Category: anonradio

ASFO 2023–06–17

The “Juneteenth” holiday, and the recent death of disgruntled mathematician Ted Kaczynski, bring me back to the question of the as–yet unfinished work of emancipation, which somehow requires me to cast aspersions on the literary works of Herman Melville and James Joyce. Regardless of that, however, I consider the Marxist idea of historical inevitability, and the doctrines of economics as taught in the business schools, as modern equivalents to the old idea that the existing order of society is the direct manifestation of the Will of God, and it is not only impious but futile to imagine that it could be any other way. This I regard as extraordinarily dangerous and destructive, because we humans are at this time more masters of our own destiny than has ever been true in the past.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–06–20 I commence reading the South Sea Bubble chapter of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
  • 2023–06–23 Conclusion of the South Sea Bubble, and my reflection on its relevance to current affairs. Probably all I will read from this book. Also, at the beginning, one brief extract from Science–Fiction : The Early Years by Bleiler.

ASFO 2023–06–10

Unclean! unclean! or, a neat way to circumvent that nasty habit of ratiocination some humans have. Also, dams and other concrete structures ; the damnable American workplace ; and the dark suspicion that Wall Street Journal articles are being written by “AI”. Dorlisa Flur, really? (The lack of a show last week was entirely owing to my error.)

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–06–13 Continuation of “John Law and the Mississippi Bubble”.
  • 2023–06–16 Conclusion of the “Mississippi Bubble” chapter of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and sundry announcements, about some records I have bought to provide interstitial material for HNtW, and about Pemmi–Con and my planned exhibits there.

ASFO 2023–05–27

Hamlet ― yes, the Shakespeare play ― a mathematical concept called the “zero ring”, violence at Target stores, and a long filibuster in the Nebraska legislature… what do these things possibly have in common? Maybe nothing! But they all serve to illustrate one of my major concerns : the intersection of lack of knowledge with lack of understanding. We live today in an enormously complex society, and there is such a wealth of information available that no human mind can deal with it all. As a result, people who specialize in one subject are often totally divorced, both in knowledge and in working methods, from those who specialize in another. Meanwhile, our societies give evidence of being caught in vast eddies and backwashes of ignorance.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–05–30 “Every patient represents an improbable event.” Conclusion of Vignette №20, Populations, Samples, and Items, and commencement of №21, Probability is not Gambling.
  • 2023–06–02 “Small sample statistics of ambiguously defined events in ambiguously defined populations are almoset certain to be the most colossal lies perpetrated. But large sample estaimates made from precisely defined events happening to closely regulated items can be more accurate measurements of what actually happened than is achievable in any other science.” Completion of Vignette №21, Probability is not Gambling, and all of №23, What is a Good Small Sample? (Unfortunately I don’t seem to have №22.) Then I talk about various things for a few minutes, including the Chernobyl tragedy of 1986.
  • 2023–06–06 Vignette №24, A Tracer Has No Pharmacology, concluding the first volume (really binder) of Vignettes in Nuclear Medicine by Marshall Brucer, MD. The material most interesting to the general public is mainly in this first volume, so I will probably stop here, absent requests to continue. Also a great deal of commentary and discussion from me.
  • 2023–06–09 A piece in the Wall Street Journal leads me to read from that monumental work of supercilious Victorian moralizing, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I start at the beginning (of the 1841 edition, which is somewhat different in content and arrangement than the 1852 edition) with John Law.

ASFO 2023–05–20

Zeppelin the Musical, and the pathetically inadequate transit arrangements in the vicinity of Füssen (seriously, tourist towns in the USA often do better) caused me to be late in starting, and so that’s what I mostly talk about. I don’t attempt to review the show, but I do talk about the technical aspects, which made excellent use of the extensive facilities of the Festspielhaus. This playhouse, apparently constructed to stage a show about King Ludwig II of Bavaria, faces his world–famous creation, the architectual oddity known as Schloss Neuschwanstein, across a modest–sized lake.

Supplementary Show

2023–05–26 Because my previous reading of Vignette №19, The Maximum Ridiculous Dose, did not archive, I start over from the beginning. Then I get partway into №20, Populations, Samples, and Items ― an introduction to statistics, from the clinical standpoint.