The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Outer Space ...

I see that not everyone has given up on the “WOW Signal“, a narrow-band electomagnetic radio signal from the sky that was picked up in 1977 by the on-going Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence project. This search has been going intermittently since the early 1960s, in both the USA and Russia. For the most part, nothing interesting has been found coming in from the stars beyond a lot of static. But on August 15, 1977, a signal was picked up by some radio dishes at Ohio State University that seemed to have been the real deal, an organized radio signal originating in a distant star system. Unfortunately, no one was monitoring the equipment full-time, and by the time the technicians saw the read-out for the WOW signal, it was too late. They tried pointing another antenna at the spot in the sky where the WOW signal appeared to come from, but it was gone. (Actually, another antenna came into range a few minutes later that day; but failed to pick up anything unusual.)

I thought that the whole subject had been debunked and forgotten; i.e., the signal must have been a glitch, or something from we earthlings. It was likely just another observation flaw. But not everyone gave up as quickly as me. There’s a short but interesting interview on The Atlantic web site with an amateur astronomy buff named Robert Gray who thinks that the signal could have been the real thing, some sort of signal sent intentionally by a technological civilization many light years away. Mr. Gray recently published a book on the topic, “The Elusive Wow“.

Two caveats here, of course. First, the signal might still be debunked as a mistake or human artifact » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:53 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

◊ The Universe — Just a Fever Delusion?

Brain / Mind ... Science ...

There’s another thought-provoking article in Sci Am this month about an experiment to find out if reality is ultimately digital. I.e., does reality (and I mean reality as we and our sciences presently know it) ultimately come down to an “emergence”, a secondary effect, from the digital state of gad-zillians of tiny little “information boxes”? The experiment in question will look at light interference patterns, to see if they waver in tiny amounts. If they do, then maybe reality at the tiniest level is just a lot of digital boxes, and these tiny boxes, like anything else on that scale, are subject to random quantum fluctuation. If so, then REALITY is a bit more complicated than we thought.

This all relates to some thoughts that the physics folks have had in recent years about black holes and information. In a nutshell, black holes MIGHT prove (sort-of prove actually; this hasn’t been directly observed, although it is strongly implied from what is observed) that a set of 2-dimension sheets surrounding a cube (or alternately, the surface of a sphere) can hold enough information on it to define everything about what is within that 3-dimensional space within. I.e., what kind of particle, e.g. electron, quark, neutrino, what their positions are, what their energy levels are, etc. Sort of like a holograph.

This info would have to be stored in the tiniest boxes possible, i.e. boxes that were a Planck’s length or two in width and height. That’s really tiny, » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:53 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, February 11, 2012

◊ Eating With The Fish

Health / Nutrition ...

Like most people concerned with fueling the body with healthy stuff so as to delay its big decline and fall off as long as possible (which still won’t be all that long, no matter how healthy the stuff), I have become interested in omega fats. This is the whole fish oil thing, the idea that fish oil delivers a rich mix of omega 3 long-chain fatty acids that offset the potential inflammation caused by eating too much omega 6 fat. The typical American diet is quite rich in omega 6 fat and deficient in omega 3. And there just aren’t all that many foods that are good sources of omega 3. The best source appears to be fish, especially oily fish like mackerel and tuna. Most people don’t want to eat these kinds of fish every day, so the main alternative is to gulp down some fish oil, which provides enough omega 3 to help the heart and other major organs.

Being a vegetarian, I’m not going to gulp down fish oil. Veg-heads unwilling to compromise on refusing to participate in the slaughter of sea animals have limited options with regard to omega 3. There is flax seed and flax oil, which are pretty good providers of a certain type of omega 3 (ALA, which the body can convert to the beneficial EPA, i.e. eicosapentaenoic acid). However, they are almost totally lacking in the best of the omega 3 fats, called DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). An older male body like my own has almost no chance of converting ALA in to DHA, even if does OK with EPA. But there is one more option, albeit a rather expensive option. I.e., algal oil – an oil processed from specially cultivated algae – yes, just like the green slime that forms on stagnant water. Well, I checked various web sites and found a brand of algal oil on Amazon that wasn’t totally ridiculous in price (about $24 for 90 daily doses).

