On Love

The hallmark of love is the desire of the lover to sacrifice something they would otherwise want, for the benefit of the beloved, and to consider themselves better off on account of it.

Taxpayer-funded Playground

I spend a lot of time on various government websites. NASA, USGS and NOAA, for example, have provided me with hours of opportunity to learn the esoteric and fascinating things we've paid for with our tax dollars. Nothing prepared me, though, for something what I ran across today.



This site could easily absorb every hour in the day for an indefinite period of time. It has tools and datasets from the DoD to the CDC to the USGS all in one place! Hundreds of thousands of images, web widgets, charts, graphs... It's exhausting in extent. If you like data, lots and lots of data, take a look.

On Being Human

It is the duty of every person to use their particular confluence of nature and nurture, for the benefit of themselves and of those around them, and to bring mercy and justice into the world, which only human beings can do.

Periodic Table of Videos

Just a pointer to a really great website with a really great concept: the Periodic Table of the Elements with a video for each one. The videos range from narratives to demonstrations, and are all interesting and a lot of fun.


Warning! Dangerous(ly fun) Chemicals!

The site is great for kids or adults. Just be sure you set aside some time before visiting because you won't want to stop watching.

Tools for the Road

This blog's tagline is "tools, things and ideas". When I started writing it, as an exercise in putting my thoughts into essay form, I reached into my pocket and pulled out what I carry around. I wrote about those things as a start. Since then, I have written much more about ideas than tools and so I am trying to make up for that a bit.


Years in the making, the "kit".

My on-the-go tool kit is designed for general adjustment and repair of whatever I might encounter while out and about, as well as working on small things on the bench. It includes drivers, pliers, tweezers, probes, saws and visual aids and chemicals (such as adhesives and thread locker) all in a compact form.

If you click on the link under the picture, you can expand each of the four images into a larger and more satisfying size. You can probably identify quite a few of the items, but not all of them. The screwdriver set is a trusty Wiha roll kit, no longer made so far as I can tell. It is about 20 years old now, and is still my favorite. Wiha tools are very high quality and I have several of their screwdriver sets. I highly recommend them. In the roll are also a pair of excellent Swiss Erem tweezers*, and a "probe" I fabricated from a dental pick which serves many purposes included lock-pick and CD drawer ejector.

I am going to leave the other tools for later posts as I could write a few thousand words on what is in that kit and that's not a task for now. If you have any questions about the items in the photos, please use the address at the top of the blog sidebar and email me about it.

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* If you need some tweezers like them, check DealExtreme, but give yourself plenty of time because you won't be able to stop clicking.

A Real Multitool for the Pocket

This Father's Day my family gave me a great gift, a Skeletool. The Skeletool is the visually confusing next-generation multitool from Leatherman.


"Ooo... what is it? I mean, how do you open it?"

I already owned a Leatherman Wave and like it as much as I can like any multitool (which is limited, since they are never quite right). But the Wave is big and heavy and is definitely not comfortable in the pocket. The sheath has a nice horizontal carry option but it is still a burden and frankly rather geeky for EDC (Every Day Carry).

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On the Universal Rôle of Mythology

When we read Plato's stories of the life of Socrates, it is very easy for us to spot the mythology involved. Plato's Socrates is a pious devotee of Athena, the goddess of war and of wisdom. It is central to his understanding of what is ethical, and ultimately he chooses death as more acceptable than leaving Athens, Athena's city.



Greek Athena, a Copy Signed by ANTIOCHOS as she Appeared on the Acropolis

For us, it is self-evident that Socrates is being superstitious, that Athena is purely mythological—that is to say not real. We are inclined to say, "Why should Socrates die for such nonsense?" Yet, I can't help but wonder that if the tables were turned and Socrates were reading an account of one of our lives what he would spot, without hesitation, as mythological, and wonder at.

Look in a dictionary for a definition of mythology, and you will find something like:

mythology |məˈθäləjē|
noun ( pl. -gies)

1. a collection of myths, esp. one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
• a set of stories or beliefs about a particular person, institution, or situation, esp. when exaggerated or fictitious.

2. the study of myths.

I want to extend this definition to uncover the essential and universal rôle of mythology in every person's world view. I assert that each and every one of us has a mythology which is the very foundation of our understanding. It serves the purpose of allowing us to sift the infinite number of facts that bombard us each day. Without a mythology, ordinary thinking would be an infinite regress of questioning, practical decision-making would be impossible.

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Why bother?

My friend Robert asked me "What is the value of pursuing philosophy?" I answered him:

The value of the pursuit of answers to epistemic questions lies in the space beyond the limits of speech and before the limits of thought.

I couldn't really say more without lying.

I am a Key Signing Iconoclast*

PGP keys are a way to digitally sign and/or encrypt data such as email, source code, documents and the like. They use a public key system whereby I provide you with a key that you can use to verify a "signature", or in combination with another to decrypt the encrypted data.



Here's a key, it doesn't really have anything to do with this essay.



The signature works because you get my key from a trusted source (me) or because other trusted people have used their own key to sign mine. This is called a web of trust. To make a key "trustable" it has to be signed by a person that is trusted. This can be you, if you've received my key in a way that leads you to believe it is really my key, or someone that you explicitly (or implicitly) trust to verify the veracity of the source.

To this end people are very careful about signing keys. They, in general, will only do it in person, with supporting documentation such as a passport or a driver's license, or both! They take it all very seriously to ensure that the web of trust has value. I agree with this motivation whole-heartedly.

On the other hand, I have decided that in spite of the excellent motivation this key signing orthodoxy has damaged the value of the keys, and because it is, at this point, just an orthodoxy (and not a rational process), has excluded an entirely legitimate domain for PGP keys (quite possibility the most legitimate one).

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Why StumbleUpon Visitors are Not Welcome

Recently I began to notice StumbleUpon as a referrer in the logs for this blog. I had seen it before, but that was to a specific post, and I had no problem tracking down the recommendation someone had made on the site. This time, though, the link was to the front page, and try as I might I could not find such recommendation on the StumbleUpon pages. The referrer link itself was no help since it is just a pointer to a marketing page trying to get me to advertise with them.

A friend mentioned that he recalled a button in the StumbleUpon "toolbar" (really an outer frame) to randomly choose a site. This idea also seemed to explain why many times only some of the images are downloaded (the visitor simply clicked on "stumble" again when the first impression wasn't appealing). So it seems, that this it the source of my StumbleUpon visitors. They are people randomly hopping around the web hoping to find something "interesting".

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