Time Passages

Time lapse is hot, time lapse mining via Google is amazing, particularly in terms of viewing how time impacts nature, climate and the environment.

This technique is awesome because it allows us to view years upon years worth of change in a matter of seconds. There are a multitude of uses here, mostly relating to scientific study of nature and climate, but it's hard to deny that it's an aesthetically pleasing effect. Of course, this has been accomplished before (and at a higher quality) by determined and disciplined photographers, but this technology could vastly expand our ability to witness subtle changes in place and natural phenomena that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Google's Siggraph PDF show how this tech works. Pretty astounding to say the least.

Pitch Black

No, this is NOT about the Pitch Black flick that could have been REALLY Scary but not so much, but rather about black solar cells and the potential of said tech regarding cloudy days and high energy efficiency quotients.

A team of European researchers has just announced that they've set a new record by creating black silicon solar cells that can convert 22.1 percent of the Sun's light into electricity - an increase of almost four percent on their previous record. While this doesn't compare to the record of 40 percent efficiency in traditional silicon solar cells, it shows that black silicon solar cells are now real contenders that could help greatly reduce the cost of solar power in the future.

Even more impressively, the team compared their new black silicon solar cells with traditional solar cells of the same efficiency, and showed that their cells increased daily energy production by 3 percent, thanks to their ability to suck up light even when the Sun was low in the sky.

It gets better.

Publishing in Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers report that their resulting cells are the most efficient black silicon solar cells to date, capable of turning 22.1 percent of available light into electricity. "This means that the surface recombination issue has truly been solved and black silicon solar cells have real potential for industrial production," the authors write.

What's even more exciting about this research is the fact that the team hasn't optimised the new cells as yet, so there's potential for them to easily become more efficient, as well as cheaper. "Our record cells were fabricated using p-type silicon, which is known to suffer from impurity-related degradation. There is no reason why even higher efficiencies could not be reached using n-type silicon or more advanced cell structures," said Savin.

& better yet again regarding infrared.

Blasting a specially tuned laser in the presence of sulfur gas alters the texture of solar cells to absorb infrared light. 

& last but not least, cheaper.

A simple chemical treatment could replace expensive antireflective solar cell coatings, bringing down the cost of crystalline silicon panels. The treatment, a one-step dip in a chemical bath, creates a highly antireflective layer of black silicon on the surface of silicon wafers, and it would cost just pennies per watt, say researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). They’ve used it to create black silicon solar cells that match the efficiency of conventional silicon cells on the market.

Click here to get info on the flick. The beginning sequence is amazing. :)

Amplification

Methane, lots & lots of methane, generated by a nickel loving organism called methanosarcina, may have caused the Permian Extinction, AKA The Great Dying with assistance from the nickel producing volcanic Siberian Traps.

The perpetrators, this new work suggests, were not asteroids, volcanoes, or raging coal fires, all of which have been implicated previously. Rather, they were a form of microbes — specifically, methane-producing archaea called Methanosarcina — that suddenly bloomed explosively in the oceans, spewing prodigious amounts of methane into the atmosphere and dramatically changing the climate and the chemistry of the oceans.

Volcanoes are not entirely off the hook, according to this new scenario; they have simply been demoted to accessories to the crime. The reason for the sudden, explosive growth of the microbes, new evidence shows, may have been their novel ability to use a rich source of organic carbon, aided by a sudden influx of a nutrient required for their growth: the element nickel, emitted by massive volcanism at just that time.

End result.

The burst of methane would have increased carbon dioxide levels in the oceans, resulting in ocean acidification — similar to the acidification predicted from human-induced climate change. Independent evidence suggests that marine organisms with heavily calcified shells were preferentially wiped out during the end-Permian extinction, which is consistent with acidification.

250,000,000 years later, circa the 21st century, an ongoing 6th extinction is happening before our very eyes  but this time, it's happening 1000 times faster than the original, a notion disquieting to say the least.

