1/05/2007
I know these are silly but... Galileo is counting on YOU.
Let's see how the test "predicted" my philosophy.
 | I scored as Materialist / Existentialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter. Anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.
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Religion has tried to make humanity 'special.' You are the center of the universe, are you not? The Earth is flat, is it not? And my favorite- the stars and planets are all atached to a great crystalline structure in the sky which gives them their apparent motions! Each new generation of religious leadership must recant the last generation of atrocities they have commited in the name of 'god.'
1 Galileo was required to recant his heliocentric ideas; the idea that the Sun is stationary was condemned as "formally heretical".
He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.
2 His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial and not enforced, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.
3 After a period with the friendly Ascanio Piccolomini (the Archbishop of Siena), Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence, where he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest, dying on January 8, 1642.
It was while Galileo was under house arrest when he dedicated his time to one of his finest works, Two New Sciences.
This book has received high praise from both Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. As a result of this work, Galileo is often called, the "father of modern physics".
Galileo was "formally rehabilitated" in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of Galileo's complete scientific works (a censored edition had been published in 1718), and in 1758 the general prohibition against heliocentrism was removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture. [2]
Oh, thank you very much for interupting one of the most brilliant scientific advances in Human history. It is good that you would stifle and incarcerate people who think differently, and that you would try to bury the truth. You maybe set us back a few hundred years, but who's counting. But try as you might- you can't keep a hard working old-timey dude down: this dude INVENTED the thermometer and improved clocks while writing the most accurate physical description of the entire universe (at the time).
In 2006, the movie An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore featured the "Pale Blue Dot" photo at the end of the movie. Gore used it in his slide show to demonstrate the need to stop global warming.[12] He said "That's all we've got" in reference to the Earth as a dot seen 4 billion miles away. Gore also paraphrased Carl Sagan when he spoke about the photograph during the documentary.
Later in the book, Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, challenges readers to pick one of the other planetary dots photographed and featured in the book and imagine there are inhabitants on that world that believe the universe was created solely for themselves. She shared Sagan's belief that humans are not as important as they believe.
Book summary
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994) is a non-fiction book by Carl Sagan. It is the sequel to Cosmos and was inspired by the "Pale Blue Dot" photograph, for which Sagan provides a sobering description[13]. In this book, Sagan mixes philosophy about the human place in the universe with a description of what was known about the solar system at the time the book was published. He also details a human vision for the future. [14]
The first part of the book looks at the claims made throughout history that Earth and the human species are unique. Sagan makes two claims for the persistance of the idea of a geocentric, or Earth-centred universe: human pride in our existence, and the threat of torturing those who dissented from it, particularly during the Spanish Inquisition. However, he also admits the scientific tools to prove the Earth orbited the Sun were (until the last few hundred years) not accurate enough to measure effects such as parallax, making it difficult for astronomers to prove the geocentric theory was false.
After saying that we have gained humility from understanding we are not, literally, the centre of the universe, Sagan embarks on an exploration of the entire solar system.[15] He begins with an account of the Voyager program, in which Sagan was a scientist. He describes the difficulty of working with low light levels at distant planets, and the mechanical and computer problems which beset the twin spacecraft as they aged. Sagan then examines each one of the major planets as well as some of the moons, including Titan, Triton and Miranda, focusing on whether life is possible at the frontiers of the solar system.
Sagan argues that studying other planets provides context for understanding the Earth - and protecting it from environmental catastrophe.[15] He feels NASA's decision to cut back human explorations to the moon after the Apollo program was a short-sighted decision, despite the expense and the failing popularity of the program among the American public. Sagan says future exploration of space should focus on ways to protect Earth. The book was published the year after the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter, an event Sagan uses to highlight the danger Earth faces from the occasional asteroid or comet large enough to cause substantial damage if it were to hit Earth. He says we need the political will to track large extra-terrestrial objects, or we risk losing everything. Sagan argues that in order to save the human race, space colonization and terraforming should be utilized.[15]
12/13/2006
brashermarketplace.com
8/09/2006
The Middle East? Why do I care?
Here's why I care about the 3rd world war.
Humanity is much bigger than wars, much larger than violence and bombs. When a child bullies another kid, it's is the same to me as someone who pushes the button to launch a rocket to kill people.
