Saturday, 10 January 2015 at 3h 24m 9s |
O ... M ... G |
Thomas Edison somehow can't figure out how to power the light bulb, because he didn't drink ...
"Red Bull" .... OH MY FUCKING GOD.
In twitter speak that is "OMFG" by the way.
This is so ridiculous in numerous ways. First of all, Thomas Edison really was not the FIRST.
Second of all, ALMOST EVERY SINGLE SCIENTIFIC EVENT really is a whole of individual efforts
collectively coinciding at the same time.
Read this : Who invented the Light bulb
Okay. Now how simplistic and stupid is the "Thomas Edison invented the light bulb" story. American
historiography is bullshit, with self-indulgent and bloviating tendencies ... because we are an
insecure culture. We don't have 1,000 years of being in the same place like Europeans, Africans,
and Asians do.
One thousand years ago was 1,014. The battle of Hastings and the Magna Carta had
not yet happened. The Chinese had not yet burned down their huge navy and were sending ships and
commerce between East Africa and Peru. At least this is the current theory: ever notice how
Peruvians look unique in their asian features, and why Peru -- isolated from rest of South America --
is also a unique blend. The carvings in the earth, might well have been Chinese characters for all
we know. The beings with the ships who brought incredible goods and knowledge.
And now there are archaeologists who think (with good evidence) that copper mines in Canada were
responsible for the Bronze Age throughout Eurasia (Western Europe to Russia and South to Northern
Africa and the Mediterranean) -- brought by the Nords and Swedes and Fins and large water carrying
vessels.
Things are more complex and non-individualistic in the macrocosm.
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Thursday, 8 January 2015 at 3h 41m 23s |
An Impromptu Poem before I leave My Apartment |
Less is More
Less is more
More or less
They say it's the best
when you detest the more
because it has too much zest
and doth bequest
your attention
all of the time
all of your mind
like a tourniquet or bind
you lose the seeking for the find
and go blind
but life is really about moderation
easing back and doing less
because less is more
just like a dirty whore
or a drug addict
feeling better even though the story never ends
because
the story never really ends
you just use different words to think life has changed
but life never changes
except
that you evolve
or devolve
going up or
going down
slowing down
finding the solution or the satisfaction
wherever happiness resides.
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Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 21h 1m 19s |
Alta Vista Park, San Francisco, Looking South |
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Wednesday, 31 December 2014 at 23h 11m 29s |
A Windy City Today |
Damn it's windy today. The temperature is 52 in the sun, but the wind makes it feel 10 degrees
cooler. It's gonna drop into the 30's tonight, and maybe into the upper 20's.
How fast is the wind?
Damn. 43 kilometers per hour (26 mph) !!!!!
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Monday, 29 December 2014 at 4h 23m 52s |
My definitions |
Liberal: "the ability to feel that all humanity is repairable and that positive
forward-thinking solutions can be obtained despite the competitive environment which inherently
besets the species. In the past, liberal actually meant to continue the status quo, or be persistent
with the mainstream opinion, but nowadays, liberal means a lot of different things to a lot of
different people. The Liberal Democrats of the 1880's are nothing at all when compared to the self
same words used for the 1980's and the 2010's."
Conservative : "the notion that nothing matters except the self and the belief that all
things encountered really matter only insofar as they affect the paradigm that one has decided to be
called Conservatism. In the past, conservative meant to be desiring or maintaining the consistency
of traditions or laws of the past; but in the modern era, this term has been perverted and now is
used to defend actions and beliefs that are exceptionally revolutionary and incendiary in rhetoric
as well as philosophical origin."
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Friday, 19 December 2014 at 23h 45m 45s |
Winter Storm #4 |
Look at what's coming this weekend. Hurray.
I recall that one Christmas break it rained every single day. The weather pattern was similar to
what I'm seeing now. This looks like it is going to be a wet winter with half an inch a day
rainfall for 2 to 3 weeks straight.
Hopefully a lot of it will become snowfall.
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Thursday, 18 December 2014 at 23h 49m 6s |
More Rain is coming |
Thing is, once the Earth gets to the Winter Solstice (December 21) the Earth will begin to tilt
back towards the sun, and the weather patterns will start to change. The picking up of the moisture
from the ocean is dependent upon the temperature gradient, and right now the upper hemisphere is
colder, so it picks up the warmer precipitation from the water and throws it up onto the West Coast.
Once the upper hemisphere begins to tilt back towards the sun (after December 21st) this gradient
diminishes and begins to increase in the Southern hemisphere.
What also happens is the storms go more Northward, into Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska.
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Wednesday, 17 December 2014 at 2h 4m 7s |
Wonderall |
If you have never heard it
before click here.
This is one of my favorite old compositions from 2001. I can't remember how to play it now, but if
I bothered to sit down and figure it out again I probably could. Anyway, I listen to it every now
and then. Hope you enjoy it.
I created it over the summer of 2001. While the Cheney commission was busy working with Oil
executives over the carving of the oil fields of Iraq. How innocent we were back then. The big
issue of the day was a spif in Asia over China getting upset with our military planes flying over
their airspace. Who woulda thunk that 5 months later airplanes would be a so much bigger and
transformative issue.
Wow, yea, we really were naive that summer of 2001.
The song is named "Wonderall".
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Wednesday, 17 December 2014 at 0h 52m 24s |
Winter Storm #3 |
Winter Strom #3 is packing some rain, but it drizzles and stops for 15 minutes and then picks up
tempo and rains for 15 minutes, repeat. Notice the long North-South cloud tail.
This is typical winter storm formation on the west coast. A weather system "Low" spins counter
clockwise and what happens is one of the tails of the "spin" winds up going South to North into the
California coastline. West coast weather is a series of spinning bands of water, unlike the East
coast. The North-South tail brings the rain and dumps it all over California while it moves
Northward into the coast. Then it spreads out a little bit over the valley and slams snow into the
Sierra Nevada mountain range. That snow is the water supply of the entire California population
(much like Lebanon -- another arid environment that depends on winter storms bringing snow to the
mountains just off the coastline.)
Right now (according to the California Department of Water Resources ) the snow pack is about 50% of normal
for this time of year, but still only about 12% of the April 1st average. Rain disappears in
California after April until November, with rare exception. So these last 3 winter storms are a big
help in easing the drought, but California is far from out of danger. We need about 3 or 4 more
winter storms to get even close to 75% of the April 1st average.
Let's cross our fingers. We were dangerously close this last summer from water rationing.
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Wednesday, 17 December 2014 at 0h 37m 53s |
Immigrants next door you say ? Really? |
This says it all -- despite not mentioning Native American Indians.
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