VOCABULARY: Here’s dunkelflaute or why we can’t depend on wind or solar power

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/if-you-think-bitcoin-is-on-fire-just-wait-for-the-natural-gas-boom-151726/

If you think Bitcoin is on fire, just wait for the natural gas boom
by James Hickman
on November 12, 2024

 *** begin quote ***

So, wind and solar are somewhat price competitive. But they carry a security risk: do you really want China manufacturing your entire power grid? Is it possible they built a kill switch in their software?

More importantly, they’re not terribly reliable. There are times (like night!) when the sun doesn’t shine. Germany (which generates nearly 60% of its power from renewable energy) recently experienced yet another dunkelflaute, i.e. a foggy, doldrum period in which there is neither sunshine nor wind.

*** end quote ***

Thanks Schiff Gold we know have another “loaned-word” from German.  Akin to a portmanteau, English is not afraid to borrow good words for a unique description.

In this case, what is wrong with wind and solar power  —  dunkelflaute!

—30—

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VOCABULARY: Luck — “circumstantial, “resultant or outcome l”, and “constitutive”

Sunday, October 20, 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/07/the-big-idea-should-we-be-thinking-about-luck-differently?utm_placement=newsletter

The big idea: should we be thinking about luck differently?

  • We tend to focus on good or bad fortune, successes and failures. But what about the fact you’re here at all?

David Spiegelhalter
Mon 7 Oct 2024 07.30 EDT

*** begin quote ***

Luck has been called “the operation of chance, taken personally”.

Luck comes in three main flavours. Philosophers have identified “circumstantial luck”, meaning being in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time – such as Stephen’s family taking that particular flight. Then there’s “resultant or outcome luck”, where in a particular situation some people have good and some have bad outcomes due to factors beyond their control. Stephen had the good resultant luck of surviving.

But perhaps the most important is “constitutive luck”, which covers all the fortunate or unfortunate circumstances of your very existence; the period of history in which you were born, your parents, background, genes and character traits. So where was Stephen’s constitutive luck? He told me that his father’s experiences in the RAF led him to insist that the family sat at the back of the plane – and the only survivors were seated at the back. He had the right parents.

*** end quote ***

A very philosophical view of luck.  

How does that jibe with my experience?

My sainted passed wife of 40 years was always “lucky”.  Especially in things with wheels or balls.  I, otoh, was always “unlucky”.  She used to tell me to “Go away and take your bad luck with you”!  And, I did.  She’d hit more often than not.

I always felt she had “precognition”.  She would get upset before bad things happened (i.e., father’s death; car accident; my trip ’n’ fall).

So, I’m not sure how to define “luck” but I know I don’t have that “magic touch”

—30—

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VOCABULARY: A narradigm is a portmanteau of “narrative” and “paradigm”

Thursday, July 25, 2024

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marketingassetmanagement_technocreativesynthesist-narradigm-ai-activity-7213438621612199936-1fND

Mark Davey’s Post
Content, Metadata profiles and AI – New Paradigm

*** begin quote ***

Narradigm: A Brief Explanation

#Narradigm is a portmanteau of “narrative” and “paradigm,” representing a new model of storytelling that integrates advanced technologies, such as #AI, with traditional #narrative techniques. This concept goes beyond conventional storytelling by leveraging data-driven insights, interactive elements, and immersive experiences to create dynamic, multi-dimensional narratives.

*** end quote ***

I found it in:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/07/no_author/hard-about-aye/

Hard About Aye! Who pulled the lever?
Radio Far Side
July 18, 2024

*** begin quote ***

But something happened. Biden refused to quit (and they can’t shove him out), and Trump not only refused to get dead, but earned his god-king crown.

The pre-planned narradigm was supposed to rouse fear and anger toward an impotent and ineffective Biden presiding over a rudderless ship of state (see what I did there?), while stirring up sympathy and anger over Trump being horrifically and publicly cut down. Both events were to happen between the end of the primary cycle and before the conventions began, thus causing unbelievable amounts of chaos as both parties and the general public pointed fingers of blame, while trying to figure out who would replace the candidates.

*** and ***

As mentioned in my last screed, Biden was clearly set up to fail, and in the most recent episode, Trump was clearly meant to die. The lack of “security” on rooftops, the Keystone Kops Secret Service DIE hires, the waving flag in the background as a wind sock…it was a setup from the word GO. 

*** end quote ***

So here we have a word for a prepared narrative that is carefully produced to get the desired effect.

—30—

 

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VOCABULARY: “GasLighting” — technique designed to persuade you that you did not see nor hear what you saw and heard

Friday, July 12, 2024

https://sonar21.com/media-gaslighting-on-biden-and-ukraine-plus-belated-spief-2024-video/

Media GAsLighting on Biden and Ukraine; Plus, Belated SPIEF 2024 Video
5 July 2024 by Larry Johnson

*** begin quote ***

It dawned on me today (okay, I’m a little slow on the uptake) that the legacy media is using the same gaslighting technique in reporting on Joe Biden and the War in Ukraine.

  The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1938 play Angel Street, which was later adapted into the film Gaslight, in which a man tries to convince his wife that she is going insane so he can steal from her. When he turns on the lights in the attic to search for her jewelry collection, and the gas lights dim downstairs, he tells her it’s all in her imagination. Gradually she begins to question her own memories and perceptions.

The legacy media’s repeated insistence over the last two years that Ukraine was whooping the tar out of Russia on the battlefield, is the same tactic as the media’s claims that Joe Biden is a certifiable jeopardy candidate who could run circles around Albert Einstein were he still with us. Both messages are designed to bamboozle the public. But it is a failed tactic once visual, certifiable facts are on display and can no longer be dismissed as “conspiracy theories.”

Gaslighting is both a political tactic and technique designed to persuade you that you did not see nor hear what you saw and heard. Tonight’s interview on ABC of Joe Biden by Clinton protege, George Stephanopoulos, is a departure from the gaslighting and represents, instead, Biden’s last chance to persuade top Democrat officials and donors that last Thursday’s debate debacle was an aberration. It was not. Biden failed the test. The Democrats wanted it done on Friday night because it is not a big TV ratings night and any stumbles by Biden would be less damaging than if he did a full public melt-down in Prime Time like last Thursday’s debate.

*** end quote ***

Finally have a good definition of what is being done to “We, The Sheeple”!

—30—

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VOCABULARY: ‘Enshittification’ — the slow decay

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5

‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything

The term describes the slow decay of online platforms such as Facebook. But what if we’ve entered the ‘enshittocene’?
Cory Doctorow  — February 8 2024

*** begin quote ***

Last year, I coined the term “enshittification” to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers; it really hit the zeitgeist.

The American Dialect Society made it its Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I’m definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what’s enshittification and why did it catch fire? It’s my theory explaining how the internet was colonised by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters and what we can do about it. We’re all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralising. It’s even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the “great forces of history”, and into the material world of specific decisions made by real people; decisions we can reverse and people whose names and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It’s not just a way to say “things are getting worse”, though, of course, it’s fine with me if you want to use it that way. 

*** end quote ***

AKA ENTROPY?

Just as things like uranium moves to lead, so to do all human systems.

Decay and death.

Sigh!

—30—

 

 

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VOCABULARY: March of Dimes syndrome is an ancient social affliction

Monday, June 24, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-march-of-dimes-syndrome

John Tierney
The March of Dimes Syndrome

  • The better things get, the more desperately activists struggle to stay in business.
  • From the Magazine / Health Care, The Social Order
  • Spring 2024

*** begin quote ***

In the spring of 1979, a few weeks after the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, more than 65,000 people marched on the United States Capitol chanting “No Nukes, No Nukes.” As a young reporter at the Washington Star assigned to cover this new movement, I interviewed march organizers and noticed that all of them had previously organized protests against the Vietnam War. This struck me as curious: How had they suddenly become so passionate and knowledgeable about nuclear power?

