Repost Apropos

Fans of the blog will note this is a repost. To my shame. But times being what time they are, well, you know how it is. We make due with what we've got.

Dialectic ahoy!

Memes Obliterated

As I've said before, the swastika was widely used as a good luck symbol for thousands of years, prior to the NAZI's.

But due to horrors of the NAZIs, swastikas have been removed from all public use, save the fevered hatreds of Neo-NAZIs, Skinheads, and pissed off teens looking for attention. It's become verboten, like many other NAZI symbols (the Hitler stache, for example).

It's remarkable to consider - in the span of ten years or so, a symbol that was used worldwide for tens of thousands of years was removed from use. Obliterated. A meme created by ancient mankind - the swastika is one of the oldest human symbols, up there with the circle, square, the line, and the triangle - gone in the blink of an eye.

Consider this when looking at our culture, our society, our world. What might seem timeless can be changed in an instant. There's no such thing as permanence.  There's also no such thing as objective meaning.

A Meme is Born!

Verily, no sooner did the Internet gaze upon Henry and his Rasta Banana than in an instant, a meme was born. How could it not be so?

A cool celebrity jumped on board early. Snoop's the best, by the way.

Who doesn't like happy life sized Rasta Bananas? No one, that's who.

A rocket to the top! Everyone loves Rasta Banana!

Maybe a little too much. You know what, this Rasta Banana meme is kinda old and played out. Next!

Old memes lie abandoned in the wastelands of our Internet streets, forgotten and swept up along with all the other trash. So long, Rasta Banana, you were funny for a little bit!

Begin the Begin

This was the picture in my first ever post on this olde blog, so many (4.5) years ago. I post it again because it fits the theme, it's awesome, and as a symbol of the new year.

Opportunity spotted this almost pure iron/nickel meteorite near its landing spot, and so dubbed "Heat Shield Rock" by NASA wags. Lame. But the meteorite itself is incredible - consider that iron meteorites are far, far rarer than stony meteorites, for the simple reason that an iron meteorite only comes from one place: The core of a differentiated planet. This planet of course was destroyed, a small piece of its core sits on the surface of Mars, right beside Opportunity. The odds!

Longtime fellow redshirts might recall that I have a bit of a love affair with Iron - the chemical substance. Fe 26, yo. It is only created in one place - a star. Either in the core of a huge star and as that happens, the star soon explodes, spreading the Iron hither and yon. In that explosion even more Iron is created. And every bit of Iron you know of - including the Iron in your blood (think about that, man) - came from an exploding star. This Iron now scattered to the four corners coalesced with clouds of hydrogen and helium and other gases, which if lucky began spinning fast enough to create a new star, with new planets - all of which will have Iron cores. Iron lies at the root of all creation, and destruction.

For it's true! Stars happily chug along creating all the elements up to Iron, glowing and casting their life giving light across space, and onto many, many exoplanets and exomoons, but then as soon as a star produces Iron in its core, it's doomed. So Iron is the end of the fusion line, and literally poison to stars. And yet, on the other side of the scale, all the higher number Elements - like gold, silver, plutonium, uranium, etc - all decay, over time, to Iron, and in so doing cease being radioactive. In fact, a definition of "radioactive": anything higher than Iron on the Periodic Table. This decay will take trillions of years, but eventually there will be a time when all higher elements have decayed to Iron, and lo, that will truly be the Iron Age.

Iron is literally - and figuratively - the balance point of creation, of our very reality. Everything we know of is made up from Elements (which in turn are made up of combinations of electrons, neutrons, and protons, which in turn are made up of combinations of quarks, which in turn, current theory posits but has not proven, are made up of combinations of preons, and I'm sure there's some other turn to be discovered in the future), and Iron sits in supreme harmony among them, destroyer and creator, ultimately, of all.

Yay, Iron!

Also, kudos to you Opportunity - you rule. But let's also pour one out for Spirit:

NASA lied to the rovers, of course, the cold hearted bastids.

Bonus Spirit pic, snapped 3/8/04:

Earth, as seen from Mars by Spirit. I'm on "Team Spirit" in case you couldn't tell. Opportunity's awesome and all, but too obsessed with being cool and down with the "in crowd". Spirit would talk to goths, for example. Also understands mortality, as any good redshirt should.

