Earth in a Clock

What follows 77 seconds after 11:58:43PM is http://www.rika-saurabh.com/2012/05/we-have-just-started-fire.html...

image source:http://flowingdata.com/2012/10/09/history-of-earth-in-24-hour-clock/#comment-176137

We have just started the fire ..

(during this 50 years) Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight..

so said JFK in a speech to Rice university 1962. A breathtaking thought as far as I am concerned. Entire speech and video can be found here http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Halloween!

I am keeping myself away from trying to google Halloween before I write this down..

How much I didn't care for this event up till evening 7pm. I switched on the classics radio station in Cincinnati. Programming blew me away! This is how the violins sound the best. The coarseness in them, thumping pianos, hollow flutes, church bells, and not taking anything away from the presenter and their voice antics. I was walking back from work with pumpkins lighted in the street. And then imagined myself just walking through with such tunes and such creepiness. It was an experience that might make me come back to same station same time next year. I did not have chance to make to any halloween parties which really didn't appeal more than gala orgies of fun and costumes and :) ...

any case.. so why Halloween? an event to mark longer nights over shorter days? winters and its chill?  I do not know. However, it is anything but how any one should look at festivals.

Festivals mark celebration of human spirit to take control over their fears and Halloween marks it in least subtle way. This is when mind takes it turn against unknown and fearsome. The festivals mark the oneness and fearlessness. The festivals and celebration is of our existence in this planet for 10,000 years. So when you hear the spookiness in the music, the mind reminds you of the struggle humans have had through its lifetime. The fear of night doesn't diminish with bulbs burning incandescently. The struggles aren't gone. Their would be even worse troubles but even merrier victory of human kind.

I wish I could put up tunes I am listening to, right here. As that can only really give this blog the Halloween experience I am talking about.

I do not know any of these artist but for the Classical station here -
Devil's sonata - tartini

Vivaldi the Hunt

You said it ...

“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told—and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.”

who said it - Malcolm's character in the book "The Lost World" Michael Crichton

where did I pick it up from - http://aristotlethegeek.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/sentient-awareness/