Here are eight photos of the reflections of masts of yachts on a day of high atmospheric pressure in a harbour on the east coast of Ireland. All taken during a pier walk in Dún Laoghaire with a polarised telephoto lens.
Fake Memoir
Watching The Watchers
‘… there is as yet no consensus on why religion arose nor on why it has so tenaciously remained. And not for lack of ideas: coopting the naturally selected brain, driving group cohesion, calming existential anxiety, protecting reputations and reproductive opportunities’
― Brian Greene Until The End Of Time.
Does religion persist because it confers an adaptive advantage? Could it be that faith is a byproduct of the evolution of cognition? Could there be better things waiting for us in the future than we are experiencing now? Once you start asking questions like this, potential answers are legion.
Today’s Exercise
Another morning, another pier walk under a clear sky, the shadow lengths already halved while the sun continued to rise towards the upper meridian transit of the solar noon.
Verne, Wells and Marconi
Imagine that it’s 11872 HE and a novel has just been published. This is a novel that future generations may consider as defining the expectations of the age.
HE is the Holocene era, a calendar formed by adding 10,000 to the widely used Common Era calendar CE. The Holocene Calendar is intended to mark the time elapsed since the Neolithic Revolution. This revolution is arguably a reasonable turning point in mankind’s transition from hunting and gathering to the sessile, settlement based lifestyles that forced us to cooperate for food production. The competitive and risky gathering practices had become outmoded. I presume that hunters and gatherers never imagined the value of their imaginings to the world but is that presumptuous of me?
On Chess and Cakes
The doorbell rang. Standing there, masked, was a highly ranked chess player. He was delivering a plated lemon drizzle cake. Almost surreal except that his very good wife had made it for us as a diversion from worrying about our daughter going through surgery at the time the cake arrived.
Dublin: Storm Coming 2010
18/20 Species
We walked for an hour or so in Marlay Park today. ‘Here’s where the Wicklow Way starts’ I said, as I’ve said before. ‘Perhaps I’ll walk it this coming weekend?’
‘No, you need to build up to long walks first’ was the sensible reply. This is fair because I’ve been off the trail for over six months and with six decades under my belt, everything needs to be measured.
