Okay, I've just got to say this concerning the Presidential race (and this is just off the top of my head so don't freak out about the speling errors or what could be taken as politically inccorect statements - they are.)
I'm going to call it. Senator McCain has officially lost, and here is why:
1. Obama's appearance and speech in Denver was one of the most publicly impressive in decades. He was self confident, and came across honest and sincere and, in my opinion, for the first rime really said something about what he plans to do. Unless he screws someby in public other than his wife, he has successfully mobilezed millions to go to the polls and cast a vote for him.
2. McCain (the next day) looked to old, to ill, and way to uncomfortable standing next to his VP pick Palin. (like he was afraid to hug her for fear he'd get a sexual assault charge, his wife pissed off, or worse, her husband stomping across the stage to kick his ass!) He did not motivate anyone to do anything for him. (There was even a shot of some white guy in the crowd with his arms folded across his chest looking kinda pissed off when McCain announced Palin's name. Did anyone else see that?)
3. Palin is too young and attractive for the GOP (middle letter there stands for "Old"). Some bloggers even go so far as calling her a MILF! (I'm just saying.) But getting people talking about you doesn't necessarily translate to getting them to vote for you.
4. McCain just reinforces what Obama said about him "not getting it." If McCain's strategy is to woo the women voters, who were supporting Clinton, then that's a non-starter to me. THAT is playing politics, and besides, Palin has no where near the accomplishments of Senator Clinton. Clinton ran on her (and her husbands) achievements and voters off all types were supporting HER. Palin is no Clinton, in this case she is "just a women" and if the McCain camp hopes she will draw in those illusive, fembots to his side, they are sadly mistaken. Like I said, he's playing politics and I think women and former Clinton supporters find it insulting.
5. I'm going to say it, and it might offend, but I honestly think the majority of GOP men DON'T want to see a "Hocky mom" just one 72-year-old heartbeat away from being the Prez. Not with things like Iran and nukes, N. Korea and nukes, Iraq, Russia, and the economy to name only a few. The majority of of American men would rather see a black man in office than a white women. (There i said it again, go howl at the moon.)
Some people argue to wait and see what happens at the Republican convention, but I don't see them being able to generate teh same kind of energy and emotional impact as Obama and the Dems did (people were crying for crying out loud!)
Just my thoughts, feel free to crux me by email.
Happy Sunday,
xoxo
Bryan
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
What a quiter!
It seems Mike Candrea, the Arizona softball coach whose bid to lead the United States to a second gold medal ended with a loss to Japan in the title game in Beijing, stepped down yesterday as coach of the national team.Candrea had guided the Americans since 2002 and went 17-1 in Olympic play. The only defeat was a 3-1 loss to Japan in the gold medal game last week.
So after six years of coaching the Olympic team and one lousy loose, he's quiting. What a looser! If you can't take one little setback, one little lose and keep your head up and drive on, then what kind of role model is he setting for people like me, who has no life and either looks up to people who actually do stuff, of makes fun of people for the same reason, huh?
Well, I guess I can say thank you to Candrea for being a quitter and giving me something to poke fun at. What a looser!
A Day in Iraq
I was able to create these in comic book creator on my mac. AWESOME! Learning cool new stuff every day. I have so many plans for future projects, that I can barely contain myself! How exciting is that?
The Problem with Time Travel
The Problem with Time Travel
Artists and scientists alike have contemplated time travel in one guise or another for centuries. Despite the many significant technological hurdles preventing time travel from becoming a reality, many theoretical physicist continue to speculate on how time travel may in fact be possible. It may just be a matter of time before human technologically stumbles upon the answer.
Perhaps some day the physics for transporting any type of matter through time may be possible, but in the mean time, I would like to perform a mental exercise about some of the related challenges of time travel, specifically the fundamental problems related to defining the destination parameters if time travel were possible.
