Re: Hey Mr. Hyde!

From: Beth (BethStone21_at_hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com)
Date: 03/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:29:25 +0100

Frank Kotler wrote:
> Beth wrote:
> > Nevertheless, to be blunt, you're a lying toad,
>
> You been sharing a glass of wine with Betov, or what???

Ah, a touch of the melodramatics, for sure...just feeling in such a
foul mood at the time that the above is actually the "edited" version,
suitable for public broadcast...

> > You said:
> >
> > "Hmm... going by Beth's logic, I should install thousands of
> > thumb-sized gasoline engines under the hood of my car. These
engines,
> > taken individually, are less efficient than a full-sized engine,
but,
> > by some Bethonian magic, when taken together in the thousands, are
> > more efficient than a full-size engine."
> >
> > I replied:
> >
> > "So, tell me, how many _valves_
>
> Apparently not Alex (I thought it was, too - too lazy to look it
up).

Yeah, did someone misattribute a post or something? Could have sworn
it was...oh, well, if it wasn't, of course, then I was shouting in a
foul mood at the wrong person...

Ah, you know what it probably is...at least from my perspective why I
got confused? Because Alex always posts constantly in response to me
with a campaign of pedantic commentary, it was so easily
mistaken...this is normally his trademark, so a stolen identity leads
to a mistaken identity...

> In any case, it's kind of a mis-statement of the "Beth logic".
> Decentralization would mean putting one engine on each wheel, not
> thousands under the hood.

Actually, good point; I should have noticed that...

> When you think of it, the current scheme *is*
> decentralized - the "efficient"(?) solution would be one massive
> centralized engine towing cars around on cables (which has been
done,
> and may have its advantages).

Another good point; And what I was trying to stress also is that the
"engine" is really "a collection of sub-engines" too (by a typical
configuration, anyway)...indeed, short of putting an engine on each
wheel, it _IS_ decentralised...

Well, one obvious advantage of cable cars is that you don't need to
drive them (lest we risk another misreading and misunderstanding...I
mean, they don't need a human driving it with a steering wheel and
pedals and gearstick (US: gear shift) in the actual cable car
itself...they do need to be "driven", as in moved around, by the
central tower :)...hence, as a tourist your hands are freed up to take
photos from your dizzying height, rather than to steer the cable car
around...

[ Right, now I await those without any sense of humour at all to fail
to realise the above is a joke point, not some great serious argument
about the "importance of taking photos" or anything, to which we'll
get a thesis on "actually, in Southern Austria there are cable cars
where the taking of photographs was banned in 1706, so you are yet
again factually inaccurate and should immediately be burned at the
stake for this trangression against our neurotism!"...blah-blah-blah
*yawn* ;) ]

> In the case of solar energy, the fact that it's already distributed
has
> to come into the equation - a fact that some of your detractors seem
to
> be discounting...

My detractors - as they have done since the very first time I've
spoken on this subject - discount _any_ facts which gets in the way of
the pre-determined conclusion that everything is fine, that nothing
needs to be done, that the alternatives aren't an alternative, that
renewables won't work in any way (ignoring all those dams powering
cities, ignoring wind farms, ignoring houses that do have solar roofs,
etc. already and which operate perfectly satisfactorily in violation
of the "nothing works unless you're paying oil men to destroy the
Earth on your behalf" pre-determined - dare we say "brain-washed"? -
conclusion), etc....

Perhaps I have sometimes pushed the argument too hard in the other
direction at times...but in these gale force winds from the choir of
death, if you don't keep pushing, then you get blown over...they do
understand one thing about the notion of "decentralisation": A choir
of voices can always be far, far louder than even the loudest single
voice...pardon the paranoia, but you must have seen, Frank, thus far,
how hard and repeatedly I've had to push merely to stop being called
"a complete whacko" about this...I now manage to at least get: "There
are a number of people who think that you're worth reading" (a clever
way of saying "I personally don't think that you're worth reading at
all" without anyone noticing that's what they are really saying) which
is better than "total whacko"...for all my "factual errors", they've
stopped dismissing me out of hand, they have to start with stuff about
how great "conservation instincts" are (a miracle in comparison to the
flat, outright refusal of any problem whatsoever that was the reply to
my first postings on the matter), etc....the responses to my first
postings on this subject could only really be classified "denial" as
you'd hear from an alcoholic...outright denial that there was even a
problem to begin with...but my perservance to take the flak allowed
those shy voices who daren't say anything to speak up and say "no,
there is a problem, you know"...voices which are no longer shy that
the "bullies" are on the defensive to drop the denial, even if they
still try to destroy everything elsewhere (you know, a tad
contradictory: "You are right about the problem and to look for
alternatives...blah-blah-blah [ rest of post goes here ]
blah-blah-blah...nevertheless, in conclusion, there is no problem at
all and we should ignore alternatives because they could never ever
work in a month of Sundays to power anything at all (e.g. I will
conveniently ignore and deny and snip out any response including the
words "Hoover Dam" in it...if I don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't
exist)")...

Paranoid? Conspiracy theory? Yeah, you're damn right about that one!
But what else explains a species-wide denial of a problem...when the
problem is clarified as "inevitable" in a way they can't argue, then
it's a denial of the alternatives...when the alternatives are shown to
have some application and actual usage, then it's because, ooh, I
misnamed the inventor of a device...yes, because _I_ said the wrong
name, this is clearly a case for the blind destruction of civilisation
and the Earth...

Note, I don't think it's a "people sitting around a desk in an
underground base" kind of conspiracy theory...but a conspiracy of
denial by ordinary people everywhere...people deny the problem at all
costs, they create a climate where those who speak otherwise are to be
automatically ridiculed out of existence, they create a climate where
schools educate, quite literally, on the "infallibility" of the "one
and only way" in how our "glorious, perfect" power stations work (ask
yourself _WHY_ is electricity a topic that, unlike the rest of
science, is regularly mistaught without the slightest complaint from
the pedants: http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html ...imagine having the
need to similarly "debunk" the teaching of Newton's laws of motion or
atomic theory...there'd be an outcry from scientists about the
"factual inaccuracies"...but, instead, kids are taught things like:
"power companies send electrons through a circuit at the speed of
light, which is like a dumper truck unloading electrons into your
appliances...why, we must be grateful to the kind power companies for
being so nice as to loan us all of their lovely, perfect electrons!
Praise be!"...I note with interest that this debunker - who is making
a separate point to me and doesn't dwell on the significance of it -
writes: "Unfortunately the meaning of the word [ electricity ] became
corrupted in the early 20th century when electric companies started
_selling_ electrical energy" (my emphasis)...now is that a complete
coincidence or was the ambiguity _added_ to create confusions? I draw
your attention to how, in our own field, we have jargonisers
everywhere who invent a whole field of terms for things like OOP and,
my oh my, what a coincidence that after creating inpenetrable jargon
for an essential _easy and obvious_ subject, which confuses and
obfuscates it, they all go off and write books - which make them
money - or they start up "OOP consultancy" - which makes them money -
and, what a coincidence, the inpenetrable jargon and almost delibrate
confusion they create just so happens to be a source of income for
them! It's "undeniable fact" that renewables can't work, you know,
which exactly why the power companies built the Hoover Dam or put up
wind farms...oh, wait, that's a contradiction...seems it's _ONLY_ an
"undeniable fact" that they "can't possibly work" when someone _other_
than them is using it and they aren't getting all the money for
it...in the words of Public Enemy: "Don't...don't...don't,
don't...don't believe the hype!"...

