2026 September❮❮prev

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Hard to hear reason over the trumpets of angels

Usual "new to me music playlist" with an emphasis on where I ran into. I ran into a bunch of stuff in SF but saved it more for this month.

4 star:
* Dancing In the Moonlight (Toploader)
love the percussion in this version from Lynette's playlist
* Make Her Say (Kid Cudi)
* The Magic Number (De La Soul)
from the movie Spider-Man No Way Home

3 star:
* Five Years (David Bowie)
Crazily ironically Meta used this song that is supposed to be a Feel Good ad about AI, even though it's about the end of the world happening in 5 years...
* I Think We're Alone Now (Annie DiRusso)
I'm surprised there aren't many spartan versions of this song, like something closer to what a teen might sing on their own, they're all so glossy.
* I Can (Nas)
A google pixel ad use this hip hop song w/ a bit of fur elise.
* You Really Got Me (Van Halen)
One of Lynette's nephews was at a band camp and they explicitly covered the Van Halen cover.
* Better Man (Little Big Town)
from Lynette's newphew's playlist

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RIP Gloria Steinem

    Clear blue bay at sunset
And I am stoned and placid--
    Free of grief. almost.

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Article II. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

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Anthony Burgess once argued that English English, American English and all the other varieties of Anglophonics have become rational and pragmatic (closure-oriented), but Irish English remains ludic and esthetic (open-oriented). The rest of us speak dry prose; the Irish speak playful poetry.

While I see some truth in that formulation, I would prefer to describe all-other-English as belonging to what Neurolinguistic therapist Dr. Richard Bandler calls the meta-model (statements we can logically judge as true or false), and Irish English as belonging to the Milton-model (statements not containable in true-false logic but capable of seducing us into sudden new perceptions).

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Whosoever speaks in any tongue gives birth to blessings and curses, & if the uncanny Egyptians made Thoth the father of both language and magick, the canny Greeks made Hermes the god of both language and fraud.

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I don't think anybody ever really matures. Adults are just children who owe money.

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The universe may be not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.

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There was a young lady from Sidney
Who liked it right up to her kidney
A man from Quebec
Shoved it up to her neck
He had a big one, didn't he?

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Nothing is known. Everything is imagined.

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if youth only knew, if age only could

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Wilson's 22nd Law: "Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia."

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The universe contains a maybe.

You know, the odd thing about being old is that you see something–something especially good or rotten or funny, and you think, 'Oh I must show this to so-and-so, it's just his sort of thing.' And what's odd is–there are so many gaps in the circle now–that so-and-so is gone.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

I found the second sentence of this quote (dated 9/9/'49) and used it as a .sig quote for a while, then years later noticed it was my dad's birthday. But I hadn't seen the longer quote before. Had one of those half asleep ideas that seems semi-brilliant at the time but then wither in daylight: in this case it was thinking about how Star Wars has a big part of its pre-sequels lore dismissed as "Star Wars Legends" (along with some actual "What-If" comics branded "Infinities").

Given how much bank Marvel has been making on Multiverse stuff, maybe all the Legends and Infinities stuff can become a singular parallel universe story. (Throw in the universe of the comic "The Star Wars", that put the Lucas' very first conceptual drafts onto the page.) That would be kinda fun. I'm reading the book "Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language". I just hit the chapter on the author's own experiences as a content creator, and how calculated tuning a post to maximize popularity can be - from back in the day (posting early in the morning when the algorithm Reddit then used would disadvantage staler posts) to now in today's shortform video landscape (crafting to employ emotionally engaging words at every turn)

Some of these creators just treat it as a game to win popularity or sometimes a form of gambling, where their efforts on one end have a chance of turning into actual dollars. It's disheartening though to people who would prefer ideas get traction based on their own merit.

