Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Teleportation is one of those things I’d  always mentally placed, along with time travel,  in the “Sorry, it ain’t never gonna happen” category.  So, I was a bit surprised to see this.  Admittedly, the science of it is way over my head, but I can live with that.  I don’t understand how computers work, either.

Perhaps we have taken the first step

So, I will assume they are being serious, and time will tell if they are right or not.  I’d love to see it, because that would provide us with the loophole we need to get around that speed of light speed limit,  and if we never get around that speed of light speed limit, exploration of the galaxy is going to be a mighty tedious venture, like driving from New York to L.A. at parking lot speed.

The thing I mainly don’t understand about it is how do they know that the particle in the one containment space is the same particle that came from the other containment space.  Do they have it marked with dye or something?  I remember a similar experiment at CERN a while back when they announced that  they’d fired some little microscopic abstraction from France to Italy, several meters, at least, and it had gone faster than the speed of light.  I raised the same question then and got no replies except for one that said “Jesus, Mary and Einstein, you are the biggest fucking moron on the planet,” or words to that effect, but they didn’t actually answer my question.

Anyway, even if they’ve figured out teleportation, we are still many years and thousands of dead mice away  from having the capability to beam down from a starship to a planet  filled with slinky, blue females and a rogue super-intelligence that demands human sacrifice.

That’s O.K.  The voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise don’t take place until the middle of the 23rd century. Zefram Cochrane, inventor of the warp drive, is probably a pre-schooler right  about now, more curious about the taste of dirt than quantum theory.  We still have time.

Gun lovers are fond of saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and it’s generally true.  Sure, a loaded gun could fall off a table during an Earthquake or dance party, discharge itself on  hitting the floor and kill somebody, but it’s not the usual case.  I saw once on Monk how a monkey was charged with murder, but he was being framed, of course and, besides, that’s fiction, but it could happen.  And there are lots of cases where very young children shoot people.  While they are technically people, they are still not very good at it, and you can’t really blame them.

Unironic American Family

So, in those cases, perhaps, but most of the time the guns, themselves, are blameless.  Even though they are used for horrific murders they, themselves, are dispassionate.  The gun feels no thrill in the kill.  They are not even aware that it happened.  Consciousness.  Inanimate objects don’t have it.

Guns are every bit as disinterested as hurricanes, or volcanoes.  Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But, let’s  think about that for a second.  If we were to ban all guns, the guns themselves would not be the least bit upset.  They would not feel that their rights have been infringed upon, because they have no concept of rights.  Only the people who own guns would be upset.

And, it’s people who kill people.  Let them be upset.

An apology and a correction: A bit over a month ago I wrote a column about a murderer who wanted his tattoo (which said ‘murder’) removed before his trial, and my beef with the story was that they gave sort shrift to the victim, who they identified as Damon Galliart.

One person left a comment pointing out that I  got the name wrong.  The murdered man was Damon Galyardt.  He was 25 years old.  The reason I’m just commenting on this now is because I just found out about it now.  The  comments don’t go in under my blog, but go straight to wordpress, I have no idea  why, and I’d never even thought to look there.

Anyway, glad to know people are reading and thanks for pointing out my error.

I  don’t think this  guy will be the next Sasha Baron Cohen, although he’d probably like to be.  I don’t even think he’ll be the next Ylvis.  He’s more on the Chris Crocker level.  You might get a giggle out of this video, largely because someone running around the streets of New York in his  underwear, banging on a drum and shouting “Love is the  answer, stop buying stuff” is kind of funny, and maybe a true and profound statement about our society.

Most of his  videos  are like  that.  The underwear is a constant.  He shouts and makes lots of  nice.  Accosts strangers and demands hugs.  Very often uses a rubber chicken.  Makes fart sounds a lot.

But in the one video where he is being interviewed, he actually comes across as fairly intelligent.

Wherever it falls on the scale of great and memorable comics, his madness is on YouTube and is therefore immortal, maybe.  One more brick in the wall.  A little spice  in the pot, because one can only see so many photos of cats before  they start to get boring.  One video you can bring out when the conversation starts to get too serious.

Bit by bit, we add to that pile, until it becomes a universe.  Matthew Silver has a place in that pile.

In the aftermath of the Virgin Creep Murders,  the argument about guns is revived.  As I have written here before, I don’t like guns.  The United States would be better off if the 2nd amendment were repealed and guns were banned outright.  However, I’m aware we’re not going to get that.

A few reasonable restrictions would be nice, though.  Like, if someone is seeing a therapist, they need a note from their therapist.  Like, guns which are designed for speedy and massive killing in a war zone should probably not be available to people who do not live in a war zone.  Like maybe, when you go to purchase a gun, you have to answer the question “Do you plan to kill a bunch of random strangers with this gun?”

Of course, some people would lie, but somebody who puts a video online bragging that he’s going to kill a bunch of people might just give a yes answer in the gun store, too.  If it prevents even one incident, it would be worth it.

Of course, after every incident, there are lots of people who say that the gun was not the cause.  In this case, in particular, there seem to be 3 basic trends of opinion. 1) as I said, we need to regulate guns 2) The problem is the culture of male entitlement, and the idea that women are just sex objects, and 3) There needs to be better mental health care.

I don’t really have any quarrel with 2 or 3.  Of course men need to stop being such assholes.  I believe we are moving in that direction.  Personally, I think I’m much less of a sexist asshole than I used to be.  But there are 3.5 billion human males on the planet, and some of them are not keeping up with the times. 

Of course we need better health care, but what defines mental health is a pretty complex issue.  I saw one person arguing that since Eliot Rodger, Adam Lanza and many other recent mass murderers were on prescription medication, it is the prescription medication that is to blame.  Also, it’s pretty difficult to get funding for even regular health care.

The one out of these three that something could be done about is guns.  And it wouldn’t cost a dime.

I am amazed at how astronomers can figure out the size and atmospheric content of planets hundreds of light years away.  I’m amazed that, in this  modern world, I can sit and type up a blog and the thoughts that were in my mind, now encoded in words on paper, go out to the masses, out to join all the other words of the world in a big ocean of words, and I am amazed that scientists, analyzing DNA samples from modern people and working backwards, can figure out that the average modern human being has between1 and 4% Neanderthal DNA.  I’m kind of interested in the news, but I’m amazed they can figure that out.  Seems like magic to me.

Of course, there is the advantage of it not being provably wrong, because nobody now was there then, and there are no living Neanderthals to form a control group.  But, they explain the science in the article, and I generally consider the Christian Science Monitor a reliable source.

So, what does it mean?  It means, different species of hominids though we were, we could, and did interbreed.  Not much.  I suspect Jean Auel got it about right in the Clan of the Cave Bear series.  There were rape babies, and there were varying levels of acceptance, from tribe to tribe.

What an amazing place the world  would be today if the Neanderthals had not gone extinct.  Our different natures would have led to different cultures, more different than anything we have among ourselves, and the fusion of our skills…well, who the hell knows, it didn’t happen.  Scientists give varying explanations like they weren’t able to adapt to the changing climate, but I suspect there was a war of extinction.  Which succeeded, except for that 1-4% part.

Someday, upon our journey to the stars, we may get another chance to meet and communicate with another intelligent species.  We probably should try to not kill them off, this time.