Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Tell me who said this, and why I’m bringing it up for a bonus waffle.

More to come in some period of time or other.

Actually, I do know why. Because you cant really get bigger, or rather, more massive than something that’s supermassive. I love the concept of a black hole, and a supermassive black hole is like a black hole, but better. Like the black hole at the center of our universe, its supermassive.

Whats a black hole? Black holes are contradictions. They are one of those things in astronomy that defy what we lovingly cling to as reality. Black holes are a structure that has mass, but has no volume. Its a thing, any thing, that has any mass, but takes up no space.

Take an empty soda can. Now, with your hands, crush it. Bet you feel strong, dontcha? Now keep squeezing… No… Harder… See how small you can get it. Once you give up, get a machine, and keep crushing. Once you have maxed out the machine, you’ll probably think that that can was much smaller than it was. I bet you would think… “That’s about as small as I can get it…” But, would it surprise you to know it could be compressed even further?

Maybe it would take something more extravagant, some more sophisticated equipment, but you could keep pushing on that can. It would compress, and fuse, it would heat up, and act like a liquid, and it would take up less space. Of coarse, by then you would need some special equipment to measure how much it has compressed, and you couldn’t let up on the pressure, or else it will expand.

But you would notice that its still aluminum, still the same stuff, still acting and behaving in typical, everyday, boring ways.

But imagine now, that you could keep compressing it, somehow. Down and down, it would go, easy as can be, from the size of a soda can to the size of a cigarette pack to the size of a cigarette, smaller yet, imagine you could compress it, with your new found powers. The white hot aluminum would eventually turn from a liquid back into a solid… Or would it be a plasma? You know what, it doesn’t matter, keep compressing! From a cigarette sized can to a pin sized can. From pin sized to the size of a pin head. If at any time you were to let go, it would expand back to a larger size. Matter doesn’t like to be compressed. (In fact, I bet you you’ve heard that you CANT compress matter, right? Well, that’s short hand for we, (humans) cannot, this is imagination.)

But, you keep going, you ruffian, compressing that poor can even smaller. You need a microscope to see it now, but you keep going. Suddenly, something awful and wonderful happens. The can, (which at some point stopped being aluminum,) is compressing itself. It would happen very fast, but you get to see it in slow motion, cause your special.

You have compressed that poor can down past its Shwarzschild Radius and now the can has taken it to heart. It keeps going, compressing smaller and smaller, you don’t even have to touch it anymore, and good thing, your going to want to leave now. The can is going to get smaller and smaller until its taking up no space at all. It has mass, but it doesn’t take up any space.

You made a black hole. Would it wink out of being? Or would it eat all the matter around it, at first slowly, oh so slowly, it is after all, a VERY small black hole. If it stuck around it may take the entirety of your lifetime, plus hundreds more before it eats anything really important. But would this little black hole, with all the horror and wonder that comes with it, stick around? Honestly, I donno. Ask me later.

Why did I go down this crazy road of craziness? Because I don’t think people really ever consider things like black holes within their own perception of reality. Most people assume a supermassive black hole (or even regular massive black holes) are huge objects, bigger than the sun, but, dark, and scary sucky-vacuumy things that rip you into a trillion pieces and never let you go.

No, black holes aren’t big, they aren’t even really THERE, when you think about it, they take up no space. Say you could freeze a black hole, stop it from eating you like a… food item of some sort. Say you make it safe. Could you walk on the surface of the black hole? Pick it up and play base ball with it? No. If you turn off gravity, make it inert, it wouldn’t be there. It takes no space.

Weird, huh?

No, dude, thats supermassive.

(What brought this on, you ask? Well, I saw the video below, and I had to tell you about it. Watch the video! Cause, honestly, she tells it better… She even has like pictures, and animations and stuff!)

It was a star much like our own, but it changed. It arrived at some tipping point, and swelled up to many times its original size. Its a fate that will someday befall our own star. Someday, long from now, the sun will swell up and entirely swallow the rocky inner planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, all melted and merged with the overweight sun.

We all get fatter as we age. Stars just get a lot fatter.

Now, most people would think this happens either impossibly fast, or impossibly slowly. Its either going to explode out to that size in a single moment, or its been growing forever and ever, just so slow we cannot detect it, right? I mean, that’s what I thought.

Apparently, the process takes a few years. That brings us back to the star called V838 Monocerotis (Monocerotis being the constellation the star is in.) In 2002, scientists actually observed the process. You can read an article about it here. Apparently, its a binary or maybe even trinary star system, and when the main red star was finally done growing, it drew in another of the stars, and ate it. We know because we saw a flash of light. A whole star consumed, and all we saw was a flicker.

Its a star eat star world out there.

The system is so young that there was little to no chance there were even planets, much less life, so at least in this regard, we can rest easy.

