Friday, June 30, 2017

They're Everywhere :)



They're everywhere, rocky planets abound thanks to the newest treasure trove of data garnered by Kepler, the little telescope that can.

Rocky planets are probably a whole lot more common in our galaxy than astronomers previously believed — according to the latest release of Kepler Space Telescope data last week — a scenario that enhances the prospects for extraterrestrial life in nearby solar systems. 

Kepler's final tally of exoplanets in the Cygnus constellation — the most comprehensive and detailed catalogue of exoplanets to date — indicates 4,034 possible planets, of which 50 are Earth-sized and reside in the habitable zone of their stars. The set includes KOI 7711 (short for Kepler 'object of interest'), which is just 30 percent larger than Earth and roughly the same distance from its star as the Earth is to the sun, meaning it receives a similar amount of energy. 

What are the chances of life in the universe? To yours truly, 100% without question.




Kepler has discovered a remarkable quantity of exoplanets (yellow dots) and significantly advanced the edge of the unexplored "frontier." Rocky planets now account for a significant number of exoplanet discoveries. Credit: Natalie Batalha/Wendy Stenzel/NASA/Ames Research Center

Any questions? :)

Jupiter yet again


The Enablers


These are the guys that enable Trump to survive as POTUS as described in the excellent Hive piece titled A Definitive Guide to the G.O.P. Insiders Enabling Donald TrumpIn reading Sarah Ellison's article, one sees that the big six are bottom feeders of the 1st order.

Blame for the ongoing destruction wrought by the Trump administration will always attach to Donald Trump. But Trump cannot help himself. He is a pathogen, doing what pathogens do, and as surprised as anyone to have found himself replicating in the nation’s bloodstream. Equal blame will attach to a small group of experienced and seemingly rational politicians who knew exactly what Trump was like; who had cause to loathe and distrust him; who understood firsthand that he knew nothing about government and did not care to know anything; who could see clearly that he was dangerous, brutal, and corrupt; and who nonetheless decided, after occasional protests, to help him achieve and hold power. These are people who have been repeatedly belittled and mocked by Trump, who have sometimes been forced to voice their disgust at his words and actions, and who—for reasons that range from ambition and fear to denial and moral blindness—not only have declined to stand in his way but continue to prop him up. One or more of them may ultimately decide to defy him, but nothing will absolve them of the damage already done.

Postscript...

What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase.”

These words, spoken by Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg, Abby Mann’s drama about the war-crimes tribunals that took place in Germany in the late 1940s, reflect horrors far greater than those we face today. Nevertheless, coming from Janning, a distinguished jurist and patriot and a man who knew better but who turned a blind eye to what was going on around him, they have a certain relevance. And they must surely echo the private thoughts of Republican mandarins who stand by while their leader ravages the institutions and tenets that keep American democracy in place.

Truer words never spoken.



Thursday, June 29, 2017

Why?


QC - For real?



Quantum computing, the holy grail of true parallel processing of the highest order, may finally be at hand if this innovative approach of bypassing the inherent fragility of qubits rings true.




2 vs 6 using existing tech to make it happen, awesome. BRT has talked copiously about the potential of QC. Maybe this approach will make it a reality. If so, the Matrix looms.



Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Monday, June 26, 2017

Friday, June 23, 2017

Moonlighting


Wasps are intense. Equipped with powerful toxins, they are most formidable and manipulative, especially when it comes to certain solitary species' insidious ways of raising their young by paralyzing and/or altering the host's behavior to enable the young to eat the host alive with little undo effort.




Nature never ceases to amaze ...


Wednesday, June 21, 2017

The weird & the wonderful


Quantum Mechanics is based on probabilities and duality whereby a subatomic particle can be a wave or a particle depending on how said entity interacts with its environment, including on whether said entity is measured or not because measuring it (which requires energy) determines whether it's a particle or a wave at the time it's being measured.



To yours truly, the experiment is wonderful but saying reality does not really exist is misleading as the entity does exist as a duality and only by applying energy to it by the act of measurement do we assign a specific state of the entity to either being a particle or a wave. This fact has been known for a long time but this elegant experiment proves this to be true without question.

Weird & wonderful indeed. :)

Schrodinger's cat lives. 

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Be careful what you wish for


The CF known as Trumpcare or the repeal of Obamacare, being hatched in secret by McConnell and company, will incur blowback in ways that truly boggle the mind. Besides screwing 23 million Americans out of insurance for HC, it's also a tax break for the rich, something that augurs not well for the millions of Trump voters & the middle class who thought this guy was going to protect Social Security, Medicare and last but not least, health care with a new and improved version that's cheaper, more efficient and able to provide coverage for all Americans without question. 



From this writer's perspective here's hoping blowback will be a bitch for these venial bastards who are throwing millions under the bus in order to reap the paltry amounts of money they are getting from the real owners of the country. 

Monday, June 19, 2017

What America really needs



While America focuses on never ending war to finance the MICC, America is falling apart as we speak. BRT has talked about this impending catastrophe on numerous occasions as my loyal readers know but at this point in time, nothing is happening to rectify this very serious situation. Here's a graphic take on why repairing the country's infrastructure is absolutely essential to the continued existence of this once great nation.

It’s no secret that America’s infrastructure is in dire need of repairs. Earlier this year, America received her infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ and received a repulsive D+. The ASCE guesstimates the US would need to spend $4.5 trillion by 2025 on infrastructure.

Here’s the breakdown of the report card:  


With that being said, I’ve spent the entire weekend inspecting America’s infrastructure at the Port of Baltimore. At some locations, I was given special access to a behind the scenes view of America’s crumbling infrastructure that the public is not allowed to see. The reasons you’re left out of the know is because it destroys the mainstream narrative that everything is awesome. Even Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group says, “the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure”.



Stockboard Asset gets it without question. 



Here's yet another video on America's biggest problem.

Less is More ... & ...


Channeling Congress ...


Rumor has it ... the Russians did it.

Kepler yet again :)



Exoplanet numbers keep rising and Kepler's a major reason why. Enjoy. 

Friday, June 16, 2017

Toons yet again


Blessed servitude


Wheel of misfortune


Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. - Macbeth


Us vs. Them


The definition of insanity

The predators are winning .... this time :)



The predator/prey arms race has been around for a very long time as seen by the chart below and by data garnered by researchers regarding, in this case, shell drillers of the carnivorous kind. 




Nature, like money, never sleeps.



Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Life finds a way ... always/rev II


The more we mess with livestock, the larger blowback becomes. To whit.





Now take this manipulation of nature a step further with increased use of pesticides, herbicides and GMOs and add to this potent mix, environmental degradation and globals warming and one sees slow motion disaster looming with initial evidence pointing to less honeybees to pollinate crops, less monarchs to spread beauty around the world and corporate ownership of our food supply not to mention rampant pollution of the world's oceans and the acceleration of global warming that is rendering researchers speechless. Mankind is at a crossroads in terms of survival, the question here is, are we going to do something about it before it's too late?

No one knows, do one? - Fats Waller

Wild Ones :)


Tiny white flowers 


Two of a kind


White flower 


Buttercup

The largest of these is 1" and all are wild. :)


A crack in the world



Once the shelf is gone, there is no cork holding back the groundwater of the glaciers that reside on land. Comforting thought, right?



Houston, we have a problem.



Saturday, June 10, 2017

Liquid Light


Thanks to Quantum Mechanics, we know subatomic particles, like photons, can be a particle and/or a wave depending on how said entity interacts with it's environment. In the elegant Thomas Young interference experiment, the duality of same was shown to be true by one of the most beautiful experiments done in science.


Now it seems liquid light can do the same thing if one has the smarts and hardware to make it happen.



Isn't science grand? :)


Had to put this in to show why Young was a visionary to the max. 

Friday, June 09, 2017

Glass-Steagall yet again


BRT has talked often about the disastrous repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall act separating investment banks from commercial banks to insure fiscal stability, legislation that served this country well until Phil Graham and Bob Rubin axed it in 1999 under the presidency of Bill Clinton in order to "improve" efficiency and lower costs of all financial transactions conducted in America. Needless to say, the end result is rather interesting to say the least.





Remember, it's all about the money.

It gets better.




Remember yet again, it's all about the money.

Dangerous Beauty



Something else altogether. 

Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Botany 101 :)



A short clip showing a potpourri of plants and insects in the environs of Easton & Redding. :) Enjoy.

On the take


Being on the take is the rule of law in congress where our so called representatives mooch for money in order to get reelected no matter what the cost may be. We have a healthcare system that's an unmitigated disaster and a drug policy environment gamed for big pharma that, in effect, kills people by making drugs too expensive to buy thanks to the trolls in congress who are on the take from lobbyists representing, you guessed it, big pharma.







The sad thing about it is the fact these trolls are so easy to buy while they continue to be supported by us rubes to include complete coverage of HC including, of course, drugs. Make sense to me, right?

Sunday, June 04, 2017

Surf's Up :)

Missteps


Attack after attack by ISIS, the entity from hell, created by military and diplomatic missteps perpetrated by Bush and Obama, continues yet unabated thanks, in large part, to a neocon foreign policy mired in failure for over 60 years beginning with the CIA's removal of Iran's Prim Minister elect Mossadegh in 1953. Since that time, the US won exactly one war, Grenada, and lost Vietnam, and, in effect, Iraq, based on lies and incredibly stupid strategic blunders that have cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives, maimed and killed thousands of Americans, destroyed legitimate nations and have generated an immigrant crisis that threatens the very existence of Europe and for what, besides lining the pockets of the MIC as you got to have a boogeyman in order to maintain profits for an entity that does not benefit the country, or the world, in any way, shape or fashion.




Anthony Zinni was right back in 2003 and he's right today. 







Anthony Zinni