theory of relativity

via @erinmckeown

In America, the top 1% earn more than $380,000 per year. We are, however, among the richest nations on Earth. How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?

$34,000.

That was the finding World Bank economist Branko Milanovic presented in his 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots. Going down the distribution ladder may be just as surprising. To be in the top half of the globe, you need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it's $5,000 per year. Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000.

Morgan Housel in the Motley Fool

desire lines

Desire lines generally refer to worn paths where people naturally walk – the beaten path that trails off the sidewalk, usually as a shortcut to a destination – but can be applied more broadly to any signs or traces of user activity in an object or environment. The implicit claim of desire lines is that they represent an unbiased indication of how an object or environment is actually used by people.

From Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design.

My grandfather introduced me to desire lines, but he didn’t call them by name. I can’t be sure that he knew what they were called. We were crossing the Quad at the University of Washington, cherry trees in bloom, and he pointed out the gentle ruts in the grass left by renegade feet in oblique purpose to the University’s imposed paths.

“Those are the paths they should pave,” he said, pointing out the bald earth. I think of him now whenever I see a transgressive groove slice through the corners of trim, paved plaza geometries.

Desire lines.

Rem Koolhaas oriented his IIT Student Center around the desire lines that students wore into the wasteland beneath the El tracks on their passage to class, long before the building was sited. In the belly of his building there’s a placard that maps the original paths so you can see at a macro level what you experience when you walk through the structure: his building breathes with a unique kind of respiration because it is so well-aligned with the passage of people through that place. It doesn’t obstruct their passage from point A to B: It shelters it.

I’m surprised that I’ve only just discovered this name for the thing. It startled me when I stumbled across it yesterday, and left me to wonder if maybe I knew it before but didn’t notice it; am noticing it now only because of these first tentative steps off my trim path; this early attempt at letting my feet find the way they would prefer to go.

on speaking to the dead

Skeleton Donut
Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk

The rabbi addresses the importance of talking to the dead. His premise is that we want to, need to, talk to the dead. It is an important, not a maudlin, thing to do. The rabbi suggests that we have four things to say to them: I'm sorry. Thank you. I forgive you. I love you. This is what makes us human, over time, over distance.

Sherry Turkle in Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other

profuse or perish

Tiny bubbles...
Originally uploaded by peater

You have to write as much as you can. People have studied these things.

Principal Jay Richard of Oyster River Middle School, speaking on strategies for passing the essay portion of standardized tests in America's schools in today's New York Times.

the intensity of strawberries

I remember

the intensity of strawberries
in a very, very narrow
band of time –

June, July
Wimbledon on TV

things like that

Simon Schama on strawberries and other edibles in the weekend edition of the Financial Times

art alone

All Passes -- Art Alone Endures
Fine Arts Building
Chicago, IL

more movies for you

more movies for you
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Downers Grove, IL

hello old friend

hello old friend
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Central Camera. Just now.
Chicago, IL

3.

3.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Lincoln Park
Chicago, IL

bedside.

bedside.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

(home)

that's some pig.

that's some pig.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Sandwich County Fair
We do this every year.
The biscuits and gravy are to die for.

Sandwich, IL

tunneling

tunneling
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Underground
Chicago, IL

herb jelly (other than mint)

encircled

When a redwood is injured -- like this one, struck by lightening sometime in the hushed twilight that is the steady state of Muir Woods outside of San Francisco -- the burl wood at its base buds and the tree regenerates through fresh shoots. Before long those shoots, too, grow into giants, ringing the roots of their fallen ancestor.

This is a belated post: I snapped this shot nearly a month ago, on my way up to Jackson, California to look in on my mother who isn't well. My aunts joined me there, and we took care of the kind of business that needs doing when lightening strikes and burl wood buds. My sister went before me, and was met by the strength of a dear aunt then, too.

Encircling, strengthening.

white bowl (summer peaches)

boarded & back again

boarded & back again
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Hello, Weekend.

Chicago O'Hare

MIA

(I like this wall very much.)

At the Minneapolis Institute of Art

price point

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was priced at $666.66.

While You Were Out: Apple's Years With and Without Steve Jobs, in today's New York Times.

Steve Wozniak on how they arrived at the price point:

I simply like triple digit numbers with all the things I'm involved with, the cost of making the Apple 1 was around $540 or there abouts and we agreed on the best markup, retail price above the cost of building it, which worked out to $666.

Jobs then tacked on the 66 cents to make it an eye-catcher price for the ads with the sale and promotion publications of it to the public.

potted post box.

potted post box.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Bellevue, WA

remains of the ride

remains of the ride
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Probably wasn't wise to take that trail ride in yesterday's downpour -- but it was worth it.