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State of the Planet: 2025 Edition

It's been a tough year for a lot of us. As we count down the hours left in 2025, I suspect the overwhelming feeling is "relief" that this year is over. And I can't say I blame folks. Even the people who were looking forward to this year would probably say that it didn't turn out like how they expected. But there were still good things that happened this year. Let's list them off:

Trachoma was eliminated in Egypt, Senegal, Burundi, Mauritania, Fiji, Togo and Papua New Guinea, bringing one of the world's oldest plagues a step closer to eradication.

For the third straight year the world produced record amounts of wheat, grain and rice, all the while the total amount of farmland has dropped. Global hunger is now dropping for the first time since the pandemic.

Global unemployment is now at its lowest level since 1991 and 80 percent of the world's adults now have bank accounts.

The US had its lowest murder rate since the FBI started tracking that statistic in 1960 and the global murder rate continues to decline.

Strides were made with gene therapy techniques, allowing for several medical breakthroughs. From allowing deaf people to regain hearing, to successfully treating Huntington's Disease for the first time.

Solar power is now the largest source of energy in California, providing nearly 40% of the electricity for the state. Meanwhile China's greenhouse emissions continue to decline as they transition to green energy to the tune of 330 gigawatts of solar and wind power.

The High Seas Treaty was ratified by 79 nations, giving nations a legal framework to protect oceans outside of their territorial boundaries. This could result in the largest network of ocean sanctuaries ever.

The Ozone Layer continues to heal, with scientists estimate the hole could start to close up in the 2030s and may completely disappear by the middle of the century.

Liechtenstein and Thailand both legalized same-sex marriage, and the US Supreme Court upheld those protections by refusing to hear a case that sought to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.

Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to successfully land on the Moon.

Observations of exoplanet K2-18b reveal that its atmosphere contains certain trace gasses that, on Earth, are only produced by living organisms.

Leo XIV becomes the first American to be elected Pope of the Catholic Church.

The No Kings Protests in the United States became the largest single day protests in American history, with estimates indicating that over 1% of the entire American population attended a protest.

The Axiom4 mission was launched, its crew consisting of the first Polish and Indian astronauts since the end of the Cold War.

If you missed all of that, you'd be forgiven. But now that you, dear reader, are in the future, hopefully you'll remember the strides that were made in 2025. Even in a year where it felt like it was constantly one step backwards, there were still moments that we took a step forwards.

Of course, there are those who will do their best to hide that fact. Not out of modesty or shyness, but out of malice or contempt. Remember that I told you on this very missive a couple of years ago about perception: that it's important to see the world as it really is, not as how certain individuals want you to see it. So I've been having some trouble picking a word for this year because there were several I could've gone with, but I think I found the one that fits. The word of the year is..."foundation." We all have to start somewhere when it comes to improvement. Whether it's in our environment, our workplace, our nation, or our lives. We all need a solid foundation on which to build something better. Especially in a world where people are trying to bring is down, it's all the more imperative to reinforce our foundation.

The world that many of us have fought for remains frustratingly out of reach. And I suspect a big part of the anxiety and anger this year was processing that frustration. But the tide is turning. We've done work to plant the seeds of the victory that we all desire, but can't obtain just yet.

There is still work to be done, and there will be many hardships on the road ahead. But take heart in that the work you did this year will make the work to come all the easier. That the lessons you learned in 2025 will pay for themselves in the New Year and beyond. And there will still be those who seek to make the world worse, but their time is limited and our time is just beginning. So when the bastards get you down, just remember that there's always another round to come.

Even if the bad guys win today...they won't win tomorrow. As always, there is one more good thing that happened this year. But I don't know what it is, you do. Share your favorite moment(s) of the year, whether it's here or elsewhere. Remind yourself and your loved ones of all that you've done this year, and commit yourselves to the task of all that there is to come. Happy New Year, friends. I'll see you in 2026.

State of the Planet: 2024 Edition

And so here we are again, a tradition like no other (though it really should be adopted by more folks, but that's just my opinion on the matter). As we count down the final hours of 2024, let's take one last look back at all the good things that happened this year. The triumphs, the achievements and all the niceities that the people running your socials don't want you to see.

Sweden became a member of NATO, the final Nordic nation to join the alliance.

The EU passed the Artificial Intelligence act, the first governing body to regulate the usage of AI.

The G7 nations agreed to phase out unabated coal power by 2035.

Grizzly bears are returning to the North Cascades.

A new drug to treat schizophrenia was approved by the FDA.

Malaria vaccines are now being distributed in 17 African countries where the disease is endemic, saving thousands of children.

Gene therapy was used to reverse a particular type of deafness.

AI models were trained to spot the signs of Parkinsons disease, even years before the onset of the illness.

Arizona announce they will buy out the medical debt of 1 million of its residents.

Poverty rates in Latin America and the Carribean have fallen to their lowest levels ever.

An mRNA vaccine developed from research on Covid-19 vaccines is being tested in England as a treatment for skin cancer.

92 year old Alfredo Aliaga became the oldest person to ever hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim.

A new species of Dinosaur was discovered in Montana.

The Summer Olympics were held in Paris and the world saw the athletic prowess of atheletes like Simone Biles and Noah Lyles (and Snoop Dog).

MICHIGAN WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (and beat Ohio State again).

It was a busy year on the Moon, both China and Japan landed craft on the surface, along with the Odysseus lander from Intuitive Machines, the first private spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.

The Sun was Eclipsed by the Moon on April 8, and just over a month later a series of solar flares created the most powerful geomagnetic storm since the 1980's, with the Aurora seen all over the world.

