All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
amusements, memes

Ten Things: June

This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with June …

Ten Humorous Laws

  1. Hanlon’s Razor. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  2. Hofstadter’s Law. It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter’s Law into account.
  3. Mechanical Repair Law . If you take something apart and put it back together enough times, you will eventually have two of them.
  4. Moer’s Truism. The trouble with most jobs is that the job holder resembles a member of a sled dog team. No one gets a change of scenery except the lead dog.
  5. Mr Cole’s Axiom. The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
  6. Murphy’s Military Law . The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map. (right)
  7. Natural Perversity Law. You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
  8. Ralph’s Observation. It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realise that you are in a hurry.
  9. Rudin’s Law. If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time.
  10. Stewart’s Law of Retroaction. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
amusements, memes, words

30 Day Word Challenge: Days 1 to 5

I promised a summary every five days of the words I’ve chosen for my 30 Day Word Challenge. Here’s the first summary.

Day 1. A word that makes you happy: picatrix
Day 2. A word that describes your best friend: callipygian
Day 3. A word you always spell wrong on the first try: occasionally
Day 4. A word that reminds you of family: dysfunctional
Day 5. A word for your favourite colour: variable

As always, click the image for a larger view

Remember, daily posts on Facebook and another summary in five days time.

science, thoughts

Nature Hurts My Brain

I read quite a bit of scientific material. Not the deep research papers; those days are long gone and my knowledge is too out of date to follow along with immensely detailed analyses of ever more intricate experiments. What I do read is the commentary for the intelligent layman: the specialist science journalism in, for example, New Scientist, Science, Scientific American, Quanta, and various other places elsewhere online.

I don’t read everything – there isn’t time, and anyway there are subjects like climate change, extra-terrestrial life and artificial intelligence which bore me rigid.
[No I didn’t say they aren’t important, or don’t exist; I just said they’re not things I can enthuse over.]

The more I read, the more incredulous I become that anything in the living world works at all – let alone that it could have evolved from nothing, however long the timescales involved.

Apart from the way in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus seems to work, what brought this home to me most recently was and article in The Scientist about left-handed DNA. You see the normal DNA which makes up all our genes has a helical structure which twists in a right-handed direction. And the way that works is gobsmacking enough.

But DNA can twist the other way (left-handed) to form Z-DNA. This has been known for some time, but it is now thought it may have a role in cancer and autoimmune diseases. Even more bizarre is that short sections of normal DNA can flip to Z-DNA and this obviously has a major control on how the whole of the transcription process (which turns DNA code into proteins) works (or doesn’t work) – and that may be important for the prevention of autoimmune diseases or the growth of cancer.

It is fiendishly complex, and yet only one tiny piece in the corner of the jigsaw puzzle which is eukaryote metabolism. I remember when I was a postgrad student (45 years ago) having a huge A1 (maybe bigger) poster full of the (then known) metabolic pathways in tiny print. It was gobsmacking, and totally unmemorable, then and has since been shown to be many times more complex.

The way the living world works – from grass, to rabbit, to fox, and to you yourself – is absolutely incomprehensible and incredible. I can quite see why some people cannot believe in evolution and insist that the whole must be divine design. I don’t agree with that, but that makes it no less brain-addling.

current affairs, environment, thoughts

Reforming Society

2 Comments

Following on from my post of some weeks back where I looked at a model for Environmental Reform, I’ve now had a go at writing flows for the other areas which need to be reformed together if we are to truly change the way our society works – and thus save ourselves and the planet.

As I see it, the four main arenas for reform are:

  1. Environmental
  2. Economic
  3. Political
  4. Social

They are, of course, highly interdependent.

The diagrams below are my attempt to capture and codify what needs doing.
You’ll see that I have marked with “IN” arrows those places which it seems to me are the simplest and most obvious starting points. Linkages between the areas are shown with lettered lightning flashes.

Click the images for larger views
Environmental Reform

Economic Reform

Political Reform

Social Reform

Yes, it’s very complex; and I don’t pretend I’ve yet got my head round it, nor that the models are necessarily complete. Others may very well disagree with me, be able to add key areas for attention, or linkages between items.

None of this is going to be easy. In fact even the “input points” are going to be fought over. There are too many vested interests amongst the “not-so-great and not-so-good” who hold all the wealth and power worldwide. But also because those of us in the western world have been (relatively) comfortable until now and embarking on this will both threaten that comfort and involve major change – neither of which mankind, as a species, is instinctively equipped to handle as over the aeons it would have been an evolutionary disadvantage. [See, inter alia, Ryback, Lee and Pianka.]

