Tag Archives: technology

Talking the Walk – Higgs Boson and ‘Science’

Posted on June 6, 2012 by | 9 comments

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/9307672/CERN-director-says-LHC-will-find-God-Particle-by-end-of-the-year.html

“Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director of CERN where the LHC is based, said he was confident that by the end of the year it will be possible to say whether the Higgs Boson, the particle which is responsible for giving mass to the universe, exists.

“The theoretical particle, nicknamed the God Particle due to its central role it has in explaining modern physics, has never been detected and scientists have been working for decades to prove its existence.

“Scientists hope that high energy collisions of particles in the 17 mile underground tunnel at CERN will finally allow them to create the conditions to allow them to spot the elusive Higgs Boson.

“Dr Heuer, who was speaking at the Hay Festival, said the LHC is scheduled to be closed down at the end of this year for up to two years in order to carry out upgrades that will increase its power and allow it to continue with more experiments.”

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Those guys over at CERN need to think of something else to call themselves.  They’re inadvertently allowing their use of language to act as a confession booth.  “. . . scientists have been working for decades to prove its existence,” says just about everything needs saying about the difference between science and engineering.  Or whatever it is they think they’re doing.  “Got me a theory, now I’m going to PROVE it,”  ain’t science.  But the difference is too subtle to penetrate the ice surface those folks are skating on.

For several years now they’ve been bragging about creating ‘baby black holes’ that ‘dissolve’ [they say the little guys dissolve because they don’t know what the hell happened to them – spang lost track of them].  There’s a body of opinion among outcasts and heretics from the ‘science’ religion that some of what’s going on stands a shot at creating black holes that don’t do any vanishing.  Black holes, or something else nobody anticipated. 

At CERN, though, they’re got things to prove and they’re not going to let anything stand in the way of proving it.  When a physicist somewhere raises his hand to suggest they mightn’t know what the hell’s going to come out of this or that, they shout him down.  “There’s an extremely LOW probability of it.”

Back before they detonated the A-bomb at the Trinity Site a group of the physicists there expressed similar concerns.  “We oughtn’t do this.  There’s a minute chance it will set fire the atmosphere of the planet.”

“Why hell, the probabilities for that are low.  How the hell can we know whether it will without TRYING it?”

So guess what!  Trinity didn’t set fire to the atmosphere.  All manner of other great things grew out of it, though.  Hiroshima, Nagasaki.  The Cold War.  Mutually Assured Destruction.  ICBMs.  Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and a lot of potential today for more drama in the North Pacific centered around Japan.  Countless people born deformed downwind from the low-probabilities that became high-probabilities with Chernobyl.  Arms races all over the world and weapons of mass destruction used as an excuse to invade any country with something worth stealing.

As nearly as I can figure, those Higgs Boson particles [or something rhyming with them] are out there doing their thing all by their lonesome selves without needing permission from physicists.  They do what they do without needing some airhead calling them God particles, Higgs Boson particles, or anything else.

The people at CERN are doing something they’re calling ‘science’, throwing up their hands calling it the innocent pursuit of knowledge, wanting to prove things.  Hopefully one of the things time will prove is they were right about those baby black holes dissolving instead of going into orbit around the sun.

Hopefully they’ll prove the human species wouldn’t have been better served hanging them upside down from lamp posts when they had the chance.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, Education, Human Behavior, Los Alamos, Science, Survival

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The Undone, the Undead and the Unexpected

Posted on June 3, 2012 by | 2 comments

I should have named those claims the Onyx.  Everything about them, start-to-finish was Onyxpected.

Keep in mind, I was looking for evidence of a fairly specific group of legendary dead men who met their demise in the early 1860s.  Not just any old group of dead guys.  Special dead guys, though mostly nameless.

I’d been compiling, studying the versions of the legend, of accounts handed down by searchers, survivors and a lot of lies I couldn’t afford to judge without checking them out.  The evidence I was looking for was a burned out cabin ruin, maybe a sluicebox, something akin to a waterfall.  A pair of bare peaks roughly 20 miles to the north the legend called, ‘Piloncillos’.  Baldies.  Possibly a formation resembling the head of a bear.