In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, many today find it inconceivable that we could possibly be responsible for destroying the integrity of our planet’s ecology. There are psychological barriers to even imagining that what we love so much could be lost — could be destroyed forever. As a result, many of us refuse to contemplate it. Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

For example, we continue to use the world’s atmosphere as an open sewer for the daily dumping of more than 90 million tons of gaseous waste. If trends continue, the global temperature will keep rising, triggering “world-altering events,” Kolbert writes. According to a conservative and unchallenged calculation by the climatologist James Hansen, the man-made pollution already in the atmosphere traps as much extra heat energy every 24 hours as would be released by the explosion of 400,000 Hiroshima-class nuclear bombs. The resulting rapid warming of both the atmosphere and the ocean, which Kolbert notes has absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide we have produced, is wreaking havoc on earth’s delicately balanced ecosystems. It threatens both the web of living species with which we share the planet and the future viability of civilization. “By disrupting these systems,” Kolbert writes, “we’re putting our own survival in danger.”

To read more, click Something to Consider, a blurb done back in November of 2011 talking about the same thing with phase transitions added in for good measure.

Corporate Larceny

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, has ethics and finance in mind when talking about the TPP, the larcenous gambit of big corporations gaming the system at the expense of nations, a trade agreement Obama is pushing to the max while ignoring the national interest of America.

Perhaps the most invidious - and most dishonest - part of such agreements concerns investor protection. Of course, investors have to be protected against the risk that rogue governments will seize their property. But that is not what these provisions are about. There have been very few expropriations in recent decades, and investors who want to protect themselves can buy insurance from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, a World Bank affiliate (the US and other governments provide similar insurance). Nonetheless, the US is demanding such provisions in the TPP, even though many of its "partners" have property protections and judicial systems that are as good as its own.

The real intent of these provisions is to impede health, environmental, safety, and, yes, even financial regulations meant to protect America's own economy and citizens. Companies can sue governments for full compensation for any reduction in their future expected profits resulting from regulatory changes.

This is not just a theoretical possibility. Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia for requiring warning labels on cigarettes. Admittedly, both countries went a little further than the US, mandating the inclusion of graphic images showing the consequences of cigarette smoking.

The labeling is working. It is discouraging smoking. So now Philip Morris is demanding to be compensated for lost profits.

In the future, if we discover that some other product causes health problems (think of asbestos), rather than facing lawsuits for the costs imposed on us, the manufacturer could sue governments for restraining them from killing more people. The same thing could happen if our governments impose more stringent regulations to protect us from the impact of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Channeling 1984 gives a detailed look into why the TPP is a disaster in the making.

Plot twists & then some

Not only Seymour Hersh but now Frontline questions the killing of Bin Laden from the perspective of CIA propaganda used as storyline in Zero Dark Thirty. Interesting to say the least.

Only 5%

Only 5% of the oceans has been explored. Something to think about without question.

In the fast lane :)

Experts Exchange's infographic is telling in terms of just how fast systems have become and we haven't even discussed the Quantum Computer, hardware that will change everything regarding tech and the ability to crunch numbers. :)

Creepy

Creepy says it all regarding this invasive tech, something Homeland Security will snatch up in a heartbeat.

Lily

This is a device that interests yours truly without question.

Before our very eyes

Acceleration 2 Step on GW. 

"These are warning signs that the remnant is disintegrating," Khazendar said. "Although it’s fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it’s bad news for our planet. This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone."

Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs before the end of the decade, according to a new NASA study.

Ice shelves are the gatekeepers for glaciers flowing from Antarctica toward the ocean. Without them, glacial ice enters the ocean faster and accelerates the pace of global sea level rise. This study, the first to look comprehensively at the health of the Larsen B remnant and the glaciers that flow into it, has been published online in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Any questions?

Wherever It Lurks

V for Vendetta, an intense film dealing with violence, vengeance, government malfeasance and public acquiescence, appears prescient in regards to the UK proposing some rather interesting laws designed to fight terrorism wherever it lurks.

Cameron will tell the NSC: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.

“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values.

“Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.

“We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.”

The home secretary, Theresa May, will say: “The twisted narrative of extremism cannot be ignored or wished away. This government will challenge those who seek to spread hatred and intolerance by forming a new partnership of every person and organisation in this country that wants to defeat the extremists.”

Said laws will do the following:

They would include a ban on broadcasting and a requirement to submit to the police in advance any proposed publication on the web and social media or in print. The bill will also contain plans for banning orders for extremist organisations which seek to undermine democracy or use hate speech in public places, but it will fall short of banning on the grounds of provoking hatred.

It will also contain new powers to close premises including mosques where extremists seek to influence others. The powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism will also be strengthened.

In essence, advocating any ideas or working for any political outcomes regarded by British politicians as “extremist” will not only be a crime, but can be physically banned in advance.

