i'm very slowly moving through that introduction to quantum physics lecture series (which is really a course in applied linear algebra, as i learned it in first year), and it keeps reminding me of this old demo i did with sean - which was the one & only rabit is wolf track that i did not remaster, remix or otherwise play with. it's the one and only track i was actually happy with...

i've tended to resist commenting on sean's vocals, because i think i'm sort of out of line doing so. there really was a total division of labour; he may have asked for an extra bar or two to work out a lyrical idea here and there, but he really had absolutely no musical training whatsoever, and i really had no interest in interfering with his expression. but, i keep thinking about this...

the way this track worked was that sean came in with a vocal idea for a song he wanted to call "released with your sigh", and i built the song up after he left, sending him a demo over...i can't remember if it was icq or msn. but, he came back about a week later and did the vocals for it in one take, and that was really the extent of it.

after listening to it, though, i insisted on naming the track "psi" - as the howl at the end was essentially a wavefunction collapse. in fact, i initially stylized it with the greek letter itself, ψ, but that didn't survive in a pre-mathml browser reality; what i just did to get that psi was very simple, but would have actually been very frustrating back in 2002. so, i just started calling it psi and it stuck....

he asked a few times, and i just told him it was a greek letter. i'd known him since we were kids, and was aware that his scientific literacy was very low. i think he tended to think i was naming it after something jungian, perhaps from a tool influence. but, it was more of a bowie-esque play on words.

so, this tune keeps coming up in my head, when i'm eating.

i'm working through this slowly because......the concepts are not new to me, but i have never taken a formal course in quantum physics like this before, and some of these concepts are things i've barely looked at in 20 years. the math is...it's weird. it really is. i think the weirdness has more to do with the geometry being wrong, but i will have more to say in due course. for now, i'm making sure i'm going over it well enough to really properly grasp it.

i would expect that future lecture series will be a little faster.

this actually sounds like they're getting this right.

the reality is that you need to figure out jurisdiction before you can go signing contracts.

https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/chiefs-governments-to-sign-rights-understanding-after-b-c-pipeline-protests-1.24134823

do i think that these republican byelection wins are reflective of growing outrage over the lockdowns in the united states?

i think that democrats should think very carefully about whether they want to hand this to the republicans as an issue, or not.

and, i think that the only thing separating us right now is the weather.

we've adopted a trumpian border policy.

are you dumb enough to be manipulated like this?

when trump needed to distract from his failures, he blamed it on mexicans.

when trudeau needs to distract from his failures, he blames it on americans.

it's fundamentally exactly the same thing.

they're essentially trying to manufacture the illusion of a division in political culture that doesn't exist, but the irony is that their claimed division is a reflection - it's just rebranded trumpism.

what the government is doing here, in fanning the flames of xenophobia and anti-americanism, is actually extremely dangerous; when trudeau blames the issue on americans, that's exactly the same thing as when trump blames it on mexicans - he's distracting from his own failure, his own mismanagement, and his own anti-science policies.

it's just a mirror reflection - the same backwardsness, the same racism, the same ignorance.

"but, the science says..."

no. stop. the science says that closing borders does nothing. at all.

this is just another racist policy, from the same guy that brought you aladdin-in-blackface and absolutely disgusting ironic facial hair.

you can't open the border a little bit - it is either open or it is closed, and right now it is actually open. despite attempts by the media to suggest otherwise, there is absolutely no science underlying these closures at all. and, this idea that canada is a more conservative country than the united states is both ridiculous and absolutely wrong; an article like this may not be reflective of reality, but it really reflects very strongly on the government, and it's existing delusions about popular opinion.

if the border remains closed, it will be due to a political calculation by the government, and not due to any actual science. but, this is a miscalculation.

once the weather turns away from this record cold, which is happening in the next few days, people here will begin to ignore the government, as well.

i hope that, in the end, the government falls over this.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6937528/coronavirus-canada-us-reopening-plans/

i was just about to get started and had to nap again...

i can't handle these shifts in pressure. i know that. and, this one was intense, and bizarre. the dry air in here isn't helping, but i'm going to blame everything on the polar vortex as the root cause - which means i have to go through it lifting, now. hopefully, it's not as bad as it was coming in...

if i can get through the next 12 hours or so, hopefully things start to normalize themselves tomorrow.

let's try to get most of this done overnight.

if we repeat, we're going to skip the farce and go right to tragedy.

but, this article is based on a fundamental misunderstanding; we know now that what actually happened in 1918 was not a "second wave" but a mutated virus. in fact, there was a third wave, with a third mutation, as well.

it is true that there are valuable lessons to learn, but this article is unfortunately somewhat farcical in it's refusal to do so; no amount of prudence or careful planning will help us with a mutated virus, which will be like starting all over again. and, if the virus does not mutate, extending the lockdown will be pointless.

