What is a vector?

May 1, 2009 — xanthippa

So, what exactly is a ‘vector‘?

Like so many other words, it seems to mean something different in different ‘disciplines’.  But, deep down, the meanings are connected through the root of the word, ‘vector‘.  In Latin, it means ‘carrier’ – so, in all its uses now, it implies a direction, an increase or decrease, or another dynamic component to the basic information it, well, carries.

Recently, I have read a most excellent – clear and understandable – explanation of what it is that a ‘vector’ is.  So, with CodeSlinger’s permission (and a few illustrations and links thrown in by me), without further delay…

VECTORS: a tutorial by CodeSlinger

The simplest model of a vector is a directed line segment.


On the plane, pick any three points, not lying on the same line.  Call one of them the origin.  Call the line from the origin to the second point a basis vector in the u-direction, and call the line from the origin to the third point a basis vector in the v-direction.

Then you can represent any point on the plane by a sum of appropriately scaled copies these two vectors.

No amount of scaling will turn either of these vectors into the other.  Thus we say they form a basis of the plane, which is what were anticipating when we called them basis vectors in the first place.

Of course, this basis is not unique.  Any two vectors which are not parallel form a basis of the plane in which they lie.

Most of us are used to selecting base vectors which form a right angle, such as the x-y axis

Most of us are used to selecting base vectors which are at a right angle to each other, such as the x-y axis.

However, it always takes two of them, so we say the plane is a  two-dimensional space.

Similarly, we can find triples of vectors which form bases of three-dimensional space, and N-tuples of vectors that form bases of N-dimensional space.

The component vectors are made up of multiples of basis vectors in that dimension

The component vectors are made up of multiples of basis vectors in that dimension: the number of basis vectors defines the number of dimensions of that space.

If a set of vectors forms a basis for a space, then we say that the basis spans the space.  The essential defining characteristic of a basis is that none of the N vectors can be obtained by any combination of scaled copies of the remaining N-1 vectors in the set.

Now, if we choose our basis vectors such that the angle between any pair of them is always 90 degrees, then our basis has the additional benefit that the directions are mutually independent.  No amount of movement parallel to any basis vector results in any movement parallel to any of the others.

When a basis has this property we call it an orthogonal basis.  Going back to our plan , for example, we now have the x and y directions familiar from graphing.

In three-dimensional space, we have x, y and z.  And the idea extends to N-dimensional space, even though there may not be standard names for the basis vectors.  So, now that we have a clear picture of the properties of basis vectors in geometric terms, let’s get a little more abstract.

We can treat any set of N mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive properties (also called degrees of freedom) as a set of N basis vectors in an N-dimensional representation space.

A representation space is just the set of all possible combinations of these properties.  For example, red, green and blue.  Any colour visible to the human eye can be represented as a sum of appropriately scaled red, green and blue components, but neither red, green nor blue can be obtained by any scaled mixture of the other two.

http://www.satimage.fr/software/images/graphics/rgb.pngThus we say that red, green and blue are the 3 basis vectors of a 3-dimensional colour space.

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in education, science, technology. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Swine flu: arm yourself with information

April 28, 2009 — xanthippa

The best way to combat things – in my never-humble-opinion – is to arm yourself with information.

So, without further ado, here is a YouTube video – just released – by Thunderf00t (I have found him to be an accurate and reliable source of information on scientific topics in the past):

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in education, science, society. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment »

The problem with vaccines….

April 27, 2009 — xanthippa

As the reports about the ‘swine flu’ are spreading like wildfire, people are wondering how to protect themselves.  This brings up more and more talk about ‘vaccines’:  how large are our supplies, how easily we can create more, and so on.

Frankly, we have a problem with vaccines…

No, I don’t mean the ‘accidents’ that can happen in the manufacture and distribution of vaccines.  These are real problems, because ‘human error’ is, well, something we, humans do.  But, we do learn from our mistakes (I hope!) – plus, depriving oneself of a useful defense against disease just because someone might have made a mistake somewhere along the way is a little extreme…  We ‘ought to’ worry about this in the sense that we demand good oversight and testing and all that – but there comes a point when we must trust our government institutions to do their job!

Nor am I talking about the laughable ease with which terrorists could use ‘live vaccines’ to inject multiple live viruses into willing persons, in the hope that the viruses simultaneously attacking the same cells will produce a ‘super-virus’ in at least one of them (this is called ‘reassortment‘), then using our mass transport system to spread them.  That is just a little paranoid… and worries like this are best left to our law-enforcement agencies!

The real problem we all have with ‘vaccination’ is much deeper and much more serious.

The real problem lies in the unrealistic expectations we place in vaccination!

The fault  for this lies – to a great degree – with the medical community.  (To a lesser degree, the fault lies with the mainstream media (MSM) for accepting the medical community’s word without digging deep enough to get the facts, and with each and every one of us who lets the medical and journalistic communities get away with doing such a poor job.)

Please, don’t get me wrong:  I am not ‘anti-vaccine’.

It’s just that I cannot stand it when people are given ‘partial information’ when they are expecting ‘the whole truth’ and when people are generally misled about ‘stuff’ – especially about ‘stuff’ which involves science!

