(20170517)
Looking at things differently.
After
a life of working (on and off) (mostly off) in the Australian bush I
have an uneasy relationship with that particular example of natural
environment. The things that impress me most are the same things
that (according to their diaries) impressed the early settlers who
arrived on the beach in Western Australia in the early 1800's,
culturally compromised by their pianos and the legacy of the mother
country. (Must've been tough.) Those things are (and you can
flick them on the fingers of one hand) :- heat /flies/ dust
/monotony and isolation. Set them against the enervating monotony
of the bush (arguably more grey than green), unrelenting blueness
(sky&sun) and the fiery redness of the Earth and you get the picture
of the heartland of Australia. Nice, isn't it?
(framed by the computer screen). And it is too, in winter.
Try it in 40-50 degree heat in the summer in 360 degree reality
whichever way you look, while trying to catch a breath between every one
of them. (Any softness in it derives from relief from that
experience of summer when it fries you! Till you get used to it an
any rate, and are thus prepared for the '"She'll be right, mate"
signature statement of the Ozzie Cockie - the gate, (Bruce, I'll be bound) [and the cocky ozzie with the ozzie cozzy) ("don't you wish your beaches looked a lot like mine"]
.. held together by so many bit of wire it's like there's more
tumblers in it than the locks on the Bank of England. Combine the
heat, the gates and the language to go with both and you have the
signature statement of white Australia colonisation. (Why do I get
this picture of the one-legged noble savage standing by, spear in hand,
asking what we are doing?)
I can honestly say that any natural
softness there is in it, of itself, lies (in my limited experience), in
its indigenous people. I find it odd, therefore, as to their
choice of the sun (as "giver of life") as the centrepiece of their flag
when surely water would would be more appropriate. [I do
struggle a bit with the sun (in the summer), giver of life or not.]
Flag. As for the black (for the aboriginal nation)? Something
then about resilience and pride I guess. But you know what they
say about pride, so maybe we can settle for just some, and call it
self-respect, but it's edgy, .. edgy. Sounds
to me the dominoes are a little bit round the wrong way in many things,
particularly when one overshadows the other and refuses to budge.
Anyway, sun and water, .. we can split it, sun above,
water below. Or maybe left and right doesn't matter, .. surely
both have to be in there somewhere as partners in this small matter of
'life' and its meaning in this big brown land - when it comes to
nourishing little brown black grey green blue and white 'seeds'.]
Yet there *is* beauty
in that harshness. You see it more as you get older. One I
find is when you happen to be driving into the sun just after it has
set. Slivers of cloud just above the horizon divide the sky, ..
'sea' below, sky above, .. while further below the land darkens against
encroaching night. With a flip of the mind the road
ahead changes. The horizon shifts up into the sky, still ablaze in the wake of the sun to the fingers of cloud
enclosing a tropical blue lagoon and a harbour of sorts. You can almost see boats
moored, .. or at least easily imagine them, while between the promontories of cloud lies the open sea, .. above the harbour the pink and gold of smaller clouds tinged with grey.
Now
the road bends, taking you down to the sea.
The encroaching night and the heat of the day is behind you. In front lies this glowing sheltered
harbour of no ships, no cranes, no piles of containers, no
gasworks, and no docklands of dystopian denizens.
It's a rural fishing village, Mediterranean probably, an ideal in the mind's rosy glow of a simpler
time.
Funny how the mind switches like that to look at thinks differently. It
lasts for about fifteen /twenty minutes before you have to snap out of
it and remember that the reality is still hundreds of miles away and
night is falling, and you had better switch on lights and pay attention, .. but
for a few minutes there is a window to a different reality.
Truck
drivers will know exactly what I mean. Maybe even wonder what it was was
that pushed the aborigines away from that welcoming sunset coast and
made them wandering souls in the crispy conurbations of bushy
vicissitudes. And the Innuit people of northern climes, pushed
likewise into the icy wilderness where Frankenstein and the monster he
created perished, abandoned and homeless on the altar of
a "young girl's hideous imagination"
that every year peeves schoolchildren who have to do it (so they do English rite). Or for that matter the Wandering Tribes of Israel in
the Arabian desert, whose bloodthirsty genocidal family
history became the touchstone of the civilised western world - a
bounty that spawned the diasporean Scottish deal-maker, Donald-the-Trump
who has invoked those ill-fated perambulations of Middle-Eastern folk
(religious? - or just tribal) as a means of exorcising his curse of
compulsive electioneering, but alas appears to have been scotched in his
plan by the unravelling of his not-so secret dealings with that other
card in the pack, Vlad-the-Putin, .. known for the boot when he's not
impaling his political foes on poisonous chemicals of one sort or
another (Link added) - and pallying up to birds of feathers similar to himself.
All
of which is to say that 'truckies' and different ways of looking at
things (or not), the more things change, the more they stay they
same. 'Twas ever thus.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
An experience in virtual reality
[From the archives]
Tuesday (20160801)
I had one yesterday when I went up to the park. Don't rightly know what to call it. Amusing? .. Surprising? .. Puzzling? Discombobulating certainly. The footpath was packed with people. This is a pic from google images, probably on a weekend, but not so different in impact. How come[?] on a Monday, about 1pm. "Something's going on here," I thought. "Monday isn't a day people flock to the park." Moreover there were no kids, or oldies that could be identified as 'parents, or (more likely being a Monday), grandparents. These were all people in their teens, twenties, and some obviously in their thirties. The weird thing was the way they were all standing about like at some meet, .. sort of moving on the spot, or drifting aimlessly, like stalks of seaweed in underwater camera view. Well there they were, .. all staring at their mobile phones. What's going on? Nobody's actually walking, or strolling in any purposeful way. Just sort of 'being' there.
Then (reality check) it hit me. Don't tell me! (It had been in the news.) Pokemon Go.
Then I had the ^%$^%# !! experience.
"Wha'.. the F^%* !! "
These were grown-ups. 'Pokemon', as I understand it from finding out, is something like collecting number plates on cars, or train names, or footballers from breakfast cereal packets. [Trains, .. Ah, .. what a blow that was to a nine-year-old when these terrifying, rushing, hissing, belching monsters spitting cinders and setting the grass on fire on hot summer days were taken out of service and went diesel, then electric.]
But still, nine-year-olds versus adults. Why weren't they at work or where/whatever they were supposed to be doing (on a Monday)? (Chasing little virtual cut-outs around indeed? Is somebody pulling my leg? (Another reality check - How much does it cost to play this "game"?) Is this how people "connect" these days? The adult version of collecting cards of footy players? Is this what you get from eating vegemite? At least when you were nine you had to actually make some sort of a "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" transaction, and actually talk to people; maybe even recruit a third to see if their collection could help. I didn't see anybody talking, or doing anything that looked like making a swap. No point I guess, if everybody already has all the 'cards'. So what exactly is the point? I mean other than to test how best to co-opt people's attention. First the hardware, then the software. Yes, I know it's a bit, .. (of me), .. but if this is not a cause for concern over the malleable simplicity of simple people's simple minds, then I don't know what is, .. because it's not only demonstrating what can be done, it's revealing the substrate on which it's doing it.
Not long ago Google got complaints for changing the lettering on its search page to make it look like a three-year-old's colouring book, and there are increasing comments generally around 'infantilising the public space'. It can't be infantilised, if the potential for infantilisation is not there. Ergo, ..
We've already had a week recently of reminiscing 'Playschool' on public radio in adult prime time, then followed by a week of broadcasts on pokemon, and now (also in the last couple of weeks) (on public radio), 'up-speak' is catching on. Again. Upspeak (/uptalk), .. also known as valley-girl talk, Doesn't it piss you off? It's almost as bad as the craze among yesterday's upper school and university students, of speaking like teletubbies. Sadly for some and annoyingly for many this has left its legacy, particularly among many professional women whose need for security and belonging has proved to be unshakeable.. And not least (and certainly not last), is the detestable proliferation of "vocal fry" - sizzling the vocatives in bacon fat, when they're not being snorted down nasal passages like turkey-gobble. All revealing the nature and the power of social connectors, the age group of their appeal, and what this reveals for the way society is headed. With the score equal at half time (after 2,000+ years) will religion make a come back? .. or will it succumb to the greater power of infancy, as, ..nappies trailing, .. yesterday's cohorts make it into the snuff of old age.
The problem is (in my view) about all of this 'child education' stuff, if you reflect the child back to them on their own terms, peppering it with baby-speak, then that's what you get in the transition to the adult world (teletubbies, bananas in pyjamas etc), .. with some never to make it. Can't blame them (for standing around like seaweed) (looking at the 'abacus' in front of them - trying to work out what it's all about). It's exactly the same with religion, reflect back to people their own Pride and Prejudice (and fears), and you have them in the palm of your hand. It's the salesman's golden rule; find out something about you and work it so you 'identify'.
Who among us has never been 'souled'?
[Ho no, .. you'd never catch *me* with *that* one!]
Religion, ..organised religion, .. is ignorance dressed to the nines with official significations [1] [2] in case people don't get it, .. that it is *power* - enormous power. Born by warrant and the innocence of people it eventually draws to itself the authority to suck their blood in some cosmic sociopathic gyre, eventually presiding over them like some genie, until, held by their common bond (that must not be broken) they find themselves in subjugation, fealty and fear. ("One Ring to rule them all..") ("Kiss it.") [Pope F. seems to be breaking the mold though. Good.]
A bit strong? Not if you lived five hundred years ago before there was separation of Church and State over 'here', or at the present day over 'there' (where there isn't any).
Here's Len again, with his take on it. [Since Len, protests have caught on a bit, but not a lot.] I think the idiosyncrasies he's talking about is what musicians would call a 'hook', and it derives from the tribalism of the schoolyard (particularly girls') [Len's right there, about this tribalism being a 'girl' thing, and related to lack of confidence in many cases, but more than that to a need to belong ] but hang in for his last point, he's not so far wrong - in time we'll all be hopping and bopping (or swaying like seaweed) to the same app., with as much confidence as the 'in-your-face' mobile phone you're looking at gives you (however much that might be) which is not a lot, as far as I can see, from the number of people with their heads down, buried in it 24/7).
["Lack of confidence" indeed. There's too much (empty) confidence going around, if you ask me. which is why there's all this teletubby-speak, upspeak, and world-weary groaning-speech trying to make an impression. Speech used to be a very powerful means of communication, now all the communication of value is carried in how, not what, (it) is said ("like", .. innit?)
Gotta go. (You got this far?) (Can't be so wide of the mark then.)
[Hang in for the mark of the Never-Ending Stowee.]
"Ï'll be back."
[I see in this update some of the more impressive pictures are either not making it to Google's search, or have been removed. Read More? ]
-------------------------------
Connecting links (=> "The Great Regression ")
Globalisation and 'being sold' ("Sneaker Culture has arrived!")
The increasing infantilisation of popular culture => [1] [2]
(Define who you are by your tatts, studs, and bovver boots.)
[Globalisation (good listen) ]
--------------------------------
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Clive gets a Clue about ..
The Man in the Moon came down too soon
.. and asked about his dinner.
The scorpion replied, "I've eaten it Clive,
...you'll have to get used to being thinner."
.. and asked about his dinner.
The scorpion replied, "I've eaten it Clive,
...you'll have to get used to being thinner."
Fig.1. The circumglobal mountain belt widening hugely towards the Pacific. [Who can spot the crabby, cock-eyed crazy, coming out of its shell?]
Text and subtext. There is something both biblically and inescapably pythonesque about a 'majority-of-one', (namely me and a mere handful of others) confronting a monolithic consensus of believers in Plate Tectonics in some sort of 'David-and-Goliath' struggle. It's a contest of geo-logic based on direct observation of the crust versus a hypothesis of geophysics based really on what amounts to denial of its own evidence, namely the architecture of the ocean floors based on earthquakes and magnetism. However the outcome is assured : death by a thousand cuts, .. or in this case, by a thousand slingshots.
Sitting in the front row and all agog to witness this pitiful contest (and I hope there's more than one) are your good selves. Behind the action are the cheer squads. Goliath's corner is absolutely chockers with all the professional Earth scientists, an informed public (incl. teachers, teachers' pets, students and schoolchildren) and a media responsible for science communication, .. all convinced of scepticism as a modus operandi [I did check for "operandum" but found I was revealing my ignorance of the genitive case (latin)] for rejecting "seeing-is-believing' cognitive norms of common sense and geo-logic. In the other corner, unwashed and unabashed, is a rent-a-clash mob who are just full of boos whenever the case-positive for common sense is advanced, whatever end of the ring they judge guilty of transgression.
