Memes that made me laugh 333

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I'm sure many of my readers have heard of comedian and musician Rob Paravonian.  From his Web site:

With the mind of a comedian and the soul of a musician, Rob Paravonian seamlessly fuses sharp comedy performances with top notch musicianship. This perfect blend is evident everywhere from his viral Pachelbel Rant, his observations on popular music, to his well-crafted original songs.

Rob’s act is accessible and he works with minimal profanity so there are few limitations on where he can perform or where his albums can be played. He regularly works comedy clubs and cutting edge venues in New York, as well as cruises, all-ages venues and corporate events.

For those who don't know his Pachelbel Rant, it's coming up on its 20th anniversary of going viral next month.  Again, from his Web site:

In November of 2006 I uploaded a video to the relatively new site YouTube and it’s hard to imagine what my life and career would be had The Pachelbel Rant not become as popular as it did. Looking back over 20 years I’m grateful for the fans it helped find me, the friends and peers it helped me connect with, and the opportunities it opened up.

If you knew me before YouTube, or are a fan of the Dr. Demento Radio Show, you probably know that the Pachelbel Rant is even older than 20. It was a bit I started doing shortly after moving to New York and it was a regular feature of my sets at The Big Bad Music Show at Catch a Rising Star. An audio recording from Catch made it onto my 1998 CD American Cheese, simply titled “Pachelbel,” and it got played on Dr. Demento in 1999, making the Funny Five in the summer and the Funny 25 at the end of the year.

I had a few other songs make it onto Dr. Demento in those years so I didn’t realize the unique potential the piece had until YouTube came along. And I didn’t know what to expect from posting it, videos of over 5 minutes were rare in those early days.

In 2006 I recorded video of a bunch of live shows to get the most current version of the ever-changing and constantly updated rant. I chose to upload the version from a show at Penn State because the audience was really energetic and, most importantly, the audio turned out really good. (For you tech nerds: I used an Audio Technica wireless lavalier mic, omnidirectional. I think I chose the make and model because Doug Stanhope recommended it in a newsgroup)

In the first few weeks of YouTube it got a few hundred, then a few thousand views. These were the days before social media allowed people to blast out posts to millions of people at once so word spread more slowly and organically. I plugged it on my blog and on MySpace (ahh, wistful sigh for MySpace), but it was when YouTube chose it as a featured video on their front page that it really took off.

A lot of college students started finding the video, either having it sent to them by friends or finding it on a site like College Humor. One of those college students was the granddaughter of George Carlin’s manager, who sent it to her dad and grandfather with the suggestion that I could fill in for Carlin’s regular road opener, fellow guitar comic Dennis Blair. That led to me opening about a dozen shows for Carlin between 2007-2008, which led to opening for Lily Tomlin in 2009 at the MGM Grand.

I enjoy his music precisely because he keeps it clean.  He doesn't need profanity or innuendo to be very funny indeed.  Congratulations to him on the two decades of success sparked by his Pachelbel Rant.  Here's the original 2006 version.

You'll find more of his music and comedy at his YouTube channel.

Peter

Issues that should be addressed in the election, but are being ignored

 

Coyote Blog has been published since 2004 by Warren Meyer, making it even older than this blog (which I began in January 2008).  It's been an interesting and thought-provoking read for most of that time.

In his latest article, Mr. Meyer addresses "Six Meta Problems That Should Be Issues in the Election, But Are Not".  It's a lengthy piece, but well worth the time for those interested in analyzing what our leaders should be addressing, but for various reasons are not.  He identifies these six issues:

1. The US Federal budget deficit, source of inflation, high mortgage rates, and even the trade deficit;
2. Federal Reserve Policy, which has created the recent K-shaped binodal prosperity profile;
3. K-5 public education, which has hurt everyone but particularly people of color;
4. Conflation of race with culture, which hinders discourse on everything from immigration to education;
5. Complete misunderstanding about how political power works;
6. Special Bonus Meta Issue: Wars of choice.

