David Custis Kimball - blog

"George, I don’t know if the state has a right to ban contraception, no state wants to! The idea of..."

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:21:20 -0500

““George, I don’t know if the state has a right to ban contraception, no state wants to! The...

Humor, Mathematics, Science, Theology Now, the above equation...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:59:00 -0500

Humor, Mathematics, Science, Theology

Now, the above equation draws a ‘heart’. Imagine now that the top of the heart is the Event Horizon and there’s a 22 degree acceleration of star clusters toward the bottom point of the heart. It may be constructed with the circles of different sizes to show steeper angles which are more represented in ‘real’ spacetime. Just a thought. Oh and the other 3 circled model below, a ‘Manage’ a Troix’, has less definition of the heart, more stress, and might just take a lot of iterations to get ‘used’ to it. Well it may work for many.

Here’s something from Revelations 22:14-15 from C. Thomson’s Bible ‘Happy they who perform his commandments that they may have access to the tree of life and enter by the gates into the city: but without are the dogs and the sorcerers and the prostitutes and the murderers and the idolators and every one who loveth and practiseth falsehood.’

Compare to the New International: ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.’

Thomson makes more sense, is real. Imagine that after the ‘Living Constitutionalists’ get their way with the ‘inspired writing of the constitution’, the ‘Living Bible’ will be retranslated so ‘washing robes’ is just doing some house work… like dusting or vacuuming and then everything is ok…. Thomson finds the commandments from the original, harkening back to the OLD TESTAMENT, making Thomson’s translation relevant and part of the ‘Fulfillment of the scriptures’ of which Jesus spoke.

Words do matter. Happy be your Valentine.

scienceisbeauty:

Love with mathematics is more fun!

Source: Making Love, Fun math art (pictures) - benice equation

:) <3

"I don’t have to prove (it’s) perfect. The question is whether it’s better than..."

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:11:39 -0500

“I don’t have to prove (it’s) perfect. The question is whether it’s better...

Medicine, Environment, History, Humor, Theology, Science My...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:51:49 -0500

Medicine, Environment, History, Humor, Theology, Science

My point here is that nature still has its forbidden ‘fruits’, or animals, or people, or lifestyles, or philosophies. They are self-sustaining only and wish to ensnare others for some ritual of ‘selfishness’, and might be in addition to the evil we of faith acknowledge in ‘deceivers’, to that of those who practice self serving ‘pride’.

Here’s where I branch away from a lot of holy rollers who might tell us that ‘these are going to be punished with Hell-fire’. Well maybe not; they will remain like rocks on the shore of an unlit stormy coast as very secure… just a danger. To be avoided.

Which reminds me of a Ben Franklin story… he having made a perilous voyage across the Atlantic and in a storm barely missed an outcropping of deadly rocks, was known to have said, ‘If I were a Catholic, I might have given a large sum in the name of some saint who protects those on the sea, but since I’m not, I think I’ll put my money in a light-house.’ Which goes to the options we have at confronting danger, and helping others to avoid it. Frankly the ‘Hell-fire’ approach presents a false sense of security or absurd in the case of the rocks.

And then there is another story here in my town, where a short lived Environmental Officer of Palm Beach County was quoted in a Winter newspaper ‘Don’t breath the air along the beach.’ Not a welcome warning for tourist-seeking businesses along the beach. Yes, he was damned into silence. It did awaken my curiosity and I learned during my course in Geomarine Chemistry that ‘Red Tide’ dinoflagalates (sp) produce a protective saxotocin neurotoxin which can become airborne and affects the muscles around the lungs and perhaps within the lungs to ‘stop your ability to breathe’. Now Red Tide thrives on all the nutrients we as humans pump into the ‘infinite’ (354 million cubic miles) of salt water, and have no qualms. However ‘pollution’ occurs when the local waters cannot ‘handle’ what foreign substances are being impressed upon them. Since there’s no great hurricane occurring all the time, mixing of shoreline waters and those a mile or so offshore does not occur, hence ‘POLLUTION’ dumbass.

But Dinoflagelates only put out the neurotoxin when threatened, and they are threatened when all the pesticides, selecticides, herbicides (all human suicides) are washed into the shore waters by rainfall. So it was that Winter season of tourist nirvana of golfing and flowering gardens and agriculture in plastic mulch with poison dajeure here in South Florida. So perhaps the sacrifice of that one Environmental Operative, awakened peoples consciousness to poisoning themselves as it hasn’t occurred in over ten years. Or just newer more powerful, but shorter lived chemical poisons are being used… Only your Chemical Poison Company knows for sure.

Moral: Cut it out… the poison stuff, or I’m going to buy you a pair of these birds to play with.

biomedicalephemera:

Pitohui variable (now Pitohui kirhocephalus) - The Variable Pitohui

Though all pitohuis have been found to have at least some level of toxin in them, the variable pitohui and hooded pitohui have by far the highest and most consistent levels of it, both in their bodies and throughout their feathers.

The toxins carried by the pitohuis aren’t actually produced by them - like the Columbian poison dart frog, they acquire the toxin from their food sources. Actually, the chemical makeup of their toxin is almost identical to that of the poison dart frogs. They secrete neurotoxic alkaloid compounds known as batrachotoxins. These toxins are lipophilic, and can permeate unbroken skin. They bind to nerve cells, and basically “break” them - they open up the sodium channels in the cells (permanently depolarizing them) so that the nerves can no longer fire, and a flaccid paralysis ensues.

Bizarrely, the tetrodotoxin of the pufferfish may be a possible “treatment” for batrachotoxin-induced paralysis. Tetrodotoxin is non-competitive with batrachotoxin (meaning it wouldn’t be trying to bind to the same part of the cell, and wouldn’t have to remove the batrachotoxin first), and causes an extreme tetanic (stiff) paralysis, because it causes nerve cells to enter a state where they’re permanently firing and can’t stop.

Well, toxin or not, no deaths due to the pitohui have ever been recorded. The Papuan natives see pitohuis as “rubbish birds” because of their toxins, and avoid hunting them. Surely a few natives or explorers have died eating them in the past, but they aren’t an active threat to anyone.

The birds of New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan Islands. R. Bowdler Sharpe and John Gould, 1875-1888.

Mathematics, Humor, History The difference of ‘who you...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:11:58 -0500

Mathematics, Humor, History

The difference of ‘who you are’ and ‘what your best friend thinks of you’ is a vastly important and not easily appreciated or acquired distinction, dare I say ‘distribution’.

Without reading this book, I’m in tuned to its significance. After all, from Paul Dirac’s mouth I heard ‘Show it mathematically and it will be so.’ And it is not that I wish to guide or push someone in a favored direction which I do not believe in or feel is true, but to express something with the given facts in such a way as to make it as precise as is possible to the current ‘State of Affairs’ (Wittgenstein) is a memory-worthy endeavor.

I added ‘Humor’ as part of this because humor seems to be the greatest facilitator of ambiguous certainty. Bazinga

isomorphismes:

Leonardo da Vinci’s ability to embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and paradox was a critical characteristic of his genius. —J Michael Gelb

Say you want to use a mathematical metaphor, but you don’t want to be really precise. Here are some ways to do that:

Tack a +ε onto the end of an equation.

Use bounds (“I expect to make less than a trillion dollars over my lifetime and more than $0.”)

Speak about a general class without specifying which member of the class you’re talking about. (The members all share some property like, being feminists, without necessarily having other properties like, being women or being angry.)

Use fuzzy logic (the ∈ membership relation gets a percent attached to it: “I 30%-belong-to the class of feminists | vegetarians | successful people.”).

Use a specific probability distribution like Gaussian, Cauchy, Weibull.

Use a tempered distribution a.k.a. a Schwartz function.

Tempered distributions are my favourite way of thinking mathematically imprecisely.

Tempered distributions have exact upper and lower bounds but an inexact mean and variance. T.D.’s also shoot down very fast (like exp{−x²} the gaussian) which makes them tractable.

For example I can talk about the temperature in the room (there is not just one temperature since there are several moles of air molecules in the room), the position of a quantum particle, my fuzzy inclusion in the set of vegetarians, my confidence level in a business forecast, ….. with a definite, imprecise meaning.

Classroom mathematics usually involves precise formulas but the level of generality achieved by 20th century mathematicians allows us to talk about a cobordism between two things without knowing everything precisely about them.

It’s funny; the more advanced and general the mathematics, the more casual it can become. Like stingy stickler things that build up to a chummy, whatever-it’s-all-good.
 
Our knowledge of the world is not only piecemeal, but also vague and imprecise. To link mathematics to our conceptions of the real world, therefore, requires imprecision.

I want the option of thinking about my life, commerce, the natural world, art, and ideas using manifolds, metrics, functors, topological connections, lattices, orthogonality, linear spans, categories, geometry, and any other metaphor, if I wish.

"Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:20:06 -0500

“Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s...

"In an unusual twist, researchers believe that if the axions are cold enough they might form a..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:40:05 -0500

“In an unusual twist, researchers believe that if the axions are cold enough they might form a...

Music, History, Theology, Humor Don McLean’s ‘The...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:05:00 -0500

Music, History, Theology, Humor

Don McLean’s ‘The Day the Music Died’, represents the death of three great musicians, but also tells of the tipping point where we entered the 1960’s, losing our faith in God and ourselves, especially the late sixties and the Vietnam war, a foolish enterprise that just killed in the name of what, death, and to play with deceivers, totalitarians pretending to be ‘communists’ on a battlefield of the extremely poor and vulnerable? Like the Altamont Concert where the Hell’s Angels were protecting The Rolling Stones and a person attacking the stage was stabbed to death, caught on stage. This late 1960’s event is new to me today, having listened to Glenn Beck radio this morning and going thru the motivations of this song, written some ten years after the tragic death by airplane crash of Buddy Holly, who was just married and his wife 6 months expecting. She also had her fetus die. Tragedy upon tragedy.

Meanwhile I lived thru this time, at College, studying Pre-med, 19th Century German Literature, Neuroscience, even Theology and all the while the best and the brightest survived, but everyone else were to be sacrificed into a war economy and hate.

One of the musics I will always remember was the Weselyan U. concert of the Charles Lloyd Quartet with Keith Jarrett on the piano… it was amazing; the lights would go out in the old chandeliers when the music reached a pitch and volume and tone synchronized to almost a microwave intensity, an audiowave force field that made everyone reenergized with the magic that is music, as wonderful as “Oh Herr Hilf, lass wohl, lass wohl, gelingen.’ That’s a Motet from my favorite 14th Century composer. One of the greatest spirit engaging sounds I garnered from Dr. Barber’s Music History course. He called me ‘Mr. K’. And many days I woke up thinking some ‘Metamorphosis’ was being relived. In retrospect my college life was an example of how ‘not to’ succeed, unless you were you were studying the ‘Phenomenology of Suffering’, like Kafka.

"The idea is that when space is in the presence of matter, it slows down and coagulates around it"

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:44:37 -0500

“The idea is that when space is in the presence of matter, it slows down and coagulates around...

Theology, Science, Mathematics ‘The Fear of The Lord is...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:35:58 -0500

Theology, Science, Mathematics

‘The Fear of The Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom’ Proverbs 1:7 by Solomon, son of David (1000-700BCE). Thomson’s Bible … Intl. replaces ‘Knowledge’ for ‘Wisdom’. Thomson (Secretary of the Constitution) also adds ‘Piety Towards God is the Beginning of Discernment’, before he admonishes like the Intl. with ‘But the Wicked Despise Wisdom and Instruction.’

The second part of the Proverb addresses much of how we instruct our children. If they are taught early that there is a God and something much higher, who loves us, but wishes us to treat eachother as we would be treated, then they will act with increasing ‘Discernment’. I see often that without a introduction to God, children behave as they are treated, and often by their peers, or older children, it can be cruel and dangerous, thoughtless and reckless. Even these things can happen, but there seems to be some grace as when God is shown as a loving guide.

This curve, as steeply asymptotic or linear, I do not know. New ideas, like embryos are fragile, and give mothers (or idea nurturers) a fear as they begin. It is as we get or are given great power and success in our progeny that we grow comfortable with the idea of God, fear diminishes and we, perhaps like the ancients, can have conversations, even dreams of incredible vision. Perhaps too, with a greater understanding of just what God is or expects of us, this pushes our Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding.

We can always pray for that guidance and grace.

ichrider:

jtotheizzoe:

Go on, look behind the curtain

Science, at its very essence.

(via Indexed)

I agree with this for the most part. At the very least, understanding something allows you to deal with it rationally instead of through fear.

"Unlike in liquids, these “waves” happen in plasmas because the particles are charged,..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:01:46 -0500

“Unlike in liquids, these “waves” happen in plasmas because the particles are...

"Here, as revealed in the Gallups video, are the eight different attempts to amend our Constitution..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:00 -0500

“Here, as revealed in the Gallups video, are the eight different attempts to amend our...

Forty is the only number in the english language that is spelled alphabetically.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:38:04 -0500

Frog Sense, Humor, Mathematics Also -40 Celsius = -40 Fahrenheit… Gesundheit!

Medicine, Technology, UncommonSenseVsCommononsense,...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:01:00 -0500

Medicine, Technology, UncommonSenseVsCommononsense, Environment

Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) is the second cancer therapy that has come from Israel. Dr. Yoav Medan of Israel in one of my previous blogs of TED.com focuses on the Noninvasive treatment, called MRgFUS developed by InSightec which uses focused high intensity sonic waves and is being clinically used in Charlottesville, VA at the UVA hospitals, or rather they have set up a separate clinic to with the MRI and ‘Sonification’ machines which have cured a brain tumor and some bone tumor, but these therapies take hours and accomplish the removal of the tumor, rather than interrupt the tumors’ growth.

Bravo.

And another non invasive treatment, which is chemical, but peptide enzymes has been developed in Houston, TX by Dr. Burzynski’s Clinic, who is both a PhD in Chemistry and MD in Internal Medicine, and emigrated from Poland. These peptides, which are common in the blood of normal people are in lower concentrations in those with cancer. Normal people expel them in their urine, and from this public ‘trough’ of urine, his drug company is set up to extract this from this waste stream (pun intended).

Applying these in some combination and then with some modification of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD’s therapies with diet and cancer may be reduced from the teens to the long single digits as in some countries mentioned like China. Anyway, onions and mushrooms, both cooked, onions first and more (slightly carmelized) and mushrooms added and gently cooked where their juices are ‘coaxed’ from the body. Then stop cooking them, and remove. Cook other veggies with some olive oil and reintroduce, and perhaps put some frozen peas on top, just cooked long enough to get them warm. And eat the leftovers on a salad the next day, with some cut up chicken or whatever added.

This can be a backbone for low cost healthy eating with pasta or brown rice on the side. Of course Chinese cooking using olive or other top quality oils and sparingly will do wonders.

Oh, and stop poisoning your environment.

I originally interpreted the comment below to indicate she didn’t like the quality of the therapy… my mistake.

marineknowledge:

Bill Doyle: Treating cancer with electric fields

Sorry, bad quality, but if you can stand the pixels he has some really interesting things to say.

These are low frequency electric fields that force cancer cells into apoptosis.

Environment, Hazard Mitigation, Real Estate, Design,...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:30:39 -0500

Environment, Hazard Mitigation, Real Estate, Design, UncommonSenseVsCommononsense, Humor

Imagine converting all of NYC, Manhattan to solar or ‘non carboniferous’ sourced energy. Where would you put it? Does this make you feel vulnerable? Helpless or perhaps you have a solution like everyone wore a body suit that generated power from their movement? Would you wear one? If everyone wore one, you could eliminate the ‘space heating’ component at 42 percent. That’s big, eh what?

I remember having electric blankets on really cold nights in the 1960’s cause our house wouldn’t get warmer than 55. It was an old Illinois farmhouse and had straw for insulation, between the wood tongue and groove siding and the lath and plaster interior. Makes me want to hibernate just thinkin’ about it.

micasaessucasa: (via Nobis House by Susanne Nobis) Design, Real...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:20:06 -0500

micasaessucasa:

(via Nobis House by Susanne Nobis)

Design, Real Estate, Hazard Mitigation

A good example of using dual purpose; structure adds function. The bookshelves at lateral strength to the building. This is always the case in shipbuilding (almost), but not often seen in home construction. This example could well be downsized with good results. Other material could also be used, esp. concrete and steel, those magical twins that expand at the same rate with heating and cooling…. Bravo.

thetaoofdana: Do you eat enough veggies? (the recommended daily...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:22:00 -0500

thetaoofdana:

Do you eat enough veggies? (the recommended daily allowance in the USA is 5 cups total for the average person per day!!!) If you are not a vegetarian (and even if you are!) its pretty tough to consume all 5 cups of veggies and fruit. Unless, of course, you get creative. Put half an avocado (promise its not gross, its awesome) in your smoothie in the morning, eat spaghetti squash instead of pasta, make a bowl of fresh fruit your centerpiece in the living room as well as the kitchen… and try cool things that are super easy like roasting veggies… or really luxe-versions of roasted veggies like these toasted coconut brussel sprouts. Again, I know it may sound sketchy, but you won’t be sorry!

Food, Health, Hazard Mitigation, Humor

I always feel better eating a salad, even if it’s pulling a few of those ‘baby Frankenstein’ carrots out of their bag, grab a tomato, wash and cut or grab a few cherry tomatoes, wash and dump. Oh and lettuce: you know those plastic containers the size of a shoe box that fancy lettuce comes in… well get one of those… it makes a perfect place to keep lettuce.. and it keeps well, even after washing. I always just wash and shake… forget the collander. Left over frozen peas (never cook, just warm them), celery (you can keep it in with the lettuce) and don’t toss the green leaves… they really are good.

Add some chicken left overs and in 10 minutes tops, you’ve got it… Dressing, one needs to ‘dress’ properly. I like those refrigerated yogurt based ones, but Ken’s is alright. And at the end, don’t forget to add a little water, shake it around and use it UP. It might not be ok with ketchup running all over a beef patty and sogging your buns, but ‘sogging a salad’ is just not an issue.

Wallah.. enjoy.. think different …. think saladly.

Next, upon request, I might just give you my recipe for ‘Ground Chuck Farley ala DuChamp’, which if you must know, I invented at the Snow Chase kitchen at the foot of the great Aspen Mtn., that’s in Colorado in 1972, like that great Boston seafood restaurant advertises on their menu cover after ‘When founded’… ‘Before You Were Born.’

Physics, Humor The same analogy can be maid (pun) for a cloud....

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:44:06 -0500

Physics, Humor

The same analogy can be maid (pun) for a cloud. Why not random invisible gasses everywhere. Well enter the ‘Nucleator’. That’s a salt compound, like Mg… something or other and it attracts the gas molecules into bunches and then the sun strikes and heats them up and WHEEE they all go ‘tripping the light fantastic’, sts.

Now is this ‘Nucleator’ like a Higgs on steroids? Or are we just waiting for our own Princess At A Party to gather an opinion. I’m ConCERNed, that’s all.

marineknowledge:

What The Higgs Boson Does

Art, Design, Theology, Science, History, Psychophysics,...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:20:00 -0500

Art, Design, Theology, Science, History, Psychophysics, Humor

The ‘Shuuh’ is to keep quiet that Charley Boy was a deep seated theist. Yeah, maybe like ‘g-d’ made the Model T and Henry evolved it into the Edsel or on a bright note the 4 speed automatic 1954 Lincoln Capri (Ford’s 50th Anniversary Edition) which I could have bought for $200 in 1969 but didn’t have the cash. It could still go 100 mph, leather interior, electric seats and antenna, two-tone exterior. Ain’t evolution grand? But man, if you miss it, it’s gone.

Not entirely, G-d provides us this blog to document our meme or memories. (OK maybe this is just an evolution from those pictures on cave walls. Picky picky.

paxmachina:

chARTist - Charles Darwin (Charleston, South Carolina)

Google giggles some new rules. Nothing to see Here

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:05:00 -0500

Technology, History, Environment, Humor Here’s something I just got from Google; something...