thoughts on philosophy and science

Moved by the Pope's Encyclical a few years ago, I've established my own sustainability plan. I've also been inspired recently by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's 17 Sustainable Development Goals so much that I've decided to rewrite my sustainability plan in context of those goals.

A Chinese scientist recently announced that he had genetically modified two embryos, implanted them and gave birth to two healthy babies. The scientist has apparently used CRISPR to make them immune to HIV. Whether or not this is true someday it will be true.

This government is quite authoritative and imposes great control over its people. They have virtually no rights, no privacy and no ownership of property or land. But this article is not about that.

Introduction
In a couple years I would like to build out a storage array for a hifi video installation. There are three primary goals:

• Capacity: I would like to store 200 bluray movies, overmargined by 50%.
• Performance: It must be able to stream unencrypted and remuxed 4k bluray content
• Cost: In the age of Netflix, it makes sense that this should be dead cheap.

Capacity
200 discs, overprovisioned by 50% is 300 movies.

One line of thought: level headed, cool people make better decisions leading to long term success over those who don't.

Second line of thought: irrational hot headedness leads to bonking your enemies on the head leading to long term success over those who don't.

Interesting. If the latter were true then a humankind with high running emotions, naturally irrational, tribal and hot headed behavior would be a genetically, possibly sexually, selected adaptation.

In my previous writing, the focus was on experience and was more existential. Here I continue the work this time I am more inspired by two things. Once is epistemology and the other is Andy Warhol.

I put this map together of all the decisions to be made when setting up a shot:

It includes setting the scene, choosing the optics, proper exposure, shutter release and post-processing.

How modular can you make a camera?

I sketched out the block diagram of a camera:

On a DSLR/mirrorless, the items in green can be made modular (in a studio environment at least) with add-ons or attachments or software.

Baseline core functionality for a language learning app:

I lead a pretty structured life. You'd think all that discipline would be productive but I am currently debugging why most of my goals for 2018 are unfinished.

Besides eating, sleeping, working and traveling (for which I reserve 2+8+8+2=20hrs) this is how I spend part of every day:

Introduction
I've long wanted two things for my wardrobe: first a dress watch. Simple, classy, elegant, not too large. Second, a dive watch. Something that is more technical or sporty, but not too utilitarian or a "tool watch". In this article I'd like to explore the idea of a well made, well performing, classy, dive (or maybe aviation) watch with a bezel. I am curious to see what's available and what my expectations are for accuracy, looks and style and price point.