My email is: harty.thomas@gmail.com
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Friday, October 24, 2025
how to support me
If you enjoy my content and live close to a Western Union, you can send me money that way.
Important Russian concepts: vranyo, lozh, muzhik, kormushka, nichevo
I'd translate vranyo as either a tall tale or bullshit. Vranyo are obvious lies to both the speaker and the listener, but which serve the purpose of building or maintaining a relationship.
Lozh just means lies, same as English. It's similar to how pravda just means truth.
Muzhik means peasant or serf. In modern Russian slang, it means a tough guy or a real man. Chuck Norris is the ultimate muzhik.
Kormushka means a feeding trough and has a similar meaning to English. It represents public wealth to which the connected get what they want and everyone else gets what's left.
Nichevo means nothing, but as a phrase, it means something like "who cares?" or "no sweat" or "meh".
At my NSA job, I taught myself some Russian while listening to Arabic comms. It's good to keep your brain flexible with multilingualism.
Ukraine can use landmines to halt Russia
It takes two to tango, and the Russians have been mining for the same reason anyway. Once Ukrainian troops are safely outside the range of Russian artillery, they can focus on air defense. Any Russian troops who make it through the minefields will have a hell of a time advancing or retreating into their own minefields.
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The GATOR mine system is a United States military system of air-dropped anti-tank and anti-personnel mines developed in the 1980s to be compatible with existing cluster dispensers. It is used with two dispenser systems—the Navy 230 kg (500 lb) CBU-78/B and the Air Force 450 kg (1,000 lb) CBU-89/B. Additionally the mines are used with the land- and helicopter-based Volcano mine system.
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The M136 Volcano Vehicle-Launched Scatterable Mine System is an automated mine delivery system developed by the United States Army in the 1980s. The system uses prepackaged mine canisters which contain multiple anti-personnel (AP) and/or anti-tank (AT) mines which are dispersed over a wide area when ejected from the canister. The system, commonly referred to as Volcano, is also used by other armies around the world.[1]
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Thoroughly mine the whole front line then pull back 5 km. If the Russians are dumb enough to advance, they'll have to deal with landmines and Ukrainian artillery simultaneously.
I like Russia, but they are in the wrong in this war.
how to think like robot/computer/machine
Play the music in one tab and minimize it. Then make 2 tabs for the videos below with each video taking up half the screen. Loop the 3 videos.
Derpetology: Solving the Bongard Problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6VJQZxeWNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQ2pXkYjRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPRA0W1kECg
I'm convinced that machines and the so-called mentally ill think in pictures.
Also, read this book:
America has better computers, but Russia has better computer scientists. Hence the technological superiority of Google over Facebook.
Another deep thought song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xUEi7Sd9bE
does not compute; GOTO 10
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Boris (Boaz) Abramovich Trakhtenbrot was a Russian-Israeli mathematician in logic, algorithms, theory of computation, and cybernetics.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8
It is not necessary to find room temperature superconductors if the computer is immersed in mineral oil.
If you build something like this, expect a visit from the FBI or whatever your country's secret police is.
overcoming death anxiety
On a side note, if you've ever beaten a video game, you know more about computers than about 90% of people alive today. Yay us!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA3vUv2c
Food for thought:
1) The worst-case scenario is that death is just a dreamless sleep. Most people would pick hell over oblivion. Some would even pick hell over heaven.
2) Realize that death is inevitable. It is the price we pay for the gift of life.
3) Imagine you could build an afterlife that would maximize happiness. You'd need to be flexible about your beliefs of heaven and hell because everybody dies and thus must all go to the same place.
4) Your afterlife needs dogs, because all dogs go to heaven or something.
5) Your afterlife needs to fair to kids somehow. Kids die early sometimes and have to go somewhere.
6) Your afterlife has to punish the right people somehow. And remember that kids will be around to see it.
7) Did I say dogs already? "Most dogs go to heaven" is unappealing for some reason.
8) Ask yourself how your afterlife would handle people with serious injuries or disabilities.
9) Does your afterlife allow the dead to communicate with the living? If so, how?
10) What is approximate location, temperature, season, and time of day for your afterlife? Is everybody there going to be OK with it?
might get your creative juices flowing. Even an extra strong marijuana edible might work. Be warned about this method. It can land you in a psychiatric hospital for days or weeks.
Some other suggested reading:
Some more suggested music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQiUFZ5RDw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2msh0jut2Y
More thoughts on the war in Ukraine
I've been monitoring livemap for a while now.
https://liveuamap.com/
Ukraine is holding the line, but they can't do it forever without more soldiers, money, and weapons. Note that Ukraine is not on the offensive anywhere.
The Russians switched to a Fabian strategy early on. It's basically the same strategy the Taliban used against the US for 20 years.
The fighting won't stop until:
1) Ukraine gets security guarantees from Russia and NATO.
2) Ukraine formally cedes the territory already occupied by Russia.
3) Ukraine agrees not to join the European Union or NATO
It's basically Finlandization.
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Finlandization (Finnish: suomettuminen) is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. The term means "to become like Finland", referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland's policies during the Cold War.
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This is what happens when Sweden and Finland joined NATO.
