User:Panic2k4/Sandbox/ShareMemory

(remember miscellaneous cut-pastes on User:Panic2k4/Sandbox/DumpingGround)

Seeking Utopia

Humans in general terms abhor all and any change that does not create a immediate (or nearly so) benefit that trumps the cost/effort of the adoption those changes. As we look at our past societies and present society, a global one, we can clearly seen huge problems that are deeply structural, mostly constant and old, some of them are so pronounced that go beyond petty political divergences. Today we are also born captives to a global societal system we had no say in (an few will be able to impact during their lifetime) and there is no place to escape. We live in a world were the dissatisfied and oppressed, an ever increasing majority, expectantly awaits for a large enough social-economical system convolution to enable a revolutionary tabula rasa, a reset, hopefully toward the general betterment of all mankind.

As the difference between the words utopia and dystopia, so is the chance to get it right in the inevitable revolution that is to come. It is undoubtedly easier to create a failure than a success, especially when the aim is not only perfection but a collectively shared and perpetually maintainable perfect society.

Thomas More -> coined the word utopia (Latinized Greek yoo-toh-pee-uh) = no place, his book Utopia published in 1516 included a poem that spelled eutopia (Latinized Greek ee-yoo-toh-pee) = good place, the fleeting defining of utopia (fiction and reality), utopia is linked to individual freedom, utopic concepts depend on the political inclination of the proponent but what are the generalities, French revolution? (Main political ideologies aim for it?) Major Religions ? (monastic existence,w:Quakers)), democracy? (who defines perfection?), equality, no property rights, utopia is about defining what is a right, proper, sustainable and ever lasting social order (control?), what are the costs for individualism and diversity to survive in an utopic society ?, is it possible to collectively share a complex utopic social system without divergences? what trade offs are necessary?, Information revolution and automation, always pleasant there is no place for pessimism in utopic dreams, a collaborative effort, w:Twin Oaks Community, Virginia, why are social orders and architecture/design so interlinked? (foundation, identity, function, structure, order, society is defined by its environment w:Buckminster Fuller), +urban planning (w:Garden Cities of To-morrow, w:Germania (city))

Future wars

The great tome of anonymity

AI Revolution: The rise of the machines

A book about the beginning of the end of the w:Anthropocene

Previous Necessary steps

1 The Agrarian Revolution (w:Neolithic Revolution) 2 The Industrial Revolution (w:Industrial Revolution) 3 The Information revolution (w:Information revolution)

The Path To Revolution

Pursuing the ultimate blade

This work should be an all encompassed view of the technological and diverse history behind the use of blades as a tool and predictions for the future.

Have you ever considered what inventions were the most important in our evolutionary path ? We do understand that inventions aren't often made in insulation, that most arise form observance and exploration of the natural world. Even that very few inventions are revolutionary, and of those, even fewer will be cultural impactors. And those, often come in a slow path that overtime evolve into something that not only may shape the world around us but ourselves.

Most of us would agree that fire was the most important invention, probably discovery, or even better, should we say mastery our species conquered. The doors it opened from food preservation to path of improvement to tools, even to the use of its sub-products or benefits of its large scale use is something we can't even imagine surviving without. But we also understand that invention and knowledge is like a branching tree, that is sequential that has a path a logic to it, as we define our inventions they are also defined by us, on our needs, our culture. What concepts may have been at the root of this ever branching tree, the use of rocks, of sticks and bones. We have example of other animals making use of there types of tools, even capable of creating and using fire but then consider the primal blade, the probably initial concept of abrasion and then the cutting edge, of shape and material used, the possibilities for refinement and creative specialization, the impact it had, and still does at it has been ever evolving along side us, the blade should be right there on the top of human achievements.

Heroes, Idols and other people we like

w:Desmond Doss

Reflections about the simulated universe

w:Evil demon, w:Brain in a vat, Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?, Tech Billionaires Are Asking Scientists For Help To Break Humans Out of Computer Simulation

The task and property of leadership

There is an intrinsic link between leadership and capacity for motivation. A motivation not only a will to get upfront but the capacity to maintain and so excel over the ones that are lead. Since leadership can only exist in relation to a group, it also requires the capacity to deal with the expectations and motivations of others.

Classic Approaches

orthodox

Experimental Approaches

Non-orthodox, but never the less more than feasible and so deserving going beyond theoretical concepts.

The Conundrum of Life

The Biomimicry Log Book

Bio-Architecture

Architecture

Introduction to Graphical Calculating Devices

Computer Aided Fabrication

Understanding Radicalization

Lets discuss politics...

What matters about matter

Visual Programming Paradigm

wikipedia:Visual programming language

(http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/41550) OpenBlocks : an extendable framework for graphical block programming systems Graphical programming systems have been built to lower the threshold to programming for beginners. However, because these systems were designed to make programming more accessible to novices, they were developed with narrower intentions for their users and applications. For example, in StarLogo TNG, a graphical block programming environment, users may create games and simulations, but they cannot use this same system to create programs that can automate their computer processes, like the text-based scripting system AppleScript. Application developers can create their own programming systems, but doing so can take a significant amount of time to design and implement. This thesis describes an extendable framework called OpenBlocks that enables application developers to build and iterate their own graphical block programming systems by specifying a single XML file. Application developers can focus more on the design of their systems instead of all the details of implementation. The design and implementation of OpenBlocks are described, along with a user study conducted to test its usability and extendability.

(http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/searchandtype/searching-and-typeblocking.htm) StarLogo TNG

(http://scratch.mit.edu/) Scratch is a highly engaging programming system that allows young students to create animated stories, games, interactive art, and simulations. Students use a drag and drop interface of "code blocks" to create sound, movement and actions to objects called "sprites."

(http://www.chirp.scratchr.org/blog/?p=24) Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

(http://byob.berkeley.edu/) Build Your Own Blocks is an advanced offshoot of Scratch, a visual programming language primarily for kids from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. This version, developed by Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from Brian Harvey, is an attempt to extend the brilliant accessibility of Scratch to somewhat older users—in particular, non-CS-major computer science students—without becoming inaccessible to its original audience. BYOB 3, which adds first class lists and procedures to BYOB's original contribution of custom blocks and recursion.

(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys) Squeak Etoys was inspired by LOGO, PARC-Smalltalk, Hypercard, and starLOGO (see discussion). It is a media-rich authoring environment with a simple, powerful scripted object model for many kinds of objects created by end-users that runs on many platforms, and it is free and open source. It includes 2D and 3D graphics, images, text, particles, presentations, web-pages, videos, sound and MIDI, etc. It includes the ability to share desktops with other Etoy users in real-time, so many forms of immersive mentoring and play can be done over the Internet. It is multilingual, runs on more than 20 platforms bit-identically, and has been successfully used in the USA, Europe, South America (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina), Asia (Japan, Korea, India, Nepal), and elsewhere.

(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Turtle_Art) Turtle Art is an activity with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art based on Scratch-like snap-together visual programming elements. It is intended to be a stepping stone to Logo, but there are many restrictions compared to Logo. (Only numeric global variables and stack items are available, no lists or other data-structures. The conditionals and some of the functions only take constants or variables, not expressions. Limited screen real-estate makes building large programs unfeasible.) However, you can export your Turtle Art creations to Berkeley Logo. Turtle Art also has a (limited) facility for sensor input, so, for example, you can move the Turtle based upon sound volume or pitch.

(http://tinlizzie.org/jstile/) (http://tinlizzie.org/svn/trunk/jstile/TileManual.txt) Tilescript is a programming environment for educational purpose which has good features in both graphical and textual languages. For Javascript.

(http://www.lively-kernel.org/projects/index.html) Lively is a new approach to web programming available as open source under the MIT license. Originally developed at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, it provides a complete platform for web applications, including dynamic graphics, network access, and development tools. Students, academics, and adventurous developers are encouraged to join the community.

(http://lively.cs.tut.fi/qt/) Lively for Qt is a JavaScript application and mashup development environment that is built on top of the Qt platform. The system runs on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows and on any mobile device for which a port of the Qt platform is available. The system can also run in any web browser using a Qt web browser plugin.

(http://openquark.org/Open_Quark/Welcome.html) (http://resources.businessobjects.com/labs/cal/gemcutter-techpaper.pdf) $Commercial$ (Where's the CAL compiler? http://forums.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?threadID=909612) Open Quark (CAL language) available under BSD-style license. The Gem Cutter is a graphical language IDE for the convenient creation and testing of functions in the Strongly-typed Lazy Functional Language CAL

(http://www.drdobbs.com/blog/archives/2010/07/the_visual_prog.html;jsessionid=YM10KVWOVE41HQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN) The 'Visual Programming' Silver Bullet

(http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/184409677;jsessionid=HLKFYDLFN00X1QE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN?pgno=27) Visual Programming in 3-D

(http://historical.ncstrl.org/tr/fulltext/tr/uiuc_cs/UIUCDCS-R-93-1838.txt) PROGRAMMING IN THREE DIMENSIONS BY MARC-ALEXANDER NAJORK

(http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~reckert/3daape_paper.htm) Three-dimensional Computation Visualization for Computer Graphics Rendering Algorithms - David A. Goldman, Richard R. Eckert, Maxine S. Cohen at State University of New York at Binghamton

wikipedia:App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/) App Inventor an application provided by Google that allows anyone to create software applications for the Android OS.

(http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/) Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input. (http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/speaker/84626/?cmp=il-radar-conf-oscon10-emerging) Matt MacLaurin UX Director, Microsoft FUSE Labs

Google Blockly - A Graphical Language with a Difference, implemented in JavaScript which can compile to JavaScript, Dart or Python.

The Path of Human Civilization

Ancient History/Human Evolution/Human Origins

The remarkable success of humanity as a species is not simply the result of a big brain, opposable thumbs, year-round sex, innovation or even language; it is also the result of social and cultural associations that act as a "network" for storing knowledge and good will--what we call technical and social capital.

– Charles Hugh Smith in Why I Am Hopeful (December 24, 2011).

Wide wild world

Aggression, the seed of war

{[TODO|Property (power and control), entitlement, covetousness, primacy}}

Community and collaboration

At this stage of human evolution, most of the human collectives were probably centered around family groups, hose size was intrinsically dependent on the size of the resources available and the effort required to gather them. This setup was both a biologic and "economic" imperative. Like many other social animals today territories were defended and prime resources fought over. The need to satisfy basic imperatives forced natures logic of the survival of the fittest, at best meetings between distinct groups would entail a large risk for conflict especially if level of competition was high due to demographic explosion (more resources, more people until equilibrium is reached) or natural events that impacted resources (drought) or health (virus).

The complexity of extending a these type of core collective into a small tribe required an huge leap in culture, an increase in the capacity of planning, of valuing knowledge and work and ultimately the ability of to communicate, that had so far been probably reduced to the basic needs. The coming together of these changes was a game changing in human history collaboration was now possible to overcome problems larger than those presented by daily life.

Stone

It is hard to determine what came first wood tools or stone. It is however safe to assume that they must have been changes that happened very close, that is the realization about objects as tools, we are speaking of simple objects like using a bone, a branch or how to trow a stone, there is no real complexity that is added by the different material besides the possible applications. In that humans started to make a clear utilitarian distinction between objects in regards to their intrinsic qualities.

Unravelling Time

In the beginning...

Time and space, one must keep in mind that they are the two sides of localization, things exist in a time in a specific space. It is also interesting to understand that according to most accepted hypothesis of the creation of the universe, the big bang, things did exist before time came to be but in a state the localization had no meaning. This was about ~14 billions years ago, then we have the theory of cosmic inflation that tries to make sense of what has been happening to things as soon as they became realizable, especially in the 10⁻³⁶ seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singularity to sometime between 10⁻³³² and 10⁻³² seconds after the singularity. And then use that model to extrapolate why we see what we see on the observable universe and how the things in it will continue to evolve, localization wise.

Prophets, demagogues, beliefs and figure heads

Perception is everything. One can not build an opinion about something that one does not know, that of course does not prevent one from having a view about something that its known but not understood. Most of us have a very limited knowledge base, and even more limited is the knowledge base that is limited to first person experiences, so the validity of much of what we think we know and take for granted, our intellectual scaffolding is indeed very flimsy and intrinsically dependent of the quality of the source and the impartiality or the influence of society in shaping even our most personal events or occurrence.

When we consider public visibility, we can see practical examples of how as a social mass often creates wrong perceptions, even makes assumptions about some of its members that are perceived as being granted deference or special attention. In fact most of the time the reason why the person is given difference and attention may not even be connected to the established public perception. Take for instance the scientist Steven Hawkins in the general public his importance to physics is extremely exacerbated when we compare it with the view of Steven Hawkins amongst its peers physicist.

There is also a tendency for generalization, that someone that excels in a field is automatically imbued with a general field of superiority and even his behavior should be exemplar. Most of the time things could not be more removed from reality, even if some of the individuals that are propped up into such leading roles will try to do their best to maintain those perceptions. We all ultimately seek to be special, to have influence, to be relevant.

"The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic"

– John F. Kennedy

The biological evolution of man

Man's biology is constantly evolving, recent studies have shown that high altitude native population in the Himalayans have unique genetically differences that increase red blood cells (oxygen transporters) numbers well above the normal response to the environment.

Even if humanity has to some degree created a safer environment and provides, through society, protection to genetic alterations that would not survive in outside of a human controlled environment. In general natural selection is still a consistent factor pressing our evolution.

Meet the Neanderthals

Until very recently the Neanderthals were seen and portrayed as brutish and more animalistic version of our species, a dead end lower branch on our genealogical tree. A derivation emerged from the requirements of facing the effects of the Ice age over Europe. This imagine has suffered a drastic shift with the discovery that this branch is not as extinguished as we thought and that their mental capabilities were not as far from ours as we believed.

The environment that shaped Neanderthals was extremely harsh. Food scarcity, extreme cold forced individuals of a hunter-gatherer culture to become hardener, bigger and stronger with a general lifespan of 30 years. The Neanderthal was a short, wide and very muscular too user. Silex blades and wood spears permitted them to be confront larger pray, even fellow apex predators, like bears, requiring them not only to be strong, capable of bench pressing 136 to 182 kilograms, but also very brave. They had fire, symbolism and art and some form of basic communication the language gene (FOXP2) is indeed present. Recent finds and detailed study indicate that Neanderthals were acute innovators, stone shaping technology seems to be even superior to those of homo-sapiens and Neanderthals may even be the first species to use an industrial process to produce a pitch (synthetic glue).

Statistical comparison of Neanderthal DNA with specific ethnic modern human DNA has provided an indication that interbreeding has occurred. European and Asian DNA shows a greater similitude with the Neanderthal DNA than African DNA.

History of the Hollow Earth

Edmond Halley (1656-1769)

and https://books.google.pt/books?id=3c6iBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=Math+seventeenth+century,+Leonhard+Euler+earth&source=bl&ots=IrIK746-80&sig=wsOlO26zMLppzWognYasHVU-eB8&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Math%20seventeenth%20century%2C%20Leonhard%20Euler%20earth&f=false How Euler Did Even More By C. Edward Sandifer

in culture

Literature/Movies

Defining State Governance

Since Government does not have competitors for you as a customer, you are forced to use, and required by law, to fund it.

