Frankly, I’m astonished at what we’ve done in science in the past decade. We’ve learned the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating, at all odds with past models. Scientists are now creating an entire array of artificial organs, from kidneys to eyes to prosthetic limbs; while still fairly primitive, it would have sounded like science fiction to me ten years ago in 1999. The team at CERN is trying to prove the existent of the higgs bosun with the most powerful particle collider ever made. And NASA is finally getting off its ass and replacing the outdated, unsafe, horrifically expensive, 70s-era space shuttle design.

It is my belief that science will continue make great progress. I believe we have only begun to see the full impact of modern computational resources; imagine what it’d be like to have flying vehicles that pilot themselves, or robots that build cities, or even a cure to things like cancer and diabetes.

Today I’m yearning those quieter days (quieter in my mind).

This post made my day since I am having a similar moment right now in trying to step back and do some strategic thinking. For me I’d probably have to go back to my 1989self, but even then I was tooling about bulletin board systems (BBS) on my Commodore 64. But I sure had a lot more time to just sit and THINK.

I think this gets back to Audra’s comments about critical thinking in the first cast of the Cosmo’s podcast arc. I wonder if “we,” as a human race, are truly capable of discovering/rediscovering the mysteries of the universe in this day and age of information overload. Unfortunately, there is little or no thought put into teaching, learning, or conducting critical thinking these days and we have a vast majority of people reacting to the information they receive rather than processing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love an iphone, but since my family has a verizon phone contract, and since the kids love being on the same netowrk as their firends, I doubt I’ll be able to get one. It doesn’t mean that I’m not a similar information junkie. Whenever I travel, I carry two i-pods (an early nano for running with nikeplus and a 3rd gen nano for watching videos on the plane with my noise cancellation headphones), my verizon voyager, and my work blackberry. I love love to cut that down to at least two. Just an iphone and a blackberry.

However, every year I run into an information cone-of-silence. My family owns a lake home on Balsam Lake in Wisconsin. For better or for worse, both mobile companies (verizon and T-Mobile) do not get signal there. My DVR is not waiting for me every night, and there is no computer access. It turns out to be the best weeks of my year, and I return refreshed and with a peaceful mind. I only wish I could get there more often.

~Shooter Out

“You’re not married yet?”