Chemicals Into The Atmosphere Is At Least A Bit Less Invasive Towards The Planet Than Recent Previous Suggestions

Better certainly than trying to reignite old volcanoes to get them spewing light blocking material into the air.

Hard to say, though, what exactly the ultimate effects might be, long term, on doing something like this.

This also breaks the maxim that, if you want to dial an effect up, you better be able to dial it back down again, in reasonably practical time frames; and you need to be able to do that both because you can't be sure of the overall effects, given the nature of how unintended side effects can creep into a complex system that you start throwing changes at; but also because you might actually achieve your result, and then would certainly want to start cutting back on the whole reflecting thing; perhaps a lot sooner than you expected, for completely different reasons than you expected.

The chemical indicated here is sulfur dioxide. Not something normally thought of in connection with big chemical companies spewing poisons simply because it's quick, and will probably address the main problem, as well as make a tidy profit but, by the very fact that we have been given good reason to worry about such connections from past history, we ought to be at least concerned here.

So not only is the obvious question about how long term in the air, whatever chemical is used, might be, pertinent, but also what it might do, harm wise down stream, so to speak, as they undoubtedly will precipitate out in due course, and actually end up flowing through a number of various flow systems, each with their own sets of sensitivities.

The other part of this, for me, though, is why send big money, to whatever kind of company sells the chemical used, and not have something else, other than the hoped for effect, to show for it; not that the hoped for effect is any slouch mind you. But if you intend to spend some "infrastructure" type money, why not build infrastructure that will help you solve this problem, and other problems as well?

And that is where, certainly, I like going down the path of setting up the construction capability, as a non profit, public entity, to build very large scale, lighter than air constructs, in which I include now both Hybrid Dirigible Blimp trains, and the kinds of multi mile cubic structures that would be able to float flexible, reflective mats at whatever altitude, up to the limit of where weather balloons can get to. Floating, flexible mats that could also have solar collectors on them to created quite significant amounts of power with. And assuming you were using the right lift primitive (as in my Lift Doughnut design), you might also be able to pipe cold air back down to further your efforts at cooling.

And understand here, these will be installations that might make the difference between cities lying at, or near, the equator to remain habitable at all, going forward, as they might provide a perfect trifecta of shade, perhaps cooling air, and electrical power, not to mention helping to save some ice at the poles, and whatever other important glaciers need protecting, within either pole's arctic circle.

Scientists say controversial plan to cool the planet is doable

See Also:

Geoengineering Might Be More Palatable If It Involved Much Less Invasive Methods

Using Gaming Psychology As New Social Manipulative Technique

It's been in the news from several different angles of late. But I still do not think we are appreciating just how destructive this sort of thing can be yet.

Bad enough now that message can be so fraught with manipulation, let us also stack upon it all this seemingly intrinsic need in us to compete; ah, but is it intrinsic?

It certainly might be, to some extent, at least, as we had to compete, in one way or another, to survive at all, early on. But then again, as we've been held under the sway of Capitalist inspired competition for centuries, and now further elaborated by the terrible power of electrified amplification, there could be room for considerable doubt.

It reminds me, though, how someone like me could take advantage of a thing like this; especially as it relates to any, sudden windfall, sorts of money, suddenly being dumped on you; and also especially when you least expect it. As has happened before, with various previous examples in history, of an effective communicator, doing an expression of "a good cause." And certainly to very little good effect for the most part.

This is where the existing system itself seeks to co opt, suddenly rising new ideas that can't be dealt with a meaningful counter argument otherwise. The money, and the notoriety, usually come combined, and then all of the temptations, and new demands, of a thing that starts to make more and more money, and garner more and more enthusiastic support.

In my case it might go like this: I get a big chunk of money from wherever (I consider myself a "strange attractor," in the sense of chaotic systems, so something newly chaotic always comes up to  confront me), so it would be anything from winning a lottery ticket, to a suddenly converted, wealthy, former believer in Capitalism, with even a big dose of a substantial "believer base" of citizens, perhaps, in between. In the end where it would come from is not nearly as important as that it could come.

