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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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Congratulations on winning an honorable mention for Best Blog at the 2018 Quill Awards for [Link To Item #1196512] . *^*Smile*^* This award was sponsored by the blogging consortium including [Link To Item #30dbc] , [Link To Item #blogcity] , [Link To Item #bcof] and [Link To Item #1953629] . For more details, see [Link To Item #quills] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Blogging-2180.gif) ![Merit Badge in Highly Recommended
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| I might have overindulged earlier, which is why I'm running a little late today. Just as well that this one doesn't require a lot of brain power, because I'm pretty short on that right now. I simply found this story interesting. It's related to civil engineering, my profession, but even without that I just think it's cool. “While studying these fountains early on, I realized that they were unique, but neglected and not really spoken of,” he says. “The city seemed to have forgotten them.” It pained him when he read about the demolition of pyaaus, or water fountains, and made it his mission to protect as many as possible. While the person quoted here, Rahul Chemburkar, is an architect and not a civil engineer, the professions are related. Architects get to be more artistic, though. Water supply (along with waste management) is one of the most important aspects of being able to live in cities. “It is our moral duty to protect this part of the city’s heritage,” he says. “And if we could revive this idea [of public drinking fountains], it would be in contrast to the plastic bottles we drink from.” Access to clean water is a basic human need. It's harder in cities. What I like about this article is that in Mumbai, it's more than just a public works project; it's part of the city's character. This is where you'll have to click on the link to actually see pictures and drawings of the fountains in question. They are marvels of civic art. The Keshavji Nayak pyaau, inaugurated in 1876, looks nothing like a public drinking fountain—it resembles a pavilion or shrine, with red sandstone pilasters, a cupola covered in carved peacocks, and statues of bulls at the entrance, a feature seen in many Hindu temples. For instance, there's a pretty cool before-and-after pic of that one. Beyond restoration, Chemburkar conducts frequent walks and lectures, via the Mumbai Pyaau Project, and sketches postcards of the fountains. I went on a walk last March, before the pandemic, and, along with architecture students, tourists, curious locals, learned about structures that I would have never noticed. The walk also nudged the group to contemplate today’s water-supply challenges. And of course, there's a lot more to water access than just having fountains available. Just ask the Southwest US right now. But I can't be arsed to get into the politics of it in my current condition, so I'll just leave this here as something cool to share. |
| And now for another fragment of history... As with most of my oeuvre, I select these things semi-randomly, and in this case, I find myself way out of my comfort zone. That's okay. That's one reason I'm doing this. Portugal is not a country I think about often. I mean, sure, I have a vague desire to visit there, but I have a vague desire to visit lots of places. I'm aware that it was once a major naval power -- for one thing, they achieved what Columbus failed to do, find a sea route to Asia -- and that it once controlled Brazil. Other than that, the true importance of Portugal to me has always been the existence of port wine, which is delicious and can get really expensive. So, apparently, Portugal was a monarchy up until 1910, at which point the peasants revolted. This was, of course, long after France, a few years before Russia, and don't ask me about Spain because that history is a real mess. This Wiki page is particularly questionable, and when that happens I usually look at their listed sources for clarification. But in this case, all the sources are books that I can't be arsed to buy, and web pages that are in -- believe it or not -- Portuguese. Half of them are 404 anyway. But of course that's not stopping me from riffing on it. Anyway, from what I can gather, the May 14 Revolt was a revolt of the revolt. That is, the supposedly representational government that got installed after the 1910 overthrow of the monarchy. According to this Wiki page  , "The Republican Party presented itself as the only one that had a programme that was capable of returning to the country its lost status and place Portugal on the way of progress."Wow, history really does echo, doesn't it? Point is, as is often the case in these situations, the government they replaced the government with was dysfunctional, so another revolt was called for in order to restore the values that the first revolt was supposed to have installed but didn't. At least that's my take on it; like I said, there's not a lot of detail on that page. The insurrection was, from what I can gather, swift, bloody, and successful. At least, at first. A few years later, there would be yet another bloody revolution, this one getting the country back to a dictatorship. It wouldn't be until 1975 that the country returned to some semblance of democracy. From this, I have learned several things, including but not limited to:  Sometimes, revolution is necessary and ultimately beneficial, if bloody I would not have wanted to live in Portugal before 1975 I'd venture to guess that most people don't know this bit of history, from which it follows that they are doomed to repeat it. Democracy is fragileThose bullets are meant to be bottles of port. Preferably 40 year vintage port, which at this point could have been produced after Portugal achieved a semi-stable democracy. Port gets its name from the city of Porto, where, historically, the wine was shipped out to the great benefit of other countries (and the financial benefit of the vineyards and Portugal). Oh, and one other interesting bit. The name "Portugal" is of somewhat disputed origin, but is most recently derived from the Roman name for it, Portus Cale. You can guess what Portus means. Cale is the disputed part . It might have been a Celtic word for "port," which would make the name of the country translate to "Port port."I like that. As a final disclaimer, I might have gotten some of this shit wrong; like I said, it's not something I've looked into before. Don't take my words (or Wikipedia's) as the gospel truth. Just consider this another port in the storm. |
| I don't know anything about this source, except that I religiously ignored its print version like I do every other magazine at the checkout counter. Or did back before I was too lazy to even shop for my own groceries. And the menu headers don't give me a lot of confidence: "Breast Cancer Starter Kit." That's... ambiguous, at best, and maybe a little horrific. Anyway, the article. I'd view the "workout" bit with skepticism, but whatever. I'm more interested in the questions. Obviously, I'm not going to paste them here. Hell, I can't be arsed to read all 170. But of course I have comments on parts of it. Starting with the lede. The art of conversation is changing. Always does. Sometimes we are so connected to our screens that we forget to “connect” with those around us. Hey. Guess what. The people on the other end of that screen? They're people. Just like the ones around you, only better because you've selected them. Sure, you may be using the screen in solitude to play Wordle or check your stock portfolio with existential despair -- which is your prerogative -- but a lot of people use *shudder* social media, or text. They're talking to other people. They're connecting. There's nothing magical or preferred about in-person communication. In fact, people tend to sweat and fart, which you can't generally smell over the internet. Fuck right off with your technophobic bullshit. Once in a while, it’s nice to sit down, relax, and just talk. Even nicer with alcohol. But, chatting can quickly get boring when you stick to small talk. Which is why I usually jump right in to math or science. This has the bonus effect of making most people go away. After all, there is only so much to say about the weather. The weather is not a safe topic of conversation. Pretty soon, someone mentions climate change, and then there's inevitably an argument. Luckily, posing a couple of hypothetical questions can quickly turn a dull chat into an invigorating conversation. Isn't that what Cards Against Humanity is for? Try out these hypotheticals the next time you want to have a real conversation. It occurs to me that Lilli 🧿 ☕  could mine this for her QOTD forum. That way, we can discuss them online, as Nature intended, rather than face-to-face.The article, of course, goes on to list the actual questions. Some of them are silly, as expected. Others might actually have some value. A few aren't all that hypothetical. The irony here, if you can call it that, is that if I were to use the list as intended -- in person, in meatspace, talking with another moving sack of mostly water -- there's no way I'd remember any of these questions. Nope, I'd whip out my communicator, find the website, and scroll down to the questions, thus negating the dubious benefits of being in meatspace in the first place. But that's okay. It's not going to happen. I'm just leaving this list here for you to look at if you're interested. And if you want to address any of these questions in the comments here, go for it. I shot my wad complaining about the article's intro. |
