One fraction of a second
In which Donald Sensing sees things just the way they are. Strange how rarely we do.
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 12/17/2007 10:58:00 PM
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16 Comments:
The worst wreck I ever had – a woman ran a stoplight - going about 50 MPH in a 35MPH construction zone – and smashed into my truck, I later marveled at how everything from the point of impact went to “240 frames per second”, as we say in the rocket business (the speed that the engineering data cameras switch to just before liftoff).
As the truck spun around my thoughts on what was going on changed from “Crap! I will be delayed getting to the airport” through a dawning realization that it was a situation rather more serious than that. And despite this hyper-sensitivity, I did not even notice when my soft sided briefcase went past me out the open window in the process. The first thing I saw when I exited the truck was a debris trail of my property, including a $350 hand held aircraft radio, ending in the briefcase lying in the middle of the intersection. I was stunned, unable to comprehend how all that stuff got there, and – fortunately – forgot about my plans to go throttle the idiot who hit me and instead started picking up my stuff and putting it back in the wrecked truck.
As for pilots saying “Jesus you have it!” that brings to mind something a USAF pilot told me some years ago. A friend of his was teaching a Saudi pilot to fly in T-37’s and said that the student would say “Allah has it.”when something when wrong. And this was when minor things went wrong, like screwing up a landing approach. The student finally soloed, and sure enough, turned over the controls to “Allah” and crashed the airplane. Maybe a basic difference between Christians and Muslims is when you decide to late the Big Guy take over.
Israel does not have "smoking gun" intelligence that will force an American reassessment of its National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons plan in 2003, a government official told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
Israel killed 13 Palestinian militants in air strikes in the Gaza Strip that marked its most deadly military response in months to frequent rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory.
JERUSALEM – The Hamas terror organization is planning a radio broadcast Wednesday from the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – while the Israeli government has completely banned Jews and Christians from ascending the Mount that same day for fear of offending Muslims, WND has learned.
The enemies of Israel have grown confident in their strategy of rocket and missile barrages (along with their tunnels and bunkers).
"The enemies of Israel have grown confident in their strategy" of turning America against her. Everyone bitches about the Jewish lobby but the unfortunate fact is that it is imperative to her survival whereas the anti-Israel forces simply wish her destruction rather than being based on a survival imperative.
Revelation 6:6 "And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine."
For the first time ever, the price of wheat has broken the US $10 per bushel mark.
Thanks for pointing us to this excellent insight.
In Marcus Luttrell's "Sole Survivor" about the massacre of Seal Team 10 on "Murphy's Ridge" in the Hindu Kush, he repeatedly thanks God for keeping his rifle by his side as he falls down the mountain - 3 times! His faith is unquestioning and unrelenting, God kept his rifle falling down that mountain right by his side. At one point, he gets stuck under a huge log, the Taliban hit it with a monstrous RPG and blow him down the mountain again, and when he hits bottom, there's his Mark 12.
It's funny how you end up thanking God for things you wouldn't think of asking Him for.
Once I had a blow-out on I-5 heading to LA from Berkeley, where I was living at the time. I did a 360 in the middle of the road; fortunately, it was out in the middle of nowhere in the Central Valley. My first thought was "this is odd; I'm looking back up the freeway". Then, old lessons from driver's ed class kicked in and said "TURN INTO THE SPIN". I managed to regain control and parked on the side of the road, and somehow only wrecked the tire and rim.
After the heart racing ended, I got the tire iron out and put on the spare. After thinking about it, I probably seemed oddly calm to an outside observer, but I was jiggly-nerved all the way to LA...
Sorry, haven't been keeping up - FRANCINE? Doug, methink....!
In human terms the world is slowly coming to an end. We are in the presence of a slow split between the generations going into space and those who stay on earth.
This has happened many times before only on much smaller scales to many different peoples. Its the story of those who go and those who stay behind.
Something on the scale of the events to begin in about 40 years occured in the 1500-1900's with the discovery of the new world.
Ahmedinejad has the white sheet, now all he needs is the pointy white hood with two eye holes to see through.
This past fall there has been a series on Discovery Channel called Mars Rising. The progam discusses the projected mission to Mars.
Two years ago president Bush announced the goal of landing returning to the Moon by 2020 and using that as a stepping stone for Mars. (speech text.)
The original planned mission would cost 450 billion. NASA knocked it back to 50 billion by purposing to send mining ships to mars three years in advance to mine the martian surface for hydrogen oxygen and methane so as to have water and fuel ready for the astronauts for their stay and return when they arrive.
NASA scientists fleshed out the vision by talking about how eventually --perhaps within only two centuries Mars would be terrformed. The surface would be mined by industries that belched CO2 to warm the atmosphere and then plants like lichen would be seeded to convert the C02 to oxygen.
Got that?
You just have to laugh.
For now it doesn't look like the space stuff will get going in earnest until the second half of the 21st century or sometimes after Kurzweil's singularity.
within the next 10 years the cost of water desalination and transport will be collapsed to 1/10th current costs so as to make it economically possible to turn the world's deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet. This will be the driver of events in the first half of this century.
KurzweilAI.net
The Law of Accelerating Returns
by Ray Kurzweil
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
Published on KurzweilAI.net March 7, 2001.
Charles,
Love your posts. Always.
Hey, didja see the thing the NYT yesterday (stuck on plane, must read something, make time pass)?
I seem to remember Dr. K talking about a certain limitation,
Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust
As usual, it's the puny humans who get in the way. It's the Oldest Story Ever Told.
The computers are ready to do whatever we tell 'em to do, but like the good dogs that computers are to us, we can't come up with better stuff for them to do.
Mr. Terminator is going to have to invent himself, like HAL did.
The Singularity just better hope Dave's not around.
Yeh, Francine, but grandpa sold some in 1919 for $2.25/bushel. Go figure. And recall for me the Farm Aid Concerts, Willie Nelson, the farmers march on D.C.
Doug, you in drag again?
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