Jo S. Wun's Blog, page 5
December 29, 2011
Spiders, Insects, Flowers And Trees
Today was unusual in that I found several subjects which caught my "photographer's eye". First up was a small spider which my young companion proudly showed me. I would never have dared to pick it up, but he assured me that, despite its fearsome appearance, it was quite harmless. And to demonstrate, he let it run up his shirt and onto his neck. I snapped it on his yellow neckband.
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Of course, I simply had to allow him to put it on my shirt!
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We then drove to the supermarket, and, as I was checking round the car in the car park, I saw this grasshopper on the door mirror. I'm not sure if they are called whiskers, or feelers, but whatever they are called, the ones on this grasshopper are the longest I've ever seen.
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After shopping, rather than go straight home, we took a leisurely drive around the local country lanes. We stopped in the grounds of a church which my passengers wanted to visit, and while they were busy inside, I saw these flowers.
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And this oddly shaped tree.
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And then, this insect, which reminds me of those carved African masks.
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Finally, after returning home, I enjoyed another beautiful sunset.
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I wish every day was like today.
December 28, 2011
Sometimes I Scare Myself
I've been reading a series of posts at Pharyngula, written not by PZ Myers, but by 'ordinary' individuals who explain, Why I am an atheist. Most of the contributors do more than just state the obvious, giving, instead, an account of how they came to see themselves as atheists. I'm glad of that because reading over and over again, because there are no gods, would get very boring, very quickly.
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Cute picture of Ceiling Cat
Sometimes, a snippet catches my eye, either because it makes me laugh or because it seems spot on. For example, a lady from Australia, identifying as Jessica, wrote, "As for my destiny or whatever, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the universe doesn’t give two shits about anyone." No prizes for guessing the connection with this post. And just to clarify, Jessica's words made me laugh.
Here are some snippets I saved...
David Spero - "... when I had a moment of clarity while praying for guidance."
Cat - "The big turning point for me wasn’t realizing “I just can’t believe this” so much as realizing that the fact that I couldn’t believe it didn’t necessarily mean that something was wrong with me."
Rikitiki - "However, in reading through the bible (ugh! that was a chore reading the whole thing), that rigorous honesty thing was part of it. And, I had to be honest with myself: it was a load of made-up crap! Not just mythology, but LOUSY mythology. I’ve read better mythology in my Dungeons & Dragons books (which, I think, many years ago helped soften me up for non-belief)."
T.E.P. - "... with pictures on the walls of lions and camels and all the exciting and exotic bits of the bible, such as are wont to capture the imagination of a four-year old."
Natasha Krasle - "There was just no reason I had to believe something quite frankly silly to be a whole, happy person living on a fascinating speck in a vast and astounding universe."
This one, from Adam, really pulled me up short...
"I’ve been religion-free for six years and my life has only gotten better."
I've never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but isn't that very similar to what the attendees say? It's been tumbling around in my head for a while, and this is the result:
Puff For The Preacherman
At these times,
when my lights are low
and my faith is blurry round the edges,
I tremble and crave for sweet redeeming fear.
I shiver
with delicious
terror as my demons venture forth,
teasing me with their promises of pain.
Every time
I need their presence,
I imagine them more powerful.
So strong that I cannot defeat them alone.
Calling out,
I summon my lord,
conjured as a warrior from my dreams,
who gives me strength to crush my fantasy foes.
Like a shot
of adrenaline,
my craving is satiated.
I am invincible with my warrior lord!
I am strong.
I am energised.
I am compelled to share this bounty.
Won't you open your heart to my addiction?
I promise
you will ever thank me.
Open your mind to your fears!
Without them you cannot find the warrior lord.
If not you,
then give me your children.
Let me saturate their minds.
Let me teach them dependence on redemption.
I am bold.
An unrepentant
pusher, targeting you all.
Both unaware, and proud, of my addiction.
I implore you.
I'm here every week.
Come, feed me your darkest fears
that I might amplify them via my hall of mirrors.
December 27, 2011
Where The Grass Is Greener
I've been getting steadily more and more behind with my reading. Not books, but posts from blogs I follow, and other newsfeeds, in my RSS reader. The unread count currently stands at 17,564.
I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to click Mark All As Read, and start again with a clean slate. But I'm reluctant to do that because of the nagging doubt that I might miss a post of great importance. Not necessarily of great importance to everyone, but of great importance, or at least great significance, to me.
The thing is, it would take me getting on for five hours just to click through all those posts without even reading them (assuming 1 second for each). So it's pretty obvious I've got to dump at least some of them. But what method should I use?
I have my feeds organised into categories, such as Science, Tech, Viewpoints, and others, so I could just ditch the Science ones, for example, which would reduce the unread count by 3,879. Or the Tech ones, currently worth 1,176 points in this game. I suspect that after a certain amount of useless hand-wringing, I'll just go the Mark All As Read route. But it pains me, people. It pains me!
I blame Diaspora* for this state of affairs. It's only since I joined that upstart social network that I've found myself short on time to spend in my newsreader. But then, I've met some interesting folk there, and learnt some interesting stuff from them, not to mention the just having a bit of fun part.
It was via one of my contacts/friends on Diaspora* that I found this article about brain implants. The article itself is a bit scare-mongery, but it is based on some real research carried out at the University of Southern California. I doubt the 'memory implants' will be ready in time for me to deal with my reading backlog, but the idea of being able to insert pre-made memories does raise some interesting possibilities for dealing with this 'ere information overload situation.
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I went for a walk earlier and took this photo of some bamboo. I think they are beautiful, and it adds to my pleasure that I know they are part of the grass family, and are not actually trees. I didn't always know that, I learnt it along the way. If that information, plus the rest of the 'encyclopedia' could be plugged directly into our brains, what a different world it would be. But would the grass really be greener? Or just the colour of the Matrix?
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December 26, 2011
What Day Is It?
It's Boxing Day, if you live in the UK or one of the Commonwealth countries. For others, it's just the day after Christmas Day, and for others still, it's just 26th December (or whatever your calendar says it is).
There are various explanations of why Boxing Day is so named, and how it came to be (see here and here), but when I was a young boy I assumed it had something to do with all the unwanted empty boxes which the gifts of the previous day had been in. The most noticeable thing about Boxing Day was that it felt a bit of a let down after all the excitement. No one seemed to want to do much except sit around and doze off.
So, however you are spending the day, here's some animated gifs with a boxy theme for you to gaze at (perhaps not a good idea if you have a hangover).
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I found these gifs here and here.
And just to round things off nicely (sorry, couldn't resist) here's a video from the eighties.
I found this comment on the You Tube page for this video from someone who identifies as Khaotikal. It made me smile: "So tempted to have this played at my funeral when they carry my coffin out. Quite apt."
December 25, 2011
Sunday - Bonus Miracle Update
For those of you who have been following my Sunday posts of late, the ones regarding which song is randomly selected as the first track to play by my phone's music player software as I sit in my car outside the church in the car park while my passengers indulge their fancy within, I want you to steady yourselves before reading further.
You may recall, from this post, that I indicated that had Bette Middler's From A Distance emanated from my music player then questions would need to be asked (read the post if you need to be reminded of the details).
Well, questions need to be asked!
Here's the first song I heard this morning!!!
From A Distance by Bette Midler
Listen on Posterous
I can imagine you might have "WTF" writ large right now. Click here.
Tilting At Windmills With A Smile
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Which is as good a reason as any to enjoy good company, be it friends, family or just yourself.
Season's Greetings to Everyone
(including hookers in Minneapolis)
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis (Studio Version) by Tom Waits
Listen on Posterous
In the spirit of generosity (or over-indulgence?), here he is singing it live.
The studio version, and all the other songs from his album Blue Valentine, is available at Amazon.com.
I stole the Axial Tilt greeting from Greta Christina. She also has a post which throws a different light on the famous Yes, Virginia story.
December 24, 2011
Coconuts And Lime Juice
I'm surrounded by coconut palms. They are majestic trees. Tall and distinctive, they dominate the rest of the flora. Looking up this patterned trunk at the bounty held high aloft, it's easy to see why the 'nuts' are called fruit of the gods (sriphala) in parts of South Asia.
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What amazes me is how they survive typhoons. Their trunks are quite slender, and have you ever felt the weight of a coconut before the shell is removed? They are heavy! The trunks sway in the wind, sometimes shedding a frond, and yet they remain standing. Such sturdy beasts!
Sturdy they might be, but usually coconut palms conjure up visions of exotic beaches and tropical sun. I've drunk the juice from a freshly plucked coconut, but never with lime. Maybe I should try it. Here's a rather weird video featuring Harry Nilsson's equally weird song, Coconut, from his 1971 Nilsson Schmilsson album (available here).
If you're the kind of person who likes to learn about the world, this article, and this one, will tell you a little more about coconuts.
December 23, 2011
It's A Gas, Gas, Gas
I've been a subscriber to Reference.com's On This Day daily email offering for several years. It's one of a few email newsletters that I subscribe to which haven't been replaced by RSS feeds. Another is Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day which, if you are interested in the English language, I highly recommend. But I digress.
The On This Day newsletter presents various snippets of information relevant to the day of the year, listing events which took place during the last two or three thousand years. The more recent events tend to be biased towards those that occurred in the USA, or featured Americans in some way, but nevertheless, I find it a useful source to help me understand the world we live in, and how we got to be the way we are.
An example from today's newsletter includes this item:
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2003 - New York Governor George Pataki pardoned the late comedian Lenny Bruce for his 1964 obscenity conviction.
Not quite as long as it took the Catholic church to 'forgive' Galileo, but still a long time.
The USA-centric viewpoint does, on occasion, result in people being labelled American when in fact they were not (Florence Nightingale comes to mind), but Reference.com are open to correction if errors are pointed out. Bearing in mind that Reference.com is an American organisation, the bias is not unexpected.
But then, there are biases which are not so obvious, until you dig a little deeper. Here's two consecutive items from December 3rd.
1979 - Eleven people were killed and others injured in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
1984 - One of the worst industrial disasters occurred as a pesticide plant located in the densely populated region of Bhopal in central India leaked a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air.
Where's the bias? As written, the 1979 item is about people, whereas the 1984 item is about industry. The thing is that in Bhopal, the number of people who died immediately was over 2000, and that number later rose to over 3000. However, to put it bluntly, they were all Johnny Foreigners, so there wasn't any need to mention them, right?
I'm sure that whoever wrote that item wasn't consciously ignoring the people who lost their lives. After all, it's a tendency we all have. It's that 'in group, out group' thing, where we place more importance on people who are part of 'our group'. It would be nice to think that at some point in the future we'll have learnt to value everyone equally, no matter where on the planet they live.
A pipe dream? Not if we work towards making it so. Pass it on.
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There wasn't any copyright info, but I found this drawing at a blog called To New Waves. The more you look the more you see. The original at the blog is a slightly higher resolution.
December 22, 2011
Lend Us A Coupla Quid, Mate!
In the Philippines, large numbers of people do not have access to the sources of credit which are commonplace in the west. So what do you do if you don't have (and can't get) a credit card, and you can't get a bank loan (because you don't have a bank account), and you need to borrow some money? Simple! You go to someone who operates a 'five six' business.
'Five six' describes the amount you borrow and the amount you will pay back. For example, borrow 500 pesos and pay back 600, over the agreed time period, which could be as short as a week. It's easy to understand, even if the interest does seem exorbitant. And, of course, it is exorbitant, but borrowers have nowhere else to go (except another 'five six' operator).
I'm not sure of the exact legal status of such schemes, but there is certainly no shortage of people operating them, and they are not short of customers either. Not surprisingly, the term loan shark is often applied to 'five six' operators. However, there doesn't seem to be any regulation to speak of, and 'consumer rights' appears to be an alien concept, yet to take hold in any meaningful way.
With that as background, here's a screen grab of a section of a webpage run by a company who operate in the UK, and go by the name of NowPayDay.co.uk. They describe themselves as "the bridge between consumers wanting payday loans and the payday lenders themselves."
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You probably looked at the pretty smile first (I did), and possibly asked yourself if you would like to speak to her (before you told yourself that she's probably not actually one of their team anyway). A pretty smile always catches your eye, and maybe it even makes you feel less outraged when, later, you notice the APR of 1737%. I imagine that even the 'five six' operators might think that's over the top. Probably not, though. More likely they would be envious, wondering how they could migrate from a 'five six' to a 'four five' business.
If you'd like to know more about 'five six', there's an informative article here. And if you are wondering how I came to know about that webpage, it was a link in an email which ended up in my spam folder (where it belonged). Just out of curiosity, I sometimes take a peek in there to see what scams are being pushed. Not that the above is a scam - it's not. All the info is right there for everyone to see. Bold as brass!
December 21, 2011
How Big Is Your Picture?
I spent a good part of today making the animated gif image below. I found a spinning earth gif at animatedGIF.net, and played about with it in GIMP. Not really anything else to say about it. I hope it 'speaks for itself'.
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