A marine tank is not a matter of tossing water conditioner into city water, oh, no. It’s a matter of getting a small ro/di filter to filter gallons of tapwater into a quality exceeding what they run in your supermarket RO kiosk. A carbon block, a 1-micron filter, something else I forget, a carbon block that helps break the chloramine bond, and a di cylinder with resin to absorb other stuff…I mean, it strips water down from 900 total dissolved solids to 0. It leaves just the h’s and o’s. THEN you add the carefully compounded ocean salt, that has the right balance of minerals to represent what ocean water carries: boron and iodine, calcium, lots of calcium—the ocean continually recycles that, much as your body is constantly handling it—bone is calcium, muscle runs on it…
In the marine hobby I’m constantly struck by the fact that corals are all one design: there is no structural ‘big’ difference between the tiny ‘mouth’ and tissue that comprise one pore on a stem of, say, acropora, the colored sticks—and the larger mouth and tentacles of a stony plate coral, or an anemone; or a zoa polyp; or a mushroom polyp; it’s all the same design—a mouth and sticky tentacles, large and small. Mushrooms get to have a kind of thready ‘pipe system’ conveying water about, maintaining fluid pressure—and mushrooms can walk. So can anemones, a little more complex. Take a razor to them and you have two mushrooms. Two anemones. (Woe to the novice that tries to ‘scrub’ an unwanted mushroom off a rock that is a major part of his reef structure.) And then there’s the whole array of corals that developed the trick not just of using a little calcium to power contractile tissue, but laying it down in massive amounts, as a protective casing, a skeleton…which the ocean would endlessly recycle, as it dissolves ‘old’ ‘unclaimed’ calcium into its water to fuel, yes, more movement and more skeletons…
A jelly is the same structure as a nem, just upside down, and really good at sucking in water, and squirting it out.
A worm is the same. Just good at wiggling through sand.
Ultimately, clams, which don’t move—often—in the jellyfish mode. Their inner anatomy is very highly evolved: look them up. Star Trek never came up with anything so weird or alien as the drive-train that powers a clam’s feeding system.
Crustaceans that swim and crawl—the mantis shrimp, when it strikes, literally creates a ball of plasma in the water. If that were scaled up, it’d be scary-movie stuff.
Cartilaginous fish—the sharks and rays—depend on collagen, a fibrous protein, but then some cartilaginous fish discovered a deeply-buried trick and began to lay down calcium like a coral…
We are ALL ultimately connected, and it’s really all one design. We started out radial and learned new chemical tricks.
And all of which is to say, you learn more than plumbing doing a marine tank…
But that filter that makes just h’s and o’s is giving out and I’m getting some signs I need to find some stuff to change those cylinders out…before I start prompting something to evolve in my tank that I really had rather not see. We’ve already got cyano (a nice fugitive from the Permian, that gave us our atmosphere back when various things had trashed it) —and I think I’ll change those cylinders and nip that in the bud.
Here’s a blog entry by an author who insists on using WordPerfect, which I believe you absolutely rely on. I’ve got to agree with both of you as to its virtues.
http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2012/09/10/writing-nowadays-a-wordperfect-world/
I couldn’t find another place to put this link.
Back to the salt water discussion.
