Real life Twilight: Vampires and Werewolves

Since I posted last week on Dracula, the big bad himself, and with All Hallow's Eve coming up next week I figured I'd share some stuff I learned about real like vampires and werewolves.

Both of these resulted in my discovering the National Geographic Wild YouTube channel. In addition to having some fun animal stuff (as well as other National Geographic programs), there are even full episodes of shows. One that I've recently watched is America the Wild with Casey Anderson. He strikes me as a Bear Grylls meets the Kratt Brothers - an outdoor enthusiast with a strong interest in animals. That and like the Kratts, he's willing to do some pseudo-crazy things. Like lie down with a bunch cows that are being fed off of by vampire bats.

Some interesting points that come up in the episode. For instance, vampire bats are the only mammal that that are exclusively hematophagy (feed on blood). From what I could find, the only other creatures that only subside on blood are our common friends in the bug world. Another interesting fact is that if you are on the look out for vampire bats, you need to watch the ground. They sneak up on their pray and leap on them, rather than flying on them. Something else I found interesting is that the their face is packed full of heat sensors that can pick up where the blood is closest to the surface. From there they simply open up the vein and let their spit keep the blood from clotting. I can't say I would ever find myself getting cozy with a vampire bat, but they are kind of cool for how they have adapted and their unique hunting style.

I also promised werewolves and while I still think that Corriea has the coolest werewolf ever in Earl Harbringer (see the first sentence on that page, "Dirty Harry meets Twilight." got to love it! Oh, click next to read chapters from the book.) I have to confess that Casey's Monster Wolf is a pretty convincing idea.

The premise of the Monster Wolf episode is to try to explain why there are wolves and wolf packs that are more aggressive - and consequently more dangerous to people. The hypothesis is that at some point the wolves bred with dogs giving their mental and genetic makeup a bit of a cognitive dissonance. On one hand they are familiar with humans and being near them. On the other they have instincts that make them extremely dangerous. Ultimately what you get with a wolf-dog (the result of interbreeding) is a creature that is not afraid of humans but that is hardwired to protect itself, its territory, and its food from everything. They point out that wolves, even cubs, cannot be domesticated. It's an argument of nature verses nurture and with wolves nature is all that matters. In some ways wolf-dogs are literal werewolves because they will be very dog like - playing, romping, etc - but as the video shows (just after the 17 minute mark) they can turn into the primal wolf with the right stimuli. It may not be a full moon, but the change happens just as fast.

Werewolves and Vampires have a long history in culture and folklore. I will put in another plug for Corriea's Monster Hunter Alpha (and the rest of the series to boot) as it gives a different mythos to the origin of werewolves. And lets just face it that Earl Harbinger could take Jacob, Sam, and the whole twilight pack apart. And that would be even before he changed forms. While the Volturi show up with just a lot of people, Earl brings a small crew and a Carl Gustav. Larry, I want to read the account of MHI taking out the Volturi. Make it happen!

This is going to hurt. A lot.

If you've been reading my other blog, Grandfather's Wish, you'd have seen a post on my latest past time - World War Wasp. The short of it that I got stung and decided it was time to get rid of the nest that they built in my shed. Since then I've been musing about the fact that wasps don't just sting you but actually inject a venom into you as well. At the moment venom is really on my mind as I have a face full of it. I tried going after the wasps again and in an effort not to get stung, dressed in a heavy leather coat, brimmed hat and even worn gloves. They responded to by investigation with extreme prejudice by stinging me on the only spot I hadn't covered - my face. I'm fine and despite a pretty harrowing experience in the past with wasps I have a pretty good tolerance for their stings. I still don't like to be stung. I just try to cope as best I can. I must say that getting stung in the face is madding because it itches and I don't want to tear my face off for a stupid wasp sting. Luckily the local pharmacist gave me some stuff to try that works really well. Anyway, back to venom.