And, when it comes to vaccines, we are often told by our MDs and other ‘health workers’ only part of the truth:  only the information which will manipulate us into doing what they think  is best for us, instead of letting us make the choice ourselves.  They may mean ‘best’ for us – but, by not telling us all we need to know, they are depriving us of the ability to make an informed choice for ourselves.

I am not joking – or making this up.  Physicians are taught (according to an MD in Ontario) in their medical ethics class that their responsibility is to the ‘greater community’, not individual patients.  Therefore, it is their ethical responsibility to only give their patients positive information on vaccination so that they will build a ‘greater herd immunity’ (his words, not mine) – even if this will harm a percentage of their patients.  This ‘will lead to overall benefit to society’, so ‘the end justifies the means’…

So, please, take a moment to consider for yourselves whether or not we have a problem ‘with vaccinations’:

  1. Every medical procedure has risks associated with it – even vaccination. We need accurate information on the risk to each one of us – as an individual, so we will have the ability to make informed choices for ourselves. Yet, we are told no more than vaccinations are ‘safe’.
  2. No vaccine is 100% effective. Some people will have no protection against a virus, even though they have been vaccinated against it.  Yet, before we are given a vaccine, we are not shown any figures which show what the efficacy of this vaccine is, and how likely someone within our ‘demographic’ is to benefit form it! (Most doctors who administer the vaccines do not have these figures – I have asked, many times!)  Yes, there are various methods of measuring the efficacy of a vaccine, but some of the vaccines we are currently offered are known to have less than 50% (some less than 20%) in ‘field application’ (meaning in ‘trials outside the lab’ – like when administered to ‘general population’). Yet, we are told that vaccinations WILL protect us against infectious diseases!
  3. Believing that they have 100% protection because they’ve been vaccinated, people are not likely to take other precautions. Of course, this will raise the danger of exposure to the very danger they think they are safe from. And THIS is the REAL problem…

Nothing we do in life is without a risk associated with it!

This does not mean we ought to ‘stop living’….  But it does mean that as responsible people, we must make choices about what we do, and how we do it.  Therefore, we MUST be given accurate information about just how effective the various actions we take to protect ourselves from infectious diseases truly are!

Vaccinations are likely a key weapon which we can (and should) use to combat the spread of infectious diseases.  But to use any weapon effectively, we need to know its strengths as well as its weaknesses.

When it comes to vaccinations, we know we are not being told the whole truth. That is dangerous!

And THAT is the problem with vaccinations…

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in debate, education, human nature, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?

March 31, 2009 — xanthippa

One of the best things about life is that as long as we are breathing, we can continue to learn!

One of the best things about blogging is that the comments I receive are often insightful, well thought out and I can learn from them.  Usually, these just point out the ‘holes’ in my education/knowledge base:  something I appreciate because it points me in the direction of things I need to learn.

Yet, every now and then, there are comments which are an education in themselves!  Below is an excerpt (!) from one such comment:  I thought it so important and informative that I wanted to share it with everyone.  And, having received permission from the author, here is the answer to my question ‘What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?’:

CodeSlinger says:

Cultural Marxism is not Marxism-Leninism (which we usually just call Communism).

Marxism-Leninism is a system of political economics, which results from applying the so-called Marxist dialectic, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in a process called critical analysis, which uses it to deconstruct Western democracy and capitalism, and to rewrite history in terms of economic class struggle (and we all saw how that turned out).

In the 1920’s, Antonio Gramsci and György Lukács adapted the methods of the Marxist dialectic and critical analysis to the cultural sphere and applied it to the task of undermining Western science, philosophy, religion, art, education, and so on. The result is called the quiet revolution, the revolution from within, the revolution that cannot be resisted by force. This is cultural Marxism.

Now, that was quite bad enough, but then along came a group of sociologists and psychologists — chief among whom being Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Jürgen Habermas — and they combined the Marxist dialectic with Freudian psychology to produce an exceptionally corrosive concoction called Critical Theory, which they use to deconstruct Western culture and values, and to rewrite history in terms of sexual and racial power struggles (and we can all see how that is turning out).

Collectively, these guys are called the Frankfurt School, because they originally got together under Horkheimer at the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung), which was domiciled in a little brick building belonging to the University of Frankfurt am Main in the early 1930’s. They all published their work in the Journal for Social Research (Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung), edited by none other than Horkheimer himself.

Then Hitler consolidated his control of Nazi Germany, so, seeing as they were all Jewish, they fled to the USA, more or less as a group, in 1934. In America, they affiliated themselves with Columbia and Princeton Universities. The Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung was renamed Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, and they really got down to business.

Horkheimer’s key idea was that Critical Theory could be used actively, to change society, in contrast to the traditionally passive role of sociology, which had been merely to understand society. These guys were not your typical academics, whose main interest is the pursuit of knowledge. On the contrary, these guys pursued an agenda: they wanted to find out why the Marxist revolution had failed in the West, and they wanted to remedy that situation. To that end, the group’s research addressed what to attack, how to structure the attack, how to deliver the attack, and how to measure the results of the attack.

