“According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real root of suffering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this pursuit, the mind is never satisfied. Even when experiencing pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and intensify. People are liberated from suffering not when they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation practices. In meditation, you are supposed to closely observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising and passing of all your feelings, and realize how pointless it is to pursue them. When the pursuit stops, the mind becomes very relaxed, clear and satisfied. All kinds of feelings go on arising and passing – joy, anger, boredom, lust – but once you stop craving particular feelings, you can just accept them for what they are. You live in the present moment instead of fantasizing about what might have been. The resulting serenity is so profound that those who spend their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on the seashore, embracing certain ‘good’ waves and trying to prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously pushing back ‘bad’ waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day out, the man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with this fruitless exercise. Eventually, he sits down on the sand and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. How peaceful!” Yuval Noah Harari

The above two images are from Nasa Hubble Space Telescope and they made headlines at the end of March for a star that is 12.9 billion years away from earth. Meaning that it has taken light 12.9 billion years to reach us. We are seeing light that came from the universe when it was only about 7 percent of it current age. Hubble was able to capture this image due to gravitational lensing. This was caused by a chance alignment with a huge galaxy cluster located between the star and the telescope. The galaxy cluster is so massive that it warps the fabric of space time, creating a type of magnifying glass. The scientists that discovered the star named it Earendel or morning star. There is hope that when the James Webb telescope is fully calibrated, it can confirm Earendel and measure for temperature and brightness. If you would like to learn more check out this link: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/record-broken-hubble-spots-farthest-star-ever-seen and the YouTube video below!

“The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realized how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image take by the Hubble Space Telescope and it is of the galaxy NGC 5921 and it is about 80 million light years from earth. Or another way to think about it, is that it has taken the light of this galaxy 80 million years to reach us. How extraordinary that is when you think about it. Of course this is not considering the first image in this blog post. That one took light about 13 billion years to reach us. I think numbers like these can lose their meaning if you don’t have frames of reference. A way that I get my mind around it is by thinking of seconds: One millions seconds equals about 11 days, but 1 billion seconds equals almost 32 years. Big difference. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Walsh; Acknowledgment: R. Colombari. If you would like to learn more about the above image or see a calculator for seconds to years and vise versa, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goodard/2002/hubble-spies-a-serpentine-spiral and https://www.calculateme.com/time/seconds/to-years/1000000

“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we’ll really get paradise in return? We’ve seen it on television.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral galaxy NGC 7172 and it is approximately 110 million light years from earth. It was first cataloged by the English astronomer John Herschel on September 23rd, 1834. It is located in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus, which means “the southern fish.” The constellation is in the southern celestial hemisphere. The galaxy made news when astronomers inspected the electromagnetic spectrum and discovered it had a supermassive blackhole at it’s center powering its galactic nucleus. This type of nucleus is characterized by a intensely bright compact core as in the above image and is known as a Seyfert galaxy. These are named after Carl Seyfert, who was an American astronomer that did significant research in this area of astronomy. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. J. Rosario, A. Barth; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz. If you would like to learn more about this galaxy, constellation and Carl Seyfert, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-views-a-galaxy-with-an-active-black-hole and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-active-spiral-galaxy-ngc-7172-10654.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscis_Austrinus and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Keenan_Seyfert

“It takes a lot of courage to fight biases and oppressive regimes, but it takes even greater courage to admit ignorance and venture into the unknown. Secular education teaches us that if we don’t know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging our ignorance and looking for new evidence. Even if we think we know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of doubting our opinions and checking ourselves again. Many people are afraid of the unknown, and want clear-cut answers for every question. Fear of the unknown can paralyze us more than any tyrant. People throughout history worried that unless we put all our faith in some set of absolute answers, human society will crumble. In fact, modern history has demonstrated that a society of courageous people willing to admit ignorance and raise difficult questions is usually not just more prosperous but also more peaceful than societies in which everyone must unquestioningly accept a single answer. People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image of the galaxy NGC 4571. Can you guess what kind of galaxy this is? If you said spiral, then you are right. The image was made with the Hubble Space Telescope using it’s Wide Field Camera 3. The galaxy is about 60 million light years from earth and is located in the constellation Virgo. Which is the second largest constellation in the zodiac. The above galaxy is located in what is know as an asterism. A group of stars having a popular name but smaller in size than a constellation. An example of this is the Big Dipper which comprises seven of the brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. Another one would be the Southern Cross. The asterism for this galaxy is called Coma Berenices. It is an ancient asterism dating back to the time of the early Greeks and Egyptians. It is named after an Egyptian queen Berenice II Euergetis. The name translates as Bernice’s Hair. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team. If you would like to learn more about the above constellation, and Queen Berenice please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-spies-a-stunning-spiral and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-ngc-4571-10634.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterism_(astronomy) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_II_of_Egypt

“How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realize this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realize this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist.” Yuval Noah Harari

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I! Yea for us again! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this until the Covid Marry-Go-Round is done. Lol. Man it has been long enough!

Looking at the numbers on April 6th, it appears that in the last 30 days (March 6th to April 6th) we have added another 26 thousand deaths for a total of 1,010, 537. Yes you read that right! We went over the 1 million death mark back at the end of March! The only good news about this is we are down one half the deaths from the previous 30 days.

The above image has not changed from the last month. All of the same states for the number of deaths is still the same. Of course, Florida is not reporting. I always assumed that the CDC could go to a state to assess the public health hazards and make recommendations or to see if counting statistics are being accurately reported in the name of public health. But this is not the case. Because the CDC did not exist at the time the Constitution was written, the CDC has no jurisdiction over state rights. Meaning that they have no power to ensure things are being counted accurately in the name of protecting the public health. They have to be invited in. Does make you wonder if we need some kind of Constitutional Amendment that can be used when the next pandemic occurs to help ensure public health. In my opinion the CDC needs more control and legal enforcement in matters of public health.

By the middle of the month we had added another 5000 deaths in this country alone. Again it is hard to get your head wrapped around these numbers. And due to the variant BA2 the cases had climbed again to about 40 thousand per day. But due to home testing and non-reporting this is probably an underestimate of how many new cases are occurring per day. At least hospitalizations have not climbed much. This is not due to the variant being less severe but due to the number of individuals that are vaccinated, have gotten booster shots or had prior Covid. It is much more transmissible than previous variants. Right up there with Chicken Pox. Some states like New York have reinstated mask mandates due to rising numbers.

Around the middle of the month a Federal Judge ruled in Florida (of course) on a case that said the CDC over stepped it bounds when issuing a mask mandates. Her name is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. I am wondering if she realizes how much death and disability she will have caused over the coming months. Shortly after this ruling the airlines and other transit systems dropped their mask mandates. Oh well – “Stupid is as stupid does.”

By the end of the month or the day of publishing we were up to about 55 thousand cases per day officially. Of course this number was much higher due to unreported testing with the home kits and some states that have just stopped reporting in a timely manner. The total death count was approximately 1,020,500. Or about 10 thousand extra deaths in the last 23 days. So while that is a big number, at least it is going in the right direction of down. I hoping that I can keep saying this for the next month. Time will tell.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Again enough about Covid! Lol. I will be so glad when this is over. The month of March was a good one for getting outdoors. I did not do a lot of running because of a knee injury but I did get in a lot of walking. Pretty much everyday with the dog and Janet. Due to the weather patterns and lots of wind, the air quality was pretty good. I would even have to say since the start of this year the air quality has been unusually good. And that my friends has been a blessing and a curse. The wind has been the reason for the cleaner air but when you add in the current drought conditions here on the front range, it has created some very significant fire danger. So far, we have been pretty lucky. There have been a few small fires, that were quickly controlled, but nothing like what has been going on in New Mexico and Arizona. It seems like this is way too early in the year for these types of conditions and I am a little nervous about what the summer will bring.

I did not have a lot of pictures of mountain scenes due to my knee injury. In order to help heal the knee, I had to really decrease the amount of running that I was doing and just keep the walking. Of course the knee injury did not just happen but was the result of me overdoing it. Lol. If you are a runner then you will know what I mean. As runners we all have this mindset that if a little is good then more is better and I am guilty. What is the old saying “We are our own worst enemy.” Oh well, live and learn. Then relearn, then promise yourself you won’t do that again. Then forget you said that and do it again… Lol.

It was another great month for reading. And I would like give a couple of book recommendations.

First, if you interested in a great A.I. book written by a world renowned researcher in said field go no further until you check out the book called Human Compatible:  Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell.  What I found most interesting in this book was the author’s view of what we might expect from A.I. in the near future and what most likely is still just a fantasy, even in the long term.  Of course with this said the author does bring up the old joke about “What an old professor says is not possible, has probably already happened or will happen very soon, but what a young professor says is just around the corner, is usually years off.”  All kidding aside it is an interesting book looking at this topic.  From the possible development of human level general A.I. (Strong A.I.) to the personal data assistant (Weak A.I.). 

He also devotes a significant part of the book to how we might be able to develop A.I. in such way that we won’t end up with the Terminator and Skynet issues depicted in Hollywood Movies.  You might be thinking that is a ways off, but in reality we might get there quicker than you imagined even without the development of a strong A.I.  Think of a really smart but not sentient data assistant.  I would love to have something like this to help with my day to day life.  It would be wonderful until one human decides to use it against another human.  Or a group of humans?  Or… you can see where this might lead.  So how do we prevent a simple concept as the personnel data assistant from being used in a malicious way?  Good question with so many possibilities for things to go wrong so to speak.  This is a great book to read if you want to get a broader understanding of where we are with A.I. and it’s possible future development.  Of course, I listened to this book as an audio book but it would work well in any format.  You can find it on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/3Mqx6Vj

The next book I would like to recommend is one by a former MIT president Susan Hockfield and is called “The Age of Living Machines: How the Convergence of Biology and Engineering Will Build the Next Technology Revolution.”  If you are someone that has not been following some of the technological changes occurring in genetics and what is termed bio-engineering / synthetic biology, then this short book would be a good one to read.  She gives examples of using “biology” to potentially solve real world problems that would usually be approached as a classical physics challenge in the past. 

One of my favorite examples from the book was the research in using a virus to make a battery at the nano scale level.  That is using a genetically modified “biological virus” to assemble inorganic molecules into predesigned structures to make the battery.  Another one was the research in creating engineered viral or bacterial colonies to filter water and air for humans similar to what you would find in aquariums. Now be warned there is some plugging for MIT and she does mention a few times she was a former MIT president but if you can get past that advertising, it is an interesting and thought provoking book to say the least.  I got it as an audio book but it would work well in any format.  You can find the book on Amazon:    https://amzn.to/3K6m71H  

The next book that I would like to STRONGLY recommend is “Basic Economics, Fifth Edition:  A Common Sense Guide to the Economy” by Thomas Sowell.  Mr. Sowell is an American economist, historian, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  If you were like me, you might have gotten a basic economic course in college (a long time ago) but that would be about it or if you were someone who did not go to college then you probably have never taken one. Maybe in High School? I don’t really know.  Either way this is a book that is for all of us.  The only people I would leave out would be those that are actual economist. What I loved about this book is the author uses real world examples of past events to help explain each chapter topic.  And with all the things going on in the world today with the pandemic, like supply chain issues, higher gas prices, inflation in general, housing, etc.…  This is a very relevant book.   

What I learned in each chapter helped me to see past some of the current political BS that is spun by both political parties when it comes to how the economy is doing or not doing.  Lol.  Now be warned this is a big book and I got it as an audio book.  There was 24 hours of listening time.  I think it would work well in any format but I am one of those readers that does better with “dry” material as an audio book.  I would listen to a single chapter while doing house chores or on a long walk with the dog.  And this worked very well for me.  I actually found myself listening to some chapters more than once.  This is an excellent book on how the economy functions.  Of course you can find it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/3KdHjTs    

Last but not least I would like to show case a piece of art work. I call this one Cosmic Sisters. I got the idea after reading about the LIGO detector for gravitational waves. GWs had been theorized to exist but up until LIGO it was just a theoretical idea. One of the research questions that led to the building of the detector was if you have binary pulsars (2 neutron stars orbiting each other) they should create gravitational waves. And low and behold that is what they found. This confirmation of gravitational waves has opened up new areas of research in Astrophysics. Which I think is pretty cool. The sisters represent a Binary Pulsar.

This piece measures 14 inches wide by 17 inches tall. It is done in pen and ink and sealed with mod podge. The drawing is done on thick paper and mounted to painted (black) white board.

COSMIC SISTERS

This piece and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! Before I go I want to touch on the report by the International Renewable Energy Agency that came out at the end of March. In a nutshell the report says that if we want to avoid catastrophic warming, let me say that again, catastrophic warming in the coming years we much take “radical action” to prevent it. Wow! Radical action. Meaning that we need to drop our world wide carbon emissions by 45% in the next 8 years. Think about that for a moment. By 2030, we need to be 45% lower in our carbon emissions. Unreal when you think about it.

So how do we do this?? We don’t want things to look like the above picture. Will switching to Electric Vehicles save the planet? The simple answer is NO. It is not enough. It is going to take a lot more. And this will mean lifestyle changes. How we work, how we play, how we eat, how we produce power, even how many pets we have. All of these things have to come into play.

If a lot of this sounds like too much to deal with, there is another way of pulling all of the different factors together. And that is becoming minimalist. It will lower the carbon foot print. And it is something we can all do on an individual level. It is a way to fight back against our over rampant consumeristic culture that is leading to an unlivable planet. When I first heard about the idea of minimalism I thought of a monk living in a monastery, bare walls, owning nothing, eating the same gruel each and everyday, etc.… But in reality this is not the case, though I guess if you wanted to do this you could. Lol. Minimalism is different for each individual. You choose how much “minimalism” you want in your life and how much you don’t want. It is about understanding what matters most in life and removing the things that do not support the “what matters most part.” Of course this usually translates to getting rid of all unnecessary material goods as a first step. But it does not have to be. Minimalism is so much more than just this.  And again, let me stress, each individual decides how much “minimalism” they want in there life. Becoming minimalist is just a change in mindset. Nothing to buy, nothing to purchase, just a change in how you look at your life and the world.

Ok, ok, enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/ and https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey