En nydelig sang

Denne sangen slår meg rett i magen hver gang jeg hører den.  Jeg lurer på hva den handler om. Hva tror du?

Sleepless

As you lie before me now, like a shadow
On a pea green sea
Never thought that I could find you so hollow
Laying into me

But this cup of wine
All salt and brine makes me sleepy
And sorrow sows
A field of tears that will never yield a single penny
But I don't know
I've got nothing to hold on to

Wished for gold so I could buy you a palace
By the riverside
You'd come in and I would fill your diamond chalice
You were still alive

But this cup of wine
All salt and brine makes me sleepy
And sorrow sows
A field of tears that will never yield a single penny
But I don't know
I've got nothing to hold on to
I've got nothing to hold on to

Were you sleepless, tearing at the air?
Was the water everywhere?
Were you fretful, to wade into the room?
I'd been wanting to hear from you
Oh, no

Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
You're weary, lay him down
You did your time so thank you very much
Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
So now your hopes are all allayed
But you hand it all away

Did his eyelids affix on empty chairs
You had traveled to lay beside?
A gentle torture to watch it all recede
And all the while your mother slept beside him
Oh, no

Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
You're weary, lay him down
You did your time so thank you very much
Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
So now your hopes are all allayed
But you hand it all away

Were you sleepless, tearing at the air?
Was the water everywhere?
Were you fearful, and long to run away
From the cold clasp of Illinois?
Oh, no

Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
You're weary, lay him down
You did your time so thank you very much
Hand it over (hand it over)
Hand it over (oh)
So now your hopes are all allayed
But you hand it all away
But you hand it all away

Har du mista kreativiteten din? (Hvor så du den sist?)

 

Jeg har funnet et nytt nettsted som jeg nok kommer til å bruke litt tid på å utforske fremover, det heter Big Think. Masse spennende intervjuer og artikler, eller som de beskriver seg selv: "A forum where top experts explore the big ideas and core skills defining the 21st century".

I den eneste videoen jeg har sett derfra til nå, "How to Solve Creative Blocks", intervjues skuespiller Rainn Wilson (kjent fra The Office) om hvordan man kan finne tilbake til kreativiteten sin hvis den har forsvunnet. Og jommen nevner han ikke litt om meditasjon også :) Et lite utdrag:

There is a surrender to a power greater than one’s self as every artist or scientist or thinker talks about a certain point when it’s no longer like their brain.  It’s like the ideas are like streaming through them and that can happen with anyone. 

Spis grønt, redd verden

Da var det på tide med litt mer vegetar-reklame! Det er nemlig sånn at det mest effektive et enkeltmenneske kan gjøre for å skåne miljøet er å spise mindre kjøtt. Dette er hentet fra Time Magazine:

The head of the U.N.'s Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Pachauri on Monday urged people around the world to cut back on meat in order to combat climate change. "Give up meat for one day [per week] at least initially, and decrease it from there," Pachauri told Britain's Observer newspaper. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity."

Faktisk konkludrer en rapport fra FN med at verdens kjøttproduksjon genererer 18 % av planetens samlede drivhusgasser - til sammenlikning står hele verdens bilder, tog, fly og båter for kun 13 % til sammen!

Fikk du lyst til å begynne med "meatless monday"? Her er noen deilige vegetaroppskrifter du kan starte med allerede i morgen :)

Fri fantasi på film!

Jeg har sett et mesterverk av en animasjonsfilm i helgen, "The Secret Book of Kells". Håndmalte, snirklende akvareller og et nydelig soundtrack, perfekt for en fantasifull søndagsmorgen.

Sushiens bakside

Sushi var noe av det jeg syntes var aller vanskeligst å kutte ut da jeg ble vegetarianer for et års tid siden. Jeg kan fortsatt få skikkelig cravings etter det. Men dette avsnittet fra boka "Eating Animals" av Jonathan Safran Foer holder meg nok vekk fra sushien for godt.

