Wes Craven Passes Due to Brain Cancer

Wes Craven, horror movie director par_excellence has died due to brain cancer, Sunday August 30 2015.

Famous for his Freddie Kruger - Nightmare on Elm St. movie, Red Eye and a host of others, in the words of Robert Englund: Hollywood's lost a rare species in Wes Craven. The true Gentleman.

Long March Bivouacs Unannounced

On August 27, at 4:06 AM Eastern Time, The home-owner became aware of forced entry.  Investigation proved to be the mother of all break-ins.  

The unwelcome guest, the Chinese homeowner was experiencing proved to be the first stage engine from a  Long March 4C rocket.   The three-stage rocket in question  lifted off at 10:31 PM U.S. Eastern Time on Aug. 27.  It's mission: to launch China’s new Yaogan-27 satellite which was a success - however the first stage was jettisoned over northeast China’s Shanxi province.   Since the Taiyuan Launch Base is also in Shanxi Province  and completely land locked, its a given that this type of mishap was bound to happen at one time or another.   

The complete Gizmodo article can be found HERE

Black Holes Aren’t One-way Street

 

Black holes, in the not so distant past, used to be simple.

Time was, using the rules of general relativity, you could imagine a fairly simple black hole consisting of an infinitely-dense singularity surrounded by a gravitational zone of no-escape called the “event horizon”. Even the speed of light was no match for the event horizon, hence the "black" in black hole.  Whatever goes in, never comes out.

This rather simple description was a fairly decent description of what was going on inside a black hole. But in the 1970′s, the inconsistencies began to trouble the likes of British theoretical physics scientist Stephen Hawking who theorized evaporating black holes, which went a long ways to clearing up some of the more troubling inconsistencies.

Now, as an extension to his original theory, Hawking thinks that black holes aren’t the one-way street the textbooks have led us to believe.

 

There is much more info at the discovery site.  Read the Discovery article HERE

Beam Me Up # 451 Now Online

I start the program with a list I love (The Darwin Award) and Joe helped light the fire.
Here we are looking at a 20 year study of the award and results.

How about a cut by Patti Smith singing an ode to the passing of the Aqua Aqua Team Hunger Force called Aqua Team Dream?

The first story for the afternoon "A Bright Future" by Jamie Lackey. A good robot story with one of the best realizations of city so sleazy and filthy that you will want to bathe afterwards!

 From the blog:
bad news from SyFy
The Universe

The ending story, "The Oricle is Never Wrong" by J.C. Bedford

You can log to this podcast episode HERE

Patti Smith Sings the Passing of Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Somehow this is a paring so unlikely that I am still going HUH?

Before us is a song penned by Iconic punk poet Patti Smith, so far so good.  Mz Smith, it seemed, composed a song to send off the cartoon series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which concludes this Sunday after 13 seasons.

 Here are the lyrics:

    I never dreamed, I’d be an Aqua Teen

    Thirteen seasons, what did it mean?

    A Master Shake, Meatwad, a floating head

    And now you’re dead, and it’s the end

    Of Aqua Teen Hunger Force

    It’s the end

    Of Aqua Teen Hunger Force

What can follow that?

Syfy Officially cancels Haven

Yep you heard correctly, it is now official, after 5 seasons, Syfy has canceled "Haven" - although 13 episodes still remain.    

These remaining episodes  will will of course air, starting October 8th

20 Year Study of the Darwin Award

Now for those of you that do not recall what the Darwin Awards are all about:  The Darwin Award is given posthumously for a stunningly stupid act or an act so stupid that it brings about the demise of the performer.  Or as Time online puts it so elegantly:  Every year, Darwin Awards are symbolically given to people who manage to die in such an extraordinarily idiotic manner that they ensure the long-term survival of the human species, by removing one idiot from the gene pool.

That being said, a twenty year study of the awards and recipients showed by far that males performed the bulk of award winning performances while the merest fraction went to women.

I thought it would be fun to pass on some of the winning posts as provided by the British Medical Journal.

The award study defined idiotic risks as "senseless... where the apparent payoff is negligible or non-existent, and the outcome is often extremely negative and often final.

The study's authors took the 20 year compilation and discarded the truly adventurous or professional risk takers which  still left them with  318 awards: 282 given to men, and 36 to women.

The Darwin is unlikely to be awarded to individuals who shoot themselves in the head while demonstrating that a gun is unloaded. This occurs too often and is classed as an accident.  In contrast, candidates shooting themselves in the head to demonstrate that a gun is loaded may be eligible for a Darwin Award -- such as the man who shot himself in the head with a "spy pen" weapon to show his friend that it was real."

