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HyperFlight May 2008 Editorial Another UFO Guy, the X-bureaucrat There are two kinds of UFO guys: a UFO aficionado and a UFO researcher. A researcher is someone who can put together some facts and also a person who can make something better out of it and develop technology to new levels. A UFO aficionado knows a lot and gets to the truth by circumstantial evidence. This guy knows that the reason Friedman calls Lazar a fake is because Teller (the bomb guy) recommended Lazar for the UFO job and if Lazar really worked on UFOs then Teller is clueless on what it takes to reverse-engineer a UFO. A UFO aficionado figures out not only who knows but also who corrupts. That is what makes the UFO work interesting. UFO researchers the likes of Lazar burn out fast, for they run into their own intellectual limitations just as fast -- and Teller does not know what UFO science is about. It takes a special kind of person to figure out the UFO, and credentials have nothing to do with it simply because credentials are man made. The word propulsion is the first thing that does not apply and Lazar's big thing was propulsion. There are many who would not work on the UFOs. Not because the government is evil but because it is a one-sided deal. You might get paid but the conditions are enslaving and weigh down your soul. It is like winning the million dollar lottery and getting a dollar a year for million years. This may ease up a bit after some technology is deployed and particularly if the mind control thing is understood. There is a lot you can do if you are on the outside but take it easy, for the technology is so advanced it is also easy to jump to conspiracy conclusions. Actually, for conspiracy and subsequent fantasies to arise the plotter relies on insufficient knowledge of the audience. For example, UFOs have been around since records are kept. What is also part of the record is that in (almost) all wars the gods take sides and likely started most of them. So now you have to keep cool and integrate this knowledge into your mindset. It is no big deal and no big secret the UFOs are here now. The UFOs exist and they are not only fast but they can also transition, usually at will, between the real and the virtual domains. Einstein is irrelevant and really stupid but he might be good for keeping some people nice and ignorant. Okay, so we got pathological science on our back and we don't believe it. Yes, the grays got bases here and there and they don't stop to get visa unless they have to. But technology is also about power and power is about politics. There is another player in the UFO phenomena: a retired bureaucrat or a military person who had some connection to UFOs. They are fun to watch. One ambitious guy named Greer collected a bunch of them six years ago, put them on tape, and then called a conference. The conference was in Washington DC National Press Club and dubbed the Disclosure Project. There he was parading a large group of former government bureaucrats, each of them saying something about seeing a UFO and each of them -- save the fellow from Mexico -- claimed to swear to the truth of their statements in front of Congress. Well, their leader actually demanded hearings in front of Congress with the agenda that space must not be weaponized. It was sort of like the real aliens landing in DC claiming to have some important info for our leaders, and, by the way, put down your weapons. Unbeleeveagubble. These former bureaucrats and some military could not even come close to the UFO aficionados and researchers in the depth of their knowledge. They drew salary for decades and followed orders and today are on pensions -- but it seems they got something left in them. With one exception they all presented documents free for the taking or copying. This was the point I started to pay attention. I surely would not want them to hand out any of my stuff. You can buy it in a store of the Internet but you surely cannot take it, declare it important, and then start giving it away. Then I though perhaps they got a court order, which declared the info a public property; but no, this was important as in just-trust-me kind of important. Then it dawned on me: Oh yes, the whistle-blowers. Yes, they are protecting the public because there is fraud they uncovered. Nope. Then at least there must be danger that is being ignored. No again. Who are these people? These people took documents that do not belong to them -- classified or not -- and are giving it away for their own self-aggrandizement. Wow, I couldn't train a monkey to do that. So now their leader says that they -- as if he is speaking for the aliens -- have but peaceful purposes and the space cannot be weaponized. His cohorts the x-bureaucrats have plenty of evidence that something moved and they have it on radar. So now I knew he was not going to say anything about animal mutilations and people abductions because their agenda was narrowing quickly. Sticking to their agenda we would be left to think the aliens upset easily and when they strike it's just our fault. It was becoming apparent that this was a special interest lobbying group disguised as peaceful aliens or a group infiltrated and controlled by aliens. So I think they should be accommodated by issuing all of them a card -- a little green alien card -- and send them back to whence they came. Or maybe these guys need to appear in front of the Senate and hear; "Sir, is that your document you are reading from?" That would be a power trip every x-bureaucrat dreams about. Things have quieted down since that reality show back then. Greer is still doing some circuits and talking about cooperation with another country, a whole country, which he does not name. Leader Greer could also ponder a question on how he was providing a platform for all these people to peddle documents none of them own. A much better thing he could do is to get Teller do 'I am dumb and I cannot help it' on tape. I'd buy that.
