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The Sun is coming…Look busy !

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Super flares of 2013

BREAKING NEWS I have just updated this blog, since NASA has just announced a huge solar flare explosion due next week ( Feb 21-28th 2013). This flare is 6 times the size of the earth. It was just discovered a mere 48 hours ago.So this is a timely blog if I do say so. Here is the press release:

NASA: A colossal sunspot on the surface of the sun is large enough to swallow six Earths whole, and could trigger solar flares this week, NASA scientists say.
The giant sunspot was captured on camera by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as it swelled to enormous proportions over the 48 hours spanning Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 19 and 20). SDO is one of several spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun’s space weather environment.
“It has grown to over six Earth diameters across, but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere, not a flat disk,” wrote NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox, of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in an image description.

Here we go again ! As if meteors slamming into earth were not enough to make one feel they had been tele-ported into a 1950’s era SciFi Movie.The CME’s are coming says NASA. CME is short for what they call a Coronal mass eruption and it pays to take notice of this term.You will see why as you read through this blog post. We may not have a choice as to what is being served by the speckled waiter in the sky, Monsuer Soleil AKA the sun. You see, the sun is throwing hissy fits lately, producing large eruptions of energy called solar flares. Can they kill you? Not in the way you would think.There is little chance of people burning up as has been portrayed in a number of sci fi movies. But there have been such occurrences in the past and they have knocked out whatever technologies Man has invented.And 2013 may well be a year to remember as far as the cosmos being the noisy neighbor from above.

Solar flares are no stranger to our planet, nor to civilization. Legends, myths and fables are littered with stories of stones, strange light, objects from the sky falling with no explanation. But is there any evidence to support the idea that Solar Flares have impacted our environs? In short, yes. The rather new and exciting developments of some archo- climatologists are shedding sunshine on the strange history of solar flares….I have borrowed some notes from various sources to illuminate the gentle reader. And as the saying goes, nothing new under the sun….

First things first. Science cannot predict many meteors.They simply do not have the technologies able to spot meteors like the one that hit the Ural mountains of Russia.Nor could science predict the other meteors witness over San Franciso and Cuba last week. Science even got lucky finding the asteroid that came close to us days ago.And CME’s are just as tricky to predict.The one coming looks enormous, so maybe a quick study of historic solar flares is in order.We will start with a CME I witnessed in Paris in 2000. I was staying at the Bastille hotel. Actually, I did not witness it, since it was invisible, and frankly, I did not notice it as it occurred.But it happened and more of the same seems to be on the way….

2000: The Bastille Day EventThe Bastille Day event takes its name from the French national holiday since it occurred the same day on July 14, 2000. This was a major solar eruption that registered an X5 on the scale of solar flares.
The Bastille. I remember dining late that night,ala fresco, oblivious to the flare..enjoying a glass of nice wine, like everyone else in Paris that balmy evening…

But the mysteries of the sun date back to the beginnings of our world,and are deeply ingrained in the human experience.

Since the beginning of human existence, civilizations have established religious beliefs that involved the Sun’s significance to some extent or other. As new civilizations developed many spiritual beliefs were based on those from the past so that there has been an evolution of the sun’s significance throughout cultural development. Even as late as the 17th century the development of tarot cards for fortune telling included a card that represents the Sun’s influence on the life of man.

If we look closely into history, we see that the religious beliefs of the very first civilization, the Sumerians,were consumed by the movement and expression of the sun…A land of blazing hot summers and precious little shade,Sumer was the “Hell’s kitchen” of the Middle East. While the Sumerian’s Sun god wasn’t the most powerful deity in their culture it initiated the development of future Sun worship. Over the centuries the Sumerian Sun god’s influence grew while other god’s influence diminished.

By the time the Egyptian civilization was at its peak, the Sun god had reached a supreme position. However, Sun worship reached its height and most involved form with the Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations of South America. The Inca culture was totally based on worship of the Sun.And by the 16th century, the gleaming armor of arriving colonialists in the 16th century surely caused the native peoples to tremble and deify the conquistadors..

Something big happened in the year A.D. 774.

Scientists studying tree rings found a sharp increase in the amount of radioactive carbon-14 recorded in the rings of ancient Japanese cedar trees between 774 and 775. Carbon-14 can be created by cosmic ray particles arriving from space, but what causes such cosmic ray increases?

