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

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, F 17 Nov 2017

Robert smiled suddenly. "I'd like to see more of the GMOs."




James smiled back. "Give me a moment, I'd like to say goodbye to Molly and Hieronymous and collect our ride back."




Robert stood patiently, watching as James said his goodbyes and Hieronymous warily inspected the ground where the gazelle had been taken, skittishly jumping back when a ripple hit the water's edge, visibly shrugging his shoulders as he walked away.

Molly and James walked back together.

"I've got to take you back to pick up Mack." Molly remarked.




"What about Hieronymous?" As he turned back to the vehicle, Robert saw that the truck Hieronymous had ridden in was already gone.




"He knows where to go if gets hungry or needs help.

This isn't his first wild release, just his first in an area where there are real threats to him.

Also, the veterinary and animal control people are tracking him.

Otherwise, for now, he's on his own.

He'll probably rejoin his family, at least briefly."




Robert seemed puzzled. "I must admit I'm surprised Hieronymous is so biddable.

How do you do that?"




"The socialization process begins with birth.

A vetetinary team is sent out the instant it becomes clear the process of birth has begun and the mother is transported to the hospital.

The first contacts between the kittens and human beings<<<<<

Fell asleep mid-sentence yesterday, posted promptly, lest I lose my copy, when I woke.

Monthly senior dinner at the local senior center today, an excellent Chinese spread rather than the usual Thanksgiving fare.

Church committee meeting, should be done with that by mid afternoon, then back to writing.




>>>>>The first contacts between the kittens and human beings<<<<< >>>>> usually take place while the kittens are being born with mama cat in close attendance, sharing babysitting and feeding responsibilities so freely from such an early age, the kittens accept it as entirely natural.

Meanwhile, the mama cats actually enjoy being pampered and don't biew humans whom often they've known all their lives as a threat, a confidence and acceptance they transmit to their kittens.

On biddability proper, there was a little gene tailoring, the biddability genomics of a Lassie breed highland collie copied as super-dominant alleles to both the X and Y chromosomes.<<<<<

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Su 19 Nov 2017

Post 42 posted Sa 18 Nov 2017, 'biew' is supposed to be 'view'.




On account of exhaustion, further writing postponed till the morrow.

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, M 20 Nov 2017

Got invited yesterday to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner which I'm going to attend Thursday afternoon.

Will be bringing along my bean salad, long on the green beans, with yellow wax beans, red kindey beans, garabonzos, limas, peas, yellow baby corn, white hominy, peanuts, mushrooms, green pimento olives, black ripe olives, slivered sweet red bell pepper, slivered onion, in "Paul Newman's Own" balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing, as my potluck contribution.




>>>>>"Super-dominant?

What does that mean exactly?"




Molly chimed in. "One copy of an allele is a recessive, doesn't manifest in the adult zygote unless there's a matching allele somewhere else in the chromosomal mass.

Two copies of the same allele on the same chromosome make a simple dominant that manifests if its present in that form on even one chromosome.

Though super dominant traits can occur in an odd number of iterations, usually the trait is successively doubled to yeild a superdominant trait.

With our ligers, that was done empirically, alleles governing response to spoken language derived from the highland collie successively doubled until it was agreed that the liger were responding adequately and appropriately to spoken communication."




"There was no input of human genetics?"




"That, Robert, is something we will not do.

Gene tailoring here depends exclusively on animal and vegetable derived sources.

For that matter, food crops are also excluded as vehicles for GMO productions.

Even our talking animals don't derive the trait from humanity, instead the root alleles are derived from the African grey parrot."

"We're back to post." Molly remarked as she pulled beside the vehicle barn. "I see Mack has picked up another member for your party."




Robert looked noting what appeared to be a large canine in company with the driver.

He did a double take, looked again at the animal's bulbous black nose.

"What is that?"




"Schweinhund!" James remarked giving the 'w' the pronunciation of an English 'v', msking the 'u' a long 'u' as in 'hoot'.

"Offspring of a dog and a pig.

In free-roving feral packs, they're dangerous, combining all the worst character traits of the parent species.

As trained individuals they're useful as tracking animals, combining the olfactory powers of the parent species.

They have got a nose."




"So I see." Robert remarked.




"Since you want to see more of the GMOs, Horace, here can help to find them and lead us to them from a safely down-wind direction.

Is there any animal in particular you want to see?"




"Why don't you surprise me."<<<<<

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Tu 21 Nov 2017




"Mack!" James called out, "Why don't you take us to Marble Hill!"

James turned back to Robert. "You said to surprise you, so I'll let you make up your own mind about the place when we get there.

Do you see the two pinnacles ahead?

The roadway in lies between them, in a deep basaltic valley."

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, W 22 Nov 2017




>>>>>As they approached what seemed to be a whitish phosphorescence became evident ahead, while the passage between the basaltic pinnacles seemed relatively dark, a Devil's causeway of roughly hexagonal steps, some very short near the center of the pass, as they gathered away from the roadway, more and more of them towering, the roadway itself somewhat elevated above the level of the stone so as to leave the steps unmarred, the steps often supporting beds of mosses or wildflowers or small shrubs with an almost continuous flow of water over them..

