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An unfortunate update to the saga of Percy Schmeiser's battle against the biotech and chemical goliath, Monsanto. Schmeiser, a 70-year-old farmer from Saskatchewan (featured in December 2000 on JIMWICh) has been ordered by a Canadian federal judge in Saskatoon to pay thousands of dollars to Monsanto for the bioengineered canola plants they found growing in his fields. Schmeiser, who for decades has produced his own seeds, claims that the patented genes found their way into his fields via wind and bees, since he's surrounded by farmers who are under licence to Monsanto and who use the seeds which are bioengineered to withstand applications of the herbicide, Roundup.

Monsanto has gone after a number of individual farmers, but Schmeiser is a formidable opponent. While others have rolled over, Schmeiser has fought the good fight for what's right.

Monsanto, which is on court record acknowledging that they use their network of bioserf farmers under licence to gather rumors and suspicions of non-licensee farmers who may be "cheating," have turned the grain belt into a Green Acres Police State! They also are on court record acknowledging that they have no evidence of anyone selling clandestine seed to Schmeiser, nor evidence of Schmeiser's obtaining the seed.

Monsanto, in claiming patent infringement, sought damages totaling $400,000. This included a list of civil damages, including about $250,000 in legal fees, $105,000 in profits they feel Schmeiser made on the 1998 crop, $13,500 ($15 an acre) for technology fees and $25,000 in punitive damages. Schmeiser feels that Monsanto has asked for exorbitant amounts to serve as a warning to other producers. Schmeiser says he has spent $160,000 of his own for legal fees and another $40,000 of his own time, travel and compensation for labor he had to hire when he was away from the farm. Schmeiser also believes that Monsanto probably would've settled for around $15,000 in the beginning, had he "bowed on my hands and knees." Instead he chose to fight this monstrous megacorporate bully and its campaign of injustice.

Shame on Monsanto! The issue is NOT about stealing their seeds, it's about the INHERENTLY UNCONTROLLABLE BIOPOLLUTION that's inevitable in these bioengineering schemes. Monsanto must stop harassing individual farmers that choose not to become bioserfs and yet have to contend with patented pollen blowing in!

Fight on Percy!
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/30/2001 6:34:02 PM

Monday, March 26, 2001

"I want to thank anyone who spends part of
their day creating. I don't care if it's a book, a
film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a
piece of music - anybody who spends part of
their day sharing their experience with us. I think
this world would be unlivable without art."

Steven Soderberg, Director
In acceptance speech for Academy Award - Best Director - "Traffic"

- posted by JIMWICh on 3/26/2001 10:30:29 AM

March is the windy month. A great time to highlight the incredible work of Vollis Simpson, a man who's built a farm full of amazing wind-powered whirligigs in east central North Carolina near the town of Lucama. Check out this Quicktime VR of part of Vollis' domain. And another QTVR looksee.

Here's a massive 3.1mb QTVR of the whole collection of windthings.

The Science Museum of Minnesota visited Vollis and documented his creations. You can start with a descriptive tour of images and links to sounds and Quicktime VR panoramas. You can tour the whole shebang with this interactive map.

Here's a photo one impressive wind thingy called "The Mules" along with the sound it makes! Here's a short Quicktime .mov of The Mules.

There's one piece called "The Big Red One" (QT .mov of The Big Red One), as well as "The Big Blue One" (QT .mov of The Big Blue One). Another contraption is called "The Backward Clock" (QT .mov of the Backward Clock). Then there's "The Tree" (QT .mov of The Tree), and don't forget "Karen's Favorite" (QT .mov of Karen's Favorite).

Check out Vollis' workshop (outside workshop .gif / outside workshop QTVR) (inside workshop .gif / inside workshop QTVR).

Right on Vollis!
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/24/2001 10:03:12 PM

Reports are coming from the central Mexican state of Michoacan that loggers may have deliberately sprayed and killed up to 22 million monarch butterflys that migrate to that regions' forests during each winter. The annual Monarch migration of up to 3000 miles from areas between North America and Canada has continued in a ceaseless cycle for over 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age.

