Carborendum

OR

I just couldn't let this go without the actual footage from this fascinating documentary.

No, it wasn't any shorter. It was just a silent film.

You're sounding like a free-market conservative already . Agreed, it would certainly be a nightmare scenario. But this is more of a human nature problem than a monetary one. Here's why. Even if we were to assume that such a Utopian society were possible, and let us envision that we have reached that point. What then? Where does innovation come from? What motivation to learn and grow? Necessity is the mother of invention. Creation and purpose are basic human needs. A fundamental principle of human motivation is that we must have needs/wants/lack or we have no motivation. No motivation means we never care to choose anything. If we were to ever actually achieve such a thing prior to divine purpose, what mindless beings would we become? Those whose needs lie in the power and influence range, that means that enslaving the human population will be a very easy task. I heard that there is an old Arabic curse: May all you greatest desires be instantly fulfilled the moment you imagine them. I'm reminded of the mythical example of Aldea and the quote from Dostoyevsky: Summary: If we have every desire granted, we'd start to create suffering just so we wouldn't be so bored. Glad we agree on that. But for a practical matter, we would never get away from the fundamental principle of scarcity. Apart from the first line, I agree with all of these points. I do, however, disagree with what you'd include in "universal services". This is what economists call "public goods". I'd go further to say that utilities should be privately owned. But government should have the function of ensuring that there are competitors in any market. No monopolies. The fact that many utilities tend to be natural monopolies, makes competition difficult through free market forces alone. So, government is required to intervene. The typical libertarian position is that the use tax is pretty much the only form of fair taxation is the use tax. You say that income tax is easy to track? It only appears that way because of a monstrous system that is currently in place. Use tax is much easier to track. Income today is tracked through an invisible system that is extremely extensive (AND invasive) and requires virtually universal voluntary compliance. That is the only reason why government can track and enforce it so easily in today's world. The use tax tracking is much less intensive and is not at all invasive. Businesses by their nature have to keep track of all their income and expenses. If they don't, they can't determine if they are making a profit or not on each product/service. And are there specific places to invest more resources? Should we eliminate a non-producing product line? These are things that businesses would be wise to do on their own if they don't want the business to fail. Individuals and households don't need to do that. They just keep an eye on their bank account balance and that's all. But with income tax, we need to keep track of everything that the government allows us to consider a deduction. If not for income tax, there would be NO reason to do that. We also consider the nature of the taxation. Income tax: Theft/extortion. What else do you call it if you tell someone, give us some money or we'll (insert consequences). If you want it to be transparent, income tax (especially the way it is done today) is not transparent. We don't really see it until the end of the year. Use tax: Cost for services rendered. And it is voluntary. If you know what the tax is on the item you're buying, you can decide at that point whether you want to engage in the transaction or not. No one is forcing you to pay that tax. You choose at the point of sale. You can even make it progressive (as many states do) by having no tax on necessities, moderate tax on common goods, and high tax on luxuries.