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HyperFlight April 2008 Book Review and Comments The Litvinenko File by Martin Sixsmith, Mcmillan Publishing, London, 2007 As any detective story, this one starts with the funeral. It's raining, too. Litvinenko is dead. Other dead are remembered. The story unfolds. This guy Litvinenko is a former FSB, which was formerly the KGB. As an FSB agent Litvinenko is in good standing. Then something happens, Litvinenko goes public and takes the dirty laundry along. For years he is harassed and pressured back into the fold. He cannot do it, for he has gone too far. He leaves the country with his family and takes his fight alongside his patron Berezovsky who by then is in London. Litvinenko is poisoned, apparently twice, with radioactive Polonium and in a week his body succumbs to alpha radiation. Clinically, alpha radiation is a stream of helium cores issuing from unstable Polonium. Is it a story of misplaced loyalty, power or money? The author nicely reels in the players, inspects them, and lets them go. The real inspector could say, "Oh, don't leave town," but we are now global. The countries are sovereign when it comes to standing accused, but when they send someone to kill -- then it's just another country a couple of hours flight time. Let's pretend we are soccer fans. Martin, however, will not take a moral stand, for that would not be investigative reporting. He is out for the real killer or killers, wherever they are and no matter where or how they are hiding. It boils down to Putin vs Berezovsky, both with an entourage of supporters. Here is a spot where Martin could have explained the power structures and their differences. This is important to the understanding of the mentality, which he seeks for us to understand. In the States we have Civil Service and these guys, aka bureaucrats, are pretty much the employees of the government. They are treated as any employee and have recourse in a court. Putin has FSB and other organizations reporting to him in a military hierarchy and military has its own rules. Russian organizations operate inside and out while the CIA, in a military fashion, operates only outside. Yes, this makes Russia a military dictatorship and it helps the reader to understand the variances in behavior and motivation. In Stalin's time all party members were military in the true sense of the word and subject only to internal tribunals, but they also had nearly unlimited power over the non-party population. Sixsmith could do a bit of research if this is still (or again) the case. It probably is, judging by the interviews he had in Russia and with Russian ex-agents. So now this Berezovsky gets in hot water back then in Moscow (you guessed it, a murder) but he does not seek to defend himself through the courts. He works the power structure directly to affect the outcome. Pure power plays, in-your-face armed guards -- and he also takes it to the court of public opinion through his own TV station. Litvinenko is now on Berezovsky side but Martin fails to ask the question of how the Litvinenko's loyalty to Berezovsky differs qualitatively from past Litvinenko's loyalty to the FSB -- for there appear to be no major differences in their modus operandi. Martin speaks of corruption on both sides and Litvinenko sees corruption on but one side. Martin offers the Chechen conflict as having some influence, for Litvinenko at some point sees Chechens as patriots. That could be the difference but it is still the lesser of two evils rather than good vs bad as the Litvinenko's stand. In time Berezovsky is forced to leave the country. The book gets into Berezovsky's help to get Yeltsin reelected and continues on with the key role Berezovsky played in getting Putin promoted to FSB and later elected as president. Putin then turns on Berezovsky and the contest is on. At this point, then, it appears that Litvinenko becomes a piece in the game between the two. Why Putin turned on Berezovsky remains unanswered in the book -- a major omission -- but a hypothesis can be offered here. It centers on Yeltsin's sudden and unwilling departure from his presidential position. It is fairly certain Berezovsky had a hand in that as well and the power to demote is different than the power to promote. It gets noticed in a different way and it does not friends make. Martin's conclusion is that Litvinenko was a thorn in somebody's side, largely because he did not lay low -- like the other Russian and Soviet ex-agents -- and he names the suspects. It was easy for anyone to make contact with Litvinenko and make promises while having another agenda altogether. The attackers then had plenty of time to write and execute their own script. My feel on that is that Litvinenko's murder is a stage in the ongoing Berezovsky-Putin personal dislike where ever higher power leverages ever greater resources of the state. It is power for the sake of power. Putin cannot retire and Berezovsky thinks it would be stupid to build a public library with his money. When power begins to dominate the spirit is confined by a single ideology that cannot be questioned (you are provoking me and that's your fault). Courts do not mean much. The people are reduced to a commodity. Yet after all this the only people who are possibly afraid of the new old Russian methods are the ones who are easily intimidated in the first place. The guy who picked the method and the so called message to go with it thinks it is effective on others because it would be effective on him. Freedom is not a gift and it is not a privilege. Freedom is something you learn and earn through fair play. When you get to that you know that nobody can intimidate you and nobody can provoke you. Happy reading
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HyperFlight October 2007 Book Review and Comments Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard, New Era Publications International, Denmark, November 2004 Printing What a nice eye opener. Where Raymond Rife was drawn and quartered by AMA in the tradition of Prometheus, Ron thrives. I started reading this book ten years ago. Put it aside, unfinished -- perhaps another time. It is October 2007 and it is time. Ron starts nice and easy. He is even solicitous to professionals the likes of medical doctors. One hundred pages later he lets them have it, full bore -- after he develops his process. This book makes a case for Dianetics as a new system of curing mental disorders and includes in it psychosomatic illnesses. Ron's got a tough job. He needs to get through to the individual and make friends in a broad social context if he were to make his system succeed but it is the social context of dysfunctional families that is under scrutiny with the individual barely able to keep the head above water. Ron's book is not about feeling-good about Dianetics. He is talking to the person who needs help, to the person who could not be helped in the past, to the person who is interested in mental health, to the person who seeks help for someone else, and even to the person who seeks to help someone else. When it is time to get help, it is not time to call a family dysfunctional -- Ron never does. Just like Rife, Hubbard has got results. While it never occurred to Raymond Rife that a cancer cure would not be welcomed by the American Medical Association, Ron managed to get around AMA's troops and Freud's fixation police, which is surely a story in itself (Ron uses the word cure). That he's on to something is apparent early on. Because he did it with the "scientific" approach, Ron's results are quite remarkable. The right-brain function is very divergent, some say creative or infinite, and it seems that simple and deterministic and finite methods would not work there. But Ron is not trying to be right-brain-centric. He is correcting the so called reactive formations by reaching in with left-brain methods. At times he calls it reduction or clearing. Although Ron does not get into the left-brain vs. right-brain functioning in general, it is apparent that he is talking about it when he speaks of the 'analyzer' on the one side -- the left side -- and the 'associative' mechanisms of the right side of the brain. Actually, the right brain gets little play in Dianetics: it is either reactive-and-bad or standard-and-normal. In fact and in a correction to Dianetics, no action -- that is, command, issues from the right brain. Only the left brain produces action, be it reactive or not. Ron is shy on credits. This is understandable considering the audience and because the book is not here to convince his fellow psycho-colleagues. The book is practical and Ron tears into 'expert' or 'authoritative' sources as cure-detracting personages -- and he does not cut slack your favorite person, your mother. So it is okay for a book reviewer to put in bits and pieces of where Ron might fit. (If you think Dianetics is original, well, okay, it is.) In Western psychiatry there is a fundamental separation between two approaches: One is, "I think your problem is.." -- that is, the authority is taking charge and this includes both the psychoanalysis as well as the hypnotic therapy, which necessitates that the formulation of a therapy or a hypnotic suggestion is done on the basis of knowing what's proper (this includes drug prescription -- a sore spot). The second approach lets the patient be the key to the solution. So it seems Dianetics is closer to Carl Jung who always "faced the issues together," but the credit went to the patient. Ron thinks so much about the cure the entire book tells you what the cure's mechanics are, who is doing what and why. The entry into the mind is also Jungian -- that is, by association, particularly through pain (called somatic -- as a