I was on the train and thinking, see, they say "please report any suspicious people..." etc. Which sounds reasonable, except that when I looked around, well there seemed to be a lot of suspicious people. I mean realistically I would have to arrest about half of them.
I don't know if that makes me antisocial or not, but there really are some very suspicious looking people. In fact a lot of people just seem seriously messed up. And what is it with singing to yourself when everyone can hear, I mean I have never ever ever heard someone singing along to their ipod or whatever that doesn't sound shite.
Or putting it another way if your singing was that good, you wouldn't be on the train or bus anyway. Technically I think the proper word is delusional. Fucked in the head also comes to mind.
Speaking of which, why are people using BCE in history? Worse, historians seem to have come up with BCE - Before Common Era. Instead of BC - Before Christ. The thing is unless my history is really really wrong, the whole western calender is based on the supposed year of Christs birth....so umm...is political correctness really that stupid? I mean if you dont like it to be based on Christ, then you need to actually do it properly and no longer let it be 2010 also.
Seriously the stupidity that goes on these days is nuts. Oh and I read in the paper a push to encourage people to use electric vehicles....great....and also issues over new sources of power....So again, perhaps it's just me - but ummm where do electric cars get their electricity from???
Dumb question I guess...
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Slavery
I was thinking about the Illiad, I am still not sure why it seems so strange that a war would be fought over a woman, or at least as a pretext.
Anyway the archeology supports the idea of slavery in Mycenea through the linear B tablets, which makes sense. Even the idea that Troy 6 in addition to gaining income from Horses and Wool, such as is mentioned by Homer, additionally was an important slave trading centre.
There are of course comparisons to modern slavery such as what still happens in parts such as the mid east and North Africa, and of course the American slave trade. Obviously there are different extremes of slavery, such as what happened in the Americas and what I saw recently in China. And the Greek and generally ancient view of slavery seems to have been more moderate in some ways.
Looking back though with a historical eye, people say things like "How could people do that?". Which seems like a fair question. Fundamentally though I think it is ignorant and hypocritical. At various times through history, it has been accepted as the norm. So people of the time generally saw nothing wrong with it, with a few exceptions such as Wilberforce and others.
So to Mycenae, the records indicate things like 500 women from Asia, how much they ate, and all sorts of accounting details such as children they had etc. There are lots of such records right through to modern times.
What really has me wondering though, is if someone in some hypothetical future were to look through a companies accounting records....what would they think? Would they think we are a slave owning society? Would they say "how could people in 2010 do that?".
So by now your thinking I am nuts, extrapolating from say 1300 BC to modern times. But how many people are really free? How many people are really free not to go to work tomorrow?? Do you really have a choice? Their history is kept not on clay tablets or ledgers anymore, but in computer records - think HR department. (Actually think about what HR really means...Human Resources....a human commodity). How many children you have...are you healthy...are you a good worker...
It is actually worse, since we are also slave owners, but rather than having a slave in our house, we purchase cheap goods made by a slave somewhere else. Is it extreme to say this? I dont think so, how free do you think the people that make your cheap stuff in China for 26$ a month are? The kids that make your shoes in Pakistan?
It just seems to me that we are still a slavery based society, although we a regulated and indirect in it. If your slave gets sick, you can't let them die anymore, instead you send them to the company approved doctor who will then give them an MC - if you deserve it, or the doctor feels sorry for you.
Just saying......
Anyway the archeology supports the idea of slavery in Mycenea through the linear B tablets, which makes sense. Even the idea that Troy 6 in addition to gaining income from Horses and Wool, such as is mentioned by Homer, additionally was an important slave trading centre.
There are of course comparisons to modern slavery such as what still happens in parts such as the mid east and North Africa, and of course the American slave trade. Obviously there are different extremes of slavery, such as what happened in the Americas and what I saw recently in China. And the Greek and generally ancient view of slavery seems to have been more moderate in some ways.
Looking back though with a historical eye, people say things like "How could people do that?". Which seems like a fair question. Fundamentally though I think it is ignorant and hypocritical. At various times through history, it has been accepted as the norm. So people of the time generally saw nothing wrong with it, with a few exceptions such as Wilberforce and others.
So to Mycenae, the records indicate things like 500 women from Asia, how much they ate, and all sorts of accounting details such as children they had etc. There are lots of such records right through to modern times.
What really has me wondering though, is if someone in some hypothetical future were to look through a companies accounting records....what would they think? Would they think we are a slave owning society? Would they say "how could people in 2010 do that?".
So by now your thinking I am nuts, extrapolating from say 1300 BC to modern times. But how many people are really free? How many people are really free not to go to work tomorrow?? Do you really have a choice? Their history is kept not on clay tablets or ledgers anymore, but in computer records - think HR department. (Actually think about what HR really means...Human Resources....a human commodity). How many children you have...are you healthy...are you a good worker...
