02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Examples of Hyperliterature
17776: What football will look like in the future by Jon Bois — SB Nation A serial piece about space probes in the far future that have gained sentience and are watching humanity play an evolved form of American football. GIFs, animations, and found digital media galore.
Adrien Brody by Marie Calloway An account of the author’s romantic relationship with a married journalist, Adrien Brody. Told via emails, texts, and other exchanges.
Breathe by Kate Pullinger A ghost story in tap for...Folksonomies: new media hyperliterature
Folksonomies: new media hyperliterature
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notes
notes27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Tadpole and Fish Fable of Comprehension
Michael Dickmann: Here's what the story is. There was this little tadpole and a fish that grew up in a pond, and they were always intensely curious about life outside the pond. And then, eventually, the tadpole grows into a frog and discovers that, because he's an amphibian, he can go out and see what life is like. So he comes back and tells the fish what he's seen.
He says, "Well, look, one of the things is that there's neat creatures called birds that can actually fly in the air, and they ... 1 notes
notes07 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Biocides
These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes—non-selective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the "good" and the "bad," to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in the soil—all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface ...Folksonomies: environmentalism
Folksonomies: environmentalism
1 notes
notes03 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Specialization is Unnatural
All universities have been progressively organized for ever finer
specialization. Society assumes that specialization is natural,
inevitable, and desirable. Yet in observing a little child, we find it is
interested in everything and spontaneously apprehends,
comprehends, and co-ordinates an ever expending inventory of
experiences. Children are enthusiastic planetarium audiences.
Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its
wanting to understand all and put everything together.... 1 notes
notesHomo sapiens most prominent adaptation is our adaptability.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Nature contains no one constant form.
With respect to those who may ask why Nature does not produce new beings? We may enquire of them in turn, upon what foundation they suppose this fact? What it is that authorizes them to believe this sterility in Nature? Know they if, in the various combinations which she is every instant forming, Nature be not occupied in producing new beings, without the cognizance of these observers? Who has informed them that this Nature is not actually assembling, in her immense elaboratory, the elements ... 1 notes
notesIt has the propensity to produce new forms, not just what we see today.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Plesiosaurs Sucked
There were no real sea serpents in the Mesozoic Era, but the plesiosaurs were the next thing to it. The plesiosaurs were reptiles who had gone back to the water because it seemed like a good idea at the time. As they knew little or nothing about swimming, they rowed themselves around in the water with their four paddles, instead of using their tails for propulsion like the brighter marine animals. (Such as the ichthyosaurs, who used their paddles for balancing and steering. The plesiosaurs di...Folksonomies: adaptation
Folksonomies: adaptation
1 notes
notesWill Cuppy convincingly argues that this reptile was incredibly poorly adapted to life in the ocean.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Sir Charles Bell on the Phylogeny of the Fetus' Brain
Man has two conditions of existence in the body. Hardly two creatures can be less alike than an infant and a man. The whole fetal state is a preparation for birth ... The human brain, in its earlier stage, resembles that of a fish: as it is developed, it resembles more the cerebral mass of a reptile; in its increase, it is like that of a bird, and slowly, and only after birth, does it assume the proper form and consistence of the human encephalon. Which recapitulates its evolutionary history (note: need reference for this)
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is a Progressive Activity
Science is a progressive activity. The outstanding peculiarity of man is that he stumbled onto the possibility of progressive activities. Such progress, the accumulation of experience from generation to generation, depended first on the development of language, then of writing and finally of printing. These allowed the accumulation of tradition and of knowledge, of the whole aura of cultural inheritance that surrounds us. This has so conditioned our existence that it is almost impossible for ... 1 notes
notesIt depends on language, writing, and printing in order to build upon preceding ideas. We build upon the culture we are born into, which makes its examination and scrutiny difficult.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Putting Statistics in Perspective
Now let's get a handle on what it really means to have a 1-in6,500 or a 1-in-13,000 chance of dying. It's as if you lived on an island in the South Pacific with a population of 650. You make your living by swimming around in the azure waters around your idyllic paradise and spearing fish for dinner. Yum, yum. About once every ten years, a stray shark happens by and eats a swimmer. That's a 1-in-6,500 chance of any one person being eaten by a shark, just the same as the odds of dying in an aut...Folksonomies: statistics fear
Folksonomies: statistics fear
1 notes
notesA great way to think about cause of death statistics.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
The Science Haves and Have-Nots
Today the greatest divide within humanity is not between races, or religions, or even, as widely believes, between the literate and illiterate. It is the chasm that separates scientific from prescientific cultures. Without the instruments and accumulated knowledge of the natural sciences--physics, chemistry, and biology--humans are trapped in a cognitive prison. They are like intelligent fish born in a deep, shadowed pool. Wondering and restless, longing to reach out, they think about the wor...Folksonomies: spiritual naturalism
Folksonomies: spiritual naturalism
1 Without science, people are trapped within a "cognitive prison".
