Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Music of the Stars
"...while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy," Job 38:7
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Quantum Mechanics: a Primer
Physicists Amir Safavi-Naeini and Oskar Painter describe how they were
able to measure quantum motions of 1 femtometer (0.000000000000001
meters) in a micro-scale object.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Space Oddity covered by Astronaut Chris Hadfield
David Bowie wrote and performed "Space Oddity" in 1969. Chris Hadfield improves on it with lyrics from a true astronaut's point of view. Together they've created one awesome tune!
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Flexi-Paper and 3-D Printing: The Science of Over the Edge
In the Over the Edge universe, characters use things called "flexi-docs" that are essentially plastic sheets that display writing and short videos. This sort of document isn't a new idea in fiction. In the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling's characters had newspapers and stand alone photographs in which, by the power of magic, the images moved, repeating short loops. I think Philip K. Dick has some characters employing something similar.
In Over the Edge flexi-docs are used for everything from news magazines to business accounting reports to fiction. And essentially resemble the document featured in this YouTube video: Polymer Vision Rollable 6-inch SVGA display
In the Over the Edge universe 3-D printing is a fact of life. Characters employed as "Artificers" use 3-D printers and other manufacturing capabilities to duplicate or fabricate anything needed and lots of things desired. In Give Her the Stars, Artificers copy a Cadillac Escalade and give it some fine "after-market" upgrades.
The "facsimile" appears frequently in the series. This is a document, not unlike a fax, sent from one location to another, but the document the recipient prints is identical to the original, right down to the fibers in the paper. In the novels, the facsimile machine recreates the document from a molecular level up so that it even retains the fingerprints and oils from the creator's hands.
In Give Her the Stars, Lendar fabricates a dress for Elise using a 3-D printer to manufacture the fabric and sewing robots to put the garment together. Also, featured in that story is mention of using muscle cells to create cuts of meat rather than having to grow an animal and butcher it. This idea isn't new either, it's been around for awhile. See: Test tube hamburger. This author has no comment on meat produced in this manner other than the reminder that if one is hungry one will eat things that are normally rejected.
In the Over the Edge universe, starship captains are fitted with a device that essentially makes them the controlling component of their spaceship, if they so desire, or at least in touch with its every function and able to observe whatever it can observe. Through a device called a "kaldeskop," characters are able to use mind-control to operate their ship or any device on their ship remotely by thought.
The cyborg idea is not new at all. In truth, eye glasses, contacts, canes, even shoes are cyborg items. Here's an article on a cyborg ear, not unlike some accoutrements found in Over the Edge which readers might find interesting: The Six-Million Dollar Ear
More articles on 3-D printing:
3-D Printing: The Next Industrial Revolution...
In Over the Edge flexi-docs are used for everything from news magazines to business accounting reports to fiction. And essentially resemble the document featured in this YouTube video: Polymer Vision Rollable 6-inch SVGA display
In the Over the Edge universe 3-D printing is a fact of life. Characters employed as "Artificers" use 3-D printers and other manufacturing capabilities to duplicate or fabricate anything needed and lots of things desired. In Give Her the Stars, Artificers copy a Cadillac Escalade and give it some fine "after-market" upgrades.
The "facsimile" appears frequently in the series. This is a document, not unlike a fax, sent from one location to another, but the document the recipient prints is identical to the original, right down to the fibers in the paper. In the novels, the facsimile machine recreates the document from a molecular level up so that it even retains the fingerprints and oils from the creator's hands.
In Give Her the Stars, Lendar fabricates a dress for Elise using a 3-D printer to manufacture the fabric and sewing robots to put the garment together. Also, featured in that story is mention of using muscle cells to create cuts of meat rather than having to grow an animal and butcher it. This idea isn't new either, it's been around for awhile. See: Test tube hamburger. This author has no comment on meat produced in this manner other than the reminder that if one is hungry one will eat things that are normally rejected.
In the Over the Edge universe, starship captains are fitted with a device that essentially makes them the controlling component of their spaceship, if they so desire, or at least in touch with its every function and able to observe whatever it can observe. Through a device called a "kaldeskop," characters are able to use mind-control to operate their ship or any device on their ship remotely by thought.
The cyborg idea is not new at all. In truth, eye glasses, contacts, canes, even shoes are cyborg items. Here's an article on a cyborg ear, not unlike some accoutrements found in Over the Edge which readers might find interesting: The Six-Million Dollar Ear
 |
| The Bionic Woman, Jamie Sommers (Lindsay Wagner), using her bionic ear for the first time on the show. |
3-D Printing: The Next Industrial Revolution...
