"Unstoppable" Is Most Incredible Train Movie

Maybe a train movie means to you Steven Seagal with lots of electronics and glitzy equipment plus ultra beautiful Russian spies and villains with pencil-thin mustaches and sophisticated modern weapons.

"Unstoppable" isn't like that and it's an unusual choice for Tony Scott since there are limited opportunities for explosions when any involving a train can demolish a small city.

The pacing and editing keep the movie highly-suspenseful even without spies, international plots, or weapons which can destroy the world.  It was surprising just how tight the movie stayed even when there wasn't all that much actually happening as hearing about one train catching up with another isn't going to be like watching the Kentucky Derby.

Tony Scott directed the movie and there were about ten producers, Tony Scott among them.  It sounds outlandish to use so many producers but the result was so taut and exciting and it was surprising how compelling they made it to the point where I couldn't wait to find what happens next.  That's kind of a surprising sensation for a train movie so five stars for this one.


"Unstoppable" is not so old since it was released in 2010 and it's rated at PG-13 but I didn't really notice any bad language nor did I notice anyone smoking cigarettes.  The theme might be too much for a kid in considering a runaway train and there will definitely be crashes and bangs in a Tony Scott movie but otherwise it seems it would be ok.  Denzel Washington plays the Senior Trainman who is genial once you get to know him and Chris Pine is the somewhat-humble Junior Hotshot Trainman who also lightens up when you know him while Rosario Dawson is the delectable Operations Manager who tries to save the situation despite the complete incompetence of the Big Boss.

Verdict:  I was surprised how much I was diggin' it.


Note:  this was probably Tony Scott's last movie and he did one fine job with it.

Explaining 'Bang for the Buck' to Your Brain

Research shows your brain knows quite well the computations it needs to validate how hard it's willing to work to get any particular thing.  (Science Daily:  How the brain decides between effort and reward)

Read the article for more details of it but you know intuitively this mechanism is one of the most screwed-up aspects of our mental processing.  According to the research, multiple neural circuits are needed in the brain to determine whether something is 'worth doing' so presumably that means a failure in any of them means you will make a bad decision.

The neural circuits are maybe the 'software' as opposed to proteins doing biochemical magic based on DNA.  There must be some process for creating the neural circuits based on the DNA defining the individual but the actual processing of the circuits is after that fact or theory as you will.


One of the most glaring bad examples of effort / reward analysis is in terms of opiate narcotics.  The subject makes a review of circumstance, life, or whatever variables may exist and determines, yes, it's worth it to try this heroin.  One or more of those evaluation circuits failed and obviously so when it came up with such a wrong answer.

It doesn't seem it should be necessary to add circuits for depression or the like since likely they would be part of the decision matrix anyway for whether something is worth doing.  Too much risk of getting too Doctor Phil with this but you can dance around with it all you like.


There's a great deal of research toward interfering with the nature of addictive chemicals, to thwart them or whatever.  Perhaps that's effective but anyone with even a small experience with psychoactive drugs knows the chemical aspect is relatively minor and most of it is in your head.  Therefore, it seems the psychological understanding sought in the current research goes most directly toward that.


It may seem depersonalizing to some extent when scientists portray the brain / mind as a skeleton with all these component parts but this one is headed for the cheesiest of segues since what we are is in the space between things and here's Silas to tell it.



The reason for the compositing is I'm Silas and I'm also Silas so making it twisted in this way lets me show two worlds of weird at the same time in one of the more demented ways I've tried.  Extreme light effects may be disturbing.


Actually returning to the topic, music is primo for the subject of evaluation of effort and reward since the chances are high it doesn't matter how how hard you work because you ain' gonna make it, Bluesman.  We convince ourselves, well, it's cool just to be able to play, isn't it.  That's true, it is, but the most diggin' it thing is when someone else gets off on the jams.  It probably (sob) ain't goin' happen so the effort / reward decision matrix in this particular matter in humans is right up the chute.

(Ed:  what chute?)

Come to think of it, I have no idea what chute.

