Hey, Derek, they're going to call the new Padres stadium Petco Park.
I wonder what that'll do to the food concessions. I see great opportunities for all kinds of sick humor there.
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Look at your cellular phone. It was born a century ago today.
Or its roots were planted on that date, when Marconi had the first two way intercontinental radio conversation ever.
It was a gigantic effort. The antennae used were wire arrays suspended from four high towers, one array here and one at the southernmost tip of England. The transmitters were powerful spark gaps that flooded the entire spectrum with their popping noise -- tuning was added much, much later -- and the receivers were insensitive, barely able to make out the artificial sputter over the background of natural electrical noises.
They said it couldn't be done. Who? Well, Edison, for one. But Marconi managed to send his 54 word message and get a reply.
A century ago today. -
I do not have a politically correct sense of humor, as I have demonstrated. I also reject authority. I always have.
When my mother thought I was old enough to enter school, the schools wouldn't take me. They said I had to wait a year because my birthday fell a few days after their cutoff date.
Then I got kicked out of Kindergarden, advanced to First Grade in the middle of the year. My mother was happy. She thought it was the result of her many protests.
She was wrong. I was advanced because the Kindergarden teacher couldn't handle me. I didn't recognize her authority over me and wouldn't obey her if I didn't feel like it.
I still remember the end of that half year. Just before the Christmas break we had some little crafts projects to do. There were little figures to color, cut out, glue together and assemble moving arms and legs using split leg rivets. I guess all of the other kids did them, but I refused: I wouldn't color, cut, glue or assemble. She insisted. I shouted. The violence escalated. She later claimed I bit her, but I don't remember that.
So I started the new year with a new teacher and a happy mother.
"Chosen" started as a series of dreams. They were quite vivid and would repeat, night after night, for years. The story happened to me, in a sense, which explains some characteristics of my main characters, Am and Andrew.
Both of these heroes were people who went their own way, thumbing their noses at authority whenever they could get away with it, before being granted almost infinite power and awareness. They both became what they disliked and distrusted, figures of authority. Am, of necessity, accepts his transformation and tries to adapt. Andrew wants to keep the power but avoid the responsibility, placing himself at the mercy of internal conflicts.
How would you deal with having unlimited power? -
[Note for those who are not familiar with my strange sense of humor: the following is not to be taken seriously.]
As I have mentioned previously, one way to eliminate certain classes of disease is to cause the extinction of their vectors, particularly mosquitoes and other biting flies. This should be fairly easy to do with our modern technology.
The fly and its relatives evolved during a period in which the oxygen levels were much higher than they are now. It hasn't evolved significantly since then. One characteristic of the animal is that its body size is limited by its lung capacity. That is, when it reaches adulthood, the insect's body may continue to grow but its breathing mechanism does not. When there was more oxygen available, flies were bigger. If we reduce the oxygen content of the atmosphere sufficiently, we should reach a point at which flies can no longer survive (or can no longer breed, which amounts to the same thing).
We were headed there with our air pollution. But we stopped or slowed the rate at which we pollute our air because we find it unpleasant. We need an alternative.
What we need to do is manufacture something like a gas mask that will concentrate the oxygen from the air, while removing unpleasant stuff, allowing us to survive. We would have to manufacture enough of them for everybody, of course, but we have that capability. We should also have enough spares to take care of any failures that take place.
Once everybody is prepared, we can go back to producing smog, just as we used to. We wouldn't do away with the annual smog checks on automobiles, though. We would have to check to be sure all cars were producing enough pollution rapidly enough to quickly destroy the insect pests that are the source of our diseases.
It will be strange not having dogs and cats around. And birds. But we'll get used to it. -
Okay, the humor was borrowed, which is why it was cute. Now: "Bring in the Clones!"
I've always considered the furor over "artificial twins" to be silly. Whether for replacement parts or for "Clone Wars" armies, what people think of clones reminds me just as much of clowns. There is no magic there, folks ... it's just a couple (or more) of people with the same genetics (almost: to be exactly the same, they would have to have the same mother, some genetic material being passed only from the mother).
Compared to the things we are going to be able to do in the very near future, clones are trivial. Look at what we've done with bacteria over the last few years. People now panic over disease resistant corn; what will they do when we make disease resistant humans? What will they do when, instead of giving bacteria human genetic material, we start giving humans bacterial genetic material, or mouse genetic material, or horse, pig, cat, whatever genetic material?
Neotony is the suspension of normal development to produce new creatures with juvenile features. Until now it has happened by accident. Now we can do it on purpose. We have manipulated chicken genetic material to produce teeth. It shouldn't be too long before we can take chicken eggs and manipulate them to produce creatures much like the dinosaurs.
With this capability, why worry about a few artificial twins? -
Be It Resolved:
I could never understand the making of New Year's resolutions. They are so fragile, such meaningless platitutes, often shallow, rarely taken seriously. The things that should be resolved, the meaningful things, rarely are mentioned. Instead: "I will lose four pounds each month and keep it off," or something similar, recognizing inevitable and progressive weight gain that will be reversed only when age and deteriorating health dictate.
Or something equivalent, depending on your personal hangups. "I will call my (insert name of neglected relation here) more often". "I will walk a mile each day before breakfast". "I will arrive for appointments on time". "I will keep my temper".
Yet the tradition is cherished, popular. Each year we announce we will shed the same bad habits we have been unable or unwilling to shed in previous years. Why, knowing it won't happen, do we humiliate ourselves by pointing out our failures and weaknesses, making public declarations that we will cure or correct our deficiencies?
Why does our whole society do it? Why do they revel in these statements of failure, not just as individuals but as a mass, a group, a mob?
As I say, I don't understand. I don't practice it. I don't intend to start.
That is not a resolution.
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