They’re reroofing my condo. Lots of scraping and pounding and dropping many pounds of tar paper heavy enough to make my building shudder. I can actually feel the compression and expansion when they drop the rolls of tar paper into position on the roof. It sounds and feels like the end of the world. Just ask my cats. And the smell! Hot, smokey, burning tires. Blekh! But, hey! No more leaks when it rains!
So, I’m uploading my first ever video to YouTube as I type this. It’s a test animation of fractal renderings. I don’t think it’s spectacular, but it does document a successful test. It’s cool, if you like watching animations, especially animations created from mathematical abstractions. This one is of a series of Julia set equations.
It’s 15 seconds long. Now that I know what to expect, I’ll make my next one longer, and also more interesting.
If you like math visualizations, or if you just wanna see a cool colorful animation, check it out.
I was browsing YouTube the other night and I finally– finally– remembered the name of one of my favorite programs when I was a weeling. And, not only did I find the name, I also found some footage, some of which I actually remember watching. What a blast! Watching the clips brought back so many of the cool feelings of my first years of life.
The Program was called “Vision On,” and it was put out by the BBC from 1964 to 1976. It was the brain child of the great English artist, Tony Hart (linked page has sound), and, according to the comments on the various YouTube clips, it has been the inspiration for many artists of my generation.
Remembering “Vision On” was remembering the joy of being three years old again, and the unbridled desire to do all the cool things they did on the show, before I was pressed into perusing my more intellectual and potentially fiscally rewarding interests.
Anyway, “Vision On” was all about art and painting and visual perception, with Pat Keysall helping to bridge the gap between hearing and non-hearing viewers “by addressing the television camera and using sign language as she spoke (Wikipedia).”
So, I was three years old, and “Vision On” was more interesting than Sesame Street. The show was meant for a slightly older audience, I think, but I was a little ahead of the curve, back then. We young “Vision On” fans didn’t need Pat Robertson’s pal, Tinky-Winky, to take us by the hand and entertain us. We had Tony and Pat, and the Prof to entertain us and teach us about art and being creative.
Anyway, do you remember “Vision On?” Or was there another television program you liked to watch when you were three or four years old?
So, I’m just rambling here, but it seems appropriate for me to say something about my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011.
The very sad fact is that I haven’t made any. I know it’s un-American, and it may well set me apart from the rest of the Western world, but I stopped making New Year’s resolutions when I stopped giving things up for Lent. That was about the time I had an epic multi-part conversation with Jesus in the school chapel after lunch, much to the irritation of Sister Carmelina.
Yes, for about 2 weeks during my Junior year in high school I spent my lunch period, and quite a bit of Sister Carmelina’s morality class, in the school chapel, discussing with Jesus exactly what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. What, exactly, we decided is between me and Jesus. But, in the end, I changed the channel, shall we say, on the issue of religion.
Oh, but we’re talking about Resolutions. I’ll save the religious talk for an other time.
So, I no longer make New Year’s resolutions. I do, however, delineate a map on my birthday every year. It’s sort of a birthday resolution. My birthday, conveniently, occurs a week before the Gregorian New Year, and the map is a list of things I want to accomplish in the following year.
This year’s map includes–and I’m making this public, so y’all can hold me to it–
bring my understanding of maths to a second-year college level
Stop playing at learning a language and actually learn one
aim my online activities toward earning some money
choose a subject by the first of March to master, and then expend the resources to become an expert in that subject within 3 years
other, more personal things involving relationships and reputation.
So, birthday resolutions, rather than New Year’s resolutions. After all, your year starts the day you did. So, what birthday resolutions (or birthday progress maps) have you made for the coming year?
