Below: A view up the valley to the forest.
December 30, 2010
Farm
Below: A view up the valley to the forest.
December 26, 2010
Google Ngram
A searchable index that maps the frequency of words found in every book that Google has ever scanned = 500 billion words, 5.2 million books in six lanuages.
For me, the most fascinating aspect is how it might be used in Cultural History. The rise and fall of word use on such a massive scale will allow us to map the use of words and terms in History. We can map the proliferation of concepts on a meta-scale and understand the Newness of our concept of Reality and History.
The word "History", after a small increase-decrease in use from 1650 to 1780, experienced a massive increase from the 1780's onwards... we talk about this era as being the "Enlightenment", but the term "Enlightenment" was only used from 1870's onwards. What does that mean for our understanding?
The concept "Renaissance", as can be seen below, did not originate until the 1840's, well past the epoch we call The Renaissance. Did Michaelangelo or Alberti think they were a part of something which we now call "Renaissance"?
Below:
- Steady decline in the use of "God" from 1840's onwards.
- Beginning of the use of "Renaissance" in 1850's. and the use of "Enlightenment" in 1900's = the Concept of both of these terms is relatively modern.
- Increase in "apocalypse" around the mid-1940's = Nuclear Fission?
- Steady increase of the use of the word "Modern" in the early 19th Century,
- Exponential Increase in the use of the word "Post Modern" in the 1950's
- Use of the word "Capitalism" from 1890 onwards. (Marx and Engels wrote Das Capital in 1867)
link to Google Labs N-gram Viewer.
For me, the most fascinating aspect is how it might be used in Cultural History. The rise and fall of word use on such a massive scale will allow us to map the use of words and terms in History. We can map the proliferation of concepts on a meta-scale and understand the Newness of our concept of Reality and History.
The word "History", after a small increase-decrease in use from 1650 to 1780, experienced a massive increase from the 1780's onwards... we talk about this era as being the "Enlightenment", but the term "Enlightenment" was only used from 1870's onwards. What does that mean for our understanding?
The concept "Renaissance", as can be seen below, did not originate until the 1840's, well past the epoch we call The Renaissance. Did Michaelangelo or Alberti think they were a part of something which we now call "Renaissance"?
Below:
- Steady decline in the use of "God" from 1840's onwards.
- Beginning of the use of "Renaissance" in 1850's. and the use of "Enlightenment" in 1900's = the Concept of both of these terms is relatively modern.
- Increase in "apocalypse" around the mid-1940's = Nuclear Fission?
- Steady increase of the use of the word "Modern" in the early 19th Century,
- Exponential Increase in the use of the word "Post Modern" in the 1950's
- Use of the word "Capitalism" from 1890 onwards. (Marx and Engels wrote Das Capital in 1867)
December 23, 2010
With us or Against Us
The ethos, in use for the last 1600 years has caused us to divide and abnegate. Your with us, or against us. Good or Bad. Happy or Sad. Rich or Poor. It is an Ethos which polarizes: making our lives cheap, filling us with guilt, original-sin, hollow-happiness, obesity, chemicals.
Promise is distant: blurry and unreachable as we navigate our day through the cracked, cloudy, dark and dusty abberation of this medieval lens. Coping. Sighing, grumbling, murmuring, discontented, stressed, tired, hostile, apathetic: born with this lens in front of us, we think of it as Reality.
The catclysms of History, which we call "revolutions", are deathly word-games that have resulted in the addition of new words and sentences: replacing one term for another; one division for another; one model for another.
Through a dichotomatic lens, we will not, cannot, see unity.
*Culture is the lens through which we shape our reality.
*Culture is the lens through which we shape our reality.
December 22, 2010
Artificial Cranium Deformation
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Wikipedia: "Usually it is a part of a cultural ritual, aimed at creating a skull shape which is aesthetically more pleasing or associated with desirable attributes such as intelligence. For example, in the Nahai-speaking area of Tomman Island... a person with a finely elongated head is thought to be more intelligent, of higher status, and closer to the world of the spirits."
Above: Annoying looking methods for shaping the skulls of children.
Below: Examples of Skulls.
Via Wikipedia and Suhan's Blog
December 17, 2010
On Sacrosanctity
Machiavelli on reading:
via
When evening comes, I return home and go to my study. On the threshold, I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty work day clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and, in this graver dress, I enter the courts of the ancients, and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world
via
Too School for Cool
Thanks to Azzo for Video
I had always assumed that the Pope “knew better”, that Paris Hilton was “smarter then that”, but today while listening to Ryan Seacrest and P!nk on the radio, I realized that people truly believe what they say they believe. It was a deeply affecting and emancipating understanding.
December 16, 2010
December 15, 2010
On the Jet Pack
Because I don’t want to be driving on the ground, I want to be flying like a fucking eagle above it.
December 12, 2010
December 9, 2010
Smurf's Village
Scary:
"It's quite likely that most of the money pulled in by these [smartphone] games comes from addicted adults who want to quickly build their Smurf villages, bakeries, zoos and zombie farms. But there's a loophole in the in-app purchase process that children stick their fingers through." via
"...addicted adults who want to quickly build their Smurf villages, bakeries, zoos and zombie farms.."
WTF. And we say our 'age' is the sum of passing years, and disparage as less those who have less years:
How would a government composed of only toddlers function? Probably crappily. A government of kids? "I have the conch, hear me, hear me -- crushed by the unconscionable boulder. And young adults? Emphatically, so the street will quickly fill with Robespierres.
Adults? Filled with adults addicted to digital Smurf Viallge's, Digital bakeries, Zoos, and Zombies Farms.
We? Are we not also caught within our own eddies?
We? Are we not also caught within our own eddies?
December 8, 2010
December 7, 2010
One Million Horsepower
"A Francis turbine runner, rated at nearly one million hp (750 MW), being installed at the Grand Coulee Dam, United States."
December 6, 2010
December 5, 2010
Sun
A huge thank you to Dr. Joseph Gurman, from the NASA Solar Physics Laboratory for pointing me in the direction of these images. Wait for the image to load below, it will be worth it:
For more data go to http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
From a different filter:
Via the Solar Dynamics Observatory AIA satellite.
For more data go to http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
From a different filter:
Via the Solar Dynamics Observatory AIA satellite.
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