Some Passing Thoughts as You Walk With Me...

Some thoughts about Easter Sunday...  if you don't mind...
 

I began a novel a few years ago that had the title YOU CANNOT GET THERE FROM HERE...  it was going to be a religious novel of sorts that focused on the trinity of man:  the heart...  the soul...  the mind...

I had not decided if it was going to be a self-help type of novel or a fictional novel but I was damn sure that it was going to revolve around the stages through which everyone passes.  These stages are:

• unconscious perfection
• unconscious imperfection
• conscious imperfection
• conscious perfection

Unconscious perfection happens to us at the moment of our birth and lasts a good year or two.  We then go about our lives for several years completely unaware that we are imperfect, but somewhere during our so-called maturity, we adopt the personality of Hamlet and come to realize that we are consciously imperfect.

I would say that in the Southern Baptist tradition that becoming BORN AGAIN is realizing that we are imperfect and we use our religious faith in a relentless but fruitless attempt to become perfect...  to become more Jesus Christ-like as long as we do not have to endure the pain and suffering that he endured on the cross.

We never really get there...  because human beings are flawed from the get-go with original sin and there is nothing that we can do to change that...  and, therein lies our problem.

The more wealthy we become, the harder it is to become or attain the level of being consciously perfect like Jesus Christ.

We hold on to what we have, not wanting to give anything up, even though we may increase our tithe as our wealth increases... but, it is not the tithe, or the faith, or the belief that gets us there.

It is the inner awareness that we have inside ourselves...  the inner awareness that revolves around the mind, the body, and the soul...  and, it is that trinity that is the most difficult to understand and master.

How long can we keep our minds empty of the thoughts that we carry around inside them during the day?  Have you ever tried it?  Were you successful?

And what about our bodies...  our physical bodies...  how well do we care for them?  Diet...  Exercise...  Relaxation...  Sleep...  Are we satisfied with the bodies that we have been given or do we try to change them...  enhance them...  make them better or at least different?

Then there is the soul...  and, my goodness...  what the hell is the soul?  We cannot see it...  We cannot feel it...  We are not really sure if scientifically that we actually have a soul, are we?  Is the soul our consciousness or our unconsciousness or both?  How do we feed it?  Train it?

  

Is the soul our ID?  Ego?  Super Ego?  But, I am confident that are hundreds if not thousands of articles, essays, and books that have tried to explain what the soul is or is not...  Of course, one PhD will explain it this way while another PhD will disagree and explain it another way.  Who is right?  wrong?

Who earned their PhD first might be the best way to decide...  or not...

Maybe the soul is simply that which we believe...  and that would include people that don't believe because not believing is actually a belief...

So, how does this shit relate to Easter Sunday anyway?  It is the mind component of the trinity...  and, perhaps the soul component as well.  And, since the mind controls the body, then the body component of the trinity is also included...  In short, the trinity overlaps with its three components like an atom (proton, neutron, electron).  As a matter of fact, the atom is a perfect example of this trinity and its interrelatedness.

And like the atom, the mind-body-soul can be further broken down into subcomponents that might be correlated with energy strings whose movements are random until they are observed.  It is this theory that gives us multiple dimensions and a multiverse...

And this relates the Easter Sunday how?

Just as the path of strings becomes fixed when being observed, the path of humans is fixed through prayer...  and it is the prayer that undergirds, strengthens, and unites the mind-body-soul.

I have just shared the tip of the iceberg with you!!!

 

Muscles

Twitter's Poison Pill

Twitter does not want to become a plaything of the world’s richest person.

So on Friday, it turned to a tried-and-tested corporate defense mechanism invented in the 1980s — the heyday of the corporate raider — to block a potential takeover attempt by Elon Musk and buy its board some time.

The mechanism, known as a poison pill, has a simple intention: to make it less palatable for a potential buyer to pursue the target company if the buyer accumulates shares above a certain threshold. 

In Twitter’s case, if Mr. Musk bought more than 15 percent of the company, Twitter would flood the market with new stock that all shareholders except Mr. Musk could buy at a discounted price.

That would immediately dilute Mr. Musk’s stake and make it significantly more expensive for him to buy the company. Mr. Musk currently owns a little more than 9 percent of Twitter’s stock.