But its an intriguing phenomenon. And its beautiful. I’m going to show you a video. Now, this video is actually made. Hubble took about a dozen pictures. Someone made a video out of those photos using a computer and a merging process. The result is breathtaking.

V838 Monocerotis

That’s a star, growing so large and fast that it pushes the gasses around it out at massive speeds. Its a star that EATS another star. If you were there, its a catastrophe. From this distance, its beautiful.

We all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but is perceived beauty simply a function of distance? If we knew there was a earth like planet in that system, if we had regular interstellar contact with beings on that planet, shooting each other messages over the vast space and time between us. Would we find it beautiful?

If, along with the light of this catastrophe, we received a radio transmission, “Remember our civilization, we are consumed by our own star, we are no more.” would we make artistic youtube renderings of the process?

I cannot answer that. 

Actually, I can. We would still find it beautiful, it IS beautiful. But the real question, is the thought of a entire civilization being eaten by a star more horrific than it is beautiful?

Do other beings out there not contact us because we are too gorgeous from a distance? Maybe this is why we are convinced we are alone. Maybe, over time, every species comes to realize that everything is better when seen from far away. Do they watch us, as we kill ourselves in war and the suffocating fog of our own success? Do they observe as we change our planet from green-blue, clear, and cool to brown and hazy and hot? When they see this, do they simply keep watching, because its a beautiful process? Do their scientists and artists piece together heat-maps of our planet over time into a video of our approaching demise? Perhaps alien paper-pushers have our planet’s meltdown as a screen saver. Perhaps their top music video has their top artist dancing and singing to a backdrop of video transmitted accidentally unto space, video of World War II, video of executions, or video of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Perhaps we are alone not due to vast distances and unknowable technology. Perhaps we are all alone because we are all cosmic voyeurs. Maybe all the species of the universe eventually decide it is better to simply watch than to interact.

The concept certainly isn’t new. But when we think about how we think about the universe, how we look at what happens out there, it makes you wonder.

And watch.

And say, “what a beautiful catastrophe.”

Sadly, they do not take into account gear level, or gender, but they have two things going for them.

1. They have many colored skins.
2. The color is based off your characters hair color (or hide color for Taureens! (This ensures druids will look different.)
3. The actual model is different from the original (with more polygons, and new markings and trinkets.)

Apparently, only the Bear and Cat are being updated, but to be honest, the Boomkin and flight forms really are okay (and travel form? Who uses that?)

And, IMO, trees arent being left out either… I’d put even money on them going away as a form. Based on this thread.

They are sneak-peeking the forms this week, I will be posting them here as a public service to no one.

Taureeeeeen bears are the first to be sneaked.

Little known fact, my first character ever was a druid! I stopped playing it cause the forms look like shit. I may make a druid!

I read it from Syrana, here. And the rules are thus.

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”
or click Here
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click Here
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click Here
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.’

And the result for me?

I present to you, Industrialny’s debut album, “Fear of the Thing Itself”!!!

Funny, but I totally have in my mind, the image of this band, taking this WAY too seriously, and deciding to come up with some “really cool” name for their album, and failing.

Here are the links to the pages and image I got from the random picker system. (BTW, Flickr’s attempts to prevent me from using the full image failed, I not only used it (print screen FTW,) I abused it. In spite of that, I am linking the original, so, bite me, Flickr!)

Industrialny - disambiguous, a name for several places in Russia.

Fear of the thing itself – J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 1997

Image – What a cute puppy, he’s so happy!

Here are some mor that I came up with, without the cover art.

Warm Beach, “Give it Away as Fast as You Can”

The Spamhaus Project, “The Deeper They Burn”

Serious Fraud Office, “Exquisite Form of Courtesy“

What I think is really interesting is that we have gotten to the point where we can store data in an extremely stable way, (and do it cheap.) CDs and DVDs arent undistructable, and they dont last forever, but they last a really really long time.

We have removed entropy (except perhaps, catastrophic entropy a’la Library of Alexandria. After all, “Mankind destroys,” remember?)

Lets take all that data, and parse out only, say, television shows with a run time less than 1 hour. If you string all of that media together, (removing all commercials) and try to watch it all, would you live long enough to see the end? At what point does the collected works of mankind require pruning?

Think about it from the perspective of something more important. Science. We have learned so much, and we are learning so much more (and so much more quickly.) Even if you take only one field of science (lets say, physics) tomorrow’s student will have to learn more that today’s. What happens when the time required to fully train the next generation takes so long that they spend more time learning about what we already know than they would be able to spend adding to our knowledge?

And how do you make sure they know everything, so that they dont accidentally re-discover something?