The contest is over the fact of the wysiwyg "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" :-: the 'seeing is believing' trap - and the even bigger trap you get into when trying to work your way around it. In other words the particular fact that the Earth's surface is constituted of 1/3rd continental crust and 2/3rds oceanic crust, and that the 'wysiwygglie' (that the mantle has broken through the crust making its outer shell, i.e., its surface area) (and therefore by default its volume too) (and by further implication its mass as well), bigger (/greater), leads to the conclusion [tantamount-to-factual-observation, i.e., not a hypothesis) that the Earth's surface was once constituted entirely of a continental landmass that was the sum of those continental fragments we see today, .. and therefore that it was once smaller by those oceanic extents.
Even more pythonesque is the vegemite and lemon juice that Goliath and his cohorts have smeared themselves with, and, thus suitably decorated, they are declaring themselves to be (and paraphrasing only slightly to give vernacular clarity). "Outsiders without a geological clue", .. and "not needing one". [Not to mention the spinach between the teeth.]
Here's the libretto for this pantomime :-
".. Carey had long since bluntly told the structural geologists that they were working on second order features. Structural geologist did not take this kindly. Many of them were among the most famous of geologists and they had climbed the great mountain ranges of the world and discovered fantastic over-thrusting with offsets by stunning amounts.< .... > These were the geologists who legitimately speculated on the origin and history of the largest-scale features. These were the ones who were studying the deformation of materials in laboratories in order to apply scientific rigor to the interpretations of field observations. Now, outsiders with no credentials in structural problems were having the effrontery to say that their work had little bearing on the gross deformation of the earth. They didn't like it. However the people who would develop plate tectonics in the next few years, would not be structural geologists nor need to become such. " H.W. Menard (1986), The Ocean of Truth, P.232.And here's the cheerleaders in the Royal Box :-
"The development of plate-tectonic theory certainly warrants a Nobel Prize," said Dr. Marcia McNutt, president-elect of the American Geophysical Union. "There is no doubt that it ranks as one of the top ten scientific accomplishments of the second half of the 20th Century." [Link, and scroll down to last para.]
... a claim that was unfortunately rejected. "Unfortunately", because had it been accepted it would have given definitive weight to the point of these essays, which is that virtually whichever way we turn people behave as if they are are nuts, labouring under an illusion of confidence that would put them on a par (at least) with ...
So there we have it, .. David, Goliath, and the Bankrobber(s). Could there be anything more expressively pythonesque of the dans macabre being executed along the journey to wherever it is we think we are going? Fortunately (being always a bit behind the eight-ball when it comes to societal trends)(America being the undisputed exemplar and right at the front of the pack), we are excused this particular spectacle, so the proxy contest continues.
Earth expansion or Plate Tectonics,... it doesn't really matter. In a reversal reflecting the destabilisation that an enterprise such as this can have on you (i.e., me) the geological arguments have become the subtext to these pages. They are not important except insofar as they do illustrate gratuitous contention: they can be dealt with in about ten bullet points ('slingshots' repeat link) (that is, if it is necessary to go beyond the first commonsense one mentioned above (about the 1/3rd - 2/3rds). What is *really* on display is a superlative example of sheer incompetence, gullibility, and overweening hubris - understandable for a 'majority of one', but positively epic for t'others.
So is it mine (and the aforementioned 'handful') for attempting this expose? .. or that of everyone else's, ..namely the acme /acne of academic achievement and all others who have been content to be led up the garden path like children by a pied piper, .. and by implication that there is more than a kernel of madness implicit in the workings of the 'logical' brain.
Thematics :- (Dead parrots in the marketplace) (and why we laugh at them).
The text is therefore the weight of silliness and shame that accompanies this contest - and by extrapolation much of societal affairs, manifest as I edit this (immediately post-Helsinki), by the precipitous descent into lunacy and mayhem exemplified by the Trump phenomenon) (but equally, as often as not, by the 'stories' that have come to replace what once was known as "news" ). The subtext is the offering of Earth expansion over Plate Tectonics as a template for illustrating this 'parallel evolution'.
Even without a single fact in the hand, just the imbalance of numbers is good reason enough for asserting any substantially minority view to be trivially irrelevant and therefore justifiably ignored, .. an easy target for the "j'accuse" of any majority who would be threatened by a charge of incompetence and egg-on-face. On the other hand I quite happily wear that egg if it encourages readers to be more critical of the tripe we get served up, both scientific and societal, the dictates of which somehow come to be promoted as acceptable norms but are actually cancerous outgrowths from it.
Whether in science or anywhere else logic doesn't balance well against consensus majority, no matter what is said about it being the facts that count. Facts didn't matter to the seminal achievers of the Big Ship who took beaming pride in being "outsiders" who regarded their geophysical achievements as unquestionably surpassing the banality of boots on the ground.
Going by his choice of syntax in the above quote Menard is enjoying a moment of shadenfreude, saying not only that the facts of the Earth's surface geology don't count, but that they are trumped anyway by the assumption of convection, in which oceanic crust is everywhere moving sideways on the backs of convection cells in the mantle. Five to ten centimetres of basaltic material are being intruded every year into a fracture in oceanic crust at one end of the Earth in response to its descent into the mantle at the other end - with absolutely no expression of deformation in between, despite it having been fractured to Kingdom Come and its effective strength (geologically speaking) being a heap of rubble - and despite the continental crust (the target of this laid-back behaviour of ocean floors) having been battered to buggery all its life as a result of "collisions", .. and showing the abundant scars of it while the rubble of the ocean floors curiously show none, except for what has occurred half a world away at the relatively passive end of this 'behaviour' at so-called 'spreading ridges', where deformation is said to have preceded the growth of the entire oceanic crust.
