Category: science fiction

Enlightenment and the Truth

So I have few thoughts that I wanted to share with you.

If you have read the first page of this blog you know that I am interested in Enlightened Conversation. Enlightened conversation however; depends upon “enlightenment.”

It should be no surprise to anyone that has read any of my postings that I am a Star Trek Fan, from the first episode with William Shatner getting all the girls; and the guy in the red shirt dying of some horrible attack, to every version there after of the series. The consistent trait among them however is the red shirt guy dies. You would think that the red shirt people would figure this out. 🙂

As a writer, even since the beginning, I appreciated well written scripts. Most have no idea when they watch something on TV or at the movies, why they either liked it; or hated it.

Look inside First

Part of the process of becoming more than you are, is to know yourself. “Well that is just stupid, I know myself, my name is this, and I live here, and so on and so forth.” Truth be told, most folks really don’t know themselves, they know of themselves.

Most people act in a mechanical nature following their programming, not unlike the animals that trod the sod or fly in the air above us.

The sea turtle comes ashore at a certain time and lays its eggs and leaves again for the eggs to hatch and for the hatchlings to head to the water where most of them will be food.
Some birds know to head south in the winter and north in the summer but they don’t know why? What we don’t know for sure is how?
Some butterflies migrate as well; do they really know what they are doing?
Primates learned to make, and use tools to achieve an end result.
Whales communicate and we suspect Dolphins do as well.

What we don’t know about this world, and the creatures that are on it would fill entire libraries.

The same can be said about ourselves.

Start with this simple exercise, each time you are moved in some way by someone or something ask yourself why. What about that book did you like or not like. What about that movie did you appreciate or detest. Than, ask the magic question of why…

If I talk with you about late term abortion.

I mention that the doctor pokes some scissors into the base of the Child’s skull making a small incision, clipping the brain stem from the spinal cord, killing the child. From there he puts a suction device in and sucks out the child’s brain so when pulling the baby out, the skull will easily crush, not damaging the mother.

I know how I feel about it and why; how do you feel, and why?

What if you are looking at a painting of a lovely lady, sitting on a blanket under a tree, on a sunny day? She is wearing a light white dress that the wind blows up past her knees on occasion. She is sitting there with a picnic basket, some wine and a book. The sunlight pokes through creating small silhouettes of light on her, here and there as the breeze blows the leaves on the tree. In the distance there is the ocean and a beach with families at play. The seagulls are dancing in the wind while a young man approaches the tree from behind with a rose in his hand.

How does that picture make you feel, why?

It is not simply good enough to hate something or like something, you must know why!

Every time your emotions are plucked, know what plucked them. When you are moved, know what moved you.

With Star Trek it was simple for me to appreciate Gene Rodenberry’s vision of a Utopian world where we had evolved past greed. Truthfully, I think Next Generation did a much better job of this however; I never understood what drove people to do anything if they could have anything that they wanted by simply getting the replicator to create it. So, is greed a motivator? Why “Boldly Go,” if getting something in return was not a motive?

What drives you to do what you do? With most of us it is some form of remuneration for our efforts. Let’s face it; we live in a dystopian society currently, with a hint of 1984 looming over the horizon. We have a government that fabricates the narrative as they go along, to suite some agenda. We have smart phones that may very well be spying on us through some NSA covert initiative that was put in place by the same folks who developed the porn scanners at the airport. We have drones that the government can fly over a mile from your house and look through an open window and count your freckles!

We have a percentage of the masses that believe whatever garbage comes out of Washington as the gospel. These folks are truly lost and victims to their own programming and failure to think outside the box. These folks are the kinds of folks that need that box so they understand the boundaries and try to live within them, or figure out a way to take advantage of the structure as they understand it. You will not catch them asking why they “like” or “hate” or do what they do, as according to them it is their nature, it simply is. It is simpler than that, it is their programming and all they know, and want to know. Please don’t confuse them with the facts!

The Ferguson riots are a perfect example of emotion overrunning common sense or the programming. Darren Wilson by the laws that everyone accepts was cleared of any wrong doing. The young man that was shot was seen on video robbing the convenience store and roughing up the owner. Before he left you see him once again come back and come after the store owner in a threatening manner.

Now he continues on with this behavior with a cop. I don’t know how high he was or how far out of his right mind that he was but, you don’t screw with a cop! They have all the cards. With a cop it is yes sir, no sir here are my hands in plain sight sir! Anything else is well, stupid!

A grand jury clears the cop of all wrong doing so the people of the town burn down their own town and vandalize their own shop owners etc etc.. Is that programming, or nature?

Governments around the world understand people, the way we think and how closely we mimic animals, and play to those facts. Functional idiots would be the ideal populous for any government, as they would do as they are told, and not question their leaders. They would work at some prescribed task and give a portion, or have a portion of their money taken from them to support those that “pull the strings.”

No, not wearing a tin hat, don’t fall prey to conspiracy stuff. I know technology and people and I am a science fiction writer. Many things written by science fiction writers become science fact. We think outside the box and leave the math to those that communicate with algebraic nomenclature and obscure symbols that only a scant few truly understand. I would maintain that math holds those folks back from thinking outside the box because their formula does not support it. It is only when one of them dares think that their formula may be wrong, do they look outside the box.

To be anything more than an automaton, takes work. People are naturally lazy and take the easiest path, or path of least resistance. Some however do not. Some ask, “why?”

What about you? Why ask why?

What kind of work does it take? First and foremost it takes getting to know that person looking back at you from the mirror.

Why do we do what we do?

Enlightenment consists of knowing yourself first.

Once you start analyzing why you do what you do, you can then begin to understand what might motivate someone else. Instead of blindly following your programming, you can choose a different path.

The folks in Ferguson were manipulated to do the bidding of some by using their emotions. It is so easy to manipulate someone with their emotions it is laughable. You know that you have been manipulated through guilt, into doing things that you did not want to do. I think some churches use guilt to get you to tithe more, or to come more often to church.

