The parents of the book’s author both decided when they were younger that they would like to be in control of their own deaths when they got old. They didn’t want to suffer long and drawn out misery due to age. The father was diagnosed with a horrible form of cancer and didn’t have very long to live. He asked his adult son to assist him in committing suicide which they did together at home using the medications he’d been prescribed by his doctors. The process was very short because of the situation.

In contrast, the man’s mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She knew that she was degenerating, forgetting things and losing control over both mind and body. She wanted to hang on as long as possible but to never get to the point where she was living beyond what she decided she wanted to live. She also asked for her son’s help. This was a much longer process than the situation with the father and the telling of it gives terrific insight into the issue of Alzheimer’s and what people go through when this happens in their families.

The book mostly focuses on the individual’s right to what the author calls Self De-Termination and the situation surrounding the decline related to Alzheimer’s. However, it does also provide food for thought regarding this man’s own personal choices and struggle to assist his parents and the little-known fact that euthanasia may be placing pressure on adult children since it’s not allowed to be done by doctors. I’m not saying euthanasia is right or wrong; that’s not the point. The point is that the book provides a very interesting perspective.

It’s an emotionally tough read but definitely a fascinating one!

This is one of those things that is a little random and weird but is also really cool. There are tons of interesting and unusual things to see in various places around the world. They exist in large cities as well as small towns. Sometimes you go see them and they turn out to be kind of boring but often you discover things that you never would have known anything about. Broadening your experiences makes your world bigger.

Here in my own neck of the woods, some of the things going on for Obscura Day include:

• Wine and snacks at the Long Now Foundation Museum. This place is working on a project to make a 10,000 year clock. I’ll be honest; I’ve been here and I think this project is just a little bit too smart for me because I couldn’t quite follow the point of it. Nevertheless, I got to check out some cool machines and try to get a grasp on a really unique project.
• Tour of Musee Mechanique. This is a really cool old arcade museum that features arcade games from years and years ago. It’s located at Fisherman’s Wharf here in San Francisco and it’s always tons of fun to go to it.
• See a huge pneumatic tube system. In nearby Palo Alto you can tour one of the world’s largest pneumatic tube systems for Obscura Day.
• Berkeley’s Bone Room. I haven’t ever been here but I’ve heard it’s a must-see thing for people who are into strange stuff. It’s a collection of bones and for Obscura Day they’re providing a talk about what you can see there.

Check out that tiled OLED light wall. When it’s not in use, it’s a mirror. It’s cutting-edge green technology but I’m just in love with it because it’s a super-cool, fun, smart thing that would be neat to have in your home. Of course, it costs close to $7000 so I don’t think I’ll be getting it. Ah well.

Read more about it at Inhabitat.

30 Ways to Recycle Your Cool Graphic Tees was included in the Reduce, ReUse, Recycle Section of the All Things Eco blog carnival. Other posts in this category were on Enviro Produce Bags, Recycling Plastic Bags and Dealing with e-waste.

50 Ways to Alter Cute Tees into Sexier Shirts was included in the Make It From Scratch blog carnival. Some of the other posts included in this blog carnival were on upcycled sweaters, mixed media art education and warming your home.

Lots of good green and DIY posts in all of these carnivals so have a read if you’ve got some free time.

Way back in 1965, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to UNICEF. This well-known group advocates for children’s rights and has done a lot to save the children over the years. If any non-human group deserved the award, surely it was this one.

Twenty years later, another group was given the prize. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War were recognized for the crucial role that they played in maintaining world peace. Preventing nuclear war is surely worthy of such a prize, right?

Almost another twenty years passed and another non-human entity was awarded the prize although it had to be split with a human winner this time. The entity was the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which split the prize with Al Gore. Both were recognized for their work to prevent global warming.

Will it be another 20 years before a non-human gets the prize? Not necessarily. The Internet has been nominated for the award this year. Do you think it should win? Does it play as big of a role as these other non-human beings in establishing world peace? Arguably, the Internet has globalized the world and made us all more culturally aware of one another. Should it get the peace prize for that achievement?

Source

It sounds almost like a form of torture doesn’t it? Here you are, trying to gather together your sanity, and everything that should be normal around you is different from the way that it’s supposed to be. It sounds confusing. It sounds frightening. But perhaps it’s exactly the opposite. Perhaps this unique approach to design could be the thing that helps to heal patients.

