Photo Shoot and Technical Projects

-

Joey photo shoot at Fayetteville Road. Ian Page's CHON discussion on biocompatible plastics and self-assembling proteins. Minecraft transit building.

A day of photography and infrastructure work

Events and activities that occurred on Friday, January 24, 2026

Joey in a field
Time constraints can sharpen focus. Joey's invitation to a crab feast at Leisureland compressed the planned photo shoot into a single concentrated hour. The abbreviated timeline worked—sometimes the pressure of limited time produces better results than leisurely exploration. The shoot moved efficiently between a large open field and grain elevators along Fayetteville Road, finding good variety in the focused hour.

The shoot itself lasted about an hour, but the visit extended beyond that. The time together sparked a different kind of connection: a note to Tom about organizing another crabbing trip, with Joey expressing interest in joining. Sometimes the activities we skip lead to the activities we plan.

Ian Page's latest CHON Topics posts explored fascinating territory at the intersection of biology and materials science. Peptide amphiphiles—small protein molecules that self-assemble—modified with polyvinylidene fluoride for information storage. The hybrid approach between organic chemistry and petrochemistry raised questions about practical implementation, but the underlying principle of self-assembling proteins remains compelling.

The second post addressed a more immediate problem: biocompatible supramolecular plastics built from guanidinium and sodium hexaphosphate held together by salt bridges. The elegant solution breaks down into component molecules in salty environments or soil without leaving nanoplastics behind. Recycling through salt water recovers most monomers. The research offers alternatives to petrochemicals while acknowledging that guanidinium manufacturing still relies on coal chemistry—progress often builds on existing infrastructure rather than replacing it wholesale.

The evening's Minecraft work on direct NTS connections between Porto Alegre and Cherry Forest continued the infrastructure theme. Different domains—photography, databases, transit systems, virtual terrain—but similar satisfactions in solving connection problems. The database installation work occupied substantial time, getting systems operational and configured for backup, though some pieces would wait for quota limits to reset.

The day demonstrated how different types of work can share underlying patterns. Whether composing a shot under time pressure or configuring database systems, the satisfaction comes from making things connect and function. Constraints—limited time, technical limits, resource quotas—shape the work without diminishing it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Humanity Worth Saving?

-
Image
It's an interesting question given humanity's propensity for shortsighted and self-destructive decision making.  Glibly, the answer is no.  It's not worth saving and should get exactly what it deserves.  It is not earning its way as a responsible contributor to the universe.   That, of course, begs the question of what does the universe want? Other than a few fantasies that we've crafted it's unclear. We have values as humans such as order, beauty, and joy.  Science is the objective pursuit of discovering order in the universe.  Beauty straddles a line between the objective and subjective.  Much of what is considered to be beautiful are objective observations with subjective assessments.  Joy is entirely subjective and tends to be generated by the orderly and beautiful. These are potential self-centered reasons for humans to continue to exist, but in an of themselves don't answer the question of what the universe wants. What does the universe...
Read more

Understanding

-
One of the more entertaining aspects of the current conversations around AI is how much it challenges what we've believed, perhaps for centuries, about the nature of thinking. We've discovered that we don't currently possess objective and testable definitions for words like sentience and consciousness.  For reference, here are a couple of current definitions... Sentience - feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought. ( Merriam-Webster ) Consciousness - the state of understanding and realizing something. ( Cambridge Dictionary ) Words like feeling, sensation, perception, thought, and realizing don't add a lot of value and tend to make definitions circular, but if you distill them you end up understanding as a component of each.  "Understanding" is a word worth exploring. Just for reference here are some of Merriam-Webster's definitions of the word " understand "... : to grasp the meaning of : to grasp the reasonableness of ...
Read more

Identity

-
I recommend the book ... Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment  by Francis Fukuyama In fact,  I'll even elevate it to the status of Lonnie's Core Educational Books that everyone should read.
Read more