Big Bird Finished

Just finished up a new piece I'm calling, "Big Bird."

Too much bird seed.

Amazing ISIS Footage from VICE

Check out this video footage VICE posted from the head cam of an ISIS soldier.
I thought it was amazing to see.

What It's Really Like to Fight for the Islamic State

Are Dog Mouths Cleaner Than Human Mouths?

I've always heard that a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's mouth, which seems absurd to me, partially because my dog chewed on a dead bird today (and that's not the grossest thing that's been in her mouth).

It turns out that statement is untrue, but it's true-ish.

Scienceline.org says:

“It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” says Colin Harvey, a professor of surgery and dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. He is also the executive secretary at the American Veterinary Dental College.

And ABC News says:

[Veterinarian Marty] Becker says many of the bacteria in the mouth of a dog are species specific, so it won't harm its owner. 'So a staph or a strep for a human is not transmissible to a dog, if you were to kiss it, and vice versa,' said Becker.

So their mouths aren't cleaner, but their germs aren't likely to be harmful to people.

Mystery solved.

The Song Test

The things we hate to do feel like wastes of time.

But I was humbled yesterday when I finished one of these dread chores during the playtime of 1 song.

So, if you want to know how long something actually takes, start a song or an album and see how many songs you get through.

John Stuart Mill on Opinions

If you read nothing else from this post, read the last quote.

It is FANTASTIC.

This paragraph from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is speaking to me this morning.

If you don't have it in you to read the whole thing right now, I'll highlight the most interesting bits.

Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they are wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on the infallibility of "the world" in general. And the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his party,[Pg 33] his sect, his church, his class of society: the man may be called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-minded to whom it means anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissentient worlds of other people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. [emphasis added]

And here is the best line:

Yet it is as evident in itself as any amount of argument can make it, that ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.
On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

Colorful Bird

Added a new piece to the shop.

We All Miss Prince

In honor of the passing of an iconic musician, I'd like to share my favorite Prince video with you:

While My Guitar Gently Weeps featuring The Purple One

He rolls in a little over halfway through and shreds.

What a great performer.