Dave’s Musings
I couldn't help but notice the headlines on two consecutive Sundays in the local newspaper. The first was the state of Florida turned down around $11 billion dollars in federal aid, related to climate change and energy usage. The legislature and governor cited "REASONS!" as their rationale, but we all know it was political theater and nothing more. 49 other states gladly accepted money from the feds for these same things.
The second week was a headline that Florida is around $5 billion short in the budget. And as a result, they're going to have to start making cuts around the state. What's the first thing that was mentioned as seeing budget cuts? Give yourself an A+ if you guessed the public education system.
I mean, if people aren't educated enough to see that 11 is bigger than 5, and the amount would cover the budget shortfall and then some, then maybe our education system is failing anyway.
| Our understanding of the universe is based on what we've been able to observe to this point, along with some "educated guesses" based on those observations.
Sometimes that leads to competing theories, or questions about what we're seeing. And recently, the James Webb space telescope solved one such mystery.
The thinking was that gasses would block our ability to see the hydrogen atoms from the formation of galaxies. But, using the Hubble telescope, we could see light coming in from some of these galaxies and it made no sense.
It turns out that many smaller galaxies are merging (or more correctly HAVE merged) and the light is coming from those collisions - the JWST was able to distinguish the faint light and make this clear.
“One of the most puzzling issues that previous observations presented was the detection of light from hydrogen atoms in the very early Universe, which should have been entirely blocked by the pristine neutral gas that was formed after the Big-Bang. Many hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this ‘inexplicable’ emission.”
“Where Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies, and this revelation has had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies.”
https://esawebb.org/news/weic2402/ |
| There are some very cool scientific breakthroughs that are more "fun" than "necessity" but which move the needle in scientific discovery and can lead to other breakthroughs that may be purpose-driven.
One example is something called a "holo tile" which allows someone to walk in any direction on a treadmill floor, and have it interact with the surroundings. Its an amazing advancement, and leads us to think about the "Holodeck" that was presented in Star Trek.
But the deeper story is about the man who created it, Disney Imagineer Lanny Smoot. He also created the retractable lightsaber and the floating head in the Haunted Mansion, among others. He has more than 100 patents and was recently inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame.
His name should be as instantly recognizable as any athlete or self-involved person you see on tv.
https://www.disneytouristblog.com/inventor-imagineer-first-since-walt-disney-to-enter-hall-of-fame/
https://gizmodo.com/vr-breakthough-holotile-disney-imagineering-lanny-smoot-1851178431 |
| There was a story over the holidays about a family that planned a vacation to Disney World. The grandparents of the family went into a local retailer and purchased $10,000 of Disney gift cards.
Only to find out that they had purchased Disney+ gift cards, and not Disney generic gift cards. Oops! Why companies do this is beyond me - you're part of the same company, why not use universal gift cards, duh!
The family panicked for a time - until a Disney Cast Member came to their rescue and transferred the money to Disney cards.
And as an end to the story, they booked their vacation, and then burned up the now-empty Disney+ gift cards in a bonfire on social media. |
| We're in the midst of another "living" example of how climate changes impacts our everyday life.
The Panama Canal is going through a significant drought, which has been linked to a change in the climate. And as such, the number of ships that are able to get through on any given day is down to about half of its daily average.
That means ships are lining up, waiting to get through. And as a result, there are delays in delivering goods - and the cost of the goods will wind up increasing. Its a new version of a supply chain problem, if you will.
I'm sure that there will be some that will attempt to shift blame, to make this political or perhaps twist it for their own gain.
But as thinking and rational people, we can see that there is more happening to our climate that does impact our daily lives.
https://jalopnik.com/a-270-billion-shipping-traffic-jam-threatens-to-snarl-1851171800 |
One Little Spark …
| 70 or so years ago, Ray Bradbury wrote about the banning of books, in a fictional novel called Fahrenheit 451.
And here we are today, with books being banned in the most absurd way possible, not unlike how he penned it happening in fiction.
We've seen historical accounts, and books related to social issues removed for spurious reasons. But with that comes the very real prospect of "collateral damage" in the banning of religious books, books by conservative talk show host / authors, Sherlock Holmes stories, Agatha Christie novels, authors talking about the locality they live in, and even (gasp!) the dictionary being removed from shelves.
It's a crazy world we live in. For now at least, the fact that its banned at school or in a library doesn't make as big of an impact, because much of the world's best (and worst!) works are available through book sellers in physical copies, or online (sometimes even for free). So you can still read these banned books and free your own mind.
More info on book bans here: https://pen.org/issue/book-bans/
And of course, you can read Fahrenheit 451
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Dave’s Musings
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