So. Trying to maintain, at least as some semblance, of a distancing of myself from the money, I put it into a non profit foundation. I even name certain, seemingly appropriate, luminaries to the board of directors. Whereupon I would then meticulously publish an accounting of all of the expenditures so that transparency is crystal clear. All of which, then, to become what you would expect from someone with at least nominal "good intentions."

But then, in a savant event of connection (desired, or not), I devise a gaming approach to get people to read my, quite manipulative, message. And here is how this would work:

I announce a weekly, and monthly, cash prize, that would be awarded, to the post reader who was able to accumulate the most "read," and "understood," points that a newly defined "Cosmolosophy Explorer," might be able to grind out, if motivated properly (a yearly event of the champions, would also be available, as a live event, only to donating members of course) could then offer a really big cash prize). We might even create our own user interface, much like Steam, so that we could control, without Google+, the access we desire to Google Blogs. And then this new interface would become the public access point, from then on, for all things concerning both of my blogs within Google Blogs proper.

All sorts of things would then flow from this gaming setup to get people not only reading my message, but also to then, collectively, start doing the work of organizing it for me; because, of course, you would give point awards for that sort of thing, as well. And the whole point system could start out with the best of intentions of trying to sus stuff that is meaningful to the cause, but that would quickly run up against the possible reality of being inundated with the input from your cause's own popularity.

But then, see, the other players in the game would sidle up and offer, oh so seductively, the AI processing power to help you with deciphering that very thing; and they would do this, of course, starting out as a further, "charitable" contribution to a "good cause." And at that point you would be poised on the possibility of creating your own, self funding, for a time, good cause "ponzi scheme;"
where the growing believer base helps keep funding not only the advocacy itself, but the further development of how the whole cause actually goes about accomplishing anything. And there, as they say, is where the rub of what the money will demand, more and more, meets the ever more hard road of one little compromise after another. And so it goes, little by little, down a different path of paved, good intentions.

Fortunately, I am not going to do that kind of fund raising thing (as stated before, I will live only on the money I receive from my SSI -- approx. $1,300 a month now, or by what I can barter for, whatever that might be). And even if I were to suddenly have money dumped on me it would be disbursed using a9* combination of the following:

I might do the foundation thing, as well as just give some away -- I'd like to do something for my friend Kathleen, for instance, whose cheap rent of a room for me, keeps me off the streets, as well as for my sisters and brother, but I would never, ever, use the money to just get more money.

No, if ever such an unlikely event were to occur, I would instead use, at least the majority portion of it, to have more preliminary research done for the technologies I have been proposing; so as to then have them be further along in the process of getting ready to become full fledged, new public infrastructure projects (of which, precisely because of my devotion to "Open Source," -- and the idea that you shouldn't get to own knowledge -- I would receive no payment for either).

The bottom line here, however, remains as it always has been: The choice as to which path we will continue to proceed along can still be ours. There is no guarantee mind you, but it can be. We just have to choose wisely. However difficult that may be.

The linked article quick list:

1: High score, low pay -- why the gig economy loves gamification

2:Using Gaming Psychology As New Social Manipulative Technique

3:Gaming And The Gig Economy

4:We're overspending for the love of a 'like' on Instagram. Here's how to stop

5:Dictionary.com chooses 'misinformation' as word of the year

6:America Is Poorer Than It Thinks

 High score, low pay -- why the gig economy loves gamification

Using Gaming Psychology As New Social Manipulative Technique


Gaming And The Gig Economy

We're overspending for the love of a 'like' on Instagram. Here's how to stop

Dictionary.com chooses 'misinformation' as word of the year

America Is Poorer Than It Thinks

What Is Information Overview, Assessment, Integration, And Effective Distribution?

[Post Change Note:

After meditating on this for a while now I felt obliged to make the following change:

1: In the last paragraph below, the, in paranthenese, aside making mention of the magic of the placebo effect, there is now also a further aside reference regarding the concept of savant, as in total Body Meaning space information transfer.

