Ellie's World

Earth Changes

The Pacific Plate is coming apart - with the plates sliding over one another. If you're following the news ... from Antarctica north along the Pacific Rim into Canada ... you realize the intensity of earthquake activity (see map above) ... and the headline story this week about the unstoppable Antarctica collapse. Earthquakes along the Pacific rim are no longer in the 4's and 5's but the 6's and 7's. As you know large earthquakes trigger tsunamis. It won't be long now.

5 Myths About Antarctic Melt Live Science - May 14, 2014
News that the catastrophic collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is already underway, like other big reports about the southernmost continent, spur chatter and questions about what's really happening at the bottom of the world.

Ice-loss moves the Earth 250 miles down PhysOrg - May 12, 2014
At the surface, Antarctica is a motionless and frozen landscape. Yet hundreds of miles down the Earth is moving at a rapid rate, new research has shown. For the first time we see why the upward motion of the Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly.

'Nothing can stop retreat' of West Antarctic glaciers BBC - May 12, 2014
The catastrophic collapse of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet is underway, researchers said today. Key glaciers in West Antarctica are in an irreversible retreat, a study team led by the US space agency (Nasa) says. It analyzed 40 years of observations of six big ice streams draining into the Amundsen Bay and concluded that nothing now can stop them melting away.

"Person of Interest" Season Finale

One of the most interesting season finales so far this spring was Person of Interest - "Deus Ex Machina" - both commanding and shattering. It was not just a cliffhanger but a game changer that will leave many of viewers trying to figure out the shows direction next fall. Masterfully done - this episode demonstrated what I always find in real life - misdirection - though by the end of the show I had figured most of it out. Had Greer, the protagonist seated on the left, been defeated, the plot twists would never have resonated to the viewing audience as they did.

Greer reminds me of the members of The Syndicate on the "X-Files" - a "shadow government" also known as The Elders, The Consortium, and The Group. In conspiracy theory lore, the Syndicate is composed of covertly allied influential government officials and businessmen, operating at the highest levels of power, concealed from the world a program by an unidentified extraterrestrial species to colonize and repopulate the planet, as well as their own plans and stake in that future, which they held to be inevitable. Greer heads a cyber-terrorist group Decima Technologies.

Person of Interest's cliffhanger ending demonstrated what government surveillance can do in the hands of the wrong group - an old plot with a new set of characters because as you know everything in reality is constantly being recycled. As Samaritan came online, chaos ensued, not just in the US but across the world. The season ended with Greer asking Samaritan: "What are your commands for us?" Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

Though I am a firm believer in technology and surveillance - as we know governments with power tend to overstep their bounds and people die. We are programmed, as humans, for duality, drama, destruction, and death, often without realizing the ultimate consequences of our actions. The concept of a machine that wants to take over and run the world has been done before but has gone from science fiction to fiction. Governments that hide things from their citizens I'm doomed to destruction. Then there is another "D" word linked to surveillance - Drones - now part of many serial dramas especially "24: Live Another Day".

Crossovers

Samaritan was a creation of Finch's MIT classmate Arthur Claypool - the man on the left played by Saul Rubinek who stars in Warehouse 13 which airs its series finale next Monday.

Also featured on Warehouse 13 is a character named Pete Lattimer played by actor Eddie McClintock (man on the right) who appeared on the season finale of Castle this week as Kate Beckett long-lost husband in an episode called "For Better or Worse". The Castle cliffhanger was definitely predictable but, if you watch the show you know what happens when the series returns next fall.

Surveillance

When it comes to surveillance and being personally tracked - we all know this is very easily done today - becoming almost a game with social media, gaming, cloud tech, phones, wearable devices, apps, and other objects that collect data which is later sold to people who use the information in their businesses as if analytics.

Court Rules We Should Have A Say In What Comes Up When We're Googled AP - May 13, 2014
In a landmark ruling that could rock the Internet search-engine industry, Europe's highest court said Tuesday that people are entitled to some control over what pops up when their name is Googled.

One of the things I pride myself on is the fact that I have a squeaky clean record - nothing ever hidden. Today, while discussing this with Ron, he made a very interesting point. Think about all the thousands of clients I have read globally over the past 30 years - people in power, people with "colorful" lives, and as if taking to their therapist, have share their secrets with me. How hard would it be for the government to create a fictitious story about me and any of these people making it seem that I was involved in covert affairs. Gulp!

May 14-25, 2014