Sunday 12 December 2010

antediluvian

Archeological researchers in the UK and the Czech Republic, and most archeological digging is done in the library or the mind, theorize that a large flood plain near the Fertile Crescent, now submerged in the shallows of the Persian Gulf since about eight thousand years, could have once supported an advanced Dreamtime civilization, whose ancient and half-remembered existence could be the stuff of legends, like Atlantis, and time before the biblical floods. Conventional wisdom holds that human progress is pretty much a closed-account, a straight trajectory from the Egyptians, to the Greeks, Romans through European enlightenment with the details still be worked out, but a lot of new discoveries, which were always there waiting to be noticed, suggests that the human world is much, much older and development has sometimes been retrograde.
The tribes of the remote Andaman Islands have been living in virtual isolation for the past sixty thousand years and probably represent one of the first migrations out of the African continent, and recent excavations in South Africa reveal a sophisticated coastal society using tools and agriculture possibly for some eighty thousand years, working metal tens of thousands of years before the process was supposedly invented in Europe. The lost civilization of the Persian Gulf could have also been highly advanced. Much can happen, unrecorded and with no recoverable trace, during these intervening ages and in the billions of unpeopled years before. Just coming to terms with the shrinking of the unexplored world and the implications of the scientifically-accepted age of the Earth and the universe, science-fiction writers of the Cthulhu mythos cycle invite readers to reconsider the prevailing arrogance that nothing much was happening in the meantime, except mechanical evolution. The world’s unimaginable age could accommodate the rise and fall of countless societies, in addition to the Sea Monkey Kingdom and the Utopia of the Dinosaurs. Not all the hidden places have been tilled and there may yet be a renaissance in exploration that is not led by how far or deep or close we can look.

Friday 10 December 2010

advents calendar

Mentally preparing myself for the challenge of the snowy roads crunchy with ice--they are even colour-coded apparently but are not red or amber but decidedly white, I took the time to collect some of the infinite wonderful vignettes associated with Christmas--the Nativity scenes, suites of Nutcrackers, Santa Clauses and Snowmen without end, moose, reindeer, and the trees. 
Sometimes I feel that capturing the moment is not quite within photographic prowess, but decorating and the general background festoonery are great things, and the detail on mantle tops, showcased or otherwised shoe-horned into every free space is fantastic and brings the holidays into a brighter, sharper focus, like concerted dioramas every where one looks.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

sparkle, sparkle or the trouble with tribbles

I can hardly fathom the excitement circulating daily among star-gazers and astronomers as news comes daily of new, perceptive altering discoveries and researches agree that it is only a matter of time before extraterrestrial life is discovered just through brute force. Recently, scientists discovered a star shrouded by a halo of cubic zirconium clouds. This was something unexpected.

Based on spectral analysis and the distribution of elements observable in the solar system, no one anticipating the sort of concentration, which possibly questions a lot of the assumptions and speculations about the possible configurations of biology, most tend to be carbon chauvinists, as Carl Sagan put it. Of course, carbon chemically is a good basis because of its abundance and versatility and tautologies abound against a radical departure from the familiar configuration. It is fascinating to puzzle out, with valances and affinities, the feasibilities of hypothetical biochemistry. Given enough patience and true-believers, alien life will be found, and soon, I think, but it is prudent and an imaginative—necessary for shedding terrestrial prejudices—exercise to entertain reasons why life, in all its lushness and creativity, has not shown itself elsewhere. There are two classes to this, I think: the first relies on dangerous assumptions that alien life is immediately familiar and appreciable, that alien culture and technology are somehow analogues or extensions of our own. Such an alien race may be hiding or just plain hiding in plain sight, wary of showing itself for fear of how extraterrestrials fare in the majority of human cinema or over humans’ violent propensities. Maybe we have shown ourselves not as the sophisticated beings we like to think we are, such as during wars or holidays and other moments when it would be very hard to explain to the outside observer.
We do not really broadcast our intentions or culture too well these days, not the least of which, over dwindling radio signals, replaced by cell-towers and encryption that offer little for listeners across the galaxy. Since we stopped talking or pursuing outreach programs, maybe aliens think we are not around any longer. The second class requires us to expand our search and definitions: maybe aliens can only manifest themselves to us as a pleasant shade of blue and their technology to us is only abstract and accessible as a mild phobia or nut allergy. Maybe the aliens, or a certain subset since the variety must be immense, believe that automobiles are the dominant form of life on earth. Or maybe, looking at earth bombarded with solar radiation with just a pitiable gaseous atmosphere to protect it from solar radiation, others assume that our planet would not be a likely candidate to harbor life. When it does happen, and I think that the later is the more likely case, I just hope it happens in a way that vilifies all the writers of science fiction and those who dreamed a little.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