Ferred Magna Leaves Ephon for the spaceship Aquillion...
Ferred would have preferred to sit by himself in the passenger compartment where he could marinate in his gloom, but Captain Peland had invited him and then insisted he sit in the cockpit and observe.
Observe, maybe; understand what was going on, absolutely not.
He wasn’t capable of much, not these days. He had put his affairs in order. The house was leased to a well-respected rental management firm. His sport hover car had been carefully boxed and stored. He had made arrangements for things he thought he’d need in this strange after-life shipped to the Aquillion, but left the particulars to the movers.
As instructed, he’d arrived at the appointed location planetside to join the Pelands for a shuttle ride to the Fabricon space jet manufacturing facility.
He’d stood on the spots where he was told to stand and sat in the places where he was told to sit. And now he pretended to observe while his brain languished in its lugubrious state.
“Seat belts fastened, please,” chirped Peland’s wife, Mrayan, the stunning Areban Kabelian mixed breed lady. She was thrilled, like a child with a new toy. Her brand new space jet, a gift from her husband. She was pilot. She seemed to know what she was doing, confidently giving instructions to Captain Peland who obeyed her orders and responded with official sounding replies.
The other crew member in the cockpit, Fabrican Industries’ chatty, cheerful navigator, sat behind Peland’s wife, handling navigation. Not that this trip would require much navigating. They were scheduled to make only a short jump to the Aquillion, the Pelands’ brand new space ship, parked somewhere out there, not far away in astronomical terms.
The Fabricon navigator, Pheeto Oppel, would also navigate during the journey to Celi where he would board another star vessel due for a refitting and guide it back to Ephon. Apparently, that’s what he did, hopped back and forth from this place and that navigating vessels Fabricon had either sold or contracted to refit.
“This will be my twentieth trip,” a cheerful Pheeto told Ferred, as if being the twentieth trip awarded him a prize.
Twenty trips, each about two years in length (from a planetside point of view), but only a fraction of that time for Pheeto. He'd been gone from his home on Celi for forty years, Celian Standard Time, yet he looked hardly a day over eighteen! At this rate, the man would never age! "Born at the dawn of the age of the gravitational drive," he'd explained, "Jumped into the navigator’s field with the very first graduating class trained to handle this new mode of space flight. Haven't looked back."
If he’d stayed planetside, he'd be older than me, Ferred realized.
The peculiar sensation spacers faced at one time or another dubbed “time psychosis” nibbled at his mind. The man was born years before me, but I’m his senior in age. The concept wasn’t new to Ferred the astronomer, but facing it in living color, breathing and speaking was. He hadn't been prepared for the visceral punch time psychosis could give. Ferred swallowed and distracted himself with a different trail of thought.
Celi was the place for pioneers, for people longing to be free and who didn’t mind adopting the Celian way of life. It was on Celi where the famed Kabelian, Candan Rubeek had done his seminal work inventing the gravitational drive to start with. Now that man, he would be a hundred years old if he never traveled in space.
Celi had, after all, provided the greatest leaps in Somainain science, technology, art and literature in the history of the universe, so why not meld to it? Because it’s not all good, Ferred thought, in a stereotypical, conservative Ephonian way. He grimaced. You're heading right for Celi, directly to Navigator's school. Retaining the good from your previous incarnation when you take on a new one is a real trick. He scowled. I cast off the best of my first incarnation long before this, my third remake.
Pheeto pointed at his screen and explained something he saw there, but Ferred didn’t hear a word. He eyed Pheeto with a scientist's hard gleam and not a little envy. Just look at him, confident, young and able. Those Celians. Embracing the future with enthusiasm. Disgustingly optimistic.
Ferred stared out the window at the launching bay where Fabricon employees and their robot assistants prepared the Criche for launch. Through a great, man-made diamond window, he could see other new jets waiting in queue. Each one acrawl with workers adding finishing touches.
On the other hand, he left no one behind who cared whether he existed. Would it make any difference if he stayed young while his relatives and peers aged? Not one whit. Those days, when his existence mattered to someone, were gone. He had not only burned his bridges, he'd blown up the abutments and the foundations.
Cheerfully, Pheeton went on talking, “I’ve only spent three years planetside since taking this job and that in training on Ephon." He shrugged. "Took some time off while I was there to experience the natural world for a week or so." He added in sign language, "(But mostly I’m a spacer and I like it that way. If I ever meet a lady, well, then we’ll see.)” He grinned like the young fool he so obviously was and focused again on his operation panel.
Spacers: They might never age, but they might never mature either, Ferred decided.