I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”?

*** end quote ***

One really doesn’t think that a “charity” can go out of business?  Like the Red Cross and United Way that have all those high paid executives!  The Salvation Army doesn’t over pay its leadership; why should other charities?

—30—

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VOCABULARY: AI hallucination or when a search engine tells you put glue on your pizza

Sunday, June 16, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/11/tim-cook-apple-interview/

Opinion
How will Apple’s new AI change your phone? I asked Tim Cook. In an interview, Tim Cook explains how Apple’s new AI will enhance your work and life, with guardrails.
By Josh Tyrangiel
June 11, 2024 at 5:07 a.m. EDT

*** begin quote ***

Apple Intelligence will not hallucinate?

*** end quote ***

Kinda like following GPS directions from Google or any other source and you winding up on a Forrest Service road up to your eyeballs in snow.

Or worse.

So, now we are going to have to be skeptical on what the “computer tells us”.

Caveat Emptor.

—30—

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VOCABULARY: BACKRONYM — an after the fact phrase for an acronym

Friday, June 7, 2024

I discovered the Word of the Day from Dictionary.com, and I wanted to share it with you. https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/backronym-2024-05-31/

*** begin quote ***

an existing word turned into an acronym by creating an apt phrase whose initial letters match the word, as to help remember it or offer a theory of its origin.

  •     First recorded in 1980–85.
  •     Formed from the word back “toward the rear” and (ac)ronym, “a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase and pronounced as a separate word.”

EXAMPLES OF BACKRONYM

  •     Some people believe the word news stands for “notable events, weather, and sports,” but that’s not accurate; it’s a backronym.
  •     My neighbor insists that SOS means “Save Our Ship” and wouldn’t believe that people made up that backronym years after SOS was first used.

*** end quote ***

So how did “news” originate. Just “new items”?

I learned something from this.

—30—

 

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VOCABULARY: Ever heard of “trading sardines”

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

https://www.curzioresearch.com/stay-away-from-these-trading-sardines/

*** begin quote ***

In 1896, the discovery of gold in Canada’s Yukon territory launched an era now known as the Yukon-Klondike gold rush.

Over the next two years, 100,000 miners flooded into the area in search of the next big gold strike. 

But it was far from easy… 

The trek was treacherous… The competition was fierce… And the weather was glacial.

During the winter of 1896–1897, the water around Alaska’s ports froze solid, which forced shipping to shut down completely.

The result was a major food shortage—and skyrocketing prices for the little amount of available supplies.

In the most isolated regions of Alaska, a single can of sardines—which cost $0.10 in New York—sold for many times that amount. And thanks to the demand from starving miners, the price kept rising.

Legend has it that one miner, desperate for a meal, bought a can for $100.

But when he went to open it, the fish was rotten.

He tracked down the seller, demanding his money back.

The seller was confused—asking the buyer why he would open the can in the first place.

He told the miner, “Those are trading sardines, not eating sardines.”

This piece of market lore is a commonly cited metaphor for speculative trading, where an asset can keep rising… and traders—suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out)—keep bidding the price higher. Meanwhile, the asset is—from a practical standpoint—worthless.

*** end quote ***

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VOCABULARY: The hikikomori, aka moden day recluse

Monday, June 3, 2024

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/05/world/hikikomori-asia-personal-stories-wellness/?ICID=ref_fark

A shrinking life: Why some Asian youth withdraw from the world

By Jessie Yeung, Sophie Jeong, Carlotta Dotto, Woojin Lee, Kenneth Uzquiano and Saki Toi

Published May 25, 2024

*** begin quote ***

Like many hikikomori, he would sleep all day and wake at dusk. Then at night, when his family went to bed, he spent hours scrolling on his phone.

*** end quote ***

Like Howard Hughes?

—30—

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