BYCATCH
Perhaps the quintessential example of bullshit, bycatch refers to sea creatures caught by accident — except not really "by accident," since bycatch has been consciously built into contemporary fishing methods. Modern fishing tends to involve much technology and few fishers. This combination leads to massive catches with massive amounts of bycatch. Take shrimp, for example. The average shrimptrawling operation throws 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it captures overboard, dead or dying, as bycatch. (Endangered species amount to much of this bycatch.) Shrimp account for only 2 percent of global seafood by weight, but shrimp trawling accounts for 33 percent of global bycatch. We tend not to think about this because we tend not to know about it. What if there were labeling on our food letting us know how many animals were killed to bring our desired animal to our plate? So, with trawled shrimp from Indonesia, for example, the label might read: 26 pounds of other sea animals were killed and tossed back into the ocean for every 1 pound of this shrimp.

Or take tuna. Among the other 145 species regularly killed — gratuitously — while killing tuna are: manta ray, devil ray, spotted skate, bignose shark, copper shark, Galapagos shark, sandbar shark, night shark, sand tiger shark, (great) white shark, hammerhead shark, spurdog fish, Cuban dogfish, bigeye thresher, mako, blue shark, wahoo, sailfish, bonito, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, longbill spearfi sh, white marlin, swordfish, lancet fish, grey triggerfish, needlefish, pomfret, blue runner,black ruff, dolphin fish, bigeye cigarfish, porcupine fish, rainbow runner, anchovy, grouper, flying fish, cod, common sea horse, Bermuda chub, opah, escolar, leerfish, tripletail, goosefish, monkfish, sunfish, Murray eel, pilotfish, black gemfish, stone bass, bluefish, cassava fish, red drum, greater amberjack, yellowtail, common sea bream, barracuda, puffer fish, loggerhead turtle, green turtle, leatherback turtle, hawksbill turtle, Kemp's ridley turtle, Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, Audouin's gull, Balearic shearwater, black-browed albatross, great black-backed gull, great shearwater, great-winged petrel, grey petrel, herring gull, laughing gull, northern royal albatross, shy albatross, sooty shearwater, southern fulmar, Yelkouan shearwater, yellow-legged gull, minke whale, sei whale, fin whale, common dolphin, northern right whale, pilot whale, humpback whale, beaked whale, killer whale, harbor porpoise, sperm whale, striped dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, spinner dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, and goose-beaked whale.

Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate might have to be five feet across.

Lurer på hva som skjer med livet i havet nå som det snart finnes en sushi-sjappe på hvert hjørne?

Gla' i dæ læll!

Tipset av Eivind A., takk takk :)

Engler, homser, Sigur Rós

I dag har jeg gjenoppdaget Sigur Rós. Musikkvideoene deres er bare så vakre og fremhever musikken perfekt. Sjeldent, sårt og fantastisk!

Svefn-G-Englar:

Vidrar Vel Til Lofterasa:

Jeg liker også filmen de har laget som heter "Heima" - en blanding av en kunstfilm, naturskildring, bandbiografi og musikk-/konsertvideo:

God morgen-historie

Jeg stumbla over denne fine historien da jeg spiste frokost i dag :)


----------------

A DIALOGUE WITH SARAH, AGED 3: IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF YOUR DAD IS A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR, ASKING “WHY” CAN BE DANGEROUS

By Stephen McNeil

SARAH: Daddy, were you in the shower?

DAD: Yes, I was in the shower.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: I was dirty. The shower gets me clean.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does the shower get me clean?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the water washes the dirt away when I use soap.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why do I use soap?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the soap grabs the dirt and lets the water wash it off.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does the soap grab the dirt?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because soap is a surfactant.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why is soap a surfactant?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: That is an EXCELLENT question. Soap is a surfactant because it forms water-soluble micelles that trap the otherwise insoluble dirt and oil particles.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does soap form micelles?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Soap molecules are long chains with a polar, hydrophilic head and a non-polar, hydrophobic tail. Can you say ‘hydrophilic’?

SARAH: Aidrofawwic

DAD: And can you say ‘hydrophobic’?

