Thursday OT - Where I Get Sidetracked!
yes, I was going to go on a rave about market research and the voodoo involved. Next time! For this one we'll ask the question...
So what good are computers? Have they made our lives better? Am I being a Luddite when I say that before computers people had to know how to spell and how to add? Pre-computers we had J. Edgar Hoover and his goons snooping around, writing reports, getting people blacklisted, blackmailing others. So the world wasn't Eden.
We had all sorts of weapons. Sticks, arrows, battle axes, burning pitch balls that could be fired into the "enemy" with a range of "2500 paces". How far is that? Well, you probably know that the word "mile" comes from the Latin "mille", as in "mille passu", or 1000 paces, so 2500 of 'em is 2 1/2 miles. Shaharazade and I often take walks together. For her benefit I'll mention that it means if the Romans are at the Division New Seasons they can firebomb our house. Everyone else can use his or her imagination, picturing a catapult 2 1/2 miles away.
And things got worse from there, leading up to atomic weapons and god knows what else they've got that they haven't used. Because, you know, I can't picture those military guys thinking "we have enough now".
But that's warfare, catastrophe, destruction which is out in the open. What about other terrors? In the good old days when things got too hot for you (home trouble, money woes, the coppers on your tail) you could pick up and leave. You could go to a new town in a different state where you'd be "that stranger that just come in from the East" or however they talked. Hollywood is full of stories, even now, about people who start all over again, but in the world of 2015, with computers, you're tracked. Want to rent a little place? The landlord will probably want to run a credit check on you and maybe a criminal check, too. Want a job? Same thing, maybe a drug test too but that's a different problem.
And then, going back to that J. Edgar Hoover thing, there's the huge data storage facilities that have all of our conversations and everything we've written on caucus99. Let's face it. Step out of line for real, become an influence against the powers that be, and we're totally screwed. They've got us. They know all about us. Wipe out a server and they've got backups.
Has life gotten easier with computers? Maybe. I don't have to get up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready to commute to a job. If I want to get started at 9 a.m. I can roll out of bed at 8:55. But, unfortunately for me, one of my big strengths, being able to understand numbers and do crazy sorts of calculations in my head, is now worthless since anyone who knows how to run Excel can do the math quicker. I guess there's digital recording, which has made it simple for people to produce music and distribute it. No more expensive Ampex tape reels. And computers have given us the Internet where we can talk to each other. Otherwise we'd have to make do with talking to neighbors! And in this neighborhood they kind of like Obama.
Well...I guess there's good and bad about this thing. I said to shaz tonight "I bet, if civilization doesn't collapse, that 50 years from now they'll laugh at how primitive the computers of today are". She, being the intuitive genius that she is, said "I hope it does".
Now for some morning Merseybeat...you know, I think society is really screwed up and is a lost cause. I hope for the best. I hope it improves, or collapses, as shaz would like. But mostly I prefer to focus on something happier, like music. Even sad songs are happier than the world made by the corporatists. So here we go!
The Swinging Blue Jeans started out as a skiffle band like many of the Liverpool groups, then switched to what they called trad jazz, a fad in Britain in the early 1960s. Soon after that they went full electric, becoming one of the most popular bands in that scene. Their biggest hit was "Hippy Hippy Shake" But here they are doing an old jazz song in beat group fashion.
and here's where they got it, Louis Armstrong
All of the Liverpool groups looked around for songs to do. I forget which Beatle it was, probably McCartney, who said the reason they wrote was because it was the only way they could be sure they wouldn't come on right after another group did half their repertoire. All the groups did "Some Other Guy". Here's the original, by Richie Barrett...boy, he liked Ray Charles, didn't he?
The Searchers did it...
so did the Big Three...
and the Beatles...
Yeah, I know. Without computers I couldn't share these with you. Without computers we wouldn't have the Evening Blues, the Open Threads. But, as Thomas Jefferson once said "that don't make 'em good, do it?"
