Escaped Thoughts

Winner take all vs. local

Rule 1: If there's no really good reason for a business to be done locally, it will migrate to the web.

Rule 2: Businesses that migrate to the web often have economies of scale, and those businesses quickly coalesce into just a few (or even one) winner.

The winning strategy for the local business or freelancer, then, is:

a. provide a product or service that truly works better when it's local, and

b. do it in a way that works better when it's small, custom, connected and not in search of economies of scale.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Jeff Bridges

via www.jeffbridges.com

JeffBridges.com

Why Name It That?: Fountains of Wayne

About This Site

Names are not always self-explanatory.Take rock bands. Bands often have unusual names. We try to pin down the stories behind a band's name. (You can browse bands as a category or by the first letter or number in a name with the links below or use the search bar at the top of the page)Disclaimer: Start investigating the origins of bands' names and you will soon discover that rumors and mythology abound! If we cannot confirm an origin, we have given alternatives found in other sources.We also examine the origins of product names, people names, places and other names of interest.Got the story behind a name? Let us know about it. Identify your information source (web link?) for confirmation.

via whynameitthat.blogspot.com

1492

"1492. As children,  we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America.

Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that.

1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."

— Kurt Vonnegut

Life

Life is like a doughnut - either you're in the dough or in the hole.

 

Abs

Some guys have a six pack. Some guys have a keg.

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight

by Emily Bronte

'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

 

Bio note via http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Emily Bronte, born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England (1818) is the author of Wuthering Heights (1848), a story of love and tragedy set in the moors of Yorkshire.

She was the fifth of six talented Bronte children born to parents who seemed to have had no literary interest themselves. Their mother died when Emily was two, and the children were pretty much left to their own devices. Their father was aloof and treated his children as intellectual equals. Other than that, he mostly ignored them. The Bronte children had only themselves for playmates.

Their house was bounded on two sides by the village graveyard. They became best friends with each other. All the Bronte children were avid readers and storytellers. They made up a mythical land called Gondal, and Emily made it the subject of many of her poems. She was shy and reclusive and whenever she left home she got homesick. She joined her three older sisters at a school for clergymen's children when she was six. In 1845, Charlotte found out that Emily had been writing poetry. Charlotte had also been secretly writing verse, and so had Anne. They published their joint work the next year. Instead of using their real names, they called it Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. That book sold only two copies, but it paved the way for Charlotte's Jane Eyre (1846) and Emily's Wuthering Heights (1847) and Anne's Agnes Grey (1847).

Jane Eyre was an instant success, but Emily's book didn't get much attention until after she fell ill and died the next year, at age thirty. Charlotte wrote a preface for it explaining why it was better than her own Jane Eyre, and it became a classic.

Health - physical and mental - is not just the absence of sickness.

The Apple II Computer

On this day in 1977, the Apple II computer went on sale, and the era of personal computing began.

Developed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, it was the first successful mass-produced microcomputer designed for home use.

It came standard with 4 kilobytes of memory, game paddles, and a demo cassette with some programs on it. Most people used their televisions as monitors.

The Apple II sold for about $1,300; today that same money will buy you an iMac, with 4 gigabytes — one million times the original amount — of memory, a sleek backlit 21-inch monitor, and a 2.7 gigahertz processor.

Escape

You can hit that ESCape key all you want to.

As Dylan said, "You ain't going nowhere."

“From things that have happened . . . and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality….

via escapedthoughts.typepad.com

For Moms Online

In theory

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice there is.

-- Yogi Berra

 

More Berraisms

Digital Dude-ism

Good line. Great actor. Mediocre film.

"Every idea man's ever had about the universe suddenly up for grabs. Bio-digital jazz, man."

Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy

Why We Don't Write

“This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.”

Eeyore (via A.A. Milne)

 

Why We Write

“From things that have happened . . . and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality….

That is why you write and for no other reason.”

– Ernest Hemingway

Bumpy Night

“Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Bette Davis (in All About Eve )

Day of Rest

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”

- Ovid

Discovery's final countdown...

The final countdown..., originally uploaded by DaveDoop.

Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-133) reaches Pad 39A for the final time at 1:15am on September 21, 2010. Launch is scheduled for November 1, 2010 at 4:40pm.

A Cookie Monster

The return of Szarotka the Cookie Monster! (children and sensitive people: don't look!), originally uploaded by pyza*.

