Within or Without

"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like..."

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:30:24 -0400

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.”

- Happy 195th birthday, Henry David Thoreau – the iconic transcendentalist on defining your own success.

The brown flash the cat is being bothered by is a fucking...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:11:02 -0400

The brown flash the cat is being bothered by is a fucking chihuahua.

jtotheizzoe: … those bacteria that were using arsenic in their...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:50:24 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

… those bacteria that were using arsenic in their DNA? Not so much.

In 2010, NASA shocked the science community with the announcement that a bacterium from Mono Lake, CA had been found to substitute arsenic (found in the toxic lake water) for phosphorous in its DNA. This finding, were it true, would have rewritten the rules regarding the requirements for life, expanding the possibilities for where terrestrial, and especially extraterrestrial, organisms might be found.

In two papers released this week, though, that original claim has been refuted. The bacteria recovered from Mono Lake almost certainly do not use arsenic as originally reported. The original team is standing by their work, and NASA has remained quiet as far as I know. They probably have their arms crossed and are shrugging a lot with that look on their face. You know. Harumph.

There’s a lot of room to criticize NASA, and the original research team here. They pitched a three-ring circus to announce the original paper, and reviewers and editors alike should have provided far more scrutiny. But despite these bad decisions and flawed actions, this is not a defeat for science or the process. It is a victory for science, an example of where we self-corrected our errors, and in the process enriching both our knowledge and integrity.

Here’s a report from USA Today with more on this long saga, and what we’ve learned.

Reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally?…… I can’t wait for the next whoopswefuckedupagain announcement.

theniftyfifties: James Dean in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’, 1955.

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:14:10 -0400

theniftyfifties:

James Dean in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’, 1955.

The cats apparently hate going on vacation. Their meows are...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:53:10 -0400

The cats apparently hate going on vacation. Their meows are filling the car with a sense of despair and horror.

ryanhatesthis: GPOY

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:42:36 -0400

ryanhatesthis:

GPOY

jtotheizzoe: We Are Nature – Multiple exposure portraits where...

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:38:50 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

We Are Nature – Multiple exposure portraits where people become part of nature. Prints available here and many more at the link.

(by Christoffer Relander)

Photo

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:12:03 -0400

Found with TumTum ♻

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:42:12 -0400

Found with TumTum ♻

Wine

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:30:16 -0400

Who could recount my existence to explain the shit storm? No time for it. Not I. I’ll just have another glass of wine.

jtotheizzoe: Close To Home Explore the stars of the zodiac...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:22:37 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Close To Home

Explore the stars of the zodiac constellations, and their neighbors, in an interactive model of near space! Zoom from Earth outward and see the position and distance of those celestial bodies as they reside in three-dimensional space. It’s sort of like flying a spaceship through your web browser.

Of course, it’s the height of humanity’s hubris to assume that our particular perspective on the stars and the shapes we assign to them allow us any particularly special place in the universe. But they sure are pretty to look at :)

Visit the fully interactive version here.

(via Kirstin Butler)

jtotheizzoe: “RADICAL OPENNESS” An epic ode to the power of...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:32:47 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

“RADICAL OPENNESS”

An epic ode to the power of sharing ideas produced for TEDGlobal 2012 by Jason Silva. The power of human thought, and the tools it renders, so humanity evolves onward.

Wow, indeed, Jason. Wow, indeed. :)

"American society has a remarkable ability to resist change, or to take whatever change has taken..."

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:26:32 -0400

“American society has a remarkable ability to resist change, or to take whatever change has taken place and attempt to make it go away.”

- Nora Ephron (via explore-blog)

jtotheizzoe: Passing Through Nikola Tesla’s Words on the...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:17:41 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Passing Through

Nikola Tesla’s Words on the Grandeur of Nature and the Power of Thought

There’s many ways to consider the idea that our universe is interconnected. Sometimes this idea is interpreted through the lens of religion, sometimes through the combination of butterflies and chaos theory, and sometimes, as Brian Cox shows us, through quantum mechanics.

Nikola Tesla was intrigued by this philosophy in the late 19th century, and the idea percolated through his work. In an address given before the Franklin Institute in 1893, Tesla considered the complexity of the eye. Those words are set to stunning imagery in the video above from Olafur Haraldsson, where beams of light travel through our world in fairy-like fashion.

Tesla understood that while some may view the intricate structures of the eye as so complex that they must have been designed by a higher power, it operates according to the same set of universal laws of nature that even the smallest atoms must obey. He wondered whether any man would ever completely describe the nature by which the eye translated impressions into thoughts, and the great thinkers of his time had just begun to (correctly) implicate electricity in the eye’s operation.

How amazing that it is the device by which humans have gathered all of our knowledge, yet it is subject to the most basic laws of nature. Those laws which are beyond our control, down to the very machinery that converts light energy to nerve impulses. Here is where the grandeur of nature is most evident: That the smallest units of our universe, the photons, could affect some of the most complex, humans … subject to the same laws at every scale.

I recommend checking out the full speech, available here via Google Books.

I feel like Chloe Sevigny.

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:20:52 -0400

I feel like Chloe Sevigny.

DOTH MY EYES DECEIVE ME?! I wonder what type of event I would...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 11:08:32 -0400

DOTH MY EYES DECEIVE ME?! I wonder what type of event I would don this flowing polyester supersize burgers and fries?! FASHION OVERLOAD!

"Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose,..."

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:37:30 -0400

“Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits.”

- Tina Fey (via watsonyourmind)

Spot on. Always.

(via mygripmyfocus)

I caught a delicious bass.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:37:04 -0400

I caught a delicious bass.

braiker: Jimi Hendrix on guitar with Billy Cox on Bass. They...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:08:50 -0400

braiker:

Jimi Hendrix on guitar with Billy Cox on Bass. They both met as paratroopers in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Cambell, KY. (via some awesome person’s Facebook)

Photo

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:13:47 -0400