Ted Tschopp's Blog

Ideas to Think About: Life and Taxes

I recently heard Alex Wright speak at the Long Now Foundation via their podcast.  It made me think of a couple things.

The talk is worth listening to, as many of their seminars are.  Alex left me with a couple ideas I want to look into further.

As a child we all use to play the 20 questions game, and we are all very familiar with the first 3 questions.  Is it an Animal?  It is an Mineral?  Is it a Plant?  Then we would proceed to ask 20 questions, each time trying to further narrow down the selection until we were able to say what the person was thinking of.  This categorization if formalized is a taxonomy. 

The first idea surrounds taxonomy.  It turns out that when sociologists and anthropologists look at different societies around the world they break their world into different taxonomies.  This isn’t all that weird.  The weird part is that universally these taxonomies are only 5 or sometimes 6 levels deep.  There really is no good answer as to why this is the case. 

There are several guesses.  One has to do with the depth of families; you, your children, Your parents, and your grandparents.  If you count up the generations, you get 5.   If you add you children’s children, then get 6.  The idea then goes that this is culturally conditioned into us and the way that we see the world.  Eventually those individuals who are predisposed genetically to accept this fact become more successful in reproducing and the “idea” is carried forward via genetics and culture.

That’s an interesting idea, but also controversial even among evolutionary biologists.  I think the idea above is interesting, but it is just as scientifically mythological as other anthropological mythologies.  As a religious person I would love to have seen Adam apply the first Taxonomy. 

Next Ideas to Think About:  The House of Memories

 

Ideas of things I need to think about: Garden State

This has nothing to do with New Jersey or emo Jewish twenty somehtings trying to deal with life.  This is a blog post that I am making to capture a couple ideas I have bouncing around in my head that need further refinement:

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

“Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 

Ok, the first idea.  Adam (The Man) was put into the garden of Eden (not in Eden specifically) to work it and keep it.  What is the limit of the garden?  We notice that Eden has a limit.  There is definitely an inside and an outside.  Now looking at the garden.  We that God planted the garden in Eden, and that he placed the tree of live in the midst of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.   But we also notice that the river flowed out of Eden to water the garden.  This river divided into four rivers.  The important point I’m looking at is the idea of the garden, along with the rivers, flowing out of Eden.  Also we see the man was told to work and keep the Garden. 

Ok, So what is a garden?  It’s a collection of plants.  It’s ordered.  But as they are plants they fall under the command from God to be fruitful and multiply.  So, how far does the garden extend?  Lets say it extends 10 miles in every direction from the tree of Life.  It seems that’s a reasonable thing to say, as the tree of life was in the midst of the garden.

What happens when, after several years of working (and avoiding the serpent), the Garden grows to ten miles in each direction, is mans job done?  No, for a garden to be a garden it has to grow.  So what is the limit of the Garden?  What if there was never a fall, to what limit should the garden have been extended?  What if there was never a curse, and the garden didn’t start to die?; how far had it been extended?  How far could it have been extended; to the size of a city?  A state?  A country?  A continent? The whole world?  Could the Garden be extended to the Moon?  How about to Mars?  To the Stars?  Where do we want to put up a fence and say this is inside the garden, and that is outside?

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed…

Our final look at the Garden is here.  We see a city has sprung up around the tree of life, on either side of the river, and that the fruit from the tree is bearing fruit, and that this fruit is healing and removing the curse. 

So, the effects of the fall and it’s curse are only temporary.  But my question still stands?  What is the limit of the Garden?  How far will it extend?  Just to the edge of the city which has grown up around the banks?  How about to the edge of the state?  Will it be only to those of a given country, or just to those individuals of a given race?  Will you be the one who plants the first tree on the moon?  Are the stars really that far away when you have forever?  Perhaps they are in need of a couple gardeners.

Newswire: Mystery Illness Strikes After Meteorite Hits Peruvian Village

I saw this over at digg, and thought I’d post it as it does contain on semi-serious ideas.

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

So, now for all the fun ways we can take this story.

The first one is for all you Hal Lindsey fans out there.

Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. – Revelation 8:6–10

The second direction you can take with this is for all you science fiction fans out there.  Go pick up your copy of Andromeda Strain and start reading.  While you are out getting your copy, pick up a couple cans of Sterno. 

I guess another direction you can head with this is for all you science based horror fans out there is to pick up your copy of World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide.  While the beginning of each of these stories do not exactly start with the approach of a meteorite, many Zombie movies and books do indeed start with this theme.

If you wanted to take this into the Occult based Horror you can always rely on H.P. Lovecraft to provide you with a good story.  Check out his Colour out of Space.   

I think I should talk about comic books and how Meteorites falling from the sky bring about the changes from the ordinary into the super natural.  But I am not really a comic book “expert.”  I’ll leave that job to others.

 

Ice in Los Angeles - A Time for Winter Activities

Last night was cold.  Very cold. This morning as I made my way towards Irwindale and work I noticed that all the north facing roofs were covered in ice.  Winter has arrived.  This makes me think of two “Winter” things I want to do this year.

The first thing is I want to stick a pole into the ground on December 21^st and record the shadow at noon local solar time.  Then return on subsequent days and mark the shadow at noon local solar time.  I would keep this up until the next December 21^st.  This could then give me an accurate solar calendar and clock, but it would probably be way to small.  At this point I could calculate the height of the pole needed to make the annual solar clock that would be the right size. 

The second thing I need to do this year is get a copy of Wagner's Ring Cycle and read it.  I want this edition which has the traditional pictures by Arthur Rackham which has inspired several of my literary favourites including Lewis and Tolkien.  Like hiking and camping, reading is something one must train themselves for.  I think I’m now mature enough to read and understand these pieces. 

 

 

Pluto is NOT a planet anymore

Leading astronomers approved historic new planet guidelines Thursday - downsizing Earth's neighborhood from nine principal heavenly bodies to eight by demoting distant Pluto

read more | digg story

And you thought you were doing too much work

The New York Megamarathon of 3100 miles (4989 kilometres) was run and won for a second time by German Wolfgang Schwerk. Schwerk set out on June 11 with 14 other runners aiming to win the race. He left his nearest competitor more than 100 miles behind him. He ran the distance in 41 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes and 29 seconds, breaking his previous record by 29 hours. To put all that in perspective, Wolfgang ran an average three marathons every day without a rest day, and averaged only three hours sleep each night.

Gizmag: World MegaMarathon record 3100 miles in 41 days

Oil from Shale Rock

Shale rocks contain liquid oil, but previous extraction processes were cost prohibitive. New chemical catalysts promise to reduce costs of shale extraction to less than $20 a barrel. Global adaptation of this technology could shift the balance of power in oil supplies. Israel stands to reduce imports by 33% and the United States itself possesses enormous shale repositories.

Click here for the link: Via OmniNerd

Interesting Globe

I really want one of these.  Looks pretty cool: