April 21, 2010 by admin.

My wife and I were walking today and talking about the impending date of December 21, 2012. This day is eventful because of the so-called Mayan “long count” calendar. For thousands of years the calendar has accurately ticked off the time, but when a few days before Christmas of 2012 comes up, nothing. Nada. Zippo. The calendar runs out and there is a big blank as if the universe ceases to exist.

This has some seriously interesting implications, and folks from entertainment venues like The History Channel have started running shows about 2012 more frequently than before. A night or two ago I recorded a History Channel HD show linking the famous 16th century seer Nostradamus prophecies with this fatalistic date. The show indicates that Nostradamus–an astrologer who avidly watched the nighttime sky–was able to see this forthcoming time. Like anything else Nostradamus writes, we’re not talking here about pleasant things. Nostradamus was definitely a fire and brimstone curmudgeon whose writings do not speak of daisies and sweetness and light, but of war, bloodshed, violence and world catastrophes. But lots of what he did see has amazingly come true.

Before Christians dismiss Nostradamus as a false prophet because he was an astrologer, I want to tell you a quick story to see if I can temper that instinct a little bit. When my wife and I toured Israel the first time in 1996, we visited what was refuted to be the oldest synagogue on the earth in a little town near the Sea of Galilee called Tiberias. The thing that was most notable about this synagogue wasn’t that the tiny 1″ square floor tiles making up the center of the synagogue were still mostly intact, it was that they represented a giant zodiac. Turns out the ancient Hebrews and other people groups watched the nighttime skies and were quite aware of the rhythm of the circling sea of stars above them. For example, we know that the three wise men found Jesus by virtue of the stars. Of course we cannot pretend to say they were all faithful followers of YHWH, but we can say that the majority of them earnestly believed in the Ancient one and were not interested in some other form of worship. That is, they were not worshiping the stars, but looking for the One who had been prophesied.

Ever since seeing that zodiac in the synagogue, I have rethought my position about astrology. I still do not think people should be living their lives based upon their daily horoscope, and I still think that reading Tarot cards is a wicked thing to be doing–it is witchcraft. You should be looking to God only for your information about your future. That said, it is clear to me that the ancient Hebrews did not harbor the same sort of thinking we more conservative Christians today do about astrology. They believed that God put signs and stories in the sky by which people could chart their lives.

At one time I used to tell people I thought Nostradamus was in the same league as Edgar Cayce and Kalil Gibran–he had a familiar spirit, not of God, and someone we should not be listening to him. Today I am not so sure. Maybe Nostradamus was so hooked into the movements of constellations and planets that he was more of an astronomer than an astrologer. Where his prophetic capabilities come from, I am still not sure–maybe they’re evil, maybe they’re from God. But if you take a spin in the Bible through I and II Kings, you’ll read about prophets of God who were closer to God’s ear than others. For example Elijah and Elisha were clearly right in line with the Father, whereas there were other lesser prophets who were not mentioned in the scriptures but who were nonetheless prophets. The one thing I can say is that Nostradamus did not urge people to worship someone or something other than the one true God. Near as i know he didn’t urge people to worship anything at all. He simply wrote his quatrains. If anyone out there has conflicting information to what I’ve just written, please feel free to post your thoughts. I am not out to make Nostradamus look like a great man of God, because I don’t think he was, but I do think his prophecies are interesting and serve as compelling reading when we consider 12-21-12.

The History Channel show draws some pretty interesting intersections between Nostradamus and the sun. Evidently Nostradamus predicted a time near our infamous 12-21-12 date when the sun would go nuts. He predicts there will be some heavy solar activity, the extent of which we have seen before. Some solar scientists say we are in the 13th solar cycle (each of which is roughly 12 years or so) and this 13th cycle is thought to be the most irritable of all.

At the same time, astronomers are saying that the planets will go into an exact alignment that only happens once every 26,000 years. It is called the “galactic alignment.”

Here’s the interesting problem: If the sun gives off too huge of a solar flare, there is a possibility that the earth’s magnetic poles could shift, which would cause things that rely on magnetism–motors and gyroscopes to name a couple–to behave very erratically or not work at all. This could conceivably cause all motorized equipment relying on magnets to pull copper windings around a center point to stop, which is bad for things like powerplants, submarines, and the like. No power, no lights, computers, refrigeration, and so forth. Everything would come to a virtual standstill everywhere on the planet. Anywhere that electricity is being generated by powerplants relying on turbines, there would be no power. Batteries would eventually give up, and finally the world would fall into pre-electricity darkness.

