Tag Archives: map

03-DICE

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Ground Zeros

The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well.

They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness & power & beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier for them to see that something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow.

When the world was in darkness & wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it.

But when the world became bright with reason & riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.

Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they – this garden Earth, civilized & knowing, to be torn apart again that Man might hope again in wretched darkness.

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)

12-HOTO

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Ecosystem

Take only photos, and watch where you put your footprints!

Santa Teresa County Park – Coyote Peak

This view is facing north. The downtown skyscraper rooftops of the city of San Francisco can be slightly seen in the top center behind the distant ridge. Click on the image and look closely.

09-SHOR

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Pathway

Adrian du Buisson for Quanta Magazine – March 12, 2019

Cells in embryos make their way across a steep “developmental landscape” to their eventual fate.

Embryonic cells continuously monitor their changing surroundings and make small corrective adjustments, optimizing as development proceeds, locking in on their planned identity relatively late.

Processing positional information makes genes variously switch on and off throughout the embryo, giving cells distinct identities based on their location. (Some cells unfortunately take the wrong paths and are unable to get back on track.)

All the information is there in the landscape and processing that information effectively may be the phenomenon that makes a bunch of loosely stuck-together atoms behave like the thing we call life.

Had I been like a man living in a wood from which he knows there is no exit, I could have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood who, horrified at having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road.”

-Leo Tolstoy

14-DASH

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Modernization

EV Display Panel
Wagon Train

I think that the BBC’s attitude toward the show while it was in production was very similar to that which Macbeth had toward murdering people:

  • initial doubts
  • cautious enthusiasm
  • greater & greater alarm at the sheer scale of the undertaking

and still no end in sight.

Douglas Adams about the creation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

30-WERB

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Energetic

Photo by M.Thomson

Had a great test ride today. Harley-Davidson LiveWire has a very strong, broad powerband and handles quite well as a quiet (and sweet smelling) street bike.

Expected sunny weather but instead got drenched by a cloudburst when approaching the foothills around the valley, so I stuck with the streets around town and put off riding the winding back roads. Still, lots of fun.

Windy.com

Interested in the drive to electrify California? With focus on electric motorcycles? LiveWire is #1 in the lineup of futuristic transportation vehicles.

Just think of the many issues needing resolution before the year 2034, including fortifying the energy grid and making electric recharging more convenient.

It’s an exciting challenge.

19-PLOT

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Overview

Calvary Temple
First Street Parking Garage – Rooftop

There is no way that a map can predict all pitfalls & problems or all pleasant surprises. A map is a metaphor that can point to but not capture the actual journey itself. A map is seen through; the journey is lived through.

Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
* direction of above photos