The whole channel is a feast for the eyes.
It deserves the PaleoWorld theme song:
I'm pretty sure the animation in Primal Rage used clay models.
Sunday, August 31, 2025
survival humor - Ted Bear from Cyanide and Happiness
Ted Bear - Cyanide & Happiness Shorts
How I wish bacon trees were real. Sausage trees are real. Their fruit looks like sausages.
***
Often called sausage tree, it grows a fruit that is up to 60 centimetres (24 in) long, weighs about 5–10 kilograms (11–22 lb), and resembles a sausage in a casing. The fruit and bark of the plant are used by African tribes as traditional medicine. The fruit is poisonous for humans when raw,[4] but is also made into an alcoholic drink by tribes in Kenya. It is eaten by elephants, baboons, and other wild animals, which may disperse the seeds,[4][5] but their importance for seed dispersal remains unverified.[6]
***
some more libertarian cartoon humor
Prosperity comes from improved production. That comes from capital, which in turn comes from savings which come from underconsumption. If nobody saves anything, there's nothing to borrow to invest in improvements.
Saturday, August 30, 2025
IDF blunders and misplaced priorities
Israel is a tiny country with many enemies and has somehow managed to survive despite various wars. It's odd that the most devastating attack on them since 1973 came from an even smaller, dirt-poor enclave surrounded by security barrier and guard towers.
The pager attack on Hezbollah was clever but came too late against the wrong target. The same is true of the assassinations of Iranian generals and nuclear scientists. Since the most recent war began, the IDF has wasted all kinds of resources on ridiculous stunts.
Their information campaign has not been working very well either. MEMRI has amusing content but has done little to sway global opinion in Israel's favor.
Israel does not need a better Iron Dome, more F-35s, or more Mission Impossible type secret operations. None of those things and many other impressive and expensive gambits would have stopped the October 7th attacks. It could have been stopped if enough reservists had been called up to man the guard towers surrounding the Gaza Strip. Soldiers are the best sensors. They have eyes, ears, brains, and a strong incentive to pay attention.
The attack has been called an intelligence failure, but it would be more accurate to call it a commonsense failure.
Friday, August 29, 2025
the folly of airborne training
When Failure Thrives by Marc Devore makes a solid case that airborne operations are of limited use in addition to the high cost and risk of training paratroopers.
My favorite grumpy Vietnam vet John T Reed reaches a similar conclusion based on personal experience.
Here are some visual aids regarding the danger of airborne training.
I jumped out of a plane once for fun as a civilian, which is just more proof that it's not that big of a deal. For the record, I was scared of heights for most of my life.
One of the reasons why US Army jumps are so dangerous is that they insist on carrying so much equipment with them. Here is what a D-Day paratrooper carried:
The Soviets were smarter. They put all the gear in containers that landed separately. You can see them land near the 50 second mark of the video below and being opened around the 1:35 mark in the Red Dawn clip.
It's good the military tries to attract and cultivate courage, but it often does it badly. For the kinds of wars the US is likely to fight in the future, individual intelligence is more important than bravery.
Long story short, enlisted promotions should be based on ASVAB scores. That is efficient and fair.
Things like firewalking are better for building courage because they seem dangerous but actually aren't.
They are also relatively cheap. Probably the cheapest option would be to show recruits video of actual violence. Realistic war movies could be an intermediate step.
Firewalking is not dangerous because hot coals are poor heat conductors. It's sort of like if you have a cake in an oven at 400 degrees, the cake, pan, and air inside are all 400 degrees, but the only thing that will burn you if you touch it is the pan because metal is a good heat conductor.
muskox spear hunting
I've been to Alaska, but I did not try this.
It's like being an Ice Age caveman.
plot hole in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - how does Marvin understand without a Babel fish?
He doesn't have ears, so no place to put a translating Babel Fish. He claims to have a "brain the size of a planet", so maybe that somehow enables him to understand everyone he meets.
In a similar way, it was never explained how the Vogons were able to broadcast to Earth in English.
Some relevant visual aids and the full version of the theme song:
The whole original series is available online, though I had to dig around to find the version I remembered (it was the 1990 cassette version). I should have bookmarked it, because I've been unable to relocate it. It's enough to make a guy shout "Belgium!"
Don't panic. Share and enjoy!
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Florida Man (Homo floridaensis) in his natural habitat
Ah, a fat, drunk, sunburned, shirtless Florida Man in handcuffs next to a shack that sells beer and marijuana. That's the America I dream of.