Isn’t that a pretty parochial view of what the proper atmosphere should be? It resembled Venus’ atmosphere longer than it’s been oxidizing. 😉
Lol—hurrah for WordPerfect…
Paul—I keep telling newbies to the reef process that recreating the Permian seas is not going to be productive of anything we want to show our neighbors…
“Caribbean coral reefs on verge of collapsing: study”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/caribbean-coral-reefs-verge-collapsing-study-says-191555430.html
There’s been a big fuss—we have done a heckuva lot to the Gulf and BP didn’t help…but equally problematic…the runoff from all those farms up the Big Muddy, the removal of the mangrove barrier islands: mangroves are very, very efficient at cleanup, but we killed them and then let the islands erode, and there went the hurricane buffer. We’ve let monkeys, apes, piranha, boas, and various other problems loose in Florida, and then we imported butterfly fish and lionfish and turned them loose in Caribbean waters. Now, the latter is mixed news: the fish eat the hair algae that has flourished on the nitrates and phosphates from farm runoff, smothering corals, since the sea urchins that used to do that were done in by pollution…it’s a chemist’s workshop down there, and of course, if we keep on and let Iceland melt down so that the pressure goes off the volcanoes up there, Katla, Hecla, and the lot, we may as well buy parkas up here in Washington and expect a coral revivification in the tropics as it becomes a sweatbath…Mama Earth is a Mutha when provoked. OTOH, we can cope. It’s just going to take a bit of engineering and a bundle of funding—which we’ll do when it’s a crisis. We’ve let toxic caulerpa loose in the Med, we’ve got a huge circulating plastic island in the Pacific Gyre, and if we take the weight off Mt. Erebus in Antarctica, who knows? Nothing like a science project with your planet!
Just remember one thing: 50% of Americans are below average. 😉 And that goes double for being able to see the consequences of their desires.
I am, however, a pro-technology type and an optimist. As a species, we get going when the going gets tough, and we do it pretty well.
I’m a bit of a monarchist…as long as I’m the monarch. Seriously, I’m a believer in a compulsory basic education in elementary physics (a lifesaver,) biology undiluted by pressure groups, astronomy, geography, geology, history, art, music, 2 foreign langages, one non-Indoeuropean, and no-nonsense literacy that equips a kid to read aloud and correctly any text on any level, whether or not he’s ever seen the words before. Any student who can comprehend Mario and Zelda can get that far. This is what a high school certificate should mean. Students who by choice or aptitude do not plan on an academic specialty should be offered job-preparatory meaningful career training in technical fields, service industries, food service, transportation, whatever their hearts desire. It’s cheaper than what we’re doing.
Fancy someone else should have that idea! I’ve “always” claimed that were I Emperor of the world, my immediate first two edicts would be that, first, property rights no longer applied to goats. Anybody who could lay hands on a goat could eat it–as in, you’d better have your butchering knife on you at the time. Second, in order to leave 4th grade one must demonstrate fluency in two foreign language. They and one’s mother tongue must come from three different language groups, e.g. German, Swahili, & Japanese, or English, Na-Dene, & Basque.
I think we both use Sapir-Whorf (just a minute, let me check if I’ve got the Klingon spelling or the real name) Hypothesis as our justification. 😉
The only problem with this mandatory “learn other languages” is that it does you no good if you don’t actually use them. I had five years of German, and did really good at it (better at reading than speaking, since I just can’t get accents right… and the more I listen to something, the more I realize that no one says the same word the same way at all times, so which one is the “right way” of saying it when it’s not your native tongue?), but now would be hard-pressed to say anything beyond kindergarten level. And my grandmother, who grew up speaking German as her native tongue, had forgotten it all by the time that I started learning it. Which is my handy response to Europeans who look down on us Americans for being mono-lingual: “How is your Swahili?” If you don’t use it, you definitely lose it, and it’s easy to never need anything but English in the US.
It isn’t whether or not you can use them later. It’s the changes in brain organization that happen if you are polylingual. Your ability to handle new concepts, your ability to hang something yet undefined on a mental ‘peg’ until usage defines it—it’s an array of problem-solving tools you don’t readily get from other sources. It’s why the first foreign language is always the hardest: you have to embed a new system of organization with nothing else to compare it to—after that, picking up others is a case of—the Greek genitive is like the Latin, the French isn’t, English has 24 functioning tenses to the Latin 6, Greek has three numbers, but most languages west of Greece have only two, the Latin color system can apply in Japanese, but not in French, etc…
It always floors me when someone starts arguing creationism. Can’t they just SEE how elegantly evolution works?
There are no ones as blind as they who will not see. Just because it’s evident, there are those people who chose to say that it didn’t happen that way. I don’t bother arguing creationism, because it gets to be the same thing as arguing with an idiot, they bring you down to their level, and beat you with experience.
