we can talk about bell's inequality later.

but, for now just chew this through - just because a statistical analysis that models a phenomenon as random works relatively well in deriving correct answers doesn't mean that that the phenomenon is truly random.

so, i'm eating before i shower and move on, and we're back to this again, which i'm just starting over from the start.

the gravitation example of F=mg is actually quite useful, because we know that newton's cosmology does not have infinite precision at all, but is rather governed by error relating to what we call the n-body problem. in a newtonian approach to this problem, however deprecated, we need to work in the effects of perturbations from the sun, jupiter and all of the other planetary bodies in order to come up with a perfect orbit, which is not spherical or elliptical at all but, rather, a bumpy and chaotic ride through extreme turbulence.

the point i want to get across is this - in the context of newton's theory, we don't consider this to be "randomness". it's a very hard problem, certainly - unsolvable, in fact. the best we can do is make guesses using differential equations. however, if we didn't understand gravity, we could model the problem using a statistical analysis, and replace the physics that we know exists and call gravity with randomness. and, you know what? we'd get something that's startlingly accurate, if we did that.

just think that through a bit.

there's another test, the situational judgement test, which evaluates how you behave in the workplace.

i've failed this test repeatedly, and would probably fail it again if asked to write it, now.

as far as i can tell, i just fundamentally disagree with the answers in such a way that i can't actually grasp how to answer the scenarios correctly - i don't think i'm failing a judgement test, so much as i think i'm failing a values test. you'd have to send me to boot camp....

but, maybe my answers are actually correct - maybe the government is wrong.

i'm sleepy this evening and i'm not sure why, but let's try to get some coffee and wake up.

my dad was proud of his gct2 score - he thought it proved he was smart. and, it helped him with the jobs he applied for.

i don't doubt him when he said it was higher than the people he managed.

like i say - he was worried. but, he wasn't expecting that, either.

i've wondered many times since if the reason they didn't call me back was actually because the score was too high.

i think i've told you the story about the gct2 test.

the gct2 test is a basic iq test for the canadian public service, so a very large number of canadians have written it and know what it is. i don't think i ever wrote the gct1 test. i last wrote the gct2 some time around 2007 or 2008, for an entry level position with statscan, which i caved in and applied for after getting nagged about it for however long.

my father was keenly interested in the results of this test because everybody knows that you never beat your dad at chess. he projected confidence that he'd score higher, but you could tell he was worried. so, i had to deal with daily haranguing from him ("did you get the score yet?") for what seemed like months...

i'll never forget the reaction.

he wouldn't actually tell me his mark until he saw mine, he just told me i wouldn't beat it because it was higher than anybody he knew.

"did you get it? did you get it?"

it finally came in the form of a letter, and was 80/90, which is 89%. that's not that high a grade for me, so i'm initially not that impressed with myself. i knew the pass was 51/90, so i'm at least feeling good about the job, depending on the competition. so, i'm figuring he's bragging because he got somewhere in the 70s or 80s. you don't beat your dad at chess. so, i rounded up..

"yeah, it came in today. i got a 90, which i guess is not bad."

what?

"yeah, i could have maybe done a little better if i wasn't so tired, but hopefully that gets me an interview."

it's out of 90. you didn't get 90.

"no, i got 90 percent. it was 80/90."

he changed the topic very quickly, and i don't know what he actually got; he never brought it up again.

but, i get to the interview and the interviewer actually thinks it's a typo.

"that must be 80%, which is itself very high. a pass is 51. when i hire managers, they need to get over 70. i've never even heard of a score that high. we're going to get that checked..."

i didn't hear anything back from the interview, but nobody corrected the score.

i've looked this up since, and that mark is in the 99th percentile.

i had the same thing happen when we did standardized testing in elementary school, midway through the sixth grade. the teacher just did not believe the results when they came through. but, they were what they were.

are iq tests that useful? probably not, no. but, when you consistently ace them, it does tell you something.

so, i've frequently been frustrated for being misunderstood. maybe it's not your fault.

