...and up close at that.
9) Bigger...become the man in death that you never were in life.
I really hate to put this in a Thread about nothing at all because I really think this IS something.... but here goes:
Koko the gorilla died last Tuesday at the age of 46. For those not familiar with her or that story, Koko was a female lowland gorilla, adopted and raised by Francine Patterson as part of her PhD thesis which was based on the idea of actually getting a great ape to 'talk' with humans. This project started in 1972 and has been basically on-going ever since.
There had been many trials to teach some of the great apes to 'talk' in the past but almost all involved trying to teach Chimpanzees to use vocal speech. All were failures, in a large part due apparently to the fact that the other apes (besides us on this forum) just do not have the mental speech center development to actually 'talk'. They emitted a few screeching words but as far as a conversation or exchange of ideas, that never happened.
Ms. Patterson choose a different route; first she chose a gorilla, believing them more intelligent than chimpanzees. But the big break- through was that she taught Koko ASL, American Sign Language rather than vocal speech. And Koko learned..... far beyond anyone's expectations. Beyond her actual language abilities, she gave great insight into her cognitive and reasoning abilities including making up her own compound words ('cookie- rocks' for stale cookies, 'water- birds' for seagulls and other instances) and the truly fascinating ability to lie in order to deflect blame for something she had done. Lying is an extremely high- order action that takes a lot of raw reasoning power to figure out how to paint a false 'picture' to mislead others and actually have them think that what they perceive as reality is not really correct. A few years after getting Koko, Ms. Patterson also procured a young male gorilla (as an infant, just as Koko was when this experiment was started) and to everyone's amazement, Koko started teaching Michael (the male gorilla) sign language. Koko was also given many different tests including I.Q. standardized tests for young humans and actually scored above 100, which is average for humans.
Another story I remember from many years ago is that Koko loved Coca- cola but was normally not allowed to have it because of tooth decay. But every now and again, she would get loose on campus (again, this was a research project) and run up to anyone / everyone, signing that she wanted money. Of course most people did not know what she wanted but some did and they gave her change; once Koko had enough (could she actually count it??) she would go to a vending machine, insert the money and have herself a refreshing Coke. Smarter than a lot of people who do not know enough to come in out of the rain IMO.
Brian
...and up close at that.
9) Bigger...become the man in death that you never were in life.
I told my wife about this. I didn't know that her eyes could roll back that far!You mean in ecstatic anticipation of your demise and growth in the afterlife?
You mean in ecstatic anticipation of your demise and growth in the afterlife?
With my luck, my wife would enjoy the new me a few times and then remember something I did in the past that ticked her off really good
and she would probably take the new me and leave me on the curb outside of a gay bar.
Oh boy, I don't think anybody's gonna be able to hear you screaming inside your new jar.
Assuming you actually are screaming.
Man, this is one sick forum.
Assuming you actually are screaming.
Man, this is one sick forum.
But that sure is an..... unusual 'accessory', how did you find it? Were you searching or did it just 'pop up' in your normal shopping? Hmmmmm?
For 217 pages this thread was going so well and with in short order has gone to HE double toothpicks. LOL
Well OK, sorry. But it was Brian that brought up FaceTwit and ruined the whole thing.
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That Koko what a great story, I'm sorry she is gone.
For 217 pages this thread was going so well and with in short order has gone to HE double toothpicks. LOL
Don't get jealous Brian, you're still the only man that's ever 'popped up' and hugged me.
Only now you are starting to worry that I enjoyed it.
Bone stimulator indeed.
I think most people know the story of the German battleship Bismark; she engaged some British ships, most notably the HMS Hood, sinking the Hood in a matter of minutes (to everyone's amazement) but then was cornered by a large portion of the British fleet and sunk in the Atlantic. This occurred in 1941.
But I believe few people know of the fate of her escort ship on that voyage, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (pronounced Oy- gen with a hard 'g'). She survived the encounter with the British fleet and in fact, survived the entire war, finally being given to the US as a war prize. She was sailed to Boston with a combination of German and US sailors (the vast majority being German) where she was given the designation USS Prinz Eugen, and was thoroughly examined by US Naval personnel, especially her sonar equipment. Once her German crew left the ship, 11 out of 12 of her boilers failed, probably due to the lack of knowledge and experience with them given her new American crew. Eventually, she was towed to the Pacific where she was anchored and became a 'test mule' for atomic tests by the US. She developed a relatively small leak but due to radiation contamination, she was not repaired and was eventually left to capsize and sink at the Kwajalein Atoll.
If one looks closely at the film taken before the atomic tests Able and Baker, the first two atomic tests done after the end of WWII, she can be seen anchored with several other ships awaiting the detonation of both above ground as well as below surface atomic bomb tests in 1946.
Brian
There is now a SCUBA live aboard that goes from Majuro to Bikini. It also includes a stop at Kwajalein to dive the Prinz Eugen as well as an aircraft graveyard. My son and I went to Truk Lagoon last January and now we are saving up to make the trip to Bikini. Hopefully in the next 2 years I intend to see the Prinz Eugen.
Excellent! I assume she is in good overall shape as she was not blast- damaged but rather had a slow leak and simply sunk.
I am sort of surprised there is not an exclusion zone around those ships due to radiation. Of course I am sure they have purged a LOT of the radiation that prevented personnel from coming into contact with her back in '46 and so well may be perfectly safe now. Certainly diving on her will protect you from 100% of the really dangerous part of radioactive fallout anyway; inhaling alpha- emitting particles.
A real treat would be to see the Bismark but she is a bit too deep for an open dive. She, and I believe the HMS Hood were found recently by submersible. They are both on the floor of the Atlantic, a couple of miles down. The Tirpitz, Bismark's sister- ship, is partly visible at low tides and rests in shallow water but is so dilapidated that it cannot even be seen as a ship anymore.
There is a U-boat just off Block Island in Rhode Island that is not too deep, something like 120 feet down. I have never tried to dive on her due to the current between the island and the mainland, as well as the fact that visibility this far north is just not very good usually. But if I remember correctly, that boat is the last U-boat sunk during WWII, and at the very end of the war also.
Brian
I don't know about Prinz Eugen but Bikini and all the wrecks were mostly off limits since WWII. Actually Kawajalein itself is still off limits unless you have security clearance and a reason to be there. So the only way there would be by boat and you don't make land fall. The Truk Master trip https://www.masterliveaboards.com/truk_lagoon/ to Bikini is very recent. Been told there is no radiation danger just being there. The danger is consuming anything from the atoll (assuming that includes fish). The live aboard will bring all food and drink with it. Diving Truk was an absolutely amazing experience. Now looking forward to diving on the Saratoga and other wrecks at Bikini.