At first, experts were at a loss to explain the event, and the team that unearthed the tree ring data last year dismissed the sun as a possible explanation.

Now a new team of scientists argues that a solar flare is the most likely culprit.

Blast from the sun

The sun could have released a huge and powerful blast of plasma into space called a coronal mass ejection, which, when it hit Earth, could have sparked the creation of carbon-14, suggest astrophysicists Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas and Brian Thomas of Washburn University, also in Kansas, in a paper published the Nov. 29 issue of the journal Nature.

Carbon-14 is a variant of the normal form of carbon (carbon-12) that is common on Earth and throughout the universe. When cosmic ray particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, they can produce showers of particles such as neutrons. Some of these neutrons, in turn, hit the nitrogen nuclei that are rife in the atmosphere, and a chemical reaction occurs that transforms the nitrogen into carbon-14.

This carbon variant is unstable and decays with a half-life of about 5,730 years (meaning half of any amount of carbon-14 will be gone in that time). For this reason, it’s a useful date marker: A tree, for example, will stop absorbing carbon once it dies, so the amount of carbon-14 left in it is a reliable indicator of how old it is.

It had been widely known that a jump in carbon-14 occurred in the eighth century, but researchers first pinpointed this rise and fall on a year-to-year basis by looking at tree rings in a paper by Fusa Miyake of Japan’s Nagoya University and colleagues, published in the June 14 2012 issue of Nature.

“They found that whatever made that carbon-14 bump happened really fast, and took less than one year, which called out for some really major, powerful event,” Melott told SPACE.com.

The Japanese researchers considered that it might be a solar flare, but calculated that it would have had to have been thousands of times more powerful than the greatest one ever known, which made such a scenario unlikely.

Now, in a new calculation, Melott and Thomas say a solar flare is a reasonable explanation.

“Their mistake was, they assumed that the energy shot out by the sun in one of these coronal mass ejections goes out in all directions, like the light from a light bulb, but in fact it’s kind of shot out in blobs,” Melott said. In other words, there was a staggered emission of CME, which, in my view must change the very way in which we view such events.

That adjustment meant that a solar flare need have been only about 10 or 20 times more powerful than the greatest flare on record, the so-called Carrington event of 1859. You will find the events of 1859 amazing, in that the event was at first heralded as a spectator event, and later feared as the extent of damage was calculated. Could such an event, in 2013, cause dreaded grid failure? You decide. And now for the BIG EVENT….

Carrington Super Flare

From August 28, 1859, until September 2, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun. Just before noon on September 1, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest flare, which caused a major coronal mass ejection (CME) to travel directly toward Earth, taking 17.6 hours. Such a journey normally takes three to four days. This second CME moved so quickly because the first one had cleared the way of the ambient solar wind plasma.

On September 1, 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson, another English amateur astronomer, independently made the first observations of a solar flare. Because of a simultaneous “crochet”observed in the Kew Observatory magnetometer record by Balfour Stewart and a geomagnetic storm observed the following day, Carrington suspected a solar-terrestrial connection. Worldwide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis which support the observations of Carrington and Balfour Stewart.

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, even over the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People who happened to be awake in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by the aurora’s light.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operatorsTelegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

On September 3, 1859, the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser reported, “Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights. The phenomenon was very similar to the display on Sunday night, though at times the light was, if possible, more brilliant, and the prismatic hues more varied and gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested. Between 12 and 1 o’clock, when the display was at its full brilliancy, the quiet streets of the city resting under this strange light, presented a beautiful as well as singular appearance.” rather poetic imagery. They politely forgot to mention the telegraph operators that were burned alive.

Similar events

American’s , as in Meso Americans also have their solar legends. Rock art designs in the Americas are often identical to those in locations around the world. Does this suggest ancient peoples were in direct contact with one another or could there be another explanation? Physicist Anthony Peratt has a bold new theory that argues the similarities are not based on contact but the result of witnessing and recording the same high energy auroral activity taking place in the sky. These auroras were the result of a massive solar flare which was intense enough to not only produce designs in the sky but also to literally cause bodies of water to boil. Native American legends appear to record just such an event sometime in the past. Is this also the origin of the Mesoamerican and Hopi belief in a series of world ages called Suns that each ended in massive destruction of human civilization? Could the “jealous sun” as sting calls it, bring a road raged Apollo and his chariot crashing down to earth, ready to mess with our connectivity? My son, his Ipad, and the rest of our friend and family hope not…….

