Saturday, July 16, 2005
Sweetness and synchronicity
Yesterday, I happened to catch a glimpse of myself naked in a full-length mirror, and inexplicably had the sudden urge to do the pose Venus has in Botticelli's most famous painting, "The Birth of Venus"
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/venus/venus.jpg
in which she emerges from the sea naked on a shell... and no, I do NOT consider myself to be of goddess-like beauty, nor am I in the habit of striking poses (trust me, few women pushing middle age want to spend too much time looking at their bodies). I thought amusedly, "That's me, Venus on a half shell," and then walked away and didn't think anything else about it, until...
That evening, my husband and I were talking about how people look for mates in the modern world, and, referring to our own meeting, he said, "I decided I wanted a woman, put in about 10 minutes of effort, and there, sailing in on a shell..."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, he's NEVER made that sort of reference, or any remotely related or otherwise exalted one, to me before, and no, he does NOT normally draw parallels to art, about which he knows very little, and no, he did NOT know about the pose I'd struck or the attendant thought I'd had earlier in the evening.
The synchronicity nearly knocked me senseless, but I managed to hug him and thank him for the sentiment (which is astoundingly romantic considering how long we've been together and that we're both geeks), and then to babble out what had happened earlier; he was amazed... so much so that when I said, "You know that CAN'T be a coincidence," my totally non-believing husband agreed, much to both our surprise.
Did I have the Venus thought precognitively, because he was going to say it, did he say it because I'd thought it and the energy of the thought was still hovering nearby, karmically speaking, or did it come from somewhere else entirely and we both just picked up on it? I dunno... but the connectedness of the 2 events is inescapable.
My husband is something of a clod as far as relationships go, as most male geeks are, but he did pretty darned well with this one; he manages a good line a time or 2 per year, and that's part of why I let him live when the rate of disasters caused by him becomes unusually high.
MY geekdom comes into play in this story too; when I found the pic of the painting online and looked at it, the way the legs are posed looked "backwards," and I couldn't figure out why at 1st, but eventually realized that the image in my mind was blended in with the cover of Robert Heinlein's book "To Sail Beyond the Sunset," which has artwork based on "The Birth of Venus" on it
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0441748600/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-5557992-2606304#reader-link
where the woman's left knee is turned inwards, rather than the right knee as in the painting... can you believe that I got part of the pose reversed because I've got a clearer mental picture of a scifi book cover that I haven't seen in nearly a decade (it's in storage at my mother's house) than of the famous painting I was envisioning?
Anyways, synchronicity strikes again... and brings with it the flattering realization that my husband still sees me as a goddess. Life is good.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/venus/venus.jpg
in which she emerges from the sea naked on a shell... and no, I do NOT consider myself to be of goddess-like beauty, nor am I in the habit of striking poses (trust me, few women pushing middle age want to spend too much time looking at their bodies). I thought amusedly, "That's me, Venus on a half shell," and then walked away and didn't think anything else about it, until...
That evening, my husband and I were talking about how people look for mates in the modern world, and, referring to our own meeting, he said, "I decided I wanted a woman, put in about 10 minutes of effort, and there, sailing in on a shell..."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, he's NEVER made that sort of reference, or any remotely related or otherwise exalted one, to me before, and no, he does NOT normally draw parallels to art, about which he knows very little, and no, he did NOT know about the pose I'd struck or the attendant thought I'd had earlier in the evening.
The synchronicity nearly knocked me senseless, but I managed to hug him and thank him for the sentiment (which is astoundingly romantic considering how long we've been together and that we're both geeks), and then to babble out what had happened earlier; he was amazed... so much so that when I said, "You know that CAN'T be a coincidence," my totally non-believing husband agreed, much to both our surprise.
Did I have the Venus thought precognitively, because he was going to say it, did he say it because I'd thought it and the energy of the thought was still hovering nearby, karmically speaking, or did it come from somewhere else entirely and we both just picked up on it? I dunno... but the connectedness of the 2 events is inescapable.
My husband is something of a clod as far as relationships go, as most male geeks are, but he did pretty darned well with this one; he manages a good line a time or 2 per year, and that's part of why I let him live when the rate of disasters caused by him becomes unusually high.
MY geekdom comes into play in this story too; when I found the pic of the painting online and looked at it, the way the legs are posed looked "backwards," and I couldn't figure out why at 1st, but eventually realized that the image in my mind was blended in with the cover of Robert Heinlein's book "To Sail Beyond the Sunset," which has artwork based on "The Birth of Venus" on it
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0441748600/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-5557992-2606304#reader-link
where the woman's left knee is turned inwards, rather than the right knee as in the painting... can you believe that I got part of the pose reversed because I've got a clearer mental picture of a scifi book cover that I haven't seen in nearly a decade (it's in storage at my mother's house) than of the famous painting I was envisioning?
Anyways, synchronicity strikes again... and brings with it the flattering realization that my husband still sees me as a goddess. Life is good.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Blogging can get you into trouble
And I don't just mean because it can suck up hours of time that you should be doing other things during, I mean because what you put in your blog could usually get you into hot water with at least some of the people you know. My friend Andrew, whose excellent blog is here
http://danweasel.com/
posted a link to an interesting article on this topic
http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/07/2005070801c.htm
and it makes many important points:
"The pertinent question for bloggers is simply, Why? What is the purpose of broadcasting one's unfiltered thoughts to the whole wired world?"
Sad but true; there ARE people who look askance at what we do, and look down on us for doing it... this is far from the only place I've seen this sort of thing said. I've even seen people who participate heavily in online forums and/or have conventional websites bashing bloggers, so even those that you'd think should be supportive of us can be actively hostile... and they don't wear signs around their necks to tell us who they are, so your best bet is to not tell people that you don't know VERY well that you're blogging. Then again, it's not uncommon to read about people whose family, friends and romantic partners found out about their blogs and freaked out, so it might not be safe to tell ANYONE... and that goes double if your content is even remotely questionable.
"it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process"
Sound advice, and part of the central theme of the article, which is to NOT tell prospective employers that you have a blog.
"Be careful what you let a close associate's blog say about you. What that associate sees as complimentary may cast you in an unflattering light in the eyes of a search committee."
In a more general sense, if people you know in "real life," or even people you've gotten chummy with online, are also blogging, keep in mind that anything they say about you, or that you say on their blogs, might be seen by people checking you out in the blogosphere... and if people know you blog, they might track you down even if you don't pass around your URL, and then everything you've posted, or that's posted about you, is fair game to be used against you.
"You may think your blog is a harmless outlet. You may use the faulty logic of the blogger, "Oh, no one will see it anyway." Don't count on it. Even if you take your blog offline while job applications are active, Google and other search engines store cached data of their prior contents. So that cranky rant might still turn up."
Excellent point... and it's not just potential employers who might be Googling you. Your friends, romantic partner, co-workers and family members might do it out of curiosity, that new hottie you just started dating will do it because everyone advises them to (and if you're a young person, their parents might be doing it too), and anyone who dislikes you or is envious of you might do it hoping to find some dirt.
"The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum."
This shows you how stupid and illogical people are; ANYONE can start a blog at any time, and say anything on it, but someone with an established history of NOT posting bad stuff about work should be seen as LESS of a threat, NOT more.
"We all have quirks. In a traditional interview process, we try our best to stifle them, or keep them below the threshold of annoyance and distraction. The search committee is composed of humans, who know that the applicants are humans, too, who have those things to hide. It's in your interest, as an applicant, for them to stay hidden, not laid out in exquisite detail for all the world to read. If you stick your foot in your mouth during an interview, no one will interrupt to prevent you from doing further damage. So why risk doing it many times over by blabbing away in a blog?"
And in general, people who don't know you well probably shouldn't be seeing your private thoughts and hearing about your personal life... and this may well include those co-workers that aren't also friends, no matter how long you've worked together.
There are some simple rules you can follow to protect yourself against negative consequences from your blog:
1) Don't use your real name; if your 1st name, or a nickname you go by, is remotely unusual or distinctive, don't even use part of your name... and if you think your blog won't be "real" if you do that, see my post of 7-8-05. Don't give the name of your school, workplace, or anything else that a search might be done on to track you down, either; why make it easy for potential troublemakers in your life to have access to your private thoughts?