Twitter said its plan would be in place for just shy of one year. The tool will not stop the company from holding talks with any potential buyer, and will give it more time to negotiate a deal that Twitter’s board believes best reflects the company’s value.  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

Nubian Stone and Quantum Computers

Cuprous oxide – the mined crystal from Namibia used for making Rydberg polaritons. Credit: University of St Andrews

A special form of light made using an ancient Namibian gemstone could be the key to new light-based quantum computers, which could solve long-held scientific mysteries, according to new research led by the University of St Andrews.

The research, conducted in collaboration with scientists at Harvard University in the US, Macquarie University in Australia and Aarhus University in Denmark and published in Nature Materials, used a naturally mined cuprous oxide (Cu2O) gemstone from Namibia to produce Rydberg polaritons, the largest hybrid particles of light and matter ever created.

Rydberg polaritons switch continually from light to matter and back again. In Rydberg polaritons, light and matter are like two sides of a coin, and the matter side is what makes polaritons interact with each other.

This interaction is crucial because this is what allows the creation of quantum simulators, a special type of quantum computer, where information is stored in quantum bits. These quantum bits, unlike the binary bits in classical computers that can only be 0 or 1, can take any value between 0 and 1. They can therefore store much more information and perform several processes simultaneously.  READ MORE...

Diver

 

600 Miles on One Charge

MERCEDES-BENZ announced the EQXX, a new electric car that drives 600 miles on a single charge, twice the typical range.

Driving reported that this vehicle made it from Sindelfingen, Germany, to the Côte d’Azur with about 15 percent energy remaining.

The incredible range of this EV is just the beginning.

The efficiency of this vehicle is superb, as it accomplished the incredible journey with 100 kilowatt-hours of battery onboard.

Many newly-released EV pickups and SUVs have 200 kilowatt-hours, and GMC's Hummer EV has even more.

Driving concluded, "if you do the math — dividing those 1,008 km by the 86 kWh used — the EQXX’s on-the-road efficiency works out to just 8.7 kWh/100 km, a claim that, were there not photographic proof of the voyage, would seriously strain credibility."

The conditions that the EQXX drove in are also noteworthy.

The vehicle cruised through the German autobahn during its European tour where it allegedly was held at a steady 140km per hour.

This is highly impressive as speed heavily affects EV's power usage, according to Driving.

The vehicle also face steep inclines and cold temperatures as they drove a significant distance through the Swiss Alps.  READ MORE...

Cowboy

 

Southern Born

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina 74 years ago on Halloween, I am according to Myers-Briggs, not only a Southern Scorpion but I am an INTJ personality type.


Why Are INTJs So Rare?
INTJs are among the least common of the personality types. It’s only logical to ask: why are INTJs so rare? It seems there should be many more of us.  The truth is that INTJs are full of contradictions.

• Open-minded while seeming standoffish
• Natural leaders but hate leading
• Highly analytical but imaginative
• Love deep conversation but not great socializers
• Logical except with relationships

So, what does that really make me...  if anything?

Well...  I will tell you what it makes me...  it makes me different than most...

And, while I like being different and unique, I am left without many, if any, friends...  at least friends that I would call close...

And, the older I get, the more I have discovered that one does not need many if any, friends at all...

Being old is a time for reflections, ponderings, and remembering...  not so much in the sense of what I would have done differently if given the chance but just reviewing all that has been done or not done as one might catalog a group of plants or look at how one's clothes are hanging in the closet.

Many people say that age is just a number and that is true because they are trying to get something from you...  because age is more than just a number...  it is a true representation of approximately how long we have left to live, all things being equal.

Life is finite although some believe that life in a religious context is infinite and it might be, but if it is...  it will not be in the same physical form that we are living life today...  that physical form is finite...

And so, I am left pondering, reflecting, and remembering...  and, while I would do nothing differently, I cannot help but think and perhaps believe that I made some bad choices along the way mixed in with the good choices.

Life is what it is...  some say while others speculate that one's life is exactly what had been intended for that life...  but, if that is the case, who intended it to be that way? and why?

If our choices have all been pre-determined then "free will" as we have come to expect it to be is bullshit...  and does not exist...  just as our choices never existed...  we are victims of someone else's design(s).

And, why does all this matter when one gets to be my age?

It doesn't and that's the point.

Whatever life is or was, it is almost gone at this age, even though I still have quite a few years of it left...

