Sundays

  I love the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. People sleep in, the graceful go to church. The air swells with the absence of traffic, as natural as it was before the revolt of industry. You can hear the birds and trees swaying in the wind more clearly. When you run, clouds can watch you without the film of light pollution. When you read, the words speak to you more carefully. You aren't thinking so fast that the day falls into a forgetful cavity. You savor the moments, the quiet solitude that enhances reflection, the fun and meaningful events you attended with family. God's goodness shines on the slow things you do, methodically and lovingly, in full realization of the gifts he gave you. The non-physical is given as much attention as the physical. It is the great reset that prepares you for the next week, a revolution of the clock restructuring the order lost from the chaos of six other days. It is a day of prayer, wonder, communion, all the intangibles we need to function without admitting it. Sunday is the forsaken goddess that soothes us in our stressful slumber. Refreshing fruits of religious harmony reconcile you to the other faiths that preach solace on this special day. It is a holiday about nothing, ignored by the calendars, secretly yearned for by the busy and the pious. Civilization pauses for a splendid seventh of its monopoly on time. The painters and the poets spend their deepest moments meditating on eternal truths unveiled. Weddings produce the most sustainable moment of joy the good Earth will witness. Angels sing to us sopranos of blessedness and love. All is in rhythm, all is bright, all is safe, all is well. I love the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday.

Gratitude

    Be wary of the talons of gratitude. People can go their whole lives being grateful for what someone did, not realizing they are enabling bad behavior. A person can save your life or bail you out and expect you to repay them by allowing them to treat you badly. When parents do this, it is especially deceptive. Once you call them out, they will be quick to point out all the positive things they've done for you, making it seem like the bad things are excusable, as a sort of guilt trip. They will use the guilt to make you a pawn in their scheme.

    True gratitude is feeling appreciative of the people that gave you something without expecting anything in return. Their expectations don't trigger an imbalanced power struggle. When you don't feel the stress of constantly needing to please them, it is much easier to feel gratitude in its pure form.

The Drums and the Guitar

    The brave drums marched through the jungle, beating to the pulse of its wet, humid air. Leaves on the trees shook as they paraded past, moving with a cadence that to the trained eye might have perceived them dancing. Each beat intensified as the evening drew on, growing louder as they approached the river. Like a troop of monkeys, they had transformed the quiet canopy into a frenzy of percussion.
    Once they came to the river, a sound as sweet as honey stopped them in their tracks. On the other side, a voluptuous guitar was stringing herself along the shore, meandering with her notes to the flow of the water. She dazzled the spectators with her otherworldly sound, so much that the batonists fell into a swoon of silence. 
    As she approached, the air became electric with her hypnotic solo. She stopped to look at the water, emanating a melancholy disposition. Tears of sadness fell from her frets, supplying the river with a lonely dirge that collected in a stream. The drums could see that she was alone, that she yearned for a companion in the compositions she kept.
    It was the smallest drum who cast the first beat. The guitar's interest piqued at the sound of a complementary performer. Soon the larger drums followed his lead, so that the chords of the guitar blended into the beats, becoming something bigger. The drums no longer wanted to march in formation as a single entity, but to become synchronized with the lovely treasure they'd found across the river.
    As they gathered around her, their sounds rolled into an assembly of powerful forces that liberated her from the shell she'd been in. At once she played high, fast notes that speckled the firmament with a galvanized crescendo, bolstered by the heavy pounding below. The leaves on the trees whipped back and forth, swaying in newfound fusion, while the water rushed with a progression of strength.
    The guitar was eminently pleased with her new band of brothers, who'd fallen in love with her. Their marching beats carried her through the rest of the jungle, curing her sadness, giving her purpose. In turn, she led them to charge a bridge over the river, taming their wildness, connecting division through unity. Once she had them, the world became clear.

Library Gods

There's a library
At the university
Where brilliant scholars
Ascend marble steps
To study in a vaulted room
That rises in graduated tiers
Over stained-glass windows
Into a parabolic ceiling
Triumphant with gothic wonder.
As they uncover new truths

Their notes are elevated
To the lofty chandeliers
Illuminating all knowledge,
Cementing it in their research.
Higher yet the margins converge,
Each page of discovery assembled
On a scroll unfurled high off the walls,
Where immortal philosophers
Painted in a fresco parliament,
Arrayed like the stories of Genesis,
Hold the light for students below.

Twin Paradox

 They who witnessed the ancient marriage
 Of science and religion
 Built the 12 houses of astrology,
 Reigning supreme over all faiths
 For hundreds of years.
 But gradually, the word of Augustine
 Endured a schism 

 Between faith and reason
 By positing the lives of twins
 Are often at odds,
 As Jacob's and Esau's had been.
 If two souls are born
 At the same time and place
 Yet lead vastly different lives,
 How can astrology be true?

 The missing ingredient, Karma,
 Paused the grand rotation,
 Exclaiming that forces beyond the stars
 Govern the fate of souls,
 But that souls given astral imprint
 Were thus influenced by cosmic motions.
 And the world kept turning
 As science and religion entwined
 After being at odds for centuries,
 Twins born from the same instinct
 Writing vastly different stories
 Only to share the same ending.

