poison ivy

If you get it on you, it won’t wash off.  If you get it on your clothes, it will spread to all your clothes in the wash.

But a product called Tecnu will let you wash it.  

It’s better to deal with it before it gets all over everything.

four tastes

They taught me in school there were four taste receptors: sweet, salty, bitter and sour.  Now they know of more. In addition to umami (MSG,) there may also be: hot like peppers, cool like cucumbers, carbon dioxide (soda,) calcium (peas,) fat, metal, and even “Kokumi” (say the discoverers of umami.)  

https://www.livescience.com/17684-sixth-basic-taste.html 

Five senses: Some think there’s many!, including hunger and proprioception (knowing where your body parts are in space.)

Louisville water quality

Once I was waiting for a bus, and I had some time, so I dropped into the Louisville Water Company water quality laboratory.  There was no secretary to screen me out, so I got to speak to a scientist!

I asked him about lead.  He said the pH of Louisville water was such that it didn’t pull lead out the old pipes, so there was no problem. Nevertheless, they’ve recently replaced their lead mains. And there may still be lead pipes at your home.

(For my chemistry project in college I had tested a drinking fountain which tasted funny, and sure enough, it had too much lead.  But that was in Iowa.)

Louisville water does have some problems:

https://www.berkeyfilters.com/pages/water-quality-search?pws=KY0560258

But the New York Times recommended, instead of a Berkey filter:

For everyday water filtration, most NSF/ANSI-certified pitchers and undersink filters—like the Brita and Filtrete we recommend in our other guides—are smaller, more convenient, far less expensive to buy and maintain, and are easier to use, and also provide the accountability that comes with independent, transparent testing.

China pulls ahead

Adm. Richard said: “The explosive growth and modernization of [China’s] nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. And, frankly, that word ‘Breathtaking’ may not be enough.”

Another Pentagon authority says “We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion”. https://www.reuters.com/technology/united-states-has-lost-ai-battle-china-pentagons-ex-software-chief-says-2021-10-11/

The Chinese think, I’m told, that for China to win, the United States must lose.

Cow burps

Bill Gates said that if cattle were a country they would be only behind China and the US in greenhouse gas emissions.

A certain Australian seaweed, when added in small amounts to cattle feed, can cut the cows’ methane emissions — in one experiment 58%, another up to 86%. A different kind of seaweed was found to increase calf births and milk production too.

There are companies working on this. But it will take time and effort to build enough farms to make enough seaweed.

“If 10% of the livestock producers added seaweed, it is like removing 100 million cars off the road.”

There is a petition (only 855 supporters) asking Tyson Foods to adopt this.

Some suggest becoming vegetarians – but Ermias Kebreab, scientist and director of the World Food Center explains: “Only a tiny fraction of the earth is fit for crop production. Much more land is suitable only for grazing, so livestock plays a vital role in feeding the 10 billion people who will soon inhabit the planet.”

More info at Wikipedia.

Housing the homeless would save money

They determined it’s cheaper to just house homeless people than to pay for their emergency room visits and other social services. In current dollars the savings would be $1,783.75 after 12 months.

A 2013 Californian study found once people were housed, with appropriate support services, police contacts fell by 99%. Health costs fell by 85%.

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-realised-true-homelessness-overnight.html

Biological threats

“With COVID-19 bringing Western economies to their knees, all the world’s dictators now know that pathogens can be as destructive as nuclear missiles. What’s even more worrying is that it no longer takes a sprawling government lab to engineer a virus. Thanks to a technological revolution in genetic engineering, all the tools needed to create a virus have become so cheap, simple, and readily available that any rogue scientist or college-age biohacker can use them”.

article at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/11/crispr-pandemic-gene-editing-virus/

Discussion at: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/09/23/0021242

Something I wasn’t taught in high school

I wasn’t taught in high school about “exponential growth.” When something is growing exponentially, it doesn’t grow much at first, but as time passes it gets much bigger and faster too.