I’m enough of an agnostic to say, “Yes, it’s possible.” But then I think of all the various religions in the world now and in the past, and ask myself, “Which one of them is right? Are any of them right?” For all I know, someone had a bit of bad beef or rotten potato and started seeing, hearing, and feeling things. Maybe they found a “magic mushroom” and started eating that. Who knows?
Basing things on faith strikes me as having the cart before the horse. Until you have proof, how can you say this or that did or didn’t happen?
Physical Science’s province is HOW and and we have amassed and mostly integrated a lot of information answering those “hows”. However, when one asks WHY and Science answers, one receives not “why” but a series of “hows” in a chain of cause and effect. A chain of causation that starts with “just because” is absolutely arbitrary by definition regardless of how inevitable the ensuing chain of causality. I think that the classic chicken or egg metaphor is even more apposite to this discussion than carts and horses. I advocate no particular belief but I do know that I have no idea why every least little fragment of the physical universe so resolutely asserts its very existence.
I live pretty close to the Gulf Coast (Houston). So what affects the Gulf or our local and global climate affects us directly here. I eat seafood from the Gulf and roll my eyes at BP’s claims, because they can’t be too certain, much as they’d like to. It’s been hotter the last several summers — and winters — and our weather and AC bills have shown it.
Humans have been meddling too much with big environmental things, and it’s going to bite us on the butts before it gets any better. We need to equally cautious that we don’t over-correct if we try that, and the bigger problem is, we haven’t had scientific records and method long enough to know just how wide a swing in climate is *normal* and *usual* for Mother Nature / Planet Earth. How much self-correction is built into the global environmental system and biosphere? Humankind is likely to find a way to adapt, but so are other lifeforms, and for that matter, the human species might evolve too…and we are not advanced enough to stop *that* and perhaps wouldn’t be wise to try. …I don’t know, but even when I get very down and misanthropic, I have to recall that life and the environment are resilient and capable of remarkable things. Humans, with our ability to think and adapt, are perhaps a unique new step up the evolutionary ladder…but not necessarily the only path or the only ones who will climb the ladder.
Depending on which relative’s genes most affect my lifespan, I have around a quarter to a half century more to hang around on the planet. Depending on who’s right or wrong about climate predictions, well, I will live through whichever reality happens.
Let’s hope humankind is smart enough to learn to live together without so so much “us versus them” and learns to clean up our collective back yard or little planetary oasis terrarium. It’s the only Big Blue Marble we have, and it is a beautiful, rich little ball of mud in a very empty desert of space.
The experiment with Homo sapient is still running. I hope it turns out well, especially in the next few centuries. Humanity isn’t out of the playpen yet, much less into its adolescence.
There are some really remarkable programs on the Science Channel, worth owning on DVD if you don’t get the Discovery package: It’s called How the Universe Works—the best thing on stars and systems ever, plus details on how they know what they know, with beautiful animations. I swear it should be mandatory annual viewing for everybody on the planet—sort of a User’s Manual for solar systems. I’ve seen the series about 10-20 times and I still pick up things I missed (of course I work while I watch, so my attention is in and out, but still!)
Let me give you what I posted for the more generic audience on FB, just because I think you’d enjoy it:
Science fiction is…
A belief in the future.
A belief that technology is, like books, like art, like music, the accumulated wisdom of our species.
A belief that the builders always outnumber the destroyers.
A belief that while clever apes can turn new inventions into weapons—-wiser apes can turn weapons into improved plowshares.
A belief that thinking about the future is not escape from reality.
It’s intelligent planning.
Go find that program. You’ll love it.
When it comes to aquariums, to quote Louis B. Mayer, “Include me out.” All I know how to do is watch them and appreciate them.
DVD’s to have:
1) “The Day the Universe Changed”, James Burke
2) “Civilization”, Kenneth Clarke
3) “The Ascent of Man”, Jacob Bronofsky.
I’m not sure the last two exist. None have been rebroadcast in years, the last two, decades! 🙁
I’ll check for How the Universe Works.