Caucasian Born

 

Ferris Wheel

Magic Mushrooms

Psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in "magic mushrooms," could treat depression by creating a hyper-connected brain.

By boosting connectivity between different areas of the brain, the psychedelic may help people with depression break out of rigid, negative patterns of thinking, a new study suggests.

Recent clinical trials have suggested that psilocybin may be an effective treatment for depression, when carefully administered under the supervision of mental health professionals. In the new study, published Monday (April 11) in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers probed exactly how the psychedelic works to improve peoples' depressive symptoms. To do so, the team collected brain scans from about 60 patients who had participated in clinical trials for psilocybin therapy; these brain scans revealed distinct changes in the patients' brain wiring that emerged after they took the drug.

"We see connectivity between various brain systems increasing dramatically," first author Richard Daws, who was a doctoral student at Imperial College London at the time of the study, told Live Science. Healthy individuals with high levels of well-being and cognitive function tend to have highly connected brains, studies suggest, but in people with depression, "we sort of see the opposite of that — a brain characterized by segregation," said Daws, now a postdoctoral research associate at King's College London. This sort of organization undermines the brain's ability to dynamically switch between different mental states and patterns of thinking, he said.

The study supports the idea that psilocybin relieves depressive symptoms, at least in part, by boosting connectivity between different brain networks, said Dr. Hewa Artin, the chief resident of outpatient psychiatry at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. That said, "additional studies will be needed to replicate results and validate findings," Artin told Live Science in an email.  READ MORE...

Rabbit

 

Good Gut Bacteria

Researchers of synthetic biology based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have devised a system to protect the gut microbiome from the effects of antibiotics.

The new study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, reports on the successful use in mice of a “live biotherapeutic” – a genetically engineered bacterium that produces an enzyme which breaks down antibiotics in the gut.

“This work shows that synthetic biology can be harnessed to create a new class of engineered therapeutics for reducing the adverse effects of antibiotics,” says MIT professor James Collins, the paper’s senior author.
The dark side of antibiotics

Antibiotics – substances that kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria – are hugely important in fighting bacterial infections.

But there’s a dark side to antibiotics too. Increasing human use of antibiotics has contributed to the rise of antibiotic resistance, which has made many bacterial diseases increasingly difficult to successfully treat.

Antibiotic treatment can also kill off bacteria in our resident healthy gut microbiome – the trillions of microbes that live in our gastrointestinal tract and assist with food digestion, immune development and vitamin synthesis.

This causes two problems: firstly, we can lose the benefits provided by our good bacteria; and secondly, this disruption can tip the balance of the microbial ecosystem towards species that cause harm.

In some cases, these indiscriminate effects of antibiotics can have life-threatening consequences. In the US, about 15,000 deaths each year are attributed to diarrhoea and colitis (inflammation of the colon) caused by overgrowth of the bacterium Clostridium difficile following antibiotic overuse.

So, while antibiotics are an important and necessary tool to fight bacterial infections, working to limit antibiotic resistance and damage to the gut microbiome are key priorities for research.  READ MORE...

Lover Lions

 

Treating Obesity

The modified ISD would be non-surgically inserted into the stomach and then pulled back out for each treatment  Adapted from ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2022, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c00532

While some folks might say that obese people should just exercise more and eat less, things aren't always quite that simple. With that fact in mind, a new implant is being designed to help boost the weight-loss process, by killing hunger-inducing cells in the stomach.

Ghrelin is a naturally produced hormone that stimulates the appetite, increases food intake and promotes the storage of fat. And while small amounts of it are released by the brain, pancreas and small intestine, most of it is produced and secreted by cells in the upper portion of the stomach.

Scientists at the Catholic University of Korea recently set out to reduce the activity of those cells, by modifying an existing prototype implant. Known as the "intragastric satiety-inducing device" (ISD), it consists of a stent which is non-surgically lodged in the lower esophagus, connected to a disc that rests in the opening to the stomach. A small opening in that disc allows food to pass through.

In the new version of the ISD, the underside of the disc is coated with an FDA-approved drug called methylene blue. Additionally, a fiber optic laser passes down through the opening in the disc, curving back around to point at its underside.  READ MORE...

Running Water

A Breakfast Special

Today in the valley, our temps will be escalating to a high of 75 degrees...  and, my cats are already laying in the sun on our screened-in back porch from which I will soon be writing my articles...

While I have attended the CIA nor do I have any plans to attend, I do play around on a daily basis with cooking food...  I have gotten into a pattern of making a modified omelet pie about every 4 days...  I take a frying pan into which I put olive oil, black pepper, and sea salt.    Then, dice several green onions, 2 vege sausages, bell pepper, and mushrooms...  while that is cooking slowly with a lid, I pour two packages of instant grits into a bowl and let it soak up the water.  I crack 3 eggs into a bowl and scramble them up to fluff them up with air.

Once the stuff in the pan is done, I put the grits into the microwave and blast it at full power for a minute...  then stir...  another thirty seconds...  add 2 slices of cheese...  another thirty-second blast...  then stir and set aside.  I pour the air-infused eggs into the pan on top of what is already in there and cover.

When the eggs are well cooked, I turn off the heat and pour in the grits/cheese mixture, and spread it out...  I cut it into 4ths and eat 1/4 with a toasted English Muffin that may or may not be covered with sugar-free strawberry jelly.

The total calories per meal are 350...

I am not a chef and I don't pretend to be a chef.  I am a retired individual who has been forced into cooking because his wife has refused to cook after she retired... my creativity comes from necessity...  this is what I do now...  and the last thing I want to experience being retired is boredom...

CHRISTIAN HOLY WEEK

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry}, Folio 173v
 The Entry into Jerusalem

Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomada Sancta or Hebdomada Maior, lit. 'Greater Week'; Ancient Greek: Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, romanized: Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, lit. 'Holy and Great Week') is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. In Eastern Churches, which includes Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran traditions, Holy Week occurs the week after Lazarus Saturday and starts on the evening of Palm Sunday. In the denominations of the Western Christianity, which includes the Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Moravianism, Anglicanism, Methodism and Reformed Christianity, it begins with Palm Sunday and concludes on Easter Sunday. For all Christian traditions it is a moveable observance. In Eastern Rite Churches, Holy Week starts after 40 days of Lent and two transitional days, namely Saturday of Lazarus (Lazarus Saturday) and Palm Sunday. In the Western Christian Churches, Holy Week falls on the last week of Lent or Sixth Lent Week.

Holy Week begins with the commemoration of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednesday), climaxing with the commemoration of the Mystical or Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. Holy Week concludes with Christ's rest in death and descent into Hades on Holy Saturday.

It is believed Jesus rested in death from the ninth hour (3 pm) on Good Friday until just before dawn on Sunday morning, the day of his resurrection from death, commonly known as Easter Sunday. This marks the beginning of the season of Eastertide, with its first week being known as Easter Week (Bright Week).

Holy Week liturgies generally attract the largest crowds of the year. Many Christian cultures have different traditions such as special liturgies or services, floats, sculptures or live reenactments of Christ's life, his arrest and crucifixion (also called the Lord's passion, the Passion of Christ or Passion of Jesus). In Eastern Rite Churches there are also many means to commemorate the Great Feasts and emphasize the theme of resurrection.  Many television stations in Anglophone countries air films related to Holy Week, such as The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Jesus Film.  SOURCE:  Wikipedia

Honey

 

Systematic Randomness

Trying to Buy Twitter

Tesla boss Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, saying he is the right person to "unlock" the social media platform's "extraordinary potential".

In a surprise announcement, Mr Musk said he would pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, valuing it at about $40bn.  It recently emerged that Mr Musk was Twitter's biggest shareholder after he built up a large stake in the firm.  He said that if his offer was not accepted: "I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder".

Twitter's share price rose by 5.3% to $48.32 in early trading.

A filing with the US financial regulator appeared to show text and/or voice messages from Mr Musk to Twitter's board, showing that he had raised the idea at the weekend that the business should go private.

Mr Musk had been invited to join the board, but Twitter announced on Sunday he had decided against it.

In the messages published in the filing, Mr Musk said he was not "playing the back-and-forth game" and said of his offer: "It's a high price and your shareholders will love it."  He said he would have to sell his shares if the deal did not go through.  "This is not a threat, it's simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made," he added.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: "This is a deeply hostile move from Elon Musk who has threatened to 'reconsider' his 9.2% stake in the company if his 100% acquisition offer is rejected."  In his filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Musk said he had invested in Twitter because "I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

"However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company."  He added: "Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it."

Twitter said its board "will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter stockholders".