Comments
Kissinger biography is great, says pal of author and Kissinger
http://tktk.gawker.com/kissinger-biography-is-great-says-pal-of-author-a...
Just another example of the spiritual and intellectual rot at the New York Times.
U.S. foreign policy is controlled by a group of warmongering insiders and the New York Times is their reliable tool.
This case is just the particularly blatant tip of the iceberg. The New York Times simply has neither integrity nor shame.
it's two, two, two things in one...
it's a government propaganda outlet and a paper of record!
strong piece
Some random responses:
—Math isn't the language of the universe. Just the language of the small part of the universe feebly "understood" by human beings.
—Weapons are for the weak. Humans, they're getting stronger now. So, weapons, they are, soon, over. Warriors, thank jeebus, are finished. We're in the age of healers now.
—Prior to the intertubes, folks who wanted to, still sho-nuff gathered up all and every spy-stuff about their friends and neighbors. People are still, for instance, trying to get through, years and years and years later, the millions of paper-pages generated by the now-defunct Stasi.
—The internet was invented by crazed murderers in the US Defense Department, as a means by which US serial killers, buried in silos, who had insanely followed orders to insanely launch nuclear missiles, could continue to communicate with one another, even as returning missiles melted the US into molten mess. It was intended to "intelligently route around damage." With this provenance, it is natural that the internet has become a seething, bubbling, hot-pot of serious, permanent, brain-liquification.
—So long as computers are utilized as a step-forward abacus, newspaper, library, etc., they are a boon. It is when they seep into replacing real-life—as in, speaking to, interacting with, other, real, live, human beings—that they take people into going down slow.
—I live in a place, in the USA, where I can rent, or job-seek, without checks, or tests. Small town.
—Any single true note of mersey beat, even of v2.0, surmounts all and every emanation, of all and every machine, that has been, or ever will be. The machines can augment, or amplify, the beat. But they can never replace it. & while you say in your last ¶ that without computers, we could not be sharing this music with one another—and that is true—it is likewise true that in this sharing, what we're really doing, is sharing how music has made us feel, when we've heard it live. Then: no computers. Just the flesh. Become one and all. With all that is. Through music. Through
heyahmamama
heyahmamamaheyah
heymamamama
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vST-w_Ap4]
Since Shahryar no longer
is trying to make his money doing music he not only shares online but plays locally live a lot. He uses his electronic recording machines and the computer to produce roughs of songs he has written for his band. He has never like me been into making music electronically. Analog with the computer and machines to produce the live music he loves to play. I'm going to start doing my art analog and scan it into the computer won't make me money but it will put my work out there without having to mess with galleries or Saturday Market (our local craft show) in Old Town where people say I could get a fine Tunisian or S.American hand painted glazed platter for half of what your asking. Thank you NAFTA.
Right now I'm doing the visual equivalent of musical jingles. I provide the format and design for copy and a sales pitch both visual and in copy. Good thing I was pragmatic and majored in advertising graphic/design/illustration instead of fine art. Whatever that is. I always liked being one step removed from an audience it gives you a certain distance/anonymity that preforming does not have. That's why I like blogging it offers me the freedom to write whatever bs. I feel like without having to deal with face to face interaction. Coward that I am, I've always been an anti-social, pencil chewer type and bad speller who draws under the table at parties.
heh...
if i like it, it's fine art. B)
Gov't workers in particular have orders to inform on each other.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.de/2013/06/the-brochure-insider-threats-comba...
There was a good 2013 Daily Kos diary on this posted by billmon.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/11/1222687/-Insider-Threats-Desper...
In 2014, in a prime display of executive-branch contempt for the legislature and the public, the FBI simply got up and walked out of a congressional hearing on the "Insider Threat" program, when it didn't like the direction things were going. "Questions? We don't need to answer no steenking questions." This prompted another Daily Kos diary by Liepar Destin.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/17/1292657/-FBI-Abruptly-Walks-Out...
