Faster than Light Speed Travel?

Okay. Really?
"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!"
(Never mind that parsecs are units of distance and not time - oh well, George still made a great movie.)

I know we all want it to be possible. The 'real' theory (not talking Star Trek/Wars here!) is based on an idea by Michael Alcubierre. The propulsion system doesn't really propel the space ship; it would expand space behind the ship and shrink space in front of the ship. The ship would then 'surf' the bubble as it zips through space. It was coined as the "Alcubierre drive."

This idea has been reworked a little (add a sprinkling of dark energy to control the manipulation of spacetime) by Baylor University physicists Gerald Cleaver and graduate student Richard Obousy.

It's an interesting thought experiment. It does seem to escape the problem of Einstein's theory of relativity. The ship is not actually 'moving through space,' but riding the bubble of stationary space. So then no infinite speed requiring an infinite amount of fuel mass.

I'm curious about time. Assuming that this will come to pass as real technology at some point. How will a bubble of space affect the passage of time in and around it?

The idea that space can move faster than light comes from data generated by the WMAP that space expanded faster than the speed of light for a short time after the Big Bang.

Sadly, we won't be able to enjoy the fruits of this theory, unless someone cracks the problem of the human life span. That's a story for another day.

Whole story at Discover.com
Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than Light
by Eric Bland

Story with more detail about how dark energy fits into the picture at SPACE.com
Spaceship Could Fly Faster Than Light
by Jeremy Hsu

How to Use the Three Seashells

Let me preface this by saying I like a lot of movies that others seem to consider bad. Particularly I like Sci Fi, and I like dystopias. I sometimes try to justify my opinion, this time I won't.
I like Demolition Man. I don't like most of Stallone's or Snipes' movies, but this one gets me. I like the dystopia future of San Angles, and the writing is good and humorous.

One of the dialogue jokes in the movie is the mysterious replacement of toilet paper in the bathroom by the use of 3 seashells. The answer is never revealed in the movie. i-Mockery.com seems to have found the missing instruction poster.
How to use the Three Seashells!

Poetry Contests - in general

I'm still getting comments to a post about a suspicious poetry contest I saw in our local paper. Read all posts on this topic.
This is what I replied to the latest:
"In my experience, the only legitimate contests you'll find are through journals and publications that focus on writing. The contests that are putting together 'The World's Best Poetry Book' are scams wanting you to basically pay for publication.
That is different than a readers fee. Ones that employ a readers fee are looking for compensation for their time, money to pool together for the prize, and perhaps a little extra to pay employees at the press. That's not to say that some of those aren't scams either.
I recommend that you always investigate the publication before submitting, just so you know you are getting back thoughtful comments and criticisms. Case in point, go read some of the poems online at poetry.com; most are awful, but no one told the authors that because they are spending money on the hack books cranked out."

If you do submit to these suspicious contests, please leave me some comments or email me and let me know how it resolved. I'm very interested!

Jill Price has an amazing memory

Imagine being able to remember every event, conversation, spelling test, kiss, from the time you were a small child, and be able to recall it at a moments notice. You're thinking, awesome! My spouse wouldn't have a chance, right? Now relive every pain, death, red light, and stubbed toe with the same emotions as if you were living it again. Not so great huh? For Jill Price time doesn't heal any wounds - at least her feelings about them.
Nice article:
An Infinite Loop in the Brain
on Spiegel Online written by Samiha Shafy

Reading it reminded me (ironic, I know) that I heard about Jill Price last spring on NPR. She also has a book out.
NPR story (read or listen) Blessed and Cursed by an Extraordinary Memory

The name of Jill Price's book is The Woman Who Can't Forget.

I was going to link to Amazon but their web site has become ridiculous, and you can find and buy the book anywhere you want to; it's none of my business. It's not like I'm getting a kick back from Amazon or anything like that. Enjoy!

Phoenix was Twittering

Dang! I missed it.
"When NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News Services manager Veronica McGregor was tasked with delivering word of the agency's first-ever robotic landing on Mars during a holiday weekend, she turned to the social-networking Web site."
Read the Discovery story: Phoenix Twittered from Mars!

Carbonated (Fizzy) Fruit

Patrick Buckley, co-author of "The Hungry Scientist Handbook" makes fizzy fruit with dry ice. I wonder if the process would increase the life of the fruit in the fridge?

Sugar in Space

Awesome. A simple sugar compound has been found to exist out in space.
"What's interesting about glycolaldehyde is how easily it combines with a three-carbon sugar to produce ribose, the building blocks of DNA and RNA, which carry genetic information for living things. "
Yum.
Read more at Discovery.com

Poetry Contest part 3 - The Saga Continues

This is a follow up to Poetry Contest part 2
A couple of weeks ago I received mail from The International Library of Poetry (poetry.com) giving me access to an exclusive offer.

I knew it was a mistake giving them my mailing address…

Apparently my poem has made it into the semi-finals in their “International Open Poetry Contest.” Yay, I’m not surprised, and it’s not because I’m confident in my ability (I’ve haven’t won a single contest entered). They want some of my scratch.

They sent a proof for me to look over and correct. There is one small typo on a quotation mark that wasn’t in the text I submitted; I know because I looked at it closely before I submitted it online. Besides, the quotation mark was there on the website when they tried to get me to buy a friggin’ plaque (See the screen capture from my post, Poetry Contest part 2). Also, I use the word “Hell”, and they changed it to “H***”. Really? I thought this was poetry for adults, not a children’s book.

Their saving grace (that speaks to a false sense of genuineness) is a disclaimer statement that says I have no obligation to send any money; my poem is still in the running. However, the typos seem to urge me to contact them. Hmm, what to do?

Let me bring to light the offers involved. First they offer me the opportunity to preorder the compilation ($49.95 plus $9.00 s&h) in which I would be printed, should I win, “Immortal Verses” - barf - that is an awful title. Previous compilation titles include, “The Promise of Dawn”, “A Symphony of Verse”, and “Tranquil Rains of Summer”. Does it get any worse than the tranquil rains of summer? It was a dark and stormy night…

But there are more offers to offer. Because I’m new to the International Society of Poetry I can order a “Limited Edition Protective Slipcover” embossed with gold leaf, with or without my name engraved on it. That’s $19.95 each, plus $5.00 s&h or with my name $25.95 plus $5.00 s&h.

Also along with the corrected proof, I have the additional opportunity to add an “Artist’s Profile”, basically a bio. However, in the final printed book, since the poem is set to take up one page, the bio must be printed on an opposing page at a nominal fee (at an undisclosed cost).

I suppose that I will return the corrected proof and see what happens. What else could they offer me? Engrave my poem onto a gold plate and shoot it into space? I might like that. I’ll post here the results…stay tuned.

CAPTCHA options

I've been looking at CAPTCHA option for a variety of reasons recently. For example:

• captcha.net
• recaptcha.net

What's CAPTCHA, you ask? You're not a webmaster are you? Okay, here's the wikipedia article on CAPTCHA. If you're also wondering what C-A-P-T-C-H-A stands for, it's in the article. BTW, I'll write a post on Alan Turing someday; he was truly a man thinking into the future.

I wasn't really intending to educate you about them. But, basically it's that wavy, blurry word thing that you have to type in to prove you're not a crappy spam bot.

So back to my original point, I've been testing a few of these do-dads and got the follow two words to type. No faking, this is a screen capture:



So what does that look like to you?

Icky thought of the day

In my facebook account, minding my own business, I see an advertisement for "Tired of Shaving?", I think yeah, I am. However, they're not talking about a guy's face. Icky + Shallow. Besides, do you see how blonde that guy is? I bet he doesn't even have to shave his face much less his pecks. Now think of Robin Williams; I bet he's tired of shaving. There's your icky thought of the day with my compliments. Enjoy. Screen shot:

Intellagirl talks about Social Media Implications

Featured Speaker : Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future
You can learn a lot from Social Media and it has a big roll in learning, but would you want your doctor or bridge engineer to get their knowledge from Wikipedia? Higher Ed. still has an important roll in the future!
Watch and listen to what Sarah has to say...

Speaking of Mashups...

The Educause web site has a blog, flickr & twitter aggregater pulling Educause tagged content from the web. Neat!
Even neater, it found my post! That page will pass away after a while, but my screen capture will last forever. Warm fuzzies...

Educause 2008 - day 2 - Star Trek Camelot Mashup

Mash it up - awesome!

Educause 2008 Ramachandran talk URL

http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted5/Viewer/?peid=d45a2cd8e48346daaba953453f3b1c56#

I was having a little trouble viewing the video, but that could be the million and one geeks on the wireless network here ;)

Educause 2008 - day 1

I attended a seminar at Educause 2008 today: "Millennials and Web 2.0: 'Prosumer' Education in Practice" long title but great presenters, AJ Kelton and Sarah Robbins-Bell (intellagirl)
I've been to a few web 2.0 presentations over the last few years and intella-g knows her stuff. I've borrowed a few of her ideas and recommendations for web2 at my Uni.
Hey, she actually gave me a good reason for this anti-social, (actually I profess as my religion to be a 'radical individualist') to use Twitter...
If that's not a good speaker, then I haven't heard one.

