Occasional thoughts and deeds of an Engineer
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  • This explains it

    Posted on September 30th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

    McCain is the word of death in the current Executive Branch of government. In my Vietnam growing up period, I always admired McCain but I do not think the White House shares my opinion.

    The U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, reportedly stepped down from his position on Friday. An official at Arizona State University, where Kurt Volker serves as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, reportedly confirmed Kurt Volker’s resignation from the State Department to the State Press

    Who is a patriot these days? Lots of people claim that title but few are worthy. I am sad and disillusioned these days. And, I suppose, many are happy that I am sad.

  • Impeachment: A path fought with perils

    Posted on September 28th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

  • Cartoon: Li’l Don Trump and how the cookie crumbles

    Posted on September 28th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

  • 500 generations to Us

    Posted on September 28th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

    500 generations isn’t enough time for evolution to do too much. So the Primitive Mind—a hardwired part of us—is still stuck in the world of 11,000 BC. Which means we’re all like computers running on the highly unimpressive Windows 11000 BC operating system, and there’s no way to do a software update.

    But humans have something else going on as well—cognitive superpowers that combine together into an enhanced center of consciousness we’re calling the Higher Mind.

    The Higher Mind and his magical thinking abilities helped the human species transform their typical animal hunter-gatherer world into undoubtedly the strangest of all animal habitats: an advanced civilization. The Higher Mind’s heightened awareness allows him to see the world with clear eyes, behave rationally in any environment, and adjust to changes in real time.

    So while our Primitive Minds are still somewhere in 11,000 BC, our Higher Minds are living right here with us in 2019. Which is why, even though both minds are just trying to do their jobs, they’re in a fight most of the time.

    Sometimes, the fights are about what’s best for us—a practical conflict.

    The full story can be found here

  • What does this mean??

    Posted on September 25th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

    Gaslighting is a term often used by mental health professionals (I am not one) to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.

    The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman’s husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull off this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman’s character reacts to it, he tells her she’s just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim’s perception of him or herself.

    Whataboutism gives a clue to its meaning in its name. It is not merely the changing of a subject (“What about the economy?”) to deflect away from an earlier subject as a political strategy; it’s essentially a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be.

    The tactic behind whataboutism has been around for a long time. Rhetoricians generally consider it to be a form of tu quoque, which means “you too” in Latin and involves charging your accuser with whatever it is you’ve just been accused of rather than refuting the truth of the accusation made against you. Tu quoque is considered to be a logical fallacy, because whether or not the original accuser is likewise guilty of an offense has no bearing on the truth value of the original accusation.

    Whataboutism adds a twist to tu quoque by directing its energies into establishing an equivalence between two or more disparate actions, thereby defaming the accuser with the insinuation that their priorities are backward.

  • Email 2 Me: From Firefox

    Posted on September 25th, 2019 cwmoore No comments
    Top 5 podcast episodes about online privacy
    Over the past five seasons, Firefox’s IRL: Online Life is Real Life podcast has delved into what privacy violations are happening on the internet, who they’re happening to, why they keep happening, and importantly, how we can all take steps to reclaim our privacy online.

    Below, we’re pleased to share a staff-curated list of the top 5 IRL podcast episodes we’ve produced about online privacy.

    1. The “Privacy Policy” Policy
    Privacy policies are generally long and dense. Why do they exist in the first place? Do they actually protect you? What can we do to make them better?
    Listen now »

    2. Making Privacy Law
    Explore the recent history of Big Tech regulation in Europe and learn about what’s on the horizon for privacy law in the U.S. and around the globe.
    Listen now »

    3. Privacy or Profit – Why Not Both?
    Is the choice — privacy or profit — a false dilemma? Meet the people who have built profitable tech businesses while also respecting our privacy.
    Listen now »

    4. Your Password is the Worst
    We should hold companies accountable for better security, but we also need to hold ourselves accountable for good password hygiene. Learn why passwords matter, and what makes a good one.
    Listen now »

    5. The Surveillance Economy
    Big Tech companies collect so much personal data for profit that they’re changing the fundamentals of our economy and even our way of life.
    Listen now »
  • Climate Crisis Illustrated.

    Posted on September 25th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

    by SIERRA Staff

    Ahab straddles the tip of a gliding whale. A lone fisherman sits on a bed of dissolving ice. Into an endless sea of bobbling plastic, a young boy casts out a line into a suffocated sliver of water. These are just some of the disturbing climate renderings from Barcelona-based street artist Pejac. In these provocative drawings, human and natural worlds collide with absurd and destructive consequences that reveal an all-too-inexorable truth: The Anthropocene will spell the unraveling of both if we don’t act now.

    By Charlie: There is Yin – Yang that can help one visualize as well. This is one for those that lack imagination or are in denial. Or how about “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.

  • Nihilism

    Posted on September 8th, 2019 cwmoore No comments

    What is nihilism any way?  Well, simply put it is a negative view of life.

    • ni·hil·ism
    • the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.
      synonyms: negativity, cynicism, pessimism; More
      rejection, repudiation, renunciation, denial, abnegation;
      disbelief, nonbelief, unbelief, scepticism, lack of conviction, absence of moral values, agnosticism, atheism, nontheism
      “he could not accept Bacon’s nihilism, his insistence that man is a futile being”
      Philosophy
      extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.
      historical
      the doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party c. 1900 which found nothing to approve of in the established social order.

    For the record, I do not adhere to Nihilism. I do, on occasion, dispair and then Acts 4:29-31 applies.

  • RVillage RV Repair Group

    Posted on September 1st, 2019 cwmoore No comments