"Invalid Item" All of this traveling has made Andre hungry, and we don't want a Hangry monkey on our hands! So today's prompt is about food, and the best place for our buddy to eat in your town! What food or foods are your town/area noted for? What's the prevalent cuisine? Where is your favorite place to eat out in your neck of the woods? I mentioned some of the more important food places (the ones that also offer fine fermented and/or distilled adult beverages) in last week's entry, here: "A Tour of the Town" . To reiterate, there are several purveyors of glorious nectar that also serve delicious meals.As Charlottesville is a university town, it attracts a wide range of cuisines. Just off the top of my head, in addition to what can only be described as American food, we have Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Belgian, French, Indian, Afghani, Mediterranean, Italian, and several others. There also used to be an excellent South African restaurant (with a bar), but, sadly, it fell victim to the pandemic. That's of course in addition to various familiar fast-food and casual chains. Oddly enough, one thing we lack is a Denny's. And when I was in college here, we didn't even have a Waffle House. We had to get our late-night bleary-eyed food fix from Hardee's and a local deli that's not around anymore. Now there's a Waffle House less than a mile from me, and I haven't ended up there in years. You don't "go" to Waffle House. You "end up" at Waffle House. It's right next to a Taco Hell, and I call the driveway between them "Desperation Alley." While there's no one prevalent cuisine -- though at one time, you couldn't throw a chopstick without hitting a Chinese restaurant -- we're serious about our restaurants here. Someone told me once that we have more restaurants per capita than New York City. That seems to not be the case -- sources vary depending on how one defines the local population and what sorts of restaurants we're talking about, not to mention the ever-changing landscape of food service -- but we certainly have a lot of choice here. Obviously on an absolute basis, NYC has more and more varied eateries, but it's also dealing with over 150 times the population (not counting tourists). As for favorite place? Well, I don't have one. I try not to get too attached to restaurants, as they flicker open and closed like lighthouse shutters doing Morse Code. I learned that lesson hard a few years ago: my favorite restaurant in the universe was The Raven, three hours away in Virginia Beach. I'm still experiencing grief from its closing. No, stop laughing; I'm serious here. But if you looked at my credit card statements, a) you'd be appalled and b) you'd see Timberwood Tap House standing out as my most frequent destination, right up there with Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Both of them are within walking distance of my house, and across a parking lot from each other; they both serve excellent food, and they both have a wide-ranging, varied list of beers on tap. Of course, I mostly go to the Alamo for movies, but I also find time while I'm there to order food and beer. With Timberwood, well, when restaurants reopened after the pandemic, it became my habit on Mondays to walk over there, sit on the patio, and enjoy lunch with beer and music. Even when it was cold outside. But I like variety, and those aren't my only destinations. There's a local Mexican chain called Guadalajara, for instance, one of which is in walking distance in the other direction, and of course they also have tequila. And of course Three Notch'd, the brewery, is only two miles away. I'd walk there even if I had a car, because, well... beer. I can't leave this without calling out one of my other local regular vendors of victuals: Bodo's Bagels. They have three locations, and some say their bagels are superior even to the ones in New York. To which I can only say: spend more time in New York. Regardless, they're very good, even if they don't serve booze, and even though it is the sort of place where you can hear people complaining at the next table about food as cultural appropriation whilst eating a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel. And hey, if you get bored with the local fare, Richmond is an hour's drive away, and DC, two. Now I'm hungry. I'll resist staggering over to Waffle House, though. |
| Another article that didn't get the memo that the only ones who can fight climate change are us individuals. This article is from about a year ago, so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they didn't pay the price. Via an unprecedented wave of lawsuits, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for the devastation caused by fossil fuels And they have an unprecedented army of lawyers, rivaling only that of Disney, to keep them from facing said reckoning. Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels. But I thought the solution was organic, locally-sourced reusable cotton bags. But, even more strikingly, the nearly two dozen lawsuits are underpinned by accusations that the industry severely aggravated the environmental crisis with a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate and dupe the American public. Scientists? Meh. What do they know? Have they built a giant company to slake the public's thirst for energy? No? Then what good are they? “Things have to get worse for the oil companies,” he added. “Even if they’ve got a pretty good chance of winning the litigation in places, the discovery of pretty clearcut wrong doing – that they knew their product was bad and they were lying to the public – really weakens the industry’s ability to resist legislation and settlements.” Not going to happen. Corporations, by definition, can do no wrong. In 1979, an Exxon study said that burning fossil fuels “will cause dramatic environmental effects” in the coming decades. “The potential problem is great and urgent,” it concluded. And yet, here we still are, Cassandra. The urgency of the crisis is not in doubt. A draft United Nations report, leaked last week, warns that the consequences of the climate crisis, including rising seas, intense heat and ecosystem collapse, will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades even if fossil fuel emissions are curbed. But the climate changes all the time. Who are we to think we have the power to change the entire climate? No, better to just let the coastal cities drown like nature intended. So what if a lot of people are displaced? It's their fault for living in places like Miami. Municipalities such as Imperial Beach, California – the poorest city in San Diego county with a budget less than Exxon chief executive’s annual pay – faces rising waters on three sides without the necessary funding to build protective barriers. Eh, they're just going to slide into the Pacific come the next big earthquake, anyway. Farber said cases rooted in claims that the petroleum industry lied have the most promising chance of success. The only time lying is bad is when a Democrat does it. Exxon worked alongside Chevron, Shell, BP and smaller oil firms to shift attention away from the growing climate crisis. They funded the industry’s trade body, API, as it drew up a multimillion-dollar plan to ensure that “climate change becomes a non- issue” through disinformation. The plan said “victory will be achieved” when “recognition of uncertainties become part of the ‘conventional wisdom’”. Conventional wisdom says we should drive and fly more. Gotta keep the economy running. The legal process is likely to oblige the oil conglomerates to turn over years of internal communications revealing what they knew about climate change, when and how they responded. Hm. I should have bought stock in shredder manufacturers. Oh well. Really, there's no need to worry about climate change. Pretty soon the global average temperature will decrease again. Nuclear winter will have that effect. Anyway, if it's not obvious, at least from that last bit, my comments here are intended as satire. Still, the time to do something about climate change was 30 years ago. Now, it's too late. I know they keep trying to get us to hope, but it's not working on me. Like I've said before, I'm riding this sucker down with the hot wind in my hair and a big grin on my face. |
| Occasionally, lifehacker will actually have a useful article. How to Summon a Demon Want a hell-spawn of your own? Need someone to play chess with? Try summoning a demon! If I’ve learned nothing else from heavy metal, horror movies, and Dungeons and Dragons, I’ve learned that demons are awesome. I want to invite as many as possible into my life to do my bidding and compete in fiddle contests. You have learned the wrong lessons, grasshopper. The only evil thing in Dungeons and Dragons is the DM. This do-at-home rite is adopted from a handwritten, untitled grimoire written around 1577. For context, this was just before Shakespeare became a thing. Hm, what if... nah. A note of caution before you begin your ritual: Many experienced magical practitioners (wizards, warlocks, necromancers, etc.) maintain that even a simple ritual requires a lifetime of dedicated spiritual practice and should not be undertaken lightly, lest great harm befall you. Yeah, these days we call that "gatekeeping." What's the point of magic if you can't use it to take shortcuts? With that out of the way, let’s summon something! The original spell is sometimes confusing due to the age of the language and the fact that it’s handwritten, but I did my best. Ever tried to puzzle out Shakespeare's original handwriting? Well. Obviously, I'm not going to recopy the spell here; that's what the link is for. Some highlights: Step three: Recite the oration. Stand over your glass and recite the following Latin aloud. Use a commanding, deep voice (it’s cooler that way): “Omnipotens sempiterne deus adesto magna[e] pietatis tue misteriis, adesto piis Invocationibus nostris ut speculum istud quod in tuo nomine bene dicere facto…” It goes on like that for a looooong time. You can see the rest in the original text. Make sure you read it all and don’t mispronounce any words, though, or this might not work. Here's the thing: no one alive knows how Latin was actually pronounced. We have some educated guesses, but things get lost over time. More, the language was so widespread that there were certainly regional dialects, in addition to the foreign accents of people who learned Latin as a Second Language. Some of these dialects became pidgins or creoles, and later evolved into Spanish, French, and so on. It's kind of like how you can't say "be sure to pronounce English correctly." There is no One Correct Pronunciation, despite what the BBC tries to tell us (in one particular British accent). After this transcription of the ritual (which, to be absolutely clear, is presented in what seems to be a self-parody of other lifehacker how-to guides), the article goes into some interesting history, which is the actual reason I'm linking this. Rituals to summon supernatural entities or forces have been (and are) practiced in lots of spiritual traditions, from Shintoism to Santeria. Different rites have different meanings and implications in different traditions, so know that I’m only talking about the Western idea of calling explicitly evil entities into the material plane. Like you see in horror movies. One thing about the long-running show Supernatural that stuck with me was that the showrunners there actually did their research. Summoning a demon to do your bidding is central to the Testament of Solomon, a text falsely credited to King Solomon that was written somewhere between the end of the 1st century CE and the high medieval period. In it, an angel gives Solomon a ring inscribed with a pentagram. This is one of the reasons why the pentagram gets a bad reputation. It shouldn't, really. It's a symbol of unity and harmony and balance, and also has some really cool mathematical properties that I won't go into right now, much to your relief. (Right now everyone who thinks math is evil is nodding vigorously and itching to make a comment about it.) Even the whole "inverted" thing is made-up. Of course, everything we do is made-up, but that part's really made-up. The Key of Solomon, for instance, does contain spells (like “How to make the holy garters”) but they only work for the most pure, virtuous, pious man. I know "garters" is a word whose meaning has shifted over time, but this is still amusing. The idea of summoning demon-y demons for your own gain, as an act of evil, catches on widely with the publication of Malleus Maleficarum (“Hammer of Witches”) in 1478. This is an important point. Even if we take at face value the idea that one can summon a demon (there are metaphorical interpretations, but, like the author, I'm using the phrase literally), which we don't, this is kind of like some of the things we see even today on the internet. For example, maybe some kids have started doing something stupid they saw on DikDok or whatever. This is nothing new in society; kids are always doing stupid shit, which is partly how natural selection still works on humanity. But us olds would have never heard about it if someone hadn't hit the Moral Panic Button and started going, "Look at what these idiot kids are doing." This just spreads the ideas more widely, and even some adults who somehow managed to survive childhood with most of their fingers and eyes go, "Hey, that looks like fun. Hold my beer." That publication caused WAY more evil in the world than the supposed evils it was railing against. Fake or not, a lot people died for real because of Hammer of Witches. As many as 80,000 people, mostly women, were tortured and murdered during the witch trials that were heavily influenced by Kramer’s book. So if any tome is cursed… There are none so evil as those who proclaim themselves to be righteous. No, that's not a quote; that's an original Waltzism. No, I don't claim to be righteous. The article goes on to point out that while the idea of summoning demons is "fake" (again, I call it metaphorical), there exists true evil in the world, and usually, that evil is the group that is conjuring up the moral panic in the first place. After all, if you really want to summon a demon, all you have to do is go on the internet and say things like: "We should institute socialized medicine." "Cannabis should be universally legal." "Living wage for all." "Musk is an ass." or "Chicago pizza isn't pizza." The metaphor I keep referring to in this post is that demon-summoning is actually about confronting the darker aspects of one's own nature (and we all have darker aspects). But there are people in the world who deliberately do evil, though they insist they're doing good. At least if literal demon-summoning were real, you'd end up with an entity that knows it's evil. That, you can work with. It's a lot harder to banish those who are certain they're righteous. |
"Invalid Item" So on Wednesday, you told Andre about great places to visit where you live. Now he'd like to know about the people who live or have lived where you do. Sundays's prompt; Tell us about a famous person or persons who lives or came from your Home Sweet Home When I was at college, the dorms were arranged with several dorm rooms around a common area. Someone had done a country-looking cross stitch as a throw pillow: "Suite sweet suite." That always pops back in my mind whenever I see "home sweet home." Anyway. I've talked enough about Jefferson, and I mentioned Dave Matthews last time. I've also noted before that Poe spent some time here. Then there was the one lady who claimed to be the last Romanov... You know what? I'm going to go with that one. Hopefully you all know that in 1918, some revolting Russians rounded up some revolting Russians. That is to say, the revolutionary Bolsheviks executed the entire former royal family of Russia, who, let's face it, were pretty revolting, being autocrats and all. The youngest was Anastasia Romanova, also known as Grand Duchess Anastasia despite being, like, totally a teen.A couple of years later, a woman in a mental institution in Germany (should have been the first clue) claimed to be Anastasia. Apparently, some people believed her, but certainly not everyone. Personally, I'd figure that claiming to be the last royal Russian in early 1920s Europe couldn't possibly be good for one's health, but okay, whatever, there were enough believers that her claims were taken seriously by a bunch of people. Apparently, she spent the next few decades in and out of asylums, which I suppose could be ordinary mental illness, or it could have been, I don't know, watching a bunch of revolting peasants destroy your entire family. It wasn't until the late 60s that she became associated with Charlottesville, having married a history professor here (should have been the second clue). I never met the lady; she died shortly after I came to town (not my fault). My ex-wife's father claimed to know her, but he claimed to know everyone (and, to be fair, he knew a whole lot of people). Apparently, Anna and her husband were described as "eccentric," which is code for "crazy, but rich enough to get away with it." It was only after her death that the final nails were driven into the coffin of her claims to royalty. I mean that metaphorically; she was cremated and didn't have a coffin. First, DNA testing became a thing, and apparently there was enough of her left (ew) to test, and behold, she was not Russian. And second, after the end of the USSR, archeologists found the remains of the Tsar's entire family, including Anastasia. A local brewery occasionally makes a beer called Anastasia's Chocolate Fantasy, which is a Russian Imperial Stout brewed with cocoa, because of this local connection. It is absolutely delicious. But Russian Imperial Stout is, as I've noted before, not actually Russian... much like Anna Anderson herself So Anna Anderson was just a crazy lady, but apparently she made the best life out of it as she could, and, Duchess or not, she's absolutely a part of Charlottesville history. Though few people here actually believed she was Romanova, they humored her anyway, because that's what we do here. It really should have been blindingly obvious in retrospect, though. I mean. If you're the only heir to the Russian throne, and you saw a bunch of peasants rise up and grind your family into borscht, and you need to find a place to live... ...would you really choose the state whose motto is "sic semper tyrannis?" |
