erste ding:

here’s a businesskitteh in japan

zweiter ding:

scientists decided to see how growth of a slime mold would compare with the paths engineers decided on in connecting various points in the tokyo subway system. they placed food particles on each of the points and started the culture in approximately the center of tokyo. the results are kind of startling

here’s the link

When you see something like this, you can really understand why so many ancient people attributed natural phenomena to angry, vengeful gods.

this is a hilarious installment from a very funny series of educational video parodies on youtube. if you want to see more, just do a youtube search for ‘look around you’

thants

I went to the local library up the street from Sam’s parents’ house to get some books to read while I’m out on the East Coast visiting my family. They didn’t really have much I was interested in, and I ended up picking up a book on food and agriculture that I thought I would disagree with. The book was Just Food by James McWilliams, and its tagline said “Where locavores get it wrong”. This turned out to be a somewhat misleading tagline, and was probably mostly put there as a provocative marketing gimmick, because that was a pretty small amount of the book. It also made the book out to be reactionary, which it wasn’t (too much). Overall, reading this book really brought home to me the benefits of reading ideas you disagree with, because it helps you break out of, or at least think differently and more critically of, generally accepted dogma.

Anyway, here are the main points, which are worthy of some thought:
1) Many people who emphasize eating mostly local food are guilty of oversimplifying and neglecting other aspects of production and transportation. For example, buying local hothouse tomatoes is way more wasteful of energy than buying tomatoes grown 1500 miles away and shipped. Along these lines, it would be far less sustainable for cities such as Phoenix or Las Vegas to grow most of their own food because of a lack of water. He also points out that fuel consumption from tillage and fertilizers are a larger proportion of food-related fossil fuel usage than transportation. Thus, we should use better ways of assessing the impact of a food than how far it has travelled, such as Life Cycle Assessment.

2) The choice between conventional and organic agriculture is also an oversimplification and agriculture would be more sustainable through a continuum of techniques merging organic and conventional instead of a dichotomy. Although there is no definitive proof one way or another, in controlled organic vs. conventional experiments, organic typically has lower yield, which means that in order to produce the same amount of food, more land must be cultivated and disturbed, reducing or degrading habitats. Reduced and considerate usage of chemicals, chosen and used in moderation so that they degrade in soil, can give increased yields while reducing negative side-effects of conventional farming.

3) Genetically modified food can help farmers use more sustainable methods, by reducing tillage and pesticide use. Since it can increase yields, it will reduce deforestation and the total amount of land under cultivation, as in argument #2. There is scant scientific evidence of any harm from GM food, and it could be used in Third World countries to help alleviate hunger.

4) People cannot continue eating so much meat, especially beef. The environmental effects of overgrazing and waste from feedlots are immense and well known for their effects on soil and water. Greenhouse gas emissions from cattle are well documented. In addition, many of the crops farmed in the most unsustainable conventional ways (corn, soybeans) are overwhelmingly destined for feedlots, so a large share of these problems (soil erosion, eutrophication of marine habitats, overapplication of pesticides) are due to meat production. It is simply not sustainable to continue eating beef (and most other meats, which have similar problems) as much as we do. It should be considered a delicacy, grown sustainably on integrated farms, for special occasions only.

5) The best future source of protein is fish raised through aquaculture. They can be grown extremely densely, and, if done correctly, extremely sustainably (he gives some amazing examples of ways fish farming has been integrated into diversified farms). He does point out that many fish farms have taken on the same mentality as cattle feedlots, but that fish can be raised in a very environmentally fashion. Salmon and shrimp are the worst offenders, but other fish such as carp, tilapia, and catfish can be grown sustainably (and even help increase yields for fruit and vegetable crops).

6) Subsidies (he targets US subsidies) must be eliminated. They basically subsidize large agribusiness corporations, meat production, fast food, junk food, and soda. They often encourage inefficient and destructive farming.

Those being stated, I don’t agree with everything he said (particularly parts of his first 3 arguments… he presents way too many false dilemmas), but the book was well worth the read because it provided ideas and perspectives that I wouldn’t have ordinarily read about or considered. This kind of reading is helpful for uncovering fallacies in your own thought and challenges your own assumptions and conclusions, which need to be able to stand up against other ideas, and should probably be growing and changing rather than stagnant, dogmatic, and strictly ideological.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

apparently cracking ice sheets sound like star wars

check it

am i above posting ridiculous internet potty humor videos? apparently not.

stick with it for a minute or so, it gets pretty funny

also, i couldn’t embed it for whatever reason, so you’ll have to do some clicking..

this is one of the most interesting wikipedia articles i’ve seen in a long time. don’t miss the bits on lizard mating and the cezanne auction!

rock-paper-scissors

some of these are pretty funny

awkward stock photos

here’s a neat page on hair ice, which seems similar in concept to ice needles. either way it looks really cool, and a lot of the photos were taken on vancouver island.

hair ice

yeah.. more music. this is some cool shit though.

a virtuoso is someone who is really fucking good at their instrument. a virtuosic piece is defined as something that is really hard, usually for the purposes of showing off. typically there’s not a whole lot musically going on behind a virtuosic composition, but it’s really cool to watch and listen to. here are two of my favorite virtuoso pieces

the first is pablo de sarasate’s fantasia on bizet’s carmen. carmen is an opera, and sarasate was a famous virtuoso violinist. he arranged a bunch of the sections of carmen into a piece for violin and orchestra and it’s really really really hard. here it is in two parts. if you want a real punch in the face, skip to the end of part II, around 4:40

the second is a piece originally by the violinist/composer paganini, who they used to say had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent on the violin (he once, upon finishing an incredibly difficult passage at a recital, cut off one of the strings on his violin and played it again faster). the virtuoso pianist franz liszt later arranged many of paganini’s violin works into virtuoso piano etudes. liszt was something of a phenomenon in his day. he would take his gloves off and trow them into the audience as he sat down at the piano, causing women to faint, apparently. in any case, here’s evgeny kissin, a famous modern pianist, performing the piece, which is called ‘la campanella’ (‘the little bell’). watching him sweat like crazy at the end is fun