A great year for gaming as well, with titles like Helldivers II taking the world by storm.

Moo Deng. That is all.

You remember all that, yes? Because that's where I'm at. As always, you, dear reader, are in the future. Perhaps everything I listed here is fresh in your mind, or it's a distant memory.

To be sure this was a challenging year for many people, and the year to come may prove to be just as challenging. So I've thought for a bit about what word I should use to not only describe this year, but give us inspiration to face the year to come. And that word...is redemption. There are those who say that America is the land of second chances and I find that to be an attitude I agree with. Look at who just got elected President for proof of that (though I personally would argue that dude is on his 27,000th chance but that's neither here nor there). So it's easy to take a cynical view of this mindset: the idea that people who've done bad stuff are not punished for it but instead get a slap on the wrist and face no real consequences for their behavior. But there's another way to look at it. What is redemption but a comeback story, and if there's anything America loves, it's a comeback.

Look at Detroit. Just a decade ago, the city filed for bankruptcy. It's hard for a big city in the West to hit rock bottom, but Detroit managed it. Everyone had pretty much written the city off as nothing more than a decaying urban sprawl rife with gang violence and a improbably good baseball team (more or less). Many believed that Detroit would never again return to its previous glory. Well...to be sure the city is still a ways away from that, but it's certianly made a great comeback. The Detroit of today is a thriving city, one that can finally turns its eyes to the future. Does it have issues still? Yes. Can it be better? Absolutely. But it's no longer weighted down by the failures of its past. The Motor City can finally move forward.

Now this is not meant to be a prediction of how anything will go in the coming year, whether it's your football team's season or the term of your elected head of state. Instead, it's a call to action. Think about your own shortcomings and failings, the times where you let down or disappointed someone. Lord knows I have a list of those times that's about a mile long (and that's not even getting into the people I know over the internet).

But this is your chance to make that comeback. This is your chance to redeem yourself. Maybe you can't make things the way they were before, but what you can do is make yourself right. Once you feel you've done right by yourself, the rest will fall into place.

And extend the same courtesy to others in your life. We've all run into people who have disappointed us in certain ways, whether they voted differently than how we did, or they did something to personally betray us. That's a part of life. But consider that maybe their actions were not malicious but mistaken. Give them a chance to redeem themselves. Some will take it, some will not, but the least you can do is offer them the chance.

As we move forward into the New Year, many of us are going to be confronted with the knowledge that our beliefs and desires don't always line up with reality. We will be proven right about some things, but odds are we will be proven wrong about a lot more. And when someone you know turns out to be wrong about something? Don't belittle and mock. Allow them to see the error of their ways. Who knows? Perhaps you will be proven to be wrong about something, and the only way people will cut you some slack on such things is if you give them the same courtesy.

Let us use the moments where we are found to be mistaken as an opportunity. A moment to acknowledge that we are never too old to grow, to learn, or to be redeemed.

Have a great New Year's Eve, friends. Stay safe, have fun, and I'll see you all in 2025.

State of the Planet: 2023 Edition

Here we are once again. Hours to go until the new year is upon us. Even though when you read this you may very well be in the future, it's time once again to use the few hours we have left in 2023 to take a look at the state of the planet. And...what a state it is. I said last year that 2022 may have very well been the inflection point for this decade, the moment that the 2020's truly began to come into their own. I think that's held true for this year, even though it still feels like folks are trying to find their feet in some aspects. But even in all this confusion and uncertainty, there is still progress to be had. So let's take a look back at some of the good things that happened this year:

The European Parliment commited to ending the sale of petrol and diesel fueled vehicles in the EU by 2035 in an effort to push the adoption of electric vehicles.

The High Seas Treaty was signed by the member states of the UN, this treaty commits to the conservation of 30% of the world's oceans by 2030.

The ozone hole continues to shrink, projections have it on track to recover to 1980's levels by 2050.

Finland became the 31st member of NATO.

The World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 and Monkeypox are no longer a global health emergencies.

The first synthetic human embryo was created from the use of stem cells.

The African Union became the 21st permanent member of the G20 (wouldn't it be G21 now?).

Katalin Karikó & Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their contributions towards the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

The FDA approved of a treatment for sickle cell disease involving the use of the gene-editing technique Crispr.

Scientists announced the ability to use AI to decode people's thoughts from brain scans.

King Charles III ascended to the throne in the UK.

Pope Francis decreed that Roman Catholic priests would be allowed to bless same-sex marraiges.

Mexico decriminalized abortion at the federal level.

Despite projections of a recession, the United States economy experienced it's biggest growth since before the pandemic, adding 2.5 million jobs and inflation decreasing to 3.1%.

Spain won the Women's World Cup for the first time in a 1-0 victory over England.

SpaceX's fully stacked Starship flew twice this year, the largest rocket to ever fly (now if only they can get it to stop exploding).

The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) was launched by the European Space Agency, it's expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2031.

The European Ariane 5 rocket flew its 117th and final mission.

India's Chandrayaan-3 landed at the Moon's south pole, the first spacecraft to do so.

Oppenheimer and Barbie released the same day in theaters and the internet had a lot of fun with that.

Michigan went 13-0 agian and won their third straight Big Ten championship (BEAT BAMA!)

The Pistons actually won a game before the end of the year.

Remember all that? It's okay if you didn't. But once again, this is where I'm at right now.

You are in the future. Every single word on this post is already confined to the history books. How you remember this year is ultimately up to you, but keep in mind that the reason I make these posts is a counterpoint to the many forces out there who have a lot to gain if everyone is under the impression that everything is always terrible all the time.

And that leads me to my word of the year. It's a bit unusual but I think it fits:

The word of the year is: Perception.

At our core, all of us are truth seekers. Whether it's objective truth or personal truth, we all want to find it. One of the benefits of the internet age that, in my opinion, gets taken for granted is that we now have more information available to us than at any time in human history. Our ancestors had to deal with incomplete and contradictory information, but now we can find out pretty much anything in a matter of seconds.

But with that information comes a host of issues. We unfortunately live in an age where a commitment to objective truth is being overshadowed by a desire for personal truth. We're putting less emphasis on what is true and more on what we want to be true. Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan once said, our preferences do not determine what is true.

And there are those who seek to exploit this. There are people in this world that are willing to alter your own perception on how things are. But not to benefit you, but to benefit them. They wish to take advantage of your desire for your own beliefs to be validated for time evermore and turn that against you, so that they can create a better world for themselves even at your own expense.

But you can stop them. All you have to do is be aware that perception doesn't always equal reality.

2024 will be a consequential year. For one thing, it's an election year in the United States which means the stakes are high enough as is. There will be a lot of consequential events over the next 366 days (yay for leap years!), and a lot of people that you've never met will be trying to tell you how to think and what to believe.

Remember that at the end of the day, the most important values are the ones you hold dear. Just because something gets a lot of engagement on your socials doesn't mean it's the best way to contextualize something. Don't allow your beliefs and values to be compromised for the sake of fitting in with trends or trying to cash in on some vague notion of importance; especially when there's people trying to exploit that at your expense.

The first step to healthy civic engagement is a body politic that is informed and questioning. It will do you no harm to read up on whatever topic is trending on the socials. It will only make you informed and then you will be able to decide if a position or a policy is truly the right one for you, based on what you hold to be important.

Knowledge can be scary at times. It may cause us to reevaluate our position, as well as come to realize that something we felt or believed or even wished to be true now has to be totally re-examined in a new light. But all that is what helps us grow, that's what helps us evolve and become stronger.

They used to tell us that "knowledge is power." I can tell you that knowledge only makes you better.

Remember these words as you head into the new year. Rather than wishing for your perception to be reality, base your perception on reality. And then those who thrive on the exploitation of ignorance will have no power over you.

Have a great New Year's Eve, friends. And I'll see you all in 2024.

Helios.

State of the Planet: 2022 Edition

And so here we are again, with just hours to go before we finish another lap around the Sun.

I feel that in many ways, 2022 will be looked back on as the year we have once a decade: where the old order finally passes on to make way for the new order that will come to define this period. In addition to some major world-shaking events (we all know what those are), it felt like this was the year in which we set ourselves down on the paths that we shall follow for the next decade.

And despite some dark clouds that were present back in the Winter, I feel this year ends on a note of optimism. There were moments where things could've turned bad and put us all into a grave situation, and in some respects things got pretty dire for some of us. But I feel like that while we certainly entertained our worst fears, we never realized them, and now we can be in a spot where while we're not out of the woods yet, we can feel as though things are looking up.

With that said, let's look back at some of the good things that happened this year:

The permanent members of the UN Security Council put out a joint statement saying nuclear war must be avoided at all costs.

A pig heart was successfully transplanted into a human for the first time.

The Winter Olympics were held in Beijing and the World Cup was held in Qatar.

Over 10 Billion COVID-19 vaccines have been adminsitered around the world.

The wreck of the Endurance, commanded by Ernest Shackleton during his Antarctic expedition, was discovered.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo joined the East African Community.

Turkey and Israel resumed diplomatic relations.

At the COP15 Biodiversity conference, 200 nations pleged to preserve a third of the planet for nature by 2030.

Construction on a wind farm began in the Mediterraian sea, it's estimated the farm will power 21,000 homes.

The US Government invested $430 billion dollars into fighting climate change, the largest investment in American history.

EU Environmental ministers committed to eliminating carbon emissions from all new vehicles by 2035.

The National Ignition Facility records a net energy gain from a fusion ignition for the first time.

The European Southern Observatory announced the discovery of the micronova, a new type of exploding star.

The James Webb Space Telescope began sending back its first images.

The Event Horizon Telescope gave us our first look at Saggitarius A*, the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Artemis 1 became the first human-rated spacecraft to visit the Moon in 50 years.

* The global population surpassed 8 billion people.

Those are just some of the highlights that occured this past lap around the ol' Sun, and they show that despite the darkness that may exist, the light of progress and hope can shine through all the same.

Which is why my word of the year is "evolution."

As I said above, I truly believe that this will be the inflection point for the decade, the year when the cultural zeitgeist of the 2010's ended in favor of the 2020's. We don't know yet where this decade will lead us, but the way to ensure the best future for all of us is for us to constantly remember to evolve, whether it be in our professional lives or our personal lives.

It sounds like a tough ask, to exchange the comfort of the familiar for the uncertainty of the future, but it's actually something we do constantly, whether we want to or not. In our younger days, we all had our lives planned out; we knew exactly what we were going to be, who we were going to marry, where we were going to live, and we were naieve to assume that things would fall into place. But as we got older, we discovered the real world is not as accomodating as we'd like it to be, and often we found that our hopes and dreams ended up being just that in the face of reality.

But we didn't give up. What did we do instead? We evolved. We recognized the changing world around us and we changed ourselves to find or secure our place in it. Maybe we didn't recognize it at the time but we changed nonetheless. Sometimes we were forced to evolve, other times we took the initiative, but the end result was the same: every year we exit the calandar a little different than who we were when we first opened it.

But evolution shouldn't be looked upon as something that's imposed on us, or something that is a burden. Rather we should see it as an opportunity. A chance to view the world in a new way and come up with new ideas to solve the challenges and problems that face us all. Perhaps old thoughts and predjudices looked at in a new light is the key to overcoming them, and those who you thought you needed to hate and fear could turn out to be the people that will help you on your way.

So as we truly begin this decade, remember to always be looking for ways to improve yourself. Inspire those around you to do the same. Don't wait for someone above to bring about the change that you feel is necessary to make your life better, make it happen yourself. Be the change that you want to see in the world.

Like I always say: better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.

Happy New Year to you all and let's make 2023 a good one!

State of the Planet: 2021 edition.

So here we are again.

It’s always such a pleasure.

Once again, I’ve been thinking on how to write the missive for this year for quite some time. It kinda feels like that a lot has happened this past year and I’m not really sure where to begin or how to summarize it all.

Safe to say, 2021 was a year for some people. Not a great year, not a bad year, but a year. It seemed like every week we bounced from a moment of triumph or accomplishment to one of existential horror and may of us head into the New Year rather confused as to not only the internal and external threats to our lives and livelihoods, but not knowing who to trust or what to do going forward.

Despite all that, there were some things that happened in 2021 that undoubtedly pushed humanity in a forward direction and, as per tradition, I will close out the year by listing them.

If 2021 has offended

Think but this, and all is mended.

In Lyon, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders was performed.

The Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was signed, it is the first such agreement to comprehensively the development, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons.

The border between Saudi Arabia and Qatar reopened and Kosovo established diplomatic relations with Israel.

The United States rejoined the Paris Climate Accords. Shell later becomes the first company to be legally mandated to curb their carbon emissions to the standards outlined in the agreement.

Pope Francis met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the first meeting between a Pope and a Grand Ayatollah.

Raúl Castro resigned as First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, bringing the Castro regime to an end.

Leaded petrol was completely phased out of use in road vehicles around the world.

The COP 26 climate conference was held, which saw nations agree to phase out coal power, as well as end deforestation and cut methane emissions by 30% in the next decade.

Magdalena Andersson became the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of Sweden.

Barbados transitioned to a Parliamentary Republic, 55 years after declaring independence.

The 2020 Olympics were held in Tokyo along with the 2020 Euro competition held throughout UEFA nations.

9.15 billion vaccines against COVID-19 have been distributed around the world, with nearly 60% of the global population receiving at least one dose.

Phase 4 of the MCU kicked off with hit shows on Disney+ and blockbuster hits at the theater.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin made their first crewed spaceflights, while SpaceX launched Inspiration4, the first all-civilian spaceflight and successfully flew a prototype of Starship.

The Perseverance Rover landed on Mars with Helicopter Ingenuity, the first aircraft to fly on Mars. Joining it on the Red Planet is China’s Zhurong rover and the UAE’s Hope orbiter.

The James Webb Space Telescope was (FINALLY) launched to the L2 Lagrange Point where it will peer back in time to the dawn of the Universe.

Michigan Basketball won the Big Ten Season Championship and made a run to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan Football FINALLY beat Ohio State and also won the Big Ten Championship! As I write this they are hours away from playing their first match in the College Football Playoff against Georgia. Win or lose, this has been a very successful year for the Maize and Blue (though they should try to win).

The above is a snapshot of where I’m at: just over 14 hours to go until the end of 2021. You, dear reader, are in the future.

Maybe you were aware of some of what transpired above, maybe you weren’t. But all of these things happened and most of them at least were positive things that helped push us forward in a direction that most of us want humanity to go.

That is my main takeaway this year. Despite all the difficulties that were thrown at us by the world, society or life itself, many of us still found a way to keep pushing forward.

Which is why, much like our intrepid rover now roaming the surface of Mars, the word of 2021 is “Perseverance.”

Jack Bauer once said that there are things in this world that are out of our control and that sometimes we like to blame ourselves for them so we can make sense out of them. It’s an understandable impulse; whether it’s the mechanisms of a complex system of government, the variant nature of a virus or a terrifying natural disaster, it’s much easier to blame yourself or others for why things go wrong than accept the alternative: at the end of the day there’s only so much we can do to keep ourselves, our families and our friends safe and prosperous.

There’s a lot of talk these days about “strength”; both in terms of what it is and what it means to have it. But strength isn’t just measured in how violently you can slam someone through a table or how many bullets can you fire out of your gun: true strength comes from recognizing that you are in an adverse situation, maybe one that no one expects you to prevail in, and you still find the courage to press on and determination to succeed.

At the start of the year, no one thought Michigan would be any good. When Jim Harbaugh said that they would beat Ohio State and win the Big Ten or die trying, everyone rolled their eyes and penned their columns about how it was time for Michigan to move on. I admit, your humble author didn’t think it was in the cards this year. But when November turned to December, it was, as Bo said, Michigan again.

So if Jim Harbaugh can take a squad that went 2-4 and get them through Ohio State, out of Indy with a trophy and end up with a 1-in-4 shot of winning a national championship, just imagine what you could do in this next year if you are determined to make it through.

But all the same, never lose sight of what’s really important as well as who is really important. This is something that I myself lost sight of this past year and this year I’m gonna be better about recognizing those things. Sometimes we get so focused on ourselves and what is available to us that we forget all the people that, without their help and support, we wouldn’t be where we are right now. As The Oracle said; the path of The One is made by The Many.

