Introduction to word of the day!

Language.

I find it so wonderfully awe inspiring that noises made by the vibrating of our vocal chords, and marks on a page, have been so instrumental in making humanity what it is. There is a poem by John Donne called, “No Man is an Island.” Ironically, without language, each individual would be their own little universe, connected together only by the wispy thread that is reality.

Woah, that got a little weird. I may have been reading a book about quantum physics (and the theory of multi-dimensions, time travel, and Schrodinger’s zombie cat!)

Basically, it has been forever since I’ve posted on this blog, so I decided to create a series where I find wacky words and use them in very outrageous sentences. In order to celebrate the magic of language of course.

Anyways, as if I don’t have enough to keep me busy already, here goes!

Mosquito nets and Equality for all

So I’m taking this pretty awesome course on Coursera right now called How to Change the World. What’s that? Never heard of Coursera? Well your life is about to be changed! (Kudos to you guys who know about it).
Coursera is an online learning platform which allows you to take awesome courses online in your own time, for free. Basically, colleges and organizations create courses on everything from rocket science to programming languages to how to be a great leader. Colleges get publicity, you get to learn, and you can get a special signature track certificate if you pay. It’s pretty amazing. I took a course on Python programming by Rice university,and it was one of the best learning experiences of my life! Every course does take quite a time commitment however, so make sure you have enough time in your schedule to squeeze in some learning.

Surfing, homelessness, and human rights

As a world, we have a lot of freedom. Relatively speaking, these days we are much more involved in the decision making process in creating laws and choosing who makes those laws. However, every so often it happens that things that we should have a right to get taken away from us. We often fight back with social media and lawsuits, but we so not always win.

A literal example of this phenomenon is Martins Beach in San Matteo County, California. It was bought by a private company in 2008, and the man behind the money has been said to be none other than Vinod Khosla, the multi billionaire cofounder of Sun Microsystems and well known for supporting Eco friendly projects. From then on, visitors to the beach had to pay $5 for access, which although somewhat bothersome to many locals and surfers, was worth it for the beautiful view and amazing waves. However, last year public access to the beach was stopped with a sign that said, “BEACH CLOSED, KEEP OUT.” This enraged locals and surfers, who argued that the beach had been accessible to the public for hundreds of years.

An Eerie Occurence

So I realize that this is somewhat belated, seeing as yesterday was Halloween. However, I still wanted to share a creepy coincidence that happened to me yesterday.

To start off with, I am somewhat of a nerd and get excited about artificial intelligence and computers and stuff. If this doesn’t interest you then I suggest you leave this post immediately.

Now that we have gotten rid of all those boring folks, I can get down to business.

Yesterday I was reading this month’s edition of Wired magazine, and I reached an article about artificial intelligence. It proclaimed, somewhat boldly, that “AI is here.” Then again, for the past two decades people have been saying that. And then it occurred to me that I am reading a book by Ray Kurzweil called “The Age of Spiritual Machines.” This is a really great book about how computers are going to outsmart humans very soon. (And the data that proves it). Well the coincidence is that the article and the book  are saying the exact same things. According to the article, the massive parallel computations that have the power necessary to simulate the human brain are finally here, thanks to GPU chips. And the author points to IBM’s new supercomputer, Watson, who after beating the reigning chess champion, is now being explored for medical uses. The author points out that artificial intelligence is all around us- in our Netflix, when it suggests which shows to watch; in those weird self driving cars Google is testing; and the algorithms used by savvy investors that decide where they should invest.

A Foray into Creative Writing

So the other day I didn’t have school on a random Tuesday and as my alarm clock went off (I forgot to turn it off the night before), a thought crossed my mind. What do bus drivers do when no one gets on the bus? I mean even in a busy city, there is most likely at least one time when a bus driver is just driving an empty bus. Have you ever seen those selfies people take in an empty bus with the caption #foreveralone? Imagine how the bus driver feels when they are the only ones on a bus.

I wonder what thoughts go through their head? Do they ponder the futility of their job- ferrying around a giant bus with no one inside but themselves? Or do they hope for someone to get on at the next stop? Do they like the silence; refuge from the loud vacuousness of people’s lives?

How to Abstract Pentangle (or whatever you want to call it)

Hey guys,

So last post I explained why I have beef with this whole business of “zentangling.”

I’ll just do a quick recap: basically zentangling is to structured to be actually fun. It is too caught up with the “meditativeness” and how it can be used as a kind of therapy. But seriously, everyone doodles. If you have not doodled in math class, I hope you’re now an aerospace engineer, because let’s face it, math class can be boring.  Anyways, call it what you like, pentangling, zentangling, doodling, it all comes down to you and your implement of choice.

This is the is the first in a series of posts on pentangling, and it covers how to do abstract pentangling (non-representational)

So let’s get started!!

Just grab a pen and a piece of blank paper! Come on, don’t be lazy! Do it now or you’ll forget about it (this is what I tell myself when I discover how to do something on the internet)

A great place to find patterns is http://tanglepatterns.com/, although it can be quite confusing to use. I just click on random letters as the patterns are organized by name and pick ones I like.

Have fun, and remember, there is no messing up!!

Untangling Zentangling

Recently the word “zentangle” has been popping up a lot on Pinterest feed. Yes I know. I have a Pinterest account. Basically the only reason I got it was because my art teacher insisted on it. I had this image in my head of using Pinterest being like knitting- boring and mostly done by older folk. To my surprise, it has been an invaluable tool in discovering new cool techniques and has been feeding my online shopping habit. (oops!) So I’m on Pinterest, and all of a sudden this appears.

Beautiful Zentangle Balls from Pinterest

I was so intrigued I immediately searched “zentangle” on Google to see what lovely images I could find.  There are a LOT. I also found a lot of zentangle tutorials that teach you how to do zentangle the “right way,” with lots of step by step how-to-make-this-patterns. What made me laugh about this is that honestly, people have been “zentangling” since we had implements to write with. Its just back then it was called doodling.