Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Arguing that none of those stars have planets with life — even intelligent life (whatever that means) — is dreadfully stupid.

Look how many there are. What makes us special?

If there is anything science has demonstrated is that we have no privileged place in the universe. We are not the chosen ones. This is why many people hate science, by the way. It robbed them of their illusions.

I have no idea if we’ll ever communicate with another form of life not from this planet*. But is it out there? Of course it is.

*Though I do suspect we’ll create our successors, given time. No, I am not talking about the fucking moronic Singularity.

As we increasingly rely on models and simulations, we’ll have to by necessity redefine what “simulation” means, and thus we will have also to re-evaluate and recontextualize the meaning, nature and scope of reality.

Simulation might not be real. But when simulacra alter reality and the collective societal nous recursively, simulation and reality are then conjoined and unitary — whether or not the simulation conforms to some now-invisible “true” reality.

Why America Is So Obsessed with Florida.

As a native Floridian, I can tell you that Florida really is just as bizarre as the stories coming out of the state portray it as being. In fact, more so. Because a lot of crazy stuff happens in which the police are never involved so they never make the news.

To quote a former friend of mine (who was a bit too Florida for me): “Most places, a pair of identical twin girls asking to drink your blood while you take pictures of them having sex would be unusual. In Florida, it’s just Tuesday.*”

*Yes, this really happened. I knew those girls personally and yes they were, uh, “friendly.” And thought they were vampires.

Sorry for the bad audio and potato video, but what a great song. And the guitar playing. Damn. What a hell of a duo Tanya and Kristin were. Any justice in the world, and they’d be as well-known as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (because they are just as good).

If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

-Raymond Teller

I’m not in shape at all in any way and yet due to the plague of obesity I’m seen as some sort of elite athlete at work because I do things like go on 10 mile hikes with no prior training and climb up (really small) mountains.

Basically anything any non-disabled human should…just be able to do is now some remarkable feat.

I’ve seen also an increasing number of pieces lately where people just take obesity as something handed down by providence, completely unchangeable. I can’t understand this at all especially with how harmful it is and how miserable it makes one (what I care about the most personally).

But yes, I am an elite athlete because I can walk to my damn car without passing out.

In the near future, our superheroes will be those who can merely stand up unassisted.

Just what I don’t need: a cloud-connected keyboard.

Truth be told, all of our keyboards are probably already cloud-connected thanks to the NSA.

You know the world is getting weird when I agree (mostly) with Ross Douthat.

He doesn’t touch on it much (perhaps just for reasons of fixed column length) but as I’ve been pounding on here, desiring to live in a community of people similar to you isn’t racist. It’s just human nature. (I personally believe that this is fairly immutable, too, save large genome-level changes.)

This is apart from the neoliberal reasons of desiring high immigration, which is to depress wages and to distress society so other alterations can be made.

Yes, yes, I know — economists pull out fancy charts and graphs showing that “immigration doesn’t depress wages” and that “outsourcing jobs via NAFTA has no effect.” Have you ever examined these numbers? Really deeply looked at them, read the papers and parsed through their data analyses? I have, to the extent of my abilities.

And to a one, they are massaged to show exactly what the people directly or indirectly paying those economists’ salaries wish them to demonstrate. Economics is the most political academic field there is by far, and politics runs on money. And money directed this way distorts and corrupts everything.

But mostly agreeing with Douthat. Damn. Politics really is getting weird.

The 1,300mph+ wind speeds on Neptune are due to the nearly-frictionless environment caused by the extreme cold of the planet. Don’t need much energy when you’ve got little resistance.

Quantum theory makes a whole lot more sense if you just go ahead and think of everything as a field.

The majority of our non-industrial economy has emerged from a few US government programs funded from the late 1950s up through the early 1980s. And funded with not even that much money, comparatively.

Think about the implications of that. They are rather broad and disheartening — and not because the “evil government” did something, but rather we show no inclination to do something similar today.

If you support Clinton (I don’t, nor Trump), another reason to worry about Clinton’s campaign and her possibility of winning is that she offers no vision for the future, but rather consequences: if you don’t vote for me, Trump will win and things will be even worse than if I win!

The same problem that the “Remain” option for Brexit.

Trump offers some vision for the future, even if it’s bullshit (and even many of his supporters know it’s bullshit but will vote for him anyway).

Clinton is a terrible, terrible campaigner with two left feet and a tin ear. So this is not surprising. As always, her biggest enemy is herself.*

*Many if not most of her strange actions and reactions have been caused by the persistent misogyny directed against her and her daughter over the years.

Please Stop Marrying Fictional Characters to People They Met as Children, It’s Creepy.

There is a point there. However, in works it’s more the need for narrative parsimony and plain authorial laziness.

But…one can tell the writer of the piece has never lived in a small town. Where I grew up (Lake City, FL, for the curious) about 20-30% of the people married someone they’d known since kindergarten.

So yeah. Happens still in the real world. All the damn time.

Just not in large urban areas where more people move around frequently.

If I’d stayed in that town, might’ve been me too.

I work for a German company for my main job. During an interview I overheard someone request of the the interviewee: “Name one German Baroque period composer.”

Seriously. That really happened.

I hope the candidate had a Handel on it, but since it was a phone interview I couldn’t hear what the candidate said Bach. Probably didn’t, but I just can’t be Schürmann.

Damn, The Leftovers Season 2 is just so good.

The way it deftly plays with meta-story, surrealism, narrative expectation, expected completions and intertextuality — so well-done all without detracting from a very tight story.

I can’t even cite anything specific as it’s so inter-layered and contextual. The way it dodges about with both subverting and fulfilling your expectations — and then slyly making fun of both — is just glorious.