Moondust

I have seen people online asking "Why didn't they go back to the moon?" and proposing all sorts of way-out theories.  Well, none of those are necesary - the simplest answer is very practical and very deadly: Moondust.  Have a look at this :

No angry aliens, mysterious glass structures or secret bases required.  

Unless you go to some serious effort ( e.g. building an elevated landing pad and sealing your base very, very thoroughly) you are bound to end up with leaking spacesuits, failing equipment and dead astronauts - it is only a matter of time. 
No wonder people on Earth now look to Mars as a much better colonisation option: at least it has atmosphere and weather so there will be erosion and you won't have that sandpaper dust problem (although Mars has it's own problems).   

OUT THERE

I was taught that the galaxy was probably dead. Apart from dear little Earth, everywhere else was dead, no life, no air, no water. We humans are supposedly something special, there is nobody out there, we are “the chosen few”.

The first problem with that viewpoint is that life on Earth is everywhere. We now know that there are lifeforms that can be frozen for centuries that reanimate once conditions become suitable again (tardigrades) – there are lifeforms at the bottom of the deep seas, microbes floating in the upper atmosphere, and maybe living forms we have not even defined living further out from there . . . . . .

but we are told, sadly, there is no life off Earth.

Of course, this also depends on your definition of “life” too – is DNA itself a form of life? It can be frozen at zero degrees, frozen in a meteoroid and sent across the galaxy to finally land on some distant planet where it might be defrosted and reanimate to create new life  (see Prof. Fred Hoyle's Panspermia theory). . . . . but the universe is dead, right?

Our astronomers define intelligent life currently as that which uses radio signals to communicate, even though it is almost useless at interplanetary distances, but since we don’t (officially) know of any other method and can’t hear anything (officially), we are confidently told that there is nobody out there.

Personally I regard that as making as much sense as mythical American Indians looking toward the horizon saying to each other “there is nobody across the sea because we can’t see any smoke signals” - the assumption that radio waves are the only possible method of space communication is just plain stupid. I am sure that if space travel is doable (and I think it is) then they would have something much, much faster than radio waves for communication. This delusion that there is nothing else is pseudoscientific conceit - the real conceit here is that our science is somehow capable of explaining everything adequately, yet a few minutes of careful analysis will show it is deeply flawed: gravity waves, anyone? How about a "unified theory of physics"? Need I say more? 

To extrapolate from our local experience, we would expect that the galaxy would be teeming with life: every planetary body capable would have its own ecosystem, many with intelligent life, most based on some sort of DNA/RNA code because that’s the system we see around us.

Of course, this is all assumption. There may be other systems that don't use DNA but something else.

Would they all be nice, friendly and benevolent beings? Not likely. Not if they are anything like

the lifeforms here on Earth: the lifeforms here consist of predators and prey, parasites and hosts, symbiotes and lots of cooperatives. Of course, that assumes that they are quite similar to us, or at least life here - but they are alien and so they might not even be neatly described by us . . . . . we could need whole new collections of words just to describe alien life.

All of this only applies to this specific level of reality, please note: there may well be other levels of reality that are not “organised” the same way but I don’t know about them. 

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The net has supplied a huge amount of "information" but the trouble is,  most of it is junk: in addition, there may be information that is true but we have been taught not to trust it, and how can we change our views without solid proof? 

I will chart in future posts my own observations and notes about various things I think worth looking at - but with careful reference to facts as I understand them, with quite a bit of skepticism thrown in where deserved.

 For the first episode, I will refer you to Tyler from Secureteam10 for a word about The Moon.

Yes, everything he says is correct as far as I know, and can be verified from other sources. 

Why make up stuff when reality is so out there already?

Vicious Cycle

Have a look at this:
It seems Google won't let me embed a Vimeo - or maybe I'm just not seeing where to do it.
It's worth a look though.

Dear Google

Dear Google,
I write to you out of desperation and I'm not alone. 
Years ago I put my money into products from a neat desktop computer company who made good machines and they made the system software to run on them,  which meant the whole thing was more reliable, secure and stable than any other company and let me get on with making computer art, my chosen hobby.
Oh yes, it also let me read news and communicate with others around the world too.
I got the best model I could and paid plenty to get it as good as possible with upgrades . . . . but now the company (guess who?) has decided that  powerful desktop computers with mouse and keyboard are not what they want to make any more: they insist we should all have phones and tablets instead even though neither of these are ever going to be capable of doing what I want.  It's almost as if they don't want me to create anything, they just want dumb "consumers".
The computer becomes Teevee.