Horizon

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li9nsudP6e1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg

Mount Auburn Cemetery daguerreotype

Lawrence Lot, Mount Auburn Cemetery, originally uploaded by George Eastman House.

Lawrence Lot, Mount Auburn Cemetery

Accession Number: 1974:0193:0096

Maker: Southworth & Hawes

Title: Lawrence Lot, Mount Auburn Cemetery

Date: ca. 1853

Medium: daguerreotype

Dimensions: whole plate, 16.5 X 21.5 cm.

George Eastman House Collection

General information about the George Eastman House Photography Collection is available at http://www.eastmanhouse.org/inc/collections/photography.php.

For information on obtaining reproductions go to: www.eastmanhouse.org/flickr/index.php?pid=1974:0193:0096.

dots or stripes?

dots or stripes, originally uploaded by ....casper.

Descent

Descent, originally uploaded by razorbern.

Slickers

I have a thing for the movie City Slickers which was a favorite of my oldest son. We watched it many times, and we still plan to do one of those trail rides one day.

The film has some moments that really click for me though...

Mitch has to give a talk to his son's class about his job. He hates his job at that point. It's his 39th birthday and he feels like it has all been a waste. Here's what he tells the dazed kids in his son's elementary school class:

Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly.

When you're a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do.

Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"

Your forties, you grow a little pot belly you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.

Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery.

Your sixties you have a major surgery, the music is still loud but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway.

Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering "how come the kids don't call?"

By your eighties, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand but who you call mama. Any questions?

 

Daniel Stern (Phil), Billy Crystal (Mitch), Bruno Kirby (Ed)

The three city slickers get into a discussion of their best and worst days. Ed doesn't want to play, but they push him.

Ed: I'm 14 and my mother and father are fighting again... y'know, because she caught him again. Caught him... This time the girl drove by the house to pick him up. And I finally realized, he wasn't just cheating on my mother, he was cheating us. So I told him, I said, "You're bad to us. We don't love you. I'll take care of my mother and my sister. We don't need you any more." And he made like he was gonna hit me, but I didn't budge. And he turned around and he left. He never bothered us again. Well, I took care of my mother and my sister from that day on. That's my best day.

Phil: Geez, what was your worst day?

Ed: Same day.

Finally, Curly, the "real" cowboy that they meet up with in the film is pressed by Mitch about what he thinks is the secret of life (which is what he assumes he is looking for).

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? [holds up one finger] This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.

Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"

Curly: That's what you have to find out.

March 14

March 14 is, for me, marked most importantly as my oldest son's birthday.

It's also Pi Day, commemorating the mathematical constant pi. 3.14159265358979323846 264338327950288419716939937510... (Even nerdier is Pi Approximation Day on July 22, celebrating the fraction 22/7. )

And on the birthday list - Albert Einstein, Billy Crystal, Diane Arbus and others.

March 14 is the 73rd day of the year (74th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 292 days remaining until the end of the year.

Footwear

Footwear, originally uploaded by ronk53.

Footwear
or not.
She said, "Wow, that's a surprisingly sexy photo."
I said, "You think so?"

Push!

, originally uploaded by shadowplay.

Not Zen

 

rice and tea for lunch

Buddha on the windowsill

I feel so not Zen

Lost

Not all those who wander are lost.

 

 

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

   —  J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

A Good Investment

Grace Groner's parents passed away when she was 12 years old, leaving her to live with a family friend, George Anderson.  Anderson paid for Groner's college education.  When she graduated in 1931 she took a secretarial job at Abbott Laboratories where she stayed for 43 years.

She bought 3 shares of Abbott for $180 in 1935. She lived to be 100 years old and bequeathed the shares to her alma mater (Lake Forest College).  Current value: $7 million.

Love and Chocolates

"All you need is love.

But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

— Charles M. Schulz

Elizabeth Bishop at 100

The poet Elizabeth Bishop was born 100 years ago on Feb. 8. Her father died months later, and her mother was institutionalized early in her childhood, so she was raised by relatives in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts.

She became one of the most beloved and important American poets of the 20th century, although her greatest fame came after her death in 1979.

To celebrate her centennial, Farrar Straus & Giroux, her publisher for most of her career, is bringing out three new editions of her writing :

• Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence - her letters to and from The New Yorker
• and a pair of companion volumes called simply Poems and
• Prose

These books make clear that Bishop was as much a prose writer as she was a poet.  Prose is in fact considerably fatter than Poems, which contains all of the The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 plus a selection from the posthumous collections of drafts and fragments.

