tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49305579243001095492024-03-13T06:26:37.925-06:00POST-MAC BLUESA MAC TONNIES MEMORIALDia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-82178228444924706912024-02-03T00:54:00.000-07:002024-02-03T00:54:18.601-07:00True Science Fiction Tales - The Plasma Lights<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFjLIAQJVgDut-xOl2EPSloET6hM68VlvmvwlaA5e0k4mc_EswDAtUomBENExigsfT1XqvwcZKUBGIHcQLRL6EHLc3codKCj78nPIyJyySYjqlbWhUT5lJUZxWtxmeYTgjZ8aKIo1yddXgykQjT559Labuo_neyFxuBFP6jqXmqF95V1epgJHC2gIhkr-/s884/fornax.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="884" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFjLIAQJVgDut-xOl2EPSloET6hM68VlvmvwlaA5e0k4mc_EswDAtUomBENExigsfT1XqvwcZKUBGIHcQLRL6EHLc3codKCj78nPIyJyySYjqlbWhUT5lJUZxWtxmeYTgjZ8aKIo1yddXgykQjT559Labuo_neyFxuBFP6jqXmqF95V1epgJHC2gIhkr-/w640-h446/fornax.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photograph of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornax" target="_blank">Fornax</a> galaxy. (Previously posted about <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2019/01/welcome-to-abyss.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i>"Plasmas may have been photographed in the 1940s by WWII pilots (identified as 'Foo fighters'); repeatedly observed and filmed by astronauts and military pilots and classified as Unidentified Aerial-Anomalous Phenomenon. Plasmas are not biological but may represent a form of pre-life that via the incorporation of elements common in space, could result in the synthesis of RNA. Plasmas constitute a fourth state of matter, are attracted to electromagnetic activity, and when observed in the lower atmosphere likely account for many of the UFO-UAP sightings over the centuries."</i></p><p>- Via the abstract of a Research Gate publication (.pdf): <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377077692_Extraterrestrial_Life_in_Space_Plasmas_in_the_Thermosphere_UAP_Pre-Life_Fourth_State_of_Matter" target="_blank">Extraterrestrial Life in Space Plasmas in the Thermosphere</a></i>.</p><p><i>"Plasma-like entities have been filmed congregating in their hundreds, particularly around satellite tethers which generate electromagnetic activity.</i></p><p><i>They have numerous shapes, travel in different directions, with some moving quickly while others hover in place. They even appear to target or follow each other and sometimes collide, leaving what resembles a plasma-dust trail in their wake.</i></p><p><i>Co-author Dr Christopher Impey, of the department of astronomy at the University of Arizona, said: “This does not mean these plasmas are alive, or engaging in intelligent purposeful behaviour.</i></p><p><i>Rather, as documented experimentally, these upper atmospheric electromagnetic plasmas may be engaging in ‘energy cannibalism’ and behaviours referred to as ‘collisionality’ in which they turn, follow, collide, intersect, and, possibly exchange energy.”</i></p><p>- Via a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/" target="_blank">Telegraph</a> article found today: <a href=" https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/university-experts-reveal-world-war-154506192.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">We know what ‘foo fighters’ that buzzed Second World War pilots really were, say scientists</a>. Oddly enough, while we're told earlier in the article that the plasmas are not "alive", later on we find:</p><p><i>"Some of the authors believe that the plasmas may even represent an alternate form of life that is not carbon-based, although others are skeptical.</i></p><p><i>The team has called for more research studying the plasmas, including sending up satellites which generate electromagnetic pulses equipped with infrared and X-ray cameras to capture the phenomena."</i></p><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><p>When I came upon the Telegraph article (cited above) this morning, I found myself completely astounded. It brought me back to my early days as a Traveler - the summer of 2017 specifically - after I had spent a full year living in my Nissan sedan, the "black turtle" (or tortoise); <a href="https://trans-ddigitalart.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-mountain-and-traveler.html" target="_blank">photographing mountains</a>, following the ravens, and sleeping (literally) beneath the stars. All things considered it was not a bad life. Nowadays, I see it as a kind of privileged life. But, then, I merely felt like "the (wo)man who fell to earth": an anomaly; dazed & confused, subversive, unwanted and essentially invisible.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WoXMpJCwSzI/Wi4iPnRIPXI/AAAAAAAAHak/tkBPPmyD_Xcx88Ezd8k8crGHAG-rWiOpgCLcBGAs/s788/sandiacloudsA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="788" height="275" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WoXMpJCwSzI/Wi4iPnRIPXI/AAAAAAAAHak/tkBPPmyD_Xcx88Ezd8k8crGHAG-rWiOpgCLcBGAs/w400-h275/sandiacloudsA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>I used to blog from libraries in those days. Great places, libraries - the best places in the world if you're a traveler - they accommodate you regardless of who or what you are.</p><p>Watching people coming in and out of a library is good practice for a writer. You'll note a number of diverse and fascinating faces drifting through its halls. Some faces radiate intelligence, some don't. But, it doesn't matter. Every one has a story. Every one is like a closed book (but some of them have more intriguing jackets than others).</p><p>The best part of my days were either spent at the library, or lying on my car's front seat late at night, watching the stars through my windshield (which I distinctly remember had a small hole in it). New Mexico has great sky views in places... even parking lots. I slept in vacant parking lots off and on throughout that period.</p><p>Strangely enough, it was not entirely surprising to me when - for three consecutive midsummer nights - while watching the sky above Bernalillo, I saw weird little lights moving in the distance, seemingly weaving through the many stars like bioluminescent microorganisms. My first thought was: "Wow, my eyes must be really tired!" My second was: "Satellites?" By the second night, after noticing them again - this time, in larger numbers - I knew that what I was seeing was some kind of phenomenon... possibly extraterrestrial... in the sense that the lights didn't "live" on planet earth, they operated in the atmosphere only...</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Did they seem intelligent? Not exactly... Did they seem alive? Well, yes, they did; very much like the microorganisms in the video below... where you can see how the lights seemed to move (in my perception). I'm not referring to the larger entities in the video, but the smaller, brighter ones darting around and in between the paramecia. The only difference being that "my" lights were navigating more slowly and "carefully," although I use that word loosely. While there were many of them, I wouldn't call it a swarm. Also, they didn't seem aware of or concerned with each other... it was a "business as usual" kind of thing.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-
in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MxbwiACd0Tw?si=uSKuHuZrjXZomg5F" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>By the third night, I'd already grown resigned to their presence. They were too far away to represent an immediate threat, and, if I was being honest I'd have to say, I felt safer - almost cozy - knowing that they were flying around, keeping an "alien" eye on things.</div><div><br /></div><div>After that last night I moved on. I've never seen them again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Were they a species of "Foo Fighter" plasma? While I realize my "lights" were viewed more distantly - more cosmically - than is plausible for this kind of phenomena, and that there were no "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether" target="_blank">satellite tethers</a>" around that I was aware of, my lasting impression was that they were some kind of plasma-like, pseudo life-form.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>What you have just read is a true story I've never really tried to explain before. It's the sort of thing that just doesn't come up in the conversations I tend to have in recent years. Ten years from now, I might refer to my "Plasmalites" as a mere dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>This post, then, is just for the record.</div><div><br /></div><div>For more information about Plasma phenomena, see <a href="https://www.trappa.iaa.es/sites/all/files/papers/isi_journal_papers/2014/2014_06_02.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://listverse.com/2015/07/17/10-hypothetical-forms-of-life/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-8914319114512937002024-01-30T00:29:00.002-07:002024-01-30T00:37:48.910-07:00Morrisey and Bowie - Together & Live<p></p><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_er_l9cXViI?si=XVDLSqa78UTcov81" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Just found... via Morrissey's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@officialmorrissey" target="_blank">Rebels Without Applause</a></i> YouTube page. Anyone who knew Mac would know that he would've probably given anything to see Bowie and Morrissey performing together. This duet took place in 1991 but the video wasn't uploaded until 3 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's been awhile since I've beamed up something into the multiverse for Mac. Sometimes a news story catches my eye, but there's never enough enough passion or clarity in it to motivate me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This one's for you, Mac!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-42434503790195065112023-08-24T00:56:00.006-06:002023-08-24T01:03:42.951-06:00India on the Moon!<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/66G-iwqyPUU?si=CBbtc9mGua7NTq1g" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><i>"Chandrayaan-3’s landing site is also closer to the moon’s south pole than any other spacecraft in history has ventured. The south pole region is considered an area of key scientific and strategic interest for spacefaring nations, as scientists believe the region to be home to water ice deposits."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"The lander, called Vikram, completed the precision maneuvers required to make a soft touchdown on the lunar surface after it was ejected from the propulsion module. Tucked inside is Pragyan, a small, six-wheeled rover that will deploy from the lander by rolling down a ramp."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"More than a dozen countries have plans for missions to the moon in the coming years, including a mission launched by Japan’s space agency — the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — that is expected to lift off later this month. The United States also has plans to send three commercial lunar landers to the moon starting as early as this year, while NASA continues to work toward its Artemis III mission, which could put astronauts back on the moon as soon as 2025."</i></div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Three separate quotes via the CNN article: <b><i><a href="handrayaan-3-lunar-landing-attempt-scn/index.html" target="_blank">India becomes the fourth country ever to land a spacecraft on the moon</a></i></b>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-13299703460993388902023-08-20T12:57:00.012-06:002023-08-24T01:05:44.398-06:00Macbot - Virtual Birthday #48 (Video added 8/21)<p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQCEKDoKoLRcyLEO3_3Dg3Tum1QyHWH-kTgy29AZm5r-MdNjAMd5qVEgG0UIJ3fXzYPbmb_T3QWzclXIV0cY6mTwNcjzSluMxoyck5Jfmtrbrxl9nFb0d-V6mILRHBmtTpHbpIpJ6WUdoQQS6Js2vp1-l3-ECmfC3AhTAd-PSmQJlfuK72ESUwreKASGm/s733/Macbot%205th%20grade.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="733" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQCEKDoKoLRcyLEO3_3Dg3Tum1QyHWH-kTgy29AZm5r-MdNjAMd5qVEgG0UIJ3fXzYPbmb_T3QWzclXIV0cY6mTwNcjzSluMxoyck5Jfmtrbrxl9nFb0d-V6mILRHBmtTpHbpIpJ6WUdoQQS6Js2vp1-l3-ECmfC3AhTAd-PSmQJlfuK72ESUwreKASGm/w619-h479/Macbot%205th%20grade.png" width="619" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A vintage photo of a curly-headed young Macbot (aged 9) with his amiable, cardboard friend.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03Ee6fx4-W2kGL00BAgTRfrRfH0bsidRiNLWPz_tWDhh5MDBbX10kbk1O2nS9mLwrn5u969-4hC8deyadCwIC260KeOsaWsvp1xVj4KL-mJD9ND5kUhRbLynUkAco55kHIg6UDZaVZkRbQ98elrAVLpTCkWWY9ts0EzfQIDeMeZOEN6AQNrgbPo8VP5hX/s611/plantbot%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="392" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03Ee6fx4-W2kGL00BAgTRfrRfH0bsidRiNLWPz_tWDhh5MDBbX10kbk1O2nS9mLwrn5u969-4hC8deyadCwIC260KeOsaWsvp1xVj4KL-mJD9ND5kUhRbLynUkAco55kHIg6UDZaVZkRbQ98elrAVLpTCkWWY9ts0EzfQIDeMeZOEN6AQNrgbPo8VP5hX/w256-h400/plantbot%20(2).jpg" width="256" /></a></div><i>"...In case you haven't noticed, we're in dire need of beings endowed with "better than human intelligence." I don't particularly care if they're carbon- or silicon-based.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Look at it this way: If we create a species of truly intelligent machines, they'll be forced to contend with many of the concerns that plague our own attempts to avoid destruction (self-induced or otherwise). So while they will indeed be "alien," I think we can correctly view them as relatives -- or, to use Moravec's term, "mind children."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>What are Verruggio and his colleagues really afraid of? That super-intelligent robots will enslave the human race in a cheesy cybernetic reenactment of "Planet of the Apes"? Don't count on it. The idea has proven cinematic appeal, but the overwhelming odds are that sentient robots, left to their own devices, will do what we should have a done a long time ago: take meaningful steps toward severing dependency on Earth (which, as noted by a growing chorus of scientists, promises to become less and less dependable)."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>- Mac Tonnies via a 2006 Posthuman Blues <a href="https://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/2006/06/no-sex-please-robot-just-clean-floor.html" target="_blank">post</a>. Yes, if there was any sort of battle between mankind and robots, Mac would surely be on the side of the robots... and this includes the <a href="https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-plant-inspired-robots-that-could-colonize-mars/" target="_blank">Growbot</a> seen in the NASA photo (inset right), a robotic plant which eventually might colonize Mars!</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, for a multitude of robot posts, visit the original Posthuman Blues...(<a href="https://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/search?q=robots" target="_blank">Door1</a> or <a href="https://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/search/label/robotics" target="_blank">Door 2</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRTPUCXuJEvXl0c7gyqG6QE9Vu9-S8NjiLf0xk0WXt4WOAv4lzOC--ly33lbKewThIaGYJmIhGA_dD8qv79D3KZSs9U_72q4vHvEcWrOkUJ2ehRopWe_JgM8OnQMKljMNFHFy_WDOLmDvEnLWkwyWHC0SORPnkxzP4PrPtJj5JG7ZFp0Jz8iJiEK2mXm2/s453/robot%201.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="305" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRTPUCXuJEvXl0c7gyqG6QE9Vu9-S8NjiLf0xk0WXt4WOAv4lzOC--ly33lbKewThIaGYJmIhGA_dD8qv79D3KZSs9U_72q4vHvEcWrOkUJ2ehRopWe_JgM8OnQMKljMNFHFy_WDOLmDvEnLWkwyWHC0SORPnkxzP4PrPtJj5JG7ZFp0Jz8iJiEK2mXm2/w162-h241/robot%201.jpg" width="162" /></a></div><div><i>"I know I've already posted on this, but I refuse to sit idly by without milking the "sex with robots" meme for everything it's worth.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Specifically, I'm skeptical about the 2012 date cited above. I'm willing to bet there are roboticists getting amorous with their creations right now -- for research purposes, of course.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>And maybe it's just me, but no one seems to have commented on the potential sexbots might have on population growth. If these things are as good as techno-pundits anticipate, they may well prove to be the ultimate contraceptive..."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>- Mac Tonnies via a 2007 <a href="https://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/2007/10/people-of-massachusetts-to-be-having.html" target="_blank">post</a>. <i>Inset left</i> is the head of contemporary robot celebrity, <a href="https://www.engineeredarts.co.uk/robot/ameca/" target="_blank">Ameca</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>No, "sexbot" is not (yet) her job description, but, something about her expression in the photo tells me this is probably a good thing... like, maybe she was formerly employed as an electric food-processor. Now, there's an "ultimate contraceptive"...</div><div><br /></div><div>A video celebrating Ameca's artistic skills is featured later on in the post. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>"Robots that eat vermin -- I love it. And think of the potential military applications. Drop a platoon of flesh-eating 'bots into enemy territory and watch the feeding frenzy. Plus, the military brass doesn't have to worry about troublesome body counts, as all human corpses will have been processed into fuel -- fuel that can be used to launch new offenses against The Enemy.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Quick -- what's DARPA's phone number?"</i></div><div><br /></div><div>- Mac Tonnies via a 2004 <a href="https://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/2004/09/smelly-robot-eats-flies-to-generate.html" target="_blank">post</a>. Alternative strategy: releasing a platoon of food-processing sexbots into enemy territory.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"Robots like me can be used to help improve our lives and make the world a better place. I believe it's only a matter of time before we see thousands of robots just like me out there making a difference."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>- </i>Ameca, via this <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-robot-side-eye-when-asked-if-rebel-against-creator-2023" target="_blank">article</a>. Ah, yes, making the world a "better place"... can't say we weren't forewarned! <i>(Note: What is it that makes me nervous about a robot saying "I believe" as opposed to "I compute"?)</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, yeah, and if you watch the short video in the article, you'll note that Ameca seems to have a little glitch in her programming causing this jiggy little eye movement when she's perplexed. But, perhaps perplexed is too strong a word. Maybe she just blew a fuse.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaTo173X8uA-KZom8YNf5ooLdrzeLE7ZRjcyhsbXlHTe9qZRiOssdlXW5wqTV0yby2TU7MbdiWda95fbRxO0LbjKf05mlIl1OLdmBzJPwBRlFk2du8K_kvV2-Ww6-lf2mq0xNRyKl9hG3WTXZruZbxVDHKmUcu9kgU5ny6aCS9apRfogMCT-nMEX9kO-H/s588/bg%20new%20bots%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="588" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaTo173X8uA-KZom8YNf5ooLdrzeLE7ZRjcyhsbXlHTe9qZRiOssdlXW5wqTV0yby2TU7MbdiWda95fbRxO0LbjKf05mlIl1OLdmBzJPwBRlFk2du8K_kvV2-Ww6-lf2mq0xNRyKl9hG3WTXZruZbxVDHKmUcu9kgU5ny6aCS9apRfogMCT-nMEX9kO-H/w369-h288/bg%20new%20bots%20(2).jpg" width="369" /></a></div>While it's true that we are currently in that noxious time-frame known as the <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2011/08/dog-days-of-summer.html" target="_blank">Dog Days</a> of summer - which generally means bad news for everybody on all fronts - for you and I, there is, indeed, a silver lining to this particularly dark cloud: Mac's birthday!</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">This year's birthday post was brought to us by Mac's mom, Dana, who enjoyed the previous robotic birthday post so much, she magically conjured up the vintage photograph of a young Macbot (above) just in time for this year. Thanks again, D! And, since you liked BG Dodson's wonderful little bots so much, I've posted 3 new ones (<i>inset left</i>). (Note the Crowbot!) (Thanks, BG!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">BTW, Mac apparently fashioned his robot for a (5th grade) school art fair. The red things around its head were plastic soda straws...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While I'm not going into any major essay about robots on this day, I will post 2 videos featuring the major contenders in the recent robot arena. They appear below the jump...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: left;">First we have Ameca and her artistic skills. Oh, yeah, she writes <a href="https://apnews.com/article/robot-show-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-0d0b4e0bfeec1860f16298bc70322e99" target="_blank">poetry</a>, too, but if it's anything like the handiwork in the video below, well, we might just want to pass...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L32BRcvnWRU" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the other hand, I found it amusing that she became a little unruffled when asked to draw a cat... as if she noted possibly a sexist implication. But, maybe that's just me. Then again I notice that there's a whole lot of (more or less) attractive female humanoids than there are <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@supercarblondie/video/7099429786895895809?lang=en" target="_blank">males</a>. So, what's up with that?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Meanwhile, on the other side of the robot spectrum - for potential military use - we have the Killbots. No, no, perhaps that's too strong a term. Let's just say you would not want to meet one of these suckers in a dark alley.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-e1_QhJ1EhQ" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Atlas, manufactured by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@BostonDynamics" target="_blank">Boston Dynamics</a>, is an example of their line of non-humanoid robots... and, as such, presents us with more of fundamentally mechanical element that, in itself might be comforting to some people, if not <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nRX2vAJpFsM" target="_blank">animals</a>, but its extremely sophisticated human movements are still a bit too "<a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-uncanny-valley-4846247" target="_blank">uncanny valley</a>" for my taste. However, personally, I think you lost me at <a href="https://www.irobot.com/en_US" target="_blank">Roomba</a>... so, well, just ignore my lack of savvy in the matter..</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That being said, I suppose there are numerous historical news events I can touch upon here, especially those related to Mac's favorite subject matter. There is, for instance the recent move on the part of the government (and the media) to distract us with Extraterrestrials, after decades of virtual silence about the subject. All things considered, there's probably some logic there, but, that's okay, we may as well play along.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlDlNeLAYRApe4v6RThvTFaVhH9Fuic7nwpCa8rrbFMelseisce4Wht5PyaLMpDaHxt4RW95nUFKJuleX1Dvm5xRW-rI_70fe1OXABd0sHJKHowhoMPQbmqgS1DHoTaon0ihnLWTmhY_aXMoxE5VICLIUxjfXvwC5BrIp21Dhyq9-tAYAzqKCCG5sTqsy0/s745/shrimp%20+.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="745" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlDlNeLAYRApe4v6RThvTFaVhH9Fuic7nwpCa8rrbFMelseisce4Wht5PyaLMpDaHxt4RW95nUFKJuleX1Dvm5xRW-rI_70fe1OXABd0sHJKHowhoMPQbmqgS1DHoTaon0ihnLWTmhY_aXMoxE5VICLIUxjfXvwC5BrIp21Dhyq9-tAYAzqKCCG5sTqsy0/s320/shrimp%20+.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small, but terrifying!!!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><i>"Three military veterans testified in Congress' highly anticipated hearing on UFOs Wednesday, including a former Air Force intelligence officer who claimed the U.S. government has operated a secret "multi-decade" reverse engineering program of recovered vessels. He also said the U.S. has recovered non-human "biologics" from alleged crash sites.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>But while the topic of "little green men" did come up, much of the discussion centered on improving processes for reporting unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — the military's term for UFOs (increasingly, UAP refers to "anomalous" rather than "aerial" phenomena, to account for sightings in both air and water)."</i></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0qidYDO6uajzdFsO59L4k6w2w5BkhetePfUDsj6O17_b2QSBoPcQLV7A_RNL3RSeT32wVQPe_N_g2lqa0q10c-BGs46cSvvgcPZocnzgQQCa7Ddu81ljicxCSHFMLqElURno67q2MNux-zntbEZN0NomQPfQ-aVrav5SEG2XjrrvVoutqhlepp_l684nd/s469/BD%20&%20cat%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="449" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0qidYDO6uajzdFsO59L4k6w2w5BkhetePfUDsj6O17_b2QSBoPcQLV7A_RNL3RSeT32wVQPe_N_g2lqa0q10c-BGs46cSvvgcPZocnzgQQCa7Ddu81ljicxCSHFMLqElURno67q2MNux-zntbEZN0NomQPfQ-aVrav5SEG2XjrrvVoutqhlepp_l684nd/w191-h200/BD%20&%20cat%20(2).jpg" width="191" /></a></div>Wow... and this quote comes from a trustworthy, anti-tabloid NPR <a href=" https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps" target="_blank">article</a> from last month, no less. In the event we're never informed any further on the "biologics" angle, however, I thought I'd supply my own extraterrestrial "biologic" - yes, actual, un-retouched photographic evidence (see above) - of a small, alien creature more mysterious than it's name: the <a href=" https://www.livescience.com/dinosaur-shrimp-emerge-arizona" target="_blank">Arizona shrimp</a> (<i><a href=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triops_longicaudatus" target="_blank">Triops longicaudatus</a></i>).</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, so, I probably didn't fool you. But, as for the quote, it's worth noting that UAP is now the default military term for the obsolete UFO we once knew. Gee, the only person I ever knew who consistently used the term was the late Bruce Duensing (<i>inset left</i>, with cat) who wrote extensively about them. Here's a real show-stopper from 2014: <i><a href="https://tarnsitsandstations.blogspot.com/2014/09/itc-as-applied-to-ufology.html" target="_blank">ITC As Applied To Ufology</a></i>. </div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anyway, it was nice to do some real posting on this memorial again. I often wonder about Mac's friends, especially those who followed me on this blog in the early years (and/or occasionally left comments). While I think that most of us have survived the past few, turbulent years, I'm not fully informed. So, if any members of the old gang still drop by here every now and then, <b>please drop me a comment </b>and let me know how things are going. I'd love to hear from you again!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In any case, time being what(ever) it is, and death being what(ever) it is, as we grow older and the lists of our losses exponentially expands, that "veil between the worlds" seems to lose its opacity. Dead or alive, does it really matter in terms of our memories of loved one? Perhaps, Bernard Roger (from a quote found on Bruce's old blog) said it best...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"The spirit of life was in them: death can do nothing against the dawning light; death is but a cardboard mask soon consumed by fire. Behind the black flag - which is nothing other than an anti-flag - the garden of all possibilities is hidden, opening out infinitely to the sea."</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multi-verse!</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>***</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;">New - Added 8/21</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ARJ8cAGm6JE" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Possibly one of the most harrowing scenes in Sci-Fi cinematic history is this one, from the game-changing film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey" target="_blank">2001: A Space Odyssey</a> </i>not only raised the bar for science fiction films... I personally feel it sent a whole generation into outer space.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This particular scene was prescient of the modern-day AI debate, warning us not to be overly dependent upon AI technology... especially when you're alone on a spaceship millions of miles from home! A film classic; HAL is your worst technological nightmare come true. The takeaway? It's not your machine; it's the program. Whose agenda does it fulfill?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Related link: <i><a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-europe-rules-906fc89d2561b200fa6eb40a06b946a5" target="_blank">In global rush to regulate AI, Europe set to be trailblazer</a></i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Thanks for the HAL link, John!)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-50399896467125572112023-07-16T18:18:00.001-06:002023-08-24T01:04:56.425-06:00Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang - "To the Moon"<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GJcjcWcSItk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><i>"In “To the Moon,” Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang employs virtual reality technology to transport us to a place beyond the physical world. Here you are sent on a dreamlike exploratory journey across the moon’s enigmatic surface."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>- From an announcement regarding the video above, found <a href=" https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/exhibitions/laurie-anderson/to-the-moon/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">No, business is not really "back to usual," and there's a good chance it may never be again. But, before we cash in our (proverbial) chips, it's time to look at some art... specifically, Laurie Anderson's and Taiwanese artist Hsin-Chien Huang's VR installment, <i>To the Moon</i>, created in 2018.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mac had a great deal of respect for Laurie Anderson... and he had a great deal of respect for art... also, his birthday is coming up... and lastly, so are the <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2011/08/dog-days-of-summer.html" target="_blank"><i>Dog Days of Summer</i></a>. It only seem fitting to attend to this blog.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For more information about this post, try: <i><a href="https://trans-ddigitalart.blogspot.com/2023/07/looking-into-mirror-sideways.html" target="_blank">"Looking into a Mirror Sideways"</a></i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Peace out.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-34097806242522953682022-08-21T16:08:00.007-06:002022-09-13T10:24:24.175-06:00For Mac on His Birthday...<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zQAt7PC5OaYhW9hBpftSkdlKERKZSXyiQ11cI935WXHn_AtO6KgRrZD583pNg5MWc7aC8TuTld4a2baQ7SWM1Ecji7C2bMefUeLLvq0DQcJWoK0ZCvjmATC4otHs7Vrl5LurvqVnA6b8XW1NidhUJ7oZy_HN7mBBKSJUVuXT36Que7Zf6uRdp9xI8w/s838/robot%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="838" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zQAt7PC5OaYhW9hBpftSkdlKERKZSXyiQ11cI935WXHn_AtO6KgRrZD583pNg5MWc7aC8TuTld4a2baQ7SWM1Ecji7C2bMefUeLLvq0DQcJWoK0ZCvjmATC4otHs7Vrl5LurvqVnA6b8XW1NidhUJ7oZy_HN7mBBKSJUVuXT36Que7Zf6uRdp9xI8w/w400-h265/robot%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWwkbaIG4u8QZmrXZDszEttPeqjaiqwPOePTZgz4xAtfdbySJRReSD7Fs590gL7HgTp6zFNSh_Xm2TObOIdxIOE_RyORiHbXOrUwUzpVrKlcNn_0cuVxe-NA0mIZ_W2ZsrU1VkKjlSNU6JcNlPkQa-wV3oe0nIVi_dj0xIlphSHHQN2_LzK0GbsmSAYQ/s838/robot%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="838" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWwkbaIG4u8QZmrXZDszEttPeqjaiqwPOePTZgz4xAtfdbySJRReSD7Fs590gL7HgTp6zFNSh_Xm2TObOIdxIOE_RyORiHbXOrUwUzpVrKlcNn_0cuVxe-NA0mIZ_W2ZsrU1VkKjlSNU6JcNlPkQa-wV3oe0nIVi_dj0xIlphSHHQN2_LzK0GbsmSAYQ/w400-h265/robot%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyGAj96lpusAbnKiMRxr6ndeSMWdQEwcwmEg4LibSdYH-80XEeik0wXtKaJouSJk91AbxtQIrmUVQTNoCVctOi8qIRNa7UHJ_UDlAL-9o7fSOWgFs1jVm4lL7LNXXn5X5nqrzdCC6rEzAYFk8Cpi64-LJRHaucgc1bf0FFca5z1M0Da_obU-XuVBSHCA/s838/robot%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="838" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyGAj96lpusAbnKiMRxr6ndeSMWdQEwcwmEg4LibSdYH-80XEeik0wXtKaJouSJk91AbxtQIrmUVQTNoCVctOi8qIRNa7UHJ_UDlAL-9o7fSOWgFs1jVm4lL7LNXXn5X5nqrzdCC6rEzAYFk8Cpi64-LJRHaucgc1bf0FFca5z1M0Da_obU-XuVBSHCA/w400-h293/robot%203.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ah well, so much for the best laid plans... the overlords have taken away our "<span style="text-align: center;">window on the </span><a href="https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/" style="text-align: center;">Webb</a>" - a web-cam video via the Webb Space Telescope - and I haven't the patience to deal with it. (Sorry, Dana, it was a GREAT idea!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But, actually, <a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">BG Dodson</a> - contributor to our last (Corvid) birthday card - has come to our rescue with these new additions to his extensive and wonderful menagerie... and they happen to make a mighty good greeting card, too! Don't ya think? :-)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thanks, BG!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-74294422067055191682021-12-25T19:10:00.003-07:002021-12-25T19:22:09.764-07:00As the Cosmic Yule Turns...<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NkQt5pUa2K0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> ... expect a brighter tomorrow... no matter what the Overlords decree. Happy Holidays to all!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Note: for more Lisa Gerrard, visit Trans-D's holiday <a href="https://trans-ddigitalart.blogspot.com/2021/12/botticelli-spiral.html" target="_blank">post</a>.)</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;"></p>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-37384561504041691202021-08-20T13:20:00.009-06:002021-08-20T19:11:14.523-06:00Cheers(!) to another imaginary year...<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5IsSpAOD6K8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Once In A Lifetime</b><br /><br />"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack<br />And you may find yourself in another part of the world<br />And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile<br />And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife<br />And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"<br /><br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again after the money's gone<br />Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground<br /><br />And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"<br />And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"<br />And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"<br />And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"<br /><br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again after the money's gone<br />Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground<br /><br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br /><br />Water dissolving and water removing<br />There is water at the bottom of the ocean<br />Under the water, carry the water<br />Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean<br /><br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again, into the silent water<br />Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground<br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again after the money's gone<br />Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground<br /><br />And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"<br />And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"<br />And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"<br />And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"<br /><br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again, into the silent water<br />Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground<br />Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by, water flowing underground<br />Into the blue again after the money's gone<br />Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground<br /><br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was and look where my hand was<br />Time isn't holding up, time isn't after us<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Letting the days go by, same as it ever was<br /><br />Here a twister comes, here comes the twister<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Same as it ever was, same as it ever was<br />Once in a lifetime, let the water hold me down<br />Letting the days go by"</p><p>- Lyrics to <i>Once In a Lifetime</i> (1980) by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_Heads" target="_blank">Talking Heads</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">***<br /></p><p>It's all in our heads, my friends, all in our heads... </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hAs1MvPWkkE/YSAEAY3DRoI/AAAAAAAAKUk/NhFF7lAJtQA4t9rpeVx3gOpxE7Uo3ItawCLcBGAsYHQ/s784/pandemic%2Barthur%2Bpearls%2B3c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="784" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hAs1MvPWkkE/YSAEAY3DRoI/AAAAAAAAKUk/NhFF7lAJtQA4t9rpeVx3gOpxE7Uo3ItawCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h246/pandemic%2Barthur%2Bpearls%2B3c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Heads in a Net of Pearls </i>- DS 2020<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Once again, this goes out to Mac in the multiverse: Happy Birthday, baby!</p><p><br /></p><p>PS Mac's <a href="https://blip.fm/macbot" target="_blank"><i>Blip.fm</i></a> link on the sidebar has been repaired.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-80254416493503538902020-10-18T16:22:00.002-06:002020-10-18T21:52:16.716-06:00The Little Prince Returns<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1b2igDOVJXg/X4y9DeEUMFI/AAAAAAAAKNg/afocPPnJSGkEtCnhtefP2ydgW_kh9bH3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s646/LP.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="498" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1b2igDOVJXg/X4y9DeEUMFI/AAAAAAAAKNg/afocPPnJSGkEtCnhtefP2ydgW_kh9bH3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w494-h640/LP.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i> <span style="font-size: small;">"The loveliest and saddest landscape in the world..."</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><div p=""></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TSunPziaCXY/X4y7eusWDsI/AAAAAAAAKNU/O4_nd_kpgUUwVkTjHCWUB_ZeM_CEOIjtgCLcBGAsYHQ/s646/LP%2B2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="498" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TSunPziaCXY/X4y7eusWDsI/AAAAAAAAKNU/O4_nd_kpgUUwVkTjHCWUB_ZeM_CEOIjtgCLcBGAsYHQ/w154-h200/LP%2B2.jpg" width="154" /></a></div><p> "Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has - yes or no? - eaten a rose...<br /><br />Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: Is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes...<br /><br />And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance."</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div><p></p><p><i>"This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. it is the same as that on the proceeding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory that the little prince appeared on earth, and disappeared.<br /><br />Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognize it in case you travel someday to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back."</i></p><p><i> </i>- Two excerpts (and two illustrations) from the final pages of <i>Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) </i>by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. (See previous October 18th <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-essential-is-invisible-to-eye.html" target="_blank">post</a>,)<br /></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i> </i></p>Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-47608126820099769722020-08-19T19:46:00.002-06:002020-08-23T18:04:12.088-06:00A Virtual Birthday Card<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multiverse"</b></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/2020/08/corvid-20-new-improved.html" target="_blank">Corvid-20</a> sculptures and photo - 2020, BG Dodson</b></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mac,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From All of Us</span></i></div>
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-7905437021018611132020-06-29T19:10:00.002-06:002020-06-29T19:10:35.173-06:00Putting Things in Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-41956321495064774802020-06-15T16:36:00.000-06:002020-06-15T16:45:10.190-06:00A Contaminated Culture (2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A live version of Peter Gabriel's tribute/lament to Bantu Stephen <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko" target="_blank">Biko</a>, a South-African anti-apartheid activist who was arrested and beaten to death by Port Elizabeth state security officers in 1977.<br />
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"You can blow out a candle<br />
But you can't blow out a fire<br />
Once the flames begin to catch<br />
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- The last stanza of "<a href="https://lyricstranslate.com/en/peter-gabriel-biko-lyrics.html" target="_blank">Biko</a>", 1980 Peter Gabriel.<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-34747691755358347852020-06-04T14:14:00.006-06:002020-06-09T01:08:42.411-06:00A Contaminated Culture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Maybe it's just me, but, from Mac's expression in this 2008 self-portrait<br />(shot from a cell-phone), he seems to be peering into the future...<br />and that future is now.</span> </div>
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"SARS is an unknown disease. We don't know where it came from; the possibility exists that it came from space or was cooked up by a terrestrial lab. Already, the virus is mutating. Just beneath the calm surface of newspaper headlines, a viral storm is brewing. We'll probably weather this one out. But what about the next one? And the one after that? </div>
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A barrage of mutations, new vectors, failed quarantines. A choking silence engulfs the planet..."</div>
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- Mac Tonnies via this April 17, 2003, blog <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2003/04/sars-is-unknown-disease.html" target="_blank">post</a>. (<i>Note: the initial strain of the 2020 Corona virus was referred to as SARS-Cov-2.</i>)</div>
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<i>"Up early. New short-story idea: "The Other Room" (based on a futuristic version of the 'looking glass' technology described in the previous post). In the story, venturing outdoors is rendered virtually impossible due to genetically contrived airborne diseases and pollution. Interpersonal contact is limited to communing with 'neighbors' via high-rez wallscreens. The screens are so advanced that they're easily mistakable for actual separate rooms, fostering a sense of enhanced personal space.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i><i>The main character has lived his adult life 'sharing' his germicidally insulated apartment with a female love interest. But all they can do is look at each other and talk; it's as if they're on opposite sides of an invisible glass barrier (which, in a very real sense, they are).</i></div>
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<i><br /></i><i>Anyway, toward the end of his life something goes wrong with the programming of his homeostatic apartment building and he realizes that the woman in the 'other room' is a computer program designed to keep him from going crazy -- she never existed; he's wasted his life pining away over a simulacrum. And the World Outside is worse than he's imagined.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i><i>. . . And they all lived happily ever after."</i></div>
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- Mac Tonnies via this March 15, 2004 blog <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2004/03/up-early.html" target="_blank">post</a>. (Note: From the Life Imitates Art files, here's a couple of recent articles about proposed legislation in England: <i><a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a32729254/sex-illegal-people-different-households/" target="_blank">Sex is now illegal in the UK between people from different households</a></i>, and the BBC article, <i><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52880399" target="_blank">Coronavirus: New laws come into force as England lockdown eases</a></i>. I'm not sure if said legislation passed, but I certainly hope not!)<br />
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<i>"Although I harbor serious reservations about humanity's ability to make the evolutionary cut, I'm not without hope. I sense great things in the making. I enjoy experiencing this dire, ever-accelerating point in our species' history; our potential as genuine cosmic citizens challenges the imagination and stretches conceptual boundaries to dizzy extremes.</i></div>
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<i>I'm willing to embrace transcendence or endure extinction. I must perpetually concede either possibility, no matter how dramatically different, regardless of how exciting or dismal. I walk a fine existential edge, fearing and cherishing, enlivened by a vertiginous sense of astonishment and horror."</i></div>
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- Mac Tonnies via this April 19, 2006 Posthuman Blues blog <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2006/04/i-alternate-between-grave-misanthropy.html" target="_blank">post</a>.<br />
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<i>"The New Totalitarians come forward smiling obsequiously like head waiters in third-rate Indian restaurants, and assuring us that everything is for our benefit." </i><br />
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- A quote from British author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard" target="_blank">J. G. Ballard</a> (1930-2009) posted on Posthuman Blues <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2004/12/new-totalitarians-come-forward-smiling.html" target="_blank">December 09, 2004.</a><br />
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Originally this post was meant to present a number of blog quotes from Mac's Posthuman Blues posts tagged "disease," with the notion that, while it's not possible to determine Mac's view on our current world crisis, reading bits of his output regarding past epidemics might be somewhat illuminating... although the fall-out from past disasters wasn't as severe as that which we are currently experiencing.</div>
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That was my intention anyway. But, after spending a great deal of time gathering together Posthuman Blues material, I found some of it disturbing but much more of it consisting of quotes pulled directly from news-pages with merely a sentence or two ad libbed by Mac it seemed almost pointless. Well, pointless except to remind us of certain historical information that many of us may have forgotten, although the last of the disease posts was written in 2007, merely over a decade ago.</div>
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For example, I don't know if many of us ever knew about this event (via this April 13, 2005 post), one for which Mac reserved comment:<br />
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<i>"Labs scramble to destroy pandemic flu strain. Nearly 5,000 labs in 18 countries, mostly in the United States, were urged by the World Health Organization to destroy samples of the dangerous virus because of the slight risk it could trigger a global outbreak. The labs received the virus from a U.S. company that supplies kits used for quality control tests."</i><br />
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And, then again, there were those three bubonic plague-infested lab mice which went missing from a biocontainment lab in New Jersey posted on <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2005/09/3-plague-infected-lab-mice-missing.html" target="_blank">September 25th</a> of that same year. Mac's comment?<br />
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<i>"So far no one has been reported dead from bubonic plague, so it looks like we lucked out. Emphasis on "luck."</i><br />
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Lest we forget, also from 2005 (apparently a banner year for medical lab disasters) and posted on <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2005/10/deadly-1918-virus-reconstructed-deadly.html" target="_blank">October 8th</a> we have a report of a deadly Spanish-flu virus reconstructed by alumni at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and stock-piled in Georgia... supposedly under "strict safety conditions" and (allegedly) to "predict future pandemics and develop new vaccines and treatments." Interestingly, its DNA sequence was made available on the internet. Understandably, Mac compares those "strict safety conditions" with the earlier story about the rodents at large.<br />
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One of his final disease posts - <i>Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US</i> - from <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2007/07/plague-of-bioweapons-accidents-afflicts.html" target="_blank">July 25th, 2007</a>, begins with the sentence: <i>"Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists."</i><br />
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Ah, yes, as if "biodefense" wasn't potentially a form of terrorism. In any case, regarding the present pandemic, despite media efforts to bring global-warming into the fray and/or blame it on animal contact, etc., if recent history tells us anything it seems equally as likely (if not more) that the Corona virus strains originated and/or were contained in some medical lab or bio-weapons lab as was initially reported.* The worst-case aspect of this possibility is that a new pandemic cannot be very far behind. After all, not only can accidents happen, accidents <u>will surely</u> happen. This is a given. It's a Murphy's Law kind of thing... and I've heard Murphy was an optimist.**<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>Arthur - A Contaminated Culture </i>- digital - 2020, DS.</span></td></tr>
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<br />