Thus, for example, Adorno joined up with Paul Lazarsfeld, founder of the Bureau for Applied Social Research at Columbia, and began studying the effect of mass media on the population, and how to measure it. Starting in 1937, they collaborated on the Radio Project (bankrolled by the Rockefeller Foundation) which, among other things, produced the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast so they could measure its effects, and the Little Annie Project, which pioneered methods that quickly evolved into the Nielsen Ratings and the Gallup Polls.

Another example is the concept of intersubjective rationality, developed by Habermas, which replaces the individual process of reaching a conclusion based on the objective criterion that it follows from valid reasoning and known facts, on the one hand, with the social process of establishing a consensus supported by the subjective criterion that the group feels good about it, on the other hand. In today’s schools, those who do the former are maligned for being judgmental and demanding, while those who do the latter are praised for being good team players.

But, rather than go into pages and pages of detail right here and now, I’ll just list the titles of some of the major works of the Frankfurt School. Given the context, this combination of titles will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck:

Authority and the Family, Horkheimer, 1936
Escape from Freedom&amp, Fromm, 1941
Sex and Character, Fromm, 1943
The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno et al., 1950
Eros and Civilization, Marcuse, 1955
Repressive Tolerance, Marcuse, 1965
Communication and the Evolution of Society, Habermas, 1976

These are just a few of the core works; some are papers, some are books. The total volume of work by these guys, and their followers, is huge. The combined result, as I outlined in my very first post on this blog*, is something like the following:

It includes not only censorship of various kinds, but also the erosion of privacy, the debasement of the schools and the neutralization of the church. It includes the destruction of the family by setting wives against husbands and children against parents. It includes the disarmament of the public, the invalidation of self-defence and the incitement of fear. It includes the promulgation of the culture of victimhood, the promotion of immaturity and the reduction of society to a mob of narcissistic adult children. It includes the dogmatization of the universities. It includes the concentration of wealth, the concentration of ownership of corporations and the concentration of control of the media.

In sum, your description of all this as a descent into a new dark age** is exactly correct. And since you put it in those terms, I highly recommend an article by Michael J. Minnicino, called The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and Political Correctness. It speaks your language, and it will make the big picture very much clearer! Another good place to start is The Origins of Political Correctness, which is a transcript of a talk given by Bill Lind at the Accuracy in Academia Conference in 2000.

Update: The reference list above has been updated to also include the following: Escape from Freedom, Fromm, 1941

Xanthippa’s  footnotes:

*  ‘first post on this blog’= ‘first comment’… on my post  ‘Limiting our freedoms – making sense of the ‘big picture’‘

** reference to my post:  ‘Fight the ‘Forces of Darkness’!‘

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in education, freedoms, language, opression, philosophy, politics, religion, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 13 Comments »

I see a black (car) door and I want it painted red?!?!?

March 28, 2009 — xanthippa

California is seriously considering banning ‘black and dark-coloured cars’, on the grounds that since they heat up faster, their carbon footprint is unnecessarily high.

If that were not enough, apparently, they have already done so with their buildings!

All right: I am seriously considering banning California, on the grounds that since they are passing laws like these, their ‘idiot footprint’ is unnecessarily high!

Hat tip:  Dvorak Uncensored

Posted in opression, politics, science, society. Tags: , , , . 5 Comments »

Fight the ‘Forces of Darkness’!

March 27, 2009 — xanthippa

Do you remember reading about ‘The Dark Ages’?

They were called ‘Dark’ for several reasons.

Most of us are familiar with the first one:  because the state of learning had disintegrated so much that most of the people in Europe were plunged back to illiteracy, we have very few written historical records from this time period.  Thus, this era is sunk in ‘darkness’ – as in, ‘absence of knowledge’.

But, there is another reason:  because civilization had declined, most of the people had to eek out a meager existence off the land.  Therefore, they tended to live in small rural settlements, get up with sunrise and go to bed with sunset.  Gone were the parties which lit up the night with joy and revelry! No  longer were people wealthy enough to light up the night – nor would they have much reason to…

Much of Europe had been plunged into a physical, as well as philosophical darkness!

If you are not aware, there is a widespread campaign to plunge the Earth into darkness!

This coming Saturday evening (March 28th, 2009), the new forces of darkness have been guilting people into participating in a creepy, cultish ritual pretentiously called ‘Earth Hour’.

Are you familiar with the methods cults use to ‘break in’ new recruits?  How their brainwashing techniques work?

Here are some of the highlights:

  1. Find a victim: the more intelligent and caring, the better.  Ones who think they are immune to brainwashing make the best targets.
  2. Find or create a vulnerability.  Guilt is an excellent one.
  3. Offer them a solution for salvation (physical or spiritual or both).
  4. Feed them THE answer:  a simple solution, repeated over and over and over.
  5. Do not allow any questioning of the ‘solution’ (dogma).  Those who question it will be shut up or attacked/punished.
  6. Introduce rituals which reinforce the dogma and build bonds of the victim to the cult at large.
  7. Reinforce that adherence to the dogma and the rituals will bring salvation.

