I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

-- Ecclesiastes 9.11

Scott CHeezem

Никола Тесла
(Nikola Tesla)

"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more." --Nikola Tesla

The military frontier of the Austrian Empire
July 10, 1856 11:58pm.
Duka was screaming now, as the midwives ran about the rustic cabin positioning hot water and blankets. From the other side of the door, Dane could hear her moans rise and fall, at times drowned out by the raucous claps of thunder. Brilliant bolts of lightning ripped against the black sky, the hair on his arms stood, pulled by the static charge in the air. His father Milutin sat pensively in the small study of the house, staring off in to space, he face dimly lit by a single candle. Dane thought it odd that he was not praying, or reading his bible, or preparing a sermon. His father was constantly in motion, always tending to some pious matter of the church.
12:00am.
The infant cries of the Dane's new sibling filled the air, as the rain continued to pour outside. His Father was sitting beside him now, they both had the same curious apprehensive look on their faces as they stared patently at the door. Finally a crack of light penetrated the darkness as the midwife slowly opened the door. "Come Multin, meet your new son, Никола".

Graz, Austria

1876
The air was balmy and thick in Professor Prochel's lecture hall. The professor stood at the front of the lecture hall practically at attention, his arms at side, returning a piercing stare at his students from under a wide furrowed brow. His round wire frame bifocals slipped down his nose, as bent over to begin the device. "As we can see, when we apply a direct current continuous to our electromagnet it causes the positive and negative poles to exert their respective forces over the commutator so as to transform the electric energy in to kinetic energy". He said pushing back his glasses as he returned to his gaurd like stance behind the horseshoe shaped magnet. A shaft between the two poles of the magnet began to spin. Никола sat fixated on the device in a trance. Poeschl continued to speak as he increased the power. The shaft began to spin faster, giving off sparks of current from the brushes protruding out of the end. The professors face began to redden in hue, Никола noticed, seeing that the sparks were becoming more frequent now. Poeschl has always been a meticulous scrutinizing man, and seeing now that his demonstration was going less than precisely according to plan, his embarrassment was becoming harder and harder to contain.
A flash of light went off in Никола's mind's eye.
"Professor Poeschl, would it not be possible to achieve the same effect with out the use of the armature's brushes?" Никола asked.
Poeschl fought hard not give off surprise. He was actually relieved for the distraction from his sparking sputtering device, and wasted no time in raising his voice in reply.
"Mr. Tesla, shall we review the fundamentals of magnetism and gravity?"
He went on talking vociferously, but Никола did not hear him, he was no longer there. His body returned the professors stare, and head occasionally nodded in agreement. Никола was off experimenting in his own mind somewhere, deconscructing and reconstructing the device.
" Mr. Tesla may accomplish great things, but he certainly will never do this. It would be equivalent to converting a steadily pulling force, like that of gravity into a rotary effort. It is a perpetual motion scheme, an impossible idea."


Budapest 1881
The sun was just beginning it's journey down the clear afternoon sky and the lake at Városliget was placidly reflecting its decent as the throngs of park goes milled about it's edges. Никола sat on a shaded bench thinking about poetry, about Faust. He had been aware for some time of the Man sitting at the bench adjacent to him, scribbling wildly in journal. The city of Budapest had been kind to him and he to decided to inquire further in to the man's intense writing. "You write with the fever of inspiration my friend, would you care to share the fruits of your labor"?
"The labor of Sisyphus is more like it. I am trying desperately to move my protagonist towards his impending payment to the devil".
"Then you a reader of Faust I presume"?
The two began quoting poetry at each other like moves in a game of chess, but it was not long before they had moved on to more pedestrian conversation. "I work here in the city helping to engineer the latest wave of technology from America. The telephone. Have you herd of such a device"?
The man indicated that he had not.
"It allows the human voice to be transmitted over great distances by way electronic signal, to communicate with someone miles away on the other end of a wire".
The man said nothing but instead began a crude sketch in his journal of what he thought the device might look like. Никола was impressed. it was simple but concise showing two figures set apart with a line between them with a wave in the middle indicating the transference of sound.
"Sie ruckt und weicht, der Tag ist ueberlebt, Dort eilt sie hin und fordert neues Leben Ein schöner Traum indessen sie entweicht, Ach, au des Geistes Fluegein wird so leicht Kein korperlicher Flugel sich gesellen!"
(It jerks and yields, that day is survived, there hurries it and demands new life. A beautiful dream meanwhile it escapes, oh, the outer spirit flys away, flys so easily that no matter associates!)
As he finished saying this, he nearly fell off the bench. The flash light. He winced a little and picked up a stick and started sketching in the lose dirt on the ground. The man looked down at the dirt, there was a circle with a cross on it, two indications for positive across from two indications for negative.
"See my motor here; Now watch me reverse it". Никола erased the indications and switched their positions. The man's eye's lit up, as he and Никола began to chuckle to each other.


