Existentialism Defeated

Existentialism's root question is "Why does anything exist?"  From this arises many other questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" but these are all offshoots of the root question.

I have decided that it's better not to know.  That is because if the universe has a purpose, it's probably either a really important one or not very important at all.  If it's not that important, it'll mean life's kind of a letdown.  It also relegates Man to purposelessness.  If the purpose of the universe is quite important, Man, and indeed all of Earth and its living things, probably play a very tiny role in it or none at all, relegating us to the same status as a small colony of bacteria on the tip of a flower petal.  Interesting but of no consequence.

In either case our own individual lives are practically meaningless outside the morally relative judgment systems we use.  But while these systems may be important to us as we live our lives, in the grand scheme of things they are as much without value or purpose as humanity is.

Thus not knowing for sure of what purpose the universe and eventually the human race and eventually each of us serves spares us the inevitable conclusion that important or not be the purpose of the universe, our purpose or raison d'etre is in any case practically useless and of no import.

But we cannot know this for sure now can we?

Thus purely in terms of maintaining human morale, the entire human race collectively and personally is better off not knowing squat either about the use of the universe itself or our place in it.

Ignorance isn't bliss but sometimes it can lead to it.

Imagine knowing your purpose, having marching orders straight from God.  Suppose your orders were to go do something like capture Paris and declare yourself emperor.  What if you didn't want to?  Or if you failed at it?  You'd be a real, objective failure at life itself!  Imagine living with that!  Truth is you are probably much better off creating your own purpose in life vs. getting one fiated to you from God or whomever.

Are you feeling purposeless?  Devoid of mission?  Life is on a meaningless course?

Good.  You're lucky.

Suchness and Original Sin

Hmmm, if my last post is true, then the age-old question of "What is suchness?" (in the Buddhist sense) has an answer: it's spacetime.

One may as a human being be able to experience spacetime mostly by feedback from the senses but actual "suchness" is just spacetime, which is consciousness itself albeit with wrinkles in it (ie, matter-energy). So we're like wrinkles trying to become aware of the smooth part of the cloth and saying "Gee, we were all smooth like that once..." This suggests pantheism is true also if you define "God" as being infinite and as spacetime itself in its infinite consciousness.

The quest for "enlightenment" is an effort on the part of wrinkles to smooth themselves out. The Original Sin in Buddhism then would be the Big Bang when one big wrinkle in spacetime suddenly appeared. Why though it did so not even Buddha could answer. That big wrinkle broke up into many smaller wrinkles some of which congealed to form stuff.

If the foregoing then is true it makes a lot of weird mysterious crap in Buddhism as well as in quantum physics suddenly a lot more sensible.

Something from Nothing

On the off chance a Physics geek reads this, I ask for a comment if they have an answer. I sent this to a geek friend hoping he had an answer. It goes:

Are you aware of any physical theories that posit that what we call matter-energy is in fact made up of nothing? Ie, a quantum of mass or energy must be made of something but that something is indivisible. But what if it is in fact divisible to nothing? What if the stuff that makes up matter-energy is itself simply spacetime wrinkled up in some way?

To go back to the Greeks, if a magic knife could cut something in half indefinitely eventually what would be left? Nothing but nothing that is in fact there. What could it be? If matter is basically energy trapped in a way, bundled up, then what is energy if not motion? Anything energetic is a vector, at least within itself. If an electron holds still, nonetheless within it, subparts of it are all moving around. Where there is no motion there is no energy. All forms of energy require motion at least within the energized thing.

So the very smallest possible amt of energy would be abstract motion itself: movement with nothing moving. A true abstract vector.

But surely something must be moving or else how is motion manifest? Possibly it is spacetime itself in motion. A wrinkle in it of sorts. The wrinkle is shifting positions. That is energy. A lot of these little wrinkles glommed together form something we may say is massive like a quark or electron. Very little mass but mass nonetheless.

Jam enough of these bound-up wrinkles together and you start getting things you can measure. The diff ways they are bound up determine their properties. Hence diff kinds of massive particles or kinds of energy too.

Question is then, what is spacetime if it can be used to build matter-energy? Is spacetime our "ether" after all?

Still doesn't explain where spacetime itself came from. But could help with explaining gravity and give us a unified field theory. What is the mysterious unifying field? Spacetime. It'd help explain ZPE and ZPG too. So ever hear of such an idea in a physical theory?

Reincarnation Freaks

Been watching the Ancient Aliens episode on reincarnation and decided to share my thoughts.

The way I see it, you can approach it as a religious matter or as a scientific one.  The religious approach tolerates a great deal of speculation.  For example, most religions suggest a transmigration of souls.  The soul of a person departs from a body and either chooses to go to or is assigned a new body some time in the future, usually pretty soon after death but not always.

This approach requires the existence of a soul though.  "Soul" is defined differently among religions but typically it is said to be eternal and indestructible except via divine force.  Given an eternal existence span it may be suggested that a soul is simply a vehicle or container.  In it resides things making up "self-hood" including memories, traits, values, likes and dislikes, emotions, etc.  Since all of these things are, over an eternity, unlikely to exist indefinitely, the self if made up of that stuff is actually ephemeral and volatile.

If I start with a soul that has X features described Y way but a million years later my soul is better described as having B features described C way, then over a million years it looks like I have changed completely -- except for the vehicle carrying these traits.  Then that'd arguably be my immutable and eternal soul if for example my taste for chocalate at some point became an aversion to it over the course of a million years.

Anyway, the religious approach allows for things like souls.  And all kinds of other things.  You can speculate forever.

Now why do people think reincarnation is a thing?  Mostly because there are people who at very young ages have memories of other people's lives, ostensibly of "their" lives -- previous lives.  There is no doubt there are literally thousands of documented examples of people having vivid and verifiable memories of events and places they cannot possibly have.

The other way to look at reincarnation is scientific.  Sciences looks for reasonable explanations for phenomena.  By "reasonable" it means an observable, measurable cause and effect relationship.  Further, science utilizes the approach of minimal causation.  This isn't a matter of faith but an inference based on observation.  Nature tends to conserve effort and energy, tending to use the least amount of both necessary to get anything done.  This is just a manifestation of natural forces like gravity and entropy.  Nothing mysterious there.

This tendency in nature is sometimes personified as Occam's Razor which says that the simplest explanation for something (ie, the one most conserving of energy and effort) is probably the correct one.  Probably.  No guarantees but probably.

Applying these ideas to the matter of reincarnation, we'd ask ourselves, what is the simplest or least complicated explanation for the phenomenon we call reincarnation?  This phenomenon seems to be just this: there are people who possess memories that seem like they should belong to someone else who is also dead.  Further, the person FEELS like these memories are theirs -- their personal memories acquired from actual experience.

If we're going to be minimal about it, we might theorize that what we call reincarnation is this: the transfer of memories from one manifestation of a human being to another after the death of the first person via a means not yet known, and further, the receiving person also is given or creates an impression that the memories are in fact his or hers.  In short, the new person gets some number of the previous person's memories and further gets the impression the memories are in fact their own.

If that is true, it explains reincarnation without asserting a soul exists.  But it still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.  For example, why do only some people remember things from some dead person's life, and not others?  And what is exactly the nature of a memory about something, as it must be something more or other than neural energies in our brains?  What is the mechanism of memory transference and why bother having it?

There are more questions like this even with the minimal explanation.

Possibly the truth is somewhere between the minimal explanation and some religious one.  But one thing's true: we still don't have any concrete answers.

Adding a GPS mount to a sportbike - Yamaha R3

Not long ago I got into motorcycling. After about 500 miles on my bike I have not yet crashed it, knock on wood. I find it relaxing and fun. But I am usually direction-challenged in life and this limits the scope of my riding territory unless I am ready to stop regularly to check my phone's Maps application. No way to keep riding, pulling over every few miles to look at a smartphone. Naturally the fix is to have GPS *on* the bike itself.

I own a 2015 Yamaha R3, a 320 cc sportbike, 2 strokes, 6 gears. Nothing fancy. I can be in 4th gear doing 30. A bike with significant power would still be in 2nd gear, maybe even 1st, doing 30. But I am not a speed demon and while pickup could be better, it works for my riding needs. Besides, I am not planning on entering any races.

