Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

The Shadow Knows...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 16, 2014 at 6:55am

The Shadow knows (or, at least "they" do).

"They" know without any critical thinking skills, reason, logic or investigative training. "They" know without any expertise that climate change is a hoax (even write books of pseudoscience on it), get reelected with committee appointments in congress over environmental regulation. Clean air; clean water; survival of the species: no problem! I guess the Department of Defense can scrap that whole pesky, fact-based road map.

The moon landing was faked, "they" say (and a few sadly, trained in STEM). "They" know, despite having never worked at NASA, or in my case at near seven-years-old, having my Saturday morning cartoons interrupted the day before (I quickly got over it). Never mind if it had been, the Russians would have broadcast our shortcomings, gloated at our obtuse obfuscations, then traveled there themselves just to prove the superiority of their system over ours.

Almost immediately after the Sandy Hook Massacre, these speculators spun tales of government "false flag operations"; "the children were actually alive"; "the parents were in on the plot," etc. Boorish, insane and insensitive to the families that everyday: their losses are quite real. The truth is, fear, bamboozle and boondoggle are quite profitable; bankruptcy the only muzzle provocateurs would ever respect.

There were 1,500 inadvertent leaks with the Manhattan Project (you know, the one that built the nuclear bomb), and we're to assume not a peep has come out from a so-called faked Moon Landing?

The Keystone pipeline may actually increase gas prices at the pump by 20 cents per gallon as its done in the Midwest despite the most optimistic propaganda; the purported "thousands of good, blue collar jobs" may only number in the hundreds; instead of making us energy independent, we'll see Canadian shale processed in Texas refineries and put on ships out to the global open market, but no matter. We're being sold a bill of goods by consummate, pathological liars and con artists cum "elected" officials. Instead of reasoned debate, we get: birth certificates...death panels...votes against what was a market-based solution from the Heritage Foundation...UFOs and government cover-ups...Apocalypse...demonic possession requiring telecommuting exorcism (now a state senator despite a colorful military record)...Bigfoot! All fanciful and colorful; worrisome that there is no distinction from reality and fantasies for some citizens determined to propagate them.

When China eventually sets up camp on a new moon base and spin off the world's first trillionaires from the Helium-3 mineral wealth abundant on the lunar surface that will make fossil fuels obsolete (as well as the billionaires profiting from it), I'm sure "they'll" have another explanation: the Chinese (will have) faked it! The profits, political and economic leverage however, will be quite real and felt here as well as globally. Ignorance won't be pleasant.

As humorous as this post attempts to be, my observation is we're addicted to "reality TV"; becoming un-moored from actual reality and facts; prone to the bill of [not] goods snake oil salesmen sell that poses as "information" supporting our worldviews, warped or otherwise to ensure they remain in or gain power.

History bears no evidence adherence to fantasies ever generating, in the long term, national prosperity.

Skeptic:
Conspiracy Theories: Who, Why and How, Michael Shermer and Pat Linse
Skeptical Science: The History of Climate Change

Spooky Physics and Wormholes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 15, 2014 at 8:02am

Image of a simulated traversable wormhole that connects the square in front of the physical institutes of Tübingen University with the sand dunes near Boulogne sur Mer in the north of France. The image is calculated with 4D raytracing in a Morris–Thorne wormhole metric, but the gravitational effects on the wavelength of light have not been simulated. Wikipedia

Wormholes — shortcuts that in theory can connect distant points in the universe — might be linked with the spooky phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where the behavior of particles can be connected regardless of distance, researchers say.

These findings could help scientists explain the universe from its very smallest to its biggest scales.

Scientists have long sought to develop a theory that can describe how the cosmos works in its entirety. Currently, researchers have two disparate theories, quantum mechanics and general relativity, which can respectively mostly explain the universe on its tiniest scales and its largest scales. There are currently several competing theories seeking to reconcile the pair.

One prediction of the theory of general relativity devised by Einstein involves wormholes, formally known as Einstein-Rosen bridges. In principle, these warps in the fabric of space and time can behave like shortcuts connecting any black holes in the universe, making them a common staple of science fiction.

NBC News: Spooky physics phenomenon may link universe's wormholes, Charles Q. Choi

Tomorrow: The Shadow Knows

Colliding Universes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 14, 2014 at 7:29am

Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine; source: S. M. Freeney et. al., Physical Review Letters

An ancient collision with a bubble universe would have altered the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (left), creating a faint disk in the sky (right) that could potentially be observed.

Early in cosmic history, our universe may have bumped into another — a primordial clash that could have left traces in the Big Bang’s afterglow.

Like many of her colleagues, Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist at University College London, once largely dismissed the notion that our universe might be only one of many in a vast multiverse. It was scientifically intriguing, she thought, but also fundamentally untestable. She preferred to focus her research on more concrete questions, like how galaxies evolve.

Then one summer at the Aspen Center for Physics, Peiris found herself chatting with the Perimeter Institute’s Matt Johnson, who mentioned his interest in developing tools to study the idea. He suggested that they collaborate.

At first, Peiris was skeptical. “I think as an observer that any theory, however interesting and elegant, is seriously lacking if it doesn’t have testable consequences,” she said. But Johnson convinced her that there might be a way to test the concept. If the universe that we inhabit had long ago collided with another universe, the crash would have left an imprint on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint afterglow from the Big Bang. And if physicists could detect such a signature, it would provide a window into the multiverse.

Erick Weinberg, a physicist at Columbia University, explains this multiverse by comparing it to a boiling cauldron, with the bubbles representing individual universes — isolated pockets of space-time. As the pot boils, the bubbles expand and sometimes collide. A similar process may have occurred in the first moments of the cosmos.

Quanta Magazine: Multiverse Collisions May Dot the Sky, Jennifer Ouellette

K5...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 13, 2014 at 7:07am

The K5 Security Robot

As the sun set on a warm November afternoon, a quartet of five-foot-tall, 300-pound shiny white robots patrolled in front of Building 1 on Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus. Looking like a crew of slick Daleks imbued with the grace of Fred Astaire, they whirred quietly across the concrete in different directions, stopping and turning in place so as to avoid running into trash cans, walls, and other obstacles.

The robots managed to appear both cute and intimidating. This friendly-but-not-too-friendly presence is meant to serve them well in jobs like monitoring corporate and college campuses, shopping malls, and schools.

Knightscope, a startup based in Mountain View, California, has been busy designing, building, and testing the robot, known as the K5, since 2013. Seven have been built so far, and the company plans to deploy four before the end of the year at an as-yet-unnamed technology company in the area. The robots are designed to detect anomalous behavior, such as someone walking through a building at night, and report back to a remote security center.

A Dr. Who-like Dalek - as the article alludes - comes to mind, as well as Weeble; WALL-E and EVE or salt and pepper shakers. Weighing in at 300 pounds, I hope no one is tempted to tip them over and put themselves in line for next year's Darwin Awards. I do have privacy concerns, as the video embed brings out. I am cautiously optimistic this is a good thing, but outfitted with battlefield weaponry, specifically for urban crowd control and artificial intelligence, and it could start looking and acting...like a Dalek.

Also, like a mountain - because it will soon be ubiquitously "there": someone will try to hack it.

MIT Technology Review: Rise of the Robot Security Guards, Rachel Metz

Landing on a Comet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 12, 2014 at 6:38am

So, what will we find?

Ice, minerals are sure bets. Hopefully the harpoons they've engineered hold on whatever qualifies as a "surface" on a comet. The fun of science is the unknown; that's the adventure!

The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been "dead" for nearly 2,000 years. Source: The History Channel

It is appropriate that we'll be reaching back in time, perhaps to the dawn of our solar system, a hieroglyphics of radiometric and Carbon-14 dating: back to our very beginnings.

European Space Agency: Live Rosetta Updates

Wounded Vet and NASA Tech...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 11, 2014 at 6:46am

US Department of Veteran Affairs

The video at the link is heartwarming, but I don't want it to seem dismissive or diminutive.

"Supporting our troops" has to go beyond trite social metaphor and bumper stickers to actually SUPPORTING us post a conflict with either job retraining to a suitable civilian career field (if our military specialties didn't have a one-to-one match); psychological counseling for PTSD as well as the technology that grants mobility after a life-changing injury; some measure of human dignity.

A "country's gratitude" cliche will never be enough. A very good way to support the troops is to reduce the frequency of wars we're called to serve in; increase the assist when we get home.

