h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I definately think that we should free will. As far as I know he hasn't done it yet.

As the Bonzo Dog band sang
"There are no coincedences, but sometimes the connections are more obvious"

Who hasn't done it yet? Who is Will and who has made him a prisoner? Is it political? And what breed is a Bonzo Dog and why on earth would they band together and misspell coincidence? And who told them they could sing?

And why, indeed, are the connections sometimes more obvious? Obvious to who? And more obvious than what?

And did you know that I have given the BBC permission to use this in a variety of ways? I'm sure I don't know what ways they're talking about, however varied. Do you know? Would knowing be coincidental, random or free?

What would Will say? What would anyone say? Would Will care? Would the Bonzo Dog comprehend any of this? Would the BBC be able to help the Bonzo Dog or Will? Why would they bother when they could use all of the above in a variety of ways? And how could you definately think anything knowing full well the variety of ways your thoughts can be used, definately?

I definitely understand what I mean but it's probably just a coincidence or consequence of free will or freeing Will if you do. So do you or should we flip a coin to make an executive decision?

(Deliberate topic "drift" follows)
One word: Keikoburgers

Wonderful to find someone sharing my concerns
I got all upset in an adjacent thread when I read OznoB God was throwing his/her weight about and not letting our Will have any exersize let alone be free..
Is this the state of the world today ?

Im going to report this God charachter to amnesty international.
He'll drown under his own postal load, then he'll be sorry..

Yeeerrsss, a variety indeed.. The postings are passed the BBC's mad 's and 's, who take great delight in dissecting and ripping apart, they pull out the paraphrasing and make salamis out of the syllables. Next week you may find the very letters that you typed recycled, rebuilt and reprogrammed and used in a completely different context, masquerading as a news item or whatever.
Free Will. It is no coincidence. Keep tossing the coins.
Just don't toss them too hard, it hurts when they connect.

I don't know if you appreciate how you can take several pounds of coins, deposit them not in a vending machine, but in a sock. You then tie a clothesline to the sock so as to create a heavy laden bag at the end of the line, so to speak. Then you twirl it around your head gingerly while approaching a BBC reporter soliciting person on the street comments. You summarily crush his temple or just separate his shoulder with this warclub that works at super-orangatan arm's length, even though you might be female and kind of on the small side for this sort of manhandling.

As he lies at your feet either writhing in agony or merely exhibiting the last spasms of life's eternal struggle, you can explain to the assembled, and no doubt curious, onlookers that you were simply demonstrating a primitive application of centrifugal force and thought it prudent to have the whole experiment documented on video tape.

When the bobbies arrive swinging their warclubs you can drop yours in a convenient street drain and pretend to be curiously onlooking while they interview witnesses who have no independent recollection of the event because they were quite shocked and surprised to observe such a senseless act of violence among people who typically leave such things to hirelings.

The BBC will dutifully turn over the incriminating tape to the authorities and report the same in order to appear dedicated to civil tranquility, at least within the homeland, if not Afghanistan. The authorities will then give the tape back to the BBC to broadcast asking if anyone recognizes the miscreant swinging a loaded sock depicted therein.

Many people will call trying to implicate their estranged spouses while others will say it had to be Al Quada terrorists or IRAers. The truth will, of course, be more pedestrian, because the perpetrator will have been in fact a slightly deranged student weary of listening to pompous asses pontificate all over the mass media about trivial issues to which no one would pay the least attention if they weren't on video.

It sort of reminds you of the apparent facination crows have for shiny objects, doesn't it?

Mmmmm...
Crows are facinated by shiny objects and we are facinated by objects which are able to wreak maximum damage with the minimum effort, it seems. Maybe we should be more understanding regarding a certain bloke in the news with a funny moustache.
Regarding the BBC man, pontificating, offer to do the interview, then attempt the same thing with the (preferably large and heavy) microphone that he will inevitably offer you. This has the advantage that the sound will be replaced with a satisfying

Whooooooooosssshhhh whooooossshhh whooosh woosh THUNK!!!!

Thank everone kindly, and launch into a appraisal about the relative merits of rotary and cylinder lawnmowers. This is guaranteed to enthrall the audience to the extent that they will forget about the interviewer and nod sagely. You may even get his job.

Oh, I don't know. I kind of visualize the mike and associated cable more as a garrot, the sound being, "?".

(You see, I don't know what the sound would be because I'm deaf. Could you give me a visual discription please?)

How about a sort of pulsating orange fading to brown, but getting more towards the green / fading to blue, end of the spectrum as the mic swings faster.
A blood-red flash, followed by blackness, punctuated by occasional whispery white spirals ascending. Becoming less distinct as green-greyness descends.
At least, thats what I'd expect. I think I have a pretty good idea, having consumed a fair quantity of hallucinagens in my time

What, really deaf ?!
(surprised, not doubting)
Since birth ? Do you think of words as sounds when you read them ?
I suppose not. Difficult to imagine - while I was learning to speak German I became aware that it is difficult to think without a language to think in, as a structure for your thoughts to fit in. But language also restricts what you think, because if the words dont exist then the concepts are difficult to grasp. So learning without (spoken) language could mean that you have a deeper way of thinking than the rest of us...
Ive got all deep. Hope you dont mind..

Woo, that's tough to explain.

Do you know any kind of sign language? If you do, do you associate all the signs with spoken words? How would you say, "^" or "#" or "@"? or the ever popular "*"?

It's possible to conceive of an entire language that doesn't code sounds and hence isn't necessarily sequential but can actually be multitasking. What does &;D mean? It's my just kidding you emoticon but do you mouth the words, "just kidding you" everytime you see it? Probably not.

I can sign to you something in Ameslan and if you translate literally in sequence it comes out "black coffee like me" but if you translate it >> correctly << it comes out "I like my coffee black". So the complete idea is idiomatic from your standpoint but it's correct syntax and grammar from mine.

I vaguely remember hearing sounds when I was little but I don't associate them with language anymore. Everything is sort of visual or tactile I guess. The colors really do make an emotional impact as well as the intensity descriptions or references to hot or cold, hard or soft, rough or smooth, or whatever.

Even so, it's still possible to sign a complete Shakespearean soliloquy and have it more or less understood I think. That probably seems strange doesn't it? That you can sign even abstractions but it's possible. All language is metaphorical to some extent so you just have to get the equivalent metaphors, the symbols that convey the experiences.

Maybe you could try composing a short description of a stereo system that makes no reference to the sounds or music but maybe the vibrations that you can feel or the pretty lights or wave patterns the display makes, just for fun. Then you might get a clue about what it's like. If you have a stereo system with a visual indicator on the mixer or whatever it's called you might try turning down volume on your favorite music and watch how it looks on the display. Then try to imagine that that is music for me.

The other is the vibration which you can't feel unless you turn the volume back up and accentuate the low frequencies. Turn down the high frequencies then and feel what it's like without those. You'll still here the base frequencies but maybe you can stuff something in your ears to reduce them. I think what I lose with the vibrations is what are called harmonics but I'm not really sure.

A friend once told me with a very straight face that if I took off my clothes and rubbed oil all over my body that the little body hairs would act like the hairs in the cochlea of the inner ear and I'd be able to "hear" an entire rock concert with my skin, if I didn't get arrested. This may come as a surprise but I've never tried it. I think it was just a ploy to get me out of my clothes. &;D

When I first moved to Germany, for a long time i couldn't understand people who were'nt talking slowly for me, so I have had the experience of giving up on listening to people and observing them instead. I found it surprising how much you can learn about someone based on their actions and emotions.
It is really interesting what you said about how we only need to have sequencial language because we need to say it - i never really thought of sign language being different - other than a way to symbolize what would otherwise be said - like an extension of signing it letter by letter, but i suppose I was thinking along the wrong lines.
I have watched it many times (in german ? or is it international ? - looking up Ameslan i find that it is the US convention, the british one is different - which seems unneccisary) - our old regular pub in hamburg was often (not always) so noisy it drove people out, but was the favourite haunt of many deaf students, who were the only ones able to make themselves understood ! A few times I was making signs at people for a while before realizing that they were deaf - it was just easier than shouting..

Suppose you must be very sensitve to earth tremors, as a geologist maybe quite useful..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2129395.stm
theres a strange thing..

The reason I mentioned hallucinagens is that often there is is an effect where the senses become confused, so you can see smells (a shade in the light), taste & feel colours (mmm blue, how cool, slippery and smooth) and see music (as swirling colours and so on)- i suppose you have to hear it first though..

About the concert, what was the oil needed for? If you look anything like I think you do, walking naked and oiled into a concert is likely to stop the music dead, messing up the point of the exersize.
Very offputting for the band, i think ..

Gallaudet rejected the British system because it was Manual English and lipreading. Ameslan is a natural language in its own right with its own grammar, syntax and dialects. The French system was the model Gallaudet used to establish formal American Sign Language but it can't be comprehended by French people because it follows the conventions of the culture in which it arose.

Deaf people not only have an advantage in noisy pubs or bars but also at football games where they can communicate clearly across the field without yelling and further still if they use binoculars.

Regarding elephant communication, I think most animals use sign language to communicate and there's evidence that humans once used it more than they do now. This probably accounts for the myths or legends about people being able to talk to and comprehend other animals once upon a time. It's still how people with good horse sense communicate with horses and it's also used by dog handlers along with whistles I guess. I've read that dogs are more sensitive to high frequencies than people are but even so it would probably get a little tiresome without some gestures to augment the whistle code, I think.

I don't think I have an anymore refined tactile sense than anybody else. I just have to rely on it more, probably. Which means I could stand on bedrock in a hole in the ground and fail miserably as a seismograph even in my bare feet. But if I took copious amounts of hallucinogens I might be able to detect disturbances in the interstellar medium around the Crab Nebula and who could or would dare dispute it?

The oil was supposed to similate the conditions in the inner ear, I think. My objection was that errant breezes would corrupt the input and the oil was supposed to deal with that, although I suspect it was also intended to give me a nice visual effect with the sheen and all.

While I appreciate the complement, I doubt I would stop anything. Don't bands do videos with skimply clad chics all the time? It probably helps to wear a combination of leather strapping and torn fragments of nylon mesh rather than going totally nude, but I doubt they'd look twice at me nude or clothed considering the babes they deal with all the time. Nobody's breaking down my door with contracts to appear in Penthouse although if they really want to poke around, so to speak, it doesn't hurt to talk like you.

I should keep reminding myself that you probably say that stuff to all the girls, in at least two languages, so I needn't give it much attention. Still it's nice to entertain enticing lies once in awhile. &;D

Hey,
Making me sound like an international playboy b******d like that.
I wish..&;D
(By the way, have you found the smiley page - A155909 - where you can do this and this )
I followed the link on your picture and contributed a rambling.
I was a bit ofput about being a Brit there though - It wasn't my fault ! Our ancestors were obviously nutcases !
But I have not the slightest responsibility for:
Robbing anyone of their land
Getting the Chinese hooked on Opium
Shipping convicts to colonies
Aparteid in south africa
Or god knows what else.
It wasn't big and it wasn't clever.

Funny how people seem to have definite opinions about English people. Half of the world hates us, another third thinks were all harmless eccentrics and others just give us the baddie role in films.

Leather strapping and torn nylon mesh.
Ohhh don't. Thats just rubbing it in. Like the oil.

First, I don't see your ramble at RCO, if that's where you left it. That's sort of disappointing.

I can understand why you might not want to get in the middle of something you don't consider your problem, but you could also treat it as a joke and either laugh when you found the punchline or become somewhat more educated if you didn't find a punchline but rather a connection with all those disconnected events of the past that don't concern you.

I find most British people delightfully erudite about British things and abyssmally ignorant of non-British things unless such things are interpreted rigorously within a British scholastic context. That might be because there's the wrong way and the English way and always has been but who would know if you're not English?

And I thought most of the baddie roles went to Germans because most people would agree with Spielberg that the Nazis literally embody everything that is evil. I didn't know English blokes were the embodiment of evil too but it would make sense if it helped you recover your rating as a major world power bully.

I don't think your ancestors were nutcases. I think they were just like your contemporaries. Greedy, opinionated, fearful of people of color, and rather annoyed with those in the classes above but more or less resigned to doing their bidding either because it was sporting or they didn't like their guts dragged all over the scaffold in the village green while still attached to their bodies.

Would you be hugely if I made a joke about British people making good pets with proper care and feeding? I think it's true but I don't want to offend one and be attacked when I turn my back.

Seriously though, I think your ramblings would be a good thing at RCO if you wanted to spend some time. We have a resident Kiwi who might find you just what she needs to preen her feathers. So don't be put off. Put us on or put us in our places. We can take it. Can you?

I have a dominatrix friend who most *definitely* thinks Brits make good pets. Heterosexuals....go figure... ...I just don't know.

I've been desultorily reading my roomate's 'learn ASL' books. Are the Signed English folks then the guys who would oppose the Gallaudet philosophy, and wish signers were more like British SL? Ameslan grammar is driving him nuts.

I've done fieldwork where the area you are in is too forested and narrow to get a good idea where you are based on your topo map, and the sound of water of a stream nearby is good for orienting yourself. It's also a good way to find out if you are going to be attacked by hummingbirds or rattlesnakes. I suppose if a cicada makes rattlesnake sounds, being deaf wouldn't scare you, and you'd be able to go into places you can't see beforehand, though! Rita is working in Colorado, where rattlers undoubtedly are.

You're essentially correct about Ameslan. It runs counter to the British "teach them to talk" philosophy. The British also use a two-handed manual alphabet which probably works great for blind people.

Knowing that rattlers seek shade in the heat of the day means you don't reach under rocks but turn them over with a stick or pick. If you enter old mine tunnels, it's prudent to be looking up as much as down since the snakes often coil up around the timbers overhead.

It's interesting to note, or so I've read, that rattlers don't hear particularly well so they have to use other means than rattling to warn off each other. They have pits in the side of their snouts to detect body heat. If I rub black mud on my cheeks I can simulate the effects of that crudely by then closing my eyes and trying to orient myself to the sun by tactile awareness alone. If the sun were then a rodent, I could probably strike at it pretty accurately if I was quick enough. Strangely, I've only encountered three snakes in my career so far, which probably means they are as concerned about avoiding me as I am about avoiding them.

I once had a rather heated dispute with a tarantula when we crossed paths while I was surveying some exposures of the Denver Formation on the bench above Bear Creek. The creature actually leaped at me after aggressive staring and stance apparently didn't get its message across. I intuitively interpreted the gestures correctly but couldn't believe the message. It was the first time I'd ever experienced such aggression by such a creature. Previously I hadn't known they exhibited such behavior and was rather surprised to have something so diminutive try to bully me. Have you ever had a spider try to stare you down?

Being in a verdant area is not conducive to good fieldwork. One can't see the rock exposures very well and fossil hunting is virtually impossible. I'm lucky to work in a semi-arid to arid area where this isn't an issue most of the time.

I'd be interested to know where you've worked and what you've done there. Maybe we've crossed paths without knowing.

Hello again thread
Had an exam last week which meant that I had other things to think about. Time to catch up a bit.

"Greedy, opinionated, fearful of people of color, and rather annoyed with those in the classes above"

Greedy I cant vouch for personally, opiniated, probibly. I think you would be surprised how integrated London is, we really dont judge poeple by appearances - its been multicultural for over 300 years, so when you meet a black or chinese person, we bear in mind that their grandparents could well have been as english as ours. Annoyed. It made my day this morning. Someone had driven a Bently (huge car costing more than our house) into the ditch. Probibly drunk or senile. Small victories come in knowing that by drawing attention to thereselves they also attract troubles like a magnet.

"Would you be hugely if I made a joke about British people making good pets with proper care and feeding?"

Of course not. We also pride ourselves on being the butt of jokes.

Sea Change Hmmm..
With PROPER care, and PROPER feeding, Hmmm. I think I'd make a good pet along the lines of a cat, though, rather than a dog. Can't handle that whole obedience thing, at least not for very long. Need to be able to come and go as I please. On the other hand, I keep myself groomed, and am very playful - maybe you should introduce us

Had a dream last night where I found a snake in the garden. Very odd. There as rare as rocking horse s**t in england.

What are you studying, Ackalon?

The verdant area was the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington State. The loggers clear-cut alternate square miles, which were then scarily eroded. Also, logging roads follow strange paths, not necessarily along grade. From the clear cut squares, the roadcuts, and inferences from the strike and slip along streamlets, you can sometimes infer where a more resistant stratum will punch through where there are trees.

Other areas I've studied were around the San Franciso Bay area and Death Valley. Around SF it's mostly grazed ranchland, but has sharp defiles full of brush. The faulting is usually so extensive around the Hayward Fault that you really had to go up them to trace each one to catch where each stratum was going.

I understand most of Washtington State is unlayen with lava flows. During undergrad I got to take field trips to Mt. St. Helens and Crater Lake. It was interesting to refer the current situation to the ancient one. Mt. Mazama's caldera was in very much better shape than the ones in the San Juans or the Rio Grande Rift. There were a couple of calderas in New Mexico that resembled St. Helens. That gave me a frame of reference to work from. The ones in Colorado are pretty much obliterated by subsequent extrusions, but you can still deduce where they were from the fairly well documented mineral prospecting that defined the fault systems encircling them.

That's certainly the case with the Silverton Caldera. It's now obliterated rim is pretty well defined by Red Mountain Pass on the north and the Eureka mines on the east. With those two points of reference you can sort of infer the rest. One thing is for sure. It was signficantly bigger than Mazama, and that's saying a lot.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Death Valley define a rift zone similar to the Rio Grande? If so, do you know of any volcanos that border it? I'm not that familiar with southern California.