Spider-Man's long-lost Korean cousin, I presume?
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Monday, December 30, 2024
Three "Ghosts"
Each neatly ensconced in its own coffin. The empty tomb to the left evidently belongs to a vampire. Ooh..!
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Errant Snowman
Friday, December 27, 2024
Surprised
A fighter jet folded out of a single sheet of paper after an online instruction video. The video was quite complicated, included some steps that were counter-intuitive and was overall way too fast-paced, and I had to pause it many times so I could follow along. But anyway I finally made it to the end and this was the result. I was totally not expecting it to fly, being so thick and compact and small-winged, not at all like your traditional idea of paper planes -- but you know what, it actually glides. A little. If you throw it real hard. Which is much better anyway than how I'd expected it to perform, which was 'not at all' ^^
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Just Playing Around
Trying out the newly installed Windows 11 editions of old familiar apps and concluding I'm not so sure about the new versions.
Monday, December 23, 2024
Better Late
This image is a particular favorite of mine. Not only is the "ray beam" perfectly delineated with hard-looking edges like a laser beam cutting through the mist, but the fortuitous inclusion of an airplane in the shot really makes it seem like some old war footage or maybe a scene from some retro-futuristic dieselpunk science fiction movie (I'm thinking *Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)). The previous post reminded me of it and I wanted to revisit it, but I couldn't remember the posting date, so I looked up a few obvious key words. I was surprised by the negative result, so I searched them again, and again it came up blank. I kept looking up other key words, and eventually I ended up checking the entire archive (that took a while) -- no result!
I had been so certain that this photo would here on this blog somewhere, but the unexpected conclusion is that I never did post it. So here it is at last (with plenty of keywords), "The Searchlight".
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Thursday, December 19, 2024
What's Left
I visited Seongsu yesterday. It's known as the "Brooklyn" of Seoul, with lots of old factories and other industrial/commercial buildings converted and gentrified to cafes, galleries and fashion houses largely catering to young people. True to that image, in the central area every lane and alley was filled with well-dressed young crowds (which presented problems for moi, who don't generally like to include people in shots -- I often had to wait long minutes for even a relative lull in the crowd, till I just gave up) merrily chattering away and ambling along to the next hip joint to patronize.
Behind the scenes though, I espied signs of an older community that used to occupy the neighborhood -- it was known as a shoe manufacturing hub of the city. Whether mass-manufactured trainers or expensive hand-crafted boots, there were factories and shops producing them. And squeezed in among the fancy new shops were relicts from those bygone days, having resisted the wave of change -- or been left out of it. And sculptures honoring the old tradition could be found here and there. All in all, it was a somewhat wistful-making trip.
Monday, December 16, 2024
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Errant Trainers
Yesterday on my way to have dinner I passed by these shoes somebody placed in a schoolyard fence.
Today I happened to pass by the same spot, and yes, they were still there, if somewhat disarranged^
Related post: Errant Wasp
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
A Somewhat Unusual Evening
I hadn't eaten all day and as afternoon wore on into evening I felt I "should" eat. So I set out on foot for the restaurant row by the subway station. While on my way there though, my attention was diverted by the sight of the waxing-gibbous Moon, and I took a bunch of shots. And by the time I got to my intended destination I found I wasn't hungry after all. I came back home, had a few cookies and a beer a little while later, and that was it.
Oh, and I tripped and fell on the way back. It was just a "light" fall, and all that happened was bruised knees and a scraped palm, but what the heck, I haven't fallen in many many years. In fact, the last time I remember falling was back in October, 2015, when I fell off my kickboard, faceplanted the sidewalk and broke a tooth.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Monday, December 9, 2024
"Looming"
Almost exactly two years ago (actually, it really is exactly two years in number of days; it's two years minus 1 day only if you go by the date -- what a coincidence!) I posted a photo of a cloud to this blog and called it "Anxiety". I also posted it on Facebook, and somebody suggested "Looming" as an alternative title. I did not feel it was a great fit, and my title stayed. Today I saw a cloud that could be Anxiety's kissing cousin, except for being less "anxious". So here it is, "Looming" over that apartment complex.
And thanks for the suggestion, whoever you were.
Other date-relevant posts:
Sunday, December 8, 2024
"Hiruma"
A Japanese restaurant I came across. The name ひるま means "daytime". But anyway, how kawaii!
So Japanese (take it any way you like -- I probably meant it that way 😉).
Thursday, December 5, 2024
As Below, So Above III
So said someone who was born in Seoul, moved to the US as a child, grew up in Los Angeles, then after a lifetime there came back to Seoul and now lives as an American expatriate...
Related posts: As Below, So Above II; Like A Character In A Cheesy Children's Book Churned Out By A Hack Writer In Two Hours
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Dandelion Seed
Dandelion, from the French dent-de-lion ("lion's teeth", from the shape of its jagged-edged leaves). Here was a tiny parachutist off a literal late-bloomer, taken this afternoon.
Related: Dandelion
Monday, December 2, 2024
Setting Sun, Waning Moon
Thinking about death. One particular death. A sad and lonely death.
Dying is a lonely business. No matter if we are surrounded by family, or perhaps medical staff, when we go we go alone. No one can come with us. It is only "I" -- my consciousness -- that ends.
I have read somewhere that "My Death" is a difficult topic for philosophers to grapple with, in part because it is such a difficult thing to imagine the world without "I". I think I understand their problem -- I find it incomprehensible that people would voluntarily end their consciousness*. Even if you imagine the world going on without you, almost inevitably it's still from "your" POV, like an imagined movie you're watching.
I remember being something like 10 years old, getting ready for bed one night, when for whatever reason I was suddenly struck by the idea of death as the end of "I". It was terrifying -- I literally saw in my head a black curtain in front of me, marking the absolute end of Everything as far as I was concerned.
Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer, introduced an idea in one of his SF novels that was an early form of the many-worlds postulate. He proposed a wall of uncountably numerous pigeonholes, each pigeonhole containing a slip of paper with a message written on it. The messages are descriptions of moments from one's life. Every so often a clerk comes along and shines a flashlight into the pigeonholes, and that light is what we experience as consciousness. The messages also contain information about other message slips, but whereas the messages describing the "past" are correct, the ones describing the "future" are fuzzy, because the future is indeterminate. And there is no limit to how many times the clerk can come and illuminate the pigeonholes, so inevitably our consciousness appears to continue. This is not unlike how, in the parallel universes postulate, every time a choice is made the universe splits into x and not-x, resulting in a continuously branching array of similar but subtly different universes; x could represent "death", so every time we escape a situation that could have resulted in our death, inevitably our consciousness continues on in the universe in which we survived. I myself clearly remember three occasions in my childhood when I could have fallen off a cliff to my death (what is it with me and cliffs?). I suppose in those other universes where I did plummet off those cliffs, things are much the same, except I no longer exist there.
*Well, except perhaps in cases of unbearable torment. Like being stuck in one of my versions of Hell, as described elsewhere in the blog.