windless in nafplion

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the main shopping street at nafplion in june.

thank goodness it's friday.

red shirt cologne

smell like there's no tomorrow


click pic to source
... because tomorrow may never come

color blinds

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i think this is a little juvenile, but i've been spending too much time indoors, in the office... just trying to brighten up my day.

it's fun sometimes to play with the white balance settings on DPP.

billy connolly on catholicism and sarah palin

via RD

vestigial

'richard dawkins explains how vestigial organs like the stubby wings of the flightless cormorant were one of earwin's key arguments for evolution.'



via RD

secularism vs theology

click to embiggen
via lolgod

house on religion

click pic to source
via lolgod

tool tips

like it? click it, then...!
i've been double-tagged on flickr... by apenrade and westie4us.

so... here are 10 riveting things about me:

1. i played lacrosse in high school -- very badly.
2. i wear almost exclusively black.
3. my favorite city is san francisco.
4. some kinds of amorphous jazz can make me physically ill.
5. do not push my nose down. i will not rest until i push it back up.
6. i was once the family cow, nursing my baby for almost three years.
7. i'm left-handed, -footed, -eyed and -eared.
8. i don't have a superstitious bone in my body.
9. i'm a pessimist.
10. i dream in science-fiction.

so, to tag, my ten victims choices are:

Tony₂
richard.heeks
T Does Wool
tommy...c
kounelli
Jenny [海外遠征中]
daruma*
Ashu Mittal
5erg10
and...
Re(Becca) Tabor Armstrong

atheist blogroll photography contest

mojoey has a knack for gathering the power of atheist bloggers on the internet, as seen by his almsot 1000-member-at-the-moment atheist blogroll. as an added treat, he organizes a photography contest for members of the blogroll.... plus members of atheist nexus.
categories for the images are:

atheism/religion
travel and people
self-portrait
altered images
the natural world

the deadline is september 15th -- rules and details, at deep thoughts!

enchained

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optic boom

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my shooting yesterday was an epic fail. this is the salvage-the-day-and-get-at-least-one-pic photo.

science is in the details

sam harris discusses the recent nomination of francis collins to be the next director of the national institutes of health in the united states.

'as someone who believes that our understanding of human nature can be derived from neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science and behavioral economics, among others, i am troubled by dr. collins’s line of thinking. i also believe it would seriously undercut fields like neuroscience and our growing understanding of the human mind. if we must look to religion to explain our moral sense, what should we make of the deficits of moral reasoning associated with conditions like frontal lobe syndrome and psychopathy? are these disorders best addressed by theology?

dr. collins has written that “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” and that “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”

one can only hope that these convictions will not affect his judgment at the institutes of health. after all, understanding human well-being at the level of the brain might very well offer some “answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” — questions like, why do we suffer? or, indeed, is it possible to love one’s neighbor as oneself? and wouldn’t any effort to explain human nature without reference to a soul, and to explain morality without reference to god, necessarily constitute “atheistic materialism”?

francis collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. and that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the united states to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?'

the entire piece is here.

costume

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a piece a friend showed me... a bit more than what i'd wear, but great for a daily pic.

arrogant atheists

'for real this time'

fortunate

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i had to lay down on the office floor for this.
the coins are a play on traditional greek ethnic clothing, symbolizing wealth.

females right-pawed, males left-pawed

'female domestic cats tend to preferentially use their right front paw while male cats more often rely upon their left front paw, according to a new study that suggests the sex of a cat determines how its brain will be wired.

the findings also add to a growing body of evidence that male animals tend to be left-handed, or in this case left-pawed, more often than females. while 90 percent of all humans are right-handed, of the remaining southpaws, more tend to be men.

the differences are even clearer among cats.'

read the rest on discovery news.

orthodox leaders on swine flu

via teachers dude's BBQ:

in an article in kathimerini.gr, regarding communion procedures which use a common silver spoon for everyone (loosely translated):

