There’s a Fine Line Between Scientist and Supervillain

Posted on 27 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

When you hear in the news that a meth lab or ecstasy lab has been busted you have to wonder who were the scientists that strayed into a criminal lifestyle?

This means that not every scientist sees their pay as being sufficient. Usually their pay is comfortable enough to put them in the upper middle class. And most scientists are satisfied and work on their prestige. There are a number of outlets for this, they could develop something new or untried, publish in journals, give the human race a better handle on this universe etc.

Some scientists don’t do this and instead go rogue. I’m just wondering why they don’t seem to go totally rogue.

You see if comic books have taught us anything it is that supervillains are commonly scientist inventors. Lex Luthor, Dr. Sivana, Doctor Octopus, and even James Bond enemies were all super villains. And they all had enough gadgets to attempt to stymie Superman, Captain Marvel, Spiderman, and James Bond.

What if some of those illegal lab scientists choose to go totally rogue? We have no superheroes that might match them power to power. We would be helpless to stop their advanced sprees of crime.

This would be incredibly lucrative. The supervillain scientist might have a monopoly on certain powers and could easily break into any bank. So where are the supervillain scientists?

My feeling is that morally suspect scientists are deliberately enlisted to work for the various militaries of the world. They are lured with higher pay than other scientists and are kept by the spy service and military they serve.

What superpowers have been developed? Full scale war between the developed world and other strong militaries hasn’t happened since World War 2. The only way we would find out what powers have been developed would be by risking nuclear war. So maybe we’ll never know what powers have been developed.

So the potential supervillains remain part of the military. Perhaps that’s the only “safe” place to keep them.

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A Seemingly Simple Prediction

Posted on 23 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

The current generation of children may have shorter lifespans than their parents. This was reported far and wide earlier this year so I wouldn’t be surprised if you had heard it already.

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult and I’m going to work on this prediction with things we know only a few months later. Remember we have over 60 years of advances and changes to deal with, so excuse me if I don’t bet on this prediction.

The first point I would like to bring up is smoking. Anti smoking propaganda in school and at young ages keeps that known life expectancy shrinker at lower levels than for the people in older age groups.

And the children who do unfortunately get addicted to smoking? They know the health risks for their entire lives and thus are more likely to quit at some later date.

The reason they are predicting shorter life expectancies for today’s youth is simply because of increased levels of obesity. Obesity does bring up the odds of premature death, but smoking doubles even those high odds. It’s still worth quitting smoking in middle age even though often that leads to weight gain.

The second reason I think the reduced life expectancy prediction might not pan out is because of a cure of type 2 diabetes for mice. That’s right I said a cure.

It may be complex to translate this to humans but how about we give it 20 years. Yup. That’ll be on time for today’s youth. And you guessed it, obesity causes more type 2 diabetes and type 2 diabetes shortens your life for a number of reasons. Without this killer illness, maybe half the premature deaths could be halted.

We should also promote exercise as well. It might not sound like much to you, but putting motion into today’s video games like Wii and Kinects have done has potential for so much good. Imagine if we could get kids to do the recommended 2 hours of movement a day. Granted these systems have room for improvement but they are a start in the right direction. More exercise because of movement gaming means fewer obese young people.

Have you got predictions that have 77 years to go before fruition? Air them here. Perhaps we’ll let it go. But more likely we’ll show the larger likelihood of opposing truths.

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Muses and the Epic Battle Between Good and Evil

Posted on 20 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Smart people are inspired by life. Clever people are inspired by other people’s lives (or biographies). Mildly sly people are inspired by novels. Average people are inspired by movies. Mildly ditzy people are inspired by hour long TV shows. Insufferable people are inspired by sitcoms. Only idiots are inspired by ads.

My inspiration for this article is an ad for a sitcom. Since this muse is not quite in the sitcom slot or the ad slot, I will just call it life.

The ad was many years ago and it was for the now ended Malcolm in the Middle. It described the show as the epic struggle between evil and… evil?

It has me thinking even this many years later.

From many stories that have good fighting evil, it would seem that for good to triumph that good must be more powerful than evil. But the Malcolm in the Middle suggestion says that evil fights evil, too.
Thus good can triumph while being lesser than the full host of evil.

