A pair of Twins games
Because my job is The Best, I got free tickets from our CEO to attend a couple of games at Target Field this year. And because Jenna's mom is the best, Natalie got to play with grandma while we got some rare time alone together. The new stadium is great and we had perfect weather for outside baseball.
The first set of tickets were for a night game. We met at the MOA and rode the light rail--after figuring out where the bafflingly unmarked station was located, and where to park--all the way up to downtown. I ate some walleye fingers and fries, washed down with a plastic cup of Grain Belt. The seats are 16 rows behind home plate. It was glorious. Foul balls were popping up over the net all around us. The game dragged on and we left after the seventh inning, which was a good decision, because the Twins lost anyway after 3 1/2 hours. Through some bizarre coincidence, my MIX-planning partner Sarah and her boyfriend were sitting just three rows behind us.
The second game started at noon so we got the full sun-baked summer baseball experience. On the menu this time were the veggie stir-fry (not that great) and a couple of beers, followed by a shared soft-serve ice cream cone (so perfect). One of my work colleagues happened to be there with his dad, so we met for a drink and chat. To cap it off, Twins stomped the Indians 6-0 and we got to enjoy the celebratory fireworks at the end. BASEBALL!
Guatemala Flight's Data-Recording Parrot Holds Clues to Crash
Clues to one of the most devastating plane crashes in Guatemalan history have been safely preserved by Banana, the in-flight recording parrot.Though the investigation is yet to be completed, and no official statement concerning the cause of the accident has been made public, anonymous sources indicate the turtle-powered engine system might be to blame :)
That's what Guatemalans get for not consulting with Paul the psychic octopus :)
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Julian Assange - Why the World Needs WikiLeaks
The recent publication of over 91,000 classified documents concerning questionable military activities taking place in Afghanistan over the past few years has created a national debate.At the heart of the controversy are at least four important issues: 1) providing whistle-blowers with an anonymous and safe platform to expose institutional corruption in corporations and governments, 2) evaluating the veracity of the information leaked, 3) fostering institutional transparency and accountability, and 4) potentially undermining national security.
In the following interview, Julian Assange, founder of the (in)famous Wikileaks, discusses the history of his organization, what he considers to be its social and ethical importance, as well as some of the funny methods WikiLeaks employs in order to corroborate the information it receives.
Check out more in the corruption tag.
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Trajan's New Deal
On 27 January 98 A.C.E., Marcus Ulpius Traianus (commonly known as 'Trajan', b. 53, d. 117) succeeded to the throne of the Roman Empire. His predecessor, Nerva (30-98 A.C.E), who had only reigned for a little more than a year, managed to leave behind a legacy benefiting most citizens..
Although unpopular with some members of the government, Nerva was able to push through measures designed to alleviate the economic burdens of the working poor. In addition to instituting a generous round of tax breaks, he also allocated free tracts of land to those willing to take up cultivation.
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In his nineteen year reign, Trajan is often most remembered for his military conquests over Dacia and the mighty Parthian Empire. Beyond his achievements in battle, however, Trajan ought to be viewed more by history as a domestic reformer - a true disciple of Nerva - than a supreme warrior.
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As any other ambitious ruler, Trajan wanted to expand the frontiers and influence of his Empire. War, however, was only one means to that end. He was equally capable of using statesmanship to attain his political objectives. Hence, skillful diplomacy was often substituted for a more heavy-handed approach.
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Unlike some of the men who had 'assumed the purple' before him, Trajan possessed a keen sense of the limits of Empire. The size of the Roman territory throughout the Mediterranean was becoming too large to effectively govern, and parts of the Empire had been mired in an economic downturn for years.
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To reduce the numbers of the unemployed, Trajan set out on an ambitious public works campaign in the city. Between 100-110 A.C.E., he commissioned the famous architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, to build a giant marketplace. Two years after its completion, another massive construction effort resulted in the making of a new Forum. Both 'Trajan's Market' and 'Trajan's Forum' created thousands of jobs in their time and can still be seen in part in Rome today.
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Beyond ordering the creation of new buildings, Trajan instituted two far-reaching programs (with approval of the Senate) to stimulate the economy. Although it may have begun under the brief reign of Nerva, alimenta, whereby poor youth (boys, girls and even children born out of wedlock) were eligible to receive state funding in the form of cash payouts to meet their daily expenses, was greatly expanded by Trajan. The scope of his alimenta program rivalled the massive Roman military budget in terms of spending at almost seventy-five percent of its size.
