Feeding The Fish

Vampires are an impossibility it seems.

Efthimiou’s debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600.  A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

 

If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population would disappear much faster. Even an unrealistically high reproduction rate couldn’t counteract this effect.

 

“In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month,” Efthimiou said. “And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction.”

Of course, this assumes several things 1) a low vampire mortality rate and 2) that a vampire creates a new vampire every month. What would have been a more interesting study is exactly what conditions would lead to a stable vampire population rather than ‘I have created an impossible situation, therefore it cannot exist’.

Suure, it’s silly, but it might as well be done right.

About half a million people living in Canada were eligible to vote in the American election [2004] (Canadians with either dual citizenships or Americans living in Canada). This exceeds the number of eligible voters in several American states.

This is proberly less significant than it seems as these will be distributed amoung many states and hence can their impact will be reduced. Still strange.

Washington Pictures are up.

That’s right; we got to ride on A SCHOOL BUS!! It was yellow and everything! It was worth coming purely for that experience. This is also a good time to throw in that anyone who already knows, or will find out in the next week who caused the bus crash in VM is under no condition to tell me, no spoiling! We went up to Cleveland to go to the - Rock & Roll Hall of Fame- , which was a pretty exciting place to be. I’d have pictures but NO PHOTOGRAPHY is allowed. 

I got a look at Mandy’s parents voting form, which is quite complex as it combines all the local elections, federal elections and issues into one form. There was a proposed law that would outlaw smoking in public places and places limitations on the advertising of tobacco products. So someone proposes a Ohio constitutional amendment, that while replacing very loose restrictions on where smoking can happen, also contains a neat little phrase that retroactively invalidates any law that places further restrictions on it or on advertising. It’s so slimy you just have to admire it. 

Also something that came up is that Hudson has a good reputation for Special Needs students. However, in the American system they must be ‘mainstreamed’ i.e. placed in ordinary schools and then extra support given at that point, by law special schools are not allowed. I’m not quite sure how this came about as it’s plainly a silly system, bringing up the inherent flaws in ‘separate but equal’ becomes irrelevant when the schools are providing a necessarily different education. 

I leave you with news that a - Fire Station without a smoke alarm burned down. It’s been as described as “embarrassing”.

American Political adverts are very personal, humorously so once you spot the pattern.

“[[Office Title]] [[Office Holder]] is a bad bad person for the following [[bad things]] whereas [[Candidate]] (Cue uplifting music) is a much better all round person and would never ever do any of the [[bad things]] and spends their free time hugging puppies and smiling at people. Vote for [[Candidate]]”.

Why doesn’t that happen at home? Why aren’t there TV ads vilifying MPs and councilors? Then I twiged it: No local television. American Channels are local enough that you can directly target the constituents for a certain position. That level of local TV simply doesn’t exist in the UK. TV ads MUST focus on the national picture because that’s the only audience they can reach.

The local pamphlets fill the same role as the American TV ads but by their nature they are more information-dense and so don’t need to go for the 10-second mud-slinging sound-bite and can actually detail some policy. The ability to target specific regions through TV probably results in less information passing to the voter than otherwise and certainly the 10-second culture it promotes results in more negative ads which can have a negative effect on voters on both sides. Few marginal voters like to see their side playing dirty.

I leave you with this Congressional Advert which frankly defies belief.

Big impressive things

Originally uploaded by WizzardFish.

On the way back to ohio now. Washington is a neat place, wandered aound yesterday. The monuments are all built on a huge scale. I wonder how much space the original planners left for them. All the metro stations look exactly the same. Would have been nice to have a bit more time, but i think we got to see the most of it.

Back on the road.

Here we in washington.

Originally uploaded by WizzardFish.

Road trip!

Originally uploaded by WizzardFish.

So I fell down the stairs last night, that’s a interesting 4 am experience. I’m now in the Fahey-mobile driving to Washington. Woo!

flag count: 4

“Sole purpose of Visit”

Originally uploaded by WizzardFish.

Aircraft seen to be designed to obscure as much of the outside world as possible. I don’t mind as being 35000 ft above an ocean travelling at 600 mph would really be far worse.

I’m handwriting this for transcription later. Does anyone know if there’s a reason for not having phones on in the air or is it the same as petrol stations?

And the immigration forms, who would put yes? Do worse things happen if you’re caught out than just being kicked out?

“you may not accept unauthorized employment or attend school” … uh oh.

Anyway, in Dutroit now. Pretty place, there’s a tram!