The 3 Aspects

Scenario: You survived a war or natural disaster that wipes out a signficant percentage of the earth's population. The destruction was immense. If you were to make a decision for your co-survivors and yourself, give the TOP THREE (3) things (aspects, etc.) that you would re-establish and develop first to make life sustainable again.

Cooking
Art/Literature
Contact to the outside world.

Reach out.

Children these days, even teenagers from our generation, know little of what it’s like outside. How it is to feel the breeze, the disgusting feeling of sweat drying on your clothes, or having to suffer a bruise and your parents would comfort you and do anything in their parental expertise to calm you down by scaring you with a fictional story of how an headless priest will come out if you don’t stop crying and patch it up. Most of all, people these days feel like they know everything. Just because any and everything can be found in the internet doesn’t mean that you know everything. Experience teaches better than Youtube videos, Wikipedia articles, and How-To-Do guides on the internet.

Art/Literature.

Art is one of the most prominent facets of expression. Art nowadays are just photos patched together and a smart line to deliver a gag. Scarce are the people who write poetry, stories, songs, and the like. Scarcer are those who are able to appreciate it and not say that it is an irrelevant piece.

Cooking

A home cooked meal might take more time compared to dialing Mickey D’s (McDonald’s) number and ordering a quarter pounder, large fries and a coke. People nowadays fail to appreciate how satisfying a home cooked meal can be as opposed to a juicy double down. This also applies health-wise, since fast food products are loaded with preservatives and a ton more things that aren’t even supposed to be with it, like how Mickey D’s fries have a certain percentage of beef flavoring in them. Yes, even the ones that don’t have flavor.

How would I end the world?

1. A. I would like to end the world just like how the movie 2012 went, but in a more subtle sense. Like a relentless wave of earthquakes, but the people are warned beforehand. And then tornadoes with hail and volcanoes exploding and then tidal waves.

2. B. Global Warming is the most prevalent issue nowadays. Countries are striving to find renewable and recyclable sources of energy to replace the consumption of fossil fuels. Proponents such as Al Gore and documentaries such as 6 Degrees Can Change the World are eye-openers for those who are poorly educated with regard to the real status and dangers of global warming; a good reason to believe that 2012 could actually come true, not because the Mayans predicted the end of days on that year, but more of because the possibility that the polar ice caps can melt.

Cerebellar Abiotrophy

A severe, incurable neurologic disorder thought to affect primarily Arabians--cerebellar abiotrophy (CA)--might be able to jump the "breed barrier" and affect other types of horses, according to a University of California, Davis, research team. The genetic disease--caused by a mutation on a certain segment of DNA--other breeds of horses (mostly those with Arabians in their lineage) could be at risk for carrying the CA mutation.

Cerebellar abiotrophy is caused by the loss of a specific type of neuron in the cerebellum (the part of the brain that controls a horse's sensory perception, coordination, and motor control). As a result, affected foals suffer from head tremors and a lack of equilibrium, among other neurologic deficits. Due to the absence of an effective treatment approach the more severely affected foals are routinely euthanized early in life because of the risk they would pose to themselves and others as adults.

Cecilia Penedo, PhD, of the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL), along with Leah Brault, PhD, who worked on the continuing CA project at UC Davis during her doctoral studies, identified a genetic mutation associated with CA in 2010. But they began to wonder if the Arabian's role in the development of many other breeds could mean that these breeds could have inherited the CA mutation.

http://www.cerebellar-abiotrophy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=1&Itemid=28

Although only from speculation, it’s not hard to derive the possibility that the growing need for more and more resources by the insatiable species called humans are to blame. We’re creating more and more ways to create more and more things. Or it can be that we’re creating more and more ways to reproduce more and more things at an accelerated rate. It can be attributed to the pollution, the type of food these animals consume, or just about anything. As the ones who rule the majority of the troposphere, we should take full responsibility of what happens around us as well. That includes taking care of the animals that we’ve ousted from their habitat, too.

Inceptor

This small helicopter is called Inceptor and it is the latest product of Insitu, the innovative company behind ScanEagle that is now owned by Boeing. Inceptor weighs only 3.5lbs and fits into a police car trunk. It has an electric motor with swappable lithium polymer batteries. It can fly for around 24min, take-off and land autonomously, navigate and hover via waypoints and also controlled semi-autonomously through a touchscreen. The integrated flight control system is aFCS20 provided by Adaptive Flight Inc.

One can learn to operate it in a few hours and it provides electro-optic or IR imaging immediately even during adverse weather conditions and wind gusts. Video imagery is transmitted to the handheld ground control station and distributed to decision makers for real-time viewing. It flies below 500ft and within line of sight (as dictated by the FAA-issued certificate of authorization).

Inceptor will enter a developing but still very niche market sector that is mostly dominated by quadcopters. Prototypes are already flying and initially it will be available only for US public agencies at a cost of around $50.000. Selected law-enforcement customers will test it soon.

http://robots.net/article/3218.html

it can be useful to both sides of the law, since it wouldn’t be long ‘till it’s available to the public market. Hopefully the government and/or the company responsible for this device will have a certain degree of measures to prevent the misuse of the said technological innovation.

Welcome to the Good Life ;)

A good life is when you’re having fun.

A good life is when you’re doing what you love instead of working.

A good life is when everything goes well.

A good life is despite the challenges that I face, I still manage to overcome them; and I become better in the process.

I could write so many things on what a good life is. But in the end, I personally think that life can only be good when one makes it good. I Like if Kim Jong Il thinks that a good life is running a country through the ground and towards the depths of hell, then that’s his cup of tea.

--but don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to say what a good life is, and what a good life isn’t. I’m only one of the millions, if not billions, of people who exist in this blue and green dot in the vastness of space. After all, anyone and everyone have their own version of what a good life is. Probably even children born into poverty have their own version of a good life.

Personally, I believe I’ve lived and still am living a good life. Even though my own flavor of a good life has its sour and spicy moments, I’ll always treasure the sweetest and the most flavorful moments. I’m not one to say what a good life really is, but right here, right now, in this very moment, even though I’m swamped neck-deep in school work, I believe I’m living a good life.

I am living a good life.

Plato’s concept and hate-love relationship with art is somewhat similar to the movie Equilibrium’s plot, wherein they have created a perfect society by completely removing any and every means of emotional expression because their society has mandated that every emotion that is expressed by humans through the arts are the reason why the societies before theirs have fallen.

The movie ends with the rebellion of one of their censors, realizing that it is art of expression is the one that makes them human, albeit the fact that it can deny them a perfect society. I personally feel that art should remain as free as allowable. It is a facet of human intellect, and allows us to not only share what one thinks, but also what one feels. This is achieved effectively by art.

Gods and Goddesses of Egypt

**Amun

Appearance:

Man with a ram-head
A ram
Man wearing an ostrich plumed hat

Amun was one of the most powerful gods in ancient Egypt.
At the height of Egyptian civilisation he was called the 'King of the Gods'.


Amun
Amun was important throughout the history of ancient Egypt. However, when Amun was combined with the sun god Ra he was even more powerful. He was then called Amun-Ra.

A large and important temple was built at Thebes to honour Amun.

**Atum
'The All' or 'Perfection'

Appearance:

Man with the double crown

Atum was a creator god.
The ancient Egyptians believed that Atum was the first god to exist on earth.


Atum
The ancient Egyptians believed that Atum rose from the waters of chaos (Nun) and created all the gods.

**Bes

Appearance:

Dwarf with lion and human features
Dwarf wearing the skin of a lion

Bes was the protector of pregnant women, newborn babies and the family.

Bes
The ancient Egyptians also believed that Bes protected against snake and scorpion bites.

Amulets of Bes were popular at all levels of Egyptian society.


**Bastet

Appearance:

Woman with the head of a cat

Bastet was a protective goddess.

Bastet
Bastet was usually seen as a gentle protective goddess. However, she sometimes appeared with the head of a lioness to protect the king in battle.

The cat was a symbol of Bastet. The ancient Egyptians made many statues of cats like this one to honour Bastet.

Bastet was one of the daughters of the sun god, Ra. A great temple was built in her honour at Bubastis in the Delta.

**Geb

Appearance:

Man lying down below the arch of the sky goddess Nut
Man with a goose on his head

Geb was the god of the earth.
Geb was the husband and brother of the sky goddess Nut. He was also the father of Osiris, Isis, Nepthys and Seth.

When Seth and Horus fought for the throne of Egypt, Geb made Horus the ruler of the living.

The ancient Egyptians believed that earthquakes were Geb's laughter.

**Hathor
'House of Horus'

Appearance:

Woman with the ears of a cow
A cow
Woman with a headdress of horns and a sun disk

Hathor was a protective goddess. She was also the goddess of love and joy.

Hathor was the wife of Horus, and was sometimes thought of as the mother of the pharaoh.


Hathor sistrum
Hathor was connected with foreign places and materials. For instance, Hathor was the goddess of the desert and the turquoise mines in the Sinai.

A large temple was built to honour Hathor at Dendera.

**Isis

Appearance:

Woman with headdress in the shape of a throne
A pair of cow horns with a sun disk

Isis was a protective goddess. She used powerful magic spells to help people in need.
Isis was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.

Since each pharaoh was considered the 'living Horus', Isis was very important.



Isis with Horus
Isis is often shown holding Horus on her lap. Isis is associated with thrones because her lap was the first 'throne' that Horus sat upon.

This amulet is called the 'Isis knot' and is a symbol of protection.

A temple was built to honour Isis at Philae. It is still standing today.

**Tawaret
'The Great One'

Appearance:

Head of a hippopotamus with the arms and legs of a lion, the back and tail of a crocodile, and the breasts and stomach of a pregnant woman.

Tawaret was a goddess who protected women during pregnancy and childbirth.


Many of the gods and goddesses in ancient Egypt had temples built to honour them. Other gods and goddesses like Tawaret and Bes were worshipped by people in their own homes.
This is an amulet of the goddess Tawaret. People often wore amulets like this, or kept them in their homes.

**Seshat

Appearance:

Woman wearing a panther skin dress and a star headdress

Seshat was the goddess of writing and measurement.