Varia – Page 9 – Maverick Philosopher

If You Come to a Fork in the Road . . .

. . . take it. (Yogi Berra) My favorite Yogism: "Hey Yogi, what time is it?" "You mean now?"

The Ghost Town Of Dunmovin, California

Dunmovin is a California ghost town, now little more than a wide spot in the road on U. S. 395, one of my favorite highways. I have driven past it many a time, but never stopped to explore, not that there is much there to explore. An Internet search turned up an interesting post, dated 15 September 2008, The Ghost Town of Dunmovin, California. It was written by the late Harry Helms and is copied below in toto from his defunct weblog.

After reading the post, I brought up the topmost page of the Harry Helms Blog and was both surprised and saddened to find that the relatively young Mr. Helms lost his battle with cancer. Here is his farewell post. May we all accept our deaths with as much peace and equanimity.

………………………….

Highway 395 in California runs from Interstate 15 (just beyond Cajon Pass) up to the Nevada state line. For much of its route, it parallels the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada range and offers jaw-dropping mountain scenery. It is a road I have driven dozens and dozens of times, and is one of my all-time favorite highways. And along it you can see the ghost town of Dunmovin, California. If you like Dunmovin, you can buy it! Take a look at this photo:

Dunmovin is located about three miles north of the Coso Junction rest stop along Highway 395, but getting there is complicated because the rest stop is located on the northbound side of Highway 395 but Dunmovin is on the southbound side; you'll have to drive a little north and then loop back south. When you arrive, you'll find the town site is enclosed behind a fence (or at least it was last time I visited back in 2003). It's a very isolated area, and the chances of anyone knowing (or caring) that you trespassed on the property are remote. However, I preferred to respect the property rights of the owner(s) and instead looked at it from afar. Below is what seems to have been a store, judging from that faded and now illegible sign atop the front:

I've had zero luck in finding out anything about Dunmovin. According to post office records, there was never a post office there nor does the state of California have any record of an incorporated town at this location. It appears on some road maps (especially those from the AAA) but not others. My guess is this location served travelers back when Highway 395 was the main route between Los Angeles and Reno. The neon sign below was probably a welcome sight in the night for weary travelers way back when:

I'm guessing the structures below are some of the guest cabins, although I wouldn't be surprised if some of them also housed workers—–Dunmovin is a long way from any place to live (CalTrans workers at the nearby Coso Junction rest stop live in mobile homes belonging to the state). You can see a mobile home in the photo below, but looking at it through binoculars I saw that it was abandoned (door and windows open, etc.), The whole site seemed 100% deserted, with not even a caretaker on the premises:

I get the feeling this structure may have been a restaurant; it has "the look" of one, especially with those windows and curtains:

What is most puzzling about Dunmovin is its enigmatic web site, which offers no history or background about Dunmovin but does offer several photos of the construction of a mountain home (click the "Now Showing" link at the site) along with hosting server data (click the other links at the site). If anyone knows more about Dunmovin, I'd certainly like to hear from you!

Posted by Harry Helms at 5:20 PM

Labels: Ghost Towns

NRO: One Crappy Website

Not because of content, but because of presentation. The content is fine and in some cases excellent. But if I am reading a piece by Victor Davis Hanson or Kevin D. Williamson I am immediately put off and pissed off by a piece of freaking advertising right in the main body of the text. Not on the right sidebar, where it belongs, but smack in the text. And then there are hyperlinks, right in the main body of the text, to the articles of other writers. That's an outrage and ought to be protested by any writer who takes his work seriously. If I were Hanson I would write a nasty letter to the editor and say something like, "You want to publish my work? Then show me some respect. Get those advertisements and hyperlinks out of my text."

Relevant hyperlinks can be placed at the bottom of the main text.

And of course I am not objecting to advertising. Just don't assault me with noises and moving images and other distracting clutter. Isn't NRO supposed to be a conservative publication?

NRO is not unique in its offensiveness; indeed there are sites that are worse.

Now that my blood is up, I'm heading for the weight room.

Keep E-Mail Pithy!

I appreciate e-mail and I try to answer it. Unfortunately, I do not have time to sort through diffuse and rambling missives. Ars longa, vita brevis. So if you want to get a rise out of me, keep it brief and to the point.

Beware the Ides of March

Friday the 13th, Super Pi Day, and today the Ides of March. We have quite a weekend going here, muchachos. When will this come around again?

Happy Super π Day!

π day is 3/14. But today is super π day: 3/14/15. To celebrate it properly you must do so at 9:26 A.M. or P. M. Years ago, as a student of electrical engineering, I memorized π this far out: 3.14159.

The decimal expansion is non-terminating. But that is not what makes it an irrational number. What makes it irrational is that it cannot be expressed as a fraction the numerator and denominator of which are integers. Compare 1/3. Its decimal expansion is also non-terminating: .3333333 . . . . But it is a rational number because it can be expressed as a fraction the numerator and denominator of which are integers (whole numbers).

An irrational (rational) number is so-called because it cannot (can) be expressed as a ratio of two integers. Thus any puzzlement as to how a number, as opposed to a person, could be rational or irrational calls for therapeutic dissolution, not solution (he said with a sidelong glance in the direction of Wittgenstein).

Yes, there are pseudo-questions. Sometimes we succumb to the bewitchment of our understanding by language. But, pace Wittgestein, it is not the case that all the questions of philosophy are pseudo-questions sired by linguistic bewitchment. I say almost none of them are. So it cannot be the case that philosophy just is the struggle against such bewitchment. (PU #109: Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.) What a miserable conception of philosophy! As bad as that of a benighted logical positivist.

Many people don't understand that certain words and phrases are terms of art, technical terms, whose meanings are, or are determined by, their uses in specialized contexts. I once foolishly allowed myself to be suckered into a conversation with an old man. I had occasion to bring up imaginary (complex) numbers in support of some point I was making. He snorted derisively, "How can a number be imaginary?!" The same old fool — and I was a fool too for talking to him twice — once balked incredulously at the imago dei. "You mean to tell me that God has an intestinal tract!"

Finally a quick question about infinity. The decimal expansion of π is non-terminating. It thus continues infinitely. The number of digits is infinite. Potentially or actually? I wonder: can the definiteness of π — its being the ratio of diameter to circumference in a circle — be taken to show that the number of digits in the decimal expansion is actually infinite?

I'm just asking.

Now go ye forth and celebrate π day in some appropriate and inoffensive way. Eat some pie. Calculate the area of some circle. A = πr^2.

Dream about π in the sky. Mock a leftist for wanting π in the future. 'The philosophers have variously interpreted π; the point is to change it!'

UPDATE: Ingvar writes,

Of course the ne plus ultra pi day was 3-14-1592 and whatever happened that day
at 6:53 in the morning.
So we have one yearly, one every millennium, and one
once.

Friday the 13th Cat Blogging! In the Foothills of the Superstition Mountains.

I Ain't Superstitious, leastways no more than Howlin' Wolf, but two twin black tuxedo cats just crossed my path. All dressed up with nowhere to go. Nine lives and dressed to the nines. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Superstition. Guitar solo starts at 3:03. And of course you've heard the story about Niels Bohr and the horseshoe over the door:

A friend was visiting in the home of Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr, the famous atomic scientist.

As they were talking, the friend kept glancing at a horseshoe hanging over the door. Finally, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, he demanded:

“Niels, it can’t possibly be that you, a brilliant scientist, believe that foolish horseshoe superstition! ? !”

“Of course not,” replied the scientist. “But I understand it’s lucky whether you believe in it or not.”