Finally the road turned to face the valley beyond, which was a dazzling white.

"The basaltic columns came natural, though it took careful manicuring to expose them as you see them now.

The white you see ahead is synthetic marble grown under heat and pressure on the asteroidal basaltic substrate from refined calcium carbonate, with an effort to generate and retain as many crystaloids as possible.

Some of the white you see at altitude is snow and ice, since it helps to maintain the well-watereed aspect of the valley.

The hill in the middle is crushed marble sand."<<<<<

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Th 23 Nov 2017

Exhausted by Turkey Day celebrations.

Writing resumes tomorrow,

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, F 24 Nov 2017




>>>>>The carriage was brought to a halt overlooking a deep valley with almost painfully bright light reflecting from spires of calcite and streaming waterfalls against the almost black basalt substrate.

The comparatively low hill in the middle seemed surrounded by a mass of flame spread about it until it disappeared abruptly at a forced horizon line.

"A good place this, to assess the overall effect of the landscape.

Stunning, isn't it.

One of the inspirations for this is the California Wildflower Conservancy area on Earth, which in a climax year appears at first glance to be aflame with yellow through red California poppies, with streaks of bluebells running through resembling streamers of smoke.

This, on the other hand, is all food chain."




"The rainbows around the waterfalls I understand.

I'm quite sure I don't understand what appear to be swirling clouds of diffraction over the floral terrains though."




"We're still much too far away to make out any detail, you have though, Robert, spotted the main attraction."




Horace stepped up beside them, for the moment, anyway, seeming very self possessed.

James gave Horace a scratch behind the ears. "Don't let Horace here fool you.

We need to give him a feed now or he may lose control of himself when we get down into the floral jungle below."

James fetched a sack of dog biscuits from the carriage and started tossing them one by one to Horace, who neatly caught them, masticating a moment before swallowing.

Robert, seated on a rock, was still gazing down at the valley below.

"Why the crushed marble hill."




"Its a trick borrowed from the Vatican with their white peace doves.

The white coloration is due to feeding them granulated white marble for grist.

Here the effect is produced in as naturalistic a setting as posible with about 12 million cubic meters of white marble sand."




James passed the sack of dog biscuits to Robert. "Here, why don't you do the honors for Horace, for a while."

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Sa 25 Nov 2017

Exhaustion.

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Su 26 Nov 2017

I vaguely remember rolling over to check the time, seeing it was 11:59 pm before falling asleep again.

Its 1:59 am now and I'm going back to sleep.

itiwbs NaPoMoJo 2017, M 27 Nov 2017

Alibi: Su 26 Nov 2017, attempted to log on over several hours, got repeated advisements the site was down on account of server overload or site maintenance.

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, M 27 Nov 2017




>>>>>Robert accepted the bag of doggie biscuits, began doling them out to Horace.

Horace was reasonably fastidious, didn't drop any of the biscuits, didn't slobber excessively and didn't suck on Robert's fingers.

Robert looked over the scene, decided it didn't quite look like white wax poured over a black basalt substrate.

The multi-planed crystalloids that crowned many of the basaltic spires were very geometric, though they didn't exhibit much preferrence for any crystaline system.

Horace had stopped bolting the dog biscuits.

"It appears that Horace has just about had his fill." Robert remarked.




"Lets get back to the carriage." James responded.

"After the drive through this section, we'll want to stop and walk a bit, let you see some of the Jungle on your feet and let Horace have a little exercise."




They boarded the carriage, Horace laid down with a distinct and audible 'thud' under the seat.

"Good boy, Horace." James said, continuing to Robert, "Now that he's had his fill, he'll snooze a while and be ready to go when we reach the area where we're to have our ramble."

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Tu 28 Nov 2017

Copy dropped.

I'll do it over in the morning.

itiwbs NaJoPoMo 2017, Th 30 Nov 2017

Last day of NaJoPoMo, will be spending the remainder of the day alternating between moving furniture and other housekeeping tasks and attempting to conclude the first draft of "The GMO Jungle".

Early next month will do a revision, and submit to the Post.

"Space Colonization 101" still intended, but I want to complete reading of the new h2g2 book before proceeding.




>>>>>

>>>>> As they seated themselves aboard the carriage, Robert spoke up.

"The trail ahead doesn't look terribly steep, but a runaway coach could be catastrophic.

How do you keep the coach under control on a down-grade?"




James responded, "Be sure and fasten your seatbelt.

Preventing a roll-over is among the reasons this carriage is built low and wide and only slightly longer than its width.

A low center of gravity farther from the limits of the wheel-base of the vehicle than from the ground improves stability.

Do you see those bands running behind the hindquarters of animals?"




Robert nodded his assent.




"Those are called breeches.

The breeches are attached to the shafts by breech straps, which transmit the force to the carriage when the draft animal stops or backs up.

The draft animal does most of the braking, which is easier for the animal than having to pull against a braking system.

There's also an automatic feature on this particular harness that activates the brakes if the breech and collar straps both go slack simultaneously, releases the brakes again if there's tension on either.

Mack can moderate that with foot pedals and has an independant braking system besides that operates directly on the wheels, besides a parking brake and chock blocks."



As they talked, the vehicle was making a sedate pace down the trail.<<<<<