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News Briefs 23-04-2009

By red pill junkieon

Turn off the computer, & grab a book instead.

  • World Digital Library opens in Paris—thanks in no small part to the US Congress Librarian (Video). Go visit it here.
  • If you are serious about ‘going green’, first you need the right data.
  • The scientists that will save the environment will not be physicists nor climatologists, but sociologists & economists.
  • I know it’s not kosher to discuss plan (B) just after Earth Day, but we’ve just found a very likely candidate to replace our ailing planet.
  • Let’s remind ourselves of how great a time this is to be alive, by virtually journeying distant Saturn.
  • ‘Dark Gulping’ could explain Black Holes. Dark Matter; Dark Energy; Dark Flow; Dark Gulping… Cosmologists must be big fans of The Cure!
  • The newest nuisance for the Standard Cosmological Model: The ‘Space Blob’.
  • Billy Booth delves into the interplanetary aspect of Euclidean geometry, by looking into recent Triangle UFO reports.
  • Secrets of the Nebra Sky Disk, the little metal disk that re-wrote the ancient history of Europe.
  • Found: the brain’s center of wisdom —sorry to disappoint you, my Cartesian friends.
  • Do quantum gods deserve our entangled prayers? Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness (Amazon US & UK).
  • Angels & Demons director Ron Howard asks zealot Catholics to chill out & enjoy the ride.
  • Jack Bauer and Dr. House… together at last? all thanks to crazy/genius Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia— if the Vatican rants about A&D, imagine what they’d think of this 😉
  • ‘Communicating with the Dead for Dummies’. Results may vary.
  • There’s no better ornament for a bathroom than a 400-year-old mummified cat— Good-bye potty delays!! 😛
  • S&M sexual practices among beetles is an evolutionary strategy that increases fertilization. Latex, anyone? ^_^
  • “This seal walked into a bar…” 23 million years ago.
  • Loren Coleman looks into Hitler’s most malignant plan to invade the British countryside: Nazi Cows. Which also makes this eery coincidence all the more clear.
  • America’s Big Agro is looking for ways to destroy the new poster-girl of hippy left-wing communist organic farming practices: The First Lady.
  • Think you own the rain that falls on your property? Think again!
  • Building a Scaffold for Social Change, by Daniel Pinchbeck. I’m all for it… provided it’s a sturdy scaffold.
  • Memo to the Pentagon: Trade all your Nukes for Macs.
  • China’s Great Wall is longer than originally thought. Maybe they are like those estranded WWII Japanese soldiers, and they are still building it?
  • Kiwi cartographers are an outstanding example for us procrastinators. Kudos, my mentors! 🙂

Thanks Rick & Greg

Quote of the Day:

“A single book at the right time can change our views dramatically, give a quantum boost to our knowledge, help us construct a whole new outlook on the world and our life. Isn’t it odd that we don’t seek those experiences more systematically?”

Steve Leveen, ‘The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life’

*Ehem*

red pill junkie
Agnostic gnostic, walking conundrum & metaphysical oxymoron (with emphasis in the 'moron' part), the mysterious RPJ leaves a double life: By day he serves as Grand Master of the International Sacred Order of Lucha Libre, but at night he pursues his life-long study of everything considered mysterious and/or 'paranormal' --a term he personally detests... When he's not exploring the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found blogging, doodling, fooling around and offering his services as news administrator and writer at The Daily Grail. He also regularly participates in other websites and podcasts like Radio Misterioso and Where Did the Road Go? He impatiently awaits for the return of the mothership in Mexico City. absurdbydesign.com

8 Comments

    1. What??
      That’s otterly preposterous! :^)

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

  2. sociologists and economists
    Some of the proposed solutions are appallingly old.

    Especially teh concept that we have to scare the population into doing the desired things, to fix the problems. This sort of thing has been done since the beginning of recorded history, and I am certain it was an old concept back then. Very old.

    But economists have meetings in expensive hotels in nice places today, and they come up with this as a new idea. What a racket.

    The other, and bigger problem is that to guide the population(s) to a good solution, we have to know what a good solution is. And these nitwits have not the slightest idea.

    —-
    It is not how fast you go
    it is when you get there.

    1. Social sciences do matter
      Imagine you’re a scientist that comes up with a very accurate seismic detection system, which enables you to predict major earthquakes with 8 hours of anticipation. This device would be able to save millions of lives and millions of dollars… provided people paid attention to the warnings.

      I remember that Kat linked a story about an Italian scientist that had warned the government of an impending earthquake days before the tragedy of L’Aquila. They made fun of him and people died; then they threatened him to be quiet about what had happened, lest they would be shown as incompetent idiots.

      So I think the point of the article is that there has to be a way to convince people about adopting the necessary plans or strategies needed to solve a particular problem. Whether the problem is climate change, an impending earthquake or volcanic eruption, or a heart attack*, is beside the point.

      The point is that people act irrationally, and that irrationality is what makes the inclusion of social scientists important.

      (*)PS: I added that one because this ideas remind me of the problem my family has with my father. My father is diagnosed with diabetes, and yet he acts as if there’s nothing wrong with his sugar & cholesterol levels —he still eats and drinks whatever he wants.

      It’s as if the man wants to kill himself.

      So imagine that the arm of my dad is aware of the problem and doesn’t want to go along with it. Imagine the arm knows that if my dad’s brain & heart fails, that it too will follow them. Maybe the arm would find a way to convince my dad’s brain that unless there’s a big wake-up call, it’s all going to turn pretty bleak for the whole of my dad’s body.

      That’s why I think social sciences are important. Because my dad is actually a pretty intelligent person, and to see an intelligent person act like an idiot is… frustrating to say the least.
      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

      1. oh yes
        Indeed, having a technological solution is not enough. If we need to make large changes in economies and societies, we need to somehow persuade people to actually do this.

        My beef with these people is that the persuading part has been known for many thousands of years. So I don’t know why this is particularly new. Which is my criticism of the social and economist sciences.

        On the other hand, to persuade people to do the right thing, you actually have to know what the right thing is.

        Sure the social sciences are important, to go towards the solutions. But the social sciences will never find a solution.

        And they don’t know this.

        —-

        Aside, this has nothing to do with the topic:

        My dad was an intelligent and educated man. There were some things that I had to explain to him, and he did listen to me. He respected me and was proud of me, to see his son grow up, and be able to do some things that he could not. This wasn’t because I was smarter than him, I just had more support, and I had better opportunity for education and experience and travel. Much of which my dad, and my mom, provided for me.

        Eventually he died of Altzheimers, it was torture for him – he knew it was happening. It also was torture for the rest of the family, to see an intelligent person slowly go away, and then the body is still there for some years. But the person was dead for quite a while.

        —-
        It is not how fast you go
        it is when you get there.

        1. two things:
          1) To ask the social scientists to discern the right solution from the wrong one is kind of unfair. It would be like asking an engineer to design a car that could never be used to go to a motel and cheat on your wife.
          ________

          2)My dad watched her favorite aunt (almost like a second mom to him, and in a way a more tender one) decay because of Alzheimer’s. It was also extremely painful for him; many times we feared he would die first of a heart attack because of the tension he endured.

          I think the reason he behaves so recklessly is that he prefers to die of diabetes than to risk the slow death of Alzheimer’s.

          And I must admit… I can’t find the courage to blame him.

          —–
          It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
          It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

          Red Pill Junkie

          1. ok 1 and 2
            ok as for (1):
            it is true that they can’t be asked to find a solution.
            But the solution HAS to be technical. It can’t just be that we slow down, and that we need fewer or smaller people.

            And to pretend that they have a solution is just plain dishonest.

            That is my beef with them.

            as for (2):

            We all die. Not all of us really live.

            —-
            It is not how fast you go
            it is when you get there.

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