Rick's b.log - entry 2016/11/29

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FYI! Last read at 06:12 on 2024/11/24.

Random rants

...because my b.log is where I get to shout at the Moon, then grumble a lot when it doesn't shout back.

SHOCKER! Autistic people have emotions

Yup. Amidst the sorts of lunatic ideas that place "autistic" people as a subhuman species from another planet who is able to fix a broken typewriter or snap a kitten's neck with equal empathic response, we discover that such things are in fact... a load of crap. We know this because SISSA (Italy) and the University of Vienna actually did a study in which they determined that autistic people really do have feelings and are just as messed up as the rest of us. Something that should have been really really really obvious.
May I suggest a new, potentially more useful, study into why we seem to be putting our futures into the hands of egotistical lying loudmouth dickheads?

REVELATION! The moon might cause earthquakes on Earth

You know, rubbish like this is what gives science a bad name.

You see, the tides that we experience are a result of the gravitational force of the Moon. When the Moon is new (closest to the Sun) and full (opposite the Sun) we have higher tides; and when the Sun and Moon line up correctly we have an even bigger "spring" tide.
This, we have known for a long time.
And now? The "possibility" that the Moon might influence earthquakes.
Seriously?
The gravitational pull is sufficient to shift some 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000km³) of water, yet might not affect earthquakes?

Let me put two thoughts into your head. Things that seem extremely obvious to me.

Firstly - the core of our planet is molten rock. Every so often a volcano farts and Pierce Brosnan has to come and save the day, but one thing that we can see is that not so far beneath of is the kind of fiery weirdness that would make any religious depiction of hell seem boring. Our "solid earth" that we stand on is really only a colder crust, the outer layer that can't remain molten. Who is to say that the Moon doesn't affect the liquid rock in the interior of the planet?

Secondly - once upon a time, the land mass of Earth was a supercontinent called Pangea. Pangea was not the first supercontinent, it was formed progressively by earlier land masses breaking off and then crashing into each other. In the Devonian (~420 million years ago) when aquatic life first started to adapt to dry land, the world was very different to today. That supercontinent broke apart, everything moving until we have the world as we know it today. Parts crashing into each other have given us mountain ranges, so it is really a surprise that modern earthquakes, which have been devastating in human terms, have not been as destructive as to give us entirely new mountains. To explain what I mean, around 70 million years ago, the Indian plate separated from Australia and crashed into the Eurasian plate. Initially travelling at some 15cm a year, the resultant merging of these two plates gave us the Himalayas. The plate is still moving, a little under 7cm a year, and the subduction means that the Himalayas are actually rising at around half a centimetre per year. Estimates are that India will have travelled a thousand odd kilometres into Asia in the next ten million years. So if we could time travel to different geological periods (into the future, back to the dinosaurs...), the land configuration of the Earth will not resemble what we know.
Why does this happen? Because the solid land mass is really something solid floating on the molten core.
Now what do you think is going to happen if you take what is essentially floating, and regularly push vast quantities of water around? This has been shown to cause parts of the United Kingdom to "bounce" by more than 10cm in a daily cycle. Britain is fairly geologically stable, it isn't like the Pacific rim. So what effect do you suppose might happen with the tidal bulge around a geologically active area?

So, yes, the Moon does affect earthquakes. How? That's a different question, and is likely a complicated interaction of factors.

UNBELIEVABLE! Non-native English speakers don't know as much English as they think they do

So I was staring at a bag earlier today. A bag of "BACKING POWDER" (in big letters), and "Poudre à lever" in much smaller letters. Oh, right, they mean BAKING powder.

I've noticed some oddly literal translations on products at work, like "yellow of egg". Yup. That is pretty much a word for word translation of the name in French, but it is just wrong. It's "egg yolk" in correct English.
God forbid these companies should ever go and find an actual native English speaker who could tell them these sorts of things...

Don't get me wrong here - if my girlfriend said "yellow of egg", I'd probably think it was cute. If a company that isn't run out of a garden shed writes such things on their boxes, it just looks lazy to everybody who knows the correct word (which will be most of the people those words are aimed at).

IDIOTIC! Brexit Bull

While the sky hasn't fallen in quite as George Osborne predicted (which is logical, as the prediction was based upon Article 50 being signed - so technically Brexit has not even happened), the government are on one hand saying there is a fiscal shortfall of billions of pounds, while on the other pointing to the FTSE100 (which is mostly internationals) as evidence that everything is fine. The bleating sheep will carry on telling themselves that everything is fine while prices rise in the supermarket (can't you hear it? nothing to do with brexit - shameless profiteering!) and the prediction that by 2020 the working person's wage will have the purchasing power of a wage in 2007/2008. Which is like a decade of growth slashed off of people's pay packets.

But this isn't giving the retards pause for thought (of which I suspect they are incapable), they are now quoting the government's dumb leaflet that said "This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide".

Fair enough. That was the government's promise.

Now in a photo swiped from the Daily Fail (that is even more antagonistic towards us Remainers as I am in this blog posting), I present the Brexiteers promise:

I do not care that Farage "admitted" on TV the very day of the result that the number was "a mistake". That was known long before, but Vote Leave (the official campaign, not whatever the hell Trump's lap dog was doing) was quite content to drive all around with that bus stating that figure. That was your promise.
If you expect the government to keep their promise and implement what the people have decided (regardless to the obvious consequences to the country), then I fully expect the Brexit government to provide exactly £350,000,000 per week to the NHS.

Which, of course, will be interesting as that figure simply doesn't exist, and various groups are starting to realise what the EU has been supporting that they have taken for granted that it will be up to Westminster to support in addition to this non-existent £350,000,000 per week to the NHS.

You do realise, I hope, that that is £18,200,000,000 per year? Which in a country of approximately 64.1 million people means the NHS promise amounts to about £280 per person per year. Where the hell do you think that money is going to come from?

I don't know. I don't care. I just want to see the Brexiteers honour their promise, or STFU.

And for something non-ranty...

It's almost here - the Advent Calendar tinme of year. As is tradition, an opening video every day.

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	Rick's b.log - 2016/11/29
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