Thoughts on Bullshit

Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!
(It is not only not right, it is not even wrong)

Some big minds tell us that it is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. So this make Bullshit different than lying. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is responding to the truth, and for his side of it, he believes he understands what the truth is.

When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, he believes his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off:

Authoring Tools and A Sadistic utility You'll probably try Anyway

Over the last couple of weeks I've been deep delving into linguistics and grammar parsing. Learned some great stuff about Sentiment Programming, and analysis strategy. In doing all of this I've gathered up a long list of software utilities which I'm now trying to catalog and comment on in case you would like to try some of these out. They were an amazing help, and I certainly would not have learned as much as I did  in the short time I gave myself to understand these areas of research.

What did I learn? Well I learned that the last couple of weeks was spent deep delving into areas of research about exactly the wrong areas. However, I never would have found the right area if I didn't go there.

I also learned some useful aspects of Sentiment, and Big Data, both of which I'll be posting on as well over the next couple of weeks.


This first list is a collection of some Authoring software which I have enjoyed on various levels. Gir will show you the ones I find most useful.

To Really Mess Things Up Takes a SpreadSheet

Spreadsheets are essential tools for enterprises. Other financial and business intelligence applications have emerged over the years, but the spreadsheet remains the fundamental tool for financial reporting and analysis and for sharing numerical or tabular data. Spreadsheet applications have grown more powerful, and spreadsheets themselves have grown bigger and more complex, making it more difficult for spreadsheet users and internal auditors to identity risks and errors in spreadsheet data and formulas. If uncorrected, these risks and errors could lead to strategic missteps, erroneous financial reporting, regulatory fines, and other costly outcomes. To reduce risks and errors while keeping spreadsheet users productive, enterprises need a spreadsheet risk management solution that is:

• Comprehensive 
• Fast 
• Accurate 
• Scalable 
• Easy to use 
• Easy to learn 
• Supportive of best practices 

A Look at Propaganda in the Ukraine

The New York Times has an interview with Mr. Pomerantsev  which is certainly worth looking into if you are interested in the use of Propaganda on the Cable News. The differences between the use of aggressive persuasion on the TV and in Text are of course different via the medium constraints. For example Guilt as a means of motivation can be evoked 17 ways (that I know of) through video, and only 4 ways through text. Text trumps in other directions.

Mr. Pomerantsev’s book, “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,” has particular resonance, describing a world where laws change at the whim of the powerful and where television provides an ever-present, entertaining and emotionally charged distortion of reality.

Mr. Pomerantsev’s area of study is propaganda, and he believes he saw many classic techniques at work in Moscow. He says one favorite trick was to put a credible expert next to a neo-Nazi, juxtaposing fact with fiction so as to encourage so much cynicism that viewers believed very little. Another was to give credence to conspiracy theories — by definition difficult to rebut because their proponents are immune to reasoned debate.