Here are visual aids I made to explain Russia's mood:
And here it is in the form of song:
Fun fact, I listened to that song so many times as a teen my parents thought I'd been brainwashed into being a communist. Whoever did my background check for NSA evidently never found out about it. Also, I'm not a communist. Or a Russian spy, etc.
I volunteered for the Ukrainian International Legion in 2022 but never got a response. My own sister pressured me to join because of my combat training, language skills, and experiences in Africa.
Respect makes empires fall. It's not my fault that Ukraine and its allies stocked up on drones instead of rocket artillery and cannon shells.
heat map of my blog readership from 2008 to the present
It's interesting that I have more readers in Russia than Ukraine. And also that I'm a heavy hitter in Asia.
I estimate that about 10,000 people in Vietnam read my novella which can be found here:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2024/02/i-soldier-part-1.html
The most popular posts on this blog:
My blog was read on 6 continents this year, and I'm sure it's been read in every country.
Not sure how to get penguins to read my blog. Maybe with this?
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Arabic comedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArnErU6l-I0
It's based on a popular US/UK sitcom called The Office.
You can get around blocked sites by typing in the URL (uniform resource locator) as it is. The URL is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArnErU6l-I0
May God make your face white.
الله يجعل وجهك أبيض
Do not say this in the US, especially to a black policeman (cop). Or anyone really.
Astrochicken
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Astrochicken is the name given to a thought experiment expounded by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson. An Astrochicken is a small, one-kilogram spacecraft, a self-replicating automaton that could explore space more efficiently than a crewed craft could due to its innovative mix of technology.
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peacock fights turkey
My magical mystery tour
Starting on Friday, October 3rd, until the following Sunday, I had a mystical experience that started with me driving north as if pulled by a magnet and ended with me in a psychiatric ward for 17 days. I'm tempted to believe I was drugged, but the toxicology screen found nothing, and I didn't drink a drop of alcohol before, during, or after the experience.
During it, I was convinced I was experiencing a vision of the afterlife, though something told me that there are many afterlives and each one is heaven for one group and hell for another. Basically, heaven, hell, and real life are all happening at the same time, and everybody goes to real life, heaven, and hell, just for different lengths of time.
I saw it as heaven, as it was night, cool and quiet, and I was able to walk around unbothered and invincible. When I first heard dogs barking, I thought that maybe I was in hell, but then I remembered the movie All Dogs go to Heaven. If I wasn't drugged, then something definitely broke in my brain, at least temporarily. Every afterlife is fair because everybody dies. Some people experience hell in this life, while others experience heaven.
Turns out in my "heaven", there is no hunger, thirst, or pain. Just the quiet beauty of nature at night and occasional human interaction, mainly with the downtrodden. If it was from LSD, scopolamine, whatever, many people could experience it for themselves and find inner peace.
These music video sums up the situation well:
Saturday, October 4, 2025
42
It's impossible to understand everything and if you try, you go nuts and make people mad. This problem gets worse as the number of smart people increases. That's the best answer I have for very smart people. Tone down your intelligence and stop trying to win everything. I feel OK. I'm sorry for all the strange things I said and did. This is not a suicide note or manifesto. I've had a hard, strange life. I wanted to be a "hero" or at least a father and failed past the usual age. Please be patient with me. I feel at peace and time has slowed to a crawl. I had a "mystical" experience Friday afternoon. Share and enjoy. I know that's a line from a comedy sci-fi novel, but it's "scripture" to people like me (ruthlessly/stubbornly logical). If you spread it, all the people like me will calm down even though they can't explain why. The novel Dune also works as a new "religion". Give the HHG to mean people and Dune to ambitious people. They'll understand why after they think about it too long. It involves locusts, and prime numbers. They can figure it out from there. Some people are "robots" and others are "god emperors".
I don't feel like drinking and am very relaxed. Please be gentle with me. I want to live a long time. Humanity needs mystical peacemakers. You may see me in a strange outfit. Fight the ocean and you will drown. Share and enjoy.
Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot - Final round 4K UHD (2 of 2 rounds, Oct 9 2021) - YouTube
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Some more thoughts on 42: its prime factorization is 2*3*7. There were 42 generations between Abrahan and Jesus. George Washington was 42 when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Many animals, like cicadas, reach sexual maturity in large numbers at the same time. Another term for "cicada" is the 17-year locust.
Animals that have a prime number as their life cycle are less likely to go extinct because they overwhelm with sheer numbers all the predators that might eat them.
So basically, 42 is the answer to the question of the maximum age of reproduction for the first time. And 70 is about the maximum human lifespan absent modern technology and medicine. The prime factorization of 70 = 2*5*7.
Douglas (Noel) Adams was reminding his readers of their mortality in a subtle way. The biggest clue is that his initials are DNA.
At least 15 million people know about the 42 puzzle, but I seem to be the only one who figured it out.
Life, the universe, and everything? It's as simple as survival and reproduction. That message would not be received well by most, so he dressed it up with a funny sci-fi story. Tolkien did the same thing when he wrote about adventures in Middle Earth rather the grim realities of trench warfare he experienced as a soldier in WW1.
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