Algal oil can be consumed two ways – either in capsules to be swallowed, akin to the most popular way that fish oil is taken these days; or as a liquid » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:27 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, February 9, 2012

◊ Wikipedia, Accuracy, and a Dead Trappist Monk

Religion ... Web Site/Blog ...

Like most other people who use the internet for reading and research (even if my own research isn’t too important), I rely a lot on Wikipedia. In fact, I used to be a minor contributor; I started entries for one topic and greatly expanded two others. I haven’t stayed up with that, but I still go there a lot as to get a rough overview on an unfamiliar topic when needed.

The question is, how accurate and unbiased is a “crowd-sourced” library out there on the cloud? According to a short review on this topic, a 2005 article in Nature magazine said that Wikipedia is about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. Another article in “Reference Sources Review” (not a very popular and well known periodical, but it sounds authoritative nonetheless) said that the big Wiki is roughly 80% accurate versus 95% being the gold standard of professional publications. Not bad for what you don’t pay for, although I’d like to think that Britannica is closer to the 95% mark than Wikipedia’s 80% (given all you have to pay for a Britannica set or even its website and CD’s)(although you probably could still walk into a library and find a dusty copy of the Britannica ready on the reference shelf for your perusal)(but who goes to libraries anymore? I don’t, but I honestly do miss them; maybe when I retire . . . )

Up to now, I haven’t found any obvious mistakes on Wikipedia. My biggest complaint to date » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:57 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, February 4, 2012

◊ Book Review – Dippy, Deadly Buddhism

Spirituality ...

At my zendo, I fill the role of the ‘science guy’. The majority of our sangha are either artists, therapists, teachers, or are at least hugely interested in arts and culture. I’m more interested in evolution and quantum physics. But we all like to sit quietly in meditation. And even during our discussion sessions, no one seems to object when I bring up something from the scientific perspective (thus far, anyway).

So, it seems to be my responsibility to verse myself in the literature regarding the connections and interplay between Eastern spiritual tradition and modern science. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a lot of good, thoughtful writings on that topic. There is of course Capra’s “Tao of Physics” and Lukav’s “Dancing Wu Li Masters”, but those seemed kind of mushy. They note the surface similarities between certain ancient Buddhist and Taoist doctrines and the wavy, abstract views of reality that science has developed over the past 80 years or so between relativity theory, quantum mechanics, chaos and fractal analysis, and the study of large on-going systems with their complexity, emergence and self-organization. But these authors beg the question as to whether the ancient sages were really on to something about the true nature of reality (and just how and why they gained such wisdom), or did they just get lucky in espousing a philosophy of life that worked in the world that they knew.

Not long ago, I got a recommendation from a sangha member who I greatly respect regarding the writings and thoughts of a Buddhist teacher named Wes Nisker. I checked out some of his » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:03 pm Read Comments (4) / Leave a Comment

Monday, January 30, 2012

◊ The Santorum Factor in the GOP Follies

Politics ...

The GOP Presidential nomination circus is still going strong. Newt Gingrich’s campaign should be dead and Romney should be the defacto nominee by now. But as I said in a previous blog, Gingrich flourished back in the Bill Clinton days of the 1990s, and something of that old Clinton instinct rubbed off on him. (Perhaps it’s really an “anti-Clinton” force, given Newt’s crafty negativity and scowls as compared with the Old Dog’s crafty optimism and smiles). So Gingrich somehow convinced enough anti-Washington / pro-family conservatives that he shared their anger and would serve them best, despite the fact that Gingrich built his life around Washington and open marriages. For now, anyway. Newt has a way of blowing up his own bandwagon, once it gets rolling. And Mitt is finally learning to take his mitts off and swing a few knuckles back at Mr. Gingrich.

But it still looks like a close race right now (although Romney seems to have gained advantage in tomorrow’s Florida primary). The two remaining also-rans, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, could swing the final outcome. Dr. Paul will probably take all his delegates to the GOP convention floor, just for the glory of the cause.

But Rick Santorum looks like a more pragmatic sort, a more typical politician as opposed » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:55 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, January 28, 2012

◊ Mid-Winter Blueberry Morning

Photo ...

