NOTHING HAPPENS IN THE WORLD without someone from Sonoma County being involved in some way. (Those who know, know.)
Tag: places
Are we there yet?
Arm’s Reach To The Stars
PERHAPS “ARM’S REACH TO AN asteroid” would be more accurate, but: For the first time ever, humanity has reached out with metal fingers and grabbed a hunk of asteroid to hold before its face.
To put it less poetically, Japanese scientists announced today that the space probe Hayabusa, battered and crippled but still greatly game, did indeed scoop up a bit of asteroid Itokawa and return it to Earth. As John Matson writes on Scientific American‘s blog today:
Material scooped out … with a special spatula and examined with scanning electron microscopy revealed “about 1,500 grains…and most of them were judged to be of extraterrestrial origin, and definitely from Asteroid Itokawa,” according to a JAXA press release. Most of the rocky particles are less than 10 microns in length. (A micron is one millionth of a meter.)
For the rest of the story, click http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=hayabusa-probe-succeeded-in-returni-2010-11-16. Meanwhile, could we please have a standing ovation?
Of Monkey Brains and Infinity
ALTHOUGH WE’RE NOT GENERALLY A “quotes ‘n’ links” blog, today The Metaphorager feels compelled to pass along two related items:
1) From Robert Anton Wilson‘s Prometheus Rising, p. 201:
“[…] Simply accept that the universe is so structured that it can see itself, and that this self-reflexive arc is built into our frontal lobes, so that consciousness contains an infinite regress, and all we can do is make models of ourselves making models …
“Well, at that point, the only thing to do is relax and enjoy the ride.”
2) Charles & Ray Eames’ 1968 film Powers of 10. (I used to assign this completely scientific piece as homework for my religious-school students to flex their awe-muscles. It’s a brief magnification journey within and without the hand of a man sleeping next to Lake Michigan. See it. See it now.)
World Space Week! With Balloons!
THE THINGS YOU LEARN WITH a computer: This is World Space Week, shining a pre-dawn beacon on the modern launchpad set, and in observational honor thereof I offer the Brooklyn Space Project: a father-and-son team who sent a HD-camera-and-GPS-equipped weather balloon to touch the edge of space. (Evidently these things are all the rage on YouTube, but it’s the first one I’ve seen.) My favorite moments were the weird electronic chorus at 60,000 feet (?) and learning that a collapsing weather balloon does make a sound when there’s no one in space to hear it scream. (Pun courtesy of Ridley Scott.)
Essentials of Domesticated-Primate Character: Food Chain Consciousness
AT LEAST ONCE IN ONE’S life, one should encounter a place where one is in the minority: it has the potential to sharpen the senses, humble the soul and question the assumptions. A different, but equally primal, experience, can be had by entering a place where one’s species is in the minority — or to be blunt, prey. Something essential there is through knowing the bottom of the food chain.
Free Metaphor: “Lower North American”
0. CONCISION AND PRECISION ARE ESSENTIAL components of the modern metaphor. What your end-user metaphorager is looking for is light in the mouth and easy on the fingers, especially when describing social groups — you want something tight enough to express the point but loose enough to avoid looking like a stereotyping (and -typical) fool.
1. The challenge is greater when describing cultures within a geographical area. Specifically, what to conversationally call those of us residing between Mexico and Canada? “Americans” leaves out residents of those countries, as well as everyone south until the Patagonians (who, despite their patient excellence for crafting outdoor gear, are sticklers for self-affiliative accuracy). Continue reading “Free Metaphor: “Lower North American””
Spacetime Coordination
“So the first thing is where. My first thought is the Heart of Green.”
“Off to the Right?”
“No, before that and down hill. At the base of the Stairstream.”
“Oh. Under that cliffy flat place that leads to Blasted Heath, over the cliffs.”
“Yes, where Keith started cursing out the valley in neo-Sumerian.”
“—hole.”
“Quite. Anyway, what about there?”
“Okay. Sure. Then we could go by Elven Rocks…”
“The rocks on the right, or the ones on top of the hill with the view down the back and, what is that, north?”
“Yeah … I think they filmed part of Harold and Maude out there. Looks like it. The bridge scene.”
“That was San Mateo.”
“Right, but if it wasn’t, then there. But on the from where the view is.”
“Roger Dean Rocks.”
“Roger Dean Rocks. Right. The acorn mortars.”
“Right. And through that sort of on top of the hill lane. You know? By the rock by the tree.”
“Oh! Yeah! The birthday rock!”
“Didn’t you play the flute up there once?”
“I’ll bring it.”
“Who else can we invite?”
“Who else knows the way?”
Allegiance Considered
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution
Of the United States of America
And to the ideal on which it stands:
One nation of individuals
Indivisibly intertwined
With liberty, justice and peace for all.
Continue reading “Allegiance Considered”
5 More: Am Erica I?
1. BUT WHAT “IS” IDENTITY?
2. One empirical definition: a synergetic syncretism — specific, all-encompassing perspective resulting from every experience particular to a localized body-consciousness (i.e., “me”) — not so much the part which says “I” as what completes the sentence “I am ___.”
3. “All encompassing” and “localized” are the key terms here. E.g.: I have been enculturated with a linguistic, ethical and conceptual toolbox through which I can manipulate and “make sense” of the world of my senses, intuition and reason. To the observer, however — and exclusive of certain mindstates — this toolbox is largely indistinguishable from the thing it serves/describes: it resembles in every detail “just the way things are.”
