Recently in Science Category

An Australian friend hipped me to this web site, today, so I thought that I would share it with you. I have seen many logical arguments that argued against the existence of god, but no reasoning so cogent, and air-tight as this. I dare say the reasoning is almost diabolical.

I am not trying to put words into their mouths, but it goes something like this. The given in their proof is that miracles, and answered prayers only seem to happen in places where coincidence and ambiguity also seem to exist. For example, if you have bi-pass surgery to repair your heart, you might pray to god to wake up from the surgery and be well. OK, you wake up, and are well. I would argue that it was the skilled surgeon and medical technology that cured you, and you might argue it was the prayer. This is one of those examples where there is the potential for ambiguity and coincidence.

Now lets take the example of the double amputee who just got back from serving his country in some war. Since medical science is incapable of growing limbs at this time, there is no room for ambiguity here. If you pray to god to restore this soldier's legs, and when they wake up in the morning with real, functioning legs, there would be little option for a person like me to conclude anything other than that a miracle had taken place. Yet we have thousands of these soldiers, and people pray for them every day, and there has never been one recorded example of limbs suddenly appearing.

Since we know that god is all-knowing, perfect, perfectly just, loves everyone perfectly and equally, and we know this because the bible tells us so, then we are only left with one of two conclusions.

Either there is no god, or god hates amputees. But the latter conclusion contradicts everything we've ever been told, so we are only left with the other. There is no god.

Anyway, check out their site. The logic is inescapable, and the site is very entertaining.

 Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

Hello everyone. Today is the Winter Solstice, which occurred at precisely the time this message was published.

This is a significant celestial event because it is the shortest day of the year, and all days between today, and June, 21st, 2010, will get longer. Today also marks the official beginning of Winter in the northern hemisphere.

I look forward to the Solstices because as primitive as early mankind was, they had an amazing knowledge of astronomy, recognized the significance of both Solstices, and celebrated them. It is no coincidence that so many of the winter Holidays that we celebrate today, happen to fall near the Solstice.

Live Long And Prosper.

Peace.

When I went to last night's showing of 'The Cove' at MWPAI, I knew that the I was going to witness horrific scenes of dolphins being killed, but I had no idea how one of the people in the film would be connected to my childhood and perhaps yours, as well as how this film would be connected to a previous post that I wrote on this blog.

The film is centered around Ric O'Barry, and his passionate mission to insure that dolphins are no longer subject to captivity, and hunting. At first I didn't quite understand why Mr. O'Barry was so passionate on this subject, but it became clear as I watched the film. In short, Mr. O'Barry is partly (if not largely) responsible for the world's fascination with these amazing creatures. After he left the Navy in the early 1960's, he was hired as a Dolphin trainer at the Miami Seaquarium. He was then hired to capture and train Dolphins to be used on the Flipper television show, which debuted on the NBC television network in 1964. If you are of my generation, you surely have seen and enjoyed the show.

At the time, he recognized the extraordinary intelligence that Dolphins possessed, but as he admits in the film, the lure of money and 'a new Porsche every year' was hard to deny for a young man. The event that turned him from Dolphin-trainer-for-hire, to Dolphin protector and activist, was when one of the Bottlenose Dolphins that portrayed Flipper, named Kathy, swam into his arms, and he believes, committed suicide. He supports this claim with the widely acknowledged fact that Dolphins (and indeed all Cetaceans) are voluntary air-breathers, and unlike humans, and many other land-dwelling mammals, have the ability to choose when they take a breath, or when they do not. According to O'Barry, after weeks of showing signs of depression, Kathy swam into his arms, opened her blowhole to take a breath, and then never took another. The very next day, activist O'Barry was arrested for freeing a dolphin from captivity near Bimini.

Much of the film takes place in a Japanese city called Taiji where there is a yearly hunt in which Dolphins are 'herded' into a cove whereupon some are sold to aquariums from around the world, and the rest are killed for their meat. The goal of the people in this film was to be able to get the slaughter on film, and in so doing, created a documentary that is unlike any documentary I have ever seen.