Surprised by the Resistance to Abuses of Police Authority in America

A strong statement of resistance to police abuse of power surprised me this morning as my position on that has felt quite lonely (i.e. barren like a desert island).

Flogging the nature of police abuse of power is pointless since you already know if you pay any attention at all to the news.  The second problem is the whitewashing of cop crimes by Republicans to pretend it didn't happen, it was justified, etc.  One of the biggest problems is the People will probably never hear anything unless a citizen captures video of cops committing the offense.


Those problems exist so what will you do about them but keep in mind fixing some problems is made complicated when the solution is actually relatively easy.  For example, the best way to get the problem-plagued Lockheed Martin F-35 to work is to get Russian engineers to fix it.

That way may not come in under budget but, wtf, it doesn't come in under budget now and it doesn't even work.  The MiG-31 is the fastest fighter interceptor in the world and it's been in production for years so Russians definitely have the qualifications and Lockheed Martin has shown less than admirably it does not.  Give Russians a Lockheed Martin budget and the world will see a jet fighter like it never saw before anywhere.


(Ed:  so we bring in Russian cops to solve the problem with American cops?)

Probably not but it would be spectacular to watch on TV, wouldn't it.  That would be as Wild West as it gets only with assault weapons and urban assault vehicles.  "Gunsmoke" was never like this.


Presumably it's not necessary to confirm the fact that black men are killed at a disproportionate rate by police and, as yet unverified, the areas where the most killings of black men take place are also the ones where there has been the highest voter registration activity.  Note:  research that as I read the article in WIRED but that's hardly a gold standard.


So what problem are you trying to solve.  Is it the police abuse of power or the racism underneath it.  I submit there's not likely much progress to be made in terms of abuse of power until the racism used to justify it is addressed strongly.  Right now there's lots of tap dancing about racial equality but it really doesn't make much difference if black people make a lot of money as tennis players now when most people don't give a rat's ass about playing tennis.  So what if black musicians have a greater level of acceptance when most people won't be musicians.  Those things don't address racism through the society as a whole and we can see from this election just how bad the problem has become.  It's even expanded to include Muslims and they aren't even a different race from the good white people in Washington.

Unless you're clear on what problem you're trying to solve, you're never going to solve anything and will just end up multitasking yourself into the dry cycle with your laundry.  You will spin around as much as you like but you will never really go anywhere.  This is from decades of project management and I was good at it.  Many of my meetings started out with the same question of 'what problem are we trying to solve.'  If there is no clear problem, we have no reason to continue the meeting.  That is all.


For racism, I'll take an easy path to say I want the Equal Rights Amendment restored and ratified.  That may not solve problems but it's a substantive step toward a solution.  By law, you can't discriminate against anyone and that makes it Federal.  Break this one and the FBI is coming after you or at least it will be once they lose that pasty poltroon, James Comey, and concentrate on dealing with actual problems in America rather than trying to invent new ones.

First off we have to convince people we're serious about doing anything about the problem and right now people don't have a reason to believe it.  America even elected a black President but what changed with civil rights.  If anything they got worse with harassment over voting.  There's no reason to believe America is serious about equality until it takes substantive steps to show it and that goes far beyond bullshit blather in predigested 'debate.'

Show me, bitches!

Because otherwise we have to get some Russian cops and then things will really get weird.

If You're Segovia

This is all you need on your stage:

One old man in a tuxedo will walk out to the chair while he holds his box guitar in his hand and then Segovia will start to play.  There won't be so much as a cough from anywhere in the hall.

Note:  it was said Segovia would go to a factory or a favored place where they made guitars and he would play every guitar in the place to find just the right one.  Perhaps just a story.


It was a much bigger Music Hall than this one where my ol' Dad took me to see him along with Doc or Lotho but I keep forgetting which one.  He got box seats for that and the place really was Music Hall in Cincinnati, a most esteemed rockhouse known throughout the land.

Trivia note:  rock was banned at Music Hall after a Humble Pie concert in the early seventies which Doc attended and which memory still brings tears to his eyes from the glory of it.  'I swear it was so loud the place was shaking and the roof was going to come down!'

Well, apparently the Music Hall administration thought so too and rock was banned after that.  Imagine the meeting on Monday morning since that one must have had some apoplectic managers.  "By Christ, as long as I'm living that cacophonous rabble will never again set foot in here!"


Describing how Segovia plays is presumptuous silliness.  Should I try to describe how a bird sings.  It's not for words but appreciation of the opportunity to hear it.

Awareness of How Much Damage Deepwater Horizon Really Did

When BP blew up the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, they made some perfunctory efforts toward clean-up and then paid some fines but those went little distance toward the scope of the damage done.  There was extensive damage to the seabed which has been reported in separate research and nothing was ever done to remedy that in any way.  There was also extensive damage to the marshlands along the entire coast of the Southland (i.e. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama).  (Science Daily:  Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused widespread marsh erosion, study shows)

The biggest problem the Rockhouse has observed with Deepwater Horizon has been how much the industry in collusion with Republicans has sought to minimize reports of the damage to make the problem seem smaller than it really was.  The damage alone was bad enough but that type of outrageous propaganda ensures there will be more of the same.


Likely there's little beyond the article we can add that you don't already know since there needs to be vastly improved responsibility for maintenance of these resources if they're to continue to be tolerated.  The only interest of the oil companies is to squeeze every possible dime out of the product before the Age of Internal Combustion fades into smelly oblivion and that's inevitable with the only variable being how quickly.  Quite apart from anything else, it can't survive because it smells too much.  Don't mind the smell of that exhaust, Ma, it will only kill you.


If I'm reading die Kaninchen correctly, you're more concerned about that state of the world for the children than the day-to-day pandering of politics.  If they don't get the world in at least the state we got it then we have violated every law of the Indian Nation in terms of leaving no trace.  I don't know many little kids but it doesn't matter because it burns my ass to think they won't be able to go to look at elephants in the Serengeti.  That I never realized the dream is irrelevant as I could have done it just as much as anyone else and that opportunity must be available to the kids today as well or we failed.

We don't need to belabor any point about using resources too quickly, whether physical or animal, but the concern still exists when we're constantly reminded of the problem.  The Deepwater Horizon article was published yesterday.


It would be insulting to the severity of the problem to try to be witty with this one and the article is only a public service since this may have provided information you did not already have.

For Today's Best in Creepy Science, the Body-Filtered Password

You won't need WiFi for this password, buddy boy, this one gets transmitted through your body where, presumably, it cannot be hacked.  (Science Daily:  Secure passwords can be sent through your body, instead of air)

Now they're taking Wearable Weird out into a world of obsessive strangeness that's really starting to defy any sense of 'what the fuck problem are you trying to solve?'

The ostensible problem identification is the lack of security in transmitting a password through open air.  Therefore, if the password is transmitted through your body then that's a security problem eliminated ... or amplified to ridiculous levels since what are you doing using the Internet to secure the locks on your house in the first place.  Does the Internet prevent criminals from breaking the windows to come inside and kill everyone who lives there?

(Ed:  the Internet is probably the reason someone is coming to kill everyone in the house!)

Good point, Dagwood.


There are a few fundamental points we notice about security and I spent a large part of my life helping to keep secure large mainframe computer installations.  We did well and, to my knowledge, in thirty years we were never hacked.  Micros got hacked constantly but the mainframes didn't.  (Note:  part of that was in keeping mainframe security algorithms so hare-brained no-one could figure them out)

- the more talk we hear about security, the more places we hear getting hacked and the funniest was stealing all those email addresses from Yahoo which might be the most worthless source of them anywhere since it was usually used as a junk mail address for sites which insist on an email address but you don't want to give them one.

- the more money spent on security, the less there is of it as witnessed by the "Enemy of the State" article from earlier this evening.

- Microsoft conditioned the people to believe security on a computer probably won't work so the mindset across the country is the security will probably fail anyway.


