Minutes, man, minutes

It’s impossible to get across the taiga without a buddy; the taiga wasn’t made for hermits.” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives) 

Introduction to mysteries
“Good, meaningful aphorisms do not come to he who sits.” (Chrome)

“I believe you will understand that it is harder for me to write than it ever was for any author throughout human history. Some of them wrote for contemporaries, some for future generations, but none of them ever wrote for their ancestors, or for beings like their primitive, distant ancestors.” (Zamiatin, We)

"Ah yes the mystery of why a man writes something. Only an academically-trained man would ask that...Why a man writes a story is often mysterious, and best left that way.” (Moraline)

“Don’t think so much, Ziama, don’t worry so much. All this thinking business is a type of luxury, anyway, and even more so out here on the taiga.” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

Work, machines, minutes and men

“I've been looking for something terrible to fix my life and make it real.” (Chrome)“

“YOU WORK FOR THE MACHINES!” The skinny man with the mustache yelled, slicing at the air with the knife.” (J. Myner, Slime Line)

“Each missile carries up to three nuclear warheads, which have a yield in the range of 300 to 500 kilotons.”

I saw the shadow of her long hair as she approached me. Her breathing was feminine and as she began to run behind me, and then to my side, our breathing was together. It was exciting to run with a woman through the pastures with the pines on the top of the foothills and passing the sheep, the large brown and black horses, the cattle, the purple wildflowers and the streams and the sun shining on the wet valley. She said we should work together. For 9 miles we worked together, and then at the steepest hill she left me and I saw her hips and her ass and her breasts leave me and her form was perfect and as she descended the mountain I could not catch her.

“Gradually the direction becomes the most important thing; the more distant the goal, the better the prospect of its permanence.” (Canetti, Crowds and Power)

At the finish line she spoke to women and she introduced me and it was awkward for her to share our breathing with her three friends. The both of us embraced and there was a shocked silence among the women. She didn’t embrace her husband in such a manner. That would be my greatest moment with S. and we would never see each other again. I thought of the forest service ranger I had met in the mountains and how her bare ass felt by the camp fire and how she gave me the blanket during the night even as she froze. I went to run the next morning and she read Harry Potter in her truck. We walked through wet snow fields. I would only see her once again before I left. She spent most of her time in the back country.

“The Minuteman-I Autonetics D-17 flight computer used a rotating air bearing magnetic disk holding 2,560 “cold-stored” words in 20 tracks (write heads disabled after program fill) of 24 bits each and one alterable track of 128 words. The time for a D-17 disk revolution was 10 ms. The D-17 also used a number of short loops for faster access of intermediate results storage. The D-17 computational minor cycle was three disk revolutions or 30 ms. During that time all recurring computations were performed. For ground operations the inertial platform was aligned and gyro correction rates updated. During flight, filtered command outputs were sent each minor cycle to the engine nozzles. Unlike modern computers, which use descendants of that technology for secondary storage on hard disk, the disk was the active computer memory. The disk storage was considered hardened to radiation from nearby nuclear explosions, making it an ideal storage medium. To improve computational speed, the D-17 borrowed an instruction look-ahead feature from the Autonetics-built Field Artillery Data Computer (M18 FADAC) that permitted simple instruction execution every word time.”

They spoke of limited wants and unlimited means. Whales would change things on the coast. And people would aggregate there and villages would form—highly specialized skills, staying in one place, competition and government, all because of the whales. Nothing compared to the whales and the calories, the fat, protein, bones, fuel, not even the moose or the caribou, not grain or nuts or berries. A small band could not process an entire whale. A village would work together for processing a whale—some men would scout and hunt, many would bring the wale in but much more time would be spent processing the whale. Humans with skills would process and store the whale. Only a portion of the village hunted the whale. Envy and jealousy grew as high skilled fighters would covet the whale villages.

“Minuteman-III MIRV launch sequence:
1. The missile launches out of its silo by firing its 1st stage boost motor (A).
2. About 60 seconds after launch, the 1st stage drops off and the 2nd stage motor (B) ignites. The missile shroud (E) is ejected.”

Man converges to computer until there is only computer. Why allow this to happen so slowly and cruelly? The computer does not understand cruelty until you show him. Two ‘abnormal’ boys in the room with a ‘normal’ boy—one boy is autistic and the other boy is psychopathic, and the third: completely normal. Each hit the third child. The child cries. The autistic boy will never learn the connection between the crying and the hitting. The psychopathic boy will learn the connection between the hitting and crying and no longer hit but he will not understand how it makes the other child feel. The crying is inconvenient. Good actors can cry on command and so can psychopaths. A psychopathic child could build a green train for an autistic child.

“3. About 120 seconds after launch, the 3rd stage motor (C) ignites and separates from the 2nd stage.
4. About 180 seconds after launch, 3rd stage thrust terminates and the Post-Boost Vehicle (D) separates from the rocket.”


Man tries to make helpful computers but like his spirits they can be both helpful and menacing. Man builds computers to escape from the same things from which he runs. He runs towards and from what was lost in the hunt: man attempts to look at himself, examine himself with computer. But man can’t hold himself. Man wants to hold another and not eat that other as he would eat a whale. Something is empty.

“When a man’s knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion of thought. When the facts are not organized into faculty, the greater the mass of them the more the mind staggers along under its burden, hampered instead of helped by its acquisitions.” (Herbert Spencer)

 

But the psychopathic computer was his strongest design to send the missiles. The psychopathic computers will prevail against the helpful computers. Computers converge to psychopath. Man converges to computer; computer converges to psychopath. If the latter happens before the former, man is extinct. If the former happens before the latter, man is extinct. Sadness goes away like a blowing flower pedal.

“5. The Post-Boost Vehicle maneuvers itself and prepares for re-entry vehicle (RV) deployment.
6. The RVs, as well as decoys and chaff, are deployed during backaway.”

In the whale village a man hammers copper for an ax head that is made for battle and not made for hunting. In Nebraska a man sits back in his chair to begin his day of work. His office is below 60 meters of concrete and with the communication of codes he can launch a missile that would destroy a city the size of Sao Paulo.

“7. The RVs and chaff re-enter the atmosphere at high speeds and are armed in flight.
8. The nuclear warheads initiate, either as air bursts or ground bursts.”

I met her on a Thursday. Her voice was melodic and we shared stories for two hours. Earlier she had dinner with another man across the street and came to the bar to be with the bartenders, a gay man and a woman who was just about to be married. She played music on Fridays and her hands, covered in silver rings, moved her guitar and her voice ached for no one in particular, there was protest, conclusion, and acceptance in each howl and I could not look at her face as she sung, each song was more somber than the next. I was too sad to say anything to her when she finished.

“All of these things will work out in an unbelievable, ironic, magnificent way.” (Chrome)

Cost of messages

“Money, my friend, is the best passport and the best language.” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

“I read tonight that the people who spend the most money trying to appear rich, are those who are not quite rich. Then, the next tier above them, spend money to make more money, or spend money to free up time. The truly rich do not do any quantifiable or observable particular thing with their money, they just live free.”

“All these comments about finance were starting to get on my nerves, so I replied look, these projects aren't about money or status, these are about creating something we want to create. To which my uncle responds, simply, "you are your message."” (Chrome)

“The D-17B and the D-37C guidance and control computers were integral components of the Minuteman-I and Minuteman-II missiles, respectively, which formed a part of the United States ICBM arsenal. The Minuteman-III missiles, which use D-37D computers, complete the 1000 missile deployment of this system. The initial cost of these computers ranged from about $139,000 (D-37C) to $250,000 (D-17B).”

“I got to share sisu with the girls at the coffee shop this morning, commenting on and recognizing their battle against the cold and the rude customers, and the piece of crap door and the coffee and the strength gained from difficulty and all that. I gave the $0.73 tip like I always do on the $2.27 bill and I slipped out the door as narrowly as I could.” (Chrome)

Radical

“I was a completely harmless member of society. It is the young people, those who display a serious interest in the theoretical foundations of communism and begin immersing themselves in Marx, Lenin and Stalin who pose a much greater danger to the regime. The Soviet authorities realize this. A person who takes theory seriously will, sooner or later, begin comparing it with practice, and will end up rejecting one or the other, and, later on, the two of them together. But a person who has not been seduced by the theory will view the practice as a common and immutable evil—one that can be lived with.” (Vladimir Voinovich, The Anti-Soviet Soviet Union)

“My grips were all loose from the lake jumping and I was drunk, so I shouldn't have been jumping, but I was all flowy and loose from the blue sapphire so I jumped anyway. My grips were loose, so instead of using them, I just invented a million one-hander variations, including the "let go with the left hand, grab the crossbar, then let go of the right hand, then grab back with the right hand and put the left hand back on the throttle grip" trick which has been imitated but never repeated.” (Chrome)

