via zipdeyaruo.blog42.fc2.com (but originally found via this post on hakidamechan.tumblr.com.)
thepete.com mirror
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Saturday, April 03, 2010
@siskita and I are walkin the Highline here in NYC!
It's like a boardwalk they built on top of an old elevated train track.
Oh wait--that's exactly what it is :)Me as a Lego Minifig--compliments of Lego.com! Anyone else on Lego.com? Friend me! I'm "thepete0"
Well, mostly. I made the base minifig on Lego.com then added my logo in Pixelmator.
Too bad Lego.com didn't let me resize my beard. It's much longer than that! I do love the background--looks like a Shepard Fairey piece now :)And, NO, you're never too old to play with Lego!!
Friday, April 02, 2010
Finally partook in #ShakeShack! The Shack Attack was Amazing!!
I've been hearing about the Shake Shack since before we even moved to NYC, we just haven't made it down here until now.
The Shack Attack shake you see below was DELICIOUS.
The Shack Attack is pricey but soooo tasty! Just lookit all the chocolatey magic in this thing!
Yep, that's $6.75 for a single milk shake but it's SO delicious it's worth it at least as an occasional treat! Oh, and the good (bad) news is that they take plastic!
... I'm glad we live on the other end of the island...Randomly the downtown A train stopped at 168th and wouldn't start again for 25m.
Took this pic after heading up to the 1. My kingdom for a train!
One did show up and had me on my way 5 mins before the A train conductor said he would leave so I made the right choice. Plus, I don't have to switch to the D to get to where I'm meeting Siskita.
Oh yeah... And the dude next to me on the 1 train has one of the new Nintendo DSi XLs. Sooo drooling right now...
Thursday, April 01, 2010
11,500 year-old temple found in Turkey, predates Pyramids, rewrites history (but is it really a temple?)
History in the Remaking
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.
Photo: Berthold Steinhilber/Laif-Redux
A pillar at the Gobekli Tepe temple near Sanliurfa, Turkey, the oldest known temple in the world
By Patrick Symmes | NEWSWEEK
Published Feb 19, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Mar 1, 2010Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.
Göbekli Tepe—the name in Turkish for "potbelly hill"—lays art and religion squarely at the start of that journey. After a dozen years of patient work, Schmidt has uncovered what he thinks is definitive proof that a huge ceremonial site flourished here, a "Rome of the Ice Age," as he puts it, where hunter-gatherers met to build a complex religious community. Across the hill, he has found carved and polished circles of stone, with terrazzo flooring and double benches. All the circles feature massive T-shaped pillars that evoke the monoliths of Easter Island.
Though not as large as Stonehenge—the biggest circle is 30 yards across, the tallest pillars 17 feet high—the ruins are astonishing in number. Last year Schmidt found his third and fourth examples of the temples. Ground-penetrating radar indicates that another 15 to 20 such monumental ruins lie under the surface. Schmidt's German-Turkish team has also uncovered some 50 of the huge pillars, including two found in his most recent dig season that are not just the biggest yet, but, according to carbon dating, are the oldest monumental artworks in the world.
The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is "unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date," according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the "huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art" at Göbekli, Hodder—who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites—says: "Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."
via newsweek.com and ablogabouthistory.com
Wow--11,500 years! That's over 100 centuries! Truly an amazing find.
But isn't it interesting how we assume it must be a temple--as in, a religious temple. The article goes on to explain Schmidt's theory, that "it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations."
Really? What makes you so sure that economics, culture and the dating scene wouldn't have played roles? And who's to say that this "temple" was even a temple? What if their idea of "temple" was more about "worshiping" the mechanics of the universe? Observatories on hills, like this one, could provide markers and instruction to those who would look out at the stars and understand what it all meant for people on Earth could easily be an explanation, too. In fact, I've read that such observatories did exactly this in other places in history.
Honestly, it seems like there's just not enough info to decide whether or not there were gods worshiped here or anywhere else almost 12,000 years ago. I mean, these people had no written language--how can anyone assume that the reason someone moved a 10-ton stone was because of a love for some god?
Think about what that means--so, you bust your ass moving a giant fricken rock just to praise some invisible being that may or may not even exist? Wouldn't it make more sense that such stones were moved to benefit other people, rather than some god?? Which is a safer assumption? The latter, I'd say.
Schmidt's suggestions that there were "No fire pits. No trash heaps. There is no water here." make sense, but that doesn't mean you just haven't found them yet. Nobody puts the food court right next to the movie theater at the shopping mall, right? ;)
I often wonder about scientists that are so sure of their conclusions despite having only their own perspectives and the perspectives of those that think like them to go on. The people on this site lived 11.5 **millennia** ago.
Maybe, just *maybe* they thought differently from us?
Masdar City, Abu Dhabi: the first zero-carbon city--why haven't we built one sooner than now??
via menainfra.com
Hit that link above to read more about this amazing idea.
Depressing that cool ideas like this don't come from America any more.
Federal Judge Finds NSA Wiretaps Were Illegal, Bush and Pals still roaming free on American soil.
Federal Judge Finds N.S.A. Wiretaps Were Illegal
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and JAMES RISEN
Published: March 31, 2010WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush.
In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004. Declaring that the plaintiffs had been “subjected to unlawful surveillance,” the judge said the government was liable to pay them damages.
The ruling delivered a blow to the Bush administration’s claims that its surveillance program, which Mr. Bush secretly authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was lawful. Under the program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans’ international e-mail messages and phone calls without court approval, even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, required warrants.
via nytimes.com
This means that Bush is guilty of a crime, right? That means we should put him and anyone else who helped him in jail, right? To set an example for the future so no future presidents will try to get away with the same thing, right?
Because, if not, I'm just going to break some laws until some judge rules I've broken them, at which point I'll just shrug and say "well, it kept terrorists from attacking the Homeland" and move on with my life. Precedent shows I can get away with it.
So sick of the double standard. "For the people by the people," huh?
OK, now iPad Arcade Cabinet from thinkgeek.com is a SWEET idea for the iPad. I still don't want to buy one.
via thinkgeek.com
That said, I wonder if an iPhone version of this would be doable. I'd much prefer a tactile set of controls for the iPhone anyway (though not *this* big).
Am I the only freak who accidentally sends emails prematurely or clicks on links while trying to scroll through web pages??
I also seem to recall reading something about a concept netbook that was essentially just a dock and a bigger display for the iPhone--but once the iPhone was "docked" became a trackpad for a netbook. I love the idea of component computing with smartphones. If this thing existed with a touchscreen and tablet mode, who'd need an iPad?
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