Send info, music tracks, events listings etc., to [GOTT.PRODUCTIONS@) Gmail.com]
Interview with
Jason Vanderford of Junk Parlor
[www.junkparlor.com]
Instagram is junk_parlor
Twitter is @JunkParlor
Facebook is Junk Parlor
New Music
"The Pallet Jacks vs. Your Mom": Help Complete An Album! [kickstarter.com/projects/753820407/the-pallet-jacks-vs-your-mom-help-complete-an-albu]We're The Pallet Jacks! This Spring we are going to release our new album, "The Pallet Jacks vs. Your Mom", an energetic, 6-song, poppy punk record. It's got funny songs, sad songs, and songs about video games. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll roll your eyes!
We will be finishing up recording and mastering in May. You can help us finalize production, marketing, and distribution by contributing to our Kickstarter campaign!
Preview our new album FREE by listening to our single "Morning Mean" at [palletjacks.bandcamp.com]
Video [youtu.be/FO8KOsmyLxY]
* Zenkali, The Pallet Jacks, and Contest of Eons at The Red Hat [facebook.com/events/1702685939990233/]
Saturday, April 23 at 9 PM
21+ , $5
At the Red Hat, 1860 Monument Blvd, Concord, California 94520
"Contest of Eons" band is Tyler, Carl and Rubin, listen to them at [youtube.com/watch?v=tMCcaor3gfI]
Tribal News
* "Open City Hall Topic Requests Input on Medical Marijuana Industry Operations in Vallejo" (2016-04-15, Vallejo City Manager’s Bi-Weekly Report) (.pdf) [http://is.gd/Lgd2R0]:
The City is accepting feedback and suggestions on Open City Hall [http://is.gd/bIeNAd] as staff develop recommendations for City Council regarding acceptable conditions for the medical marijuana cultivation, delivery, manufacturing and testing opera-tions within the City of Vallejo. On July 28, 2015, the City Council adopted an ordinance adding Chapter 7.100 to the Vallejo Municipal Code identifying requirements for limited immunity from civil prosecution for medical marijuana dispensaries. In October 2015, the state legislature passed three bills to regulate medical marijuana, including AB 243 that gave local municipalities the authority to adopt local laws to prohibit or regulate the cultivation of marijuana for medical use.
The City Council appointed a Medical Marijuana Stakeholder and Expert Group (MMSEG) who will serve in an advisory capacity to the City Manager. The MMSEG will provide insight and feedback about patient and community needs as they relate to cultivation, delivery, manufacturing and testing of medical marijuana. Based on the meetings, research and input from the MMSEG, and input received on Open City Hall [http://is.gd/bIeNAd], staff will develop policy recommendations anticipated to be presented for City Council consideration by July 1, 2016. Recommendations will not include modifications to Vallejo Municipal Code 7.100 approved by City Council on July 28, 2015.
Medical Marijuana Stakeholder and Expert Group (MMSEG) meeting
Thursday, April 28 at 3:00 p.m. in the Joseph Room, JFK Library
Stranger News
* "Mind Machines You Can Build" (by G. Harry Stine) (.doc, direct download) [http://is.gd/3rtFnn], text only [archive.is/N8Iyb], about the author [http://is.gd/67GpbC].
The book covers such things as pyramids, dowsing rods, energy wheels, and a couple of "strange machines" called the Hieronymus machine (after its inventor) and the Wishing Machine. It even delves into the realm of "symbolic machines," variations of these devices which work even if only the schematic is used. Stine discusses his introduction to these devices, his experiments with them, people's reactions to them, and directions/methods for further research. Although not mentioned in this book, other countries, such as the former USSR, researched such things heavily, and are rumored to have made some very strange and possibly dangerous strides in this field which they call "energetics."
If you think that there is no scientific basis for any of this, you are not current in cutting-edge physics (which is in turn billions of years behind the Universe itself). The work of Myron Evans in O(3) Electrodynamics, Sach's Unified Field Theory, and Michael Leyton's work in higher dimensional symmetry, among others, give plenty of theoretical basis for these beasties to function...
Those who think such things are frauds should not waste their time here. This book is for people who are rational, open-minded, and believe in the empirical part of scientific method. Try them and decide for yourself, unless you prefer to let others do all your thinking for you. Remember, all great scientific breakthroughs were fought tooth and nail by the "keepers of the status quo" of their time.
This book is for people who want to push the envelope, not hide in it.
Space News
* "1917 Astronomical Plate has first-ever evidence of exoplanetary System" (2016-04-12, carnegiescience.edu) [archive.is/qxvH2], photo caption: The 1917 photographic plate spectrum of van Maanen's star from the Carnegie Observatories’ archive. The pull-out box shows the strong lines of the element calcium, which are surprisingly easy to see in the century old spectrum. The spectrum is the thin, (mostly) dark line in the center of the image. The broad dark lanes above and below are from lamps used to calibrate wavelength, and are contrast-enhanced in the box to highlight the two “missing” absorption bands in the star. Available here as a standalone image. Credit: Carnegie Institution for Science.
* "The darkness of dark matter and dark energy" (summarized by Stewart Brand, longnow.org, from a lecture by Priya Natarajan):
ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from observing photons, Natarajan pointed out. But dark matter, which makes up 90 percent of the total mass in the universe, is called dark because it neither emits nor reflects photons — and because of our ignorance of what it is. It is conjectured to be made up of still-unidentified exotic collisionless particles which might weigh about six times more than an electron.
Though some challenge whether dark matter even exists, Natarajan is persuaded that it does because of her research on “the heaviest objects in the universe“ — galaxy clusters of more than 1,000 galaxies. First of all, the rotation of stars within galaxies does not look Keplerian — the outermost stars move far too quickly, as discovered in the 1970s. Their rapid rate of motion only makes sense if there is a vast “halo” of dark matter enclosing each galaxy.
And galaxy clusters have so much mass (90 percent of it dark) that their gravitation bends light, “lenses” it. A galaxy perfectly aligned on the far side of a galaxy cluster appears to us — via the Hubble Space Telescope — as a set of multiple arc-shaped (distorted) galaxy images. Studying the precise geometry of those images can reveal some of the nature of dark matter, such as that it appears to be “clumpy.” With the next generation of space telescopes — the James Webb Space Telescope that comes online in 2018 and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope a few years afterward — much more will be learned. There are also instruments on Earth trying to detect dark-matter particles directly, so far without success.
As for dark energy — the accelerating expansion of the universe — its shocking discovery came from two independent teams in 1998–99. Dark energy is now understood to constitute 72 percent of the entire contents of the universe. (Of the remainder, dark matter is 23 percent, and atoms — the part that we know — makes up just 4.6 percent.) When the universe was 380,000 years old (13.7 billion years ago), there was no dark energy. But now “the universe is expanding at a pretty fast clip.” Natarajan hopes to use galaxy-cluster lensing as a tool “to trace the geometry of space-time which encodes dark energy.”
These days, she said, data is coming in from the universe faster than theory can keep up with it.” We are in a golden age of cosmology.”
* A linkable illustrated version of this summary is on Medium [http://is.gd/BBxWlQ].
* The audio--and soon video—of the talk is at the Long Now Seminars site [http://is.gd/H1xNf4].
Ancient News
* "Spreading seeds by human migration" (2016-04-13, universityofcalifornia.edu) [archive.is/yX6cS] [begin excerpt]: Using DNA collected from corn grown by immigrant farmers in Los Angeles and Riverside, researchers at UC Riverside have found the genetic diversity of corn in some home and community gardens in Southern California far exceeds levels found in commercially available seeds.
The researchers cautioned that this is a preliminary study with a small sample size. Future research would expand to include a greater number of gardens, and focus on characteristics of the corn, such as tolerance to drought, difference in cob size and flowering time.
The research addresses the importance of maintaining a diverse range of genetic resources for future crop improvement. A broad mix of genetic material is useful for breeding modern improved lines, minimizing the vulnerability of inbred crops to pathogens and pests, improving performance and incorporating unique traits.
Yet, crop genetic diversity is threatened in developing and developed countries as policies and program encourage the use of relatively homogeneous modern cultivars and as people migrate from farms to cities, often abandoning farming altogether. [...]
Past research has shown that corn genetic diversity is being eroded, particularly in Mexico and conservation strategies tend to fall into two categories: ex situ and in situ. Ex situ refers to using a controlled environment, such as a gene bank or botanical garden, to maintain genetic resources. In situ refers to a farmer-based approach via traditional agricultural practices like seed saving and selective breeding. [...]
“People collect baseball cards and people collect plant seeds,” Ellstrand said. “In reality, it is not all that surprising that as people move around they help preserve the genetic diversity of plants.” [end excerpt]