When scientists, or when I, think about the course of life on Earth we are forced to notice many periods of slow population growth and then just as many sudden jumps from 100% to perhaps as few as 20% of the original population- mostly caused by meteorites and disease. And since we have no other planets to study, we then take a leap and wonder about the fate of intelligent populations that could be out there- focusing on how long their civilizations could last.
Since the universe is not giving up any secrets about extraterrestrial life we are forced to base our conclusions on the input we gather from planet Earth. What could possibly end life on earth? Well, think:
- Famine and Drought
- Large Meteorite
- Extreme Volcanic Eruption
- Extreme Earthquake/Tsunami
- Disease
- Pollution
- World War
- Sun Explodes Earlier than we Expect
- The Unforseen
We really cannot control 1-4, we can partially control #5, and we completely control 6 and 7. And I'm hoping for a daytime event when 8 happens. And you can't forsee #9.
I'm hoping for a really awesome end to this whole thing, like, just as some idiot is launching a nuclear weapon at me there's a massive earthquake that puts up a Tsunami made of the dirt and rocks and mountains, and then some supervolcano explodes just as the nuke wails into the ground a few miles away and I get to witness it all as I'm smeared into a fine paste and the earth plunges into a nuclear winter for a billion years and ends up as airless as the moon.
"That was unforseen", said I.
Awesome.
Mike
Further Reading
2012 Apocalypse Apophis Asteroid Armageddon Bible Code Bird Flu Doomsday Clock Eschatology End of Civilization End of the World Eta Carinae Fallout Hubble Telescope Hypothetical Disaster Manhattan Project Mayan Calendar Megatsunami Near Earth Object Nuclear Warfare Nuclear Winter Ring of Fire Shoemaker-Levy 9 Suitcase Bombs Tropical Storms Tunguska Event Ultimate Fate WMD's Yellowstone Caldera
8/08/2006
Surfin stomp
8/02/2006
OUR BUSH, IS AN AWESOME BUSH!
When we go to war in Iraq we will do so to summon the Messiah. That is what the Christian right believes. The final battle to rid the world of all non-believers, non-Christians, more exactly non-Evangelical Christians, is going to take place very soon at Armageddon in Israel. The Bible tells us so. Rev. Jerry Falwell believes fully, and un-equivocally that we must go to war with Iraq to set in motion the cataclysmic events that will ensure the second coming of Jesus Christ. War with Iraq will lead to the end of the World, as we know it. God will reign and Jerry Falwell will sit at the right hand of God. Israel will be no more. Israel will be destroyed during the apocalypse. Any Jews that survive anywhere will be converted to Christianity. Or more precisely, Evangelical Christianity. The Moslems, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Shintos, the Animists, the Voodooists, the Catholics, et al, will be converted to the Evangelical Christian legions of the Lord commanded by Jerry Falwell. If you believe otherwise, if you believe that Biblical prophesies as interpreted by the Christian right are so much lunacy, you are in the helpless majority. Because the Christian right has extraordinary influence in the administration of President George Bush. George Bush is one of their number. He does not attempt to hide this; he is quite deliberate in his public discussions of his re-birth, and his salvation. He was saved from a life of excess when he embraced the rigorous teachings of the Christian Evangelicals. The Christian right managed, through the rebirth of George Bush, to gain a good measure of influence over the most powerful nation on this earth. The Christian right believes that only the apocalypse will purify the souls of the heretics, and the United States will be the instrument to bring forth God's wrath. The great resources, the military might, of the United States is part of the divine plan to bring the Apocalypse upon us. Jerry Falwell has made the truth about the administration's desperate attempts to go to war with Iraq frighteningly clear. Falwell has said publicly he believes Mohammad the Prophet was evil. Falwell said that Mohammad was a terrorist. That is why he and the Christian fundamentalists support Israel in their battle against the Palestinians. Because the battle Israel is fighting against the Moslem Palestinians is to reclaim the lands of biblical Israel. Evangelicals believe the lands of ancient Israel must be reunited in order to fulfill the biblical prophesy of Christ's return to earth. That is why George Bush makes no effort to stop Ariel Sharon's furious attempt to drive the Palestinians from the occupied territories. Sharon will restore the ancient Hebrew Kingdom, including Judea and Samaria, provinces which make up the modern-day West Bank. George Bush makes no effort to protect the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because the Evangelicals tell him not to. When President Bush told the Israelis to withdraw their tanks and troops from the occupied territories last April, Falwell sent him a letter of protest. Falwell had his followers send one hundred thousand emails to President Bush to support his demand. Israel did not withdraw its tanks and troops and George Bush stopped calling. George Bush has given Ariel Sharon a free hand since. The Evangelicals are Bush's core support. They are the people who helped him defeat John McCain, who once called Jerry Falwell "evil". in the crucial South Carolina primary. Falwell's Evangelicals called thousands of South Carolina voters to inform them that McCain has a black child. (McCain and his wife Cindy adopted a little girl from Bangladesh.) These righteous people do not believe in the mixing of the races. The Bible tells them the mixing of race is an abomination. These same pious people, who await the coming of Christ, find nothing wrong with murdering doctors who perform abortions. These virtuous people and their leader are the same people who have condemned homosexuals, and will never give women the right to an abortion. These devout people regard other religious beliefs as heresy. They want to go to war with Iraq so that millions will die in the apocalyptic horror that will follow for their own salvation. What is frightening is the language President Bush uses when he describes Saddam and others as the "Evil Ones," the "Evil Doers," to incite the American people to war. They are the same descriptions; carrying the same religious connotations, that Jerry Falwell and his flock employ to describe non-believers. George Bush is a child of their beliefs. George Bush seems to believe he and Ariel Sharon are locked in a struggle together against the "Evil Ones" for the world's salvation. Sharon represents the key to the coming salvation. The Evangelicals adore him. Sharon has said often he wants to reclaim the land of ancient Israel. He believes the Palestinians have a homeland - called Jordan. He does not want peace with the Palestinians, and he does not want Iraq to remain a threat to Israel. Sharon and Falwell have formed a partnership based on the lunacy of biblical prophecies, and the insanity of Sharon's vision of the resurrection of the ancient Hebrew Kingdom. We, the majority of Americans, are only observers, and have no real influence to stop what will surely occur. There may be a reason for the war. Saddam is truly a very bad person. He should be removed. But he is not the only bad person who runs a country. Where do we stop? Or do we stop at the second coming? What worries me is that we may be going to war to fulfill what a few deluded people believe to be biblical prophecy. And what really worries me is that we have a President who might believe this nonsense, too. Morgan Strong a former professor of Middle Eastern History at S.U.N.Y. Poughkeepsie, is a consultant to 60Minutes on the Middle East. He has written for Playboy, USA Today, Vanity Fair, and many other publications.
7/26/2006
9 foot 6 inchs
It's made by WATERCOOLED surf boards. It's exactly like this board, but no graphics. Plain white foam with a shiny finish. And now it's got a bunch of dings and boardwax all over it so it looks kinda crappy. But she sails...
6/25/2006
ME ON TV
Frenchy
6/12/2006
Balls
"The balls, lowered to the ocean floor by a crane, will help create undersea habitat for fish and other marine life. "
Dude, that's not funny! Well, the writing is.mike
5/21/2006
MikeAcrossAmerica FaceLift
a much needed facelift.
See also, AURORA
http://www.mikeacrossamerica.com/aurora.html
Mike
5/13/2006
What's a sky-clock?
WHATS WRONG WITH AMERICA?
5/06/2006
AMERICAN INDIANS
American Indians are our continental hosts, and one day may they rise up and tell us that some of us have overstayed our welcome before we completely decimate them.
MF
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ARCHIVE
4/25/2006
K INDEX IN JEOPARDY! And you dont care, do you?
Anyway, I digressssss..... NASA's ACE spacecraft is almost four years past its intended lifetime. Although ACE measurements of the solar wind flowing past Earth are crucial to space weather forecasts, there is no plan to replace ACE when the craft ceases to function. NOAA is seeking public comment on this state of affairs.
If you enjoy auroras, please let them know that ACE needs a successor.
The following products will be terminated completely.
- Real-time solar wind plasma, particle, and magnetic field data
- Geomagnetic sudden impulse warning
- Radiation belt electron model output
- Geomagnetic activity prediction model (Forecasters use the Costello Model in formulating the Solar and Geophysical Activity Report and 3-Day Forecast Product)
- Electron, Proton, and Alpha Monitor (EPAM) low-energy ion data (Forecasters use these data to predict the arrival of an interplanetary shock, and the intensity of the ensuing geomagnetic storm.