And of course, the same techniques can be used in service of an agenda, political or otherwise. I mean it's TRULY disconcerting how Trump reposts memes by the score on a nightly basis. Someone out there - multiple someones - are extremely aware of this, and are certainly using those kind of sordid gaming the system techniques to plant a bug in his ear. Like, I know some of it is just trolling to "own the libs", but having "the algorithm" and the attention economy so at the heart of the guidance of the country doesn't seem like such a wise way to be.

NUTE GUNRAY, a VERY SUCCESSFUL viceroy, is being treated WORSE than almost anybody in the HISTORY of the Republic. The failing Coruscant media won't tell you this because they HATE the Trade Federation -- always have!

They call Naboo an "invasion." WRONG! It was a TRADE DISPUTE. Perfectly legal. Naboo had been ripping off the Trade Federation for YEARS with horrible tariffs, horrible deals, some of the WORST deals anybody has ever seen. Everybody knew it!

Finally Nute says, ENOUGH. We want FAIR TRADE. And what does Cryin' Queen Amidala do? Runs straight to the Senate! Very weak. Couldn't negotiate. Didn't even try! Too busy with the ridiculous outfits and all that makeup, perhaps. Nobody knows what's going on there!

And what did the Senate do? They sent two RADICAL JEDI. Supposedly "negotiators." They show up with LIGHTSABERS. Some negotiation! If Nute Gunray showed up at the Chancellor's office with a lightsaber, believe me, we'd never hear the end of it. It would be the BIGGEST STORY on Coruscant. They'd lock him up for a thousand years! But the Jedi do it and the FAKE HOLONEWS calls them "peacekeepers." Give me a break!

Then the CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT starts screaming about "battle droids." Excuse me, SECURITY PERSONNEL! Completely legal. Very professional. Roger Roger. Some of the finest security personnel anywhere! Much better than the Gungans, by the way. Not even close! Have you seen these Gungans? TOTAL DISASTER.

And now they're blaming Nute because a nine-year-old child somehow gets into a military spacecraft, flies into a Trade Federation command ship, and BLOWS IT UP? Where were this child's parents? Nobody asks! The Radical Jedi are taking little children into WAR ZONES now and somehow NUTE GUNRAY is the criminal? Very sick people!

And where was Chancellor Valorum during all of this? NOWHERE. Completely useless. Weak Chancellor, terrible leadership. Everybody knew it. The Jedi were running around doing whatever they wanted, Queen Amidala was making a scene in the Senate, and Valorum couldn't get anything done.

Nute Gunray wanted one thing: FAIR TRADE. Instead they arrested him, humiliated him, dragged him through the courts, and now the CORRUPT REPUBLIC ESTABLISHMENT wants to destroy a very successful Viceroy because he had the courage to stand up to them.

They're not really after Nute, they're after FAIR TRADE. Nute is just standing in the way! People are seeing what's happening. Believe me.

TOTAL WITCH HUNT!

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One day, possibly quite soon, OpenAI's lawyers are going to claim that an agent they own doing something illegal is not their fault because the agent is its own legal person.

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Links and connections to 9/11 and the WTC on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy:

* Lynette was there working at one One World Financial Center: facebook.com/share/p/14qpGSz7e2b/ . You should read her story. The sense of fear and overwhelming uncertainty of that day should not be forgotten.

* My mom had lived in NYC in the mid 1990s, and was there with Salvation Army support service after the (too easy to forget) 1993 WTC bombing. She had been moved to London by 2001, but here are notes from visiting Ground Zero as an SA rep 6 months later: kirk.is/2002/03/15

* My connection was minor; I had worked in the South Tower for a few days in 1997 or so, and then we happened to visit the area two years to the day before the attack, 9/11/1999. Those stories here: kirk.is/2001/09/13

* Like Lynette points out - we can't forget the trauma people in this nation faced, but also how it was used to justify other violence:
"best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]."
"Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
--Transcriptions from one of Donald Rumsfeld aides right after 9/11 and the WTC.