It gets better.

A separate bill will be introduced later in the parliament to revive and extend the so-called snoopers charter, which would include the retention of records of phone calls, emails and other data.

The watchword here is "promoting certain values", the question here is, whose?

In conclusion:

 “Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression.  And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have sensors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.  How did this happen?  Who’s to blame?  Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable.  But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror." - V

And this:

“You don’t have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.” — Malcolm X

Ditto :)

Ditto says it all. :)

Hierarchy of Needs :)

The Andrew Cunningham Tech Hierarchy of Needs.
Note the Mickey Mouse watch face at the very, very top.

The best "Where does the iWatch reside in the cosmic scheme of things?" post - courtesy Ars Techinca.

If you're wondering whether to buy an Apple Watch, consider your computing life as a hierarchy of needs:

At the bottom sits your must have device—a computer, tablet, or phone—capable of independently accessing the Internet and storing useful quantities of data. And one step above that is Internet access itself. You need a device to use it, but your device can’t do much without it.

Every tier similarly builds upon the one below it. Next comes useful apps—browsers, productivity software, whatever you need to work and play—and these all extend your device’s functionality in basic, useful ways. Services for work (Dropbox, Office 365) and entertainment (Spotify, Netflix) follow. The line between software and services is increasingly blurry (especially if we’re talking about software-as-a-service) but most of them feel more optional. Everyone needs a browser. Not everyone needs Dropbox and Netflix and Facebook.

Finally, we get to the top of most users' needs—accessories. This encompasses anything that wouldn’t work (or would be drastically less capable) without everything toward the bottom of the pyramid: standalone cameras, iPods, printers, scanners, input devices, and—yes—watches.

Make no mistake, the Apple Watch is a thoroughly optional accessory. Even if you think you want it, wait if there’s a shadow of a doubt in your mind—if not for the inevitable hardware revision, then at least for the OS and the surrounding app ecosystem to firm up. A $349-or-more pricetag is still a lot of money to spend on a question mark.

Any questions? :)

The Killing of Bin Laden

Seymour M. Hersh is a reporter with incredible contacts to black ops, high end military and senior government officials willing to talk to someone who gets it right before posting it for the world to see so when Hersh says something, it matters, with the latest dealing with The Killing of Bin Laden.

It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

Read this piece closely, it matters.

Theoretical Crime

On the cosmic scheme of things, deflategate doesn't amount to a hill of beans in terms of impacting world peace, ameliorating global warming or eliminating rampant congressional corruption but what is does do is show how shoddy and weak the report was in condemning Brady of "possibly" being aware of what was going on regarding the deflation of footballs that did not impact the wax job the Pats did to the Colts in the AFC title game.

Tom Brady and Theoretical Crime

May 12, 2015

Exclusive: The NFL meted out a four-game suspension to New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady while also fining the team $1 million and taking away two draft picks — though the NFL didn’t conclusively prove that footballs were deflated, establishing only a theoretical crime, a dangerous precedent, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

If Tom Brady did order two locker-room assistants to deflate footballs illegally, he should confess and take the harsh punishment meted out by the NFL. But if he’s innocent, he and the New England Patriots should fight the ruling because it sets a dangerous precedent for everyone who might fall under this concept of a theoretical crime based on “more probable than not” logic.

In this case of Deflategate, it’s not even clear that an offense occurred. NFL outside counsel Ted Wells struggled to get the odds over 50 percent that the footballs were intentionally deflated, even tossing in non-probative “gotcha” moments like the fact that one equipment assistant said he used a “urinal” in a small bathroom when Wells – playing a daffy Sherlock Holmes – noted that there was only a toilet in the room.

As with much of Wells’s report, innocent explanations for common events were rejected in a style that is more common in wild-eyed conspiracy theories than in a serious investigation that affects a person’s reputation and the future of a significant business in New England.

That Jim McNally, the assistant, might not have remembered something as mundane as whether he urinated in a urinal or a toilet was apparently not accepted by Wells, nor the logic that whatever McNally was doing in the bathroom – urinating or deflating footballs – he would have seen the toilet, so his misidentifying it is meaningless.

In my decades as an investigative journalist reading and evaluating many official reports, I have noted that when lawyers start including details like McNally saying “urinal” instead of toilet, they realize how weak their case is and are putting everything they can dig up on their side of the scales.

It gets better.

