[deleted]

Of monsters and other nonsense

In case you are wondering, I have just put to bed my director's cut version of The Monster Maintenance Manual.

It's like the original which made the CBCA Notables list in 2011, but I have added 14 new short stories. Below, I append the fourth and last freebie, to give the adult reader a sense of what is going on here: this is a children's book for groan-ups, Having signed off on the project, I am in a playful mood, before I move onto the next clean-up job.

With no intimations of mortality nipping at my heels, I am still working solidly at the task of sorting out my legacy.  Still, I need also to reduce the makers of third-rate algorithms to tears, so I have just posted this to FB, my intention being to mess furiously with their algorithms:

It being a lay day, I was checking the commonplace file for ideas, and came across this note, from a dozen years in the past:

Dragons hate chocolate. Consider this: every person I know loves chocolate, and none of them has ever been attacked by a dragon. It follows that all the chocolate haters have been eaten by dragons, which shy off at the merest hint of the cocoa bean.

Nobody alive has ever seen a dragon, because since the chocolate haters have been eliminated, there has been no food for dragons, and they have all moved to another planet.

Don't stop eating the chocolate, because if they come back, you will be dragon droppings, quicker than you can say "brown bread!"

End of note: I estimate that if I can come up with 31 other theories like this, I can have an entertaining book. If I don't think of any others, I will write a popular diet book about the central role of theobromine as an antidraconic agent.

This will reap me a fortune, because it tells people to eat something they like, but dresses the advice up in New Age gibberish. Note: the foregoing is entirely fictitious, and any similarity to any existing dietary manuals is purely coincidental.

The Freebie:

The Pudding Monster who saved a city

This is the story of Rice, a pudding monster who was born in a humble shed in the city of Shiny, and how she became Dame Ballista, the Champion of Blomp. As we will learn, Rice had her name changed to Ballista because of what she did, and Shiny was changed to Blomp for reasons that we will get to later.

Nobody much expected an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers to rush over the plain and lay siege to the city of Shiny and nobody would have expected Rice to become so famous.

But they did, and so she did.

There was one person who expected the attack, though. Alexis Soyer was a brilliant pudding chef but he was always poor, because his apprentice, a lad named Bread, gave so many free puddings to monsters in need of a free feed, though Chef Soyer didn’t mind, because he kept an ear to the ground.

He had no choice about keeping an ear to the ground, because he was too poor to own a bed, even if he did own a future grabber.

This was like a time machine, but it grabbed bits of paper from rubbish bins in the future and brought them back. Mr. Soyer was always hoping to find a thrown-out recipe book, but he never did.

One day, the future grabber gave him a picture of himself, serving pudding at the wedding of Dame Ballista. On the same page, he read how she had saved the day at the siege of Shiny. He noticed that Dame Ballista was the poor young pudding monster who used to come around to get any leftover puddings to practise throwing.

He knew the bridegroom, too, and read the rest of the story. “That’s my apprentice, and together, they’re going to be famous,” he told himself, then he thought about this for a while, and added, “They’ll need some help, though.”

He cooked one of his special sticky date and butterscotch with mango chutney, mushy peas, olives and anchovies puddings and took it around to the palace. The Prince was always asking Soyer for one of his puddings, so he ate it all, that very night, and had a nightmare about a siege.

He dreamed about an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers, and next morning, he sent his people out to mend the city walls, to gather food and to get ready. But he didn’t say why, so nobody expected an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers.

When the unexpected enemy came across the plain, people shut the gates and drank a toast to their clever prince. He sat in his kitchen, licking out the last crumbs of Soyer’s pudding and worrying, because the dream hadn’t told him how to deal with a siege run by stoats, goats, toads and coats.

He was most worried about the coats with sneers, because as his second cook said “There’s something worrying about coats with sneers. I mean, how do we all just know that an empty coat is sneering—and what are you going to do about it?”

“That’s the problem”, said the Prince. He stopped when the kitchen door opened. “Hello Alexis! Thanks for the pud!”

Soyer smiled. “Gave you good dreams, did it?”

“Dreadful dreams, actually, all about those stoats, goats, toads and coats. Dreadful but useful, I think.”

“As it was supposed to be, Your Highness. But if you want to save the city of Shiny, you need to ask a poor pudding monster called Rice to help you.”

“A pudding monster? Are you sure? How do you know?”

Alexis smiled. “Yes, I’m sure, but as to my methods, I used one of Neon’s inventions, and I think it may qualify as one of the Grey Arts, so don’t ask too much, just trust me.”

The Prince nodded. “Very well. Summon her, will you?”

“I’ve actually come to summon you to her, after I brought her in. She’s up on the battlements right now, and we need you up there to tell Colonel Blenkinsop to stop arguing and give her what she needs.”

“You’re really, really sure she’s the answer?”

“I’ve seen a future picture of her wedding, and you and I are both there, celebrating.”

The Prince put his hands over his ears. “That’s definitely Grey Arts stuff, so it’s just as well I didn’t hear a word of it—let’s go!”

They found Rice and another pudding monster arguing with Colonel Blenkinsop, who was a mess of mustachios and self-importance. “That lad’s a very poor pudding monster,” Alexis murmured, pointing to the other pudding monster. “We call him Bread.”

“You mean Bread-and-butter?” asked the Prince, who knew the etiquette of naming pudding monsters.

“No, his parents couldn’t afford the butter. He’s a nice young monster, and Rice loves him, but he’s just here to fetch and carry. Rice will do all the work.”

As they got closer, Rice was saying “Colonel, the battering rams will charge soon. Please get me some bales of hay and some garlic oil.”

The Prince nodded, the colonel nodded, and three sergeants who trusted Rice got out the hay and garlic oil they had already stacked, just behind the colonel. Bread began pouring the garlic oil on the hay, and just in time, because the whole flock of battering rams charged toward the walls. Rice began throwing the bales of hay, low and flat, just over the heads of the battering rams.

