ideas : People : stories.
the Human Being stuff
My wife showed me this guy today. As advertised, it was a “life changing eggsperience!”
This one is my favorite.
You can follow @the_eggshibit for more, and watch his Youtube video to see how it all started. Enjoy!
Also check out:
Smallest Sushi on Earth : Smallest Cup of Coffee : Cracked - art made out of saltine crackers.
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.”
- Joseph Stallin
Most of us know that 3,000 people died on 9/11, but how many Americans know how many Katrina victims there were, or how many people died in the American Revolution. Did the Christian Crusades kill 100 times as many people as the Vietnam War? Or were they identical in their death tolls? Given how much we talk about historical human tragedies, it seems like something we should have a better handle on (via).
Tim Urban, from the popular website, waitbutwhy then goes on to show just how depict the numbers of people killed in hurricane Katrina, the Syrian War, and those killed in the Sichuan 2008 earthquake. He compares most all major wars, world wide car accidents per year, and The Black Death.
All in all, there are a lot of deaths.
And the numbers, when considering that they are people, that they are husbands, mothers, moms and dads, sons and daughters, that they are friends and neighbors and people who had names and lives, becomes so overwhelming that they are no longer relatable.
How can I even comprehend 200 million lives lost?
I can’t. But I can see J.F.K. riding in his car, his desperate wife holding his lifeless body, and I can hear his grainy voice as he addresses the nation.
Does that make me callous? Heartless?
Does that make Stalin right?
“We do a pretty good job of distracting ourselves from the whole ‘I’m gonna die one day’ thing” by distancing ourselves from the personal deaths - “That wouldn’t happen to me.” But we distance ourselves from the global, much closer to reality deaths (natural disasters, car accidents, etc) by seeing the casualties as numbers, not people.
For more on . . .
This is pretty mesmerizing.
And if you play it with The Plague Soundtrack in the background, it gets even better.
The yellow dots are aircraft.
It is a 24 hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, condensed down to about 2 minutes. You can tell it was summer time in the north by the sun's footprint over the planet. You could see that it didn't quite set in the extreme north and it didn't quite rise in the extreme south.
Notice that as evening approaches, the traffic is predominantly from the US to Europe and when daylight comes, the traffic switches and it is predominantly from Europe to the US (via).
I’ve watched for a little while, to see if a yellow dot suddenly disappeared, but never did see one.
I’m trying to be the voice or the image of the people who don’t have that voice . . .
When you walk into a class and see me, I want you to feel taken care of . . .
That’s why I became a yoga teacher, because I wanted to share that with other people . . .
I see your white, I see your black, I see your fat, I see your skinny. I don’t care what you look like, I just want you to come in and open your mind and open your heart.
For more on . . .
Here are three videos by The Nerdwriter, “a weekly video essay series that puts ideas to work.”
I’ve always enjoyed art and wish I could participate, but I’ve also always felt bit distant. Even though I look and stare and draw conclusions, it often seems the art “Won’t give an inch.”
“Boredom is exactly when we feel time and being most acutely. It can inspire a profound mood.”
Also check out Movies inspired by Art, see how The Village stole from The Princess Bride, or more ideas from Nerdwriter1.
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : Art : Nerdwriter1
I hate em. And I love em.
“But unintentionally it also captures, and then conceals, a story of vengeance and mutual brutality. Of murder, organized destruction, and pillaging, all culminating in this iconic moment.”
Notable Women features 100 historic women selected from the Teachers Righting History database, a collection of women whom the American people recommended to appear on actual U.S. currency during my time at the U.S. Department of Treasury (via).
After all, inspirations lead to aspirations, which is why we have a responsibility to highlight the women who have shaped our past and serve as role models for our future. I want to thank you for your interest, and hope you will share Notable Women with your friends and family (via).
Although very cool and better than nothing, somehow, it seems a bit, I don’t know, shallow maybe? Because really, that’s all we can do to honor the woman who have helped shape and form our country?
