One of my smaller joys in life is the simple act of observing nature.  I don't know if it's a hunter-gatherer lizard-brain sort of thing where I feel unconsciously compelled to watch animals in case I want to eat them or they want to eat me.  But I'm not thinking about that while I'm doing it.  I simply like to watch animals doing what they do in a natural setting.  Not for any specific purpose or end goal.  Simply to watch these little computers executing their algorithms -- fighting, fleeing, foraging, mating.  It's just sort of interesting and entertaining to watch them go about their lives, eating some grass here, chasing away a coworker there.  Watching how they move in specific ways, to avoid predators, or to look cool for their friends. #nature

At my previous job, one of the younger employees left after about seven years.  That always seemed odd to me.  Like, I get that you don't feel fulfilled by your job or whatever, but how did it take that long for you to figure it out?  And the weirder thing was that this guy (actually two different guys, same exact story) left the field entirely.  He went to a specific college to get a specific degree, was employed in the industry for not a few months but a few years, then left the job and the industry abruptly to do something entirely different or nothing at all.  Not to boil it down to simple economics, but you completely wasted a good education and the training you received on the job.  Sorry not sorry. 

At my new job, it seems the same situation occurred which led to me getting hired.  A guy worked at this place for summer internships, got a specific degree to work in this specific field, worked for a few years, then took a completely different job in a different industry.  I heard it might've had something to do with sort of disillusionment at the industry and the whims of management, which I fully understand, but still.  This is nothing new.  Work comes and goes, projects begin and they end.  I get that you're unhappy with the situation, but you knew that going in.  So to throw away your time in the job, plus the time and money and effort you spent getting there, is kinda bonkers. #business

Two things to add to my post about convergent evolution: 

1. Crabs have independently evolved so many times throughout history that there's a word for it:  Carcinisation (via Radiolab).  Put another way, Evolution Only Thinks About One Thing, and It's Crabs.
2. New World vultures and Old World vultures aren't even really related, which means a flying animal that eats virus- and bacteria-laden decaying corpses has evolved on more than one occasion (again via Radiolab).

#nature

This Radiolab episode sort of blew my mind: 

Zoroastrians put their dead on top of a structure called The Tower of Silence where vultures devour the body in a matter of hours. It's clean, efficient, eco-friendly. It's how it's been for thousands of years.

I've been to one in Mumbai. It's this hill in the middle of this big bustling city, but when you get there it's like just this super forested quiet area. It almost feels like a jungle, it's so dense. And at the top of it there's a flat, like, cement slab in a circle that's open to the sky.

And there's walls around it but there's no roof on it. And there's different layers to it. The adult men go on the outer edge of this cement slab, women will go in the middle, and children, if they die, will go near the center.

And there's thousands of vultures surrounding this place, just waiting. And yeah, the vultures just devour the body, and within a few hours all that's left is just a few bones.

We call it a sky burial. And I don't know, I just think it's incredible. Like, in the religion the idea is that the second someone dies there's a corpse demon called Nasu. And they believe that that demon is what starts to cause the decay of the body. And so, you know, when the vultures eat the body, they're essentially protecting us from this demon.

The official term is excarnation -- "the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial. Excarnation may be achieved through natural means, such as leaving a dead body exposed to the elements or for animals to scavenge; or by butchering the corpse by hand."

I've mentioned before my preference for resomation after I die, but this is an even more all-natural method. #nature

I'm starting to view politics as just another hobby people have.  Some people are into cars, some people are into sports, some people are into movies.  And some people are into politics.  They read about politics, they watch TV shows and videos that discuss different political topics in depth, then they bring up those topics in conversations with people.  Have you ever had a conversation with a car guy where you're already way out of your league, and then he brings up some obscure factoid about fuel injection pumps?  Yeah that's how I feel about anything involving "the speaker of the house" or "the debt ceiling" or whatever the flavor of the week happens to be.  That's your hobby, not mine. 

