A "good" Patient

In 1822 a French trapper named Alexis St. Martin was wounded in the abdomen by a musket blast. The resulting injury healed but left a fistula in the digestive tract that was open , a Doctor named Beaumont was intrigued by "almost being able to see the process of digestion" that he tied various foodstuffs such as roasted and raw meat to a piece of string and lowered it into the stomach and observed and noted the process of digestion.
                                                          Think of that.......

but, they tracked me down in Sasebo Japan for the $3015.00 in student loans

In 2005 the CPA audit of Iraqi oil revenue could not account for $ 8,800,000,000 .
                                                          Think of that.....

what could happen? They have a whole team of engineers on it....

In 1999. The Mars climate orbiter, a one hundred and twenty five million spacecraft was lost because of a mismatch between meters and feet. Lockheed Martin who designed and operated the craft for Nasa operates in english units. Nasa since the 1990s uses meters. After a 286 day flight the spacecraft  fired it's engine late and caused the craft to plunge deeper into the planet's atmosphere then designed to operate.
 It caused the orbiter to plow through the atmosphere and back into space. Where Nasa believes it "could"  now be orbiting the sun.
                                                              Think of that.........

better living through chemistry

A closed study in which twenty severe ptsd patients were given ecstasy(mdma) was done. The results were then observed and recorded. Out of all twenty patients. Twenty reported improvement in symptoms.

                                                         Think of that.......

robot art

Brian Despain's robot art is both nostalgic and non threating. Something novel for the genre'.

You didn't, you should.

A Peter Jackson tour de force. A truly unique bem (bug eyed monster) movie. Great overall gritty feel with undertones of apartheid. Get the dvd.

Is it because they are blue?

Let's get it out of the way to start with. Cameron delivers. His latest effort ten years in the making, Avatar is due for release. His filmography is stainless. Aleins, True Lies, Terminator 2, The Abyss. So why the fluttering in my stomach? I have seen the trailers, love the premise. But I can't get excited about it. Which might be a good thing.  I couldn't wait for Terminator Salvation. And then sat there afterword with ashes of disapointment in my mouth. But is it because the Avatars are blue? If they wern't blue would I take them more seriously?
                                                                            Think of that.........

rhino says no, means no. Or is that a tusk in your pocket or are you glad to see me?

Young African elephants experiencing "musth" at a much earlier age have been seen mounting and killing rhinos. Meanwhile in India a herd of elephants got a hold of a quanity of rice beer got hammered and trampled a village in Assam. All and all sounds like a weekend at the Jersey shore.

Sound Advice

Men's Journal "How can we win the war on terror?"

Robert Baer(CIA vet, author.inspiration for Syriana) "We've got to get our minds around terrorism as a political problem.We can kill Bin Laden today- so what? He'll just become a martyr. We are going on seven years in Afghanistan. and the Taliban are still closing down schools in Kandahar. It's a joke. And iraq is a corpse that Petraeus keeps putting lipstick on to make it look alive. All the Iraqis are doing is cooperating to get American arms. Petraeus says it's thanks to Iran that they are keeping the peace. That's a extraordinary statement: Our main middle eastern enemy is keeping the peace for us? Were f**ked. What to do? Come home. Just come home. Impose visa's,make sure you know who is coming into the country,lock the cockpit doors, and be nice to Muslims here. The worst things we can do is to continually shed Muslim blood."

Children of Men.

Clive Owen's understated performance in this overlooked 2006 film was to say the least noteworthy. Based on P.D. Jame's novel the title is taken from psalm 90(89):3 in The King James Bible. It is set in a world on the border of choas in 1992 England. At this time for reason not fully understood all are infertile. The people alive are the last generation on the planet. The film opens with the last peron born on record being killed in a barfight in South America. It moves on from there with a quick and coherent story line. The scene where Clive's character walks out during a pause in a firefight is spellbinding.
Take the time. It's worth it....

A tail worth telling.

Toward the end of the Civil War. The South was so befret of supplies due to the blockades and overall cost of the effort that everything was in short supply. The silk thread used for surgery had almost disappeared.  Enterprising Southern surgeons had took to boiling hair from horses tails to make it supple enough to use. The boiling had a two fold effect. It made the hair easier to handle as well as to make it sterile. This cut post op infections and caught the attentions of the physicians who then made the jump between boiling material and lack of infections. Which lead to sterilization of surgery tools.
                                                                  Think of that........

Sartre's crabs

When Jean Paul Sartre was in Normale he ate mescaline by the fistfull. He used to see crabs following him everywhere. He would greet them in the morning and tell them to be quiet as they went to class. Ahh to be French.

Cleaner makes your more ethical?

A study to be released by a BYU professor found people in a clean and orderly enviorment act more ethically.  Really? Weren't Nazis a clean meticulous people. The camps laid out in orderly grids. I don't know about you but clean and meticulous makes me edgy.