One example is powers of two (2, 4, 8, 16…. 8 million, 16 million — etc.) But what you may not realize is that 3% growth per year is exponential too! Like this:

Here is the same chart (3%) zoomed out:

Population has been growing exponentially, but it’s complicated. The UN projects it may level off at 11.2 billion around 2100.

Survival of the fittest

The fossil record shows that 541 million years ago a lot of new lifeforms appeared. Not all remain. The tendency is for a lot of diversity at first, when competition is easy, and one by one species go extinct, leaving only a few of the fittest competitors.

This is happening now.

It happens with corporations too. At first there were a lot of independent bookstores. Then Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, etc. started to succeed and crowd out competititors. Now we have Amazon who’s even fitter.

Opinion: you can’t just eliminate a few bad cops

Thomas Owen Baker was a former policeman, now he researches police culture. He says you can’t just isolate a few bad cops and imprison them; things are more complex.

He also says

While I’m very critical of policing, it is worth acknowledging that things are improving, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. In 1971, the New York police department shot and killed 93 people. In 2009, the NYPD shot and killed 12.

Some evidence that crime correlates with pollution and malnutrition:

“Type B subjects have elevated blood histamine, low plasma zinc, and elevated lead levels. Walsh says that only of one percent of the general population, but up to 60% of studied prison populations, exhibit the type B pattern.”

“in the USA… incarceration and rehabilitation without nutritional intervention has a mere 20% success rate- most criminals end up in jail again and again…  On the other hand nutritionally rehabilitated criminals has a success rate of 80%. “

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/35b1/b03ae97f462d67b2305ef91523fe72d658b4.pdf

Also, when they installed air filters in classrooms, kids’ test scores in math and English went up significantly: https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188

Mathematical descriptions of history.

This will unfortunately take you a few minutes to read, but I think it is important.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/12/history-as-a-giant-data-set-how-analysing-the-past-could-help-save-the-future

in which they are trying to predict history using mathematical models.

[The patterns] “were there in ancient Egypt, China and Rome – in every pre-industrial society he looked at.”

“there really was a three-generation surge in population growth before every major revolution or rebellion in history.”

“It is quite astonishing the degree to which the United States today is, in respect of its state finances and its elites’ attitudes, following the path that led early modern states to crisis.”

AI writing:

They gave an AI this sentence from “Nineteen Eighty-Four”:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”

and it generated

“I was in my car on my way to a new job in Seattle. I put the gas in, put the key in, and then I let it run. I just imagined what the day would be like. A hundred years from now. In 2045, I was a teacher in some school in a poor part of rural China. I started with Chinese history and history of science.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/14/elon-musk-backed-ai-writes-convincing-news-fiction

They’re worried it’s going to be writing fake reviews and news next.

According to a new report, commissioned by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Americans could face a horrifically grim future from climate change involving blackouts, disease, thirst, starvation and war. The study found that the US military itself might also collapse. This could all happen over the next two decades, the report notes.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmkz8/us-military-could-collapse-within-20-years-due-to-climate-change-report-commissioned-by-pentagon-says

And JPMorgan economists: “We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened”

— https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/21/jp-morgan-economists-warn-climate-crisis-threat-human-race

I just try to remind myself: the unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable.

problems ahead

A book I found interesting is:  “Limits to Growth: the 30-year update.”  They made a sophisticated computer model of the economy, population, and pollution.  Nine out of ten scenarios they tested resulted in a population crash sometime in the next 100 years.  (They don’t guarantee the scenarios are right, but they are certain we have a problem.) Anyway it’s a smart and easy read.

A (possibly not as convincing) 7-page summary is at: http://donellameadows.org/archives/a-synopsis-limits-to-growth-the-30-year-update/

Also, “A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander.”

Also, a study published in Nature Scientific Reports says that the planet needs forests for carbon storage, oxygen production, water cycle regulation, etc and we’re cutting them down. They project a 90% chance of an irreversible collapse of society if we continue present trends of deforestation.

