Friday Science: Gamers and Foldit

Recently, there was a much to do about Gamers finding a cure for AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  That is the way I heard the story.  I am sceptical of those kinds of stories so I waited a week and then read up on the deal once the press finished with it.  I think a major portion of the population consider gamers as hermaphroditic neo-Nazis.  They are placed up there with Julian Assange, hackers and the Oslo killer, Anders Breivik.  The mainstream populous does not understand and therefore trust computers, video games or online stuff.  Technology is moving very fast and acceptance of things not understood is slow. 

 The process by which living beings create the primary structure of proteins, protein biosynthesis, is reasonably well understood, as is the means by which proteins are encoded as DNA. Determining how the primary structure of a protein turns into a functioning three-dimensional structure—how the molecule "folds"—is more difficult; the general process is known, but predicting protein structures is computationally demanding.
Foldit is an attempt to apply the human brain's natural three-dimensional pattern matching abilities to this problem. Current puzzles are based on well-understood proteins; by analyzing the ways in which humans intuitively approach these puzzles, researchers hope to improve the algorithms employed by existing protein-folding software. In 2008, the Foldit project submitted solutions to the CASP protein structure prediction contest; results were announced in early 2009.
Foldit is a mix of crowd sourcing and distributed computing.  -- Wikipedia

The real import accomplishment is that there is a highly sophisticated game that solves real problems and top notch gamers want to play it. There is a host of "game" software out there that are deeply involved in the chemical and scientific world.  There is software that can predict chemicals compounds and formulas based on inputs of building block chemicals.   Software predicts the impact of the tsunamis, oil spills and hurricanes.  A person with a gifted mind no longer has to join big business, big brother or political action committees to develop his talents.  He can start his own career and give the fickle finger to the establishment.  The accomplishments of the gamers and hackers reach far beyond this event.  Science is great.

Hair Cuts

I am always very happy after I get a haircut.  Most women I know are never happy after a haircut.  My head is lighter and cooler.  Why not be happy about it!  Where I get my hair done includes a wash, a quick head massage and a nice cut.  One of the great joys is seeing all the hair fall down on that apron they put on us.  There seemed to be more hair on the floor than could have possibly come off my head.

 My dad's stepfather was a barber, well, actually he was a bootlegger but cutting hair had a nice store front.  He made a big deal out of that apron setup.  He had a paper ring that he placed tightly around my neck.  He then snapped that apron on as it floated across my little body.  It had snaps and folds that seemed to have no purpose.  It even had a pocket that hair would fall in to.  He would ratchet me up to eye level with a foot pedal and then he would get out the clippers.  I was old enough to know that clippers were not used for styling.  I would yell, Mr. Smitty, mom does not want me to have a buzz; she says I am too cute for that "Deliverance" look.  I could never understand what Smitty was saying anyway but he laughed and put the clippers away.  He cut my hair with the scissors and he kept mumbling about "damn women" and "tellin him what to do". 

Finally he said, "Now, I think you are old enough for your first shave!"  Shave, I was seven years old and had been waiting for hair on my pocket monster, not my face.  I had watched him shave many people from the tiny half window in the living room back in his house.  Through this window you could see the entire barber shop.  It was his lookout for the revenuers I guess.  Smitty was recovering from his third major heart attack.  He could not stand for long periods of time so he leaned on the chair.  His hands shook a great deal.  My shave started with  the lather.  This was some mystical junk that he mixed up in a cup and with the first brush the Fuller Brush Man ever sold.  He would slather it on my face, up my nose around my ears and under my chin. Then out came the razor. No stinking safety razor for Smitty, nope, it was a straight razor.  I was four inches from cold blue death and his hand was shaking like a paint mixing machine at Walmart.  I could feel the air currents generated by the twitching of the blade.  He said, "Do this with your mouth" and he pulled his chin down and made a circle with his lips.  I thought this was so I could not scream in his face while I bled to death.

As the blade touched my skin, his hand miraculously stopped shaking and I could feel the pressure from the blade running across my skin.  As he paused or changed areas, the blade would start twirling like a helicopter but once on the skin, it was smooth sailing again.  Trying to get at the hair inside my nose and ears was an experience of facial distortion and trust.  He said in a gruff voice, "I always had trouble with chins.  I hate chins".  I said, how do you feel about seven year old boys?  "Never had much use for kids of my own, but as long as they stay still, they are OK." 

Smitty really did not have much use for kids.  I think he had a daughter somewhere though.  He liked me I am told.  He said I was different.  My mom said, "That is for sure".  I told my older brother about the hair cut and the shave but he must have been jealous because he did not say anything.  I enjoyed those haircuts and running my hand through my brother's buzz cut.  Thanks Smitty.

The Constitution: The Twenty third Amendment

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This is the first Amendment created after I was born and it is the first one that sounds like double talk.    I am surprised the people of DC waited until 1960 for representation in the presidential elections.  The old taxation with out representation thing may apply here.  It is only for the president and vice president.  It does not feel like something the founding fathers would write.  The style is wrong, the flow of the verbage is weak.  I loved the pen in hand of the Jeffersons and the Adams family. 

I cannot help that this amendment came out of the Civil Rights movement.   Everyone was all on edge about rights and representation and having a voice. 

My Favorite Fascist

Fascists seek to purge forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration, and to produce their nation's rebirth based on commitment to the national community based on organic unity, in which individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood.  from Wikipedia.

I cannot decide if this more accurately defines to a tea some of the political movements in this country or if it more acutely defines some politicians.  The answer is BOTH.  I was watching a former big Whig on television and he seemed to be nice enough but  he is old he and just trying to get into Heaven now.  Before, he was trying to get into the White House without having to go through security until he found out the White House was actually Hell.  It was fun for sure and ordering all those wiretaps and tortures were the next best thing to the bomb but dealing with the whiners from Congress all day, every day was too much.  The press conferences alone take an hour and that would cut into his bowling time.

Being the head man of a government agency could not funnel enough money into Halibut Seafood (a family owned business) but as a Hot Snot he could encourage a police action in Huntahunta land and have his buddies run the whole shooting match.  He bought some land in Paraguay (a non-extradition county by the way, which means not even the UN War Crimes guys can get him there) and set his sights on being the twentieth century's best fascist.  He only made it to Junior Fascist though..  His "Anything Goes" war strategy and his Extermination through Hunting policy put him up there with Benito Mussolini and Mubarak.  He just does not have what it takes to reach the lofty loins of Hitler and Stalin.  You know those two actually gave Fascism a bad name. 

He is my favorite because of that smile of his while planning to manipulate the entire free world.  It is sort of a Dr. Phibesish smile.  Anyone with that much gall and attempting this sort of endeavor should be hailed.  History will eventually tell the whole story though I will wait for the paperback edition.

Growing Older

Most people think I look younger than I am.  I do not know why exactly.  My hair is graying, my belly is growing and those rungs are forming under my eyes.  People ask, "How old are you?".  Then they say, "I would have guessed early forties."  I check their perspective meter by asking, "Who is funnier, Larry Storch or John Banner?"  If they answer at all they are about the same age as me and I really do not care what they think about my age. 

Now that I am getting fatter, I have fewer wrinkles.  It stretches the skin.  If  I was to keep my hair and face trimmed and colored Moca Blonde, I would look about forty.  I would look fatter but younger.  I actually could not care less about how I look.  Naked is scary beyond all reason so that is not a choice.  Other than that, I just try not to embarrass the kids or the wife.  Age has some bit of leniency for men. Grey hair can show experience like the commercials say but mostly it means lowered testosterone levels or high alcohol consumption. 

I do not have the split level stomach though.  This is the type of stomach that seems to make men wobble like a Weeble.  The stomach starts under the chin and reaches its apex somewhere in the crotch area.  I have to be careful about making light of this kind of thing.  It is sort of like my wife saying "I will NEVER........" because she always eventually does.  I cannot tell you the times I have physically restrained her from finishing that premonition.   If she said, I will never work as a janitor's assistant and sleep with wolverines!  I will start watching Michigan football and make sure she gets her Hepatitis B booster.  Anyway, age seems to add fat in men until they are about sixty years of age.  After sixty, with all the medicine, forgetting to eat and extra walking to find the bathroom, men lose weight. While the body is redirecting hair from the head to the eyebrows, they become thin again.  They can see their penis and toes at the same time although neither of them is of any use by then.

Old age brings pains everywhere, the shakes for no reason and spitting while talking.  Even though my grandpa spit on me while he was talking, I did not know it was from age related autotrophy of the lip muscles.   When I go to the doctor he asks me if I have any pain in my chest or legs.  "Shit yes" I interject before he even finishes the question.  He tries to get more specific about the type and location of the pain.  I tell him, all across here, and it lasted for a day or so.  I think when I was under the lawn mower looking for my allen wrench I pulled something.  It could be when I fell from my grandkinders play house and landed on the pile of bricks. My ass hurts most of the time and I now have only two toe nails that are not ingrown.  If I could see past the front of my car I would drive it into a bridge pole.  As I leave the doctor's office, his nurse says, "You look great for being 53, hang in  there."

