The “former mayor of NY” character, in Shortbus:
“New Yorkers are permeable…therefore, we’re sane. Consequently, we’re the target of the impermeable — and the insane.”
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From the category archives:
Senses
A reason to walk away from the keyboard and the cell phone:
9/15/49
“Still this childish fascination with my handwriting…To think that I always have this sensuous potentiality glowing within my fingers!”
– Susan Sontag, from Reborn
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Trans-sensual videos:
And:
From Advanced Beauty.
Curated by Universal Everything.
via Colour Lovers.
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Environmental Graffiti selected 15 Beautiful Microscopic Images from Inside the Human Body from the Wellcome Images collection:
This is how our bodies distribute oxygen:
Red Blood Cells
This is how we move:
Purkinje neurons
This is how we hear:
Stereocilia, inside the ear
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Nadya Vessey
“A prosthetic is a prosthetic, and your body has to be comfortable with it and you have to mentally make it part of yourself,” she said.
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I was working on a post at my desk this morning, but the fresh snow, and the chance to see it before it was trampled or melted, proved too great a temptation:
Morning Walk
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In October 2006, Netflix announced a $1 million dollar prize to anyone who could create a system that would improve the accuracy of their recommendation system by 10% or more.
More than two years later, contestants are still .56% shy of the finish line.
From NYT Magazine:
“So this is the question that gently haunts the Netflix competition, as well as the recommendation engines used by other online stores like Amazon and iTunes. Just how predictable is human taste, anyway? And if we can’t understand our own preferences, can computers really be any better at it?”
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Kids get to go from wheelchairs to zero-G:
“Weightlessness can be enjoyed by anyone, even children. For these brave kids, it was a rare opportunity to experience the world without their wheelchairs. One child said she got to stand up for the first time. Hearing that, as a physician, truly lifts the heart.”
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From the Frontal Cortex blog:
The basic idea is that nature, unlike a city, is filled with inherently interesting stimuli (like a sunset, or an unusual bird) that trigger our involuntary attention, but in a modest fashion. Because you can’t help but stop and notice the reddish orange twilight sky – paying attention to the sunset doesn’t take any extra work or cognitive control – our attentional circuits are able to refresh themselves. A walk in the woods is like a vacation for the prefrontal cortex.
Strolling in a city, however, forces the brain to constantly remain vigilant, as we avoid obstacles (moving cars), ignore irrelevant stimuli (that puppy in the window) and try not to get lost. The end result is that city walks are less restorative (at least for the prefrontal cortex) than strolls amid the serenity of nature.
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