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At the same time, Trajan pushed through legislation allowing small farmers to borrow money at the low rate of five percent interest in order to allow them to purchase the supplies (and possibly labor) needed to raise bountiful crops for harvest.
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His state-interventionist economic policy reaped immediate rewards. As laborers on the construction projects in the city and cultivators in the countryside had a stable source of income, consumer spending picked up, merchants saw greater profits, Rome was less dependent on foreign sources for food and a generation of young people were saved from the travails of poverty.
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In celebration of their new-found fortune, coins bearing the inscription 'Italia Restituta' (Italy Restored) were minted and circulated around the Empire. Of course, not every citizen was free from destitution and economic misery, but a large number of people had been freed from the tyranny of privation.
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In the world of the 21st century, governments would do well to study the priorities of Trajan's rule.
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(Photo: A Roman coin displaying the profile of Trajan)
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J Roquen
Douglas Adams - Where Does the Idea of God Come from?
The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras is famous among other things for arguing that "man is the measure of all things." According to Plato's interpretation, this is the philosophical birth of relativism, the idea that there is no universally objective and mind-independent truth: everything depends on one's point of view.Though highly discredited in philosophical circles, and logically proven to be a false doctrine because of its entailment of a devastating logical contradiction, there is still an important lesson to be learned from relativism: our beliefs (but not reality) usually depend on the kind of creatures that we are.
In the following short clip, and combining this important insight with an evolutionary account of our own origins, the late Douglas Adams provides a fascinating and amusing account of our natural propensity to think teleologically and how, being tool-makers, we are are likely to phrase our questions about the existence of the universe in terms of the intentionality of some other tool-maker.
I'll be posting the entirety of this lecture soon. Stay tuned...
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David Harvey - The Crises of Capitalism
The recent financial crisis has affected just about everyone, and the question of why it arose in the first place is one that comes naturally to mind. Answers, of course, abound, and most of them do have some merit, but there is something which most schools of thought tacitly agree on and presuppose: capitalism is an engine for progress, economic and social.One of the greatest philosophers to question and challenge that presupposition was Karl Marx. And while he did recognize the capitalistic drive toward improved efficiency, he also understood the logical structure of capitalism better than just about anyone ever has, elucidating in the process both why it is so successful and why it cannot succeed indefinitely.
In the following fascinating animated lecture from the RSA, Professor David Harvey provides a quick and penetrating Marxist analysis of the way in which capitalism seems to solve many of the problems it creates, revealing in the process both its genius and its dark side.
If you want to get the full lecture, you can watch it below:
Check out other eye-catching animated lectures from the RSA, or sing along to the Hayek vs. Keynes rap.
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Susceptibility to visual illusions in autism
Visual illusions are good fun [don't follow this link if you have epilepsy], but they can also provide important insights into the way that our visual perceptual system works. In particular, they show how our knowledge and expectations about the world influence perception. For example, in the Shepard illusion below, the tops of the two tables are actually the same shape. However, because we naturally think of them as being pictures of 3D objects, we can't help but perceive the left table as being much more elongated than that on the right.
In 1996, Francesca Happe published an intriguing paper in which she reported that children with autism were less susceptible to visual illusions than non-autistic kids, suggesting in turn that the way they perceive the world is fundamentally different. However, subsequent studies have provided somewhat mixed results. Some have also found immunity to illusions; others have found that people with autism are just as susceptible as those not on the spectrum. It's not clear why the results are so contradictory, but it may be down to differences in the way the tests have been administered in different studies, or the fact that different illusions have been tested, or a combination of both.
In a new study, Peter Mitchell and colleagues tested a group of adolescents and adults with ASD on the Shepard illusion. The pictures were presented on a computer and the participants' task was to adjust the size of the right hand table by pressing the arrow keys until they thought it was the same shape as the one on the left.
The people in the ASD group were, in fact, susceptible to the illusion. In the example above, they would make the right hand table longer and thinner than it needed to be. However, the illusion effect was considerably weaker than in a group of non-autistic people from the same age range.
