caterpiller crossing

Yesterday’s photo of the day goes to a few ants carrying a caterpiller, quite quickly, across the sidewalk near the corner of Folsom St. and Colorado Avenue.

Sweet auger and a tree metaphor

Last Saturday I participated in a tree planting sponsored by the Casey Trees Endowment Fund. While it was nice to participate in enriching a neighborhood and learn about what goes into planting a tree, the best part was certainly the auger used to start the holes, shown here. That was off limits, so the fun with toys was limited to the stake driver, though it was fun for only the first stake, of three used to support the tree in case of strong winds. My friend who invited me to the tree planting expressed her concern that people were securing the ropes to the trees too tightly, as if the tree would fall without the tension pulling from three directions (an equilateral triangle). Apparently, she told me, there are studies showing that trees that grow that way develop weak and shallow root systems compared to those given only the support they need. “Sort of like welfare,” I had to say. Seriously, though, it is quite like “overprotecting” childen or “helping” people to the extent of dependence.

fabulous FedEx logo

When I visited Portland in January I had the pleasure of meeting up with former New Focus coworkers Nizar, Katarina, and Joanna. Nizar, who does graphic design, told me about the arrow in the FedEx logo. (is it no longer “Federal Express”? Back in ’94 I thought it was part of the government because of the “federal”…) Now, whenever I see it – which is everywhere because I’m looking, I love the feeling I get when I invert my gaze, and see the arrow.Great stuff. Thanks to The Sneeze.com, which also posted an interview with the logo designer.

BugMeNot.com

Thank you Eric S. for telling me about BugMeNot.com, which allows users to access “members only” websites without the hassle of a the free registration. Very clever.

Flora

I was at a plant nursery the other day and I was pleasantly surprised to find some very nice looking ones. The employee (or owner, perhaps), Sean, told me about a video series he saw, The Private Life of Plants. One plant, I can’t recall the name, was a type of vine that grew on top of trees, created a ball-like bundle of seeds that eventually fell off the tree and broke upon hitting the ground. Seeds had a very short time, ~14 hours, to take root and find a tree to grow on. Otherwise, they would die. Apparently the video showed this process in a time-elapsed manner. Sean also told me about the corpse plant, which smells like, well, a corpse, attracts insects.

On a completely inane note, I bought a cleaning product that claims to have a “clean scent.” What does that mean? Usually clean denotes a lack of an scent. Surely a clean carpet smells, well, like tiny carpet molecules, unless it was recently “cleaned,” so it smells like, uh, the cleaning agent? So the “clean smell” is the smell of whatever soap was used to clean. Clearly there’s a redundancy here.

Linked from Geekpress.com, penny sculptures. People do some strange things.

Shred this!

In the truth-is-stranger than fiction category: industrial shredding, linked from geekpress.com.

Fear This!?

A few people, men, I assume, have a sticker across the top of their windshields that say “Fear This!” I don’t get it. Sounds a bit Hobbesian.

Last week I saw John Deer hats and t-shirts on sale in a department store. Apparently the “farmer look” is in among upper-middle-class suburban youth. There at least one web site devoted to this stuff. About ten years ago the “grunge” was in, where again rich kids dressed to look poor, or at least like someone of a different socio-economic class. Actually, this was the subject of my first article published in college. Hmm, my style has mellowed out a bit since then. So, what’s next, the plumber look? We’re almost there with low-cut jeans. How about a black smith?

Found on Geekpress: optical illusion, and a funny but costly error in translation.