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Endistanced
[Video: zooming in from a Milky Way-wide view all the way to galactic cluster NGC 3324, dubbed the Gabriela Mistral Nebula for its resemblance to the profile of the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet. Music by John Dyson; original video at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) site.] From whiskey river: And as you sit on the hillside, or lie [...]
The Propagational Library (3): A Barrel of Monkeys
[Here by accident? You might want to first read what came before: Introduction, Chapter 1: The Finding, and Chapter 2: Kali.] Gabe knew, by now, he had little chance of returning productively to the darkroom for the rest of the afternoon and evening. He was a little hungry, not remotely famished (and not at all sure he saw [...]
The Propagational Library (2): Kali
[Here by accident? You might want to first read the Introduction and Chapter 1.] After his next hour with them, Gabe sincerely hoped the Lanes would tell him something to summon up his sense of humor. He wondered if he’d ever laugh again. Still not moving beyond the entry hall, Gabe asked them to provide [...]
More Than Enough Room
[Image: postcard, "The Big Shot" (the Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns, NM). For more information, see the note at the bottom of this post.] From whiskey river: Freedom means being able to choose how we respond to things. When wisdom is not well developed, it can be easily obscured by the provocations of others. In such [...]
Heft
It’s really hard sometimes to set aside time to read a looooong magazine article. I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker for many years, and I know how often I’m forced to put an issue aside because of pressure from the ticking clock. (Hint: way too often.) But this — a new magazine, containing a single looooong article per [...]
“Basking in the Glow of an Imagined Future”
[Image: illustration from a December 20101 post, "The Time Travelling Brain," at the Neuroskeptic blog. The orange-highlighted region of the brain is apparently used both in remembering the past, and imagining the future. See also this article in Discover.] in spite of everything which breathes and moves, since Doom (with white longest hands neatening each crease) will [...]
Unquiet Large, Quiet Small
From whiskey river: In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is [...]
The Absorbing and the Absorbed
[Image: a Menger sponge overgrown with vines, found here. Wikipedia explains how to construct a real Menger sponge, noting -- without elaboration -- that the resulting object "simultaneously exhibits an infinite surface area and encloses zero volume."*] From whiskey river: You know when you see something like a marvelous mountain against the blue sky, the [...]
It’s Right in Front of You
[Image: unretouched photograph of an anamorphically-painted building interior, by French artist George Rousse; I found it here. As suggested at that site, be sure to see the video about Rousse's "Durham (NC) project." And while you're at it, check out the similar but sometimes entire city-sized work of Swiss artist Felice Varini. I couldn't decide which artist's work to [...]
“The Logic of Irrationality”
[Original image found at the MathWorks site (slogan: "Accelerating the pace of engineering and science"). It seemed too good not to use.] I haven’t read the book in question (Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman), but this book review got it a spot in the queueueueue. Especially this bit: Kahneman’s approach to psychology spurns [...]
