rfh's tasty soup

“

There are the rushing waves

mountains of molecules

each stupidly minding its own business

2trillions apart

yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages before any eyes could see

year after year

thunderously pounding the shore as now.

For whom, for what?

On a dead planet

with no life to entertain.

Never at rest

tortured by energy

wasted prodigiously by the sun

poured into space.

A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea

all molecules repeat

the patterns of one another

till complex new ones are formed.

They make others like themselves

and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity

living things

masses of atoms

DNA, protein

dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle

onto dry land

here it is

standing:

atoms with consciousness;

matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,

wonders at wondering: I

a universe of atoms

an atom in the universe

”

“ Euler's constant gamma is about 0.57721566490153286061 . . . . This is the most important number that you've never heard of before. ”

“

Feynman was always careful about drug use, for fear of what it might do to his brain — giving up alcohol, for example, when he began to exhibit symptoms of addiction. InSurely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, he writes, "You see, I get such fun out of thinking that I don't want to destroy this most pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick. It's the same reason that, later on, I was reluctant to try experiments with LSD in spite of my curiosity about hallucinations."

Nevertheless, Feynman's curiosity got the best of him when he became acquainted with none other than John C. Lilly and his sensory deprivation tanks. Feynman experimented briefly with LSD, ketamine, and marijuana, which he used to bring on isolation-induced hallucinations more quickly than he could when sober.

”

“

During the 1968 Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearing over the Tonkin Gulf, McNamara revealed that there were classifications above Top Secret; the record of those classifications was also classified (Schlesinger, 1973).  Four years later, after William Moorhead picked up John Moss’s torch within the House Government Information Subcommittee, a former Pentagon security officer testified that out of 20 million classified documents:

Less than one-half of 1 per cent . . . actually contain [sic] information qualifying even for the lowest defense classification under Executive Order 10501.  In other words, the disclosure of information in at least 99 1/2 per cent of those classified documents could not be prejudicial to the defense interests of the nation. (Schlesinger, 1973, p. 344)

”

“ What do we mean by democracy? There is a very thin version of democracy that prevails in Western, capitalist society. Democracy means you show up once every couple of years and you push a button and you pick one or another representative of a very narrow sector of power. Then you go home and forget about it. That is what is called political democracy, you know, free elections, which are free in that you do not have a gun pointed at your head.

But another form of democracy which is quite deeply rooted in that you should have democratic control of every institution, control of your workplace, control of your community, control of the means of communication. Everything should be popularly controlled, with direct participation in management. That is another sense of democracy.

”

Reposted by fritzoid