SnarkingLot

slant, rant and rhetoric from a techno-disillusionist, anti-socialist and part time meta-philosopher

[snarkinglot-blog]

The Division: Survival DLC Solo PVE Tips

I recently began playing Ubisoft’s The Division, and though a bit grindy, I found it to be quite engaging, so I sprang for the extra cash and got the ‘Survival’ DLC.  I’d heard it was comparable to other survival games, start out alone, under-provisioned, and eke out an existence by looting from the environment.

Well, not quite, but it shares some aspects.

It’s goal oriented for one thing - aside from yes, ‘survive’, it bundles in some objectives and the in-game rewards for completing them can be pretty great, though you do have to complete a base level of goals in order to get *any* post match reward(s).

Essentially, you are crash landed in a snowed out NYC, you have a wound that is septic, and all of your gear is gone, well unless you count the flimsy hazmat suit you find yourself wearing when you ‘awaken’ in a hideout somewhere in the city.

Here are my tips and lessons learned so far.  It isn’t a conclusive writing, but then again, I’m still learning too.

The big picture

The ultimate goal of survival is to loot enough materials to craft a ‘virus filter’, which will allow you access to the Dark Zone.  Don’t worry, if you selected survival PVE, this is an instance of the Dark Zone that is not PVP. Worry, however, because roaming the streets are variable level mobs, all of which are anxious to introduce you to one or more bullets.  Once you craft the virus filter, which requires 2 of each blue fabric and tools, you will be directed to an entry point to the Dark Zone.  

Once in the DZ, you will be instructed to find the viral antigens located there. Along the way you will find crates containing sealed DZ loot, but, like regular DZ play, you must first extract to be able to hang onto any of this stuff.  Unlike DZ however, at the match conclusion, you will ONLY get rewards and whatever you loot crates you extracted.  Everything you are wearing or using, crafted or otherwise, will be replaced by your default outfit you were wearing before entering the match.

Make sure to stay stocked up on drugs and fire.

When you wake up, you will be in a hideout that always contains a crafting bench.  Often but not always, you will find yourself looking at a small red gym bag, these always contain painkillers, one of two critical components for keeping your sepsis in check.  Sepsis and freezing will kill you faster if left unchecked than ANYTHING besides well - combat. 

Also, and again I have been in some hideouts that did not have the painkillers or anything else lootable, but the initial hide-out nearly always has a yellow loot box with one green fabric.

When I first started, I would craft a scarf using that green mat, which provides 4 degrees of warmth - however at -27 degrees outside, the scarf is like wearing a Speedo to the North Pole, plus, the mat can be converted to blue with just two more bits of fabric (3 total), so 6 green fabric and you are halfway to the virus filter.  

Always have a place to go.

Hanging about on the street in Survival and you will quickly freeze to death, starve, succumb to sepsis, or get shot.  You might even find yourself prey to multiple conditions at once - so KEEP moving, and have a goal for each place you are heading.  

Always keep these top level goals mentioned about those in mind plan your route. At the beginning, you’ll want to move between hideout and fire barrels (these or any open fire will restore your ever plummetting body temperature until you have crafted enough clothing to fend off the cold.  As you make your way fro hideout to warm spot to hide-out, keep your eyes open for literally any loot, and get it all.  Like traditional Division crafting, green mats can be converted to blue, blue to yellow, etc.  They are ALL useful in some way, so grab everything you can.

Water & soda are very useful here as they temporarily increase your detection range for the tell-tale glowy yellow squares that indicate a lootable object, even behind walls.  Thirst however, is one of your challenges, so use them sparingly.

Don’t sweat the loot chase, but pay attention

The lootable items that can be found are not placed randomly.  They are there every match, but they are to be found everywhere so, if you are moving along a certain route and finding empty loot containers consistently - don’t panic.  Find a fire barrel or hideout, plan a different route or simply reverse directions and run opposite to the other player.  Many players seem to head to the same places over and over - I don’t know the map well enough to do that, so I just stay focused on finding 3 blue fabric & tools, (or 6 and 6 greens).

As you find components and meds, food etc, keep careful track of the fabric and tools you find.  You want to complete the virus filter as soon as you can and get to the Dark Zone - completing these two goals are key to getting any sort of post-match reward.

Run you fool - but keep your eyes open.

Sure the weather will kill you, but it’s nothing personal.  To keep from freezing, try and run constantly.  Mobs however, will also kill you and for them it is personal, and at least at first they will nearly always have you outgunned. So, RUN.  If they start shooting and you aren’t prepared to fight, RUN.  

Be goal oriented

As you collect loot, you’ll soon find that you have a better weapon, armor, maybe even medkits and some abilities (Pulse is VERY useful).  You might start spoiling for a fight, and the truth is the red mobs at your level are curiously easy to kill, even by just spamming your sidearm.   Stay focused - and avoid fights unless you cannot.  For one, if you die you can only revive yourself with a medkit and for a limited time - meanwhile the mob will tend to chase you and keep shooting even while you are lying there.  Secondly, when you call for extraction - you will face a ‘Hunter’ a boss level creature whom you must defeat to extract.

So to recap:  craft virus filter --> Dark Zone --> locate the antivirals --> craft a flare gun (to signal extraction)-->stock up on loot containers --> extract.

Anything you are doing should be to support either one of those goals directly or a supporting goal e.g. crafting clothing to stay warmer, finding meds & or food.

People won’t help you.

You can be revived by other players for around 5 or 6 minutes - but don’t count on it solo - more likely they will take your stuff right off your corpse and leave. They might help you but counting on it will only let you down.  Grouping up with people can be extremely effective in getting extracted, so that part is up to you.

Good luck, and I’ll post more tips as I learn them!

[snarkinglot-blog]

First Run:  Pro Tools First by Avid

 When I heard about Avid’s Pro Tools First, a free downloadable version of the popular Pro Tools audio suite, I was pretty excited.  Being a Windows user, DAW and MIDI software can be a tricky battleground, on one hand you have promising yet a bit anemic offerings such as Audacity, then you have middle-tier stuff like Reaper, than the old standards such as Cakewalk’s Sonar. 

 I”m a SONAR Producer user now which is a similar model (I think) to what Avid has come forward with - get the core for a low/no cost, then incrementally pay for whatever you want after that.

So I got on the waiting list a few months back and a couple days ago (8/09/2015), I got an email inviting me to download and install.

I downloaded.  The download comes as a very large compressed file which contains a ‘master installer’.  That’s strike one.  These types of installers are great when you have prerequisites sure, but when those prerequisites are from third parties, which in this case some are - you’re asking for trouble and frankly this install has plenty of that.  Windows 7 in particular has a maddening series of compatibility and security setups that don’t play nicely with nested installs.  the reason is simple.  

When you click ‘Run as Administrator’ for one app, Windows gives that app permission to make changes on the machine as admin - but it is very cagey about brokering those permissions to additional apps launched by the first app.  And it should be, don’t you think?  You might trust my app to install something, but do you also know and trust any/all third parties I might bring along with me?  

Strike Two, just in my opinion, came when I saw the installer moving to install PACE and iLok anti piracy software.  I’ve been vocal about this type of stuff in the past, and niche market software developers such as DAW authors are notorious for trying to protect their software by any means they can.

I get this, I do.  You work hard on software, you want to get paid.  That said, if you’re really excellent at writing DAW’s for Windows, which, in and of itself, is nearly a contradiction in terms - mostly because Windows has a pretty badly designed audio subsystem to begin with.  But let’s say you are great at writing DAW applications, and you’ve written them cross platform.  The changes that you are also really great at the nuances of protecting that software via anti-piracy/copy protection are close to a big fat zero.

And you shouldn’t be!  You wouldn’t be expected to maintain this broad expertise as it would clearly limit how good you might be at what you are actually writing your app to do.

So then you rely on third parties, then you have to vouch for all the intero-perability nuances you already deal with for your own software - as well as your partners.

My opinion is this can, and in this case, has lead to a confusing perfect storm of installs that probably tested out on several different configurations, but will likely have big problems on many, many others in the wild.

Another problem with DAW software is you’re typical demographic is what I call ‘consumer artists’.  I’m an outlier.  

