Happy Mattress!

Scores of followers have been begging me to tell, did we get the mattress?  Well the answer is YES, and what's more, by happy coincidence, delivered just in time for my birthday tomorrow Happy Birthday Mattress to Me.  (other than this my birthday is forgotten in the panic leading up to Bs final exams (bac).

After a thoroughly enjoyable and very long and broad trial in the basement of HACEA  (hacea.fr)  we were happy with this make, Greensleep (http://www.greensleep.com/fr/sur-green-sleep) and with the information and service of this shop.

Pure natural latex from well managed sources, (latex is oblivious to mites) we were invited to customise one for our particular back pleasure, with different densities of latex in different areas and on different sides, a second layer of latex over the top, all wrapped up in a soft organic cotton cover.

It is quite squidgy, almost gelatinous, and yet...

YES YES YES UPLIFTMENT (in all the right places), yelps of pleasure ring out, I am massaged by a host of mattress angels, such relief, such heavenly perfume of marshmallow, oatmilk, hay in the sun and cream of cotton. 

• no mites
• light for ease of bedmaking
• smells divine
• feels divine
• improves quality of life immeasurably
• will last at least 15 years, so when price is spread over this time...

I would say the best of presents to offer oneself.

February; All Flowers Out

February, everything is out at once;  some roses and geraniums from last year, primrose, snowdrops, crocus, hyacinth, domestic bluebell, narcissus, anemone, periwinkle,  the first dandelion and a pioneering nasturtium in leaf.

The Suffering of Trees

In France trees are not left to grow to their full shape but are continually stumpified and uglified.

However, this tree, probably a walnut, has suffered more than most even by French standards.    Each time I go past it, just when I think it has been pruned into oblivion, it has been pruned again.  Why?   A figure has emerged from this tortured tree, a face, arms, a defiance, a statement of its spirit.

RoboRoach, Cyborgs; the real ethical issues

When I first learned about "RoboRoach" I can only describe my reaction as a 'shudder of the soul', a shudder of horror.  Am I over-sensitive, over-compassionate?  Or is the soul shudder getting at something?

Technology project or life issue?
Moms are recommending it for kids to learn about neuroscience, young people twitter about it to their friends, BBCco.uk review it as hands-on learning, TED Global is sponsoring it, mugs and t-shirts are available...the media show is full-on, is nobody is asking any questions?

Questions for RoboRoachtm Fans

• Do you think a living being is a machine which you can override?
• Do you think a living being is an inert component of your construction?
• Do you think animals are computers that you can hack into?
• Or do you think you have to right to treat living things we think of as 'vermin' as though they were the above?
• Do you have any respect for life, for the wisdom of nature?
• Do you have any compassion or sensitivity towards living beings?
• Have you thought about where this could lead, the next step? (this is the 'first' commercially available cyborg' according to the backyardbrains site)
• Do you have any 'feelings' of discomfort in operating on a live cockroach, or if you don't have these feelings, are you aware of any in the people around you, do you think these human feelings have any value, point to anything important?
• Do you think it is right to train children to have no respect for life or the wisdom of nature, to conduct invasive experiments on living beings, to treat life as though it were a machine, to maim living beings, to control them with their childish ideas?
• Do you really think this is amusing?
• Do you think this is an acceptable way to make neuroscience 'accessible' to children and youngsters?
• How exactly does the RoboRoach toy/educational 'tool' available so that 'everyone can be a neuroscientist' (backyardbrains.com) contribute to research into neurological disease?

Teaching children about life on earth...or teaching them to disregard it?
Most of us teach our children to have respect for animal life and find their children have a natural affinity and love for animals and nature.   One of the early signs of sociopathy/psychopathy is a child who tortures or kills animals and shows no 'feeling' for another's life...  
When I was 16 and studying for A level biology, we had to dissect a cockroach.  When I got my cockroach I 'felt' it was alive.  I told the teacher, but she assured me it was thoroughly dead, from a poison in the form of a sand like powder which had entered through the 'spiracles' (little holes) on the cockroaches back.   Reluctant, I splayed my cockroach on its back, pinned down its legs, cut open its abdomen, and extracted its long white gut.  At this moment my cockroach starting jerking at its pins, ripped off its own leg, tried to run away with its guts hanging out.    I experienced another 'shudder of the soul'.  I walked out of the biology lab and never went back to dissecting.  Next term R will have to cut up a rat for biology, he will be 12 years old.   He doesn't want to do it, and feels unhappy that the rat is being killed for a casual experiment.   I don't believe it is necessary for children to cut up animals killed for that purpose, there are other better ways of learning about animals and their anatomy, plenty of virtual tools, however what it does teach them is undesirable, to harden against living creatures and treat them as experiments.