Environmentalists fear that this slaughter will greatly affect the Monarch population and upset their natural breeding cycle, due to the great numbers affected.

The K-12 Teaching and Learning Center has a great set of links on the Monarch Butterfly.
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/17/2001 4:07:39 PM

Live, from England's Hamster Downs it's Hamster Drag Racing. The betting site Blue Square (bluesq.com), sponsors these exclusive rodent trials which you can watch via a Windoze Media Player. Each tiny dragster is powered by a race-ready hamster in a clear plastic running wheel.

When I clicked on the Monday race, the action was less than thrilling, but the first Friday heat had an exciting finish. There's an amped-up announcer, a cute blonde bird named Emma trackside, a knowledgable trainer, and fake crowd noises piped in. Cheerio!
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/13/2001 12:31:50 PM

Back in the 1980s when I was living in Texas, my good friend Dale Sander introduced me to the world of amateur astronomy. This past December I received a holiday card from him, along with photographs of his beautiful new homebuilt telescope! It's a 10" Dobson. John Dobson is a real pioneer in homebuilt telescopes.

Amateur astronomy has been around for a long time, and is growing in popularity and many communities now have thriving groups with regular gatherings and conventions. Building one's own telescope combines the arts of woodworking, glass lens grinding and polishing, metal machining, with the endlessly fascinating science of astronomy.

Matt Marulla's ATM Page for Amateur Telescope Makers has several galleries of photos along with information on optical design, building plans, mountings and drives, mirror making and more.

There are even several pages devoted to home observatories!
- George Paleologopoulos' rooftop Voula Micro Observatory near Athens
- Tom Perry's Wyoming Starlight Observatory (photos of construction)
- Joe Garlitz's Geodesic Dome Observatory
- Robert Reeve's Texas-based Von Braun Photographic Station
- Robert Sudigs' Post and Beam Rolling Roof Observatory
- Robert Sudigs' Domed Observatory Tower

And some more...
- Albert Highe's California observatory
- Tom Arnold's Colorado Starchaser Observatory (Starchaser B&B)
- Paul Gitto's New Jersey Arcturus Dome Observatory

Homebuilt telescopes come in all shapes, sizes, and lense configurations. Here's a sampling of some of a more exotic variety from Dave Stevick's very interesting Weird Telescopes site...

- Schiefspieglers: (leaning-mirror telescope)
- Steve Rismiller's 4.25" inch Schiefspiegler (detail)
- Giovanni Ariot's 200mm catadioptric Schiefspiegler of 4000mm focus

- Tri-Schiefspieglers:
- Richard Wessling's 12.5" Buchroeder Tri-Schiefspiegler (photo 2 )
- A.L. Woods' 6" Kutter Tri-Schiefspiegler
- Giovanni Ariot's 300mm Tri-Schiefspiegler

- Tetra-Schiefspieglers:
- Joseph Sylvan's 10-inch f/17.25 Tetraschiefspiegler (abstract)
- Jim Brudi's 8" f/15.7 Tetraschiefspiegler (mirror layout)

- Stevick-Paul Telescopes: (history of Stevick-Paul telescopes)
- Bob Novak's 6" f/10 (photo 2 , plans)
- A.L. Woods' 6" f/12 Stevick-Paul telescope (shown with Dave Stevick)

There's great appeal in combining an interest in science and technology with the pride of craftsmanship and the comraderie of fellow stargazers.
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/10/2001 8:16:37 PM

Busybusybusy. Here, while I'm doing something less important but more urgent, go check out this awesome weekly wordless comic strip When I Am King by a talented Swiss guy, Demian.5. Found on memepool.
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/6/2001 8:54:33 PM

All hail the Mantis Shrimp! Superior in so many ways to the lower lifeforms on Earth, including humans. On Airlan San Juan's very comprehensive site you'll find lots of information regarding and stunning photo galleries of this most amazing animal. First off, Mantis Shrimp, or Stomatopods as they like to refer to themselves, are predatory crustaceans that live in the shallow waters of tropical and subtropical seas. They're not closely related to shrimps or other decapod crustaceans, but are called "mantis shrimps" on account of of their mantis-like appendages that they use to capture and subdue prey.

