The University and Airline Bomber

Know anything about Dr. Theodore John Kaczynski?
Yeah, I didn't either.
Better known as the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, famous for his campaign of mail bombings, is also a mathematician and social critic, albeit being incarcerated. He was born in Chicago, an intellectual child prodigy, and became an assistant professor at UC Berkeley by the age of 25 but resigned two years later. In the summer of 1971, he moved to a small residence of his parents' in Lombard, Illinois, and two years later moved to just outside Lincoln, Montana in a remote cabin he built himself. He did so in order to live a simple life without money, electricity or running water. His goal was to become self-sufficient and it was here that he became driven to start his bombings. On a walk to one of his favourite remote spots he found the development of a road and was outraged. In his "Unabomber Manifesto" written as Industrial Society and Its Future, he detailed, among other things, "getting back at the system" rather than his original goal of survival skills and primitive technologies. He proceeded to send 16 mail bombs to university professors and airline officials between 1978-1995, injuring 23 people and killing 3. He often included letters, some to his former victims, demanding his manifesto be printed in a newspaper or journal, or his terrorist actions would continue. The US Department of Justice ended up publishing it in the New York Times as well as the Washington Post in favour of public safety, and also with the hope someone would recognize the author's writing style. Before its publication, Ted's brother David was already suspicious of him being behind the bombings, and in the end it was him who turned him into the FBI, who in April 1996 arrested Ted Kacyznski at his cabin in Montana. He is currently living a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole in Florence, Colorado. His manifesto can be read here, and though his actions were extreme I'm definitely curious about the thoughts behind such a person.

$20 louder.

I bought one of those little baby amps that are battery powered so you can strap it to yourself and walk around playing. I can't wait to try it out.

The silent immortal invasion?

For as long as humanity has existed, we've fought death and tried to reverse aging by any means necessary. Every day you read about some food that has been found to be good for you or some remedy to help you live younger longer. Our bodies start to sag and we prop them back up, organs and limbs deteriorate and we try to fix them, but invariably no matter how hard we try and no matter how much smarter we feel we're getting about our health, we're dropping quicker than ever.
Who knew it was a jellyfish that would find the fountain of youth?
The turritopsi nutricula is a species of jellyfish that constantly undergoes a process called transdifferentiation, where one cell is transformed into another. Salamanders and sea stars do that to an extent, which is how they regrow limbs. This jellyfish, however, is able to reverse its aging process by reverting from its mature adult stage to its first stage of life and back over and over again. Theoretically this can happen indefinitely, rendering the animal biologically immortal. They are native to the Caribbean, but since there seems to be no natural end to its lifespan, they've spread and can now be found in oceans around the world.

Inhale, exhale.

There is no reason for this post except that I found this picture and I like it.

Sardinian centenarians

You know the term 'sardonic?'
Comes from the people of Sardinia, a region of Italy on the second-largest island in the Mediterranean. The eating habits, activities, social life, and other aspects of the Sardinian lifestyle contribute to making this region, along with the Japanese island of Okinawa, the area with the highest rate of centenarians in the world. Their diet consists of mainly whole-grain bread, beans, vegetables, and fruits, along with goat's milk and wine high in flavonoids. The exercise they get and the social life they lead contribute greatly to their longevity and it's no wonder Americans are so miserable. The Sardinians live in strong, healthy families. They celebrate their elders and laugh with their friends and they have a true purpose in life, whether it's farming or shepherding. Even the grandparents are out every day at five in the morning doing what they have done their entire lives, because they are healthy and happy. They're not discontent, running in a race they don't know what they're running for. They're not stressed about where their careers are taking them their entire lives. Their diet isn't based around a cheeseburger. And they're not caught up making insincere conversations on facebook. They just live, and it's one of the purest examples of simple, pure happiness. Living with friends and family, having a purpose, and eating healthy. It's so simple. Why can't we understand?

Darker than the deepest sea

This is my favourite picture of Nick Drake. I fell in love with him four years ago the way everyone sometimes falls in love with the beauty they see in strangers they'll never know. His voice is the sweetest sound to me, and I fell asleep to one of his albums every night for months. I wanted to marry him but I found out he died before I was even born.

LifeGem

I shouldn't make light of this because it's likely something I would do...but there is a company out there who will turn the ashes of a deceased loved one into a diamond for you. No joke. Apparently they can extract the carbon from a lock of hair or existing cremated remains and convert the carbon to graphite, and then a rough diamond crystal to wear. According to some info I got in the mail, you can even have your pet turned into a diamond, and in 2007 such a diamond was made from the remains of Ludwig van Beethoven and auctioned off for $202,700 on ebay for a charity in support of underprivileged children. Part of me wants to laugh, part of me takes it seriously, and part of me is just amazed by the idea.