Government is a intrinsic part of the state. One cannot exist without the other.

Government is only a requirement because states have to compete with other states. In this reality a state that employs more than half its population becomes a failed state.

The state is the taxpayer money in action.

Government manages public money, it should aim to be cost effective and not aim to generate profit in any of its activities. If an activity is lucrative it should be privatized and taxed.

In a government system that permits private enterprises to fund and lobby its policy makers, several functions of the state should never be privatized, especially the banking, military and prison systems. This is a perfect formula to get a totalitarian government.

Sometimes Government interference into markets is a requirement to implement the will of the people. For instance in the matters of slavery, child labor, false and misleading advertising, dangerous products (including drugs), nuclear bombs, stolen property, pornography (including child pornography), buying votes, emergency services, military, gambling, prostitution, extortion, blackmail, land rights and immigration.

The top most function of a government is to define, prioritize and address problems in regards to national interests. Rarely does a government truly works in this primary function, it normally dedicates exclusive attention to minimization of systemic and chronic problems and in serving their own interests, that consist in guaranteeing reelection, if not in the next turn, the one after.

A government only fails to be reelected under two circumstances, being more incompetent that expected or being forced to take drastic measures due to successive governance avoidance to deal with known issues. It is even, well funny, that when a nation faces war even if the governances is bad it has a high chance of reelection, especially if it can promote an image of strength (even if false).

State control versus private ownership

The principal problem with state control is government corruption.

The principal problem of private ownership is resource waste.

The principal problem of privatization is its focus being on increasing revenue.

Mount Athos

w:Mount Athos. The self-governed region of the Holy Mountain. The Holy Mountain is governed by the "Holy Community" which consists of the representatives of the 20 Holy Monasteries, having as executive committee the four-membered "Holy Administration".

Toward a World Government

http://www.futurict.eu/ understand and manage complex, global, socially interactive systems, with a focus on sustainability and resilience.

   "I think the next (21st) century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking
   "The crisis should motivate economists to think further about their modelling of human behaviour." Ben Bernanke
   "An economist who is only an economist cannot be a good economist."  Friedrich Hayek, Nobel Prize 1974
   "I urge students to read narrowly within economics, but widely in science." Vernon Smith, Nobel Prize winner 2002

Who runs the world ?

Network Analysis Reveals ‘Super Entity’ of Global Corporate Control

History of slavery

Slavery had long been practiced in Europe and the MidleEast before the exploration of the African continent and the discovery of the new world and the European exploitation of African people. Slavery, much it seems to the surprise of many in the US, is not restricted or dependent on racial traits. If the intention is to be selective refer to it as African Slave Trade into the American Continent, and keep in mind that even before Europeans made a stride in Africa, slavery was already prevalent there also, human labor was and will be always a resource and so a tradable commodity.

What is racism ?

One of many tools for segregation and create cultural, social and economical divides.

Cast systems and generational slaves

To ensure that a slave and his/hers children will be slaves.

Breed the perfect slave

Gladiators

w:Slave breeding in the United States

Compounding effect of slavery/racial segregation

Slavery in regards to the economical exploitation of human work easily becomes a multi-generational situation as it begets a specific but multi-faced system with social, economical and cultural mechanics that with time get ever more complex and self regulated as to proceed towards optimal returns for those that benefit from it and so are ultimately more invested in not only maintaining control over it but perpetuating it. This is true to much any other social, economical and even cultural system. Supra or sub system, as human society is an collection of interlocking of engineered constructs to support niches of self interest ultimately ordered in a top down pyramidal construct.

This endeavor to impose a perpetuation of societal constructs, is on our genes. We seek stability and abhor change and so sadly there aren't any examples of successes in implementing rational and fair meaningful changes to these types of constructs without a break that tend to be violent and so have also implication if other system. This results in solutions that may pass by:

a) the removal of (or meaningful change to) those in control over the construct, that would signify a change over the output or its distribution. b) the suppression of the grievances regarding the base of the construct what would be defined as the input.

All the examples that may insinuate otherwise have always lead to unfair results, with a large emotional charge, regrets and pains or even in a non decommission of the construct but in non meaningful changes. In regards to the topic at hand our past is full of examples from classic Greece, passing by the Roman Empire to de-colonialism, end of apartheid we can look back and see that things haven't really changed much in about 4000 years, they may have gotten more "humane", diffuse and complex but human society is predicated (action dependent) on the exploitation and subjugation of other fellow humans. The system is continues to be more normalized, globalized and now automatized but is a loop, the patterns are the same, if observed from a considerable distance even minor political divergences become meaningless. The only realizations are about the costs and goals to our legacy as a specie.

Debt slavery

No one can be a proper (read independent) citizen while at the mercy of the current economic system.

Preference for married workers.

Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped

Corporatization of slavery

Corporate ownership of people.

US Student Loans Exceed $1 Trillion - Bankruptcy will not expunge debt. (Government will have to assure payment ?!?)

"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."

—George Carlin

The Space Race

Should we trust Government

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Government is the topmost institution of any nation and a fundamental part of the state, that is to say, a state is not defined only by its government and a nation is not indistinct from the its state.

The thing about any institution that one needs to always keep in mind is that their biggest and most important asset, is trust. The trust that people place on institutions is what enables them to function and is what prevents them from being substituted. A government, like any other institution, is also dependent on this rule.

Trust is a characteristic of social relations there may be trust between people (or animals) but trust can not mean the same when used in context of a relation with a entity that does not share a sense of self, since the implications and requirements would not be the same. Thrust is a two way relationship, you may respect an institution but you should not trust it.

If we look around the world we can safely state that all citizens are in a submissive situation in regards to their government, whatever type of government they have. This simple fact arises for the imparity in the relation, a citizen is a person while the government is not only several persons, but a collective formed around the purpose of guaranteeing the implementation of policies and laws, most of the governmental structures tend to form a hierarchy.

Most forms of governments is, in non-dictatorial regimes, is done by what is normally defined as public servants. This definition covers all functionaries of the state that are not directly dependent or elections for their functions and remain after shifts in the policy establishing organs. What is also known is that most positions of leadership regarding these public functionaries tends to be with increasingly frequency appointed by those in power, making it clear that today most public servants are not really oriented to serve the public's interest but to satisfy their hierarchic superiors. This is the other side of the reality is that one primary function of governments has clearly become that of looking after itself before looking after its citizens.

"What luck for rulers that men do not think."

– Adolf Hitler, German Nazi dictator, orator, & politician (1889 - 1945)

w:Martial law

Due to our level of interconnection of knowledge, news and economic resources any significant event that seems random or unpredictable is no longer incidental but circumstantial and so predictable to a certain degree, if not outrightly planed to occur by some players on the power networks.

Inalienable rights

Human rights

There are certain rights that all humans possess simply by being human...

Incumbent rights

There are certain rights that only a society can grant to its citizens and vice versa. These rights go beyond the inalienable rights, and are granted and recognized collectively as an obligation so that the society can function, these are especially important in relations between distinct societies.

Moving the goal posts

One of the powers a government has is the capability to produce and alter legislation, and establish policies.

As an examples, one of the claimed reasons that the USA and some other Western nations (not all), have difficulties dealing with most of the middle-east nations is the lack of democracy and the track record of respect for human rights. It then becomes paradoxical that they supported and still support much of those nations when it is on their economical interests. Even when there is a general election Palestine, they failed to support the recently elected government. So what is the standard ? We will how well that goes in Tunisia...