Relative to their size, no other creature on the planet is as badass aggressive (Stomatopods mugging assorted sea creatures- Quicktime and RealPlayer). One is currently raising hell at the Monterey Aquarium in California. Ranging in size from 1 - 2 cm up to 30 cm for the largest of the species, the stomatopods can be roughly divided into two groups - the spearers, who use forelimbs with spines to skewer fish, shrimp, and other soft-body marine animals, and the smashers, who have evolved bony club-like hammers that they use to conk hard-shelled crustaceans such as crabs, clams, and snails to smithereens. One aquarium owner recorded a mantis shrimp committing fishicide, dispatching six clowns triggers, known for their ability to take out crustaceans, in a single night.

But the amazing qualities don't stop there. The strike force of the large Californian species is close to that of a .22 caliber bullet! It's capable of breaking double-layered safety glass! The strike is also one of the fastest movements known in the animal kingdom. Even in water, their speed is ten times faster than a praying mantis. Spearer speed: 0 to 10 meters per second in 4-8 milliseconds!

And stomatopods can roll like wheels! They're the only known species that uses a wheel-like motion to move around.

Stomatopods have, hands down, the most sophisticated visual system on earth. Their eyes on stalks contain 16 different photoreceptors, including 12 for color (humans have a puny 3 cones, except for mutant women tetrochromats with 4 <- JIMWICH archive link). They're capable of seeing polarized light and 4 colors in the ultraviolet spectrum. It's thought that they can distinguish up to 100,000 colors, where humans can only manage a pitiful 10,000. There are numerous scientific references on Stomatopod vision.

They're curious and fast learners and are the only invertebrates capable of individual recognition of non-mates. Some are even monogamous, which is rare not only for invertebrates, but other animals as well. The sneaky crustaceans are also known to practice deception.

And they've even got higher bandwidth than we do! Their information transmission rates are among the highest known, at 8.6 bits per second. This compares with 1.5 bps for hermit crabs, 1.4 bps for fire ant pheromone trails, and 2 bps for honeybee dances. One study clocked human speech transmission rates at only 6.5 bps!
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/3/2001 12:44:17 PM

Continuing on with the miniscule aircraft theme... The BD5 was Jim Bede's amazing contribution to the field of private aviation in the 1970s. In 1976, when I was fifteen, I began taking groundschool and flight lessons at a Cessna Pilot Center at a small airport near where I grew up. I devoured aviation magazines and the BD5 was one of the planes of my dreams. It cruised at 237 mph and had a range of 500 miles.

The BD5 was a pusher-prop plane and and later on, Bede developed the BD5J, which was jet propelled. The BD5J was capable of speeds in excess of 350mph. The BD5J was essentially a bullet with wings, and this was capitalized on by the Coors Brewing Co. which used a Bede jet, dubbed the Silver Bullet, to promote their otherwise lame lightweight brew, Coors Light.

The cockpit, or "office", was small, but configured like a real fighter with a right-side joystick.

The BD5J got a huge image boost when it appeared in the James Bond movie, Octopussy, in 1983.

Bede was quite an inventor, having also developed a streamlined motorcycle/automobile mutant called the Pulse.

The Bede site has 31 galleries of photographs of the Bede planes, flying, being built, and different models, including an experimental twin-tail model. There are even shots from various aviation expos, like these two miniatures, a WWII-era peewee F4U Corsair and a pipsqueak P-38 Lightning!

Also in the galleries are shots of the gorgeous BD10. The BD10 was a sleek mini jet with twin vertical stabilizers. Sorta like having your very own F-15! I think it would be awesome if it shot Nerf™ missiles or had water cannons. You could straif the beach!
- posted by JIMWICh on 3/1/2001 12:02:29 PM

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