Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Bruno, De Umbris, 12th Concept (M)

Deformed animals take beautiful forms in the heavens. Metals which lack luster shine when in their own planets. For neither man, nor animals, nor metals, exist here as they there exist. For whatever happens here, occurs there with greater vigor. The virtues, which separate and multiply in matter, there combine and unify. Clearly, as the Platonists say: ideas are not the only part of living life and developing reason; illumination, lifebringing and unification, conforming to superior agencies; these are the reasons by which one develops intelligence and memory of the forms.

-Giordano Bruno
De Umbris Idearum
Twelfth Concept M

Bruno, De Umbris, 23rd Intention (Z)

For shadows, there is no time save this time, no space save this space, no motion save this motion. It is abstracted from all truth, yet is not without it. But, it’s also not impossible to think (if this is an ideal shadow) that the opposite, or something else is also true, since it is all one. With shadows, there is no opposite, neither darkness nor light. So man took refuge in the Tree of Knowledge, and knew shadow and light, truth and falsehood, good and evil, when God called out to him: “Adam, where are you?”

-Giordano Bruno
De Umbris Idearum
Twenty-Third Intention: Z
 

Friday, February 22, 2013

Friday, February 15, 2013

Meteorite Strikes Russia

Lots of amazing footage is coming out today following a meteorite impact in the Urals region of Russia. Big validation for the Russian car cam trend.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Monday, February 11, 2013

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Links for Later 2-9-13

  1. Justin Peters has a long profile of Aaron Swartz in Slate
  2. Dan Blank and Seth Godin talk about Seth's Kickstarter, multi-book publishing
  3. Early color film footage from 1922

Memento Mori

Take a look at this photograph of a group of naval cadets on the front porch of the superintendant's residence. It's a fine day, sometime around 1900, probably in the spring. Meaningful glances are passing among several of the young people on the porch, suggesting a lot of stories in their future.

But from our standpoint, all of the stories are done. All of the people in this photo went about their lives, fell in love, fought, grew old, died. A lot of art is like that, but very little of it states this fact so clearly.

Friday, February 08, 2013

Paul Laffoley on Alchemy

(via boingboing)

The Future University

There's a heated debate going on over the future of higher education. Will the Next Big Thing be MOOCs/online classes? Over on The Awl, Clay Shirky responded today to Maria Bustillos's earlier article, which was critical of the MOOC model, and which followed Aaron Bady's earlier Inside Higher Ed post on the disruption of higher education's ecosystem by the online hordes.

Judah Pollack Defends the Liberal Arts



Or, the importance of narrative in our thoughts.

Friday, February 01, 2013

The Return of Nic Jones

Folk legend Nic Jones made rare concert appearances in 2011 and 2012, playing in the videos above with his son Joseph. Good to see him up on stage after a long absence.