Totality: did you experience it, and if so was it a religious experience?

enorbet · 08-30-2017, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001

I think you'll be safe, enorbet.

I will admit, I try to take the middle ground wherever possible, sometimes (depending on the issue) I will agree or disagree/take a stand where need be. I would say I'm probably center-left politically speaking, but usually I find the truth is somewhere in-between, I'm not going to lie. But I would rather take the middle ground wherever possible, once again, I'm not going to lie.

I do think your a fearless debater and I DO honesty respect that about you.

I do find your posts interesting and food for thought, keep it up!

Then I hope this is at least decent brunch.

Firstly, thank you for your complimentary words but being fearless on the Webz isn't much of a risk or a given as an honorable attribute. For a demonstration of a highly opinionated middle ground, consider this. Apparent anonymity as it exists on the web is not intrinsically good and good only. It allows for both Negative, trolling with a puffed up chest and a sense of sanctimonious righteousness and/or a strong sense of conquest and often, schadenfreude, as well as well as the Positive, an opportunity to genuinely speak one's mind even on "dangerous" subjects where the only fear need be from words, rather than from ostracism or any form of retribution that affects ones' real life. So in one sense what it is in terms of morality is neutral with the only value created by how each individual employs such a relatively fear-free environment. Breing brave isn't the absence of fear. It is being afraid and doing what is right and proper anyway.

Those who take joy in the misery of others, or whose over-developed sense of competition leads them to succeed at any cost, often including the apparent "destruction" of someone else, even if that "success" includes the abject failure to actually stand for something beyond one's shored up ego, leads to a No Code condition where the only "principle" is some childish sense of Me First! and worse. I'm sad for such people but because they can be so hurtful, to themselves and others, any reasonably objective, principled person must fight that sort of petulant child behavior at every important instance, even IRL but especially online, for if one won't do it there where it's easy, how can one possibly do it where there is actual risk of repercussion? In my not so humble opinion, of course.

On the Positive side, the Net is a totally new and wonderful opportunity to meet peoples' minds, free from prejudice for body, age, gender, so-called race, religion (or lack of it) ... whatever else we carry around IRL. Ultimately we all hope to achieve some sort of balance between our own immediate personal interests while hopefully improving our larger environment, that of our community. Now that "community" is becoming global and even those brought up and living under repressive regimes, whether familial (immediate) or some external group like neighbors, nation, etc. can feel free to speak their minds on what can't be spoken IRL without severe consequences.

Benjamin Franklin pointed out the most fundamental nature of Free Speech, that without it, no freedom is possible, and with just it, all others can be attained. I can't imagine anything else so important and to all of us, each and every person on the planet, with the only possible exceptions those childish, nasty few for whom success isn't success unless others also fail.

Who will not rise to such an easy but also extremely important challenge? The Web is an exceedingly powerful tool, and hopefully it will engender grownup responsibility online and IRL.

Your kind words are pleasant to hear but undeserved and possibly irrelevant as, at best, I am only a tiny cog in a vast machinery. After all, there are nearly 8,000,000,000 of us now, all "on the same boat". One tiny cog can be a keystone in a great movement. It's easier to note negative ones so if and when you ever doubt this, consider Lee Harvey Oswald. As sad and distasteful as it is to recognize, there can be no doubt that one man literally changed the future history of all Mankind, irrevocably, and probably not for the better. I think more individuals need to step up to do whatever they can to counter such detrimental men and their actions.

We can start with such notions as seeing eclipses for what they truly are, natural, explainable phenomena, and learn in the process how easy it is for our Earthbound eyes to see falsely and rely on agenda or fantasy. To me, a flower isn't less beautiful or wondrous because I know a little about the Nitrogen cycle, DNA, and photosynthesis. It is even more wonderful, as are Total Eclipses.

jsbjsb001 · 08-30-2017, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by enorbet

Then I hope this is at least decent brunch.

Firstly, thank you for your complimentary words but being fearless on the Webz isn't much of a risk or a given as an honorable attribute. For a demonstration of a highly opinionated middle ground, consider this. Apparent anonymity as it exists on the web is not intrinsically good and good only. It allows for both Negative, trolling with a puffed up chest and a sense of sanctimonious righteousness and/or a strong sense of conquest and often, schadenfreude, as well as well as the Positive, an opportunity to genuinely speak one's mind even on "dangerous" subjects where the only fear need be from words, rather than from ostracism or any form of retribution that affects ones' real life. So in one sense what it is in terms of morality is neutral with the only value created by how each individual employs such a relatively fear-free environment. Breing brave isn't the absence of fear. It is being afraid and doing what is right and proper anyway.

Those who take joy in the misery of others, or whose over-developed sense of competition leads them to succeed at any cost, often including the apparent "destruction" of someone else, even if that "success" includes the abject failure to actually stand for something beyond one's shored up ego, leads to a No Code condition where the only "principle" is some childish sense of Me First! and worse. I'm sad for such people but because they can be so hurtful, to themselves and others, any reasonably objective, principled person must fight that sort of petulant child behavior at every important instance, even IRL but especially online, for if one won't do it there where it's easy, how can one possibly do it where there is actual risk of repercussion? In my not so humble opinion, of course.

