Archive for the 'Obsessions' CategoryPage 4 of 26

Martian Colors

Published
by
Jake
10 months, 4 weeks ago
in Curiosities, Obsessions and She Blinded Me
. 2 Comments

I’ve been intrigued by synesthesia since I read The Man Who Tasted Shapes sometime in the second half of the 90s. It seems so bizarrely wonderful: numbers might have colors, musical notes might also have distinct hues - or perhaps shapes… It’s just freaky to imagine, and more significantly, it illustrates how seemingly arbitrary the brain’s powers can be.
Now Kottke points us to this post, which in turn quotes a Scientific American article about a wonderful phenomenon:

We also observed one case in which we believe cross activation enables a colorblind synesthete to see numbers tinged with hues he otherwise cannot perceive; charmingly, he refers to these as “Martian colors.� Although his retinal color receptors cannot process certain wavelengths, we suggest that his brain color area is working just fine and being cross-activated when he sees numbers…

Martian colors! That rules.

Is it wrong to be jealous of an “abnormality”?

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Track o’ the Post: Bright As Yellow from Glow by The Innocence Mission, because I’m a little girl sometimes.

Lexicographic Smackdown

Published
by
Jake
11 months ago
in Albainn Gu Brath, BiblioThingy and People Are Dumb
. 0 Comments

Having spend a number of years in/around Boston, I can testify that it becomes increasingly believable that the Irish may have invented the world.

Perhaps this tendency isn’t only a Beantown phenomenon, as illustrated by this NYTimes article about tracing a large portion of the modern slang dictionary to the Irish Gaelic tongue. The book, for which the article is basically an advertisement, is actually called How the Irish Invented Slang.

Like I said, though, it’s kind of easy to fall for these types of hypotheses (for whatever reason). Luckily, the intarwebs are full of differing opinions on just about any subject you could imagine. In this case, the counterpoint is solid:

In January 2005, I challenged Cassidy to present all of his evidence. I told him that I’m the descendant of three strains of Irish, four strains of empiricist, and the son of a bluster-catcher, and I said he was going to have to do better than trot out the same-old “they’re all against me!� argument of every perpetual motion inventor.

To date, what he’s provided as evidence is flimsy and fouled by scholarly incompetence.

Just fair warning, if you’re at all like me and tend to fall for the various romantic myths of the various Celtic peoples. Besides, everyone knows the Scots invented everything! ;^)

Here’s tae us
Wha’s like us
Damn few,
And they’re a’ deid
Mair’s the pity!

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Track o’ the Post: Erin Go Bragh from Dick Gaughan’s Handful of Earth. (Dick Gaughan, it’s worth noting, is a Scot and something of an internet geek. Nice!)

Back on the Mac

Published
by
Jake
11 months, 1 week ago
in Jake's Life, Obsessions and TechnoLust
. 7 Comments

So after successfully waiting for the release of Leopard (the latest version of OS X), I ran out the other day and plopped down my rewards-earning MasterCard to purchase a 24″ glass and brushed aluminum sculpture known as the iMac. It’s the 2.8GHz CPU with 2GB of RAM, and the 500GB hard drive, and it’s the tits. I even dig on Apple’s new waffer thin keyboard, somewhat to my surprise.
Continue reading ‘Back on the Mac’

Greenman: Half way there

Published
by
Jake
11 months, 2 weeks ago
in Tattoos
. 0 Comments

Saturday afternoon was again spent in Fish’s chair at Th’Ink Tank.

He came at me with a much more sensible approach of shading and coloring chunks instead of shading the whole thing and coloring it all the next time. (He did all the shading on Ed’s at once because he had to let Ed walk out with a tattoo that looked complete.) As per usual the color work is astonishing:

Green Beard
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

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Track o’ the post: Ullyses from A Passage In Time by Dead Can Dance, because the greenman is so Goth. ;)

Stuff and Junk

Published
by
Jake
1 year ago
in Colorado Living, Getting Fit, Homebody, Hooliganimals, Motorcycles and Yankees Suck
. 1 Comment

Firstly, it’s worth noting that The Mother-in-Law has a new dog. Molly is a blue heeler mix of some sort. She’s really sweet, though a bit crazy and fairly untrained. We’re hopeful, though, since Australian Cattle Dogs are in the top ten for dog breed intelligence. ;)

Next on the docket are the mighty Rockies. Now, I’m not a baseball fan. I root for the Red Sox on principal alone. But c’mon! Who doesn’t love a “hometown underdog does good” story? Best of all, I know one Phillies fan who is an extremely sore loser. This could be fun.

In general, Autumn is upon us. The transition seasons always get me fired up in one way or another.

The Wife and I are taking a lot of long walks with Mingus to try to shed some pounds and keep the dog happy.

I’ve barely been on the Bonneville this year, but it’s OK. My favorite riding time is now, so hopefully I’ll get in the saddle at least a few times. I wish I was like these guys.

I’m itching to start a home project or a woodworking project (or both) soon. Updates when I do.

Trip Report and Other Junk

Published
by
Jake
1 year ago
in Folx, Food and Cookery, Jake's Life, Love, Life, and Cam Neely, Obsessions, Sports, Televisio and Yankees Suck
. 8 Comments

Well, really there’s not much to report.

The drive to Vegas went quickly and easily. We literally did nothing in Vegas — In fact, we we most excited by the fact that the Luxor has two Starbucks. Party animals we are not.

The second leg of the drive into Los Feliz also went without a hitch. From then on it was just the usual sort of “hang out with Chris, Kate, and Chowda” sort of scene. Highlights as I remember them:

  • Best of all, we got lots of quality time with Scot & Matt. We love those kids. You might recognize Scot. Thanks to both him and Kate, I have a Bacon Number of 3!
  • Casa Bianca has the best sausage pizza I have ever consumed. I am curious as to whether it’s the sausage or the pizza. I cheese pie trial needs to happen someday.
  • The Museum of Jurassic Technology is supremely weird. A must see if you’re in LA (and like weirdness).
  • Friday poker: In spite of playing like an idiot (and in doing so, pissing Scot off a bit when I rivered and ace to beat his pocket kings), I managed to finish in second place. I had a chance to do better than that, but Matt’s crazy enough that I shouldn’t have tried to scare him out of a pot by going all-in with ace-high.
  • Saturday was Chris’ birthday cookout/party in which Chris ended up doing all the cooking… *shrug* Staggering amounts of Guinness were consumed, and I got to see some of my favorite people.
  • The Wife and I hiked up to Griffith Observatory a couple times. It’s a steep little hill, let me tell you!
  • Lots of dining out, but not as disastrous as usual. Though, we totally had to hit Tito’s Tacos.

The drive back was fairly ordinary except for a crazy huge moon we saw rising over the Utah desert.

Today, when I came back into work, I found a strange Japanese swan phallus thingy on my desk. Thanks to Miracle Ed, I now get the reference, but nobody here has owned up to actually putting it on my desk…

Random, unrelated crap follows … Continue reading ‘Trip Report and Other Junk’