Pot

It seems very few people understand what I write. If you are one of those, then it might be because you smoke Cannabis. All the people I have known who smoke cannabis were stupid. Don't do it, it's a stupid drug. It may be legal in many countries, but being stupid is legal in every country in the world, look at the actions of any National Government if you want positive evidence.

Three Ways to Leave Your Lover

I'll add more songs as and when I discover them

Masonry Playlist

Guerilla Logic : The Books

I want to publish three books. This is what they will look like:

Guerilla Logic Book Covers

The first one, called Guerilla Logic Volume I: The Foundation will be a collection of the essays I've written over the past 8 years or so, each with a short introductory preface explaining the circumstances in which it was written, and making explicit the connections between them, which otherwise may not be immediately obvious to everyone.

The second one, will be Volume II: Standard ML for the Lady Programmer, is not yet written. It will be an advanced course in Standard ML, with the emphasis on using ML for Metaprogramming. It will show how to use abstract types for pluggable representations of Standard ML Basis units, and will include implementations of System F and Reynold's Definitional Interpreters in Assembler, C, Scheme and Standard ML.

The third one will be called Volume III: Intelligent Design and it will show how to use formal logic for creative design. It will also show how Intelligent Design arises naturally from the fundamental premiss that reason is a necessary condition of any scientific observation, including observations in physics.

I could have the first one ready for printing in two months, if I could secure sufficient funds to pay for my food, accommodation and the use of a computer. The proceeds of the sales of Volume I will be enough to pay for me and some willing collaborators to produce the second volume, which we could do within one year. I would like to crowd-fund the publication of Volume I, and give "investors" shares in a cooperative, which will publish the second volume. Shareholders and collaborators will receive a proportion of the profits of both publications, and if there is sufficient interest, we could even manage printing and distribution through the same cooperative.

To get this going, I need someone to help me set up a fund-raising web site and who can liaise with me here in Bolivia. I cannot do this, because I do not have legal residency here, so cannot receive money transfers, and cannot travel.

Please could anyone interested in helping me with this (there should be quite a few of you) send an e-mail to me: Ian Grant and tell me how you want to help.

The Cloud Part III

This is a continuation of this story which I started writing in February 2015.

J. So what is The Cloud?

E. The Cloud is the communications infrastructure for The Foundation.

J. And The Foundation is ...

E. Well, The Foundation is the the reason The Cloud exists. It's kinda circular ...

J. So I only need to understand one of these things then. Cool.

E. Yes. And once you understand one, you won't have any problem justifying either of them.

J.  But that won't tell me why either of them exist, will it?

E. No it won't. They exist because they had to exist, otherwise it would have been impossible for anyone to work for The Greater Good. The problem we had was that everyone had to earn their living, and before The Foundation, there was no way to do that other than by earning money. But money is only valuable because it confers a particular advantage on those who posess it.

J. So you mean that no-one worked for the Greater Good, because it doesn't pay cash?

E. Well, the problem was a bit worse than that. Working for the Greater Good didn't pay in either cash or kind. Working for the Greater Good just didn't pay, full stop.

J. So before The Foundation, nobody worked for The Greater Good then?

E. Oh no, thousands of people worked for The Greater Good, it's just that they didn't earn a living.

J. So how did they live?

E. They didn't, they all died.

J. Bummer!

E. Yes. It was a total bummer for everyone involved.

J. So how did it get off the ground then?

E. It was all done by dead people.

J. Such as?

E. Well, I was one of them.

J. Uh, ... and you're not dead anymore?

E. Not completely dead, no.

J. Well, I guess that's good to know, ... I wouldn't know how to start an interview with someone who was completely dead.

E. No, it's very hard, for the living to get in contact with the completely dead.

J. So the problem for The Foundation was resources.

E. Precisely.  We needed resources, human and material, and we needed a lot of them. We needed an indefinite supply, in fact.

J. So, the resources of a nation state of some kind?

E. Yes. We needed the resources of a wealthy nation state.

Love Songs

I thought of this playlist whilst I was trying to start a project "Te Amo Sorata" about the 2003 Guerra del Gas that started in Sorata, Bolivia, on 14th September 2003. Then a week or so ago, I thought of adding "Nights in White Satin" to the end.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6oHZBxajgkghkVv4nnJNwk9gFUTxULT1

 This is the closest impression I can give anyone who hasn't tried it, of how it feels to use coca.