Thursday, October 22, 2009
Linkkkkkks For Fun
Insane weird cool video
Amazing set of pictures covering the world drug trade: from the dealers to the growers to the users.
Really awesome and inspired idea for a gift. Makes me wish I was much more creative.
Article on how England's swine flu cases have doubled in the last week...
Article on research that has found junk food to be as detrimental to rat brains as heroin. Clearly shows that junk food is not food for thought.
Crazy map showing the impact that a 4 degree Celsius rise in world temperature would have on the world environment.
Quote of the day: [Newton] invented calculus. Most of us sweat through it for multiple years in school just to learn it. He invented it--practically on a dare. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
We Need to Get Out of Afghanistan Now
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
What More Can I Say?
Some Profound Quotes on Human Existence
It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here."
-Chaim Potok
the infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. the sheer number of experiences i could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live in trapped loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handfull of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation of the last, every moment smoothly following the the gentle curves of societal norms. we act like if we just get through today, tomorow our dreams will come back to us.
and no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to joly myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. it doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up.
This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: Fuck. That. Shit."
--xkcd
“In the midst of winter, I finally found that there was in me an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Fr. Alfred D'SouzaYou have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. - unknown
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." - Richard Dawkins
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Anson Heinlein
The people we judge and hate in life are in fact reflections of our disowned selves. (Dr Hal Stone)
The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.
- Quellcrist Falconer
Saturday, October 17, 2009
High Quality Links
- This is really incredible. It is a recounting of the entirely odd balloon boy saga set to the tempo and rhyme scheme of the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
- Some awesome pics of frozen fruits and veggies getting shot at close range.
- A wikipedia entry on the peculiar phenomenon of sailing rocks, which are rocks that just move around, seemingly randomly. Freaking cool.
- A collection of the best of the best microscope images taken in the last 35 years. Truly stunning.
- A kick ass pic showing how big Antarctica really is. (clue: it's huge)
- A really complicated but enlightening and neat flow chart/illustration thing of the differences between dems and repubs.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Massive Berlin Marionette Show (and that's the marionettes that are massive)
There was a truly incredible marionette show in Berlin a few weeks ago. It was both absolutely beautiful and an staggeringly logistically complicated. Check it out if you want to be amazed and touched.