SARAH: Aidrofawwic

DAD: Excellent! The word ‘hydrophobic’ means that it avoids water.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does it mean that?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: It’s Greek! ‘Hydro’ means water and ‘phobic’ means ‘fear of’. ‘Phobos’ is fear. So ‘hydrophobic’ means ‘afraid of water’.

SARAH: Like a monster?

DAD: You mean, like being afraid of a monster?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: A scary monster, sure. If you were afraid of a monster, a Greek person would say you were gorgophobic.

(pause)

SARAH: (rolls her eyes) I thought we were talking about soap.

DAD: We are talking about soap.

(longish pause)

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why do the molecules have a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the C-O bonds in the head are highly polar, and the C-H bonds in the tail are effectively non-polar.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Because while carbon and hydrogen have almost the same electronegativity, oxygen is far more electronegative, thereby polarizing the C-O bonds.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why is oxygen more electronegative than carbon and hydrogen?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: That’s complicated. There are different answers to that question, depending on whether you’re talking about the Pauling or Mulliken electronegativity scales. The Pauling scale is based on homo- versus heteronuclear bond strength differences, while the Mulliken scale is based on the atomic properties of electron affinity and ionization energy. But it really all comes down to effective nuclear charge. The valence electrons in an oxygen atom have a lower energy than those of a carbon atom, and electrons shared between them are held more tightly to the oxygen, because electrons in an oxygen atom experience a greater nuclear charge and therefore a stronger attraction to the atomic nucleus! Cool, huh?

(pause)

SARAH: I don’t get it.

DAD: That’s OK. Neither do most of my students.


-------------------------------

Hentet fra: The Science Creative Quarterly

Filosofi, mann, filosofi!

Syns du filosofi er gøy, men at det er litt vanskelig å komme gjennom alle disse eldgamle, tungleste bøkene? Jeg og. La meg introdusere "Philosophy Bro"; en genial, liten side som formidler essensen i filosofiske verk kortfattet, forståelig og morsomt (hvertfall for oss som syns banning er gøy).

Ta for eksempel Tao Te Ching, en klassisk tekst fra Kina som kan forvirre de fleste av pinnen. Selv om vår filosofiske broder tar seg noen friheter ift forenkling av stoffet, syns jeg dette er imponerende presist allikevel:

So, there's this force (not to be confused with The Force) that pervades and begets everything, and it has the really inconvenient property of being unnameable. I know, it's a bitch. We'll call it the Tao, except that naming it Tao doesn't tell us anything about it; it doesn't help us to know it. Oh yeah, it also has the property of being unknowable, which is just fucking super. If someone tells you they fully understand the Tao, they're lying, or they're wrong. Either way, they don't have the true Tao.

You know what is beautiful and light and big, which is also how you know what is ugly and dark and small. But while you're busy judging, consider how they came to be - what would be beautiful without ugliness? If everything was beautiful, would anything be beautiful? We all know people who walk around talking about how beautiful everything is, how we need to wake up and see the beauty all around us or some shit, but usually those people are ugly. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's just not realistic to walk around pretending everything is beautiful all the time. Light and dark, big and small, same thing. These opposites are all part of the Tao, and he who wishes to know the Tao must embrace the dark as well as the light.

We all know bros are smart as shit, right? But we all know a really smart bro who knows exactly how much he doesn't know, and he's not afraid to say, "Oh. I'm not sure. Huh." And as much as we hate to admit when we don't know something, we fucking respect that bro for doing it. The Tao is unknowable; we all need to become that bro if we want to attain it. We all need to be willing to say, "The Tao? Yeah, I have no fucking clue." Otherwise, we'll never get any closer to it. If we pretend to know everything, how the fuck can we learn anything? You can't put shit in a jar that's already full; the emptiness is just as important to the jar as the shape. Our minds, same thing. We're after this ineffable, all-pervasive thing; you better believe we need some fucking room to hold it in the ol' noggin.

