Hot damn is that a good book recommendation!
on second look it seems its somewhat sloppily misrepresented. Apparently the book is not actually structured around the same walk taken 11 different times with different perspectives. some of the walks are the same, but others are in completely different locations. There also are reviews complaining about an excess of filler content.
I missed the colon in that book title at first and was very confused about a book for their mother entitled “on looking eleven…”
what’s that feynman quote about science making things more beautiful?
You’re likely thinking of this quote from a 1981 BBC interview in the series The Pleasure of Finding Things Out:
“I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, ‘Look how beautiful it is,’ and I’ll agree. Then he says, ‘I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.’
I think he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.
At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at a smaller dimension.
The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting — it means that insects can see the color.
It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds.
I don’t understand how it subtracts.”
oof, that’s a lot more fart-huffing than i remember it.
then call me high on Feynman’s fumes lmao
after reading a bunch of the books about him, i started noticing a pattern; he needs a butt to every joke. like, in isolation this quote is good but when you look at how he talked about people in general you realise that he always has to belittle someone to make his point. the artist friend is “nutty” because he has a difference of opinion, and richard can of course appreciate the beauty same as him, you don’t need a degree for that. and he does that constantly. it rubs me the wrong way.
same with his propensity for rule-breaking, he did it even though nobody but him thought he was entertaining. he was asked repeatedly to stop and he didn’t. he pissed people off who were just doing their jobs.
Yeah, if I noticed that pattern (I only know the one quote and was hoping the dig was just awkward) I’d be put off, too. Eww. I do like most of the quote, though.
It’s a pretty easy way to respond to being put down for being perceived to be smarter. When I was a middle schooler, I felt that way. I was in the advanced programs (btw. Still riding that high :) and certainly had a very “you’re just too dumb to see it like me” reactionary phase. I did grow up, though, lol. I realized Im also too dumb to see it any particularly special way.
I took way too many words to say that I think having a better understanding of the world is better and not worse.
oh i fully agree and understand the perspective. i also agree with the point feynman was making in the quote (otherwise i wouldn’t have brought it up obviously) and i think he may have been misrepresented a bit in that most of his quotable and memorable stuff (as printed in books about him) is of the more… i-am-so-smart kind.
if you have about three hours oh geez to spare, i recommend angela collier’s video on the books about him.
Ignorance might be bliss, but knowledge is joy.
Eh. More often than not knowledge is suffering as well.
Just ordered this book, thank you for introducing it to me!
Makes sense.
When I spend a lot of time doing 3D design work I find myself looking at the world afterwards in terms of underlying mathematics, angles and shapes. Like I’ll look at a cabinet and see rectangles and cylindrical cuts that could reproduce it in 3d, or a lamp-post as a circle extruded along a path.
People who are really into rocks probably notice more about that stuff because their brains are hyper-focused on such
Being an expert in software has gotta be the most boring version of this.
“Oh that point of sale system? It’s running Android 11. I can tell from the status bar at the top. That’s probably because the SOC in it was cheap in bulk and supported Android 11.”
Right, but you can also explain vulnerabilities and speak on topics like AI at a higher level and about that time that guy put in lines that worked like a kill switch if he ever was fired, and he was fired.
There’s probably some history there still too.
“Pos systems used to only run this specific kernel that had very limited memory because this buttface company lobbied themselves into a monopoly in the industry and we were stuck with 50yo tech until only very recently, which is how we got problems like that credit card input fiasco - this lady could never get her credit card to work because every time she leaned over to swipe, as she was swiping, her belly would nudge the keypad somehow and introduce an extra digit! We couldn’t even separate inputs whilst we were streaming movies off the internet, it was so backward. Now we’ve got a new monopoly with apple and android, it’s all held together by this dude in a basement somewhere. I met him once. He’s not a guy you can forget easily, even though everyone wants to. Also, he has eight fingers. But one of his hands only has two.”
Over the last few years I have been working on getting into botany, herbalism and urban foraging. Basically I am working on trying to identify every plant I see in my neighborhood and finding what their uses are. So in my yard and walk around the neighborhood I look at every plant and try to see if I can identify it. Since its easiest to identify while flowering I guess for weeks and months until then to determine if I am right. As the seasons change I get better and better at identifying things after or before a bloom. It really brings magic and interest as I move around the world
Me too! I prune my yard of invasives and let the natives grow, cataloging with iNaturalist as I see new species. My yard was a dirt slope last summer, this summer it is full of a wonderful variety of plants! My crotchety gardener mother and aunt keep trying to offer me non-natives to transplant – I tell them I’ve got plants growing already but thank you – they say, “yeah, weeds.”
