Rick's b.log - entry 2024/10/07

Hello?

As he has a friend that spends weekends with him, I called today to do my usual periodic catch up. And I received a rather unexpected message which was that my call cannot be completed. I tried calling from my mobile phone, just in case the VoIP was glitching or something, and that time I received a message saying that the number does not exist.

Huh?

I've just written a quick note asking if he has changed his telephone company, and if so, could he give me a quick call to let me know his new number. I'll post it tomorrow.

That being said, it's hard to avoid the obvious possibility. Old people and... well... you know. So I'm going to hope he found a cheaper phone deal, his number changed, and he forgot to let me know...but...

Tilley?

The drain is done

ADHD and sleep

Anyway, one of the questions was:

• Is there anything you want to improve about your sleep?
  • Difficulty falling asleep
  • Waking up tired
  • Waking up during the night
  • Unstable sleep schedule
  • Insomnia

That really need to have the following question:

   According to your sleep schedule,
   do you see yourself being gaga
   by the time of your retirement?

   [Yes] [Yup] [Definitely] [Oh hell Yes]

The other questions were the usual sorts of things: Procrastination? Do you finish things you start? Easily distrac...oh shiny!

Mood adjustment basket

Hey, don't complain. One of you guys cooks fish in the microwave. Shall we talk about that?

Of course, going to take this photo was practically an invitation...

Writers have no sense of scale

While this is acceptable in Jurassic Park because the premise is bringing dinosaurs into modern times from DNA samples, in a film where <gobbledegook-sci-stuff> allows people to travel back in time to a world of dinosaurs, it is pretty inexcusable to make such a painfully annoying mistake.

Absolutely lovely scenery, but I don't think GenieAI knows what a Stegosaurus is!
But, yeah, I'd sit and watch that sunrise too.

Why? Let's dig into this a little deeper. First of all, the time of the dinosaurs is not the "Jurassic". It is actually called the "Mesozoic Era" (approx. 252 to 66 million years ago) which comprises of three distinct time periods:

• Triassic (~252-201Mya) was the first of these, bookended by extinction events, in which reptiles were the primary terrestrial lifeforms, leading into what's perhaps best described as proto-dinosaurs (or just big lizards) towards the late Triassic. The land mass started as the single lump called Pangaea, but this was starting to break apart.
  The Triassic ended with a mass extinction event, possibly triggered by massive volcanic eruptions as Pangaea started to break apart. It did a number on terrestrial life, and in particular ravaged ocean life (possibly acidic run-off?).
• Jurassic (~201-145Mya) is the second period, and this is when dinosaurs as we knew them best came into being. Global temperatures rose, to have forests growing at the poles and arid deserts closer to the equator - a global greenhouse climate with much larger amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  Pretty much the only terrestrial survivors of the extinction that ended the Triassic were the dinosaurs, however the time period saw the appearance of early mammals and crabs. Most of the lifeforms had names ending in "saurs". Dinosaurs on the land, Pterosaurs in the sky, with Ichthysaurs (weird fish-like thing) and Plesiosaurs (underwater dinosaur) in the water.
  The plant life was largely conifers and ferns. Which is good because dinosaurs of this period were primarily plant-munchers.
• Cretaceous (~145-66Mya), the longest of the timescales of Earth running in at a vast 79 million years. Plant life evolved from simple ferns to flowering plants and cosequently plant life exploded; as did insect life. Ants and termites date from this period.
  Dinosaurs ruled the earth, and with growing diversity of mammals, some dinosaurs decided they preferred things with a heartbeat to munching the greenery. Early, the mammals were like rodents, but later on things closer to marsupials (think kangaroos and opossums) evolved. Reptiles, having developed a taste for fresh meat, became the apex predator of the time, the most famous of these being the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Velociraptor (only it wasn't, see below).
  The Cretaceous, the Mesozoic, and the age of dinosaurs came to an abrupt end with a mass extinction event that is currently believed to be a big-arse lump of rock (10-15km wide) punching into the planet and wiping out around three quarters of everything (pretty much if you had four legs and were over 25kg, you were screwed).

The Stegosaurus was a late Jurassic plant eater. It was around for around seven million years, 152-145Mya.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a huge scary meat eater of the late Cretaceous. It, too, was around for seven million years, 72-66Mya.

The Velociraptor is the fast nasty one that primarily lived in what is now Asia at the end of the late Cretaceous. It was only around for about four million years, 75-71Mya. In reality raptors were around 1.5-2 metres long with a body mass of 15-20kg, so rather than the capable monster seen in the likes of Jurassic Park, think instead of a really pissed-off Canada Goose aiming to tear chunks out of your body. The creature in the movie is actually a thing called a Deinonychus however Michael Crichton decided to call it a Velociraptor because he liked that name more and, well... it's just a movie, it's not intended to be accurate!

Did you notice the dates? The latest Stegosaurus was 73My before the earliest Tyrannosaurus. Literally, it was fossils and gunk in the ground before the Tyrannosaurus even existed.

Which means that this picture is more realistic than having a Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus in the same place. After all, it's only been 66My since this thing lumbered upon the planet, so it's seven million years closer in time to us than the Stegosaurus. And, yes, the fact that it's another seven amount isn't missed on me. You could make up a lot of numerical bullshit based upon these coincidences, put them into a book, and call it a religion. ☺

If this is your Final Boss, just give up.

Following the end of the Mesozoic is the Cenozoic era. I say "is" and not "was" because it's the current period. And while the dinosaurs may have seemed to have lifespans in the order of 4-7 million years, with the age of dinosaurs (the Mesozoic) spanning about 51 million years, it is worth putting this in context by considering that modern humans (Homo Sapiens) only showed up around 300,000 years ago and we lived alongside Neanderthals until around 40,000 years ago, Denisovans until around 52,000 years ago, and with various other types of humanoid.

Our behaviour changed to something more humanlike (as we understand it) around 160,000-60,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution, when we transitioned from hunter/gatherer to agriculture and settlements, was only 13,000 years ago.

Writing, in cuneiform script, developed around 5000 years ago and at the time we were capable of building the Pyramids and figuring out astronomy. Early Modern English, the sort of English that we'd be likely to understand and be capable of speaking (being after The Great Vowel Shift) is Shakespearean, it's a little over 400 years old.
Before that, Middle English which sort of looks like really weird English.
And before that? Would you even recognise Old English as being English? See for yourself.
And all of this came after Jesus (if you believe that story) and the Romans!

In short, the entirety of human existence on this planet is less than a third of a million years, and what we would understand as modern humans is... not even a rounding error compared to the timespans of the dinosaurs.
The giant lizards had their time in the sun. Now it's the turn of the hairless apes.

And the really cool thing? While people might have made fun of semi-spoof books like a dinosaur field spotter's guide, we now know that dinosaurs still exist and they're all around us. Remember that next time you're looking that noisy sparrow fussing at you, you're looking at an actual dinosaur, and technically it's a feathered flying reptile.
Which means that while the golden age of dinosaurs was the Mesozoic, they're still around so they in various forms have made a good quarter of a billion years. Versus our puny little third of a million. And the way we're going, we're likely to have screwed up the planet and/or ourselves so much that honestly it'd be a miracle if we make it another millennia or two. Forget climate change, I'd be worried about the degree of microplastic contamination of our own bodies. A study earlier this year suggested that our brains were around 0.5% plastic by weight. What. The. Actual. F.....?!?
[reference: Guardian article]

Anyway, the tl;dr version is that there's no way in hell you'd get a Stegosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus appearing together in any reality that ever existed.

Your comments:

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David Pilling, 8th October 2024, 12:41

ADHD is one of those things - didn't use to exist now common. Maybe we know more than we did then. Maybe people suffered in silence back then. Maybe fashion. Maybe the need to keep re-describing the same stuff to keep people in a job.    They have recently discovered fluoridation of the water supply is not as effective as it once was.    Humanity may be a moving target.    Many sources of Tilley lamp spares on 'net.

David Pilling, 8th October 2024, 12:53

I imagined as a kid humanity had got some things worked out, like how people behave. Or don't put things into the environment that will cause lasting damage.  I did not expect constant change, for everything to be totally different in a few years.  Must have been boring for the dinosaurs.

jgh, 8th October 2024, 23:57

I so empathyise with you with the sleep whing. I've gone as far as asking my doctor for something to recommend. I got a pot of mild sleeping tablets, that didn't work. I don't want to try anything stronger what with that being the easiest way to accidently go too strong. What I really need is some sort of switch to just turn my body off for eight hours.

jgh, 8th October 2024, 23:59

I remember, possible a radio show, a comedy skit:  We've got this new treatment for Attention Deficit Disorder. it does:  OI! (whallop!) SHUT UP! SIT DOWN!

Gavin Wraith, 9th October 2024, 17:21

You probably will not want to hear this: I am lucky and fall straight into slumber as soon as my head hits the pillow. I often remember what I have been dreaming, at least for a few minutes after I wake. There is a definite geography of my dreamscapes, and I can use it to fall asleep. One entry, for example, is a shady path along a dried-up riverbed that goes through an empty village. The sound of the wind in the trees makes it seem as if I am in a boat. You can begin the process of falling asleep by bringing the images and sounds into your head. When they come of their own accord, you are asleep.

Rick, 9th October 2024, 18:41

Oh, me too! The geography part, that is. I do not recognise the usual locations in my dreams from anywhere I'm aware of having been to.  For many years I used to think that the locations were just places devised for my dreams, but every so often a new bit will be exposed and I'm like "oh, so this part connects to that part". There are numerous places that I still haven't linked together, such as the railway station that ends with the old tunnel, but I'm pretty sure it's all related in some way.

Rick, 9th October 2024, 18:44

I have sleeping tablets. Some sort of anihistamine stuff. I've figured out the useful dose is a *quarter* of a tablet. That's enough to get me to fall asleep and not feel entirely wrecked in the morning.    I tried herbal Nytol when I was in the UK, and it didn't really put me to sleep any faster, and it gave me some pretty impressive nightmares - and not the good type.

Gavin Wraith, 9th October 2024, 19:22

When I was small I used to have a curious nightmare. It involved two infinite straight lines in empty space. The closer they were the more anxious I felt. At some age I used to dream of looking up at the sky and seeing alien spaceships: "they have come at last", I thought.

Rick, 9th October 2024, 23:14

Whoa, Gavin... Tormented by Geometry. That's new.    As for the aliens, I never believed in any of that for the basic reason that if they have the technology and ability to travel such vast distances, why the hell would they come *here*? It's surely just Human Hubris to think they'd be interested in this little lump of rock and it's bovine inhabitants.

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