My guess is that 2013 will be one for the record books and if anything, these challenges with birth new technologies. After all, we invented sun screen Right? Thomas Schoenberger

Chaplin is Hot Once Again, Thanks to a Lousy Economy.By Thomas Schoenberger

So the economy is in depression, fat cat bankers rule. Crime is all over and it seems the little guy is getting crushed under the weight of oppression.Modern Times you say? No. We have traveled this road before.And one man defined the struggle of the poor to better their lot in this world..The Tramp is back, and ready to amuse…..

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was a British comic actor and filmmaker. Chaplin was one of the most influential figures of the silent era, whose screen character “The Tramp” became a global phenomenon and remains one of cinema’s most iconic images. His career in entertainment spanned more than 75 years, from Victorian music hall until close to his death at the age of 88. Chaplin’s high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy.As a composer, I am struck by Chaplin’s music. It is really rather good, haunting refrains, repetitive melodies that drum into your belly like a fish slapping plank wood.Chaplin composed like Beethoven did, with an eye towards drama and percussion. But was Chaplin ever actually homeless in real life? Well……….

Raised in London, Chaplin’s childhood was defined by poverty and hardship. He was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine; his father was absent, and his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing from a young age, touring music halls with a clog dancingtroupe and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. It was while touring with the comedy troupe that Chaplin was scouted by the film industry. His first appearances came in 1914 with Keystone Studios, where he developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the richest and most famous men in the world.

The rogue historian asks How did Chaplin resonate globally and why was his rise so meteoric? And could today’s rising tide of homeless and food scarce populations relate to the “Little Champ” ?

Chaplin played a homeless person who demanded dignity. As a tide of immigrants worldwide dealt with revolution, dislocation,poverty, war and class differences, Chaplin attracted global audiences by the sheer tenacity the “Little Tramp” showed in the face of overwhelming odds. Who hasn’t felt small or unimportant at times? Who hasn’t felt alone in a crowd? Chaplin is the ultimate symbol of the silent war of the have’s vs the have not’s Imagine Chaplin in the Occupy crowd, wreaking havoc.Imagine Chaplin in Modern day New York, assailing wicked banksters. Chaplin would have found 2013 content rich and surely would have fought for the underdog.Ironically, Charlie , who made his fame portraying an outcast chased by policemen, store owners, even other “tramps” would find himself the subject of a real life witch hunt later in his life.

In 1952 Chaplin had left Hollywood on a visit to England and while aboard ship in the Atlantic, was notified that his reentry permit had been revoked. Atty. Gen. James P. McGranery said the action had been prompted by “public charges” associating Chaplin with communism and “grave moral charges.” The comedian would have to appear at a hearing to prove his “moral worth” before he could return. Chaplin, who was still a British subject, declined to go through such a hearing. “Since the end of the last world war,” Chaplin said, “I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.” Chaplin and his family moved to a mansion overlooking Lake Geneva near the Swiss village of Vevey.

That government ruling was widely and correctly interpreted as a shabby cover to bar Chaplin from the country for political reasons. While he never belonged to a political party, he was sympathetic to liberal and some radical causes. Worse, he was outspoken. And some of his films, which ridiculed aspects of American society, were denounced as “left-wing propaganda.”

In August 1960, a superior court judge refused to issue an order compelling the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood Improvement Association to show cause why they should not be directed to include Chaplin’s name on the Walk of Fame. The court acted on a petition filed by Charles Chaplin, Jr., who contended that omission of his father’s name from the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk project was malicious. Chaplin Jr. himself demanded $400,000 damages on the complaint that the decision of the two Hollywood organizations libeled him and injured his career. His suit was eventually dismissed.

