Month: June 2024

How Many Macromolecules Can Dance on the Head of a Pin

photog Current Events, Science , , ,

Here’s a very interesting discussion of Levinthal’s paradox.  In a nutshell, the paradox is related to the almost infinite possibilities in the ways that a macromolecular protein can fold into its primary, secondary and tertiary shape versus the effortless way that proteins function in living thing.  The author says the degrees of freedom inherent in a large protein molecule have been modelled and there are supposed to be 10300 different shapes that the protein could assume.  Now the point is that this number is so absurdly large that the chance of any particular protein molecule assuming the shape it needs in order to perform its biochemical function in a living cell within a short enough time to sustain the metabolic requirements of life seems impossible.

Well I must admit that is a ridiculously large number.  Someone did a guess at how many separate atoms there are in the observable universe and he came up with 1082.  So that gives you a feel for the absurdity of 10300 .

Basically this argument is supposed to demonstrate the unlikeliness of the genesis of life occurring again elsewhere in the universe.

I guess I’m not sure what I think of this.  While the large size of macromolecules render their physical properties subtle and hard to predict, nevertheless, they do possess these properties and these are exactly the properties needed to sustain life in the world we live in.

If they occur on Earth then they could occur elsewhere.  Now the point really is how could life occur in the first place if the exact sequence of amino acids and nucleic acids needed to make up the macromolecules of life are so absurdly complicated and the random forces involved in creating these exact molecules would be so blind?

It seems what the paradox is hinting at is God.  Well, I won’t argue with that.

Father’s Day – 2024 – Crashing Plaster and Pancakes

photog Current Events, Humor, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family , ,

And the rolling year has once again brought us back to that most equivocal of fake holidays, “Father’s Day.”  When I say fake, I mean that it’s a manufactured occasion that has no long history of celebration.  Its equivocal nature is owed to the mixed feelings that everyone in a family feels about dear old Dad.  Well, at least that’s my own point of view.

And this is based on my own father and the way he raised his six sons.  Basically, it was like some kind of anthropological experiment that was started out with the best of intentions but then went horribly off the rails and eventually completely overwhelmed the investigators and had to be recast as a cautionary tale for all involved.

A more beleaguered man has never walked the face of the Earth.  He was always outnumbered, outgunned, behind the times, short of resources and out of patience.  I don’t remember him getting through a single day in that house without screaming and hollering at several or all of us.  We were terrible kids.

We broke everything he owned.  We lost every tool he possessed and we caused at least one disaster a week.  His house was perpetually on the edge of crumbling into something resembling the debris piles seen in old footage of London after the Blitz.  When leaks would develop in the house’s flat roof his solution was to use a hand drill on the ceiling to direct the leak and put a bucket under it.  His idea was that by tapping the leak it would prevent it from soaking the whole plaster ceiling and have it collapse onto us while we were sleeping.

He had a steam heat system which perpetually leaked at all of the radiators.  And he battled this problem by attempting to use string and grease to seal the threads of the pipe joints.  But the threads were so stripped that this never accomplished much of anything.  But he soldiered on with the hope that one day he’d catch up with his expenses and have a plumber come in and replace it all.  Finally, the ceiling in the living room underneath the leakiest radiator on the second floor collapsed.  All the plaster crashed down on the living room floor and exposed the wooden laths in the ceiling.  One of my younger brothers was overjoyed and he said aloud, “This will finally force him to fix the ceiling once and for all.”  Well, no.  That ceiling remained in that condition until after my father’s death a number of years later.

So, my example of fatherhood was definitely idiosyncratic.  And as for Father’s Day, if my father could have had his wish on that day, it would have been to lock us all out of the house for the whole day and leave him alone to watch baseball, horse racing and boxing on his tiny, pathetic, black and white, constantly drifting television set.  But that was an impossibility.  We were an omnipresent reminder of his status as Dad.

So, on Father’s Day he often fell back on his only real domestic skill.  He could make pancakes and French toast by the imperial ton.  And in that house, he had to.  He bought the cheapest pancake mix and syrup he could find in bulk containers.  I always imagined that he got it from war surplus.  And when pancake day arrived, he’d cover all the burners on the stove with griddles and he would cook and we would eat stacks of pancakes until we couldn’t move.  It was probably the high point of our lives together.  For that brief time, we were all happy simultaneously and we were all well fed which rarely otherwise occurred.

So maybe Father’s Day should be like that.  A day when Dad should find something he knows he can do that makes the whole family admit that he’s good for something other than paying the bills.  Anyway, it’s a thought.

OCF Coffeehouses Shuttered in Face of NoseRinged Employees Unionizing

photog Current Events, Humor

Orion’s Cold Fire (OCF) reports on the decision of OCF Coffeehouses (Coincidence?  I think not!) to close down rather than negotiate with unionizing employees on their wage demands.

When informed of management’s decision to cease propping up the marginal businesses, one exceptionally large and well pierced barista was heard to wail, “They can do that?  What the hell were we thinking?”

When asked to comment from his secret base in the caldera of an extinct volcano on the whole tawdry affair photog was heard to say, “Huh?”

Camera Girl Grows Up

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,

Camera Girl is acknowledged across the multi-verse as the worst dog trainer of all time.  Whereas children and grandchildren respond to and obey her enlightened methods of child rearing, her dogs on the other hand are completely wild.  This happens because she thinks dogs are perpetually infants.  And so, she coddles them and allows them to walk all over her and run amok.  Many years ago, we had our first German Shorthaired Pointer, Max.  He was a magnificent specimen of a very large GSP and I thought he was fairly well-behaved.  But one weekend I come home to find my youngest daughter standing on the couch because the dog had taken her socks while she was putting them on and was growling whenever someone came near them.

