Tag: The Breakfast Club

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Breakfast Tune: Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn cover Europe’s “The Final Countdown”

Today in History: October 11th

Congress OK’s U.S. military force against Iraq; Former President Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize; Anita Hill accuses Supreme Court pick Clarence Thomas; Second Vatican Council opens; ‘SNL’ premieres. (Oct. 11)

Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Breakfast Tune: Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin Cover by Love Tyler Vocal and Nathan Hanna Banjo

Today in History: October 4th

Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, is launched into orbit; U.S. Blackhawk helicopters shot down in Somalia; Silent movie comedy star Buster Keaton born; Rock singer Janis Joplin dies of drug overdose. (Oct. 4)

Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below

The Waters of Mars is an episode of the Doctor I rarely re-watch because it’s sad and painful.

The story is set on Mars in the year 2059 where the Doctor encounters the first human colony, Bowie Base One. This is commanded by Captain Adelaide Brooke who turns out to be a pivotal character in the history of humanity. The Doctor must decide whether to use his knowledge of her fate to change history.

The nuclear blast that destroys the base leaves no survivors, but it does galvinize humanity to explore the Universe.  Because the event is so pivotal it is considered a “fixed point” in time, unlike the life of Gillian Taylor who not only gets dumped by Kirk but who’s disappearance from the time stream makes no difference whatsoever.

Thus Galifreyan interlopers are expected not to interfere.  The Doctor, the last Time Lord of Galifrey, the Oncoming Storm who destroys his entire race as well as the Daleks in the holocaust of The Moment, decides he is no longer bound by petty rules of continuity and saves Adelaide and two others.

Time Lord Victorious!

Adelaide, shocked by the potential consequences of what he has done, kills herself.  The Cloister Bells ring.

So, is it better to be like Yuri, Mia, and Gillian- little noted nor long remembered?  Sacrifice yourself over the ravings of a lunatic in a blue box?  And what does this say about the hubris of absolute power, could you be trusted with the future?

Well, not me!  I like pushing buttons and I expect I’d push every last one.  This is why most realistic assessments of time travel that allow you to change events end up with a future in which that no longer works.  It’s the only way to be sure.

On the other hand perceptions are tricky things and perhaps the way we experience reality is not the only one there is.  In physics the rule is that your model is self consistent, that its internal rules not contradict themselves.  It is perfectly possible to imagine such systems, if they exist we will probably never know.

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News and Blogs

• George RR Martin: our long obsession with Mars, by George RR Martin, The Guardian
• Great Scott! Back to the Future turns 30 (and catches up with reality), by Catherine Shoard, The Guardian
• Water on Mars: Nasa faces contamination dilemma over future investigations, by Ian Sample, The Guardian
• South Carolina: Civil War Cannons Pulled From 150-Year Bath, Associated Press
• Why no Trident? The benefits of a nuclear apocalypse, by Dean Burnett, The Guardian
• A living thing in two places at once? This quantum quandary test is limited, by James Millen, The Guardian
• Half of Europe opts out of new GM crop scheme, by Arthur Neslen, The Guardian
• NASA Eyeing Venus, Asteroids for Next Low-Cost Robotic Mission, by Mike Wall, Space.com
• Hazing, #piggate and other secret rites: the psychology of extreme group rituals, by Joanna Walters, The Guardian
• New Maps of Ceres Highlight Mysterious Bright Spots, Giant Mountain, by Mike Wall, Space.com

Science Oriented Video

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Or not (sigh).

You know, whenever one of these warnings about the end of the Universe, or Earth, or even just the Tri-State area (were you aware that we got issued an erroneous Tsunami alert last week?), and I have a deadline, there is always a fair part of me that hopes it’s true just so I can avoid writing.

It’s a hateful, horrible task that sucks out your soul photon by photon and I do love it so.

The ‘Super’ Blood Moon Non-Apocalypse Is Upon Us

By Chas Danner, New York Magazine

September 27, 2015

(M)uch of the U.S. will be able to witness the rare convergence of a total lunar eclipse and a so-called “supermoon,” which is when the moon appears a whopping 7 percent larger because it’s at the closest point of its orbit of the Earth.

…

A lunar eclipse is also referred to as a “blood moon,” due to the reddish-brown color the eclipsed moon gets after the sun’s light is filtered through the particulates in our atmosphere. Put another way, as Plait adds, “If you were standing on the Moon, it’s like you’re seeing every sunrise and sunset on Earth all at once,” or put even another way, its like projecting all the crap in our atmosphere onto the surface of the moon. Bonus: Tonight is a harvest moon as well.

Tonight is thus a harvest-super-blood moon, as well as the possible end of the world if you’re a believer of fringe religious theories suggesting that. But while astrophysicists are certain the world will end some day, NASA insists that won’t be tonight.