Space.com: Wounded Vet Aided by NASA Tech

Lost in Hilbert Space...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 10, 2014 at 10:19am

More Hilbert:

#P4TC: Quirks, Quarks and Thought Processes

C-Span and Mirrors...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 9, 2014 at 8:00am

Said in 1960 in response to racist signs held by Johnson's motorcade in Tennessee. Recounted by Bill Moyers, then a member of Johnson's staff, in Bill Moyers: "What a Real President Was Like; To Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society Meant Hope and Dignity," The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1988. This popular meme can be taken out of context that this was LBJ's view, which it was not. Source: Wikiquote

The below embed will appear in some platforms as a link. Dixiecrats - the spiritual, and in many cases, literal descendants of former slave owners in the South - formed as a splinter of the Democratic Party in 1948 in protest of its Civil Rights platform; it was also the year President Harry Truman desegregated the Armed Forces by Executive Order, paving the way forward to the Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Hispanic/Latino and LGBT activists and struggles that form the matrix for our current society. These malcontents eventually made their way out of the donkey to the elephant of the Republican Party after the passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts expressing similar disdain to expanding the enterprise of citizenship; Senators Phil Graham, Strom Thurmond and President Ronald Reagan being three notable former members. Add to them the ingredients of antebellum "states rights," the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand's self-centered philosophy; the general chicanery of Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy" cloned by Karl Rove; dark money enabled by the oxymoronically named "Citizens United" ruling, and you have the modern conservative movement, now expressed in the so-called AstroTurf Tea Party. Full-steam ahead...to Dystopia.

C-Span and Mirrors by Reginald L. Goodwin

Birth of a Planet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 9, 2014 at 7:57am

(Courtesy: ALMA/ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Image of HL Tauri taken by the ALMA array of radio telescopes. The ring structure in the disc of gas and dust surrounding the young star probably means that planets have begun to form.

The clearest image yet of planets forming around a star has been unveiled by astronomers working on the ALMA array of radio telescopes in Chile. The image shows a series of concentric rings of material surrounding HL Tauri – a very young star that is only about one million years old.

"When we first saw this image, we were astounded at the spectacular level of detail," says Catherine Vlahakis, ALMA deputy programme scientist. "HL Tauri is no more than a million years old, yet already its disc appears to be full of forming planets. This one image alone will revolutionize theories of planet formation".

Physics World: 'Spectacular' image shows planet formation in action, Hamish Johnson

Tomorrow: C-Span and Mirrors

Novel Sodium Conduction...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 7, 2014 at 5:34pm

Credit: Udovic/NIST

When heated, this sodium-based hydride changes to the more open structure shown here (hydrogen atoms are omitted for clarity), featuring large, connected corridors through which charge-carrying sodium ions (in yellow) can travel with ease.

Rechargeable battery manufacturers may get a jolt from research performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several other institutions, where a team of scientists has discovered* a safe, inexpensive, sodium-conducting material that significantly outperforms all others in its class.

The team’s discovery is a sodium-based, complex metal hydride, a material with potential as a much cheaper alternative to the lithium-based conductors used in many rechargeable batteries. Because lithium is a comparatively rare commodity near the earth’s surface, the industry would prefer to build reusable batteries out of common ingredients that are both economical and inexhaustible.

The novel hydride—which has the formula Na₂B₁₀H₁₀—might fit the bill, and not only because it is formed of the three easily obtainable elements of sodium, boron and hydrogen. There are other practical reasons as well: It is a stable inorganic solid, meaning it would pose fewer of the risks carried by many flammable liquids in traditional batteries, such as the potential for leaking or exploding. And compared to other sodium-based solids, it can enable more power output.

NIST:
Novel Sodium-Conducting Material Could Improve Rechargeable Batteries, Chad Boutin

Tangled Web...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 6, 2014 at 6:30am

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: One of the challenges that physicists face in creating a quantum Internet is to distribute entangled photons around the planet. The idea is that a user in Tokyo could use this entanglement to send a perfectly secure message to somebody in Moscow or Johannesburg or New York.

The problem is that entangled photons are difficult to send over these distances because optical fibers absorb then. This process of absorption limits the distance that physicists can distribute entanglement to about 100 kilometers.

One solution is to place quantum repeaters along a fiber that pass on the entanglement without destroying it. Physicists are currently developing these kinds of devices and expect to have them operating in the next few years.

However, quantum repeaters will operate at temperatures close to absolute zero and require their own power and cooling infrastructure. That is all possible on land but is much harder to make work for transoceanic cables. Which is why physicists are looking for alternative ways to distribute entanglement over long distances.

Today, Kristine Boone at the University of Calgary in Canada and a few pals outline a plan to distribute entanglement around the planet from satellites orbiting a couple of hundred kilometers above the Earth. “Our proposed scheme relies on realistic advances in quantum memories and quantum non-demolition measurements and only requires a moderate number of satellites equipped with a tangled photon pair sources,” they say.

Physics arXiv:
Entanglement over global distances via quantum repeaters with satellite links
K. Boone, J.-P. Bourgoin, E. Meyer-Scott, K. Heshami, T. Jennewein, C. Simon

1994 to 2014...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 5, 2014 at 1:30am

Image source

The second Tuesday then was November 8, 1994. It was twenty years ago Saturday. We were having a meeting of the Austin Alumni Chapter of NSBE at the University Hills Branch Library in Austin, Texas. I had voted a week before.

It became painfully obvious to me from casual conversations at that meeting that I was apparently the only engineer that had bothered to vote. I was in a crowd I respected - colleagues whose work I'd referenced - I thought, "really?" That was the launch of Newton Gingrich along with the current Speaker of the House John Boehner and the affable television personality Joe Scarborough (I'm being very facetious), and the so-called "Contract With America" preceding the first government shutdown, '95 - 96. Then, as now, it was a non-presidential, off-year election, when we were - then, and now - picking the legislative branch of government: Congress, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. That's the congress the next president will be working with largely after 2016.

The House Science Committee will decide how we'll address greenhouse gas emissions and global warming...or, not. Evidence doesn't seem to sway the current members of the committee, most of whom don't have a background in science or an appreciation for it. The House will either empower or further curtail the EPA; the FDA; Wall Street deregulation (because deregulation worked so well in 2008). You think they're going to vote on background checks with the NRA writing checks? The only vote they're clamoring for is impeachment, and we've seen they don't need facts or reality to do anything extraordinarily insane like...another government shutdown. The House and Senate will decide the focus of the K-12 science education curriculum and university research dollars for years to come. That could determine whether we'll remain competitive in the global marketplace with a pipeline preparing a skilled labor force in a highly technological society...or, not. I have my druthers junk pseudoscience pushed down our collective throats as science fulfilling this need. The new Senate will either confirm or stall any appointments to the Federal or Supreme Court...bet on stall.

We, as an electorate, don't like to think of the army of lobbyists that pull and tug at our legislators on a daily basis, but we have to; that their whole time spent between elections is gearing up and fundraising for another election and watching either their right/left flank respective of party to thwart a primary challenge from an extreme of center. We like to think of our "public servants" doing work for the "common good," not a revolving door connection that they'll use once their government careers are over: for which they'll get a nice retirement at pretty close to their current salaries, premium healthcare and a cushy 7-figure lobbyist's job. "Do not cry for me, Argentina" (Evita).

Sadly, there will be more citizens in long lines after Thanksgiving for things they can't afford and don't need, but won't for their right to vote. The 113th Congress worked a total of 133 days for a full year's 6-figure salary, so I doubt they'll increase their workload in the 114th. Although, carting feces for their beneficent overlords is a bit of heavy lifting. I don't agree with basing voter ID laws on 31 actual cases out of a billion, but enough time has elapsed to where enough ID's could have been obtained. There was no excuse in 1994; there is none acceptable now.

I've witnessed breathtaking verbal Jujitsu and Kabuki dance offs by disingenuous, [obviously now] failed candidates distancing themselves from their party's leader which only means in a red state, they suddenly "discovered" with horror they voted for (gasp) "that guy"! (That worked so well for "Presidents'" Gore, McCain and Romney.) It was disrespect shown to both the president and constituents - African American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino - that share in common a higher degree of Melanin and the eventual majority in 2042. It was pure disdain: one party overt; the other clumsy and comedic. It appears in the two-party system, "corporations are [the only] people" politicians care about. These lightweights needed to learn "the dozens": Yes, I voted for him, did you want me to vote for someone else? Your guy? Please! A pathetic display of spinelessness. No analysis post game or naval gazing will be necessary: feckless cowards all! I'm with Bill Mahr on this one.