So, I went to get the socks from Max and he bit me.  I was shocked.  I asked Camera Girl, “When did this start?”  She looked sheepish and said since he’d started to mature, he had been getting aggressive.  I guess I’d been busy over the last six months and hadn’t spent any time training Max.  But now we were in a bad situation.  I didn’t want to lose the dog but I couldn’t have a large strong dog that might bite my kids.  So being a lunatic I put on a pair of cowhide gloves and winter coat and attacked Max.  I went for the socks and he went for me.  I grabbed him around the neck and threw him to the floor and pinned him.  Then I growled like a lunatic and bit him on the throat.  And I never had another bit of trouble from that dog again.  From that point on he worked for me.

Over the years Camera Girl has improved slightly.  But depending on the temperament of the dogs, she’s done anywhere from fairly well to really poor at training them.  Our latest pup is a female basset hound and she is feisty.  And she likes to chew on things, including me.  So, I started to follow Camera Girl when she was “training” Penny.  And of course, the dog was running the show.  She had this short legged chunky hound running around causing chaos and the only attempt at training was baby talk admonishments. So, I demanded that we get her straightened out.  Now luckily there have been great strides taken in dog training since my days of biting Max on the throat.

One training aid is a shock collar.  Well, actually it’s a combination buzzer/shocker.  Camera Girl is way too tender-hearted to shock the dogs.  But I’ve finally demanded that she start using the buzzer and use it consistently to get Penny to stop biting and jumping up.  This is actually also for her own good.  Basset hounds are very prone to hurting their backs and jumping up is a good way for them to do that.

And what do you know?  After about two weeks of consistent training the absurd puppy is finally, finally beginning to behave.  She hasn’t even tried to chew on my face once today.  And I’m overjoyed.  I think Camera Girl is finally beginning to grow up.  Any day now I’ll be comfortable enough to finally throw that ratty coat and gloves away once and for all.  And it’s a good thing.  I think next time the dog would win.

What’s the Secret Password?

photog Current Events , ,

The commonly expressed opinion is that we have become two separate nations living within the boundaries of one territory.  And that is becoming true.  More and more normal people are waking up to the fact that the nation we grew up in is being erased consciously and thoroughly.  And because all the private and government institutions are aligned in doing this we have no recourse.  We’ve become strangers in a strange land.  And as the young adopt the new world being created the rest of us become isolated and atomized.  And being isolated reinforces our dispossession and makes us feel powerless and alone.  This needs to be addressed.

When I consider the idea of the Right forming a replacement for the Republican party, I think the political function of the organization might actually be a less important aspect.  I believe a new organization for non-progressives might be more valuable as a meeting place for them socially.  And by socially, I mean personally and for business networking and for community organizing.  So this can run the gamut from looking for a date to looking for a job to looking for a new mayor.  But the first two of those tasks feel more critical.

Let’s face it.  In some parts of this country progressives outnumber us by orders of magnitude and identifying like-minded individuals is extremely difficult.  Churches and fraternal organizations have become moribund and even deceptive.  So, what better way of increasing the odds of meeting people who don’t hate you than giving them a home away from home?

Let’s take an example.  If you live on one of the coasts and are a rock climber, you might join a local club and try to fit in with that group.  But suppose the club is a hive of Bernie Bros.  Well, you can keep quiet and just go along and try to enjoy the climbing activities but socializing with people who despise your values is a frustrating ordeal of maintaining silence in the face of continuous abuse.

But suppose instead that an organization is gathered from people who believe the same things you do.  And just imagine that a bulletin board exists where these like-minded people advertise clubs and activities that you could involve yourself in.  Basically, that becomes like Facebook but with the social justice warriors stripped away.  It would be sort of like heaven without the clouds and annoying harp music.

Now, I’m not downplaying the importance of having a new political entity.  The Republican party is an absurd joke in terms of its commitment to our values.  We need someplace where non-leftists can rate the Republican office holders and decide which ones are okay and which ones need to go.  And this could be done away from the Republican party that has vested interests in keeping the incumbents in office regardless of their policy positions.  But above and beyond politics normal people need an organization that allows them to be themselves around people that are like them.

For people in red states all of this is less pressing.  They can find local groups that share their values and fraternize with.  But in the blue states you live a cryptic existence finding your friends floating almost at random in a sea of unsympathetic adversaries.  But I actually like the idea of a “secret” society.  There could be insignia pins and secret handshakes and initiation ceremonies where we have to drink cool-aid from a replica of a Trump golden sneaker or something.  And of course, there would have to be a national event where we all gather in a sufficiently cheesy location like the Las Vegas strip and take selfies with semi-celebrities and wear funny hats.

Believe it or not I think all of that would be great.  Belonging to something that proclaims your beliefs is liberating.  No one has to guess if you’re “one of those.”  You’re declaring it openly and you can wear it as a badge of honor.  It will self-select your friends and enemies and that’s okay too.

Will it ever happen?  I think it will.  Maybe it will have to wait for 2025 to wake up the rest of the sleepwalkers who still think this is one country and that the Republicans represent them.  Maybe it will take a Supreme Court decision restoring the right to free association.  But one way or another people will begin self-selecting by what they believe in and don’t believe in.  As you know I’m partial to the name, “The He-Man Woman-Haters Club.”  But “The Normies” would work for me too.