But you post something fabulous to Facebook and get: 1 child, 1 sibling, 1 coworker. I don't know. I'm tempted to just go back to the blog.
So here it is:
This is about as funny as I can get ...I found Stonewall Jackson in the marble tile floor of our 1st floor bathroom.
What's he done with Jebus? I sure hope Jebus is ok ...
Religous opposition to stem cell and cloning research follows two themes:
[chorus]
Don't give me that old time religion.
Don't give me that old time religion.
Don't give me that old time religion.
It ain't good enough for me.
[verse 1]
It don't know about evolution.
It don't know about relativity.
It don't know about quantum mechanics.
It ain't good enough for me.
[verse 2]
It wasn't there when they split the atom.
It wasn't there for the double helix.
It wasn't there for the human genome.
It ain't good enough for me.
[verse 32,768]
And so on ...
The apps so far:
Overall, viewing content on this thing is great. The downsides:
I will advise if it does wind up just being a paper weight.
I would like to discuss a couple of the issues raised by Mr. J. D. Mackey in his letter of 4/2/10.I've been answering every teabagger post I see on Facebook, and any place where I normally comment. I try to be rational, stick to just the facts. But, it's so hard. Like the letter above, reading the verses, a christian might say "Maybe there's something to think about here". But, quoting Marx and comparing christianity to communism, although accurate, is basically a cheap shot, a finger in the eye (Stoogism rules!) -- your average christian is going to take offense. Maybe I just need to do this more often to where I can stay on point more easily.Firstly, with regard to the Iraq war, my recollection is that, although he was very belligerent and obstructionist, Sadam Hussein did finally agree to let the UN inspectors into Iraq. But, that wasn't enough for us, we decided to invade. I don't think we will ever really know why. My worst fear is that, we were too successful in Afghanistan in 2002, and Mr. Cheney and his friends at Haliburton and Blackwater had not obtained enough data on the possible profit margins of outsourcing war, and just wanted some more data.
Regardless, we invaded, and the blood of the 100,000 Iraqi civilians who died is on all of our hands. This is several dozen times the number of innocent deaths of 9/11. And, no Weapons of Mass Destruction or facilities to produce WMDs were found, and everyone agrees, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
That blood is on my hands, and on all of our hands.
Secondly, with regard to the bible, I would direct Mr. Mackey to Acts 2:44-45 and 4:34-35.
"2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."
"4:34 There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."
A bit stronger than the trickle down economics of the good samaritan, yes?
Actually, it reminds me of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" -- Karl Marx, 1875. It's a good thing that The United States is NOT a christian country -- if it were, we'd have to change the system of government from democracy to communism!
Speaking of fingers in the eye, this NSFW Bill Maher clip also explores physical metaphors for how to deal with republicans.
We of CHMP believe that if we live good lives and follow the gold and silver rules, when we die we get to go either to Bunnyland, to help in the production of The Bunny's goodies, or The North Pole, to help Santa. (How did you think they got all that stuff made and organized?) In both places, you are allowed to snitch and eat as much as you want, and you never get fat!
We also recognize The Grinch in the role filled by the devil. But, happily, he gets converted from The Dark Side to The Light Side every year! We are working to adapt this process to republicans ...
the whining WASPs still want those rights applied only to "real Americans" -- i.e., whining WASPsand
patriarchal societies wanting to keep women in their place to bolster the fragile egos of a male mindset that deep down knows that it is losing its place in the worldLeonard Pitts, Jr. touched on this topic in his column today with regard to teabaggers (disagreeing with Keith Olbermann that it's all about race):
This is race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, "culture," and the fact that those who have always been on the right side, the "power-wielding" side, of one or more of those equations, now face the realization that that their days of dominance are numbered.This story goes back through all of human history, and even though we left much of european feudalism behind us when we came to America, it still stays with us. It is pecking order, it is love of hierarchy, it is found in everything with a backbone.
I'm reminded of Martin Scorsese's movie "The Gangs of New York". Set in the 1860's this has the whining WASP "natives" opposing the (socialist, anarchist, catholic) Irish immigrants.
So why am I not a whining WASP? Because I grew up being told how my maternal great-grandmother had a cross burned in the front yard of her farmhouse outside Lagrange, KY by the Ku Klux Klan, I would guess in the 1920's. Why? Because they were Catholics and second generation German immigrants. And who were the klansmen doing the burning? That generation's crop of whining WASPs, who in this generation are teabaggers.
During the civil rights movement of the 60's, I was told in no uncertain terms by my mother which side we were on -- we were on the side that didn't burn crosses.
So when I see a sign at a tea party saying "We want our country back", I know that I'm one of the people that the whining WASPs want the country back from. And you know what? A lot of the teabaggers probably are too, but they've made enough money to become Republicans and think that they're WASPs. I've made enough money to become a Republican, but, you know what? Fuck that.
We can build a world where no one is hungry or homeless, but the ultra-rich aren't sure that they would still be rich enough if that happened, and the whining WASPs aren't sure who they would then get to look down on.
We have to put the conservative, patriarchal, backward-looking mindset of the teabaggers ("dumbass dupes descend on DC") behind us and get on to solving the world's real problems -- chief of which is, how do we contain human population growth and build an economy not based on growth?
Still, you gotta love the teabaggers opposing health care reform with "Keep your government hands off of my Medicare". I'm sure they are showing their opposition to "socialism" in the US by tearing up their social security checks and refusing to use Medicare --- yeah, right.
Every day another 3600 children die.We'll get to the "children" later, but first let's do some math. 3600 times 365 equals 1,314,000. So that's 1.3 million women per year whose intelligence, rights and moral decision-making the religious would like to trample. If breeding age women make up 1/6 of the population of the US, that's about 3% per year.
The second message (I wonder who or what is supposed to be saying this):
My heart is beating after 10 days.This kind of reminds me of the ancient Egyptian views on the importance of the various body parts. They took great care in their embalming to preserve the heart, liver, and stomach. The brain was thought to be worthless; it was pulled out in shreds through the nostrils and discarded. Oops. A beating heart is a muscle. Enough of a brain to hold the beginnings of a thinking (or dreaming) human mind comes much later.
I had a book that listed the cultural universals of the human race -- the things that all of the hundreds of human cultures known to anthropologists have in common, like shrugging, incest taboos, dogs, and a couple of hundred other things. I couldn't find it to check, but I'm pretty sure that abortion was listed there -- it has been practiced by every known human culture. I read somewhere else that the general wisdom was that it was completely unrestricted up until the fetus could be observed externally, normally about half way through the pregnancy, after which restrictions were applied. So, not so dissimilar to the reasonable restrictions we have now: third trimester abortions only in dire circumstances.
Abortion rights opponents claim that abortion is murder -- taking the life of a human being. This usually is supported by arguments that a zygote is given a "soul" as soon as it forms, or that as soon as you have a zygote you have everything required to make a human being. This also leads to opposition to Plan B birth control -- morning after pills. But, Stephen Pinker pointed out in one of his books, the union of the genetic material of sperm and egg actually takes an indeterminate amount of time. So there is no "magic moment" that can be used to identify when the ensoulment happens. And even if the zygote does represent 50% of the nature vs. nurture that goes to make a human being, it is still not a human being, it is a potential human being. A substantial percentage of zygotes fail to implant into the uterine wall or are otherwise spontaneously aborted -- so nature doesn't put any magical significance on them.
The union of a particular sperm with an egg to form a zygote does represent a collapse of astronomical proportions in possibility space (see "Possibility Space and the Chopstick of Doom" blogged a few years ago). But, it's still just a possible human.
At times abortion rights opponents claim that they are representing the rights of the unborn. In general I do think that the more advanced a civilization is, the more it extends rights. When the founding fathers wrote that "all men are created equal", their worldview was such that "men" meant "white males who own land". Over the years, equal rights were granted to blacks and women (kind of) and non-landowners.
