Massive improbability of life
February 14, 2010
Apparently life on Earth is very unlikely.
i’m re-reading chunks of Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. In chapter 19, ”The Rise of Life’, he points out that collagen – one of many useful proteins for life – needs 1055 amino acids to be organised in exactly the right sequence.
And collagen organises itself spontaneously. There isn’t someone assembling it each time.
“The chances of a 1,055-sequence molecule like collagen spontaneously self-assembling are, frankly, nil” (p351). Bryson compares it to a poker machine where you have 1055 slots instead of the usual 3-5, where each wheel has 20 different amino acids to choose from. How long would you have to pull the handle of this one-armed bandit? Forever. The odds against winning are 1 in 10^260*.
Not only that, but as well as amino acids forming themselves into proteins, somehow DNA manages to get in on the act – so that the whole thing can reproduce itself – and then there’s a cell membrane to contain all this activity.
Freakishly unlikely.
Fred Hoyle the astronomer once said that it was as if a wind swept through a junkyard, and a fully formed jumbo jet arose by chance (p352).
No wonder the creationists go mad trying to bring their paternalistic version of god into the equation.
Even the Nobel Laureate scientists like Francis Crick (who sorted out the DNA double helix model) have come up with outlandish theories like aliens “deliberately seeding” the earth with life ingredients such as amino acids via meteors and comets.
So we’re incredibly lucky to be living on earth..
Then why am i feeling so glum?
Better get active. Do the dishes. Find a costume for the Chinese new year dinner party. Get off the couch. Start spontaneously re-assembling myself. etc.
—————————————-
(* 10^260 means 10 with 260 zeroes, and it’s more than the number of atoms in the known universe. That’s big.)
—————————————-
Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, Black Swan edn 2004.
Bryson’s book is such a great read. You find out all sorts of things, for example the universe is 13 billion years old, and the earth is around 4 billion years old, and life on earth actually started around the 3.85 billion years ago mark..
..and in 1946 Reginald Sprigg discovered pre-Cambrian fossils in the Flinders Ranges, but nobody paid any attention because.. i don’t know, maybe it was his name.
—————————————-
photo credit: Steve took it,
Eastlink Hell, LoL?
December 22, 2009
First attempt to read the car Reg. over the phone:
“i’m sorry, i didn’t hear anything. Please tell me the registration number..”
second attempt
“Did you say ROFL w t f 6 8 3 ?”
another go:
“Did you say LOL w t f 6 8 3 ?”
i was sure the insanely cheerful machine at the other end of the phone line was giving me some kind of internet speak as well as the registration number. In fact i’m sure the eastlink machine with the personality disorder was laughing at me.. in LOLCATS language.
“For F sake,” i cried, “What does it take to get a live human being around here.”
“Now transferring you to an operator.”
.
$5 to drive to Frankston these days.
But all that ART along the way makes it almost worth the cash. The mini-hotel? Hilarious!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
photo credit: (creative commons at flickr) Thanks: peter forret, and Vermin Inc.
Wealth of Nations approaching (a festival show)
September 22, 2009
“You are invited to join Sanctum Theatre and Fenestra Productions in celebrating the 233rd anniversary of Adam Smith’s seminal work, Wealth of Nations as part of this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival. The ship may be sinking, the ‘invisible hand’ might have lost its grip on the invisible wheel, but there is an alternative. For two weekends in September Sanctum and Fenestra break away from the globular economic system to realise Smith’s ideal of a true and unfettered market on a small patch of turf in Brunswick – ‘Wall Street on Barkly’.”
Lachlan read us the Business Age yesterday, because the economical journalists there had noticed the number 233 in connection with Adam Smith. They suspect theatrical shenanigans. They would be correct: here comes the Nut Economy. The roller coaster of free trade.
- Opening Thursday 24th September. 6 evenings only. (1, 2 + 3 October still to come!)
- Music, performances and more. Street hawkers, snake oil merchants.. etc:
- Mamushka (Thursday 1st October!)
- Suitcase Royale, the GFC dj masters (Grand Funk Connection).. Pete & the Tar Gang.
- Visit Sanctum Theatre dot org for full details.
Here are some photos from the previous incarnation back in May ‘09
Oh and here’s the official publicity line: ‘Merchants of mania, hawkers of hubris, snake oil salesmen and peddlers of useless pendants’ peddle their wares in the Wealth of Nations market place. Do you have anything to offer? Come up with a product and a pitch, fill in a Trader’s Application form, get in for free and earn your peanuts to buy drinks for the evening. Get your Trader’s Application form from Sanctum Theatre.
WARNING: MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS!!
Each night will feature a different band and guest performer. Bands include:
- Pete and the Tar Gang, Sex on Toast, Mamuska
- The Kurtletts, Minstrels of the Revolution, The PANTY CHRI$T$
Guest performers include
- Suitcase Royale, Daniel Oldaker, Cabaret Existenz, The Gibbon Twins
- The Sewell Family Cabaret, An Inconvenient Spoof, The R.S.P.F.C.L.B.H.M
How exciting! Can’t wait.
i dream a highway.. 2nd birthday
September 14, 2009
I Dream a Highway just had their 2nd birthday gathering.
(If you don’t know yet, it’s a funky retail outlet on the Northcote Hill opposite the Wesley Anne, with clothes and cds and lovely arty stuff.)
Ben and Rhi laid on the liquor and some scrumptious Mein Leibe pizzas for all their friends, family and neighbours.
- Yum.
- Lovely glamorous lusciousness on the top of the Northcote Hill. So stylish.
- Hats and weird-stuff jewellery and crazy little punk voodoo dolls.
So of course i had to lay out a tiny bit of shopping moulah. Stimulate the local economy. It’s all about fighting the GFC you know.
In the end i bought another one of the Bohjass discs, “Chocolate Ice” (2001). Bohjass are a very cool and creative outfit from the heart of Northcote, led by Tim Pledger who also plays with The Boys, Opa.. and half-a-dozen other jazz impro bands around town.
..and this really sweet ring made out of a number 10 knitting needle.
Lynne came across too.. we danced a country jig, and then headed over the road to see Lou and gray release their first single, “animation in my head” at the Wesley Anne.
Here’s Bea the shop dog, featured on the IDAH website.
oh when the saints..
September 6, 2009
“Great year to be a Saints supporter,” says Matt at work.. and i must agree with him. Although the last 3 weeks have been nerve-wracking.
i haven’t been this fascinated by aussie rules football since i was an 8 year old. Which is a long time ago.
St Kilda has won more wooden spoons than any other club in VFL history (26), nearly a quarter of all of them in fact, and twice as many as their nearest competitor (North Melbourne with 13).
i’ve always barracked for St Kilda, because Bruce my dad and Auntie Nance both did. i guess they grew up on that side of town, around Bentleigh and McKinnon. Back when you barracked for a team because you lived in the area.
However during the 80’s i confess i had a second team. i chose Essendon because their colours were similar and my mate Andrew barracked for them. This action made me a religious heathen in the eyes of the majority, but it was nice to have one team at the top of the ladder to balance my favourites at the bottom. i never really cared as much even though Essendon would often win, and in the 90’s i paid barely any attention at all.
But this year, i’ve found the game can inspire real emotions. You get swept up in the possibility that your team, your real team, could keep winning. You start to really care about it. You love the way they play as a team. And the mass hysteria that surrounds Victorian rules football can be intense. i find myself shouting at the television.
So now there are 5 teams who could take the flag:
St Kilda, Geelong, Footscray, Collingwood and Adelaide.
Saints, Cats, Dogs, Magpies and Crows.
What is going to happen?
Only 6 teams left now: Saints, Cats, Dogs, Magpies, Lions and Crows.
What happens next?
Plenty of culture in this town ;-]
August 24, 2009
So i’m looking through my list of drafts for this blog.. going back to early June, and there’s about 14 posts i’ve started and not finished.
Really interesting things (i think), like the Melbourne film festival, the funeral of Martin Martini and the Bone Palace Orchestra, the day i juggled listening to St Kilda get whalloped by Essendon.. outside the Corner Hotel while legendary Melbourne band The Ears were setting up inside. Plus.. the time that i sang with the very amazing fIRST cHORUS choir at the Victoria Hotel Brunswick.
So much culture, and so little finished blog product. How totally slack. Must be the hibernation thing. How do i work a blog backlog like that?
Better get my editing shoes on about now, eh.
photo credit (thanks): thorinside
Drive carefully you people
May 25, 2009
Roads were full of trauma on my way home tonight.
Gilbert Rd., Thornbury.
i shouldn’t have looked, but i saw a car sandwiched between 2 big trams.
Scrunched up to about half its length.
Ugh.
Police cars everywhere, paramedics, the fire brigade.
Here is my artist’s impression of the event.
Then 5 minutes further down the road, police cars around a house, and someone is being stretchered out into the ambulance.
This is days after the mad 7-11 incident at the end of my street, where some lunatics killed a person with a pram.
Hey everyone – be careful out there.
Roads + rain + night = very freaking danger.
life as a trekker .. on the stimulation train
May 14, 2009
Last week Tim and i hit the city for an early movie ..
11am in the central place, the new beginning/ prequel version of star trek, with Sylar Guy as Spock. Ooh he’s a good actor.
The action is non-stop.
i’ve never ever cared about the original star trek characters, but this remake brings everyone back to life. Superbly!
.
.
Then a whole day of mooching around the city looking for new and exciting ways to stimulate the economy:
- the latest buffy comic at minotaur (Dawn is still suffering from that awkward spell by the jealous thricewise)
- some music including the latest spoonbill venture at collectors corner (can’t wait to listen !)
- lovely smelly things from the body shop.
oh yeah, i’ve been at the forefront of the GER (global economic recovery). Spending my way to freedom. Woohoo. On the Stimulation train. Oh yeh.
mm. Retail therapy .. much needed.
Ooh look here’s Zachary officially denying that he’s in the film.
photo credit: TCM Hitchhikerxkcd is funny. So i say.
