Tag: Conversation

Obsolescence

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‘That’s obsolete!’ She said.

‘Why? It still works?’

‘You can’t get the parts anymore!’

‘Well, it’s still useful’ he replied ‘and what about make do and mend? You think about it, make it last and you don’t have to waste limited resources.’

‘But what about the manufacturers?’ she asked ‘if they make less things, they won’t be able to keep going? they will close down and you won’t be able to build a replacement if your object breaks.’

He thought for a while ‘they could charge a slightly higher price? Or they could mothball plants until they are needed again. It would be a difficult balance to make, but we need to stop wasting materials and energy.’

It’s a conversation that needs to happen. The world seems to think growth is most important and is the only thing to do. But perhaps we should stop and think.

My dad bought home a bulb from work which was in our bedroom. It never broke, it was still working when we moved house. Imagine stopping built in obsolescence. The act of making things with a built in shelf life. So your kettle only lasts two or three years, your car only ten. Why not make things like that longer lasting?

What’s out there?

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There’s something called the Drake equation that hypothesises whether there is other intelligent life out in the universe. I don’t know it and can’t quote it, but I looked it up (see above). The fact that the scientists have even found amino acids in space (the building blocks of life) means that there are possibilities of finding other beings.

The equation looks at how many possible inhabitable planets are out there, whether life could evolve, and whether intelligent life might come about. Then you have to think about time. If an intelligent life form was to exist somewhere else they might send out signals, but it could take millions or billions of years to travel across space before we detected it, and by then they could be long gone. So it would only be possible to communicate if they were closer, tens of years away? But then a conversation with someone even twenty light years away (the distance of a possible habitable planet) would be very boring. One question every forty years, one reply eafter another forty years. And space travel would only be possible at a small percentage of the speed of light, according to the laws of physics. So we might be able to talk but not visit.

It might be great to get a signal, but even if there are other civilisations it doesn’t mean we will ever find out.

More random thoughts.

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Chatting with hubby after watching a programme about how the solar system formed and that Jupiter might have migrated inwards towards the sun only to be stopped by Saturn’s gravity causing it to take a grand tack like in sailing back out to its current position. They also talked a out Neptune and Uranus being formed closer to the Sun but being pushed out by Jupiter and maybe another unknown gas or ice giant being flung out of the Solar system entirely. Hubby said this if course discounts the fact that the Solar system could have been created in the current state by God! The thought that he thinks this surprised me! If the Universe is random how can we think (or prove) anything like that? I’m was a bit nonplussed. I think about infinity a lot. If there is a God and it is infinite would it be outside the universe or would it be the Universe with the objects in it being like how atoms relate to us? Some very strange ideas. One for a philosopher not me!

Renoir

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I just saw a photo of this painting and thought of simpler times. When people could meet in groups, no one wore face coverings, and there was less fear in the world.

The conversation flows, there is gentle banter, there are smiles and laughter. People drink and eat and share food, a mouthful or two of delicious fruit or a compote. Wine and beer, fruit juice and water. The voices murmur, no need to shout through a mask and at a distance. I hope we can go back to more carefree times, but we will have to see. Stay safe. X

He said, she said

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He said, let’s visit the big house.

She said, do we have to?

He said, yes it would be fun

She said, but it’s boring.

He said, you liked Scarborough Castle,

She said, that was last year.

He said, what do you mean?

She said, I’m older now.

He said, you will like it.

She said, no, no way.

He said, well I’m going anyway,

She said, Dad. I’m a teenager now. It’s boring and I’m not going, end of!

“That spiky things flowering…”

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Conversation:

‘What thing?’

“That thing on the corner”

‘What thing on the corner!  Where abouts?’

“On the corner , you know…”

‘What’s that?’

“The spiky thing”

‘On the corner?”

“By the willow”

‘What willow?’

“On the corner”

‘Oh hell…..what are you going on about?!’

“You know”

‘But I don’t, that’s why I’m asking’

“Its spiky, got yellow and orange berries”

‘Pyrocantha!?’

“Yes!”

Silence. ………

‘What are you doing? ‘

Noises in the kitchen……..

‘Hello? Whats happening?’

“Just mending my steam engine!”

😠 ‘argh!’

Is it like this in your house? It is in mine.