For those not in the know, likefood was that one person I referenced as an exception in the “So Screwed…” post. It appears, however; I was wrong. he is less than understanding about my need to express certain indignities I had to suffer while staying with his family…

Oh well. To be honest, I’m not broken up about it.

I once told him (among others in my family) the day would come when I would separate myself from them. I am just not willing to “forgive and forget” when words like assault, abuse, and endangerment are involved.

You see, it hit me, January this year marked the twelfth anniversary of the year I believe I died.

I have never really or fully shared this story with anyone, dear reader, mainly because I know no one will believe me. In many cases I think people I would actually LIKE to share this story with would actually react badly to hearing it. but I think the reason I have so much difficulty this time of year is not only have I not ever really shared this story, but I have never really FACED it either.

That time of my life was a blur, a haze of confusion and change. The heat of hatred and anger toward my peers had culminated in fantasies of genocide and, at times, suicide. These emotions and desired caused fear and uncertainty. And it was that same uncertainty that led down a dark and terrible path to the home of the madman. The madman and his insufferable family–a depressing lot of religious fanatics who blindly obeyed the rantings of the madman, believing all the time that their actions were called for by God himself. I thought I was alone then. Although I thought I had no allies. No friends. No one I could trust.

I must pause and note, I was wrong. I did have one friend. it’s unfortunate I didn’t realize how so until he had gone. however; because of my blind malice towards ALL mankind, I made it my purpose to quietly play the part of the fool, complaisantly obeying the orders of the madman, like everyone else in that hell they called home. only occasionally forgetting myself by whimpering a challenge here and there… only to be “reminded of my place” by the madman.

While most of the story is lost–and frankly, unimportant–I was sick, I had diarrhea and so understandably I was dehydrated. adding to my state, I was fatigued and frustrated, having dealt with the rantings and forced labors imposed by the Madman. To be honest, the work wasn’t all that bad, if not for the insolent Madman. After suffering yet another brow beating for using my intelligence–an attempt on my part to alleviate stress endured by both the illness and the fruitless efforts of trying to thread a cable through a pipe I knew to be blocked–The madman flew into the last rage I could tolerate.

Fed up, tired, sick, and sore, I finally threw up my hands and cursed the madman. I had had enough and would tolerate no more. So, I tried to leave. Not willing to suffer my curse, the madman attacked me, his wish to inflict a parting blow not only to my body, but to my will.

Blow after blow, the madman struck me about my face and head. I don’t remember much of the beating, I fell in and out of consciousness seemingly with each blow. But I do remember the dreams I had while in those fleeting moments of unconscious delirium. Terrible dreams. haunting dreams. They were the dreams that haunt me to this day.

After beating me for what must have been only moments (though it felt like hours), the Madman dragged me from the pit and expelled me from his home.

Battered, bruised, sick, and dehydrated, I supposed he had expected me to simply sit and wait there on the edge of his property. I understand his assumptions, we were after all, in the middle of a desert–further proof of his insanity and desire to control his brood through forced imprisonment outside the watchful gaze of neighbors who would have reported his abuses. I suppose some part of me WANTED to collapse there by the side of the highway. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t surrender my last bit of self respect to the madman. So I walked away, into the desert.

As I think back, I know I had suffered a minor concussion in the attack. I remember feeling so tired I could barely stand. I wanted so badly to sleep, but somehow I knew that sleeping would kill me. I don’t know how far I made it before the nausea set in and it took all my efforts to keep upright. The world constantly turned and fell away from me, I know I stumbled because I constantly picked myself back up. I knew I had to get water and soon. though I didn’t–at the time–really understand why.

I don’t know the exact day, but I know the time… roughly 4:27pm. I remember that time, because that was the time on my watch when I fell for the last time. I knew I had to stay awake, but my body simply wouldn’t let me rise again. so I lay there, defeated and broken. all I could to was focus on the one thing in my field of vision, and hope the flashing dots on the LCD could somehow bring me back. I was wrong.

It was a dark place, neither warm nor cold. just empty. I vaguely remember a being somewhere… else, but that vision left my memory long ago. And then I was awake. I must have rolled in my unconscious state because I awoke with my neck twisted. No longer facing my watch, I found I had somehow pressed my head and face into the ground. Choking on the dirt I coughed and the discomfort forced me to once again right myself.

Still beaten. still sore. and still ill, I managed to drag myself through the desert to a nearby township. I found a kind soul who provided me with water and aspirin.

Hours later, I found myself out of the path of the Madman. I returned to the home of my parents where I recovered without incident. never to speak of, nor dwell upon the events that day, alone in the desert.

I don’t know why I never pressed charges on the madman, God knows It would have done a world of good for my sister and her daughter had he not been around. But I could never bring myself to blame him for my fate. He had given me a gift. after that day, a part of me that had never before existed. A piece of my being–more human that the rest, I think–that can step past my disdain for my fellow man and allow me to live and work among them. That part of me was born that day.

and now, dear reader, I want you to know, I do not intend to impart some “moral” to this story. I did not tell you this story for your benefit, I told you for my own. you see; I don’t care about you. I never did.

First and formost; While Archos does make a mean PMP (protable Media Player for those not in the know), I find their customer support to be seriously lacking. First off, I placed my order last week–Monday the 8th to be precise. I waited for that day because when I TRIED to place the order the first time (Thursday the 4th) their site refused to sell me the device! Now lets take a moment and try to wrab our brains arround that one… Archos… didn’t want to take my money… yeah… Well suffice it to say, I called their support and went the rounds. Ultimately it was decided the problem lay in my address. You see I live in the middle of nowhere… literally. my town has a post office and a stop light… and that’s about it. You think I’m exaggerating, and I’m not. There literally is ONE friggin’ stop light in my town. Due to the rather “remote” nature of my domicile, my address does not validate against my credit card! I kid you not!

Well, frustrated as I was, I really can’t fault Archos for my living arrangements, so I let it go and planned to have a friend (living in a validated address) place the order for me. but this had to wait. When I placed the order, fail or not, Archos requested the money from my bank, who kindly placed the funds into “hold”. This means the money is still TECHNICALLY in my account… but not. I have had this happen before, and as anyone who has placed an order online knows, after a few days the money will “clear”–meaning it will either leave my account, or go back in. I, of course, expected it to return to my balance… yeah…

And that’s where the fun started. A week after my attempt to purchase goods failed the money did not return to my account… my eyebrow raised a bit. I called Archos for answers and LO! as I am on hold for their support line, I get an e-mail, “Your order has been processed and shipped”. Doubaya-tee-FSCK?!? Turns out, due to a glitch in their software, regardless of the refusal, my order processed… this of course made me nervous… I live in the middle of nowhere… where exactly did the UPS guy plan to deliver my very expensive new toy?!?

Well, customer relations not withstanding, I got my Archos. and I have had it for several days now. So what do I think of this little toy? Well… It’s a brick… and by that, I mean that it is heavy, thick, with cube-like qualities, and if I had a thousand of them, I’m pretty sure I could build a wall that could keep out the Persians.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE this thing… I just don’t like the fact I have to really secure my belt or it will pull my pants off just laying in my pocket.

Still there is something to be said for the ability to literally carry my entire music and video collection with me where ever I go. That 500 gigs really comes in handy.

I’ll have to post more after I’ve had it a while… we’ll see if I continue to enjoy it.

As implied by the title, I am not a scientist. but I AM a realist. I look at my surroundings, I make simple observations in what I consider to be the “small scale” (literal interactions within the world I can perceive).  I then listen to the observations of scientists who look at the “large scale” (literal interactions in the universe which I can not perceive).

Now I know that with some degree of accuracy, scientist know what they are doing. they really do. Unfortunately they forget that it is contrary to their function to make hypotheses before ALL the data is considered.

I am going to make 2 points here and I am NEVER going to speak of them again.

Dark Matter

At some point the scientific community forgot what this meant. Dark Matter, simply put, is matter we are unable to see. there is nothing mystical about dark matter, so far as we know dark matter is nothing more than regular matter that we simply can’t FIND! To get a better understanding of what exactly dark matter is, one need mere look at the periodic table of elements… chances are, dark matter is composed of most–if not ALL–those little letters you remember from junior high science class!

Looking at it another way. lets imagine for a moment, a little ways into our galaxy, may be only a few hundred lightyears away from our own little blue marble, there is a civilization much like our own. Now let’s imagine a scientist on that planet is looking through his telescope at our star (Sol). He may be asking himself, “why is that star moving like that… it looks like it’s wobbling… like something is orbiting it.” He would make his calculations of the mass that would be required to make Sol wobble like it does and he’d come to the conclusion that something with mass and weight–specifically the mass and weight of the collective planets, moons, asteroids, and other debris that we are aware of is orbiting that distant star. does he know what is orbiting our star? Nope! but he’d have a calculation of the cumulative mass of everything in our solar system and he’d make the assumption that there’s something there. Eventually he’d probably call it “unknown matter”, or “invisible matter”, or “dark matter”!

Guess what, that’s right! dark matter is regular matter. There is nothing special (that we know of) about it!

Now I realize that I have to qualify something here; it is possible that there are elements out there that we are not presently aware of, and true it is possible that there may be matter out there with a 100% light absorption value making it truly “dark matter”. This argument is not whether or not some element that can be called what the sci-fi community calls “dark matter” really exists or not. This argument is that what people are calling “dark matter” is simply normal matter that can’t be observed using normal observation methods.

Simplest words: the universe is chock full of rocks. lots and lots of rocks. in fact there are probably more rocks than there are giant balls of burning gas.

Space-Time

I face palmed pretty hard today… I read a “paper” by a schmuck calling himself a scientist… and unfortunately this particular schmuck has the backing of the vast majority of the scientific community. I don’t wish to besmirch his name because most of his work in particle physics (I say most) happens to be pretty impeccable. but this particular piece was pure and simple speculation. And it has been taken to heart by the scientific community at large.

ok… black holes are super massive objects which excert enough gravity as to be able to alter the path of travel of the smallest particles of matter. I am of course referring to their ability to “bend light”. I do not prefer this terminology because it oversimplifies what light is to the point it can easily cause confusion.

The point I wish to make is that when you observe light passing near to a black hole, that light (which is basically hyper-microscopic particles that travel really frikin’ fast) is acted upon by the super gravity well which alters both the speed and trajectory of the light. This phenomenon is both observable and measurable! I would like to referance Einstein’s cross.

The image (courtesy wikipedia) above is a direct observation of the phenomenon called “Einstein’s Cross”. It is what happens when the light from a star–which is located on the other side of a massive object–passes around another star or massive object  and is bent such that it generates multiple “false images” of the original star. what you see above is 2 stars, the one in the middle has pulled on the light traveling arround it and focused that light at us causing it to appear as several clustered stars.

Taking this observation to the extreme, what would light do if it encountered the super gravity field of a black hole? well, it would probably do the same thing as the Einstein Cross, only it would obviously do more. I’d bet the photons in that light stream would speed up as they entered the gravity field, assisted by it. Then as they approached the apex of the gravity field moments before they began their ascent out of the field, they’d probably resume their natural speed. And finally they’d probably slow back down as they pressed through the gravity field and back out. In addition to this speed change they’d obviously also change course, pulled by the gravity. Most of the heavier, slower photons (these would be the visible light spectrum) would fall into the supermassive object. while the lighter, faster photons (Like x-rays) would alter course, but still escape to be observed by our x-ray and radio telescopes.

Now you may ask, what does this have to do with “space-time?” Simply this: all too often scientist romanticize over the possibility of “time” being a function they can manipulate. They try to find connections with things they can already measure. I am speaking, or course, of the imposed correlation between space and time, and more pointedly, gravity.

At some point in scientific history, several–unrelated–scientific observations were mashed together to make sense of the speed of light. unfortunately this mash-up was never UN-mashed. Years of tooling around with this mess of theories and observations has given birth to the mutated theory called “space-time”. Don’t ask me how this mutated distinction came to be. I can tell you. I KNOW how it happened. I simply don’t have the time to write it out. Maybe in another post.

I am going to say this once. I know it’s true. real scientists know it’s true. and even you, dear reader, know it’s true. Unfortunately no one wants to admit it. The rudepeople conjecture:

TIME IS THE MEASURABLE OBSERVATION OF THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY!!!

There is no time travel. There never will be. There is no time dilation. There never will be. There is the distortion of the measurement of observation generated by gravity and distance. NOTHING MORE.

When a scientist attempts to make a connection between Black Holes, Dark matter, and “looking through time”… it makes me want to plant a 1.5 oz lead seed wrapped in .5 oz copper foil in my brain… at high velocity.

Final remarks

I know it is possible that scientists understand all this and that is it I who have misunderstood them. I know that it is possible that the scientific community is well aware of the true nature of time as I have come to understand it. And I also know that it is possible that it is the public at large who have mistaken and misconstrued theory to mean something it doesn’t.

But if I am mistaken, then why are they still calling it “space-time”? And why do I get the feeling that the scientific community at large truly believes that “dark matter” is some kind of super-dense, light absorbing matter?