Now if only the DK front page would spark awareness of these problems when it counts, i.e. now, during primary season.
The front page
The front page is only concerned with outrage porn and stupid Republicans. I sent a message to kos over two years ago asking that the front page concentrate more on issues and policy rather than Republicans. I never got a response. Markos only cares about clicks, not substance.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
$$$$$
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Thanks Shahryar
You should check out James Hunter.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/18/1358777/-James-Hunter
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
thanks, I liked that!
I'll go check out more...thanks to the internet and computers I can do it without spending $17 for a CD.
I am an old fuddy duddy
Good Morning Shah and 99%'ers. Some very jumbled thoughts and news this am.
First the news. The organizers of the Mountains to Coast bike ride have decided to end the ride at the finish of today's segment which finishes in Lumberton NC. My husband and our friend who spent the night with us last night are driving to Oak Island which was the original finish so that our friend can pick up his car and drive back to Florida. Then my husband is driving back to Lumberton where he will spend the night with our two friends who are stilling riding. Tomorrow, they will all head back to Brevard in my husband's truck. Ironically, today has been the best weather of the entire ride according to the two guys who are still riding. But with hurricane Joaquin now at a category 3 and its projected path is headed straight for the North Carolina coast sometime Sunday or Monday, the ride had to be cancelled for safety reasons.
As far as computers. They are a blessing and a curse. When I was working full time, I loved my computer because it allowed me to generate my reports and other work so much faster. It allowed me to do research in real time. It allowed me to set up a tracking system for all of our ordinances with a search function for each one which was very handy. Computers definitely improved my productivity enormously.
The down side is that computers do somewhat dumb us down. I used to never have a problem with spelling, but now with a computer, I often find myself spell checking what I write. Another thing that personally disturbs me is because of computers. many states no longer require student to learn cursive writing. I find this really scary that children cannot read or write in cursive. Learning math is another issue.
Of course the most disturbing thing is how our every move and every purchase is tracked. We no long enjoy the anomity of our own persons. I guess everything has an up and down side to it, including computers.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Computers / Rain
During my career, I was a code monkey. I programmed machinery for industrial applications. The early career was better than nowadays. You could stand around talking and drinking coffee. If the boss asked what you were doing, you said "compiling". Then later when the boss asked, you said "downloading".
That evolved into being tracked to the 1/10th of an hour and having to allocate 100% of your time to a project. A project with impossible KPIs. I once got called into the office for putting, "taking a crap" on my time sheet.
Rain -> this morning's Raleigh paper calls for 5"-7" between now and Sunday.
Most fuddy duddies are computer illiterate.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Yeah, we had to track every single minute of our time too
It was a freaking waste of time tracking time since we were not billing anyone. We were government and we were serving the people. I was all for 100% cost recovery when we processed land use amendments or zoning applications because those meant that the applicant would be the one gaining from them. The commissions never wanted to do that since the real estate and development industry were big campaign contributors. At one point, some idiot in government proposed we do 100% cost recovery. I asked the dumb question of how was I supposed to recover the costs of my time spent on the phone with a citizen, which took a big portion of our time. The citizens were already paying us for that and it seemed silly to charge them for responding to them. We never heard much again about 100% cost recovery after that.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
when they
were trying to get rid of us, there on the commie newspaper, they brought in this otherwise utterly useless woman, whose job was to "track" our stories.
We quickly came up with a maxim: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, track."