2: Added two new "See Also" references:

    a:Federal report says climate change will wallop U.S. economy

    b:What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?

J.V.]

It is another way of thinking about an experience, similar to what it used to feel like in the old days of what made news papers so involving, of perceiving linked mosaics of related facets of our lives. Only now it is something we must all learn to do, at least the the best extent possible. That is, assuming you still have the desire for truly informed choices, not to mention a willingness to take responsibility for yourself, as well as for preserving what living among still loving, and rational, people, brings you.

In the old days, of course, via the telegraph (which spawned the world's first transatlantic pipeline; in the form of a multi stranded copper), which really made this possible, and not that much later by the telegraph of the electromagnetic, radio spectrum, wireless morse code, did an individual of the early 1900's, and on, have the, then unbelievable, almost godly, ability to bath in some new sense of what was going on, in other, connected now (by our many new, competing interests), parts of our social/economic world at the time. And not so long after that came the teletype machine, because electricity, and repeatable type were meant to work together; and with that the black and white, dot matrix, wire photo (and so on).

So not only the words of the events could come from afar, but actual depictions. And all of it collected on a broad pallet opened up by the viewer, to display relatively (for the times) simultaneous shards of momentous occurrence (for why else would someone risk being there to report in the first place). And thus objectification, of the rest of the world, took on a new vantage point, and andybody, suddenly, could make the meaningful connections; elevating things juxtaposed to each other, graphically, and with words, so that the new nature of gap could be revealed... Well, at least to guys like Marshall McLuhan anyway.

And because of this new appreciation of gap, and graphic iconography, did the glossy magazines of the late forties, and early fifties come about, and with that the equally new, hyper mentality of ever more subtle messaging, for not only marketers to advertise with, but advocates of all stripes to do ever more mischievous things with everything now that can convey information. The speeded up presentation of singular snapshots, that are movies, with enough medium on the side of each frame for the analog of sound to be synched in, soon took over of course, but for a time there, the newspapers, and the glossies ruled. Radio intervened too, but the die was set.

As you might imagine, overview now has gotten quite a bit more complicated. and it has taken me nearly 40 years of intellectual life to finally come to realize this. And that is mainly because, in my opinion, the viewpoint has to be just as balanced as everything else one does when one walks the path of balance; only in this instance we have to think of balance a good deal more broadly than presenting supposedly unbiased reporting (a think to aspire to, I suppose, but seldom ever truly achieved). No, when I refer to balance here I mean balance across all major means of receiving information; which of course gets you in trouble because now you have to talk about receiving bit streams from non traditional sources; introducing the notion that the Body Meaning space side of our total cognitive makeup, can receive things we only thought were merely mystical, in days gone by. It is mystical mostly because of our fear of it, and not because there is only superstitious nonsense there (though superstitious nonsense is also a possibility as well).

The thing is, it's not just my oddities that allows me to do this. Everybody, I think, is capable of achieving what I have been able to do. And with a little research we could maybe figure out how to do it so it doesn't take 40 years of total effort (or being born, perhaps, with something at least like autism, that may have given me a starting advantage -- at least in that aspect of things). Whatever the case may be, though, surely my success in utilizing what I have been talking about here, as well as in my success in the world of data processing, ought to suggest a good deal more here than something that is just a part of "well... anything's possible, you know, because we exist inside of infinite potential" (and not only do you do have to take the magic of the "Placebo" effect into serious account, you also have to take a vastly extended idea of Savant into serious account as well)

The linked articles quick list:

1:Top 20 Marshall McLuhan Quotes -- The Canadian philosopher of communication theory

2:Understanding McLuhan (In Part)

3:Development of Communications From Telegraph To TV Second Edition 31340 HD

4:Prescription for Poverty

5:Federal report says climate change will wallop U.S. economy

Top 20 Marshall McLuhan Quotes -- The Canadian philosopher of communication theory

Understanding McLuhan (In Part)

Development of Communications From Telegraph To TV Second Edition 31340 HD

Prescription for Poverty

Federal report says climate change will wallop U.S. economy

See Also:

A Grave Climate Warning, Buried on Black Friday

What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?