Now, please, apply this to the AGW alarmists:

  1. Most of us don’t think we – especially the society as a whole – could possibly be vulnerable
  2. We have THE highest standard of living, ever.  Christianity has filled us with guilt for the very act of living.  It is very, very easy to take these seeds of guilt and manipulate them:  the AGW forces of darkness are not the first, nor the last to exploit this wound on our collective soul.
  3. Salvation:  cut down Carbon Dioxide!  YES!  That is the only way to wash away our guilt for having a nice life!
  4. Humans caused Global Warming through our evil over-consumption!  We must make sacrifices, it will be painful, but we must atone for our sins of living well by destroying the little bits of our economy we still have left and pay, pay, pay!
  5. From David Suzuki (Canada’s AGW grand priest) calling for anyone who questions the AGW dogma to be jailed to hundreds of actual scientists now beginning to speak up (many from the relative freedom of retirement) and describing how their careers and even jobs would have been threatened had they dared speak the truth which was opposed to the dogma… this one is clearly fulfilled!
  6. Start recycling programmes.  Get people to turn out lights.  Simple games, repeatable rituals.  Easy as 3.14….
  7. Introduce ‘Earth Hour’ – and get schools to force kids to push it on their parents.  Those who dissent – well, we all know the story of little Pavlik Morozov…  (OK, so it is not so extreme here now, but… the pressure my 10-year-old has experienced in school to explain to his family why we should all conform to this is truly incredible:  from essays on how good it is, to reports on what their family is doing to ‘pull its weight’ are not just present in his class (actually, his teacher is really great), they are part of a large campaign which is greater than just one school, or one school-board:  with colourful pamphlets which feature ‘friendly characters’ and quote ‘undisputed science’…. it’s enough to make one want to home-school!

If you think I am exaggerating, if you prefer to believe the words of Al Gore, then, here are some of his own words from way back in 1993 (sic):

“Science will not intrude on public policy!”

Yes, the Guru himself knew, as far back as 1993, that science did not support his AGW policy.  But, such minor details were not allowed to interfere with his bid for money and power!  Of course, Gore profits from ‘carbon credit’ trading, having started one of the first such companies….  And, as I write this, more and more evidence is coming out that Obama is also in on the racket.

But, I got sidetracked… please, forgive me.

The beauty of this particular cult is that it reduces the populace’s access to the very things which enable it.  I should explain…

With the advent of the internet – and the ease of access to it – people have found new ways to educate themselves, AND new ways of holding their elected officials accountable.  This threatens a lot of people!!!

People can now communicate, and educate themselves, in an active way – instead of being passive receptacles into which ‘information’ in the form of ‘culture’ is deposited.  Controlling these channels of ‘culture-production’ controlled the evolution of the social culture.  The loss of this control which accompanied the rise of the internet is being addressed now, with the global war against the open internet.

On the governance front – things are no better.  Originally the privelage of very few, now, even ‘regular citizens’ could access the governance structures, the mandarins administeing them and the elected officials who are supposed to control them.  All it takes now is an email (with the ‘electronic fingerprint’ this leaves behind)!

This ‘electronic accountability’ has fundamentally altered our governance structures.  (I’ve spent about a decade evaluating this phenomenon, so I could go on and on about it for days… and, being an Aspie, I don’t know how much I ought to delve into it without boring my audience to death…so, I will simply pass on.  Yet, if you have questions, please, let me know and I will answer them in the comments!  Just, please, specify the level of detail you’d like on this….or it WILL go on and on and on!!!)

One of the most insightful writers ever was Frank Herbert, who wrote the ‘Dune’ series (if you are going to watch it, instead or read it, then watch the 3-part series – not the movie). The man was brilliant.  He was not only a highly skilled writer, he was also extremely insightful in how archetypes affect us – and how they can be used…  How religions arise, evolve, are used – the man was brilliant!

In his book (a bit into the series), ‘God Emperor of Dune’ (whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry missed the point of the book – nay, the series), the previously technologically advanced society of his dystopia (or, is it eutopia – he makes them hard to distinguish) has been reduced to ‘walking’.  High technology is still available, just that much of it has been outlawed and is permitted to be possessed only by ‘the state’ (meaning the Emperor and his minions).

The most wise Emperor, Leto II, says (and, I am paraphrasing, as if I tried to look up the quote, I would end up reading the book again and again, and would not post for weeks…):

“A population that walks is easier to control!”

And, make no mistake:  the symbolic, ritualistic plunging of the Earth into darkness for just one hour, every last Saturday evening in March, is very much and affirmation of the policy of the forces of darkness who fully understand the implications of Emperor Leto’s statement.  It is the first step in plunging the Earth into a much more permanent darkness:  physical as well as philosophical and scientific one, the better to control us all!

Don’t let them.

PLEASE!!!