There's a woman down
the street who's a lucretive corporate breadwinner and is married to a lapsed lawyer DFH househusband, who when I asked what she did said 'I'm a manager I come from a long line of managers and my three sisters are managers too'. No mention of who or what she managed but having worked in the corporate segment during the era of useless MBA's, I felt bad for the people she managed. I'm supposed to be the marketing manager of our btob but I can barely manage myself let alone the talented mathhead Shahyar. I was the assistant print production manager at the Gap for a year and managed quite well. I'd say to the buyers who wanted graphics for their new lines, take a number and get in line. My boss was then freed up to conduct his corporate politics of nefarious backstabbing and getting ahead in advertising. The big MABA marketing manager used to come in and look at the advertising print work and say 'But will Joe Sixpack like this, it looks a little too sophisticated and high tech to me.' His former position had been marketing manager for Quaker Oat's. He was clueless about hocking jeans to teenagers. Those who track the talent's time and content can't really do much real managing.
you should have called it a core dump...
sounds more billable than taking a crap.
Good Morning Shahryar
Right. Most people under thirty can't do that. They also don't teach it. If you are unlucky, you fell through those cracks. As an adult, if you can't do both, you get never taught again, been put down and made feel worthless and guilty. Not good. That is a curse.
On the other hand it's the final weapon against the superlords of the digital world. People won't use it any longer, resist to use it and get so angry that they come up with the darnest thing. The intertubes and the net will be destroyed by those who never learned to spell and to calculate. Considering how they become the slaves of that technology, I say, go for it. Show the smart wizkids how stupid they are.
That's nothing. They try to dig into facebook and all your conversations. Really nobody can resist to snoop around your "private" conversations. People live off their bad instincts and make some IT CEOs very rich not being able to not communicate. Mankind need tribes, homes and communication. All of it has been transported on to the digital platform, where all of it can be "saved" for eternity and abused to make mental warfare against people, arouse fights and generate clicks that's the basis of IT's companies profits.
So, right now we are all abused for our most human needs we have and it generates profits for a few, who gain power and abuse the political system with it. Stasi was humane compared to what happens today. The speed with which conflicts and warfare will result out of emotions insulted and hurt on the internet is mindboggling. I guess, most people will just leave the intertubes behind, even though it is very hard to do.
Do you remember the gloating and mocking on the gos when people said GBCW and the authors came crawling back and begging for re-entry? Isn't that just a marvelous demonstration of the wicked character of people?
See, now I have wasted my time, talking my mind without having done nothing accomplished than filling some stupid data collection server somewhere. Good luck for finding the stuff you people are looking for.
As you can see I am not made for the intertubes.
Pre-Internet
... was much more communal. We rarely stayed home. Parks, taverns, concerts, sporting events, social partying or any activity where other people were around.
Math, some people. One of my favorite stories comes from a Boolean Algebra class. The instructor informed us that the written homework was 40% of the grade and that we should get into groups to do the homework. After class, I asked a classmate if they would like to form a group. The classmate said they were just going to take the mid-term and final. My response, "OK, if you get 100% on the mid-term and 100% on the final, you will have a 60 which is a D". The classmate, "I never thought of it that way".
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
oh, they still teach spelling and basic maths
They just teach it in remedial college
courses now - for $$ per semester
hour. This is why the majority of those
getting college degrees these days
take six years to get a bachelors degree.
Most incoming freshmen are
considered "not college ready."
So, underfunding public schools and
the use of required multiple-choice-
tests to advance students in public
schools have created a boon for the EIC
(Educational-Industrial-Complex).
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
you forgot about lots of children of immigrants
who didn't learn English spelling in their elementary school years and come in without a firm basis as middle school age ten years olds English as a second language is nice, but mostly a joke, because taught too few hours and too late and with strange methods. Also the basics of arithmetics is taught differently and long division and substraction are written out differently as well. Word problems (especially the little tricky ones on tests) rely on English comprehension. Many kids have other stress factors in life than just the language. So, there is easily a contingent, that doesn't succeed as they should.
The answer to spelling problems, because they were not taught, is to use the spell checker. So without a computer, you just continue to spell wrongly. Which means as soon as people have to hand in something handwritten, it's ... a revelation. It's good that I am not a teacher, because I would be a draconian monster and ask students to write everything by hand in nice handwriting, take away all cell phones and computers, and demand they sit still and be quiet, stand up, if they are asked to speak. No running around in class, no group tables, and in college, no group assignments. It's a joke. I am a German for a reason... :-).
