Great image of my wife Aubrey, here about six months along and glowing nicely. Aubrey is on the left of course - notice the lady in the background who is glowing as part the females in the presence of other females who are pregnant thing. Photo by Robert Benfield
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Here is a more recent photo taken on a river boat in Knoxville. The event was the post wedding reception for my good freinds Robert and Karin Benfield. Not sure if the photographer is Robert or another close freind Tom Geghart.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

AlterNet: United Colors of America

United Colors of America

By Rebecca Solnit, tomdispatch.com. Posted July 28, 2004.

"Must we be a primary-color nation? Wouldn't a little lilac make us feel better about terror alerts? Perhaps some aubergine-chartreuse"

I am sure that both the Republicans and democrats are trying to figure out how to put satire like this behind razor wire in a free speech zone like they have managed to do at their precious (yawn)conventions in Boston and New York.

Still its nice to laugh at these bozzos - while its still permitted. You do have a permit don't you?

Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun

"Nothing most of us will ever do combines the moral weight of life-or-death choice with the concrete immediacy of the moment as thoroughly as the conscious handling of instruments deliberately designed to kill. As such, there are lessons both merciless and priceless to be learned from bearing arms — lessons which are not merely instructive to the intellect but transformative of one's whole emotional, reflexive, and moral character."
Eric Raymond.

Rarely one comes across an essay so profound, I believe I could render a book of quotes from this short essay on the bearing of weapons by Eric Raymond.

Profound, and needful reading.

Caught this again, one needs to click and enlarge this image to really get a good see.

Notice the dark Columns just above the trees. I believe this to be a shadow cast buy the rugged mountains of the Clumberland Plateau about thirty miles west of us. Apparently around July 25th everything lines up and we get this shadow that looks like a long columns rising into the evening sky.

At least that is what I think is happening.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Last weekend the door frame was constructed and installed. No more clibing in and out of those bottom pentagons - Yippee!
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

As you can see I am involved with more than one dome project at the same time. My wife Aubrey should complete our other little dome shapped project mid - September.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Most of the plypods windows are now in place.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

New comment system

Just replaced blogspots commenting system with Haloscan's. Sorry blogspot I love most of your service but I think haloscan is much easier for my hordes of readers to use.

More bits of Wisdom?

A choice that is not a choice is not a choice.

Lexan windows
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Man this seems to be the plypod blog. Anyway a bit of progress on the window front.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

The Last Good Democrat by Thomas DiLorenzo

The Last Good Democrat by Thomas DiLorenzo

Never mind " last good democrat " was Grover the last good president? Good? That is a stretch as a description for a president how about the last OK president?

In any event the article does some slagging of icons that are in serious need of clasting.

From the inside - did I mention what a bear the upper windows are ?
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

EECH its been to long from my last blog. How about a plypod update? Here is a window 1/16 in lexan folded into a cone nice visual effect No?
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Everything is my hobby

Where does one begin if everything is ones hobby? Well one would logically have to begin with subatomic physics of course. Now how would one begin to ponder such a very small and such a very large thing? For it becomes impossible to talk about the small without talking about the large.

If one looks even causally at the state of the current theory of the very very small one is quickly lead into a very complex multidimensional morass - where inadequacies in theory are inevitably met by adding another dimension and the cocomitant order of magnitude increasse in the difficulty of the mathematics involved. One might even insist that the extra dimensions consist of nothing but the ponderings of those who are very very bright mathematicians.

Perhaps it is to much anthropomorhization of the cosmos but such complexities lack the elegance which one seems to innately sense an explanation of everything should demonstrate. In fact regarding the current state of the itty bitty universe it is strongly expected that theory has passed beyond the pint where true experimental verification is even possible.

It is perhaps a problem of language. Not that wee cannot assign words for the subatomic realm that have meaning but that we must of necessity assign words to the physical world before we have a real understanding of the meaning of that which we are describing.

When descriptions of reality start to lack that elegance that science has so earnestly sought in its description of the cosmos perhaps it is time to return to some of the most basic assumptions and to see if they continue to make sense in light of what is now known.

The first Icon to be clast is mass.

Considered a basic tenant of physics the concept of mass is far more illusive than might be thought. Of course the concept is very very useful and no one trying to engineer physical constructs would give up the concept of mass. But engineering is an empirical art not a scientific endeavor and deals with what works not what is.

So what then is mass? Ah there then is the rub as it turns out we do not directly define mass we observe it as an objects resistance to having its motion changed by a force. Define I should have said measure mass as we concieve it is a second order property that is measured by three other parameters - force distance and time. We do not measure mass per say but we measure an objects momentum.

In fact it is suggested here that one can abandon the concept of mass and use momentum in its stead.