Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Missing
Sexual drive (or simply desire as it is) will never be satisfied any more than love. That's the very point making desire desire and love love. Without that forever delayed, postponed, and missing encounter, there will be no love or desire. And simply for that, there will always be that strong nostalgic aura circling both. Yes, therefore we miss, miss all the time. Something or someone is always getting off our hold even without our knowing. Therefore we miss, always miss something or someone in some place and at some time. A missing person we all are. That's why memory is always sweet. Knowledge, yes, always comes too late. Because.....? Because we cannot but keep loving and desiring.....till the day we die.
SETI
The latest analyses of the S.E.T.I work-units by my computer center on the area around the constellation Boötes (the herdsman). For those who are a bit well versed in reading the night sky, Boötes is fascinating for at least two reasons. Its alpha star, Arcturus 大角, with the magnitude of -0.04 is the fourth brightest star in the sky (as u might already know, the brightest one is Sirius 天狼 whose magnitude is -1.46) and "only" 36 light-years away from earth in distance.
"Only" means "not very far from," if compared to the globular cluster NGC 5466 within the Boötes boundary which, well, is 47,000 ly in distance. The nearest star to earth is alpha centauri: 4 ly. Of course, this "only" is still far away because with our technology today, we can't even have manned travel to alpha centauri. Light travels in one year 9.46 x 1,000,000,000,000 km. Quite stupendous!
Another reason Boötes interests star-gazers is that, as its name and story suggests, the constellation leads hunting dogs (Canes Venatici) by its side, keeping the two bears (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) around the pole (north pole, of course). As u already know, the Great Dipper of Ursa Major is the famous Chinese 北斗七星 (天樞, 天璇, 天璣, 天權, 玉衡, 開陽, 瑤光), while the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor has Polaris rested on the very north point of the celestial body. Since the magnitude of Arcturus is much much brighter than all those stars above, this Herdsman becomes kind of a guide that easily directs star-gazers from Dubhe (天樞) to Polaris, that is, to north.
Arcuturus, by the way, is from the Greek arktourous, "guardian of the bear." Bear, in Greek, is Arktos. Since our Boötes is closely associated with the northerly constellation Ursa Major, arktos gradually came to bear the meaning "north" (as witnessed by the word "arctic").
Listening intently to the area deeply into the sky around Boötes is the radio telescope of Arecibo of the S.E.T.I project. Hissing monotonously in continuity in the silent deep night is my computer processor busy calculating the data chunk ripped from the telescope ear. Who knows, maybe there's really someone or something out there waiting for response. Yet the reality is no more than a technological materialization of people's belief in the "beyond." yes, only beyond. And never ask or attempt to know what the beyond is or is about. Never put into that beyond whatever we think we know should be its contents.
Just beyond......
The truth is we simply don't know. Of that beyond we never know how to think, and in that beyond we will never be able to think.
"Only" means "not very far from," if compared to the globular cluster NGC 5466 within the Boötes boundary which, well, is 47,000 ly in distance. The nearest star to earth is alpha centauri: 4 ly. Of course, this "only" is still far away because with our technology today, we can't even have manned travel to alpha centauri. Light travels in one year 9.46 x 1,000,000,000,000 km. Quite stupendous!
Another reason Boötes interests star-gazers is that, as its name and story suggests, the constellation leads hunting dogs (Canes Venatici) by its side, keeping the two bears (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) around the pole (north pole, of course). As u already know, the Great Dipper of Ursa Major is the famous Chinese 北斗七星 (天樞, 天璇, 天璣, 天權, 玉衡, 開陽, 瑤光), while the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor has Polaris rested on the very north point of the celestial body. Since the magnitude of Arcturus is much much brighter than all those stars above, this Herdsman becomes kind of a guide that easily directs star-gazers from Dubhe (天樞) to Polaris, that is, to north.
Arcuturus, by the way, is from the Greek arktourous, "guardian of the bear." Bear, in Greek, is Arktos. Since our Boötes is closely associated with the northerly constellation Ursa Major, arktos gradually came to bear the meaning "north" (as witnessed by the word "arctic").
Listening intently to the area deeply into the sky around Boötes is the radio telescope of Arecibo of the S.E.T.I project. Hissing monotonously in continuity in the silent deep night is my computer processor busy calculating the data chunk ripped from the telescope ear. Who knows, maybe there's really someone or something out there waiting for response. Yet the reality is no more than a technological materialization of people's belief in the "beyond." yes, only beyond. And never ask or attempt to know what the beyond is or is about. Never put into that beyond whatever we think we know should be its contents.
Just beyond......
The truth is we simply don't know. Of that beyond we never know how to think, and in that beyond we will never be able to think.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Origin
This is the time when I first set up my blog. After that, I did not have time to maintain it. The post is kept here to witness the start of this personal weblog.
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