Remember that what you get by achieving your goals is not as important as who you become in the process. Never fret over the timing of events or how long you perceive your wait to be. The important thing is not that they happen right now, it’s that they happen the right way. As John Lennon once said, Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

Be at peace with what you cannot change. Have the courage to change what you can change. Seek the wisdom to know which is which.

To quote Gus Grissom: Do good work.

If you can do that, you will prosper this year and beyond and you will help others prosper as well.

Happy New Year and I’ll see all of you in 2022.

Helios.

State of the Planet: 2020 Edition.

I know what you're thinking.

"How can you even think of doing one of these for this year? After everything that happened? You can't possibly be trying to do your little feel-good writeup!"

Well...you're right. I can't. That's right, State of the Planet is cancelled.

I don't really have to explain why, do I? I have no words to describe this year and I know you don't want to hear them anyway. I understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness, everything you're feeling, I get it.

This wasn't the year you imagined and almost certainly not the one you wanted. Thanks for being there the entire way, and I'll see you next year.

Okay, I'm just kidding. I couldn't do that to you folks, I just wanted to get some more mileage out of a dead meme.

I first started this missive several years ago when I noticed that people were developing a tendency to condense the previous lap around the ol Sun into a series of terrible, horrible, no good very bad events at the expense of anything good that may have happened. I don't know why this was done, maybe as a ways to ensure that the coming year would have to be better by default.

Well...we all saw how that worked out for this year, didn't we?

As you all know I prefer to do things differently. I prefer to go out on a high note and remember all the good things that happened in the past year. If nothing else, I think it helps remind us that as much as we want to bemoan and be pessimistic about the state of our culture, society, civilization and even species, there's plenty of evidence to suggest we're not doing so bad after all.

And even thought it feels like this past year the world went out of its way to teach us some rather harsh lessons, I'm still determined to find something good that happened. So let's take a look back at some of the good things that happened in 2020:

A circumbinary planet was discovered at the TOI 1338 system.

Luxembourg became the first country to make it's public transportation free.

The Bhadla Solar Park became the largest solar park in the world.

The BepiColumbo space probe departed for Venus, en route to an arrival at Mercury in 2025.

A fast radio burst was detected from a Magnetar in the Milky Way, the first time such an event has been detected in the Galaxy.

A team of British and Kenyan scientists discovered a microbe that can block mosquitos from transmitting malaria.

A black hole was discovered in the QV Telescopii system, at 1120 light years away it is the closest known black hole to Earth.

A 425 million year old fossil of a millipede was discovered in Scotland, one of the oldest fossils ever found.

SpaceX launched their Dragon 2 spacecraft on its first crewed missions, the first astronauts to launch from US soil since 2011.

The Perseverance rover was launched to Mars and is expected to touch down in February.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE became the first operational nuclear power plant in the Arab states.

Wild polio was eradicated from the continent of Africa.

Skeletons of 31 prehistoric animals, including 200 mammoths, were found at a construction site in Mexico City, it was the largest finding of mammoth bones ever.

The 5.37 mile La Linea highway tunnel was opened in Colombia, it's the largest road tunnel in South America.

Kosovo, Serbia, Sudan and Bahrain all decided to normalize their relations with Israel.

Phosphine, a strong predictor of microbiological life, was discovered in the atmosphere of Venus.

Preserved remains of a cave bear were discovered in Siberia.

A 1634 edition of Shakespeare's final play, The Two Noble Kingsman, was discovered at the Royal Scots College's library in Spain.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed on the asteroid Bennu and collected samples for return to Earth in 2023.

The Falkland Islands were declared free of land mines.

Molecular water was detected near Clavius crater on the Moon.

An AI algorithm called AlphaFold was able to figure out the process of Protein Folding.

The UN commission on Narcotic Drugs removed cannabis from its list of dangerous drugs.

The EU committed themselves to reducing greenhouse emissions by 55% over the next decade.

A Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred, the closest one seen in the night sky since 1226.

Comet NEOWISE passed by the Earth and was the brightest comet in the night sky since Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Among Us became one of the most popular games in the world.

Half Life: Alyx was released, the first Half Life game in 13 years (FINALLY).

Joe Biden was elected as the 46th President of the United States.

Remember all that? Good. Because that's where I'm at.

You, dear reader, are in the future. Perhaps you're reading this in the final hours of 2020, or the first hours of 2021. Or maybe so much time has passed that both those years are now confined to the history books.

Perhaps everything I listed above is not enough to overcome all the bad things that happened this year, and that's a fair assessment. Maybe at the end of the day there's nothing that can overshadow the fact that someone in China who ate the wrong bat resulted in the entire world coming to a stop. If that's your feeling, then I understand completely.

But let the record show that those things did happen. In a year full of chaos and uncertainty and anxiety and dread, there were still moments where we could objectively punch our fists in the air and say "yes!" Even if only for a moment.

So now comes the part where I have to take all the things that we just went through and sum it up in a single word. Usually I don't think about this until the day of, but this time I've actually known for months what I was going to say:

The word is...Goodbye.

It sounds both strange and appropriate at the same time, doesn't it? As we close out this year, as well as this decade (reminder that 2021 is the real start of the next decade) we can look back and realize we've had many experiences. Both positive and negative. Hopefully they were mostly positive, even during this year.

But there is at least one experience we've all shared together, especially in times like these: saying goodbye.

I will confess to you all that I have a hard time saying goodbye. Hell, I don't even like the word. Whenever I end a conversation, I always use some variant of "see you later", since, to me at least, "goodbye" just sounds so final. Though with that said, I will also admit there's some people in this world that I had no problem saying goodbye to, and I don't mean "till we meet again", I mean "get lost." And I'd be lying if I said there weren't some people who felt the same about me, but I digress.