Infinite Turtles

sand toys

sand toys, originally uploaded by ronk53.

or snow toys, I suppose

Something About Alyssa

Alyssa // 1/2/11, originally uploaded by Bryan Brinkman..

The Right Word

 

"The difference between the right word

and the almost right word

is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

-- Mark Twain

Scientists and Students Head for Antarctica

I am envious of this group of Rutgers scientists and students that are headed to Antarctica.

Every "austral summer" (our winter in the Northern Hemisphere, summer down there), many scientists head to Antarctica to study the continent.

This year, Rutgers will send an unusually large delegation to study the physical oceanography and geochemistry of its seas, and to document and explain what they’re doing for 24 middle- and high-school teachers and their students with blogs, photos and phone calls. They will have a presence from the Western Antarctic Peninusla all the way to the Ross Sea, beginning at the end of November and ending in February.

http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/research/to-the-bottom-of-the-20101213

For Isaac Newton's Birthday Party

Isaac Newton was born today, January 4, in 1643. He was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher.  He was also an alchemist and theologian.

Newton is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history.

His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" and usually called the Principia), published in 1687, is probably the most important scientific book ever written.

The book  lays the groundwork for most of classical mechanics.

Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation.

I have always found it very interesting that Newton was also highly religious. He was an unorthodox Christian, and during his lifetime actually wrote more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than on science and mathematics.

For some free and easy schooling,  take a look at him in video program 6 in The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond, "Newton's Laws" http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html

In  "Physics for the 21st Century,"  Newton is discussed in the video and online text in unit 3, "Gravity."   http://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=3&secNum=0

And look at Mathematics Illuminated where Newton is discussed in the context of "Concepts of Chaos," program 13.    http://www.learner.org/courses/mathilluminated/units/13/

Another Eclipse for the New Year

Eclipse travel in pairs.

Just two weeks after the Full Moon/Solstice/Lunar Eclipse, we have a Solar (New Moon) eclipse that Europe and India will witness on January 4th.

In Western Europe, the Sun will be eclipsed as the day begins and will last about 80 minutes more. Even at its maximum, the eclipse will be only partial, with some of the everyday Sun still visible.

Unlike the gentle lunar eclipse, you need special solar filters or projection methods to protect the eyes while viewing the eclipse. Whenever the ordinary Sun is visible, even only part of it, you should not stare at it. Special solar filters are available cheaply, or dense [shade 12 or higher] welders' glass will do.

On the same day, Jupiter and Uranus make an exact conjunction at 27 degrees of Pisces. If you are astrologically-inclined, then this is another powerful eclipse and another turning point. Take some time between these two eclipses to get in touch with what you want to manifest in the coming year.

White Forest Road

White Forest iPad wallpaper, originally uploaded by xploitme.

Walking Beside a Creek

Walking Beside a Creek

Walking beside a creek
in December, the black ice
windy with leaves,
you can feel the great joy
of the trees, their coats
thrown open like drunken men,
the lifeblood thudding
in their tight, wet boots.

by Ted kooser

from Flying At Night: Poems 1965-1985 (Pitt Poetry Series)

Cola Baby

I love that it's from The Soda Pop Board of America!

7-Up Baby

Wind and Snow

It's Officially Winter

The last time we had a lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice was 21 December MDCXXXVIII.

I'll bet that when the Full Moon was in total eclipse from 1:12 to 2:47 UT and the solstice occured later in the day at 16:05 UT, it would have been quite a strange time at Stonehenge.

I'm glad I stayed up to watch. The next one is in 2094 and I don't think I'll be awake for that one.

Winter Solstice sun seen rising
through the trilithon at Stonehenge

And the Earth's axis just hit full tilt. The North Pole angled 23.5 degrees away from the sun at 6:38 p.m. EST.

Sun rise was at 7:16 today for 9 hours and 12 minutes of day (the sun set at 4:28) and then we gradually start adding to the day's length - until the summer solstice in 2011.  By New Year's Day, we will have added 3 minutes of daylight.  I feel warmer already.

Winter

"Winter solitude- 
in a world of one colour 
the sound of the wind."

 Basho

 

 

Total Lunar Eclipse 2

Total Lunar Eclipse (201012210002HQ), originally uploaded by nasa hq photo.

A nearly total lunar eclipse is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. From beginning to end, the eclipse will last about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Uploaded by nasa hq photo on 21 Dec 10, 3.07AM EST.