Monday, August 25, 2025
The obscure strategy game of Hnefatafl, AKA Viking Chess
The literal meaning is "fist table" - hnefa + tafl.
Also, Chinese Checkers isn't from China. It's from a game called Sternhalma. Stern means star in German and Halma means jump in Greek. It was invented in 1892.
I wonder what would happen if people had to play several different strategy games simultaneously. That would surely be more stimulating than any one alone. A good combo would be chess, Scrabble, Stratego, Othello, and Battleship. After each turn, players would rotate to a different game. It'd be like a mental pentathlon.
Beware the Eastern lubber grasshopper
Why you shouldn't touch an Eastern lubber grasshopper
***
The large, brightly colored Eastern lubber grasshopper is hard to miss. Its bright orange, yellow and red colors are a warning to predators that it contains toxins that will make it sick. But the colors are a spectacular sight for people just watching the slow moving, large grasshopper displaying its hues.
It is much better to watch than touch this insect. If you pick up this grasshopper it will make a loud hissing noise and secrete an irritating, foul-smelling foamy spray.
The four-inch long grasshopper cannot fly. Instead it moves in short clumsy hops. It can also walk or crawl.
…
In the adult stage they can look different depending on where they live. In northern Florida, this insect is mostly black with yellow markings. The lubbers in southern Florida are mostly yellow with red and black markings and red on the forewings.
***
Sunday, August 24, 2025
The not-so-secret NSA language school in Augusta, GA
The eight-foot-high steel fence around the place and the keycard activated, heavy-duty turnstiles are a clue. It's a soft target, hence its innocuous sounding name: Westgate Learning Center. Kerr Business College closed in 2009.
Defense Language Proficiency Testing is done here. The center is very crowded and busy on those days. The entrance and exit are the same. That's a handy chokepoint.
There is a Zen style garden and picnic area between the two parallel sections. That part was my favorite. It also has a splendid multilingual library.
Turning that place into a smoking hole in the ground would be easy for a madman with nothing to lose.
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Leader of the Band - a musical gem
I heard this song by chance during a road trip, and it struck a chord with me. It's a soothing slow jam.
Friday, August 22, 2025
pros and cons of some of my various jobs
Factory work
pros - easy, good pay for entry level, exercise
cons - repetitive, boring, loud, hot, dangerous
Process engineering
pros - good pay, air-conditioned office, internet and computer access, relative freedom, earning potential
cons - boring, vague goals and guidance, bureaucracy, office politics
Teaching
pros - good pay, ample time off, working inside
cons - misbehaving students, paperwork, dress code
Army
pros - exercise, excitement, travel, benefits, bonuses
cons - rules, requirements, hazing, paperwork, online training, injuries
NSA
pros - access to classified info, foreign language skills, internet and computer access, relative freedom
cons - stress, rules, bureaucracy
Welding
pros - job security, craftsmanship, flexibility, earning potential, lax dress code
cons - tool cost, injuries, noise, heat
Ideally, I'd make money from writing until I had enough passive income to retire. Then I'd occupy my time with various projects, experiments, and inventions.
I'm glad I've worked a variety of jobs. All those experiences benefitted me and made my life interesting.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
advice for introverts
I'd say the basic definition of an introvert is someone who prefers to be alone if given the choice. After enough hostile encounters, I learned to be wary of others. Perhaps I was being timid, or fragile, or extreme. Being on guard all the time is tiresome. In the Army, Peace Corps, stand-up comedy, and other experiences, I've proven to myself I can handle social situations, so I no longer seek them.
Better alone than with bad company, I like to say.
Proverbs 21:19
"Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife."
Being alone doesn't mean being lonely. It's a matter of pruning away or reducing relationships that don't add to your well-being.
In my case, I ran out of patience for dealing with people who annoy me, especially when it was deliberate. That's been a frequent problem whenever I've been in group settings.
Consider your wants and needs, then satisfy them with minimal human interaction. It's an extreme solution, but it's worked for me. And if you grow tired of living that way, you can always modify your habits.
Try to respect and get respect from all. If you can't get respect from someone, avoid them. If you can't avoid them, make them afraid of you. Let aposematism be your guide. In nature, living things use odd coloring and other visual clues to show would be predators they are not worth attacking or eating.
My favorite introvert and MGTOW song:
Technology has made it much easier for introverts to socialize in ways that are comfortable for them. It's good to take advantage of that.