(edit - i can't find the document, so the exact numbers are from memory and they might be somewhat off. but, the scope of the story is the idea i'm trying to get across. the 99th percentile bit is precise, at least.)

i tell people i have three degrees, but it's a gloss.

i have an actual diploma for a b. mathematics, 2006. my first & second year grades were reflective of reality, i wasn't really engaged. some As, some Bs. i then ended up homeless over third year due to being thrown out of the house (my step-mother may claim otherwise, but i was thrown out for being transgendered), and found myself trying to juggle getting through the third year of an honours degree in mathematics, while living on my girlfriend's floor - my grades were reflective of the reality of the situation. but, when i finally got things back to some semblance of normality, i got very high marks in fourth year, which allowed me to graduate with a strong B+.

when you look at my transcript, it's straight Ds in third year and straight As in 4th year - unusual, and reflective of an odd underlying reality.

when i applied for grad school, i tried to get the point across - i was homeless in third year, and math is hard anyways, and especially when you're struggling to find somewhere safe to sleep. in hindsight, i wonder if those essays hindered more than helped. i didn't really have a class analysis at the time; i just assumed the school administrators were all far leftists and would see the obvious need to be empathetic. rather, what people saw was no doubt a B+ student with uneven grades, not an A student that got screwed over by a bigoted stepmother that literally told her to starve to death for being queer.

within a few years, i'd decided i was happier working part time in a call center doing surveys than i would be with a full time job, anyways. it was enough to pay the rent, and i had a lot of free time to write and record. for perhaps the first time in my life, i was actually legitimately happy, and it came via rejecting labour rather than embracing it. i really changed a lot in those years.

my father, however, was not satisfied with the scenario, and he continually badgered me to apply for government jobs that i didn't actually want. he even tried to buy me a car at one point to make me a better management candidate (which i turned down - i told him that if he wanted to throw money at me, he should pay my student debt down, which he declined. i had no interest in a vehicle, whatsoever; i didn't, and still don't, even have a driver's license. i didn't want to be anybody's boss.). i was, i think, the first person in his extended family to ever graduate from university, and he didn't seem to understand why i wasn't instantly transformed into the monopoly guy once i got my diploma - he'd been told his whole life that education was the way out of poverty, and was baffled to watch his oldest child get through school with decent grades and then end up worse off than he was, given that he never even graduated high school. my mother was an army brat and did not graduate high school, either. when i managed to convince him that an undergraduate degree in math with a B+ average isn't exactly the most impressive education, he just reacted by trying to send me to grad school. he was insistent that i'd go to school and get ahead through it.

he was delusional; that's not how our society works. rather, you're born into your place, and there's not much you can do about it. i am the offspring of poor, uneducated people. going to school and "working my way up" is no solution to that, and you'd have to be daft to actually think otherwise. my father was lucky enough to marry into the middle class, but it then predictably rejected me as unworthy. i'm exactly what i had little choice but to be...

so, the reason it didn't work was his wife's fault, in the first place. most third year students that find themselves homeless due to conflicts with their stupid parents don't end up graduating at all - i'm the exception. but, it wasn't enough. those Ds are there forever.

i actually didn't want to go to grad school anymore and, by that time, i was old enough and independent enough to tell him "no.". i had an apartment downtown that i liked, a job across the street that paid the bills and tons of free time to spend on things i actually cared about; i didn't want to move back to the suburbs to live in his basement and work towards a math degree to get a job i didn't want (and probably wouldn't get, anyways). i was legitimately happy for probably the first time, and didn't actually want things to change. i had finally defined myself in terms i was happy about, in ways that transcended the childishness of careerism.

in the middle of 2008, just before the economy crashed, he managed to talk me into it by presenting me with a bribe: if i'd only agree to go back to school, he'd pay the tuition out of his savings account and pay my rent, as well. but, i'd have to get straight As.

i decided that that was even better than things were. that was a huge mistake...

so, carleton let me back in on a qualifying year with that B+, because they at least knew me and realized i did good work most of the time. if i could get straight As in the qualifying year, as i did in 4th year, i could start the master's degree the next year. but, i got cold feet before it started.

i looked at the potential outcomes and bailed - i interpreted the outcome, a job at cra, as an absolute death sentence. i just couldn't go through with it. nor did i want to be an academic. if i was going to do this, i wanted a job in the private sector, in the end. living in ottawa, all of the private sector jobs were technology-oriented. so, i switched into an undergraduate computer science program, instead.

then, the market crashed and my father bailed on me, forcing me to take out a student loan at the last minute in order to pay my rent. he promised he'd pay it down when the economy recovered, but he never did. i've been broke without caring much ever since. that loan is now somewhere near $100,000, and he's long dead.

so, yes, i went back in 2008 and eventually got 19.5/20 credits for a computer science degree at a very high gpa (around 95%.) before deciding that i didn't want to do it anymore. i spent the last several semesters getting through the requirements of a three year sociology of law degree. i didn't graduate from either program. while i was in the computer science program, i also took enough graduate level math courses as electives to complete a master's degree, but i did not consider having that formally acknowledged. a large number of these courses would be categorized as "computer math".

rather, i was accepted into disability at the end of 2012 and realized that this is what i actually wanted out of life - financial stability, and the freedom to exist outside of the constraints of careerism. so, i essentially dropped out of school to go on odsp - because i interpreted that as a preferable path, as a way out of careerism.

so, yes - i essentially have a programming degree. but, i'm really not very techy.

it's a reality of capitalism - we need to center our labour aspirations around market demand. i didn't choose that subject out of a legitimate interest in it, i chose it because it looked like that's where the jobs were.

in the years since, i haven't kept up, but it's not because i lost interest - it's because i didn't have any interest in the first place.

if i could do it over again, i would have stayed in the part time job and told my father to fuck off.

it seems like my appointment is going to need to be rescheduled, although i cannot reach anybody at this number, and haven't been able to for years.

i was scheduling everything around the appointment. i guess i'll need to schedule it around my next estrogen pickup mid-month, instead.

and, on second thought, it seems like i'm napping...

so, this is what was happening, apparently.

and, that's a fairly recent thing.

there doesn't appear to be an active chromium-for-xp fork to use as a backup, meaning i need any alternative to chrome to both have tls 1.2 and be xp compatible, in addition to being html5 compliant. vivaldi 1.0 is the last xp version, and it's not tls 1.2 compliant. uc might be useful for xp, but i'm a little apprehensive about downloading a browser from china, still.

so, it seems like the best back up still remains chrome - spyware and all.

https://www.ghacks.net/2019/10/02/tls-1-0-and-1-1-deprecation-chrome-to-display-your-connection-is-not-fully-secure-warnings/

the javascript is indeed still somewhat of a problem, which is partly because youtube is a pig with javascript, and partly due to the age of the machine. you can't turn that off, either.

but, the choppiness issue seems to be mostly fixed...

it works, at least - and it was updated at the beginning of this month. so, this is certainly my best option, so long as it runs smoothly enough to be usable.

ok.

i'm behind on eating again, so i'm going to focus on that before i get in the shower and probably crash.

so, i would have liked to get a bit more done today, certainly. but, if this solution holds, then it's at least a major step in the right direction towards being able to do the rather normal thing of making my self something to eat and watching a youtube stream at the table while i'm eating it. if i don't have to think about that anymore, it should be a step towards greater productivity in finishing the liner notes up.

if not, i think what i've learned is that my only other real option is to hone in on the correct older version of chrome.

there's some more people talking the issue out over here:
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=68054

i'm very much like tricia - if i literally don't go anywhere except academic pages on youtube, there is an exceedingly low chance i'm going to run into a virus on this machine.