Meltdowns
A number of Russian nuclear submarines have experienced nuclear meltdowns. The only known large scale nuclear meltdowns at civilian nuclear power plants were in the Chernobyl accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, USA, in 1979 although there have been several partial core meltdowns, including accidents at:
PARTIAL MELTDOWNS:
NRX, Ontario, Canada, in 1952
EBR-I, Idaho, USA, in 1955
Windscale, Sellafield, England, in 1957
Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Simi Hills, California, in 1959
Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, Michigan, USA, in 1966
Chapelcross, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in 1967
Not all of these were caused by a loss of coolant and in several cases (the Chernobyl accident and the Windscale fire, for example) the meltdown was not the most severe problem.
The Three Mile Island accident was caused by a loss of coolant, but "despite melting of about one-third of the fuel, the reactor vessel itself maintained its integrity and contained the damaged fuel". [2].
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ARCHIVE
4/20/2006
Bittorrent
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4/19/2006
Lance Armstrong the Magnet90
4/11/2006
PANORAMIO
4/09/2006
The NY Times said so!
4/05/2006
911 Pentagon Question
Lifted from WFMY.com
time keeps on clickin
Around 1 oclock it was
01:02:03 04/05/06
That will only happen 2 times ever, and it's already gone by! You missed it.
3/18/2006
MY FINEST BLOG
3/17/2006
SWEET ROADSIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA
I found this sign while cycling home from a ride north of Kernersville, NC. It's just down the road from a church. It's 100% great..
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ARCHIVE
3/15/2006
NYC
LA GUARDIA TOWER
MANHATTAN FROM THE SKY
GET SOME BALLS!
ARCHIVE
3/08/2006
Better Organization
It is exactly this:
- NEW ORGANIZATION FOR THE IMAGES!
- Rivers
- Landscapes
- Oddities
- Me and the Bike
- Signs
- National Parks
- Wildlife
- Plants
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ARCHIVE
3/06/2006
Why do you think?
I know what I think is the reason why this is so, but I'm iterested in hearing your top 3 reasons. Hit the "comments" section below.
The red dot was the last visitor. The green dots are the last 10 visitors, and the white are the last 100. This is a free application that I use to monitor the physical location of my viewership.
ARCHIVE
3/01/2006
Trees.
2/20/2006
Search for Intelligence. Elsewhere...
2/18/2006
RS Ophiuchi ?
SPACEWEATHER.COM (NASA)
NOVA! A few days ago, the star RS Ophiuchi exploded. Not the whole star, just some material dumped onto it by a neighboring red giant. The resulting nuclear conflagration is visible to the naked eye--barely--in the constellation Ophiuchus just before dawn: sky map. Astrophotographer John Chumack snapped a picture of RS Ophiuchi on Feb. 16th: see www.spaceweather.com and adjust the date to read feb 18, 06 to see his pic.
Normally RS Ophiuchi would be indistinguisable from the scatter of dim background stars in this image, but as a nova, it stands out front and center. The explosion multiplied RS Ophiuchi's brightness by a factor of 1700--from magnitude 12.5 to 4.5. "But, cautions Chumack, "the nova is fading now, currently at mag 5.3, so get out and take a look [before it disappears]."
Huh?
The apparent magnitude (m) of a star, planet or other celestial body is a measure of its apparent brightness as seen by an observer on Earth. The brighter the object appears, the lower the numerical value of its magnitude.
| Scale of apparent magnitudes | |
| App. Mag. | Celestial object |
|---|---|
| −26.73 | Sun |
| −12.6 | full Moon |
| −8.0 | Maximum brightness of an Iridium Flare |
| −4.4 | Maximum brightness of Venus |
| −4.0 | Faintest objects observable during the day with naked eye |
| −2.8 | Maximum brightness of Mars |
| −1.5 | Brightest star at visible wavelengths: Sirius |
| −0.7 | Second brightest star: Canopus |
| 0 | The zero point by definition: This used to be Vega (see references for modern zero point) |
| ~3 | Faintest stars visible in an urban neighborhood |
| ~6 | Faintest stars observable with naked eye |
| 12.6 | Brightest quasar |
| 27 | Faintest objects observable in visible light with 8m ground-based telescopes |
| 30 | Faintest objects observable in visible light with Hubble Space Telescope |
| 38 | Faintest objects observable in visible light with planned OWL (2020) |
| (see also List of brightest stars) | |
The apparent magnitude in the band x can be defined as
where 
is the observed flux in the band x, and 
is a constant that depends on the units of the flux and the band. The constant is defined in Aller et al 1982 for the most commonly used system.
The second thing to notice is that the scale is logarithmic: the relative brightness of two objects is determined by the difference of their magnitudes. For example, a difference of 3.2 means that one object is about 19 times as bright as the other, because Pogson's ratio raised to the power 3.2 is 19.054607... The logarithmic nature of the scale is due to the fact of the human eye itself having a logarithmic response, see Weber-Fechner law.
Since cooler stars, such as red giants and red dwarfs, emit little energy in the blue and UV regions of the spectrum their power is often under-represented by the UBV scale. Indeed, some L and T class stars have an estimated magnitude of well over 100, since they emit extremely little visible light, but are strongest in infrared.
Measures of magnitude need cautious treatment and it is extremely important to measure like with like. On early 20th-century and older orthochromatic (blue-sensitive) photographic film, the relative brightnesses of the blue supergiant Rigel and the red supergiant Betelgeuse irregular variable star (at maximum) are reversed compared to what our eyes see since this archaic film is more sensitive to blue light than it is to red light. Magnitudes obtained from this method are known as photographic magnitudes, and are now considered obsolete.
For objects within our Galaxy with a given absolute magnitude, 5 is added to the apparent magnitude for every tenfold increase in the distance to the object. This relationship does not apply for objects at very great distances (far beyond our galaxy), since a correction for General Relativity must then be taken into account due to the non-Euclidean nature of space. Duh.
See also
Beard-o
spins an amazing story of his hike replete with Bear encounters and dead end hikes, skeeters by the pound, and utter exhaustion. And the way he describes the people he's met and how they affect his life, all without closure for the most part- it's great reading because it's honest. Somehow real life does not come with a scripted beginning - middle - and end. Sometimes you just leave a situation, or the situation leaves you.The strongest lesson I learned this summer is that great things must sometimes be left behind no matter how much you want to stay, because the journey and the change is what is most valuable.
He even gives yours-truely a mention in "leg-5" -Here - or http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/faculty/cwillett/cdt/leg5.html.
Chris's Long Distance Hiking Experience
Prologue
The Border to East Glacier, MT.
East Glacier to Lincoln, MT.
Lincoln to Bozeman, MT.
Bozeman to Mammoth, WY.
Mammoth to Jackson, WY. (Where we intersected)
The Journey Home
Postscript
Questions and Answers
Selected Gear Notes
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And also Chris's:
Long Distance Hiking
Local Trips
Short Trips, Far Away
Foreign Touron
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ARCHIVE
2/13/2006
http://www.mikeacrossamerica.com/photos/ADK/adirondack.html
2/11/2006
SPRING CLEANING
2/09/2006
Cool Links
Here's one for instance. LINK.
That kicks ass.
HTMLgoodies can help you too. And also, http://www.computerhope.com/learnhtm.htm
43 places and 43 people (cool site)
43 PLACES
First, it's kind of a cool site. Original. Second, there's lots of pictures of cool places. 3rd, and it's the reason I like this site.
You can search for, let's say, Plattsburgh, NY. Then you can see the places people have added in Plattsburgh. And you can go into, for instance, the State University of Plattsburgh. And then you can go into Macomb Hall, and post your images of your floor within the Hall. Or add your hall, floor, and room, then add a picture of your room.Again, you can start with Earth, go into the USA, NY, Adirondack Mountains, and then each individual Mountain. If you don't see your favorite place, add it, and add a picture if you want.
43 PEOPLE
Another cool addition to this site is your additions to this site are useful to everyone else. So, you can see the people I've met and perhaps, I could meet you there and get to know the places you know well?
WHO?
I have not been able to figure out who owns it, but I know google has at least a small part of it. Can you find the owners for me?
2/05/2006
For Carl...
Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts.
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.