http://hypotyposis.net/blog A public place for Raymond Yee to work out (some of) his issues concerning Bach, the Web, life with God, politics, philosophy, art, justice, love, friendship, the church, books, etc. Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:20:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I’ve been an on-again off-again blogger for over ten years. Writing is hardly a passing interest for me, but I am not one of those people who must write all the time. Writing takes time, and writing well takes continual practice. Not surprising, I get sidetracked, and my blogs remain dormant, often for months on [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/07/03/runaway-thoughts/ What crowdsourcing activity has there been?  A blog post that has a pretty good analysis of the idea. http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/ — allows one to track and report incidents — based on the Ushahidi platform. http://oilreporter.org/ — Android + iPhone apps to report where oil spill is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill is not a bad place to start a deep [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/05/31/gulf-oil-spill-notes/ One of the wonderful aspects of living part of the time around Berkeley is having access to such events as a next week’s symposium dedicated to the work of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu.  Years ago, it was the Pacific Film Archives (which is involved in this symposium) that introduced me to the work of Ozu.  [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/02/12/ozu-berkeley-freebase/ Over the last year, I’ve been attending services at The Church of the Redeemer in Pittsburgh and more recently, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley.  I have found  much needed refreshment in the worship services, leavened as they are with the  solemn beauty of written and spoken word, from the Bible and from the [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/01/29/lectionary-readings-in-a-new-context/ Recently borrowed from the Berkeley Public Library is  Farhad Manjoo’s  True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.  (Wiley, 2008),  which seduced me with the promising subtitle  “learning to live in a post-fact society.”  I think a lot about how to  understand what’s actually happening, how to grasp the truth, if you will.  Almost [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/01/23/true-enough/ Many years ago, I came across a famous quote of Albert Einstein’s that has since stuck in my mind: My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a “lone traveler” and [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/01/21/reflecting-on-those-lonely-days/ With forecasts of massive storms for the next week or two, it behooves me to concoct ways to stay cheerful in the face of gray skies and heavy rains.  At least it’s not snow, I say to myself.   Rain speaks to the limitations of life in the Bay Area, whereas sunny days  inspire in me [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2010/01/19/rain/ Because the Communications of the ACM has so much surprisingly good writing, it has become one of my favorite periodicals.  (I say surprisingly because CACM is a technical journal.)  Though the journal is aimed primarily at computer scientists, much of the content is accessible to a wider audience.  Take, for example,  “Mightier than the pen.” [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2009/12/03/cacms-mightier-than-the-pen/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Our car in an autumn wonderland, originally uploaded by Raymond Yee. I’m amazed by the abundance of leaf fall after on day! Pittsburgh is deeply in autumn; winter can’t be that [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2009/10/29/our-car-in-an-autumn-wonderland/ I never finished writing this blog piece on a book I was reading, but the pieces are coherent enough to push out…. Sautoy, Marcus Du. Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature. Harper, 2008. Fun stuff so far. One big revelation has been the parallel between simple groups and prime numbers. I’m still a [...]]]> http://hypotyposis.net/blog/2009/09/22/was-reading-symmetry/