https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1
Monday, January 18, 2016
so, is it still not winter yet?
cold snap 1:
jan 3: +0.9/-4.3
jan 4: -3.6/-11.4
jan 5: -2.4/ -13.2
jan 6: +1.9/-6.8
and, that -11.4 was late on the 4th and the -13.2 was early on the 5th, so we actually only got a few hours of cold weather. that's an autumn cold snap. most generously, this is four days - not the five required to define a winter.
cold snap 2:
jan 10: +5.4/-7.3
jan 11: -7.3/-12.1
jan 12: -2.9/-9.2
jan 13: -8.5/-11.1
jan 14: 0.5/-8.2
so, this was a more extended period of cold. but, it did not produce a snow cover (there was a dusting of snow that disappeared in the rain storm we got right after). and, it's still not a solid 5 days of cold - although it is very close. this is still late autumn weather, not winter weather. remember: this is canada. we need stringent definitions of sustained cold, not just a cold snap.
cold snap 3:
jan 16: +3.3/-1.2
jan 17: -1.2/-11.9
jan 18: cold
jan 19: cold
jan 20: cold
jan 21: warming up
we'll have to see. it's shaping up to be very close. and, if you take the broader view from the 10th-25th, it could be seen as a two-week period of winter.
but, the long range after the 21st suggests a very early spring.
i may have to concede the point on the length of cold snap #3. but, it will be very close. and, i'm not there yet.
cold snap 1:
jan 3: +0.9/-4.3
jan 4: -3.6/-11.4
jan 5: -2.4/ -13.2
jan 6: +1.9/-6.8
and, that -11.4 was late on the 4th and the -13.2 was early on the 5th, so we actually only got a few hours of cold weather. that's an autumn cold snap. most generously, this is four days - not the five required to define a winter.
cold snap 2:
jan 10: +5.4/-7.3
jan 11: -7.3/-12.1
jan 12: -2.9/-9.2
jan 13: -8.5/-11.1
jan 14: 0.5/-8.2
so, this was a more extended period of cold. but, it did not produce a snow cover (there was a dusting of snow that disappeared in the rain storm we got right after). and, it's still not a solid 5 days of cold - although it is very close. this is still late autumn weather, not winter weather. remember: this is canada. we need stringent definitions of sustained cold, not just a cold snap.
cold snap 3:
jan 16: +3.3/-1.2
jan 17: -1.2/-11.9
jan 18: cold
jan 19: cold
jan 20: cold
jan 21: warming up
we'll have to see. it's shaping up to be very close. and, if you take the broader view from the 10th-25th, it could be seen as a two-week period of winter.
but, the long range after the 21st suggests a very early spring.
i may have to concede the point on the length of cold snap #3. but, it will be very close. and, i'm not there yet.
at
08:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's actually a relatively understood phenomenon. it's not really that the tiger is lonely, tigers do tend to live alone in the wild, and more that dropping a goat in plain sight isn't setting off it's instincts to hunt. further, tigers are advanced mammals and consequently relatively smart creatures - it no doubt was able to compute that the stream of food was constant. so, you put those things together and what you get is something more along the lines of the idea that the tiger is *bored*.
but, it only explains half of the issue. i have somewhat of a hunch that the tiger may soon try and mate with the goat. that might be what's actually going on.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/tiger-and-his-prey-form-an-unlikely-friendship/62466/
but, it only explains half of the issue. i have somewhat of a hunch that the tiger may soon try and mate with the goat. that might be what's actually going on.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/tiger-and-his-prey-form-an-unlikely-friendship/62466/
at
08:22
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Dec 26, 2011
bookmark these links. they have everything you need to prove the 'kerosene can't melt steel' folks wrong.
the key point of error on their behalf is that they're trying to use the melting point of steel, which is when steel turns into liquid, as a reference point. it is true that kerosene will not liquify steel. but, you don't have to liquify steel to make it incapable of holding up tonnes and tonnes worth of mass. clearly? all you have to do is soften it up. think that through, it's obvious.