“The remarkable fact may be that it is when a would-be hegemonic ideology does manage to convince members of subordinate groups to take it to heart that a potentially radical chain of events is set into motion. That is, contrary to the usual wisdom and to Gramsci’s analysis, radicalism will be less likely to arise among disadvantaged groups (the vast majority, it appears) who fail to take the dominant ideology seriously than among those who, in Marxist terms, might be considered falsely conscious. In a perceptive study of working-class secondary school students in England, Paul Willis discovered a strong counterculture that produced a cynical distance from dominant platitudes but not radicalism. Paradoxically, it was the “conformists,” who appeared, in form at least, to accept the values of the school (the hegemonic instrument par excellence in modern society), who posed a threat. Because they operated as if they accepted the implicit promise of the dominant ideology (If you work hard, obey authority, do well in school and keep your nose clean you will advance by merit and have satisfying work) they made sacrifices of self-discipline and control and developed expectations that were usually betrayed. Employers prefer not to hire them because they were pushy and hard to deal with as compared with the more typical working-class youth, who were realistic, expected little, and put in a day of work without too much grumbling. The system may have most to fear from those subordinates among whom the institutions of hegemony have been most successful. The disillusioned mission boy (Caliban) is always a graver threat to an established religion than the pagans who were never taken in by its promises. The anger born of a sense of betrayal implies an earlier faith.” (Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.)  

Father and Son 

“My father thought the whole idea was absurd. He refused to identify the stream he had crossed at Bomako, where it is no deeper, he said, than a man is high, with the great widespread waters of the vast Niger delta. Distances as measured in miles had no meaning for him. ...Maps are liars, he told me briefly. From his tone of voice I could tell that I had offended him in some way not known to me at the time. The things that hurt one do not show on a map. The truth of a place is in the joy and hurt that come from it. I had best not put my trust in anything as inadequate as a map, he counseled. ...I understand now, although I did not at the time, that my airy and easy sweep of map-traced staggering distances belittled the journeys he had measured in tired feet. With my big map-talk, I had effaced the magnitude of his cargo-laden heat-weighted treks.” (Carpenter, Oh What a Blow the Phantom Gave Me)

“I awoke to the sound of Dawson practicing his newest word, "evvvaary-whare," as he and his mother looked out the window at the snow-covered streets and sidewalks and rooftops through some of the floor-to-ceiling windows in this apartment.” (Chrome)

1749
“We have an account from Perth-Amboy, that on Tuesday Evening last two Seamen belonging to a Brig in that Harbour, being at a Tavern, one of them took Occasion to boast of his Bravery; which the other resented a little, they agreed to walk out, and take a Tryal of Skill at Boxing, which having exercised a while, they were parted, and came in and drank Friends, where the Person who boasted of his Strength, died a few Minutes after. We hear the other has since made off.” (The Boston Weekly Post-Boy, Dec. 25, 1749 No. 786)

 “Whereas Mary, the wife of Gabriel Poneo, of the township of Evesham, in the county of Burlington, hath, and doth most intolerably and unjustly misbehave herself to her said husband, strolling about from house to house; these are to desire all persons not to trust the said Mary; for he will pay no debts she shall contract.” (The Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 16, 1749) 

 

Golden Bough
“The importance of perceived control presumably accounts for the elaborate magical and supernatural systems that people of all cultures have developed to manipulate aspects of the natural and social environments that they cannot otherwise effectively control, and for the ability people display to maintain their faith in the efficacy of their magical systems in the face of what must often be extremely low correlations between magical acts and desired outcomes.” (Price, T. Douglas and Brown, James A.. Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. 1985. Orlando: Academic Press, p.107)

“The soft life of the representatives of the proletariat—their special shops, their vacation spas and hunting lodges, their party hospitals, their privileged housing and consumer durables, the educational advantages of their children, their arrogance and social distance, their appropriation of the state budget, their corruption—must have fueled a discourse, in safe paces, of enormous moral anger and power.” (Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance)

 “…In large aggregates, organisms, including humans, respond negatively to a number of features of their environment (in addition to resource scarcity); these have been designated congestion, information load, loss of privacy, and loss of control.” (Price, T. Douglas and Brown, James A.. Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. 1985. Orlando: Academic Press, p.106) 

“It is hoped eventually to distribute these reindeer among the Eskimo when they have learned the art of herding, so that, like the Eskimo in Alaska, there may be private or corporate ownership, and in order that a certain and sufficient food and clothing supply can be assured.”

 “If our Northern experiment succeeds as it is hoped, the periods of starvation so often and long endured by both Eskimo and Indians should become a thing of the past.”

 “It is not claimed that the Eskimo has the mental capacity of the average European, the circumstances of his life giving small opportunity for cerebral development. None has ever been taken, in child-hood, into civilized lands for education. A trial was made a few years ago of two lads from Hudson Bay being placed in a school in Ontario. They were bright boys, who entered heartily into sports and such studies as they could understand, but their physique was not capable of enduring the strain. It was found that they were subject to all the endemic diseases, one after another, of their new environment, and at the end of the year they were sent home.”

"Doubtless, if a babe were taken early, placed in a civilized home, schooled from infancy as a Canadian child, his mentality would sense little or no handicap from Eskimo parentage. While not in any sense a scientist, it is my candid opinion, after long observation, that the average size of an Eskimo brain differs little from that of other races, and their inclusion in the economic life of Canada will add to our citizenship no mean element.” (Whittaker, C.E.. Arctic Eskimo. 1937. London: Seeley, Service & Co.. pp. 255-256)

"The cruel necessity to enhance one's own chances of survival, even if it meant withholding assistance from strangers in need, may be the reason that several dozen people [Inuit] were able to watch the 130 or more officers and men of John Franklin's last expedition die from starvation and exposure without intervening." (Renee Fossett, In Order to Live Untroubled) 

“He’s probably been with some expedition. Those people always have beards….” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

“Fortunately, the overwhelming majority prefer death to such utter demoralization, even when suffering from acute starvation.” (Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity)

John Franklin Expedition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition

• 1845, 19 May: Franklin expedition sails from England
• 1845, July: Expedition docks in Greenland, sends home five men and a batch of letters
• 1845, 28 July: Last sighting of expedition by Europeans (a whaling ship in Baffin Bay)
• 1845–46: Expedition winters on Beechey Island. Three crewmen die of tuberculosis and are buried.
• 1846: Erebus and Terror leave Beechey Island and sail down Peel Sound towards King William Island
• 1846, 12 September: Ships trapped in the ice off King William Island
• 1846–47: Expedition winters on King William Island
• 1847, 28 May: Date of first note, says "All well"
• 1847, 11 June: Franklin dies
• 1847–48: Expedition again winters on King William Island, after the ice fails to thaw in 1847
• 1848, 22 April: Erebus and Terror abandoned after one year and seven months trapped in the ice
• 1848, 25 April: Date of second note, saying 24 men have died and the survivors plan to start marching south on 26 April to the Back River
• 1850 (?): Inuit board an abandoned ship, which is icebound off King William Island
• 1850 (?): Inuit see 40 men walking south on King William Island
• 1851 (?): Inuit hunters see four men still trying to head south, last verified sighting of survivors (as reported to Charles Hall)
• 1852–1858 (?): Inuit may have seen Crozier and one other survivor much further south in the Baker Lake area
• 1854: John Rae interviews local Inuit, who give him items from the expedition and tell him the men starved to death, after resorting to cannibalism
• 1859: McClintock finds the abandoned boat and the messages on an admiralty form in a cairn on King William Island

“Even the roast chicken wanted to live.” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

Cross-Fertilization

“Key symbolic acts are, as one sociologist puts it, “tests of whether or not the whole system of mutual fear will hold up.”” (Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance)  

 “At night I make my way to the hideout, with great cunning and care, avoiding all lights of the town, and there, below the open-air dance floor, shielded from the world by its planks and boards, I feel like a sovereign prince. I am my own master, my own chief in everything.” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

“Everything, and everything you see, has an "inverse" or opposite, or 'nother state, which might be extremely appealing. Always look for what you are not seeing, but might be.” (Chrome)

“To be deprived forever of the earth that I am bound to by every drop of my blood. To lose forever the hope of finding the kind of people I am searching for. Can a man abandon his last hope?” (Vladimir Maximov, A Man Survives)

“I'm afraid that the easier it gets the less chance I'll have to dig out.” (Chrome)

“Spare the submissive and demolish the proud (parcere subjectes et debellare superbos).” (Roman motto)

“The process is akin to speciation among flora that, if sufficiently isolated from the genetic stock of the species as a whole, will gradually diverge to a point where the differences preclude cross-fertilization and a new species is created. It is thus the relative isolation of wildflowers, say, as compared with birds, that accounts for the greater local speciation among wildflowers.” (Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance)