Stand waaaay back.
One of the cooler capabilities of my current camera phone is its wide-angle view. I’d been able to zoom-in for a long while–The better to see you with, my dear, at least until it’s just the fuzzier to see you–but the zoom-out or slightly wide-angle view is an ongoing revelation.
Let’s talk about open-source software. I expect it’s a common topic in your circles.
No? OK, let’s talk about how we can make the world, or our community, or even our household a better place. Oddly, it’s the same conversation as that obscure software thing.
Sheep are not like ideas.
The cultural commons,
particularly software,
doesn’t get used up
when more people contribute to it.
In fact, it gets better.
– Seth Godin
Seth’s launching point was the tragedy of the commons, a phenomenon where it seems to make sense at the individual level to use more than our fair share of a common, unpriced resource. If lots of folks do it–or even if a few people do it excessively–the commons can be ruined. Then he contrasts the physical commons with the cultural commons.
Sheep are not like ideas.
The boxes of Costco-branded tissues all looked pretty normal. Attractive, even.
Partaking of a coherent colour palette, they offered interesting pattern variations: hexagons, pointillist colours, mandala-like figures, water-colour-y landscape-ishes, abstract smears with bold brushwork, another geometrical pattern but with a 3D effect, and a paisley-ish swirl.
It’s the bold-brushwork one we’re here to talk about. Above, you’ve seen it from the side–the square-on view. Here’s the view of the corner.
A ram? A satyr? A warthog? Yes, that seems to fit best.
Keep an eye out for tissue boxes near you. A face could be right around the corner.
God gave us memory
so that we might have
roses in December.
– James M. Barrie
And cameras so that we don’t need to rely on our memories, I guess. This seems like a better idea every day.
These photos, of course, were taken just yesterday in a place where God gives us roses in January. She also gave us an upright and bushy-tailed rodent of some sort . . .
As I write this, it’s Saturday. That means tomorrow will be Sunday. There’s only one problem: It’s been Sunday every day this week since Tuesday.
New Year’s Eve is an event that cries out to be held/observed on the same day of the week every year. It practically demands to be exempted from the usual week-in, week-out flow of our lives. And if it doesn’t cry out or make this demand, then I do.
What was I thinking? I had the perfect How it Started, How it’s Going set-up and I failed to get the before photo. A proxy photo will give you an idea, but this adjacent closet in our temporary abode in Tempe still bears my imprint from last year, when I stacked all the pool towels that had been stuffed all higgledy-piggledy into their assigned space, first folding them so they *could* be stacked.
How it started (proxy photo)
Some of us are independent. Loners, even.
Great blue heron, fishing
Some of us thrive in crowds.
Sandhill cranes, hanging out
Some prefer small groups.
Sandhill cranes, browsing/gleaning
Different strategies–*wildly* different strategies–can work equally well, but it’s good to know who we are.
I don’t get out at night much, but when I do, sometimes I find a nice reflection in a vehicle.
Here’s one from several years ago in Myrtle Beach.
Here’s one from this week in Texas.
It’s a wonderful world, innit?
Go, Blue Jays!
