A question I'm not sure has an answer

Wouldn't a squirrel army be more likely to use old fashioned green, forest camo?

Wait, that's not my question. It's....below the fold....

What if?

There's not enough words in the world to describe all the fucked up shit that has and will go down.

Keep Ur fires burning. Know that I burn with you, and am taking pictures.

Smile!

Life is the prize, you fool.

All is forgiven, loser

I can't cast a stone - I don't know anyone who can. So who out there is throwing stones? Let's ask some questions!

Inflatable Future

The near future of human exploration or even colonization of space will be done via inflatable spacecraft. Like the Sundancer above (artist's representation). Don't be fooled by the apparent small size - inflatable craft will be much bigger than near term metallic spacecraft. Consider Bigelow's (the company behind inflatable spacecraft) BA 330 compared to the Destiny module on the ISS:

But wait, you say, how can inflatable craft survive the harsh climes of space? Check it:

Rather than balloon, think really thick tire, with multiple layers. Tough as hell, and superior to our current metal ships which are often no thicker than a heavy aluminum. The craft will launch in a folded arrangement which greatly saves space on the rocket, and then expands in space as compressed gas is used to inflate it. The resulting structure is stronger than our current metals and far better at shielding from radiation, while not weighing that much more. It's an ingenious solution to the constraints gravity places on what we can launch into space with our current rocket tech. And this inflatable future is close, as Bigelow is booked to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket in the near future for a big test to conclusively prove the technology to NASA and other space powers. Have a model!

The BA 330 is incredibly spacious as compared to even the relatively expansive ISS. But since these modules are also nodes that can link up into larger structures, perhaps now you see the full potential. A quick and cheap and large space station:

A mock up for muckety-mucks. Bigelow of course is a private company, and is poised to become the first real estate developer in space. The Space Hotel is nigh! Massive fortunes await. And of course this too is but a start. Witness the possibility of the EDE:

A realistic in the near term spacecraft that could comfortably transport people to Jupiter, Saturn, and if we're brave, beyond. It's huge and really not that complicated or expensive. The Bigelow modules make up the bulk of the craft, providing huge areas for storage and living - heck, one of the modules could be a farm with chickens and hydroponic vegetables and fish tanks. And enough space so a person can move about a bit - also note the centrifuge for 1G sessions. All it takes is a couple of hours a day of just riding in it and you have no worries about bone loss or muscle weakening - thus, all the conditions are right for people to travel long term in space.

Now, a bigger question is why you'd want to send folks to Jupiter and beyond, but I'll leave that for you to answer. Until then, let the inflatable future begin!

Inauguration 2013

Can U believe it's 2013? Like, the future man. But know Bill's still just cold mackin' chicks, cuz, why not? Bill's in it for the laughs. Johnny Boner, on the other hand

is all about the tears. So many tears - for a Republican this must be a grave injustice.  Why?

Suck it, haters. President Obama rules!

The Cuteness and The Horror

Puppies gotta eat. Indeed, everything living has to eat, one way or another. It's one of the cruel truths of our reality: For all animals, to survive, to live, you must kill. Plants are much more hippy about it, living off the sun, water, and dirt.

And it is this reality - kill or die - which is the main agent of evolution. For, quite simply, those traits that add either to your success in killing or in processing the carcass increase your chances of living. And to live is to have the chance to reproduce, and reproduction IS the meaning of life. One way or another. That's the answer to the fabled question, by the way, and I answer it oh-so-offhandedly because it's rather obvious: The meaning of Life is to reproduce. And that's the subject of an infinite amount of stories.

So, in my roundabout way, I come to the subject of obesity. It does not exist in the wild, for no creature, except one, is successful enough to ward off the seasonal ebbs and flow of the food chain. Every animal out there, save one (and the ones he/she chooses to favor), is in a brutal competition for scarce resources and there simply is no means to get fat.

But then there's humans!

She's cute, if she lost like 200 or so pounds. Only human society of the modern era could create such a woman. Even 60-70 years ago, it would have been unheard of (or the result of an actual genetic condition) for someone to be this obese, except possibly for the very rich. But now it's almost commonplace. Even the animals we have domesticated can suffer from this miracle (in that it never occurs in nature) of obesity:

All due to our technology, which in that span of 60-70 years has become magical, and will only become more so. The wonders/horrors that await us are mindboggling. Prepare yourself for ever more extremes, for it is the inevitable result of overcoming nature's "kill or die" decree.

We build for you to eat

Doozers build things for the Fraggles to eat and if the Fraggles don't, the Doozers move on to other clans of Fraggles willing to eat their tasty structures. True story!

And that's the Doozer-Fraggle Symbiosis, teaching us all a lesson about the balance of life. And appearances. And really cool miniature puppet sets.

How awesome. For shame that today this would all be binary code stored on magnetic mediums.  Think of all the puppeteers out of work!

Why? Bear

No idea where this came from - make up your own tale. No doubt some crazy desert hippy redneck artist drunk got bored once and blam: Why? Bear. The bear asks a great question though - Why?

I posit this is THE question that defines humanity, as apart from the other animals. It even separates us from each other - the more you explore the question "Why", the more in depth you explore your existence. And that leads to wisdom. Without the "why", or a dearth of it, you are left with a dumb automaton who trudges through life in rote misery.

"How" would be next on the list of questions, another important, defining question, but one we share with many other animals. Birds figure out lots of things, and figuring out "how" is the only way possible.

What, where and when are all spatial questions, and I'd argue everything alive has some grasp of them and their answers.

"Why" is the only question, perhaps, without an answer, since the answer almost always dwells in the subjective. And how can anything subjective be a true answer, so dependent is it on the person answering?

I have two answers to the question "Why", but I can make no claim they are correct.

1. Because life is a chemical reaction that is part of a larger cosmological process of energy transference from the Big Bang.

2. Why not?

Free Your Mind

Are you afraid of heights? If so, perhaps simply looking at this picture might be enough to make your stomach roll a bit, or hairs to stand up on end, or sweat to burst forth from your sweaty regions. Just a bit?

Fear is a funny thing. It's all in our minds, one way or another, but some fears far more so than others. Fear of heights seems to be a biological reaction largely disconnected from "you" - the controlling part of the brain. Your knees buckle, your mouth dries up, your hands start shaking uncontrollably. Beyond thought. But is it really?

Fear of mice on the other hand? Neurosis, like so many other fears. Collections of repetitive thoughts ("I'm so afraid of mice!").

Agreed? If so, then it's all in your mind, and thus mostly under your control. Free your mind of your own repetitive thoughts, and gain a wider and deeper understanding of this, our reality.

For the record, I have a mild fear of heights that sometimes can get the best of me, but also can be controlled if I calm down and breathe. Breathing is always the answer.

Floating Boats

The (in)famous pregnant man. I say go for it Brother - I am firmly in the "Float Your Boat" school, as long as your boat isn't bombing someone else's. It is 2011 for crying out loud (COL)!

Scales of Perspective (Let's Go!)

Here we go - let's bring it home. Here we have the proton and neutron, the building blocks of the nucleus, which, combined with electrons, make up all atoms. Inside the proton and neutron are quarks, which come in colors. What makes up a quark, you might ask? So far, according to standard theory, nothing. According to String Theory, strings. Now, at this scale of perspective, quarks aren't really "things", but like electrons, they exist, believe it or not, more like "probability waves". Here's another picture that might illustrate that better:

 See? They're kinda there, kinda here, kinda moving all around all the time. Anyways, quarks make up protons and neutrons, protons and neutrons make up the core of an atom:

 Again, with the fuzziness - the gray clouds outside the nucleus are the "probability waves" of the electrons, which, like quarks, are kinda here, kinda there. But the nucleus is our first "real" thing that we can understand at our macro level. But consider! Every atom that makes up every bit of matter you see is 99% empty space. It is only the Electromagnetic field generated by the electrons that gives it the impression of solidity - fields, not "things". Atoms make up everything we know, so let's skip way up to the next level of this thesis (Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form), the stellar realm:

 Its our new friend, the Oort Cloud - but, like the atom itself, each star is just a tiny bit ensconced in a far larger cloud - a shell - of particles that are here and there. In this case, frozen ice and rock, but you see where I'm going with this, yes? Next up, a picture I just posted!

 So, again, like the stellar neighborhood, and like the atom itself, our galaxies exist as tiny specks amongst a far larger sphere of Dark Matter. And just as a reminder at the scale of perspective we are currently talking about, here's a yearbook photo:

Every little box here is a picture of a galaxy, and this is just a tiny sample. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there (maybe many, many more), each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Some perspective, eh? But we're not stopping there:

 The Multiverse - just a theory at this point, but everyone seems to be heading towards acceptance of it quite quickly. Note, that our entire Universe might just be a small part of a larger sphere which in turn is contained within a still larger sphere which itself is contained within an even bigger sphere of existence.... and where it ends, who knows? Maybe it goes on forever. 

Have I blown your mind yet? I just blew my own - in fact, I've been living in a constant state of awed wonder since coming to appreciate these levels of perspective. This is where we live! This is our existence - we are part and parcel of this grand construction.

And in this scheme, does the guy who cut you off at the light really matter? Does anything really matter? No - objectively, how could it? We're all just dust in the wind.


Or, different answer. Better answer: All that matters is what you want to matter. In fine Existential tradition, we - humans - bring meaning to these scales of perspective. We choose how we want to perceive it, how we interpret it, how it makes us feel. You may not be able to change the multiverse we all live in, but you can change how you think about it, how you feel about it.


And that's all the freedom we can ever have: How we choose to deal with these infinities.

Yeah?  So choose wisely. And this is the task I've chosen for myself, and am sharing with you if you're willing to follow: The exploration of perspective. Hope you enjoy the ride.

We Are Defined by What We Kill

Hey Beauford! What say me and Jimmy Bob pose on this here giant hill of buffalo skulls and you snap one of them new fangled flash pictures?

Have you heard about this? Read about this? The wanton killing of buffalo in the American west in the late 1800's? Vacation train rides you could take where you'd just be poppin' off out the window, cold killin' buffalo for kicks. Fun for the whole family! And for why? No good reason really, just cause the buffalo were there, so easy for the killin' - they were practically asking for it.

Now, compare that mindset, just some 100 years old, with a comparable attitude today - for example, there are many re-population efforts of buffalo going on across the west. 

Progress! Right? It seems undeniable, and this is but one example. For it's true: You are defined by what you kill, and each and everyone of us MUST kill in order to live - this is in fact a definition of life, in my opinion: To kill. For fuel, of course, but killing is killing. Everything alive kills, and so the question is: Do you have a choice in this?

Yes, we humans clearly do. And so we have all kinds of weird diets, as expressions of our humanity. It's quite wonderful, I think, and presages even greater progress in the future.

And this is but one area of progress. We are becoming environmentally aware; equality is a real fact, and a growing reality across the world; racism and bigotry are battled across the globe. I could go on, but I hope you see, despite the seeming insanity of American politics and how that shapes the entire Earth, we are all - collectively! - making great progress in advancing a progressive attitude for all humanity. Respecting each other and the world we inhabit, this is our collective future. Not the distrust and rapaciousness of the past.

There will be setbacks, and those that refuse to go along. Some of these people/groups are quite powerful and will do everything they can to thwart our common success, but they are few, and ever dwindling, and if we can avoid a destruction event, the forces of progress will simply overwhelm such conservative roadblocks.

The future is ours! So remain strong in the face of the Insanity and Lies launched by the rear guard Morans of the American Right. Their time is over, and we are but witnessing the death throes.

And yes, we can define ourselves by killing regressive attitudes, like slavery, cannibalism, ritual mutilations, etc. 

What's heartening is this energy of progress is relatively new, born from the hippies, I would think. And never forget one of the first effective symbols of this new awareness:

 Please don't litter. Seriously. You'll make this dude cry. You don't want to do that, do you?

Because we can (must)

Not my drawing, and no idea who's - if it's yours, please step up and claim it, for it is magnificent.  If I could draw - and it certainly is a talent I lack - I'd draw all sorts of wonderful monstrosities - and why not? For, I could, and if you can, I posit, you must. Why else do you have the ability?


To sing, to write, to fight, to draw, some are blessed/curse with a need to express, and the best, I find, are those mated with a warped mind. Only from the outside do we all advance. And thus, the beauty of a horse making out with a duck. 


Symbolically, of course. This edge, this "warpedness", is what allows us hoo-mons to be so fantastically inventive. And invention is what separates us from all other life on Earth, and possibly for some distance in the stellar neighborhood.

Everything's ironic

I hope whomever crafted these sad little clown cactus holders was intentional - otherwise? Idiot? Most naive person in existence? Sexless alien from N'argua'allaX 7? Church lady in a bubble? 


And who would put one of these in their homes? Unironically, of course. 


Ironically? Anything's possible.


Also, too: Can you overuse a question mark, really? Isn't it the sign of a good conversationalist to ask questions? Isn't it fun to end statements with an uplifted, French-like "yes"? Or "no?", or "Is it not so?" Well, huh?

The Story (as of today)

Here it is:


A long, long time ago there was something like a point, but not really, of infinite mass and zero space. And then it began to expand, and then really expand (Inflation Theory), and in those first few moments, all the building blocks for our Universe were created in a crescendo of matter-antimatter collisions, with but .00001% of matter surviving, and that small remainder is everything. 


With ever further expansion came cooling and with that matter condensed out of energy, and then matter joined with matter to make a nucleus, which caught an electron, and an atom was born. Hydrogen and Helium filled the universe in great clouds, swirling and twisting with the currents of energy rippling through space, and over hundreds of thousands of years these great clouds condensed down into hot swirling points and BAM! The first stars were born, giant monsters living and dying in a few thousand years and then BAAAMMM! A massive explosion, and the first stellar Black Hole is born, and begins eating, pulling everything towards it. And this relentless pull pushes more clouds of hydrogen and helium to condense, creating stars and stars and ever more stars, some of these giving birth to more Black Holes, which start to merge, growing ever larger, ordering more and more clutches of stars in orbit around them, and the first galaxies were born.

Stars of hydrogen and helium create ever heavier metals, like carbon and oxygen, nitrogen and lithium, and this second generation of stars creates ever more heavier metals, like Iron, and in the biggest explosions of stars, everything denser than Iron is created in an instant - gold, silver, uranium, etc.  And we - life - is made up of these heavier metals. Iron courses through our very blood, and there is only one place in existence where Iron is created: A star.


Life spawned on one planet orbiting one star in a vast sea of billions of stars in billions of galaxies in maybe billions of Universes, and spread from the sea to the land. Evolution relentlessly shaped forms and functions through success and many millions of years later, here we are, you and I, contemplating it all. Brains made of up of hundreds of billions of neurons communicating electronically over a galaxy of connections, producing these very words that I type, you read, you and me - made of this very Universe, with a mind able to wonder why.


We live in an infinite sea of realities, dimensions and times beyond our comprehension and yet still, we can strive and imagine, this fantastic existence we call ours: Blessed to live in this, the Golden Era.


For our future is grim; the earth will be burnt and destroyed hundreds of times over; our galaxy will merge with Andromeda, sending each into a chaos lasting a billion years, and many, many billion more, space will be so stretched out there will be no stars in the night sky, as all matter is so far apart from other matter that there is, nothing. Stretched to infinity, cold and dark and eternal, as time will stop, motion will stop, the credits will say: Fin.


But that is all meaningless other than in a poetic way: We are here, now, alive and able to ask, Why? And "Why?" is the most powerful force ever released in this grand play.

Beneath You

If I were to ever get a tattoo - willingly, and of sound mind - which I would never do - I think a science tat would be a good bet. I like this particle collision one, though of course it's totally stupid and hideous. But anyways! Everything I described below is at a macro and uber-macro level - that is, bigger than us. Way, way bigger. But of course something very similar is happening for things smaller than us - in fact, we sit in the middle of an endless progression from big to small, a spectrum, or wave, if you will. Not the exact middle, because - where's that? But a middle. Everything does, since, what is the middle of an infinity? Everything is, basically. Further anyways, also (WARNING: Gonna get super sciency!):

 This little chart shows the interactions of the various elementary particles we believe make up our reality. You can get an idea how pivotal the Higgs Boson is by looking at it's relationship to the other particles - it imparts mass - and thus how important the work being done at CERN right now to try and discover the Higgs Boson. If discovered, it validates 30 years of Quantum Mechanics. If not discovered, well, either they need a better machine, or better testing method, or the Standard Model (as it's called) was incorrect and needs to be changed.