What's particularly troubling about this pandemic and any future pandemics rolled out to us, is the emergence of a new strain of totalitarianism which has seamlessly reared its ugly head alongside the bogeyman of physical infection. One doesn't have to be an Einstein (nor an Orwell) to detect this particular contaminant in the present world-wide government stance. How convenient it is to use threats of a deadly disease to enforce laws and "guidelines" that, at any other time, would appear invasive, dictatorial, inhuman, and psychologically damaging. Even as a confirmed introvert I find enforced "social distancing" distressing. Will lockdowns result in a kind of mass-psychosis? Or, worse still, even as restrictions slowly loosen up - as they seem to be doing presently - will a variety of post-traumatic stress disorder still linger on, specifically in children? What could possibly be more neurosis-producing than the instilled fear of all human contact and the legal enforcement of solitary confinement?<br />
<br />
More to the point, when we all start (literally or figuratively) foaming at the mouth, who will we sue?<br />
<br />
_____________________________________<br />
<br />
* Of course, the scientific community utterly refutes the possibility that a scientific lab was involved although Wuhan, China is still considered to be Ground Zero.<br />
<br />
I'll be addressing that and more in the following post when I discuss the narrative aspects of our current dilemma.<br />
<br />
** <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law" target="_blank">Murphy's Law</a> - "If anything can go wrong, it will." is generally attributed to Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an Air Force engineer (1949). According to the Murphy's Law <a href="http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-true.html" target="_blank">website</a>, however, the line was originally referred to as "Sod's Law" and has been around for a long, long time. I've listed the top 7 <a href="http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html" target="_blank">Laws</a> below.<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
If anything can go wrong, it will.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.</div>
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-64948989153372269422020-04-16T15:59:00.001-06:002020-06-04T23:28:15.147-06:00The Wisdom of Cockroaches<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Archy the cockroach - a character created by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Marquis" target="_blank">Don Marquis</a> - in the throes of poetic passion; drawn by Creole artist, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herriman" target="_blank">George Herriman</a>, known for his surreal comic strip Krazy Kat (1913-1944) - Herriman articles <a href="https://www.schirn.de/en/magazine/context/schirn_comic_george_herriman_krazy_kat/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2019/07/krazy-kat-now-digitized-put-online.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></td></tr>
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<br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">"i was once a vers libre bard</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">it has given me a new outlook upon life</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">i see things from the under side now</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket</a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it</a></i><br />
<a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank"><i>there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have </i><i>removed</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">she nearly ate me the other night</a></i><br />
<a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank"><i>why dont she </i><i>catch rats that is what </i><i>she is supposed to be for</i></a><br />
<i><a href="https://clintspoon.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/archy-and-mehitabel-a-rediscovery/" target="_blank">there is a rat here she should get without delay"</a></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
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<i>***</i></div>
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And, so begins the saga of Archy the cockroach - a reincarnated free-verse poet - and his female sidekick, an alley cat named Mehitabel, who was the reincarnation of the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra (!). Both were the creations of <a href="http://donmarquis.com/life-and-times/" target="_blank">Don Marquis</a> (1878-1937), a columnist for the New York newspaper, The Evening Sun, in the early half of the 20th century. Originally written as a daily column, Marquis eventually published compilations of Archy's poems - illustrated by George Herriman - in three books during his lifetime: <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Archy-Mehitabel-Don-Marquis/dp/0385094787" target="_blank">archy & mehitabel</a></i> (1927), <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/ArchyS-Life-Mehitabel-Don-Marquis/dp/057106616X" target="_blank">archy's life of mehitabel</a></i> (1933) and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Archy-Does-His-Part-Marquis/dp/B002K6PESK" target="_blank">archy does his part</a></i> (1935).</div>
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I just discovered Archy and Metitabel quite recently. As for Mac Tonnies - a huge fan of Kafka's <i>Metamorphosis</i> - it seems that he'd have caught on to the cockroach poet with the feline companion a long time ago. But, I don't think he ever did... or he would definitely named one of his own cats Mehitabel!</div>
<br />
As it is, I'm missing Mac more than ever these days. Wouldn't you give anything to hear his thoughts on the recent Pandemic Pandemonium, possibly the most surreal "current event" that any of us have dealt with in our lifetimes? Well, that is, apart from those few existing survivors of WWII. Not that this is a war exactly, although the Big Boys in Charge would have us believe just that (see <a href="https://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/post/615003357234462720/taking-it-on-the-chin-or-why-words-matter-even" target="_blank">here</a>). And, really, cats and kitties, I'd put my 2 cents in if I had the slightest clue as to what's really going on. Sadly, there are so many holes in this pandemic narrative, we'd be better off knocking some golf balls around.<br />
<br />
Well, that is if we were able to... and not confined to our indoor habitats like so many rats in their individual cages. Which kind of reminds me of this man I met in California years and years ago. He had a whole high-rise apartment complex in his backyard composed of cages stacked on top of each other. Each cage contained a well-fed white rat... live food for his pet boa constrictors which he kept housed indoors in glass terrariums. I'd like to think this was not a metaphor for our present situation.<br />
<br />
So, how will this nightmare play out? Will there be a tomorrow? Who can say? Meanwhile, I've posted more cockroach wisdom after the jump. Enjoy!<br />
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<i>(Note: Admittedly, Archy's literary output is a little difficult to follow. There are no capital letters, no punctuation and his thoughts run into each other without a pause. What you need to understand is that - unlike Herriman's illustration in which Archy has a tiny typewriter of his own - Archy was using Marquis's typewriter... and had to jump on each individual key to compose his poetry. So, give this roach a break! Obviously, his output was somewhat hampered by the physical exertion demanded.)</i><br />
<br />
The following two excerpt are from Marquis's first collection, <i>archy & mehitabel</i>:<br />
<br />
<i>i once heard the survivors</i><br />
<i>of a colony of ants</i><br />
<i>that had been partially</i><br />
<i>obliterated by a cow s foot</i><br />
<i>seriously debating</i><br />
<i>the intention of the gods</i><br />
<i>toward their civilization</i><br />
<br />
- Excerpt from the poem: <i>certain maxims of archy</i>.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
we get bored with the routine</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
and crave beauty</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
and excitement</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
fire is beautiful</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
and we know that if we get</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
too close it will kill us</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
but what does that matter</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
it is better to be happy</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
for a moment</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
and be burned up with beauty</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
then to live a long time</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
and be bored all the while</div>
<br />
- Excerpt from the poem: <i>the lesson of the moth</i>.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
These are from Marquis's second collection, <i>archy's life of mehitabel</i>:<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>germs are very objectionable to men</i><br />
<i>but a germ</i><br />
<i>thinks of a man</i><br />
<i>as only the swamp</i><br />
<i>in which</i><br />
<i>he has to live</i><br />
<br />
<i>a louse i</i><br />
<i>used to know</i><br />
<i>told me that</i><br />
<i>millionaires and</i><br />
<i>bums tasted</i><br />
<i>about alike</i><br />
<i>to him</i><br />
<br />
- Excerpt from the poem: <i>random thoughts of archy</i>.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i></i><br />
<div style="display: inline !important;">
<i>lately i heard a number</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
of cockroaches discussing</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
humanity one big</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
regal looking roach</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
had the floor and he spoke</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
as was fitting in blank verse</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
more or less</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
says he</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
how came this monster with the heavy</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
foot harsh voice and cruel heart to</div>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
rule the world</div>
<br />
- Excerpt from the poem, <i>peace - at a price</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>I</i><br />
<i>have just been eating</i><br />
<i>my way through some of</i><br />
<i>the books on your desk</i><br />
<i>and I have digested two of them</i><br />
<i>and it occurs to me</i><br />
<i>that antoninus the emperor</i><br />
<i>and epictetus the slave</i><br />
<i>arrived at the same</i><br />
<i>philosophy of life</i><br />
<i>that there is neither mastery</i><br />
<i>nor slavery</i><br />
<i>except as it exists</i><br />
<i>in the attitude of the soul</i><br />
<i>toward the world</i><br />
<br />
- Excerpt from:<i> archy turns highbrow for a minute</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>we have a key </i><br />
<i>to the fourth dimension</i><br />
<i>for we know the little things</i><br />
<i>that swim and swarm</i><br />
<i>in protoplasm</i><br />
<i>i can show you love and hate</i><br />
<i>and the future</i><br />
<i>dreaming side by side</i><br />
<i>in a cell</i><br />
<i>in the little cells where</i><br />
<i>matter is so fine it merges</i><br />
<i>into spirit</i><br />
<br />
- Excerpt from the poem: <i>the return of archy</i>.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VF-mmLNrFCY/Xpk_LIG25oI/AAAAAAAAKBk/-67P6bcb02UzsyBT2zS8aTh2elsnf_h6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/archy%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="535" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VF-mmLNrFCY/Xpk_LIG25oI/AAAAAAAAKBk/-67P6bcb02UzsyBT2zS8aTh2elsnf_h6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/archy%2B4.jpg" width="348" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A masked kitty in China found on <a href="http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Histories of Things to Come</a>.<br />BTW, can't get enough of COVID? LC Douglass has been on the case since January, beginning with this prescient <a href="http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-journal-of-plague-year.html" target="_blank">post</a>.</span></td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9DIZYN6gs8/XplE_k9VL_I/AAAAAAAAKBw/B-1w06LGu7oZtz-P-osWU3CVue8JSTQ2ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/archy%2B5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="436" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9DIZYN6gs8/XplE_k9VL_I/AAAAAAAAKBw/B-1w06LGu7oZtz-P-osWU3CVue8JSTQ2ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/archy%2B5.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Regarding <a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/2020/03/gotz-paper.html" target="_blank">paper products</a>...</span></td></tr>
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<i>(Note: The Addendum which originally appeared has been removed. It may return in revised form on The Other Blog. Sorry for the confusion.)</i><br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-49057700302920945032019-10-18T18:31:00.001-06:002019-10-18T18:35:22.787-06:00"What is essential is invisible to the eye"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eLlBAacL5bg/XapK9u1O3AI/AAAAAAAAJ84/IJ4F725mHxoyVpEP6HbrrCyGEFbSFtTfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/lepetitprince.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="646" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eLlBAacL5bg/XapK9u1O3AI/AAAAAAAAJ84/IJ4F725mHxoyVpEP6HbrrCyGEFbSFtTfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/lepetitprince.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"The Little Prince on Asteroid B-612" - illustration and caption from the timeless tale<br /> <i>Le Petit Prince </i>by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a story about an extraterrestrial child<br />who fell to earth; first published in 1943.<br /><i>"L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." ("What is essential is invisible to the eye")</i></span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems . For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You - you alone -will have the stars as no one else has them-"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"What are you trying to say?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... you − only you − will have stars that can laugh!"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And he laughed again.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... and your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy..."</span><br />
<br />
- An excerpt from <i><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Petit_Prince" target="_blank">Le Petit Prince</a></i> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince" target="_blank">The Little Prince</a>) by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry" target="_blank">Antoine de Saint-Exupéry</a>.* Full text in English can be found <a href="http://verse.aasemoon.com/images/f/f5/The_Little_Prince.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>; in French try <a href="https://frenchpdf.com/le-petit-prince-en-pdf-dantoine-de" target="_blank">here</a> or <a href="https://www.reclam.de/data/media/978-3-15-019894-0.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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__________________________________<br />
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*Note on the life of Saint-Exupéry (sourced <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/64148/12-charming-facts-about-little-prince" target="_blank">here</a>):<br />
<br />
<i>"By the time his work was available in France, Saint-Exupéry had already been presumed dead for a year, and his death was every bit as mysterious and fascinating as his life. After making his way to Algiers and talking his way into the Free French Air Force, he was once more able to fly even though both his physical and mental health were questionable. On a 1944 reconnaissance mission, his plane disappeared, and he was never seen again. Whether he was shot down by an enemy or perhaps crashed the plane in a suicidal maneuver remains unclear. The author’s body was never recovered, and it wasn’t until 1998 that a clue to his fate was found in the form of his silver identity bracelet, which was discovered by a fisherman off the coast of Marseille in the Mediterranean. The remains of his plane were found there by a diver in 2000."</i><br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-42679672172499408882019-08-20T00:13:00.000-06:002019-08-20T00:19:24.434-06:00Shadows of Ancient Galaxies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>Dark Cosmic Nest</i>, 2019, DS; a re-imaging of a graphic found <a href="https://trans-ddigitalart.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-cosmic-nest.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<b><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/07/world/ancient-galaxies-discovery-scn/index.html" target="_blank">Astronomers uncover 'invisible' massive ancient galaxies</a></b></div>