My age is irrelevant to me.   I think like I did when at the university.  I can still move pretty well and looking at a nice butt is still as big a thrill as it ever was.  My grandkids want to know how old their dad was when I was a kid.  They are really young.

The Last Time I Saw Science

I have had what I consider to be a bad week.  Chaos has taken hold.  I am referring to the state or the residence at Lake Pointofhell that lacks order and/or predickability.  I also had to give up on the idea of actually dying one day.  I cannot die, at least I can not lie down and be quiet for an extended period of time and not let anyone bother me.  Some one will poke me with a pencil as cheap and functionless as they are while I am in the coffin.  The pencils are useless also.  To continue, this week, I further discovered I am a fraud and some day they will find out.  The Theys are winning and the Those People are gaining on them. 

What does this have to do with science.  Nothing.  And who would ask that question? not the two Latvians that read this blog once a week!  Not the two other people that stumble on this blog while looking for the Naked Oil Spill Ladies of Baton Rouge calendar.  I have watched people ignore science all my life.  Science research protects the food you eat and the air you breath.  The government does not do it.  Joe Dickhead in the Vet does not do it.  Lady Vagina with the 4 once dog does not do it.  Science research develops vaccines, medicines and cough drops.  Sixty percent of cough drops are eaten by children who do not even have a cough.  Ten percent are used as suppositories to relive children from farting.  There are some really stupid people out there, hell, in here.  Pharmaceutical pessaries is the doctor term for suppository.  I thought pessaries were birds, no wait that is passerine.  Suppositus is a latin word for "to place beneath" so I guess that is a clue.  For the Guillotine, "Cephalus Suppositur Laminus".  Just stick your head under the blade.

I tried to start three projects this week with limited success.  The constant "what are you doing" and the "who said you coulds" are making my heart hurt.    All three projects are continuing but will little real result.    I heard someone mention sleep.  No, I am not allowed to get more than twenty three uninterrupted minutes in each hour.  If you calculate that out while trying to sleep anytime all day, It will take 122 days to get a total of eight good hours of sleep.  If you are calculating along, do not forget to carry correctly and remember to calculate the entire day back in at the end.  Of  the three projects, I will hope to finish one this week.  One is a six week corn hole of an idea.  I could be dead.  They would just deduct it from my pay.

I figured if I used some science words maybe that would do for Friday Science.  To finish the week off on a high note, I could use science, at least chemistry and pharmacology with a mother's little helper and pick up the day.  Did you know the first chemist and scientists were the beer makers of Mesopotamia.  Really.

How Did They Do That!

I remember watching "To Kill a Mockingbird"  which even to this day I do not understand the title and there was a scene where Atticus shoots a dog that has rabies.  I remember the dog limping and jerking around as it made its way down the street.  Now that I know dogs and have trained a few and tried to train a few, "how did they do that?"  How did they get that dog to hop around and snarl and the like?  It has been over thirty five years and that scene sticks in my head. 

I saw a sword swallower once and although the sword was only about twelve inches long, it was still impressive.  I know a kid that swallowed a pocket knife but that is not the same thing I guess.  Bobby could drink a half pint of milk in three seconds.  Every once in a while he would swallow at the wrong time and milk would come shooting out of his nose.  That possible outcome was worth the the price of buying him a half pint of moo. We would try to brake his concentration just as he was tipping the carton by shooting him with spitwads. We should have made a horror film out of this scene.  We would call it "Invasion of the Milk spitting Dorkmiers"  He could also drink some liquid, milk usually and squirt it out the corners his eyes.  Thinking back to those awesome times, we should have used food coloring to its fullest possible bent.

I do not know how the did those things.  Recently on a video, I saw some people lift a car off of a motorcycle guy.  When I was a kid, there was an urban legend that a lady lifted a car off of her baby to save his life.  I got run over by a car once.  Well, it was just my foot but one quarter of the weight of that car was on my foot for half of a second.  None of my friends saw it so I could not play it up because it did not really hurt.  I tried the "cool" angle but my friends were idiots and could not see the significances of it.  Come to think of it, they were idiots.  How do true idiots ever become something?  I guess there is reality television and Jerry Springer.  How do they do that?

The Constitution: The Twenty second Amendment

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. I guess these type of things are needed, hence an amendment.  So the key word is "elected"  I guess if you were elected president for two terms and later because of disaster or stupidity, you were "chosen" vice president and approved by congress and the president died, you could have a third term.  I did not capitalize any of those things because I have lost complete confidence and respect for two parts of the three parts of our government.  The executive branch has been on a slippery slope since World War II.  Congress (I had to capitalize because it was the start of the sentence) has been screwing up big time since Vietnam.  The Supreme Court seems to be holding its own fairly well.  I wonder how long it will take to corrupt and morally bankrupt that institution.  Russia and Venezuela are having problems with term and power limits of the executive offices.  Honduras had a fracas because a man was going to be elected who would do away with term limits.  The Congress ran him off for a few years.  I am glad amendments to the Constitution take a while to instigate and ratify.

