28.2.11

A Word on Statistics by Wislawa Szymborska

Out of every hundred people,

those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it’s better not to know,
not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred –
a figure that has never varied yet.

(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

I know this has been doing the rounds (found via Swissmiss) but when is enough truly enough?

9.2.11

History Shots

I could look at their artwork all day and still keep finding new and interesting facts on them. Here's the link for this one.

They also cover other subjects, pop, politics, race to the moon. Well worth a visit.

3.2.11

Soilscapes

Fantastic interactive website called Soilscapes, developed by the good people at Cranfield University in the National Soil Resources Institute. It is a simplified map of the types of soils covering England and Wales, with the purpose of "effectively communicating a general understanding of the variations which occur between soil types, and how soils effect the environment. Soil heavily influences our whole ecosystem and is a fragile resource that needs to be protected and understood."

I absolutely love it.

Found by my sister....

A form of mapping

Chris Jordan's book called Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, brought statistics to life through photography. Not a typical way to map changes in our environment. The image on the left is from his second book on the same theme called "Running the Numbers II: Portraits of global mass culture". This one "depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean."

Truly amazing and thought provoking. Check out his website, particularly the photographs called Midway: Message from the Gyre.