God Bless America...

...and the occasional random laws that manage to pass that actually protect average citizens, entirely contrary to the goal of America, that being to crush 90+% of people's spirits into submission to the man. But, one of the winners prevents the jerk living somewhere in the radius of 4-5 floors on either side of me from using a jackhammer at 7am. Of course, if I find him, he will, mysteriously not be jackhammering anymore, ever. Let's say. But I did feel better on finding a maintenance employee a floor up frantically searching for the source of the noise as well. Better, as I'd specifically been told that this unacceptable maintenance and construction could not legally occur so early (because this is like the upmteenth time over the past 6 months, usually involving me finding construction workers who speak no english - see earlier posts - of course, query legality, as there is absolutely no shortage whatsoever of workers who will do construction in the heart of america at a time when the umemployment rate is hovering near 7-10% and it is relatively difficult to pass through the american educational system and have absolutely zero english profeciency. As in, unable to communicate in english that you don't speak english. I can, right now, perform that feat of wonder in 6 languages in whose countries I haven't illegally been working). So, WTF. Honestly, and they wonder why people are forced to resort to vigilante violence. Enforce the laws and make this world liveable, now. I really cannot listen to any more construction.

What is Modal and why is it so absurdly soft?

I should start by recommending that if you are not familiar with modal, you should immediately buy a shirt made out of it. It is like really soft light cotton, just drapes wonderfully and is like magic. And it is not expensive.

Evidently it is made from reconstituted cellulose from beech trees. This evidently means it is a variation on rayon.

So what exactly is rayon? Absolutely fascinating. So rayon is "technically" not an artificial fiber because it is made from trees BUT is treated as artificial because of the enormous amount of work required to turn the beech tree into rayon. Which doesn't really make sense to me because it's not as though they just picked the cotton for my sweatshirt and boom, there it was, but whatever. Miscellaneous information: rayon was originally created in the late 1800s by the French as a silk alternative.

The process of production is rather complex, so I'm just going to quote it from here: "The manufacture of rayon begins with cellulose, frequently extracted from wood pulp, although any plant material with long molecular chains is suitable. The cellulose is steeped in caustic soda, which concentrates some of the cellulose into soda cellulose, which is then rolled or pressed to remove excess soda solution. After pressing, the cellulose is shredded into a substance called white crumb.

The white crumb is allowed to oxidize, forming shorter molecular chains, and treated with carbon disulfide. The soda cellulose reacts with this substance, forming yellow crumb due to inorganic compounds that emerge during the chemical process. This yellow crumb is dissolved in a caustic solution, which relaxes the hydrogen bonds in the cellulose, producing a highly viscous substance. This substance gives its name to the manufacturing process, called the viscose process.

This viscous fluid is allowed to age, breaking down the cellulose structures further to produce an even slurry, and then filtered to remove impurities. Small air pockets are forced out to ensure a strong, even fiber, and the mixture is forced through a spinner, which forms many even strands of fine thread that enter a setting solution to form cellulose filaments: also called rayon. The rayon is stretched to form a strong, even bond, washed, and then formed into rayon fabric."

The process for making modal is a variation on this, known as polynosic. So some of the differences that make rayon very different from the magnificence of modal include that the molecular chain length of the cellulose is twice as long as traditional rayon and it is actually a mix of rayon and polyester fibers.

Modal is trademarked by Lenzing AG, which also has Tencel, another excellent fiber. Here is a video babbling on about the lovely textiles -it is in German, but it is pretty easy to get the idea.

Monkeys pt. 9

Commerical Abuse of Monkeys!

A broad subject. We will start with totally random things.

1) Career Builder's use of monkeys:

So career builder created an ad campaign that had to do with monkeys some time back. In case you don't remember, here is a link to a boardroom full of monkeys dressed in rather elegant suits, a table covered with bananas, and a disturbed regular white-collar worker. A little weirder, and as part of some sort of "alernative" viral marketing campaign, they offered up the monk-e-mail, an e-mail, the content of which contained a monkey. An example is offered here (courtesy of this site).

Okay, so this is just kind of weird and honestly, a general problem with using animals for commercial purposes. Not only is career builder relying on stereotypes to characterize monkeys but it is also using them for commercial gain, none of which goes to the monkeys. Actually, I don't know that. But I'm willing to guess that these monkeys didn't receive trusts as a result of their work. I'm actually not kidding on that point. I do kind of have an issue with this, just based on the general view that you should gain based on your work, so although perhaps the trainers etc. should receive some recompense, clearly the monkeys should as well. No really, I mean it.

2) Insane people concerned with monkeys in the media:

Um, right. So some character named "Mr. Monkey" rather unironically made a list of famous monkeys. It is full of great information, like that Howard Stern had a monkey on his show - except of course that Baba Booey is not a monkey but a nickname for a person, so it really only vaguely has to do with monkeys.

Someone I had almost forgotten about - Elijah, the pet chimp in Being John Malkovich. I've seen the movie several hundred times but didn't think of him, I suppose because he actually is so human in the movie. And is really given more attention than some of the characters by Cameron Diaz (in one of her great roles). Theoretically at least, he is really treated as a human, being given childhood psychological trauma, just like everyone else who grew up when he did.

3) Monkeys and Reality:

Now here is a thought: wikipedia has an entry titled "List of Fictional Apes." Query whether it really makes sense to call real monkeys in movies "fictional" because they are playing characters - like if you're playing a character and you don't know it, are you really fictional? I'm not at all sure. It's rather Truman Show-esque --> so if I'm living my life and don't know that I'm a character in a film, am I really a character or am I myself? I think I'm just myself.

4) Actual documentation of my babbling:

Evidently, chimps acting are doing so in a state of terror: "In order to force them to perform, trainers often beat young chimpanzees with their fists, clubs, or even broom handles. Shock devices may also be used. This systematic pattern of abuse and dominance causes the animals to be constantly anxious and fearful, always anticipating the next blow."

