Rock The Vote!

Rock the vote, people!

Black Belt Kudos

A shout out to 3 of my Taekwondo students who successfully tested for Black belt ranks at the Fall Full Rank test in October.  I've mentioned David a couple of times before -- he has now earned his 3rd-degree Black belt, and is a very accomplished martial artist.

Ruby joined the academy five years ago and has really taken charge of her martial arts training over the last year. She earned the rank of 1st-degree Black belt.

And last but not least, Henry also earned his 1st-degree Black belt. He joined the academy 4 1/2 years ago, and while preparing for his Black belt test he showed that he has matured and can focus on his work.

These students helped each other prepare throughout all of 2026. They're a good crop of Black belts.

RIP Patrick Stewart

I know that if it were all to end this evening, everything, I would be largely known for my work on Star Trek.  I would be Captain Picard.  Not Macbeth, King Lear, not Shakespeare, not any of those things, but Captain Picard.  And I am absolutely fine with that.

-- Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (13 July 1940 - 28 October 2026), English actor with a career spanning seven decades on stage, television, and film, nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, as quoted in The Captains, a series of interviews conducted by William Shatner, (1 October 2011)

Treacherous

Ideological data -- like personality data -- is treacherous when fed into a computer.  For by its use the loyalty and security board's failure or refusal to clear a person becomes a virtually incontestable ‘fact.'  All one has to do now is to press the ‘subversive' button and all the names of 'dangerous' people come tumbling out.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 28

I Voted

I voted.

I parked near the courthouse and went in to vote in person.  It was quick and easy, with no waiting.

Plan your vote today.  You can literally google "How to vote".  Then vote today, if you can and you're ready.

Don't forget to vote.

Never Trust An AI

You can never trust an AI's recommendation.  If you ask an AI to recommend a course of action, and there's any chance that pursuing that course of action could require the expenditure of resources, then that circumstance virtually ensures that the AI will provide a recommendation that results in benefits to the AI owner from the expenditure of those resources.  The recommendation itself is a vector for advertising.  Imagine asking an AI for stock tips, and the intrinsic conflicts of interest for a corporate AI answering the question.

-- Don Appleman (25 October 2026)

The More Sure I Am

The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.

-- James Clavell (1924 - 1994), Australian World War II veteran and POW, who became a novelist, screenwriter, and director, André Delambre in The Fly (1958) screenplay

You Can't Go Home Again

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time -- back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

-- Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900 - 1938), major American novelist of the early twentieth century, You Can't Go Home Again (1940) Book VI, Ch. 44: The Way of No Return

The Door Opens

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-- Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH (1904 - 1991), English novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic, The Power and the Glory (1940) Pt. I, ch. 1

Always The Same

We are always the same age inside.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, as quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946

A Matter Of Time

President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin's ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine.  Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration. 

Putin doesn't want peace.  Putin wants Ukraine.  I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia's military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.  

-- Former Vice President Mike Pence posting as @Mike_Pence (10 October 2026)

Bad Luck Follows

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

Studying Economics

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

-- Joan Robinson FBA (1903 - 1983), British post-Keynesian economist, Contributions to Modern Economics (1978) Chapter 7, "Marx, Marshall and Keynes", p. 75

Why So Expensive?

Last year, the daily cost of hiring an oil supertanker (known as a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC) to sail from the Persian Gulf to China was just $65,000, according to Clarksons, a London-based research firm.

By the time the Iran war was about to begin, that cost had climbed to $230,000 per day.

Now?  It costs $1.6 million per day to hire a VLCC for that route, according to Clarksons.

All of this -- the cost to hire a tanker, exorbitant payments to sailors and surging insurance rates -- is making it more expensive for consumers and businesses around the world.

It used to cost just $2 per barrel to get crude out of the Persian Gulf.  Now, that cost has spiraled to about $33, according to Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil.

"We're getting a reasonable amount of crude out, but that's misleading because the cost of that crude exiting is incredible," he said.

-- CNN, "If the Strait of Hormuz is open, why are gas and diesel so expensive?" (9 October 2026)

All Beginning Is Dangerous

All Beginning is Dangerous.  The Poet can choose whether to raise emotion from one grade to another, and so finally to exalt it to a great height -- or to try a surprise attack, and from the start to pull the bell-rope with might and main.  Both processes have their danger -- in the first case his hearer may run away from him through boredom, in the second through terror.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), German philosopher, cultural critic, and writer, Human, All Too Human (1878) Aphorism #163

Once-Chosen Path

GOAL AND PATH - Many are obstinate with regard to the once-chosen path, few with regard to the goal.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), German philosopher, cultural critic, and writer, Human, All Too Human (1878) Part II, Aphorism 494, page 241

Worthy Of Thought

In everything well known something worthy of thought still lurks.

-- Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976), German philosopher, Nietzsche (1961) p. xxxix

The Object Of Loyalty

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.  This has led millions into such a degree of dependence and submission, that they have at length found themselves to homage the instruments of their ruin at the very time they were at work to effect it.  The true object of loyalty is a good legal constitution, which, as it condemns every instance of oppression and lawless power, derives a certain remedy to the sufferer by allowing him to remonstrate his grievances, and pointing out methods of relief when the gentle arts of persuasion have lost their efficacy.  Whoever, therefore, insinuates notions of government contrary to the constitution, or in any degree winks at any measures to suppress or even to weaken it, is not a loyal man.

-- Samuel Adams (1722 - 1803), American revolutionary and organizer of the Boston Tea Party, governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797, "Loyalty and Sedition," essay published in The Advertiser (1748)

RIP Margaret Hamilton

From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission.  There was no second chance.  We knew that.  We took our work seriously, many of us beginning this journey while still in our 20s.  Coming up with solutions and new ideas was an adventure.  Dedication and commitment were a given.  Mutual respect was across the board.  Because software was a mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust.  We had to find a way, and we did.  Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.

-- Margaret Hamilton (17 August 1936 - 29 September 2026), American computer scientist, responsible for the Apollo On-Board Flight Software as director of the Software Engineering Division of MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, quoted by MIT News (7 October 2026)

Knowledge Is More

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.  The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) Ch. XIII