Thanks Cityview for printing my article

http://www.dmcityview.com/guest-commentary/2014/11/26/des-moines-37-years-of-change/

- end

Links in a chain of scribery

Some book links:

Experimental Tales www.createspace.com/4973862

The Osmotics www.createspace.com/4661301

Mirror Worlds www.createspace.com/3633147

A Strange Enterprise www.createspace.com/4281639

Future Property www.createspace.com/3859469

Shadow Intersection www.createspace.com/4113022

   - end

 

 

Race Divide by Zero

The blacks riot in the streets and scream at

a sea of grim faces behind riot helmets.

Whites pontificate and speculate,

wring hands and bemoan realities.

The Asians who were once virtual slaves

to build railroads and industries are not complaining.

No marches or cries for justice or burn baby burn.

They quietly work and build new foundations –

Homes, businesses and industries. China makes

most everything in our households, but we still

blame each other and delude ourselves.

The Asians will own us all, and laugh their

way to their shiny new banks, while we

squabble and fight over scraps. A few

of us might be able to afford to visit their

casinos on the Moon, but most will just

try to get a job there, to make ends meet.

- end

Things to be thankful for

I have a nice home to live in, and a job,

a car and a cat – many things to be thankful for.

Good to count our blessings as well as shortcomings.

Others are all too willing to count the failures -

I will count blessings and benchmarks and achievements.

There is also this tech revolution I'm privileged to watch:

The ability to select and watch so many programs,

stop, record, save and repeat them on diverse platforms.

The ability to call up information on almost any subject,

save it, record it, print it, and forward it.

Libraries are being rendered obsolete,

and other technologies once stand-alone

are absorbed by this enormous presence called the WWW.

Applications are moving over to cellphones.

Smartphone owners now hold a ticket to the world

in their overworked fingers. Ever-changing reality.

Time to catch the breath, and marvel at the wonders;

taste the goodness our collective table delivers.

Thanksgiving day we can pause, sit and enjoy

good food and company, maybe even put away handheld toys.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Transhumanism

I recently became acquainted with it.  Seems optimistic, hopeful, and worthwhile.  See the below table.  Definitely food for thought.
----------------------------------------------

TABLE OF TRANSHUMANIST VALUES

Core Value

•         Having the opportunity to explore the transhuman and posthuman realms

Basic Conditions

•        Global security
•        Technological progress
•        Wide access

Derivative Values

•         Nothing wrong about “tampering with nature”; the idea of hubris rejected
•         Individual choice in use of enhancement technologies; morphological freedom
•         Peace, international cooperation, anti-proliferation of WMDs
•         Improving understanding (encouraging research and public debate; critical thinking; open-mindedness, scientific inquiry; open discussion of the future)
•         Getting smarter (individually; collectively; and develop machine intelligence)
•         Philosophical fallibilism; willingness to reexamine assumptions as we go along
•         Pragmatism; engineering- and entrepreneur-spirit; science
•         Diversity (species, races, religious creeds, sexual orientations, life styles, etc.)
•         Caring about the well-being of all sentience
•         Saving lives (life-extension, anti-aging research, and cryonic 
•                                               - end

Epiphany at work

It just occurred to me while going through my usual routine today.   There will always be folks making critical or catty remarks, humorous or not.  But real history is always made by those who kept doing things, making things happen.  Like Henry Ford, T. Edison, N. Tesla, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on.  The critics and rock-throwers are not remembered for trying to stop the doers.  The Doers are remembered for persisting, and changing our world. 

Poem like a Comet

We landed on a comet the other day,

after a billion-plus mile journey;

The little guy is named Philae,

set down on the surface with “no worries.”

Another step outward for humanity,

Billion-mile destination achieved

after a long convoluted trajectory,

Accomplishment hardly to be believed.

Someday people will walk on these worlds,

Digging samples and snapping pictures.

“Asteroid for sale” signs will be unfurled,

New homes for many, no longer obscure.

What excuse will we come up with for war now?

“Lebensraum” no longer a reason to start a row.

