Well Blog O’RAM seems to be back on the internet. Sorry about the hiatus. GoDaddy deleted my account, which is sad for them. I am taking a crawl, walk, run approach to getting this thing working again, and we are at the crawl stage.

At the moment, everything seems to be working except for my style sheet and some wordpress plugins. But I am working through the server and so have more privileges than a regular visitor. So, please let me know of any funkiness you observe.

Well, unexpected funkiness.

Were I President, I would take a tour of all the State capitols to discuss the needs of the American people as described by their elected Governors. Only after that would I spend time conversing with foreign potentates, who look upon the American people with avarice and derision.

But of all the foreign potentates that I would deal with, I would begin with the Canadians. I choose them because in my youth living in Michigan, I would tune my Japanese made FM radio to the CBC and learn things that were not on US or even PBS radio.

I am grateful for that. It is not that the CBC is without blemishes, because it has many. Only that it did things that were different, and the 5% of things broadcast that were different and not intolerable were good.

After that I think that I would ask humbly to visit the Japanese people and thank them for the small gray transistor radio, and the small uncomfortable 2-speed Honda Civic that my pal and I drove around in High School, and also for their support in the Cold War, which although inexplicable, was reassuring.

After that it becomes more hard. Both Korea (South) and Turkey are unusual places with unusual people that America loves and who love America. Yes, we fight, but never because we are angry, only because we need different things. In the end, we settle things with respect for all.

After that the President should spend time with our traditional allies, England, France, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Greece, and the many other countries that have bound their fate with our own through NATO, SEATO, and other agreements.

By this time a President would be about done with a 4 year term, but would also have gone to some G8 and other international conferences.

So, for everyone living in a country not mentioned here, please understand that while we the people of America appreciate your support, and love you in return, we may not say so every day.

More importantly, having Americans say that you are good is not really as important as looking within yourselves and knowing that you are good. Good is as good does. And everyone can see it. Even dumb Americans.

So in the end, Shakespeare was right, to thine own self be true.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless me, my family, in-laws and y’all. Bless our homes, schools, work, and cars. Protect us from evil and keep us strong in the Lord. Send forth a guardian angel to each of us to give us the strength to do the right thing and the wisdom do know what that is.

Amen.

The biggest problem I have with reading the scripture is the inconsistency of translation. Here is a passage that has meaning to me.

12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
— Philippians 4:12-13 New International Version (NIV)

But is that the same thing as:

12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. — Philippians 4:12-13 New King James Version (NKJV)

I just don’t know. They seem different to me and no one alive today can help me resolve the difference. I understand Latin somewhat, which is:

12 Scio et humiliari, scio et abundare (ubique et in omnibus institutus sum): et satiari, et esurire, et abundare, et penuriam pati. 13 Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat. — Philippians Chapter 4:12-13: Vulgate (Latin)

That is pretty much consistent with both English translations, although the former seems closer. But really the closest I can get is:

12???? ?? ???????????? ???? ??? ??????????? ?? ????? ??? ?? ????? ???????? ??? ??????????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????????? ??? ??????????? 13????? ????? ?? ?? ???????????? ?? ?????? — ???? ???????????? 4:12-13 1550 Stephanus New Testament (TR1550)

But does that really help?

So, I had a great idea, and was going to totally blog it. It was short and pithy. You would have loved it.

Then someone called. I got involved in their problems and now I can’t remember what color socks I put on this morning.

Sorry.

Ok, ok, here is a not depressing poem.

Sunshine and water
make flowers bloom.
Those are the flowers
I buy for my wife.
Because she is the sunshine and water
that makes me bloom too.

More creation. Yay me.

I have an irrepressible urge to create tonight. Not tomorrow, and not something complex that will take a few days to complete. Just to create something. Something complete, finished and done. Now.

Well that is just great. My best skills are to weave together small things into big things, but that takes time. No, tonight I’ll just have to improvise with not my best skills.

Here is a poem. Yes, a poem. Shut up.

Out of the window is a tree.
Wind came and broke the tree.
Its branches with fading leaves,
have cracked clean apart from their life-giving trunk,
yet remain high in the sky.
The branches still hold to the sky
by the vines they long shared with the trunk.
While those vines live,
dead branches will decorate the sky.
Unless the vines, by living, ruin the tree
then all would fall together.

Ok, so my meter is bad and the image is depressing. Get over it. Creation is complete. Yay me.

As of this afternoon I used to think that I was moderately well educated. Four years of Latin, surveys of the great books, a degree in Mathematics, a minor in Physics, a Masters in Engineering, and many (many) years of learning in the Judeo-Christian cannon. The thoughts and convictions of people spanning thousands of years have been dumped unceremoniously into my tiny little brain.

I have learned through the writings of giants; the basis of integer and real numbers from Piano; geometry from Euclid; probability from Pascal; rhetoric from Cicero; quantum theory from Dirac; special relativity from Einstein; drama from Shakespeare, Racine, and Euripides; linear and dynamic programing from Dantzig, and the nature of reasoning from Kant. Mahan, Clausewitz, and Caesar laid out the theory of strategy and combat, while Rommel whispers the specifics of the attack to me when I think the least.

I’ve taught the calculus in the style of Leibniz, and classical physics as Newton described it. I tutored number theory to fifth graders as Euler explained it to me, only to be fired after four weeks for being so successful that my services were no longer needed.

Heisenberg and Godel give me pause and strictly remind me of the importance of being humble. There are after all limits to our knowledge. And Freud showed that in spades.

Without much introspection, I earn my daily bread from the application of my knowledge of Western Civilization. Yes, I stand on the shoulders of giants, but although I am no giant, I seem to think that the climb to reach their shoulders was meritorious.

Yet, today I discover a vast gap in my learning. And it is simple and about a century old. It is absolutely wrong that I have NEVER even heard of this fantastic theorem. Before today. Nor to my shame did it ever occur to me, even though it is manifestly true, and the interested student should have derived it without comment.

So you, gentle reader, you need not suffer in all the vast ways I have today, just read Emmy Noether’s first theorem. According to Wikipedia, she was described by David Hilbert, Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, which is probably not really true, but close enough for hand grenades.

Noether’s (first) theorem states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The action of a physical system is the integral over time of a Lagrangian function (which may or may not be an integral over space of a Lagrangian density function), from which the system’s behavior can be determined by the principle of least action.

This is just stunning.

And almost a hundred years old.

The shame of my ignorance is inescapable. While I will carry that shame, let me just say that for me to be so surprised, I say that our systems of learning are simply incomplete and inadequate, and I ask you educators, to step up. When even the interested student takes more than twenty years to see the light of truth and beauty with only the help of the internet and natural curiosity, then somehow something needs to be better in education.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
— John Stuart Mill (1868)

Ok, so I led myself down the primrose path, and my encrustitude is showing. I am good with that.

When the F-15 reserve pilots used to fly their seriously loud 10 ship flights over my house, I would go out onto my porch and sit in my rocking chair and shake my fist at those whippersnappers who were invading my airspace with their big-ass noise. Damn, kids.

(And for those who have not been buzzed by 10 F-15s at 500 feet at 10 am on a Saturday morning, I weep for you, cuz it is fucking awesome.)

If I had had a bb gun I could have plunked those whippersnappers in the butt. But, I didn’t and moreover, I had to respect their casual use of my airspace, just in case something bad happened, these were the whippersnappers I was counting on to put the bad folks in the ditch, literally.

However, despite my generally good mood brought on by hi-tech fighters, today, I became disgusted with the internets. I read a piece which had one good idea. That idea took up about one sentence. Yet, because the writer was being paid by the word, there were thousands of worthless words around the one idea.

F*******g worthless whippersnapper bloggers.

Frankly, as an amateur blogger, not getting paid, by the word or the product endorsement, i am mighty tired of reading big ass long winded bullshit articles that might have one idea. or not.

I am not linking to it because its suckitude would pollute my otherwise pure blog. *cough* *cough*

So F*** YOU, professional writers pretending to be bloggers who embed 1000 words of history lesson on stuff I already know in an article with ONE thought.

F*** YOU.

Thoughts are valuable, history lessons, less so. Not worthless, but put your valuable THOUGHTS, up near the front of your piece, so I can skip through your worthless bullshit history lesson you use to pad the words on your page that waste my time.

Professional writers are ruining blogging. Just sayin’

F*** YOU.

Not like I have an opinion or something…and stay the hell off my lawn too.