I remember my sister, a young woman that had quite a made up mind back in the sixties. When you see African American young people getting hosed or bitten by dogs on video, there for most is a detached nostalgia. Because it was my sister with the bites, cuts and stitches, it is cringe-worthy viewing for me.

I remember my wife's grandfather: my mother-in-law saw her father's legs dangling from his truck as it ambled up a Louisiana dirt road. "Paw-Paw" was hanging on to the steering wheel and the door, his head bloodied and bowed. His family got him to the nearest hospital in time - he almost died. Seems the Klan didn't take too kindly a preacher exercising his right to vote. Burning crosses; beating preachers near-to-death: Christian organization...right. Paw-Paw rests now with the honored ancestors, succumbed to natural causes.

Those are two people that "I" know personally that for their sacrifice, I cannot fathom NOT voting. I did my part; my conscience is clear.

If we don't make our voices loud, the only sound our representatives will hear is the clink of coins; the whisper of bills into the reelection coffers. A Texas colloquialism goes: "you got to dance with the one that brung ya!"

It's up to us whether that is a salute to Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner"...or an oligarch's lap dance.

I hate to be so graphic, but our so-called elected representatives can be either representative politicians or paid-for prostitutes: they cannot be both!

Science on the Ballet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 4, 2014 at 7:25am

Source: Link below

When voters go to the polls tomorrow (actually, today), there will more than just candidates on the ballot. There are also 146 referenda and initiatives in 41 states and the District of Columbia, including a handful that relate to science, engineering, or the environment. They include questions asking voters to fund a new $21 million genomic medicine research center in Maine, to approve a $125 million bond for a new engineering building at the University of Rhode Island, and to allow terminally ill patients in Arizona to use experimental treatments.

Two ballot issues have stirred particularly strong debate—and an outpouring of cash. In Colorado and Oregon, groups are spending millions of dollars to sway votes on the question of whether companies should be required to label foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In Michigan, hunting and conservation groups are engaged in a heated and complicated battle over whether to allow the hunting of wolves.

Science: In some states, science on the Election Day ballot, David Shultz

Tomorrow: 1994

2100...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 3, 2014 at 7:31am

Image source: Crystal Graphics

Climate change is real. Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and clearing forests, among other human activities, is to blame. And more and more of that global warming pollution is being dumped in the atmosphere each year.

There's a nice "60-second-science" MP3 embed on the page where the author reads the blog post. Interesting...might try it one day. Hearing it is one thing; clicking the links another and holding people that want the reigns of power in our government accountable beyond the current election cycle is still an all most important another. After all, year 2100 is 21 presidential election cycles away from 2016 (84 years). That's kicking the can down a mighty long road that children born in 2016 may actually live long enough to see the outcome of this experiment. The adults doing the kicking, won't.

Scientific American has been around since 28 August 1845 by a restless, though inventive spirit by the name of Rufus Porter. Despite this history, despite the fact that climatologists have condensed their warnings from plural book volumes' length to a mere two score pages, I count down to the armchair "expert" trolls in 5...4...3...2...1...

A "what if"?

What if we were to find archaeological evidence of hominid life on Mars? What would be the implications of such a find scientifically, theologically; within society itself?

And, what if we were to find the Martians' atmosphere didn't just drain away on its own, but they'd invented an industrial base; a global economy based on their version of fossil fuels? What if they had forests, seas, a delicate ecological structure that those who made profit from said fossil fuels exploit did not wish to change?

What if their demise could have been avoided - their globe warmed; their seas rose, and we could have had cousins on a near world? That extraterrestrials wouldn't be light years away affected by time dialation, but a clear, traversable distance in human lifetimes?

What would our reaction be to such a find?

Sadly, cue the armchair "expert" trolls in 5...4...3...2...

Scientific American: Clock Ticking on Climate Change Prevention, David Biello

Automaton...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 2, 2014 at 6:00am

Abby Kallas, Steampunk on Pinterest

"The underlying insecurity the resulting from the position of an isolated individual in a hostile world tends to explain the genesis of a character trait which was, as Burckhardt has pointed out (op. cit., p. 139), characteristic of the individual of the Renaissance and not the present, at least in the same intensity, in the members of the medieval social structure: his passionate craving for fame ... if one's name is known to one's contemporaries and if one can hope that it will last for Centuries, then one's life has meaning and significance by this very reflection of it in the judgment of others. " Escape From Freedom, III Freedom in the Age of the Reformation, Eric Fromm

"The love for the powerful and the hatred for the powerless the which is so typical of the sadomasochistic character Explains a great deal of Hitler's and his followers' political actions. While the Republican government thought they could 'appease' the Nazis by treating them leniently, they not only failed to appease them but Reviews their hatred aroused by the very lack of power and firmness they Showed. Hitler hated the Weimar Republic Because It was weak and he admired the industrial and military leaders Because they had the power. He never Fought against strong power groups but always against the which he thought Essentially powerless. " Escape From Freedom, VI Psychology of Nazism

"It has been the thesis of this book that freedom has a Twofold meaning for modern man: that he has been freed from traditional authorities and has Become an 'individual,' but at the same time he has Become isolated, powerless, and an instrument of purposes outside of himself, alienated from himself and others ; furthermore, that this state undermines his self, weakens and frightens him, and makes him ready for submission to new kinds of bondage.

"The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has Become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in the which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture, in the which life does not need any justification in success or anything else, and in the which the individual is not subordinated or manipulated by any power outside of himself, be it the State or the economic machine; finally, a society in the which his conscience and ideals are not the Internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self. " Escape From Freedom, Freedom and Democracy VII - Freedom and Spontaneity

Obviously, I admire all things Eric Fromm.

What is prescient in his prose is the same angst that we're experiencing now, a gnawing, visceral fear that grips us as a society, cultivated opportunistically by those who wish to have or remain in power.

When Fromm wrote Escape From Freedom, the prevalent technology for global connectivity that had been invented by Marconi: the radio. We had the newspaper, telegraph and moving pictures (black and white). We also, then and now, had the nuclear bomb. Add to that global warming, and we - the "intelligent" species on the planet - have the means of wiping out all life on the Earth. We avoid Reviews those MAD meditations with Facebook and Twitter updates.

As I relayed on a post Earlier this summer :

1979:

150 corporations control television (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, UHF); radio and print media.

2014:
6 corporations : GE, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS television control (more stations than I can list), radio, print media and the Internet and social media. That is a 25X reduction if you wanted the math.

As the link above in the 2014 paragraph illustrates, we're given the illusion of choice - MSNBC for the left; FOX for the right 'CNN for the middle; the rest in a trance-like somnambulism via Net Flicks, cable channels and repetitive "reality TV." We're being shepherded as cattle or sheep; programmed with junk science like intelligent design ; kept ignorant so we do not know the questions we should be demanding our so-called leaders to have mastery over significant . The useful, feckless dodge the "I am not a scientist," has never been to memory Followed up with "Also you are not a Theologian " by anyone in the six-headed hydra medium.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we should phase out fossil fuels by the year 2100, never mind the old fossils in charge of fossil fuel consumption (nor anyone reading this post, Including me) will not be around when that phase out Occurs. Neither Also, Might not be the human species. Interstellar is a word and a movie ; and warp drive is a special effect to get astronauts from one place to another quickly intervening that we're researching , but not necessarily going to get to yell "engage!"

The Ebola faux scandal is reminiscent of racial dog whistle politics ... because it still is. "The CDC estimates that from the 1976-1977 season to the 2006-2007 flu season, flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people . " Yet, no alarms hit to alert us to this crisis of influenza. ONE person, Dr. Craig Spencer - is currently in New York affected. Nurses Nina Pham and Amber Ebola Vinson are free. The borders of Sierra Leon and Mexico are being morphed together as one - though Thousands of Miles and an ocean apart - to the low information voters want to fear that all brown people as the nation slowly, inexorably moves towards that complexion. Because maybe, fear is what we all want to feel. Fear is a very powerful human emotion, and quite useful to the powerful.