Think about this for a moment: If the poles changed and didn’t exactly flip over in a 180 degree turn, but landed somewhere opposite one another in a completely different part of the world, it may take us quite a while to even figure out where the poles are at. Once we knew where the magnetic poles were we could begin rebuilding, but not before.

If motors, computers, cars, boats, trains and other motorized machinery fails, then finally the battery-backed-up computer equipment goes the same way, we are officially back to the horse and buggy days. People will be heating their homes with wood, and lighting them with candles and kerosene or oil lamps. Most grocery stores will quickly run out of food because they’re being looted. Files stored on computer hard drives may or may not survive–who knows what records will be available once the situation is rectified? Moreover, how long will it take before it’s rectified? Months? Years? Certainly not just a few days.

The president will declare a state of martial law, but who can enforce it? None of the jets work, or the helicopters, tanks, jeeps, or ships so even though the military has the orders, it does not have the might. There will be roving gangs of thugs. People will have to defend their property with guns or whatever else they might have. They will likely band together to help each other guard against evil people. Community gardens will spring up wherever there is some soil, though people will have to haul water because the city’s water pumps aren’t working. Sewer systems will ultimately back up because the wastewater treatment plant’s machinery isn’t working. A quiet will settle over the land–even quieter than when all air traffic was halted on 9/11 because there will be no cars or building machinery working.

If the problem lasts too long, various little village systems and governances will rise up, complete with stores, saloons, town hall, sheriff and jail.

In other words, time basically resets itself. Maybe this is why the Mayan calendar saw nothing past this date. It’s not that time stops, it just resets.

I do not believe this date reflects the rapture of Christians from the earth, but I suppose it is possible. My personal eschatology says that the rapture occurs then there is at least a 3 1/2 year period in which the Antichrist reigns in power, demands each person to serve him, comes completely against Israel and ultimately winds up defeated, but only thanks to the hand of the Almighty God. Whether Christians are raptured before the seven year Tribulation period, right at the onset of the Tribulation, or somewhere after the Tribulation has started does not violate my eschatology. Knowing exact dates would.

A World Net Daily article regarding the possibility of the second return of Jesus being etched in the nighttime sky validates the idea of astronomy/astrology as an early Hebrew pasttime.

As if that isn’t scary enough, another issue to think about is the subduction of the tectonic plates underlying the San Andreas fault. The (terrible) movie 2012 included this possibility and it is certainly not out of reason. Think of two huge earthen plates a dozen or more kilometers thick. (One kilometer is roughly 2/3 of a mile.) The two plates are butting one another right underneath San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, all the way up to Seattle. One plate slowly gives way to another and begins to slide under its stronger neighbor. One day–clang!–the lower plate completes its slide underneath its neighbor and with it comes a monstrous earthquake of a size never before recorded. Entire cities, towns and geographies are reshaped, with millions of people killed in the process. The movie 2012 envisions a huge tsunami along with the devastation, and I do not think this is out of reason either.

Could a huge solar flare cause such an event? I don’t know. My guess is know one knows. Could the subduction occur near the same time as the solar flare? Why not? There is certainly nothing to stop it. Like the housing bubble bursting, most people are keenly aware that it’s just a matter of time before the San Andreas Fault shoe drops.

Or, consider a giant upside-down volcano, one of the biggest on the planet. An upside-down volcano is called a caldera, and there’s one right in the middle of Yellowstone National Park. What if the caldera decided to erupt? What would happen? At best, a highly radiated area covering 1/4 or more of the US, with a dark cloud covering the majority of the country–a miniature “nuclear winter” as it were. We have seen some recent evidence of what this would be like with the Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland. Air travel over Europe virtually halted overnight, stranding thousands of travelers for a week, and putting a chink in the Airlines’ schedules for weeks to come. And this volcano is very far northwest of Europe, not anywhere as close to Europeans as the Yellowstone caldera is to US and Canadian citizens. Once that radiated ash gets up in the jet stream it’s anyone’s guess as to what kind of devastation will follow.

What if a solar flare caused the caldera to erupt in addition to the plate subduction? Or what if the subduction caused the eruption? What if all this activity happens on 12-21-2012? Are there enough first responders?

Many remember the year 2000 bug–so-called “Y2K.” This was a man-made problem that, while mischievous, was not capable of nearly the power the above-listed God-made things carry with them. If, God forbid, such events took place, let me ask you a question: Would Barack Obama or any of the other politicians matter at that point in time? What would you be thinking about? Nationalized health insurance? The Colorado Rockies or Denver Broncos?

Hardly, my friend. You’d be thinking first about survival and next about your life in the next world–whether it exists or not, and if so, what your fate may be in it. And you’d be thinking the same thing about your family.

Even if nothing happens 12-21-12–if it is a non-event like Y2K was–nonetheless, it should make us think about the possibilities and what we were really put on the earth for. These next two years are a time for introspection, for gaining back ones’ spirituality, finding God for the first time or afresh and rededicating oneself anew, treating other people as you would have them treat you, and preparing for One of whom John the Baptist said he was “…unworthy to untie His sandals.”

There is a God, there is an afterlife–a life beyond this earth–and He has a place for you in it. Now is the time to rethink and reconsider yourself. Now is the time to find the spiritual you.

Posted in Technology, Energy, Politics, Spiritual | No Comments »

February 25, 2009 by admin.

Daniel Pink, a bestselling author of business and technological books has announced in his latest book, A Whole New Mind, that the Information Age is dead. It has been replaced with what Pink calls “The Conceptual Age.”

The idea is this:  The simplest Information Technology (IT) activities have been outsourced to Bangalore, India, China, El Salvadore, the Philippines, and even Viet Nam. And rightly so. Why pay someone $60K annually to write elementary code a machine could be taught to write? In fact in the book Pink mentions a company, Appligenics, that has come up with a system that can write in one second the amount of code a developer would take all day to write (about 400 lines).

So there’s really no need for the kind of coder we had in the 80’s and 90’s. Been there, done that.

What Pink is driving at is much more interesting, and a space that I’ve lived in for a long, long time. He talks about people who think with both their right and left brains. Coders, engineers and bean-counters are highly left-brained: analytical, systematic, project-management oriented. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s only half of the equation, heck, maybe only one-quarter of it.

But that’s not where the innovation lives! Innovation is when, like in the 1939 movie Babes In Arms Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, desperate for extra money to help their parents, note that an empty barn would be a great place to hold a (paid admission) song and dance show. “Hey!” Rooney cries, “We’ve got the barn, we could have a show!”

Imagine a smelly old horse barn. Straw, horse puckies, mud, buckets, tack, run-down wooden stalls. Could you look into a barn and imagine a throng of people dressed in their evening finest, listening to a full big-band and the Rooney/Garland powerhouse belting out songs? Um, probably not.

But that’s exactly what Pink is talking about. What is needed today are people who can see connections and syntax. You Tube is a great example. Someone had a digital camcorder, shot some film and said “Hey, we’ve got this here barn, we could have a show!” (Translate: “Hey, this thing is pretty cool! Wouldn’t it be great if we could set up a web site and allow anyone who wants to the ability to upload videos? We’ll probably get some amazing content!”

And they did. In a short time they sold the whole thing to Google for tons of cash, and retired.

The problem is there aren’t many people who seem to have the ability to look at a barn and see a show. I blame this on the state of education in America. It has to do with the complete lack of training people have been given in this area. It’s the direct result of really crappy educational practices that are linear and myopic, not holistic at all.

Unfortunately, until this situation is rectified, the innovation will occur only by the lone wolves of the world: The Mickey Rooney’s of today, if you will. Those who dare to throw the friggin’ box away–to hell with thinking outside of it!

Pink goes on to enumerate what he calls “the six high-concept high-touch senses [that] can help develop the whole new mind this era demands:”

• Not just function, but also design
• Not just argument but also story
• Not just focus but also symphony
• Not just logic, but also empathy
• Not just seriousness but also play
• Not just accumulation but also meaning

People who live in that space where design and technology meet, those who take risks, who see blends and mixes, who understand how two (or more) things connect when others may not be able to see–these are the people who will be wildly successful.

I have a lot of students in my classes who operate almost entirely out of their left brain, or their right, but very few who are able to transcend left- or right-brain-ness and operate within the nexus of conceptuality. I really try to work on my students to understand and value the notion that we’re done with the Information Age, and we’re moving into a completely, radically, new place.

I guess the place to start with that is 1939 and then move forward from there.

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December 16, 2008 by admin.

We bought a Tivo box several months ago and really like it. Our Tivo box goes way beyond the standard cable Digital Video Recorder (DVR) box you get from your cable or satellite supplier.

Our Tivo can connect to Amazon and Netflix movies–a huge plus. The other night we discovered various web downloads we could obtain as well–from a host of odd providers (such as Revision3) where you can get a variety of interesting Internet TV shows such as ScamHow and Burt Monroy’s Photoshop show.

We had a blast playing different You-Tube videos with my granddaughters the other night. There are so many different interesting, untapped videos to watch, complete with synapses, viewer votes (like in the tens of millions) and other valuable elements.

Now that Boston Legal has gone off the air, I think TV has permanently changed. What about you?

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