Honeymoon in Beppu
Deborah Arnott is a professional anti-smoker. She makes her living from it. She thinks she can "save lives". Since we all get a lifetime and she is not offering immortality, what she means is you might have a longer life.
Given the choice of 50 years as a free person or 70 years as a slave, she would choose slavery. I wouldn't, and I suspect there are many like me, as most people seem to go for quality of life not quantity. Time, the great mystery, is elastic. Watch the kettle boil and it takes "a long time"...
This quantitative view of life seems dominant today among the medical profession and politicians as though they can and should make these kind of choices for us. It seems a recent phenomenon, and not really very wise. On big issues it might be good, but on small ones it's tyrannical.
"Hand From Above is an interactive installation by Chris O’Shea. He was commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices and Liverpool City Council for BBC Big Screen Liverpool and the Live Sites Network to create something for the BBC Big Screen. Hand From Above interacts with unsuspecting pedestrians, it can tickle, stretch, flick or remove entirely them on the big screen. Chris used openFrameworks and OpenCV to build this software."
Anglerfish ovary by James Hayden from the The Wistar Institute
This section of flower stem was photographed by Gerd Guenther.
This image of olivine within the igneous rock gabbro was taken by Bernardo Cesare.
Arlene Wechezak from Anacortes, Washington, took this image of algae and diatoms.
Veterinary optometrist Havi Sarfaty took this image of discus fish scales.
From New Scientist:
Crossing a microscope with a camera gives you a micrograph, a tiny photograph that allows artists and scientists to show the beauty inaccessible to the naked eye. Every year the Small World competition run by optics giant Nikon celebrates this hidden world. This year the winners range from an anglerfish ovary to the sex organs of plants via a rusted old coin.
New Scientist: The world’s smallest art prize
Small World: 2009 Winners
A short story that beautifuly depicts a possible path in our present to future leap.
He worked with computers; she worked with trees, and the flowers that took hold on the sides of the Mountain.
She was surprised that he was interested in her. He was so smart; she was so ... normal. But he was interesting; he always said something new and different; he was nice.
She was 25. He was older, almost 33; sometimes, Jack seemed very old indeed.
One day they walked through the mist of a gray day by the Mountain. The forest here on the edge of Rainier glowed in the mist, bright with lush greens. On this day he told her about the future, the future he was building.
Other times when he had spoken of the future, a wild look had entered his eyes. But now his eyes were sharply focused as he talked, as if, this time, he could see it all very clearly. He spoke as if he were describing something as real and obvious as the veins of a leaf hanging down before them on the path.
"Have you ever heard of Singularity?" he asked.
She shook her head. "What's that?"
"Singularity is a time in the future. It'll occur when the rate of change of technology is very great--so great that the effort to keep up with the change will overwhelm us. People will face a whole new set of problems that we can't even imagine." A look of great tranquility smoothed the ridges around his eyes. "On the other hand, all our normal, day to day problems fade away. For example, you'll be immortal."
She shook her head with distaste. "I don't want to live forever," she said.
He smiled, his eyes twinkling. "Of course you do, you just don't know it yet."
(On...)
Poet. Lover of academy and porch.
