Monthly Archives: January 2021
It’s been a while since the last Brain Bubbles post. There remains something undefined in my mind about the Brain Bubbles category, and it’s lately been a way of posting about a bunch of topics too short to be worthy of a post. (I just can’t seem to get into short-form blogging.)
This post is no exception, and I’ll warn you some rants lie ahead — I’m still annoyed by various spammers, but more and more I’m fed up with certain kinds of clickbait I see in my newsfeed. I’ve blocked a few platforms for being sick of their crap.
On a more positive note, I finally bought a humidifier.
Continue reading
13 Comments | tags: die horribly spammers, humidifier, vanish from the earth spammers | posted in Brain Bubble
Resistance is Futile!
You will be assimilated!
Because why not? At some point one gets exhausted avoiding the Kool-Aid. (Which, for some probably neurologically depressing reason, I always type as “Kook-Aid” — or maybe it’s just a Freudian negligee. I mean slip. Underwear of some kind anyway.)
It’s a matter of not fighting an unwinnable battle. I used to use screen captures to recreate my various exquisitely customized toolbars after app updates. Exhausting. Finally, I just gave up and used the defaults.
The Kook-Aid in this case is the Microsoft Edge browser.
Continue reading
18 Comments | tags: Chrome browser, FireFox browser, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla, web browser | posted in Computers
While broadcast TV seems more and more of a wasteland to me, I decided to check out a new show on NBC, Mr. Mayor. I’ve been re-watching The Good Place (again; such a good show), and I’ve long been a fan of Ted Danson’s work. When I saw he was in a new comedy I figured it was worth checking out.
I think I’ve mentioned I like to approach new work as uninformed about it as possible (I actively avoid trailers and reviews of things I haven’t seen). So when the first episode began and I saw it was another series from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock (who brought us 30 Rock), my interest skyrocketed.
On the other hand, so did my expectations.
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: Holly Hunter, Mr. Mayor (TV series), Robert Carlock, Ted Danson, Tina Fey | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
When I started this blog back in 2011, it was always my intention to write about the Yin and Yang of our physical reality and a putative metaphysical one. Call it programming if you wish, but I have a life-long commitment to the perceived reality of the latter. I have a faith, deliberately irrational though it be.
I also have a life-long commitment to science and the physical world, and I’ve never had much trouble reconciling the two. That’s the thing I’ve been wanting to write about; how a spiritual life is not contrary or exclusive to a scientific one.
In fact, I believe they are the Yin-Yang of a complete person.
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: God, science and spirituality, science fiction, spirituality | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
Today the sun simultaneously set and rose. We had our own democratic version of: “The King is dead! Long live the King!” (An old phrase apt given the deposed would-be kinglet.)
I imagine many of us will go to sleep happier tonight than we have in years.
Continue reading
17 Comments | tags: Amanda Gorman, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, President Biden, Presidential Inauguration, Vice-President Harris | posted in Politics, Wednesday Wow
At long last we can be proud to have humans leading our nation again.
At long last we can finally breath again.
Continue reading
15 Comments | tags: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, President Biden, Presidential Inauguration | posted in Politics
A crushed flower.
This post has nothing to do with Amy Winehouse, sadly on the list of great talents who, poorly served by those in their lives, lost their way and died tragically and long before their time. (It’s bad enough when the ravages of life — disease and accident — steal away those with gifts. Losing people to human foibles is a more painful loss.)
The topic here is the Block Universe Hypothesis, which I’m revisiting, so the title kinda grabbed me (and I am a Winehouse fan). I’ve written about the BUH before, but a second debate with the same opponent turned up a few points worth exploring.
So it’s back to basic block (everyone looks good in block?)…
Continue reading
31 Comments | tags: block universe, simultaneity, Special Relativity | posted in Physics
It’s been a week since we all watched — stunned — as an army of cultist haters, fascists, racists, and thugs, invaded and raped our Nation’s Capitol. Since then the wind seems to have (at long last) shifted to a new quarter. Nothing in the last four years was enough, but this straw was too heavy.
How real that change is remains to be seen, but the House is set to move forward with a historical second Impeachment, and with McConnell now giving it his blessing, and many Republicans desperately wanting to buy redemption, it’s possible we might see a conviction in the Senate.
Which makes writing a post very hard to focus on.
Continue reading
10 Comments | tags: CQ (movie), Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Emma Watson, Emmanuel Acho, The Circle (movie), Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man | posted in Books, Movies
Among those who study the human mind and consciousness, there is what is termed “The Hard Problem.” It is in contrast to, and qualitatively different from, problems that are merely hard. (Simply put, The Hard Problem is the question of how subjective experience arises from the physical mechanism of the brain.)
This post isn’t about that at all. It’s not even about the human mind (or about politics). This post is about good old fundamental physics. That is to say, basic reality. Some time ago, a friend asked me what was missing from our picture of physics. This is, in part, my answer.
There is quite a bit, as it turns out, and it’s something I like to remind myself of from time to time, so I made a list.
Continue reading
26 Comments | tags: big bang, block universe, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, Many Worlds Interpretation, Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, MWI, quantum physics, standard model, universe, virtual reality | posted in Physics
Humans have long had fertile imaginations. It isn’t just that we see patterns everywhere, but that we see them and make up stories about them. Whether it be the forest, the wind, or the stars, we have long read into the world around us a rich tapestry of our own imagination.
A thread that runs through it all is the agency we ascribe to the patterns. The gods control our fates, the spirits reward or punish us, the stars foretell our future. Even the remnant of tea leaves in the bottom of a cup gives us an important and relevant message.
But what happens when we don’t exercise our imagination?
Continue reading
13 Comments | tags: fantasy, human mind, imagination | posted in Movies, Society, TV
Logos con carne 