2) Be aware that if you show your blog to 1 family member, friend, schoolmate, co-worker or member of any other group you're part of, it's almost certain that they'll tell others within that group, no matter how much swearing to secrecy you do with them, so if you don't want them all to know, resist the urge to tell that 1st person within the group.
3) Remember that people are rarely really secretive about their online visits, so everyone who lives with, or is ever in the home of, anyone who visits your blog might see it (if you're young, think "parents"), and if anyone at your workplace visits your blog, the boss or others in positions of power might see it; think about if it'd really be ok if those peripheral people saw what you write.
4) If there's a system available at your workplace or school for you to blog, DON'T use it unless you're required to, and then only post exactly what they want you to with no personalization... because even things that seem innocent or irrelevant to you may seem VERY bad to them.
5) Eventually, hopefully, laws will be put in place such that school officials and employers can't take any action against you for what you put on a blog that's not on their system, but until then, if people at work or school know where your blog is, show some sense about what you say about those institutions and the people associated with them... and even after then, remember that even if they can't take direct action, their disapproval of you can be expressed indirectly in a variety of ways.
6) If you're trying to keep your blog a secret from people you live with or share a computer with, be sure you haven't bookmarked it, or any blogs you link with or visit, that you don't use your URL in your profile or sig line at any forum you use, and that you're deleting your history file and the relevant cookies after you leave the blogosphere. Also, if you're storing your template and archives somewhere on your computer, as you should as a backup, make sure those files are password-protected and aren't named anything that identifies them as blog-related.
If your response to reading this post has been dismissive, if you think "It won't happen to me," unless you're relentlessly anonymous like I am, you're potentially setting yourself up; remember, every last blogger whose blog kept them from being hired, got them kicked out of school, fired, or led to misery between them and their significant other, family, friends or coworkers, thought the exact same thing. In direct interactions with people, we can tailor what we say to our audience, but with a blog every reader can see it all, and it's important to keep that in mind before passing your URL around; I don't want the next story I read about someone's life getting messed up because of their blog to be about YOU.
http://danweasel.com/
posted a link to an interesting article on this topic
http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/07/2005070801c.htm
and it makes many important points:
"The pertinent question for bloggers is simply, Why? What is the purpose of broadcasting one's unfiltered thoughts to the whole wired world?"
Sad but true; there ARE people who look askance at what we do, and look down on us for doing it... this is far from the only place I've seen this sort of thing said. I've even seen people who participate heavily in online forums and/or have conventional websites bashing bloggers, so even those that you'd think should be supportive of us can be actively hostile... and they don't wear signs around their necks to tell us who they are, so your best bet is to not tell people that you don't know VERY well that you're blogging. Then again, it's not uncommon to read about people whose family, friends and romantic partners found out about their blogs and freaked out, so it might not be safe to tell ANYONE... and that goes double if your content is even remotely questionable.
"it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process"
Sound advice, and part of the central theme of the article, which is to NOT tell prospective employers that you have a blog.
"Be careful what you let a close associate's blog say about you. What that associate sees as complimentary may cast you in an unflattering light in the eyes of a search committee."
In a more general sense, if people you know in "real life," or even people you've gotten chummy with online, are also blogging, keep in mind that anything they say about you, or that you say on their blogs, might be seen by people checking you out in the blogosphere... and if people know you blog, they might track you down even if you don't pass around your URL, and then everything you've posted, or that's posted about you, is fair game to be used against you.
"You may think your blog is a harmless outlet. You may use the faulty logic of the blogger, "Oh, no one will see it anyway." Don't count on it. Even if you take your blog offline while job applications are active, Google and other search engines store cached data of their prior contents. So that cranky rant might still turn up."
Excellent point... and it's not just potential employers who might be Googling you. Your friends, romantic partner, co-workers and family members might do it out of curiosity, that new hottie you just started dating will do it because everyone advises them to (and if you're a young person, their parents might be doing it too), and anyone who dislikes you or is envious of you might do it hoping to find some dirt.
"The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum."
This shows you how stupid and illogical people are; ANYONE can start a blog at any time, and say anything on it, but someone with an established history of NOT posting bad stuff about work should be seen as LESS of a threat, NOT more.
"We all have quirks. In a traditional interview process, we try our best to stifle them, or keep them below the threshold of annoyance and distraction. The search committee is composed of humans, who know that the applicants are humans, too, who have those things to hide. It's in your interest, as an applicant, for them to stay hidden, not laid out in exquisite detail for all the world to read. If you stick your foot in your mouth during an interview, no one will interrupt to prevent you from doing further damage. So why risk doing it many times over by blabbing away in a blog?"
And in general, people who don't know you well probably shouldn't be seeing your private thoughts and hearing about your personal life... and this may well include those co-workers that aren't also friends, no matter how long you've worked together.
There are some simple rules you can follow to protect yourself against negative consequences from your blog:
1) Don't use your real name; if your 1st name, or a nickname you go by, is remotely unusual or distinctive, don't even use part of your name... and if you think your blog won't be "real" if you do that, see my post of 7-8-05. Don't give the name of your school, workplace, or anything else that a search might be done on to track you down, either; why make it easy for potential troublemakers in your life to have access to your private thoughts?
2) Be aware that if you show your blog to 1 family member, friend, schoolmate, co-worker or member of any other group you're part of, it's almost certain that they'll tell others within that group, no matter how much swearing to secrecy you do with them, so if you don't want them all to know, resist the urge to tell that 1st person within the group.
3) Remember that people are rarely really secretive about their online visits, so everyone who lives with, or is ever in the home of, anyone who visits your blog might see it (if you're young, think "parents"), and if anyone at your workplace visits your blog, the boss or others in positions of power might see it; think about if it'd really be ok if those peripheral people saw what you write.
4) If there's a system available at your workplace or school for you to blog, DON'T use it unless you're required to, and then only post exactly what they want you to with no personalization... because even things that seem innocent or irrelevant to you may seem VERY bad to them.
5) Eventually, hopefully, laws will be put in place such that school officials and employers can't take any action against you for what you put on a blog that's not on their system, but until then, if people at work or school know where your blog is, show some sense about what you say about those institutions and the people associated with them... and even after then, remember that even if they can't take direct action, their disapproval of you can be expressed indirectly in a variety of ways.
6) If you're trying to keep your blog a secret from people you live with or share a computer with, be sure you haven't bookmarked it, or any blogs you link with or visit, that you don't use your URL in your profile or sig line at any forum you use, and that you're deleting your history file and the relevant cookies after you leave the blogosphere. Also, if you're storing your template and archives somewhere on your computer, as you should as a backup, make sure those files are password-protected and aren't named anything that identifies them as blog-related.
If your response to reading this post has been dismissive, if you think "It won't happen to me," unless you're relentlessly anonymous like I am, you're potentially setting yourself up; remember, every last blogger whose blog kept them from being hired, got them kicked out of school, fired, or led to misery between them and their significant other, family, friends or coworkers, thought the exact same thing. In direct interactions with people, we can tailor what we say to our audience, but with a blog every reader can see it all, and it's important to keep that in mind before passing your URL around; I don't want the next story I read about someone's life getting messed up because of their blog to be about YOU.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Speak of the angel...
When you talk about something, especially with intense emotion, karma often sends it to you, and FAST; it's with great pleasure that I announce that my little angel girl, the tiny squirrel that captured my heart a year ago, made it sing when she started taking food from me and letting me pet her, and then broke it when she suddenly stopped coming a couple of months ago, came for a visit today, and I was able to interact with her as before... she's still tame!! :-)
She'd gone from being a daily visitor for many months to not coming at all at the time our roof got replaced; I can't blame her for being freaked out, it freaked ME out having all those workmen and that insane racket. I didn't expect her to stop coming for more than a few days from roofing trauma, but her babies became old enough to leave the den right at that time, and it's possible that her instinct at that point was to stay right by them, eating only from her stored food; whatever the cause(s), it's been a LONG couple of months.
During that time, I saw her once on the fence, once running for a tree, and once sucking up a few bits of food before dashing off; during the long stretches of time with no sightings, my head spun with the countless horrible things that can happen to a little squirrel in a big world. In addition, I knew from the amount of milk she'd been producing that she had to have had at least the 8 babies that're an average litter for her species, but I only ever saw TWO, and I only saw them a few times over a period of about a week, and never again, so I've been agonizing over what happened to the bulk of her litter, and then to the precious babies that I saw all too little of.
Recently, food that we'd put out for the skunks that they hadn't eaten by daylight (they only come at night) started disappearing at some point during the day, and we knew that meant that at least 1 squirrel was coming when we weren't around; we put out more and more food, and still it was all getting eaten, which makes us hopeful that the babies are still around, just not coming when we're here... the mommy is legendary for making off with over a lb of food a day, though, so maybe it's just her-only time will tell.
Today, I spotted her, just barely, hiding back in branches that overhang the fence, and I went out with grapes for her, calling to her; as soon as she heard me, her little head popped out and she was craning to look at me, and as I approached the fence she ran down it, and was there with me when I got there. She took a grape without hesitation, but moved a little bit away to eat it. She came for another grape, and didn't move so far away to eat it. With the 3rd grape, she was sitting right by me on the fence to eat. With the 4th grape, she calmly allowed me to pet her while she ate. After a few additional grapes, she didn't want any more, but still stayed there with me for a few minutes while I continued to pet and talk to her; she doesn't react to petting in any way that I recognize, and she doesn't display affection, but since she was through eating and had a clear path back to her hiding area but didn't go right away, I can only assume that either she enjoys being petted, or cares about me in her small rodential way and allows it because she can tell *I* like it, or both... whatever the reason, my emotional bond with my little angel girl was renewed, and I was utterly thrilled.
I sometimes wonder what all this fuss about a little creature that isn't seen as a pet, or as being special to humans in any way, must seem like to people in other countries, or even to those in America who see a squirrel as a pest, or as food, people who aren't aware of how amazingly intelligent and bursting with personality squirrels are, or how utterly magical it is to make a connection with a wild animal. How can I explain how it felt when this minute animal, who because of her place on the business end of the food chain should've always looked at me with deep suspicion or outright terror, 1st came up to me, placed her tiny, tiny paw on my hand, and looked up at me with total trust? Or when I was able to stroke her pretty fur, or when she started climbing out of the tree and running to me when I called her?
Then again, of all the things I talk about on my blog, this one is probably the LEAST difficult to understand; if it isn't already clear to you, find the little wild things that live even in our cities, and spend some time with them... they'll show you.
She'd gone from being a daily visitor for many months to not coming at all at the time our roof got replaced; I can't blame her for being freaked out, it freaked ME out having all those workmen and that insane racket. I didn't expect her to stop coming for more than a few days from roofing trauma, but her babies became old enough to leave the den right at that time, and it's possible that her instinct at that point was to stay right by them, eating only from her stored food; whatever the cause(s), it's been a LONG couple of months.
During that time, I saw her once on the fence, once running for a tree, and once sucking up a few bits of food before dashing off; during the long stretches of time with no sightings, my head spun with the countless horrible things that can happen to a little squirrel in a big world. In addition, I knew from the amount of milk she'd been producing that she had to have had at least the 8 babies that're an average litter for her species, but I only ever saw TWO, and I only saw them a few times over a period of about a week, and never again, so I've been agonizing over what happened to the bulk of her litter, and then to the precious babies that I saw all too little of.
Recently, food that we'd put out for the skunks that they hadn't eaten by daylight (they only come at night) started disappearing at some point during the day, and we knew that meant that at least 1 squirrel was coming when we weren't around; we put out more and more food, and still it was all getting eaten, which makes us hopeful that the babies are still around, just not coming when we're here... the mommy is legendary for making off with over a lb of food a day, though, so maybe it's just her-only time will tell.
Today, I spotted her, just barely, hiding back in branches that overhang the fence, and I went out with grapes for her, calling to her; as soon as she heard me, her little head popped out and she was craning to look at me, and as I approached the fence she ran down it, and was there with me when I got there. She took a grape without hesitation, but moved a little bit away to eat it. She came for another grape, and didn't move so far away to eat it. With the 3rd grape, she was sitting right by me on the fence to eat. With the 4th grape, she calmly allowed me to pet her while she ate. After a few additional grapes, she didn't want any more, but still stayed there with me for a few minutes while I continued to pet and talk to her; she doesn't react to petting in any way that I recognize, and she doesn't display affection, but since she was through eating and had a clear path back to her hiding area but didn't go right away, I can only assume that either she enjoys being petted, or cares about me in her small rodential way and allows it because she can tell *I* like it, or both... whatever the reason, my emotional bond with my little angel girl was renewed, and I was utterly thrilled.
I sometimes wonder what all this fuss about a little creature that isn't seen as a pet, or as being special to humans in any way, must seem like to people in other countries, or even to those in America who see a squirrel as a pest, or as food, people who aren't aware of how amazingly intelligent and bursting with personality squirrels are, or how utterly magical it is to make a connection with a wild animal. How can I explain how it felt when this minute animal, who because of her place on the business end of the food chain should've always looked at me with deep suspicion or outright terror, 1st came up to me, placed her tiny, tiny paw on my hand, and looked up at me with total trust? Or when I was able to stroke her pretty fur, or when she started climbing out of the tree and running to me when I called her?
Then again, of all the things I talk about on my blog, this one is probably the LEAST difficult to understand; if it isn't already clear to you, find the little wild things that live even in our cities, and spend some time with them... they'll show you.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
A truly foolish dilemma
Recently, we've been visited every night by skunks; there are at least 5, 3 smallish ones and 2 big ones, and they mostly were coming separately, except that 2 of the littler ones often came together... and between them all, we had quite a parade going on.
Then, we didn't see any of them for several days, and since that time only 1 has been coming, a little female (we've been fooled as to wild animal gender before, but skunks often have their tails held up, and she clearly has, er, 2 "innies" and no "outie")... we assume they did another round of trapping and relocating, as for 4 skunks to be killed all at once, or to simultaneously decide to give up a good food source, seems unlikely.
The skunks in general showed no fear of us; they could see us through the kitchen window and the screen door, they could hear and smell us, but even if we were talking and moving around they didn't seen disturbed, and would come right up to the screen door and sniff loudly and look in at me, sitting on the floor with my laptop about 5 feet away. Anyone who's been reading here long enough to know about my little angel girl (a tiny squirrel who's been visiting me for a year) has probably already figured out what's been on my mind since it became clear that the skunks had no fear of us; I've been eager to try to hand-feed and possibly even pet them.
Not being totally deluded, I AM aware that objectively it's just plain stupid to attempt that close of contact with a wild skunk, since, no matter how calmly and unthreateningly one interacts with it, something could always happen to scare it, and, although like most creatures its 1st instinct is to flee, there's always the risk of it spraying, especially if what scares it is, say, a cat leaping over the fence, and then *I* could be sprayed, and the carpet and furniture behind me... even if the patio got sprayed, it'd be a nightmare.
Stupid... but it's still spinning around in my mind all the time, because my passion for animals, and my extraordinary ability to get even shy or wild ones to trust me, makes me reasonably sure that I could easily get the remaining skunk to approach closely enough to take food and maybe be petted, and the risk of cats showing up, or other disasters, is low, so...
It's STILL stupid, but it's getting harder and harder to hold back from trying... with ANY other animal, I'd have long since gotten it to at least stay nearby while I rolled food to it from the doorway, and a fearless and intelligent creature like a skunk would probably have been willing to interact directly with me by now if I'd made any effort. When they've come to the screen door, and I've talked to them while they sniffed and checked me out, it's taken all I've got to not edge closer, to not bring the laptop closer to the door for the night so they got used to being nearer to me... what if I sneezed, or had a coughing fit?
Today, I came striding into the family room, and there was a noise by the door that turned out to be our remaining skunk stumbling back in surprise, and then waddling rapidly around the corner of the house on her short little legs; her tail was mostly up, but there was no evidence that spraying was on her mind. Dismayed at having scared her away from her food, I called out to her, "Come back, it's only me, I'm sorry, don't be afraid, come back and eat"... and a few seconds later, she reappeared around the corner, came all the way back to the screen door, looking up at me and sniffing, and when I continued to talk she tilted her head as if listening, and seemed perfectly calm despite how I'd just scared her.
