Category Archives: Musings

Junk University

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That’s mariner’s affectionate name for YouTube. He has a masters in paleontology and two masters in gardening and property management. It is true as well that YouTube has an endless universe of entertainment and as many clips as there are stars in the sky. He quite seriously doubts there is any topic that is overlooked. Religion? tons. Politics? tons. Risque topics? tons. TV comedy? tons. Science? tons. Looking for how to tat? check YouTube. Want to compare today’s square dancing to yesteryear’s boogie woogie? check YouTube. Fond of Ted Talks? . . . .

If you are tired of old TV stuff and try to avoid TV news and tired of British mysteries, here are a few broadcast subjects that mariner recommends. In each case, find your way to the YouTube search function and type in the following:

Ancient civilizations (Some of the best accounts of how Homo spread around the world)

Cob house (Remove modern tools and prefab windows and this is the way ancient Africans built their villages. Think of the Amish and their community barn building – not much different)

Music (name your favorite singer from the 20th or 21st century)

Late night comedy (Looking for sarcasm? clips from all the shows are there)

It’s the reader’s turn. Think of something that’s not mainstream and type it in YouTube search.

If the reader is looking for more serious stuff like science and documentaries, check out PBS for back-productions of 52 seasons of NOVA.

Or one could watch another episode of “Murder She Wrote”.

Ancient Mariner

 

New things

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This is very personal information about your body. Your body has 800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cells. If the reader doesn’t know how to say 26 zeroes, it is eight hundred million billion billion. Interestingly, the vast majority of these cells are self directed and do not need independent information from outside the cell.

This post is about changes in the world of science. It also is because mariner doesn’t watch television much except for science documentaries and has more time to spend searching the internet to find answers to useless questions like ‘how many cells are in the human body?’

All the fields of science are changing procedures to leverage AI except mathematics itself which already is procedural except for the old theoretical issues. For example, the Rieman theory about prime numbers which was first asked in the middle 1800s.

Astrophysicists have become troubled about basic theories of the universe. For example, the gravitational role of black matter doesn’t seem to be correct given new AI technology.

In economics, the moneyed class is all agog about cryptocurrency as an investment because it is identical to dollar bills which are owned by the Federal Government, thereby reducing the risk of investment. In principal, cryptocurrency is an electronic paper dollar. At this point, although they are popular, corporate organizations like Bitcoin are not proven for safety. A bit of interesting information from a February 2020 post: … “the citizens of Kenya in 2007 became the first country to launch ‘mobile money’ transfer service through a cell phone provider that plays the role of a money exchange. Swapped phone to phone, no bank is necessary.”

Mariner already has commented on the use of minions to counsel small children and the return of in-home doctor visits (not really, the doctor is a Meta deepfake connected to a Google database).

In a lengthy diatribe he has predicted the end of democracy because AI is all about singular authority over broad expanses of human life from economics to interpersonal skills.

In the field of chemistry mariner watched a PBS documentary about how scientists already have mastered methods to manufacture RNA (RiboNucleic Acid) for any specific purpose – picking a future child’s hair color, height and nose type for example. Farmers already use an especially made RNA that duplicates the sexual perfume of a female butterfly. It is sprayed over an entire field of corn so that the male butterfly cannot determine the proximity of a female butterfly. If the reader ever eats an ear of corn and feels the urge to have sex with a butterfly, this is why.

The smartphone is the RNA of AI. Its functions are creeping into everything from automobiles to watches to whom one should marry, what to wear today and which cookie to buy – all of which are based on which sponsor is supporting the website. The other side of this behavior is what the reader doesn’t hear about, like other brands of cookies and dating partners who have been screened out because they don’t match the types of partners the database thinks the reader should like.

Donald who? Mariner has other things to think about: how long will it be before humans are warmblooded minions?

Is Harris’ first name really Pamela?

Ancient Mariner

 

Another perspective

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Regular readers know mariner is blessed to be married to the best poet ever to not be published. A few posts ago the focus was on the reintroduction of the Woolly Mammoth as a hairy mouse. It reminded him of a poem his wife wrote reflecting a different philosophy about living:

Leavings

I sweep up the leavings of sunflower seeds

left behind by a mouse

whose fate was snapped like its neck

in a trap that I had set.

I am glad that he had the thrill of satiety

when he found the bag of sunflower seeds

He was a millionaire among mice

in that moment of his big find.

I am glad that he did not know

his life would be cut short because of it.

Surely in that last moment there was no time for fear

And that snap too quick for pain.

He had perhaps the best that life can offer

in a little life–the warmth of a basement in winter

an endless pile of food, a quick and merciful death.

Or do I deceive myself?

His was not a little life, no smaller than my own.

Like me, he wanted more than comfort, warmth and food

He sought those things because they brought him more life

And more life was what I deprived him of.

MKM

1-19-19

 

It’s not just albums

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Mariner’s family and friends have experienced some shuffling in the last few years. A close family member passed away as did a few friends. Other friends have moved. The children and grandchildren live in far away places, leaving a lot of possessions in the wrong house. Family deaths have required a search through ancient mementos and meaningful collections.

But finding family photo albums isn’t enough. Today, recent photographs, correspondence and historical documentation are found on primitive computers, cassettes, CD Discs, old camera filmstrips, extracted memory cards, and old memory towers. Plus, thousands of important documents and family information still on our own computers have been lost for years. After his grandmother died, he remembers finding a small box that had dozens of handwritten correspondence between his grandmother and a broad range of family members.

Mariner’s wife recently super-cleaned the attic and found about a half dozen cassettes. We had no choice but to purchase a cassette reader and discovered a golden collection of family events recorded for posterity. This motivated mariner to go through his dusty-in-a-box CD collection. There were hundreds of forgotten jewels of family history, trips and meaningful moments. He had to buy a CD player in the process.

So his advice to readers is don’t be satisfied because you have a shelf full of photograph albums. Unlike old collections which may be lost in the attic, photographs taken by a smartphone are as safe as the smartphone is dependable. Today, smartphones capture 92.5% of all pictures; the typical smartphone user stores 2,795 photos in their camera. Further, few paper copies of important documents exist – they may be on our computers somewhere – maybe.

In today’s electronic world, written historical accounts are extremely rare – though mariner must acknowledge that his wife hand writes an account every year in a special binder. If any of us are famous, someone may write an account of our lives. Otherwise, don’t stop with albums; you may find a treasure in an old Crown Royal sack.

Ancient Mariner

How the brain would prefer to read written text

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This topic is one of those ‘Where did this come from?’ out-of-the-blue subjects no one ever thinks about but, as is his wont, mariner became interested in the process.

As this post is read, is the reader reciting most of the words in their head? If you must recite each and every word in your head – called subvocalizing – you are a slow reader, about 200 words per minute. The average novel has about 100,000 words so it would take the reader just over 8½ hours without stopping, to read an average-sized novel.

Many people who read regularly, whether at work or for pleasure, subvocalize only key words in a sentence, often overlooking tense, adverbs or secondary phrases. Those who read in this style can raise their speed to about 850 words per minute cutting the novel to about 1¾ hours to be read.

Decades ago mariner took a class called “Evelyn Woods Speed Reading Class”. The objective was to learn how to read without any subvocalization at all – which is difficult to acquire. He was able to reach 1,500 words per minute which means he could read that novel in just under an hour. Amazingly, the best students reached around 8,000 words per minute. They could read that novel in 10 minutes. The trouble is that avoiding subvocalization is difficult and the average reader like mariner soon lost his speed down to about 1,000 words per minute.

These numbers sound fictitious but they are true. What brought this speed reading class back from memory is that he realized that if the brain could only use the eye part of the senses and forego all the mental imprints the ear and mouth have endured to learn to read, write and speak, it would be a lot more efficient. As mentioned in a recent post, the reasoning part of the brain is in a different section from the sense-support part of the brain.

This led mariner to marvel at how fast creatures who don’t use organized language must process reality only with the eyes. It is similar to dogs in a way because a dog’s eyesight isn’t that good but the dog’s reality is interpreted through its smell which is 1,000 times more sensitive than a human. [For this reason mariner always sneaks a bite of supper to the dog who is well aware of all the odors of the meal.]

But the real phenomenon is how fast the brain is. AI is a slowpoke. Whatever the creature, using only the eyes to garner information about reality and to resolve circumstances real time is magical. He suspects even the eyes are modified to see a broader visual reality.

Ancient Mariner

Practice for Spring

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As far as weather is concerned, today has been a fine day to practice the chores of Spring. 75°, no harsh wind, a cloudless Sun-shiny day. It felt good to be outside without sharing the experience with bitter winds and frosty temperatures. He knows it is just practice, though. NOAA says snow, high wind warnings and winter bitterness are only a day away.

But personal motivation was at a high mark so mariner went charging out to pull out tools, charge batteries, check the tires, start clearing last year’s debris from garden beds . . . for two hours. Huff and puff – Spring football practice was easier than this! But he and his wife shall hold forth to barbecue steak and trimmings for supper.

It is amazing how much the body shuts down when not in use. Even with old people’s exercises, it is a shock to learn what “being in gear” feels like. The whole body takes on a higher level of tension and pace than one has been accustomed to over the winter.

He wishes that all readers get to have a Spring practice day!

Ancient Mariner

The Old Bunch

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Picked this article from AOL news:

“This Brain Disease Is Set To Double Worldwide By 2050. Are We Prepared? What Scientists Say.

While a lot of new scientific studies are focused on better understanding and treating the most common neurodegenerative disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, diagnoses in the second-most common one, Parkinson’s disease, are steadily increasing. In fact, new research suggests that Parkinson’s cases may actually double by 2050, which raises a lot of questions about why this might be happening and how you can lower your risk. ” 

An article worth reading, including links. The statistics haven’t changed; it’s really the millennial boom that’s changing the charts

Mariner’s advice is to make an appointment with Colossal Biosciences as soon as possible to get an evolutionary DNA fix. While mariner is there he’s going to get a hair job. (see post ‘Mariner warned about this, March 4).

Ancient Mariner

The other side

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Mariner has had 38 distinct jobs in his life. Everything from delivering newspapers to a contract in Taiwan building a computer system for the nation’s first fighter aircraft. He can avow that jobs shape one’s ethic and one’s place in the culture. He has had luxury dinners with CEOs and generals; he has seen a dead dog in the basement of a row house with an unused kitchen and a destitute family. He could go on about a 90-year-old woman offering sex for 75⊄, confrontations with guard dogs, a bull and an armed woman – to say nothing about belligerent executives.

But this post isn’t about bar stool stories. Of the 38 distinct jobs in his life, four have had a profound impact on his ethic, philosophy of life and his role in society. In chronological sequence they are gas & electric meter reader, Methodist preacher, parole officer and coding supervisor for an insurance company.

During 4½ years as a meter reader, he visited the homes of the very, very poor, the laborer, the white collar worker, the wealthy and many homes that were converted to small businesses and one-nite motels. These visits provided a belief that the separation of economic classes is severe, unfair and ignored by society. Each culture has its own style of community interaction, behavioral mores and even its own dress code.

As a Methodist preacher, he learned that religion is a specialized form of politics. The Christian theology is not a mainstay; the vast majority of church goers accept a parochial set of beliefs born out of tradition rather than faith. The socializing effect of belonging to a community is a positive trait but the church building is more important. Few attendees abide by the Second Great Commandment.

Mariner was a parole officer for three years. The job exposed him to the more complex side of human experience. Life is made up of many stresses that present emotional injury, loneliness, passive/aggressive behavior, debt, health and stressed relationships due to mental disorder and abuse. He learned that the personal side of life has its own mores, taboos and rituals. As with economic classes, home life is given little importance by community or by society in general.

This last job is cited because of its similarity to today’s Trumpian world of work. Mariner worked as a supervisor in the data processing department of a large insurance company. Like every other business of its time, the computer language was COBOL. Suddenly, thanks to IBM and Microsoft and Apple, COBOL was dropped in favor of new technologies and coding methods. In the blink of an eye, mariner was laid off. All the other large companies had simultaneous layoffs for the same reason. Locally, he was left without a career. It took a long time to rebuild a career in another field. His learned ethic is that corporations are politically independent and feel no need to incorporate themselves into the worlds of workers. Just profit, profit, profit.

Humans are intelligent and very much a caring species. It seems to mariner that humans, like 3-year-olds, have no sense of decorum and make life difficult just because they can. Given overpopulation, environmental abuse and provoking Mother Nature, perhaps humans should clean out the pantry and start over again.

Ancient Mariner

 

Change

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Change can be good when it is needed. Changing underwear for example or cleaning the attic or buying another car. Every once in a while governments need to change, too. The issues are who (who changes one’s underwear), how (who decides which antiquities in the attic are kept or not kept) and why (when one already has three cars).

Change seems to be an authentic phenomenon. Often, change comes later than it should. Then change becomes difficult, even disastrous. Suppose one didn’t change their underwear until they were on the bus riding to work. Mariner decided to visit Guru to talk about the validity of change. He took a trip to Guru’s remote mountain retreat.

Mariner began their conversation by citing the broad dissatisfaction that exists in the world today, the turmoil of war and authoritarianism, and the fading confidence toward economics.

“Change”, Guru replied, “is an absolute part of existence. There is not one ion in the universe that exists without being the product of change in the  state of its energy. Where there is energy, there is change. Otherwise there would be no universe.”

“But must change be so disruptive?”, mariner asked.

“At the level of living creatures here on Earth, change is always disruptive but in smaller scales of change, it sometimes can pass without being obvious. When a newborn has a different shade of hair, it is noticed but doesn’t seem disruptive. However, the level of DNA involved in that change that forced a modification in a sequence of otherwise ‘happy’ cells was significant.”

“But humans are so proud of their mastery of so many of Earth’s processes. Why can’t they manage change better?” mariner replied. He submitted a Wiley calendar subject to make his point:

“Your cartoon reflects the difficulty and disruption caused by change”, Guru replied. “Nothing, not an ion, a sea nettle, a crow or a human makes changes until they are forced upon them. Some changes are incremental and even greatly beneficial but these are not large changes. Change becomes disruptive when entire concepts and procedures must undergo total change in a short amount of time – that is, not as slow as evolution.”

Guru continued, “The cartoon also demonstrates that change must relate to genuine pressures that are hurting life’s processes. Making changes for ulterior or irrelevant reasons only adds to the cacophony.”

Mariner thanked Guru for his insights and headed home. Mariner’s assumption is that humans aren’t as smart as they should be about managing themselves. AI can’t do it, either – because AI is a human invention.

Ancient Mariner

 

More about happy

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Recent posts were about finding a happy place to live. There is no question that the US is, generally, an unhappy place to live. The economic pressures putt on the citizenry are unheard of and the President already is making financial stability a disappearing phenomenon for everyone. Still, Donald doesn’t (yet) own small happy places or one’s personal memories.

Seriously, everyone must survive each day with at least a little satisfaction that life is worth living. Often, we must force ourselves to insert satisfaction into our daily life. His daughter has a supper routine where everyone around the table must identify a rose, then identify a thorn. A rose expresses the high point of the day, a fun moment, an accomplishment, or an interpersonal action. The thorn represents the opposite: a low point in the day, a frustration or failure. Even their 4-year-old must participate. Besides the benefit of sharing with one another, the exercise makes one focus on what good events feel like as well as preventing bad memories from being the only memories.

It is possible to deliberately set up a discharge of bad feelings by performing a deliberate action for that purpose. For example, play with children – the more active, the better; get outside with them and romp meaninglessly while the good vibes rise to the surface. The same can be applied with loved pets; take a walk, go to the ice cream parlor for a shared treat or toss a stuffed toy or ball. Cats like to cuddle and play hunting games with a toy or treat. Or use Zen practices designed for the same purpose – go deep and let go. Go somewhere where you have good vibes.

The challenge is to get outside the negativity that has been forced on you. The old saw about two sides make up one coin is true. If negative feelings are dominating, turn the coin over – there’s a whole new fun world there. The ability to turn the coin over at will is made difficult today by industrial distractions. One will not achieve happiness scrolling a smart phone or a television set. If one is truthful, these devices are a sedative – a lot like oxycodone and not a cure.

Discovering positivity requires physical action, change of routine and a focus free of typical responsibilities. A smart phone is not the same as walking in the woods – well maybe it can be pretended as such but that’s the difficulty in taking happiness advice from a circuit board. Go personal! Use that body of yours for fun!

Ancient Mariner