Money, indeed, is a _powerful_ motivator...I wonder when Bush will
admit he was just after the cash, _ignoring_ terrorism for a while
because there was multiple opportunities for cash generation? Wreck a
country's infrastructure - which they _PROMISED NOT TO DO_ "for the
sake of the innocent Iraqi people", if you remember back way back when
("we will concentrate our 'precision' missiles only on sites of
military significance, as we have no argument with the innocent Iraqi
people, only the 'regime'" must be something you haven't
forgotten...are you reminded yet? Because that was why there was a
fuss about how "precise" does "precise" mean?) - in order to put
American companies in for lucrative "reconstruction"...kick out the
guy who's trying to deny selling you oil - the "oil for food"
blackmail depended on Saddam giving a crap about his people...big
mistake there...he was a genocidal murderer that didn't care in the
slighetst about that...yeah, he'd let a million die before giving in
to become a reliable oil supplier to American interests - and, "for
the good of the Iraqi people", we'll let their culture be destroyed,
their home looted and burned because we must protect the "ministry for
oil"..."reconstruction" for the "good of the Iraqi people" is so
important that when an Arab company gets mobile phone services running
again, we must shut it all down again because they aren't an American
company and they aren't using the unique American mobile phone
protocols which requires American mobile phone handsets...yes,
"reconstruction" is so important to Iraq and its people, that we will
have everything constructed by American companies so that it all
depends on _foreign_ American companies and there are no _local_ Iraqi
companies involved at all with _local_ materials and _local_ expertise
(they do have it...contrary to some of the propoganda, they are NOT
"dumb barbarians" NOR "animals" at all)...yup, it really helps put
Iraq back on its feet that most of its people are unemployed - they
mount protests all the time about this, you must have heard this on
the news...no, no...not Fox news, true enough...but there's got to be
one honest media company left somewhere, surely? - in a country
desparately in need of "reconstruction"...please tell me you've
spotted the contradictory absurdity here already and I'm not
broadcasting "news" here...there's tons of work needed to be done with
"reconstruction" but all the Iraqis are in desparate need due to a
lack of employment...put two and two together yet? All the
"reconstruction contracts" are going to American and "American
approved" _foreign_ and _non-local_ companies, while Iraqis are
massively unemployed and their society needs rebuilding and for them
to take control back of their own country...worked it out yet? If
America does all the work, then how does Iraq learn to stand on its
own two feet from that? And, amazingly, when they _tried_, that mobile
phone network was _shut down_ - by people "reconstructing for the good
of the Iraqi people" - because it was an Arab company and lacked the
all important "Made in the US" stamp on its ***...then we see the
priorities...when the invasion was over, they made sure that the Iraqi
oil wells were back up to _double_ the pre-invasion production...this
was one of the first priorities...again, "for the good of the Iraqi
people"...those Iraqi people, by the way, had no clean water, no
power, a serious hygene problem from the mountains of sewage and
rubbish in the streets and so forth...but, clearly, the priority for
the Iraqi people was to get that oil pumping to the West at twice the
rate of before...or, in Bush terms, getting out twice the amount
because Saddam was holding it back - even under sanctions designed to
force him to sell because only oil gets them, you know, food that
keeps them alive - when he was in power...

It's all to do with your twist of phrasiology..."we're reconstructing"
sounds great until you think: "Wait a minute...why 'we'? Should it be
_them_ reconstructing with all those mass unemployed and the need to
put things back into Iraqi hands and have the country able to stand on
its own two feet and look after itself?"...or "oil for food" until you
realise it killed a _million_ by NGO estimates and that were you
yourself under this, you'd have no problem recognising it as being
"blackmail" (quite literally, in a sense, as the oil is black in
colour and should be sent - like mail - to the West)...

Fundamentally, it boils down to this...ignore our national flags
(that's just British Empire style "divide and conquer"...get arabs
hating Americans, get Americans hating arabs...get Europe arguing with
America, America arguing with Europe...so that there's all this
in-fighting in the human race for _everyone_ to be distracted from the
real "enemies" of the sinister piece)...we're _ALL_ being lead around
by selfish arseholes...it's not Bond villan style conspiracy...but a
conspiracy of accumulated selfish agendas...the politicians want power
so they appease the companies that hold the money...we all just
blindly accept whatever they say to be the case because we'd Love to
not be interested at all and just go about our work and play without
any of this nonsense..."We need a war!" / "Really? Okay, whatever...do
whatever you need to that means I get left alone to live my life and
I'll let it pass"...they know this which is why they know simply
keeping quiet about the energy crisis and just pretending it isn't
there or going to be there is the way to carry on making money...oh,
crap...some "environmentalists" jumped out of the woodwork to make a
big fuss then people like MTV promoted it all with their "idents" for
a entire generation of "do gooders" that won't shut up about
it...okay, let's give them something else to "emote" about (bloody
student types...it took us ages and ages to stop them being interested
in political philosophy about "communes" and trade unions and
such...the idea of making them poor as a means to attack that
troublesome issue of education - a dangerous thing for us to have
around - backfired...so, we worked on turning it around and saddling
them with "consumer items" and loan debts and handing out credit cards
to force them into the "consumer rat race" stuff...it pacifies the
rest of the nation to make them slaves to the dollar, should have
thought of this idea earlier)...war and terrorism are the trusty old
"distractors" of old and I'm sure they'll work again...