'there is also a great deal of confusion about holy protection. when asked if the virus can spread during holy communion, archbishop ieronimos replied that 'these are holy issues and theology and are not to be discussed', but eparch anthimos says that the utensils are made of silver, which kills germs.'

unintoxicated

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amethystos comes from the greek words a- (not) and methystos (drunk).

wikipedia says:

'amethyst was considered to be a strong antidote against drunkenness, which is why wine goblets were often carved from it. in greek mythology, dionysus, the god of intoxication, was pursuing a maiden named amethystos, who refused his affections. amethystos prayed to the gods to remain chaste, which the goddess artemis granted and transformed her into a white stone. humbled by amethystos's desire to remain chaste, dionysus poured wine over the stone as an offering, dyeing the crystals purple.'

it's easily one of my favorite stones. when i see amethystos, as pronounced in greek, i always imagine it to be a white crystal doused in wine.



i'm wearing this bracelet these days -- it was a gift from last christmas. the offspring got one too.

collision on jupiter

amateur astronomer anthony wesley found a new scar on jupiter:


click pic to source on apod

and gemini shoots the heat:


click pic to source at gemini observatory

(via the bad astronomer)

what are extraterrestrials watching?

this is a great image... and so similar an idea to the opening sequence of the movie, contact:


click pic to view properly at its source at abstruse goose

spiral-tuality xxxvii

from JPL, NGC 1097:


click pic to source

moon shadow, moon shadow

eclipse from space: july 22, 2009

at NASA:


click pic to source

enceladus play-by-play

a great movie of the scans of enceladus by brent buffington on the cassini navigation team.

click pic to video source
watch and read about what's going on, at NASA blogs.

a portrait of aggeliki

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there's a new girl in the office... new enough to still be willing to humor me.

intermediate fossils

transitional forms of diatoms



via RD

saturnian moon shows evidence of ammonia

via JPL and reposted in full:

'data collected during two close flybys of saturn's moon enceladus by NASA's cassini spacecraft add more fuel to the fire about the saturnian ice world containing sub-surface liquid water. the data collected by cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer during enceladus flybys in july and oct. 2008, were released in the july 23 issue of the journal nature.

"when cassini flew through the plume erupting from enceladus on october 8 of last year, our spectrometer was able to sniff out many complex chemicals, including organic ones, in the vapor and icy particles," said hunter waite, the cassini ion and neutral mass spectrometer lead scientist from the southwest research institute in san antonio, texas. "one of the chemicals definitively identified was ammonia."

on earth, the presence of ammonia means the potential for sparkling clean floors and counter tops. in space, the presence of ammonia provides strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water.

how could ammonia equate to liquid water inside an ice-covered moon in one of the chillier neighborhoods of our solar system? as many a homeowner interested in keeping their abodes spick and span know, ammonia promptly dissolves in water. but what many people do not realize is that ammonia acts as antifreeze, keeping water liquid at lower temperatures than would otherwise be possible. with the presence of ammonia, water can exist in a liquid state to temperatures as low as 176 degrees kelvin (-143 degrees fahrenheit).

"given that temperatures in excess of 180 kelvin (-136 degrees fahrenheit) have been measured near the fractures on enceladus where the jets emanate, we think we have an excellent argument for a liquid water interior," said waite.

cassini discovered water vapor and particles spewing from enceladus in 2005. since then, scientists have been trying to determine if the plume originates from a liquid source inside the moon or is due to other causes.

"ammonia is sort of a holy grail for icy volcanism," said william mckinnon, a scientist from washington university in saint louis, missouri. "this is the first time we've found it for sure on an icy satellite of a giant planet. it is probably everywhere in the saturn system."

just how much water is contained within enceladus' icy interior is still up for debate. so far, cassini has made five flybys of enceladus, one of the chief targets for cassini's extended mission. two close flybys are scheduled for november of this year, and two more close flybys are scheduled for april and may or 2010. data collected during these future flybys may help settle the debate.

"where liquid water and organics exist, is there life?" asked jonathan lunine a cassini scientist from the university of arizona, tucson. "such is the case for earth; what was found on enceladus bolsters this moon's promise for containing potential habitable environments."

the cassini-huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the european space agency and the italian space agency. the cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at jpl. jpl manages the mission for the science mission directorate at NASA headquarters in washington.'

also here and here

rain

via asproula

the solar eclipse from CCTV4

july 22, 20009

dawkins, tyson, druyan, stenger, grothe

video description:

'this panel discussion took place at a center for inquiry - new york city conference titled "secular society and its enemies." the panel discusses a wide variety of topics, including, science, science education, the nature of science, the correct political methodology and much more.

richard dawkins, neil degrasse tyson, ann druyan and victor stenger. moderated by d.j. grothe.

recorded by bluewater media llc.'

i'm really looking forward to seeing this -- it's going to be a treat.

the last straws

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total solar eclipse: july 22, 2009

it takes a while to load for some reason -- or else, see it at danwei

back in class

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after a long break, i'm enjoying teaching again.

going to the moon in 30s

by thunderf00t

parasol

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i took this in the spring. i like how macro lenses make small flowers look massive.

an accumulation of errors

sunset at vouliagmeni

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near the end of a too-hot weekend, we went to vouliagmeni for dinner. mr.g had a late-evening swim and the offspring re-read a harry potter. me, i shot a few.



more spheres!

i've placed this image on the map at the original flickr page.

my galileoscope

i was 7 when three human beings, the crew of apollo 11, went to the moon. i remember being riveted to my television set... and my imagination soared.


click pic to source
the imagery of the time says more than i could ever write. we saw what determination, cooperation, ingenuity and the highest ethics can achieve. we aimed the lenses back to ourselves and saw our home from afar. our self-perception was forever changed.

now that i think about it, i can hardly believe the depth of the sense of wonder, enthusiasm and pride in our fellow humans that a child of 7 can have. little humans are sponges and they soak up the best and worst of what they see.

like'em? click on them, then!
my copy of the galileoscope arrived a few days ago. its short description from the official website reads:

'the galileoscope™ is a high-quality, low-cost telescope kit developed for the international year of astronomy 2009 by a team of leading astronomers, optical engineers, and science educators. no matter where you live, with this easy-to-assemble, 50-mm (2-inch) diameter, 25- to 50-power achromatic refractor, you can see the celestial wonders that galileo galilei first glimpsed 400 years ago and that still delight stargazers today. these include lunar craters and mountains, four moons circling jupiter, the phases of venus, saturn's rings, and countless stars invisible to the unaided eye.'

this telescope is great for children -- these days, with such great computer-aided imagery everywhere, it's important for them to look deep into the sky, to directly see saturn, jupiter and the moon. i think it will help them understand that these are real places, places we've visited, physically or remotely, places we can go to again and again.

since i was thinking about the moon landings, i decided to start with something easy. yesterday morning i woke up slightly early and went up to the roof to see the moonrise. i was impressed with the clarity -- don't forget it's a $15 'scope.

i haven't decided yet if it's safe enough to attach a dSLR to get a shot through it, but the morning was still blue and i got a few shots of the galileoscope itself as the sun began to rise over athens.

semiself

click either to embiggen



i laugh, but i'm not coping very well. i didn't take enough pictures when they were worth it -- if you're young, take as many selfies as you can.

goodbye, walter cronkite

i watched the apollo missions. walter cronkite showed them to me and we were excited together.

...and that's the way it is...

an independent basis of right and wrong outside the instructions of some supervisory being

that mitchell and web look -- brilliant



via pharyngula

quit following me!

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those pesky paparazzi won't leave me alone.

acropolis museum abstracts

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much has been written about the acropolis museum, and of the building itself. i found it to be beautiful, even as it serves as a background for its exhibits.

more from the acropolis museum















the caryatids as seen through the glass floor from above:

spiral-tuality xxxvi

starburst galaxy M94 :


click to source at apod

comparing the human and chimpanzee genomes

via RD

the never-lost apollo 11 tapes, restored!

uploaded and analyzed by the bad astronomer!

do YOU remember this? i do!

seal

click over to jesus & mo to read properly

ruby squared

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out of all the custom shaped bokeh i've tried, i think i like the simplicity of square the best. you can find a recipe for custom shapes on my snowberries photo.



ruby γλυκειά
έλα ξανά
έλα ξανά κοντά μου

έλα πρωί
σαν την αυτή
χρυσή σαν ηλιαχτίδα
ruby μου μικρή

-cat stevens

tr:
ruby glykeia (ruby my sweet)
ela xana (come again)
ela xana konta mou (come again close to me)
ela proi (come in the morning)
me tin avgi (by dawn)
hrisi san iliahtida (gold as a sunbeam)
ruby mou mikri (my little ruby)

why are there till chimpanzees?

i like these videos -- richard dawkins goes through a bunch of misunderstandings about science and evolution.

this time, 'if we're descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?'



via RD

the pledge without 'under god'

from the video description:

'clips from the 1939 porky pig cartoon "old glory"
notice how "under god" is not in the pledge,neither in the book he's reading,or when he recites it.
thats because "under god" was wrongly added in 1954.'

more than a legend

a little bit of change goes a long way.



via pharyngula

blew

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i think i love blue on a flower more than any other color. these have appeared around the neighborhood lately and i got a few decent shots, even though it was fairly breezy and i had no tripod.

this is the first image i've processed with a texture -- i like the way it turned out and it was easy and fun. i used max f. william's dol guldur texture from his layered textures set.

two more closeups, with no texture:

where are the intermediate fossils?

richard dawkins explains:



via RD

what are flowers for?

if you like the picture, please click it... comments follow
i heard this interview of richard dawkins at WNYC radiolab entitled 'in defense of darwin' this morning and it fit perfectly with the picture i shot yesterday.

i took the time to write down a bit of the interview here...

---------

Q: your daughter is driving around with you and you look and… she’s 6 years old. she sees a field of flowers. you say to her, well, what do you think they’re for? she says 'well, to make the world pretty and to help bees make honey for us. and you think, well, i’m sorry to tell her that this wasn’t true. and i explained to her that the flowers are not there to make the world beautiful and they are not there to delight bees or anything else. they’re in the world to copy their DNA.'

this is to a six-year old.

(audience laughs)

but essentially what you’re doing there is you’re addressing you’re opening the notion to her that the world is a purposeless, indifferent machine where the meaning of things is not clear, if it exists at all. you’ve found it, i think, kind of brave to say to your daughter , look, step into the wind…

(richard interrupts)

A: no, exciting! it’s a far more exciting view of flowers to understand what they’re really doing and, as six years old, she had no problem understanding that. i explained it to her.

but to come to your ‘what’s it for’ question, it’s a piece of massive presumption to think that the ‘what it’s for’ question deserves an answer. there’s no reason at all why something should have a ‘for’ about it. if i said to you, ‘what is the sun for?’ or 'what is mt. everest for', you would say 'don’t be so silly... it’s not an appropriate question'… but, because it’s flowers, you sort of feel there ought to be a ‘what is it for’ question.

Q: no actually i think it’s a harder question than that. i think most human beings have some deep impulse to explain their being here to wonder about the origins of here and the destiny of them and here. and that question, the meaning of it all is not a silly question.

A: that’s not a silly question and it has a perfectly good answer, which is not an answer to be couched in the language of purpose. it’s an answer to be couched in the language of scientific causation. what brought us all to be here… what is the explanation for our existence… that has a perfectly good scientific answer… and you go back in evolutionary time to the origin of life, and you go back before the origin of life to the origin of the world, the origin of the solar system, the origin of the universe… and that becomes deeply mysterious. needless to say, it’s not a question i could even begin to answer and i don’t think that, at the present stage, physics can either. but to the extent that there’s going to be an answer, it’s going to come from science and that is a deeply satisfying kind of answer to the question, 'why are we here?' we already have, in principle, the answer to that question and it is not an answer of the form ‘we are here in order to achieve some purpose’ it’s an answer of the form, ‘we are here because something happened, which led that something else that happened, which led to something else that happened'.

Q: are you … let me ask you the harder question … is this hard-looking and this telling your 6-year old, this leads to this leads to this, this kind of reductionist way of thinking about everything … does that seem to you to be less than joyously imaginative ?

A: no, i think that’s kind of super-romantic to actually understand that flowers are devices … beautiful devices, elegant devices which are shaped precisely to attract insects and hummingbirds and bats to take pollen from one to another… that is such a mind-blowing thought compared to the tame, sort of washed-out view that flowers are just sort of nice things to have around.’

(audience claps)

interviewer to audience: 'don’t encourage him.'

carl sagan on science, religion and our future

on charlie rose.

i may have posted this before... but it's so important to think about:



thanks for reminding me, george.

anachronism

'it is a wretched, backward, uncivilised regression to the middle ages. who was the bright spark who thought to besmirch the revered name of ireland by proposing anything so stupid?' - richard dawkins (via RD)

i just discovered ZJemptv and i'm enjoying listening to her videos.

dangerous

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'an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.' - oscar wilde

cross the line

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i think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. - george carlin

science has spoken

by joe e. holman, at debunking christianity:

'you are wounded, oh religion.
the still-warm blood runs down your side as you say it did your savior on the cross.
my soldiers in white coats have maimed you.
they have crippled you, leaving you to limp away a casualty from the battlefield.

and now, on the loser’s end, with my chipped and crimson sword laid at your throat, you plead for mercy.
you beg me to spare your life.
you ask for compassion and for understanding from me, science.
you want to be held up and accepted.

know that i, science, have no obligation to hear you.
better it is that you should die, as all things old and decrepit.
but out of compassion and mercy, i grant you what you seek.'

read the rest here...

archaic acropolis - busts

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when i visited the acropolis museum a couple of weeks ago, i naturally intended to be able to return for more shots. unfortunately, photographs will now be restricted to the top level at the parthenon gallery. i understand that the exhibits have to be protected, but i don't agree with the measure.

i'll keep posting the images i have already, although i was hoping to reshoot some of the ones i'm not satisfied with. at least i can do the same for the parthenon exhibit.







more from the acropolis museum

across the board

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a tiny portable chess set bought at beijing's touristy yashow market -- one of the souvenirs i look at from time to time to remind me that i was there.

i suffer great disconnect between the places i've lived... at times i suspect i've imagined them. i know it sounds funny, but sometimes i look down on my old neighborhoods on google earth to reassure myself that they really, truly exist.

if i go back to visit, even after decade's absence, it feels as if nothing's changed and it's as if i never left.

scientology ads

has anyone else noticed that there are ads for scientology everywhere?

it smells of desperation to me.

monkeys open bananas better than ray comfort

there goes the tab at the top theory.



video via lifehacker

here's the great ray comfort - matt dillahunty debate:

unformation

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alternate title: what's black and white and unread all over?
i stopped buying newspapers years ago.

i think i probably wouldn't have noticed this arrangement if i hadn't seen flickrfanmk2007's picture yesterday.

multimoon

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i was fiddling around with my remote live view on the 40D again last night -- it was a full moon, after all, and i do have a tradition of photographing the full moon. i mounted my little white onto the 40D, set it on the tripod on the balcony and connected it to my computer with two USB extensions.

you can really see the moon move on the EOS utility magnification window... and i got this idea for something a little different.

the offspring suggested i make some moon candy:

why don't bees go to heaven?

(man created god)



via the friendly atheist

match game

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mr. deity and the magic

check out the book lucy's reading!

flickr slideshow-keh

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yesterday mr.g presented me with this LG M2794D monitor (which doubles as a TV) -- and i went from seeing my pictures on a 15something inch laptop screen to 27''!

my personal favorites flickr slideshow looks awesome.

the picture is not too clear -- i softened it up because the depth of field on the pixels was distracting...

susan sackett on PoI

click pic to source
susan sackett, author of several books, including inside trek, and gene roddenberry's executive assistant for 17 years, chats with d.j. grothe on point of inquiry. she discusses what star trek is truly about -- it was a great podcast to listen to.

i also saw that the post's commentators complain about the latest star trek -- i've posted my review here.

not knowing

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i wanted a perfect ending.
now i've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
delicious ambiguity.
- gilda radner

satellite interview with richard dawkins

royal society of new zealand



via RD

trekkie-in-training

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the parthenon frieze

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the rays of the setting sun light the parthenon frieze.

ridicule it

these guys are good:





this is the best way to deal with this nonsense: ridicule.

let's go home

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northbound traffic on mesogeion avenue in athens.

star trek made me an atheist

says nick farrantello at the humanist, beautifully expressing my thoughts, exactly.


click image to source
i searched the whole thing to see if i could find a better bit to quote here, but no, the friendly atheist nailed it:

'when you first watch star trek it’s this campy sci-fi show that occasionally takes some not-so-subtle potshots at religion. at a very young age it made me question the nature of god even to the point of questioning his (her or its) very existence. and it showed me that those questions were okay to pose, that there were other people out there like me, asking the same questions. but then roddenberry’s campy little show goes so much farther. it explores what it means to be human. it is a message of hope for the future of our species and an expression of pride in all of humanity. through it, i learned that although people aren’t perfect, it is that striving to be better (the voyage) that makes us special. the show helped me realize that i control my own future—me, a speck in the universe. i began to understand that each and every person posseses potential, that within all of us there is the seed of greatness waiting to be nurtured, and that someday we may each be able to tap into that potential greatness, that…humanity. (i hope you read that last line the way shatner would have.)'
- nick farrantello

take time to read the rest.

it's not ok to dismiss star trek as a cheesy space opera and to liken it to star wars and today's computer generated space battles. if you want stories you can really sink your teeth into, watch the original series and the next generation.

spiraling controversy

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two buildings obstruct the view between the acropolis museum and the acropolis itself, at the lower levels. this is a detail from one of them.

why haven't they been demolished? because they're historically valuable in their own rite. one art deco, one neoclassical (incidentally owned by vangelis), they were initially characterized and protected as historical buildings -- but their status has now changed.

it's a dilemma: some say that a direct line of vision for the acropolis and its museum takes precedence, and others believe that you can't seriously respect history yet destroy these works.

i could conceivably understand an argument for transferring them elsewhere -- otherwise, my view is that they should stay.

more info on ekathimerini and welcome to the new acropolis museum.

for this shot i was inspired by this lovely image by tasosdimo.
i've added its location on the map on my original flickr page.

richard feynman on doubt, uncertainty and religion

via pharyngula

celebration^3

like it? why don't you click it then?
these days, i

hit 3000 posts on my blog
completed 1/2 year of my 365 project
celebrate my 47th birthday

and i'm feeling a bit tired.



'time it was and what a time it was it was,
a time of innocence a time of confidences.
long ago it must be, i have a photograph
preserve your memories, they're all that's left you'

- bookends, simon & garfunkel

craig venter - the genius of charles darwin: the uncut interviews

via RD

the acropolis slopes

geometry on clay:


like it? click it!
one thing about athens -- dig anywhere, and you'll find ancient artifacts.

the first space within the acropolis museum is a wide ramp with exhibits of objects discovered in the area. the slope is meant to remind us of the ascent to the acropolis, or sacred rock, itself. glass displays flank the hall and the repeating motif of glass floors reveal fascinating displays underneath. excavations in the area have uncovered clay vessels for food, toys, various household items and statues for worship.

overview:



this is thousands of years of urban life in athens, an uninterrupted settlement from the neolithic period (3000 BC)to about the 6th century AD. these objects speak volumes -- communicating people's lives through time to us.

two terracotta nike statues, 1st-3rd c.AD:



i often wonder how daily life has changed here -- and i suspect that the basic traditions and habits are pretty much the same.

fragments of a civilization: