Stranger things

[Taomeow]

The hurricane/tropical storm is a couple hours away from us per latest predictions, but some fire hydrants in downtown decided to help it along ahead of schedule.  

 

 

Video:

https://packaged-media.redd.it/k703vjwl1bjb1/pb/m2-res_1280p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1692572400&s=6d053c7ae8deeab4e038fffffacb9f5afa090978#t=0

Edited August 20, 2023 by Taomeow

[liminal_luke]

Here in Ensenada it's just been a light rain though I heard it's supposed to be more torrential farther inland.  For one memorable summer, I lived in Puerto Vallarta.  Miserably hot but loved loved loved the storms.  

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

The hurricane/tropical storm is a couple hours away from us per latest predictions, but some fire hydrants in downtown decided to help it along ahead of schedule. 

 

 

"  ¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

Here in Ensenada it's just been a light rain though I heard it's supposed to be more torrential farther inland.  For one memorable summer, I lived in Puerto Vallarta.  Miserably hot but loved loved loved the storms.  

 

I love them too.  There were many everywhere in my pre-CA lives.  The most dramatic and unforgettable one which caught me on the highway in Virginia was, at the time, proclaimed to be the lightning storm of the century -- it was in the 1990s and google doesn't show it anymore, so I have no documented proof that it was, but it sure looked like it.  We were driving back from Williamsburg to wherever we were staying (don't remember exactly) and the highway went along the ocean most of the time and not only did the lightnings strike nonstop for over an hour I think, but it was never just one or two at a time, it was the whole ocean ablaze all of the time!  And what lightnings!  From somewhere infinitely high they came, monstrously long and twisted, many ricochetting from the surface of the ocean (at least it looked that way) and striking back at the sky!  And they were everywhere all at once -- over the ocean and in front of and behind the car, and the thunder was like megaton bombs exploding.  And it rained so hard the car was practically a submarine, zero surface visibility without a periscope, which it wasn't equipped with.  That one was a bit much...  though the mix of primordial terror, sensory overload and esthetic ecstasy was unique to the experience.      

[Taomeow]

Hurricane Hilary update for those who are watching or might be affected:

An hour or so ago it suddenly turned east veering around San Diego instead of hitting us directly as was expected.  We had a 5.1 earthquake while this was going on but that's not out of the ordinary, everybody thought this whole thing would wind up being a nothingburger.  Some locals seemed disappointed -- the weather here is usually so uneventful that they were hoping for an 'experience.'  All it was all day was gloomy, rainy, and boring, so I took a nap.  Slept through a tornado and hail warnings that came and went.  Woke up to howling wind half an hour ago.  Still hoping it will be just strong wind and nothing more dramatic.  

[silent thunder]

That's a crazy video @Taomeow.  Is that pressure from rain runoff causing that?  Did anyone mention?  Never witnessed that myself. 

 

Here in South Bay it's been steady welcome rain and drizzle and minor winds, had we not been tracking the news we wouldn't have known anything unusual was occurring at all.  It still amazes me how pocketed the weather can be in SoCal.  Seems the brunt of HIlary moved inland to the East of us.   How are things with you @manitou ?  I hear Palm Springs got some of it.

 

We also had an earthquake similar timing to the one down south, but it was centered 62 miles north of us in Ojai and was a 5.2.  Here it was little more than a momentary jostle but enough that my son and I paused our game and glanced at each other... then resumed our fun.

 

All in all it's been the most mellow summer of my 23 years here in terms of temps.  Don't think we broke 90 degrees once this season and June gloom is still in fell effect each morning, most days it's stayed marine layer lovely gloomy and cloudy right up till sunset.  Honestly if things keep on the way they have the last 3 years in Summer, I may decide to stay here when I retire fully.

 

Love to my fellow bums.

[Taomeow]

39 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

That's a crazy video @Taomeow.  Is that pressure from rain runoff causing that?  Did anyone mention?  Never witnessed that myself. 

 

No, it happened when the rain was still very mild, no idea why.  I haven't witnessed a 5 stories high fountain out of a fire hydrant before either.  

Glad this Hilary thing didn't live up to its name.  

We also had the loveliest wet winter and a mild cool summer -- if no heat wave hits us come September (keeping my fingers crossed), I'll also count our 2023 weather as the nicest in quite a while. 

 

48 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

All in all it's been the most mellow summer of my 23 years here in terms of temps.  Don't think we broke 90 degrees once this season

      

I live in the marine layer and we never broke 80 so far!  (fingers crossed)  Yes, the pockets of local weather here are unbelievably variegated, but the rule of thumb is, you get a temp increase of one degree (F) with every mile you move east from the coast.  On a couple of occasions when I visited friends who live, like, a 20 minute ride away inland, it was like finding myself on another planet.  I think I live in the only livable (for me) area around here, that desert vibe farther east is not my thing at all.       

 

Love back to you and the bums.  

[liminal_luke]

6 hours ago, Taomeow said:

  I think I live in the only livable (for me) area around here, that desert vibe farther east is not my thing at all.       

