Archive for category Dumb thoughts
On Australia
Posted by Grg in Don't Go In the Water, Dumb thoughts, General stuff on Thursday, December 2, 2010
“Things in Australia that can kill you.”
In close second is “Things in Austalia that will kill you.”
Ghosts on the loose in the USS Olympia…or maybe just a bid for tourists
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Grg's Reference, PR Guy, Rant/Rave, Skeptic on Friday, October 29, 2010
“I’m a complete rationalist,” said Jesse Lebovics, manager of the Olympia and submarine Becuna for the Independence Seaport Museum. “I can explain most of it.
“But [the ship] certainly has a colorful enough history that I think if something were to be around, it makes sense it would be around the Olympia,” Lebovics said.
Sure, Jesse, nice “but” there. I’d think a few ghosts would be mighty convenient for you though.
I don’t necessarily blame the folks who run the Olympia for pitching this story. After all, we’ve seen Eastern State Penitentiary go from moldering historical curiosity to one of the most popular “haunted” places in America by embracing the ghost tourist industry. (By day a historic gem, by night a history-making cash cow.) And the Independence Seaport Museum is still reeling from the scandal left behind by its former president, who ran the place as his own personal cash/political favor machine.
Apparently, the ISM has already pimped out the ship to the ghost TV reality show industry, a necessary first step, I’m sure, before they partner with a ghost tour outfit. That is, if they can put it together in time. According to previous reports, they’re looking to sell it for $20 million or they’ve threatened to sink it off the coast of Cape May. My thinking is that it will join the SS United States and become another ghost ship of Philadelphia.
Um, not in the haunted sense, but the abandoned, looming over Ikea sense…although the Olympia doesn’t necessarily loom over anything.
You want to save the Olympia? Save the waterfront. May my father, a highway engineer since the 60′s, forgive me, but let’s get rid of I-95. The idea is so mad it might work.
UPDATE:
I can’t link it directly, but check out picture number four in the gallery. The caption says it all: “In recordings, Harry Burkhardt says, he has heard voices, including one that told him: ‘Save the ship!’”
Harry, are you certain Jesse wasn’t whispering in your ear?
WHY I DON’T GO IN THE WATER…
Posted by Grg in Don't Go In the Water, Dumb thoughts, Science/Geek on Wednesday, May 12, 2010
In Sweden, even the sea life is flat pack.
The Regalecus glesne, known as the King of Herrings or Giant Oarfish, was found dead in the small fishing village of Bovallstrand on Sweden’s west coast, about 140 miles from the Norwegian border.
In less sensational terms, this is an oarfish, which normally makes its home in the Eastern Atlantic/Mediterranean. While rare for Sweden, I gather, this isn’t a very large specimen, as they seem to grow to 50 feet. So, for the King of Herrings, this one’s a bit of a pike(r). Here’s an entry from SeaSky, for the wikipedia-averse:
The most noticeable feature of the oarfish is its extremely long, ribbon-like body. These fish can reach a length of over 50 feet (15 meters) and weigh as much as 600 pounds (272 kilograms). Its scaleless body is covered with a silver to silvery blue skin and is topped with an ornate, red dorsal fin that resembles a decorative headdress. This dorsal fin runs the entire length of the fish, with a tiny spine projecting above each of over 400 individual fin rays. The pelvic fins of this fish are elongated and similarly colored. The oarfish has a small mouth with no visible teeth. Their diet consists mainly of plankton, small crustaceans, and small squid that they strain from the water using specially formed gill rakes in their mouth. In turn, the oarfish may be a food source for larger ocean carnivores such as sharks.
Oh, and SeaSky, green and yellow text on black? Really?
So, to sum up. Not really a herring. Not really that big (as far as these things go). And, while it is a plankton eater, I would not be terribly happy to see one swim past. (I’d get bored after the first 30 feet, for one thing.)
(via Museum of the Weird, one of my favorite places in Austin.)
Why I Don’t Go into the Water: Sharks that would give Roger Cormen pause
Posted by Grg in Don't Go In the Water, Dumb thoughts on Sunday, April 18, 2010
It was a thing of beauty, a rare titan of the sea, so of course we had to kill it.
Not the biggest shark ever, certainly, but another reason to stay out of the water.
Full story.
The science version of the BBC booklist
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Science/Geek on Tuesday, February 23, 2010
It is a great start to a list in need of expansion (great blog, too). I’ve read most of these, but the list suggests a few I hadn’t heard of or gotten around to.
My favorite book is on the list, De Kruif’s Microbe Hunters, which is still very readable.
Both Popper and Kuhn are there, although neither are very fun reading. (I favor Kuhn, but I’ve always felt that he Kuhn missed the mark in some ways. Paradigm shifts happen rarely — and entire fields will only ever get one or two — but most progress in science is through relentless incrementalism. It seems to me the whole observation is in some ways reflective of a particular moment in time, as the various disciplines matured. Also, it is a fairly Western-oriented look at science. Also, also, I hold a grudge against Kuhn for popularizing the term “paradigm shift,” damn him.)
As I said, the list needs to grow some. Off the top of my head, here are a few that I’d consider candidates:
The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman (or maybe Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman…tough call…)
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences by John Allen Paulos
Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett (It marks a particular moment in time when scientists really began to talk frankly and openly about consciousness. His Darwin’s Dangerous Idea is great as well.)
I’m sure there are more, but I’ll post them as I think of them.
Why I don’t go into the water…bone-eating worms at whale fall
Posted by Grg in Don't Go In the Water, Dumb thoughts, Rant/Rave, Science Fandom, Science/Geek on Monday, October 5, 2009
You see, when the carcass lands on the bottom of the sea, a whole host of unpleasant critters come out to eat it in a process that can take months — or even years if the whale lands in deep, deep water. Among those critters are members of the genus Osedax, bone-eating worms related to tubeworms or those guys you see hanging out by thermal vents…if you happen to go past a lot of thermal vents, that is.
Robert Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute first discovered these little red bone-munching guys while out in the ROV Tiburon, which is a vehicle with just an awesome name. Their press release provides a great read. (And, doesn’t he look like something out of central casting for ocean explorer?)
Sure, unless your diet has really slipped and you’ve reached blue whale proportions, you don’t have much to worry about from these critters (aside from the fact that you’d be dead and lacking cares, in general). But the fact that these guys are down there waiting…just waiting…gives me the creeps.
Even creepier is that all those little red wigglers you see in the picture above are all females. They’re not hermaphrodites. Oh no, that would be normal in comparison. All of these worms are actually giant masters over their microscopic male concubines. That’s right, mini sex slaves. Invertebrates with a dwarf fetish.
But, according to Vrijenhoek, “That was not the end of the weirdness. In looking at the worms under a microscope, we discovered that every one of them was a female. We didn’t find any males until I got another call from Greg Rouse. He said, ‘Bob, it’s worse than you think.’ I said, ‘What now, Greg?’ He said ‘There really are males, but they are microscopic. They are dwarfs!’”
Sure enough, living within the tube that enclosed each female were 30 to 100 microscopic male worms, each only about a millimeter long. Not only that, but the male worms were still in a larval stage of development. They were making sperm in one part of their bodies, while other parts of the bodies still contained the yolk droplets. As Vrijenhoek put it, “These males don’t feed. A male lives its entire life off the yolk that was provisioned by the egg from which it hatched. This is one of the few cases in the animal world where sexually reproducing individuals are barely more developed than eggs. It’s weird.”
Why I don’t go into the water…Reason #1,768
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Grg's Reference, Rant/Rave, Science Fandom on Tuesday, June 9, 2009
As the Discovery News reports, monster jellyfish like this are becoming more common as fish populations dwindle.
They say climate change could also cause jellyfish populations to grow. The team believes that for the first time, water conditions could lead to what they call a “jellyfish stable state,” in which jellyfish rule the oceans.
The combination of overfishing and high levels of nutrients in the water has been linked to jellyfish blooms. Nitrogen and phosphorous in run-off cause red phytoplankton blooms, which create low-oxygen dead zones where jellyfish survive, but fish can’t, researchers said.
Just great. We’re doomed.
Massive Bat Die-off in NJ? Maybe…and another fungus to blame!
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Rant/Rave, Science Fandom, Science/Geek, Uninformed Critic on Friday, June 5, 2009
Hibernia Mine doesn’t appear to be an active spelunking site, but you never know what desperate cavers might do in New Jersey. The Star-Ledger report fails to mention that the Fish and Wildlife Service has asked for a voluntary moratorium in the northeast to prevent the further spread of the disease.
So, like the frogs and bees, we have another fungal infection at the root of an animal die-off. With the bats, however, it seems decidedly linked to human activity, but there still could be a climate connection. (After all, why are people suddenly carrying fungi?) This press release from Cardiff University suggests climate change is causing fungi to grow more rapidly and “fruit” more frequently.
So, if you are doing math at home, is it:
warmer/wetter climate = more fungi + disease + accelerated decay (fungi hasten wood rot) = more CO2 = climate change
Yikes.
ABC’s of Scatman Crothers
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Grg's Reference on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
but I amused myself enough to share here too:
I’ve been tagged, and I am supposed to write a note with the ABC’s of me. I’m not feeling all touchy-feely open at the moment, so I decided to write about someone I barely remember, Benjamin Sherman “Scatman” Crothers, who would be 99 this Saturday.
If I tagged you, it’s because I want you to know more about Scatman Crothers – but not in a creepy stalker kind of way. Mostly.
A- is for Axe, you didn’t see that coming.
B – is for Benjamin, you got your start by drumming
C – is for Capone, you sang for him in Chicago
D – is for Dead, which you sorta kinda are now.
E – is for Entertaining, although your parts were often crummy
F – is for Foxx, as in Redd, who never called YOU big dummy
G – is for your cover of Ghost Riders in the Sky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBYAis7akKw
H – is for Hong Kong Phooey, a number one super guy
I – is for Instruments, including your unique voice
J – is Jazz the Autobot, an odd acting choice
K – is for Kick the Can, you’re only as old as you feel
L – is for Long, we heard its like a conger eel
M – is for “A Man’s Gotta Eat,” a song I never heard
N – is for Narcolepsy, a random sleepy kind of word
O – is for “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” your other film with Jack
P – is for Pate, as bald as a worn out thumb tack
Q – is for Qantas, the name of an Australian airline
R – is for Random, like the word in the above line
S – is for Scat, which you were known for, but not really the best
T – is for Time, I got none, so I’m gonna scat the next
U – is for ubi, doobie dippo dee
V – is for vappa donna doo-ah debba see
W – is for Women, like that Afro-babe above your bed
X – is for Xenograph, like adding a second head
Y – is for Years gone by, as sweet as cream de cacao
Z – is for Zapped! in which you starred with Scott Baio
Man, these viral movie promotions are going too far…
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, PR Guy, Rant/Rave on Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Robot attacked Swedish factory worker – The Local.
The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation.
But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim’s head. The man succeeded in defending himself but not before suffering serious injuries.
“The man was very lucky. He broke four ribs and came close to losing his life,” said Leif Johansson.