Vilayanur Ramachandran talking at Educause 2008

Vilayanur Ramachandran is giving a talk similar to this TED Talk, on Wednesday morning at Educause this year in Orlando, Fl. I get to go, and I'm so excited; this doc is an awesome presenter and studies fantastic anomalies of the human brain.

Sweet! I'll try to post after the talk...so I can gloat about how amazing it was.

Poetry Contest part 2

As a follow up to a post "Poetry Contest" on Oct 5, I receive a comment from BEANS and CORN with a link to a poetry contest on Poetry.com. I feel like I'm doing a disservice to any reader by actually posting the link, but since it is so easy to find, there you go anyway. (Search for "poetry contest" on Google and it's the first sponsored link and the second regular link that shows.)

So, I'm a bit cynical about poetry contest, especially online and mail order, so I decided to explore this one a bit further. So I picked an old poem and submitted it. They wanted my name, address, email, etc.; assuming that I won something, they would need my address to mail it to me right? That's not so unusual; besides I read through their privacy statement and they plan on sharing my address with others that want to send me offers. Typical. I'm sure I'll be getting Viagra offers by mail soon.

Before I go on, let me tell you about the dead-ringer, this is a load crap, scam indicator. On the submit page, the page linked above, there is a "Need Help Rhyming?" button link. No shit, for real. That tells you right there that only real poets come here to submit their fine work. (that was sarcasm) Do you think for one second that if you need help rhyming that you should be submitting poetry here? Don't be gullible! That's how these jerk-wads make easy money.

Also they seen to have a weird copyright clause that states "...I understand that it will be published on the Internet as my original work and under my own copyright by The International Library of Poetry (Poetry.com). The community of poets who use this forum for self-expression will also be able to view and share my poem, always as my original work and under my own copyright in the various ways described on this website."

That's why I sent them an old poem that I'd given up on getting published. Anyway so once I agreed that the poem was my original work and is own by me, etc., I clicked submit. This is where the hook-in-the-mouth happens. The next screen tells that my poem has been "selected to receive the honor" of being glued to a plaque for only $39.00. AH-HA, boing! This is the scam part. In addition to the plaque-crap they also would like "to extend to you some very special reward benefits created just for you." Barf, gag, speew!

People, please don't fall for this crap. It doesn't matter how good or bad your poetry is, they will sell you shit on a shingle as long as you are buying. Only submit your work to reputable publications. Do some research before you waste so much as a stamp. Go to your local book store and look for publications printed at universities or well known journals like The Atlantic.

Here is a screen shot of the "congrats you just submitted a poem page" from Poetry.com. The red outlined boxes I added over my name. They pull your name from the form on the previous page and personalize this page. So as to be fair and let you make up your own mind (I mean who am I, right? I'm not so great; I've only had 2 poems published in twelve years of trying and they weren't even in The Atlantic, they were in Poesia, and I didn't get any money for them.) I say take a writing class at your local community college and see how you do. Or put up your own poetry blog and see what kind of attention you get. People online are fiercely truthful; they won't lie to you and try to sell you a plaque. What...do you think that you've written the next Footprints? You deserve to be on a plaque, and posters, and keychains, and air freshiners? If you want the truth about your writing skills be sure you are ready to take it. Grow your skin thick. You're no Footprints.

Otherwise, buy a frigging plaque and give it to your grandmother and make her smile, because that's all the praise you'll ever get.

Ultra Deep Field Image by Hubble Telescope

This is awesome. This is a zoomable image of the deepest field image yet taken by the Hubble Telescope.
The exposure time was a cumulative time of 11.3 days during the span from Sept 24, 2003 - Jan 16, 2004.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a/format/zoom/

While you are viewing it think about what you are seeing. These galaxies are not as they are now; but you are seeing them as they were "between 400 and 800 million years...after the big bang."
Now consider that the universe is between 12 and 14 billion years (source: map.gsfc.nasa.gov) and you are seeing the extreme past. Doing the math with the average of both numbers, imaging that the universe is currently a person between 21 and 22 years of age. Now image that you could look at them through a telescope from far away and see them as they were when they were 1 year old. Wow!
"This will hold the record as the deepest-ever view of the universe until ESA, together with NASA, launches the James Webb Space Telescope in 2011."
- I can hardly wait...

Faschionism

It’s time to coin a new word.