But, we can still see in the current culture wars the whining male WASPs trying to keep rights to themselves while denying them to others: immigrants and gays, and in the case of abortion rights, women. I find it funny that conservatives so strongly oppose the ACLU, which has a single stated purpose -- to uphold the bill of rights of the constitution. The problem is, the whining WASPs still want those rights applied only to "real Americans" -- i.e., whining WASPs.
PETA is another group that is trying to extend rights, to other species. I don't particularly agree with PETA, but I would say that they do represent advancement in our culture and civilization.
So is attempting to extend rights to the unborn not a sign of a more advanced and enlightened civilization? If this were really the thinking, they maybe. But, my gut tells me that this is really about denying women control over their own bodies. It is the same conservative mindset that manifests in other parts of the world as women being forced to wear veils; women being not allowed to drive; honor murders; and female genital mutilation. It is patriarchal societies wanting to keep women in their place to bolster the fragile egos of a male mindset that deep down knows that it is losing its place in the world.
The sad part about the cultures that repress women, the worst of which are probably the Islamic ones, is that they are sentencing themselves to being also-ran cultures. You can't compete in the world economy if you keep half of your most intelligent workers (i.e. the women) out of your workforce.
Abortion is probably the worst form of birth control. Women who have talked to me about it have said that's a very hard choice. And there is often regret later -- but who of us does not regret some possibility from earlier in our life that we decided not to pursue? The bottom line is, it is the woman's decision, and no one else's.
My friend David believes in "the 50 year rule". This is that if you disagree for 50 years, then both sides give up trying to convert the other and live and let live. There are some examples -- the Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants seem to have quit murdering each other. Roe v Wade was in 1973. Ugh, that means the 50 year rule doesn't kick in until 2023 -- 13 years from now. Oh well.
One final note. The authors of "Freakonomics" received major static for suggesting that a precipitous drop in crime rates in the early 90's was due to the fact that it occured 18 years -- when young male criminals enter the "work force" -- after Roe v Wade presumably greatly decreased the number of unwanted children born. Food for thought, I guess.
So the final conclusion: we have magical thinking, "souls" to the catholic church, and keeping women in their proper biblical state, i.e., subservient to males, in the religious right, making what should be a total no-brainer -- let the woman decide -- into a divisive issue that keeps us from solving real problems. For example, health care reform is having problems with house democrats because the senate version doesn't restrict abortion funding strongly enough. Abortion rights opponents say, they don't want their money spent on abortions. I didn't want my money spent on killing 100s of 1000s of Iraqi civilians -- but, I guess they're not as cute as babies, so it doesn't matter. Opposition to abortion rights is probably 99% religious-based. So, another reason to actively oppose religion.
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" -- Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1973.Evolution is one of the four great theories of modern science. The other three are special and general relativity; the standard model of elementary particles; and quantum chromodynamics. Thanks to christian academies, home schooling, and things like the creation anti-museum, we now have, what, maybe 10-20% of the students in the United States being taught creationism and intelligent design instead. 90% of the new scientists and engineers in the world are being created in China and India. They are not being taught that folk tales are rational alternatives to one the greatest theories in science. The current industrial might of the United States comes from the dominance of its science, technology, invention, and entrepreneurism since The Civil War. Our universities are still the best in the world, but we risk all this when we fill our children's heads with nonsense.
I often think that the main problem people have with evolution is that we just cannot conceive of how long millions and billions of year are. I have been thinking about a potential teaching aid, in the form of my official gigging t-shirt, shown below:
Actually fairly accurate. Our solar system is 2/3 of the way out from the center of our beautiful spiral galaxy, the Milky Way: 26000 light years. It takes our solar system 250 million years to circle the galaxy. Let's call that a Galactic Year (GY). So 1 GY = 250 million years.
Our galaxy is probably almost as old as the universe: 13.7 billion years old -- that is ~55 GY old. Our solar system is ~4.5 billion years old => 18 GY old (time to register to vote!). Life in the form of bacteria and their precursors have been around maybe 3 billion years => 12 GY. Complex life has been around since the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago -> 2.1 GY.
Now let's get down to our favorite topic: us. Homo sapiens sapiens (us) has been around ~200,000 years => 7 galactic hours. On the shirt, this would be around 1/4 of a degree, or .008 inches -- about the thickness of a thread.
Human civilization, in the form of agriculture and domestication of animals, is around 10,000 years old => 21 galactic minutes. On the shirt, it's .0004 inches or around 10 microns -- microscopic. The 70 years or so that is all any of us get to experience is about 9 galactic seconds. So it's awfully hard for us to comprehend the ~10 GY it look life to find its way from single-celled to multi-celled organisms, or the 2 GY since then.
Scientific theories are compression algorithms: they compress vast quantities of data and observations into as few equations as possible.
Imperfect Replication With Differential SurvivabilityFive words. That's all it takes to describe evolution. Just add galactic years of time, and it will produce all the life on earth, and the human mind and "soul". What a compression algorithm!
And the answer is, yes, I do. I used to be very much in agreement with John Lennon's "whatever gets you through the night, it's all right" and Del Hilgartner's "hey, take a look around, it's only people". But in recent years, the religious right in America and the catholic church worldwide both seem to be becoming more and more politically active, seeking to impose their repressive, backward-looking, and just plain wrong views on all of us. They are both dangerous, reactionary forces that must be opposed. Let's first list their sins, and then examine them in detail in subsequent posts. The list of sins:
What position would he play? I guess he has to be the quarterback -- who would want to be giving Jebus orders?
Point of fact, tho, the Judeao-Christian tradition doesn't have much in the way of an athletic underpinning. That's much more a product of the (pagan) Greco-Roman tradition. Numerous Greek myths involved contests and races. Well, we know that as the mental virus known as christianity spread, it wasn't shy about "borrowing" from other religions -- the christmas tree for instance.
Speaking of which, one of my brothers' family has been having their late december holiday observance, with a celebratory dinner and exchange of gifts, on the date of the Winter Solstice, rather than December 25. I think it's a great idea, my kids like it too, probably be more problematic getting buy-in from the wife. Still, the solstice is definitely something to celebrate (the days are getting longer! The days are getting longer!). And this past year I found it natural to dispense with "merry xmas" and to say "happy solstice" in addition "happy holidays".
Back on our initial topic, in case you missed it, this was of course an instant classic.
Anyway, my wife and I saw "Avatar" in 3d a couple of weeks ago. Very pretty movie, and the pacing was good. The 3d I found more of a distraction than a feature. Over 50 years of putting myself in movieland, I'm pretty good at it. I think we all are -- evidence of the youth and malleability of the human psyche. Having movieland come out of the screen at me seemed to break my concentration, to break the spell. I suspect that it wouldn't take much practice to get used to 3d tho. This was the 1st 3d I had seen since something at a (children's science?) museum years ago.
As many others have commented, the plot was nothing new: "Ferngully The Last Rain Forest", "Dances With Wolves", "The Last Samurai", etc. I found it interesting tho to examine the biology of the planet. If we're talking biology, we're talking evolution.
Q: How would a planet with a basically a single, interconnected nervous system evolve?
A: It wouldn't.
There had obviously been heavy duty evolution going on: look at the hunting packs (wolves), the large solitary predator (tiger), the large ruminants. When exactly would "nature red of fang and claw" have taken the time to let different species connect their nervous systems?
This guy totally nails the answer: Pandora is a post-singularity world. A global nervous system would have to be ... intelligently designed.
Note, this blog will remain the realm of drunken, republican and conservative-bashing, over-the-top SHOUTING WTF IS WRONG WITH ALL YOU DUMBASSES kind of content. My intention, tho, is of course to harvest the kinder, gentler portions of this and reach across the aisle to republicans and conservatives (so they can threaten me with their guns and/or banish me to gitmo).
So, here was my response to my oldest daughter Erica's (founder of www.yogoer.com and huffington post yoga blogger) post on "5 jokes for sissy democrats"
It hurts so bad. The republicans care about nothing but winning. They only care about making the rich richer, and enlist the single issue nut jobs (abortion, gay suppression, gun rights). Their cynicism is boundless. It's a national tragedy that it's so damn effective.
And here's my post to an article at Silicon Valley Insider
Software patents are 100% and completely ... crap. For a 10-15 year period after software patents were legislated into existence, the patent office checked them against their own internal database for prior art, but not against the outside world at all. So now there are 10s of 1000s of totally crap / bullshit patents on file. All software developer employees of large corporations are encouraged to file as many patents as possible. And then what happens? IBM and Microsoft both say "let's cross license" (i.e., we won't sue you if you don't sue us). And MS and Oracle. And CA and Progress. And so on ...So occasionally someone gets left out of the grid, gets pissed, and sues (re Nokia vs Apple). But, by and large, software patents are about: the big boys making deals, and the startups who can't afford $5-10 million in legal fees getting squeezed out. (Note, that's the average $$$ amount that the legal parasites make on an IP suit).
Patents are supposed to foster and protect innovation. Software patents do the exact opposite. They stifle innovation, and serve only as a tool that lets the big boys squeeze the small innovators.
Software patents should be completely abolished.
Music-wise, I am totally kicking ass. More to come later. Last week, despite watching dozens of "Law and Order SVU" episodes, I somehow wound up playing the Grateful Dead version of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" -- and rocking on ?!?!?
On a somber note, I am predicting that by 2012, Facebook will be gone. Their privacy policies are odious; their signal to noise ratio continues to decline. It has enabled me to get in touch with people (several of my cousins (luvya, Boemkers!) and a business associate of 20 years ago). But, I don't think that their infrastructure is scaling, I am anticipating running the FB suicide app this year.
But, meanwhile, BLOGGING RULES!!! Please subscribe to my RSS/Atom blog feed.
Chris
Tuesday is the big election day we’ve been waiting for. It’s finally our chance to be heard!
Help the Democrats take over the Presidency, the Senate and the House! Let’s get our country working again. Let’s heal the damages of the last eight years.
And don’t assume the Democrats can win without you. Remember 2000 and 2004? A close election can be stolen. If we’re going to win, we have to win by a landslide.
We can have a free country again—if we want it.
Vote Democratic on Tuesday.
Got 4 good CDs from a young coworker:
I'm currently reading "Brasyl", by Ian McDonald. Not bad, but dragging a little.
I've started impulse buying movies on iTunes: "Jumper" (guilty); and for my future grandchildren (no jinx), "The Golden Compass" and "The Spiderwick Chronicle". All were OK films.
Now to our title topic. Dumbass v1.5 is just not working out. The central existential feature of Dumbass v1.5 was, "stay drunk all all the time". Unfortunately, ever-increasing alcohol tolerance make this an unobtainable goal. I was averaging about 4 oz alcohol a day, and not getting a decent buzz on until I got to about 8-10 oz -- too much. And, no hangover, but about 6-7 the next evening, man would I be thirsty, my throat would be so parched, mildly headachy, and that 1st drink would really address these symptoms nicely -- not good.
So, in a fit of existential spontaneity, I have conceived Dumbass v2.0. The central feature, no alcohol. I have such an addictive personality, I really have a problem with moderation approaches. I was up to smoking 10 or cigarettes at O'Neills on Wednesday nights. No drinking implies the proscription of the following drinking-related activities:
What are the fun features of Dumbass v2.0, you might ask? Sounds pretty boring, doesn't it? But, I don't think it's inappropriate to be stop trying to be the coolest 57-year old in Lexington, KY. Instead, I will just enjoy the following Dumbass v2.0 features:
As I get towards retirement, I also want to find some activity where I can give back to the community -- my rearing nags at me if I don't. My youngest has told me that the Fayette County public schools could find something for me to do. I also ran into Henry Wu ("Mr. Wu! Mr. Wu!") a few weeks ago. He was trying to recruit me to come back to soccer refereeing. He's 65, been retired a few years, and refereeing 80 high school games a year. Aubrey Cashman he said is 74 and still reffing. Well, I'm now down below 210 for the 1st time in maybe a year. If I can get down around 180, maybe I'll think about it. Nothing like some good old-fashioned referee abuse to imbue oneself with the love of one's fellow man.
Well, I guess we've come to the end. Those of you paying attention may have noticed that blogging is a proscribed activity under Dumbass v2.0. So this post, #150, a nice round number, is the last. As I mentioned last time, I think I'm out of piquant existential insights. I do think there have been some in the 5 year, 2 month history of this blog, but, again, I think they're mostly all there, not too many left in my brain only. And, there are plenty of higher-bandwith bloggers out there so who can give you music and book recommendations. I have nice point-to-point communication going with several family and friends, I will continue on private channels.
So, TTFN, and good luck to all!
Chris Heinz
Lexington Kentucky
July 19, 2008 12:10pm
Had an interesting music weekend last weekend. My wife was on third shift, so she left for work at 8pm and got home at 8am Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So 1st night sat at the bar at Azur and had the special (BBQed goat ribs, woo-hoo!) and listened to The Real Deal Willie Eames. Then Saturday, it was Internationally Renowed Guitarist, the Inimitable Ben Lacy. I sat with a musician / computer geek friend and his wife and 8-week old daughter; then some of my neighbors (Lacy fans) came in; then a young guy from work and his friend came in. Both nights I wound up getting to sleep 2:30-3:00am and sleeping in with the wife until noonish.
Finally, Sunday night went out to Lynagh's to see Willie Eames' 3 piece band, The Tall Boys. Great stuff, Hendrix meets Captain Beefheart, very eclectic drumming. Willie was playing an ES-335, a TubeScreamer, a Vox wah-wah, and a 1968 Super Reverb amp (like mine). Chatting with Willie, he mentioned after we had talked Friday, his wife had found the reference in an earlier post to Willie playing the Steinberger. Woo-hoo, another reader, welcome aboard to this wild ride!
Actually, seems like this blog is becoming all about music. I have hit a wall with cognitive science, until I get over my realization that music, language, large brains, basically all of human civilization, was sexually selected, i.e., primarily evolved because chicks dug it.
I have downloaded Python for doing some data work for Google Sky. I also signed up as a Google App developer. Maybe when I retire. After coding 8 hours at work most days, I don't feel much like coding in the evenings -- too many years of night consulting jobs, I guess.
I was supposed to be out of town Wednesday, so I'd told the gang at O'Neills I wouldn't be there. I wound up being in town, decided to take a night off and play and sing in the basement. I love my song book, it is great fun to be able to do songs that I really love: "Unfaithful Servant", "King Harvest", "Jawbone", "Such A Night", "Anna Begins" ...
I have a ton of new music:
This morning did 33 miles in 2h40m, 1 stop. Felt surprisingly good the last 5 miles. It really helps, the cooler weather we've been having. After my b-day weekend of 6/8, the 5-day forecast has looked the same -- high 78 to 84, partly cloudy, chance of storm. The storms are late afternoon, or 5 in the morning, and last about 10 minutes. Nice breezes, pretty much ideal weather. We fine-dined with friends at newly-opened Summit (the former site of Emmett's) with friends last night, air was fabulous, meal was very good.
There are three sources of coolth when biking:
Yesterday, 94 degrees with about 90% humidity -- I got to Old Frankfort Pike and said, time to head for home -- after 3 of the roller coaster hills on Old Frankfort, I pulled up in front of the Mason-Headley museum and let myself cool down for around 15 minutes. Wound up doing 19.3 miles in 1h50m.
Here is a post to KASES I wrote yesterday, re, "USAF inviting GhostBusters to investigate ghosts at Wright-Patterson AFB":
The U.S. Air Force Academy has also been noted recently as being practically a fundamentalist christian institution. I guess "all superstition = good superstition".Last Wednesday I thought I was due to be a rock star -- play at O'Neills, then go play at a 2nd jam at Lynagh's. But, I did not get to be a rock star, but the Steinberger did. I played it at O'Neills, it freaked the bass player out, "What the hell is that sound?" -- but, I got to Lynagh's, no sign of David Ponder / Matt Knowles. Instead, The Real Deal, Willie Eames, was playing. Willie plays mostly fingerpicking blues, with some Kinks or Bill Withers thown in, and is a wonderful musician. I'd seen him at Azur the week before and told him about the Steinberger. He was playing capoed at the 5th fret in A and I told him how the Steinberger baritone was tuned 7 frets below a normal guitar so that playing it open you would be in A, but an octave lower. So, Willie did two songs open in A, then capoed up to 7 and did 2 songs in E. The Steinberger sounded wicked growly and low with Willie finger-picking it in A, and the intonation was decent capoed up to the E. So, it totally rocked -- but me, somewhat less so.I think that you have to look at belief in ghosts from the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology.