The only value we see in this science is in a fat contract with Apple since anything this ridiculous for an iPhone and you know Tim Cook will buy it in a heartbeat.

For His Next Act, FBI Director James Comey Will Predict Lotto Numbers

Jeannie Dixon was a fortune teller some years ago and she never got anything right but she knew the fundamental secret of fortune tellers:  once the customer realizes you were wrong, you will be far away.

James Comey does the same thing in his latest pronouncement of the future with ISIS.  The statement is so vacuous that none of those FBI pony boys will formally put his name to it but Comey uttered the words and the gist of it is there will be a terrorist diaspora.  When he usually only uses one- or two-syllable words, he must have impressed himself no end with that one.

"There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we've never seen before," Comey said Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

- Russia Today:  ‘Terrorist diaspora’: ISIS-inspired attacks in US to increase as ground is lost overseas – FBI

Americans are so afraid of every damn thing today that maybe 'diaspora' elicits some concern but review with yourself how any terrorists will be diasporizing any damn place when they have a few stolen vehicles, no boats of any significant size, and zero aircraft.  Where are they going to invade with equipment like that, Genghis Khan?

There's no reason to believe a word which issues forth from his prevaricating piehole since there's not a word of fact in it and only mindless predictions with no basis.  He might as well be predicting Lotto numbers for all the difference it makes.  Where people would dismiss him for a fool for Lotto predictions, the Senate invites him for high-level testimony for his ISIS predictions.  Maybe it would be better for the budget if he predicted Lotto numbers for the Senate.

The first question regarding ISIS and Comey is whether he ever got anything correct.  We come up with a major negatory on that one because experience with the scoundrel shows he's an even worse fortune teller than Jeanne Dixon.  Since he wholeheartedly endorses 'stop and frisk' tactics for police, it's likely obvious to most of you he's not much of a cop either although scandalously-overpaid bureaucratic cancer of the state wouldn't be too far wrong.

Note:  Russia Today is used as a frequent reference here and die Kaninchen know there's nothing particularly biased about their coverage beyond a tendency to portray Vladimir Putin as Johnny Appleseed but there's far more of that over here in sanctifying the White House.  One of the drivers for finding unbiased news is to identify whichever Republicans loathe the most as a purveyor of propaganda and go to that one.  It's my experience Republicans hardly ever give truth (e.g. Director Comey) whereas Russia Today has high reliability for it so Ithaka relies on that heavily for world news as we do on Science Daily to discover what those wacky Alphas are making today.

Crazy Heads Evolve the Fastest

Dinosaurs with the most bony ornamentation on their heads showed the fastest rates of evolution toward fantastically-large animals.  (Science Daily:  Outrageous heads led to outrageously large dinosaurs)

The study applied to therapod dinosaurs and these seem to be any which are carnivorous and mostly walk around on two legs but they can be any size up to T. rex.

Read the article for speculation on what the bony ornamentation may have given the dinosaur and one thought is it enhances communication, maybe in terms of territorial aggression with members of the same species.  Read for more detail on that but mostly we're interested here in the fact it happened at all.  Crazy heads lead to huge crazy creatures.  Well ...


You might as well roll your Intelligent Design into this since using it for interesting parts and dodging weird parts isn't a fair go.  So God thought, hmm, I will make a dinosaur head look like something out of the scariest nightmare a kid could ever have because that will inspire the dinosaurs to get even bigger so they can look scarier still.

Dunno how well that one will play in the Ark.


Note:  I know die Kaninchen probably don't have any hard obsession with an overt implementation of an Intelligent Design as in some kind of blueprint but likely many of religious persuasion believe God has at least some kind of Plan.  OK, so we can work with that and see how it fits with the science. So far it's not looking like a strong match for crazy dinosaur heads but we roll with it.

I really don't know what Islam makes of evolution and it would be outrageously smug to assume it takes a fundamentalist view simply because we hear the most from fundamentalist Muslims.


