Yesterday got corrected for the coining of the word "scientist".
"In
his review of the work for the Quarterly Review, William Whewell was forced to
coin the term ‘Scientist’ as the previously used ‘men of science’ was no longer
adequate.
The above is in reference to Mary Somerville. Most sources have the
word scientist being invented by Whewell when reviewing her book, The
Connexion of the Physical Sciences."
I got it from a Ted Talk...
>
But my post concerning three-dollar words went south almost immediately with multiple comments from young people, no less. Check this one out:
"Your
"tree dollar words" as you put it, are, in my first opinion of
somebody, very crucial. I would love to meet some girl who came up to and used
an inordinate amount of intellectual words that say "I care about how I
sound". In my age group the best I get is "Sup, wut u doin homie G,
effin Gangsta" and garbage far worse than that, and at that point I
normally elect that this person is not worth knowing. I suppose at some point
it is a little obnoxious to use words you know no one you are talking to will
understand."
I appreciate comments very much. Keep them coming.
> I know I'm running this topic in the ground, but I can't let it go...
I watched the movie "The Hunger Games" and liked it. I think they could have made the ending more....optimistic, but all in all the whole concept was provocative.
STONE HENGE - I learned a few things. The word "henge" means a circle of stones or timber. I never knew that.
There is speculation that each stone represents a village in an alliance. And by displaying all of the villages in the alliance, it must have been a powerful deterrent to a neighboring clan with plunder on its mind.
(plunder = women)
You don't know who to believe nowadays...
Years of measurements pegged the
proton at 0.8768 femtometers in radius (a femtometer is a millionth of a
billionth of a meter). But a new method found a
different measurement: a mere 0.84087 femtometers, a 4 percent difference in radius. (I wonder why they didn't use the diameter?)
Shit like this always blows me away...
But, of course, these Little Trees That Could are doomed. Once big enough they will thunder to the forest floor.
1,000 words...
1,000 words...
Watched a documentary that stated the whole war on drugs is actually a planned war on minorities. For decades white housewives took opium, but it was only outlawed when the Chinese started taking it. The same with cocaine and blacks and marijuana and Mexicans.
Made sense to me.
This is not what I meant by kissing your dog everyday...
I've noticed that the best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer up someone else.
Actual headline:
New Tarantula the Size Of A
Human Face
Of all the size reference things (soccer ball, dinner plate, iPad, etc) they chose the one with the most frightening connotation.
Female chest protector, World War II...
Architectural glass is the #1 cause of bird deaths. In just the US over 1B birds die by flying into it. Domestic cats are a close second.
Do people who wear ties know they are going to have a good day if it's the perfect length on the first try?
I say, why exercise when they have liposuction?
Some people are lucky...
Some people make their own luck...
After meetings, when my principal asked if there were any questions, I would jump to my feet and say, "Sir, you did such a great job explaining that, that I am certain everyone understood and there are no questions." And there never was.
I bet if that worker could do this, he would be paid more than minimum wage...
Seriously, if you grew up in the United States of America and you don't have a skill that is worth more than $7 an hour, that is nobody's fault but your own.
I'm assuming you don't want any more details...
A blind man walked past the fish market, doffed his hat and said, "Mornin', ladies."
Sorry this is so hard to read, but it's a notice that was mailed to a man's house from UPS stating that his address didn't exist.
Think about that a minute.
This bit drills square holes. I used one and was amazed at the ease...
With the movie "42" out now, people a griping about the fact that only 8% of MLB is black. No news on the percentage of white guys in the NBA or if that is even considered a problem.
In other NBA news, they are now more accepting of gays, but insist on calling them homiesexuals.
Let's put it in plain language so there's no misunderstanding...
From an article...
(Why wouldn't you just call the number and ask the person who answers the phone what their names is?)
Music writing typewriter...
ON PASSIONATE CONVERSATION:
Speaking
personally: I try to take passion out of argumentation before engaging. I'm
always encountering stuff that annoys or offends me, but unless I've been
through it before, I try to ask myself "why does this bother me?"
Sussing that out usually pinpoints a problem I wouldn't have noticed had I just
launched into a reaction with no consideration. When I have a clear(er) picture
of why I'm saying something, my communication tends to be better—less stilted
and forced, more to the point, etc. Also, examining my feelings often brings me
to the realization that trying to be persuasive would just be a waste of my
time.
Know
thyself, as the
Greeks said.
(worth thinking about, but I personally lean toward profound, maniacal passion, especially when it concerns art....or sex acts that can only be whispered)
Google street view in Australia...
Speaking of...
Oh, how I love todays!
I actually watched this movie. It was a hoot...