Faschionism [fas-shun-nizum]
-noun
The meeting of fashion and fascism. Extreme totalitarian adherence to the current manner of dress.

New for the cold and flu season, the DVD Nap Pauser.

The DVD Nap Pauser.

When you are sick and in the recliner watching your favorite DVD do you ever nod off and miss 20-30mins? Then you have to rewind and try to remember where you were?

You've seen this feature on fine European luxury cars, if you get sleepy and your head tilts forward, a sensor notices and beeps to wake you up.

This function has been adapted into the DVD Nap Pauser; if your head tilts forward or if your gaze strays for more than 30secs, the DVD Nap Pauser will automatically pause your DVD player. And your movie will be ready for you to resume when you wake up! Easy as hooking up a web cam; plugs directly into the back of your DVD player.

Like magic, but real!

(Patent pending)

The Body Odd blog

The Body Odd blog has some interesting posts about body and health related topics.
The one that caught my searching eye was (Does your nose grow with age?) that negated the belief that ears and noses continued to grow as we get older. I had always heard that as fact. The truth of the matter is that the collagen and elastin in our skin breaks down and succumbs to gravity.
So take heart when our civilization finally becomes space bound and leaves this planet, our skin will stay young, taut, and supple long into old age. However, that will be at the price of our bone density, and after a certain amount of time we will never be able to walk again. Eh, a decent trade off to stay young.
That makes me think of people in extended comas. In the movies, people who wake from extended comas never go through physical therapy to recover from their atrophied muscles. But in reality extensive measures must be taken to prevent permanent deformity (drugs, passive exercise, and passive supported standing can help). Christoper Reeves was trying to prevent his muscles from permanently atrophying in hopes of regaining muscular control. I know he wasn't in a coma, but he was suffering from the same inactive body problems. Rest easy big guy.

Poetry Contest

In our Sunday paper my wife found an advertisement for a "Poetry Contest with $100,000 in Prizes Awarded Annually!"
There is no company or publishing house mentioned at all--suspicious! The mailing address is simply:
Poety Contest
Editor 210-3
305 Madison Ave.
Suite 449
New York, NY 10165

I'm wagering that this is one of those scams where they tell you how wonderful your work is and offer to publish it in an anthology if only you'll send them $49.95 - a sweet deal for a nave. Still I plan on mailing something in and exploring the scam, because I'm curious. I'll post the results here.

Thanks again Mr. Bush

Banks and investment groups are failing because of their own greed and you want to write them a blank check - for how many billions?
So once again the American people suffer. We pay for your war; we pay for your mistakes; we pay for your greed; we pay for your ignorance. History will not be kind to your administration – rightly so.

Let go and let...

If you live in a primarily Christian society, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Let go, and let God.” I have always taken the meaning of this to be don’t worry so much about micromanaging your life because bad/good things will happen that you can’t possibly predict and therefore have any control over. You should trust that God is looking out for you; accept his will and go on with your life.
There’s a very Buddhist feeling to that. You can remove God from that sentiment and plug in the ‘Universe,’ not in the sense that the Universe is interested controlling any aspect of Human fate, but that the Universe is what it is and has no concerns or motives.

Let go and let universe

I bring this up because happiness (as least for me) is something I struggle with. Yes, I know I ended my sentence with a preposition; let go grammarians. It is all of the little and big aggravations of daily life that take away my awareness of why I should be happy--or at least not so bothered and annoyed (see the previous post about fairness).

I think that the key is detachment from the world in which we were conditioned to exist; the world that was constructed by our predecessors. I’m not talking about running away to the jungle, living naked and eating berries. It’s similar to the way that Buddhists and Christians are taught to live; it’s a matter of focus.

<begin aside>The teaching of Buddhism and Christianity are the most familiar to me. I have studied both. When I refer to the teaching, I am referring to the ‘ideals’ put forth, not the actual Buddhists or Christians walking and breathing. In my experience the real world practitioners are less than ideal. <end aside>

The teachings instruct to focus beyond this life; that this life is less important than the existence after death. By accepting that and setting our focus beyond the ‘pettiness’ of this world, we can live a happier life, less bothered by the problems humanity.

To me it seems unfortunate that an afterlife (of sorts) has to be postulated in order to deal with the here and now. I know that in Buddhism there is no afterlife like that of the Christians, but there is an ‘after-this-place’ that serves a similar function at least for my point. I am trying to consider focus in my personal philosophy. Instead of focus after this life, I am trying to focus on this life as a whole.