| And now, today's burning (or really, drowning) question: Are the Great Lakes Really Inland Seas? Well, yes. And no. Actually, it depends on where you stand, in more ways than one. That's right up there with "Is a hot dog a sandwich?" in terms of categorization questions. (It's not, by the way. It's a taco.) Also, I like how the subhead answers the question in the headline without actually shedding light on it, making it more likely that people will read on without being clickbait. (Source is Atlas Obscura, not a clickbait site.) The water reared up and slammed onto the sand like an ambush predator. Ooooh, someone's taken a creative writing class. (The first paragraph goes on like that, but it mostly just sets the tone.) The Great Lakes of North America’s midsection—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario—together span nearly 100,000 square miles, with a combined coastline just shy of 10,000 miles. It might be helpful here to have some comparisons. For example, that's about the size of Colorado or Oregon. Or New Zealand. As for coastline, well, that's notoriously tricky to measure, which is how fractal dimensions were discovered, but that's another topic. They even have their own U.S. Coast Guard district, the only lakes with such a distinction. And the Guard’s rescue teams stay busy: Superior and its siblings are capable of storm surges, rip currents, tsunamis, rogue waves, unique extreme weather phenomena, and destructive surf. I think we're all aware of how angry the Lakes can become. They have claimed more than 6,000 ships, more than the Gulf of Mexico and the Black Sea combined, according to estimates. Why is it a "gulf" and not a "sea?" And why is it a "sea" and not a "lake?" Well... “The most accurate answer you’re going to get is, ‘I don’t know,’” says John Richard Saylor, author of the upcoming Lakes: Their Birth, Life, and Death. “I do think it comes down to semantics, what you want to call a ‘sea.’” Yep. Is Pluto a planet? Depends on definition of "planet." Under current internationally accepted definition, no. Shut up about it already, sheesh. For many, the Great Lakes are indeed greater than lakes. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, for example, describes them as “vast inland freshwater seas.” A seminal 2017 paper in Limnology and Oceanography, authored by some of the most influential researchers studying the lakes, also refers to them as ‘inland seas.’ But what makes a sea varies by source. Virginia and three other US states are technically Commonwealths. We still refer to them as states. You might, for example, associate seas with saltwater, but “Whether water is salty or fresh does not cleanly separate lakes from seas,” says Robert Sterner... Well, not really, no. The Dead Sea is famously salty as hell, sure, but so is the Great Salt Lake, which is about 7 times bigger than the Dead Sea. The article lists other examples of things that are called seas and lakes. Meanwhile, a growing number of scientists believe the Red Sea may actually be a young ocean. That's a technicality based on continental drift models. While the languages of these earlier people are not known, over the last few millennia the Great Lakes have been home to several Native American and First Nations peoples, most of which belong, culturally and linguistically, to the Anishinaabe. The term covers a number of communities dispersed over a broad and varied geographical area, but there is continuity among them in how the Great Lakes are perceived. While one could argue that the people who lived there the longest should get to define their geographical features, I don't think the natives would have had the global perspective to, say, compare their size to New Zealand. So, the semantics remain imprecise across languages, but what about the science? Do the people studying the Great Lakes see them as inland seas? The answer is a resounding “sort of.” Thanks for that clarification. Despite their size, the lakes are beholden to what happens on the land that surrounds them in a way larger seas are not. For example, precipitation and runoff that drains into the lakes significantly affects their water levels, chemical composition, and other characteristics. Not to mention the ever-present industrial and human pollution. In fact, the strongest case for describing the Great Lakes as inland seas may be to remind the public of the potential threat that they pose. And yes, the article does reference the Gordon Lightfoot song. University of Minnesota’s Coker suggests that the Great Lakes belong “in a category of their own.” Perhaps it’s not the lakes that fail to fit our definitions, but rather our words failing to describe their unique nature. And that, to me, is the crux of the issue: whatever they are, the bodies of water we call the Great Lakes are what they are. Pluto didn't suddenly disappear when astronomers changed the definition of "planet;" in fact, we sent a probe out to take pictures of it. It's kind of like the Rock of Gibraltar. You could call it a hill, or a mountain, but no, it's called a rock. On that note, codifying hills and mountains is a similar issue. The definition has changed over time. Here in the US, people who live out west look at the Blue Ridge Mountains and scoff, "Those are just hills!" Going in the other direction, all I could say was "Holy fuck, these are some big-ass mountains." At one time, though, around the time the dinosaurs bit it, the Rockies were at the bottom of an inland sea, and the Appalachians were much, much higher (and originally extended into Scotland). Before the last Ice Age, there weren't even any Great Lakes for people to argue about their definition. Or people to argue about their definition. But it's the nature of humans to codify and classify things. This can aid in understanding, but it can also become a semantic trap. After all, it doesn't matter if your car gets crushed by a boulder, a big stone, a small mountain, or a large rock; your car is still crushed. All continents can be considered big islands, and there is really only one world-spanning ocean surrounding all of them. So don't worry whether a hot dog is a sandwich, a sub, a taco, a gyro, or whatever. Just enjoy the hot dog. |
| Thought I'd experiment with a new, occasional format today. I learn something, maybe you learn something. I have an appreciation for history, sure, but one aspect of it that never really grabbed my attention is detailed war chronicling. War is usually too depressing, even for me, so normally I content myself with having a vague idea of the timeline, major players, and general outcome. And even there, some military actions are more on my radar than others. The big US conflicts, of course; the Sino-Japanese wars, the Seven Days War in the Middle East, that time the UK took back the Falklands and... ummm... well, apart from the really historical ones like the time Hannibal crossed the Alps on elephants (come on, just picture that), I'm pretty ignorant. I was almost completely ignorant about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. I mean, I had a vague notion that the French got their asses handed to them in Vietnam about a decade to two before we went in and got our asses handed to us, but that's about it. I wonder if this particular battle is where they got their offensive and undeserved reputation as surrender monkeys? Look, everyone's lost a war. Including us. Several times to Canada, for fuck's sake. I'm not going to rehash most of what's already at that link in the title, just make a few of my own observations, as is my wont: The United States was officially not a party to the war, but it was secretly involved by providing financial and material aid to the French Union, which included CIA contracted American personnel participating in the battle. I doubt this was the first time we were secretly egging on a war, nor was it the last. The Cold War wasn't, always. The Peoples Republic of China and the Soviet Union similarly provided vital support to the Viet Minh, including most of their artillery and ammunition. Yay, proxy wars! By 1953, the First Indochina War was not going well for France. This being Wiki and not Cracked, and having little historical perspective of the overall conflict, I'm not sure if this is comic understatement or not. I'm going with yes. Most of the page deals with the actual weeks-long battle, and is of value, but my purpose here is to a) snark on things and b) focus on this particular day in history, the day the battle officially ended. But the "Battle" section is interesting mostly because of the names the French gave their fortifications. French women's names. It's just so... very... French. So, on May 7, 1954, they record this message: The last radio transmission from the French headquarters reported that enemy troops were directly outside the headquarters bunker and that all the positions had been overrun. The radio operator in his last words stated: "The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!" Bad. Ass. Even in defeat. Afterwards: Public opinion in France registered shock that a guerilla army had defeated a major European power. Yeah. History doesn't repeat itself. It echoes. One final note, from the page: The French government in Paris then resigned, and the new Prime Minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina. Pierre Mendès France. For whatever reason, I'd never heard of him. But that name. It would be like if we elected a President named Rock America. If that President was from a liberal Brazilian Jewish family. Which, you know... we could do worse. |
