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August 20, 2010
Space nerd alert.
The fact that these point-of-view videos from Space Shuttle launches have as few views as they do on YouTube is totally bizarre to me.
This is teh awesome.
August 12, 2010
Please visit the concession stand.
Via Boing Boing.
August 10, 2010
The next time you're stumped by a crossword puzzle...
...consult my wife. She has an answer for you.
August 7, 2010
Terror from the skies.
Back in our Seattle days, each August brought Seafair—a massive orgy of petroleum consumption via hydroplane races on Lake Washington and flyovers by the Blue Angels overhead.
When a McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet passes a hundred feet or so above you, there's an explosively pants-soiling blast that shakes windows, terrifies pets, and triggers every fight-or-flight hormone available. And for anyone living on the perimeter of downtown Seattle during Seafair, there's virtually no warning of the blasts that recur throughout the day, because these marvels of American technology are flying so god damned fast and low to the ground.
But I'd never thought about how that insane roar might affect people who've been exposed to something far more real:
Last Seafair, I was assigned to work the inpatient psych unit at the Seattle VA. The Blue Angels tastefully used the VA building as a landmark on their strafing aerobatic runs over I-90. The psych unit is on the top floor. My ambivalence about the Angels was spent by the end of the long weekend of close passes...A typical patient on that weekend had gone camping—deep into the woods if possible—on the preceding July 4th weekend. Combat memories and fireworks don't mix. But, you're new to Seattle. You don't know of the Blue Angels and Seafair. This is one trigger of the memories you didn't plan for. The horror starts to rise. You panic.
This sounds wishy-washy; it isn't. There is real neuroscience behind shell shock. The sound of the F/A-18's F404 engines is more than enough trigger for those struggling to put away their demons. So, no, I'm not the biggest fan of the Blue Angels.
Working Inpatient Psych at the VA with the Blue Angels (Jonathan Golob on Slog)
August 6, 2010
Welcome to the monkey park.
Over on Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder writes about his family's trip to Kyoto's Iwatayama Monkey Park:
After paying the 500 yen admission, we started up the hill. Signs warned us along the way about not interacting with the monkeys. Here, a map has the warning, "Entrance office. Please put paper bag here. Some monkey want to get it."
...As we got near the top, we saw our final warning sign: "Please push this button if you are scared to walk up because of the monkeys. Staff will be coming." There was no button. Maybe the monkeys took it.
A visit to Iwatayama Monkey Park in Kyoto Japan (Mark Frauenfelder, Boing Boing)
August 4, 2010
Good bad guy? Bad good guy?
How can this thoughtful, decent, articulate crusader for minority rights and equal protection under the law also be one of the central players in foisting George W. Bush on our country just ten years ago? This complexity hurts my brain.
August 3, 2010
Notes from the beach.
Amy and I are lucky enough to spend a little time on the beach in North Carolina every summer. Pictured above is our host, a fine fellow and friend of many years.
August 2, 2010
Human landscaping.
Livin' large in Pasadena on a recent Tuesday.
August 1, 2010
On making the most of life.
"Letting Go", Atul Gawande's latest essay for The New Yorker, is a powerful and eloquent summary of a topic that is still taboo in most public conversation: when is it time to stop fighting your oncoming death, and time to make the best of your remaining life?
Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.”People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.
"Letting Go" (Atul Gawande, The New Yorker")
This article made the list that Kevin Kelly recently compiled of The Best Magazine Articles Ever.
The follow-up discussion between Gawande and readers is here.
My Dad's take on this was a big part of the conversation we had the week before he died.
