Steve's Politics Blog

Thanks to Marden Seavey for posting this item from YouTube, Is light a wave or a particle?

Let me be clear, I am in full support of what Sabine Hossenfelder says in this video. My comments below are only intended to amplify what she is saying. These comments are only intended as an additional way to look at the problem of thinking that there is a paradox here, and seeing how physicists are now avoiding creating such paradoxes in the minds of future students and non-physicists.

It seems to me that physicists started naming things like quarks and leptons to get away from the mistaken idea that likening these quantum mechanics thingies to Newtonian mechanics thingies would provide insight into what they were. That original comparison to familiar concepts left us with the non-answerable question of whether light is a wave or a particle. As Bill Belichick would say, “It is what it is.” As this narrator says, light displays some particle like properties and it displays some wave like properties, but it isn’t either of those two things. Particles and waves are abstract and simplified concepts that describe some properties of certain thingies. These thingies are what they are. You can only talk about the properties that they exhibit.

Put another way, particles and waves are models of reality. They simplify reality so we can write down and solve equations to predict what will happen in reality. Since the concept of particle or wave is a simplification of reality, we can not expect reality to behave only as the simplified model does. Reality is more complex than the model. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t need to simplify it to get some understanding. A simplified model only works in the situations where it is applicable. In other situations the model does not give you correct results at all. In the situation where light can be modeled as a wave, then the wave model is a good explanation of what light does. In situations where light acts as a particle, then the particle model gives a good description of what light does. Outside the domain of applicability, the model does not give a correct description of what light does. If we find a domain in which neither model is good, then we won’t be able to predict what light will do at all. In such a domain, we would have to see what light does, and then try to come up with an explanation of what rules light is following in that circumstance. Rather than calling that third model by a name of something that we have some insight into, we might just give it a wacky name to make sure nobody thinks that light is actually that other thing to which its behavior is similar.

I leave it to my friends who are more expert in physics than I am to tell me where I went astray and said something above that was full of crap.

The First Unitarian Society has the article Who Stole Christmas? T’was the Unitarians by Julie Brock, Ministerial Intern.

Before Christmas became about peace, love and department stores it was the at the crux of a culture war. The Unitarians were able to put a stop to the debate by taking Christmas into their own hands in the 1800s.

This is a nice companion piece to the poster from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Here is a News release I received from the campaign.

From: Rania Batrice <raniabatrice@berniesanders.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 6:32 PM
Subject: NEWS: Bernie Sanders Continues Radio Push Across Iowa
To:

​

Bernie Sanders Continues Radio Push Across Iowa

December 23, 2015

Contact: Rania Batrice (512) 968-2818

DES MOINES, Iowa — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Thursday continues his outreach on radio stations across Iowa with the launch of a new statewide ad. The ad, “Sound,” emphasizes Sanders’ commitment to “leaving this country and our entire planet habitable for our kids and grandchildren.”

“Sanders has put forth the most ambitious climate plan of any candidate…reducing carbon pollution by 80 percent and creating a clean energy workforce with millions of new jobs,” the ad says.

“Sen. Sanders is proud to have been the first presidential candidate to stand with thousands of Iowans against the Bakken Pipeline,” said Bernie 2016 Iowa state director, Robert Becker. “Iowa is a global leader in generating clean energy and the quality, good paying jobs that come along with that technology — as president, he will make combatting climate change a national priority.”

“Sound” can be found here.

###

YouTube has the video Bernie Caroling.

Published on Dec 22, 2015

On Sunday, Los Angeles for Bernie supporters went on a marathon six hour caroling trip from the Mar Vista Farmers Market, through Abbott Kinney Blvd. in Venice and Main St. in Santa Monica, ending up at in front of the Nike store at Santa Monica Place on the Third St. Promenade and then in front of the Apple Store, where we set all the computer and tablet browsers to www.berniesanders.com and www.la4bernie.org. Many people took pictures and videos and posed and sung with us

I wish the Sturbridge Democratic Town Committee Soiree had used these words for the carols we sang.

