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Neil Rieck
Kitchener - Waterloo - Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
Hi-tech Community of Laptops and Lederhosen (Leather Pants)
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Current Items of Interest
  1.  chloroplastThe computed World Human Population Limit
     
    Some simple math proves the current human population is already too big at 7.0 billion. Anything higher is certainly out of the question. Why?
     
    Higher temperatures reduce the efficiency of photosynthesis resulting in a loss of agricultural productivity (biologists estimate a 10% drop for every degree increase). This will trigger world-wide famine, disease (due to compromised immune systems), war, and death. Since photosynthesis is required to replenish atmospheric O2 (oxygen), then we can expect O2 to drop as well. So I guess it should be no surprise that...

    Atmospheric oxygen levels have been dropping ever since measurements began in 1990. While CCS (carbon capture and storage) technologies promise to take care of the atmospheric CO2 problem, internal combustion engines will continue to consume atmospheric oxygen. So when calculating the effective human population we also need to include the number of large internal combustion engines. (for now, just think about the number of ocean-going boats, jet airplanes, locomotive engines, and one billion functional automobiles). Now for one additional thought...

    Many people mistakenly believe higher CO2 levels "are good for plants" and "will trigger plant growth" (some people call CO2 the gas of life). First off, atmospheric CO2 levels have risen from 315 to 390 ppm (an increase of 23.8%) ever since direct annual measurement began in 1958 but humanity has not noticed any explosion of plant growth or plate life to compensate for it. Secondly, this schematic diagram of photosynthesis shows the first stage involves the photolysis of water by sunlight (this is the only place where oxygen is released to the atmosphere). This diagram is proof that sunlight (input 1) and water (input 2) are more important than CO2 (input 3) but each ingredient is considered a limiting factor to maximum photosynthetic productivity. The majority of plant life acquires water through roots rather than the atmosphere. Higher temperatures will evaporate a greater volume of water into the atmosphere making it bio-unavailable to plants. While more evaporation usually translates into more rain fall, higher temperatures will send it back into the atmosphere sooner.
     
  2. Khan Academy is one of the most valuable applications on the internet (right up there with Wikipedia). Originally targeted to pre-college students, this site is now also used by many secondary-school teachers:
    • prior to learning a new topic in class, many teachers encourage students to first view material here; this ensures than students do not see new material "cold"
    • some teachers present their class-room material first then assign the viewing of video as homework (to reinforce the classroom lesson)
    Most video lectures are 10-15 minutes in length (which is the average length of time the human brain can absorb new material) and covers subjects like: Algebra, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Geometry, Physics, and more. For more information, click the next link then watch the Bill Gates video:  www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy

    One more point: Khan Academy is almost always the number one, or number two, most subscribed channel on YouTube.
     