This type of hypocrisy gets even more blatant if we compare responses to situations like Libya or Syria and then compare it to Yemen, there the government is still supported by the same powers while killing unarmed protesters.

In fact the only guide we are left are not the arguments against Islamism, lack of democratic representation or failure to protect human rights, but simply that those that do not advance those powers interest in the region will be enemies and will offer temporary protection to collaborators. This is a fact when we look at Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden this is made even more clear on how the situation in Egypt developed in regards to the passing of power from Hosni Mubarak to the Military junta. Again we will still see how it goes...

Technically challenged

One of the major problems with most governmental bodies is that the representatives that get elected by popular vote are increasingly being selected not by their personal qualifications, past work or experience but by how good they can address and motivate the public, looks and apparency today have a higher degree of importance in governmental election than brains.

This of course does not need to be grave problem depending on how one's government is structured especially the final steps of the policy decision process, if a government permits, informs and lessens to the public opinion it could even be more representative, technology is probably moving to enable such types of governments. On the other side if the government leadership is seen as something as a figure head, a father/mother figure and the public treated like children, the lack of ability of those elected to exercise rational thinking and understand the complex world we life today will further move us into bad policies and instability, this can even be aggravated if they become exclusively dependent in non-elected bureaucrats for directions. Bureaucrats tend to be appointed and rarely because of qualifications but by the ability to fallow party lines, they also create a level of protection to the government leadership, since if the situation permits they will serve as a scapegoat to diffuse the situation.

Secrecy is a state cancer

Secrecy in the working of a state may be a necessity, but mostly only in matters of national security, because of global competition between nations. Like any decease or pathogen that attempts to compromise a system, secrecy may be kept in check by the existing checks if a government is healthy, but as soon as the working of the system starts to rely on secrecy for its survival the system can be determined to have entered into critical failure.

A Government the relies too much in secrecy can think it can get away with murder, literally...

w:USS Maine (ACR-1) - w:Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación - w:Río Negro Massacre

George W. Bush (and administration) lied to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. On July 15 The House forwarded the resolution to the Judiciary Committee with a 238 to 180 vote. That "Bush" lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s threat to the US is now beyond doubt. Former US federal prosecutor Elizabeth De La Vega documents the lies most thoroughly in her book U.S. Vs Bush, and numerous other researchers have verified Bush’s untrue statements.

A secret Justice Department memorandum from 2010, Obama administration, provided the justification for the operation involving the CIA, and military assets under CIA control for the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen in Yemen, despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war. The Washington Post 2011/09/30

9/11 Unanswered Questions of 9/11: 911 Prewarnings, Building 7 Collapse, Flight 77 and the Pentagon, Israeli Involvement, United Airlines Put-options, War games, Atta and the $100,000, 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive

The US government controversial type of secret court order to force Google Inc. and small Internet provider Sonic.net Inc. under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, in place since 1986 that requires only that the government demonstrate reasonable grounds to request relevant records and material for an investigation. Secret Orders Target Email

The US government is showing interest in the concept advanced by the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov more than 60 years ago, in his “Foundation” series, the new science labeled psychohistory combining history, mathematics and psychology as to predict (and manage) the future. Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky’

The true structure of power

"What do all men with power want? More power." - The Oracle (from The Matrix)

Battling over intellectual property

Intellectual property has increasingly been raised in importance as a national and economical interest to be defended. Sadly the same does not seem to apply to the public domain and the access and liberties of the citizens over that type of material. Most non profit oriented public interests and especially creative works under the public domain, rarely get any state defense, something that is the obligation of the government.

US elevated Canada on the piracy watch list to back the adoption of vexing copyright legislation

trademark, copyright, and patents.

Ask the Smithsonian to withdraw copyright claim on public domain images

Canadian Tories admit that Canadians don't want DRM rules, push for them anyway

ACTA Signed By 8 of 11 Participating Countries

Today the patent system, especially when applied to software is a house of cards supported by the convenience of the major patent fillers. Note that a patent filler is not the same as an innovator or creator. This equates to a monopolistic tendency toward the creative market (to profit by generating new ideas), where all those patent fillers attempt to extend their patent portfolios and cross-license them in ways that protects their mutual interest and at the same time excludes any other player to enter in concurrence. It has come to a point that those involved have an hard time in initiating litigations because no one knows anymore what patents may be violated or survive in court, and so the arms race continues to extend the arsenal.

A system that was created to foster and protect innovators and at the same time document for the public their intellectual property creations has been subverted into something that prevents the participation of newcomers and ultimately permits price fixing.

One thing is generally agreed most "easy" inventions have already taken place, we have long ago passed from simple solutions to compounded or merged creations often appearing in the cusp on the discovery of new technologies that do in fact depend heavily in previous works. But relying in the existence of prior art discovery, that not only depends on the existing failing system of patent attribution and skewed legal system. It is difficult and becoming increasingly hard for any new innovator to use prior art to defend their freedom to create. An assessment from USA in 2012 estimates that the costs of hiring a patent consultant able to find the previous art and the attorneys willing to devote months if not years to the legal battle would cost between at its lowest assessment between $500,000 to $1,000,000. This cost and the time it takes puts initiating such attempt outside of what is sustainable even to any small business, and creation becomes therefore a quick path for bankruptcy.

Innovation

Innovation does not happen in a vacuum.

"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians,..." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

"Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

Recent moves by the the US culminating in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, recently passed by an almost unprecedented super-majority, demonstrates that US legislators and political appointees are shifting away from protecting the rights from inventors towards the right of property of filers. This distinction is important because not all inventors can afford to fill a patent and so it favors larger firms with well-established internal patenting procedures. This erodes the capacity to invent of the common citizen.

OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) representing 34 states. OECD work on patent statistics

The only true benefit of patents is that they document the specifics of innovations, and that aspect does not actually require any grant of exclusivity.

patents

• encourage innovation

It is a very strange belief that a bureaucracy will enforce the exclusive profit of singular entities within a society of billions of creative individuals.

• protect innovators - Any new product or innovation will have an army of lawyers descend to destroy it. Leading to patent portfolios of a handful of the biggest corporations. What about innovations that are developed independently but simultaneously?

Examples of concurrent independent development abound. newyorker.com: Calculus - Newton and Leibniz. Evolution - Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Oxygen - Carl Wilhelm and Joseph Priestley. Colour photos - Charles Cros and Louis du Hauron. Logarithms - John Napier, Henry Briggs, Joost Burgi. Sunspots - Fabricius, Galileo, Harriott, Scheiner. Piston engine plane - the Wright brothers and Santos Dumont. And so and so on.

Cross licensing escalates the problem by permitting the aggregation of interests in blocks, and so patents will only "serve" and "protect" closely connected groups- Where conflicting groups will be left with not choice to seek patent equilibrium to keep peace.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4pdIrxQ7BuoJ:fabianmejia.blogspot.com/2008/09/codeblocks-and-opengl.html+code::blocks+and+OpenGL&cd=5&hl=pt-PT&ct=clnk&gl=pt&client=firefox-a

On state sponsored crimes

There is a clear distinction to be made about the moral implications in regards to the effective control citizens over their governments. In a totalitarian regime the blame should fall only on those that were responsible or aware of the actions, but at least in a democracy all citizens should have their share of the blame, since it was their obligation to question and establish controls that would prevent the facts.

w:Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación w:Project MKULTRA w:Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior 'Hell on earth': Detailed satellite photos show death camps North Korea still deny even exist USA covert intervention in Chile

War

War crimes

w:War crimes

w:Allied war crimes during World War II

w:Japanese war crimes

Radioactive Weapons with Long-Term Health Risks Dropped Into Libya

Atrocities

w:Tuskegee syphilis experiment

w:Unit 731

w:Bulu prison massacre

Religion as a problem

Failing to recognize the messenger

Computational Linguistics: Figuring Out Who Wrote The Bible

Examining Exobiology

The Earth is home to a amazing diversity of life, the living things in all its glorious diversity. Due to our increasingly urban lifestyle and distance to nature, most of the time life can appear alien especially in its extremes of aesthetics, behaviors and even emotions, intelligence or higher social orders it can display. At the same times it can appear like a reflection of our-selfs, what we like to define as anthropomorphizing other living things, and it is fair to say that we share much with all other living creatures on this planet if not only the shared environment, in fact our quickness to anthropomorphize sometimes blinds us to the more subtle differences, even when they should have been obvious otherwise.