Forbes has what I think is an unintentionally funny article, Watch Out, MMT’s About, As Bernie Sanders Hires Stephanie Kelton, by Tim Worstall.

Worstall spends most of the article giving a cursory description of MMT (Modern Money Theory) in which he begrudgingly admits that the theory is probably correct about what it describes. Then he finally gets to what bothers him about it. The emphasis below is added by me to show the part of MMT that Worstall still does not get. Or maybe that is the part, I do not agree with. In my mind, the evidence shows that the way he differentiates base money from banking system money has no basis in reality. Think dot com bubble. This was not created by the Fed, but it was created by the private sector and its stock market.

And their basic outline about money creation is true as far as I can see. If you’re a country with your own central bank you can print as much money as you like. And sure, you could indeed finance government just by printing more money. Print money, spend it, hey presto, you’ve financed government. Standard monetary theory also recognises this: we know that the Fed makes a pretty profit each year from printing Benjamins (20 cents of paper and 3 cents of ink really is worth $100 these days) and that’s worth perhaps $20 billion a year to the US government in seignorage. We really don’t complain about it either. That standard monetary theory then also says that doing too much of this (in more detail, printing or creating lots of base money, rather than the creation of credit in the manner that the banking system does) will be highly inflationary. Standard theory points to Wiemar Germany, post WWII Hungary and modern Zimbabwe as examples (that last so fun that the end series of banknotes were only printed on one side as they didn’t have enough “real money” left to buy ink).

At which point the MMT crowd say ah, but yes, that’s what taxes are for. Print the money, spend it, thereby injecting it into the economy, and if inflation rises then taxes are what sucks that money back out of the economy and thus kills off the inflation. And it’s that bit that absolutely terrifies me. The effect that idea has on the incentives for politicians.

I have to agree that worrying about what politicians will do to pervert an idea is always something that needs worrying about. But that horse is already out of the barn. The politicians are basically using MMT to enrich the rich. The real worry is that the public will find out what the rich already know. They will realize that there is no need to “balance the budget” on the backs of the poor. Furthermore the public will be mighty angry that they have accepted unnecessary suffering because the rich, who knew it wasn’t true, made them think that there was a good governance reason to accept the rigging of the economy to transfer middle-class wealth to the rich.

What truly frightens the rich is that Bernie Sanders understands the scam and he is trying to explain it to the rest of us. He has hired an expert in the theory, Stephanie Kelton, to be his economist for the minority on the Senate Banking Committee. Imagine what will happen if 2016 brings that minority into the majority, and they still have Stephanie Kelton as the chief economist.

College Humor has the video You’re A Mean One, Mr. Trump (Grinch Parody).

Because of just a few words you might consider this NSFW. That’s why I am not putting this on the Sturbridge For Bernie Sanders Facebook page.

Joe Caiazzo from the Bernie Sanders Headquarters in Charlestown, Massachusetts highlighted this article from The Hill In blockbuster poll, Sanders destroys Trump by 13 points.

Stop the presses! According to a new poll by Quinnipiac University on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) destroys Republican candidate Donald Trump in a general election by 13 percentage points. In this new poll, Sanders has 51 percent to Trump’s 38 percent. If this margin held in a general election, Democrats would almost certainly regain control of the United States Senate and very possibly the House of Representatives.

Joe’s email made the following points:

Hello Team,

Here is an article that came out today discussing a recent poll. Please share this with your networks, post on facebook, twitter and any other social media platform.

Here are some key takeaways from this article:

1. Bernie is the best candidate for the general, he almost doubles Clinton’s lead against Trump.
2. The electorate favors progressive policies and values. Bernie has never backed down and always held steadfast in his beliefs, we are on the right side of all the issues.
3. Bernie is the candidate we need to regain control of both houses of congress.
4. Keep up the good work. We can do this!

Cheers,
Joe

PS Please feel free to follow me on twitter @joecaiazzo for campaign info.