that means that they shouldn't be focusing on the melting point but on something called the critical point, which is a well defined engineering term. the critical point of steel is not absolute. thinking like that misunderstands what the term means. the critical point refers to a building, not a material. so, you ask what the critical point of a steel beam in a building is, and that depends on the weight that the building needs to hold up. more weight, lower critical point. there's a nice graph in the pdf that shows that it's as low as 200 C for very heavy loads.
that means that they're wrong. kerosene can burn plenty hot to get past the critical point.
http://dubious-maxims.blogspot.com/2006/08/kerosene-wont-melt-steel.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_steel - Fire_resistance
www.lmc.ep.usp.br/people/valdir/wp-content/artigos/jbsmse.pdf
bookmark these links. they have everything you need to prove the 'kerosene can't melt steel' folks wrong.
the key point of error on their behalf is that they're trying to use the melting point of steel, which is when steel turns into liquid, as a reference point. it is true that kerosene will not liquify steel. but, you don't have to liquify steel to make it incapable of holding up tonnes and tonnes worth of mass. clearly? all you have to do is soften it up. think that through, it's obvious.
that means that they shouldn't be focusing on the melting point but on something called the critical point, which is a well defined engineering term. the critical point of steel is not absolute. thinking like that misunderstands what the term means. the critical point refers to a building, not a material. so, you ask what the critical point of a steel beam in a building is, and that depends on the weight that the building needs to hold up. more weight, lower critical point. there's a nice graph in the pdf that shows that it's as low as 200 C for very heavy loads.
that means that they're wrong. kerosene can burn plenty hot to get past the critical point.
http://dubious-maxims.blogspot.com/2006/08/kerosene-wont-melt-steel.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_steel - Fire_resistance
www.lmc.ep.usp.br/people/valdir/wp-content/artigos/jbsmse.pdf
at
04:42
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
dec 17, 2011
'and then he said there'd be a russian spring...'
'oh, no he didn't!'
'mmmhm. but, he's just jealous of my superior manliness.'
'and then he said there'd be a russian spring...'
'oh, no he didn't!'
'mmmhm. but, he's just jealous of my superior manliness.'
at
04:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
nov 28, 2011
didn't i say something about this yesterday? solipsism alert...
i've rambled about this before, but not here. the major flaw in modern economics - and, yes, i started with mankiw's horrendous text - is that it repeatedly assigns causal relations based on theory rather than experiment. to call that flunkie science would be being nice.
those nice little graphs where you take an intersection point back and forth are mostly complete nonsense from a scientific perspective because there aren't studies to back them up, just supposedly pristine logic.
a perfect example of the flawed causal relations is the idea that cutting taxes increases jobs. i'm not the first person that's pointed this out, but maybe it's less realized that the discipline routinely produces arguments that are equally causally terrible. and, it's as a causal relation that these things are presented, as though there's some physical force in the universe that is as powerful as any magnetic force that demands that one necessarily leads to the other.
in reality, it's a bad argument based on utopian caricatures of human nature. in fact, dozens of the causal relations presented are....
it's admittedly hard to do experiments in economics. but, data is slowly building. and, when it does, the unsettling conclusion is going to be that they don't even have correlation, let alone causality.
our system of economics is really in an incredibly primitive aristotlian stage of philosophy. we need a newton to reform the system into a science, and then an einstein to actually understand it.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/98/new-spirit-economics.html
didn't i say something about this yesterday? solipsism alert...
i've rambled about this before, but not here. the major flaw in modern economics - and, yes, i started with mankiw's horrendous text - is that it repeatedly assigns causal relations based on theory rather than experiment. to call that flunkie science would be being nice.
those nice little graphs where you take an intersection point back and forth are mostly complete nonsense from a scientific perspective because there aren't studies to back them up, just supposedly pristine logic.
a perfect example of the flawed causal relations is the idea that cutting taxes increases jobs. i'm not the first person that's pointed this out, but maybe it's less realized that the discipline routinely produces arguments that are equally causally terrible. and, it's as a causal relation that these things are presented, as though there's some physical force in the universe that is as powerful as any magnetic force that demands that one necessarily leads to the other.
in reality, it's a bad argument based on utopian caricatures of human nature. in fact, dozens of the causal relations presented are....
it's admittedly hard to do experiments in economics. but, data is slowly building. and, when it does, the unsettling conclusion is going to be that they don't even have correlation, let alone causality.
our system of economics is really in an incredibly primitive aristotlian stage of philosophy. we need a newton to reform the system into a science, and then an einstein to actually understand it.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/98/new-spirit-economics.html
at
03:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
sept 6, 2011
"but you didn't even sign kyoto!"
"sure we did."
"ok. but, you didn't implement it."
"well, we were studying it."
"and how long were you going to study it?"
"until we could come up with an economically feasible solution. you know, the economy is important. we are the british liberal party."
"ok, but if we don't have a clean world we can live in, growth won't mean much, will it?"
"we agree. but, we weren't willing to act in ways that would ravage the economy. we had to try and find a way that would balance both of these concerns."
"you took too long, so long that it seemed like you weren't doing anything."
"but, we were doing something. we had all kinds of commissions set up and they wrote all kinds of reports for parliament. that's how our system works."
"we need action now and can't wait for this."
"then you should join us. we have mountains of reports, now. we have plans...you have ideas, too. we can work together."
"you will ask us to compromise too much."
"the truth is that you don't have a choice. you can risk joining us and accomplishing nothing, or you can continue on with the certainty of accomplishing nothing."
"but you didn't even sign kyoto!"
"sure we did."
"ok. but, you didn't implement it."
"well, we were studying it."
"and how long were you going to study it?"
"until we could come up with an economically feasible solution. you know, the economy is important. we are the british liberal party."
"ok, but if we don't have a clean world we can live in, growth won't mean much, will it?"
"we agree. but, we weren't willing to act in ways that would ravage the economy. we had to try and find a way that would balance both of these concerns."
"you took too long, so long that it seemed like you weren't doing anything."
"but, we were doing something. we had all kinds of commissions set up and they wrote all kinds of reports for parliament. that's how our system works."
"we need action now and can't wait for this."
"then you should join us. we have mountains of reports, now. we have plans...you have ideas, too. we can work together."
"you will ask us to compromise too much."
"the truth is that you don't have a choice. you can risk joining us and accomplishing nothing, or you can continue on with the certainty of accomplishing nothing."
at
02:17
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
sept 4, 2011
yes, i was rooting for clinton in '08. exclusively. barry struck me as a conservative from day one.
of course, i'm from canada. bernie sanders would be a moderate up here.
i remember watching hillary on tv when i was a kid. i remember the work she did with trying to get some health reform through.
...and she struck me as genuine. real.
are we talking about the same hillary clinton?
we actually might not be.
regardless, those images stuck in my mind. i conceive of her as a fighter, somebody with a conscience, and that's rare in politics.
are we talking about the same hillary?
we actually might not be.
she didn't even hold an office at the time, besides that of first lady. yet, she was spending all of her time trying to get humanitarian legislation pushed through congress, feed starving kids and end wars. why? for her legacy? her husband's? it didn't seem that way, and i don't think it was. it seemed like she was just driven by a desire for positive change.
...and that's very rare in politics.
are we talking about the same hillary?
actually...
(edit: i just love that i pulled out bernie sanders, of all the people i could have picked. i could have picked kucinich, for example.
it's true, though.
in canada, obama would be widely seen as a conservative, hillary would be seen as a right-wing liberal and bernie sanders would be pretty much dead center. in fact, jill stein would be barely left of center.)
yes, i was rooting for clinton in '08. exclusively. barry struck me as a conservative from day one.
of course, i'm from canada. bernie sanders would be a moderate up here.
i remember watching hillary on tv when i was a kid. i remember the work she did with trying to get some health reform through.
...and she struck me as genuine. real.
are we talking about the same hillary clinton?
we actually might not be.
regardless, those images stuck in my mind. i conceive of her as a fighter, somebody with a conscience, and that's rare in politics.
are we talking about the same hillary?
we actually might not be.
she didn't even hold an office at the time, besides that of first lady. yet, she was spending all of her time trying to get humanitarian legislation pushed through congress, feed starving kids and end wars. why? for her legacy? her husband's? it didn't seem that way, and i don't think it was. it seemed like she was just driven by a desire for positive change.
...and that's very rare in politics.
are we talking about the same hillary?
actually...
(edit: i just love that i pulled out bernie sanders, of all the people i could have picked. i could have picked kucinich, for example.
it's true, though.
in canada, obama would be widely seen as a conservative, hillary would be seen as a right-wing liberal and bernie sanders would be pretty much dead center. in fact, jill stein would be barely left of center.)
at
01:22
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
aug 13, 2011
i'm breaking with keynes, but it's not because i think he was wrong, although i've never been in absolute agreement in the first place, nor am i adopting austrian or marxist economic theory. what i think is that the world has changed and that keynes' theory is no longer realistic. i don't have an answer, but let me provide a more realistic example of what happens to stimulus money:
joe, who has been unemployed for six months and is now deeply in debt, gets a job from the government digging ditches. he takes his first pay check and gives half to the bank. he spends the other half buying necessities at walmart.
when he pays his rent, it goes to an offshore property holding company. when he buys gas, it goes to a foreign-owned cartel. when he pays his utilities, it goes to a trans-national corporation.
the end result is that the amount of money in circulation is not being increased. the shop keeper or the local mechanic don't have more money to spend because they're now all salaried employees of large corporations. they don't get wage increases from stimulus that's for sure! so, in actuality, nobody has more money to spend and the theory collapses. stimulus today is really just a handout to banks and big business. it's almost like another kind of corporate subsidy.
that doesn't mean keynes was wrong, it just means that his theory is only applicable within a society that is dominated by independent businesses, which is not our society.
if we want keynes' theory to work, we'll have to go back to independent contractors and a society where money changes hand person to person, not person to organization.
if we want to maintain a corporatist system of government and large, centralized manufacturing conglomerates then we need to find a different approach to getting money circulating again.
what we have right now are these banks and massive corporate institutions acting like giant money vacuums, sucking up every cent, acting as incredible blocks on circulation.
whatever solution we come up with is going to have be rooted in stopping these institutions from taking all of the money out of circulation and it's probably going to have to be radical: inflation adjusted pay rates, personal debt forgiveness, incredible corporate tax hikes, mandated charitable contributions, societal salary caps....
harsh truth, world: keynesian policy worked pretty well under capitalism. it doesn't work anymore because we don't have capitalism anymore.
....so, bring back capitalism or build an economic theory based on corporatism, which is neither market fundamentalist (austrian) nor socialist. they won't work in this system, either...
applying a theory for a capitalist system to a corporatist state is always going to fail.
it's not and never has been a question of which theory is "best", "right" or "correct". this is economics, not religion. the question is which theory is most applicable to the reality around us, and that's going to change as the systems change. it's dynamic...
to my knowledge, there isn't really a valid fascist economic theory, but we're quickly coming up on the choice between writing one and revolutionizing society to a system where a theory does exist.
i'm not denying the multiplier effect in theory if applied to a closed economy that is dominated by independent actors, but i don't think a local multiplier effect can apply in a global market defined by free trade agreements that is dominated by massive transnational corporations and nearly static pay rates, especially not in a market that produces nearly nothing. i also think the barriers to circulation are not rooted in government policy but in the private sector and that the more important goal is to reform corporate practices through government; de-regulation has been a part of the cause of this problem, and furthering it is not a solution to it.
