ENTERTAINMENT - THE MEANING OF LIFE and REJECTED - by DON HERTZFELDT

HUMOR: Scientists tell us why the chicken crossed the road...

Issac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.

http://oldermusicgeekon.tumblr.com/post/39436958451/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road

POLITICS, SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY and HUMOR: Right Wing Science

Patrick_McEvoy on Twitter directed me to this cartoon. As he said, "This cartoon about the right-wing's view of science (and any facts) hits it dead on." - OlderMusicGeek


A link to a larger and better copy of the strip

ENTERTAINMENT: The End of a Science Fiction Great

Arthur C. Clarke led at least three different, extremely successful lives. As a scientist, his work with satellites led to the coining of the term a "Clarke orbit." As a visionary award-winning science fiction author he influenced several generations of writers, became an icon of the SF subculture, and had an award named after him. And, in his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke also became part of movie and pop culture history. - from Jeff VanderMeer's Arthur C. Clarke: An Appreciation of a Life Well-Lived on Omnivarious: Hungry for the Next Good Book

Arthur C Clarke died on March 18th.

And being a big science fiction fan, I was a big appreciator of his work. And I will miss him.

To me, Arthur C Clarke was the best of the "hard" science fiction writers. The ones that dealt with strongly with science and technology. Strangely enough, even though he was writing about science and technology, his books could take on a rather mystical bent, as Childhood's End obviously showed.

He was one of the few writers, in my opinion, whose work improved as he got older. Some people will complain about him writing a bunch of sequels and remakes, but the sequels and remakes had some interesting new ideas - and the plot, characterizations, mood and just plain storytelling was much better than in the earlier work. His best ideas for stories may have been in the past, but his best STORIES were the later ones!

Below are some excerpts from remembrances written for him. - OlderMusicGeek

The Science Friday Blog
Thank You, Arthur C. Clarke
posted by Ira Flatow on Tuesday, March 18. 2008

Arthur C. Clarke, author of more than 100 books including the one that made him known to many more millions, "2001: A Space Odyssey," has passed from us.

Thank you for your passion and your prose. Thank you for your vision.
Thank you for speaking out on important issues, for not keeping silent.

We all have favorite scenes, chapters or quotes from his novels or movies.

But my favorite remains this one not published in any novel: Years after missions to the moon had ended, Clarke was asked what he thought was the most amazing part of the whole race to the moon.

What's most amazing to me, he said, was that we could go there...and not go back.

Posted by Ira Flatow on Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 3:40 PM | Comment (1)

From BBC News...

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

"Sir Arthur has left written instructions that his funeral be strictly secular," his secretary, Nalaka Gunawardene, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.

She said the author had requested "absolutely no religious rites of any kind".

He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and foresaw the concept of communication satellites.

When asked why he never patented his idea for communication satellites, he said: "I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime."

In the 1940s, he maintained man would reach the moon by the year 2000, an idea dismissed at the time.

"I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these, I would like to be remembered as a writer."

Clarke says goodbye to fans in 2007

From CNN....

David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, told CNN that Clarke's writings were influential in shaping public interest in space exploration during the 1950s and '60s. Watch how Clarke stands among sci-fi giants »

"He was very interested in technology and also in humanity's history and what lay out in the cosmos," Eicher said. His works combined those "big-picture" themes with "compelling stories that were more interesting and more complex than other science fiction writers were doing," he said.

More from Jeff VanderMeer's Arthur C. Clarke: An Appreciation of a Life Well-Lived on Omnivarious: Hungry for the Next Good Book...

Over his lifetime, Clarke received many honors, including being knighted and having the Apollo 13 Command Module and the Mars Orbiter both named "Odyssey" in appreciation of his work. Clarke remained a vital force up until his death. He authored books, made appearances via videophone from his home in Sri Lanka, and continued to deny the polio that had kept him mostly wheelchair-bound for two decades.

Arthur C. Clarke's fiction embodied a fundamental optimism about the future, tempered by a healthy skepticism about the human condition and an ongoing fascination with certain forms of spirituality. Unlikely to indulge in dystopic visions, but rarely sentimental or unrealistic, Clarke was, quite simply, curious about the world.

From the New York Times....

An Appraisal: For Clarke, Issues of Faith, but Tackled Scientifically
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: March 20, 2008

Such apocalypse is the bread and butter of science fiction, but sometimes with Mr. Clarke it is also the communion, the sharing of a moment of transcendence in which some destiny is fulfilled, some possibility opened up. Hence the fetus of “2001.” That transformation may also not be something to be desired by current standards. The prospects are just too alien, like the ineffable Overmind in “Childhood’s End” that propels humanity to a new evolutionary stage, inspiring as much horror as awe.

This side of Mr. Clarke’s work may be the most eerie, particularly because his mystical speculations accompany an uncanny ability to envision worlds that are eminently plausible. It is Mr. Clarke who first conceived of the communication satellites that orbit directly over a single spot on Earth and allow the planet to be blanketed in a network of signals. There are many other examples as well.

But acts of reason and scientific speculation are just the beginning of his imaginings. Reason alone is insufficient. Something else is required. For anyone who read Mr. Clarke in the 1960s and ’70s, when space exploration and scientific research had an extraordinary sheen, his science fiction made that enterprise even more thrilling by taking the longest and broadest view, in which the achievements of a few decades fit into a vision of epic proportions reaching millenniums into the future. It is no wonder that two generations of scientists were affected by his work.

