According to a FoxNew.com article “The Dotcom Bust? Not As Bad As You Think” researchers studied more then 700 internet venture companies who applied for venture capital in the late 90’s and found they had a five-year survival rate of nearly 48%; “a percentage of success comparable to those in other industries, such as the auto industry, during their fledgling phases”.
The article goes on to say
It is my understanding that the founding fathers of the Untied States of America, the framers of the Constitution, formed our government to prevent one person from having too much authority or control. This ideology was intended to be achieved by creating a separation of power via a series of checks and balances among our three branches of government.
In a time when both Democrats and Republicans are continuously changing their core philosophies leaving many die hard party goers to jump ship and claim themselves as independent. Is it good for Americans to have one party who has majority control of our checks and balances?
Over dinner last night I was discussing my previous blog post, Democracy at Its Finest Today, Roughly 23 Million Americans Left Scratching Their Heads Asking What the Hell Just Happened with my good friend who has a mind like an encyclopedia. For years the two of us have been going at it over politics and always he comes up with points that requires me to reevaluate my position. He raised the point that what happened yesterday with Bush signing the latest Safe Port Act with the Online Gambling Ban bill snuck in it is a direct consequence of having one party controlling all three branches of Government.
I recall during our latest elections how pleased many Republicans were when they took control of the House, Senate and Presidency.
I, like many people of my generation do not care to group ourselves with either one of America’s two main parties. There are many things we like and don’t like and until elections come we will then make our final decisions by outweighing the good with the bad.
Today, the Democrat’s and Republican’s fail to represent their founding philosophies. Do we really want one party having majority control?
Lets get them kid’s young… A little Jihad 2.0 American style.
Watch this trailer and the follow up done by ABC News. After you’re done watching these two videos, you can click here for more videos.
The Trailer
Jesus Camp (ABC news)
The last post I wrote on the 9/11 documentary had me thinking about how easy it is for film editors to take footage from one source which represented one type of story and use parts of it to recreate a completely opposite message.
I am not saying the documentary I posted about in the previous post was a combination of manipulated archive footage but I will admit that while watching it, the thought had crossed my mind.
Sometimes it is difficult to spot media manipulation and propaganda, other times it is just obvious.
Do you remember Stanley Kubricks’ 1980 masterpiece, The Shining? It was a horrific movie with Jack Nicholson going psycho on his family while caretaking a fancy hotel in the death of winter in the Colorado Rockies.
In this funny clip, taking the same footage from the movie, a little slicing and dicing and a friendly voice over one can create any message they want.
There are certain things being worked on in this world that could have dramatic significant importance for our future and I think every educated person should at least have an understanding of it.
In this post I plan to discuss the ideas behind one of the hottest topics being debated in physics for the past 30 years, String Theory. I plan to explain it in the most elementary way I know how including an explanation of one of the theories off shoots, the concepts of multiple dimensions.
String Theory or Super String Theory as some people like to call it is by no means an easy topic to understand and the math supporting it is only really understood by a handful of the smartest brains in the world. Unfortunately the author of this post is not one of them but luckily for us the concepts behind the theory can be understood without having to know mathematics.
Before I begin and go on to explain String Theory I should point out that ideas like the Big Bang Theory are concepts that have not yet been proven. The physicist’s working on these large concept ideas hopes to one day prove the theories so it is important to understand that for as popular an idea these are, things like the Big Bang Theory and String Theory are just grandiose ideas thought up by some very smart people.
In Time Magazines The Unraveling of String Theory they explain the concept of String Theory as
There were good reasons for the theory’s appeal when it first emerged in the late 1970s and early ’80s. At the time, physicists found themselves facing a crisis: the two most important ideas of 20th century physics, relativity and quantum theory, were known to be fundamentally incompatible. Quantum theory describes the universe as intrinsically discontinuous: energy, for example, can come in bits just so small, but no smaller. Relativity treats time and space and gravity as a smooth, unbroken continuum. Each theory has its purposes, and they usually don’t overlap. But when dealing with very large masses or time periods that are infinitesimally small, like the core of a black hole or the first moments after the Big Bang, neither quite works.
The above explanation is good but I believe I can simplify String Theory by saying that we have mathematics that can explain thing which is large in the universe. Large things can be anything that is not at the atomic level. We use these types of mathematics every day from shooting astronauts into space to calculating the size and weight of just about everything.
