(11/28-29/13) Home Day 2 and 3; Coffee and Noise

(Taken around 11 pm on Thursday.  It was beyond cold.  This is an Itallian Ice booth.  There was a line.  Speechless)

What have you changed your mind about?  Why?

Jeffrey Epstein: "The question presupposes a well defined "you", and an implied ability that is under "your" control to change your "mind". The "you" I now believe is distributed amongst others (family friends , in hierarchal structures,) i.e. suicide bombers, believe their sacrifice is for the other parts of their "you". The question carries with it an intention that I believe is out of one's control. My mind changed as a result of its interaction with its environment. Why? because it is a part of it." (here)

(Adlai Stevenson, cite)

"However, the use of a discrete, symbolic encoding to represent complex and noisy perceptual stimuli allows speakers to remember or align quantity information with much higher accuracy than they can by using their sensory short-term memory. Thus, numbers may be better thought of as an invention: A cognitive technology for representing, storing, and manipulating the exact cardinalities of sets. Do the Pirahã then possess mental representations of the cardinalities of large sets? We do not believe that our experiments show evidence supporting this hypothesis. Success in the one-to-one and uneven match tasks requires participants to understand that the addition or subtraction of exactly one object makes a match incorrect, even for large quantities. Thus, the Pirahã understand the concept of one (in spite of having no word for the concept)." (Michael C. Frank, Daniel L. Everett, Evelina Fedorenko and Edward Gibson (2008), Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition [found: here]; emphasis added)

Observations, Dirk Coffeehouse (11/29)

• A man was carrying a red book.  I saw the binding.  It was called "The Red Book"
• Ice coffee seems to be perpetually filling, I can finish my cup
• I miss working at the library, at a coffee shop making noise is some how acceptable.
• I am writing a paper about sound without making any noise
• My Math Final Practice Exam just was released, in other news I am very scared. 

Back at Home (Day 1)

I think I might have missed these two the most.

Off to make latke's at Isabel's house.  

"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday."

[Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. NY: Vintage Books, 1989.]

It would appear as if I am never allowed to drive the car unless it is dangerously close to dying (see above: death) and I am able to refill it.  Clever ploy by my family unit.

Windows

Taken: 4th floor of Fondren, very very very early

Purpose: Windows to see other windows

Went to fencing club for the first time.

Cheered for the home team!

Rainy Day

To the Movies

The composition of a movie is no less important than,

The composition of a picture

A scene

A place

A time

An idea

Why lop of the sides of an idea?

The composition of a society is no less important than,

The question of justice

Of fairness

Of equality

Of morality

Of ourselves

Why lop of the human part of us?

Chess and, maybe, Revolution

(cite)

"I’m not, for example, going to say I hope I eat something tomorrow. I just will. I don’t hope I take another breath right now, nor that I finish writing this sentence. I just do them. On the other hand, I do hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash. To hope for some result means you have given up any agency concerning it. Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve assumed that the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they’ve stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it." Derrick Jensen, Endgame (cite, emphasis added)

(cite)

Currently writing an essay outside.  In the cold.

College is great.

Motion

I think I might have been walking... woops...

1. Why is taking a station picture the "go-to" for pictures? 

Is there something to gain from being "real"?

2. Can pictures every be "real"?

An image masks (and reveals) certain aspects of a situation, so something was created, right?

3.  I just watched [title of show] as performed by some great Rice Students.  

Can a play, the human moving picture, capture motion?

Is being "real" or "moving" a binary, simply yes or no?

Tomorrow is the last day to see the show, I would 100 percent suggest going!

Quick review:

• It was totally great/awesome/fun/interesting/incredible
• Go see it. 

Music

First, go here for the video

I honestly feel like I could writer papers on that music video.  I honestly plan on it, and they will be posted here in due time.



These guys were on bikes hopping over a row of people laying down. It was amazing.

Second, about to go there:





A large.

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (cite)



A fun way to end the night.

Good night!

2 Chairs

A chair's broken leg, being supported by another chair.

Chair comradeship.

 Seat Solidarity.

I came up with the phrase "Short circuit democracy".  I was really proud of that one. 

I went to bed earlier yesterday and woke up early today.  I was incredibly productive and was able to get some important stuff done.  Today has been interesting.  Interesting posts/pictures will resume tomorrow for sure.

A tad late...

One of my favorite little things about Rice.

This is a path that students, in an attempt to get to class in as little time as possible, have forged over time.  People joke that we "make our own way" or something and I love that this little path is living proof.

I got a ton of sleep last night.  I might try to stick to that kind of schedule.

Ps.  Sorry this was late, it shouldnt happen again :/

Monday!

"I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone.  And I knew that if it had finally occurred to Anse himself that he needed one, it was already too late." William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, 42 (cite)

I swear, people think I am crazy for just snapping pictures of the things around us.



I am blown away I got this picture despite crippling glare on my phone.



Making progress.  The chapter today dealt with Aristotle's definition of virtuous action, further refining what is good and how we can achieve it.  Turn outs accidentally doing something good doesnt a virtuous person make. Thanks Aristotle!

Short day

Rainn Wilson: What would the first sentence of your autobiography be?

Magnus Carlsen: I am not a genius.

Rainn Wilson: And what would the title of you autobiography be?

Magnus Carlsen: Magnus Carlsen, Chess genius. (cite)

Short day. Long night.

Esperanza, I believe

LATech didnt stand a chance.

Esperanza time.

The DJ really messed up some stuff, but meh. Life.

Everything ended at like 2, which means some of us needed to sleep.  Even under a box. 

And the night is still not over.  Currently telling embarrassing stories in our room.  

College, I believe.

On schedule

Design elements.

A lack of rules. 

Family. 

Debaters.