Can you milk a cow over and over and over again? No, they'll run dry.
So, you let a cow go out to pasture and graze. Then, when they're nice and plump, you milk them.
Cows are informants.
You milk cows for time-sensitive information (milk).
If not acted upon quickly, it will spoil.
Work it a bit and it turns to cream.
What is the "cream of the crop"?
It's the best of a group.
So, cream is to milk as reliable and lucrative information is to time-sensitive information. It keeps a bit longer, but it spoils just the same.
Anything liquid flows. Information (water) flows, but it's cheap. Information that's thick and fatty (can make you rich) is milk.
Information that you curate and prepare for use in, say, a mouse trap is cheese.
Cream Cheese is thick and doesn't flow, but can spread.
What spreads? Rumors.
Cream Cheese, then, is bait that spreads only as far as you want it to. It doesn't fall through holes (like in a bagel) so you can be sure it won't spread farther than you intend.
For a real-life example...
Someone you work with seems like they are likely to steal if given the chance. You suspect they might have stolen from the store, but you aren't sure. You don't like them in general, so you craft a plan to get them caught stealing, along with other employees you question the loyalty of.
You tell the person that the cameras don't actually work on Fridays when Windows 10 updates because the computers auto-restart and the cameras need to be manually turned back on by IT, who typically don't work on Fridays.
Only you, the IT team, and now the other employee know this.
Wait a couple weeks. Ask staff members if the cameras were acting funky the last couple Fridays. If any mention they know the cameras don't work during a Windows update, you know that the one you confided in spread the info to the ones he might trust to not rat him out should he steal.
If a theft occurs on a Friday, conveniently during a Windows 10 update, you now have a list of people crafted ahead of time involving all those who could have committed the crime.
Do you see how the FBI might use such a scheme to set-up and entice groups they monitor into committing crimes they wouldn't have attempted had they not been leaked the info? It only goes so far, because they can't spread it without implicating themselves. It makes a neat and tidy round-up if you're in the FBI.
Yeah, I get it, and I really like the way you sort it all out in simple digestible language. But I still think in this case they're talking about money. The double mastectomy did it for me there (per my other comment below).
Cheese is not always about bait for a trap, but it's clearly something we all want. This book equates cheese to money. They created it for companies to hand out before huge layoffs. And perhaps to establish the comms that cheese is money.
Cheese is one type of money. Cheddar, once, being the most common of the phrase: "You got dat cheddah?" There are different types of cheese, which alludes to different types of bait. Cheddar is specifically money bait, but money is anything of immediate transactional worth. Even more particularly, it's talking about the "Government Cheese" which connects it to things like marked bills the FBI uses for stings and incentive plans through Welfare and the like. Either way, it's money used to entice someone.
Cabbage/Lettuce (or any leaf) is cash and/or cheques. Paper money. The type of leaf, given context, determines what specifically it's talking about. Mint, as in mint leaves, refer to freshly printed cash, because it has that distinct, fresh smell. Leaves are typically unmarked, unless there are recalls due to e-coli or the like.
Asteroids, full of precious metals, are slush funds. Tracking their movements gives an update on how close they are to burning up.
Comets are research groups. Fast-flying balls of ice(history/facts) that leave a trail. Research papers can be traded like a currency in order to push products, especially medical products.
Gold is actionable investments particularly involving an inventive work/strategies. Gold is revolutionary ideas and discoveries.
Silver is like Gold, but is innovation rather than invention. It's prospect and privilege with what is already established, essentially. "Born with a silver spoon in his mouth."
Eggs (Nest Eggs) are retirement funds -- combinations of silver and gold (egg white and egg yolk) that aren't valuable until the "hens come home to roost." Which is, when you retire. Retirement funds, like 401k's are built on stock trading and bonds.
Bucks are the most common in North America when referring to money. "Bucks" as a term originates from "Buck Skin" which was by-and-large the most liquid asset one could trade with during the early frontier years of the Northern Americas. Now, bucks refer to people-as-currency ventures, as far as I can tell. The ones where you have to look over your shoulder and not get caught out like a deer in headlights. Bucks are skittish, and deal with information of a sensitive nature. DOE a deer -- Department of Energy. EXPLOSIVE materials. Things that will cause many to live out Bambi's life when all their parents get taken down for money crimes. It's not always deer, though. Leathery money, in general, is a buckskin. Ultimately, a buck is someone's hide that is used as a form of currency. Patsies. You hiding behind someone else's skin. Controlling someone's actions is valuable in itself. Calling in favors has tangible worth at times.
Clams. Old, shiny money. Can be a reference to silver/gold-backed dollars way back when. It's fallen out of fashion, which supports this theory.
Dough is money you gotta knead. It takes time for it to rise, and then you gotta bake it. Dough is used to make bread. Bread is a salary, it's what the Breadwinner brings home. A steady paycheck. Dough is your cut of the goods, like from a jewel theft. You steal the jewels, but you gotta cut them down so they can't be traced. This takes time, like dough rising. It's better if it's baked all together. If you ask for your cut early, you ask for the dough, the raw jewelry. If you wait and let your fencer cut it all down first, you might get a good deal and get more out of it as straight bread, which keeps far longer. In other words, dough is anything you gotta moosh around a little before using as money. Not laundering, necessarily, just a little work.
Since I'm already this far along, I guess I'll make a Thinking in Symbols from this, if you don't mind. I'll add more if I can think of them, so don't count this as all of them.
Yes. Money is very important to [them] so lotsa different symbols for it, like eskimos have for snow. It's the crux of their world. Milk/cream/cheese is simply one such symbol, and probably only in certain context.
Just took a shower and had these thoughts. Sorry if they're redundant...
How do you harvest the cream? You skim it off the top of the milk, same way they skim their take off of our money.
Ever hear this? "I'm gonna beat you for your milk-money if you don't gimme..." That conflates the milk directly with the money.
We really need a nice picture book style reference with all these symbol defs. Something like Wikipedia where everyone can contribute, but with some sort of controls to prevent a hostile takeover. Until that happens, your Thinking in Symbols series is among the best, most accessible references we've got. Thanks.
What do you do to get milk?
You have to milk a cow.
Can you milk a cow over and over and over again? No, they'll run dry.
So, you let a cow go out to pasture and graze. Then, when they're nice and plump, you milk them.
Cows are informants.
You milk cows for time-sensitive information (milk).
If not acted upon quickly, it will spoil.
Work it a bit and it turns to cream.
What is the "cream of the crop"?
It's the best of a group.
So, cream is to milk as reliable and lucrative information is to time-sensitive information. It keeps a bit longer, but it spoils just the same.
Anything liquid flows. Information (water) flows, but it's cheap. Information that's thick and fatty (can make you rich) is milk.
Information that you curate and prepare for use in, say, a mouse trap is cheese.
Cream Cheese is thick and doesn't flow, but can spread.
What spreads? Rumors.
Cream Cheese, then, is bait that spreads only as far as you want it to. It doesn't fall through holes (like in a bagel) so you can be sure it won't spread farther than you intend.
For a real-life example...
Someone you work with seems like they are likely to steal if given the chance. You suspect they might have stolen from the store, but you aren't sure. You don't like them in general, so you craft a plan to get them caught stealing, along with other employees you question the loyalty of.
You tell the person that the cameras don't actually work on Fridays when Windows 10 updates because the computers auto-restart and the cameras need to be manually turned back on by IT, who typically don't work on Fridays.
Only you, the IT team, and now the other employee know this.
Wait a couple weeks. Ask staff members if the cameras were acting funky the last couple Fridays. If any mention they know the cameras don't work during a Windows update, you know that the one you confided in spread the info to the ones he might trust to not rat him out should he steal.
If a theft occurs on a Friday, conveniently during a Windows 10 update, you now have a list of people crafted ahead of time involving all those who could have committed the crime.
Do you see how the FBI might use such a scheme to set-up and entice groups they monitor into committing crimes they wouldn't have attempted had they not been leaked the info? It only goes so far, because they can't spread it without implicating themselves. It makes a neat and tidy round-up if you're in the FBI.
Yeah, I get it, and I really like the way you sort it all out in simple digestible language. But I still think in this case they're talking about money. The double mastectomy did it for me there (per my other comment below).
