In the eye of the beholder :)

Dr. Allan Drummond 

Exquisite comes to mind when seeing a tiny leafhopper realized as a beautiful sculpture by a scientist equipped with the technical and artistic talent to make it happen.

By day, Drummond and his team at the Drummond Lab work on exploring things like the evolution of protein synthesis. Outside of the lab, Drummond spends his free time creating these remarkably realistic metal sculptures of prehistoric and recent insects—all cast out of various metals like bronze and silver.

To create these intricately detailed pieces, Drummond often starts with a pencil sketch, and a lot of research and photographic references to get the exact details right.

He then turns to a 3D modeling program called Blender, which helps him to virtually sculpt the three-dimensional aspects before the wax models for the metal casting process are additively manufactured by a 3D printing machine. Drummond says that Blender has a pretty steep learning curve, but it's the tool that has allowed him to realize his dream of creating these intriguing sculptures that fit into the palm of one's hand.

Dr. Allan Drummond 

How cool is that? For more information on the art, click Drummond Lab.  

The Memory Hole

The 2nd worst president gets a makeover by the dems by using the Memory Hole to erase history.

A few years ago, George W. Bush was on track to be remembered as one of the worst presidents of all time, if not the worst. He was both more disdainful and more ignorant of the law than Nixon, his arsonist economic stewardship was rivaled only by Hoover, and intellectwise he made Chester A. Arthur look like Copernicus. He was also a worse and more destructive president than Donald Trump, and it wasn’t close. Trump talked big, but it was Bush who actually smashed norms on a grand scale, from international law to human rights to adherence to the most basic constitutional principles, in pursuit of policies that Brown University just estimated cost $8 trillion and led to 900,000 deaths.

Channel Anthony Zinni's take on Iraq to see why W's the 2nd worst without question.

On Nightline, Zinni compared Bush’s push for the war with the Gulf of Tonkin incident–an infamous episode in which President Lyndon Johnson misrepresented an attack on two U.S. Navy destroyers in order to win congressional approval of the war in Vietnam–and he challenged “the credibility behind” Bush’s prewar assertions concerning Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and its association with anti-American terrorists. “I’m suggesting,” Zinni said, “that either the [prewar] intelligence was so bad and flawed–and if that’s the case, then somebody’s head ought to roll for that–or the intelligence was exaggerated or twisted in a way to make a more convenient case to the American people.” 

Zinni displayed little confidence in Bush and his aides. He said that their Iraq endeavor has landed the United States into the middle of assorted “culture wars” in the Middle East. “We don’t understand that culture,” he remarked. “I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life in this part of the world. And I’ll tell you, every time I hear…one of the dilettantes back here speak about this region of the world, they don’t have a clue. They don’t understand what makes them tick. They don’t understand where they are in their own history. They don’t understand what our role is….We are great at dealing with the tactical problems–the killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the strategic problems; having a strategic plan, understanding about regional and global security and what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move forward.”

 The Memory Hole lives.

Godel, Escher & Bach ...

Back in 1979, Douglas Hofstadter wrote Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a seminal book on AI, machines and what it means to be human, issues becoming ever more relevant in the year of our lord 2021. The reason for discussing this great work is the fact it was the first book yours truly read regarding computers and systems due to the fact I was the first designer director for Gartner Group back in the day, the first company to track and analyze how technology was changing how the world does business. 

By exploring common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the book expounds concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence. Through short stories, illustrations, and analysis, the book discusses how systems can acquire meaningful context despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses self-reference and formal rules, isomorphism, what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself.

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter emphasized that Gödel, Escher, Bach is not about the relationships of mathematics, art, and music—but rather about how cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms. One point in the book presents an analogy about how individual neurons in the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.[1][2]

The tagline "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" was used by the publisher to describe the book.[3]

Seems Alvy Ray's Pixel, another gem without question, vamps off on GEB big time. :)

Kurt Godel

Circle Limit (Heaven and Hell) - Escher

Little Fugue in g Minor - Bach

Hofstadter also wrote I am a Strange Loop, a query into recursion, the notion of what "I" really means and how fractals fit into the grand scheme of things. :)

In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference.

— Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop, p. 363

Another excellent read without question. 

Pixel

If one wants to learn how computers create pictures then one should read Alvy Ray Smith's masterwork, A Biography of the Pixel, an enthusiastic and encyclopedic analysis of how this tech came to be, beginning with Joseph Fournier, the brilliant French mathematician indirectly discovering that our view of realty consists of endless photonic waves generated by the electromagnetic force from any light emitting source like a candle, the sun or wood burning in a fireplace. While reading Pixel, a question came to mind, did Fournier know of Thomas Young's double slit experiment showing the particle/wave duality of existence? If so, could said experiment be a possible start point to Fournier's great creative act as both researchers lived in the early 1800s. Note: The electromagnetic force was codified by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873.

Joseph Fournier

Thomas Young

Fournier's concept is all about harmonics, the beginning of Smith's notion of Digital Light.

The harmonics of color. The harmonic-analysis chart shows how the different wavelengths interact with red light. At a difference of λ/2 (half wavelength), red is perfectly in sync with its second harmonic in the ultraviolet. All other wavelengths in the visual spectrum have less than a λ/2 difference between them, forming harmonic oscillations in the combined waves. At λ/14, the oscillations cycle every 14th wave, while at λ/8 they will cycle every 8th. The lower section shows how the λ/4 harmonic interacts in visible light (green and red), as photographed in an optical flat.

For Young, it's all about waves.

Near-field intensity distribution patterns for plasmonic slits with equal widths (A) and non-equal widths (B).

CC BY-SA 4.0 File:Plasmonic Young's double slits interference.png Created: 22 August 2007

Interesting is it not? Read the book, his take on Turing is superb. 

Why photons rule ...

The electromagnetic force is responsible for generating visible light as well as radiation in other wavebands not detectable by the human eye. As electrons and protons fly around bumping into each other in a light source, the electromagnetic force produces photons of all wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Existence is digital with analogue overrode. To see why, click here. 

State of Play - Summer 2021

State of Play shows summer's endgame where insects, birds and the environment itself begins the changeover into fall and winter. One has to hunt for insects and birds as there's fewer now along with the fact field grasses are shorter with less variety of plant life to be seen. Hopefully, this clip shows just how beautiful earth is when one takes the time to look. Enjoy.

Razor Thin

Life on Earth depends on a razor thin layer of atmosphere as seen in this  Visual Capitalist pix. 

Earth is the only known planet that sustains life. Its atmosphere provides us with oxygen, protects us from the Sun’s radiation, and creates the barometric pressure needed so water stays liquid on our planet.

But while Earth’s atmosphere stretches for about 10,000 km (6,200 miles) above the planet’s surface, only a thin layer is actually habitable.

This graphic, inspired by Andrew Winter, shows just how small Earth’s “habitable zone” is, using the state of Florida as a point of reference.

Earth’s Like an Onion: It Has Layers

Our planet’s atmosphere is made up of a unique cocktail of gases—roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with trace amounts of water, argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases.

It’s separated into five different layers:

• Exosphere: The uppermost layer of our atmosphere that melds into outer space.
• Thermosphere: Begins at around 80 km (50 miles) above sea level and extends to approximately 600 km (372 miles), reaching temperatures as high as 2,000°C (3,600°F).
• Mesosphere: Around 30 km (19 miles) in range, meteors burn as they pass through this layer, creating “shooting stars.”
• Stratosphere: Home to the ozone layer, which is responsible for absorbing a majority of the sun’s radiation.
• Troposphere: The closest layer to ground. It stretches about 7–15 kilometers (5–10 miles) from the surface.
• The troposphere makes up approximately 75-80% of the atmosphere’s mass, as it’s where most of the dust, ash, and water vapor are stored. But only a part of this layer is suitable for human life—in fact, the atmosphere’s habitable zone is so small, several mountain ranges extend beyond it.

Something to think about don't you think? :)

What's wrong with this picture?

 

What's wrong with this picture? Any thoughts? ... as said map shows where abortion, in blue, is safe and legal but again, the question must be asked, what's wrong with this picture? Oh, maybe Texas should be red, right? ... or better yet, make the US red as the supremes are locked and loaded to eliminate women's right to choose in the year of our lord 2022.

It's time to make a change to protect women's rights to choose ...  now.

To whit.

Financial rewards given to those shredding the US constitution? That is the reality of the Texas law on abortion

For years, as the supreme court’s composition kept tilting right, reproductive rights have been squarely on the chopping block. Now they are on the auction block as well.

Observers have speculated how today’s new ultra-right court would commence the slicing: by chipping away slowly at Roe v Wade? Or by taking the political heat and overruling it outright? Few imagined that the court would let a statute everybody concedes is flagrantly unconstitutional under the legal regime of Roe not only go into effect without being judicially reviewed but become the centerpiece of a totally unique state scheme that puts a bounty of at least $10,000 on the head of every woman who is or might be pregnant.