Your wife of mother in law may guilt you into doing something that you do not want to do. Guilt is a great emotion to manipulate you with. Another is hate.

“Hate is a poison that you take expecting it to affect someone else!”

We have a government for whatever reason is fomenting racial hate. No one alive today had anything to do with slavery yet we hear more about it today than twenty years ago. It serves a purpose to foment racism and I think it is to stir up the democratic base, when in fact the Democratic Party historically is the party that oppresses black people. When you don’t know history you are doomed. Americans have a short memory, and attention span and they know it and depend upon it..

Programming

I would proffer that it is natural to be bigoted against that which is different from you.

I would argue that part of your programming is to reject people of a different race in order to propagate your particular genetic line. I would also point out that the male of the species “whatever the species” will stick his “business,” into just about anything, including a knot hole, to achieve the end result. Again, programming and a reward system, which would lead to mutations in the gene pool of that species. That by the way is my argument for macro evolution. I don’t think that we just magically appeared as human one day, I think species intermingled and over time nature found a way to create viable species which too intermingled. That intermingling is still in progress as today we have inter species procreation much more than just a few years ago. People (some people) are thinking outside the box, and their programming and moving beyond differences of colour and race. There is hope!

One prime argument against this is, “Well why did evolution stop?” Who said it stopped? Firstly, we human beings cannot fathom 4.5 billion years. We have nothing to give context to that amount of time. We live an average of 70 years. That is not very much time! We see beds that our ancestors used only a generation ago and note how short they are. What we don’t put together is that we are much taller than they were. We know that the appendix is a useless organ and is shrinking because our diet has changed and it is no longer needed. If we look and are open minded we will see other signs that evolution of the Darwinian kind, is indeed happening. Is there a designer to this evolution?

While part of the programming in all animals is to reject that which is different, thinking people can look past those differences and indeed some do. Part of the programming consists of a pairing of people simply by physical characteristics. Things such as symmetry and physical build of the male as well as broad hips and large breast of the female. This is programmed into us and useful for successful procreation.

When we were cave folks wearing nothing but lots of hair, things were exposed. Women might have chosen to pair with men that were, well muscular and well hung, while guys most certainly looked at that which would better facilitate successfully bearing young. Sex back then would most certainly have been Pavlovian. If sex did not feel good and did not have a “reward,” I doubt that any species would be here. Let’s face it; sex at its basic level is work! If done right, lots of work! If you don’t think that there is some powerful programming at work, think again!

If you stop and think about it, there is really nothing attractive about genitalia at all. I am amazed that gynecologists have any type of sex life after working with genitalia day in and day out. My guess is that the reward system of procreation and the programming of that same “sub routine,” overrule that of the id, the super ego and the ego. While the super-ego may try to rationalize what you are seeing the id is strong thus the programming of the id seems to supersede that of the super-ego and the ego.

And speaking of genitalia, an interesting thing about the penis that puts it into perspective is the design of the tip or Glans is such, that if inserted after someone else, it will actually pull their seed out and make room for yours, if yours is larger then the previous occupant.

Design or evolution?

Men are typically visual people and as such can be easily stimulated by such. If we see someone in a bikini where do our eyes first travel to? …. No answer? … Coward…. They travel to the parts covered by the bikini. From there, some background subroutine kicks in and gets to imagining the rest. If that same person were nude, our eyes would most certainly travel there first but, the background subroutine would not engage, and I doubt that after a moment or two, the visual titillation would still be there. Our attention might then be only to the persons face and other visual queues or other folks that are around.

In speaking with nudist, I am told that genitalia and other parts become no different than an elbow or knee. I often wonder how the sex life of a nudist would differ from that of a person who is not. Maybe there is a government grant available for such a study? If I had to guess, I would guess it would parallel that of a couple that was in the same general age group that was not a nudist as again I think it would be centered around the reward or pleasure part of the brain.

I often wonder what affect the “Extreme Availability” of pornography; will have on this generation and those people of the next generation. We have children exposed to this stuff before they reach puberty. They do not have the maturity to deal with this subject matter so one has to wonder what outcome it will have. If it were simply nude people I think it would fairly innocuous. If on the other hand it is all sorts of pornographic situations and activities dreamt up by who knows who, they may very well take that as normal. I fear for their moral compass.

Hazarding a guess I have to think that it would lead more males to self pleasure… ok… masturbate, rather than go through the “trouble” to get a girlfriend and have a “normal” relation. Pornography could have a much more serious affect on society as a whole. I also wonder what if any affect it has on females.

Delineation between nudity and pornography is a must at this point, as there is ample confusion. As there is confusion between nudity and pornography, there is also confusion between being naked and nude. Semantics you might say but, a thinking person would disagree.

Let’s start with the later; if I am purposefully around other folks without clothing, I am nude. If I were to say go into a spa where there were people without clothing and that was the accepted behavior than I and they would be nude. If I had someone posing nude for me while I painted them, and it was consensual, “consensual being the key word” then they would be nude. While we here in this country are way too hung up on nudity, trust me, it is not that big of a deal and healthy.

If on the other hand you are secretly watching someone undress, or you walk in on someone who expects privacy, and they are without clothing, they are naked. While naked can also mean “without adornment” or the naked truth, naked is being unclothed in a situation where you would like to have clothing on.

So that dream that you have about being naked at school; that is naked unless of course you are posing for an art class without clothes, than you are nude.

Pornography is someone or a group of someone’s in the act of sex or some other sexual situation designed to promote sexual titillation for the participants or the viewers.

One famous “movie star” in “adult movies” was once interviewed. She was asked how she felt about people looking at her naked, and pleasuring themselves. This person who had a rather inauspicious start to life, also sports a 138 IQ. Her answer was simply this; “than I am doing my job.” It was very easy to tell from the interview that she was “smart” and chose this line of work as a way out of the normal 9-5 work world, that so many of us fall into. Her bright and bubbly personality along with her IQ is quite frankly what I found attractive about her but, I actually did read Playboy for the articles, and maybe checked out where that staple hit…

Is nudity healthy?

I mentioned earlier that it is “in my opinion” and here is why. Let’s say you have children and they never see you naked. The only nude folks they see are themselves or possibly their siblings until puberty. Now we have the internet with more porn than you can shake a stick at. Your young men start “peeking” at porn and expect that all women will look like that. You, under your garments have a poochy belly, possibly with stripes all over it from stretch marks, you breast have sagged or were never a perfect perky what have you, and your butt well, its not a Kardashian butt. Your mate accepts you as you are but, your kids have unreal expectations and once they tie the knot, a rude awakening is headed their way which could end up with ruptured nuptials.

I don’t think that you have to live in a nudist colony to get the job done but, I think having your children seeing you as you are, from a young age, as they grow up is healthy not only for them, but for you. You must be ok with your body, and you need to do what you can to feel sexy and alive. Your kids must know that not everyone looks like a porn star and once they have babies, everything changes. Even you dads out there with the beer belly. You too need to be ok with who you are in order to live a healthy life into your golden years. Setting your children’s expectation from very young will not only help them to keep things in perspective but, hopefully it may go a long way towards young men not objectifying women and indeed seeing them as something besides sex objects. An added bonus may very well be that if you don’t hide underneath baggy shirts you may make a little extra effort to keep excess weight off, as obesity often adds to your chances of diabetes and other health concerns. If your kids are older you can’t obviously start walking around naked but, you don’t have to hide the belly either. If you are a young couple with young kids, by all means, don’t hide.

If you have any questions about this, speak with a counselor or professional or two. This last generation has gone way off target with our kids, we incarcerate more today than ever before. Something is wrong and we need to be looking for reasons why. I think it has to do with Hollywood, the internet, violent video games, and dysfunctional families looking for that brass ring, but those that get paid $150 an hour might have a different idea.

Speaking of nudes, as an artist I can tell you that I prefer to paint those that are full figured much like the masters did of years gone by. These women today who are bags of bones covered by a little skin are not attractive to me; as an artist or a man. The bottom line is that you must be happy with who you are. That my friend starts by looking in the mirror and loving yourself, bulges, stripes and all. Start from the inside out, as first you have to know “who you are.”

The simple facts are that we are wired for sex. From the time we reach puberty and maybe before until we are pushing daisies up, sex is on the brain. We cannot totally escape our programming, at that age sex is high up on the list of priorities. The difference between the human and the animal is that we can control our programming.

During puberty, hormones are being introduced at levels we are not used to. Our inner animal may come out and want to play and not always in a constructive manner. It takes a special kind of “teacher” to work with us at that age, as we become impossible. We say things that we certainly don’t mean. We are mean to anyone that loves us and just beside ourselves. You add into this cornucopia of hormones, drugs, you trigger the release of more hormones and drugs from the brain which can make us suicidal. It is most important to understand what is going on at this age as there is no rational explanation for behavior most of the time. Keeping all recreational chemistry out of this system is a must!

In the animal kingdom the animal may desire sex from one of its harem and be threatened by a young male. This Bull may have to defeat its young challenger in order to maintain its control over the harem. That becomes the order of business for the moment forgoing anything else.

A Human may desire sex but there are many hoops to jump through just to have a chance at sex, and unfortunately at certain ages for certain people, fighting is not off of the table. Other rather stupid actions come into play as well. Lacking any morals and education our sex lives would most certainly emulate the animal kingdom. A parallel between human and animal could easily be drawn where sex or procreation is concerned. If we could examine the “code,” we would no doubt find that the subroutines look very similar.

Programming must come from the double helix, and I submit that programming can be modified by changing the behavior of a species, and having that species propagate its behavioral modifications through its DNA. This would necessarily prove that evolution through behavior modification is not only possible, but probable.

Back in the day there were people who studied eugenics. Their reasons were fairly malevolent in that they were after the “perfect race,” and hated Jews. Eugenics could be a reality and I think that the answer for such is programming the DNA not artificially, but by altering the behavior of the subject and then using that DNA to inseminate the subject. Because all of this takes time, as it is really a function of evolution; they should try this with some short lived creature like the fruit fly and see if they can’t program its DNA in some fashion, possibly only eat a certain type of fruit.

My theory is that our programming is a series of learned behaviors that somehow make their way back into the DNA that we pass on to our progeny. For this reason it might be a real good idea to procreate late in life or, donate sperm to a sperm bank when you are old, and wiser than when you were as a teenager and not so wise.

It is no secret that we stand on our forefathers shoulders where our technology and knowledge is concerned. Some of that knowledge and wisdom gets passed down before we too procreate but, much is learned late in life.

You can either believe that “god” creates you the way that you are or you can believe that Darwin was correct and indeed evolution explains “ooze to youze.”

To reject the later simply because of religious mores would be just as foolish as to dismiss the possibility of a spiritual being that uses evolution to create. Who is to say that some “god” for lack of a better name, is not using evolution to create what we see today.

It is necessary to think outside the box. If you allow your preconceived prejudices to “box in your thoughts,” you can not learn.

Once I was talking with a guy who believes what he reads in the bible. He professed to be open minded. “So, you would be open to talking about evolution?” “As long as it does not conflict with the bible, sure!” Sadly, he cannot learn. His potential is limited by his ideology.

Me personally, I want to know the truth. I don’t care what it is, that is what I want to know. The truth will set you free. We need to look for and learn the truth. Once learned, that truth needs to be embraced, and then spoken about, Boldly!

While we build on the past we must be ever so open to the future and all of its possibilities. If there is a being that creates worlds, and all the life thereon then he or it must certainly use math as its language! Science would be the common denominator and that would explain a lot of things.

There is a dichotomy between religious folks and science, not all, but most. The dichotomy precludes either subset from learning the truth. In order to seek the truth, one must first be open to any and all possibilities. Is there a grand creator, great! Is it all evolution and random chance? Cool! Is it a combination of a creator using physics to create what we have today? Awesome!

Share your thoughts. -Best

A virus to end all viruses!

My favorite Anti-Virus software was sullied by something this week.

While downloading the hundreds of e-mails I get each day, my PC decided to “stall.”

One of the reasons that we “who know these things” get paid well for what we do is this.

When a PC, server or any other piece of computer hardware fails to act as it should; is that we go through a methodical litany of troubleshooting techniques, that we know to do.

This is a fairly old PC, is it hardware?
Is it software?
Is it operator error?

One of the first steps I do, is assume nothing.

The answer to the three above questions is “possibly.”

I check for viruses as that is what one does, checks for a virus. If there is no smoke or other obvious hardware issue, you check for viri.

The “only” way to do this properly is remove the hard drive from the machine, install it in an external device that hooks up to another “known good PC” with good anti-virus on it, and scan it. I could explain why but it would add several paragraphs, so just trust me.

One of the first mistakes one makes is use a machine that has the anti-virus on it that you already use. Hello…. If it is a virus and it got past your anti-virus what makes you think it won’t screw up this machine as well?

As a professional, I have several top of the line packages that I purchase and keep up as there is “no silver bullet.” I don’t screw with free, as free is not worth what you pay for it! Anyone that does is playing with fire!

This process can take hours, so I use the time to blow out the machine, check for bad caps, lethargic fans, change the CMOS battery, dust out the CD-ROMS and so forth.

As part of the process I noticed that the video card fan was running, but not up to speed. This was not an expensive card so I took this opportunity to upgrade it to something newer, faster, onboard GPU and a killer fan.

Problem: Newer video cards need more power than the old 300Watt Dell power supply can muster; must change the power supply as well.

Problem: Dell uses proprietary power supplies. Getting a higher power, power-supply from Dell, if they even make one for this PC, would be cost-prohibitive.

Plan B: What exactly is different about this power supply vs. the standard off the shelf power supply? The placement of the power receptacle is lower, and there is an off-on switch on a “generic” power supply. The case has metal where that would be.

It did not take long to modify the case to accept a generic, higher power, power-supply with a larger fan and double the watts! There is a tool called a “nibbler” that you can get that will allow you to remove small chunks of metal at a time until you make a suitable hole for the new power-supply. I also used a dremel tool to smooth the metal, so there were no sharp edges.

After finishing the hardware upgrade with a larger power-supply and a video card that is really meant for gaming; as well as replacing the CMOS battery, the diagnostic screen came up just perfectly. Removing lots of dust did not hurt things either. The drive was still scanning, so a wait was still in order. At 75%, Trend Micro had found no viruses….

Finally; about 3 hours after the start, the drive was pronounced clean by Trend Micro so now it was back to possibly a hardware issue, or was it?

Installing the drive upon boot up I was presented with the options of safe-mode or regular boot. Always choose safe. In safe mode you can poke around without all of the other files loaded.

Once booted in safe, I installed the new video drivers and was happy that “in safe mode” the PC behaved as expected.

Reboot to normal, normal quickly turned to atypical to say the least.

I like to have the widgets on my desktop that show me the processor usage and the memory usage. I know what they should look like so if they change, I can quickly react vs. waiting until things just die.

Watching the widgets, the processor usage would tank at 100% and the memory usage would gradually increase until the PC was non-responsive. That is the earmark of a virus, or a program that is behaving badly.

Manually shutting off the machine and bringing it back in safe mode I use something called CCleaner. I actually pay these folks for this program as it is that good! You can get it for free but anyone that writes a program like this I will support them.

www.piriform.com

I allow it to clean; which removes all kinds of crap hence “crap cleaner.”

I then run the registry cleaner and allow it to do its thing.

After that I go through which programs and services I want to allow to start than kill everything that I don’t recognize. I am different from the normal folk; as I recognize what those programs and services are. If you are not sure about this; research with another computer what you are killing. Failure to do so could result in you killing your operating system.

The trick is to get rid of all the “junk in the trunk.”

“Junk in the trunk”

I use the analogy of hauling rocks in your trunk.

Many years ago Lucy from the “I Love Lucy Show” and her husband made a movie called the “Long Long Trailer.” If you have not seen it I will not spoil it but, part of the plot is that Lucy wanted to collect a rock from each place that her and her husband went on their honeymoon, while pulling this travel trailer with a car that was probably ill equipped for the task. While the rocks in this case were in the trailer, the metaphor still works, as this car was now pulling more than it could possibly handle while traversing the mountains!

We do that with our PC’s every day! We load them down with all kinds of programs that live in the tray. We have lots of different things running at one time, and unfortunately we have to add to this load an anti-virus software and anti-malware software and god only knows what else, just to surf the web!

Depending upon your car, Mustang with a 5.0 or Prius, it will allow you to haul some stuff. As far as I am concerned, I want a PC that will get the job done and handle the software necessary to keep the computer safe and allow me to run production apps. I drive a full size truck with lots of power. My PC is not a gaming PC but, it could play WOW or some other graphic intensive game, if I so chose to do so.

If you are a gamer, you want a Ferrari or Lamborghini. I advise those shopping for a new PC to get one that will play games; even if you don’t intend to use it for that. Why?

If it will play games, it will run your production apps and the necessary stuff to keep it safe from the bad guys!

Having a sport car does not give you license to drive down the road faster than traffic or the speed limit; it merely gives you the ability to do so. Just because you have a PC with lots of power, there is no need to install a bunch of stuff like “weather bug.”

A PC is kind of like a baby. Every thing that you do to it or with it from the day it is “virgin software” changes it. Loading all kinds of stuff on your PC, even getting updates from the different software vendor’s “change it.” PC’s are very dynamic and that is why it is important to use the widgets like I spoke of earlier. Know what normal for your PC, and when it is not normal, get some help. When your car’s temperature gauge goes out of the normal range; you take it to the shop don’t you? If not, you certainly should. Someone needs to write into the operating system a “check engine light.”

Diagnostic software came about with the PC years ago; the first that I remember was PCTools.

After removing all of the junk, booting my PC back up into normal mode still left me with a PC that had a runaway program that slowly degraded the performance of the PC until it died.

Another boot to safe and than another boot to normal allowed me to quickly bring up task-manager before the eventual slow down, so I could monitor all processes “from all other sources besides just my login.” That is key as some services and processes will not show up under what you have loaded under your profile.

Long story short, ESET was the malfunctioning process. ESET would eventually use up over a Gig of ram and most of the CPU horse power and…the mystery still is that it was sending something over the internet or at the very least causing all sorts of network traffic. I no longer have a hub so loading a protocol analyzer on another PC would have only shown me broadcast traffic. I elected to simply uninstall ESET from “safe mode” and see what happened then. That fixed the problem. I installed Trend Micro and have run the PC for over a week with no issues.

My guess is that someone wrote a program specifically to attack the anti-virus software and ESET was not equipped to handle it. Next week or next month it may very well be Trend that fails. There are many on the market and there is “No Silver Bullet.” It came in through e-mail I suspect.

Moral of this sad tale is this: backup those things that you care about and back up often.

I would love to know what attacked ESET NODE32, so if anyone else has a similar story please share it. I will make certain to share it with my readers.

Call me paranoid but here is my suspicion. There are many different anti-virus programs out there all trying to get your dollar. There are some really good programs and than there are some programs that are not so good. While free is better than none, it is not much better. You get what you pay for.

I suspect and this of course is coming from a 30 plus year veteran of working with this stuff, that someone who works for or worked for one of these companies wrote and released this bug. Someone writes these things and if they don’t get remuneration from it, why do it?

Why in God’s name would someone sit around in their mother’s basement in their underwear writing programs that are meant to disrupt or destroy people’s software or ability to get on the internet or work or what have you? Sorry for the visual but I can just see some pimple faced kid with empty candy wrappers, half empty red bull cans and possibly an ash tray full of butts and old pizza boxes typing away at the computer till the wee hours, trying to outdo his buddy. I think I see roaches too…Another bug!

I understand writing software to steal an identity and sell those things to the highest bidder.

I understand robots to use millions of computer to attack some target with a DOS.

If a virus was written to attack a specific anti-virus package; that action would bespeak of an inside job, or possibly someone that had a grudge against that company.

Full disclosure: I do disaster recovery planning for companies. Having been in this field since before the Internet, Bill Gates and Mr. Jobs, I have seen much, done much, and carry a wealth of both computer and business skills and acumen with me to the clients site.

When I got out of school, the secretarial pool was still in vogue; and Greg Shorthand was still practiced. I put dictation equipment on executive’s desk and later computers, replacing the all day process of creating a document to the executive typing his or her own document or e-mail.

I am also a science fiction / fantasy writer who enjoys blogging…

-Best

Time and Puzzles

Time and Puzzles

I wish I understood all that I know about time.

Like the mysteries of the Quark, I would really like to understand that too.

What I do know about time is that we never seem to have enough of it. When things slow down I like to ponder what I know about “things.” One of those things is time.

As a creator of a science fiction book I had to do some messing with time. Not unlike the “flux capacitor” I had to “invent” a device that would move my beleaguered crew through time and space. This required a lot of research because I really don’t want to be laughed at.. Well I guess if they must laugh I would hope it is with the same jocularity that we laughed at the garbage consuming flux capacitor.

Having said that and on a little more serious note I was wondering. Things like this keep me up at night as I “wonder” a lot. Ever notice how the storms on the sun seem to last forever?

I am thinking that they only seem to last forever as the sun has its own version of time which is a lot slower than ours due to its mass and gravity.

Knowing “something” about Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity it just seems to make sense.

How to prove this is another story. Here is another question. Does the time that mercury experiences correlate with ours? Another words, if we were to land on mercury and call home via radio, other than the 8 minutes that it would take to get the signal to earth would their atomic clock read the same as the one on earth?

If there is a difference in time from the light source from the sun to us would this change our perception of the speed of light? How about the age of the sun?

How about in reverse? Are the clocks on Voyager or some satellite that is far out in our solar system the same as the clocks here on earth? Do they have them?

Things like this really do keep me up at night. What say you folks that understand the complicated math that surely accompanies this “stuff?”

-Best to you and those that you care about!

Space Pollution, a possible niche market for someone with deep pockets

Since this “political football known as sequester” we need someone who wants to tame the new frontier, to “boldly go….” Ok enough..

Calling Bill Gates, or any of you other billionaires out there with nothing to spend your money on…. I have a proposition for you! Read on to hear my plan…

One year ago, in April, we just about lost a $960.000.000 telescope to a defunct Russian spy satellite. Quick thinking on the part of several people managed to save our telescope however; the risk remains and it is not getting better, but worse.

With each and every launch, other “stuff” is left in space to orbit, and slowly fall back to earth. Depending upon the altitude and velocity, it could take weeks, years, decades or centuries for the orbit to decay enough for the earth’s gravity to pull it back down.

The good news is that things fall back to earth often and usually burn up during the re-entry process , falling harmlessly into the ocean or some other body of water, the Canadian Wilderness or the Australian outback. This is just about a verbatim statement from “those who know.” I for one am glad that these things only fall where people aren’t; pretty clever of them to arrange that.

Truth be told, (you know how I like truth) this claim is made because 70% of the earth is covered with water of one kind or another. If you have ever gambled you know that it is all about the odds, which are derived from percentages of one thing or another.

By last estimates there are 23,000 pieces of space junk and about 1500 satellites give or take the dozens that neither country will admit to. That means that there are about 24,500 objects up there with no planned way of removing them safely. I think that we actually have an “end of life” policy created for ours, if the thing is still functional.

The hazards are increasing exponentially with each and every launch and of course should two satellites collide as they did in 2009 at hyper speeds, lots of space junk gets released into orbit. The collision between Iriduim 33 and Kosmos 255 was not the only collision in space. In fact there have been 8 known high speed collisions and several minor collisions. Someone gets paid to keep up with each and every little thing up there. How well do you think they do their job?

As of yet, there are no Universal treaties as to who does what in space; so the problem continues to get worse. The lawmakers are too concerned about anything but what they should be, so don’t look for help from any government.

Along come the visionaries…

Well maybe not these folks…

We need some visionaries to come up with a way to reclaim the space junk. Instead of figuring out ways to make a weapon more precise or more lethal, how about working on this problem before it is totally out of hand?

I actually have an idea that might work. Scientist have proposed building a type of tractor (not like the one on Green Acres) but a “Space Tractor” to snag or deflect an asteroid causing its trajectory to change enough to save the earth.

What if…we tested that theory on some space junk? What if…. we slowed the orbit of some space junk down enough so its orbit would decay at a more rapid rate, and maybe, just maybe with some practice, we could manage where and when it would fall, not using the current Vegas method of science, but real science. Instead of trying to deflect an asteroid first, start out with something small and closer to home like, a defunct satellite. One could actually make a business out of it, and charge Millions! Why does it take a science fiction writer to come up with this stuff? Maybe if the space station has enough mass they could figure out a way to test the theory with it. It is already up there, with a crew and everything!

No, Ok well how about this?

If any of you happen to know Michio Kaku; or the guy that demoted Pluto, or some other notable “scientist,” forward this to them. If you know Bill, give him my best and show this too him but, sell it as the newest form of software development. Someone would have to write the stuff to control this thing, right?. I would love to hear why it would not work or why it is not a good idea. Personally, I think if the nation(s) could focus on something else, other than politics, it would be a good thing. If any of you scientist need any more “out of the box thinking”…call me….phone is write here…waiting….

-Best to you and those that you care about.

Why do I think that UFO’s are not visiting us?

Why would they?

The only reason’s that “aliens” would come to this planet would be to exterminate us, and take the planet for themselves, or to simply take its resources or, manage us, much like we manage the deer population. They might very well find sport in hunting us; and they might have a taste for human flesh.

Then of course we have the ET or Alf varieties, who just want to make friends and possibly eat our cats.

As a race of people, we are a violent race. While some countries are “more mature” than others, there are elements or factions in this world who are malevolent in nature, and in fact still “live by the sword!”

There are other factions that enslave us with their corrupt, power hungry, narcissistic, maniacal, psychotic view of life, bent on gaining even more power or money, damn the cost! I would ask them, how much money is enough? Writing laws by the thousands, in order to enrich their lives by taking from the peasants. No race or group is sacrosanct, they just manipulate us into believing that we are.

There is a list on the internet of the wealthiest men. Bloomberg is worth Billions; is it any wonder that he now acts like a god; telling you what you can eat or drink or smoke. Take your billions and go retire somewhere, buy an island and don’t take any guns or soft drinks.

There are factions on this earth who have been at war with one another most probably since they were in caves; learning to master fire. There is in fact nothing that we have to offer a space traveler other than entertainment, much like the Romans throwing Christians to the Lions for being unpatriotic and not worshiping their gods Jupiter, Mars, Juno and Vesta. Then they might want to do like the writers of Star Trek suggest in one episode, (original version), pitting one human against another in some sort of competitive sport where they fight to the death, with the aliens betting on which one would be victorious. Whatever a quatloo is worth in our money, maybe we should print some, just in case. Actually thinking about it that was kind of a theme, I still remember the Gorn, do you?

My personal feelings are that if we were visited by a friendly race, we would be chastised for how noisy we were as a planet, and warned not to bring our war mongering ways outside of our planet. I would in fact welcome such a visit as then, just maybe the super powers and the war mongering idiots of this world would see that there are bigger things out there other than themselves and their petty bickering. Personally, I think they are all so wrapped up in their own agendas, that they truly can’t see the forest for the trees!

They all in fact need a “time out!”

Technology has truly outpaced our humanity. We have “scientist” sending signals into space, looking for a response as well as SETI, much like the Short Wave Listeners of years ago, just listening to see what they hear.

We have more and better ways to kill one another. We have created WMD’s that will kill off the inhabitants, while leaving the infrastructure in tact. We have such a low value for human life that we call it a women’s choice vs. what it truly is “murder,” and then we make it a political lever or football in order to paint one side in a negative light. We kill innocent people, in order to make a point of how “bad ass we are” and than threaten that you had better capitulate to our god, or more will die.

As far as a race coming here to take our resources, I have serious doubts that we would be worth the trouble. There are far too many worlds out there that most likely have no life at all or possibly simple microbial life, at the beginning of its evolutionary cycle. One has to wonder if Aliens did visit us, would they consider us at the beginning of our evolutionary cycle.

Carl Sagan was a man that I admired, and while I loved his shows, his brilliant forward thinking mind, I can not help but wonder if sending a map, to where we are; out into interstellar space was a good idea. Hopefully by the time it is discovered, we will have evolved as well. If when found and we are visited what will they find? A functioning world with intelligent beings, or a world wrapped in nuclear winter?

Any alien passing by, on their way to who knows where, most certainly would listen to our broadcast, and if they could make sense out of them they would know that they would most likely be met with hostile threats or actions from some nation on this planet, probably multiple nations as the proliferation of nukes make there way into the hands of people who are not of sound mind and body, or have such twisted ideas of man and morality that most “normal” people, would not recognize them as sane. They may in fact pass us by because of the hostility that exists on this world deeming us simply not worth dealing with; just to get a few cats.

-Best to you and those that you care about!

Transformation

Our way of life is transforming as the days and weeks pass.

Not so long ago traveling by air was not only easy, but enjoyable. It was actually a treat to arrive at the airport; people were there to make your trip pleasurable, from helping you at the gate to making sure that you were comfortable on the plane. The flight attendants, “stewardesses’” back then, treated you like they appreciated your business.

Once in the air, the beverage of choice was offered. You could even get a deck of playing cards to help you pass the time, no charge. Food was offered on most flights and it was of a quality that was palatable and in some cases “if you flew first class” compared with some fine restaurants.

On longer flights you were provided a small kit with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and some even included a small razor and mirror. There might also be one of those mask that you put over your eyes so you could block the light out and snooze through the flight. Traveling by air used to be pleasurable.

