Author Michael Crichton coined the term “Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect”. Crichton named it after his friend the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Gell-Mann’s name was used to invoke the concept that we all may be experts in particular fields (his being physics).

The amnesia effect is that you read a story in a publication on a subject you know about and find numerous errors. You then turn to the next story (on a subject you know less about) and, forgetting your earlier experience, assume it is any more accurate.

Newsweek has just set a very low bar for the amnesia effect, in an article entitled “USS CARL VINSON ‘CANNOT SHOOT DOWN MISSILES’“.  The writer is a London-based “Asia reporter” with a CV that evidences zero … Continue reading →

Well, here we go again.  We shall sprinkle a few troops about, just enough to get somebody killed.  We’re going to send 300 more Marines to the twice-abandoned Helmand province, because I guess things are different now.  From the execrable Yahoo News aggregation of an AFP story:

“In those days Afghan security forces were tiny and just got started,” Brigadier General Roger Turner told AFP. “With the leadership in place now they… are poised to do much better.”

Well we also had something like 12,000 troops in Afghanistan at one time, and that didn’t seem to help.  Actually, it … Continue reading →

Author’s Note: I wrote this point paper for a different/specific audience. It has gotten a chilly reception. I hope our crew enjoys it and I look forward to feedback from our unique group of veterans and business professionals.

Background

Transitioning from active duty military to civilian employment or finding a new career after serving is challenging and a new digital obstacle confronts veterans, especially former officers. Previously the interview and employment challenge is bridged by veterans’ assistance firms both for and non-profit along with veteran friendly employers. 21st century recruiting tools designed to streamline talent acquisition may be erecting a new barrier to interviewing and hiring veterans that conventional relationships between veteran transition services and employers isn’t addressing.

The Veteran Gaps

Veterans present unique challenges and opportunities for … Continue reading →

The Old Magic is still there. Just in case the media thought anyone was listening to them but the bubble…

New on Fourmilab today (so new, in fact, it isn’t yet linked to the home or index pages) is a Web edition of Peter B. Kyne’s 1921 novelette (11,000 words, 62 print pages with reasonably large type) The Go-Getter.  Subtitled “A Story That Tells You How to be One” (capitalisation thus in the original), an inspiring and motivating tale of a person who approached any task he undertook with a spirit of “whatever it takes.”

This work is in the public domain and available in text form from Project Gutenberg.  As with all of the books I make available on my site, a number of typographical and formatting errors have been corrected, and the typography has been updated to contemporary Web standards to be easier on the eye. … Continue reading →

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/balldiamondball.com

We have improved by 195,397 in the last three months. (Okay, so we started from “zero” but it still ain’t bad.)

For those who don’t know this is an Amazon site that ranks Internet sites. The lower the number the better. High traffic sites are below 100.

Boymoose, you told me you have a drone and I want to see some great pictures. I loved your swamp/lake/bog/fen/marsh/mud puddle video.

Something  like this.

Im posting this just for fun.  This is a time lapse of Lake Verette, LA. shot in 2016.  The home of the Swamp people.

I didn’t know everybody would be alerted to my signing up here! Thanks for the welcome, BDB, and everybody who commented.

10 Cents emailed me to let me know about this, the new place to waste time on the internet. Which is good, because I had become too conservative for Ricochet, and was just generally involved in other pursuits. Then I was a Twitter addict for awhile, but lately I had to quit that too, because some of the content is great but the feeds I was reading were on the nihilistic side, mixed with some total garbage. So I was quite without a place to interact online, until Dime helped me out.

Your humble correspondent is originally from Dallas, as many of you know, but now I am on … Continue reading →

I am asking for “a friend”.