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Other topics / Re: What are you doing right now?

« on: May 23, 2016, 12:10:33 PM »

A little earlier was now. Last week while weed eating and cleaning up the yard, I scared a poor momma bird on her nest who had chosen a patch of grass I was dealing with that hadn't been cut since last growing season. Scared me to death when she flew right by my head out of what seemed no where in that grass. I carefully looked and there were around 10 to 12 eggs in her nest. I was very careful not to disturb the nest nor even touch it, I just looked. I was afraid she had been so frightened that she would not return to her nest.

Later that evening I looked and she was back on the nest. Yesterday I looked from a distance and she was on her nest. This evening I looked and she was gone. In the nest, all the eggs had hatched, which you couldn't see while she was sitting on it. She has left her nest now with her chicks to raise them ever how she will.

I would hope sometime in the coming year she might return to do it again. 

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Food / Re: Food tips, tricks, hacks.

« on: May 23, 2016, 10:38:57 AM »

Put some pieces of lemon in the fridge to reduce the bad odor.

I have other ways I do this because it lasts longer. One is that you can buy a small box of baking powder, open it, and leave it in the back of your fridge and it will absorb odors. My mother used to do this.

I do it another way. Take a paper towel, put two briquettes of charcoal in it (like the ones you would use for an outside grill) and let the charcoal rest on the paper towel in an area out of the way. The charcoal will last many months. You'll know when it is time to change it as mold will show up on it when it is time. If you forget about the charcoal then the mold may become heavier but it always starts with a very small, thin, patch and that is when you change the charcoal. This works for fridges that are in storage and unplugged as well as those in use.

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UFO / Re: About the so called 'Wow! signal'

« on: May 23, 2016, 05:57:10 AM »

There's another point of speculation that falls in with your stones analogy. But availability of stones was never the issue. Energy and labor required to convert the stones into usable items that lasted was. Even the best materials in use at the time, which were predominately flint, obsidian, for spear, knife, hand axe, and scraper tools, dulled. Requiring rechipping to sharpen. Everytime you rechip the edge, you take the chance of destroying the item. Actually making such a tool was likely a several days job provided you had the materials at hand.

Bronze was an advancement that much like electricity of our own time, changed forever civilization. Mainly because it was slightly more durable than stone, you could sharpen it without fear of destroying it in the process, and it could be molded into needed forms much easier than stone could be worked. The hold back on steel was reaching the needed temperatures to actually work steel. It was the great tech barrier of the time. A standard fire can't reach the heat needed to make steel molten.

There has to be the assumption that every 10 or more generations there comes along an Einstein.  Our history seems to say this, with a role call of brilliant minds forever changing the future once the value of the discoveries were recognized. Often that value was delayed for other purposes but eventually even delay can not prevent recognition; such as Galileo. I would tend to believe without proof, that the mutation factor that creates these incredibly creative people is not just genetics or we would have long ago at some point in history have discovered this and then had a civilization that based it's ideas of proper morals and usefulness to justify forcing the mating to produce such. One thing the earth has that seems unusual is radioactives in abundance. Not to mention the passage of cosmic rays as well as the occasional solar disruptions that reach the earth even through the Van Allen belts at the poles. Without the Van Allen belts and the Ozone layer earth would never had had a chance to develop life and sustain it. For much of the same reasons I tend to think that any life, not just intelligent life will never be found near the galactic core of any galaxy. The stars are too close to each other and one going nova would sterilize all in the surrounding neighborhood. What life we do find is highly likely to be in the outer fringes through to the middle of the arms, in spiral galaxies and unlikely to form in clusters due to the higher chances of unruly neighbor stars in such a formation, because the dimensional aspect. In spirals they tend to be flat and linear but in clusters, they have the chance to be anywhere nearby. The outer fringes of clusters being the exception, where stars are again not as densely packed.

Back on topic, even with the stone age to bronze age, it was a tech advance requiring a higher energy in order to advance. Bronze required heat as well as the knowledge to mix tin and copper. As long as trees were near by, bronze could be created. But when all the trees in an area were cut, it was either move to find more wood or have the materials brought to them. Especially for early civilizations this proved problematic. Not only did you have to have a steady flow of food coming in but of raw materials as well. Those civilizations quickly reached a point where the raw materials were no longer close by cities. If history is correct, many of the early civilizations died for the lack of materials and energy to keep the level of civilization maintained. This is how important energy is and what the results is without it increasing to maintain the current level, which always demands more as the city/civilization grows in population, all wanting their part individually.

It doesn't seem to much matter what the level is technology wise. If our growth and resource demand is typical of any civilization, then no matter what is invented, there will always come a plateau. A point where more and more people demand the same level of comfort and convergence as the haves. Population expansion will consume it all, given time.

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Food / Re: Food tips, tricks, hacks.

« on: May 22, 2016, 11:31:35 PM »

Over time honey tends to crystallize. You can remove the crystals by putting the jar in hot water.

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Food / Carrot Cake

« on: May 22, 2016, 10:14:48 AM »

Carrot Cake

Ingredients

2 c flour
2 c sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 c oil
3 c carrots, grated
1 1/2 c chopped pecans
1 medium can pineapple, crushed
1/2 c raisins

Directions

Mix dry ingredients, add oil, eggs, carrots, stir in nuts, pineapple, and raisins. Pour into a greased and floured cake pans to prevent sticking. Bake at 350 F. for 25 to 30 minutes.

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Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Colleagues, friends, users, why don't you post more?

« on: May 22, 2016, 05:46:53 AM »

Mojo you're talking deep, sweet and it's a pleasure to read and reread your post. The only thing I wish to explain is that it's not exactly true that

I'd like to point to a couple of things that are the drivers behind my statement. There are always exceptions to every rule. Large sites just take longer for it to hit them than smaller sites that don't have the viewership to spare.

The first point I'd like to make is the life cycle, not just of forums but of all on line sites.

◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈

◈ The Early Days: The website provides one service and provides it well.

◈ The Growth Period: People recognize that the website's service is excellent and flock to it.

◈ Maturity: The websites' creators are elated with their new found success and seeking to improve their services, begin to make performance upgrades, updates, design changes, and create new exploratory features.

◈ Bloat: The site is no longer growing at a rate it once was. Creators start to implement predatory features that return greater revenue return per visitor or it morphs into a complicated and burdensome site that offers greater services than just the one they did well. This continues until the last step is reached.

◈ The Autumn Years: People start to notice that the site no longer provides the one service they care about as well as it used to and they start looking for a competitor that will provide that one service and do it well.

◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈

The second point I wish to make, comes from a series of posts by webmasters, dated some 2 years ago, in their experiences with running sites, particularly forums.

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4641876.htm

Make note that they are not just talking about the present date at the time of the posts but also of a past history going back as much as 10 years.

◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈

This is offset by other nations and countries coming into better economic futures but they aren't as populous on the net as the earlier first world countries as their economies continue to grow and expand. It does provide a cushioning effect where inquiries into growth, look not that bad while continuing to shrink over a greater period of time.

◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈

Lastly I would like to make mention of higher ranking sites that now don't do forums but rather are condensing responses from well planned to such as twitter with it's 140 character limit. A well known and researched topic on this matter is that it seems concentration and attention spans degrades with longer internet usage. This in turn is likely to lead to the masses leaving what was once a well developed way to communicate as well as learn.  The link I provide is but one of many. 

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Other topics / Re: Captain America

« on: May 22, 2016, 04:08:34 AM »

I read your another post about El Nino. It says it's raining now over there in Texas.

I'd like to ask about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_Civil_War

How do you like it? Some more opinions around you? Is it well accepted in the US? It was currently one of the best watched films around here, according to what  I saw on a cinema TV yesterday or the day before yesterday!

I have not yet seen this newest film but did watch the Winter Soldier. One of the things that gives me a bit of amusement, is that this is entertainment. There is nothing really factual to it beyond having used authorities in their fields of expertise to set the stage for the tale. Yet often you find people on the internet that try to use the entertainment as some reference to defend their stance behind some question or discussion as being relevant.  Thing is to accept the premise of the movie, one must always suspend what they know of the real world to engage in the entertainment. Otherwise it becomes total nonsense with no value.

Many people around the globe see these products of Hollywood and believe this is the US as they have seen it with their own eyes. What they do not realize is everything they see is very carefully staged to present the very opinion they believe. Only rarely is there ever something in a film that was not purposely planned, right down to the placement of the feet, the clothes, the background, and even the lighting and sound. You are presented with what looks to be a complete image. No one ever questions why someone of limited income as presented in such a frame of reference, would have the things they have access to. You see someone who is supposedly poor, who has all the modern conveniences of life in the background, has all the time in the world to do whatever the film takes you to, and the methods available to get them there, without consideration as to costs; as an example.

I say this so as to dispel the magic presented on the silver screen. By all means accept it as entertainment. But do not use films as background for factual. It is highly misleading.

Where I live there are no theaters. So I won't see the latest greatest when it first comes out. I will see it much later. Given that, I can't really comment on a movie I haven't seen yet.

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UFO / Re: About the so called 'Wow! signal'

« on: May 22, 2016, 03:40:25 AM »

The musings are quite limited in nature about power consumption, admittedly. There are however some standards and the fact that we are talking alien, in which all bets are off as to what is/would be there. In this sort of topic, 'what if's' has a field day. It all comes down to some simple assumptions. .

► One is that the physical laws work the same everywhere within our universe.

► Provided they do then entropy is a real event to deal with. Everything eventually descends in energy level requiring replacement/renewal.

► We only know of one place life and even more importantly intelligent life exists. It's the only model we have, we know works. All outside it is speculation.

► We seek to discover and ultimately communicate in some manner with alien life. Can't do that with an intelligent mushroom. They have to advance to communicate.
Besides answering the question of "Are we alone in the universe?" it is the driver behind such projects as SETI, Voyager, and the Pioneer spacecrafts.

► As civilization advances technology wise, our model shows it requires ever more energy/resources to sustain it. History seems to affirm that.

► Energy consumption both provides heat releases as well as the use of resources that are limited as non-renewable. Either you find a replacement or decline in level of tech/advances.

► At some point you reach a plateau, where all available energy isn't enough to sustain the present level. This is where the Dyson Sphere is the conjecture of necessity.

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Internet / Re: Warnock's dilemma (100% true for Mojo's posts)

« on: May 22, 2016, 02:55:49 AM »

*Blushes*

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm not sure how respond as I find myself sort of ill equipped to deal with recognition of this nature.

"On many internet forums, only around 1% of users create new posts, while 9% reply and 90% are lurkers that don't contribute to the discussion. When no users reply, the original poster has no way of knowing what lurkers think of their contribution"

Alexa refers to the well known participation rule of 90/9/1. It's odd that it should be brought up here as it is also mentioned in a place I go to that is very private in nature on the net but populated by good folk, just as is found here.

See the 90-9-1 rule. What if we could get rid of the 90%, and turn that remaining 10% into a 100% ? That's exactly what we're trying to do here.

This is from the FAQs but sadly I may not link to it because the site would deny access to the link.

⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄⟃ ⟄

I would like to grab the moment here to thank each and everyone of you. It's rare today to find such a combo of fantastic, well informed people, at one site. It's been an absolute pleasure to be here. My time grows short and I do hope to return sometime soon. No one can accurately predict the future continuously so time will tell how things are.

Thank you all for providing such welcoming and fertile ground.

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UFO / Re: About the so called 'Wow! signal'

« on: May 21, 2016, 12:14:21 AM »

  Even it's a wrong hypothesis, it's still good science and methodology. I do support this experiment.

This is how science works. It is the repeatable, provable by anyone, that advances science. Anyone can make a guess or a hypothesis but  it is the ability for someone else, somewhere else, to do or see the same thing under the same circumstances, that changes something from guess work to advancing the way we understand our universe to work.

That means bad science as well as hunches are all thrown in there with the properly researched. Only the provable will eventually rise to the top as accepted. It might take hours, days, years, or in rare cases centuries to prove and verify.

We are still looking for evidence of Dyson Spheres. Put forth by Freeman Dyson, the idea that a civilization is held back by it's ability to obtain, alter, or comsume energy. That an advanced race at some point should attempt to capture the energy output of their star. To an observer from a distance, it would either look like a dimming of the star's light output all the way up to a star disappearing in the visual light emitting spectrum but would still be there in the infrared.

In the latter case, such an example would be detectable by us for a long distance, as long as we could see the star in a telescope. In the former case, we are now reaching the ability to detect this as we search for exoplanets with space telescopes. The degree of resolution to do this is simply astounding in the terms of instrument sensitivity.

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Food / Tilipia

« on: May 20, 2016, 11:33:15 PM »

Tilipia

Ingredients

4 tilipia fillets
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup grated parmesian cheese
1 tbs hot horseradish

Directions

Take a baking sheet, cover with foil, use cooking oil or other butter/oil for non-stick to the foil. Lay out fillets on the foil. Mix the other ingredients in a cup.

Cook fillets by broiler until nearly done. (depending on thickness and how close your fillets are too your heat source.) Roughly about 7-10 minutes. Pull out fillets and butter with sauce. Return to the broiler and cook till it just starts to turn brown.

Simple but good eating with easy clean up.

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Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Colleagues, friends, users, why don't you post more?

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:36:29 AM »

I did not for a minute think that the thread referred to me personally. I like many of the more interesting active people on the internet have opinions. I will freely share those where they are welcome. I can't say I will always agree but by and large I will share the reasoning behind it when I do post and it is needed.

You folk here have treated me well and probably for that reason alone I've stayed and contributed. It's always a two way street when you begin somewhere new. Not only does the site have to accept you; you have to accept it.

When your account is new, it's easy to maintain that post per day business. But it doesn't really mean much because RL tends to interfere with on line presence and the longer the account is active, the more subject you are to having occurrences that will prevent you from posting, bringing your average down. Such is life and the posts per day don't tell you of this. Like much else that is tried to improve activity, I tend to call it e-penis stuff. The idea that a post count or approval rate by posts really mean something. They don't. It's the communications where you connect with your potential readers that do mean something.

Posts that have interest I find more and more here. You folk tend to go off and actually research items to learn more about it and in this you are similar to many of the better and well informed sites, as opposed to those that depend on splash value and click bait to keep their numbers up.

While forums are on the decline compared to many of the instant gratification sites, such as twitter as example, this sort of format is more in my interest and enjoyment.

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Food / Re: Food tips, tricks, hacks.

« on: May 20, 2016, 12:37:28 AM »

When a stick of butter is called for I don't buy it in sticks, I buy it in tubs. Normally when they want it melted, I'll put spoonfuls in a cup as needed and then warm it in the microwave. Quick and easy.

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Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Colleagues, friends, users, why don't you post more?

« on: May 20, 2016, 12:22:57 AM »

Under normal circumstances I can be quite active. As it is my presence here, like most of you, isn't limited to just here. Usually I am just as active some place else as I am here. So there is the time factor.

Forums hold a special place in my heart. Maybe it is because I cut my internet teeth on them, learning as I go. Forums have the advantage you can take your time in responding, usually when used properly to give a quality post. Unlike chat where the at the moment is more important than the contents. Quality posts take time to organize, as opposed to a crap post given in the moment. I'd rather have one quality post than 10 crap posts. Volume of posting does not always equal better.

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Other topics / Re: What are you doing right now?

« on: May 20, 2016, 12:12:31 AM »

Waiting in the rain to quit. El Nino has given us much needed rain. Normally at this time of year we are starting water preservation measures as it is arid country. But El Nino has changed the weather patterns and given us much needed rain. A few nights ago, my weather station gave a reading of 3" of rain over night. It started raining this morning and so far we've exceeded 2" of rain for the day.