Allan Olley
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allanolley.bsky.social
Allan Olley
@allanolley.bsky.social
89 followers 110 following 1.1K posts
Fan of many things and over degreed and underemployed. Groucho Marxist. 🥸

Advocate of mining the Sun for helium. ⛏️🔆
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allanolley.bsky.social
I've been playing Connections trying to get purple first thanks to @hankgreen.bsky.social doing this at the end of some his videos and inculcating me with the idea you should do that. Apparently I managed to do it 100 times as of today.
An image of a Connections (NY Times game) badge shows a heptagon with the "100" and a schematic representation of a the connections game in it. The badge is outlined first by solid black lines then in a heptagonal purple shaded era with concentric heptagons of lighter shades of purple (lavender etc.) around it. Above the badge is the text "Earned Nov. 4, 2025". Below the badge is the text: "Purple First" "You earned this badge by successfully completing 100 Connections puzzles after getting the purple category first." To the left of the badge is a small hexagon badge with 75 and schematic Connections game also outlined in black lines and then purple. To the right is a small heptagon badge all grey with 150.
November 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
From Cuomo and Trump.

Skimming the transcript the question doesn't make sense in the context of this interview because Silwa has to this point mostly attacked Cuomo and not agreed (or disagreed) with the Trump-Cuomo characterization of Mamdani (they did show a clip of Trump mouthing off about it).
Text: HUNT: If Mamdani is elected and he doesn't perform the job the way that Andrew Cuomo, the way that President Trump, the way that others are warning if he does run the city as a communist, are you going to have any regrets? SLIWA: Why should I have regrets? I trust people. People are going to make the choice. I'll live with the choice. I'd like them to choose me.
November 4, 2025 at 3:24 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
My feed.
Two Bluesky tweets. Jason Loo @jasonloo.bsky.social - 36m Fuck [6 likes] --- Alan Richardson @alanrichardson.bsky.social 39m Fuck [5 likes]
November 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM
allanolley.bsky.social
I managed to get today's pictogram connection.

Connections
Puzzle #873
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨

(My technique is figure out all the connections if possible before trying anything and then input them usually reverse the order I found them to try and get purple 1st).
My Connections badge. A ghost icon inside a crest inside shading with lots of text. Text reads Above Crest: "Earned Oct. 31, 2025" At top of crest: "2025" Below crest: Large text "Trick-or-Triumph Challenge" Smaller text "You earned this badge by successfully completing a special themed Connections puzzle published on October 31, 2025."
October 31, 2025 at 3:38 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
BREAKING: Two men have been arrested in connection with the heist of France's Crown Jewels from the Louvre.
A picture of Keith Frankish and Pete Mandik in profile with the background an opulent room with pictures, chandeliers etc. All framed by a dark purple matte. Text reads: Above white text on the dark purple background "Frankish + Mandik" "The Persuaders!"
October 27, 2025 at 5:42 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
No danger of being proven wrong. 🙄 Criticisms vary, a lot seem to be based in the hatred of brunch.

I "like" the one that says not accomplishing things is damning. I mean if you want me to drop any political movement that fails to immediately accomplish things, okay. Are you sure about that?👀
Tweets (in dark mode) [reposting circulating arrows symbol] [star icon] [hammer and sickle icon] MassStrikeNow [hammer and sickle icon] reposted [Icon face of Karl Marx] Power to the People [Hammer and Sickle icon] [Dove of peace icon] [blue check mark] 9h You think this is positive but it's actually damning: Biggest march in U.S. history but it didn't accomplish anything. No policy demands. No vision for how to build a better world. It was a DNC sponsored parade to redirect the public's rage right back into the capitalist duopoly. [this tweet was quote tweeting] [icon is photo of guy in profile] Chris Murphy [orange square emoji] [blue check mark emoji] [US capital emoji] 14h Breathtaking. This is why today will likely go down as the biggest day of peaceful protest in our nation's 250 year history. x.com/mattlesser/sta.... A tweet text as follows: [Profile picture of a woman] Margaret Kimberly 2h Trumpers commenting on the lack of Black people at No Kings rallies. (As if they care). Here's the reason. It's a Democratic Party astroturf campaign with no concrete demands that also pledges allegiance to imperialist foreign policy. Virtue signaling dressed up as a movement. Some kind of social media post, text as follows: [profile image a person in profile, seems like from a painting or poster] Krysta McCatlady Yesterday at 6:42 AM [globe icon] What happens now after the No Kings rally? Did everyone go get brunch? Or are we going to stop spending & plan direct action that disrupts capital? Tweet text as follows: [Photo of woman in profile with white check mark] cierra.ceo [blue check mark] This is how I know that Americans aren't serious about protesting. Why the no kings protest is from 10 a.m.-12pm lmaoooo The Ferguson protests were 5 consecutive days. The BLM protests went all summer on a regular consistent basis. Democracy is on the line and they treat protesting like its brunch
October 20, 2025 at 4:36 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
Worked for Naruto
A still from the anime Naruto. Naruto in profile wearing his trademark sleeping cap. His eyes closed some drool coming down his chin. Sub-title reads "I don't think he'll be able to move today."
October 17, 2025 at 9:23 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
Tron is one of those bad ideas that every once and awhile someone looks at and says, sure its failed every other time, but surely I'm different.
Man and woman talking on a bed in the "But it Might work for us" meme. Text: "Well did it work for those people?" "No, it never does, I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but..." "...but it might work for us."
October 12, 2025 at 4:51 AM
allanolley.bsky.social
Here is my general Tuvix take (in image).

To sum up: I think it is very tricky to say if Tuvok and Neelix are still alive inside Tuvix and our attitude should in part depend on Tuvok and Nelix's post split attitude, but conceivably even then there could have contradictions thwarting resolution.
Three old Tweets by me in a thread: [My Twitter icon] Allan Olley @AllanOlley - Nov 7, 2022 Variations on Tuvix I want: Both Tuvok's and Nelix's bodies are still around but they merge into a single Tuvix mind so long as they are in physical contact, this results in Tuvok in a tank top giving Nelix in shorts pig back rides for an ep until security tackles "Tuvix". 1/3 [Twitter bottom of Tweet icons 1 reply indicated] [My Twitter icon] Allan Olley @AllanOlley A whole spectrum of Tuvix's from the one I just described to the one in the "Tuvix" episode and all points in between including horrific body horrors where Tuvix has two torsos (one Tuvok, one Nelix) etc. 2/3 10:17 AM · Nov 7, 2022 View post engagements [bottom of tweet Twitter icons 1 reply indicated] Allan Olley @AllanOlley Nov 7, 2022 After the split both Tuvok and Nelix retain fully memory of being Tuvix, but while Tuvok remembers it as him just being Tuvix with no separate identity, Nelix remembers it as Tuvix being an alien entity that suppressed his identity, agency and control of the body. 3/3 [bottom of tweet Twitter icons]
September 25, 2025 at 4:41 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I have some facial paralysis and my facial physiotherapist recommending careful enunciation and recitation of words as therapy.

So when I'm walking to the train station I will recite some lines:

Here's my program

This would thus be the poetry I most often quote by a substantial margin.
Text: "I'm not the pheasant plucker I'm the pheasant plucker's son I'm only plucking pheasant 'til the pheasant plucker comes It's pleasant plucking pheasant in the phesant plucking season I'm not the pheasant plucker I'm the pheasant plucker's son" Jabberwocky - Lewis Carrol Hope - Emily Dickenson I had no time to hate - Dickenson A Book - Dickenson Parting - Dickenson Various alliterative phrases from a list a physiotherapist gave me.
August 26, 2025 at 8:28 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
So dictionary dot com recognizes gorgonize but claims the British gorgonise is the more common (I think?).

Interestingly the OED prefers gorgonize? Seems like usage dropped of by 1930, originated in the 1600s.
A dictionary entry: gorgonize especially British, gor·gon·ise [gawr-guh-nahyz] Phonetic (Standard) IPA verb (used with object) gorgonized, gorgonizing to affect as a Gorgon; hypnotize; petrify. She felt trapped and totally helpless in his gorgonizing stare. Some text next to a graph: The text: How common is the verb Gorgonize? Fewer than 0.01 occurrences per million words in modern written English See frequency The graph: A curve on an x-y axis shaded underneath, the y-axis is unlabeled. The x-axis is labeled at regularly intervals "1850", "1870" and so on in increments of 20 up to "2010". The curve starts flat at the top of the y-axis from 1850 to about 1880 and then drops in a diagonal line down to a lower point (about 1/8th of the height of the y-axis) in around 1930 and stays at about that level with some slight variation up and down. Text: Where does the verb Gorgonize come from? Earliest known use early 1600s [these lines are in a maroon circle as white text to the left of the rest of the text] The earliest known use of the verb Gorgonize is in the early 1600s. OED's earliest evidence for Gorgonize is from 1609, in the writing of John Davies, poet and writing-master.
August 15, 2025 at 3:25 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
There is the verb "gorgonize" to turn to stone.

