comet and cupid

NASA intends to make good on a 2014 proposal and launch a pair of missions within the six years to two very exotic locations.
One destination is the massive metallic asteroid 16 Psyche (named for the mythological tale of Cupid and Psyche, which astronomers believe to be the nickel-iron core of a proto-planet that was destroyed in the early stages of the formation of the Solar System. The other mission, Lucy—named after the hominid female discovered in Africa and recognised as the missing-link (herself named after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), will explore the so called Trojan asteroids, pulled away from the main belt by Jupiter’s gravity. While not much is not known about the nature of the Trojans, researchers believe that they represent the fossil remnants of planet formation. Aside from the pure exploratory value, the projects also will look at the feasibility of conducting mining operations, whose wealth make the notion of scarcity seem ridiculous.

anisotrophy or 45-rpm

I can vaguely recall how about five years ago it was the done thing to suggest that the Universe might be rotating—about what axis and relative to what being unanswerable questions—although I was never sure to what ends exactly, what individuals hoped to accomplish by sticking a reference point on the Cosmos.
Perhaps it was to preserve the symmetry of rotation from atoms to planets and galaxies or perhaps it was sort of to explain the Doppler effect—I could never quite tell though it always struck me as intriguing if not impossible to test, and reminded me of the story in the Middle Earth’s legendarium how it went in the Third Age from a flat planet to a globe so the Undying Lands would become inaccessible to mortals. Now revisiting the question, we find that astrophysicists can reasonably infer that the Universe is indeed directionless, uniform (from a sufficiently broad perspective) and stationary thanks to a recent battery of tests and observations that preserves our present understanding of cosmology, but it makes me wonder if we postulated a spinning Universe what might be different and supercilious. Would we need dark matter and dark energy (for which there’s little in the way of a satisfactory explanation) if the ability to hold it all together could be accounted for by angular momentum—that is, the Universe keeping itself balanced, like a ice-skater spinning and bringing her arms inward to twirl faster, or like a phonographic record on a turntable whose edge is sweeping out greater spaces at a faster rate than at its centre? Would the background of spacetime be something else entirely if not immobile?

a question of scale

Internet caretaker Messy Nessy Chic admittedly comes across more historical images worth saving whilst making the rounds but it’s sometimes a challenge to associate them to an appropriate article. To clear out some of that backlog, she shares a gallery of images that revolve around the theme of magnitude that illustrate the larger than life. By turns haunting and hopeful, these vintage photographs are well-worth the look and will linger in the form of reflection that challenges one’s perspective.

cibo, gente, e spasso

Despite vocal protests by residents and officials—though cosmetically, probably not raising much ire as other fast-food franchises and tourist-tat already saturate the corridors radiating out from the tiny nation-state, another outlet of a much maligned nutritional hegemony-monger opened for business near the Holy See and for the first time, occupying real estate owned (but without being accorded extra-territorial status) by the Vatican.
We’ve been known to patronise this establishment in the past but I think it’s really too much to suffer the Golden Arches within sight of Saint Peter’s—or anywhere else not keeping with character of its host neighbourhood, and resolve to be a little bit more finicky going forward. No matter how architecturally sensitive or neutral the façade might be made, it’s hard to imagine fitting, deserving locales other than newer subdivisions or buried within the catacombs of an airport or shopping centre, not even considering how such fare assaults local culinary tradition. It seems a little disgraceful and one would think that the property-owner would have more say about its tenants and isn’t so cash-strapped as to have no choice in the matter. What do you think? Just like quarters and communities, there’s no group so culturally impoverished that there’s no cooking heritage to displace.

shazbot or new beginnings

In this season of uncertainties and resolve screwed to the sticking place, Jason Kottke shares a few encouraging lines, attributed to novelist F Scott Fitzgerald.

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

It’s inspiring but wholly the product of a screenwriter who worked on the film adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which Fitzgerald originally authored as a short-story) and reminds me of the most famous unquote by Abraham Lincoln, propelled to popularity and probably imprinted on an entire generation similarly by a film reference and a marketing campaign.