Category Archives: From the Mind of Muggington

the Brain Initiative

From the Mind of Muggington, nature is awe inspiring, science

I started a post about an interesting topic, entropy and life, but I haven’t had enough coffee yet to deal with it.  Instead, I will take a stroll through my mind and see what else I encounter.

Lots and lots of stimuli are bombarding me.  Photons are bouncing off a zillion different objects and reaching the rods and cones of my retinas.  The wind is pushing air molecules against thousands of receptors in my skin.  Dust particles are hitting my corneas.  Dust mites are probably crawling over my eyebrows.  My tympanic membranes are vibrating in response to a huge variety of waves.  My taste buds are rioting in response to the strong coffee I am drinking.

Somehow my brain is taking this gigantic amount of input and considering its value, while at the same time maintaining my bodily functions, my memories, my consciousness and more, while I am seated typing these trivial words.

Good luck with the Brain Initiative.

Life elsewhere in the universe

From the Mind of Muggington

There has been discussion by scientists that soon they will discover signs of life on other planets.  Technology has improved and they can now easily detect Earth-like planets and they claim that within twenty years there is a good chance we will find evidence of other life.

That is intriguing and I hope that they succeed.  I have some questions.

Will other forms of intelligent life necessarily want to encounter us?  Would we welcome them or attack them?

Are we ready to encounter other life forms?

I think it would be wise for us to focus on improving human society.  This should be our urgent mission.

Humanity needs an attitude adjustment.

It’s about time

From the Mind of Muggington

The first few words emerge grudgingly.  It’s like my mind is rusty with disuse.  Writing truly is exercise.  It keeps those mental joints and tissues limber and supple.

I got distracted the last couple days by technology of course.  Computers and their ilk are seductive.  They have an amazing ability to suck up time.  Before you know it you have wasted a day, two days or even weeks.

It’s ironic that I do my writing with a computer and at the same time it is my nemesis.

Official launch of the Pomroy’s World Online 3D virtual world

fantasy, From the Mind of Muggington, Majorana fermions, neutrinos, opensim, physics, Pomroy's World, virtual worlds, , , , , ,

Click here for information on how to connect to the Pomroy’s World online 3D virtual world.

Finally there is hope.  Don’t despair Pomroy, we are here for you.

As you may have heard, a young teen from Long Island is stranded on a world in a dark matter universe.  You can find out more by reading the novel, Pomroy’s World: Arrival, (paperback), (Kindle).

After you read Pomroy’s World: Arrival, you can help Pomroy find his way home.  The author of Pomroy’s World has set up a 3D virtual world using an open source application called OpenSim (Diva’s Distribution).

Volunteers are need to build the Pomroy’s World online simulation. If we work together it is possible that we might find a way to reach the dark matter universe and rescue Pomroy and his exotic sweetheart Nna.

Everyone is welcome in Pomroy’s World.  Please feel free to explore and build.  The only rule is that everything should be in the spirit of Pomroy’s World.

Click here for information on how to connect to the Pomroy’s World online 3D virtual world.

If I had one wish …

From the Mind of Muggington, nature is awe inspiring, nature is awesome

I write about our park in this blog a lot and there is a reason why.

If I had one wish that would be granted, here it is:

I would find every sad human, every politician, every criminal, every person who hated.  I would feed them their favorite meal and let them have a wonderful night’s rest.  Then I would bring them to our park.

I would ask them the sit on a bench in the sunshine and relax.  They would see the female swan on her nest and the families watching her in wonder.  They would hear children laughing and see them skipping on the path around the pond.  They would hear the squeals of delight as adults and children of all ages saw the snapping turtles and red-eared sliders basking on the fallen tree in the water.

After some time the wrinkled foreheads would smooth and smiles would appear.  They would greet each other and the couples strolling by them.  They would see fellow humans, old and young,  black, brown, white and every skin shade possible all enjoying this sunny afternoon.

They would see that this is how humans should live.  They would build more parks and make sure everyone had a good meal every day and a nice place to sleep and relax.  They would see that we don’t need to fight, steal and hate.

That is my one wish.

Imagine

From the Mind of Muggington, nature is awe inspiring, nature is awesome,

Imagine Earth without humans or human made structures and products.  Plants and animals would blanket the Earth.  There would be no plane crashes, no mass shootings, no bombs, no pollution, no deforestation, and no wars.

Of course animals would kill each other but it would be mostly for food and on a much lesser scale than happens through human strife.

We are the wild card.  Once we entered the scene the rules of the game changed.  The balance has been disturbed and the biosphere is roiled with chaos.

The answer is simple.  We need to uncover the rules of nature and begin to play by them.  One of the best ways to do this is to learn from nature.  There are some great people who are promoting this idea and you can find out more at the following websites:

Biomimicry 3.8

AskNature.org

Kurt Vonnegut on kindness – “I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.”

From the Mind of Muggington, ,

You have got to read this.  It is a commencement speech from Kurt Vonnegut and you can find it at this great website, “Brain Pickings,” Maria Popova wrote a wonderful article with excerpts from Vonnegut’s commencement addresses.

This is the line that hooked me:

I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.

Humans are fiendishly creative

From the Mind of Muggington, Raspberry Pi

Looks like I am on a Raspberry Pi binge again.  I checked my email this morning and found this:

Augment Your Reality With The iTorch raspberry pi flashlight projector

Wouldn’t it be great if we let kids in school work on projects that they were interested in?

It wouldn’t have to be computer-related.  Instead of drill and practice for standardized exams they could make an augmented reality device, paint a picture, make a Rube Goldberg machine, make a movie, a cartoon, write a novel.  I think anything like this would be better than the deadening, creative killing process we put kids through in most schools.