We just need to bring this into common North American usage (or back into common British usage).

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/e...
A dictionary entry: Definition of 'gorgonise' gorgonise in British English verb turn to stone
August 15, 2025 at 3:05 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I have no idea about the play, but the broader trend of theatre censorship that surrounds it certainly sounds interesting (text in image from a history of Freedom of Speech: Freedom of Speech: Reflections in Art and Popular Culture By Patricia L. Dooley).

books.google.ca/books?id=VN7...
Text: A Good Bad Woman, which tells the story of the return home of a former burlesque performer and street prostitute , was one of the plays that brought the crisis to a head. After its early February 1925 opening, the production was universally panned by critics. But its tawdry storyline attracted attention, and curious New Yorkers flocked to see it. In line with a New York World editorial campaign against A Good Bad Woman and other plays considered immoral, the city's ministerial community, police, district attorney, and theater leaders were galvanized into action. New York City District Attorney Joab Banton, who became one of the movement's primary crusaders, claimed A Good Bad Woman topped a list of 13 stage productions across the city that should be rewritten or closed altogether. Officials informed its owners that the show must be closed because of the great amount of objectionable material.
August 15, 2025 at 2:57 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I found this excerpt of a review in Google books (actually an excerpt of an excerpt). I'm not sure who is writing or who is being quoted. Both certainly take great relish in describing how bad they found the play.
ferocity . Mr. Brady has just produced " A Good Bad Woman , " a play which contains "words so filthy that no periodical which contains them could pass through the mails. Scenes of degradation abound ; the dullness of gutter orgies pervades them . " In short, dramatic offal and awful dramatically.
August 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
The lines you quote from Ballad of Hollis Brown reminds me of the letter Charles Babbage sent Tennyson.

I'm not sure how many people would need to be born somewhere distant to make Dylan's statement of vital statistics accurate.
<Large Blue text>Charles Babbage</> [To the poet Tennyson:] Sir: In your otherwise beautiful poem 'The Vision of Sin' there is a verse which reads -- 'Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.' It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill ... I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read -- 'Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.' The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. Citation: The Difference Engine, by Doron Swade, Viking, 2000
August 14, 2025 at 4:21 AM
allanolley.bsky.social
So something like this?

(photo from Getty via the Atlantic)
Photo of Mark Zuckerberg head and shoulders, wearing a blue shirt, he is smiling mouth open showing his upper set of teeth. The background is a light blue sky with wisps of cloud. (Source of photo: Getty via the Atlantic) A caption below white on black in Algerian reads: "LAP AT YOUR TROUGH, PIGGY"
August 8, 2025 at 3:25 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
Good news the term high five may be that recent, but slapping your raised hand with someone else's goes back to at least 1960 in Jean-Luc Goddard's film Breathless. I assume people were slappin' hands before this, but I guess not often enough that it is well documented, did some searching.
A still from Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless. Two men slap their right hands together as a woman looks on. There are some cars in the background. One man is in glasses and a vest. The other has a cap, jacket and tie and cigar or cigarette in his mouth, a newspaper in his pocket and shaded glasses.
August 7, 2025 at 2:53 AM
allanolley.bsky.social
I've shifted my frequency of winning Wordle so that the most frequent number of guesses I win in is now 4, previously 5 dominated. I had to reduce my tendency to eliminate lots of letters before refining my guess.
Wordle victor screen: Congratulations Statistics: 776 Played, 98% Win, Current streak 2, Max Streak 38 Guess distribution: 1: 1 2: 6 3: 58 4: 303 5: 302 6: 92
July 26, 2025 at 9:16 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I was wondering about this. I'd say rather than some math proofs being not being proofs because of circular reasoning rather some are trivial because they involve stronger premises than the conclusion. Interesting they found a non-trivial proof.