I can't possibly do an excerpt incorporating all of those elements, so I recommend (highly!) that you click over there to read them for yourselves.  To whet your appetite, here are the author's thoughts on public education.  Emphasis in bold print is mine.

If there is a true example of systemic racism in this country it is the crime against black children perpetrated by the public k-12 education system, and probably in K-5 (once kids get to 6th grade without reading or math they are likely never going to recover).  There has been no worse crime committed against African Americans in this country since Jim Crow.   And the craziest part is that some of the worst examples are in cities with all-black mayors, city council, and school board members.

Take the example of East St Louis.  Here is the school board in E. St Louis -- not many proud boys there.   East St Louis spends over $25,000 per student and has a 12:1 teacher ratio  (the national average is about $18,000 per pupil and 14:1).    Teachers earn beetween $70,000 and $80,000 a year before benefits for about 9 months a year of work.  The student body is 96% black and US News report that in E. St Louis  "4% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 7% tested at or above that level for math."  Well no surprise that Blacks are struggling when freaking 96% of them graduate from public school systems like this without being able to read.  This is a f*cking crime, and it has nothing to do with white leadership or funding.

This has to be fixed, but in large part the various governments in this country have focused on working hard to NOT fix it.  That is because every time there is a standardized test that points out this failure to educate black children well, it is first dumbed- down, and then made optional, and then eliminated.  Which is insane – its like deciding that the solution to too many cancer diagnoses in some particular area is to stop testing for cancer.

Politicians are often susceptible to cargo-cult thinking and nowhere is this more obvious than in education.  At some point years ago politicians looked at successful people and noticed that successful people typically had college degrees.  Most of us would have said, “Sure, that is because a college degree means they have gained some knowledge, demonstrated critical thinking, can write and do math at some minimum level, can be focused and complete tasks responsibly, and have dedicated themselves to achieving difficult goals over long periods of time.

But politicians don’t think this way – they are not very good at parsing cause and effect.  So if successful people have college degrees, they figured that if we handed out lots more college degrees then there will be more successful people.  But since the K-12 education system could not produce enough qualified people to get into college, then standards had to be lowered, testing requirements eliminated, and high school grades inflated.  To help unprepared folks graduate, new majors with absurdly low standards were invented, grades were inflated and use of AI was winked at.  Not surprisingly, none of this has helped black well-being very much.  All the college DEI and affirmative action in the world is not going to help most black kids because it is 10 years too late -- they were failed by the system way back in K-5.

To complete the sad irony, the very traits that contribute to prosperity and for which college degrees were a proxy – hard work, focus on long term goals, critical thinking, discipline, deferring gratification – have now been labeled by supposed “supporters” of the Black cause as representing whiteness and to be avoided as racist.  Had the KKK come up with a plan to screw the black race in this country, I don’t think they could have done a better job.

Unfortunately, change is difficult since the teacher's unions have an iron grip on public education and many blue state politicians who owe their elections to union cash and get-out-the-vote manpower.  All the extra money we have poured into public education over the last 20-30 years, and there has been billions of it, has mostly been captured by public school employees, both teachers and especially the growing cadre of administrators.  The only possible way is to break the monopoly -- a monopoly far more destructive than companies like Comcast Cable ever were -- is with school choice.  Parents have got to be empowered to move their kids out of the failing monopoly schools.  As a bonus, school choice would quiet the culture war in that parents who want their kids taught there are 53 genders or just 2 can find appropriate schools for their children.

There's much more at the link.

I don't always agree with Mr. Meyer on everything, but in this article, I think he's hit several home runs.  I doubt our current crop of ideologically blinkered politicians will benefit from it, but nevertheless, go read the whole thing.  If enough of us make enough noise about these things, perhaps we can begin to change the calcified channels of politics . . .

Peter

Listen for the still, small voice

 

As the mid-term elections draw near, the political turmoil around the world is being reflected in our own national politics.  There's order, counter-order and disorder;  there are threats and counter-threats;  there's propaganda and publicity material out the wazoo.  Sometimes it's hard to think straight, what with all the noise about the past, and the present, and the future.

