Saturday 7 February 2015

How fast does stuff change . . . . .The Big Question




I have just been thinking, and thought I need to write one of those big questions again before the masses get distracted by a passing seagull and wander off into the night never to return. So what sort of big Question will I write and this is it . . . .  How fast does stuff change, the Big Question. I know you are all thinking WHAT? Exactly what is he on about now. Well it may all seem a bit abstract but it is a really interesting question. You see change is all relative, to some things change slowly and to others they change really fast and the same is true in nature. You see a Mayfly lives for about a day so to a Mayfly a day is an entire lifetime and to us it’s a day.

Now the thing is these days almost everyone over here in the decadent west has a mobile phone or a computer and any small child would just assume that these things have been about for like ever. But tell that small child that stuff like computers and mobile phones were something that just did not exist when you were young and they will look confused.  In fact most modern technology, stuff like satellite navigation or touch screen things were devices from Star Trek and even Star Trek is old to some . . . . If I said. . .  Its Life Jim but not as we know it to a small child it will tell me to ****** off because they will not have a clue what I’m on about. . . add . . .its the Engines Jim they will nay take it and they will think I’m an Idiot. Television is a relatively new device, and it was only 1903 just over 100 years ago when man made his first powered flight. Folk don’t give aeroplanes a second thought these days and there are millions of the damn things moving people and things all over the world.

But all these things are changes; things that quietly happen around us, most of us don’t really notice these sorts of changes so the big changes like shifting continental shelves or the fact the Sun in real terms has a rather limited life span in relation to the likes of the universe don’t even register as change. It is estimated that over 99% of all life that has lived on planet Earth has become extinct and it is said that about a dozen species of living things become extinct every day. But we don’t notice these changes.

Even in towns, at one time most houses had a fireplace where folk would set fire to lumps of coal and roast the cat but this is not so common in the big metropolis’s and I am told there are children who have never seen an open fire. . . YICKS I must be old (we still have one).  I can say that for many years on my trips up north to Scotland I used to travel on the Flying Scotsman and Steam was the norm until they introduced those huge great Deltic Class 55 trains and look what happened to them when was the last time anyone saw one of them. Folk used to have to use tin baths and an outside toilet. In the town I previously lived in I have talked to some of the older members of the community who remember stuff like that. These are things that have happened in a single lifetime. So change is important because it would be damn useful to know what exactly is likely to change in the next thirty years or so (after that I will be too old or away with the fairies so will not care anyway)

So there you have it another big Question . . . . . . . . . sort of not answered a bit.


I think the best think to do is to think of mankind as a tiny blink of light that is almost unnoticeable in the huge voids of the universe. Well of course I do not include myself in that tiny blink I’m a camera flash (an old fashioned fixed plate camera flash. they were real flashes not like digital cameras they are rubbish).

19 comments:

  1. I think the Mayfly should be caLLed the Dayfly. I may start caLLing it that, one of these days.

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    1. I learned that DNA unzips veRy fast. There is a lot of change going on and off inside us aLL the time with the unzipping and zipping up of DNA.

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    2. My DNA is unzipping all the time? YICKS . . . . . No told me that before, is it safe I dont want my arm to fall off or any thing like that.

      I feel like a piece of Velcro now. Still on the bright side Velcro is very useful and has many uses. . . . . . . . like . . .Mmmmmmmmmmmm

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    3. It unzips in sections so that the information can be read to perform several functions, then it goes back together unless it is splitting completely to form another complete DNA so that the cell can split into two cells. A common thing that happens is a chunk is read that produces an 'informational' chemical that is used to produce proteins.

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    4. Bodies are complex things no wonder mine keeps going faulty

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    5. I just saw Steven Spielberg about 11 feet away from me!!!

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    6. WOW Mr ESB I hope you put in a good word for me although he may have looked a look of annoyance and scurried off in the opposite direction.

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    7. Oh, I meant that I saw the two words Steven and Spielberg on the teleBision screen at the end of the movie Men In Black 3. It was an interesting font, and I saw that a person can get a font that is veRy similar for free for personal use. You have me programmed so that everytime I see his name I think of you and your quest.

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    8. Well I have to say if you see Steven Spielberg and think of me that is very good indeed. all I need now is Steven Spielberg to see Steven Spielberg and think of me also and I will be in with a fighting chance of that movie deal.

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  2. It was only last week that the last Victorian Passed away. Which just makes the concept of time even more confusing to me.

    In a separate thought, I spent most of today thinking about floppy disks and how folks today won't remember just how little computer memory there was in the world back in the distant black and white days of the 20th century.

    Plus.... why did everyone walk around really fast in black and white days?
    Whenever you see old film everyone is in a rush. They say that we are impatient these days but if you watch one of those oldie worldie films of folks going about their business - everyone is speed walking, but the films are not played in fast forward.

    There's a big question for you Rob!

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    1. I think the reason people moved faster in the days of black and white is also a memory issue you see colour requires much more brain power to compute everything so people have to move slower now or their minds would overload. In the black and white days the world was greyscale and so folk could move faster without everything turning into a blurred mass of chaos.

      It was only when the world got colourful that the saying. . . Things are not always black or white. . . . .started. Before that it was black or white or one of the fifty shades of grey in between. Which is where the idea for the What the Butler Saw Machines came from.

      I hope this explains everything for you Mr H, I will be pondering other questions soon.

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  3. Things do change incredibly fast these days. You get a cell phone and its almost obsolete before you leave the store with it. Life sure seemed a lot simplier when things didn't change too fast.

    betty

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    1. Indeed things do seem to change quickly I blame consumerism in the old days the phone was attached to a wall by a wire and that phone would be there for years working perfectly well. Now it appears the mobile phone has a lifespan of one or two years at most. Although my own is rather older than that as I refuse to change it until the battery is dead.

      Look at light bulbs way back when there was just one type of light bulb some of them would last for years on end. Now they last a few months if you are lucky unless you buy some sort of fancy thing that costs loads and has a special fitting. This is why I keep my old trusty pointy stick man's fist implement and as good today as it was 150, 000 years ago, and it does not need batteries.

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  4. The greatest change that has left me bereft Mr Z, is the PC brigade taking away our rights to eat fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. I think this is a tragedy and one of the main reason why I hate how fast things change. Plain paper just doesn't cut it when it comes to...sorry...I'm getting a bit tearful now...I need to go and lie down...so sorry...

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    1. I quite agree although to be far there are not the newspapers about like they used to be in the old days. I would always ask it they could use the Financial Times as I rather liked its pinky orange glow. But it was a request that was seldom met with a nod and a smile.

      Plain paper though is lot better than those polystyrene boxes you see lying about in the streets abandoned with bits of pizza or curry sauce hanging out of the corner.

      One of my offshore friends many many many years ago when he was rather drunk in Aberdeen having just arrived back from a job out at sea woke up in the doorway of a shop the following morning with enough fish and chips for about twenty people. It was all cold and all his clothes were stained with chip fat. He never did find out how or why that happened. (it was not me by the way)

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  5. Once again, sorry for my um, notable absence. I should have my new computer by this Friday. Hopefully, I can then FLASH though the internet. Not that kind of "FLASH!" I read your post before my computer started to act up. Must go before my comment ends up vanishing. That would make my comment as insignificant as this little speck named earth....

    Cheerio and see you soon.

    Gary :)

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    1. AH time for a change of computer Mr G.

      I hope is runs like the wind.

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  6. My kids think it's hilarious that I leaned to type on a typewriter and couldn't afford the gadget that all the cool kids had: a pager. Man, I feel old.

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    1. Yes these are the things that do sneak up on us and folk then assume we must be really old

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