Taking The Long View

Cartoon: Pup Thinks Too Much?

This is great -- Pup Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe -- is a side-scrolling cartoon, illustratiing a view of the 'verse kind of like the Powers of Ten, but teh funny. Well, it's funny in a way that I like, with a carpe diem message and all that. Pup is a philosophical dog, the creation of Drew Weing, a talented artist from Georgia. Great stuff this. I wish there was more like this.

How Did We Get Here?

Remember the lyric of that great Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime, which asks, "How did I get here?" That's a great question for this blog; it's been asked down the centuries, of course. Now modern astronomers have begun to answer in greater and greater detail. The History Channel delivers a superb video about the formation of the universe.

(Via PonderAbout.com)

Starting Again

So much time has passed since last I wrote here. I intend to restart Taking the Long View, with new content, some new design, and new perspective on what this blog can do. I'm also going to start a couple other blogs related to this topic and to other writing. I hope that my new found enthusiasm can sustain itself. Perhaps it can. But I'm all for taking the long view of things; in that view of things, my years-long hiatus is hardly a blip, on a cosmic scale.

I try to keep that in mind every day.

So now on to new entries, new categories, and new dialogue, for I'm interested in getting comments. If you are reading this site for the first time, drop me a note, if something I write or link to is of interest.

Now may this blog flourish and grow.

Life goes on

Over a year? I have neglected the blog for over a year?

And now so much has happened in the last few weeks, that I feel compelled to write again.

Life has been "interesting" I suppose. In August, just as we were planning to head out on vacation, Katie went to the doctor. She hadn't felt right for a couple of weeks, and when they discovered a growth, the doctor wanted a CAT scan. This was Thursday, August 17th. We canceled our week at the cabin, saw the surgeon on Monday, and scheduled surgery on that Thursday. They were able to get out most of the growth, on her ovary, and much else; and she is now recovering at home.
Katie's doctors diagnosed her as having an adenocarcinoma of the appendix. This is fairly rare, fairly mild as cancer's go, though by no means something she could live with inside her. Her cancer was discovered at stage one, and becasue it started in her appendix, they are calling it low-grade.
Unfortunately, they only got between 95-99% of the cells in the first operation. I suppose it is good that they got so much of it, but the remaining cells can still regrow and spread.
So now we are looking at another operation, on October 2nd, during which they will both remove any remaining visible growths, and apply heated chemotherapy directly to her abdominal cavity and organs. It is supposed to be a very effective method of chemo, though not without side affects.
I'll keep writing this later.

Too many things

I've just been very busy. Thanks for the comments, those of you who have been sending them. If you have other sites you think would be useful here, please send me them via comments.

I hope to have more time soon to enter some more things, and get back into the habit of posting.

More Than Human Blog

More Than Human by Ramez Naam
Naam's recently published book More Than Human is a chronicle and prediction of current research and production of biotech and nantech investigations and treatments. His thesis is that not only are these inevitable developments, but they are necessary to human survival.
I haven't read his work yet, but would add that my own ideas see transhumanism as inevitable and already in motion. Not only that, I'm certain that we will look back on this time as the dawn of a golden age, in which individual humans take over their own random genetic development and apply thought and consideration to fate's previously haphazard process.
I've got to get this book -- it sounds wonderful.

John Dobson at MAS

On Thursday, March 3rd, I had the chance to hear a lecture by John Dobson, founder of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers Association, and all around cantankerous cosmologist, sponsored by the Minnesota Astronomical Society. His lecture was quite a trip, and well worth driving around the MN State High School Hockey Championship crowds filling the streets of downtown St. Paul.
Dobson is 89 years old yet quite spry, and has spent most of his life helping people discover the wonders of astronomy and the night sky.
He is also a former Vedanta monk who was asked to leave his order for doing astronomy rather than the sanctioned holy work.
His "Bang Free Cosmology" refers to his contention that Big Bang theory is a complete waste of effort, while his own "theory" seems rather short of proof and long on the supernatural explanation. He's cadgy about mentioning "god" or "gods" and instead refers to the Sanskrit physicists from 4,000 years ago as being on the right track.
I wasn't convinced of much, primarily becasue his major rhetorical device was to SHOUT VERY LOUDLY when he was trying to help us break through to his version of numerous theoretical positions. Usually he just played very fast and loose with his numbers and his formulas. I'd have preferred if he had talked more about telescope building. Oh well.
Most of the Minnesota Astronomical Society membership is a bit more sophisiticated than what he seemed to imply, so I'm not sure that his theory convinced anyone.
But I wouldn't have missed seeing the telescope maker whose name graces one of the most popular telescope designs of the last 30 years. It was fun.

Wireless Test

Hey! I'm entering this via the Clie and NetFront -- and now to see if it works.

Ray Kurzweil's KurzweilAI

KurzweilAI.net "...features the big thoughts of today's big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas.... Although the "AI" in the title of this site suggests Ray Kurzweil's work in "artificial intelligence," it's intended here to refer to the far broader world of "accelerating intelligence" in all of its diverse forms. The quickening pace of our knowledge and intelligence will ultimately alter the nature of what it means to be human.
KurzweilAI.Net focuses on the exponential growth of intelligence, both biological and machine, and the merger of the two in a post-humanist future."

Unbounding the Future

Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution by Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson
"Nanotechnology. The science is good, the engineering is feasible, the paths of approach are many, the consequences are revolutionary-times-revolutionary, and the schedule is: in our lifetimes. But what? No one knows but what. That's why a book like this is crucial before molecular engineering and the routine transformation of matter arrives. The technology will arrive piecemeal and prominently but the consequences will arrive at a larger scale and often invisibly.
Perspective from within a bursting revolution is always a problem because the long view is obscured by compelling immediacies and the sudden traffic of people new to the subject, some seizing opportunity, some viewing with alarm. Both optimists and pessimists about new technologies are notorious for their tunnel vision."

The Third Culture

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution by John Brockman
"The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are."

The Book of Sand

The Book of Sand: A Hypertext/Puzzle by Jorge Luis Borges
"This web site contains, in eight randomly numbered pages, the text of Jorge Luis Borges' story The Book of Sand (as translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni), with pictures and animations based on old engravings and photographs. It is, I hope, an intriguing presentation of one of Borges' lesser-known works. But it also offers a unique opportunity for readers to interact with the story. The Book of Sand site is a hypertext, with a nonlinear structure and dynamic images....not one of his most famous fictions, but its central enigma may be Borges' most directly prescient metaphor for the Web: its pages are uncountable, ever-changing, without beginning or end."

Extropy Institute

Extropy Institute (ExI) "...has grown from a groundbreaking futurist organization to a worldwide incubator for solutions. Having spent the last 15 years building the grid for transhumanity, ExI is now moving forward in designing the means for resolving technological and cultural issues of transhumanity. ExI's approach is to design thinking systems and solutions for the future that affect everyone around the world.
Extropy Institute is a networking organization which advocates the Proactionary Principle in addressing social issues. Extropy Institute does not support any one political agenda."

Cosmic Evolution: From Big Bang to Humankind

Cosmic Evolution: From Big Bang to Humankind by Eric J. Chaisson, Wright Center for Science Education at Tufts University.
"The arrow of time, from origin of the Universe to the present and beyond, spans several major epochs throughout all of history. Cosmic evolution is the study of the many varied changes in the assembly and composition of energy, matter, and life in the thinning and cooling Universe."

Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival

Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival "News that shatters the ice of our unconscious!"

"The nature of reality is this:
It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden."
--Rumi, 13th-century Sufi mystic

Mind-stretching connections and many spurious misdirections, but always something worth considering. Recommended by my friend Chris Odegaard of the Piltdown Gentleman's Club.