I've become completely addicted to the Powder Game.

The USSR launched Sputnik 50 years ago today, starting the space age.

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Today, I met a nuclear physicist who talked of the spiritual truths that can be found in the dance of protons and neutrons.

Haven't given much of an update lately on what I've been up to.

The weekend before last my sister, Madeline, and Christian came up to visit. I met them downtown on Saturday and my sister took me to get my first ever professional manicure. I had a lot of fun and Maddie is a joy. She is so huge, though! I'd swear she was 10 or 11 if I didn't know she was 7.

Last weekend, invalid_userid came down for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release. purpleglitter, invalid_userid waited in the long line in Harvard Square. Usually waiting in lines is boring, but with the crowd I had a great time. There were a couple profiteers who got in the front of the line and walked down it trying to sell their books for $50. I didn't see anyone buying, but I'm sure they found someone when they got near the end (which rumor had it was somewhere in Watertown). I was very excited to get merryperseis's register when I finally got my books, I had thought the odds of that rather slim.

zarthon took purpleglitter, invalid_userid and me out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the next day. Inevitably a lot of the book was left out, but I think enough critical stuff was missing that someone who hadn't read the books probably wouldn't be able to make much sense of it.

Sunday, we all went to the Museum of Science. The exhibits there have enough range to appeal to any level of scientific knowledge. We saw a demonstration of the still very functional original Van de Graaff generator built by Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1933, but my favorite part of the Museum of Science visit was the butterfly exhibit, where a large owl butterfly landed on my shoulder and sat there for a very long time just looking at me and occasionally stretching its wings. Looking into the butterfly's eyes made me regret all the nasty rhetoric I've spouted about exotherms.

Next weekend, our new landlord is coming to visit from California. She has not seen the building in over a year. I'm excited to meet her, she sounds awesome over the phone. She's trying to rent the unit next door, so if anyone is interested in a two-bedroom in Arlington, let me know.

At the end of next month, I will be heading down to see my sister in the Washington, D.C. area. My mom will be visiting there at the same time, so it should be a great trip.

Gliese 581c brings up the tidal lock issue: if Gliese 581c is tidally locked to Gliese 581 then one side of the planet would be scorched while the other would be frozen, rendering the planet uninhabitable for water-dependant life. Most of the planets detected so far (including Gliese 581c) have been only detected through indirect measurements of their mass, we no nothing of the structure of that mass. It is possible at least some of these are double planets. Though perhaps unlikely — if Gliese 581c is a double planet, both planets might be tidally lock to each other instead of the star similar to the situation in Asimov's Nemesis, allowing for liquid water and possibly water-dependant life.

The possibility of life on Gliese 581c brings up something that has been a bit of a minor mental obsession of mine: life that has evolved vision is likely to evolve vision keyed to the spectra of light it most often encounters. Life evolving around a red dwarf would not likely see the same spectra of light we see. Blue would be of little use and their visual range would probably be shifted into the infrared. Something printed red-on-white or blue-on-black in our eyes might simply look like a blank page to such a life form and their chosen inks may be only visible in the near-infrared and be invisible to us. Perceptual differences such as that would serve to further complicate communications with intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is easy to assume our perception of light and sound and smell and feel is the default, because within humanity we consider anything outside of that default a disorder. Our bias is sample bias, and other intelligent life in the universe is likely to perceive things in vastly different ways than we can even imagine.

I've been thinking about quantum immortality and how, if true, it could be used to manipulate one's experienced universe. For example, entity X cannot live without entity Y, so entity X creates a device that will insure their death if entity Y should die. From entity X's point of view, no outcome where entity X themselves die can occur -- as a result entity Y will never die in entity X's experienced universe.

With such trigger devices it would be able to manipulate an experienced universe to the desires of the experience. The trigger devises would have to be infallible, and that is quite a large hurdle to clear for any wholesale manipulation. Imperfect, though perhaps satisfactory, results might be found if the trigger device is significantly less probable to fail than the desired event is to not happen. Of course if the quantum immortality hypothesis is incorrect, the trigger devices will simply kill the user.

I've been thinking about the Hexagon of Saturn ever since I read about it on apod this morning. It looks almost solid in the time lapse movie. It seems the wind shear should rip such a fine shape to shreds on Saturn, but it has been there for over 20 years. The thing is huge, 3 earths wide. While there is a good chance that a natural explanation for this will be found (polygons have been know to appear in the eye walls of Earth hurricanes as well as in rapidly spinning buckets of water), it is still fantastic enough to spark my imagination in ways the "face" on Mars never did.

