"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
"Like I always say, there's no 'I' in "team". There is a 'me', though, if you jumble it up."
We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.
Wisdom - that part of knowledge that isn't only true, but also happens to be helpful.
Wisdom speaks softly... Thereafter the volume increases proportionate to the level of ignorance
A punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?
All designed objects are propaganda for a certain way of life.
Sometimes we need to stop analysing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how we feel, stop deciding exactly what we want, and just see what happens.
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." --Napoleon Bonaparte
The best designed clothes: invite being removed but reward being kept on.
It's that you just can't take the effect and make it the cause
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Russian police trying to make motorists respect pedestrians on zebra crossings thought of drafting in exotic zebras to halt Moscow traffic.
Only, police in the Russian capital could not get any zebras – so they painted black stripes on white horses instead.
They paraded the horses over crossings, forcing motorists to slow down and read road safety messages.
Thousands of pedestrians die in road accidents COLLISIONS in Russia every year.
(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» BBC News – ‘Zebra’ stops cars in Russia road accident campaign: [
continue reading ‘Zebra’ stops cars in Russia road ‘accident’ campaign (what’s accidental?)
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You might not have noticed because most of the British press seems curiously reluctant to cover it, but earlier in the week, the New York Times produced some new evidence that the Conservative party’s chief spin doctor Andy Coulson knew much more about the phone hacking scandal of 2006 than he was letting on. Maybe they were too busy covering allegations regarding William Hague’s sexuality, and his emotional revelations about not being gay that came out at the same time, handily and totally coincidentally for the Conservatives’ spin doctor. Ahem.
(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» Five Chinese [
continue reading What would the Met get in return for not looking hard at News of the World phone hacking?
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A specially upgraded Russian Akula class submarine has been caught trying to record the acoustic signature made by the Vanguard submarines that carry Trident nuclear missiles, according to senior Navy officers.
Russian subs stalk Trident in echo of Cold War – Telegraph.
Jeremy Hunt has recently suggested that hooliganism caused the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 people died, then apologised “IF his comments caused any offence” (which many regard to be a more offensive gesture than his original remarks). There are, at the time of writing, 150 comments published under the short apology on his website.
But the people leaving comments on Jeremy Hunt’s ‘blog’ deserve to be warned that Jeremy’s apology is scheduled for deletion (probably within a month) along with any comment(s) they contribute.
No, I am not extrapolating wildly from Jeremy Hunt’s recent mass deletion of tweets; [
continue reading Jeremy Hunt: when only the freshest information will do | Bloggerheads
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Wonder why I am having a Hollywood/Reality crossover …
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky
I think this observation is brilliant. It reminds me of the clarity of the Peter Principle, which says that a person in an organization will be promoted to the level of their incompetence. At which point their past achievements will prevent them from being fired, but their incompetence at this new level will prevent them from being promoted again, so they stagnate in their incompetence.
The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions (like a company, or an industry) can become [
continue reading The Shirky Principle; ‘Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution’.
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350 from Hans Hansen on Vimeo.
What does the number 350 mean?
350 is the most important number in the world—it’s what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.
350 graffiti art — so beautiful! | [
continue reading 350 graffiti art … so clever
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Well this is rich isn’t it? “If the app stops you having one ‘bad’ accident” – what is the sliding-scale and what would be accidental!! SHAME ON YOU TUAW – AND APPLE© FOR ALLOWING IT ON iTunes.
Is Text’nDrive Pro worth $19.99? If you avoid even one traffic citation for “texting while driving,” you’d probably come out ahead. If the app keeps you from having a bad accident while you’re distracted by your iPhone, then it’s worth every penny you pay for it, and more.
(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» TUAW review: Email while driving with Text’nDrive [
continue reading be an ARSE and email while driving with Text’nDrive Pro for iPhone (!!! you what?)
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Young people may have one day have to change their names in order to escape their previous online activity, Google boss Eric Schmidt has warned.
Mr Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal he feared they did not understand the consequences of having so much personal information about them online.
BBC [
continue reading Google boss Eric Schmidt warns on social use of media
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Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are.
Type in your postcode or a place name to get started.
Britain’s eccentrics, recluses and misanthropes, you can relax. Ignoring neighbours and keeping your curtains permanently shut to the world outside might not win you many friends, but you’re no longer likely to be denounced as a possible terrorist.
