Canvas #6
Friday, November 14th, 2008
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1907
Archive for the ‘canvas’ Category
Canvas #5
Friday, September 12th, 2008
Ekla Chalo Re (একলা চলো রে) is the title of a book and a song once cited by Mahatma Ghandi as his favorite. The title means “walk on, whether someone is following or not.”
Canvas #4
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
There are approximately 10,000 galaxies in this picture.
Each of those galaxies contains anywhere from ten million to one trillion stars.
The average star is roughly a million times the size of Earth.
And the kicker? The photo covers one thirteen-millionth of the entire night sky.
That’s small beans.
Since we can only observe stellar bodies that have had some effect on us (usually bombarding us with light), there is an outer limit to what we can see of the universe. What about the rest?
Well, according to some math we have no interest in going into, the size of the “actual” universe is so large that if the universe we just described (the impossibly, mind-bogglingly large one) were the size of a quarter, the actual universe would be the size of the Earth. Daaaaaaaamn.
5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode
By Michael Swaim
Cracked.com
Canvas #3
Monday, August 18th, 2008
And there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget that it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation. They forget the tag associated with it. They did these great studies, especially with older people. They give them information about health, Medicare, Medicaid, that kind of stuff. And they say, “this information that you heard? It’s wrong.” And what ends up happening is, that information gets ingrained into their brains, and even if they are subsequently told it’s wrong, they end up believing it.
Photography as a Weapon
by Hany Farid
New York Times
Canvas #2
Monday, August 18th, 2008
I suspect people are flattered, in a rather perverse way, by the idea that their lifestyle threatens the whole planet rather than just the livelihoods of millions of people they have never met. But the same sense of scale that flatters may also enfeeble. They may come to think that the problems are too great for them to do anything about it.
Rolling carbon/climate issues into the great moral imperative of improving the lives of the poor seems more likely to be a sustainable long term strategy. The most important thing about environmental change is that it hurts people. The basis of our response should be human solidarity.
The planet will take care of itself.
What is Your Dangerous Idea?
by Oliver Mortin
Oliver Mortin is the chief news and features editor of Nature. He is the author of Mapping Mars and Eating the Sun.
ISBN: 978-06-121495-0
Canvas #1
Monday, August 18th, 2008
Gallons of water required to produce one pound of food:
- Beef - 5,124
- Pork - 1,630
- Chicken - 815
- Carrots - 33
- Potatoes - 23
A Pound of Flesh
Lapham’s Quarterly
Volume 1, Number 3, Page 164