You Are Not Rational

Credit to John Cramer, University of Washington Physicist. This...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:41:51 -0700

Credit to John Cramer, University of Washington Physicist.

This is the sound of the start….. or another part of the cycle.

But this is the way the world begins, the world begins, the world begins…. this is the way the world begins, not with a bang but a badass electronic synth song.

I would like to watch David Bowie watch this. I, also, would...

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:42 -0700

I would like to watch David Bowie watch this. I, also, would like to watch this. Maybe I would like David Bowie to watch me watch this. Yes, that is most likely.

I love Chris Hadfield so much. Thank you Commander.

“Ground Control to Major Tom”

“Yes? I am making a video, pardon that.”

This is water….. Short version: Life is what happens when...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:20:39 -0700

This is water…..

Short version: Life is what happens when you are annoyed and think time is being wasted. If you can truly live in those moments without judgement, you are just KILLING it. For real. Empathy & Perspective - Have some. If it was for sale alongside the french fries and processed foods I am sure we would swim in it. Until then, we’ll have to actively force compassion. It’s healthy for everyone.

An exceptional, & incredibly important, video from David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech from the mid aughts. It’s worrying though. It is amazing how few people “get it” in the comments. The unbridled entitlement born into today’s people creates a blind selfishness that seems precarious.

Sad about Foster’s suicide… it is interesting to think of his words here, and his inability to recover from his depression. Even profound genius’ who understand the pressures of these nearly invisible “banal platitudes” is victim to lonesome genetics.

I will say, this ties in nicely with one of those maxims or aphorisms that you can sit and ponder for a bit:

Water seeks its own level. That applies directly to this, so sit a spell and ponder. Feel free to tap out questions or thoughts in the comments.

"God is dead: but considering the state of the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for..."

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:46:57 -0700

“God is dead: but considering the state of the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Die frohliche Wissenschaft

COMMAS ARE AWESOME (so is grammatical humor) - Imgur

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:28:13 -0800

COMMAS ARE AWESOME (so is grammatical humor) - Imgur

This is my dog Pavlov. He loves you. - Imgur

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:02:03 -0800

This is my dog Pavlov. He loves you. - Imgur

"Civilisation is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:57:21 -0800

“Civilisation is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.”

- Brian Aldiss

HISTORIC REASONS WE ARE PRESENTLY IN THE FUTURE There is a...

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:11:00 -0800

HISTORIC REASONS WE ARE PRESENTLY IN THE FUTURE

There is a humanoid robot in outer space on a space station that is tweeting.

(I have a twitter list or two of cool stuff - I plan more)

We’re on a different planet, and those rovers are tweeting too.

A car that drives itself exists, and one that parks itself already here. People are talking about machine ethics.

Video conferencing is basically perfect and easily applicable now. It can sit on our eyes, & deliver vast amounts of data, autonomously.

We’re ramping up our plans to mine asteroids. Outer Space leisure travel is here. Moon bases are being designed, and will be built by 3D printers, which are helping create useful things in the 3rd world, too… like 3D printed boats, or bicycles. You can have a 3D printer build a house in a few hours. Refugees can have shelter!

We’re working on tricorders, warp drives (more promising than ever), deflector shields & cloaking technology, and teleportation. Some are already being practically applied.

We have a hive mind superconsciousness that is basically on the level of ESP, with information traveling all over the world, immediately. Such that transparency is starting to destabilize anything and everything opaque - governments, corporations, marketing, media, etc.

There’s even replacement robotic limbs and bionic sight. More human than human, I always say. The singularity *is* here, and passing by….

Undoubtedly the greatest time in human history to be alive. I know statistically you are more likely to be alive now, as a human, that at any point in human history, as there is, currently, more humans on the planet now than if you counted up all the humans that have ever existed since time began. That’s curious.

Wonder how long it will take people to fully commit to the obvious conclusion that an animal as potentially infinite as we are, the finite beauty of our earth will not outlast us. I am thrilled to know we are in a time where the technology is dawning on us at the same time we can philosophically commit to being planet hopping wanderers, rewilding the universe. Or wilding it for the first time.