And so with that, I begin again. As we all do, every day. But some days more so than others.

in order

Click for big. Some brave soul put the movie "Pulp Fiction" - famously known to be out of order - into a very informative, chronologically correct infographic. Serious nerd cred. Check it out in detail. Zed's dead, baby.

Pretty boring movie all straight ahead like that though.

Starship Design

Know what time it is? Bird of Prey past Cardassian Galor. Sweet freaking clock!

A ship for any situation.

I don't really drink Bloodwine, but by Kahless I would with such a corkscrew.

There appears to be FOUR LIGHTS.

Now that's some quality craftsmanship. Engage your beverage here, boldly!

Lymonology

An apt illustration of the role color plays in taste. Consider even further if the yellow bottles on left contained lime juice, and the green bottles on the right contained lemon juice. I predict you would taste a limey lemon and a lemony lime in tasting each, even if they were pure samples of lime/lemon juice respectively. You see, your mind is as influential in taste as is your tongue. Color plays a huge role in how we perceive taste, as does smell obviously, but even too sound - the crisp snap of a chip adds to its flavor. To go further, since all external sensation is registered and perceived in the brain, than "flavor" only exists in the mind, and as with many other things, it is only Life that gives it reality. For, what would there be to taste if there were none to eat? Flavor would not exist, just as color does not exist without eyes to see light, and sound only exists with the hearer. Quantum reality, yo: Only by measuring does anything have reality.

 Also too, I wonder if this was the Stockboy's error, or someone at Concord Foods "Farm"?

To end - you should try and view mistakes through this prism: It is only through "imperfection" that anything happens in this world. If everything were perfect, than everything would be in balance, and nothing would happen. It's the imbalance that creates change, and change is the definition of time, and time is the river in which Life swims.

So don't sweat it, anonymous Concord Foods employee!

Art on the Cob

Art is what you make it - what you believe it to be.

Kernels of corn art on the cob? Artistic as fuck!

No more time to prepare

RIP Batmans. Your vigilantism was an inspiration to us all.

But really, kids, Batman will die some day. As will most heroes, save the freaks - Superman prime among them. Immortals ain't right, I tells ya.

Not in comic books though, not permanently. There's always reboots and alternate universes. The Heroes of our mythology - Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc - will live in our imaginations as long as they can engage our attention. If culture changes drastic enough, they could all fall by the wayside, into the dustbin of discarded Gods and Heroes, and truly then, Batman would be dead.

No spoilers here, by the way. I have no idea what's going on.

Aquadogs (What a country!)

What a country! What a world. This guy gets an idea - hey! Dogs underwater are funny. People love their dogs. Maybe they'll pay me good money to take pictures of their dogs underwater. And verily it was so. FSM bless America. Enjoy.

Cute but terrifying in a "doll come to murderous life" kinda way.

Aw gosh aw gosh I'm in it now!

What are you thinking of?

Work like parachutes.

Like dogs in general, mostly cute and awesome but just below the surface, sometimes revealed, wild monsters of fang and claw.

Protip! No matter how well you know the dogs and how cool said dogs might be, never stick your hand in between two of their mouths when they're set on something. Only scars will result.
Also too, cuz it's cool and apropos:

This is the baby from Nirvana's "Nevermind" cover. All grown up! Time, man. It doth fly.

Light Cone Laffs

I must confess: I love light cones! They appear so simple, but what they represent is stupendously complex. Just for one example - these cones represent causality. What happens within the cone can have a causal relationship with the object of the light cone (remember, everything has a light cone, or, a sphere of influence), both past and future. Something outside the cone has no direct causal connection.

The past is defined as that which causally impacted the now, and the future is defined as that which can be causally impacted by now. "Now" is an ever moving center of these two cones at which point space/time is manifested on a flat plane we call existence. This plane influences the object of the light cone, causing it to move this way or that - the red squiggly line, or "wordline" in the drawing at top. These squiggles represent movement, and - dig this - graphically represent time travel, in that any deviation from a straight line is a deviation from "light" time, and thus a time traveler (future or past). This time deviation is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which states that time is relative to the motion of the observer (in part). The famous example used to illustrate this effect is if you were to blast off in a space ship going close to the speed of light, a year for you on board the craft might be 100 years to the folks left back on Earth. For both of you, time would seem normal, but when you returned to Earth, you'd find everything you know long gone even if you were away for but a few years. Time travel!

