The concept we moderns have of magic is very strange: we see it as merely a ludicrous heap of recipes and methods stemming from primitive, unscientific notions about nature […] Of course, it would be difficult to maintain that the method of magic has something to do with the method of our natural sciences. The structure of matter is completely ignored and physico-chemical phenomena are ascribed to occult cosmic forces. Yet magic has in common with modern technology that it claims to arrive, by other means, at the same ends: long distance communication, rapid transport, interplanetary trips are some of the magician’s current exploits.

Eros and Magic In The Renaissance

Ioan P. Couliano

(via notesonphotography)

If anyone wants to make a quick buck, short gunmakers shares or buy Put options on them.

They went up because rational people (they exist?) thought there would be more gun control after today. RGR is at 54.75 right now. If rationality prevails, this would be correct. If we are incurably mad, it will go down because it would be “back to postnormal”.

Let’s see where it will be a week from now.

The idea was to avoid the news all weekend except Catalexit because I was hoping they’d handle it like grown ups (they didn’t).

Then there was a building-shaking boom at breakfast on Sunday, that reverberated off other buildings. I said, unconvincingly, that it must have been a sonic boom of someone accidentally breaking the sound barrier over the city. We said nothing but listened for police sirens and helicopters that thankfully never came. We still had power and the classical radio station did not get interrupted. There was no smoke in the clear sky. An hour later, I gingerly and covertly checked a local news-gossip site, there was nothing on the front page, but buried within was a piece on how to get into the lottery to view the explosive demolition of the Kosciusko bridge (and kick off the Polish Heritage parade/month?) at 8am Sunday.

And then I woke up on Monday and heard about Las Vegas and Marceille. Why can humans be so horrible sometimes?

I wonder if hi-rise hotels in this country are now going to have metal detectors and x-rays in their lobbies. Just like NYC schools already do. You’d have to swipe your key card each time you go up to your room, $15 security fee for each pat-down conveniently added to your hotel bill. Tipping the Hotel Security Agents (minimum-wage employees of private contractor firms to the federal government unaffiliated with the hotel) will not be required but encouraged.

Gotta protect the second amendment freedoms in this land of the free ya know. A small price to pay for not living in a dystopia where guns are banned.

There is disproportionate negative focus on “gentrifiers”, most of whom are simply migrants to the city, the place that still has jobs, who are trying to find a place to live where they can still afford it, just barely, and on city planners and architects who are trying to make the city efficient and livable for everyone even as population swells.

There is practically zero focus on real estate developers who make off with billions while skirting every possible regulation and rule, swindlers who work with them who cheat the long-time residents out of their homes, and politicians who loudly scream of how “progressive” and “socially just” they are, while happily being in the deep pockets of those developers.

Toxic-smelling powder is blowing from the construction site in the wind and accumulates in little white drifts for blocks on the street below. The workers are wearing protective gear, but they are not distributing gas masks to the two year olds or their parents, not to mention people who live in other buildings.

andromeda1023:

astronomyblog:

The monster OJ 287

OJ287 is one of the largest black holes in the known universe. If it were placed at the center of our solar system, its event horizon would swallow nearly everything is our Sun’s sphere of influence. All the planets, the asteroid belt, and (obviously) us. This beast is an estimated 18 billion solar masses and drifts through the cosmos some.

Image credit: Jaime Trosper/FQTQ

OJ 287 is one of the largest supermassive black holes known, weighing in
at 18 billion solar masses. Located about 3.5 billion light-years away,
this monster quasar is bright enough that it was first observed as
early as the 1890s. What makes OJ 287 especially interesting, however,
is that its light curve exhibits prominent outbursts roughly every 12
years. More info at this link: http://aasnova.org/2016/03/23/dance-of-two-monster-black-holes/

Just in time for Halloween

Heard of someone who at social occasions fearlessly just goes up to people and introduces herself.

I think this is possible when you unequivocally believe that you have something that would be interesting to these other people.

The key is to convince yourself of that.