I'm not quite certain of the difficulty you're having. But I can clarify some of the construction elements which you mentioned here. Maybe, by learning what all these elements are and how they are put together, that could give you some prompts. But it can get pretty detailed/complicated. So, take your time. We're looking at a residential wood structure sitting on concrete stemwalls/retaining walls which extend down to a basement level with a concrete slab floor. 1. All the stuff I said about soil prep are still true. But since you don't have a walk-out basement, the soil testing and prep will have to include soil that was completely unknown prior to development. 2. The perimeter footing and any interior structural walls will have to be sized for the total tributary loads from roof down to the concrete walls. The concrete walls also weigh a lot (about 100 psf of wall). The footings below the load-bearing walls, then, must be very wide. Soil prep under the load-bearing walls is more critical than under the slab areas. The concrete walls have to be formed with the rebar all placed and tied in place between the formwork prior to pouring. The anchor bolts and "hold-down" bolts are secured in position and (horizontally and vertically) by various devices as the concrete cures. The anchor bolts are usually 1/2" to 7/8" dia with either an "L" or a locked bolt at the bottom to secure it into the concrete. After all this preparation work is complete, we can pour the concrete. The concrete can be consolidated in a number of ways. A popular method is vibration or knocking. Complex conditions are required to perform this properly. 3. When we set the wood on top of the concrete stemwalls, we have the following elements. Once the concrete cures, a sill/sole plate made of pressure treated lumber (usually a 2x4 to 2x8 depending on purpose)is cut to size and drilled to accept the anchor bolts. The pressure treating is to prevent desiccation effects from the concrete. Some builders will use regular lumber with a plastic or other moisture barrier between the wood and the concrete. Once the sole plate is placed, nuts and washers are used to secure the plate into place. The hold-downs usually require special anchors and they need to be careful about placement. The hold-downs themselves are special brackets that tie the anchor to a wall stud or column. These prevent the overturning loads (usually wind or seismic) from pulling the structure off the foundation. While studs are usually toe-nailed into the sill plate, a column will usually have a column base bracket to prevent direct contact with the concrete. I once inspected a private school construction where a particular column was anchored with multiple hold-downs. But based on the load distribution, I couldn't figure out why the hold-down was there. There was no way it would be subject to uplift. Then it occurred to me that there was no post base to hold it into position. And the designer decided to use the hold-downs as a "hold-in-place" base bracket because of some odd framing requirements. It worked. So, I approved it. 4. Another part of putting that all together is that the wall framing is largely held in place by plywood. The wall panels are nailed to the studs as well as the sole plate. So, it is all part of the same structural pieces. ONE MORE THING I skipped over a part for your house. The connection between the basement walls and the footings. 1. The footings will have the area excavated, cleared, & prepped to receive formwork. The formwork is cut and installed to the dimension required by calculation of loads. The rebar is cut and tied together. The network of rebar is placed on discrete supports to provide space for the concrete to run under the rebar. 2. The vertical rebar must also be tied into the footing bars. Supporting those bars both horizontally and vertically would be similar to the securing of the anchor bolts at the top of the basement wall. After the footing is poured and cured, the vertical bars will have splices added to them to provide full height reinforcement for the wall. Horizontal pieces are tied for the wall to be secure in both directions. I believe the rest goes beyond the scope of foundations. So, let me know if you have any other questions.

I'd recommend re-evaluating what you consider "credible" to include studies that produce results that you disagree with. By simple math that covers ratios, this is a false statement.

I'll try -- if you really want me to get technical, I can get technical. 🤪 That is interesting. I've never noticed that before. So, that made me take a look at the meaning of the word from an ancient person's perspective. Consider the phrase "The Foundation of the World." Even if we believe "it's turtles all the way down," the world does not sit on a foundation. The word in both Hebrew and Greek the word "foundation" means "beginning of the work" or "lay the basis" or "establish." And it is this meaning that I think is more important than the physical meaning of the substructure. For comments on the physical rock foundation, see a previous post: https://thirdhour.org/forums/topic/75768-protestant-mormons/#comment-1094571 FOUNDATIONS ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE SOIL UPON WHICH THEY REST. Helaman actually inserts a slightly different imagery into the usage of the word "foundation." So, here's where I'll get technical. I'll illustrate by describing the process of soil preparation. For standard concrete slab type foundations (anciently, they'd find stones to form to proper shapes, then lay them) we need to understand the soil conditions. For example, we can't place a slab on swampy soil. Some soils seem to look like any other soil to the uninitiated. But various soils will have different load capacities. While in modern times, we have many options to deal with most soil conditions, the ancients did not necessarily have those options. So, we look at the problem from their perspective. For soil that is generally good soil, the soil still has to be prepared. This process essentially makes the soil prep the "beginning of the work" below the stone foundation. No matter how well the foundation is designed, if you place the perfect foundation on swampland or marsh, it will sink into the swamp (even if it doesn't burn down, fall over, then sink into the swamp). If we see Christ as that "establishment" as we do the soil preparation, we see some interesting metaphoric correlations. We need to get rid of all deleterious portions (weeds, dead wood, stones that are unacceptable). The grading is a type of forming/shaping. He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. Compacting the soil requires huge earthmovers to drive back and forth for major compaction, before a steam-roller smooths it all out with minor compaction. This draws up images of the olive press of Gethsemane. Just some things that occurred to me upon your prompt.

That is very kind of you to say. I am sincerely grateful to hear such words. Thank you. LoL. I think I know exactly what you mean. I've been thinking about the same finer points. I appreciate your discretion on the matter. YES. That's exactly what I'd call it. That's absolutely correct.