Little Green Men

Aliens in Space

USA

The US and in particular NASA has held a quasi-monopolistic hold on space science due to the US economic and technological power status, that is intrinsically linked to its drive to maintain a military and political primacy over the world since near the end of WWII, when it moved to captured most of the world human and capital resources including the underlying energy and monetary systems.

The UFO phenomena

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.

– Mark Twain

Defining UFO

A UFO, meaning unidentified flying object, is just as it is labeled, any object that fails to get identified by an observer can properly be given this label.

The label of UFO also does not restrict the object to a factual flying object, it only requires the appearance of movement or even hovering capacity. The definition is of course very broad, for instance there are reports of UFOs exiting or entering water and even outside of Earth's atmosphere.

Unidentified objects are the default state of every observed phenomena. As we take notice of things around us we automatically utilize our knowledge base and experience to provide an identity, a function, an explanation and assessment, for what we observe. Really abnormal, or rare, phenomena stands outside of this methodology that our brain uses as a way to permit us to deal with the perceived reality we must function in. These types of phenomena will require verification of records, since rarity of the events will puts them outside of one or more lifetimes of the observer, preventing him to provide a valid identification or even to rely in others around him for it. New phenomenas on the other hand, will not be present on record, they will be truly new experiences, and so require the creation of valid documentation, as a way to share and validate what was observed and hopefully repetition, so science can provide an explanation to it. In this case providing only a untestable hypothesis will not suffice to declare the phenomena as identified, but can serve as a tentative response to inquiring minds and open the path for the application of the scientific method.

Other factors of providing valid identifications, is the effect of imagination and culture. These human capabilities will at times provide a framework to create a reasonable explanation to what is observed, at least one that satisfies the observer, but in fact may not reflect reality. This increases the problem on relying on others for a report of the observation as it increases error. This is especially true when dealing with unexplained and unexpected events, as this will be a point of collision, between the factual observer and someone that is only getting the report in second hand. The other side of the problem is that some observations of unexplained events can also be dismissed as explained even more so if the observer is unable to mentally deal with it or primed to label it in another way.

Do UFOs exist ?

Yes they do, always have and probably will always exists, there is no expectation that we will ever be able to explain all the phenomena that can happen in nature, even if we reduce the range to those that occur in the atmosphere that mimic flight, every new explained phenomena will undoubtedly open up the possibility for even more discoveries.

As man first looked into the vast skies all things seemed strange and fascinating, the moon and the starts could only be speculated about, even the other planets on our solar system have been first tentatively labeled as something else, even stars. Over the ages a myriad of hypothesis where put forward to explain those direct observations, labeling something as an UFO signifies simply that it is an unknown.

The pertinence about UFOs today is special in two fronts, first we can now fly, and with flight we must be concerned with collisions and other atmospheric phenomena that can be dangerous to that activity. The second one is security, since the sky was until very recently the uppermost higher ground it permitted observation and even attacks on national interests, especially during the cold war, and with the development and testing of new spy and stealth technologies.

How far back in time do UFOs reports go?

The supernova SN 185 was observed in 185 CE, near the direction of Alpha Centauri, between the constellations Circinus and Centaurus, by Chinese astronomers, as reported in the Book of Later Han, and was visible for eight months.

Attempts to study the phenomena

Most Governments engage in misinformation and deception programs around UFO sightings, and the hierarchy gives clear directives for military personal to suppress information, even to government authorities. There is somewhat of a opening in South America, France, Belgium and United Kingdom in regards to access to civilian authorities and military reports.

w:Project Blue Book

Until something is understood no valid response can be conceived.

Still, no real scientific scrutiny ?

Ufology

Ufology is an activity, a field of study, specifically of UFOs, not a science per se, but often using scientific methodologies or instruments. So that in pursuit of understanding UFOs many sciences are useful to Ufology, like Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, History, Mathematics or Psychology.

History

The observation and questioning about the nature of UFOs has certainly been persistent across human history. Most object in the skies have had at one time or another caused awe and even fear. Fear and curiosity are probably the most powerful motivators to the advancement of mankind.

To conquer fear we needed to understand (or at least justify) the nature of what we observed and with that create a feeling of control and predictability, allowing us to function amidst the unknown.

All unknown phenomena at first started to be categorized as mystical and secret, and ultimately adopted as the cornerstone or religions across the word. Only with the advent of philosophy and then astronomy, was it possible to provide some understanding about the planets and the working of our solar system, and even to create notions about the self and the meaning of life, mathematics on the other hand helped to provide a fixed and understandable model to reality, not only augmenting certainty but even to extrapolate the unobservable.

Only in recent times and with the decline of religion in the West did the more technological advancements permit to formulate the question about life elsewhere, something that strangely older and less technological advanced cultures did take for granted. With improved telescopes it was possible to observe even stranger phenomena, the observation of the channels in mars was probably the topmost promoter in the west that life could exist beyond earth this soon fallowed by the discovery of the radio, lead to the now anecdotic notion that Martians were attempting to communicate with us and so the speculation became common and with it not only rich fields for science but for literature and even new religions.

What was earlier seen as supernatural phenomena, the field of religions and Gods was now open to the recently acquired freedom to reason and express divergent views and even publish them, leading to the rise of science.

Today it is not uncommon to speculate that some UFOs have extraterrestrial origin, not because of the nature of the phenomena but because we already much of what normally occurs, somethings that would before been simply explained as a signal of Gods, angels and daemons require not an explanation based on faith but in science.

Organizations

Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)

Known causes for UFO reports

Witnessing the fantastic

Pilots

High educated individuals that are reputational constrained or recognized

This may include Physical doctors, Engineers of functions that not only demand maintaining good reputation with peers but with society in general but require it. These people also have the capacity to be more critically aware, better informed or observant. Any report would incur the risk of damaging their reputation and so it is expected that they wouldn't risk it unless the claims merited it, if not only for a sense of self preservation. Age and expertise and previous reputational status should be considered, the key being the higher reputation risk they incur the higher the regard should be given to the report.

Military Personnel

Police Officers

A police officer civil servant that trained as an agent that enforces the law of the land and protect the civilian population. It often possesses a close relation to the local community and has experience/training in acting under stress. Its daily routine is extremely regulated and documented and most of its day to day functions requires a high level of vigilance and so to be a good observer. Function also requires having a higher degree of conduct and be of a clear mind and body and have a good reputation.

High Ranking Civil Servant

General population

Ideological promotion

Akin to the objective of personal fame, but with the specific intent not of promoting one individual but a set of ideas and concepts in the context of UFOs and Aliens.

Other possible causes for UFO reports

UFOs are also a convenient way to dismiss observation of secret tests, secret vehicle movements, missions or covert actions. Convenient because they consistently cast a shadow of immediate disbelief on the witness and what was observed.

Unexplainable UFO reports

• January 7, 1948 - The 25-year-old Kentucky Air National Guard Thomas Mantell pilot crash and death in January 7, 1948. A local journal from Dayton, Ohaio, reported in April 27, in the article mentions parts of the report assembled at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. Including several quotes, one stating that the flying saucers "are not a joke".

• July 1952 - UFOs over Washington D.C. With fighter pilots engaging in chases that lasted up to 6 hours. Objects were picked up by radar.
• September 1976 - Iran. Two F4 try to intercept an UFO and shoot it down. Weapons and communications are disabled. Event documented by the USA State Department.
• Mexico City 1992, world's largest metropolitan area.

w:Hermann Oberth

Seemingly related phenomena

Abductions

The abduction phenomena can be segregated but not separated for other reports of contacts with "other worldly" entities. Their uniqueness is related to the fuzziness regarding memory of the incident or outright seemingly intentional suppression of the event, sometimes reported as a sense of missing time. With most of the abductees when gaining access to memories of the incidents reporting the events as like being in a dream state. The closeness to the entities and at time the complexity on the contact events may include reports of communication or continuation even across generations. All this makes this segment of first contact reports extremely unique, rare and with a higher personal impact to the abductee and are rarely consensual or pleasant or with a positive net outcome.

Reports

The increasing problem of the Media ridiculing any reported observation, especially if linked to aliens or extraterrestrials, generates a powerful motivation for self censure and ultimately suffering, not only for the witnesses themselves, but to the advance of science and general understanding of phenomena.

Even if we disregard that it would be on the government interest, from security to national interest perspective to obscure or suppress any information leaking to the public. The problem is that this hard censorship, that to be fair has been decreasing in recent years with more and more nations at least appearing to be more proactive on the subject, admitting not interest (UK,USA) or extreme interest (Brazil, France) in the phenomena, the trend still forces a soft censorship on society in general. Most people discussing the subject have an hard time being taken seriously.

Most mass sightings, in regards to witnesses and objects seen, seemingly occur in waves.

• Roswell, New Mexico, USA, July 1947 - In July 8 and 9 most media outlets across the globe made the first and last announcement that the USA Government had captured a flying saucer.

Steve Schiff, Congressman, New Mexico (2004 PRG Political Courage Award): "I cannot say that the Roswell incident was a cover-up. But I can certainly say that the government back then, and today, acted as like it was a cover-up and has been subject to been accused of a cover-up."

Eye witness

USA Presidents

Jimmy Carter; Ronald Reagan

Images

Krawetz: Image analysis and forensics - http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/bh-usa-07-krawetz.pdf

Video

Uncensored and reliable public video broadcasts

• NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-48, 12 September 1991, during Commander John O. Creighton camera filming of the planet's horizon, for a live broadcast of the images, many viewers could see a UFO. Since then NASA no longer allowed public access to live video broadcasting from shuttle missions.

UFOs and nukes

• 1945 USA first atomic bomb test.

Guide to civil disobedience

The trade of lies

When a population is kept in general state of ignorance, their judgment can more easily be controlled or even discarded as irrelevant without any internal opposition.

Any information is only valid if it is based in facts and any views expressed that can be sourced, useful information is one that is relevant to the consumer, and not artificially made relevant, to be transparent it must also presents multiple view points and enables the viewer to make it own mind about those relevant subjects.

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer.

Propaganda

One thing that anyone will understand as a given fact is that any war will be preceded and accompanied by a propaganda campaign by and against all participants, it is also expected and an almost inevitability, that this campaigns will be even more utilized and effective on nations hose political systems depend on popular support.

"...among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

– Samuel Johnson, The Idler, 11/11/1758

Propaganda by itself may not constitute a lie, but undoubtedly will only serve to promote the view or interests of the propagandist. It works as a reality distortion field, obscuring, twisting and selecting what to highlight as to promote a given agenda.

An example of propaganda is the use of mass media to spread misinformation. This is done by governments and interest groups to indirectly promote their views to the public. Simple disinformation may becomes propaganda because it is backed up and promoted by the institutional powers as reality.

Youtube Video of RT.com report on statements made by Hillary Clinton, that the US Losing Information War to Alternative Media, rt.com, is an Internet service published by the Autonomous Non-Profit Organisation (ANO) “TV-Novosti” (Russia).

w:William Randolph Hearst - w:Yellow journalism - w:Propaganda of the Spanish–American War - Duck and cover and nuclear safety

Advertising

The concept of advertising is intimately linked to that of propaganda, it is often defined as a subset, a part, but if analyzed one can see that the distinctions are not on the methods or even goals but on the legal and economical labels of the producers and targets for it. So it is clear that the difference is only based on national and international legal rulings that may exclude some propagandist practices, producers and targets and relabel it as advertising.

Disinformation

Disinformation can serve to propagate lies, misdirect, confuse or weaken opposing views. Consider the damage one can create to the discussion of a topic if one can direct the opposition toward topics that are easily refuted or make the portraying the opposing side stupid by defending those issues.

"The daily press and the telegraph which in a moment spreads inventions over the whole world, fabricate more myths ... in a day than could have formerly been done in a century"

– Karl Marx, 1871

Disinformation is closely related to the motivation why people lie and what is defined as the truth, most of the time the truth is not a static objective notion, and this makes it easier to shift viewpoints about what the reality really is. As any illusionist knows the best way to hide something in plain sight is to distract the audience with something else.

There is an important distinction to keep in mind, lies came in a different shapes. From the simple omission of the truth (that often is not even recognized as a lie, as the intention to deceive can not be ascertained) to the direct contradiction of the truth. It can serve as protection, deterrent and even be half-truth or inexact truth (without getting deeply in what the truth is). What defines a lie as negative is that if it consist in suppressing information that others require to perform an informed decision, to be free to make their own choices.

In a perfect world there would not be any reason to lie and have secrets, but in a world that is imperfect and becoming increasingly transparent there are specific areas of information that do need protection. From personal information to information that simply could be used against you. One could say that there is no moral justification for a lie except as a way to diplomatically deny access to information that others have no reason to have. This same rational is not valid for secrets, since secrecy is the intentional suppression of information that others need, here the the moral balance is harder to ascertain and depends exclusively on the reason for secrecy being of self preservation. Secrets came from shame and fear, and often lead to escalation of distrust and greater entanglement. All dirty deeds prefer the darkness.

Today disinformation is all around us, directed by those that control the media channels in order to advance their goals and reduce visibility of subjects that they would prefers not being public knowledge. Well made disinformation dissemination will avoid being too obvious (unless that also serves a purpose). One easy way to detect disinformation is to find reputable source for the information, and corroborating reports. This of course in turn leads to perpetrator of the deception to intentional shift of the efforts of disinformation from the real data to the data sources, in an attempt to discredit them.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"

– William Casey - CIA Director during the Reagan's administration.

There are many ways to employ disinformation, the method is dictated by the goal of what is intended. For instance events in Libya in 2011 when relating the where-abouts of Kadhafi suns or even statements statements regarding the progress of the rebels that can serve as a clear example. How the progress, strengths and feats was being amplified, at the same time wile governments negated that on TV, international forces where on the ground helping the rebels.

"When a well packaged web of lies is sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous, and it's speaker a raving lunatic."

– James Dresden.

Disinformation is often done by misrepresentation, exacerbation or creation of false news reports as to shift the public's perception.

Another interesting case is the USA and UK media pressure and negativism regarding the euro currency. It is clearly unbalanced one considers the origin and the interests behind, those countries national situations and the original sinners in this economic chaos since the 2008 collapse. It would be expected that if someone should panicking it would be China since it has brought much of the euro debt and would suffer locally if the euro collapsed, to some degree China is strengthening its internal consumption, even creating internal imbalances, that has began to cause internal issues in 2016. We could even argue that it would be in the national interests of the USA-UK coalition to have a fragile China and increase its dependency on them for exports that ultimately influence its internal social stability. The paradox here is that the USA is also dependent on a strong Europe for trade (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html) and military support (NATO).