Mobile Bay jubilee

On the shores of Mobile Bay, Alabama, a curious thing takes place between June and September. All at once, many species of eel, fish, crab, and shrimp will swim from deeper waters and swarm to the shallower coastal area of the bay. It's speculated that this occurs when rapid depletion of oxygen in the waters of the bay drives the sea life to seek areas less affected by the oxygen shortage. The lethargic nature of the animals and the sheer number of them during these occurrences attracts large crowds with the promise of easy to catch seafood. Jubilees most often occur in certain conditions. They tend to happen in August, commonly on the upper eastern shore of the bay, just before dawn, with an incoming tide and an easterly wind. The coastline where jubilees frequently take place is densely populated, so when someone should spot one, they alert their neighbours so everyone can rush to the shore and gather a harvest of seafood. The event is somewhat akin to a community beach party. Some beach party for all the fish and crabs desperate to survive.

Ladybugs from the sea

Today I was on the beach in Ventura, when in the ocean breeze suddenly was a bunch of ladybugs, landing on me and all around me! Why?

DINOSHARK

Today, what do I see on yahoo but an advertisement for a movie called Dinoshark coming on tv tomorrow night??? Apparently the 150-year old dinosaur shark beast has come to wreak havoc at a tropical resort. I don't know why but I am dying to see it.

Let there be light?

What on earth is St. Elmo's Fire?
The scientists write about it all weird and complicated, but basically what happens is during an electrical storm at sea, a sort of plasma lamp type of thing occurs at the ends of the masts on ships. It was regarded by sailors with awe and was so named for the patron saint of sailors--Saint Erasmus of Formiae (St. Elmo was a mispronounciation of St. Ermo). The "fire" is usually bright blue or violet due to the ionization of air molecules, and appears on tall, sharply-pointed structures such as aircraft wings, chimneys, lightning rods, spires, and of course, ship masts.
St. Elmo's Fire is often confused with ball lightning, which is a separate meteorological phenomenon. Ball lightning is an atmospheric electrical phenomenon identified as glowing, spherical objects varying greatly in size, resembling lighting but lasting quite a bit longer than a lightning bolt. The scientific data on this phenomenon is scarce because of how infrequent and unpredictable it is, making its existence still somewhat debated and controversial. Accounts of ball lightning vary widely, by the direction it moves, what it is attracted (or unattracted) to, how it behaves, how it looks, etc. There are also many hypotheses attempting to explain how it comes to be, from electrical charges in natural magnetic fields, to silicon struck by lightning vapourizing and glowing in the air as it oxidizes, to the passage of black holes through Earth's atmosphere--but nothing is concrete.
What about the "foolish fire" known as the Will-o'-the-wisp? Folklore accredits the phenomenon to any number of fairies, ghosts, spirits, or even animals, who carry or direct the light for reasons good or bad. The Irish tale is that of a condemned man named Jack who carries around an ember from the fires of hell to light his way through the spirit world. The British believe the light is in the hands of a rogue fairy who leads travelers off the beaten path to be lost forever. In other European tales the light is said to be a lost soul of the dead who are either mischievous or malevolent in nature and intend to lead followers to their death. In the US, the ghost light of the will-o'-the-wisp is mainly attributed to railroad workers killed in work accidents or lost miners whose ghosts now carry lanterns as they wander. Other cultures believed the light to mark the location of a hidden treasure. But as it turns out, it's often nothing more than the oxidation of a couple different chemical compounds igniting on contact with oxygen, causing glowing lights. Or is it?
Other ghost lights include the Min Min Light of eastern Australia, the Naga fireballs in Thailand, the Hessdalen lights of Norway, the Paulding light in Michigan, and the Marfa lights in Texas just to name a few. All are similarly described, yet unexplained, light phenomena that occur enough to be reported, denied, speculated, investigated, and debated.

The great destructive noise!

Every February or March like clockwork, a phenomenon known as a tidal bore occurs every year in Brazil, South America. The "pororoca" as it is known locally, occurs at the mouth of the Amazon River where an incoming spring tide from the Atlantic Ocean is strong enough to push a wave upriver and against the current. Though many tidal bores occur around the world, the pororoca of the Amazon is the biggest, with waves up to 13 feet high, traveling as much as 8 miles inland upstream on the river at up to 13 miles an hour. The wave is popular with river surfers and a championship has been held every year since 1999. This can be quite a feat due to the turbulent nature of tidal bores, often carrying entire trees and other debris in its wake. These bores are also characteristically loud due to the surging waters mixing, and once a captain heard the low rumble of the pororoca an hour before it reached his ship. In 2003, a Brazilian by the name of Picuruta Salazar rode the wave 7.8 miles in 37 minutes, the current record.
Check it out.

Fire in the sky

When you think about really neat or beautiful clouds, cumulus always comes to mind--those big poofy epic-looking ones before a storm. But without those high level, wispy cirrus clouds in the atmosphere you'd never get incredible optical phenomena such as halos, fire rainbows, light pillars, sun dogs, and a "circumzenithal arc" known as the Bravais' arc. Cirrus clouds are made of plate-shaped ice crystals high in the atmosphere that are formed when water vapour freezes at above 26,000 feet. They are so thin because of how sparse the moisture at that altitude. These clouds are the perfect medium for the refraction of light to make amazing sights in the sky.
There are a great many halos and arcs of varying degrees that can occur in different circumstances, with different angles, latitudes, times of day, and even light sources. There is a name for every possible optical phenomenon ever recorded.
Circumhorizontal arcs, or "fire rainbows" for example, are ice-halos, whole or in part, formed by the crystals in cirrus clouds. These halos don't occur unless the sun is very high in the sky. Latitude also plays a part in the ability to see them--these halos are impossible to see above 55° north or below 55° south. Around the summer solstice it is visible for a greater or lesser time depending on location. In Los Angeles, California the slot of visibility is much greater than say, London, England.
Parhelia, or "sun dogs" are mock suns that appear on either side of the sun, generally seen when the sky is low. Often they appear so bright they can easily be mistaken for the real sun. They always stay at the same altitude as the sun, and are red-coloured nearest the sun. They are always aligned, and often visibly merge into the "parhelic circle," which is a horizontal arc through the sun often seen in similar conditions.
Light pillars are formed by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces. What? Just another angle of light dispersion in a vertical line above (or occasionally below) the light source, be it the sun, moon, or even streetlights.
Circumzenithal arcs look somewhat like inverted rainbows but again are caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals rather than that of raindrops.
Each of these kinds of phenomena need certain conditions to appear, and probably you will never see two the same.

For the love of Poe

As mysterious as the disputed cause of Edgar Allan Poe's death, is the male figure in a black coat and hat who comes to offer tribute to the writer every year since January 1949, a century after Poe's death. The "poe toaster" enters the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland in the early hours of the morning on every January 19th (Poe's birthday), where he raises a cognac toast before departing, leaving three red roses and a half-empty bottle of Martell cognac on the grave. The roses are said to represent Poe himself, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm. The significance of the cognac is unknown but for notes left by the toaster indicating the bottle was left to continue family tradition. Many of the bottles have been kept at the Baltimore Poe House and Museum. The toaster often left notes in addition to the roses and cognac, some simply in devotion to Poe, but others indicating the "torch" of being the Poe toaster was going to be passed. In 1993 a short note read to that effect, and in 1999 another one was left saying the original toaster had passed away the year before and a son had taken over the tradition.
In 2006, much to the dismay of the Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum curator Jeff Jerome, several people attempted to accost and identify the toaster, possibly angered by notes left by the new toaster. In 2001 and 2004 the toaster left notes commenting on current events, causing somewhat of a furor.
In 2007, around 60 people showed up for the event, and in 2008, nearly 150.
In 2009, on the 200th anniversary of Poe's death, suddenly the crowd was much smaller than in past years, and in 2010, the Poe toaster failed to make an appearance for the first time since the tradition began.
One thing the curator has never revealed to the media is a gesture the toaster apparently makes every year, in hopes of one day identifying him.

Saturday shelves

Today I went to the bookstore to get one book and I came back with two. The book was for my health class, I'm doing a book report on it, that was easy enough. Going back to the front of the store to the registers I pass by the children's section where someone is reading Peter Rabbit to a group of children.
"...in the neatest sandiest hole of all, cousins--Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter. Old Mrs. Rabbit was a widow; she earned her living by knitting rabbit-wool mittens and muffetees (I once bought a pair at a bazaar). She also sold herbs, and rosemary tea, and rabbit-tobacco (which is what WE call lavender)." I remember when mom used to read us that.
At that big display of books right next to the register I see "No One Belongs Here More Than You" by Miranda July and it's six bucks so I get it and start reading the stories as soon as I leave the store.
As I read them I wish I was that unafraid. I wish I could tell the kind of stories that people read, the kind of stories that people love, the kind of stories that people quote and retell. Because if I could tell the kind of stories that people read maybe I could feel beautiful.
So far I like this part the best:
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Sky's the limit

Did you see that movie Up? Where the old man takes off in a trip with scores of balloons attached to his house?
Apparently, "cluster ballooning" is a real-life version of that Pixar movie. People literally attach themselves to bunches of balloons--not quite everyday party balloons, but relatively small weather balloons--and take off. It's a lot harder than traditional hot-air ballooning, being that a cluster of balloons doesn't have a vent for altitude control, but rather they rise uncontrollably. Cluster balloonists often use bottled water as a ballast and have to frequently cut balloons to maintain their altitude.
A man named Lawrence Richard Walters, nicknamed "Lawnchair Larry" or the "Lawn Chair Pilot" took flight in such a manner in the summer of 1982 from San Pedro, California to controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport. Without any prior ballooning experience he attached 42 helium-filled weather balloons to an ordinary patio chair and launched into the sky.
In November 1992, Yoshikazu Suzuki left from Lake Biwa, northeast of Kyoto, Japan via cluster ballooning, was sighted in the sky once and never seen again.
The Guinness Book of World Records credits Mike Howard of England and Steve Davis of the United States as the balloonists to have, in August 2001, reached the highest altitude by cluster ballooning--a height of 18,300 feet.
In April 2008 a Roman Catholic priest by the name of Adelir Antonio de Carli used 1000 balloons to make a flight as a fundraiser, but was lost and found dead in the ocean near Rio de Janeiro three months later.
Licensed pilot Jonathon Trappe in June of 2008 reportedly attached a cluster of balloons to his office chair, flew 4 hours and 50 miles, then returning to the ground and apparently going about his life.
FUN

The diver's cemetary/underwater caves!

On the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt, lies a 426-foot deep submarine cave or sinkhole, known simply as Blue Hole. A shallow opening at about 20 feet deep known as "The Saddle" faces the sea, and at a depth of 170 feet, a 85-foot long tunnel known as "The Arch" leads to the open sea as well. Blue Hole is a infamous site for diver deaths, with most accidents occurring during divers' attempts to find the Arch. The Arch is known to be very deceptive due to the odd angle at which it is found, the dim lighting that gives the illusion that it is about half as long as it is, the inward current, and the fact that the Arch continues to the seabed beyond view. The Arch is also particularly dangerous because it lies at a depth beyond the recreational diving limit (131 feet) set by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, at which nitrogen narcosis begins to take its toll. Nitrogen narcosis is a state similar to alcohol intoxication or nitrous oxide inhalation which can alter consciousness to any degree between mild euphoria and delayed responses, to hallucinations and death. Narcosis can be so severe that a person can lose all survival instinct, such as the case of Russian diver Yuri Lipski, who died at 300 feet below the surface in April of 2000.
"Blue Holes" also refer to the general existence of similar vertical caves in the sea, and there are many around the world, namely in the Bahamas and Belize. They are described as roughly circular, steep-walled depressions commonly in limestone or carbonate platforms. They are so named for the deep blue in the center of the hole contrasting by a lighter blue on the outside. They are often anoxic waters, or waters lacking dissolved oxygen due to poor circulation. This environment supports bacteria but not much sea life. The deepest blue hole is Dean's Blue Hole, located in the Bahamas at a depth of 663 feet. The next deepest blue holes are only just half that deep. The Great Blue Hole in Belize was made famous by the french diver Jacques Cousteau and is a popular spot for tourism.

Sea of Trees

Deep in a forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan lies a place shrouded in mythology. The trees are so dense and wildlife is so scarce, it's an eerily quiet location, perfect setting for death. It contains several rocky, icy caverns in its dark depths which have become popular tourist destinations.
Aokigahara, or the Sea of Trees, is a popular place for suicides--the second most popular after San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Despite warnings in Japanese and English, more than 500 people have died in the forest, mostly to suicides. The popularity of the location is often credited to a Japanese novel published in 1960 called Kuroi Jukai which ends in the suicide of two lovers in the forest, although the place has been associated with death long before the novel was published. The Japanese custom ubasute--the abandoning of a sick or elderly relative in remote place and left to die--was practiced into the 19th century and the ghosts from the people who had died are said to haunt the forest.
An average of 30 people a year are reported to have committed suicide in the forest yearly, although the rate grew to 100 in 2003, when the local government stopped publicizing the deaths in order to downplay Aokigahara's association with suicide.
Other than people seeking to end their lives, the rugged and unforgiving terrain attracts all sorts of hikers and thrill-seekers, as well as treasure hunters who seek out discarded wallets and other effects from people who are soon to need them no more.
Part of the appeal of people taking their last journey here, I imagine, is dying at the foot of Mount Fuji, a sacred place. Maybe they seek nothing more than a romantic death steeped in culture.