It’s time to meet our potential, fine folks. I am proud to be a human with you. Oh yeah, might as well let people in love marry one another, considering all of the above. =)

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had..."

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:23:07 -0800

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

- Mark Twain

"You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while."

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:20:46 -0800

“You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.”

- Eckhart Tolle

Epic view. I can see my house from here…. ISS...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:50:55 -0800

Epic view. I can see my house from here…. ISS International Space Station at night. So stunning. So profound!

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 10:44:51 -0800

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"As you walk and eat and travel be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life."

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 12:00:25 -0800

“As you walk and eat and travel be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.”

- Siddhartha Guatama (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

quantumaniac: Curiosity Rover Prepares to Drill Into Rocks That...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:00:46 -0800

quantumaniac:

Curiosity Rover Prepares to Drill Into Rocks That May Have Once Been Wet

NASA’s Curiosity rover has explored a new area on Mars called Yellowknife Bay, which shows plenty of evidence of flowing water. The rover is preparing to drill into a rock nicknamed “John Klein” in the location in the next couple weeks, investigating its composition and searching for organics. This will be the first time that engineers have drilled into the surface of another planet.

Scientists already know that Curiosity’s explorations have taken it to a place that was basically an ancient riverbed. Now they are uncovering the complex geologic history of the area and have stumbled across many interesting features.

“The scientists have been let into the candy store,” said engineer Richard Cook, project manager for Curiosity, during a NASA teleconference on Jan. 15.

For the last few weeks, the rover has been moving from the plateau it landed on down a slope into a depression. As it descended, it passed through layers of rock that are increasingly older, taking it backwards into the planet’s history. Geologists are finding a lot of different rock types, indicating that many different geologic processes took place here over time.

Some of the minerals are sedimentary, suggesting that flowing water moved small grains around and deposited them, and other evidence suggests water moved through the rocks after they had formed. Tiny spherical concretions scattered through the rock were likely formed when water percolated through rock pores and minerals precipitated out. Other samples are cracked and filled with veins of material such as calcium sulfate, that were also formed when water percolated through the cracks and deposited the mineral.

“Basically these rocks were saturated with water,” said geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, Curiosity’s project scientist, who added that these rocks indicate the most complex history of water that researchers have yet seen on Mars.

Curiosity brushed some of these rocks to remove their dust covering and then peered at them close-up with its high-resolution Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera. The rocks are sandstones containing larger grains up to 2 mm long surrounded by silt grains that are “finer than powdered sugar but coarser than sugar used to make icing,” said geologist R. Aileen Yingst of the Planetary Science Institute, a scientist on the MAHLI team.

Many of the grains are rounded, suggesting they were knocked about and worn down somehow. Because the grains are too large to have been carried by wind, they were most likely transported by water flowing at least 1 meter per second (2.2 mph). All these investigations suggest if you could go deep into Mars’ past and stand at the same spot as the rover, you’d probably see a river of flowing water with small underwater dunes along the riverbed.

The next step for Curiosity is to drill 5 centimeter holes into some of these rocks and veins to definitively determine their composition. Grotzinger said that the team will search for aqueous minerals, isotope ratios that could indicate the composition of Mars’ atmosphere in the past, and possibly organic material.

The drilling will probably take place within two weeks, though NASA engineers are still unsure of the exact date. The procedure will be “the most significant engineering thing we’ve done since landing,” said Cook, and will require several trial runs, equipment warm-ups, and drilling a couple test holes to make sure everything works. The team wants to take things as slowly as possible to correct for any problems that may arise, such as potential electrical shorts and excessive shaking of the rover.

"Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art."

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:35:05 -0800

“Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.”

- Stanislavsky

If you haven’t seen it, watch Ving Rhames give his Golden Globe to Jack Lemmon

"It’s that sort of scene, that remembering that we die alone. We’re born alone. We do need each..."

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:00:48 -0800

“It’s that sort of scene, that remembering that we die alone. We’re born alone. We do need each other. It’s lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to, that’s part of your obligation.”

- Bill Murray

http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/ This...

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:00:23 -0800

http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/

This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide

Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom!

Early Man
This generic “cave man” represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the Levant. Whoever they were.

