Saturday, January 28, 2012
I learn from a book that bacteria are unlike life as we know it. The evolutionary mechanisms are different. Food scarcity is the primary pressure on them. When food is scarce reproducing fast is beneficial. The book mentions two ways the accelerate their reproduction. Both address the same problem copying the genetic material takes [...]
Encountered this beautiful stand of fresh shaggy ink cap mushrooms today: I don’t believe I’ve every eaten these, though they are reported to be very tasty, but you need to act fast. They liquify into a black ink within hours of picking them. Their spores are distribute in the ink. I like the story that some [...]
“an idea called the Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling mechanism” … apparently the boffins pouring over satellite records think they might be able to see early warnings for major earthquakes. “stresses in a fault … large amounts of radon … a number of knock on effects. … large scale condensation of water …” Weird.
Some time ago I was greatly amused by this fine example the pervasive power of the patriarchy. Not that it’s surprising; the patriarchy rules! In that example we discovered that the forces which be have conspired to plant only male trees. Male trees are good for the economy. They increase in sales … of [...]
Saturday, January 1, 2011
I received an amazingly over engineered bird feeder for christmas. It’s primary goal is the frustration of squirrels, though it also has numerous adjustments for the size of the bird. The next step is obvious. A bird feeder that only feeds attractive birds. This would involve a video camera along with some image [...]
I always assume there was a catastrophe. Something happened. A hurricane leveled the forest. A fire leveled the city due to lack of water. There was a riot. An economic bubble swept over the landscape. The troops came home and a swarm of babies appeared. The system you are gazing at, which seems [...]
The big (10 foot) pipe that brings Boston it’s water has suffered a break and we have all been instructed to boil our water. I see on the MWRA web site that they deliver 167 million gallons of water to 2.5 million residents a day. That comes out to 66.8 gallons per person per day. Of course [...]
The library of congress has an wonderful collection of photographs taken at sardine packing plants. Thus I came to learn the word cartoner. Which was once a person, but is now a machine. Today comes news that the last such cannery in the US is shutting down, along with a few pictures. This all resonates [...]
Thursday, February 18, 2010
One of the things that puzzles me about the vast literature on organizational dynamics, self control, will power, etc. etc. is that it seems to ignore an important reality about actual work. In my experience work comes in two flavors – everything is going just fine v.s. stuck. In the first mode you think [...]
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