noun -- in case of a physical pain). Giving various functions colloquial names also originates with Jung -- 'joker' and 'shadow' on the Jung side, 'denyers,' 'holders,' and 'groupers' on the Hubbard side. Dianetics has many original components and the "science" label is earned when Ron speaks of validating the results and verifying that the erroneous in-formations, called engrams, were indeed lifted out. The Jungian term for engrams is 'inferior systems.' The basic premise in Dianetics is that the (right) brain collections, when paired up with temporarily-poor (left brain) 'analytical' computations, produce engrams that weigh the person down in thinking terms. The really interesting premise in Dianetics is that the engrams ought to be removed even if you "figured out your life" and think you are able to go on as is -- for the engrams continue to slow you down nonetheless. This leads to the complete parting of Dianetics and the psychiatric profession, for Dianetics claims not only to give you back your life but to have you achieve your innate potential by becoming 'clear.' The way to apply Dianetics is through differentiation. The left brain differentiates via human senses, which Dianetics credibly presumes to be weak in anesthetized or painful situations -- that is, the associations are stored undifferentiated during these temporary situations. Yet, we are subject to reductionism through mass media that simplify and flatten out differences. If mass media information is accepted on reduced or oversimplified basis it can then actually produce engrams and conceivably panic -- global warming but the most recent case. Reductionism is rampant in science and I imagine in other fields as well. Dianetics claims to remove engrams -- that is, Jungian inferior systems. The person needs to re-live the situation of the engram but the important thing is that the person must be mentally in the time the engram was produced -- otherwise the engram is just read out without being lifted. My explanation on this is that the parameter of time is recorded only in the sequence-dominant (serial, rational, if-then) left brain and the particular time then also serves as the entry to the corresponding right-brain collections. After the left-right connection is made, my take on the mechanism is that the inferior system (engram) is not lifted or removed or reduced (as claimed by Dianetics) but becomes better differentiated through conscious recall -- the system (engram) broadens out through differentiation by acquiring more relevant associations and unbecomes inferior (unbecomes an engram). The 'relevant association' is important as names, places, and time -- for such objects become associated as they truly happened. An engram is not easy to find and several associative steps could be needed. Intrinsically, the aberrated situation manifests when the engram is triggered by a similar context: the person acts out the response as it was recorded, which ranges from poor to insane for the situation at hand. However, the next significant Dianetics step is that when your eyes are closed and the Dianetics auditor is with you the acting out is conscious and, therefore, mild. The acting out could also be a pain, a feeling of unease, or a weakness that brings on a particular disease. Person looking for his or her engrams must be motivated to do so and the responsibility is, as always, on the brain's owner. It is for this reason that Dianetics' claim of ending war and violence is not going to happen. Pushing someone into Dianetics therapy is by itself against Dianetics principles -- such as the avoidance of hypnotherapy -- because letting someone else dictate the course of action is not the best thing for you. If there is a bottom line on Dianetics it would be that 'It's just fine to have a mechanic fix your car, but to fix your thinking you are not the only but also the best person to do it.' The most dramatic departure from classic therapy is the tossing out the value of a dream. Ron categorizes a dream as but a pun on the events, which gives it too much of an interpretive dimension and is then useless for Dianetics. For those (myself included) who think a dream has a future or a predictive component the dream has much utility. There are more than plenty of scientists and artists who claim to have discovered something new and profitable in their dream. (The dream also offers relevant links but they are from the right-brain side and because they are time-less they need work to be helpful.) Ron, however, is not interested in the future directly, for Dianetics goal is to work out the past poorly-differentiated associations in the past and let the future brighten up by itself. There are other aspects Ron thinks are not relevant to Dianetics and he is speaking not only to you but to the assistant as well, which in Dianetics is the auditor. The best method I like in Dianetics is the 'returning,' which is a memory recall along a time line. I use it myself and discovered it before reading Dianetics: I park my car on Boston's streets. As parking is tight I hardly ever get to park in the same spot twice. More than once did I get out of the house when .. well, I could not remember where I parked my car. The guessing approach of searching neighborhood streets can make things worse (oh, here I was on Tuesday!) and waiting to possibly remember the spot has no appeal. So I went back in time, imagining where I was driving and I did pick up the trail and remembered all the street corners until I got to the spot. The method of 'returning' may not be your best pick but Dianetics has many methods that will resonate with yours. I do not have Dianetics' stats but my guess is that men would be several times more likely than women to benefit from Dianetics methodology. Most women and large populations of the Eastern culture do not hold the time as their guiding line and it is just this line that needs to be used when searching for engrams. Also, as is the case with any mental health issues, people in therapy need to pick an assistant (auditor, psychiatrist, counselor, guru) that they will feel comfortable telling their problems to. From this web site's perspective, Dianetics will give you many useful things to think about. For example, building of a system on the premise of "it cannot be determined" or "it cannot be found out" (Dianetics denyers) the likes of Feynman and Hawking are typical aberrations where fantasies such as black holes fill your side of reality (Hawking), or the reality is reduced to gee-wiz quantum weirdness (Feynman), both of which are analytically undifferentiated. (Hawking ignores antimatter and Feynman ignores electron's probability distribution.) Einstein is even more aberrated with his "cannot look outside" when he introduces his relativity theories. "Cannot look outside" is a [ghetto-like or communist-style] holder in Dianetics, which runs contrary to a healthy rational pursuit. Fundamentally, moreover, Dianetics cannot deal with chaos. This is my own assessment: Dianetics is based on finite methods, which, in turn, cannot reduce (external) chaos. Whether to buy or borrow this book is, perhaps not surprisingly, your call. If you continue having the same problems, you likely need to read it. If you think you can easily fool other people -- that's one thing -- but if you think your fooling ability is an asset then you need to read Dianetics (you might be an object of your own talent, have a fool for a client, etc.). Also, Ron makes an excellent case against current therapies that are in the electric or insulin shock category or that include any and all brain surgeries; so in these cases your need to read it is urgent. I have a small pain in my left foot. It is mild yet chronic. I started Tai Chi because of that and after six months the pain is still there. So I wonder .. when did it start .. I mean, what is associated with this .. let's see .. close my eyes (that's reverie) .. go back along the time line .. ['well hello, mother' is a possibility] Unlike Dianetics, the HyperFlight site deals with the increase in organization and self-organization. Geometry is the leading component in organization but geometry is incidental in Dianetics. Symbols and geometric formations have meanings that are processed by the right brain but Dianetics needs the rational side, the left brain, to affect the change -- and the way it becomes apparent is that there is not a single illustration in the entire Dianetics book. Most Jungian archetypes are geometric formations (circle, wheel) that also include symmetries through the symbolism of a mirror, and also the inferior systems through the symbolism of the shadow. In addition to geometry, Quantum Pythagoreans book builds the organization by differentiating the leading (independent) and the following (dependent) variables. In an economics example, an increase in temperature will increase the sales of ice cream but even if you could manage to increase ice cream sales the temperature will not increase. In an allegory, an object casts a shadow and you can move the shadow by moving the object but you cannot use the shadow to move the object. The Quantum Pythagoreans book differentiates the If-Then methodology of the left brain with the What-Else method of the right brain and explains the self-organizing aspects with the interchange between the two. Finally, there are right-brain and radically different methods that also address physical and mental health, and that have just as much range as Dianetics -- from feeling better to acquiring new mental and physical powers. However, if there is a problem then it needs to be worked -- be it through Dianetics or other approaches -- rather than passing the buck onto a society or deferring the problem to God.