4. But identity can also change with circumstance or with conscious choice — thus changing the observer’s “reality.” The experience of a self-identified “American” will be different from that of a self-identified “Pakistani” or “Celt” or even another “American” — the more so if the self-identifications are mashed-up or tinkered with — but may at least be more immediately comprehensible to other affiliatees. (Thus too is culture consensualized, strengthened and spread; it may begin with a specific spacetime event whose down-the-road permutations often become unrecognizable to the original witnesses/provocateurs — sort of a backwards-incompatible open-source project. “Nobody wants to feel left out, but t’ain’t like it was in my day.”)
5. Given all this, and given that we may no more shed at least our sense of identity than we may shed any other perceived part of ourselves, we might at least enjoy the hot dogs and fireworks, or bratwurst and bier, or mamalige and slivovitz, or whatever suits our skills and palates. It’s tempting to argue with the chef — to anguish over our human frailties, bemoan our benightedness — but does that better equip us to solve them than a full belly, good fellowship, and patience?
Not Good For The Jews, Or Anyone Really
THE WORLD IS SO SMALL these days that you never know who might be reading you — including the families of those aboard the Gaza flotilla.
If that’s the case, then please let me apologize in advance. I am very sorry, sincerely and sadly and non-ironically, that your friends and relatives were injured and/or killed trying to support a tragic cause. I have a fondness for tragic causes; one might say that defines a Jew. But this cause is tragic because it is wrong.
Granted, “wrong” is a subjective term, often misapplied. (For example, it’s sometimes been said of me.) But from my little knot of spacetime consciousness:
It is wrong to aid those who have sworn to murder me and mine (or anyone else for that matter).
It is wrong to seduce non-violent people to a violent cause by feigning non-violent resistance.
It is wrong for feigners of non-violent resistance to complain when their lie is uncovered. (I’m talking about the organizers here — I have no doubt that many in the flotilla have a Ghandi-like non-violence, which is weird to me given their sympathies).
It is wrong to force people to kill you in self defense.
And it is wrong, very wrong, to kill civilians. Sometimes it’s evil, like when you shoot rockets and mortars at their schools, homes and shopping centers on a daily basis, or blow yourself up in their pizzerias and discos. Sometimes it’s tragic, like when well-intentioned people are cynically exploited by those more interested in racking up sympathy deaths than in peace. Sometimes it begs the question of “civilian.”
But it is always wrong — and wrong in a watching-a-slow-motion-auto-accident way that can twist your heart around trying to make it right. May the G?d who sees past our hatreds, prejudices and self-created madness, to the possibility of what we might become once we quit micturating on each other’s footwear … well, now would be a good time. Can’t think of a better one, in fact.
(PS: I have nothing else to say about this, and nothing to defend, but feel free to excoriate or cheer this piece as desired. I forgive both in advance.)
So Much For Earth
So much for immortality, rice pudding and Beethoven, not to mention the Cubs’ pennant chances. (Apparently we’ll all die before hell freezes over[1].) And all because we weren’t smart enough to count our blessings before turning them into curses. It’s not like we didn’t see it coming … but it’s hard to really see through a primate program that says Someone Bigger Will Fix This and It’ll All Be Okay, Somehow.
Well, right now, for this, there isn’t anyone or anything bigger than what the hands of man can build. Right now we’re at the mercy of our own inventiveness.
To whomever-from-Elsewhere may find this note: My apologies on behalf of (at least the wiser members of) my species and the others we silenced. We really thought we’d hold it all together long enough to find you, or for you to find us, or at least to become smart enough to solve all of our problems, or at least the pressing ones, or even decide what they were, so you see our difficulty, but that’s all moot now. Enjoy the fruits of what we were and could have been.
And please, despite my own anger, don’t judge us all too harshly. We were only self-domesticated apes after all, choosing expediency over longevity. Let this be a lesson to yours and other species: Always look for the catch — and if you don’t see one, look harder.
PS: And if this sounds defeatist and crabby and depressing to you, why are you just sitting there? Go ahead. Make me a liar.
Please.
__________________________________
– [1] To Bill, Stanley, Jay and my other Chicagoan friends– my condolences.
– Graphic courtesy of http://www.warninglabelgenerator.com/.
Lunar Update: Back to the Redrawing Board
LAST OCTOBER, I POSTED “A Proposal for the Moon of Earth” — “a suitable solar-powered visual display in the lunar crater Tycho, for the purpose of looping Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film ‘2001: A space odyssey.'” The original idea visualized a miles-wide JumboTron that could be seen through a backyard telescope (say, the 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain in my living room). The seemingly impossible logistics didn’t bother me — after all, it’s Only An Idea, and one for which I’m offering a spurious and very large reward to anyone who can complete it. I put out some feelers, made appropriate noises on appropriate websites, and figured we’d all have a good laugh and go on to the next thing.
Then I heard about the IPN Project, whose goal is “to define the architecture and protocols necessary to permit interoperation of the Internet resident on Earth with other remotely located internets resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit.” And it occurred to me that APftMoE might actually be possible: not by building a giant video display, but a smaller one — oh, say, large enough to fit inside a full-size monolith model and produce an image sharp enough to be transmitted to Earth by a moon-based webcam (see Fig. 1). 
Thus, and from this moment on, APftMoE is no longer dedicated to building a giant video display — we are now dedicated to building a rocket which will deliver and deploy the “TVA-1” module consisting of a power source, webcam, transmitter and monolith with embedded HD display. This should give us a great view of the crater rim in the background, prove less costly of both time and money, and make it more feasible and attractive to potential backers and/or sweat-equititians.
I’ll make a few phone calls. Meanwhile, stay tuned to https://metaphorager.net/lunar-enterprise/ for updates!