Vance Air Force Base was saved during the Dubya administration's BRAC closings because Enid passed a tax levy specifically to upgrade our schools, but BRAC is over. Long time ago over, and we haven't sunsetted that levy yet? I ask the question because I found out earlier this week that it's out of the EPS budget which comes the money paying for "EPS TV", the production operation queued up to take over PEG cable channel 19. Yeah--Vanhooser keeps bragging that he's saving the city money by taking over the 501(c)3 corporation PEGASYS, putting our government in charge of getting into the broadcasting business, when what he's done was a shell game of putting production costs on the backs of our schools, because hey--after that BRAC tax, they can damn well afford it.
I do NOT think that's why we passed the BRAC tax, buddy. That's the kind of budgetary shell game Chicago is famous for, and Mr. Vanhooser, I have yet to meet any Oklahoman that thinks turning the City of Enid into Chicago was ever a good idea. It's bad enough that our government took over a 501(c)3 corporation media outlet and some of us think that sounds more like Moscow--forget Chicago.
So, in order to explore the future, EPS has only to read yesterday's paper:
Duh.
Enid Public Schools system has no business being in the business of broadcasting anymore than the city does, and if we're going to do stuff with the ongoing BRAC tax, let's pay our teachers first.
Get your priorities straight.
Monday EPS Board Meeting UPDATE: it was mentioned that the ad valorem tax was high in Enid, calculated to be 15% on corporate property...without mentioning that certain corporations get exempted from that according to Oklahoma law. I can't swear to it, but I was under the impression at least Koch Nitrogen got such an exemption, but I need to re-research that before making a definitive statement in that regard.
What grabbed my attention more than that was the plan for EPSTV to be part of a high school curriculum in broadcasting. Excuse me, but is EPS supplanting universities now? That's college level, and the preceding presentation highlighted dips in math and science. So training highschoolers in a college level arts course brings up the EPS performance in math and science how, exactly?
What was approved tonight was a contract involving airing school sports along with those commercial entities already broadcasting those on radio, and I'm sure they were focused myopically on the sponsors part of the deal, perhaps in view of the inevitable readjustment of the ad valorem tax to approach the 11% level.
Nobody said anything about still collecting the school-improvement BRAC tax, which was a sales tax, if I remember correctly, and that's something else that deserves quality time researching.
Thursday evening Emerson UPDATE: This outstanding middle school, the pride of Ward 5, did their seasonal band show tonight, and here's a vid to show exactly why its decrepit roadways are such a cryin' shame. Emerson is one of the best shows in the Tristate event, second only to Enid High in my view, and yet even after BRAC tax improvements (supposedly), this is the moonscape they're stuck with.
I will be posting a video sampler of the event in a separate post. Next is a vid of the same scene but in the daylight, followed by an on-foot rendition of the Emerson Drive-Around.
Friday UPDATE: EPS is suing the state for not handing over more money, claiming that the district got shorted...when it was pointed out during the board meeting that the ad valorem tax had been too high (15%) compared to state average (11%). WTF?
Friday UPDATE: I found a setting for my video processor that generated a video that was 80 MB and Blogger still errored out, although it claims a limit of 100 MB ( actually 1 G, of course). Google, FIX THIS. Yesterday.
============okay, I got a WMV file to work, 320 x 240. MAN that sux bilgewater.
Saturday night UPDATE: I finally got to see the movie Interstellar and I gotta say that it's an epic science nerd flick. Bigtime. I've heard the criticisms of the science community about it but if you're a scientist and a critic, then you missed one very significant statement made which renders your criticism unqualified. It was the statement that years and years of going over the same mathematics expecting different results was the result of recursive definitions. That's exactly why you scientists and mathematicians who think you know better have NOT mastered timespace travel yourselves. You therefore do NOT stand with sufficient authority to criticize what is basically true. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the zero needs to be reinvented before you can make any progress in that direction. That's the thing that, in the main, is holding you back. You seriously need to know how to define imaginary and irrational numbers as something other than unknowns. You need to successfully redefine what the square root (actually any given even root) of a negative number is and you can't do that without a better concept of what zero is. As long as your number system remains faulty, your mathematics will remain faulty. No, I did not read Thorne's companion book, but I really didn't have to. The movie is scientifically solid all the same.
The Guardian's story
Sunday Addenda: I still haven't read every scientific criticism of the movie at this point, but I did want to address the matter of the biology of crops being wiped out globally. The point made in criticism is that it's not a likely scenario even though it's remotely possible. Sorry, but that's the current criticism of GMO monoculture and what the movie portrays is the future success of Monsanto to establish GMO seed as the only seed available, and Monsanto GMOs its patent protection by designing in sterility for second generation seed. What does that have to do with the vulnerability of a singe crop to a single form of blight? The crops in question--all grain crops--are of a singular genetic makeup with no diversity, which guarantees a singular susceptibility to a singular form of blight, and blights are typically evolving virii. We're looking at a "superbug" type virus and we're already seeing "superbugs" today.
Something else worthy of pointing out: you don't see anybody from the future although you see the designed wormholes (including the one that goes through the "black hole" Gargantua). Those people existing in a past they're not supposed to exist in would create a fatal temporal paradox, a paradox presumably defeated by the Doctor Who concept of a TARDIS. People who exist in their own proper time cannot properly exist in other times, necessitating the "poltergeist" form of communication. There was an era when Doctor Who was based on sound science, but that was in its earlier days--it's not as true with "NuWho".
Ah, good point by a Whovian. Both the TARDIS and the movie Interstellar feature libraries as central to time navigation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Books are always bigger on the inside than on the outside, and in the case of the TARDIS, the library is simply a visual interactive interface with its core database. And even though the TARDIS was already an outmoded antique Model 40 when the Doctor acquired it, it was uniquely suited to the Doctor because of the type and size of database it had on board. Nice catch.
Sunday a week later UPDATE: BBC Newsnight presented a segment on quantum computers, presented at Blechley Park, explaining how basic computing works using the Colossus computer, built with vacuum tubes (in Brit: "valves"). It's important to note that the quality of the quantum mechanical computer deals with a "third state" which is neither zero nor one (binary) but both. In industry, this is not a novelty, however--traditionally, it's been called a "toggle state", and it's been with us for a very long time already, and thusfar, has been context-dependent on interpretation. In one type of context, it's a Boolean OR; in another, it's a Boolean AND. In yet another, it's a Boolean NOR, and in still another, a Boolean NOT, and in other contexts, NAND. It's all very geek-sexy to talk about quantum mechanics in applied computing, but the fact remains that successful computing means successful equivalencies in interpretation, and it's all still very much open to interpretation. Which brings us back to the importance of avoiding recursive definitions, and the quality of one's number system
The mainstay of any type of mathematics lies within the rules of establishing equivalence--the definition of what is and what is not equivalent. As long as equivalency definitions contain recursive definitions, this condition will continue to be the main mathematic bugger until your mathematicians successfully sort it all out properly.
Link to D-Wave's link to the story --D-Wave is a quantum computing enterprise mentioned in the story, presented by David Grossman.
Wednesday Science UPDATE: If the very idea of intelligent metal machines give you nightmares, the following two articles should totally shock you outta yer shorts:
Soft robot technology via American Scientist
...via Whitesides Research Group
Maybe it's a good thing that the SyFy Channel pulled the plug on "Caprica" because the deal about the difference between "toasters" and "skin jobs" just got blown outta the water.
My fellow coders out there in cyberspace might hoot & holler, "not so fast, pneumatic plastic is not logical!" but being the mechanic that I am, I hasten to remind everyone of Boolean persuasion that there IS such a thing as pneumatic logic, and it has been in use in mining and any environment in which electronics might cause an explosion should there be a release of volatile gases during operations. Boolean works with pneumatics, too.
And with that, I can segue into a comment on the Cuba thing, given that a Cuban guy I admire from afar, Arnie Coro, happens to be the consummate junkyard genius. Luvz ya, Arnie, but if relations between Cuba and America are about to normalize, your baby, Radio Habana, might be headed for the same mission graveyard that Radio/TV Marti is headed. You had a good run, fella, but I would think that, at your age, you would welcome retirement, eh?
Hey Arnie--you can start by giving up jamming WRMI. Just sayin'.
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