I’m siding with the dolphins!

Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. -Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)

Now if only some pols would listenn

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

Revealed at last!

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

Curvy roads & glass spaceships

Wednesday, 17 June 2009.  It was a lovely sunny day when I got up and headed over to IHOP for light breakfast.  Between various delays, I don’t do mornings well, I didn’t really get on the road until about 10:30.  

The initial part of the journey was up to 101.  In many ways this was the slowest part of the first half of the trip.  Not only was traffic heavy but there were occasional blockages due to construction and just driver stupidity.  The drive was pretty but nothing special for about the first 200 miles.  Having gotten started about 2 1/2 hours later than I would’ve liked, I’d decided to forgo visiting Hearst Castle.  Who knows, one of these days I may get back and see it.  

The next 90 miles up the coast to Monterey were much more fun to drive when I wasn’t stuck behind a terrified driver or one who decided that pulling over in order to look at the scenery was much too much trouble and preferred to drive slowly which allowed the driver to block traffic for the 20 or 30 cars following behind.  There were stretches where I could let the car run and drive through the corners while feeling a little bit of a G force.  Now that was fun. 

I finally made it to Monterey, actually Marina, found my Motel 6 and rang up Joy Day.  Joy is a sculptor of glass.  I met up with her and her partner at the Running Iron for dinner.  I had one of the specialty burgers and it was excellent.  We had a lovely chat talking about costuming, art, road racing and a few other topics.  Joy’s partner, also an artist, is involved in auto racing and has an Indy 500 winner’s ring to prove it.  Joy was kind enough to bring down a sample of her glasswork for me to admire.  

After a delightful evening I headed back to the motel, cleaned up some e-mail and read.  I did not read too long as I was tired and quickly turned out the light.

How to solve over population.

If some enterprising soul would develop a “pill” which would control the sex of the child, overpopulation would be a thing of the past in about 20 to 40 years.  –  The experience  in China typifies the fact that an overwhelming proportion of families around the world would choose to have a male child.  Now granted this might start a bunch of small [?] wars where males go to kidnap women, but that is a minor consideration.  –  In 20+ years there would be very few women of childbearing age or potential in the world.  Hence, the population of the world would plummet without having to resort to drastic measures.  After all it is the number of women which controls the number of births: 1 woman plus 9 males = 1 child; 9 women plus 1 male = 9 children.

Education Funding

Is the US, state and local governments allocating funds in the best way?  I’m not so sure.  While I don’t say cut spending for underachieving students, I do say, more money, belike, lots more money must be spent on students who can achieve well above average.  Why?  Because they are the persons as adults who will create, invent and discover items that will make our lives much richer.  It is time the US recognized this.  Hey, if it weren’t for all those “nerds & geeks” average America likes to put down, then average America wouldn’t have any nice toys to play with.  They would have to amuse & abuse themselves.  It is high time the US really rewarded excellence.

Bionic people

A bunch of years ago I suggested using nanotubes as artificial nerves.  If one dopes a nano- or buckytube, fullerene, with a ion, it will conduct an electrical current.

I haven’t seen anything using this idea.

Troy, where the heck were you?

I’m in the midst of reading “Where Troy Once Stood“ by Iman Wilkins.  I’m fascinated by this thesis that Troy was located not far from Cambridge in England.  He makes a very good argument for his case.  I recommend the book to anyone interested in the Trojan War. 

Spam Killers!

I just read a report that 90% of all email is spam.  Any idea of just how much this stuff costs the economy?  –  When I become Emperor in 2012, I will initiate a black agency devoted to getting rid and spam and spammers.  –  Some of their tools will include silenced automatics and lots of C4.  –  All hard drives, etc., obtained will find their way to the FBI & CIA.  –  finder for Emperor in 2012!  We will make America greater than she is.  And America is GREAT!

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)