Another example of a Darwin winner includes the terrorist who didn't put enough postage on his package when sending a mail bomb; it was returned to him, and he promptly opened it and perished. Or the man who attached a shopping cart to the end of a train car, which dragged him to his death.  Or the man from South Carolina who had disguised himself by spray painting his face gold during an armed robbery, and died from the toxic paint fumes.

The Universe is Dying

Well, Thanks to Joe, I once again revisit a subject that was, to me, at least, dead (sorry about the choice of words) and buried.

It seems that, yes indeed according to  Professor Simon Driver, from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia.  Studying 200,000 galaxies, astronomers confirmed that the Universe is slowly dying.

Not just energy generated in the visual band but near,mid, far infrared plus ultraviolet, each and every energy band is showing dying. 

But we should be honest here....  astronomers have known for some time now that the Universe's days were numbered.  There really isn't anything new here except maybe a more refined end time and date I suppose. 

An international team of apx. 100 scientists using information garnered from the world's most powerful telescopes - both land and space based - to study the energy emitting from more than 200,000 galaxies,  in a wide slice of the observable universe.

The up to date data has confirmed the cosmos is radiating only half as much energy as it was 2 billion years ago.

It really should be pointed out that the universe is an elder statesman at over 13 billion years old.  Our sun alone is a third generation star.  Vast amounts of energy have to be squeezed into smaller and smaller areas to make star formation possible, hence far fewer stars.

Death is a bit of a misnomer because the universe will  still be there, but its stars and all else that produces light and stellar fire will fizzle out.

It will just grow old forever, slowly converting less and less mass into energy as billions of years pass by until eventually, it will become a cold, dark and desolate place, where all of the lights go out,I paraphrased - astronomer Luke Davies.

Check the CNN online page HERE  
and the NPR HERE 

Edward McKeown's New Book is Available on Amazon

Edward McKeown's newest book, My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) and it has some really great info on the book and the author Edward,

If you get a chance, log HERE  for more info

Beam Me Up #450 with stories from Scholes & Goel

Is brainwashing torture? Well it certainly seems that way in Himanshu Goel's futuristic tale Brainwashing 101

I revisit Bad Dreams again with a lot of local listeners missing the first broadcast, no loss,  stories by Dave Scholes are like fine wine "even better with age"

From the blog:  a couple of great video sound tracks, really strange Mars picks, Planes that boggle the imagination and conversation points from yours truly. 

Hey, and there is news about Ed McKeown, a new book "My Outcast State" Now on Amazon.com  

Link directly to episode 450 HERE

Enjoy

Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder from The Upthink Lab on Vimeo.

Wow, I was going through one of many DYI websites that I frequent, when I came across this Vimeo short embedded in the instructions.

It really speaks to the core of what make you tick.

It's not all space pictures but a broad  slice of life and nature.

More info can be had HERE

Whoa NASA! Just What the Heck WAS That?

A NASA image showing a strange object on Mars has sparked the imagination of many who think this is finally the smoking gun evidence that “crab monsters” exist on the red planet.  

If you examine the rock formation more closely you’ll see something odd-looking – but not entirely uncommon.
 

See More Photos and the rest of the article HERE

Paul Allen is Building a Giant Rocket-Toting Plane!

Paul Allen's huge six Boing 747 jet engine touting bemouth has been tagged The Stratolaunch carrier aircraft. The Stratolaunch is set to become the largest airplane ever built.

Stratolaunch Systems is building an enormous airplane that will carry huge rockets to 30,000 feet and release them for trips into low-Earth orbit.

The carrier plane is being built for Stratolaunch in California's Mojave Desert by founder Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. With a wingspan of 385 feet, the twin-fuselage carrier aircraft will be the largest ever made. As the graphic illustrates, the plane's wings stretch further than those of a 747-8 Intercontinental, Airbus A-380-800, Antonov An-225, or even Howard Hughes's infamous "Spruce Goose," which only flew once.

"This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real......

"This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief."
- Rumi

If you ever wanted a short film to flesh out these cryptic proclamation, then this is one such example.

The short "Kenshó" tries to put a film to the very perplexing sayings and  narration.

Worth checking out in any case.

 Short film dreamt by Aaron Paradox.

Narrated by Alan Watts audio courtesy of alanwatts.org.
Music: “The Way” by Zack Hemsey.
Sound design by Jacob Thomas Czech.
Additional 3D Animations by Mike Winkelmann.
Dreamer’s voice by Paul "Bear" Vasquez.
Visuals and animation by Aaron Paradox.

Youtube version :   HERE