Ariel's Lament

 You saw him aboard the ship
 Playing a fife in some far-off fantasy
 Where he was the prince of your dreams,
 The man who could save you
 From all the pressures of the deep.
 You wanted to come on land, with him,
 To hear him play the music every day
 While you sang along, seducing
 The land to your aquatic arias,
 A siren's love at first sight.
 He danced around on the planks
 While your heart melted,
 Sending your mind to enchantment,
 Young love dripping from a violin's bow.
 You saw the future, saw marrying him,
 Fathering your child,
 Helping you through the crass world
 After your parents refused.
 You saw in his face what the boy's father
 Couldn't give you, a steady presence,
 A loyal provider, strong enough to care,
 A transformer of fins to legs.
 The passion stormed through you,
 Igniting your fiery hair,
 Burning through every truth
 That mocked your happy ending.
 A sea witch will steal your voice,
 A tragic monster living inside you
 Thwarting all the stability desired.

Curmudgeoned by Sanderson: The Stormlight Archive Conclusion

  This review is on book 5 Wind and Truth, midway between the entire series, which is supposed to be 10 books long.

 Journey before destination. Sure, if you can live that long. And buy more books full of overindulgent wankery like books 4-5 in The Stormlight Archive. I didn't invest in 7,000 pages of intriguing, strong characters to become consumed by their grief, to be trapped in their heads while a beautiful world falls apart. I love Sanderson when he isn't damning his creation to storm ash and transforming his heroes into patients for a PTSD group therapy session. Half the time it felt like I was reading Dalinar watch the History Channel, or Shallan confusing herself for a new persona, or Kaladin getting blown further off course by his nervous breakdown. The dude's arc went from unsung hero to the sidekick shrink of someone with even bigger issues, and as far away from the main action as possible. But hey, at least he can cook and play the flute now, right? Adolin seemed like the only one who kept his head straight, yet even he had chapters serving no other purpose than ruminating on self-doubt.

 Most of the book has no relation to the core series of events. It shifts POV so prolifically, and with so much inner dialogue riddled by impossible questions, that it meanders like a teenager's diary. Despite its flaws, even at page 1,200 it still had potential to be one of the greatest series ever written. But instead of concluding it simply like he did in the first two (more successful) books, Sanderson chose to make it even more complex, a la the George Martin syndrome, where the ending should be simple, but gets confounded by trying too hard to be unpredictable. There are twists that oddly kill off all that made the heroes of Roshar great, typically through resolving an unnecessary character arc, or by introducing some weird new magic trick to move things in a more convenient direction (there is a deus ex machina every 50 pages). I was so anxious from all the repetition and hype surrounding the Contest of Champions that I found myself begging for an old-fashioned resolution but got "Retribution" instead.

 The biggest surprise though was Sanderson's attempt to justify this utterly sad ending- which Wit calls brilliant- as if he needed some way of soothing his die-hard fans or keeping their mojo going for another five books. The payoff for sticking with this, if there is one, isn't worth it for me at this point in the series. The Stormlight Archive is so brilliant that it became a victim of its own success; full of fantastic ideas that are so drawn out that they ultimately fail to keep the reader interested, especially after a dismal pause in events.

8/7

 Now that some time has passed, I have come to appreciate more where this wild journey has taken me. There is a dark ending to this one, something he is not known for. I believe I've been a bit spoiled by him in that regard. In the long run it is no less of a shattering outcome than The Empire Strikes Back, Avatar: Earth, or Game of Thrones. Though I still believe these tragic arcs should have taken place much earlier in the series, it was wrong of me to think it has lost its place among the greats. So long as Kaladin is alive, there is still time for a real retribution. I also believe that by the uniting the shards, Odium will never be the same, for the power of honor will compel him to consider better options. Odium will now be torn between what's right and what's wrong, as indicated by his last thought in the book, the one where he realized Dalinar had torn down his philosophy. Though he has more power now, I'm not sold that he'll always use it for destruction. Plus, he needs to hide from the other shards since they've been alerted to his perversion. So at least the war is over, for now. But 90% of Roshar is still scorched and run by the Fused, and many of our friends could not reunite. Still a sad ending.

 The way I see it now, two individuals who are already very powerful effectively doubled their power: Taravangian, who doubled it with the power of honor, and Kaladin, who doubled it by becoming King of the Heralds. If Taravangian attacks, Kaladin is Roshar's only hope.

Birds and Fairies: Imagining the Deep Future of Human Body Plans

    Humans have been a homogeneous species since the disappearance of Neanderthals. This means that despite our geographic dispersion through prehistory, we did not break apart into other species. It was only relatively recently that we were reunited by a shrinking globalized world that allowed us to mate with each other after millennia of migration away from Africa. Fortunately, there was no cataclysm strong enough to separate these isolated populations long enough for new species to develop. Since the last Ice Age, the races of the world have been conglomerating back into one as each society becomes integrated into the modern global framework. 
    But that doesn't mean a classic population purge will never happen. A cataclysm could wipe out all our technology and everything we've built, leaving isolated communities of humans who would evolve certain traits from selective pressure by nature. This is what happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, after an asteroid impact rendered them extinct. Today there are countless species of birds- the evolutionary offspring of dinosaurs- with such varieties of appearance and function that one has to wonder what the future offspring species of human would look like if such an event occurred.
    It is my intuition that the traits these new species carry will mysteriously echo the fantastic anthropogenic creatures of our fiction and mythologies. To put it bluntly, these are traits belonging to fairies, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. There is no reason for me to doubt that any of these mythological human imprints could eventually become reality in our offspring species. And that once the dust of the cataclysm clears and they are all brought together again, as today's birds are, there could be a global melting pot of current mythological beings becoming reality in the deep future. We are unique in that we have the ability to imagine such a deep future in our collective mythology, brought by transformations unseen in fantasy, as we call their homes other worlds when it could actually be a forecasting of our own. When reading an epic fantasy like Lord of the Rings, we are possibly witnessing derivations of our future world through all the stories we have shared, whether they be orally transmitted, written down, or projected on the screen.
    There's no telling what the most accurate blueprint of human progeny is based on current mythology. Likely only several of the myriad imagined humanoid species will take shape, or just one. But that single species could blossom into an array of stunningly diverse species through a single body plan, as the birds seem to have done. If humans ever grow wings, you can be sure the cataclysm that forced it will subside to reveal a fertile breeding ground for that body plan to flourish, while in the interim, various body plans will compete with each other to win out as nature's favorite. Perhaps as birds eventually won out over dinosaurian body plans, a small, winged one will prevail in our post cataclysmic world. Perhaps the deep future of our evolutionary branch will be entirely populated by fairies.

East-West Sisters

    Cuyahoga is the only national park in the country inside a metropolitan area. It is sandwiched between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. As national parks go, it is one of the least spectacular: just a collection of rocks broken by glaciation and the erosion of streams that aren't very tall compared to ones in parts of the west.
    But the west is a wild woman, sexy and seductive, luring unsuspecting voyagers into her bosom. The east is a refined woman, faithful and steady as a matriarch. Her land is old, the west is young. There is so much buried under her surface that time has unraveled her beauty. The west has high peaks, robust rapids and extreme environments featuring exotic landscapes. As she ages, she will become more like her sister in the east.

Empyrean Coronation

 And I fell into the deep dreamless sleep of death's kiss,
 Spinning through a tunnel, letting go of all I held,
 To wash upon the shores of a vast porcelain ocean
 Where my guide alighted a golden stairway upward
 Through clouds bulbous in stormy surrender,
 Parting the heavens in sweet rapture to recall
 The mosaic memories of a life complete,
 Welcomed by all I shared in love.

 And I saw her smiling there in my soul group,
 Waiting for me in a blue dress glittered
 By pixie dust sparkling off wings of magic
 That levitated her beyond purgatory,
 Through the Gates rimmed by banana pancakes,
 A marine angel inside a glassy orb, 
 Inviting me to examine the paths we took,
 The projects we completed,
 The dreams we left unrealized.

 And they were all blonde cherubs
 Who opened my eyes to the lessons,
 The lives that end but the soul that never does,
 All in care of the Empress,
 Manifestation of my guide,
 Who sits on her vaginal terrace
 Atop the phallic tower,
 She who protected me in the life I left,
 The life of -----.

 -----, -----, there will never be another,
 But the soul lives on, morphing to greatness
 Through each incarnation's matrix
 To solve all the riddles before finally earning
 Divine honor atop the Samsaran pyramid
 Beyond the self, beyond soulmates and past lives,
 To an Empyrean coronation of unity,
 Certified by the permanent desire to help.

 And that's when I was taken to the secret planet
 To practice creating life, new life,
 For new worlds imagined, in the universe of my own
 That will begin when I attain ultimate peace,
 Compassion and understanding,
 To start a new chain of beings
 Fractured by a Bang, into pieces of me.

Berzerker Amnesia

 Like some godforsaken Norse creature
 Put in trance by a rage that erupted
 From dormant trauma under the mother's craton,
 I would smash the faces of my parents
 All three of them who sabotaged me,
 Left my heart to sour, forsaken on a magma cross,
 A three-faced Hydra blowing fireballs at me
 From a top a broken faultline of despair.
 And they will hear my voice when the night is through,
 Screaming through cherubic libraries that cherish wisdom,
 All the way to their empty caverns
 Where all they have are the riches mined
 At my expense, when I found out I was only conceived
 Because they needed someone to love them,
 To be their therapist, to nurture their egos,
 To forgive their responsibilities,
 To emotionally support every tragic earthquake.
 To save them, to offer martyrdom
 Upon the cold terraces of obsidian
 Glazed by alexandrite tears

 That a life of confusion
 Domesticated from the abuse of a good soul.
 Sometimes I wish I had amnesia,
 The only power to erase them,
 A supernatural brain freeze reflecting
 Off the bifrost leading to Asgaard,
 Through the fiery temples of dispossessed thoughts,
 Then on to the golden cradle of Valhalla,
 Where I can start again.

Pythagorean Forest

 The tree trunks are made of squares
 Crowned by triangle's obtuse,
 Equal, isosceles and acute,
 Forking branches through space-time,
 Iterated to oblivion,
 Where the endless twigs bear fruit.
 It's the same structure as spirit,
 Each of us bearing a different
 Cast of angles, sides, reflections,
 Nuanced eccentricity of the square root
 Leading the soul as climber
 To nested apples atop creation,
 Glittering orbs adorning the canopy
 In unique patterns of tribulation.
 The soul climbs, each iteration
 A higher vibration, a new dimension,
 Vast orchestration billowing suspension,
 Cosmic fractals of personification
 Shaping the elevation of trees to perfection,
 Growing incarnations in God's imagination.

Cup Slam

 Spontaneous joy of racing blasted us through a mushroom stadium
 Off the map, dangerous corridors of levitating stones,
 Under an amusement park floating on water,
 Meandering down a canyon that tunneled through a donut,
 You wanted to eat it, you said, swallowing pleasure
 Laced by enchantment of sweets intangible,
 The shriek of your laughter counting coins in the tumult
 Shell crash of thunder from a lightning strike you cast.
 You're in first, you said, sanctifying glory,
 Coating it in candy enamel pastries that glittered
 Frosty lights off the cracked eggs of your wheels
 Now coasting through an airport high on sunshine.
 In a purple city electrified by night bright strobe lights,
 Stripes and stars illuminated white,
 Your head turned inside out when the road forked,
 Split upside down by mirrored turnpike,
 Smashing your glee to smithereen disco chips
 Falling like confetti in a labyrinthine dome,
 Sedated by the pinball finish line sounding victory.

We Are Fractals: The Cantor Set in Genes

    The Cantor set is the most basic mathematical fractal. It starts from a principal line that bisects at eeach iteration into smaller lines that are 1/3 the length of the previous one:

    If we assign the second iteration with two lines a binary address, it follows that each iteration thereafter will have an infinite diversity of binary combinations. For instance, iteration two can be assigned L and R for left right. Iteration three would then have LL, LR, RL, and RR designations; and so forth.
    There is an intriguing analogy in genetics. After conception between sperm and egg, each time the cell(s) split, a new ladder on the Cantor chain unfolds to represent a new arrangement of genes, coded by recessive or dominant probabilities in gene expression. Each time the cell splits, we go lower on the Cantor chain to find the corresponding genetic code in an individual's genome.
    The analogy also applies to evolution. If we go far back in time, each generation is a step up the ladder leading to the most primitive set of genes. This includes the mother gene that started it all- a single line at the top of the Cantor chain. Somehow it split to form the two sexes and all the successive combinations down the fractal chain through the long history of evolution.
    Thus, all life is coded from the Cantor iteration structure. That is how we are fractals.

Sitcoms As Stages of Life

  There seems to be a hilarious sitcom for every stage of life. Each of my favorite sitcoms represents a stage of my own.

 "The Simpsons" is great for young teenagers as they develop a sense of stereotypes in a crazy world. Bart and Lisa are the consummate child victims at the center of twisted adult schemes in Springfield. Teens may not pick up on all the satire, but that's what makes it mysterious for them. It can be a good learning experience culturally.

 "The Big Bang Theory" is a late teen/early 20s romp, ideal for college, first job, or just moving out. It helps if you are a total geek or enjoy the company of one.

 "Friends" is perfect for people just getting their career started and living on their own, usually mid to late 20s or early 30s. It is definitely set before the family stage.

 "Seinfeld" reflects the 30s, either as a stage of midlife crisis or the yearning to start a family. It's best to watch it during this stage, as it pokes fun at all the social norms you have gotten so sick of that starting a family starts to sound good.

 "Home Improvement" is a great family show because it can teach you a lot about how to maintain one.  I peg this as a late 30s/early 40s show, but anyone who's getting in the prime of parenthood can relate. You can learn on a lot from Wilson, Al, Jill, and even Tim.  Having two boys make it even more relatable for me.

 "The Office" reflects the 40s, when you are deep in a career and going through the monotonous motions of it. There is a sense of tiredness, being sick if it all, and just wanting to make fun out of anything you can get away with.

 "Frasier" is great for late career in the 50s, when you are well-established as an intellectual in your field and still have some goals. The humor is refined and witty enough that you would probably only understand it later in life.

 "Parenthood" isn't a sitcom, but I believe it is the best for old age. This is when you can look back on a successful family you built, be proud of it, and offer a lot of seasoned advice to the generations in front of you.

Master of None

 Now that it's over I can catch my breath
 That polluted our home with foul stress.
 My dream was a mistake, a heavy burden
 Corrupting my connections, unbidden
 Remorse for running away, sinking bridges
 Built on charm and aspiring wishes
 Damning the past for the future,
 The way it sewed up a suture
 For that leak in my soul
 I so desperately sought to console
 With knowledge cast to infinity,
 An impossible cure for vanity.

Antarctica and Astrobiology

    Antarctica is a continent layered by a sheet of ice that is two miles thick in some places. There is so much ice that the weight of it has sunk the continent substantially, resulting in an average height below sea level; at some locations it is below 1.5 miles (far lower than the Dead Sea), with miles of ice stacked on top of the ground.
    This makes for an interesting topography of subglacial canyons and lakes. Denman Glacier, the deepest point on earth, is an ice-filled canyon that stretches 11,500 feet below sea level. For comparison, the Grand Canyon is only 5,000 feet deep. The subglacial Lake Vistok would be the 10th largest lake in the world if visible on the surface. Ice cores from the two mile deep lake have been taken that reveal a potential ego system with microscopic life.
    That life can survive in such extreme environments as a subglacial lake at the south Pole buried under 2 miles of ice supports the idea that other ice planets and moons may harbor it. One example is Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, which globally iced over. Despite being more than twice as far from the sun as Earth, it may have environmental conditions that favor biogenesis. The more we can learn about these buried ego systems, the more we can infer that perhaps sunlight and oxygen aren't so fundamental to life after all.

Ocean of Peace

 I want to drown in an ocean of peace
 That calms my nerves, gives me release,
 Silences the disease of manufactured unease.
 La petite filet de la mer,
 Wandering a skylit darkness
 Between the edge of the deep,
 A galaxy of life swimming around me,
 Glowing through a dim current of hope.

The Chaos Game

  In chaos theory, there is a feedback iteration where choosing a random point reproduces random outputs among the following iterations. But over a long enough period of time, it doesn't appear to be so random. The shape the points make after thousands of iterations becomes a fractal- specifically the Serpinski Gasket. This called the Chaos Game. A better explanation with illustrations can be found at the Boston University math department here. 

A Sierpinski Gasket showing the outcomes of rolled dice over an infinite series of iterations. Mysterious gaps in the "landing zone" result in a classic fractal structure.

 It is one example of the connection between chaos and fractals; how seemingly random events inevitably lead to order within a larger structure. This could be applied to nature through the Bayes Theorem of probability, where the likelihood of an iteration having a given output is predictable over the course of time but not at the beginning. It serves the wave-particle duality of nature as tiny variations within a structure ultimately lead to the same result. It is the probability of particles forming an entity that lend it reality. Like the chaos of a fractal, any initial condition iterates to the same body plan, as if it was already there. That's where waves converge on particles, with the particles serving the plan and the waves serving the force. Together they create a probability distribution that "fractalizes" nature in real time.

Using Social Media to Geolocate Disaster Spots

           On May 31, 2013, El Reno, Oklahoma experienced the widest tornado in recorded history (Ukusurri et al, 111).  Believed to have reached its maximum extent at 2.6 miles, it is one of the best-documented cases of a mass tornado evacuation in history (Hatzis & Klockow-McClain, 722).  As most tornado responses don’t involve an evacuation, this one was mostly due to its sheer size.  It was also compounded by a rough 2 weeks of severe weather for the city, which had started with the disastrous Moore tornado that killed 24 people on May 20^th that year.

What generated this monster tornado was the combination of a classic southwest dryline, a slow-moving front across the Great Plains, high surface dew points, unstable lapse rates, and high vertical wind shear (ibid., 722).  The supercell that formed from this combination tracked east over central Oklahoma.  Tornadogenesis was just south of El Reno, but the path alarmingly went in the direction of metropolitan Oklahoma City.  Fortunately, it did not reach the city, which is about 30 miles east.  It primarily passed over open country, killing 8 people (all in vehicles), including 3 storm chasers (ibid. 722) before stalling over I40 and dissipating. 

The official rating from the National Weather Service was EF3, but Doppler radar detected velocities that exceeded the wind threshold of an EF5 (ibid. 722).  Based on the size, intensity, and damage inflicted on things it did intercept, including a brutally mangled car, many believe the rating should have been upgraded to EF5. 

The El Reno tornado is known for having many traits that aren’t typically seen even among EF5 tornadoes.  When the tornado was visible, several sub vortices were detected by storm chasers, spinning around the main vortex like a top.  It also took a deadly turn just as it was doubling in size, causing many chasers to get caught in its path.  Because the tornado was rain-wrapped, it was difficult for many to see.  The deceptively wide base made it appear to be merely a rainstorm.  As it stalled on I40, poor visibility caused several people to drive right into it, including the driver of a semi-truck.  These anomalies make El Reno a highly unique tornado, and one of the most fascinating to study in recent history.

Reports of the tornado’s intensity led to a large-scale evacuation of metropolitan Oklahoma City, which had been reeling from the disastrous Moore tornado only 11 days prior.  The evacuation created major traffic jams that would have caused fatalities in the hundreds if the tornado had reached Oklahoma City (ibid. 721).  The traffic jams increased potential for a violent tornado hitting gridlocked traffic, especially as the tornado struck during the afternoon commute.  As vehicle fatalities account for 10-20% of all tornado fatalities (ibid. 722), a response that didn’t involve thousands of people stuck in their vehicles should have been executed by officials during this event.  Telling people who are already on high alert from 2 weeks of severe weather that they need to evacuate if they cannot get below ground can also lead to mass hysteria, putting more lives at risk (ibid. 733).  Any emergency communication network must clearly decide where a tornado is heading and prioritize the safety of individuals in its path without alerting a whole city.

            Two solutions to the communication problem are in the use of social media to monitor tornadogenesis, and the crowdsourcing of information by storm chasers and researchers.  In the case of crowdsourcing, storm chaser video can be collected and fixed precisely in time and location (Seimon et al, 2070).  Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can then be used to georeference storm chaser video (ibid. 2079) as it is happening.  Though this may be difficult to achieve in real time, it is possible.  While this provides a benefit to future researchers, it also presents an opportunity for emergency alert systems to track the speed and direction of tornados.  It would help respondents see any surprising developments or abrupt changes in direction on camera rather than relying on radar or ground reporting alone, which are vulnerable to delays.  In the case of El Reno, the tornado was crowdsourced extensively, but only after the event happened and not by emergency alert systems.  Even if this approach proves impractical in emergency settings, the added benefit of crowdsourcing a tornado is that researchers can reconstruct it to find behavior that led to any accidents and fatalities (ibid. 2079), thus helping emergency planners predict problem areas in future events.

            Another solution is the use of social media to geolocate disaster spots.  Twitter (now X) has already been used as a source of information for pinpointing disasters or social emergencies (Ukkusuri et al, 110).  Posts with hashtags can provide unique and valuable information toward ground responses, information sharing, and can also help with crowdsourcing.  Crucially, it accelerates the speed of information by the sharing nature of threatening situations (ibid. 110).  The information can help public and emergency management authorities improve the understanding of on-the-ground realities during emergency events like tornadogenesis (ibid. 110).  As some posts contain geolocation data, it is useful in identifying local hotspots of activity (ibid. 111).  However, posts that do not have this information would require a bit of data mining, which can be slow in real time.

            If these communication methods had been used during the El Reno event, it would have prevented the major traffic jams that put many lives at risk.  A whole city simply does not have enough time to evacuate from a tornado that just formed 30 miles away.  A small section of the city could, but even this wasn’t necessary for this tornado.  With improvements in crowdsourcing and data collection on social media, an evacuation for the El Reno tornado wouldn’t have been necessary, as respondents would have seen it hooking away from the city and slowing down near the interstate.  A real-time GIS generated map can provide all the functions of a spatially motivated evacuation plan, provided the emergency team has enough data from crowdsourcing and social media.

 

Sources:

Seimon, A., Allen, J. T., Seimon, T. A., Talbot, S. J., & Hoadley, D. K. (2016). Crowdsourcing The El Reno 2013 Tornado: A New Approach for Collation and Display of Storm Chaser Imagery for Scientific Applications. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97(11), 2069-2084. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00174.1

Hatzis, J. J., & Klockow-McClain, K. E. (2022). A Spatiotemporal Perspective on the 31 May 2013 tornado evacuation in the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. Weather, Climate, and Society, 14(3), 721-735. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-21-0106.1

Ukkusuri, S. V., Zhan, X., Sadri, A. M., & Ye, Q. (2014). Use of Social Media Data to Explore Crisis Informatics: Study of 2013 Oklahoma Tornado. Transportation Research Record, 2459(1), 110-118. https://doi.org/10.3141/2459-13

Africa, Preserver of Megafauna

    An interesting nugget from my biogeography textbook is that the megafauna of Africa are the only population that survived to the present. Every continent except Antarctica had a robust population of megafana about 50,000 years ago. And this is why Africa is most fascinating today for being the only continent with such a rich diversity of large species.
    The last ice age cannot account for this variance. What we see in the paleobiological record is a gradual extinction of megafauna on all continents where humans migrated. The record shows simultaneous extinction events with the arrival of human migrants no matter what time period. The reason they did not go extinct in Africa is that they evolved along with humans adapting to their threats for ages. Once humans left Africa and decided to migrate- a relatively fast process that coincided with glacial retreat- all the megafauna that weren't adapted to our intense hunting skills became ambushed into extinction.
    Africa is the great preserver of megaffauna ancestry. Elephants, lions, tigers, rhinos... They all had sister species on other continents who proved themselves vulnerable to the human diaspora.

Forgotten Mountains

Though the years separate us,

Walls divide us,
Pain and betrayal build our defenses,
There's a secret magic moonshine
From my dreams as a small boy
Lighting the way to Montana,
Where for once we were happy together,
The four of us,
When we were still a family
That loved each other.
Then we hit a frantic deer
And the nightmare began,
Casting all its stress unto us,
A life ended too short,
A family that couldn't breathe.
Hope turned to despair
As blood splattered the car,
As the summer faded away.
But every storm dissipates,
Shedding clouds from the tornadic yelling,
Offering forgiveness
Like the mountains that peaked
On glassy diadem east of Flathead,
Where joy reunited with sorrow.
That's where you'll find me,
A little boy waiting
For his family to return.

Your son dug for data
In the digital firmament
While you and your wife
Rattled suburbia in a coma,
Motorcrash from the moon circuit
Dazzled the darkness
In lingering lightning alleviated
By crowd cheer, wind shear
And the mayhem whirlwind
That sent our house flying
On wings of remorse spread
Through rain splash off the window pane
Where the one you abandoned slept
To keep safe from your wrath,
Oh, the unbridled wrath
Hollering through comfort to be heard
Across the arena deserted,
Destroyed by sonic ear crash
That came from east of hell
To impregnate your ignorance
With the fact you were his father.

Here the water is so blue, so clear
In the alpine basin of ancestral warmth
That first consecrated from glaciers
Reflect off the leaking skin
Like spires in a frozen mirage.
The cobalt skyline is a snowflake's edge,
Bordering the nexus where mountain
Spirits dwell in a tephra cradle,
Where the smell of loam and pine
Blends a potion of serenity so distinct
As to fertilize an aboriginal paradise.
We did not share their heritage
But were welcome anyway
For rejecting the urbanite traditions
That defiled the body and mind.
The sound of campfire sparks,
Flaring like mad behind the melody
Of mantras devoted to outcasts
Drew me in toward their faces,
Their vacant eyes staring into nothing.
The voices melted our grudges
Into puddles of remembrance
That merged into the fire
Disintegrating the flames,
Revealing starlight reborn.

Playground by Richard Powers Explained

    "Playground" by Richard Powers has one of the best twists in modern literature. It is a subtle one that may be hard to realize at first. Spoilers: here is an explanation of the brilliant ending.
    Todd Keane has been writing letters to an AI machine that is in turn writing his life's story. Since he can't remember things from dementia, he has the machine write a story about how he would like to remember them, not necessarily how they were. For example, we are led to believe from the AI story that Ina and Rafi did not sleep with each other. At no point in the novel is it ever stated. Yet that is the only explanation for their abrupt rift, and is the reason Rafi no longer trusts Todd. Todd would like to forget this ever happened, and write a story about him that does not leave a bad impression on his readers. Every narrative in the novel that isn't written in italics is AI, while all the italics are actual letters from Todd to the machine to help generate a story.
    What is also fed to the machine is Evie's popular book with detailed descriptions of the marine world. Todd read it as a little boy, which inspired him to preserve the ocean. But this was a lost dream as greed propelled him into a career in tech. This regret is relieved in the AI story, as Todd saves the island his friends live on, with Evie also living there, who in reality is deceased like Rafi. This is why the book has so many beautiful, albeit quirky descriptions of the oceans. It really does read like AI in some parts, and I wouldn't be surprised if Powers actually used it, though highly doubtful- he would lose integrity over making a point. He is a gifted writer whose new book rivals "The Overstory" as his best. 
    The twist is that Rafi never lived on the island. He was dead the whole time. But the AI that Todd worked on his whole life resurrected him by changing history, as Rafi had once philosophized about the point of evolution. It's a rare book when so many loose ends are tied together at once. 
    This would make a great film, with many layered metaphors involving manta rays and the game of Go. It demands a re-read, at least for me.

Water, The Cosmic Nurterer

    One of the great mysteries of natural sciences is how water forms. We know it comes from hydrogen bonding with oxygen. Yet it has not been chemically created by humans in any lab on earth. We can invent quantum computers but not a single ounce of the most ubiquitous and vital substance on the planet. Nobody even knows why. It is thought that a great amount of energy is needed to fuse the two elements into an H2O molecule. Such energy may have only been capable when the sun was born, or the supernova that formed our stellar nursery beyond 5 billion years ago.
    Many scientists think water came to Earth from planetesimals that collided with it. They would have been made of ice from forming in the "freeze zone" beyond the sun's grasp. I don't believe this is the case because water vapor can be found on every planet, even the gas giants. It was everywhere in the Solar System as the Solar System was born. Steam even exists on the sun, in dark spots, which a Stanford study from 1997 showed. It is possibly a major component of stellar nurseries, being vital for their development- no different from its importance to eggs, seeds, and fetuses on planet Earth.

U.S. Life Expectancy: The Biggest Problem with an Aging Population

               As a population ages, pressure is placed on social welfare programs as older people outpace the labor force required to pay for them (Newbold, 95).  The cost of providing services for the aging population ends up being paid for by a smaller labor force.  This can threaten the stability of a country’s economy because more energy goes into supporting the elderly than it does for children and the next generation of workers.  As the elderly require a disproportionate share of medical services, it exacerbates the problem even more (ibid.).  With an inflated market, healthcare premiums may become too expensive for young people to afford insurance, impacting their own health.  Also, the younger generation may need to stay home longer to help care for older family members before they can begin a stable career.
              To improve the situation, the minimum age of eligibility for receiving Social Security, Medicare, and pension support should be raised.  In 1965, when the U.S. implemented these services for the elderly, life expectancy was only 70.2, leaving about five years of support after retirement.  In 2025, the U.S. life expectancy has reached 79.4 (Macrotrends)- a difference of 9.2 years.  It stands to reason that since life expectancy has increased by 9 years since these programs started, the minimum age of eligibility should be raised accordingly to about 74 years of age.  However, the government may want to set the bar lower to avoid a backlash- say at 70 years of age to start.  This will help cover the mounting costs of Social Security and Medicare that weren’t accounted for when the programs started, and life expectancy was a lot lower.
 
Sources:
Macrotrends.  U.S. Life Expectancy 1950-2025.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/life-expectancy
Newbold, K. Bruce.  2021. Population Geography: Tools and Issues. Rowman & Littlefield. Lanham, Maryland

Emerald Cannonball

  The dam burst from El Nino's downpour. Rapids swelled like a rush of oil to the piston. The green boat soared with buoyancy off the sunburnt flanks, blasted down the darma hall of unparalleled vastness, angled skyward to defy the sirens of vertigo. Through the canyon it maneuvered in record time, manned by a maniac who spoke to spirits that certified immunity from death. In danger he found peace, losing himself in endurance the way distance runners conquer mountains. His victory was the canon, grandest of them all, seventh wonder of the world that bejewelled the west, last in a series of unpolished trophies.

Armada of Coral

 Deepest fathoms of Caribbean sapphire
 Reveal a diver's paradise off the Spanish main
 Littered by jolly buccaneer shipwreck
 That dusted the murky bottom to shine.
 With mass of color that burned the eye
 To tye-dye gunwales covered by sea garden,
 Where glass fish meandered through cabins
 That light had forsaken to the abyss.
 The divers swam through that lost city
 Mesmerized by the broken landscape
 Supporting new life, miniature biomes
 Consecrated from wood and bone,
 A buried treasure of human remains
 For the sea to claim as its own.
 She was reborn there in the calm
 Undulating currents of the manta rays
 Summoning the graveyard into a nursery,
 Hoping that someday, once her time is done,
 That she could complete the circle of life
 By ending it there, by becoming a reef.

The Sound of Heaven

    Between the numbers I found mountains slammed by cannonball that the organ fired from angry pipes. A dangling sax tap danced on crystals bisected once the band split. I couldn't remember the equation, but I knew the answer anyway, so I worked backwards, doing everything in reverse algebra. A whistle came from the background, a lonely harmonica drowsy with sleep that dawn spliced open the rainbow with. As I sat there in school, bored to tears, the echo of a traipsing piano ambled up the paper, fermenting facts and figures into waxed memory. The vision was clear, and I became one with the sound. My classmates looked at me askew, an outsider with a broken pencil, who instead of hearing the lecture could only hear heaven.

Permanent

    Upon the altar of windcrash I dreamt you into my future. You were there when I left my job to train a new hire blessed by the notes I left, when for some godforsaken reason my predecessors wouldn't. I left them for you, innocent one, to guide you as clearly as possible through the wickets of confusion, that you might be saved from failure or at least not have to worry about it. You were there across the street blowing your driveway when the wind lifted your dress through the wretched fold when I fell into your spell on the school bus to drown where the rolling suicide melted my soul into yours. I swear you could read my mind and you teased me then and there like you did in class long ago, knowing I would want it eventually, that I always would, even after telling you I was married. The smile is all that remained, that all-knowing smile you spread over my regret to scream through adolescent barb wire that stung so bad I cut my wrists to bleed out the months I waited to gain enough courage to talk to you. The time can't be given back, it can only be found in sorrowful vaults of love deep in the abyss where my depression echoed off the trenches of your skin that sank me stupid beyond the bands of the rainbow framing your sunlit hair. It's so quiet here, sinking through the layers you weaved for me, passing through like the clouds of the day kissing the sun-sparked sky off the candy pane of your face. Beauty is blind, but that doesn't mean I couldn't see you and me together on a hot summer day being friendly neighbors, forbidden from having each other, hiding the biological truth so desperately under a burden of formality.

When You Drive on Me

 When you drive on me
 You pretend I'm a mountain,
 My legs a gently rising slope
 Leading your toy cars to snowland,
 Where they can view the whole town.

 When you drive on me
 The world stops turning,
 My mind stops spinning,
 I lose all my senses to touch
 What comfort undressed
 In sheets of blessed cotton
 That shaped the air senseless,
 Surrender complete, enthralled
 By the grace of a child.

 When you drive on me
 The soft rubber wheels melt my skin
 Into creamy pillows of snow
 Guided by your tiny hands
 Over bone-frilled ranges of sleep.
 Tread softly, little one,
 Slowly to the summit,
 To park on my chest
 That heaves the tread,
 Raising the summit to slumber,
 Your little fingers pressing
 Gently on plastic wheels,
 The wheels rolling smoothly,
 Rolling my head through snowflower,
 Becoming a dreamer on your summit,
 Shuffled by rolling mountain of breast,
 Collapsing from shorted lungs below,
 Escaping flesh through summit above,
 Drifting from escape, collapsed
 By each snowflake drifting dreamwards,
 Disintegrating into air, into me.

Casino Wonderland

 To the north star we drove
 Under diamonds in a firelit sky,
 Dawn of new year west of sundown,
 Tulalip's cove on the Salish Sea.
 The beach rolled forth
 Breakers of light that froze
 Over trees, dangling crystals of ice
 Adorning each branch in holiday colors.
 Cerulean maples behind bubblegum cedars,
 Neon green junipers that swirled candy,
 A rainbow garden beside a buttery grove

 Atop a waffled street edged by lavender firs.

 Inside a lemon-stone palace

 Casino lights dazzled the interior,
 Glittering logos of cash
 Emptying the hollow joy within,
 Redirecting it without.
 Ice skaters swiveled 'tween
 Statues of orcas angled aloft,
 Threading illuminated fountains
 That gushed all the winnings
 To the frostbit voyagers outside
 Where faces turned poleward,
 Bathed in the glow of fireworks.