i'll remind you that i don't think the lockdown is working, anyways.

the technology we have today is incomparable to what they had then. we can collect samples in real time and track how the virus is spreading; if there is a lesson, it is in the technological determinism of being able to react to a mutation before it explodes, and that lies in the importance of testing, not in conservative planning.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/1918-pandemic-flu-coronavirus-1.5566524

Strong Leadership was the last guy.

are we going to get an economic action plan next, or what? and will you finally answer this question for me - is it a four year plan or a five year plan?

the consensus at the end of the day is that he was usually the dumbest guy in the room. we don't need more of that....

this government was elected because we wanted a party that would do better than that. following the science was a key part of the mandate, after too many years of on time trains and Strong Men.

what they did was moronic and almost certainly made things worse.

what does the science actually say, here? the answer is threefold:

1) you need to be very careful that you're not too authoritarian, because authoritarianism always backfires. that's the key, central point that the science has always said, and that we completely ignored, because of evan "dumbass" solomon.

2) screening people is a good idea, but only to the extent that you don't scare them too much.

3) the focus at the border should be on monitoring the spread of the disease, not on preventing it from spreading. so, what you really want is to treat the border as a checkpoint.

there's still a lot of evan solomons out there, and they don't understand or care about science. they just want the trains to run on time. but, we need to move on...

https://globalnews.ca/news/6935268/coronavirus-us-canada-border-screening/

while i did get a little bit done yesterday, i actually got sort of distracted by the location entry, and the need to go back and ensure everything was properly lined up. it was also a fairly short day, in the end - barely 15 hours. and, i got a fair amount of sleep this morning. i guess i was tired....

let's hope i can get through a good chunk of this this afternoon. i'm feeling good about it.

"but, isn't democracy that idea that the majority rules? then, aren't markets literally democracy?"

no.

there are very limited scenarios where democracy reduces to majority rule, but this is the exception, and people trying to reduce democracy to plurality are really perverting the concept.

a better way to understand the term democracy is as freedom of association and freedom of expression, and when you approach it from that direction, markets are often the literal negation of democracy, as they upend freedom of association.

anarchists tend to envision a future of small, decentralized groups defined by common interests. we consider peaceful coexistence to be a necessary corollary of decentralization, but we don't generally see much value in romanticizing some kind of concept of multiculturalism or tolerance - these are bourgeois, liberal concepts that are historically actually rather alien to the left.

so, for example, i would choose to completely disassociate myself from anybody practicing any kind of abrahamic religion, if i could - and that would be seen as an ideal, in an anarchist framework.

sometimes, we'll need to deal with issues of collective security, and we'll need to take straight-up votes and enforce a concept of collective will. anarchists would hope this would be very rare...

i don't want rules that make it easier to climb up the ladder to the area above.

rather, i want to topple the structure and burn the ladder.

how should smoking be regulated in residential areas?

well, ideally, it would reduce to democracy, and you'd essentially see self-segregation. people that don't want to live amongst smokers would come together and ban smoking in their buildings, thereby evicting people that don't want to quit. and, people that don't want to be told they can't smoke in their homes would come together, to live in buildings that non-smokers would not want to go in.

this would also work at the community or neighbourhood level, with certain areas banning residential smoking and certain areas allowing it.

that is the ideal; it is how things would work in a utopia. in reality, two things rear themselves to interfere with utopian democracy: market theory and class relations, which both act to make it harder for a lot of people to get into the environment they want to get into. unfortunately, a non-smoking environment is currently a privilege for the upper middle class and the elite, not something people have a democratic right to choose to create; the less educated and the poor seem to see restrictions on their "right to smoke" as draconian, and the majority rules in working class neighbourhoods.

ideally, what we'd do is get rid of class and let democracy work, but the society is built around property and that would require a deep revolution. so, unfortunately, a more practical solution is that we need some kind of government to come in and distort the market, in order to undo the class relation and let democracy approximate itself.

frustratingly, the legal system seems intent on undoing this, as it interprets smoking & non-smoking residential buildings to be discriminatory, based on the division by class. the legal system is essentially trained to see the world from the top down. so, it is concerned about abolishing rules that keep rich smokers out of the wealthy apartments, rather than abolishing rules that lock poor people into environments where they are exposed to second-hand smoke. the non-smoking poor ends up locked in place, collaterally, due to rules designed to prevent discrimination in class mobility. this entire paradigm needs to be revisited, and to an extent already has, but the system is strongly lagging behind the shift.

so, we should just be able to leave it up to democracy and let the people decide, but we can't because of the prevalence of class - instead, we need some kind of special government program to help the poor avoid the smoke, if they want to.

i hope that's clear.

(sorry for the multiple attempts, i'm pre-coffee this morning)