Time Travel

Read an interesting blog post (full disclosure, just read about 1/4 page of a helluva long article) on time travel and the prospect that time might reverse itself at some point.

I suppose it is conceivable that time is a two way street and we are heading in one direction now and that someday, the balloons that popped will unpop and become whole again. Sure sounds like science fiction to me, but anything is possible.

That being said, one day I might find myself untyping this blog post because if time reverses then everything that has happened will happen again, but in the reverse. Wouldn't that be weird? Instead of learning your life will be spent forgetting. You will have to relive every moment of your life...mind boggling. Must be time to go to sleep so I can wake up last night.

Links for May 20, 2009

VBA Recordset Traps

 

Web Database Development

 

One of my favorite subjects: charts

 

GE Health Visualizer

 

Open Source Ecommerce Packages

Links for today

Links for May 19, 2009
Python in .NET (how cool is that?)
Stress Map

Muddy Yellow

Imagine you are a cup full of muddy yellow paint.  Could you alone konw what pure yellow is?  Of course not.  Could you alone know what red, the spectrum, or The Starry Night is?  Of course not, but maybe with the help of others, you can.  Mabye the same is true with philosophy.

10,000 hour rule

I'm really digging this 10,000 hour rule, or the Learn Programming in 10 Years.  It makes me think more and more how success really needs to be planned. Ten years is a long time to study anything and becoming an expert at one subject excludes expertise in a multitude of others.  That means it is gamble.  I remember graduating as an engineer in the early 1990's.  Job fairs were lame.  Advertisements in the classified were bleak at best.  My timing was poor.  At least now I can understand a little more about how things work.  I guess I was the unlucky chum so some other field could grow in fertile seclusion.  Thinking back on it, I wonder why I just didn't become a doctor or lawyer.  Kids are so ignorant.  I was among the worst.

Averting Disaster

The funny thing about averting a disaster, the closer you come to experiencing the disaster, the bigger the hero you become.  Just think, Captain Sully wouldn't have been a hero if some engineer somewhere had figured out a way to divert birds from the path of jet turbine

Seeking Perfection in an Imperfect World

It dawned on me today that finding ultimate truths are quite unattainable, save for one...is or not, but I'll address that later.  Philosophers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger have perplexed me ever since I learned what philosophy was.  I think now I can understand why it is such a unattainable goal.  I am firmly convinced that I cannot trust what I think and here's why.  I've been horribly sick for a week with the flu or strep or something similar.  I finally broke down and went to the doctor and got on some antibiotics.  I'm on the third day of medication and since I've only taken antibiotics like 5 times in my life, they really really work for me.  Right now I'm borderline dizzy.  This feeling got me to wondering of how differently I feel during different mental states.  So if my mind itself is not a constant, then how could I ever think I could come up with a consistent thought?  I just can't happen.  Could Wittgenstein come up with tracticus without all of his sexual frustrations?  Can you separate mind and body?  I don't think so, therefore, I don't think you can have any thoughts that supercede your bodily limitations.  Alas we are all ants and do not posess the faculties to conclude anything further.  However, we can dream, can't we? 

Do you have to be a nut to think the end of the world is near?

Do you have to be a nut to think the end of the world is near? I'm not walking around with a sign hanging around my neck saying Repent, The End is Near! However, I do see that humans are depleting the natural resources at an alarming rate. Fortunately, it isn't quite as quickly as I once thought (that I would never have kids because all of the crude oil reserves would be used up in my lifetime), but the rate is nevertheless alarming.

The question is, are we in a cycle or a trend? Do all of the warning signs mean there will be some "reset" in the future and then humans can start over and hopefully do a better job? Can anything repair the hole in the ozone layer or refreeze the polar ice caps or replant the Amazon rain forest or rehydrate the advancing Gobi Desert? If the planet is on a cycle, then human extinction is relatively near. If it is a trend then...well, the same conclusion, the end is near...a few centuries? a few millenia? What will life be like in the year 5000 and will humans be around to experience it? You tell me.