Mr Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of $219bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.   READ MORE...

Suction Cup

 

Sunspot Launches Ball of Plasma

The "corpse" of a sunspot exploded Monday (April 11), triggering a mass ejection of solar material that is headed in Earth's direction.

The explosion comes courtesy of a dead sunspot called AR2987, according to SpaceWeather.com. The sunspot explosion released loads of energy in the form of radiation, which also led to a coronal mass ejection (CME) — explosive balls of solar material — both of which could spur more intense northern lights in Earth's upper atmosphere. The material in that CME is likely to impact Earth on April 14, according to SpaceWeather.

Sunspots are dark regions on the surface of the sun. They are caused by intense magnetic flux from the sun's interior, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. These spots are temporary and can last anywhere from hours to months. The idea of a "dead" sunspot is more poetic than scientific, said Philip Judge, a solar physicist at the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), but the convection of the sun breaks these spots apart, leaving in their wake magnetically-disturbed bits of quiet solar surface.

"Occasionally," Judge wrote Live Science in an email, "sunspots can 'restart,' with more magnetism appearing later (days, weeks) at the same region, as if a weakness was made in the convection zone, or as if there is an unstable region under the surface that is particularly good at generating magnetic fields beneath."

Whatever the future of AR2987, the sunspot let out a C-class solar flare at 5:21 Universal Time Monday (April 11). Such flares happen when the plasma and magnetic fields above the sunspot give way under stress; they accelerate outward, Judge said, because they would run into dense material if they went downward toward the sun's interior.    READ MORE...

Skiing

 

Certain About our Past

Archaeologists around the world have declared a universal consensus, stating that all archaeological records can give us a consistent understanding of the past.

In a shock move, every single archaeologist has co-signed the same agreement.

No longer will there be disputes about how much meat ancient humans ate, whether they migrated across ice, or what the oldest Homo sapiens remains are – the leading researchers in the field, and also every other researcher in the field, have finally come to the same conclusion.

“There’s enough discord and disagreement in the world as it is. We don’t need to add more rigorous academic debate,” says Professor Helen Hoakes, deputy head of archaeology at the University of Eastern Australia.

“Archaeologists are famous for putting forward different and conflicting theories about what their evidence suggests,” explains Dennis Ovan, director of the Johannesburg Old Knowledge Institute for Excellence in Skulls (JOKIES).

“But when we finally sat down and talked, we realised that almost all of these arguments stemmed from petty disputes on field trips.

“Limited and competitive funding, massive ideological differences, the publish-or-perish world of academia – all of that can be smoothed over by apologising for waking up a whole tent one time, even though you said you weren’t a snorer.”

The centrepiece of the agreement is a comprehensive and universal primer on archaeological ethics, detailing the most ethical way to do archaeological research.

“It turns out that the ethics of archaeology was the easiest to solve of all,” says Dr Anna-Indie Jones, an ethicist at the Centre of Innovation for Dusty Stuff we Thought Looked Important.

“Everyone in the world places exactly the same cultural and spiritual significance in the past, and they all have the same codes for dealing with historic artefacts and ancient human remains.”

Jones would not provide any examples of these codes, saying “it’s all in the agreement” while gently edging out the door of the lab.  READ MORE...

Phone Head

 

Don't Talk About This...

 

Doctors see hundreds of patients each month and thousands of patients each year...  how can they possibly be expected to remember you unless you have been their patient for over 10 years...  but, even then do they actually remember what has taken place between today's visit and your last visit?

IN POINT OF FACT:  they don't remember which is why you sit in the exam room for several minutes while they review the notes from your previous visit and any relevant information about you that they have just received.

They then rely on their medical knowledge and instincts to bullshit their way through the visit.

I am having an MRI done (after waiting 2 months because I am predisposed to anxiety and need to be sedated) and my original follow-up visit was 2 days after the MRI which was perfect.

BUT my orthopedic doctor is not available to tell me what's going on that day for some reason and I have been pushed out over a week....

He cannot give a damn about each and everyone of his patients otherwise it would drive him crazy after constantly having to disappoint him...  as he lives his own life.

Therefore, you must manage your own healthcare and have backup plans in place so that when you get screwed by one, you can flip the switch and go to another...

NOTHING PERSONAL, IT'S JUST MY HEALTH WE ARE TALKING ABOUT...

Cycle

 

Kentucky Derby