Lite om hur vinodlingen i Bordeaux-trakten påverkas av de stora skogsbränderna. Rök kan tydligen påverka vinets smak?! På lång sikt är det dock snarast klimatförändringarna som hotar vår tillgång till "friska och fruktiga" viner...
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| Credit: jacilluch |
Intressant artikel om skogsbruket i södra Frankrike. Apropå de närmast apokalyptiska bränderna där.
HA HA HA. This was quite the attack! Not the one on the Woke girls (that´s trivial on *this* side of the sub-political spectrum), but the diss of right-wing conspiracy theories as "stoners" high on "green crack", et cetera.
Our man Sheridan suspects that a certain kind of paranoia within that milieu is the last stage before full-on hash psychosis. I´m frankly inclined to believe him. If we assume that over half of the denizens of the proverbial interwebs are alcoholics, drug addicts or clinically insane, much can be explained.
Except for one thing. Why the heck are the rest of us listening?
Det var länge sedan Göran Greider hade något intressant att säga. Flera årtionden sedan, faktiskt. I sin senaste krönika i Aftonbladet (länk nedan) säger han att vi måste lära oss leva med ett imperialistiskt Ryssland?! Kan ju bli lite svårt om Ryssland invaderar sina grannländer, eller hur? Utsträcker Greider samma erkännande även till USA? Sedan skriver han att Ryssland i framtiden kanske kommer att bli demokratiskt. Visst, och Månen är gjord av grön ost.
Greider gör även en märklig jämförelse mellan Ryssland (?) och den invasiva växtarten parkslide, som han menar har "demoniserats" och kan bekämpas med "diplomati". Vilken tur att naiva poeter varken styr vår försvarspolitik eller miljöpolitiken. Gjorde nämligen en liten djupdykning i parkslide och varför arten anses vara invasiv. Verkar vara en väldigt bra metafor för "folkutbyte", måste jag säga...
De andra länkarna är till Naturvårdsverket. Här är förresten ett citat:
>>>Parksliden kan konkurrera ut andra växter på platser där den etablerarat sig och bildar ibland rena monokulturer. Detta kan förändra livsmiljöerna för arter som groddjur, kräldjur, fåglar och däggdjur mycket negativt.
>>>Parksliden har även negativa effekter på ekosystemtjänster. Områden kan helt växa igen och möjligheten till markanvändning begränsas; det går inte längre att promenera i områden och trädgårdar kan inte längre odlas.
>>>De kraftiga rötterna kan också tränga in i byggnader och vattenledningar men i Sverige är detta fortfarande ovanligt. Problemet kan framförallt uppstå i äldre byggnader där det redan finns sprickor och håligheter för parksliden att ta sig in genom.
Bekämpa både krig och parkslide med diplomati
Or maybe not, LOL, but apparently the recent full moon in Capricorn excited our dear neighborhood astrologers. It´s in opposition to the Sun in Cancer (a Moon sign). Which I suppose means...something.
Since this is the Strawberry Moon, I certainly hope it means we´ll get more strawberries in our ice cream! Because, yeah, their absence from our treats might indeed "test millions". Duh!
Or just dirty yin? Dr Robert discusses soma, cannabis and astrological remedies in these short videos. Not intended as medickal ad-vice...
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| Credit: Skalle-Per Hedenhös (sic) |
Richard Carrier on the attack...again. An atheist-materialist take on consciousness, et cetera.
Note the claim that some robots and smart cars may be (somewhat) conscious. Insects, on the other hand, aren´t conscious. Neither are octopi. Fish probably aren´t either: "They aren´t really alive, they´re just less dead". And if you´re not conscious, you can´t really feel anything either. So ants don´t feel anything when we dispose of them them using poison. The tuna didn´t feel anything when it was hooked and killed. Pigs do feel and experience things, but since they aren´t self-aware, their lives have no actual value to them. Like pigs to the slaughter! Human babies are more advanced than pigs (this is a veiled polemic against Peter Singer, methinks).
The "existential" consequences of the above are...interesting. So entire *civilizations* can be created simply on the basis of subconscious computation by non-sentient life-forms? I´m thinking of social insects such as ants, termites and honeybees. Where does that leave us in a wholly materialist universe? Note also that robots could (presumably) be made fully self-conscious. Finally, note that consciousness requires "modeling", which seems to imply that consciousness can only ever be "indirectly realist". Are ants direct realists?
OK, here is the link:
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| Credit: Alpdake |
Har Aftonbladets chefsideologer redan åkt på semester? Blev nämligen lite förbryllad när de inte använde jordgubbsdiskussionen till att slå ett slag för arbetskraftsinvandring. En förvirrad artikel säger t.o.m. att svenska jordgubbar inte är någon rättighet?!
Fast det kanske beror på att det ser lite väl "kapitalistiskt" ut att importera säsongsarbetare till "plantagerna". Alltså vill man undvika frågan.
Det är således bättre att inmundiga importerade jordgubbar plockade av slavarbetare i utlandet. Åtminstone om man är socialdemokrat.
Eller?
A propos Anton´s latest video on YouTube: like everyone else, I assumed the "bizarre discovery" was that honeybees EAT DEAD HUMAN BODIES and that this somehow ends up in our honey, making it SOYLENT GREEN.
Instead, the (non)bizarre discovery is that millions of mining bees live at a New York cemetery and turn out to be extremely important pollinators of commercial crops (in this case, apples). Which might mean that the "bee apocalypse" has been postponed...again. Thank god, by the way!
I prefer apples to soylent any day.
Eller koffein-chock? Kaffet kommer tydligen att bli mindre dyrt. Om det bara kan få hit skiten från Brasse. Och energidryckerna har faktiskt blivit något billigare också, tack vare den sänka matmomsen! Okej, vad bra, om min meditation inte funkar kan jag alltså satsa stenhårt på kaffeinet och kalla det "tantrism"...
ChatGPT tries to debunk Pythagoras, und so weiter.
The golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence appear in many natural systems (plants, shells, branching patterns). Natural explanations usually fall into a few related categories: growth processes, efficiency/packing, and simple recursive rules. The key idea is that these patterns can arise from very simple biological mechanisms, not from organisms “knowing mathematics.”
First, recall the mathematical relation.
The Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, … where each term equals the sum of the two previous ones.
The ratio of consecutive numbers approaches the golden ratio φ ≈ 1.618.
Many biological structures grow incrementally, where each new unit forms in relation to previous ones.
Example: plant branching.
A stem might produce:
one new branch
then the next stage produces branches from the previous two growth points
If the number of growth points follows a “previous two added together” rule, Fibonacci numbers appear naturally.
This is not intentional mathematics—it’s simply a feedback growth rule.
One of the most famous examples is leaf arrangement on stems, called phyllotaxis.
Leaves tend to emerge at angles close to 137.5°, known as the golden angle.
Why that angle?
Because it distributes leaves as evenly as possible around the stem, minimizing overlap and maximizing exposure to:
sunlight
rain
air
If leaves were separated by simple fractions of a circle (like 120° or 90°), they would line up in vertical rows and shade each other.
The golden angle avoids repeating alignments for the longest possible time.
So natural selection favors patterns close to the golden ratio.
Structures like sunflower heads and pine cones often show two sets of spirals.
Examples include counts like:
34 and 55
55 and 89
21 and 34
These are Fibonacci numbers.
Why?
When new seeds form at the center and push outward while maintaining a constant angle (again near the golden angle), the resulting packing automatically produces Fibonacci spiral counts.
This phenomenon emerges from simple geometric growth rules.
Natural selection tends to favor structures that:
minimize wasted space
distribute forces efficiently
maximize exposure to resources
The golden ratio often appears in optimization problems involving growth and packing.
So patterns approximating Fibonacci ratios may be favored because they are stable and efficient.
In some mathematical growth systems, if two processes interact and stabilize over time, the ratio between them tends to converge toward φ.
This occurs because φ is the stable solution of the equation
x² = x + 1
So when systems involve feedback between two successive stages, the golden ratio can emerge as a natural equilibrium.
The golden ratio in nature is often approximate, not exact.
Many claims about φ in:
human bodies
architecture
art
are exaggerated.
But in botanical growth patterns, the connection is well supported.
The reason Fibonacci patterns appear in nature is not mystical but structural:
Simple iterative growth processes + spatial constraints often produce Fibonacci-like patterns.
So the mathematics emerges from the dynamics of growth itself.
If you'd like, I can also explain something fascinating: why the golden angle (≈137.5°) is mathematically the best possible way to distribute leaves around a stem. The reason involves irrational numbers and is one of the most beautiful arguments in mathematical biology.
It´s become something of a tradition on this here blog that we post cutsie pics of Ganesha every Wednesday, so here we go again. This is apparently Bhakti Ganapati, one of the 32 classical forms of Ganesha. Note the banana!
I actually assumed bananas were originally from South and Central America, but naaah, they are from the Indomalayan region. Fun fact: pineapples (which *are* from South America) have been introduced to India and are sometimes offered to Hindu idols...
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Hur ska man tolka det här? Att SVT öppet tar ställning för regeringens mest kontroversielle minister, eller vad? Ha ha, nu kommer anmälningarna att hagla stenhårt. Valkampanjen senare i år kanske blir väldigt intressant, trots allt...
Leif GW anklagar SVT för äppelaktion
HA HA HA, this is actually funny. So if aliens would have landed on Earth 400 million years ago, they would consider *our* world to be Planet Alien?
Nobody even knows what "prototaxites" were, or even whether they were standing upright like large tree trunks or growing horizontally like fungal mats. Nor is it clear what they were: grandiose fungi, gargantuan lichens, bizarre hybrids, or an entirely new kingdom of life? They are definitely problematica! If they grew vertically, Earth´s landmasses looked very, very strange during the early Devonian, since plants were extremely small.
There is even a speculation that arthropods quite literally *ate* all prototaxites, a lunch break that must have taken millions of years. I sense a new Walt Disney franchise coming up...
So I´ve read "The real fate of the Waterloo fallen" (2023) by Bernard Wilkin, Robin Schäfer and Tony Pollard. This is some really, really sick shit. But then, people 200 years ago lived like dogs. And died like dogs. And if you died with your boots on, chances are somebody stole the boots...and then turned your dead body into fertilizer! For a profit, obviously.
During the decades after the Napoleonic Wars, bones from both dead soldiers and horses were stolen from mass graves all over Europe and shipped to Britain, where they were turned into fertilizer for the expanding agricultural industry. I´m not even sure if "stolen" is the right word, since almost everyone must have been in on it. And the quantities involved were enormous: we´re talking ship loads here.
Wilkin, Schäfer and Pollard believed that an even more exotic fate befell the dead at Waterloo. Archeological excavations around the town have so far not been able to find the mass graves which simply *must* have been there, and which were documented even by British painters visiting the site just a few years after the famed battle of 1815. So what happened to the dead bodies? The authors believe that the bones were dug up and turned into bone char, which is used to decolorize brown sugar and turn it white.
Yes, you read that right. The fate of the Waterloo fallen was to end up in the Belgian sugar refining industry. The number of dead at Waterloo isn´t precisely known, but the authors use a low range estimate of 10,000. Add to that perhaps 10,000 dead horses and you have a considerable resource just waiting to be exploited.
Many of the people digging for human bones at recent battlefields were poor. In Belgium, the presumably low-income farmhands worked for local farmers in the Waterloo area. I assume the bone merchants or sugar refinery owners were of the more affluent classes.
Of course, things like this are still going on. See Scott Carney´s book "The Red Market" for more details about the Indian trade in human bones stolen from cemeteries, the Chinese trade in organs for transplants coercively taken from unwilling donors in prison, trafficking of children for adoption all over the so-called Third World, and so on. Just don´t say I didn´t warn you!
Styx is back in pirate mode, talking about plantains (which he learned how to cook by immigrants from Ghana) and the need for animal protein in your diet. And something about Ilhan Omar. Not sure what these rants even mean, but there you go!
