Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 210
December 2, 2019
Rattling the Cage Doors
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Totalitarian regimes create people who find a way to get around them.
In the Soviet Union there was the famous Soviet joke, the only one of which I remember is: The agricultural inspector came to the collective farm, and asked how the potato harvest had gone. The secretary of the cooperative assured him, “We produced so many potatoes, they’ll reach the knees of G-d.” To which the bureaucrat snapped, “There is no G-d.” And the secretary said, “The same with potatoes.”
There is also the...
December 1, 2019
Challenge and Book Promo
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless...
November 30, 2019
The Best People
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Let me begin this by saying there are millions of people way smarter than myself. This is a necessary statement, as you will see because otherwise I’ll sound insane.
Though I’ll say there are only two people so much smarter than myself that I felt like a little kid trying to comprehend an adult. One of them was Ginny Heinlein. There is a third one I can almost keep up with if I run fast enough. And I’ve caught him in an error once, in economic forecasting, which has zero to do with this...
November 29, 2019
Incoming: The Chicxulub Impactor, Part 6 ― Now What? By Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
In the last 600 million years, at least 3 large asteroids have impacted Earth, sufficient to generate craters of order 100km (60mi) across or greater. These are Chicxulub (in Yucatan, Mexico), Popigai (in Siberia, Russia), and Manicouagan (in Quebec, Canada).
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Popigai Crater, Russia
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Manicouagan Crater, Quebec, Canada
All three have been considered for the causes of mass extinctions.
As...
November 28, 2019
Happy Thanksgiving
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If you’re reading this blog, and are alone or near alone for thanksgiving, come in, pull up a chair. You’re with family here. (Next year it might very well be just us.)
For those of you who worry about … well, about me, I actually have a lot to be thankful for this year. Not only am I at long last writing regularly again, but despite this sore throat thing, I am MILES better than I was even last year. Even two years ago walking out in the cold would give me an instant asthma attack, and last...
November 27, 2019
The Flaw at the Center
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I did tell you I’ve been thinking a lot of heretical thoughts, right? Downright heresy against the fundamental principles of the society that brought me up, and the unwritten rules of the one who adopted me.
I suspect the reason for this … taste for heresy — yes, yes, you’re going to need two bolters — is that I acculturated ONCE. I acculturated willingly, and have no intention of reversing it (I’m not sure it would be possible, honestly. What’s seen and learned can’t be unseen and...
November 26, 2019
The Self-Eating Snake
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There are many cliches denoting the self-perpetuating tropes. The self-licking ice cream cone. The man who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. And of course, Ourosboros, eternally consuming itself.
Normally these are used as a sort of instant image for something impossible. Most of us — right? I’m not that weird? — at some age between two and five tried to sit on our own hands and wondered if we pulled up hard enough would it hold us up? It didn’t.
Of all the myths of that kind, the one...
November 25, 2019
Storm Incoming.
I’m sorry guys, there’s a snow storm coming, we’re woefully low on litter and food, and I have to go take care of the immediate issues first.
Some news of interest:
WATCH: Hong Kong Police Pulls Revolver, Shoots Protestor in Chest
And REMEMBER that totalitarianism makes...
November 24, 2019
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike and Book Promo
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless...
November 23, 2019
Something’s Happening Here
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Lately I’ve been having heretical thoughts. Thoughts I’d have dismissed out of hand a couple of years ago.
For someone who grew up in the seventies and where I grew up, we’re living in very strange times.
People are rising up. All over the world. In Iran, they’re rebelling against the mullahcracy. In Hong Kong those poor kids lasted much longer than we expected, and the media could not keep them quiet. In France the Yellow Jackets go on despite media blackout. In Holland and Germany...
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