Silly, silly girl...
How many of the recent shootings would have been stopped if we had laws like the ones now being discussed?
Feel good laws passed with the emotion of the moment is always a bad idea.
I looked for different images of this for a long time and apparently this is all there is. It is basically a huge pile of rocks, but nowhere could I find what the bans are that run from left to right.
Or you could use a laser...
Interesting word "Neutralize".
I love everything there is to love about wood...except, perhaps, its flamibility...
Wood - making people's lives better since...oh, forever.
If this is a perfect world, why can't we pee and sneeze at the same time? And why is the average penis shorter than the depth of the average vagina?
Where is your god now?
If this is a perfect world, why can't we pee and sneeze at the same time? And why is the average penis shorter than the depth of the average vagina?
Where is your god now?
Laughter is the best medicine...except for treating diarrhea.
I was listening to a book on tape and heard this line, which I wrote down: "Patted on the back like it was on fire."
I was listening to a book on tape and heard this line, which I wrote down: "Patted on the back like it was on fire."
One of my very own...
"Send me a pic" ruins many online conversations.
Look at this carefully and try to determine what you are looking at...
A simple mistranslation caused a whole bunch of trouble during the Cold War. The Soviet leader said in speech to the UN, "We will outlast you." (meaning Capitalism).
This was translated into, "We will bury you."
A guy told me that he believed in a higher power because of DNA....why would it have "Just" arranged itself into the perfect shape?
I said, Why would the quarks and shit "arrange" themselves into parts of atoms? Cause that's just what they do.
Interesting to think that quarks and such are also made of units of something.....maybe.
Enough is enough folks. We've got to move past this shit...
("We've got to move past this shit"...........that's what the gay guy said)
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
This is the way I go to bed when I have house guests...wondering if they are going to fuck with my stuff...
Had a discussion with a friend who is in charge of security for an organization that will remain nameless. I made some logical suggestions concerning stopping the security lapses and the man said, "Hell, I don't want to stop it! That would put me out of work. I want to catch them."
That art installation covered a whole room...
I like everything about that.
The pollen has been so bad this season that addicts are trying to convert their meth back into Sudafed.
The pollen has been so bad this season that addicts are trying to convert their meth back into Sudafed.
While staring at this, you are supposed to see colors...
It didn't take on me.
This one worked for me. As a matter of fact, it worked so well that I right-clicked and slid it (stopping the spin) and sure enough, it's just black and white.
I'll be damned! I just went back and looked at the first one and saw the colors.
Why do you suppose our brains do that?
Man pranking his co-worker...
Why do you suppose our brains do that?
Man pranking his co-worker...
Concerning background checks on firearms, we have all heard these arguments:
"Why pass any laws since
criminals will just disobey them?"
The proponents respond with this:
"Why have security guards and
metal detectors at the front door of the courthouses if the bad guys will just try to sneak a weapon in anyway?"
But they have missed the point. What if we already knew the criminals
were using the back door to sneak weapons into the courthouse and still insisted on fucking with honest citizens at the front door?
Couldn't you just see Anderson Cooper bitch-slapping some kid....
But the weird-ass guy beside the reporter gets off scott-free.
AND THEN THERE'S THIS...
Some people seem to think that everyone who is creative is an artist
But using the same logic,
shouldn’t we refer to just about everyone as a scientist since people use
science every day and some of them in exceptional ways. Or is there something
special you have to do to “earn” the title of scientist?
Further, is everyone who
plays a sport an athlete? Is anyone who cooks a chef?
I’ve even begun referring to
myself as someone who writes as opposed to writer because I don’t feel that I
have earned the distinction.
6 comments:
"Some people seem to think that everyone who is creative is an artist"
Every human is creative; it is in our nature. I don't like the word "artist" because it doesn't mean anything specific enough to have any significance beyond being an indicator of rampant egotism. If it just means "worker in a visual medium" then why not call oneself by whatever medium one works in? Painter, sculptor, photographer, etc? Then one would do away with the vague, snowflakey egotistical connotations of "artist".
But using the same logic, shouldn’t we refer to just about everyone as a scientist since people use science every day and some of them in exceptional ways."
No.
"Or is there something special you have to do to “earn” the title of scientist?"
Yes. Doing science is a prerequisite for being a scientist. Using a scalpel blade developed by a scientist doesn't make me a scientist anymore than sitting somebody else's bronze bust on my patio makes me a sculptor.
"Further, is everyone who plays a sport an athlete? Is anyone who cooks a chef?"
Yes. Experience obviously differentiates, but a master chef and a newbie chef are both chefs.
"I’ve even begun referring to myself as someone who writes as opposed to writer because I don’t feel that I have earned the distinction."