Holidays

"What ya doing for Labor Day?" he would say expectantly.
When I said "Nothing" sadness crept in on the corners of his mouth.  I could not tell if he was disappointed for me or if he felt he should invite me to his celebration.  I never plan much for vacations.  I never go anywhere, it is too much trouble.  I would not mind someone coming over if they bring some food and stuff.  I will cook it and serve it and clean it all up but being in charge of it, NO. 

Another question from office morons during the holidays is "Are you going to Anyuta's Holiday party?  What are you bringing; you are supposed to bring something."

"Well, she did not invite me specifically so if I go, I will most likely bring myself.  God always says I am a gift."

       "She is Jewish, it is a holiday party! Duh."

"Jewish people believe in God.  He invented the Jewish people I think.  Noah got his foreskin caught in door hinge while peeing off the ark. The Jewish state was born."   

       "Really?"

"Probably not"

There was a time when I was very uneasy at gathering of any kind.  I think I had low esteem issues.  Now I just do not give two hoots.  Although I am comfortable at gatherings where I know a few people, sometimes I still act like a wall flower at office gatherings.  I am still reasonably new at my present company and I do not know a lot of people so I hang out and hope someone talks to me.  Labor Day always bothered me because in a Catholic family, on a Catholic street and in a Catholic town, labor meant babies and that confuses me.  Also, celebrating work sounded rather communistic.  Most people can hardly wait for the week's end so why would they celebrate the part of the week they hate.  It is the same for the office Christmas party.  Why would you want to celebrate with people you are dodging all season long?  If bathrooms did not have stalls and doors, where the hell would we hide?

Holidays do bring friends and family together.  Some holidays are for the kids mostly.  Easter egg hunts are big in my extended families.  Children and young adults alike fight over money filled eggs found in trees and in holes.  I cannot even get my kids to pick up their socks but if I can convince them it is an Easter egg, I am golden.  We have film of adult children stealing from young children during an Easter egg hunt.  Jesus would be so proud.  At Thanksgiving, I usually cut the ham and/or turkey.  I have been waiting three hours for the food and then they want me to cut the meat.  I do cut it and I also eat a ton of it.  By the time they serve the creature, I have sampled the turkey, the ham, the dumblings, the Pirogis, the rolls and the beer. I am full and done with the celebration.  I head for a the prime sleeping spot on the couch.  The Organizer tries to get me to come to the table for the prayer.  I do stand up for the blessing but I plop right back down. 

I wish every holiday was a planned eating and drinking event.   I would be very happy for most holidays to come around.  For this next one, I will most likely mow the grass and maybe go fishing. 

Gus's

I remember when my grandpa would take all the kids in his 1962 Corvair to the Beer Joint.  The proprietor was named Gus.  All I remember is the boiled egg in some giant pickle jar and everyone yelling "Hey, Joe, what ya know?" when we went in.  All the kids would get a root beer or an orange pop and Grandpa, in all his glory would have a "snort".  The littlest child would get to stand on the bar and everyone would watch him try to drink a soda.  The bottle was too big for the little hands.

I do not remember much about the places he took us.  Many years later, I lived in small town out west  when Grandpa came to visit.  This was the first time he had ever flown on a plane.  He used to take the train.  As we were driving through downtown, a strip about a mile long with store fronts, a Sears Catalog Outlet, a bank and a Police Station, he said, "Hey Buddy, lets stop in that bar and have a snort later".   First of all, he usually called me buddy but he called all the kids buddy and second of all I did not know there was a bar on main street or in the entire city for that matter.  There was no sign that I could see.  In fact, you had to be twenty one years old to drink and alcohol  was only sold in Liquor Stores.  He must have smelled the alcohol.

Well, back at Gus's, there were the sausages in jars, eggs in jars and peanuts on the bar.  There was a few tables and some booths.  If I go to any small drinking establishment around my house today, they are the same basic layout.  In fact, I would swear the same guys are sitting at the bar drinking.  One of them is small and loud wearing a baseball cap that is even dirtier than he is.  Another guy is pouring his beer from a bottle into a glass.  I never understood that.  The women are fairly nondescript and quiet.