After the reentry prohibition against Chaplin was dropped years later, the actor remained in Switzerland. As the years passed, both Chaplin and the times changed and, in an interview in London in 1962, he said: “What happened to me, I can’t condemn or criticize the country for that. There are many admirable things about American and its system, too. I have no ill feelings. I carry no hate. My only enemy is time.” This statement in itself shows the sunny disposition that has come to define Chaplin.A champion of humanity, he harbored no ill will, and thus, won the war, even if he had lost many battles.

By the early days of 1972, the officials, including an attorney general of the United States, who were outraged at Chaplin’s radically-tinged politics, were now gone. It was rumored that Chaplin would return to the United States for the first time in twenty years to receive a special Academy Award voted to him. If Chaplin decided to return, he would have to apply to the U.S. Consulate in Geneva for an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa. The U.S. State Department would then rule on the application.

Possibly because of Chaplin’s promising return, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Committee voted on whether to approve a star for the actor and voted 5 to 4 against it. After that vote, Chamber president,A. Ronald Button ordered an advisory poll of chamber membership that responded 3 to 1 in favor of installing a Chaplin star. Based on that, the Chambers directors went against their Executive Committees recommendation and voted 30 to 3 in favor of adding Chaplin’s name to the sidewalk honor. The decision still had to be approved by the Los Angeles City Council, but Button said it had always approved the directors’ recommendations in the past. “I can’t imagine them opposing the star,” he said. Eventually the city council approved Chaplin’s star, 11 to 3. The three dissenting councilmen never spoke publicly in opposition, but privately complained that since the comedian earned his money here he should not have left the country to live in Switzerland. It is 2013 and thanks to revolution, war, dislocation, inflation, deflation,and the greatest demarcation line between the rich and poor in a hundred years, Chaplin is back, and this time, it’s personal…

Father: Charles Chaplin, Sr. (alcoholic)
Mother: Hannah Smith
Brother: Sydney Chaplin (half brother)
Wife: Mildred Harris (m. 23-Oct-1918, div. 1920)
Wife: Lita Grey (m. 26-Nov-1924, div. 1926)
Wife: Paulette Goddard (m. Jun-1936, div. Jun-1942)
Wife: Oona Chaplin (dau. of Eugene O’Neill, m. 16-Jun-1943)
Son: Norman Spencer Chaplin (b. 7-Jul-1919, d. 10-Jul-1919)
Son: Charlie Chaplin, Jr. (b. 5-May-1925, d. 20-Mar-1968)
Son: Sydney Chaplin (stage actor, b. 30-Mar-1926, d. 3-Mar-2009)
Daughter: Geraldine Chaplin (actress, b. 31-Jul-1944)
Girlfriend: Pola Negri
Slept with: Marion Davies (rumored)
Girlfriend: Edna Purviance
Mistress: Louise Brooks (1925)