It's like that with everything. Good generals know how to use all their troops effectively; great generals can kick your ass with three swords, a ballpoint pen, and some down feather pillows. A good orator can talk for hours; a great orator says what he needs in ten words or less. So if we want to be smart, first we have to embrace our ignorance. If we want to be strong, first we have to embrace our weakness. If we want to move, first we have to learn to be still. 

A man who wishes to live by the Tao must embrace everything that they call 'bad' along with everything they call 'good'; he advances in his willingness to be still, and grows in his willingness to shrink. If we worry about shit, shit still happens. So stop worrying. The less we desire, the more easily those desires are fulfilled, so get over your petty wants. Your judgments are meaningless; you can't, by judging things, make or unmake things; everything that is, is, and there's nothing you can do to change that. You can't have the things you judge 'good' without their opposites existing, too; the only exception is the Tao, which embraces all. So must we.

Inspirerende

Dette fine sitatet tenker jeg på nå som jeg har startet på en ettårig kunstskole, med all prestasjonsangsten det innebærer. Kanskje det ikke trenger å være så komplisert. Kanskje jeg bare må finne tilbake til noe jeg alltid har hatt.

Litt kunst på en mandag

Nå kommer høsten. Det betyr at bakken er strødd med nydelige blader som bare lengter etter å bli gjort om til små kunstverk!

Se flere på Lorenzo Duráns hjemmeside: http://naturayarte.blogspot.com/p/inicio.html

Musikkvideoen du bare må se!

Fin sang og sykt imponerende videokunst. Takk til Eivind A. for tipset :)

Speil, speil...

På tide med et gjensyn av en yndlings fra TED! Ramachandran er en hyperaktiv forskerfyr som lever for å formidle info om vår rare hjerne og de fascinerende prosessene som foregår der. I dette foredraget er fokuset på speilnevroner - en gruppe nevroner som muliggjør forståelse av andres motiver og læring gjennom imitasjon av handlinger. Speilnevroner FTW.

Den viktigste erkjennelsen

Hva ville du fortalt neste generasjon hvis all annen kunnskap enn denne ene erkjennelsen kom til å gå tapt? Les svarene til noen av dagens ledende vitenskapsfolk her. Jeg likte denne:

“Knowledge is a public good and increases in value as the number of people possessing it increases.” —John Wilbanks, visepresident for Creative Commons.

Dokkiser på nett

Er du dokumentar-frelst sånn som meg? I så fall kommer du til å elske denne gullgruven av en nettside: Top Documentary Films. Dokkisene er gratis å streame og omhandler temaer fra filosofi, psykologi, politikk, teknologi, helse, historie, økonomi... alt du kan ønske deg! Perfekt for regntunge dager :)

 

Ps: Fant nettopp et mistenkelig likt nettsted som kanskje hadde litt finere layout: http://documentaryheaven.com/. Takk til Haakon!

Pen penn

Kudos til IL-Lee for kreativ bruk av kulepenn!

Bilder fra en drøm

Eliot Lee Hazel sine bilder gir meg følelsen av deja-vu fra fjerne drømmer. Se flere bilder her.

Forbrukerens fødsel

Her er en artikkel jeg stumbla over i dag. Den handler om hvordan Freuds fetter, Edvard Bernays, tok i bruk psykologiens innsikter om menneskelig begjær for å selge produkter - og dermed fødte PR-industrien slik vi kjenner den. Utrolig viktig og bevisstgjørende materiale for oss som er født inn i en verden av konsumerisme og sleipe markedsføringstriks.

Hvis du liker filmformatet bedre, anbefaler jeg den retro BBC-dokumentarserien "The century of the self" på det varmeste. Her er første episode:

Godt poeng.

Sjekk ut "Stuff No One Told Me" for flere innsikter!

Klem din indre autist

Infographic by Smarter.org

Siegel på TEDx

I dette fascinerende foredraget forteller psykiater Daniel Siegel om sin forskning rundt det nevrale grunnlaget for "mindsight", altså evnen til å reflektere rundt eget og andres sinn. Han mener at utviklingen av refleksjon, medfølelse, relasjonskompetanse og resiliens bør være minst like viktig del av skolen som lesing, skriving og matte. Er du enig?

