abraham lincoln abraham maslow academic papers africa aging aid alexander the great amazon america android os apple architecture aristotle art art institute chicago astronomy astrophysics aubrey de grey beck beer berlin bernacke bicycle BIG bill murray biophilia birds blogs bob dylan books bourdain brewing brian wansink buckminster fuller bukowski cameras cancer carl jung carl sagan cemetary change charter city chicago china christmas church civil war climate change cologne construction coop himmelblau copenhagen cornell west cps craigslist crime crown hall cyanotype cyrus dalai lama darkroom data dbHMS death design build dessau detail Diet dogs dome dongtan douglas macarthur drake equaation dresden dubai ebay eco economics economy education einstein emerson emily dickinson energy experiments facebook farming finance finland florida food france frank lloyd wright frei otto freud frum funny furniture games gay rights gdp george w bush george washington germany ghandi glenn murcutt goals good google government graphic design guns h.g. wells h.l. mencken hagakure halloween health health care henri cartier bresson herzog and demeuron honey housing human trafficking humanitarian efforts hydroponics ideas iit indexed india industrial design industrial work internet investments japan jaqueline kennedy jim cramer john maynard keynes john ronan john stewart journalism kickstarter kings of leon kittens krugman kurt vonnegut kurzweil lao tzu law le corbusier ledoux leon battista alberti links LSH madoff malcolm gladwell marijuana marriage masdar city math mead medicine microsoft mies van der rohe military milton friedman mlk money movies munich murphy/jahn music nasa nervi neutra new york nickel nietzsche nobel prize norman foster nsa obama occupy open source paintball palladium print paris parking party passive house paul mccartney persia philip roth philosophy photography picturequote pirate bay pirating plants poetry poker politics portfolio potsdam predictions prejudice presidents process photos prostitution psychology public housing q and a quotes rammed earth randy pausch reading reddit regan religion rendering renewables renzo piano restaurants revolution richard meier richard rogers robert frank rome rubik's cube rule of 72 rumi san francisco sartre sauerbruch hutton saule sidrys schinkel school science screen printing seattle sesame street seth roberts sketch social media soviet sparta spider spinoza sports stanley kubrick stanley milgram statistics steinbeck sudhir venkatesh suicide sustainable design switzerland taxes technology ted teddy roosevelt tension terracotta tesla thanatopsis the onion thomas jefferson thoreau time lapse tommy douglas transportation travel truman tumblr unemployment urban design van gogh venezuela vicuna video video games wall street war werner sobek wood woodshop woodworking ww1 ww2

30 April 2013

Tumblr

I started a Tumblr. It's linked in the sidebar too. I've been posting a photo almost everyday that shows some small part of my day.

I had a photography professor at IIT who I was a TA for say that if you don't have a purpose/concept when you're making photographs then you're engaging in photojournalism, not art. I wanted to say that that wasn't the case but for me it mostly is. I'm okay with that.

22 April 2013

Gasoline Prices, Cheap as Ever

I can't bear to hear people make statements that are demonstrably false.

"Gas prices are so high!"

No, they're low compared to the rest of the world and adjusted for inflation they're about the same as they've ever been in this country, so stop saying it. You're lying.

Source
Average is EUR 1.39 per liter.

1.39 x $1.30 (conversion to USD) x 3.78 (liters in a gallon) = $6.83 / gallon (premium grade)

The current average in the US is $3.85 / gallon of premium, so about half of what Germany pays ($7.76).

Same as it ever was. Source: NYT

21 April 2013

Woodshop Update #2

Actually got out to start working at the shop now that it's not below freezing. Just welded some 1-1/2" square steel tubing up overhead for board storage and to hold the electric, lights, and ventilation equipment. Lots to do.


My dad welding while I do layout.
The amount of lumber is staggering. Good problem hopefully.

11 April 2013

Misleading Statistics

On my Facebook feed I found this from MoveOn.org:



This is a description of my thought process:

Wow, 1.38 million dead since 1968... but aren't there roughly 10,000 gun related homicides a year in the US? So about 450,000... where are the other 2/3's?

Wait, you're twice as likely to take your own life as to be the victim of a homicide. Are they counting suicides? I mean, I know a gun makes one more likely to succeed at suicide but surely they're not counting that.

Let's check their sources. What? I have to type that crap in... ugh.

But they're misrepresenting the numbers!

I know, I know, I'm typing.

Source 1
Source 2
Source 3
Source 4 < That's my favorite

They counted suicides. I get the logic, but this is a gray area and to be fair if you're going to count suicides in that number it needs to say so. It's misleading.

Oh, and I looked up the war deaths too. Suicide was not listed as a cause of death in any of the tables cited, but it very well may be counted. The chart does appear to take into account all deaths caused by war and not just those in battle. That's good. However, they don't count Confederate soldiers' deaths from the Civil War. Which is strange because more Americans were killed during that war than every other American war combined.

Kind of disappointed MoveOn.

07 April 2013

Sunday Reading

Long reads this week:

Wired's Q & A with Mark Zukerburg reveals a more thoughtful person than expected.

Philosophical Landmines on LessWrong.com

There's a legal drug called modafinil that many productive people seem to be exploiting.

The Bitcoin bubble.

I've been looking for this for a long time now - Loevinger's stages of ego development. Backed by good research, but I'd caution understanding this in hard science terms.

This Atlantic article places much of the economic blame on Baby Boomers.

Psilocybin, the active chemical in psychadelic mushrooms, may improve personality in the long term. What's interesting about this is the credible source.

And a random quote from Noam Chomsky:
Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.

Picturequote

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown. - Carl Jung
This is Paley Park in New York City. This was during a class trip my first year of grad school in the Fall of 2009. Kodak 400 TMX medium format (120) on a Mamiya 645.

L > Vija, Jason, Catherine, Ric, Kareem, Aryne > R

01 April 2013

Details

I've been sketching a lot of details by hand lately. This is the progression of vertical plywood to a gyp wall that I'd be using to make built in bookshelves.

Have to do something while my soon-to-be shop doesn't have power.