they're pictures of nothing at all
Vegetarian Deconstruction
Okay. So I'm standing by the refrigerator in my vegetarian co-op and I open the door to see what I can eat and I see, what do I see, but some sausages. Apparently, I discover, we have tons of sausages. And chicken. Vast quantities of meat have stuffed the co-op to the gills -- all of it left over from a local art festival. It will go to waste if we don't eat it. And there is tons of it.
If I eat this meat, then I'll be breaking my vegetarianism. But my vegetarianism is about the resource usage that goes into American meat, and it's about the cruelty inflicted on animals in American farms; it's not, in my mind, about my health (health-wise, I could probably use some meat; I'm not so good at the protein thing). So if I eat this sausage, then I'm not actually having any effect at all on the problems I purport to care about -- because this sausage has already been purchased, is left over, and will go to waste if nobody eats it.
But I could leave it to my housemates to eat.
But it doesn't matter, because whether I eat it or not, it will be eaten, and the effect has already been had anyway -- viz., the commercial support of awful treatment of animals has already happened, and so has the commercial support of an industry that uses completely insane amounts of resources. What difference does it make?
Well, I could argue that I am setting an example by being vegetarian. That I am helping the vegetarian movement by standing true to my beliefs and showing others that yes, giving up meat is actually not that big a deal, and in fact it's an important moral decision that we can stick to. Except that it's 2AM on a Sunday and no one else is awake to see me eat this meat, so what example? Where? I see no example.
So really the choice I'm facing is whether or not I stick to a rigid moral code in face of a choice that will hurt nothing. I mean, what does it matter if I eat meat that I didn't buy, that was basically rescued from the trash, with nobody observing me? The only reason not to eat it would be "because I don't eat meat, that's all," and shouldn't any moral code be flexible? Shouldn't everything be flexible, doesn't flexibility = survival and effectiveness?
But the moral crisis that led me to vegetarianism taught me that I had to acknowledge the line, that I had to toe the line, that I could not allow myself "room to maneuver". And yeah, I haven't been perfect about that this year. I've fucked up a few times. But I think I've done my best. I think. I don't know. I haven't done my best, but maybe I've done my best at doing my best. Argh, it's not enough. How about this -- I tried.
Anyway, the point is that I have to make a line and toe it. Psychologically. Surely the psychological angle matters. I have to make myself feel guilty for eating all meat because what keeps me from eating meat if not guilt? And how do I maintain my vegetarianism if I let the guilt slip? Except that I don't really believe that the only thing maintaining my vegetarianism is guilt. I have not historically needed a whole lot of guilt in order to do the right thing; my convictions seem to stem from something else. Unless the guilt goes deeper than I think it does, which it might. Anyway ... anyway ... anyway, surely I have to draw a bright line and force myself on one side of it psychologically. Force myself to see things in black and white.
But on the other hand, do I? I actually think that a lot of problems have stemmed from seeing things in black-and-white. It gets dangerous, it makes people follow the letter rather than the spirit, it blinds people to important understanding and compassion, it allows people to feel less responsible for their decisions ("I was following my code!"), it disappears all the shades of grey -- and life is shades of grey. Inflexible moral codes create monsters. Morality isn't about the words in the code, it's about the intent and the effect.
So really, if I want to show that I'm actually a thinking being who isn't blindly following a rigid and unchangeable moral code, I should eat the sausage.
Actually I think the moral of the story is that I should eat nothing at all and go back to what I was doing, which was working on wrapping up my biggest project before I go to Swaziland. In a week. A week. Not that I'm panicking or anything. Everything is fine and I am totally capable of getting everything done before I catch my plane next Sunday. Totally. Capable. And not hungry at all. I don't need sausage. Or food. Ever again. Eating is for chumps.
...
Saddam's Palaces: An Interview with Richard Mosse
These extraordinary images - published here for the first time - show the imperial palaces of Saddam Hussein converted into temporary housing for the U.S military. Vast, self-indulgent halls of columned marble and extravagant chandeliers, surrounded by pools, walls, moats, and, beyond that, empty desert, suddenly look more like college dormitories. Weight sets, flags, partition walls, sofas, basketball hoops, and even posters of bikini'd women have been imported to fill Saddam's spatial residuum. The effect is oddly decorative, as if someone has simply moved in for a long weekend, unpacking an assortment of mundane possessions.
... Fascinated by the dozens and dozens of incredible photos Mosse emailed - only a fraction of which appear here - I asked him to describe the experience of being a photographer in Iraq.
Detailed description of Hindenburg interiors from zeppelin history site
from cooper_korman.
Elaborate dice collection plus pictures
Includes ancient dice! Matt and I found it while discussing what ancient dice might be made of -- turns out basically anything from ivory to stone to metal to wood.
Research shows robots forming human-like societies
Dario Floreano and his team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology built a swarm of mobile robots, outfitted with light bulbs and photodetectors. These were set loose in a zone with illuminated "food" and "poison" zones which charged or depleted their batteries. ... At intervals, the robots were shut down and those that had the most charge left in their batteries were chosen as "successful", and their neural programming was combined to produce the next generation of the robots. ... Within fifty generations of this electronic evolution, co-operative societies of robots had formed -- helping each other to find food and avoid poison. Even more amazing is the emergence of cheats and martyrs. Transistorized traitors emerged which wrongly identified poison zone as food, luring their trusting brethren to their doom before scooting off to silently charge in a food zone .... Some robots advanced fearlessly into poison zones, flashing warning lights to keep other robots out of harms way.
Bibliodyssey: Books, Illustrations, Science, History, Visual Materia Obscura, Eclectic Bookart
Incredible antique book illustrations.
from my mother.
Antique vampirism articles
The "vampirism" tag from a blog whose description is: My current research has me looking through microfilmed tabloid newspapers of the 1930s. My progress is greatly impeded by my inability to scroll past unrelated “human interest” stories, most of them tiny nightmares like something out of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts (which you should read immediately if you haven’t already). Anyway, I’ve started this blog as a place to memorialize these spectral and transient tragedies.
from Housemate Ackerman.
Okay. So I'm standing by the refrigerator in my vegetarian co-op and I open the door to see what I can eat and I see, what do I see, but some sausages. Apparently, I discover, we have tons of sausages. And chicken. Vast quantities of meat have stuffed the co-op to the gills -- all of it left over from a local art festival. It will go to waste if we don't eat it. And there is tons of it.
If I eat this meat, then I'll be breaking my vegetarianism. But my vegetarianism is about the resource usage that goes into American meat, and it's about the cruelty inflicted on animals in American farms; it's not, in my mind, about my health (health-wise, I could probably use some meat; I'm not so good at the protein thing). So if I eat this sausage, then I'm not actually having any effect at all on the problems I purport to care about -- because this sausage has already been purchased, is left over, and will go to waste if nobody eats it.
But I could leave it to my housemates to eat.
But it doesn't matter, because whether I eat it or not, it will be eaten, and the effect has already been had anyway -- viz., the commercial support of awful treatment of animals has already happened, and so has the commercial support of an industry that uses completely insane amounts of resources. What difference does it make?
Well, I could argue that I am setting an example by being vegetarian. That I am helping the vegetarian movement by standing true to my beliefs and showing others that yes, giving up meat is actually not that big a deal, and in fact it's an important moral decision that we can stick to. Except that it's 2AM on a Sunday and no one else is awake to see me eat this meat, so what example? Where? I see no example.
So really the choice I'm facing is whether or not I stick to a rigid moral code in face of a choice that will hurt nothing. I mean, what does it matter if I eat meat that I didn't buy, that was basically rescued from the trash, with nobody observing me? The only reason not to eat it would be "because I don't eat meat, that's all," and shouldn't any moral code be flexible? Shouldn't everything be flexible, doesn't flexibility = survival and effectiveness?
But the moral crisis that led me to vegetarianism taught me that I had to acknowledge the line, that I had to toe the line, that I could not allow myself "room to maneuver". And yeah, I haven't been perfect about that this year. I've fucked up a few times. But I think I've done my best. I think. I don't know. I haven't done my best, but maybe I've done my best at doing my best. Argh, it's not enough. How about this -- I tried.
Anyway, the point is that I have to make a line and toe it. Psychologically. Surely the psychological angle matters. I have to make myself feel guilty for eating all meat because what keeps me from eating meat if not guilt? And how do I maintain my vegetarianism if I let the guilt slip? Except that I don't really believe that the only thing maintaining my vegetarianism is guilt. I have not historically needed a whole lot of guilt in order to do the right thing; my convictions seem to stem from something else. Unless the guilt goes deeper than I think it does, which it might. Anyway ... anyway ... anyway, surely I have to draw a bright line and force myself on one side of it psychologically. Force myself to see things in black and white.
But on the other hand, do I? I actually think that a lot of problems have stemmed from seeing things in black-and-white. It gets dangerous, it makes people follow the letter rather than the spirit, it blinds people to important understanding and compassion, it allows people to feel less responsible for their decisions ("I was following my code!"), it disappears all the shades of grey -- and life is shades of grey. Inflexible moral codes create monsters. Morality isn't about the words in the code, it's about the intent and the effect.
So really, if I want to show that I'm actually a thinking being who isn't blindly following a rigid and unchangeable moral code, I should eat the sausage.
Actually I think the moral of the story is that I should eat nothing at all and go back to what I was doing, which was working on wrapping up my biggest project before I go to Swaziland. In a week. A week. Not that I'm panicking or anything. Everything is fine and I am totally capable of getting everything done before I catch my plane next Sunday. Totally. Capable. And not hungry at all. I don't need sausage. Or food. Ever again. Eating is for chumps.
...
Saddam's Palaces: An Interview with Richard Mosse
These extraordinary images - published here for the first time - show the imperial palaces of Saddam Hussein converted into temporary housing for the U.S military. Vast, self-indulgent halls of columned marble and extravagant chandeliers, surrounded by pools, walls, moats, and, beyond that, empty desert, suddenly look more like college dormitories. Weight sets, flags, partition walls, sofas, basketball hoops, and even posters of bikini'd women have been imported to fill Saddam's spatial residuum. The effect is oddly decorative, as if someone has simply moved in for a long weekend, unpacking an assortment of mundane possessions.
... Fascinated by the dozens and dozens of incredible photos Mosse emailed - only a fraction of which appear here - I asked him to describe the experience of being a photographer in Iraq.
Detailed description of Hindenburg interiors from zeppelin history site
from cooper_korman.
Elaborate dice collection plus pictures
Includes ancient dice! Matt and I found it while discussing what ancient dice might be made of -- turns out basically anything from ivory to stone to metal to wood.
Research shows robots forming human-like societies
Dario Floreano and his team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology built a swarm of mobile robots, outfitted with light bulbs and photodetectors. These were set loose in a zone with illuminated "food" and "poison" zones which charged or depleted their batteries. ... At intervals, the robots were shut down and those that had the most charge left in their batteries were chosen as "successful", and their neural programming was combined to produce the next generation of the robots. ... Within fifty generations of this electronic evolution, co-operative societies of robots had formed -- helping each other to find food and avoid poison. Even more amazing is the emergence of cheats and martyrs. Transistorized traitors emerged which wrongly identified poison zone as food, luring their trusting brethren to their doom before scooting off to silently charge in a food zone .... Some robots advanced fearlessly into poison zones, flashing warning lights to keep other robots out of harms way.
Bibliodyssey: Books, Illustrations, Science, History, Visual Materia Obscura, Eclectic Bookart
Incredible antique book illustrations.
from my mother.
Antique vampirism articles
The "vampirism" tag from a blog whose description is: My current research has me looking through microfilmed tabloid newspapers of the 1930s. My progress is greatly impeded by my inability to scroll past unrelated “human interest” stories, most of them tiny nightmares like something out of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts (which you should read immediately if you haven’t already). Anyway, I’ve started this blog as a place to memorialize these spectral and transient tragedies.
from Housemate Ackerman.