Monthly Archives: June 2023

USMC and other acronyms

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On January 10, 2022. Mariner posted the following:

“Poignantly, mariner misses the word ‘gay’. It was a richly nuanced word that combined the sensation of friendly, entertaining and memorable into a three letter word.”

This still is true. There is no other single, simple word that conveys the experience where one would say they had a gay time – rejuvenation via pleasure. But this is a different time. ‘Gay’ virtually is extinct; it lingers only in a ridiculous acronym, LGBTQIA+ (LGBTQIA+ is an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more).

The ‘+’ bothers him. Maybe the next letter will be ‘F’ for people who like to have fun at parties having only one sex as participants. Will women’s clubs have to become secretive about where and when they meet? Will the mariner and his buddies swear secrecy regarding their poker club or their Friday night at the corner bar? Will the mariner have to give a swab before he enters the men’s room?

The whole genetic prejudice thing is absurd in today’s world. Mariner is excluded from conversations because he can’t remember the acronym – let alone say it.

Thank goodness mariner is not a black Asian who speaks Spanish, wears a kippah, lives in an Arabian neighborhood and lives with a Somalian. What would that acronym look like?

Ancient Mariner

Phonemes

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For most readers, this is a new word. Roughly speaking, it means the set of sounds in a language. We are accustomed to using written letters to organize our language into words, grammar and the expression of meaning. But there are other ways of organizing a language: by its sounds, not its letters. For example, the ‘c’ in the word ‘cool’ is the same sound as the letter ‘k’ in ‘leek’. Though different letters, they are the same sound – just one sound in a phoneme ‘alphabet’.

Yes, this topic is extremely esoteric, Mariner is attracted to any topic that has to do with hearing and speaking. The marvel of science that could make a scientist the richest man in the world would be to emulate the mechanics of hearing.

His experience with hearing aids is subpar. It seems that trying to convert sound waves into human speech is flawed. Every human listening system is slightly different because brains are different, bone structure is different, language expectations are different (budder in the US is the same word as buTTa in England or ‘sar’ in Massachusetts versus ‘saw’ in the rest of the US. Mariner’s pleasing favorite is anything Fats Domino says; mariner’s favorites are ‘haut’ for ‘heart’ and the permanent replacement of a short ĭ with a long ē – My haut stood steel on Blueberry Heel).

He has noticed that in general practice, there is a human who translates sounds between two incommunicable groups – either a translator of language or a converter changing sounds to hand gestures. Hearing aids don’t have translators; they only hear sound waves without intelligent interpretation.

Perhaps hearing aids should have a phoneme lexicon built in. Computer storage can store a sound value on an atom these days. Why not build a phonemic dictionary into hearing aids; adaptability to parochial sounds could be as rapid as human listening.

Here is the difficulty: Phonemes are categories rather than actual sounds, they are not tangible things; instead, they are abstract, theoretical types or groups that are only psychologically real. (In other words, we cannot hear phonemes, but we assume they exist because of how the sounds in languages create a pattern.) For example, the word ‘kicked’ has two ‘k’ sounds but they are not identical. The first k is clearly thrust from the throat and the second k is a collaboration between the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

Nevertheless, mariner feels there must be some form of phonemic intelligence incorporated into hearing aids.

Ancient Mariner

On living forever

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Mariner’s wife took him on a Father’s Day trip to the next county, known for its small villages and the fact that there are no stop lights in the entire county. But – they have the largest milkshakes he has ever encountered – easily a full quart.

On the way home, mariner’s wife pondered, “Which would be better, to have children and die after a natural lifespan or to not have children and live forever?”

Wow! Did Guru sit up for this question! His wife was considering the emotional tradeoff and how that would affect the happiness of an individual. Would a person choose living forever and never growing old in exchange for the joy of family, fellow-aging community and culture?

This question offers many different paths of examination. Mariner’s first thoughts were about the evolutionary mandates in humans that require a generation-based society. How would society work without generations? Second, would a Mitch McConnell exist as old or would he be a young Majority Leader forever? Wouldn’t political diversity disappear over time because no one is older than anyone else?

Third, and this is scary, isn’t this the plan offered by AI? The only difference is an individual gives up their own life instead of a child’s.

In short, his wife’s question is thoughtful. What are the root values in human life? Is an individual a complete person without Mom, Dad, and the kids? Does life forever offer sufficient feelings of security about staying alive forever? Economics requires a changing market. Wouldn’t everyone be wearing the same thing ala the movie 1984?

Lest we forget, no one said cancer and influenza wouldn’t have a role. Living forever simply means controlling chromosome division so that it can divide perpetually. No one said anything about external causes; no one expects that a person would live after being run over by a train.

Those among you harboring 1-5 year-olds are not allowed to consider the question.

Ancient Mariner

You know what I mean

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Mariner is an old codger. The wiring between his brain and his mouth is damaged. Consequently, he cannot recall words, especially nouns and names of things if the mouth is asking for them – the brain knows but won’t tell until five minutes later when he doesn’t need the word anymore. On the other hand, when he is typing, he has almost his entire lexicon at hand; words fall in as needed and he can manipulate meanings with unending suffixes and metaphors.

It doesn’t help that mariner can’t hear other people’s words, either. He wears hearing aids.

Mariner was poking around on the Internet looking for information about his issue. He was familiar with the general explorations of language as a deep survival skill and as a social skill as well. Just as with whales and many birds, humans have a brain that, when as young toddlers, the brain is quite adept at associating meaning with a given sound.

The following two paragraphs are from science journals. The topic is about the anatomical science of hearing and its chemical processes.

The investigation of organometallic compounds containing unsupported homoatomic metal-metal (M-M) bonds has been an area of major interest for decades. These compounds feature distinct, otherwise inaccessible bonding, such as M-M quadruple and quintuple bonds, and fascinating reactivity, including mimicking the reactions of C-C multiple bonds. Ultimately, the main driver for research in this area is to push the boundaries of bonding for a given element and, in doing so, rewrite the textbooks. On page 1147 of this issue, Boronski et al. (1) report the isolation of diberyllocene as the latest entrant in the field. Diberyllocene is a stable Be-Be bonded compound and is a relatively accessible source of nucleophilic beryllium, which has the potential to unlock the reactivity of organoberyllium with a vast array of new substrates.

Astrocytes are intimately associated with neurons and participate in a host of essential roles that facilitate synaptic transmission and circuit function. In neurons, heightened activity induces the expression of “immediate early genes,” which are predominately transcription factors that modify gene expression programs and activity-dependent epigenomic states, ultimately regulating circuit activity, plasticity, and associated behavioral outputs. However, whether heightened neuronal activity induces an analogous immediate early gene–like response in mature astrocytes and how this sculpts astrocytic transcriptional and epigenomic responses to regulate circuit function remain unclear.

Isn’t knowledge wonderful?

Ancient Mariner

Amos and Worster

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Mariner was questioned “Who is Amos?” referring to the mention of that name in the last post. Mariner apologizes for having an empty page under the Heading ‘About the Author’ which has been blank for several months. Somehow, it was deleted.

Just a short precis of its contents: Mariner writes his post with the aid of three alter egos: Chicken Little, named for his namesake who thought the sky was falling and always assumed the worst in any situation; Amos, named for his namesake from the Book of Amos in the Old Testament who with earnestness chastised the religious authority of his time until he was assassinated; Guru, named for his namesake in the comic section of the newspapers who is preoccupied with esoteric, intensely intellectual theories of no relevance. Thus, mariner’s posts are assured of clarity, facts, and a comprehensive view of the world.

On to today’s post.

Having read Donald Worster’s book, The Wealth of Nature, mariner has given some thought to Worster’s hope that global society, perhaps through the absence of potable water, perhaps social conflict that collapses global economies, even perhaps the result of nuclear war, it may be that in order to survive, humans will have to return to a respectful relationship with a sparse environment.

Instead of sending humanity down the bottomless hole of AI, imagine that Mother Nature has an equal force on society. Season the next fifty years with the spice of the Maga movement and similar movements across Africa and the Middle East, the growing stress from free-ranging oligarchy, the demise of Ukraine, a collapse of world security by disrupting the Internet, then stir back in the destructive powers of an uncontrolled weather system, impending solar activity and little if any arable land.

Would this concoction be enough to create a throwback in human history? Could humanity be forced to become a member of the Earth’s ecosystem without fossil fuel? Such reversing phenomena have occurred many times as Planet Earth evolved. Consider the restart of the animal kingdom 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period).

By 2100 might it be important to protect arable land for individual survival? Will everyone have to own a couple of ponies?

Ancient Mariner

The wealth of nature

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The post heading is the title of a book by Donald Worster.[1] It is about the relationship between humans and the planet. In a sentence in the book, he says, “We are not of this planet.” Nevertheless, Mr. Worster lives in a romantic relationship with unspoiled nature, its beauty, balance and environmental discipline. He opens his book with several descriptions of the completeness that can be had while experiencing nature unimposed by human disruption.

However, the book describes how humans continually find ways to avoid their responsibility as a member of the planet’s ecosystem. He does not write negatively, as mariner and his cohort Amos might, his words reflect hope that as nature becomes consumed beyond human sustainability, humans will find relief in becoming part of nature’s reality; they will return to a relationship of respect “where wolves can be heard howling in the night.”

Humans found a way to fly even though they do not have wings. The impersonation of birds is grotesquely expensive to nature. This is a clear metaphor for how humans consume the environment for self-gratification but without allegiance to the natural world.

Mr. Worster ends the book with the hope that circumstances will balance the relationship between humans and the planet. Unfortunately for Mr. Worster, this book was published in 1993 before the next step to avoid a natural existence became notable – artificial intelligence.

Despite his negative and bitching style, mariner is at heart a romantic and a humanist. Reading this book was both romantically pleasing and depressing at the same time. Donald Worster speaks to mariner’s dream that one day mariner will replace his automobile with two ponies and a cart.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] The Wealth of Nature by  Donald Worster, 1993, Oxford Press ISBN 0-19-507624-9

Pick your worries

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There must be dozens of worries from which to choose. Perhaps start with some of the big ones: A failing democracy, the collapse of religion, war with China, Trump becomes President, Social Security gets chopped, housing for normal Americans gets worse, Health industry collapses, public schools can’t educate anymore.

Mariner opts for the war with Mother Earth – global warming/climate change. The time is approaching when all the other worries will disappear because of extreme disruption to global economics, agriculture, viable living zones and human migration on a scale that has never been experienced. Governments will not be able to pay for wars, although groups of rebels around the world will cause as much destruction. Plutocracy will worsen then collapse as The US runs short on funding.

ProPublica, a much awarded and exceptional news company, published a report titled, “Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment”. One paragraph is presented below:

“The notion of a climate niche is based on work the researchers first published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020, which established that for the past 6,000 years humans have gravitated toward a narrow range of temperatures and precipitation levels that supported agriculture and, later, economic growth. That study warned that warming would make those conditions elusive for growing segments of humankind and found that while just 1% of the earth’s surface is now intolerably hot, nearly 20% could be by 2070.”

 Add to that thought rising oceans wiping out the viability of dozens of nations, even making large areas of land become flooded or submerged. Current tax structures will be changed dramatically as the United States begins to feel social and economic pressures that remind us of World War II America. In the 1930s and 40s, the tax philosophy was to tax the rich so the poor would not have to underwrite government expenses. FDR, for example, put a 100 percent tax on income over $25,000 (about $500,000 today).

One wonders whether the new facemask telephones will matter even though they are one step closer to Matrix reality. The world’s environment is up in arms and that will dictate our pleasures. Can Alexa and Siri keep up?

Ancient Mariner

Update on deals made with environment

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Last year and early this Spring mariner wrote about some deals he made with indigenous wildlife in his yard. Indigenous means Creeping Charlie and moles, both known as pests.

The deal with Creeping Charlie is that mariner would let the weed be ground cover within the bounds of a long flower garden; The deal with moles is that they would eat Japanese Beetle larva.

These pacts have worked reasonably well, especially in the flower garden. The moles could die of obesity and still not control the beetles. Mariner must live with the fact that he has the only garden landscape in his area of town. All his neighbors have large garages and helicopter pads so the neighborhood’s beetles come to feast on flowers and apple trees. Further, all the neighbors like grass cut frequently so it looks like green dirt; mariner cuts one-third the length of the grass blade when it reaches six inches, ergo, mole bumps are not an issue.

Many gardeners are familiar with quackgrass. It infests lawns without notice but when it meets a flower garden, its long white roots sneak in about four inches deep. The only recourse is to dig up the roots, which disrupts the garden plants and is laborious. But there is good news! Mariner has discovered a chemical that will kill ONLY grass – garden plants be not afraid. The chemical is quite effective. Be sure not to spray it on grass you want to grow. In two or three days the grass turns brown and dies. His experience is that no ornamental plant was disturbed.

The product is: CLEANSE 2EC, active ingredient is clethodim.

Ancient Mariner

 

The Dark Side

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֎ Mariner always suspected there was something wrong about the Holy Bible: A school district in Utah pulled the Bible from the school libraries because it had ‘vulgarity and violence’ in it. That explains why, in the name of Christ, European explorers felt free to murder American primitives and take their valuables.

֎ A Google-style database that holds the nation’s history of who voted when and where so that election administrators can track voters who moved or who had voted, has been attacked by one or two idiots on social media who claim the database was used to throw elections. Now several idiot states are calling for its demise. Meanwhile, Google marches on . . .

֎ Uganda President Yoweri Museveni signed into law legislation that orders the death penalty for individuals even looking like they may be gay. This is a low point in human breeding practices.

֎ A new social media company has joined ranks with Twitter, Tik-Tok and Facebook. Its name is ‘Nextdoor’. Nextdoor sets up in local neighborhoods and behaves like the New York Post: gossip makes good headlines. It interfered with a Seattle suburb’s elections when a liberal won the election. She has been heavily trashed by the electronic newspaper. A good example of “all the news that’s fit to print”.

֎ Not to share only bad news, good news is that mariner saw an eagle fly low across his yard the other day. Eagles are a natural predator of rabbits!

Ancient Mariner