Just Stuff

You will note that I waited to post about Mayday...have to maintain me contrarian rep, yanno. Here's one it took me a long time to 'get'. When I was six I remember our teacher took the class outside by the school. There was a pole and it had many brightly colored paper streamers attached at the top of it. People were saying it was a "Maypole". All the kids were told to take the hanging end of one paper streamer and we were shown how to interweave them by walking in front of and then behind the kid next to us. My paw got really mad about it. I had no idea what the fuss was about. Much later I learned it had something to with (gasp!) Communists! But I'm sure my paw was madder, since we were Jehovah's Witnesses, that it could be connected to Beltane. No doubt he thought we were worshiping some pagan god. I wasn't worshiping anything, had no idea what a phallus or a phallic symbol (Maypole) was...I just thought it was pretty and fun. I wish I could tell my paw now I am an atheist, anarchist, communist, but he's been dead for 35 years...I doubt he'd care now.

Did you know...the total amount of gold that has been mined since humans have mined gold would fill about three Olympic size swimming pools? Or... if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold ever mined you could only build about one third of the Washington Monument. Not much to show for a hundred million or more human lives.

Is it or is it not possible to photograph a single atom...of anything, by any means? This purports to be images of an electron cloud surrounding a carbon atom. Is there any violation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in the notion of a picture of an atom?

Do you have an idea of how small planck time and planck length are? Do I get it? Ummm... working on it.

Are ya skeered to admit it...?

You can make your own at the FFRF site.

When you take politics just TOO damn seriously...

Stuff I saw recently and liked:

Day Break. On the surface this is a mystery/cop show. On another level it's an interesting look at how decisions you make can have huge consequences, whether the decisions are trivial (go get coffee or not), forced by external circumstance, etc. Think "Groundhog Day" but good drama, not comedy. Taye Diggs and Moon Bloodgood (is that a name to remember or what - not to mention a fine bod, lol) give terrific performances as the main characters.

Luther. This is a BBC "cop show" but it has some differences from a show like Law & Order, even the BBC version. I suppose "normal" people would probably not agree, but I think it's much more realistic, or at least more interesting. I'm not very familiar with British actors, but Idris Elba is terrific in this role. John Luther is a very layered character, far more than merely a "rogue cop".

Thank you and good night, Gracie.

TRB