Yikes. And it goes on:

"Apes are routinely beaten into submission and forced to pantomime human behaviors that are foreign and confusing. The public learns nothing about a chimpanzee or orangutan by watching him or her riding a skateboard or dancing in a tutu. In fact, it is misleading to portray these animals as cute, cuddly, childlike creatures, and doing so encourages people to acquire these intelligent, strong, and often dangerous animals as 'pets.'"

Fair point. Chimps are not particularly good pets, nor are they human. And, dear god, Jane Goodall is in support of what I'm saying, so clearly it's correct.

But really, the problem is the same as with anything - you can forget that people are horrible until you are faced with the fact that they treat animals horrifically. I wouldn't normally cite PETA as a source, but this handout makes a rather compelling case. "Steve Martin's Working Wildlife" is a fascinating example (NB that no, not the steve martin you're thinking of).

Wow. Does this guy look creepy, or what? It really isn't surprising that he disposed of an unwanted chimp in an inappropriate manner.

In any case, this diatribe could go on indefinitely. Point being, there is something to be said for not using actual animals in commerical media. Particularly monkeys. For some reason, it looks especially exploitative.

Monkeys pt. 8

Monkeys and Cotton!

1) Sock Monkeys:

Sock Monkeys are, rather logically, monkeys made out of socks. What is a little weird about it is that the sock monkeys look like normal rather cute toys and not at all like socks. So you might be asking, what's up with with "sock" adjective?

Rockford Red Heel, a sock company that makes durable socks with red heels, takes credit for this particular creation. So much so that the socks and monkey dolls are presented side-by-side in the purchase area. Oddly, these sock monkeys cost $25-$35 each. I mean, yes, they are very cute and I am very tempted to buy one. But, really? Maybe $15? I don't know. Anyways...

Of course, the main question you're asking is, my goodness, the economy and everything the way it is, how I can afford to get Sally Jo that amazing Rockford sock monkey? Well, as luck would have it, the folks at Rockford are kind enough to offer FAQs (I will not get started on how annoying I find the use of "FAQs"). It is very simple. You need a pair of Rockford socks (you may need an additional sock if you want to make a hat) and you should probably use large size socks. Furthermore, you will need "stuffing, thread and two buttons for the eyes. Most people also do a small amount of embroidery on the face (black embroidery thread and an embroidery needle will take care of all your basic needs)." If you want accessories, facts, or delightful coffee table books, check here.

Here are the specific instructions.

I have to admit, I am extremely motivated to make one of these dolls.

And for the true aficionados, there is a sock monkey blog. Sadly, there isn't much posting, but I'm not sure how much you can talk about this subject.

There are a scary number of sites dedicated to dealing with sock monkeys:
Monkey of Sock
Sock Monkey Fun (includes a lawyer sock monkey and a featured monkey of the month)
Hazel and Melvin's Sock Monkeys (Just tons of stuff, including their saved adopted monkeys...)

Luckily, Hazel and Melvin have given me a good transition into the topic I really wanted to talk about, monkey prints.

2) Monkey Print Clothing:

Here it is, the Sock Monkey Dress. This piece is "a custom-designed, couture piece custom fit exclusively for you," including 30 faces with individual name tags. Oh, BTW, it's $1,500. For a sock monkey dress.

There are of course some more tasteful monkeys to be found. For example, the fabric finder in its "Monkey Jungle" section has a number of prints of monkeys dressed in clothes from the Renaissance era. Obviously, this is also pretty weird.

Alternatively, and while playing into the, monkeys love bananas stereotype, Hart's Fabric offers a more entertaining and kid friendly (and significantly more affordable) alternative with its "Monkey and Banana Cotton Fabric Pink." Delightful, really.

Of course, what I was really looking for was a Lily Pulitzer print. Here is a great example for children, in Pink Monkey See Toile - a fun little bathing suit. You have to be a little creative to see the monkeys, particularly as they are small and rather monochromatic. But if you look closely, you will see that they have their arms interlinking and alternate between being light and dark colored. Very cute.

Cargill: Oh la pauvre bete

So just a quick update on my high-fructose corn syrup friend of yesterday, today Cargill's rice production in Venezuela was seized by the government, i.e., nationalized.

As with many dictatorships, there are food shortages, so Chavez is blaming the rice shortage on the rice companies. Sort of an unlikely source, but hey, you don't get to be a dictator by being rational...:)

Of course, Cargill is just the beginning of the end for a travel-friendly (that is, my reason for being interested in Venezuela) country that is beautiful and could be a tourist mecca. I don't doubt that things will come back, but not any time soon (see, what happened to the Cuba of yesteryear...)

Cargill did, however, get a reassurance that no more plant takeovers were planned - not much of a reassurance from a company that just forceably seized your assets, but as good as you're going to get when you're exploiting a 2nd/3rd world country. You get what you pay for, in the end.

Intriguingly, the day before the nationalization, Cargill sold $450 B in bond notes (10 yr). Coupon about 7.35, rating A. But interesting. Did Cargill know this was coming? It was a private placement, so the info is limited, but it's a question that simply popped into my head when I noticed the timing. Given my personal business experience, the answer is yes. Which means, Chavez is in cahoots with western businesses doing business in Venezuela. Which means...a lot of really troubling things. That I won't get into, b.c. I need to return to another exercise.

Monkeys pt. 7

Monkey Medicine!

Now I certainly didn't think I would come across this - an article on zoopharmacognosy (animal self-medication - click on the pictures to read the article), a topic that has always fascinated me, given me hope, and which I briefly got to experience while in the Amazon jungle. Over (emphasize over as this is clearly a low number, dependent on the direct derivation) 50% of modern medicines are based on natural plant sources.

The first example is of a chimpanzee experiencing fatigue, diarrhea, and discolored urine. She chooses, while separated from the group, to chew and digest some leaves of the plant Vernonia amygdalina, which contains venonine, an antibiotic and antiparasitic, that is evidently widely used by African healers to treat diseases as diverse as scurvy, malaria, and rheumatism.

A number of the other plants observed by researchers to be used by sick monkeys in the wild are antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and so forth.

An interesting focus is on Aspilia leaves, the active compound of which is thiarubrine-A, found to be remarkably effective against solid tumors, i.e., cancer. (NB, that tragically, I do not have access to medical databases and as such, am limited in my ability to see how later western research may have played out - although herbal sites reiterate the findings in the wild) However, they have been shown in traditional medical circles to stop bleeding.

Particularly cool, is Karen Strier's belief that female muriqui monkeys use plants to regulate hormones. Evidently, at the beginning of their mating season, they eat a number of plants high in a substances that mimic estrogen and progesterone in the body. Subsequently, after giving birth, they eat different plants that limit the monkey's fertility. Kenneth Glander believes that howler monkeys have even attempted to control the sex of their offspring by ingesting certain plants that alter the electrical "potentials" in their reproductive tracts.

So monkeys are an excellent source of finding medications - highlight on monkeys and not on other animals, not because other animals don't engage in this behavior, but merely because they tend to do so either in a way that is more efficient or (more likely to me) in a way that is more obvious and easily comprehensible to humans and as a result, more reported in western media. NB, that insects, parasites and indigestion (due to a diet with a lot of leaves) are the main issues they face and as a result, the primary source of medicine with which we are familiar.

It is possible that in composing this series I have become somewhat biased towards monkeys in a way that I wasn't before, but this bothers me. The title, "Primates in Traditional Medicine and as Hunting Trophies" was a bit of a clue-in. In India, there are some who treat rheumatism with monkey brain consumption and asthma with monkey blood. I actually do feel a little squeamish about killing the monkeys for this purpose, but of course, there is also a public health issue since diseases can pass from primates to humans.

To actually treat primates, I found a great deal of technical information that is insufficiently interesting for me to discuss, but should you take an interest in say, the appropriate level of creatine in an adolescent chimpanzee, check out the excel chart, Nonhuman Primate Formulary.

Oh High Fructose Corn Syrup is SOOOO Good For You...

Perhaps you have seen the HYSTERICAL commericals by the Corn Refiners Association?

Here is an example.

The Corn Refiners Association is, of course, the national organization representing the corn refining (aka, "wet milling") industry. Given the top-heavy consolidation of the farming industry, it is less than surprising that there are only 7 members of the organization, and the list certainly reads like a top ten for big gifts for good kids from Santa: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill Inc., Corn Products International Inc., National Starch LLC, Penford Products Co., Roquette America, Inc., and Tate and Lyle Ingredients Americas, Inc. Each of course deserves its own analysis, but for now, I am focused on the commercials.

Its own website explains the media blitz (although not why they hired some horrifically ignorant ad team): "Last year, corn sweeteners supplied more than 55 percent of the U.S. nutritive sweetener market." "Nutritive sweeteners," I think entirely misleadingly, merely means that the sweetener has calories, so literally speaking, there is some type of nutrition.

But first, for those of you who didn't read the book, what is corn syrup?

Corn syrup is a syrup substance made up of cornstarch and glucose (liquid sugar). Why corn syrup? It's cheap: it is "often used in place of sugar in American-made processed and mass-produced foods, candies, and sodas to help control costs."

High-fructose corn syrup is just corn syrup on crack. Literally, it "comprises any of a group of corn syrups that has undergone enzymatic processing to increase its fructose content, and then been mixed with pure corn syrup (100% glucose)."

Anyways, pretty much all studies show a correlation between obesity and consumption of high fructose corn syrup, fructose potentially simply suppressing the sense of fullness, just to start, along with a tendency towards liver disease and diabetes, just from being exposed to it. I can't even be bothered to get into all the health issues, the massive amount of misleading information by commerical entities, the total disregard for the health of our citizens by our government (of course, that assumes that you mistakenly believe that the FDA is looking out for citizens and not the people who pay their salaries, the corporations, but that's for another time). The issue being that high fructose corn syrup has just saturated our food since it really kicked into high gear in the late seventies/early eighties. There are a lot of potential problems, the most compelling of which is that enzymes required to digest high fructose corn syrup are totally different from those required to digest normal sugar.

One of the main issues is that people don't realize that when they eat, for example, ketchup, they are ingesting a sugar substitute at all, let alone one that is terrible for the body. Also there is talk that there is mercury in it, if everything else wasn't bad enough.

If you feel like being amused, check out the spoof of the most recent commercial.

6 hour power v. 5 hour energy

This is a truly remarkable marketing stunt to me.

The standard shot energy beverage on the market was 5 hour energy. It tasted like crap, but all this stuff does.

Then, in the last month or so, "6 hour power" pops up on the market.

Now, I have a ton of 5 hour energy. From personal experience, the crap does not work. So the idea of adding to the market strikes me as totally bizarre. But obviously, the truly hilarious part is BARELY changing the idea (the packaging is quite similar) and adding an hour. It reminds me of this commercial out now about how if you buy one yogurt, you only get 80 calories and the other just fattens you up with the ABSURD figure of 100 calories. Honestly, if you are in a situation where 20 calories is going to make a major difference for you, you're either an infant or insane.

Monkeys pt. 6

Monkeys for sale!

So in general, buying animals is sketchy for any number of reasons. To really generalize, it seems to me that people who get involved in selling animals are interested in profit (obviously) and are generally taking advantage not only of the animals but more over of those purchasing the animals. But let's see how that plays out for monkeys.

We'll start with technicalities. Monkeys become sexually mature at approximately 30 months. Typically a female has a monkey a year, with a 160 day gestation period. Occasionally (like with humans) twins are born, and most births are at night. As logic would suggest, generally monkey births are timed to coincide with an abundance of food in their environment. Specifically, "monkeys living in Brazil, Peru and Colombia have sexual union during June to August which is a dry season. So that the birth may occur on wet season in which food availability is abundant and female can spend less time on foraging." The men are not involved in raising in the baby.

Controversy: problems begin when you recognize that much monkey breeding is done for the purpose of using the off-spring for laboratory trials, i.e., shooting them full of things and treating them in ways that the FDA won't currently allow humans to be treated. In this photo, you can see the protests treatment of monkeys in Nepal.
In fact, 120 airlines around the world have prohibited the transportation of monkeys aboard their planes (only 12 airlines still allow for this). The main issue is that monkeys are often kidnapped from the wild and then transported to these "breeding areas" and then sold as though they were bred there, even though they were actually kidnapped. I suppose it doesn't technically matter, except that western countries can't pillage 3rd world countries for their own amusement and potential scientific gain. That just doesn't go over well.

Speaking of the protesters to the right, Nepal banned the export of monkeys late last year. Not that that necessarily means anything. If you want to see a really brutal video of the treatment of the animals, see here. Even fast-forwarding through it, I had major issues watching it.

But ignoring the political etc. issues, let's say you plan on buying a monkey. Some of them are terribly cute, especially when clinging to toys ( :-)). Price for a monkey seems to start somewhere around $2500, although depending on the specific type of monkey, the price can be upwards of $10,000. Here is another site with monkeys for sale.

Here's an intriguing note on a monkey-for-sale site: "Until now, all primates on our "Monkeys for sale"-page were sold within a month (mostly days after our monthly email)."So evidently there is a high-demand for monkeys.

Perhaps my favorite random site is generally speaking about young children wanting animals and then launches, somewhat inexplicably, into a discussion of pet monkeys. Like that's a standard pet purchase for young children.

Particular concerns including finding a vet that will treat the monkey, getting nasty disease that are rather easily transmitted from monkeys to humans, and the circumstances in which the monkey was raised. Problem with the last being that "primates that are isolated or confined in cramped quarters are far more likely to be neurotic and aggressive," i.e., psychological damage inflicted on infant primates can cause permanent damage, as with humans.

I have to be honest here - I can't possibly understand why a person would want a pet monkey or would want to take care of what has obviously been proven, over and over again, to be an uncontrollable animal. Here are some thoughts along those lines. Since you now can't ship a monkey across state lines, it's going to be even harder to buy a monkey. So ideally this will be less of an issue. Honestly, if you think you need a monkey to pass the time, you really, really need a hobby. Seriously.

Crossing a Picket Line

So I have no interest, ever, in crossing a picket line. I know it's a little dated, but I am hugely in favour of unions and union rights and pay that is sufficient to support a family and benefits commensurate with living and paying taxes in a first-world country.

So imagine my dismay when a few days ago en route to an appointment I noticed an inflatable rat and several union members standing outside my sister's old apartment building (across the street from mine). That is that, and it wouldn't have surprised me at all as I was always a little suspicious of the management of the building. But the real problem was that the union members surrounded the whole block, including a fish restaurant, a blockbuster, and most tragically, the whole foods. See the thing is, whole foods is the only supermarket within an 8 block radius and moreover, the only one at all that stocks the gluten-free foods I need to survive. But I can't cross a picket line. So I stayed away for days, waiting, hoping, that at 5 today, for some magical reason, the union folk would leave.

They were gone, and I got my necessary supplies, but I felt and feel horrible. I feel like I crossed the line even though I didn't, technically at least. Of course, my whole premise in entering the whole foods is that whole foods is not actually the subject of the protest; rather, the owner of the building is the subject (everything is housed in one like 30-40 story building). If it was actually the whole foods, well, I don't know what I would do. I suppose I would have to find rice flour and start making my own pizzas and pretzels. Probably a good survival exercise, but not sure I am up to that on the handful of hours of awakedness I have per day.

Random plug - glutino products, while wildly-overpriced, rock. I will do a separate posting of the best gluten-free foods so you don't have to spend years trying all kinds of creepy stuff like I did.

Monkeys: pt 5

What do Monkeys Eat??

First off, interesting fact. Monkeys are generally herbivores or omnivores. Interestingly, there is a particular type of primate known as the Tarsier that is actually a carnivore. It is also incredibly creepy looking. (see creepy looking thing just below) The Tarsier lives in the islands of Southeast Asia, although fossil records show that it once may have roamed most continents. To be more clear, are mostly "insectivorous," which of course means they eat insects, but also partake of a tasty small bird, snake, lizard or bat, as the fancy hits them.

Most monkey herbivores are in the region of Asia. It's difficult being a herbivore. With more intestines and stomach acid than other monkeys, including "little compartments, called saccules, and in each one there is bacteria and different kinds of enzymes to break down the plant matter," there is quite a bit of work in being a monkey that eats plants.

On the other hand, most monkey omnivores are in the Americas. Some are even aficionados of shellfish. They can be rather aggressive in their tactics, indeed "several species of monkeys, and chimpanzees, but not the other apes, have been known to attack and eat other monkeys. Baboons, the most adept hunters on the ground, often eat meat and sometimes manage to kill small antelope." Yes, they eat each other as well as small antelope.

Monkeys do also eat bananas. Here is a wonderfully bizarre article about why monkeys were originally associated with bananas. As with many things, it is the fault of white people (which may of course be true. I certainly don't know). This particular argument is that the Americans took over the Philippines, they ate bananas there, and so to mock them, cartoonists showed monkeys eating bananas, i.e., equating the locals with bananas.

While it is certainly true that cartoonists were big on racial stereotypes during that time period, it seems remarkable to me that I've never heard this before (especially since I had almost an entire class in middle school on racial stereotypes in cartoons - it was supposed to be American history).

Far more bizarre, the monkey/banana association has led to a classic programming/logic problem known as the "Monkey and banana problem." (here's a breakdown for those who care, taken from here: "The Monkeys and Bananas Problem
Consider the following synchronization problem. A boat delivers bananas to a desert island which is inhabited only by monkeys. The boat delivers one load of bananas at a time, but the load has a variable number of bananas in it; when it arrives, it calls the deliver(int nbananas) function, where nbananas specifies how many are delivered (at least one is always delivered). Bananas are placed in a crate on the beach. When a monkey is hungry, it goes to the crate. If there are enough bananas in the crate, it takes what it needs; otherwise, it joins a queue of monkeys waiting for the boat. The monkeys are greedy and are not always satisfied with just one banana. A monkey wanting to get nbananas bananas calls monkey(int nbananas). Calling monkey should cause it to wait in the queue until it gets nbananas bananas, then leave. A monkey will to stay at the head of the queue until it has all the bananas it wants, rather than, for instance, grabbing 3 out of 4 bananas and then going to the back of the queue to wait for its final banana.
Devise a solution for the monkeys-and-bananas problem which follows the rules given above, and incorporates
correct concurrency control using only semaphores.
We can use a semaphore as a counter to count the number of bananas. The head monkey needs to be treated
specially, since it has to stay at the head of the queue until it gets all the bananas it wants. Therefore we
make the head monkey wait on the bananas semaphore and create a separate semaphore for the rest of the
monkeys, which we call queue. The head monkey signals queue when it has all the bananas it wants, as
long as at least one monkey is waiting in the queue. Since we cannot determine the queue value ourselves,
we need a separate variable to count how many monkeys are waiting by the crate, and we protect this
variable with the semaphore mutex. Here's a solution:
sem bananas = 0; // could initialise to any value
sem queue = 0; // all monkeys except head monkey wait here
int monkeys = 0;
sem mutex; // to protect "monkeys"
// put "nbananas" bananas in the crate
void deliver(int nbananas) {
for (int i=0; isignal(bananas);
}
// monkey wants "nbananas" bananas
void monkey(int nbananas) {
wait (mutex);
monkeys++;
if (monkeys > 1) { // i.e. there was already a head monkey
signal(mutex);
wait(queue);
}
else
signal(mutex);
// now I am the head monkey
for (int i=0; iwait(bananas);
// wake up the next monkey
wait(mutex);
monkeys--;
if (monkeys > 0)
signal(queue);
signal(mutex);
}"

Yeah. I don't know why, but that doesn't seem terribly complicated to me, except for the obvious issue that each monkey can be a bottomless pit and I suppose to go anywhere, you would have to specify in the program that once a crate was empty, the head monkey had to leave or at least move to the back of the line. Sure, there's the uncertainty, but you always have that where free will is concerned. But, clearly, very clearly, I digress here.

Finally, I will share the story of a crazy Canadian fellow who decided to subsist on monkey food pellets. He lasted a week and it didn't go well. He did lose a few pounds, but evidently lost his mind in the process.

Wired is not a legitimate publication

I draw this conclusion from two articles I came across during recent research.

Example 1: "Laziness Could be the Basis of Bipedalism, Human Civilization"

Summary argument: "Why do humans walk on two legs? Because it's easier than walking on four"

Great. That would be a great argument, if it weren't the case that it would be easier for EVERYTHING then. So why in the world would humans choose to do this (and the chimp/human I highlighted in a post a few days ago) and pretty much everyone else would go on walking around on all fours? Honestly, I am offended that this is even on the internet. It may as well be some Nigerian scammer's website.

Example 2: "Scientists Find Genetic Root of Opposable Thumb, Upright Gait"

Summary: a gene was found that when spliced into rats etc. activated thumbs and big toes.

AND?!?

They show a "picture" (very fuzzy, hard to tell what's going on but from what I can gather, the rat in question has five appendages sticking out of its hand, none of which look like a thumb) and then conclude of the gene in question, "So perhaps HACNS1 is what allowed human beings to develop tools and civilization -- and car insurance and bombs."

Um, right. Something that kind of maybe causes a rat to develop a "thumb"-type thing that is further away than normal likely led to car insurance and bombs. That makes a lot of sense. In stupid world.

Monkeys: pt 4

Opposable Thumbs!

Of course, when most people think of the advantages of primates, they think of opposable thumbs, reason being that this is the major physical distinction between other animals and primates. There is even a reference (perhaps multiple?) to the utility of opposable thumbs in the movie Madagascar 2.

In my study of what makes the opposable thumb so great, I clearly stumbled across some weak sources. For example, one site is telling me that sans opposable thumb, I would not only be unable to touch other fingers to each other (just tried it - untrue) but that moreover, picking up a piece of paper would be entirely impractical (don't even need to try it because I know from personal experience that is totally untrue - it makes very little difference whether you use your thumb after about 15 minutes of practice).
Phrased differently, this doesn't seem as unreasonable, although it still seems inaccurate: "The thumb, unlike other fingers, is opposable, in that it is the only digit on the human hand which is able to oppose or turn back against the other four fingers, and thus enables the hand to refine its grip to hold objects which it would be unable to do otherwise. The opposable thumb has helped the human species develop more accurate fine motor skills. It is also thought to have directly led to the development of tools, not just in humans or their evolutionary ancestors, but other primates as well. The opposable thumb ensured that important human functions such as writing were possible. The thumb, in conjunction with the other fingers make humans and other species with similar hands some of the most dexterous in the world.^"

For example, the only reason writing is easier is that we rest the instrument on the thumb. It doesn't have to be opposable for that. It could be a stick of wood.

Um, okay. Ignoring that this simply has not been my experience with my thumbs in the past (or is it as I sit here and play with them trying to figure out what all this could possibly be referring to) let's assume it's true. Thumbs are better tools than normal fingers. Great. But what's the HUGE advantage that allows man to rule the planet? The development of tools? Seriously? I mean, koalas essentially have opposable thumbs and they spend most of their time sleeping, the rest getting high on eucalyptus and being extremely aggressive towards anything that comes near them. What happened there with the god-like intervention of the opposable thumb? Ditto for pandas.

Onto some interesting randomness: monkeys have opposable thumbs that are higher up on their palms than their other fingers, which at the very least, could make some difference.

Finally, on my point that this all sounds like a lot of nonsense, please read the Onion's news-breaking article about dolphins developing opposable thumbs and how this clearly means that we will no longer be a superior species. Seriously folks, it's a thumb. It doesn't do much. People get by just fine without them. Weirdly, I have to make an argument I'm uncomfortable with here, which is that the whole focus on opposable thumbs and their greatness is a reactionary stance by educators attempting to justify an evolutionary curriculum as important to science. I am totally for teaching evolution, but not at the expense of spouting nonsense or overinflating borderline irrelevant issues. Yes, the opposable thumb is useful. No, it is not some panacea that separates us from other animals and no, it should not be used as a political ploy that poisions and confuses childrens minds. Just tell them about the findings on the Galapagos, explain how certain people drew other conclusions from that and move on. Enough with the ridiculous opposable thumb nonsense.

Tennis Balls for reasons that have nothing to do with tennis...

So in checking out to clean a patagonia jacket, I came across the following instruction re: cleaning: "For best results dry with 2 clean tennis balls."

Of course, that was way too weird not to read over twice. Which I did, and still had no idea what they could possibly be talking about. I spent a childhood drowning in tennis balls and never once did anyone pop a few in the dryer. What is this about?

Insanely enough, there are actually people who have chosen to use tennis balls in lieu of traditional dryer balls, and in fact, some weird enough to drop tennis SHOES in the dryer to create some sort of anti-cling effect. More specifically, some have chosen a detailed method involving using white vinegar instead of fabric softener and then putting 3 tennis balls in the dryer. Another individual claims that tennis balls actually speed up the drying process and moreover make the items being dried fluffier (critics note the danger that when using new tennis balls, the dye can come off and stain the products one is intending to clean).

There are however, sharper critics, indicating all sorts of calamities that can occur if you place tennis balls in the dryer. However, these appear to be industry people whose products would be replaced by the tennis ball method. (again, kudos to the Chicago Tribune for consistently publishing industry propaganda. it is truly remarkable the lack of journalistic integrity).

Moreover, there is an entire list of 50 things to do with tennis balls that have absolutely nothing to do with tennis. Among the more interesting items:
1) Tennis balls with holes drilled in them have been used in the UK as protective homes for field mice. Pet mice or hamsters may enjoy them, too!
2) Protect your surfboard when it goes on an airplane journey

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3) If you or your partner (or, if you’re really unlucky, the guy in the next apartment) snore, attach a pocket to the back of the snorer’s pajamas and secure a tennis ball inside. This will ensure that the snorer sleeps on his/her side - most people snore only when sleeping on their backs.
4) If you want to leave your car door open but don’t want the interior lights to run down the battery, just wedge a tennis ball into the door frame to keep the light switch depressed.

I am now inspired to find other, obscure, uses for totally random things that almost no one uses anymore. I hope you are too.

Monkeys: pt 3

Monkey Disease Transmission

This, to me, is the big one. Animals are sometimes cute, often harmful, but many times they breed disease. And it is unacceptable to me that we have animals interacting with humans who breed disease. We do well enough on our own creating resistant-strains of everything already known to man - we do not need to deal with additional random strains of things currently unknown to man that will stump our researchers for years to come.

1) SIV v. HIV:
SIV stands for simian immunodeficiency virus, a retrovirus deriving from african primates. What's rather interesting about SIV in its two major forms is that it typically doesn't cause immunodeficiency symptoms in hosts unless it passes from one species to another. In the case that such symptoms occur, you have SAIDS, simian acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
What's interesting is that evidently, monkey SIV strains do not infect humans and HIV-1 does not infect monkeys. The presumption here would be that the age-old belief that the AIDS crisis began with a random man who slept with a monkey would seemingly be untrue. However, other research in no way supports this, so it isn't at all clear what the science is behind this claim. To break it down more, it is important to note that SIV can cause AIDS in other monkeys who are susceptible and moreover, that humans with skin lesions etc. can be exposed and thus develop the disease. Most importantly, the symptoms present in the same way.
My only point is that AIDS is a terrible disease to get and if hanging around with monkeys is going to expose humans to this, we just shouldn't be hanging around with monkeys. Simple enough.

2) Simian Foamy Virus in Asia:
Yuck. Well the British Parliament cut right to the chase in pointing out that Simian Foamy Virus was transmitted to humans who ate monkey meat, much in the same way it is postulated that HIV was initially transmitted. By definition, a foamy virus in general is "any of the various retroviruses found in primates and other mammals and characterized by the lacelike changes they cause in monkey kidney cells." It is extremely common in animals in captivity, with about 70-90% of non-human primates born in captivity having SFV.

So, surprise, surprise, a HUMAN foamy virus sprouted up that is a direct result of the primate one. Currently, humans act as hosts after accidental transmission, typically as a result of laboratory conditions or interactions in the wild and have not experienced any symptoms. Nor has there been any showing of a human-to-human passing of the disease. Of course, provided that this is a normal virus, it will eventually adapt to its new hosts and learn how to spread to other humans, as this is merely the way of the virus. Although there are no known dangers at this point, this hasn't stopped the Canadian blood authority from altering its policy with regards to blood donations to exclude those who have been in contact with primates, specifically to avoid potentially passing on these diseases.

3) Not quite on point: Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD):
Chronic Wasting Disease comes from deer and elk, is a fatal disease, and is prominent in the American west. The symptoms include "weight loss over weeks or months, behavioral changes, excessive salivation, difficulty swallowing, polydipsia, and polyuria and in some animals, ataxia and head tremors may occur. Most animals with the disease die within several months of illness onset, sometimes from aspiration pneumonia."
The CDC has mixed data on this, although from their reports, it appears that something like CWD (probably a mutated human form) has infected and killed humans, particularly those who hunt and eat deer and their kin.
I feel okay including this here b.c. tests that involved shooting monkeys full of CWD resulted in them developing related fatal symptoms, although they could not be called CWD, per se. It reiterates that disease can, and does, travel from other animals to primates and as it is already established that inter-primate transmission is possible, this is relevant.

4) Monkeys and Yellow Fever:
This isn't so much their fault and involves another party, but monkeys are considered to be the source of one form of yellow fever, which is carried to humans via the aedes mosquito.

Basically, the topic I'm on here, a particular pet peeve for me, are zoonotic diseases. To get you started, here is a sense of how serious this problem is and how little press it gets. Thinking logically about it, diseases are designed to infect whatever they can to spread themselves - natural instinct. They don't care what species you are. Problem being that if a species isn't exposed to something, it is much more vulnerable to very serious outcomes as it doesn't possess the necessary antibodies, see current scare over bird flu. So this is a, be conscientious, post.

Dowry Extortion in India

This is a deeply weird idea to me, even given a knowledge of how dowries did/do work. And it's also delightfully complicated and a wonderful story of how laws designed to improve conditions can often have bizarre outcomes.
So as a background, typically a dowry payment is an amount of money, goods, or a combination of both that is given by the wife's family to the groom's family as part of wedding. This was pretty standard practice worldwide, but has been phased out, in part just as a matter of cultural realism and in part because it was having some really ugly effects.

In India, dowries, much like the caste system, hung around even though they were outlawed in 1961. Moreover, the content of dowries has adapted to the times, with grooms demanding modern appliances and things like motorcycles. Yeah, demanding.

That's weird, but the problem is that it's not enough that the bride's family gives the groom's family these items and cash at the time of the wedding. Frequently, the claim is that the amount is insufficient, or that additional payments must be made after the marriage. As the bride is the portal to her family, she is mistreated and abused, sometimes killed, when the groom doesn't get what he wants. It's really nasty and has led to a practice also common in near-neighbor China, female foeticide, the killing of female fetuses (and sometimes newborns). I don't even want to get into what a nightmare that is going to turn into - the consequences are just so wide-spread.
Interestingly, there is another side to this story. Men who take advantage of this situation, or whose rights are abused because of it.

Under the first scenario, men play into the traditional dowry system, take the gifts, and then take off, get a divorce in a foreign country and are "free." That, obviously, is unreasonable. As a result of this and the abuse and death suffered by women whose dowries were "insufficient," India passed laws to make such actions illegal. And here's where it gets interesting.
Imagine this scenario - you actually didn't harass your wife, but she and her family go ahead and claim you did. Imagine you've left the country b.c. you're estranged and looking for new opportunities. If you violate a country's law or really if there is a claim that you have (e.g., your wife has claimed you engaged in "dowry harassment"), the country can put in to Interpol for a "Red Corner Notice" - what this does is anytime you enter or exit an Interpol country and your passport info is run through the system, you're flagged and, normally, pulled aside. Evidently, this is not such an issue in the U.S., but a disaster if you enter India.

Obviously, I don't think that most of these people are innocent, but it is rather creepy, especially when you read about real-life experiences of people being extorted by government personnel on this basis. Particularly when there is a sliding scale for bribes so you can get your passport back and go on your way, based on your nationality.

Monkeys: pt 2

Monkeys, continued!
Legal Monkeys

No discussion of monkeys would be complete without a discussion of law and monkeys. Admittedly, if you are a rational person, you might think, what exactly would monkeys have to do with human law? Good point. But sadly, monkeys are seemingly a rather touchy subject and as such, there is indeed material here.

1) The infamous Scopes Trial:
The Scopes trial really didn't have to do with monkeys at all, but touched on the discomfort of the American public with the relationship between humans and monkeys and as such, is often referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial or some other version of "Monkey Trial." The "Scopes" in question was John Scopes, a teacher in the obviously intellectual state of Tennessee, who broke state law in teaching his students the theory of evolution. As with many of the great cases in history whose initiators/victims are lauded, this wasn't really Scopes' idea but a test case put forward by the ACLU. In fact, all the evidence seems to point to this being a flat out farce, with Scopes and his students perjuring themselves on the stand to establish that evolution had been taught, when it actually hadn't.
This is really just the standard boring argument about teaching evolution to students in schools. Honestly, everyone just needs to take a deep breath and say, okay, even if I don't agree with it, this is the way the world thinks about things so my children need to know about it. Tell them about any contradictory religious beliefs on the side and move on with your lives.

2) Matthew Hiasl Pan, your primate friend and mine
I like Austria, even with their creepy xenophobia, but demanding a legal declaration that a chimpanzee is a person? I can't jive with that. I mean, just using simple deductive logic, surely there is a reason we call them chimpanzees and not people. Monsieur Pan is about 27 now and ended up in the legal system after the shelter where he had spent most of his life filed for bankruptcy - but that's not the rub - the deal is, under Austrian law, only a human can receive a gift. M. Pan requires approx. $6800 a month for expenses and while donors have stepped up to offer that, he can't receive the donations under current law. So the Association Against Animal Factories decided the best idea was to say he was a human, based on the notion that the only legal remedy involved giving him a guardian, also not available to animals under Austrian law. Really? That's the best plan? What about passing a pet trust law or creating a NFP or any number of NORMAL legal solutions?
Just to give you a sense of how off the radar this is, see the public statement of the organization representing the chimpanzee: "Group president Martin Balluch accuses the judicial system of monkeying around. "It is astounding how all the courts try to evade the question of personhood of a chimp as much as they can," he said."
Yeah. Of course, a chimp isn't a person. It's a pretty straightforward analysis. A horse is also not a person. Nor is a giraffe, an amoeba, or any number of other random beings. Oy.

3) No, animals that could easily kill you are not good choices for pets
So this is a touchy subject lately, due to the ridiculous woman who decided to keep a chimp as a pet and was in no way equipped to deal with complications related to such a decision. For whatever reason, the story really caught people's attention (my guess is that it dealt with white people in Connecticut, but that's just me) and as a result, the U.S. House just passed a bill to limit the interstate transport of primates for use as pets (Captive Primate Safety Act). Tons of state legislation is in the works. Now, to be fair, I don't understand at all the interest in having a chimp as a pet. It's just not a pet. It's a rather complex being that is very similar to humans, but lacks the social restraint that is required in our society. It's pretty well summed up here: "Chimpanzees can live to be more than 50 years old, and many chimp owners get rid of the animals when they become too much to handle at 6 or 7 years old, Truitt said."
So, first off, you're saddling yourself with an animal that you're going to have to get rid of after about a tenth of its life. There are limited places to put the animal - there are sanctuaries (see the Primate Rescue Center, e.g.) but that's basically placing the burden for your absurd decision on someone else. Seriously, even Jane Goodall has spoken out about how chimps are not pets, stating that "a chimpanzee can never be totally domesticated" and further notes that by taking them out of the wild and raising them in a home, it assures that they will spend their lives in difficult conditions, at best, as they can never be returned to the wild after being abandoned by their owners because they have become potential killing machines.
I can't help but make the point here that people who engage in this sort of thing clearly have issues that should be dealt with professionally. Just like children aren't a good way to deal with your personal issues, nor are pets.

NB - ridiculously lame monkey who will receive no extended analysis here.

Lame Ideas

Idea of the day: The Blankie Keeper

It took me a reasonable amount of time to figure out what in the world this was supposed to be. I would normally simply have moved on, but I rather liked some of the fabrics and was wondering if they were being made into something interesting. But, no. This store sells three sizes of rectangular-shaped pillow-covers that are meant to be filled with a child's old blankie or bedding. Now, for one thing, it's just a stupid idea. I can imagine some frigid anal under-worked housewife being interested in a sterile, stylish and unnoticeable to outsiders way for her child to hold onto symbols of childhood comfort. But seriously, hide the blankie in a pillowcase and pretend it's a pillow? What kind of a stupid idea is that? Who exactly does that help? Why can't the kid just have his stupid blanket? If he's so attached to a blanket then you've probably failed to adequately nurture the child and he really does need the comfort of an inanimate object to continue to brave the uncertainties of the world.

I can actually imagine this project really messing kids up. Huge thumbs down. But I do like some of the fabric they use.

Monkeys: meanderings pt 1

Obviously this is a rather broad topic so I plan to take it in steps.

Topic 1: Human monkey hybrids of some sort.

Meet Oliver the Chimp.
Issues with Oliver were that he consistently walked upright, had facial and hair characteristics more similar to humans than chimps. Also he was sexually attracted to humans, not chimps, unlike the other chimps where he lived. One comment on the clip suggests that this genuinely could be a human/chimp mix, pointing out the valid fact that such cross-insemination is possible for a number of other related species (personally my favorite have always been ligers and tigons). He has been called a humanzee, for example.

Another further point is that in the area where Oliver was raised, there is substantial interaction between humans and chimps. Now, just extrapolating from what I've heard about young men isolated on farms, it seems not at all unlikely that it really could be the result of a human/chimp sexual interaction. Of course, the issue is whether this is really possible. More unrelated species simply cannot reproduce.

Evidently with chimps 99% of basic chemistry is shared with humans and so DNA strands can theoretically match together to create a functioning being.

Then, as a random twist, a Manhattan lawyer decided to buy a chimp (seriously? you can just own a chimp? I'll assume he had the appropriate regulatory approval). Also related, a fascinating possibility of having chimps acting as surrogate mothers for human babies. Now, that could be a boon for any number of people, although the potential consequences are surely unknown.

Oddly, the commentators on this rather well-produced video series indicate that somehow humans are rather interested in a hybrid human-chimp. Personally, I certainly couldn't care less, although it doesn't strike me as a particularly good path to puruse. I suppose my major issue is that typically, chimps don't have the same self-control and social acclimation. Evidently, the press made it out as though he was quite human when in reality, he was quite chimp-like. But rather fascinatingly, when they actually did a chromosome analysis (and this was a while ago, so we aren't talking about an advanced analysis) it turned out that Oliver had one more chromosome than a human and one less than a chimp. Bizarre. NB that a later analysis found that this was inaccurate and that in fact he had the same number of chromosomes as a standard chimp. I find this discrepency confusing and question what exactly was going on, particularly as the second analysis did find a number of genetic variations that seperated Oliver from normal chimps.

Hysterically (and not shocking for the Japanese, and I love them but they can be weird) a Japanese actress planned to broadcast on television her mating with Oliver, for scientific purposes. (nb that typically with cross-breed children, they are incapable of reproduction - a normal outcome given that nature didn't intend for these hybrids to exist and continue on through generations...although...it kind of begs the question of why they would exist at all if the intent wasn't for them to exist. I guess I would like to know what people's god says about that)

I don't follow how this could have "profound implications for human evolution" - we pretty much get that the chimps are pretty close to humans, right? The conclusion that, genetically speaking, he is not a human-chimp hybrid, doesn't really matter as the whole point is that you go from chimps to humans. So you could easily have a chimp show up that is on a similar path of evolution, either current or stalled in a previous development.

Of course, when you cross into the politics of the situation, there is potentially a very slippery slope. If a chimp/human is a human, then are we going to have to treat "animals" as humans and where do we try to draw that line? That is a consistently troubling pothole for those seeking humane treatment for animals as well as average people dealing with more basic situations - in many ways, this doesn't differ from the abortion debate in that the essential question is, at what point does this being become a human and magically become protected under all the laws of humans, but not other molecular constructions.

On Oliver, it sounds like he had a rather difficult and confusing life, enjoying people, being shunned by his fellow chimps, and generally not fitting in, as well as being exploited by media outlets. And I also disagree with the notion that we should create these things for scientific research. It seems that we've managed to do fine without them and I'm becoming less and less comfortable with the notion of using living things to involuntarily test products that could kill or seriously impair them. Yes, I don't want toxic lipstick. But can't you more or less figure that out based on current scientific knowledge? Also, given that reactions of rats and mice to pharmaceuticals is very far off a typical human reaction, what is even the point of these tests other than to harm the animals and provide the federal regulatory agencies (whose bills are paid for by the same companies who want their products on the market - I know that sounds outrageous, but it's true and thus truly is outrageous) with a random benchmark for saying that tests should proceed forward and drugs go to market? The FDA has to be radically overhauled, more on that later.