It wasn’t just Roe that died at midnight on 1 September with barely a whimper, let alone a bang. It was the principle that nobody’s constitutional rights should be put on sale for purchase by anyone who can find an informant or helper to turn in whoever might be trying to exercise those rights.

That, after all, is how the new Texas law works. Its perverse structure, which delegates to private individuals anywhere a power the state of Texas is forbidden to exercise itself until Roe is overruled, punishes even the slightest form of assistance to desperate pregnant women. Doctors, family members, insurance companies, even Uber drivers, are all at risk if they help a woman in need. And the risk is magnified by the offer of a big fat financial reward for whoever successfully nabs a person guilty of facilitating an abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, typically six weeks after a woman’s last period, well before most women even know they are pregnant. There is not even an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. No law remotely like this has ever been allowed to go into effect.

The prospect of hefty bounties will breed a system of profit-seeking, Soviet-style informing on friends and neighbors. These vigilantes will sue medical distributors of IUDs and morning-after pills, as well as insurance companies. These companies, in turn, will stop offering reproductive healthcare in Texas. As of a minute before midnight on 31 August, clinics in Texas were already turning patients away out of fear. Even if the law is eventually struck down, many will probably close anyway.

Worse still, if women try to escape the state to access abortion services, their families will be on the hook for offering even the smallest aid. If friends or family of a woman hoping to terminate her pregnancy drive her across state lines, or help her organize money for a plane or bus ticket, they could be liable for “aiding and abetting” a now-banned abortion, even if the procedure itself takes place outside Texas.

Again, 1984 looms.

The Shadow Docket

 J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The Shadow Docket, a tool used by the supremes to decide major rulings on the sly, showed just how powerful and dark this legal instrument can be in a court no longer able to be called supreme in any sense of the word.

The Supreme Court’s recent reliance on the so-called shadow docket to make major rulings — on display, this week, in its decision to let Texas end legal abortion after six weeks, at least for now — throws the problem of judicial power in a representative democracy into sharp relief.

First, some background. The shadow docket refers to emergency orders and decisions made outside of the court’s regular docket of cases, usually without oral arguments. The term was coined six years ago by William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago, but the division between regular cases and this more specialized set has been around for decades. All it takes to get on the docket is to appeal to one justice, who then decides whether to forward the matter to the rest of the court.

Abusive use of said procedure over a short period of time shows how this court does business.

In the past five months, the Supreme Court has used the shadow docket to strike down Covid restrictions on group religious activities in private homes, force President Biden to reinstate the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers from Central America and block the extension of an emergency federal ban on evictions, putting countless Americans at risk of homelessness.

Now comes SB8, the first step to totalitarian government from this writer's perspective.

The vote on the Texas abortion law came on Wednesday, in the dead of night, when a narrow majority of the court declined to stop Texas from instituting a new ban on abortions past the sixth week of pregnancy, which is often before many women even know they are pregnant. Under the law, Texans can sue anyone who assists in the procurement of an abortion, from the doctor who performed the procedure to the taxi driver who delivered the patient to the clinic to the family member who gave her the cash to go. Successful plaintiffs are eligible for a $10,000 bounty, plus legal fees.

The law is a flagrant violation of Roe v. Wade. But because Texas has deputized private citizens to enforce the ban rather than rely on executive authority — a deliberate choice meant to prevent federal courts from blocking the law — the court has declined to act against the ban, citing the “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” of the case. For Justice Sonia Sotomayor, this is nonsense. “The court,” she wrote in her dissent, “has rewarded the state’s effort to delay federal review of a plainly unconstitutional statute, enacted in disregard of the court’s precedents, through procedural entanglements of the state’s own creation.”

As stated before, 1984 looms, for now, it's woman needing an abortion, tomorrow, SB8/2 can apply to anyone differing from the norm of being straight, white, religious and conservative.

A tacit agreement

Tom Brenner/Reuters

The Roberts court will go down in history as the worst SC ever with its unstated tacit and gutless agreement of letting Roe v. Wade slowly die in bits and pieces, thus enabling religion to triumph over a woman's right to choose in America. Shameful says it all without question.

Three months later, it would be almost a relief if that case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, were the most immediate threat to American reproductive rights. On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court got away with something much more insidious: It all but ended abortion access in Texas, at least for now. It simultaneously dealt a blow to Roe v. Wade that could hasten its demise — by saying nothing and thus quietly allowing a state anti-abortion law, now the most restrictive one in the nation, to go into effect.

The law, SB8, bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — so early that many people don’t know they’re pregnant, and before some doctors will even provide an abortion.

The descent into a new dark age looms.

