Holmes

What up, holmes?

What Up, indeed.



Hat tip to Urban, once again, for keeping tabs on
what stories don't make the 11 o'clock news.

Here's some interesting language.

A article in New Scientist tells us that Comet Holmes has brightened by a factor of a million in 24 hours and according to David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, California, "This is equivalent to the planet Saturn suddenly becoming as bright as the Full Moon."

Science tells us that the comet is heading away from us, but cannot explain why it has suddenly brightened. Although there are many theories of why we can't see the tail of the comet, many are speculating that we can't see the tail because the comet is heading towards earth. Most do not believe it will hit earth, but think we may be due for an amazing sky show as the months pass. Others feel that this close encounter will change us as a society and that the comet has been brought to us because we are war hungry.

While reading as much as I could on Comet Holmes the most interesting thing I discovered is how little coverage this anomaly is receiving. Although this comet is not new, its explosion of light is unusual and I am confused as to why the major news outlets have yet to report this story. Could it be that since the experts don't understand what is ocurring, the decision makers don't want to cause fear? Whether Comet Holmes continues to grow and brighten or simply fades out of sight and mind, no one seems to know, including the experts, so take a look and be amazed.

I say, WTF?


...the BBC report

...the SpaceWeather gallery

...the SkyandTelescope gallery

...the map

UPDATE (11/1/07):

a nice close up of Holmes...



continuing updates...

Steorn Energy - Update

Hat tip to Free Energy Truth for this exclusive interview
with Sean McCarthy of Steorn.



Excerpt:

FE Truth: Surely politicians would be interested in the technology for lots of reasons.
Has Steorn ever been contacted by anyone in political positions?

Sean: We’ve been contacted by everybody from humanitarian groups to top range politicians, however we have taken the same position with all of them. We are not engaging with the political community or the industrial community until after validation.

FE Truth: Can you give us any news on Steorn’s African water pump project?

Sean: It’s an ongoing project. We have contracted a local engineering company to conduct water surveys and to design a one-fits-all water pump, (i.e. a water pumping system that can be used in multiple sites in Kenya) that work is ongoing, they haven’t finalized their work. Effectively what we will be providing them is the power to drive this system.

FE Truth: "In your opinion does Orbo create or extract energy?"

Sean: It’s a question of views. I would say that, in the same way as there is a mass/energy equivalent there is also a form of time/energy equivalent and whether you consider that energy creation or conversion is a matter of semantics. The explanation behind Orbo is that ÄT can equal E as simple as that.

Excerpt - The Book Of The New Sun

When I had first come to realize, as a boy, that the green circle of the moon was in fact a sort of island hung in the sky, whose color derived from forests, now immemorially old, planted in the earliest days of the race of Man, I had formed an intention of going there, and had added to it all the other worlds of the universe as I came in time to realize their existence. I had abandoned that wish as a part (I thought) of growing up, when I learned that only people whose positions in society appeared to me unattainably high ever succeeded in leaving Urth.

Now that old longing was rekindled again, and though it seemed to have grown more absurd still with the passage of the years (for surely the little apprentice I had been had more chance of flashing between the stars at last than the hunted outcast I had become) it was immensely firmer and stronger because I had learned in the intervening time the folly of limiting desire to the possible. I would go, I was resolved. For the remainder of my life I would be sleeplessly alert for any opportunity, however slight. Already I had found myself once alone with the mirrors of Father Inire; then Jonas, wiser by far than I, had without hesitation cast himself on the tide of photons. Who could say that I would never find myself before those mirrors again?

- Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor, The Book of the New Sun

Window To The Hooke

Most have never heard of him...



Those, like myself, who've read The Baroque Cycle,
remember Robert Hooke fondly.

Hat tip to the TimesOnline for calling our attention to:

"
The papers of one of Britain’s greatest scientists, which were lost for centuries and saved for the nation in a £1 million sale last year, become available to read online today.

The innovative “digital folio” provides unprecedented public access to hundreds of pages of manuscript notes and minutes kept by Robert Hooke, who is sometimes described as Britain’s Leonardo da Vinci.

The remarkable collection contains Hooke’s minutes of early meetings of the Royal Society, taken while he was curator of experiments and then secretary of the national academy of science, between 1661 and 1692.

They record many of the scientist’s own experiments and others conducted by figures such as Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren, as well as the disputes and rivalries that arose among the founding fathers of British science.

Hooke’s achievements included Hooke’s law of elasticity, Hooke’s universal joint, and discoveries in microscopy including the cellular structure of plants. He invented the iris diaphragm in cameras, the balance wheel in watches, and coined the word 'cell'.
"

Brighten The Blackout

Heck, I hate to see a story with such a happy ending blacked out.

Copy That

www.letssaythanks.com


(chose the last of the message options, 'other')

"We're strangers. But you're fighting for me, for your country, for all of us. I know sometimes the reasons for your struggle are contested, and argued.

Whatever the preambles that led you to where you are now, whatever the stories history will speak of your actions, your sacrifice and courage ennobles all of us, inspires every one of us.

You are believed. We believe in you."

Exile Hat Tip

Howdy!
Yo!
здравствулте!

I was just reading one of my more favorite and obscure sites,
THE EXILE, a Moscow-based alternative newspaper.

It's kinda like our THE ONION,
but funnier in the way of Charles Bronson playing "Flight Lt. Danny Velinski
'The Tunnel King'" in The Great Escape.

The Exile is also the home of one my top five columnists,
Gary Brecher - The War Nerd (as I've mentioned in previous posts).

Their front page article,
COLD BULLSHIT: Ten Piles of "New Cold War" Crap,
had me laughing and learning.

Ya see, as all of you of course know, because I repeatedly repeat and reiterate and sometimes even reply to myself in schizophrenic conversations with myself....
there is more news and information to be had than just from mainstream american media. (Even if it is from a sarcastic paper embedded in red-faced Russia,
"history is repeated first as tragedy, and then as farce.")

Now go my children, and laugh and play with the annoying amount of links I have presented you. Enjoy the sunlit fields of indian summer innocence.

End of Line.