While time passed, the space jet, cockpit control panel became brighter and brighter with blinking lights, luminous dials, illuminated gauges and diode computer screens that flashed recognizable symbols that amounted to gibberish in their totality for Ferred. The space buzzed with computer clicking and whirring, buzzing and other soft, mechanical noise.
Mrs. Captain Peland, what should he call her? She’d said he should call her Mrayan, but such informality was not acceptable. Two captain Pelands was confusing. Captain Peland Number One and Captain Peland Number Two? Ludicrous.
Whatever her title, she was Pilot. Mrayan Peland pushed the stick forward and the engines came to life. Power surged under his feet and vibrated through the jet’s frame rattling his bones. Fear attacked and with it a rush of nausea.You're leaving Ehpon for good!
Was this the right decision?
Would he regret it for the rest of his life?
Nothing would ever be the same again!
Nothing!
His jowls felt loose and the organs within his ribs strained their moorings, but before he could cry out, “Let me out of here, let me go home,” the jet leapt into space and it was too late.
Everything already, before now, before you began staying at the space port, before Nali’a died, everything already changed. When you left the Warrior Poet Way, you changed everything. The realization left him feeling cold, as if he’d been out on a winter night without shoes or hat, in the dark, alone.
O Eternal, where are You?
Stars spread in the blackness. He glimpsed the glowing albumen of Ephon before the jet swerved away and the Aquillion dominated the view, a single mercury glass ornament hanging in the black distance surrounded by tiny sparks of light.
Observe, maybe; understand what was going on, absolutely not.
He wasn’t capable of much, not these days. He had put his affairs in order. The house was leased to a well-respected rental management firm. His sport hover car had been carefully boxed and stored. He had made arrangements for things he thought he’d need in this strange after-life shipped to the Aquillion, but left the particulars to the movers.
As instructed, he’d arrived at the appointed location planetside to join the Pelands for a shuttle ride to the Fabricon space jet manufacturing facility.
He’d stood on the spots where he was told to stand and sat in the places where he was told to sit. And now he pretended to observe while his brain languished in its lugubrious state.
“Seat belts fastened, please,” chirped Peland’s wife, Mrayan, the stunning Areban Kabelian mixed breed lady. She was thrilled, like a child with a new toy. Her brand new space jet, a gift from her husband. She was pilot. She seemed to know what she was doing, confidently giving instructions to Captain Peland who obeyed her orders and responded with official sounding replies.
The other crew member in the cockpit, Fabrican Industries’ chatty, cheerful navigator, sat behind Peland’s wife, handling navigation. Not that this trip would require much navigating. They were scheduled to make only a short jump to the Aquillion, the Pelands’ brand new space ship, parked somewhere out there, not far away in astronomical terms.
The Fabricon navigator, Pheeto Oppel, would also navigate during the journey to Celi where he would board another star vessel due for a refitting and guide it back to Ephon. Apparently, that’s what he did, hopped back and forth from this place and that navigating vessels Fabricon had either sold or contracted to refit.
“This will be my twentieth trip,” a cheerful Pheeto told Ferred, as if being the twentieth trip awarded him a prize.
Twenty trips, each about two years in length (from a planetside point of view), but only a fraction of that time for Pheeto. He'd been gone from his home on Celi for forty years, Celian Standard Time, yet he looked hardly a day over eighteen! At this rate, the man would never age! "Born at the dawn of the age of the gravitational drive," he'd explained, "Jumped into the navigator’s field with the very first graduating class trained to handle this new mode of space flight. Haven't looked back."
If he’d stayed planetside, he'd be older than me, Ferred realized.
The peculiar sensation spacers faced at one time or another dubbed “time psychosis” nibbled at his mind. The man was born years before me, but I’m his senior in age. The concept wasn’t new to Ferred the astronomer, but facing it in living color, breathing and speaking was. He hadn't been prepared for the visceral punch time psychosis could give. Ferred swallowed and distracted himself with a different trail of thought.
Celi was the place for pioneers, for people longing to be free and who didn’t mind adopting the Celian way of life. It was on Celi where the famed Kabelian, Candan Rubeek had done his seminal work inventing the gravitational drive to start with. Now that man, he would be a hundred years old if he never traveled in space.
Celi had, after all, provided the greatest leaps in Somainain science, technology, art and literature in the history of the universe, so why not meld to it? Because it’s not all good, Ferred thought, in a stereotypical, conservative Ephonian way. He grimaced. You're heading right for Celi, directly to Navigator's school. Retaining the good from your previous incarnation when you take on a new one is a real trick. He scowled. I cast off the best of my first incarnation long before this, my third remake.