Well perhaps the Coronavirus pandemic can give us a kick start in helping us overcome our (now dangerous) instincts by showing at least the western (developed) world:

  • We can significantly reduce travel, especially air travel, for both business and leisure: business doesn’t need to do it and it will likely be neither affordable nor attractive for leisure.
  • We don’t all need to commute for 2+ hours a day to pile into an office. Sure, many jobs (eg. shops, manufacturing, farming) have to be done from your employer’s premises, but by far from all do.
  • We don’t need to consume stuff at the greedy rate we do (that too is no longer an evolutionary necessity); we can manage with less. Much (especially personal) technology is not essential, merely nice to have. We need to go back to “make do and mend” rather than “throw it away and buy a new one”. Most consumption (beyond the basics) is no more than “cake and circuses” which enriches the already wealthy.
  • There is more to life than earning ever more money; by working longer and longer hours; to show you think you’re two steps better than the guy next door; striving to continually climb the greasy pole; and kidding yourself you’re important. [See Hutnik.]
  • But perhaps most critically, we might come to understand how important it is to have open and ethical government – and that this is possible, though not inevitable. [See Mair.]

Will any of that happen? I hope it will. But I fear it won’t. I suspect this current panic hasn’t hit nearly hard enough, so not enough people are sufficiently shit-scared (or dead), and so the will (or necessity) for change won’t be there. Even the Great Plague and Great Fire of London (1665 & 1666 respectively) didn’t really hit very hard (they were too localised); the two World Wars came somewhat closer; but only the real devastation of losing 30-50% of the population in the Black Death (1348-50) really caused major reform. And who remembers back 670 years?

The will for change may be there amongst (some of) those of us who think and care. However I suspect that after this current Coronavirus panic is over “the people” will go back to their old ways, rejoicing at having escaped the demon bug (‘cos it never happens to them!), demanding what they had before, and being as selfish as ever.

Judging by recent behaviour, the signs are not good.

amusements, memes

June

We’re beginning every month this year with a haiku (or a longer poem made of haiku) relevant to the month.

haiga – summer

hot June eventide…
sweltering clouds perspire – drip …
rain to sate the earth

[Geregory R Barden]

All the poems can be found online at http://www.haikupoemsandpoets.com.

amusements, memes, words

30 Day Word Challenge

In the spirit of … oh, I don’t know … having nothing to do, possibly? … I’m going to do this 30 day word challenge. That’ll be a word, as specified in the chart below, each day in June. So we start tomorrow.

With luck I’ll manage to post the requisite word each day here on Facebook. I’m also planning a catch-up post on my blog every 5 days – ie. as we reach the end of each row in the chart.

As always, click the image for a larger view

I’m not nominating anyone, but of course you’re welcome to play along should you wish. I hope you find it interesting.

history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

And so at the end of another month we come to our regular collection of links to items you may have missed …

Science, Technology, Natural World

Extraterrestrials. What is believable, and how would we know? [£££££]

Meanwhile on this earth we have Vespa mandarinia, the Asian Giant Hornet, aka. the “Murder Hornet”. But just how dangerous is it? TL;DR: Very if you’re a honeybee.

I never cease to like the (small) variety of wasps in this country and what they get up to.

Still with the hymenoptera, the humble bumblebee has a clever trick to get plants to flower.

Health, Medicine

When is a llama not a llama? When it’s a unicorn!

So why is it that clinical trials of (new) drugs are so complicated and expensive? [LONG READ]

For a long, long time sunshine has been seen as having healing powers.

Researchers, almost accidentally, have found a microbe which completely stops the malaria parasite.

[TRIGGER WARNING] Having had four miscarriages, journalist Jennie Agg wanted to understand why it happened and why it is never talked about. [LONG READ]

Sexuality

Dr Eleanor Janega has some sexual fun over on Going Medieval. Here she is on:
•  No Nut November [LONG READ]
•  Dildos and Penance
•  “Alpha Men” and poorly disguised misogyny

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Have you ever wondered how the heights on Low Bridge signs are calculated? Diamond Geezer investigates.

Art, Literature, Language

Dutch researchers have been trying to extract the secrets from Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Mexico has too many mammoths – or at least bits of mammoths.

OK, so here’s another series from Going Medieval:
•  On chronicles versus journalism, and ruling versus governing.
•  On the King’s two bodies and modern myth making.
•  On the Lusty Month of May.

London

Diamond Geezer (again) discovers the interesting history of his local Tesco supermarket. What’s the history of your local supermarket’s site? Three near me: the iconic Hoover building, an old cinema and the site of a former gasworks!

And one more from Diamond Geezer … this time he’s been finding out the correct names for the different parts of a London bus stop.

Food, Drink

Apparently coconut oil isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Colour me surprised! [£££££]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

And finally … Pity the poor curators who are having to spend lockdown in places like Hampton Court Palace!

personal, ramblings

Horrible Times 9

Today is Day 80 of my house arrest. And nothing much has changed since my last report on day 60. It’s all still rather tedious, although most things seem to be trotting along and not as fraught as even three weeks ago.

The great British public are being ever more stupid. Talking to a friend in south London (New Cross) the other day, he says taht everyone there things it’s all over and life will resume next week. And the idiots think that because the roads are empty the speed limits don’t apply; so the police are seeing a significant number of stops for traffic offences (mostly speeding). I really don’t know how we get some common sense into the heads of these people.

Anyway, I thought I’d document a few things (good and not so good) that have happened over the last three weeks or so …

Good Not So Good
  • Our friend Tom is OK; he disappeared from the radar in early February. It turns out he wasn’t well then (not Covid-related) and needed some time out; he’s now OK and sitting about home getting terminally bored.
  • The quiet is wonderful (although there is still too much background noise, especially now the weather has improved).
  • Our new apple trees look to be thriving; we might even get a handful of apples this year.
  • Tomatoes and marrows planted out in the gro-beds on our patio.
  • We have even more roses in bloom, including right to top of silver birch: see my post here and also below.
  • Letterbox Flowers: see this post.
  • My depression isn’t any better, but it does swing in and out to some extent.
  • I’ve had what appears to have been a mild cold (no, it wasn’t Covid!).
  • I’m not making the time to sit in the garden; I always seem to have too much I have to do!
  • Being careful to wash your hands at every turn is getting somewhat tedious.
  • My back is being really painful (it’s stopping me doing things like mow the lawn) and really suffering without massage and manipulation.
  • We need some good rain; the garden is parched.
Maiden's Blush
Rose “Maiden’s Blush”, aka. “Cuisse de Nymphe”
[click image for larger view]
Apothecary's Rose
Apothecary’s Rose, Rosa gallica “Officinalis”
[click image for larger view]

I intend to provide another progress report on Day 100, Friday 19 June. Meanwhile be good, stay safe, and remember those burnt offerings to the gods.

current affairs, thoughts

Horrible Times 8

The more I see, the angrier and more despairing I become – despite the fact that I know it isn’t good for my blood pressure.

Just what do these self-important, selfish, stuffed shirted twats think they’re on?

Almost every major sport is trying to (re)start their season. Football, rugby, cricket, tennis, Formula 1 … and on and on. Top flight football in the UK is intending to restart in mid-June. They aren’t alone.

Why? Selfish vested interests and money.

All they are going to do is to add fuel to the flames of a second spike of Covid-19. Why can these guys not understand this? Why are they (and their sport) so much more important than people’s health? How do we restructure their brains?

Sport is a recreation. Unfortunately it has become big business made up of prima donnas and stuffed shirts. (In fairness the stuffed shirts were always there, at every level.) Sport is not essential; it is recreation, fun. At the end of the day it is dispensable and one of the last things which should be (re)starting once all else is running and things are stable again.

The politicians are not helping. In England from next week up to six people may meet, in the open air (public or private) as long as they observe 2 metre social distancing. They can even have make burnt offerings, aka. barbecues.

Just like the government did too little, too late at the start of this, they’re now doing too much, too soon and risking the gains we’ve managed to salvage from their incompetence. Do they seriously think that Joe “Dumbo” Public is going to manage to observe (or care about) 2 metre social distancing in his garden, with his and his mates kids running around killing each other, while the adults swig larger and smoke “substances”? And how is this going to be policed? An unenforceable law is worse than no law.

It was my friend Katy, over on Facebook, who pointed out:

Juvenal [in The Satires] coined the phrase “Bread and Circuses”. It was about the fact that the Roman senators created a grain dole for the poor in order to buy their votes and keep the peace in a time of increasing unrest and hardship.

And the fact that the Emperor Domitian who was a right bugger, used to create big celebrations to take people’s mind off whatever the Roman version of Stalinist purges and gulags were. Massacred three thousand peasants? Chuck them a circus and some balloons on a stick and we’re laughing.

I’m not sure what the bread in our current case is – maybe Brexit? But the return of non-essential sport, and allowing people to effectively have parties at this time, certainly look a lot like a circus to me.

Just watch the upturn in Covid-19 cases by the end of June.

Gawdelpus with this set of clowns in charge.