Girl cannot believe that men hate her nose-ring

 

Wisdom from a Black man in Detroit (not sarcasm).

A proposal to align "Justice" with "Brain-development"

In mechanical and electrical systems, "step changes" often lead to unwanted excursions in the system. Typical "fixes" include gradual or multi-step changes to the system like "soft-start" on electrical motors. For the non-nerds, starting an electric motor stresses the entire system as the current and torque of an AC motor at zero rpm is typically 2X to 3X the running values and it beats the system to death.

A crude, home-baked version of "soft-start" is to have at least one resistor-switch pair wired in series with the inductive load. Then, at timed increments, to flip a switch that is in parallel to the resistor to shunt the current around the resistor. That is, to bypass it.

That limits the in-rush current and the (nearly proportional) torque at start-up.

Mechanical systems use things like rubber-bumpers at the end of spring travel and various types of shock-absorbers.

Juvenile/adult justice system

There are many major problems with our justice system. One of those problems is that juveniles who have many encounters with the justice system get a false sense of "they can't do anything to me". They are "trained" to believe that they are not accountable for anything. If you figure that a person's values are pretty much frozen by the time they are 20, then nearly all of the time when a kid's life could be turned around has pretty much been wasted.

The proposal on the table is to create two additional classes or categories between "juvenile" and "adult". Additionally, crimes that occur in those two categories WILL be visible to the people making sentencing decisions at the next-older level.

The categories roughly mimic the educational system which funnel kids from Elementary school to Middle school to High school. "Professional Educators" justify these divisions by the changes in biology and brain-development. Juvy 2.0 would be from ages 12-to 14 (inclusive) and Adult 0.0 would be from ages 15-to-17 (inclusive). 

Using the death-rate by homicide of black male victims as a proxy for the age of the perpetrator of violent crimes, the "ramp up" looks like this:

Age         Rate

11            2.1/100k
12            4.0
13            6.6
14            17.5
15            34.2
16            55.9
17            86.7
18            117.5
19            125.2 (Peak)
20            119.9
21            120.2

Juvy 2.0
Adult 0.0 

 

The fact that the growth-rate flattens out at age 19 is weak-evidence that the adult justice system provides some deterrence to crime.

Of course, another big problem with our justice system is that many judges refuse to exercise the penalties that are available. Felons known to have no inhibitions against using violence against others are released willy-nilly back into the community. And the people of those communities suffer the cost of that violence. This proposal will have no impact on that cause.

And before you accuse me of being "racist" for my choice of data, understand that many of the 831 black men ages 12-17 (inclusive) who were murdered in 2023 would be alive today if such a system was in place. 

Small Town "No Kings"

 

 

"No Kings" flash mob. Two minute run-time

Of course, out here in the hinter-boonies we call No Kings "The Fourth of July" or "Independence Day". We have these demonstrations every year regardless of who is in office.

It has a distinctly different "feel" than the more recent, urban "No Kings" events. 

Places in the shade are highly sought after

It kicks off with a show of the colors

Not her best side. But even so, that is a fine looking Oliver Tractor.

Yes, you can accurately describe the event as "performative", but it is "performative" in the best possible way.

The route is 1.2 miles long from the McDonalds on Spicerville Highway to Knight Street. That is 6300 feet. Spectator density ranges from "very light" near the start of the parade to "four deep on each side of the road" near the end. So if we figure 3 feet between spectators and one-deep on both sides, that works out to 4200 spectators. Add in another 300 participants and you have an estimate of 4500 people attending.

That is a pretty good showing for a town with 5200 residents. 

Horror in three

"Selected for audit"

"Moving to Chicago"

"I am pregnant"

"Changing my gender"

"Here to help"

"Out of beer"

"Old military surplus" 

"Filing for divorce"

"You tested positive" 

---None of these are true except "Here to help"--- 

It is kind of a combined word-association, ink-blot test. Give it a whirl. 

Peonies and horseradish

Peonies and horseradish

There was landscaping around the deck that I demolished this summer. Summer is not the best time to move plants. Yesterday was a great day to move plants. We had about an inch-and-a-half of rain Saturday and Sunday with more on the way Tuesday and Wednesday.

Peonies are a durable plant that can be used to identify the sites of abandoned farm-houses. Daffodils and lilacs are other such markers.