  3. Information for Social change
    • Occupy's first viral commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O_Ao9w1u7c (30 seconds)
    • http://occupywallst.org - Occupy Wall Street
    • http://www.occupytogether.org - we are the 99%
    • http://www.occupy.com - rollout coming soon
    • http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/ - Bill Moyers explores how America’s vast inequality didn’t just happen, it’s been politically engineered. Quote: The system's not broken, "it's FIXED"
    • http://billmoyers.com/segment/david-stockman-on-crony-capitalism/ - Bill Moyers interviews David Stockman on his new book "Crony Capitalism".
      Stockman quote: "we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism."
    • http://billmoyers.com/segment/john-reed-on-big-banks-power-and-influence/ - How did big banks get so powerful?
      Quote: we merged Travellers and Citi Corp while doing so was illegal, then had two years to change the law (e.g. get rid of  Glass-Steagall)
    • "Wall Street" (1987 movie) quotes:
      • Gordon Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.
    • One hundred people take delivery of a one hundred slice pizza. A rich man first opens the box then removes eighty slices. One person at the back suggests the rich man should only remove seventy nine but the rich man yells, "no way, that's socialism" -- Bill Maher ("Real Time" - 2011-03-11)
    • Interesting Video: What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us? (answer: created the middle class).
      • My observation: North American citizens appear to be exhibiting the effects of mass-hypnosis by the corporate-controlled "news publishing industrial complex". Like the Manchurian Candidate, when then citizens the word "union" the preprogrammed response is triggered causing citizens to blame unions for all economic problems while failing to notice the elephant in room: white-collar workers (including fat-cat CEOs) making huge mistakes while continuing to draw large bonuses as they ride their companies into the ground. Were unionized workers responsible for building SUVs and Hummers or where these decisions made by know-it-all managers and consultants? Who was responsible for corporate malfeasance at companies like Enron, Arthur Andersen, Nortel, Global Crossing, 360 Networks, WorldCom, Hollinger International, and Bear Stearns including their involvement in the Subprime Scandal? None of these fiascos were caused by labor unions and it is time for employees and lower level management of all companies to recognize that under free market capitalism we are all serfs in a new-age feudalism.
      • Suggestion to Americans who hate "socialism": 40 years ago, Americans who hated the Vietnam war protested by burning their drafts cards. So here is my suggestion to you: indicate your displeasure by burning your Social Security Card. And while you are at it, you may as well destroy any other documentation which enables you to receive Medicare or Medicaid. And don't ever bother going to "a public library" or dialing "911" to request the attention of a fire crew.
    • NSR Comment: if it is true that capital is the lubricant required to run the capitalistic machine, then concentrating too much of it in the hands of too few will cause the machine to slow down and eventually seize. Americans learned this lesson in the 1930s when they adopted the progressive tax system which had the effect of reversing capital accumulation prior to 1929. So why are conservatives everywhere pushing for a flat tax?
       
  4. Isaac Asimov on PBS
    Isaac Asimov PhD
    (Biochemistry)
    "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

    -- Isaac Asimov (Column in Newsweek, 21 January 1980)

    NSR Comment: read more Asimovian quotes here


  5. Carl Sagan
    Carl Sagan PhD
    (Astronomy and
    Astrophysics)
    "We have designed a civilization based on science and technology and at the same time have arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster. We may, for a while, get away with this mix of ignorance and power but sooner or later it is bound to blow up in our face."

    -- Carl Sagan

    "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof"

    -- Carl Sagan

    NSR Comment: this second quote also applies to religious assertions so maybe fundamentalists need to calm down a bit.


  6. Gaia's Evil Twin : Is life its own worst enemy?
     
    Comment 1: When I first read James Lovelock's "Gaia Hypothesis" more than 20 years ago, I thought the idea sounded a little flaky and suspected it would never be anything more than a teaching tool targeted at students who lack the underlying science prerequisites. After reading numerous books on climate change from a systems analyst perspective, I think a very good case could be made for promoting this idea from a "hypothesis" into a "theory".
     
    Comment 2: I don't think any rational individual believes the Earth is a living entity. And yet we all know that every living cell in our bodies is composed of life-like organelles which, at some point, are composed of non-living chemicals. Just as the living cell is a system which both acts and reacts to external events, a very good case could be made to consider Earth a living system with humans, animals, and plants being the organelles.
     
  7. An alternative explanation for the bizarre claims of "science deniers" involves a "creative injection" solution to the problem of “Cognitive Dissonance". What is "CD"? Briefly, it is the sensation of a "potential difference" between conflicting ideas which, under normal circumstances, compels you to change your behavior.
     
    Consider this example:
    • you want to live a long healthy life
    • you enjoy smoking tobacco
    • you have been told smoking is bad for your health
    • these facts cause an internal thought-conflict (dissonance) in your brain. To minimize this dissonance:
      • most people will stop smoking (the pleasure of smoking is replaced with the pleasure of little-to-no dissonance)
      • but a smaller group of people will find it easier to inject one, or more, creative counter-balancing thoughts like "the science is wrong", "the science is not 100% certain", "scientists are part of a global conspiracy theory to confuse the public while reducing my personal freedoms, etc. (by the way, although the science may not be 100% correct, it is often "correct enough" to make a good decision)

    Citizens who have spent large amounts of money (another dissonance) on SUVs or multiple family vehicles will find it easier to pick from a cornucopia of creative alternatives like: "Earth's climate is not changing", "climate change is happening but this instance is just part of a natural cycle", "climate change can not be affected by 6.9 billion humans", "the science is uncertain", "god will intervene before things get too bad", etc. Introducing other unknowns like a carbon-tax only increases dissonance. But in the end they are just like the people who think they can continue smoking with no consequences.

    Literary Observation: two technicians discuss "the conflict of positronic potentials" in chapter 2 of "I, Robot". Since this story was written in the 1940's, is it possible it was the germ idea for Cognitive Dissonance?

  8. Not only is North America's slow 30-year shift toward conservatism destroying the middle class, it is also a shift toward ignorance and stupidity. Don't believe me? Peruse the excerpts from these two books:
    • The Republican War on Science
    • Unscientific America
    • How does the anti-science view get traction?
       
      Excerpt from: Deja vu All Over Again (2004-09-13)

      This is how it begins: Proponents of a fringe or non-mainstream scientific viewpoint seek added credibility. They're sick of being taunted for having few (if any) peer reviewed publications in their favor. Fed up, they decide to do something about it.
       
      These “skeptics” find what they consider to be a weak point in the mainstream theory and critique it. Not by conducting original research; they simply review previous work. Then they find a little-known, not particularly influential journal where an editor sympathetic to their viewpoint hangs his hat.
       
      They get their paper through the peer review process and into print. They publicize the hell out of it. Activists get excited by the study, which has considerable political implications.
       
      Before long, mainstream scientists catch on to what’s happening. They shake their heads. Some slam the article and the journal that published it, questioning the review process and the editor’s ideological leanings. In published critiques, they tear the paper to scientific shreds.
       
      Embarrassed, the journal’s publisher backs away from the work. But it’s too late for that. The press has gotten involved, and though the work in question has been discredited in the world of science, partisans who favor its conclusions for ideological reasons will champion it for years to come.
       
      The scientific waters are muddied. The damage is done. (read more...)
       
  9. Question: Why Do Americans Continue to Deny Climate Change? Answer: ... well, I'm so glad that you emphasized that it is really only in the United States that this is happening. And its not even happening in most of the Unites States. The deniers have a large megaphone and its called FOX NEWS and the rest of the right-wing media machine. But if you look at the numbers, really look at the numbers, its just a minority of people who believe this [stuff]. Now. Why. Its a sizeable minority so I don't mean to say its not, so why in the United States and not elsewhere. I think two basic reasons. One. Is that the United States historically, and today, has had a much stronger fossil fuel industry than any other advanced industrial nation. Look at Europe. They don't have, and haven't had, historically major oil companies. In Britain there was British Petroleum. That was their company. In the Netherlands, Royal Dutch Shell. But the big oil companies historically have been US based, and, most of their money originally came from here, in the United States. Drilling in Texas, Oklahoma and here in California. And they became, the oil industry in particular, became the single richest business enterprise in human history. Let me emphasize that "the single richest business enterprise EVER". They know perfectly well that if we take climate science seriously that they will have to sell less product. And so, they have, as has been well reported and I talk a bit in the book, they've spent literally millions of dollars on a very calculated disinformation campaign for twenty years that is torn out of the playbook by the tobacco industry. And in fact, used the very same scientist, [physicist] Fredrick Seitz [founding chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, a tobacco industry consultant and a prominent skeptic on the issue of global warming] as their top guy to basically say, in the immortal words of the tobacco industry P.R. memo in 1970, "doubt is our product". "Doubt is our product". Not to prove, the point has not been, and is not today, to prove that climate science is wrong. The point is to simply raise enough doubt in the minds of journalists, politicians, the business class, and the general public. To raise enough doubt so that you can blunt the urge and the calls for political reform.
     
  10. Folding@Home and BOINC. Learn how YOU can utilize spare resources on YOUR computer to cure human diseases by helping scientists discover how protein molecules fold and misfold. Isaac Asimov would have loved this.
     
  11. Despite data being collected for over half a century, despite a President being warned about the looming threat of a changing climate in the mid 1960s, and despite plants and animals now changing their behavior to fast altering conditions, a few scientists continue to raise doubts regarding climate science and its findings.
    Naomi Oreskes sees a pattern. The pattern repeats itself in a string of issues including controversy over tobacco smoke, the dangers of acid rain, and DDT.

    UCSD (University of California at San Diego) Professor of History and Science Studies Naomi Oreskes Ph.D. presented this 58 minute lecture on the History of Global Warming Science titled The American Denial of Global Warming
    • www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio <<<--- video of the 58 minute lecture
    • Many viewers will be surprised to learn that the science has been settled (more or less) for five decade
    • Naomi Oreskes is also a co-author of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt
    • click here to see a few of my comments about this book
       
  12. My Climate Science resources can now be found here.
  13. Today it appears that religious, political, and economic extremists are actively cultivating ignorance.

    For this reason, I hope the following 7-minute video will help end the madness.

    This video is based upon Isaac Asimov's rebuttal to a letter he received from an "English literature" student who was critical of science and progress. The original letter can be found here

    --- xxx ---

    While on this topic, here is an essay titled The “Threat” of Creationism published in the 1984 book Science and Creationism. Quote: Scientists thought it was settled. The universe, they had decided, is about 20 billion years old, and Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. Simple forms of life came into being more than three billion years ago, having formed spontaneously from nonliving matter. They grew more complex through slow evolutionary processes and the first hominid ancestors of humanity appeared more than four million years ago. Homo sapiens itself—the present human species, people like you and me—have walked the earth for at least 50,000 years. But apparently it isn't settled. There are Americans who believe that the earth is only about 6,000 years old; that human beings and all other species were brought into existence by a divine Creator as eternally separate variations of beings; and that there has been no evolutionary process.

  14. The guy in the cubicle next to me is convinced that 390 ppm of CO2 is a tiny fraction of gas and is of no concern to life on Earth. Well, almost anyone with a basic knowledge of biology already knows that placing a plastic bag over the head will cause problems due to a slightly elevated CO2 level long before the O2 level drops. This is the main reason why CO2 scrubbers are required technology on airplanes and submarines. Simply adding additional O2 is not enough, you must remove the CO2
     
    Getting back to tiny numbers for a moment, doing the math shows us that 390 ppm of CO2 is equivalent to an atmospheric concentration of 0.039 percent. This doesn't sound like much until you recall that a blood alcohol level of anywhere between 0.05 and 0.08 percent (depending upon your location) means that society considers you intoxicated. Point Zero Five is the colloquial phrase for 0.050 percent which is only 0.011 percent above 0.039 percent.
     
    value calculation notes
    0.000390   =      390 / 1,000,000 390 ppm expressed as a decimal
    0.0390   = 0.000390 * 100 390 ppm expressed as a percent (Raw Data)

    I must point out that "atmospheric CO2 concentrations" and "blood alcohol ratios" do not have the same effect on the human body. Publications by the U.S. Navy indicate that atmospheric CO2 levels of 0.5% will induce physiological changes such as nausea and headaches. This means that humans tolerate CO2 approximately ten times better than alcohol (0.50 / 0.05 = 10). Nevertheless, you cannot dismiss numbers just because you consider them small. For example, compounds like LSD have their effect in parts per billion (denominator has nine zeros) while dioxins like "agent-orange" are dangerous in parts per trillion (denominator has twelve zeros)
     
  15. Superstition: A belief, not based on human reason or scientific knowledge, that future events may be influenced by one's behavior in some magical or mystical way (Wiktionary). In 1947, the psychologist B. F. Skinner reported a series of experiments in which pigeons could push a lever that would randomly either give them a food pellet, or nothing. Think of it as a sort of one-armed bandit that the pigeons played for free. Skinner found, after a while, that some of the pigeons started acting oddly before pushing the lever. One moved in counterclockwise circles, one repeatedly stuck its head into the upper corner of the cage, and two others would swing their heads back and forth in a sort of pendulum motion. He suggested that the birds had developed "superstitious behaviors" by associating "getting the food" with something they happened to be doing when they actually got it -- and they had wrongly concluded that if they did it again, they were more likely to get the pellet. Essentially, they were doing a sort of food-pellet dance to better their odds. This has got to be one explanation for human behavior in the 21st century.
     
  16. Moon, Mars, and Obama
  17. Khan Academy is one of the most valuable applications on the internet (right up there with Wikipedia). Originally targeted to pre-college students, this site is now also used by many secondary-school teachers:
    • prior to learning a new topic in class, many teachers encourage students to first view material here; this ensures than students do not see new material "cold"
    • some teachers present their class-room material first then assign the viewing of video as homework (to reinforce the classroom lesson)
    Most video lectures are 10-15 minutes in length (which is the average length of time the human brain can absorb new material) and covers subjects like: Algebra, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Geometry, Physics, and more. For more information, click the next link then watch the Bill Gates video:  www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy

    One more point: Khan Academy is almost always the number one, or number two, most subscribed channel on YouTube.

  18. Microsoft's Project Tuva - a multimedia homage to the lectures of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman. For example, check out
    Video Lecture 1: The Messenger Lecture Series: The Law of Gravitation (55 minute BBC video from Cornell in 1964)
     
  19. In 1873, while investigating infrared radiation and the element thallium, the eminent Victorian experimenter Sir William Crookes developed a special kind of radiometer, an instrument for measuring radiant energy of heat and light. Crookes's Radiometer is today marketed as a conversation piece called a light-mill or solar engine. It consists of four vanes each of which is blackened on one side and silvered on the other. These are attached to the arms of a rotor which is balanced on a vertical support in such a way that it can turn with very little friction. The mechanism is encased inside a clear glass bulb which has been pumped out to a high, but not perfect, vacuum.
    Observations/Explanations:
    • When sunlight falls on the light-mill, the vanes turn with the black surfaces apparently being pushed away by the light. But there is a problem with this explanation. Light falling on the black side should be absorbed, while light falling on the silver side of the vanes should be reflected. In that case the mill is turning the wrong way.
    • In 1901, with a better vacuum pump, Pyotr Lebedev showed that the radiometer only works when there is low pressure gas in the bulb but the vanes stay motionless in a hard vacuum. This is proof that the thermal properties of the low pressure gas are responsible for the motion, not the direct action of photons. Climate-Warming Food-for-thought: too much gas traps too much heat causing the machine to stop working.
    • The radiometer can also be made to rotate backwards in a refrigerator.
    • Other mistaken explanations for the radiometer: Since the black side of each vane would absorb heat from infrared radiation more than the silver side, then this would cause the rarefied gas to be heated on the black side.  In that case, the obvious explanation is that the pressure of the gas on the darker side increases with its temperature, creating a higher force on the dark side of the vane which thus pushes the rotor around.  Maxwell analyzed this theory carefully and discovered that, in fact, the warmer gas would simply expand in such a way that there would be no net force from this effect, just a steady flow of heat across the vanes.  So this explanation in terms of warm gas is wrong, but even the Encyclopedia Britannica gives this false explanation today.  A variation on this theme is that the motion of the hot molecules on the black side of the vane provide the push.  Again this is not correct, and could only work if the mean free path between molecular collisions were as large as the container, instead of its actual value of typically less than a millimeter.
    • The correct solution to the problem was provided qualitatively by Osborne Reynolds in 1879 in a paper to the Royal Society in which he considered what he called "thermal transpiration". To explain the radiometer, therefore, one must focus attention not on the faces of the vanes, but on their edges.  The faster molecules from the warmer side strike the edges obliquely and impart a higher force than the colder molecules.  Again, these are the same thermo-molecular forces responsible for Reynolds' thermal transpiration.  The effect is also known as thermal creep, since it causes gases to creep along a surface that has a temperature gradient.  The net movement of the vane due to the tangential forces around the edges is away from the warmer gas and towards the cooler gas, with the gas passing around the edge in the opposite direction.  The behavior is just as if there were a greater force on the blackened side of the vane (which as Maxwell showed is not the case); but the explanation must be in terms of what happens not at the faces of the vanes, but near their edges.
       
  20. Humanity's Coming Dark Age
    Humanity's Coming Dark Age - The rise and fall of empires
    Symptoms before each collapse: ignorance, superstition, religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, intolerance, rejection of science
    1. Download a free PDF copy of the 418-page 2002 publication: The Phoenix Principle and the Coming Dark Age by Marc Widdowson (British military analyst and educator) 
    2. Download ($10) an eBook of The Coming Dark Age by Roberto Vacca - 153 pages in PDF format
      • This book was first published in 1973 then updated in 2000
      • Click here for a free view "Contents, Foreword, Introduction and the First Chapter"
      • "I read this book in a palsied fascination of horror. I have never read a book that was at the same time so convincing and so frightening." - Isaac Asimov
    3. Purchase ($10) the 2005 book Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs
    4. Business Week - Coming Dark Age for Innovation?
    5. New Scientist - Entering a dark age of innovation
    6. While there are many complicated and interacting reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire, I am now convinced that Edward Gibbon was correct when he stated that the primary reason was due to the the effects of organized religion. Today's world might collapse for nothing more that the reasons of religious intolerance or greed (materialism is another form of religion)
    7. Religious Method (dogma): Fiction, Assertion, Suppression
      Scientific Method (pragma): Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment (test), Debate. Then publish and repeat.
      Galileo's Defense Against Catholic Persecution: The bible tells you "how to go to heaven", not "how the heavens go".
      (Therefore the bible cannot be relied upon to tell you when: life begins, how the world was created, how old the world is, etc. On the flip side, science will never be able to prove, or disprove, the existence of God. Like music and art, science and religion are just two human cultural expressions. They must never be allowed to merge or you will exchange democracy for theocracy)

    People who know me also know that I have been infected with an Isaac Asimov inspired optimism about humanity. It is for this reason that I am publishing these links so that modern humanity might avoid this horrible fate (which has happened to humans many times before). Humanity must not fall into the same state as that of the Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy".

    Postscript: I recently (Spring-2009) came to the conclusion that we are already in a Dark age (partially caused by the collapse of the American empire) which started in the mid 1970s and that no one can avoid it.
    1. General Motors employed over 400,000 North American employees in 1970. (this is the same peak employment number of the people who worked on Apollo). GM got rid of those pesky technical workers while the number of white collar workers sky rocketed to over to over 40,000 by the mid 2000s. Before 2004, GM paid more money per car to advertisers than they did to hourly workers.
    2. Detroit-headquartered manufacturers claimed that Asian products were garbage while Detroit produced crappy products like the Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto, and the AMC Gremlin. Detroit then claimed that American products were superior to Asian  products even though Detroit was already manufacturing in places like Mexico and Brazil. (this obfuscation could be better described by the phrase "Jedi hand wave" which only works on the weak minded)
    3. In the 1980's, big newspaper publishers started calling paid advertising "copy" while the news content was referred to as "noise". Around this time, newspaper started to acquire each other. Publishers started by getting rid of those pesky reporters while reaping 30-35% annual ROI (return-on-investment) on their acquisitions. We know this now because newspapers have had to open their books during recent bankruptcies. So the internet didn't kill newspapers, newspaper owners and managers just sucked out all the money until it wasn't worth paying for.
    4. The stupidity of the Iraq War is comparable to the Vietnam war. I am tempted to say that Americans don't learn from history but I would be partly wrong: The American public was mostly against the War in Vietnam because of the draft even though it partly destroyed their economy. Bush-Cheney knew about the draft so were careful to never invoke one for their Iraq War. This means that many Americans are still under the deluded belief that the Vietnam War could have been won. So are American politicians stupid or just political ideologues?
    5. Between 1927 and 1999 the human population tripled from 2 billion to 6 billion and this was only possible due to the industrialization of farms. Since the majority of farms get water from rivers that begin in glaciers, and global warming is destroying them, rivers will begin to run dry in the summer months which means that people will die. Six large rivers begin in the Tibetan plateau eventually feed India, Pakistan, and China. When these nuclear powers run out of food there will be war.
       
  21. Isaac Asimov PhD
    Dr. Isaac Asimov
    Isaac Asimov = Hari Seldon?
     
    Back in 2004, Isaac Asimov (already dead for 12 years) sent all of humanity a message from 1988. Does this remind you of the posthumous messages from Hari Seldon? Click here for more information.
     
    p.s. this has nothing to do with the occult (nothing at this web site does)

  22. Guaranteed Human Life Extension - quantity as well as quality. This is not a joke or scam but it will cost you $6.00 per month and you must act now.

  23. Folding@Home and BOINC. Learn how YOU can utilize spare resources on YOUR computer to cure human diseases by helping scientists discover how protein molecules fold and misfold. Isaac Asimov would have loved this.
     
  24. James Clerk Maxwell's equations - how did he pull off this feat of work?
     
  25. My Book Recommendations (one guaranteed way for me to tweak humanity's path by affecting internet search engines like Google)
     
  26. Books I Do Not Recommend (purchased in error)
     
  27. Subcommander T'Pol - Science Officer of the Enterprise - NX01
    T'Pol - Science Officer of
    the Enterprise - NX01
    The Logic of T'Pol - mostly science related stuff
     

"2001: A Space Odyssey"
A mysterious monolith awakens the imagination of humanity's distant ancestors;
A second one awaits humanity's giant leap to the moon;
And in orbit around Jupiter, a third beckons humanity to transcend beyond the limits of of body and machine.
Click: 2001: A Space Odyssey @ Wikipedia

Feynman Diagram (animated) Feynman Diagram (static)
"All forces in the universe are mediated by particle exchange"
This "Feynman Diagram" (of electron repulsion) depicts the movement of two electrons (1 to 3 and 2 to 4) in space and time.  A virtual photon transfers energy between them (5 to 6) causing them to repel each other. To learn more: 1) brief explanation , 2) detailed explanation
Legend: Y-Axis (up-down) is time while X-Axis (left-right) is space

Science etc... Science Fiction... Engineering... Government and Community... Online Tools... Neil RieckAbout Me...

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Digital Equipment Corporation > Compaq Computer > HP... Other Computer stuff... The Human condition...

(a.k.a. Borg designation: "species 5618")

Site Directories

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Personal e-mail: Neil Rieck
Note: the above email address has been modified to limit "e-mail harvesting" of web pages by spammers
(you'll see what needs to be changed when you click on the link)

Spirits In The Material World

There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution

We are spirits in the material world

Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail you
They subjugate the meek
But it's the rhetoric of failure

We are spirits in the material world

Where does the answer lie?
Living from day to day
If it's something we can't buy
There must be another way

We are spirits in the material world

The Police (Ghosts in the Machine)

King of Pain

There's a little back spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in a high tree-top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop

{Refrain}
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'd end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a little back spot on the sun today
(That's my soul up there)
It's the same old thing as yesterday
(That's my soul up there)
There's a black hat caught in a high tree-top
(That's my soul up there)
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
(That's my soul up there)

{Refrain}

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
(That's my soul up there)
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
(That's my soul up there)
There's a blue whale beached by a spring tide's ebb
(That's my soul up there)
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
(That's my soul up there)

{Refrain}

There's king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
(That's my soul up there)
There's a black-winged gull with a broken back
(That's my soul up there)
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

{Refrain}

King of pain, king of pain, king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain

The Police (Synchronicity)

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics... and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years, a thousand years or a million years eventually our Sun will go cold and will go out. When that happens it won't just take us -- it will take Marilyn Monroe, Lau Tzu, Einstein and Buddy Holly and Aristophanes -- all of this, all of this was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars."

Commander Jeffrey Sinclair -- Babylon 5

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will cause the stars to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it wont be hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating out while here they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!

"Soma Holiday" by G.O.L.(Gods of Luxury)

Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsquZwbqV9k
 
(Lyrics from the 1932 book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley)
 
Verse Source
Feel how the Greater Being Comes!
Rejoice and, in rejoicing, die!
Melt in the music of the drums!
For I am you and you are I.
 
 BNW: chapter 5
Half a gramme for a half holiday,
One gramme for a week-end,
Two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East,
Three for a dark eternity on the moon;
 
 BNW: chapter 3
There she remained;
But wasn't there at all,
Was all the time away,
Infinitely far away,
On holiday;
 
 BNW: chapter 11
On holiday
in some other world,
where the music of the radio
was a labyrinth of sonorous colours,
To a bright centre of absolute convicton
Where the dripping patchouli
Was more than scent
It was a sun.		 BNW: chapter 11