Raul Gutierrez has travelled to many rural areas of Tibet and has documented most of his travels with his trusty camera. Raul is a great photographer and I really love his candid take at some of the most remote parts of the world. This is the reason why his website was linked-to from BoingBoing yesterday and one of the reasons why you may have seen his site in my ‘blogroll’ since I started blogging.
I feel Raul’s photography is on par with his writing, of which I am a very big fan. This morning in fact, I read his post entitled ‘Pepper’s Ghost‘ in which he tells us a story about a night with his son. For me, it touches on how great the little things in life can be whilst also epitomising a reason why I want to have children in the future. It’s a really great, simple story.
Another of Raul’s posts that I read recently was ‘In My Language‘ which links to a video on YouTube created by an autistic woman on the subject of language and personhood - how they relate and how ‘we’ perceive those with mental disabilities. It’s quite a long video, but hold on ’til you get to the 5:20 mark when she starts her very articulate ‘translation’ of the first 5 minutes of the video. It’s fascinating.
Later on in this same post, Raul discusses ‘George Finn’ - an autistic savant. It reminded me of another link on my ‘blogroll’ - that of Daniel Tammet - and it soon became clear that Raul was in fact referring to Daniel and had simply written the name incorrectly - quite a coincidence! Daniel himself is fascinating and I have wanted to buy his book for quite a while (I am currently trying to reduce the number of new books I buy and I’ve already bought 4 this year). Daniel holds the record for the largest European recital of pi (22,514 digits in just over five hours), knows five languages (of which one - Icelandic - was learnt in a week as a challenge), has also created three of his own languages and can “calculate” cube roots faster than calculators. However, he does not know right from left and cannot go to the beach due to the overwhelming compulsion to count every grain of sand.
These two people show opposite perspectives on autism but one thing holds true for both: they are profiled and thrust into public view very often because of their ‘disability’ and the public’s obsession with those who are ‘different’.
Filed under Food, Sci/Tech
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day - that it kick-starts your body’s metabolism, stabilising your blood-sugar levels to regulate appetite and energy for many hours. I eat breakfast because I just like it!
My favourite breakfasts have, for a long time, been a combination of fresh fruit, frozen berries, yoghurt and something like natural peanut butter or honey which adds a bit of sweetness. Stick all of this in a blender and you’ve got yourself a ‘smoothie’ that’s healthy, fast and above all else, really tasty - a godsend of a combination when you’ve only got a few minutes in the mornings for breakfast. It’s easy to see why smoothies have become a multi-million pound industry in the last couple of years.
However I’ve been without a blender for about 6 months now and as a consequence my breakfasts have been quite boring (and my soups thin). At one point I did experiment with a homemade muesli/porridge creation but, whilst tasty, it just took too long to make - it was soon confined to the recipe book in my head. Tonight I am determined to fall asleep as the proud owner of a new blender.
What’s this got to do with niche blogs and websites? Well you see, I’m one of those people who will do their research on all prospective purchases - no matter how mundane the product - and these little recesses of the Internet are invaluable when it comes to this. Here, people who know what they’re talking about discuss and compare products on the features that actually matter and make choosing a reliable product that you have no idea about a breeze.
Much to my dismay I cannot find a blender-dedicated website, and I am very upset. Is there a make of blender that is far superior? Are there any features I should avoid or demand for my blender? What’s the minimum price I should spend on a blender to guarantee a fair degree of quality? Maybe buying it today is a bit ambitious after all.
This is my call to all blender-enthusiasts and all others who have a niche website inside of them: find an outlet for your knowledge online… we’re waiting for you.
When I picture snow, three images pop to mind almost immediately: snowmen, Christmas and penguins - and not necessarily all at the same time.
For what may have been the fifth time in my life, I’ve been witness to snow in South Wales that is deep enough to allow the building of a snowman. However, as exciting as this may sound, I didn’t end up making a snowman as I was at work during the day and by the time I was home the thick fluffy snow had changed to resemble diluted cold mud.
Nevertheless, on my lunch-break I boldly ventured outside and took these photos on my ‘phone:
Whilst outside I also noted how the British, when confronted with this unfamiliar white substance, suddenly begin walking like penguins. Now I don’t mean we all kneel down and commence tobogganing around on our stomachs (no matter how much Carsten Höller might like this to be true), but we all waddle like our legs are tied together. This amused me and also set me off on a train of thought about penguins, of which Wikipedia was a large encourager.
- It is a well-known flightless bird, but it is less well-known that penguins are almost exclusively of the southern hemisphere (there are none in the Arctic!) and are oft misrepresented as residing exclusively in cold climes such as Antarctica.
- Tux is the penguin mascot of Linux - an open source alternative to Windows and Mac’s OS X. I’ve recently been considering going exclusively Linux rather than sharing with Windows!
- I’ve recently read ‘Death and the Penguin‘ by Andrey Kurkov - a dark, existential (and rather Kafkaesque) short novel about a children’s writer in post Soviet Russia who keeps Misha, a depressed King Penguin, as a pet in his small apartment.
- In this story the protagonist is said to have obtained his penguin when the local zoo gave away the animals to whomever could provide for them - I’ve recently found out that this actually happened in Kiev.
- March of the Penguins is a film/documentary that I rented late last year that was charming (despite the director’s obvious artistic license). Happy Feet is an animated film about a small, tap-dancing penguin… that I do not want to watch.
- Penguins are myopic - or ‘near-sighted’ - just like me.
- They can drink sea water and excrete excess salt in a mucus through their noses!
- Homosexual male penguins have been documented using a stone as an egg replacement in the nest.
- Yesterday a work colleague was telling me about a condensation-related fact that he read in ‘Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?‘ - New Scientist’s book devoted to questions they receive from readers.
So, as you can see, penguins have been popping up in my life more than is typical recently, and
they’re an interesting bunch; I hope this trend continues.