Best av alt liker jeg hans relativt nøkterne, nevropsykologiske forklaring av tanker som tidligere har hatt et distinkt esoterisk hippie-preg, som at "we are all interconnected". I den forbindelse nevner han et sitat av Einstein, som du skal få i sin helhet her:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

 - Albert Einstein

Tre svenske filmhøydare

I anledning at jorden mot alle odds ikke gikk under i dag (pfjui!), føler jeg for å feire med et blogginnlegg om mine svenske yndlingsfilmer (yndlings svenskefilmer?). Forstå det den som kan! Uansett, først ut er "De ofrivilliga", en intens skildring av hverdagskonformitet og -frihet.

Neste ut må være "Farväl Falkenberg", en poetisk, rett-i-magen type film om å bli voksen og å finne/miste mening i livet. Her er de ti første minuttene:

Og på en sterk tredjeplass, en skikkelig feelgood som enhver korentusiast trykker til sitt bryst - herrrlige "Så som i himmelen":

Men inni er vi alle like

Created Equal er et nydelig fotoprosjekt som vekket sofafilosofen i meg. Er vi alle like inni? Hvorfor blir vi så forskjellige utenpå? Finnes det noen måte å se hverandre, bak fasadene?

... Også måtte jeg le litt da. Se bare på denne:

Polygamist vs. Pimp

Gratulerer med dagen, verden

Every individual should be free to live fully, completely. As long as one tries to liberate one's own particular country and not man, there must be racial hatreds, the divisions of people and classes. The problems of man must be solved as a whole, not as confined to countries or peoples.

J. Krishnamurti

Meditasjon meg her og meditasjon meg der

Meditasjonsforskning tar om dagen spranget ut av medisinsk-akademiske kretser og inn i folks dagligstuer. Det er kult. Flere fine folk har tipset meg om denne episoden av Schrödingers katt, som handler om nettopp meditasjon og visualisering. I går fikk jeg endelig sett den, og slutter meg til min venn Bjørnars respons: "Vi må få meditasjon inn i skolen - det skal letes lenge etter et så enkelt verktøy som kan skape så enorme forandringer!"

Lykken er å synge en sang

Lol

Sjekk ut denne siden for flere mega bilder :)

Hva er intelligens?

I dag vil jeg dele et sitat fra en stor inspirasjonskilde for meg, nemlig Jiddu Krishnamurti. Denne frittalende indiske filosofien var glødende opptatt av hvordan mennesker kan vokse opp i frihet fra frykter og tankerutiner, og opprettet i dette formål flere progressive skoler verden over. I sitatet under utdyper han hva han mener med intelligens, og hvordan det skiller seg fra intellekt:

Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Rather, intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally. There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is merely thought functioning independently of emotion.

When intellect, irrespective of emotion, is trained in any particular direction, one may have great intellect, but one does not have intelligence, because in intelligence there is the inherent capacity to feel as well as to reason; in intelligence both capacities are equally present, intensely and harmoniously.

If you bring your emotions into business, you say, business cannot be well managed or be honest. So you divide your mind into compartments: in one compartment you keep your religious interest, in another your emotions, in a third your business interest which has nothing to do with your intellectual and emotional life. Your business mind treats life merely as a means of getting money in order to live. So this chaotic existence, this division of your life continues. If you really used your intelligence in business, that is, if your emotions and your thought were acting harmoniously, your business might fail. It probably would. And you will probably let it fail when you really feel the absurdity, the cruelty, and the exploitation that is involved in this way of living.Until you really approach all of life with your intelligence, instead of merely with your intellect, no system in the world will save man from the ceaseless toil for bread.

Du kan lese mer om Krishnamurti her, og om skolene han startet her. Og hvis du virkelig blir interessert kan du sjekke ut dette kurset som holdes i California i sommer. Kjæresten min og jeg var der i fjor, og jeg anbefaler det på det varmeste til alle som er interessert i utdanning og læring!

Barnet i deg

Hvor blir det av barnet i oss når vi blir "voksne"? Det retrospektive fotoprosjektet Back to the future fikk meg til å tenke.

Hakuna matata!

Takk til min venn Inge for denne klokmorsomme tegningen. Før trodde jeg at et "livsbejaende diagram" var et oxymoron, men nå vet jeg bedre :) God helg!

Ubrukelig, men gøyalt

Vil du være med på noen minutter ubrukelig moro? Kopier følgende tekst inn i adressefeltet på din browser, trykk enter og følg instruksjonene.

javascript:var i,s,ss=['http://kathack.com/js/kh.js','http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js'];for(i=0;i!=ss.length;i++){s=document.createElement('script');s.src=ss[i];document.body.appendChild(s);}void(0);

Takk til nerdene bak Katamari Hack for å ha laget denne rare dingsen som sikkert er enda morsommere hvis man faktisk har spilt Katamari!

Ken Robinson FTW!

På tide med et gjensyn med det som kanskje er min yndlingstalk på ted.com noensinne! For en mann, dere! Og for et gøyalt foredrag! I tilfelle min entusiasme alene ikke overbeviser deg, kan du lese hva TED-folka skriver:

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. 

Why you should listen to him: 

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this." 

Like inspirerende er hans nyere foredrag fra TED2010: "Bring on the learning revolution!" Og sånn til slutt, hvis dette ga mersmak, og for å benytte muligheten til å være pompøst selvrefererende, kan du ta en titt her.

Blækkflækk 2.0

Grensen mellom gal og genial er etter sigende hårfin. Det spørs hvilken diagnose kunstneren bak disse bildene hadde fått dersom de hadde havnet i hendene til selveste Rorschach, far til den berømte blekkflekk-testen. Genigal, kanskje?

Når i tvil, spør internett.

Liker du å se film, men syns det er vanskelig å finne nye favoritter? Clerkdogs er et nettsted som drives av filmkjennere. Konseptet er enkelt og genialt: Du skriver navnet på en film du elsker, og får anbefalinger basert på egenskaper ved filmen du har valgt. Det hele er omtrent som å ha en filmnerdvenn som er bereist i alle sjangere og tilgjengelig når som helst!

Og siden vi er inne på film: Hvis du er som meg og digger animasjons- og kortfilm, gjerne i kombinasjon, er denne siden verdt å sjekke ut. Morsommere bruk av et kvarter enn å stirre på hjemfeeden på facebook, i alle fall.

Hvem styrer hjernen, lissom?

Fikk denne tilsendt av min gode venninne Jade, angivelig fordi jeg liker hjerner og løk. Jeg vet hvertfall at jeg likte denne videoen, sånn skikkelig skikkelig godt! Takk Jade :*

Lite futt?

 Kanskje denne siden kan piffe deg opp. Om ikke annet er den en behagelig prokrastinator.

Men hvis denne fyren dukker opp, trykk neste. For guds skyld, trykk neste.

Kor i all verden

Komponist Eric Whitacre har tatt kor-nerding til et helt nytt nivå med sine virtuelle kor bestående av youtube-korister fra hele verden. Jeg gleder meg til hans nyeste prosjekt legges ut i den 7. april! Hvis du ble nysgjerrig, kan du lese mer om dette fredfulle prosjektet her eller se denne TED-videoen. Hvis du syns kor er gøy, sånn generelt, kan jeg anbefale disse sidene, sånn helt upartisk.

En nattahistorie

There are many correct ways to answer a test question

R.L. Loeffelbein, a physics teacher at Washington University in St. Louis was about to give a student a zero for the student's answer to an examination problem. The student claimed he should receive a perfect score, if the system were not so set up against the student. Instructor and student agreed to submit to an impartial arbiter, Dr. Alexander Calandra, who tells the story.

The examination problem was: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."

The student's answer was, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, and lower the barometer to the ground. Then, bring it back up, measuring the length of the rope and barometer. The lengths of the two together is the height of the building."

I, as arbiter, pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had answered the problem completely and correctly. On the other hand, of course, full credit would contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course, and a high grade is supposed to certify that the student knows some physics, a fact that his answer had not confirmed. So it was suggested that the student have another try at answering the problem.
He was given six minutes to answer it, with the warning this time that the answer should indicate some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. Asked if he wished to give up, he said no, that he had several answers and he was just trying to think which would be the best. In the next minute he dashed off this answer. "Take the barometer to the top of the building. Lean over the edge of the roof, drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S=½at2, calculate the height of the building.

At this point, I asked my colleague if he gave up and he conceded. The student got nearly full credit.

Recalling that the student had said he had other answers, I asked him what they were.
"Well," he said, "you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and length of the building's shadow, then use simple proportion to determine the height of the building. And there is a very basic measurement method you might like. You take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb, you mark off lengths of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks to get the height of the building in barometer units.
"Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of 'g.' The height of the building can, in principle, be calculated from this.

"And," he concluded, "if you don't limit me to physics solutions, you can take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When he answers, you say, 'Mr. Superintendent, I have here a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer.'"

Finally, he admitted that he even knew the correct textbook answer -- measuring the air pressure at the bottom and top of the building and applying the appropriate formula (p=p₀e^-ay) illustrating that pressure reduces as height increases -- but that he was so fed up with college instructors trying to teach him how to think instead of showing the structure of the subject matter, that he had decided to rebel.

For my part, I seriously considered changing my grade to unequivocal full credit.

  
Rart hvor digg det fortsatt å høre om ungdomsskoleelev-Davider som vinner over ungdomsskolelærer-Goliater. Denne historien er hentet herfra.

Søndag med XX

Sett volumet på fullt, legg deg tilbake, lukk øynene og la denne deilige låta strømme over deg.  Søndagsmusikk i mine ører.

Hei fjes!

Jeg liker veldig godt når jeg finner fjes på uventede steder, for eksempel i min egen soppsuppe. Her er en blog som faktisk er dediert kun til dette fenomenet! Jeg likte spesielt denne ^.^

All the tiny people

Et skjønt, lite galleri av oppfinnsomhet og ironi:

Tiny Street Art Collection I
Tiny Street Art Collection II
Tiny Street Art Collection III

En annen side

Jeg har akkurat begynt å planlegge en tur til Sørøst-Asia i sommer (yey!), og søkte i den anledning litt rundt på nettet med forventning om å finne artikler om paradisstrender, eksotiske jungler og spennende mat. Istedet kom jeg over en samling fantastiske bilder av Kambodsjas mangefasetterte virkelighet.

Detektimen

Hvor detektiv er du? I dette spillet gjelder det være våken for skjulte hint, tenke utenfor boksen og å ikke gi opp! Jeg er på level 6, har en følelse av at jeg ikke får gjort alt jeg hadde planlagt i kveld ... :p

Left brain, right brain

Selv om skillet mellom hjernehalvdelene som vises i disse bildene er overforenklet (og viktigere, ikke har som helst med mercedes benz å gjøre), syns jeg de var nydelige nok til å fortjene litt oppmerksomhet en mandagskveld :)

PS: Hvis du er interessert i hemisfærespesialisering, eller generelt bare liker å se engasjerte mennesker fortelle levende om hjerne og sinn anbefaler jeg denne Ted-talken på det varmeste!

Åh, Radiohead!

Den nye musikkvideoen til Radiohead er intet mindre enn en synestetisk-fantastisk opplevelse! Albumet kan du kjøpe elektronisk her.

Go pacman!

Et alternativ til piller

Hvordan kan man øke serotoninnivåene i hjernen uten piller? Fint å se at flere anerkjenner at medisinering av depresjon i lengden ikke er en holdbar løsning, og begynner å se mot andre horisonter når det gjelder forebygging og behandling av psykiske vansker.

Hjernemassasje

"Holofonisk lyd" er den nye vinen på lydfronten om dagen. Nå holder det ikke lenger med stereo hvor lyden vandrer mellom høyre og venstre øre, nå tar lyden like gjerne turen rundt i hele hodet. Deilig og ganske rart!

Hvis dette pirret øremuslingen din, kan du sjekke ut flere fantastiske lydillusjoner her. Jeg syns spesielt denne er ganske frekk.

Vegetarianer? Men hva med...?

Mange lurer på hvordan jeg som ikke spiser dyr kan få i meg nok av de viktige stoffene kroppen vår trenger. Spesielt er det mange som reagerer på at jeg ikke spiser fisk. På denne siden finnes det svar på spørsmål både jeg og andre har om dette. Her er et utdrag:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

Altså: Med et variert vegetarisk kosthold blir både mennesker og dyr glade :) Prøv det selv!

Good news: Meditasjon endrer hjernen

Forskere har etterhvert gravd opp mye evidens for at hjernen endres av å meditere. Endringene skjer spesielt i områder som har å gjøre med emosjonsregulering, oppmerksomhet og hukommelse. Forskning.no skriver om et av de nyeste studiene som viser hvordan hjernen forandrer seg, i dette tilfellet etter 8 uker.

Her kan du lese mer om mindfulness-meditasjon i Norge, og her er et spennende intervju med meditasjonsfrelste David Lynch om bruk av meditasjon i bruk i utdanningssystemet. Han sparer ikke på kruttet :)

Homo ludens

La barna leke! Denne fine artikkelen som jeg fant her kaster lys over lekens mange funksjoner, og minner oss på at barn trenger fritid (fri tid!) til å leke ustrukturert, både på skolen og hjemme. Fra artikkelen:

The emphasis on standardized testing, on attempting to constantly monitor, measure, and quantify what students learn, has forced teachers to spend more of the school day engaged in so-called direct instruction and has substantially reduced or eliminated opportunities that children have for exploring, interacting, and learning on their own. Recess has, in many districts, vanished from the schedule entirely.

Whether children play enough isn't an obscure debate among developmental psychologists. If it's true that children who spend too little time playing struggle with executive function, then we may be raising a generation of kids with less self-control, shorter attention spans, and poorer memory skills. 

P.S.: Jeg gleder meg til den dagen det skrives artikler om at voksne trenger det samme!

Hurra for en ny utdanning!

Ken Robinson snakker vittig, klokt og rett på sak om dagens utdanningssystem. Og jeg elsker ilustrasjonene til RSA Animate!

5 Emotions Invented By The Internet

Stumbla over denne artikkelen og følte meg tankelest. Særlig når det gjaldt følelse nummer 3:

The state of being ‘installed’ at a computer or laptop for an extended period of time without purpose, characterized by a blurry, formless anxiety undercut with something hard like desperation.

During this time the individual will have several windows open, generally several browser ‘tabs,’ a Microsoft Word document in some state of incompletion, the individual’s own Facebook page as well as that of another randomly-selected individual who may or may not be on the ‘friends’ list, 2-5 Gchat conversations that are no longer immediately active, possibly iTunes and a ‘client’ for Twitter. The individual will switch between the open applications/tabs in a fashion that appears organized but is functionally aimless, will return to reading some kind of ‘blog post’ in one browser tab and become distracted at the third paragraph for the third time before switching to the Gmail inbox and refreshing it again.

The behavior equates to mindlessly refreshing and ‘lozenging’ the same sources of information repeatedly. While performing this behavior the individual feels a sense of numb depersonalization, being calmly and pragmatically aware that they have no identifiable need to be at the computer nor are they gleaning any practical use from it at that moment, and the individual may feel vaguely uncomfortable or ashamed about this awareness in concert with the fact that they continue to perform the idle ‘refreshing’ behavior. They may feel increasingly anxious and needful, similar to the sensation of having an itch that needs scratching or a thirst that needs quenching, all while feeling as though they are calm or slightly bored.

På tide å lukke macen og rydde ferdig soverommet!