March 12, 2009
xkcd is funny.
If you click the cartoon har, you’ll gat a random nother one.
Yauh.
Blag on.
.
.
(Apparently this site is blocked by the education dept in nsw.
(So it must be good.)
macbook at the tip
March 3, 2009
One day i went to drop off some of my ex-boxes, and discovered the Reservoir Tip computer recycling facility. Masses of old rubbishy broken machines, and one smashed up MacBook Pro!!
i thought maybe Tim could use the parts so i surreptitiously grabbed it and drove off. Sure enough, later on that night we took it to pieces, and found the hard drive and the battery were still in working order.
Working enough to find out that somebody had left all their data on the drive. So Tim gets all the data off and then does the decent thing, contacting this person and asking if they need the backup.
Turns out this person, whose identity shall remain secret, had taken the laptop to the shop. The mechanics had said, “Can’t do anything love, it’s broken. Can’t get your data off, but don’t worry we’ll make sure noone else does either.”
What kind of computer shop doesn’t know how to get the information off a working hard drive??
The moral of this story? Don’t trust a computer shop with your data.
And don’t sit on your macbook pro.
delights of brunswick
January 21, 2009
Oh thank heavens i’m back home. G Love and Special Sauce is on the stereo, Sam’s getting fish n chips from the new place on Sydney Road .. and the massive heat wave faded away just before i arrived. Tim and Nathan are here, with beer.
Life is perfect.
Sometimes you can have enough of a foreign place and living out of a backpack. Phnom Penh is beautiful in its way, but the poverty gets to me (not as much as it affects the locals obviously), my comfort zones are stretched, the heat and dust wears me down. i needed the comfort of home.
mmmm .. off to Victoria St to get me some frozen lychees.
.
cycling good fortune
December 22, 2008
i’ve been very lucky with the bike lately.
The front gear thing was out of whack. (The derailleur.) So i took it along to Lygon Cycles, where they said .. “oh, you want a service? Well everything needs replacing, so it’ll cost you around $360.”
“But you can get a new bike for around $400.”
Ouch. Not so convenient. i start looking for new bikes, and the one i want is over $1000. Maybe i’ll budget for that.
..in the meantime.. i take the bike down to Ceres on a Saturday morning and have a go at fixing the derailleur myself. The great thing about Ceres is that if you try to mend it yourself, eventually an expert will swing by and give you advice .. or in my case, roll their eyes, take the tool and do it themselves.
But within a couple of weeks, the thing’s broken again in a different place, proving the Lygon people correct. i’m riding around in the lowest gear imaginable, my legs pumping 3 times faster than they should.
Then one day i’m riding along the Bicycle Highway (Canning St.) into the Edinburgh Gardens, and there’s a couple of people with a sign saying “Free Bike Maintenance”. What about that for good luck!
“Are you with Ceres?” i ask.
“No, just a couple of nutters,” the guy replies.
“Speak for yourself,” his partner cuts in ..
Within a few moments, he’s done an emergency procedure, told me about the best bike shop in Melbourne (under the Richmond station .. lots of second hand parts he says), and given my pedal power back to me.
i feel so much better on the roads now.
Thank you heavenly bike-mending angels !!
(So, now i’m looking for more bike stories. What about you post one on your blog, and link back here .. or leave me a comment? Where’s the worst place you’ve broken down? etc. Hello, x
Big Breakfast, Buffy and Exquisite Lamb Kofta. Joy!
August 16, 2008
So in the great tradition of “cheese sandwich” blogging .. here i am in a cafe in the city. I’ve just had the biggest and best big breakfast in the whole wide world, and i’m luxuriating in the free wireless net connection of blue point cafe, opposite the watch-house in Russell Street.
Yes, i’ve got the day off work, Tim doesn’t start his sergeant role for another couple of hours, and this is my first access to internet for non-work reasons in months.
Off we go to wander through the city and search the computer shops for gadgets. End up in a liquidator shop on Swanston St called “Arthur Daley’s Lock-up”.
Gloves for three dollars Yah!
Later that day
Tim’s gone to rehearsal, so i head across to Minotaur, to get the latest copies of Buffy Season 8, in comic book form. I can’t wait. Apparently Buffy meets Fray, the vampire slayer from the 24th century.
Last i heard, Buffy and Giles aren’t talking to each other; the tricky “Twilight” crowd are dividing Buffy from Willow, and Dawn is still a giant.
Joy and beauty in food
How lucky am i! Jude and Jody invite me over for a sumptuous lamb kofta experience, followed by dripping-down-your-front apple and strawberry strudel. Yum.
So we watch the US Dance show, and we agree that Katee and Joshua are the best. This piece, choreographed by Mia Michaels, made me gasp.
Then Jude pulls out the Will Ferrel classic, “Anchorman”. Talk about cheese!
Time to go home and devour Margaret Cho, the best comedian in the world.
Life is wonderful.
Margaret Cho – Assassin! (part one)
image and photo credits: licensed under creative commons at flickr:
Thanks very much: cowtools