You never see old guys like Gus behind the bar anymore.  Male bartenders must die at about forty years of age or find something else to do.  Maybe they become owners and get lazy letting someone else run the place.  Maybe they go on the wagon and have to stay out of bars.  Maybe they become politicians and learn to use a crackberry and take pictures of themselves.  I think Gus probably had a heart attack in his establishment.  I hope so. 

Friday Science: Random Numbers

I remember when I was working with my TI-994A and writing a little program that required a random number.  My brother said to me; "I wonder how random that number really is".  It turns out, there is no mechanical means to generate a truly random number.  If I am asked to pick a number between 1 and a 1000, that would be random but a machine or computer uses a reference point to randomness.  I does not have Tourette Syndrome so it just cannot blurt out a number at random. 

I have been posting five articles a week for nine months with the subjects being random.  Are they random articles?  Are they at all related to the news of the day.  If I kept this up for twenty years would there be patterns?  There would be.  There would be a clear trend to madness and psychosis.  I am pretty sure most things I think of are not random.  I do not believe in coincidences and that would imply some level of randomness.  If I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe the posts I create on those day will be more satirical than humorous or may lack humor all together which seems to be a problem currently because I feel like I woke up under the bed. 

I think I am talking about random numbers because I am confused a lot lately and some of the thoughts I have must be random.  Yesterday, I found myself thinking about raccoon shit.  Last week I caught myself wondering if the tongue of a giraffe is comparatively longer than that of a hummingbird.  These must be random thoughts.  Here is a thought of randomness.  Do the Walmartians shop for cloths at Walmart because I have never seen some of those cloths for sale anywhere on the planet?  Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed!

O wonder if anyone has checked Tourettes to see if the outbursts have any randomness to it.  Off I go randomly.

Ear Infection

Ear infections seemed quite common when I was a child.  I figure all the swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and the Banana River contributed to the ordeal.  I remember my cousin had lots of ear problems.   He always had cotton stuffed in his ears.  The big treatment for an ear ache was hot oil and boric Acid poured in your ear and then plug it up with the cotton balls.  When Star Trek II, The Wrath of Kahn movie came out and Kahn would place those worms in the ears, I always thought of the hot oil and boric acid.  Pretty much the same initial response as I remember.  There was always lots of screaming and trying to get away.  I think they used worms in The Beastmaster also.

Now I just heat up some neosporin and squirt it in the ear.  No problemo, no cotton, nolo contendre.   I hear people say, "my child has an ear ache, I took her to the emergency room".  "What in the hell did you do that for?, Do you have nothing else to do?  Are you trying to get sick?"  People do not talk to me much about hospitals any more.   In the emergency room they looked in the ear and exclaimed, "It is a little red, lets put some hot oil in there, plug it with cotton, give her some antibiotics, you know, to kill all the bacteria in her intestine and "take her to her regular doctor if she does not feel any better in a few days."  Are you freekin kidding me? 

I have an ear ache now I think because I use ear plugs to sleep.  What better way to get bacteria to grow in you ear than to stick some piece of foam in there and sleep with it.  Anyway, I will do the neosporin thing when I get home and I will not worry about it any more.  These ear plugs are color coded so you only push them in your ear so far.  The directions say, "WARNING - insert only to the green line".  I cannot see in my own ear so how will I know if it is in too far.  I guess jamming it in there with a pencil is not a good idea.  If I do insert too far will it disappear like a rectal thermometer can.  I was helping a veterinarian when I was a kid and I let go of the thermometer.  I did not know a horse's butt hole could suck in a thermometer.  "It almost got my arm", I told the vet.  "Where is the thermometer?" asked the Vet.  "How the hell do I know, where ever those things go in situations like that."  The Vet frowned and lifted the horses tail.  "There it is" he exclaimed as the thermometer came shooting out of that hole.  That thing could put an eye out, I thought. 

So, lets hope the ear plug or the cotton ball does not go in too far.  We do  not need things rattling around in there.   I like old fashion doctoring much better and it is almost free.

The Constitution: Twenty First Amendment

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission here of to the States by the Congress.

Basically:
You can now drink alcohol.
You cannot transfer it between States without regulation.  The States control alcohol consumption and commerce. 
The Government decided that it had no business in the issue of controlling alcohol.  Many of the leaders of this country ignored this law.  It was a mockery.  Kind of like the privacy laws of this time in our history.  Now, I really could not care if They tap my phone or read my emails.  I do not care if they know how many guns I have or what kind they are.  I do not even care if they are telling me what kind of light bulb to use (which they are not); if they want to take food out of my mouth or enslave my children, then I care.  Do not tell me I cannot drink, smoke, or use drugs.  The Government should warn me of the dangers of said drinking, smoking and drugs.  Not with films like Refer Madness but with logical consequences kinds of stuff.  As a teenager I am not going to let you know I am listening but I am.  Do I have to point out everything to the government, YES!

This Constitution Review thing is very hard on me.  I can hardly go through the day after I read what the Founding Fathers were probably thinking and then how we had to clarify it with the amendments which are just not needed if people would just keep in mind "we are trying to sustain an institution of truly remarkable possibilities.  

The repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment was a good test of the system.  Well done.

Shampoo and Conditioner in One

This morning in the shower, I decided to use the shampoo with conditioner on the loofa for a good scrub down.  I came out tingling and smelling all fresh.  My skin was smooth and soft just like the commercial said.  My hair was luxurious and full.  Here is the problem with this situation.  I have hair all over my body.  Luxurious and full creates some problems.  Smooth and supple skin can be dangerous when you consider motion and friction.  Did you ever use furniture polish when cleaning the oak wood stair treads.  The Carnuba and Whale brain wax makes furniture shine and streak free.  The dusting towel flows effortlessly over the furniture.  Stairs become like a toboggan run when venturing down with socks on.  Conditioners have wax in them.  They call them emollients.  So now I have full and slippery hair all over my body.  My hand charges through my scalp like an air boat through swamp grass.  I slapped at a mosquito on my arm and my hand slide off like hot syrup on ice cream.
I noticed when I was dressing that my hair indeed was full and oh so soft in my private areas.  My arms swung with a freedom seldom felt.  My strides to the kitchen seemed longer and more effortless.  I was floating on a conditioner fluffed mass of hair.  When I went to sit down it was like sitting on an extra pillow.  Too much information you say, well read on.  My thighs rubbing together create an exhilarating rush.  My back hair cushions the chair like never before.  At work, I actually felt better, a more lively gate.  People in the hall would say; "Boy you seem different, so upbeat and alert".  I am feeling luxurious and full" I said.  I kept rubbing my arms and thighs, what a great feeling.  I kept tossing my clean smelling head of hair like some supermodel on a photo shoot.

After lunch, I had a meeting in another building.  It was hot and humid of course.  The five minute walk over to the meeting seemed to let the air out of my rubber duck and my full hair.  My thighs no longer glided past each other.  My arms started to sweat and I think a rash is coming on.  I know that by the end of the day I will have swamp ass.  As I returned to my office, I reflected on the morning shower and how this stuff could be addictive.   This was shampoo and conditioner.  What about some of those hot oil conditioners that fix split ends. That sounds dangerous.  Did you ever wonder how the hair treatment repaired the split ends and what would happen if the ends got all tangled up and stuck to each other.  Anyway, I wonder what other adventures I can find in the shower. 

I have one other question.  Shampoo is soap.  Shampoo and soap are used to clean oil and dirt, from hair, cloths, dishes, whatever. The definition of dirt is up to interpretation.  So, hang with me, if shampoo (soap) cleans oil and dirt, what is conditioner and how does it keep from reacting with the shampoo?  How does the shampoo know to clean the hair and scalp and leave conditioner (fats and oils)?  I wonder if this is some conspiracy type thing.  Let's see, a billion dollar industry?  Most likely a conspiracy.

I always try to buy shampoo without conditioner.  I cannot handle the confusion and the mystery.  Showers are a place of refuge and relaxation; my Sanctuary.

Where was I ten years ago

People keep asking me, "Where were you ten years ago?"

I was at work.  Where am I now, at work.  Some things never change.  That is as it should be.

I usually answer, "Prison!"

Really?, they say.

Yep, I used to work as a flight instructor and I charged all the foreign students from Saudi Arabia and extra fuel charge when I would give them instructions on the simulator.  I just kept the money.  The  school had me thrown in jail.

Everyone believes me. Then they get angry, then they say, What?

Friday Science: UV Vision

I read an article about Caribou being able to see in the Ultraviolet light range.  It seems that some rodents, a few birds can see in the UV range of the light spectrum.  There is research being done on the caribou to figure out how their eye handles the higher UV exposure of the northern latitudes.  a large portion of older human vision is corrupted by UV light. 

What do they see, I guess with almost everything white in the winter, including polar bears and wolves it just helps them distinguish enemies from friends a little bit sooner.  Maybe they can tell the difference between thin ice from thick ice.  Mostly, it is just another survival tool.  The UV does not seem to degrade the Caribou's eyesight. 

I am constantly stunned by the variety of research that people get involved with.  It is serendipitously cool, all the time. 

This is where I get up on my soap box to shout out to the masses about "basic research".  Cutting funding for education, research, EPA, and NIH will only hurt this country and its ability to sustain itself.  How are the war mongers going to stay on top of the heap if the country does not support science and free thought.  China, India and South Korea are spending twice as much on education and almost twice as much per person on research as we are.  I cannot stand it any more, I gotta go kick some ass.

The Pork Tooth

I have a tooth on the right side of my mouth that acts like no other.  When I eat pork, remnants get stuck around that tooth.  No other kind of meat gets stuck there.  If I am eating chicken, say wings, meat gets in there but it comes out with a flick of the tongue.  Not pork, its molecular size seems to be perfect for the gap between the teeth.  I can flick and suck all day long and that pork is staying where it seems most happy.  It does not matter if it is chops, tenderloin, good ham, cheap ham or even the fused ham which I thought was masticated beyond recognition, some bit of that oinker gets down in that crevasse and will not easily come out. 

My teeth have moved over the last few years which is disheartening anyway.  I also have a tooth that turned sideways.  About five years ago, I hit myself in the mouth with a crowbar.  No, it was not an accident.  The blow hit right on that tooth.  It was fairly straight when I hit it.  During that time period, I was also wearing a CPAP unit while I slept (continuous positive airway pressure) which is a combination of a Darth Vader mask and a NAZI jaw removal tool.  This mouthpiece with an attitude caused my teeth to start moving is many directions.  This is when the tooth started turning.  My hitting it with a crowbar simple cut a hole in my lip and made the tooth loose.  The continental drift was on and even though I stopped using the CPAP deal, the teeth kept moving.  If the gap gets much bigger, the famed pork tooth will be no more.  Broccoli, hamburger or even caraway seeds will get in between those teeth.  What claim to fame is that?

Extracting the meat from that tooth can be a chore in itself.  I will wear my tongue bloody and still not get at it.  It requires a toothpick or a piece of floss.  It is way in the back of my mouth and sometimes I just cannot get at it.  I poke at it with a sharp object, I try the corner of a piece of paper and all I do is bleed.  The fragment feels like the Loch Ness monster is stuck in there.  The pressure on the neighboring teeth starts to build and with the sore tongue and the blood, well, I must get this thing out of my mouth. Once, I thought I got my hand stuck in my mouth while getting at the porcine morsel.  Finally, during a meeting at work, the piece just came out with the nudge of my tongue.  I yelled, "Yes" and everyone looked at me.  I did not care.  My teeth were free to float around and I was finally done with lunch.  I retrieved the fiber that was stuck in my teeth.  It was so small I could barely see it.  It was insignificant.  Damn you pork tooth.

The Constitution: Twentieth Amendment

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

This amendment shortens the time for the lame duck stuff.  It tells congress they have to meet in January and simply cleans up some loose ends in the election process.  It is mostly a housekeeping amendment.  All the States ratified it quickly and complaints were few if any.  I have nothing to say about it.  It is not funny in any way nor can any political machine twist the intent of the amendment.  Also, it is long enough to keep avid readers happy.  I am glad the amendment told Congress when to meet, and what time!   Now, more than ever, those children need guidance and a firm schedule.

Drinking Water

Remember when we drank water out of a hose at the neighbor's yard.   Did you ever notice the bottled water unit outside the box store is hooked up to the same faucet that the lawn guys water the planters with.  They have a PVC "T" on it.  For fifty cents a gallon I doubt if they have much more than a string filter on that puppy.  I was at a "Spring Water" factory doing a cleaning service and they had this big pipe coming out the ground and automatically filling five gallon bottles, sealing them and instantly routed them to a truck for delivery to your office.  The United States has the highest water quality standards in the world.  Water quality creates a healthy society enabling great possibilities.  The stuff coming out of the city utility is cleaner and safer that even most bottled water.

Water is the most important resource on the planet.  It is also the best tasting.  If you ever hike in the mountains and get thirsty, water from a quiet but babbling brook cannot be improved on by a shoe company or a research team from Gator country.  Water quenches.  Animals can smell water from miles away.  With the exception of the crocodile, fascinatingly most animals get along at the water hole.  The lion may not stand guard while the antelope drinks, but he will make sure he is not thirsty before a hunt.  

Drinking water is boring. I know, I am trying to write about it.  I am also a biologist and know all the stuff that is in it.  There is almost no bacteria in stream water or city utility water.  The cities add chlorine to keep the bacteria that is in the water and in the pipes from multiplying.  They also add scalers, descalers, fluoride treatment and other tracers for various purposes.  If you are at the end of the distribution line your water will be quite different from the person at the front end of the line.  Regardless, your water will be safer and healthier than most bottle waters and 97% of the water used for drinking around the world.    

