i have realized that the larger the amount of suffering, the larger the sense of accomplishment. this sese of accomplishment coming after the suffering, of course. and usually while on is still feeling the affects of endorphines.
*this lightbulb brought to you by the Noquemanon ski marathon*
maybe a picture later, when the race photographer decides to post them.
camera phones. they're so common today you'd swear they were...well, the only things i can think of to compare them to are all technology as well, so forget it. cell phones in general, and camera (and other gadgets) phones specifically are an example of a technopoly because they are something that we have accepted, yet do not know the future of. don't get me wrong, cell phones are just fine by me. they're very useful, and have helped in countless emergency situations. but i think people lose sight of that quality, and get caught up in the newest technologies. what happened to just having a cell phone? now it has to take high quality pictures, send them to friends, connect to the internet, play music, talk to your car... the list goes on. it's hard today to find a cell phone that is simply that, a cell phone.
cell/camera phones are also technopolies because they are leading us towards total dependence. we as students leave home to become independent of our families, only to become fully dependent on our cell phones. if we forget it at home when we go out, it's the end of the world. it didn't used to be this way, so why is it now? cell phones are widely accepted and have moved us closer to dependence (which in this case is a bad thing) and that makes them a technopoly.
camera phones have also moved us away from traditional photography, which in my opinion is horrible, because using one of these is way more fun and rewarding, not to mention that the image quality is way better.
gustav klimt, "the beech forest"
from a geometrical shape, we get:
the great pyramid at giza, final resting place of khefre, and:
the pyramid at chichen itza, and most recently:
i. m. pei's work in front of the louvre in paris.
so, the pyramid has represented such tangents as a tomb, a place of worship and sacrifice, and an entrance to a famous museum. despite all this, however, it can still be represented by eight straight lines, a few lowercase letters, and some numbers in degrees.
...is amazing
by Daniel Libeskind
check it out here: http://www.jmberlin.de
a few more photos after the jump.
we were told to be creative, so here's a stretch. after competing in a bike race earlier today (see above), i realized something even though i had know it for awhile. endorphines and adrenaline are really helpful. by all means, i should have been exhausted half way through the race. it was 18 miles, which doesn't sound like a lot, but keep in mind that this was all off-road, with some long nasty climbs and rocky descents, on a bike with only one gear (that was by choice, though).
what made me realize what i did was because of riding the race course last weekend with some other teammates, for about two hours. granted we weren't going at race speed, but i was more tired after that than i was after the race today (after hacking up some dust and drinking mass amounts of water). this is a rather common thing for many types of competition as well, so maybe you can relate.
okay, why is this a phenomenon? well i'll tell you. first off, it meets the criteria layed down by ozayr. the thing is fatigue, the framework is the bike race (or any other competition, for that matter), and the clockwork is a stopwatch and a start/finish line in this case. the adreniline kicks in when the gun goes off, and lasts for awhile. that gets you going, often faster than your muscles would like. then, after awhile, your body starts producing endorphines, which cheer you (and your muscles) up, move your mind away from the muscle pain and towards how much fun you're having, and thus keeps you going. so instead of thinking of dropping out, you keep racing, and have more fun.
this is expressed as: fun+ fun = more fun
just kidding.
how the heck are these residents going to get out of their apartement if there's a fire? they could try to use the fire escape, but they'd end up in a tangle of vines, weeds, a fence three feet from their building, and probably tetnus. the best part? this is on Grand Ave. in St. Paul, but the well-to-do shoppers aren't going to see. of course not. the tennants probably had to by this apartment because they could find affordable housing in any new development, only expensive condos. but that's a whole other rant.
and this isn't just a recent problem either. oh no. wasy back in 1911 there was a famous case involving a apartment building in NYC. here's a exerpt from the Times:
"City, country, and state officials were involved yesterday in the discussion of responsibility for the conditions existing in the ten-story loft building at University Place and Green Street, where Saturday evening's fire cost 142 lives, the latest victim dying in a hospital yesterday. Responsibility for the inadequate fire escape facilities was charged directly to the Building Department. In its defense Borough President McAneny issued a statement last night…Mr. McAneny said the plans for the Washington Place building were filed eleven years ago and were accepted as complying with the law. This fact urged, contended that its Inspectors never had time to look at buildings except those in process of construction, and that several of its small force of Inspectors were grossly incompetent.�
( http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/triangle/trianglenyt4.html )
when i was at the midtown global market earlier today, i saw energy in a whole new light. coming from an engineering background, i know the 'law of conservation of energy.' but before today had not thought of it in any other context. midtown was alive with energy. the kind of energy that comes from a large amount of people, but also something more important than that. that's right, america, food. we love food. but at midtown, it's not the kind of food that the average american would think of. there's food in these small, authenic markets that you wouldn't know what to do with.
ok, back to that law. it states, i know, that energy can be manipulated but not created or destroyed. the designers and planners of midtown market have manipulated the energy that was in the old sears warehouse into this international affair.
the one thing, aside from the general structure of the building, that the designers left alone was a footprint. this footprint was left intentionally in some fresh cement by a worker in the sears warehouse. the energy that it took to make that footprint was preserved while the energy from the rest of the warehouse was manipulated into a great new market.