It just occurred to me that I've been up close and personal with witnessing gaslighting in my recent life. Before that it was just a term that was thrown around. But this quote here sure fits the profile.

That's an interesting question. I just figured out that I've gone to see only three movies in the theater in about five years. I don't really remember the last time I went to the cinema before that. If you're curious: Top Gun: Maverick D&D: Honor Among Theives Avengers: Endgame

From a speech in a recent Stake Conference: I happened to be ill that week, so I didn't get the context or his final point with that object lesson. But I believe this is kind of the message that you were outlining.

Imagine for a moment the land of the United States with all its natural features and all natural resources prior to any settlement of humans. Then insert a population of about 10 million people spread about in any comfortable distribution with nothing but a covered wagon full of basic living supplies, basic tools, etc. With that image in mind, how would that population go about creating wealth? In such an age, no immediate medium of exchange exists. What do they have? Goods and services. After their wagon supplies run out, they have no goods. But they do have services. So how do they use their “services” (or labor) to create wealth? Human labor is what we use to create abundance out of the natural resources. The return on investment of laboring to grow crops and herds on vacant land is many times higher than simply gathering food from the wild. Thus, labor increases the goods that we have available, and wealth is born. The next level is not just labor, but knowledge. When knowledge informs those who labor or augments labor efforts, it improves the return on investment regarding the labor-to-goods ratio. Knowledge, for instance will develop tools (like a plow) that will make planting crops easier, and thus, quicker. So, the same number of people can plant more crops in the same amount of time. Wealth is increased. This can go on for several more levels. But for brevity, I will stop. Now, UBI is antithetical to this pattern of the Wealth of Nations. It says that we have such abundance, that everyone can be given free money just for living. No labor. With no labor, no wealth will exist. It is true that if only a small percentage of individuals are on government welfare, then a prosperous society can manage it. True, but why? And is that fact sufficient to support this method of caring for the poor? No, it is not. The religious conservative will certainly be happy to support charities and even do things in their personal lives to help those less fortunate (sometimes called “the deserving poor”). That sure sounds like giving a basic living to those who can’t do it on their own. Is that any different? Yes, it is. Labor is what creates wealth. And knowledge/innovation can increase the efficiency of that labor, thus increasing wealth at a greater rate. Giving money to strangers through a faceless government agency only hurts the society. It does little to make the world a better place. I realize I have not gone into detail on my declarations for the latter half of the post. But that is what I leave up to discussion.

I believe I'll have a low probability of success. We haven't determined if we're moving forward with this. But I thought I'd share the conditions that made me want to consider it. Maybe I'm not thinking straight. So, I'd welcome some corrections. My adult children attend a YSA ward where they know a friend who fell into familial estrangement. Her mother and stepfather kicked her out of the home with no warning. She was not allowed to go back into her home when she came back from a YSA activity. She called some friends. And after at least one home that couldn't take her in, she landed at our house. Her father was highly abusive to all his kids. I didn't ask for details. But it seems that all of his kids have refused to be around him. The one exception is the youngest boy. It appears that the father finally realized that he was losing his kids forever. So, he overcompensated with the young boy and decided to spoil him. The mother re-married to a man who is not overtly abusive. But he does things that just aren't right. I wouldn't call it "emotionally abusive" behavior (my non-professional assessment). Perhaps it is "emotional blackmail" -- and that may be too strong. But I can't think of a more accurate term. What I've witnessed first-hand is what I'd call rudeness and/or coldness. So, is that abusive? No. But there is clearly no love in that relationship. When she was at our house helping with some kitchen clean up she dropped a dish and food spilled out on the floor. She fell into tears and exhibited tremendous fear. She cleaned it up but then went straight to her room to cry. Empress went to her to try to soothe her. It seems that her stepfather would throw tantrums at her for spilling something at the dinner table. So, she feared that we would kick her out of the house for such an infraction. Empress told her not to worry. She was satisfied that no dishes were broken, and she (the girl) cleaned it all up before running to her room. I tell you, whatever the details of what actually happened in that home, this type of behavior is an indicator of something not being right in that home. The one major thing I can't get around is that they have stolen over $4000 from her. They say that they are simply holding it for her. But they won't give it back to her ... unless... she does certain things. But they've already gone through several cycles of her "taking care of a few things first". It is becoming apparent that they are never going to give that money back to her. I've recently been entertaining myself with Mr. Reddito videos. While there is a revulsion aspect to the stories, I also get a sense of relief that our family isn't like that. But when faced with a real-life situation like this, it is not just some method of entertainment. This is a real person being messed up by real people who are messed up themselves. Still, I'm glad my family isn't like that. Because of how she was raised, she has some emotional/psychological baggage. She's basically a good kid. But she has some self-destructive behaviors. They aren't in the "evil" category. But they are making us raise eyebrows at a few things. She is a compulsive eater, and shopper. And we've tried to encourage her to change these behaviors. We've had some impact. But it is a process. It takes time to overcome such habits. We've gotten her to stop certain other behaviors. And she does feel some mild heartache over that. But she's making an effort to make changes. The reason I'm even considering this is that if you take away just a few idiosyncrasies and the compulsions, she actually fits right into our family. It's kinda funny that she's the same age (four months older) as our son who is currently on a mission. And this is the son that we say (facetiously) should have been a girl because of the boy-girl-boy pattern of the rest of our kids. So, if we substituted her for him, we'd have a perfect pattern. Anyway, it is still a consideration. But right now it is weighing further to the side of "no formal / legal / temple changes". From a personal and social position, we call her our foster daughter and we treat her like a member of the family. We'll see how things go as we continue.

