*Originally posted to the Conscious Living for You blog
"DEATH" - 'Thinking Aloud', with 2 Paul Micarelli's
9-28-20
Paul Micarelli & son Paul Giuseppe take a walk and talk about interesting topics. 🤔💡👶🏻
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More info at: www.ConsciousLivingForYOU.net
This awe-inspiring video from Hubble images shows the view from the Milky Way, then zooms deeper into the starfield to the Eagle Nebula & its "Pillars of Creation" which are vast columns of interstellar gas & dust.
The weird thing is that these features are so large (several light years across) and not actually that colorful, so they would be indistinguishable if a person were actually in their vicinity.
The scale of the area shown in this video is just impossible for the human mind to truly grasp. It is humbling, terrifying, and beautiful all at the same time.
*Originally posted to the Conscious Living for You blog
"FEAR" - 'Thinking Aloud', with 2 Paul Micarelli's
9-20-20
Paul Micarelli & son Paul Giuseppe take a walk and talk about interesting topics. 🤔💡👶🏻
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More info at: www.ConsciousLivingForYOU.net
Have you ever looked deeply into the eye of a walking stick bug?
As I used my macro lens to zoom into the barely visible head of the insect, I realized there was a discernible eye on the side of it's antennae.
by Paul Micarelli
From this close, it really looks like a strange alien head of some sort, proving that we don't need to look to other planets to find interesting life forms.
Here is the walking stick a bit more zoomed out:
*Originally posted to the Conscious Living for You blog
9-12-20
Paul Micarelli & son Paul Giuseppe take a walk and talk about interesting topics. 🤔💡👶🏻
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"Will you shut up, man?"
Ugh, what an absolute shit-show.
I've sat through some bad & really bad Presidential debates in my time, but this one doesn't even deserve the term "Presidential". I expected it to be really bad... and my expectations were still way too high! Just all-around fucking awful.
I'm not even going to show the video, because I don't want to be responsible for subjecting people to such a cultural travesty.
My wife & I watched the whole thing, pretty much disgusted & horrified that this is the state of American political discourse. She asked me if we were in the Twilight Zone, & I couldn't confidently answer in the negative.
Trump was what he always is - a complete moron, & an utter, insufferable, obnoxious A$$HOLE. The knuckleheads who already love him will think he dominated Biden with all the idiotic ranting and interruption, but to any reasonable person he comes off as a complete mental patient & a total jackass.
Biden was basically steamrolled by Trump's nonstop spew of bullshit & lies. He wasn't nearly as aggressive as he needed to be when faced with a shameless, unhinged narcissist. Biden landed a few frustrated jabs, and unfortunately the only effective counter was getting low with the name-calling and mockery - calling Trump a "clown","a fool", and "Putin's poodle". Trying to hold a rational debate with a deranged, compulsive liar is an almost impossible task.
This quote came to mind:
“Never play chess with a pigeon. The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over, shits all over the board, then struts around like it won.”.
I think Biden's best moments were when he directly appealed to us, the American people, & our families. Trump only spoke in terms of how good HE was doing at everything, as usual. However, Biden just looked completely befuddled a lot of the time & stumbled over his words, as Trump just gish-galloped his way over the other people on the stage.
Which brings me to the 3rd person on the stage, moderator Chris Wallace. For a Fox News employee, Wallace is fairly objective. Unfortunately, he was horrible at moderating this debate and had little control over the Trump Bullshit Train.
The one thing I've seen many people commenting & agreeing on is that (especially with someone like Trump) there needs to be moderator control over cutting the sound to the individual mics. When one person's time is up, CUT THE GODDAMN MIC. That's it. That would vastly improve these horrific displays, with people talking over each other and spending half the debate about respecting the rules & exhibiting self-control, something that The President of the United Fucking States seemingly can't comprehend.
Ok, I'm done. I've already wasted enough time talking about this nonsense. The fact that 30% of this country see the way Trump acts and thinks he's fit in any way to run anything, proves that our country is full of idiots. We have two 70+ year old white guys haplessly arguing on a stage about the most important issues facing our country, and there's barely any substantive information presented at all. It shows why our country is such a dumpster fire right now & why I don't even bother posting about politics much anymore. I hope other people are also fed up enough to stop this madness and work toward government that is functional again, for the well-being of this country and the people in it.
I have been there several times, and it never gets old. There are so many wonderful things to see and experience. The natural beauty and artistry of the grounds inspires a deep appreciation of plant & animal life.
I uploaded an album of photos, with some of my favorites shared below:
I used my macro camera lens to get an extreme closeup of this beetle's head.
The iridescent green & texture on its exoskeleton was awesome.
Here's a slightly more zoomed out image:
*Originally posted to the Conscious Living for You blog
"LIFE" - 'Thinking Aloud', with 2 Paul Micarelli's
8-26-20
Paul Micarelli & son Paul Giuseppe take a walk and talk about interesting topics. 🤔💡👶🏻
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More info at: www.ConsciousLivingForYOU.net
Recently, tech entrepreneur, visionary, & hype-man Elon Musk publicly introduced the Neuralink technology - a brain-computer interface that will allow the mind to directly connect to machines.
