Category: Science

Spiders!

2/20/2014

Kaua'i has no poisonous animals or insects, but they have some pretty cool looking spiders(!). There are centipedes that can bite you (thankfully we have plenty of chickens to eat them!, a few scorpions (very rare) as well as mosquitos (introduced probably during the whaling industry's peak in the 1850s). But perhaps the best thing is that there are no snakes in all of Hawai'i!

Nonetheless, the spiders are still my favorite.

Check 'em out:

Cane (?) Spider

Crab Spider
First introduced to control a pest... apparently it didn't work so well.

Crab Spider
The latin name means thorn belly.

Cane (?) Spider

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What Drives Success?

2/3/2014

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As my wife and I seek to make a living in a very beautiful but expensive place (Kaua'i), we are constantly exploring different ideas on how to be successful.

That is, we are trying to answer: How do we make money such that we can stay and keep on living in this wonderful place?(!)

People here in Kaua'i do all kinds of things to make a living. Tourism is the number one industry, followed perhaps by the big agricultural industry (which has transformed from sugar cane to ranching to now GMO-testing or tourist ranches). Then there is construction, environmental monitoring/protecting, bodywork, small businesses serving various clientele, etc.

Overarching lesson: Each person has had to be quite creative to make a living here.

Given our experience, I read the NYT article, "What Drives Success?" There are lots of details and anecdotes, but the core reasons that drive success culturally are in this key paragraph:

It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.

To summarize, cultures who have these traits/beliefs tend to be more successful as a group. They believe they are:

They believe they are Exceptional
They feel they are Insecure
They have a high degree of Impulse Control

The last point is no surprise for those familiar with The Marshmallow Test:

So controlling one's impulses while having a sense of insecurity yet also a sense of exceptionality leads to success in groups, in general. This makes sense to me, and therefore the stories we tell to ourselves and to each other are crucial to our belief system and our future success.

Here's to telling positive, inspirational stories that also remind us of our insignificance/mortality, all the while building up our patience and perseverance!

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Community as Key to Believing

1/2/2014

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It is the new year, and with it come all of the end-of-year summations, highlights and stories. I was amused if not horrified to read that even less Republicans believe in evolution compared to four years ago, down to 43%.

After reading the classics Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and Sam Harris' The End of Faith, I wonder if people identify their religious beliefs not on scientific reasoning but community connections. Our increased individualistic society is only made worse by internet companies that keep us in what Eli Pariser calls a Filter Bubble. Yet finding common cause on the internet can create and support shared common values, of the religious or areligious type.

Community is key to believing. We are influenced by those around us and the sites we visit. Diversity is important not only to 'keep things interesting,' but also to ensure we do not become stagnant in our beliefs. If we want to share our beliefs, be they secular or spiritual, it is better to do so through relationship rather than pure reason.

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Energy Matters

3/25/2013

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Amidst the ongoing debate on the parameters and extent of the Second Amendment, there is some troubling news that the assault weapons banned (first passed in 1994 and allowed to expire in 2004) still does not have enough votes to make it to the floor of the Senate. Furthermore, many gun makers are having trouble hiring enough people to manufacture the increase in demand for guns and ammunition.

It makes me think of a recent discussion I had with a friend about energy versus matter, flow versus stasis, wave versus particle. The first is related in Einstein's famous equation:

Light, whose speed is the key factor in relating energy to matter in the equation above, can also be considered both as a wave and a particle. So what first appears as a dichotomy is actually two states of similar source, or two sides of a coin, if you will.

The question I have: which is more powerful? Can energy/flow/waves ever stop matter/particle/bullets, a la Neo in The Matrix?

Granted, this was in a computer program and not in the "real life" sequence of the movie, but the guy does stop the sentinels somehow in "real life" at the end of Matrix:Reloaded!

Anyhow, I do wonder about the power of guns and how do we stop violence. I would like to learn and train more in the nonviolent arts of Qigong andTai Chi, tapping into the energy source behind and in all matter we see and experience. There's some pretty cool videos that show how powerful these guys can be!

Now isn't that cooler than bullets, if not the way out from violence? Maybe we can't stop bullets physically once they're fired, but there's a lot of training we can do (and energy we can tap into!) before someone pulls the trigger.

May we beat swords into plowshares with our minds, hearts and hands.

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Spiders!

What Drives Success?

Community as Key to Believing

Energy Matters

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