Still Gravity

The carbonized  Herculaneum papyrus scrolls are revealing Plato's burial place and new information about the Greek philosopher. According to Graziano Ranocchia, the lead researcher on the project, the newly revealed details pinpoint Plato’s burial place to a private garden within the Platonic Academy in Athens, near the sacred Museion.   Furthermore, the scrolls suggest a tumultuous chapter in Plato’s life, indicating that he was sold into slavery following the Spartan conquest of the island of Aegina, possibly between 404 BCE and 399 BCE.             (Source here .) The Vesuvius Challenge to decipher the scrolls with help of AI is bringing results.

Image from a steel plate called "On the coast of Florida" illustrating the chronicle - Public Domain.  This is an old sketch of the Everglades region published in 1901. It's in Volume 1 of  With the World's Great Travellers , a book edited by Charles Morris and Oliver H. G. Leigh. The author of the short chronicle was S. C. Clarke.  This tale of an expedition to Lake Okeechobee recounts the killing of a panther.  Morris and I fired, and the panther sprang from the tree among the dogs, which all piled on him at once. There was a confused mass of fur rolling on the ground, snarling, and snapping, for half a minute; then the panther broke loose, and was making off, when Weldon put half a dozen buckshot in his head, They also shot various alligators on the shores of Lake Okeechobee.  In the mean time we had commenced hostilities against the alligators, which were here very large, bold, and numerous. They lay basking in the sun upon the beach in front of our camp, some of

Cuba has been a great experiment on socialist economic planning. Ruled by a government with only one political party and not plurality of views, it always meant a "command economy". Their system also had the convenient excuse of the US embargo to cover up for its own shortfalls, inefficiencies, and corruption.  After the fall of the Soviet Union and their yearly subsidies, in the 1990s all plunged to chaos. Today, things are worse. According to official figures, inflation stood at 77% in 2021, then dropped to 31% in 2023. But for the average Cuban, the official figures barely reflect the reality of their lives, since market inflation can reach up to three digits on the informal market. For example, a carton of eggs, which sold for 300 Cuban pesos in 2019, these days sells for about 3,100 pesos. The monthly salary for Cuban state workers ranges between 5,000 and 7,000 Cuban pesos (between $14 and $20 in the parallel market).           (Source here .) And then you have a piece

Coral made home with iguanas on the roof -  License our images here . Do you like this house? I found it interesting for its coral walls, but when I took the photo didn't notice the iguanas sun basking on the roof. First floor humans, second floor iguanas. Two species coexisting in harmony. Good balance of nature and urbanism.

Recently, I took some photos of a  Cassia bakeriana  in full bloom.  Pink shower tree in a park of Florida -  License our images here . This native from Thailand and Myanmar is commonly known as pink shower tree, wishing tree, or dwarf apple blossom tree. The showy tree blooms in spring with amazing pink-purple flowers.  According to the website of  Pha Tad Ke Botanical Gardens in Luang Prabang, Laos, Its symbolic value this Cassia owes in part to the fact that it is often reinterpreted in Thailand as being a “Kappa tree”, Kalapheuk, a paradise tree in Buddhist mythology which produces everything one could desire. Let's plant one to get our wishes.  The tree. The flowers. The branches.

May be a surprise to many that one of the favorites songs of Honest Abe was " Dixie " - also known as "Dixie's Land" or "I Wish I Was in Dixie".  I say "surprise" because this song was adopted during the Civil War as a de facto national anthem of the Confederacy - together with " The Bonnie Blue Flag " and " God Save the South ".  Lincoln had been quoted as saying, 'I have always thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I have ever heard.'  Check the old article, " If Abraham Lincoln Had An iPod ."

Tyler Cowen pointed to the book  Native Nations: A Millennium in North America   from Kathleen DuVal, professor of early American history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill - link to Amazon is affiliate.  The excerpts are interesting. Some ideas sound familiar to our time. Gradually, across Native North America, people developed a deep distrust of centralization, hierarchy, and inequality.  The former residents of North America’s great cities reversed course, turning away from urbanization and political economic centralization to build new ways of living… Distrust, centralization, hierarchy, inequality... More in Marginal Revolution . 

The general consensus in SEO - Search Engine Optimization - circles is that Google Search is broken and Google's CEO Sundar Pichai has been a disgrace for the company. A couple of days ago, journalist Edward Zitron poured gasoline to the fire with an article named " The Man Who Killed Google Search ".  There he speaks of the fall of Ben Gomes , After nearly 20 years of building Google Search, Gomes would be relegated to SVP of Education at Google. Gomes, who was a critical part of the original team that made Google Search work, who has been credited with establishing the culture of the world’s largest and most important search engine, was chased out by a growth-hungry managerial types led by Prabhakar Raghavan, a management consultant wearing an engineer costume.  the raise of  Prabhakar Raghavan , It’s very, very difficult to find much on Raghavan’s history — it took me hours of digging through Google results to find the three or four articles that went into any depth a

Do you plan to write a book?  First learn a little about the publishing business from the data revealed in the antitrust case against Penguin Random House, The DOJ’s lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000 copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies. 29,000 titles sold less than a dozen books? Not much hope for new writers - neither money. Very interesting article in this link .

The ValuJet monument facing the Tamiami Trail canal -  License our images here . The monument looks weird from the road. Just a bunch of grey concrete pillars standing on the north side of the Tamiami Trail before entering the Miccosukee Indian Reservation.  This structure was built in 1999 to honor the 110 victims of the ValuJet Flight 592 that felt in the Everglades on May 11, 1996 - learn more about the accident  here . Seen from the air, the triangular shape of its base points to the location of the accident many miles into the Everglades - you can see it better in Google Maps . Not the most beautiful memorial I've seen.

It's "The Hand that rocks the Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World" from 1865. Blessings on the hand of women! Angels guard its strength and grace, In the palace, cottage, hovel, Oh, no matter where the place; Would that never storms assailed it, Rainbows ever gently curled; For the hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world. Infancy's the tender fountain, Power may with beauty flow, Mother's first to guide the streamlets, From them souls unresting grow— Grow on for the good or evil, Sunshine streamed or evil hurled; For the hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world. Woman, how divine your mission Here upon our natal sod! Keep, oh, keep the young heart open Always to the breath of God! All true trophies of the ages Are from mother-love impearled; For the hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world. Blessings on the hand of women! Fathers, sons, and daughters cry, And the sacred song is mingled With the worship

Does peace exist in wild things?  Nature, wilderness, and the wild are a yin yang wheel of danger and safety, stress and relaxation, movement and stillness. But there is a good thing in all this primitive existentialism: absence of conscious worries about the future. Like Wendell Berry wrote,  I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.  (The complete poem here .) Living in the present brings peace to the mind. Don't tax your life. 

One of the shacks of Jimbo's Place -  License our images here . Little over a decade ago, we got many photos of Jimbo's place, the popular shack "village" across downtown Miami visited once by President Nixon and a weekend destination for the boating community of Miami. Now the park of Virginia Key built a kayak launching ramp to Lamar Lake on these lands.  Get the tale of the old place with a photo of Jimbo Luznar  here .  Boats in Lamar Lake in the times of Jimbo's.  

Warren Buffet put it simple: If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die. And which are the ways to make money while sleeping?  Investments and/or passive income. The sooner you start the better.

10,190 miles (16,400km). 352 days. 16 countries.  Not an easy task what the " Hardest Geezer " accomplished. His motivation? Not having end of life regrets - those regrets of never trying.  There were others before. The American ultrarunner Charlie Engle 's ran across Africa.  When I decided to run across the Sahara Desert with Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin, I knew it would be a life changing expedition. But I could never have known that, in many ways, my life would be defined by this run and the film about the journey. While running more than 4,500 miles across Africa was a difficult physical challenge, we were buoyed daily by enlightening encounters that opened our eyes to the people and the culture of the Sahara. Ewart Grogan walked from Cape Town to Cairo.  To describe the first stage of the route from the Cape to Cairo, that is to say, as far as the Zambesi, which I accomplished four years ago, would, if time be counted by progress, be reverting to the Middle Ages. (Quote

Cleaning the statues of the temple. Everybody pours water on them -  License our images here .   Once again, we've been in a Songkran festival, the Thai celebration of the Buddhist new year and the most important celebration in Thailand. In this occasion was in the Wat Buddharangsi Buddhist Temple of Miami. This event means change and transformation, cleanliness and rejuvenation. Water is the big protagonist and that's why it's also known as the "Water Festival". Water runs on the Buddhist statues and on the attending crown - if you are not careful. But water is fresh and good. It cleans and Songkran is all about spring cleaning, the washing away of bad luck - our world needs a lot of water nowadays.  Interesting cultural experience. Just try it.  (More of our pictures for your delight.)

Alfred Burdon Ellis spent a long time in Africa. The British officer fought in the Zulu war and the Third Anglo-Ashanti War - he was wounded in 1878. Ellis also served as governor of Sierra Leone in 1892. A year later, he was sent to fight the Malian Sofas - "sofa" meant warrior in the Mandinka language of the Mali Empire. On his way back, he got the fever and died in 1894 in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Ellis wrote many books and his ethnographic work in West Africa was well known during his time. His texts are usually signed as A. B. Ellis.  The Land of Fetish was published in 1883. The book recounts his time as Captain of the First West Indian Regiment in West Africa, a position he got in 1879. The text contains interesting descriptions of African cultures and historical events.  These are some excerpts: About his visit to the ruins of a British fort destroyed by the French in the 17th century. About an hour’s row up the river from Bathurst is the island of St. James, which

New findings say that these monkeys famous for their lovemaking behavior are not that peaceful.  The results, Mouginot says, “really came as a surprise.” Overall, male bonobos turned out to be about three times as likely as chimps to engage in aggressive behavior.  Nature and social life in humans and animals are complex matters.  The common perception of bonobos as peace loving may fail to capture “the nuance of a species that has a lot of complex behavior,” Mouginot argues. (Indeed, even primatologist Frans de Waal—whoske work helped popularize the image of the bonobo as a lover, not a fighter—cautioned people not to romanticize them.) Read the story here .

The amazing flower of shameplant -  License our images here . The flowers of this plant look alien. In close view, they appear covered by tiny lights. Electric plant? No. Just an illusion.   Shameplant is  Mimosa pudica  for science -  pudica  means "shame" or "shrinking" in Latin. It's a curious plant for its sensitive leaves that react to the touch and fold inward. Minutes later, they will go back to normal.  This is how the leaves look when open.  Open leaves of shameplant.  The folding of the leaves are an example of sensitive defense against potential predators. The plant tries to reduce its exposure. The folding comes from a flow of potassium within the leaf.  Shameplant is native to the tropical Americas but lives well in South Florida and regions with similar climate around the world. It's considered an invasive species in many places - a beautiful invasive. 

Revelations from a tomb from 5500 BC found in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux near Avignon, France. Recent research has unearthed chilling evidence of ritual sacrifices in Neolithic Europe, a practice that involved the gruesome method of "incaprettamento" - tying victims' necks to their bent legs, leading to self-strangulation. Read the findings here .

Azul Wells shared some good points in his YouTube Channel. This is a summary: At 60, we can estimate less than a thousand weeks left of healthy active life. We can make more money, but not more time.  There is no amount of money that we "must have" to retire - we have to make it work. Financial planning works with assumptions of the future. When retirement arrives, reality may differ from the plans - and again, we've to make all work with the money we have.  The most dangerous phrase is "one more year of work", because we'll never be totally ready to retire. This gentleman recommends not to waste the youth of our senior years - and, of course, I totally agree.  I love this phrase that bounces around the web from time to time: Life is meant to live, not work yourself to death. Don't work yourself to death.

Humans are tribal. Everybody knows this. We are tribal in mostly everything, and politics are not the exception. In this area, we dig in hard in "positional tribalism". Right wing, left wing, "center".  These labels began as a purely spatial thing. They were seating arrangements in the National Assembly of France in 1789 - those convulse times of the French Revolution. The physical seatings of people brought the "progressive left" and the "traditionalist right". That was the beginning of the craziness. Later we got more creative and appeared the "center", the "center left", the "center-right", and on and on. We have a deep fascination for labels.  Most of the times, when tribalism wins the best ideas lose.

The blue heron took off when we were approaching in the trail -  License our images here . Last week I captured this sequence of a blue heron taking off and getting airborne. Interesting how the big bird gets aerodynamic pushing the legs back. Then it pulls back the head holding the long neck in an "S" curve. They can reach a speed up to 55 kilometers per hour with relatively slow wing beats. The suggestion for the "S" curved neck points to center mass - check this article .  A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.                         John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

The famous Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós wrote in the first paragraph of his novel  Nazarín . A un periodista de los de nuevo cuño, de estos que designamos con el exótico nombre de reporter , de estos que corren tras de la información, como el galgo a los alcances de la liebre, y persiguen el incendio, la bronca, el suicidio, el crimen cómico o trágico, el hundimiento de un edificio, y cuantos sucesos afectan al orden público y a la justicia en tiempos comunes, o a la higiene en días de epidemia, Here we go with my loose translation:  To a journalist of the new type, one of those we call by the exotic name of 'reporter', those who run after information like a hunting dog goes after a hare, and chase the fire, the fight, the suicide, the crime, comic or tragic, the falling of a building, and any event that affects public order and justice or the hygiene on epidemic days, This book was published in 1895, but this complex sentence still applies to the reporters of

Henry Pratt Fairchild, "Immigration".  Immigration is a hot topic today and was a hot topic in the past, but most of us don't know much about the old views on immigration. This is why this century old text caught my attention.  Henry Pratt Fairchild published this book in 1913 - a year before the start of WWI. The full title was  Immigration: A world movement and its American significance. The text covers the immigration to North America since the colonial times. The author was born in 1880. He became a sociologist and taught at New York University. Fairchild covered controversial topics such as race, abortion, contraception, and immigration - there is a list of his books at the end of the post. He got involved with Planned Parenthood since 1916 and was a member of the American Eugenics Society. Fairchild served as president of the American Sociological Society in 1936.  Some interesting points from the book.  A Dutch ship introduced the first African slaves to North Amer