Yes, I am a dabbler musician, but I’m also a systems admin level user and a software developer.  This is unlike the vast majority of musicians using this type of software, who simply want and expect it to work and don’t always understand the often nebulous and confusing failure dialogs ‘such and such failed to connect to UDP socket on blah blah’...

These types of people will not chase down the things they don’t understand - especially if it’s core is free.  They will go blank on the issues that come up and eventually give up.

Trust me, this phenomena, and these DAW software issues they are not a rarity.  

I have several times about pulled out my hair with several different DAW’s, for example, SONAR has a lot of potential, but it’s ‘software manager’ approach combined with it’s infuriating use of CleverBridge as it’s payment platform...  The average musician on Windows is likely to just hang it up

My very first impressions are that Pro Tools First, at least the Windows 7 64 bit install, is a bit half-baked.  I struggled through the install, having to repeat multiple steps, having to actually download and install iLok separately, having to try to ignore the various (and pretty meaningless to the user) error and warning dialogs.

But I finally got it to run.  Sort of.  Once it finally executed, it sat unresponsive for about 15 minutes, presented me with dialogs claiming this plug in was missing did I want to move it to ‘unused’ (don’t know?), claiming it couldn’t find this thing or the other - then finally I was able to select a song template. 

I chose rock.  That was 45 minutes ago.  So, running it post-install was not a picnic either and I’ll likely end up reinstalling, updating, rebooting and doing a bunch of other stuff to get it to you know, allow me to author music.

I’m going to keep at this, but let this blog serve as a gentle warning about what you “might” be in for with Pro Tools First.  Results may not be typical and I’m very willing to slog along and give this a proper go.

Before you challenge me on the 101 user stuff, full disclosure, I’m using Windows 7 64 bit on an Intel Core i7 @ 2.4 GHZ.  I have 16 GB of high speed ram, I have an oboard 500GB SSD with a secondary 2 TB high speed drive as well as an outboard 2 TB 7200 RPM drive.  I have an Audiobox USB external audio interface with current drivers which by the way work with SONAR, Audacity, Reaper, and several online collaboration tools.

I’m also a expert level systems administrator and integrator with 20 years experience on Windows, Apple and Linux systems, a former MCSE, a current MCSD, AWS Solutions Developer certified professional.

And I really really want to use Pro Tools First.  I’ll give it every chance I can possibly have the patience for, and I’ll report my results back here on my blog.

Good luck!

[snarkinglot-blog]

Doomsday is coming - just not anytime soon.

I’ll never call anyone out for making good honest money.  Even those who do so with the exploration of conspiracy and other alternative theory are just fine in my book - that is, until you start making money by scaring or otherwise negatively affecting people I care about, people I take under protection - people I love.

When you make money off of fear, and my loved ones and family get wind of it, if they buy into you, you’d better take care.  I’ll look into your ideas with the practiced & unbiased open mind of a spiritual scientist, and you’d better hope for the panic you’re causing my friends and family that you’re not full of beans - if you are, I’ll find out and expose you, if only to assuage the fears and anxieties you’re placing on already beleaguered folks who often cannot separate the granular distortions and half-truths nestled deeply into so called ‘prophecy’.

So, to my beloved family, read this carefully for it is specifically for you.  As with all information I’ll ever write, you get to choose which is true for you.  I encourage you, I practically insist that you carefully cross and fact check everything I write here because if you do, you will see my findings are derived from a careful examination of the facts, a deep understanding of how to research, and a labor of love - because fear kills, and I’d really like you all around for a while if you don’t mind?

Doomsday theories have been around since before media even existed.  Granted, when they were delivered by bearded madmen on the village street corner, they were far easier to dismiss to the rational man; they have nonetheless been exhibited by humans probably since we learned to communicate with one another.

And why?  Nobody knows for certain.  Look, I’m no stranger to having my mind absolutely blown by things I discover - my recent post on quantum mechanics is evidence of this.  Stuff happening at a quantum level truly shook my scientific and spiritual ideas to their core, irrevocably twisting and combining them together in ways I didn’t expect.

But, I didn’t quit my job, I didn’t shave my head and move somewhere close to the Hadron Collider, actually I just blogged about it in hopes of dialog with other kindred spirits regarding the ‘what does it all mean’ nature of it.

I suspect though, that some minds are more fragile, perhaps exhibiting their fragility through rigid attachment to a particular set of ideas or beliefs.  When those are shaken by some observation, perhaps by some small discovered truth, it makes sense to me that a percentage of people could respond to this in ways ranging from - simply deciding to spread their ideas as best they can to becoming stark raving mad about them.

There is nothing wrong with this, and for people who have experienced revelations of such core-shaking extents that they lose a bit of grip on reality, I both understand and sympathize.

Often these doomsday beliefs cannot be shaken once formed, I’ve seen this in entirely rational people whom I respect intellectually.  I once had a friend who like me, was interested in conspiracy theory and we’d often exchange bits of stuff we discovered and talk about them, each picking at and mulling over the others findings.  More often than not those conversations would end with a laugh, with a ‘Well I guess we’ll see’, but then something changed.

It must have been a combination of details from various sources that caused my friend to cross over from observation to belief.  He is simply too smart for any single source of information, or one particular fact to cause him to buy months worth of survival food, to begin building a shelter - he certainly didn’t go off the deep end, but he clearly believed the world was about to end on a particular date.  People like him, and myself truth be told can  collectively piece together data from many sources and this can sometimes appear to lead to a conclusion because the breadth of information seems to contain more credence than one or two sources.  When that multitude of data comes from reputable or factually irrefutable sources, it is easy to see where one’s threshold can cross over from speculation and investigation to out and out belief.

The other sort of doomsday believer is one I find to be utterly repugnant, such as Mark Biltz and John Hagee of this so called Blood Moon Prophecy. 

These types of doomsayer are the worst kind and in this writers humble opinion, borders the very line of good and evil itself.  You see, these two probably thought they were on to a genuine prophecy, and all this began as a genuine end of times scenario, until the cash started rolling in. 

Here is how it all started.  Back in 2008 Biltz predicted that the Second Coming of Christ would happen in the fall of 2015 and that this prediction was backed by an astronomical pattern that would indicate that the next tetrad, which is a series of 4 lunar eclipes in a row within intervals of 6 lunations (lunar semesters).  Basically - 4 lunar eclipses in 2 years.

Now first of all, it doesn’t take a lot to predict these, in fact, astronomers have them documented as happening all the way as far out as 2051.  Yes, they are rare, but then again so is Haley’s Comet, finding a four leaf clover, or frogs with two heads.

What is important to note is that Mr. Biltz’s predicted 2008 pattern - never happened, and while he quietly pulled the article from his website, he continued to espouse the prophecies his so called prediction called for, primarily an (sic) ‘seven years of great tribulation’.

Okay, okay, seven years of ‘great tribulation’, what does that even mean, anyone?  Anyone?  It means ‘a state of great trouble or suffering’.

Just 7 years of that eh? Quick question for you - when has the earth not been in such a state somewhere to someone?

Was  World War I a time of great tribulation?  How about the second one?  The civil war?  How about the 7 years war, I mean that one even has the time nailed.  

Here is a quick challenge.  Take this year and the last 7 and group them together like ‘2015-2008′, now do that with the preceding 100 years, so you should have something like:

2008-2015

2001-2007

1995 - 2000

... and so on.

Best to do this in a table with these year combinations in one column, and one other column.  Got it?

Okay, scanning down the rows and thinking about global history all of the earth, put the words ‘not a time of great tribulation’ next to any group of years you find it appropriate.  

Go ahead I’ll wait.  

Oh, you’re already done?  

Then you must have realized what my point is:

By it’s very definition, there is no period in recorded history where it was not a ‘time of great tribulation’.

Sure, we have a lot of bad stuff going on these days, and I don’t blame Christians one darn bit for calling out these last years as a challenging time.

But are they really more challenging that those years where the entire world was a couple button presses away from being engulfed into a fiery nuclear doom?

What about when Hitler threatened to take over the entire world?

Prohibition?  I’m kidding, but that was during the depression, arguably one of the times where Americans in particular suffered greatly.

Look, my point is predictions can be tricky.  They can combine a sort of mishmash of facts, a little myth or cultural belief, in many cases a healthy dose or fear - and more often not a ton of DUH.  Let’s not forget a pinch or two of overloads of details, often so many that the average person just doesn’t have the bandwidth to sort through.  

If I was to predict that, ‘the golden haired man will fly into the heavens but will fall, his gossamer wings shall open and the earth will gently receive him unto us’.

Whooo.  Freaky.  As an aside, a true prediction the next time a blond dude skydives.  I’m just saying.  

So anyway, after Biltz’s ‘prediction’, Hagee jumped on the bandwagon and they began writing books about it, notably - Four Blood Moons.  But that isn’t the only one. On Amazon, I count more than a dozen separate books, spanning well over a decade, all talking about the imminent end of days, and all, mind you, averaging between 5 and 50 dollars depending on audio all the way to hardback and ‘special editions’.  This doesn’t count what amounts to an entire industry of short and feature film, symposiums, lectures, etc,

Now, full disclosure.  This probably started out innocently.  They probably began this because observations of Bible prophecy, study of world current events and examination of past details.  These all led them to truly believe in what he wrote, and that’s just fine.

Though books about these prophecies are in in fair circulation, most popular with Evangelical Christians, it wasn’t until Four Blood Moons that things picked up nicely for Mr. Hagee.  This book went viral, selling close to half a million copies, and spent 28 weeks on the New York Times best seller list. 

There is also a movie, imagine that.

What’s the gist of this Blood Moon Prophecy you might ask?  When asked about the movie Pastor John Hagee is quoted as saying:

 “This is a movie that demonstrates the awesome power of God to communicate to the world with the sun, moon and stars that He has created. There has been a tetrad of moons. A tetrad is four consecutive blood moons. There has been a tetrad of four blood moons in 1492 and 93, and 1948 and in 1967.”

He and Biltz also make the claim that these mysterious events will mystically coincide with Jewish Holidays like Passover and Sukkot and that these rare concidences work with these other bits of info to become - world ends sometime in September.

What the...what? Let’s be clear about a few things right up front.

The Jewish holidays fall on the Jewish Calendar - which is by the way a lunar calendar,

 There have been 62 tetrads in recorded history and 8 of them have coincided with Jewish Holidays,

Of the four predicted eclipses of death, only one will actually be visible in the Jewish homeland....

Now, yes I realize that Biblical prophecy as way more to it than this.  I’m familiar enough with the various historical, futurist, preterist and dispensational views of the end times prophecies.  I know that in the Olivet Discourse,  Jesus himself is said to have described the signs of the end as nations against nations, earthquakes, pestilence, and eventually false prophets, abandonment of religion (apostasy), etc. 

However, He also said some things would happen that would not represent the end of days.  This means more than it implies.  This means that in order for the end of days to happen, these things things would have to happen before the end of days, and they haven’t.   Notably the emergence of one claiming to be Christ risen, and the ‘abomination of desolation’ being placed on Isreal, resulting in a flight from Israel that would be so serious people would not be able to return home for their belongings.  This ‘abomination of desolation’, nor any serious claim by anyone to be Christ have yet to occur, and it is unlikely they will happen before the end of September.

For me to cover off on all the practical, scientific and theological reasons Mr. Biltz and Hagee are full of beans would take more time than the subject is worth so I leave those in doubt with perhaps the most telling evidence of all -  Mark 13:32-33 where Jesus says:

“..of that day and hour no one knows, not even the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Verse 33 reinforces this by saying “Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.”

Which means Biltz and Hagee don’t either, and claiming they do is actually what many would contradicting the direct teachings of Jesus himself. 

In closing, I’d like to propose a simple logical theory - people genuinely convinced the world will end should logically and eithically have no motivation to make any money now or in the future off of said beliefs of prophecy.  Are we to believe that God would be okay with this?

Imagine you somehow knew you were going to break your leg tomorrow.  Is it logical you would book a skiing trip or sign up for a 10k run?  Probably not.  

Here is another theory - those truly ordained with a message from God would reveal it to the masses without thought of recompense, they would give it freely to the people - instead this has made two people very rich, and millions more very frightened.  Shame on you both.

Ultimately, you’ll find common symptoms at the core of these false prophecies - misinformation, misrepresentation of scripture and an utter lack of any accountability for a missed or failed prediction - in other words, in November, we’ll get to see all the reasons why these two charlatans could conveniently be totally wrong about the end of days but will continue to claim to be right.

[snarkinglot-blog]

Elanthia Chronicles Part I:  The World Dragon

Chapter One

Lii'shi set her staff-sling against a nearby cypress tree and turned her face into the slight breeze, her ears pivoting independently towards sounds up and downwind.  Kneeling, she pressed her palm against the ground, extending her senses downward through soggy moss, feeling for any vibration that might lead her to prey.  

Young for a hunter among the Lun'Shele, the young Trekhalo had demonstrated skill at tracking game along the near impassable trails of M'riss and as such had been granted the title of hunter years younger than her siblings.  Even before some of her tribes up and coming males she had been given the ceremonial cloak adorned in falcon feather, her tribes chieftain had herself carved and carefully balanced a war club for her, and her mother had given her fathers prized walnut sling-staff.

She sniffed at the light wind, the soft fur that covered her face danced ever so slightly against the barely stirring air, something was...different. Different was bad.  Her kind was brought to adulthood with this understanding once the outsiders began to arrive on the rocky, mountainous island that had been solitary home to her kind and their game since before the first stories were told.

Now, when Lun'Shele Trekhalo hunters as herself stalked these mountainous trails for the meat and pelt of peccaries, caracals and leopard, they did so in silence, their fur streaked in mud to camouflage them from their prey and interloper alike.  With the coming of the outsiders and their ways came also their magics and their gods, and, soon after, their judgement that Lii'shi's kind were primitive, wayward and deserving of no right to these homelands.  But this was long ago, told down from Lii'Shi's forefathers, and their forefathers before.  Since, a way of life hidden among the marshes and vine-laden cypress kept a delicate balance between her people, the newcomers and the ample game they all sought here.

Shifting her weight backward to the rear pads of her paws, she reached into the tattered feather adorned pouch made for her by her mother, and gingerly fingered through the clumps of black molten rock she had collected to use in her sling.  Like many of her kind, her instincts were as sharp as her experiences, but in the face of something unknown, something...disturbing, it could be difficult to separate gut from senses.  The marshy bogs and treacherous paths had claimed many of her kind due to failings in either or both.

Her large eyes widened suddenly at crashing sounds behind her, movement in the brush.  Rolling to the side in a single fluid movement, she arose to her feet with staff-sling in hand, loaded with a rocky clump of volcanic glass and scanning for a target.  From within the dense underbrush, a small pack of peccaries emerged, huffing and snorting as they charged her way, steamy breath against upturned tusks.  

Rolling out of the thicket on short, powerful legs they came, 2 large and several smaller ones, bristly black hairs along thick bodies that narrowed to tiny narrow eyes and massive snouts.  Lii'Shi whispered a breathy prayer to the Maker of All Things and as trained, braced her stance against the onrushing group.

   She held in her air and snapped the staff-sling in a whip-like motion at the pack, the glittering ebony stone rocketing through the air with a slight whistle towards the largest of the charging creatures.

The closest of the peccary, a large male with one broken tusk took the hit.  The volcanic clump struck it on the bridge of it's snout with a loud crack, and it's eyes instantly went dull as it's legs folded beneath it, having lost all momentum and strength.  The struck creature crashed to the ground, sliding towards Lii'Shi with blood pouring through a massive gash across it's face and head and came to a stop motionless before her.

The other peccaries squealed in fright and broke, scattering each in different directions in sheer panic as Lii'Shi loaded another stone into her sling.  The creatures hurled themselves into the surrounding brush and vanished, a noisy trail of breaking sticks and branches trailing off into the distance.

The cypress bog was still, quiet now save for the laboring last breaths of the lead peccary that lay beside her.  She slung her staff-sling across her shoulder and knelt beside the dying creature, her eyes softening with empathy.

   This was the way of all things, this was the circle of birth, consumption, death and destruction that all who the Maker of All Things brought into being.  As such, Lii'Shi bore no malice to this honorable prey, it's pelt would clothe and warm her kind, it's meat would nourish them.  "Ti ama soo da rayneh beh," she whispered, soothing the beast.  Your end continues the circle.

The beasts breaths drew shallower as she looked into it's narrow black eyes, hoping to give it an end without fear.  But curiously, the beasts eyes did not gaze back at her, but beyond, into the brush from where it had emerged. A detail like this would escape the notice of no Lun'Shele Hunter, no Trekhalo and Lii'Shi's ears swiveled purposely, her nostrils flaring and all senses around her drawn inward in search of what frightened this beast.

Just then, the air grew still and hot, the forest became utterly silent save for a a slow rhythmic pulsing of the wind above.  Lii'Shi froze, her gaze tracking the outline of a massive shadow that suddenly covered the forest around her.  As she tried to lift her gaze to the sky a shattering roar breached the silence, and a brilliant red light engulfed the world around her.

She tried to scream a prayer to her maker, a warning to her tribe, but was silenced as a searing heat engulfed and consumed her.  Without pain, without knowledge, with no time to think of anyone or anything, the Lun'Shele hunter turned instantly from blistering skin to powdery ash as the world around her exploded in flames. 

  Clumps of volcanic rock fell, as melted already as they ever could be, from what was once the pouch her mother made her to the now scorched and blackened ground, rolling to individual stops to stare reflectively at empty sky.   Where the young Lun'shele stood just a heartbeats moment ago, a shadow of black ash remained.  It crumbled in a brief and slight gust of breeze, tumbling to ashen dust against a now barren and burnt plain.

   Far into the distance, spindles of once majestic cypress trees towered silent over a vast burnt wasteland, and silence broken only by the beating of massive, powerful wings that accompanied a triumphant, bellowing shriek that pierced across the land.

[snarkinglot-blog]

Quantum Physics Findings are Blowing Up my Mind (and soul?)

Time for blow your mind Monday:

I kind of knew this from previous readings but, first check out this article

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/08/01/the-top-3-mind-boggling-quantum-experiments-that-will-drop-your-jaw/

Now, after you've taken a gander I want to make two things perfectly clear.  My post is not scientifically philisophical.  It is also not religiously philosophical.  I”m really writing this because I find these articles tend to say explosive things by reputable people, but then simply source links to material that is very difficult for non-technical people to understand.

Net-net, they say it, it sounds kooky, then we don’t understand and hence do not believe in the underlying tests that demonstrate the crazy shit the people are saying they discovered.

These my friends, are for your own mind and heart to ponder, but I do strongly advise you to ponder them and decide for yourself what they mean, if anything.

I’m going to break down three of these recent quantum physics breakthroughs in terms anyone can understand, then once properly enticed by what it all implies, slogging through the actual content and PDF’s and source data will be a fun and curious pursuit.

The Double Slit Experiment

Okay imagine for a moment have a ball covered with ink that will make a mark on any wall it hits.  You are going to roll the ball down a hallway to a wall to see how it hits the wall.  However, at the end of the hall there are two doors, both open.  You close one door, then you roll the ball down the hall and you leave the room.

Through all of this bear in mind the ball is not influenced by external factors that are random - ever. I’m just using a ball as something easy to follow along with.

You come back in a while and you discover  the ball went through the open door and bang, hit the wall and made a mark.

You do the same thing again, but this time you close the other door.  You come back in a bit and sure enough, the ball has rolled through the other door and left a mark on the wall, just like you thought.

Next, you repeat the experiment only with a flashlight, and you use photographic paper behind the doors to measure where the light hit.  You leave one door open and leave, returning to find that the light went through the open door.  Okay cool.  You expected that.

You’d also expect that when you open the second door, that that same light would go through one door, but also because it was open, the light would go through the other door too, and, because the doors were two separate portals, you’d expect that the space separating the doors would prevent some light from going through either door.

That’s how we understand light waves to work, but not particles of physical matter like photons.  In the ball scenario, you’d expect some factors to cause the ball to go through one door, the other door, or bounce off and not go through either.

Here is the tough part: The double-slit experiment clearly shows that the ‘ball’ in this case a particle, will act like a particle when one door is open, but will behave like a wave when two are opened and despite being a physical non-wave based particle will create ALL and NONE of the outcomes simultaneously!

I know - I know, that makes no sense, but the best is yet to come.

I mentioned that as you ran each ball experiment you left the room right?  You came back to discover they had performed in this really very strange way.  

WELL NOT IF YOU ARE WATCHING THEY DON’T.

Wait, did he really say that?  Did he really say that if we watched the ball experiment, that it would in fact go through one of the doors instead of all, either AND none like a flashlight might?

Yep.  And this is the part that gets a bit spooky.  When we watch the behavior of quantum material, we’re known as ‘an observer’, and the double slit experiment proves that simply by adding an observer, you change the outcome of the quantum behavior.

Yeah, you guessed it.  Physics being all like ‘Anyone watching? No?  Wheee, I’m a flashlight!!! Oh shit here comes someone, quick everyone just be a ball.’

I’ll leave you to think about what this implies while I drop another mind bomb on you...

We’re not only seeing a difference in the behavior of quantum materials when we observe it, but our very expectations of that behavior logically seem to be what is causing it to occur at all.

Oh hell, what does that even mean.  Well it could mean that everything in the universe behaves as we consciously believe or expect that it will.  If you think about it, the ‘universe’ at it’s component parts, left without our interaction or observation will behave as a ‘wave of possibilities’, meaning the ball indeed went through one door AND the other, AND none.

Until we looked at it - then one of those things ‘happens’ as the event possibilities collapse into a single observable outcome.

Do we also exist moment to moment as these waves of possibilities?  Do we control by our observation of the world around us which possibility ends up occurring?

New Quantum physics is establishing very quickly through our own scientific method that the conscious observer creates reality - just by participating.

This is tough I know, but when we’re not watching, quantum behavior itself reverts to a state where all possible outcomes exist.  I cannot stress enough the subtle spiritual impact this has - we decide.  

The big question becomes, what is the control mechanism for all of this?

If we’re involved in the outcome then can we influence the outcome with intention?  Going back to my ball experiment analogy, we know the quantum behavior and outcome will revert to a ‘wave of possibilities’ when we don’t watch it happening, and collapse into a single outcome when we do, but could we also shape which of the waves (one door, the other or no door) end up happening somehow?

Imagine while you were gone you were also an intensely popular person, who could reach out via Facebook or Twitter and say ‘Hey I rolled this ball, and let’s all agree that the result will be it rolls through door number one okay?’

And everyone did.  Would this influence the outcome?

Consider for a moment the “Delayed Choice/Quantum Eraser” phenomena, which essentially says that present choice can erase what ‘happened’ in the past.

Ugh.  My brain.  How...

Get ready for the big mind detonation, this one involves two conscious observers.

Bob and Sue each conduct the ball experiment I spoke of earlier.  Like Bob, Sue observed the behavior of the ball as it collapsed from three possibilities (one door, other door, no door), into a particular one (let’s say door #1), only she does this after Bob has done the same thing, and Bob hasn’t shared his results yet.

She calls Bob over and says ‘Hey Bob look what happens when I roll this ball towards the two open doors, it goes through door #1.  Bob is confused, and a little upset because unbeknownst the Sue, his ball went through door #2 he just didn’t tell her or show her yet.

Sue is skeptical, so they go back to Bob’s lab and Bob repeats the experiment.

The ball goes through the door Sue observed.  

Here is the tricky part.  Same scenario - only Sue calls Bob who is still at his lab and says ‘my ball went through door #1′ and Bob goes, no the ball will go through door #2.   He repeats the experiment and just like he said, the ball goes through door #2.  So he calls Sue back and he says ‘come over and see for yourself’.  She does and sure enough the ball goes through door #2.  A bit freaked out she goes back to her lab alone or with Bob and never again will she observe the original outcome she observed, instead the collectively observed outcome will always be and will always appear to have been the only possible outcome.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  What does all this mean?

Minimally I think it means we’re involved - not just spiritually, not just scientifically, but actually involved in how space and time, how our universe is constructed.  It means that the universe and it’s possible outcomes technically all exist at the same time until we observe differently.  It probably means that space and time itself don’t exist the way we think we understand it.  It probably means that collective consciousness, prayer, meditation, they are all actually influential in how the fabric of our universe fits together.