Month: August 2021

August 3, 2021 – Five Monkeys and the Pole

August 3, 2021 /

I couldn’t substantiate whether this story was true or not. But it is easy enough to find through internet stories that we could call it a parable. It goes something like this.

Five monkeys were in a cage with a bunch of bananas at the top of a pole. As soon as one of the monkeys started climbing to pole, he would get blasted with water until they all refused to climb the pole. Next one of the monkeys was replaced. Once the new monkey started climbing the pole, the other four monkeys would pull the new monkey down preventing him from attempting to get the bananas. Then another monkey is replaced and the same behavior is emulated. Finally, all the monkeys are new and have never been sprayed yet they have been trained to stop any monkey from climbing the pole without a real consequence.

This story seems to be mostly used in the business space to talk about office culture and to inspire to challenge the status quo. But, I can’t help to think about how we are culturally behaving as a result of Covid-19. Call it cancel culture or public shaming but people are no longer allowed to hold individual opinions that deviate from the cultural norm. And when I say cultural norm, I do mean an ignorant, non-fact based, science is settled kind of way.

The idea that science is settled is actually anti-science. There are a finite number of laws in science. Laws are provable by math and measurement. A theory is when data supports a hypothesis but it is not entirely provable or there is not enough data to support universal adoption as a law. Neither of these terms are codified because this by it’s definition is science; even laws should be continuously challenged to ensure that they are still laws.

Let’s get back to Covid and our culture. We are bombarded with radio, TV and quasi news stories about how the vaccines are safe, do our part, etc. I would call it a propaganda campaign. Admittedly, it must be pretty safe (for now) because a lot of people have gotten the vaccine. But as a scientist, I have a responsibility to challenge the accepted norm because the only way to prove a hypothesis is to test it.

My analysis of the situation is that we have the majority of society that are not qualified as scientist and failed to do their own research. They have abdicated any level of investigation to celebrities or media types rather than challenge the status quo. Given that what I believe, people have the right to be ignorant and even stupid as long as their right does not infringe on mine. In this case, we have people that are now verbally shaming and using non-qualified belief to pull the monkey down from the poll.

These were all memes that I saw yesterday that pertain to the Monkeys and the Poll parable. You can watch my Governor as a science authority within the first five minutes. This wasn’t the clip I was looking for but I think it is a perfect illustration of the propaganda campaign.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that there is much we can do about it. My best suggestion is to be aware of the world that we are living in. Pick your battles because we are not going to be able to fight them all and only the ones worth fighting. Let’s keep our calm so that we don’t make enemies out of potential allies.

End Your Programming Routine: One time I remember in seventh grade science that we had two people holding a string on each end tight. The amount of energy it took for one person to pull the string away from the other was significant. But when a third person pushes in the middle of the string, it takes that much less energy. My point is that we are not going to solve this problem using the strategies of the status quo. We are going to have to address the issue from the side where it is much easier to move the string.

August 2, 2021 – The Durability of Polycarbonate

August 2, 2021 /

Recently, I have started having some obligations at 4AM. It means that I need to be ready to rock and roll, that is talk and lead a meeting first thing in the morning. It is not easy to roll out of bed and be ready to go. To be honest, it kind-of throws off my whole day because even going to bed at 9PM, that is only 6 and a half hours of sleep. I can never get to bed that early.

Last week was a difficult week not only taking the days off but also coming back into this early morning situation. That was partially why I took the week off, I am just a little bit out of sorts. But it was also a transition week where I hung the office door and am ready to move in, just waiting for my new desk to arrive. I need to fix the roof on the garden shed before the weather changes.

I have all of the data put together for one final post on the office project. That should come soon. But this weekend I started tearing off the roof of the shed. Last October, a blustery wind came in and ripped my flashing at the transition between the composition roof and the clear polycarbonate. I got a tarp on the roof the next day and there it has sat waiting for better weather and more time.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but for some reason, there are two holes in the polycarbonate roofing. So, not only did I need to replace the flashing, which means re-roofing, but also the clear panels. are clearly showing some serious sun damage.

I put this on in 2017. This is five years of wear. It appears that everywhere polycarbonate touches wood, the panel has become black. My speculation is that the tannins in the wood are reacting with the plastic. These clear panels come it two flavors, polycarbonate or PVC. In theory, polycarbonate should be more durable than the PVC, it is also more expensive.

You can also see the tarp line. It looks like that has caused some blackening as well as sagging likely from excessive heat. I also have to change all of the custom fillers because the panel design for both polycarbonate and PVC panels. So far, I am not super impressed by the durability. If I was going to consider changing the panels periodically, it may have been worth going to the cheaper panel but for now, I am am going to go back to polycarbonate.

Another mistake I made the first time was leaning the panels on the side. They sat that way for probably a month and bent out of shape (permanently). You can see this in the picture as well. This time I will take more care in the panel storage so they don’t start our warped.

End Your Programming Routine: I am thinking that this should be a heavy weekend project, so maybe 24 hours or so. I spent three hours tearing off the three tab yesterday. I will probably pick at it when I have time this week. With any luck, I will have this done by the beginning of next week.