Uncategorized on Purpose

According to the NYT, a vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings were bought legally and with a federal background check /  by mirena

On The Subject of Killing /  by mirena

Imagine a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere in a vast ocean of pretty much nothing. It wobbles and probably hisses, whatever it takes for it to get more round. This tiny rock becomes a bigger rock and probably wobbles more. It gets hit by other rocks and dances around a little, most likely. It grows and starts to settle. There are big dimples on this rock and these big dimples become big oceans. Now, I don't really know since I haven't been there - but there were tiny things at some point very willing to divide into more tiny things. The nature of the process escapes me and, frankly, the urge too. These tiny things at some point grew little appendages and started exploring and became fish. Fish made more fish, the Universe kept spinning, fish made it to shore and became a lizard. That didn't work out but luckily other things did work out better. So Earth tried to make large forests and put large animals in it. It practically took forever. And one day a monkey stood up and was aware of the world that surrounds it or maybe it took millennia from one monkey to another, can't tell ya for sure.

After billions of years there is man. And we are wonderful. We clawed ourselves out of the mud, we fought out the bad guys and took to the sea and then we took to space. And how far we have come for man used to be chained to the earth like a beast. We have created the Garden of Eden on earth. There are wonderful machines and tools delivering wonders to our homes. we open little jaggy things and water flows, we open chunky boxes and food comes out, we flick switches and light comes on. There are these bright screens we have conjured miracles on with dreams streaming in, hierarchy of angels as Joseph Campbell calls them.

And we are beautiful, for the most part. We command nice bodies with versatile trimmings, we command consciousness with imagination, we command machines with wonderful properties, we command a lot of the earth and the sky, and the oceans, well to some degree but looks like we are getting better at it. We put designs of the mind through ores and out come fantastical creations for the first time in billions of years.

As far as I am concerned we are gods walking this planet.

And then there's the gun store on the corner. It takes a jury of 12 men to convict and sentence to the death in our land.. it takes years of deliberation, lawyers and paperwork and until the end someone fights for the life of this man or woman.

And then there is a gun store on the corner, with ready made weapons engineered to take the lives of dangerous criminals and animals. Anyone could become a judge and jury on tens and hundreds of people, and take a life, in an instant.

Killing has become trivial, merely a shopping experience.

Why did we bother then to create and build a civilized nation our of this large chunk of ground. Why cross the seas, why brave Ellis island and make all the skyscrapers in New York, why make a California out of the desert when we still fear getting shot downtown? I recently drove through Oakland in California with a map of the latest killings and robberies on my phone to make sure to find a parking spot with the least likelihood of getting shot. I just don't like killing, man, and I don't like dying. I have this instinct built in me to make sure I stick around. It is our DNA and common sense built into every living human. It is time to put common sense into how we govern our nation and where we want our nation to stand, on the subject of killing.

Small talk and other small things /  by mirena

We do not need to communicate novel ideas in order to engage socially.  Often we use language to reinforce our current standing in the world and to reaffirm having something in common with others.  One of the great things about reddit is that I found out how many idiots just like me are out there which was very reassuring. I am saying that about reddit with affection as I have learned a lot about the world and myself through that little social media folly.  

/u/Prince_Jellyfish on the purpose of small talk. (reddit.com): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ss8oz/people_with_high_social_skills_whats_the_biggest/cx02xgd

[–]Prince_Jellyfish 2689 points 6 months ago*x3: This will get buried, but I'll say it anyway in hopes that someone will find it useful:

Misunderstanding the purpose of "small talk." I have friends with poor social skills who say they 'hate' small talk, and find it pointless. I suspect some even consider themselves superior to people who engage in 'pointless chatter'.

They misunderstand the point of small talk is not explicitly in what is discussed, but in the subtext. The subtext of nearly all small talk between strangers is essentially: "hey person who is externally different than me: we are fundamentally the same! We are both people that experience life in the same ways. You're one way, I'm a different way; but there's many ways in which we experience life that are similar."

"Some weather we're having." "Yeah, boy, it sure got cold quick."

This is not an exchange of information about the weather; it is two humans drawing closer by emphasizing that both of their lives are impacted simultaneously by forces outside their control, and secondarily that they live in the same geographical area.

"Just got back from a few days in West Texas." "Oh, I drove through Lubbock a few years back. Real good brisket." "Yeah! It's amazing, right?"

Oh, you and I have different clothes, hair, and religious beliefs; but we've had a similar experience to which we reacted a similar way.

"Did you catch the game this weekend?" "Man, what a finish!" We've never met before, but we both invest in sports as a way to safely express emotion in a public space by using the triumphs and heartbreaks of athletic competition as a proxy for our experience; and we both experienced those same feelings together yesterday, even though we hadn't even met.

Advanced examples: "Did you catch the game this weekend?" "Oh, gotta tell you: I'm a Giants fan." "No! That's criminal! How can you support those bastards!?" "Well my grandpa was a fan, he passed it down to me" OR "well, growing up, I never followed sports. But one day I decided to follow baseball, and I fell in love with the game. Lived in San Fransisco at the time.."

You and I like different teams, but we both like teams and so are the same.

"Have you ever listened to the NPR show The Moth?" "No, I never have. Should I check it out?"

Person two is saying: even though we can't bond over this shared experience, even though we've only just met, I trust you with my time and attention. I'm interested in things you find important and take you seriously.

Solidarity talk: http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Solidarity-Talk.htm

Fresh off the presses - a great thread on reddit that shuttered my own Tuesday feelings of self-importance. If atoms are 99% 'empty space', how big would the universe be if we compressed every atom down to it's most space efficient arrangement, essentially leaving no space between particles?: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4mvupc/if_atoms_are_99_empty_space_how_big_would_the/

"...We are more like disturbances in the cosmic pool of probability and causation.." literally blew my Tuesday mind, I am gonna try and make it to the weekend without going insane.

Curiosity Looks Back /  by mirena

televisions, meat, diamonds, couches, brand new lawns, pools of various sizes, lawn chairs, wars for all of the above... yet Curiosity is roaming completely oblivious to all of this. Down the thread on reddit people are getting excited about dirt biking on Mars, just like back home. What a great time to be alive. Curiosity Looks Back

Thanks to reddit and https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/4ktoha/curiosity_looks_back/

Curiosity Rover mission page on NASA's website: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

( funny thing, it turns out i like (reddish) brown, my dad likes brown and from what he told me my grandma also liked brown )

Everything you ever need to know /  by mirena

   

 

Earth rising over the Moon taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (nasa.gov)

 

I wanted to be an astronaut when I grow up and thanks to the internet I guess I am. From the little comfort of my bed and my mac I watch little people take spacewalks on NASA tv, which should be the only kind of television politicians are allowed to watch. It is apparent there are no divisions out there, no fences, no one else to laugh at us for about at least million light years.

From the Earth, the daily Moonrise and Moonset are always inspiring moments. However, lunar astronauts will see something very different: viewed from the lunar surface, the Earth never rises or sets. Since the Moon is tidally locked, the Earth is always in the same spot above the horizon, varying only a small amount with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRtZ89AMts">slight wobble</a> of the Moon. The Earth may not move across the "sky", but the view is not static. Future astronauts will see the continents rotate in and out of view and the ever changing pattern of clouds will always catch one's eye. Well at least on the nearside, but what about the farside? The Earth is never visible from the farside, imagine a sky with no Earth or Moon - what will farside explorers think with no Earth overhead?

This image was taken when LRO was 134 km above the farside crater <a href="http://bit.ly/1ReO7lT">Compton</a> (51.8°N, 124.1°E). Capturing an image of the Earth and Moon with LROC is a complicated task. First the spacecraft must be rolled to the side (in this case 67°), then the spacecraft slews with the direction of travel to maximize the width of the lunar horizon in the NAC image. All this takes place while LRO is traveling over 1600 meters per second (faster than 3580 mph) relative to the lunar surface below the spacecraft! As a result of these three motions and the fact that the Narrow Angle Camera is a <a href="http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/about/specs">line scanner</a> the raw image geometry is distorted. Also, because the Moon and Earth are so far apart, the geometric correction is different for each body. Reconstruction of the Earth-Moon image is not a simple matter – and that is just to get the black and white image!

The magnificent sculpture of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) - now at Asia Society in NYC until May 8 /  by mirena

Thanks to my dear friend Janet for telling me about this show.