It is actually worse, since we are also slave owners, but rather than having a slave in our house, we purchase cheap goods made by a slave somewhere else. Is it extreme to say this? I dont think so, how free do you think the people that make your cheap stuff in China for 26$ a month are? The kids that make your shoes in Pakistan?
It just seems to me that we are still a slavery based society, although we a regulated and indirect in it. If your slave gets sick, you can't let them die anymore, instead you send them to the company approved doctor who will then give them an MC - if you deserve it, or the doctor feels sorry for you.
Just saying......
Friday, June 11, 2010
Vulturine Guineafowl
Another quick one, well as quick as I seem to be able to do watercolours. The Vulturine Guineafowl of Africa. In this case coming through the grass.
Political Satire
Here is the typical way politicians react to "issues". These guys used to be on tv once a week in Australia, usually pretending to be a politician being interviewed.
In this case over a tanker accident in 91.
In this case over a tanker accident in 91.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Eutrophication
So I am having breakfast and have been thinking more about eutrophication. The gulf is bothering me on lots of counts, one is that it was in trouble before this mess. Eutrophication is roughly were there is an increase in nutrients in an ecosystem. Which generally turns out to be bad.
Bad in the sense that it kills things, and it is generally hard to resolve. We tend to think of ecosystems being balanced in terms of plants and animals, but everything has to be balanced - meaning chemistry also. All biological systems operate with just the right amount of this and that in the system.
Fresh water is a bit easier to understand, so we can begin there. Wastes create ammonia, nitrites and then nitrates. The microbial populations are there already to convert one to the other. Nitrates are the less harmful and can then be used by plants. This is the nitrogen cycle, and why you need to let fish tanks operate a week or two prior to putting fish in.
Now if you suddenly start adding extra stuff here and there, then there is always a lag as the microbial populations catch up. And that is what happens in places like the gulf on a massive scale each summer.
There are lots of cycles happening like this, and seawater is much more complex in terms of chemistry, there are carbonate cycles for example which many marine animals depend on for making their skeleton or home. Corals absorb carbonates and release carbonates, and of course that is influenced by other factors of equilibrium. To go further, as the ph changes equilibriums change, eg. ammonia <> ammonium and so on.
The point is that they are very complex systems. Nature can compensate very well in most cases, but there are limits. So fundamentally I am starting to wonder what the limits are.
In case of the gulf it was already suffering massive dead zones each year from nutrient rich runoff. Think algae bloom then you get into problems of low light at depth, remember much benthic marine life depends on that light. And to make it worse at night the algae like all plants absorb oxygen. Then at the end of summer it all dies, decomposes and uses more oxygen from the water column.
So that is how you end up with hypoxic conditions, or in real terms a dead zone each year in the gulf the size of New Jersey.
Anyway I have heard reports about how oil decomposing bacteria will breakdown the oil - and use up oxygen. Which makes sense but here is where the experiment begins.
I cant remember the exact numbers, but the surface oil is over a huge area blocking out light in the middle of summer over a highly eutrophic zone. To make it worse, dissolved oxygen falls with increasing temperature.So straight off you will have algae population collapse - which really shouldn't have been there in the first place... Then the zooplankton go next - including this years spawning marine life, and on up the chain everything starts dying.
And we havent even got into straight out toxicity from the oil itself and worse the dispersant used. So eventually you get to a point where everything is dead - the death creating more hypoxic and eutrophic conditions and on and on.
So I am wondering ok, how does that runaway scenario stop? As far as I can tell not easily. If it was a river or open ocean, then there is more outflow, eg. Denmark or the Japan Sea as better examples of bad cases. In the case of the gulf the currents are actually weird. It takes a long time to flush out through the Florida Strait. The loop current means stuff can circulate there for years. (There must also be a fundamental limit to even what the open oceans can take also, but the larger scales help).
I suppose it is academic wondering, but it has got me thinking purely in terms of "how much can it take?"
I also should say I am not in the serious hippy category, but I am smart enough to know that the planet is a small place, and resources are finite. If the 500 000 tons of seafood (or whatever the number is) is no longer reaching peoples tables, then it means that they will find the food somewhere else. So it is a serious global problem. "Ok no shrimp...we will take the chicken wings..."
Bad in the sense that it kills things, and it is generally hard to resolve. We tend to think of ecosystems being balanced in terms of plants and animals, but everything has to be balanced - meaning chemistry also. All biological systems operate with just the right amount of this and that in the system.
Fresh water is a bit easier to understand, so we can begin there. Wastes create ammonia, nitrites and then nitrates. The microbial populations are there already to convert one to the other. Nitrates are the less harmful and can then be used by plants. This is the nitrogen cycle, and why you need to let fish tanks operate a week or two prior to putting fish in.
Now if you suddenly start adding extra stuff here and there, then there is always a lag as the microbial populations catch up. And that is what happens in places like the gulf on a massive scale each summer.
There are lots of cycles happening like this, and seawater is much more complex in terms of chemistry, there are carbonate cycles for example which many marine animals depend on for making their skeleton or home. Corals absorb carbonates and release carbonates, and of course that is influenced by other factors of equilibrium. To go further, as the ph changes equilibriums change, eg. ammonia <> ammonium and so on.
The point is that they are very complex systems. Nature can compensate very well in most cases, but there are limits. So fundamentally I am starting to wonder what the limits are.
In case of the gulf it was already suffering massive dead zones each year from nutrient rich runoff. Think algae bloom then you get into problems of low light at depth, remember much benthic marine life depends on that light. And to make it worse at night the algae like all plants absorb oxygen. Then at the end of summer it all dies, decomposes and uses more oxygen from the water column.
So that is how you end up with hypoxic conditions, or in real terms a dead zone each year in the gulf the size of New Jersey.
Anyway I have heard reports about how oil decomposing bacteria will breakdown the oil - and use up oxygen. Which makes sense but here is where the experiment begins.
I cant remember the exact numbers, but the surface oil is over a huge area blocking out light in the middle of summer over a highly eutrophic zone. To make it worse, dissolved oxygen falls with increasing temperature.So straight off you will have algae population collapse - which really shouldn't have been there in the first place... Then the zooplankton go next - including this years spawning marine life, and on up the chain everything starts dying.
And we havent even got into straight out toxicity from the oil itself and worse the dispersant used. So eventually you get to a point where everything is dead - the death creating more hypoxic and eutrophic conditions and on and on.
So I am wondering ok, how does that runaway scenario stop? As far as I can tell not easily. If it was a river or open ocean, then there is more outflow, eg. Denmark or the Japan Sea as better examples of bad cases. In the case of the gulf the currents are actually weird. It takes a long time to flush out through the Florida Strait. The loop current means stuff can circulate there for years. (There must also be a fundamental limit to even what the open oceans can take also, but the larger scales help).
I suppose it is academic wondering, but it has got me thinking purely in terms of "how much can it take?"
I also should say I am not in the serious hippy category, but I am smart enough to know that the planet is a small place, and resources are finite. If the 500 000 tons of seafood (or whatever the number is) is no longer reaching peoples tables, then it means that they will find the food somewhere else. So it is a serious global problem. "Ok no shrimp...we will take the chicken wings..."
Reading the news - more oil
Ok so it is early morning and I woke early, and am bumming around at 5am waiting on food to cook. So I do the usual and read the news.
So honestly I really don't get most of it. I have always had a suspicion I have mild autism. In the category of thought...is it me or them??
So back to the minor little miniscule oil leak in the Gulf...I read an article "questions asked", well I did't really see the questions, let alone the sensible questions. You know the sort that are like - If you think you are going to get 28000 bpd next week when you get more ships, and you are getting 15000 per day now - doesnt that mean by your own calculations at minimum 13000 barrels are still leaking per day?
This is just bizzare. Apparently they have had no idea, but I find it hard to imagine oil companies going around drilling holes with no idea how much they are going to get out. Let alone the obvious fact that the thing was in place - before it screwed up - so someone must have a real idea.
Incidentally I was asked for my own opinion on the matter, I took the safe bet at around 50k bpd. I wouldn't be suprised if it is even higher though.
Of course we also have the corruption of science on a major scale now. NOAA finally come out with ...err yeah there seems to be something there...this was after outright denial for weeks, even after other expeditions had independently reported the plumes.
Still we were all left with the brilliance of "oil floats on water...".
Anyway I am really thinking it must just be me. Let alone getting into other world news.
So honestly I really don't get most of it. I have always had a suspicion I have mild autism. In the category of thought...is it me or them??
So back to the minor little miniscule oil leak in the Gulf...I read an article "questions asked", well I did't really see the questions, let alone the sensible questions. You know the sort that are like - If you think you are going to get 28000 bpd next week when you get more ships, and you are getting 15000 per day now - doesnt that mean by your own calculations at minimum 13000 barrels are still leaking per day?
This is just bizzare. Apparently they have had no idea, but I find it hard to imagine oil companies going around drilling holes with no idea how much they are going to get out. Let alone the obvious fact that the thing was in place - before it screwed up - so someone must have a real idea.
Incidentally I was asked for my own opinion on the matter, I took the safe bet at around 50k bpd. I wouldn't be suprised if it is even higher though.
Of course we also have the corruption of science on a major scale now. NOAA finally come out with ...err yeah there seems to be something there...this was after outright denial for weeks, even after other expeditions had independently reported the plumes.
Still we were all left with the brilliance of "oil floats on water...".
Anyway I am really thinking it must just be me. Let alone getting into other world news.
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