* Why were the terrorists so focused on WTC? Besides the towers' physical and financial prominence, this article about how the towers incorporated Middle Eastern themes has stuck with me. Such a vision of a blended world is anathema to all kinds of fundamentalists.
(And a reminder that when you let the fundamentalists dictate what some belief system is, the terrorists win.)

(Oh, and for what it's worth: my experience on the day - I remember hearing about a plane crash on NPR, in the parking lot of the Whole Foods on Route 3 near Burlington. First reports were it might have been a small plane, and I thought about that bomber airplane that ran into the Empire State Building during WW2... figured if buildings survived that, a small plane shouldn't be a problem.)

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Weirdness as a kid you figure out years later Its been such a nice week weather-wise. It feels great to have windows open, no heating or cooling needed, like somehow you're more in touch with the earth, maybe grab a little more blanket...

On the other hand, I can really feel how we're on the time of year when the the time for sunrise and sunset is changing most rapidly (a long time ago I wrote a little visualizer to get a feel for how that works - see it here)

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Please raise your right hand: I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can't even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. (I don't care if I am registered or not, I am going to cheat like hell like they do. There have never been bigger cheaters. ) I'm going to go out and get my friends, my family and we are going to vote on Nov. 3, or we are going to vote before that.

That "loves us so much he can't even breathe" part... yikes.

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Like Adam Bonica comments, "My favorite thing about this poll is that 'Accepting a luxury jet from Qatar while the Trump Organization pursues business opportunities in the Gulf' came in last. Deeper bench than the '92 Dream Team."

Leon County, Florida's mail ballot envelope design placed the words "return service requested" 0.236 inches away from its election office's return address, when it was supposed to be a quarter-inch, leading the USPS to reject it on September 2, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The county's supervisor of elections, Mark Earley, called it "ridiculous."

I know some will say it's fake news since the ridiculous hundredths of an inch complaint was overturned, but it's the Pilkunnussija complaint that Republicans seem to be ready to use to break this election.

"Do you think Alice is gonna come tonight?"
"Well, technically, she's suspended, but maybe a boat party doesn't count."
"Oh, yeah, 'cause technically it's international waters, isn't it?"
"We're on a river in the middle of London, you wet wipe."

The other week I learned that the Irish word for jellyfish is smugairle róin, which literally translates to "seal's snot" (or "seal's spit")

H is the only letter that looks like it has a job.

Part of the extension of the work you will do is, yes, focused on our young leaders and our young people, but understanding we also then have to be clear about the needs of their parents and their grandparents and their teachers and their communities, because none of us just live in a silo. Everything is in context.

My mother used to--she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, "I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?"

You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

ȝe knowe ek that in fourme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand ȝeer and wordes tho
That hadden pris now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thenketh hem and ȝet thei spake hem so
And spedde as wel in loue as men now do.

Via Adam Aleksic's "Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language", who offers this rough translation:

You know that the form of speech will change
Within a thousand years, and words
That were once apt, we now regard as quaint and strange
And yet they spoke them thus
And succeeded as well in love as men do now.

I got a good letter today, Friday, August 23rd, 1996, from a young stranger named Jeff Mihalich, one would guess of Serb or Croat descent, who is majoring in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana. Jeff says he enjoyed his physics course in high school, and got top grades, but "ever since I have had physics at the university I have had much trouble with it. This was a huge blow to me because I was used to doing well in school. I thought there was nothing I couldn't do if I just wanted it bad enough."

My reply will go like this: "You might want to read the picaresque novel *The Adventures of Augie March* by Saul Bellow. The epiphany at the end, as I recall, is that we shouldn't be seeking harrowing challenges, but rather tasks we find natural and interesting, tasks we were apparently born to perform.

"As for the charms of physics: Two of the most entertaining subjects taught in high school or college are *mechanics* and *optics*. Beyond these playful disciplines, however, lie mind games as dependent on native talent as playing the French horn or chess.