Now, let's all sing the song together...

"Cos' it's a bittersweet symphony this life...
Trying to make ends meet, you're a _SLAVE TO THE MONEY_ then you die.
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down...
You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins
meet, yeah.

NO CHANGE, 'I CAN'T CHANGE! I CAN'T CHANGE! I CAN'T CHANGE!'
but I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold.
But I'm a million different people from one day to the next.
I can't change my mold, no, no, no, no, no...

Well, I never pray,
But tonight _I'M ON MY KNEES_, yeah.
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the _PAIN_ in me, yeah.
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel 'free' now.
But the airwaves are clean and there's nobody singing to me now.

NO CHANGE, 'I CAN'T CHANGE! I CAN'T CHANGE! I CAN'T CHANGE!'
but I'm here in my mold , I am here in my mold.
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mold, no, no, no, no, no

(Well have you ever been down?)
(I can't change! I can't change!)
(Ooooohhhhh...)

Cos' it's a bittersweet symphony this life.
Trying to make ends meet, trying to find some money then you die.

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down...
You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins
meet, yeah.

You know, I can't change, I can't change, I can't change,
but I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold.
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next.
I can't change my mold, no,no,no,no,no
I can't change my mold, no,no,no,no,no
I can't change my mold, no,no,no,no,no

(It justs sex and violence, melody and silence)
(It justs sex and violence, melody and silence)
(I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down)
(It justs sex and violence, melody and silence)
(I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down)

(Been down)
(Ever been down?)
(Ever been down?)(Lalalalalalaaaaaaaa...)
(Ever been down?)
(Ever been down?)
(Have you ever been down?)
(Have you ever been down?)
(Have you ever been down?)"

[ "Bittersweet Symphony", The Verve ]

> > Right, would an actual _expert_ in internal combustion engines -
with
> > all you guys here, there's got to be one "petrol head" amongst
you -
> > please come forward to verify that, at least generally speaking,
I'm
> > talking some modest amount of sense here?
>
> Well... better, since you looked it up :) ... but don't quit your
day job.
>
> >>2. Fossil fuel efficency; it's doesn't pack much of a "punch".
> >
> > Oh yes, it bloody well _does_...
>
> You guys are talking relatives here. "Fossil fuel is tall." Compared
to
> what?

Agreed; Kind of meaningless without a frame of reference...

But the point that maybe you've noticed, Frank, is that the
"detractors" just want to prove me wrong and unreliable...I stupidly
handed them stuff on a plate by making mistakes in my posting (but, as
noted, I'm spitting out hundreds of KBs equivalent to novels and
theses...most books undergo rigorous checking before
publication...they _still_ get published with errors...I'm writing
"off the cuff", from memory, about my _OPINION_ for such a length to a
newsgroup for mere discussion but yet am supposed to have a higher
standard than that still? Because, oh yeah, just _one_ slip of the
keyboard and I'm the "evil witch of the west"...surely it must be
beyond dispute by now...after so clearly exposing Annie as _exactly_
that - her raison d'etre is to plague me, with no exaggeration - and
years of this stuff, there's got to be little doubt that I _AM_ being
gunned for quite regularly because I ain't towing the "party line" on
many things...and as I've corrected others in the past, here comes the
"payback" and "petty vengence"...I write stuff, Herbert likes
it...Herbert insults HLA, I correct the stuff which isn't right...I
post some other stuff, Herbert combs over every word to find something
to "correct" in return, no matter how neurotically pedantic it may
be...implied is my "evilness" in the correction...there's little
surprise in any of this, though...that's the irony...the thing that
throws me totally off? Wannabe's _praise_ all the time...I ain't used
to actually being listened to...that stuff totally throws me for a
loop which is why I often have no idea how to reply to it...being
trodden on - for irregular opinions, for being the "wrong" gender,
etc. - is what's "ordinary" for me...more of that same ain't going to
break me but I'm sure they'll persist regardless...

