalty card is part of your permanent record.

Your ISP will bend over for the government.

If you fly somewhere, it is part of your permanent record.

If you cross the border, it is part of your permanent record.

I repeat, searching, collating, and analyzing your permanent record is getting steadily easier.

Free Will

My take: Either we have at least partial free will, or we do not. If we do not have free will, our beliefs about free will are determined by fate--that is, either the deterministic playing out of the laws of physics or of quantum chance--and we have no influence over them. (If we had any influence over our beliefs about free will, that implies we have at least partial free will.) Therefore, the only case in which our beliefs about free will can influence our actions is the case in which we have at least partial free will. If we have at least partial free will, choosing to believe that we have free will is a more accurate model of the universe than is choosing to believe that we do not have free will. Therefore, I believe we have free will.

I might, in fact, not have free will, but in that case what I believe is not under my control.

Liminal

The winter wore on, making the whole family restless. After putting up with an unusual amount of bickering, the parents sent their two children to bed. The man who would become my father decided to take a walk outside to burn off some nervous energy. He bundled up and let his feet take him where they would. The light of the full moon reflected from the snow and made the night glow.

The subdivision was new, with many parcels of land still left undeveloped. My father decided to walk across one of the vacant lots. Unfortunately for him, the snow concealed a large rock, and he tripped over it. He managed to catch himself before he fell, but in the process he jostled the rock enough to actually dislodge it from the frozen ground.

As soon as the exigency of recovering his balance was met, he heard a horrible squalling. He had spent time on a farm as a boy, and the noise reminded him of something halfway between a colicky infant and a distressed goat. Worse, it was coming from just behind him. He whirled about in case some animal was attacking, but nothing was there. He shuffled forward a bit and looked down into hole that had been covered by the displaced rock.

The sight took him aback. The creature making the hideous screech lay before him. It had two arms, two legs, and a head. It lacked fur and a tail. Could it possibly be human? Or humanoid, at least? If so, it was the ugliest baby he had ever seen.

Not knowing what else to do, he gritted his teeth and picked it up. As soon as he did so, a chthonic voice said, "It is done." My father's nerves were already shaken, and the unexpected voice caused him to drop the wailing monster, though he did manage to catch it by a leg before it hit the ground. He was at heart a kindly man, so he controlled his revulsion, slipped the creature under his coat, and hurried home.

As he came through the door, his wife at first thought he was concealing a badly injured animal. When she saw what he had, it frightened her, but her ability to act in a crisis soon asserted itself, and she bathed the creature in warm water and wrapped it in a blanket.

In the meantime, the commotion had awakened their children, and the whole family stood around staring down at the frightful beast. "I don't suppose we can bring him to the humane society," said my father.

"I don't think they would take him," said the woman who was to become my mother.

"Can I feed it to my dog?" asked the boy who was to become my brother.

"I'll go buy some baby formula," said my father.

And so they reared me as their own. I'm informed that I was unusually cantankerous in infancy. I grew into a shy, cautious, solitary, cynical, curious man with curmudgeonal delusions.

My kind are hard to see. We prefer the moon to the sun, calm to excitement, quiet to commotion, loneliness to crowds. We can be found in the shady spots, the hidden spots, the spots that others overlook. You will never see us at the front of a parade, under the lights, or rallying the crowd. When we sing, we sing alone. When we dance, we dance alone. We are the denizens of the in-between places. Our minds, however, soar free.

Another Reason to Invade Canada

here

Go North, Young Man

I wrote this before the United States went crazy. I don't believe it's true any longer that USAyans are freer than Canadians. Still, I thought I'd put this back on the Web.

Go North, Young Man

A few years ago, professional historians were asked to rank the various U. S. Presidents. The relatively high rank of James Polk surprised me. I figured that his advocacy of territorial expansion and his war with Mexico would have doomed him in the eyes of the liberal academy, but a significant number of historians must think like I do. I believe that the taking of California and New Mexico by conquest was a correct action for the United States: It helped ensure that no continental power would ever arise to challenge it. It increased the wealth of the nation. And it improved the lives of the people living in the conquered territories. In the spirit of the great Polk; therefore, I propose that the United States conquer Canada.

In a liberal democracy, the temptation to spend public money on social welfare rather than on national defense is always present--a temptation to which Canada yielded. During the 1970s, it mostly disarmed. Pierre Trudeau, then Prime Minister, correctly reasoned that the United States would never allow a foreign power to invade Canada. He never considered, however, that the occupying power might be the United States itself. Spending a pitiful two- percent of its gross domestic product on national defense, Canada is a fat plum ripe for the picking.

A surprise invasion using the National Guard units from the bordering states backed by the Air Force and Navy would probably result in a nearly bloodless conquest. The border between the nations is undefended, and Canada has gone a long way toward disarming her populace as well as her military. Handguns, for all practical purposes, have been made illegal, and the bureaucratic hoop jumping needed for the possession of long guns has made many citizens give them up. A coordinated attack would leave the U. S. in charge of every major city and most means of communication within twenty-four hours.

But why would the United States want Canada? (Its vast natural resources are obvious and boring. I will mention them in passing and move on.) One, Canadian women are, on average, better looking than U. S. women. Admittedly, this is subjective, but having been to Canada many times, I assure my brethren this is true. Two, Canadians, again on average, are better educated, although the gap has been closing in recent years as the quality of Canadian education declines. Since its unemployment rate is considerably higher than that of the U. S., an immediate supply of educated workers would be made available.

Three, most important of all, Canadians have superior snack food. Until the last two decades or so, the Canadian idea of cooking was to throw something in a pan and fry it, but Canadian snacks put those of the U. S. to shame. I doubt that the average American even knows what a butter tart is. It’s a diabetic coma and myocardial infarction cradled in a miniature piecrust. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. And summer sausage, Americans think a summer sausage is a tube of mushy meat. We are clueless. Properly aged, summer sausage if one of the great carnivorous delights of all time.

Have you ever had a salt and vinegar potato chip? I’ve started seeing them in the U. S., but the Canadians were way ahead of us on these. And let me tell you, Canadian chocolate makes American chocolate look pitiful. Give yourself a Pepsi-style challenge between a Smartie and an M & M; you will understand. Then eat a Coffee Crisp bar. Aero bars are another delight.

So it is apparent that the U. S. would benefit from an annexation of Canada, but to make the invasion moral, it needs to be a net benefit to Canada as well. Understand that I love Canada. Most of my family was born there. Until my siblings started having children, my brother and I were the only ones in our extended family who weren’t. But I’m sad to report that Canadians have been turning themselves into serfs more rapidly that even Americans. I’ve already mentioned that they have disarmed the citizenry. They also control the press to an extent that would be intolerable in the U. S. John Minnery’s remarkable How to Kill series is banned there, for example.

Furthermore, in the name of ending wage inequality between the sexes, Canada instituted a complex system of wage controls wherein the government sets the pay rates for various jobs. I’m not qualified to estimate the damage this has done to their economy, but common sense tells one that it must be immense. Their welfare state is in danger of destroying them. Their unemployment insurance is too generous. Their health care system is on the verge of collapse. Canadians have to wait weeks for tests, such as CAT scans, that Americans get immediately. They need our help.

It is apparent that an immediate conquest of Canada by the United States could easily be done and would benefit both nations, but would a Canadian resistance trouble the U. S.? I’m inclined to doubt it. Culturally, though they don’t want to admit it, non-French Canadians are ninety-five-percent identical to Americans. Whenever I hear a Canadian official ranting about the “unique Canadian culture,” I smile. Assimilation will be simple. This is a country that considers a beer commercial to be an act of defiance. I believe that the average Canadian will just shrug and go on with his life. My only concern would be that they might all head for Florida or Southern California.

Technorati tag: essays

Boomerang

A budding young terrorist gave me a boomerang for Christmas one year. A few days later, I read the directions, picked a spot where it looked unlikely to end up in the road or through a window, and gave it a solid hurl.

It went spinning through the air, made a big sweeping turn, and started heading back toward me. Just as I was thinking, hey, this thing actually works, it decided to land in the branches of a pine.

So I fetched a stepladder and a broom and managed to reach up high enough to poke it out of the tree.

I changed my initial position a bit for my second attempt. This time it ended up on the roof. The stepladder and broom again proved useful.

For my third attempt, I made a rather more drastic change of location. I heaved. The boomerang spun, turned, and landed on top of the frozen pond.

I thought hard. There was no way I was going to trust my life to the thickness of that ice. On the other hand, if the young terrorist saw that I had abandoned her present to the mercy of the elements, her feelings were likely to be hurt. So I tied a rake to a rope and eventually managed to drag the boomerang over to the bank.

I never threw it again.

Technorati tag: memories

Ten Favorite Books

1. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein--Heinlein had a strong influence on the way I think. This book was one of the things that set my mind free.

2. Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein--depending on my mood, either this book or the one above is my absolute favorite. This one is an extended meditation on the nature of love.

3. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli--if you want to understand politics, this little book is a must read.

4. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins--this is the best introduction to natural selection that I know of. Once you understand it, it as powerful tool that you will use in your thinking regularly.

5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson--it's the funniest thing that I've ever read. It caused me to laugh beyond the point of pain more than once.

6. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt--this isn't the last word, but it is a great introduction to economic thinking. It will help you cut through some of the more egregious nonsense you see in the media.

7. The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray--when this book came out, the authors were accused of being racists. The accusation was scurrilous even by the low standards of the press. Race was the focus of only one chapter. The main theme of the book was the effects that assortative mating was having on Western society. In the years since the book's publication, their predictions have been in the process of playing out. If you want to understand what really is going on in the world, this book is a necessity.

8. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein--this is the best pure science fiction novel ever published. The ending is potent, and there is a good chance that you will tear up.

9. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck--the sense of humanity in this one runs deep.

10. The Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon--it's pretty much what the title says it is.


Technorati tags: recommended reading, favorite books

Broken Glass and Rainbows

When I was a kid, my parents' house had a sliding glass door leading out onto the enclosed back porch. The door had a storm door, so to get out you had to slide two glass doors out of the way.
One winter when I was 15 or so, I was the only one home, and the dogs wanted out into the backyard. The normal procedure was to take them through the porch. I opened the one sliding door, but for some reason, I neglected to open the second door before trying to pass through it.

I proceeded to walk straight through that door. As the cliché goes, everything slowed down. I had the very clear thought that if I tried to hold up, the sheets of falling glass were going to fall right on me and cut me to shreds. I kept moving forward at a rapid pace.

I was lucky, and almost all of the glass fell behind me. I escaped with one relatively minor cut in my wrist that bled a lot but didn't require stitches.

I couldn't walk back through the glass shards and had to circle the house though the snow in my sock feet. By the time I got around to the front of the house, my parents were pulling into the garage. Of course, I came rushing up with blood running out of my wrist, not having any idea yet if I was badly hurt, babbling about just having walked through the glass door. That shook them up pretty badly, and my father unnecessarily rushed me to the hospital.

In the meantime, my mother, in a state of near panic, got on the telephone and called my brother. She didn't bother to tell him that I wasn't turned into hamburger. It was more along the lines of, "Jesus Christ! Bill just walked through the glass door! Come quick!" (Mom swore like a fisherman's daughter, which she was.) Then she hung up.

Fearing the worst, my brother, ignoring most traffic laws, rushed over. He was seriously upset when he found out that I wasn't dead, and he told my mother off for scaring him like that, but he did have the glass cleaned up before my dad and I got back from the hospital, where they had applied a butterfly bandage.

After they replaced the broken pane, my parents decided that they never wanted something like that to happen again, so they put rainbow decals on the doors right at my eye height.

Almost everyone who came to the house for any length of time asked about those decals and got to hear about my adventure of the plunging shards. I wonder if they were wondering if my parents were showing their support for gay rights.

Technorati tag: memories

A Cover Letter

Lomilda Mohammed
The University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dworkin Hall
Room 396
45189 Slatternly Drive
Madison, WI 53760

angrychick999@yahoo.com

Dr. Sparrowhawk Higgabotham
Editor
Mollusk: A Journal of Omnidirectional Outrage
The University of Upper Michigan
Department of English and Dialectical Studies
5749 Superior Street
Wild Turkey, MI 48088

Dear Dr. Sparrowhawk Higgabotham:

Enclosed, for your consideration, is my short story "Barbie Versus the Evil Patriarchy." It's the tale of a young woman's dawning discovery that the world is run by White Christian men who wish to keep her barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen; her subsequent mental breakdown; and her recovery upon her decision to battle against her oppressors on behalf of herself and her as-yet-unenlightened sisters in servitude.

I'm currently an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a dual major in Women's and Black Studies. I believe my academic background as well as my personal experiences as a mixed-race Black-Chicano lesbian Wiccan who endured the hardships of a segregated, lower-socioeconomic upbringing under the tyranny and unwelcome advances of her mother's succession of male (ick!) lovers well qualifies me to write on this theme.

The University of Wisconsin library subscribes to Mollusk. I've read several back issues, so I am familiar with its contents. When I read the story, "Amanda Gets Social Justice," by Colleen McKenna in the Fall 2000 issue, wherein the antagonist is ritually castrated with a dull butter knife, I knew that your quarterly would be the perfect home in which to place my manuscript.

My work has appeared in Bleeding Nonsense, Oppressed Masses, and Off the Man. I am editor-in-chief of Chiaroscuro: The Journal of Unsettling Metafiction published here on campus.

I've included a SASE for the return of my manuscript if you decide not to accept it. The story runs approximately 8500 words. It is being submitted to no other publication. I can be reached at the above postal address or email address. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely Yours,



Lomilda Mohammed

Technorati tags: how-to, writing, alleged humor

A Flash Testimonial, Three

I was participating in a poetry slam at the local coffee shop. After I howled out my magnum opus, Maggot Crotch: A Political Memoir, I observed that a curvaceous cutie with shocking blue tresses and a silver nose stud had fastened her gaze upon the implausible character that is myself. She was a smidgen callow, but as the sage philosopher said, if there is turf on the playing surface, initiate the competition. So I stopped at her table on the way back to my seat and said, "Hey chickie, you are the most bodacious kitten in this pretentious bean joint, and I perceive that you and I could blow some groovy jams together. You dig?"

Her mandible swung open, and she scoped me as if I possessed triple oculars, so I said, "Apologies, poppet, I was just putting a toe in the Jacuzzi, if you grasp my gist, not to say, intercept my pass. We chilly?" And I, chastened from the young Aphrodite's scorn, shambled back to my chair.

To hide my embarrassment, I flipped open my laptop and cruised to my favorite Flash site. After I had morosely buried myself in its intricacies for a few nanocenturies, I noticed that the fetching feline I had thought viewed me as repellent as a lummox with leprosy in fact stood behind me and was looking raptly over my shoulder. As I turned toward her, she said, "Do you want to come back to my place and, you know, check out my Robert Crumb prints?"

Of course, I said, "Lead on, o beautiful beat-babe of my soul."

I stayed for breakfast.

Flash--it gets your mojo working.


Technorati tag: alleged humor

A Flash Testimonial, Two

As a dedicated leftist radical, I have spent my entire adult life trying to build heaven on earth. Alas, my devotion has only brought me a permanent limp, a Gloria Steinem obsession, and a three-pound file with the FBI.

One day, exhausted from my unceasing labor on the behalf of the downtrodden, and despairing from my failure to unionize the packers at the local pickle factory, I ate a Leary biscuit and started to surf the Net in an effort to deaden my grief and ease my soul. I stumbled upon a Flash site, and enlightenment dawned. I didn't have to build heaven; I had found it.

Flash--it immanentizes the eschaton.


Technorati tag: alleged humor

A Flash Testimonial

I was sitting in front of my computer when I heard Iggy Pop sing, "Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens." I started to wonder just what hypnotizing chickens was like, so I went down the street to the neighbor with the rooster that starts bellowing at sunrise, and I asked him if I could borrow a chicken. He looked at me funny, but he fetched one.

I took it home and spent two hours trying to hypnotize that damn bird, and I started to wonder which one of us had the bird brain. But then I had an idea. I put the chicken in front of the computer and called up a Flash site. The chicken took one look at all the twirlers, blinkers, flashers, and whirlers, and she went under in seconds.

Flash--it's like hypnotizing chickens.


Technorati tag: alleged humor

Goofing Around

This site is just a place where I can try some experiments. No one who wanders in here should take anything seriously that he or she sees. The postings will likely just be random things that I have moldering in my files.