Funnily enough, my yard with milkweed, primrose, violets, tickseed flowers, black-eyed susans, a walnut sapling, pepperweed, and st johns wort (not actually native here but not as invasive as some other plants) looks better than theirs and probably requires way less maintenance.
Low maintenance vis key. I do mow mine to remove any tree saplings because I don’t want trees there. I do attempt to bring some native seeds in because the seed bed is mostly non-natives. Got to get those going.
You would fit right in on our instance
What is your instance exactly? Like what can you tell me about it? Cause I think it may align with a lot of my interests. I get that it’s slrpnk.net and I can go to it and see what sorts of posts there are, but what I’m wondering is what can be said about it from someone that actively uses it that one may not see through a cursory browse
It’s a pretty tight nit group. we are pretty live-and-let live. Some granola vibes that aren’t for me, but see the previous sentence about letting live. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a hard core environmentalists, but from the science side rather than the more utopian view the instance takes. I suppose that’s part of the solar punk movement though - they’re optimists about the future in the face of destruction. It’s inspiring and refreshing.
We have our own memes channel, some highly technical channels and some more political/anarchist channels (thus the punk).
Give us a browse
I have been trying to live a solarpunk / permaculture lifestyle one step at a time. I am starting with plants
Oh my gosh this is so me! I started by trying to figure out what our lawn was made of and now I’m seeing NPFs (Noxious Plant Fuckers) all over the place! I’ve gone through my states Noxious Plant list and I’m obliterating giant ragweed as we speak.
I’ve found so many cool facts about the history of plants in my neighbors garden, too! I’m just starting, but plants are so cool! There’s a type of invasive honeysuckle that whitetail deer love, and it tends to choke out all other plant life around it. One day, we might have whole forests of deer and honeysuckle, with not a predator in sight. Whoops, haha!
Its nice to be able to see what you should remove. I have defeating the Creeping Bellflower in my new wildflower section of my yard. (The thin strip between my fence and the alley sometimes called the Hell Strip). If you are like me and want to know what is good to have in your yard I would recommend Prairie Moon Nursery if you live in North America. The shop sells native plants and lets you filter by location, bloom season etc. in case you need to buy plants or seeds. It also has a great range map, great pictures and good descriptions in case you are interested. I highly recommend looking at the website to get plants to names
Oh, that’s delightful! Thank you! Good luck with the Hell Strip
It’s a lot of Black Eyes Susans right now. But I got more longer lasting perennials under most of them. It’s super low maintenance and beautiful. I seed in the fall and sometimes the spring. I mow yearly (early spring) to kill any tree saplings and do some weeding in the spring but not much.
I’m planning on harvesting some seeds from my Susans and maybe the coneflowers this year. I usually just let them fall. It would be fun to give the seeds away or spread them around empty lots
I loved hanging out with an entomologist during the brief time xkcd’s geohashing was popular. Just sharing the love of the insect world they had
They also taught me how to make a drosophila (fruit fly) trap (cut the to off a soft drink bottle, flip it, tape the two parts together, bait it with wine)
I’m an expert on capitalism and everywhere I look I just see pain and ecological destruction.
That’s only logical. You should have become a taco expert instead.
Taco experts looks at the aftermath of a Taco Bell meal, “I just see pain and ecological destruction”
Some girl called me cheap today because I’m learning to sharpen my knives instead of just buying new ones. Consumerism is a cancer.
I know, right? I make our own fruit soda (kombucha), and my very boomer mom thinks it’s silly because Coke tastes so great! I need my daily Coke!
Bitch, right now we have raspberry lemonade, blackberry pop, apple and cinnamon ice tea, and fizzy mint ice tea. With extra vitamins and no added sugar.
This blows my mind. I’m that guy who lives rurally and has been poor for a good portion of my life. I make, build and fix pretty much everything we have because we could never afford another one and it’s stupid to not do that anyway. It hurts my brain to think people live like that.
It hurts my heart. This is the society that has been built and those skills you have from necessity were completely forgotten and ignored as generations were raised.
Now it is just too much we don’t know that yes, I could learn how to sharpen knives but teaching myself isn’t cheap. It costs the money to buy the tools, time to research, money for any mistakes, and a mental load vs “ok well I guess I can spend $20 and get a new chef knife” It sounds so simple when it is one thing but you have probably come across dozens of people lacking a skill one would assume to be basic knowledge.
Anyway that person was just an ignoramus
That book sounds pretty neat
Dang, I’m reading that next. That sounds fascinating
Walk? In this suburban hell?
That book sounds wonderful. My local library has it through Libby
There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see