| They've identified the most boring person in the world, and miraculously, it's not me. Now, it's not like these researchers looked at every one of the 8 billion of us and ranked us by boringness. No, it was the traits that they identified. I have some issues with the methodology, but whatever; this is for fun. Because I wouldn't want to be perceived as boring. The most boring person in the world has been revealed by University of Essex research - and it is a religious data entry worker, who likes watching TV, and lives in a town. Or, alternatively, it could be a researcher who studies boreology. Incidentally, how does one become a religious data entry worker? Oh, wait, they mean they're religious AND a data entry worker. Also, I think they left out "vegan." The study into the science of boredom has uncovered the jobs, characteristics, and hobbies that are considered a stereotypical snooze. "The study into the science of boredom" has got to be the most boring thing I've ever heard of. After examining more than 500 people across five experiments researchers found the blandest jobs are seen as data analysis, accounting, cleaning and banking. Oh, okay, so it's subjective, based on peoples' preconceptions. None of those jobs are inherently boring. You know what's boring? Security guard. Well, 99.9% of the time; the other 0.1% of the time your adrenaline really pumps. Or so I'm told. The paper – published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin – also discovered the dullest hobbies were seen to be religion, watching TV, bird watching and smoking. Religion: Not a hobby. It's an identity. Fishing is a hobby. Stamp collecting is a hobby (and a mind-numbing one at that). Watching TV: Not a hobby. It's just something you do. Passive. Hobbies are at least somewhat active. Even fishing. Bird watching: Okay, that's a hobby. Boring? Less than fishing. Definitely less than golf. Smoking: COME ON. The study also showed that being perceived as boring likely conveys low competence and low interpersonal warmth. I have another article in the queue, which will come up at some point, that presents a different take on this. Those perceived as boring may thus be at greater risk of harm, addiction and mental health issues. At which point they'll be less boring, won't they? Still shunned, though. The top five most exciting jobs 1.) Performing arts 2.) Science 3.) Journalism... So says an article by a journalist about scientists. I bet if an accountant did the study and wrote the article, they'd find journalism and science way more boring than accounting. The top five most boring hobbies 1.) Sleeping 2.) Religion 3.) Watching TV 4.) Observing animals 5.) Mathematics Again... how are these hobbies? Seriously, sleeping as a hobby? What the nocturnal fuck? Everyone sleeps. Everything about this study is suspect, in short. The interesting part is how people seem to avoid, shun, and ostracize those who are seen as boring -- as if the only true measure of a life is how exciting it is. Perhaps, to venture into the even more suspect ground of evolutionary psychology, this is some holdover from when excitement meant dodging saber-toothed tigers and hunting mammoths. Or maybe some of you can only dream of living a boring life, and they're just jealous of those of us who can. Yeah. I'm going with that. |
"Invalid Item" Today's Prompt For Home Sweet Home Blogging Challenge! If Andre visits your Town, what are some places/sites/locations he should visit? 2. Famous locations or places to see in the town/area I'm new to the Banana Bar, but I know two things about Andre: 1) Andre is a monkey. 2) Andre likes to drink. Now, here in Charlottesville, we don't discriminate, so (1) shouldn't be a problem. I will, however, avoid taking him to see the parks, as some of them have playgrounds with monkey bars, and I don't want anyone to think I'm caving to stereotypes. As for (2), well, Andre... you're in luck. This is my specialty, my bailiwick, my lane, my raison d'être. Let's start downtown. On the historic pedestrian street called the Downtown Mall sits one of the few establishments that has been here longer than I have: Miller's. Now, one thing you need to know about Virginia: There are no bars in Virginia. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch. We don't have a single (legitimate) place of business that exists for the sole purpose of relieving patrons of their money in exchange for distilled beverages. There are laws against that sort of thing. (Some craft distilleries allow for sampling, but they're still not technically "bars.") What we have are restaurants that happen to serve alcoholic beverages from behind a counter festooned with stools. Miller's is one such restaurant. Its claim to fame, other than sheer longevity? Dave Matthews used to tend bar there. Just down the street we find The Bebedero. It's in a new location, but it still serves excellent Mexican food and -- this is the important part -- tequila. Real tequila, not that 51% de agave pisswater with caramel coloring. Near Bebedero, and owned by the same righteous dude, is The Whiskey Jar. As its name suggests, its specialty is whiskey (and seasonally varying food), though they also have some whisky. And maybe a few things that sometimes get mixed with whiskey and whisky, but why bother when you can sample, neat, some of the excellent single-malt scotches and premium bourbons? No Pappy Van Winkle, sadly, but plenty of other fine distillations. And oh, I could go on. One thing we don't lack here is restaurants that happen to also be drinking establishments. Another that I'm fond of, closer to where I live (within stumbling distance) is Durty Nelly's, a dive bar in a deli (I told you; they're all restaurants). It, too, has been around even longer than I have, which is saying something. Hell, I first went there before it was technically legal for me to do so. (Hopefully the statute of limitations has expired by now.) But there's one kind of place I know you've been waiting for me to talk about, Andre, and I'm going to wax poetic about them right now: craft breweries. While there are no bars in Virginia, state law does grant an exception for sales of fermented beverages brewed on premise. While many breweries do feature food service -- some of it excellent -- others serve beer alone in flights and pints, or in bottles or cans for takeout, or both. Don't worry; they usually have pretzels or something on hand because the carbs in beer alone just don't cut it. First, let's visit South Street. The oldest continually operating brewery in Charlottesville (there was an older one but they moved a few miles west a while ago), it features a wide variety of excellent brews and some delicious food. A few blocks away stands a shining beacon on a hill: Random Row. Big place, indoor and outdoor seating, and if you get hungry, the best bagels in the state are just a short stagger away. Keep going down that street, past Kardinal Hall (which is not a brewery, but a taphouse with a truly mind-boggling selection of beers from all over), in a run-down old garden shop building all of white-painted cinderblock, is Rockfish Brewing, which is a small-batch, no-nonsense paradise of a nanobrewery. Near there is the satellite brewery of Starr Hill, which is the one that used to be in town, then moved out, then ironically opened this taproom just a few blocks from its historic home. I'm not a fan of Starr Hill, but a lot of people seem to like it, so whatever. Another one I'm not big on is Champion, way back over closer to South Street, but again, whatever floats your bananas. Which brings us to my favorite brewery in Charlottesville (and my second favorite brewery in the whole country), located just above one of the few sake breweries in the US, a brewpub called Three Notch'd. The brewer there, Dave, is an artistic genius in his chosen medium (beer), and while I can't say I like every offering they have, there are some I'd rank right up there with the finest Belgians or established British styles. Their food is excellent, too. There are a few more that are technically just outside of city limits, but are close enough so I count them: Decipher, run by former spies; Selvedge, near Decipher in the former Woolen Mills industrial building, a painfully hipster hangout; and Reason, on the north side of town, which makes a brilliant Russian Imperial Stout that's almost as good as Old Rasputin. And here, I'm not even getting into all the distilleries, cideries, and wineries in the area. Most of them are out in the county, anyway. Oh, while you're here, since you asked about famous sites, you might also take a trip to Monticello, a couple of miles outside of town. After all, Thomas Jefferson's greatest contribution to American society was his attempt to plant French grapes for making wine. They failed, but the idea stuck around and eventually, thanks to SCIENCE, came to... wait for it... fruition. So, that's it: the tour of Things That Truly Matter in Charlottesville. If you survived, come back and drink us again! |
| Today, we go back to Cracked for an article from December about America's Hat. And I don't think they're talking about "hockey" or all the extra "u"s in their words. Either because you're planning a trip to the Great White North, or you just want to be prepared in case you ever run into Keanu Reeves and don't want to look like an idiot, it's not a bad idea to know some Canadian words. You know, it wasn't even on my radar that Keanu Reeves was Canadian. And I'm usually aware of these things, whether I want to be or not. Well. It's not like he ever chugged maple syrup in any of his movies that I've seen. As usual, it's a countdown list, and as there are 15 of them, I'm going to choose just a few highlights. 13. “Toque” Basically Means “Beanie” Yeah, I knew this, thanks to Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (Canadians). But I rarely have occasion to use the word, because I live in a relatively warm country. In the U.S., there are Beanies; in Canada, you have "Toques" -- pronounced like the family of Hobbits. Is it, though? I've always heard it pronounced with a long oo, like in mook or boob, and I thought you pronounced the Hobbit name "Took" like "took." Looking at the word, though, you can't tell: it could be tuck or took or tooook or tock. And you can't even go to the original French for answers, because they call a beanie "un bonnet." Pronounced bonAY of course. So, like, Jayne or any other Canadians reading this... which is it? Or maybe it's regional. 10. A “Snowbird” is Less Fun Than it Sounds "Snowbird" is a song popularized by Canadian music legend Anne Murray -- but more commonly it's used, not to identify wintery fowl, but to describe the senior citizens who head to Southern U.S. states such as Florida during the colder months... Hey, we call 'em that, too. When we're being polite. 6. A "Double-Double" is Coffee With Two Creams and Two Sugars In the U.S., you might know it as a basketball term or a precarious sexual position (we're guessing), but it means a coffee with two creams and two sugars for Canadians. Hey, Canadians, remember this next time you're thinking of ragging on the drink preferences of your neighbors to the south. 4. “Parkade” is Just a Parking Garage The word "parkade" refers to a "multi-level parking garage" and appears to date back to Edmonton, Alberta in the 1950s. It's a pleasant word we should frankly all adopt. I gotta agree with Cracked here. 3. “Pop” Means “Soda” If you hear a Canadian ask for a "pop," they're not necessarily asking someone to hand over their elderly father. Most likely, they want a soda. Many electrons have been wasted on discussing the regional variations in what people call carbonated soft drinks. People have actually gotten grants to study that shit. "Pop," as you probably already know, isn't unique to Canada; a huge chunk of the US calls it "pop" also.Incidentally, here's a map of the US, county by county, with visualized results of this important linguistic analysis.For the record, I call it "soda." 1. A "Two-Four" Means You're About to Get Drunk on Mediocre Beer A case of twenty-four bottles of beer is often referred to as a "two-four" – and just think of all the extra time you'll have to get drunk thanks to the valuable seconds you saved by omitting that extra syllable. I suppose we should be grateful they don't call it a deux-quatre. Though this is something I'll never need to know, because I don't drink beer that's sold in cases. So, like I said, there are a few more at the link, if you care to become bilingual and learn some Canadian |
| Not a lot to add to this one, just some interesting science. Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds Surprising discovery shows scale of plastic pollution and reveals enzymes that could boost recycling Because I did an entry about the Pacific Garbage Patch a few days ago ("Garbage Patch Kids" ), this article (which I only found after doing that entry) caught my eye.Microbes in oceans and soils across the globe are evolving to eat plastic, according to a study. Just for the record, that's an excellent lede. Concise, accurate (as opposed to the "bugs" in the headline), and gets right to the point. Of course there's more, which is why there's an article, but I do appreciate a good lede. The study is the first large-scale global assessment of the plastic-degrading potential of bacteria and found that one in four of the organisms analysed carried a suitable enzyme. The researchers found that the number and type of enzymes they discovered matched the amount and type of plastic pollution in different locations. This should not be too shocking. It's in line with how we know evolution works. If one "bug" has the enzyme and another doesn't, then the second bug, after ingesting plastic, has a higher chance of dying, so the first bug has a higher chance of reproductive success. The truly amazing thing is that these microbes had the potential to create the appropriate enzyme in the first place. That's what's unexpected from my point of view. These plastics aren't generally from non-manufactured sources. Reducing the amount of plastic used is vital, as is the proper collection and treatment of waste. Not if we have mutant microbes to eat it! We're saved! Use ALL the plastic! The new research provides many new enzymes to be investigated and adapted for industrial use. In other words, the really useful thing here is being able to replicate these enzymes, not that we can unleash hordes of plastic-eating archaea. Importantly, the researchers ruled out potential false positives by comparing the enzymes initially identified with enzymes from the human gut, which is not known to have any plastic-degrading enzymes. ...yet. Another mutant enzyme was created in 2020 by the company Carbios that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours. Don't these people read science fiction? Sheesh. |
| Some of the entries this month will be from "Invalid Item" . This is one of them. Prompt # 1 May, 1st. '22 — A bit about the history of your town/area. Every place has a history. Some towns were founded to support gold rushes, others were close to oceans. What's the History of where you live? What was the early industry that made your town the place to be? Who founded your town and when? Before the Europeans invaded, it was the Monacan people who lived here. As I understand it, the Monacan claimed most of the Piedmont region as their territory, and they didn't get along with the Powhatan Confederacy in the Tidewater area of Virginia, who are much more famous thanks to Disney movies. So it probably didn't take much for the Powhatan to team up with the English to venture into enemy territory and start setting up shop here. Once that was all settled and the Monacan had dispersed -- mostly being absorbed into other tribes, which bought them a few years at least -- the English were perfectly content to backstab their erstwhile allies. Meanwhile, though, they'd established trade routes across the Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley, which had mostly been settled from the north, by people of German descent (think Pennsylvania "Dutch.") It was one one of these trade routes (called Three Notch'd Road) that, at some point, Europeans started living around here. A lot of that early history is quite vague; my personal feeling is that someone set up a brewpub, and after a long day's travel from Richmond (a trip that now takes about an hour), it must have been very inviting to stop in, have a few, pass out, and then continue on across the mountain pass the following day. But I may be biased. I should point out here that the Wikipedia page for Charlottesville includes a whole section devoted to our current breweries. No, I didn't edit that part in. I was just pleased to see one of our greatest features so prominently displayed on the webpage. The thing about Charlottesville's history, though, is that we don't really have any other excuse. There are no significant natural resources around (apart from good agricultural and timber land, which isn't exactly sparse in Virginia); no navigable waterway extends this far up the drainage basin (though the James River is partially navigable, it's about 30 miles from here); and it took a while for any real industry to develop in the area. So... we don't really have a founder, not like other cities. The "Charlotte" in the Ville's name was King George III's queen. You may remember King George III as the guy who got his ass handed to him by a bunch of Indian-trained colonists, and who had a bit part in Hamilton. I don't think she ever set foot around here. So the town's not named after its founder. No, in 1762, before the Hand-George's-Ass-To-Him War, the city was chartered to serve as the county seat of Albemarle -- which, of course, implies that there was already a fairly significant settlement here, and probably more than one brewpub. (It's still technically the county seat, even though it's a separate political entity. Don't ask; it's a Virginia thing.) Therefore, the closest thing we have to a founder is Thomas Jefferson, who you might also remember from Hamilton. Among the many other hats he wore, Jefferson was a land surveyor. As part of my job, I used to have to dig through City and county records to determine the history of a piece of land my clients were destroyingdeveloping. Inevitably, if I searched back far enough, I'd find surveys signed in Jefferson's distinctive fuck-you-George handwriting. Problem is, some of those surveys were dated during the time Jefferson was in France doinking French women. My personal theory is he had a slave who did all the work and then forged his signature. Typical. Really, while the town has a really flimsy excuse for existing, it was Jefferson who gave it a purpose by building the University of Virginia here. While there was certainly more traditional "industry" around -- the Woolen Mills come to mind -- Charlottesville got its boost as a college town. UVA is still the biggest game in town, though technically most of it isn't in the City. The next most important historical event was when I moved here in 1983 from Powhatan territory to attend the university. And I do what I can to keep the local brewpubs in business. |
| There is no way to disprove a conspiracy theory. ‘The lunacy is getting more intense’: how Birds Aren’t Real took on the conspiracy theorists On a march, Peter McIndoe held up a sign and talked about how the ‘deep state’ had replaced all birds with drones. It was meant as a small act of satire but has become a mass movement What I mean by that is, of course you can disprove a conspiracy theory. What you can't do is present any evidence that would make someone who's invested in it change their mind. Either they'll dismiss it as fake, or declare that you're obviously part of the conspiracy. This seems to be a defining feature of humanity; we can believe any bullshit if we really want to, and once we do, it becomes part of our identity, and to break with it can cause tremendous mental anguish. I say "we" because while I try to be open to new evidence, I'm still nominally human, and I can't say I'm totally immune. Part of the problem is when we get deep into these things, we don't even recognize our own cognitive issues. Like, I'm convinced, with absolutely no evidence, that PETA is secretly run by soybean growers and fake fur manufacturers, both of which have a massive financial stake in getting people to eat no meat and wear no fur. I'm not sure what could cause me to believe otherwise. But really, does that particular conspiracy theory do any harm? (The above link is from The Guardian, so some of these quotes will have British-spelled words.) Anyway. One small act of satire: McIndoe made a placard, and went out to join the march. “It’s not like I sat down and thought I’m going to make a satire. I just thought: ‘I should write a sign that has nothing to do with what is going on.’ An absurdist statement to bring to the equation.” I don't know if I've mentioned in here before the power that I think absurdity has. Sometimes you have to venture into the surreal to truly comprehend reality. That statement was “birds aren’t real”. As he stood with the counterprotesters, and they asked what his sign meant, he improvised. He said he was part of a movement that had been around for 50 years, and was originally started to save American birds, but had failed. The “deep state” had destroyed them all, and replaced them with surveillance drones. Every bird you see is actually a tiny feathered robot watching you. Obviously false. Hell, I ate some chicken just a few hours ago (suck it, PETA), and a chicken is a bird. Or... wait... WAS it chicken? How do I really know? Anyway, the "theory" is obviously false. After all, birds are tough to fake. Insects and spiders, now... those are actually government drones spying on you. It’s a made-up conspiracy theory that is just realistic enough, as conspiracies go, to convince QAnon supporters that birds aren’t real, but has just enough satirical flags that generation Z recognises immediately what is going on. Right, because every generation is a solid cohort that moves in lockstep. No Gen-Z doesn't recognize it as satire. No Millenial, Xer, or Boomer recognizes it as satire. We are all one. Conform. It’s a vivid dramatisation of how divisive conspiracy theories are; people who believe them live in another world, where any wild theory flies and even the most fleeting attempt to fact check it or test it against logic (if birds have been destroyed, who’s eating all the worms?) marks you out as a brainwashed liberal. The Guardian leans left, and we all know it. I dislike playing the "both sides are bad" card, but here again, as with the generations thing, let's not forget that many liberals subscribe to conspiracy theories, too. Like my pet PETA one. The paedophile element of QAnon, where Hillary Clinton and a huge global web of powerful liberals, are abusing children and keeping them in tunnels, sounds completely unhinged. Not if you understand that for those people, every accusation is actually a confession. They’re unified on the prank, right? There aren’t people there who think birds genuinely aren’t real? (I still need a lot of footnotes.) “Yeah, they’re role-playing together. They’re role-playing the collective understanding of the conspiracy theory.” Yeah, I wouldn't be so certain of that. I'm sure there are people cosplaying as flat-Earthers, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the flat-Earthers believe every word they spout. Anyway, the article is a nice glimpse into a conspiracy theory that we know is satire, kind of like we know that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a satire of religious nutjobs. |
| Well, today ends April. Tomorrow of course is May Day, or Beltane, or, if you must, May 1. I'm barely conscious, so here's an article about consciousness. Controversial New Theory Says Human Consciousness Is ... Electromagnetic? It may sound crazy, but it's based on science. At least it's an alternative to the unsatisfying theory of panpsychism. Could the thorny question of human consciousness be answered by simple electromagnetic waves? If the problem is hard, the solution is rarely simple. Elegant, maybe. But not "simple." And the problem of "What is consciousness?" is famously hard. One improbably dualist scientist believes so, and he suggests the human mind is a combination of physical matter and electromagnetic field. As the article notes, dualism is nothing new, but where does the electromagnetic field come from? This is a big question, and the proposed answer here is controversial. I want to note that "controversial" doesn't mean "a scientist said so, but Billy Smith with a high school education says it ain't common sense; therefore, it's controversial." No, it means "scientists are debating this." The University of Surrey’s Johnjoe McFadden “posits that consciousness is in fact the brain’s energy field,” the university says in a statement, making McFadden’s dualism a question of matter and energy, the institution says—not the classic “body and mind” distinction. Okay, but that implies that physical processes in the body power the energy field. Still not dualism, since the body is the power source. Throughout history, philosophers around the world have tried to account for the special-seeming nature of human beings within the world or even, some fear, the entire universe. The only thing special about us seems to be that we make tools to make tools. Some other animals make tools to do a task, and stop there. As far as anyone can tell, cats have consciousness too, and if this theory holds water, then it would also explain their mental processes. Also, "fear?" More like "hope." And as I've said before, evolution doesn't necessarily produce technology-using beings, but it seems to favor consciousness. From where does our robust self-awareness and sentience arise? People who believe everything is physically present and caused are called materialists, meaning there’s nothing extra that can’t be measured—what you see and touch is what humans are. Dualists instead believe there’s something extra. I still don't see the dualism here. He's not postulating "something extra," but, basically, brain waves -- which, as the article notes, are measurable and quantifiable, at least to some extent. That means as long as the human brain is alive, McFadden says, it generates an electrical glow in which the real nitty-gritty human stuff is happening. And the best part is that his theory is testable in the laboratory. So, test it. “There are of course many unanswered questions, such as degree and extent of synchrony required to encode conscious thoughts, the influence of drugs or anaesthetics on the cemi field or whether cemi fields are causally active in animal brains,” he explains in the paper. It would be helpful if the article explained what he's calling "cemi," which it doesn't. So, from my layman's perspective, it's a giant blob of nothing new. Perhaps there's more to it that the article doesn't cover (as with the "cemi" word), but my takeaway is: while a being is alive, their body generates energy, which is where cognition happens. When that being dies, the energy source shuts down. Classical dualism, as noted in the article, proposes a separate soul or spirit that lives on when the body dies, but this ain't that -- it's like, where does the light from a candle go when it's snuffed out? The light exists only in our memories, and echoes in the residual heat it generated. And eventually those memories are snuffed out too. I'm not saying the researcher is wrong, to be clear. This actually sounds more plausible than other ideas about consciousness, like (as I noted above) panpsychism. I'd like to see more work done on it. Solving the problem of "what is consciousness actually?" would be a Big Deal, but right now it's not even a theory; it's a hypothesis. |