but, i keep my access speed very low for this reason, and the reality is that there's nothing on the machine - and i'm happy to run an automated format/reinstall if it gets dirty, through whatever accident.

my concern is malicious hacking from the outside in, not picking up random worms or viruses, and moving to windows 7 isn't going to protect me from that.

i need to point something else out, though - this isn't your average windows xp machine, it's exceedingly stripped down to nearly nothing. i've ripped out almost everything, and that means that it's probably actually safer than running a stock seven, which has all kinds of goodies for bad guys to use.

what's going to actually happen if i pick up a worm is that it's going to error out because it can't find the system files it needs to operate and replicate.

if this works, it's perfect.

chrome was working a little better for me, but it's full of spyware.

firefox is a little less invasive, but it was sputtering out on the hardware.

so, if this works as well as chrome, without the spyware...

what i want is a lightweight firefox fork that i can get to youtube with.

let's hope this works.

ok, so did this guy did the research for me.

i've never heard of mypal before, but if it's a fork of pale moon then it should be a little lighter weight than firefox.

is that my answer?

so, i'm going to try doing this in the other direction, instead. it's formatting and reinstalling. once i find the right version to boot back into, that will be frequent.

the last version with xp support is 49.

can we start there and move backwards, if it stutters or is otherwise overloaded?

they could start a blog, even?

"but, what would people do?"

they could go to school?

read a book?

make some art?

be free?

removing the ad revenue as an incentive would no doubt drastically clean up the internet of garbage.

...just as removing the profit motive, in general, would eliminate massive amounts of waste from society.

70% of the economy just shouldn't exist, anyways.

the world isn't going to end if the roman atwoods out there no longer exist, guys.

"why would people upload if they can't get ad revenue?"

if you're just uploading for ad revenue, i'm entirely certain that your content is garbage to begin with, and we'd all be better off if you didn't bother in the first place....

let's seize the means of reproduction, and turn the ads off once and for all.

"well, if you don't support the business model, how will the service continue?"

we should nationalize it.

it should be public property.

what does it cost to run some servers? i'm sure there's a few dollars in the military budget.

at 144p, fwiw.

i'm trying to watch a lecture on quantum physics.

and, guess what?

it's not even monetized.

"but, ads are our business model."

i don't fucking care about your worthless business model....

so, can we get google to realize what's important here?

the environment is important.

ads are not important.

i'd rather have an old, insecure laptop that i use strictly to access youtube than a pile of perfectly good electronics in the fucking landfill, because you're enforcing advanced encryption to watch an ad for a bunch of worthless garbage that i don't remotely care about.

this is dystopic...

"you're the one that's not concerned about security!"

well, you're right, i'm not...

what i'm concerned about is the environmental footprint around being forced to upgrade my computer to access your fucking ad servers.

29 is better, but it's not actually working....

let's try 30, then.

and, yes: i'm being forced to download from shady places, because google won't offer secure downloads. clearly, they're not actually concerned about security, if they're forcing people with old machines to go to shady sites, are they?

this chromebook is running 60-something and seems fine....for now....

but, my computer might be too slow to run the ads on youtube - something that youtube has decided is a reason to deny access to the site, altogether.

what i'm worried about with this version of firefox is that video seems to lag behind the audio, which is kind of a shitty deal when you're watching somebody scrawl out equations on the board.

i guess the final workaround would have to be to move to a different site, like vimeo or dailymotion, but there's no guarantee that the encryption requirements are less advanced.

it does also seem as though there are more lightweight browsers for linux that are being more readily maintained.

if i could get a bit more ram in that laptop, i could probably upgrade it to vista, but that doesn't actually help me.

i'm not sure if the windows 7 setup disc would let me install to that machine, or if there might be a workaround in a version for "developing markets".

fuck, i just don't want to put a working machine in the landfill. this is stupid...

some of youtube is even using tls 1.3, apparently, which was enabled in chrome 70.

the last version with xp support is 49.

but, if i'm getting blocked due to not having tls 1.3, then firefox 52 would have to have tls 1.3, too, and that's certainly untrue.

it does, however, have tls 1.2.

i think that should be the end fix, but let's find out.

the encryption is for the ad server.

lol...

how did we get here?

i'm really bad at letting things go.

surely, somebody is still supporting xp?

k-meleon? no. but, i tried the last available version from 2015 anyways, and it wouldn't load the codec. i don't know why, but i'm not the only person with the problem.

if there's a good html5-ready firefox fork that still supports xp, i can't find it.

i think the problem i was having with chrome was that the early versions didn't have tls 1.2. that clicks in with v 29. so, let's give that a run.

actually, this is literally his father's car, for some reason that i don't think anybody else in the world understands.

and, then, there's this:

i'll let you look up comments previously made about authoritarian regimes.

the song is from 1979. it isn't about him. but, it nails him.

are we going to tip over into a famine to minimize the inconvenience on the oldest?

we haven't even done the things required to protect them.

and, are we going to wait until it's too late before we realize what's happening?

i wonder if mr. trudeau has ever heard of jello biafra...

i mean, what is the basis of our prosperity, in the first place?

if we were a poor country, how would our oldest and weakest fare?

so, let's try to think a little bit more clearly than setting up a false dichotomy between public health and the economy. leftists are supposed to think in dialectics. we can, should and must do better than a dumb argument like that.

likewise, did mao starve his people on purpose?

again - there's some evidence that he, and the people around him, took advantage of what was happening, yes.

but, that's not the important lesson of history, here.

and, those are just two of many, many examples.

did stalin starve the ukrainians on purpose? he starved some of them. the fact that stalin was a caucasian aside, there is no ethnic difference between a russian, a pole and a ukrainian, and trying to argue for a russian genocide targeted at ukranians is hard to properly define.

the reality is that, as a geopolitical entity and nation-state, ukraine didn't really exist yet, at the time. it was just southern russia. the concept of the holodomar is consequently rooted in a historical anachronism.

it is true that there was a lot of opposition to stalin in the southern regions of russia, and he does appear to have taken advantage of the famine, which was indeed brought on by his policies. that is a different idea, though, than claiming that he planned it all out from the start, like hitler did the holocaust - this wasn't something that was mapped out years earlier, and ukrainians were not specifically targeted due to their...i don't want to even use the word ethnicity. they have the same religion, even. their dialect? what identifiable characteristic do you even base the claim of difference on?

it would be like white new englanders carrying out a genocide against white southerners. you couldn't even figure out who was who, if it wasn't for the different accents.

rather, i think that obfuscating the primary point of history here, which was that the forced collectivization fucked up the farming industry, is rather unhelpful in understanding what actually happened.

and, there remain lessons here about what happens when you shut down the economy too fast, in the wrong way - millions of people starve to death.

when authoritarian states ruin their economies under whatever argument or delusion or misguided policy, famines often set in rather quickly.

"when they came for the potatoes, you said nothing."

ok, ok - and, you know, this isn't trivial, because the kind of mismanagement we're dealing with in canada right now does have serious consequences.

our government is acting like an authoritarian state, right now. there's a history of famine resulting from states that act in this manner.

so, i want you to ask the question - do you not think your health is reliant on the economy? do you really think these are separable ideas?

listen, i remember staying up all night to download smashing pumpkins bootlegs on a 14 k modem.

i'm not one of these impatient kids that's been on broadband their whole lives.

i don't mind waiting a few seconds for it to load, so long as it does load.

the streaming option is preferable on an older machine like this, but youtube doesn't want you to do it (for obvious reasons.), so you have to play cat and mouse with them, and nothing's supported anymore.

i don't see any other conclusion to draw - the next time this happens, i'm going to have to move to linux.

for now, the esr version of firefox works, and i'm going to have to suffer through the scripting errors.

ok.

so, i'm going to eat and move on.