To do this a level of detachment from the emotions caused by annoyances must be maintained. Emotions confine us to the here and now like nothing else in our lives. (On reflection, perhaps pain concretes our feet to the here and now more than even emotions—but emotions can be controlled). If I can focus (or at least be aware) beyond the here and now, then perhaps I can assess the individual annoyances against the whole and then, perhaps, I can let them go more easily.

Let go and let happy

The concept of Fairness

The concept of fairness is difficult for me to let go. The idea is of course a construct of humans. It sprang from our desire to make some sense of the world around us. Likewise, I think religion came from the same place, and perhaps it is the source of the concept of what is fair.
The universal forces act as they act, regardless of human feelings or concepts. So if we cannot expect fair treatment from the extraneous world then at least we *should* be able to expect it from other like minded people. That is if only they can see past their personal need, want, feeling of justification, greed, etc.
So where are these like minded people? They fade in and out.
They all can seem to find justifications as to why they deserve better and therefore do not have to be fair. I do not wish to be hypocritical and point all fingers outward; I too am guilty, more often than I'd like to be, of such thoughts and actions. I try to recognize it in myself and take the opportunity to change or rethink my action.
Do not think that philosophy or religion are the answers. They may be used as tools to gain the personal strength of character necessary to grasp and promote fairness. Philosophy and religion can help teach the concepts to people unexposed by their particular upbringing. But to make fairness a part of your daily thoughts and actions takes personal practice and fortitude.
Fairness and other 'humanely' concepts, like compassion and kindness, are worth the effort otherwise we're reptiles.
And I for one am tired of sharing my world with human reptiles.

Where are all of the SUVs going?

I’ve been ruminating on this for a couple of weeks and I think I’m ready to write about it. I read it in the Business & Farm section of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the July 20th, 2008 edition. I don’t normally read that section, but the title caught my attention: “Traded-in SUVs a hot commodity abroad”.

You can view the first paragraph here:
http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/jul/20/traded--suvs-hot-commodity-abroad-20080720/?business/arkansas
The paper wants to charge you $1.95 to read the story online, HOWEVER if you click the “print story” link on the left you can read it for free-go figure, sigh. Not my fault; I didn’t hack crap.

Anyway the basic gist here is that since the USA and other countries are being pinched hard by oil and subsequent gasoline prices we are buying smaller cars with better gas mileage and not the big gas gulping SUVs. Along the same lines we are trading in those big SUVs when we buy the smaller cars. So we have a glut of big cars and SUVs on our used car lots and they are being snapped up for a song by entrepreneurial people (such as the brothers mentioned in the article) and are being shipped overseas “to places such as Middle East, West Africa and Mexico.”

The kicker here is that these places (where these vehicles are being shipped) all pump and sell oil to the rest of the world. Because they do this they can offer subsidies to their citizens so that their gasoline “costs less than 50 cents a gallon.”

I don’t need to remind you what we are paying!

There are two reasons why this should tick you off!

First reason - the environment. Supposedly we are concerned about mileage because of the environment. Better mileage, we waste less gas, fewer hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, better for everyone.
So no matter how many tiny cars we drive, the rest of the pumping world is still driving gas gulpers and globally nothing is being conserved and hydrocarbon production is not being reduced by our green efforts!

Second reason – economy. So the US builds big cars out of pride or gluttony, call it what you want, we still built them, we should get to drive them. There is no lesson being learned here. If we’ve built such behemoths that shouldn’t be driven because they are larger than we need and are wasteful then no one should get to have them. The wastefulness is being prolonged while we get squeezed.

It fries me to know that somewhere else someone who only pays 50cents a gallon for that sweet go-go juice is riding around enjoying my SUV with plenty of leg and head room, while I’m putting along in a little car bumping my knees and head on the roof.

There is plenty of oil out there; we're being played for suckers.
Cya on the road.
-Fat

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity

I have always wanted to be an astrophysicists but could never cut the math.

Watch in a bigger format at Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity on Hulu.com

Apple Software EULA

EULA - End User License Agreement.
I know it's because of their legal dept wanting to keep them out of any and all trouble, but come on. As if...last week I installed iTunes on my iron lung and now my iron lung only breaths me when I play songs I bought from iTunes Store and not my CDs. Or after I installed Quicktime I couldn't get my Air Traffic Control Radar to work, all I could see was dancing hamsters...

Apple's great quote:
APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

Maybe Quicktime caused the Chernobyl meltdown and Apple wants to make sure they're not liable next time.

Rube Goldberg would be proud

Too Many People in the World...cha cha cha.

Recently having been to Las Vegas, Denver Airport, Chicago Airport, I have decided that there are too many people in the world without courtesy or manners. I don't like it.