For all his acclaimed forecasting ability, though, it is unclear whether Mr. Clarke knew precisely what he saw in that future. There is something cold in his vision, particularly when he imagines the evolutionary transformation of humanity. He leaves behind all the things that we recognize and know, and he doesn’t provide much guidance for how to live within the world we recognize and know. In that sense his work has little to do with religion.

But overall religion is unavoidable. Mr. Clarke famously — and accurately — said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Perhaps any sufficiently sophisticated science fiction, at least in his case, is nearly indistinguishable from religion.

A remembrance for Arthur C Clarke from NPR's All Things Considered
A remembrance for Arthur C Clarke from NPR's Morning Edition

POLITICS: How to be a Good Democrat/Republican

I found this using StumbleUpon. It's from the blog, A Boy and His Computer. - OlderMusicGeek

Note: I didn't write the "How to be a Good Democrat" list, I received it in a forwarded e-mail, unattributed. I and one of my readers wrote the "How to be a Good Republican" list. See this blog post for more info.

How to be a good...

...Democrat:	...Republican:
You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.	You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread because people are evil and should be punished.
You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.	You have to believe that evolution is a myth (despite the evidence of biochemistry and the fossil record) but that Intelligent Design theory should be taught in schools.
You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese & North Korean communists.	You have to believe that there is no causal link between legal, easily-obtainable handguns and high murder rates.
You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.	You have to believe that unfunded arts and school programs are still subject to government control.
You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUVs.	You have to believe that global temperatures are completely unaffected by fossil fuel emissions, that the best way to save the national forests is to allow logging companies to cut down old-growth timber, and the best way to save endangered species is to allow trophy hunters and wildlife traders to import more of them.
You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.	You have to believe that homosexuality is evil (despite the fact that it occurs in nature) and that women should stay at home to cook and bear children.
You have to be against capital punishment but support abortion on demand.	You have to be against abortion but support capital punishment.
You have to believe that businesses create oppression, and governments create prosperity.	You have to believe that corporations never purposely hurt anyone to make money.
You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.	You have to believe that hunting requires an automatic rifle.
You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.	You have to believe that middle class income should be taxed, but capital gains and inherited wealth should not be.
You have to believe that the military, not corrupt politicians, start wars.	You have to believe that war is an acceptable solution to any economic or social problem.
You have to believe that the military is another political porkbarrel for wealthy campaign contributors of certain politicians.	You have to believe that everyone should support the troops - except when it comes to pay or benefits.
You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.	You have to believe the NRA is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.	You have to believe that taxes are for poor and middle class people, not the rich.
You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E.Lee, and Thomas Edison.	You have to believe that Oliver North and Monica Lewinsky are more important to American history than Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.	You have to believe that affirmative action is wrong, because everyone knows there's no more racism in America.
You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and really a very nice person.	You have to believe that Ann Coulter is normal and really a very nice person.
You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.	You have to believe that the only reason supply-side economics hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and sex offender belonged in the White House.	You have to believe liberals telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and draft-dodger belongs in the White House.
You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.	You have to believe that all Americans should be white heterosexual Christians.
You have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese government is somehow in the best interest of the United States.	You have to believe that illegal Republican Party funding by corporations is somehow in the best interest of the United States.
You have to believe that this letter is part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.	You have to believe that the media are biased toward liberals, despite the fact that all the major media outlets are owned by ultra-rich conservatives.

SCIENCE: Study Warns of Spreading 'Superbug'

Another article I got on my netvibes.com homepage. This is from The L.A. Times. - OlderMusicGeek

Antibiotic-resistant bacterium that causes severe infections has migrated from hospitals and now kills more Americans than AIDS.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2007

The number of severe infections by a "superbug," known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, isat least twice as high as researchers previously believed, and the bacterium now kills more Americans than AIDS, researchers reported today.

The antibiotic-resistant infections, commonly called MRSA, were once confined to a few hospitals, but a new study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2005 they made an estimated 94,000 Americans seriously ill and killed almost 19,000, compared with 17,000 who died of AIDS.

The infections have been a growing concern, particularly over the last decade, as they have spread outside hospitals, popping up in prisons, athletic fields and locker rooms.

The study reported that nearly 14% of new antibiotic-resistant staph infections are not linked to hospitals or other medical facilities, indicating that the disease has become ingrained in parts of the wider community.

The finding, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., is the latest evidence of a widespread pattern of increasing drug resistance among a variety of infectious agents, including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, antibiotic-resistant Clostridium difficile and other once-innocuous organisms.

Most forms of the staph bacterium are easily killed with common antibiotics, such as amoxicillin. But beginning in 1968, researchers began to see variants that required treatment with stronger antibiotics.

Experts attribute the emergence of the superbugs to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, the failure of patients to complete their antibiotic regimens and the use of antibiotics in animal feed. In each case, incomplete eradication of the bacteria leads to mutations that have increased resistance to the drugs.

Confined to the surface of the skin, the bacteria do minimal damage. But in hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis centers, they can hitch a ride inside the body on needles and other invasive devices, spreading through the bloodstream and causing severe illness.

In the same fashion, they can be spread by tattooing and drug use in prisons and by cuts and abrasions on the athletic field.

Infection rates were highest among those older than 65, and African Americans were twice as likely as whites to suffer an infection. In both groups, Klevens said, the higher rates were most likely due to a higher incidence of chronic diseases, which both weaken patients and send them more often to the hospital, where they come in contact with the bacterium.

For infants younger than 1, the rate was four times as high in blacks as in whites.

Healthcare advocates argue that hospitals need to improve hygiene. Some studies, for example, show that hospital workers wash their hands only about half as often as guidelines recommend.

A link to the complete article