Everything was going the Axis way at the start of World War II. The Nazis were allied to or had conquered most of mainland Europe all the way east to Poland. But the Russians were not officially aligned and had taken the other half of Poland. For awhile the evil of Hitler and the evil of Stalin were allied.

But Hitler couldn’t stand the truce with Russia and attacked them. That allowed the “good” powers, the British Empire and eventually the United States to open up two more fronts – one in Italy and later France, that combined sapped Germany’s strength.

The less obvious Cold War saw the Soviet Union and communist China united for a few years. This scared the western countries. But eventually the two communist powers no longer trusted each other and ended up building up heavily along their shared border. That might have helped sap the strength of the Soviet Union and contributed to its collapse in 1989.

So the west (or “good” as they like to be called) won the Cold War, too. Both are instances where good wasn’t necessarily more powerful but came through because evil doesn’t like evil anymore than it likes good.

So there it is. The wisdom of an ad using the wisdom of a sitcom to say something that is definitely life. Don’t be evil. But if you are, don’t play nice with other evil.

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Squealing on My Bacteria and Virus Overlords

Posted on 17 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

I hope I don’t get into trouble squealing on my bacteria and virus overlords. For reasons I will show later, I think that bacteria and viruses control our bodies even more than our brains do.

Consider first that bacteria make up between 2 and 9 pounds of our body weight. This number doesn’t fluctuate that much.

Viruses fluctuate more. When you have a cold, obviously there are more viruses than when you don’t. So we can’t say exactly how many pounds viruses add to this equation.

Our mighty human brains weigh in at about 3 pounds. Good, one might think, at least in some people that outweighs the bacteria and viruses. But then one has to realize that 80% of this is water weight. Thus there is 0.6 pounds of actual brain tissue in the human body.

I know this is a big what if, but what if that weight of bacteria can also control our body and thoughts.

Shouldn’t 2 pounds of bacteria and viruses be able to fight off a mere 0.6 pounds of brain tissue. I will now tell you why I think that not only is it possible but I think it happens most of the time.

The first point is why did it take until the nineties and noughties for humans to figure out that sneezing or coughing into the inner elbow is more sanitary and slows the spread of bacteria and viruses?

My second point might be only my experience, but when I cook or do things in the kitchen, I am way more likely to sneeze or cough and not be able to do it in the inside of my elbow. Either the sneezes and coughs are more severe, or I’m not thinking about possible sneezes and am not ready, or it takes too long to let go of a pan handle to sneeze into that inner elbow. Whichever way it is, I’m sure that other people can easily catch my viruses and bacteria in my kitchen.

Of course both bacteria and viruses want to be spread so both reasons show that my limited brainpower is doing what they want, not what I want.

Maybe it goes further, long ago viruses and bacteria realized they wanted to spread. So they made their unwitting hosts into social animals.

Yes I see it all now. I think we’re able to battle our overlords sometimes, (like with the inside elbow sneeze and cough), because our bacteria didn’t realize what they were doing when humans discovered antibiotics.

Still, they eventually saw the error of their ways and have slowly made antibiotics less effective.

As further proof they’re gaining the upper hand again, it is said now that many bacteria are good for you. These are called probiotics. I’m trying not to believe the propaganda. But it’s hard not to when for the last few years many yogurts have advertised their many probiotics and the obvious benefit of that in your diet.

 

Update: Scientific American now says that bacteria in the stomach may effect the brain’s function. Here is the article.

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Rap as Social Engineering

Posted on 13 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

When I first heard of Rap, I didn’t like it. They were taking something I liked, music, and creating a whole category that I had no respect for.

To be a musician, I thought, you either had to have the relatively rare ability to sing on key or you had to learn an instrument so that could be your voice. Rap didn’t require either. (I play three instruments which should give you an idea of how bad my singing voice is.)

Since Rap wasn’t going away, by the nineties Rage Against the Machine appeared with killer guitar riffs over which Rap was ‘sung’. For the first time I bought this ‘Rap’ album. But to my mind it was mostly about the guitar.

So I mostly didn’t like rap and I thought of it as “performance poetry done to a drum track”. Nothing in that phrase excites me. Indeed I think this description would turn off some Rap fans, describing what they like as performance poetry seems to take away street credibility.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve thought about Rappers themselves. Some of them grow up in poverty. If they can’t sing as a talent, they might be able to talk with a beat in an interesting sounding way. Practising can be done with little or no equipment.

I’m not saying Rap is done without expensive equipment. I’m saying you can practise and become good without most of the equipment. Maybe occasional access to a mike and recorder would help to objectively gauge yourself along the way.

But for learning most instruments it takes years of practise and you have to keep your expensive instrument without it being stolen, pawned or sold by your parent for rent or drugs.

As for practise with a drum line, the rapper needs only to get access to a drum machine and play with the beats and learn to Rap over top. Again, a little bit of access to a drum machine can go a long way.

In short, I think it’s more realistic for someone from a poor background to make it as a Rapper than as another type of musician. And it is this reason that I see Rap music as social engineering. It’s an artistic outlet with the potential to make an income.

So today I’m more sympathetic to Rap. However, I still only have that one album.

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Empire of Shit, Sh*t, $#*!,$h*!

Posted on 10 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

By now, even I have heard about Shit My Dad Says. This small empire was founded by son, Justin, putting out a Twitter feed with the strange, uncensored things his father said. That Twitter feed is still going and can be found here.

The Twitter feed snowballed after being mentioned on national TV and on a popular blog, Laughing Squid. Justin Halpern was green lighted to write a book with the more demure title Sh*t My Dad Says. If you wish to purchase it, it can be found here, along with reviews.

Then somehow or other William Shatner sunk his claws into the lead roll of the father as $#*! My Dad Says became a prime time comedy show. It’s pronounced Bleep My Dad Says. To watch episodes of $#*! My Dad Says, they can be found here at cbs.com .

And interestingly enough, Wikipedia cannot use a # sign in their titles so they call the television show $h*! My Dad Says.

Are you noticing the same thing I am? There is a multitude of ways to spell out Shit My Dad Says. In a way I guess it’s good. The Twitter feed is separated from the book which is differentiated from the television series. But what of those times when we wish to tie the whole empire together?

I suggest calling the empire $#!+ My Dad Says. Why this, then, another hard to remember series of symbols?

It’s not so hard to memorize. $ contains an S, # contains an H, ! gets substituted for i in many instances and + is obviously a t. Basically we can spell this particular swear word in symbols. You don’t have to memorize anything new if you can figure that out. And some of you thought leet speak was an endpoint, the world just couldn’t get more decadent.

In fact this should be used as the series title, since it’s easier to remember, if the FCC would allow it. But we all know how liberal they are.

As for Wikipedia, this just says that the world cannot be written in just one language. It can’t be written in just one character set, either. Let this be a lesson to you.

This blog post was inspired by the word @$$.

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An Obvious Sign of Refinement

Posted on 6 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Can we all just agree that the term “wino” is an abomination on the good name of wine drinkers everywhere. The vast majority of wine drinkers are refined people of good taste and are mostly not concerned where their next hit of alcohol is coming from. Else they’d join those winos looking for the cheapest drink with the most amount of alcohol.

And where is it more obvious that this refinement is there than in the class and culture of their leaders, the wine tasters. There is an art to this tasting and it can be seen here. Carefully these connoisseurs examine the colour, smell and taste of the wines. And then they spit it out.

Huh? They spit it out? Isn’t this an action reserved for the foulest tasting things one can put in one’s mouth? If spitting it out becomes an action of the most refined of society, we have managed to skew the importance of things.

Suddenly brushing one’s teeth becomes the most important, cultured act of cleaning up. Since it involves the fine act of spitting so very much, perhaps it is better to brush your teeth 7 times a day and shower only once a week. The refinement of spitting makes this palatable and almost necessary.

The act of chewing tobacco should become more mainstream and high class because it too, involves the refined act of spitting. But really, society doesn’t truly support it because we don’t want to see these uber cultured people die young because of the cancers caused by the tobacco. Otherwise…

It also becomes high class to show your derision of people by spitting on them. Sure, the police can arrest you for assault, but you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you responded in a refined way to your feelings of derision to another person.

