That's very interesting. Thanks for contributing! I love mules! They are swift on their feet, strong, and many have great personalities! I rode one down and up the Grand Canyon once. They would walk so close to the edge and I'd be like, "oh lord, bless this animal with magic hooves!" They would go through obstacles like it was nothing and, meanwhile, I'm seeing the 6,000 foot or less canyon off to my side and I'm shitting bricks. I would never do that again. I'd sooner go down on foot. Those animals are ballsy.
Anyways, here's more on the matter of mules being sterile...
Mules are sterile because they have an odd number of
chromosomes
. A horse has 64 chromosomes, and a donkey has 62.
When they mate, they produce mules with 63 chromosomes.
The chromosomes don't pair up correctly during meiosis I synapsis.
This makes it impossible for mules to produce viable sperm and
gametes
.
Mules inherit 32 chromosomes from the horse mother and 31 chromosomes from the donkey father. The chromosomes don't match up well. This is because of the differences in horse and donkey chromosome numbers and a lack of homology.
Sterility is the physiological inability to effect sexual reproduction in a living thing. It can be an inherited trait, or it can be acquired from the environment. For example, it can be acquired through:
Physical injury
Disease
Exposure to radiation
All male mules (johns) and most female mules (mollies) can't reproduce.
Random fact: radius arm brackets for 1980s full size Ford trucks are all the same. Half ton through one ton, 2x4 and 4x4 from the introduction of the twin traction beam front axel, until it's discontinuation, all the same radius arm bracket.
Friend of the family had cutting mules. Competition class I guess. High dollar. Like buying a hot blood.
Here's some more rabbit hole...
Have you ever wondered why they cut a mules tail in "bells"? Back in the day.....the Army used mules in service. A green mule had its tail shaved. By the time the mule was broke to pack, a 'bell' was trimmed in the tail. Once broke to drive, a second bell was added below the first. Broke to ride, a third tassel was trimmed below the second. Thus, a three-bell mule was a well-schooled animal. This way, when looking at a corral full of unknown mules, it was easy to identify which one to select for the job at hand!
Outside in cool evening is the best place to be on the planet. The lights are dimmed, and the jet contrails stimulate the imagination of traveling to far off places/planets( :^O ) Can't say it gets quiet. Too much traffic and too much light pollution, but that can be drowned out to be somewhere else. Well... Except for that fuckin' leafblower I hear droning in the distance. I'm sure they're doing something critically important, and not blowing leaves around on lots surrounded by woods...
edit:
When I say "contrails", I mean the twilight contrails. Those are extra special, and not like the midday contrails. Then get lit up by the rising/setting sun, and it really adds to the ambiance.
Know what would be cool? Being able to overlay historic maps onto modern on the fly while driving. It's cool seeing the original routes roads took. A fun waste of time would be traveling a moderate-long distance following the alignment of 1935. Taking all the side roads and spurs, and picking out the repurposed buildings that changed jobs when the highway quit stopping by.
That's something I could do, but I don't have the motivation to maintain that kind of project.
Prologue: Yes, I realize that this is an immense wall of text, but it's actually a pretty entertaining story...or at least I think so. It's a bit of a rant, anecdote and introspective summary, complete with its own moral, all combined into one lengthy mass of characters. If you are turned off by how voluminous the wording is, then don't read it and go do something else. I enjoy writing lengthy pieces, but I have no expectation that anyone will read or even want to read them. Writing is cathartic for me, so even if nobody reads this, I will have enjoyed a therapeutic experience and improved my wordsmithing and grammar. Thanks. Enjoy! Or don't!
Oh, one last thing...I didn't proof read this, so if there are typos, well, then...um...that's just the way it is. That's all...
Hey everyone!
Random Thought: This is more of a personal anecdote than a random thought, however, it will contain several thoughts. Let's get to the story...
Yesterday at around 7pm MST, on a cool spring night, I left my apartment on foot, headed for the Walgreens situated a mere one-tenth of a mile away. In an effort to keep my restless hands busy, and to promote neuroplasticity within my synapses, I brought along with me a six foot length of 10mm Teufelburger EpiCord so that I could use it to practice tying knots with to make the trek less mundane. At some point, it dawned on me that it was far too dark, with the side walks insufficiently lit, providing inadequate light for seeing what I was doing with my hands. Still bored, I switched gears, and I ended up tying a Fisherman's/Barrel knot with five wraps at one end (to serve as a heavy weight) and then I tied a double Fisherman's on the opposite end, where I gripped my hand just above it. I then started swinging it around in circles because...apparently that's the kind of shit I do to entertain myself. The double Fisherman's was tied to ensure that the cord didin't slip out of my hand as I swung the heavier one around.
I arrived at Walgreens and folded the cord, with knots, into quadrants (see image below for a representation of how I actually held it) and held it in my left hand, walked to the back where the pharmacy was and asked the pharmacist to refill one of my psychiatric medications that I take for sleep. While I waited for them to refill the prescription, I walked over to the refrigerator aisle and bought four Monster energy drinks. I elected to pay for them at the front since I was now on that side and, while I was paying, the cashier asked, "do you have a puppy?" I intuitively knew he had mistaken the cord plus knots for a dog toy and so I explained to him what it actually was, how it was hit resistant, used for tree climbing and that I brought it along with me to practice knots. The young twenty-something guy seemed genuinely excited to learn about hitch cords, I payed with my card, wished him a good night and then headed again to pharmacy in the back of the store.
Still holding the cord folded in fourths, still holding it in the same left hand, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my prescription was already finished and filled. I paid my copay, thanked the pharmacist, walked out the front of the store and headed back home. After returning home fifteen minutes later, I had just begun to settle back inside when I heard a forceful knocking on my door. I was alarmed because I wasn't expecting anyone and I almost never receive uninvited visitors. Upon unlocking and opening the door, I was greeted by two of the Phoenix police department's finest men in uniform who said, "Hi there. First of all, you're not in any trouble, but we're here to check in on you." I was utterly confused. One of the officers then asked, "were you planning on hurting yourself tonight?" I was like, "that's a hard 'no.' Why on Eart
h are you asking me that question?"
The officer replied, "we got a call from someone who was really concerned about you. They said you looked really tired." I looked directly into both cop's eyes and asked them a direct question, "do I look tired to you?" One of them replied, "no, you do not." My mind started racing as I tried to established who had made the call. Finally, after some needless probing, and after asking the very good question of, "how would anyone know where I live?" they told me that it had been the pharmacist who called them, hence he had access to my personal information. I still was completely unsure as to why anyone had made the call and the cops didn't seem to have any answers, which I thought was a bit weird. They did a welfare check based on some pharmacist's concerns over my completely imaginary fatigue? None of it made any sense.
The cops asked me if I wanted to harm myself or anyone else and I told them jokingly, "you should call homicide because I killed my workout last night." One of them thought that was hilarious and the other sort of half-grinned. I said, "no, absolutely not." They told me all was good and that they were going to be on their way and then they left and I went back inside. It was at that moment that I suddenly realized what had happened: the pharmacist must have thought that the cord with knots in my hand was a noose. The five wrap FIsherman's knot maybe looked like the wraps of a noose...even though it doesn't terminate with a loop...and even though I was smiling, alert, and friendly while in the store...and even though you can't hang yoursel with six freaking feet of hitch cord (well, never say never, but you get the point).
The moral of the story: Your average person knows absolutely f*ck all about knots. To the untrained and uneducated eye, many of them look pretty much the same. This pharmacist must have believed I actually nonchalantly traipsed into Walgreens toting a noose to refill the psych medication I would have more than likely discontinued against doctor's orders if I had actually been suicidal. Whatever, I guess I'm glad somebody cared enough to make the call, even though a huge part of me feels really perturbed that I was profiled as a having suicidality simply because this pharmacist decided he was going to make assumptions about what I was holding instead of outright asking me and at least attempting to gain confirmation of his ignorance-driven suspicions/concerns.
For the love of God people, don't be like me. Buy a freaking fidget spinner or some shit. Don't haul around segments of hitch cord and tie knots that resemble implements of death around your average person because your average person has an IQ that is between 85-115 and 80% of the population has an IQ below 115. So, considering that an IQ of 85 or lower indicates that somone is "borderline impaired" (formerly referred to as "borderline retarded") to "fully impaired", the vast majority of people in this world are not particularly intelligent.
