oMarilyn's Photos - Aug 1 2025 - Face-down phone

 

There's a face-down phone theory.  "The mere presence of our smartphones is like the sound of our names or a crying baby - something that automatically exerts a gravitational pull on our attention.  Resisting that pull takes a cognitive toll." There is also the "brain drain" theory - that the constant need to inhibit attention towards a smartphone, even when not actively using it, drains cognitive resources, impacting performance on other tasks.  What about Maslow's hierarchy of smartphone needs?  One theory applies Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to smartphone use, suggesting that individuals may progress through stages of smartphone needs, from basic functionality to more advanced features and uses. And finally, there's Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality: this is where the distinction between reality and simulation blurs. What if you owned the Falcon Supernova Iphone 6 Pink Diamond phone worth $48.5 million US?  You would keep it face down to see the huge Pink Diamond on the back.   However, if you owned the Goldstriker Iphone 3Gs Supreme, valued at $3.2 million U.S. you would keep it face up as the diamonds - 130 of them - form a bezel around the face of the phone.  Turn it over and the 112 grams of 18-carat rose gold show off the Apple logo with 53 diamonds.  There are more strange and expensive smart phones HERE.  Will there be a time when there isn't a phone in the smartphone.  When it isn't called a phone? Brain-computer interfaces are already with us...   This is an interpretation of the August Restaurant sign a nice start to the month.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 31 2025 - Back end of summer coming

 

I now experience August as the "back-end" of summer.  That's because there is back to school, Halloween and even Christmas-themed items are at Michaels and Dollarama, giving me the sense summer is finished. I think of this as "anticipation living."  That's where we are living "into the future", in anticipation of and preparing for the next major event or holiday.   I guessed that our attention spans have shortened so that we "move on" to the next thing very quickly.  I wonder if there's any research in this area - remember the attention span research about the decrease in seconds making us equivalent to goldfish.  It turned out to be false information. I don't see any scientific information pop up on societal attention spans. Can we have back to school sales before summer school is finished?  What a travesty overlap that would be.  Don't worry, summer school is finished.   It ran July 2 to July 25 (or 29).  And there's another difference from my youth.  It is now promoted as an opportunity for students to continue learning in the summer.  Summer students have access to live tutors in the evenings and on weekends.  I liked school, so that would have been fun for me.  Instead, when I was a youth, summer school was a punishment for those who failed a particular subject, forcing the student to take summer classes so they could move to the next grade.  Definitely ruining summer playing and fun. Maybe I am contemplating this because it seems that back-to-school shopping was secondary to me.  Primary was the arrival of the Eaton's and the Simpsons Catalogues.  My friend, Janet, and I would pour through each and every section choosing our favourites.   I seem to think this happened in August, but there's no information on when the catalogue was sent out. Back to school wasn't nearly as much fun as future living.  And how much back to school was there in the 1950s and 1960s - a few notebooks, pens and pencils.   I guess Janet and I were doing our version of "anticipation living"  - take a look through pages from a 1975 Eaton's catalogue HERE  - everything a house and person could imagine having.  Today we scroll, back then we turned the pages.  Maybe it isn't that different today compared to 60 years ago.  What do you think?     Here's a nostalgic door number with the Flamingo embellishment.  This was on our neighbour's house in Toronto.  I would think this was original to the house, so maybe the house number and house year around 1950 synchronized..

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Marilyn's Photos - July 30 1015 - Back-to-back

 

The games were played back to back. That's how we think of back-to-back or back to back.  Or it could be meetings.  Or watching movies, or having interviews, or...booking 51 back-to-back cruises on the Princess Cruises' Coral Princess.  After that finishes, the article says they will get on the Crown Princess for another year. They won't say how much they've spent, but claim it is cheaper than a retirement home.  That's the headline about Marty and Jess Ansen from Australia, who have spent over 450 days on board. They wanted to "catch up" on the cruising they missed during the Pandemic.  Another article headline said they did this instead of retiring to a nursing home.  In the same article another permanent cruise ship passenger, Ryan Gutridge says it is cheaper to live on a cruise ship.   "As reported by Business Insider, Gutridge claimed that living on a cruise ship for 300 days costs roughly the same as paying rent for an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 2023, his base fare budget was about $30,000. Since he has racked up so many days at sea, his drinks and internet are free, thanks to his Crown & Anchor Society perks. Because of his benefits, he said he'll spend even less money cruising than in the past, even if he's cruising more." So we find another one of those 1 in 8 billion moments.  I have a "1 in 8 billion club".  The first person in it is the oldest marathoner, Fauja Singh, who died at 114 years old a few weeks ago.  His was an inspiring story.  And this cruise story?  I didn't promise the 1 in 8 billion club would all be pretty, did I?   Yesterday's summer camp activity, with all that heat, was to take another image through the "fun cycle".  This image is from the Minneapolis Botanic Garden from a few years ago.  It is a white sculpture reflected in black water.  Using the temperature slide, it was turned to a nice blue, manipulated it in Flexify and then arranged into collages. Blue seems to be quite cooling. Then I read about the 6 foot Tsunami waves that travelled from Russia to Japan, Hawaii, B.C. and the U.S. Pacific coast.  It caused the evacuation of millions of  people in Japan.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 20 2025 - It is Greek Yogurt for the Greenhouse

 

There is another heat warning map on the Weather Network site today.  I prefer the radar map with the clouds and rain passing over. My greenhouse gets extraordinarily hot in the summer,  even though there's a tree next to it and shades part of it.  When the greenhouse was built, 100 years ago or more, it would have had a whitewash coating in the summer.  It would have been calcium carbonate-based chalk agents and mixed with water then painted on the windows.  I remember the brush strokes on the greenhosue windows of Niagara Falls.  The products are still available and it looks like some of the commercial greenhouses might have shading paint.   So I wonder what the headlines are that one should coat one's windows with Greek Yogurt.   Do you think it might attract insects and rodents? What about dogs - I expect Millie would bark at the smell and want to lick the glass. Do you think cleaning yogurt off a window will be easy?    This is just a silly hack, isn't it?  But it got me thinking about the cooling methods.  Because it is the roof that needs the shading, and that's way up there - 14 feet -  I guess this was just a thought today.  And looking into a silly hack.     Remember yesterday's Mingle Hill flowers?  Here they are as the starting point for a series of abstracts.  There's the original picture, a watercolour version that is abstracted and made high key (brighter).  Then there's an example ofo one of the results of  the Flaming Pear filters. Next are the variations using Diptic for the collage presentation, and one final version with further edits in photoshop with the French Kiss "brushes".   A great distraction for yesterday - another very hot day.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 29 2025 - It is Greek Yogurt for the Windows

 

There is another heat warning map on the Weather Network site today.  I prefer the radar map with the clouds and rain passing over. My greenhouse gets extraordinarily hot in the summer,  even though there's a tree next to it and shades part of it.  When the greenhouse was built, 100 years ago or more, it would have had a whitewash coating in the summer.  It would have been calcium carbonate-based chalk agents and mixed with water then painted on the windows.  I remember the brush strokes on the greenhosue windows of Niagara Falls.  The products are still available and it looks like some of the commercial greenhouses might have shading paint.   So I wonder what the headlines are that one should coat one's windows with Greek Yogurt.   Do you think it might attract insects and rodents? What about dogs - I expect Millie would bark at the smell and want to lick the glass. Do you think cleaning yogurt off a window will be easy?    This is just a silly hack, isn't it?  But it got me thinking about the cooling methods.  Because it is the roof that needs the shading, and that's way up there - 14 feet -  I guess this was just a thought today.  And looking into a silly hack.     Remember yesterday's Mingle Hill flowers?  Here they are as the starting point for a series of abstracts.  There's the original picture, a watercolour version that is abstracted and made high key (brighter).  Then there's an example ofo one of the results of  the Flaming Pear filters. Next are the variations using Diptic for the collage presentation, and one final version with further edits in photoshop with the French Kiss "brushes".   A great distraction for yesterday - another very hot day.

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