Spitting should take it’s rightful place of importance in the upper class. No longer should the upper class meet at noon to duel out a disagreement. No longer should one slap the face of your opponent with gloves. From today on the upper class should show it’s disgust by spitting.

Next week’s article : How we can tell apart the upper and lower classes when they both spit in your face to show their hostility.

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Them Heavy Nudes

Posted on 3 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve had it pointed out to me a number of times that the late 20th century, early 21st century obsession with thin females is just a cultural thing. Indeed, the favourite subjects of nudes in the renaissance were much heavier. Women of this weight were considered more attractive back then. I’ve heard it said that they were likely upper class women so they were probably by definition more beautiful (since of course the definers would have to be sympathetic to upper class women).

So maybe fashion dictates what shape of woman is more attractive. Still, to hear the people down on the skinny thing (usually for good reason, anorexia and bulimia are large problems today), you’d think that a difference in fashion would make all the difference.

So let’s try out that renaissance nude ideal. Let’s assume images like this would be as pervasive as today’s typically skinny females. Firstly, it’s probably a good idea to clothe these females for their appearance in society.

Now imagine you were a typical skinny female teenager. You would be in the majority of your age group but you would see these images all over the place. And, just as now with heavy females, you would have low self esteem because you didn’t meet that ideal. Some of these skinny females would attempt to eat more to get to the ideal. But it would be too much for some as their metabolism kept them slim. The “lucky” few that could overeat that much might very well begin thinking ‘bigger is better’ and may end up going past even the renaissance ideal.

Too heavy leads to premature deaths, just as with too skinny.

Is there no way to save our women? Or must we idealize the middle ground and only that?

It’s commonplace for people to have high metabolisms in their teens which drops off by middle age. Which results in skinny teens and renaissance women(I’m using this term to mean shape) by middle age. So for even the average woman there is a range of shapes she has. And is a range any more obvious than in pregnancy?

It seems the media needs to portray all women. A life just can’t be said to be in style or out of style.

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Reusing a Political Cartoon

Posted on 1 November 2010 by Larry Russwurm

If you’re a regular reader of this site, you might wonder why I am repeating this political cartoon. It’s quite simple, It fits for new circumstances. Basically James Moore (depicted) held public consultations for a Canadian book policy review. After 3 months of submissions there were only 44 submissions. Included were only one author and one reader. It can be seen better on my sister’s blog site. James Moore might as well have just stuck his fingers in his ears and said “I can’t hear you!” Obviously the public consultation was not advertised enough. He is obviously trying to screw the electorate that voted him in. Will James Moore ever use his childish slingshot?

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First They Cleaned Up Christmas…

Posted on 30 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Christmas takes place on one of the darkest times of years in the northern hemisphere. So hauntings also were associated with this time of year. Ghosts feature prominently in The Christmas Carol and that was more in keeping with that time.

But it became commonplace for attempts to light the darkness of Christmas. Thus, even before the electric age, some Christmas trees had lit candles on them. In our more safety conscious age, I’m glad this custom has been replaced with electric light. And some people spend a fortune lighting the outdoors as well with their strings of lights and other lit up decorations. And now, with the advent of LED lights which work using much lower amounts of electricity, it is only becoming cheaper and cheaper to run these lights. So I expect even more people will do this in the future.

But at least we have Hallowe’en and its remaining hold on the dark things at the dark time of year. But in this age of safety consciousness and reducing the fear of little ones, is even Hallowe’en becoming so obviously safe that little or no fear is experienced by anyone? After all, it does seem to be the era that every child seems to have a night light. All little kids seem to know that light chases away the monsters.

A lot of kids these days Trick or Treat with glow sticks. I guess this is because city and town lights aren’t bright enough.

But one of the things stopping Hallowe’en night from being truly scary in the north, is the extension of sunlight. They did this a few years ago when they extended Daylight Savings Time from ending before Hallowe’en to ending after Hallowe’en. This was done through much of North America. So Hallowe’en night has an extra hour of light.

Now parents of little children, was it so hard to take your little ones out an hour earlier if you were that worried of the dark?

So Hallowe’en just becomes that time of year when horror movies appear at theatres and in videos. Any hint that the shadows might hide anything, seems to have been lit up.

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