Make Space, Not War

Vote here: http://videoremix.freemusicarchive.org/video/160/make-space-not-war

You’ll have to sign up for a Free Music Archive account. It’s a great website and they provide a great service. The people who run it are awesome as well. Do it. I’d recommend it even to not vote for my video.

(Update: Nov 13, 2012: Having been able to sit back and no longer being lost in the trees. I see the forest and realize that I should’ve left a lot of the war and nuclear blast footage on the cutting room floor in order to make the argument/story flow better. The meat of the video doesn’t really get started until 4:34 in. Far too long. I plan to make and updated version and maybe even a TL:DR version.)

http://www.firstmenonthemoon.com/

They were building massively huge Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in order to launch their awkwardly large and unsophisticated nuclear arsenal. The US was streamlining the tech. Going for quality and accuracy over quantity and brute force. This gave the Soviets the foundation and advantage in sending heavy launch capsules that carried satellites, animals, and eventually people into orbit.

I found this great information completely on accident.

I’m working on several video compilation projects for an upcoming contest. (Update: Here’s the contest entry – http://videoremix.freemusicarchive.org/video/160/make-space-not-war) I haven’t really made much in that arena and I need a good motivator, enforceable deadline, and would love to find out what latent talents the competition can bring out of me.

I was browsing Space.com and stumbled upon an article on Jon Glenn’s historic space flight back on February 20, 1962.

I tried finding the full video so I could download it and possibly use some clips for my current and future video remixing. First stop wasn’t a stretch: archive.org. Since my video compilation research was in that domain I figured might be a good shot to find the video and maybe some related to it. Didn’t hit pay dirt, but I did find some similar videos. A broader interweb search led me to c-span. Yes, that C-SPAN. But there was no easy way to download what I found: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303736-1.

I then scoured Nasa.gov. Their footage – pictures, audio, and video – is public domain. It’s our well spent tax dollars that pay for all the greatness. But the closest thing I was able to find were pictures available to download from the History of Mercury Control. Great stuff and highly interesting, but not the video I was seeking.

Then I found it in one of the last places I would’ve thought it to reside: vimeo.

Friendship – 7 50th Anniversary from Guy Noffsinger on Vimeo.

Available in all it’s glory and even more than expected. A truly great documentary. Sit back and enjoy.

This person, Piya Wannachaiwong, is a great artist. Check them out at http://piyastudios.blogspot.com/.

Which leads me to to fabulous future conclusion that never was… The Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct. They advanced beyond needing to stay on Earth and left before the great asteroid impact. If only we were as bold. Wait! We might run into them. And they might be hungry. Prepare Earth’s defenses! This might be the one thing to unite humanity – the threat of space traversing dinosaurs.

I try to solve the reason behind everything. “This is how they know you.” – Ouda from Ace Venture: When Nature Calls.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of self analysis and in this process have stumbled upon some fantastic books on habits and human behavior. As a pretty standard staple to my life, I’ve also been reading and watching lectures on quantum mechanics, cosmology, time travel, history, and neuroscience. There have always been metaphysical and philosophical problems that arise after a day or two of in depth research/entertainment. I ponder and mold them over in my mind, form my own understanding on the subject and try to tie in ideas and theories from other disciplines and arenas of thought. Some would be time consuming leading me on conquests into unexplored regions of my mental landscape leaving behind deep grooves within my squishy thought tissues.

Only after throwing habits and human behavior, “why we do what we do,” into my metaphysical detective work has a huge conundrum arisen. And placed me in the annals of history in the section of great minds who have pondered the same. This has led me to unintentionally be consumed by a terrible itch of an idea in the middle of my brain; free will is just a construct of the our minds due to their complexity. Our wonderfully paradox producing brains have given us a way to cope with the unknown future by allowing us to believe we have a say in creating it. It is of no surprise really. We all participate in hypocrisies of belief and action every waking moment.

I would very much like for there to be free will, but no matter how much I go over it – from quantum mechanics to cosmology, to neuroscience, philosophy, psychology and sociology – my belief in free will has all but vanished. Like a paper burnt to ash. What words were known are all but smoke slowly fading. I’m trying to retain the smoky belief of free will.  But I’m no longer convinced in it’s existence, just the slight chance it can. A feint possibility is all that exists for it in my mind.

I don’t like believing we can’t control our lives let alone anything. The shear complexity of it all. I need there to be a way to lash out at the Universe when things aren’t going my way and shout, “Not today! Give me back my purse!”

I plan, in no set time frame, to elaborate on my findings. Fate will dictate when that is shared with the world.