“You’re missing them!” shouted Blenkinsop. “Cease fire!” he roared.

But the Prince had seen what the colonel had missed. One by one, the battering rams were screeching to a halt, sniffing the garlic hay, then turning and running after the hay, right through the enemy camp, chasing the bales. “Keep firing,” he said. Soon there were no battering rams, and the camp was a mess.

“I’m a pacifist,” Rice said. “I don’t miss, and I send the ammunition where I do  because I don’t want to hit them. Now I need five magnetic boomerangs, ten canned puddings, 15 barrels of custard, 20 oat puddings, 25 containers of mushy peas in a cauldron, and a pot of tea.”

Off went the Second Cook, Alexis Soyer and one of the sergeants, who knew where some magnetic boomerangs had been hidden in the evidence room after they were taken from a suspected Grey Arts practitioner. They brought the boomerangs back, just as nice smells started coming from the kitchen, and as the stoats with spears and the coats with sneers began to advance.

Bread and Rice took a boomerang and gave it a small twist, then Rice threw it out over the stoats and the coats. The whirling magnet lifted the iron-tipped spears of the stoats, and then the wind of the boomerang lifted all of the coats, and carried them out across the plain. “You’ll be sorry when that boomerang comes back!” sniffed the colonel.

“That’s why we twisted it,” grinned Bread. “Now it’s a one-way boomerang. Just watch!” Below the walls, stoats without spears were no threat at all, but the sneers without coats were getting chilly. Soon the sneers were sneezes that blew away on the breezes.

Rice threw two more magnetic boomerangs to make sure there were no stoats with spears, or coats or sneers, anywhere on the plain. “Put the other boomerangs back in the store,” she told the sergeants. She looked out over the plain. “You’d better tell them to hurry with the ten canned puds and the custard!”

The oldest sergeant looked down the ladder. “Puddings and custard are coming now, Miss!” Bread picked up the tin opener.

Out on the plain, the goats with leers and toads with beards were advancing, making a terrible thumping noise as they marched behind a flag with an angry eye on it. “Just in time!” she said.

Carefully, Rice lobbed the custard just over the heads of the advancing enemy, who suddenly realised now it had passed over them that they were in range. Then she took a spare brick and threw it so it broke the stick the eye flag was on. Now they knew she was accurate as well, and they all stopped.

As Bread opened the last tin, Rice started throwing nine of the puddings over their heads and the goats stopped leering, and turned. They were all sniffing at the delicious tin can puddings that were whizzing over the plain, away from Shiny.

Then the goats started chasing the puddings. Their feet got caught in the toads’ beards, and the toads were trampled or dragged into the custard. As the goats stampeded over the plain, the toads fled.

A few caravaggisti came charging in, riding chariots pulled by hippocrenes that came drumming over the plain. Without a word, the sergeants passed Rice the oat puddings. She sent them out with an effortless aim, so close to the hippocrenes that they could almost taste the puddings and read the labels.

In spite of the yells of the caravaggisti, who were all armed with socks filled with sea urchins, the hippocrenes all galloped off over the plain.

“You’re throwing away all our food in the middle of a siege!” complained the colonel.

One of the sergeants took a step back to pick up another oat pudding, and bumped into the colonel, who fell down the stairs and went head-first into the cauldron of mushy peas. He landed in the peas with a loud Blomp!!

“Oops!” said the careless sergeant, trying not to chortle.

“Give peas a chance,” Bread quipped.

Blenkinsop struggled out of the peas, crying. He ran out the gate and around the castle, following the invaders and shouting “Wait for me!”. The Prince turned to Rice.

“He must have been a traitor: can you knock him into the moat, please?”

Rice tossed the last pudding to Bread. “He’s our best spin bowler, your highness, and that’s what this shot needs…”

Bread considered the matter, murmured “Tricky, but do-able” and sent the pudding off. It was spinning so fast that it whirred, but passing the fleeing colonel’s head, the pudding stopped in the air, then jinked sideways, knocking the colonel into the moat, where a moat monster swallowed him, whiskers and all, then burped a loud Blomp!! The sergeants all cheered and high-fived each other, Rice, Bread, the Prince and Soyer.

“I thought he might be one of those Blenkinsops,” said the Prince. “Rice, there are no more enemies, so what do you want to do with the mushy peas?”

Rice took Bread’s hand. We want to get married, so could we have them for our wedding breakfast?”

“I think we can do better than mushy peas,” said the Prince. “What was the pot of tea for?”

“For drinking, your Highness. Throwing is thirsty work.”

“Well, Dame Ballista, step down into the courtyard and we’ll have some mushy peas and tea and talk about the wedding.”

“Oh, sire, I could never be a Dame when Bread’s a plain Mister!”

“My dear Dame Ballista, you could never marry young Lord High Upper Crust, here, if you were ordinary Miss Rice. You’re the saviour of Blomp!”

“Blomp, sire? Are you renaming the city?”

“Yes, to remind us of our only casualty. Oh, and Ballista, you’ll be the new colonel of the guard, if you don’t mind.”

The wedding of Colonel Dame Ballista and Lord High Upper Crust was the society event of the year. Everybody said it was completely unexpected, and as they posed for press photographs, Alexis Soyer decided that he wasn’t going to mention the future grabber. If it wasn’t a Grey Art, it was probably a Grey Area.

Notes (for groan-ups):

All words in this story were provided by the Alexis Soyer Home For Old Alphabet Soup.

No mushy peas were hurt in the falling colonel sequence, and we are not responsible for the well-being of the colonel.

The disused name of Shiny has been registered as a trade mark by the author, who will license it to suitably qualified towns.

Reference:

René Descartes, I Think, Therefore I Aim.

——————————————————————————

* Wondering what that asterisk on the cover was for? You drill a hole to put the string through.

