Photo roll

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious Responds to Vatican Critique : NPR

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156858223/an-american-nun-responds-to-vatican-condemnation

The Dark Knight Revisited: Why So Existential? « Uroboros

Watch "Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios" on YouTube

KkgvR.gif (250×190)

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes

Scientistic belief

Article: WebCite query result

facts and their interpretation are not the same thing. And since, subjectively, facts are invariably associated with an interpretation of some kind, it comes about that science as a rule presents us with two disparate factors: with positive findings, on the one hand, plus an underlying philosophy in terms of which the formulation and disclosure of these discoveries are framed. In its actuality science is never the kind of purely empirical enterprise it is generally reputed to be, which is to say that ontological as well as epistemological presuppositions do inevitably play an essential role.

Photo roll

Republicans Were Wrong in 1993 On The Effect Of Upper-Income Tax Increases

http://www.cagle.com/2012/07/republicans-were-wrong-in-1993-on-the-effect-of-upper-income-tax-increases/

"Republicans in 1993 claimed Bill Clinton's tax increase on the wealthy would screw the middle class and put people out of work. What happened? The unemployment rate dropped from 6.9%to 3.9%, the deficit fell every year and by the time Clinton left office, we were on track to eliminate the entirenational debt."

Are there really parallels we can draw from 93' and today? Namely what comes to mind us the huge tech bubble that the 90s had while we are left with failed wars and a corrupt financial sector.

The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.

Selection from "Solaris"

Every science engenders some pseudo-science, inspiring eccentrics to explore freakish by-ways; astronomy has its parodists in astrology, chemistry used to have them in alchemy.

"In a certain subjective sense, they are human. They know nothing whatsoever about their origins.

Selection from "Solaris"

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us—that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence—then we don't like it any more."

Watch "Bertrand Russell - to our descendants" on YouTube

Death Penalty : The High Cost of the Death Penalty

Time

Watch "Timebound" on YouTube

Bike camping

what they find really mythical in both myth and enlightenment is the thought that fundamental change is impossible. Such resistance to change characterizes both ancient myths of fate and modern devotion to the facts.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. 
J. R. R. Tolkien 

 

Theories

http://i.imgur.com/K97Fk.png

Someone is a little grumpy

Found this gem on the mobile page for the cinco de mayo wiki.

Two handles, two mugs

I found a moth

This little guy was just chillin in the grass next to the bike racks on campus.

Funny what you see when you take the time to slow down and enjoy the life around you.

more throwing

here is some more time lapse footage of me throwing. This time I attempted a spouted pitcher

I am not really happy with the way my spout turned out it kinda sucks leaving the wheel with something you are not terribly proud of. It just reminds me that I have so much to learn when it comes to throwing. As with much of art, things look a lot easier to do than they really are.

trimming and handles will go on tomorrow, stay tuned

here are some pictures of the trimmed pieces I did from my last video

time lapse test

found out my cell phone camera had a time lapse camera. (rad!)
here are the results

Banks on advertising

Strong words and definitely has some logic to it. Seems like the solution would be to have a greater collective appreciation for the space we share instead if handing it over to marketers

This also makes me wonder about online advertising and online public space. Is there anyplace online that is truly a public place? Wikipedia? What about graffiti, which can be found in just about any public space in cities. Is there an equivalent online graffiti?

the mother of all thought experiments.

On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.
On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans’ bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.
If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, ‘Leftie,’ and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, ‘Leftie’ will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of ‘Leftie’s’ act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by ‘Leftie’ are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and ‘Leftie’ are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available; however, the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.
Assume that the brain’s choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.
What should the brain do?

– Michael F. Patton Jr., “Tissues in the Profession: Can Bad Men Make Good Brains Do Bad Things?”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, January 1988

here is a comic along the same lines

reading hard books

There's no need for haste, the pages which lie ahead of you will lie ahead of you for as long as you like them to; it is perfectly all right if some things are at first unclear, and if there are references you don't recognize. Just go happily on; we don't stay in bed all day, do we? just because we've mislaid our appointment calendar. No, we need to understand this book--enjoy its charm, its wit, its irony, its erudition, its sensuous embodiment--the way we understand a spouse we have lived with and listened to and loved for many years through all their nights. Persons deserving such devotion and instinctual appreciation are rare; rarer still are the works which are worth it.
-William H. Gass

nice tip

wish I knew about this before I scratched up my new handlebars. oh well at least it will be covered with bar tape

Yes I think spring is here

Upside down moon

http://i.imgur.com/NWNAB.jpg

No time for stalling

http://i.imgur.com/Zco6E.png

philosophy poster

taken from this kickstarter

Remarks by the President at the Associated Press Luncheon

 main speech 37 min long followed by Q&A.