"Fake news"

We should cringe on the label alone, all news are by default "fake". What are news? News are new facts, that an information monger selected and treated for dissemination into a targeted audience. At best they may contain partial bits of actual events if the knowledge of those bits do not affect the interest of those involved in their dissemination, and that is after other parties being able to massage or obstruct optics regarding said events. After all that, the receiver own bias is also called into play to categorize it as "fake", by the individual reader or by social communal pressure that itself can be influenced to attribute and generalize labels, to all the levels of the news gathering (spreading) endeavor.

Censorship

Censorship is not only focused in hiding information from the targeted public, but can also consist creating artificial difficulties in accessing it. It is basically a suppression of information technique, that is also part of a process of disinformation, with a secondary result that it not only negates access to some information but promotes the value of the remaining information, solely by the fact that it is more accessible.

Media control

The easiest way of ensuring control over information is the creation of artificial choke points and dependencies.

Documentary on how the media lies to manipulate us by Brian Springer

Books

The Press

Radio

Television

The Internet

The creation of the Internet has brought forth evidential prof of the efforts governments and commercial interests are willing to exert in the control of information. Control over access, movement and even creation of information in a distributed medium is something new and still evolving.

From simpler indexer, search engines have evolved beyond general information gatherers and portals into complex information channels, they now can monitor personal behaviors, location and interests, this shift for a personalized interaction arouse for the need to generate revenue, not by monetizing access but by the creation of indirect revenue streams. It started by simply permitting sites to get higher relevance to the addition of adds and now users have become also a commodity, where the data points they generate when interacting with the service is a valuable resource that others are willing to pay to have access.

With the rise of the social network...

Fabricated events

• Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, justified by a border conflict.
• USA attack on Vietnam, the actions used for justification.
• USA lead intervention on Kosovo (Kosovo War), justified by claims of the existence of atrocities.
• USA lead attack on Iraq, justified by a claim of existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

w:False Flag

Censorship

Censorship is the suppression of information.

Understanding earthquakes

Fish deaths may precede quakes due to temperature shifts and general alteration on the quality of water induced by vibrations. Underground water table/tidal effects.

Richter scale

Why buildings collapse

Vibratory liquefaction

Quake prediction

w:Earthquake prediction w:Jim Berkland

Could electron count escalation high in the atmosphere serve to detect major earthquakes

Quakes and volcanoes

Quake activity may trigger volcanic activity. In 27 February 2010, the magnitude 8.8 Maule, Chile earthquake trigged hundreds of volcano tectonic earthquakes at Uturuncu, a Bolivian volcano.

Volcano tectonic earthquake

w:Volcano tectonic earthquake

Deconstructing the War on Drugs

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa speaks during the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative meeting on September 20, 2011 in New York urging the U.S. to consider legalizing drugs

Most government agencies that deal with security and crime have to provide evidences that they are effective as a justification to continue to exist, to validate their spendings and to obtain more funding. It becomes then a priority to guarantee results (especially directed to the metrics used in performance evaluation), maintain a sense of urgency and increase the importance to their field of action. This will most often lead to quantity, but not quality and also to the direct or indirect generation of a symbiotic interdependent relation between the agencies and the target of their action.

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

The economics

Who benefits from the status quo

The question runs very parallel to those that promotes the war on drug.

Towards the Heart's core

w:Tectonics w:Plate tectonics [Geotimes - February 2008 - Plate tectonics on a planet far, far away]

What we know about music

Order creeps in and music is born

When one looks deeply into all music across the multiple cultural specters and tastes, what is found is at its core is that it is all very similar across them. That the underling techniques of what we generally define (or appreciate) as good music is the same across all the multitude of styles.

The major characteristics of all music are melody, rhythm, harmony and base.

Most of these characteristics evolved around establishing patters that are therefore easy for us to recognize as such. These patterns become the musical techniques, formulas, that there are refined from mathematical properties of music. These are even properties that arise without directed creation, that are simply natural discoveries, general and self evident and that music in part simply addresses the need to creates a language to express them, much like math expresses other aspects of the natural world is a way that is easily recognized across cultures.

Since the beginning there was an effort to organize sound in relatable, "naturally" sequences, scales (melodic archetypes, modes) where each sound (musical note) is set in a rung of a musical latter. This concept later evolved into the generalized diatonic scale that emerged in the West as a standard. With the diatonic scale came, its minor scale and major scale that replicated older melodic archetypes and permitted evolution. With normalization all melodic arrangements became conscripted and increasingly derivative.

Melody

The melodic content is the simplest of pattern and easy to note due to its natural tendency not only for repetition but to be made more evident when there is a break in it. Melodies are also intrinsically linked to emotional memry as melodic patterning have shown to be even be remembered before birth.

The most preeminent melodic sequence in western culture is the pentatonic scale, as the name indicates consisting of 5 notes.

-- the chosen notes --- the arrangement selected, the distance between the ley notes in the sound scales -- their pitch --- how high and low they are -- intervals --- distances between the pattern of note use from the sound scale

---

western culture the smallest is defined as semitone and a whole tone is two rungs on the musical latter

---

it is easier to vocalize whole tones than semitones and to remember, making it most of the vocal repertoire

---

base

---

intervals patterns are therefore melodic pasterns and establish modes or permits divergency like the blue

---

notes in vocalized blue or the Tudor music "clashing" mode

Mathematical wonders

The equation

To some equations are like uncompromisable hieroglyphs, but at the core they are in fact non-abstractive works, that attempt to explain the universe we live in. There are in fact some equations that are more important than others, masterpieces that hold some of the foundations of our understanding of reality.

An equation is a mathematical statement that asserts the equality of two expressions, that is the right side of the equality must be the same as the left side of it. This not only requires that we understand and know the value of both sides but that these values must match.

There are many approaches to categorize the beauty of equations, the concept of beauty as always is on the eye of the beholder, in mathematical terms it is both of the beholder understanding or knowledge and the need to employ that same knowledge. So the mathematical beauty of equations can be a function of its usefulness, simplicity or even complexity, in this later cases much like a painting, we can marvel not only on what is represented but on the work done by its creator (in mathematical terms its discoverer).

E = MC^2

This is probably one of the most famous equations in the world. It brings to mind its discoverer, Einstein and the nuclear age. Its publishing in 1905 starter a scientific revolution.

Fractals

Benoit Mandelbrot - Hunting the Hidden Dimension Nova (2008)

A look into eugenics

The Complex William Jennings Bryan

All about nothing

the word nothing defines emptiness

the inexistence of emptiness

what is vacuum

Introduction to Human Genetics

Environmental influences on the human body

You are what you eat Foodstuff genetic material, microRNA, of has been detected in the human blood stream. Animal trials in mice demonstrated that they change how genes are expressed

Metabolomics

the impact of natural birth to the baby immune system (the problem with cesareans)

teeth and mouth flora

the tonsils

epigenetic modifications

stomach flora

the human toleration to non-human milk

the function of the appendix

Towards Immortality

Death the great equalizer, the ultimate motivator. But without the uncertainty of it, how long could you endure your existence as it is?

First Successful Gene Therapy Against Human Aging?

Death: Defining mortality

Death

While there are many causes for death the primary one result of a common cause, protein damage. It is at the core of the large number of chronic degenerative diseases that makes death a certainty.

