Monthly Archives: February 2016

Flanders And Swann – Design For Living – Lyrics

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Flanders: When we started making money,
Swann: When we started making friends,
Both: We found a home as soon as we were able to.

Flanders: We bought this bijou residence for about a thousand more,
Than the house our little house was once the stable to.

Swann: With charm…
Flanders: Colour values…
Swann: Wit…
Flanders: And structural alteration,
Both: Now designed for graceful living,
It has quite a reputation.

We’re terribly House and Garden,
At number seven-B.
We live in a most amusing muse,
Ever so very contemporary.

We’re terribly House and Garden,
The money that one spends.
To make a place that won’t disgrace,
Our House and Garden friends.

We’ve planned an uninhibited interior decor,
Swann: Curtains made of straw…
Flanders: We’ve wallpapered the floor…
Both: We don’t know if we like it, but at least we can be sure,
There’s no place like Home Sweet Home.

It’s fearfully Maison Jardin,
At number seven-B.
We’ve rediscovered the chandelier,
Tres tres very contemporary.

We’re terribly House and Garden,
Now at last we’ve got the chance.
Swann: The garden’s full of furniture…
Flanders: And the house is full of plants!

Both: It doesn’t make for comfort,
But it simply has to be.
‘Cause we’re ever so terribly up-to-date,
Contemp-or-ar-or-y!

Flanders: Have you a home that cries out to your every visitor,
“Here lives someone who is exciting to know”?

No?

Well, why not… collect those little metal bottle-tops, and nail them upside-down to the floor? This will give the sensation… of walking… on little metal bottle-tops turned upside-down.

Why not… get hold of an ordinary Northumbrian spokeshaver’s coracle? Paint it in contrasting stripes of, say, telephone black and white white, and hang it up in the hall for a guitar tidy for parties.

Why not… drop in one evening for a mess of pottage? Our speciality, just aubergine and carnation petals. With a six-shilling bottle of Mielle du Pap, a feast fit for a king.

I’m delirious about our new cooker fitment with the eye-level grille. This means that without my having to bend down, the hot fat can squirt straight into my eyes!

Both: We’re frightfully House and Garden,
At number seven-B,
The walls are patterned with shrunken heads,
Ever so very contemporary.

Swann: Our boudoir on the open plan has been a huge success…
Flanders: Though everywhere’s so open, there’s nowhere safe to dress!

Both: With little screens, and bottle lamps,
And motifs here and there.
Swann: Mobiles in the air…
Flanders: Ivy everywhere!
Both: You mustn’t be surprised to meet a cactus on the stair,
But we call it Home Sweet Home.

We’re terribly House and Garden,
As I think we’ve said before.
But though seven-B is madly gay,
It wouldn’t do for every day,
We actually live in seven-A,
In the house next door!

The history of science has shown us…

Quote

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“The history of science has shown us that you need the tools first. Then you get the data. Then you can make the theory. Then you can achieve understanding.”

“… I worry that medicine does too many moon shots. Almost everything we do in medicine is a moon shot because we don’t know for sure if it’s going to work.


“People forget. When they landed on the moon, they already had several hundred years of calculus so they have the math; physics, so they know Newton’s Laws; aerodynamics, you know how to fly; rocketry, people were launching rockets for many decades before the moon landing. When Kennedy gave the moon landing speech, he wasn’t saying, let’s do this impossible task; he was saying, look, we can do it. We’ve launched rockets; if we don’t do this, somebody else will get there first.


“Moon shot has gone almost into the opposite parlance; rather than saying here is something big we can do and we know how to do it, it’s here is some crazy thing, let’s throw a lot of resources at it and let’s hope for the best. I worry that that’s not how “moon shot” should be used. I think we should do anti-moon shots!”


— ED BOYDEN, M.I.T.

http://edge.org/conversation/ed_boyden-how-the-brain-is-computing-the-mind