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, religion, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

‘It’s the message that is being censored’

March 20, 2009 — xanthippa

FACT – Freedom Against Censorhip Thailand:  Thought Crime in Bankok and Rangoon-Rule of Lords

I have never heard the principle expressed so clearly and concisely!  (my emphasis)

‘Win Maw, Zaw Min, Aung Zaw Oo and Chiranuch in reality all stand accused of the same crime: a commitment to free speech. Their offences have nothing to do with the technology after which the draconic instruments they purportedly transgressed have been named. The medium offended no one. The stuff that passed through it apparently did. These are not cybercrime laws at all. They are thought-crime laws.‘

This is an important distinction:  the technology did not offend anyone (well, the very existence of it is threatening to some who would like to control all our thoughts, as well as our actions) – the ideas which were passed through this technology did!

All this ‘internet regulation’ is nothing less than thought-crime legislation.  It’s time we started calling it by its real name.

And remember: if a law CAN be abused in any way, shape or form – it WILL BE!!!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, science, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Divide and Censor

March 14, 2009 — xanthippa

The internet has succeeded in breaking down borders:  political (to some extent) and geographical – with great success.  Paradoxically, it is precisely this success that has created new types of borders.

These ‘virtual borders’ are now between various ‘virtual communities’ which have sprung up around specific fields of interest.

These communities may not be physical, in the old-fashioned sense of communities which get together in one room, yet they are very real communities: rich and vibrant within themselves.  However, there is very little interaction between most of the ‘online communities’.  And, the interaction between these various groups is pretty non-existent.  After all, when there is no reason to interact – why would they?

Yet, this is also our ‘Achille’s heel’ which allows us to be manipulated…

The very fact that there are so many people on the internet, that there are so many different ‘groups’ and ‘communities’ means that we cannot really ‘absorb’ them all into ‘our world’.  Our brains are used to only interacting with a certain number of people (groups) – anything outside of that, we can only conceive of in terms of ‘labels’ and ‘stereotypes’.

(I have gone on and on about this phenomenon in my series of posts on ‘scaling up communities’:  the whole ‘monkeysphere’/’Dunbar’s number thing… the reason why one death is a ‘tragedy’ while a million deaths is a ‘statistic’.)

This is not a bad thing in itself – it is simply the natural way our brain operates.

However, it means that the ‘online community’ is not really one ‘online community’:  rather, it is a mosaic of many, many communities, divided by the strongest border there is:  the border of ‘non interest’

How easy it then becomes for those who wold like to ‘divide and censor’ to manipulate these stereotypes, in order to strip us of our rights, one ‘virtual community’ at a time!!!

Please, consider the following:  for ‘non-techie’ types, what does the phrase ‘peer to peer network’ bring to mind?  Or the name ‘Bit-Torrents’?  Or ‘Pirate Bay’?

Unless I am terribly mistaken, this will make most non-techies think of ‘stealing movies‘:  people who abuse the internet to steal ‘content’ and make it difficult for everyone else.

Yet, my husband and his brother use this method to transmit our family photos to each other:  this way, if our server ever ‘blows up’, we have backups at his house, and vice versa.

My son likes to download ‘public domain’ (i.e. no payment required) games and programming tools, using Bit Torrnets.  No laws are being broken – to the contrary:  many of these people are working hard to improve the internet experience for all of us – free of charge to everybody!

And, there are actually legitimate businesses which use the ‘Bit Torrent’ technology for legitimate, legal, copyright-upholding transactions.

If the terms ‘peer to peer’ and ‘Bit Torrents’ DID make you have a dismissive – or even more negative – reaction, then YOU have been a victim of some wonderful ‘spin’ designed to ‘divide and censor’!!!

And, that does not even take into consideration what happened with ‘Pirate Bay’:  this company was operating WITHIN THE LAW!  Yet, the US movie industry did not like what they were doing:  so, they ‘influenced’ the US lawmakers, who ‘influenced’ the Swedish government, who – despite the advice of its own lawyers that the company is not breaking any laws – Swedish or international – the Swedish government ORDERED A POLICE RAID on the company’s business and siezed its assetts!!!

How is that even possible?

Yet, most ‘online communities’ think this is ‘just kids stealing movies’ – why loose sleep over it?

WHY?

Because it sets precedents, that’s why!!!

In my never-humble-opinion, I have found that most ‘online communities’ outside the ‘dedicated techies’ just could not care about the issues of ‘Bit Torrents’ and ‘channel choking’!

On the other hand…

I have as yet to meet ‘dedicated techies’ – on or off-line – who pay much attention to the ‘Free Speechers’!!!  Yeah, a bunch of people, going on about court cases and nazis – so what?  Instead, they try to figure out how to technically circumvent the latest form of censorship of their channels…

Then there are the people who are fighting the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ – they do, to some extent, overlap with the ‘Free Speechers’.  But, not totally.  They show little interest in the curbing of free speech, if it does not involve Islamists – come on, be honest!  And the Free Speechers do support the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ to a great extent – especially when it comes to the suppression of free speech on the topic of Islamist atrocities….

I suggest that the overlap between these two groups is so great because they are currently both threatened from similar sources.  And, I suggest that the ‘techies’ do not overlap with these two groups because the danger to them is coming from a ‘completely different direction’!

But, is it???

I suggest to you that it is NOT.

I know, I am not doing a good job of expressing here what I am trying to say.  I have re-written this at least 5 times, and it is getting worse, not better….  I feel like my ‘focus’ is slipping away as I try to make my explanations understandable – while when I gloss over the explanations and focus on my main point, the whole thing sounds hollow, because the explanations are too shallow to make much sense…

So, please, let me try to speak more plainly….  I’ll go to point form – then, whatever needs to be covered deeper, please, comment on and I will do my best to expand on it.

1.  We can only enjoy our level of online freedom (which translates into practical freedom in ‘off-line’ life) if the internet remains ‘free’ (NOT monetarily – just as in ‘not censored’)

2.  Freedom of Speech is constantly being attacked in our society… several completely different guises and excuses

3.  The ‘ human rights’ component:  the ‘Free Speechers/Anti-Islamists’ are aware of this one
– The UN submission to ‘Blasphemy laws’ (and their desire to force all of its member nations to comply with these)
– The ‘Human Rights Commissions’ and their thought police, political correctness busybodies…
– The EU’s manipulation… even legalizing pedophelia under the guise of ‘tolerance’ -Lisbon treaty… mandatory…
– Can you say ‘Geert Wilders’?

4.  The ‘commercial/IP rights’ component:
– Powerful lobbies from entertainment AND soft&hardware makers are succeeding in reducing ‘consumer rights’
– ‘Fair use’ is more and more limited – companies have the right for more and more intrusive ‘monitoring’
– ‘Consumer privacy’ is being legislated away

5.  The ‘community protection’ component
– Under the guise of ‘community protection’, more and more privacy is being legislated away
– More and more intrusive methods of monitoring are being implemented: ostensibly to protect kids from pedophelia (!!!)
– ‘Accussation’ of something triggers penalties as if one were found ‘guilty’, to stop them ‘doing harm’ IF they were guilty…
– And, this falls loosely into this ‘community protection’ – but we are talking about the ‘environmental fascism’ movement,  which is also pushing for more intrusive ‘monitoring and compliance’ for ‘stuff’ in order to ‘protect’ – yet which is also practicing censorship in a very real way…  Personally, I think these are eco-statists, who are undermining the health of our environment by attempting to ‘freeze it’ in its current state – but that is a different rant.  Yet, they ARE a very real part of this ‘censorship’ puzzle…

To sum it up:  this is a bit of a ‘picer move’ happening.  No, I don’t think there is a wide-ranging conspiracy thingy happening! Yet, the effects of each of these separate forces are in the same directions, and are supportive of each other. Sort of like wawes, that build upon each other, rising in amplitude as one is superimposed over the other….until it sweeps all notions of ‘Freedom of Speech’ out to sea!!!

Because there IS a connection:  the GOVERNMENT is the connection.  It is our government which controls the laws on how ‘human rights’ are – or are not – observed.  And, it is the government who passes the ‘consumer’ laws.  AND, it is the government which REGULATES the industries:  and, any industry ‘actor’ which would not ‘comply’ with government regulation will loose its license to do business…while compliance with the government policies in a highly regulated marketplace usually equals (or comes close to) a monopoly for the company doing the complying…

All the ‘threads’ lead back to the same place… givning our governments grweater and greater control over every aspect of our lives.  And, while I think most democracies are not ‘intentionally evil’, I AM very suspicious of the bureaucracies which run the governments…  I have seen too many high-level bureaucrats who are much too skilled at handling the elected governments…

So, what we need to do is to get all these diverse groups which would be affected by the end of the internet as we know it (and as I have written about in my last post), and begin comparing notes.  Because, people may not always be ‘smart’, but we are always ‘clever:  those who would oppress – whether for ideological or commercial reasons – there are laws which give someone (government, business – whatever) an ability to oppress, people will ALWAYS find the maximum possible way to do the oppressing.

That is just human nature…

So, we need to seriously begin comparing notes! Not to dismiss each other, because of the ‘labels’ applied to the different online communities by those who would like to eliminate us!  Because, if we stay divided, each of us will only see a bit of the picture – and none of us will build a sufficient defense…if that were even possible!

I suppose one could call it a case of ‘DIVIDE AND CENSOR’!

And, perhaps, we need to begin to build an alternative to the internet:  something where there will not be centralized ‘providers’ who can be contrlolled by governments (and thus become tools of censorship) – yet, which would connect us all, the way the internet does now.  A sort of an ‘ungerground internet’, if you please… a SUBNET!  I don’t know HOW, but knowing we must beging to think about it is a start!

Sorry to have rambled on so long….and for sounding so ‘preachy’.  Perhaps it’s my Cassandra complex that’s kicking in.  It’s just that – I can see it happening!

And I don’t know how to fix it… and it really, really frightens me!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, religion, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

‘Ham radio’ internet

March 12, 2009 — xanthippa

OK, this is getting very, very scary.

A while ago, I wrote about a proposed idea to alter the way Canadians access the internet:  instead of ‘connecting’ to the ‘Great Wide Web’ and navigating it freely, this ‘model’ would more closely resemble the way Cable companies allow customers to access various TV channels.  The internet denier provider would ‘bundle’ the most ‘desirable’ websites, just like TV channels are ‘bundled’ by Cable providers.  Accessing anything outside of these bundles would be either very, very expensive – or not available at all.

