If weather can effect moods...

then chicago doesn't need drugs... !

why do stars twinkle?

Somebody once told me that stars twinkle because of things like pollution and dust particles, and that if one went out into space, then stars don't twinkle anymore..

More recently someone told me that some stars are so so far away that the twinkle is actually because we are catching only one photon at a time, and the delay between the photons is what causes twinkling.

I had a very interesting class the other day. We were trying to understand perception. We noticed that people's understanding of the world around them happens in waves, and not in a straight line. We tend to compare by forming ratios. Everything is measured as relative information and not in absolutes...This got me pretty excited... we noticed that we could immediately detect the difference between NO light and a Very small amount of light, but if we already had a lot of light in the room, and somebody let in just a small bit more, nobody could tell the difference.

So this means that extremes define the scope of perception... light and dark ... weightless to heavy ... black and white to color saturation ... and the inbetweens are ratios and relatives within that.

This got me thinking about beauty/art/poetry. An old experimental idea of mine.
That beauty lies approaching extremes... pushing the limit, but perhaps not crossing it.
Playing with the limits of perception.

I probably need to think this through a bit more...

Ghar Ghar

I've been thinking about this for so long.

Suspension of disbelief excites me. what amazes me really is that it seems to be an innate need in us. Nobody actually needs to teach us about it. My earliest memories revolve around playing ghar ghar. Me and my cousins would assume roles and enact the roles for hours. We would unknowingly stretch the situations we enjoyed, and compress the time of the actions we thought didn't added to the 'story' .. like sleep. A whole night was enacted in 2 minutes. ( perhaps an elementary translation of sleep-time: the time taken to sleep + the time taken to wake up!! - the in between time was non-time!) In just 2 hours we would easily create the routine of 3 or 4 days! We would willingly take anything lying around and imagine it was something that looked similar enough...

Years and years later I'm studying design methods. And it feels like I'm relearning all THAT. we need to re-learn storytelling, re-creating scenarios, and do prototype testing using 'similar objects'.

Its a game of adult Ghar Ghar!

more time?

Its already the end of session A.

Only a few days ago we were defining upward mobility in terms of the notion of time. It seems that the higher one climbs the ladder the longer one can plan into the future. People who only had means to plan for one day were at the base, the people who had the means to plan a week, a month were a little higher. People who had the means to look years ahead were far far higher.

I chewed on this for some time.

In another conversation i concluded that music shrinks time. Movie without sound is longer than one with sound. Journeys are faster with music.

Dreams dislocate time. Dreams are oblivious to time.

Misery expands time. aways.

And 'Virtual life' subtracts time from 'real life'.

So, i suppose i can cure my fear of time flying by being miserable. Not being glued to headphones and and staying away from the internet!