i'm not swinging right, i'm just concluding that the world we live in bears almost no resemblance to the one that keynes lived in.
in fact, i'd even go so far as to state it bluntly: one of the consequences of the adoption of global free trade agreements is the collapse of keynesian economic theory, and that didn't really start happening until the 80s. if we're going to have global free trade, we're going to have to leave keynes behind.
the idea that walmart, gap and guess are going to put 90% of what they get back into the economy is absurd. the workers don't see a dime from increased demand, and what the companies do invest, they invest in asia. the result is just a trickling-up and out....
i'm breaking with keynes, but it's not because i think he was wrong, although i've never been in absolute agreement in the first place, nor am i adopting austrian or marxist economic theory. what i think is that the world has changed and that keynes' theory is no longer realistic. i don't have an answer, but let me provide a more realistic example of what happens to stimulus money:
joe, who has been unemployed for six months and is now deeply in debt, gets a job from the government digging ditches. he takes his first pay check and gives half to the bank. he spends the other half buying necessities at walmart.
when he pays his rent, it goes to an offshore property holding company. when he buys gas, it goes to a foreign-owned cartel. when he pays his utilities, it goes to a trans-national corporation.
the end result is that the amount of money in circulation is not being increased. the shop keeper or the local mechanic don't have more money to spend because they're now all salaried employees of large corporations. they don't get wage increases from stimulus that's for sure! so, in actuality, nobody has more money to spend and the theory collapses. stimulus today is really just a handout to banks and big business. it's almost like another kind of corporate subsidy.
that doesn't mean keynes was wrong, it just means that his theory is only applicable within a society that is dominated by independent businesses, which is not our society.
if we want keynes' theory to work, we'll have to go back to independent contractors and a society where money changes hand person to person, not person to organization.
if we want to maintain a corporatist system of government and large, centralized manufacturing conglomerates then we need to find a different approach to getting money circulating again.
what we have right now are these banks and massive corporate institutions acting like giant money vacuums, sucking up every cent, acting as incredible blocks on circulation.
whatever solution we come up with is going to have be rooted in stopping these institutions from taking all of the money out of circulation and it's probably going to have to be radical: inflation adjusted pay rates, personal debt forgiveness, incredible corporate tax hikes, mandated charitable contributions, societal salary caps....
harsh truth, world: keynesian policy worked pretty well under capitalism. it doesn't work anymore because we don't have capitalism anymore.
....so, bring back capitalism or build an economic theory based on corporatism, which is neither market fundamentalist (austrian) nor socialist. they won't work in this system, either...
applying a theory for a capitalist system to a corporatist state is always going to fail.
it's not and never has been a question of which theory is "best", "right" or "correct". this is economics, not religion. the question is which theory is most applicable to the reality around us, and that's going to change as the systems change. it's dynamic...
to my knowledge, there isn't really a valid fascist economic theory, but we're quickly coming up on the choice between writing one and revolutionizing society to a system where a theory does exist.
i'm not denying the multiplier effect in theory if applied to a closed economy that is dominated by independent actors, but i don't think a local multiplier effect can apply in a global market defined by free trade agreements that is dominated by massive transnational corporations and nearly static pay rates, especially not in a market that produces nearly nothing. i also think the barriers to circulation are not rooted in government policy but in the private sector and that the more important goal is to reform corporate practices through government; de-regulation has been a part of the cause of this problem, and furthering it is not a solution to it.
i'm not swinging right, i'm just concluding that the world we live in bears almost no resemblance to the one that keynes lived in.
in fact, i'd even go so far as to state it bluntly: one of the consequences of the adoption of global free trade agreements is the collapse of keynesian economic theory, and that didn't really start happening until the 80s. if we're going to have global free trade, we're going to have to leave keynes behind.
the idea that walmart, gap and guess are going to put 90% of what they get back into the economy is absurd. the workers don't see a dime from increased demand, and what the companies do invest, they invest in asia. the result is just a trickling-up and out....
at
00:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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