Somehow this poem, The Second Coming by WB Yeats, seems especially prescient. The first stanza seems especially poignant and appropriate to me. Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out … [Read more...]
A Yeats Favorite
Wine comes in at the mouthAnd love comes in at the eye;That's all we shall know for truthBefore we grow old and die.I lift the glass to my mouth,I look at you, and I sigh. … [Read more...]
More on the global water crisis
If you think the oil crisis is bad, wait til you see the impending global water crisis. Civilizations have collapsed simply due to problems with adequate water supplies (e.g. the Numidians of Petra, the Anisazi of the American southwest, the medieval kingdom of Timbuktu, et al).Check out http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/16-10/sl_gleick for a nice discussion from a true expert on the subject. … [Read more...]
Do Too Many Bumper Stickers Make You Mad?
Have you ever seen a car who's tail end was covered in 50 different bumper stickers? That's just totally excessive. And on top of that, what person following the car in question could read all or even a portion of that? Of course, anyone with 50 bumper stickers on their car IS sending a message: 1) that they think they're cooler than you, and 2) that they have ADHD and can't concentrate on anything. One bumper sticker is about all I can tolerate on a regular, non-insane person's car. Two, one on each side of the license plate, is unpalatable but ok too. More than that, and you're just asking … [Read more...]
Cool Websites and Articles
Here's a collection of tons of websites and webpages that I've been reading over the past couple days.1. JournalNow.com has an interesting article about why parents and kids pick very different types of mates. Kids tend to pick smart, funny, and attractive mates. Parents tend to pick socially and economically superior mates for their kids. (Read it at http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/may/15/checking-mates/?living.) It also brings up the very interesting point about how marriage used to have no relationship with the concept of love. That'd put an interesting spin on the whole gay … [Read more...]
This Art is Amazing!
You simply must check out the art of Felice Varini. He takes a large space and paints an image within the space that is only properly viewed from a single angle. If you look at it from any other angle, it distorts to the point of being unintelligeable.The following image is a good example. When standing in the proper location, you'll see two circles. When standing in any other position, you'll see something very different. The webpage http://bored-night.com/index.php/Amazing/Big-Anamorphic-Illusion-Unbelievable.html has lots of examples of his amazing art. And a quickie Google search reveals … [Read more...]
An Exciting New Development in Solar Energy
I've always been a bit of a conservationist as far back as I can remember. Maybe it was all of those lazy summer afternoons spent looking through my family's decades-long collection of National Geographic magazine. Maybe it was the conservation badge I got as a Cub Scout. Maybe it was from my dad's love of trees and my mom's love of gardens and flowers. I'm not exactly sure, but I got the bug early.One thing I've been strongly interested in is viable alternative energy sources. For years, I'd thought that wave power was the best alternative to our fossil fuel needs. I felt like wave … [Read more...]
Rethinking Sears
I gave up on Sears back in the late 80's when the stopped taking Visa, Mastercard, and American Express in order to shill the Discover Card. Although I liked their product lines, especially Craftsman tools with their unlimited lifetime warranty, I decided I didn't want to buy from any company that didn't want to take my money on my terms. (And why is it that big, successful American companies, think GM and others, always seem to get so arrogant like that?)Anyway, I received a possible chain letter from a friend, shown below:I know I needed this reminder since Sears isn't always my first … [Read more...]
Those Dirty Rats Aren’t so Dirty After All
I've always been a big proponent of thinking expansively and in broader, more disconnected ways. A lot of people would call this thinking outside the box. But I tend to think of it as simply allowing more options into your set of alternatives. My biggest intellectual assets have been breadth of understanding, not depth. My biggest intellectual inspirations are books like "Connections", "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "The Ghost Map". These books all very clearly show that the greatest innovations come from individuals with keen minds and wide, interdisciplinary skills. In other words, the … [Read more...]
Fear of…
The funny thing is, I think I know people with some of these:Portarideluomophobia fear of people wearing costumesPygmaliadevengalavidadiabolicaphobia fear of being attacked by mannequinsAngoraphobia fear of itchy sweatersQuisappositusphobia fear of distant objects coming closerSophismataphobia fear of falsehoodsStockabbildungophobia fear of drawings of stick figuresTerminolectolibriphobia fear of reading the last page of a bookAtrichophobia fear of bald people and, or fear of going baldJanephobia fear of killing animals accidentally when drivingDipatiphobia fear of stepping on cracks in the … [Read more...]