To reach this outcome, Wells had to stretch the case for believing that the footballs were intentionally deflated when the chilly, rainy weather could have accounted for all or nearly all the drop in air pressure, according to the NFL’s own scientists — while other variables were not fully taken into account, such as the way the Patriots conditioned their footballs by rubbing off the finish that, if not rubbed off, would have made them more water-resistant.

What the scientists hired by the NFL found was that the wetness of a football was a significant factor in both the drop in air pressure and the slowness for the pressure to restore once the football is moved to a warmer location. Thus, the amount of water that penetrates a football would be a relevant factor but that was not fully assessed by the NFL’s scientific testing.

By contrast, the footballs used by the Indianapolis Colts had not been rubbed down nearly as much, so they would have retained more of their water resistance.

Another key factor in evaluating the pressure of the Patriots’ footballs compared to those used by the Colts was the timing of the balls being tested inside the referees’ locker room at halftime. The scientists found that footballs, especially dry ones, regain their pressure fairly quickly once in a warmer environ, so the timing of those comparative tests represented another key variable.

Summing it up, is there undeniable guilt here? Would this Deflategate report finding stand in a court of law? I think not and, for the money Wells got for something that took three months to finish, wouldn't you think this document would be more definitive in determining quilt rather than depending on hearsay, innuendo and the "more probable than not" weasel words that permeate the entire document along with a lack of scientific rigor to truly determine that the Pat's balls were indeed truly deflated when some of the Colt's balls proved to be also, something just not kosher when penalizing a player and team on evidence as flimsy as this. 

The last question to ask it, would Pete Rozelle, the former head of the NFL, pull the trigger on this? For some reason, I rather doubt it.

Mimic

Mimicking nature via neural nets has become the prime driver for enabling AI to work in similar fashion to how the brain processes information, something able to be simulated in code without issue but not in practical fashion in hardware, until now.

In what marks a significant step forward for artificial intelligence, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit. For the first time, a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task: image classification.

"It's a small, but important step," said Dmitri Strukov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. With time and further progress, the circuitry may eventually be expanded and scaled to approach something like the human brain's, which has 1015 (one quadrillion) synaptic connections.

For all its errors and potential for faultiness, the human brain remains a model of computational power and efficiency for engineers like Strukov and his colleagues, Mirko Prezioso, Farnood Merrikh-Bayat, Brian Hoskins and Gina Adam. That's because the brain can accomplish certain functions in a fraction of a second what computers would require far more time and energy to perform.

What are these functions? Well, you're performing some of them right now. As you read this, your brain is making countless split-second decisions about the letters and symbols you see, classifying their shapes and relative positions to each other and deriving different levels of meaning through many channels of context, in as little time as it takes you to scan over this print. Change the font, or even the orientation of the letters, and it's likely you would still be able to read this and derive the same meaning.

In the researchers' demonstration, the circuit implementing the rudimentary artificial neural network was able to successfully classify three letters ("z", "v" and "n") by their images, each letter stylized in different ways or saturated with "noise". In a process similar to how we humans pick our friends out from a crowd, or find the right key from a ring of similar keys, the simple neural circuitry was able to correctly classify the simple images.

"While the circuit was very small compared to practical networks, it is big enough to prove the concept of practicality," said Merrikh-Bayat. According to Gina Adam, as interest grows in the technology, so will research momentum.

Where it gets interesting.

The image above show how neural nets work, the part that get interesting is how Google, Facebook, IBM, among significant others, are mining enormous amounts of data from the net to train NNs to become smarter, a thought that makes yours truly quietly uneasy as it does Musk, Hawking, Rees and Joy, guys that know a little bit about tech, science and the potent unknowns that AI brings to the table.

Not all future technology meets with his approval, though. In a speech in October at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr Musk described artificial intelligence (AI) as “summoning the demon”, and the creation of a rival to human intelligence as probably the biggest threat facing the world. He is not alone. Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford who helped develop the notion of “existential risks”—those that threaten humanity in general—counts advanced artificial intelligence as one such, alongside giant asteroid strikes and all-out nuclear war. Lord Rees, who used to run the Royal Society, Britain’s foremost scientific body, has since founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, in Cambridge, which takes the risks posed by AI just as seriously.

