Funding Friday: The Milky Way in a Sphere

I backed this project today.

What an awesome desk ornament this will make.

#crowdfunding

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    Too cool.I spent countless Saturdays at the old Planetarium in the Museum of Natural History with my Dad and brothers so everything astronomy is a direct line with his passion and imagination and my memory of him.To me hot roasted chestnuts from the vendor outside is the taste of my childhood and what space is to me forever.

  2. Kirsten Lambertsen

    All their products would make great gifts. At last, an answer to, “what’s the universe inside of?” šŸ˜‰

  3. Vendita Auto

    Think this is what my grandson could see when I caught him smoking grass, each to his own but it would bore the end off me !!

  4. sigmaalgebra

    Yes, what we know about the universe is wild, beyond belief. Year by year, we learn much more, but the whole thing is still a grand mystery. E.g., (1) We have a lot of evidence that about 13.8 billion years ago the whole thing went “BANG” so that in less than one second the parts we can see expanded to something comparable with the current size we can see. (2) We have next to no good idea what was before that big bang. (3) We have next to no good idea how big the whole thing is, finite or infinite, and if finite what constitutes a boundary. (4) We have no good ideas what the heck the distant future is of the parts we can see.In high school science we learn about electro static fields and magnetic fields. Okay, there is an electro-magnetic field. The changes are from movements of energy, and those move around in discrete chunks, quanta. Well, there are also quantum fields for the strong force, the weak force, and the Higgs field (that creates mass). For gravity, we don’t really know how that fits in. E.g., is it also a quantum field?Somehow someone put all this together and runs it, e.g., enforces the laws of physics.That we can understand as much of the universe as we do is amazing. Why is it understandable at all? Why are we able to understand the big parts of it we do understand? That some of the best understanding comes from some quite abstract math is also astounding.For more spheres: (1) Getting a good view of the shape of the Milky Way is challenging, but we have excellent, beautiful, astounding images of the gorgeous galaxy in Andromeda; so, put that in a sphere. (2) About the most important sphere so far is the 3 degree K background radiation, and we have astounding images. So, put that in a sphere, e.g., as a sphere with us looking at it from the outside. (3) We have some good simulations of two black holes in small orbits around each other and about to collide; the gravitational wave detectors LIGO gave good support of the details of the simulation; so, put such a simulated image in a sphere. (4) There are some astounding images of the quantum fluctuations of the strong force field inside an atomic nucleus; put that in a sphere! (5) Put a nice segment of DNA in a sphere. (6) A lot is known about the boundary and internal structures of a human cell; put that in a sphere. (7) Imagine that the water is drained from the surface of the earth, and put in a sphere the sphere of the earth showing the resulting topography. Generalize that to other views of the sphere of the earth showing, say, population density, annual rain fall, years of formal education, annual income, etc. (8) Consider a 3D rectangular coordinate system. For integers x, y, z, not all zero, consider the line from the origin of the coordinate system to the point with coordinates x, y, z except make the length of the line 1 / (|x| + |y| + |z|). Then the result is a spiny urchin with countably infinitely many spines but outside of any sphere with center at the origin only finitely many spines. So, there are lots of spines in lots of directions but nearly all of the spines are really short. So, put such a spiny urchin in a sphere.Note: With the set of real numbers R and the usual topology (i.e., collection of open sets) in R^3, the spiny urchin is a closed set. Then there must exist a function f: R^3 –> R so that for all x in R^3 f(x) = 0 for x on the spiny urchin and f(x) > 0 otherwise and f infinitely differentiable, that is, intuitively, very smooth.Curious that something as irregular as that spiny urchin could be exactly the zeros of such a very smooth function. That’s from a paper I wrote on optimization that tied off a lot of old, loose ends, solved a problem stated but not solved in the famous paper in mathematical economics by Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa, etc.When the computer science, machine learning, data science people get serious about optimization, they may encounter my paper, maybe in another universe!!!Ah, back to work! Now that the BIOS of my first server runs, sees all eight processor cores and the processor clock speed of 4.0 GHz, all 16 GB of ECC main memory, and all the connected devices, today see what I can do with the software Acronis True Image and Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools on the way to good means of saving and restoring bootable, installed operating system instances. From past experience, I want a good solution, and so far both Acronis and Data Lifeguard Tools look good.

