Tuesday, February 05, 2019
Fasces - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interesting trivia that adds flesh to the root of the word, "fascist."
Submarine communications cable
The NSA whistleblower below, William Binney, said something to the effect of... "if the U.S. was intending to only monitor calls with foreigners, then they would've placed their intercept equipment on the nodes where foreign telephone traffic entered the U.S." My understanding prior to this was that satellites had taken over this traffic long ago. Of course, I was way off...and of course, you already knew this :P But, I wikied it and got the exact numbers.
Wikipedia... "As of 2006, overseas satellite links accounted for only 1 percent of international traffic, while the remainder was carried by undersea cable. The reliability of submarine cables is high, especially when (as noted above) multiple paths are available in the event of a cable break. Also, the total carrying capacity of submarine cables is in the terabits per second, while satellites typically offer only megabits per second and display higher latency. However, a typical multi-terabit, transoceanic submarine cable system costs several hundred million dollars to construct."
Sunday, February 03, 2019
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Monday, May 03, 2010
Ice Discovered on Asteroid, Suggests Earth’s Oceans Came From Space | Wired.com
Water ice and organic molecules have been discovered on the surface of an asteroid for the first time... "What we've found suggests that an asteroid like this one may have hit Earth and brought our planet its water"... While there is plenty of debate around how Earth got its oceans, this new evidence suggests some of the water came from extraterrestrial sources.
Link to articleSaturday, May 01, 2010
Looting of Iraq sites destroys history, distresses scholars - USATODAY.com
Guards can't stop it all
More than five years after the fall of Baghdad, the fate of Iraq's antiquities still torments archaeologists.
The looting of the National Museum garnered headlines in April 2003. But the widespread pillaging of archaeological sites — 10,548 sites are registered, with perhaps 100,000 actually buried there — bewilders and saddens scholars. They believe they are witnessing the ransacking of the cradle of civilization, a calamity "almost impossible to overstate for the destruction of history that has taken place," says Patty Gerstenblith of DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.
The Iraqi government employs about 1,200 guards to keep an eye on all its sites, according to a July 18 Iraqi Crisis Report.
A satellite image analysis, published earlier this year in the journal Antiquity by Stone, concluded that since 2003, looters have dug 6 square miles of holes in archaeological sites across Iraq. The looting "must have yielded tablets, coins, cylinder seals, statues, terra cotta, bronzes and other objects in the hundreds of thousands," Stone reported.
USAToday articleSaturday, April 17, 2010
Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Asteroid and Comet Collisions More Common Than Thought
TUNGUSKA IMPACTOR SIZE REVISION
The 1908 Tunguska airburst from a small asteroid has generally been estimated to have had an energy of 10-15 megatons. The corresponding size for a rocky impactor is roughly 60 meters in diameter. Mark Boslough of Sandia Laboratory, however, has generated new supercomputer simulations that suggest a smaller Tunguska explosion. In part his models require less energy in the explosion because he includes the substantial downward momentum of the rocky impactor, rather then modeling it as a stationary explosion. If this revision (down to an estimated energy of 3-5 megatons, and a corresponding diameter perhaps as low as 40 m) is correct, the expected frequency of such impacts changes, from once in a couple of millennia to once in a few hundred years. If smaller impactors can do the damage previously associated with larger ones, of course, the total hazard from such impacts is increased. Below is a press release from Sandia and a newspaper article discussing this new work.
News Article: Tunguska Revision, and a Possible NEA Impact on MarsMonday, August 04, 2008
Photo of Barack Obama around 1981-83 with his grandparents
My, we have come a long way. I liked this photo because it made me imagine the roar of laughter that would come from this happy crowd ... if I could sneak back into the moment and inform them that young Barack might just someday become the Leader of the Free World. Truly, change that we can believe in.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Documentary: Who Killed the Electric Car?
I found this nice freebie online. Click the picture to watch it in its entirety over at Google Videos.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
The 'Uno'
Cool idea ... to inspire us to think about all of the possibilities that have yet to be discovered. This one's the brainchild of some 18-year-old Canadian kid named Ben J. Poss Gulak. It's still in the development phase ... and who's to say that a contraption that needs "gyros" to keep it afloat will ever really take off ... but, if it does ... I'd get in line to give it a little spin.
Source: http://www.motorcyclemojo.com/articles/the-uno/
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times
When it comes to blaming people for our war in Iraq, I never flinch at going right to the source: the American People. Simple. We knew we were being lied to. There were ample signs of this, and ample alternative views that could have prevented the debacle that we're in. So, shame on us if we try to blame others and not ourselves.
That said, it's interesting to learn just how the lies were manufactured. And this quite clear article is a good start for anyone interested in peeling back his/her psyche, and asking the tough questions about his/her worldview and biases: "What need was served me by the war." We all knew these war analysts weren't to be trusted, as they dished out the daily rations of "good news" in Iraq ... but we did anyway. At least ... you did.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Friday, September 07, 2007
Quotes for the Day
-- Edward Bulwer Lytton
"Many people have sacrificed themselves for others, thinking when they sacrifice themselves they are being a good person. Wrong! To sacrifice yourself can only come from thoughts of absolute lack, because it is saying, 'There is not enough for everyone, so I will go without.' Those feelings do not feel good and will eventually lead to resentment. There is abundance for everybody and it is each person's responsibility to summon their own desires. You cannot summon for another person because you cannot think and feel for another. Your job is You. When you make feeling good a priority, that magnificent frequency will radiate and touch everyone close to you."
-- Rhonda Byrne, in "The Secret"
"It is spiritual pride to think that you are any further on the journey than anyone else. Even if this were true, it would not serve you to know it or claim it. What serves you is compassion for self, compassion for others. What serves you is knowing that each person has the lesson that is perfect for him and, if he learns it, there is no telling how far he will advance.
Don't think you have the capacity to make a correct determination of the spiritual progress of any individual, including yourself. You don't. You don't know. One who seems to be far behind can move ahead in a flash. And one who seems ahead can be seriously disabled. The whole idea of ahead and behind is meaningless, since you don't know where the starting line is or the finish line...You can look at others and think you understand, but you will just be kidding yourself. You have no idea what anyone else's life is about. Nor is it really any of your business to know."
-- Paul Ferrini, in "The Silence of the Heart"
"Even though change is constant and inevitable, we prefer to turn our attention-and a great deal of our attention-to preventing changes from happening in our lives. Suggesting to people that they initiate change and call upon the winds to pull their ship from its safe harbor into the moving seas is akin to asking them to sit on hot coals for the afternoon. Yet the truth is that healing and change are one and the same thing. They are composed of the same energy, and we cannot seek to heal an illness without first looking into what behavioral patterns and attitudes need to be altered in our life. Once those characteristics are identified, we have to do something about those patterns. This requires taking action, and action brings about change."
-- Caroline Myss, in "Why People Don't Heal And How They Can"
"The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises ... in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate."
-- Francis Bacon
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be. You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-- Marianne Williamson
--
Monday, June 18, 2007
Quotes for the Day
-- Brenda Ueland
"I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."
-- William Blake
"All modern thought is permeated by the idea of thinking the unthinkable."
-- Michel Foucault
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."
-- unknown
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
-- William Blake
"He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence."
-- William Blake
"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."
-- William Blake
"Everything you can imagine is real."
-- Pablo Picasso
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing...."
-- George Bernard Shaw
--
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Dear Red
ANDY
If you're reading this,
you've gotten out. And if you've
come this far, maybe you're willing
to come a little further. You
remember the name of the town,
don't you? I could use a good man
to help me get my project on
wheels. I'll keep an eye out for
you and the chessboard ready.
(beat)
Remember, Red. Hope is a good
thing, maybe the best of things,
and no good thing ever dies. I will
be hoping that this letter finds
you, and finds you well. Your
friend. Andy.
----------
TRAVELING SHOT
A gorgeous New England landscape whizzes by, fields and trees
a blur of motion. ANGLE SHIFTS to reveal a Greyhound Sceni-
Cruiser barreling up the road, pulling abreast of us. CAMERA
TRAVELS from window to window, passing faces. We finally come
to Red gazing out at the passing landscape.
RED
I find I am so excited I can barely
sit still or hold a thought in my
head. I think it is the excitement
only a free man can feel, a free
man at the start of a long journey
whose conclusion is uncertain....
--
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Quote of the Day
- Einstein
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Quote of the Day
--- George Bernard Shaw
Thursday, March 15, 2007
(From Paul Graham's website) "Trevor Blackwell's robot finally walked. Dexter is, as far as we know, the first dynamically balancing biped robot—that is, the first robot that walks like we do.
There are of course biped robots that walk. The Honda Asimo is the best known. But the Asimo doesn't balance dynamically. Its walk is preprogrammed; if you had it walk twice across the same space, it would put its feet down in exactly the same place the second time. And of course the floor has to be hard and flat."
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Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Lawrence O'Donnell takes on chickenhawks
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Permanent Military Bases in Iraq
Tomgram: A Permanent Basis for Withdrawal?
A decent article on the under-reporting of our huge bases in Iraq. I stumbled upon it after reading that there was some movement in Congress this month to amend a spending bill with wording that would "[bar] the U.S. military from establishing permanent bases in Iraq" ( LINK ). The amendment was passed (by voice) in both the House and Senate, but with different wording in each body, so the bill went to a "Conference Committee" for reconciliation, where the wording was removed. The article tells how the press failed to properly report on the issue, so I Googled to see what I could see on things, and found Tom Engelhardt's article.
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