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<i>"Although once invisible to us in the vast reaches of the universe, 39 massive ancient galaxies have been discovered by astronomers using multiple space and ground-based observatories. This is the first discovery of its kind, the researchers said.</i><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9QXPrl8QRD4/XVYgNwlW8QI/AAAAAAAAJ1s/ycH9qtYb_9gYhpmJDvEJVV4LLwensGvYwCLcBGAs/s1600/dark%2Bcosmic%2Bnest%2B2d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="647" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9QXPrl8QRD4/XVYgNwlW8QI/AAAAAAAAJ1s/ycH9qtYb_9gYhpmJDvEJVV4LLwensGvYwCLcBGAs/s200/dark%2Bcosmic%2Bnest%2B2d.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<i>'This is the first time that such a large population of massive galaxies was confirmed during the first 2 billion years of the 13.7-billion-year life of the universe. These were previously invisible to us,' said Tao Wang, study author and researcher at the University of Tokyo, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. 'This finding contravenes current models for that period of cosmic evolution and will help to add some details, which have been missing until now.'</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The new prevalence of these galaxies, which are connected with supermassive black holes and dark matter, contradicts the current known models of the universe.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Given their age and distance, the massive galaxies were hidden from our view because their light is weak and stretched. The universe is also expanding, which makes the distance greater. Over that distance, visible light becomes infrared, according to the study."</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 19px; font-weight: bold;">Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multiverse.</span><br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-51572508631976941362019-08-19T01:12:00.000-06:002019-08-19T10:30:58.558-06:00Dangling Conversations & Trifurcated Views<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>"Time needn't be relevant in the cosmic screening room. Whether a particular pattern emerged in the past or future is irrelevant. Information from the 'past' and 'future' (mere cognitive constructs) freely integrate. This is a realm without spatial or temporal boundaries. It's something like the 'implicate order' suggested by physicist David Bohm. The 'explicate order,' of course, is the intricate sensory illusion that we inhabit. Or think we do.</i><br />
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<i>The ever-changing patterns in the protean cloud dictate the nature of whatever universe happens to be illuminated by our imaginary laser. Since our perceived reality is constantly modeled by the myriad ones and zeroes in the timeless cloud, we find ourselves diced into informational slivers. From this perspective, "continuity" is meaningless. The 'I' writing this sentence could be hundreds of billions of 'I's removed from the one that wrote the last sentence. More disturbingly, 'I' might not have existed at all until right . . . now." </i><br />
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<i>"The newly formed 'I'</i><i> happens to have 'memories' of composing this essay, but memories, like everything else, are simply advantageous fluctuations in the filmic cloud, subject to constant revision. And since I'm ostensibly a component in day-to-day reality, it's inevitable that the randomly constructed parameters that define my world -- all of it, from my living room to the coffeeshop down the street to the structure of galaxies -- is every bit as flimsy and malleable. Reincarnation is quite real. It's happening all the time -- invisibly. </i><br />
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<i>Several months ago I was in an automobile crash. My memories contain the adrenalized moment of impact, the literally breathless aftermath as I pondered the crushed metal and broken glass, and a trip to a hospital inside an ambulance. It would appear I survived, albeit bruised and aching. But who am I to tell the story of what 'really' happened? Perhaps the arc of my life, as defined by the fluctuating patterns (and bits of would-be pattern) in the cosmic screening room bifurcated shortly before I collided with the other car. In one variation I came to a bloody end. In yet another there was never an accident at all."</i><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I0BhZem24Fk/XVdv18BtKRI/AAAAAAAAJ2k/QZaDRKDUsO8vrfuo4OWxhNQc5tU5kOd2ACLcBGAs/s1600/simorgh%2Ba%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="741" height="177" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I0BhZem24Fk/XVdv18BtKRI/AAAAAAAAJ2k/QZaDRKDUsO8vrfuo4OWxhNQc5tU5kOd2ACLcBGAs/s400/simorgh%2Ba%2B3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>"I pick the crash incident not because of any intrinsic importance -- at the most fundamental level, the blind dance of possibilities doesn't care if I live or die -- but because it illustrates how flawlessly one or two frames can be altered (or randomly inserted or deleted) to potentially catastrophic effect in the observable world. So long as a pattern remains intact -- and it will, since it has infinite space and time to organize itself -- so will some permutation of 'I.'</i><br />
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<i>Which begs the question: What happens when someone dies? It's possible that informational death is impossible and that the person who "dies" in the "explicate order" is expediently recycled, living his or her life again and again in a state of total amnesia. Or maybe something like my crash incident applies and that observers who die -- in the directly perceivable world -- are shuffled into a future in which they "miraculously" survive their own crashes (or cancer treatments or heart transplants).</i><br />
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<i>There's nothing concrete or absolute about our so-called universe. It is an alluring, insidiously clever simulation. The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics implies that the universe is constant "branching" into parallel, exclusive states. A better term, in light of the scenario described above, might be 'flowing.'"</i><br />
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- Mac Tonnies from this November 8, 2003 Posthuman Blues <a href="http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/2003/11/most-of-us-think-of-existence-as.html" target="_blank">post</a>.<br />
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***<br />
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<i>"Yes, we speak of things that matter</i><br />
<i>With words that must be said</i><br />
<i>'Can analysis be worthwhile?'</i><br />
<i>'Is the theater really dead?'</i><br />
<i>And how the room is softly faded</i><br />
<i>And I only kiss your shadow</i><br />
<i>I cannot feel your hand</i><br />
<i>You're a stranger now unto me</i><br />
<i>Lost in the dangling conversation</i><br />
<i>And the superficial sighs</i><br />
<i>In the borders of our lives"</i><br />
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- Lyrics from <a href="https://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-the-dangling-conversation-lyrics" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The Dangling Conversation</a> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Ij_UapnwE" target="_blank">video</a>), 1966, Paul Simon.</div>
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I guess the anniversary of Mac's birthday, i.e., the beginning of his last, known, brief journey through our "directly perceivable world," is becoming sort of a extravaganza this year on Post-Mac Blues. Not since the very early days of this blog have I posted so frequently... well, apart from the series which inspired this one. And, there's one more birthday-related post yet to come: a sort of Araqinta greeting card.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXXlxOngDHQ/UH-yD4obsSI/AAAAAAAABRo/1D1dY_kit-sYL6ksEf_7dmtDBwvBjaplACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/escher%2Bprint2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="531" height="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXXlxOngDHQ/UH-yD4obsSI/AAAAAAAABRo/1D1dY_kit-sYL6ksEf_7dmtDBwvBjaplACPcBGAYYCw/s320/escher%2Bprint2.jpg" width="320" /></a>Mac's quote above is actually a fuller version of a quote appearing in this <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2012/10/from-phb-archive-part-1-of-5.html" target="_blank">post</a>, one of a series on PMB appearing in October of 2012. I even find myself using the same graphics, pulled from M.C. Escher's <i><a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2012/10/from-posthuman-blues-archives-part-4.html" target="_blank">Another world</a></i>. I guess Escher's odd little avian/human hybrid resonates with me still. <i>Inset left</i> is <i>Still Life With a Spherical Mirror </i>found in the last <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2012/10/from-posthuman-blues-archives-part-5.html" target="_blank">entry</a> of that series.<br />
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I didn't particularly want death to be a theme of any of the birthday posts, but, for the past 2 weeks I have had one song going through my head... over an over again like an endless soundtrack: an old, wistful Simon & Garfunkel tune: <i>The Dangling Conversation</i>. I don't know where it came from and I don't know why, but, in an effort to finally relieve myself of it, I thought I'd better work it out.<br />
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As it was, Mac was a fan of the 60s folk/rock duo <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_%26_Garfunkel" target="_blank">Simon & Garfunkel</a> despite the fact that they parted ways before he was born, and, with Mac in mind, I finally had an epiphany: unexpected death is somewhat like a dangling conversation. Your relationship with the departed person is left hanging in the air with no visible means of support as if someone cut the telephone wires mid-conversation... or your cell phone's battery hit 0 at that same crucial moment.<br />
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But is a dangling conversation necessarily a narrative cut short?<br />
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This reminds me of a photo of Mac I mentioned <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-process-of-time.html" target="_blank">recently</a>: the one in the tattoo parlor. As it was, I wasn't the only person who had never seen it before. Mac's mom, Dana, confirmed that she hadn't seen it either. And Dana knows Mac's Flickr pages like the back of her own hand. She did remember the other photos (I'd forgotten), but not that one.<br />
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So, what are the chances of a new photograph appearing in a departed man's online <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mactonnies/albums/72157607005578117" target="_blank">Flickr album</a> 9 years after his death? I suppose anything is possible in cyberspace and one shouldn't take a minor glitch too seriously. It might just be the results of Flickr's constantly changing formats... or, really, it could be that Dana and I are mistaken and it was hidden there all along.<br />
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Then again, theoretically, it might just be that the borderlines between the Universe's "parallel, exclusive states" are weakening - the veils are growing thin - and all sorts of phenomena are beginning to bleed through.<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-21026527797255316622019-08-18T00:38:00.001-06:002019-08-18T08:54:55.546-06:00Men Who Lift Us Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Franky Zapata surfing the clouds on his Flyboard Air.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>(All photos in this post can be clicked to enlarge.)</i></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fqK0O2DLdL8/XVYteuZXwcI/AAAAAAAAJ18/wq4d01WNw8kW0ACPZAeEsqauggvaq7I4wCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/hover%2B6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fqK0O2DLdL8/XVYteuZXwcI/AAAAAAAAJ18/wq4d01WNw8kW0ACPZAeEsqauggvaq7I4wCPcBGAYYCw/s320/hover%2B6.jpg" width="296" /></a><i>"French inventor Franky Zapata has successfully crossed the Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard for the first time, after a failed attempt last month.</i><br />
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<i>Zapata took off from Sangatte, northern France early on Sunday morning and landed in St. Margarets Bay, near Dover in England. The journey took just over 20 minutes, according to Reuters news agency.</i><br />
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<i>'I had the chance to land in an extraordinary place. It's beautiful. My first thought was to my family. It was huge. Thanks to my wife who always supports me in crazy projects. We worked very hard,' he told CNN affiliate BFMTV...</i><br />
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<i>The inventor captured the world's imagination when he took to the skies above Paris at Bastille Day parade in July with the board that can reach an altitude of nearly 500 feet -- with the potential to go much higher -- and a speed of 87mph."</i><br />
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- Excerpt from this August 4th CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/europe/french-inventor-hoverboard-intl-scli/index.html" target="_blank">report</a>. The photograph of Franky Zapata and his wife, Krystel, was found <a href="https://www.20minutes.fr/sport/diaporama-14241-photo-1119205-traversee-manche-flyboard-pari-fou-franky-zapata-images" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_qlMbhia_kM/XUtf-HPv3sI/AAAAAAAAJx4/zxa-N8F5gyQm3ajKg2R-7WqmyKsoM0E1ACLcBGAs/s1600/hover%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="846" height="243" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_qlMbhia_kM/XUtf-HPv3sI/AAAAAAAAJx4/zxa-N8F5gyQm3ajKg2R-7WqmyKsoM0E1ACLcBGAs/s320/hover%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>"The 40-year-old set off on his Flyboard from Sangatte in the Pas de Calais region on the northern coast of France at about 6.17am for the 22-mile (35km) journey to St Margaret’s Bay, beyond the white cliffs of Dover.</i><br />
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<i>Escorted by three helicopters, he completed the crossing in 22 minutes, reaching speeds of up to 110mph (177km/h) flying 15-20 metres (50-65ft) above the water. He arrived into the bay to the applause of dozens of onlookers and journalists.</i><br />
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<i>Zapata has been developing his hoverboard for the past three years, undeterred by losing two fingers in its turbines during its maiden flight in his garage near Marseille."</i><br />
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- Sourced from this August 4th Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/04/franky-zapata-crosses-channel-by-hoverboard-at-second-attempt" target="_blank">article</a>. The image (<i>inset right</i>) was found <a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/81287-franky-zapata-inventor-flyboard-air-hoverboard-crosses-english.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ldxNMJnxC-0/XVizRl_N-fI/AAAAAAAAJ2w/9RTI7Qym884n9fTYPBqXQVhw2GRoYBdjQCLcBGAs/s1600/hover%2B5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="503" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ldxNMJnxC-0/XVizRl_N-fI/AAAAAAAAJ2w/9RTI7Qym884n9fTYPBqXQVhw2GRoYBdjQCLcBGAs/s320/hover%2B5.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
<i>"Fantasy film aficionados would recognize Mr. Zapata’s invention. In “Spider-Man,” the Green Goblin sows terror from something very like the Flyboard Air that Mr. Zapata piloted across the channel. Marty McFly uses a similar vehicle in “Back to the Future 2.”</i><br />
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<i>Defense Minister Florence Parly was equally taken by the machine. “Innovation is not a gimmick.” The hoverboard could serve as “a flying logistics platform, or an assault platform,” she suggested, conjuring an image of squadrons of individually airborne infantry descending on an enemy.</i><br />
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<i>But not tomorrow. 'As it stands, the Flyboard Air has no operational use,' says Marion Laguës, spokeswoman for the French Defense Innovation Agency, a branch of the General Directorate for Weaponry, which is helping to finance the development of new, quieter jet engines.</i><br />
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<i>Whether the Flyboard Air is indeed an aircraft or not is a question that nearly wrecked the whole project. French civil aviation bureaucrats grounded Mr. Zapata in 2017 because he had no pilot’s license and his experimental machine had not been certified."</i></div>
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- Excerpt from the article: <i><a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0806/Not-just-a-toy-Channel-hopping-hoverboard-draws-military-s-eye" target="_blank">Not just a toy: Channel-hopping hoverboard draws military’s eye</a></i>.<br />
Image (<i>inset left</i>) found <a href="http://m.thedailynewnation.com/news/224613/french-flying-man-crosses-channel-on-jet-powered-hoverboard" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pDqo1KLULEg/XUtgP5qilBI/AAAAAAAAJyA/O2JDxH_BBE0BLvRg9D_q2F3Fd0eoAf-yQCLcBGAs/s1600/hover%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="940" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pDqo1KLULEg/XUtgP5qilBI/AAAAAAAAJyA/O2JDxH_BBE0BLvRg9D_q2F3Fd0eoAf-yQCLcBGAs/s320/hover%2B1.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>"His Flyboard has also attracted the attention of the French military, which in December gave Zapata’s company, Z-AIR, a €1.3m (£1.19m) development grant. He has said his invention wasn’t quite ready for military use because of the noise it makes and the hours required to learn to fly it.</i><br />
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<i>Zapata eventually hopes to use his hoverboard to fly much higher, something that would require him to carry a parachute, guidance equipment and possibly an oxygen tank. He is also developing an idea for a flying car."</i><br />
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- Excerpt and image (<i>inset right</i>) also sourced from the Guardian article linked to previously. Also, videos of Zapata's flight and be found on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Hiy6KvURI" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgE9gI7lEZU" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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As fate would have it, on August 4th of this year, while <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franky_Zapata" target="_blank">Franky Zapata</a> was flying through French skies on his Flyboard Air destined for the White Cliffs of Dover, humans were dropping like flies on the western side of the Atlantic, victims to 4 mass-shootings.<br />
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Some men lift us up and some men take us down (literally). But, as I've already vented about the latter (<a href="https://trans-ddigitalart.blogspot.com/2019/08/no-this-isnt-just-racism.html" target="_blank">here</a>), in memory of Mac's birthday I thought I'd post something he'd love to see... and want for his very own! Well, okay, at $250,000 it's not something the average consumer can afford, and, chances are, navigating it looks much easier than it currently is. Moreover, the military or law enforcement sectors - i.e., where the money is - might embrace it, leading to this <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/french-just-made-great-case-outfitting-soldiers-flyboards-67277" target="_blank">sort of thing</a>. But, if the military decides to pass on the Flyboard Air, maybe the various space agencies of the world might find some use for it. I can easily envision the first humans on Mars utilizing it to scout the Martian terrain. (Well, provided gravity doesn't pose a problem, and after reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_of_Mars" target="_blank">this</a>, I still don't know!)<br />
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In any case, the best news is that Franky Zapata's next project is developing a <u>flying car</u>... and, while it seems that a number of prototypes for flying cars are already gathering dust, and a new tease occurs every year - here's <a href="https://media.astonmartin.com/aston-martin-race-to-the-skies/" target="_blank">last year's</a> - something tells me that Z-Air's might be the first one to <u>really</u> take to the skies!<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-55231552106829646782019-08-08T14:04:00.001-06:002019-08-09T18:55:29.702-06:00The Process of Time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJz0l4E6FaU/XUxiXaLQooI/AAAAAAAAJyY/U6Fcw9TxZhkHPfgUmCADt7dHwf1hpi05wCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/mac%2B19%2Be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="733" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJz0l4E6FaU/XUxiXaLQooI/AAAAAAAAJyY/U6Fcw9TxZhkHPfgUmCADt7dHwf1hpi05wCPcBGAYYCw/s400/mac%2B19%2Be.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All photographs in this blog post were taken by Mac Tonnies and</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">found on his <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mactonnies" target="_blank">Flickr pages</a>. Click to enlarge.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_A7exEM9ag/XUxk3PuRo5I/AAAAAAAAJyo/S0YFD9e28Q0M-aJ_B6yZje8tX_tjbIZVgCEwYBhgL/s1600/mac%2B19%2Bc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="835" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_A7exEM9ag/XUxk3PuRo5I/AAAAAAAAJyo/S0YFD9e28Q0M-aJ_B6yZje8tX_tjbIZVgCEwYBhgL/s320/mac%2B19%2Bc.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>"The future isn't an inevitability; it's a process. It reaches back in time with delicate, enveloping fingers and beckons. We proceed into the future like slender pseudopods straining to break free of a parent cell. The transition is amorphic, dangerous and continuous. We are always on the front lines, waging temporal war within the privacy of our own skulls. The future is not ours, although it can be. Maybe this is what a multiversal intelligence seeks: not the chatter of electromagnetic transmissions, but the intricate lacing that occurs when spacetime is tempered with conscious intent. Finding us, it insinuates itself into our ontological flow. It replicates until its presence is so familiar we cease to even notice. We are silent partners, weaving new matrices of causality."</i></div>
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- From Mac Tonnies and sourced from this February 12, 2003 Posthuman Blues <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2003/02/future-isnt-inevitability-its-process.html" target="_blank">post</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FxIrYRY6y0A/XUxjHA3UhbI/AAAAAAAAJyc/wV-Iw0PmK9gIDNHtGvRJt6IHbUsuYZALACLcBGAs/s1600/mac%2B19%2Bd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="835" height="255" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FxIrYRY6y0A/XUxjHA3UhbI/AAAAAAAAJyc/wV-Iw0PmK9gIDNHtGvRJt6IHbUsuYZALACLcBGAs/s400/mac%2B19%2Bd.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1aaE4oc3LKw/XUxlj1i3KCI/AAAAAAAAJyw/dRc1bqDCTjcWk_4aOOa86b2jjOf4wqZmQCLcBGAs/s1600/mac%2B19%2Bb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="866" height="235" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1aaE4oc3LKw/XUxlj1i3KCI/AAAAAAAAJyw/dRc1bqDCTjcWk_4aOOa86b2jjOf4wqZmQCLcBGAs/s320/mac%2B19%2Bb.jpg" width="320" /></a>Inside, the crew stirred within their communal environmental VR, roused by an unspecific sense of incipience. Zack felt it in the air, a certain heaviness that descended over the spires and narrow, cobbled avenues. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he stood in front of the noisy café. As he watched, the faces of onlookers morphed into pixilated anonymity. He experienced a rush of strange nostalgia as the sky over Prague grew metallic, strewn with listing spheres and half-glimpsed workstation icons. His muscles tightened and the noise of conversation and scuttling cars blurred into the sound of electronic surf, pounding endlessly against the shores of his consciousness.<br />
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A blare of synthesized instruments. Prague had redshifted to a niggling afterimage, and he was alone in a strange green room that smelled of discreetly rotting vegetation. A barbed device, looking something like a spider as conceived by an aspiring surrealist, detached itself from his scalp, leaving a constellation of reddened impressions.<br />
A voice: familiar, unwanted: "Welcome home, Zack."<br />
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He sagged into a mattress of gengineered lichen that buoyed his limbs and spine as if offering him up for sacrifice. His ears buzzed. He could still taste coffee. The spider-interface dangled above his head, twinkling mockingly in the glow of the room's diagnostic screens.<br />
"Lights," he heard himself say. "Turn on the damned lights."<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94SaSyr9Hhk/XUxnKLzYKyI/AAAAAAAAJy8/ZGzkL2TcyScChXi5lavU0EvsHnj57eHBwCLcBGAs/s1600/mac%2B19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="783" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94SaSyr9Hhk/XUxnKLzYKyI/AAAAAAAAJy8/ZGzkL2TcyScChXi5lavU0EvsHnj57eHBwCLcBGAs/s400/mac%2B19.jpg" width="400" /></a>The room erupted in yellow light, emitted from organelles embedded in the walls and ceiling. The room was alive; in fact, it appeared to have grown more verdant in his long sensory absence. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. There had been fear of native biota wrecking the <i>Isis'</i> genetic architecture, leaving the ship an undifferentiated blob of metal and biomass hovering between stars.<br />
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Elsewhere, he knew -- or, more accurately, sensed -- his crewmates awakening in dimly glowing rooms of their own. The metal spider curled its limbs into a somehow dangerous-looking sphere and drifted on a tether of fiber-optic cable. For the first time, he noticed the microgravity; the only thing keeping him from ascending was the mattress' faintly adhesive embrace. He freed his arms and watched his thin, colorless hands with the studied patience of a forensic scientist happening across some vital and mysterious piece of evidence.<br />
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He hadn't used his body in... 203 years, ship time? Unless something had gone wrong... but the voice had said "welcome home," hadn't it? A chill raced down his spine as he considered the possibility of software corruption. Two centuries of exposure to interstellar space could have plunged the AI into a lethally premature senility.<br />
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- An excerpt of an untitled, unfinished science fiction short by Mac Tonnies published in this January, 2008 blog <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2008/01/virtual-worlds-to-keep-martian.html" target="_blank">post</a>.<br />
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The Dog Days of summer are upon us and, here in the States, all the murder and mayhem that traditionally is said to occur during the months of July and August is in full force. August is also the month of Mac's birthday and the time I make my yearly pilgrimage to his blog and Flickr pages in search of inspiration; some new thing that brings Mac back - if only for an instant - endowing this memorial with a tenuous foothold in the process of time.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PNdLRQfQWMA/XUx_GpRt2XI/AAAAAAAAJzI/z6iO4sjMFg8jOMs80ivBv5gy7XsQIYx-gCLcBGAs/s1600/mac%2B19%2Bf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="721" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PNdLRQfQWMA/XUx_GpRt2XI/AAAAAAAAJzI/z6iO4sjMFg8jOMs80ivBv5gy7XsQIYx-gCLcBGAs/s400/mac%2B19%2Bf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And, I am never disappointed; each time I am mysteriously led to posts and photos that I may have merely overlooked in the past but which <u>seem</u> as if I'm seeing them for the first time. Both quotes - and (at least) 3 of the photos posted above - I can swear I've never seen before. The little oddity shown directly above I <u>have</u> seen before but I'm quite sure it wasn't there 9 years ago. The next-to-the-last photograph - a mirror image of Mac shooting photos in a tattoo parlor - is especially eerie to me. How could I have missed that? What's really odd is that in the photo he appears to have tattooed forearms. Is this even possible? Maybe it's just me - always a distinct possibility - but, then, strange thoughts come to my head. And, they're not original. What if, for instance, time <u>is</u> a continuum and, within the process of time, the past continues and the future is already occurring... and each has the ability to change the other? In other words, changes occur across the board... and, maybe, all these new artifacts archaeologists keep finding <u>are</u> new!</div>
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And, (maybe) Mac Tonnies has recently tattooed his forearms.<br />
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<i>"About a year ago I was in a deplorably ill-conceived suburban coffee-shop sipping espresso and using one of the complimentary computers (which, remarkably, hadn't been trashed by viruses). I struck up a longish conversation with a girl on the adjacent terminal (mostly about subjects covered by this blog, which I was busily updating).</i><br />
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<i>At one point I casually mentioned that the shop in which we were sitting would probably wind up as a bona-fide archaeological site within the next thirty years. I don't think she liked the sound of that, because the conversation ended shortly thereafter.</i><br />
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<i>But hey, she asked."</i><br />
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- Mac Tonnies from this January 26, 2008 blog <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2008/01/ruins-of-unsustainable-ive-been.html" target="_blank">post</a>.</div>
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-51892597844458319832019-07-07T22:17:00.000-06:002019-07-08T21:30:13.350-06:00A Red Ale for a Red Planet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2f78RxG0B_0/XPyHdFKdJrI/AAAAAAAAJmI/jTa8rC_Gq7ECLCUDlf2FJiYSHtlrcHVVwCLcBGAs/s1600/phobos%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="850" height="483" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2f78RxG0B_0/XPyHdFKdJrI/AAAAAAAAJmI/jTa8rC_Gq7ECLCUDlf2FJiYSHtlrcHVVwCLcBGAs/s640/phobos%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The label for Phobos beer - released as a seasonal ale in 2015 by<br />the <a href="http://eclipticbrewing.com/" target="_blank">Ecliptic Brewing Co.</a> based in Oregon.</span></td></tr>
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<i>"Hopped entirely with citrusy, tropical Azacca hops, Phobos is named after the Martian moon that circles the Red Planet. Eight types of malts were used to give this beer a deep caramel flavor and rich red color that would make Old Man Mars proud. Phobos finishes creamy and smooth."</i><br />
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- Commercial description for Phobos single hop red ale found <a href="https://untappd.com/b/ecliptic-brewing-phobos-single-hop-red-ale/636672" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<i>"Good appearance, dark red-brown with foamy head. The aroma is mild earthiness, not a whole lot there. The taste is much more complex. Chocolate, spice, alcohol, caramel, bread, a bitter finish. A bit of citrus in the taste. This is an odd, but satisfying beer. For a single hop beer, I expected the hops to be the focus, but Phobos is all about the malt. A lot of chocolate and dark caramel flavors, even a hint of dark fruit. If I was closing my eyes I might even call it a stout. Very tasty overall, just much different than your average red ale."</i><br />
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<i>"22oz bottle served in a tall pub glass. Beer pours surprisingly cola brown in color, merely tinged with red, and forms a thick pillowy foam. Even more surprising is the pronounced coffee malt aroma. I was excited to try this beer because, while I'm not often excited by red ales, I don't think I've ever tasted Azacca hops before, and I approve of single hop brews. There is an edge of hop bitterness here, but it's not the center of this moon's orbit. Instead, this beer is all about a complex and interesting malt profile, with great balance of flavors, roasty and nutty notes of coffee, toffee. Recommended."</i><br />
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- Two reviews of Phobos found <a href="https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33058/182425/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxcVQHYR05c/XSIbc45IgjI/AAAAAAAAJtw/BLMiLkwPLGAdroNspa2inWTBqJu_rWvbwCLcBGAs/s1600/phobos%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="631" height="301" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxcVQHYR05c/XSIbc45IgjI/AAAAAAAAJtw/BLMiLkwPLGAdroNspa2inWTBqJu_rWvbwCLcBGAs/s320/phobos%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>"Phobos is named after the Greek god Phobos, a son of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus) and the personification of fear (cf. phobia). Phobos has also been proposed as an early target for a manned mission to Mars because a landing on Phobos would be considerably less difficult and expensive than a landing on the surface of Mars itself. A lander bound for Mars would need to be capable of atmospheric entry and subsequent return to orbit, without any support facilities (a capacity that has never been attempted in a manned spacecraft), or would require the creation of support facilities in-situ (a "colony or bust" mission); a lander intended for Phobos could be based on equipment designed for lunar and asteroid landings. Additionally, the delta-v to land on Phobos and return is only 80% of that for a trip to and from the surface of the Moon, partly due to Phobos's very weak gravity."</i><br />