Speaking as a Christian, I think it's very important for us to understand that the wisdom of God is not to be found in the midst of all this shouting and tumult.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

(1 Kings 19:11-13)

Ignore the political winds, and earthquakes, and fires.  For we who believe (and even for those who don't, for that matter), God is still in his heaven and is still in command of all that is.  It's his voice we need to heed, not the screeches and cacophony of those who love their own voices too much.

Peter

When "concealed" firearms carry isn't

 

Last weekend Tom's Hardware, a well-known information technology Web site, informed its readers that WiFi technology can now detect a concealed firearm, even if it isn't visible in any way.

The full system comprises a Wi-Fi transmitter, a Wi-Fi receiver, and the WiFireNet AI.

When ordinary Wi-Fi signals encounter an object in their path, they penetrate and bounce off in ways specific to that object, based on its shape, orientation, and material. This data, the channel state information, can be analyzed to identify the object with high accuracy. Security researchers previously disclosed a technique that lets ordinary Wi-Fi routers identify people with 99.5% accuracy.

. . .

After training, the final AI system, WiFireNet, could detect concealed handguns solely based on Wi-Fi CSI, with varying accuracy. In controlled trials tracking up to four moving individuals in a small indoor space, the system achieved an average handgun-detection precision of 72.5%. However, under stricter localization requirements, such as pinpointing the weapon’s exact location on the carrier, precision dropped to 53.8%. The neural network also struggles to perform accurately in unfamiliar, untested indoor layouts.

That said, the system is still experimental, with a roadmap of planned improvements.

There's more at the link.

There have been previous claims that other systems can do the same, but as far as I'm aware, none of them have been as rigorously tested as this new development.  We should assume that such systems are more likely than not to be deployed at any place where security requirements are likely to be high all, or some, of the time (e.g. law enforcement agency offices, arenas and other public performance centers where high-profile figures may be speaking or in attendance, etc.)  It's likely that as such systems become more affordable and more widespread, they'll be deployed at sports venues, cinemas, hotels and other sites as well.

We may find more and more regulations in public places, or in private venues that impose restrictions upon those using them, that if a concealed firearm is detected, we may be denied entrance unless we can demonstrate a good reason why we need to be armed there.  The Second Amendment and/or preparedness to defend ourselves against crime are not likely to be acceptable reasons.  If we advance them, we're likely to be labeled as right-wing extremists, kooks, or paranoid survivalists.

In that light, David Codrea asks:

With no reasonable expectation of privacy in public places, technologies employing CCTV cameras, facial recognition, license plate scanners and the like generally don’t cross a “plain view” legal threshold, although there’s movement to reconsider how much is allowable, especially when surveillance becomes prolonged for tracking purposes.

But what if it’s a real bad guy? Since when has requiring you and I to be disarmed done anything but give predators the advantage?

Naturally, those intent on controlling not just guns but  their fellow man, will be all for expanding the surveillance state if they can seize the power to do it. What laws to do that can we expect them to enact, and how will the courts react to challenges, especially if Democrats win the midterms , then take over in ’28, and start reshaping the Supreme Court to reverse Bruen, McDonald, Heller, and more?

Good questions!

I can see a market emerging for a sort of pouch or flat box, that can be carried inside a jacket or handbag.  It would be made out of, or lined with, X-ray-proof material, similar to the pouches made to protect exposed photographic film when traveling by air;  they prevent the undeveloped film from being blackened by security X-rays.  I presume that such material will also work against WiFi signals - can anyone confirm, please?  If not, one could add another layer of anti-static and/or or RFID-blocking material to the container.  Working together, they may protect what's inside against detection, offering a way to conceal a gun even in the face of such intrusive security measures.  It won't be ideal, being slower to get to than a simple holstered firearm, but it'll be a heck of a lot better than nothing for those of us who value our personal security and that of our families.

Peter