The Universe is alive and the very particles that make up your body have free will. Our level of existence does not deny theirs, nor does their free will deny ours. In the same manner, our free will does not deny the Universe Its free will nor does the Universe's free will deny us ours. We are part of the God just as the particles that make up our bodies are part of us. Existence is not limited to our size or our view. Action, thought, even consciousness happens below and above.

Is God benevolent or malevolent? Does God love us? Is God wrathful?

These questions are fitting to ask of some man with a flowing grey beard that lives in the sky, but they are unanswerable as to God as All.

God is not only the sky above and the ground below and all that dwells in those places. God is not only everything we can touch, God is more.

God is all creation all destruction. God is life and and God is death. God is the bleeding wound and the passionate kiss. God is the roar as well as the silence.

God is all beliefs and doubts. God not just the concept of heaven and hell, but the concept that there is an above and below. God is the ideas we think as well as the air we breathe.

God is all emotions. God is all love and all hate. God is all benevolence and all malevolence. God is all wrath and all forgiveness.

God is our mathematics and our law. Our fears and our courage. Our arts, our poetries, our languages and the metaphors behind them. The truth as well as the lie.

God is energy and matter. God is the motion of the falling rock as well as the rock that falls.

God is the Happening that is the Becoming. God is what was, will be, and has been. God is even that which is not, has not been, and will never be; if what is not, has not been, and will never be is but thought.

God is the All of Everything, the Universe of Universes. This is why there can be nothing greater than God. No threat needed, no coercion. There can be none greater than All that Is, because anything else is simply part of the Everything.

Yesterday, I went to therapy for the first time since July. During our talks, my therapist told me that I'm in the final stages of therapy. With that comes the question: "What now?".

It's a difficult question. Moving back into the productive workforce carries a good deal of it's own issues and getting in with a 6 year gap and outdated geek skill will present a challenge. I did really enjoy databases and if I do go back into tech I'd like to go back into designing them. There is something about databases that deeply appeals to me. I've done a small amount of data mining in the past, and that appeals to me even more than design. But, it would be easier to go back to design as that is where my experience really lies. It's been 6 years since I've done database design and I would need some refreshing is in order along with updating my skill set to fit the current environment.

However, I'm not entirely certain I want to go back into tech. It would be the easiest and likely the most lucrative choice available to me, but doing something artistic and/or crafty appeals to me greatly as well. Working on the tangible and creating things that will take on a journey and life of their own. I know that some of my databases are still in use and in that way they've taken on a life of their own, but it's not the same as something you can touch. I want to create and build. I just don't know if that is a viable prospect, as it requires capital to get started and insurance is a pain in the ass for the self-employed.

Going back to school would be a happy thing, perhaps studying math and physics like I started out on over a decade ago now, perhaps studying something else. But, that appears the least likely path right now. Financially I don't see how it could happen.

I am overwhelmed with possibilities. It's like I'm coming out a deep dark cave and can finally see great meadows and mountains and forests in front of me, all wondrous but I must choose if I will head towards the meadows or the mountains or the forests. Eyes opening for the first time, yet again.

the truth is never as it seems and is at all times subject to change
this is not a cynicism
it the state of the universe
the states of existence
the state of all

questions without answers
and answers without questions
we are lost in the eternal flux

the ground we walk upon
the very earth
is mostly not there
empty space with some ephemeral probabilities
we are the stuff of nothing
and together we form everything
the universe is our nothing god
the collection of all the might be
could be
should have been
the directed will of thinking void
we are its thoughts
consciousness manifest
a small part of our own deception

I can no longer visualize things in 4D. I'm stuck with 3D in my head. Sure I can visualize things moving, which is 4D in a way. But this quasi-4D didn't used to be my limit. I could visualize 4 dimensions of space and then move that through time. I blame Geodon for the loss of this ability. Unfortunately it's not worth it to stop taking Geodon. I may be able to visualize 4D without it, but I can't function remotely otherwise. I know I will never be as good at math as I used to be. I haven't really studied in years, so I've forgotten much that I once knew. In addition to that my ability to visualize mathematical structures was an integral part of my skill. I don't think I could study and do as well as I did unmedicated. I still want to go back to school, but I think I'll go back studying something other than math or physics. I would like to study art or writing. Maybe Mass Rehab can help me get into some classes for that.

Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, therefore when you have negative energy you weigh less.