In the last episode of his show, Red Green delivered a monologue about saying goodbye. A monologue that I am now shamelessly ripping off for your reading pleasure. Not just because it's a way to get this done quickly, but because I think what he said is very true.

Red says that when it comes to your good friends and your family, you never really have to say goodbye. Why? Because they're always in your mind. And whenever you think about them, you're together again. I can tell you from experience that works rather well, even when it involves people that I don't want to think about. But even in that instance, where our last interaction was a negative one, I can't help but think back to all the good times we had together, and for a moment I reminisce. It's nice when it happens.

We've all heard the phrase "nothing lasts forever" and we tend to dismiss it as a cliché. But we're still constantly confronted with that reality, even if we never realize it. As Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday; "When you get old in life, things get taken from you. That's a part of life."

We've all lost things in our lives, and I just don't mean toys that have been sold or people that we love who are no longer on this mortal coil. I'm referring to the moments in our lives where we're forced to accept that our circumstances have permanently changed, and that the way things were can no longer be the way things are. This is why you shouldn't be having kids when you're in your 70's, and no one over the age of 50 should be naked in public.

On a more personal note, this year I got that feeling once again. It's not just because I'm most likely leaving one job behind for another job, but there were things in my personal life that shifted so dramatically that I knew things could never be the same again. And seeing as how, for the most part, I liked how things were, I'd be lying if I said that this change didn't cause me some distress.

But that's all a part of growing up, isn't it? As much as I may cringe about reaching 30 years of life on this Earth, I accept it all the same. Because, if nothing else, it's a reminder that I need to keep moving forward. Is it sad that the good ol days are now just memories and dreams? You're damn right it is. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, because even if they're not what's happening now, they still did happen. And who knows? Perhaps the days to come will be just as good, if not better. In my opinion, that's something to look forward to.

And the same is true for all of us: if we want to live a happy fulfilling life, we have to keep moving forward. We can reminisce about all the fun we've had in days gone by, but it's just as important to be ready for the days yet to come.

I think that's why New Year's is such a poignant holiday for all of us. It's a tacit acknowledgement that we have to say goodbye to the old, so we can say hello to the new.

And at the risk of making this entry so long that by the time you're finished it will be 2022, I'd like to do that now.

To all the people that have been with me since my early days, thanks so much for all that you've done. I appreciate you sticking it out with me this far and I hope you'll continue to do so for many years to come.

To all the people that I've met recently and have decided to join me on this ride, welcome aboard. We're glad you could make it and we hope you'll stay a while as well.

And finally, to all the people that are no longer here, whether they've merely left my social circle or left this mortal coil altogether, all I can say is that we've had a great run. Whatever our reasons for parting are irrelevant now and I wish you nothing but good fortune in whatever it is you decide to do. Perhaps, God willing, our paths will cross again some day. But even if they don't, I hope that every so often we'll think about each other and smile a bit.

And now I'd like to close with something different. Usually I ask you to comment below with something good that happened to you this year. You're more than welcome to do that. But if you're looking for a change of pace, may I suggest that you close out your 2020 (or open your 2021) by listening to this song from the great Ashleigh Ball and Michelle Creber (yes I know many of you are hoping to leave the Miniature Equines in the past, but I'm hoping you'll permit them one last indulgence).

https://youtu.be/XjkPH6sZM_o

This is the song that inspired me to write this missive (along with the aforementioned Red Green) and as you're listening, I want you to think about all of those you said goodbye to this past decade. Think about all the fond memories you had together and give yourself a smile as the clock strikes midnight. Even if they're not with us today, we still have all the memories of them that no one can take from us, no matter what happens to the world.

And now the time has come for me to end this missive. Let the record show that this was my final word on 2020 as well as my expressed hope for charity, kindness and goodwill to flourish throughout the world in the years to come.

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends

.And 2021 shall restore amends.

State of the Planet: 2019 Edition

Alright everyone, it's time once again for Helios' annual wrap up of the orbit we've just taken around the ol' Sun. This is the State of the Planet as we close out 2019.

Now before I begin I want to state that, unlike seemingly everyone else, I'll only be looking back at things that happened this year as opposed to this decade. For those wondering why, it's because I want to save my decade wrap up for when the decade actually ends. And as anyone who was around for Y2K can tell you, because there was no Year 0, the next decade doesn't actually begin until 2021.

Which means my decade wrap-up will be a year from today (and thus quite lame) but at least I'll be consistent.

So, with that in mind, let's take a look back at what happened this year:

Same-sex marriage became legal in Austria, Taiwan, Ecuador and Northern Ireland.

Pope Francis became the first Pope to visit the Arabian peninsula.

Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing movie of all time.

A 17 year old in Britain was the first person to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.

Jane Goodall won the Luxembourg Prize for Outstanding Environmental Peace.

Humpback whales recovered from near-extinction in the South Atlantic.

71 new species were discovered this year.

The Antarctic ozone hole was the smallest on record since its discovery.

One third of the world's electricity is now powered by renewable energy sources.

A record number of African American women (34) graduated from West Point.

The Indian Navy welcomed its first-ever woman pilot.

The European Commission elected its first female President.

Chicago elected its first African-American woman mayor.

Ali Stroker became the first wheelchair-bound actor to win a Tony award for her role in "Oklahoma!"

Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic came to an end with strong finales (2/3 anyway).

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, making it 6 rings for Tom Brady.

The Washington Nationals won their first World Series.

The US Women's National Team won the 2019 World Cup, their fourth title.

