(Image courtesy Karmaka)
Spot the Bolide
Category Archives: Astronomy
Spiral Starchitect
Mondo Manifesto
Ma tra tutti gli uomini grandi che sopra tal mirabile effetto di natura hanno filosofato, più mi meraviglio del Keplero che di altri, il quale, d’ingegno libero ed acuto, e che aveva in mano i moti attribuiti alla Terra, abbia poi dato orecchio ed assenso a predominii della Luna sopra l’acqua, ed a proprietà occulte, e simili fanciullezze. — Galileo, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632), Giornata Quarta.
• But among all the great men who have philosophized about this remarkable effect, I am more astonished at Kepler than at any other. Despite his open and acute mind, and though he has at his fingertips the motions attributed to the earth, he has nevertheless lent his ear and his assent to the moon’s dominion over the waters, to occult properties, and to such puerilities. — Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World-Systems, “Fourth Day”
Rays’ Blaze Praise
Astrogenesis in the Carina Nebula (more info at NASA)
Astronomy Dominie
• ἐπαινῶ: παντὶ γάρ μοι δοκεῖ δῆλον ὅτι αὕτη γε ἀναγκάζει ψυχὴν εἰς τὸ ἄνω ὁρᾶν καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε ἄγει. — Πολιτεία τοῦ Πλᾰ́τωνος
• • For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. — Plato’s Republic (c. 375 BC), Book 7, line 529a
ვარსკვლამაზმანი
ვენერა — რიგით მეორე პლანეტა მზიდან; მისი სიმკვრივე და აგებულება მსგავსია დედამიწისა (Translate.ge)
金星 — 金 jīn, jìn, gold; metals in general; money; 星 xīng, a star, planet; any point of light (MDBG)
Eye the Sky
Fireballs 1994-2013 (source)
(click for larger)
bolide, n. /ˈbɒlʌɪd/ A large meteor; usually one that explodes and falls in the form of aerolites; a fire-ball. Etymology: < French bolide, < Latin bolid-em (nominative bolis) large meteor, < Greek βολίς missile, < stem of βάλλειν to throw. — Oxford English Dictionary
Luciferizing
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
The toxic title of this incendiary intervention is supposed to be understood such that the verb “Lucíferizing” (acting like Lucifer, turning into Lucifer, etc) has an echo of “Lúcifer Rising”. Lucifer, or “Light-Bearer”, is also a name for the planet Venus, which is rising in the image of the foredawn sky.
He Say, He Sigh, He Sow #49
• «Планета есть колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели.» — Константин Эдуардович Циолковский (1911)
• “Planet is the cradle of mind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever.” — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Locke’s LOX
“He that will not set himself proudly at the top of all things; but will consider the Immensity of this Fabrick, and the great variety, that is to be found in this little and inconsiderable part of it, which he has to do with, may be apt to think, that in other Mansions of it, there may be other, and different intelligent Beings, of whose Faculties, he has as little Knowledge or Apprehension, as a worm shut up in one drawer of a Cabinet, hath of the Senses or Understanding of a Man.” — John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), viâ David Wootton’s The Invention of Science (2015)
Performative Post-Scriptum
The title of this incendiary intervention is intended to suggest the idea of Locke’s ideas acting as a rocket-fuel for the imagination like LOX or lox, meaning “liquid oxygen explosive; later interpreted as representing liquid oxygen” (OED).
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 
