More Random Thoughts

* What if the Younger Dryas extra-terrestrial impact didn't happen? 

Pleistocene megafauna might have survived. The Clovis culture would have lasted longer. Native American cultures in North America might have been more patriarchal. Göbekli Tepe might not have been built at all, or might have been very different. The Neolithic Revolution might have arrived 4,000 years earlier. The genetics of European hunter-gatherers might have been more diverse.

* There is more than one scenario by which brain evolution could be next level. 

One is exemplified by the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica who have essentially the three main layers of the human brain plus a new one on top of that - dolphins come close to that. Another is exemplified by octopi who have a completely different brain structure with is decentralized with many sub-brains throughout their bodies. Yet another would be the cyborg approach (perhaps exemplified by Ghost in the Machine) where brains would be part human and part computer (perhaps the most likely as it has already been done at a very limited level).

* “Eternity is two people and a ham." - Irma Rombauer in The Joy of Cooking. But the price is right. You can get so much red meat for so little money when there are holiday ham sales.

* I visited the Colorado History Museum today and saw, among other things, the 90s exhibit. It is actually fairly stunning how little fashion, music, and movies have changed in the last 35 years, even though technology has changed dramatically. There was a much smaller generation gap between me and my children, culturally, than there was between me and my parents (or my wife and her parents).

* I still don't really understand why the dust bowl of the 1930s happened, or what the risk of it recurring is.

* My son is in Mexico City with his (serious, long term) girlfriend. He is almost exactly the same age that I was when I went there on my honeymoon.

* The U.S. Navy has been quietly developing unmanned surface and undersea ships that are just about ready for "prime time" as important components of our overall naval fleet. Here are some recent examples:

For example, the Australian Eureka unmanned or minimally manned ship has a 1,150 mile range, a 44 ton payload, can travel at 50 knots (60 mph a.k.a. 100 km/hr), and can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles and anti-ship Naval Strike Missiles (NSM). But is fairly small at 36 meters in length.

The Lionfish UUV (i.e. drone submarine) is about to enter service.

Lionfish is designed to address critical undersea warfare needs, including mine countermeasures, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), anti-submarine warfare, and electronic warfare.

The REMUS UUV family delivers critical advantages across modern naval operations and the autonomous systems have been proven to operate independently or in conjunction with crewed platforms — such as Virginia-class nuclear submarines — to extend mission range, reduce detection risk, and limit personnel exposure.

The U.S. Navy has a 100 foot long, 100 ton, unmanned surface vessel (USV) in the works (confusingly the same article seems to describe it as a 180 foot, 240 ton USV). It would have a range of thousands of miles.

The vessel is envisaged to be multi-role, capable of transporting logistics payloads, conducting ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) missions, or supporting naval munitions delivery without human oversight.

* My wife is currently watching White Lotus. One of the striking parts of the show is how aptly it captures the ways that men and women completely misunderstand each other because they have very different communications styles. To oversimplify, men are much more direct. Men rely far less on implied meanings and expecting people to "take a hint" than women. Women, in turn, overthink what men say, trying to look for hidden meanings in what men say that aren't there. Women, meanwhile, underestimate how much men can be hurt when they take what women say literally, when what women really mean is different, and is supposed to be implied from context. It also puts the lie to the notion that women are better communicators. Both are men and women are bad at communicating with members of the opposite sex. This mirrors differences in national communications styles. Germans, for example, are much more direct than Americans, while the Japanese, for example, have a much more indirect communication systle.