OK! Now for some laffs:

Get it?

Everything is funny when presented on a hipster faux trucking cap.

The Shape of Things

This is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, a picture taken over 7 days of a spot in the sky smaller than your pinky. Every object here is a galaxy, some over 11 billion light years away. Since it takes light a certain distance to travel to your eye (or the telescope), whatever you see is in the past. 11 billion light years means 11 billion years ago. Here:

And here's a similar graph for the awesome WMAP satellite:

As you can see, the CMBR pic in the previous post is from very early on in the Universe - before stars, before light could spread freely. The Dark Ages was the era of heavy, swirling clouds of gas so thick light could not escape, and blackness was upon everything. But one day a star was born and the darkness was broken.

With every ray of light, with every act, with every Big Bang, you can think of the existence of this thing as a cone, with a past, present, and future. Witness:

The cones are light, past and future; the red arrow moving through it is an electron, or a star, or you, anything that exists. Since there is one cone we are all contained within - the Big Bang. And we are but red lines squiggling along, all doing the best we can.

Fall, Again

Fall's back. Yay. Sure, there's some nice days and all, but I think it's a big bummer. You witness the Sun sinking from the sky, setting earlier and earlier every day. The leaves come out and party for a bit, than shrivel up and die, leaving behind a dull dreary bleakness that is broken only by rushes of blood to the head. Bah! Fall is my 3rd least favorite season, and I challenge anyone to place it higher. Over Spring? Over Summer? Don't think so. Winter need not be discussed.

But it's an Equinox, so it must be celebrated - the seasons are astronomical in origin, both in source and in measurement - Fall is when the Earth is at a precise spot. Here:

You'll note, perhaps ironically, that the Earth is noticeably closer to the Sun in Northern Winter than in Summer, yet Winter is cold as Hell. Why is this?! Axial tilt, dude. It's 23 degrees. Take a look:

You see how in the Winter, Earth's Northern Hemisphere is facing away from the Sun in January (Sun on the left side), whereas it is pointing towards the Sun in July (Sun on the right side) - that is a far more important factor in heating than distance to the Sun. I presume this means that the Southern hemisphere gets hotter Summers, since they are facing the Sun and closer. Thus, perhaps, the Rainforests around the world at that latitude.

Anyways, you should celebrate each Season, since they are very much the markings of the clock on our lives - round and round we go. Holidays are important as breaks in the everyday, a moment where the real world can be left behind a bit. Ceremony is important. Remembering why we're here and where we're going is important. It's all important.

Enjoy!

Indian Fall.

Rad Sweater Dude

What grunge has taught me: Something can be so ugly it's beautiful. Among other lessons!

Also, for future science fair purposes only:

Click for big - it's all in there.

Less than 12 parsecs

So, if you're a true nerd, you no doubt are aware of the long running controversy regarding Han Solo's claim to have done the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. If you're a normal person, or even someone with just a "touch of nerd", you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But this post is not for you, cool dude!


First, there's the whole debate about measuring things in parsecs. A parsec is a unit of spatial measurement (1 Parsec =3.08568025 x 10 to the 16th meters), not time, so how does the phrase "Made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" even make sense?


Glad you asked! When we get to distances in space, things are so big that our normal units of spatial measure become unwieldy - too many numbers! So other, far bigger units are used. You've heard of a "light year", right? For example, its about 4 light years from our Sun to the nearest star. But think about what this term actually is saying - the distance light travels in one year. So, in essence, it's a measurement of time, not space. But Space and Time are the same, according to general relativity (spacetime!), and thus, a light year.


A parsec has nothing to do with any of that, but I thought it would be fun to mention. In the Star Wars universe, they travel faster than light by a sci fi term called "hyperspace", which is just like "warp" in Star Trek.  Each involves an actual folding of space. And so, Han's boast of making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs implies it's usually longer (like 18 parsecs), but due to his daring, he took a shorter, more dangerous route. In Star Wars, they have "Hyperspace Lanes" that most ships travel, in order to avoid dangers like black holes or massive stars. And thus, Han's claim is founded in Star Wars logic.


And now you know. Go forth, and spread this knowledge.