United Artists
Oscar (honorary) 1929 for The Circus
Oscar (honorary) 1972 (Lifetime Achievement)
Oscar for Best Music Original Score 1973 for Limelight (shared)
Erasmus Prize 1965 (with Ingmar Bergman)
Knight of the British Empire 4-Mar-1975
French Legion of Honor 1985
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6751 Hollywood Blvd
Left at Orphanage
Mann Act Violation 1944 (acquitted)
Paternity Test blood test (1943)
Exhumed 1-Mar-1978 (grave robbed)
Risk Factors: Asthma
FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
A Countess from Hong Kong (5-Jan-1967)
A King in New York (12-Sep-1957)
Limelight (23-Oct-1952)
Monsieur Verdoux (11-Apr-1947)
The Great Dictator (15-Oct-1940)
Modern Times (5-Feb-1936)
City Lights (30-Jan-1931)
The Circus (6-Jan-1928)
The Gold Rush (26-Jun-1925)
A Woman of Paris (26-Sep-1923)
Pay Day (2-Apr-1922)
The Idle Class (25-Sep-1921)
The Kid (21-Jan-1921)
A Day’s Pleasure (15-Dec-1919)
Sunnyside (15-Jun-1919)
Shoulder Arms (20-Oct-1918)
The Rink (4-Dec-1916)
Behind the Screen (13-Nov-1916)
The Vagabond (10-Jul-1916)
The Floorwalker (15-May-1916)
A Night in the Show (20-Nov-1915)
Work (21-Jun-1915)
The Tramp (12-Apr-1915)
His New Job (1-Feb-1915)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
A Countess from Hong Kong (5-Jan-1967)
A King in New York (12-Sep-1957)
Limelight (23-Oct-1952)
Monsieur Verdoux (11-Apr-1947)
The Great Dictator (15-Oct-1940)
Modern Times (5-Feb-1936) · Factory Worker
City Lights (30-Jan-1931) · A Tramp
The Circus (6-Jan-1928) · A Tramp
The Gold Rush (26-Jun-1925) · The Lone Prospector
The Pilgrim (26-Feb-1923) · The Pilgrim
Pay Day (2-Apr-1922) · Worker
The Idle Class (25-Sep-1921)
The Kid (21-Jan-1921) · A Tramp
A Day’s Pleasure (15-Dec-1919) · Father
Sunnyside (15-Jun-1919)
Shoulder Arms (20-Oct-1918) · Doughboy
A Dog’s Life (14-Apr-1918) · The Tramp
The Immigrant (17-Jun-1917) · Immigrant
The Cure (16-Apr-1917)
The Rink (4-Dec-1916)
Behind the Screen (13-Nov-1916)
The Count (4-Sep-1916) · Apprentice Tailor
The Vagabond (10-Jul-1916) · Street Musician
The Floorwalker (15-May-1916)
A Night in the Show (20-Nov-1915)
Work (21-Jun-1915)
The Tramp (12-Apr-1915)
His New Job (1-Feb-1915)
Tillie’s Punctured Romance (14-Nov-1914) · Charlie
The Rounders (7-Sep-1914) · Reveller
The Masquerader (27-Aug-1914) · Film Actor
The Knockout (11-Jun-1914)
Tango Tangles (9-Mar-1914)
A Film Johnnie (2-Mar-1914) · Film Johnnie

Author of books:
My Autobiography (1964, memoir)

Tesla’s pigeon: A Tender Love Story Between a Genius and a Bird. By Thomas Schoenberger

White Pigeon

It is often recounted how Nickola Tesla,the Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electrical supply system, was a withdrawn man as his life came to a close. But I bet you did not know he once fell madly in love with a bird ? True story..

Having been burned by most everyone, including Thomas Edison, he felt cheated, and resigned to fixate his remaining attentions on a certain white pigeon he claimed to love as much as any man would love a woman.Not that Tesla had a love life.His love was the lab..and a cruel mistress it was…….

To get some insight into Tesla’s personality, we turn to an article from 1901:
New York Times – August 5, 1901

It goes without saying that the man of year-long calculations and many-mooned computations must possess patience of some pattern. That this would be exercised toward untoward interruptions is not so certain. Not long since a “special representative” of some mushroom association or other – for sending palm leaf fans to the Finlanders or pocket pincushions to the South Sea Islanders, or the like – braved the barn-like entrance and freight elevator of Nikola Tesla’s down-town workshop to petition a donation. The electrician of Houston street was making a right angle of himself over a huge

drawing board The “special representative” was fat, and scarcely five feet plus. As the wizard wearily raised his lank length to the perpendicular, her round and expressionless eyes were confronted by his waistcoat buttons. The tableau in profile was striking. The special representative began a voluble recitation of the virtues of her association. The wizard listened silently for a space of three minutes, and then, with dreamy, averted eyes and that characteristic “over-the-hills-and-far-away” voice, said gently:
“My dear madam, what would you take to go away just now and not come any more again while your – your association shall last?”
“I-I-Ten dollars.” Stammered the astonished representative.
“It is well.” said the tall man with the impressive face. “Tomorrow.” taking the card that had been trembling in the fat fingers, “tomorrow I will send you my check if you go and do not come again, and if you send me not one of those papers you speak of, or any of the advantages you mentioned. Good day, madam; I thank you!” And Tesla returned wearily to his many-mooned computations while the special representative found her way back to the freight elevator in an uncertain frame of mind.

Later years;

Near the end of his life, Tesla became fixated on pigeons, especially a specific white female, which he claimed to love almost as one would love a human being. Tesla liked making things, not making love as “Cracked reports
“Tesla renovated electronic technology, inventing things such as the electrical generator, FM radio, remote control, robots, spark plugs, fluorescent lights and the “Tesla Coil” which is used in TV and radio transmissions. You may recognize a few things on that list as being directly responsible for everything that was awesome about life in the 20th Century.