There is no distinction; the two mean the same thing. There might be some distinction to be made between amateur vs professional (i.e. paid vs unpaid), but that's about it as far as I can tell. You write a lot. You write for the sake of writing. You're a writer.
---
Experience has taught me that people who identify as artists usually think they're God's Gift or are otherwise so full of shit (not in a good way) that they can't utter a single word without flecks of poo coating everyone around them.
On a very basic level, I identify more with nihilism and absurdism than with realism, extropianism, etc. Instead of shoring up categorizations and semantic systems, I prefer to break them down. Rather than glorify individuals and ideas, I prefer to highlight the impermanent and contradictory nature of our minds and thoughts.
In my experience, people who want "artist" to be something other than a bland catch-all term for "worker in a visual medium" usually appeal to some "unique vision" or "personal quirks" that make supposed artists stand out from everybody else. That's about when I notice the poo dribbling down their chins.
But again, this is probably just a personality quirk of my own; I prefer to focus on the annihilation of self, on the fundamental absurdity of existence, on the inexorable force of change and entropy, etc, than to build up my own ego or to give credence to people who think they're ten kinds of terrific. I find unchecked egotism annoying for the same reason I dislike people blasting music around me: it's inconsiderate of other humans.
I think I'm pretty good at certain things, but I know people who are better. It's also my experience that people who are genius-type masters of things usually couldn't care less about comparing themselves to other people. I respect those people far more than I respect self-promoters and fast-talkers and such. Plenty of total-jackass egotistical turdballs make wonderful, provocative "art"; I don't have to respect them as human beings, though. And I don't! I tolerate them, of course, but I also tolerate Jehovah's Witnesses and other annoying nutters.
Let's just agree to disagree.
I am of the opinion that if you spend years of your life manipulating dollar bills in ways that they have never been manipulated, you better have a big ego. You do not totally commit to such a course of action unless you have a mountain of confidence, a confidence born from a huge ego.
I don't begrudge our personality differences. I would point out that one can have confidence that work is neat and provocative without caring whether it's been done before.
Claiming that something has never been done is assumptive in a religious sort of way; one doesn't actually know creations are special snowflakes, one just wants them to be.
From various perspectives, everything that can possibly be done has been. So what? Life seems meaningless, but we still try to find meaning. It comes with being a conscious creature.
Uniqueness doesn't seem like a very important dimension of interestingness. Attention to detail, contextual meaning, depth of insight, skillfulness, emotiveness, etc: all important when evaluating crafted things, ideas and behaviors. Originality is way down on the list. I return to Henry Ford:
“I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”
That aphorism applies to everything: every thought, every bit of "art", every bridge and scientific breakthrough. Everything is connected, in a very literal sense. Existence is iteration.
The Hunger Games movie, after reading the series of books, was a major disappointment. All the little details that had no meaning in the movie, such as the "mocking jay" pin, were supposed to be huge symbols. They just made no sense to even have it in the movie.
I think we spend far to much time worrying about "The War on Drugs" It cost a lot more than it helps. Though understandably illegal, drugs ruin drug addicts lives, not everyone Else's...usually.
I spend a lot of my time studying chemistry, inorganic of coarse, and physics. I have dabbled in particle and theoretical physics, got the particles down and realized, I am just not there yet, on the math level. Your comment about quarks is exactly why I study the sciences. I hope to someday do original research at CERN. The color ones are a wonder. I know your eyes convert photons of certain wavelengths into color, for color is just a creation of your brain. It is not a..absolute..I guess would be the word. You and I can agree there is a red tile but there is no way of saying whether your red looks to you the same as my red looks to me.
Last thing I have is, every female with an expensive camera thinks she is an artist anymore.
Surprised in you Mike...
"I think we spend far to much time worrying about "The War on Drugs" It cost a lot more than it helps. Though understandably illegal, drugs ruin drug addicts lives, not everyone Else's...usually."
THOUGH UNDERSTANDABLY ILLEGAL?!?!
Our last few presidents have admitted smoking dope!
Marijuana has no negative side effects. Nuff said.
But further, so what if I want to ruin my life. Whose business is that? I would like to think no one's but me.
Oh, No! I absolutely do not mean weed. I was talking about DRUGS. I'd sooner say Mayor Bloomberg is correct in saying soda should be illegal. On that though, I am a believer that the government should screw off on everything "illegal" except what hurts other people. Murder, rape, REAL crimes. I meant I can understand why meth is illegal, or heroin, but the laws against it hurt the people more than the drug does. A person who says "I have never smoked weed" is pretty much tagged as a liar in my eyes.
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