Pheeto pointed at his screen and explained something he saw there, but Ferred didn’t hear a word. He eyed Pheeto with a scientist's hard gleam and not a little envy. Just look at him, confident, young and able. Those Celians. Embracing the future with enthusiasm. Disgustingly optimistic.
Ferred stared out the window at the launching bay where Fabricon employees and their robot assistants prepared the Criche for launch. Through a great, man-made diamond window, he could see other new jets waiting in queue. Each one acrawl with workers adding finishing touches.
On the other hand, he left no one behind who cared whether he existed. Would it make any difference if he stayed young while his relatives and peers aged? Not one whit. Those days, when his existence mattered to someone, were gone. He had not only burned his bridges, he'd blown up the abutments and the foundations.
Cheerfully, Pheeton went on talking, “I’ve only spent three years planetside since taking this job and that in training on Ephon." He shrugged. "Took some time off while I was there to experience the natural world for a week or so." He added in sign language, "(But mostly I’m a spacer and I like it that way. If I ever meet a lady, well, then we’ll see.)” He grinned like the young fool he so obviously was and focused again on his operation panel.
Spacers: They might never age, but they might never mature either, Ferred decided.
While time passed, the space jet, cockpit control panel became brighter and brighter with blinking lights, luminous dials, illuminated gauges and diode computer screens that flashed recognizable symbols that amounted to gibberish in their totality for Ferred. The space buzzed with computer clicking and whirring, buzzing and other soft, mechanical noise.
Mrs. Captain Peland, what should he call her? She’d said he should call her Mrayan, but such informality was not acceptable. Two captain Pelands was confusing. Captain Peland Number One and Captain Peland Number Two? Ludicrous.
Whatever her title, she was Pilot. Mrayan Peland pushed the stick forward and the engines came to life. Power surged under his feet and vibrated through the jet’s frame rattling his bones. Fear attacked and with it a rush of nausea.You're leaving Ehpon for good!
Was this the right decision?
Would he regret it for the rest of his life?
Nothing would ever be the same again!
Nothing!
His jowls felt loose and the organs within his ribs strained their moorings, but before he could cry out, “Let me out of here, let me go home,” the jet leapt into space and it was too late.
 | |
| NASA photo: Shadow of the Dark Rift |
O Eternal, where are You?
Stars spread in the blackness. He glimpsed the glowing albumen of Ephon before the jet swerved away and the Aquillion dominated the view, a single mercury glass ornament hanging in the black distance surrounded by tiny sparks of light.
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
New Territory for General Relativity
Einstein's Theory of Relativity has held up as long as the examiner does not go too small, then it seems to fall apart. For the ultra-small, it appears we need a separate theory, but that theory has eluded us. And to join the two theories, everyone scrambles to find the holy grail of physics: The Unified Theory. No luck there either. Meanwhile, Einstein's work just keeps working. Einstein and Beyond
"Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope, along with radio telescopes around the world, to find and study a bizarre stellar pair consisting of the most massive neutron star confirmed so far, orbited by a white dwarf star. This strange new binary allows tests of Einstein’s theory of gravity — general relativity — in ways that were not possible up to now. So far the new observations exactly agree with the predictions from general relativity and are inconsistent with some alternative theories. The results will appear in the journal Science on 26 April 2013," John Antoniadis, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany; Michael Kramer, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany; Richard Hook, ESO Public Information Officer, Garching bei Munchen, Germany.
Einstein Was Right--So Far: Record Breaking Pulsar Takes Tests of General Relativity Into New Territory
"Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope, along with radio telescopes around the world, to find and study a bizarre stellar pair consisting of the most massive neutron star confirmed so far, orbited by a white dwarf star. This strange new binary allows tests of Einstein’s theory of gravity — general relativity — in ways that were not possible up to now. So far the new observations exactly agree with the predictions from general relativity and are inconsistent with some alternative theories. The results will appear in the journal Science on 26 April 2013," John Antoniadis, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany; Michael Kramer, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany; Richard Hook, ESO Public Information Officer, Garching bei Munchen, Germany.
Einstein Was Right--So Far: Record Breaking Pulsar Takes Tests of General Relativity Into New Territory
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Saturday, March 02, 2013
Space Traffic
In the Over the Edge series many space ships too large to land on the planet park in orbit. Space traffic controllers assign ships slots based on their size and/or how often the occupants need to commute to the planet and back. Layers and layers of ships are theoretically possible, though it's hard to imagine a whole lot of space ship traffic. On the other hand, I'm not sure early automobile drivers could have conceived of the numbers of cars, trucks and motorcycles on highways all over the world.
