“If you only had a single statement to pass on to others summarizing the most vital lesson to be drawn from your work, what would it be?”
It’s like the reverse of that time machine shirt where you have all the information you need to change the world, it’s based on the premise that one day we might need to start all over.
The responses from the scientists are a bit boring and jargony. Like this one:
“The scale of the human socio-economic-political complex system is so large that it seriously interferes with the biospheric complex system upon which it is wholly dependant, and cultural evolution has been too slow to deal effectively with the resulting crisis.”
I think we can do better than that.
So I’m wondering what your answer would be. From your own experience. If you only comment on one of my posts this year, make it this one.
Discovered ZooBorns, a portmanteau (and collection of photos) of zoo newborns yet? No. Join the club.
Yes, I did just juxtapose the word “club” with a baby seal. Funny, hey? I just felt the need to not descend too far into the pit of soppy sentimentality.
My blogging buddy Ben has just had a bit of a career milestone that deserves recognition – the TV series he has been working on for ages went to air for the first time this week. The new Bananas in Pyjamas.
A lot of the commenters on the internet are change hating luddites – but I think the Bananas have never looked better.
One day post the demise of OBL and the social media streams are still flooding with reactions. It’s pretty amazing to sit back and watch. My own contributions to the discussion was to question the merits of the “burial at sea” and to suggest that I would be using the responses of my friends to place them on some sort of political spectrum.
Oh. And. I posted this clip from Four Lions.
The “Christian” response to the death of the globe’s most infamous terrorist has been pretty startling and interesting, and probably more to do with one’s political persuasions than convictions about human life. A concern for human life, and its dignity, is what drives the fight against terrorism (or the “war against an abstract noun”) – so it is not necessarily anti-life to celebrate the demise of one committed to ending other lives.
I do sometimes yearn for more crazy friends with crazy conspiracy theories. I have a couple. Hey guys. Thanks. If you’re reading. But on the whole my newsfeed was leaning conservative on Facebook and lefty on Twitter. Odd. There’s not a huge overlap between who I follow on each. Anyway. One of the quotes that started springing up from my less gung-ho friends was this quote attributed to Martin Luther King.
“”I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr”
That’s the abridged version. The full version is here…
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Now, the excerpt is completely bogus. It’s not anything MLK ever said. See this story from The Atlantic. The second half is legit. It’s an actual quote. So how did the first bit get tacked on? It seems it was a case of Facebook Whispers. Here is the thread that apparently started the viral ball going (according to Reddit).
Here’s the legit bit:
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that” – MLK Jr, Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community?
Somebody missed the quotation marks in the middle when transmitting the quote, and the rest, as they say, is fake history.
“The problem with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they’re attributed correctly.” – Abraham Lincoln
Let the social media fun continue, slightly abated…
And the prize for live-tweeting the demise of Osama, and thus, once again, demonstrating that there’s nothing like Twitter for covering this sort of event goes to…
His tweet stream since the event is pretty fascinating – showing how quickly the coverage of these events now moves from the coverage of the event to the coverage of the coverage.
Aaron Sorkin wrote the West Wing. For that the world owes him much. He also wrote Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – which had brilliant potential, but died because it didn’t have Tina Fey. And 30 Rock did. And they were essentially about the same thing – a team of TV staffers writing for a variety show. It’s a shame, because 30 Rock is numerically half as awesome as Studio 60. But 30 Rock won, and Aaron Sorkin made a brilliantly self-aware and kind of meta cameo on 30 Rock. Here it is.
Some very useful photography tips, not just food photography tips, from Serious Eats here (there’s a Serious Eats cook book coming out at the end of the year – fantastic news, it’s available for pre-order on Amazon
).
I take a lot of food photos, more coffee photos though… for my coffee blog. Here are my tips.
1. Buy an iPhone.
2. Download Instagram.
3. Take a photo of your food with Instagram from a cool angle.
4. Choose a filter.
Speaking of Izaac, when we caught up with them in Sydney he told me that a guy we went to school with invented and designed Fruit Ninja. The highly addictive iPhone fruit slashing game. It’s true. I googled it. Anyway, some guys made a 3D version. Which is, you know, the future.
It’s not the lame sort of 3D where you wear glasses. This is the real deal.
Steps on an analog clock that is… this guy is trying to test out that theory popularised by Malcolm Gladwell that expertise takes 10,000 hours. And he’s trying it on golf. Here’s the recipe for expertise…
“The Dan Plan will take six hours a day, six days a week, for six years. He is keeping diligent records of his practice and progress. People who study expertise say no one has done quite what Dan is doing right now.”