You are the keeper of your fire. updated Dec 2, 2007
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HyperFlight March 2007 Book Review and Comments Al-Quaeda by Jason Burke, Penguin Books, 2004 This book should certainly serve as an introduction to al-Quaeda (al-Qaida) and its methods. The author's background promises an easy read. Early and painstakingly Burke defines and describes the mechanics of al-Quaeda organizing concepts -- doing an excellent job on that. Yet he also disagrees with the use and leveraging of the al-Quaeda name by politicians. Because al-Quaeda specializes (or specialized) in international terrorism then that may be the case for this particular organization but, when all is said and done, the methods of al-Quaeda are nonetheless applicable to the methods of organizing and troublemaking that is typical of the Islamic jihadists. The al-Quaeda core can be compared to the typical marketing organization. They make lots of pronouncements and hand waving as to what should be done, and then wait what a tide brings in. "Are you unhappy with your life or your wife?" could read one pitch. "Has someone looked at you disrespectfully today?" could be another one. "You know you are entitled to five coffee breaks (or prayers) every day. Is anyone denying you your rights?" If that does not work, you change the tone. "I know of some land in Kashmir. It's yours for the taking." Now, that could work for some but others may be unhappy with the way their own Islamic country does not work. Appealing to these guys calls for finesse because you want to bring in the unhappy ones while never implying that the real problem is with the Muslim dictator, the prince, or the governing council. Besides, the powers that are could kick in a few bucks to send their subjects on the way to cause trouble somewhere else. Yeah, go get your own fiefdom, collect payments and kick ass all day long. The author certainly does not write in this fashion and does not even try to send this message between the lines -- but that surely is how it reads to me. Emotion, sex, power, and revenge, all laced with Koran. If you cannot use the Jihadist in your group, you will then have to find out who can use such a fine lad all primed and ready to kill. That, of course, is called networking and making favors. A nice example comes from one of the stories in the book. Prisoners in Chechnya are told by their Muslim captors they will be set free -- only to be killed later on. The murderers after the fact ask for dispensation by a Mullah. And sure enough, one Mullah finds something in the Koran that such acts are okay and writes a little fatwa on that. The sophistication of the al-Quaeda style recruitment organization stems from its economics approach. If an attack is to take place, who will be hurt and who will benefit? While the author describes the fact that proposals for terrorist action come from various individuals and small groups, and while such proposals are routinely returned to the sender for improvements, Burke is not explicit of the economic dimension of the Jihad fight. To get funding, the attack needs to be approved not only by al-Quaeda but also by certain interested parties. That is not easy to do but that's how it is done. Al-Quaeda is the underworld for hire. In closing the author makes a case for the "real" dangers of al-Quaeda and how, perhaps, we are not paying close enough attention to this. Yet, just as the domino theory claimed the hard-line Stalinist regimes have a "natural" advantage, Burke fails to note that the jihad fighting is based on the basic human weakness -- intolerance. People recruited by al-Quaeda cannot even tolerate somebody else's painting hanging on the wall. Killing civilians is for them in the same category as taking candy from children. Although technically an excellent book, Jason Burke needs to take a moral stand, particularly if his goal is to advise.
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Cat has nine lives and you have ten fingers When I checked my luggage to storage at the Union Station in Chicago, one could truly admire the fingerprint reader that allowed secure deposit and quick pickup of your luggage. Then, in the usual moment of enjoying the convenience of it all, you may also use your credit card to pay for the storage and, well, your fingerprint is now forever linked to you, sitting patiently in the database somewhere, anywhere, in the world. And you cannot take it back. No matter what firewalls that little baggage company may have, your only solace is that you still have nine other fingers left. I was looking at new laptops recently and was quite frustrated by the fact that only the business class (read expensive) laptops have the fingerprint reader built in. The marketing guys really did not think this one through, I thought. You and I want the latest and best technology working for you. Somebody can take your secure card and your password, but who will take your fingerprint? It made sense to me, just as it made sense to the guy writing the marketing copy. So I went back and forth doing the regular laptop tradeoff thing but the diff was too much. No, I did not swing for the higher price but I did buy a great laptop without the fingerprint reader: HP 8000, electra-blue lights and all. The third and final element in this story are the viruses that hijack or warp your valuable data. What if, say, somebody was to steal your fingerprint database from your laptop? If you say that now I would have eight fingers left - well, that is really not the answer. Yeah, this is getting serious. You heard it all before: No, that nuclear reactor is safe. No, there is this protection thing in there that cannot be circumvented this way or that. Your fingerprints are safe. There is but one test to do at this point. Imagine walking into the bank, and besides getting the latest electronic toaster, you get assurance that your account is now safer than ever because their new fingerprint reader will make it easy and convenient one-finger withdrawal. Now, which finger would you offer the bank, if any? Which finger to the government guy [I said this is serious] who wants a fingerprint for your e-passport? How about the Internet vendor who wants to speed up your on-line transaction? There is the story of Isis learning the true name of one of the gods and, well, acquiring power over this god. Once our fingerprint is in corporate domain it ceases to be effective for much of anything we think would be secure. And now, I am much happier without the fingerprint-reading laptop, too. So, how many fingers do I have left? I paid cash in Chicago. Except now I think I should mark all of my fingers and, because I cannot afford to forget which is for who, I'll have to put it in a database. A very secure database.
