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Ben Böhmer – Beyond Beliefs

This is the first single from Ben’s new album ‘Begin Again’ — Enjoy!

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This piece is excellent — I’ve included it in one of the playlists that I often listen to while coding.

German Electronic music’s brightest rising star, 29-year old Berlin based producer and live act Ben Böhmer has had another monumental year. His sophomore album ‘Begin Again’, released on Anjunadeep in September 2021, has since attained over 40 million streams with remixes from the likes of HAAi, Barry Can’t Swim and The Blaze.

“Ethereal” (Billboard) electronic producer Ben Böhmer releases his sophomore album Begin Again via Anjunadeep, along with single “Home” ft. folk duo JONAH.

Böhmer recently won Best Live Act Award at the AIMs in what has been arguably the most competitive year for live streamed performances, beating out artists including Arlo Parks and beabadoobee, courtesy of his groundbreaking performance with Cercle.

This year, Ben has also been named Spotify’s #1 fastest growing electronic artist with over 60 million streams.
Vogue UA called Ben “the new star of the world electronic scene” while he has garnered support from the likes of Pete Tong at BBC Radio 1 and Anna Lunoe at DanceXL Radio on Apple Music 1.

Buy/Stream single: https://anjunadeep.ffm.to/bbbb.gcn
Buy/Stream Album: https://anjunadeep.ffm.to/bbba.gcn

Ben Böhmer’s works are also available on vinyl.

You can catch up with Ben Böhmer on his website for great music, tour dates, and more.

The Antikythera Mechanism

More than 21 centuries ago, a mechanism of fabulous ingenuity was created in Greece, a device capable of indicating exactly how the sky would look for decades to come — the position of the moon and sun, lunar phases and even eclipses. But this incredible invention would be drowned in the sea and its secret forgotten for two thousand years.

See the video:

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This video is a tribute from Swiss clock-maker Hublot and film-maker Philippe Nicolet to this device, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, or the world’s “first computer”. The fragments of the Mechanism were discovered in 1901 by sponge divers near the island of Antikythera. It is kept since then at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece.

For more than a century, researchers were trying to understand its functions. Since 2005, a pluridisciplinary research team, the “Antikythera Mechanism Research Project”, is studying the Mechanism with the latest high tech available.

The results of this ongoing research has enabled the construction of many models. Amongst them, the unique mechanism of a watch, designed by Hublot as a tribute to the Mechanism, is incorporating the known functions of this mysterious and fascinating ancient Mechanism.

A model of the Antikythera Mechanism, built by the Aristotle University in Greece, together with the mechanism of the watch and this film in 3D are featuring in an exhibition about the Mechanism that is taking place in Paris, at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.

The original fragments of the Mechanism, its main models and the watch designed by Hublot are on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece.

Top Secret may not be as secret as we think

When we elect our representatives to office, we also elect their personalities, likes, dislikes, and an assortment of other things that can cause them to either succeed or fail as individuals. No one person can relate to or otherwise identify fully with every aspect of our American lives. They just roll the dice and hope for the best.

Dealing with personalities can be a real groan at times, and I’m somewhat flummoxed over the fact that people don’t get that.

This whole deal with finding classified documents at or in various places with regard to our elected officials isn’t so surprising when you stop to consider just how long this sort of crap has been going on.

When you stop to consider personalities, the piece recently written by James Conner over on the Flathead Memo makes sense. Joe Biden is a different person than Donald Trump is.

Though the two men be different, the problem with this classified document thing isn’t.
Classified information in this country has probably been being mishandled for literally years, and by several of dozens of people.
Remember Hillary’s hammers and bleachbit? Yeah .. I sorta thought you would.

Officials leaving office with their full security clearance in tact just might give you a hint at how bad the problem might be.

Hillary still has her security clearance, George Bush still has his, Bill Clinton still has his, and even Jimmy Carter still has his. Then there are the countless others that helped service these administrations out there that very possibly still have their security clearances as well.

It’s been said that these people can keep their security clearance because they might be “consulted” later on with regard to world affairs.

I find it hard to believe that a person with a hugely failed foreign policy record could ever be consulted about anything relating to foreign policy, but yet, here we are.

So Biden turned the documents over immediately. Good on him. But we can’t ever forget how others handled it with their hammers and their attorneys — then also, we need to be thinking about how many more classified docs there may be out there that haven’t been, or have yet to be discovered.

We need to quit looking at the personalities and start looking more at the chain of custody, or rather, the lack of the chain of custody problem we have when it comes to our classified documents.

If the rules or the policy worked with regard to the chain of custody, we wouldn’t be sitting here using personalities as political talking points. It would be just one more headache we wouldn’t have to worry about.

Top Secret may not be as secret as we think as long as our chain of custody system remains broken and ineffective.

Saying Happy Anniversary with the Ford Edge Sport

I don’t know what it is exactly that gets the blood pumping when it’s time to get a new car. Could it be the advertising? The thought of experiencing something new and exciting? The thought of venturing into the unknown?

For all of the different various rigs I’ve purchased over the years I can safely say that I’ve experienced all of the flutters of excitement up and down the scale. My latest cause for excitement this time around wasn’t really what one would probably expect. I was excited because this particular new car wasn’t for me … it was for my dear wife.

Sure, I’ve given rigs to people over the years for Christmas and for birthdays, that I had originally bought for me in the beginning, but this time around wasn’t the case.

Mels new car (tap or click image to enlarge)

Going out and buying something for someone else without reservation is something everyone should try at least once in their life. The experience of doing that is amazing, and in so many ways, it’s better than if you were to actually buy it for yourself first.

At any rate, I don’t do that whole traditional car shopping thing — you know — where somebody comes out and tells you what you want. I take my time and decide on a rig. It can take months before before I actually make my move.

My wife’s Ford Edge was getting to be a bit rough around the edges (no pun intended), so last year I set about to finding her a newer one. Recently I got a call that produced exactly what I was looking for. The below book price and the less than expected mileage was the icing on the cake so I made the plunge.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. With our 24th wedding anniversary just around the corner and short of providing the big red bow, I presented my wife with her new car.

So far as rigs go, this one hits the mark. All wheel drive for our exclusive Montana winters, a nice 6 cylinder engine that helps to climb our beautiful Montana mountains, and a sun/moon roof combination that allows for viewing the Big Sky of Montana when we’re cruising down the interstate.

A much better deal than that Ford Raptor I looked at a few years ago that had 160K miles for 46K (Ford Raptors are grossly over rated).
At the time, I settled on our current Ford F150 quad-cab 4×4 … and it’s just fine without all of the over-the-top truck body extensions that the Raptor’s are so known for.

When the Rodeo comes to town

In this modern age of social media networks and the internet overall, it’s always nice to enjoy the original social networking experience once in a while.

This weekend the Montana Pro Rodeo Circuit Finals were held at the 4 Seasons Arena and there was no shortage of in-person social networking going on.
People from around the state, Wyoming, and even Canada were here to social network the old fashioned way.

Back in the day we had things like the county fair, rodeo, and even sometimes the circus, where one and all came together to catch up, visit, and meet new people, in real time and in real life.

When you sit back and look at all of the fun and the good conversation that these in person events have, you can come away with the knowledge that the internet is more of an imitation or a cheap knock-off of the overall real social experience.

Real life social interactions are full and deep … Internet social interaction is seemingly much more shallow because it allows for people to put on airs that real life interactions usually don’t allow. It’s somewhat unfortunate that the internet is this way, but I guess that’s just how it is.

Maybe folks would get along better if they interacted more in real life.

At any rate, it’s always a good day when the rodeo comes to town.

See video:

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