** Review copies available on request. You know where to find me

A bit about LIDAR

Many moons ago, I was a teenager in New Guinea, working in what we would call "work experience" today. I was in the jungle near Sogeri, and though I didn't realise it at the time, it became good background for the history of the Kokoda campaign that I wrote for younger readers, some years back. It helped me in another way, because we used a "chain", by then a steel tape, to measure distances.

In Port Moresby, I was shown a tellurometer, though I never saw one operating. I was told that in the near future, chaining would be a thing of the past, but the basic methods we used were far more hands-on. They were little changed from the methods used by explorers and surveyors in the 19th century, so that helped me when it came to writing histories of that sort of work.

It's hard to relate to that now, in an era when the truth of plate tectonics can be established by GPS measurements on ground stations. Even recent advances whizz by so fast that we tend to miss them, as a US friend observed the other day:

"[My dad] kept reminding me that he was working on the Atlas missile program and the controls were all in a trailer bigger than his 5th wheel and didn't have as much computing power as Liz's graphing calculator. It's pretty awesome to think that we could have sent men to the moon with less computing capacity than I'm carrying around in my purse."

Well, the tellurometer was good, but grab this, from a release I saw some time back, relating to a story in Nature Photonics*: I tucked it away in a file that was just being searched for something quite different...

"By combining the best of two different distance measurement approaches with a super-accurate technology called an optical frequency comb, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a laser ranging system that can pinpoint multiple objects with nanometre precision over distances up to 100 kilometres. The novel LIDAR (for 'light detection and ranging') system could have applications from precision manufacturing lines on Earth to maintaining networks of satellites in perfect formation, creating a giant space-based platform to search for new planets."

LIDAR is a bit like radar: it sends out a flash then detects and analyzes the reflection, updating distances to multiple reference points every 200 microseconds (to get your head around that, it means 5000 times a second!). Now LIDAR has an "ambiguity range", and it has trouble distinguishing between two distances separated by this range. The new system has an ambiguity range of around 1.5 metres, so all the operators have to do is use GPS or some other method which gives you a close enough measure to tell you which of the competing values to accept.

So, we can measure the distances between mountains incredibly accurately but what else can we do? We can launch a bunch of satellites to fly "in formation" at very precise distances, measured by LIDAR. These, says the release, could form images of "black holes with multiple X-ray telescopes on different satellites, and support tests of general relativity through measurements of satellite spacing in a gravitational field".

LIDAR may also be used in automated manufacturing, where many parts need to fit together with tight tolerances, the developers say. This is always the crunch point in press releases: some of them make ambit claims about "shows promise as a cure for cancer" while others miss the boat by not seeing where the real applications may lie.

Recall that Frank Whittle conceived of the jet engine as a power unit for fighters, and not for the jets that criss-cross the world each day, carrying Covid-19, SARS, swine flu and tourists from place to place. Before him, the earliest rocket scientists were simply trying to find a way to get higher in the wispy gas at the edge of our atmosphere than rockets could go.

I would like to be around for another fifty years to see what LIDAR ends up doing, but that won't happen. That's why I spend my days burrowing through 19th century science, where I can look to see what became of this or that greatly praised invention, like putting sulfur in your socks to ward off cholera, but that's another story.

And this is yet another story:
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/what-is-lidar-and-why-would-you-want-it-on-your-phone/

* I. Coddington, W. C. Swann, L. Nenadovic and N. R. Newbury. Rapid, precise absolute distance measurements at long range. Nature Photonics. Published online May 24, 2009. I never throw out any notes!

The $ecret Touri$m Plan

PLANNING DOCUMENT, 

DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM, CULTURE AND COMMERCE.

The following information is embargoed.  Under no circumstances is it to be shown to any person who cannot prove Australian citizenship.  In appropriate cases, loyalty oaths may be administered as a precursor to granting permission to view the following.

It is a well-known fact that public museums do not pay their way: it is time they looked to private industry, which always pays.  The public sector should examine more closely the specific activities which pay.  They should seek to move our museums into the New Age of economically rational cultural experience.

Instead of displaying old bones and other relics of an increasingly irrelevant and bygone age, our museums must begin to address the needs and concerns of today.  They must present useful and memorable cultural experiences, compressed to allow the maximum variety and the widest geographical coverage, all within the shortest possible time.  Museums must be forced, if necessary, to give value.

We need look no further than one recent development to see how public museums are at present completely missing the commercial point.  I was recently fortunate enough to visit ‘The Australian Experience’.  It was a truly eye-opening to see just how much can be done commercially with just a small amount of flair and imagination.

The Australian Experience is a train of eight exhibition carriages, running from the Gold Coast down into northern New South Wales and back each day, with inbound tourists (that is, foreigners with plenty of disposable income) as the main targeted market.

It is hauled by a steam locomotive fondly known as ‘The Mauler’, (having been involved in 106 confirmed human fatalities: a definite draw-card for the non-traditional museum demographic).

The Australian Experience aims to give the busy tourist all of the experiences and photo opportunities which would otherwise take many days to achieve, and always with the risk of bad weather spoiling some of the shots.  The Australian Experience guarantees that there will be no such problems with photography for its guests.

On boarding at 9.30 am, passengers are welcomed to their seats in one of the lounge cars by Aboriginal hostesses in traditional gold bikinis.  There, they are given a choice of cocktails (named, for their principal flavours, ‘Billy Tea’, ‘Draught Beer’ and ‘Bluestone’).  The soothing background music in the lounge cars is a medley of traditional railway songs and ballads, including ‘Casey Jones’, ‘The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven’, and ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’.  Once the train is under way, passengers can wander at will through the exhibition cars, trying all the varied delights that our wide brown land has to offer.

Car 1.

