Ghost Story: A Surprise

Laurence killed Derrick while Derrick was on his run. Laurence waited in the bushes in the parkland he knew Derrick ran in. Then when Derrick came by, Laurence hit him with a baseball bat, dragged him into the brush and bludgeoned him to death.

The police questioned everyone, including Laurence. But they had no good leads. Derrick had disappeared. That was all they knew.

But then Derrick started digging himself up. He was found in a pile of dirt by the grave Laurence dug for him in the brush by a jogger and her dog.

The police asked everyone about Derrick including Laurence. But they didn't find out anything.

Derrick was buried in a cemetery. But he dug himself out. The groundskeeper found him out of his plot. He was lying motionless and highly rotted in a pile of dirt on top of his grave.

Chock it up to gauche pranksters. Derrick was buried again. The news of Derrick's second coming had disturbed Laurence. Grave vandals? He didn't know. 

Winter came. A snow fell. The groundskeeper of the cemetery was alerted by visitors to a foot of snow displaced and a dirty little hole emerging in front of a grave.

The groundskeeper shrugged it off. Why bother anyone about a little hole. Nothing important could have anything to do with the hole. Dog went digging there, or some critter. He filled it.

A day later, a skeleton was found on the road outside the cemetery. More news. The body was identified as Derrick. More news still. Pranksters again. The body would be secured in a mausoleum on the grounds.

Thank god, Laurence thought. He was a rationalist but Derrick seemed to be coming for him. Agonizingly slowly. But persistently.

Laurence dismissed the thought and got on with his life. But he couldn't sleep.

Well, you conquer irrational fears by confronting them. Laurence would go to the crypt.

A visit was arranged with a cemetery manager. Laurence was allowed into the mausoleum. The manager gave him some time.

After an hour or so the manager checked on Laurence. The manager found Laurence dead on the floor. The room was as it had been when the manager left, though it looked like Laurence had disturbed the sarcophagus' marble lid when he fell. It was ever so slightly askew.

Fictional writing: Saul writing slice-of-life stuff, part II

Saul continued writing his slice-of-life writings inspired by his limited reading of Bukowski:

"Another Saturday. I seem to be writing these things on the weekend. Okay. Woke up at 830 or so, well, was in and out of it before then I think. More dreams. I had a dream I was at a bar during a pre-wedding event. I needed to get some kind of drink but the bartender was out of brandy or something like that. Later I tried to get a beer from him and he told me he wasn't serving me. I told him something like 'Fuck you!' and then went to the manager and got him in trouble. I went back to the bar and someone new was there, I guess, and I was told that the original bartender was sent 'North', whatever that meant. I don't remember if I got another beer. I looked across the bar and on the other side were people I knew, though I can't remember who--I think they were the women involved in the wedding event. I went over to that side and Fiona, my fiancee, was there (we weren't there for our wedding--someone else's--I magically knew this). We danced on a disco-y dance floor with swirling lights and there was a mirror we could see ourselves in and we were dancing well (in real life I don't feel very comfortable dancing). We were moving all over the dance floor though, so we were causing other people to have to watch out for us.

"I had some other dream too but it's not coming to me too, so I'll leave it for the moment.

"I had been reading books on Lean Manufacturing, or Lean Thinking. This week I read Eric Ries 'The Lean Startup', 'The Machine that Changed the World' by James Womack and 'The Innovators Dilemma' by Clayton Christensen--the last one is not obviously related to Lean, other than being recommended by Ries in his book.

"So I've been trying to get a sense of Lean and how it might improve my way of doing things. This week I watched a video of a guy illustrating the idea that small batch processes can be more efficient than big batch processes (small and big batch processing I don't think is my own term but I can't recall where I heard the phrase)--he has ten envelopes and he does a large batch process, where he first folds all the papers to go into the envelop, and then he stuffs all ten envelopes, and then he seals all ten envelopes, and then he puts stamps on all ten envelopes, or simulates this. Then he does small batch processing, where he folds one paper, stuffs it into one envelope, seals the envelope and puts the stamp on it, or simulates this, and then goes on to the second paper and repeats this process ten times. He times both processes and finds that the small batch process is about a third faster than the large batch processing.

"So I've been trying to do small batch processing in lots of things. I woke up today and did a small batch of laundry and I threw out a small batch of trash and recycling. I tried to keep my 'spaghetti chart' simple and with minimal movements. It's interesting. I don't know if I am more efficient or not. I'm experimenting.

"After I threw some laundry in the wash and made coffee et c. I brought coffee to Fiona in bed and sat down in bed with my lap top. I went to play a video on Facebook of a scene from Portlandia, but when I hit the mute button so I could hear, Guided by Voices' song 'Waving at Airplanes' started playing--I left Spotify on apparently. I played some more GBV and then turned to Pavement, playing most of their album, 'Slanted and Enchanted' while Fiona sat next to me playing 'Tetris Blitz'.

"I took a shower and did a reverse strip tease for Fiona when I got back to the bedroom. I was naked and then I put on my underwear while humming 'The Stripper' by David Rose. Then my socks in an awkward teasing, slow put-on. Then pants. Shirt. Ta-da! Dressed.

"Hm, is that erotic or not?

"Then Fiona took a shower and when she came back into the bedroom I played 'The Stripper' on my laptop and she did a better reverse strip tease.

"The night before, I had fallen asleep and Fiona was up. I was in the middle of a dream where I was around a round-table of people and someone had said something and I exclaimed, 'It's racist'--but I had woken up at this point. Fiona laughed. 'What did you say?' 'It's racist,' I said. 'You said something racist?' I laughed. 'No, literally, "It's racist!".' We laughed. 'What is?' she said. 'I don't remember.' We laughed again. I think I went back to sleep pretty quickly after that. Sleeping the sleep of the just apparently."

Fictional note: Dr. Bat's business idea

Dr. Bat jotted down an idea in his notebook while on the Red Line to Harvard:

"What if a company shared all information about its operations, costs, average sales, individual sales (all private info would be anonymous) and company cited this when explaining why they wanted a particular price for a product or when negotiating with a partner."

Fictional email: writer pitches horror sci fi idea

A writer emailed his agent:

"Here's a story idea. What do you think?

"A scientist claims to have found the key to immortality but won’t share it. Someone breaks into his lab. Finds out the scientist is really just a vampire."

Fictional Monologue: Crazy man

"I was at work. We have an elevator that goes up to the second floor. I asked a guy to hold it. He let the doors shut. I ran up the stairs and beat the elevator to the top. When the doors opened I blasted the guy with a punch to the face.

"I was idling in my car. The traffic was backed up through the intersection. Nowhere to go. Just bad traffic. The guy behind me honked his horn. I put my car in park and got out of the car. He saw me coming. He tried to lock his door but I got there first. I opened the door and pulled him out. We walked to the car in front of me, where a woman was sitting. She cracked the window as I we came up. 'This guy thinks you should move,' I said. 'He's going to explain to you how to do it.' I nudged him. 'Go on. And if you don't I'm going to throw you into the Charles.' The guy stuttered. 'Well,' he said, 'You have to just get into the wrong lane of traffic and drive past everyone else.' 'Good,' I said. 'Now there's a car coming in the other direction. They'd block her. We have to explain what they have to do.' We walked in front of the car coming in the other direction. We stood in front of the car. 'Yell your explanation,' I said. The guy wriggled a little. 'Come on man,' he said. 'Do it,' I said. He looked at the guy sitting in the drivers seat of the car in front of us. 'Get up onto the side walk and drive!' 'Good,' I said. 'Now we have to explain to the pedestrians what they have to do.' We walked up onto the sidewalk, and I threw the guy down the hill. Traffic was starting to move. I got in my car and drove off."

Fictional Journal Entry: R.E.A. Liste muses about an alternative-history United States 'baiting and bleeding' the Allies and the Axis in World War II

R. E. A. Liste mused in his journal:

"Just as an interesting speculative game--what would have happened had FDR tried to maintain the balance of powers among all the states during World War II? When the Allies were losing, the US would help them, and when the Axis was losing, the US would help them. I could see at the time France had been knocked out of the war that the US might rush in on the side of the UK, in 1940, rather than joining the war in late 1941. Then, as the Axis started to lose the war in 1941 or 1942, the US would step off the gas and stop pushing so hard against the Axis. Maybe the US wouldn't push so hard against the Italians in North Africa. And then as the Soviets and the Brits pushed back against the Axis, the US might even start to support the Axis, stemming the advances of the Allies.

"It seems pretty much impossible though for the US to do such a thing. It just doesn't seem very easy to change sides in a war. I suppose in order for the US to balance powers it might use its economic might to support one side or the other, to varying degrees. That would seem easier. When the Brits were on the ropes after France was knocked out of the war, the US would throw lots of economic and material support to the Brits. When the Italians were on the ropes against Britain in North Africa the US would throw more support to them in money and material and start taking it away from the Brits. Something like that.

"The end result would be what? The war would maybe go on longer and all the great powers involved would be weakened except I suppose the United States. There would be more death and destruction I suppose. Or maybe because the powers involved would feel themselves to be stuck in a deadlock, they would treat with each other and end the war more or less status quo antebellum--I've heard the idea proposed by I think it was Harry Browne and Murray Rothbard, and Patrick Buchanan--noninterventionists basically--that such an outcome would have happened in World War I--I don't recall if they applied the same lesson to World War II.

"So the negative probability from a humane perspective would be more war, more death, but from a political realist perspective, perhaps the US would have 'bled their enemies white' as John Mearsheimer roughly said, and I think others have used that phrase too. The positive possibility from the humane perspective is perhaps the nations would have seen they were stuck in an inescapable equilibrium and would have ended the war quicker and with fewer deaths. I am a bit skeptical since it seems like it would take a while for people to catch on to the US's game of playing both sides. The most likely-seeming result is the US becomes more powerful while the other great powers weaken progressively. The war ends in a stalemate and the US is left the world's sole superpower.

"But who knows! It also occurs to me that the approach I ascribe the US isn't power balancing I don't think, but 'bait and bleed' which John Mearsheimer, Wikipedia tells me, writes about."

Fictional Email: Non-Ghost Ghost Story

A writer emailed his agent:

"Here's an idea for a non-ghost ghost story. A man and his wife--they agree to get their heads frozen when they die. She passes before him and he lives on and marries again. He and his new wife get their heads frozen. They are all thawed out at different times in the future..."

Fictional Monologue: Dr. Bat on efficiency software for keystrokes

Dr. Bat wrote an email to friends:

 

"I think it would be neat to build software that made a sound to indicate when you had used more keystrokes than needed to do some routine process. The software would make pleasant sounds that changed to different pleasant sounds as you moved over the optimal amount of keystrokes for an activity, to indicate in a nonannoying way that you went over. Maybe something like this exists already. The software could count how far over you went. Maybe the screen could change to a different shade as you went over the optimum. The further you get from the optimum the more the sound and shade would change.

 

"That's all, thanks for listening!

 

"Dr. Bat"

Fiction Monologue: Saul on the day

Saul sat at his lap top and started typing:

"I was reading Bukowski's book 'Hollywood' and liked the slice-of-life approach. So I think maybe I'll try something like it. I don't know if I'll be any good at it. But I'll just write and see what happens.

"Okay, I guess I'll work backward since my memory is best about things that just happened. I woke up around eight and lay around in bed. I was just thinking about various things and flopping around, but I was comfortable enough. Fiona was asleep. She would have these little snores now and again, very light. A feminine snore. I apparently have annoying, whiny-sounding snores. Like the snore is complaining about something. Fiona once recorded me snoring to give me an idea. Funny thing is I snore like my mom--when I heard it I thought that, and not like my Dad who has a good snore, something that sounds like it comes from the mouth of hell. Loud. I remember as a kid hearing him one night snoring so loud I thought maybe he was hurting himself.

"I think I dreamt but I don't remember the dreams. For some reason the idea of a menacing face leaps out at me. Oh, no, I do remember some of my dreams. I was at the office, and I was at my computer. The screen was a massive round screen the size of an one of those inner tubes kids ride down snowy hills on. Or float in pools in--I'm from the north east so I think snow when I think of those things. We have pools in New England but they're almost pointless. Hey, want an expensive pond for ten months a year?

"Anyway, in the dream I was at my work station and someone came up behind me and I was looking at some site on the internet and wanted to shut it down, and I couldn't. The person shook my hand and told me that I was doing a lot of work, compared to my coworkers.

"Another section of the dream involved a dishwasher being installed in our kitchen. It was our house but didn't look anything like our real house. The super, Maxim--who is our super in real life--was this bald almost alien looking guy--that is the menacing face I was remembering. He shook my hand with a crushing grip--I normally don't have sensations in my dreams. He had a HEPA mask on, and took it off and said, "Maxim, nice to meet you." Real-life Maxim is a short Russian guy, but this guy was a bald, tall Middle-Eastern looking man.

"That is an odd phenomenon in dreams--things are taken to be familiar things but are represented in unusual ways--my dream office was considered familiar, but was nothing like my real life office. Ditto my house. Ditto my super. Weird. In the dream the versions of life were sort of better in some way.

"And the places are also somehow other places. I think my dream house was my residence but also simultaneously understood to be a place I was a guest at. Or something like that.

"I slept a lot last night. I was in bed at 7pm and was in there till 9am or so this morning. With say 3 hours of interruptions in there. So 11 hours of sleep. That's good. I slept from 7pm to 9pm or so the first leg, and Fiona, who was out with her friend, came back and I woke up and talked with her a little bit. Fiona found the cat had left a shit on the floor. She cleaned it up and got into bed. Then the cat jumped up on the bed and I saw a nugget of shit hanging from her behind.

"'Oh, she has a shit hanging!' I said and picked her off Fiona and dangled her off the bed.

"'Wait, it's okay. I'll just use a tissue to get it.'

"'I just want to get her off the bed first.'

"Fiona got a tissue from the bed stand and got the shit while I dangled the cat over the floor, and Fiona got up and flushed the shit. She came back into the room and got in bed. The cat sat by the window looking embarrassed.

"'You can come back here. It's okay,' Fiona said. The cat hung out by the window a little longer, but then jumped up on the comforter and sat on Fiona.

"'Hello, you little shit,' Fiona said and laughed.

"That day I had woken up at about 6. I skipped the shower. I got my clothes on. I love skipping the shower, because I can just get on with the day. I feel sort of bad in the mornings often, so the less I have to do early on the better. I had been tracking my energy patterns. I had a spreadsheet. Every hour I would note how I felt. I didn't do it for the first couple hours of the day but I probably would rate those hours something like 3 out of 10 or something, 1 being the least energetic and 10 being off the walls.

"At work I start off usually a bit low energy, around 7am, averaging something in the 4 out of 10 area. Then I rise up to something like 6 out of 10 around 10am. 10am is my peak. Then I slowly descend till the end of the day. Often there is a dip after lunch, what I have heard called the 'postprandial dip,' which I get from time to time, but the average trend is just a rise to 10am and then a decline of 4 out of 10 energy or so around 3pm.

"And during the week my pattern seems to be high energy on Monday, say a 6 out of 10 maybe, and then a decline to Wednesday to say 4 out of 10, and then Thursday leaps up to something like 6 out of 10 and declines on Friday a bit.

"The numbers are probably a bit off, but that is the general pattern. You want to catch me at my highest energy, meet me at 10am on Thursday.

"I haven't been good about tracking my time in my free time, but I should. It seems more important to know what my energy patterns are like when I am doing the stuff for me and my loved ones rather than work. Though I guess work is for me and my loved ones in a more indirect way. It's not fun always, though it's usually not bad, but it's not something I would do for fun.

"Well, so tracking my energy in general seems like a good idea. I got the idea from reading Scott Adams' book 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big' which should be taught in classrooms. I should buy that book for everyone I know and give it on the condition that they read it and give it away, or give it away to someone on the condition they read it or give it away, so the book just circulates through the population.

"I like that idea. I'm sure the book would end up sitting on someone's shelf. The thing is that you might mean to read it and then just forget about it, and so you're not really breaking my rule of reading it or giving it away. Maybe I should put a deadline on how long you should hold on to the book. I don't know. I have no way of enforcing this rule. I need to get some thugs to do my bidding. Flunkies. Thing is I would only be giving this book to friends and friendly acquaintances, so I wouldn't be sending my flunkies to go beat up on them for not following my rule about reading and giving away the book.

"That appears to be the only problem with this plan...

"Anyway, in the Scott Adams book, Scott recommends you focus on maximizing your energy as your main priority, so you have energy to do the other important stuff.

"Actually, from a dark side, this reminded me of what I read in the evil genius Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf', which was that he believed that the first task of his effort to grow his malevolent Nazi movement was to train organizers who would recruit more people who would organize--the focus was on recruiting recruiters, if I remember correctly. The energy of the movement was in its growth, so focus on the agents of growth. Focus on what energizes the movement most. The dark side of this approach, perhaps. All the more reason for counterforces to adopt useful methods to oppose the bad guys.

"Arguably Britain sort of focused on energy after they had been ejected from the continent by the Nazis post Battle of France. Churchill wanted to keep his forces working the periphery and working with guerrillas on the continent, husbanding his forces and preserving their energy while courting the Americans, whose manufacturing and population might could considerably expand the energy of anti-Nazi efforts. And Hitler squandered his energies against the USSR.

"Scott Adams, in any event, wisely I think recommends focusing on maximizing your energy, thinking about what energizes you, observing what energizes you, and then doing more of that--or avoiding or minimizing what drains you. So I started tracking my energy.

"Anyway, I go to work. I ride the 66 Bus to Harvard Square. I have my headphones on, plugged into my Kindle. Kindle has a text to audio app that allows the Kindle to read to you in a computer voice. So I read most books this way, or 'read' I guess. It's much more efficient for me to 'read' this way than the conventional ways. As experts have observed, sometimes people subvocalize when they read. I do this. So when I read I make a little voice in my head that speaks the words I read. Speedreading advocates try to get you to stop doing this but I find not doing this is annoying. So by listening to text I cut out a step in experiencing a text--I don't read and subvocalize anymore--I just have the Kindle read the writing to me. And this frees me up to walk around or look out the bus window or close my eyes so I can relax. I don't know how much energy vision takes up, but I think I've heard it's a fair amount, and so I can preserve energy this way.

"And I do. I often have the Kindle reading to me while I close my eyes and ride the bus in the morning.

"I was listening to a book, 'Lean for Dummies' about Toyota's approach to reducing waste and streamlining their production line. My boss was interested in introducing Lean ideas into our work system, and I had been interested in Lean myself. I had heard of it and read a little bit about it. It seemed opportune to learn more about it.

"The 66 bus comes a little after six to the end of my street. It's maybe a third full by the time it gets to me. Sometimes I miss it and take the 70 Bus to Central Square in Cambridge, or the 86 Bus to Harvard Square. The 66 Bus is most characterless in terms of the people who ride it. It's hard to do a thumbnail sketch of it. There are people, usually attractive young women, in exercise gear, who ride it to Harvard Stadium down the street, I guess. Or maybe they are running along the Charles. Take the bus from the ugly places to the pretty places to run.

