Emo Art

So I’ve been wanting to post this example of this special art form from my daughter, Rebecca. 

She makes this novel art called, “EMO”, which stands for emotional.

In this art she mixes children and monsters–and it depicts how innocent kids have to deal with the monsters they find in an often unscrupulous and morally-tarnished society. 

I love the feelings and message of this art in that it encapsulates how children enter this world in purity, but how so many bad people and things around them (and us) can corrupt that. 

I always learned that the goal for each person was to leave the world a better place then the way we found it; however, I think a more personal goal should also be for us to leave here as better human beings than the day we arrived.  

Challenging ourselves–learning and maturing–yet at the same time keeping that essence of decency and integrity of mind, heart, and deed–that is a life where we can grow up, but not turn into the morally-bankrupt monsters that we see all around us. 

(Source Art: Rebecca Ochayon)

Computer Luminaries

I wanted to share these photo that I took at Micro Center, a computer and electronics store, outside Washington DC. 

On the wall are these pretty awesome photos of many of the founders and inventors behind modern-day computing. 

1) Doug Englebart – the GUI and Mouse

2) Dennis Ritchie – C and Unix

3-4) Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston – Visicalc and Spreadsheets

5-6) Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard – HP 

7) Gordon Moore – Intel

8) Grace Hopper – First compiler that led to development of COBOL

9-10) Robert Khan and Vinton Cerf – TCP/IP

11) Steve Wozniak – Apple I and II

Of course, the following deserve a place of the wall of fame as well:

12) Steve Jobs – Apple

13) Bill Gates – Microsoft

14-15) Larry Paige and Sergey Brin – Google

16) Jeff Bezos – Amazon 

17) Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

On one hand, these are people like you and I, who live, feel joy and pain, and one day die. In the end, we’re all just flesh and blood, plus a soul that is our moral compass. 

But on the other hand, G-d has given some people special gifts to pass to mankind, like a master painter, musician, inventor, or holy person, whose worldly works are as near to G-dly as perhaps we can get outside of Heaven itself.

G-d must have a plan for us as he sends us these people–or more like angels–to guide our development and our destiny. 

Whatever G-d wants from us, we’re definitely on a course to get there and that is comforting and a ray of hope for all of us. 😉

(Source Photos: Andy Blumenthal)

Soccer Soda On Metro

Watch what happens when people leave their trash on the Metro (Washington, DC). 

In this case, it’s a bottle and this one guy in jeans can’t seem to get rid of it. 

It’s sort of hilarious. 

First, the bottle is dumped by an uncaring passenger, it rolls around for awhile, and ends up sitting in the middle of the train car. 

The train stops at the station and the people coming aboard step around and over the water bottle. 

This guy in the center is irked by this bottle and just sort of blatantly kicks it at a women in winter boots standing by the doors. 

But it eventually rolls back and hits him in the foot.

He’s talking away (blah blah) on his cell, yet maneuvers the bottle ever so discretely to roll it backwards to someone else

But it ends up right back at him twice more.

Next stop, he runs off the train (and away from this bottle), but the person behind him kicks it after him and towards the doors.

Then this one lady with the orange bag and red purse gets up from her seat, and gives it a big kick right out the door.

She does this while the other people are boarding…oops watch out for the flying bottle.

Garbage left on the Metro…Goal! Score! 😉

(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)

Pain Is Relative

I’ve always found it a little strange when the doctor (or nurse) asks you, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how much pain are you in?”

Why?

Because pain (like many emotions) is relative to our understanding of it.

To me, when someone says a 10 for pain, I think of someone under the most excruciating pain–like when someone, G-d forbid, is being tortured.

However, someone else may think of 10 as just being really sick and uncomfortable.

That’s why I like this graphic that is used to level-set what each number in the scale represents.

Using this simple graphic, our definition of pain is not purely subjective, but rather each person can look at the faces and expressions and see how they relate to them.

Of course, the goal on the right for zero pain is a great goal, even if not always achievable.

In a sense this is a very basic personal architecture–where you have your “as-is” on the scale and your “to-be” which is your goal.

Then the doctor and patient work together to figure out a transition plan on how to get there (medicine, rehabilitation, healthier living, etc.).

While pain is usually just a symptom, it is a beginning to get at the root cause of what is bothering us and needs to be fixed. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)