"Of native talent itself I say in speeches: 'If you go to a big city, and a university is a big city, you are bound to run into Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Stay home, stay home.' "

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To put it another way: No matter what a young person thinks he or she is really hot stuff at doing, he or she is sooner or later going to run into somebody in the same field who will cut him or her a new asshole, so to speak.

A boyhood friend of mine, William H. C. "Skip" Failey, who died four months ago and is up in Heaven now, had good reason when a high school sophomore to think of himself as unbeatable at Ping-Pong. I am no slouch at Ping-Pong myself, but I wouldn't play against Skip. He put so much spin on his serve that no matter how I tried to return it, I already knew it would go up my nose or out the window or back to the factory, anywhere but on the table.

When Skip was a junior, though, he played a classmate of ours, Roger Downs. Skip said afterward, "Roger cut me a new asshole."

I think of this quote sometimes. My strongest "cut asshole" incident was in "Pokémon Puzzle League" (née Tetris Attack), a game that is absolutely the single best head-to-head tetris-y game ever. Over months and months I battled against EB, and we were both so much better than the relatives I had started playing with that I couldn't even get the handicaps set to make fair matches with them. I usually had a slight edge over EB, with my reactive "speed-b***h" style able to frustrate his more sophisticated coup de grâce setup attempts.

I went to the retro game convention "Philly Classic" and just for kicks entered a tournament. I didn't think I would win, but thought I was playing at some kind of respectable level.

I got schooled in the first round by a player who get equally schooled in the second. (Admittedly the winner of that game went on to win it all, but still.)

I've heard similar anecdotes about how uncannily good this one set of navy sailors are at darts.

It's hard to get a feeling for how there really is professionalism in some things, and then an elite level above that. Especially because duffers and dedicated amateurs can do very interesting things in some contexts, and many pursuits you can get paid for might not require genius, just persistence and focus. (And sometimes it feels like experts get so wrapped up in the assumptions of their field that outsiders can't know if they're idiots or geniuses. And partially as a response to that, certainly we've see too much gut feel truthiness in too many parts of government these days, and there are places where we've seen that politics and diplomacy are skilled profession that require experience.)

(I also think of the book "The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master", and just the idea of journeyman in general, and where I am with all that. Certainly with AI able to provide such a sharp looking coat of polish to nearly any turd a human conceives of - it's a weird time. The telltales of quality aren't the same. The new expertise is judgement, clearly identifying what's good or bad - unfortunately being usefully judgemental has never been a strength of mine. (My nickname when my college a cappella group was staging auditions was "c'mon guys she wasn't THAT bad, right?" - a little ungainly but it fit.)

"Murder is okay, but only when I do it" is a fun character trait when it's mere hypocrisy, but what's hilarious is when it continues with "so if you need any murder done you need to ask me to do it for you". Just out there acting as a moral buffer.

Hope is Right There

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In a dream last night I wanted to change my name from "Kirk" to "Kirkus". I liked that I could have a more grandiose name but didn't have to be annoyed by people using the previous name.

Though I think I was also planning on a middle name of "MgGuirkus", even though I haven't watched a lot of the show "Home Movies"

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cool, illegal Trump campaign ads funded by the US government. Damn, could you imagine what Trump would say if it was Biden flinching like that? Plus gloves in 65 degree weather? and breaking precedent by meeting the head of China at the airport? (guess he wants to seem grateful for China helping gas prices not get even more out of hand...)

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and the literal "love me love me love me" ad that's either a campaign ad or propaganda that he somehow got the government to pay for, illegally.

radio is kind of wild really, the first thing we did after discovering an ethereal field that permeates the universe is infuse it with music.

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Yemen's governorates, translated literally

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Destroy Any Website - desktop only, turn sound on. Really clever.

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Jeremy Stern's Profile of Mark Zuckerberg for Colossus - worth checking out (link to the Daring Fireball entry for it)

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