    1. Vasudev Ram

      >Yes, what we know about the universe is wild, beyond belief. Year by year, we learn much more, but the whole thing is still a grand mystery.True.The Red Shift phenomenon is interesting, w.r.t. the universe, although the term is also used in other contexts. I had first come across the term in an article about Sun Microsystems, IIRC – they had a project called Red Shift, all I remember was that it was something to do with scale.https://en.wikipedia.org/wihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wi…Googling “sun microsystems red shift project” seems to find a result for the Sun thing.This won’t be useful to you directly, but just mentioning:HP (Hewlett-Packard) had a great product called Ignite-UX that I had used some. It allowed you to take a snapshot of a Unix box (with HP-UX, their Unix version), with not just the basic OS, but the changed Unix kernel configuration parameters (often done for performance for special uses like a relational database), customized startup and other configuration files, etc., and very easily and quickly install that snapshot onto multiple other servers, thereby drastically short-cutting the process of installing the same OS and same configuration on multiple machines.It worked very well. That was a very useful feature in enterprise environments, or even if you just had a few Unix boxes from HP.

      1. JLM

        .Where did the Universe come from? All its majestic beauty? Its awesome power?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. Vasudev Ram

          Good comment. I hope we never find the answers. It would remove the mystery.

          1. SFG

            That’s the way God wants it.

    2. cavepainting

      The biggest mysteries of the world are related to: what exactly happened in the first 0-1 seconds, what existed before that second, what triggered the change, and why.This of course is all a mystery only if you believe the big bang. In the theory of the observable universe, the universe does not exist without observation by human beings (or) a sentient species. It is more akin to a virtual reality game with hidden laws that we can hardly fathom. The Holographic Universe is a great book that discusses this theory more.https://www.amazon.com/Holo…The holographic universe has eerie parallels to Vedic texts in Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and other ancient traditions.

        1. sigmaalgebra

          I’m guessing that’s Roger Penrose.So, he’s applying the second law of thermodynamics to the big bang. Gads: For an isolated box of gas not doing chemical reactions, without lot of energy going in or out, in standard conditions of temperature and pressure, in an inertial reference frame, with no significant role for gravity or externally applied fields, etc., the second law is fine. Get away from that narrow situation and the second law gets to be some quasi-religious cult thingy. For the rest he’s talking about, it’s wild, crude, non-scientific babbling.

          1. jason wright

            You forgot kooky. Nothing new comes from conformity.

      1. sigmaalgebra

        > The biggest mysteries of the world are related to: what exactly happened in the first 0-1 seconds, what existed before that second, what triggered the change, and why.Yup.For the holographic conjecture, IIRC there were some tests, but I don’t recall the results.Now there is a new issue: The gravitational wave observatories LIGO detected the merging of two black holes. Well, there is a conjecture that, put crudely, inside the black hole results, the mass rattles around in ways that can put out tell tale gravitational waves that, maybe, can be seen in the current data.

      2. JamesHRH

        Waaaaaaay out there land.Gave up on this topic at age 12. In a rare moment of humility, decided this was not something I could figure out.Now, with my humility in check, I have decided that no one has the capacity to understand the universe, its origins, etc. and that our concepts of time and space are not sufficient.Feel better about myself šŸ˜‰

        1. cavepainting

          Yeah, that’s fair. Figuring this out is beyond any or most of us.But this is the thing. To be in awe of science is no different than being in awe of nature or anything else we perceive to be divine. “Being Awestruck” is often the first step to deep humility and eventually to possibilities of understanding life beyond its appearances. (a.k.a spirituality, but that is an abused word)

          1. JamesHRH

            Lovely lovely comment.With that, I will depart the salon for the day.

          2. Donna Brewington White

            “possibilities of understanding life beyond its appearances”What a great description.

          3. PhilipSugar

            If you want to really dig in on this read this paper by the youngest Harvard Astrophysicist. His sister was on my board. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu

          4. cavepainting

            Thank you. Will read this weekend. Looks really interesting!

  5. Salt Shaker

    Apologies, just couldnā€™t resist:Frank Avruch, who played Bozo the Clown, died Tuesday, March 20 at his home from heart disease. He was 89. Donā€™t bother applying, the position has been filled.https://pbs.twimg.com/profi

      1. JamesHRH

        Ha, Siggy – touche!

      2. Salt Shaker

        This isnā€™t about Hillary. Trump won. This is about an inexperienced, lying, narcissistic, bigoted, philandering fool with zero moral fiber. Stop responding to every criticism of Trump as if itā€™s from a disgruntled voter cause HRC didnā€™t win. This has nothing to do w/ Hillary! You donā€™t see him tweeting about the stock market these days, do you? There are many Congressional checks and balances wrt to a Presidentā€™s domestic policy and hardly any wrt foreign policy. He has too much free reign w/ security and trade, and increasingly heā€™s surrounded w/ staff that embellishes his myopic thinking. Itā€™s amazing how much harm one man can do in a year.

        1. awaldstein

          Truly a disgusting human being accomplishing nothing but disdain and destruction.

          1. JamesHRH

            First part bang on.Its Firday, so I will refrain from commenting on the second part šŸ˜‰

          2. awaldstein

            Say what you will, there is no outcome for civilized humans where the end justifies the means.

          3. JamesHRH

            The older I get, the more I think words and specificity are important.I absolutely, 100% agree with you, with the key word being civilized.There are a very few times and places where a lack of civility is required and then, all bets are off.

          4. awaldstein

            A lovely comment.It was my new years post this year where I came to grips with a core criteria for people I deal with.http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…I draw the line on ethics where ends justify the means. They never ever do–to me.I’ve simply stopped dealing with people who believe that including a handful of core members of this community. I’ve blocked them and simply don’t give a shit what they say. They are gone to me.I’ve nothing to learn from the the ethically bereft.Nothing to do with politics. everything to do with being an ethical person.I strive for that, often fail the teaching of my parents but at least know the direction I should be going in. Having a bright light helps.

          5. JamesHRH

            Itā€™s a very short list. WWII comes to mind.

          6. JLM

            .Your judgmental, self-congratulatory, faux superiority is a bit much even for you, Arnold.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          7. JLM

            .Civility, like equality, is one of those faux constructs that allow us to sleep at night, to accept our lot in life and not to ask for more. Were that it was the way the world worked, but it is not, unfortunately.In the end, it is what is actually done that sweeps the table, that changes lives for the better. In the course of change, sometimes, often, the change is hard-edged and violent.History is filled to overflowing with examples wherein a bit of nastiness is a prelude to a richer, better future for millions.It is charmingly naive – and cloyingly sanctimonious – to pretend otherwise.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          8. JamesHRH

            Saying the same thing here.

          9. sigmaalgebra

            Yes, I agree and concluded that about Hillary, Bill, Obama, etc. long ago.

          10. JLM

            .Well, other than the ISIS thing, and the economy, the tax cuts, and the North Korea thing, and the job situation, other than than he has accomplished “…nothing…”JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        2. sigmaalgebra

          > stock marketHe mentioned that at the signing of the Omnibus bill this afternoon.> This is about an inexperienced, lying, narcissistic, philandering fool with zero moral fiber.You mean Hillary’s husband? He can’t run for the WH again and otherwise is irrelevant.If you mean Trump:”inexperienced” — He has a LOT of life experience with some big successes. For politics, he beat 16 of the best Republicans and then the best the Democrats could do.”lying”? You seem to be confusing him with Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Obama, etc. Got any solid evidence when Trump actually significantly lied?”narcissistic”? That’s just a silly and meaningless insult or a difficult psychiatric diagnosis for which apparently so far there has been not proper examination.”bigoted”? Evidence? That sounds like the top two cards of the Democrat deck — race and gender.”philandering”? There’s no good evidence.”moral fiber”? Trump has a long history of being very moral.I get it that the NYT, CNN, WaPo, MSNBC, Mika and Joe, and you don’t like Trump. I have no idea just why.

          1. Salt Shaker

            Any response to your comments wonā€™t be helpful to you, me or anyone else. Absolutely astonishing! My humble apologies to the bar for opening this can of worms. I had an overdose of Trumpioids this morning. In recovery.

          2. sigmaalgebra

            I accept your surrender! You can keep your Web browser.

          3. SFG

            actually, your’re late to the party. When you accept the fact that your version of reality is not the end all, it becomes fun. Thanks for your thoughts.

          4. JamesHRH

            You have no legs to stand on w narcissistic and philandering.There is no solid proof for personal bigotry from the President, but he is 100% guilty of enflaming racial tensions and creating an environment where extreme white nationalist feel embolden. His answer is that the country needed him to be President so badly that the ends justified the means. Better have a very good run in the next 24 months.Moral is a broad term and the President is in big trouble with Republicans who take marital fidelity seriously.Its one thing to have a bump or two in the night or a ton of rumours of sexual impropriety during a campaignā€¦..its another to have dozens of credible paramours with stories that have similarities.If that happens, he’s a One Term Wonder.Ask Harvey and Tiger.

          5. JLM

            .Yes, Donald J Trump banged a Playboy bunny, a porn star, a television personality, an Olympic skier, a Southern belle, and a super model. Some would call it an expansive body of work.Of course, it is all more than a dozen years old.If this is the theme of his opposition three years hence, he may run the freakin’ table and win every single state.If Mueller doesn’t turn up pics of him and Putin French kissing, most rickety quick, the guy wins in a cake walk. May run unopposed.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          6. JamesHRH

            Hard core Republican strategist, Christian, female, chatting with Don Lemon last night.She went down the policy route you live onā€¦..but you could see that she was seething. He’s married to the women he was cheating on. If it turns out there was a SOP for mistresses and keeping them quiet, he’s got his hands fullā€¦ā€¦and not full of silicone.

          7. JLM

            .Haha, there is only one woman who can dethrone The Donald – Melania.If he had no results, he would be out of office, for the lack of results.You put a bell on NK, work through trade, and the economy stays fine — not a chance in the world of any unknown Dem coming out of the primordial fog and unseating this guy.He will be a vicious campaigner with a real record to run on. The Dems bench is empty. Their fundraising fountain is plugged up. They can’t even create an honest primary system.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          8. JLM

            .Canadians are such nice people.Bill Clinton rode a wandering eye and male genitalia into becoming the top horn dog of the Dem party with a carveout for his wife to get the nomination.Hell, if she’d run a competent campaign, she would have won.Donald J Trump will end up on Mt Rushmore and Fred will pay for the sculpture.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          9. JamesHRH

            That last line is a beaut.Thereā€™s banging everything in sight and keeping it quiet…….and there is 2018.And the last two guys kept it at home, as did the last 5 Republicans.Timeā€™s change.

          10. Lawrence Brass

            The other day I had to navigate the interwebs looking for “moral turpitude”. My goal was to fully understand ex CIA chief Mr. Brennan’s tweet.I found a boring legal definition.Your first paragraph is a better definition and clearly more bang for the buck.;-)

          11. JLM

            .I was driving somewhere last night and was treated to the Anderson Cooper – Playboy rodent interview, couple gals chatting thing. Riveting in a root canal way.What DJT should really be excoriated for is keeping company with someone that shallow and terminally vapid.She said they “were in love.” She loved him and, of course, he loved her. It was a love affair and not a tawdry sexual release. Haha.Can a person have a negative IQ?She took umbrage at her Donald betraying her with Hurricane Stormy.She did, of course, apologize to Melania. I kid you not. It was touching. Like watching a ribeye taking on a human form.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          12. JLM

            .For grins – name a President who was not a narcissist?Time begins ……………… now.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          13. JamesHRH

            Agree 100%, but Siggy wasnā€™t saying that.

          14. sigmaalgebra

            > Moral is a broad term and the President is in big trouble with Republicans who take marital fidelity seriously.I’m a registered Democrat who takes “marital fidelity seriously”, and he’s not in trouble with me. I see no credible evidence that he has cheated on Melania. There was a newsie claim that while Melania was still in NYC she cheated with some exercise trainer; I see no credible evidence on that, either.> its another to have dozens of credible paramours with stories that have similarities.It WOULD be, but I see no such “stories”.But, for such “stories”, for a jury of 12, just get 12 bimbos and have them all get interviewed on CNN, do book tours, etc. all saying about the same thing about how they slept with Trump. For the anti-Trump crowd, the cost of paying “expenses” and legal fees for 12 such bimbos would be comparatively just dirt cheap. Remember the punch line of the George Bernard Shaw joke: “My dear, we’ve already established that. Now all we are doing is haggling over price.”. Keep in mind “the oldest profession”.So, with what you have in mind, any dozen bimbos should be able to drive from office a duly elected POTUS? Are you sure you want this version of due process?You are taking seriously the Stormy Daniels stuff? And now there is a former Playboy bunny trying to get in on the news gang up and pile on. Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, there’s no, none, nichts, nil, nada, zip, zilch, zero credible evidence. Due process and solid evidence remain important.So, apparently the anti-Trump gang up, pile on, propaganda media wants to use tabloid junk to drive a duly elected POTUS out of office. Since I voted for Trump and like Trump, I regard that anti-Trump media as a threat to our democracy and the value of my vote. CNN and MSNBC can pump out their sewage, but I don’t have to take it seriously. I’m surprised that anyone does. Actually, that sewage is not new — see the Jefferson quote.A good thing about the CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc. anti-Trump propaganda is that they have been trying for 2 years, 24 x 7, to find dirt on Trump, and so far the worst they have found with any credibility is something about two scoops of ice cream. With all that effort from CNN, etc., we would expect that any credible evidence of dirt, if it existed, would long since have been found and blasted over the air and Internet. Since so far we have heard nothing at all credible, CNN, etc. have indirectly given Trump one heck of a clean bill of health, a Good Housekeeping Seal of purity and propriety.Bluntly, there’s some big money that doesn’t like Trump. They’ve been getting rich off illegal immigrant slave labor, importing cheap products, helping foreign governments execute classic predatory market attacks on major US industries, etc. So, they drive a lot of propaganda straight out of J. Goebbels’s, IIRC, “If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. Even you will come to believe it.” . Well, that’s what’s been going on — have Mika and Joe, etc. just spew out totally groundless accusations, have interviews with Stormy Daniels, pump out your> its another to have dozens of credible paramours with stories that have similarities.with no credible evidence. Just pump it out, 24 x 7, over and over, for years until a lot of people repeat it and believe it. It’s just propaganda, organized lies, pile on, gang up. Maybe Jeff Zucker is happy doing this, but NO WAY will I pay any attention to CNN.A response is just dirt simple: Wait for credible evidence. We do that in lots of areas of our civilization — pure math, applied math, physical science, engineering, medical science, law, finance, and more. But the newsies forget about credible evidence and just pump out sewage, 24 x 7, for years, against Trump, on their scam about “global warming”, on their scam about ozone, etc., really just anything using whatever techniques, e.g., from formula fiction story telling, to grab people by the heart, the gut, and below the belt.It’s garbage. They have no credible evidence. That the CNN, etc. talking heads appear to believe, with facial expressions, tone of voice, alarmist verbiage the garbage is not credible evidence either. We should ignore such garbage.Actually, we MUST ignore the garbage because if we took it seriously we would have have no more democracy, country, or civilization — literally. The garbage is as bad as insanity; if we take it seriously, then we will have our country in mass insanity, literally.For taking “marital fidelity seriously”, it can’t get much worse than the Clintons, and VP Pence is the ideal example of being careful since with the Pence Rule no way will he be alone with another woman.With the #MeToo pile on, junking due process, the anti-Trump propaganda media on CNN, MSNBC, etc. may have had a great time pushing out hints, suggestions, winks, innuendo, etc. but without solid data. And one reaction to #MeToo and the loss of due process will have been for a lot of men to avoid women like they avoid deadly snakes — e.g., follow the Pence Rule and more. Due to #MeToo, a lot of women just won’t get hired or will be kept in female only groups, e.g., HR. Due process is important stuff. As it is, a sisterhood of giggling, gossiping, ditsy bimbos can all agree to claim #MeToo — “The way he looked at me made me feel uncomfortable.”, etc.For “marital fidelity seriously” and grabbing as in the NBC Trump-Bush tape (where Trump just said that some women would put up with being grabbed, which is true, but never said he did any such thing), the big example is JFK and what he did to 19 year old, engaged, Miss Mimi Alford — see her NBC interview and book.> creating an environment where extreme white nationalist feel embolden.I see no such thing. Sure, there was Charlettesville, but there Trump did NOTHING wrong. He DID try to say something about “both sides” to cool off the situation which was wise and good leadership. The accusation that Trump did something wrong there was and is just made up, cooked up, gang up, pile on anti-Trump propaganda. I see no actual quote from Trump that is bad.For helping extremes feel emboldened, there’s what Obama and Hillary did with Black Lives Matter, etc.For radicals feeling emboldened, the grand example is Pelosi and Schumer and their support of illegal immigrants, blocking the wall, supporting sanctuary cities and their letting illegals with additional serious crimes just return to the streets, helping the Mexican drug cartels import dangerous drugs to the US, etc. There one of the very worst is Schumer’s “lottery” that has let in total dirt bags from total sewer parts of total sick-o societies.I’m responding to you in detail because I’m shocked that apparently you have swallowed the CNN, etc. anti-Trump propaganda sewage. You have let yourself be led around by just sewage. Again, the solution is simple: Insist on solid, credible evidence and otherwise toss it all in the hazardous waste Zucker bag.