Children and experimenting on  insects;  When I was a child, whenever I saw children - I think it was only boys in my childhood - being cruel to insects - pulling their legs and wings off, trapping them and burning them with magnifying glasses, I felt the very same shudder of the soul.  I did all I could to stop them, persuade them, argue with them, set the insect free. But I knew I was the only one sensitive to the issue, that these guys didn't feel it, and that when I wasn't there, nothing would stop them having another go.  Some children do and some can't, I still feel more comfortable with the people who can't.  Should we be taking the spirit of puerile insect experimentation and selling it as fun, or as an educational tool?

I shouldn't be so sensitive, it's making an issue out of nothing?
No doubt the scientists and scientific fans of the company that 'invented' the non-living part of the remote controlled cockroach would berate me for my feelings;  they're quite used to killing and cutting up animals for their biology training and experimenting on live ones too, perhaps they are totally habituated and de-sensitised to such things;   and after all,  cockroaches are vermin they would say, they get killed all the time, they are not like humans, they're just insects, I should stop being over-sensitive, it's debateable whether cockroaches even feel pain, they get used to being overriden, there's no ethical issue at all.    But perhaps I have good reasons for being sensitive?

More Detail on the RoboRoach Project
The 'inventors' sell you the idea and a kit with all you need to make your own electrode pack, and we can all have access to a youtube video about how to make it, and about how to operate on a live cockroach.   If successful, you can get it to do what you want using your smartphone as a remote control, eg:  jump off high places, scare people, invade cockroach colonies and get them to deviate their natural behaviour, the gaming options are limitless...

The idea is you dip the cockroach in iced water which 'anaesthetises' it for a short period,  or at least stops it moving (ask no questions and I'll tell you no lies).  Then you stick it to a board and sandpaper its head to get the wax off and superglue some plastic onto it, then you pull open its wings and pierce a hole in its exoskeleton to insert a large electrode pack though the skin of its thorax, and then you cut off its antennae and replace them with components, and stick a massive (for a cockroach) plastic backpack on with hotglue.  The video gives the impression that it is teaching you how to change a plug...and you rob that cockroach of its natural state, and you impose your ideas upon it via your remote control.  When Greg Cage, 'inventor' does a demonstration of cutting off a live cockroach's leg in front of an audience a high school audience (on TEDed), the audience is visibly disgusted, and Greg comments 'yeah I know it's gross - but they can grow another one...'    He is demonstrating how an amputated leg twitches to music, a show called 'Cockroach Beatbox' (sounds like a toy/game to me).

RoboRoach;  "The world's first commercially available "Cyborg"?!?...so claim the inventor/marketers on their site.  What is a Cyborg, I hear you ask.  A 'cyborg' is a 'cybernetic organism'.  It's a science fiction creation, and the inventors of RoboRoach claim that their 'real' animal/machine is a Cyborg.  That is to say, apparently it is now an acceptable reality to take living creatures, perform invasive surgery on them in order to take away their ability and freedom to behave according to their nature and impose our will upon them...for amusement, learning or financial gain, and that this is only the beginning...

And what next?  Ideas are flowing, and new technology always obliges.  What about fish, do they feel pain?...or octopuses, or rats, they're vermin, or dogs, now that would be fun, you could get it to chase after people you hated, or what about a remote controlled sex slave, you could get her to open her legs by remote control whenever you wanted... 

Disregard for life is a dangerous thing, even if it has small beginnings.  What is going to happen if we let our most puerile, low, cruel thoughts control nature, taking life away from the wisdom of nature, which is something we have hardly even begun to comprehend?

Here is a picture of someone who stopped being over-sensitive, who readjusted her natural morality to fit with a new group (you can read about it in 'The Lucifer Effect;  why good people turn evil' by Dr Philip Zimbardo).

This all American girl with excellent orthodentistry is joking around with the body of  an Iraqi who has just been tortured to death in a horrific way by her army colleagues.  She will later help the CIA dispose of the body and make sure no questions are asked.  And here is Josef Mengele, who forgot Jews were human when he experimented on them and killed them...or the Milgram experiments where volunteer subjects 'killed' a fellow volunteer because the man in a white coat told them to...it seems to me that the idea of kidnapping a living creature and turning it into a 'robot' under your control is unhealthy, the tiny root of something which could become every bit as horrific as the above examples.   

