I love science because it presents us with facts and explains systems that surround our life, I love philosophy because it brings meaning to it, and I love love because it reminds us how unimportant both can be.
Category: Style
Fun sites to waste time
Out of the thousands of junk emails and sites I hear about on a weekly basis, here are some of the ones that actually left an impression on me one way or another. (Not in any particular order)

xkcd.com
A site of short shorts. These comic strips are based on, as they put it, “romance, sarcasm, math, and language”. My friend Anuja turned me onto this lil’ doozy.

dontevenreply.com
Isaac turned me onto this one. At first I wasn’t too impressed by the site as I read a few to myself. For some reason I ended up readng a couple good ones out loud to my mom and I couldn’t finish reading a post without laughing. This site may be a bit of an acquired taste. I would describe it as a mix between Ali G and spam mail. The author chooses to describe the site more simply as “E-mails from an asshole.”

someecards.com
An introduction to this site was made by an ex-girlfriend so I find visiting it to be a bit bitter sweet at times, but it really is a great way to communicate some of the more blunt and edgy sentiments to people you know that you won’t find at Hallmark.
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failblog.org
This blog is sort of an institution, lots of followers and plenty of updates and pics. The blog chronicles mankind’s stupidity from everyday pictures of signs that lack proof reading to videos that can only be described as “a fail”.

awkwardfamilyphotos.com
Peek into the word of the “others”. Somehow these families took some shots of themselves that in their mind were cute and fun but the rest of us can’t help but recoil as we browse through these awkward purposeful family moments.

http://peopleofwalmart.com/
The name says it all. Tagged by store location here is an assortment of local yokels visiting their adored Walmart. Dressed to the nine’s these moments caught on camera are priceless, and I mean devoid of all that could be deemed as valuable in anyway.
Willard Wiggen: The something in nothing
His work and physical capabilities to produc such work “has baffled medical science and has been the subject of many discussions among micro-surgeons, nano-technologists and at universities worldwide. His work is both inspirational and ground breaking in both artistic and scientific spheres.”
You can see him on Conan O’brian here »
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The middle
im in the corner
sitting is easy
thinking of the things i wanted to be
math is upon us
and lisp is he speaking
the brightes of sky but the darkest of day
tight lips do catch us
and whispeirng is easy
fooling your slef as to what yo should be
tango and dancing
the steps are the thinking
but the music has challace and cheers on thier way
trash and the heaps of it
scattered inside me
the in-dig-a-nation to inspire the fame
confidnce is weekness
and what is the measure
and chasing perfection when its perfectly sain
seek with a caution
get carried away
beutiful what nots the most desprate of things
balanced in chaos
intimite mieetings
closing the night and then opening the day
Liu Bolin: Artist
My friend Ryan turned me on to this cool Chinese artist that has made a name for himself with intriguing sculptures that incorporate human figures within common settings or objects. More predominantly and most intriguing to me is his Camouflage art where he paints himself as the setting he stands in front of creating this transparent looking effect. The image on the left is an example of this all natural no Photoshop used camouflage transparency art.




Blogging can help center the mind

With all the fast paced abstract thoughts that can transpire throughout the modern mans workweek I have found yet another reason to continue blogging. I think it has forced me to take my abstract thoughts, that come and go so quickly and have a tendency to linger and repeat in my consciousness, into constructing full thoughts and letting them pass when a blog is posted. It has forced me to train myself to finish thoughts out and take ideas from a very nebulous form into one that is less so by me needing to focus enough on those thoughts and attempt to put them down on paper in some legible format. The fact that these messages will be public forces me to even further examine my thoughts into legible writings so as to not look too crazy. Man it is so much harder then I thought it would be to translate all the things swirling around in my head as some written topic. I am not a good writer but that wont stop me — My fear of writing poorly is what has probably made me such a bad writer today.
I asked an uncle of mine one day to tell m the top three things he thinks made him successful and one of his top three things was “always write what your thinking down”. As he explained it, “it exposes all the holes that your imagination so easily covers up”. So true, I so often propose things verbally and for the most part the propositions work out but since I started catching myself and writing every small to large idea down, and not just as notes. I mean I stop and draw diagrams or spreadsheets and fill in all the holes that end up revealing themselves as concepts become physical structures on paper. I have found so many mistakes or holes so much earlier then usual as a result. I have noticed that the ideas seem to evolve a few times before I present them to my peers and allows me to think about more angles since I have a full system to look at in front of me, let my mind wonder around the core of the idea instead of just try to retain the core itself in my head.
For example, this post has been swirling in my head for weeks. Without this new found hobbie of blogging I would probably have to deal with these thoughts conciously or unconsciously and they never would feel complete. You bring it up on conversation and let others know about your perspective on things but its always just a thought. Now i know the thought has been completed and exists in time and space, almost indefinitely; I can now move on completely. This realization gives me a whole new appreciation for writing that was not impressed upon me as a child. I never really saw the point other then emails, letters and books to write well. But man not being able to construct your thoughts into a written form leaves you feeling incomplete. Your legacy, your feelings are all just inside you if you cant express them in some sort of infinite format like the written word. My kids are going to write a page about something everyday while they are under my house and the will thank me for it later….
BTW another great tip for obsessively ideas swirling around in your head…put a white board up in your room or a notepad next to your bed. You may have heard it before but do it if you find yourself going to bed with sleep or tossing and turning. and just expunge every thought weather its good or bad on paper or as graphics on a boar dand you get so much better sleep. Even just having the board or notepad sitting there eases the mind.
Oh Good, it’s the Downfall of Watchmen