 Click for big - this is the Standard Model, in poster form. Super sciency, beware, but also dive on in. It won't bite. I can summarize it by saying it's basically a model for how the most fundamental particles we know of today interact, and how they also contribute to the basic Forces we know and feel, like electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force. It was the principles enshrined in the Standard Model that allowed us to crack the atom, so discarding it would be a major deal. It's important to note - as with ALL theories and "laws" of science - that everything discussed here is subject to change. For example, there are many theoretical physicists working in area called "String Theory", which if proven to a sufficient degree, would overwrite much of the working knowledge in physics - as in above, the quarks would be made of tiny strings, and extra-dimensions might contain a mult-dimensional gravity, etc, etc. It's all quite fascinating, but the biggest point to get across is: Everything's temporary. Even the most established fact. All "truths" are subject to revision if new evidence present itself. And so with that in mind:

A representation of an atom. It's important to grasp this concept: Even the most basic block of what we consider reality is not what we think it is. The blue surrounding the red dot in the center is the electron probability cloud, which means: Electrons don't truly exist in our reality until definitively measured/observed. Till then, they're kinda here, kinda there. That is the basis of our reality: Uncertainty. Temporary. Ephemeral. Miraculous and Mysterious. And no one does, or can ever, know it all. 

And thus a true scientist is humble, and operates with a wondrous mind straddling two worlds: Current, operational facts that have proven successful to date, but always open to the idea of new facts, new ways of being, that are truer, better, more close to the real than before. And one needs to adapt at any time to these new facts. Some people can't do this, it seems. Some can.

Which are you?


Also too, for scale purposes:

So small that it's beyond our minds. So, consider this in the larger view: Above us, galaxies and galaxies and maybe even Universe upon Universe, so vast that I can't possibly describe it accurately; and beneath us, smaller than us, an equal vastness that is ever driving down to smaller and smaller realms. And perhaps completely separete dimensions. One of my favorite theories at this scale is called "quantum fizz", and it means that at the quark level, quarks and anti-quarks pop into existence all the time, to quickly annhiliate, in a manner similar to the fizz in a soda. Random, spontaneous, and short lived. But this fizz is our reality, at least one level. There's many others.

Or, as Granny said:

It's turtles all the way down.

It doesn't have to make sense

It's from the intertube - it doesn't have to make sense. Which made me think: The absurd is funny because our brains recognize that it doesn't make sense and we don't have to try and figure it out, and this provides a great relief to our brain since it spends so many countless hours trying to figure out why all kinds of stupid stuff is happening (stupid stuff that is probably absurd yet we won't accept that). This relief translates as laughter, which has other beneficial effects as well - indeed, one could view laughter as the mind self-medicating.

Not to say we can't derive meaning from the reality around us, just that, rather, perhaps we need not try and find meaning in everything. Like the bumper sticker says, sometimes shit happens, and that's all that can really be gleaned from the event. 

More on the "Why?"

It has long been my theory that the entirety of what makes us human can be summarized in the question "Why?". "Why?" is the root of all exploration, all curiosity, it drives us ever further into the depths of this mystery we call existence. "Why?" is the vehicle of our mental evolution, and it is that evolution which has separated us from all other life forms on this planet.


"Why?", of course, is the foundation of religion - why is the sky dark? Why is there fire? Why do some stars move in one pattern, and all the rest in another? On and on. At first, of course, our ability to answer these questions was lacking - so we came up with stories, and hence the creation of the Gods, and all the attendant dogma that has since followed (dogma being the antithesis of "Why?").


Anywho! All that for this - I should have been more thorough in my last post! Above is the sun at Winter Solstice nearer the equator - you can see the color changes in the color of the Sun as it rises and sets.


Here's a similar picture of the moon:

Cut due to incorrectness!

And here's a pic of precisely why the moon/sun on the horizon is redder on the horizon - more atmosphere to see through.


One can imagine how our ancient ancestors might have explained the appearance of a red moon: MORE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GODS!!!


We are still very much shedding our collective consciousness of these and other ancient superstitions - thus the importance in science advocacy. 


Finally, and apropos of these dark times (the Solstice approaches!), here's the Winter Solstice from Fairbanks Alaska:

Given the angle, the sun in high latitudes will appear bigger and redder on average all winter long. No blood gods required.

Monkey Equestrian Spectacular!

From the majestic heights of a goat perch, this monkey looks down upon you small, small mortals.

 This monkey, on the other hand, is all about mixing it up. "Rubbin' is racin', y'all!"

 And this monkey just don't care.

Macro is the Micro is the Macro is the Micro (and so on)

On the left, a cell in a mouse brain; on the right, a computer model showing the large scale structure of the universe - each point of light in the picture would be an individual galaxy.

This is a fundamental truth to our reality - wherever you look, no matter how high or low, the macro is repeated in the micro and the micro in the macro;

There is wisdom to be gained by fully understanding this in your day to day life. I leave it to you to decide how. Or why.