I love the movies of Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. These videos give an idea of his genius as an animator. But you would have to see the movies to appreciate his genius as a storyteller.
I read that he is coming out of retirement—or that his previous “retirement” announcement was misunderstood. This is good news.
Source: xkcd
Via simonandfinn.
Source: xkcd: Trapped
Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Source: xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline
I posted an earlier version of this on July 19, 2013
I think the vast majority of highly successful people have talent and grit. But not everybody with talent and grit succeeds.
Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Somebody else said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Both sayings are true. Both sayings also recognize the element of chance.
We Americans admire successful risk-takers and think they should be rewarded. The reason we do that is that, by definition, most risk-takers fail.
LINK
Why Americans Ignore How Luck Affects Everything by Jesse Singal for Science of Everything.
Via Ted Rall’s Rallblog.
Source: Calamities of Nature.
I set out ant and roach traps, but I never interfere with spiders, except maybe to brush away an overly conspicuous cobweb. Spiders catch and eat bugs I want to get rid of, so why should I treat them as nuisances. It would be as foolish the United States government picking fights with countries that are fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda.
So I enjoyed reading An Open Letter From a Spider to All Humans Everywhere and maybe you will, too. (Hat tip for the link to Mike the Mad Biologist)
Source: Ted Rall.
I lifted these two cartoons from the Biology vs. Theoretical Physics post on the Sans Science web log, which is now private.
The top cartoon is, of course, from Randall Munroe’s xkcd series.
Source: Abstruse Goose.
Source: xkcd
Source: Zen Pencils.
I thank my old high school classmate Joyce Mummert Ireland for sharing this bit of philosophy from Charles Schultz.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.
How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies .. Awards tarnish … Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
I confess that I never thought Donald Trump would get as far as he has. I thought he would crash and burn, like so many of the Republican candidates in 2012. I thought Hillary Clinton was the inevitable Democratic candidate, and that Scott Walker might take the Republican nomination away from Jeb Bush.
I did not think that somebody as sleazy as him would be taken seriously by the mass of ordinary Americans.
I kept waiting for Donald Trump to say something so outrageous and stupid that his candidacy would fail. But here he is, stronger than ever – as Thoreau of Unqualified Offerings says, something like The Mule in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.
I still don’t think Trump will be nominated, and, if he is, I don’t think he will be elected. I most certainly wouldn’t vote for him.
But I don’t see that he is that much crazier than the mainstream Republican candidates or Hillary Clinton.
Muslim-bashing is bad, immigrant-bashing is bad, and “roughing up” black protesters is truly vicious. But it is just as badworse to accept perpetual war as normal, economic decline as inevitable, and financial fraud as something you can’t do anything about, which is what almost all the so-called mainstream candidates do.
LINKS
Eight Things About Donald Trump by John Scalzi on his Whatever blog.
How Republicans and Polls Enable Donald Trump by Nate Silver for FiveThirtyEight.
Six Crazy Things Trump Says That Are Spot On by Ted Rall for Japan Times.
I pulled this off the Wait But Why web log. Exact links are below.
How Religion Got in the Way by Tim Urban for Wait But Why.
Religion for the Nonreligious by Tim Urban for Wait But Why