Cheese is not always about bait for a trap, but it's clearly something we all want. This book equates cheese to money. They created it for companies to hand out before huge layoffs. And perhaps to establish the comms that cheese is money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F
I probably still have a copy.
There are lots of types of money, though.
Cheese is one type of money. Cheddar, once, being the most common of the phrase: "You got dat cheddah?" There are different types of cheese, which alludes to different types of bait. Cheddar is specifically money bait, but money is anything of immediate transactional worth. Even more particularly, it's talking about the "Government Cheese" which connects it to things like marked bills the FBI uses for stings and incentive plans through Welfare and the like. Either way, it's money used to entice someone.
Cabbage/Lettuce (or any leaf) is cash and/or cheques. Paper money. The type of leaf, given context, determines what specifically it's talking about. Mint, as in mint leaves, refer to freshly printed cash, because it has that distinct, fresh smell. Leaves are typically unmarked, unless there are recalls due to e-coli or the like.
Asteroids, full of precious metals, are slush funds. Tracking their movements gives an update on how close they are to burning up.
Comets are research groups. Fast-flying balls of ice(history/facts) that leave a trail. Research papers can be traded like a currency in order to push products, especially medical products.
Gold is actionable investments particularly involving an inventive work/strategies. Gold is revolutionary ideas and discoveries.
Silver is like Gold, but is innovation rather than invention. It's prospect and privilege with what is already established, essentially. "Born with a silver spoon in his mouth."
Eggs (Nest Eggs) are retirement funds -- combinations of silver and gold (egg white and egg yolk) that aren't valuable until the "hens come home to roost." Which is, when you retire. Retirement funds, like 401k's are built on stock trading and bonds.
Bucks are the most common in North America when referring to money. "Bucks" as a term originates from "Buck Skin" which was by-and-large the most liquid asset one could trade with during the early frontier years of the Northern Americas. Now, bucks refer to people-as-currency ventures, as far as I can tell. The ones where you have to look over your shoulder and not get caught out like a deer in headlights. Bucks are skittish, and deal with information of a sensitive nature. DOE a deer -- Department of Energy. EXPLOSIVE materials. Things that will cause many to live out Bambi's life when all their parents get taken down for money crimes. It's not always deer, though. Leathery money, in general, is a buckskin. Ultimately, a buck is someone's hide that is used as a form of currency. Patsies. You hiding behind someone else's skin. Controlling someone's actions is valuable in itself. Calling in favors has tangible worth at times.
Clams. Old, shiny money. Can be a reference to silver/gold-backed dollars way back when. It's fallen out of fashion, which supports this theory.
Dough is money you gotta knead. It takes time for it to rise, and then you gotta bake it. Dough is used to make bread. Bread is a salary, it's what the Breadwinner brings home. A steady paycheck. Dough is your cut of the goods, like from a jewel theft. You steal the jewels, but you gotta cut them down so they can't be traced. This takes time, like dough rising. It's better if it's baked all together. If you ask for your cut early, you ask for the dough, the raw jewelry. If you wait and let your fencer cut it all down first, you might get a good deal and get more out of it as straight bread, which keeps far longer. In other words, dough is anything you gotta moosh around a little before using as money. Not laundering, necessarily, just a little work.
https://www.opploans.com/oppu/articles/money-idioms/
https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/money/#buck
Since I'm already this far along, I guess I'll make a Thinking in Symbols from this, if you don't mind. I'll add more if I can think of them, so don't count this as all of them.
Yes. Money is very important to [them] so lotsa different symbols for it, like eskimos have for snow. It's the crux of their world. Milk/cream/cheese is simply one such symbol, and probably only in certain context.
Just took a shower and had these thoughts. Sorry if they're redundant...
How do you harvest the cream? You skim it off the top of the milk, same way they skim their take off of our money.
Ever hear this? "I'm gonna beat you for your milk-money if you don't gimme..." That conflates the milk directly with the money.
We really need a nice picture book style reference with all these symbol defs. Something like Wikipedia where everyone can contribute, but with some sort of controls to prevent a hostile takeover. Until that happens, your Thinking in Symbols series is among the best, most accessible references we've got. Thanks.