As I was researching wasps in particular, I learned that their venom is designed to cause pain. They use it for a variety of things, but the bottom line result of having wasp venom injected into you is to put the hurt on you. This is because wasp stingers are very small - wasps are very small and they have to defend themselves from creatures much bigger them themselves. So the venom in a wasp is a psychological biological weapon. It destroys cell ways, particularly neurons, which cause the victim to register pain. It has additional things that stop the flow of blood in the area (so the venom can hang around as much as it likes) and others that enable it to move from cell to cell, hunting out neurons. The idea is to make the victim look at the wasp and feel a strong pain and say, "Holy Crap! That little bug just put a big hurt on me. I don't want any more of this!" and leave. Now of course there can be other side effects of wasp venom: swelling, infection, and even life-threatening anaphylactic reactions for those with an allergy to the venom. Because wasps, and their cousins bees, are so common and the chance of being stung likely treatments are pretty standard and those with allergies can get an Epi-Pen for quick treatment.

There are many other types of venom out there, however. Remember that venomous creatures are those that inject a dangerous substance into their victims. In order to be hurt by poisonous creatures you have to eat them. The list of venomous animals on Wikipedia needs some better organization, but it shows that you have all different kinds of animals: mammals, fish, reptiles, insects and arachnids, just about every kind of animal will have one that venomous. The actual process of having venom injected into you is called envenomation and that is not a word you want to see by "cause of death." Snakes tend to be be the most known venomous animals. Many know about rattlesnakes, cobras, and vipers. I would put spiders and scorpions as the runners up. Not just because they're venomous but also because they're creeping looking. Beyond those, I would imagine that many people don't think about other creatures being venomous, but be careful, because there are still quite a few you wouldn't think of.

Venom can be injected a number of ways. The most commonly thought of are fangs and stingers. This is probably because they just scream, "INJECTION!" They are designed to force venom into a victim in the most direct way possible. They are not the only ones. Many lizards, like the gila monster and the komoto dragon, have venomous saliva that they chew into their victims, saturating the wound with the toxins. Others, such as the male platypus, other mammals and many fish, have a spur or spine that either secretes or is covered in the venom and is then stab it into the victim. What is also interesting is that the creature can often choose whether to inject the venom or not. Wasps, apparently, do it every time. But snakes, particularly adult snakes will often bite without releasing the venom - as a way of warning off someone or something. This is why child or adolescent venomous creatures tend to be deadlier than their parents. Every situation is a dire one and so they will often inject as much venom as possible into everything that bothers them.

Granted, just because a creature can choose to inject venom doesn't mean it's worth the risk of getting bit. Venom can kill in so many different ways, and even the ones that don't kill can maim, blind, debilitate, or just flat out hurt like the devil. Some venom effect the blood, either causing it to clot and producing strokes or blockages, or letting it run freely which also causes problems. Often times venom contains a neuro-toxin which will interrupt the signals from the brain, often resulting in a victim muscles to seize up killing them by suffocation or cardiac arrest. What is truly interesting is that scientists can now deconstruct a creatures venom just from a DNA sample and use it to treat dangerous medical conditions. This article from National Geographic back in February talks about the research being done in venom studies and what potential cures are being discovered. It is a fascinating read and explains the strides being made much better than I can.

So, World War Wasp is still one, but I think their down to their last survivors. I'm just glad that I'm not allergic to wasp venom or that would be making my life very difficult right now.

Social Media - an unstoppable force

I was never the biggest Facebook user. Particularly after I found Twitter. Both of those waned when I became an active viewer on YouTube. And then I started a blog - and then I started another. I am no expert when it comes to social media and I am not sure it possible to be. Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan discussed how anything that is socially oriented is subject to low probability, high impact events. I think that few could have even comprehended the impact of social media on our world, or the ebbs and flows of the different platforms. In short, social media has Veni, Vidi, Vici-ed itself into our world.

This Doonesbury comic is on of my favorites. I cut it out of the newspaper and put it on the door to my office. This was before I had a Twitter account (and might have even been before my Facebook page) so I could laugh at it without feeling like it related too much. In some ways, I feel that my life may reflect the character above - I try to keep to the deadlines that I've set for my blogs (Thursdays and Mondays) and get a little apprehensive when those deadlines start to approach and I don't have something ready for them. I've also learned that if I don't check Facebook I miss activities or events that are planned and discussed there. I'm got very mixed feelings about that.

First, I think it's interesting what social media has done for professional interactions and marketing. This is technically two things, so I'll muse on the interactions first in this paragraph. Just today, I listened to a podcast of Writing Excuses which talked about how to recover from professional mistakes, whether your own for someone else's. Howard Taylor mentioned the "eternal" nature of the internet. If you post something on the internet once there is no way to completely remove it. Like the proverbial stone after it's thrown, what you put online is out there and it will connect with something, sometime, and there is little you can do about it. I had an instance during college when someone posted something about me online. I was not a member of the social media community where this was posted and so didn't know anything about it until my roommate started asking me questions. When I asked why he explained about this post he read that sounded like me. He read me the post and sure enough, it was about me. After I got over my initial annoyance and anger (although my friend was more angry then me) I confronted the individual to simply say that he got his facts wrong. I almost burst out laughing when I called his attention to the post and he replied, "You read that? You weren't supposed to read that." I thought, "You put it on a public website with enough information that my roommate could identify all of the parties involved. Why would you think I wouldn't or couldn't read it." Social media hasn't changed. It is amazing what people can learn about you if you're not careful. There are plenty of things that will try to help you avoid social media faux pas so I won't dwell on it.

Social media marketing is the reason I got a twitter account. Robson Wells, author of Variant, Feedback, and the upcoming Blackout was offering a twitter exclusive. He was offering an advanced reader copy of his book as the prize in a drawing. You entered the drawing by tweeting about the book release. I didn't win, but he launched a second twitter drawing very shortly after. Every month until the release of his book Variant he would be conducting a drawing for a $25 gift card to Amazon. The eve of the release he would do a drawing for a new Kindle with five of his favorite young adult books already on it. You entered the drawing by pre-ordering a copy of the book. I decided that for $12 plus shipping and handling it was worth it. It turned out that I won the first drawing for the gift card so I came out about $10 ahead. Robson Wells is not the only one that has used social media to his advantage. I wouldn't have had a twitter account in time to find about about the contest - which required me to buy his book - if he hadn't given me incentive. Mix that with the ability for social media to "spread the word" about new (or established) business and you can effectively bypass all of the major gateways that have been previously the only entrances into successful enterprise. I mentioned the power of YouTube and new musicians in my last post on music.

Social Media is breaking down old walls, but it's also putting up new ones. In many ways it's dividing those that use it from those that don't. I mentioned how I have to check Facebook occasionally or I miss out on some of what's going on, even in my family. Also, things that happen online are not limited to just online. Just Google "What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook." You notice that it's only used to discuss the problems with social media. Not as a cliche or joke, but in all seriousness because there is no possible way for something to "stay on Facebook." There is no stopping it. So, check your privacy settings, guard your information, refer to your family sparingly and don't post while intoxicated and you might, just might avoid having your social media usage leap too far off the screen. As one warning voice mentioned, "If you're not paying for it you're not the customer. You're the product."

I see the light!

Light is pretty cool. That is it is interesting and fascinating, not that it's temperature is particularly chilly. In fact, Archimedes was said to have made a weapon by concentrating light using mirrors. I've found references to others that have tried to recreate this trick including, the Mythbusters (twice) with mixed results. It has been demonstrated that it can be done, but if it was done is a question for history, not science. There have actually been two modern day occurrences that demonstrate the damage the sun can do when people aren't trying to deflagrate ancient warships. The first was in Las Vegas three years ago when a sunbather got more than he was looking for. The second was just last week when a man's car was parked in just the wrong spot and was exposed to 10 to 20 times the normal sunlight. Sixty Symbols on YouTube explains how it happens, as well as how a particular urban myth about Barbecuing pigeons got started.

Light also has the ability to travel really far distances. Even a small mirror can produce a flash that is visible for miles. My siblings and I all owned signal mirrors as kids capable of long range flashes and we took particular delight in finding new ways to direct the flashes. Light always reflects at the angle of impact (like the video explains), so the trick is just knowing how the light bounces. Interestingly enough, Derek, from Veritasium, explains how light is quantized. That is, it arrives in packets. As you back away from a light source the light appears to get dimmer and dimmer until your eyes can't pick it up anymore. But with sesitive enough eyes the sun would not truly go out, but would flicker. That's because the packets are having to cover a larger and larger area as they get further and further away form the source. Derek describes it much better - check out his video.

Now that I've looked at light, perhaps I should look at darkness. Does anybody know the speak of dark?

The Green Flash and other phenomenon

Brady Haran, YouTuber extraordinaire, recently returned from a trip to the European Southern Observatory in Chile. He talks about all six days on his blog, so I won't mentioned everything he did. But I did watch the first video he posted from there on his channel Deep Sky Videos - The Green Flash!

I have to confess that I did not know that there was a actual green flash phenomenon. I thought it was something created by Disney for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Turns out that it's real and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. As the sun approaches the horizon it has to pass through more atmosphere. This added air acts like a lens that distorts the light. Consequently it creates an illusion of the edge of the sun separating and turning green. I dug around and found a good resource on green flashes by Andrew Young. It's really a cool thing that I would love to see it for myself.

Learning about the green flash got me thinking about other natural phenomenon. St. Elmo's fire came next to mind.

I first heard about it from watching a version of Moby Dick.The teacher explained that the crazy blue fire on the mast wasn't magic but rather a natural occurrence. Similar to light night it is when air is ionized during a storm (often at the end of it). It tends to collect on surfaces that discharge easily - pointed objects being a chief culprit. A perfect example of how the process works is a neon light. They both operate under the same principles of ionization. The cool thing is that ionized air is basically a plasma. And if you remember my post on the states of matter you know that plasmas are really cool. So, if it looks like your plane is burning on the wings, you might be looking at the slowest lightning you can see.

Lightning is also a pretty cool occurrence when you really think about it. I won't look too closely at it, but I will link to KXCD's blog when he answered a whole bunch of questions about it. I will also share an awesome video that you may or may not have seen before. (filmed by Tom A. Warner)

Returning to the sun for a minute, I've heard of Sundogs before and even seen them and so wanted to make mention of them here.

Similar to an after effect of a lens flare, sundogs are the result of when light from the sun is broken up by before it gets to your eye. In a lens flare the light source is scattered as it passes through the lens. With sundogs the light is split by ice crystals in the air. The reason why sundogs don't show up every time it's cold enough for ice to form is that the crystals must be aligned so as to be horizontal to the viewing angle. Because of the specificity of the crystals, it produces a very distinct effect, two (or sometimes more) "phantom suns" that are equal distances from the sun. The same crystals also can form a halo around the sun in the same fashion. Again, this phenomenon generally occurs when the sun is near the horizon. The website Atmospheric Optics has some excellent photos and explanations about different visual phenomenon.

While rarely a mystery, I want to mention the Aurora borealis and Aurora australis. The northern (and southern) lights are a result of solar radiation hitting the upper atmosphere. They can be a variety of colors and are a common subject of photos. They've been studies extensively and there is lots of information you can find about them. I mention them here because I actually had a chance to see the lights while at my parents house in northern Utah. They were a faint green glow in the northeast sky, but while not being spectacular it was a great novelty. I don't have a bucket list, but if I did "see the northern lights" would have been on it.

I'll end with an occurrence that I've seen a time or two and, like the green flash, is due to the atmosphere. There are all kinds of things that can make the moon look different colors, including particles in the air (from fires, industry, etc), as well as the moon's light coming through thick layers of atmosphere (such as moon rise and moon set). I had to share this from Wiki Answers as I was doing research on this - The answer someone's question of "Why is the moon red?" Answer: "It is NOT." I've never considered Wiki Answers as credible research - Now I really don't trust them. The most established change in the moon's color is during a lunar eclipse. Red moons come from sun light reflecting off of the moon and shining through the Earth's shadow. Earth's shadow has a reddish tint to it because our atmosphere bends light around it, the red light being the most penetrating and thus infusing the shadow while the blues and greens (and other hues) scatter out. So that is why during a lunar eclipse the moon will look red. I like this description from NASA about what it would look like if you were in a spaceship in the shadow of the Earth...

The view from your cockpit window is Earth's nightside, the dark half of our planet opposite the sun. But it's not completely dark! All around Earth's limb, the atmosphere glows red. What you're seeing is every sunrise and sunset on Earth -- all at once. This ring of light shines into Earth's shadow, breaking the utter darkness you might expect to find there. Turn off the cockpit lights. There's a lovely red glow.

Rather poetic don't you think?

