Elephants communicate with infrasound, rumblings at frequencies too low for us to hear. The sounds travel at least 4 km (2.5 mi) through the ground; elephants listen for these with extra-sensitive feet. Each species has a complex library of calls–greetings, mating announcements, long-range group coordination–and can recognize the “voices” of family members. Check out the Elephant Listening Project, where you can listen to recordings of calls.
This is beautiful, stunning, computer-aided mechanical art. See your face in blocks of wood. This one’s my favorite video, but check out all of Daniel Rozin’s mechanical mirrors and other cool interactive art.
Jack Kerouac is an essential American author. You can read a scanned image of the first page-worth of the 120-foot scroll on which he typed On the Road in a single paragraph. They’ve come out with a book that recreates the scroll.
Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who had a stroke and remembers the whole process. Her talk at TED is absolutely fascinating and inspiring.
Thanks to Matt for the tip.
Dr. Albert Hofmann, on the occasion of celebrating the 50th anniversary of his famous bicycle ride: “You, my dear friends, and millions all over the world who now commemorate the 50th birthday of ergot’s child, we all testify gratefully that we got valuable help on the way to what Aldous Huxley said is the end and the ultimate purpose of human life–enlightenment, beatific vision, love. I think all these joyful testimonies of invaluable help by LSD should be enough to convince the health authorities, finally, of the nonsense of the prohibition of LSD and of similar psychedelics.”
A clam was found in Iceland, cut open, and had its rings counted. It was over 400 years old. Sadly, the procedure killed the creature. Who knows how much longer it would’ve lived?
Did you know? The USA PATRIOT Act is an acronym? That is, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. Wonder how long it took ‘em to work that one out. Oh well; this article hepped me to the acronym-ness and the news that a judge just struck down key parts of the act. It’s a start.
Friends, I’d like to tell you about psilocybin. It’s the active molecule in psychedelic mushrooms and the focus of a 2006 study by Roland Griffiths and others at Johns Hopkins University. Most participants in the double-blind study, full text here, reported having mystical experiences—for many, the most profound experiences of their lives. Follow-ups with the participants several months later indicated they were happier and more productive; this was corroborated by interviews with friends, family, and co-workers.
More studies must be conducted to investigate how psilocybin and other psychoactives have the potential for positive impact on society. The government also needs to get its head out of its ass and let its citizens do what they want.
Here’s Q&A with Griffiths, who headed the study. Here’s the Wikipedia article on psilocybin. Here’s an Independent article outlining some of the positive benefits and research possibilities of several other controlled substances.
Swarm theory has been around for a while, but this National Geographic article is the first comprehensive piece I’ve read on it. Smart swarms occur in all kinds of creature societies, including our own, and the theory has useful applications in lots of human endeavors. I’m interested in training people to use swarm theory when they’re in large groups—say, at Burning Man.
Scope their cool photos too—above is a flock of starlings!
My one problem with the article: they’re so matter-of-fact about how it “wasn’t intuitive” for delivery truck drivers to travel way farther than they had before–but “the savings have been impressive”!
It’s been a while since my last post. REAL life’s been so fascinating, I’ve hardly any time to relate its wonders electronically! Fret not; I’m saving things up and will dispense as I can. Since you’re hanging on my every post and all.
Anyway, I just randomly stumbled across cartoons by Patrick Smith and was struck by their imagery and storytelling. Here’s a fun one:
I’d like to use this small, rickety soapbox to say that I want Barack Obama to be our next president. I read (okay, listened to the audiobook of) The Audacity of Hope, his second memoir, and was thoroughly impressed. A lot of the book analyzes the current situation of American politics and talks about how it could/should be, and a lot of it is practical. It’s also clear in the book that Barack just wants to bring good to the world—not just to his constituents or the people who gave him money. Plus he’s really smart, which is something I’d like to see in our next Commander in Chief.
Barack’s campaign is really grass-roots; it’s raised a great deal of its money in increments of $10 to $50. Saturday June 9 they’re having a Walk for Change where volunteers will knock on doors and get people excited about the campaign. I’ll be one of them! I encourage you to find a Walk for Change in your neighborhood.
When Rachmaninoff heard Art Tatum play, he said he was the great pianist in any style. When Art Tatum entered a club where Fats Waller was performing, Fats stood up saying, “I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.”
Here’s a video of him swinging Dvorak.
Google brings my front door to the world. Currently there’s only data for certain metropolitan areas: New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Denver, and a whole lot of the San Francisco Bay Area. Check out my gate; garage; front window! Right now! Good thing we had our curtains closed!
More cool views:
To further ambiguate the purposes of this blog, I’ll post a neat tip for Apple Macintosh users.
That fart-like sound that plays when you change the volume on a Mac can be annoying, but occasionally it’s useful. If you turn it off (System Preferences > Sound > uncheck “Play feedback when volume is changed”) you can always get the feedback by pressing Shift while changing the volume. The rest of the time you can set your levels in peace.
By the way, is ambiguate really a word?
This is interesting for the sheer incomprehensibility of its statements. Let me know if you have any idea what this person is trying to say. I’ll see if I can wade through to the bottom.
This bird is more or less a living, breathing audio sampler. It imitates the sounds of 20 birds and other sounds it hears, like camera shutters and chainsaws.
Daniel Tammet is a functional autistic savant with synesthesia. He knows 10 languages and can learn a new one in a week. He holds the European record for Pi digits memorized–22,514. For him, each number up to 10,000 has shape, color, even emotion. Squared numbers are symmetrical. Primes are smooth and round, like “pebbles on a beach.” Most incredible is how he multiplies, shown above. He pictures the shapes for two numbers side-by-side in his mind. Between them, in the negative space, a new shape forms. That’s the shape of the result.
WHAT??? For that to work, each number (like, up to 10,000) needs to be properly shaped such that multiplying any other number by it creates the right shape. This seems to mean these shapes follow some bizarre set of rules that I doubt Daniel could have created subconsciously. I dunno. This completely blows my mind.
Give him a google, a youtube, or listen to him on NPR, which also has the first chapter of his book (which I’ve read—interesting, easy read).
Welcome! You, the reader. Not many have hit up my “blog” as of yet, so you are perhaps one of the first. I began this project with one purpose: expressing myself. There are lots of things I want to express, and while some of them are fascinating, well, it goes beyond that. I just want to create some “web content” that puts me, my thoughts, dreams, etc., out there. So I’m not entirely sure where it’s all gonna go. But, onward!
<–from Wikipedia