Keith and I had been bouncing around that country for a couple of years, chasing dead men.  The Zuni Mountains, Santa Rita Mesa, Largo Canyon, Red Hill caldera, Pelona Mesa, the Sawtooths.  We saw a lot of fine real estate,  had plenty of adventure, but we hadn’t found anything to nail theory to anything on the ground.

Eventually I began assembling fragments of various versions of the legend, each at least mildly supported by some other version.  Began drawing circles at ten mile intervals outward from somewhat verifiable points, overlapping circles.  I ended up with a slice of orange peel on a map where the circles converged.   On a 7.5 minute USGS topo I counted 32 canyons within the orange peel that seemed to have possibilities.  Numbered them 1-32 with little stickers on the face of the map.

Keith was tied up in Santa Fe a day-or-so longer than I was, so I headed out, intending to cross some canyons off the map before he arrived, meet him at a camp on Elk Plateau when he got there. 

But canyon #3, I learned from a Hispanic rancher I met when I went to cross off Cabin Springs [canyon #2], had a burned out cabin ruin and something he described as a water-trough cut with an axe out of a 3′ diameter tree.  Late evening I arrived and set up camp on Elk Plateau to wait for Keith, me in a state of high anxiety.

But I’ve digressed. 

I was going to tell this story in full, but leading into the subject of platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and osmium.  How, in those days a person would have a hell of a time even assaying for them, how if located, they had to be sold through the Platinum Consortium, which wasn’t interested in buying.  How the melting temperature of the stuff makes a serious challenge of smelting it, in any case.  How it takes a special kiln, a special crucible to do anything at all with platinum.

How the New Mexico Bureau of Mines assured me our expensive spectroscopic assay was meaningless, a scam.  “There’s no platinum in New Mexico,” they assured me.  How at the precise time they told me that piece of fiction, the Platinum Consortium was mining the tailings of 19th Century gold mines near White City, New Mexico, for platinum they didn’t want when those mines were active, maybe didn’t even recognize.

How Sunburst Mining Company opened an operation mining platinum, gold and silver in microscopic quantities on the edge of a caldera within view of the peak above my claims a couple of years later.

I’d figured on telling you how they employed over a hundred people over there for a few years, got crosswise with New Mexico Department of Environment, ran into financial problems in other mining locations, went kaput.

And I was going to tell you how Keith and I found a canyon of maybe the weirdest geology I’ve ever come across.  Named it No Name Canyon.

But hells bells, I reckons I’m going to have to save that for another day.

Meanwhile, if you’ve missed the other background on all this you can find it by exploring the tags and whatnot or searching the site for ‘lost gold mine’.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Adventure, Outdoors, Prospecting, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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1977 C60 School Bus – Idle Musings

Posted on June 3, 2012 by | 3 comments

Morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Some of you made some good, helpful comments about the last post, and although that bus might never come into my life, my mind’s insisting on playing with the associated problems.

Insofar as the matter of cooling for summer driving, I’m thinking ram-air venturi.  A hole cut at the question-mark, flange installed with a megaphone-like air-catcher-compressor expanding inside the bus.  Water misted from a pressurized pump-up insecticide sprayer as the air expands as it’s released inside the bus.  Rear windows open to pull the cooler air backward through the length of the bus.

I’m thinking for cooling the bus as a dwelling, a thermal syphon arrangement pulling air from the shaded area under the bus, releasing it along the floor, the hole for the venturi open and the windows cracked at the top to pull the cooler air upward from the floor. 

Maybe some sort of misting device inside the bus, also.

I use those pump-up insecticide sprayers anyway for showering now, today, and that one would serve that use when the bus is parked as living quarters.  I’d cap the hole with a PVC cap when the venturi wasn’t in use, weather was cold, or it was raining.

As for heating it winters, I’ve got a number of ideas, some as strange and unlikely as these.  But the cats and I are used to living cold and hard.  What’s bare minimum for us isn’t likely to be much warmer than our ancestors spent their lives living with, uncomplaining.

For cooking meals while driving down the highway I’ll install one of those enclosed propane grilles to sit atop the engine, use waste-heat from the engine to do the cooking, pull it out when I’m ready, slow-cooker-like.  There’s plenty of room under the hood for a cooker capable of handling a banquet.

There’s an old propane refrigerator from a camper I gave Gale 30-40 years ago stored up there I posted a picture of here on an earlier entry, which I’d install.  Those AC shelves will work well, I thinks, as a means of running water lines, gas lines, and electrical wiring.  Out of sight, out of the way, but accessible.

