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And, in times when I'm not quite up to playing Chess I watch Magnus Carlsen videos on YouTube, short summaries of blitz games he plays with opponents.
He's absolutely brilliant, and while I can follow along with his moves he finds himself much further along in the games than I do.
My game, alas, is still very much a "horsey makes L" sort of style, which shows in my results, and probably I should dig out my chess board so I can follow along and play out his games - streamline my rather chaotic thinking into his very definitely organized mold.
It's a little like a 3 year old watching Picasso paint on glass, then gathering up his/her art supplies to make their own painting...
Only the three year old is a lot further along than I am...
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One of North America's earliest recorded Native American Explorers, member of the Yazoo Tribe who crossed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Before Lewis and Clarke, merely (I am gathering) in the spirit of curiosity.
Link: Wikipedia, and a .pdf via the American Antiquarian Society
Now, this is but one journey, in 15,000 years, we can be sure there were a great many others.
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Avoiding the Volunteer thing at the moment, M* is back, had a great time on the island, but....
Where's all his stuff?
I knew this would happen.
All the unsorted dirty Tupperware and broken coffee mugs and pots and pans, where's it all gone?
He's spoken to the other staff, wants to have a meeting, wants to call the police, there should be an investigation, all the (now defunct) Christmas and Halloween decorations, where has it all gone?
I'm warned away by the staff, he's in a mood, best to take the week off, and they've explained that - while he was away, his department had the highest sales it's ever had.
That doesn't improve matters.
So this week, my time my own, and maybe I should be painting...
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A scanned news headline, that Bezos and Musk are both arguing we need a vastly bigger population, citing the ludicrous reasons that we would, out of this, get more geniuses, Einsteins, Mozarts, Michaelangelos, DaVincis, etc.
This is of course complete and utter self-serving bollocks, and the fact they dared to even utter it speaks as to why they should in no ways be in the position they're in.
"Our economy depends on it..."
No, it does not. Not in the least. Their WEALTH depends on it, on a perpetual stream of lowly paid workers, on an increased number of customers, wage slaves and consumers.
They depend on it. Much like malarial mosquitos would lobby for more humans.
The world, it's resources, are stretched even now to the absolute breaking point. Climate change may well have already tipped the scales and we're all just awaiting the fall.
Zuckerberg, even as I write this, is building a post-apocalyptic bunker to shelter in in Hawaii.
If Bezos or Musk were even slightly concerned about the lack of geniuses in the world they'd be building cathedrals, commissioning paintings and art galleries, executing their divine rite of patronage, donating to universities, schools, paying for Opera, Commissioning Music, Theatre, Film, etc, or investing in public spaces, and a thousand other such trifles that build the spirit of the age and encourage genii to flourish. But the spirit of this age is, already, "every man for himself", and as it stands their community contributions constitute the smallest fraction of their earnings. And by "earnings" I mean pillaging, for they've together earned nothing, merely arrived at the right time, right place, to exploit those who do the work.
Instead, it's "SpaceX" and "Blue Origin", vanity projects that will take them to the stars while our earth is destroyed.
These people, they are despicable, the worst parts of ourselves that we've allowed, encouraged even, to flourish and prosper. No reputable journalist should give voice to their nonsense.
It's time.
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And I'd read that in the 90's, according to Ivanka, Trump slept with a copy of "Mein Kampf" or Goebbels Speeches beside his bed.
For a moment I was a little surprised, a book, any book beside Trump's bed would somehow imply an intelligence I don't credit him with.
Of course, he's denied it - and I believe him. I think he's just stumbled upon inflammatory hate rhetoric as a populist strategy to get him back into power.
Rediscovered it, all on his own.
But a book beside his bed? Impossible...