Link Banana

Via Clusterflock, Edward Merritt’s (presumably self-authored) obituary in the Dallas Morning News:

Merritt, Edward “Bruce” Born April 3, 1951 in North Carolina. He was one of eight children. His older sisters regularly beat him up, put him in dresses, and then forced him to walk to the drugstore to buy their Kotex and cigarettes. After graduation from high school he went on to lead a life of luxury in the United States Air Force. After excaping from the government he spent most of his life as a mechanic, husband, and father. Bruce Merritt never met a stranger, and in many ways was stranger than most. He is survived by one daughter, two grand- children, two ex-wives, unpaid taxes, and many loyal loving friends.

Are we obligated to protect any life forms we find on Mars? One thought:

All of a sudden, it’s a judgement call. And that really hadn’t occurred to me until I heard Randolph talk of protecting extraterrestrial life — and though his arguments invoke religious parables, it doesn’t really require religious beliefs. He strikes the same vein as Methodist environmentalist Bill McKibben, who’s found a secular audience among more old-fashioned progressives.

“Fundamentally, the question is what it means to be a space-traveling species, and what counts as being an ethical space traveler. What sort of obligations if any do we owe to any extraterrestrial life that we encounter, whether it’s intelligent or not?” he asked.

Plants can do way more than you thought. Consider, for example, this:

If the sea rocket detects unrelated plants growing in the ground with it, the plant aggressively sprouts nutrient-grabbing roots. But if it detects family, it politely restrains itself.

This (temporarily down) has rightly been getting some loving. Jamie Livingston took a Polaroid a day, from 1979 until his death from cancer in 1997. mental_floss has collected some of the most interesting and telling shots.

I have found demonstrable truth that profound ideas can be expressed on Twitter. Spoke Mr. Frank:

so many different ways i could have lived this day. but i lived it just like this. and i suppose in that way - it was perfect.

Today’s topics seems to have the consistency of cotton candy. Usually they’re at least as dense as sponge cake. But onwards with the trend: this is a cool little chart of where humans fit among all types of life on earth.

The American has compiled some interesting data about the way we live today. What if found especially interesting, however, is this: in 1950 29% reported bathing once a day, 63% said less than that. In 1999, 75% reported bathing once a day, and on 21% said “less frequently.”

I just noticed a rather interesting argument that’s broken out between Slate’s William Saletan and the authors of Embryo, Robert George and Christopher Tollefson. The rather civil confrontation is over when an embryo becomes a distinct person. It began in Sunday’s Times Book Review, with a rebuttal at the National Review, and Saletan’s response to the rebuttal at Slate (title link), from which this bit is taken.

The embryo does have a program, and its launch does mark the sharpest line in human development. But even that line is dotted. Transitions that are supposed to happen at fertilization happen after or without it. As the embryo grows toward maturity, it becomes more like a person. Its individuality solidifies. Its body plan and nervous system develop. Its boundary with the mother closes. It placenta passes away. These, too, are lines in human development. It’s reasonable to build moderate IVF, stem-cell, and abortion policies along such lines, even if, like the rest of biology, they’re not absolutely clear.

Paul Mecurio had a charming piece in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine about what shall be called “consumer rage.”

I’m one of those people who yell at store clerks. Not just any store clerks, but the ones who are rude, incompetent or indifferent. In other words, all store clerks. I’m the guy who always has to speak to the manager. In my head, I’m “Consumer Man”: a superhero fighting on behalf of oppressed consumers the world over. In my wife’s head, I’m crazy.

“Someday you’re going to scream at the wrong person,” she says. “And you’re going to get shot.” This “wrong person” has figured into so many of our conversations that I feel as if I know him, even though I really know only two things: 1) he’s “wrong” and 2) he’s going to shoot me.

This is a little obscure, but I like it. Just click the link.

(via waxy)

Alison Buckholtz has a interesting look into the world of a synesthete — herself. Synthesia, which has always fascinated me, it essentially the mixing of senses. Like, as Buckholtz describes, numbers having innate colors.

I didn’t worry about colors for many years, and though I retained all of my lifelong synesthetic associations, I only rarely generated new ones. Occasionally, I met a person whose color was obvious and unmistakable, and I couldn’t shake the connection. In fact, I named my daughter Esther, in part, because her color matched her name, which to me is pink. Even now it brings me deep aesthetic and emotional satisfaction to know that she and her name are so well-paired.

Finally, in my early 30s, I read a short piece on synesthesia in a scientific journal. Decades of tension I never knew I’d carried instantly lifted. My freakishness had a name. And actually, I wasn’t a freak at all. I wasn’t the only one perceiving my surroundings in technicolor. I recognized myself in sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph.

Here’s a worthy idea for a Sunday:

A Zen master lived a simple life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

The master returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

I confess I also liked it because it reminded me of something I wrote.