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Archive for the ‘Science and Learning’ Category

In fact, the thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe.  That’s the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point.  (Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we’d all be dead.)  Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology.  We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it.  You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer;  and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources.  Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven’t been wise enough to foresee?
    —    Carl Sagan
[The title for this post is a line from a TV series (“Room 222“) which aired from the late 1960’s to mid-1970’s.  One episode on the show dealt with air pollution in Southern California.  The “message” was that if environmental damage “only” kills half the human population, the other half will be able to tell their children:  “Once upon a time…”    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022 A Wonderful Tension
2021 Little And Large Choices
I Got Something To Say
Alternate Reality
2020 When?
2019 Two Guides
2018 A Call For You
2017 Because I Read
2016 On What Matters…
2015 Social Security
2014 Bewitching
2013 Visiting Joy
2012 Dedication To Today
2011 Project Second Chance – Adult Literacy
Turning Coal Into Diamonds

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Very few scientists actually plunge into the murky waters of testing or challenging borderline or pseudo-scientific beliefs.  The chance of finding out something really interesting — except about human nature — seems small, and the amount of time required seems large.  I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues, but the fact that a given contention lacks vigorous scientific opposition in no way implies that scientists think it is reasonable.
    —    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 Let Yourself Soar In 2022
Where You’re Concerned
2020 The Most Dynamic Link
Looking Forward To 2021
2019 A Proud Assertion
2018 Ask #45 About Anything
2017 Playing Makes Sense
2016 And Fathers, Sons
2015 My Suspect Confidence
2014 Disguised Blessings
2013 Be
2012 The Only Way to Win
2011 Honest Writing

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Trust yourself.  You know more than you think.
    —     Benjamin Spock
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On This Day In:
2021 A Tenacious Cycle
Once Upon A Time…
2020 Kinda Like Posting To A Blog About My Day
Just A Different Point Of View
You Be The Judge
2019 I Think I’m Repeating Myself
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like X-mas!
2018 No Reason To Turn
2017 Talking Knuth
Seeing It Through
2016 Hoping For The Best Come January
2015 Adaptive Security
2014 Wants
2013 Side Effects
2012 Just Trying To Earn A Living
2011 Productive Worry

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The truth may be puzzling.  It may take some work to grapple with.  It may be counterintuitive.  It may contradict deeply held prejudices.  It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true.  But our preferences do not determine what’s true.  We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities.  Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
    —    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 Fighting New Guitar Fever
Bad Trades In The Tunnel
2020 Give And Gain
Can We Talk For A Second
Almost Ready To Take A Breath
2019 Transfiguration
2018 2018 Mid-Terms
Praying For A Blue Tsunami Election
2017 Islam Is Not The Enemy
2016 A Checkered Past, A Checkered Future
2015 Preferences
2014 Have You Taken The Pledge?
2013 Nurture Tolerance
2012 Election Day – Please Hear What I’m Not Saying
2011 Mostly Strange, Always Blue
What Is It You Want?
2010 MSNBC, Bring Back Keith !!!
Value..
Worse Still…
Afraid So…
Making It
Don’t Jump Small
Time
Push!!
I’m Still Here… (A Message To Keith Olbermann)
Choose
Not Yet…
Mean Too
Still Building (and Planning)
Hangin’ High
Always…

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Science is much more than a body of knowledge.  It is a way of thinking.  This is central to its success.  Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.  It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts.  It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom.  We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking.  It works.  It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.  Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.
    —    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 Experience A Simple Whatever
A Thousand Kisses
2020 Talking Politics With Trump Republicans
In Another Lifetime
2019 People Will Come
Change Is Here…
2018 Be My Hero – Vote Tomorrow!
He Was All Of Us…
2017 Black And White
Advice For #DumbDonald
2016 Mirror, Mirror
2015 Speaking With Forked Tongue
2014 The Code
2013 Eventually Formed
2012 Remember To Vote Tomorrow
2011 It Sounds Like Chaos Theory To Me

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If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
    —     Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 Are We Talking About Health Insurance / Oil Companies, Facebook Or Faux News?
When MTV Was Young (And Fun)
2020 Resting
A New Day Just Means We Continue The Struggle (With A Smile)
2019 One For Two
Why Trump Insults Pelosi and Schiff
2018 The Worst
2017 #DonTheCon In The Oval Office
2016 Are You Like #AmnestyDon And Sarah Palin?
2015 Begin Today
2014 Look Again (At Life’s Illusions)
2013 None Knows
2012 Yet
2011 No End In Sight
2010 Back At It…

