words of love and despair

detail - http://flic.kr/p/eqAt8Y the light captured was very...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:09:54 -0700

detail -
http://flic.kr/p/eqAt8Y
the light captured was very good but I decided I would at least process one raw file and the dynamic range lent itself to light sculpting. First test shots of the RX100.
© Eduardo Cervantes 2013
www.eddyizm.com

pretty sharp jpeg http://flic.kr/p/eqAqkd for a low light shot...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:01:09 -0700

pretty sharp jpeg
http://flic.kr/p/eqAqkd
for a low light shot at f/1.8. I think I just touched the clarity slider a bit. First test shots of the RX100
Camera Sony DSC-RX100
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture f/1.8
Focal Length 10.4 mm
ISO Speed 800
© Eduardo Cervantes 2013
www.eddyizm.com

macro-ish http://flic.kr/p/epEgTc First test shots of the...

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:58:38 -0700

macro-ish
http://flic.kr/p/epEgTc
First test shots of the RX100.
© Eduardo Cervantes 2013
www.eddyizm.com

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:30:25 -0700

Al Jazeera deletes its own controversial Op-Ed, then refuses to comment

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:24:37 -0700

Al Jazeera deletes its own controversial Op-Ed, then refuses to comment :

Last Tuesday, Al Jazeera English published a lengthy Op-Ed by Columbia professor and Middle East scholar Joseph Massad entitled “The Last of the Semites”. Massad’s argument was obviously controversial: he highlighted the shared goal between the early Zionist movement and Europe’s anti-Jewish bigots (namely, the removal of Jews from the continent), detailed the cooperation between German Nazis and Zionists to facilitate the departure of Jews out of Europe (the existence of that cooperation is not in dispute, though the extent of it very much is), and highlighted the extensive disagreements among Jews themselves over the wisdom and justness of Zionism (large numbers of European Jews were insistent that they did not want to, and should not have to, leave their homelands for a distant land that was not theirs).

Predictably, numerous commentators - largely the ones who have spent years casually smearing as anti-semites those who criticize Israel - instantly and vehemently denounced Massad’s arguments. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg sarcastically tweeted: “Congratulations, al Jazeera: You’ve just posted one of the most anti-Jewish screeds in recent memory,” while the editor of the neocon journal Commentary, John Podhoretz, wrote: “Congratulations, donors to Columbia University, for paying this monstrous []head’s salary!” A blogger for the Jerusalem Post claimed that “Massad’s writings on Israel can easily be confused with material from the neo-Nazi ‘White Pride World Wide’ hate site Stormfront.”

All of that is par for the course when it comes to debates over Israel and Palestine: as any writer who ever ventures into that topic well knows, nothing triggers greater venom and personalized attacks (and a greater risk of losing one’s job) than opining on any of these matters. And the critics of Massad’s Op-Ed were doing nothing wrong per se: it’s perfectly appropriate to harshly criticize controversial arguments that are published in a major media outlet. An intense debate was triggered about Massad’s thesis, just as Massad and his Al Jazeera editors undoubtedly anticipated, and that is what opinion journalism often does and should do.

But all of that changed on Saturday. Without issuing any comment or explanation of any kind, unknown officials at Al Jazeera ordered Massad’s Op-Ed to be deleted - in essence, silently retracted. I actually discovered this deletion because, aware of the controversy that had erupted, I attempted on Saturday to read Massad’s Op-Ed. But none of the specific Al Jazeera links I found would work: they all went to Al Jazeera’s home page, which said nothing about Massad’s Op-Ed. I finally was able to read the Op-Ed only by finding it on blogs which had re-printed the Op-Ed in full (a .pdf version of how it appeared on Al Jazeera’s site can be found here).

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:22:25 -0700

Monsanto Found Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in Landmark Case

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:22:06 -0700

Monsanto Found Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in Landmark Case:

A French farmer who can no longer perform his routine farming duties because of permanent pesticide injuries has had his day in court, literally, and the perpetrator of his injuries found guilty of chemical poisoning. The French court in Lyon ruled that Monsanto

Why does Monsato remind me of the Umbrella Corporation?

azspot: Rob Rogers: GOP Truisms

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:19:15 -0700

azspot:

Rob Rogers: GOP Truisms

greentogreyagain: This dude is someone you should follow on...