For instance, suppose you were to develop a machine capable of transporting you through time based here on earth. All you hav to do is stand on a platform or inside the machine and it will wisk you off through time to whatever point you choose. You decide to set up your device and settle on transporting back in time six months from today's date. You set your device and transport yourself back in time exactly six months. What happens? Well, in the moments before your brain is sucked dry in the vacuum of space as you stare at a distant sun and even more distant planets with no sign of earth anywhere in sight, the last thought to cross you mind will probably be what went wrong? The answer of course is that nothing went wrong. You went back in time exactly six months to the date, which of course means the Earth is now exactly six months "away" from where you now occupy space in the universe. That is, the earth is now on the other side of the sun from your current physical location, the same locatoin in space from which you left. You moved through time, but you did not move through space.
Just because you are able to move through time itself does not mean that you are also moving through physical space. By going back six months, you appear in exactly the same location in the universe from which you left, and arrived at that location at a different time from when you left. If that period was six months, then the earth would be in its location around the sun six months prior to the date you left. Therefore your dead in this senerio.
How did this happen? The problem is never addressed in science fiction books or films, and seldom (to my surprise) by the theoretical science community. The assumption is that a person can move in both time and space, however, the sheer amount of energy it takes just to move great distances in three dimensions are already pretty incredible. How many more magnitudes of difficulty would it be to move in both time (which we can't do yet) and through space (planes, trains and automobiles) during the same event? Science Fiction always has the time travels appearing back in time, sometimes in completely different locations from where they left, without any difficulties related to the spacial location of the departing and arriving locations. In my opinion, the two are related. You may be able to depart in time, but not your location in the universe. You can leave your location in the universe, but only move linearly in time.
So if that's the case, the simple answer would seem to be only transporting in time in exact increments of 354.37 earth days at any given point. Aughh, but wait! There's more to the story. Our Sun is just one star among several hundred billion others that together make up the Milky Way Galaxy. Each star is itself moving. Any planet orbiting a star will share its motion through the Galaxy with it. In addition to the individual motions of the stars within it, the entire Galaxy is in spinning motion like an enormous pinwheel. Although the details of the Galaxy's spin are complicated (stars at different distances move at different speeds), we can focus on the speed of the Sun around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. It takes our Sun approximately 225 million years to make the trip around our Galaxy. This is sometimes called our "galactic year". Since the Sun and the Earth first formed, about 20 galactic years have passed; we have been around the Galaxy 20 times. On the other hand, in all of recorded human history, we have barely moved in our long path around the Milky Way. Therefore, your physical location in the universe at your departing point in time will never be exactly the same physical location in the universe in the past or future. It may be possible to travel a few years, maybe even a hundred years, into the past or future because the movement of the earth in the space of the universe might be insignificant for that period. However, if you were standing on the flat surface of the earth and departed in time for exactly one year in the past from that days date, you may discover yourself either appearing inside or even above the earth by a few meters or more.
This does not necessarily mean time travel could not be accomplished from a vessel capable of travel in space. A space vessel with time travel capability could depart its location in time and arrive at nearly any point in the past with relatively little to be concerned about. Unless of course, it appeared when a meteor or asteroid was passing by that particular spatial location at that specific point in time. An extremely complex map of all known astronomical debris would be only the first necessary knowledge to safely travel back into time. I personally wouldn't want to be the first space vessel time travel crew traveling back in time to an unknown physical reality just to map the pasts debris.
But long before the complexity of a space based time travel vessel would be even thought of as being operational or even testable, some type of empirical data proving the validity of time travel would surely be required and in my opinion would most likely be earth based. As discussed, an individual may be able to travel a few years in time (in either direction), but much more than that, and the distances in the physical locations from the departure point and the arrival points in time are physically too far off to be done safely.
Some ideas that may be worth farther thought and mental exercise might include earth based time travel in the earths atmosphere, or in the earth's oceans. Most likely any atmosphere based time travel would require loud, obvious modern engines and travel much beyond when the devices were build would not be recommend if maintaining anonymity is high on your list.