A new form of messenger RNA Aerosol was developed, which could be helpful for treating diseases like Cystic Fibrosis.

Malaria was eliminated from Algeria and Argentina.

Two men may have been cured of HIV.

Child mortality rates are at an all time low.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley developed new 3D Printing methods.

Waymo has chosen Michigan to be the site of the world's first autonomous vehicle production factory.

All 16 gigabytes of Wikipedia were encoded into synthetic DNA.

The US Government authorized funds for Geoengineering.

Video was taken by NOAA researches of a Giant Squid in the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX's Dragon 2 and Boeing's Starliner capsules made their first flights.

The first all-women Spacewalk was conducted on the International Space Station.

India, Israel and China launched probes to the Moon, with China making the first soft landing on the far side.

Water was detected on Mars and K2-18b, a Super-Earth 110 light years away.

The New Horizons space probe made a fly by of the KBO Arrokoth (then known as Ultima Thule)

For the first time ever, a Black Hole was imaged.

The above is a snapshot of where I'm at right now, the final hours of 2019. You, dear reader, are in the future. Let this list above serve as a reminder of what we've experienced in this past year.

Now the time has come for me to give a little speech to tie up everything that we've been through in 2019. Usually this is the part where I have trouble, but the truth is that I've known for a while what word I want to use to describe this past year.

The word of the year is "sacrifice."

This is a word that isn't supposed to be thrown around lightly, but I feel it's lost its meaning. When sons of certain politicians equate their lost business opportunities to what the soldiers buried in Arlington gave up...I get the feeling that the meaning has been cheapened.

As Captain America said to Tony Stark, it's about fighting for someone besides yourself. It's about laying down on the wire to let the others crawl over you.

It's about giving up your youth to bring attention to a coming environmental disaster, as we saw with Greta Thunburg.

It's about going into a disaster zone to save one life, as we saw with the first responders who ventured into areas ravaged by Hurricanes or Earthquakes, or battled raging wildfires in the United States and Australia.

It's about risking your own life in the name of standing up for your rights and liberties, as we saw with the protesters in Hong Kong.

It's about nearly destroying yourself to save an entire continent, if not a planet, as we saw re-enacted in HBO's Chernobyl.

As we here in America prepare to once again ask ourselves what course our nation should take, I feel that we've lost sight of the sacrifices the Founders made to get us to this point. We seem less concerned with the prosperity of our nation and more concerned with the prosperity of those that we happen to like, with the misfortune of those who disagree with us not only accepted, but desired. We've gone from E pluribus, unum to "my side needs to win no matter what, fuck the others."

This is not to say we are averse to the notion of sacrifice. We're perfectly willing to give up something for our friends and family as well as anyone who happens to share the same views. But I feel that we're not willing to go further than that. If we are to continue to proclaim ourselves, as we indeed are, the defenders of liberty and freedom wherever they may exist in the world, then we need to uphold ourselves to those values. We need to be willing to make sacrifices not just for ourselves and our "side", whatever that may be, but for all Americans.

And more importantly, all citizens of this Earth must be willing to make a sacrifice not just for their city or country or race or ideology, but for all of humanity. This is the only way for us to fulfill our destiny. The future of our species awaits us among the stars, and I know that the only way to get there is together.

So as we head into the true final year of this decade, consider what you are willing to give up and who you're willing to give it up for. And remember that the time will come when we all will have to decide whether or not to make a sacrifice in the name of something that's greater than all of us. What that sacrifice is and whether or not you choose to make it is for you to decide.

Just know that somewhere out there in a sea of 400 billion Suns is a world just like this one.

We owe it to ourselves and our children yet unborn to give our species the best possible chance to visit. Just in case it turns out to have Jedi or Ponies.

Have a great day, a great week, a great month and a great 2020.

See you next year.

seasons-gredence

have you ever seen the english subtitles for a chinese bootleg of harry potter and the chamber of secrets?

because

they’re

great

full album here

seasons-gredence

i can’t believe dobby invented hashtags

seasons-gredence

i don’t even care if you reblog it, i just need you all to look at that album for your own health

snapped-snape

My boy snape saying what we’re all thinking

The dark lord

The four hogwarts founders

And my personal favorite

amkrii

Giving early anime dubs a run for their Engrish.

lifeofcynch

I’M WHEEZING

ticklishlittlekitten

@danmiller

humanoidhistory

Carl Sagan on Cosmos: “Our ancestors worshipped the sun, and they were far from foolish. It makes good sense to revere the sun and the stars. Because we are their children.”

The sky calls to us

There’s a reason I keep a separate blog where I choose to chime in on some political happening or other. It’s something I take great care in doing. It’s easy to get it wrong (and in my younger days, I often did get it wrong), so I have to make an effort to get my ducks in a row. Even so, it’s nominally something I try to avoid whenever possible, which is why in my srs business blog’s early days, I was focused more on fandom drama.

The problem though is that now it’s become impossible to avoid. I know there are those of you out there who resent the incursion of real world events onto your tumblr feed, or the Twitter’s or Facebook’s of your favorite celebs. I do as well. I personally would rather talk about anything else and I’m willing to bet they would love to do the same.

But the world has become so volatile now that it can no longer be avoided. And despite the fact that I had literally gone two months without touching this site, even I couldn’t stand idly by while all of us, every lover of freedom wherever it may exist in the world, were being set up the bomb.

To say the last 48 hours have been surreal is an understatement. But not entirely surprising.

We resent the incursion of these events onto our feeds because we want the internet to be our shelter from it all. I’m here to tell you that it was irrational to think the internet would be immune.

