Book review: someone once told me that when I talked about a book, they went and read it, so I thought perhaps I should talk more about some of the people that I read and have read.
Richard Morgan has been the sole writer in seven books to date and the co-writer in two and one upcoming novel. I have read the seven novels. I started reading his trilogy, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies. The main character is the same and it is the distant future, humans have spread through the galaxy but there is no such thing as faster than light travel, there is faster than light communication, but it is in frequent. The cool idea is that everyone has a super dense computer backup in their heads that is nearly indestructible. Cloning technology is cheap and resulting in a world where people work themselves to the bone to afford a new improved body when they die that they download their old memories into and start life fresh. Life is cheap, as long as you have a good insurance plan. Guns and bullets are cheap too and our hero kills with knowledge of this fact. It is a murder mystery and it is violent, very, very, very violent. The rest of the series is just as violent, but we learn more about the hero's life and the worlds that he plays but also, the writer's mind.
Market Forces was the first book that Richard Morgan wrote. It is in the near future of fast cars and quick draw executives. There is only one way to the top in the world where there are hundreds of people just as good as you are and they are gunning for your job, literally. Puts the inner city gangs in supped up cars and on the the highways where they do battle just so they can the best pay grade.
Thirteen, it is just after the turn of the century, the first colonists have started coming back from the new world. The new world is Mars and it is the turn of the next century. There are rumors that they are developing a new technology of backing up the memories in a hard back-up in the head but that is just a rumor. Genetic modification and the creation of Super Men is illegal, but governments have done in the past to create covert warriors. Our hero is one such warrior from the British project Thirteen. The world of tomorrow is gritty and dark, a world that is going through lots of changes, not just the weather. Global warming is a fact and the United States has dissolved along social and theological lines; the world is balanced on a razor and the exiled Super Humans have come back from Mars ready to seek revenge.
These five novels are great science fiction dystopias, humans have made it beyond our time here but have lost a lot of our humanity, or have they. In each case the hero is fighting what he is told and trying to do better but the world is a tough place to live.
The next trilogy seems to be something different; a fantasy setting. Swords and monsters, magic and technology, morality and theology, all together in one place. Also a dystopia view of the world, taken from the eyes of three heroes. A half breed nubian orphan heiress to a race of techno-mages that have abandoned the world just a few years ago. A nomadic chieftain, dragon slayer ex-mercenary in a foreign war. And the chief protagonist, fallen war leader, mighty general and famed Hero of the lands. But each is flawed in the eyes of their people, to the point they are reviled but respected if only for the formidable fear they generate. In this incomplete trilogy, The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands and a future anticipated novel, with no name as yet, the heroes are sent to protect the world, by the very gods themselves, from an unknown terrifying dimensional travelers.
At first glance this series appears alien to his other works but if you look hard enough there may be a common thread. These books are just as gruesome on description as Richard Morgan's other novels and the characters are very real. When I read the first novel I was pleasantly enthralled with the heroes, to of whom are gay; a male role model who is a man's man and a man's man at the same time! I cannot wait to read the next installment.
Please note, if any of these novels were portrayed accurately in cinema, there would be a 18A rating due to graphic content, mostly extreme dripping gore.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Addiction Shame
Addiction . Is addiction an addiction if you want to be addicted? If you can't survive without it but don't need it to live then it is an addiction. If you need it to live, it is not. If you want it, crave it, but neither need it to survive nor need it period. Is that an addiction. If you need something so that you can interact with people in a relatively normal way, but do not need it to live, it is an addiction. If you like it and like to have it but do not feel compelled to aquire it, it is not an addiction. If when presented with it as a possibility and you can not deny it, it is an addiction. If you are constantly thinking about it but it does not affect your social interactions, is it an addiction. If you are constantly thinking about it while you talk to people and while you are by yourself but it does not affect how you interact are you addicted. If, in both cases it has a negative impact then you are not necessarily addicted, but you could have a disability. Funny that eh?
Asperger's people are addictive by nature; we are compulsive and we are obsessive too. The problem is not that though, but that it is neurological in nature. A person can be treated for OCD, they can be given drugs and they can be treated but for Asperger's there is no obsessive or compulsive disorder to be treated, but I guess what I am also saying is that we have more control than the OCD person, if we are aware of the problem. If we are not aware that there is a problem then we have no control. But by saying that being aware and having control does not mean that we can stop, but rather we can mitigate. It is difficult to explain without falling back on myself as an example. If an AS person likes to put things in their pockets effectively the five finger discount, they might mitigate the behavior by sampling the grapes in the grocery store. Something small and more-or-less harmless than the more serious compulsion. I don't steal things but I do know people who do. I have already discussed my own compulsion before. The problem with a compulsion or an obsession is that the person who has it can feel shame because of it, because it can lead them to do things that they would rather not do.
Sometimes I don't mind talking about what I do, and other times I feel shame and do not want to tell you, or anyone else about the lows I have sunk down to. Or the ones that I want to sink down below.
Asperger's people are addictive by nature; we are compulsive and we are obsessive too. The problem is not that though, but that it is neurological in nature. A person can be treated for OCD, they can be given drugs and they can be treated but for Asperger's there is no obsessive or compulsive disorder to be treated, but I guess what I am also saying is that we have more control than the OCD person, if we are aware of the problem. If we are not aware that there is a problem then we have no control. But by saying that being aware and having control does not mean that we can stop, but rather we can mitigate. It is difficult to explain without falling back on myself as an example. If an AS person likes to put things in their pockets effectively the five finger discount, they might mitigate the behavior by sampling the grapes in the grocery store. Something small and more-or-less harmless than the more serious compulsion. I don't steal things but I do know people who do. I have already discussed my own compulsion before. The problem with a compulsion or an obsession is that the person who has it can feel shame because of it, because it can lead them to do things that they would rather not do.
Sometimes I don't mind talking about what I do, and other times I feel shame and do not want to tell you, or anyone else about the lows I have sunk down to. Or the ones that I want to sink down below.
Friday, 30 December 2011
Green cars old school
Cars. I briefly owned a 96 Honda civic. It was a great car. It had just under three hundred thousand kilometers on it and the best part was even with all those Kim's and it being 16 years old when it died, it got amazing gas mileage. It could get 800kms on fifty liters. The Honda had a forty liter tank with an additional ten as reserve that was understood that you did not use normally, but I had call to use on occasion. The first real trip I took on it I missed the last gas station for one hundred kms, up north where there were only a few placed at strategic locations. I was driving fast, 100 kph, and if I had been driving slower I would not have had need to worry. At 100 km/h, I got nearly 700 kms on it, dipping in to the reserve. If I had been more cautious and traveled the speed limit I would have gone much further. As it is everyone I talked to was amazed about how far I got. Disbelief is the word.
I once had a fuel pump problem, it stopped working. When the fuel pump stopped working the gas gauge dropped to zero. I told the garage this and that I had only driven 400km and it had half a tank left. In disbelief they told me I had run out of gas and put gas in it calling me an idiot behind my back. They then had to replace the fuel pump and then I had 3/4 of a tank; I checked at the gas pump when I filled it up.
Why I brought that story up is that no one believed that an old car could get better mileage than a new car. Most of the North American cars coming off the assembly lines today do not get e fuel efficiency of a Japanese car of sixteen years ago. Some do now, some even have better mileage, but they are hybrids or electric cars. Honda also has a hybrid civic, so I bet they have even better mileage. How can one expect a North American car company to to play catchup with a company twenty years ahead of them?
My new car is an other old Honda civic with great gas mileage too. GM, Ford, the rest, you suck! You deserve to lose market share if you can't keep up. Too bad Boonieville, can't get past the 50s . . ..
I once had a fuel pump problem, it stopped working. When the fuel pump stopped working the gas gauge dropped to zero. I told the garage this and that I had only driven 400km and it had half a tank left. In disbelief they told me I had run out of gas and put gas in it calling me an idiot behind my back. They then had to replace the fuel pump and then I had 3/4 of a tank; I checked at the gas pump when I filled it up.
Why I brought that story up is that no one believed that an old car could get better mileage than a new car. Most of the North American cars coming off the assembly lines today do not get e fuel efficiency of a Japanese car of sixteen years ago. Some do now, some even have better mileage, but they are hybrids or electric cars. Honda also has a hybrid civic, so I bet they have even better mileage. How can one expect a North American car company to to play catchup with a company twenty years ahead of them?
My new car is an other old Honda civic with great gas mileage too. GM, Ford, the rest, you suck! You deserve to lose market share if you can't keep up. Too bad Boonieville, can't get past the 50s . . ..
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
The Other Man
Cyber stalkers. I love them, especially when they think they know you. Because they think that you don't know that they are stalking you you can leave false trails and because you know that they know who you are but they do not know that you know that they are reading your posts or Facebook profile, you can fuck them up, right stalker boy, have words with your girl cause of what I wrote here, feeling silly? Feeling stupid? Feeling had? Feeling betrayed and you think some one ratted on you? Nope I am smart. You did not read the post where I said I had an IQ of 141, you did not read that I can pull meaning from many sources and collate it into the truth. Did you not know that when I get to know someone, I start to understand them. When I understand someone, I can manipulate them. You have been manipulated. I know what to say to make you break up with your girlfriend I can spin it so you will be constantly paranoid. I know that after me telling you this you WILL get your daughter's DNA checked because I can make you think what I want you to think, you stupid moron.
Think about it before you stalk someone again, they might know that you are there and do you know what happened when the stalker becomes the stalked?
Good thing that I like your GF, because if I didn't I could fuck with you till your eyes and ears bleed.
Think about it before you stalk someone again, they might know that you are there and do you know what happened when the stalker becomes the stalked?
Good thing that I like your GF, because if I didn't I could fuck with you till your eyes and ears bleed.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Got Rhythm
Music and I have had a passing relationship; I would look and yearn and Music would go by without looking. An example, I grew up with a piano. It was prominent in living room and my sister and I would play on it, but then she would go away and I would continue. I played on it making music unguided, I played the high notes, the low notes and the rich middle notes; I played a mix of all of them and I played two different ranges at the same time. I enjoyed my time greatly; my sister got the lessons, she hated them.
We had a record player, a relic from when my mother played music. She had a collection of music ranging from The Beatles, to Edith Piaf, from classical symphonies to James Galway. My Dad listened to Stan Rogers, but that was later. We had children's albums like Honey On Toast and Are We There Yet?, but we knew if there were guests coming that the music had to be right. Having no clue we, my sister and I, selected the sound track for 2001: A Space Odyssey, when we thought it was an important guess. I used to play the first and last track over and over again.
When I was in grade five Music class once included the famous Gershwin piece Rhapsody in Blue. I liked it and my mother bought me the album. This was still around the time she pushed my sister to go to the lessons. When high school came my music education amounted to at the time a heathy fear of reading music and unfamiliarity with all instruments except the recorder, which is difficult to play but inexpensive enough for all parents to purchase every year. You have to blow at the right amount for each note, but they never teach you that and then there are lots of finger movements and lastly they make you follow the sheet music. So I took Art.
In university, I got my first stereo for Christmas in my second year. I also received Erasure Pop 20. I collected more erasure through the years, but I also decided that I would explore Classical music more. My AS reared it's head and I thought methodically about it. I would only collect one composer at a time and only complete works, you have to understand many people collect the best of albums which contain a movement from ten different pieces, so I was not going to have any of that, I was going to listen to the music the way the composer intended it. I started with Beethoven, because he ONLY had nine symphonies. I collected some of Tchaikovsky, a lot actually, when people said, "Have you tried this," I would go and try it.
During my third year, I liked a girl who would never return my affections and I tried to kill myself. A friend who knew, suggested I listen to some angry music because it might help. He lent me Peace Love and Pitt Bulls, a Scandinavian punk/heavy metal band and Nine Inch Nails and I turned up the volume, because the girl who would not love me lived on my floor. That was my last year in residence. Maybe I will figure out how to insert YouTube into this letter . . ..
In Teacher's College i learned a very important fact about me and music; I have no rhythm, not a scrap. I can't beat a drum or sing along. But I listen to music still, privately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CIBLDqLO8s&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6X0pJMzh18&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIt5f3I2q6Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSkfTedVb0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
We had a record player, a relic from when my mother played music. She had a collection of music ranging from The Beatles, to Edith Piaf, from classical symphonies to James Galway. My Dad listened to Stan Rogers, but that was later. We had children's albums like Honey On Toast and Are We There Yet?, but we knew if there were guests coming that the music had to be right. Having no clue we, my sister and I, selected the sound track for 2001: A Space Odyssey, when we thought it was an important guess. I used to play the first and last track over and over again.
When I was in grade five Music class once included the famous Gershwin piece Rhapsody in Blue. I liked it and my mother bought me the album. This was still around the time she pushed my sister to go to the lessons. When high school came my music education amounted to at the time a heathy fear of reading music and unfamiliarity with all instruments except the recorder, which is difficult to play but inexpensive enough for all parents to purchase every year. You have to blow at the right amount for each note, but they never teach you that and then there are lots of finger movements and lastly they make you follow the sheet music. So I took Art.
In university, I got my first stereo for Christmas in my second year. I also received Erasure Pop 20. I collected more erasure through the years, but I also decided that I would explore Classical music more. My AS reared it's head and I thought methodically about it. I would only collect one composer at a time and only complete works, you have to understand many people collect the best of albums which contain a movement from ten different pieces, so I was not going to have any of that, I was going to listen to the music the way the composer intended it. I started with Beethoven, because he ONLY had nine symphonies. I collected some of Tchaikovsky, a lot actually, when people said, "Have you tried this," I would go and try it.
During my third year, I liked a girl who would never return my affections and I tried to kill myself. A friend who knew, suggested I listen to some angry music because it might help. He lent me Peace Love and Pitt Bulls, a Scandinavian punk/heavy metal band and Nine Inch Nails and I turned up the volume, because the girl who would not love me lived on my floor. That was my last year in residence. Maybe I will figure out how to insert YouTube into this letter . . ..
In Teacher's College i learned a very important fact about me and music; I have no rhythm, not a scrap. I can't beat a drum or sing along. But I listen to music still, privately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CIBLDqLO8s&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6X0pJMzh18&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIt5f3I2q6Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSkfTedVb0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Kepler 22b part three
Okay, looks like as usual, I need to double check all my calculations with reality. I was a wee bit wrong. Okay very wrong. I recalculated it though.
Kepler 22b is assuming earth like density has 14 times Earth's mass and 2.4 of Earth's radius, meaning a gravity of 25 newtons or 2.5 times our gravity. That said I believe the density is less and there for the gravity would be less, and would contain more water and other volatiles, if it had half our density it would have half the above gravity. It would be a water world I have little doubt as all the terrestrial planetoids do not equal 14 earth masses, but if one includes the gas giant cores there would be more than enough. Still we would need to observe this star for fifty years to determine if there are gas giants in the system.
It looks like a wonderful world to travel to, it is a good thing that we can't yet.
Kepler 22b is assuming earth like density has 14 times Earth's mass and 2.4 of Earth's radius, meaning a gravity of 25 newtons or 2.5 times our gravity. That said I believe the density is less and there for the gravity would be less, and would contain more water and other volatiles, if it had half our density it would have half the above gravity. It would be a water world I have little doubt as all the terrestrial planetoids do not equal 14 earth masses, but if one includes the gas giant cores there would be more than enough. Still we would need to observe this star for fifty years to determine if there are gas giants in the system.
It looks like a wonderful world to travel to, it is a good thing that we can't yet.
Super Moon
The moon is a really neat object. It is the brightest object in the night sky and yet it is one of the least shiny. The surface of the moon is almost black with the face is the darkest. It seems to be about the same size of the sun, yet it is so close to us that it creates most of the tides on the earth. The face on the moon seems to always face the earth, which helped early scientist believe that the earth was the center of everything.
The moon was created early in the history of the solar system. It formed when a large Mars sized planet impacted the earth about four and a half billion years ago. Both the earth and this object had already under gone differation of materials, meaning the heavy elements had sunk to the core and the light had risen to the surface. Both planets were mostly molten too, so when the impact occurred, the center of both masses joined together in the Earth's core, while the lighter material sloshed around with a fair amount of momentum. The momentum allowed a large amount of the body to achieve escape velocity, but not enough to break free entirely. This meant it slowly cooled as the earth cooled, now the lighter the satellite of the heavier.
At first the moon was still quite close and it traveled around the earth once every few days but as it cooled and other impacts occured over both planets surface irregularities developed and one side of the moon became heavier than the other. This side became locked slowly to the earth, and over billions of years the locked side slowed its rotation. As the rotation slowed, it's orbital velocity sped up and the distance between it and the earth spread apart.
The affect of the tidal lock was not one sided, the slowing rotation slowed the rotation of the earth too. The earth spun faster when it formed, but the drag of the Moon's gravity slowed the rotation until we got our 24 hour day. It did not stop there; the moon will continue to slow the earths rotation down until we are both locked facing each other, but that will not be for billions of more years.
Many know that the moon is responsible for the tides in the sea, but they do not know how it does this. The gravitational center of the earth is not at it's center, but is actually between the center of the earth and the center of the moon. It is still in the center of the Earth, but it is off center and since the earth and the moon move in relation to each other the gravitational center also moves. Between the Moon and the Earth, the gravity moves the oceans up towards The Moon, and on the reverse side the reduced gravity allows the oceans to rise as well. There are a couple other types of tides, they are caused by the interaction of a third gravitational force, the sun. When the moon is full or new, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth form a straight line and the tides are bigger, a Spring Tide. When the Moon is half full, the Sun, the Earth and the Moon form a right angle and e tides are reduced, a Neap Tide.
One of the cooler aspects of the moon and the earth is its seasons. There is a 23.5 degree tilt to the Earth's spin which creates the seasons. When the sun appears high in the sky, at night the moon will appear low in the sky and during the winter when the sun is low in the sky, the moon will appear high. Of course this all depends how far away from the equator the observer is. At the equator the sun and moon appear to move very little, but at the poles the moon will rise and set depending on the phases. Rise for the full moon for winter and rise for the new moon in the summer.
And the moon changes size too . . . no it does not!! The moon does fluctuate in its orbit around the earth, sometimes it is closer and sometimes it is further away, but he difference is negligible when compared to it average orbital distance. But it does appear to change size and this size variation is actually easy to explain. Take an airplane as it lands we see it from a thousand meters away, but in one instance it is overhead and the other instance it is near the horizon next to some high rises. Overhead it looks big, but it is difficult in our minds to give it a scale, it could be to our minds be a thousand meters or ten thousand and we would not really know the difference there is nothing near it to make us realize the scale, but when the plane is near a high rise, we see that it is large because we have a reference to judge its size by. The same thing can be said about the moon; close to the ground beside things we know it appears huge but up in the sky where there are no scale objects it looks smaller. If you want more proof, hold your hand out and cover the moon with your thumb, do it at the horizon and when the moon is at its zenith; you will cover the same amount.
The best thing about the moon is that it is there. As Douglas Adams told it in his book, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a planet without a moon or stars would never pine to leave the surface; they would never think of it because their poets, song smiths and writers would never think of it.
The moon was created early in the history of the solar system. It formed when a large Mars sized planet impacted the earth about four and a half billion years ago. Both the earth and this object had already under gone differation of materials, meaning the heavy elements had sunk to the core and the light had risen to the surface. Both planets were mostly molten too, so when the impact occurred, the center of both masses joined together in the Earth's core, while the lighter material sloshed around with a fair amount of momentum. The momentum allowed a large amount of the body to achieve escape velocity, but not enough to break free entirely. This meant it slowly cooled as the earth cooled, now the lighter the satellite of the heavier.
At first the moon was still quite close and it traveled around the earth once every few days but as it cooled and other impacts occured over both planets surface irregularities developed and one side of the moon became heavier than the other. This side became locked slowly to the earth, and over billions of years the locked side slowed its rotation. As the rotation slowed, it's orbital velocity sped up and the distance between it and the earth spread apart.
The affect of the tidal lock was not one sided, the slowing rotation slowed the rotation of the earth too. The earth spun faster when it formed, but the drag of the Moon's gravity slowed the rotation until we got our 24 hour day. It did not stop there; the moon will continue to slow the earths rotation down until we are both locked facing each other, but that will not be for billions of more years.
Many know that the moon is responsible for the tides in the sea, but they do not know how it does this. The gravitational center of the earth is not at it's center, but is actually between the center of the earth and the center of the moon. It is still in the center of the Earth, but it is off center and since the earth and the moon move in relation to each other the gravitational center also moves. Between the Moon and the Earth, the gravity moves the oceans up towards The Moon, and on the reverse side the reduced gravity allows the oceans to rise as well. There are a couple other types of tides, they are caused by the interaction of a third gravitational force, the sun. When the moon is full or new, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth form a straight line and the tides are bigger, a Spring Tide. When the Moon is half full, the Sun, the Earth and the Moon form a right angle and e tides are reduced, a Neap Tide.
One of the cooler aspects of the moon and the earth is its seasons. There is a 23.5 degree tilt to the Earth's spin which creates the seasons. When the sun appears high in the sky, at night the moon will appear low in the sky and during the winter when the sun is low in the sky, the moon will appear high. Of course this all depends how far away from the equator the observer is. At the equator the sun and moon appear to move very little, but at the poles the moon will rise and set depending on the phases. Rise for the full moon for winter and rise for the new moon in the summer.
And the moon changes size too . . . no it does not!! The moon does fluctuate in its orbit around the earth, sometimes it is closer and sometimes it is further away, but he difference is negligible when compared to it average orbital distance. But it does appear to change size and this size variation is actually easy to explain. Take an airplane as it lands we see it from a thousand meters away, but in one instance it is overhead and the other instance it is near the horizon next to some high rises. Overhead it looks big, but it is difficult in our minds to give it a scale, it could be to our minds be a thousand meters or ten thousand and we would not really know the difference there is nothing near it to make us realize the scale, but when the plane is near a high rise, we see that it is large because we have a reference to judge its size by. The same thing can be said about the moon; close to the ground beside things we know it appears huge but up in the sky where there are no scale objects it looks smaller. If you want more proof, hold your hand out and cover the moon with your thumb, do it at the horizon and when the moon is at its zenith; you will cover the same amount.
The best thing about the moon is that it is there. As Douglas Adams told it in his book, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a planet without a moon or stars would never pine to leave the surface; they would never think of it because their poets, song smiths and writers would never think of it.
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Canada, Lord of the Sith
Canada is my home country and I am proud of it; I am a patriot. That does not mean that I am blind. The 20th century was touted to be Canada's century and it made a very good showing, outstripping it's weight on the world stage and then it faltered dropped to its knees and embraced the darker side of humanity while claiming to be its savior.
At the turn of the last century, most of North America had been explored and most of America had been settled; Canada was a narrow strip of inhabited land unified with a police force and a railway that traveled through mostly unsettled land from coast to coast. It was a mere thirty-three years old and was very much the colonial backwater that everyone perceived it to be. But there was strife in the world and poverty and Canada was offering cheap and in some cases free land for anyone that would clear it and grow things. And the people did come, from England and Ireland and from the States, but they also came from countries where they did not speak English and there were all welcomed, as long as they did not settle in Ontario or any of the other provinces and only settled in Manitoba and the then Northwest Territories, which later became Saskatchewan and Alberta. But nothing really happened in Canada except for the migration. There were moves to get a free trade agreement with America, but that did not actually happen for nearly eighty years. But something did happen in Europe to wake Canada into action.
World War One, or the great war was declared and Britain declared all of its colonies at war with it as one, not that Canada would have had it any other way, because we were British in our minds. Canada at this point was starting to achieve great things, the new provinces in the west were starting to supply the world with grain and Britain looked for Canada to supply the war with food, and Canada did comply in this way. But Canada had a much greater affect than just providing the food for the war; it supplied men too. Canada at the start of the war was small with a population of eight million people, one million people volunteered to fight in the war, many thousands of women volunteered as well. If that were all then Canada would have been punching above its weight, but it was not. At the start of the war, Canada was a nation of farmers and lumberjacks, but by the end of the war it had changed, it had mechanized. By the end of the war, Canada was producing ships, guns, and munitions by the fleet load. Every year of the war Canada doubled to tripled its production until the last year where Canada was producing twenty billion shells a year. As an example my present town of Boonieville, present population of the area is under ten thousand people, consisted of three towns two of ten thousands and one of twenty thousand people and in there they produced munitions, war supplies and was a very important distribution point between the west and the east.
Of the soldiers, sixty thousand of whom were killed, they distinguished themselves greatly. Firstly whether because they were innocent lambs or believed in the cause so much that they stayed at their posts when Mustard gas was first used, when their allies all fled. It was because they stayed that the attacking enemy was surprised when resistance was put up after the attack. Because of this bravery and many other acts like it the Canadians were allowed to form units apart from their colonial leaders and eventually given their own Canadian leaders. Canadian troops, from what I hear told, gained a measure of respect from their opposition and confrontations with them was said to put a little fear into to opposition. This may be because many Canadian volunteer had experience with rifle prior to the war with hunting and farm pest management, indeed the most deadly marksmen seemed to come from Canada, one was a native from Boonieville who was the allies best sniper.
Whatever the case, by wars end, Canada had made a name for itself in the world. After the war, the ships were carved up and beaten into plough shares, and the people went back to working the fields and felling their lumber and disappeared off the world stage. Overly simplistic, but basically true. It was not until the next world war did Canada come back to the world stage.
When the war broke out, England asked Canada and its other former colonies to join this time. Canada did join, this time a week later. That time was used to secure deals with the Americans, so that America could remain neutral in appearance. Canada trained soldiers and built weapons, just as it had done before, but it trained pilots and built airplanes for the most part by the end of the war canada was in an enviable position of having the fourth largest air force, the fifth largest army and the third largest navy on the whole planet, but when the war ended, the ships were dismantled, the soldiers got jobs and most of the airplanes were put to civilian uses; Canada, just melted away again.
Economic prosperity was coming to Canada though, with most of the industrial world in ruins and Canada and the United States untouched by the war, wealth poured in. The resources that made Canada strong fueled its growth now and things were good.
Years afterwards the good will of Canada went up several notches as bests moment came when Lester B. Pearson suggested Peacekeepers to the world and Canadians and other nations sent troops to other countries as neutral peacekeepers, to keep wars from happening and inflaming. That is what Canada became known for, but it was just a bright display for the public and the world and allowed politicians to ignore the real problems of Canadian society.
The Canadian dream became an idea that Canada was a fresh pristine land filled with peaceful people willing to put ourselves in harms way to help others. And this was true for awhile. Every Peacekeeping mission involved Canadian troops, Canada almost had a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and our people could cross the world feeling safe, warmed by world wide adulation, but we canadians began to believe it and believed that nothing could tarnish our image and entitlement crept into our minds. We have the image in our minds that this is a great place to live and that we are better than the Americans. We are not them. Is this how we should compare ourselves?
Our crime rate is lower than America. Our prison rates are lower than America. We produce less pollution and garbage than America. We are better than America. That is how people in Canada think and they are wrong. Yes we are better than America in many ways, but America is the worst in most of these ways and Canada is second worst in the world. But we are better than America. America does not compare itself to Canada, it compares itself to itself, it compares itself to the best. Canada should look at the best and ask how it can be better, but instead it looks to America and does nothing.
Our image of a peacekeeper is gone. We were peacemakers in the former Yugoslavia, we stood by in Rwanda and did nothing, we entered Afghanistan as aggressors, we participated in the first Gulf War, we attacked Libya. Yes Libya was a good thing and everyone else was doing it too, yes Iraq should not have attacked Kuwait, but we started imposing ourselves on others and we started being looked upon by the world as one of Them. You know, Them, the Americans, but we are not them, ask any Canadian. We are them in more ways than we are not. For the last 25 years our government has been mirroring American more and more until we get to our present government takes its orders from America.
Greenpsychopomp, how can you say that, you have no justification for that statement. Wikileaks released documentation from the American government on how we would word our new copyright rules. Tony Clement, MP for Boonieland, wrote the "Canadian" law and it was identical to the American law, to the degree that when it was pointed out that the law did not make sense he would not budge until his American masters changed their law, because the same part was pointed out as unworkable, then the Canadian law was amended. America sends foreigners to other countries to get tortured, so Canada does the same. America locks up Americans without charging them because they think they might have a link to terrorism, Canada quickly does the same. America arrests foreign soldiers and calls them terrorists, Canada does the same, even if they are fifteen years old.
Canada ratifies the Kyoto Protocol and puts into law that it will reduce emissions by 6% by 2011 and instead increases emissions by 17%. but we are better than America right? They did not ratify the law and they increased emissions by 7%. Oh wait, we are worse, we are dishonorable dirty people at the bottom of the heap.
If we are going to repair our image, there is only one thing we can do, compare ourselves in terms of the best countries in the world and if we are ever the pinnacle, we have to ask how we can be better. We have to be altruistic, we must help our follow humans, if the poor can not build clean technology, then we should provide it to them and ask nothing for it.
