| Bjork - Joga | |
|---|---|
| All these accidents, That happen, Follow the dot, Coincidence, Makes sense, Only with you, You don't have to speak, I feel. Emotional landscapes, They puzzle me, Then the riddle gets solved, And you push me up to this State of emergency, How beautiful to be, State of emergency, Is where I want to be. All that no-one sees, You see, What's inside of me, Every nerve that hurts, You heal, Deep inside of me, oo-oohh, You don't have to speak, I feel. | Emotional landscapes, They puzzle me - confuse, Then the riddle gets solved, And you push me up to this State of emergency, How beautiful to be, State of emergency, Is where I want to be. State of emergency, How beautiful to be, Emotional landscapes, They puzzle me, Then the riddle gets solved, And you push me up to this State of emergency, How beautiful to be, State of emergency, Is where I want to be. State of emergency, How beautiful to be. |
February 25, 2007
Bjork
Tot preocupându-mi mintea cu probleme existenţiale (vezi încălzirea globală), mi-am adus aminte de Bjork şi o melodie care mi se pare că se potriveşte cu starea mondenă a lumii. :-)
Americaniiiiiiii
Bună lume!
M-am învârtit pe net, ca de obicei (obicei de când am plecat din ţară şi nu prea mai am cu cine să ies din casă) şi am găsit dovadă că nu-s nebun :) De ce nebun? Păi mulţi mi-au spus, vis-a-vis de părerea mea despre viaţa în US, că nu poate să fie adevărat.
(Poate unii dintre voi îşi mai aduc aminte celebrul email care a făcut înconjurul lumii prin comunităţi româneşti şi a ajuns şi printr-un ziar braşovean.)
Dar am găsit pe net această parodie cu două babe care se pensionează şi se mută în state... Şi să vedem ce zic ele despre state :)
PS: Vorbesc repede şi înalte cunoştinţe de engleză sunt necesare, dar eu vreau să zic că am râs cum n-am mai râs de foarte mult timp!
M-am învârtit pe net, ca de obicei (obicei de când am plecat din ţară şi nu prea mai am cu cine să ies din casă) şi am găsit dovadă că nu-s nebun :) De ce nebun? Păi mulţi mi-au spus, vis-a-vis de părerea mea despre viaţa în US, că nu poate să fie adevărat.
(Poate unii dintre voi îşi mai aduc aminte celebrul email care a făcut înconjurul lumii prin comunităţi româneşti şi a ajuns şi printr-un ziar braşovean.)
Dar am găsit pe net această parodie cu două babe care se pensionează şi se mută în state... Şi să vedem ce zic ele despre state :)
PS: Vorbesc repede şi înalte cunoştinţe de engleză sunt necesare, dar eu vreau să zic că am râs cum n-am mai râs de foarte mult timp!
February 23, 2007
Fear of changes (the DST)
Remember Y2K?
Of course you do. You filled your storage spaces with food, drinking water, and so on because the end of the world was near. Oh, you didn't? So you're not from the USA?
There's a new bug in town. It's not Y2K, Y2K is now far behind us, the new name is DST. From what I understand, the DST is now updated in the US, reason for wide-spread panic and new business opportunity.
I have nothing against making good money over other people's lack of knowledge. What I have is a tooth against the panic spread from minor changes. I never thought that changing my clocks from time to time (twice each year) would become a reason of panic for some...
I am a programmer. I know how hard is to handle all the localization problems that may occur. And speaking of software, I'll let the more knowledgeable to talk about these issues. I especially appreciated this article of Mr. Ulrich Drepper (one of the brains that keep one of the most sensitive parts of some UNIX-based OSs (glibc) working). Perhaps the most valuable in my eyes is the 'offtopic' part:
I think that the problem is that the more civilized we become, the less human we become. We don't adapt anymore. We adapt the environment. And that is the most important problem of them all. We forgot to look out for the changes, we lost the ability to be, after all, natural.
Is that going to give us anything good? Maybe on the short term, as we don't see the impact we have on the world we live in. Definitely nothing good on the long term. It's funny that we define intelligence as the capacity to adapt to new situations and new environments. We're then definitely heading towards a numbed down and stupid society.
Of course you do. You filled your storage spaces with food, drinking water, and so on because the end of the world was near. Oh, you didn't? So you're not from the USA?
There's a new bug in town. It's not Y2K, Y2K is now far behind us, the new name is DST. From what I understand, the DST is now updated in the US, reason for wide-spread panic and new business opportunity.