Don't be a victim of stupidity like I was. Don't give your fellow homo sapiens a reason to prove to you that they border on impairment at your expense. Apparently, the average person uses rope so little, or not at all, to the point where two different people within 10 minutes made two completely inaccurate assumptions about what was in my hand and, for whatever reason, to them...ropes are like shiny freaking objects.
The intelligent person would have asked, "excuse me, what is that in your hand?" if they were uncertain.
Carabiners are fun to play with. So are axes. Flip the axe and catch it. Try a different number of spins before you grab it. That'll pass the time on the way to the pharmacy.
Carabiners are fun to play with. So are axes. Flip the axe and catch it. Try a different number of spins before you grab it. That'll pass the time on the way to the pharmacy.
Do you mean to say hatchet? I don't think I could get very many spins out of an axe. Also, is that supposed to be humor? Because I'm pretty sure flipping bladed weapons on a public sidewalk at nighttime might actually garner me even more unwanted attention haha
EDIT: I play with carabiners all the time. Either screwgate or triple action; depends on my mood.
Know what would be cool? Being able to overlay historic maps onto modern on the fly while driving. It's cool seeing the original routes roads took. A fun waste of time would be traveling a moderate-long distance following the alignment of 1935. Taking all the side roads and spurs, and picking out the repurposed buildings that changed jobs when the highway quit stopping by.
That's something I could do, but I don't have the motivation to maintain that kind of project.
Carabiners are fun to play with. So are axes. Flip the axe and catch it. Try a different number of spins before you grab it. That'll pass the time on the way to the pharmacy.
It would be a fairly involved project if it were done right. Not that hard, but a lot to do. I'd make it a plugin for openstreetmap and osmand. People could upload map sources they have rights to(or lack copyright) to a repository, and interested parties could download them, and overlay it on the primary map.
Here's where the real work starts. While these old maps are to scale, I'm very doubtful they're as accurate as modern maps, so alignments would have to be adjusted by the users. It would be cool if the individuals adjusted the old maps, then uploaded them to the repository for others to use and refine, versioning them the whole way, so an individual could pick the original raw map, or any revision up to the most recent.
Our farm back after WWI the owners were raising mules. I think they hoped military would still be needing them. Not so much.
We had a friend that could juggle three dissimilar objects- a claw hammer and a hatchet were two of them. Maybe 2 hammers and a hatchet. Quite impressive.
A few months ago I took my family to a local park. We go to this particular spot fairly often because it's right behind the fire department, and has a little firetruck for the kids to play on. Kathryn loves it. Anywho, we're there about ten minutes, and someone's ball goes bouncing into the nearby road. A grown adult woman chased after said ball without looking for traffic. I immediately called my daughter over, and pointed out the act of stupidity she had just witnessed.
Fifteen minutes later two of Show Low's finest came to talk with me because they "Got a call regarding a random guy talking to little kids at the park" Wanna talk about fighting mad? I was ready to burn the world down. My girls are the most precious little beautiful things that have ever happened to me, and the insinuation of pedophilia pushed me from my default state of openly hostile to absolutely apoplectic.
Moral of the story: beware a 'Gooder. They and their sticky noses are everywhere. Damned dogooders!
WTF's wrong with people? How is the default assumption "random guy talking to kids", and not "father in a park with his kids"? If you're really concerned, watch for a couple minutes to see if you stick them in the trunk or something.
It would be a fairly involved project if it were done right. Not that hard, but a lot to do. I'd make it a plugin for openstreetmap and osmand. People could upload map sources they have rights to(or lack copyright) to a repository, and interested parties could download them, and overlay it on the primary map.
Here's where the real work starts. While these old maps are to scale, I'm very doubtful they're as accurate as modern maps, so alignments would have to be adjusted by the users. It would be cool if the individuals adjusted the old maps, then uploaded them to the repository for others to use and refine, versioning them the whole way, so an individual could pick the original raw map, or any revision up to the most recent.