But are any proofs free of all circularity?!
Text: Although the Pythagorean theorem has been proved with algebra and geometry, mathematicians previously thought that it couldn’t be proved using trigonometry. That’s because the fundamentals in trigonometry are based on the same theorem, so any proof of it, experts suggested, would have to use principles that already assume the theorem is true, resulting in a logical fallacy called “circular reasoning.”
July 5, 2025 at 6:50 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I think by Carnap one is perfectly entitled to make cognitively meaningless utterances as long as you label them as belonging to the expressive function of language and not to the representative function of language. Here is a useful diagram.
A diagram with two large boxes next to each other. Above the box on the left is the text: "Expressive Function of Language Arts" Inside this box is the the text "Lyrical verses, etc." Text above the box on the right reads: "Representative Function of Language Science (-the System of Theoretical Knowledge)" Inside this box are two smaller boxes next to each other. The text above the box on the left reads: "Philosophy". The text above the box on the right reads "Empirical Science". The smaller box on the left inside the big box on the right is subdivided by horizontal lines into 3 sections. In the top section is the text "1. (Metaphysics)" with an arrow going from that text to the left across into the large box on the left ending pointing to the inside. In the second section is the text "2. (Psychology)" with an arrow going from that text to the right into the smaller box on the right inside the bigger box. The third section contains the text "3. Logic" The smaller box on the right is the text "Physics, Biology, etc.". There is some text below the big box on the right it reads: "[Note: Ethics is categorized as metaphysics/expressive in so far as it is normative and not descriptive.] "Transcribed from Rudolf Carnap, Philosophy and Logical Syntax, p. 32"
June 24, 2025 at 5:35 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
I realize this is pedantic (does not really change the message), but I really think it works better like this.
The Bart having the worst day of his life meme. Two stills from the Simpsons Movie. First Bart crouched hiding his naked lower body and the second Homer leaning down to talk to him. Text added reads "This is the hottest summer of my life!" "This is the hottest summer of your life so far!"
June 24, 2025 at 1:03 AM
allanolley.bsky.social
Reminds me of this headline (something like it that I read long ago, I Googled to find this) that scratches at the back of my brain as I imagine a very successful restaurant.

Although mine has a spelling issue.
Headline: "`Chinese Buffett' tops inaugural ranking of wealthiest domestic investors"
June 17, 2025 at 3:04 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
The light cone is defined by a point at here and now and then your future light cone (representing 3D space as a plane or line) spreads out at the speed of light (in your frame of reference), so 1 second later it is everything 1 light second away from you and so on. Googled a typical picture.
Header for the page reads "Faster than light? 143" Image of two cones meeting at there vertices at a point on a vertical axis. At the lip of the top cone is a line leading to the label "light flash from 'here and now' (future light cone)". Also the text "absolute future" is overlayed the top cone. Next to the vertices is the text "here and now". The text "absolute past" overlays the bottom cone and there is a line from the lip of the bottom cone to the label "light flash illuminating 'here and now' (past light cone)". To the left of the cones is a set of axises labeled t, y, x. "t" indicates the vertical direction pointing up, "y" a diagonal between "t" and "x" and "x" the horizontal direction pointing to the right. Also to the right and left of the cones is repeated on each side the text "relative past and future". The caption for the figure is "FIG. 31. The Light Cone."
June 8, 2025 at 3:20 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
This story does not mention what other stories do that the vehicle (ambulance?) Rivera was being transported in caught fire so they had to transfer her to another vehicle.

To suffer one horrific accident may be considered unfortunate, but two and it begins to look like carelessness.
Rivera was struck by gunfire during the confrontation, Snelling said, with officers transporting her to a nearby hospital. As officers were transporting her, the vehicle "malfunctioned" and caught fire, Snelling said, and she was transferred to another car.
June 6, 2025 at 8:20 PM
allanolley.bsky.social
Anguis Reid, online survey asking me the important questions...
A screen cap from an on-line survey. Words in a big white rectangle long ways horizontal. "Do you consider a hot dog a sandwich?" "[Check] Yes [both highlighted red]" "[empty circle] No" A rectangular red button at the bottom, contains the text (in white) "Next".
April 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM