PHOTOGRAPHY; an inexpensive hobby…

Every night, I would walk around this block a few times to stretch my legs, which takes a mere five minutes each. If I go further, that will take me to the shops, which will take about 10 minutes. Last night, during one of those walks, I noticed a flower growing out of a cement crack. I thought I would come back the following day and take a shot. The sun was directly above, a bit to my right, which blinded my sight of the cell phone screen. My Nokia, although not the latest touchscreen smartphone, has a 5 MP camera, which is not bad. I held my cell phone camera close to the wall and took several blind shots. This one came out nicely; I didn't have to crop it. The building, by the way, is the back side of our clinic.

With digital technology, photography has become an affordable hobby that anyone can enjoy, requiring only a smartphone and/or digital camera, along with free photo editing programs that can make you look like a pro. If you get a few perfect shots out of a thousand, it would not have burdened you with additional costs if you deleted all but the few good ones. I've noticed that some people on Facebook upload all the contents of their digital camera, regardless of how bad some of the pictures are. A few bad takes can spoil the whole lot. To make an impression, always choose the best photos, crop them, and edit before you upload to Facebook.

I took this photo last Friday, January 4, 2013, while waiting for a friend to pick us up on the way to Khamis City, 175 km away. I wanted to buy a 29’ LED/LCD TV on sale at Hyperpanda; unfortunately, it was all sold out when I got there. I ended up buying something better, a 32’ LED/LCD TV of a better brand, alhamdullillah. What's great about these latest hi-tech gadgets is their multi-tasking functions. I don’t only have a wide-screen television, but I also have a 32-inch computer monitor; it’s impossible not to be amused by it. With HD satellite receivers, even movies you have watched many times over become more entertaining :-)

 MORE PHOTOS

Is NASA Lost in Space...?

I wonder why NASA is obsessed with landing humans on a stupid asteroid. What benefit will humanity gain from such an expensive and dangerous mission/maneuver, other than satisfying a megalomaniac engineer at NASA at the expense of the people? Money on such a costly mission would be better spent on a mission to Mars or a moon of a planet other than Earth. Moreover, if the mission is unsuccessful or an accident occurs, it would delay any plan for a Mars-bound human journey.

Is NASA Lost in Space or Aimed at Asteroid?: Scientific American:

Is NASA Lost in Space or Aimed at Asteroid?

Experts weigh in on NASA's direction and its goal to send astronauts into deep space

By Leonard David and SPACE.com

A report this month from the National Research Council (NRC) has called NASA’s overall trajectory into question. It pointed out the national disagreement over the U.S. space agency’s goals and objectives, a disparity detrimental to the organization’s planning and budgeting efforts.

The 12-person blue-ribbon study group observed that the White House should take the lead in forging "a new consensus" onNASA's future in order to more closely align the agency’s budget and objectives and remove restrictions impeding NASA's efficient operations.

 SNIP

"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect newspacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. So we’ll start…we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it." [How NASA Will Explore Asteroids (Gallery)]

FULL ARTICLE:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-nasa-lost-in-space-or-aimed-at-asteroid

'via Blog this'

World's Biggest Crocodile Tries To Escape:

If you are a Pinoy and haven't heard of or seen a picture of Lolong, you might be an OFW on an alien planet. Even a monster enthusiast might not have seen this 1 ½ minute video of Lolong trying to break free. It reminds me of King Kong and Godzilla trying to break chains, but this one is for real. Lolong, the world’s most enormous crocodile ever caught alive, is no fiction.

2012: The Year We Did Our Best To Abandon The Natural World

2012 was the wake-up year or the year that should have been a steel baton that hit our leaders’ heads. How can anyone forget those hundreds of tons of garbage washed along Manila’s shoreline that is supposed to be Manila’s showcase to the world? It is not new; we know we are killing the planet in our little corner of the third rock from the sun. Whatever I write here will only be redundant.

Philippine lies in the path of no less than 12 typhoons a year but we unfortunately have not learned our lesson in a hundred years. We simply hoard people in evacuation centers, feed them for sometimes until the storm has passed, collect the dead bodies and bury them in mass graves. We virtually sit and wait for the next storm to strike and do it all over again. It is our fate; our nation’s fate but while we can neither tell the storm to stop nor lessen its fury…we can certainly devise ways to lessen its impact.

