John L. Taylor @johnnylogic@qoto.org

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

• From “Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems”

#Nature #Poetry

Some days I get up to run but then
just sit in spandex and write poems.
Is the fog lifting or the trees rising? Who cares.
Nature transfers blood into the air. We are
its lung cancer. Its trans fat. Its addiction.
Some days I get up to write but instead, clean
the horrible beans from the night before,
beer cans on the coffee table. At the window
the insects are bigger and scarier
than the month before.
They are giving their last Hurrah.
I creep around like Nancy Drew
with my hunch and no real proof.
All things feel preordained, repeated.
My body is numb. Without anticipation.
I sit in the lobby of someone else’s potential,
thinking it is my own. I go about my day
convinced I am immortal.

(Source)

#Nature, #Poetry

The science behind the self-organizing beauty of snowflakes.

#Beauty, #Nature, #Physics, #SelfOrganization, #Video

One of the great pleasures of my regular park walks is running into wildlife like this barred owl. The photo looks a bit painterly because I had to zoom in on a low-quality camera phone.

#Nature, #Owl, #Walking

This is a video of a blanket octopus filmed in the ocean depths next to Romblon Island in the Philippines. What a beautiful iridescent creature!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJS2oYvi9CI

#Diving, #Nature. #Octopus, #Video

By way of #introduction, I am a Director of Research working on online #fraudprevention. I aim to protect people from fraud while establishing trust and safety for businesses.

My professional interests include #datascience, #machinelearning, #dataengineering, #designthinking, #innovation, #research, and #dataethics. My personal interests are numerous and include #philosophy (esp. #ethics, #science, and #epistemology), #psychology (esp. #cognition, #positivepsychology, #therapy), and philosophies of life (esp. #buddhism, #humanism, #stoicism, #taoism).

Hobby-wise, I am an #exercise and #martialarts enthusiast. I also enjoy #nature, #hiking, and the #outdoors, generally.