I once had a neighbor tell me how after being in the room during the death of a relative, she could "sense the presence of the departed spirit in the room for several minutes after the person passed away."
Was there a spirit in the room? No. So what that implies we have here is a cognitive or sensory illusion of some type.
Is there evolutionary value in being able to detect the presence of another human in a closed space with us? My guess, definitely yes.
Does that imply that one of the many subroutines that has evolved in the human (primate?) mind is one for detecting the presence in a closed space of another person (or animal)? Again, my guess is yes.
Do cognitive circuits such as this sometimes misfire, particularly when one is tired, stressed, etc? Again, my guess is yes.
A very similar perceptual illusion I think we all have probably experienced: you're driving on an interstate late at night, you're tired, you've been driving a while and may be slightly fugued out, you see an evergreen tree around 6 feet tall at the side of the road and think it's a person.
The same chain of logic applies -- there is clearly evolutionary value in being able to quickly identify other people so we have dedicated circuits to do so that misfire when we're tired, stressed, etc.
I think I may have referred before to the pretty good book on cognitive illusions "Inevitable Illusions", by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, 1994.
Was it this forum that had a link to the article about many "haunted" places being permeated with infrasound, which gives us the creaps?
Somehow wound up with a trade paper edition of "Voice of the Whirlwind", by Walter Jon Williams, originally 1987. I am sure I read at the time, it's very cyberpunk, and I totally remember a French-Canadian protagonist who says "d'accord" all the time, but the plot was like totally new to me. Still, good cyberpunk read.
Musicwise, my NYC daughter brought me 5 CD's of The Carter Family, 1927-1934. Somehow they are hanging my iTunes and PC. Damn, just when thought I didn't have to worry about that kind of stuff. Also listening to:
Played guitar a while yesterday at LexJam. I would say an inferior product to our Wednesday jam at O'Neills. At one point a guy rather than saying "12 bar blues in A with a quick 4" proceded to call out all the chord changes for the 1st 3 go-rounds. People also seemed to be pretty challenged at catching stops. None of my band showed up.
The official band name is "King Chukka", in honor of our lead guitarist King William (Allen). I just set up a personal myspace page, so I could see some music videos that a young coworker had posted to their myspace page, I guess if King Chukka ever starts doing some gigs I will create one for the band. The online stuff seems to be more and more time consuming, with limited return for the time. Probably better off practicing music -- except, the osteoarthritis in my left hand has spread from the thumb into the first finger. Playing in public, the adrenaline rush pretty much blocks the pain of playing; practicing, usually not much in the way of adrenaline.
Re music in:
Anti-grackle strategy seems somewhat successful. Removed bulk seed feeders, bulk feed available on a squirrel-proof feeder with small holes only, no sunflower seeds. They're still around, using the birdbaths, but, at least I ain't feeding them much. We have cardinals, sparrows in the small-hole feeder, finches, goldfinches, chickadees. We also have up to a dozen doves, who unfortunately like the safflower seed just fine.
Impulse bought a new guitar -- a baritone guitar! I did not know there was such a thing, so the purchase was clearly justified. It came in with light baritone strings tuned down a step to D. I tuned it down further to C and it sounded great. I have ordered standard baritone strings and want to tune it down to an A -- a fifth down.
Unfortunately, after consulting with two (clueless) support people, I sent it back, because the side dots on the neck don't match up with the main dots on the fretboard -- and just an hour ago, read an article saying this was by design. Hopefully I will get it back before too long. Here's a picture.
Music-in, I've been all over the place:
