The Pedestrian Crossing is taking a couple of weeks off.

Kayt will resume the regular Friday schedule on the 11th or 18th of July.

See you then

No tag for this post. 2 Comments »       (what is this?)

They are gathering now.

Each day in greater numbers.

Sparrow fledges arrive first, then soon the Starlings and Finches. And if I’m lucky the Horned Wrens will come for a week or so while they have young to feed.

Sparrow fledglings are so round, frizzy, and scared looking to me.

They sit almost always in pairs. Teetering on the wrought arms supporting my feeders. A blur of wings beating for balance and a lovely din of insistent chirping.

It is the dad sparrow that does the feeding.

One seed at a time.

He flies down to the feeder and up to one waiting mouth, and then again, and again. And then he flies to the nearby tree. Waits there. Watching to see if they will try on their own.

The babes flutter and chirp. Call out to him. Look down at the source of their food. Then cry some more.

So dad returns. And reassures them, shows them again that there is food.

Feeds them more seeds, one at a time.

This makes me think about all kinds of hunger.

Read the rest of this entry »

tags: art, creating, creativity, writing

4 Comments »       (what is this?)

My dad always wanted to work for NASA.

I never really understood why he didn’t.  He was beyond smart enough. And driven enough.

And he seemed to want it enough—told me once he would have even mopped the floors just to have been a part of what was going on there in the ’60s.

I don’t know about you, but in my book that is a lot of desire.

Perhaps he never pursued that life because he felt family demands weigh heavily, or had a want to stay in the home town, or grappled with things I can never imagine.

We all make choices. Sometimes they just aren’t very easy to explain.

Regardless, I grew up around all things space. We watched every scrap of televison broadcast on the Apollo missions and Lost in Space and StarTrek were shows we never missed.

As an adult I had the good fortune to visit Cape Kennedy with my dad twice, where he told me more about the different craft and the operation of the place than I could find in any of the written information there.

NASA always and forever reminds me of my dad so it seems perfect to share some NASA images with you on this father’s day weekend.

This is a picture of the Rocky Mesas of Nilosyrtis Mensae on Mars. My dad would have loved this mission. Mars, the planet of endless science fiction and speculation at last being revealed to us in pictures like this.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona iii mars mesas - read more…

iiii 

This is a flare from the star EV Lacertae.  This star is far smaller (a red dwarf) than our own solar system’s star.  And yet this flare is thousands of times more powerful than any thing that our sun has ever emitted. This makes me think of potential and how we never really know what  is possible. My dad knew this too. When the docs gave him five or six months, he decided he had other plans and lived another two years.

 

Image Credit: Casey Reed/NASA iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EV Lacertae - read more…

iiiiii

So the post today is really just these pictures.

NASA images that prompt me to reflect on my dad.

They make me remeber how he had to let go of some of his dreams to follow other ones, and how he never discouraged me when I tossed away my “good job with lots of potential” to chase after the uncertainty of art in its many forms.  

Perhaps my father hoped I had hitched my wagon to a star, or maybe that I’d found my own floors to mop. I’ll never know for sure.

What I hope is that wherever my dad is at the moment, the stars are more beautiful up close, than he ever imagined them to be.

iiiiiii

tags: image, memoir, nasa

4 Comments »       (what is this?)

Last week I wrote briefly about the burgeoning load of plastic trash our planet is bearing. And there is just so much more to say I decided to continue the topic this week.

I believe this is one the largest environmental issues facing us. One that isn’t very slinky or alluring.

One that doesn’t get as much attention as global warming and fuel economy but whose consequences I see has equally dire.

I’ve decided not to do very much writing in this post, rather I’ll do some listing and linking. Make this post a little spot that can lead you to more information on this distressing topic.

I’d like to encourage everyone to learn more about plastic pollution. To find out as much as possible about what is going on even though a lot of it is disturbing, and many times, heartbreaking. And then I hope you’ll go tell everyone you know.

In last week’s post I made a few suggestions of things folks can do that will reduce plastic waste.

This week I’d like to ask you all to share your ideas, maybe the little things you are doing to reduce your plastic waste, or some cool organization or program you’ve heard about or are involved in—whatever.

We all can use the encouragement, and I’d love to learn more and have more ideas to try out.

I’m going to lead the bulk of this post with an image I scanned in from Sierra Club Magazine. I’m purposely putting it in the continuation because it is disturbing, and I want to warn folks up front. I have it hanging in my studio because it is a compelling, potent reminder, but it isn’t pleasant.

Read the rest of this entry »

tags: charles moore, ecology, environment, food chain contamination, ocean pollution, plastic, plastic waste

2 Comments »       (what is this?)

Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate seemed to foreshadow the current state of affairs with his response. “Just how do you mean that, Sir?”

Just what is it we mean to do with all these plastics anyway? They are going to outlive all our grandchildren’s grandchildren so I think we should be doing a better job with the issue than we are.

We already have literally trillions of discarded plastic items floating in the ocean. This is difficult for me to fathom (sorry - bad pun I know, I just couldn’t resist) but it’s true.

Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere. 1

About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land. 2

This is essentially a plastic soup. It floats just below the surface of the water and is invisible to radar. It can only be seen from ships. One of the folks working hard to bring this issue to light stumbled on this by accident when he was sailing in 1997 and it was so large he ended up having to sail through it for a week. Read the rest of this entry »

tags: bottled water, ecology, environment, ocean pollution, plastic, plastic reuse, plastic waste

6 Comments »       (what is this?)

I’ve recently returned from visiting a beautiful part of Washington state called the Icicle Valley.

hiking above the village of Leavenworth 
ii
ii

Icicle Creek
ii

These snapshots don’t do the place any kind of justice, but hopefully they convey a bit of its flavor.

It is truly a special area on our planet and visiting there always makes me reflect on how fortunate I am to live relatively near such a place.

And I always return to the city, quiet and contemplative.

And I return appreciating anew how much we humans need silence. How much the white noise of our cities works to push aside our calm—perhaps even our compassion.

And I come back realizing how easy it is to forget important things. Like how my greatest responsibility in this life is to care about, and care for, my world and my fellow travelers.

Below I’ve included two items that remind me of important things. The interconnectedness of everything, how much we have yet to do, and that it isn’t hopeless—we can make progress when we try.

I recommend checking out both of these with the audio off.

In the second item, the soundtrack contains interesting information, and I enjoyed listening to it once. But I find the visual oddly compelling without the audio and have watched it that way a few times so far.

Here you’ll find a sobering look at one aspect of our planet’s health.

And this video offers a hopeful look at one facet of the solution.
ii

ii

Wishing you a peaceful day with some quiet in it.
ii

[video via ecogeek]

tags: breathing earth, environment, memoir, sky sails, spiritual

8 Comments »       (what is this?)

A non-technical scratch at the surface of this fascinating topic.

I keep tripping over references to semantic applications, semantic search, and the semantic web everywhere I look. And when it began showing up in main-stream sources like BBC and Yahoo it seemed time to at least try getting my arms around the topic.

And the dictionary is always where I start.

From the OED - semantic (a.) 1 Relating to signs of the weather (rare). 2 Relating to meaning in language; relating to connotations of words.

And from the Merriam-Webster dictionary - adj. of or relating to meaning in language.

So, assuming we aren’t talking about weather, it seems reasonable to conclude the “semantic web” must relate in some way to understanding the meaning of language, which makes sense given the abundance of language found on the web.

Since this semantic web thing can (and does) mean a lot of different things, I think it is useful to begin with a single core concept that we can build on later.

Let’s begin with the idea that, completely boiled down, the “semantic web” is simply one possible approach for working with information on the internet.

And yes, there is a lot more to it than that. And we are going to build some analogies to get a bit of a feel for its breadth and depth. But it is useful to keep in mind that this is all about how to better synthesize the vast amounts of information available to us.

Examples of the kinds of information that might be good fodder for a “semantic application” (software that uses a semantic approach) might include the question you type a in a search box, or the meaning of text on your web pages.

Keep in mind that these examples basic, and are by no means inclusive. Also, this post isn’t going to attempt an exploration of potential applications for semantic technologies. That’s just beyond the scope of what I’m tackling here, but you will find some great links near the end of the article should you want to explore the topic further. Read the rest of this entry »

tags: semantic web

4 Comments »       (what is this?)

This week I was reading one of Gertrude Stein’s lectures, ‘Poetry and Grammar’ and something she said made me think about the internet, blogging, and risk taking.

At one point she is talking about the idea that verbs are more interesting than nouns and she points out the following.

“It is wonderful the number of mistakes a verb can make…Nouns and adjectives never can make mistakes, can never be mistaken but verbs can be endlessly so, both as to what they do and how they agree or disagree with whatever they do.” 1

I find this fascinating and undeniably true.

Nouns really are static.

Labels attached by some action not their own. They simply are or they aren’t. No shades of gray. As much ability to unname themselves as I have to teleport to Peru.

The world around me seems to have an awful lot of noun about it’s countenance. Especially these days.

What is your name, where did you publish, who was your teacher, what is your nation, what color your skin, who sleeps in your bed, what car in your driveway, who is your god.

Not a lot of activity there. Just a catalog penultimately incomplete—the parts totaling far less than the whole.

But verbs are altogether a different deal. Stein is right.

Verbs are out there doing, and being, and becoming, and pushing and pushing back.

Which brings blogs to mind for me.

Blogging is definitely a verb gig. The ultimate non-static construct. Writing, thinking, discussing, commenting, linking, reading, thinking some more.

No question. Verb heaven.

And with all that action comes the undeniable potential to make some mistakes. Which, as Stein points out, really is pretty wonderful.

Running with the verbs is exciting.

and risky

And that really is the crux isn’t it?

No guarantees.

To put it out there realizing the possibility it may implode—downsides too plentiful to innumerate.

And doing it anyway.

Chasing upsides of pure possibility.

A dangerous game—winning moves elusive as untempered dragon’s fire.

-

1. Meyerowitz P. Ed., 1971 Gertrude Stein - Writings and Lectures 1909 - 1945

tags: blogging, gertrude stein, risk, writers, writing

6 Comments »       (what is this?)

I woke today thinking of light.

And then I began thinking of photographs, and images in general.

And I began thinking how light travels 92,900,000 miles from our sun to fall soundless onto everything.

And how sometimes the light falls on small strips of plastic covered with special silver crystals.

And that those crystals wait there quiet and expectant. A transformation to pure silver the ultimate possibility.

I thought about how the particular crystals that absorb light will cease to exist, and how this is their success—their reason for being there.

And then I got to thinking about time.

About how the light transforming those crystals takes more than 8 minutes to reach this small planet.

And about how that makes every image ever born already outdated—alive only in the past.

And then I thought about the screen in front of me.

About how the images there are light patterns formed from a different kind of crystal.

And that the words “liquid crystal” conjure images of ice and melting and potential.

And how well ice parallels the imperceptible crystal dance behind the images on my screen.

Those crystals existing in a state not liquid, not crystal, but both.

And I thought about how light arranges and orders the crystals and how electricity subtly twists them to change their brightness.

I am awed by the elegance of it.

And by the accidental poetry that is light.

A by-product of our distant hydrogen furnace, no more intended to transform crystals to art than the alphabet is intended to warm us.

And yet, in the right hands, they both do.

tags: light, poetry, science

6 Comments »       (what is this?)

We are all used to looking for the little lock icon and the “s” in our address bar (https://…) to know the information we are sharing with a website is secure.

But, what is happening to “secure” the information we are sending?

And, what is a certificate?

And, what about those certificate warnings that pop-up now and then?

I don’t know about you, but when I read that https and the little lock icon meant my internet communications were secure, I wanted to know why and the questions above were the first ones I had.

I had a great time learning about this topic and answering these questions for myself and I figured I probably wasn’t alone in wondering about how all this works.

Keep in mind, this article is a basic non-technical introduction and we aren’t going to answer these questions in great detail. In its complete breadth, the topic of secure internet communications and encryption are part of the field of cryptography which is very large and becomes pretty complex (at least for me) very quickly. But even so, I think we can use some simple analogies to gain a basic, practical understanding of how secure communications work. Read on for an overview and a couple of useful links that provide a bit more detail.

Read the rest of this entry »

tags: certificates, encryption, security, SSL

No Comments »       (what is this?)