Spermatozoon

 A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo.) The term spermatozoon comes from the ancient Greek word σπέρμα (seed) and ζῷον (living being).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatozoon

Spring Proposal

Once a Year, during Summer Solstice day, the entire neighbourhood gathers in a park. Everyone gets a handful of wild flowers and branches, and they go on a parade, convivially laying a branch and a wildflower upon the doorstep of every home as a sign of goodwill to all.  


Returning to the park after the sacralization of the neighbourhood, there is a night time Park Party (ACDC, Jay-Z, Biebs, and Cher are the headliners this year, and we have a liquor liscense this time!!!1)

Aeolian processes

"Aeolian (or Eolian or Æolian) processes pertain to the activity of the winds and more specifically, to the winds' ability to shape the surface of the Earth and other planets. Winds may erode, transport, and deposit materials, and are effective agents in regions with sparse vegetation and a large supply of unconsolidated sediments. Although water is a much more powerful eroding force than wind, aeolian processes are important in arid environments such as deserts."


Below are the Wind-carved alcove in the Navajo Sandstone near Moab, Utah.  But first! 


Here is how sandstone is formed:


"The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages. First, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water (as in a river, lake, or sea) or from air (as in a desert). Typically, sedimentation occurs by the sand settling out from suspension; i.e., ceasing to be rolled or bounced along the bottom of a body of water (e.g., seas or rivers) or ground surface (e.g., in a desert or erg). Finally, once it has accumulated, the sand becomes sandstone when it is compacted by pressure of overlying deposits and cemented by the precipitation of minerals within the pore spaces between sand grains."


So... the Wind is eroding the cliff, which is itself composed of eroded rocks (grains of sand I mean) that had by now re-ossified into stone mountains. Goethe said: 


"on the beach, I found my first starfish... and some curous pebbles.  Limestone pebbles were the most common, but serpentine, jasper, quartz, granite phorphyry, various kinds of marble and green-blue glass... these can hardly have come from this region and are most probably fragments from ancient buildings.  Thus one can watch the waves playing before one's eyes with the splendoour of an earlier era."

Goethe: what of this cliff?

via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_processes

Belize - Photos

Things from my Pocket

Anonymous - A Movement

We must resist, not as a last act of desperation, but as a first act of creation. We will raise public awareness with DDoS attacks like we have successfully done in the past. Comparable to a sit-in, DDoS protesters disrupt business or government actions by obstructing the flow of normal traffic, in order to make a political point. Anonymous will fight against censorship and oppression. The truth is too important.

-Member of Anonymous, from a irc chat transcript with HB Gary CEO.

And is it wrong to fight for the Truth, against censorship and oppresion? Are these not, the ambitions of History, and the Religions?

Dieter Rams on Good Design

Bang on:

Good design should be innovative
Good design should make a product useful
Good design should make a product understandable
Good design is aesthetic, 
Good design is honest,
Good design is unobtrusive, 
Good design is long lived, 
Good design is consistent in every detail
Good design is environmentally friendly, 
Good design is as little design as possible. 


 - As transcribed from "Objectified" a documentary by Gary Hustwit 

Ocean Current

One important implication of this finding concerns the possible energy sources needed to maintain the ocean's large-scale “conveyor-belt” circulation and to mix upper ocean heat into the abyssal depths. It is thought that 2 terawatts are required for this process. The winds supply about 1 terawatt, and there has been speculation that the tides, by pumping energy into vertical water motions, supply the remainder. However, all current general circulation models of the oceans ignore the tides. “It is possible that properly accounting for tidally induced ocean mixing may have important implications for long-term climate modeling”, Egbert said.

In the past, most geophysical theories held that the only significant tidal energy sink was bottom friction in shallow seas. Egbert and Ray find that this sink is indeed dominant, but it is not the whole story. There had always been suggestive evidence that tidal energy is also dissipated in the open ocean to create internal waves,

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=205

Culture 6

"Everybody was asking, 'What's going on, why is Knut not moving?"' said Camilla Verde, a 30-year-old Italian who lives in Berlin.

"All the zoo keepers who put up the fences were so very sad. One of them said, 'He was our baby,"' she said.

via cbc 

Solowheel

These type of "things" always seem to be hard to balance:

Belize 3

The Groundskeeper of Nicholas Cay,

Mac,  Big Mac, was a large man.  

Black curly hair, but little of it, on the top, blooming downwards to splendid sideburns peppered with white hair -- but only a few.  A wooly walrus-mustache of delightful prodigitity, with a crotch tickeler bottom spout of hair on his lower lip -- immersed like the island we are on, by an expanse of five-O’Clock sea stubble of white pin pricks -- the light reflecting off breaking waves -- set against his cured complection.  

The Eyebrows and Eyes speak of a Younger Man, a Different, More Vigilant Man, more watchful then the buccolic cheek, chin, and jowls had previously suggested. The cornea is red and pink, mildly cooked from the sun’s constant glaring.  

Squinting always at always the Horizon.  Reflecting sunlight fromn crystalline seas and bleached beachs of Belize into the eyes dark portals -- Iris’s without visible pupil’s.  

Who have peered into a decade of bright horizons, beneath the bright sun, upon scintillating seas.

“Hello” He said to me when I first met him.

a little while later he said:

“This Island was not owned by the Government, you Know.  It was used by VIP’s.  Drug VIP’s.  This was a Drug Cartels Island.  The houses were for their guests and their enjoyment.  They also used it to Process and exchanges bribes with Customs Officials.  For whatever reason, someone was not paid off, and they Government seized the island.  And all those cement fottings, and wood piles were cabana’s but the Government just left the island, and kept a house there, or two, for Groundskeepers to live on.”

“They Even!” he intoned to me excitedly, “sold guns to the Government!”

“Bah” I said, “they always do!”

“Yah,” he chuckles. “People say I’m gay because I live out here.”  he said surrealy and without context.  

He continues: “On the side of this beach, on this island.  They say that because I am out here alone I am gay.  But the Girls here!  The Whatamalean Girls: they have fine asses” as he makes a vague hand gesture which might have once been an imitation of a guy grabbing a girls butt cheeks from behind, but it was made by a sunbleached man, with some demons in his cloest, out on this island for a reason, and this type of man makes the hand gesture in a different, more resigned way which adds a new level of understanding in regards to the meaning of that particular organism of Gesture, i.e The Man Grabbing Butt Cheeks, Aggresivley Gesture.  

“But they are not here” he said. “They come later in the year”

“Yes, they always do!” I said forlornly.  

Conversation moves on... to Sea Turtles... of mothers who lay 140 eggs.  

Of babies turtles, smaller then the palm of my hand crawling out following the moon to reach the sea: mad dash.

Mac hold’s his hands cupped in front of him, telling me how he carries the wayward ones to the sea and how they squirm and rush forward, “Full of Life, Full of Purpoise, wanting to reach the Sea.” Mac, Grizzled, becomes soft.  I do to. We are both visibly moved by his story, by his passion: I pat him affectionately on the shoulder and say: “You’re a Philosopher.  This is good.”

I bid him a heartfelt, and deeply empathetic goodbye, but he in jubiliation points out a school of Bone Fish in the shallows in front of us.

“The Whatamaleans come and catch these fish and use them for bait for larger fish, I have to keep them away. To protect the Bone Fish. It is part of my job too”

“Ah! The Whuatamleans” I say.

Culture 5

"...Police were called in on Thursday to control a large crowd of girls who had gathered outside the Hard Days Night hotel where Bieber was staying."

"They were forced to close a central city street to traffic, and were at the scene for around six hours before the fans eventually left."

via Reuters

Belize 2

Got back yesterday.

I'm going to post a few stories with some photos in increments, so bear with me.