I applaud the attempt, but am embarrassed just the same.
You can view modified notes on the website, like Sojourner Truth (top), Grace Hopper (below), Amelia Earhart (bottom), and Amelia Boynton Robinson.
every time you have a disaster, you bring the different experts into different areas for the reconstruction, for the relief process. So you need to understand that if you have to rebuild homes that you'll bring architects. If you need to take care of people in the hospitals, you bring more help with doctors. If you have to feed people, it's only very normal and logical to me that you will bring cooks. And that's what we do. Kitchens, restaurants are chaos. And chefs, restaurant people - we manage chaos very well. After a hurricane, it's a lot of chaos. And people go hungry, and people go thirsty. And what we are very good at is understanding the problem and adapting. And so a problem becomes an opportunity. That's why I think chefs more and more - you're going to be seeing more of us in these situations. We're practical. We're efficient. We can do it quicker, faster and better than anybody (via)
Humility : using one’s gifts and talents for the benefit of others, not themselves.
Jose Andres and his team of leaders are a great example to us all of how we can and should pursue our loves, our passions, and our dreams. And then, when trials come, when disaster strikes and people are in need, we give away our gifts, resources - whatever - for the benefit of others. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s the human thing to do. And because that’s why we were given them in the first place: to give it away.
I'm only as good as the people I had around me. And happens, it seems, I became the leader. But actually, we had 25,000 leaders. We had young girls - one girl called Lola that will - while his mother and father were around the island on their food truck giving food away in faraway, remote, forgotten neighborhoods, that young girl was staying behind in the headquarters leading a 1,000-people unit of sandwich makers, making sure that everybody was working hard, working fast and working efficient. Lola is 10 years old. We had leaders everywhere.
If a 10-year-old can be leading hundreds of men and women in a moment of need, making sandwiches, imagine what we should be expecting from our president or from the governor or from our fellow congressmen and senators. If a young girl was able to show leadership in a moment of disrepair, what should we expect from our elected leaders? If you want to lead, lead. But you need to be leading in the good moments but especially in the moments of darkness.
Damn.
You can read more about World Central Kitchen on their website or Jose Andres book, We Fed and Island. You can also join his crew of leaders or help donate to the cause.
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : Humanity : Other kitchens serving 40,000 meals a day
“The heart is a bloom, shoots up from the stony ground.”
A lyric that follows me now, down every dirt road path and onto the old cracked sidewalks, where little girls giggle as they silly talk and my mind drifts again to another world we lived in. A place that taught me a plant can survive in the most surprising, sometimes inhospitable places. And the human spirit can thrive, even in change, even if smothered or weary.
Beautiful flowers can grow out of concrete.
- Josey Miller (@storyanthology)
Yeah, she’s pretty awesome.
Click here for more thoughts, pictures, and inspiration from my wife,
Made in the desk in his bedroom, Going Fishing is composed of 2500 still pictures (4530 taken) played in 18 FPS. It was shot with a Canon EOS 600D, animated in Dragonframe, and edited in Photoshop and Sony Vegas. The sound effects recorded with a Blue Yeti with a few downloaded from freesound.org (via).
A lot of that I don’t understand, but sifting through 4530 pictures, editing and composing 2500 of those and then creating this masterpiece of a film I do understand, and I love it.
And I’m inspired by it.
As a (perhaps want-to-be) artist, these little adventures of creativity always stick with me because I’m so judgmental of myself. Who’s gonna read that? or Why does this even matter?
But then I watch Going Fishing and I’m reminded that people are drawn to people who have passion, to people who create rather than destroy, and to people who - no matter how - try to make the world a better place.
And that is an encouraging though.
For more on . . .
Alex Honnold has become “the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000ft high El Capitan Wall. With no ropes or safety gear, he completed arguably the greatest feat in rock climbing history.”
For more on . . .
I've never been a huge Stephen King fan - I've only read a small handful of his novels, but I am a huge fan of his memoir, On Writing. It might even be in my top five of all time . . . including all genres.
