The Mysterious Blonde and I will be hosting a memorial gathering for Scott on Saturday October 1 from 2pm until whenever.  Dinner and refreshments will be provided.  You may attend in person or online using Google+.   There will be no formal ceremony so come by any time.  We would like to work on an online document celebrating Scott so please bring pictures and stories.

Please contact robertDOTcahnATgmailDOTcom for specific location details.  Also add robertDOTcahnATgmailDOTcom to a google+ circle so I can invite you to the hangout.

Damn you Scidmore…

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of one of the great Baloneys, Scott Scidmore.

“Terrible news for all of us and the world is a little greyer now. I’ll never forget how Scott would wave his hands when he was making a point he was excited about, how he surprised us with his daughter, that one party where the host thought stone-cold sober Scott was oo drunk to drive. How I always felt Scott had several lives he was leading, with all his far-flung connections and friends.

I too thought he would always be around. As Virgil said, he still looked the same as 25 years ago, like a middle-aged, jolly mad scientist.”

”We shall all miss his wit, his insight and his quiet mastery of so much that underlies our speculations and hopes. I will miss him terribly. We should establish the Scidmore Lecture Series of the Baloney Institute which contains our best work — work to which we still strive to attain, but for which will shall never stop striving. Worthy of his delight when one of us, or several of us, create something worthy of delight. I, for one, will think of Scott whenever I think of something wonderful or hear a wonder-full idea from another Baloney. ”

“Oh, sad! It’s just shy of 30 years since I met him. As much as anyone he’s
responsible for my successful career, having persuaded me to learn C
early in 1982….”

“Well, BUGGER!  :(  Scott was a fine guy. I admired him for his seemingly imperturable
calmness. Damn damn damn. 

I’m saddened by this news.”

”Scott, RIP. I’m very sad to hear about Scott. I/we have known him since the
Morrow User Group days back in the early 80’s.”

“He was a fine guy indeed.”

“I’m so sorry about Scott. I was very fond of him and always enjoyed
talking to him when our paths crossed.”

“I am very sorry to hear of this. Scott was always interesting to talk with, and he helped me concoct some creditable physics for my story “Nirvana High,” which I wrote with Leslie What. I have fond memories of him and Jon Singer conversing at Vanguard parties, which created a sort of psychic blur, as they generated intelligence particles.”

Really, nature doesn’t care. If you think that means that you shouldn’t, then I guess we know what you are.

“When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined.

“This broad and consistent pattern holds up when you look at standardized studies of whole skeletons in populations,”…early agriculturalists experienced nutritional deficiencies and had a harder time adapting to stress, probably because they became dependent on particular food crops, rather than having a more significantly diverse diet.”

She adds that growth in population density spurred by agriculture settlements led to an increase in infectious diseases, likely exacerbated by problems of sanitation and the proximity to domesticated animals and other novel disease vectors….” Full Slice

Here is my pleasant thought for the day:

The greenest thing you can do is walk to the nearest morgue and shoot yourself in the head with an iron bullet.

NASA To Offer Explanation Of The Missing Sunspots

The Azimuth Project: Another attempt to use informed understanding as a tool to reduce the magnitude of the ongoing environmental crisis. Doesn’t seem to have anything helpful in combatting the ideological delaying tactics popular among those whose allies think that Jesus comin’ soon to save us anyway.

That Face the Normative Social Psychologist - Abraham Maslow (1968)

“…How good a society does human nature permit? How good a human nature does society permit? What is possible and feasible? What is not?…”

Like it or not, the questions Maslow surfaces in this paper are the ones we are dealing with when we decide to pontificate about human problems and suggest our solutions. Obviously I think it would be very wise for all of us to consider Mr. Maslow`s paper and use it as a guide to shaping our discussions. A (almost) Full Slice

[This reference is the closest I have come to finding this paper on the web. Anyone that can discover an accessable complete copy please let me know.]

Everyone in America is guilty of intellectual violence today.   The hate that pervades America (and the world) allows us to view our fellow humans as targets. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether right or left.   Here are two examples from majors voices in American politics:

And here is one of the consequences of that hate:

Christina Green
September 11, 2001 to January 8, 2011
Proud she was born on 9/11 and as much an elected representative as Congreswoman Giffords

The seriously deranged man who killed this young girl, 5 others, and incapacitated one of our elected leaders, reflected the hate and polarization in our society in a bipartisan manner.  A pot smoking atheist who was obsessed with gold backed currency attacked people who were repeatedly targeted and threatened by both political extremes.   It appears self-evident that intellectual violence motivated the insane killer.

In the next few days and weeks, the vitriol will return and everyone will say the killer was just deranged or solely responsible and that no one is responsible for the consequences of the horrible things we say about each other.  And they will forget that is a lie.

I’m as guilty of intellectual violence as anyone.  In my worthless opinion, the best thing you can do today is say something nice about someone you don’t particularly like.

Sarah Palin represents people who have sincere grievances.

Another issue that I recognized early on is the reckless way current near space operations are conducted.

The sky is now full of junk and why I’ve called for a moratorium on space launches.  We’d like to enter the age of private space flight  but we risk being forever stranded because of all the crap up there.  Now there is talk of a “superfund” to clean things up.   Full Slice

“…By inhibiting these inhibitors, Reaper essentially takes the brakes off the process of apoptosis, pronouncing a cell’s death sentence. Other molecules called caspases then carry that sentence out.

“Like the grim reaper, Reaper is an announcer of death, but not the executioner,”…” Full Slice

“Scientists have developed the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome. They now hope to use this method to probe the basic machinery of life and to engineer bacteria specially designed to solve environmental or energy problems…”This is the first synthetic cell that’s been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer,”…” Full Slice and Another Slice

“A link between low solar activity and jet streams over the Atlantic could explain why, despite global warming trends, people in regions North East of the Atlantic Ocean might need to brace themselves for more frequent cold winters in years to come…We have discovered that this kind of anomaly is significantly more common when solar activity is low.”…The researchers suggest that the anomaly in Northern Europe’s winter temperatures could be to do with a phenomenon called ‘blocking’…The researchers have found strong correlations between weak solar activity and the occurrences of ‘blocking’….” Full Slice

“Cloning animals by nuclear transfer provides an opportunity to preserve endangered mammalian species…Here we report production of cloned mice from bodies kept frozen at −20 °C for up to 16 years without any cryoprotection…Thus, nuclear transfer techniques could be used to “resurrect” animals or maintain valuable genomic stocks from tissues frozen for prolonged periods without any cryopreservation.” Full Slice

“…”The importance of self-control and self-regulation for understanding human behavior are well known to social scientists, but the possibility that the links of religiosity to self-control might explain the links of religiosity to health and behavior has not received much explicit attention…religion can motivate people to do just about anything.”" Full Slice