We also have another type of mathematics that explains things which are extremely small. Things on the atomic level are as small as the universe is large. We call the smallest of smalls at the atomic level the quantum level or quantum mechanics.
Now having an understanding that we have a mathematical framework for all things large and one for all things small we realize that that when thinking about other big concepts such as the Big Bang, where the mass is infinitesimally large but the time frame and size are infinitesimally small all our underlying mathematical frameworks break down.
String Theory, or as others like to call it “The Theory of Everything” tries to create some underlying mathematics that is one level smaller then the Quantum level and the Relativity level which could tie the two together.
If these two theories were tapestries the little dots on the smallest level is what string theory would be trying to explain.
Over the past 30 years some of the smartest brains in the world have flocked towards studying String Theory and the mathematics behind it is showing concepts you would only expect to see from Star Trek episodes.
One such concept found when unveiling String Theory is the idea behind multiple dimensions. The concept of higher dimensions beyond the 3rd (which we are used to) in itself is extremely difficult to grasp. The fact is, very few people can truly understand or vision the ideas behind another dimension apart from our own because the human mind is not equipped to handle such thought.
I’ve heard a handful of scientists try to explain the concepts behind dimensions and I found Carl Sagan in his 13 hour long series Cosmos explain it the best.
In his first example Sagan uses little packets of sugar that you can find on a restaurants coffee table next to the condiments. Sagan goes on to lay several sugar packets flat out on table and explains that the packets represent the human species and the table is a represent of the world the sugar packets occupy.
This is a two dimensional world and you can imagine the sugar packets are able to move right left, forward and backwards. They are not able to move up and down.
Let’s just say you were a sugar packet and you stood before all the other sugar packets to explain to the crowd that there is something more to life then going right, left, forward and backwards. You explain that there is also an up and down. The fact is, none of the other ‘regular’ sugar packets would get this concept as it is impossible for them to grasp.
In the sugar packet world things are only two dimensional and understanding yet let alone visioning a third dimension is beyond their comprehension.
Another example of explaining the concepts of understanding a higher dimension is the use of drawing a 3d square on a piece of paper. When we were all in grade school we learned how to draw a 3d box. When looking at the 3d mockup on paper the model looks really nothing like having a real 3d box sitting in front of you. When drawn, the 3d square has been converted to 2d and the image is shown flat with distorted lines representing the real 3d model to the best of our ability.
Going back to our sugar packet world, you can see that these people would have no problem drawing a 2d model of a three dimensional square but they would never be able to create or see an actual 3d square as their physical universe prohibits it.
For years now that mathematics coming out of the ideas from String Theory are showing we live in a world that has 10, 11 or even 26 dimensions. Perhaps our brains can conceptualize 4d, based on a 3d model but how can we possibly conceive a world with 9 dimensions or 20 dimensions?
If you find this topic interesting and would like to learn more I highly recommend watching The Elegant Universe by Brian Green. It’s a 3 part Nova series that does an amazing job explaining many of the concepts I briefly mentioned here.
I was asked a few months ago what could possibly come of all these smart physicists spending their time studying things such as these theories of everything. I explained that at one time studying ideas on the quantum level were unknown and no one really knew where that science would go.
We can thank those physicists back in the 1920’s for their ground breaking achievements in quantum physics as this led to the evolution of the electronic circuit which in turn is allowing you to read this post.
As my closest friend is completing his rabbinical studies and having just returned home from spending a year in Israel I am finding myself thinking a bit about God again.
He is at a point developing a closer relationship and understanding with God and I am having some serious doubts of Gods existence. Over a brunch yesterday the two of us spoke on the subject of religion and I addressed my feelings with him.
I am currently struggling with two religious issues. First is the concept of Group Think and how everyone during services appears to me as a flock of sheep following the herd.
For the past couple of years while attending services I have caught myself looking around a standing congregation who are lively singing and reading prayers from the bible. I’ve become a bit jaded at the idea of everyone with their books in hand saying things like “Amen” in unison.
I’ve been attending services my whole life and still to this day I find most of the prayer to be ambiguous. Does it make sense for me to be saying things like “Amen” which has the meaning of “so be it” if I do not really understand what it is I am reading? Additionally, if I find the concepts of the bible so unclear and feel uncomfortable with the blind agreement then how is it that everyone around me can say Amen with such certainty?
Thinking about stuff like this during a service makes me aware of whom I’m standing with and starts to freak me out a bit.
The second issue I am having with religion is the concept of belief. For me to believe in God I would have to admit to myself that there is an existence of God.
For the sake of going along with the belief by getting over the elementary fact that I have never actually seen God and to just accept the biblical studious explanation which is that there were a congregation of people with Moses on the mountain, who had all claimed to witnessed God with their very own eyes.
If I was to admit that there is a God then I must question his force. Is God malevolent? Why appear to a small group of people over 5,000 years ago and not show yourself to a modern world of people begging your call?
If God existed, why play such a trick on the human species? Think of all the possible things a modern day appearance would solve! The diversifications of religions in this world are not capable of coexisting with each other and since the dawn of time people have raged massive war’s killing millions of innocent people all in the name of God.
I figure, if God made an appearance once why not do it again? Obviously I don’t think this would ever happen as I have doubts God ever made that very first appearance.
Another wise friend of mine once said perhaps the reason why things are the way they are in this world is because the human race is not ready to accept god for who he really is. It is up to the human race to solve the problems of mixed religions on their own and when that happens they will see God.
I have expressed all these ideas with my rabbinical friend and I was delighted to hear that after 5 years of dedicated religious studying he continues to struggle with the same thoughts as me and that this is not something he could simply address in a short period of time.
I have setup plans to meet with my friend and to go over what we have spoke of. The reason for writing these ideas here is I wonder how others who are not religious students will address my concerns.
Have you seen this commercial yet? Ford has come out with a “bold” campaign and their Free Style commercial had me and my wife rewinding our Tivo to re-watch it over and over again.
The first time I saw this commercial I was not quite sure if I caught it correctly but after playing it back a few times I was sure I got the point.
This is definitely a bold move for a major advertising company and not your typical commercial. Could this be the start of a new trend in television advertising where companies are now recognizing that the American nuclear family has changed?
It makes me now wonder how big of a market there is for Ford to go after the divorced male. On the flip side how many of us will now start to associate male drivers of Ford cars with this guy in the commercial?
Want to know why we are in Iraq? Want to know what was going on in the minds of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, the rest of the Administration and CIA that lead the United States to Iraq?
You must watch this!, a 1.5 hour PBS Frontline documentary called The Dark Side. The footage is available for all to see online.
“Amid revelations about faulty prewar intelligence and a scandal surrounding the indictment of the vice president’s chief of staff and presidential adviser, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, FRONTLINE goes behind the headlines to investigate the internal war that was waged between the intelligence community and Richard Bruce Cheney, the most powerful vice president in the nation’s history.”
“A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies,” Cheney told Americans just after 9/11. He warned the public that the government would have to operate on the “dark side.”
“Early in the Bush administration, Cheney placed a group of allies throughout the government who advocated a robust and pre-emptive foreign policy, especially regarding Iraq. But a potential obstacle was Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton administration who had survived the transition by bypassing Cheney and creating a personal bond with the president.”
I watched this a week ago and have been struggling to write a blog about it since. I think after watching this, you will see why nothing more needs to be said.
Thanks to the help from my new SEO poker buddy, Quadszilla, I have used his Syndication Tutorial to add some RSS and Syndication buttons on this blog which will allow my readers the ability to subscribe with ease using their favorite RSS readers.
With NASA offering a $400,000 prize-fund to encourage the development of the Space Elevator this science fictional idea has come to life.
There are two companies who have made mainstream with their Space Elevator developmental work; the LiftPort Group and X-Tech Projects.
According to LiftPort
The LiftPort Group (LPG) is dedicated to building a mass transportation system to open up access to the inner solar system (LEO, GEO, the Moon, Mars, and asteroids). The Space Elevator will be at the heart of this revolutionary transportation service. By opening up broad-based access to Earth orbits and the inner solar system, LPG will help bring about the creation of entire new markets. Based in space commerce, these new markets can only become viable through safe, inexpensive, routine access to the inner solar system. In short, we at LiftPort Group believe that development of the space elevator is a crucial step in the future of Earth and space.
Here are some quick key facts about this project: (Economist, June 10th 2006)
