Dare Mighty Things

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“The major effect of testosterone is to make effort feel good.” — “The problem is the frequency with which we reward agression."

100-ish Books on Autism and Neurodiversity

Books approved by the autistic community about the autistic community

A colleague shared this and I don’t want to lose track of it:

Ric Elias: 3 Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed

It is a powerful few minutes.

Between the apps I use and my browser history, I can’t figure out who had the link to the “Beautiful Bubble”–however I fully support and endorse this. I had already taken several of the steps outlined and this is a great framework for improvement.

More like this, please:

Mental Health Professionals Responding to Police Calls Has Lead to No Arrests in the Past Six Months

From an email subscription today:

So be good to each other. Be humble and kind. Be generous. If you fight for anything, fight for justice and fairness. That’s what we were put here for.

This is what I believe.

The Winter Chill playlist on Apple Music has a vibe very similar to the HED Kandi Winter Chill series from the late 90s and 2000s. It’s downtempo indie and electronica. I’m a fan!

I recently relistened to Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione. I was in search of the source of a sample. I was in the right era and close to my target, but this was a miss. Except, listening to the full album track, I really enjoyed the musicianship—not only of The Man Himself, but also of the full accompanying band. Now, of course, it’s my current ear worm.

You’re welcome.

Gandalf and the Roman Cult of Mithras

Via Explorator

Nature Illuminated at the Minnesota Zoo is beautiful. It runs through January 17th, 2021. Highly recommended! Soundtrack on SoundCloud.

Tonight’s project. I actually thought for some time that I had been shorted one critical piece. Then I had to backtrack when I learned I had used an extra piece in error.

Listening to Wolfmother today.

They are a retro-looking blend of 70’s hard-rock, prog-rock and a little punk-rock. But with the vocal strength and musicianship to back it up. Not to mention cowbell and distorted organ.

I wish I could say I have been listening to them for a long time, but they came to me via a compilation from a friend. Today, I have been mining Apple Music for their back catalog.

Half-day at work, then cleared the drive of snow. Grateful for snow throwers. Husqvarna has been good to me.

I don’t know to which deity I owe the most thanks and praise, but I am grateful for the shoegaze genre and for Apple’s recommendation engine. I listened to a group called SPC-ECO on my commute this evening and loved it.

Do I start by genuflecting toward Grangemouth, Scotland?

The longer I live, the more I like this guy:

In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among men, a greater sincerity. We must achieve this or perish. To do so, certain conditions must be fulfilled: men must be frank (falsehood confuses things), free (communication is impossible with slaves). Finally, they must feel a certain justice around them.

—Albert Camus

When your daughter makes you a treat. Clever girl!

I love the novel The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury.

It was one of the early young adult novels I read in my life, and possibly my first exposure to Ray Bradbury as a youth. As a boy it was the first time I had deeply considered death.

What I appreciated most was the historical scope and sweep of history, but I won’t lie that I don’t appreciate being so deeply mislead about Samhain. It’s fiction, of course. An author can write what he wishes. Powerful imagery, but… wrong.

Yet I own paper and electronic versions.

It means that much to me.

My love affair with Danse Macabre began in elementary school. Mrs. Otten played Halloween songs on the piano and we sang from mimeographed lyric sheets.

I was introduced to parts of the melody via a song called the Halloween Song, which has stuck in my head ever since, because the refrain includes singing the letters that spell the holiday.

It sounded a lot like this YouTube. I’m certain my teacher played a copy of this very recording.

In music classes in later years we listened to the symphonic version while watching filmstrips of artistic conceptions of what the various parts of the music could represent.

Here’s a great article from CBC which includes some great background on the piece and some really enjoyable renditions including one for two pianos.

For me the piece is tied to Autumn and to All Hallow’s Evening, even though it wasn’t the intent of the composer.

Schools don’t track holidays the same way as they did, a long time ago. So for my daughter, I have work to do If I want this to stick.

I’m a long-time fan of Randall Carlson which I owe to the Joe Rogan podcast. Anyway, outside of liking and subscribing to YouTube channels and videos, here is another way I can start to support his work.

So, yay! The iridescent Gnosis sticker is cooler than I hoped it would be!

“The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone call metadata violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was likely unconstitutional.”

Via EPIC

“The Greeks had no original sin and no eschatology because they saw nothing inherently wrong with the world in the first place.”

Things you find reading papers from Academia for the joy of it

Please allow me to quote heavily from The Bard Terence McKenna—this selection comes from a discussion about language:

We use rapidly modulated small mouth noises. As primates we have incredible ability to make small mouth noises. We can do this for up to six hours at a stretch without tiring. No other thing we can do approaches the level of variation with low energy investment that the small mouth noises do. A person using a deaf-and-dumb language is exhausted after forty-five minutes.

But a problem with the small mouth noises mode of communication is: I have a thought, I look in a dictionary that I have created out of my life experience, I map the thought onto the dictionary, I make the requisite small mouth noises, they cross physical space, they enter your ear, you look in your dictionary, which is different from my dictionary, but if we speak what we call ‘the same language’ it will be close enough that you will ‘sort of’ understand what I mean. Now if I don’t say to you, ‘what do I mean?’ you and I will go gaily off in the assumption that we understand each other.

I stand behind my words.

What do I mean?

Jónsi with Elizabeth Fraser - Cannibal

Aiwa AD-F350U

Used a tape deck very much like the one pictured here. It was the first audio equipment I purchased. It played through a little amplifier I purchased in kit form and assembled in a high-school electronics class.

I dubbed many, many records from friends. Listened to hundreds of albums purchased new on cassette. Thousands of hours of my life are connected to this. Such an 80s artifact. It survived into the early 2000s but one too many lightning strikes to the power grid took it out. Still have the library of aging cassettes.

For two decades, this was a critical furnishing in any of my living spaces.

Listening to older music makes me think of the past.

The internet did not disappoint me. I was able to triangulate and find an image of the very model I used to own.