One of those plants is a peony that the previous owners had planted UNDER the deck. It was never a happy plant. Yesterday, I dug up the peony roots and divided them. I ended up with about eight "starts".

Because my goal was to plant them in the Upper Orchard, and because planting eight divisions is not very much work, I also dug up about 10 horseradish crowns to make the trip worthwhile.

I am trying to stay in the good-graces of the neighbor whose property shares a property line with the Upper Orchard. I think he is pretty happy to have the brush removed. I think his wife will be happy to be able to look through their sliding glass door and see mowed grass and peonies blooming in the spring time.

It isn't pure altruism.  Good neighbors cannot be bought with money. A good neighbor will call you (or 911) if a shady crew shows up and starts timbering-off the Black Walnuts or removing equipment from a barn. A good neighbor will give you permission to track a deer across their land. A good neighbor is likely to agree to your putting a deer stand close to the property line as long as you demonstrate that you will be shooting AWAY from their property.

Besides, peonies have extra-floral nectary glands. That is, they exude nectar even before the flower opens. That would be pretty much the entire month of May in Michigan.

Why is that important?

Adult parasitoid wasps (which might be a swarm of over a hundred different species) that prey on orchard pests eat nectar. They live three times longer and, presumably, can lay eggs on three times as many pests when there are suitable sources of nectar.

The lazy, semi-organic orchardist who puts a little bit of thought and sweat into ensuring a steady succession or "shingling" of nectar sources from May 10 (in Michigan) until the end of June can avoid most spraying if his customers can tolerate some cosmetic damage to the fruit.

Horseradish is good for May 20-through June 10, which is an exceptionally long period for this application. Raspberries and Rugosa Rose follow. Turnip/rape/canola is in the mix during and after raspberries.

Rhubarb, when it flowers, is an incredible magnet for tiny wasps (back when we were kids we erroneously called them "flying ants"). Unfortunately, that flower stalk lasts for about three days before the flowers dry up and fall off. They cannot hold a candle to the three weeks that horseradish flowers feed the parasitoid wasps.

"No Kings" Boston

 

Boston No Kings main assembly area. 19,000 square-meters

At 2 people per square-meter that works out to a little less than 40,000 people attending.

How dense of a crowd is 2 per-square meter? That is the equivalent of six people standing on a 4' by 8' sheet of OSB or 55 people standing inside a standard, 24' by 24', two car garage. It is pretty packed. So the 40k people is a high-end estimate.

At one person per square-meter, that gives a low-end estimate of 20k people. 

A frequently used "standard" for sizing the sanctuary of a church is to assume 1.2 square-meters per worshiper (or 0.8 worshipers per square-meter) for maximum crowds. Those calcs incorporate aisle-ways for egress (including enough room for two wheelchair to pass abreast) and pews spaced far enough apart so worshipers can sit and stand and kneel.

 

If you zoom into the crowd, you can still see the sod through the people and signs suggesting a lower-than-2/m^2 density

As I was looking at the images on the internet, I noticed that many of the people were carrying signs and that a disproportionate number of them were facing the camera. That makes it difficult to estimate the spacing of the protestors and makes the area seem "blanketed" with people, even when it is not. That is especially true with low-angle shots. One difference between the Chicago and the Atlanta images is that the Atlanta images were taken more directly overhead while the Chicago images were taken at a lower angle and the Boston images were all shot at 10 degrees or less. 

Computer update

I ordered a new power-port and battery for the Win 10 computer. I will probably disconnect it from the WIFI and use it for note-taking, number crunching and writing drafts.

"No Kings" crowd estimates

 

Butler Field, Chicago fifteen minutes after the event kicked off.

Approximately 13,000 square meters comfortably contains the high-density portion of the crowd.

When given a choice, crowds in the United States rarely exceed 2 people per square meter. A very defensible estimate for the size of the crowd at the main, "No Kings" rally in Illinois is 25,000 people. The mainstream media reported that a quarter-million people attended the protest.

For the record, the Chicago Teachers Union claims to have 20,000 members and that does not include retirees.

Atlanta, MASSIVE "No Kings" protest

Twenty bodies in the red square. 120 in the green rectangle.

Extrapolating, 600 total in the crowd. A football game at Greater Atlanta Christian school draws a bigger crowd than that.

Given the numbers, it is not impossible that 1/2% of the crowd could have been Feds collecting evidence to be exploited at some future time.