This carriage re-creates the parched outback.  Authentic smells (the carriage doubles as a working cattle truck each night), authentic lighting (cracks in the walls are covered with red cellophane), and a realistic cow depict life in the outback.  Staff are at present working on synthetic wool coats that will allow them also to use the cow in a scaled-up demonstration of genuine Australian shearing.  The carriage is heated to outback levels by a ducted system running from the locomotive's fire-box, demonstrating the designers' concerns for both parsimony and for the conservation of energy.

At a quarter to each hour, coinciding with the simulated low tide in the Great Barrier Reef car, the Wet Season arrives, followed by the projection of time-lapse images of the desert bursting into bloom.  Visitors will be able to purchase colourful souvenir ‘Snowy River’ raincoats of reinforced paper (seen being manufactured later in Car 7), or they can remain within the protective plastic tunnel which extends down one side of the carriage, five minutes before the start of the Wet Season.

Car 2.

After the heat of the parched outback carriage, the tourist next enters the air-conditioned comfort of the ‘Great Australian Pub’ carriage.  Here we see trained blow-flies performing in one corner of the carriage, and two stunt men re-enacting a variety of famous Australian bar-fights.  There are broken bottle fights on the hour and half hour, with audience participation by prior arrangement.   All guests are provided with one complimentary drink from traditional Australian beer-cans (reusable, but hygienically sealed prior to use).  Further drinks may be purchased by guests.

Car 3.

Here the Great Barrier Reef is re-created.  Entering by a raised area, guests move down a ramp between long narrow tanks filled with brightly coloured fish and preserved corals.  This carriage has elliptical wheels to give the impression of sea motion, and to ensure appropriate smells of motion nausea from those patrons who spent too long in Car 2.

As patrons move down the ramp, they gain the impression of dropping below sea level, entering the secret world of the fishes, complete with recorded whale songs and sea shanties.  A small beach panorama is available at the far end, where guests may be photographed, along with a range of cardboard cut-outs.  Masks and snorkels are available for photos in front of the Reef tanks (realistic bubbles in the tanks are strategically placed for guests to pose near).

Car 4.

Here, guests meet the Australian Bush.  With a surround-sound system of taped bird-calls, Australian aborigines demonstrate their traditional Dingo Circus, and show videos of their boomerang-throwing skills (due to insurance problems, management have required them to use only cardboard boomerangs inside the car), and a small shop sells traditional Australian bush scents (Lantana, Prickly Pear, and Salvation Jane), plastic didgeridoos and other authentic Aboriginal memorabilia.

Car 5.

This is a marvellous Chamber of Horrors where guests see at first hand the problems of the early settlers.  There are tableaux of families dying of the Barcoo Rot, a face-painting activity where children's faces can be made up to simulate Sandy Blight, giant models of blow-flies (photo opportunity!), live Hexham Grey mosquitoes, depictions of dingoes stealing settlers' children, and, behind a fire-proof screen, a real bushfire, complete with recorded screams and simulated burning bodies (to allay the worries of the squeamish, guides point out that the bodies are actually those of bush-rangers).

At the far end, a children's jumping castle features a user-friendly range of giant goannas, crocodiles, taipans and other snakes and spiders.  With the exception of the taipans, which are de-fanged to protect the fabric of the jumping castle, all of these animals are inflatable rubber models.  Smaller inflatable versions of these may be purchased from the concessionaire.

Car 6.

Aussie tucker and Aussie self-sufficiency are the themes here, and guests are invited to participate in a shooting gallery activity.  No live animals are used: white metal targets with projected images of assorted mammals and birds on them are used.  Sensors identify where the target is hit, and sophisticated circuitry generates a scream appropriate to the shot's accuracy.

In any case, prizes are awarded to all.  For example, hitting five kangaroo targets causes a cup of kangaroo tail soup to be automatically dispensed, and other prizes include roast meat in damper sandwiches (pure reconstituted beef, but with an authentic aroma of koala meat), and savoury ‘possum stew’.

All food is cooked under the patrons' gaze on a gas-fired barbecue, and stuffed toy replicas of all the Australian wildlife targets will be on sale.  Guests who wish to be photographed with the tastefully posed giant dead Diprotodon may borrow a replica of a semi-automatic rifle to improve the authenticity of the photo.  This segment is augmented by one of the staff who collects road kills on her way to work each morning.  As a trained make-up artiste, she adds realistic bullet holes to each body.

Car 7.

The Australian city is recognised as the natural habitat of most modern Australians.  Along one wall, are panoramas showing the major cities of Australia, with strip-lighting from above, to allow these backdrops to be used for taking souvenir photographs (for the sake of convenience, Uluru will also be depicted here).  All of the expected icons are depicted in these panoramas.

The other side of the carriage features typical Australian city scenes: a typical sweat shop where newly arrived migrants make the ‘Snowy River’ coats for sale in Car 2.  Nearby, famous multiple murders are re-enacted against rear-projected backdrops (allowing a later expansion to international coverage), drug addicts inject themselves (using only the safest organically-grown and Australian-made materials), and convicts are flogged.  Products on sale include replicas of Arvie Aspinall's alarm clock, and the sweat shop staff and addicts perform multicultural dances when their other duties permit, adding a delightfully realistic air to the proceedings.

Car 8.

Known as ‘The Big Car’, this last carriage features scaled-down versions of thirty of Australia's favourite ‘Big’ icons: the Big Merino, the Big Banana, the Big Pavlova, the Big Prawn, and others.  By a clever application of optical systems, the guests may be photographed alongside apparently full-size icons.

This is the end of the exhibition, and guests can now return to the lounge coaches until they reach their destination, where they can have a two-hour visit to the ‘Las Vegas’ room of the local RSL club, complete with authentic poker machines, designed to accept and pay out in all Pacific Rim and EEC currencies, or they can join in the community singing of German beer hall songs, directed from a Karaoke machine.  On the return journey, they are free to visit the exhibitions again.

As you can see from this brief outline, the example is there, completely ready for us to emulate.  Even if Sydney ignores the chance of offering the same or similar experiences in other parts of Australia, The Australian Experience has by no means completely capitalised on the commercial possibilities

For example, many of the photographic props are provided free of charge, when they could be hired or sold, there is no rain forest experience, there are no crocodiles, no psychic sheep dogs, no albino, mutant or deformed animals, and there are no trained birds able to swear in many languages on command.  There is no option for conservation-minded patrons to shoot feral cats.

Looking again at the high end of the market, they offer no surf experience, no surf boards, no video games or simulations, and there are no plans to offer virtual reality experiences.  There are no thoughts of providing computerised interactive videos where the purchaser's image is electronically inserted into a wide range of pre-filmed Australian adventures, ranging from soft focus sex in the tropics to skiing naked down Kosciuszko (naturally, with tastefully placed simulated icicles covering the rude bits), to more family-oriented fare, such as a kangaroo-back ride across Arnhem land.

The operators have totally missed the perfect opportunity to offer paravane sports from the rear platform of Car 8.  At this point, The Australian Experience has no special rides for the under five age group, no publishing plans, and no awareness of the franchising possibilities of their scheme.  That being said, they have still done well, and the way is open for a forward-looking organisation to seize this opportunity with both hands.

This madness is, in fact, based on a real submission that passed over my desk at one point, because the institution I was working for had a few hare-brained Marketing types who wanted a slice of the action.  I have toned down some of the more excessive suggestions, but there are definite echoes of the original to be found in Car 1.

I have recently found a long-lost file called Rudes, which contains many of my best minutes, notes and correspondence, written during a surprisingly long career as the world's only anarchist-surrealist bureaucrat. This was among them, and there are more of what my colleagues usually called Acid Drops to come.

Curtiosity about altruism and evolution

More unused epigraphs...will they never end?

I do not see that any good can come from killing our relations in battle.

— Bhagavad Gita, 1:31, in the translation of Eknath Easwaran, Arkana Books, 1985.

I'd lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.

— J. B. S. Haldane (1892 - 1964), showing a mathematical geneticist's view of altruism.

As man advances in civilization and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instinct and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871), as quoted by Ashley Montagu, On Being Human, pp 23-24.

After much consideration, it is my mature conclusion, contrary to Herbert Spencer, that the co-operative forces are biologically the more important and vital. The balance between the co-operative and altruistic tendencies and those which are disoperative and egoistic is relatively close. Under many conditions the co-operative forces lose. In the long run, however, the group centered, more altruistic drives are slightly stronger. If co-operation had not been the stronger force, the more complicated animals, whether arthropods or vertebrates, could not have evolved from simpler ones, and there would have been no men to worry each other with their distressing and biologically foolish wars. While I know of no laboratory experiments that make a direct test of this problem, I have come to this conclusion by studying the implications of many experiments which bear on both sides of the problem and from considering the trends of organic evolution in nature.

— Warder C. Allee, 'Where Angels Fear to Tread', Science, 97, 1943: 521, quoted by Ashley Montagu, On Being Human, pp 41-42.

Curtiosity about Art

More in Seurat than in Ingres.

— P. D. Q. Bach (1729 - 1648), Quoted by Duncan Bain in Against Contrapuntalism, a manifesto, Breek-Anathema Press, 1990.

What a delightful thing this perspective is!

— Paolo Uccello (1397 - 1475

By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,

Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow

— John Dryden (1631 - 1700

Our sight is the most perfect and delightful of our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments.

— Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), The Spectator, 411.

If computer art has a future as an art form in its own right, it is to be found in the dynamic, the animated, the interactive. It should look not towards Rembrandt, but towards Verdi's 'Aïda'. Not just the classical 'Aïda', but an 'Aïda' with the audience singing along and scrambling onto the backs of the elephants on stage. Chaos? No. Total theatre.

— Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, Descartes' Dream, Penguin, 1990, p. 53.

I told a seemingly sane man that I got my artistic education on the Bowery, and he said 'Oh, really? So they have a school of fine arts there?'

— Stephen Crane (1870 - 1900) to James Huneker, quoted in Alfred Kazin, An American Procession, Secker and Warburg, 1985.

'There is a pleasure in painting which none but painters know.' In writing, you have to contend with the world; in painting you have only to carry on a friendly strife with Nature.

— William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830), On the Pleasure of Painting.

TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

— Holy Bible, Daniel, 5:27.

Curtiosity about atoms

First, a note about "curtiosity": it is the key attribute of Rudyard Kipling's 'Elephant's Child. It isn't a typo. The curtiosities were collected originally as possible epigraphs, and then as a possible book in their own right, but it all seemed too hard.

Most collections of "quotes" on the web lack the necessary details of chapter and verse and are commonly spurious. You get my notes, so you know where they came from, and any agile mind will recognise the occasional traps laid for mindless plagiarists. Verb. sap. (Look that up, if you need to!)

Mind you, the lack of a full source may just mean I was busy the day I collected that quote, but such information as I give should be reliable.

Atoms move in the void and catching each other up jostle together, and some recoil in any direction that may chance, and others become entangled with one another in various degrees according to their shapes and sizes and positions and orders, and they come together and thus the coming into being of composite things is effected.

— Simplicius (c. 400 BC), De Caelo

To understand the very large, we must understand the very small.

— Democritus (470 - 380 BC

The Atoms of Democritus

And Newton's Particles of Light

Are sands upon the Red sea shore

Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

— William Blake (1757 - 1827), Complete Blake (Oxford Paperback, 1974), page 418.

1. From nothing comes nothing. Nothing that exists can be destroyed. All changes are due to the combination and separation of molecules.

2. Nothing happens by chance. Every occurrence has its cause from which it follows by necessity.

3. The only existing things are atoms and empty space; all else is mere opinion.

4. The atoms are infinite in number and infinitely various in form; they strike together and the lateral motions and whirlings which thus arise are the beginnings of worlds.

