A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
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Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#22Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always compare software engineering to bonsai. To be happy doing either for a long time, you need to enjoy the work of becoming a craftsman for its own sake -- the things you build or cultivate can die quickly and for no good reason, and all that remains is the appreciation for the work you put in. Whenever someone asks for a fifth round of changes for a button's color, I think about a Japanese monk raking gravel.…
That's a really interesting analogy. I struggle with the idea of working so hard on things that feel pointless and ephemeral, and that's a nice way to think about it. I'm not sure that's the point of a mandala, but it's definitely an interesting idea to ponder.
Something might last thousand years or a billion, but it's still going to end.
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#24Since it was so close to the blast, wouldn't it still be radioactive, like Marie Curie's journals?
Ground blasts are worse, but it's the ground itself that becomes radioactive, not the things that are far away and are affected by the blast.
And no one purposely does ground bursts, because they don't do a good job of damaging things with a blast - most of the energy ends up reflected into space, or absorbed into the ground. (I guess a terrorist might want to, since they don't have military strategic goals.)
The material of the bomb itself is radioactive of course, but there isn't usually all that much of it, and it's dispersed quite widely.
Her journals did not become radioactive because they were neutron-activated, but because they were contaminated by radioactive material. But there's a limited amount of that, so only a small amount of material becomes radioactive that way.
(Note: I'm speaking relatively here, if you have a sensitive enough detector you'll find stuff of course. That's one of the things that makes people so scared of radiation - it's so easy to detect at even minuscule levels, while far more dangerous things are harder to detect so no one reports them.)
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#25I think the value of this tree is in the idea that one day America might give it back to Japan as an act of peace, since it is clearly a very special organism and the value of the act would truly communicate the idea of transcending the causes of hostility. Exchanging such a beautiful life form as an act of peace would surely be the penultimate act of bonsai...
Quibble: surely that should be 'ultimate act'. The meaning of 'penultimate' implies a further ultimate act. Since bonsai are essentially immortal, you would never be able to tell if an act involving one was penultimate?
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quibble: surely that should be 'ultimate act'. The meaning of 'penultimate' implies a further ultimate act. Since bonsai are essentially immortal, you would never be able to tell if an act involving one was penultimate?
Essentially immortal? The article seemed to indicate the expected lifespan of this tree was around 200 years, despite it having lived nearly twice that long.
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I too am fascinated with bonsai. It's not only aesthetically pleasing, but also really interesting from a purely biological perspective.
I had a mentor of sorts who was this retired engineer who went to MIT and he gave me the advice that bonsai is one half art, one half biology, one half philosophy. This adds up to over 100% obviously but the point was that to be good at bonsai you needed to have at least two of those things down pat. The biology is interesting, (just kind of stream of thought here) although I was pretty young at the time I remember t…
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#28Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#29https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
Does the HN realise there is anotehr world outside of Silicon Velley ??
Re: A 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb
#30http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/82jpr.html
I read somewhere that if all existing weapons in the world were detonated uniformly over Texas, there would be still some survivors even in Texas itself.