Couple this with the calls by Barbara Hall of the Ontario ‘Commission for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice’ Human Rights Commission to shackle ALL journalists and bloggers with a ‘Canadian Broadcast Standards Council’– like body which would censor ALL the written (virtual or printed) words in Canada!  Not a pretty picture!!!

Yet, my beloved Canada is  not the only place under siege!

Now, the UK is proposing EXACTLY the same scheme!!!

This would mean that unless a website or blog was ‘influential enough’ to muscle its way onto the ‘approved’ list for a particular ‘bundle’ of websites ‘offered’ by an ISP, it would be 100% invisible and unaccessible to the UK internet subscribers!

Yes, this is even more limiting than the Canadian proposal, which sought to make ‘non-approved’ sites economically unavailable.  This model would make them ‘virtually non-existent’!!!

And, let’s not forget UK’s recently adopted policy of allowing the police to routinely hack into private people’s internet accounts without a warrant….

And, that is barely the tip of the proverbial ice berg!!!

Let’s look at the laws proposed for New Zeland:  at the end of March (miracle notwithstanding), ALL internet service providers will be legally forced to cease to provide any and all internet access to any IP address which has been ACCUSED of a copyright violation!

No, you did not misread this.  The mere ACCUSSATION by the movie/music industry that a person MIGHT be in violation of a copyright held by them (third party accussations would be ‘acceptable’) will LEGALLY BIND the ISP to STOP providing any and all internet access to that IP address!

All this is made ‘possible’ by Section 92A of the Copyright Act of New Zealand.  It was supposed to come into force at the end of February, but, due to the online petition opposing it, the NZ parliamentarians delayed the implementation for one month.

And what of Australia?

THEY have passed laws giving up any and all internet privacy rights – and the access to the internet – years ago.  These laws were passed in the name of ‘protecting children’ from the evils of the internet:  pornography and pedophelia.  Right…  As a parent, I take active part in the raising of my kids:  and I do NOT need ANYBODY ELSE to monitor my kids’ online activities!  And, I really, really resent the implication that I am (or, rather, the Australian parents are) so irresponsible or incompetent that the state has to step in and raise my kids for me!!!  This is insulting in the extreme!

Of course, most of the people in Australia had been lulled into a false sense of security because these laws had not actually been applied – to the full letter of the law – for quite a while.  So, if people NOW started to protest these laws – even though these had been in place for years – they would look silly….  Yet, it is only now that the Australian government has announced that they plan to enforce these laws to the EXTREME LETTER of the law!

This is a beautiful trick.  Governments draft a law – like the Australian government did with this law – to ostensibly ‘protect our children’.  Nobody (especially politicians) wants to look like they want to ‘enable pedophiles’ – so these types of laws often get passed quickly, with little dissent and little  close examination.

Yet, as I am fond of pointing out, if there is an ‘extreme’ way to interpret a law – especially if this extreme gives some decisionmakers the power over the populace – it WILL (eventually) be applied to such an extreme!!!

Of course, now we also have the UN attempting to FORCE its member states to make its ‘Blasphemy Resolution’ legally binding within their jurisdiction.

PLEASE – PUT ALL THIS TOGETHER!!!

Soon, we may loose the internet – in the form where we know it now!

Which is why I am putting out a challenge to each and every one of you:  let’s find a non-IP-dependant alternative!!!

Just like ‘ham radios’ operate without a central service provider, but rather form a wireless peer-to-peer network, so WE need to find a similar way to build an alternate internet network.

OK, so the’ham radio’ bandwidth is very, very narrow, and thus subject to jamming and environmental disruptions and all kinds of other problems.  Yet, it provides a useful model for us to emulate.

We need some of you, brilliant young scientists and hackers, to think long and hard – and find a working solution.

Yes, there was the idea of consumers actually owning their own internet connection….yet, under the current political climate, I doubt this will ever come to be – even if the technology is perfected and affordable.

So, please, get started on developing this new idea – no-provider, no-censor, no-control new-fangled version of the internet!  Because what we have now is about to die…and, without a ‘new generation’, this whole past 30-year period will be consigned to be no more than a note in dusty, locked-up and guarded (lest people read them) history books!!!

add to del.icio.usDigg itStumble It!Add to Blinkslistadd to furladd to ma.gnoliaadd to simpyseed the vineTailRank

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 10 Comments »

Bad ‘medical science’…

February 12, 2009 — xanthippa

I hate bad science.

I REALLY hate bad science.

‘Modern medicine’ is riddled with bad science.  As a matter of fact, I think that the term ‘medical science’ is a oxymoron.

Yes, I think the whole ‘medical industry’ is riddled with deep problems.  And, I promise to rant on this later…at great length!  (It is one of my ‘buttons’ – once you ‘push’ it, it is difficult to get me to shut up again…)

Yet, here, I would like to concentrate not on the ‘systemic faults’, but on ‘downright fraud’ in medical science!

Autism is a problem.

Yes, I know that many high-functioning Auties – as well as Aspies – do not consider themselves to be ‘disabled’, or their so-called ‘condition’ to be ‘a problem’.  To the contrary – many think it is an integral part of what makes us ‘us’, and would not wish it changed.  Even regarding it as a problem is offensive to some of us….and some even consider Aspies to be the next step on the evolutionary ladder of humanity.

However, comparing Aspies – and high-functioning Auties – to people who are seriously affected by Autism is like comparing a person who has a little-bit looser ligaments/tendons, and therefore excell in gymnastics and similar things, to a person whose ligaments/tendons are so loose, they cannot stand up, hold a pen or a spoon….  Obviously, a little bit may be an advantage:  a lot may be crippling!

And, perhaps because I am an Aspie – as is all of my immediate family and most of my extended family – I am very interested in any medical study about Autism and/or Aspergers.  (For the uninitiated:  both Aspergers and Autism seem to have a ‘similar cause’… a large number of ‘undifferentiated’ (not ‘properly specialized) cells in the brain.  However, where Auties have most of these ‘undifferentiated’ cells in their frontal lobes, Aspies have them in the amygdala.  This localization difference accounts for the difference in manifestation/’symptoms/characteristics’ – though, in many instances, there is some overlap which makes exact ‘differentiated’ diagnosis difficult.)

OK, re-focusing…

Parents of ‘significantly affected’ kids are often very desperate to help their kids be ‘more normal’.  Of course, this is more pronounced in the more severe cases, which are ‘obvious’ earlier on in life (many ‘high-functioning’ Auties and Aspies can ‘hide’ their symptoms for many years – or they may simply live in an area where the ‘mild’ symptoms are interpreted as ‘being mean’ or ‘antisocial’ and ‘merely’ scar the person for life, without recognizing what is happening).  What I am trying to say is that the more ‘outwardly obvious’ the symptoms are, the more eager loving parents are to find answers.

Many parents are so desperate to help their kids, they will grasp at straws.

There has, for a long time, persisted a perceived ‘connection’ between the MMR vaccine and Autism.  As a parent of a child who had suffered significant motor-nerve damage within days of receiving the MMR vaccine – and being told by his physician that the ‘damage is typical of what he has seen with this vaccine, but he cannot report it because he had been warned that if he reports yet another adverse vaccine reaction, he will be stripped of his ‘Canadian Medical Association’ membership, and thus no longer allowed to practice medicine….and that though this damage is ‘well known’ among doctors, I will never find one brave/reckless enough to testify about this reality in court…’, I have been very keen on ‘any news’ about vaccination in general and the MMR vaccine in particular…

Which is why the following story is so disturbing…

…

The reporter also discovered that Dr. Wakefield’s interest in a MMR vaccine-autism connection began when he was retained as an expert witness two years earlier by a lawyer representing the parent of an autistic child. The parents were planning to sue the MMR vaccine makers because they believed the vaccine caused their child’s illness.  According to Mr. Deer, Dr. Wakefield then launched the Jabs program, the name for clinic that led to the study.  The program was advertised by the lawyer’s firm, and the clinic was not a routine screening, accuses Mr. Deer.

…

England’s General Medical Council has brought charges of medical misconduct against Wakefield and two other co-authors, Dr. John Walker-Smith and Dr. Simon Murch (the authors who continued to support the paper).  The charges revolve around the ethics of the researchers testing on children, not the new accusations.  The paper, though, has forwarded its results to the board and expects new charges to be forthcoming. {Note:  the new accusations are of having falsified the data…}

So, which is it?

Is this a case of a doctor who truly is telling the truth, but whose team has been ‘bought’ by the people who fund most medical research?  And the ones who would not budge are being subjected to a ‘witch hunt’?

Or, is this a case of a crooked doctor, who had ‘fixed’ the tests to show that the MMR vaccine was ‘at fault’, so he could get money for his testimony?  Have we (parents) wasted time and effort here, when we should have been trying to find other ways to help our kids?

What about ‘my doctor’ (who has since entered dentistry school, because ‘he could not stand the politics subverting medicine today)? Were his claims true?

He also said Ontario MD’s got a substantial monetary ‘bonus’ if they could prove they convinced more than 98% (or was it 95% – it has been a while…high nineghties, anyway) of the parents of their child-patients to allow their children to be vaccinated with the full spectrum of ‘childhood vaccines’?  He said this money did not come from the government, but the vaccine manufacturers.  Was he lying to me? If so, why?  I was not paying him to…  If not, what is the significance of this kickback?

What is a parent left to think?

Perhaps it is not surprising that so many people today mistrust ‘scientists’!  Actually, I would call them all ‘pseudo-scientists’ – but they give a really, really bad name to us all!!!

And, perhaps this explains why I consider the term ‘medical science’ to be an oxymoron….  Medicine may use some scientific tools – but ‘modern medicine’ itself does not, under any definition of the term, qualify as ‘scientific’.  Just like because you ‘live in a house’ does not mean you are ‘an architect’, so ‘using scientific instruments/tests’ does not make medicine ‘science’.

And, something pretending to be science when it is not only undermines the credibility of ‘real, proper science’!!!

Did I mention I hate bad science?!?!?

Posted in Aspergers, education, politics, science, society. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »