Day 298: They trust me

In 2004, when being asked how and why he could obtain that many emails, addresses and photos of Facebook users, 19-year-old Mark replied: “I don’t know why. They trust me. Dumb fucks.”

Day 283: The Most Productive Way to Spend Time on the Internet

My answer on Quora for a popular question: “What are the most productive ways to spend time on the Internet?”

It’s a popular question indeed, as it attracted more than a hundred answers, many of them are long and carefully prepared, and there is even a “wiki-like” section to summarize the answers. However, until today it still strikes me that the wiki section is actually a list of “helpful” websites to spend time on: online courses, educational Youtube channels, TED talks, etc. Even Wikipedia itself was listed there. And that kind of answer (listing the “useful” website as a solution to “spending time on the internet productively”) baffled me quite a bit. Seriously folks?

The idea of the first part in my answer was inspired from a blog post by “The minimalists” (by the way, these guys created a great blog, I’ll have a post or two about some interesting content I found there too).  Well to be honest I couldn’t do as I wrote in my answer. However there’s a short duration that I’ll remember: that was when I moved to a new apartment and it took 11 days for the ISP to activate internet access in my apartment. At first I thought I couldn’t survive such a long period but I did survive.

_________

It really depends on your job, your reading hobby, your preferences, etc. — so I think people who are listing the “useful” web pages to spend time on, are missing the point.

Day 268: Ladakh, this is where I long to be

F*ck! Five minutes of pure eyegasm. I almost cried and just want to dive right in…

I don’t really remember the last time I held my breath, skipped a heartbeat, and had goosebumps running all over my arms just by looking at something on laptop screen, like this time.

I’m sure that if I’m there, in the middle of all those mountains and skies and water, I’ll only be either screaming, or speechless. There will be no in-between.

Video credit: Thang The Le, a.k.a. Thang Soi. Check out his Facebook, Youtube channel, or blog for other stunning clips shot with drone.

Day 262: Walking the roof of hell

by Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶)

世の中は
地獄の上の
花見かな

yo no naka wa
jigoku no ue no
hanami kana

Translation:
#1 (Robert Hass)

In this world
We walk on the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers

Day 232: “The Fallen of WW2” – an amazing data visualization

An interesting take is that near the end it was noted that despite the gruesome figures, we are actually, right now, living in the most peaceful time in the history of humanity.

And that peaceful era, is (ironically) marked by the possession of nuclear weapons.

Day 226: October and April

This fatal love was like poison right from the start…

Day 225: Rome, then and now

And they tell me to image this from that.

These two images are from the souvenir book “Rome, then and now”. So you can see, while visiting Rome, sometimes vivid imagination is required. Too bad I’m not that imaginative.

Day 193: Pride and Patriotism

It’s World Cup, and from time to time I hear the slogan that goes: “Proud to be [insert nation’s name]”, and every time I think to myself: “What the f*ck does that mean?”

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride, for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud, otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs, he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

Day 187: George Orwell’s take on “political language” of English

“(…) PRETENTIOUS DICTION.

Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements.

Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion.

Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i. e., e. g. and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language.

Day 159: History of Art, explained by the avant-garde fly-killer

Avant-garde av·ant-garde /ˌævɔŋ ˈgɑːd US ˌævɑːŋ ˈgɑːrd/ adj

[Date: 1900-2000; Language: French; Origin: ‘vanguard’]
avant-garde music, literature etc is extremely modern and often seems strange or slightly shocking
an avant-garde play

the avant-garde
the group of artists, writers etc who produce avant-garde books, paintings etc
a member of the avant-garde

(from French, “advance guard” or “vanguard”) refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.

Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981.

The term also refers to the promotion of radical social reforms. It was this meaning that was evoked by the Saint Simonian Olinde Rodrigues in his essay, “L’artiste, le savant et l’industriel”, (“The artist, the scientist and the industrialist”, 1825) which contains the first recorded use of “avant-garde” in its now-customary sense: there, Rodrigues calls on artists to “serve as [the people’s] avant-garde”, insisting that “the power of the arts is indeed the most immediate and fastest way” to social, political, and economic reform. Over time, avant-garde became associated with movements concerned with “art for art’s sake”, focusing primarily on expanding the frontiers of aesthetic experience, rather than with wider social reform.