Further changes in Music

I just can't seem to leave music alone. Perhaps it's because it strikes a cord in me. As I continued to muse about modern music I realized that I could continue to talk about the evolution of music with some neat examples.

First, my theory of modern soundtracks being the newest wave of classical music. The Piano Guys helped vindicate me on these thoughts. They have a couple of videos that use soundtracks mixed with classical music to produce an amazing combination. The two big ones are Bourne Vivaldi and Mission Impossible (featuring Lindsey Stirling).

If you read the "Story behind the song" in the notes of Bourne Vivaldi you'd find the following:

There are few "hooks" in the movie-music world that are as grabby as the Bourne Identity Soundtrack riff. like the movie series, its intensity commands attention. We just had to figure out a way to use it. In our usual style, we thought we'd create an "action movie soundtrack" that combined this and a piece of classical music...With no "action movies" in the 1700's, [Vivaldie's piece] was probably the closest you could get to one. It has intense and exciting moments between beautiful lyrical moments. It was this piece, among others, that got Steven (the cello guy) excited about classical music - it was one of the first pieces he played with orchestra.

 The piano guys are known for mixing classical music with everything they do, demonstrating the tendency to mix different styles to create new sounds. While different forms of classical music have done this in the past, it appears to be a staple of modern music in general. Not just in mixing classical with soundtracks or pop, but different pop styles, rap, alternative, and everything in between. I am not a big rap fan. Most of the time I take issue with the content or style of rap, but I do have a collection that I enjoy. A particular favorite is the YouTuber Eppic featured in these videos (with Peter Hollens, Kait Weston, and Alex G).

I like the addition of the rap and the way it fits with the other singers and the style of the songs. the blend is good and despite the differences in styles I feel that it adds something. To go in the reverse, the Salt Lake Pops Orchestra takes popular songs and puts them to full orchestration. They are also doing fun things with orchestration (calling it the "Radioactive Orchestra") as shown in these videos with Kristen Jensen and Alex Boye and Lindsey Stirling.

One last alteration in music that follows a more experimental theme is music based on more than just emotion, narrative, or even any kind of music tradition. Alan Key writes and produces music for Brady Haran (and others) and is featured in many of the science and math videos that I enjoy. Brady has also worked with Dave Lens, a singer/song writer who has been inspired by science concepts. Below are recent videos from each of them. Alan's Pi March is based on the number pi (3.14....). He has also done music based on Tau, e, and Khinchin's constant. Dave's video was inspired by the vast differences in size between the smallest form of matter and the largest. While the music itself is original, he had to do extensive research (using Brady's help) to compile the facts, sizes, and accuracy for the lyrics. His song has grown on me over the time since he posted it on one of Brady's channels. The video features a chores by ViHart, who is a professional mathemusician at the khanacademy.org. So we can view music as it's influenced by math and the sciences.

These videos also demonstrate a principle that I was trying to blog but just never came together. With the rise of the recording industry music became a regulated industry. Only those that the production company thought were worthy would receive wide spread distribution. Sure artists could self produce, but generally access to equipment was expensive, marketing was non-existent, and exposure was limited. But then the digital revolution happened. Peer-to-peer file sharing, particularly of music, enabled people to spread music faster then the recording industry, often times spreading music without the recording companies and the artist receiving any money. This, of course, was not seen as a good thing for the people who make or produce the music. While Peer-to-peer was eventually locked down and regulated (for the majority) when Napster lost their lawsuit against the RIAA, another potential enemy of the recording industry loomed its head - YouTube.

There is lots of debate on whether and how YouTube hurts the music industry. And I don't have anything to add or subtract from what has already been said. There is obviously one huge effect of YouTube on music - exposure. Musicians are able to expand their audience much more now than ever before. The Piano Guys, Lindsey Stirling, and The Salt Lake Pops have all been able to expand their music beyond YouTube because of their success on YouTube. Many other YouTubers are able to support themselves (some completely, others partially) through their productions. But anyone can post a video and potentially become the next new thing. Previously artists would of had to go through a recording company for an opportunity to reach the same size audience. Many YouTubers will collaborate with others to increase their audience. This results in many of the mixes, mashes, and variations that occur, including some of those above.