I made a food run up to my favorite fresh produce market in South Paterson, NJ about three weeks ago. Whenever I go, I stock up on all sorts of veggies and fruits. The prices there are still very good, about 2/3 of what the cheapest supermarket here in the ‘burbs charges. It’s like going back in time about 10 years, pricewise.

I bought some winter Chilean blueberries, and I’m still munching on them with breakfast most every day. This is definitely a welcome little mid-winter treat. The blueberry container is a short lesson in multi-lingualism, with English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic words on it. I think that the French word for blueberries best captures what they are about: “bleuets”.

Ah yes. BLUE – ETTES, to crudely Americanize the word. Little blue things. Yep, a great way to describe blueberries.

But Spanish best captures the origin of these particular blueberries: Producto de Chile. I have no idea how the Chinese and Arabic script break down. But it’s an interesting little part of an otherwise drab winter morning here in New Jersey.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:11 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, January 27, 2012

◊ Lives We Might Have Lived

Personal Reflections ...

About 36 years ago, I had graduated from NJIT with a bachelors degree in industrial engineering (where did all that time go?) and was anxious to get out into the world and start doing some real engineering work. But like today, the economy was bad and job prospects for college grads was not very good. I didn’t have a job lined up by graduation day in late May, and the Spring turned to Summer and then Autumn as I continued on a fruitless search for professional employment. I had a friend who also graduated that year, with a liberal arts degree. He had quickly lined up a job selling insurance in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Better than nothing!

One day the guy in question told me that he knew someone from a company that was hiring engineers, so he took my resume and passed it on to them. A few weeks later, in late August, we both took Saturday road trips out to the Harrisburg area and met up at the Rockville train bridge, where we took various photos of freight trains going over the Susquehanna River (just a hobby thing at the time). We didn’t spend much time together that day, and for whatever reason we both weren’t giving each other much attention (maybe because he had another friend with him and I had two other fellows with me). But he did give me a card with a name on it, and told me to “call this guy” about the job, and tell him that you were referred by “Harry”. The card was from “Salvucci Engineers” in Pittsburgh, but my friend didn’t tell me who they were or what they did. Nor who Harry was. And I didn’t ask.

I never did call the guy from Salvucci Engineers, as I just didn’t have a good feeling » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:34 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, January 21, 2012

◊ Aspergers Syndrome, The Dynamic Version

Aspergers ... Psychology ...

I’ve had my problems with the rest of the human race. I generally like people, but as I get older I have more and more trouble relating to them. Maybe it’s just a part of the process of turning into an old fogie. But for a while there, I thought it was all because of Aspergers Syndrome.

I first read about Aspergers maybe 5 or 6 years ago, and a lot of the characteristics of Aspie-people seemed to hit home with me. Supposedly, kids who like science and who get rabidly interested in something like trains and railroads often have Aspergers, especially if they maintain such obsessive interests into adulthood. I still like science but I can’t say that I’m currently obsessed with trains. Nonetheless, I did have a Lionel layout as a kid, and I was a fairly rabid railran photographer while in high school and college and even a decade or so beyond that (ah, innocent days, fun days they were).

So then, after discovering Aspergers, it seemed as though I finally had my finger on what it is that sometimes » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:37 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, January 16, 2012

◊ Viral Video Voyeurism: Infections of the Soul

Personal Reflections ... Spirituality ...

While driving to work the other day, I heard a newscast discussing the recent video of US Marines urinating on the bodies of fallen Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The announcer noted that the video had “gone viral” in the past day. In other words, people found it so interesting that word about it spread rapidly, like a virus. So, we have another new expression in our language courtesy of modern technology: viral videos.

Personally, I don’t spend much time watching videos on the internet. I’d rather read an article or view a still picture. I have more control over the narrative with those versus watching “dynamic imagery”. I guess that’s why I don’t watch a lot of TV nor go to the movies very often. There is a difference in the balance of power between “still media” and “dynamic media”, with videos, movies and TV shows having more control over what you take away from them.

But many people get bored very quickly, and dynamic imagery usually stimulates the brain much » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:09 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

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