Ocean based time travel may be a little more promising. In a submarine time travel vessel, there might be a little more forgiveness for the differences in spacial distances over time. A vessel departing at 100 meters depth in a deep, wide underwater trench measuring kilometers deep and wide could arrive in the past/future time with the offset in difference being absorbed by the massive ocean and a change of depth serving as a buffer zone. Several hundred meters in any direction of arrival would not be a problem. Of course underwater sea life could pose a difficulty, if say the submarine appeared inside a whale.
Bryan Beach
Baltimore, MD
Aug 26, 2008
Artists and scientists alike have contemplated time travel in one guise or another for centuries. Despite the many significant technological hurdles preventing time travel from becoming a reality, many theoretical physicist continue to speculate on how time travel may in fact be possible. It may just be a matter of time before human technologically stumbles upon the answer.
Perhaps some day the physics for transporting any type of matter through time may be possible, but in the mean time, I would like to perform a mental exercise about some of the related challenges of time travel, specifically the fundamental problems related to defining the destination parameters if time travel were possible.
For instance, suppose you were to develop a machine capable of transporting you through time based here on earth. All you hav to do is stand on a platform or inside the machine and it will wisk you off through time to whatever point you choose. You decide to set up your device and settle on transporting back in time six months from today's date. You set your device and transport yourself back in time exactly six months. What happens? Well, in the moments before your brain is sucked dry in the vacuum of space as you stare at a distant sun and even more distant planets with no sign of earth anywhere in sight, the last thought to cross you mind will probably be what went wrong? The answer of course is that nothing went wrong. You went back in time exactly six months to the date, which of course means the Earth is now exactly six months "away" from where you now occupy space in the universe. That is, the earth is now on the other side of the sun from your current physical location, the same locatoin in space from which you left. You moved through time, but you did not move through space.
Just because you are able to move through time itself does not mean that you are also moving through physical space. By going back six months, you appear in exactly the same location in the universe from which you left, and arrived at that location at a different time from when you left. If that period was six months, then the earth would be in its location around the sun six months prior to the date you left. Therefore your dead in this senerio.
How did this happen? The problem is never addressed in science fiction books or films, and seldom (to my surprise) by the theoretical science community. The assumption is that a person can move in both time and space, however, the sheer amount of energy it takes just to move great distances in three dimensions are already pretty incredible. How many more magnitudes of difficulty would it be to move in both time (which we can't do yet) and through space (planes, trains and automobiles) during the same event? Science Fiction always has the time travels appearing back in time, sometimes in completely different locations from where they left, without any difficulties related to the spacial location of the departing and arriving locations. In my opinion, the two are related. You may be able to depart in time, but not your location in the universe. You can leave your location in the universe, but only move linearly in time.
So if that's the case, the simple answer would seem to be only transporting in time in exact increments of 354.37 earth days at any given point. Aughh, but wait! There's more to the story. Our Sun is just one star among several hundred billion others that together make up the Milky Way Galaxy. Each star is itself moving. Any planet orbiting a star will share its motion through the Galaxy with it. In addition to the individual motions of the stars within it, the entire Galaxy is in spinning motion like an enormous pinwheel. Although the details of the Galaxy's spin are complicated (stars at different distances move at different speeds), we can focus on the speed of the Sun around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. It takes our Sun approximately 225 million years to make the trip around our Galaxy. This is sometimes called our "galactic year". Since the Sun and the Earth first formed, about 20 galactic years have passed; we have been around the Galaxy 20 times. On the other hand, in all of recorded human history, we have barely moved in our long path around the Milky Way. Therefore, your physical location in the universe at your departing point in time will never be exactly the same physical location in the universe in the past or future. It may be possible to travel a few years, maybe even a hundred years, into the past or future because the movement of the earth in the space of the universe might be insignificant for that period. However, if you were standing on the flat surface of the earth and departed in time for exactly one year in the past from that days date, you may discover yourself either appearing inside or even above the earth by a few meters or more.