Several states have already passed six-week abortion bans, sometimes called heartbeat bills, and other abortion restrictions with very early limits. A wave of such laws swept through several states in 2019, prompting calls for boycotts against doing business in those states. None of those laws are being enforced today because they’re obviously unconstitutional: Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to abortion until the point of fetal viability, or about 22 weeks of pregnancy. So while the laws created a splash, they didn’t affect many people’s lives. Until this week.

But SB8 is much more diabolical than the average six-week abortion ban. The law would allow just about anyone — truly, almost any person, anywhere — to sue people or entities who “abet” or even allegedly intend to “abet” abortions in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy. What does it mean to “abet” an abortion? The law isn’t entirely clear on that. But it’s easy to think of ways it could be interpreted: a friend gives a woman money for a procedure, a taxi driver drops someone off at an abortion clinic, a receptionist is stationed inside the front door. Plaintiffs who win their cases would get at least $10,000 each — a provision that seems destined to create a state full of abortion bounty hunters.

A tacit agreement indeed.

Addendum: Sonia Sotomayor's scathing comment on this travesty shows, yet again, why this SC is the worst ever.

In May 2021, the Texas legislature enacted SB8 (the act). The act, which took effect statewide at midnight on 1 September, makes it unlawful for physicians to perform abortions if they either detect cardiac activity in an embryo or fail to perform a test to detect such activity. This equates to a near-categorical ban on abortions beginning six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period, before many women realize they are pregnant, and months before fetal viability. According to the applicants, who are abortion providers and advocates in Texas, the act immediately prohibits care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients and will force many abortion clinics to close.

The act is clearly unconstitutional under existing precedents. See, e.g., June Medical Servs LLC v Russo, 591 US ___, ___ (2020) (ROBERTS, C J, concurring in judgment) (slip op, at 5) (explaining that “the state may not impose an undue burden on the woman’s ability to obtain an abortion” of a “nonviable fetus” (citing Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa v Casey, 505 US 833 (1992); internal quotation marks omitted)). The respondents do not even try to argue otherwise. Nor could they: no federal appellate court has upheld such a comprehensive prohibition on abortions before viability under current law.

The Texas legislature was well aware of this binding precedent. To circumvent it, the legislature took the extraordinary step of enlisting private citizens to do what the state could not. The act authorizes any private citizen to file a lawsuit against any person who provides an abortion in violation of the act, “aids or abets” such an abortion (including by paying for it) regardless of whether they know the abortion is prohibited under the act, or even intends to engage in such conduct. Courts are required to enjoin the defendant from engaging in these actions in the future and to award the private-citizen plaintiff at least $10,000 in “statutory damages” for each forbidden abortion performed or aided by the defendant. In effect, the Texas legislature has deputized the state’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures.

1984 comes to mind here without question.

Existence is ...

How large can an object be and still act like a quantum wave? In theory, any size at all.

Walking is controlled falling. - Robert E.

Existence, to yours truly, is driven by decoherence whereby wavelike superpositions of subatomic bits collapse into particles, thus giving rise to "classic" reality due to inherent noise in the system.

Blame Thomas Young showing why this is so by creating the most beautiful experiment in physics in 1801, the double slit, showing the probabilistic nature of entities being a wave or a particle depending on how said entities are"looked" at. 

Photons or particles of matter (like an electron) produce a wave pattern when two slits are used

It’s a mere speck of matter — a piece of silica crystal no bigger than a virus, levitated in a light beam. But it is almost as motionless as the laws of physics permit.

Two teams of researchers, in Austria and Switzerland, have independently succeeded in freezing such minuscule nanoparticles, just 100 to 140 nanometers across, almost entirely into their lowest-energy quantum state, giving them effectively a temperature just a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero — and fixing them in place with unearthly precision.

Holding a nanoparticle this tightly in a single spot is just the start. The goal is to put these objects into a so-called quantum superposition — where it becomes impossible to say, before measuring them, just where they are. A particle in a superposition could be found in one of two or more places, and you just don’t know which of them it will be until you look. It is perhaps the most startling example of how quantum mechanics seems to insist that our familiar world of objects with definite properties and positions comes into being only through the act of looking at it.

Same double-slit assembly (0.7 mm between slits); in top image, one slit is closed. In the single-slit image, a diffraction pattern (the faint spots on either side of the main band) forms due to the nonzero width of the slit. This diffraction pattern is also seen in the double-slit image, but with many smaller interference fringes.

Buildup of interference pattern from individual particle detections

"Digital" particles giving rise to "analogue" waves show why the duality of existence rings forever true.