| Final April entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]... Storage Plastic and the Pacific Garbage Patch Hopefully everyone has heard of the Pacific Garbage Patch by now. Though technically it's not a patch but a gyre, and while the imagery makes you think there's just an unbroken layer of plastic soda bottles and whatnot in some sort of big island-looking thing, the reality is much worse: it's mostly microplastics, and you can't really see much of it.Though there probably are a few floating islands. And sea monsters. There are always sea monsters. The gyre is kind of like a black hole for floating plastics: they can get in, but being surrounded by currents, they can't get out, and so they just sit there and rotate like a galaxy (I might be mixing metaphors). But it makes me wonder. What if it was a bunch of macroscopic, non-degrading, floating plastics? I mean, that would be bad too, sure, but if the patch were dense enough, maybe some enterprising person could... clean it up? Nah, we're talking evil genius here. Glue the pieces together (using epoxy or some other adhesive that could stand up to corrosive salt water) and build a raft on it. Glue the lids onto the storage boxes for extra flotation. The plastic isn't going anywhere, so we might as well make it useful, right? Someone could claim it. Build their own country. Get married. Have kids. Garbage Patch Kids. Come on, you know you want to. |
| I don't have a lot of time tonight, so it's a good thing this one came up, because it requires very little embellishment from me. It's important to note that there are good things that come out of being in an altered state of consciousness. If there weren't, no one would do it. Well, almost no one. Well, very few. Some of history’s greatest minds kept functioning long enough -- and in some cases, functioned better -- while drunk or high to bring us some of humanity’s most impressive accomplishments. It's the "functioned better" part that's impressive. I won't copy all of them here. Just the ones I find most interesting. As this is Cracked, the numbers are backwards as usual. 15. Dock Ellis Pitched a No-Hitter on LSD Dock pitched the only no-hitter of his career while tripping the very same balls he was throwing. As is customary for frequent drug users, he woke up that morning not knowing what day it was and figured that was as good a reason as any to drop a ton of acid... I just had to note that the first sentence is a great turn of phrase. I used to know what that usage is called, where one word serves double duty, and I haven't even dropped acid. Maybe if I did, I'd remember. In any case, I also need to point out that "a ton" of acid would probably kill you. Not from the acid, but ingesting 2,000 pounds of anything will make your stomach explode (as far as I've heard, there's no LD50 or whatever for LSD). But I do know that construction: it's hyperbole, and it's absolutely essential to comedy. It's just that I'm just responsible enough to disclaim that no one should do a literal ton of acid. 13. Khrushchev Made Peace With Yugoslavia Thanks to Booze I know some people are angry drunks. They get all the bad attention and they give booze a bad name. If I had more time, I'd tell the story of a friend of mine who, as a teenager, got everyone drunk at a mock NATO team-building exercise, which resulted in the same effect: peace on Earth. Perhaps another time. 12. Francis Crick Credited Microdosing With His Discovery of DNA Funny how he credits LSD but not the actual person he should be crediting, Rosalind Franklin. Incidentally, yes, lots of these are acid-related. I wonder if there's a connection. 10. Ulysses S. Grant Won the Civil War Drunk The bluster General Grant needed to win the Civil War might have come to him courtesy of good ol’ bourbon. He was known to be such a prolific drinker that a “principal responsibility” of his chief of staff during the war was making sure he didn’t drink himself to defeat, with mixed success. As the principal suppliers of bourbon were in the South, perhaps he was just trying to liberate the facilities. 9. Pythagoras Came Up With His Theorem While High Look, I don't expect Cracked to be a paragon of accuracy, but shit, man, we're not even sure Pythagoras was an actual person and not, like, a fictional character made up by an ancient Greek math club. Whether they were smoking weed or not is therefore subject to debate. 8. Cocaine Allowed Freud to Invent Psychoanalysis Considering that pretty much everything Freud did was later denounced, I'm not sure this counts as an awesome thing. 4. Gary Dahl Invented the Pet Rock in a Bar The pet rock started as a literal joke when Gary Dahl was out drinking with his friends and, in response to their complaints about taking care of pets, told them, “No problem at my house. I have a pet rock. No vet bills, except once in a while to scrape off the moss.” What Dahl really invented was the idea that marketing could make anything sell. Anything. This later led to inventions such as bottled water and chicken wings, and continues to promote rice-adjunct pisswater as if it were beer. No word on whether he was related to Roald or not. That's it for my comments. To see the others, you'll have to go to the link. Some of them are cheats, because there's no way to know for sure (they say "probably" in some cases). But I think the point is made: sobriety can be overrated. |
| Got a taste for some history? One of the funniest things I ever saw on the road was a sign for Donner Camp Picnic Ground , an actual place near Truckee, in what became known as Donner Pass and now is basically just I-80.Someone in charge knew exactly what they were doing, so it's even funnier than if it were a naive reference. If, somehow, you've never heard of the travelers we're talking about here, the first part of the article above helpfully explains the background. I also don't really have much to add to the article. I just often wondered whether what they had to do was eventually worth it, and now, after reading this, at least I know more about the rest of the story, after the sordid bits. Their names still grace streets, schools and even a town, and the villain of the expedition was the first man to introduce lager to California. So the answer, in that case, was yes, absolutely it was worth it. Whoever later introduced IPAs to California, though, should get a one-way trip to the Donner Picnic Ground. However, Keseberg’s legacy as a brewer endures. In 1853, he founded Sacramento’s Phoenix Brewery, the first to introduce lagers to the region. The Sacramento Bee referred to him as “the first brewer in Sacramento.” Villain? Hero? Why not both? Anyway, okay, the other stories are probably just as interesting, but I was naturally drawn to the beer one. Like I said, not much to add, but at least there was beer. |
| Every so often, I'll see an article relating scientific advancement to ideas from science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular. This is one of them. And, like all the rest of them, it's disappointing and ends up increasing, rather than decreasing, misconceptions about physics. Like, a while back, there was a slew of articles about teleportation. Of a single particle, but with all the hype attached to it, I'm sure people thought transporters were just a few years away. Spoiler: they're not. This is similar. The “tractor beam” has been a reliable narrative device in science fiction for nearly 100 years, deployed whenever the plot requires seizing a runaway spaceship or manipulating objects at a distance. That's right; Trek didn't invent the concept. As an aside, as a kid, the phrase "tractor beam" in Trek confused me. Being on a farm, I knew damn well what a tractor was. It was only later, after four years of Latin in high school, that I finally figured out that it comes from the same root as "attractor." Okay, maybe it didn't take me that long, but remember, I started watching Trek at a very young age. Anyway, the root, trahere, means "to pull," and we can already do that mechanically, or with magnets. But most sci-fi fans probably know it from Star Wars and Star Trek — the sinister Death Star and the mighty USS Enterprise each boasted a frequently convenient tractor beam system. Ugh. Star Wars is great, too. I don't take sides. What I do insist upon, though, is that Star Wars isn't science fiction; it's fantasy with SF props. The first thing to know about real-life tractor beams is that they work more like another sci-fi concept: force fields. No. No, they really do not. As the article explains, it's sorcery with light and sound waves. The completely fictional idea of force fields is about energy without mass. One could argue, of course, that creating a barrier of focused sound waves would do a lot of what a force field is supposed to do; that is, keep people and things from crossing it. Anyway, look, I'm not knocking the science, and I'm only knocking the article for being a little misleading up front; the author does go on to explain the technology in some detail (without getting too technical). As the author points out, We won’t be using tractor beams to yank around Corellian-class smuggling ships, but we could certainly use them to accomplish touchless manipulation of tiny objects in places where precision is at a premium. The abdominal cavity, for instance. Subramanian says that in the future, acoustic tractor beams could be used to move tiny nanobots inside the body for targeted drug delivery, when a particular medicine needs to be delivered to a particular area of tissue. That seems to be a very niche application, but I think it's an important one, and pretty cool. Drinkwater concedes that it will be “a fair few years” before any of this happens — and many more before we can start scaling up to spaceship-sized tractor beams. Yeah, more like centuries for the latter, absent some sort of massive breakthrough. Just don't expect to see these at your neighborhood Tractor Supply Store. |
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