“Instinct shooting”

When he was a boy my dad was taught “Instinct Shooting.” The first thing they did was remove the sights from the gun. Then instead of concentrating on aiming, you just blast away – winging it (more or less.) It worked. He was able to shoot down a BB the instructor tossed in the air. 

The same phenomenon happens in other things. Tim Gallwey taught people to play tennis in twenty minutes [cool video at time 10:40.] Instead of concentrating on hitting the ball, he distracted their cognitive minds — he would have them say “bounce” when the ball bounced, and “hit” when they would try to hit the ball, and this occupied their thoughts. Meanwhile their reflexes were learning to hit the ball. Reflexes are a lot better at learning tennis than cognition. 

Also. My basement has scary steps. I used to gingerly and cautiously step down, but now I run instead of thinking about it. I think it’s a lot safer this way.

a few thoughts on architecture

I don’t know much about architecture, but I have dimly noticed some things.

At my gym, you go down a ramp to reach the exercise area. This makes you feel strong and powerful every time, which is encouraging.

At college there were two dining halls– one was better. It had long waits in line (a chance to talk with strangers,) was crowded (so you have to sit with people you haven’t met before,) dim lights (which help with inhibitions,) and circular tables instead of rectangular (which seemed to help too.)

At Grinnell College the dorms had lounges. Nobody used them. At University of Kentucky they were used. The difference was, at UK people had to pass through them during the normal course of the day.

Spraying yogurt cuts down on super bugs.

When you use conventional antimicrobials, it kills almost everything, leaving the playing field wide open for anything resistant to expand into. But they found that by populating the hospital with plenty of harmless bugs instead, the bad bugs were more crowded out. “The new sanitation system was associated with a mean 83% decrease of the detected pathogens on hospital surfaces and a significant reduction (70-99.9%) of antimicrobial resistant genes.”

https://www.knowledge.unibocconi.eu/notizia.php?idArt=20448

Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds.


“If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds

Environmental scientists are warning of a sixth mass extinction.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn

A third of the insect species are endangered.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

“Civil forfeiture” is when the police seize your money and house, and get to keep it for themselves, if they say they suspect you of being a drug dealer. Conviction is not necessary.

The ACLU is against it: https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/asset-forfeiture-abuse

The conservative Heritage Foundation is against it: https://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/civil-asset-forfeiture-7-things-you-should-know

Here is a charity about it: http://endforfeiture.com

New report finds solar will be cheaper than wholesale electricity prices across Europe by 2030 – without the need for any technological breakthroughs.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/why-solar-pv-is-unstoppable-and-renewable-targets-will-cost-little-17050

Renewable energy “could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand”:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2019/09/02/economics-of-electric-vehicles-mean-oils-days-as-a-transport-fuel-are-numbered/#6fe313751020

(too bad it’s not 100%.)

Drug use in Portugal is down 50 percent, after they decriminalized drugs and put the enforcement money into rehab instead. Hmm.

http://www.alternet.org/print/drugs/portugal-cut-drug-addiction-rates-half-rejecting-criminalization#node-1031766

And noted conservative William F. Buckley says, “one dollar spent on the treatment of an addict reduces the probability of continued addiction seven times more than one dollar spent on incarceration.”  I think I’m convinced.

Looks like Congress is moving towards rehabilitating drug addicts instead of punishing them — my [Republican] senator explained about a new bill: “this prison and sentencing reform bill is a much-needed first step toward shifting our focus to rehabilitation and reentry of offenders, rather than taking every person who ever made a mistake with drugs, locking them up, and throwing away the key.”

Now adults can go to Space Camp. Price: $299.

https://www.spacecamp.com

You could also climb into a vertical wind tunnel in your parachute pants: google “indoor skydiving” ($65+.)

Or you can experience zero-gravity (without the wind) in a plane that goes very high and then free-falls (repeatedly) at: https://www.gozerog.com ($7,500.)

And I also liked the Johnson Space Center (“Houston”) – better than Disney World (to me.)