No man is an island said Donne long ago, but today, you can be something like that without being a hermit.
It's best to think of every relationship as a Venn diagram where the overlap represents your mutual benefits and interests. If there's no overlap, don't deal with that person. When there is an overlap, respect your differences with them.
Remember that happiness is possible. Go placidly amidst the noise and the haste, as it says in the Desiderata.
If in a cynical mood, try the Deteriorata parody:
We are all flukes of the universe.
going through the motions - another public-school charade?
I read an article on NPR about a math teacher in Texas who improved attendance and test scores by incorporating hip hop music. Good for him, though I'm skeptical such techniques have much use in teaching math more complicated than arithmetic.
Baby-sitting is being generous. My experience being a teacher in US schools was more like being a prison guard, but with less authority and respect. Parents should be the ones disciplining their children.
Jaime Escalante was in a similar situation but did not dumb things down or give up.
***
In 1974, he began to teach at Garfield High School. Escalante was initially so disheartened by the lack of preparation of his students that he called his former employer and asked for his old job back. Escalante eventually changed his mind about returning to work when he found twelve students willing to take an algebra class.[6]
Shortly after Escalante came to Garfield High School, its accreditation became threatened. Instead of gearing classes to poorly performing students, Escalante offered AP Calculus.[7] He had already earned the criticism of an administrator, who disapproved of his requiring the students to answer a homework question before being allowed into the classroom: "He said to 'Just get them inside.' I said, 'There is no teaching, no learning going on here. We are just baby-sitting.'"[8]
Determined to change the status quo, Escalante persuaded a few students that they could control their futures with the right education. He promised them that they could get jobs in engineering, electronics, and computers if they would learn math: "I'll teach you math and that's your language. With that, you're going to make it. You're going to college and sit in the first row, not the back because you're going to know more than anybody."[8]
***
It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Sometimes cursing the darkness inspires someone to find and light a candle.
designing a supercomputer cooled with heat exchangers
Below is a prototype I built myself. It attracted the attention of the FBI who came to my apartment to ask me about it. It was cooled with mineral oil which does not conduct electricity. The same oil has been used to cool high voltage transformers for over a century.
Computers are about as small and cheap as they're ever going to be. Advances in software are few and far between. Thus, the only way left to improve performance is through better heat transfer. Oil immersion cooling is not a new idea, but it has yet to be embraced fully. See these cluster computers for examples:
Cluster computing is a big part of the solution and was heavily advocated by computer pioneer Grace Hopper. She compared it to hitching multiple oxen to the same yoke if one was not strong enough to do the job alone. It's a similar idea to multiengine aircraft.
Microsoft did an interesting and successful experiment called Project Natick where they packed a data center into a waterproof shipping container and submerged it.
There are many cold lakes in the continental US that could be used, and the water temperature would not change much even for the cooling needs of a very large supercomputer complex such as the one in Oak Ridge. It would also be cheaper in terms of water usage than the NSA data center complex in Bluffdale, Utah which is cooled by water evaporation. Mineral oil does not evaporate, and the volume and water temperature of most lakes stays constant.
The ideal location for a supercomputer complex cooled by heat exchangers would be on the shores of Lake Superior. Using freshwater eliminates many of problems brought on by sea salt and other complications such as tides and bad weather. The main risk would be water leaking into the oil, but it would settle to the bottom of computer tank because water is denser.
If the complex was some distance below the water level of the lake, artesian pressure could be used instead of pumps to circulate the water. Instead returning the water to the lake, it would drain into a pond for evaporation. Al valve would be opened or closed to control the water level. The main drawback is maintenance, though I suppose that could done by divers depending on the size of the oil bath.
In my experience, it will also be necessary to keep the oil bath covered. Insects are attracted to the oil and get stuck in it. These were the literal bugs I dealt with my oil-cooled computer. There were no adverse performance effects, but all the dead bugs were unsightly.
Basically, the oil bath would be about the size of an Olympic swimming pool with a uniform depth of maybe five feet. A bundle of tubes carrying the cooling water would pass through the oil bath on one of its sides. On the bottom of the oil bath would be a layer of copper BBs or pennies to act as auxiliary heat sinks. In this way, the oil bath acts like the shell side a very large heat exchanger with the lake being the tube side. Another way to think of it is like the way a car radiator exchanges heat to cool an engine.
