you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you. Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE. The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items. That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your gonna hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.
The History of Somewhere
"They were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of..."
Horace Walpole in a letter to his friend, Horace Mann (1754)
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The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
dvdp:
Complete time-lapse video of the Sun, spanning the entire months of September, October and November 2011 as seen through the SWAP ultraviolet instrument onboard the European Space Agency spacecraft Proba-2.
(via blimpsoverboston)
Stephen Pinker makes the case that we are currently living in the most peaceful time in history.
“Buckle up, it’s going to be an interesting ride.”
/via @ThomasMaxwell
I made a new blog →
I made a new blog to to track my explorations into procedural village generation. Go check it out, and maybe follow it if you’re interested!
The Rabbit Hole
…if we look too closely at the great people of our past, and use our hindsight of their lives as a map, we end up seeing the world backwards. They had no map in front of them when they lived their lives. The flawed persistence of studying a person from history too closely, means you will keep your eyes buried in the fantasy of repeating someone else’s past, instead of looking to horizons of your own making.
There’s a debate that flares up every year or so about whether Queensland (where I live) should switch to daylight saving time during the summer. The main driver of this argument is the costs to business caused by falling out of sync with the other states, with the detractors countering that switching the clocks makes no sense in a region so far north.
Until watching this little video I’d never heard anyone argue that the problem could be to do with daylight saving itself. Without realising it I’d just assumed that it must be a good thing since everyone else was doing it. It’s always a joy find another groundless assumption embedded in my understanding of reality.
~B☼
The best way to understand the manufactured world is not to see it as a work of human imagination only, but to see it as an extension of the biological world. Most of us walk around with a strict mental dichotomy between the natural world of genes and the artificial world of concrete and code. When we actually look at how evolution works, the distinction begins to break down. The defining force behind life is not energy but information. Evolution is a process of information transmission, and so is technology, which is why it too reflects a biological transcendence.
When I’m old I’m going to spend my time hiding coins in shells and throwing them out to sea, hopefully amazing some kid in a thousand years.
