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Have I got something to say?
Have I got something to say?
Can I find a way?
Staring at a blank page,
wondering what to write.
Got so much I want to say,
if I could find a way.
The pen moves, the ink fades,
the thoughts turn, but nothing
is said.
My company had a holiday party today which included a Yankee Swap. I took home 20 dollars in 2 dollar bills. The 20 dollars was broken down into 2 sets of sequential bills. Just for the hell of it I compared them to the 2 dollar bills that have been on my bulletin board for longer than I can remember.
My jaw quickly hit the floor when I discovered one of my other 2 dollar bills was the next one in the lower sequence. At my roommate's suggestion, I'm now starting a quest to try and find the missing 2 dollar bills between the two sequences I have.
Break out those bills and drop me a line if you have any 2 dollar bills from the 1995 series with a serial number between F70383457A and F70383470A.
I'm finally getting around to putting together some thoughts about �The Future of Life� by Edward O. Wilson. This was the first book read by the Museum of Science's Book Club for the Curious. One of the main points that the author makes throughout the book is the concept of humans being the steward of nature. The following are some excerpts from the book that touch on this thought:
We will have them both, you and I and all those now and forever to come who accept the stewardship of nature. [xxiv]
We must know the role each one plays in the whole in order to manage Earth wisely. [12]
And our tragedy, because a large part of it is being lost forever before we learn what it is and the best means by which it can be savored and used. [21]
Still another intensely felt value is stewardship, which appears to arise from emotions programmed in the very genes of human social behavior. ... If the rest of life is the body, we are the mind. Thus, our place in nature, viewed from an ethical perspective, is to think about the creation and to protect the living planet. [132]
I'm sorry but humans are not the stewards of nature. Humans are the destroyer of nature. Humans are the only organism that does not reach equilibrium with it's environment. Humans long ago stopped be constrained by lack of food, lack of protection, and lack of predators. Some might argue that because humans have overcome these obstacles we are the pinnacle of evolution.
I don't buy it. Get rid of our books. Get rid of our technology. Place a human in the wild it will most likely die. Humans depend on the life support systems of this planet and we don't reach equilibrium with it. The thought that a human should die to benefit the greater good of all isn't something to be considered, since every life is precious, if it's human.
Another catastrophe will befall the Earth. Be it an asteroid, a mega volcano eruption, or whatever your favorite doomsday scenario will be. For life to really survive and thrive on Earth again, the key will be biodiversity. If humans continue as they have been, the number of species still alive that could potentially survive such a disaster will continue to decline. If instead humans were restrained by our environment, the risk to biodiversity would be minimal.
It is because of this inability to live in equilibrium that I would consider humans a branch on the evolutionary tree that was a mistake. Nature is just having a damned hard time trying to get rid of its blunder. What will replace humans? I have no idea, but I'm sure nature will be able to cook up something, it got us everything we have now.
Some links I've run across lately:
JonesCAM helmet camera
UncommonGoods find anything but ordinary
MoMA online store
Sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting almost two hours. That's a long time to be in an airport when you aren't waiting for a layover. Everyone always says that Las Vegas has lots of time delays, so I tried to account for them. Time to check out, taxi time to the airport, trying to check-in, and without a doubt the line at security. Approaching the top of the stairs after checking in, there was a regular old traffic jam at the security gate. Thankfully that wasn't my gate. A short walk brought me to gate D with shorter lines. I did manage to almost get my bags searched as the guard wondered what was in my bags. Seems as though one of the toys that I bought was mighty suspicious. Thankfully after a couple of question and a little poking around I got through without the full pat down. I'm now sitting on the floor of the airport by my gate waiting out those two hours since nothing took any huge amount of time.
I think I thought multiple times on this trip that to sum things up �Vegas is everything that is wrong with America�. That's a pretty strong sentiment but it sure seems to fit. Glamor, excess, waste, sex, the list goes on, all into the city of Vegas.
However, that may just be my recent bout of cynicism kicking in as I've been getting very caught up in how much we waste. We in this case is humans, maybe with a slant towards Americans, but of course this I think applies to almost all humans. We waste food, we waste energy, we make waste, we waste, we waste, we waste. I had an idea for a bar or cafe. Called, what the. We'll I guess the name wasn't that cool since I can't remember it. Anyway, the idea was to waste almost nothing. Simple things like cloth napkins and silverware so you didn't throw paper napkins and plastic forks away. Man I must have been out of it when I originally came up with the idea, since I can't remember anything about it, and what I think I'm remembering is lame sounding.
It's sad the number of different ways people are trying to get around how uncomfortable and impossible it is to try and sleep/rest in the chairs in the terminal. Every seat has armrests, very rigid and uncomfortable armrests. At any angle, on someone's lap, and the growing choice, on the floor. While there maybe some desire to keep people alert so that they don't miss their flight, I think in most cases, people would look out for each other and themselves, while getting some decent rest in the process.
As �the voice� comes over the intercom again, I'm reminded of the quiet zones in come of the international airports and lounges on my Thailand trip. Talk about giving people the opportunity to miss their flight. Seems as though everyone made their flight that I watched or talked to.
People, yes people. That's what it's all about. I don't have that many people in my life. The ones that I do have mean the world to me and that's what matters most, but there are those thoughts that filter through my brain. What it would be like to an extrovert?
That kind of touches on a big dilemma that I've not come to terms with yet. I know what I'm not and will never really be, but I still wish it wasn't so. I'm not as thankful for what I am. That continual pursuit to better myself taken to the extreme. An unhealthy focus on the negative.
Oh wow, what a brain rush. Unfortunately it isn't a good one. Whenever, I get to thinking about memories and how the brain stores and retrieves them I inevitably end up going through this block of six memories which are all very powerful and negative. Why oh why is it so hard for me to instead remember all of the good times. The bad parts, thankfully, have made up a much smaller party of my life, yet they are the ones that most seem to dominate my memories. That was one of the reasons I used to not take many pictures. Half the time I couldn't even remember taking the picture let alone what I was thinking at that movement.
Slava is a friend of mine who I used to work with at BiT Group. He's quite the photographer and has put up a gallery with some awesome photos. Enjoy.
A helpful web page for Firefox users that are having problems viewing a particular web page.