          15. SFG

            There is good evidence for philandering. At least he has more than decent taste in whores : (

          16. sigmaalgebra

            For credible evidence that he’s cheated on Melania, I’m all ears but so far see nothing. Besides, why the heck would he cheat on Melania? E.g., she’s world class, drop dead gorgeous, a terrific, very dedicated mother to their son, has been hurt a lot by the nasty media, but is working really hard and successfully to be a really good FLOTUS. I’m sure Donald is very proud of her. That’s no situation for cheating. E.g., clearly Trump is big on family, his children and grand children so would not want to mess up that.

          17. SFG

            I’m with you Sig. But by my eye, the evidence is in. Donald is just a hunter with the skills and position in life to bag beauties. It’s all shallow, lame bullshit, and I hope that you are 100% correct in your assessments that he’s a loyal husband!!!

          18. sigmaalgebra

            You just need to hear an old remark of Mike Bloomberg: “I’m a single, straight billionaire in NYC — it’s a wet dream.”Well, last I heard, a condom does not protect against genital herpes, and genital herpes is incurable.Besides, she might have a jealous boyfriend, about 25, 6′ 4”, 180 pounds, 100 yard dash in 11 seconds, bench press 300 pounds, good at MMA, and really jealous. Or she might have several girlfriends; each of them, one at a time, sleeps with Bloomberg and accumulates some good evidence they did; then they all get their stories straight and make Mike a $100 million offer he can’t refuse.Bloomberg just needed to find a Melania.Really, he needed to act early enough and build, let’s see, let me think, I’ll have to remind myself, just what is it, okay, here is it, he’d need to build a family. So, he gets a good wife, and they have lots of kids and grand kids. They have big times at Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the wedding anniversary, all the birthdays, lots of other holidays, weddings, births, accomplishments of the kids, etc.Then he wouldn’t be a 70-80 or so year old single billionaire trying to have a wet dream and, instead would be enjoying his family, children, grand children, great grand children, etc.He could pass on the best he knew and then be proud as his lessons took good effect.That’s what Trump’s doing.Sticking ditsy bimbos? Maybe when he was 25 or so, but now? I doubt it. Since he married Melania? I doubt it.Until there’s solid evidence, I don’t believe it; it wouldn’t be fair to believe it.

        3. JLM

          .”Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”Guy has great policies and performance.Notice what name callers the lefties have all become?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. Salt Shaker

            This isnā€™t just about policy and performance. Are you seriously suggesting character has no relevancy here? You donā€™t think Macron, Merkel, May, Xi would like nothing better than to stick it up this guyā€™s ass? Heā€™s neither liked or respected on the world stage, let alone in his own country. Jury is still out on economy, N. Korea, etc. Market down 8% past month. Everyday is a bigger and bigger cluster fuck. Zero stability in any aspect of Trumpā€™s professional or personal life. The wheels are rapidly coming off this bus, and a continual ā€œfake newsā€ explanation just grows weaker and more tiresome. This will not have a happy ending for anyone, including you and me.

          2. JLM

            .Please don’t use nasty language with me. I don’t particularly like it and you’re not good at it.Sure, I wish that Pres Trump was a sterling a character as you or I, but he is not. He is not our Pope. He is our President.All I really care about is policy.Don’t buy into the nonsense about chaos. The guy is slowly tightening the noose around the guys he wants next to him.Jury is not still out on the economy. NK is still in play, but he has already done more than his three predecessors ever thought possible.Market down 8% – is that all you have? Sort of empty.Policy. Policy is lives.Get a Labrador for inspiration.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        4. sigmaalgebra

          “bigoted”? Just sawFirst Lady Melania Trump remarks at 2018 International Women of Courage Awards. March 23, 2018.athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…NO WAY is that from an Administration with a bigoted POTUS.You’ve given no evidence of Trump being bigoted.

    1. JamesHRH

      Ok, that;s funny, but a bit disrespectful.You can choose.

      1. cavepainting

        Please stop the shameless hypocrisy. Your statement made some sense until you high fived someone (below) who was disrespectful to a politician you did not like.

        1. JamesHRH

          ?Mostly getting a laugh out of the photoshopping work.But, I think it is fair game to point out that Trump got elected b/c the Clintons ran the DNC like a Banana Republic and guaranteed that HRC would be the competition.Trump has zero chance against any mainstream Democrat not named Clinton. Any.Its not a question of not liking the Clintonsā€¦..they have done ruinous things to American democracy.The most recent being that they paid off the DNC chair to tilt things HRC’s way against Bernie and totally knifed the AG in order to bury the email server story.These people aren’t ethically challenged, they are ethically unaware. If it threatens their interests, ethics is not even a conversation.These people are the smooth silky version of Trump.Why does their Foundation have $570M in assets?Why isn’t that money put to use yet?I will tell you why – because those assets provide the leadership of the Foundation (https://www.clintonfoundati… with a billionaire’s lifestyle.Why do you think Obama only copied that one thing from the Clintons’ playbook? He has plans for a $1B endowmentā€¦..so he can hang with Richard Branson and pick up the check once a year.These people are supposed to be public servants, remember?You are supposed to go make your $ – Bush 41 comes to mind or Mayor Bloomberg – and then serve the places that made that possible for you.Not cash in your chits with special interests that you tilted the playing field for – #3 name on the CF BoDā€¦the uranium to the Russians guy from Vancouver.Now that is hypocrisy.Dixie F*&K’g Mafia.

          1. JLM

            .Trump broke a sweat to make his money. The Clintons are effortless grifters. They are in a league of their own.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  6. JamesHRH

    These cats saw you coming!Totally gorgeous with a massive jungle of all out nerdball geekarama DIY learning attached.

  7. sigmaalgebra

    We have a Constitution and three branches of government. The POTUS is not a dictator. Instead there’s lots of propaganda, posturing, pushing and shoving, negotiations, etc.There’s Pelosi and Schumer — maybe they agree a lot. Then there’s Ryan and McConnell, and maybe they agree a lot. Out there are McCain and Flake, and they agree a lot. And then there’s Trump and enough people who agree with him to get him elected and keep his approval numbers relatively high. So, that’s four quite different sets of views.During the campaign and since, Trump made fully clear just what the heck he was proposing. For some of his proposals, he needs Congress to go along, and at times they have but often they have not.After mid-term elections in November, we will see how many in Congress want to get on the Trump train.

  8. Lawrence Brass

    The fabrication process is amazing!From the CinkS labs site:”Every dot is a tiny crack inside the glass, that reflects light. A strong laser, is focused in one point and blasts a short heat impulse, where a tiny crack appears. This is done 380,000 times and you got your Universe Sphere.http://www.cinks-labs.de/ov

  9. sigmaalgebra

    (1) There are hints that, since the Senate just does NOT want to pass a “budget” bill, a POTUS won’t have to sign such an omnibus spending bill again. Maybe part of the point is that without a budget bill maybe a vote of 51 to 49 will be sufficient to authorize spending. I’m unsure of the relevant tricky Senate rules.(2) We might be a little insightful and prudent and give Trump some respect as a responsible POTUS: So, he emphasized that he signed the bill because he wanted the DoD funding. He listed some of the reasons for the DoD funding — the F-35, new US nuclear powered submarines, military pay raise, overhaul some tanks, etc.But it may be that the main reason Trump was so eager to get the DoD funding is that Trump is going crash program ahead getting ready to deal militarily with Little Rocket Boy in North Korea should diplomacy fail.So, he will want good progress on both offense and defense. So, he may be working on means to stop the missiles of Little Rocket Boy in all of (A) just after launch, (B) in mid-course, and (C) on reentry.Also notice the new fuses for the warheads, new fuses that make our missiles, especially our submarine launched missiles, much more effective at destroying enemy missiles in their silos. So, notice that as our warheads approach the target, their path is not nearly perpendicular to a tangent plane of the earth and, instead, the path is relatively low. Then, presto, bingo, right away see that should do the aiming to overshoot the target by a little!!!! Then, essentially all the warheads WILL go over the target and nearly none of them will land short of the target and explode with maybe not much effect on the target. Moreover, since the trajectory is “low”, when the warhead goes over the target, it is not so far above the target. So, …, bright idea: Put a new fuse on the warhead to have it detonate the warhead when it is JUST above the target, or at least the closest it will be to the target. Then greatly increase the probability of destroying the target, e.g., a “hard” target. Doing this, can put pressure on the target of ballpark 10,000 pounds per square inch which will likely be enough to destroy any missiles Little Rocket Boy has. It may be that Trump is rushing to make sure all our submarine launched missiles have this new fuse.Also, IIRC, Trump has about three US carrier groups near North Korea. Likely this costs money. And maybe he is rushing to be able to put more US warships near North Korea.Also the US Navy has been working hard on electro-magnetic rail guns: One can guess that one or several of those parked off shore near any missile launch sites will have a good “shot” at destroying any of Little Rocket Boy’s missiles soon after launch.We can notice that apparently Trump has for now got Little Rocket Boy not testing nukes or launching missiles. No doubt Little Rocket Boy will return to testing and launching unless Trump finally gets a solid deal to de-nuke Korea and VERIFY that for the LONG term.And Trump may have other military efforts underway to protect us against Little Rocket Boy. E.g., some new satellites? Some new signals intelligence? Some new covert operations? A lot of human intelligence?And, after giving Little Rocket Boy a pass-fail crash course in prudent international behavior, Trump will have to be able to do the same for Ayatollah Kockamamie for the sake of the US, Israel, and, now, the Saudis.So, so that Trump can do his duty as US Commander in Chief to keep the US safe, Naaaaaasty Nancy, “The San Francisco Treat” and Chucky “Flowing Tears” Schumer get their wish list. Well, they do this time, but from Trump never again.

  10. motorcyclerider

    I can’t really tell what we’re looking at. Would like a different video?

  11. Velopro

    Haha, bought the same for 25$, two days and it is on my desk! Looks like fraud. Guys from mycrystalsphere.com have been selling them for some time!