Author: photog

Reprieve, Reprieve.  Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight, Mr. Snedrig

photog Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Science ,

As I have whined interminably about, I am in the midst of a long, boring and exhausting project from which death would be a welcome release.  But today I unexpectedly discovered that I have a two-day respite from this miserable existence.  I have Friday and Saturday off.  And just like that my heart is full of joy.  I can sleep in tomorrow morning, maybe as late as 6:30 a.m.!  “I’m as light as a feather! I’m as happy as an angel! I’m as merry as a schoolboy! I’m as giddy as a drunken man!”

Seriously, when some onerous burden is unexpectedly lifted off your shoulders, even if only for a little while, it changes your attitude.  Because now the thing that you had seen as impossibly hard has been cut into a smaller piece.  It can never now be what it was.  It is diminished.  Even if the diminution is minor, the psychological effect is great.

I will spend tomorrow weighing some decisions that I need to make.  I have a lot of factors and unknowns that need to be considered and somehow weighed against each other.  I have to perform the hardest of all tasks; think intelligently.

But all that is okay.  This two day carve out of time is a perfect interval to look carefully at the problem and make some kind of decision.  Maybe it won’t be definitive but at the very least I’ll be able to define the time parameters needed to answer all the questions.  And to me that is an important milestone in any project.

I was watching a YouTube video from someone who argued that human colonization of other planets was highly improbably and interstellar colonization was completely impossible.  For interplanetary human travel he pointed to the health problems associated with extended time in freefall and the damage to human health from radiation that permeates the environment beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.  In addition to these problems, for the case of interstellar travel, he pointed to the issues that a twenty-thousand-year multi-generational space ship would create for the humans within.  First off, he reiterated that all health issues would be magnified by several orders of magnitude over such an enormous length of time.  But he also stressed that a flight of that duration would see a genetic selection among the crew for individuals with anti-social or even psychopathic tendencies.  He predicted that well before arrival, the crew would have sunk into barbarism and cannibalism.  Now that’s a scenario I can stand behind!

Anyway, it was very interesting, if a little bit depressing.  One thing I learned is that mammals brought onto the International Space Station to test the effects of microgravity on reproduction had a 100% rate of birth defects due to developmental anomalies caused by the lack of gravity.  Well, all this negativity sure puts a damper on a lot of my favorite science fiction stories from the golden age of science fiction.  Where does that leave “Red Planet,” “Farmer in the Sky” and “The Rolling Stones?”  Well, maybe we can find a workaround.

Brains Beget Brains

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I have a theory.  I think that human intelligence will spawn higher intelligence in other species of animals.  And this isn’t mysterious.  Higher intelligence will produce greater success when sharing an ecosystem that more and more is dominated by human actions.  And the negative situation is already well known.  Animals that can’t adapt to interaction with modern humans have a much lower chance of thriving in the current world.  Maybe the grizzly bear is a good example.  In the first century of interaction with Europeans, the grizzly’s instinct told him to charge into a pack of Europeans.  This resulted in many, many dead grizzly bears.  And this pattern continues to this very day.  Result?  Grizzlies were extirpated from all parts of United States other than Yellowstone where they were protected by law.

But what about animals that have adapted?  Which animals thrive in our company?  Well, obviously dogs and domesticated cats are the prime examples.  And as far as it goes, we’ve done a lot more with selective breeding of dogs than cats.  And I’m guessing that canine brain development has been fundamentally changed by association with man.  I think that some kind of selection is happening that will attune dogs with human intelligence.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  Dogs are not geniuses but they are relatively intelligent animals and so the potential is there for them to continue to evolve into a creature that interacts with humans at a much closer to equal level than is currently seen.  Of course, if we were domesticating chimpanzees or bonobos, I think the process would move at a much faster pace.  Those apes already have significantly greater intelligence.  But apes are truly dangerous animals with unpredictable behavior.  Dogs, for the most part, are already part of the human household and have enormous empathy for people around them (for the most part).  So, I think that some time in the future dogs will move forward significantly in intelligence.

But what other creatures huddle around humanity successfully?  Well, rodents.  Mice, rats, squirrels and chipmunks.  They’ve adapted to humans in a big way.  And their numbers have probably never been higher than they are right now.  But humans are getting better at killing them.  New poisons, better traps and strategies for preventing them from getting into our food stores seems to be making a dent in their success.  My guess is as we use smarter and smarter methods to keep them at bay, we will produce smarter and smarter rodents that keep wanting to break in.

And I have this feeling that one day there will be rodents that are orders of magnitude smarter than they are now.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that rats will be the ones to noticeably grow more intelligent.  This will sound crazy, but I envision a species of rats that become social in a way that mimics human socialization.  I think they’ll develop something approaching speech.  It’ll be like something out of a Disney cartoon with the rats having tribal gatherings and getting their marching orders from the head rat.  Well, I better get some sleep.

Back to the Horror

photog Current Events, My Fiction, photog's Corner , , , ,

For a truly lazy man nothing is worse than hyperactivity.  And so, my current frenetic schedule has rendered me borderline despondent.  But the mail must get through!  No, wait.  The show must go on.  So, let’s do this thing.

Let’s start with the government shutdown.  I think the Democrats are crumbling in real time, before our eyes.  Most of the people impacted by programs that are about to run out of money, (e.g., Snap) vote for Democrats.  So, they’re going to be hurting really soon and that is going to be bad for Democrats running for office.  I read an article that said Schumer is already dealing with a bunch of Democrat Senators who are frightened that they’re going to be blamed for poor people going hungry.  My guess is things will come to a head in about a week.  Well, good.  Anything that makes Chuck Schumer look bad is by definition a wonderful thing.  So, yay!

Next, the Mamdani ascension to Gracie Mansion looks poised to happen in two weeks.  And both Democrat and Republican establishment figures are petrified that this guy is going to reduce New York City to a Mid-Atlantic version of Mexico City.  Basically, a bankrupt madhouse run by gangs and beyond the control of the police.  And I think they’re right.  I read that a large number of the NYPD are going to retire if he wins.  I don’t think you need anything more than that to tell you where the city will be next summer.  Bedlam.

On a personal note, I received a detailed proposal for the marketing of my book, “The Sniper.”  Currently I haven’t had a chance to even look at it yet.  I’m bogged down in Dunwich civic life to such an extent that I lose track of the day of the week.  But as soon as I can I intend to study it intensively and make up my mind on whether I think I should pursue a commercial plan to market it.  By the way, if any more of you folks have finished reading it, please pass along your criticisms to help me weigh the value of going forward with a structured commercial release of the book.  Well, to be continued.

I’ve been following Trump’s press releases and moves on the Ukraine War.  He was talking as if he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.  But when Zelensky showed up in Washington to receive them it didn’t happen.  Some outlets are saying he told Zelensky he no longer believes Ukraine can win and they should negotiate seriously with Russia to find a ceasefire and a peace plan.  I have to confess I’m not sure whether Trump has a plan or is just trying to keep both countries at arms’ length.  Russia has made some significant (albeit glacially slow) gains on the battle field.  The cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk are teetering on the edge of complete capture and several others (Kostyantynivka, Myrnohrad and Lyman) are not far behind.  Pretty soon the Russians will accomplish through arms what they are telling Ukraine they demand for a peace settlement.  What happens then is anybody’s guess.  The NATO countries are stating they are getting ready to send their troops into Ukraine.  But I have a hard time believing that England, Germany and France will get their people to agree to this.  Well, maybe Trump can broker a deal that’s not too disastrous for Ukraine.  We’ll see.

Well that enough for now.  Back to the horror.