One possible scenario is that there are two subgroups of people with ASD - some who are susceptible to the illusion and others who are not. Mitchell et al. claim there was no evidence for different subgroups in their data. Nevertheless, it's quite noticeable that the error bars on their graph are much larger for the ASD group, indicating a much wider spread of scores. It would be interesting to know just how many of the ASD individuals showed an illusion effect that was markedly reduced and how many showed 'normal' susceptibility.
The results are particularly interesting because, in a previous study using a very similar task, the same researchers found that people with autism showed normal sensitivity to other types of illusion, such as the Ebbinghaus illusion (below). Unfortunately, they haven't yet given both kinds of illusions to the same people with ASD using this task. However, the results to date suggest that there may be something specific about the way the Shepard illusion works that means (some) people with autism are less affected.
Mitchell et al.'s argument is that people with autism make less use of 'top-down' knowledge. That is, their perception is less guided by knowledge of what it is they are viewing. In the Shepard illusion, the relevant 'knowledge' is the 'fact' that the 2D images have depth, which leads to the perceptual 'squashing' effects.
However, there is a small problem with this argument. Mitchell et al. also included a second version of the test, in which the table legs were removed, so the participants just saw two parallelograms. But even in this parallelogram version of the test, when the participants didn't know the objects had depth, it was still the case that (a) both groups showed an illusion effect; and (b) the effect was smaller in the autism group. One possibility is that, having seen the tables version of the test, everyone interpreted the parallelograms as table tops too. This would be easy to check in future experiments.
Overall, it does seem that there are important differences in the way that (at least some) people with autism perceive the world. In some situations these differences might be advantageous. Indeed, Mitchell et al. speculate that the reason why a disproportionate number of people with autism are savant artists is that they are not afflicted by the 'curse of knowledge'. They are able to draw exactly what they see.
However, there may also be down sides. Presumably, the reason we are susceptible to visual illusions is that using our knowledge of the world to infer the 3D properties of objects based on 2D retinal images is adaptive - it's useful more often than not. Visual illusions are the price we occasionally pay for being able to make sense of our sensory environment. It follows, therefore, that an interesting direction for future research is to explore the links between susceptibility to illusions and the sensory difficulties that affect many people with autism.
Reference:
Mitchell, P., Mottron, L., Soulieres, I., & Ropar, D. (2010). Susceptibility to the Shepard illusion in participants with autism: reduced top-down influences within perception? Autism Research, 3, 113-119.
In 1996, Francesca Happe published an intriguing paper in which she reported that children with autism were less susceptible to visual illusions than non-autistic kids, suggesting in turn that the way they perceive the world is fundamentally different. However, subsequent studies have provided somewhat mixed results. Some have also found immunity to illusions; others have found that people with autism are just as susceptible as those not on the spectrum. It's not clear why the results are so contradictory, but it may be down to differences in the way the tests have been administered in different studies, or the fact that different illusions have been tested, or a combination of both.
In a new study, Peter Mitchell and colleagues tested a group of adolescents and adults with ASD on the Shepard illusion. The pictures were presented on a computer and the participants' task was to adjust the size of the right hand table by pressing the arrow keys until they thought it was the same shape as the one on the left.
The people in the ASD group were, in fact, susceptible to the illusion. In the example above, they would make the right hand table longer and thinner than it needed to be. However, the illusion effect was considerably weaker than in a group of non-autistic people from the same age range.
One possible scenario is that there are two subgroups of people with ASD - some who are susceptible to the illusion and others who are not. Mitchell et al. claim there was no evidence for different subgroups in their data. Nevertheless, it's quite noticeable that the error bars on their graph are much larger for the ASD group, indicating a much wider spread of scores. It would be interesting to know just how many of the ASD individuals showed an illusion effect that was markedly reduced and how many showed 'normal' susceptibility.
The results are particularly interesting because, in a previous study using a very similar task, the same researchers found that people with autism showed normal sensitivity to other types of illusion, such as the Ebbinghaus illusion (below). Unfortunately, they haven't yet given both kinds of illusions to the same people with ASD using this task. However, the results to date suggest that there may be something specific about the way the Shepard illusion works that means (some) people with autism are less affected.
Mitchell et al.'s argument is that people with autism make less use of 'top-down' knowledge. That is, their perception is less guided by knowledge of what it is they are viewing. In the Shepard illusion, the relevant 'knowledge' is the 'fact' that the 2D images have depth, which leads to the perceptual 'squashing' effects.
However, there is a small problem with this argument. Mitchell et al. also included a second version of the test, in which the table legs were removed, so the participants just saw two parallelograms. But even in this parallelogram version of the test, when the participants didn't know the objects had depth, it was still the case that (a) both groups showed an illusion effect; and (b) the effect was smaller in the autism group. One possibility is that, having seen the tables version of the test, everyone interpreted the parallelograms as table tops too. This would be easy to check in future experiments.
Overall, it does seem that there are important differences in the way that (at least some) people with autism perceive the world. In some situations these differences might be advantageous. Indeed, Mitchell et al. speculate that the reason why a disproportionate number of people with autism are savant artists is that they are not afflicted by the 'curse of knowledge'. They are able to draw exactly what they see.
However, there may also be down sides. Presumably, the reason we are susceptible to visual illusions is that using our knowledge of the world to infer the 3D properties of objects based on 2D retinal images is adaptive - it's useful more often than not. Visual illusions are the price we occasionally pay for being able to make sense of our sensory environment. It follows, therefore, that an interesting direction for future research is to explore the links between susceptibility to illusions and the sensory difficulties that affect many people with autism.
Reference:
Mitchell, P., Mottron, L., Soulieres, I., & Ropar, D. (2010). Susceptibility to the Shepard illusion in participants with autism: reduced top-down influences within perception? Autism Research, 3, 113-119.
The Contested Legacy Of Marcus Tullius Cicero
For centuries after his death, schoolchildren in Europe learned the contours of Roman statesmanship, politics and thought by reciting passages from one of his many writings. Today, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.), simply referred to as 'Cicero', no longer figures into civic education..
Rather than achieving the highest offices in the Roman administration by being the son of a senator, Cicero climbed the latter as a 'New Man' from a wealthy family without connections to power. After being trained in the law, he quickly established himself as one of the most articulate and persuasive lawyers at court, and his high reputation won both admiration from much of the elite and the opportunity to serve the state in an official capacity. As Consul (the highest administrative office in Rome), Cicero was instrumental in putting down a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic by Lucius Sergius Catalina in 63 B.C.E.. Catalina, who had gathered a sizable armed following of disaffected and impoverished men, was seized and condemned to death at the urging of Cicero. For 'saving' the Republic, he was awarded the title 'Father of the Country'.
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On 10 January 49 B.C.E., Caesar crossed the Rubicon River and presumably headed for Rome with his army. As it was politically anathema for commanders to take their soldiers into the capital, Caesar's action amounted to treason and ignited a civil war. A rival general, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), was charged by the Senate, the core Republican institution of government, to defend the state. Whether or not Caesar was left without recourse and justified in marching on Rome is a question still being debated today. However, Cicero, one of the two leading defenders of the Republic at the time, walked a fine line between Caesar and Pompey and did not uniformly condemn Caesar as did his ultra-Republican, senatorial colleague Marcus Porcius Cato (The Younger). At one time, Cicero could be seen traveling and seemingly siding with Pompey. At another, he accepted a monetary loan from Caesar. Had this Republican statesman become a mere opportunist?
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In 44 B.C.E., Caesar was assassinated. Brutus and Cassius, the assassins, retained armies in the field and prepared to fight to resurrect the Republic - destroyed by Caesar's dictatorship. Octavian (the future ruler of the Roman Empire to be known as 'Augustus') was 18 years old and suddenly found himself the adopted heir to Caesar in the fallen dictator's last will and testament, and Mark Antony, a Roman commander who had had inside knowledge of Caesar's assassination (and chose not to prevent it) were all poised to square off in a titanic battle for supremacy. That battle, however, was postponed for an interlude of political expediency as Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus (another commander) formed the Second Triumvirate (Rule of Three) to essentially rule by military fiat. In forming their agreement, the triumvirs approved each other's death lists (proscription lists) of enemies. As Cicero had come out forcefully against Mark Antony in a series of rhetorical speeches known as 'Philippics', he was on Antony's proscription list.
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Cicero's virulent line against Antony remains inexplicable. Antony had worked as governor under Caesar, but Octavian was Caesar's heir and could be reasonably expected to take revenge on Brutus and Cassius - the Republican holdouts - and rule Rome autocratically in a similar fashion to the dictator.