There are two sort of major sticking points with this way of thinking, which I'll briefly admit and then promptly dismiss.  One is that the subject of politics often goes hand in hand with the subject of current events.  Or perhaps more accurately, politics sort of has its slimy tentacles in every conceivable space in our lives, which makes it a continuous, unending current event.  In general, it's probably good to be aware of current events so you understand what's happening in the world and maybe appreciate your part in it.  Alternatively, you can willfully remain hopelessly ignorant and be no worse for wear.  In the grand scheme of things, it literally doesn't matter. 

The other sticking point is that knowledge of politics, and maybe current events more broadly, carries an air of intelligence.  Or at least that's how it seems.  Other hobby topics don't carry that weight.  I've met smart car people and smart sports people, but I've never felt inferior because I didn't know what an overhead camshaft is or what the infield fly rule is.  But I've definitely felt inferior for not knowing tax policies or healthcare reform bills.  Maybe that's just me though. #politics

I moved recently, and I had the distinct pleasure of interacting with my local cable/internet company.  They pre-bill, and I moved about halfway through the month.  So they said, "Oh hey, no big deal, we'll send you a refund."  This was a little difficult because, like I said, I moved, but they eventually found my new address and sent me a thing.  Why in the name of holy fuck they couldn't just refund my credit card directly, since that's the payment method I used dutifully for years, I'll never understand. 

Or maybe I will.  So instead of sending me a refund check, they sent me a refund debit card, which is apparently a common thing these days.  A refund debit card works like a regular credit card, or at least that's the idea.  I activated it and tried to use it at a store but it wouldn't work.  I'm 99% sure that's part of the grift -- these debit cards charge ridiculous fees and have a bunch of small print, very likely in an attempt to make it too frustrating to use.  And that's the whole business model of companies that issue refund debit cards.  It's apparently "too expensive" or "too difficult" for cable and other companies to directly issue refunds to customers, so they contract that process out to a third party company which makes things difficult and unpleasant enough to make customers just give up and abandon their money.  Thankfully there was an option to transfer the balance to my bank account, which I'm still not entirely sure isn't a scam.  But either way, I got my money, and I haven't gotten an influx of spam (yet). #money

I recently moved, and the moving company refused to take things like cleaning chemicals, petroleum products, and compressed gases like propane tanks.  I get it:  it's dangerous and moving companies can't handle the liability or whatever.  But I ended up just transporting it in my car, so the risk was absolutely still there, but it was all on me.  The moving company didn't mitigate the risk in any way, they just transferred it to me.  And yes I realize I could've just snuck some of that stuff into boxes (and I did) since I was paying multiple thousands of dollars for this service, but it's the principle.

Sometimes owning things is a responsibility.  I recently moved, and I took a bunch of plastic stuff to the dump to recycle it but was told it couldn't be recycled.  So I brought it all back home and put it out on the curb on garbage day.  I felt a little guilty throwing out plastic stuff, but I didn't realize when I bought it that I'd be responsible for its lifetime and eventual demise.  There wasn't any info from the store or on the receipt saying something like, "Oh hey you're responsible for disposing of this properly."  Ideally this should be handled by the manufacturer, but hey that's not the kind of world we live in.

This 99% Invisible podcast episode about girls six-on-six basketball in Iowa is fascinating.  I'd never heard of the sport, but it's basically full-court three-on-three, but with separate offenses and defenses.  The Title IX legislation of the 1970s unintentionally favored classic five-on-five basketball like the boys played.  I was particularly floored by this statement: 

Title IX is a federal civil rights law passed in 1972. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.

It was motivated by explicit discrimination in colleges -- such as women being barred from certain programs and courses, as well as the mistreatment of female faculty members. People weren't even thinking of sports when Title IX was passed because the disparity was so taken for granted.

Thomas Brackett Reed, referring to two of his colleagues in the House of Representatives in the late 1800s: 

They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.