What Is Wrong With A Society (or a species) That Spends This Kind Of Money For On Demand Fantasy Escape, And So Little On Everything Else That's Important

This is an illustration of just what "Business As Usual" entails now. All you need to do is spend heavily on both on demand fantasy and escape, as well as do everything you can to get people hating the media, and vola, you have a people who cannot make either thoughtful, or heartfelt, decisions on much of anything that is important, and for no other reason than their attention has been fully redefined, preprogrammed,  and  booked.  And of course, more big economic players are set to arrive on the scene, and throw even more money at all of this on demand escape, while the misery index of what we are not spending money on grows almost geometrically now.

This is a moral disgrace that's almost as big as the mountain of money fueling the whole mess, and that ought to be raising the stink it obviously doesn't now. And until it does, we are doomed. Until each and every one of us confronts this terrible discrepancy we are most assuredly doomed.

And remember here. This is not about whether its OK or not to have play time or not. Or whether enjoying entertainment is wrong. This is about the obscene over commoditization of all of these, ordinarily just fine, pursuits simply because a few individuals have found it so profitable, as well as so successful in making them go off the edge of all sense of proportion in personal aggrandizement.

The question then becomes, what are you going to do about it?

The quick list of linked articles:

1: Netflix's Content Budget Is Updated To $13B For 2018

2: 2018 Video Game Industry Statistics, Trends & Data

3: If you hate the media, you’re more likely to be fooled by a fake headline

4: ''NOBODY’S MARCHING ON WASHINGTON BECAUSE THEY’RE UPSET ABOUT FACEBOOK'' -- WALL STREET IS BETTING THAT LAWMAKERS WANT TO HUMILIATE BIG TECH — BUT NOT REGULATE IT

5: Beware of tech money in entertainment, Liberty Media execs warn

If you hate the media, you’re more likely to be fooled by a fake headline

''NOBODY’S MARCHING ON WASHINGTON BECAUSE THEY’RE UPSET ABOUT FACEBOOK'' -- WALL STREET IS BETTING THAT LAWMAKERS WANT TO HUMILIATE BIG TECH — BUT NOT REGULATE IT

Beware of tech money in entertainment, Liberty Media execs warn

A Conjecture On An Alternative Reason For Why Is Light Bent Around Massive Objects

[Post Change Note:

Well... I certainly had to come back and make some changes here, didn't I.

Let us start:

1: I no longer feel the need to leave this conjecture in the "Really Tentative" category. As such I have removed that from the title.

2: I have also slightly changed the first sentence of the post.

3: Changing paragraph five below. I really screwed the light thing up here. Light can't be the pure, repelly thing one moment, and then something that can't escape the next, inside a black hole. Whoops. My bad.

I am changing the sentence fragment: "because not even light can escape precisely because of the mass being so attractive." to the following: "because no information can be imparted any longer in our direct experience of "Physical Meaning Space;" which is our base point when you think of scales of consideration."

J.V.]

We all know the usual reason why light bends, of course, if we take the view of General Relativity. Spacetime is curved by massive objects. So obviously light must follow the bends -- so to speak, as other, less massive objects must, in their own way.

What if gravity, though, weren't depressing anything. What if gravity was merely another elemental effect like magnetic North, and South; in essence being another "field effect" process, subject to the similar kinds of field effect equations. And within that case, the elemental effect intended then being the need of meaningful things to be attracted to other meaningful things.

The problem there, though, is that you then need to come up with another way to explain why light does what it does. So what is a budding Cosmologist to do?

Well... How about this: What if you took the view that gravity works in an opposite fashion to magnetism, in that its elemental effect says to be attracted to other meaningful things, but to avoid those that aren't yet meaningful, whereas magnetism says that opposite orientations attract, and like orientations repel. Light though, as McLuhan used to say, is pure information. There is no set meaning in it until is manipulated, either as photons, or as wave forms, so as to impart information into it. And of course, happy to say, how else could it be manipulated, meaningfully, if not by a meaning processor, of some sort.

But then we have to also face the problem of what a Black Hole is, even though it is not a hole at all, and only appears black because no information can be imparted any longer in our direct experience of "Physical Meaning Space;" which is our base point when you think of scales of consideration.

Could all of the observed effects of a mass singularity be because of the time dilation effects? As in things are happening at such an increased differential between inside the portal, and outside, that proper state change in local space time cannot be properly interpreted because new changes occur inside before the last changes have been fully realized creating state change interference patterns

And we have the time differential because more closely packed, meaningful interactions, create their own, localized set of overlapping quantum entanglements, with everything locally interacting with everything locally, as vastly integrated, complex systems will do; creating a kind of internally cascading effect of imploding iteration sets.

So let's review. Mass is structure: Things that have come together because there can be no meaning between isolated, individual, primitive bits, without the juxtaposition of elements, across a gap that has to be bridged (remember, the "Elemental Embrace" demands that that things come together, and exchange), by the very fact of the energy created by the shared connection; the connection itself creating the gap penetrating channel for which the interlink then stays entangled.

More structure automatically entails more meaning, even if it is only the most basic meaning of friction itself, or the inherent imperfection of all systems in generating waste energy; that then channels itself out as various forms of light; which of itself is meaningful only as a indication of a point source of origin. of a particular type. Meaningful modulation of light, over time, cannot happen merely by random experience association. You must first have a meaning processor do experience association itself so that it can create, and hold on to, Mind meaning space, and Body meaning space, constructs, to create the "objectifications" necessary so that information can then be created, and passed, by experience informed choice.

I know this might be a real stretch (not to bend too much of your credibility space time), but what do you think anyway?

See Also:

[Post Note: If you do not have to worry about gravity curving spacetime, couldn't you then just have everything be of, and about, quantum foam, but just organized, and realized, along different vectors of experience association? By different singular groups of  many different meaning processors? Certainly something intriguing to think about, though, isn't it? J.V.]

Simulation suggests 68 percent of the universe may not actually exist

Do Instincts Travel Over Time By DNA Alone?

In thinking about information transfer, especially of the nature demonstrated by viruses transfering info by plasmids, why would thinking about how animals get behavioral traits transferred by something more than just genetic info, be so unusual?

Couldn't certain behaviors, as animals get more behaviorally complex (having the abilities to do more and more decision based interaction with their environment), get transferred, more and more, by some simpler form of "savant?" Wouldn't that give a special place for "Body Meaning Space" for all more behaviorally complex animals? And then take some of the information transfer limitations of chemically stored "instincts," off of genetics?

I ask this because it has always seemed something of a stretch for me to say that very complicated, muscle memory sequences, tied to specific environmental contingencies, and the best decisions to make in those contingencies; that this could be conveyed entirely by DNA. Not to say that a lot couldn't be transferred by DNA, mind you, but only to suggest that, the more and more you go up the figurative ladder of complexity to full sentience, the more relying on DNA to do all of the carrying capacity here becomes quite problematic.

What do you think?

What Do Morphogenetic Fields, Viruses Sharing Plasmids In Hospital Sinks, And meaning processors sharing ideas in general have in common?

See Also:

What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick

[Post Note: At the very least, this kind of evidence ought to suggest that the power of belief in meaning processors is a good deal more tangible than the Rationalists would have us acknowledge; especially as it relates to our role in the duality of energy, and the whole notion of what the limits might be as also relates to causality without physical instrumentality; unless of course you think of language, and from that ideas, as something that is more than just mind meaning space, or body meaning space, abstracts (each with their own sets of codics with which to set forth experience associations into something that can be held onto over space and time, as well as grasped in the immediate moment). J.V.]

