We saw The Boy and the Heron today. The animation was beautiful as you would expect from Studio Ghibli. The story was wild and took many turns. Overall very good and will likely watch it again.
Tammy is our family trip planner extraordinaire and she has mapped out the general structure of our Ireland trip in June! We’ll be going clockwise starting from Dublin with lodging points in Ballydehob, Ballybunion, Doolin, Ballyshannon, Belfast, special visit to Tubbrid Castle, and back to Dublin to explore before returning home.
Put together this fun Tribute to Galileo Galilei LEGO this morning. Reminded me of our bike tour in Tuscany when we stopped at Villa Galileo (building on the left in the street photo).
Just booked flights for our summer vacation to Ireland! We are excited for our first trip there. 🇮🇪
Birthday POAPs
I’ve made it a tradition since my 50th birthday to issue a POAP token for my birthday and share it as a gift from me to others to celebrate the day. I’ve now done this for three years. Each year I’ve used a POAPathon bounty to create the image and have featured a different artist each year. POAP launched POAP Family a while ago and one of the features it has is the ability to show collectors across multiple POAPs. I like how this works when you have a series of events like my birthday POAPs.
- There are 12 collectors that have all three.
- There are 21 collectors that have the most recent two.
- A total of 85 collectors have at least one of my birthday tokens.
- There are 8 reservations from 2022 and 7 from 2023 that have not been minted.
First time trying this Natural-Processed Coffee Beans from Myanmar that I got from Pair Cupworks. Delightful coffee with a rich and full flavor. Definitely get a Nutella flavor in it. Pair continues to be one of my favorite roasters.
We saw The Boys in the Boat at the Edina Theatre tonight and thought it was a great movie. It was a great underdog story told very well. The theatre was nearly full too — most people I’ve seen in a movie since before the pandemic! Highly recommended! 🍿
Tammy and I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once tonight and found it a wild trip. One of the strangest movies we’ve seen, but also somehow still all came together at the end and left me happy to have seen it.
Today is my 52nd Birthday, but I also share my birthday with Bitcoin. Happy 15th Birthday to Bitcoin! Genesis block was mined 15 years ago. 🎉⚡️
Family selfie on my 52nd birthday! 🎉
I created a POAP to share for my 52nd Birthday! Here are five claim codes! Each link can only be used once. See how to if needed.
Great way to start your birthday? A macchiato from Backstory Coffee that tastes as good as it looks. ☕️
Ferrari
Tammy and I went to see Ferrari tonight. When I saw the preview for this movie we had just been to Italy and visited the Ferrari museums. In the movie there were a few scenes that were definitely shot in Modena and were places that we had been.
The movie was great. The retelling of the Mille Miglia and the horrific crash that killed so many spectators and ended the race was rough. You certainly leave with an appreciation of how dangerous motor racing was back in the early days.
It turns out it was Mrs. Peacock with the Candlestick in the Conservatory!
First time playing the Tetris Tabletop Game and it is pretty good. I’m a big Tetris fan, and this doesn’t have the zombie speed that the video game does, but it brings good strategy and is a fun time. Tyler won with 38 points.
It is a family tradition to have fondue on New Year’s Eve. This years cheese fondue was particularly good.
After watching Flamin’ Hot last night we had to try some Flamin’ Hot Crunchy Cheetos! Hot indeed! 🔥🌶️
Tyler completed the Great Wave LEGO kit today. This is his favorite artwork and a very cool LEGO.
Notes on Complexity by Theise
I finished reading Notes on Complexity by Neil Theise this morning. It is a quick read just under 200 pages, and I think would be best thought of as a quick overview of very deep topics on complexity theory and winding all the way to consciousness.
I found it immediately engaging because my own reading on Buddhism has left me intrigued by how well it connects to some very big scientific concepts. I’ve also been listening and meditating using Sam Harris’ Waking Up which frequently visits topics around “the observer” and consciousness.
What I took from Theise’s notes were parallels between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and Formal Logic and Metaphysics.
From this idealist view, then, the universe as a whole, including each of our bodies, brains, and minds, is nothing but a manifestation arising from the depths of an underlying Consciousness. Space, time, matter, and energy, the quantum foam, all the structures that emerge from these, have no inherent existence but are simply experiences within that Consciousness. Idealism affirms, in the grandest way possible, that the brain doesn’t make consciousness; it is Consciousness that makes the universe, out of which, after billions of years, our brains have emerged to be the most complex structure we have yet discovered. And thus, if everything is only a subjective experience of the big-C Consciousness, then the hard problem of what creates subjective experience ceases to be a problem. There is nothing in the universe that is not the subjective experience of Consciousness.
This call out about artificial intelligence was interesting as well. Most people approach this question as consciousness derives from enough intelligence. But considering consciousness and intelligence as independent properties suggests a very different outcome.
It heralds an approach to how we can navigate from the strangeness of quantum realms up into the normal-seeming, classical realms of everyday experience. It also suggests that algorithmically programmed computers can produce artificial intelligence, but not true consciousness, because consciousness is not just an emergent property of complex programming. If one wants to make “real” artificial intelligence, then computers need to become transducers of awareness, as brains are, a matter that seems beyond complex programming.
This isn’t a field that I have the depth to explore in detail, but I find the connections interesting and enjoy the exploration.
Mazie finished this amazing Typewriter LEGO. The movement is impressive and it makes a “clacking” sound that is reminiscent of the real thing. She finished exactly one year after starting it!