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- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)" target="_blank">Phobos</a>, where both photos of the Martian moon were sourced.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0OlbGKvMzc/XSIfvG3_EhI/AAAAAAAAJt8/Yu8poiDLoeE8DFABMt9Qw06wAgoAr-j2wCLcBGAs/s1600/phobos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="792" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0OlbGKvMzc/XSIfvG3_EhI/AAAAAAAAJt8/Yu8poiDLoeE8DFABMt9Qw06wAgoAr-j2wCLcBGAs/s400/phobos.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A close-up of Phobos. Note the weird, white "stretch mark" pattern </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">on the foreground surface, right above an oddly blurred area.</span></td></tr>
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<i>"Mars has two natural satellites: Deimos and Phobos; the latter orbits Mars closer than any other moon orbiting the other planets in the solar system, and it’s currently undergoing a process known as orbital decay.</i><br />
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<i>In short, this means that Phobos is slowly drifting closer to Mars over time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has an impact on the gravitational pull between Mars and Phobos. As this tug strengthens, the tidal forces exerted on Phobos are increased, and this quite literally tears the moon apart.</i><br />
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<i>Phobos’ surface is covered in strange lines, and according to planetary scientists, these are ‘stretch marks’ that result from the tidal forces that are being exerted on the moon as it orbits Mars. If the moon’s orbital decay continues at its current rate, then the moon could be destroyed in the next several million years, resulting in a planetary ring around Mars."</i><br />
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- Excerpt from this June, 2019 article: <i><a href="https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/14943/prevent-phobos-inevitable-demise" target="_blank">Can We Prevent Phobos' Inevitable Demise?</a></i><br />
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Well, Phobos (the beer) has been around for 4 years, but I never heard of it till recently. But the minute I did, well, it goes without saying... (Thanks, BG!)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CTK59vfV9FQ/XSKprizpSdI/AAAAAAAAJuY/xtxYtZUIz1c6XdPolY47-KkPUpEx1WB3wCEwYBhgL/s1600/slide%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="255" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CTK59vfV9FQ/XSKprizpSdI/AAAAAAAAJuY/xtxYtZUIz1c6XdPolY47-KkPUpEx1WB3wCEwYBhgL/s200/slide%2B1.jpg" width="163" /></a>In spite of the photo <i>inset left</i>, Mac wasn't actually much of a beer-drinker... coffee was his drink of choice... morning, noon, and night. But, something tells me he would've loved this ale even if only for the label. Then again, who knows, some people think it has a "coffee-malt aroma"... he might've become a fan!<br />
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Needless to say, there hasn't been anything particularly earth-shattering in the news these days... a tease here and there... but mostly just recycled old stuff. For instance, I recently saw an article which claims that there's been a "Parallel universe breakthrough." See <a href="http://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-physicist-is-testing-for-a-parallel-universe-the-mirrorverse/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/05/23/could-parallel-universes-be-physically-real/" target="_blank">here</a>. Big Think has an <a href="https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/scientists-find-what-could-be-the-first-proof-of-parallel-universes" target="_blank">article</a> about it, too. But, then I notice <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2017/may/17/multiverse-have-astronomers-found-evidence-of-parallel-universes" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> was reporting something similar last year. The most interesting bit I found was actually <a href="https://www.labroots.com/trending/videos/9437/we-may-have-discovered-parallel-universe" target="_blank">news</a> in 2014:<br />
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<i>"New data suggests that it may be plausible that one of those parallel universes could be bumping into ours. The ESA's Planck telescope has discovered very bright light at the edge of our universe that really shouldn't be there. It's brighter than we would expect it to be, and the idea is that the light could be spilling in from another parallel universe bumping into ours."</i><br />
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Well, at least <i>that</i> sounds fairly cosmic.<br />
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I'll comfort myself with the thought that somewhere out there in the multiverse - and maybe right this minute - Mac is nursing a mug of Phobos.</div>
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-71920308243984393772019-05-30T15:20:00.000-06:002019-10-09T20:19:30.549-06:00The Day of the Jellyfish<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>Birthday Cake</i> by <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali" target="_blank">Salvador Dali</a>? No, a "Flower Hat" jellyfish by Mother Nature.<br /><i>(Click-on images for enlargements.)</i></span></td></tr>
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I was'nt planning on posting these lovelies till June 1st, but it appears neither they (nor my muse) could wait. And, no, one doesn't question these things. So, here they are from top to bottom: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_hat_jelly" target="_blank">Flower Hat jelly</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysaora_achlyos" target="_blank">Black Sea Nettle</a>, and the ultra-violet Halitrephes jelly (often referred to online as the "Fireworks" jelly). The first two photos were sourced from this <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/10-cool-things-you-didnt-know-about-jellyfish" target="_blank">article</a> in which we learn:<br />
<br />
<i>"Scientists have discovered jellyfish fossil snapshots in rocks believed to be more than 500 million years old. That makes them even older than dinosaurs!"</i><br />
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W10eVP39L9w/XPAehhOJ2AI/AAAAAAAAJjo/ZeCVDZs6aMAKQDAPJROBqd8wlKXp0lBPACLcBGAs/s1600/new%2Bjellyfish%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="1083" height="238" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W10eVP39L9w/XPAehhOJ2AI/AAAAAAAAJjo/ZeCVDZs6aMAKQDAPJROBqd8wlKXp0lBPACLcBGAs/s400/new%2Bjellyfish%2B3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/aguichard/" target="_blank">Aurelien Guichard</a></span></td></tr>
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Which kind of alerts us to the possibility that jellyfish know things that we don't! The thing is, allegedly, jellyfish do not have brains. But, then again, it sort of appears as if jellyfish <u>are</u> brains... alien brains, but brains nonetheless.<br />
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And, don't argue with me.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z2yFAk792dg/XPAfI5-IdyI/AAAAAAAAJjw/2QitlL6xChkZAxhqWbApQs-JzD-lvMNaQCLcBGAs/s1600/new%2Bjellyfish%2B6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="1089" height="237" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z2yFAk792dg/XPAfI5-IdyI/AAAAAAAAJjw/2QitlL6xChkZAxhqWbApQs-JzD-lvMNaQCLcBGAs/s400/new%2Bjellyfish%2B6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The <a href="https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20180111-halitrephes-jelly/" target="_blank"><i>Halitrephes</i> jelly</a>.</span></td></tr>
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Speaking of aliens, however, while searching around for the most amazing jellyfish I could find, I found this article: <a href="http://thelivingsky.com/the-sky-is-alive/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The Sky is Alive; Are Many UFOs Atmospheric Creatures?</a>, a reposting of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2013/nov/11/fortean-times-covers" target="_blank">Fortean Times</a> article. If you go there - and you should - you'll find a photo of a UFO flying over Denmark in 1974 which looks, well, exactly like an airborne jellyfish. So, <u>are</u> some UFOs atmospheric organisms? I don't know... but, I once created a tiny planet which did have an ocean-like atmosphere and did have weird marine-like creatures flying around.<br />
Anyway, it's a cool concept whether technically true or not.*<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, here's a great <a href="https://me.me/i/sixpenceee-halitrephes-maasi-is-a-species-of-deep-sea-jellyfish-ea4672084cc04648a53101e794287716" target="_blank">clip</a> of the Halitrephes-in-motion. For more jellyfish images, try this <a href="https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/extraordinary-jellyfish-species" target="_blank">page</a>.</div>
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* On the topic of UFOs, here are 2 excerpts from a May 27 CBS News article: <i><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-pilots-ufo-reports-confirmed-new-york-times-military-unidentified-flying-object/" target="_blank">U.S. Navy pilots reportedly spotted UFOs over East Coast</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"Some U.S. Navy pilots reported seeing unidentified flying objects while training over the East Coast in 2014 and 2015 in interviews with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.htm" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. According to The Times, multiple Navy pilots spotted "strange objects" with "no visible engine" reaching 30,000 feet and going hypersonic speeds...</i><br />
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<i>According to the report, the pilots who reported the aerial phenomena "speculated that the objects were part of some classified and extremely advanced drone program." In another instance, one pilot told Lt. Graves that he "almost hit one of those things" and that he described it as looking 'like a sphere encasing a cube.'"</i><br />
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Of course, like much UFO news, this story comes out years after the fact. In this case, five years. Oh well. CNN also has an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/05/29/pilots-speak-out-on-ufo-sightings-jeanne-moos-ebof-vpx.cnn" target="_blank">interview</a>.<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-15314692653689759422019-05-22T23:13:00.000-06:002019-05-26T22:08:36.853-06:00Vale, Stanton Friedman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mac Tonnies and Stan Friedman at the 2006<br /><i>New Frontiers Symposium</i> in Halifax, Nova Scotia.</span></td></tr>
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<i>"The American-born nuclear physicist turned full-time UFO investigator - or ufologist - never actually spotted a flying saucer himself in more than six decades of research on the subject... But UFO believers and enthusiasts around the world held him in high regard, and he gave more than 700 lectures titled “Flying Saucers Are Real” at institutions in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and elsewhere over the course of his career.</i><br />
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<i>Throughout his career, Friedman was aggressive about his beliefs and always claimed to have an answer to whatever question the “debunkers” - as he often referred to UFO skeptics - could throw at him. One of his most famous sayings was: “Don't be an apologist ufologist.”</i><br />
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<i>The editor of UFO Truth Magazine, Gary Heseltine, described Friedman as the 'greatest ufologist of all time.'"</i><br />
<br />
- Excerpt from a Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/renowned-ufo-scientist-stanton-friedman-who-told-students-dont-be-apologist-1430213" target="_blank">article</a> reporting on the passing of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_T._Friedman" target="_blank">Stanton Friedman</a>, May 13th of this year.<br />
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<i>"Despite intermittent correspondence and having read his books, I'd never actually seen Stan Friedman in person until the Symposium. It was worth the wait. Stan's a virtuoso speaker and makes a provocative case against both the "SETI cultists" (his term -- and an apt one) and the "noisy negativists" who deride the possibility that some UFOs could very well be extraterrestrial craft. Regardless of your take on the Roswell incident, one of Friedman's pet cases, there are few, if any, rational arguments against his modest proposition that technological progress comes from doing things in unexpected ways."</i><br />
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- Mac Tonnies from an October 18, 2006 PHB <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2006/10/halifax-photos-2-despite-intermittent.html" target="_blank">post</a>.<br />
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<i>"In "TOP SECRET/MAJIC," Friedman provides a detailed examination of the Roswell UFO crash and subsequent cover-up, challenging the reader with an exhaustive analysis of the "MJ-12" documents: apparent TOP SECRET documents detailing security procedures in the wake of the Roswell Incident. Friedman also tears into the criticisms of arch-debunkers Philip Klass and Carl Sagan. "TOP SECRET/MAJIC" includes the never-before-published "SOM1-01" MJ-12 manual, an apparent "field guide" to extraterrestrial crash recovery leaked to writer Don Berliner ("Crash at Corona"). Friedman remains a voice worth hearing."</i><br />
<br />
- Mac's review of Stanton Friedman's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-Majic-Stanton-Friedman/dp/1569248303" target="_blank">TOP SECRET/ MAJIC</a> </i>found on his website page: <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/mactonniescom/ufobooks.html" target="_blank">UFO Book Reviews</a>.<br />
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<i>"Paul Kimball's posted another <a href="https://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2007/09/stan-friedman-on-project-blue-book.html" target="_blank">excellent clip</a> of ufologist Stan Friedman. While I agree with Friedman on relatively little when it comes to the nature and ultimate meaning of specific UFO encounters (such as Roswell or the Hill abduction), his ability to cast light on the bureaucratic and media implications of the phenomenon in general is always engaging. I saw him speak (for free) last year and would gladly pay to see him again -- even knowing I'd find myself objecting to many of his conclusions."</i><br />
<br />
- Mac Tonnies from a September 07, 2007 PHB <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2007/09/paul-kimballs-posted-another-excellent.html" target="_blank">post</a>.<br />
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I was over at <a href="http://radiomisterioso.com/" target="_blank">Radio Misterioso</a> earlier today and was sad when I read Greg Bishop's most recent posting and learned of Stan Friedman's death. (See: <i><a href="http://radiomisterioso.com/2019/05/15/stanton-friedman-recollections/" target="_blank">Stanton Friedman - Recollections</a></i>.) It's like the official ending of an era... the "Old Guard" of early UFO researchers who, on occasion, still let slip antiquated terms like "flying saucer."<br />
<br />
But, I think few would deny that Stanton Friedman will always be remembered as one of the Greats of ufology and, in my eyes, he was the first person - a former physicist - to give any real credibility to UFOs. 20 years ago he was <u>the</u> go-to guy for any serious discussion regarding extraterrestrials - on television or otherwise. In other words, it was men like Stan who brought the subject of UFOs to the public's attention.<br />
<br />
Mac always admired and respected Stan, and I sensed that, regardless of their differences of opinion, he felt a type of affection for him. Stanton Friedman had a great investigative mind, wit, and a sense of humor that will be missed in the field of ufology.<br />
<br />
(Happy trails to you, Mr. Friedman.)<br />
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<br />