Canaanite
What did ancient Canaanites look like? I don’t know, so this is based on ancient Sumerian art.

Egyptian
Canaan was located between two huge empires. Egypt controlled it sometimes, and…

Assyrian
….Assyria controlled it other times.

Israelite
The “Children of Israel” conquered the shit out of the region, according to bloody and violent Old Testament accounts.

Babylonian
Then the Baylonians destroyed their temple and took the Hebrews into exile.

Macedonian/Greek
Here comes Alexander the Great, conquering everything!

Greek/Macedonian
No sooner did Alexander conquer everything, than his generals divided it up and fought with each other.

Ptolemaic
Greek descendants of Ptolemy, another of Alexander’s competing generals, ruled Egypt dressed like Egyptian god-kings. (The famous Cleopatra of western mythology and Hollywood was a Ptolemy.)

Seleucid
More Greek-Macedonian legacies of Alexander.

Hebrew Priest
This guy didn’t fight, he just ran the Second Temple re-established by Hebrews in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile.

Maccabee
Led by Judah “The Hammer” Maccabee, who fought the Seleucids, saved the Temple, and invented Channukah. Until…

Roman
….the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and absorbed the region into the Roman Empire…

Byzantine
….which split into Eastern and Western Empires. The eastern part was called the Byzantine Empire. I don’t know if “Romans” ever fought “Byzantines” (Eastern Romans) but this is a cartoon.

Arab Caliph
Speaking of cartoon, what did an Arab Caliph look like? This was my best guess.

Crusader
After Crusaders went a-killin’ in the name of Jesus Christ, they established Crusader states, most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Mamluk of Egypt
Wikipedia sez, “Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies…In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be “true lords”, with social status above freeborn Muslims.[7]” And apparently they controlled Palestine for a while.

Ottoman Turk
Did I mention this is a cartoon? Probably no one went to battle looking like this. But big turbans, rich clothing and jewelry seemed to be in vogue among Ottoman Turkish elites, according to paintings I found on the Internet.

Arab
A gross generalization of a generic 19-century “Arab”.

British
The British formed alliances with Arabs, then occupied Palestine. This cartoon is an oversimplification, and uses this British caricature as a stand-in for Europeans in general.

Palestinian
The British occupied this guy’s land, only to leave it to a vast influx of….

European Jew/Zionist
Desperate and traumatized survivors of European pogroms and death camps, Jewish Zionist settlers were ready to fight to the death for a place to call home, but…

PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah
….so were the people that lived there. Various militarized resistance movements arose in response to Israel: The Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

State of Israel
Backed by “the West,” especially the US, they got lots of weapons and the only sanctioned nukes in the region.

Guerrilla/Freedom Fighter/Terrorist
Sometimes people fight in military uniforms, sometimes they don’t. Creeping up alongside are illicit nukes possibly from Iran or elsewhere in the region. Who’s Next?

and finally…

The Angel of Death
The real hero of the Old Testament, and right now too.

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have..."

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:00:30 -0800

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

- Marcus Aurelius

"Fable should be taught as fable, myth as myth, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach..."

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:00:17 -0800

“Fable should be taught as fable, myth as myth, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truth is horrifying. The mind of a child accepts them and only through great pain, perhaps tragedy, can the child be relieved of them. Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth — even more so, since a superstition is intangible, you can’t get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, as so is changeable.”

- Hypatia of Alexandria (370 - 415 BC)

"Seth Meyers just nails it with regards to Hurricane Sandy, albeit in front of an empty studio — what..."

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:00:25 -0700

“

Seth Meyers just nails it with regards to Hurricane Sandy, albeit in front of an empty studio — what with the superstorm, and all. Here’s the full quote:

None of the debates did they mention climate change. And I feel like every six months the worst thing that’s ever happend in the world happens weather-wise. And I feel like we’re going to look back on this time the way baseball fans in the 90s were like “No, nobody’s using steroids.”

We are in the Steroid Era of storms and yet there are more people in Congress who probably think this is because, like, gays are marrying… Than the fact that the world is just dying.

”

- Seth Myers on Jimmy Fallon