My one consistent quality as a guitar player is that I'm stubborn as f... I'll never be good as such, but I'll always be just a little better. And that's ok. I'm in it for the fun. And somehow being stubborn is a lot of fun.

#Guitar #GuitarToots #StubbornAF

My sixteen-year-old Chilean nephew was curious about what’s going on with ICE.

In Chile, the word “conservative” is associated with capitalism, and the word “liberal” is associated with communism. He observed that Donald Trump says he’s a capitalist but doesn’t act like one.

I told him things are different here and labels have different meanings because we have a different history.

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There seems to have been a long-standing connection in mediaeval Islamic thought between calligraphy and geometry.

The scholar Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (c.930–1023) wrote that ‘handwriting is spiritual geometry by means of a corporeal instrument’. Much later, Aḥmad Ibrāhīmī Ḥusaynī Qummī (b. 1546) wrote in his treatise ‘Calligraphers and Painters’ (c.1606) that ‘writing is the geometry of the soul’. Al-Tawḥīdī attributed the idea to Euclid; Qummī pointed to Plato, so both undoubtedly thought that the idea was long-standing and respected.

Calligraphy was codified by Ibn Muqla (885/6–940/1 CE), a vizier at the ʿAbbāsid court. Ibn Muqla's system can be only tentatively reconstructed from later sources, but it is plausible that he founded his reformed Arabic script on geometry.

The basis was the rhombic dot that a reed pen produced. The ʾalif [ا] was to have a height equal to a certain number of dots. Its size defined a circle, which was then used to shape the other letters. The attached images illustrate a later geometric specification.

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#calligraphy #geometry #MathArt #Arabic #aesthetics

WikiFlix is Netflix for public domain films, with no ads, no logins, and no data harvesting. Who doesn't love free entertainment?

https://wikiflix.toolforge.org/#/

Have you ever wondered why "baker's dozen" means 13 instead of 12?

It's not because bakers are generous — it comes from medieval bakers trying to avoid punishment! Bakers who sold underweight bread could face fines, flogging, and even the pillory.

There's also a "banker's dozen," "daily dozen," and more.

Check it out!

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAYuVsHCwlI
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1152 /transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

Creativity is like a muscle. If you want to become more creative, you have to exercise it.

When I was in art school (years ago), we exercised every day to become more creative. Artists have to train to get there too. It's not magic or "talent," it's hard work.

When you use AI to give you "inspiration," you are doing the opposite of that. You are atrophying your creativity muscle.

If you want to become a creator, and become more creative, you should stop using AI entirely. Instead, start training your own genuine creativity. Otherwise, it will eventually dry off completely.

#Art #Creativity #NoAI

Beavers are really important.

After the huge wildfires in Oregon in 2022, a biologist went out to survey the damage. Not only were the forests blackened, thriving trout populations in the streams were gone, choked to death by ash. “I was in total shock. It just looked like devastation.”

Then he stumbled upon something even more surprising: roughly five acres of pristine greenery in an otherwise burned-out area! At the center were eight active beaver dams.

But this was more than a refuge from the fire. While fish had disappeared upstream of these dams, the downstream water was crystal clear — and trout were thriving as though the fire had never happened! The beaver dams were acting as a water treatment plant.

[Paraphrased from this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beaver-dams-help-wildfire-ravaged-ecosystems-recover-long-after-flames-subside/]

Four ultralight Tempests built to fill out a team set to play with this coming summer. Next will be more prototyping on heavy-wind versions.
https://watty.us/build-log

#kites #kitemaking #sportkites #sewing @sport_kites