Problem: sportbikes have flat handlebars that radiate from the central steering post (not the correct technical term - I am still learning basics like part names, etc. But you get the idea.) Further, they have very little room between the center island and the handles. Ordinary streetbikes have round handlebars and most GPS mount solutions are designed for ordinary streetbikes. Racing and racing-styled bikes are not thought of as having much need for a place for a GPS. That to me seems idiotic given that most sportbikes sold are not to racers but to ordinary guys like me. It stands to reason we'd need a place to mount a GPS. Most streetbikes now come with GPS mounting ready or designed to expect it.

Further, there is virtually NOTHING out there about adding a GPS to a sportbike. I came across just one place where adding a GPS to a sportbike and esp. to my model was discussed but the author had no rearview mirrors on his bike so his solution used one of the mounting holes for such a mirror. My bike has those mirrors. There are only 2 utility screw wells on the Yam. R3 on the handlebars and both are 5 or 6 mm width. RAM ball mounts come with different post sizes including 6 mm but the post is far too short to sink into the screw well on the handlebars. I learned this by ordering 2 different RAM ball mounts from Amazon and neither worked that way. I finally decided that the only way this was going to happen for me was either to drill a hole or two in my handlebars (requiring professional intervention) or by using a screwless solution. BTW, at one point I went to see if I could get a male-to-female screw adapter made for one of the RAM mounts going from 5 mm male to 10 mm female. I found a fabrication shop that would do it but for over $150. To get just one such adapter made would have cost $150+. Not doing that!

To create the solution I needed without spending $400, $500 on it, I knew I had to get creative. After a total of three weeks waiting for parts to arrive and trying different things I finally found it. Because there is a near complete dearth of how-tos about attaching a GPS to a sportbike, I decided to document my solution here. Unfortunately if you are looking for a marketed end-to-end out of the box solution you will not find one, at least not of this writing. At one point I even called my local cycle shop to ask if they had ever installed a GPS onto this kind of bike and they said literally no one had EVER asked them about this before. I find this hard to believe but whatever.

Following is the parts list and cost:

1. One (1) ChargerCity XXL Water Resistant 5" GPS Case for Garmin Nuvi Drive: 18.95 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B5A38MA/)

2. One (1) Ram Mount Composite Short Double Socket Arm for 1-Inch Ball Bases: 8.99 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KWPJ04/)

3. One (1) Ram Mount 2.5-Inch Composite Round Base with the AMPs Hole Pattern and 1-Inch Ball: 7.49 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N034SE/)

4. One (1) Garmin Drive 50 USA LM GPS Navigator System, refrurbished: 109.95 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A1HL9Z6/)

5. One (1) Anker PowerCore 10000 Portable Charger: 31.99 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0194WDVHI)

6. One (1) MightyTie MT141200 15-Inch Cable Ties, 100-Count, 120 Pound: 9.42 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CBAPNIG/)

The GPS I got on the cheap. It need not be that same model, but if you are going to use the GPS case listed above (item 1) the GPS you get needs to fit into it. Note that the approach I took requires an external battery for the GPS and hence item no. 5 listed above. The small USB cord that comes with the GPS is used to transfer data from your PC to the GPS (maps etc.) as well as power the GPS unit should you use it that way, and in this case, you will. (You may want to consider buying spare such cables. You can get them from Garmin at a premium or online at other places. Amazon had them but not the shorter cables needed here so I looked on eBay and found a couple vendors. I nabbed three spares for cheap at https://www.ebay.com/itm/Garmin-USB-Cable-Part-010-10723-01-0101072301-GPS-cord/310213551922 )

In truth once you have the ball mount in place you can use whatever GPS you want to and whatever case you want to provided it is 1" RAM ball mount-ready.

The idea here is that when you need to use a GPS you can attach the case to the mount (item 3) and place the Garmin GPS unit into the case along with the battery. The battery (item 5) is the best such of its kind I have ever seen. I have tried several others and most are not as reliable. The battery is pricey but IMO worth it and a GPS unit is a power-hungry thing. A high-amp-output battery that holds a lot of energy is needed. I am guessing this battery would probably serve as long as 8 hours of continuous use on the GPS unit but I have not tested that. The battery is also small enough that it can be moved upward in the case to allow the GPS power cord to enter the GPS unit without it pushing against the battery so that it lays flat. The case is deep enough that the battery can lie in it then have the GPS on top of it and it's all good.