"And then maybe a handful of students at Harvard or working people are on the bus. The bus does seem sort of democratic in the sense that it seems like a guy in a casual professional outfit might be riding with a construction worker, usually a white guy with a tan and paint on his pants, or Central or South American people (I'm guessing)--I see a lot of them coming out of the city to go to the suburbs. I wonder what they are doing? Landscaping? Working in kitchens? Mall or hospital janitorial staff? They're seldom in obvious work clothing--you work in an office you wear office clothes to work usually--if you work at a restaurant you usually put on some kitchen-wear when you get there, I guess, so you would wear your casual gear before you get there presumably. If you work as a janitor you might wear a uniform that you put on when you get there, perhaps. Landscaping I'm thinking you would look like a construction worker--durable, comfortable, well-worn clothing--the latinos I see don't seem to be wearing this stuff, just normal casual wear.

"I don't know. The latinos often travel in groups and seem cheerful and friendly and talkative. I've read there is less mental illness in the latino population and one theory I've read is that it's because of strong community ties. I could believe it.

"I used to drive to work, but my car died and I didn't want to spend the money on a new car. I used to live in the suburbs, so a car was necessary. But now that I live in the city, I can take public transportation. I can get to my work in the suburbs via bus and subway easily enough. It's interesting. You never see the same people in cars when you're driving to and from work. All cars seem new, the people in them new, as you drive along them. But I regularly see the same people on public transportation on my commute."

Fiction monologue: Dr. Bat on 10 percent of things working

Dr. Bat wrote an email to his friends:

"Hello all!

"I had some thoughts. I have noticed an interesting pattern from tracking some personal data. I have found that about 10 percent of the resumes I send out get responses. I notice about 10 percent of requests for people to reconsider something important to me lead to positive outcomes. I have noticed that often times when I break a record on some measure of performance, it is often around 10 times the average performance (say if I wrote one page on average a day, my record would be something like 10 pages).

"I wonder how true it is to say that 10 percent of your ideas will work, or will be accepted, and it's hard or impossible to tell which ones these ideas are. Or if you average a certain output, your best output would be 10 times that. If this is true, you might crank out lots of output--resume letters, requests in email, request for dates, whatever--on the idea that you'll get a bite on 10 percent of them.

"If you want to be a lady's man, ask out 1000 women, 100 of whom will give you the time of day, 10 of whom will do more than that. Figure out how to ask women out easily and more or less in bulk. Stand at a corner and say something like, 'Hey, wanna go out?' in machine-gun fashion to any reasonably attractive woman who walks by.

"Obviously I don't quite know how this rule might work, but it's just something I noticed in my data collecting. I feel like I might have read someone make a similar point but I can't quite remember. I recall Perry Marshall talking about something like this, regarding the 80/20 rule, but I can't recall the point and think it might have been a bit different.

"Anyway, here are a couple of thoughts that were floating through my head recently. I don't know if they are true or not, but they sound cool:

"Creativity or control--pick one.

"I'm rarely master of a situation. I'm rarely a slave to a situation too.

"OK, signing off!

"Dr. Bat

"PS: It occurs to me my musings on 10 percent of things seeming to work might be another way of stating Sturgeon's Law--it's not clear to me but things are close enough to give a nod to the law I suppose."

Fiction monologue: Dirk Rambler on Lean Manufacturing, energy and time as personal bottlenecks, efficiency through chamber pot usage, et c.

Dirk Rambler started to talk into his iPhone's voice recorder:

"Okay, I am just going to ramble and see where it goes. I guess I am thinking about how I can be more...energetic. I think probably aiming for a flow state is probably the main thing--a flow state is a psychological state discovered by a psychologist with a long name I don't know how to pronounce. Anyway, when I am in a flow state a produce a lot.

"I am interested in Lean Manufacturing and its ideas. But I'm not sure how to apply it to my life. I suppose in a perfect world I would make tons of money and I would do only what I want when I want with who I wanted. I would have all things immediately, magically.

"Well, I can't have that. But per Lean Manufacturing I might look towards intermediate steps. How about work? I don't want to work. Could I telecommute? That would save time. I don't think so. Could I do work from home without my boss knowing and then slack off at work doing things I am interested in? Possibly. Possibly. The problem is I work with sensitive material and and I have to be logged into company computer systems and if I did that from home they would know, I suppose--my employer. And I would possibly get in trouble or fired.

"Maybe I could stay late some days when I feel energetic and work until I don't feel like it and then leave other days or just stop working some other days. The idea would be that sometimes I have energy to work and sometimes my energy would be better spent doing non-work, but the nine to five dictates rigidly I do work at the same time every day. So Monday I feel energetic. I get in early and work before I'm technically supposed to. Maybe I do work that can't easily be verified by checking some computer system. Maybe I set up some work the night before using computer systems in order to work offline with the material I have gotten. That could work possibly.

"I could maybe stay later...the problem is my boss stays late too. See, what I am thinking is Monday, I feel energetic and so I work from say 630am, a half an hour before we technically are supposed to start working, and go till say 6pm, and take an hour in the middle there--possibly I work even later if I can. But let's say 630am to 6pm with an hour lunch. So that would be 10 and a half hours. Then say I do 10 hours the next four days and on Friday I pretty much just spend my time looking like I am working while I am actually just working on a novel or something.

"That would be interesting, but hard to do really. My boss would probably notice I am staying late and would think I am working OT, and expect to see it on my time card, when I am really just trying to get my 40 hours in quicker and then use Friday more or less as my own time, just at the office. This doesn't appeal to me either, this kind of week, because I'd be spending about 48 hours at the office while only getting paid for 40, which isn't very appealing I must say.

"Telecommuting would be great though. Too bad we can't do it. The government should mandate it. It would totally save companies in office space, and would save people in gas or bus fare getting to work. It would reduce road congestion and would reduce the wear on roads as they would be used less. Plus if you telecommute you could be around your kids while you work, so you could save on daycare.

"The problem is that your bosses wouldn't easily monitor you, but that can be gotten around a bit. I know a guy who telecommutes and his company has him leave his computer camera on. Companies could monitor how long people are logged on to their computer and how many keystrokes they did. But the simplest thing would be that companies pay people for productivity. You did x widgets and you get paid your pay check.

"Anyway...one big improvement for me was when I started taking the bus to work rather than driving in. I saved a lot of money because owning a car ended up costing me something like 200 bucks a month, when you tallied up all the expenses, while taking the bus is about 70 bucks a month, and the quality of the bus ride is better than the car ride, because I can read or listen to music or close my eyes and relax. Big improvement, though I wouldn't have thought so until I tried it out and saw for myself.

"What else...well, could I be more efficient in how I do my work? I think for me the big waste factor is probably in interruptions and maybe being forced to do work I don't have the energy to do at the time. One way to handle this might be to focus as much as possible on one thing--for example I have to do X form twenty times over the day. I could do them in a few sittings or I could do them in one sitting. One sitting is probably more efficient. Productivity gurus call this batching. So batch as much as possible. Being forced to do things I don't have the energy for--well, if you have to you have to, but maybe you can sometimes hold off on it till you have energy. I guess you have to read the situation and see if you can hold off till later. I don't know. Boss says do X thing now, and you think you can hold off till tomorrow when you'll have more energy, so you do. That sort of thing.