The earth has more space traffic now than people could have imagined not that long ago.
 |
Tommy Eliassen |
Monday, February 04, 2013
Explorer vs. Firefox
Apparently my blog has severe problems when viewed in Explorer.
The other day, when I wanted to obtain a copyright for my book, Give Her the Stars, I visited the US copyright website and was quickly frustrated. After a couple of hours and a phone call to my computer tech son, who was frustrated more quickly than I was, I finally discovered a step by step (for total idiots) video explaining how to obtain a copyright. After watching the first few seconds I knew my problem: the website has to be used through Explorer in order to function. Once I opened the website in Explorer, obtaining a copyright was easy.
Did I mention that I discovered that this blog isn't half what I see in Firefox when I open it in Explorer?
I have objections to Explorer.
My reasons are probably irrational.
Doesn't Microsoft run enough of the world already?
Can't all you wonderful readers just get Firefox?
I wonder if I have the same problem when the blog opens in Chrome?
I'll have to find out.
I found out. Chrome works.
I had a friend who uses Mac check. He says Apple works.
So, maybe you people who use Explorer should think about finding a new web browser and save Explorer for government sites.
The other day, when I wanted to obtain a copyright for my book, Give Her the Stars, I visited the US copyright website and was quickly frustrated. After a couple of hours and a phone call to my computer tech son, who was frustrated more quickly than I was, I finally discovered a step by step (for total idiots) video explaining how to obtain a copyright. After watching the first few seconds I knew my problem: the website has to be used through Explorer in order to function. Once I opened the website in Explorer, obtaining a copyright was easy.
Did I mention that I discovered that this blog isn't half what I see in Firefox when I open it in Explorer?
I have objections to Explorer.
My reasons are probably irrational.
Doesn't Microsoft run enough of the world already?
Can't all you wonderful readers just get Firefox?
I wonder if I have the same problem when the blog opens in Chrome?
I'll have to find out.
I found out. Chrome works.
I had a friend who uses Mac check. He says Apple works.
So, maybe you people who use Explorer should think about finding a new web browser and save Explorer for government sites.
 | |
| Red Panda, National Geographic photo |
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Monday, December 17, 2012
Give Her the Stars, the first in the Over the Edge romance series, was released for most e-book formats on December 14th, 2012.
Elise Ramos, divorced mother of two-year old Max, flees her stifling apartment one mid-morning in July after her controlling ex-husband, Gabriel's distressing visit--the latest in a series that will likely stretch into the future. She's standing outside a used clothing store longing for a better life and contemplating the awful reality of fading dreams, working retail to pay off her student loans when she realizes someone has been staring at her.
At first, Elise can't believe the handsome man with the lisping Spanish accent has eyes only for her, but once it's clear he can't be looking anywhere else, she turns to run. He follows her, apologizing and saying he's certain he's met her somewhere before. Elise introduces herself and he admits he does not recognize her name, but then, he asks he if can Max a lemonade.
Hope begins kindling in Elise's heart when Lendar asks her for a date to the aquarium. But, she's afraid to give him her address, so she proposes she meet him there. When he discovers Elise is worried about finishing her final painting and sketchbook for her art classes, he offers to help. The man is thoughtful and kind! The date segues into dinner, but when Lendar brings her home, a drunken Gabriel is waiting, knife in hand ready for a fight. And Lendar proves himself heroic too!
But strange things happen around Lendar. He wears a wrist watch that displays video feed from surveillance cameras; he flicks his hand and Gabriel's fellow attacker, Javier, falls to the ground and his Cadillac Escalade drives up the hill by itself. When her friend and neighbor, Bruce, calls Lendar a liar and she is forced to admit there are many things about Lendar that aren't quite right, Elise's doubts and fears increase. She knows Gabriel will not give up; humiliation will only drive him to more violent measures--even kidnapping and murder!
Give Her the Stars is the story of finding hope, trusting God and learning to let go of the past. Give Her the Stars is available in most e-book formats, PDF and HTML reading through the distributor: "Give Her the Stars": read sample or purchase
Available on Kindle!
Look for Give Her the Stars at your favorite e-book seller's site!
Elise Ramos, divorced mother of two-year old Max, flees her stifling apartment one mid-morning in July after her controlling ex-husband, Gabriel's distressing visit--the latest in a series that will likely stretch into the future. She's standing outside a used clothing store longing for a better life and contemplating the awful reality of fading dreams, working retail to pay off her student loans when she realizes someone has been staring at her.At first, Elise can't believe the handsome man with the lisping Spanish accent has eyes only for her, but once it's clear he can't be looking anywhere else, she turns to run. He follows her, apologizing and saying he's certain he's met her somewhere before. Elise introduces herself and he admits he does not recognize her name, but then, he asks he if can Max a lemonade.
Hope begins kindling in Elise's heart when Lendar asks her for a date to the aquarium. But, she's afraid to give him her address, so she proposes she meet him there. When he discovers Elise is worried about finishing her final painting and sketchbook for her art classes, he offers to help. The man is thoughtful and kind! The date segues into dinner, but when Lendar brings her home, a drunken Gabriel is waiting, knife in hand ready for a fight. And Lendar proves himself heroic too!
But strange things happen around Lendar. He wears a wrist watch that displays video feed from surveillance cameras; he flicks his hand and Gabriel's fellow attacker, Javier, falls to the ground and his Cadillac Escalade drives up the hill by itself. When her friend and neighbor, Bruce, calls Lendar a liar and she is forced to admit there are many things about Lendar that aren't quite right, Elise's doubts and fears increase. She knows Gabriel will not give up; humiliation will only drive him to more violent measures--even kidnapping and murder!
Give Her the Stars is the story of finding hope, trusting God and learning to let go of the past. Give Her the Stars is available in most e-book formats, PDF and HTML reading through the distributor: "Give Her the Stars": read sample or purchase
Available on Kindle!
Look for Give Her the Stars at your favorite e-book seller's site!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Felix Baumgartner Makes History!
Atmosphere on the Moon
Characters in the Over the Edge series talk about landing on moons or uninhabitable planets for clandestine meetings. There's also discussion about mining in these places. Besides being super cold and totally inhospitable, what would it be like to land on our moon? Here's an interesting article about the atmosphere of our moon which makes for some lovely visual effects.
Atmosphere on the Moon
Moon Dust Fountains
Moon Dust Fountains
Monday, October 15, 2012
UFO's of Summer
One balmy night, during the summer of 2012, I decided to go outside and look at the stars. I often do this and like Pecos Bill, who felt that if he could see smoke from his neighbor's chimney the neighborhood was getting too crowded, I feel hemmed in by the flashing irrigation pivots that surround our house--two of which are located on our own farm. Some nights I feel like I'm on a dance floor with strobe lights blinking everywhere I look!
Light pollution has ruined the landscape!
It's probably due to vandalism, but a local business across the field from us has installed super-bright lights to glare on their equipment throughout the night. Then, there are the proliferation of yard lights all over the county! Lights, lights, lights everywhere you look interfering with the real spectacle of every night sky: stars!
I'd like to be on the County Commission long enough to make a law that all yard lights must be shielded so that the light points downward and that all center pivots must be light-less. These days pivots can receive an upgrade with an internet or cell phone link to the farmer's computer and/or phone to warn him his pivots have stopped putting out water. As if I ever really will run for the County Commission. It's just one of those idle dreams I have now and then, like owning a laser gun and shooting out all the lights and not getting caught.
While I was outside grumbling about light pollution and attempting to admire the stars I saw two UFO's.
The first UFO came from the south heading north. At first I thought it was a huge meteor. It looked like a brilliant, yellow-orange fireball, but it did not have a tail. I ran inside long enough to yell at my husband and my two youngest sons to come out and look. My husband joined me and we watched the thing gradually dip closer to the ground. I was ready to suggest we pile into our vehicle and drive to its likely crash site, when the thing arced upward into the clouds that obscured the sky in the north and was gone. We were discussing what we'd seen when we realized a second UFO approached from the south. It seemed a little closer and as if its trajectory was curving upward slightly. It seemed to slow, made a gentle turn to the east, then accelerated and was gone.
Here are the facts: With nothing up in the air beside the UFO's to compare sizes, we have no idea how large they were or how far away. (When Felix Baumgartner's balloon drifted over the New Mexico landscape a few days ago and we saw it from our church's parking lot, it looked large and perhaps not so very distant. But, his balloon was over 300 feet tall and already over 20,000 feet in the air by the time we saw it! And, it was then that I realized that when you see something in the air, unless you are very familiar with the object, you simply have no idea how large or small it really is.) Both UFO's resembled egg-shaped, burning somethings, like lava balls. I say egg-shaped because it gives an immediate picture of what we saw, but the UFO's were symmetrical, both sides like the fat end of the egg. They didn't have smoke trails or tails like comets or meteors. They were fast. And neither of the UFO's made a sound. They came from roughly the same direction as military helicopters sometimes take, but one went almost straight north, and the other one turned east which military helicopters around here don't do. Military helicopters come from the southwest and head northeast. Or, they come from the northeast and head southeast, like the time when our first Black president headed down to the oil fields near Malaga for a photo op.
Do we human beings have any really fast, silent, brilliant yellow-orange, squashed spherical ships? No? I didn't think so either. MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, has posted reports of many sightings of similar yellow-orange, squashed spherical UFO's. And The Examiner has a photo. I'm posting the links below. I tried to get a photo, but the image I captured doesn't reveal anything. I've seen other UFO's here and there in New Mexico. Several years ago I saw a huge, white, cigar shaped UFO which I think was actually a silage bag caught in the wind. A silage bag is ten feet in diameter and this object was probably about 60 feet long. But I wonder, was it a silage bag? It seemed fatter than the ten feet in diameter measurement I know to be true of silage bags. It was flying along in the wind like a bullet, except hollow and full of air. Or solid and cigar shaped! I wish I had video! My brother and I used to see UFO's once in awhile when we were kids living near Clovis, New Mexico, about ten miles northeast of Cannon Air Force Base. Those might be explained as experimental aircraft. The one I remember the best looked like three lights in a triangular formation, two red lights on the bottom and a yellow one on top. It came up behind us as we walked toward the barn and skimmed about fifteen feet off the ground, roaring and booming. Gone in a flash. As normal kids growing up in the seventies we spend a lot of time outside. We knew what birds based out of Cannon, we'd seen them all, but nothing like those lights. I can explain away the other UFO's I've seen, but I can't explain the two UFO's I saw this summer!
I met a woman at a writer's conference who told a story about the time she went with her husband to have dinner at the neighbors' house. They finished their meal and went outside to enjoy their cocktails when a saucer shaped UFO stopped right over their house! She described her house as nestled in forest, on the other side of a tree filled gulley at the top of the rise. The UFO shown a light down on the house, dipped lower, then zipped away. Out of sight in a flash. The couple hurried home to find their children shaken and their dogs upset and their appliances malfunctioning. This lady writes historical romances set in the American west. She seemed very mild, even boring, but maybe she was feeling a little neglected. I don't know. It's the wildest UFO story I've heard except for my own.
Do aliens exist? I don't know. This I can say: There is a lot more we don't know about the universe than we do know. And any scientist who thinks he's got anything, even the smallest micro-organism all figured out is fooling himself!
Orange Sphere UFO's
Photo of Orange Sphere UFO
Light pollution has ruined the landscape!
It's probably due to vandalism, but a local business across the field from us has installed super-bright lights to glare on their equipment throughout the night. Then, there are the proliferation of yard lights all over the county! Lights, lights, lights everywhere you look interfering with the real spectacle of every night sky: stars!
I'd like to be on the County Commission long enough to make a law that all yard lights must be shielded so that the light points downward and that all center pivots must be light-less. These days pivots can receive an upgrade with an internet or cell phone link to the farmer's computer and/or phone to warn him his pivots have stopped putting out water. As if I ever really will run for the County Commission. It's just one of those idle dreams I have now and then, like owning a laser gun and shooting out all the lights and not getting caught.
While I was outside grumbling about light pollution and attempting to admire the stars I saw two UFO's.
The first UFO came from the south heading north. At first I thought it was a huge meteor. It looked like a brilliant, yellow-orange fireball, but it did not have a tail. I ran inside long enough to yell at my husband and my two youngest sons to come out and look. My husband joined me and we watched the thing gradually dip closer to the ground. I was ready to suggest we pile into our vehicle and drive to its likely crash site, when the thing arced upward into the clouds that obscured the sky in the north and was gone. We were discussing what we'd seen when we realized a second UFO approached from the south. It seemed a little closer and as if its trajectory was curving upward slightly. It seemed to slow, made a gentle turn to the east, then accelerated and was gone.
Here are the facts: With nothing up in the air beside the UFO's to compare sizes, we have no idea how large they were or how far away. (When Felix Baumgartner's balloon drifted over the New Mexico landscape a few days ago and we saw it from our church's parking lot, it looked large and perhaps not so very distant. But, his balloon was over 300 feet tall and already over 20,000 feet in the air by the time we saw it! And, it was then that I realized that when you see something in the air, unless you are very familiar with the object, you simply have no idea how large or small it really is.) Both UFO's resembled egg-shaped, burning somethings, like lava balls. I say egg-shaped because it gives an immediate picture of what we saw, but the UFO's were symmetrical, both sides like the fat end of the egg. They didn't have smoke trails or tails like comets or meteors. They were fast. And neither of the UFO's made a sound. They came from roughly the same direction as military helicopters sometimes take, but one went almost straight north, and the other one turned east which military helicopters around here don't do. Military helicopters come from the southwest and head northeast. Or, they come from the northeast and head southeast, like the time when our first Black president headed down to the oil fields near Malaga for a photo op.
Do we human beings have any really fast, silent, brilliant yellow-orange, squashed spherical ships? No? I didn't think so either. MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, has posted reports of many sightings of similar yellow-orange, squashed spherical UFO's. And The Examiner has a photo. I'm posting the links below. I tried to get a photo, but the image I captured doesn't reveal anything. I've seen other UFO's here and there in New Mexico. Several years ago I saw a huge, white, cigar shaped UFO which I think was actually a silage bag caught in the wind. A silage bag is ten feet in diameter and this object was probably about 60 feet long. But I wonder, was it a silage bag? It seemed fatter than the ten feet in diameter measurement I know to be true of silage bags. It was flying along in the wind like a bullet, except hollow and full of air. Or solid and cigar shaped! I wish I had video! My brother and I used to see UFO's once in awhile when we were kids living near Clovis, New Mexico, about ten miles northeast of Cannon Air Force Base. Those might be explained as experimental aircraft. The one I remember the best looked like three lights in a triangular formation, two red lights on the bottom and a yellow one on top. It came up behind us as we walked toward the barn and skimmed about fifteen feet off the ground, roaring and booming. Gone in a flash. As normal kids growing up in the seventies we spend a lot of time outside. We knew what birds based out of Cannon, we'd seen them all, but nothing like those lights. I can explain away the other UFO's I've seen, but I can't explain the two UFO's I saw this summer!
I met a woman at a writer's conference who told a story about the time she went with her husband to have dinner at the neighbors' house. They finished their meal and went outside to enjoy their cocktails when a saucer shaped UFO stopped right over their house! She described her house as nestled in forest, on the other side of a tree filled gulley at the top of the rise. The UFO shown a light down on the house, dipped lower, then zipped away. Out of sight in a flash. The couple hurried home to find their children shaken and their dogs upset and their appliances malfunctioning. This lady writes historical romances set in the American west. She seemed very mild, even boring, but maybe she was feeling a little neglected. I don't know. It's the wildest UFO story I've heard except for my own.
 |
| MUFON website |
Orange Sphere UFO's
Photo of Orange Sphere UFO
Monday, July 30, 2012
Just for Fun: New Photos of the Apollo Moon Landing Sites
People have wondered if the flags astronauts left on the moon still stand. New photo evidence shows that they do indeed still stand. However, nobody knows, at present, whether the flags retain any of their color. Check out the stories online at these links:
Flags planted by Apollo astronauts still stand
Photos of the Apollo landing sites
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| NASA photo |
Photos of the Apollo landing sites
Monday, May 28, 2012
Paul McCartney's "My Valentine" featuring Johnny Depp & Natalie Portman
Characters in the Over the Edge series often sign and speak simultaneously. This video shows how lovely that can be.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Science of Over the Edge: Asteroid Mining
In the Over the Edge series asteroid mining is mentioned as an economic activity characters might engage in or have interaction with. Some ambitious folks are beginning to use advanced, emerging technology to make this a reality.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Divided Brains: The Science of Over the Edge
A primary theme of the Over the Edge series is the divided brain. Many of the primary characters are marsupial humanoids. Marsupials lack the corpus callosum which is the part of the brain which unifies the two hemispheres. Of course, we are are not marsupials, our right hemispheres do not have language and thus often end up ignored. This video delves into that quality:
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Hazards of Space Travel and Living on Other Planets: The Science of Over the Edge
NASA is working on the problem of safety for astronauts venturing to Mars and beyond.
Since 2009, a research orbiter had been circling the moon. Among other things, it is equipped with a plastic that mimics human skin. NASA studies hazards of radiation on space travelers.
They've created a robot that can explore that hostile planet once it arrives and be a test subject during its journey. Here's a video explaining the project: Curiosity: The Stunt Double
Curiosity has landed: Curiosity's First Photos ; NASA: Curiosity's Mission
Since 2009, a research orbiter had been circling the moon. Among other things, it is equipped with a plastic that mimics human skin. NASA studies hazards of radiation on space travelers.
They've created a robot that can explore that hostile planet once it arrives and be a test subject during its journey. Here's a video explaining the project: Curiosity: The Stunt Double
Curiosity has landed: Curiosity's First Photos ; NASA: Curiosity's Mission
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| NASA/Fox News photo |
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