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In short, Cicero's miscalculations proved he was no politician and more suited to academic thought. Subsequently, Cicero was murdered at the age of 63 under the aegis of the triumvirs. The use of violence in the political arena, which Cicero had ardently supported against Catalina and Antony, would now come back full circle and undo Cicero himself.
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Rome lost a once noble statesman, and history may have lost one as well.
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(Picture - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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Book Recommendation: Everitt, Anthony. Cicero. New York: Random House, 2001.
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J Roquen
M.I.T. Scientists Split the Smithereen
After discovering Cheesium, and while the Large Hadron Collider continues to seach for the Higgs Boson, scientists at M.I.T. have managed to split what was hitherto thought to be the smallest unit of matter: the smithereen :)Check out more of Oniony goodness
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Roller Coaster
Dueling Dragons, originally uploaded by brownek909
Negotiating the sale of our house was a long, nauseating ride, and not fun at all. Well, it was a little bit fun at first when we put the house on the market and got it clean and were all excited. And then getting the offer was great. It all went downhill after that, though, through a series of loops and drops that made us almost physically ill.
I was exceedingly glad to get off that roller coaster when we finally closed on our new home. There was a bit of stress around the move. And we've been busy with projects around the house ever since. But compared to the drama of buying and selling, my overall feeling has been one of incredible calm.
Has it really only been two months? In that short amount of time we've done much to make the house our home. And I haven't missed living in the city for even a second. That's a ride I don't want to get on again for a very long time.
Irene Pepperberg - Alex & Me
Even after his premature death a couple of years ago, Alex is arguably the most famous parrot in the world. The insights he provided into the nature of intelligence, cognition, language development, conceptual abstraction and other fields have revolutionized the ways in which we think about these ideas in particular and animals in general.In the following story from The Moth, Irene Pepperberg shares some amazing, hilarious and moving anecdotes surrounding this amazing little bird.
Bet you didn't know Alex was both a name and an acronym, right? :)
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Firecatcher Website Launched!
Hurrah! Our brand spanking new website has just gone live! Head over to www.firecatcher.co.uk to check it out!
Shogi
Shogi Game, originally uploaded by Erik Anderson
My dad taught me chess at a young age. I haven't played a full game for many years, but I recently brought a board to work to set up endgame problems on my desk. I like to puzzle through them when I need a break, and a few of my coworkers have taken a crack at the solutions too.
Once I got my chess skills dusted off again, I learned to play Shogi, or "Japanese Chess." After a few games, I actually prefer it to chess for a few reasons, including:
- Promotion rules: nearly all pieces can be "upgraded," which makes promotion a major part of the strategy.
- Capture and drop: pieces you capture, instead of being permanently removed from play, can be returned to the board under your control.
- Quick endgame: it is much easier to put the king into checkmate, which can be one of the most frustrating and drawn-out parts of playing chess.
There's a free applet to play Shogi online here. After watching a few videos from Hidetchi's "How to Play Shogi" series on YouTube, I can reliably win in games against the server. The next step is to find some real live opponents to play against. Who wants to give it a try?
Manual Labor
Natalie helped me bury the pole for our bird house. She was really good at digging. She watched what I was doing very carefully and copied mostly everything. The only thing she couldn't do was lift the dirt up into the wheelbarrow. What a great helper!
The Genius of Britain - Episode 2
After exploring the birth of the scientific revolution in England, today's episode explores five more men whose curiosity not only led to fascinating new discoveries like their predecessors, but would actually change the world.Richard Dawkins tells the fascinating (and somewhat disturbing) story of how Edward Jenner confronted small pox, one of history's greatest killers, head-on: by deliberately infecting a young boy with the disease after infecting him with a dose of cow pox. His experiment wouldn't be approved by ethics committees today, but Jenner's discovery of immunization has saved more lives than perhaps any other single discovery in medical science.
David Attenborough celebrates Joseph Banks, the naturalist who would sail across the globe in search of new animal and plant species, and would eventually establish the Botanical Gardens at Kew. Meanwhile, James Dyson recounts the story of how James Watt's design for the steam engine would fuel the industrial revolution. Thanks to the two, Britain would become the wealthiest nation in the world.