And here we all are still, fixed in our orbits like the Moon.  This is what I did for entertainment last night-

Yup.  Four hours doing squats behind a camera in the dark only it wasn’t so dark because I was in a parking lot behind a school that was brightly lit and under 24 hour a day surveillance as the helpful sign informed me.  I only got busted by the cops twice.

The first time they came by it was me and my camera and the Officer very helpfully suggested I must be out to watch the Blood Moon.

Why yes.  Yes I am.  Pay no attention to my home made digital clock (I’m not the tidiest of solderers).

I got there early, but right on time the SUVs with the kidlings arrived to see the show.  They paid very little attention, preferring to play flashlight tag (very distracting) and throw balls (even more distracting if you weren’t ready to think quick).

I admit it’s a rather slow moving event for a child, I on the other hand was quite busy, especially during those times when it was too dark for the viewfinder and you had to take Aperture Priority shots just to line up the camera.

I took over 300 photos of which I’ve identified 5 that are almost acceptable.  In addition to the pointing problem focus is also an issue, as far as I know my camera decides what it likes.

10:45 was peak eclipsish and everyone packed up the rug rats and headed home.  I bitter ended because I was (correctly) not confident in the quality of any of my shots.  The cops rolled around again when everything was as desolate as it was when I arrived.

How did it go?

Ok I guess.  Don’t believe them when they say that this is it until 2033.  There will be other Eclipses and other Super Moons, just not the two together.

Sports AND Entertainment

My family reads my blogs (yes, I have one) and my cousin’s kids as I think I’ve mentioned are big Nationals fans.  Therefore I will just quietly mention that The New York City Metropolitans are National League East Champions and link to this.  

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.  Then it’s just fun.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. –Aristotle

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Breakfast Tune: Roger Sprung & Friends Play “Ripple” at ROMP 2009

Today in History: September 27th

Warren Commission concludes Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in JFK’s assassination; Taliban captures Afghanistan’s capital; First steam locomotive to haul passengers; ‘The Tonight Show’ premieres. (Sept. 27)

Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below

It’s been a while so let’s review-

The Rules of Opera

1. It must be long, boring, and in an incomprehesible foreign language (even if that language is English).
2. The characters, especially the main ones, must be thoroughly unsympathetic and their activities horrid and callous.
3. Everyone must die, hopefully in an ironic and gruesome way.

Ballet is the same, but with more men in tights and without the superfluous singing.

The case in point is Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.  It’s sometimes called the first English Opera but while it is very early indeed (1689) that honor probably belongs to his teacher John Blow’s Venus and Adonis.

Aeneas you may recognize as the “hero” of Virgil’s Odyssey rip off The Aeneid.  The Roman source is actually kind of a great screaming neurotic rant of self justification about why exactly Romans were such bloodthirsty assholes.

First of all let’s talk about the psychological depravity and inferiority complex that would lead you to rewrite the seminal national text of your cultural superiors who’s land you had violently conquered and whom you were still dependent on for intellectual talent because you’re basically a bunch of frat boy barbarians so that the bad guys were the good guys and the founders of your own state.

Then let’s add the seduction and abandonment of the Queen of the nation that was your chief rival.

I think we’re in Operatown Jake.

So Aeneas, noble warrior of Troy cruelly cheated and defeated by those perfidious Greeks, especially Odysseus who’s story he’s stealing, is sailing with a boatload of refugees to find someplace new to settle down when they are blown off course and shipwrecked due to internecine disputes among the Gods related to the Judgement of Paris.

Oddly enough for this ancestor of the founders of Rome (who were raised by wolves in a sterling example of good parenting) he ended up at the gates of Rome’s great future rival- Carthage.

Dido Queen of Carthage, a widow, falls in love with him and fixes up his ships.  Witches plotting against Dido conjure up a storm and when the couple is temporarily separated one of them, impersonating Hermes, tells Aeneas that he simply must hit the road and found that New Troy in Italy he’s been planning.  Aeneas, being a cad in addition to a credulous dope, promptly shoves off.

Dido, despondent, kills herself.  The End.

Now there were in fact heavy political subtexts to both The Aeneid and Dido and Aeneas.  Virgil was not just stroking the Roman sense of entitlement and righteous justification but, because of Ceasar’s reputed descent from Aeneas, sucking up to the Julio-Claudian Emperors (it was written between 29 and 19 BCE).

With Dido and Aeneas Purcell is alluding to the (for him) recent events of the English Civil War.  Aeneas is said to represent James II and the Witches Roman Catholicism while Dido represents Britain, abandoned due to deception.

Like many early compositions it’s not entirely complete and for performance various arrangers fill in the gaps in a variety of ways.  This particular version is from the San Francisco School of the Arts.

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.