Also too:

Oh yeah! Your hyperspace throttle is jammed into the deflector array. That's gonna cost ya.

in the middle of it all

Perhaps I misspoke earlier, when stating there is no middle - no center of the circle. We're not it, and nothing we could ever know is it. But rather, the middle is found at the Black Hole - the endpoint of gravity. And that's all a Black Hole is - an extreme point of gravity. And like fusion, like feezing, like gas, it's a phase change in reality - our reality.

I've gone on and on about Black Holes before, so I'll keep it brief - Black Holes are the shiznit, man. The end all/be all. Perhaps there are micro-black holes all around us as matter/antimatter in the quantum fizz annihilates and for a brief moment, a super tiny Black Hole.

Black Holes mostly come in the size of twenty or so NYC blocks. But they can merge with other Black Holes and grow larger, and larger, and ever larger. And in the early Universe, with the first massive stars exploding were born the first massive Black Holes, and they grew, and drew all the random gas and whatnot around them, in an orbiting embrace, and thus was born the first galaxies, our reality to this day.

As I've said in previous posts, gravity slows down time. Dig it, for it's true. And a Black Hole is the ultimate point of gravity - in fact, the Black Hole, the Singularity, is defined by infinite gravity in zero space. For now.

And so time stops at the Black Hole - it ceases to exist as a moving reality. So, if we were able, somehow, to launch a probe to a Black Hole, and it were able to survive the incredible ripping forces around the Black Hole and fall into it, we would see it enter the Black Hole and stop, forever.

All information is frozen on the surface of a Black Hole, never to change. Like a hologram.

And so, in conclusion for now, a Black Hole sits in the middle of our reality - existing at a macro scale and shaping events at scales beyond our feeble minds. Yet at the same time the master of the small, taking all energy and matter and shredding it, adding it to its mass, a frozen hologram of information breaking the very fabric of quantum space.

It's deep, brutha.

You spin me right round

Deep thoughts Brahs and Brahettes: There's no "up" in space, no "down". These directional words are only meaningful in the presence of gravity, and strong gravity at that (for instance, these ISS astronauts are still technically within Earth's gravity, and would fall back to Earth eventually if not corrected for). 

So, in the last two posts, quite simply I think, I've shown how gravity is necessary for time, and for orientation. Think about the 4 dimensions we live in: 1. Up/down, 2. Back/Forward, 3. Side/side, and 4, and newest, Time. 

All are defined by gravity. Hmm...

Upside down you're turning me

Pic from the ISS, our last bastion of space travel, and a near complete waste of time and resources - little will ever be accomplished on the ISS other than possibly space endurance records and the like. In most other regards, it's fairly useless. A symbol, pretty much.


Also, and I suspect I will be going on and on and on about this in the days to come, but here's a thought: Everything you see exists in the past. Everything - even if you look at your own hand. Why? Well, the only way we can see something is by light striking it (or coming from it) and then traveling to our eyes. In that travel, time passes. It's minuscule, microscopic to be sure, but real. And the effect gets more pronounced with more distance AND/OR less gravity. Gravity slows down time - weird, but true.


And thus, to conclude for now, quite literally, this guy floating around on the ISS playing with his beverages, is in THE FUTURE.... that is, his internal clock is going ever so slightly faster than ours.

Ponder that for awhile and let it sink in. It's a rather revolutionary concept.

No Time Nor Rhyme

I didn't really have space ennui; I was being glib for the sake of a phrase. Frankly, I've got no time for ennui these days, nor any of its mopey variations. I've done my share of regret/guilt hairshirting in the past and I learned there's nothing to get from it, other than negatives. Learn the lesson you need to learn in order to not make the same mistake again, and move on. Leave whatever it was in the past.

For, life IS a Giant Space Otter Queen, and when she leaps out to attack you, you won't have time for "Woe's Me." There doesn't need to be a reason or a warning or even fair play - life is predictably unpredictable, and the sooner you learn this lesson, and live it, the better.

Keeping your mind flexible, prepared to adapt, and not stuck in the past (nor dreading the future) is a simple formula to success and happiness. IMO!

Unreliability of perceptions

There was a time, some 10-20 years ago, when I would have thought this car was ugly as sin. Now, however, I find it strikingly beautiful. What changed?

Me. The times. Everything. 

The lesson: Never hold your own opinions as concrete.