This does not necessarily mean time travel could not be accomplished from a vessel capable of travel in space. A space vessel with time travel capability could depart its location in time and arrive at nearly any point in the past with relatively little to be concerned about. Unless of course, it appeared when a meteor or asteroid was passing by that particular spatial location at that specific point in time. An extremely complex map of all known astronomical debris would be only the first necessary knowledge to safely travel back into time. I personally wouldn't want to be the first space vessel time travel crew traveling back in time to an unknown physical reality just to map the pasts debris.
But long before the complexity of a space based time travel vessel would be even thought of as being operational or even testable, some type of empirical data proving the validity of time travel would surely be required and in my opinion would most likely be earth based. As discussed, an individual may be able to travel a few years in time (in either direction), but much more than that, and the distances in the physical locations from the departure point and the arrival points in time are physically too far off to be done safely.
Some ideas that may be worth farther thought and mental exercise might include earth based time travel in the earths atmosphere, or in the earth's oceans. Most likely any atmosphere based time travel would require loud, obvious modern engines and travel much beyond when the devices were build would not be recommend if maintaining anonymity is high on your list.
Ocean based time travel may be a little more promising. In a submarine time travel vessel, there might be a little more forgiveness for the differences in spacial distances over time. A vessel departing at 100 meters depth in a deep, wide underwater trench measuring kilometers deep and wide could arrive in the past/future time with the offset in difference being absorbed by the massive ocean and a change of depth serving as a buffer zone. Several hundred meters in any direction of arrival would not be a problem. Of course underwater sea life could pose a difficulty, if say the submarine appeared inside a whale.
Bryan Beach
Baltimore, MD
Aug 26, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
Al-Qaida Admits Death of Top Commander
Al-Qaida Admits Death of Top CommanderAugust 04, 2008Associated Press
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CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida confirmed Aug. 3 the death of a top commander accused of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 American Sailors on the USS Cole eight years ago.
Abu Khabab al-Masri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States, is believed to have been killed in an airstrike apparently launched by the U.S. in Pakistan last week.
An al-Qaida statement posted on the Internet said al-Masri and three other top figures were killed and warned of vengeance for their deaths. It did not say when, where or how they died but said some of their children were killed along with them.
Pakistani authorities have said they believe al-Masri is one of six people killed in an airstrike on July 28 on a compound in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region near the Afghan border.
The U.S. military has not confirmed it was behind the missile strike. But similar U.S. attacks are periodically launched on militant targets in the tribal border region.
Both Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the rugged and lawless region along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The U.S. Justice Department has accused al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, of training terrorists to use poisons and explosives.
He is also believed to have helped run al-Qaida's Darunta training camp in eastern Afghanistan until the camp was abandoned amid the 2001 U.S. invasion of the country. There he is thought to have conducted experiments in chemical and biological weapons, testing materials on dogs.
The al-Qaida statement called al-Masri and the other three slain commanders "a group of heroes" and warned of retaliation.
"We tell the enemies of God that God has saved those who will be even more painful for you," it said. "As Abu Khabab has gone, he left behind, with God's grace, a generation of faithful students who will make you suffer the worst torture and avenge him and his brothers."
The statement, whose authenticity could not be independently confirmed, was dated July 30 and signed by al-Qaida's top Afghan leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed. It was posted on an Islamic militant Web site where al-Qaida usually issues official statements and videos of its leaders.
Kamal Shah, a senior official in Pakistan's Interior Ministry, said the government had "no official confirmation as yet" that al-Masri was dead. The White House declined comment Sunday.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials and at least one pro-Taliban militant have said they believed al-Masri had died in the July 28 attack. An American official in Washington had expressed cautious optimism al-Masri, whose pseudonym means "father of the trotting horse, the Egyptian," was among the dead.
Terrorism experts downplayed the significance of al-Masri's death.
"A big name does not mean a big impact on the ground," said Mustafa Alani, director of national security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "The bottom line is that those people are replaceable. The organization has developed in such a way that it can survive and fill in any gap even if Osama bin Laden was to die."
Dia'a Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on terrorism and Islamic movements, said al-Masri's death could hurt morale among al-Qaida's followers, but it wasn't a huge loss for the terror group, especially in Afghanistan.
