Stuck on some story on the effect of comic rays on computing (I'm guessing it was Radiolab, "Bit Flip"?).
Am I right in understanding that it's been long postulated that cosmic rays are responsible for driving the mutation behind natural selection? That is, that mutation is largely caused by cosmic rays hitting and damaging strands of DNA, sometimes causing damage that is repaired to no effect, sometimes causing damage that then becomes malignant, occasionally causing damage that creates a tolerable and sustainable change in cell development? Iterated over millions of years, life adapts to these changes to get to where we are today?
Thousands of cosmic rays (or the particles cascading from the atmosphere as a result of cosmic ray entering the ionosphere) flying through our bodies every second, the vast majority never hitting anything within us because we are largely empty space. Each cosmic ray the result of a black hole ejecting matter somewhere, or a sun having gone supernova.
The Radiolab highlighting the fact that cosmic rays are causing computer memory errors constantly, sometimes resulting in an annoyance, sometimes moreso: random airline altitude drops attributed to this event, so much so that airlines are now designing systems that work in triplicate (three guidance systems work in tandem, requiring two to correlate before the system will respond to input). The Toyota Camry problem of unaccountable acceleration, which killed several some time ago, thought to be perhaps caused by cosmic ray accidents. Who knows.
It's an ineffable idea that the course of our lives could be so altered by unimaginably tiny particles having traveled unimaginably long distances through unimaginably long time periods.
For me, life is this: daily struggle to inhale to a lighter being. The prescriptive invocation to breathe, as a palliative to darkness, itself suffocating, leaving an exhaustive sink. Returning, again and again, as if it were my karmic situation, to being held in a headlock, neck then broken.
Random 'oblique strategy' asking that I inventory what's really going on. Of course, I don't know if this means 'get over yourself' or if it means that my negative voices are the deeper truth.
As a return to the original form of the strip, this comic more satisfying than the previous week.
Stuck on some story on the effect of comic rays on computing (I'm guessing it was Radiolab, "Bit Flip"?).
ReplyDeleteAm I right in understanding that it's been long postulated that cosmic rays are responsible for driving the mutation behind natural selection? That is, that mutation is largely caused by cosmic rays hitting and damaging strands of DNA, sometimes causing damage that is repaired to no effect, sometimes causing damage that then becomes malignant, occasionally causing damage that creates a tolerable and sustainable change in cell development? Iterated over millions of years, life adapts to these changes to get to where we are today?
Thousands of cosmic rays (or the particles cascading from the atmosphere as a result of cosmic ray entering the ionosphere) flying through our bodies every second, the vast majority never hitting anything within us because we are largely empty space. Each cosmic ray the result of a black hole ejecting matter somewhere, or a sun having gone supernova.
The Radiolab highlighting the fact that cosmic rays are causing computer memory errors constantly, sometimes resulting in an annoyance, sometimes moreso: random airline altitude drops attributed to this event, so much so that airlines are now designing systems that work in triplicate (three guidance systems work in tandem, requiring two to correlate before the system will respond to input). The Toyota Camry problem of unaccountable acceleration, which killed several some time ago, thought to be perhaps caused by cosmic ray accidents. Who knows.
It's an ineffable idea that the course of our lives could be so altered by unimaginably tiny particles having traveled unimaginably long distances through unimaginably long time periods.
For me, life is this: daily struggle to inhale to a lighter being. The prescriptive invocation to breathe, as a palliative to darkness, itself suffocating, leaving an exhaustive sink. Returning, again and again, as if it were my karmic situation, to being held in a headlock, neck then broken.
Random 'oblique strategy' asking that I inventory what's really going on. Of course, I don't know if this means 'get over yourself' or if it means that my negative voices are the deeper truth.
As a return to the original form of the strip, this comic more satisfying than the previous week.