Such worries are a mirror image of the optimism suffusing the field itself, which has enjoyed rapid progress over the past couple of years. Firms such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu have got into an AI arms race, poaching researchers, setting up laboratories and buying start-ups. The insiders are not, by and large, fretting about being surpassed by their creations. Their business is not so much making new sorts of minds as it is removing some of the need for the old sort, by taking tasks that used to be things which only people could do and making them amenable to machines.

As often stated in BRT, AI is going to happen whether we like it or not, the question to ask now is, are we ready for it?

"No one knows, do one?" - Fat Waller

Lovingly Maintained

BRT has waxed poetic about the problems of infrastructure and why it's so important to the wellbeing of the country for infrastructure to be ongoing and not left for dead, something that's becoming a national scandal/crisis as we watch an inept congress vote for never ending war at the expense of this once great nation. With this rant in mind, there is at least one exception to the rule, the 59th Street bridge in Manhattan, a favorite of yours truly as the bridge is a wonder of mechanical engineering writ large as seen by the pictures taken last year during travels on the East Side in Oct of '14. If only other bridges were treated with as much respect and affection as this one is something often thought of every time I see these images of tech done right to the max. Enjoy.

Transition

Elon Musk is a player. Visionary, relentless and prescient, he get it and it's not the cars he builds, it's the upcoming Powerwall, a device that, in time, will change everything regarding clean power and its relationship with fossil fuels and the utilities.

While wind and solar power have made great strides in recent years, with renewables now accounting for 22% of electric energy generated, the issue that has held them back has been their transience. The sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow year-round – these are the mantras of all those opposed to the progress of renewables.

Now the renewable power billionaire Elon Musk has just blown away that final defence. Last Thursday in California he introduced to the world his sleek new Powerwall – a wall-mounted energy storage unit that can hold 10 kilowatt hours of electric energy, and deliver it at an average of 2 kilowatts, all for US$3,500.

That translates into an electricity price (taking into account installation costs and inverters) of around US$500 per kWh – less than half current costs, as estimated by Deutsche Bank.

That translates into delivered energy at around 6 cents per kWh for the householder, meaning that a domestic system plus storage would still come out ahead of coal-fired power delivered through the conventional grid.

What’s more, Musk is going to manufacture the batteries in the United States, at the “gigafactory” he is building just over the border from California in Nevada. He is not waiting for some totally new technology, but is scaling up the tried and tested lithium-ion battery that he is already using for his electric vehicles.

Without question, the infrastructure's not there yet as thin film solar's still in the lab and the transition to graphene supercapacitors is still in it's infancy but the end is coming for fossil fuel whether big oil and coal producers like it or not, and it's about time.

Red

To yours truly, Red Auerbach was the best basketball coach in history as he not only coached but also was the general manager who had to wheel and deal to get the players he wanted for the Celtics. Guile, loyalty to players and innovation to the max regarding how basketball should be played was Auerbach's genius, something I see reflected in how Geno Auriemma's CT women's team plays, fast, selfless and above all else, ruthlessly efficient ball.

Time and again you hear Celtics describing Red as "a player's coach." To the world outside his own huddles and locker room he was ornery and miserable, a boisterous dynamo who peered at you through cigar smoke after his troops had impaled yours.

But not with his own players. He supported them. He had their backs. They knew it, so they did everything to please him. He emphasized people far more than X's and O's.

"Red Auerbach convinced his players that he loved them," said Earl Lloyd, the NBA's first African-American player. "So all they wanted to do was please him."

It was the best way of getting the maximum from his squad. He did it to squeeze even the slightest of advantages from situations. Sure, he could be the consummate actor on the sidelines -- waving his arms, stomping his feet, tearing at his hair. He received more fines and was thrown out of more games than any other NBA coach. He was even tossed out while coaching the All-Star Game in San Francisco's Cow Palace in 1967, Rick Barry recalled with a laugh.

Guile was also a factor.

"We were good, but hadn't won yet," Cousy said. "But I remember one day in 1956, Red said, 'I think I'm getting a guy that will change things.'"

To get Bill Russell required some legendary maneuvering that would take its place in Celtics lore. Rochester was drafting first, with St. Louis second, and the whole world knew about Russell's exploits at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and at the University of San Francisco, where his team won 55 straight. Rochester was strong up front and looked to draft Sihugo Green. Brown gave Rochester team manager Les Harrison additional incentive to avoid Russell. If Harrison passed on Russell, Brown would arrange for Rochester to get the touring Ice Capades two weeks later.

Recalled Auerbach: "Walter got him the Ice Capades, and Harrison said, 'I give you my word that we'll stay away from Russell.'"

But all this would have been for naught if St. Louis had picked Russell second. Auerbach called Ben Kerner to see if he would make a deal. Auerbach offered All-Star Macauley. Kerner badly needed stars to keep his franchise afloat, so he asked for Cliff Hagan, too. Auerbach agreed.

With Russell in the pivot, the Celtics had a spider-armed, tireless intimidator. He had run track in college and could outrun everyone on the team.

"Russell could change a game without scoring," says Don Nelson, a teammate of Russell's in the 1960s.

Golden State and the Atlanta Hawks are channeling Red along with Pop's San Antonio Spurs. :)

Lastly, read the ESPN piece in it's entirety. It's great sports writing at it's best. 

Don't Bogart that Joint my Friend.

Morgan Freeman's cool and well grounded and his take on pot is stellar. :)

Seven years ago, he was driving across Mississippi when his vehicle, a 1997 Nissan Maxima, skidded off the highway, flipping over several times. Freeman was rescued using the Jaws of Life and medevaced to a nearby hospital in Memphis. His left shoulder, arm, and elbow were shattered, and doctors operated for four hours to repair the nerves in his arm. He still hasn’t regained the full use of his left hand and wears a yellow compression glove to prevent blood pooling.

I ask him about his stance on the legalization of marijuana, since he’s a longtime user. “They used to say, ‘You smoke that stuff, boy, you get hooked!” says a chuckling Freeman. “My first wife got me into it many years ago. How do I take it? However it comes! I’ll eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it! This movement is really a long time coming, and it’s getting legs—longer legs. Now, the thrust is understanding that alcohol has no real medicinal use. Maybe if you have one drink it’ll quiet you down, but two or three and you’re fucked.”

He pauses, and points to the glove-aid jutting out from his left suit sleeve. “Marijuana has many useful uses,” he says. “I have fibromyalgia pain in this arm, and the only thing that offers any relief is marijuana. They’re talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they’ve discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, ‘Legalize it across the board!’”

His take on Woodstock's spot on because yours truly was there, along with 400.000+ other stoners and nary a problem ever arose in 4 days where weather conditions were simply horrendous to say the least. Imagine the carnage if booze was part of the equation. Legalizing pot makes eminent sense as the cops, courts and prison guards could deal with people who should be locked up and not us rubes smoking a doobie on our own time. 

Another cool dude, Willie Nelson also does the deed with weed.

"Getting stoned on the roof of the White House, you can't help but turn inward," Nelson recalls of the 1977 episode in his memoir, "It's A Long Story," which was published Tuesday.

But he writes: "I couldn't betray marijuana any more than I could betray a family member or lifelong friend.

"That's because marijuana has never betrayed me. Unlike booze, it had never made me nasty or violent. Unlike cocaine, it never sped me up or fired up my ego."

Works for me and remember ... Don't Bogart that joint my friend. :)

Course Correction

On Tuesday night, the near-unthinkable happened here in Canada when the New Democratic Party (NDP) stormed to a commanding majority in Alberta's provincial elections. To explain this in American terms: Imagine that Texas just overwhelmingly elected a legislature dominated by a left-wing party that opposes major oil pipeline projects; promises a core review of the obligations that oil and gas companies have to their communities; and favors fundamentally rethinking the tax structure toward large-scale redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Oh, and it's going to insist that climate change is real, man-made, and should bear on any policy that involves burning more hydrocarbons.The difference this year was that the people of Alberta were willing to listen to an alternative view. A year of plummeting oil prices and the layoffs they wrought showed many Albertans how flimsy the economic plan was in the province, predicated as it was on a presumption of endless abundance. Falling oil prices led to an austerity budget from the sitting Progressive Conservative government. We were told that as long as we gave oil sands companies total control, we would reap the economic rewards. Once that was proven to be untrue, the larger conservative narrative crumbled. 

Perhaps this can happen in America as well as the time is now to change the course of the US before it's too late.

The Deepwater Horizon legacy

Why clean energy must replace dirty before it's too late.

If you're dead ...

F35 - Combat ready/just like congress

On Monday, the House Armed Services Committee, in what Politico described as “a clear win for defense contractors,” unveiled legislation to boost defense spending to “$117 billion — $3 billion higher than the Pentagon’s fiscal 2016 budget request.” Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., a member of the committee, has demanded increased military spending, telling Reuters earlier this year, “It doesn’t do any good to be financially responsible if you’re dead, so I’m going to vote for it to protect national security.”

I wonder how many of the rubes in congress should be recipients of the Darwin Awards. I know I have one candidate in mind.

"Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid."

Luminiosity

Clouds & a glorious full moon gives rise to wonderment. Enjoy.

Lake Mead

Between GW and the drought, the south west and Vegas are in trouble and it's going to get worse.

"The way the climate system works out here is it tends to be sticky," Pederson said. "If it's wet, you get these generally wet conditions for 10 to 20 years at a time, and if it's dry, you typically get dry conditions 10 to 20 years at a time."

While scientists say that climate change may not be the main cause of the drought, it has made it worse. Global warming has caused the high temperatures that have dried up soils and caused early melting of the snowpack, and many scientists say it has also altered atmospheric circulation patterns that have shifted storms away from the state– meaning much less rain.

"I would guarantee you it's a combination" of natural and human causes, Pederson said. "And they're inevitably linked and related."

But that's not all.

And it didn't stop there. By mid-afternoon Tuesday, the lake was at 1,079.76 feet. If lake levels are projected to fall below 1,075 feet in January 2016, it will trigger restrictions on the amount of water than can be drawn from the lake. Additional restrictions would follow if levels reach below 1,050 feet and 1,025 feet.

The city of Las Vegas, which gets 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead, is so concerned about falling reservoir levels that it is building a new intake pipeline deeper within the lake, to ensure it will be able withdraw water even if lake levels continue to decline.Global warming is "more or less a stacking of the deck" that increases the likelihood of dry conditions in the West, said Greg Pederson, a research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey.

What's really disconcerting is the fact GW's just starting to ramp up. Something to consider when it comes to climate conditions on this planet that's conducive to our continued survival on this planet.

Baltimore & then some

Sounds like the US doesn't it save that infrastructure woes are national, the cops militarized, the suburbs crapping out, good jobs disappearing/shipped overseas and public schools declining while at the same time, the military, industrial & congressional complex continues neverending war and unjust taxation policies to the detriment of this once great nation known as America.

Something to think about don't you think?

What is ... space?

Quanta Magazine, a new, online pub, delves into science in ways lay people like myself can understand. Well written, well researched and above all else, current, this looks like a keeper big time. Interactive, What is Space? is the topic of this post and the graphic seen above is but a small part of an amazing sequence showing how entanglement may give rise to space, something BRT has discussed in part but not in such a beautiful and elegant way like Quanta's

In 1915, Albert Einstein’s field equations of gravitation revolutionized our understanding of space, time and gravity. Better known as general relativity, Einstein’s theory defined gravity as curves in the geometry of space-time, overturning Isaac Newton’s classic theory and correctly predicting the existence of black holes and gravity’s ability to bend light. But a century later, the fundamental nature of space-time remains shrouded in mystery: Where does its structure come from? What do space-time and gravity look like in the subatomic quantum realm?

"And so it goes." - K Vonnegut

Exacto

Tech never sleeps, especially if you want a "self steering" 50 Cal bullet enabling crappy shooters to be an American Sniper without the need to have the skill set needed to do the job.

Well, this is terrifying. As if the U.S. Department of Defense’s research into robotic pack animals wasn’t scary enough, it’s been revealed that a series of tests in February have made unnerving progress with ‘self-steering’ bullets.

The team behind the project, known as EXACTO and developed by America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has released a video showing the smart bullets in action, successfully changing their course in order to hit a moving target. It’s thought that they work by using small fins on the sides of the bullet to guide it to the target, which is tracked by lasers, although DARPA are being understandably quiet about its exact inner workings.

The military often has to face unfavorable conditions—such as harsh weather, wind, and moving targets—that reduce the accuracy of soldiers, and it would normally be the preserve of specially trained snipers to hit difficult targets. However, the video shows how the weapon can be used, not just by trained sharpshooters, but by absolute novices—with no drop in accuracy. The smart bullets don’t just increase a squaddies accuracy either, it can also increase their range.

This is EXACTLY what the police need in their arsenal when this tech becomes commonplace and made available courtesy Homeland Security's surplus military hardware program, AKA Program 1033, something the cops in Baltimore and Ferguson might want to get when this weaponry hits the marketplace around 2018 or so.