Congrats on Stan – in due time he’ll realize how cool his dad is, and hopefully spend time thinking about his own inconsequentiality. Connection. It’s all we got on our tiny little rock, going around a tiny star, in the suburbs of an ordinary galaxy.
Serendipity compels me to comment. I follow this prof’s blog: http://mleddy.blogspot.ca/
He had your “moon is one pixel” chart there today. I just finished scrolling through the entire thing! That was pretty impressive, thanks. I have a wee quibble with your use of ‘metaphor’ near the beginning, when really, it ought to have been ‘analogy’. But then when you compared our presence to lint on a sweater, that was a proper metaphor.
In a tutorial last semester, we read Kant’s 3rd critique, the Critique of Judgment, and Kant writes about the sublime. He agrees that our brain gets boggled by quantities too large to comprehend. Plus I am a big fan of Julian Jaynes (the Princeton prof) and it all works together.
So at the end of your solar system map, I clicked on your home page and see the lovely entry here about your baby. Congratulations! That’s when I noticed he was born on the very day that my Dad died this year. Dad was 85 but his death was unexpected and we are still grieving. So in the typical human tradition of looking for meaning and pattern in the random, I wish your son the best life possible. May some of my Dad’s spirit inspire Stanley to be the best person he can be.
[…] couple weeks ago, I was awake at 4:30 AM with 6-month-old Stanley during the time of the “Blood Moon” eclipse. From the upstairs window, I was able to […]
Thank you for creating “If the Moon were a Pixel” …it made me feel really small. It sure put things into perspective. I’ve been very interested in astronomy since I was in 3rd grade and stole a book on astronomy from the school library and read every word in it and learned to identify all the major constellations. Since then, I’ve always wondered what was “out there” and how far one could travel out there and what was on the other side of the end of the universe. Serious questions for a 9 year-old kid.
I scrolled about halfway through your chart but then used the planet icons once I got past Saturn to get to Pluto. Loved your comments and how you used graphs to document various aspects of raising a new baby. I chuckled a time or two remembering how it was when raising my own babies years ago.
Is this your own kid? Or is this a base for other families to use?
Yep. That’s my own kid. You’re welcome to steal the idea though. (I’m pretty sure I’m not the first one to do an infographic baby announcement.)
Congrats on Stan – in due time he’ll realize how cool his dad is, and hopefully spend time thinking about his own inconsequentiality. Connection. It’s all we got on our tiny little rock, going around a tiny star, in the suburbs of an ordinary galaxy.
That’s deep.
Serendipity compels me to comment. I follow this prof’s blog:
http://mleddy.blogspot.ca/
He had your “moon is one pixel” chart there today. I just finished scrolling through the entire thing! That was pretty impressive, thanks. I have a wee quibble with your use of ‘metaphor’ near the beginning, when really, it ought to have been ‘analogy’. But then when you compared our presence to lint on a sweater, that was a proper metaphor.
In a tutorial last semester, we read Kant’s 3rd critique, the Critique of Judgment, and Kant writes about the sublime. He agrees that our brain gets boggled by quantities too large to comprehend. Plus I am a big fan of Julian Jaynes (the Princeton prof) and it all works together.
So at the end of your solar system map, I clicked on your home page and see the lovely entry here about your baby. Congratulations! That’s when I noticed he was born on the very day that my Dad died this year. Dad was 85 but his death was unexpected and we are still grieving. So in the typical human tradition of looking for meaning and pattern in the random, I wish your son the best life possible. May some of my Dad’s spirit inspire Stanley to be the best person he can be.
All the best,
Julia (random internet person)
[…] couple weeks ago, I was awake at 4:30 AM with 6-month-old Stanley during the time of the “Blood Moon” eclipse. From the upstairs window, I was able to […]
Thank you for creating “If the Moon were a Pixel” …it made me feel really small. It sure put things into perspective. I’ve been very interested in astronomy since I was in 3rd grade and stole a book on astronomy from the school library and read every word in it and learned to identify all the major constellations. Since then, I’ve always wondered what was “out there” and how far one could travel out there and what was on the other side of the end of the universe. Serious questions for a 9 year-old kid.
I scrolled about halfway through your chart but then used the planet icons once I got past Saturn to get to Pluto. Loved your comments and how you used graphs to document various aspects of raising a new baby. I chuckled a time or two remembering how it was when raising my own babies years ago.
I enjoyed this very much. Keep up the good work.