CPUs and other such chips are designed to slow down once they reach a center temperature. But if the chips through better cooling never reach that temperature, there is no limit to the speed of the system clock. If something like Intel's terahertz processor was used with the cooling system described above, I can scarcely imagine how fast the computer would be.
There are all kinds of computer science problems thought to be unsolvable only because of the current limits of processing speed. This is the reason for all the work with quantum computers. However, those require technology that could be decades away if it is possible at all.
Blowing air on a machine to cool it down is 19th century thinking. It is time to use mineral oil and heat exchangers.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
My NSA odyssey - recap after 4 years
This post will revisit some things I've discussed before. Below is a post with links to other one of relevance.
It's amusing that odyssey refers to a dangerous journey named after its sole survivor. That story has always spoken powerfully to me. About 4 years ago, I applied to be an NSA codebreaker after having spent the previous 2.5 years working for them as an Arabic linguist while in the Army. My application is still under consideration, though I doubt very much I'll ever get an offer for reasons I'll explain later.
In March of 2021, I suspected that NSA was spying on me and manipulating my electronics. I know for a fact they do this routinely because I watched them do it to others and read their reports about it. Later events confirmed that for me beyond a reasonable doubt. At first, I thought that perhaps they were trying to pacify and rehabilitate me or mold me into someone they found acceptable. Later, I concluded they were more likely trying silence, provoke, and discredit me. They've done such things before. See the case of William Binney for an example.
I'd take a job if they offered one, though I have little enthusiasm for it now. The traffic near NSA HQ in Fort Meade would give me cancer of the soul. I'm open to using my abilities for the good of national security under any kind of arrangement. At heart, I'm still a patriotic man mostly. I've returned to welding after 4 years of hiatus. It's figuratively and literally more constructive than anything I did at NSA, or even my life in general, though I am always open to other possibilities.
How odd it all turned out. I have all these exotic achievements under my belt: Eagle Scout, chemical engineering degree from a full scholarship, Peace Corps, Army, and NSA. If I was a smarter man, I'd have realized at a younger age that high achievement is often me with indifference, scorn, or jealousy. Schopenhauer had wise words on that:
Even so, I don't regret my efforts at pursuing greatness. You find what you look for. A better way of phrasing that is you go on a journey to get what you want and find what you need along the way.
There are times when I've pondered thoughts of revenge against my various tormentors. I try to remember that it's better to just move on and enjoy life. I have other, more important goals than getting even, becoming a father and homeowner chief among them. The truth always comes out in the end anyway, and the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.
I don't like making threats or ultimatums, but I will note my abundant patience is finite. Hopefully it never runs out. In my experience, people won't leave you alone until you give them a compelling reason. I prefer to defeat my enemies by making them into friends.
The harassment has dropped off greatly since 2023. It mostly consists of my internet mysteriously getting jammed and an inexplicable number of YouTube ads about living with schizophrenia. It's all so tiresome. Whatever. If they're trying to break me, it's not going to work. I've been through a lot more than most.
Below is the strongest piece of evidence I have for what I've claimed. I made that video at my apartment in Augusta, Georgia in the spring of 2022. The same sequence of events happened every time I locked or unlocked my apartment door for weeks.
At this point, I just want to be a free spirit living peace.
Jumanji and other jungle adventure movies
The Great Monsoon | Jumanji | Voyage | With Captions
Tarzan the Fearless vs. Jungle Lion
Enough fiction. Now for some facts!
Monday, August 18, 2025
MGTOW comedy - intentional and otherwise
Men: What to Expect from Marriage
Dutch Chad IMPREGNATES 1000 Women And The Women Took Him To Court To Stop Him Impregnating More
And now, the grand finale:
I think this screenshot says it all:
Well, at least my online dating experience went a lot better than his.
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Saturday, August 16, 2025
the secret password protected page on whitehouse.gov
Stumbled upon this during a directory walk:
I tried guessing the password, but alas my NSA training comes up short sometimes.
Friday, August 15, 2025
My favorite Perry Bible Fellowship comics
There are some real gems in it. My favorites are Metamorph-assist, Suicide Train, and Cave Explorer.
English and Icelandic are the only Germanic languages with both "th" sounds
I supposed that list could be expanded to Faroese, etc. My point is all those are (or were) island languages. Thus, their relative isolation insulated them (pun intended, insula means island in Latin) from the changes underwent by German, Dutch, Swedish, etc.
There is probably something similar at work with Polynesian vs. other Austronesian languages.