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HyperFlight May 2006 Editorial XU in response to RFIDs XU stands for 'eXclusive Use' and it is the most effective curbing response you and I can do to Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tag proliferation. We are going to hear a lot about what Congress should do to control RFIDs but the idea is that you can do something today that will protect you from the upcoming scourge. Much is being written about the future shock of RFIDs, which presently enters our consciousness through the annoying false alarms at some retailers' entrances. RFID technology now permits the surreptitious placement of a unique ID transponder with just about any merchandise. The prediction - and it takes no expert - is that once the RFID tag's cost gets below one percent of the product cost, there will be RFID on that product. A book and a magazine article I read singled out IBM as the largest promoter of RFID applications, being active in the patent arena with functional descriptions only Big Brother and the spying Communists would love. One of the reasons IBM is so open about it is because they think you are dumb to begin with. Yet, it is not necessary to boycott IBM products, for we can appreciate that IBM was always the seller-to-the-top and that is the reason their consumer focused retail stores fizzled out about fifteen years ago. IBM bemoans the fact they cannot sell to consumers directly, and their patent application descriptions reveal why that may be the case. It is a given you will not accept the pitch in favor of RFIDs such as the miraculous recovery of your vehicle, for that is happening already. You will not be impressed by gun markings doing something for your protection, for today's guns already have them in the form of a serial number. You also know that merchandise marking for warranty service can remain in the form of the optical barcode with numbers, for you really do not want the warranty service to be validated by the manufacturer and not by you. You will understand the difference between the voluntary RFID tag they put up Governor Schwarzenegger nose in case of kidnap - from the involuntary tag somebody puts in your underwear. It is, then, about the conscious and the unconscious knowledge of having a tag on your body or in your household. A tag you know of is fine but the one you do not know about is the one that will likely cause problems. Europe will probably be more receptive to RFIDs because their TV and radio receivers are taxable each year and government enforcers at times roam the streets scanning for unreported devices. The personal mechanism to invoke is a legal one and it is in place already. Whenever you make a purchase, place an XU after your name signifying that the transaction is exclusive to you and your use. You are not renting a jacket, you are not leasing a camera, and you are not buying a shared license. What you are buying is a product for your exclusive use. The XU, then, stands for exclusive use. Your exclusive use. This is powerful simply because the people of commerce - the very people eager to ID you till kingdom come - understand, haggle over, and sweat every minutia of business relationships. They are the ones who clearly understand that if you say you are buying it for your exclusive use there is no wiggle room. It is yours exclusively and nobody could hold a piece of it back - not even a tiny chip of it. Should a sales person inquire about the 'XU' well, then you will just have to spell it out: 'Exclusive Use.' It is a good guess your congresspersons understand the law and by putting together some new laws "for consumer protection," they may actually dilute the exclusivity you currently already have with your purchases. Vigilance is called for and putting an XU after your signature shows the merchant you know the law and you want clean, clear, and unencumbered title. In the long run we will determine if we are cattle needing gated environment or a free range running people ready to tackle any problem coming our way. Happy Xs and Us.
PS.: This country's laws are plenty good and ready to work for you. What's the fuss over the patents for genetically modified food? Because the law says that no human food can be patented, square tomatoes with ten-year shelf life cannot be patented. If no human food can be patented, then the food going to feedlots cannot be patented, for feedlots are exclusive to human food production. So, patents for food that becomes human food are worthless. I don't mind if somebody comes up with patented cat food - in this country at least it would hold up.
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HyperFlight March 2006 magazine review & editorial Brit PC magazine has truth and guts I would never think of buying England based publication over American. Why, even the Euro paper format - skinny and long - does not go along with fatter American tastes. England's magazines are shiny and really overloaded and busy looking, and when they sell motorcycle tyres they've got little yellow stars covering the ladies privates. What? You cannot even recycle these glossies. Until, a couple of days ago, I came across PC Plus, yes, English-English publication with pound signs for prices. The reason was the comparison article on Intel and AMD processors; a head to head thing I was looking for -- for over a month. Looking everywhere, I did not find such article because there is not one in the American magazines. It took me so long not only because of my bias toward home grown reporting, but because the American magazines are devoid of Intel-AMD performance articles to begin with. Intel, just like the Emperor, is parading around stark naked and nobody wants to tell. It is "tell and kiss" time in America when it comes to saying "Intel sucks." AC power, too. It seems as if something ugly is going to happen to the American mag writers if they speak the truth. Intel's processors cannot come close to AMD's processors in performance and on top of that Intel processors run awful hot, around 15 degrees hotter -- that's Centigrade -- and that is so much it could well be a reliability issue, particularly since the temperature differential at the chip is even greater and particularly since the temperature is highly nonlinear when it comes to reliability. It sure seems Intel is grossly overextended on the chip temperature parameter and still is not able to bring the performance up. The performance benchmarks are not just 5-10% in favor of AMD, which, incidentally, would be "two full lengths" on the performance track. AMD trounces Intel 25-35% not just on selected models but across the breadth of the lines. Yet there is another whammy. Intel's dual core is grossly underperforming AMD's dual core and even if only the architectural dimension is exercised. The performance improvement based on dual core alone is much better for AMD than for Intel. So, that's one, two, and three strikes. But there is a fourth one: AMD already has 64 bit architecture while Intel' got but 32. What's holding AMD from firing up yet another cylinder above Intel is Microsoft. This company has the 64-bit operating system "in the works," but if it were to make it available today then only AMD could benefit. So where is it? Microsoft has its priorities but here is a great opportunity to quit complaining about Microsoft and release a 64 bitter that may just be merit wise head-and-shoulders above Microsoft. The Euro compendium should quit threatening Microsoft and come up with better OS -- now when the time is right and ripe. So, welcome Brits to our shores. Your PC magazines have the attitude we need and could adopt, too. Feb 21, 2006 Today I found another Intel-AMD comparo in Computer Shopper magazine -- good ol' USA -- March '06 issue. This comparison also found head-and-shoulders performance advantage of AMD over Intel in all five applications areas. The lab used existing commercial platforms to reach their conclusions, so the benefit of this report was that the processor advantage ripples up to the user. The disadvantage is that it is more difficult to put numbers on processors alone and PC Plus lets you do that. Computer Shopper did not say anything about the chip temperature, which is important to gamers who love to overclock their CPUs and do not mind an occasional dropout. The biggest benefit of the Computer Shopper report is their plot of performance vs. cost. When you buy Intel's top performer, the Extreme CPU, you will pay a premium for a hot -- as in fry your eggs here hot -- CPU that is beaten up silly by AMD's top 3rd CPU with a significantly lower price tag. The bottom line is that you could be extremely bamboozled to buy Intel's top CPU.