"Al-Qaida might be facing setbacks in Iraq, but not in Afghanistan ... and any loss will appear (to its fighters) as a triumph against the enemy, not a defeat," Rashwan said.
Little is known about the other three slain commanders. They may also be Egyptian because their pseudonyms included the name "al-Masri," which means Egyptian in Arabic. The Web statement identified the three as Abu Mohammed Ibrahim bin Abi Farag al-Masri, Abdul-Wahab al-Masri and Abu Islam al-Masri.
It gave no details about them beyond calling Abu Mohammed "the holy warrior sheik and tutor." It said some of their children were killed along with them but did not give any further information about them.
CBS News reported Friday that al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2, was killed or critically injured in the July 28 airstrike. CBS said it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29 from unnamed sources in Pakistan in which a Taliban leader urgently requested a doctor to treat bin Laden's top lieutenant.
A Taliban spokesman, Maulvi Umar, denied the report. Pakistan army and intelligence officials said they had no information that al-Zawahri was hit.
© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Even Chimpanzees Hunt Monkeys
Don't be a monkey. I'm not sure if it is just me or if there is really a lot of confusion out there in the world about the differences between a Chimpanzee, which according to genetics researchers as the closest related primates to human (homosapiens, sapiens).
But the dramatic differences don't stop there. Monkeys have tails while the ape families (chimps, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons) don’t. Apes, having a different shoulder bone structure compared to monkeys, can swing from branch to branch, while monkeys run instead along the top of branches. Apes also resemble humans more than monkeys do. And according to National Geographic, chimps hunt and even eat monkeys.
So the next time your driving on the road and you cut someone off in traffic an
d forget to wave an apologetic hand instead of the finger when I honk at you, remember, your acting like a monkey and the person you just cut off may be a chimp or other ape-related creature... and we eat animals like you for breakfast.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Queen's Guitarist Publishes Astrophysics Thesis
Queen's Guitarist Publishes Astrophysics ThesisBy Space.com Staff
posted: 01 August 2008 12:36 pm ET
The founder of the legendary rock band Queen has completed his doctoral thesis in astrophysics after taking a 30-year break to play some guitar.
Brian May's thesis examines the mysterious phenomenon known as Zodiacal light, a misty diffuse cone of light that appears in the western sky after sunset and in the eastern sky before sunrise. Casual observers, if they live under very dark rural skies, can best see the light two to three hours before sunrise as they look east, and many people have been fooled into seeing it as the first sign of morning twilight. A Persian astronomer who lived around the 12th century referred to it as "false dawn" in a poem.
Astronomers now know that Zodiacal light represents reflected sunlight shining on scattered space debris clustered most densely near the sun. The millions of particles range in size from tiny asteroids to microscopic dust grains, and extend outward beyond the orbit of Mars.
May's work focuses on an instrument that recorded 250 scans of morning and evening Zodiacal light between 1971 and 1972. The Fabry-Perot Spectrometer is located at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands.
The completed thesis appears as the book "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud" (Springer and Canopus Publishing Ltd., 2008).
"I have thoroughly enjoyed my years playing guitar and recording music with Queen, but it's extremely gratifying to see the publication of my thesis," May said. "I've been fascinated with astronomy for years, and I was happy to finally complete my Ph.D. last year and record my studies of the Zodiacal Light in this book."
May officially received his doctorate on Aug. 24, 2007, from the Imperial College in London. He also gained the appointment of chancellor for Liverpool John Moores University in November of that year, showing that he's not just any guitar hero.
-30-
Have Sex While You Sleep
Have Sex While You Sleep
By Melinda Wenner, Special to LiveScience
posted: 02 June 2007 08:26 am ET
If you think it’s impossible to have sex while you sleep, think again, according to a new study.
There are at least 11 different sex-related sleep disorders, collectively referred to as “sexsomnia” or “sleepsex,” that affect people who are otherwise psychologically healthy—causing them to unknowingly engage in various sexual activities during the night.
Carlos Schenck, a psychiatrist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center, and his colleagues have studied a number of behavioral disorders associated with sleep.
“Any basic instinct can come out in the context of sleep,” Schenck told LiveScience. “All sorts of things can happen.”
Recently, he and his colleagues turned their focus to sex-related sleep disorders. They conducted computerized medical literature searches for studies published between 1950 and 2006 related to sleep and sexual behavior and looked through a number of sleep medicine textbooks. They also analyzed data from a previously completed internet survey that had gathered data from 219 people, 92 percent of whom had experienced multiple “sexsomnia” episodes.
Among other things, they found that people—mostly men—sometimes masturbate, initiate sex with a partner and reach orgasm during sleep. They usually have no memory of these activities when they wake up, learning about them only if a partner or roommate tells them. Some of these activities can also have legal consequences, such as if someone initiates sex without a bed partner’s consent, noted Schenck.
People are at-risk for developing sex-related sleep disorders when they also tend to suffer from other sleep disorders—such as sleepwalking or sleep terrors, according to Schenck. “Sexsomnia doesn’t come out of nowhere,” he said. But “for whatever reason, sexual behaviors become part of the repertoire.”
While people might feel ashamed to learn from their partners that they are exhibiting these behaviors while they sleep, these disorders are not indicative of psychological problems, noted Schenck, whose recently published book, Sleep: The Mysteries, The Problems, and The Solutions, has a chapter devoted to sex-related problems. “Bizarre and inappropriate behavior during sleep does not necessarily reflect a daytime psychological problem.”
And “sexsomnia” disorders are easily treated with medication, he added.
If anything, people who become aware of their problem but don’t seek help put themselves at an even greater risk. “The longer you go with this problem without getting it treated, the more you can then develop a secondary psychological problem,” such as depression, said Schenck, whose study is published this week in the journal Sleep.
By Melinda Wenner, Special to LiveScience
posted: 02 June 2007 08:26 am ET
If you think it’s impossible to have sex while you sleep, think again, according to a new study.
There are at least 11 different sex-related sleep disorders, collectively referred to as “sexsomnia” or “sleepsex,” that affect people who are otherwise psychologically healthy—causing them to unknowingly engage in various sexual activities during the night.
Carlos Schenck, a psychiatrist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center, and his colleagues have studied a number of behavioral disorders associated with sleep.
“Any basic instinct can come out in the context of sleep,” Schenck told LiveScience. “All sorts of things can happen.”
Recently, he and his colleagues turned their focus to sex-related sleep disorders. They conducted computerized medical literature searches for studies published between 1950 and 2006 related to sleep and sexual behavior and looked through a number of sleep medicine textbooks. They also analyzed data from a previously completed internet survey that had gathered data from 219 people, 92 percent of whom had experienced multiple “sexsomnia” episodes.
Among other things, they found that people—mostly men—sometimes masturbate, initiate sex with a partner and reach orgasm during sleep. They usually have no memory of these activities when they wake up, learning about them only if a partner or roommate tells them. Some of these activities can also have legal consequences, such as if someone initiates sex without a bed partner’s consent, noted Schenck.
People are at-risk for developing sex-related sleep disorders when they also tend to suffer from other sleep disorders—such as sleepwalking or sleep terrors, according to Schenck. “Sexsomnia doesn’t come out of nowhere,” he said. But “for whatever reason, sexual behaviors become part of the repertoire.”
While people might feel ashamed to learn from their partners that they are exhibiting these behaviors while they sleep, these disorders are not indicative of psychological problems, noted Schenck, whose recently published book, Sleep: The Mysteries, The Problems, and The Solutions, has a chapter devoted to sex-related problems. “Bizarre and inappropriate behavior during sleep does not necessarily reflect a daytime psychological problem.”
And “sexsomnia” disorders are easily treated with medication, he added.
If anything, people who become aware of their problem but don’t seek help put themselves at an even greater risk. “The longer you go with this problem without getting it treated, the more you can then develop a secondary psychological problem,” such as depression, said Schenck, whose study is published this week in the journal Sleep.
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