I have nothing against making good money over other people's lack of knowledge. What I have is a tooth against the panic spread from minor changes. I never thought that changing my clocks from time to time (twice each year) would become a reason of panic for some...
I am a programmer. I know how hard is to handle all the localization problems that may occur. And speaking of software, I'll let the more knowledgeable to talk about these issues. I especially appreciated this article of Mr. Ulrich Drepper (one of the brains that keep one of the most sensitive parts of some UNIX-based OSs (glibc) working). Perhaps the most valuable in my eyes is the 'offtopic' part:
Having lived here in the US now for quite a few years I think the root of the problem is the same that keeps the US from making progress on other fronts: fear of change and trying to prevent change through denial. Another example? Take the measurement system. When knowing the metric and the imperial system equally well, who would argue the latter is better? And it's not that people don't know the metric system at all. There are large numbers of people who serves/d in the military and all these people had to use it in their job. Every food container also shows grams.
I think that the problem is that the more civilized we become, the less human we become. We don't adapt anymore. We adapt the environment. And that is the most important problem of them all. We forgot to look out for the changes, we lost the ability to be, after all, natural.
Is that going to give us anything good? Maybe on the short term, as we don't see the impact we have on the world we live in. Definitely nothing good on the long term. It's funny that we define intelligence as the capacity to adapt to new situations and new environments. We're then definitely heading towards a numbed down and stupid society.
February 16, 2007
Maybe a little warmer is better???
People ask themselves if there are all the signs, why does nobody do a thing? Like... really. Why doesn't someone do anything?
Well, I have found some of the answers. Look at them, see for yourselves. This 'smart man' tells us the inconvenient truth: the global warming proponents, he says, want to spend a lot of money so that our children will have a lower 'air conditioning bill'.
His points: "If we grow so fast, soon we will be able to do the cleaning up faster than now". Or: "Because our governments sucked, what makes us think we'll even succeed". And, of course, the "last but not least", is that the best thing we can do with his trillions of dollars???.
But by far, this presentation shows that ok, we had a slight warming, but if you get the perspective you won't have a problem with that anymore, because if you have the perspective then you'll understand that climate changes a lot more than the humans can control...
Now these guys are pretty sure. The hurricanes and tornados are quite ok. Nevermind that New Orleans was under the water (does anyone remember New Orleans?). Nevermind all the other signs (Kyrill and the like). The problem is, as the histerical lady in the film says:
"At what cost are you sorry? Trillion dollars? It's a trillion dollars sorry? To destroy the american economy?". Yeah, baby, we are not a trillion dollars sorry yet, but we sure as hell you are a third trillion dollars angry instead as of today.
Of course, the gas prices will go up 50%. Oh my god, the horror. But of course, there's no problem, sunken cities are not a problem... people love Venice, after all!
The final straw is why it's good to be so warm... Well, look, in Syberia is now from -40 to -38. Amazing! Enjoy!
For the time being, I will enjoy my warm winter. Warmer with not 2 degrees, but 20 degrees.
Well, I have found some of the answers. Look at them, see for yourselves. This 'smart man' tells us the inconvenient truth: the global warming proponents, he says, want to spend a lot of money so that our children will have a lower 'air conditioning bill'.
His points: "If we grow so fast, soon we will be able to do the cleaning up faster than now". Or: "Because our governments sucked, what makes us think we'll even succeed". And, of course, the "last but not least", is that the best thing we can do with his trillions of dollars???.
But by far, this presentation shows that ok, we had a slight warming, but if you get the perspective you won't have a problem with that anymore, because if you have the perspective then you'll understand that climate changes a lot more than the humans can control...
Now these guys are pretty sure. The hurricanes and tornados are quite ok. Nevermind that New Orleans was under the water (does anyone remember New Orleans?). Nevermind all the other signs (Kyrill and the like). The problem is, as the histerical lady in the film says:
"At what cost are you sorry? Trillion dollars? It's a trillion dollars sorry? To destroy the american economy?". Yeah, baby, we are not a trillion dollars sorry yet, but we sure as hell you are a third trillion dollars angry instead as of today.
Of course, the gas prices will go up 50%. Oh my god, the horror. But of course, there's no problem, sunken cities are not a problem... people love Venice, after all!
The final straw is why it's good to be so warm... Well, look, in Syberia is now from -40 to -38. Amazing! Enjoy!