The ties (item 6) are used to secure the RAM mount (item 3) in place on the handlebars. See the pictures below. You will note how I tied the base down is quite deliberate. I suggest tying the rightmost (as you face it) tie down first, then the second tie going from the upper left to lower right of the mount, using the tie catch of the first tie as a holding point. Note the two ties create an opposing tension on one another that serves to hold the mount down very securely. The ties (item 6) are industrial strength and meant for use in many applications requiring strength. Cutting the ties after securing them requires a very sharp utility knife and some persistence. These are not little twist ties that come with food packages!

The pictures explain the solution. Now when you go somewhere needing a GPS you can just put the unit and battery into the case. Then when you arrive, take it out and unplug the unit and shut it off. That way it is not present to get stolen if you leave your bike unattended. As for the entire mount, when not intending to use GPS, you can always remove the whole thing leaving just the installed RAM mount on the bike.

Re the charger (item 5), I myself own two. I use one with my smartphone, carrying it around attached all the time to the phone with a 12" micro USB cord, so I don't worry about the phone dying. You may want to order 2 or 3 because I guarantee once you see this battery do what it does for the GPS you will want one for your phone. Because I use it I never run out of juice on my phone. I just plug the battery in nightly to charge it and it serves without issue the whole next day. I can actually use it two days straight without recharging it.

I hope this helps someone out there.

Wilkins and the Orange-Stamping Machine

Mr. Wilkins was an associate manager in a large grocery chain store. His purview was fruits and vegetables. Not content with this section, he had aspirations one day to be an assistant manager, maybe, dare he think it, a manager. His domain could be produce of all kinds, frozen foods, maybe even Pharmacy. He had dreams. But for now, it was all apples and oranges.

Oh yes, oranges. In the back room sat several automated devices that did tedious tasks. One was an orange-stamping machine. Its purpose was to put produce number stamps on the oranges. It ran itself, all day long, stamping oranges. The labels needed re-filling once a day, but that was it. It hummed along stamping oranges at the rate of one per second. The rate was reported by the machine on an LED panel.

Every day, Wilkins peeked in on the machine to see how it was doing. Sometimes at noon, at times at 2:00, but daily. Every day it was found to be running just fine.

Then one day Wilkins asked himself how he could get noticed. After all, an assistant manager job in another store was opening up soon. He wanted to know that he had a chance at it. The district manager was due to visit in a week and he just knew he'd be overlooked if he didn't have something positive to report. So he dared to dream.

He walked up to the orange-stamping machine and began fiddling with the controls. He wasn't entirely sure how it worked but no matter. He changed a few settings. After a minute or so of tinkering, the number on the LED panel changed to 1.2. The machine was now stamping oranges at the rate of 1.2 per second: a 20% increase.

The next day the machine continued to report the success. In fact it did so all week.

When the DM appeared, he walked through the store, led by the store's GM. When they came to fruits and vegetables, Wilkens was sure to be present. The GM introduced him to the DM. The DM asked, "So Wilkins, how are things in your area?"

"Fine, sir. Glad to report that due to modifications I made to the orange-stamper, we now get the oranges stamped at a 20% faster rate than at any time before."

"Great work, young man. Now tell me, can you make that 30 percent?"

"Thirty? Well sir, I can sure try!"

"That's the spirit, lad. Tell me how things are a week from now when I return."

And off they went.

The next day, Wilkins visited the orange-stamper again. He was excited. Maybe now was his Big Chance. He took to fiddling with the machine again. After about five minutes, the machine stopped stamping oranges.

Wilkins was flummoxed. It had been working fine before. He tried re-setting knobs. He tried re-setting handles. Nothing worked. Frustrated, he began whacking at it. A few parts fell off. That was bad.

Wilkins took the parts into a hardware store. The clerk said yes, he knew about these machines. And these days, new parts were available, better than those. For a price, they can be yours. Wilkins paid the price. He was desperate. Back he went to the store.

Unexpectedly, the DM was there. It was a surprise. He was visiting the GM about something else. And Wilkins was noticed upon re-entrance.

"Mr. Wilkins, good day young man. How is our orange-stamper doing today?"

Fate had conspired. He didn't want to lie. He knew too that he was a bad poker face. He decided to just do the "right thing". Maybe it would be good. It'd make him look courageous.

"Bad news, sir. The machine is... a bit broken."

"Broken? How?" The DM looked annoyed.

Wilkins' courage escaped him.

"Well you see sir... I was trying to get it to 30% like you said but then... it broke down." He paused. "Parts, sir. Parts fell off the machine."

"Well that IS a terrible timing! But you know, machines, they always give trouble. Do you have a way to fix it?"

"Yes sir. I have new parts right here!"

"Ahh, good. Well, get to it young man. I want to know status by tomorrow at 3:00. Call me at headquarters."

"Yes, sir!"

With that, Wilkins headed to the back room. And for three hours, he tried fitting the new parts into the machine. It was a challenge. Then he tried re-starting the machine. He then began fiddling again. The machine struggled. But in the end, it ran. Only, the LED read "0.8". The oranges were getting stamped now at 8/10ths of an orange per second, or one every 1.2 seconds. This was a step backwards. But at least the machine was working again.

Wilkins was now less sure of himself. He decided to content himself with 0.8 oranges per second, at least for now. He could at least report that the machine was working. But it cost money to replace the parts, and it didn't work as well this time.

The following day, Wilkins called the DM. He dreaded it but had this advantage: the DM had never even seen the machine. He didn't know if 0.8 was the improved rate or not. And if he never saw it at 1.0 or 1.2, why should he be concerned?

Wilkins reported good news: the machine was now working. Asked how well, he proudly reported "One orange every 1.2 seconds, sir!"

"Great news, my boy. Yes those confounded machines, always breaking down. They cost too much too. Too bad we can't get rid of them!"

"Ha ha ha... yes sir!"

Wilkins celebrated three weeks later his promotion to assistant manager. He was transferred to the new store.

The orange-stamper, meanwhile, stayed put. It continued to stamp oranges. It didn't move a whisker from where it was placed though its former overseer did. But it only stamped 1.2 oranges per second. And no one knew that previously, it had done so at a 40% higher rate. Not that it would have made much difference to the machine itself, for it was destined to stay in that back room no matter how fast it stamped oranges.

And so it goes.

Scheduling Automatic Restore Point Creation in Windows 10

It's been some time. I am alive and well and living in San Antonio, TX, as I have since January 2018. The cats are fine. I start a new contract job next week. I am excited to do that. Been driving Uber to keep busy in between catching up on Java stuff. Java 8 has been out awhile now and we're up to 10. I am fine with most stuff between 8 and 10 except for the new "var" support. This is against the strongly-typed paradigm that Java was built on. The paint began coming off the walls when Generics were introduced but that was really not so bad. This use of "var" now in methods to create auto-typed variables is really not good. But anyway, this post is about scheduling the creation of a restore point automatically in Windows 10 so I will get back on subject.

Restore points are used to help restore the OS to its prior state when an install goes bad. It is mostly a defense against badly-written drivers getting installed into your system. It is a good practice though to run the restore point creation function regularly. It can be kicked off by hand or by command. Since commands can be scheduled, it can be set up to do this daily or weekly (I recommend daily) automatically vs. by hand. There are directions out there on the web re how to do this but there are preconditions and pitfalls that are gotchyas for people unfamiliar with how sneaky Windows can be. So this post is a start-to-finish guide for Windows 10 users on how to schedule daily restore point creation.

1. Make sure you have permission to create restore points. You need to have Admin on the machine. If not, it won't work. Further, it needs to be enabled. To do this right-click on "This PC" on the desktop and click "Properties". Click "System Protection" and then "Configure", then make sure "Turn on system protection" is selected. Next under "Disk Space Usage" make sure you set it to 5%. That should be quite sufficient for your needs. Then click "OK". Then, "OK" again to close the original dialog.

2. Win 10 by default does not allow the user to create more than one restore point manually per day. This is crazy. But it can be fixed. To do this, download the Winaero Tweaker currently at https://winaero.com/download.php?view.1796. Install it. Then open it and type "restore" in the search box at the upper left. "System Restore Point Frequency" appears. Dbl-click it. There is a single checkbox on the form that comes up. Check it. Then choose File...Exit (No "Save" is needed.). [BTW, this utility has a load of tweaks you can apply. Be careful however because some have system-wide repercussions. If you use the utility for other tweaks, do so carefully.] What you just did could be done w/out the utility but it would require going through all manner of manual steps including hacking the hive. I wanted to avoid that.

3. Finally it's time to schedule the restore point creation. In the Windows Search Box (the "Cortana" box), type "schedule tasks" and open the control panel that comes up by dbl-clicking on it. At the right, you see "Create Task...". Click it. Fill in values as follows:

In the "General" tab:
a. Name: Pick a name, any name. Try "Daily restore point".
b. Click "Run whether user is logged on or not".
c. Check "Run with the highest privileges".


In the "Triggers" tab:
a. Click "New...".
b. Click "Daily" under "Settings".
c. Next to "Start:" is the current date. Next to the date is the current time. Set the time for 20 minutes from now.
d. Check "Stop task if it runs longer than" and select "30 minutes".
e. Click "OK".

In the "Actions" tab:
a. Click "New...".
b. In "Program/Script", specify: powershell.exe
c. In "Add arguments (optional)", specify: -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Checkpoint-Computer -Description \"Restore Point (Automatic)\" -RestorePointType \"MODIFY_SETTINGS\""
d. In "Start in (optional)", specify: C:\WINDOWS\system32

I recommend you copy and paste the above commands into the interface to avoid typos.

e. Click "OK".

In the "Conditions" tab:
a. Under "Power", choose what you want. In my case I have it so it runs only if the laptop is on AC power and it stops if it switches to battery. But this is up to you.

In the "Settings" tab:
a. Check"Allow task to be run on demand".
b. Check "Stop the task if it runs longer than:" then select "1 hour".
c. Check "If the running task does not end when requested, force it to stop".
d. Click "OK". You should get a password challenge. Indicate your password and then the task gets created.

A bug in Windows that has been around for some time makes it so that not all newly-created tasks are immediately viewable. If you don't see your new task in the list of tasks, choose File...Exit in the Task Scheduler then re-start Windows. Yes I know this is dumb. But what can you do.

When Windows re-starts, simply wait until the time comes that you indicated in step c under "Triggers" above. Then wait five minutes past that point since creating a new point can take that long especially if one was not created recently.

Now to check to see if your point was made, right-click on "This PC" on the desktop and click "Properties". Click "System Protection" and then "System Restore...", then "Next". In the list of restore points it should have as the most recent point one created just a few mins. ago. Click "Cancel", then close the "System Properties" by clicking "Cancel", then close the "System" panel.

Now that the point is known to be working, you need to schedule it to run when you actually want it to run. If you are fine with the current time, then you need do nothing else. If however like me you want it to run at, say, 3:00 AM, do as follows:

1. In the Windows Search Box (the "Cortana" box), types "schedule tasks" and open the control panel that comes up.
2. Under "Active tasks", locate your newly-created task. If it does not appear, click "Refresh".
3. Once located, double-click on it.
4. In the list at the top, the task is selected. Double-click on that selected item. You are now in task edit mode.
5. Click the "Triggers" tab.
6. Click "Edit..."
7. Edit the time to be what you want it to be.
8. Click "OK".
9. Click "OK". At step 8 or 9 you should get a password challenge. Supply your password.
10. Choose File...Exit to close the Task Scheduler.

After the next time the task is expected to run, check to see if it was indeed created. Right-click on "This PC" on the desktop and click "Properties". Click "System Protection" and then "System Restore...", then "Next". In the list of restore points it should have as the most recent point created. Click "Cancel", then close the "System Properties" by clicking "Cancel", then close the "System" panel.

I hope this helps folks with this task. Getting all the correct details together for Win 10 can be a pain.