A couple of propane burners on a platform and a Coleman stove oven might be the solution for somewhere to prepare food while camped if I don’t cook outdoors.

I’m thinking LED lighting, assuming I can find it at the right price.

Those pump-up insecticide sprayers are surprisingly useful for all manner of unlikely purposes.  Good for washing dishes, rinsing dishes, showering, all in a severely water-saving mode.  Heat the water, fill one with soapy water, another with clear water, you’re in business.

Thanks for your interest and comments.

Gracias, Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Homesteading, Survival, Transportation

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Thoughts on the 1977 School Bus as a Cat House

Posted on June 2, 2012 by | 20 comments

I’ve been scratching under my hat over a number of issues regarding that old school bus as a potential escape route, studying pictures taken last time in town.  Wondering how a person might get around various problems.

One that jumps out immediately is the fact there’s no way of locking the doors, either the front, or the emergency door.  So a person who didn’t fix that problem wouldn’t want to be a sound sleeper.  Or go off out-of-sight of it if he had anything inside he wanted there when he got back.

Another is that no obvious place to mount a spare tire seems to be included in the design. I suppose a person might rig a way to keep one on the roof if there’s no place underneath to hang it. 

Those wheels appear to weigh 75 pounds or more, though, so getting them up there would be a growth experience.

Interestingly, there appears to be an old Volkswagen living underneath there.

Evidently it was retrofitted to power a huge refrigeration air conditioning complex above the rows of seats, both sides.  My thought is that the shelves are nice, but the refrigerator is gonna have to come out.  Maybe the VW engine, too, so’s to make room for a spare tire.

Meanwhile, the windows don’t lock shut and some screens would have to be rigged to keep insects out and provide a disincentive for cats jumping out open windows to explore the highway.

I’ve always wanted something with a lot of switches to try to figure out as I drive along.

Nothing about it, I reckons, that can’t be overcome, but a challenge or two if the thing decides to jump into my life.

[I was watching for a place in here to use the word ‘footfeet’ because it’s such a novel piece of language history involving automobiles.  For the unaware, people used to call the brake, clutch and throttle pedals ‘footfeet’.  But there’s not a lot I can think of to say about the footfeet of this bus.  Hmmm, except,]

The footfeet appear to be intact, adequate and functional.

Old Jules

20 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Outdoors, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Survival, Texas, Transportation, Trucks, White Trash Repairs

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Black Eye for Conventional Wisdom

Posted on May 29, 2012 by | 5 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Back when  I was a real smart cookie I knew all manner of things needed doing to straighten out this country and this world.  I used to sit around with others whom I allowed to be real smart cookies, too, telling one another how stupid everyone who disagreed with us.  They thought they were real smart cookies, too, which proved how stupid they were.

During that general time period Their Majesties, Gerald Ford, then Jimmy Carter, were telling us we needed to turn down the thermostats, drive slower, become energy independent as a nation.  Find alternatives to the conventional energy sources.  I think my group of real smart cookies agreed with this, though I don’t recall anyone liking it much.

But one thing we did agree on.  Nuclear energy needed to be developed and used a lot more than was happening at the time.  Seemed the only thing that might fill the bill until something else was developed.  Gradually we got so hardened in our opinions about it we made excuses and apologized anytime anything happened suggesting we might re-examine our opinions and debate points.

Along came Three Mile Island, and naturally we didn’t need to know much about it to agree among ourselves it was just a shrill scare thing.  Hanoi Jane Fonda came out with a movie named “The China Syndrome” and a lot of monkey wrenches got thrown into the mix, people opposed to more nuclear plants. 

Then that plant in the Ukraine went sour.  Spewed all manner of radioactive crap into the sky for a longish while.  We real smart cookies saw that as an indictment, not of nuclear power, but rather of Soviet technical, engineering and construction skills.  Another indictment of Communism.

Somewhere back there I quit thinking about all that, didn’t bother knowing so much about it as I became less smart with the years.  I sort of lost track of the whole issue, had no idea whether they were still building, not building, using, not using nuclear power plants.