The problem so far as the facts (and not theory) are concerned is that those scars are nothing like what results from either extensional or compressional deformation such as are invoked for "slab-pull" (at the subducting end) or "ridge-push" (at the 'spreading' end - if everything geologists have learned in centuries about deformation of the crust is to hold. The reason there is a problem is that geologists have forgotten their history and the debate around whether compression and extension are horizontally paired ("in the plane of the Earth's crust") or vertically related to gravitational collapse. They have not realised, still, (or perhaps conveniently choose not to acknowledge) that the traditional conflation of folding with "mountain building" is wrong. Properly integrated with the recent creation of the ocean floors and the reconfiguring of Earth's surface curvature to accommodate this, the fact of folds and mountains are logical proof of an Earth that is getting bigger.
It is truly remarkable (/astonishing) that virtually *nobody* on the consensus side of the fence will venture into an area that the geological facts are telling us is the only geo-logical interpretation of the Earth's surficial evolution. A more graphic example of the workings and the power of consensus group-think would be very difficult to find, particularly since scientists are (supposedly) our truth-tellers. [Check.]
Unless of course, it is the domain of religion and the assorted houses managing this menagerie.
Menard continues :-
["The Principle innovation was the introduction of the concept of the ridge-ridge transform fault and its implications. It was exactly the same concept that Alan Goode had generated when he also analyzed the motion of a spreading ridge with an offset (Fig.9I). The simple fact is that no one had ever published anything about two sections of ridge connected by a fracture zone before. I doubt that anyone had done any serious thinking about the subject.] Those of us who thought in terms of convection, an overwhelming majority, visualised a vast overturn of the mantle and flow rising and spreading under ridge crests, or spreading as ridge crests in the sea-floor spreading model. It was hard to conceive of a flow pattern with giant convection cells rising under each section of ridge offset by a fracture zone. Perhaps that is why Hess could not believe that fracture zones were related to ridges. In my endless sketches of cross sections of ridges, I always thought of them as straight."(p.245)[Not sure what he means by that last sentence. Straightness is a direct, self-evident fact of ridge segments, but if you are a believer in convection you might well have a problem with their relationship to transform faults ("dominoes" again). On the other hand Hess's noted view is intriguing because the view here is that they are and they aren't (related), which is another way of acknowledging relationship while excluding any causality such as convection would imply.]
And again :-
".. The discussion was brief, but it offered Vine [of the Vine-Mathews hypothesis] the occasion to refer to convection cells as "presumed" and "mythical." Certainly, the many problems related to convection that had been troubling the conference members would have been solved by eliminating convection entirely." (Ibid. p.276.).. from which we can see a degree of caution tempering Goliathan hubris which got him wrong footed and which has since been purposely ignored leading to the outlandish, suggested imposition on Mr Nobel's goodwill. Hence the need for this challenge (and some slingshots).
Geologists at the time (but somehow not since) of course objected to this charge of 'ignorance' by geophysicist outsiders. Menard again, recounting a meeting in which Sir Edward ('Teddy') Bullard (of "The Bullard Fit" for the reconstruction of the Atlantic) was lecturing and "preparing to be an active convert to continental drift") :-
"Professor W.D. Gill "regretted the lecturer's [Bullard's] assertion that geophysical theories like continental drift were not obliged to consider the facts of structural geology." Taking the disagreements of geophysicists into account, geologists might well pin their faith on such facts instead of the meaningless concept of drift of "ludicrous" palaeogeographic reconstructions based on palaeomagnetism. It was remarkable that drift had to be linked to convection, which was no more than an "attractive speculation." "The lecturer in reply" [Bullard] gracefully backed down on his remarks on structural geology. p.229 =>[There is good reason Bullard backed down. In another (auto?)biographical account he also refused to endorse Plate Tectonics when it came to a casting crunch. Note to find ref.]
Although Menard appears to be taking a tilt against structural geologists in general, his target was actually Carey (cit. above) who by the time B.S. Plate Tectonics began to appear on the horizon (1960) had been forcefully arguing the case for Earth expansion for years before the evidence from oceanic research became available to support his case. Where Menard's argument was centred in the oceans and essentially ignores the continents, Carey's arguments comprehensively incorporated both and features of the Earth's rotation as well, that Plate Tectonics simply ignored (and still does), happily referring instead to "pots of soup on stoves as analogues for convection. (=> images)
Menard died from cancer in 1986, the same year as his book Ocean of Truth was published. Cancer is a disease that usually gives some time for putting affairs in order, so in view of his untimely death the inclusion of the word 'truth' in the title of his book reads rather oddly. It isn't a word that comes easily to scientists at the best of times so to see it used like an exclamation mark in the title of a book documenting a seminal achievement "worthy of a Nobel Prize" is arresting, given that the dynamic it is laying claim to is very much hypothetical and could be much improved by ignoring it altogether. Either Menard is staking an unambiguous claim on behalf of the convectioneers crewing the Big Ship, or by overstatement ("truth" - almost a taboo word in science) is intentionally hinting at competence overreach by the said outsiders [in which he was prepared to include himself], thereby allowing a subtext of sorts to be read between the lines of his narrative, and was couching this with due deference to the sensitivities of others then mostly still living. To my reading there is very much an ambiguity in parts of his narrative that does not entirely mesh with the declarative certainty expected of a claim of 'Truth' made on behalf of Plate Tectonics.
By letting the players speak for themselves at critical points in the story he appears (without in any way lending direct support to expansion), to be nevertheless ambiguous enough about the matter to let the reader see the depth and motive of argument (not always favourable to Plate Tectonics or its proponents), while at the same time as if to compensate for this revealed 'depth' he seems to feel it necessary to put the word 'truth' in the title. It is not always clear which side of the debate he intends that word to favour. Which could have been his intention.
So I read Menard's use of the word "truth" as playing a dual role, on one hand signifying a partisan statement for the ostensible record in order to cover revealed weaknesses in Plate Tectonics, and on the other (by a kind of titular exaggeration) to imply that the story might not be all it claims to be. Inserting such a word into the title does make me wonder if he might be indulging in some 'dogwhistling' towards others still living (but who soon might not be), ... giving a clue, .. lighting a fuse with posthumous intent.
Reason? Because this drive towards establishing convection as a mechanism for geodynamics was not "dispassionate science revealed", but a deliberate determination to sink Earth expansion, for which at the time there were indeed sympathetic views, and there was much, even as Plate Tectonic theory was being developed, that didn't gel with this (P.T.) theory - but did fit with Earth expansion. Perhaps in the ten years of writing his book and with death looming, Menard was coming to see the force of Carey's argument more clearly, and was coding his narrative accordingly (with a little hint in the title).
The Admirable H.H.Hess (1962):-
"..While this [expansion] would remove three of my most serious difficulties in dealing with the evolution of ocean basins, I hesitate to accept this easy way out. First of all, it is philosophically rather unsatisfying in much the same way as were the older hypotheses of continental drift, in that there is no apparent mechanism within the Earth to cause a sudden (and exponential according to Carey) increase in the radius of the Earth. .." [..This, despite mutinous murmurings from his own crew about "mythical convection" without which "The New Global Tectonics" would be much improved.] ["Easy"? So it is, .. which reflects the extent of the deliberations needed to reject it. [d.f.][The second reason was about the extra water needed - see Hollywood Cowboys post]
Helped by the Editorial Board of American Scientist (who "continue the occasional publication of essay-reviews that treat topics at greater length than our space limitations ordinarily allow") R.L. Armstrong, reviewer of Carey's second book, Theories of the Earth and Universe, 1988, offered up a 'good cop - bad cop' sledge :-
"This is not a dispassionate scholarly work on the history of a science. It is a personal statement, at times autobiographical, and to a considerable degree self-congratulatory. It captures the essence of the man himself, his strongly felt views, his bold style, his favorite themes and cherished whipping posts, and his evaluation of his own role in the revolution that has taken place in earth science over the past 50 years. < ... >
"S.W. Carey is a brilliant and original thinker. We honor him for his ideas but at the same time see in him the pathology of genius. He has operated at times on the fringe of science, belatedly achieving recognition for his original ideas, eventually slipping out beyond science. He was fortunate to have played a major role in one scientific revolution. Contributing to two revolutions in one lifetime may be too much to expect." (Amer. Sci., Volume 77, 382-384.) Full text available here [link]Consensus majority has advantage just by sheer weight of numbers, and disparagement can be used mercilessly. I'm not quite sure what he means though by "the pathology of genius". If I were one I might be able to untangle this ball of threads the cat brought in, .. work out in what sort of order all these 'dominoes' are supposed to go. Anyway, .. I don't think he was a genius at all if all he was doing was arguing for common sense against a cabal trying to screw hypothetical denials out of observed fact.
J.T. Wilson :-
"From 1930 to 1960 a scientist who supported it [continental drift by convection - d.f.] knowingly committed academic hara-kiri. S. W. Carey of Tasmania, a major figure in igniting the [continental drift /plate tectonic revolution] could not get his papers published in reputable scientific journals in the 1950s. "He had to run them off on a mimeograph machine and distribute them himself," Wilson says. [http://virtualmuseum.seg.org/bio_j__tuzo_wilson.html ] [By 1956 Carey had rejected convection as "unworkable on a global scale" - d.f.]Also, "igniting a revolution by committing academic suicide" is a strange way to acknowledge Carey's achievement, when all that is levelled against him is a litany of ad hominems under the cover of grudging credit for being a "major figure", while across the board nothing whatsoever in half a century has been mentioned in the mainstream press of his reasons for doing so, nor for his geological arguments against Plate Tectonics. [This video dated 1982, was posted in August, 2017 by the Libraries board of Tasmania. d.f.]
Dunning-Kruger (repeat link) is a red light to anyone who considers "using the juice". So forget it. Nail your colours to the mast and take the consequences. Anyway, change doesn't happen by force of argument regardless of how compelling are the facts or how competent the advocate. The socio-economic 'political milieu' must first be engaged and cultivated (/"massaged") before an idea will take root, usually by propaganda, or as Menard says, "roadshows") (also), .. when it is then arguable on which side of the divide the volition for change lies - that of the person trying to do the changing, or that of the person being asked to nail themselves to the mast. Being "before your time" is like being still-born, committing suicide without having lived.
But lather on the juice if it helps. It worked for Goliath - for a time, .. till his bluff got called. And maybe it will for me too. All three of Carey's books [1] [2] [3] comprehensively debunking Plate Tectonics have been ignored by the mainstream Earth science community despite not one countervailing argument ever having been presented in a public forum (afaik).
The Challenge. So, putting it out there. Let's see which 'knights in white satin' are game to eat spinach, draw Excalibur from the stone, use the juice, and challenge the heresy of Earth expansion on geological grounds. "No mechanism" [about mass and how it is created] is the only charge thus far. Is it a valid one? I don't think so. However I don't understand anything at all about the world of quantum physics. I don't even understand light, or electricity, particularly when we go through the alpha point of the atom into the 'peas-in-a-football-park' subatomic space. And from the best of my understanding it would appear I am not alone, despite the many marvellous things we can do with both. If it wasn't backed by the respectability of the BBC I would read this as a somewhat cynical sledge [8/9 minutes in - or better, listen from the beginning] leading to a conclusion that the whole of the standard model of physics needs discarded and started over. Not bad for the destination reached by a worldful of physicists, .. drawing a blank like that.. after half a century of building on the achievements of the atomic bomb, .. ..
[Something here about filling out the envelope compared to breaking through it.]
As I've said elsewhere I don't even understand why fluff sticks in my navel, but I get the distinct impression that people are going about physics in ways that are disconcertingly similar to the way they went about Plate Tectonics - by consensus majority. There's just something about the way consensus works that doesn't gel with the needs of science. .. ..
Dunning-Kruger is a sword that cuts according to which edge of it has the deficit of competence, so whoever takes up the challenge had better be prepared for oblivion-by-egg-on-face.
Some see Plate Tectonics as a crown jewel. I see it as fairy floss. I think it is a classic case of deliberate, cooked up, serendipitous 'intellectual' misadventure. In simpler terms a disingenuous con-job of the eleven-fingers sort, backed by institutional power. If there is any 'brilliance' in it, it is the laser-like warning spotlight flashing on it and other similar examples of how we willingly let ourselves be led up the garden path by con-artists and despots of all sorts - with the purpose of ripping us off of what meager social capital we manage to hold on to, all in the interest of (when it is boiled down) the corruption of what 'money' is supposed to be all about, .. namely the basis of fair exchange, leading to common wealth.
[Trump had still to be elected when I wrote that bit. But he's only the fall guy. There are many similar casualties of pathological narcissism - and hubris.
Like me for doing this? Keep track of the argument and see. ..
