three years in Alice

Never seen so much rain in Alice!

The Todd is flowing again. I have now seen it flow three times and so according to legend, I'll be here for life.

How to describe Alice? Lots of thoughts. I walk a lot and ask questions to my imaginary friends, "What do you see there?". Oh, a town camp, I would have missed that if I drove down Stuart Hwy (named after Australia's greatest alcoholic explorer). Did you hear that a house was burnt down there last week and the police say it was deliberate?

There are many fences in Alice. Quite a few high fences, some with sharp spikes. Indigenous youth crime is an issue that never goes away.

I think of it as gritty and a bubble town. Bubbles of social class and alternative jobs and lifestyles. Rednecks, LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities and 6 or more different aboriginal tribes. The bubbles need to mingle but it's not happening soon.

My initial goals here (to make a difference in indigenous education) have been partially met (I would have liked to achieve more) but I've been adaptable / resourceful and have been recognised in other ways (innovative technology).

Related:
The Todd River
my decade
a novice discovers the caterpillar
Mparntwe Dreaming, part two: wild dog creators

books I am reading in 2021

BOOKS 2021

Adams, Scott. LoserThink: How Untrained Brains are Ruining the World (2019)
Adeept Sensor Kit for the BBC micro:bit (34 Projects Tutorial Book)
Bell, Adam Patrick (editor). The Music Technology Cookbook: Ready Made Recipes for the Classroom (2020)
Blikstein, Paulo. Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Education: The Democratization of Invention (2013)
Blikstein, Martinez, Pang. Meaningful Making (2016) free download creative commons
Blikstein, Martinez, Pang, Jarrett. Meaningful Making 2 (2019) free download creative commons
Buechley, Leah & Qiu, Kanjun. Sew Electric: A Collection of DIY Projects that combine Fabric, Electronics and Programming (2013)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to Fun: Classroom Technology Project (2015)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to MORE Fun: Classroom Technology Project (2018)
Cohen, Sahrye & Rodrigue, Hal. Make It, Wear It: Wearable Electronics for Makers, Crafters and Cosplayers (2018)
Eisenberg, J David. SVG Essentials (2002)
Frank, Thomas, Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Goldstein, Rebecca. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (2006)
Gurri, Martin. The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium (2018)
Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that will Shape our Future (2017)
Marcus, Gary and David, Ernest. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust (2019)
Martinez, Sylvia and Stager, Gary. Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. 2nd Edition (2019)
Powell, Sidney. Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (2014)
Riley, Erin. The Art of Digital Fabrication: STEAM Projects for the Makerspace and Art Studio (2019)
Wolfram, Conrad. The Maths Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age (2020)

Previous: Books 2020

parody foreshadows reality

The strange times are becoming stranger. Titania McGrath, the militant vegan who thinks she is a better poet than William Shakespeare, parodied a bunch of woke thoughts. It turns out that those parodies have become realities.

I've extracted the 10 cases from Titania's twitter account below, see the full thing here:

1. On 22 December 2018, I called for biological sex to be removed from birth certificates. On 17 December 2020, the New England Journal of Medicine concurred.
2. On 1 October 2019, I suggested that young women should be encouraged to travel alone in rural Pakistan. On 12 October 2019, Forbes Magazine concurred.
3. On 19 September 2018, I criticised Julie Andrews (aka Mary Poppins) for chimney soot blackface. On 28 January 2019, the New York Times concurred.
4. On 7 March 2019, I published my book WOKE in which I argued that skyscrapers are oppressive phallic symbols. On 6 July 2020, the Guardian concurred.
5. On 22 January 2019, I called for the Oscars to prioritise diversity. On 12 June 2020, the Academy concurred.
6. On 6 June 2019, I demanded an option to mute white males. On 14 July 2020, Instagram concurred.
7. On 29 August 2018, I urged parents to give their newborn babies numbers instead of names. On 6 May 2020, Elon Musk concurred.
8. On 2 May 2020, I criticised the NHS for appropriating the LGBTQ rainbow flag. On 6 May 2020, Forbes Magazine concurred.
9. On 21 December 2018, I wrote an article to endorse fighting with relatives during the holiday season. On 28 November 2019, the Nation concurred.
10. On 7 March 2019, I published my book WOKE in which I called out Helen Keller for her white privilege. On 15 December 2020, Time Magazine concurred.

the scott adams theory of US election fraud

Bonus: Scott has an uncanny ability to make the most serious of topics wickedly funny. Regretfully, you won't find that in my summary, you will need to go to the source (links at the bottom).

1. Rasmussan polls have been more reliable, they show that 30% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans believe there was fraud
2. Lots of evidence for fraud (Here is the Evidence) but the dog (Main Stream Media) is not barking
3. Early claims of fraud were mainly there to keep the issue alive while more substantial evidence was gathered
4. 95% of fraud allegations will be weak or false (confirmation bias, if you think something is true then that is what you will see)
5. Fraud was certain but we don’t know whether it was enough to change the result
6. Fraud was targetted in the key swing states, not widespread (the MSM often claims there is no evidence of widespread fraud)
7. The motivation to cheat was sky high, since Democrats believe their own propaganda that Trump is an orange Hitler
8. The opportunity to cheat was present eg. Republican observers were kept at a distance, removed, intimidated. bullied. Scott speculates that there is evidence (in Michigan) that the bullying of Republican observers was organised.
9. When motivation to cheat is high and the opportunity is present then cheating always occurs. You don’t need proof to know that
10. The Dominion Smartmatic software Venezuela cheating story promoted earlier by Sidney Powell was a deliberate, professional disinformation scam (too perfect to be true). The whole situation is riddled with deliberate disinformation which makes it very difficult for the Trump forces to sort it out in time.
11. It is likely that the fraud was “packetised” ie. done in a sophisticated and professional manner,a variety of different ways of cheating were implemented. If some of those ways are proved, but not all, then there still may not be enough evidence that the known fraud would reverse the result
12. One of the professional packets would be to conceal Biden votes in previously apathetic black voters. The Trump black vote increased from 2016 but the Rasmussan polls predicted it would be even further up than it was
13. MSM brainwashing language (eg CNN) morphs from no proof to baseless to unsubstantiated
14. There is lots of circumstantial statistical evidence that fraud was extremely likely. See the Matt Braynard report, Voter Integrity Project: Findings and Conclusions
15. Inability to audit the vote counting machine election software (because it is proprietary) invalidates the election. If this is not fixed by 2024 then we need a Tea Party revolution, throw them in the Bay.
16. The Courts may decide to preserve the stability of the Republic rather than reverse the election result
17. If you factor the bias of big tech (twitter, facebook etc.) and the deep state against Trump before the election then it is arguable / very likely that Trump is far more popular than Biden if we had a real democracy in the USA

The outcome? By my reading Scott Adams, at present, thinks that Biden will prevail but that there will be irresistible pressure to improve the voting system for the future. He is certain there was significant targetted fraud, probably enough to reverse the election result, but it was cleverly done ("the perfect crime") and there will not be enough time to prove it before Biden is confirmed.

More recently he has said a civil war is necessary if
(a) the voting machines can't be audited
(b) the practice of trained bullies harrassing observers is not dealt with

REFERENCE
Scott Adams twitter
Scott Adams periscope