Archive for August, 2007

Just came up on the ol' iPod.

Related to the last link - here's an ongoing project at Aural Fitness to build an archive of songs about the 50 states. As of this posting: Washington, Virginia, Vermont and Utah. Reverse alpha order?

"Hey let's move to portland or portland!" Despite or maybe because of the fact that this sometimes sounds like "Leaving on a Jet Plane," I love "I Hate Vermont."

Looks to be an incredible resource for those interested in the changing face of presidential politics in the television age.

The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (Arkana)
by Arthur Koestler
"...Gravity, to Copernicus, is the nostalgia of things to become spheres."

A good, excellently sourced and researched, and ocassionaly poetic general introduction to the course of Renaissance astronomy from Copernicus through Kepler to Galileo (and a touch of Newton), but Koestler's moral attitudes towards mid-20th century science, his motives (the fact that often scientists have been wrong in both method and conclusion should justify the legitimacy of paranormal research), and his willingness to generalize "astronomy" to "science," render some of his own conclusions about the past and future course of science somewhat suspect.

My camera was stuck in portrait mode (ie, not aspect ratio but some kind of wizardy facemaking magic) so I couldn't get it to concentrate. This is the third and sadly clearest attempt at this photograph. As if by magic, people stopped and waited for me to finish taking the photo on the sidewalk.

For the record, this was the weakest playground I've ever seen in my life. Like one slide, no more than 2 feet high, and a little concrete seal you could sit on. If you were so inclined.

Sprouting out of the top of this building.

"No more than one seat per person" is my favorite, but there's also the clear conflict between "No blocking free movement" and several of the other "No's".