The thinking behind this design is that it’s a truly hands-on, day-to-day method of getting everyone in the facility to think outside of the box. When your normal surroundings are altered in a very unusual way like this, you are forced to think differently. You are forced to be more creative. This could have a very beneficial impact on altering the negative states of mind of the patients who come to receive help at the mental health clinic. It might even have a positive effect on the thinking patterns of staff and visitors.

As beautifully described by the magazine:

“By providing alternate perspectives for viewing the world, and avoiding being trapped by pre-existing perceptions, the interior allows visitors–and staff members–to experience opening new doors in their hearts, one after the other.”

It’s a fascinating idea isn’t it?

The word doesn’t seem to be used quite as often these days as it was when I first moved here. However, people do still use it to describe a lot of something, a big amount … and one student is really pushing for that to become a permanent thing. UC Davis physics student Austin Sendek is petitioning for hella to become the official word used to describe the number that equals one trillion trillions (or 10 to the 27th power).

Some facts that support his petition:

• Northern California has played an important role in science over the years. This designation of a word unique to this region for such an important scientific indicator would honor that role.
• Right now the largest number that there is a word for is 10 to the 24th power. However, as we begin to learn more and more about the far reaches of the universe, we are going to need to be able to name even greater distances and amounts.
• It might be a weird name for a number but is it really any weirder than some of the existing prefixes which include yocto and zetta? In fact, this five letter word seems to fit right in.

This is a fascinating movie that essentially tells the story of two situations in one. First, there is the case of over 30 murders that took place in Atlanta around the same time in the early 1980’s. These were all murders of black children, both girls and boys. A man was convicted of two of the crimes and loosely linked to the rest by questionable evidence and then the case was dropped. That’s the first part of the story.

The second part of the story is that the first story was picked up by two journalists at SPIN magazine in 2000. These two journalists got wind of the tale and figured that it was loosely related to their music magazine because the man who was convicted of the crimes had been involved in the recording industry. They did their research and brought out the tale that hadn’t yet been told. The second story revealed in the movie is of their journalistic approach to uncovering the first story.

It’s an interesting movie. Is it a stunning cinematic presentation? Not really. There are some things that could have been done better. But that’s not the point. The point is that the film manages to touch on a number of different explosive topics and to reveal some great insights into all of them. The main topic was the racism behind the murders themselves, the way they were covered up and the way that people dealt with the journalists as they were trying to uncover the story. Another topic was the approach to journalism itself, how you uncover facts and what responsibilities you have to the public when telling a story like this. Another was about the justice system and how sometimes easing the public’s mind becomes more important than finding the truth about a crime.

The story itself is, of course, horrifying. All of these children died and no one actually knows who the real killer was. There may have been 30 deaths that were all related or there may have been twice that many. They may have been committed by the KKK or by a serial killer or by someone else entirely. We just don’t know. And the fact that most of us didn’t even know about this case is horrifying in and of itself.

Definitely worth a Netflix rental!

For my part, I have to say that I really get inspired by everything. I see things and read things and hear things all throughout the day and they inspire me. Some inspire me to write a certain blog post. Some inspire my creative writing or poetry. Some inspire my desire to learn new things. Some inspire me to be kinder to others. Some just give me that wonderful feeling of vague inspiration that doesn’t get channeled into anything specific but makes me feel a little bit brighter about life.

I could go on and on forever about every little thing that inspires me but I’ll keep my list down to 100 inspiring things:

1. Live sketching events where artists gather together, create art as you watch and post it on a wall for sale right there
2. Watching children do anything that reveals that childlike wonder for things that we adults consider normal or mundane
3. Watching people work on computers or consumer electronics because I just can’t do it well myself
4. Hearing about the memories of elderly people
5. Reading books on creativity and artful living
6. Huge libraries filled with floors and floors of so many books that I’ll never be able to read them all
7. Wandering around the city people-watching
8. Indie arts and crafts events where hundreds of crafters gather together to show off their work
9. Browsing through Etsy
10. Watching absolutely any film that’s shown in IMAX 3D
11. Being handed a plate of food that’s almost too beautiful to eat but tastes so good that you can’t help it
12. The smell of coffee
13. Taking walking tours especially through areas I’ve seen a hundred times but want to see in a new way
14. Those grand things that inspire everyone like magnificent sunsets and huge ocean views
15. Finding pictures in the clouds
16. Stop-Motion video
17. People who can take really amazing pictures and then make them even better with photo editing software
18. Listening to auctioneers do their thing
19. Checking out antique stores in small towns in the Midwest
20. Long road trips with just me, myself and the radio
21. Pandora and how well it seems to know what I want to hear!
22. Anyone who can find the silver lining in a tough situation
23. The amazing women who have entered my life over the years
24. Great quotations from authors both known and unknown
25. Magic shows
26. Cirque du Soleil performances
27. Lomography
28. Random links posted on social networking sites for me to click on
29. Vintage postcards
30. Learning new crochet stitches and making something I haven’t made before
31. Scrapbooking the photos taken throughout the month
32. Journaling
33. Reading the published journals/diaries of other people, especially writers and artists
34. Documentaries that are both interesting and informative
35. Reading “strange news” websites and blogs
36. Fingering the fabrics in luxury clothing stores
37. Piecing together outfits from the items bought in second hand clothing stores
38. The changing skyline of San Francisco
39. Everything about my little sister
40. Doing things that scare me at first like riding ATVs
41. Long hikes
42. Long conversations
43. Live theatre events where a single actor plays multiple roles
44. Listening to people beatbox
45. Open mic poetry readings
46. Coloring books
47. Those 3D posters that you had to really stare at to see the picture
48. Crazy competitions like the fastest texters or the fastest Rubik’s cube solvers
49. Elaborate sandcastles
50. Project Runway
51. Women who can walk in six inch heels
52. Elderly people who are trying new things, performing in plays, really out there living life
53. Anything that manages to actually make me laugh out loud
54. Coming across really funny typos
55. Stunning strange shoes like these
56. Seeing videos of people doing free running and parkour
57. Terrific slideshows of beautiful things set to music that just really goes with the images
58. Daydreaming
59. Unique architecture, bionic buildings, upside down houses
60. That moment when you feel like you’re really connecting with a stranger
61. Collage art
62. Watching glass blowers in action
63. The smell of used bookstores
64. Burlesque performance
65. How people come together in a crisis
66. Getting groups of adults together to do things like color Easter eggs or make gingerbread houses
67. Stunning Christmas light displays
68. Seeing people use creative approches to doing the things that we do every day
69. Viewing other people’s random collections - music or salt shakers or aprons or whatever they may love that I didn’t until I saw their passion
70. Children twirling around until they fall down
71. Science museums
72. Car shows and museums filled with vintage cars
73. Articles that show specific changing technology (like how cell phones have changed over the years)
74. Fingerpainting
75. Yoga, pilates, meditation, and hula hoop dancing classes
76. People who speak half a dozen languages or more
77. The Northern Lights
78. Rainbows
79. Conventions for odd interests like the movie The Blob or the merging of sex and technology
80. Weird niche books on topics like pedestrianism or obituary writing
81. Unusual museums like the Liberace Museum in Vegas
82. Stumbling upon unique free events
83. Travel memoirs
84. The fact that scarves can be worn so many different ways
85. People who can make crazy outfits or makeup look good
86. Costumed events
87. Meteor showers
88. When you find the exact word to specifically describe something
89. Keeping a list of “ugly words” with my dad and getting excited about coming across a new one
90. Those moments when I actually feel like I’m really living in the moment
91. Weird hotels
92. Funny signage especially when it’s not intended to be funny
93. Leafy sea dragons
94. Visiting aquariums
95. Trying to cook something new and having it come out exactly right
96. Setting and meeting random goals like trying twenty different sugar-rimmed drinks or watching all of the movies with a particular actor in them
97. Riding on the back of someone else’s motorcycle
98. Collaborative projects with cool creative people
99. Exploring caves and lava tubes and ruins and old mines
100. Falling in love

These printers have come down in cost enough to be accessible to small and mid-sized businesses today. Wouldn’t it be neat if they eventually come down in price far enough that individual people like you and me could have these types of printers in our homes. One product that we might want to design and print could be shoes.

Believe it or not; 3D printed shoes are already being made. Students at two different leading design schools in Sweden are working on ways to create shoes out of a 3D printing technology called selective laser sintering that fuses plastic powders to create the shoe. The plan that they’re working on is that the shoe could be worn once or twice and then the material could be returned to the machine to be broken down and re-used. The idea would be that you could have really amazing new shoes every time that you went out without having to actually keep them and store them.

What do you think?

In somewhat related news, I just have to say that I loved a recent post over at Weburbanist showing off over one dozen super-weird shoe designs.