5. The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties of their atoms, in number, size, and aggregation.

6. The soul consists of fine, smooth, round atoms like those of fire. These are the most mobile of all. They interpenetrate the whole body and in their motions the phenomena of life arise.

— Robert Andrews Millikan quotes these (translated) words of Democritus in his book The Electron, saying that they are from [Sir John] Tyndall.

When any body exists in the elastic state, its ultimate particles are separated from each other to a greater distance than in any other state; each particle occupies the centre of a comparatively large sphere, and supports its density by keeping all the rest, which by their gravity or otherwise, are disposed to encroach upon it, at a respectable distance.

Chemical analysis and synthesis go no further than to the separation of particles one from another, and to their reunion. No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of the chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen. All the changes we can produce consist in separating particles that are in a state of cohesion or combination, and joining those that were previously at a distance.

— John Dalton, A New System of Chemical Philosophy, 1808.

They may say what they like. Everything is organised matter.

— Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821

We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.

— Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902), Notebooks

The first support of the isotope theory among non-radioactive elements was given by the anomalous behaviour of the inactive gas neon, when analysed by Sir J. J. Thomson's method of positive rays . . . This peculiarity was that whereas all elements previously examined gave single, or apparently single, parabolas, that given by neon was definitely double. The brighter curve corresponded roughly to an atomic weight of 20, the fainter companion to one of 22, the atomic weight of neon being 20.20.

— Francis Aston (1877 - 1945), address before the Royal Institution, 1921. This established the existence of isotopes.

No one has ever seen, nor probably ever will see, an atom, but that does not deter the physicist from trying to draw a plan of it, with the aid of such clues to its structure as he has.

— Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906 - 1972), 'The Structure of the Nucleus', Scientific American Reader (1953), page 116.

In fact it may be logically impossible for anyone to be able to correctly visualize certain physical systems, such as atoms, because they contain features that simply do not exist in the world of our experience.

— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Penguin Books, 1990, p. 18.

There have been almost innumerable attempts to reduce the differences between atomic weights to regularity by contriving some formula which will express the numbers which represent the weights with all their irregularities. Needless to say, such attempts have in no way been successful.

— Sir William Ramsay (1852 - 1916), address to the British Association, Toronto, 1897.

Authors and models

This is an essay that I resurrected from a defunct blog. It is about an organism with a very small brain — and a fruit-fly.

The news a few years back was briefly full of the man who said unwise things about an unnamed Thai royal and collected a savage gaol sentence for his efforts.

We were told repeatedly that this "author" only sold seven copies of his self-published book, his only production to date. To call such a person an "author" seems a bit of a stretch.

I happen to be a member of the Australian Society of Authors, and my publishers release, on average, a couple of books a year, but I avoid the word "author" like the plague. I prefer to call myself a writer.

What is it that makes people want to seek grander descriptions? I am sure that the failed US vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, would have described herself as an authority when she was in reality just the mayor of a large piece of frozen real estate. Of course, if she and her ilk keep on denying that things are hotting up, Alaska may soon be a tropical paradise.

This thought occurred to me a while back when I saw a Youtube piece in which this inherently shoddy piece of mental floss attacked the funding of  "fruit-fly research in Paris France". She said that it "really did not make a whole lot of sense", characterising it as a complete waste of money. The reaction of fruit-fly researchers everywhere was to say that it's harsh to be called a waste of money by a waste of space.

You can see her for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk, but there are quite a few versions out there on the Internet, because the glib stupidity of the throwaway line made the whole blogosphere quite incandescent. My choice just has the short version, 48 seconds of context plus the offending phrases.

Now we need to get one thing clear, here: the silly woman was actually attacking a particular project. It involves research into the control of the olive fruit-fly which is now a pest in California. It matters little where the research is done, the research has the potential to be immensely valuable in California, one of the States that she and her friend failed to carry.

Most of the blogs missed this distinction, and concentrated on the value of "fruit-fly research" per se. This is understandable, because to the lay reader, the efforts of researchers to study obscure organisms like the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the bacterium Escherichia coli, the white mouse, the white rat and a few other standard life forms makes little sense unless you understand that these are used as models. They are used because we understand them, because we know a lot about them, and because they have comparatively short life cycles.

We understand these organisms remarkably well, there is a giant literature on them, and these days, their entire genomes are known. Scientists can discover principles using these organisms as models, but it is remarkably easy to ridicule "fish that glow in the dark" or "the mouse with an ear growing on its back", especially if you ignore the true background. I think the bloggers ignored the true background to Palin's fatuous line, but it matters little, because I'm fairly sure she had no idea what it meant either.

Fruit-flies gave us the first evidence that mutations existed, the first clear proof that genes lay on the chromosomes, but even today, they give us evidence on the sorts of conditions that are caused by genes that go wrong. The humble fruit-fly is a source of wisdom, whether it is studied in Paris, France, or Paeis, Texas, or Buenos Aires, or Vladivostok or Wagga Wagga.

But Sarah Palin had no idea of that, in my opinion. I believe she just thought fruit-flies were irrelevant to humans, which is a reasonable point of view if you are a creationist, as she seems to be. Somebody else, some anonymous hack who wrote the lines for her autocue, was the author of her woes. She just delivered the lines.

Ah, that's it! I knew there was something bad about being called an author.

Curtiosity about Coprophilia

I decided not to illustrate this one.  It comes from the spares pile, because I am 950,000 words into the Big New Project, of which more will be said a bit later in the year.

If any person whatever is detected in throwing any Filth into the Stream of Fresh Water, cleaning fish, erecting Pig-styes near it or taking Water but at the Tanks, on conviction before a Magistrate their houses will be taken down and forfeit £5 for each Offence to the Orphan Fund.

— Sydney Gazette, 18th December 1803, page 1.

The present dry season of the year being indicative of an approaching long drought, which will be much felt throughout the town of Sydney, we presume it would be advisable, as much for the sake of decency as   cleanliness, to pay a little if not due regard to the General Orders in existence relative to the preservation from all filth and impurity of that valuable and serviceable reservoir—the Tanks. With much pain we have lately observed individuals washing themselves in this stream of water, particularly in that part that runs central from King-street, because that spot is almost secluded from every eye, that of curiosity excepted. In former times the punishment tor this offence, it may be recollected, was summarily severe; and, as it is likely the Government and General Orders, bearing date the 10th September, 1810, and 11th August, 1811, are not known by some of the present inhabitants of the Colony, we embrace this opportunity of once more giving them publicity, trusting it may be productive of a prevention of such filthy and prohibited practices in future:

"No necessaries, slaughter-houses, tanneries, dying houses, breweries, or distilleries shall be erected on or near the Tanks, or the stream or springs flowing thereinto; and all such nuisances as have been so erected shall be immediately pulled down, on pain of prosecution under the Nuisance Act. No person shall throw dirt, rubbish, ashes, dirty water, or any filth into the Tanks, or into the streams, springs, or streamlets flowing thereinto. No articles whatsoever shall be washed in the Tanks, streams, springs, or streamlets. No pigs, goats, sheep, horned cattle, or horses shall be permitted to drink therein, or otherwise render the waters foul, on pain of forfeiture of such animals.

No person shall throw or lay down any filth or dirt in the streets, foot-paths, or drains, on pain of prosecution. And all constables and other peace officers are required to give information to the Magistrates, from time to time, of any person or persons acting in disobedience to the above orders." 

— Sydney Gazette, 28 October 1820, page 3.

Chicago was not so much thriving upon established commerce as upon the industries which prepared for the arrival of others. . . . Streetcar lines had been extended far out into the open country in anticipation of rapid growth.  The city had laid miles of streets and sewers through regions where, perhaps, one solitary house stood out alone — a pioneer of the populous ways to be.

— Theodore Dreiser (1871 - 1945), Sister Carrie, 1900.

It is impossible in this connection to avoid deploring the sewage system which is so generally prevalent in towns and cities, for by this means practically the whole of the nitrogen from the food of the human population is irrecoverably wasted.

— Sir William Tilden (1842 - 1926), Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century, London, 1916, p. 395.

A filter consists of a bed of sand which is usually about 30 in. thick.  The action of the sand in removing bacteria, finely divided clay, and colloidal matter smaller than the openings between the sand grains is explained in several ways.

— Ernest W. Steel, Water Supply and Sewerage, McGraw-Hill, 1947.

It is better to sniff the French dung for a while than to eat China's all our lives

— Ho Chi Minh (1890 - 1969), inviting the French back into Indochina, 1945.

A problem with vultures and high tension lines

. . . the resulting viscous, electrically conducting jet can trigger sparkover by reducing the air gap.  Fascinating side-issues of hydrodynamic stability are involved.  Ordinarily such a jet would break up because of sausage-mode pinch instabilities caused by surface tension.  When the jet is very close to the insulator, this normal capillary break-up is accelerated by electrostatic forces.  Under some conditions, however, the reverse may be true, since such jets can be stabilized by longitudinal current-flow, produced perhaps by corona at the ends of the jet.

To simulate the phenomenon, engineers at the Bonneville Power Administration in the United States, after consultation with avian experts, designed a mechanical cloaca consisting of a pressure chamber with an adjustable-diameter orifice.  A balloon within the chamber contained raw scrambled eggs (for correct viscosity) doped with salt (for correct electrical conductivity).  The doping level was determined from measurements on rehydrated cage scrapings from a local zoo.  A solenoid operated needle broke the balloon on command, discharging the contents.

In full-scale tests conducted at 500 kV, the mechanical cloaca operated perfectly, resulting in spectacular electrical fireworks.  As a result of this study, spikes were installed on cross-arms to discourage roosting.  Animal rights activists will be pleased that no living birds were injured, and that a hazard to wild birds was reduced.

— David C. Jolly, 'Bird dropping research continues apace', Nature 319: 625-6, 20 February, 1986.

Batteries included

Some more bits from my quotations collection:The world changed in a curious way in 1800, when Alessandro Volta wrote to Sir Joseph Banks about his piles. Voltaic piles were batteries, though. Once the pile was common, people could discover electrolysis, chemistry got a leg-up, and in time, teenagers would be able to share boom-tish and doof-doof with their fellow passengers on train and bus.You can't win them all.  Mind you, the fellow on the right was a bigger loser than most.

Sixty or more pieces of ... silver, applied each to a piece of tin or zinc ... and as many strata of cardboard, soaked in salt solution, interposed between every pair of metal discs, and always in the same order, constitutes my new instrument.

 . . . an apparatus having resemblance in its effects . . . to an electric battery . . .

— Alessandro Volta, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, 1800.

Having a few pet plants which slugs and snails are particularly fond of as food, I have devised the following simple and efficacious mode of protecting them against their and my enemies ; and as this plan may be useful to some of your readers, I herewith send you a description of my galvanic circle. Procure a flat ring of zinc, large enough to encircle the plant; make a slit in the ring after the manner of a keyring, so that it can be put round the stem of the plant and then rest upon the ground.

Now twist a copper wire into a ring very nearly of the same circumference as the flat zinc ring, and putting it round the plant, let it rest upon the zinc, as in the illustration. No slug or snail will cross that magic circle; they can drag their slimy way upon the zinc well enough, but let them but touch the copper at the same time and they will receive a galvanic shock sufficient to induce them at once to recoil from the barrier.

— Septimus Piesse in Scientific American May 2, 1863, p. 276.

For the sake of portability, many forms of Leclanché cell have been constructed in which there is no free liquid present. In most of these there is a paste containing manganese dioxide surrounding a carbon rod. This is in contact with a layer of sawdust, or in some cases, plaster of Paris, saturated with sal-ammoniac. The whole is contained in a zinc case which forms the negative electrode.

— J. Duncan and S. G. Starling, A Text Book of Physics, Macmillan, 1918, p. 912.

. . . the magnetic needle was moved from its position by the help of the galvanic apparatus when the galvanic apparatus was closed, but not when open . . .

— Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851

Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs. Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.

— Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), quoted in R. A. Gregory, Discovery (1916), p. 241-2.

Electric relay

The quantity of electricity requisite to deflect a magnetic needle is so inconsiderable, that if the current of a moderately-sized pair of plates were sent into one end of a wire, and only one-hundredth part of it came out at the other end, it would still be sufficient.

— Edward Davy, (1806-1885), inventor of the electrical relay.

Few of our readers have heard of the name of Edward Davy in connection with the history of the telegraph . . . nothing has been published of his labours. Yet it is certain that, in those days, he had a clearer grasp of the requirements and capabilities of an electric telegraph than, probably, Cooke and Wheatstone themselves . . .

— J. J. Fahie, The Electrician, July 7, 1883.

On writing science verse

Sorry for the silence, but I have been playing Writer's Twister, a game that involves simultaneously having my nose to the grindstone, my shoulder to the wheel, my back to the wall and my ear to the ground.  I m doing end-touches on two books and working on the Big New Project, of which I may say something later this month.

On the right, you can see a dead wombat, keeping its ear to the ground.

Like the wombat, I am aware that I am inexorably approaching my use-by date.  Unlike the wombat, there are no intimations of mortality, and indeed, all the signs are good, but  it is simple mathematics.

So I have decided to gather some of my better stuff from around the web and put it in a place that will last. These items will be linked by the tag treasure chest.

This one was written to help young people trying to write verse for the first time.  You can't teach  people how to write verse, but you can teach them a few trade tricks.  In writing verse, there is art, which involves inspiration, and there is craft, which involves work.  This was originally called Literary Lapses, and its URL was (and for now, still is) http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/scifun/literary.htm

Clerihews

George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.

This is a clerihew. They are amusing "potted biographies" of people, and they were invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. They do not need to have a rhythm (a metre, if you are pedantic), but they must have a rhyme, and they must say something about the person involved who has to be historical.

Limericks have to have a perfect metre and astounding rhymes, here among the clerihews, the aim is to be historically correct in an odd sort of way, and to get a weird rhyme. Relevance rates highly in clerihews, but truth is not required. Here are two more examples:

Sir Christopher Wren
Said: "I am going to dine with some men.
If anybody calls,
Say I'm designing St Paul's."

* * * * * * *

Sir Humphry Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium

Now it is time for you to try your hand. Here are some names to get started on. Most should be accessible to most people, and some are drawn from areas other than science, so feel free to pick and choose. They will all be found, somewhere on the web.

Julius Caesar    
Mary Anning    
Bill Gates    
Robert Koch    
Catherine the Great
James Joyce    
Louis Pasteur    
Richard Nixon    
Burke and Wills    
Marie Curie
Sir Francis Crick    
Sir Isaac Newton    
Sir Joseph Banks    
The young Torricelli    
Annie Jump Cannon
Macfarlane Burnet    
Jakob Bernoulli    
Pablo Picasso    
Kiri Te Kanawa    
Claude van Damme
Gus Nossal    
Dame Nellie Melba    
Arnold Schwarzenegger    
Enrico Fermi    
William Gates

Limericks

Unlike clerihews, limericks do need metre.  They need to scan.

When you start out, you need some help, so here are some ideas, a few lines to work with. In five lines, the limerick writer mist introduce somebody, explain where they are or what they are doing (second line), explain what happened to the person or thing in line three, what the reaction was in line four, and finish the whole thing off in line five. Read a few sample limericks to get the feel of it first.

Limericks have a special form. There are five lines, with lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyming, and lines 3 and 4 are rhyming. Good limericks use different words at the end of each line. They also need the right rhythm, or metre:

d'DAH-dah d'DAH-dah d'DAH (dah)
d'DAH-dah d'DAH-dah d'DAH (dah)
   d'DAH-dah d'DAH
   d'DAH-dah d'DAH
d'DAH-dah d'DAH-dah d'DAH

Here is a prime example:

There WAS an old MAN from DarJEEling
Who TRAVelled from LONdon to EALing
   It SAID on the DOOR
   Please don't SPIT on the FLOOR
So he CAREfully SPAT on the CEILing

Notice how we can sneak in the odd syllable here and there.
Now you are ready to begin:

First lines:
There was a young man from Palm Beach (reach, beseech, teach, leech, leach, peach, preach)
There was a young man from Dee Why
There was a young fellow called Smith (myth, pith, kith, with (?))

Third lines
As the camels walked in,
As the rainforests fell
For the rest of his life
The Impressionist school
As his feet turned to lead
As the keyboard went green

It is actually better to have a good word play in mind for the fifth line, or a good idea about your third and fourth lines. Here are some lines 3 and 4:

Third and fourth lines
Though he feared they had germs,
He ate all the worms

His large flock of wrens
That he passed off as hens

They found the canary
Was rather too hairy

If the horse had a chance
It would normally dance

He said "Thanks very much,
But I cannot speak Dutch,

Fifth lines with word plays:
And made cider inside her inside. (an old one!!)
A Norse of a different colour

The people cried "Cafe au lait" ( or Olé)

I came up with this line after seeing a car with OLE in its number-plate -- so the moral is: always keep your eyes skinned, as limericks can come from anywhere!

A Spanish soprano called Fay
Always sang in a can belto way
In the Coffee Cantata
When she was a starter
The people cried Café Olé!

(That one basically came to me during a walk of 200 metres, after I passed the car, to when I reached the bus stop I was headed for. Then all I had to do was tweak it.)

Other ideas for limericks:
Dig into a book, and look through the index for some interesting words. Check out your library, and see if you can find a Rhyming Dictionary -- it lists words by their rhymes.