Right now, the most promising aspect is the potential to help control artificial limbs or give paralyzed individuals a way to access electronic devices. However, Musk envisions direct mind-to-mind communication, or be jacked-in to a digital space in which the possibilities for cognitive enhancement are truly limitless.
As with any new tool or system, there are unforeseen positive and negative consequences that will arise as a result. In many ways it will advance human consciousness beyond anything we can imagine. We currently have the entire catalog of human knowledge at our fingertips, but perhaps we will be able to access it on multiple streams at the speed of thought. On the flip side, this kind of human augmentation will likely segment society in even more extreme ways than social media and other digital tech is doing today.
This article from Wired presented some good insight into what Neuralink offers now, what is possible in the future, and what difficult issues researchers face in advancing the technology.
WIRED:
Neuralink Is Impressive Tech, Wrapped in Musk Hype
The largest hurdle in fully realizing the potential of this technology is our limited understanding of the brain/mind itself. I am currently reading "The Fractal Brain Theory" by Wai Tsang and it is a technically immersive look into the complexities of the brain's architecture at various scales, and how they intermesh together.
I think the progression of this technology to completely integrated neural circuitry is inevitable. Although it has not fulfilled my vision of an "Apple iThink" implant that I presented over 10 years ago, the road is clearly being paved in that direction.
I saw this interesting puffball fungus in my lawn. It had a nice texture that resembled coral, & was about the size of a baseball.
After some research, I think it is Calvatia cyathiformis.
See more nature photos in my album:
by Paul Micarelli
Here is my hand for size comparison:
This summer I've taken a lot of nature photos & video, so that will probably be much of my upcoming posting here.
I'm fortunate to have all kinds of plant and animal life on my property, so there's always new things to photograph.
Nature Photography
by Paul Micarelli
In my yard, I spotted these moths that were mating in the grass. I was able to get close enough without disturbing them to get some quality footage of bug porn.
As a life-long Star Wars fan, I've posted plenty about my favorite series on this blog. I've also had my share of criticism, especially for the finale of the Skywalker movie saga
My biggest of the many criticisms, that you can read at the link above, is the omission of Anakin Skywalker from the sequel trilogy.
A fan name Josh edited an excellent sequence together from the final battle between Rey & her grandpappy Palpatine. It shows what was egregiously missing from the actual movie - the spirits of the Jedi aiding Rey in defeating the Sith Lord once & for all.
STAR WARS Rise of Skywalker- Rey Vs Palpatine (Force Ghost Edit)
My only grievance with this edit is that a legion of past Jedi weren't all shown behind Rey. I think a similar inclusion of a crowd of Jedi spirits should also have happened on Tatooine at the very end, when Luke & Leia's ghosts appear to her. They should at least have included Anakin, but no... who gives a damn about the character that the entire story was based on? Grrrrr....
This relatively simple edit by a fan shows how easily the shitshow of The Rise of Skywalker could have been made into something truly epic.
As I said in my review, & I'll repeat here, Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrahms, Rian Johnson, the Star Wars story group, & everyone involved in the production of these movies basically fucked it up. My optimism regarding Disney's acquisition of the franchise was definitely misplaced.
If only they had hired someone like me - with just a bit of creative vision, who actually gives a crap about the integrity of the property. Although I will watch the movies with my son & still enjoy them, I think I will be bitter about the way it was handled for the rest of my life.
There has been a green praying mantis hanging out on the rose bush on our deck, eating any invasive insects that might have come its way.
I took some photos using a macro lens, and also some video. I saw it eating a small fly, but by the time I grabbed my lens and ran back outside, the fly was already devoured & the mantis was cleaning off it's front grabbing legs.
You can see it's tiny black pupil looking back at me.
by Paul Micarelli
In my backyard, I noticed this massive swarm creating a superhighway of ants through the grass.
As I zoomed in, there was a writhing mass of thousands of ants crawling over each other.
Video & Editing by Paul Micarelli
After sitting through the entire interview for Axios that Jonathan Swan had with Donald Trump, I was just overwhelmed as usual by the sheer stupidity & derangement that The President of the United States exudes.
My wife asked me several times during the interview, "Is this fucking real?" I agreed, it felt like a bad fever dream in which nothing made sense, which left only a feeling of existential dread in any rational person.
I think the camera work and video editing did a lot to give a sense of realness to Trump's presence... which naturally results in being completely surreal.
Also, Mr. Swan's ability to conduct basic journalism by following up as much as possible, & calling out Trump's inevitable torrent of bullshit, highlighted the utter foolishness of the man in one of the most important positions on Earth.
A genius named Justin T. Brown took this footage and created something truly spectacular - Trump interviewing himself, to make the impossibly crazy even crazier.
