Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires." - James Clear

 "I feel a great comfort and relief knowing that there were others who lived and died and thought and fought so long ago; I feel less tyrannized by the present day." - Iggy Pop

"Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum." - P.J. O'Rourke

"Neil deGrasse Tyson is the go-tp scientist for people who wear masks in public parks." - Jordan Schachel

I Miss Norm Macdonald

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

"Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?" - Charles Bukowski... I thought Neil DeGrasse-Tyson was a bit pompous and full of himself (and perhaps he is) but if I'm being honest with myself I was probably just jealous of his quickness of intellect... So now 2020 has also given us "Meth-gators"... "Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things." - G.K. Chesterton... Another example why you can't trust experts... "It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the management of them." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld... If you have time today please read this essay "Solzhenitsyn's Prophesy." I would suggest that it is not just that "Men have forgotten God" as Solzhenitsyn states but as Bukowski suggests that people have forgotten who they themselves are out of conformity. That our great nation is forgetting obvious things in efforts to contort ourselves to meet the accepted concepts of the current moment as Chesterton suggests. And that our nation has the greatest framework for freedom, success and happiness but we are losing the management of the principles and guidelines of our Constitution as the de La Rochefoucauld quote suggests...

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Big Bang to Adam Carolla

Neil: Once there was a single point in the universe that was unimaginatively small and dense. So dense that all the matter in the universe was contained in that single tiny point.

Adam: Whoa, whoa whoa!  How could it be unimaginatively small if you egg-heads imagined it? Sorry but you can't sneak those things by me because of my hyper-vigilance.

Neil: OK! OK! Now suddenly this incredibly small point explodes. Trillions and trillions of atoms burst forth. Atoms of matter and anti-matter. The atoms of matter and anti-matter annihilate each other. For each 400,000 billion atoms of matter and anti-matter just a single atom survives the annihilation. And those surviving atoms are what end up making up the universe - you, me, the planets, the stars, everything.

Adam: So what you're saying is the Big Bang was like if God farted...

Neil: Dude - what?

Adam: Yeah imagine God's unimaginatively small clenched sphincter. Then suddenly boom! The universe's biggest fart. The air outside annihilates the air from the fart and all that is left over is a tiny bit of fecal matter. You, me, the planets, the stars, everything - we're God's leftover fecal matter.

Neil: Well I guess that's one way to look at it but Adam you know I'm an atheist right?

Adam: Me too - but if you can imagine that other shit why not this?

EDIT: I'm traveling this afternoon so re-posting this amusing bit from last May

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Big Bang to Adam Carolla

Neil: Once there was a single point in the universe that was unimaginatively small and dense. So dense that all the matter in the universe was contained in that single tiny point.

Adam: Whoa, whoa whoa!  How could it be unimaginatively small if you egg-heads imagined it? Sorry but you can't sneak those things by me because of my hyper-vigilance.

Neil: OK! OK! Now suddenly this incredibly small point explodes. Trillions and trillions of atoms burst forth. Atoms of matter and anti-matter. The atoms of matter and anti-matter annihilate each other. For each 400,000 billion atoms of matter and anti-matter just a single atom survives the annihilation. And those surviving atoms are what end up making up the universe - you, me, the planets, the stars, everything.

Adam: So what you're saying is the Big Bang was like if God farted...

Neil: Dude - what?

Adam: Yeah imagine God's unimaginatively small clenched sphincter. Then suddenly boom! The universe's biggest fart. The air outside annihilates the air from the fart and all that is left over is a tiny bit of fecal matter. You, me, the planets, the stars, everything - we're God's leftover fecal matter.

Neil: Well I guess that's one way to look at it but Adam you know I'm an atheist right?

Adam: Me too - but if you can imagine that other shit why not this?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Intuition vs Rationality: Where one stops and the other starts

- Why Uber's self-driving car killed that woman. Uber seems like the type of company that is only concerned about safety after the fact and only if bad PR is hurting the company. I don't think Uber will last long-term. A new technology or more customer friendly company will replace them.

- Have the feeling you may not be seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson much on TV till this is resolved.

- This is quite a booklist.

- GM Layoffs: A tragedy caused by embracing government subsidies not markets. Get woke go broke indeed!

- When the histories are written one of the main tragedies of our era will be recognized as the subversion of pure science to political or PC considerations

This Week in Musk World

The week started with Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining that Elon Musk is the most important person in tech. More important than Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. While I don't necessarily disagree with Neil - doesn't it seem like he's always "explaining" things? Part of me is bugged by the idea of Neil deGrasse Tyson hogging the science spotlight that rightfully should go to some Nobel Prize winning physicist or you know someone who has actually accomplished something. You know - someone like Elon Musk.

Later in the week Elon tweeted out this list of every all-electric car available in the US. You wonder if he was honestly trying to be helpful or so cocky that he's actually saying "Here I'll save you some time - here's all the electric cars you can buy but Tesla is the best." I think it was probably a little bit of both.

And speaking of Tesla competitors, ex-GM Vice-Chair blasts Tesla, saying saying supporters "like members of religious cult."  The Motley Fool points out that GM's latest moves might be part of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Maybe that guy is an "ex" GM Vice-Chair because he didn't join the cult?

Meanwhile Bloomberg asks Did Elon Musk forget about Buffalo? The article is referencing the so-called GigaFactory 2 solar panel facility which received $750 million in NY State aid (before Tesla bought Solar City). One line from the article confused me. "It's a complete hoo-ha," says John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany. Wait isn't this a complement? In my world hoo-ha's are beautiful, beautiful things. 

Lastly the Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla is the hot spot for young job seekers. First you get the job, then you get the money, then you get the hoo-ha!

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Big Bang to Adam Carolla

Neil: Once there was a single point in the universe that was unimaginatively small and dense. So dense that all the matter in the universe was contained in that single tiny point.

Adam: Whoa, whoa whoa!  How could it be unimaginatively small if you egg-heads imagined it? Sorry but you can't sneak those things by me because of my hyper-vigilance.

Neil: OK! OK! Now suddenly this incredibly small point explodes. Trillions and trillions of atoms burst forth. Atoms of matter and anti-matter. The atoms of matter and anti-matter annihilate each other. For each 400,000 billion atoms of matter and anti-matter just a single atom survives the annihilation. And those surviving atoms are what end up making up the universe - you, me, the planets, the stars, everything.

Adam: So what you're saying is the Big Bang was like if God farted...

Neil: Dude - what?

Adam: Yeah imagine God's unimaginatively small clenched sphincter. Then suddenly boom! The universe's biggest fart. The air outside annihilates the air from the fart and all that is left over is a tiny bit of fecal matter. You, me, the planets, the stars, everything - we're God's leftover fecal matter.

Neil: Well I guess that's one way to look at it but Adam you know I'm an atheist right?

Adam: Me too - but if you can imagine that other shit why not this?

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Big Bang to Adam Carolla

Neil: Once there was a single point in the universe that was unimaginatively small and dense. So dense that all the matter in the universe was contained in that single tiny point.

Adam: Whoa, whoa whoa!  How could it be unimaginatively small if you egg-heads imagined it? Sorry but you can't sneak those things by me because of my hyper-vigilance.

Neil: OK! OK! Now suddenly this incredibly small point explodes. Trillions and trillions of atoms burst forth. Atoms of matter and anti-matter. The atoms of matter and anti-matter annihilate each other. For each 400,000 billion atoms of matter and anti-matter just a single atom survives the annihilation. And those surviving atoms are what end up making up the universe - you, me, the planets, the stars, everything.

Adam: So what you're saying is the Big Bang was like if God farted...

Neil: Dude - what?

Adam: Yeah imagine God's unimaginatively small clenched sphincter. Then suddenly boom! The universe's biggest fart. The air outside annihilates the air from the fart and all that is left over is a tiny bit of fecal matter. You, me, the planets, the stars, everything - we're God's leftover fecal matter.

Neil: Well I guess that's one way to look at it but Adam you know I'm an atheist right?

Adam: Me too - but if you can imagine that other shit why not this?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The new Cosmos trailer. Neil de Grasse-Tyson takes the place of Carl Sagan and it will be on Fox instead of PBS. Very cool.

- Jimmy Fallon, the Roots and Robin Thicke sing Blurred Lines. Very wholesome. I like this original version better (NSFW)

- Alexander Wilds stunning insect photography.

- Speaking of fantastic photography - the winners of the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest

- Laws for the Navigation of Life - These 22 "rules" are simply inspiring as is the author Peter Safar.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

Heh heh - A comparison of Presidents working at home

Sometime I have the maturity of a 10-year old. That said - this is funny in any language.

Not sure how I feel about this. Anthony Bourdain leaves Travel Channel for CNN. I Liked No Reservations the way it was. I hope this move doesn't screw things up.

A 2nd grader asks Neil DeGrasse-Tyson what would happen if one black hole came in contact with another black hole.