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A question frequently asked is:  does not the persistent occurrence of Horrible Examples of Systems-function (or Malfunction) prove something about human nature?  If humans were rational, wouldn’t they act otherwise than they do?  We reply:  Systems-functions are not the result of human intransigence.  We take it as given that people are generally doing the very best they know how.  Our point, repeatedly stressed in this text, is that Systems operate according to Laws of Nature, and that Laws of Nature are not suspended to accommodate our human shortcomings.  There is no alternative to learning How Systems Work, unless one is willing to continue to run afoul of those Laws.  Whoever does not study the Laws of Systemantics and learn them that way, is destined to learn them the hard way, by direct encounter in the world of Experience.  That such runnning-afoul continues to occur is simply a reflection of the fact that knowledge of those laws is not yet sufficiently widespread.  The problem is one of Education, and this book represents an effort in that direction.
    ―     John Gall
From his book:  “Systemantics:  The Systems Bible
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On This Day In:
2021 Outside Yet?
Have You Ever Won?
2020 Choice
More Rain Forecast
2019 He Claims It’s Fake News And Spies
2018 Mine, Too
2017 Who’s Turn Is It Now?
2016 Before You Vote In November…
2015 Two Faithful Thoughts
2014 Love Light
Orange October (III) – Giants Advance To National League Championship Series (NLCS)
2013 Nothing Ridiculous
2012 Keeping Faith
2011 Summon Us, Don’t Criticize Us
2010 Obama’s Wars – Book Review
Game Two – Hearbreaking Loss

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Teach your tongue to say I do not know and you will progress.
    —    Talmud
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On This Day In:
2021 What You’ll Find
I Know I’m One
2020 Voting Has Consequences
We Will Get There!
2019 Mutually Exclusive
2018 Basic Rights
2017 Thoughtful Attitudes
Surprise!!
2016 The Bell Tolls
2015 It Is What It Is
2014 What Have You Learned (Gently) Lately?
Orange October (I)
2013 Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain
For A Time
2012 What Are Your True Measurements
2011 What It Is All About
2010 The Magnificent Seven
Giants Fever!!

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
    —     Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 I’ll Keep Trying To Anyway
She Knows
2020 Respond
Still Trying To Adjust
2019 The Limits Of My Knowledge
2018 Even Tiny Progress
2017 Real Conservatism
2016 The Business Of Life
2015 Alone Again, Naturally
2014 Agreed
2013 Smile From Your Heart!
2012 Like You
2011 Got Days?
2010 K9 Humor – Has Anyone Seen My Setter?  (Must read!!)
A Longer Blog Than You Want To Read (Probably)
2009 Back and Forth and Round Again…

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Biologically and physiologically, we are not equal.  Some of us learn better at different times of day.  Some learn best visually, some auditorially, some tactilely, by touching.
    —    Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia
[IDIC*  —  But we should ALL be equal before the law.    —    kmab]
[IDIC  —  Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations    —    ST:TOS]
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On This Day In:
2021 At Least Not Until Sunset
Rain On The Leaves
2020 At Least A Little Less
Two For The Post
2019 Promises, Promises
2018 You Mean There IS Something Else?
2017 Be Good
2016 Raise Yourself
2015 A Kids Movie Rip-Off
2014 Ready, Action!
2013 Responding To Challenges
2012 Abnormal, adj.
2011 Large Families
On The Brink

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I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be.  You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave this way anymore.  I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it.
    —    Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia
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On This Day In:
2021 Said The Anti-Vaxxer
Ceiling Mash
2020 Is #45 In Good Spirits?
Alone With My Tears
2019 Learning To…
Day 15: Die By The Scale
2018 Just Wondering
2017 Until I Think Of Something Better
2016 Who Are You?
2015 Renaissance Reptiles
2014 Book Return
2013 Keep Writing Your Truths
Perilous Times For The U.S. Military
2012 The Victor
2011 Forging Away At My Deadlines
2010 Try This With Your Shoes…

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[Maurice “Mo”] Pinel dedicated a fair portion of his life to disseminating his ideas, and he left behind artifacts such as his YouTube videos that will forever serve as repositories of his eccentric wisdom.  But there was so much he never managed to articulate, so much teaching he still had left to do.  And because he operated in a field that withered a great deal during his decades of involvement, there is perhaps no one left with his breadth of experience nor his bone-deep sense of bowling’s elemental splendor.
This is what the mercilessness of the pandemic has abruptly robbed from us:  tens of thousands of men and women whose rare and hard-won knowledge can never be replicated.  This is how artisanal skills are forgotten, how dialects vanish, how the stories meant to sustain us ebb away from our collective memory.  And it’s all happening at a pace far faster than we can grieve.
After meditating on all that’s been lost, I could come up with only one fitting way to honor what Mo’s time here meant.  As I write these words, I stand precisely 12 days away from being fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.  I plan to celebrate by taking my kids bowling.
    —     Brendan I. Koerner
From his article:  “One Man’s Amazing Journey to the Center of the Bowling Ball
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine;  dtd:  July / August 2021
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On This Day In:
2021 I Think They Mean It
An Endless Stream
2020 ITF (365) – Update
Word Up!
My Fear: A Second More Tyrannous Term
2019 Reality And Imperfection
Day 8: One Stone
2018 Pity The Nation (Part 1)
Day 41: Hiccup Or End Of Days?
2017 Sharp-Edged Beauty
2016 Start, Keep, Finish
2015 Lifetime Friends
2014 Acknowledgement
2013 Longevity, Tenacity and Diversity
2012 What Reagan Really Cared About
2011 Seeming Sane (Or Not)

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Over the last weekend, Senator Lyndsey Graham (R – South Carolina) was interviewed on TV and virtually assured that if former President Trump is indicted for taking classified government documents to Mar-a-Lago, there will be “riots in the streets”.
My response to Sen. Graham is:  “Fine!  Rioters will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law…”
Under 18 U.S.C. § 2384, “seditious conspiracy” occurs when two or more persons:
conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.
NO ONE is above the law – particularly when it comes to the defense of National Security.  This especially includes former Presidents!
If there is sufficient evidence to indict / convict Donald Trump, then he should be indicted, arrested and brought to trial.  If found guilty, Trump should serve time.  If found not guilty, Trump should be released.  He IS presumed to be NOT guilty until he has been found guilty by a jury of his peers.
If individuals (or groups) wish to meet PEACEFULLY to object to / protest the indictment, trial, or results, they have their First Amendment right to do so.  They DO NOT have the right to riot or interfere with the process of the lawful administration of justice.
Anyone found guilty of rioting and / or conspiracy to riot should be placed on a domestic terrorist watch list for the remainder of their natural lives.  They should be reminded that – in the “good, old days” – terrorism, sedition and insurrection were punished by death.
If we – as a nation – accept the threat of violence (“riots in the streets”) as a reason to not prosecute ANYONE who would otherwise be subject to prosecution / trial, then we are no longer a country ruled by law.
The general public needs to be reminded former President Trump was not the only person in his Administration who was aware of the unlawful removal and possession of government documents (not just the “classified” documents), and they should ALL be indicted and prosecuted.  This is the only way to ensure this does not happen again  – by an Administration from either political party.
Equal Justice Under Law…
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On This Day In:
2021 How Learning Infections Begin
Stay Young At Heart
2020 Policies Not People
Just Thinking To Myself
2019 Should I Start With My Religion?
2018 Fear And Hope
Day 33: Good News & Prep
2017 Directions
2016 Handle With Care
2015 Nothing But Pride
2014 Go
2013 Well, Does It?
2012 Near Misses Aren’t Successes
2011 Uncomfortable Feelings
2010 San Francisco (favorites)…
Bullets or Butter?

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I want to know what everything is, and nothing is;  the beauty of a note and the silence which surrounds it.  I like to know and understand myself, and those whom I meet, or nearly meet.  I am conscious that I will not always be conscious:  that my curiosity is unlimited but my time is finite, and I cannot waste a moment of it in acquiring things which will not make me richer in a way I value.
The amusing thing is many would consider me as living in la la land, where poetry is a secret form of currency, and music a mode of transport which might carry me to lands and vistas invisible to the naked eye:  to where angels might dwell and we begin to forgive and truly understand the love which passes all understanding.  I can live with the opinions of the “many”, but I cannot live without my imagination.”
One of the great temptations of life is to lose sight of the beauty of the whole, or the mystery of an instant amidst the mass of worries, jealousies and insecurities which crowd in on the average day, including mine, but while I have a breath to draw I will, whatever my circumstances, raise my eyes in wonder to the horizon and marvel at the miracle of consciousness.
    —     Peter Wells
Originally found at one of the blogs I follow:  Countingducks
Located at:  https://countingducks.wordpress.com
The specific post is:  A Matter Of Philosophy
https://countingducks.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/a-matter-of-philosophy/
[Please visit the original site if you have a few minutes to spare.  You’ll get hooked, too!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021 How Learning Infections Begin
Stay Young At Heart
2020 Policies Not People
Just Thinking To Myself
2019 Should I Start With My Religion?
2018 Fear And Hope
Day 33: Good News & Prep
2017 Directions
2016 Handle With Care
2015 Nothing But Pride
2014 Go
2013 Well, Does It?
2012 Near Misses Aren’t Successes
2011 Uncomfortable Feelings
2010 San Francisco (favorites)…
Bullets or Butter?

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Scientific progress is measured in units of courage, not intelligence.
    —     Paul Dirac
[Found on one of the blogs I follow:  “ram H singhal
Located at:  https://ram0singhal.wordpress.com/
The specific post is at:  https://ram0singhal.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/1933-nobel-prize-in-physics-paul-adrien-maurice-dirac/
Please visit the original site if you have a spare moment.     —     kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021 True Fervor
Still Sparkles
2020 A Destructive Mistake
I’d Rather Live In HER World
2019 And #IncompetentTrump Is A Failure At Both
2018 To Excel At Your Craft
Day 12: Waiting
2017 Like When You Can Order Others To Fight For You
2016 Holding Fast
2015 Alms Or Balms
2014 A Day At The Beach
2013 Pillows
Steppin’
2012 Invincible Summer
2011 Being Objective
2010 First Things First…
Northwest Passages – Intro
Northwest Passages – Day One
Northwest Passages – Poetry
Northwest Passages – Evening One
Northwest Passages – Morning Two

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