4 April 2019 – 51/100
5 April 2019 – 52/100
6 April 2019 – 53/100
7 April 2019 – 54/100
Thinking about: Justice served… Can’t think of a more fitting end for a poacher. (Washington Post) There is a follow-up opinion piece from CNN that paints a more complicated picture that is worth reading. (CNN)
Yep: The ranking of Star Trek ‘Lesbians’, in some alternate time-line/reality there’s an all lesbian Star Trek that boldly goes there. (Autostraddle)
Geology: Volcanoes! Lighting! and Radioactive Gas too… Using radon to detect eruptive activity. Cool. (NYT)
8 April 2019 – 55/100
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.”
Benjamin Franklin
9 April 2019 – 56/100
Inspiration: Mac Lethal’s #RandomRapsofKindness (Youtube)
To see: My favorite artists’ work (Hyperallergic) is returning to the public sphere in NYC during Pride month in June. More about Félix González-Torres. (Wikipedia)
10 April 2019 – 57/100
Inspiration: The first picture of a black hole (Science News)
One of the key scientists that helped develop the tech to capture the black hole is Kate Bouman, go lady scientists! (Heavy)
and the memes that quickly followed… my favorite…
11 April 2019 – 58/100
Friends: Vegan Italian Feast Day! We went a little overboard. I made vegan “meatballs”, Farinata Genovese (a chickpea flatbread), key lime pie bites (not pictured below), a cashew based super garlicy alfredo sauce, and pistachio pesto serve with Farfalle pasta, we also had vegetable fritatta muffins, and fettuccine with roasted red pepper with basil and zucchini sauce. So NOM.
12 April 2019 – 59/100
Thinking about: Isn’t this how Planet of the Apes started? (Technology Review)
13 April 2019 – 60/100
Thinking about: The Infinite Scroll (NYT) “Life under the unbreakable lure of the screen.”
When I was in Iceland I went on a Golden Circle tour with a small group. The group included a couple from Britain, 2 American couples from the NYC area, and a group of 8 Chinese folks of varying ages. The British people sat in the back quietly, the American couples sat in the very front and talked animatedly and loudly (and somewhat annoyingly) the entire time between themselves and with the van driver. The Chinese spent the first hour and a half staring at their phones. Then they all fell asleep. Then they were back on their phones. They alternated between screen and sleep the entire trip . One woman gasped loudly, stood up, turned around, and showed the couple behind a loud video of a dancing child on the screen. Another was passing around her phone with a picture of a plate of dumplings. They were in a van in Iceland but solidly and completely in their phones back in their homeland. Not one looked out the window once. I know because that’s all I did. It was both bizarre and sad, but my purpose here is not to judge, it’s to observe.
After the tour I read an article in an Icelandic English paper about the plague of Chinese bucket-list tourists, that come, tour around, but never engage. There was a question to the value (cost) of the infrastructure required to accommodate such tourists versus how they interact and relate their experiences of the country (relational cost). I witnessed this first hand. There was so much to unpack from that tour – culturally, philosophically, and psychologically. Traveler or tourist, bucket-lister or explorer, scroller or engager? We could all do with less screen time and a little more real life interaction and reflection. And a lot more observation, because there is something magical that happens when eyes connect tete-a-tete to begin a conversation.