All else you mention is sadly true.
War in Ukraine coming to an end
link
If the war is over, how will Washington stir up the hatred?
There are still places we can go after.
How about uzbekistan, it's kind of quiet right now.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
They're concentrating their "fire" (pardon the pun) on Syria
for now. Dem debil Rooskies, jest a-bombin' away at them civilians (and our boys, which we bought and paid fer, fair 'n square) ta prop up that thar Ass-ad feller.
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon
Human species needs to evolve or die.
I like people less and automated systems more each day.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
It's time a Dr. Warren Mansfield or equivalent got cracking! :-)
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jack-williamson/the-humanoids/
About those Russian airstrikes in Syria
It's interesting to hear the American press complain about Russia bombing "CIA-sponsored rebels" when by every account I've read Russia bombed Nusra Front (i.e. al-Qaeda).
Doesn't that mean that the CIA is sponsoring al-Qaeda in Syria? link
Liwa Suqour al-Jabal doesn't actually exist anymore. They merged with Ahrar ash-Sham, a jihadist group that is allied with Nusra Front. All of which are part of the Army of Conquest.
One way or another, we seem to still be assisting jihadists in Syria.
The other thing that has me thinking is why Russia thinks that their bombing of Nusra Front will go any better than when we did it last November?
Our experience was disastrous, because al-Nusra then turned on the main U.S.-backed rebels groups and crushed them.
I might hae bee wrong
I might have confused Liwa Suqour al-Jabal with a similarly named group. So don't quote me on this one.
There's a lot of 'em to remember gj, and that's the problem
and the best reason not to get involved. My own prediction is that if Assad falls, the place devolves into Somalia, pulling Iraq and possibly Jordan and Lebanon right along with it.
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon
The computer
right now irritates the crap out of me. I'm a graphic designer, illustrator, print artist by trade. In about 1986 I was sitting in a cubicle at Macy's pasting up boards for the Sunday fashion newspaper insert. Juan in the cubicle next to me said 'You know that all of us are going to be replaced by the Mac. You will have to decide which way to go, high tech or low?' I went low and returned to making art with my hands I wasn't interested in trying to draw with a mouse or moving nodes around to create a line. I was a hands on techie whiz with a Rapidiograph pen, T-square, ruler and exacto and film. I got a thrill out of seeing the fruits of my weeks labor early Monday morning blowing around in the debris of the Sunday Chronicle's that littered the gutters and streets of SF. Who needs yesterdays papers?
So now I've come full circle and am now longer a Luddite artisan/ artist. I have a computer and graphic software. Most of my work is for online publishing. The constraints and filters of the machine on the imagination and the hand eye are a pain in the butt. Who writes these creativity killing graphic/illustration software programs? Geeks who are in love with mechanized complicated layers of technical minutiae in paths, that in real life would take a minute to execute. Runarounds are your only escape when dealing with the likes of Adobe. You spend all your time fighting the freaking computer to just get it to allow you to create. Templates from hell and clouds of ugly, wherein Adobe can make monkeys out of every bodies face.
As for social media, news, politics and devises I'm still pretty low tech. No cell, no pads, no apps. However I still manage to burn my time online arguing with my fellow humans over the most bizarre 'issues'. Yesterday for instance I read a guardian opinion piece written by a woman who had been Sweat- Shamed at Starbucks. She had just run 12 miles and was sweating and red in the face in the coffee line. The barista asked her if she had been working out at the gym or maybe swimming. It infuriated her as she interpreted this interaction as a 'shaming' tactic on her not being ladylike by sweating and being wet and hot in Starbucks.