> I tend to agree with you that fossil fuels "pack a lot of punch"...
> compared to solar, for example. Wind can pack "a lot of punch" in
some
> circumstances (frequently to our detriment)... If my memory has
survived
> the permanent brain damage, petroleum runs on the order of 130,000 -
> 140,000 btu/gal (US gallon) - dunno what that is in ergs :)

[ On a separate note, there _can_ be "permanent brain damage"...BUT,
yes, that's a particularly emotive and distorted way of phrasing it -
highly melodramatic - to make it sound "really evil"...you might
appreciate my situation a little from that, as I get this kind of
thing all the bloody time...it's kind of like saying "oxygen causes
permanent ugly disfigurement!"...a wording chosen to push an
agenda...what we're really talking about is that oxygen, over your
entire life, does conspire towards ageing your skin and those wrinkles
of old age show up...now, just choose to call this "permanent ugly
disfigurement" - highly melodramatic but if you want to phrase it that
way as your opinion of an aged face, then it might be offensive but
you can't really call someone "wrong" for holding that
opinion...prejudiced, carrying an agenda, nothing but a personal
opinion...yes...but it can't technically be called "wrong" on
technical grounds alone...age is, indeed, permanent..."ugly" is a
matter of opinion...and "disfigurement" the biased way to point out
that it _is_ a change in appearance over time - and then you've
created a case for the "inherent evilness of breathing"...

Yeah, Frank, such evil "permanent brain damage"...when, of course,
no-one would say a single word about overeating leading to obesity,
combined with cigarette smoking clogging the arteries, with rotted
livers and kidneys because of constant excessive alcohol and
cigarettes for decades, leading to the onset of a diabetic condition,
which causes gangreen in the toes that they have to be amputated
before our "legal drug addict" destroys life by drink driving, tears
their family apart with the constant deceptions and denials - plus
bouts of mood changes, leading to serious domestic violence - and then
finally dies of the heart disease they've so Lovingly prepared
themselves for since about age 12...

No, you see, this is "okay" because it's all legal...it excuses it
all...fast food companies, tobacco companies and your local bar are
great "friends" with their happy-smiley clowns offering cheap plastic
toys, "cool" cowboys smoking on the ranch billboard adverts and, of
course, "the place where everybody knows your name" is more than just
a friend, it's almost like a surrogate family or something...this is
all perfectly fine because the complete historical accident of
hypocritical laws says so...

The biggest actual killers out there? Heart disease: caused mostly by
obesity and tobbaco clogging the arteries (and no-one does any
exercise - driving everywhere, watching TV and playing video games -
that we have an explosive combination of not just bringing it on with
these things but not working it back off with regular
exercise)...cancer: many causes but tobacco is a big one...alcoholism
is a dangerously anti-social disease and does tremendous damage to the
body (note: the word "toxic" in "intoxication"...being drunk is
literally the feeling of being _poisoned_ by a toxic
substance...alcohol is very dangerous in that it conspires to make
this _poisoning_ seem "good" and the poisoned victim "happy" and so
forth...the other big hint here is how drunken people _vomit_...that's
the body's natural and rather blunt way of just expelling anything
toxic that you really shouldn't have consumed...

> I agree with Alex on a couple points:
>
> 1) Your ideas are basically correct.

Which means you're also agreeing with me, as is Alex, effectively...

> 2) When you get into details, your posts are *loaded* with factual
> errors. Your engineering knowledge isn't as good as you think it is.

I'm NOT an engineer and never once claimed to be (I repeatedly note
"I'm a software, not hardware person")...my posts are NOT intended to
be some textbook course into engineering...this is an _off-topic_
subject in a newsgroup forum for an obscure branch of geekdom...anyone
who reads them thinking they are an engineering textbook almost
deserves to be misinformed (if they are that stupid to just blindly
grab and trust the first thing that they see, what I do is not greatly
important, as a non-sceptical attitude like that would land them in
trouble, _whoever_ was ranting at them...for example, they'd probably
already believe in a CIA / green alien conspiracy...just because the
man down the pub told them that it was all true ;)...shall we get some
perspective on this that, unlike the part we do all agree on, it's
hardly the end of the world?

> Another one "out to destroy you"... sorry...

Ah, you have my full permission to do so, Frank...because though in
agreement with Alex here, _compare_ how you've written your response
to me with how Alex and most others do...'tis almost a _pleasure_ to
be assassinated by you, Frank...because you _never_ forget to be fair,
polite and civilised, even when you entirely disagree on something...

In fact, if this is an example of that "permanent brain damage" then
would it only be that more people's brains were damaged in this way
;)...

> Love, Peace, and Happiness,

In that particular order or does the order not matter? ;)

Beth :)