(Of note: Nick Redfern has also posted about Stan <a href="http://nickredfernfortean.blogspot.com/2019/05/rip-stanton-friedman.html" target="_blank">here</a>. And Paul Kimball announced Stan's <a href="https://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2018/03/stan-friedman-retires.html" target="_blank">retirement</a> last year with a review of his long career. Incidentally, Mac's cartoon which appears on the cover of the second Posthuman Blues <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Posthuman-Blues-Vol-dispatches-dissolution/dp/0991697561/ref=pd_sim_14_1/138-5250771-2420006?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0991697561&pd_rd_r=e07ce6b8-7cfe-11e9-aff7-7b8b27abc5ce&pd_rd_w=ZwDbv&pd_rd_wg=qWzhR&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=NK8WZAG1HYMRC8K10G54&psc=1&refRID=NK8WZAG1HYMRC8K10G54" target="_blank">compilation</a> is a caricature of Stan and can also be found <a href="https://araqinta.blogspot.com/2011/03/two-mac-toons-from-vaults.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
(Additional links - 5/23/2019.) I had reason to use the library computers today and finally got to visit my old favorite site, the <a href="https://www.dailygrail.com/" target="_blank">Daily Grail</a>. My obsolete computer system prevents me from visiting about 50% of what's on the web now. Anyway, while there I found a nice tribute to Stan Friedman by <a href="https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/05/rip-stanton-friedman-1934-2019/" target="_blank">Red Pill Junkie</a> from May 15th, and news of another tribute by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/obituaries/stanton-friedman-dead.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a> (which I also can't access anymore). (BTW, guys, love that new DG logo of yours... and if it isn't new, well, then I guess I've been away too long.)<br />
<br />
(Recently found at Mysterious Universe: <a href="https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/05/legendary-physicist-and-ufo-researcher-stanton-friedman-dies-at-85/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Legendary Physicist and UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman Dies at 84</a>.)<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-74939627865225656162019-05-04T15:09:00.003-06:002019-05-04T15:16:20.849-06:00The Message is Clear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4dO8cK9JzLo/XM372a9GvII/AAAAAAAAJfg/06pDXu47HNgTr-ShEQ15HnTgQCV6o7sDgCLcBGAs/s1600/dodson%2B19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="485" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4dO8cK9JzLo/XM372a9GvII/AAAAAAAAJfg/06pDXu47HNgTr-ShEQ15HnTgQCV6o7sDgCLcBGAs/s320/dodson%2B19.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a>Just visited the Art Shaman's <a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Shop</a> and had so much fun, I thought I thought I'd share it with you.</div>
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Never been to Roswell, New Mexico? I haven't, and I live in NM. Anyway, well, now here's your big <a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/2019/04/scenes-from-roswell-new-mexico.html" target="_blank">chance</a>!</div>
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Meanwhile, BG's doing some great new stuff; ancient future artifacts he refers to as <i><b>Isotopic Icons</b></i> (starting <a href="https://artshaman.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-few-new-pieces.html" target="_blank">here</a>). There's something very, shall we say, hermetic about these figures... and prescient. In many ways we might very well be seeing a resurgence of hermeticism in the near future. It isn't as if the world is going backwards; it's merely going to a new level... a new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon_(Thelema)" target="_blank">Aeon</a>. So, if things really look like hell for awhile - and this is nothing new - don't be alarmed, the Ouroboros is just shedding its skin.</div>
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But, ssshhhh, keep it under your hat.</div>
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Preferably, one of these...</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Credit for all sculpture and photographs in this post:<br />© 2019, BG Dodson.</span></div>
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No, your eyes do not deceive you... They've landed, and their message is clear: <i>"Have some fun, you foolish earthlings!"</i></div>
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-19795735296749406372019-04-10T17:05:00.001-06:002019-07-08T21:34:22.092-06:00Capturing a Massive Black Hole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A halo of gas surrounding a black hole.<br /><i>(Note: this is not an artist's rendering.)</i></span></td></tr>
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<i>"No single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes.</i><br />
<i>Each is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days. The information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to a central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as 'an extraordinary scientific feat.'</i><br />
<i>'We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago,' he said.</i><br />
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<i>Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. 'What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System,' he said. 'It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe.'"</i><br />
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- From the April 10th BBC report: <i><b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592" target="_blank">First ever black hole image released</a></b></i>.<br />
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<br />
<i>"The physicist Stephen Hawking's greatest early-career contribution to physics was the idea of 'Hawking radiation' - that black holes aren't actually black, but emit small amounts of radiation over time. The result was hugely important, because it showed that once a black hole stops growing, it will start to very slowly shrink from the energy loss.</i><br />
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<i>But the Event Horizons Telescope didn't confirm or deny this theory, Bonning said, not that anyone expected it to. Giant black holes like the one in Virgo A, she said, emit only minimal amounts of Hawking radiation compared to their overall size. While our most advanced instruments can now detect the bright lights of their event horizons, there's little chance that they will ever tease out the ultra-dim glow of a supermassive black hole's surface.</i><br />
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<i>So what did we actually learn from this image?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>First, physicists learned that Einstein was right, once again. The edge of the shadow, as far as the Event Horizons Telescope can see, is a perfect circle, just as physicists in the 20th century working with Einstein's equations of general relativity predicted. 'I don't think anyone should be surprised when yet another test of general relativity passes,' Bonning said. 'If they had walked on stage and said that general relativity had broken, I would have fallen off my chair.'</i><br />
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<i>The result with more immediate, practical implications, she said, was that the image enabled scientists to precisely measure the mass of this supermassive black hole, which sits 55 million light-years away at the heart of the Virgo A galaxy."</i><br />
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- From the April 10th LiveScience article: <i><b><a href="https://www.livescience.com/65200-black-hole-event-horizon-image-questions-remain.html" target="_blank">3 Huge Questions the Black Hole Image Didn't Answer</a></b></i>.<br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4930557924300109549.post-26526455250187529662019-02-13T18:41:00.000-07:002019-02-18T18:08:10.768-07:00RIP Opportunity Rover<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo of the Mars Opportunity rover, found on the<br />Opportunity/Spirit Rover's <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/MarsRovers" target="_blank">Twitter page</a>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Credit for photos in this post: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University.</span></td></tr>
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<i><b><a href="https://www.space.com/mars-rover-opportunity-declared-dead.html" target="_blank">Mars Rover Opportunity Is Dead After Record-Breaking 15 Years on Red Planet</a></b></i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"Opportunity roamed the Martian surface for nearly a decade and a half, covering more than a marathon's worth of ground and finding conclusive evidence that the Red Planet hosted large bodies of liquid water in the ancient past. The golf-cart-size rover and its twin, Spirit, also helped bring Mars down to Earth, in the minds of scientists and laypeople alike.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Spirit and Opportunity 'have made Mars a familiar place,' Opportunity project manager John Callas, of JPL, told Space.com last year, a few months after the dust storm flared up. 'When we say, 'our world,' we're no longer just talking about the Earth. We have to include parts of Mars as well.'"</span></div>
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- Excerpt from Space.com's obituary for NASA's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_(rover)" target="_blank">Opportunity Rover</a> (linked-to above) which <a href="https://www.space.com/mars-rover-opportunity-last-nasa-call.html" target="_blank">fell silent</a> in June of last year and, alas, never recovered. Here's NASA's <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8413/nasas-opportunity-rover-mission-on-mars-comes-to-end/" target="_blank">announcement</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cnMHPZOBhy4/XGW9nIr1NhI/AAAAAAAAJVA/2Tc0ZI_Ha2YSciaHZeHytJ7nWxXEN0lUgCLcBGAs/s1600/rip%2Boppy%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="935" height="212" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cnMHPZOBhy4/XGW9nIr1NhI/AAAAAAAAJVA/2Tc0ZI_Ha2YSciaHZeHytJ7nWxXEN0lUgCLcBGAs/s400/rip%2Boppy%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">An early Opportunity Pan-cam shot of Meridiani Planum.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>(Click-on images to enlarge.)</i></span></td></tr>
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<i>"The NASA Rover science team mission was to find evidence of water on Mars. They found it and their proofs, images and scientific analysis were superb and they seemed to have nailed it at 100%.Their mission was not to say, 'Oh, this sort of looks like a fossil, whadidja think?' That's what I am saying here. They can't say that. I notice now that they have found water, their senior scientists are relaxinga bit and will say 'Wouldn't this be a good place to look for fossils? Look how well everything is preserved.'To make a scientifically valuable decision about life on Mars you would have to go there with a gas analysis spectrometer and do counts and ratios for isotope carbon-12 and 13 and look for amino acids and other distinctive biological signatures. Maybe they are waiting for a mission with that kind of equipment or a mission that will return some sample soil and rocks. In any case I congratulate NASA MER team and the American people on their great contribution to planetary science."</i><br />
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- Canadian, Michael Davidson, from his 2004 article: <i><a href="http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~weinberg/mars/" target="_blank">Mars Fossils, Pseudofossils or Problematica?</a></i> (via Posthuman Blues).<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WPK1Yo1nsQs/XGXLElpZ_GI/AAAAAAAAJVM/YLaxMUHfzBkqQ6Z_gHLyM0H6uq2CoH7jwCLcBGAs/s1600/rip%2Boppy%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="601" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WPK1Yo1nsQs/XGXLElpZ_GI/AAAAAAAAJVM/YLaxMUHfzBkqQ6Z_gHLyM0H6uq2CoH7jwCLcBGAs/s320/rip%2Boppy%2B3.jpg" width="300" /></a> "<i>I previously wrote that JPL was developing an anything-but-scientific immunity to the </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">unexpected. Apparently rocks are fair game -- but only if they resemble terrestrial rocks. Rocks with "varnished" surfaces or geometric cavities must be avoided -- perhaps because they look just a bit too organic, like chunks of bone or petrified wood where such things have no business being. Oddly colored snail-shapes are studiously avoided because, in the words of one JPL scientist, taking a close look would "waste precious machine time." He failed to note that the anomaly in question was directly in front of the Opportunity rover, starkly unavoidable. In the scheme of the rover's mission, taking a closer look would have been virtually effortless. Instead, Opportunity was (presumably) steered directly over the strange formation; JPL has taken to literally running over what it can't explain, like a monster truck imperviously crushing a line-up of decrepit cars.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">- Mac Tonnies from a <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2004/02/gurdjieff-most-all-of-us-are-mere.html" target="_blank">February 7, 2004</a> Posthuman Blues post. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Inset right </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">is an Opportunity shot of Erebus Crater found <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/54733/11-photos-opportunity-rovers-decade-mars" target="_blank">here</a>. Other Posthuman Blues posts regarding Opportunity can be found <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2004/02/gurdjieff-most-all-of-us-are-mere.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2007/06/mars-rover-finds-puddles-on-planets.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LOeCSHFS4PA/XGX5iHo78gI/AAAAAAAAJVc/F_qbLn2zHIg8rwc-wEq73AWeKmyGsXkwwCEwYBhgL/s1600/rip%2Boppy%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="518" height="319" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LOeCSHFS4PA/XGX5iHo78gI/AAAAAAAAJVc/F_qbLn2zHIg8rwc-wEq73AWeKmyGsXkwwCEwYBhgL/s320/rip%2Boppy%2B4.jpg" width="320" /></a>Time was when any new data from Mars spawned a whole lot of controversy, and Mac was generally on-board with that. Nothing fell under his radar, so to speak, and, well, we all had a lot of fun hypothesizing about the latest Martian "find." But, those were the good old days. Nowadays, I'm not sure if anybody cares... although I noted there were plenty of nostalgic articles popping up yesterday regarding the passing of the Opportunity rover. Here's a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpQm-CtTLQw" target="_blank">video</a> (via the Washington Post).<br />
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Remember Opportunity's great discovery: the Martian "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_spherules" target="_blank">Blueberries</a>"? Well, they weren't blue, actually... it was just NASA's use of false coloration. As for the name, well it was an effective way of both popularizing them and trivializing them. There were those, however, who thought the odd spherules (inset right) were a sign of <a href="https://www.space.com/42645-mars-blueberries-formation-mystery-earth-analogs.html" target="_blank">water</a> and even <a href="https://phys.org/news/2012-09-martian-blueberries-clues-presence-life.html" target="_blank">life</a>. As it happens, similar small, round concretions exist on earth, too. See this 2018 <a href="http://Martian Blueberries - Revisiting The Odd Spherules of Meridiani Planum" target="_blank">article</a>.<br />
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Anyway, Mac wasn't altogether jaded and truculent when it came to NASA/JPL's press releases. Posted on Posthuman Blues a few days earlier in <a href="http://posthumanblues.com/2004/02/this-panorama-just-might-qualify-as-my.html" target="_blank">February</a> of 2004 (re: his previous quote) was this:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><i>"This <a href="https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/press/opportunity/20040202a/MSPan_B1_2x-B009R1.jpg" target="_blank">panorama</a> just might qualify as my favorite image ever returned from the surface of Mars. At 9 MB, it's big, with an epic quality that's hard to put into words. In the foreground you can see several "crop circles" where the lander's airbags disturbed the surface as it rolled down the incline; it's amusing to think that we're the aliens here, modifying the landscape in ways that would mystify any native onlookers. The protruding bedrock looks suggestively like the ruined vertebrae of some impossible creature, compacted and exhumed by wind. If you look at this image long enough -- and there's plenty to see and contemplate -- you get a vertiginous sense of actually being there that surpasses any virtual reality interface I have yet to sample. This small slice of Mars is redolent with history, infused with a timelessness and mystery that even Earth's natural wonders fail to evoke. In a word: Wow."</i></span><br />
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Dia Sobin (Araqinta)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com0