Believing without evidence is always morally wrong

[Post Note: I understand what is intended here. It is certainly a worthwhile notion that you should have some semblance of actual information that, collected together, forms a cogent, representation of an actual, existential contingency, for which you are trying to state a fundamental relationship for. That being said, however, doesn't let you state something this important in such a, what is in my opinion, sweeping way; with, in effect, so little wiggle room, so to speak.

And the main problem here is that what a statement like this does is only to beg the question as to what constitutes "evidence" in the first place; because, too often in the past, "evidence" could only be that which is "objective;" or put more succinctly, that which is Mind Meaning Space rational only.

As such, one could ask the question: Am I being immoral if I believe in the power of Love (or even just in the power of thinking positively)? Is the subjective evidence of love enough for our philosopher here? Do we really need to worry about the fool's errand of  trying to measure what happens when I hold somebody I love meaningfully, with all of the connection inherent in that act? Simply to know that it has the right be be evidence at all? I certainly hope not.

By the same token, though, going too far into the subjective can get you into just as much trouble as going too far into the rational can. So I would like to think that what is actually being intended here gets taken care of if one simply follows a path of balance; listening to the truth from both sides of each contentious clash of opposites; the most prominent, certainly being that between the basic, figurative notions of "Father Fortress," and "Mother Earth." Listening to both sides and then being willing to do the hard negotiations to work out a compromise interpretation that utilizes as much of both as is appropriate for a given situation. J.V.]

One Way To Attack Mutually Exclusive "Echo Chambers"

Somebody may have already suggested this, and if that is so it would be most encouraging. I haven't seen anything on it yet, but no matter how hard you try, you can only ever get the smallest of samplings, of what is going on in the infosphere, so it's only ever luck that gets you into the right developments, at the right time (if you can't be good, at least be lucky; something that has kept me alive I can assure you). I say that because I hope this can actually happen, and we'll need all the push we can get on it.

In any case, though, one of the main powers of Facebook is that, if you leave it, and others you know do not, you will continue to get email updates from them that you cannot respond to (I know, there's probably a way, difficult though it may be, to finally, and ultimately, rid yourself of all connection to Facebook, but it is hard letting go of at least hearing from your still Zombified friends; who refuse to see the light, and leave that horrible place; just like so many won't leave Twitter -- the two vying for most horrible).

So. What is a concerned citizen to do? Well, how about this approach. Pass a law that says that ostensibly public places, even if for a commercialized service, must allow for people outside to be able to send messages into those still ensconced, and vice versa. As in my being able to send a ordinary email response back to an old friend, if Facebook sends me an email update without any solicitation on my part.

After all, when a friend goes into a Starbucks, and you are sitting in a restaurant, or at home, conducting a meal process, you shouldn't have any concern whatsoever as to not being able to respond to a text message from a Starbucks app, (or maybe the Amazon/Whole Foods app for something similar) that your friend has installed, saying he's in there for whatever (the one that gives him some BS little extra bonus on his next "free" whatever), and you should join him (and thus indicate your displeasure at such a dumb, unnecessary communication, just for a freebie). Any more than when I'm working here at home, and I get a message from Facebook, from a former friend, I should worry about responding with my (domain provider) email website link. But of course, with the way we let these people dominate us, you must now absolutely have that concern.

Is there any wonder why so many get so trapped in these "evil precisely because they are so clever" manipulations of our need to socialize in the first place? Is there any further need to understand why you should be questioning the fact that you bent over so conveniently for them in the first place, by letting another one of our most important aspects, of being social animals, be commoditized to such a horrible degree?

And then the power goes to their heads and it is off to the races to see which one of them will screw everyone, and everything else, over, in the process to dominate (not that having them cooperate with each other is all that much better either, though).

But now the question becomes: Will any legislation, that changes anything substantially, as to say affecting one monetary power, or another, ever be allowed to pass again? Will any clear majority ever be able to establish itself again? Will there be so many competing entities, of money powered intent, both inside, and outside, of our economy, and national boundaries, that all of the manipulative messages will just end up creating a last, great shriek of agony, within the fabric of this reality itself, and then the whole thing just implode, in one last act of absolute, insane, absurdity realized. Only maybe this singular act of negation won't yield anything, afterwards, but complete eraser. Because maybe that would be the only way left for the entirety to express ultimate revulsion.

Echo Chambers

See Also:
[Post Note: The next 4 link articles:

1:Amazon’s HQ2 Spectacle Isn’t Just Shameful—It Should Be Illegal
2:Google in China -- When ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Met the Great Firewall
3.Looking Busy
4.Amazon Is Kicking All Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers Off Amazon Marketplace

aren't all that necessarily, directly connected, to the "Echo Chamber" topic, but I am including them because "Big" in business usually means doing things to a particular "Game Plan" that has a tendency to blot out all other message contenders as to what is actually going on, and of course, they hope that the media will just play along and be an "Echo Chamber" by default; which sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. Unfortunately, as concentration of media continues, the "sometimes they do" part can start to get pretty thin, so I like to keep the contrasts coming. J.V.]

Amazon’s HQ2 Spectacle Isn’t Just Shameful—It Should Be Illegal

Google in China -- When ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Met the Great Firewall

Looking Busy

[Post Note: Heaven forbid that we have other choices in who fixes our stuff; any more than to say that we might have the right to fix anything anymore, that we might choose to, if we knew we could fix it ourselves, or that we had all of the information about whatever problem in the first place; let alone the language with which to describe it; because yes, they'll come up with their own "New Speak," as needed, as has been only too clear of late. J.V.]

Amazon Is Kicking All Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers Off Amazon Marketplace

I Was There For This Debacle

I was one of the 8,000 removed from a job when they pulled the plug from the Mobile Group. I worked for Nytech, via their temping services, that had a lot folks working there (they had an office, in fact, just a few blocks up the street from Studio A, where I worked on the top floor).

Interesting side note though. I always thought it would never happen. My being hired to work for these people. Especially when, years previous, I vowed I would never work for the "Evil Borg Empire" (as in those who innovate little, but absorb others greatly).

At the time, though, Kathleen and I were pretty hard up. She was not yet old enough for pension eligibility, or SSI income,  and I still did not have enough "SSI points" either. She couldn't work because of her back problems, and medication issues because of her Epilepsi. I was having more difficulty getting work because I was finally starting to show my age; not helped by the fact that I also become quite fed up with still coloring my hair; which I did for quite awhile in the bizz to not at least seem old.

I can't remember if Nytech called me up, or if I just saw the listing and sent in a resume, but they did get back to me saying that Microsoft was interested in an interview. This had to be back in either late 2012, or early 2013, or late 2013, and early 2014, I don't recall exactly (though I did work over a year for them in total), but being made economically desperate, I swallowed my pride, did some interview cramming (for all of the dumb, usual programming tests they like to give you, as well as the current buzzwords you always needed, to at least sound like you knew what you were talking about), and then went in for the full eight hour ordeal.

It was with two different electrical, and signals engineers. Each had about four hours with me to go over technical competency, and design philosophy. but also this big picture of how much of a critical application this was going to be because, and they both emphasized this: they were just generating tons of test data, from a host of clever new mobile designs, that would need a true enterprise capable reporting system for all stakeholders to be able access, from anywhere. And on top of that, they had one very demanding kind of report spec, needing to be delivered; one that demand doing T-SQL pivots on a very wide range of devices, within a huge range of testing regimens; all on a troyka of new, automated, and very, very expensive, testing machines housed in the higher security lab, of the also higher security Mobile Group (above ordinary Microsoft Employees) area that occupied most of the top floor of Studio A. All of which meant a Windows Communications Foundation app that could do dynamic T-SQL pivots on the fly, from a very flexible database, set up to handle changing expansion.

Oddly enough, I had been wanting to do an ultimate, very thin client, enterprise master control app, for quite a while, but could find no client willing to take the project on. I wanted to do that because of my previous frustration with doing something very similar, years before, for Providence, and Swedish hospitals, for their partnership, Health Services Northwest, only then, I had to do it with With Windows DCOM, and not with WCF because they hadn't invented it yet. I got the DCOM thing to work for H.S.N., but only with great frustration, and dogged effort. This new opportunity was like getting a blank slate from design heaven. These guys just gave me an empty server box and told ne to have at doing whatever I thought would work. And boy did I. I wrote the "Starfire Application" for Microsoft, which I can say, with no modesty at all, was something quite awesome. Because it did everything they wanted it to do, and then some. For any enterprise application, let alone a reporting one.

The thing was, there wasn't any real testing data. Never had been, and never was going to be. They were in fact, in my opinion, trying to set me up as their "old guy who couldn't possibly get this done," in any time soon, in any case, "patsy". A dodge, if you will, to blow smoke up the butts of higher ups, so as to explain why they had no reporting data coming out from all op the effort that had been expended to date so far. And that was because the entire Mobile Group, at least as it was manifested by Studio A, was without any sense of real vision, or effective leadership. An operation best described as rudderless, directionless, and with no effective, clear, leadership at all. Something that finally became obvious to me after the fourth or fifth month of them making excuses as to why they couldn't get me security clearance to go into the real inner sanctum of the Mobile Group (once I was in, the joke, amongst Nytech employees was that the security wasn't to keep secrets in, but to keep the level of abject failure secret from getting out). And it was only their great shock at my making the damn thing work within about six months, and the need for more than the token, test data, that they had originally put together to create at least something for me to base my design on, and maybe even embarrassment, that made them finally give me clearance. And I do mean shock, and comically so, when the guy I had the most contact with saw the Excel Workbook get created, with not only the pivot displayed properly, but with embedded VBA code providing hot key functionality to do detail data queries of whatever row of aggregated test data a user might want to see, and then have that delivered to a new page in the report Workbook.

As anyone who has tempted for Microsoft knows, they aren't usually very nice about cutting the cord. You inevitably lose personal stuff, and it just happens, often, out of the blue, as it were. I get some satisfaction, though, in remembering that the software I wrote for them was worth way more than any phone design they had been trying to contemplate... Ok, mostly because my app worked, and they didn't have much of anything that was working, all that well, but still, it was a good piece of software; something that might have been useful who know where else in the company. The thing is, though, they undoubtedly trashed that too when they closed my server down (because why would they want to keep anything given to them from a mere temp guy). What a waste. Of my time, and theirs.

That experience turned out to be the final straw that broke my ability to withstand the BS of Capitalism. The whole not "living the change that you wish to see in the world" was bothering me a lot as well, but you get way too used to the toys, and status, the money brings, don't you. Maybe the two emotions together was what was enough to finally get me on the path I am on now.

Why The Windows Phone Failed So Spectacularly

Dedicating This Post To The Women At Google Who Are Shaking The Tree

And to hoping women everywhere will join in. Together we can celebrate some very powerful women from the past who have done the same thing.

Women are the vessel of creative power (and remember guys, we have it in us whether we have a inny, or an outie, as our identity). Own it. Use it.

The path of balance requires that we honor both (however you want to think about how they reside in you) the Great Father, and the Great Mother. There are times, however, when you just have to give the Great Father aspect a good slap in the face (especially when it has become so transfixed by the dark power of greed, which itself has become the essence of electrified Capitalism), to remind it that life is supposed to be a partnership; otherwise how would symbiotic relationships have ever started in the first place (like the mitochondria in your cells that make you possible), let alone how we are absolutely not going to survive as a species without it.

Peter Gabriel - Shaking The Tree (Secret World) ~ 1080p HD

Boudica the warrior queen

The Fate of the Earth Depends on Women

HOW TO MAKE MOTHERHOOD EASIER IN AMERICA

See Also:

Shamed for their sacrifice: Military moms don't always get a hero's welcome home