For now I still have a working machine but within the next five or ten years (I'm being optomistic here!)  I will need a new one - and the only company that I can see with the power to do anything about this is You, Google. 
Yes, Microsoft has started making laplets but I need desktop grunt and Windows is not the most secure or usable of systems . . . . So how about it, Google? go ahead, steal the Mac Pro (The upgradeable model, not the Darth Vader Trashcan)  market from Apple who doesn't want it anyway - there are a LOT of CG geeks who will buy it if you can deliver, and those guys get paid to do what I do for a hobby . . . . . .

Are you listening, Google? 

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References:
http://www.mackungfu.org/
http://www.nicholaswindsorhoward.com/blog-directory/2016/7/20/the-apple-goes-mushy-part-i
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/09/linux-kernel-security-needs-fixing/

Unacknowledged

Even if you don't think "Flying Saucers" are real or any of that stuff,  you really should take a look at what Dr. Steven M. Greer has done with The Disclosure Project.

"Privacy" vs. "Security"

From The Reg:




This is from the FBI vs. Apple court case.  If you don't know what it's a bout, you must have been living on a mountaintop.




In short (very) The FBI wants Apple to cerate a backdoor into their iPhones so that FBI or other Government agencies can extract information from anyone's phone.
No, they can't just chop it open and take the data. Apple spenat a lot of money and time to make sure of that.  



Apple argues that as soon as they do make a hack, the software will leak and nobody's iPhone data will be safe.  Bearing in mind that Apple is currently trying to sell everyone on ApplePay, a system that uses your iPhone for money transactions,  they need people's trust to keep selling iPhones, but deeper than that, it is a serious issue: one of the few safeguards against crimes of the future (distant or near) is that we still have some data privacy. I don't really have anything to hide or be ashamed of, but if crooks can steal my data they will be able to steal everything else too. 
Down here in Oz I have not seen ApplePay and may never, but the "privacy" vs. "security" thing is a hot subject for sure.

I have one observation to make: From the article on The Reg -


"So the question then becomes: what is the solution? And where does the balance lie? Unfortunately for law enforcement, the Snowden revelations have given everyone reason to question any assertion that the authorities will only be accessing the data of suspect people.
We know that the US government kept the records of every single one of our phone calls. We know that they spied on everything everyone did online. We know that they tapped data centers and fiber optic cables and decided the best way for them to do their jobs was to assume everyone was guilty and gather all possible information on them in case it comes in handy later.
And we know they went out of their way to make sure no one knew about what they were doing. After all that, making the basic argument of "trust us" sounds, at best, hollow."

 Why don't the FBI simply ask the NSA for the information (assuming they have it)? Could it be that these two Government Organisations don't collaborate as well as they should? 

Note also this article which points out that using encrypted communications immediately flags you in the NSA spying system as a potential threat. You have been warned.

Personally I go with the DBS principle - that's Death By Stupidity. The previous is a perfect example of that - get all paraniod about Spies spying on you , encrypt everything, and the Spooks will start poking around in your electronic closet looking for anything naughty, which might just lead to them clobbering you. 

More Personal Transport

Remember the Solowheel? I posed about it previously. 
The whole idea of small personal transport gadgets just gets bigger and bigger: this is oblivious to the basic health of users who should at least walk some small distance each day  - but who cares about that, right? we all wanna look cool on a zoomy thingy that you can carry in your bag or stash in your school locker . . . . .

But there is a new twist to the story now: First, here is the Onewheel:

Like it's compatriots it has electronic balancing and control, new batteries and a motor - in this case in the wheel hub.  It's actually a good design I think since it is narrow, has a large wheel with an airfilled tye so you can use it offroad and there is plenty of foot spacing to allow the rider to balance well.

 Now check this out: at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show this year, a Chinese company turned up with knockoffs for sale.  they lasted about five minutes.

Should I even mention Hoverboards? it seems this is what the two wheeled devices will now be called even though they don't hover. The big mess about who has the license to make and sell them  - never mind those terrible battery fires - will be with us for a while yet.  Pah! they can't handle a decent bump and stick out too wide on the footpath too. I'll take a Onewheel any day. or walk.

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There was one other CES 2016  thing that caught my eye: Cooki. This is the kitchen gadget that I have been expecting for a long time:  have a look here.  Yup, let's replace another basic human activity with a gadget and  reduce it to a mechanical process so that folks can spend more time on Facebook or Netflix. Note that the real plan is to pre-pack ingredients and sell the packs to users - that is where the real money is, just like printers and ink carts.