Audio Float #3

First half was settling in with minimal visuals, there was a memorable experience of the whole tank illuminating blue light from beneath me and a radiating feeling of 'glow'.

After 2nd Crash Test Dummies song I became aware of the temperature of the water being a bit cool and got out. I ran the pumps and checked the gauges and found that one of them was slightly unplug so only 1 heating pad was working. Fixed this and watched best of Dune quotes and did a load of laundry. 

Re-entered tank @ 12:45. Started where I left off on the play list. 

I don't know where to start. I entered the void quickly and wisps of smoke and coloured patterns emerged. 

During the heavy beat of music I had a overly red hued vision of a group of men in ski masks opening the tank and grabbing me out by my legs. My heat rate increased and I immediately formed a small flame and focused all that emotion and energy into it, more images fueled the flame brighter and brighter. Faces of orcs, goblins, genlocks, and shades went into the flame and as it grew I was able to force the flame back down into the candle through my will alone. This then transitioned quiet well into Elegy where the stars opened up and I explored the nebula's and stars across time for a while. 

Then as the next song came on I was overcome with a quickening sense of stimuli as clouds of gas spun and millennia passed as a planet was formed from the star dust. This then lead to what felt like information overload as my eyes darted around and tho used of flashing images of nature and its beauty and cruelness was witnessed. As cities grew and crumpled across the land I zoomed out and saw a starship fire something at the planet and with a bang the atmosphere ignited and all life died as the planet burned. 

It was so much for me that when the song ended I was breathing heavily and I suddenly remembered the name of the song, Pangaea, and I realized I just witnessed the creation and destruction of a world with my minds eye. 

I then underwent a wide range of deeply emotional moments as Kara's Coordinates and Assault on the Colony played. There were obvious differences between the two dominant tones of mood through colour.

The more aggressive drum beats and musical pieces were always red hued and some images included a predator sitting upon a black carved stone throne on top of a vast pile of skulls. Hundreds of evil faces with vivid features flashed by from almost all recognizable lore and fiction that I can think of, which had a distinct anime feel to the images. The more pleasant pieces had me uplifted into the stars again surrounded in flashes of whites, blues, and greens. It was simply breath taking. 

As the surface of the sun came on I was immediately placed with a front row seat for a storm of solar flares across a star. This was from a window in a ship resembling the one in the Doctor Who episode 42. Also, during this I heard an arrangement of quotes from Dune going through my head with me chanting internally "the sleeper has awoken". 

Repeatedly throughout both floats I had reoccurring image of a direct front view of an owl and coyote. This were very distinct and overlaid many different parts of my visions. 

Then It's a Sin to Tell a Lie came on and I sang along and went through my 'wake up' movements and looked back upon my experience and laughed. I was suddenly alert and wanting to write down the experience. Subsequently the selection of Bach's cello suites was a poor choice because I often use it for background music while working or mentally focused on a task and was unable to slip back into the void. I emerged from the tank refreshed and full of laughter. 

Dinosaurs in Rocketships Series: Part 2.

Manifold: Insight

So, after putting hours into reading Stephen Baxter’s Manifold series I’ve tried to apply many of his concepts to our economic situation. Obviously we haven’t encountered an alien species that destroys our rooted ideas of keeping track of history, or giving up on R&D into continued technological advancement. Sometimes I wish those aliens would just show up. Give us a little push forward.
While crawling my RSS feeds and the New Scientist it is obvious there is not any hint of invention or innovation disappearing anytime soon. Instead I see a lack of moving beyond the first stages and pushing their ideas out into a practical use for industries.
I guess I just wish I read about more Malenfant’s and Paulis’ in our society. I admire the ideology of being not concerned on the small details and making sure that every aspect is new and expensive when designing plans to utilize resources from space.
“If it gets the job done then use it.”
Their engineering and business perspective of utilizing the information available and making the best decision possible instead of straining away for years and years just to specialize on some unoccupied technological problem. That is what we need more of.
Hold on. Let me taking a step back here and provide some context to this.
Hypothetical thought question:
Objective is to acquire resources/energy from the moon.
Is it more important to focus on the acquirement technologies needed or the transportation of these.
I know little or next to nothing on running a business, but I’d put my time and energy to acquirement. Let’s find that ability to earn a projected profit before the cost of transportation occurs.
If you mine a single carbonaceous asteroid you would literally change the global economy once your first shipment arrived.

To me this is where Baxter’s excellent ideas of the foreseeable future really hit hard to heart and mind. If I had a million dollars, I’d spend all my time connecting unconnected dots in what could become more efficient for humankind over vast sections of time and space.

Now to continue last minute shopping for more things to place on my tables.

Dinosaurs in Rocketships Series: Part 1.

The Naked Sun is Always Brighter in Space

Just finished reading The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov . Amazed and delighted again by the story that was revealed. The truth behind many of the ideas were well thought out and influential into many other emergent thoughts that have been implemented in my mind over the last few years.There was a speech at the end of the novel that seemed to enforce so many things about human behavior that is cumulating recently. It was stated thusly.

“We are better suited than they [the Spacers] for exploration and colonization. We have population pressures [and environmental resource pressures] to push us and a sapid turnover of generation to keep us supplied with the young and reckless.”

This seems to be a point that is missed in the current ideas of space exploration. It shall take generations and small steps for it to occur. There is a BBC Horizon Documentary called Moon For Sale which hints at the goals of some countries exploration and exploitation of the closet space rock we can get to. There is the potential that Helium 3 can provided an abundant source of energy through nuclear fusion for earth and future space endeavors.

This may all seem to be a sci-fi fans wish come true. And it is. Aren’t most scientists as children enthralled by some sort of science fiction, be it Star Trek, Asimov, or some other form. They take this childish dreams and fantasies and while there are formally specialized to their field and careers by contemporary education systems they can combine their factually knowledge with their inspirations and dreams.

The Venus Project which I’ve been looking into lately also seems to be a collection of many innovative theorists ideas molded together to forge a new society where labor, money, and suffering can be eliminated for the benefit of humankind.

I’ve heard that we shouldn’t be worrying about space until we can handle our own affairs here on earth. This seems to be a little ignorant of the fact that we as individuals are becoming more accustomed to multi-tasking. Our societies, establishments, and governments have been multi-tasking for decades now. From the Kublai Kahn admitting his faults in knowledge and asking professional consultants for advise on how to mange the whole of Asia during his reign to NASA manning mission to the moon while world politics still continued on with the economy, social ramifications, industry becoming more productive while cutting out the human factor of labor.

If we can combine both a perspective that unites the scientific and technological advances that will come from human ingenuity in dealing with arising problems in space, these in turn may be applied to situations on earth. The wind always ends up blowing both ways.