Thu - June 22, 2006

We are all phantoms.




A very interesting physics demonstration was found here. You remember how we always learned that the human body was 50 - 60% water. Well, on a deeper atomic level, we are composed of practically nothing at all.

I love the thought now just as I loved it when I took "Physics for Poets" in college. But I really dig the conclusion on the demonstration page, "We are all phantoms."

Posted at 11:45 PM      

Fri - June 16, 2006

Yeah, that's what I thought.




Posted at 01:40 PM      

Sat - March 25, 2006

Random Epiphanies


I love the word, epiphany . In a smaller, more secular sense, it means to me those moments when you learn something new, and you actually chuckle, or say "Aha!" To me, it means you're creating new connections in your brain, strengthening the neural pathways. This is what excites me most about life--learning new things.

Here are a few random epiphanies from the last few days (in modified order: Song, Wine, and Women):


Song: Donald Fagen has a soul mirror. "What I Do."




For awhile, I've thought that there are 3 types of people in this world--those who don't know Steely Dan, those who don't get Steely Dan, and Steely Dan fanatics. I'm in the last group, for the most part. Donald Fagen has a new album out, "Morph the Cat" , which is a good effort, and nice to listen to. But there's a GEM on the record: "What I Do." In this track, Fagen does what I thought Bowie did in his last few records. They both took a step back, looked at a body of work, and decided to encapsulate their musical worldview in a performance. Brilliant. Twenty-five years after lamenting getting old, ("Hey 19, that's Aretha Franklin..."), Donald Fagen digs what he majored in.

"Morph the Cat" at Amazon.


Wine: Corked wine is not a myth.




Seriously. Bad corks ruin wine . I knew it was a problem (4+ percent of all wine gets corked), but I have lucked out over the years, I guess. It should be obvious to anyone when it happens to you. If your wine tastes like a penny that your roommate has had in their gym shoe for 4 years, it's corked. Return it. The funny thing, is that this happened to only one out of several bottles of my "wine of the week" (see previous post ). Do not drink corked wine. While it might give you a buzz, the taste stays in your gut longer than burnt garlic, or Durian Fruit .



Women: Natalie Portman says something profound about cinema and media, maybe intentionally.




I like cutie Natalie Portman, but I don't think she's a great actress. Time may prove me wrong. She was on yet another news show promoting "V for Vendetta ", which I really want to see, based on my political leanings, and interest in comic book adaptations. I like the fact that she's educated, and politically interested. She managed to perk up my ears though, when she said something along the lines of (and this is my misquote/paraphrase):

[Going to the movies is] "about shared empathy, when 200 people get together and understand that this is not about my day and my issues but about the life of the person on the screen."

So there really IS a reason to go out into public and deal with all those coughers, teenage hoodlums, and tall-hat-wearing misanthropes! Maybe Comcast "On Demand" movies are this generation's nuclear bunker...

...Cue Donald Fagen's "New Frontier" Aha! (chuckle)

Posted at 01:32 AM      

Sun - February 26, 2006

Anagram Transit Maps: Detroit People Mover


There's a silly little meme going on that BoingBoing.net has been tracking. People are taking their hometown mass transit maps and re-naming stations with anagrams. Fun!

While Detroit is widely known for NOT having a transit system, there is our beloved People Mover, a small downtown loop of elevated monorail.

I figured that it would be relatively easy to contribute to the fun. After all we only have 13 stations...



Visit the official People Mover site here.

Posted at 01:52 AM      

Tue - January 31, 2006

Just stop saying it.




Do you ever get to the point where a particular phrase has been so overused that you shudder whenever you hear it? Is there a string of words that you loathe so much that you immediately think less of the person who has just uttered them?

I beg of you all, please stop saying "AT THE END OF THE DAY..."

It started as an idiosyncrasy. It just bothered me that the phrase tumbled out of a particular co-worker's mouth with so much frequency. Then I noticed it becoming contagious. Others picked up the habit. Watch any news interview on TV--there's a good chance it'll pop out of some talking head's mouth.

I soon began to wonder about a deeper meaning. I mean, what little I know of linguistics leads me to believe that phrases fall into popularity for a reason. Analogous to "When all is said and done...", or "What matters most is...", ATEOTD prefaces a statement from a speaker who wishes to draw attention to a particular goal, at the expense of the steps taken to achieve that goal.

The phrase operates to enforce the concept that the "ends" always justify the "means". I dislike that concept very much. A lot of evil has been done by those who embrace that attitude and approach. I'll leave the rest of the political argument off this page, and let you draw your own conclusions.

I recognize one legitimate use of this phrase. If you mean to say "at 5pm or 6pm, when my co-workers were wrapping things up..." That's okay. If you mean "at about midnight, when I usually go to bed..." Fine by me.

But if you use ATEOTD around me one more time, expect me to spit on the floor, or groan, or ask you to explain in great detail how your statement is made more clear by your use of a tired cliche.

Oh, and while we're at it, it's NEW-CLE-AR, not NUKE-YOO-LER.

Thanks.

Posted at 08:50 PM      

©