A Walk in Brighton/Allston | JFK/Harvard Ave Graffiti

A walk from a couple of weeks ago, when it finally began to look decent out.

1st Trip into the North End

-Of the summer of course. My friend Chris invited us out:

It was a warm enough day-

Cat-tar Solo

Obligatory Cat Cuteness Post

I haz a sidewayz

Every self respecting blogger should at some point address how cute their cat is. Hell, lots of bloggers' sole concern is their cat's cuteness- after all, it's vital internet business that must be conducted, updating a public in desperate need of a friggin' escape from stress and anxiety, lest the big truck series of tubes fail and modern society collapse, only the most stalwart of us survivors bravely weathering the ensuing cuteness dearth.

Anyway, thank the Majesties that won't happen. This is Akimbo, a name far superior to Dyanasty (gross), the name her adoption papers gave her. We've had her for about 5 months, she's about 9 months old now. She's a bit dumb, totally sweet, and kind of a jerk sometimes. But a member of our little family.

25 Fuzzy Memories

This is the first installment of my list of 100 memories and a rare venture into the realm of the deeply personal. I hesitated to present such a post, but seeing as how it's my blog, and what with mindless self indulgence and all, I can find no reason not to include a bit more of myself on good ol' HC. After all, life is more than bright colors, flashy tech, and cute animals. It's also dealing with the random shit that has happened- ups and downs, strikes and gutters.

I first learned about lists of 100 and thought, psh, I'd never make it that far into a list- I can barely commit to writing a blog at all! But then, I figured, it's a brand new year (and the last one sucked...) so why not try something new. Why not make a good, long list of some of the more colorful moments I've had in my time. There are a few from this past year, but most are from far better years-gone-by. Enjoy my reverie as I drag you into it.

Vocab Mindmap II

Get the .pdf

I like to be up-front about my nerdiness. I'm proud about it. Like any good nerd, my pet topics are, in general, multidisciplinary. I think it's vital to the title Nerd that one be eclectic in their curiosities. In particular- I express my nerdiness as a logophile by making mindmaps of good words, more or less as I encounter them. Perhaps I haven't seen these words in awhile or maybe I just haven't seen them at all. Visualizing things like this has really made a difference in my vocabulary, and has done wonders for my memory in general. I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure others would do well to give this a shot.

This is the second mind map I've posted here [here's the first], and like the 48th I've made using the free version of Mindnode for Mac.

Conrad Gesner's Historiae animalium

Conrad Gesner [26 March 1516 – 
13 December 1565]

 Gesner was most noted in his day as a physician, botanist, and Classical linguist. Throughout his life he was interested in biology and collected specimens and descriptions of wildlife through travel and extensive correspondence with other scholars. His approach to research centered upon four tenets: observation, dissection, travel to distant lands, and accurate description. This emergent empirical approach was new to Renaissance scholars, who usually relied entirely upon Classical writers for their research.

His Historiae animalium (Zürich, 1551-1587; "Studies on Animals") is considered to be the first modern zoological work. Building a bridge between ancient, medieval, and modern science, he chronicles data from old sources, such as The Old Testament, Aristotle and medieval bestiaries, and adds his own observations, creating a new, comprehensive description of the Animal Kingdom. In what is the first attempt by anyone to describe many of the animals accurately, the book is illustrated with hand-colored woodcuts drawn from personal observations by Gesner and his colleagues.

Why Men Don't Have To Die So Early (But Do Anyway): Sex and Gender Differences in Longevity

[Source] Data from August/September, 2001.

In a recent course on gender role socialization, I had the opportunity to do a bit of research into longevity, which is becoming a pet topic of mine. In doing so, I found a lot of information about why men die earlier - about 5.4 years earlier in the U.S. - than women. It seemed silly for only one person, a professor, to read it after I'd spent time on it. Especially since there is so much that men (both very gender-typed ones and males who eschew the label) in the internet audience, can do a lot to change health trajectories and add years to life. In just one testament to the amount of control we really have over our health, Dan Buettner, a researcher who focuses on twins' health outcomes and longevity, says that people, regardless of sex, have it within their power to add as much as 10 years onto their lives. With that in mind, enjoy factsnacking on this bloggofied version of the paper.

[Oh, and please forgive the writing style; I'm a social sciences person and we can be a little stiff like that. This is by no means a complete or exhaustive review of the literature on this, just a lil' something to raise awareness. As with all my original content, comments enouraged]

For more on why gender roles do real, measurable damage on men and women, see William Pollack, A New Psychology of Men, and the wiki on gender roles.

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Despite the longstanding patriarchic belief that females are naturally the weaker sex, modern research clearly demonstrates that men have significantly more impairments in physical health behaviors, predispositions, and outcomes. The mortality rate in the U.S. for men is consistently 1.5 to 3 times higher until 85 years of age. Men make up 70% of heart attack fatalities before the age of 65 as well as the majority of cases of mouth, throat, skin, and urinary organ cancer (Kilmartin, 2010, p. 178-9). Typically, men die 5.4 years earlier than women and have a 43% greater age-adjusted mortality rate (class notes). This has been the status quo long enough that the New Oxford American Dictionary makes reference to women as exemplar for longevity: “the greater longevity of women compared with men” (Longevity, 2005). Why should it be the case that so many more men die at younger ages? Why is it that women have a lead in longevity? Some theorists point to biological rationales, saying that differences in specific attributes of physical development are the root cause. Others point to social and psychological sources for the gender gap. These explanations are not mutually exclusive; framing the issue as nature versus nurture is a false dichotomy. In fact, the biological, socio-cultural, and psychological realms interact in a complex and recursive fashion.

Personal Lexicon Mindmap

[click for mediafire link to .pdf]

Mindmaps are powerful visual representations of ideas with an focus on creativity. Their uses go on and on and I'm just starting to pick them up myself.
This is a simple one I made of some new-to-me vocab words
[made using the clean and quasi-minimalist MindNode].

Go on, at least give both of 'em a perfunctory glance.

Related Resources:

Mindmapping Software Blog

How to mind map via LiteMind

100 Uses for Mind Maps