Oh, I’d love it if The Ascent of Man is available. Last I’d checked, it wasn’t, in any form. The video on PBS was great, but I haven’t seen it in decades, the 70’s, I think.
I’d highly recommend Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series, available as a DVD set or on iTunes.
The Universe is good, too. And Through the Wormhole—Morgan Freeman, who cited Downbelow Station, hosts a thought-provoking program on various sciences. Another good one is How the Earth Was Made…it’s geology.
How the Universe Works is cosmic goings-on, and it’s about as up to date as anything you’re going to find in public distribution.
It’ll explain such things as:
the real reason we have a moon…
why dust accretes in freefall (and no, it’s not gravity that does it)…
how we know the weather on a planet light-years away…
why Mercury has a really big core…
why some stars make iron and some make gold…
why Saturn and Jupiter affected the order of the solar system…
what’s happening to the Pillars of Creation…
and the fate of stars that make our sun look like one of the smaller asteroids…
I’ve got Cosmos and Ascent of Man in hardback book form. I don’t think I have a copy of Civilisation, though. I always liked James Burke’s series, both “The Day the Universe Changed” and “Connections I & II”. After watching The Universe, and the other shows on Discovery/Science channels, I borrowed a copy of Cosmos on DVD from the library. The special effects are quite primitive, but you really don’t have to even look at them, it’s the content that’s important. What was applicable 25 years ago is for the most part, still applicable when it comes to the Universe. Since my satellite provider has graciously given me Discovery/Animal Planet/Science, and NatGeo channels, I’m really pleased to be able to see shows that would not have been available to me without upgrading to the highest tier package. Something I can’t afford now, or then.
Note, the Blu-Ray two disc set of How the Universe Works is only $14.95 from Amazon.
It’s on order, due around the weekend. — I really wish the channels would do more good documentaries like these.
The last time I looked, I didn’t find the book for The Ascent of Man, but I should look again.
I suppose I’m biased in favor of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos because I saw it when it was first airing and the effects were as good or better than any other show then on TV. It’s still a keeper, though yes, today’s generation would see the early 80’s vintage as a little dated. It holds up pretty well, both on the science and the looks.
CJ you are a bad influence, LOL! I just went and spent £13.76 on region B 2 disc set of how the universe works!!!! sounds great. and although we do have lots of science docs on UK TV they always seem very dumbed down, with too much presenter and flashy tricks …
What I love about this series is a) it’s very up to date, and b) the special effects are really, really good, and the narrator has a good voice.
As a side note, they’re now thinking that silver and gold may be made by different kinds of stars…this is the sort of thing that’ll turn up next season on this program, granted there is a next season, and I really, really, really hope there is, because it doesn’t dumb things down: the further you go in it, the weirder and more fun the science gets.
EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120906074025.htm
BTW, any of you with Netflix streaming, another Korean drama to catch, especially if you’ve seen The Great Queen Seondeok… which is earlier in history. This one is later, called The King and the Clowns, and (warning) it is bawdy in a mediaeval sort of way, it has mediaeval sort of violence, but the plot and the acting are brilliant. I won’t tell you a thing about it, but I am impressed. These two film offerings (Clowns is a movie, Queen is a 62 hour epic) have got to be the best of the best. I could only wish everything Hollywood did had this much nerve.
I think what gets me is that this isn’t art designed (a la Hollywood) by committee, and plotted and censored via demographics and highest profit—there’s a very strong creative hand behind this.
I bet you’re making a list of Korean dramas to stream next time you and Jane need some downtime!
Of course my take is going to be a bit different on all this damage being done to mother earth. It is being done by the greedy 1% (they are a specific group, btw) ON PURPOSE with two agendas in mind. One: Kill as many humans as possible. Two: Destroy this planet before it’s rightful owners can stop them.
The rightful owners, you say? Yes. Although we’re true natives of this world and as such are welcome to stay, we didn’t make it the lovely, marvelously livable place that it is. Which brings us back to the ‘myths’ which the greedy 1% fobbed off on us as a way to explain the unquenchable spirit memory of the elder races.
The elves, in particular. The greedy 1% types hate their guts because they are everything the greedy 1%’s alien species was NOT. Tall, graceful, elegant, beautiful (in a long faced Celine Dion way), gracious, long-enduring, POWERFUL, and very dedicated to justice, equality, freedom, and a lot of the other primarily western civilization values (which is where we get them).
What gripes the greedy 1% most though is that we humans loved and worshiped them, and chose to serve them whenever we could. The greedy 1% was looking for a servant species, but since they are so weak in their ability to use energy, they couldn’t find a species they could control—until they found us.
With all of our psychic abilities pretty well shut off or blocked, we were what they considered the perfect species to serve them. Because they could work with raw energy to a small degree, they could control us as they couldn’t any other species since we have hardly any access to that ability in ourselves.
But they could never get us to love them and serve them voluntarily, as we did the elves, so the last 300,000 or so years has been their efforts to enslave us by trickery, force if need be, and whatever else they could find, like religion, to drive us to doing their will, which is essentially enslavement.
So of course they want us to forget about the elves and our love for them. Some of their meanness towards us is because of that jealousy; we never would love them because they are greedy, mean and ugly to boot. We’d probably have put up with the ugly but because they were so mean, it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back that they look like ugly bipedal hunched-over skinned cats.
That being said, the elves are back in force right now via a newly restored energy pathway. I mean–IN FORCE. Never has this world had so many of the high elves here. Even the king and the other three high lords are here (one was here when Atlantis went down, he survived it but was temporarily lost later). They’ve been stopping nuclear weapon attacks, efforts by the 1% to destabilize and ruin the surface with earth quakes (Japan, they mitigated the effect somewhat, but didn’t have enough elves here yet to really stop it), and so on.
Plus they are watching the greedy 1% like hawks to make sure that they don’t try anything out of bounds to crash the US economy, which the 1% desperately want to do. They planned to take over the US and then use our military to take over the rest of the world they don’t already ‘own’.
See, there’s a contract they made with the overarching sentience of humanity that if they could break and enslave at least 80% of us by what works out to be Dec. 27, 2012, then the human race would be theirs free and clear. They were going to try to say that because they own the governments of the world, that means they’ve enslaved us.
But obviously, as easily as we over throw governments, that isn’t at all true, and both the overarching sentience and the elves wouldn’t have agreed if they’d been able to pull it off in time. And ownership of earth was never part of the contract. The elves tolerated it because our overarching sentience ask it of them, but with the end of the contract, the 1% are out of here whether they enslave us or not.
So they lose the human race and the elves are going to kick them off this planet, except for a few that will get sent back in time to do it again. So you can see this abuse at the greedy 1%’s hand is coming to an end soon. They’ll stop persecuting us because they’re going to be busy protecting themselves and trying to keep this planet.
That’s what all the super weapons you may have heard rumors of, were for. They were never meant to be used on humans; the greedy 1% always meant them for the coming confrontation with the elves.
Some of those weapons, based on Tesla’s work, are pretty nasty and are the biggest challenge the elves have ever faced except maybe the dragons, so they’re actually looking forward to it. They want to see exactly what they themselves are capable of when pushed to the hilt. Mostly, we humans just need to stay away from the greedy 1%, and keep our heads down.
The 1% won’t care if they kill humans (the more the better in their vile opinion), but the elves will make sure they avoid harming us if they can and also protect the humans from the 1% as much as possible. They are very much protectors of the underdog, another value we got from them.
So, see? A very different take on the whole pollution/global warming thing? *lol* It could probably be a best seller if I could avoid mentioning that this is what I actually see as what’s going on, in the racial/collective unconscious, eh?
How the Universe Works — The Blu-Ray set is for Season 1. Season 2 does not yet appear to be out on Blu-Ray or DVD, but is available through iTunes or Amazon Instant Video. My copy of Season 1 arrived 🙂 I know what I’ll be watching this evening!