Non the less, I admire him immensely. His skill, his approach and dedication to the craft, and his imagination are, in many ways, unmatched. This short video only hints at the complexity of his mind, and the vast universe he has been able to create.
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : Stephen King : Maps of favorite fictional worlds
"Geneticists believe," writes Charles C. Mann, "that S. invicta (fire ants) originated in southern Brazil, an area with many rivers and frequent floods. The floods wiped out ant nests. Over the eons, these small, furiously active creatures have evolved the ability to respond to rising water by knitting their bodies together into floating swarm-balls - workers on the outside, queen in the center - that can ride on the flood for days. Once the waters recede, colonies swarm back onto previously submerged land so rapidly that S. invicta can use the devastation to increase its range. Like criminal gangs, fire ants thrive on chaos" (pg 31).
Charles C. Mann continues.
In the 1930s Solenopsis invicta was transported to the United States, probably in ship ballast, which often consists of haphazardly loaded soil and gravel. An adolescent bug enthusiast named Edward O. Wilson, later a famous biologist, spotted the first colonies in the port of Mobile, Alabama. From the ant's vantage, it had been dumped onto an empty, recently flooded expanse. S. invicta too off, never looking back.
More likely, the initial incursion seen by Wilson was just a few thousand individuals - a number small enough to hint that random, bottleneck-style genetic change played a role in what happened next. (The evidence is not yet inclusive.) In its homeland, fire ant colonies constantly fight each other, reducing their numbers and creating space for other types of ant. In North America, by contrast, the species forms cooperative super-colonies, linked clusters of nests that can spread for hundreds of miles, wiping out competitors along the way. Remade by chance and opportunity, new-model S. invictus needs just a few decades to conquer much of the southern United States.
A primary obstacle to its expansion is another imported South American ant, Linepithema humile, the Argentine ant. After escaping its natal territory more than a century ago, L. humile formed its own super-colonies in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Europe (the European colony stretches from Portugal to Italy). In recent years researches have come to believe that these huge, geographically separate ant societies in fact may be part of a single intercontinental unit, a globe-spanning entity that exploded across the planet with extraordinary speed and rapacity, and is now the most populous society on Earth.
Homo sapiens did something similar as it became human (pg 32).
Man, that is some cool stuff.
If you haven't heard of this book already, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World, by Charles C. Mann, check it out. It's worth the read.
Freakonomics recently aired an episode, Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet, where they interviewed Mr. Mann (what a great name, by the way) and a few contemporaries from either side.
For more on . . .
October 2nd 1948, Elvis made his first public appearance
"In one of his final performances before his tragic death, Elvis Presley delivered an incredible rendition of ‘Unchained Melody’ during a concert in Rapid City, South Dakota on June 21, 1977.
The performance, described as 'the last great moment of his career', was recorded for his last television special two months before his death in August 1977" (via).
The Rolling Stone writes:
He had an enlarged heart, an enlarged intestine, hypertension and incredibly painful bowel problems. He was barely sleeping and should have probably been in the hospital, but he was still a huge draw on the concert circuit and the money was too good to turn down.
As guitarist Charlie Hodge held a microphone, Elvis dug deep and poured his heart into the song. His body was falling apart, but his voice remained almost as powerful as ever. Without any doubt, it’s the last great moment of his career.
I've never been a huge Elvis fan (although my son and I both enjoy In the Ghetto), but after listening to Malcolm Gladwell describe the sad and lonely life he must have lived, I at least see him differently. Watching this moment, as the camera zooms in on an overweight and dying man, I cannot help but wonder if the reason why he dug so deep and poured out his heart was because it suddenly became the song of his life.
Then, at the 2:34 mark, there's a look, then a smile, almost like he's remembering who and what he was. It's almost like he's saying, "I still got it." And then he gets after it. Because time goes by, "so slowly", and when it's at the end, it can suddenly seem too fast. "And time can do so much."
His youth is gone, his fame dwindling, the end is near. Perhaps, as he sings this song, he knows it's his last, that life is leaving him. And so he sings, "Wait for me" with all that he has, harkening back to what he was, hoping. But in less then three months later, his body and mind will succumb to the brokenness and fatigue, leaving us, and Elvis, with this last great moment. Which, befittingly, doesn't seem to be enough.
Oh, my love, my darling
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me
Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh
"Wait for me, wait for me"
I'll be coming home, wait for me
Oh, my love, my darling
I've hungered, for your touch
A long, lonely time
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : On Living : Music : Elvis
Photo by @jarradseng
Love this image. And the host site the reposted it, @stayandwander. If ever you want to feel the feels, spend a few minutes meandering around their account. You won't be disappointed.
For more on . . .
Volumes is a 4K Full CG art film by Maxim Zhestkov exploring the juxtaposition of emotions with the laws of nature. Billions of colourful particles dance, play and communicate with each other in an eternal hypnotic ballet governed by the invisible forces (via).
Man that is funky to watch, and fun to interpret.
If this is a reenactment of my day, my emotions, what was it? When was it?
It may not align perfectly, but its fun to consider.
You check out more of Zhestkov's films here.
For more on . . .
"No other bite kills more humans, or makes more of us sick." Nor is there any animal more annoying.
And to make matters worse, there seems to be no real purpose to these ridiculous pests. THE WORLD COULD EASILY SURVIVE WITHOUT THEM!!!
Andrea Crisanti, "a tousled, sad-eyed man with a gentle smile, was trained as a physician in Rome" then studied molecular biology in Heidelberg where "he developed his lifelong interest in malaria." In recent years, he and his colleagues have discovered a way to "spread an infertility mutation to 75 percent of a mosquito population" (via).
Which sounds great!
But . . .
For thousands of years, the relentlessly expanding population of Homo sapiens has driven other species to extinction by eating them, shooting them, destroying their habitat or accidentally introducing more successful competitors to their environment. But never have scientists done so deliberately, under the auspices of public health. The possibility raises three difficult questions: Would it work? Is it ethical? Could it have unforeseen consequences? (via).
The answers are a bit more complex than what one might expect. Yes, breeding sterile mosquitos could wipe out a large percentage of the overall population and eradicating them completely in smaller communities, but it's probably almost impossible to think they could be wiped out completely. But it's the bigger question, the Jurassic Park question of just because we can rid the world of these pesky insects, does that mean we should?
The larger concern, arguably, is over the use of CRISPR itself, and the awesome power it unleashes over the environment. “We can remake the biosphere to be what we want, from woolly mammoths to nonbiting mosquitoes,” Greely muses. “How should we feel about that? Do we want to live in nature, or in Disneyland?”
“We will have engineered the ecosystems of people elsewhere in the world without their knowledge or consent. We go from the default assumption that the things we engineer will not spread, to assuming they will . . . as soon as you’re thinking of a gene drive technology, you have to assume whatever you’re making will spread once it gets outside the lab. Human error will win out, if not deliberate human action" (via).
After swatting and scratching and waving off that annoying buzz in my ears all summer long, getting rid of mosquitos was a no-brainer. Especially after watching this:
But then, "as soon as you’re thinking of a gene drive technology, you have to assume whatever you’re making will spread once it gets outside the lab."
Nature is beautiful often because it is imperfect. And if Disneyland were to spill out and over the rest of the country, the world, and consume the mountains and rivers, making them "perfect", is that really a world we want to live in?
I don't think so. But then, I'm brought back, again and again, to this. And suddenly, once again, I'm torn. Because it isn't about annoyances anymore, but lives. Hundreds of thousands of them.
Suddenly the answer seems pretty clear.
But is it?
Ridding the world of mosquitoes is an act of playing God, but without the ability to see the future of consequence. We get to decide what has the right to live and what doesn't. We bypass natural selection and head straight for extinction.
What then? And will it be worth it?
Should we kill all mosquitoes?
For more on . . .