About a year ago my friend, Rich, started telling me about a tsunami hit Japan, did all manner of damage.  Some included nukes on the Japanese coast.  I suppose I didn’t think a lot about it.  Just another disaster somewhere for people to tell one another about while they waited for the coffee to perk.

But Rich kept updating me and the Japan nuclear part of the tsunami and earthquake began swelling into something trying to rattle how smart I used to be.  Japan was letting a lot of ugly into the Pacific and into the sky.  “Man, they need to do something about that crap!” I declared to Rich.  “I feed my cats a lot of fish that might be coming out of the north Pacific.”

“Would you rather feed them fish out of the Gulf of Mexico?  Fish coming out of there are loaded with carcino-whatchallits from the emulsifiers they used from the BP oil spill.”

I thought about that a while and decided I didn’t need to track down an instrument to measure the gamma radiation in the cat food.  Trade a headache for an upset stomach, more-or-less.

But at least I don’t have to have all the answers anymore, don’t have to know what anyone ought to do about anything.  Takes a lot of weight off, me not having to do anything but concern myself about what to feed the cats and chickens.

Old Jules

 

5 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Country Life, Current Issues, Emergency Preparedness, Government, Politics, Science, Survival

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Quid Pro Quo Chainsaw-wise

Posted on May 21, 2012 by | 8 comments

The old Poulan chainsaw’s always done me a good job of work until the priming bubble burst:  For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise.  I eventually found a replacement at a place a few miles out Highway 27, midway to Center Point.  Double M Equipment Service.

I installed the primer bulb, but no joy.  It wasn’t sucking gas.  I pulled things apart enough to see the fuel line had become brittle and a piece of it was broken off inside the gas tank.   The whole thing appeared to be iffy, and I honestly didn’t want to spend any of my frustrations messing with it.  I need those frustrations for other things.

So I decided to put that saw into a place where they did that sort of thing, let them do it.  Never put a chainsaw in a shop before, but it’s the experience I’m after this lifetime.  I ain’t in this for the money.

So I went back to Double M Equipment Service, midway to Center Point on Highway 27, spang walked in and whistled to myself until the lady looked up from something important she was doing.  [Fans, Compromises and Drowning in Over-My-Head Math].

I could tell right away I was imposing on her, but I explained about my saw and she handed me a piece of paper for me to write it down, which I considered prudent.  She handed me a tag with a number on it.  “Be sure you put your phone number on there.  I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I couldn’t remember my phone number, so I wrote down what might, but probably wasn’t Gale’s number.

“How long you reckon it’s going to be?  I only get into town every couple of weeks.  I’ll just swing by and check.”

“No.  It’s running two-and-a-half weeks, average.  I’ll call you as soon as it’s ready.”

“I’m a hard man to get on the phone.  I’ll just call or stop by next time I’m in town.”

“No.  I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

This friendly lady was Lisa, according to the business card.  Mark and Lisa, it said.  Double M Equipment Service.  Lisa.

Three weeks later I stopped in, asked about it and Lisa advised me it wasn’t ready yet, but she’d call when it was.  “Eh?”  My hand behind my ear.  “I’m sort of hard of hearing.  Can’t hear the phone ring.”

Two weeks later I stopped by again.  This time it wasn’t ready, but it was next on the list, friendly Lisa explained.  Next week it wasn’t ready again, she didn’t know why. 

Heck, maybe I’m getting the time passage mixed up.  It went in around April 17.  At least that’s when I mentioned it on the blog post.

Anyway, after X number of trips by there and X number of weeks without a chainsaw, I stopped in and friendly Lisa said it was ready.  $65 US.  Called Mark from the back and he brought it up.  “I replaced that gas cap for you so you don’t have to take it off with a wrench anymore.”

The cap’s slotted so’s a screwdriver can be fitted in perpendicular for taking it off.  Never had a problem with it.  Guess Mark never noticed that feature.

Anyway, I got the saw home, found it still doesn’t prime, but if a person pulls the recoil starter long enough mostly it will eventually start.  Runs a few minutes, long enough to cut down a cedar as thick as your bicep before it runs dry of gas.  At which time a person does the whole process again.

$65 US.  Double M Equipment Service, Highway 27 E & Laurel Way, Kerrville, Texas.  Mark and Lisa.

Tell ’em I said hello.

But I’ve digressed.

What I wanted to tell you about in this post is that when I was picking up that chainsaw I asked Lisa whether there was a good cafe anywhere nearby.  She told me about a good hamburger joint just beyond the crossroads in Center Point.

Good place, decent price.  Middling better than average hamburger.

I’m obliged knowing about it.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Relationships, Texas, White Trash Repairs

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A Matter of Aesthetic Perspectives

Posted on May 19, 2012 by | 5 comments

In town the other day I stopped into the Autozone store for a roll of electrical tape, nosed around a bit and found some titanium drill bits I think might be an improvement over the simulated drill bits I have around here.

Paid my money and went out the front door into the heat.  Sitting beside Little Red was a shiny 20 year old sedan with tinted windows rolled up, engine running, making the damnedest racket I’ve ever heard an automobile make.  The noise could have been heard across the street and the car almost seemed to be shaking with each new sound.  I stared at it a moment trying to figure out what could be wrong with it, what was happening to it.

“That car’s got a MAJOR problem,” thinks I.  “I’ll bet the owner’s going to love coming back out here and finding a pile of auto parts instead of what he rode in on.”

I perused the distance between it and Little Red to consider whether I dared go back inside to warn someone, or needed to get further from it.  Decided to take the chance and stepped back inside.

A line of people were at the cash register waiting to pay and the clerk was ringing someone up.  I interrupted him and he looked up.  “That car out there sounds like it’s about to explode!”  I gestured behind me, still looking at him.

Three people backward in line a guy who looked as though he just got out of prison, muscle shirt with a lot of muscles to go with it scowled at me and took half-a-step out of line.  “No.  That’s my music.”  Questioning, tentative look, brink-of-threatening, deciding, considering.

“Oh.  Okay.”

I did an about face and moved outside sharply.  Stared and listened to the car again, trying to squeeze the concept of music into the equation.  I couldn’t pull it off.  Shook my head and got in Little Red feeling slightly foolish.

It’s what I get for poking my nose into someone else’s business, I reckons.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2012, Survival

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900 Pound Gorillas, Kidney Stones and Dying Texas Towns

Posted on May 9, 2012 by | 4 comments

I talked to Kay on the phone last night.  Gale’s doing a lot better.  His marble-sized kidney-stone is still in there, but they installed some kind of bypass tube until they can identify what it’s made of, then break it up or do something else with it.  His fever’s down and though he’s still in ICU, looks as though this won’t be his excuse for exiting the vehicle.

Marble-sized kidney stones ought to be worth something, considering the trouble a person goes to in the growing of them.  The only one I ever had was only the size of a grassburr, but it was worth every cent I paid for it, plus some boot.  In Peace Corps training I’d passed some blood and the medico told me it was probably a kidney stone, so I thought I knew about them, but I didn’t.  If that Hawaii thing was a kidney stone I must have been living right.

This one came on suddenly, sometime in the mid-1970s, and for a few hours it got so the nearest thing to a painless position was upside down against the wall, bent at the neck, torso, feet and legs held up by the wall.

I decided I was dying fast and agreed to allow my ex-wife to haul me to Scott and White Hospital, 30 minutes away, to die there.  Someone in the emergency room suggested it might be a kidney stone and I emphatically declared it wasn’t.  “I’ve had a kidney stone.  This isn’t a kidney stone.   This is a grapefruit-sized tumor!”

They took me at my word and pursued other avenues for several hours while I demanded they check me in and begin cutting out that tumor.  Around midnight I began telling my wife I’d be dead in just a little while, “You’ve been a blessing in my life, Babe.  I’m sorry to leave you like this.”

But they finally dyed my bloodstream and proved to me it was a kidney stone.  Gave me a shot of morphine and I went around the ER shaking hands, thanking everyone, congratulating them on being genius-quality practicioners of medicine.  They assured me the morphine would wear off and offered the hope I’d pass the stone before it did.

But I’ve digressed.  Get a person telling about a kidney stone and he’ll tell it as long as you’ll listen.  Giardia and kidney stones have that in common, though giardia might be worse in the long haul.  Getting the Egyptian Ducksquirts and abdominal cramping for six months is probably memorable.  Then there’s shingles, which I could tell you about, but won’t.  But all those qualify as 900 pound gorillas, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.  Mostly people survive them.

Yeah, I digressed again.  I began this post to tell you about Junction, Texas.  The County Seat.  Gale and I went over there the day his world took the plunge into the planet-kidney-stone, so’s he could submit his application for the Agricultural Tax Whatchallit.

I was going to tell you how a mile of main street had half a dozen cars parked along it, how a few businesses are still struggling to survive.  How they have a lot of thrift stores, but the prices are too high.  How the town’s got a huge park on the river I’d like to fish in sometime.

But I won’t.  To hell with it.  I’ll tell you some other time.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Senior Citizens, Texas

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Blackjack – Another Bug on the Windshield of Life

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | 6 comments

During the late-1990s, prior to awakening to Y2K I was absorbed in a search for a lost gold mine.  I had zero interest in casino gambling and card games of chance.  But I had three close associates who believed themselves to be experts at the game of blackjack, two of whom made frequent trips into the canyons with me and had the grace to listen when I talked about it.

Because of this, I occasionally accompanied one or another of them to casinos near Albuquerque, just hanging around while they played, originally.  But I suppose this wasn’t enough.  Deano, then Mel wanted me sitting at a blackjack table enough to plunk down chips and insist I play, despite the fact I knew nothing about the game.  I found the whole thing stupid and boring.

But I saw Mel win a lot of money on those tables and Deano claimed he did, as well, though I didn’t witness it.

A Strange Way of Thinking, More Future Me: Bass-ackwards Letter to the Past, Mel King

Post-Y2K turned into a somewhat different matter.  Mel had always said he could make a living playing blackjack, and from what I’d witnessed I though it might be true.  But he also emphasized it wasn’t something a person could depend on, which I believed.  Deano also claimed he could make a living at it, which I believed less.  And a couple of others I became acquainted with post-Y2K, also threw their hats in the ring of pronounced ability to make a living at blackjack, whom I believed not at all.

I was running through a series of realizations of my own concerning making a living doing almost anything, squeezing by working graveyard shift as a motel clerk, substitute teaching, polishing the wheels, bumpers, grilles and gas tanks on long-haul trucks.  Squeezing by is an over statement of my success.

So eventually, when Deano proposed sponsoring me with chips, loaning me a book on blackjack, accompanying him to the local casinos, I eventually succumbed.  I learned the basics, witnessed his successes and failures, and observed carefully while I lost his money.  I wasn’t long noticing the tables are chock-full of people who believe they can make a living playing blackjack.

I also noted that they showed no signs of demonstrating that ability at the tables.  They’d mostly all read the same books, or books that said the same things about winning at blackjack.  Books, I noticed, that repeated dozens of conventional wisdoms, reiterated identical strategies to those pit bosses hand out to fledgling players sitting down at the felt for the first time.

So, every player at every table, along with the casino bosses, dealers, kibitzers, gambling addicts and losers were all singing from the same songbook.  Everyone knew exactly what a person ought to do to lose at blackjack by following the yellow brick road.

I wasn’t long concluding that if a person could win money on the tables the answer to doing it wouldn’t be found on the strategy card the pit bosses pass out to new players.  Bowing to the goddess of ritual.

In 1998, Mel had given me a CD with an animated blackjack game on it, hoping I’d practice.  It allowed a person to set up a group of players, each following particular strategies for betting, playing against them, seeing how various strategies fared, one-against-the-others.  I’d never loaded it on my comp.

But now, in the post-Y2K era, I dug out that CD.  At first I just practiced using the conventional wisdoms and Deano’s book of blackjack religion. 

But that didn’t float, and it didn’t fly, though my learning of it was cheaper than sitting in a casino, at least for Deano.

Eventually I noticed the settings allowed me to let the machine play itself.

I could set all six players using different strategies, different nuances, allow them to play 24/7, against the imaginary casino.  Thousands of times, hundreds of thousands, probably millions, eventually.  I could test strategies, tweak them for each player in each position, cull strategies least successful, try anything.  Anything.  Discard it and try something else until I found every microscopic edge a player might use.  And measure it against every other.

Just leave the machine running, check every few days, test, tweak, think, and launch it again.

What I learned from that computer and that software is that it’s possible to ‘almost never’ lose at blackjack, possible to win middling large amounts occasionally, possible to pick up at least a few bucks almost always with concentration, hard work and patience.  And a willingness to throw out the book.

