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Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.
~ James Bryant Conant
Lady in the Water - 1947
Lady in the Water - 1947 - I found myself mesmerized by this image...
Why It's Better to Be the Boss
Final Goodbyes for Two Brothers
Final Goodbyes for Two Brothers - These two photographs gave me chills.
Steve says goodbye to his brother, who's off to Iraq.
Months later, Steve says final goodbye at his brother's funeral.
34 Fun Facts for the New Year
Rec'd by email from Ami....Could all these "facts" be true?
- 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
- On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.
- Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww).
- If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)
- Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
Magic Bullet Blender - Honest Review
Magic Bullet Blender Review - After seeing the infomercial and doing a little investigation, I bought a Magic Bullet Blender through Amazon (cheaper shipping rates w/ Amazon). Reviews I read by others have been mixed (pardon the pun), though generally positive.
I use the Magic Bullet Blender almost every day for smoothies. It's become a morning ritual, made very easy with the Magic Bullet Blender. Here are the pros and cons I've found so far.
Escher In Frame
Stanley Kubrick on Life ~ Playboy Interview Excerpt
Self Portrait by Stanley Kubrick
Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel its worth living?
George Carlin - On Aging
George Carlin
George Carlin on Aging - Received this by email. Totally hilarious and, as per George Carlin, so very insightful. Carlin's wisdom grows with age.
George Carlin on Aging
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!"
You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!
World Wildlife Foundation Video Ad
This video from World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) looks so real...and the Mister Roger's Neighborhood music playing in the background is a great touch.
21 Funny Airline Announcements
Rec'd from co-worker this list of 21 funny statements made by pilots or attendents in the cabin of commercial airliners. Here are the top three...
1. On a Southwest flight 245 (SW has no assigned seating, you just sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"
2. On a Continental Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."
3. On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have.
Information Diet
I started an information diet about a week ago, based on the advice in Timothy Ferriss' book Four-Hour Workweek. Gone from my diet are the usual reddit and digg snacks. No news on TV or radio or "the Internets", not even NPR. It's all too much information--too much noise--that clutters my mind AND interrupts my day.
It's the interruptions that are the time killer. I'm accomplishing so much more, both at work and home. At work, not because of reddit or digg, but because I'm focusing on not letting myself get interrupted by email or instant messaging. Instead, I set about a task, and complete it before checking email or replying (for the most part) to instant messages. It's worked extremely well. It's the interruption that kill productivity. Many think multi-tasking is a good and admirable thing. Bullocks! Multi-tasking reduces productivity (if that's an important measure) and greatly increases stress. Interruptions disorient you, take your attention away from your task, so that you have to waste time re-orienting yourself to where you left off. Nuts to that.
Here are a couple things Ferris said that really struck me...
Bush, Iraq and the Emperor's New Clothes
War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
~ Thomas Mann
When it comes to the public perception of Bush's Iraq policy, I think much of the U.S. population has been guilty of playing the crowd in the Emperor's New Clothes. Bush said Iraq was an imminent threat, building a nuclear bomb, connected to al Qaeda and the 911 attacks. And many agreed with Bush's declaration, saying, "Yes, Emperor, attacking Iraq is a great solution to terrorism." But since the election, many realized that their friends and neighbors no longer saw what Bush saw, they no longer believed Bush's statements about the war and Iraq; public opinion shifted...we finally woke up. I only wish that Iraq was a fairy tale and that there could be a happy ending.
The Wiki Way - by Leuf and Cunningham
The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web by Bo Leuf and Ward Cunningham.
Been looking for this book for quite a while now. As with Hidden Connections, I found it at a used bookstore today.
I first encountered the wiki way on Wikipedia.org, where anyone--even me--can edit and add articles. I started a few stubs, enjoyed watching them evolve, even when my precious writing was updated. Almost always, the evolution of the articles made them better. Of course there comes a point of diminishing returns.
So I played with installing various wikis, including Wikimedia (wikipedia's engine) and PmWiki, the PHP script running this wiki. Wikimedia was a monster. Huge resource hog, database driven. PmWiki was relatively resource light, no database, flat file, which at first I disliked, but as I read the developer's reasons for choosing flat file, I bought into the idea. In fact, I've become very enthusiastic, in large part because updates are a breeze. I have a Drupal blog that is MySQL driven, and version updates are a nightmare--mostly because of the damn database.
Shocked by National Enquirer Headline
I absolutely love this woman's reaction to the National Enquirer headline...But which headline was the cause? Katie colapsing before her wedding to Tom? Or Marie Osmond's suicide attempt? My enquiring mind doesn't really want to know.
Pirate Bay SOPA/PIPA Press Release
Cut the cake...Check...Remove chastity belt...
Pirate Bay press release regarding SOPA & PIPA. Some very interesting points made.
If You're Guilty - Use Trial by Jury
Our Justice system is NOT a good method for finding the truth. If it were, in the O.J. trail we would expect all possible juries to produce the same verdict. But we know that is not true. We know a trial verdict always depends on the composition of the jury, which is why trial attorneys fight so vigorously during jury selection (and why our system has the double-jeopardy rule).
In this piece, famous atheist/biologist Richard Dawkins offers his analysis of our justice system. His conclusion:
The bad thing about Dawkins' admission is that if he's ever charged, we'll easily be able to tell his guilt or innocence.
Dog Diary vs. Cat Diary
The Dog's Diary
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
Dalai Lama's Instructions for Life
Can't vouch that this really came from the Dalai Lama, but it's good advice.
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
- Respect for self
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions.
Domino Movie - The Domino Harvey Story?
Domino Harvey - Bounty Hunter
Domino - Watched Tony Scott's film Domino and was thunderstruck. From a cinematography perspective, this was a huge risk. Lots of experimentation with film processing, hand cranking the camera, double exposures, etc. From DVD extras, it sounds like poor Director of Photography Daniel Mindel lived in fear every day that footage would be lost in the experiments.
But those risks in cinematography reflect the risks of the story and its main character, the real-life beauty, model, and bounty hunter Domino Harvey, portrayed by Keira Knightley.
Calvin and Hobbes - Surest Sign of Intelligent Life
Brilliant comic from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic...One of my favorites.
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