Stephen Hawking and Jim Al-Khalili tell the story of Henry Cavendish's discovery of hydrogen and Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen, and how their mutual collaboration revealed water to be a compound and not a basic element, as had been justifiably believed, though mistakenly, for millennia.Finally, Lord Robert Winston explains the story of how modern surgery was born: from the insatiable curiosity of Joseph Hunter, surgeon, anatomist and body-snatcher :)
Learn more about the scientific tradition in the Cavendish family in this episode from In Our Time.
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Pascal's Wager for Atheists
The French philosopher and mathematician 
Blaise Pascal was a true genius, and much of what he wrote in his famous Pensées has become greatly influential in modern philosophy, especially as it relates to questions of existentialism, phenomenology and human psychology. Here is a nice and short discussion of Pascal's philosophical insights, from Philosophy Bites:
Unfortunately, Pascal's fame outside of philosophical circles seems to have become relegated to his wager: the idea that believing in God is the logical consequence of rational self-interest.
There are many problems with the argument, but one quick way to understand them is by considering its logical implications (as Edward Current did in this amusing video clip), or by arbitrarily changing its already arbitrary starting conditions, as David Mitchell does in the following clip:
Fortunately, some versions of Pascal's wager do have practical applications :)
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Blaise Pascal was a true genius, and much of what he wrote in his famous Pensées has become greatly influential in modern philosophy, especially as it relates to questions of existentialism, phenomenology and human psychology. Here is a nice and short discussion of Pascal's philosophical insights, from Philosophy Bites:Unfortunately, Pascal's fame outside of philosophical circles seems to have become relegated to his wager: the idea that believing in God is the logical consequence of rational self-interest.
There are many problems with the argument, but one quick way to understand them is by considering its logical implications (as Edward Current did in this amusing video clip), or by arbitrarily changing its already arbitrary starting conditions, as David Mitchell does in the following clip:
Fortunately, some versions of Pascal's wager do have practical applications :)
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vivre dans l'instant
July 11th was one of my most peaceful days ever.
It’s been a stressful last few months.
A terrible break-up started an avalanche of giant, life-altering decisions.
New budget, new maps, new outlook, hair, clothes...
My mind’s been busy either analyzing the past or planning...
Couldn’t recall the last time I was unrushed or content.
Then, it completely snuck-up on me,
as things do when one stops looking...
It was after bicycling around town on a mission for new jeans.
In the most downtown of Seattle,
there’s a clearing on 4th and Pine.
Just a simple open space,
some tables and chairs,
a hot dog joint,
a fountain,
old people playing chess,
teenagers skipping class (during the week).
I stopped and bought a veggie dog,
took a seat and started to eat,
when i found myself in a most remarkable moment;
Instead of worrying or plotting or even thinking,
I was blissfully clear-minded and content.
Happy, even.
Comfortable in my own skin,
with the people around me,
everyone’s kind disposition,
the weather,
my appearance,
my apartment,
where I have been,
where I’ll be going,
and most importantly;
completely present in the moment I was living.
Appreciating every breeze.
Every quiet plane distant in the sky,
the people who are surely looking down from it.
What a great taste Dijon mustard and ketchup make,
thanking whosever idea it was to carbonate grapefruit juice,
that it got made, and bottled, and arrived, and in my hand.
Grateful to each person for strolling by in an unrushed manner,
for behaving and being relaxed together,
for belonging to me, and belonging to them,
for sharing the sun and sidewalk and the city.
Remarkably, on a gorgeous 75 degree Sunday,
there were no tourists around
(you can spot em, once you’ve lived in one place long enough).
It was just for us Seattleites.
Our city belonged to us.
It embraced us.
Even the homeless were in a good mood,
looking up at the birds and such.
Everything is OK at this moment!
It’s warm outside!
We have a neat Space Needle!
Folk music has made a comeback!
Our president is cool!
Completely enjoying the moment,
I took as long as possible to eat my hot dog.
I took these pictures in attempt to capture some of it,
and to not forget (not that I could, but).
I’m already nostalgic about Seattle...
appreciating it as much as I can.
It’s been a stressful last few months.
A terrible break-up started an avalanche of giant, life-altering decisions.
New budget, new maps, new outlook, hair, clothes...
My mind’s been busy either analyzing the past or planning...
Couldn’t recall the last time I was unrushed or content.
Then, it completely snuck-up on me,
as things do when one stops looking...
It was after bicycling around town on a mission for new jeans.
In the most downtown of Seattle,
there’s a clearing on 4th and Pine.
Just a simple open space,
some tables and chairs,
a hot dog joint,
a fountain,
old people playing chess,
teenagers skipping class (during the week).
I stopped and bought a veggie dog,
took a seat and started to eat,
when i found myself in a most remarkable moment;
Instead of worrying or plotting or even thinking,
I was blissfully clear-minded and content.
Happy, even.
Comfortable in my own skin,
with the people around me,
everyone’s kind disposition,
the weather,
my appearance,
my apartment,
where I have been,
where I’ll be going,
and most importantly;
completely present in the moment I was living.
Appreciating every breeze.
Every quiet plane distant in the sky,
the people who are surely looking down from it.
What a great taste Dijon mustard and ketchup make,
thanking whosever idea it was to carbonate grapefruit juice,
that it got made, and bottled, and arrived, and in my hand.
Grateful to each person for strolling by in an unrushed manner,
for behaving and being relaxed together,
for belonging to me, and belonging to them,
for sharing the sun and sidewalk and the city.
Remarkably, on a gorgeous 75 degree Sunday,
there were no tourists around
(you can spot em, once you’ve lived in one place long enough).
It was just for us Seattleites.
Our city belonged to us.
It embraced us.
Even the homeless were in a good mood,
looking up at the birds and such.
Everything is OK at this moment!
It’s warm outside!
We have a neat Space Needle!
Folk music has made a comeback!
Our president is cool!
Completely enjoying the moment,
I took as long as possible to eat my hot dog.
I took these pictures in attempt to capture some of it,
and to not forget (not that I could, but).
I’m already nostalgic about Seattle...
appreciating it as much as I can.
The Periodic Table of Everything
When it comes to questions of classification, there are usually many avenues one can pursue. The approach one takes to classify any given set of conceptual objects depends to a large extent on the taxonomist's goals. One could try to create a classification system based on aesthetic preferences (like Tom Lehrer did for the purposes of his awesome Elements Song), on criteria of usefulness (like books sorted by subject matter and alphabetically in a library), on degrees of similarity, on proximity of historical genealogy, based on inherent properties of the objects to be classified, etc.
Two of the most famous and useful systems of classification are Darwin's phylogenetic tree of life and Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table of elements, and as you can see below, the latter has been adopted to classify all sorts of things...
The Periodic Table of Elements:
The Periodic Table of Sex Positions:
The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense:
The Periodic Table of Vulgarity:
The Periodic Table of Swearing:
The Periodic Table of Rejected Elements:
The Periodic Table of the Internet:
The Periodic Table of Typefaces:
The Periodic Table of Beer Styles:
The Periodic Table of Video Game Characters:
The Periodic Table of Awesome:
The Periodic Table of Dangerous Elements (can you spot the one Democrat?):
The Periodic Table of Legos:
The Periodic Table of Controllers:
The Periodic Table of Produce and Storage:
The Periodic Table of Desserts:
The Periodic Table of Cartoon Characters:
The Periodic Table of Cupcakes:
The Periodic Table of Final Fantasy Characters:
Just the Periodic Table :)
Let me know if you come across other ones.
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Two of the most famous and useful systems of classification are Darwin's phylogenetic tree of life and Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table of elements, and as you can see below, the latter has been adopted to classify all sorts of things...
The Periodic Table of Elements:
The Periodic Table of Sex Positions:
The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense:
The Periodic Table of Vulgarity:
The Periodic Table of Swearing:
The Periodic Table of Rejected Elements:
The Periodic Table of the Internet:
The Periodic Table of Typefaces:
The Periodic Table of Beer Styles:
The Periodic Table of Video Game Characters:
The Periodic Table of Awesome:
The Periodic Table of Dangerous Elements (can you spot the one Democrat?):
The Periodic Table of Legos:
The Periodic Table of Controllers:
The Periodic Table of Produce and Storage:
The Periodic Table of Desserts:
The Periodic Table of Cartoon Characters:
The Periodic Table of Cupcakes:
The Periodic Table of Final Fantasy Characters:
Just the Periodic Table :)
Let me know if you come across other ones.
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