"Timendi causa est nescire - Ignorance is the cause of fear." - Seneca, Natural Questions

Automaton

1: a mechanism that is are relatively self-operating; especially: the robot

2: a machine or control mechanism designed to follow automatically a predetermined sequence of operations or respond to encoded instructions

3: an individual WHO acts in a mechanical fashion Meridian-Webster

Ultimately We fear becoming what we already are: the bewildered by the Bamboozle artists; the herded by the powerful - psychologically predictable; manipulated by Creel commission advertisements; simultaneously ingesting the manufactured fear of being replaced by the unfeeling, mechanical things and yet becoming the same, not knowing atomized; ignorant; social media connected, yet separate; apart: we've already lost.

[Smokey James] "They'll do anything to keep you on their line. They pit the lifers against the new boys, the old against the young, the black against the white - ANYTHING." Yaphet Kotto in the movie "Blue Collar" (1978)

"It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable." - Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters

Strategies for Containing Ebola...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 1, 2014 at 7:31am

ABSTRACT

The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact tracing with quarantine and sanitary funeral practices must be implemented with utmost urgency in order to reverse the growth of the outbreak. Under status quo intervention, our projections indicate that the Ebola outbreak will continue to spread, generating a predicted 224 (95% CI: 134 – 358) cases daily in Liberia alone by December, highlighting the need for swift application of multifaceted control interventions.

Science:
EBOLA EPIDEMIOLOGY
Strategies for containing Ebola in West Africa
Abhishek Pandey1,*, Katherine E. Atkins1,*, Jan Medlock2, Natasha Wenzel1, Jeffrey P. Townsend3, James E. Childs4, Tolbert G. Nyenswah5, Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah1, Alison P. Galvani1,4,†

Tomorrow: Automaton

Wonky or Watery...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on October 30, 2014 at 6:30pm

Source: BBC link below

Mimas is the so-called "Death Star" moon because, well...go pull up some You Tube videos of Episode IV: "A New Hope" if you need to come up to speed.

I'm not so sure I'd use the term "wonky" in a sentence, but this is the BBC where all things Star Trek TNG is in endless syndication due to no doubt Sir Patrick Stewart.

I am sincerely hoping for water and a few microbes. That would be mankind's encounter with extraterrestrials that didn't involve ray guns or "live long and prosper" greetings.

Mimas is nicknamed the Death Star because it resembles the infamous Star Wars space station.

It has a tell-tale wobble that is twice as big as expected for a moon with a regular, solid structure.

The researchers offer two explanations: either it has a vast ocean beneath its surface, or a rocky core with a weird shape resembling a rugby ball.

The study appears in Science Magazine.

Its authors are astronomers in the US, France and Belgium, who based their calculations on high-resolution photos of Mimas snapped by the Cassini spacecraft.

BBC News: Death Star moon may be 'wonky or watery', Jonathan Webb

Stretching Silicon...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on October 30, 2014 at 6:30pm

Courtesy: M M Hussain

A new way to stretch single-crystal silicon (which is a rigid, brittle, material) to 10 times its original length without using a polymer support has been developed by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. The feat will be an important step towards making stretchable and foldable electronics and photovoltaics, as well as structures like “smart skin” for robotics applications and biomedical sensors.

Inorganic single-crystal silicon is the basic building block of around 90% of all modern technology but it is intrinsically brittle and rigid and so cannot be stretched without mounting it on a polymer support first. And even in this case, it can only be stretched to about 3.5 times its original length. This means that silicon can not easily be used in flexible electronics – an area that is becoming more and more important with the advent of the “Internet of Things”, wearable electronics and novel applications like electronic paper-like displays and artificial skin.

A team led by Muhammad Hussain has now succeeded in fabricating a single-crystal silicon network of hexagonal islands connected through spiral springs that can be stretched to 10 times its original length and 30 times its original surface area. The technique might be applied to other inorganic semiconductor-based electronic materials too, says Hussain.

Nanotech Web: Silicon Gets Stretched

Back to Emmett Brown...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on October 28, 2014 at 6:15am

Source: Back to the Future Wikia

Marty: "Wait a minute, what are you doing, Doc?"

Doc: "I need fuel!"

— Marty and Doc while Doc refuels Mr. Fusion with garbage

Yes, I flashed back to the end of the first in the trilogy - I saw it with my cousin in Atlanta, Georgia just after graduation and commission in the US Air Force. It was 1985...I was young...I had hair...