A radio advert that urged listeners to consider calling the police’s anti-terrorist hotline if they had suspicions about local people who avoided company, [
continue reading ASA watchdog bans ‘offensive’ anti-terror hotline radio advert
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Julie Spence, the outgoing head of Cambridgeshire police, says drivers consider speeding as acceptable and change their minds only if they lose a child in a road accident.
“Speeding is middle-class anti-social behaviour,” she says. “People think we should be able to get away with it. They wouldn’t tolerate lawbreaking by somebody else but they do it themselves without thinking.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, she claims that the biggest problem perceived by the public in her county is speeding drivers in rural areas and illegal parking by parents outside schools.
‘Hypocrisy’ of speeding middle-class motorists – [
continue reading ‘Hypocrisy’ of speeding middle-class motorists
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Krav Maga (pronounced /ˌkrɑːv məˈɡɑː/; Hebrew: קרב מגע, IPA: [ˈkʁav maˈɡa], lit. ”contact combat”, “close combat” or “full contact”) is an eclectic hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel which involves wrestling, grappling and striking techniques, mostly known for its extremely efficient and brutal counter-attacks, as it is also taught to elite special forces around the world. [1][2] It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler, as a means of defending the Jewish quarter during a period of anti-Semitic activity in Bratislava[3] in the mid- to late 1930s. In [
continue reading Krav Maga
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Don’t get mad, get even …
David Cameron has defended plans to use credit rating firms to “go after” people fraudulently claiming benefits.
He said the [
continue reading ‘you caught us and our expense-frauds, now it’s payback time’
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If it is true – as many believe – that the political elite in Washington have been engaged in a love affair with Google since Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House, then it is also true that the US president is now beginning to notice some wrinkles and warts on his beloved.
Although the faltering economic recovery has taken centre stage in Washington ahead of November’s midterm elections, Google this week appeared to have created some fresh problems for the administration.
The news that Google had struck a deal withVerizon, the US telecoms group, over how the companies [
continue reading Washington’s passion for Google cools
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Waxy’s got a reprint from John Hodgman’s Twitter feed yesterday, a 140-char-at-a-time masterful rip into the most odious of Internet jargon: “Meh.”
hodgman: Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word “meh“? Nothing announces “I have missed the point” more than that word. hodgman: It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy. Also: 12 hive mehs in the replies SO FAR
hodgman: By definition, it may mean disinterest (although simple silence would be a more damning and sincere response, in that case)
hodgman: But in use, it almost [
continue reading John Hodgman explains what’s wrong with “Meh” – Boing Boing
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More schools are set for disappointment after the government said 75 academy rebuild projects are likely to be scaled back, a month after it scrapped England’s school rebuilding scheme.
Education Secretary Michael Gove said the schools would not be proceeding in their present form and instead face further review.
BBC News – Rebuild plans for 75 schools scaled back
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On June 4, 2010 Michael Dell stated that he was considering taking Dell Inc. private “but would not comment when asked what would make him think about the possibility more seriously,” reported Reuters. Well, today we likely know the reasoning for that off-the-wall statement. The SEC charged Dell and senior executives with disclosure and accounting fraud yesterday and the story behind it is one hell of a bombshell!
via The Dell Tale Starts to Unravel and it’s a Bombshell – Patently Apple.
There are a lot of “how the mighty have fallen” stories [
continue reading Dell bombshell that won’t run long (that I missed)
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We’re talking less on mobiles, apparently. I can’t wait for the time I won’t have to overhear stupid, shouty conversations
So the word on the party line is that mobile phone calls are falling out of fashion as people find other uses for their handsets. Well, good. It’s about time. Yes, it’s useful to be able to make a call in an emergency, and yes, mobiles are a powerful tool for aid and medical workers, and they are of course the shiny and most essential item in the kit of the citizen journalist. But apart from those uses, [
continue reading End of the line for mobile calls? Good
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Julian Glover (Comment, 3 August) is correct that the scale of government cuts being discussed is without parallel. We are not talking of the salami-slicing of the Thatcher/Major period. The rhetoric indicates the government is withdrawing from a range of publicly provided services in the hope that someone else will step into the void. In the place of cogent economic argument, we simply have the continued recitation that the deficit of £155bn is unsustainable and so the public sector must [
continue reading Letters: Filling the void after public sector cuts
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Members of the community will have to pay to be part of the Big Society Network and receive support for their neighbourhood projects.
The network, launched by prime minister David Cameron at Downing Street earlier this month, aims to become the ‘largest mutual in the UK’ and will be a [
continue reading Communities must pay to join Big Society Network
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This article is provided courtesy of the blogs feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/blog
“And what volunteering do you do?” “I do…golly, what do I do? Umm, a whole load of things….Um, gosh, that’s a really unfair question cold…” (Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude in an interview with Eddie Mair on the PM Programme yesterday evening to talk about the Big Society). There was more: “Well, I do various things. It’s a great question to err… drop on me err… and if I had time to think about it…”
It was both hilarious but painful to listen to. You can hear [
continue reading Maude and NAVCA on volunteering
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The default position in much of the larger charity sector seems to veer between falsely claiming it has always and forever championed local unpaid community action, or a visceral resentment that there in no longer any money to be had as preferred arm’s length contractors of the state. As we all now know, that particular gravy train has left the station and won’t be coming back anytime soon. I’ve been surprised by how many smaller groups have been saying good riddance in the face of the demise of their larger peers. And this is precisely because there is [
continue reading Big Society: principled protest or vested interest?:
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The real reason why conservatives hate the enforcement of speed limits is that this is one of the few laws which is as likely to catch the rich as the poor: newspaper editors and council leaders are as vulnerable as anyone else. The conservative reaction to speed cameras suggests that they love laws, except those which apply to them.
(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» Monbiot.com » Tory Boy Racers: .)
At the Big Society in the North event some brave people started to venture into no-man’s-land to try to make something of it. We had Alistair Sinclair, who wants to set up community-led support groups for people recovering from substance misuse. There was Kate Welch, who wanted to explore how to build personal and emotional resilience in order to enable people to bounce back from setbacks such as unemployment or homelessness. Another group considered Simon Cooke’s suggestion of building street networks and a ‘supermarket street’ of small shops as a way of building mutual support. A fourth considered [
continue reading Living with rats: Explorations in no-man’s-land
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Apple Study: 8 easy steps to beat Microsoft (and Google) View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.
It’s the coolest social networking tool in the world. But is the geo-location app Foursquare a stalker’s dream? Just how easy it is to uncover the intimate details of a complete stranger’s life?
But with such power comes responsibility and there are growing concerns that Foursquare is proving to be a “stalker’s dream”. Sure, you might earn yourself a “free” decaf latte when you check in five times at a coffee shop, but at what price to your privacy? Last month, a coding expert called Jesper Andersenmanaged to capture the details of 875,000 check-ins in San Francisco– currently, [
continue reading How I became a Foursquare cyberstalker
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Flocking behavior is the behavior exhibited when a group of birds, called a flock, are foraging or in flight. There are parallels with the shoalingbehavior of fish, the swarming behavior of insects, and herd behavior of land animals.
Computer simulations and mathematical models which have been developed to emulate the flocking behaviors of birds can generally be applied also to the “flocking” behavior of other species. As a result, the term “flocking” is sometimes applied, in computer science, [
continue reading Flocking (behavior)
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The Big Society is an evolution of policy, not a revolution. Community involvement, voluntarism and social action are not new ideas. These have a long history in British society, and a considerable number of people already volunteer, give money to charitable causes or both. This represents a good base on which to build. However, one thing we do know from existing community initiatives is that engagement has a cost. This is particularly true of initiatives that have engaged with those less likely to be involved in the first place – those from the most vulnerable communities. We also know [
continue reading A Policy Dialogue Platform (?)
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Shirdi Sai Baba: "Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary, does it improve upon the silence?"
Well known fact that any kiss where one or other party is in control of heavy machinery doesn't count for quality assessment purposes.
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
The honest heart that's free frae a' intended fraud or guile. However fortune kick the ba', Has ay some cause to smile.
Life consists in replacing one worry with another, and one desire with the next, what the Buddhists call ‘grasping’ or upādāna in Sanskrit
"Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future."
"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
A wrong decision isn't forever; it can be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.
heavy words thrown lightly
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
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