Universal Translator

Thursday 8 December 2016

Mrs. Cameron's Rules

Many people have that one teacher who made a lasting impact on them. For me, it was my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Cameron. She died last week at age 88. I’ll always remember two things she taught me. When I first heard them, they were revolutionary and they forever changed me. They were: 1) Until you have tried something (or experienced or read, etc), you can’t criticize something or say you don’t like it. On this, opera was her go-to example. She mentioned opera and everyone in the class would groan or mutter how they hated it; she then asked how many had actually listened to opera, nobody answered. We then listened to and analyzed Bizet’s Carmen. She was adamant that if you made the statement “I don’t like [blank]", you had better have an explanation as to why you didn’t like it and had had a first-hand experience. “Just because” didn’t cut it with Mrs. Cameron. 2)You must read at least five books (or equivalent) in a subject in order to talk expertly about it. She stressed to her students that if you want to criticize something (like opera or anything), you needed to really understand it. You couldn’t read just one book, or listen to just one opera, then give an opinion. You had to read several books, or listen to several operas, before you could really discuss it properly with anyone – a valuable lesson in today’s Wikipedia world.
She opened the eyes and minds of many country kids - many of which would have never been exposed to the arts and humanities without her help. She always wanted you to rise higher, to realize your potential. She was a wonderful teacher. Thanks, Mrs. Cameron!

Wednesday 30 November 2016

Sypsamulga Snake-Charming Majorette

 My Aunt Emma was never a frilly, high-maintenance woman or extreme housewife. She worked hard and spent a lot of time outside. Unlike most women of her time, she’d rather be outside helping around the house or on the farm than shopping or going to the hairdresser. Her sisters would say that it started when she was little and played like a tomboy, dressed in a dirty pair of overalls and carrying an old stick to poke at frogs.
             She had no problem roaming around the countryside collecting bugs and frogs with the boys. She’d run and jump into the red clay gulleys, and build tree houses and forts. My grandmother was busy in the kitchen cooking and canning with the older girls and she could never get Emma into the house; she figured Emma would end up driving tractors and helping with the farm animals, so she just didn’t force the issue. Grandma figured that once a boy gave Emma a certain look, she’d be in the kitchen frying chicken and begging to learn to make an apple pie for him.
             As predicted, Emma, as she entered her teenage years, began to drive the tractor during planting season and haymaking season. She herself was in charge of the chickens and the two pigs destined to become pork chops and bacon. (She was never squeamish about wringing the neck of a chicken for Sunday dinner.) When it was time to pick cotton, she was the first down the row with her sack, picking bolls and humming a tune. One day someone asked her why she always hummed, she told them that it scared off the snakes –no one argued with her and everybody started to hum themselves.
             Emma, over the years, had become somewhat of a snake charmer. She had no problem catching snakes with her bare hands. She’d put a hoe or stick onto its head and grab it. It sent chills down my grandmother’s spine to see Emma holding a big fat chicken snake, its body wrapped around Emma’s arm. Emma would just laugh her big boisterous laugh, then walk out to the woods and free it. Granddaddy hated when she’d let a snake go rather than killing it, but Emma explained that chicken snakes killed rats and mice – from then on, he made her put the snakes in the corn crib.
Emma had no problem with rattlesnakes either. One day, grandma caught her putting lard into a cook-pot, which was set up over a fire. On a nearby table, there set bowls of cornmeal and buttermilk beside a mounded plate of what looked like chicken. Emma told her mother she was making supper, and went about breading the pieces of meat. My grandmother grabbed the edge of the table when the blood rushed from her brain, causing her to almost faint on the hard red clay and gravel. She couldn't believe Emma was making fried chicken.
“Who told you how to fry? I am just amazed at my little girl.”
“Molly done told me what to do,” said Emma, giving the melting lard a stir. She walked to the table and began to salt and pepper the meat.
“Lord, I never expected to see you out here frying some chicken,” said my grandmother, pulling out a handkerchief to dab her forehead.
“Oh, Mama, it ain’t chicken. I caught a big ol’ rattler down in the slough and done skinned it,” replied Emma. She held up one of the sections of rattlesnake meat. “It does look like a chicken thigh, don’t it?”
Emma picked her mother up out of the dirt. “If’n I tan the hide, would you help me make a hatband from it?” She pointed at a mess of rattlesnake skin handing from a low branch. My grandmother figured that as long as Emma was cooking and wanting to sew something, it was a battle won.
Emma went for years without any desire to do anything requiring her to spend her day inside or doing something considered "girly", so it was a shock and a surprise when Emma tried out for majorette in high school…and actually got it. She, for years, had been twirling sticks and such on her way between the barn and the field and back home. She had gotten pretty good. When she saw the majorettes practicing one day near the gymnasium, she figured she could do it just as well as they could. So she showed up at tryouts with her twirling stick and gave them a show. Some of the other girls giggled at this lanky girl in overalls twirling a piece of wood, but the judges were impressed when Emma threw the stick high into the air and then caught it without missing a beat. The giggles went silent, and Emma was on the squad.
The hardest thing for Emma was adjusting to the majorette outfit. She thought it looked like some spangled, bejeweled swimsuit and was flat-out too girly for her tastes. She liked the boots, except for the big tassels. It was a different time than nowadays, so the uniforms the majorettes wore were a bit heavier and theatrical and included little marching band hats with little visors and feathers. Emma wasn’t too happy with all the fuss, she just wanted her overalls and wooden stick, which itself was replaced with an official metal baton with white rubber on the ends. She persevered and learned the routine, eventually getting somewhat used to the uniform. She carried on as well as she could.
The band spent the summer practicing and marching in a few small parades. They would practice on the football field, but when the football players needed it they moved to a nearby practice field. The principal usually got old man Glenwood to use white paint to mark off the field marks after the practice field was mowed. Well, this year Mr. Glenwood had broken his leg in an accident and the chore went to his temporary replacement, Jimmy Townsend. Jimmy was not reliable nor was he smart, the field went unmowed and Mr. McGuire, the band teacher, had to mark the field as well as he could. The band eventually stomped down the grass and got into the rhythm of the routine. At one point, the majorettes had to go to the sidelines and do a mini-routine involving throwing their batons at each other and catching them. They then stuck a pose as the band played its big finale. Well, this time the majorettes walked to the edge of the practice field, which was bordered by a creek, and Miriam yelled. In front of her was curled a huge water moccasin, she had almost marched right onto it. She froze, one leg in the air mid-march. Emma ran over to her and told Miriam to remain still. Emma took off her hat (the majorettes wore them during practice to keep their smiling faces and heads up), and then walked around behind the poisonous snake. She quickly pushed the rubber ends of the metal baton onto the head of the snake, then reached down and grabbed it. The snake opened its mouth and bared its fangs, its body struggling to wrap around Emma’s arms; but Emma held it tight. Jimmy Townsend came down the hill from the school’s shop, wondering what in the world the commotion was. Emma grabbed her hat, and motioned for one of Loretta Snellgrove’s little cymbals. She set the snake expertly into the hat, covered it quickly with the cymbal, and walked up to Jimmy Townsend.
“Jimmy, you didn’t mow the grass,” she said sternly.
“I was about to get to that,” he answered her.
“Well, Jimmy, we had a little episode out here on the field.” She held up the hat covered with the cymbal, as Mr. McGuire walked up. Emma looked at the band teacher and Mr. McGuire nodded his head. “Take this, Jimmy,” she said, “And hold that cymbal tight against the hat.
Jimmy took the hat from her. “What in the devil is this?” he asked.
“That is a water moccasin that Miriam almost stepped on because you can’t keep this field mowed and taken care of,” Emma told him.
The color drained from Jimmy’s face and he started to shake a bit.
“Be careful not to open it in an enclosed space.”
Jimmy walked to the edge of the creek and threw the hat, cymbal, and snake into it. He then watched the snake swim on down the creek, followed by a half-submerged majorette hat. The cymbal was never seen again. Jimmy stormed off, cussing under his breath. But from then on, as long as he was there as the groundskeeper, the grass on the practice field was mowed almost to the dirt.

Emma never found her hat as it floated downstream, but it didn’t matter. She became head majorette and marched at the head of the band with the drum major, wearing a sparkling pair of white overalls and twirling her favorite wooden stick.

Monday 19 September 2016

Mark Twain and his New-Fangled Writing Machine



"Few authors have made an impact as enduring as literary icon Samuel Clemens, a man who, under his pen name, Mark Twain, wrote such classics as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book which has been read by many millions of people around the world since its publication in 1884. It was ten years earlier, whilst shopping in Boston, that a curious Clemens spotted and then bought a Remington No.1, the very first “type writer” to be produced by E. Remington and Sons, released to the public that year. The first letter he wrote on his “new fangled writing machine”--which, incidentally, could only produce upper-case characters--was to his brother, Orion. Nine years after this letter was typed, Twain became the first author to deliver a typewritten manuscript to a publisher. It was his memoir, Life on the Mississippi." (www.lettersofnote.com)


Transcript
BJUYT KIOP N LKJHGFDSA:QWERTYUIOP:_-98VX5432QW RT

HA
HARTFORD, DEC. 9, 1874
DEAR BROTHER:

I AM TRYING T TO GET THE HANG OF THIS NEW F FANGLED WRITING MACHINE, BUT AM NOT MAKING A SHINING SUCCESS OF IT. HOWEVER THIS IS THE FIRST ATTEMPT I EVER HAVE MADE, & YET I PERCEIVETHAT I SHALL SOON & EASILY ACQUIRE A FINE FACILITY IN ITS USE. I SAW THE THING IN BOSTON THE OTHER DAY & WAS GREATLY TAKEN WI:TH IT. SUSIE HAS STRUCK THE KEYS ONCE OR TWICE, & NO DOUBT HAS PRINTED SOME LETTERS WHICH DO NOT BELONG WHERE SHE PUT THEM.

THE HAVING BEEN A COMPOSITOR IS LIKELY TO BE A GREAT HELP TO ME, SINCE O NE CHIEFLY NEEDS SWIFTNESS IN BANGING THE KEYS. THE MACHINE COSTS 125 DOLLARS. THE MACHINE HAS SEVERAL VIRTUES I BELIEVE IT WILL PRINT FASTER THAN I CAN WRITE. ONE MAY LEAN BACK IN HIS CHAIR & WORK IT. IT PILES AN AWFUL STACK OF WORDS ON ONE PAGE. IT DONT MUSS THINGS OR SCATTER INK BLOTS AROUND. OF COURSE IT SAVES PAPER.

SUSIE IS GONE, NOW, & I FANCY I SHALL MAKE BETTER PROGRESS. WORKING THIS TYPE-WRITER REMINDS ME OF OLD ROBERT BUCHANAN, WHO, YOU REMEMBER, USED TO SET UP ARTICLES AT THE CASE WITHOUT PREVIOUSLY PUTTING THEM IN THE FORM OF MANUSCRIPT. I WAS LOST IN ADMIRATION OF SUCH MARVELOUS INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY.

                                  LOVE TO MOLLIE.
YOUR BROTHER,
           SAM.


[Letter taken from the More Letters of Note book. Image at www.lettersofnote.com courtesy of Vassar College; reproduced with permission of the Mark Twain Project. For more letters of note, click here.]




Friday 11 March 2016

The Economics of Star Trek by Rick Webb
















The Economics of Star Trek
The Proto-Post Scarcity Economy
self-sealing stem bolt
by Rick Webb

"I promise this is about Star Trek. Sort of. Bear with me a moment.
I’ve been reading a lot about robots lately. When I read about robots, and the future, I can’t help but think about it in economic terms. And that inevitably turns my mind to the branch of economics called post scarcity economics. Traditional economics, of course, deals with the efficient allocation of inherently scarce materials. Post scarcity economics deals with the economics of economies that are no longer constrained by scarcity of materials — food, energy, shelter, etc.
The thing that never sits quite right with post scarcity economics, though, at least the very little that I’ve read, is that it’s always sort of an all or nothing affair: you either don’t have enough of anything or you have enough of everything. Thinking of this as a mental exercise is kind of fun, I think, but in reality it seems to me that getting from point A — a scarcity economy — to point B — post scarcity — is going to be a long, complicated journey as somethings become more abundant in some places, while other things are still scarce.
What is needed is some sort of interim-, or proto-post scarcity economics.
More and more I find myself thinking we are, as a race, constrained by the economic models we have. We have capitalism, of course, the proverbial worst model except for every other one that dominates much of our planet right now. It’s definitely a scarcity-based system. Then we have the centrally planned systems of Communism and Marxism, not particularly effective, as it turns out. We have European-style socialist capitalism, but that’s still capitalism, and scarcity-based, albeit with a much more robust safety net than we have here in the US. Some Americans seem to think that a robust safety net somehow nullifies the distributed planning of capitalism. I’ll listen to them again when our schools are decent and our life span starts increasing again magically.
The key here, to me, is to start thinking about how economics would work when we decouple labor from reward. Does that make a system inherently communist? I don’t think it does. People work. They get paid. It is market driven, and not centrally planned. In reality,the market already basically dictates this, for who can claim that a Wall Street banker works more than a teacher? The only thing we really need to do is take this to a logical extreme:that people can still get paid doing zero work. This fear seems to be at the heart of most people who say that Europe is communist: if we give people so much welfare, some of them might stop working! Quelle Horreur!
It seems to me that with the rise of machines and robotics, advances in mining technology, energy technology (both fracking and green energy technologies), the obesity epidemic in the US, etc., that there are plenty of reasons to believe that we may be at the beginnings of a post scarcity economy. We have a surplus, no doubt. Of course, we still have legions of people in the world that are starving, and even people still here at home. But we actually have the capacity to feed them, to feed everyone, even now, even if we don’t have the will. It’s not a matter of scarcity; it’s a matter of the organization of labor and capital.
Take a mental journey for a moment with me: what if, one day, technology reaches the point that a small number of humans — say, 10 million — can produce all of the food, shelter and energy that the race needs. This doesn’t seem like insanely wishful thinking, given current trends. There’s no rational reason why the advances in robotics, factories, energy and agriculture couldn’t continue unabated for long periods of time. Of course I’m not saying they will, but rather, they could.
So, then, take that journey. What, then, of labor? In today’s terms, a ‘healthy’ economy now is one at or near full employment. A healthy economy now is one where everyone has a job. But in our mental exercise, those jobs are actually unrelated to a healthy economy, at least from strict economic terms. Everyone’s fed and housed and tons of people simply don’t need to work. Right now, we have them working making shit we don’t need. Is that any better than them not working?
I give you we’re in some fringe areas of economics here, but I have always wondered: is there any economic proof that we need full employment to reach full satisfaction of needs? To my knowledge, there isn’t. There’s a body of economics that goes into standards of living, and the increased standard of living. And here we get to our shitty world of unabated consumerism,Thorstein Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and George Battaille’s accursed share — the inevitable destiny of all economies to eventually produce more than they need, and, thus, waste it.
Seems to me that if we could think beyond capitalism and think of a new model, we could break out of this pointless cycle of more and more consumption of shit we don’t need and model things in another way..."


To read the entire article, click this link.

Tuesday 29 December 2015

The Sulis Star System (Life of Other Worlds, Part 4)

Life of other worlds: drawings and sketches from one space explorer's travel journal is a series focusing on various other star systems in the Milky Way Galaxy.



The Sulis Star System (Note: Planets and orbits not to scale)


The Sulis System is a yellow star system with five planets. Named after Celtic gods, life has only been found on the planet of Cernunnos. Research indicates that the asteroid field, known as The Bards and Vates, may at one time been a planet with developing microscopic life. The first three planets in the system include: 1) Nantosuelta, a Mercury-class planet 2)Ambisagrus, a planet similar to Mars, and 3) Cernunnos, with its barren moon, Damara. The first three planets are very close to the same size, only varying in temperature and crust structure. There is one ringed planet Barinthus that may have gotten its rings from the destruction of a planet where The Bards and Vates are now located. Barinthus has four moons (it is unknown if they formed recently from debris or escaped the destruction felt by other moons in the system).The gas supergiant Britannia is a failed ringed planet.   Britannia is located within a supergaint asteroid field called The Druids. The asteroids saturate the orbit of Britannia, and they have never coalesced into rings around the planet -the magnetic field of the planet seems to push many of the asteroids out of the way and they then settle back into place after it passes. Most disturbed asteroids are either flung into deep space or end up settling into the orbit of The Bards and Vates. It is believed that the The Druids were at one time actually one or more large moons that orbited Britannia, probably pulverized as the result of the recent planetary event (around 50 million years ago) that also demolished the planet that occupied the orbit of The Bards and Vates.


Cernunnos



Cernunnos
Little nocturnal creature that many other things seemed to like to eat. We named it the Dinner Mouse



The Vampire Bird (not really a bird) captures its prey and injects venom that completely liquefies the organs, muscles and bones of its prey, which it then sucks out.


They were fast. And they were NOT cuddly.





















Britannia


Britannia and The Druids






Thursday 17 December 2015

The Aten-Ra Star System (and Giza Nebula) (Life of Other Worlds, Part 3)

Life of other worlds: drawings and sketches from one space explorer's travel journal is a series focusing on various other star systems in the Milky Way Galaxy.


The Aten-Ra System is a blue star system with five planets, located near the Giza Nebula. Astronomer Dr. Piers Langland, a member of the Unified Interplanetary Exploration Taskforce (UIET), discovered the system and its neighboring nebula. The system received its name due to the fact that it was discovered the year that the Forgotten Tombs were found and unearthed in Egypt.  Sadly, it was also the year of the Bombing of the Great Pyramids of Giza by religious fundamentalists.  The International Astronomical Union approved the naming of the system after ancient Egyptian deities and the naming of the nebula after the Great Pyramids as a remembrance of the great events of that year.
Life is found on Hathor, Amun and its moon Isis, and two of the three moons of Osiris-Anubis and Horus; however, life beyond Hathor and Amun is only microscopic (it is believed to have travel beyond Hathor and Amun as result of early meteorite impacts). Ancient microfossils have been found on the dead planet of Sokar. The Sokarian fossils resemble life on the moons of Osiris and Amun. This is a system teeming with life. So far Amun is only one of two known gas giants to harbor complex life in a thin upper layer.


Hapi

The first planet in the system: Hapi

Hathor

Hathor (with its moon Thoth in the background)
Hathor is a relatively flat planet with few mountain ranges. Most of the planet is very dry with large desert areas. Large expanses of the surface are covered in great prairies covered in grass-like plants.  One species that covers the large spaces actually is one plant that sends out roots underground forming a large megaorganism – one plant can cover hundreds of kilometers. There are no trees as on Earth, large herbaceous plants that resemble the banana trees of Earth create dense “jungles”.  The “trees” and the megaorganism plant never occur in the same spot –it seems the two species are constantly battling for space (where the two plants meet there is always a barren “no-man’s-land” between them-it is believed that there is some kind of chemical warfare going on among the two)

Herd animal on Hathor


Large herbaceous tree (similar to a banana tree on Earth)


Large grazing creature (abt 5 meters)




A nocturnal repto-mammal that survives only on nectar of certain flowers and juices of certain fruits.
This creature was always fighting others of the species. The sound of the bony plates crashing together filled the air at every hour. The tail would be used after the head jammed into its opponent.
These little critters were found in the water, in the mud, in the sand, everywhere. And yes, even the trees --or the equivalent of trees. 









Something that mostly laid in the mud (note that air is breathed in through hole on top of body) 



Osiris

The Moons of Osiris, looking toward Sokar and the Giza Nebula

Amun and its moon Isis

Amun

Many incredible life forms live in the thin stable habitable zone on a gas giant. The food chain of the planet includes large balloon-like carnivores, such as the Cloud Tiger, who consume the smaller and plentiful Kites. Kites themselves consume spores from the many forms of fungus and algae present in the zone.

Kites
Cloud Tiger (genus Aethercetus) captures Kites in a basket it swings through the air. The basket contracts tightly around the Kites and then digests them. The creature floats freely through the habitable zone of the gas giant, regulating its buoyancy to keep itself at the correct altitude. The "tiger" stripes are thought to resemble swarms of Kites causing other Kites to fly toward the Cloud Tiger, thus luring them to their death as lunch for the great floating beast.
Cloud Tiger
There was this creature we called Macy (after the large balloon figures in the Macy's parade). We believed it to be a member of the genus Aethercetus; if so, it is the largest member. It trawled for food with a large "basket" at the bottom. The "bubbles" on the side were young.
There was a carnivorous creature (genus Aethercetus) analogous to the Orcas on Earth. It hunted other members of the Aethercetus genus. We called it the Sky Orca. It seemed to prefer to eat Cloud Tigers. It used the sharp pendulum to ram the Cloud Tigers and deflate them; then released a dissolving agent to melt certain nutritious parts of its prey, which it sucked up through a tube.  It did this very quickly as it slowly descended due to the extra weight.  Before reaching the point of no return, it jettisoned the carcass of the Cloud Tiger and floated slowly up to a higher altitude.








Sky Orca


Creature we called Macy (after the large balloon figures in the Macy's parade)


Sokar



Sokar and the Giza Nebula



The Giza Nebula


Residing near the Aten-Ra System, the nebula fills the night skies of all the planets of the system.  A defining feature of the nebula is its bright monochromatic redness, caused by the abundance of hydrogen.  The three bright white dwarfs ( each one named after one of the three pyramids in Giza) are the three brightest points in the nebula.  Some believe the vivid red-purple colour of Sokar is due to the capture of nebula hydrogen by the planet.  An odd section of the Giza Nebula is separated from the main body and has a bright blue-white cast (see Hathor photo).  Scientists believe that the high temperature of this region is caused by the fact that the hydrogen is being consumed in some unknown type of reaction.  Some believe that the reaction might someday consume the entire nebula; others believe that  it is a localized reaction.  It has been put forth by some that the proximity of the "Blue Cloud" to the planetary system invites the question that the reaction is caused by abandoned alien technology. The establishment of a permanent space station (Langland Station UIET) in orbit around Hathor will study the Giza Nebula and its relationship with the Aten-Ra System.



Next in the series :  The Sulis Star System