#feelthebern

Spread the word –

MA Campaign Office Open House –
Jan 2, 2016 @ 10.00 AM –
89 Cambridge St,
Charlestown, Massachusetts.

There will be political “dignitaries” and surprise endorsers present. We need a large volunteer turnout so the press can notice and report the level of support that Bernie has in Massachusetts.

Save this event to your calendar.

Keep the following information handy:

Bernie Sanders Campaign Headquarters in Massachusetts
89 Cambridge St,
Charlestown, Massachusetts. 02129
617 433-8683 (VOTE)
mass@berniesanders.com
Paul Feeney, State Director
Andrew DeStefano – Field Director – 617 271 4101 andrewdestefano@berniesanders.com
Joe Caiazzo – Political/Communincations
Antonio Nunes, Operations Director handles swag for now

Here is how I have managed to make a lighted Bernie Sanders sign that works from AC or DC power.

This closeup is of the 12 volt battery from my John Deere Lawn tractor, connected to a CAT power inverter, connected to the sign. The power inverter creates AC power like the AC power you get from an ordinary household wall outlet.

I have seen some silly things said even by Bernie Sanders fans about the NGP VAN/DNC case. Some of my knowledge about this case comes from having used NGP VAN in the Elizabeth Warren campaign.

The DNC “wants the data back” makes no sense to me. What ever data was taken was copied, the DNC did not lose anything that needs to be given back. NGP/VAN’s rationale that their failure was not serious because the breech only allowed “search and view, but not export” is equally silly. Have the computer experts at NGP Van ever heard of taking a screen shot? The person who viewed the data and made a copy did so for the purpose of substantiating the case of what NGP VAN did. What was he supposed to do, go before a judge and say, “NGP VAN exposed the data, but I can’t prove it to you because making a copy for evidence would be a crime”?

In my 40 years experience in the computer industry, I have heard of too many cases where the person who tries to bring attention to a computer security breech ends up being severely punished. I almost fell into that trap myself.

I found evidence where I worked that many employees computer accounts were using the default password that the company gave them when they got their accounts. I sent an email to tech support with a list of some of the culprits. I was called in and severely chastised for publishing this information in an email which could have been seen by too many people. The only way I escaped being fired was to agree wholeheartedly that my sending an email was a stupid thing to do, and it was. I didn’t point out that the way that the IT department set the passwords was instrumental in my being able to discover what was going on. That would have seemed like I was trying to defend what I had done. Given my knowledge of the treatment of others making such reports, I knew that IT would not listen and change their practices. They only would have gotten angrier.

If you are curious about what I mean that IT needed to change the way they set passwords, here is the explanation.

I’ll talk about what happens in a Linux/Unix system because that is what we were using. The practice is common in other computer operating systems.

In Linux/Unix, passwords are stored in encrypted form in a publicly viewable file. This encrypted form uses a one way encryption technique. This means that the password can be encrypted, but the encrypted password cannot be decrypted. The way the computer determines if you have entered the right password is to encrypt what you have entered and then see if it matches the encrypted password in its file.

To prevent people from inferring passwords in the publicly viewable file, the encryption uses a seed character to do the encryption. Using different seed characters completely changes the way the same password looks when encrypted. In order for the computer to know how to encrypt the password you just entered to compare it to your password as recorded in the file, the encrypted password in the file includes the seed character in the encrypted password.

The program that Linux/Unix provides the user to set the password, randomly chooses the seed character every time you change your password. That way, when different users happen to use the same password, these common passwords will look completely different in the publicly viewable file.

What the IT department must have done was to enter the encrypted password into the file with a text editor rather than use the program. The IT department used the same seed for everybody’s default password that the user was then supposed to change via the program that used random seeds.

I had a legitimate reason to be looking at the password file. I happened to notice a common encrypted password in many cases. I started to wonder how this could be possible. It was then that I realized that the password must be the default password that everyone was given when their accounts were created. I used an encryption program to encrypt this password and use the clearly evident seed. Lo and behold, it came up with the encryption that I was seeing in the file.