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HyperFlight November 2005 Book Review
The
Fog Llewellyn Publications, 2005 Should you come across a book on the subject you like, you may be really primed and ready to open it up and read it, talk aloud into the air, and perhaps have a pretend conversation with the author, because, of course, this is the turf you think you know a lot about. The Fog is a book that triggers a lot of silent comments, and "the Italian" hand waving as well. The Fog is about the fogging that happens in the Bermuda Triangle, a fogging effect that is one of the few objective components in describing what the triangle's mystery is about. It turns out the partnership of the two authors makes much sense. Rob is an accomplished writer about the Bermuda Triangle and Bruce is a pilot with many stories to tell. Rob uses some of the mainstream science theories, but I don't think he uses it to explain the phenomena except to bring the reader closer in. Rob casts a wider circle and soon enough it is becoming apparent that Rob knows the subject well. The book has an illustration of the Bimini Island that also includes the "strange" geometric structures on and around the island. In our rational mind the civilization that put these things together is long gone because the structures are under water and some catastrophe "must have" happened. But Rob leaves plenty of room to see that something significant is still going on. Rob's writing technique wants to connect a variety of readers to the most unusual phenomena, which has been with us close to three thousand years. The strange power of the Bermuda Triangle is eluding rational explanations and is surviving only as mythological stories. To us, the humans, the boundary between air and water is very sharp, on the order of life-death, but certain waves and certain energies may not treat air-water boundary as something discontinuous that would cause problems. At Bimini, the author makes a case for equating Bimini with Atlantis. Nailing down the location of Atlantis would be okay, but the book is really about da fog, and Rob settles on the fog as being electronic in nature. The fog envelops ships and airplanes with sticky attitude and wreaks havoc upon instruments, and then it makes sense that something electronic messes up the electronic instruments. Here is a significant but not really important correction. The fog is actually energized ether but saying 'energized ether' to a general reader is not very descriptive this day and age. Ether has an emotional quality about it and the mentioning of ether brings up discussion on the existence of ether -- and so we can understand that Rob does not want to go there. There are plenty of descriptions of the effects of the fog anyway. The big hint of the ether being the source of the fog comes from instruments that are shielded from electromagnetic radiation, but these shields offer no defense against the fog. There is an additional geometric effect, in which the pilot can see vertically up and straight down through the fog but cannot see through the fog in any other direction. Very interesting is the psychological effect the fog has on people. It may seem easy to "explain" the problem because the total reality is, except for the vertical bar, available only through the instruments and these gradually become erratic. A most wonderful narrative of the flight Bruce had through the fog nicely shows that, while the objective reality is gone, the subjective reality begins to dominate and becomes the key to the successful outcome. The inherent instability of the subjective "Oh my God, .." or "What the .." calls for certain stabilizing disciplines that Bruce is just good at. The ability to stay with it in the fog calls for some talent and training, and the book gains much merit by including Bruce's and other pilots' experiences. Bruce, after his airplane was encircled by the fog, makes a run for it through a small and tunnel like opening. It is likely that Bruce could be the first person to actually undergo and survive hyperflight. As the airplane's physical components become virtual, the cohesion of the entire entity rests with the crew that knows where to go. The entire conglomeration then transitions into that location. As silly as it may sound, if Bruce had changed his mind and wanted to be in Paris, he might have gone there. This is, of course, but a hyperflight theory. It is, however, nice to know that Bruce and his airplane made it to their destination with plenty of time to spare. The Fog is a very pleasant book for flyers, boaters, and anyone interested in the possibilities for the upcoming generations. Rob also includes a great summary of the lost Avenger squadron of the Flight 19 -- the defining event of the Bermuda Triangle.
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HyperFlight October 2005 Book Review The Monk In The Garden Book by Robin Marantz Henig, Mariner Books, 2001 Peas, numbers, and genetics. How about adding computer to Mendel's discoveries Robin Henig, a woman writer with a good number of publications under her belt, tells us about a monk doing breakthrough science in the 1850s. Most of us have expectations that anything worth inventing was done in the West, but here we have a guy, a man of cloth, who is doing something very special at the fringes of the Western hemisphere, a place where Slavs do things with passion, horses, and wine. So here we are in Moravia and a short ride to Vienna, Austria. As far as the Hapsburgs are concerned, however, they treat Moravia as a fringe country that's worth some patience because with a bit of pressure the Slavs could be made to see it the German way. Vienna has the teacher certification process in place, which our hero Mendel cannot accommodate. For one reason or another, the rigidity of the Viennese academia does not accept a monk who, despite his enthusiasm, does not display the arrogance that is so often misinterpreted as confidence. Abbot Napp, on the other hand, is the true believer. He not only sends Mendel to a school in Vienna, he is the person who builds the greenhouse for Mendel at the monastery in Brno. The author, perhaps unknowingly, nicely separates the rational coldness of the bureaucrat in Vienna with the almost naïve support and warmth of Abbot Napp. Mendel does receive decent schooling and returns "to his garden." His second attempt to achieve teaching certification fails as well and, while Mendel is allowed to teach in a lower position, it is the garden, the peas, and the secrets of nature that begin to unfold. Robin has a gentle touch that is almost necessary when the subject matter begins to resemble luck or magic. When picking the traits of peas he would study, Mendel was "lucky" when he chose traits that were located on different genes. The 'tall growing' trait of one pea and the 'short growing' trait of another pea were located on different genes and, therefore, there were no in-between traits of, say, 'medium height' pea. Once located on separate genes, the offspring followed certain proportion of traits that Mendel was able to confirm. His schooling allowed him to appreciate the combinatorial aspects of numbers and he also understood that he needed to work a large number of plants to make his case mathematically, that is statistically, sound. The heart of Mendel's discovery, however, was the existence of the phenotype and the genotype - that is, a particular dual traits exist in either its manifested or in its latent form in a single individual. That, indeed, is a breakthrough. Mendel also introduced the upper case and lower-case notation to differentiate and combine the phenotype and the genotype, which today is the familiar Aa and Bb notation. Mendel did not propose the actual mechanism - that is DNA enfolding - that would execute his mathematical relations, but he surely drew attention to the fact that the traits of plants are in some fashion coagulated - that is, quantized. Robin Henig now picks up yet another quirk in Mendel's life story. In the dissemination of his results Mendel sent out forty copies, which, at the time, were printed on large sheets and folded without cutting. After many years, most of Mendel's mailings were recovered and the intended recipient identified, and it is apparent that those mailings that remained uncut were never read. Here then is yet another and wonderful quirk of nature, for one of the uncut mailings was found with Darwin, the person most people credit with the theory of evolution. Darwin did not read Mendel's report, but it is very likely he would not be happy with its content. Mendel did not discover evolutionary trends and even if some phenotypes were better or "taller" than others, the genotype does not really disappear form the gene pool. In a larger context, Mendel's results certainly muted the "strongest survive" idea of Darwin. It is not a contentious issue that Darwin's ideas took hold among socialist ideologies, which grew into fascism and communism. While not achieving fame in his lifetime, Mendel became the abbot of the monastery. Spending much of his time on administrative and community work, his next focus was on eliminating the tax being levied on a monastery. For ten years he wrote letters for tax abatement - to no avail. We will never know to what extent the separation of the church and state in Europe was his doing, but it surely is yet another notch on his magical wand. In the historical context, the author does a great detective work with the forgotten but then magically rediscovered Mendel. It happened in 1900 when the quantization became all the new rage in physics -- and even a case can be made that Mendel's discoveries in quantizing biological traits preceded similar discoveries in physics by about thirty five years. Finally, one additional discovery may be attributed to Mendel as well. His combinatorial results are no other than the logical interoperability of states among digital variables. Mendel's cross breeding of an 'Ab' trait with another 'Ab' trait yields AA, Ab, bA, and bb groups, which are the present day computer's logical functions among variables' ones and zeros. The phenotype is the logical OR operation with the 3:1 manifestation of the dominant gene while the genotype is similar to the logical XOR (Exclusive OR) operation having the 1:2:1 result. In the computer, each variable (trait) has but one of two possible states and because the upper case letter can be taken as 1 and the lower case letter can be taken as 0, Mendel's discovered relation are very close to George Boole algebra logic. While Boole's work was 100% theoretical, Mendel's discoveries are 100% practical. Gregor Mendel could well be included with Boole and Turing as the founder of the present day computer.
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HyperFlight September 2005 Article Reiki Energy Article on Reiki energy has been archived as a (pdf file) press release. In addition, Reiki energy now has its own page that is enhanced from time to time. |
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HyperFlight August 2005 Article Other HyperFlights HyperFlight is entering the vernacular of today because it vibrates with tomorrow. There is no connection between HyperFlight.com and the following commercial products, but all can be enjoyed – if the guys could only read the instructions It was not dark or stormy but one day in the summer of 2004 I got a call from a guy who wanted a replacement for his frisbee. I am game but I had no frisbee to send him. He insisted this was the right number and, besides, he was happy with the way his hyperflight frisbee performed. Yes, hyperflight is a frisbee -- for dogs, and this one frisbee had gone to the dogs.
There is also the hyperflight the sneaker -- more specifically the basketball shoe. I read a review saying it was too light to play serious basketball in. That may be, but my idea of the hyperflight shoe is the one belonging to god Mercury. It has cool little fluttering wings on the sides and makes a faster cut than the golden snitch. Nike is the maker of this shoe -- the earthy one, that is. The same maker imparted a huge soccer ball in the middle of a building running cracks every which way in the middle of Prague in the middle of the summer last year. Everybody noticed, which was the idea, except that urgent word was passed on from the president of the republic to do away with that nonsense. When the ball disappeared overnight (painted cracks followed few days later), the president was happy to be photographed wearing Nike tee. Just another day keeping peace in hot city.
Hyperflight's connection to Prague is not incidental. A city near Prague is the last known spot for German flying saucers. Everybody was having a field day – a bit on the frantic side.
The next product you would
expect. A model airplane lines from a company called Hyperflight in
New Zealand. Seems they are on the distribution side but they like to
fly what they sell. Finally, the latest one is the watch from Pulsar. Hyper Flight. It's a "computer" watch with 77 time zones. The world is getting bigger but the only way we can have 77 time zones is if the earth is slowing down. That may be good news to some.
Now, there is a periodic time parameter inside Newton's gravitation constant, and it is likely it is this timing that led Newton to postulate absolute time. Great summer to all. If you are in the other hemisphere, you will like summer that much more when it is your turn.
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HyperFlight July
2005 Book Review Oxygen By Nick Lane When Nick talks about the fire in the water, he is not talking about spirits -- yet he links water and oxygen in ways that only free radicals can surpass (Oxford University Press, 2002) What could be your expectations when picking up a book about oxygen? It seems that everybody knows everything about oxygen. But what do you do about the author who introduces many enigmatic attributes of oxygen and then just pipes in: "The truth is rather more complicated, but far more interesting." Nick Lane's Oxygen is really three books in one. It starts with microbes craving and running away from oxygen, and along the way engaging in creating complex systems that use or control oxygen. The author then continues with oxygen being both a necessity and a toxic substance to people -- both the producer of energy and the source of free radicals. There is also a close link between oxygen and water, and the author shows how easy it is to move between one and the other. Water, a ubiquitous and neutral substance could actually become a flash of fire nothing could stop. It becomes apparent that the depth and the many branches of this book make the book difficult to review. For this review, then, we pass on the microbes and start the book in Chapter 6 where the author describes the mechanism of creation of free radicals. In between oxygen and water there are three of them but the nasty one is the hydroxyl radical OH that can damage DNA so fast the author describes the damage as happening "before the bullet leaves the barrel." High-energy X-ray photon is absorbed by hydrogen — that is, between the proton and the electron, with the result of both of these particles departing the water molecule — and leaving OH, the hydroxyl free radical, behind. It is always a pleasure to come across an unusual mechanism that makes sense nonetheless. My ears perked up because the photon reduction can happen only in the context of momentum conservation and two bodies, in this case the proton and the electron, are required for photonic reduction. Because these two particles receive kinetic energy at photon's reduction, they must both move away and in opposite direction — and so the remaining OH makes sense. Nick also makes a great link to the radiation damage (as in nuclear bomb or nuclear plant getting out of control damage) because the damage from nuclear radiation is along the same mechanism as the creation of hydroxyl radical OH. It is becoming clearer how one could limit potential radiation damage. Nick then continues describing the chain of fast, slow, and "reluctant" radicals as these build up ever close to water. Water-soluble iron and copper also make unusual companions in the damage another free radical, the peroxide, can make. Nick also does an excellent job in commenting on the two kinds of molecular oxygen. As he describes the actual oxygen with four orbitals, some readers can begin to have a good idea regarding the construction of oxygen itself. When Nick explains the history of understanding the reactivity of unpaired electrons, it also becomes apparent that chemists have better appreciation of quantum mechanics than physicists. Here is where the flipping of the spin of the oxygen's electrons results in dramatic change in the oxygen's reactive properties. Nick is in mainstream science and will not engage in speculation, but it is refreshing to see him discussing molecular construction as if working in the kitchen. Oxygen is so intriguing Nick lets himself loose with: "..the fact that living things do not burst spontaneously into flame betrays an odd reluctance on the part of the oxygen to react." It is very unusual that a book by a regular scientist did not act as a sleeping aid. On the contrary, Nick Lane's Oxygen opens all kinds of opportunities and possibilities of making oxygen from scratch and, under pyramid geometry, offers a wonderful new application. Personally I thought of Osiris and the erosion of the sarcophagus, but that is all but a speculation.
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HyperFlight June
2005 Book Review
Mind
Hacks This book is written by two English academics who are proud to "hack" human mind to see how it works. To the authors, the verb hack has somewhat higher meaning than the commonly used 'just take a stab at it.' The authorship of Mind Hacks is actually collaboration with many other people - more appropriately called the comet of authors. At the core are Tom and Matt who make the cover, while the tail of authors get credit in the preface accompanied with references to their web sites. Authors start well by summarizing the shortcomings of present day brain research. According to Tom and Matt, brain processes are not layered but intermingled, have no distinct progression, resemble no computer or clockwork, carry no one-on-one correspondence between a specific brain area and specific function, and the outcome is dependent on expectations as well. The anticipation builds up that most, if not all, questions will be answered. The authors, unfortunately, live up only to the basic hacking title. Overall, Mind Hacks is good reading for people who enjoy encyclopedic or trivia knowledge but without the actual dry reading of the encyclopedia itself. As a reader and reviewer, I had my own expectations in the areas of neuron functioning, learning mechanisms, the purpose of corpus callosum, and the definition of consciousness. There are no answers to these questions in the book but what was said highlights the state of academia's brainpower: Keep it so simple nobody could criticize it. Neuron's functioning does not go further than "neuron synapses fire fast or slow." There is nothing in the book on learning or attrition mechanisms but there is awful lot on uncertainty mechanisms. 'Rabbit that can be seen as a duck' is the old standby picture that makes it into this book. Pavlov did not make this book but he -- over hundred years ago -- associated a square with reward and a rectangle with punishment. Conditioned dogs became neurotic when the square shape was slowly changed toward a rectangle. Tom and Matt do not claim that the possibility of making either-or classification of some image is the example of brain's duality, as several other authors have done, but they stay away from any explanation. Every academic wants to have some anomalous behavior or thinking process named after him. Of course, that means that no method could possibly be put forth that would eliminate such precious human anomalies. Authors dispute the popular notion that people use only 10% of their brain, and make a reasonable claim that the matter of degree is difficult to assess with cell density varying throughout the brain. Yet when it comes time to talk about corpus callosum, authors happily quote the surgeon who severed people's corpus callosum, ostensibly to fix their epilepsies, and then published his results -- not on epilepsy change but on changes to brain's functioning. The ethical conduct of such procedure never enters authors' minds and it is apparent that in this chapter authors' brains were engaged at well below 10%. Authors' work on left-right hemispheres is by now predictably limited to "left brain does this, right brain does that" functional separation but no reasons or benefits are stated for functional separation. Should you pick up any book that starts with "The Science Of .." -- most recently "The Science Of Harry Potter" and the little rockets strapped to his broom -- you may walk away with a good impression on simplistic left brain explanations authors may offer to keep muggles muggled. Finally, authors enjoy writing about the drug effect coffee has on human brain. Tom and Matt think coffee brings out only reward and pleasure brain response. There may be no industry-supported studies, but authors' lack of knowledge regarding coffee consumption tends to put a damper on the whole book. You only need to talk to people to figure out that coffee in larger quantities -- and for some it is only two cups per day -- brings on a sneaky case of anxiety. Coffee also interferes with female fertility -- but that's something male authors probably would not think of. So we close with yet another correction to academia's self-delusion of self-importance: People are not dependent on scientists' reports and are quite capable of becoming correctly informed while building their own database. When it comes to your mind, you can take it with you and your mind can take you with it.
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HyperFlight May
2005 Book Review Pythagoras by Christoph Riedweg (Cornell University Press, 2005) I knew I would read this book, if only to review it for this site. So I braced for the scholarly format – along with German translation. I expected countless references, endless polemic, highbrow sniping, off-hand dismissals, back and forth contradictory quotes by various sources, and all the rest of the acceptable humbug academia has invented. What a pleasant surprise. This book is readable and quite capable as gift material, too. The book starts with the report that Pythagoras was known to wear trousers. Being an unusual thing to do for the times and projecting into the present, it becomes apparent why West could be synonymous with Pythagoras. Today, anybody who can make a fashion statement that keeps on growing for 2600 years would surely be given the son-of-god status. The book is academically tight and there are no speculative excursions. What the author does best is elaborating on the belief system of the times to create proper background for Pythagorean statements. For example, there is a Pythagorean notion that the earth itself is not at the center of the universe. Earth revolves around "Zeus' house," also called "Zeus' hearth," which today would be translated as "God's house" or "God's fire" - Zeus being the chief deity. In scientific translation this becomes "central fire." It is very pleasant to see that the author is not stuck on interpretive reporting such as "Pythagoreans catered to pagan gods," but instead translates what was then most likely a scholarly explanation of physics. The author does not question why Pythagoreans chose "Zeus" instead of "Sun," but it is likely the Sun was exalted so much calling Sun the Sun could be considered vulgar. Yet, jury may still be out on this if we include the possibility of Zeus' house being translated as the "Eye of the galaxy." Many writers claim Pythagoras visited East, where he picked up on reincarnation. The author, however, claims that the belief in reincarnation was common at the times and sacrifices of animals were generally restricted to those that had no possibility of having reincarnated human soul - or that were not favorites of certain gods. Fish, incidentally, was on the list and could not be sacrificed. Fish is of some concern here on Cape Cod because for decades the priests were blessing the fleet but forgot all about blessing the fish. Pythagorean way was also a way to salvation. To this end, the ethic conduct and adherence to rituals were the components of earning the place in heaven. The idea was that with the advancement of your knowledge of the workings of the universe, proper diet, and proper conduct – you would fit. You joined Pythagoreans by placing your assets in common, and after five years you could graduate. If not, your assets were returned, and some sources claim that the returned assets were doubled. Apparently, putting the right shoe on before the left shoe and the abstention from eating beans were not the hardest parts: New members were expected to listen and think but not talk. Plato, Aristotle and Euclid arrive some two hundred years later. Since many of their writings survive, and since Plato was a proponent while Aristotle was not, anything that these two persons wrote about Pythagoras and Pythagoreans is broug | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
