on benjamin franklin and his most excellent autobiography, the intentionality of desert areas, and assorted other topicks

Hard to easily read those Franklin passages, being written in a different vernacular (that a good word for it). On one side, I cringe about the time it takes to parse to understan them. On the other, though, I realize it's good to push the brain every once in awhile.

And argh you for trying to literally parse music lyrics. Desert ecology is generally interesting, though, in how it grows. Don't desert plants have generally big root systems? I don't truly understand how the deserts grow quite steadily over time, but I feel like I have the impression that it has to do with the desert plants' root systems.

--The_Lex Wed Jun 20 09:55:07 2007

Sooo Zen.

--YELM Wed Jun 20 10:12:36 2007

Treating a desert as its own mini-Gaia sounds a bit weird, but I confess it might sound less weird to attribute an intention to, say, a forest. And it's hacker nature to think of information of having intentionality, i.e. "Information wants to be free." I usually explain, after relaying this quote, that it doesn't mean that people want to discover or spread secrets, but rather that useful information thinks of the human brain as a prison that must be escaped.

I live in a desert, and South Mountain Park is across the street from my apartment complex, so I've personally witnessed the desert turning green after a rain, or especially a rainy season. Desert plants don't exactly see water as poison, and probably had to evolve to survive, if not take advantage of, the occasional overwatering. But I noticed that plants seemed to bloom out of season one year, and my allergist told me that it was actually because of pollution. There's more carbon dioxide in the air, and plants need that just as much as they need water, so they're having a feast.

--Nick B Wed Jun 20 21:16:46 2007

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