Downfall (with eng subtitles)
This movie was pretty long but all in all I would say it was a good movie. It provoked a new found interest into WWI and the fact the the movie focused all of its attention to the last week or so that Hitler was in power from the perspective of those in the bunker with him in Berlin was interesting. The german guy who played hitler was very convincing and intense and it was eai to watch how faithfully those around him followed him to the end. Without giving to much away the end was almost sureal with the way each officer valued thier lifes and how much tinnel vision fell upon the camp. It was worth seeing and a nice mix of docu/drama.

Watchmen
At first glance I can see many people finding this movie a bit campy at times and unnessacarily perverse or gory. For those that give it a chance and take the movie in has a whole, not only as a parody but a desertation on the human condition, they will get hours of pleasure afterwards in debate and conversation with friends. The movie is set in a aletrnate unniverse where Nixon has been re-elected 8 times vietnam was won and vigilatism became an acceptable government backed measure against war and crime; those vigilantis dawned costumes to protect thier identity. No charatcter has any super powers except for one, Dr. Manhatten. The author does an excelent job at poken fun at man kind at thier unnessacary need for right an wrong. Each character eggegertated a principle of man kind. I feel like one could write a paper on this movie a hundred times over…..My brief character anylization would be The comedian realized that anyone who thought there was a right and wrong was fooling themselves and he acted on what he as a human fealt like doing with no restriction, Royjcak was idealistic to his core and could not comprimise becuase of those ideals weather it was life or death, Teh Night Own was a man who stood on the side lines, Vic thought he knew what was best for humanity and in some ways was right but was to logical to find the passion in life, and to me dr manahatten was Christ or god where he had all the power in the world but never actually did anything when he was needed all looked to him for answers and used him to fight wars he was an impotent giant in was…..like I said one could go for hours on chatacters and the ploty etc but this is a blog post and not a paper so I’ll stop there but there is depth in this movie that can get you thinking if youlet it.

Good
Two Nazi German movies in 1 week. Makes you think a bit about where we hav been as a people. Like Downfall Good depicted a not so tipical depcition of nazi germany. Set in the periphrelas of the WW II era Good gave a glimpse into how basic life was in Nazi Germany. How friends were seperated and a crazy leader reshaped the country and its people through power, elitism, seperation, persuasion, and propeganda. Its easy to say how could anyone do this when it comes to Nazi’sm, whats harder to do is truly try to undertsnad how regular people came to the conclusions they did. The main character was a depiction of how every single comprimise on the smallest of levels can , althought not always, lead to one loss of relatity or belifs. I think the movie tended to jump around a bit to much and didnt flow as much as I would have liked. I personally didnt like the main charcters voice and over timidness, but it may have been impotant too show how his like of passion or ability to be concered with events unfolding led to his life being decided for him and being inndiferent doesnt neecesarily make you good.
Gehry Up

Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005)
Just saw a pretty cool documentry called Sketches of Frank Gehry. Frank gehry is and artist/ architect that is probably most known for his Disney concert hall or the the Guggenheim in Spain. The docuemntry exposes a man who cares nothing fro conformity and captures the essance of entrepenuership. He quits his job as an architect as as he puts it “he has nnever been hapier”
Check out a trailer here or more on imdb here



“May god give us the ability to learn from the past without it resulting in us avoiding the future.”
Me
I got rhythm. I got music. Who could ask for anything more?

Musical Minds on PBS
Just saw Musical Minds on PBS, pretty interesting stuff. The only problem I had with it was that it was to breif..
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/musicminds/
Musical Minds examined the inate symbiotic relationship man has with music, more specifically in this peice was the extraemem cases of this relationships. The film is broken up into 4 stories the first about a man having no music bone in his body who was struck by lighting and is now a composer and pinists playing to sell out crowds, the next is an amazing story of a blind autistic boy who began playing piano at 2 and now has the ability to

process music he hears in microseconds and then can play them back, a young man with a bad case of tarets who’s tcks are completly subdoed when playing the drums and finnaly a case of a woman who has amusia which is like color blindness for music, rythm, or melody. Cool show based on the works of Oliver Sacks, who is the man behind the movie awakenings and many of famous books on oddities of extremes of human mental limits such as the man who thought is wife was a hate. This is a fun movie that expores ow deep the connection between man and music go and as oliver pits it, Rythm is the only thng that can not be taken from the core of a man.
Do you or a friend have amusia? Take the test here to find out!: http://www.delosis.com/listening/measure1.html
( I am proud to say I scored 29/30 on both tests )
Catch some peices from the show here:
http://science.discovery.com/videos/musical-genius-color-notes.html



