What's in a name

When I started this blog I intended it to be an information gathering device, posting bunches of links, reviews, instructions and so on. This sort of happened for a few posts (I'm still most proud of my Smithsonian Craft Fair post), but then I meandered off into journaling territory, posting more photos, recipes, poems, thoughts and whatever else happened to cross my path. In the end, the content has actually lived up to the name I chose in the first place: Renascence Girl.

I've gotten a few questions about why I "spelled renaissance wrong," so I'll explain my logic (something I probably should've done initially).

1. "Renaissancegirl" was taken.
2. Spelled "renaissance" the word tends to make people think of the period in history, or silly festivals where people dress up and make largely inaccurate attempts to reenact that period.
3. I used this alternate spelling because it sounds better in my head. Literally, re-nascence, re-birth, a new beginning, or beginning again. This can mean a new start, or starting something over again, redoing something from the past in a new way.
4. It does also imply the idea of the renaissance man, a person who is a jack of many trades, perhaps not at expert at all of them, but a dabbler. Since I can't make my mind about anything much, Renascence girl seemed like an accurately descriptive choice. You, who have nobly waded through all this, therefore get posts about a wide variety of topics, all tied together simply because of moi. Hoo-rah.

Photo of your semi-faithful blogger courtesy of your .. you get it. From Chincoteague Is., Sept. 2010.

Just a couple things

I was hoping I'd spend less time around my computer this week while my primary online contact is out of the country, but so far that's failed completely. This might have something to do with all the online applications I'm working on, but hey.

In any case, here's a link to Abby (the) Librarian's blog, which recently posted a giveaway of Catching Fire. It's the second part of the Hunger Games trilogy, the premise of which sounds a little silly, but apparently is completely riveting. I figure it's worth a try.

Then, I read an article that introduced me to the concept of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Nöosphere. I think I had heard the word before, but not known the meaning. It's basically a "sphere of human thought", that represents humanity's development into a highly cognitive species. It's also the next step after the biosphere and geosphere concepts. The Noosphere could also be comparable to the blogosphere, the idea that everyone is connected by these ideas and ways of thinking, by the internet, for example. At Princeton, the Noosphere is being studied as a literal global consciousness that has the power to alter elements (specifically random number generation). The data seem show that if enough people are thinking about the same thing, the numbers change slightly, are less random, and deviate from the prediction.
De Chardin envisioned all this coming to resolution at the "omega point", when human thought will reach its pinnacle... and that's pretty much the end of history. What's up with Omega though? Maybe it's just me and Star Trek Voyager, where the Borg hailed Omega particles as the ultimate symbol of perfection, but I know I've seen it elsewhere and am interested in the root meanings that lead to this stuff.

Well, that should be it for now. Not a terribly coherent post, but ah well. More next time, hopefully on eco-guilt and the economy and whatever else is on my mind/reader.