 

 

I'm sure the term "desert" has a meteorological definition, annual rainfall or some such.  It's not defined by the cultural proclivities of it's residents.  Still, when I think of the archetypal desert denizen I imagine a scruffy old man living alone in a rundown trailer, not wealthy gay urbanites lounging around sparkling pools sipping fruity cocktails.  So I'm always surprised when my Palm Springs pals pridefully begin sentences with the phrase..."Here in the desert..."

Edited August 21, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Nungali]

On 8/21/2023 at 8:24 AM, Taomeow said:

 

I love them too.  There were many everywhere in my pre-CA lives.  The most dramatic and unforgettable one which caught me on the highway in Virginia was, at the time, proclaimed to be the lightning storm of the century -- it was in the 1990s and google doesn't show it anymore, so I have no documented proof that it was, but it sure looked like it.  We were driving back from Williamsburg to wherever we were staying (don't remember exactly) and the highway went along the ocean most of the time and not only did the lightnings strike nonstop for over an hour I think, but it was never just one or two at a time, it was the whole ocean ablaze all of the time!  And what lightnings!  From somewhere infinitely high they came, monstrously long and twisted, many ricochetting from the surface of the ocean (at least it looked that way) and striking back at the sky!  And they were everywhere all at once -- over the ocean and in front of and behind the car, and the thunder was like megaton bombs exploding.  And it rained so hard the car was practically a submarine, zero surface visibility without a periscope, which it wasn't equipped with.  That one was a bit much...  though the mix of primordial terror, sensory overload and esthetic ecstasy was unique to the experience.      

 

 

Yep . I have seen lightening ricocheting off the ocean , spectacular !

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I'm sure the term "desert" has a meteorological definition, annual rainfall or some such.  It's not defined by the cultural proclivities of it's residents.  Still, when I think of the archetypal desert denizen I imagine a scruffy old man living alone in a rundown trailer, not wealthy gay urbanites lounging around sparkling pools sipping fruity cocktails.  So I'm always surprised when my Palm Springs pals pridefully begin sentences with the phrase..."Here in the desert..."

 

We have people like that  from 'the outback ' ...

 

but down here , people from the desert look like this ;

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

22 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Hurricane Hilary update for those who are watching or might be affected:

An hour or so ago it suddenly turned east veering around San Diego instead of hitting us directly as was expected.  We had a 5.1 earthquake while this was going on but that's not out of the ordinary, everybody thought this whole thing would wind up being a nothingburger.  Some locals seemed disappointed -- the weather here is usually so uneventful that they were hoping for an 'experience.'  All it was all day was gloomy, rainy, and boring, so I took a nap.  Slept through a tornado and hail warnings that came and went.  Woke up to howling wind half an hour ago.  Still hoping it will be just strong wind and nothing more dramatic.  

 

 

Nice 'deflection'  !      

[Nungali]

Here is a curious prediction :

 

A bit nervous about a potential severe summer coming . The last two we got off easy .  if we get a dry hot summer , could be bad .

 

What El Nino, La Nina doing ?    Well, now we got something else to worry about    : a ' positive Indian ocean dipole '  

 

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/indian-ocean-phenomenon-spells-climate-trouble-for-australia

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

 

Nice 'deflection'  !      

 

This time it wasn't me.  I did give a much more serious August 2011 Irene in NY/NJ a slap on the wrist that took hours of work and all the expertise I was taught by ayahuasca ahead of the event and (far as my understanding went back then) specifically for it.  Afterwards I felt I was off the hook and swore off any further shamanic feats.    

[manitou]

On 8/21/2023 at 4:21 PM, Nungali said:

 

We have people like that  from 'the outback ' ...

 

but down here , people from the desert look like this ;

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's pretty much the way us desert dwellers look here in California too.

[Nungali]

" Us desert dwellers ....  "   ? 

 

Look like that ?   ..... Okay then .

 

 

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

More stranger things.  

 

 

This rare and pretty little flower, Paris Japonica, is genetically 50 times more complex than us humans.  Its genome is comprised of 149 billion base pairs, making it 50 times the size of the human genome (3 billion) and the largest ever found. 

 

It has difficulty tolerating pollution.  Complex life forms are always at a greater risk of extinction.

 

Two things I wonder about.  How much wisdom embedded in nature might completely -- and forever -- escape our notice simply because we are too primitive to understand what it's about, what it's for, what's going on on the inside of a creature we can't possibly comprehend by taking it apart and studying each dead fragment separately, anymore than a 2-months-old can comprehend calculus in her dad's head or even imagine its existence.  (Luckily, she also has no ability to crack her dad's head open and study its pieces under the microscope in order to classify what he is.)  And how much of that wisdom was still available to us when we lived as part of nature and were as humble as we should have remained.  

[Taomeow]

Youtube keeps flooding my feed with "recommended for me" videos according to some algorithm or other which I find a bit disturbing.  After I watch a tutorial on, e.g., cleaning a shearling jacket, my feed overflows with videos trying to teach me how to clean everything, from a live sheep to a rural Japanese house.  If, after a Mandarin Chinese lesson, I want to see what yesterday's flood in Turkey looked like, the powerful but mysterious mind behind profiling the viewer inundates me with suggestions to learn Turkish, a decade's worth of videos on assorted disasters all over the world, videos promising to teach me Russian from scratch in just one month, and a Thanksgiving turkey recipe.  Latest installment: a documentary about the superb intelligence of cuttlefish, right next to a crunchy cuttlefish pancakes lesson.  That pairing in my feed was not enough to make a vegetarian out of me but just for this morning I had to change my breakfast plan (which was cassava flour pancakes) so as to give myself some time to process the trauma.   

 

I think the worst part is, people's minds today seem to be conditioned, more and more, in this schizophrenic fashion -- random associations latching onto this or that key word or image instead of...  well...  whatever human minds were like before all this technological conditioning.  

Edited November 29, 2023 by Taomeow

[Bhathen]

8 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

Latest installment: a documentary about the superb intelligence of cuttlefish, right next to a crunchy cuttlefish pancakes lesson.  That pairing in my feed was not enough to make a vegetarian out of me but just for this morning I had to change my breakfast plan (which was cassava flour pancakes) so as to give myself some time to process the trauma.   

 

Have you been near a cassava flour factory?

[Taomeow]

Just now, Bhathen said:

 

Have you been near a cassava flour factory?

 

When I was in high school, I've been to a tour of a mayonnaise factory.   

If I can't find a picture of the mayonnaise factory, may I show you a picture of my high school?   

 

 

[Nungali]

On 11/30/2023 at 4:40 AM, Taomeow said:

Youtube keeps flooding my feed with "recommended for me" videos according to some algorithm or other which I find a bit disturbing.  After I watch a tutorial on, e.g., cleaning a shearling jacket, my feed overflows with videos trying to teach me how to clean everything, from a live sheep to a rural Japanese house.  If, after a Mandarin Chinese lesson, I want to see what yesterday's flood in Turkey looked like, the powerful but mysterious mind behind profiling the viewer inundates me with suggestions to learn Turkish, a decade's worth of videos on assorted disasters all over the world, videos promising to teach me Russian from scratch in just one month, and a Thanksgiving turkey recipe.  Latest installment: a documentary about the superb intelligence of cuttlefish, right next to a crunchy cuttlefish pancakes lesson.  That pairing in my feed was not enough to make a vegetarian out of me but just for this morning I had to change my breakfast plan (which was cassava flour pancakes) so as to give myself some time to process the trauma.   

 

I think the worst part is, people's minds today seem to be conditioned, more and more, in this schizophrenic fashion -- random associations latching onto this or that key word or image instead of...  well...  whatever human minds were like before all this technological conditioning.  

 

 

YES ! 

 

 

I have a new friend ... I recited her a poem , and she was ... hang on .... first I will get comfortable  . .. she laid on her lounge  then  listened intently (it was long )  and   did not loose concentration and asked me relevant questions  after wards  !   

 

My God !        A real 'old style' human being !   I snatched her up .   

 

Now we have hours long discussions about things .. and she makes sense !

 

What was going on before with others ?  .   A converse starts with an attentive  look , within seconds the eyes glaze over , then wander  then, as you say , the one word or idea they did hear , creates a split off into some unfathomably irrelevant   monologue over the top of you  that for some reason you need to be 'informed' about .

 

Also she gave me a wood carving project to do for her  ( later admitting to see if I was one of those people with a lot of words and no actions related to them )  .  I have already finished and returned it it  .....  ' pass'     .   ... smart !  She keeps doing things which seem rational and intelligent  ! 

 

Now I am wondering  what planet she came from . 

 

  Could  Nungali be in love ? 

[Taomeow]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

  Could  Nungali be in love ? 

 

Stranger things have happened. 

[Sanity Check]

deleted

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sanity Check

[silent thunder]

@Sanity Check

[Sanity Check]

deleted

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sanity Check

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

Its not complexity, its redundancy.

 

Both are words that gain meanings only in context.  The size of genome that is addressed in the OP (larger vs smaller) presupposes greater complexity -- much like The Iliad possesses greater complexity than a tweet.  Whether The Iliad is redundant compared to a tweet...  depends on who you ask.  Ask among the tweeting generation and it's highly likely you'll get an answer in the affirmative.  So?..

 

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

To say plants with longer codebases have greater complexity is 100% false.

     

To make such a statement, you would have to get a very good handle on what a genome is and what complexity is -- not just in the colloquial sense -- tackle it as a term from complexity theory which presupposes a working understanding of linear and nonlinear algebra, graph theory, probability theory, basic abstract algebra (groups, rings, and fields), basic logic and fuzzy logic -- for starters.  I've seen geneticists and mathematicians alike in absolute awe of plant complexity, and yet you used the OP's humble word "complex" as a platform for debunking...  what exactly?  That plants may possess the kind of complexity which the johnny-come-lately organ of a new and experimental animal species, the neocortex, might still have a hard time comprehending?..  700 million years of evolutionary success can only be debunked by a matching/exceeding feat.  So, let's talk about it again in 700 million years.