Photographer John Chapple tracked down Spencer Elden to recreate a couple of photos taken of him when he was a baby. Not unusual, but the photo in question was of young Spencer in a pool appearing as though he was swimming after a dollar bill on a hook, and the "album" in question was not family photos, but the Nirvana breakout Nevermind.
Elden has done the shot before, and is an artist when not modeling for rock-music-paradigm-shifting albums.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Vote While You Can, Monkey-Boy!
Brian J. Noggle offers what seems, in this irrational year of 2016, to be a perfectly rational choice. Tablet seems to balk at posting the photo, so just head on over to the link.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Forewarned
So tonight was the first of however many presidential debates are scheduled for 2016. A number of my friends on Facebook seemed disappointed with them in one way or another.
My opinion is that anyone disappointed in whatever circus Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton collaborate to produce should remember the words of the scorpion just after it had stung the frog ferrying it across the river. "You knew what I was when you made the deal."
My opinion is that anyone disappointed in whatever circus Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton collaborate to produce should remember the words of the scorpion just after it had stung the frog ferrying it across the river. "You knew what I was when you made the deal."
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Whither Australia?
Wither Australia literally. The Down Under continent is one of the world's fastest-moving tectonic plates, which means every year it's about 2.7 inches farther north than it was the year before. And it rotated a little bit clockwise.
Slow compared to most movement -- although still faster than John Kerry's clueward motion -- that level of shifting is enough to make global positioning coordinates inaccurate in just a few years. The Times story at the link notes that the Australian agency concerned with such matters has adjusted the national latitude and longitude four times in the last 50 years -- and about 20 years ago it shifted things 656 feet.
This year's change will be a relative twitch by comparison at just under five feet. Those kinds of changes are needed by engineering and mining concerns which use GPS coordinates to site wells, drills, experiments and the like.
The nearest land to Australia is Papua New Guinea, but at this rate of movement it will be a just under two million years before the Cape York Peninsula crosses the Torres Strait. We don't have to worry in the US, since the Aussies aren't headed in our direction and the different tectonic plates don't move that way. Even if they were coming right at us, it would take them the better part of 200 million years to get here. They might bring Secretary Kerry's clue with them.
Slow compared to most movement -- although still faster than John Kerry's clueward motion -- that level of shifting is enough to make global positioning coordinates inaccurate in just a few years. The Times story at the link notes that the Australian agency concerned with such matters has adjusted the national latitude and longitude four times in the last 50 years -- and about 20 years ago it shifted things 656 feet.
This year's change will be a relative twitch by comparison at just under five feet. Those kinds of changes are needed by engineering and mining concerns which use GPS coordinates to site wells, drills, experiments and the like.
The nearest land to Australia is Papua New Guinea, but at this rate of movement it will be a just under two million years before the Cape York Peninsula crosses the Torres Strait. We don't have to worry in the US, since the Aussies aren't headed in our direction and the different tectonic plates don't move that way. Even if they were coming right at us, it would take them the better part of 200 million years to get here. They might bring Secretary Kerry's clue with them.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
A Good Idea? A Bad Idea? Both? Neither? Yes!
Writing in The Atlantic, Sam Kriss suggests that the cosmological concept of the multiverse, which was designed to solve a problem, may have created some much larger ones. In fact, he says, the concept could be responsible for "rotting" our culture.
Some background first. The "multiverse" is an idea that's supposed to help answer why we live in the universe we do. See, there are a number of basic physical phenomena that are pretty finely balanced and if they were to have swayed a little this way or that, life might not have been possible. Which is fine except when you hold the principle that there isn't now and never has been any force guiding or shaping those phenomena. Because the odds that a universe would develop where even matter is possible, let alone life forms that reflect on the meaning and purpose of their existences, are close enough to impossible that it doesn't make much of a difference.
One solution is called the "anthropic principle." In its most limited version, all it says is that we know the universe formed this way because we're here to observe it. In its strongest version, it's not really distinguishable from creationism. There are other points along a continuum between those two poles. Some folks reject the principle completely, though, even in its mildest form. There is no guiding hand or principle behind the creation of the universe and it was all random. Which gets us back to those impossible odds at getting us the universe we have.
But the multiverse proposes that the universe we live in isn't the only one. At every point of creation where more than one thing could happen, all of them did and each created a branching path of reality. So "somewhere" there's a universe where gravity varies with the cube of distance instead of the square of it. And "somewhere" there's a universe where matter was spread so evenly following the Big Bang that no planets or stars could ever form.
Kriss notes that as a concept strictly limited to physical properties, the multiverse does solve some issues for strict materialists. But as the idea expands beyond physical laws, it can have a real wet-blanket impact on things. Imagine that every time you made a decision, the possibility that you didn't chose was chosen, but in another universe. Every time you said "Yes," another you in another reality said, "No." Every time you decided not to do something, another you in another reality decided to do it. Every time Donald Trump said something stupid, in another reality another Donald Trump didn't. Every time Hillary Clinton wasn't truthful, in another reality another Hillary Clinton was.
Yeah, I don't buy those last two either.
Anyway, Kriss says that knowing that none of our decisions actually makes much of a difference makes us figure, "Why bother?" Why write a book or record an album or paint a picture when there are countless other realities in which we won't, and which will get along just fine without whatever it is we would have produced.
I'm of two minds about Kriss's article. On the one hand, I think he sees the multiverse concept as having penetrated much more deeply into culture than it has. There's just not that many people who know about it, let alone accept it as a way of understanding reality. Plus, it's not like culture needs advanced theoretical physics concepts to rot. Eli Roth has managed to create plenty of decay with just plain ol' retread mindless gore, for example. And although one might wonder if one universe is enough to contain Kanye West's opinion of himself, the multiverse concept is not required to observe how he and his famous-for-no-good-reason spouse have absorbed an incredibly outsized share of public attention.
On the other hand, there's something to the idea that a reality that includes all possibilities takes away much of a reason to choose from among them. Why do A when the me who does B will have a completely different result that's just as real as mine? A belief that everything -- not just the basic laws of physics -- is involved in creating new slices of the multiverse could certainly bring people to wonder what point there might be to their choices. So Kriss may just be ahead of a curve that will one day be just as damaging as he believes.
But I guess you'd say someone like me, mired as I am in my orthodox Christian theism, sort of cheats around the issue. Not because I believe the universe is 6,000 years old or the dinosaurs died out because Noah was exercising his mammalian privilege -- but because I believe our choices and actions definitely matter. They matter not because they represent some kind of unique irrevocable channeling of reality into one lane or another -- but because the choosers matter to the One who has already chosen them. And they will continue to do so, no matter how weird reality gets.
Some background first. The "multiverse" is an idea that's supposed to help answer why we live in the universe we do. See, there are a number of basic physical phenomena that are pretty finely balanced and if they were to have swayed a little this way or that, life might not have been possible. Which is fine except when you hold the principle that there isn't now and never has been any force guiding or shaping those phenomena. Because the odds that a universe would develop where even matter is possible, let alone life forms that reflect on the meaning and purpose of their existences, are close enough to impossible that it doesn't make much of a difference.
One solution is called the "anthropic principle." In its most limited version, all it says is that we know the universe formed this way because we're here to observe it. In its strongest version, it's not really distinguishable from creationism. There are other points along a continuum between those two poles. Some folks reject the principle completely, though, even in its mildest form. There is no guiding hand or principle behind the creation of the universe and it was all random. Which gets us back to those impossible odds at getting us the universe we have.
But the multiverse proposes that the universe we live in isn't the only one. At every point of creation where more than one thing could happen, all of them did and each created a branching path of reality. So "somewhere" there's a universe where gravity varies with the cube of distance instead of the square of it. And "somewhere" there's a universe where matter was spread so evenly following the Big Bang that no planets or stars could ever form.
Kriss notes that as a concept strictly limited to physical properties, the multiverse does solve some issues for strict materialists. But as the idea expands beyond physical laws, it can have a real wet-blanket impact on things. Imagine that every time you made a decision, the possibility that you didn't chose was chosen, but in another universe. Every time you said "Yes," another you in another reality said, "No." Every time you decided not to do something, another you in another reality decided to do it. Every time Donald Trump said something stupid, in another reality another Donald Trump didn't. Every time Hillary Clinton wasn't truthful, in another reality another Hillary Clinton was.
Yeah, I don't buy those last two either.
Anyway, Kriss says that knowing that none of our decisions actually makes much of a difference makes us figure, "Why bother?" Why write a book or record an album or paint a picture when there are countless other realities in which we won't, and which will get along just fine without whatever it is we would have produced.
I'm of two minds about Kriss's article. On the one hand, I think he sees the multiverse concept as having penetrated much more deeply into culture than it has. There's just not that many people who know about it, let alone accept it as a way of understanding reality. Plus, it's not like culture needs advanced theoretical physics concepts to rot. Eli Roth has managed to create plenty of decay with just plain ol' retread mindless gore, for example. And although one might wonder if one universe is enough to contain Kanye West's opinion of himself, the multiverse concept is not required to observe how he and his famous-for-no-good-reason spouse have absorbed an incredibly outsized share of public attention.
On the other hand, there's something to the idea that a reality that includes all possibilities takes away much of a reason to choose from among them. Why do A when the me who does B will have a completely different result that's just as real as mine? A belief that everything -- not just the basic laws of physics -- is involved in creating new slices of the multiverse could certainly bring people to wonder what point there might be to their choices. So Kriss may just be ahead of a curve that will one day be just as damaging as he believes.
But I guess you'd say someone like me, mired as I am in my orthodox Christian theism, sort of cheats around the issue. Not because I believe the universe is 6,000 years old or the dinosaurs died out because Noah was exercising his mammalian privilege -- but because I believe our choices and actions definitely matter. They matter not because they represent some kind of unique irrevocable channeling of reality into one lane or another -- but because the choosers matter to the One who has already chosen them. And they will continue to do so, no matter how weird reality gets.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Blow-Up Pub!
Bounce houses and games at kids' parties are common and a lot of fun. Adults may join in, but there haven't always been similar things for them.
There are now, as Boston-based The Paddy Wagon Pub will rent you an inflatable Irish pub in which you may hold your lawn party or gathering. A larger version will hold 80 people but there are also smaller ones. They'll also provide proper Irish food and, of course, proper Irish beverages, if you are of age. It doesn't say on the company's website, but I imagine the catering part of the deal is limited to areas near Boston itself.
Should you be a wee bit outside the area, you can actually buy your own inflatable pub from the outfit in Ireland that makes them. Of course, then you have to provide your own food and beverages.
Although it's doubtless a fun venue for a lawn party or event, there are some things about the inflatable version of the pub that just aren't the same as the real thing. For example, they have no real floor and just rest on the ground. Which means passing out face first because one's consumption of said authentic beverages was just a bit, ah, enthusiastic is not nearly as painful in the blow-up pub. This could be a plus.
But on the down side, some forms of traditional pub entertainment are not advisable. Dart games, for example, are strongly discouraged. And it's best not to let local law enforcement have a breathalyzer anywhere near the deflate valve after the party's over.
There are now, as Boston-based The Paddy Wagon Pub will rent you an inflatable Irish pub in which you may hold your lawn party or gathering. A larger version will hold 80 people but there are also smaller ones. They'll also provide proper Irish food and, of course, proper Irish beverages, if you are of age. It doesn't say on the company's website, but I imagine the catering part of the deal is limited to areas near Boston itself.
Should you be a wee bit outside the area, you can actually buy your own inflatable pub from the outfit in Ireland that makes them. Of course, then you have to provide your own food and beverages.
Although it's doubtless a fun venue for a lawn party or event, there are some things about the inflatable version of the pub that just aren't the same as the real thing. For example, they have no real floor and just rest on the ground. Which means passing out face first because one's consumption of said authentic beverages was just a bit, ah, enthusiastic is not nearly as painful in the blow-up pub. This could be a plus.
But on the down side, some forms of traditional pub entertainment are not advisable. Dart games, for example, are strongly discouraged. And it's best not to let local law enforcement have a breathalyzer anywhere near the deflate valve after the party's over.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Sailing the Seas of Titan
Big Think features an article about how a submarine would be able to explore the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn's moon Titan. It sounds very cool, with the only problem being that such a mission might not get off the ground until 2040. Actuarily speaking, that's a date with a significant chance of not being seen by your humble correspondent, who would very much like to see a mission in which a spacecraft flies a submarine to another planet's moon.
If NASA or another agency does manage to develop this mission, I would suggest the best possible name for the submarine portion of the craft is "Sebastian."
If NASA or another agency does manage to develop this mission, I would suggest the best possible name for the submarine portion of the craft is "Sebastian."
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