When the world has decided that compromise is for losers and the only thing that matters is to win at any cost, then it stands to reason that the internet will follow along.

Unless it’s leading the way. And in many respects, it’s leading the way.

So where do we go from here? When I say I haven’t touched this site in some time, it’s not exactly a statement of pride. I won’t lie to you all when I say it’s been hard for me to work up the effort to browse the internet these days. If you went back 15 years or so and told my adolescent self, the 7th grade kid who knew what memes were a full 5-6 years before his classmates did, that there’d come a point in time where he’d want to hide from the internet? He’d call you insane.

Part of the reason I’ve avoided this site is because of the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head that resulted in the censoring of many blogs I followed (as well as one I ran). But the other part is that I find I no longer have the energy to engage in the sort of thing that passes for “discourse” here like I did in the past. While it is still my desire, if not my duty, to talk with you all with some candor about what is happening in the world today, I’m rather disenchanted by the prospect of posting an article that gives an update on Brexit proceedings or the state of the Russia investigation and coming back to find sizzling hot takes in my notes that make me want to pay a visit to Comrade Smirnoff.

And I’ll be honest. The prospect of staring down a smug faced Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as they win re-election and continue to be worshiped by the assholes of the world isn’t exactly appealing to me either.

Any potential benefits of going back to discussing fandom drama don’t really seem that attractive either. My years in furrydom sapped my capacity for fandom politics long ago. I spoke out in favor of bronies because I could see through the lies and manipulations and it got to a point where I said all that a person could reasonably say on the matter. Considering the success of the show and that the public image of the fandom has improved, I’d like to think my efforts were a success.

I don’t know enough about the other fandoms making waves right now to offer an opinion, and frankly I’m not inclined to engage. I saw the remastered Star Wars trilogy when I was 7 years old. I went to midnight showings for every movie that’s come out since (even the prequels). I would much prefer to discuss the merits of the new movies with my local group of friends instead of coming on here and writing a 1,000 word dissertation on The Last Jedi that would ultimately end up with me getting dragged into an ad-hominem laden argument with 3 other users.

I see some of my esteemed comrades still have the energy for that. Alas, I am no longer that strength which in old days moved heaven and Earth.

Speaking of which: Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous is, as I describe it, a Space MMO. Set in a 1:1 scale recreation of the Milky Way galaxy that is based on actual astronomical data and scientific principles.

It’s the closest I’ve ever truly gotten, and may ever truly get, to being the captain of a Spaceship.

A trip out to the Robin’s Egg nebula envelopes you in a sea of gas, tinted blue by the light of a Blue White Supergiant just passing into adolescence. The nebula is home to a sea of young Red Dwarfs, small rocky bodies, ringed planets who’s metal surface is more of a sea of lava, and even a small Black Hole.

But it’s not just a recreational trip, you’re here at the behest of a scientist who’s willing to pay you a lot of credits to fly out to this stellar nursery. Once complete, you head back to your Space Station in Geosync orbit around Earth. A station named after Abraham Lincoln, as one does when naming starports. You drop your passengers off, get your next assignment, and you’re off to another star system 20 light years away.

The internet is able to get away with a lot, namely because underneath all the memes and controversy and drama are a bunch of people (mainly millennials) who occasionally make some money when their video of them yelling about a bad movie or winning victory royale hits a certain number of views on YouTube. It gets away with a lot because fandoms are real, living, vibrant communities that you can feel whenever you go to a convention or post in the appropriate tags.

In Elite Dangerous, you go into the game not expecting much. And you’re frequently rewarded by visiting strange new worlds that you never thought could’ve existed.

There’s a group of trolls in the game, they seek to cause as much mayhem and chaos as possible because they’re upset that the vibe of Elite Dangerous is not what they want it to be. It’s not the bitterly nostalgic vibe of Valve games, or the hyper competitive alpha vibe of Overwatch or Call of Duty. It’s certainly not the paranoid warmongering vibe of EvE online.

Elite Dangerous is a bunch of people exploring the galaxy.

And, I dunno, I feel that as a culture, a society, a civilization, and a species, maybe we could eventually work our way up to that.

Maybe not.

There’s a system in Elite known simply as “The View.” 1400 light years away from Earth, it contains a ringed planet orbiting around a Blue-White star younger than the ones in Robin’s Egg. If you set down near the pole of this planet, you get a great view of the rings, as well as a Pulsar and, if you’re lucky, two Black Holes.

When you venture out further, you see many wondrous sights.

A planet covered in water with massive ice sheets at the poles in an almost comical inversion of the future predicted by those fighting climate change.

Binary stars close enough that trying to shoot the gap nearly burns your spaceship to a crisp.

Worlds with magnificent ring systems that put Saturn’s to shame.

Pulsars with massive jets that swirl and twist like cosmic tornadoes.

And those are just the procedurally generated bodies. Stars and planets and others placed where they are because computer models based on hard science said they should be there.

Still plenty of room for real life celestial bodies. Like VY Canis Majoris, one of the largest stars in the galaxy.

Or Jupiter and the Galilean moons.

Or the Black Hole V404 Cygni.

The experience of Elite Dangerous is truly otherworldly, the kind of thing that ingrains itself in your mind and will not leave. The game is unnervingly beautiful not just because of its technical prowess, but because of what it can inspire.

Right now, this is just a video game, but there’s still the chance that there’s beauty in this galaxy that is not only unseen but completely unthinkable. Without Elite, it would be literally unimaginable.

It’s this inspiration that pushes me forward, that drives me in my attempt to help enlighten those around me, even if at times it feels the struggle will soon be lost.

This could be our future, but the only way to get there is together.