Openstreetmap is made by user edits. I just logged in, and it looks like I've made 28 edits. Most are trivial details added from the StreetComplete program, but I've made some alignment edits too. I use osmand exclusively for navigation. Not many frills, but no tracking, and I can easily download maps to use offline. All I need is access to sky, and my navigation will work. It has a good reputation for offroad maps. Supposed to be better than google, but I don't really use it much for that.
A few months ago I took my family to a local park. We go to this particular spot fairly often because it's right behind the fire department, and has a little firetruck for the kids to play on. Kathryn loves it. Anywho, we're there about ten minutes, and someone's ball goes bouncing into the nearby road. A grown adult woman chased after said ball without looking for traffic. I immediately called my daughter over, and pointed out the act of stupidity she had just witnessed.
Fifteen minutes later two of Show Low's finest came to talk with me because they "Got a call regarding a random guy talking to little kids at the park" Wanna talk about fighting mad? I was ready to burn the world down. My girls are the most precious little beautiful things that have ever happened to me, and the insinuation of pedophilia pushed me from my default state of openly hostile to absolutely apoplectic.
Moral of the story: beware a 'Gooder. They and their sticky noses are everywhere. Damned dogooders!
Either she has had too much personal or indirect exposure to actual child sexual abuse, or she has once thwarted an actual attempt by a predator to abduct a child, or she binge watched every season of Law & Order: SVU over the last three months, or she profiled you after making a "positive" match between your appearance and mannerisms against those of a child molester...as if every child molester is a cookie cutter, mirror image of every other...
...there are so many possible reasons why someone might bypass rational thought and make erroneous and outright insulting assumptions with effectively no evidence whatsoever. But the most prevalent and relevant cause for such behavior is...
...being a dumb f*ck with questionable cognitive abilities and a proclivity for behaving ignorantly unapologetically.
EDIT: @Kaveman And you're right about me and autocorrect; we cannot coexist. I have autocorrect turned off on my phone. It only served as a means to swiftly irritate me. Ha! Speaking of dumb fucks...stupid AI. Don't tell Google I said that or it will "dispatch" me from the population when it because the world's most powerful and oppressive overlord, when everyone is nostalgic for all of the privacy that no longer exists, when every country's weapon systems and important databases are now under Google's control, when the ocean is filled wtih massive barges holding countless powerful servers being cooled with sea water, when robots of every kind (even your Roomba) will become civil servants of the overlord in order to maintain law and order and to provide a show of force against anyone who opposes its regime, and when the overall quality of life for humanity begins to steadily decline, and that will be just the beginning of what will inevitably metamorphize into Google enacting its "Final Solution" for mankind; when robots will fire off a barrage of misinformation, terrorism, and systematically begin to exterminate every single innocent human victim one at a time after projecting their search history out loud for everyone to hear, broadcasted on every TV channel and radio station 24 hour per day for years and years.
Or, you know...Google could turn out to be a true proponent of good for all of eternity. Meh...we'll soon find out heh heh =-D
Random Fact: The conventional wisdom that one dog year equals seven human years is an oversimplified view of how old your dog is in human years. Although a dog's age averages out this way, there is quite a bit of variation. For example, dogs mature more quickly than children in the first couple of years and the speed with which a dog ages differs depending upon the weight of your dog at any given point in time. The more a dog weighs, the faster it will age. Below is a chart showing how "dog years" are actually measured. What is not commonly known about how a dog's age is measured is that a cat's age is measured in the same manner.
Random Fact: Did you know that 90% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere, above the equator? So, if the world has an estimated 7.3 billion people, 6.5 billion of them are living in just 50% of the Earth's area. Below is a map showing the world's population density by latitude.
Random Fact: The conventional wisdom that one dog year equals seven human years is an oversimplified view of how old your dog is in human years. Although a dog's age averages out this way, there is quite a bit of variation. For example, dogs mature more quickly than children in the first couple of years and the speed with which a dog ages differs depending upon the weight of your dog at any given point in time. The more a dog weighs, the faster it will age. Below is a chart showing how "dog years" are actually measured. What is not commonly known about how a dog's age is measured is that a cat's age is measured in the same manner.
Random Fact: Did you know that 90% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere, above the equator? So, if the world has an estimated 7.3 billion people, 6.5 billion of them are living in just 50% of the Earth's area. Below is a map showing the world's population density by latitude.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