Source: Nice Kicks web site

Largely due to previous reports of cold fusion back in the late 80's and being a fan of the National Ignition Facility, I casually viewed this story with some caution...at a considerable distance.

However, Lockheed is not a fly-by-night outfit as aerospace defense contractor, and I doubt their reactor will use ordinary garbage. The claim that it could develop a portable "Mr. Fusion" if successful will address energy needs, potentially diffuse global tensions over resources and unfortunately, bring out the less than savory that will mount a clear defense against it in favor of the current fossil fuel/scarcity economy status quo. This is similar to the spirited defense Thomas Edison gave of direct current by showing the dangers of alternating current electrocuting elephants. Tesla: 1; Edison: 0, and we are all using alternating current with no deleterious effects. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that inhumane extreme.

I will reserve some skepticism and guarded optimism: the division of Lockheed working on this is "Skunk Works." It has a registered trademark, so I don't think it's a Nerd prank, just a PR faux pas. Link below; stay tuned...

Phys.org: Lockheed Martin pursues compact fusion reactor concept, Nancy Owano

Fear Bola and Duct Tape...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on October 27, 2014 at 5:45am

"Sell the fear": it was the instruction I received in a very uneventfully short career as a sales representative for an electronics security firm. Part of the memorized script I recited that entailed sharing horrid crime stats to wearied prospective buyers was "how did that make you feel?" It was of course, supposed to make you feel afraid, very afraid...for your lives and reaching for your checkbooks. At an appointment scheduled through the office, before I could launch into my memorized banter, the woman said: "I was just burglarized last night." Undoubtedly, the fastest sale I ever had. She knew exactly how she felt: violated, angry and afraid.

It is interesting then, that this definition is put forth. All the networks do this: posing simultaneously as the voice of reason and prophets of doom. It looks for answers while promoting doubt post "X-Files" that the "truth is out there." It makes a rational discussion and discourse almost impossible to attain.

This fear is unfortunately the byproduct of 9-11, reminiscent of the fear of Anthrax attacks that spurred the prodigious purchases of duct tape (I'm sure like manufacturers appreciated the bump in sales). Currently, a mint is being made in HAZMAT suits and other emergency supplies, just in time for Halloween. The governors of Illinois, New Jersey and New York are now competing in the silly season on which can suspend the Civil Rights of medical professionals the fastest, NJ and NY's main men potential presidential candidates in 2016, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. Both have used the now bipartisan, feckless dodge "I'm not a scientist" to defend inaction on climate change and fracking (NJ's chief executive selective ignorance notable after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and his previous complaints of congressional inaction).

The danger of these draconian measures will be eventually discouraging military and medical professionals from doing what we did after 9-11 (paraphrase): "fighting terrorists/Ebola over there before they/it comes over here." What nurse or doctor will WANT to volunteer for hazardous duty when instead of a hero's welcome, they get thrown in a gulag? Kaci Hickox has tested negative, NEGATIVE for Ebola 2X! The protocol for self monitoring has worked successfully since developed for dozens of volunteers that have come to our shores after duty since 1976, when the virus was first reported on the continent of Africa. Nina Pham (RN), Amber Vinson (RN) both of Texas Presbyterian and Doctor Craig Spencer are medical professionals that knew these protocols and reacted to them swiftly. Could they be tightened? I'm for lowering the standard of the 103 degree temperature to any low-grade fever when you've deployed to an affected area along with the self-monitoring/isolation and reporting to medical authorities when anything changes. Ms. Vinson was diagnosed with a low-grade fever of 99.5 degrees after travel, and not infectious (a TV host in New York got explicitly graphic on the unlikelihood of casual infection). It does appear catching the infection prior to any forthcoming vaccine early is the key to survival.

The problem with this lack of appreciation for STEM fields, atomizing humanity to islands of xenophobia in our Solar System's outer asteroid belt (a mythical "over there" that will magically not affect us); tying the hands and feet that must combat Ebola [actually] "over there" that will tragically affect us, the inevitable outcome is the very thing no one wants: a modern plague, first in Europe then in America. We will fair better as currently not being torn asunder by Civil War (imagine the impact if this struck us during our actual Civil War). As a nation, we seem determined to do the stupid, and swiftly.