Prison

Henry Harpending on prison:

[from the comments here: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/castaways/]

I encountered a fellow years ago who had encountered several unwilling castaways and contributed to the failure of their 'attempt'. He was an old guy in NE Botswana, roughly between Nata and Pandamatenga if you have a map handy.

He told me about the best years of his life when the government has housed him, fed him, given him clothes and medical care, and not worked him very hard. I asked him how that happened, and he was a little bit vague. He was hoping it might happen again.

I turned out that when he was a young man their hunting party watched a small airplane with engine failure land on a pan (like a dry lakebed). Two white men came out, looked around, saw the hunting party, and waved at them. The Bushmen did not know what these creatures could be, so in the interest of caution and safety they killed them. Soon after the government took him away to prison.

He did understand that he had been in prison but he had no clear idea why. What had he done wrong?


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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Good article

Biography of Len Hope about his conversion to the gospel in the early 20th century. Real nice flavor to it.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/welcometable/2013/04/len-hope-in-his-own-words/

Brothers and sisters, I wish to state why I become a Latter-day Saint. I once belonged to the Baptist Church. Before I become a Baptist, I thought it was wise to ask some of the old members that have been members of the church for a long time, how do you get religion and what was it.

Some of 'em stated to me that when you get religion, you have to pray for it. You have to see peculiar things, and have peculiar dreams, and see yourself crossing Hell on a spider web. I thought that was very peculiar, but I was willing to try it. So I tried to get religion that year, and I prayed for it, and seek very hard for religion, the way I know — beggin' the Lord for religion, but I couldn't get religion that year.

I couldn't see myself crossing Hell on a spider web, nor neither could I see any peculiar things. Next year, I try religion again. And, as you know it's customary for those in the Baptist or Methodist denomination how they gather, the people down on them benches, called mournin' benches. You set down and pray, and they'll pray for it, and after that period, why they give us a prayer period, a rest period, to go out and pray for our sins. And they let us go out for an hour or two hours, prayin' for our sins. So I went out late at night and went up and lay down in a cotton patches and cornfield, lookin up to Heaven, begging the Lord for religion, dew falling on me heavily. Well after it was impossible for me to see any of these peculiar things, it looked like there was no religion for me. So I went back to the Church and promised to live all the laws of the Baptist Church, keep all the commandments of Jesus Christ as far as I could understand it. I give the preacher my hand, and with covenant. So when the vows was over, they baptize us, and shortly after that the Lord showed me in a dream, that I had to be baptized over again. I wasn't in the right Church; it wasn't happening. [snip]

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Math is a sixth sense

[quoting http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/math-is-hard/]

Lord Kelvin said "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."  Even those who didn't have much math sometimes wished that they did.  Chuck Darwin said "I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics;  for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense."

I remember talking to a field biologist studying three genetic male morphs of some screwy freshwater fish.  In passing, I said " Of course all three forms have to have the same average fitness, over the long term."  He said " Why?", because he was an idiot. Speaking of which – general intelligence and math ability are fairly well correlated.  Maybe a lot of these low-math types just aren't very smart.

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Thella's obituary

My great-aunt died recently. She spent twenty years as an informant for the FBI.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thespectrum/obituary.aspx?n=thella-brock&pid=164179844&fhid=4515#fbLoggedOut

-Max

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Medicine: 1960s to now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578380382204116270.html

By current standards, the lack of third-party coverage would be impermissible. But treating patients without insurance meant that I had to give my acute attention to the price of every medical intervention. The costs could have a direct and painful impact on a family's budget. So I had to know the prices for most of the medications I prescribed and of most of the tests I might order. I learned to play for time by waiting, when it was safe to, before ordering an X-ray or a test—and to substitute less-expensive medications for more costly ones wherever possible.

I developed pastimes that were diverting but would permit me to be available to patients 24-7, requiring coverage by a substitute only for a two-week vacation annually. Few physicians nowadays would undertake such an onerous schedule, and yet many of the inconveniences are offset by benefits. If you are caring for your own patients, you know them and their ailments and can manage a great deal over the telephone (or by email these days), with minimal cost to them and minimal intrusion into your own life. By contrast, covering for another physician almost invariably means inefficiency—additional time to learn the patients' relevant history, and often either a direct patient encounter or an outpatient facility visit, all of which greatly add to the cost.

Then, in the mid-1970s, things changed, and we became enlightened. Third parties, typically the insurance companies, were interpolated between the physician and the patient. Some of the consequences were unfortunate.

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Parenting and The Prince

"It is better to be feared than to be loved." If I ever have kids I am totally going to brush up on my Machiavelli first.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323646604578400804035071688.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

-M.

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.