Problems with the Inventors' responses to ethical questions
I can understand the ease with which modern science and technology and the joys of human creativity could lead us down this path, above all when our young are saturated in a virtual world of  robot video games, toys and films where the distinction between machine and life is blurred.  I recognise that the company Backyard Brains,  has responded to ethical concerns and has published its ethical statement where it  justifies itself before each claim.

• I'm not convinced by their claim that they 'sold' the idea as a game/toy but this was only to shock and raise interest, because neuroscience is so little known, and that it is 'really'  a scientific tool for the good of the animal kingdom and humanity.  Firstly, I don't think it's true, selling the word's first commercially available Cyborg which you can operate with your smartphone is going to sound like a game to most teenagers and young men, so I think it's a cover-up after the event, and secondly, pretending it was a game is a form of lying and manipulation, this doesn't recommend the company to  me as fit educators.  
• They claim that children and young people are more likely to appreciate cockroaches with the Cyborg version;  in that case it might occur to those children that they should observe these creatures in their natural setting, and that it is cruel to mutilate them and take away their freedom to follow their natural behaviour.
• They admit that a cyborg might not be the best way to teach children about animal life and they are constantly surveying the animal kingdom for easier and less invasive ways of unequivocally demonstrating neural activity. How come they are so  proud to be the first company to market a cyborg then? (ref comment to financial backers on their site) 
• They claim their experiments are done under humane conditions and the creatures do not die but live out their natural life-span happily.   Firstly, I'm not sure how they 'retire' the cockroaches now with superglued backs and no antannae, do they try to recover the equipment, or leave it on?  Secondly,  I quote the business site:  Teenagers who have bought this circuit have often done the experiments under the guidance of their parents as an educational experience.  'have often' would imply the majority have not been supervised.  Now the project has gone global, after all, 'Backyard Brains enables everyone to be a neuroscientist!'  Youtube videos are available to encourage anyone to do it at home using a smartphone.  The supervised, humane and serious side of the argument is... laughable.
• Whatever the packaging, the whole idea of a life-based 'cyborg' is deeply flawed, abhorrent thinking.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backyardbrains/the-roboroach-control-a-living-insect-from-your-sm
and their ethical statement here:
http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Using_Invertebrates_in_Education


RoboRoach and the mentality which surrounds it, is puerile cruel and potentially dangerous, yet the idea is fully backed by adults, aimed at children and youngsters and taken to the heart of their education.  It has has horrific implications:  it's right before our eyes and we don't seem to see it...

Saved by Sugru

Sugru:  For Independant Home Solutions!
 
Sugru;  Saviour of the Make Do and Mend Society!

Sugru;  Inventors Friend!


Sugru;  Champion of Customisation!

Sugru;  Over Consume No More!

Sugru:  Economise, Ecologise!

Sugru;  Valiant Knight in the fight against Planned Obsolescence

I was listening to the BBC World Service at 3am whilst ironing,  when I heard a piece on Global Business about Sugru, and Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh who recognised the need, thought of the solution, and with a team developed manufactured and marketed it.

What is Sugru?  A silicon based putty, which hardens over 24 hours to bond anything to anything, is strong, heat resistant and shock absorbant, can be mixed to colour of choice or painted and if you need to remove it can be cut off.  

Jane studied design, but instead of inventing a new need and designing a new product and encouraging consumerism, she saw things differently.  What we need, she reasoned, and so do I, is a product which helps us mend, customise, improve, the things which we have already.

In my case the things which I have already include irresistable charity shop, jumble sale and brocante purchases, old things and sentimental things which I'm too fond of to throw away, and all the new products which are shoddy, or ill-designed, and inevitably fall apart.

I went straight way to the charming internet site, and had some posted to France for a reasonable fee.  Excellent friendly site http://sugru.com/




Givenchy glasses by Sugru

The nose protectors fell off and were lost.  The nose developed an unsightly blood blister from the metal bits jabbing in.   

Not only mended and comfortable, but customised to fit nose and provide perfect symmetry.






Sewing Box by Sugru

Expandable sewing box, bought for 3 Euros in the St Leger brocante circa 2005, with one broken leg.  Has stood on its broken leg for over 6 years and fallen over each time used or hoovered around, as husband declared carpentry repair of broken leg 'not easy' and consequently it went to the bottom of the DIY list.  Even the things at the top of the DIY list wait 6 years.  Glue didn't work, but Sugru did!

Lamp by Sugru





This lampshade cost me 50c in the Carrieres brocante, I know it's not the fashionable shape, but the lovely organic pink glow seduced me.  I found an old IKEA lamp stand in the basement with lots of bits missing, and a bit of another old lamp stand;  YES!  Moulded together and made strong and straight by Sugru.

Chipped Swiss Army Knife by Sugru

Pyrale du buis produit éfficace et écologique

En bref:

• La Pyrale du buis;  defoliation totale du buis par des chenilles de papillon
• Les produits anti-chenilles à base d'une bacterie Bacillus thuringiensis sont efficaces contre la pyrale du buis
• A eviter, les produits nocifs pour les abeilles et la nature (surtout pas cypermethrine et delatmetrine)
•  Exemples des produits:   CP Jardin, Solabiol, Vilmorin ont des produits anti chenille bacillus thuringiensis, a trouver dans les centres du jardinage...ou regarder leur sites web.

L'année dernière nos buis ont été attaquées par la pyrale de buis, quelle dévastation!

Monument d'un buie de l'annee derniere, trop tard pour le sauver...

Nous avons lu sur Wikipédia que les produits écologiques etaient 'a éviter' car le resultat ést trop 'variable', sans explication ou le moindre justification, donc nous avons essayé un produit écologique quand même, et avec un succès totâle;  il n'y a pas de quoi, plus de chenilles en vie, buis en vie!

Nous traitons le retour cette année avec le même succès.  Le produit est a base d'une bactérie (Bacillus thuringiensis) qui attaque uniquement la chenille, et pas les autres espèces; sans rester dans la chaine alimentaire, car une fois les chenilles parties, le bactérie n'a plus de victimes et se diminuent au même temps.

A noter; insecticides à base de cypermethrine et delatmetrine sont nocifs pour les abeilles.

Vilmorin Anti Chenilles, pour rosiers, arbustes et fleurs*

MAIS Daniel Jacquemond de Vilmorin, message de vos clients...
l'OGM n'est pas la solution, l'agroécologie fournis les solutions valables et étiques, adaptées à chaque situation et voila comment, voir le film "Les Moissons du Future" de Marie Monique Robin ici http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqD5z3ti74g ou tous les arguments rationnels sont exposés.
Et voila les raisons tres importantes et aussi rationelles pourquoi il faut eviter le GMO , voir le film "Le Monde Selon Monsanto" de Marie-Monique Robin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv-UvuNRh_

S'il vous plait Vilmorin,  preferez investir dans l'humanité, la santé de notre planète, et l'agriculture qui peut nourir le monde; plutôt que des méthodes GMO qui detruisent notre monde.

Nous comptons sur vous, merci pour votre écoute.

Ariège Mountains; an exchange

Meet my new friends
Here you can exchange your neighbours and your friends (if you have any)  for two sweet-eyed fat brown cows with bells, three fawn furry donkeys, four black Pyrenéen ponies and their newborn foal, a colony of lizards who jump for flies on the veranda windowsill, a host of birds, and a mason bee who stashes pollen balls in the hole in your front door.

You can exchange the distant roar of traffic for the distant roar of the river;  the view over the roofs with wires and satellite dishes for snow peaks and running ragged lines under a wide sky.  At night, swop the orange imposition and sad green of streetlamps for clusters of lights tucked into the mountain face in front of you where houses are hidden, and above it the slightly different dark of the wide sky, where all the stars in the cosmos alighted and hang in juicy drops, and you can go out into the night, and feel the sky fall all around you.

Actual view from our gite

Actual gite, actual weather!

B observing lizards in the panoramic veranda

Fat bottomed cows you make the rocking world go round

Whole cow:  horned and free, when she looks at you, you know you have been looked at

Posing for a still

Free range cow

...three fawn furry donkeys...

Coquette pose, look at the front legs...

...four black Pyrenéen ponies and their newborn foal...the "Cheval de Mérens" is a traditional breed from ancient times in the Ariege Pyrenees, still rare but being reintroduced, known for its hardiness, and its somewhat wild but sweet temperament.    It can be recognised among other things for its 'beard', hair growing behind its cheeks.

The whole extended family checks out the foal situation, mother and foal have been 'helped'  up the mountain to join the others 'chez eux'

I loved watching the group of horses and how they behaved together.  On the day the foal was born, the 3  grown ups  climbed up the steep mountainside and called for the mother, but the foal was too young to manage the climb.  Eventually they abandoned their calling and charged down the hill to join her (R has footage).

The foal ran in the opposite direction, here he is nuzzled back into order

...a colony of lizards who jump for flies on the veranda windowsill...