"I get energy from being productive, and I am productive when I am energetic. There's a positive feedback loop between the two things I think. I also get energy from listing ideas. Creativity gives me energy. A good conversation with someone I like gives me energy--someone I like or someone I think is at least probably okay.

"Interesting reading gives me energy. Whenever I can I try to keep my headphones plugged into my Kindle, which can read me text via its text to audio function.

"Energetic music gets me going--Slayer. Andrew WK--that's when you are in the mood for that kind of over the top stuff. Motorhead. The Misfits. Stuff that also energizes me in a different way might be Guided by Voices.

"Beauty gives me energy too sometimes. A beautiful painting. The paintings in the bar downstairs at Red Bones--a restaurant in Davis Square, Somerville, MA--those give me energy.

"Scott Adams recommends fantasizing to gain energy and I think he's right. I have to try it more. Plus you might get some ideas about what you would like to do in this world.

"Writing gives me energy. Just rambling. Rambling and rambling on the page.

"Coffee. A walk. Getting good sleep. Keeping stress levels down. Accomplishing something cool like putting on a show--I'm in a rock band. I had a job interview a while back and that gave me a boost of energy. Felt good to be looking into my options.

"But yeah...waste. How about waste in my personal life? I waste money. I spend  money on coffee rather than making my own, which is silly I suppose. Or eating out. Or on drinking beer. Beer makes you tired, fat and poor.

"Parties give me a boost when I get to hang out with my friends. Or going out to dinner with a friend or two and just talking about interesting things.

"Usually being uninterrupted in what I do and doing one thing for a long time--as long a time as I practically can--is a good thing for my mental health. If I could figure out a way to turn my to do list into something a little bit easier to focus on intently. Things that are easy to focus on require a kind of repetitiveness--writing you're typing on the keyboard. Playing guitar you're repeating a riff. Talking you're going back and forth with someone, talking and listening--oscillating--not a rhythm necessarily but I suppose a focus on communication, maybe? But with chores--for me it seems like they are often piecemeal affairs. Elements have a repetitive quality--doing the dishes, or doing the laundry. I suppose you could do all your bills all at once. Or all your emails to people. You could make all your appointments in one session. I guess it's doable.

"I guess the main principle is to stick with things as long as you can, until you get sick of doing the thing. Productivity gurus have more or less championed this idea or something like it. Don Aslett talks about getting into the zone or something like that and keeping with it for productivity's sake, which I think is probably right. Other productivity gurus talk about time-batching or avoiding multi-tasking or switch-tasking as I read someone call it. Steve Pavlina has also I think recommended sticking to something for a long time and this being good for productivity. I'm inclined to agree.

"One thing that is annoying at work is that I get coffee or have to go to the bathroom and that  breaks things up a bit. I have this little french press I can make coffee from but it's just one 20 oz coffee that it makes. Maybe what I could do is to make one coffee, pour it into my cup and then instantly rinse out the thing, pour more grounds in and then hot water and have that ready to go for when I want another. The coffee would cool but that's not a big deal really. I'd need to put milk in it which would mean I would have to go to the fridge. I guess if I had a little thermos with milk in it I could keep it at my desk. Save a trip. Still would have to piss though. Can't bring a chamber pot to work...or can I?

"No...at home I could, but my fiancee would kill me. Do people use chamber pots anymore? I bet you could sell chamber pots to college guys and other young bachelor types. Put it right by the bed--drank too much? Don't piss out the window--just use your chamber pot and empty it in the morning.

"I like it. I was reading Otto von Bismarck had enormous chamber pots. I don't remember from the reading if it was because he had enormous shits, but you can imagine he did given his girth and eating habits.

"I wonder if it's better to do one big exercise session compared to ones broken up throughout the week. Health recommendations seem to change over time--right now I think most health experts would say no, break your work outs up throughout the week, but I don't know. Say I just went did like three hours at the gym every Sunday or something and that was it?

"Seems like a bad idea. So don't batch exercise for efficiency. I have a jump rope I need to start using."

Fiction Monologue: Mr. Bat on all things being conscious to one degree or another, subjectively--on horror writers being big on openness to experience and neuroticism--and on the illusion of empathy

Mr. Bat wrote an email to friends:

"I think it would be interesting to write a ghost story which is premised on the idea that all matter has some degree of consciousness. I think that there is consciousness in all things to some degree myself. An quark has an experience, but it's very small, very simple, I suspect. The atom has more consciousness, and the human has more still. The universe has a consciousness too. Consciousness is inherent in matter, I think. The reason I suspect this is because it seems impossible (maybe it's not, of course) to figure out why a human has subjective consciousness and aren't philosophical zombies. By saying that matter is conscious, you side step the problem, but then you have to face the problem that you're saying all matter is conscious.

"I think horror writers tend to be high in the personality trait of openness to experience, but also neuroticism. So the ghost story writer is interested in weird phenomena but also scared of it. So you get stories like those written by M.R. James or H.P. Lovecraft in which characters are drawn to strangeness but at great risk to themselves. Openness is curiosity essentially, and neuroticism is the ability to feel negatively about things. M.R. James had a story called 'A Warning to the Curious'.

"I was thinking about something--I suspect people don't really have much in the way of empathy. They don't really understand people that are different from them, and they don't really like people when they are different from them. So we only understand people like us, who speak or emotional language I suppose, or our psychological language, and we sympathize with them because they have the same values and ways of understanding things. Women sympathize with other women. Men sympathize with other men. Women and men don't understand each other or sympathize with each other's plight. Except in the sense that they are both humans--on that level they understand each other and sympathize.

"Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings. Have a good day!

"Mr. Bat"

Fictional Monolog: Percy on sticking with something until you're sick of it, as a general approach, with reference to US World War II foreign policy

Percy sent an email to his friends, of his musings.

"I'm fascinated by sticking to whatever you're doing as long as you can and the work is worth doing," Percy wrote. "So if you're cleaning up a part of your room, you would try to keep cleaning until the whole room is clean, or you expand the cleaning to other parts of the house. Or you might expand the cleaning of the room to other things being done in the room, like maybe you fix a door in the room that has been stuck by sanding its edges or something. There are more than one way of sticking to something until you're sick of it. I've come across this idea of sticking with something as long as you can from multiple places--I think the productivity/cleaning guru Don Aslett argued for something like this principle in his writings. And I know productivity guru Steve Pavlina has argued for something like this too. Tim Ferriss argues for time-batching, as have other productivity people I think, and probably others I am forgetting.