Clinically dead

Brain dead

Immortality vs Eternal Life

Cloning

Brain and Head Transplant

Metabolic/Life suspension

An examination of trans-humanism

w:Transhumanism

Brain digitalization / Simulation

Faith vs Science

Cryogenics (Alcor: Life Extension foundation)

Religion's thoughts on the subject

Religions that profess reincarnation as a dogmatic basis, like Hinduism, should be incompatible with most forms of immortality except consciousness duplication/simulation and Buddhism would probably even oppose the preservation of a static duplicate of consciousness as it would be prevented from transcending. On the other hand Abrahamic religions may be more accommodating, Judahism will probably be the more lenient, by Christianity will have to drastically evolve a response due to its core dogmas around resurrection and the ultimate transcendence.

Social-Economical Impact

Cost vs Return

Space, Resources, Evolutionary drive

Sources/Refs

1956, Orson welles, The Fountain of Youth | Waiting for Immortality*

Investment strategies before and after a calamity

Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures.

– Rumi, the poet.

Five senses and counting...

Smell

The sense of smell is extremely interconnected with memory, as its the only sense that can be said to be directly connected to the limbic system of the brain, making emotional connection easy to form, retain and prime especially at a subconscious level. Since about 20% of all human communication is rational (at a conscious aware level) and the rest is emotional smell gets primacy. Olfactory receptors have also been found across the human body from the intestines to sperm, so we don't sense smell only with our noses.

Humans share many of the "lower" animals reactions to smell, for example the smell of a male (a smell that is similar in all mammalians) increases the stress level of the sensing mammal, from mice to men, this reaction reduces sensitivity to pain. It is also observable that smell in humans seem to have evolved due to how geographically mobile our species is and the pressing need to use it to select for food and check the safety of environment, this plasticity is observable in how the sense diverges across cultures, for example in relation to fermentation of chases or yogurts or even beer, how we are culturally and social conditioned on our reactions of disgust and expectations in regards to smell making it also very easy to have olfactory illusions.

Smell alone can bring us to tears on happy recolection, excitement even salivation even before we conscious define what motivates the reaction. Smell is, alike tactile sensations, one of our most important senses. Taking primacy even over vision and is interlinked with the sense of taste. It is also one of our first senses to develop and one that conditions our psyche as we develop, from the response we keep regarding the vanilla like sent of breast milk that is linked to positive emotions. Odor can inform us of age, disponibility and viability for reproduction, level of stress/aggressiveness, fear, even simply what and if someone ate recently.

Strategies for security

Gears of History

w:Gear

The Antikythera mechanism

Antikythera mechanism

Mechanical Clock

w:Clock

The ET question

Mankind has the unique ability to ignore the obvious, specially when the facts reveal a disturbing truth. Statistically speaking, odds are there is intelligent life somewhere in the Universe. There is even evidence that life may at least have existed elsewhere in our own solar system. It is therefore an inevitability that at some point in the future we will have to face the implications of that reality.

Drake equation The Condon Report

Since chances are that will be here (or they may already be here) long before we find them on our terms, the questions that first arise are:

• Where are they coming from?
• What are they doing here?
• What can we do about it?

Alien vs Extraterrestrial

Origins

Cultural background

There is an intrinsic need in human society to explain all the phenomenons we live surrounded by, that explanation needs to be only as good as we need need it to be, as technology and cultures evolve so does the need for depth and logic on what we cannot readily explain.

Folk tales and legends have been in several occasions proven to describe not only real events but to offer plausible explanations for the events to those lived near the time they occurred, this tales, that have been passed from generation to generations have been an immense repository of knowledge before the written word and after in a time were alphabetization was very low, and the practice is still relevant to some cultures from all around the world.

Government

For a government to retain their authority and comply to their obligations to the citizen and to the preservation of the state, any acknowledgment of a power, especially of a technological nature, that is superior to them and outside of their control is an anathema.

United States of America

The Brookings Institution report from December 14, 1960, funded by the USA Federal Government states "Earth's Civilization Might Topple if Faced by a Race of Superior Beings".

A federal law passed by congress in 1969 makes it illegal for any American to make contact with any extraterritorial, and defines the whoever willfully violates it should be fined by $5,000 or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both (1211.108 Violation).

In the 1995 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) manual, named "Fire Officer's Guide To Disaster Control" by William M. Kramer, Ph.D. and Charles W. Bahme. J.D, published in 1992, Chapter 13 is dedicated to teaching techniques to communicate with aliens and deal with a crashed extraterrestrial craft.

Science

The use of science, that is use of the scientific process to reach factual conclusions has been one of most revolutionary achievements of mankind in establishing consensus regarding the reality around us.

Scientific verification

To be possible to verify the existence of extra terrestrial life, there must be something that can be repeatedly observed by scientific methods and in a scientific setting. We can not forget that scientist are ultimately humans, prone to error and other human fragilities, repetition of the experience and equality in the findings is what validates a scientific discovery. Even more that an acceptance by its pears, reporting the exact findings on a correctly performed scientific investigation is how ultimately human knowledge evolves, even in fields that do not rely primarily in the scientific method. Those who succeed in adding new findings to the human knowledge are diffidently immortalized.

First Contact

United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOoOSA)

w:United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs - w:Mazlan Othman

Witnesses

Abductions

There is also the issue that hypnosis is used to recovered "lost" memories, the problem with using hypnosis in this tasks is that the operator (the hypnotist) can easily, even unwilling, direct the subject to create false memories or interpretation, under hypnosis memory is extremely fluid and missing details are often recreated by imagination, but nevertheless the sheer number of subjects with similar reports would still constitute a good indication of a repeated phenomenon. Purportedly abducteess, report that most abductions start in childhood and continue for many many years, even across generations.

Most people have had at least one experience of night-terrors, these are often presented as an explanation for the reports of the phenomenon or an entry point to the later recovering of "lost" memories, this can be a possible explanation to some cases, for instance per-technological societies labeled these cases incubus, sucubos and other types of mystical and fantastic creatures, it could be that today easy of access to information helps the subjects to report so cases, dialogs and settings that are extremely similar with each-other. But then we are faced with the case of reported medical anomalies and implants on these same subjects.

Criminality in the 21st Century

The decline of physical cash

Robing a slaughter house for the meat will have a greater return and a lesser risk that to steal a motorcycle.

The rise of digital goods

Digital scrap yards

Remember the time that scrap yards were used by criminals, especially organized crime, not only to dispose of incrimination material but to reuse vehicle's licenses. In the digital age the created digital scrap yard is not only a literal gold mine (since there are indeed gold on those hill) but there is also a huge amount of sensitive and valuable data.

The value is not only found in the rare minerals that are necessary in create the digital tools but there is a myriad of after-market "business" opportunities. From shady recycling are reselling of discarded but still "functional" trash to the booming illegal (but often non opposed) export of trash that local regulations would deem as environmental hazardous to more "understanding" locations.

Out of the box

A work about believable ideas, and supporting theories, that failed to fully materialize, by simple physical impossibility or lack of resources (time, contextual practicality) and other factors.

The human creativity is endless, as we imagine the impossible we extend the boundaries of reality. (me)

w:Dean drive, w:Hieronymus machine

Behind physics

Water

Hydrogen also has another interesting implication, for instance in endothermic reactions it affect the flame temperature that substances can reach, for instance the endothermic dissociation of water, around the 2000°C prevents flames temperatures to rise above 3000°-4000°C. This is why Dicyanoacetylene a compound of carbon and nitrogen with chemical formula C4N2 is has the record of burning in oxygen at a temperature of 4990°C fallowed by Cyanogen also carbon and nitrogen with chemical formula C2N2 that burns at ~4525°C.

The "free" energy paradox

What is up with Pyramids