But the baggage of carrying it into a casino is contained in the scorn and hatred of everyone else at the table. 

You see, blackjack players believe universally it’s possible for a player to cause them to lose by violating the ‘rules’ of strategy handed out by the pit bosses.  Split a pair of tens, hit a pair of aces instead of splitting them, and everyone at the table, they believe, loses.  ‘Playing for the table’, they call it.  Though the table doesn’t pay anyone who plays for it, should the person lose.  And the table doesn’t share any wins. 

I can’t count the times some well-meaning player sidled up and whispered, “Get security to walk you to your car.  The guy over there says he’s going to catch you in the parking lot.”

As with other religions, as with patriotism, getting crosswise with doctrine can be dangerous.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Human Behavior, Survival

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Surveillance Weirdness

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | 8 comments

Saturday October 28, 2006  

 

This brave new century offers a lot of interesting twists and turns for the observant.  I was reading a blog this morning, someone ruminating over a friend request he’d gotten from someone, maybe in India.

I’d gotten a similar request yesterday, so it caused me to consider whether blogs aren’t being used by intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, both here and abroad, to find folks with particular sets of viewpoints.

For instance, I came across a blog the other day posted by a person who called himself something like ‘dope-smuggler’.  Hmmm, thinks I, is this for real?  The blog entries and photos all involved various aspects of the use of controlled substances.

Suppose I worked for DEA, I went on thinking.  Would I throw out a trot-line or two searching for folks who’d like to admit on blogs that they were felons?  I think I might.

Or suppose I worked for Mossad  (I think that’s the right spelling), the Israeli intelligence agency.  Would I like to know as many names and locations of people who held Nazi-like viewpoints?  Would I be equally interested in folks who rabidly approve of anything Israel might do?  Probably.

And so on.  But that’s not what this blog is about.

This blog is about what’s happened with surveillance technology and general nosiness, both of government and individuals.

The technology and availability of spying equipment with amazing capabilities and invisibility at a shockingly low price is out there for anyone.

At least it was shocking and amazing to me when I found myself moved to investigate the matter.

One day I’d been sitting at a blackjack table for about twelve hours, and when I got to my car in the parking lot my cell-phone rang.  I answered and was treated to hearing a long playback of my conversations at the game-table several hours earlier.  I thought back and recalled a guy who sat next to me for a while wearing an unusual fanny-pack he kept messing with, so I figured it was him.

But his motive for doing such a thing was a mystery, and how he happened to know my cell-phone number was one, as well.

That happened several times, the casino playback thing, but I only saw that particular person once, and when he took the chair next to me I asked him if he had his equipment with him.  “Oh yeah,” he answered with a laugh.  “I always carry everything with me.”  And left the table.

During the same time-period Jeanne was in New Mexico.  We were in the living room, me standing, her sitting across the room, having a conversation.  The land-line phone rang and I answered.  Similarly to the casino experience, I had a conversation played back to me, but this time it was the conversation Jeanne and I’d just had within the past five minutes.

Someone obviously had the capability to listen to what was said in my home.  But what’s intriguing to me is that they wanted me to KNOW they had that capability.

That happened a couple more times and I could never see any signs around the house of any microphone/camera, but it was obviously here.  From then until now I’ve gotten spam emails I don’t open, but with subject lines referring to something or other that’s happened in my life, said or done, recently.

Which confirms for me that I am one helluva interesting guy.  I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would put that kind of effort, energy and expense into my life, but I do try to provide with them with some amusement in various ways.

Sometimes I figure it’s the rich neighbor kid, sometimes I think it’s the neighbor across the street next-door to my buddy, Wes, who’s generally known to be a negative busybody.  But that doesn’t quite fit the casino incidents.

I haven’t a clue. 

But after the first phone-at-home incident Jeanne and I went to a surveillance store and looked over what was out there on the open market.  After seeing it, I decided we live in a time when it’s useless to think there are any secrets, any privacy, if anyone’s determined enough to want to know, sick enough to be willing to put out a few bucks and plant a device.

Flattering, though, knowing that despite the fact I don’t talk to anyone but the cats these days unless I’m on the phone, I’m still one hell of an interesting feller.

Golly.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2000's, Adventure, America, Communication, Current Issues, Gambling, Human Behavior, Internet, New Mexico, NM, Surveillance, Uncategorized

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