- end

marking history

     Today the human race sent a spacecraft to orbit a comet traveling towards the Sun.  It detached a small lander, which successfully landed on the surface.    The orbiter is called Rosetta, the lander Philae.  Both are names taken from another historic time, the finding of the Rosetta stone in the early 1800's.  This helped us decode ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
     A historic time we live in, taking these first small steps.   The Dawn probe visited a minor planet in the Asteroid belt, and is on its way to another.  Other probes have visited every planet out to Neptune, and now New Horizons is speeding on towards Pluto and the Kuiper belt  (due to arrive in 2015).   Heady times.   Perhaps future occupants of a greater Solar System presence will celebrate our historic first steps - or at least make schoolchildren remember the dates.
     A hearty congratulations goes out to the ESA for their accomplishment.  Eagerly awaiting first photographs from the surface of the comet.   
     - end

Winters blast

     As I struggle to insulate my house against the coming onslaught of winter, it is difficult to keep it all in perspective.   The surface of the comet that the Rosetta space probe will be sending a lander to is much colder.  Perhaps as cold as 300 degrees below zero.  The surface of Pluto is minus 350 degrees.  In some regions of space it goes down to minus 400-some.  Compared to that, our overnight low of 35 degrees seems positively balmy.  
     Just counting my (chilled) blessings here in the Midwestern US. 

     On another note, I read that DARPA is supposedly working on computer programmer code that would autocomplete, much as word processors and smartphones do now.  In my humble opinion, we have gone far enough.  I can't type anything anymore without some stupid program thinking I am stupid and trying to suggest what word it thinks I want to type.  It is wrong most of the time, and just makes me angry and frustrated.  So much of the 'autocomplete' technology just makes a lot of people angirer and more frustrated.  Why do this to people?  It is just not right.

     Next thing you know, our cars will be loaded with auto-drive.    You will drive to the store, and a few other places.  Then, when you try to go to work, the wheel will spin left instead of right or whatever, and take you to the grocery store, auto-completing for you, assuming you are not smart enough to drive your own vehicle.  F*** autocomplete and autocorrect - I loathe both of them.  Thanks for reading.

Post-election reminder

Republican winners:  From the early 1930's up until the early 1970's, the US economy underwent the largest expansion ever. Our standard of living increased greatly, our life expectancy increased, and our sens of well-being increased. I can remember my dad saying that back in the 1930's, Nobody had any money. Nobody. We were all poor. By the early 1970's many people had a comfortable standard of living. Sure, we had poor, but we also had a thriving middle class, with good union-scale wages.

Interestingly enough, there was also a large expansion of social programs. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps. Other assistance to the poor.

Compassion and taking care of the least of us paid off pretty well, it would seem. Try not to cut the throat of the workers who will bear the brunt of our economy – you may be cutting your own throats as a result.  Thanks for reading.

Talented chef link

Follow this for some wonderful meal ideas, complete with screenshots.

http://briantaylorcarlson.wordpress.com/

Enjoy.

Honey, my honey

Why do you scamper about so?

I try to bring you in before dark,

cold, damp dusk descends unsafe

about you, but you stay on your lark.

Hope that you come to the door,

but check it every twenty minutes,

just in case you get hungry.

What a troublesome bundle of fluff!

Every other time you do show up,

hungry or bored or chilled, and mewl loud,

accusing me of neglect or abandonment.

But might this time be a first?

Hit by a car?

Grabbed by a hawk or owl?

Stolen and carried afar?

Nabbed by animal control?

Just have to live with my fears again,

since I am too soft on you,

and let you outside every time

you cry “please” to me.

Not sure who is more guilty here.

Oh wait, what is that I hear at the door?

- end

October Woods

High tech so far away now

that I am deep in elm and ash,

swooshing through leaves

as I hunt down the right trail.

Problems recede under filtered

glare of October sunshine;

“What does anything matter?

Look at the beauty of nature!”

For a time the world's problems

get postponed as I breathe

leafy air and absorb bright color.

This, a last gift from Mother...

Before she slams us with snow,

punishes us with bitter cold and ice,

hides it all in darkness so we fall.

Spring will come hard, prayer by prayer.

But today I am gifted autumnal beauty.

Hurrah!

-end

New Gods

Wind turbines, wind turbines spinning away the day,

Busy blades chopping up particulate-laden air,

a harsh spin cycle

for the big polluters

chagrin.

Wind turbines, wind turbines catching bright suns rays,

spinning and tossing prism beams every which way.

Gleaming white towers topped by coruscating hopes.

Old windmills must have seemed like man’s prideful

assault on the gods - modern giants even more audacious

shred Odin’s beard, and rile up the denizens

of Asgard to no end. Bolts of lightning fury may

rain down upon them, yet to no avail.

Move over, obsolete deities --

the Alternative Energy gods have arrived;

They rule over all who have come before.

- end

Ballad of the new Pandemic

(tongue planted firmly in cheek - sense of humor on)

This is a tale of two doctors and a nurse,

who set out to help and came back much worse.

They went over to help, and brought back a plague.

One doctor went to Omaha and got a new serum,

He recovered and was cured, you should'a heard 'em.

They went over to help, and brought back the plague.

The other ended up in Texas and tragically died.

The relatives and the medical community cried.

They went over to help, and brought back the plague.

It was thought it stopped there, but alas was not to be;

A young nurse got infected, by some protocol breach.

They went over to help, and brought back the plague.

Now she is in isolation, and may not recover;

From the President on down, reassurances hover.

They went over to help, and brought back the plague.

Move over, climate change, forget the ISIS threat.

Any challenges from Russia will somehow get met.

They went over to help, and brought back the plague.

Economic disasters and stock market gyrations

do not really compare to pandemic mass infections.

For the time being a deadly virus has center stage,

Ebola threatens mortal fever, no matter your age.

 - end

Book Links Links Links

Experimental Tales www.createspace.com/4973862

The Osmotics www.createspace.com/4661301

Mirror Worlds www.createspace.com/3633147

A Strange Enterprise www.createspace.com/4281639

Future Property www.createspace.com/3859469

Shadow Intersection www.createspace.com/4113022

 

Happy X-ray Trails

The day we saw x-ray trails

out among some Messier objects,

enthusiasm for space was re-born.

Rejuvenated and enhanced was our

excitement for exploring the greater cosmos.

Alien exhaust plumes really got our BP up.

A building frenzy took place overnight,

New populations arose on Moon and Mars,

spinning colonies scattered like spores out

towards the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud.

Although many understood that natures laws

are immutable across the Universe and time,

traveling ship captains were still surprised when

who should greet them in the vast beyond but

replicas of themselves.

Bipedal humanoids succeeded on other worlds, too.

Replete with qualities (good and bad) similar to us.

The wars began soon after. Ultimately the whole galaxy was

trashed with the scattered debris of warfare.

We never learn, no matter where we are.

Only our religion, way of life, belief system

is correct – theirs is foreign, alien, wrong.

Let the shooting begin. Let the dying keep on.

No one ever wins, until the whole universe

winds down and ends – in another

Big

Bang!

Dissapearing Cranium

Where did you go,

Mysterious one - all head,

no body – no past - no future.

Why a girl?

You rose from flat to shimmer,

taking form and shape.

Although sculpted you

seemed to emerge from

another dimension,

Plensa's dexterous portal.

Wherever you went,

you carried the answers.

Left an empty space,

that filled up with questions

before someone shoved another

sculpture in to fill your place.

Poor substitute it is,

for your unending grace.

Perhaps someday we will

see you again, floating in space.

     - end

Hamming it up

I decided to build a Ham Radio today,

A homemade set to transmit and receive;

Can hear overseas news without delay.

Momentous events carried on the relay,

Transmitted faster than I could conceive;

I decided to build a Ham Radio today.

Many other household projects defrayed,

intricate wiring and soldering achieved;

Now I can hear distant news without delay.

Remote greetings and frivolity also conveyed,

Cultural exchanges of new ideas to be believed;

It was a good time to build a Ham Radio Today.

Precise assembly instructions duly obeyed,

Successful operation left me greatly relieved.

Now I follow worldwide events without delay.

How many new folks I have met is hard to say,

dozens of QSL cards have already been retrieved.

I decided it was time to build a Ham Radio today,

Now I can track world events without delay.

- end

Change in the Weather

Supposed to be sunny, they say.

Warm and balmy 70 degrees;

When morning arrives, so do the clouds.

Raindrops and wind soon follow.

Once in a while is forgivable,

but several times a week – condemnable.

Spring and Fall are unsettled of course,

so why don't they admit defeat and say,

“Folks we are just not sure what it will do.”

Honesty one can appreciate,

especially when assessing the weather.

Talking heads on TV can speculate,

turning leaves and caterpillars still do better.

- end