"Jackson was telling me about his ideas about using the computer science algorithm of Shortest Job First. Very interesting. He applied something like that algorithm to foreign policy in World War II--American foreign policy anyway. The quickest of the great powers to be dispatched with were focused on in Jackson's musings. I think if you adapted the 'stick with it till you're sick of it' approach (SWIT for short) to American foreign policy in World War II, the idea would be to focus on problems as much as you can until they are unpopular with the American people or they are not feasible anymore, or the job has been complete and the US can turn to something else. Aside from the main focus, the US would send minimal help in directions it absolutely had to to serve its ends, since the US would have to deal with more than one thing at a time.

"Anyway, I think possibly things might look this way. The US wanted to help curb Germany it seemed as they accrued power, and wanted to pass the buck to  Britain and the Soviet Union in doing so. They wanted to keep these two powers in the war and so implemented Lend-Lease to keep Britain and Russia in the game. They would do this as long as possible. Then Japan struck the US in Pearl Harbor and the US declared war on Japan, which caused Germany to declare war on the US, since it was allied with Japan.

"I suppose you could say that the US could maintain sticking to Lend-Lease and not getting into a proper war with Japan or Germany at this point, if the US is going with a SWIT approach. I think at this point war with Japan was popular, and so you might say that Lend-Lease was something that the public mood had gotten sick of. So I think probably the US would turn in the direction of the most proximate fight, which was with Japan, and prosecute this battle until it was over, while continuing to supply Britain--but the main focus would be on Japan, which would be different than how things really happened, which was that the US shifted focus on Germany and Japan was a secondary concern, I think.

"So the US would keep supplying Britain and Russia while going after Japan. I think this would mean that Japan would have exited the war first instead of Italy, who was in reality knocked out by the Allies either in North Africa or in Italy depending on how you look at things. So the US would make a concerted effort to knocking out Japan, focusing most of its might on them, while supplying Britain and the USSR to keep them in the fight. I'm not sure if this would have worked in the case of the USSR--a major concern for invading Europe was to keep the Soviets from settling with the Axis. So it seems in this alternative view there would have been a greater chance of the USSR separately treating with the Germans and leaving the war, which would free up Germany to fight the British.

"In this alternative view it also seems likely that the Brits 'peripheral strategy' as it has been called by historians--would have been employed. The idea was to encircle Europe and launch small tough armored attacks amphibiously onto the continent, and to use these attacks would be used to stimulate guerrilla support against the occupying Nazis. This approach would be used anywhere possible--in France, Norway, Italy, and the Balkans.

"Anyway, the US would knock out Japan earlier all else being equal. Whether the USSR could or could not get a separate peace with Germany, I think it's probably unlikely that Germany could supply Japan with much help, and I doubt the Soviet Union would have helped the Japanese against the US, though I don't really know. So I'll just assume that the US knocks Japan out of the war quicker and then turns to knocking out Germany, or I suppose Italy as they are Axis partners. I'm guessing Italy and Germany are on more stable footing than they would have been had the US helped Britain and the USSR with an actual army. I think Italy would stick around in North Africa and there would be no invasion of Sicily or Italy on the scale that actually was the case, though Britain might have had more little attempts in line with the peripheral strategy and this might or might not have born some fruits in uprisings against the Axis.

"The US would have come into the battle and I suppose the easiest object might have been the Axis in North Africa--the US would have mobilized most of its strength against Japan and so would be in the Far East, but could not make its way towards Europe most directly through the Suez Canal, putting them in the Mediterranean Theater, and in proximity to Axis forces there. So the US might have moved its troops that way and launched attacks against the Axis from the East from British-controlled Egypt rather than as they did in real life by hopping on North Africa from the west and attacking Axis troops that way, while the Brits faced off against the Axis from the East.

"I think then the war would have moved roughly as it did from North Africa to Sicily, to Italy, and then I think probably would have lead to actions in the Balkans, which were easier to get to from Italy than say Southern France I think, and then Germany would perhaps be pushed back from combined USSR and US and British troops from the east.

"Would this have been a better approach than the one that happened? I don't know really. My instinct is to say probably not, since the actual planners were probably smarter than me and they were hashing out these ideas over years, while I am just tossing off something in many minutes. But it's fun to think about.

"But you see the basic application of SWIT to foreign policy tends to favor ideas or proximity and concentration. I think Robert Citino characterized what he called 'The German Way of War' as something like 'hit the closest enemy as fast and as hard as you can.' This is in the operational level of war. This idea seems similar to the SWIT approach to foreign policy."

Fiction monologue: Grant imagines he is president, his interesting method for thriving in politics based on the improv rule of 'yes and', his fantasy about trying out some of his wild ideas about promoting his band

"I'm going to fantasize about things," Grant said. "What am I thinking? Well, I imagine that I am the president of the United States. Russia has conquered Crimea. What do I do? I write up a speech. I propose that Russia keep Crimea and Ukraine joins NATO and also enters into CSTO, Russia's version of NATO I guess. NATO and CSTO would have yearly meetings in Ukraine, conferring a high status on Ukraine. The idea of my foreign policy would be to essentially try to say yes to everyone (this is a generalization of the improv idea of "yes and" where you keep the improv going by saying "yes and"--also others have contemplated or experimented wit the idea of 'saying yes' to everything--the movie "Yes Man" and there was a book where a guy held himself to a rule of 'saying yes' to everything for a year, I think). The founding fathers wanted to avoid entangling alliances, and my approach would be to multiply entangling alliances so much that it's hard for any nation to do anything against any other nation because who knows who will come to their defense. Also, it's good to say yes--people like you when you say yes. And I think saying yes tends to allow you to find something like the median of the political spectrum. If you try to say yes to both Russia and to Ukraine then you find some middle ground between the two positions, and that is usually where negotiations end up. You always look like the guy who everyone ends up agreeing with because you tend to get to the middle point before others.

"My domestic policy would follow a similar pattern--I'd shoot for saying yes to both Republicans and Democrats. I'm from Massachusetts so I would have to run as a Democrat, though I don't have any real commitment to Democrats or Republicans.

