"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 | It’s always hard to know what to make of Richard Branson. From his reported $3bn investments to fight climate change to his offer of cash prizes for removing atmospheric carbon, the man certainly talks a good talk when it comes to green initiatives. And then the waters get muddied by his plans for space tourism and underwater planes for the super rich. So where do all these plans fit with his well-documented belief that peak oil is coming, and it’s going to be a major challenge to the world economy? Branson’s Virgin group has already voiced its concerns over peak [ continue reading Peak Oil in 5 Years: Virgin Boss Branson’s Warning ] If you haven’t had a chance to read “Make” magazine yet, please do. It’s likely the coolest magazine on the planet right now. The current issue, 21, dives into the rapidly evolving world of desktop manufacturing (additive and subtractive 3D fabs). What should be apparent to anyone reading it, is that desktop manufacturing is on the cusp of becoming as mainstream, inexpensive, and easy to use as personal computers (with similar effect). What this means in the mid to long term is that manufacturing will quickly become more about manipulation of information (designs, controls, etc.) than materials. The [ continue reading DARKNET ECONOMIES ] Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, has a very good article in his magazine on the desktop manufacturing revolution. It’s definitely worth the read and is complimentary with thinking being done on this blog re: resilient communities. What was more interesting to me about the article, and perhaps to you, is the idea that this technology will help reshape work in new positive ways. Here’s the claim: Thus the new industrial organizational model. It’s built around small pieces, loosely joined. Companies are small, virtual, and informal. Most participants are not employees. They form and re-form on the fly, driven [ continue reading JUST IN TIME WORK ] OK! hmmmm. This seems perfectly sensible to me. (ps I am stark, raving bonkers) Quite simply this time Apple have got it wrong. All the tech press is saying the same thing and comments made by readers of those websites are echoing, mostly anyway, their sentiments. The iPad is nothing more than a large iPod Touch. It’s lacking a 16:9 screen and while the bezel has to be of a reasonable size to allow for holding the device with your hand without your thumb poking the screen all the time, it’s simply too big. Finally those few people who’ve [ continue reading Why the iPad will fail and help Windows 7 to succeed ] The world is going free! everyone need shovels and shovels need replacing but you can only hand over your gold once. In October Newsday (a Long Island daily paper that was sold for $650 million) began charging for online access. The price is $5 per week. In three months 35 people have subscribed. The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they’ve grossed about $9,000. In that time, without question, web traffic has begun to plummet, and, certainly, advertising will follow as well. After Three Months, Only [ continue reading After 3 months, Newsday’s web site gets 35 subscribers ] Finally, my prognostication piece missed wildly. I was way too ambitious on Apple’s behalf. I figured it’s been so long since they shipped something wonderful that they must really have something incredible and far-reaching in the lab, and here it comes. About the only thing I got right was #9. Steve still loves to delete ports. It would have been sort of cute if he had delivered on some of the potential in this category. But given the lack of imagination and execution in this product, it’s a cruel joke that illustrates that all that remains of Apple’s brilliance [ continue reading Apple’s jumbo Oreo – Dave is the opposite of impressed ] Of course – if you are really bright surely you can homeschool yourself! By this time tomorrow, we’ll know all of the technical specs on the new Apple tablet computer—assuming Steve Jobs isn’t setting up his salivating acolytes for the mother of all Vaseline-slimed curveballs. Given Apple’s track record with disrupting media industries , print publishers of all sorts are bracing for what the new device could possibly do. Bloomberg reports that the tablet is likely to “boost demand for digital textbooks.” And the ZDNet education technology blogger Christopher Dawson seems pretty excited that Apple and textbook publisher McGraw-Hill are [ continue reading Could the Apple Tablet Make Higher Ed. Irrelevant? ] The Bihar provincial government in India announced recently that it intended to restore George Orwell’s birthplace, in the town of Motihari, and open it as a museum. Doesn’t hurt to be reminded that Orwell was a child of the Raj ‘ as was Kipling, whose birthplace, in Mumbai (Bombay), is already a museum ‘ but it’s hard to imagine that the Orwell bungalow will become much of an attraction. Orwell spent a mere year there, his first, and Motihari, on the Nepalese border, is one of the remotest places in India. (CLICK HERE FOR MORE -> Where Baby [ continue reading Where Baby Orwell Lived – NYTimes.com ] 1. You should pay for your own hosting. 2. You should write your own biography, not delegate it to invisible masses on Wikipedia. 3. You should write other people’s biographies, from your point of view. Or at least tell true stories about them, which can be assembled by others into alternate views. 4. Sign your name to all your writing. Use your real name, the one on your driver’s license, tax returns, passport, draft card. 5. If you care about a subject, write a definitive piece on it that reflects your point of view, you [ continue reading Corporate media is the problem. (Scripting News) ] One of the things you learn as you go through this journey is that every age has its advantages. I love myself now much more today than I did when I was 22. Back then I didn’t even get that you could love yourself. I tolerate my limits much better, even though I had limits then as I have them now. I wouldn’t even know how to describe it to a younger person, it’s as if we were different species in some ways. But you’ll never get me to say there aren’t big differences betw being 54 and 22, [ continue reading Learning doesn’t stop at 22 ] Punxsutawney Phil to text his Groundhog Day prediction “ News.com reports that this year that groundhog Punxsutawney Phil will be announcing the end of winter – or not – by text message. Before February 2, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club invites everyone to text ‘Groundhog’ to the SMS short-code 247365. When Phil ventures out of his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob that morning, text messages will go out broadcasting whether he saw his shadow (six more weeks of winter) or didn’t. “ (CLICK HERE FOR MORE -> textually.org Punxsutawney Phil to text his Groundhog Day prediction: .) (Via textually.org [ continue reading the news from Gobbler’s Knob ] Now that does make sense, then the new ones could be given to people on low income ahead of a coming election. Universal wireless broadband is the future not free netbooks to spill Lambrini over. “Joanie Wexler of Network World wonders if the mobile industry should take a breather for a few months while broadband wireless network buildouts and mobile device management capabilities catch up to the demands of today’s smartphones. “ (CLICK HERE FOR MORE -> Macworld Opinion: Stop inventing mobile phones: .) [ continue reading Opinion: Stop inventing mobile phones ] Shackleton’s Lost Scotch « Camp Smoke. Chavasse and his brother extraordinary men … VC on the wikipedia “The story behind the gallantry medals of Captain Noel Chavasse is deeply moving: he was awarded the second of his VCs after dying from battlefield injuries in 1917. Since then at least 12 memorials have been erected worldwide in his honour – more than for any other recipient of the Commonwealth’s most prestigious bravery award. Captain Chavasse’s service and gallantry medals were left by his family decades ago to St Peter’s College, Oxford. The college has now sold the medals to Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire Tory peer. According [ continue reading Lord Ashcroft pays record price for Noel Chavasse’s VC ] Thomas Sands, died 28 March 1850 Hedy Lamarr (under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George Antheil received U.S. Patent 2,292,387 for their Secret Communication System on August 11, 1942. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. This idea was controversial and ahead of its time and technology. Lamarr’s frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. The technology in [ continue reading Hedy Lamarr …. what can you say? ] well it could be anywhere … Who Moved My Cheese View more presentations from pamwattie. All is good until something comes along that tries to get the whole Internet to flow through it. Compelling things that get more compelling the more stuff you flow through them. Instead of being shaped like pipes or tunnels, these things are shaped like funnels (as illustrated to the right). via The Internet abhors a funnel (Scripting News). Sell everything you don’t need or love or that doesn’t enhance your daily existence and buy the most expensive bed you can afford. Tonight is a really big night for Clissold Swimming Club competing the National Arena Swimming league at Clissold Leisure Centre. A big leap for a small club on the up!! Seems strange to be so far away (for ‘strange’ substitute any of many words). A seventh place from the Clissold – well done. Milton Glaser – 10 things I have learned. While in Egypt this year we visited the CWGC cemetery at El Alemain and placed some McNeill of Colonsay tartan (ancient) over the headstones of the two McNeill fallen there. As you do. For Millie and I this was in addition to the tour of the Normandy Landing beaches that she and I cycled along a month earlier thinking of our friend Bill Nash who visited both spots during his ‘gap years 1940-45′. Bill said he once saw Rommel’s staff half-track off in the distance and was also on French sand de-mining the beach on that first night in [ continue reading Desert Rats & Beach Boys ] A goddess capricious is fame, as you strive to make noted your name, she either neglects you or cruelly selects you, for laurels distinct from your aim. For all that has been, thanks; for all that will be, yes. it seems Dag Hammarskjold said it – I read it here and found my way to the Wikipedia later. Lots of people asking me what the deal is on this photograph. I find it fascinating and have been known to stare at it for hours. It was taken by Geoffrey Winthrop Young in 1912 and is of Siegfried Wedgwood Herford and George Leigh Mallory Leaning against the wall of the Gorphwysfa Hotel at Pen y Pass, it is now the Pen y Pass Youth Hostel. They had just completed a “double girdle” of the face of Lliwedd then (but not now) a fashionable climbing spot. In the midst of their lives climbing they would surely have been aware of [ continue reading So what’s the big deal about this photo? ] Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light. “ To honor the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, NASA has just released these brand new restored videos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic first steps on the moon. The space agency is working with Lowry Digital in Burbank to restore tapes from the July 20, 1969 moonwalk &mdash the project in its entirety will be completed in the fall, but they’re offering a sneak peek at some of the iconic moments, like Neil Armstrong (above) and Buzz Aldrin (below) taking their first steps on the moon, starting right now. These clips show side-by-side comparisons [ continue reading NASA’s new restored footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing ] “Stephen Fry tell them how it is … a Man U supporter will not have been happy being brushed aside like this.” (Via BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Stephen Fry dismisses MPs’ expenses row: .) “Why hammer on the poor rural folks of America in need of a few extra buck to make the mortgage for the shack, and not put companies like Perdue Pharma out of business entirely for creating a generation of teenage junkies? I’ll answer that… Because the imprisoning and ‘programming’ of American youth is BIG dollars, and attacking the pharmacological source of another plague isn’t. The local smoothie store, ‘Jamba Juice’, employing kids in, and just out of high school, makes it quite clear on their job app that if you’ve been in a ‘program’ it no problem at all. [ continue reading John Robb has read Methland (WELL THE PROLOGUE) ] | 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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