Written in the Sand Episode 22 The Return of the Prodigal Podcast Yeah, I'm back, picking up where I left off. We expand on life as currency and moving into how that translates into relationships. We also examine the implied background of the conspiracy to attack the Atreides. This episode also starts to breach the next section, which concentrates on the character of Duke Leto. Contains music used under the Creative Commons License: "Also Sprach Zarathustra""Almost in F""Relaxing Piano Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand

Written in the Sand Podcast – The Return of the Prodigal Podcast 022

Written in the Sand Episode 21 Hello. From, The Planet Just a little mini-sode for Earth Day. We'll be back to the main topic in the next episode. Of course, you do have to wonder if that topic really is the main one after listening to this. Contains music used under the Creative Commons License: "Cattails" "Porch Swing Days" (slow) "Fireflies and Stardust" "Easy Lemon" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Podcast – Hello. From, The Planet 021

Written in the Sand Episode 20 To Be Species Or To Be Specie, What Is The Equation? Great. An episode summary. You know, I hate these things. You spend so much time developing and maturing an episode and then you have to add the final touch and it's such a small space to fit something that will embody the soul and the face of what you've done. Will it be up to it? Equal to the task? Will it be convincing enough to tell people it's worth listening to? I can never tell, I always judge by the cover. Contains music used under the Creative Commons License: "Record Needle Scratch 3" www.audiosoundclips.com "Garden Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.

Written in the Sand Podcast – To Be Species Or To Be Specie, What Is The Equation? 020

Written in the Sand Episode 19 Long Ago, and in a Future Far, Far Away   Continuing from last episode, we continue to explore the perspectives from childhood that affect us in adulthood. We specifically look at how the stories we are attracted to tell us how life is supposed to be. The Heroic Journey is the centerpiece of this episode, which is expanded to show how it is used in Dune and the Star Wars series. We also address how a modern trend in deviating from the Heroic Story can benefit human development. Contains an abundance of music used under the Creative Commons License: "Mars" by Gustav Holst “Teller of the Tales” “Doobly Doo” “Hidden Past” “Take a Chance” “Teddy Bear Waltz” “Ever Mindful” “Exotic Battle” “Perspective” “Division” “Dama-May” “Jaunty Gumption” “Carpe Diem” “Non Stop” “Jet Fueled Vixen” “Truth of the Legend” “With The Sea” “Willow and Light” “Temple of the Manes” “Darkest Child” “Tikopia” “Eternal Terminal” “Rites” “What You Want V2” “Children's Theme” “Basic Implosion” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Podcast – Long ago, and in a Future Far, Far Away 019

Written in the Sand Podcast Episode 18 We Are In a Sense Lost   After a healthy pause, we are back. A few changes and a new direction, but otherwise as constant as the sea. This episode we will be talking about a theme that threads through several chapters. As we see Paul almost fall into the trap of the Hunter Seeker, we use this scene and those surrounding it to explore topics regarding innocence, maturity, and experience. "Crossing the Chasm" "White Lotus" Kevin MacLeod incompetec.com Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Written in the Sand Podcast – We Are In a Sense Lost 018

Written in the Sand Podcast Episode 17 They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Conformity Are You One of Us? We call them catchphrases, clichés, inside jokes, slogans, battle cries, and George Orwell thought of them as sloppy language. In his essay, “Politics and the English language” he talked about how these phrases become removed from any recognizable meaning and become shortcuts for thinking. Even worse, these phrases can be retrofitted for political goals, selling unfamiliar ideas with familiar words. Some phrases become so obscure that we no longer use some of the words let alone know their definitions, but we can often recognize their intent. They become phrases that we understand without having to ponder what the actual words mean. George Orwell was not a fan. He felt that this sloppy language lead to sloppy thinking, and I agree with him up to a point. Some of those words may have meanings you are only vaguely aware of, you just kind of understand them by how they are used. One of the phrases that George Orwell listed was grist for the mill. I know what it means, material that is useful or turns a profit, but I’ve never heard the word grist outside of that phrase in my entire life. It means corn, by the way. Obviously, if you operate a mill, not having anything to grind means that you have a useless building, so any opportunity to obtain such resources must be taken advantage of. Not that many people operate mills anymore, so most of the saying is un-relatable to a modern audience. I singled out that phrase, but I could have used any of the ones tin the beginning of the episode, or any one of thousands of others to illustrate George Orwell’s sentiment. But all language, in a way, becomes cliché. You can scan down a list of random words and a certain number of them you will recognize without even really knowing how to define them. Often, words become habitual. You just know what they mean. Today, we are going to discuss a few things about these phrases but in a more generalized sense. The actual phrases don’t matter, what matters is that the environment that we are raised in, which becomes our culture, becomes something that we understand implicitly, without really thinking about it. It’s only when you try to explain it to others that you realize how much of it makes little sense. This will be the last posting of 2017. We will return in January after the holidays with some changes in format. Walla Walla Background taken from: Crowd Long By Audionautics and used under Creative Commons License 3.0 Background Music: "Relaxing Piano Music" "Monster Parade" "Floating Cities" "Baba Yaga" "Sugar Plum Dark Mix" "Transition One" "Perspectives" "Chanter" "Wish Background" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Written in the Sand Podcast – They May Take Our Lives, But They’ll Never Take Our Conformity 017

Today we will absolutely not be doing a mini-sode, but it is going to feel like it. A funny thing happened on the way to the podcast, and I’ll tell you the story about that; but first, I want to talk to you a little bit about stories. Contains music used under the Creative Commons License: "Tempting Secrets" "Psychedelic Crater" "Chanter" "Crossing the Chasm" "Thunderbird" "Medusa" "Lasting Hope" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Podcast – We May be Experiencing Some Turbulence 016

Who is Leto Atreides? The Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan is an honorable man. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way. I am not Mark Antony giving a speech to the crowd loaded with barbs about honorable men. Duke Leto is an honorable, good man. He respects and honors those who follow him, he places great trust in people, and seeks to make sure that he is worthy of their reciprocal respect. Duke Leto is a benevolent dictator. But he is also not politically stupid. He knows how the game is played. As Thufir points out, he lays out the best hearth in order to attract good followers, and he does pay attention to potential opponents in the political arena; and He deals fairly with everyone — including the Baron Harkonnen. You may recall how Piter De Vries crowed over Leto’s reply to the Baron, and also the Baron’s comment that an Atreides will never miss an opportunity to make a grand gesture. Leto is someone who will conduct himself honorably so that people will see who they should follow based on the content of their character. Leto is the type of person who is decent and also suffers from naïve realism. While he is aware of threats, he also downplays the threat because deep down he believes that most people are decent, and he will succeed because he is good and decent. Good Guys always win, Am I right? I, for one, completely understand this worldview. Inside of me rests a soul that desperately wants people to be good and decent. That being said, there is also another voice inside of me that assures me that I will be disappointed more often than not. Which one is correct? My honest opinion is that there is no right or wrong answer here. Both viewpoints can be proven right–depending on the situation. If you think about this from an evolutionary standpoint, you realize that in order to successfully survive, an organism must be well adapted to multiple environments. This is why omnivores tend to survive. Widespread domination of a food chain by obligate carnivores eventually leads to a single carnivore – and I don’t mean a single type of carnivore; I mean one individual carnivore, which will very rapidly lead to zero carnivores. Similarly, herbivores, if left unmolested, can rapidly consume all available vegetation, which leads to zero herbivores. Life is a balance. Leto tends towards the herbivore side of the equation. He tries to hurt no one, and his military is devoted to defense. Leto’s use of defense actually means that he would not use his forces to attack unprovoked, nor use them to conquer. It is not within the character of Leto to do so. He is uncomfortable about the idea of his son killing. The man employs killers and makes sure that his son knows how to fight and kill, but he is not entirely comfortable with the reality of what that means. I think a lot of us are like that. We tend to use benign phrases, and even positive ones for things that are not positive or benign.

Written in the Sand Podcast – Blindly Leading Where Everyone Has Been Before

As I stated last episode, we have closed the first three chapters which helped form a foundation and start a framework that the remaining concepts can now build upon. The next few chapters we will be taking a slightly different tact. Simply talking about a particular idea is not always the best approach. Something may be true, but simply stating it makes it a very dry truth. Frank Herbert knew this, so his books do not just dictate simple, dry truths. There are larger concepts in these chapters — which I will discuss — but concepts are useless without people. These next chapters offer beginning character studies of the people involved, both in the subjects discussed and the personalities present. This is part of the great beauty of Dune, the concepts are displayed in narrative as well as being acted out by archetypal players. By doing this, the ideas are more than abstracts, they become parts of fables and legends which increases their power. So, in addition to discussing conceptual abstracts we will first be discussing the personas of the characters involved. Plus, I am going to borrow Doctor Yueh from Chapter 5 for today’s episode, which will leave me with the task of threading together the discussed concepts of both chapters into the next episode.

Written in the Sand Podcast – Also Starring… 014

{margin-right: 50; padding-left 60px; text-align: justify;} p {style="text-indent:20px"; font: .9em Myriad Pro;} h1{font: bold; font size: 150%; "Helvetica";} h2{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} h5{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} Written in the Sand Dune, Book One, Chapter Three part 3 It's All Plumbing   Today we’re going to talk politics. Specifically, We’re going to talk about the Tripod that Mohaim mentions, and we’ll go from there. This will not be a resource link heavy episode, because where I want to go with this is mostly speculation based on observance. We will also be bringing up another aspect of the Bene Gesserit. What are the three Parts of the Empire? The primary part is the Landsraad, compromised of ruling families, which we have gone over, the second is the Emperor with his command of the fanatical Sardukar Army which we have also discussed. The third pillar of the empire is the Spacing Guild, which is new for us. What the Spacing Guild Commands is travel. All interstellar travel, and their monopoly is absolute. To go from planet to planet requires contracting with the guild, which means without the guild, there is no Empire. The reason the guild has a monopoly is because of the lack of science in the general society. After the lessons learned from the previous age of Intelligent Machines, the entire society is paranoid regarding scientific advancement, especially machines that can think, or even appear to think. There are no computers to navigate the dangers of space. No computers means no one can replace direct human control. The guild is the only institution that produces and trains human minds advanced enough to navigate the cosmos. The Landsraad commands through money, the Emperor commands by military threat, and the guild controls through knowledge. Each can destroy the other two. This is why Mohaim says that the tripod is unstable. We have examples in history of Triumvirate styles of government. All have been temporary. Some have ended violently, while others were meant only as transitional governments to begin with. The violent endings have usually been power grabs from within the triumvirate. The First Triumvirate, the source of the term, was in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar, Pompey, and some other guy whose name you probably don’t know. Many of you may only barely know the name of Pompey. The reason this triumvirate failed is because Julius Caesar and Pompey ousted the third guy first, and then they set against each other; Caesar won. Yes, we almost got saddled with a Pompey salad. After Caesar’s assassination, the triumvirate was tried again, this time with Octavius, Marc Antony, and another guy who you probably don’t remember. History repeated itself. The tripod can only exist if all three legs are equal. In Dune, the legs are not equal. The only reason that the tripod in Dune does not collapse is because the Guild does not seek to dominate, it only seeks to exist. I know some of you probably thought that the Emperor would be the most powerful pillar, but he is not. The Emperor and the Landsraad cannot function without transport. Transport equals trade. Without trade, the Landsraad becomes stranded planets bereft of foreign materials that keep them functioning. The Emperor is only Emperor if he can reach his subjects. The Guild is the key to the entire structure. continued in podcast... RECOMMENDED READING: Dune The relevant book for the episode will always be in resources. If you haven't picked it up yet, you should. RESOURCES: The Weirdest People in the World This the actual text of a study about the flaws in our understanding of Psychology. This is the study that inspired me to look closer into cultural underpinnings of basic psychology. Music Credits: "My Country 'Tis of Thee" Performed by the US Coast Guard Band Used under Public License "Thunder Dreams" "Mystical Sting"

Written in the Sand Podcast – It’s All Plumbing 013

So, I got sick this weekend. I'll get the new episode up as soon as I can.

Confessions of the Diseased

{margin-right: 50; padding-left 60px; text-align: justify;} p {style="text-indent:20px"; font: .9em Myriad Pro;} h1{font: bold; font size: 150%; "Helvetica";} h2{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} h5{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} Written in the Sand Dune, Book One, Chapter Three part 2(ish) Let's Brush Up on Our Anxieties   Bit of a small re-cap episode here. I’m still recovering from the last one, plus it’s a damn holiday again. People and their social obligations. I’m kidding. Happy 4th of July for any Americans listening. Happy Canada Day for the Canadians. Happy second week of July for everyone else. What do I mean by re-cap, and why isn’t this a mini-sode? Well, I mean I’m going to brush up a few topics because that’s part of this chapter. The loose ends here are expansions and re-enforcements of things we already know, so I’ll just go over them fairly quickly because I want to acknowledge them rather than gloss right past them. There is at least one more episode and possibly two within this chapter, these are the fragments. continued in podcast... RESOURCES Dune The relevant book for the episode will always be in resources. If you haven't picked it up yet, you should. Looking for the Hannibal Behind the Cannibal: Current Status of Case Research by Aina Gullhaugen, PhD and Jim Nottestad, dr. philos Music Credits: In the Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin McCloud (incompetech.com) Composed by Edvard GreigLicensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Podcast – Let’s Brush Up on Our Anxieties

{margin-right: 50; padding-left 60px; text-align: justify;} p {style="text-indent:20px"; font: .9em Myriad Pro;} h1{font: bold; font size: 150%; "Helvetica";} h2{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} h5{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} Written in the Sand Dune, Book One, Chapter Three part 1 I see That I Am Blind   Prediction, prophecy, psychic knowledge…These form a central theme to the Dune series. This is the first chapter to bring it up, and it does so through Paul’s dreams and in Mohaim’s predictions regarding the fate of The Atreides Family and humanity itself. By what mechanism are these powers explained and is it possible for such a thing to happen? I believe that the explanation is possible, but the precision displayed relies on an idea that is unproven, possibly unprovable, but has some foundations in reality. In this episode we will discuss that premise, but also give a bit of a nod to a more reachable form of prediction. First off, we need to discuss what we mean by prophecy. Prophecy is not, for instance, saying that you have the docs appointment next Tuesday at 2 o’clock. That’s merely the knowledge that you have an appointment. Prophecy is saying that not only will you definitely make that appointment, you will arrive in the office at 1:42:37 and the receptionist will be wearing a green shirt, the doctor will arrive and not have died in a horrible accident at some time within the next week, as will you. Now, some of those predictions may seem a little obvious. Which ones, do you think, are obvious? Personally, I think none of them are. The number of factors that go into that prediction are astronomical. The receptionist’s green shirt would require you to know the receptionist, know that she has a green shirt, and how she decides what to wear. Your arrival, and the time of it, is the only thing with which you would be able to have any type of control, but that is only if you manage to avoid accidental interference in your schedule. For this prediction to come true all three people involved would have to avoid the chance of a serious accident. Again, you could lock yourself in a very safe room with pre-screened and analyzed water and food to help ensure your arrival, but chances are you won’t go through all that trouble and neither will the other two people. The ability to say that an event is definitely going to happen is not dependent as much on a set of events that occurs, rather it is also dependent on a set of events that does not occur. The best you can come up with in predicting that you will be at your doctor appointment is “probably”. Let’s make a thought experiment that is simpler, or at least has less movement. Two planets are in orbit around a star, and each is exactly 100 miles in diameter. The star is stable and does not have any indications that it will explode at any time in the near future, and for simplicity sake, entropy is not operating at all in this thought experiment. The orbits of the two planets are, at this moment, positioned so that one is directly in between the other planet and the star and orbit in opposite directions. Do you have that scenario? Good. Because we are going to add a complication. At one point in their orbits the paths of the planets coincide, meaning that both planets are located in the same place at that point. Both planets have an orbit of one of our Earth years, with one exception. One planet revolves to the same point every 365 days exactly, and I mean 24 hour days exactly. The other planet revolves to the same point every 365 days minus one second. I’ll explain the points at which these paths cross. Imagine the face of a clock and both planets are currently at 12 o’clock. The point at which the paths intersect is at 3 o’clock. Planet one, which is the planet that travels at 365 days exactly is traveling counterclockwise. Planet two, which is the slightly slower planet, travels in a clockwise direction.

Written in the Sand Podcast – I See That I Am Blind

{margin-right: 50; padding-left 60px; text-align: justify;} p {style="text-indent:20px"; font: .9em Myriad Pro;} h1{font: bold; font size: 150%; "Helvetica";} h2{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} h5{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} Written in the Sand Episode 10: There is a Harkonnen Among You If you are just joining us today for the first time, I usually have something here to strongly hint that you should go back to the first episode and listen to them all in order. I’m not necessarily going to do that today because this is a minisode, a break in continuity where I talk about things that have to do with the podcast in general and so can be safely listened to out of order. For returning listeners, yes, I went with the mini episode option, and I have posted the entire transcript because I wanted this one fully available. The reason why I decided to do these things is actually multiple reasons, not the least of which is that shortly after posting this episode I will be knee-deep in forest, tent, and camp fires, rather than a couple of days to myself where I can refine the normal episode format, and then record and edit it. There is a holiday for me and the rest of the US this weekend, and it occurs to me, and I'm not sure how I managed it -- although I assure you it was not intentional -- that the release of my episodes seems to coincide with a number of holidays, and at least one wedding, so far. I have to say it is amazing what one will subconsciously subject oneself to when plotting things out. But I still persevere in the happy thought that any day now will come a conveniently long stretch of peace and quiet where I will magically be able to get a lot of things done in a single go. So what will I talk about in this shorter, non-canon episode? Happily, it will be a bit of this and a bit of that. Yes, quite definitely. Unfortunately, while doing the last two episodes I noticed a certain amount of dryness that distressed me, but of course not enough for me to not go ahead with them stubbornly. Of course, my subject matter was decidedly depressing, nonetheless I feel that I do want to take a bit of time to think about some questions of style. I actually listen to a number of podcasts myself and I'm often quite envious of the more professional ones. Of course some of those podcasts, I suspect, are done in a nice quiet studio with expensive equipment and a team of people paid to make sure it all sounds good. I do not have that luxury, I am a single person, whose equipment is decidedly unprofessional. I am still inspired, however, by a few podcasts that I do listen to that I definitely know have none of those expensive advantages and manage quite well, so I do remain optimistic. I have spent much my life teaching myself various things and becoming quite good at them over the years. There is always a chance -- and there are number of endeavors in my past that have failed utterly -- that becoming a one man public orator and sound production team will not be successful. But as I said just a few minutes ago I can be stubborn as all get out. I am going to be upgrading some of my equipment, though. I realize that it is coming up on a year since I seriously started to plan out getting started and that some of the equipment that I bought at that time was more about frugality then quality. I think it may be time to correct that and also to pick up some other things that I want to bring to bear. One of those will most certainly be a potentially better microphone, as this one, while it works and was within budget at the time, also has to be kept distressingly close to the mouth necessitating a lot more editing of unpleasant noises then I really feel like doing anymore. And while I'm at it, my computer is also rapidly going out of date so that should be done as well and with all the things that I have planned, there will be a lot of upgrading over the next few months,

Written in the Sand Podcast – There is a Harkonnen Among You

  {margin-right: 50; padding-left 60px; text-align: justify;} p {style="text-indent:20px"; font: .9em Myriad Pro;} h1{font: bold; font size: 150%; "Helvetica";} h2{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} h5{font: bold; font size: 200%; "Helvetica";} Written in the Sand Dune, Book One, Chapter Two part 2 Weaving a Tangle   What we’re doing today is looking at some of the dialogs and actions in Chapter Two and we’re going to talk about some of the underlying ideas. There will be a bit about the governing bodies of the Dune Universe, a bit about attitudes towards certain classes, a dash of this, and a pinch of that. What is being used here are tidbits, so they will be discussed briefly. These are parts that we will use to build bigger ideas with later on. Shall we begin? I think the best place to start is to discuss the Baron’s goals here. To understand what the Baron is going after you have to understand the political ladder he is trying to claw his way up. He is seeking power within the Landsraad. What is the Landsraad? To put it simply, the Landsraad is the ruling body of the Galactic Empire. It is similar to a house of lords. The members of the Landsraad are the landed gentry. The word Landsraad is Norwegian and translates to country counsel. The Landsraad is a kind of Parliament where the ruling classes govern human affairs throughout the Galactic Empire, at least the big things. The small things are governed on a planetary level by the individual rulers. There are major houses, which control entire planets and even multiple planets, and there are minor houses which are very wealthy but do not control things on a worldwide level. The relative rank and power of its members is tracked by standing in CHOAM. What is CHOAM? Again we have an etymological puzzle to go through. CHOAM is an acronym that stands for Combined Honnet Ober Advancer Mercantile. Combined and Mercantile indicate that this is a corporation. Indeed, it is the corporation. Honnet is an interesting word because it translates, with different spellings, as Honesty in French, Swedish, and Japanese, a multi-sourced word with a single translation. It stands for trust and honesty and fairness no matter the source. And then we have Ober, which I’m pronouncing wrong. It is a German word with the simple translation of Waiter. But it doesn’t just mean waiter. It is also the name of a playing card in German deck, where instead of a Queen you would have the Ober. If I had to guess at the etymology in this, the Ober is a servant of the king, indeed a second in command, who is only outranked by the king. Much like the word valet could refer to a trusted servant of a nobleman, but also refer to the person who parks your car for you, I think that Ober has similar origins. If you think about it, at one time the person who served the king his food, his personal waiter or cup-bearer, was the most trusted and possibly the most powerful person in the kingdom, aside from the king. So you could translate CHOAM as the association of honest service for the advancement of trade. Which sounds a little corny, but it is what it is. CHOAM is a massive corporation. What CHOAM does is keep track of the intricate network of exchange of goods. It is the corporation of the movement of merchandise. Advancing Mercantile, if you will. Every transaction in the Galactic Empire goes through CHOAM. Much like how in our current society almost anything can be bought through an Amazon.com style of website. Imagine if one of these type of online marketplaces had a monopoly on all commercial transactions, and the number of shares you own of this company would be how much political power you have. That would be similar to what CHOAM is. It is an oligarchy, but it is similar to a corporatocracy, as well as a plutocracy, and is also similar to a feudal system. The reason why this system of government seems to resemble some of the other systems is that every ...

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Written in the Sand

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