Friday Science: Mosquitoes

Last night, the family was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.  I initially wrote "the family was attached...... which is actually the same word I think.  The dogs could not stop moving long enough to pee or quite literally speaking, hundreds of mosquitoes landed on them.  The human victims were not spared either.  I have rarely seen such a plague of insects.  I was in Kansas and viewed grasshoppers at a density of about twenty per square meter.  They tell me that during a real problem year there are over a hundred per square meter.  That is on the ground, not in the air.  Every step would send multitudes of three inch hoppers in a scurry and in your face and hair.  Pandemonium would break loose and as I ran maddeningly through the field, thousands and thousands of grasshoppers would take flight.  It was my first understanding of the cascade effect.  Within ten steps I could stir up ten thousand locusts.  There were no sea gulls in sight.

The mosquito population around our lake has been quite low for a long time.  A two year drought-like environment had reduced non-predator water to Nil.  A mosquito larvae had to survive in a very hungry and shrinking lake.  Now, with regular rains, puddles of water all over the place, and lots of long grass to hide from dragonflies, mosquito populations have exploded to billions of mosquitoes.  I estimated that if I stood still, five hundred mosquitoes would land on me and the same was happening to every mammal in the place.  I also have Australian Pine trees on my property.  I am not sure that is the real name but that is what we call them.  They are mosquito magnets and know for being so.  I do not have non-predator standing water, just a few small ponds. A drop of dew on the leaves of grass can be home to a few larvae with no predatory enemy. Dry is the enemy of the mosquito.  Fifteen acres of grass filled mosquitoes is as the Xerxes army was to the 300 Spartans. 

Tomorrow we will mow down the grass around the house, spray malathion in the barn and hopefully complain a little less.  The dragon flies will enjoy a bounty, the martins will rule the skies and the anopheles with its Plasmodium falciparum symbiote will wait for another day.

Erasers

What the hell is that" I yelled.  My son was trying to remove some writing from a paper but it looked like a big black grease mark.  I dove at him before he tore the paper.  His eraser looked new but must have been made of waxed paper. That reminds me, I used to take Bobby's pencils and stick the eraser in my ear and get ear wax all over it.  I would wipe it off and when Bobby tried to erase something, the wax would smear the paper.  This was almost the same thing.  My son's eraser was a piece of junk.  It even crumbled when I tried to clean it.  I then tried the old bite the brass thing holding the eraser to the pencil and bulge out a bit of stuff so it could erase.  Nope!, the pencil was not having any of it.  I ended up tearing the paper and hurting my teeth.

I know there are good erasers out there.  Only on the cheap (I assume imported) pencils are the squibs inferior.  Erasers have a simple and finite job, remove a carbon based dust from paper without tearing the sheet.  Sounds simple.   I think tearing the paper is worse than not erasing completely.  My daughter was an erasing maniac.  Her letters and lines had to be perfect.  With her antics, a  pencil eraser lasted two days at the most.  I bought one of those giant rubber ones that can actually clean dishes and look exactly like a bar of soap.  They never wear out and they must taste good because I think the dog ate.  It could erase even the craziest chicken scratch. 

I hope with the decline of writing in the modern world that erasers do not disappear.  The bite marks on the brass ring was a proud moment in every child's day when that little bit of eraser bulged out.   He extended the life of a pencil eraser and finish his math test without worry of losing points for being messy.  You had to do it without getting any spit on the eraser or it would not scrub well.  Here is an invention.  An eraser for the television, if something is not proper, erase it.  I think Congress needs an eraser the size of the Washington Monument.  It even looks like a giant eraser.  The erasers on pens were longer lasting material.  It would erase pencil as well.  There have been some cool developments for erasers.  The ones that looked like Gumby are cool.  There are drafting erasers (talk about a lost art) that crumble easily but remove the marks from velum astonishingly well.  Those kinds sometime come with a brush attached so you do not blow spit all over the paper. 

This article is about writing erasers, not chalk board erasers.  Huck Shirley, my high school English teacher used to throw the chalk erasers at the non-conforming students.  He never hit me, I was too quick.  He missed four times.   The last attempt, he tried to get me about a week before school was out (I was a senior) and he had me dead.  I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye.  I only had time to cringe in anticipation.  One of the cute Torgenson girls in the seat in front of me lifted her head up off the desk just as the eraser neared and it smacked her in the face.  I was safe, the teacher was embarrassed mostly because he "never" hit an unintended victim but also because Diane was crying.  She was oh so cute.  I never even talked to her, the eraser thing was a perfect ice breaker.