Notabe artworks:

http://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/kamakura-realism-and-spirituality-sculpture-japan#!artworks

Kamakura Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan

More about the show on the Asia Society website: http://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/kamakura-realism-and-spirituality-sculpture-japan

 

Kamakura Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan - the Catalog: The Kamakura period (1185–1333) is considered a pinnacle of Japanese artistic expression, often described as a renaissance in Buddhist art. This catalogue is the first in over two decades to examine the exquisite sculpture of this period, artwork characterized by an intense corporeal presence, naturalistic proportions, a sense of movement, realistic drapery, and lifelike facial expressions animated by eyes made of inlaid crystal. Essays by noted scholars explore the sculptures’ arresting exteriors and powerful interiors, examining the technical and stylistic innovations that made them possible, and offering new context for their ritual and devotional uses. They demonstrate that the physical beauty and technical brilliance of Kamakura statues are profoundly associated with their spiritual dimension and devotional functions.

 

New York Times review:

Spellbinding Treasures From Japan’s Kamakura Period at Asia Society

The magnificent sculpture of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) - now at Asia Society in NYC until May 8

Ancient Rome in HD /  by mirena

Ancient Rome is such a powerful symbol, visually and aesthetically, as well as in terms of ideas, its battles and wars, the powerful personalities that blasted their thoughts across the centuries. Remember I spent hours with ancient Roman marble busts from the Vatican, just like with old friends. Here is Caesar's marble bust ( all photographs in this post I took during a Christmas in Rome ), video by Khan Academy :

Julius Caesar Marble Bust in the Vatican Museum

\Marble bust of Caesar at the Vatican Museum

The walls of this gallery at the Vatican are lined with marble busts:

Marble busts at the Vatican Museum

Visited the Colosseum in the evening on Christmas day and it was absolutely a solitary and beautiful experience, with a bit of drizzle and without a single living soul in sight.

Colosseum in Rome up close

Colosseum in Rome up close

Colosseum in Rome at nightime

Colosseum in Rome at nightime

A second edition of my Japanese Gardens book, entirely re-written with small poems by me /  by mirena

Japanese Gardens: A Journey Into Zen Kindle Edition

Photographs and Small Poems by Mirena Rhee.

Buy on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YAE520K/#_swftext_Swf

Japanese Gardens, A Journey into Zen, book by Mirena Rhee

 

Here is a poem I wrote on the occasion of this second edition :

 

Tranquil world of rocks, sand, trees, shrubs and moss. Little streams water the grounds. The colors are earthy and bright, no gusty winds dishevel the patterns. The wooden floors are swept clean. The mats lie still.

Landscape with peaceful shapes. It makes nice thoughts and asks deep questions. A design with no intent or angle. Whatever you bring you can take back. We don’t know who made it that way.

You can come back many times and find it just the same. Trees bend this way or that. Twigs flow here or there. Ponds flicker. Rocks ripple the sand a little.

Expedition 42 - Don't Panic! /  by mirena

Expedition 42's theme was the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - A Towel on ISS  

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

 

Expedition 42's theme was the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Piano improv on Twitch - Bernie is currently playing in front of a Madison Square Garden size audience. 20, 000 and growing. It is mad and absolutely amazing /  by mirena

Piano Improv on Twitch in front of 18,200 people The Favorites:

http://imgur.com/gallery/i7ELPwQ

Twitch:

http://www.twitch.tv/pianoimproman

I recently saw the excellent Danny Boyle movie Steve Jobs and in the movie Jobs predicted that the computer is going to be like a bicycle for the mind. Joseph Campbell said that everyone is a hero at birth.  And here I am in front of my treasured Mac, enjoying the work of a musical hero in front of his piano, related to me via his computer. The audience is currently at 20, 000, larger than Madison Square Garden. What an awesome time to be alive.

( just found out he had 65, 000 simultaneous viewers yesterday, so yeah )

Star Wars - Cantina - http://www.twitch.tv/pianoimproman/v/37799456?t=05h38m35s

Thanks to reddit.

Huxley vs Orwell /  by mirena

This comic is based word from word on Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death. As someone who is often amused by the internet I often fear our dependency on Google, our expectation for the clicking on buttons to deliver and our thirst for the waterfalls of information. I also rarely post depressing stuff as I like to keep positive and posted this simply on account of it being pretty amusing. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

Huxley vs Orwell