"So I think on the big issues--well, what are the big issues--I guess domestically, maybe ObamaCare is still a big issue. Republicans want to get rid of it I think--I don't follow politics very closely so I'll just go with my gut feeling rather than doing research just for the sake of moving this fantasy forward. And Democrats want to keep it, and I am thinking they probably want to expand healthcare coverage backed by the government as far as they can get it. So I would say yes to less ObamaCare and yes to more ObamaCare--I know, you can't really say yes to opposing views--but what I mean by this is I say to both sides that sounds good, and look at two competing views and harmonize the two. So maybe I suggest that there are some ways for people to get out of having to deal with ObamaCare--maybe there is some special dispensation from ObamaCare regulations for people who don't want to be involved in it.

"Similarly, with minimum wage, Democrats want to raise it and I think Republicans generally don't. So I would shoot for having minimum wage but I would also want to expand the ability for businesses and other organizations to make some people interns who can be paid less than minimum wage, or who work for education. That way there is an increase in minimum wages while also allowing some flexibility for dealing with special cases.

"How about abortion? Republicans I think generally want to restrict it and Democrats want to preserve and perhaps expand the ease of getting an abortion. So my desire would be to give the Democrats what they want but link it to giving the Republicans what they want. Democrats might want to make it possible for a minor to have an abortion without parental notification because they think at some point a minor should be able to make that call, or some other reason, so I might favor it if we could also put more money into subsidizing adoption and outreach to pregnant women who are considering abortion to consider adoption, and to help fund the process with government money, or perhaps the government could help coordinate private money as Republicans might feel government subsidies might produce some moral hazard in the sexual arena.

"These might not be great ideas, but the general principle I think is sort of illustrates. By saying yes to both sides, you're looking to give them what they want, and harmonize their wants, rather than choosing sides.

"I guess I would have had to follow such an approach in a smaller realm in my climb to the presidency. In other words, in Massachusetts, I would have had to say yes to the voters and other stake holders in policy when running for office. As a Democrat I would have to focus on the voters in the primary, say, if I were running for US Senate. And then when I win that I would have to focus on saying yes to the general electorate, and hopefully by this process I am most likely to get to the majority I need to win, though of course it's not guaranteed.

"Let me fantasize about something else now. Hm. I have focused on the rule Scott Adams and others have suggested of 'prioritizing for energy'--I think that is how Adams put it. So I would have an eye to doing what gives me the most energy or drains it least of the available options I guess.

"So I guess...well, I focus on the things that energize me. I love writing so I think I would do a lot of that. I would also do more jamming with friends, as I love to play music with them. I think I would try to avoid having to do a lot of travelling as it seems to drain my battery. Or if I do travel I would try to build in a lot of downtime where I can just sit around. Or when I travel the main thing is eating at restaurants and drinking beer and hanging out with friends. Not a lot of walking around or shopping I guess. I would as much as possible sleep in. Weekend days must allow me to sleep in unless it's vital that I don't, I think.

"Let me think of some other fantasy idea...how about if I implemented lots of my weird ideas. Okay. One idea is booking music shows with venues where I fit two bands per hour on stage for five hours, so 10 bands play for the night. The bands share all the gear on the stage, so bands can just jump up and plug in, essentially. If you really need your own gear, well, you have 10 minutes to get it set up along with whatever other prep you need.

"Artists would cover the walls with their paintings--I'd try to get as many as I could, and each would contribute ideally just one or two of their paintings. Maybe I could get more artists involved. People could buy paintings.

"The artists would also be drawing tee shirts for people using sharpees. The bands would pay for cheapo tee shirts, plain, and the artists would just make minimalist shirts, with the band names on them.

"My band would play. We would do 1 minute songs, so we would be able to cover 20 songs in our 20 minute set, roughly. We would give away for free CDs I burned on my computer, which would be placed in plain white CD envelopes of cardboard that members of the band and I would decorate with art work. The album would have my phone number, email and website on it.

"I would also put the album in bathrooms. I would put a stack on top of toilets. I would put them in the bathroom at practice spaces for people to grab if they want.

"I'd try to set up as many of these packed bills as possible. I would put a post up on craigslist asking if bands wanted to join up. The shows I guess would go from 7-12 or 8-1am I guess. And as many artists as possible as well."

Fiction Monologue: Jackson on World War II Foreign Policy with an Eye on the Computer Science Concept of 'Shortest Job First'

"I am fascinated by the shortest job first algorithm," Jackson said. "This algorithm prioritizes work according to which job can be done in the shortest period of time. If the US in World War II had used this priority to defeat its competitors, it might have supported the effort to knock off the competitor who could be dealt with quickest. World War II started in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. At the time I think the great powers were the US, the British Empire, France, Germany, the USSR, Italy and Japan--I think that is what I read according to Wikipedia. So in 1939 who was the easiest power to knock off for the US? Geographically Japan and the UK were closest I suppose, but very far away in absolute terms. The weakest of these great powers I would think was probably Italy, maybe the USSR and Germany might also be candidates. So perhaps the US would figure out a way of concentrating against Italy. This might mean just helping out enemies of Italy. In this case it was the British Empire, who was interested in protecting the Mediterranean to allow sea lanes to be open between Britain and its far eastern colonies, which they could access via the Suez Canal in their colony of Egypt. So the US might help the British weaken the Italians. In 1940, the Germans conquered France. This knocked out one great power unexpectedly. Now there was the US, the British Empire, Germany, Italy, the USSR and Japan as great powers remaining. Who could the US knock off quickest at this point? Italy and the USSR probably seemed weakest at this point. The US at this point might seek to continue helping Britain with the aim of weakening Italy in North Africa. The US could consider helping Japan against the USSR but it seems that any action Japan took against the USSR would not knock the USSR out, because the most valuable land in the USSR was in Europe, where a decisive blow would more likely come from. So the US would stick to helping the Brits knock out the Italians.

"Although perhaps the Brits were the weakest great power at this point. What if the US turned its attentions form knocking Italy out of the great power club and towards Britain as the Germans isolated the Brits? Actually, that is not implausible. Without the US help, it seems plausible the British might have collapsed as a great power and its empire would have fallen apart. But perhaps it would simply do as Winston Churchill had said, and fought on in the colonies. But perhaps Britain would be like France--a colonial power knocked out of the great power club by a knock to its homeland. I don't think France had as extensive a colonial system though. Britain had India.

"It seems plausible at least that Britain would not be a great power anymore if Britain was conquered by the Germans with the help of the US.

"Well, let's consider that as an alternative for the 'shortest job first' algorithm of US foreign policy priorities in  knocking out great power competitors.

"Okay, so 1941--we're assuming the US has helped Britain with the aim of knocking out the perceived 'shortest job' of Italy. Germany has knocked out France and now turns to the USSR. Who is the weakest of the great powers now? The US, Britain, Germany, Italy, the USSR and Japan remain in the game. Britain looks weak, Italy looks weak, Germany looks strong, the USSR--it's a tough call--possibly, and Japan right now seems pretty strong I guess. Japan attacked the US in late 1941 too so the US is formally at war with them.