Showing an uncommon commitment to the whole “mad scientist” thing, he was celibate, afraid of round things (that’s probably why he was celibate!) and hated human hair, jewelry and anything that wasn’t divisible by three. Also, he claimed to have built a “death ray” that could blow things up and some (nutty) people believe that he may have been responsible for the 1908 Tunguska Event, an explosion in Russia that was 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima”

One night, Tesla claimed the white pigeon visited him through an open window at his hotel, and he believed the bird had come to tell him she was dying. He saw “two powerful beans of light” in the bird’s eyes, he later said. “Yes, it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.” The pigeon died in his arms, and the inventor claimed that in that moment, he knew that he had finished his life’s work.

But Tesla’s luck did not change even in death it seems.

Tesla died of heart failure alone in the New Yorker Hotel, some time between the evening of January 5 and the morning of January 8, 1943, at the age of 86. Despite selling his AC electricity patents, Tesla was essentially destitute and died with significant debts. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s patent number U.S. Patent 645,576 in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.

Immediately after Tesla’s death became known, the Federal Bureau of Investigation instructed the government’s Alien Property Custodian office to take possession of his papers and property, despite his US citizenship. His safe at the hotel was also opened. At the time of his death, Tesla had been continuing work on the teleforce weapon, or death ray, that he had unsuccessfully marketed to the US War Department. It appears that his proposed death ray was related to his research into ball lightning and plasma and was composed of a particle beam weapon. The US government did not find a prototype of the device in the safe. After the FBI was contacted by the War Department, his papers were declared to be top secret. The so-called “peace ray” constitutes a part of some conspiracy theories as a means of destruction. The personal effects were seized on the advice of presidential advisors, and J. Edgar Hoover declared the case “most secret”, because of the nature of Tesla’s inventions and patents. One document states that “[he] is reported to have some 80 trunks in different places containing transcripts and plans having to do with his experiments […]”. Charlotte Muzar reported that there were several “missing” papers and property.

Tesla’s family and the Yugoslav embassy struggled with the American authorities to gain these items after his death due to the potential significance of some of his research. Eventually, his nephew, Sava Kosanoviċ, got possession of some of his personal effects which are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Tesla’s funeral took place on January 12, 1943, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His ashes were taken to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1957. The urn was placed in the Nikola Tesla Museum, where it resides to this day.

Tesla did not like to pose for portraits. He did it only once for princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, but that portrait is lost. His wish was to have a sculpture made by his close friend Ivan Meštrović, who was at that time in United States, but he died before getting a chance to see it. Meštrović made a bronze bust (1952) that is held in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and a statue (1955/56) placed at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb. This statue was moved to Nikola Tesla Street in Zagreb’s city centre on the 150th anniversary of Tesla’s birth, with the Ruđer Bošković Institute to receive a duplicate. In 1976, a bronze statue of Tesla was placed at Niagara Falls, New York. A similar statue was also erected in his hometown of Gospić in 1986.

The SI unit tesla (T) for measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field B\,) was named in Tesla’s honour at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris in 1960. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of which Tesla had been vice president also created an award in recognition of Nikola Tesla. Called the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award, it is given to individuals or a team that has made outstanding contributions to the generation or utilization of electric power, and is considered the most prestigious award in the area of electric power. The Tesla crater on the far side of the moon and the minor planet 2244 Tesla are also named after Tesla

Tesla has received many recognitions within Serbia. He is featured on the current 100 Serbian dinar note (see left). The largest power plant complex in Serbia, the TPP Nikola Tesla is named in his honour. On July 10, 2006 the biggest airport in Serbia (Belgrade) was renamed Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport in honor of Tesla’s 150th birthday

An electric car company, Tesla Motors, named their company in tribute to Nikola Tesla. Their website states: The namesake of our Tesla Roadster is the genius Nikola Tesla […] We‘re confident that if he were alive today, Nikola Tesla would look over our car and nod his head with both understanding and approval.[69]

The Croatian subsidiary of Ericsson is also named ‘Ericsson Nikola Tesla d.d’. (‘Nikola Tesla’ was a phone hardware company in Zagreb before Ericsson bought it in the 1990s) in honour of Nikola Tesla’s pioneering work in wireless communication.