sacco & vanzetti

It is strange how prophesies can become self-fulfilling, and now I can imagine a recursive, almost play-by-play account of what present and future cables entail about destroying their arch-nemesis. It is remarkable how quickly the underlying infrastructure collaborated, folded in order to tow the party line.
Financial crises and failure of statecraft precipitated by America, full-disclosure theatre to counter terror-funds and if privacy is violated then we're sorry but it's the terrorists' fault, really, had already pushed institutions in Switzerland outside of their venerable comfort-zones of secrecy and did not want any additional trouble or scrutiny--never mind the track record of minding funds for any of history's despots, wanted or otherwise. It's the same with the wire- and hosting-services that have managed to monopolize the domain but will sell out at the first hint of controversy. That should make any one feel uneasy about the control ceded and entrusted to a few, unavoidable corporations and arrangements.  No one should stop talking about this, even as headlines fade or are trumped by the next sensational distraction or dwindling tolerance and attention--I think a few troglodites secured equal time over the threats to hold a very real book burning over the perceived threat of an inclusive community center.  It is not really their fault (nor pardon) that their clout cannot be spared because of their levels of exposure, but there should be alternatives in place in case of freezing, stopping movement and so the public can express solidarity and/or distaste--otherwise smug and self-interested activities become targets on one and all fronts.

Monday 6 December 2010

coal in your stocking

There seems to be quite a bit of trafficking in back-handed compliments lately. The US Federal Communications Commission is floating a bill ostensibly promoting net-neutrality but is really a wolf in sheep's clothing, since its language gives the bureaucracy a substantial foothold in pushing regulations and standards. Aside from making muffling dissenters and broadcasters less bothersome for government censors, facilitating internet taxation, and requiring a license to tweet mirroring the government's own information assurance and non-refutability model, setting policy, like the creeping scourge of US monetary policy, extra-territorially. The internet is borderless and lawless but leverage can still be exercised, and such indirect and diverted influence is the only really the only arsenal that the crippled dollar can afford. The untold billions that America has underwritten through the International Monetary Fund, despite the yielding value of the currency and threats of inflation, to bolster the European Union is more shaky scaffolding, increasing dependence on the continued shared economical delusion. If the IMF conducted itself more becomingly in First World nations, as opposed to opportunistic and predatory ventures, why should Ireland have put up so much resistance to easy credit? Maybe there are not nascent military dictatorships to prop-up in Dublin or desalinization plants to push, but there are certainly chances to pout over failures to act in alignment with free-market traders, cooperation over environmental protection, policy cheerleading and centralized blacklisting, or the world-internet police. Let us hope that some key players have a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future this year.

Friday 3 December 2010

life in mono or arsenic and old lace

Though sometimes the space agency indulges the media with rampant speculation and Christmas morning excitement and anticipation, and though no evidence of extraterrestrial life was proffered, NASA's press conference did manage to deliver some outstanding news that redefines not only the way we look at life on earth but also in the search for alien life and prime stellar real estate. Bacteria in the alkaline incubator, Lake Mono in California, have evolved the ability to substitute toxic arsenic for phosphorus, heretofore considered one of the elements essential for basic biological chemistry, along with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. This discovery makes novelty and resourcefulness of life less familiar and less self-centered and opens up great avenues for exploration, dispelling some old assumptions that could hinder the search with blinders and overly selective criteria. NASA's research is a pleasant surprise, following on the heels of an astronomical false tenet disabused earlier this week, that rewarded us with countless more stars in the sky.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

heat miser

Most US federal workers are handsomely compensated as it is, mostly for keeping-up-appearances. Part of the out-of-date and out-of-touch rationale, historically for around two percent annually, awarded at the beginning of the year, was as a retention bonus to compensate for the difference between public- and private-sector salaries, ad infinitum--which does not make much sense because there are few real corollaries.

Following the example of US state and local governments, the federal government has decided to freeze the pay of its civilian workforce, with notable exceptions, in a cosmetic gesture of solidarity to unbalanced budgets and as a concession to a divided legislature. While not arguing for another entitlement or casting aspersions towards civil servants that have been furloughed or had their salaries cut, this is squandered political capital, since nominal fiscal savings will go unnoticed as will any cross-party appeasement, and the only segment of the population that will take notice will do so in a negative way, because a few will suffer privately by diminishing their spending power by two percent or so (not to mention a proportional two percent into 401K plans, retirement accounts, income tax, etc. although most of that is just a shell game too) in exchange for only negligible public benefit. Efficiency and trimming expenses where quality and morale is not compromised is a virtue but feckless actions are disgruntling.