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:18:34 -0700

greentogreyagain:

This dude is someone you should follow on tumblr.. He is traveling to remote regions of the world and learning to become a mountaineering guide. His name is Erik, check his shit out!

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:14:04 -0700

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:13:48 -0700

think-progress: FACT: Rapists cause rape. via Being Liberal

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:08:40 -0700

think-progress:

FACT: Rapists cause rape. via Being Liberal

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 00:01:42 -0700

theentropiancolonist: As a GC employee and a drummer, I’m...

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:54:51 -0700

theentropiancolonist:

As a GC employee and a drummer, I’m almost obligated to post this. This guy definitely takes traditional drummer showmanship and runs with it. Pretty damn awesome.

this is basically what I think I sound like when I’m playing. I have a beautiful and cruel mind.

rejohnson53: I am more a fan of this man every day.

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:43:21 -0700

rejohnson53:

I am more a fan of this man every day.

slobbering: Monday’s Melancholy

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:37:07 -0700

slobbering:

Monday’s Melancholy

la jolla cove, ca on Flickr.www.eddyizm.com Photography of...

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:06:24 -0700

la jolla cove, ca on Flickr.

www.eddyizm.com
Photography of Eduardo Cervantes
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death to automobiles on Flickr.www.eddyizm.com Photography of...

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:06:13 -0700

death to automobiles on Flickr.

www.eddyizm.com
Photography of Eduardo Cervantes
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astrodidact: Planck Time What is the smallest unit of time you...

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:03:30 -0700

astrodidact:

Planck Time

What is the smallest unit of time you can conceive? A second? A millisecond? Hard to say seeing as how time is relative. Under the right circumstances, hours can fly by and seconds can feel like a lifetime. But unfortunately for physicists, time is not something that can be delt with so philosophically. And since they deal with cosmological forces both infinitesimally large and small, they need units that can objectively measure them. When it comes to dealing with the small, Planck Time is the measurement of choice. Named after German physicist Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, a unit of Planck time is the time it takes for light to travel, in a vacuum, a single unit of Planck length. Taken together, they part of the larger system of natural units known as Planck units.

Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, Planck units are physical units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of five universal physical constants. These are the Gravitational constant (G), the Reduced Planck constant (h), the speed of light in a vacuum (c), the Coulomb constant(ke or k), and Boltzmann’s constant (kB, sometimes k). Each of these constants can be associated with at least one fundamental physical theory: c with special relativity, G with general relativity and Newtonian gravity, with quantum mechanics, with electrostatics, and kB with statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. They were invented as a means of simplifying the particular algebraic expressions appearing in theoretical physics, especially in quantum mechanics.

Ultimately, Planck time is derived from the field of mathematical physics known as dimensional analysis, which studies units of measurement and physical constants. The Planck time is the unique combination of the gravitational constant G, the relativity constant c, and the quantum constant h, to produce a constant with units of time. They are often semi-humorously referred to by physicists as “God’s units” because eliminate anthropocentric arbitrariness from the system of units, unlike the meter and second, which exist for purely historical reasons and are not derived from nature. Some challenges to Planck’s Time have been mounted. For example, in 2003 during the analysis of the Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field images, some scientists speculated that where there are space-time fluctuations on the Planck scale, images of extremely distant objects should be blurry. The Hubble images, they claimed, were too sharp for this to be the case. Other scientists disagreed with this assumption however, with some saying the fluctuations would be too small to be observable, others saying that the speculated blurring effect that was expected was off by a very large magnitude. A unit of Planck Time can be expressed (in the third picture).

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thescienceofreality: Three Possible Futures for the Universe...

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:03:23 -0700

thescienceofreality:

Three Possible Futures for the Universe via Chandra X-ray Observatory (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)

“This illustration shows three possible futures for the Universe, depending on the behavior of dark energy, by showing how the scale of the Universe may change with time. If dark energy is constant, as the new Chandra results suggest, the expansion should continue accelerating forever. If dark energy increases, the acceleration may happen so quickly that galaxies, stars, and eventually atoms will be torn apart, in the so-called Big Rip. Dark energy may also lead to a recollapse of the Universe, in the Big Crunch. The illustration also shows the early decelerating expansion of the Universe, followed by the accelerating phase that started about 6 billion years ago.”

Related Link here on dark energy.