"Want to see a magic trick - how to turn ten fingers into eleven? "
< holds out both hands, fingers stretched > :-
"See, .. ten."
< then clenches fists and releases fingers one after another and counts >
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six"... .. and five's eleven".
"Wow! That's got Talent. You're not British by any chance? "
" .. Want to see it again?"
... Vegemite, spinach, .. (and lemon juice). .. .
[ =>J.O's Obit. =>J.O.'s Eureka =>Slabmen =>Fl Sub. =>61 ]
Monday, April 3, 2017
Space dust is not an option
[Repost from earlier edition. (way back - check date)]
(Expanding on tweet here. )
Earth enlargement by the accumulation of space dust won't work. It's a tempting idea if we think of the planet accreting from planetisimals and that infall is just a continuation of the same process that got the planet together in the first place, but it fails on simple mass considerations.
If we could roll the entire crust up like a carpet, including the crust of the ocean floors, and shove it down into the mantle, it wouldn't make one whit of difference to the size of the planet. That is, everything that ever fell, together with all redistributed sediments, as well as carbonate precipitates, volcanic extrusions and intrusions, and granites derived from the Earth's interior (which really shouldn't be counted at all) , ..the whole lot, .. from the Archaean to the present day, it would hardly make any difference. Even if all of it were cosmic dust it would make no significant difference whatsoever to the size of the Earth. So there's no way dust accumulation from cosmic infall could have anything to do with the growth of the planet. Case closed.
Unless...
Unless the base of the crust is being resorbed into the mantle at the same time as stuff is falling on the top. But that can't be either, or stratigraphic sequence as we know it (right back to the Archean) would not exist. As things are, we do have continuity of stratigraphic sequence to the Archaean.
Nevertheless there's a certain logic in it that's appealing. Stuff needs to come from somewhere. And it needs to be added. So, what if we're just looking at the wrong scale? Could it be that cosmic infall is in the form of elementary atomic particles that are somehow swept up directly into the core of the earth, possibly via the magnetic field ? The Earth with its iron core rotating in the electromagnetic field of the sun's radiation is like a big electromagnet after all. And the atom comprises mostly space. And it is said that the size of particles to the size of the atom is something like the size of peas to a football park, ..or like the size of planets compared to the space between them. So the Earth is not as solid as it appears. At that scale there is plenty of space (theoretically) for particles to find their way through the Earth's interior even though to us matter seems impenetrable.
What is the interface that the stuff of matter must cross in order to have mass? What if once it has crossed it, mass is created out of mass? In other words, if mass 'grows', by a kind of cell division? We have seen how mantle material is added at the spreading ridges by cell division, ..So..?
[Added 20170404 :- See Gene Ellis's view on this who considers TIME could be the active ingredient. [Other links.]
But even though we might speculate on the process in relation to the mass of the Earth today, it has to begin at the beginning, and if we're going to have a mechanism to make the planet grow, then it has to be at least considered that it could be somehow related to the same process that created the Earth in the first place. And if for one planet, then for others too. This means that planet Earth cannot be considered in isolation, but as part of the family that includes the Sun and the Gas Giants. And we might as well throw in the Moons as well. It really gets to be quite a can of worms, once we start thinking about it.
Not only that, but it leads us into re-considering the way that material organises itself, from subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to crystals, and the part played by structured symmetry in growth.
What is the nature of the 'interface', the 'bridge' between electrical force that binds the atom and the gravitational force that, across the atomic interface, organises mass into such huge lumps of stuff as a star? If we're looking for a mechanism for the creation of mass then it makes sense to consider how the particles that make up 'mass' (in whatever form we consider that stuff) come into being, and to clearly recognise and understand the realms of scale of the interfaces at which different sets of processes operate. [The 'interface' effect - the scale at which stuff stops being what it was before and becomes something else instead.]
These are not questions that can be answered within the scope of geology, but there is something about the 'immaculate conception' ('creationist') model of planetisimal accumulation/ formation, where an invariant mass of 'stuff' was there in the first place - always was and always will be, imbued with the mass and rotational characteristics we see today - that seems very iffy. The increase in the size of the Earth that is empirically observed yet for which there is no known explanation, is making it clear it is time to ask some hard questions of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, that is, if 'science' as promulgated by real scientists can rise above their extraordinary capacity for being masters of the college ( with their view that what they don't know isn't knowledge), and consider the evidence staring them in the face instead of ignoring it - that the Earth is getting bigger. The evidence for, lies in the creation of the ocean floors (and all other Earthly parameters). The evidence against? .... lies in the hubristic assumption by scientists that this cannot possibly happen. Properly stated this should carry the riders, "there is no known way," ,,, and "within the bounds of understanding." Because when it comes to answering the really big questions we are still as babes in the wood goggling with fixed curiosity at what surrounds us.
Back to the future, flat Earth, and geocentrism.
(Expanding on tweet here. )
Earth enlargement by the accumulation of space dust won't work. It's a tempting idea if we think of the planet accreting from planetisimals and that infall is just a continuation of the same process that got the planet together in the first place, but it fails on simple mass considerations.
If we could roll the entire crust up like a carpet, including the crust of the ocean floors, and shove it down into the mantle, it wouldn't make one whit of difference to the size of the planet. That is, everything that ever fell, together with all redistributed sediments, as well as carbonate precipitates, volcanic extrusions and intrusions, and granites derived from the Earth's interior (which really shouldn't be counted at all) , ..the whole lot, .. from the Archaean to the present day, it would hardly make any difference. Even if all of it were cosmic dust it would make no significant difference whatsoever to the size of the Earth. So there's no way dust accumulation from cosmic infall could have anything to do with the growth of the planet. Case closed.
Unless...
Unless the base of the crust is being resorbed into the mantle at the same time as stuff is falling on the top. But that can't be either, or stratigraphic sequence as we know it (right back to the Archean) would not exist. As things are, we do have continuity of stratigraphic sequence to the Archaean.
Nevertheless there's a certain logic in it that's appealing. Stuff needs to come from somewhere. And it needs to be added. So, what if we're just looking at the wrong scale? Could it be that cosmic infall is in the form of elementary atomic particles that are somehow swept up directly into the core of the earth, possibly via the magnetic field ? The Earth with its iron core rotating in the electromagnetic field of the sun's radiation is like a big electromagnet after all. And the atom comprises mostly space. And it is said that the size of particles to the size of the atom is something like the size of peas to a football park, ..or like the size of planets compared to the space between them. So the Earth is not as solid as it appears. At that scale there is plenty of space (theoretically) for particles to find their way through the Earth's interior even though to us matter seems impenetrable.
What is the interface that the stuff of matter must cross in order to have mass? What if once it has crossed it, mass is created out of mass? In other words, if mass 'grows', by a kind of cell division? We have seen how mantle material is added at the spreading ridges by cell division, ..So..?
[Added 20170404 :- See Gene Ellis's view on this who considers TIME could be the active ingredient. [Other links.]
But even though we might speculate on the process in relation to the mass of the Earth today, it has to begin at the beginning, and if we're going to have a mechanism to make the planet grow, then it has to be at least considered that it could be somehow related to the same process that created the Earth in the first place. And if for one planet, then for others too. This means that planet Earth cannot be considered in isolation, but as part of the family that includes the Sun and the Gas Giants. And we might as well throw in the Moons as well. It really gets to be quite a can of worms, once we start thinking about it.
Not only that, but it leads us into re-considering the way that material organises itself, from subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to crystals, and the part played by structured symmetry in growth.
What is the nature of the 'interface', the 'bridge' between electrical force that binds the atom and the gravitational force that, across the atomic interface, organises mass into such huge lumps of stuff as a star? If we're looking for a mechanism for the creation of mass then it makes sense to consider how the particles that make up 'mass' (in whatever form we consider that stuff) come into being, and to clearly recognise and understand the realms of scale of the interfaces at which different sets of processes operate. [The 'interface' effect - the scale at which stuff stops being what it was before and becomes something else instead.]
These are not questions that can be answered within the scope of geology, but there is something about the 'immaculate conception' ('creationist') model of planetisimal accumulation/ formation, where an invariant mass of 'stuff' was there in the first place - always was and always will be, imbued with the mass and rotational characteristics we see today - that seems very iffy. The increase in the size of the Earth that is empirically observed yet for which there is no known explanation, is making it clear it is time to ask some hard questions of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, that is, if 'science' as promulgated by real scientists can rise above their extraordinary capacity for being masters of the college ( with their view that what they don't know isn't knowledge), and consider the evidence staring them in the face instead of ignoring it - that the Earth is getting bigger. The evidence for, lies in the creation of the ocean floors (and all other Earthly parameters). The evidence against? .... lies in the hubristic assumption by scientists that this cannot possibly happen. Properly stated this should carry the riders, "there is no known way," ,,, and "within the bounds of understanding." Because when it comes to answering the really big questions we are still as babes in the wood goggling with fixed curiosity at what surrounds us.
Back to the future, flat Earth, and geocentrism.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Notes
(20170506)
Nice juxtapositions by GEOLOGY_page and the Amer. Geo Soc. regarding volcanoes and where all the carbon dioxide comes from to make limestones.
The Big-So Questions :-
So, .. :-
Also in the image:-
Is there something smelly in the state of Western Australia (as well as Hawaii)? [Why Denmark I don't know. Cows? .. Who says. ..?]
Has humanity's humility overtaken geological time as God's enigma code?
[You can continue this particular thread here if you like..]
=======================
( 20170504)
Translation from Gobbledegook
AGS : So what are you doing?
We're looking at how best to advance land reform.
AGS : How are you going to do it?
According to need.
AGS : Is anybody else doing anything similar?
Dunno - we'll check it out.
AGS : So what did you get already?
That we're going to have to need the public on-side.
=======================
(20170414)
Blocked or muted (not unfollowed) by GEOLOGY_page. (= Culture of Muzzling?)
( 20170405)
---------------------
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/mount-etna-volcano-eruption-sicily/
There is also a kidipede, in case of "questions later"
http://scienceforkids.kidipede.com/
(This one's from the National Geographic .. )
Quote :- " The potential for danger increases as the region near the volcano becomes more actively developed. In the past 150 years, the surrounding population has nearly tripled."
... suggesting (to people like me) that it is us (and all the tweeting) who are awakening the wrath of Mother Earth. [Remember Pompeii (again) .. and that was just with a few carousing Romans after the death of Jesus Christ.] The Mafia had better pull its collective head in, .. methinks. And who can blame me [correlation = causation and all that].
[National Geographic as a teaching instrument needs to update its definitions on the mantle. Methinks that too.]
"All it takes is one person to comment that something doesn’t add up."
("Plates") ("Mountains" ) ("Erosion") etc.
========================================
(20170331)
----------------------
" ... Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources..." https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
------------------------
I see they've downgraded their position now to "extremely likely". It used to be a dead cert. Moreover, back in the early 1970's all this "climate-change" used to go by another name - the (then) newly fashionable 'El Nino'.
"Yeah? What's that mean?
"Jesus Christ!"
This expletive had certain resonance for me back in those days because being in the field in the lead-up to Christmas it used to get fucken hot!! And odds-on Christmas would be even fucken-hotter! .. well into the hot forties 'S'cuse the French, but it's appropriate. Recently it's hardly been cresting the mid-thirties. Back then when people greeted each other in the street (Kalgoorlie) it used to be with a "Hot enough for ya?" Nowadays the nice autumn days just slip into Christmas and much of January with hardly a curse.
I've never kept up with all of this "human-induced, man-made Climate Change", but there's an awful lot of 'science', media and public who go along with it. I've only ever thought, "If they go about their science on that score the way they did with Plate Tectonics, then we can take it all with a big pinch of salt". [A comment that some people are also wakening up to is also relevant to physics .]
I mean the human bit. Warming and cooling is the way the world does it for reasons which, if it isn't people who are to blame, then it's something else - and it doesn't really much matter what, because with our filling up the oceans with plastic bags and other contaminents, and pea-soup atmosphere in places, people really could do to clean up their act!! And the eco-friendly alternatives on offer are a no-brainer, get real, imperative. ASAP. As is the connection to financial expediency, on which governments generally could do to put their heads together (ASAP). Just think of that, .. how 'free' energy could be a real game changer in people's lives [Jeez! and you think Donald Trump's a problem .. That's one that could really do with thinking about, and a "Beware of what you wish for".]
[More fuckens. (You can do this in the field when nobody's listening, .. (swear your head off. :-) )]
It's only in about the last year or so that the consensus on climate change has been mentioning El Nino, and then with an almost embarrassed "Ahem, .. Ah, well, yes, .. it does confuse things a bit." [Several links here to include.]
I think we're getting closer to "The Reveal" and what's going on...
===========================
Nice juxtapositions by GEOLOGY_page and the Amer. Geo Soc. regarding volcanoes and where all the carbon dioxide comes from to make limestones.
The Big-So Questions :-
 |
| Somewhere in the Pacific (click for a bigfig.) |
1. Given that so much of the ocean floors is made up of 'bleeding blips' of lava, where does all the water for the oceans come from?
2. And so too, .. where does all the carbon dioxide (/SO2 etc) come from? (Cows farting?) (or the people who eat them) (i.e., bacteria)? Is it them, or us, or industry, or something much bigger altogether? ["Sometimes, .. all I need is the air that I breath.." say the trees and all living things that can call themselves vegetable.]
3. Talking of bleeding blips (and volcanoes) Why are the sensors for checking carbon dioxide levels for global warming on Mauna Loa (which is the biggest volcano in the solar system next to m.m.m.m Mighty Mons Meg on Mars)?
"We have confidence that the CO2 measurements made at the Mauna Loa Observatory reflect truth about our global atmosphere." (Link) [OoO.O.oh ~ I don't .. And a whole lot of tourists who go to Hawaii don't either. (Ah the hubris, the lemon juice and the egg-on-face) (The wh'whose wh'ho, ..th'hough - thar be the question (Boris).]
Also in the image:-
4. Why are there no volcanoes on the ridge (Not even under Noaa's icons)?And :-
5. Why are there not even any 'blips' on the ridges (under the icons either)?
6. Why are all the volcanoes aligned with the transform faults (and not the ridges)?
7. Why did the Noaa-Man blow the whistle?
8. Why do we have to pay for the smelly volcano with jobs? (say the miners) [" 'Coz God and yer gummint says yer a mucky mob (an' need a wash)]
9. Did the oceans used to be more acidic? [My carbonate-encrusted, silver-plated, oath they did! Never mind. Them wee thingies clean it all up and lay their boddies down in big layers for us to use ('cos God is a control freak who likes the look of us, .. except me for perpetrating malodour on everybody's happy Plate Tectonics.) [Don't know what he makes of that .. ..]
10. How does limestone form anyway (both sorts)?
Is there something smelly in the state of Western Australia (as well as Hawaii)? [Why Denmark I don't know. Cows? .. Who says. ..?]
Has humanity's humility overtaken geological time as God's enigma code?
[You can continue this particular thread here if you like..]
=======================
( 20170504)
Translation from Gobbledegook
AGS : So what are you doing?
We're looking at how best to advance land reform.
AGS : How are you going to do it?
According to need.
AGS : Is anybody else doing anything similar?
Dunno - we'll check it out.
AGS : So what did you get already?
That we're going to have to need the public on-side.
=======================
(20170414)
Blocked or muted (not unfollowed) by GEOLOGY_page. (= Culture of Muzzling?)
( 20170405)
---------------------
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/mount-etna-volcano-eruption-sicily/
There is also a kidipede, in case of "questions later"
http://scienceforkids.kidipede.com/
(This one's from the National Geographic .. )
Use slide bar to expand pic
And discover that the mantle is not molten, but is solid - which is why earthquakes can be recorded. The reason why it is molten is because the pressure (and all bets) is/are off. And everybody had just better look out. [Remember Pompeii.] Quote :- " The potential for danger increases as the region near the volcano becomes more actively developed. In the past 150 years, the surrounding population has nearly tripled."
... suggesting (to people like me) that it is us (and all the tweeting) who are awakening the wrath of Mother Earth. [Remember Pompeii (again) .. and that was just with a few carousing Romans after the death of Jesus Christ.] The Mafia had better pull its collective head in, .. methinks. And who can blame me [correlation = causation and all that].
[National Geographic as a teaching instrument needs to update its definitions on the mantle. Methinks that too.]
"All it takes is one person to comment that something doesn’t add up."
("Plates") ("Mountains" ) ("Erosion") etc.
========================================
(20170331)
----------------------
" ... Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources..." https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
------------------------
I see they've downgraded their position now to "extremely likely". It used to be a dead cert. Moreover, back in the early 1970's all this "climate-change" used to go by another name - the (then) newly fashionable 'El Nino'.
"Yeah? What's that mean?
"Jesus Christ!"
This expletive had certain resonance for me back in those days because being in the field in the lead-up to Christmas it used to get fucken hot!! And odds-on Christmas would be even fucken-hotter! .. well into the hot forties 'S'cuse the French, but it's appropriate. Recently it's hardly been cresting the mid-thirties. Back then when people greeted each other in the street (Kalgoorlie) it used to be with a "Hot enough for ya?" Nowadays the nice autumn days just slip into Christmas and much of January with hardly a curse.
I've never kept up with all of this "human-induced, man-made Climate Change", but there's an awful lot of 'science', media and public who go along with it. I've only ever thought, "If they go about their science on that score the way they did with Plate Tectonics, then we can take it all with a big pinch of salt". [A comment that some people are also wakening up to is also relevant to physics .]
I mean the human bit. Warming and cooling is the way the world does it for reasons which, if it isn't people who are to blame, then it's something else - and it doesn't really much matter what, because with our filling up the oceans with plastic bags and other contaminents, and pea-soup atmosphere in places, people really could do to clean up their act!! And the eco-friendly alternatives on offer are a no-brainer, get real, imperative. ASAP. As is the connection to financial expediency, on which governments generally could do to put their heads together (ASAP). Just think of that, .. how 'free' energy could be a real game changer in people's lives [Jeez! and you think Donald Trump's a problem .. That's one that could really do with thinking about, and a "Beware of what you wish for".]
[More fuckens. (You can do this in the field when nobody's listening, .. (swear your head off. :-) )]
It's only in about the last year or so that the consensus on climate change has been mentioning El Nino, and then with an almost embarrassed "Ahem, .. Ah, well, yes, .. it does confuse things a bit." [Several links here to include.]
I think we're getting closer to "The Reveal" and what's going on...
===========================