On the Positive side, the Net is a totally new and wonderful opportunity to meet peoples' minds, free from prejudice for body, age, gender, so-called race, religion (or lack of it) ... whatever else we carry around IRL. Ultimately we all hope to achieve some sort of balance between our own immediate personal interests while hopefully improving our larger environment, that of our community. Now that "community" is becoming global and even those brought up and living under repressive regimes, whether familial (immediate) or some external group like neighbors, nation, etc. can feel free to speak their minds on what can't be spoken IRL without severe consequences.

Benjamin Franklin pointed out the most fundamental nature of Free Speech, that without it, no freedom is possible, and with just it, all others can be attained. I can't imagine anything else so important and to all of us, each and every person on the planet, with the only possible exceptions those childish, nasty few for whom success isn't success unless others also fail.

Who will not rise to such an easy but also extremely important challenge? The Web is an exceedingly powerful tool, and hopefully it will engender grownup responsibility online and IRL.

Your kind words are pleasant to hear but undeserved and possibly irrelevant as, at best, I am only a tiny cog in a vast machinery. After all, there are nearly 8,000,000,000 of us now, all "on the same boat". One tiny cog can be a keystone in a great movement. It's easier to note negative ones so if and when you ever doubt this, consider Lee Harvey Oswald. As sad and distasteful as it is to recognize, there can be no doubt that one man literally changed the future history of all Mankind, irrevocably, and probably not for the better. I think more individuals need to step up to do whatever they can to counter such detrimental men and their actions.

We can start with such notions as seeing eclipses for what they truly are, natural, explainable phenomena, and learn in the process how easy it is for our Earthbound eyes to see falsely and rely on agenda or fantasy. To me, a flower isn't less beautiful or wondrous because I know a little about the Nitrogen cycle, DNA, and photosynthesis. It is even more wonderful, as are Total Eclipses.

I do agree with a LOT of what you have said here, but I don't really what to go off-topic. So maybe we should discuss further in a more suitable thread, which I'm happy to do, if you want.

enorbet · 09-01-2017, 05:50 AM

Here's what Totality looks like from the moon.... well at least from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

-- Totality - From the Moon's POV --

sundialsvcs · 09-01-2017, 08:58 AM

The book, American Eclipse, by David Baron (ISBN 978-1-63149-016-3), includes this account of the Eclipse of 1878 from the viewpoint of some people who had ascended Pike's Peak, and who therefore could look down at other peaks along the eclipse path.

Quote:

"I confess that it was the most terrifying sight I ever saw." The tourists who had gathered on the northern lip of the Pikes Peak summit saw what appeared to be a monstrous, silent storm rushing forward. It was "a solid, palpable body of darkness, rising up in a great wall," as Mary Rose Smith described it. A companion called it "an angry black cloud of inky blackness ... advancing with startling rapidity as though bent on destroying all before it." The impenetrable curtain engulfed th distant peaks. One by one, those lit by the sun's last rays popped out of sight.

[...]

Maria Mitchell turned her head and caught the great shaft of gloom as it swiftly departed. To a sheepherder south of Denver, the shadow "looked like a black carpet sliding over the plains." To those viewing from above, on Pikes Peak, it was "a ronded ball of darkness with an orange-yellow border fading into the light pea-green of the landscape." They watched as it rushed toward the remote horizon, in the direction of Texas, then seemed to lift off the earth and recede into space.

MensaWater · 09-01-2017, 10:15 AM

Cool.

I drove up Pike's Peak a few years back. At 14,000+ feet the lower oxygen level gave me an instant headache. It gave me more appreciation for how bad it must be ascending Everest. But the view was worth it. Apparently they have a road race to the top of it every year.

Also there is a train that will take you there - a friend of mine recently posted pictures from that ride.

enorbet · 09-14-2017, 04:36 PM

Best eclipse video I've yet seen

-- Close Up Real Time Totality --

ondoho · 09-15-2017, 01:22 AM

^ problem is, it doesn't look like that in reality.
to be able to film it at all, you have to adjust camera sensitivity to settings way below that of a human eye.
and the coloring is a bit unrealistic, too, i'd say...

MensaWater · 09-15-2017, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

^ problem is, it doesn't look like that in reality.

Yes. As I've said multiple times no pictures or videos no matter how cool can match having seen it with the naked eye.

enorbet · 09-15-2017, 03:43 PM

Just FTR a telescope with proper filters and a USB connected CCD sensor to send the image to your laptop is still reality, just a different one from naked eye, thus the close up magnification only possible with a lens of more than human eye power. I truly wish my eyes could see an individual atom but now that there are kits to build a tunneling electron microscope for what most teens can afford, I may yet live to see one. Example - -- Cheap DIY Tunneling Microscope Hack --

enorbet · 09-15-2017, 04:09 PM

Just FTR a telescope with proper filters and a USB connected CCD sensor to send the image to your laptop is still reality, just a different one from naked eye, thus the close up magnification only possible with a lens of more than human eye power. I truly wish my eyes could see an individual atom but now that there are kits to build a tunneling electron microscope for what most teens can afford, I may yet live to see one. Example - -- Cheap DIY Tunneling Microscope Hack --

Example ====>>>