The growth of the online musician increases with digital production and sales. I own both albums and singles of several of my favorite YouTubers' music, buying it from iTunes but it is also available via that artist's websites. Even if the artist is not looking to support themselves but just do something that they think others would like they can accomplish their ends very easily. Music as a medium and a industry is changing and it's not about to stop any time soon.

The Evolution in Music

The original idea for this post was to look at the music industry and how it's changed, but for whatever reason that musing has failed to find a place to settle. It's still going around in my head, but I'm having difficulty with posting it. In the mean time, I had another musing that took me back in time to several courses on music history.

For the majority of people I've met the term "Classical Music" does not pertain to music written in the classical era (Mid 1700s to early 1800s), but rather any music that is "Serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition." (citation). Interestingly enough, the current musical tradition - Modern or 20th Century - has changed during its period of classification. So there are multiple kinds of 20th Century music, including Avant-garde which tends to shun musical traditions of all kinds. My band instructor in high school played us a part of Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte as an example. Microtones - the notes between notes, Sprechgesang - the space between singing and speaking, and Experimental music notation are elements often associated with 20th Century music. As just an example, Igor Stavinsky is considered one of the the essential composers of the 20th Century music, yet he was also known for several different styles of music. From what I can tell the only "tradition" of 20th Century music is how it changes, both establishing and rejecting the norms.

Now, I understand that classical music is still being written, however I can't say that I ever hear it or even know where to find it. Perhaps the most likely place to find modern classical music might be a junior or high school band or orchestra performance. I played baritone/euphonium for six years and played through my share of music that I never heard again. Many of them I enjoyed playing (most of them really). I'll always have a soft spot for "The Gathering of the Ranks at Hebron" by David Holsinger, particularly the way my part sounded. However, such music is not commonly heard elsewhere. With technology allowing artists to expand their reach the 20th Century has been filled with new traditions of folk, jazz, rock, country, blues, R&B, rap, and alternative. These all mesh, blend, and get remixed with each other. Particularly as we have entered the 21st Century, I can't say that I've seen much of what may be called "modern classical." The closest thing I've described as "classical" is William Joseph, a pianist who does a mixture of covers and original pieces.

In fact it was a recent William Joseph collaboration with Lindsey Stirling, self-proclaimed hip-hop violinist that got me thinking about a post on this topic. The video in question can be seen here.

The piece is call "Halo Theme" and many of my generation will recognize it. If you do not, I invite you to listen to it's complexity, the way it moves, and the energy it coveys. It never had any words and is just the beginning of a multi-themed work. It was written to covey "importance, weight and a sense of the ancient." It is the soundtrack to a video game.

I've always been a fan of movie and video game soundtracks. Some favorites soundtrack composers include: John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore, and John Powell. "Traditional" classical music and modern soundtracks have a fair amount in common. In fact, many movies have used classical music as the soundtrack. The Thief of Baghdad used Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Op 35 Scheherazade (1888), 2001 Space Odessay's main theme was composed by Richard Strauss and is actually titled "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (1896), and don't forget that the Lone Ranger rides to the William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini (1829). Disney's two Fantasia movies from 1940 and 2000 used classical music as the basis for creating visual images to entertain and delight. When much of the music was being written it was without the benefit of visual images outside of the audience's imagination. Often music was based on a story or image the composer wanted to convey, Beethoven's Symphony no 6., the Pastoral symphony, or Stravinsky's The Firebird  (both of them featured in the Fantasia movies) are perfect examples of this.

I've thought for years that the niche that "traditional", story based, designed to entertain classical music occupied for many centuries has been filled by soundtracks. They are both (when done well) designed to stir emotions, trigger responses, extend the imagination, and help the listener enjoy themselves. The biggest difference is that soundtracks are inherently designed to go in support of another medium. However, a well written soundtrack can encourage people to imagine comparable images to what the director puts on the screen. John William's iconic themes to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter are good examples, as are Hans Zimmer's theme to Pirates of the Caribbean and Peral Harbor - Attack, and Alan Silvestri's Translavian horses amoung others.

The same is true of video game soundtracks. More and more game designers realize that they need music that enhances the gameplay as well as provocks emotional responses in the player. It is interesting how regardless of what you are seeing what you hear is more prone to direct your emotions. Take the fight sciences in The Lord of the Rings films (done by Howard Shore). At points during the action the music changes to melodic tones full of sorrow and feeling. In those moments ye action itself is overshadowed by the motives behind the characters. Such is the impact of good music. And such has been the goal of music ever since early spiritual hymns were sung in worship and rejoicing. I know that there is this new form of classical music but I will continue to argue that the real classical music, the music that today most matches the goals and intentions of the period music we still listen to, is the soundtrack.

It's a small word

"It's a small world" - Idiom - Said to show your surprise that people or events in different places are connected, Cambridge Dictionaries Online.

I've had my fair share of "small world" experiences. They tend to happen as we meet new people or try new things. It can be a fun experience when you meet someone who knows your best friend, or has been to the same place as you, or turns out to be a relative (or the ex of a relative). That last one happens more times than not when you belong to my family. I remember one of my teachers in high school telling me that not only were my first and last name the same as her fathers, but we even had the same middle initial. That same year I learned that my dance instructor was my aunt's cousin, and that my dad had dated my band teacher's older sister.

Many may say that with the world of technology that we live in such experiences may be more likely to happen. If you think about it when the most the average person could travel in a day was twenty miles and communication was limited to how loud you could yell, it was very likely that you knew everybody that everybody else you knew was  acquainted with. When your area of impact is relatively small it is unlikely that your ripples will be felt by others. Many may cite the butterfly effect and say that we are all connect regardless of distance and time. While I do agree in the idea of a connected existence I also believe that, like the ripples on a pond, the further away from us our influence travels the smaller it gets. Unless, of course, you are a quantum weather butterfly. But even then your thunderstorms are only about 6 inches across.

Returning from our flight of fancy into the butterfly effect, I do find that our modern forms of travel do decrease the size of our world. For instances, my parents live below the radar domes pictured here. They are large enough that you can see them from over 20 miles away. Every time I see them I think about the original settlers in the area who walked or rode horses or carts to travel. A trip from my current home to there is a little under an hour. Trip on horseback could be anywhere from 10 hours to an hour and a half. As it is, I have no difficulty driving down to see them for an afternoon and then getting back in time to put the kids to bed. Now a days if I can see it I can reach it fairly easily. That has not always been the case.

When you take into consideration that we have ways of traveling all over the earth in less than a day it has a way of "shrinking" your world. Take the longest flight in the world (supposedly currently running) Newark to Singapore. A 9,545 mile flight done in a little less than 19 hours. Seeing how the Earth is 24,901 miles around that flight is 37% the total way around. If I figured this right, that means you could circumnavigate the globe in an Airbus A340-500 in little over 51.3 hours. Just over two days. Ferdinand Magellen's crew did it in 3 years in the early fifteen hundreds. Even the Great White Fleet of Theodore Roosevelt which set sail in December of 1907 didn't return until February of 1909 - a 14 month trip. Even with air travel, the first flight around the world took 175 days. I've discovered that in March of 2010 the world record for a flight around the world was 57 hours and 54 minutes, so my estimate of 51 hours was a little off of reality. The story of Jules Verne Around the World in 80 Days (which was published in 1873) has been dreamed, enacted, and surpassed. It may be realistic to suppose that you could reach anywhere on the globe in a matter of days, and that's not considering parachuting.

Combine this with instantaneous communication (or "screaming fast" like my internet provider advertises) and you you can not only be anywhere in days, reach almost anyone within minutes. Apparently there are enough mobile phones in the world to cover 87% of the population. Or to put it another way - more people have cell phones than toilets. Now it appears that only 34.3% of the population of the world has internet access, but that's is still around 2.4353 billion people. Just think, the ripples you could be casting don't have to travel geographically anymore. Just from your fingers to your keyboard and from the screen to someone's eye. Current events are real time. Wars are fought with words as much as weapons, and the fighters can be everyday people with a smart phone or laptop. The world is indeed smaller.

The really cool thing is that despite the world shrinking in terms of travel and communication there scientists discover about 18,000 new species every year. And that's just the zoologists and botanists. Think about the discoveries in physics, chemistry, engineering, electronics, geology and all those other greek words. The world may be shrinking, but there is still plenty of it to explore.