Krung Threp

I met the guy who built the Tyrell pyramid in Blade Runner in Bangkok. He said it was knee high and could fit on a table. He also said the entire Blade Runner set was only a block on a back set.

                                          Think of that......

May set fire to the atmosphere?

Enrico Fermi, a brillant Los Alamos physicist was worried that when the first Atom bomb was detonated the the reaction would be so energetic that it may set fire to earth's atmosphere. The army thought at the time it was a acceptable risk.

Your tax dollars at work circa 1944

At the height of World War II. A dentist (a profession fundamentaly evil by nature.) named Lytle S. Adams came up with the idea for a bat bomb.  Bats as it turns out can carry close to their own weight in flight. And as luck would have it there are four caves in Texas with something like seven million bats . Bats when dormant hibernate so would need very little care and when active hide during daylight.  They seek out eves and attics which interestingly enough in Japan were constructed of wood and paper. So this toothpuller hooked up with another gigglemaster by the name of Louis Fieser the inventor of napalm. He designed a .6 ounce napalm bomblet with timer to be carried by a bat. The bats would be carried in 26 trays stacked forty to a bomb. The bomb would be dropped at night at five thousand feet and release the bats at one thousand feet where they would seek out the comfort of the aforementioned eves and attics. The timers go off and the bats and Osaka Bay would burn to ashes.
 There was a plan to produce  1,040,040 batbombs and fly them over Japan from Alaska. During testing and bunch of bats(colony?) escaped and burned  a Army base in Carlsbad New Mexico to the ground.
 It was due to be made opperational in 1945. The little parties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it unnessary.

Seamless Transistion

The transistion from speculative fiction to mainstream was effortless in this watershed novel. Gibson loses none of his edge or quicksilver dynamic in this novel about a coolhunter,9/11 intertwined with industrial espionage.  Read it.

The only weapon banned by the Catholic Church

This weapon was banned by Pope Innocent the II for use against  Christians. Before the introduction of the arbalest a mounted knight could pretty much mow down foot soilders at will. But armed with a crossbow a comon foot soilder drop a mounted night with ease. This presented a conundrum for the Church since the cash flowed from the nobility. So you could draw,quarter burn alive and otherwise create any mayhem you could imagine. But stick a bolt in some armored miscreant you were going to Hell. Unless he wasn't Christian or noble(no cash see)

Augment (teaser) Look for Augment in spring of 2010

       "What's he doing Colonel?"
       "It looks like he is making a depth change, probably near test depth. Amazing, almost eleven hundred meters."
       " I'm overjoyed your impressed Colonel. Thomas are we going to be able to reach him?"
Thomas smiled. "As stated earlier. Distance or depth will not be an obstacle.      
       "For your sake I hope so." Stone smiled back.

        "Sir passing through seven five zero zero meters."
         "Excellent. Engineer how are the stress sensors?"
         "Sir the sensors report even stress through out the pressure hull."
         "Well done. Report any changes. Officer of the deck make your depth nine zero zero zero meters."
       
          "He's still diving?"
          "Just passing through seven thousand five hundred meters."
          "Good." Stone chuckled. 'Tell me when he levels out."

           "Approaching one zero zero zero zero meters."
           'That's a lot of zeros. Level out at one zero five zero zero."
           "Aye Captain."

            "He leveled off, holding at just under eleven hundred meters."
            "Excellent. Stand by Thomas."

             "Engineer. board still green?"
            " Board still green. Captain."

            " Alright Thomas, hit that fucker."

A klaxon rang out startling all those in control. The Captain roared. "Report."
The weapons officer responded. "We got radiation alarms going off all over in the missile bay."
            "Alarms? Has the pressure hull been brea...."
There was a flash of unearthly white. And a billionth of a second later the Zheng He ceased to be.

            "Holy Shit. We are picking up a massive undersea detonation in the megaton range at the Zheng He's last reported position." Phones and alarms began to go off all over the control room.
             "Fuck me. That's the Joint Chiefs." Picking up the phone the Colonel responded. "Yes Sir. I have it on my screen's now. No, does not appear to be accidental launch, much too deep. What caused it? I have no idea,some catastrophic failure. What Sir? Yes he's standing right here." The Colonel handed the phone to Stone. "Sir, it is the Vice President for you."
Stone took the receiver and paused for two heartbeats. "Stone here. I see, why yes, I would love to meet at the earliest opportunity. Not at all Mr. Vice President. Thank you Mr. Vice President." Stone hung up the phone.
The Colonel looked stunned. "That was you? How?"
               'That is a need to know issue Colonel." Stone said softly.  "Come Thomas we have the Lord's work elsewhere." The two left without looking back.  



        
        
        

Alpha cyberpunk

The more I learn about this gentleman. The more amazed I become. Truely a Wizard who spooked the hell out of Edision. His invention the capacitor is one of the bedrocks that our modern electronics depend.