"Well, when Germany turns to USSR, people have argued, I think, that they had given up on the idea of knocking out Britain. If the US said they would help Germany after they had conquered France, possibly Britain could have been weakened, possibly it could still keep in the game by fighting from the colonies as Churchill argued--Britain had Canada, Australia, India, and probably other considerable holdings that could be mobilized. So one should be cautious about turning on Britain as they seem rather robust. Ditto the USSR as they have such a great strategic depth. Italy still seems rather favorable as the US can help Britain rather easily, and Italy doesn't have much strategic depth, and it's not a robust colonial power like Britain. Arguably also Germany is the weakest of the great powers because its fighting Britain and USSR--two powers with great strategic depth, one based on its considerable colonial holdings and the other because of its vast geographic size and resources and ability to mobilize industry--though at the onset of the German attack on the USSR, I don't know how clear it would be that the USSR could move its industry outside the grasp of Germany.

"So I think the best bet is to help Britain versus Italy and focus on knocking them out. They still seem like the weakest of the great powers. Okay, 1942. The great powers are the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, the USSR, and Japan. The weakest power--Germany has knocked out the USSR from the war, and is fighting Britain and the USSR. Italy is being propped up by Germany in North Africa against Britain who is being helped by the US. One interesting what-if is that if the US had focused on helping Britain but not the USSR, on the premise of focusing on the shortest job first and not spreading around help, then would the USSR have collapsed against Germany--in other words was US aid decisive in keeping the USSR in the war?

"Impossible to know, but another interesting possibility to consider. We'll assume the USSR was able to  hang on without help. Also I think probably Italy will probably get knocked out quicker if the US is focusing on them. Anyway, Italy is still focused on I guess by the US in 1942 and Japan is just given enough attention to protect the US. The US continues to help Britain against Italy, either with lend-lease supplies or now that the US are into war and the Axis has declared war on the US, the US can just get on with attacking Italy with the Brits.

"1943 who is the 'shortest job'? The US, Britain, Italy, Germany, the USSR, and Japan are the great powers still in the game. Who's weakest? Germany is weakening and the USSR is strengthening with Stalingrad's outcome in early 1943. North Africa sees the Axis leave in 1943 as well. Italy is most threatened because they are a hop across the Mediterranean. I think Italy is still the weakest power. Germany is probably second. Third would be Japan. Fourth maybe Britain. Fifth USSR. So that would be the order with which the US would deal with great powers. 1943 sees Italy kicked out of the great powers as it loses North Africa and really, it had been propped up by Germany anyway in North Africa.

"1944, the great powers remaining are US, Britain, Germany, the USSR and Japan. Germany looks weakest. The US will help knock them out of the great power club this year.

"1945 Germany is knocked out of the great power club. The US then would turn against Japan I think. When Japan gets knocked out, then the US would turn against Great Britain, and then the USSR.

"So let me consider now the alternative possibilities--the US turns on the UK after Germany knocks France out of the war. Two salient possibilities--Britain ceases to be a great power, or it remains and fights from the colonies. I suspect the first option--I suspect that if the US sided with Germany, then the Us would seize Canada and also help Britain starve out the British Empire in the Battle of the Atlantic. Britain would have its other colonies but would be something like Vichy France at this point in terms of power.

"So at this point the remaining great powers would be the US, Germany, Italy, the USSR and Japan. The weakest of them at this point it seems would be either Italy or the USSR. Germany I think would likely then turn against the USSR, in which case it would be isolated against the Axis powers. From an alliance perspective the USSR would be weakest then, whereas Italy, the other candidate for weakest power had Germany as a powerful friend. Italy might be more powerful too as it might have gained land from the British Empire in North Africa with the defeat of Britain by Germany and the US.

"So I suspect the USSR was the weakest power remaining at this point, and so the US would bandwagon and help knock out the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed, who would be the weakest of the remaining powers? Germany, Italy and Japan would remain along with the US. Japan is perhaps the easiest to get to, though Italy is also a candidate I suppose. Japan would probably have a harder time of getting help from its partners in Europe whereas if the US attacked Italy it could get help from Germany easily due to closeness.

"I'll guess that the US goes after Japan and picks them off in a war. I suspect also that Germany would side with the US in such a war for racist reasons. After Japan was subjugated, then the US I think would attack Italy. I suspect Germany would try to help Italy. Who know show that would go. And if the US knocked out Italy, then it would focus on Germany.

"The other interesting possibility was that the USSR without the help the US, who we imagined would be helping exclusively Britain against the weakest perceived great power who could be dispatched quickest, Italy, would collapse against Germany in 1941. If that happened then the remaining powers would be the US, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan. I think the US would continue focusing on Italy to knock them out of the war, although perhaps this would mean essentially facing off against Germany who seems to be the strongest power at the moment--in other words, Italy might be weakest in isolation, but when considering its alliances and its proximity to its strong ally, Germany, one might consider Japan as a better candidate--Japan has Germany as a strong ally, but Germany is remote. On the other hand, Germany might be able to support Japan through Siberia as it has conquered the USSR in this scenario. Still, that's a long way, and arguably Germany would prefer the US to win over Japan for racist reasons.

"Well, let's say that the US thinks they can essentially knock Italy out of the great power group--when Germany becomes the main force the US is facing it'll back off, but Italy will have at this point become a Germany colony. Arguably this had sort of happened anyway when the British knocked back the Italians and Rommel was sent to North Africa.

"Well, let's say that the US turns against Japan as the easiest candidate for getting booted from the great power club. The US knocks Japan out in a war in the Pacific, with the help of Great Britain who has also been attacked by Japan.

"The remaining great powers then would be the US, Britain, Germany and Italy. I think the US would focus on knocking Italy out of the war and would essentially do so, with the help of Britain. They'd climb up the boot and push the Nazis more or less out of Italy.

"This is where things get very tricky--who know? The US, Britain and Germany remain as great powers. Who is weakest? I suspect actually Britain is--Germany seems like the greatest land power at this point, with the resources of Eurasia at its fingertips and its superior battle doctrine. Britain is a great sea power, but at this point, I would think the US is way up there too--I don't know but I would guess that the US is even greater as a sea power than Britain. So I think the US would turn against Britain and conquer it. Then it would face off against the remaining super power of Germany.

"I should add as I talked here I actually seemed to employ a 'Shortest Remaining Time' algorithm rather than a 'Shortest Job First' algorithm, meaning I was willing to have the US change its priorities before finishing off one great power, as the situation changed."