A frightened wild animal came back into range, came as close to me as she could get, and showed great curiosity about me, mere moments after I myself frightened her, just because she heard my voice and understood that it was safe to come back... you could even make a case that she came to me when I called her, since she came to the door rather than going directly to the food.
It'd be so easy to get her to take food from me, and, with that accomplished, there's a good chance that I could pet her.
It's stupid... STUPID... a skunk is like a loaded weapon with the safety off, even though it doesn't mean to be.
She's such a beautiful little creature, and her fur is so long and silky, it must be so soft...
STUPID.
She's done everything short of ASK me to come closer.
STUPID.
Imagine, getting to pet a wild skunk!!
STUPID.
I'll keep you posted.
Then, we didn't see any of them for several days, and since that time only 1 has been coming, a little female (we've been fooled as to wild animal gender before, but skunks often have their tails held up, and she clearly has, er, 2 "innies" and no "outie")... we assume they did another round of trapping and relocating, as for 4 skunks to be killed all at once, or to simultaneously decide to give up a good food source, seems unlikely.
The skunks in general showed no fear of us; they could see us through the kitchen window and the screen door, they could hear and smell us, but even if we were talking and moving around they didn't seen disturbed, and would come right up to the screen door and sniff loudly and look in at me, sitting on the floor with my laptop about 5 feet away. Anyone who's been reading here long enough to know about my little angel girl (a tiny squirrel who's been visiting me for a year) has probably already figured out what's been on my mind since it became clear that the skunks had no fear of us; I've been eager to try to hand-feed and possibly even pet them.
Not being totally deluded, I AM aware that objectively it's just plain stupid to attempt that close of contact with a wild skunk, since, no matter how calmly and unthreateningly one interacts with it, something could always happen to scare it, and, although like most creatures its 1st instinct is to flee, there's always the risk of it spraying, especially if what scares it is, say, a cat leaping over the fence, and then *I* could be sprayed, and the carpet and furniture behind me... even if the patio got sprayed, it'd be a nightmare.
Stupid... but it's still spinning around in my mind all the time, because my passion for animals, and my extraordinary ability to get even shy or wild ones to trust me, makes me reasonably sure that I could easily get the remaining skunk to approach closely enough to take food and maybe be petted, and the risk of cats showing up, or other disasters, is low, so...
It's STILL stupid, but it's getting harder and harder to hold back from trying... with ANY other animal, I'd have long since gotten it to at least stay nearby while I rolled food to it from the doorway, and a fearless and intelligent creature like a skunk would probably have been willing to interact directly with me by now if I'd made any effort. When they've come to the screen door, and I've talked to them while they sniffed and checked me out, it's taken all I've got to not edge closer, to not bring the laptop closer to the door for the night so they got used to being nearer to me... what if I sneezed, or had a coughing fit?
Today, I came striding into the family room, and there was a noise by the door that turned out to be our remaining skunk stumbling back in surprise, and then waddling rapidly around the corner of the house on her short little legs; her tail was mostly up, but there was no evidence that spraying was on her mind. Dismayed at having scared her away from her food, I called out to her, "Come back, it's only me, I'm sorry, don't be afraid, come back and eat"... and a few seconds later, she reappeared around the corner, came all the way back to the screen door, looking up at me and sniffing, and when I continued to talk she tilted her head as if listening, and seemed perfectly calm despite how I'd just scared her.
A frightened wild animal came back into range, came as close to me as she could get, and showed great curiosity about me, mere moments after I myself frightened her, just because she heard my voice and understood that it was safe to come back... you could even make a case that she came to me when I called her, since she came to the door rather than going directly to the food.
It'd be so easy to get her to take food from me, and, with that accomplished, there's a good chance that I could pet her.
It's stupid... STUPID... a skunk is like a loaded weapon with the safety off, even though it doesn't mean to be.
She's such a beautiful little creature, and her fur is so long and silky, it must be so soft...
STUPID.
She's done everything short of ASK me to come closer.
STUPID.
Imagine, getting to pet a wild skunk!!
STUPID.
I'll keep you posted.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
The feed and blog problems continue
I posted on 7-1-05 about my dismaying discovery that Bloglines hadn't updated what they showed for my blog for a year, which I figured out was because my RSS feed from Feedster seemed to have died, and vanished from their system, and how, after a bit of a struggle, I got a new feed with FeedBurner, and was finally able to get Yahoo to put me in their system, after which I put in a button for people to add my feed to their My Yahoo. I was hoping to be able to make an "all is well" post about my feed-related issues by now, but this is the online world, not a sitcom, and things never work as quickly or run as smoothly as you hope... and there's so much upheaval and dysfunctionality in my sidebar that I figured it was time to say something.
No one at Feedster has replied to my emails as of yet, but they've been busy; when I click their subscribe button now, more info appears than was there before (although NOT any post info). I don't know if that means that the feed is usable now or not, but I haven't given up on them, because if they get this straightened out I don't have to re-submit a feed to every directory and search engine in the blogosphere; I didn't remove their button, but I put it at the bottom of the list, so that no one else uses it to... do whatever it is people do with feed URL's.
I did a search at Feedster for my blog, and DID get a result... sort of. The name of my blog came up, and an XML button for my FeedBurner feed (NOT their own feed), but no other info, and the link to my cached posts gave a system error message. I then tried to add my feed to "My Feedster," and it did so with no problems, but when I clicked on the link to see my posts, I got my URL and title but nothing else.
I've written to them again, giving them this info and begging to be told if my feed still exists; cross your fingers for me.
The Bloglines folks have been hard at work, responding to my emails much faster than the 2 business days they say to expect it to take... and there've been LOTS of emails, because their system has taken a wild dislike to my blog. By the time they replied to my 1st email, I'd used the Bloglines subscription button provided by my FeedBurner screen to get my new feed into Bloglines and verify that it WAS showing recent posts (not all of them, but more on that later), and was all ready to ask them to switch my subscribers from the old feed to the new 1 if, as seemed likely, the former was dead; when they told me that they'd fixed the problem, I checked and saw that they'd done that, but the subscription list was still attached to the old feed, which had been deleted from my account. They fixed that, but then clicking on the button was suddenly giving a choice of both feeds... and someone had already subscribed to the dead feed, which was listed 1st. They switched the subscriber to the new feed, and deactivated the old feed... but then, and now, clicking on the Bloglines button is bringing up a screen with no way to subscribe to or see my feed, at least not with the browsers I normally use. They say that they get a subscribe screen when they test it, but of course they want it to work with all the browsers, so all they can do is send it on to their tech people; throughout all of this, the posts that come up in Bloglines have never gone back past June 24th, which is a significant problem, and that's been passed along too.
I have no idea how long it'll take for this stuff to get fixed, but I'll keep on it; in the meantime, if you're subscribed to me with Bloglines, you can at least see my newer posts, and, depending on what browser you use, you may be able to subscribe to me, if not via the button, then by clicking on the XML button and using their Bloglines button... maybe.
The FeedBurner system developed a bug a couple of days after I signed on, and now the subscription buttons on their screen aren't working with some browsers, and the posts aren't showing up with every browser either; I corresponded with them about that, and they're working on it.
Then, there's NewsGator; I added my blog to their system, but it wasn't showing up in searches. I was marking spam emails for deletion a few days later, and the instant before I hit the button I heard the inner voice telling me to not delete one of them, even though it was shown as being from someone with the sort of unusual name that's standard with spammers, and the subject line only had what looked like a nonsense word, which is also typical of spam; I listened to the voice (thank goodness for psychic flashes), opened the email, and saw that it was from NewsGator... who apparently haven't grasped the concept of how to send an "official" email, or the reasons for making clear to people that an email's from them. The subject line was "Folksonomy," which I researched and discovered to be an actual term, which refers to the organization of information in a way convenient to its users; the subject of the email of itself was that this guy had glanced at the 1st 2 posts on my blog and decided from that that it's got nothing to do with the religion/spirituality and personal growth category that I'd tried to get added into... despite the fact that if he'd scrolled down a little, he'd have found posts that WERE clearly in that category. I pointed that out, adding that, sadly, spiritual insights don't present themselves every day, and he wrote back and took another dig at my topics, but added my blog in, which is all that really mattered.
The button to subscribe to my blog via NewsGator is now in my sidebar; I've tested it, and it works... I know, it's shocking that something WORKS, isn't it? I've also tested the My Yahoo one, and it also works. I put in the My MSN button as well, but I don't want to sign up for anything to do with them to test it, so if you use MSN give it a shot, but don't be too surprised if there's a problem... and I hope that if there is, 1 of the other subscription options will be useful to you.
Believe it or not, that's STILL not all of it; depending on what browser you use, you may have noticed that, starting last weekend, my sidebar has been a disaster area. Blogger made an alteration in their templates to allow something to do with image posting to work, which for some reason included a command that counteracts div commands... and BOOM, my right-justify stopped working, and now things in my sidebar are right, left or center depending on what their code dictates (note to programmers-PLEASE don't set your stuff up to be placed a particular way, because your users may have different formatting preferences than you do) every time I bring my blog up in my primary browser. The supposed "fix" that Blogger has inserted as an option in the settings area doesn't work, and all of my attempts to contact tech support are being met with form letters; you'd better believe that I'm going to keep after them until they fix it... I didn't do all that work setting up my sidebar to have it look like a wreck to even a small % of my visitors.
That's where things stand now; it'd be sure nice if I COULD put up an "all is well" post soon...
No one at Feedster has replied to my emails as of yet, but they've been busy; when I click their subscribe button now, more info appears than was there before (although NOT any post info). I don't know if that means that the feed is usable now or not, but I haven't given up on them, because if they get this straightened out I don't have to re-submit a feed to every directory and search engine in the blogosphere; I didn't remove their button, but I put it at the bottom of the list, so that no one else uses it to... do whatever it is people do with feed URL's.
I did a search at Feedster for my blog, and DID get a result... sort of. The name of my blog came up, and an XML button for my FeedBurner feed (NOT their own feed), but no other info, and the link to my cached posts gave a system error message. I then tried to add my feed to "My Feedster," and it did so with no problems, but when I clicked on the link to see my posts, I got my URL and title but nothing else.
I've written to them again, giving them this info and begging to be told if my feed still exists; cross your fingers for me.
The Bloglines folks have been hard at work, responding to my emails much faster than the 2 business days they say to expect it to take... and there've been LOTS of emails, because their system has taken a wild dislike to my blog. By the time they replied to my 1st email, I'd used the Bloglines subscription button provided by my FeedBurner screen to get my new feed into Bloglines and verify that it WAS showing recent posts (not all of them, but more on that later), and was all ready to ask them to switch my subscribers from the old feed to the new 1 if, as seemed likely, the former was dead; when they told me that they'd fixed the problem, I checked and saw that they'd done that, but the subscription list was still attached to the old feed, which had been deleted from my account. They fixed that, but then clicking on the button was suddenly giving a choice of both feeds... and someone had already subscribed to the dead feed, which was listed 1st. They switched the subscriber to the new feed, and deactivated the old feed... but then, and now, clicking on the Bloglines button is bringing up a screen with no way to subscribe to or see my feed, at least not with the browsers I normally use. They say that they get a subscribe screen when they test it, but of course they want it to work with all the browsers, so all they can do is send it on to their tech people; throughout all of this, the posts that come up in Bloglines have never gone back past June 24th, which is a significant problem, and that's been passed along too.
I have no idea how long it'll take for this stuff to get fixed, but I'll keep on it; in the meantime, if you're subscribed to me with Bloglines, you can at least see my newer posts, and, depending on what browser you use, you may be able to subscribe to me, if not via the button, then by clicking on the XML button and using their Bloglines button... maybe.
The FeedBurner system developed a bug a couple of days after I signed on, and now the subscription buttons on their screen aren't working with some browsers, and the posts aren't showing up with every browser either; I corresponded with them about that, and they're working on it.
Then, there's NewsGator; I added my blog to their system, but it wasn't showing up in searches. I was marking spam emails for deletion a few days later, and the instant before I hit the button I heard the inner voice telling me to not delete one of them, even though it was shown as being from someone with the sort of unusual name that's standard with spammers, and the subject line only had what looked like a nonsense word, which is also typical of spam; I listened to the voice (thank goodness for psychic flashes), opened the email, and saw that it was from NewsGator... who apparently haven't grasped the concept of how to send an "official" email, or the reasons for making clear to people that an email's from them. The subject line was "Folksonomy," which I researched and discovered to be an actual term, which refers to the organization of information in a way convenient to its users; the subject of the email of itself was that this guy had glanced at the 1st 2 posts on my blog and decided from that that it's got nothing to do with the religion/spirituality and personal growth category that I'd tried to get added into... despite the fact that if he'd scrolled down a little, he'd have found posts that WERE clearly in that category. I pointed that out, adding that, sadly, spiritual insights don't present themselves every day, and he wrote back and took another dig at my topics, but added my blog in, which is all that really mattered.
The button to subscribe to my blog via NewsGator is now in my sidebar; I've tested it, and it works... I know, it's shocking that something WORKS, isn't it? I've also tested the My Yahoo one, and it also works. I put in the My MSN button as well, but I don't want to sign up for anything to do with them to test it, so if you use MSN give it a shot, but don't be too surprised if there's a problem... and I hope that if there is, 1 of the other subscription options will be useful to you.
Believe it or not, that's STILL not all of it; depending on what browser you use, you may have noticed that, starting last weekend, my sidebar has been a disaster area. Blogger made an alteration in their templates to allow something to do with image posting to work, which for some reason included a command that counteracts div commands... and BOOM, my right-justify stopped working, and now things in my sidebar are right, left or center depending on what their code dictates (note to programmers-PLEASE don't set your stuff up to be placed a particular way, because your users may have different formatting preferences than you do) every time I bring my blog up in my primary browser. The supposed "fix" that Blogger has inserted as an option in the settings area doesn't work, and all of my attempts to contact tech support are being met with form letters; you'd better believe that I'm going to keep after them until they fix it... I didn't do all that work setting up my sidebar to have it look like a wreck to even a small % of my visitors.
That's where things stand now; it'd be sure nice if I COULD put up an "all is well" post soon...
Monday, July 11, 2005
Further insights on the value of intelligence
I've posted several times on this topic; the central theme is that, although intellect is objectively a good thing, and everyone would agree with that if asked, by our behavior we show that as a culture we do NOT value braininess, that we dislike and distrust intellectuals, and see them as "not one of us," that due to our own irrational insecurities we see anyone more intelligent than ourselves as looking down on us, as a threat, as someone who's not a candidate for a friend or a lover... and all of that goes x10 for an intelligent woman. Since all aspects of our lives depend on the opinion of others, the smart person who can't convincingly pretend to be average, not just brains-wise but in all of their perceived likes and preferences and such so that they fit in with the people they know, had better be self-sufficient enough that they can earn a living and get social and romantic satisfaction on the fringes with others like themselves.
It doesn't matter how many times I write that, how many times I talk or even think about it, it galls me right down to my soul; that the very thing that allows me to see and understand forms a wall between me and the bulk of humanity, and forces me to modulate myself when dealing with all but those who know me well so that I don't make people feel foolish or condescended to... and even then, I still sometimes get blank stares because I let a big word or esoteric concept slip into conversation with the wrong people, followed by their withdrawal and/or petulance.
sigh
This concept came back into my mind after my friend Buddy Don, whose terrific blog is here
http://buddydon.blogspot.com/
posted a Twain quote on Friday, reminding me of how much I love Twain's words of wisdom and that it'd been too long since I'd read any of them. I found a site just bursting with his quotes
http://twainquotes.com/quotesatoz.html
one of which is
"The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it..."
- Mark Twain's Notebook
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That quote probably makes no sense to the average person, who, not being aware of their own subconscious attitudes towards smart people and what that means on a broad scale to smart people's lives, can't imagine that intellect brings no rewards, but *I* read it and realized that Twain, a brilliant man who remains justly famous for his piercing insights into human nature, had seen exactly what I've been saying, and had described it in a wonderfully pungent and nearly poetic way. It gave me CHILLS, as it always does when I discover that an acknowledged great thinker has seen what I do... and thus that I'm not just nuts to be perceiving things that no one else notices or talks about.
Things are a little better for the brilliant in the modern era than when Twain was alive, because these days people with certain kinds of intellectual abilities, particularly in computers and engineering, can make an excellent living even if they can't function socially, can generally be friends with others of their ilk that get gathered around them at work, and even lure in romantic companions with the promise of a big bank account; still, the concept remains the same now as then... the "rewards" mostly go to those who can most effectively garner peer-group approval, who have great skill in dealing with people but rarely exceptional levels of intelligence, NOT to the people whose skull sweat keeps the human race making progress.
Twain has another, chilling, quote about this topic:
"The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one."
- Mark Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead?"
If you've ever wondered how sociopaths and other unpleasant types are so often able to get people to follow them, even when there are folks crying out with the voice of reason, that's it in a nutshell; that's a perfect depiction of how little people truly care for anything with the taint of intellectualism.
There isn't a single country on this planet that's being run by a bunch of geniuses, whether the leaders are elected, born, or take power by force; did you ever wonder WHY? Those qualities that make people willing to follow someone's orders, and even in a dictatorship there MUST be enough willing followers to make it possible to control everyone, have nothing to do with brains, are difficult or impossible to learn and master via intellect, and would be counteracted in people's judgment by the intelligence of anyone who gave it a try.
There's also commentary on this subject by someone unfamiliar to most Americans, the German philosopher, poet, historian, dramatist, and playwright Friedrich Schiller, whose best known quote (of which there are several translations) is:
"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
10 points if you can name the Isaac Asimov book whose title comes from that quote.
What a staggering concept, that STUPIDITY could be such a powerful force. If you doubt that Schiller means to point out the fruitlessness of intelligence with that comment, here's where that quote comes from (keep in mind that this is a translation if you notice any awkwardness)
"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world."
-The Maid of Orleans (1801) Act iii scene 6
How mindboggling, this idea that someone possessing and using wisdom would be CURSED rather than successful, that reason would be unable to sway "the crowd" and end up destroyed, that folly and fools would be victorious... and mind you, Schiller's been dead for 200 years, so it's not as if he were commenting on modern life-this is a pure analysis of human society, human nature.
Ouch.
It doesn't matter how many times I write that, how many times I talk or even think about it, it galls me right down to my soul; that the very thing that allows me to see and understand forms a wall between me and the bulk of humanity, and forces me to modulate myself when dealing with all but those who know me well so that I don't make people feel foolish or condescended to... and even then, I still sometimes get blank stares because I let a big word or esoteric concept slip into conversation with the wrong people, followed by their withdrawal and/or petulance.
sigh
This concept came back into my mind after my friend Buddy Don, whose terrific blog is here
http://buddydon.blogspot.com/
posted a Twain quote on Friday, reminding me of how much I love Twain's words of wisdom and that it'd been too long since I'd read any of them. I found a site just bursting with his quotes
http://twainquotes.com/quotesatoz.html
one of which is
"The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it..."
- Mark Twain's Notebook
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That quote probably makes no sense to the average person, who, not being aware of their own subconscious attitudes towards smart people and what that means on a broad scale to smart people's lives, can't imagine that intellect brings no rewards, but *I* read it and realized that Twain, a brilliant man who remains justly famous for his piercing insights into human nature, had seen exactly what I've been saying, and had described it in a wonderfully pungent and nearly poetic way. It gave me CHILLS, as it always does when I discover that an acknowledged great thinker has seen what I do... and thus that I'm not just nuts to be perceiving things that no one else notices or talks about.
Things are a little better for the brilliant in the modern era than when Twain was alive, because these days people with certain kinds of intellectual abilities, particularly in computers and engineering, can make an excellent living even if they can't function socially, can generally be friends with others of their ilk that get gathered around them at work, and even lure in romantic companions with the promise of a big bank account; still, the concept remains the same now as then... the "rewards" mostly go to those who can most effectively garner peer-group approval, who have great skill in dealing with people but rarely exceptional levels of intelligence, NOT to the people whose skull sweat keeps the human race making progress.
Twain has another, chilling, quote about this topic:
"The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one."
- Mark Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead?"
If you've ever wondered how sociopaths and other unpleasant types are so often able to get people to follow them, even when there are folks crying out with the voice of reason, that's it in a nutshell; that's a perfect depiction of how little people truly care for anything with the taint of intellectualism.
There isn't a single country on this planet that's being run by a bunch of geniuses, whether the leaders are elected, born, or take power by force; did you ever wonder WHY? Those qualities that make people willing to follow someone's orders, and even in a dictatorship there MUST be enough willing followers to make it possible to control everyone, have nothing to do with brains, are difficult or impossible to learn and master via intellect, and would be counteracted in people's judgment by the intelligence of anyone who gave it a try.
There's also commentary on this subject by someone unfamiliar to most Americans, the German philosopher, poet, historian, dramatist, and playwright Friedrich Schiller, whose best known quote (of which there are several translations) is:
"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
10 points if you can name the Isaac Asimov book whose title comes from that quote.
What a staggering concept, that STUPIDITY could be such a powerful force. If you doubt that Schiller means to point out the fruitlessness of intelligence with that comment, here's where that quote comes from (keep in mind that this is a translation if you notice any awkwardness)
"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world."
-The Maid of Orleans (1801) Act iii scene 6
How mindboggling, this idea that someone possessing and using wisdom would be CURSED rather than successful, that reason would be unable to sway "the crowd" and end up destroyed, that folly and fools would be victorious... and mind you, Schiller's been dead for 200 years, so it's not as if he were commenting on modern life-this is a pure analysis of human society, human nature.
Ouch.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Infrasound
My friend Melanie, whose excellent blog is here
http://converttheatheist.blogspot.com/
introduced me today to the connection between infrasound (sounds below 20Hz, and thus below the human hearing range), which I'd previously known about only as it applies to the communication of certain animals (most notably elephants), and the perceptions that some people have believed to be indicative of the presence of ghosts.
Infrasound can cause feelings such as anxiety, uneasiness, chills, shivers down the spine and even fear in humans. Studies have shown that big pipe organs can produce these sounds, and I've seen speculation that this is the cause of some of the feelings that people get during church services; one such mention is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3087674.stm
You don't suppose that church officials have kept buying organs that make these sounds that can't be heard without being aware of the effects, do you? :-)
There have been no actual studies done that I've been able to find (and I LOOKED) that make, or tried to make, any connection between infrasound and hauntings, ghost sightings, the eerie feelings people get at some places, or any similar phenomena; if there HAD been, it'd have been front-page news around the world. All I could find is that a handful of scientific types think there MIGHT be a connection, that it MIGHT be an explanation for these things; this would seem to be easy enough to test, but scientists are so fearful of being involved in anything to do with the supernatural, even when the purpose is to DISprove something, that it's no surprise that no one has tried... and where would they get the funding for such a thing in any case?
So, let's see what sort of analysis a layperson can come up with; infrasound, which can be created by any # of natural and manmade sources and is far from uncommon, creates sensations that some folks believe indicate something supernatural, so it's entirely likely that it HAS been the actual cause of these feelings at least part of the time... how could it NOT be to blame sometimes, after all, with infrasound being produced by everything from waterfalls to wind to the vibration of manmade structures?
http://www.borderlands.com/newstuff/research/infra.htm
Is it responsible for ALL feelings of that nature that occur? To suggest that every time every human feels a certain sort of thing there's only one cause is too silly to contemplate; even if studies ever DO prove that it's been responsible some of the time, I'd bet $ they won't try to insist it's ALWAYS responsible... that'd be a complete abandonment of the scientific mindset, as such an extrapolation can never be properly made.
But wait, am I just splitting hairs to excuse my personal experiences with ghosts from being explained away? Nope... because I've NEVER had those sorts of feelings as part of any interaction with spirits, nor, at the times in my life when I've felt uneasy, chills, whatever, have I EVER seen it as an indication of ghosts being around; I'm a hard-headed type, and a spirit has to be right in my face before I proclaim its existence. Do I think that only people like myself who don't feel the chills and such have had valid sightings or perceptions? Of course not; although it certainly might be true (I don't think it very likely, but let's be open-minded), without proof I have no intention of trying to decide from a distance whose experiences with ghosts are true and which are infrasound.
It gets better, though; there are at least 2 locations where people have SEEN some sort of apparition under circumstances where a specific frequency of infrasound, 18.9 Hz, was present
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4038891,00.html
The same man, Vic Tandy, "experimental officer and part-time lecturer in the school of international studies and law" at Coventry University, is behind both reports, and is to be commended for finding a scientific explanation for the scary feelings at both locations (one of which he personally had experienced)... but what about the apparitions, how does he explain THEM? At the original URL Melanie sent me to
http://www.skepdic.com/infrasound.html
it says
"When he measured the infrasound in the laboratory, the showing was 18.98 hertz--the exact frequency at which a human eyeball starts resonating. The sound waves made his eyeballs resonate and produced an optical illusion: He saw a figure that didn't exist."
WOW... but wait a minute, let's use the link (the * at the end of the paragraph) that leads to where they got that quote; it takes us here
http://istina.rin.ru/eng/ufo/text/359.html
Surprise surprise, this site that SkepDic.com is quoting as if it were giving facts is NOT a science site at all, but a Russian site devoted to describing (NOT debunking) all types of unusual phenomena. Furthermore, that quote isn't even claimed on that site to come from Tandy himself, and, if you need more proof of the UNscientific nature of this site, on that same page they claim that the mystery of the brigantine Mary Celeste, which was found abandoned by her crew (none of whom were ever seen again) in 1872
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste
has been solved by infrasound:
"The mystery was unsolved for decades, until it became clear that infrasound was the explanation of the phenomenon. As it turned out, infrasound of seven hertz emitted by ocean waves under some definite conditions was the reason of it. But infrasound of seven hertz is terrible for people: they may go mad and throw themselves overboard to save their lives."
I checked every resource I could think of, and NONE of them point to infrasound as even a possible solution to the mystery... and the site gives no reference to check to back up their claim.
Hold on a minute, though; SkepDic.com gives the specifics about Tandy's article
"Tandy V. & Lawrence, T,. (1998). The ghost in the machine. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62, 360-364"
at the bottom of the page... doesn't that mean that this is where they got their info from, and that they're quoting the article? Couldn't they have linked to the Russian site by mistake, when they actually meant to link to a site that has Tandy's article on it? Accidents do happen, but this ain't one of 'em; Tandy's article can be found here
http://users.iafrica.com/s/sa/salbu/apollo/HumA2.html
and I've read it and verified that the offending passage is NOT from this article... so SkepDic.com DID take it from a paranormal site.
As an aside, THIS is why you need to take sites like SkepDic.com with a BIG grain of salt; they're more than willing to use the sort of site that they'd normally point to as an example of nonsense to try to "prove" a point when it suits them... those sites magically become the bearers of valid info when it'll give them a good quote, and I suppose they count on people never going to those sites to see what they actually consist of, and what provably-wrong BS might be posted there, much less doing research to check any of it out. They want you to believe that they've done a thorough objective analysis, but what they're actually doing is making the best case they can provide or invent for certain things NOT being real... and that's a totally different sort of thing than an objective analysis.
Tandy does NOT claim that the effects of infrasound on human eyes cause us to see things, despite what he himself saw, because there've been no scientific studies demonstrating this; if there HAD been, again, it'd have been front-page news worldwide, AND he would've pointed to those studies as part of his explanation. However, it's clear that he DOES see cause and effect, reasonably enough; in the Guardian article, he's quoted as saying
"'Evidence from Nasa and other sources suggests that it can cause you to hyperventilate and your eyeballs to vibrate,' says Tandy."
and in his own article, it says
"a NASA technical report mentions a resonant frequency for the eye as 18 Hz (NASA Technical Report 19770013810). If this were the case then the eyeball would be vibrating which would cause a serious 'smearing' of vision. It would not seem unreasonable to see dark shadowy forms caused by something as innocent as the corner of V.T.'s spectacles. V.T. would not normally be aware of this but its size would be much greater if the image was spread over a larger part of his retina."
I think it's a bit much to suggest that only ONE spot in a person's field of vision would undergo this "serious smearing," leading to what Tandy experienced, but obviously I can't make even an educated guess about how eyes process infrasound, as I lack the background; similarly, I can't do more than speculate that infrasound's proven effects on the brain might be partly, or even fully, to blame for making people see odd things while "under the influence."
What if, though, instead of causing "smearing," resonating the eyeballs causes a sensitizing of vision, in the same way that a variety of things can increase our sensitivity to light, such that an apparition normally too faint to be detected became much more noticeable?
In any case, the "explanation" for what Tandy saw that's given on the Russian site (and SkepDic.com) is clearly an extrapolation from the given facts, and NOT indicative of what he himself is portraying as the "proven truth."
There's a disclaimer at the end of the article on the Russian site:
"However, other scientists call the idea into question. Physicists studying effect of infrasound upon the human body say that volunteers participating in their experiments complain of weariness, high pressure in the eyes and in the ears, but never mention hallucinations or ghosts. At that, physicists say that drivers also have no optical illusions when cars overcome the air drag at a really high speed and the level of infrasound waves is very high."
And Tandy's position despite his experiences is:
"'When it comes to supernatural phenomena, I'm sitting on the fence. That's where scientists should be until we've proved that there isn't anything,' says Tandy."
Despite all that, I'll say that infrasound MIGHT cause distortions of vision as suggested in Tandy's article, and thus could very well be behind the things some people have seen and believed to be ghosts; it'd be silly to deny that people seeing unexplained things in areas where infrasound was detected was caused by infrasound, after all... unless...
... unless infrasound attracts spirits and/or causes them to become visible and/or activates the part of our brains that allows us to perceive them.
But what if, despite the lack of visual anomalies supposedly claimed by physicists (for which I could find no verification), infrasound IS eventually proven to cause them? I'm guessing that it'll show some people that what they thought they saw weren't ghosts. And what about what I'VE seen that I refer to as ghosts? The distinctive feelings caused by infrasound were absent in each case, and of course when a witness sees the exact same thing, the vibrating of my eyeballs being the explanation becomes less likely; also, it's important to remember that the most that's been suggested as a result of infrasound is a "smearing" of what's being seen, NOT the hallucination of detailed human figures, which is a VERY different thing, and what I've personally experienced. Even more importantly, I've heard ghosts, interacted with them, had them touch me and act on objects around me... NONE of which can be explained away by infrasound reactions.
In the area of the perception of the unknown, there are people who are confused or mistaken, liars, tricksters, crazy people, and people under all sorts of influences... but no matter how many exceptions they point to, we're still left with plenty of people who've had clear-cut experiences that go beyond what science has seen so far.
A big thank-you to Melanie for bringing infrasound to my attention!! :-)
http://converttheatheist.blogspot.com/
introduced me today to the connection between infrasound (sounds below 20Hz, and thus below the human hearing range), which I'd previously known about only as it applies to the communication of certain animals (most notably elephants), and the perceptions that some people have believed to be indicative of the presence of ghosts.
Infrasound can cause feelings such as anxiety, uneasiness, chills, shivers down the spine and even fear in humans. Studies have shown that big pipe organs can produce these sounds, and I've seen speculation that this is the cause of some of the feelings that people get during church services; one such mention is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3087674.stm
You don't suppose that church officials have kept buying organs that make these sounds that can't be heard without being aware of the effects, do you? :-)
There have been no actual studies done that I've been able to find (and I LOOKED) that make, or tried to make, any connection between infrasound and hauntings, ghost sightings, the eerie feelings people get at some places, or any similar phenomena; if there HAD been, it'd have been front-page news around the world. All I could find is that a handful of scientific types think there MIGHT be a connection, that it MIGHT be an explanation for these things; this would seem to be easy enough to test, but scientists are so fearful of being involved in anything to do with the supernatural, even when the purpose is to DISprove something, that it's no surprise that no one has tried... and where would they get the funding for such a thing in any case?
So, let's see what sort of analysis a layperson can come up with; infrasound, which can be created by any # of natural and manmade sources and is far from uncommon, creates sensations that some folks believe indicate something supernatural, so it's entirely likely that it HAS been the actual cause of these feelings at least part of the time... how could it NOT be to blame sometimes, after all, with infrasound being produced by everything from waterfalls to wind to the vibration of manmade structures?
http://www.borderlands.com/newstuff/research/infra.htm
Is it responsible for ALL feelings of that nature that occur? To suggest that every time every human feels a certain sort of thing there's only one cause is too silly to contemplate; even if studies ever DO prove that it's been responsible some of the time, I'd bet $ they won't try to insist it's ALWAYS responsible... that'd be a complete abandonment of the scientific mindset, as such an extrapolation can never be properly made.
But wait, am I just splitting hairs to excuse my personal experiences with ghosts from being explained away? Nope... because I've NEVER had those sorts of feelings as part of any interaction with spirits, nor, at the times in my life when I've felt uneasy, chills, whatever, have I EVER seen it as an indication of ghosts being around; I'm a hard-headed type, and a spirit has to be right in my face before I proclaim its existence. Do I think that only people like myself who don't feel the chills and such have had valid sightings or perceptions? Of course not; although it certainly might be true (I don't think it very likely, but let's be open-minded), without proof I have no intention of trying to decide from a distance whose experiences with ghosts are true and which are infrasound.
It gets better, though; there are at least 2 locations where people have SEEN some sort of apparition under circumstances where a specific frequency of infrasound, 18.9 Hz, was present
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4038891,00.html
The same man, Vic Tandy, "experimental officer and part-time lecturer in the school of international studies and law" at Coventry University, is behind both reports, and is to be commended for finding a scientific explanation for the scary feelings at both locations (one of which he personally had experienced)... but what about the apparitions, how does he explain THEM? At the original URL Melanie sent me to
http://www.skepdic.com/infrasound.html
it says
"When he measured the infrasound in the laboratory, the showing was 18.98 hertz--the exact frequency at which a human eyeball starts resonating. The sound waves made his eyeballs resonate and produced an optical illusion: He saw a figure that didn't exist."
WOW... but wait a minute, let's use the link (the * at the end of the paragraph) that leads to where they got that quote; it takes us here
http://istina.rin.ru/eng/ufo/text/359.html
Surprise surprise, this site that SkepDic.com is quoting as if it were giving facts is NOT a science site at all, but a Russian site devoted to describing (NOT debunking) all types of unusual phenomena. Furthermore, that quote isn't even claimed on that site to come from Tandy himself, and, if you need more proof of the UNscientific nature of this site, on that same page they claim that the mystery of the brigantine Mary Celeste, which was found abandoned by her crew (none of whom were ever seen again) in 1872
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste
has been solved by infrasound:
"The mystery was unsolved for decades, until it became clear that infrasound was the explanation of the phenomenon. As it turned out, infrasound of seven hertz emitted by ocean waves under some definite conditions was the reason of it. But infrasound of seven hertz is terrible for people: they may go mad and throw themselves overboard to save their lives."
I checked every resource I could think of, and NONE of them point to infrasound as even a possible solution to the mystery... and the site gives no reference to check to back up their claim.
Hold on a minute, though; SkepDic.com gives the specifics about Tandy's article
"Tandy V. & Lawrence, T,. (1998). The ghost in the machine. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62, 360-364"
at the bottom of the page... doesn't that mean that this is where they got their info from, and that they're quoting the article? Couldn't they have linked to the Russian site by mistake, when they actually meant to link to a site that has Tandy's article on it? Accidents do happen, but this ain't one of 'em; Tandy's article can be found here
http://users.iafrica.com/s/sa/salbu/apollo/HumA2.html
and I've read it and verified that the offending passage is NOT from this article... so SkepDic.com DID take it from a paranormal site.
As an aside, THIS is why you need to take sites like SkepDic.com with a BIG grain of salt; they're more than willing to use the sort of site that they'd normally point to as an example of nonsense to try to "prove" a point when it suits them... those sites magically become the bearers of valid info when it'll give them a good quote, and I suppose they count on people never going to those sites to see what they actually consist of, and what provably-wrong BS might be posted there, much less doing research to check any of it out. They want you to believe that they've done a thorough objective analysis, but what they're actually doing is making the best case they can provide or invent for certain things NOT being real... and that's a totally different sort of thing than an objective analysis.
Tandy does NOT claim that the effects of infrasound on human eyes cause us to see things, despite what he himself saw, because there've been no scientific studies demonstrating this; if there HAD been, again, it'd have been front-page news worldwide, AND he would've pointed to those studies as part of his explanation. However, it's clear that he DOES see cause and effect, reasonably enough; in the Guardian article, he's quoted as saying
"'Evidence from Nasa and other sources suggests that it can cause you to hyperventilate and your eyeballs to vibrate,' says Tandy."
and in his own article, it says
"a NASA technical report mentions a resonant frequency for the eye as 18 Hz (NASA Technical Report 19770013810). If this were the case then the eyeball would be vibrating which would cause a serious 'smearing' of vision. It would not seem unreasonable to see dark shadowy forms caused by something as innocent as the corner of V.T.'s spectacles. V.T. would not normally be aware of this but its size would be much greater if the image was spread over a larger part of his retina."
I think it's a bit much to suggest that only ONE spot in a person's field of vision would undergo this "serious smearing," leading to what Tandy experienced, but obviously I can't make even an educated guess about how eyes process infrasound, as I lack the background; similarly, I can't do more than speculate that infrasound's proven effects on the brain might be partly, or even fully, to blame for making people see odd things while "under the influence."
What if, though, instead of causing "smearing," resonating the eyeballs causes a sensitizing of vision, in the same way that a variety of things can increase our sensitivity to light, such that an apparition normally too faint to be detected became much more noticeable?
In any case, the "explanation" for what Tandy saw that's given on the Russian site (and SkepDic.com) is clearly an extrapolation from the given facts, and NOT indicative of what he himself is portraying as the "proven truth."
There's a disclaimer at the end of the article on the Russian site:
"However, other scientists call the idea into question. Physicists studying effect of infrasound upon the human body say that volunteers participating in their experiments complain of weariness, high pressure in the eyes and in the ears, but never mention hallucinations or ghosts. At that, physicists say that drivers also have no optical illusions when cars overcome the air drag at a really high speed and the level of infrasound waves is very high."
And Tandy's position despite his experiences is:
"'When it comes to supernatural phenomena, I'm sitting on the fence. That's where scientists should be until we've proved that there isn't anything,' says Tandy."
Despite all that, I'll say that infrasound MIGHT cause distortions of vision as suggested in Tandy's article, and thus could very well be behind the things some people have seen and believed to be ghosts; it'd be silly to deny that people seeing unexplained things in areas where infrasound was detected was caused by infrasound, after all... unless...
... unless infrasound attracts spirits and/or causes them to become visible and/or activates the part of our brains that allows us to perceive them.
But what if, despite the lack of visual anomalies supposedly claimed by physicists (for which I could find no verification), infrasound IS eventually proven to cause them? I'm guessing that it'll show some people that what they thought they saw weren't ghosts. And what about what I'VE seen that I refer to as ghosts? The distinctive feelings caused by infrasound were absent in each case, and of course when a witness sees the exact same thing, the vibrating of my eyeballs being the explanation becomes less likely; also, it's important to remember that the most that's been suggested as a result of infrasound is a "smearing" of what's being seen, NOT the hallucination of detailed human figures, which is a VERY different thing, and what I've personally experienced. Even more importantly, I've heard ghosts, interacted with them, had them touch me and act on objects around me... NONE of which can be explained away by infrasound reactions.
In the area of the perception of the unknown, there are people who are confused or mistaken, liars, tricksters, crazy people, and people under all sorts of influences... but no matter how many exceptions they point to, we're still left with plenty of people who've had clear-cut experiences that go beyond what science has seen so far.
A big thank-you to Melanie for bringing infrasound to my attention!! :-)