This is known as the pride-prosperity cycle in the Book of Mormon. We see parts of it in the Old Testament as well. How many times did Israel get into idolatry and later repent and return to the Lord? (Book of Judges, anyone?) There was a speech once given by a head of a major corporation around the early 1900s. I don't believe he was LDS. And I'm having trouble finding the quote. But he expanded the cycle to (IIRC) five or six steps and gave brief commentary on how each step lead to the other.

This is an indicator of three social phenomena. Ignorance will tend to lead people to the worst path. If we don't learn what is right, we will tend to choose the wrong. The greater population of Jews in the US have ignored Niemoller's poem First they Came... A shame when it was meant to encourage protecting the Jews. But have they spoken up to protect Christians? Good for Professor Hassner for bringing this up. But I wonder if he (as a Jew) has considered if his focus on religious violence would have reflected the things Jews have ignored when it only effected others.

Yes, the algorithm. I see a good number of religious videos, but of a different type. So, I don't even know who Pastor Jeff is.

In the APP, I will have no quote of the day. It may have something to do with my new phone. My old phone had no problems. Only every once in a while was there a quote or scripture not available. But with the new phone, it is rare that I get a quote of the day. Others look on their phones, and they see quotes. But mine... none. Any idea why that would be?

This is one of my top 10 Christmas carols. And it is probably my #1 among those that are lesser known.

Certainly, we do have some tolerance for certain conditions which are above and beyond which then result in conditions at church which are above and beyond. In our ward, we have a family with special needs children. One of them is much like Rain Man. If you were to meet with her for 1 minute, you'd think she is mentally handicapped. And she is. But one side of her brain is highly intelligent. She can memorize data at an intense rate. And so far, it seems she remembers every detail forever. But she doesn't know what any of it means. And her social skills are non-existent. Sometimes, she'll just carry on a fairly loud talking voice in the middle of the sacrament being served. She simply doesn't know better. The entire ward is aware of this. And we're ok with it. What are we supposed to do? Turn up our nose at a mentally handicapped child? I also understand that many parents grew up in different ways and never really learned parenting skills. And they never learned what "reverence" means. So, they then teach their children to ignore the concept of reverence. I believe this is an area where we can make an impact. But I don't have the management or social skills to propose what methods to use to effect such change.

Thanks, Vort. I thought as much about the English side of it. It only makes sense. But I wouldn't call this guy my friend. He was one of those guys who was just smart enough to recognize that he was above average, but he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was. Add to that his physical stature lent to him bullying those around him into accepting whatever he said was true. That made him excruciatingly annoying.