In stark contrast today one must arrive at the airport two hours earlier than the flight. Once there, you get the distinct impression that you are being looked at as a possible suspect for a crime that has not been committed yet. You are cautioned about making jokes to the TSA as they could arrest you or at the very least detain you simply because they wanted to. You are stripped of your shoes, belt, jacket and anything in your pockets and then subjected to a virtual strip search where anonymous people in some room examine your naked body, looking for anything that is suspicious. During this process these folks without a sense of humor order you around like you are indeed a prisoner in some sort of exercise yard, which happens to be a terminal.

Never mind the fact that you are being exposed to ionizing radiation, the government(s) have decided that the laws of physics have magically changed and now this radiation is safe, compared to how unsafe it was just a few years ago. They compare it to the radiation that one is exposed to at high altitude and how in comparison it is not that much. They are also talking apples and oranges as cosmic radiation is different from ionizing radiation but, they don’t offer that up as that does not fit their agenda. Keep in mind that the “truth has no agenda.” I would look for frequent flyers to have a higher rate of skin cancer in the future. If I were a frequent flyer, or flight attendant or pilot, I would make having a good dermatologist a priority, as well as keeping my yearly visits.

I am reminded of the board of directors from the different tobacco companies sitting before congress telling them that tobacco products and all of their additives were totally safe and did not cause cancer. People will say anything when it fits their agenda.

Your baggage and clothes are not safe either. When I travel, I take the clothes that I am going to wear to the cleaners and have them cleaned and folded so when I arrive at my destination, I have clothes that have some modicum of professionalism; in that they are not wrinkled beyond belief. On my last trip my bag was opened by the TSA and my folded laundry packaged in plastic see through bags (much like it would look straight from the store) was opened, disheveled and crammed back into my bag, like I have done when returning home, simply getting the soiled laundry back into the bag to once again make its way to the cleaners. I think that I will start just packing my soiled laundry, cramming it into the bag and once at my location, send it off to be cleaned.

Traveling by air is just one place where it resembles more of a police state than it should. Any form of public transportation is scrutinized by different means of security.

In most of my travels I can not help but notice cameras at every intersection. I may have read 1984 one too many times but, it certainly bears paying attention to the facts that these are probably not for traffic control. In major cities all around this country at least, and I suspect others, there are cameras watching everything. I would argue that your privacy is being invaded in ways that you don’t know about.

The local police have devices that can detect heat signatures (FLIR) in total darkness. I have been told that these can detect the presence of heat through a wall. I would suspect that the local police are not really interested if you are home or where you might be but, my guess would be that via flyover or random screening in the debt of night, they could be looking to see if you are growing things inside your home that you ought not to be. To my way of looking at this, it is an invasion of your privacy and should not be allowed without a warrant.

Technology is outpacing our humanity. Today we have a 29 year old, holding the keys to nukes in a xenophobic country; threatening the stability of an entire globe. We have companies like Raytheon and others manufacturing drones that have been used successfully in the war effort, now in the hands of a government that seeks to “fundamentally transform our country.” They now think that it should be legal to fly these drones over the US. These drones have the ability to peer in open windows miles away and see what is going on, to tracking your cell phone and who knows what else that it can do. I do know that it can tell what clothes you are wearing (or not wearing) while flying at 17,500 feet. By the way unless you happen to see it flying over head, it is silent enough that at altitude you will not know it is there. I know this because while floating in the pool, looking up, I saw one flying overhead. There was no sound.

Today most of us carry smart phones. I have no doubt that they can be controlled by third party entities, at their discretion, switching on microphones and or cameras at will. We have seen this in laptops sent home with school children, do you really think that you have any expectation to privacy in your home? With built in GPS, they know down to a few feet, exactly where that phone is.

One really has to wonder why we are giving so many free phones to people that cannot afford them. Is it really to “give them a shot” or is it a way to get inside Intel into their lives and activities.

While this sounds like 1984 and the work of science fiction, I would not be surprised to learn at all that this is not fiction at all.

This much power in the hands of any government is simply dangerous at best and could be disastrous. Please remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely! The new facility that the government is building 25 miles south of Salt Lake City may very well be the control center for these types of activities and not the data retention facility that it is touted to be. It may very well be a data retention center too, but my gut tells me that it is much more than that. It would take a facility that large to house the amount of people necessary to accomplish the surveillance of that many “people of interest.” Those people may very well include anyone that attends church, or works for a particular company, or possibly those who are on the government dole.

History is rife with abuses of this government, as well as others. J Edgar Hoover was notorious for abusing his power. We as a people have forgotten history or failed to learn from it. History is cyclical when you fail to learn from it. “We will repeat it.”

With the creation of the patriot act under George W., we Americans gave up rights that we may never get back. With this recent explosion in Boston, we may see new laws created, taking away even more of our rights to “protect us.” (Remember, “Never let a disaster go to waste”) The random acts of violence “terrorist activity” are one way to get people to not only submit to further oppressive measures by a government but, they may very well cause some to insist upon it.

With our borders unsecured, we have no control over whom and what comes into our country or for that matter what or who leaves our country. The government should be focusing on that rather than chipping away at our rights as Americans. We as a people should be demanding that our borders be secured instead of worrying about the feelings of potential voters. To politicize immigration is simply treasonous and all who do this should be fired. Protection of this country, its people and its constitution should be their primary goal, and anything else should not come before this.

Full disclosure; I am a writer of science fiction. I think outside the box; which is great if you are a writer. I would also offer that through history, most science fiction becomes science fact. I have no inside informants or sources of info other than what can be observed by looking, or researching topics of interest on the WWW…

-Best to you and those that you care about.

The case of the misfit hand tool.

The following is my guess to what this company is searching for. Hope you enjoy the tale..

https://www.facebook.com/OldeCrowAntiquesPrimitives

After searching servers throughout the world, I came across a wiki leaks article dated from 1947.

It seems as though a man was found wondering aimlessly through the New Mexico desert. He had no memory of how he had gotten there but, was visibly agitated when a small lizard scurried by his feet, while talking to authorities.

He was brought to the local hospital for observation and treatment for dehydration and exposure. Days later, while he was getting his clothes back on, he noticed something in his pocket. Plucking it out revealed a strange looking device. Not knowing what it was or how it got there, he put it back into his pocket and made his way down to the cafeteria in the hospital.

Later he was greeted by a Doctor who used hypnosis to bring back memories, so they could find out who this guy was and where he belonged.

Once under hypnosis (so the story goes) he told of wild things, crazy things, he told about being taken from his car in the middle of the night and brought aboard some sort of craft. He was so visibly shaken by the retelling of the events that the therapist had to stop the session and awaken the man for fear of a seizure or other such malady.

The two met again and again, day after day; each time getting a little more information. The good Doctor was either putting the pieces of an extraordinary puzzle together or, the twisted mind of a seriously ill man. Either way he wanted to continue as this was by far the most interesting case that this doctor had ever dealt with.

As the sessions progressed, the man told of being on a table where these creatures which stood on two feet and looked somewhat like lizards, were bringing instruments over his body to “examine” him. At this instance with incredible lucidity the man looks at the “probes” and other devices and tells the creatures “Aw Hell No!” and with much surprise breaks the constraints on the table and escapes the examining room to find himself in a maze of corridors and hallways.

As the lizard people had much shorter legs than him and long since lost their ability to run on all fours; he was able to outrun them and for several hours lurked around the bowels of the ship. While in one room, he saw all sorts of gadgets and other meters and lights and what have you as well as strange looking shafts of light, emanating from the floor to the ceiling the light pulsed with a low droning noise coming from somewhere in the ship.

He told of watching their “people” adjusting a device that they called the Quantum entanglement regulator or QER. (The precursor to the flux capacitor I am sure.) When they adjusted the QER correctly the pulsed light coalesced into a nice steady rhythm. After the two “aliens” working on the QER left; our hero went up to the QER, grabbed the “tool” off of the table and “tweaked” the QER just a little bit, as to cause the pulses of light to flash more erratically; after which, he put the tool into his pocket and left the room.

As the tool that adjusts it is made from the same metal that the QER is made from, and at the same time, the tool and the device are a match both metallurgically as well as atomically. Any other device used to adjust the QER would result in immediate destruction of the device, or so they thought.

It was not long before our hero was discovered wandering the hallways and brought back to the examining room. Once there, they wiped his memory of the events and deposited him in the middle of the desert, many miles from where they took him from.

As the aliens were really not familiar with the concept of clothing, they also did not know about pockets. Had they known, they might have searched him before they sent him back to the planets surface.

After the doctor awakens his patient he asked him about the tool. With little more than a blank look, the abductee reaches into his pocket and retrieves the tool, and hands it to the doctor.

While there is nothing visibly exceptional about the tool the good doctor laughs and tells the guy that it looks like a really poorly designed nutcracker, and hands it back to our hero. Our good doctor was now convinced that the mans’ time in the desert had left him lost in episodes of delirium and there was little more that he could do other than to get the paper to see if they could help discover who this guy really is.

News of the person found in the desert reached the media of the day, and it was not long after that before he was reunited with his loved ones. The tool ended up in the back of a junk drawer where it sat, collecting dust, until the man’s death several years later. His children then had an estate sale and the tool was sold with the “lot” of the contents of the junk drawer.

Meanwhile, when the aliens tried to leave orbit, they discovered that their Quantum Entanglement hyper drive was not “regulated” correctly and immediately dispatched a crew to regulate it. When the tool to do so could not be found they were forced to stay on our planet much longer than they had planned for. A brash decision was made to attempt to regulate the QER with something other than the correct tool, and in July of 1947, as a result of that decision, there was a crash of one alien craft inhabited by “lizard people” in Roswell…

Somewhere in a dungeon at Write Patterson Air Force base lies the remains of the craft which our people have tried for years to reverse engineer. So far the only technology that they could replicate is fiber optics and Velcro, and some claim the laser, but I tend to think we did that one.

The QER is still out of sync and because of the signals that it is emanating, had to be put several stories under ground to keep the Russians from picking it up on their spy satellites.

If they only knew that in some small antique shop lives the key to unlimited power, space travel; not only at incredible speeds, but also time, they would be ecstatic! Yes the QEHD (Quantum Entanglement Hyper Drive) also allows for easy travel both forwards and backwards in time.

Can you imagine what would happen if General Wainright at the pentagon, were to read this story on the internet and find the key to power beyond his wildest dreams, and it lives in a small antique shop? He will never see it however; as security is so tight that no computer can ever be connected to the public internet, ergo he will never read about this on Facebook. All the unlimited power that this tool controls will be lost to all of mankind forever!

Another fun fact is about the aliens themselves. Unlike the media hype, several survived and have been working in the skunk-works programs at Write Patterson and Area 51. Our government did not force them into this; they found that after getting to know us, that we are not really all that bad. As the matter of fact, one of those aliens is a celebrity of sorts; you see him on TV, selling insurance. You just think that he is CGI…..

I would also be totally remiss if I did not entertain the other theory, that this is simply a poorly designed nut cracker, so poorly designed in fact, that few were made as the nuts and or shells escaped, putting people’s eyes out. The company abandoned the idea of making this model and this is the one, the prototype that survived going back into the crucible, to be made into something more useful, like pull tabs on beer cans.

The story, people and depictions in this “article” are a complete creation of an over active imagination, and should be looked at as “entertainment.” Or are they….? The Truth is out there, and, I Want to Believe…

Update: 10-14-14

Mystery solved!

Some time ago this picture was placed on Face Book by a company that sells antiques and other one off things. Nobody had a clue what this was or what it was used for. We guessed that it was a tool but for what. I frequent antique stores as this type of thing interest me.

While digging around I found something that looked very similar and on the handle was a tag describing it. This device was used to turn the flu in a stovepipe off or on, or adjust it as it would be hot. I still like my story better but alas, the truth is out there…

-Best to you and those that you care about.