Mostly upper vertebrates (i.e. humans and most mammals) don't have crazy heads as elephants have crazy ears, giraffes have crazy necks, and a lion has a wild-looking mane but nothing has six eyes or odd protuberances coming out of the head region.  This implies if we can get our sci-fi GMO boys adding such ornamentations to humans then we could grow really huge.  Think of the advantages since you could get to work so much faster.

Update:  just thought of sheep and similar animals with horns and antlers.  Using dinosaur logic they should have got really huge too.  Hmmm ...


With really huge humans, the Las Vegas prize fights would be spectacles which might have to move to the Coliseum in Rome.  The fighters would be twenty-feet tall and have bizarre bony knobs coming out of their heads.  Don't miss this.  Bring the whole family.

Football games would become rumbles of epic magnificence.  They will throw footballs the size of small cars which make lights and sounds as they fly through the air.


And then there's Giant Porno.  As soon as we have Giants, some twisted mutant will want to film sex scenes so be ready for that.  When Debby Does Dallas now, she really ...


So they're Homo sapiens rex and we continue as our regular Homo sapiens selves, living in coexistence with the Giants.  Sooner or later there has to be a war, the Cro-Mags against the Giants ... but maybe that gets ahead of things a little bit.

Everyone Is an "Enemy of the State"

"Enemy of the State" with Will Smith and Gene Hackman is one of the earliest movies which is sharply critical specifically of the NSA and the egregious abuses of any surveillance authority by the modern state.

The movie isn't so old at not quite twenty years but a large part of most excessive abuses of these types of systems (e.g. NSA, CIA, FBI, etc) took place under Bush and Obama with little difference in terms of respect for the Constitution in either one of them.  There's no evidence either of them has ever even heard of the Fourth Amendment but that's true for much of America which shouldn't be too surprising when they're known more for eating than for thinking.

The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.  It is part of the Bill of Rights and was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government and a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution.  Congress submitted the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789.  By December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment.

- WIKI:  Fourth Amendment

Implemented by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and destroyed by Barack Obama with the help of the Republican Party.


The editing of the movie is tight and it's constantly suspenseful as Will Smith's life and that of his family goes quickly down the toilet due to aggressive pursuit by a crooked Congressman.  It was classic for Tony Scott's way in which depth isn't too important but explosions are outstanding.  With production by Jerry Bruckheimer, you know pyro is going to be a huge part of the show and the near-ending has one of the most excellent explosions you could ever ask for a five- or six-storey warehouse.  They go all out for the final ending to make it quite possibly the most ridiculous parody of a Godfather finale you may ever see since everyone dies in the course of about a minute accompanied by more gunfire than the D-Day Invasion.

Scott's last spectacle was a swan dive off the Golden Gate Bridge so, to the last, he was dramatic.


The fundamental premise is you can't trust the government and people know that implicitly except during elections when they suddenly convince themselves Washington is full of munchkins, full of joy and pure of heart.  That thinking doesn't explain why Washington is launching classified space programs which surveil the Earth for one-year intervals with the alternate shuttle (i.e. X-37) space vehicle.  That doesn't explain how many spy satellites have been launched with no explanation of purpose.  It doesn't explain how Washington got so far distant from Americans that it might as well be on another planet and we would all be far better off if it were.

The movie portrays the directors of the security agencies as more competent than they really are.  FBI Director James Comey said to Congress today, "We are not weasels," but obviously they are when they're not criminal enough to make it to the CIA or NSA.  He also said, 'stop and frisk is good when used right' but he's the same guy who doesn't believe in stopping and frisking Clinton for much of anything whereas he believes in stopping and frisking black people for everything.

And the NSA people are even worse but Edward Snowden pulled their pants down around their ankles with relative ease.  In terms of confidence anything they do really works, there's not likely to be much when they have failed to predict every single campaign of violence related to terrorism anywhere in the world.


James Comey makes it clear we're 'enemies of the state' when the FBI has to right to stop and frisk us any time they feel like it.  Welcome to new America.  It's not the one you remember.

What's Hot on the Blog 9/28

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Worst Mistake My Parents Ever Made Sep 28, 2016	25
Behold die Kaninchen Sep 28, 2016	23
Getting Eristic With an African Crested Porcupine Sep 28, 2016	22
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A Better Way - about smart cities and better dispatching for taxis for sharing

The Swift Evolution - there's an apparent dependence between Vaux's Swifts and chimneys which is an interesting feat of evolution

Worst Mistake - by far the biggest one

Behold - screwing around with the rabbits

Getting Eristic - the WOTD meets a porcupine

The "Book of Eli" - it fades now but there was surprising interest in a surprisingly bad movie

There Isn't - going

Your Worst - going

What's Hot

Preserving - gone

Getting Eristic With an African Crested Porcupine

Eristic is everything online since someone will disagree with everything you say and try to pound it into sawdust.  Online it's an annoyance but with an African Crested Porcupine it's a problem.

Tip: don't piss him off

The animal can weigh about sixty pounds but he's been known to kill a lion and humans as well. He won't back up if you threaten him but instead will dance around and he will turn around if you seriously piss him off. That way he can raise all this spines and use the best shorter ones in the back. He charges at you backwards so he can stab you with them all at once. Apparently that means is highly effective.

 If you want to get eristic with an African Crested Porcupine, Troll Boy, you may find you've got a challenge you can't quite handle.

Behold die Kaninchen

Die Kaninchen is German for the rabbits but it sounds much cooler auf Deutsch.  It was resolved previously that Ithaka regulars are the Kaninchen and all are within the fifth-to-tenth percentiles of the smartest mofos in all the land.  Of course it's obviously true, yes?

We're the Betas and we can can cheerfully criticize all the things the Alphas do because they're too smart for their own good.  Everybody knows this as I'm sure die Kaninchen will agree.


We can still do smart things and the Alphas will ignore it but, wtf, most of the time we ignore them.  We can amuse ourselves with it and we're fairly good at that.  All in all, we're a shitload more fun than Alphas.  They have to concern themselves with doing the right thing but we will do anything if it sounds cool and draws an audience.


There's one problem for Betas.  No matter what the topic, we're outvoted.  It's a bell curve and there aren't enough Betas to swing much of anything.  Those fucking Gammas are the problem and you can convince those idiots that howler monkeys can sing an opera.  So, take it easy, we're going to get outvoted no matter what the contest.

(Ed:  are you getting back to the Jeeps with machine guns?)

Patience, my good man.

(Ed:  I'm not your good man!)

Of course not, you're an American, but do try acting like it and don't take any orders from assholes with armbands.

(Ed:  fuck you!)

There you go.  That's the spirit.


The Alphas get away with staying Alphas because they learned how to play the Gammas using devious means beyond our Beta control.  We can see their success with the Election which looks much like a political exercise in synchronized swimming.  The Gammas have been played by the most tone deaf Alphas ever to walk the stage but they're really, really good with grease.

The fundamental problem is Betas are (sob) functionally extinct.  Unless you have more than 2.1 progeny, you are extinct, Dagwood.  With die Kaninchen, I know of two who are in the non-extinct category.  As to the rest of us, well, we're protoplasmic vapor of little or no consequence to the evolution of the species.  Within my own family, only three made the cut for non-extinct so we copped it on a pass/fail system.


(Ed:  what about the Jeeps and machine guns?)

What about them?

(Ed:  what are you going to fucking do with them?)

Don't be getting eristical with me, Sergeant Saunders, as I already told you they were for the operation.

(Ed:  so what will that operation do?)

It was to rescue Rapunzel.

(Ed:  that's the CIA answer, isn't it?)

Yes.  Kissinger told me if I said anything else he would have me killed.  You know he can do it.

(Ed:  tell you what, Secret Sam.  If you had some hypothetical Jeeps with machine guns and could hypothetically send them anywhere you want, where the fuck would you send them?)

I wouldn't send them anywhere because the operation is suspended.

(Ed:  Kissinger doesn't have to murder you.  I will do it.)