How about the category, “greatest American novels.” Eventually, you will have so many novels that are all equally great that you have too many for one person to ever read. The accepted canon could become so large that it would require a lifetime (or more) to become truly familiar with it… What happens then?

It seems to me that eventually, the sum of the media man created becomes so large that we begin to forget ourselves. What happens to, say, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” a thousand years from now, would it still be considered essential listening? Or would it be forgotten, crushed under the weight of a century of music?

Seems like an interesting problem to have. I can only hope that this would be a concern a century from now. If we as a species are worried about how to appreciate our works, at least that means we are still around to appreciate them.

The WoW Blogging Community is slowly dying.

Okay, so maybe this is perception on my part, maybe its not, maybe its going to go on for a lot longer. But it will die. I talked about this before, (sorta.)

Maybe I should internalize this, maybe its my deal, not theirs. I feel like it is harder and harder these days to come up with something to write about regarding WoW. I think that alot of bloggers have gotten here, and stop blogging. I blame Blizzard. (I could go on and on about this, about how WoW is missing its ‘compass-heading’ goals, endless progression that games like Eve have. But, maybe this is a good thing.) However, I am not going to die, I refuse.

Instead, I am going to refocus on things that interest me.

My friend, by happenstance, posted about his WoW goals. And in the end, he said “None of the things I think of as goals really are. My goal is to play with my wife.”

To which I had visions of some old lady saying, “Im not your wife, Im a witch!

…

Wait, wut?”

But after I got done giggling like a lunatic, I thought about what he said, and it made sense. This turned into a WoW blog, so much so, it felt wrong to post about anything else.

Screw that!

Imma post about what I want to post about… Starting. Now.

Its a goal, or something.

PS, I am sure your wondering about the picture… Well, I was looking for a picture of Miracle Max’s wife from Princess Bride, but I stumbled on that image. It made me rofl. Just something about the idea of learning magic (or about magic,) on the computer… Im prolly the only one, but its funny. But, since I am using the image, I should also link the product, so here it is.

…

Yeah, I dont get it either, but its funny.

I will not be logging into WoW all week, I may not have internet until late next week.

Im cutting the cord here too.

Basically, I am saying that I reserve the right to not post here this week, in fact, I expect that I wont. If I do, its a bonus.

Dont hold it against me.

But, I promise, I will do an expose on RaidNazgrel soon. And post about DnD, and try to be more active in the blogosphere again… It was really rad when a few people other than my wife and his friend read me… (Oh, dear, I messed that up.)

I just hope people dont break things while I am gone. (Im talking to people in my guild, in RN, and even folks at Blizzard… Everyone, just chill, Ill be back soon.)

And NO PARTIES! (Since I am not there to take all the food.)

Pandemics. What are they?

In short, they are a big ol can of, “calm the fuck down.”

My first reaction to the news about the swine flu was to be highly upset about language. Language is a disease too, if you call a grease fire an armageddon, some people will freak out. I thought to myself, “why in the hell are we calling it a pandemic right from the get-go? They say, ‘folks, we dont want you to freak out, but this is a PANDEMIC.’” Makes me wanna reach through the TV and slap them.

But, before coming here and spouting off about it, I did some research. Guess what? Pandemics are really not a big deal, or at least, its not as big as I thought. What is a pandemic? According to the World Health Organization (Who? WHO. No, who? I told you, the WHO. DUDE, just tell me who your talking about! IM TALKING ABOUT WHO!)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a pandemic can start when three conditions have been met:^[1]

• Emergence of a disease new to a population.
• Agents infect humans, causing serious illness.
• Agents spread easily and sustainably among humans.

A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic, because the disease is not infectious or contagious. (source)

And the dictionary…

Pandemic (source)

• (noun) a pandemic disease.
• (adjective, of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area.

Neither definition requires death on any scale. I was mistaken, I had assumed a pandemic means a lot of people die. It does not. Pandemics are bad, disease is bad, but dieing and getting the flu are on whole different levels.

So, everyone, calm down. And before you point to Mexico’s death toll, and say that we should be worried, so far as I have been aware, this is the same Mexico that might as well be called a third-world country, the same Mexico teetering on ‘failed state’ status because the cartels down there are becoming vicious. Point is, as sad as it is, Mexico is not the US, conditions in Mexico are far worse than here. Also, remember this is a flu, you know, it has ‘flu like symptoms.’ Do you immediately go to the hospital whenever you have ‘flu like symptoms’? Now, maybe, before this? Not as likely.

So, suitably not freaking out? Good, then I can show you this.

Swine Flu

apparently, its been in the game for a while, so dont write angry letters to Blizzard. Besides, its not the spell itself I wanted to show you, its the comment to the spell…

Nothing to fear, just make sure you have plenty of oinkment.

Rofl!

Tomorrow, I promise, a real post.