The government spends billion trying to solve this perennial problem with very little if at all positive result. While we can squeeze cigarette and wine makers to pay more taxes to pay for the harm it causes to people; why can’t we squeeze manufacturers of plastics and other environmentally unfriendly products to pay for the destruction their products wreck on the environment? We either squeeze them out of business or compel them to buy back the plastic garbage and dispose of it properly. Buying back plastic litter at a reasonable price will provide the scavengers with a better income. The government must set and guarantee prices. Plastic litter will vanish in weeks if students and pupils will spend their free time picking up plastics. Homes and establishments will in fact religiously separate their plastic garbage if they can get reasonable cash for it. If government matches whatever amount manufacturers can afford to pay for it; it will be a double whammy that will encourage everyone to keep his/her own dirt for money. It is an indirect bribery of people to keep them disciplined but for a good cause being my yeah; thoughts for the New Year. 

2012: The Year We Did Our Best To Abandon The Natural World

2012: The Year We Did Our Best To Abandon The Natural World

Emissions are rising, ice is melting and yet the response of governments is simply to pretend that none of it is happening

By George Monbiot 

January 01, 2013 "The Guardian" - - It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century.

Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic's sea ice broke the previous record. Remnants of the global megafauna – such as rhinos and bluefin tuna – were shoved violently towards extinction. Novel tree diseases raged across continents. Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening.

Their indifference was distilled into a great collective shrug at the Earth Summit in June. The first summit, 20 years before, was supposed to have heralded a new age of environmental responsibility. During that time, thanks largely to the empowerment of corporations and the ultra-rich, the square root of nothing has been achieved. Far from mobilising to address this, in 2012 the leaders of some of the world's most powerful governments – the US, the UK, Germany and Russia – didn't even bother to turn up.

But they did send their representatives to sabotage it. 

Please read full article:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33494.htm

2013: CELEBRATE LIFE; the world did not end in 2012…

That the world was coming to an end in December 2012 revealed how humans are restlessly curious animals, always seeking excitement, even if it meant the end of the world. What now that the world did not end…?

If there are 7 billion people on planet Earth, the New Year should mean something different to each of them, but who cares about 2013, except for most of the Christian West that uses the Gregorian calendar? Not even half of the people on Earth really care about 2013. Muslims (1.5 billion), Chinese (1.5 billion), and India (1.3 billion) are the large groups that alone comprise more than half of the entire planet that don’t use the Gregorian calendar, so in essence, January 1, 2013, is just another day for most of the people of planet earth.

Filipinos are a people of exaggeration who imitate everything with mind-boggling overzealousness.  That overacting character is exemplified by the adoption and extreme practice of Christianity that surprises even the original Christians who introduced it to the Philippines.

Oftentimes, I wonder how Ronald Tubid, the basketball player whose picture/statue at age 17 was adopted by the church to represent Saint Pedro Calungsod, feels whenever he sees people worshiping his picture/statue. How will his children/grandchildren and future generation feels knowing that Saint Pedro Calungsod, whom multitudes worship, was in fact their father/grandfather? In this age and time, a computer-generated face can be created in minutes, if not seconds. I find it strange that the church did not request a computer-generated image based on Pedro Calungsod’s living relatives.

The use of firecrackers is very Chinese in character, which Filipinos adopted with gusto. It causes a lot of injuries with some deaths; a practice that you don’t find anywhere else on the planet, yet neither Christianity nor the celebration of New Year is indigenous to the Philippines. These are alien to Philippine culture that we practice with absurd zealotry.

That there is more fun in the Philippines is no empty slogan. Whatever others can do, Filipinos can do even more…for better or worse :-(

NLK

Israel...Butchers Of Gaza

This is one short video I like to keep in my blog because if there is one who says it better and direct to the point with out mumbling; it’s brother Nathanael not to mention that this is one of the most important event that happened before 2012 fades into oblivion without the world coming to an end :-)

STARSHIP HUMANITY: imagine life 50, 100 AND 150 years from now…

I realized that fifty years from now, my youngest daughter will be at my present age, meaning I will not be there, but she and my grandchildren will be, inshallah!

Scientific American, January 2013 issue, asked prophets of Technology what life would be like 50, 100, and 150 years from now. Reading it right now is like traveling in time because, for sure, it will not be less but probably more than what we can imagine right now. Prophets of technology tend to be conservatively realistic in separating themselves from fiction writers, but when 007 talked to his watch some 45 years ago like a phone, we smiled at it like in a pleasant dream. When pictures were added to fiction, like a live television on James Bond’s wrist, we laughed at it as too much fiction, and yet we live not only to see it happen but to have one in our pockets, while children use it for internet gaming, treating it as a toy.

A week ago, I wrote about how the photos my daughter took with her tablet back home in the Philippines were instantly uploaded to my Google+ account, which I can see. Last night, I discovered something else. You probably know about this, but I didn’t. On your Facebook page, there is a map showing where you live; at least, that's what I thought was shown on your profile. What is your address? I was wrong. I always ignored that face on my Facebook until last night when I saw the map that said I was at the “Mall of Asia.” I said, “What?” I realized that Nishreen had been to 9 different places since she received her tablet 3 weeks ago, the last being at MOA :-) I have no idea if it is a function of her tablet’s GPS or her Google Maps. Fiction…? Nah!

We see flying cars in science fiction movies that we now think are pure fiction. We can’t imagine how it will be possible, but if you are young, you may actually ride in one, maybe even own it. Drones that the USA uses not only to spy but also to murder enemies, with the consequent death of many innocents, will in the future turn into manned space vehicles (MSV) as well, although unmanned space vehicles (USV) will still be around, getting even more sophisticated. Some drones will be the size of your red blood cells that can circulate in your body to spy on your organs and hunt and kill whatever makes you ill. Other drones will be insect-sized, from mosquitoes to birds, that can spy and kill in urban areas. The USA has 7,000 spy/killer drones with unknown numbers in many other countries. If drones can fly 24 hours and carry heavy loads of bombs, why don't humans drive them; you don’t need a driver’s license :-) Drone technology is the next world-changing technology after the internet. Electrical engineers should tread this path or be left behind by those who do.

What truly fascinates me is space travel. Again, 150 years from now, for colonists to live and thrive on Mars is too conservative a time, but, ah, a journey to the stars… 150 years it is. With big businesses and moneyed individuals investing in Mars’ future colonies, I may even live to see it happen. When I see humankind walk on the surface of Mars, I will sail towards the sunset with a smile on my face.

NLK

STARSHIP

HUMANITY

How future generations will make the voyage from our earthly home to the planets and beyond—and what it means for our species

By Cameron M. Smith

SNIP:

If space colonization is to succeed in the long run, we must consider biology and culture as carefully as engineering. Colonization cannot be about rockets and robots alone—it will have to embrace bodies, people, families, communities and cultures. We must begin to build an anthropology of space colonization to grapple with the fuzzy, messy, dynamic and often infuriating world of human bio-cultural adaptation. And we must plan this new venture while remembering the clearest fact of all regarding living things: they change through time, by evolution. Three main concepts shape current thought about space colonization. First is the colonization of Mars. Widely publicized by the peppery space engineer and president of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, Martian colonies would be self sufficient, using local resources to generate water and oxygen as well as to make construction materials. Next is the concept of free-floating colonies—enormous habitats built from lunar or asteroid metals. Popularized by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in the 1970s, these would house thousands of people, could rotate to provide an Earth-like gravity (as beautifully envisioned in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey), and could either orbit Earth or hang motionless at so-called Lagrangian points, spots where an object’s orbital motion balances the gravitational pull of the sun, moon and Earth. Finally, we might also consider the concept of the Space Ark, a giant craft carrying thousands of space colonists on a one-way, multigenerational voyage far from Earth. I have been working with the nonprofit foundation Icarus Interstellar to design just such a mission. Each of these approaches has its merits, and I think they are all technologically inevitable. But we must never confuse space colonization with the conquest of space. The world beyond ours is unimaginably vast; it will be what it has always been. When humankind begins to make its home in space, it is we who will change.

Scientific American: January 2013

https://www.amazon.com/Nosca-Khalid/e/B01NA7APYQ