NYT Editorial

here is the speech in it entiriety

and here are some excerpts I liked:

utah population map

utah is ripe for some nice mass transit options when so much of out population is so concentrated. imagine a light rail system running all the way from ogden to spanish fork, it would be awesome.

A hawk in class

Today in vertebrate zoology lab we had a hawk (or at least that's what I remember it as. But maybe it was a falcon) it was pretty rad to hear about it. This particular bird was used for falconry and I found the whole idea of using a bird to hunt with. It reminded me of all the history behind this ancient practice and got me interested in learning more about falconry. It seems like a pretty time intensive hobby, the owner of this bird had told us he lost one of his birds after it was attacked by another bird and his bird flew off to get away from it and this was all after he had spent days training it to return.

Interviews

I would like to interview more people. Get to know their opinions and thoughts on a variety of topics. I find it very interesting how people discuss their opinions and viewpoints. I think I will start interviewing people and post the recordings up here.

Any takers?

Bill Nye on the city of the future

So rad to see a scientist, someones whose profession it is to solve today's problems with tomorrows solutions, endorse bicycle use.

Silver And Light

SILVER & LIGHT from Ian Ruhter on Vimeo.
This project was created with the same spirit that america was founded on. Our intentions are to connect everyone in america through the lens of this camera and social networking sites. We can't do this without you. We want to tell your story and show your city or town through photographs of you, and people you know. As we travel around america looking for people and places to shoot you will be able to keep track of where we are going and help us decide where we go next. Join us in our journey by liking our facebook to get yourself photographed by us.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ian-Ruhter-Photography/159583283699


http://ianruhter.tumblr.com/
more on the process after the break

transatlantic telecommunication cables

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

this is fast so pay attention!



you got it? ok
lets get rid of coal now.

why movies generally suck

Has Hollywood Lost its Way? | Short of the Week
The loss of great inventive and imaginative movies is due to the guaranteed revenue from the latest prequel, sequel, or adaptation that have flooded the theaters

Rad

http://i.imgur.com/xa8Y4.jpg

new glasses

5 simple logical fallacies

The high cost of free parking

Economic View - Why Free Parking Comes at a Price - NYTimes.com

The high cost of free parking
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/03/EDGFGD1VQ61.DTL&ao=all

Which foods keep you full longer: the satiety index

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17h8az2yffwgmpng/original.png

I love these technical animations that explain the inner workings of gizmos.  

Death am I, and my present task Destruction

Nuclear disarmament is a task that should be readily taken heart. What possible military target requires the use of forces that levels a city in an instant. Nuclear weapons exist as weapons to burn innocent  civilian populations.

A thousand simultaneous suns
Arising in the sky 
Might equal that great radiance,With that great glory vie.
Amazement entered him; his hair Rose up; he bowed his head;
He humbly lifted folded hands, And worshipped God. . . .
Death  am I, and my present task Destruction. 

Rad documentary: cassowary dissection

Watch "Inside Nature's Giants Episode 12/15 The Dinosaur Bird (Channel 4)" on YouTube

Dissected a pigeon in vertebrate zoology lab on Monday and noticed some similar things. This documentary highlights some good points on the similarities between dinosaurs and birds.
I think it is so rad that this show exists to actually show a dissection of some amazing creatures. I look forward to watching more of this program.

Deep self compatibilism

Freedom comes from acting on the deep desire that we hold as individuals. We are not genuinely free when we are indifferent about conflicting desires. Introspection of what desires are truly important to us as individuals and acting on them will allow us to be as free as possible.

the universe in us

Motivation

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I find it so funny sometimes the choices I make. Often I make choices that have consequences that I had not intended or foreseen. if only I truly knew what would lead me to happiness.

Happy Valentine's day