It Feels Like Summer

So the start of this week ended up with me having a flu/cold.  I'm not even sure how I've gotten over this so quick save that tonight we are headed to a Lindsey Stirling concert, and I didn't want to be a zombie during it.  Maybe that was part of it, or else it was the juice, water, and drugs that have helped me over the edge to the other side of "less sick", but hopefully this will be gone by next week--fingers crossed.

So we have ants--the little sugar-eating kind.  I really hate them.  They're annoying, and if you let them, they can take over your house.  We're combatting them with death-bait, but more of them just keep appearing.  It's like we get one group to go away and another finds its way into the house.  That said, ...you have to give the ants credit; they haven't given up.

I caught a TED Talk about what ants can teach us about uncontrolled systems, and while I'm still not sure I want ants all over the house, the way that they approach life may just be able to help us in dealing with cancer, exploration, and understanding our own brains.


As many of you may or may not know, I really love music of all kinds.  I also love technology.  The fact that these two things have merged is pretty amazing, as it facilitates a kind of self-expression that can insert an homage to the past while allowing us to experience it in the present as something new.  People can express their views with the voices and thoughts of their own heroes--and their music.  While this isn't a revelation with regard to what we can do with technology and music, I think it allows for a deeper appreciation of a form of expression that most people don't understand--or want to understand.  But I think it's important--for reasons I can't really put my finger on right now.  So, with that in mind, I want to share with you another insightful TED Talk about sampling and how it has transformed our ideas about music.


I've been talking a lot the past few weeks about space and the International Space Station.  So it comes as no surprise that I mention it again--only this time, it's in relation to the situation in Ukraine.  My thoughts on the situation over there are many and varied, but there has always been conflict in Ukraine, and I doubt that what's going on now is going to bring an end to that.  In fact, I'm fairly certain it's only going to create further conflict.  That said, the turmoil has spilled over into our relationship with Russia over the International Space Station.

The U. S. wants to keep the station running for an additional four years, something that Russian, right now, isn't really in favor of doing.  And unfortunately, right now, Russia is the only way people are getting to the ISS.  They claim that the U.S. is making this matter a political one, but from what I can see, they both are.  What's frustrating to me, however, is the fact that the ISS is even a bargaining chip at all.

This was to be a joint endeavor to help humanity explore our potential.  It was meant to end the space race--not be a tool whereby nations threaten one another in order to get what they want and screw everyone else.

I think the right thing to do here is not to allow the ISS to become part of the political discussion at all.  In fact, I hope that the U. S. and Russia will realize the harm they're doing by using it this way.  And I hope that they will stop--that they will take a step back, realize that the ISS isn't "theirs"--but that it belongs to all of humanity.  And that's how it should stay.  If Russia or the U. S. wants to pull out, ...that's fine.  But the ISS should remain a place where all the people of Earth can learn, study, and create.

As many of you have all ready heard, there is growing concern over the glaciers in Antarctica.  From what I can gather, the base of the glaciers is being eroded away by warm water--thus lessening their size overall.  And there seems to be very little that can stop this.  So very little that some scientists who recently released a new paper on the subject are saying that this melting is now unstoppable.  They are certain that this is due in large part to global warming trends that have changed the wind currents, and thus affected the oceans.

The good news is that the melting is a slow process, and that our oceans will rise, over the next 200 or so years, by only about 4 ft.  But what does that mean for the larger scale of things?  Weather?  Climate?  Not a big change--at least for now.

The importance of this news stems from the fact that it is based on actual data, not computer models, and the scientists who spoke at the NASA Antarctic news conference seemed fairly convinced that more study was necessary.  That said, their fields of study were not comprehensive, and it's possible that other science fields may yield more data--or computer models--for us to chew through in the months and years to come.


So why is this such a big deal? 

It supports the theory that global warming is happening with actual data that spans a forty year period.  And that is important for all of us, because it will help us to determine what we can do to ensure our continued survival here on Earth.