New York. jun 6 1884
Никола stood out side the Castle Clinton recalling from memory once more the contents of his pocket and trunk. This was not hard to do as he had had several weeks at sea to memorize them, and there wasn't much to memorize. A journal of articles, and poetry, a handkerchief, 28 cents, but most importantly a letter of recommendation from Charles Bachelor, his previous manager. It had been Bachelor who had encouraged Никола to seek out support in France and Germany to bring to fruition his ideas and designs. But too many of the wealthy German elite had money tied in to their military take-over of Cameron in Africa. And the French were donating a monument to the Americans. He looked out at the small land mass where it was to be built. A colossus holding open the golden gates of opportunity he thought. He inspected his freshly stamped work permit and temporary certification of citizenship. "Nikola Tesla". There was little time to waist.
The New York streets were choked with activity, an endless writhing procession, but he knew where to go. A meeting he had been anticipating for some time. He was going to the only place in the world where you could buy electricity - Pearl Street. He was going to see Thomas Edison.

Edison was standing over his desk in the main office of the power station looking at Tesla's letter from Charles Bachelor.
"Alright Tesla, consider yourself hired. I'll introduce you to the foreman downstairs."
"I though perhaps I might be more useful in a different capacity" Tesla said as he produced the diagram from his journal he had drawn in Budapest. Edison looked it over. He may have been self educated man of trial and error but he was not about to be taken for a fool.
"Have you shown this to anyone else?" Edison asked in an ice calm voice

"and what exactally am I looking at here?"

"it is a rotating magnetic field, based on alternating current. An electric motor."

"you've forgotten one thing, where's you comutator?"

"There is no need for one"

Edison sat down behind his desk.
"Don't worry, Nik, we'll let this one slide - don't need a computator - HA!. But you seem like a bright young man. I'll give you $50,000 if you can improve on my direct current generators. You can start tomorrow. I get here at ten, be here no latter than half passed. Spare parts are on the second landing."

Tesla though back bitterly on that day. He had been such a fool to believe Edison would do anything less than take his idea and throw him back the wolves.
He swung his pick at the earth. It made a dull stony thud
klunk
All the sun-rises he saw from behind his tools and workbench and the scattered parts of Edison's DC motor
klunk
The sound of Edison's mocking tone - the look on his Face, when Tesla had presented his results and sought his due.
"Mr. Tesla, you simply don't understand our American since of humor".
klunk
And now he was here in the noon day sun, hacking away at the mile of earth between the pearl station and the new one still under construction, digging ditches for Edison's wrist thick copper wire so another 59 privileged people could power their light bulbs.
klunk
What kind of inventor is this Edison? An inventor should uplift humanity. They should make it easier and more comfortable for everyone to live.
klunk
let him have today. The future is mine.
Klunk

May, 1888
As Tesla looked out upon the gathering crowd of curious onlookers, he thought briefly of his professors, and then of his father, delivering a sermon to the people. An archbishop had once awarded his father a red sash for particularly stirring sermon. Reverend Tesla always had a knack for connecting with people. Would there be any such reward for him. He decided it didn't matter. Laid out on the table before him were small scale versions of his ideas manifest reality, the only further reward was for people to benefit from them.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the subject which I now have the pleasure of bringing to your notice is a novel motor which I am confident will at once establish the superior adaptability of alternating current."

Chicago May, 1, 1893
Dusk fell over the neo-classical buildings at worlds fair. The large fountain at the center of the exhibition lay still undisturbed. All eyes were on president Cleveland. Tesla found comfort in the relative obscurity at the side of the platform. JP Morgan loomed to his side, a smug smirk hiding just under his bushy mustache.
"I hereby commemorate this fair to the progress of our great nation and to the progress of all great men everywhere"
He depressed the large ornamental button.
There were no fireworks or streamers A wash of brilliant white light fell over the masses, illuminating everything. 'oooos' and 'ahhhs' as the spot lights began to come to life probing the starry heavens
it was the most man-made light anyone had ever seen in one spot anywhere in the world.
Out among the crowd Lord Kelvin stood astonished. Edison had called him here claiming he would witness the marvelous disaster of alternating current, Edison had even tried to sabotage the whole affair by refusing to sell the fair it's light bulbs. But this was anything but a disaster.