The cove where the slaughter takes place is actually part of a local park, that has been fenced off so that no one can see what takes place there. Anyone who is not a part of the Taiji fishing crew is not allowed in the cove. O'Barry and company had many problems to overcome to be able to secretly film in the cove, including camouflaging Hi-Def cameras to look like rocks, locating them in and around the cove without being caught, positioning underwater microphones, and building a radio-controlled helicopter to attempt to get aerial footage. Doing all of these things required recruiting people with talents as wildly varied as Hollywood special-effects artists, and world-class Freedivers. The scenes where the team sneaked into the cove under the cover of darkness were as tense as any drama I have seen.

The footage that they shot was as horrific and disturbing as I had imagined, and everyone should see it. Sadly, however, this was one of the more poorly attended films that I have seen in a while, and I suspect it's precisely because people did not want to see it. I can only hope that this film will change things.

As a vegetarian, I obviously oppose the killing of animals for food, but I would think that any reasonable person would oppose the captivity and slaughter of a life form that is likely sentient. In addition to that, Dolphin meat is among the most highly toxic meats on the planet due to very high Mercury levels, so it's simply not a good food source.

In the film, Mr. O'Barry spoke about why captivity is so stressful for Dolphins. I had never really thought that deeply about it before, but as an Audio Engineer, once he made his point, it was like being hit by a hammer. Dolphins are acoustic creatures that evolved in the oceans and use a highly-sensitive and sophisticated natural Sonar array to help them navigate. You know... the incredibly huge oceans that aren't bounded by concrete walls? Now imagine being a creature that uses Sonar, and being forced to live in what must seem like a minuscule concrete cage. When a dolphin uses its Sonar in such a confined space with such reflective surfaces, it must be awful. I can only imagine that due to that, confinement for Dolphins must be hellish. I can relate to this because even as a human without a Sonar array, doing audio work (recording, mixing, mastering) in small rooms with reflective parallel walls creates great difficulties.

In my first paragraph I alluded to a connection between this film and a previous post on this blog. If you're a regular reader you will no doubt remember my review of the Animal Planet television series called Whale Wars. Captain Paul Watson of the 'Steve Irwin' was quoted several times in this film, and they also used footage from 'Whale Wars' depicting Japanese whaling. It should come as no surprise to you that the governing body that oversees Japanese whaling, also oversees the capture and slaughter of Dolphins. It's amazing how things sometimes come full circle.

 The Cove's Official Web site

 The Cove At The IMDB

 Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project Web Site

I get several audio magazines in the mail, and one of them occasionally writes about other technologies that could affect electronic music production. Last year they wrote about more efficient solar cells that were less costly to produce, and in the latest issue they're talking about Holographic Disc Storage.

It seems the engineers over at General Electric's research and development laboratory have developed a polycarbonate material that when produced in the size of a CD/DVD/BR disc, can hold many times the amount of data of even a BR disc.

Right now, the engineers have a prototype that is capable of storing 500 gigabytes of data, and as they improve the polycarbonate material, and refine the technology in general, they expect to be able to get one terabyte of data onto a CD/DVD/BR sized disc.

Obviously a technology like this has implications for everyone who has use for storing and archiving massive amounts of data. This applies to music production because digital audio requires massive amounts of storage, particularly if you're recording at higher sample rates like 192 KHz.

First generation commercial devices are expected to be available by 2012.

Today, I started my third semester learning Pottery at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute.  It felt really good to get my hands into the clay again.  I was afraid that after four or five months of not being in front of a pottery wheel, that I would have lost my chops.  Well, the good news is that it's as if I had never left.  I was able to do what I wanted with the clay, immediately.

Lest semester I did nothing but makes bowls.  Bowl, after bowl, after bowl.  Of course repetition is a great way to learn, and if you know me well, you probably have one of those bowls.  This semester I intend to make more bowls, and to learn a few techniques that allow you to close the form to a smaller diameter, so that I can eventually move toward classic forms like Vases, and really classic forms like Amphorae.

I have always loved pottery, and had wanted to learn to do it since I was in the sixth grade.  It took thirty years, but I finally got around to it.  Despite the fact that I enjoy modern technology, one of the things that I love about pottery, is that it is a technology that in thousands of years, has changed very little.  All you need is clay, and heat.  How beautiful and elegant is that?

Last year I was on the phone with a friend late one night.  He had called after midnight because he couldn't sleep, and apparently I was supposed to baby-sit him until he got tired.  I happened to be awake so it was really no big deal.  To entertain him we both got online and I gave him a tour of the MWPAI.  For years I had been telling him about the Independent Film Series that I attend there on Friday nights, and more recently, the Pottery Studio.  He was under the impression that because Utica in a small city, that I went to some backwater podunk theater to see films, and some tiny cellar studio to make pots.  He was quite surprised to see the photos of the facility, and I feel lucky to go there every week to learn, and to work.

Hopefully some day I'll get really good at this.


 (Pictured is the back of the Pottery Studio from the Courtyard looking into the Glazing Room, and below that, some of my pots.)

When I looked at my watch today, and realized that it was July 20th, I decided that I should write a blog post.  If you aren't aware, today is the 40th anniversary of the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Adlrin, walked on the moon, fulfilling Kennedy's promise of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to earth, before the end of the 1960's.

I was having trouble coming up with a slant for the post, because I didn't want it to be some sort of long babbling post quoting facts and figures, which we've all heard for decades.  I wanted something different, and I was vexed until I was asked a question by my friend Steve, from Canada.  He asked which astronaut was my favorite.  This is an interesting question that I guess I had never pondered before, and that's odd, since I consider myself a huge space geek.

After thinking, I realized that I had to come up with three answers.  My first thought was of Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 Commander.  I've read a lot about Pete, and have seen many portrayals of Pete on the big screen, and he always seemed like an interesting fellow with a great sense of humor.  His Apollo 12 crew mates had nothing but superlatives to say about him, and he just seemed like the kinda guy I would have liked to hang out with.  He also did one of those cool "Do you know me?" American Express ads, in the 70's.

Of the original Mercury Seven selection, I would have to pick Donald K. "Deke" Slayton.  I read Deke's autobiography, and know a lot about his story.  He was selected, and even scheduled for a Mercury flight, but was not allowed to fly because the Flight Surgeons had detected some sort of irregular heartbeat.  He was grounded and given the job of Director of Flight Crew Operations.  This meant he was the boss of all of the astronauts.  While this job might sound cool to you and me, for Deke it had to be difficult, because he wanted nothing more than to fly, and now he was told he couldn't, but got to watch everyone else get their chance.

Deke's story does have a happy ending, however.  After some time Deke was prescribed a multi-vitamin, and noticed that his irregular heartbeat went away.  In time he was able to convince the Flight Surgeons to reinstate his flight status, and he finally got his ride on the Apollo Soyuz mission, that we did jointly with the Soviets.

My third choice is from the modern Shuttle astronaut class.  It's actually difficult to find a standout among this group, because there are so many of them, and because they don't get the media attention that the earlier astronauts received.  So very few of them are household names, and the public no longer has the wide eyed curiosity about the space program like they did in the 1960's.

In any case, my choice is Story Musgrave.  This guy has done it all, from repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, to being on the Home Improvement television show. His Curriculum Vitae is incredibly impressive, and I believe he has more hours in space than any other American astronaut save for the astronauts who flew on International Space Station.

On another note, I think I am one of the few people in my circles who is happy that they're retiring the Space Shuttles.  I was never a huge fan of them because they really didn't lower the costs of space flight that much, and they really didn't go anywhere.  All they did was orbit the earth.

I am happy about the new Aries program and out projected future trips to the Moon, and eventually Mars.  That is if some politician doesn't scuttle the program.

On a completely random note, a friend called me today and asked me something that I thought was really odd and out of context about Armstrong.  I totally did not get his meaning at all because I had been thinking about Neil all day, and nothing that he said made sense.  I then realized that he was talking to me about Lance Armstrong, who is once again racing in the Tour de France.  Then it all made sense.   :-)