Amen to both of your posts. But I thought I'd use a bit of thread jack to elicit discussion about this thought above. I'm not certain that it is necessarily required to use "quora." As I understand it (although I know several Romantic languages, I don't know Latin all that well -- especially the plethora of grammatical conditions and terms) the word Quorum in Latin means "of whom." There is neither singular or plural of such a term. It is a preposition. It becomes further complicated because Latin does have a word "quora" but it is considered a plural of another word that is so ancient that we don't know what it means anymore. We don't have enough usages of it to determine the meaning from context. In English, however, the meaning of the term "quorum" is slightly different from the Latin origin to mean "a group", especially a portion thereof (which hints at the original meaning "of whom"). And in English, it is considered a singular. So, even though we tend to required the -um shall change to -a because of the Latin, the rule is ambiguous with this word. So, some dictionaries favor one term over the other. Some dictionaries admit that both are fairly popular. In fact, as i type this, the word quora is being highlighted as an incorrect spelling. Feel free to correct me.

An acquaintance once made a fuss of the use of the word "silly" in this verse. To him, it just didn't sound like a "scriptural" word. I thought I'd look into this a bit more, and found an interesting linguistic find. In the KJV, the word "silly" occurs three times. The New Testament usage (Greek) is not the same context or meaning as Alma. So, I'll skip that one. The Old Testament usage (Hebrew) is (pa-TAW). And it has an interesting path to become "silly" in English. The word indicates a wide open space. But when used to describe a person, it refers to their mind being wide open (i.e. empty-headed, therefore gullible, therefore the person is a simpleton). I thought for a while about this and wondered how often I've heard that same insult given by atheists to theists. They only believe in the "invisible man in the sky" because they just haven't lived enough or don't know any better. Their minds are empty. They haven't studied anything. They just don't know as much as I do. Come to think of it, I haven't heard any real argument about why there ISN'T a God which doesn't include this as the basis to deny God. We're just ignorant and stupid. OTOH, what do we say about atheists? What are our pillars to believe in God? I can think of three. I'm sure there are more. But I'd wager that 90% of them fit into these three categories. For many, it is just what they were taught. And certainly, even from an atheist's point of view, there are certainly many philosophical reasons to believe that the Bible actually gives many messages for good living, regardless of the existence of God. Believe or not, but the lessons of life are very good messages. Miracles/Experiences: This is where it is persona experience. Many times we consider "coincidences" to be miracles. And maybe they are. Atheists would throw all of them out and just chalk it up to coincidence. But theists will give credit to God. Then there are those things that are more than coincidence. They defy the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics as we know them. We experience them. But atheists weren't there to witness them. So, "it just didn't happen the way you think it did." Well, we were there. The atheist wasn't. Witness of the Holy Ghost: I don't know how the sectarians emphasize this or not. I know that we emphasize it a lot in all our teachings. But I'm afraid to say that most people INDVIDUALLY tend not to emphasize it in their own lives as much as our teachings do (just my personal experience, no studies to back it up). Yet this is the most important reason of all. Forget what man taught you. Forget miracles that could be coincidences, or our ignorance of science. The Holy Ghost is the final witness of Christ and the truth. Ironically, all three of these require us to admit that even if we have advanced degrees with decades of experience dealing with the scientific world we're aware of, there is still a vast ocean of knowledge, the surface of which we have not even begun scratch the surface. Essentially, as little as humanity has learned about the physical world, we have to admit that there is a wide space between what is in our heads and what is out there to actually learn. Religion puts that reality front and center. Atheism puts our knowledge (little though it may be) front and center. It is true that we are ignorant. Theists are taught to take heart to admit that ignorance. Humility opens the mind to learning. Atheists, instead, choose to mock such humility. -- That is Korihor.

Ok, so... Batman vs The Punisher vs The Equalizer vs The Transporter vs John Wick vs John Reese vs James Bond vs Jack Reacher

I was once in a ward (actually the entire stake) that was very rowdy before and after the meeting. It got so bad that the bishop had to yell into the microphone just to be heard so he could start the meeting. The choir director asked the organist to stop playing for about 30 seconds. Then he got up to start leading the congregation in an impromptu hymn. When people started singing along with it, the crowd began to shut up and take their seats. The bishop didn't authorize this. The director did it all on his own. But seeing the effect, the bishop fully supported it. It became known as a "Reverence Hymn." I'd never heard of it. But it seemed that it was a previously existing term.

With what shall I vacuum dear Henry, dear Henry?