He turned to his assistant. "send out a wire immediately, let everybody else on the board know. Westinghouse electric company is getting the Niagara commission".

New York, 1897
"Were in big trouble here Tesla" flapped Westinghouse on the edge of frenzy. "The boys in accounting tell me were about to hit red! The workers in Pittsburgh are striking. The National Guards been called! Washington says I owe em a hundred thousand in back taxes! One Hundred Thousand Tesla!". Westinghouse's disparage shook Tesla from his vision. "Mr. Westinghouse I assure you that I have no interest in money. But such an end from your support would be most untimely. Of course you remember our original arrangement for the amount of $1.00 per horse power generated. If it will allow us to continue our progress, I will consider the royalties null and void." he said, pulling the contract out of his breast pocket and ripping in neat concise pieces, tossing them over his shoulder as he returned to his desk.

"Nikola, No! I can't let you do that! I owe you that money and I intend to pay it"

"George, you believed me, listened to me when everyone else thought I was a madman and a trickster. Now, let me show you what I believe to be the next important step forward to providing energy to the people, with out wires - Free clean energy for all the peoples of the world".

"We must be able to transmit scenes over long distances. Pictures, the news, energy, why not matter too.... Now we must liberate thought, we must set it free from the limitations space and time impose on it, and yet keep its principle characteristics intact. Now and in future centuries, here on earth and perhaps thousands of light years in to the unknown." -- Никола Тесла

Tesla's Lab on Liberty Street
John Ester poured the thick brown alcohol into the sifters. Behind him Tesla was showing Robert Underwood Johnson and Samuel Clemens some sketches across the lab. "Mr. Ester wont you come join us, I believe you will want to see this" proclaimed Clemens as a a fain hum began to fill the room. Tesla was holding a long vacuum tube. As he began to move it closer to the humming machine fingers of current stretched out through the air to touch terminals at the end of the tube. The tube began to glow and flicker. Tesla traced circles through the air, the electric fingers never wavering in their grip. He gently tossed the tube to Twain standing next him. "phenomenal Tesla! This will revolutionize the whole electric economy, turn it on it's ear! Electricity with out wires".
"I have something even more compelling" said Tesla as he held up a wire. "Mr. Twain, may I indulge your assistance in another demonstration?".
"Well, if it's for science".
"Of course Mr. Twain. Well shall apply no less than one million volts to the electrodes connected to this wire please hold the connections, one in each hand".
Tesla handed Twain the ends of long straight wire and adjusted the humming machine.
The Four of them watched. Smoke arose from the wire. It began to glow a bright orange, sagging, in the middle. The smoke continued for a few seconds, finally it burst in to a shower of smoldering white embers raining down on the lab floor.

Johnson took a long pull from his glass, his hand shaking slightly.

"Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive. But it is lightning that does the work. eh, Tesla?"

The American Institute of electrical engineers, New York 1917

Across the street in front of the public library Tesla tore the corner from a sad piece of bread and let it fall gently to the ground beneath his feet. A flock of pigeons cautiously approached to inspect.

"ahh my most sincere friends". He said, tearing off another piece.

coo

"I refuse to afford some small minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of thwarting my efforts. these men are nothing more than the microbes of a vile disease".

Scott Cheezem

Music 250

Bollywood

It was in July of 1896 that two French men, the Lumiere Brothers, brought with them 6 short silent “Living Photographic Pictures in Life-Size Reproductions” to the Watson hotel in Bombay India(it was only five years prior that Eddison began earning money with his “vistascope” - the first commercially available motion picture system in the US). At this time the British had just began there colonization of the Indian sub continent. It was there that the seeds of inspiration were planted for India's movie industry, but it would not come until later after a showing of the American film “The Life of Christ”, that Dadasaheb Phalke would be inspired to put his own spin, an Indian spin for an Indian audience, on the craft of full length film making. What he in turn produced went on to be a huge success and inspired the culture of the region to dream of an indigenous film industry.

Consider that only a hemisphere away, an estimated one sixth of the worlds population (est. 1 billion according to www.cia.gov ) crowd the streets and country sides of India. These billion or so people keep roughly 18 unique languages between them, with the biggest of these groups getting their own personal film industries. At the top of this list is thought to be Bollywood, the Hindustani film industry. But while regional movies tend to reflect their cultural values, Bollywood tends to reflect something distinctly more liberal and more Western. In more recent times, this “Americanization” of Indian culture has many there on edge, criticizing media producers with the erosion of traditional values. But this hasn't always been the case. Back in the film boom of the 1970's it was considered much more acceptable to borrow ideas from Hollywood for the sake of attracting an audience.

In 1975 Ramesh Sippy's Sholay (roughly translated to “Flames of the Sun”) set an all time adjusted gross net high of $35 million, an unmatched figure in Bollywood which continues to grow to this day. It is considered to be the first of the sub-genre known as the “curry western”, drawing heavily from elements of Sergio Leone's “spaghetti westerns”. Appealing outlaws who are drawn in to fighting on the right side of the law; Villainous mercenaries who ride horses up to rob moving trains and terrorize helpless towns people ; star crossed lovers whose parents refuse to bless or accept their union – these bare the distinct mark of Hollywood movies of the same era. There were other distinctly Indian forces at work in the film too, namely the music. The most distinct and prominent difference between Hollywood and Bollywood is the music. While we would consider movies that contain music preformed by characters as a vehicle for the plot, or emotional content, a specific sub-genere of movie known as musical, Hindustani and the greater Indian movie franchise hold no such distinction. Instead Bollywood film music is known as “filmi”, or “of film music”, and you would be hard pressed to find a film from that part of the world without it. Sholay specifically boasted a particularly commercially viable sound track. R. D. Burman, the composer of the filmi also borrowed heavily from outside musical influences to produce a synthesis with Indian music. The opening track features an acoustic guitar and emphasis on brass, playing to the rhythmic elements more commonly associated with Afro-Cuban music. The highly anthologized track Mehbooba Mehbooba, which Burman himself sings on, is an exhibition in to gypsy influences. This song continues to be remixed and rereleased to this day.

Dance is another important aspect of the Anatomy of the Bollywood movie. In the decades of movies leading up Sholay, more traditional Indian dance was prominent, through a film. As we head quickly towards a globalized age, the choreographic and costume too are beginning to take their cues from the western world's MTV and Broadway style of dancing, and dress. It would not be unheard of to see a more recent Bollywood release incorporate Pop diva gyrations in one scene and traditional hand gestures in another while lip sinking actors and actresses spontaneously change costume and location from frame to frame.

It seems though that Indian audiences will have more to blush at then the creeping carnal corruption of their cinema. Recently, social issues have become a topic of growing popularity among film makers, and their critics alike. Some advocate that India take a long hard look at it self through the eyes of the “modern” era to face issues of sexuality, poverty, drug usage, disease and moral degradation, while others claim that it is the showcasing of these elements that is causing more harm than good. It is often first generation immigrant characters of the Indian diasper who find them selves the battle ground of Indian and western culture in so called “desi flicks” like “Namesake”, and “Namastey London”. Such movies often boast DJ's and characteristic rock bands and remixes on the sound track, a move clearly made towards India's youth.

In the end the strange partnership between the western and Indian cultures may be double edged. Plagiarism is also coming to the forefront of issues. As India reaches to become a first world country, it's film makers may have to pony up and pay royalties for the ideas and methodologies they so freely employed in the past. It seems one can take any culturally relevant icon of the west and find some counterpart in India. Everything from The Beatles to Michael Jackson, to Boy-bands, to hip-hop, has been reflected upon in India. And Yet despite the heavy borrowing, India – it's music and film – remain distinct, and set apart from the rest of the world. can 1 billion people be wrong?

Bibliography

Desiclub.com. Sex in Bollywood: Poll Results. 1998-2007

http://www.desiclub.com/bollywood/bollywood_features/bolly_article.cfm?id=44

Khanna, Priyanka. Indo-Asian News Service. Up next: Shades of diaspora on Indian marquees. March, 19 2007.

http://www.bollywood.com/archives/2007/03/up_next_shades.html

Kumar, Tanmeet. Review: Bombay Boys. December, 1998.

http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/bboys.html

imdb.com. Sholay.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073707/

Sippy, Ramesh. Dir. Sholay. 1975.

Upperstall.com Dadasaheb Phalke. 2007

http://www.upperstall.com/people/phalke.html

Scott Cheezem

5-2-7

Chris Higgs

Eng110 9:30

Can we conceive of things before the beginning? Does anything exist after the end? At the beginning there were no physics, no laws. There in that one immeasurable instant, 15 billion years ago, there was just the simple peace of a single point with no mass and infinite density. No laws of reality, no questions. Then boom, 0:01.

It is the soul on the face of a clock, arms reaching forever, holding within them the causes of all things. We feel them move through us, and we move through them, we project patterns and regularity on to them. Its fingers measure the rise and fall of civilizations, species, stars.

Space is the medium where all Matter, in all its forms exists, to be affected, and to affect other things.

A point is a coordinate or set of coordinates which marks the position of something in relation to a reference.

The postulate, the fundamental, that which is assumed, the key that turns on the machine of logic fueled by what we are able to observe and abstract.

Newton needed it. Without it, there would be no physics, no science, none of his theories would be theories, there would just be a card trick, a good guess, a crowd pleaser. It was his absolute measuring stick for motion, for cause and effect, impervious to scrutiny, existing only in his mind. Never to be swayed, as gentile as a stream and stern as a scythe. It gave him him gravity, allowed him to conceive of forces which cannot be seen directly, only their effects, only their nature to be observed. The wake of the moon on the restless oceans of a spinning earth.

Two points determine a line.

Any line segment can be extended in a straight line as far as desired, in either direction…

Do inches exist? Kilometers? Light years? Are these no more than specters in the minds of measurers? A metric - a projection of the postulation of space. We are liner, we perceive the periodicity of occurrences and the passing of events to form the function of a line to which we and all things are locked in, . That line in turn is flat - Euclidean flat - allowing potential dimensions to exist only in the mind of the observer, but not in the harsh reality of the math. A sum of Histories, forever growing in complexity. But if a line extends to infinity and the plane in which it must exist extends to infinity, then that must be where they meet. Existing together at the prequel to their end. For if there is no end, then how can we conceive of a beginning, why measure at all?

The North pole is most northenly spot you can go. How do you go north of the North Pole?

1970, two atomic clocks measuring billionths of seconds were set. One was placed on a jet sent off around the world at 600mph. When the airborne clock returned to it's origin it was observed to be slightly behind its earth bound counter part. The regularity of passing moments had dilated. This steadfast grip of that which was though to be absolute had been loosened if only slightly. Einstein deduced it's flexibility through logical thought puzzles.

If someone were standing on the middle of a moving train and someone else were standing still observing along the side of a train, and two bolts of lightning were to strike the two ends of the train, our ground based observer would see them simultaneously, while the passenger would see one then the other…

Imagine you were able to shoot yourself out of a canon faster than the speed of light, while in mid-flight you turned around to see the path you had traveled, you would see yourself about to be shot out. Cause + effect = result

The Mayans imposed a calendar which used cycles that corresponded to reoccurring celestial and earthly events. They saw the passing of events to be cyclical, mother nature constantly reincarnating herself; to be recursive, and evenly spread. Hinduism gives us stories of yogis who have experience the birth of the universe more than once.

Hawking saw its dimensions in the math, a separate flow perpendicular to the future-present-past. Allowing for parallel outcomes, for infinite histories, for a tapestry of events - causes and effects - draped over a universe of fixed matter.

Light moves through a vacuum at a constant rate, but can be slowed or even sped up through other media. In the instance of cesium, experimenters were able to move a pulse of light through a cesium vapor cloud and have it come out the other side before had finished entering. Other experiments measured people’s reactions to pictures. Erotic or otherwise strongly emotionally stimulating pictures were mixed in with commonplace pictures, while the bio-electric discharge of the person viewing the photos was measured. Directly preceding being shown the stimulating pictures, their bio-electric discharge would spike slightly but noticeably, violating causal law.

It is a line, a river we float down backwards, a path that illuminates a step at a time. A flow, a force exerting measurable change, and the change by which we measure other forces. It is a thread woven in to the fabric of our existence. It is benevolent, and does not need us as much as we need it, and need to perceive it. It is the frame work to which all things we know to have happened or may happen after the big bang singularity fit in to. But is it as straight as we think? Consider that our perception of a straight line drawn on the earth from New York to Los Angeles is not actually straight, but slightly, even imperceptibly curved. Galaxies that make up the universe move away from each other in a curving, spiral effect. Gravity pulls planets in to a curved ellipse. A beam of light is actually more like an undulating wave and not a straight line as such. In fact it is hard to pinpoint an example of a truly straight line anywhere out side of the theoretical realm of coordinate planes. So then is time straight? Are the laws of causality laws at all? Or are they more like strict guidelines. If time is curved only slightly, if it can be made to bend, would we be able to perceive some other, some future point from our vantage?

"It's one degree more likely that mere communication about the means of accomplishing a hack would be subject to penalties," said Peter Jaszi, who teaches copyright law at American University and is critical of attempts to expand it."

If you feel as I do, that this is a gross ammount of fule to be pouring on the fire already burning away at our rights, then may I sugest the course of action from IPaction.com and calling your political appointee and telling them how you feel.

thank you and may you enjoy the freedom of the internet.