At the turn of the last century, most of North America had been explored and most of America had been settled; Canada was a narrow strip of inhabited land unified with a police force and a railway that traveled through mostly unsettled land from coast to coast. It was a mere thirty-three years old and was very much the colonial backwater that everyone perceived it to be. But there was strife in the world and poverty and Canada was offering cheap and in some cases free land for anyone that would clear it and grow things. And the people did come, from England and Ireland and from the States, but they also came from countries where they did not speak English and there were all welcomed, as long as they did not settle in Ontario or any of the other provinces and only settled in Manitoba and the then Northwest Territories, which later became Saskatchewan and Alberta. But nothing really happened in Canada except for the migration. There were moves to get a free trade agreement with America, but that did not actually happen for nearly eighty years. But something did happen in Europe to wake Canada into action.
World War One, or the great war was declared and Britain declared all of its colonies at war with it as one, not that Canada would have had it any other way, because we were British in our minds. Canada at this point was starting to achieve great things, the new provinces in the west were starting to supply the world with grain and Britain looked for Canada to supply the war with food, and Canada did comply in this way. But Canada had a much greater affect than just providing the food for the war; it supplied men too. Canada at the start of the war was small with a population of eight million people, one million people volunteered to fight in the war, many thousands of women volunteered as well. If that were all then Canada would have been punching above its weight, but it was not. At the start of the war, Canada was a nation of farmers and lumberjacks, but by the end of the war it had changed, it had mechanized. By the end of the war, Canada was producing ships, guns, and munitions by the fleet load. Every year of the war Canada doubled to tripled its production until the last year where Canada was producing twenty billion shells a year. As an example my present town of Boonieville, present population of the area is under ten thousand people, consisted of three towns two of ten thousands and one of twenty thousand people and in there they produced munitions, war supplies and was a very important distribution point between the west and the east.
Of the soldiers, sixty thousand of whom were killed, they distinguished themselves greatly. Firstly whether because they were innocent lambs or believed in the cause so much that they stayed at their posts when Mustard gas was first used, when their allies all fled. It was because they stayed that the attacking enemy was surprised when resistance was put up after the attack. Because of this bravery and many other acts like it the Canadians were allowed to form units apart from their colonial leaders and eventually given their own Canadian leaders. Canadian troops, from what I hear told, gained a measure of respect from their opposition and confrontations with them was said to put a little fear into to opposition. This may be because many Canadian volunteer had experience with rifle prior to the war with hunting and farm pest management, indeed the most deadly marksmen seemed to come from Canada, one was a native from Boonieville who was the allies best sniper.
Whatever the case, by wars end, Canada had made a name for itself in the world. After the war, the ships were carved up and beaten into plough shares, and the people went back to working the fields and felling their lumber and disappeared off the world stage. Overly simplistic, but basically true. It was not until the next world war did Canada come back to the world stage.
When the war broke out, England asked Canada and its other former colonies to join this time. Canada did join, this time a week later. That time was used to secure deals with the Americans, so that America could remain neutral in appearance. Canada trained soldiers and built weapons, just as it had done before, but it trained pilots and built airplanes for the most part by the end of the war canada was in an enviable position of having the fourth largest air force, the fifth largest army and the third largest navy on the whole planet, but when the war ended, the ships were dismantled, the soldiers got jobs and most of the airplanes were put to civilian uses; Canada, just melted away again.
Economic prosperity was coming to Canada though, with most of the industrial world in ruins and Canada and the United States untouched by the war, wealth poured in. The resources that made Canada strong fueled its growth now and things were good.
Years afterwards the good will of Canada went up several notches as bests moment came when Lester B. Pearson suggested Peacekeepers to the world and Canadians and other nations sent troops to other countries as neutral peacekeepers, to keep wars from happening and inflaming. That is what Canada became known for, but it was just a bright display for the public and the world and allowed politicians to ignore the real problems of Canadian society.
The Canadian dream became an idea that Canada was a fresh pristine land filled with peaceful people willing to put ourselves in harms way to help others. And this was true for awhile. Every Peacekeeping mission involved Canadian troops, Canada almost had a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and our people could cross the world feeling safe, warmed by world wide adulation, but we canadians began to believe it and believed that nothing could tarnish our image and entitlement crept into our minds. We have the image in our minds that this is a great place to live and that we are better than the Americans. We are not them. Is this how we should compare ourselves?
Our crime rate is lower than America. Our prison rates are lower than America. We produce less pollution and garbage than America. We are better than America. That is how people in Canada think and they are wrong. Yes we are better than America in many ways, but America is the worst in most of these ways and Canada is second worst in the world. But we are better than America. America does not compare itself to Canada, it compares itself to itself, it compares itself to the best. Canada should look at the best and ask how it can be better, but instead it looks to America and does nothing.
Our image of a peacekeeper is gone. We were peacemakers in the former Yugoslavia, we stood by in Rwanda and did nothing, we entered Afghanistan as aggressors, we participated in the first Gulf War, we attacked Libya. Yes Libya was a good thing and everyone else was doing it too, yes Iraq should not have attacked Kuwait, but we started imposing ourselves on others and we started being looked upon by the world as one of Them. You know, Them, the Americans, but we are not them, ask any Canadian. We are them in more ways than we are not. For the last 25 years our government has been mirroring American more and more until we get to our present government takes its orders from America.
Greenpsychopomp, how can you say that, you have no justification for that statement. Wikileaks released documentation from the American government on how we would word our new copyright rules. Tony Clement, MP for Boonieland, wrote the "Canadian" law and it was identical to the American law, to the degree that when it was pointed out that the law did not make sense he would not budge until his American masters changed their law, because the same part was pointed out as unworkable, then the Canadian law was amended. America sends foreigners to other countries to get tortured, so Canada does the same. America locks up Americans without charging them because they think they might have a link to terrorism, Canada quickly does the same. America arrests foreign soldiers and calls them terrorists, Canada does the same, even if they are fifteen years old.
Canada ratifies the Kyoto Protocol and puts into law that it will reduce emissions by 6% by 2011 and instead increases emissions by 17%. but we are better than America right? They did not ratify the law and they increased emissions by 7%. Oh wait, we are worse, we are dishonorable dirty people at the bottom of the heap.
If we are going to repair our image, there is only one thing we can do, compare ourselves in terms of the best countries in the world and if we are ever the pinnacle, we have to ask how we can be better. We have to be altruistic, we must help our follow humans, if the poor can not build clean technology, then we should provide it to them and ask nothing for it.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Counting 400
Big Smoke. There are lots of roads in Big Smoke. There are lots of sprawl in Bi Smoke. There is the king of roads in Big Smoke, they are called expressways, in Ontario, the 400 series highways. They are I suppose called that because they have at least two lanes in either direction. Which I guess was from the time all roads only had one. Now most roads have two. Anyways as times changed the 400series changed too. Now they have more lanes of traffic. The 401 has three lanes in the express and three lanes in the collector lanes making for a minimum of 12 lanes of traffic, but sometimes as much as 16 lanes. It is considered the busiest road way in all of North America and even past midnight there are hundreds of cars zipping along these lanes. But I feel safer on this road than one other road. The 401 the traffic is generally fast about 100 kph the people do not change lanes as frequently and generally because they expect the occasional traffic jam they are calmer. People outside of the city are terrified of the 401. In the north, they are prepared for the 401 by driving the 400.
The 400 is the most terrifying road in Canada hands clenched to the wheel. And that is because it is often filled with commuters from Little Big Smoke to points just north of Big Smoke, who have dawdled a little too long at the coffee shop and are now late for work, thus feel compelled to travel in excess of 140 kph bumper to bumper all the way, they do not know how to deal with traffic jams and accidents that they cause and it is three lanes all the way to just north of Big Smoke. Where it gets worse. It widens. It crosses other big roads. Three times the people join into the rush with the lattes that they got but are now late for work. All heading for the 401, where they expect to get bogged down in traffic jams, but want to get ahead of some of it by speeding faster. Non city people are a mess by the time they reach the 401 and cannot see the difference, mostly because it is just degrees different, but the city is magnitudes different than home. Most give up on the outskirts vowing never to go further.
Which is fine, because really, WE don't want them there anyways. The drive everywhere and complain about the traffic and the lack of parking. There is enough of those types that live in the city anyways without adding more to the mix. Really to inner city is best seen from a few select modes of transport, walking, cycling and all the ones in between, roller blades and skate bounds et al.
There are malls where you can park and take the transit to go to locations where you can walk and feel relaxed while doing it. Note the problem is that you have to get up and get to the car again when you are done. This post was written on my iPad on said transit.
Now there is 400, 401, 404, 407 the toll road, 427, the Gardner expressway, the Don Valley Parkway and the Queen Elizabeth Way, all in Big Smoke. There is the Allen too, but it is short and was snipped in the bud by an activist, luckily. The Gardner is slowly being reduced, as it was an elevated highway and those should never have been built, ever. Mostly these highways were built so that people did not have to live in the city that they worked; they move huge numbers of cars into the city through many different routes. They are the problem.
Once upon a time there was a city called San Francisco, it is a fictional town that does not really exist, just like Hollywood. San Francisco was nest to another fictional city call Oakland. There was a very large two tiered highway between the two towns and it was very packed everyday. And the people knew that this highway was very important because they monitored all the roads in the two cities. In 1996 the was a horrible earthquake and the two tiered highway collapsed killing many people including a man who was trapped in his car under the concrete for many days and was subject to many news reports. The people of the city decided not to rebuild the death trap highway because in retrospect building it in the first place was a dumb idea. A year later the people looked at the traffic in the two cities and found that ninety percent of all the traffic that was on e silly two tiered highway had disappeared. People looked at their horrible commute each day and decided that it would be simpler to move closer to where they work than make the trip everyday.
If the people who live in Little Big Smoke and on the outskirts of Big Smoke just moved into Big Smoke and bought their lattes and coffees in shops beside their work, ninety percent of the aggravation on the roads would disappear and we could have roads called 400 series with only four lanes. And there would be no 407, 404, 427, Gardner expressway, and the Don Valley Parkway would not be the Don Valley Parking-lot that it is today. AND there would be less city and everything.
Rant Rant Rant
The 400 is the most terrifying road in Canada hands clenched to the wheel. And that is because it is often filled with commuters from Little Big Smoke to points just north of Big Smoke, who have dawdled a little too long at the coffee shop and are now late for work, thus feel compelled to travel in excess of 140 kph bumper to bumper all the way, they do not know how to deal with traffic jams and accidents that they cause and it is three lanes all the way to just north of Big Smoke. Where it gets worse. It widens. It crosses other big roads. Three times the people join into the rush with the lattes that they got but are now late for work. All heading for the 401, where they expect to get bogged down in traffic jams, but want to get ahead of some of it by speeding faster. Non city people are a mess by the time they reach the 401 and cannot see the difference, mostly because it is just degrees different, but the city is magnitudes different than home. Most give up on the outskirts vowing never to go further.
Which is fine, because really, WE don't want them there anyways. The drive everywhere and complain about the traffic and the lack of parking. There is enough of those types that live in the city anyways without adding more to the mix. Really to inner city is best seen from a few select modes of transport, walking, cycling and all the ones in between, roller blades and skate bounds et al.
There are malls where you can park and take the transit to go to locations where you can walk and feel relaxed while doing it. Note the problem is that you have to get up and get to the car again when you are done. This post was written on my iPad on said transit.
Now there is 400, 401, 404, 407 the toll road, 427, the Gardner expressway, the Don Valley Parkway and the Queen Elizabeth Way, all in Big Smoke. There is the Allen too, but it is short and was snipped in the bud by an activist, luckily. The Gardner is slowly being reduced, as it was an elevated highway and those should never have been built, ever. Mostly these highways were built so that people did not have to live in the city that they worked; they move huge numbers of cars into the city through many different routes. They are the problem.
Once upon a time there was a city called San Francisco, it is a fictional town that does not really exist, just like Hollywood. San Francisco was nest to another fictional city call Oakland. There was a very large two tiered highway between the two towns and it was very packed everyday. And the people knew that this highway was very important because they monitored all the roads in the two cities. In 1996 the was a horrible earthquake and the two tiered highway collapsed killing many people including a man who was trapped in his car under the concrete for many days and was subject to many news reports. The people of the city decided not to rebuild the death trap highway because in retrospect building it in the first place was a dumb idea. A year later the people looked at the traffic in the two cities and found that ninety percent of all the traffic that was on e silly two tiered highway had disappeared. People looked at their horrible commute each day and decided that it would be simpler to move closer to where they work than make the trip everyday.
If the people who live in Little Big Smoke and on the outskirts of Big Smoke just moved into Big Smoke and bought their lattes and coffees in shops beside their work, ninety percent of the aggravation on the roads would disappear and we could have roads called 400 series with only four lanes. And there would be no 407, 404, 427, Gardner expressway, and the Don Valley Parkway would not be the Don Valley Parking-lot that it is today. AND there would be less city and everything.
Rant Rant Rant
Monday, 19 December 2011
India
We have talked astronomy, I have not talked religion, I have talked about politics and I have talked about many other things. I do not believe I have talked about India.
I was deeply infatuated with a very pretty woman in high school, so much that I followed her to university. Which is to say I followed her to the same city and went to a different university. I did not know that I had Asperger's at that time, but it should have been clear that I was obsessed with her. She was South Asian, from the city of Chennai, otherwise known as Madras, which made her Tamil and very very pretty. I dreamed about her for years but never did anything about it, because I was too shy and more than a little afraid of rejection. It took me about seven years to really get over her after she left my life, and since she is the one that I stalked last month on Facebook, can it be really said that I am over her?
But because of her, I have had a life long interest in dark skinned, straight haired South Asian women. And then there is Indian food. As a vegetarian how could I not fall in love with the sweet curries of South Asia. Samosas. Their religion, I likely know more about some aspects of the religion than some people raised in the west by Indian parents. I own a lignam, I am a Shivite, if I were to chose a god. But of course, Lord Shiva, the destroyer of the world (eventually) and the god of ecstasy in the mean time. I mean what else is a god that will destroy the world, when it is time, to do with his time, what would you do? I did yoga, because of my India obsession. If I could speak to the beautiful women of South Asia, I would marry one. I would if I could arrange a marriage to one. I would curl up with a nice Indian woman and die happy.
I would die happy if I were to kiss that woman that started this obsession.
I was deeply infatuated with a very pretty woman in high school, so much that I followed her to university. Which is to say I followed her to the same city and went to a different university. I did not know that I had Asperger's at that time, but it should have been clear that I was obsessed with her. She was South Asian, from the city of Chennai, otherwise known as Madras, which made her Tamil and very very pretty. I dreamed about her for years but never did anything about it, because I was too shy and more than a little afraid of rejection. It took me about seven years to really get over her after she left my life, and since she is the one that I stalked last month on Facebook, can it be really said that I am over her?
But because of her, I have had a life long interest in dark skinned, straight haired South Asian women. And then there is Indian food. As a vegetarian how could I not fall in love with the sweet curries of South Asia. Samosas. Their religion, I likely know more about some aspects of the religion than some people raised in the west by Indian parents. I own a lignam, I am a Shivite, if I were to chose a god. But of course, Lord Shiva, the destroyer of the world (eventually) and the god of ecstasy in the mean time. I mean what else is a god that will destroy the world, when it is time, to do with his time, what would you do? I did yoga, because of my India obsession. If I could speak to the beautiful women of South Asia, I would marry one. I would if I could arrange a marriage to one. I would curl up with a nice Indian woman and die happy.
I would die happy if I were to kiss that woman that started this obsession.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Fictional childbirth
Once again I have started to read an account of a birth in fiction written by a man. As a man I feel for these fictional women who are written of by men who think they are giving a realistic account of what fantasy women would feel and they are using modern experience to judge what it must have been like.
Modern birthing experiences are horrible, ask any doctor or maternity nurse. But they are happy that they have huge needles filled with powerful pain ending drugs that will make giving birth bearable. Certainly if you talk to enough women, mothers, you will hear about her 24 hour long experience, or her 48 hour long experience, or about her week long experience of three 24 hour periods spaced out and then being induced through another horrible experience. And the best part, they seem happy and glad to tell this all to third trimester expecting mothers. Imagine how bad it must have been without drugs, eh?
I mean the idea of passing a football through a hole barely big enough to put a penis in, of course it is going to hurt right, and tear and the will be blood and if it was not for doctors, most women would die. Pure bull shit! I mean that is why humans are filling every habitat on the planet, because when we birth out side a hospital the mothers die half the time . . .. Okay sometimes they die, but most of the time they live. But what about the pain?
I like to look at a time before there were doctors. I like to look back when there was humans no different than ourselves, but without any technology. I always say on the plains of Africa. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Truthfully if you were a predator, and you wanted to eat, would you not stalk humans? No natural weapons, slow moving, no natural camouflage and when they give birth, the screams of pain are so intense it attracts everything from a hundred miles away, add that when it is finished the mother is so tired and drained they are easy to pick off. Yup, if that was the way of it, humanity would have been dead end.
So what gives? Let us look at the equipment. The womb is a big elastic muscle. Muscle fibers are wrapped in two directions to provide push and contraptions that move the baby to exit. The exit can dilate as it is another muscle, a muscle that is meant to hold everything in the womb, but when it relaxes it dilates to allow exit.
In a natural birth, like those recorded hundreds of times in the slave fields or by uneducated backward women, the woman stands or squats in a relaxing position and let's the baby come in its own time, calmly and well relaxed. They achieve this relaxed state that mothers in hospitals all feel when they are about to give birth, after all it is a natural process that has occurred for thousands of years on the plains of Africa. Oh wait, hospital births are not relaxed and there is a lot of pain
If I told you that is was going to break your nose and that I was going to break all you bones in your chest by punching them very hard repeatedly. If I told you that for me that would be easy because I am a giant of a man with an evil disposition, you might well believe me and be frightened. Two things happen when you are really frightened. The first is your blood is sent preferentially to the limbs, so you can run faster or fight me off better, and secondly your muscles tense up, so I can cause less damage to you. Neither of theses things is good for childbirth.
Blood away from vital organs means no food or oxygen to the womb, meaning it is harder for these muscles to do their work and that means they are less effective. The second effect is worse, the muscles of the core including the womb become rigid and the birthing process becomes painful as the muscles a forced apart to deliver the child, the muscles tear and rend making the process more difficult, and there is a positive feedback reaction it hurts which increases the fear which make the birth more difficult which increases the pain and so on.
The birthing process should start with relaxation months earlier. Positive messages should be in coming like, I had a wonderful birth, I did not feel any pain, it was almost pleasurable. The birth was so relaxing and it was nice to have my partner there the entire time. Meditation should help this as with other techniques. If the mother is relaxed, the womb gets the right amount of blood and the muscles relax, the child should be born easily, quickly with little pain beyond pressure. Naturally, just like in the plains of Africa, with no bears, tigers or lions aware of anything.
Modern birthing experiences are horrible, ask any doctor or maternity nurse. But they are happy that they have huge needles filled with powerful pain ending drugs that will make giving birth bearable. Certainly if you talk to enough women, mothers, you will hear about her 24 hour long experience, or her 48 hour long experience, or about her week long experience of three 24 hour periods spaced out and then being induced through another horrible experience. And the best part, they seem happy and glad to tell this all to third trimester expecting mothers. Imagine how bad it must have been without drugs, eh?
I mean the idea of passing a football through a hole barely big enough to put a penis in, of course it is going to hurt right, and tear and the will be blood and if it was not for doctors, most women would die. Pure bull shit! I mean that is why humans are filling every habitat on the planet, because when we birth out side a hospital the mothers die half the time . . .. Okay sometimes they die, but most of the time they live. But what about the pain?
I like to look at a time before there were doctors. I like to look back when there was humans no different than ourselves, but without any technology. I always say on the plains of Africa. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Truthfully if you were a predator, and you wanted to eat, would you not stalk humans? No natural weapons, slow moving, no natural camouflage and when they give birth, the screams of pain are so intense it attracts everything from a hundred miles away, add that when it is finished the mother is so tired and drained they are easy to pick off. Yup, if that was the way of it, humanity would have been dead end.
So what gives? Let us look at the equipment. The womb is a big elastic muscle. Muscle fibers are wrapped in two directions to provide push and contraptions that move the baby to exit. The exit can dilate as it is another muscle, a muscle that is meant to hold everything in the womb, but when it relaxes it dilates to allow exit.
In a natural birth, like those recorded hundreds of times in the slave fields or by uneducated backward women, the woman stands or squats in a relaxing position and let's the baby come in its own time, calmly and well relaxed. They achieve this relaxed state that mothers in hospitals all feel when they are about to give birth, after all it is a natural process that has occurred for thousands of years on the plains of Africa. Oh wait, hospital births are not relaxed and there is a lot of pain
If I told you that is was going to break your nose and that I was going to break all you bones in your chest by punching them very hard repeatedly. If I told you that for me that would be easy because I am a giant of a man with an evil disposition, you might well believe me and be frightened. Two things happen when you are really frightened. The first is your blood is sent preferentially to the limbs, so you can run faster or fight me off better, and secondly your muscles tense up, so I can cause less damage to you. Neither of theses things is good for childbirth.
Blood away from vital organs means no food or oxygen to the womb, meaning it is harder for these muscles to do their work and that means they are less effective. The second effect is worse, the muscles of the core including the womb become rigid and the birthing process becomes painful as the muscles a forced apart to deliver the child, the muscles tear and rend making the process more difficult, and there is a positive feedback reaction it hurts which increases the fear which make the birth more difficult which increases the pain and so on.
The birthing process should start with relaxation months earlier. Positive messages should be in coming like, I had a wonderful birth, I did not feel any pain, it was almost pleasurable. The birth was so relaxing and it was nice to have my partner there the entire time. Meditation should help this as with other techniques. If the mother is relaxed, the womb gets the right amount of blood and the muscles relax, the child should be born easily, quickly with little pain beyond pressure. Naturally, just like in the plains of Africa, with no bears, tigers or lions aware of anything.
Kepler 22b part two
The frost line is the point in any stellar system where it is cool enough for volatiles like water and methane to move from gas to solid. In our solar system this is between Mars and Jupiter.
Ten earth masses is thought to be a special mass in terms of planet formation. It is the mass that allows the gravity of the planet to start to affect the surrounding gasses in a meaningful way. That is, it draws the gasses faster than before and the added gasses increase the mass which increases the amount of gas accumulated, in a never ending cycle until there is no more gas to collect.
Kepler 22b is in a odd position, it is large and it is possibly low mass and it is warm.
The warmer the planetary body is, the faster it's molecules are traveling, and thus the closer they are to the planet's escape velocity. Escape velocity is a function of the mass and the radius of the planet.
There are two possibilities as to where Kepler 22b formed, it formed where it sits or that it formed further out and migrated in to the warmer solar system. Each has it's own set of problems and coolness.
Formed in place, two more possibilities, rocky world and dwarf gas giant:
Rocky world like our own, a core of rock in the neighbourhood of around fifty earth masses of rock with a few earth masses of water. The escape velocity is such that CO2 is held strongly, as is O2 and N2, all H2 and He is swept into the outer star system. Water is held, but had to have arrived via comets same with the other gasses too. This means Kepler 22b is like earth in many ways, slightly lower gravity, slightly warmer and much larger surface area. It has a molten core, that will remain molten much longer than our own will. Depending on its rotation period, it will have a magnetic field surrounding it. Given its distance from the star and the size of the star, Kepler 22b is not locked to the star so it should rotate and have a healthy magnetic field. It probably has plate tectonics and a functioning carbon cycle. It might be a fun place to live, life is most certainly present.
Dwarf gas giant born on site. As a star forms the unused materials form a disk and it is from this disk everything else is formed. The parent star of Kepler 22b is smaller and cooler and took longer to blow away the disk that had formed prior to star ignition. Did the disk cool more before this happened, did the frost line start closer to the star initially? If it did, Kepler 22b could have begun accumulating a lot of mass prior to stellar ignition. It comes back down to a question of mass. If it is a dwarf gas giant, it must be massive, otherwise the gases would escape easily.
Migrating planet. Much like the Dwarf gas giant, just cleaner from what we already know about the frost line and stellar formation. How it moved? Large impacts or nudged by something else in system.
There are other models that might create a planet so large and close, they are nearly improbable, but still possible, like rogue planets entering and being captured by the star, but in a young universe, that is most unlikely.
Ten earth masses is thought to be a special mass in terms of planet formation. It is the mass that allows the gravity of the planet to start to affect the surrounding gasses in a meaningful way. That is, it draws the gasses faster than before and the added gasses increase the mass which increases the amount of gas accumulated, in a never ending cycle until there is no more gas to collect.
Kepler 22b is in a odd position, it is large and it is possibly low mass and it is warm.
The warmer the planetary body is, the faster it's molecules are traveling, and thus the closer they are to the planet's escape velocity. Escape velocity is a function of the mass and the radius of the planet.
There are two possibilities as to where Kepler 22b formed, it formed where it sits or that it formed further out and migrated in to the warmer solar system. Each has it's own set of problems and coolness.
Formed in place, two more possibilities, rocky world and dwarf gas giant:
Rocky world like our own, a core of rock in the neighbourhood of around fifty earth masses of rock with a few earth masses of water. The escape velocity is such that CO2 is held strongly, as is O2 and N2, all H2 and He is swept into the outer star system. Water is held, but had to have arrived via comets same with the other gasses too. This means Kepler 22b is like earth in many ways, slightly lower gravity, slightly warmer and much larger surface area. It has a molten core, that will remain molten much longer than our own will. Depending on its rotation period, it will have a magnetic field surrounding it. Given its distance from the star and the size of the star, Kepler 22b is not locked to the star so it should rotate and have a healthy magnetic field. It probably has plate tectonics and a functioning carbon cycle. It might be a fun place to live, life is most certainly present.
Dwarf gas giant born on site. As a star forms the unused materials form a disk and it is from this disk everything else is formed. The parent star of Kepler 22b is smaller and cooler and took longer to blow away the disk that had formed prior to star ignition. Did the disk cool more before this happened, did the frost line start closer to the star initially? If it did, Kepler 22b could have begun accumulating a lot of mass prior to stellar ignition. It comes back down to a question of mass. If it is a dwarf gas giant, it must be massive, otherwise the gases would escape easily.
Migrating planet. Much like the Dwarf gas giant, just cleaner from what we already know about the frost line and stellar formation. How it moved? Large impacts or nudged by something else in system.
There are other models that might create a planet so large and close, they are nearly improbable, but still possible, like rogue planets entering and being captured by the star, but in a young universe, that is most unlikely.
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Christmas gift guilt
I find that if some one gives me a gift and I have nothing to give them in return I feel guilty. Especially when it is a friend, or everyone else is doing it. Family not so much, there is too much precedence there. There is something almost as bad and that is when you give out gifts and NO ONE else is, but I console myself that it is almost as bad as not giving out gifts so, always give gifts when you can, just to avoid the guilt.
It is one of those things that Asperger's is so touch on, like knowing what to wear to a particular function, knowing what is expected. I have ended so many dates that I did not know what was expected of me without even realizing that they were dates even, just because I wore the wrong clothes or did the wrong thing.
The best thing you can do if you don't know is do the thing that would do the least harm.
So tomorrow when my work has a holiday party, I will wear good clothes, but not a suit, I will bring a host gift and presents for everyone (alcohol) including waif girl who was only at work for two months, but who inspired me to blog, hear that waif girl, you are getting a gift too. Not alcohol. You will like it if not love it. I might even bring Samosas and a game or two, because I suspect the host, eager girl, is going to have a boring party.
It is one of those things that Asperger's is so touch on, like knowing what to wear to a particular function, knowing what is expected. I have ended so many dates that I did not know what was expected of me without even realizing that they were dates even, just because I wore the wrong clothes or did the wrong thing.
The best thing you can do if you don't know is do the thing that would do the least harm.
So tomorrow when my work has a holiday party, I will wear good clothes, but not a suit, I will bring a host gift and presents for everyone (alcohol) including waif girl who was only at work for two months, but who inspired me to blog, hear that waif girl, you are getting a gift too. Not alcohol. You will like it if not love it. I might even bring Samosas and a game or two, because I suspect the host, eager girl, is going to have a boring party.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Kepler 22b
So I follow Kepler on Facebook and I have the Exoplanet app for my iPad. And as previously blogged about, I love all types of stellar phenomenon.
The Kepler project detects planets by watching stars continuously and noting when the stars dim and for how long and how often. This allows the detection of the planets. The Kepler project is looking at a large patch of stars in a small area of the Cygnus constellation. There are a few difficulties for this detection. First the planet must cross the star I between us for the program to detect it. Second telescope would have to be able to detect the variance. The further the distance of the star the harder it is to detect a variance, the smaller the planet, the smaller the reduction of the brightness of the star. Luckily most stars shine at a constant luminosity and our detection of the changes in this range is pretty good (saying that as an amateur, I don't know how good the telescope is).
Kepler will not announce a find every time it sees a blip. The second time it sees the same intensity of a blip, it will be able to determine the orbital period and thus the distance and because of the distance, the size of the planet, radius not mass. It will use the orbital period to predict when the planet will next eclipse the star. When the prediction is confirmed, the planet is released to the public.
The star is a little smaller and less luminous than out own which may simply mean it is younger than out own or that it is smaller. The star has a metallicity similar to our own, which means that it has a proportion of non hydrogen and helium as our sun. So this means that it will have about the same amount of raw materials for planets as our own solar system.
Kepler 22b is about 2.38 earth radi in size, has a year of about 290 days, and is in the habitability zone of the star. The distance from the star means the average temperature of -11C. With an atmosphere, the temperature of 22C. But Kepler does not detect mass, so the really neat stuff about a planet cannot be determined, but if one makes a few assumptions, it can be done.
If the planet has a density similar to our planet, what would it be like? There are gravity calculators on the Internet and if you don't now it already so is the formula for the volume of a sphere. Using these formula I get the planet has a mass 56 times that of earth and a gravity of about 9 Newtons, we would all weigh less than on Earth. The escape velocity of the planet would be close to the ability to hold water molecules. Meaning that it would be likely a water filled world like our own. But the problem is that at 56 times the Earth's mass, that is more mass than all the terrestrial planets and the moons of all the planets combined, so I think it likely that it is in this case a water world.
The problem of the water world theory is that it that would lower the density of the planet a lot and that would reduce the surface gravity enough that water would then be able to escape the gravity of this planet. So after that, I am forced to conclude that it has to have a very large rocky core and the rest is made up out of a surface of ocean that is very deep.
Unless, the planetary core is very dense and this is a very small gas giant, very very small, or a stellar remaint, or even a brown dwarf. A lot is pending on what the mass of this planet is. Very likely all that we will be able to do is rule out that it is very heavy and thus not a stellar remaint, with current technology.
So much fun!
The Kepler project detects planets by watching stars continuously and noting when the stars dim and for how long and how often. This allows the detection of the planets. The Kepler project is looking at a large patch of stars in a small area of the Cygnus constellation. There are a few difficulties for this detection. First the planet must cross the star I between us for the program to detect it. Second telescope would have to be able to detect the variance. The further the distance of the star the harder it is to detect a variance, the smaller the planet, the smaller the reduction of the brightness of the star. Luckily most stars shine at a constant luminosity and our detection of the changes in this range is pretty good (saying that as an amateur, I don't know how good the telescope is).
Kepler will not announce a find every time it sees a blip. The second time it sees the same intensity of a blip, it will be able to determine the orbital period and thus the distance and because of the distance, the size of the planet, radius not mass. It will use the orbital period to predict when the planet will next eclipse the star. When the prediction is confirmed, the planet is released to the public.
The star is a little smaller and less luminous than out own which may simply mean it is younger than out own or that it is smaller. The star has a metallicity similar to our own, which means that it has a proportion of non hydrogen and helium as our sun. So this means that it will have about the same amount of raw materials for planets as our own solar system.
Kepler 22b is about 2.38 earth radi in size, has a year of about 290 days, and is in the habitability zone of the star. The distance from the star means the average temperature of -11C. With an atmosphere, the temperature of 22C. But Kepler does not detect mass, so the really neat stuff about a planet cannot be determined, but if one makes a few assumptions, it can be done.
If the planet has a density similar to our planet, what would it be like? There are gravity calculators on the Internet and if you don't now it already so is the formula for the volume of a sphere. Using these formula I get the planet has a mass 56 times that of earth and a gravity of about 9 Newtons, we would all weigh less than on Earth. The escape velocity of the planet would be close to the ability to hold water molecules. Meaning that it would be likely a water filled world like our own. But the problem is that at 56 times the Earth's mass, that is more mass than all the terrestrial planets and the moons of all the planets combined, so I think it likely that it is in this case a water world.
The problem of the water world theory is that it that would lower the density of the planet a lot and that would reduce the surface gravity enough that water would then be able to escape the gravity of this planet. So after that, I am forced to conclude that it has to have a very large rocky core and the rest is made up out of a surface of ocean that is very deep.
Unless, the planetary core is very dense and this is a very small gas giant, very very small, or a stellar remaint, or even a brown dwarf. A lot is pending on what the mass of this planet is. Very likely all that we will be able to do is rule out that it is very heavy and thus not a stellar remaint, with current technology.
So much fun!
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Okay, I am a teacher. I have my credentials and I have paid my dues, but I do not teach. Mostly it is because I found out about the Asperger's in the last months of Teacher's College and I went through a period of self doubt. Understandably.
I have all these plans for when I am a teacher.
Teach holistically. That is don't teach math, science, history and geography as separate things; integrate them into one subject and teach them all together.
Teach them to write boldly but respectfully. ( this one came to me this morning). If they can define it they can use it. If they want to use swear words or inappropriate language for a school, they should have to define it and defend the usage and it's context, they can use it. Like the never broadcast TV commercial for poverty. "I am hungry," while a statement has no teeth and would illicit no response from a viewing public, but, "Fuck, I am hungry," would, but would not be allowed to play on polite society TV. If a kid used a word correctly in litterature or in a class activity performance that is fine, in the classroom and out of the classroom in polite society, not acceptable.
I would teach them to write interestingly, creatively, use adjectives, adverbs, dictionaries and thesauruses.
I will use technology seemlessly in the classroom, because technology is not the focus.
Integration of the classroom auditory and visual clues with at least three or four of the intelligences present, particularly kinesthetic.
I have all these plans for when I am a teacher.
Teach holistically. That is don't teach math, science, history and geography as separate things; integrate them into one subject and teach them all together.
Teach them to write boldly but respectfully. ( this one came to me this morning). If they can define it they can use it. If they want to use swear words or inappropriate language for a school, they should have to define it and defend the usage and it's context, they can use it. Like the never broadcast TV commercial for poverty. "I am hungry," while a statement has no teeth and would illicit no response from a viewing public, but, "Fuck, I am hungry," would, but would not be allowed to play on polite society TV. If a kid used a word correctly in litterature or in a class activity performance that is fine, in the classroom and out of the classroom in polite society, not acceptable.
I would teach them to write interestingly, creatively, use adjectives, adverbs, dictionaries and thesauruses.
I will use technology seemlessly in the classroom, because technology is not the focus.
Integration of the classroom auditory and visual clues with at least three or four of the intelligences present, particularly kinesthetic.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Kyoto + Canada = drooling morons
6 steps to meet Kyoto Protocals
1. Require all goods transportation to have a reduced carbon foot print. All vehicles need to be converted to hybrid technology, boats, trains and automobiles. All conceivable surfaces must have solar-panels to help provide power and any additional no emission power source i.e. sails, added as well. All goods will have an additional carbon travel tax to reflect carbon spent getting it there and it shall be geometric ( that is goods that were grown and brought to a local distribution center, or those with no carbon foot print are tax free and those that come from the distant reaches will be inaccessible due to the tax). Thus air transport would be eliminated.
2. The government shall provide each citizen an electric personal transportation device and each family a larger electric car, for free of charge. Must be returned to government if not needed, retuned for newer model et al. All this is free.
3. A gas tax will be imposed on citizens based on where they live and where they work. The longer the commute within an urban center, the higher the gas tax, shorter would mean lower. Rural dwellers would get a general break, but commuters to urban areas would not. Smart odometers would be installed. For rural dwellers, weather would mitigate.
4. Free urban mass transit. All mass transit would be as clean as possible.
5. All roof space will be covered with appropriate solar collection devices and micro wind turbines. Sparely populated windy locations would contain wind turbines. Turbines will be located where they will affect nature the least, i.e. off shore, in farm fields, on business and manufacturing regions and in more remote locales. Geothermal wells will provide warm water and heating in urban locations as well as power.
6. Research on all the above and any other like technology will be funded by the government indiscriminately and successful technologies will be given short term monopolies for five years after development or until better technologies exist. Technology will be freely shared to all other governments and poor countries will be retrofitted as need becomes apparent.
Growing up in the 1980s, certain foods were not available all year long. Fresh vegetables were available in the summer and the fall, preserved produce or vegetables with a long self life were available later, coconuts were special foods purchased at Christmas time, oranges were used in fundraising drives by the high school, because they were not available except once a year and they were expensive then. Fresh produce from New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, and everywhere else was unheard of. To meet the Kyoto Protocol sacrifices need to be made and if transporters are unwilling to make changes, then we will have to do without. The US-Navy has a state of the art aircraft carrier that under full steam uses less oil than one of the jets taking off from its deck at take off, because it has a hybrid engine. Experimental sails have been used to decrease fuel usage on some boats and other hard sails have been experimented with since the 80s, add better hull designs and then we can import all the foods and goods from all over the world with very low fuel usage. Hybrid trains with solar collectors on every car, brakes that generate power would reduce energy usage without reducing speed. Hybrid or electric battery road transport ditto. Together this would allow for world commerce but keep all emissions to a minimum.
Free urban transportation, single, family or mass transit makes sense in many ways. An e-bike right now costs about $900, likely this means a much lower wholesale cost and this with low production quantities. I bet supplying 20 million Canadians with one would drive the unit price even lower even with a cost of $500 that would mean outfitting the nation would cost about a billion dollars. Free electric cars would cost a bit more, but even after that they would be cheap. Most trips a person or a family takes are under 60km a day, this is the range of all these type vehicles. All these vehicles are small and light, they have maximum velocities within urban speed limits, i.e. the reduction of casualties from auto accidents and like damage, plus improved air quality, would more than pay for this large initial expense in reduced hospitalization.
Yes the car companies would hate me, I can get over that, but seriously the writing has been on the wall for a couple decades and they have done nothing. I had a sixteen year old Honda that gets better gas mileage than North American cars just off the production line and not a bit better, a lot better, 800km at 80kph on 40 liters.
People in cities need to understand that it is important to live near where you work. If they are incapable of understanding this, then they either take mass transit or pay through the nose. People who follow these rules should get a break on gas prices when they use gas. If someone takes a trip, they get gas prices equal to what they earned. Rural life is not a luxury, it is just different, some people prefer it, some people it is all they know. If they live and work in this setting they should not be penalized. Still most daily traveling would be covered by the range of the e-vehicle.
Power generation will be everywhere in multiple forms. The basic stuff like solar and wind along with hydro electric would cover the majority of it. People say solar is useless at night, and they are correct, except that most of the power usage is during the day, most of the wind is at night too and hydro can cover the rest. Cloudy days are bad, but it is sunny somewhere, or windy somewhere on the grid. The tide is constant in many places and water is always flowing to the sea. If there is a deficit, there is geothermal which can generate electricity or provide heat at all times of the day. If we need more there a re still many nuclear power stations.
Research is the best way to get innovative advances. There are a number of interesting technologies that just need a little or a lot of cash to fund research to solve problems that would help revolutionize the planet. There is the solar cell that utilizes 40% of the Sun's energy and could be applied to surfaces as a coat of paint allowing houses, roads, and other things to generate more energy than we could ever use. There is a researcher in Mexico who is trying to make synthetic gasoline from water, carbon dioxide and solar power. This would allow excess energy to be stored indefinitely save fuel inefficient technology. There is the project that would take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into synthetic limestone, for building materials and permanent carbon dioxide sequestration. Microwave powered airplanes and much more if only we had a little cash to fund research.
I believe that if we do this now pollution would be reduced to pre industrial levels in les than twenty years and the climate change we can not stop at this point, would be mitigated substantially. I know that with out any innovation from here on out we could do this now. With a little imagination and selflessness the world's problems can be surmounted.
1. Require all goods transportation to have a reduced carbon foot print. All vehicles need to be converted to hybrid technology, boats, trains and automobiles. All conceivable surfaces must have solar-panels to help provide power and any additional no emission power source i.e. sails, added as well. All goods will have an additional carbon travel tax to reflect carbon spent getting it there and it shall be geometric ( that is goods that were grown and brought to a local distribution center, or those with no carbon foot print are tax free and those that come from the distant reaches will be inaccessible due to the tax). Thus air transport would be eliminated.
2. The government shall provide each citizen an electric personal transportation device and each family a larger electric car, for free of charge. Must be returned to government if not needed, retuned for newer model et al. All this is free.
3. A gas tax will be imposed on citizens based on where they live and where they work. The longer the commute within an urban center, the higher the gas tax, shorter would mean lower. Rural dwellers would get a general break, but commuters to urban areas would not. Smart odometers would be installed. For rural dwellers, weather would mitigate.
4. Free urban mass transit. All mass transit would be as clean as possible.
5. All roof space will be covered with appropriate solar collection devices and micro wind turbines. Sparely populated windy locations would contain wind turbines. Turbines will be located where they will affect nature the least, i.e. off shore, in farm fields, on business and manufacturing regions and in more remote locales. Geothermal wells will provide warm water and heating in urban locations as well as power.
6. Research on all the above and any other like technology will be funded by the government indiscriminately and successful technologies will be given short term monopolies for five years after development or until better technologies exist. Technology will be freely shared to all other governments and poor countries will be retrofitted as need becomes apparent.
Growing up in the 1980s, certain foods were not available all year long. Fresh vegetables were available in the summer and the fall, preserved produce or vegetables with a long self life were available later, coconuts were special foods purchased at Christmas time, oranges were used in fundraising drives by the high school, because they were not available except once a year and they were expensive then. Fresh produce from New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, and everywhere else was unheard of. To meet the Kyoto Protocol sacrifices need to be made and if transporters are unwilling to make changes, then we will have to do without. The US-Navy has a state of the art aircraft carrier that under full steam uses less oil than one of the jets taking off from its deck at take off, because it has a hybrid engine. Experimental sails have been used to decrease fuel usage on some boats and other hard sails have been experimented with since the 80s, add better hull designs and then we can import all the foods and goods from all over the world with very low fuel usage. Hybrid trains with solar collectors on every car, brakes that generate power would reduce energy usage without reducing speed. Hybrid or electric battery road transport ditto. Together this would allow for world commerce but keep all emissions to a minimum.
Free urban transportation, single, family or mass transit makes sense in many ways. An e-bike right now costs about $900, likely this means a much lower wholesale cost and this with low production quantities. I bet supplying 20 million Canadians with one would drive the unit price even lower even with a cost of $500 that would mean outfitting the nation would cost about a billion dollars. Free electric cars would cost a bit more, but even after that they would be cheap. Most trips a person or a family takes are under 60km a day, this is the range of all these type vehicles. All these vehicles are small and light, they have maximum velocities within urban speed limits, i.e. the reduction of casualties from auto accidents and like damage, plus improved air quality, would more than pay for this large initial expense in reduced hospitalization.
Yes the car companies would hate me, I can get over that, but seriously the writing has been on the wall for a couple decades and they have done nothing. I had a sixteen year old Honda that gets better gas mileage than North American cars just off the production line and not a bit better, a lot better, 800km at 80kph on 40 liters.
People in cities need to understand that it is important to live near where you work. If they are incapable of understanding this, then they either take mass transit or pay through the nose. People who follow these rules should get a break on gas prices when they use gas. If someone takes a trip, they get gas prices equal to what they earned. Rural life is not a luxury, it is just different, some people prefer it, some people it is all they know. If they live and work in this setting they should not be penalized. Still most daily traveling would be covered by the range of the e-vehicle.
Power generation will be everywhere in multiple forms. The basic stuff like solar and wind along with hydro electric would cover the majority of it. People say solar is useless at night, and they are correct, except that most of the power usage is during the day, most of the wind is at night too and hydro can cover the rest. Cloudy days are bad, but it is sunny somewhere, or windy somewhere on the grid. The tide is constant in many places and water is always flowing to the sea. If there is a deficit, there is geothermal which can generate electricity or provide heat at all times of the day. If we need more there a re still many nuclear power stations.
Research is the best way to get innovative advances. There are a number of interesting technologies that just need a little or a lot of cash to fund research to solve problems that would help revolutionize the planet. There is the solar cell that utilizes 40% of the Sun's energy and could be applied to surfaces as a coat of paint allowing houses, roads, and other things to generate more energy than we could ever use. There is a researcher in Mexico who is trying to make synthetic gasoline from water, carbon dioxide and solar power. This would allow excess energy to be stored indefinitely save fuel inefficient technology. There is the project that would take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into synthetic limestone, for building materials and permanent carbon dioxide sequestration. Microwave powered airplanes and much more if only we had a little cash to fund research.
I believe that if we do this now pollution would be reduced to pre industrial levels in les than twenty years and the climate change we can not stop at this point, would be mitigated substantially. I know that with out any innovation from here on out we could do this now. With a little imagination and selflessness the world's problems can be surmounted.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
The only one that mattered
It is always bad news when you start looking up old girlfriends on Facebook. In this case it is always bad news when I start looking up Brown Girl, and she was never my girlfriend. She was the person whom I am still in love with after over thirteen years with no contact and longer since I saw her last; tears come to my eyes as I type.
For me, Asperger's Syndrome, has meant that I do not have girlfriends that I want. I get girlfriends who tell me that they want me, and then I want them, but never has there been a girl whom I loved first, who returned the love. My tragedy. Brown Girl was not the first such girl, but she was the second and longest held, by far. SG, was the first, and I needed her for 3.5 years, SG2 I needed for about five years, but Brown Girl I needed in the last years of high school and through university and after and long after I could never get hold of her. I loved her in secret and I had loved her after she told me that she did not love me back. I thought of no one but her for about thirteen years. Okay that is not true, I thought about other people, but I thought about her first, everyday.
One can love someone and not get the feelings returned. Most of my friends tell me that it is not love then, but I have felt the love of two people and know that they are correct, but not entirely. It is heart wrenching nearly everyday, but the is a purpose to everyday too.
There have been some major life changes because of her. I stopped looking at white girls, it has only a little while that I have fallen in love with some white people and decided that they are attractive too, but for the most part, when I see any brown girl, my heart races. Every-time I see a brown girl who looks similar, my heart pounds. When someone mentions her name in conversation, I live in dread that I will hear, "married", "child" or "partner".
I have looked for her many times, I have found her on "find a teacher", and no where else, until today. Today I found her on Facebook. And I tried to friend her. I know she will not accept. But I need to apologize to her, not because I did anything bad, but because I feel that I need to apologize for my AS. Truth, I did feel guilty about something in the past, but when ever I tell someone the horrible thing I did, they tell me it is not that horrible and that she was more at fault than I was. Partly I am still angry, but mostly, I am still in love with her. The truth about love is that unless there is something that quashes it dead, it is always there waiting to come back. If she called, I would come. It would not be pretty.
For me, Asperger's Syndrome, has meant that I do not have girlfriends that I want. I get girlfriends who tell me that they want me, and then I want them, but never has there been a girl whom I loved first, who returned the love. My tragedy. Brown Girl was not the first such girl, but she was the second and longest held, by far. SG, was the first, and I needed her for 3.5 years, SG2 I needed for about five years, but Brown Girl I needed in the last years of high school and through university and after and long after I could never get hold of her. I loved her in secret and I had loved her after she told me that she did not love me back. I thought of no one but her for about thirteen years. Okay that is not true, I thought about other people, but I thought about her first, everyday.
One can love someone and not get the feelings returned. Most of my friends tell me that it is not love then, but I have felt the love of two people and know that they are correct, but not entirely. It is heart wrenching nearly everyday, but the is a purpose to everyday too.
There have been some major life changes because of her. I stopped looking at white girls, it has only a little while that I have fallen in love with some white people and decided that they are attractive too, but for the most part, when I see any brown girl, my heart races. Every-time I see a brown girl who looks similar, my heart pounds. When someone mentions her name in conversation, I live in dread that I will hear, "married", "child" or "partner".
I have looked for her many times, I have found her on "find a teacher", and no where else, until today. Today I found her on Facebook. And I tried to friend her. I know she will not accept. But I need to apologize to her, not because I did anything bad, but because I feel that I need to apologize for my AS. Truth, I did feel guilty about something in the past, but when ever I tell someone the horrible thing I did, they tell me it is not that horrible and that she was more at fault than I was. Partly I am still angry, but mostly, I am still in love with her. The truth about love is that unless there is something that quashes it dead, it is always there waiting to come back. If she called, I would come. It would not be pretty.
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