Not much of an insight but figured I'd share it. Arabic also has the same "th" sounds in the letters thaa ث and dhaal ذ, though those sounds are often substituted with daal د (d) and zayn ز (z) respectively. This makes sense as Arabia used to be fairly isolated from the rest of the world.
my favorite unconventional music - 8-bit, stepper motor, and more
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
the cryptography of emojis
During the Cold War, a certain country invented a clever, low-tech code that was never broken. They taught the code to people with good memories which eliminated the need to write anything down. Sometimes less is more.
Emojis are already used as codewords in general and by various subcultures. Think eggplant.
Every generation thinks they invented language. I remember my grandpa once complaining about the slang usage of "cool" because it made no sense to him. A code produced by a machine can be broken by a machine. That's how computers were invented. But only humans and other intelligent life can create and use language.
I guess it's a good thing so few people know what a lipogram is.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
the smartest thing I ever heard from a public school teacher
I was in 7th grade and we were watching a video about reptiles. At one point, I interjected that crocodiles are stupid animals. The teacher looked at me and said "maybe, but they're good at what they do and have been around for a lot longer than we have." That was the day I learned that a good teacher knows when to make a student feel stupid.
In nature, it doesn't matter how big, small, weird, ugly, beautiful, cruel, kind, smart, or dumb a living thing is. Those are human labels. All that matters in biology is survival and reproduction. Here are visual aids for that:
Double standards in crime reporting - George Floyd, Rodney King, and the 2025 Cincinnati mob beating
This picture of George Floyd sparked nationwide riots which left dozens dead and caused billions in property damage:
But the media only publicized the picture with Floyd on the ground. In a similar way, the only video publicized of Rodney King's arrest was when a group of cops were beating him after he led them on a chase and resisted arrest.
Here are screenshots which show a black man body slamming one of the white victims who was also repeatedly stomped on, kicked, and punched while on the ground:
In the not so good old days, black Americans were sometimes victims of white mob violence when the reverse was extremely rare. Was that cause and effect? I hope not, otherwise it will return.
The solution is not to suppress such info. The US is a multiracial and multicultural country, and that is not going to change. People need to judge each other as individuals and resist their tribal instincts.
Floyd argued and resisted the cops for about 10 minutes as they tried to put him in the back seat of their car. Here is a screenshot from the bodycam footage:
In contrast, the video of the 2025 Cincinnati mob beating was heavily censored by the mainstream media. You can watch it all here:
Now a black pastor in Cincinnati is saying the white victims instigated what is clearly a one-sided beatdown.
Duluth Lynchings, 1920 - the victims supposedly raped and robbed a white woman:
Mutilated body of Emmet Till after he was beaten to death by a gang of whites for supposedly harassing a white woman:
The Charleston church shooter wrote he was radicalized into killing blacks by reading reports of black on white crime.
Monday, August 11, 2025
use oleic acid as an insect repellent?
In Florida, where I live, cockroaches thrive. After discovering and killing several in my bathroom over the course of a few months, I decided to leave the corpse of one out as a warning to others rather than flush it down the toilet. I haven't caught a cockroach in my bathroom since. It turns out they release oleic acid when they die, and it repels other roaches.
Oleic acid has the advantages of being biodegradable and even edible. It's the main ingredient in olive oil. In fact, olive oil is graded according to the percent of oleic acid it contains. It'd probably be cheaper to make oleic acid artificially than get it from olives, but I doubt there's a market for it. It's similar to the way margarine was suppressed.
The empirical formula of oleic acid is similar to the medicines cyclizine and clozapine, though the former has an chain structure and the latter have cyclic structures. Thus, I wonder if oleic acid could be turned into a medicine by giving it a ring structure and the other two could be turned into insect repellents by straightening them out.
I used my own organic compound dictionary to research these possibilities.
Bah, after braving the bugs of Africa, I have no fear of such pests. Cockroaches are nothing compared to swarms of siafu army ants, malaria mosquitoes, kumbikumbi flying termites, scorpions, and giant nephila pilipes spiders. That spider's body is as long as a stapler.
Sunday, August 10, 2025
it takes all kinds
The Rosewood Massacre happened close to where I live as did this scene. When word of the carnage spread, some whites stood up to stop it.
***
The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people were killed, but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. In addition, two white people were killed in self-defense by one of the victims. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot. Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre,[2] including the lynching of Charles Strong and the Perry massacre in 1922.
***
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