ideometric

How much sugar is in the stuff you’re eating? Kind of gross.

http://www.sugarstacks.com/

The thing I love about teaching in Korea is that a good number of English teachers here are using the opportunity, time, and extra cash to pursue their creative interests on the side. It can be an inspiring environment.

I’ve always thought that learning an instrument would be too hard, but I finally decided to go for it and bought an acoustic guitar yesterday. It turns out that it is actually kinda hard, hahah. But it’ll be fun. Those callouses everyone talks about… I get it now, I can’t feel the tips of my fingers.

I propose a new internet acronym:

twwt – talk when we talk.

It’s got a different nuance than ttys (talk to you soon), or ttyl (talk to you later). It suggests both a resignation to or acceptance of the passage of time, which may be unavoidable. It has a hint of drama. It’s got a cool nonchalance, like when old dudes in movies say “I’ll see you when I see you.” It’s almost like “We’ll meet again.”

It suggests that whatever is keeping two parties apart must be of some significant import. There’s some fatalism in it, that “we will talk” is inevitable, even if when and where may be unknown. So, it implies a surety of bond despite the uncertainty of life’s twists and turns.

Plus it’s all symmetrical and stuff, and if you try to pronounce it it sounds funny. Try it.

Are better. Don’t you want to buy this car after watching this? I also love how it’s referred to as “the new small Chrysler.” Funny how perceptions change over time.

The music is also pretty slick, it’s the Adagio from the Concerto de Aranjuez, which was also featured in Ghost in the Shell II.

I’m in Korea and my car is in America. I listed it for sale right when the economy nose dived and credit dried up; my timing is terrible. It’s a 1999 Honda Prelude. Not a bad car, but leaves something to be desired if you want a real sports car. It looks nice, it has more than enough power for getting around while entertaining yourself and your passengers (ask anyone who’s driven with me..), and the stock suspension is very solid around the corners. The 200hp H22 matched to ~3000lbs of car is far more fun than a Civic, but it’s nothing to brag about.

I think I’ve outgrown it. Lately I’ve been obsessed with the idea of a Cosworth supercharged 2006 Miata NC. Light weight around 2400lbs, rear wheel drive, manual, with a nearly flat ~200-210lbft torque curve at the wheels and ~240rwhp. I’ve never been a Miata fan, and they have some stigma, but you can’t argue with numbers like that. Sounds like fun. Fun that I probably can’t afford ($13,000 for the car, $5500 for the supercharger kit). But it’s good to day dream.

MX-5 Miata NC

In the end, I will probably just pay off my Prelude and have some fun with it. Maybe install some Tein SS coilovers and replace my dented hood with carbon fiber to drop a little weight.  Or something. Someone please buy it!

The subway in Korea is great, but I miss cruising down the 101 through Downtown LA, or up Mulholland and down Beverly Glen, or playing on the twisty roads up in the mountains, and generally taking every corner too fast just for the fun of it…

Here’s a bit of what my daydreaming looks like:

Also this. (Plus watch the Ferrari in the beginning, it’s a rocket ship).

Brian Goodwin in a Supercharged MX5 at Cal Speedway 11/22/08 from Mark Vaden on Vimeo.

A team from Stony Brook University in New York scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that about one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship.

Previous research suggested that the first stages of romantic love, a rollercoaster ride of mood swings and obsessions that psychologists call limerence, start to fade within 15 months. After 10 years the chemical tide has ebbed away.

h/t sullivan 

Only one in ten. What does that say about people and relationships?  On the other hand, boiling “love” down to a chemical reaction seems, well, not very romantic and a bit deterministic. Do we choose the people we love, or is it out of our control? Stepping back even further, which scenario is most desirable? Choice, chance, or (biological) fate? I think that our language is lacking in its ability to capture the many different things subsumed under the word “love.” Going back to the article and study, some seem to correlate love with the experience of “limerence,” but do you really want a “rollercoaster ride of mood swings and obsessions” for decades? I’m not sure how that’s supposed to sound like some kind of ideal, maybe it’s a good thing that only 1 out of 10 felt that way.

Limerence is apparently a fancy word for having a crush on someone (though it is actually more complicated than that). The wikipedia article is pretty ridiculously expansive.

“Limerence involves intrusive thinking about the limerent object; acute longing for reciprocation; some fleeting and transient relief from unrequited limerence through vivid imagining of action by the limerent object that means reciprocation; and fear of rejection and unsettling shyness in the limerent object’s presence.”

If you read through the whole entry on limerence, it’s basically a giant catalog of obsessions, anxieties, and mental games that comprise the pretext and beginning of a relationship.  This is why I think being single for a time ain’t a bad thing, it’s freedom from this giant distraction. Sure, anticipation and uncertainty and games and all that are fun, but it’s also kind of a fruitless waste of time and energy if you’re endlessly in that state (either through short relationships, or a string of love interests). There’s a time and place for everything, sometimes its good just to be yourself by yourself.

At the same time, I think that love (in various forms) is crucial; foundational to the liberal and Christian worldview I find most convincing and appealing.

Unrelated to the article above, I came across a paper comparing Tolstoy and Solov’ev’s views on love. This bit bears put into words something I’ve been thinking – it reminds me of Touraine’s idea of subjectivity and radical/cooperative individualism (the end of society, which is something that I’ve also been seeing in Tolstoy’s writing) that I wrote about in my thesis, but in more relatable terms.

Solov’ev champions, above all, the crucial role of the other in the liberation of the self. He argues that love for another fellow human being, distinct and unrelated to the self in any preexisting biological way, enables a lover to escape the confines of his or her solitary ego in the vital recognition of a subjectivity as uniquely valid as his or her own. In later works, Solov’ev expands on this point to argue that common bonds with other beings can only be established on the basis of an acknowledgment of their existence as independent, conscious entities, and through a commitment to protecting their autonomy.

Moving beyond this statement’s validity in terms of an individual relationship, I think this is also integral frame of mind to cultivate in any truly revolutionary social movement aiming for greater justice, equality, democracy, sustainability, etc. Especially those that transcend national and cultural boundaries. But I’m getting ahead of myself to thoughts that are still underdeveloped. More later.

It’s a camera/mask for diving. But I think it’d be more fun to wear while wandering around during the day. Don’t you? Especially with the little lights on.

Got this in the mail from Amazon.com. What does your data footprint say about you?

 Amazon.com has new recommendations for you based on items you purchased or told us you own.

In this message:
* Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era)
* How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
* Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers (Classroom Resource Materials)
* Wall-E (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)

The scary part is, I wouldn’t mind reading/watching all 4 of them.

This is weird.

 A giant straw goat erected each Christmas in a northern Swedish town has been burned down – yet again.

The 13m-high (43ft) animal in Gavle has been torched 23 times since it was first erected in 1966. It has also been hit by a car and had its legs cut off.

1966: The first goat is burned down

1970: It is set on fire six hours after being erected

1971: Tired of arson, the project is abandoned. Schoolchildren build a miniature. It is smashed to pieces.

1976: A car crashes into the goat

1979: The goat is burned down before it is finished

1987: The goat is treated with fireproofing – but still goes up in smoke

(Photo from Xinhua. Hainan trash dumps in China).

One by-product of living alone is realizing how much trash each individual person generates. There’s a mountain of crap out there with my name on it. It makes little efforts like using reusable bags and containers, recycling, second-hand shopping, and generally being more conscious about waste and conservation seem much less insignificant.

There are design projects out there that address this kinda thing by attempting to make consumption and waste visible — like glowing power cords and decorative meters that illustrate the electricity that usage otherwise hums away in the background unnoticed. Things like that, I think, can make a big impact on conservation. They’re potential behavior modifiers that hinge on making individualized information about environmental impact available, like the MPG meter in hybrid cars leading to hypermiling and altered driving habits that emphasize efficiency over other motivators. Feedback is important, and offers a relatively benign way to encourage more conscious behavior. Throw in some incentivization, and you might be getting somewhere.

I suddenly understand why coat-checks are a good idea. Haha.

Photos taken around Samcheongdong (삼청동)

It’s almost winter in Korea. It’s a bit odd seeing the seasons change, and living without daylight savings time. The days are noticeably shorter, daylight recedes further each day, the trees have changed color and then shed their leaves, the temperature is dropping in sudden waves of harsh cold fronts.

Growing up in LA’s artificially perfect climes, it’s like realizing you live on Earth for the first time. Hi Earth. Nice to meet you. Nature? What’s that? Find the irony in having that revelation here in one of the world’s largest metropolises.

I like it.

A ten page article in the New Yorker about craft brewing and the characters involved, focused on Dogfish Head brewery.

“…to most people it wouldn’t have tasted like beer at all. There were hints of tobacco and molasses in it, black cherries and dark chocolate, all interlaced with the wood’s spicy resin. It tasted like some ancient elixir that the Inca might have made.”

It’s a good read. Makes me miss being in the states; Korean beer tastes like mineral water.

If you haven’t heard of Improv Everywhere, you need to check this out! They use the internet to coordinate random ‘happenings,’ breaking norms and confusing people with good intent.

 A mob greets strangers at the airport.

 Freezing in place at Grand Central Station.

800 random people listening to the same mp3 follow its directions.

“Brown clouds” made up of toxic chemicals are blotting out the sun in large parts of Asia, a U.N. report said.

Awesome! 

Picture above I found online, it’s Korea when the yellow dust & pollution from China blows in.

This is interesting, Google is datamining search terms and their geographical origin to map out and graph flu epidemics. It matches up with CDC figures fairly accurately.

There’s a lot of data to be gleaned from search statistics, this seems like the tip of the iceberg, but interesting no less.

Also, this is part of Google.org — which “aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease.” Sounds good.

Watching the election today (wooo!), one thing that stood out to me was Facebook status as a political space.  Seeing everyone log their hopes, anticipation, and then response to the election creates an interesting disjointed dialog & shared experience

I think I’ve cultivated a dry, detached academic writing style. I don’t like it.

DO WANT. Shelby Daytona coupe reproduction.

Exxon’s profits were nearly $90,000 a minute over the quarter, but it was less than Wall Street had expected. Exxon’s shares fell 4.6 percent, to close at $80.43. (The company calculates that it pays $274,000 a minute in taxes and spends $884,000 a minute to run the business.)

NYT

Recent research also supports the hypothesis that health can be passed down through generations [...]

A long-term study that included more than 100 years of birth, death, health and genealogical records for 300 Swedish families in an isolated village showed that an individual’s risk for diabetes and early death increased if his or her paternal grandparents grew up in times of food abundance rather than food shortage.

“Evidence indicates that what you eat can affect your grandchildren’s brain molecules and synapses,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “We are trying to find the molecular basis to explain this.”

Source

So, what does that bode for our obese, diabetes ridden, genetically modified food-eating, hormone and antibiotic fed meat-consuming, cheap corn-obsessed food culture? We’re already dooming ourselves with unsustainable energy, environmental, and industrial food/farming policies (etc). Are we in the process of creating deeper problems embedded in the genetic make-up of future generations as well?

http://ffffound.com/

This is the best time waster ever. (And occasionally inspiring).

Vanity Fair maps the blogosphere. Part of it, anyway.

Obama had an 11 page essay in Foreign Affairs’ July/Aug 2007 issue. Dig the cosmopolitan, democratic emphasis. (Here, behind pay-wall).

America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.

Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy — one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.