The year 2006 was celebrated by UNESCO as the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, scientist (1856-1943), as well as being proclaimed by the governments of Croatia and Serbia to be the Year of Tesla. On this anniversary, July 10, 2006, the renovated village of Smiljan (which had been demolished during the wars of the 1990s) was opened to the public along with Tesla’s house (as a memorial museum) and a new multimedia center dedicated to the life and work of Nikola Tesla. The parochial church of St. Peter and Paul, where Tesla’s father had held services, was renovated as well. The museum and multimedia center are filled with replicas of Tesla’s work. The museum has collected almost all of the papers ever published by, and about, Nikola Tesla; most of these provided by Ljubo Vujovic from the Tesla Memorial Society in New York. Alongside Tesla’s house, a monument created by sculptor Mile Blazevic has been erected. In the nearby city of Gospić, on the same date as the reopening of the renovated village and museums, a higher education school named Nikola Tesla was opened, and a replica of the statue of Tesla made by Frano Krsinic (the original is in Belgrade) was presented. No statue of the flighty Miss Pigeon appears in the works as of this writing.

Thomas Schoenberger Releases “brokenhearted.com” Featuring Lenny Williams

Thomas Schoenberger has waited many years to release this single. Produced by Preston Glass, as gifted producer that ever lived. The singer is the extraordinary Lenny Williams, who was the legendary singer of Tower of Power.

[bandcamp album=1649675033 bgcol=272E30 linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

This song was written for you.
The song is being released to a world seeking answers, a world where Facebook friends replace flesh and blood friends, where people seek solace in avatars rather than in themselves. Where a global hermit movement must be challenged and vanquished. Please spread this song far and wide, cast a net of music. This is a new concept. Something unheard of in the music business.The song was written before 9/11, before the economy died, before we lived our lives through the cyber cobweb Thank you for listening and I hope you get some inspiration from this melody.

Thomas Schoenberger

The Coming Era of Pizza Delivery Drones By Thomas Schoenberger

Aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as drones, are aircraft either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. (While there are dozens of different types of drones, they basically fall into two categories: those that are used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes and those that are armed with missiles and bombs.

The Drones are coming !

Drones have been around since WW2 and only in recent years have the technological capabilities been expanded. With recent news that real estate agents have been using drones to map out neighborhoods, we can only conclude that one day, we will have pizza’s delivered via drone. Why stop there? The post office might want to get in on the act. And let’s consider groan drones, unmanned aircraft that can deliver grievances, nasty-grams, Dear John letters, you get the picture,…

Military drone manufacturers are seeking civilian uses for remote sensing drones to expand their markets and this includes the use of drones for domestic surveillance. Drones will no doubt make possible the dramatic expansion of the surveillance state.But, if drones also develop a commercial market,instead of just being restricted to miltary use, then it stands to reason that one day, drones will be dog watchers, volcano observers, even wedding photographers.

Travelocity may even promote a “roaming Drone” And much like the ancient Greeks believed., the sky is watching us.As a believer in privacy, I hope we do not become one nation under surveillance.

Albrecht Durer – Child Genius

Albrecht Durer’s first known work, drawn as a silverpoint, when he was just 13 years old. A beautiful achievement of child genius. Some people are born into greatness or find it at an early age.

In composing my “Music for Infants” series, I strove to create a musical backdrop that could help foster an environment that would compel infants to imagine, and think, and develop their natural skills in mathematics, perception, and sense.

It’s my belief that there is genius in all of us, waiting to flower and take root.

My life’s work as a composer is to urge the youngest minds on the planet to prepare to meet and beat, or at least emulate. the great geniuses of prior centuries. In keeping with the themes of genius, perspective, nuance and polyphonic melodies that promote learning, please listen to a fugal melody I composed in honor of Durer’s brilliance. The piece is based on one of his mathematical equations.

By the age of thirty, Dürer had completed or begun three of his most famous series of woodcuts on religious subjects: The Apocalypse (1498), the Large Woodcut Passion cycle (ca. 1497–1500), and the Life of the Virgin (begun 1500). Durer, a blue chip genius of history