My cognate still itches

Josh Millard

Now, if I can just get this darn ironic distance meme (Ohrwurm - cognitive itch) out of my head.

Olympic Zip Line

Link

It's not everyday that one gets to fly hundreds of feet through the air past San Francisco's Ferry Building. But for the next 10 days, anyone who wants to can cruise along a 600-foot zip line that spans Justin Herman Plaza, watching the Financial District lunch crowd between their dangling feet or leaning backward to check out the Bay Bridge upside down.

The Canadian Olympic folks have set up a free zip line. I went Saturday and ,of course, the line was way longer than I had time for. (but if Monday is sunny ..) How they got this much fun past the liability people must be a story in itself. But don't worry too much, the correct posture of ironic distance will reassert itself toute de suite.

Sunday

Recursive Art

Dang, it's raining again. It seems like every weekend lately. Just a matter of time before the old Gray brothers gravel quarry slides down onto Sansome street and someone decides to paste it up again. Question: does a picture of a picture become art in its own right. If looked at bluntly, the original was stolen. (assuming that the subject isn't a paid model) A look at the purposed copyright law gives no answer short of hire a lawyer, and art theorists can fill 30 or 40 pages that boils down to "don't mess with our gig". Since I had to use an editing program to rotate and trim the above picture, does an Arbus picture become my work? After all, it has a clever title (with requisite ironic distance) and the word art in it. Just asking. Now the usual Sunday stuff.
Politics du jour:

• Varadarajan is just one among many conservatives thrown into apoplexy by basically nothing.
• Why no more 9/11s
• Where conservative intellectuals once had to prove themselves by the strength of their arguments, they could now increasingly get along by repeating not much more than slogans and audience-pleasing half-truths.

Money and Business related

• The answer he arrived at was that they hadn’t collapsed despite their cultural sophistication, they’d collapsed because of it.
• Exciting design interventions in your life of abject poverty

And some this, that and the other. A handy computer trick, a review of Valis, some culture and a sheet for guitar players.

• Some firewall programs may include a self-test feature in the controls or settings. If you want to test the firewall from the outside, one good tool is the Gibson Research Corp.’s free Shields UP! firewall testing service.
• This is the great secret of madness, one obscured by the doctrine of "creative madness": its banality.
• Indian religious muckraking.
• Quartal Voicings

Back in the Day

Photo via: birdofthegalaxy's Flickr

Them Durn Cows

Link to Video

A cow apparently wandered into a culvert in Kaysville, Utah and squeezed through the town’s storm drain system until she became stuck where the drain narrowed just enough. Animal Control officers officers were alerted when a couple heard noises and found a full-grown cow in a street drain.

I can understand how the cow managed to do it. Cows, in plain English, just ain't that bright. My question is about the farmer(rancher?) The article mentions a calf, which means milk, which suggests a stall sitting empty for five days. Cows are kinda pricy to keep around, and a no-show at milking time is usually cause for alarm. (them durn ETs been at my cattle again) Might want to put a cow-grate in front of that culvert while you're at it.

Via Miss Cellenia

Stones of Skiddaw

Link with Video

Around 1785, Peter Crosthwaite, an eccentric inventor, was walking around the area of Skiddaw in North Cumbria, England, and he made a startling discovery. He found 'hornfels' rock that produced sound. He spent months and months looking for more rocks that made the desired sound he was looking for.

Via: The Presurfer

But Will It Break the Internet

A solar storm struck Earth on April 5, triggering auroras and some radio frequency interference.

On 3 April, the SOHO spacecraft spotted a cloud of charged particles called a coronal mass ejection (CME) shooting from the sun at 500 kilometres per second. This velocity suggested the front would reach Earth in roughly three days.

Link and SpaceWeather