Rigid vs Flexible - In Physical Structures and Civilizations

A building can't be too rigid or too flexible in order to stand for a long period of time.  If it's too rigid without any give whatsoever, a traumatic event like an earthquake will take it down.  But even though it needs some flexibility, it needs MUCH more solidarity or it won't be able to stand at all.

I think the same thing applies to civilizations.  They need a little give to be able to adapt to traumatic events, but they need far more of a rigid structure than a flexible one to stand for long periods of time.  Rigid with some flexibility rather than flexible with some rigidity.  

A Small Tribute to Yitang Zhang

Got to have respect for a guy who makes a huge breakthrough in prime gaps even though at one point he had to leave academia to work in a Subway sandwich shop.  Talk about being overqualified.  I guess you never know who is behind that counter when you order.

Mr. Zhang, let this post be a small acknowledgement of your amazing accomplishments.  I wish you well going forward in your career and life.

A Conundrum

 Moral absolutism is unverifiable, moral relativism is inconsistent, and moral nihilism is worthless.

Perpendicular Motion - The Key to Maxwell's Equations?

I remember I had somewhat of a difficult time trying to get the last two formulas in Maxwell's equations to make sense to me.  Then one day I stumbled upon some physics textbook I found in the UHCL library that made something in my brain click.  I reviewed the book on Amazon, but unfortunately I can't remember the name of the book at the moment. 

I believe the book first mentioned how magnetic poles on a pair of magnets either attract or repel each other.  But both do so more or less linearly.  If you put an electric charge and a magnetic charge close to each other, the outcome is quite different.  Instead of attracting or repelling each other linearly, the motion of one is almost perpendicular as the other approaches.  

This clarified the whole circular motion in Maxwell's equations for me.  Immediately the curl operation made sense, because before I was exposed to this idea it just seemed like an arbitrary operation in vector calculus.  

We Risk Ridiculous Fascist Accusations Now to PREVENT Actual Fascism in the Future

Man, it seems sometimes no matter how far left things move on the pendulum of permissiveness, if you try to even move slightly back to the center, you get accused of being a fascist.  "You ask people to voluntarily moderate their promiscuity to curb the prevalence of unplanned children in broken homes?  That's fascist!  You want employees to wear uniforms instead of pajamas at work?  That's fascist!  You failed a student who turned in two assignments and refused to do any further work?  That's fascist!"  Well, maybe that last one isn't CALLED fascist too much, but such slacking sure is allowed to happen and serious resistance is encountered when appropriate consequences are attempted.

But if you continually allow more and more permissiveness and do NOT voluntarily move more towards the center in a timely manner, actual fascism WILL be required to get full-blown anarchy back in order.  That kind of fascism is really not good.  So right now it's probably better to try to move a bit more towards the behavioral center willingly rather than involuntarily be forced back later when nature follows through on its delayed effects and forces order on its balance sheet to be restored.  I dread to see what will happen in public education, since that situation is already too chaotic and far gone to restore order without some major correction.

I Wouldn't Mind the Rich Getting Richer, IF it Cleans Up the Culture

I really don't blame people for voting for either party, as I've stated before.  Problem is neither party has a culture cleaning agenda.  Perhaps they're in cahoots.  Wouldn't surprise me.  They both agree beforehand that one party supports this unreasonable stance, and another party supports that unreasonable stance, just to keep things divided so that no other contenders show up.  Who knows.  What's sad though is both seem totally okay with horrendous language dominating every media form there is.  It also seems clear that one of them contains a small but quite vocal subset that is clearly against concepts like monogamy and other similar wholesome ideals, just because they're traditional.  

Bearing this in mind, I'd probably be willing to take a substantial financial hit and give a chunk of my money to people richer than me if it defeats certain agendas once and for all.  Agendas that promote ideas labeling any type of challenge or inconvenience as automatically oppressive, that consider self esteem more important than self control and self respect, that consider whims equivalent to duties, that attempt to discredit merit as a requirement for authority, that purposefully hide painful but necessary truths from young men rather than risk their psychological discomfort, etc.  These ideas have poisoned the minds of an untold number of kids on the internet, whose K through 12 educational abilities have been thoroughly postponed and perhaps permanently damaged as a result of their lack of disciplined pursuit to worthwhile living.  

Whether this sad outcome is worse than rich people manipulating the laws and marketplace to fatten their own pockets even further, I am not sure.  It gets even more complicated when this awful behavior of the wealthy leads to long hours for employees without even the comfort of being able to pay their AC bill.  But when I watch Judge Judy and see grown men spending their money on GoPros instead of rent, I get a little less sympathetic.  

The Only Accounting Journal Entry I Need To Remember

I don't have a very good memory, so for most things I like to remember as little as possible and derive everything else from that small bit.  That's what I do with journal entries in accounting.  I actually only remember one journal entry most of the time, and that is when an expense is recorded.  As long as I remember to debit the expense and credit cash, I'm good.  Then I can derive most other journal entry procedures from there pretty much.  

For instance, from there I can remember to record a sale by debiting cash and crediting revenue.  And I can remember to record a receivable by debiting AR and crediting revenue.  And to debit the receiving bank account and credit AR when the customer pays.  And to record a payable by debiting the expense and crediting AP.  And with an asset purchase, I debit the asset and credit cash or credit a payable.  And so on, and so on.

Seems way easier doing things this way than to memorize each particular type of entry individually.  Even if it may take a bit longer to get to the kind of entry I'm looking for at the moment.