800 comments on this inane PC weirdness. Before social media and net would this garbage ever be published in a credible newspaper op-ed? I read it and then I read the comment thread, which was hilarious. Would I have wasted and burned any time in analog life with this idiotic 'life style' issue, all about 'splaining and shamming of a sweaty runner and drinker of crappy Starbucks coffee. I doubt that sweaty female runners in over priced corporate coffee shops are ever shamed by underpaid female barista's because they are not ladylike. Do we need endless threads of life style issues going through our heads? Seems to me that this is most likely eating ones brain. The Tower of Babble was nothing compared to the streams of human communication that social media generates. Present company excluded.
Have a good day everyone. I'm going to go and wrestle with a new template to create a stunning beautiful piece of advertising email. At least the help section of Constant Content is pretty good. I love it when it tells me that if I don't know HTML programming I should back right out of there and not mess with the structures and boundaries within the template. In my mind and with paper and pencil I can design and layout a masterpiece in the Bauhaus style but the 'reality' of the restraints of the computer turns it into another tacky cookie cutter internet ad. At least I don't have to use their nasty clip art but still why can't I place my images where I want them?
Be back later when my head fries and I take a break. Life is just not binary. There are lot's of Fuddy Duddies who are computer literate in fact the net is crawling with them, including me.
Hope this doesn't shame anyone......
I see you remember
the days of the Rapiograph pens, Exacto knives and film. We worked mostly on mylar. So I do remember it when I did it back in the days when I was a graphics specialist. High tech was the day that we got an ultra sonic pen cleaner which did not work worth a damn.
Higher tech computer graphics came after I left the graphics world. But I never looked back.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I forgot to add
Zip A Tone which I loved working with and Leroy lettering. I was the queen of Leroy lettering. All of that is now so passe but it did require manual skills to use.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Those Rapidiograph
pens we're hell to clean if you left the cap off. I would soak them in a jar of soapy water for a week or so. The sonic pen cleaner didn't do a thing, pliers worked better to take the pen apart to soak it. Nowadays I use technical marker pens which just die if you leave their caps off.
great comment, my sister was an interior designer
and half an architect. She stopped working when the CAD drawing systems came out. A couple of years later she was basically unemployable because of it. She is in her mid seventies today. That was in the mid sixties. She still doesn't know how to use the computer really, she reads email, I don't think she googles much. Her daughter showed her how to skype with her to the US. That's all. But no, she snoops into the family's facebook accounts.
Here's a tune played by one of my favorite musicians,
Brit, Steven Mead.
My primary instrument is piano, but I was fortunate to also play B-Flat and Alto Clarinet, beginning in grammar school. During a band concert when I was an eight-grader, I was so completely awed by a graduating senior's euphonium solo, that I requested that I be able to switch instruments.
Being the wonderful person that he was--and I'm happy to say, still is--Band Leader Jackson said if I would begin self-instruction over the summer vacation, he'd give me further instruction, and allow me to try out for an euphonium slot in the Fall. And, hey, it worked out! So, the euphonium was my band instrument through the remainder of both high school and college, although my participation was restricted to concert season at the college level.
IMHO, no horn surpasses the gorgeous sounds produced by an Euphonium, or Baritone Horn.
Although, grudgingly, I admit that the French Horn's not bad.
Anyhoo, below is one rendition of Euphonist Mead playing Philip Starke's 'Harlequin.'
[video:https://youtu.be/gtm4Bx3C4V0 width:560 height:315]
[Harlequin_Philip Sparke_Steven MEAD, Tak Ming, YouTube]
Thanks for today's OT, Shah.
Hope everyone has a great evening!
Mollie
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."--Helen Keller
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
sounds good, doesn't it?
Safer Battery Could Spark Investment in Renewables
Back in the day, everybody did know math,
but engineers still used slide rules, or, if accuracy were an issue, tables of logarithms. All those classic old bridges were designed to 3 decimal places with a 10% fudge factor thrown in afterwards. Computers do permit it to be done better and quicker.
To me, their value is is so-called "pure science", we have learned and/or proven a ton of stuff that we just could not have done without that massive computational ability that they bring to the table.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The beauty is in the fudge factor