TED Photography Talk

Seeing the world through mine and eyes of others, I realize that I live in a tiny island of priviledge that we often confuse for the world in 21st century. The advances we have are available to very very few people that we believe characterize the 21st century.

Watch these and see your view of the world change.

http://www.ted.com/playlists/72/close_up_and_personal.html

America You're Funny: Porn vs. Education

I wonder what this says about U.S. that amount that people look up porn is climbing and searches for education is declining. What kind of long term future do we have?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=education%2C%20porn&cmpt=q

Falacies of Fat

Listen to how we have been fooled into terrible health, even those who work out and eat "healthy."
Fat Chance on Science Friday.

Hey Science, Answer This

Question 1: Oil
So we can look bellow the strata and we know when and how life evolved.
We also know that oil is organic matter which is wildlife that used to exist in the world.
However Oil is really really deep underground and sometimes under the Oceans.
How did it get there?
How long ago did it get there?
If it is that far bellow then it must have happened billions of years ago, what kind of life created that oil?

Question 2: Entropy
The big bang happened. We say it was order and ever since then, the world has gone towards disorder.
Yet, looking out the window on trees full of leaves rustling in the wind, birds chirping and singing, waves crashing in the distance, the tidy homes around me made intently for the best possibly survivability made me question that very law of Thermodynamics. When DNA, through time by mere survivability has developed into complexity far greater than we can and possibly will ever achieve.

Although mathematically, the universe is plummeting into disorder with everyday and although a broken egg cannot be put together, the egg is still a model of order, created out of the disorderly food that the hen pics off the ground. Cells order themselves into parts and organs and shells and in the end a tiny little chicken.

Disorder? Yes but what is the force that creates the order of our planet, our solar system our thoughts and our eyes and our hands and arms and bodies?

Answer this science. Please.

Confsessions of a Drug Agent

"America is addicted to drug money"
Really amazing video that chronicles American addiction to narcotics and the price we pay for it.

America You're Funny: Killing

Can you imagine killing someone? Can you imagine a reason to kill? What if someone went into a civilian area and shot twenty people? What if someone killed a soldier or a policeman? What if someone entered a school and blew it up or killed a bride and groom? Would you hate them? Would you want to kill them?
What if that killer was an American soldier?
Would you hate him still?
What if the people he killed were Pakistanis?
Would you still want to kill him?
I'm guessing no because we have our soldiers committing those acts all the time.
This is back to the crime. It is not about the crime but who it is against.
Thousands of lower income kids die in gang violence and often killed by other young kids. Our media never made a big deal about it. We never had half lowered flags or long discussions and memorials for those. What happened here was that rich kids died. Poor kids can't kill rich kids, black kids can't kill black kids and non-American kids can't kill American kids. That is just how it works. We are still on the savanna in Africa, marking and protecting our territory.
So those kids who kill, when they are killing someone above them are crazy, horrible, despicable monsters.
Those who kill those bellow them are heroes, protectors, patriots.
America, you're so funny.

America, You're Funny: Theft

In America it is well understood that stealing is wrong. That you do not take that which is not yours. The penalty for taking is stiff and the more you take the worse the punishment.
That is true, for the most part. The part that is nuanced though is that who you steal from is what matters.
For instance, a kid stealing from Wal-Mart can put him into Juvenile Hall. Wal-Mart stealing from a kid by underpaying his mother however, perfectly fine. The government requires us to pay taxes and taking from the government means paying interest and sometimes jail. However no such penalties fall on the government should it take too much from a person. It is illegal for a bank to charge too high of a late fee or too high of interest and when the government takes $100 or more from me for parking two minutes over and thus shortchanging government $.25 is completely ok.
You see it not only matters who you steal from, but whether you are above or bellow the one you steal with on the social ladder and how much above and bellow also matters.
For instance, much has been stolen from homeowners and pensioners in 2008. Most of them were poor or middle class and no one went to jail. However, when Madoff stole, he stole from people, rich people, some much richer than he and that became a big no no.
America, sometimes you're funny.