For the time being, I will enjoy my warm winter. Warmer with not 2 degrees, but 20 degrees.
February 13, 2007
non-communication in a communication era
I feel that it's quite ironic that this day we talk so much, yet we communicate so little.
You have so many ways to communicate. You have the phone. You have the EMail. You have the instant messenger. You have IPTelephony. Most of the technology is communication oriented. Your mobile phone follows you everywhere. Your Pocket PC or Palm or whatever tells you where you are, where to go to, but they fail to tell you why you are there, or how you could really enjoy your presence there.
Quite a shame.
We talk a lot. I always have my talking program opened. I talk with many people, but that doesn't take me close to them. It only draws me to a confortable distance. The new generation communication only brings confort in the distance, nothing else. It's easy to be far away now. You can instantly contact anyone by phone, yet you can't enjoy their presence. You can easily hide yourself behind a messenger window. Now smileys took the place for real life gestures. You :), but you don't smile, you lol, or even rofl, yet your body doesn't react. Merely a smile forms as you live by your fingertips.
You can be upset yet smile. That's the greatest trickery of them all. You can be sensual, bold and smart, although you just copy-paste your life. You record every single line you say, yet you say always the same things. You argue with people, you laugh with people. You are playing games with people. Yet you never leave your death-chair.
You don't have memories, you have logs. You have photos. You don't like your face, but you can photo-manipulate everything you don't like out of your photo. You are perfect, yet you barely breathe.
Do you have a choice? I don't know. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. My guess: you cannot choose. Your card will contain your mobile phone numbers, your email addresses and your messenger IDs. Better yet, you can use your vcard. Tons of informations about you.
Except that you can't say there that you dream. You can't talk about the simple things anymore. Solutions are everywhere, you just have to search for them using Google.
There's no need to communicate. That's why this blog here is not about communication. It has no solutions, no questions, no answers. Only observation.
Enjoy These Days of Mine...
You have so many ways to communicate. You have the phone. You have the EMail. You have the instant messenger. You have IPTelephony. Most of the technology is communication oriented. Your mobile phone follows you everywhere. Your Pocket PC or Palm or whatever tells you where you are, where to go to, but they fail to tell you why you are there, or how you could really enjoy your presence there.
Quite a shame.
We talk a lot. I always have my talking program opened. I talk with many people, but that doesn't take me close to them. It only draws me to a confortable distance. The new generation communication only brings confort in the distance, nothing else. It's easy to be far away now. You can instantly contact anyone by phone, yet you can't enjoy their presence. You can easily hide yourself behind a messenger window. Now smileys took the place for real life gestures. You :), but you don't smile, you lol, or even rofl, yet your body doesn't react. Merely a smile forms as you live by your fingertips.
You can be upset yet smile. That's the greatest trickery of them all. You can be sensual, bold and smart, although you just copy-paste your life. You record every single line you say, yet you say always the same things. You argue with people, you laugh with people. You are playing games with people. Yet you never leave your death-chair.
You don't have memories, you have logs. You have photos. You don't like your face, but you can photo-manipulate everything you don't like out of your photo. You are perfect, yet you barely breathe.
Do you have a choice? I don't know. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. My guess: you cannot choose. Your card will contain your mobile phone numbers, your email addresses and your messenger IDs. Better yet, you can use your vcard. Tons of informations about you.
Except that you can't say there that you dream. You can't talk about the simple things anymore. Solutions are everywhere, you just have to search for them using Google.
There's no need to communicate. That's why this blog here is not about communication. It has no solutions, no questions, no answers. Only observation.
Enjoy These Days of Mine...
February 11, 2007
Ştiri
- Ne-am mutat în noul nostru apartament din Zuerich. O să pun poze în curând, vreau să zic că a fost foarte scump să luăm iarăşi mobilă şi tot ce ne trebuie.
- Denisa e în ţară pentru trei săptămâni.
- O să vin şi eu pentru o săptămână pe la sfârşitul lui martie, începutul lui aprilie.
- Mi-am luat telefon mobil (şi am făcut pozele de mai jos cu el :-)
- Am fost la un spectacol superb pe gheaţă: Art on Ice şi am văzut cei mai buni patinatori din lume practic: Evgeny Plushenko, Stéphane Lambiel, Elena Bereznaya/ Anton Sikharulidze, Tatiana Totmianina / Maxim Marinin, Philippe Candeloro.
- Am cumpărat un apartament în Braşov, deci avem o "căsuţă" unde să stăm când venim pe acasă.
- Şi pentru că sunt câteva lucruri pe lumea asta care chiar nu mă lasă indiferent, am mai pornit un blog pe care comentez despre evenimente mondene, că altceva nu ştiu a face ;-)
http://mycontemporary.blogspot.com
Religion vs. Science!? A debate?
How interesting is it that *scientific* debates are now settled in the courtroom in US? Is it just me or this is fundamentally wrong? And since when being a religious person is synonym to being insensible and unaware of the scientific facts?
Einstein was religious but that did not blinded his genius, his scientific mind. I am religious, however that does not stop me from understanding obvious scientific facts.
Ultimately I *believe* God cannot fit the boundaries of the human mind. God is far grater than anything that can be described in a book, however old. "That" book was written thousands of years ago. At the time it was one of the best things that could happen to the world. But it's about time we evolve our minds and faith beyond it, and not take it literally.
And for once I agree with *mother* Russia, however much I dislike them. But it seems to me that rational reasoning is more and more lost in the US, which unfortunately has a great influence over the entire world (global warming, war on terror, science, etc): news.
I found the documentary above to be in an interesting way related to the one bellow:
UPDATE The original BBC published documentary on Google Video is unexplainably nowhere to be found so instead I had to relink to YouTube (4 parts):
And another thing that bothers me is that Christianity is somehow equal in the western mind with Catholicism or more recent branches of it. Well news for you, I am Christian, but I don't need a pope or anybody else to intermediate my relationship with God, and in my Christian world priests *must* get married before being assigned to a church/community. Which makes a lot of sense, specially considering the second of the documentaries above. And this eastern flavor of Christianity is as old as the Catholic one: Orthodoxy
And I would end with:
When religious faith blinds the rational mind, the Middle Ages happen.
Einstein was religious but that did not blinded his genius, his scientific mind. I am religious, however that does not stop me from understanding obvious scientific facts.
Ultimately I *believe* God cannot fit the boundaries of the human mind. God is far grater than anything that can be described in a book, however old. "That" book was written thousands of years ago. At the time it was one of the best things that could happen to the world. But it's about time we evolve our minds and faith beyond it, and not take it literally.
And for once I agree with *mother* Russia, however much I dislike them. But it seems to me that rational reasoning is more and more lost in the US, which unfortunately has a great influence over the entire world (global warming, war on terror, science, etc): news.
I found the documentary above to be in an interesting way related to the one bellow:
UPDATE The original BBC published documentary on Google Video is unexplainably nowhere to be found so instead I had to relink to YouTube (4 parts):
And another thing that bothers me is that Christianity is somehow equal in the western mind with Catholicism or more recent branches of it. Well news for you, I am Christian, but I don't need a pope or anybody else to intermediate my relationship with God, and in my Christian world priests *must* get married before being assigned to a church/community. Which makes a lot of sense, specially considering the second of the documentaries above. And this eastern flavor of Christianity is as old as the Catholic one: Orthodoxy
And I would end with:
When religious faith blinds the rational mind, the Middle Ages happen.
February 8, 2007
Eu, un snowboard si Mont Blanc-ul din Italia
Da, da. De curând am fost în excusie de ski (adică snowboard) în Italia, în Courmayeur. Frumos, da, da! În sfârşit am văzut şi eu zăpadă, după atâta timp (3/4 ani?).
Şi cu această minunată ocazie am avut şi o lecţie de snowboard şi pentru prima oară am încercat să vedem dom'le cum e. Şi e bine, bine. Mi-a plăcut la nebunie. Snowboardul e mult mai misto decât orice ski. Atât de mişto încât mă gândesc să îmi cumpăr unul, în era încălzirii globale.
Şi vreau să zic că sunt un talent natural pe snowboard. Instructorii nu mă credeau că e prima oară :-) şi după ce am terminat instructajul am coborât pe pârtie dificilă (din prima), până jos... şi n-am căzut!
 |
 |
Şi cu această minunată ocazie am avut şi o lecţie de snowboard şi pentru prima oară am încercat să vedem dom'le cum e. Şi e bine, bine. Mi-a plăcut la nebunie. Snowboardul e mult mai misto decât orice ski. Atât de mişto încât mă gândesc să îmi cumpăr unul, în era încălzirii globale.
Şi vreau să zic că sunt un talent natural pe snowboard. Instructorii nu mă credeau că e prima oară :-) şi după ce am terminat instructajul am coborât pe pârtie dificilă (din prima), până jos... şi n-am căzut!
February 7, 2007
I miss radio
My freedom started as a radio broadcast.
It wasn't music, but theatre plays adaptation of plays. In a world that didn't allow dreams to come true, the radio was the escape route.
It wasn't Europa Liberă (Free Europe) radio that made me dream of freedom. I didn't know a thing about FE Radio, except the fact that everyone was forbidden to listen to me, and the old people that took care of me while my mother was at work (in another city) and my father was at the Academy (in Bucharest). A 'Gloria' radio receiver was needed - those were the best at that time.
But my listening delight needed something less powerful. Any receiver, no matter how old or rusty could provide it to me. It was like a drug to me, although I didn't know what drugs were.
It was the voice from nowhere that told stories. The voices I knew, but they were various characters I loved and explored. The radioplay was my first love.
Afterwards, music. I couldn't live without radio, I woke up with radio and went to sleep with the radio on.
Where's radio? It is still there. It doesn't make me dream anymore. I know all the stories it can tell me. It's all the same. I read it in the news. The music is trash, although the music I used to listen to was trash too, but it was MY trash, and I loved that garbage. Everyone remember MC Sar and the Real McCoy, or Casablanca? That's funny, my childhood grew from the junkyard :)
Anyway, where's radio now? The only radios worth hearing are online, and as Raul said in a previous post, everything goes online now. Now it's not about a better/taller antenna, it's about a higher bandwidth. It's not about FM/AM is about bitrate. And this is lost to me. I don't like online radio, but the only ones worth hearing are the specialised radios. Alternative, new wave, trance, punk, brit pop, every genre has two, three, ten million radios around the net. But I need the computer turned on for that. I need the UTP cable in the back of my device. I need wireless 811g. The air is not enough, I need to authenticate. But everything... everything is so fake now. No child will ever be able to discover the radio and love it the way I did.
I miss radio... I really do.
It wasn't music, but theatre plays adaptation of plays. In a world that didn't allow dreams to come true, the radio was the escape route.
It wasn't Europa Liberă (Free Europe) radio that made me dream of freedom. I didn't know a thing about FE Radio, except the fact that everyone was forbidden to listen to me, and the old people that took care of me while my mother was at work (in another city) and my father was at the Academy (in Bucharest). A 'Gloria' radio receiver was needed - those were the best at that time.
But my listening delight needed something less powerful. Any receiver, no matter how old or rusty could provide it to me. It was like a drug to me, although I didn't know what drugs were.
It was the voice from nowhere that told stories. The voices I knew, but they were various characters I loved and explored. The radioplay was my first love.
Afterwards, music. I couldn't live without radio, I woke up with radio and went to sleep with the radio on.
Where's radio? It is still there. It doesn't make me dream anymore. I know all the stories it can tell me. It's all the same. I read it in the news. The music is trash, although the music I used to listen to was trash too, but it was MY trash, and I loved that garbage. Everyone remember MC Sar and the Real McCoy, or Casablanca? That's funny, my childhood grew from the junkyard :)
Anyway, where's radio now? The only radios worth hearing are online, and as Raul said in a previous post, everything goes online now. Now it's not about a better/taller antenna, it's about a higher bandwidth. It's not about FM/AM is about bitrate. And this is lost to me. I don't like online radio, but the only ones worth hearing are the specialised radios. Alternative, new wave, trance, punk, brit pop, every genre has two, three, ten million radios around the net. But I need the computer turned on for that. I need the UTP cable in the back of my device. I need wireless 811g. The air is not enough, I need to authenticate. But everything... everything is so fake now. No child will ever be able to discover the radio and love it the way I did.
I miss radio... I really do.
February 6, 2007
Global Climate, Online Life and Myself
One of the reasons I started this blog and named it "these days of mine" is because the documentary posted at the end of this blog entry has gotten me seriously thinking that "these days of mine" may be among the last days of mine as I know and define myself today.
And if the climate change has been underestimated, which is most certainly true, mostly because scientists function the same way as doctors: "it's not as bad as it seems, it will be fine"; and if I run the worst case scenario in my mind, what scares me more than my individual survival or even that of the human species is the survival of the memory of our existence on Earth and of the Earth itself as we know it: a nice green planet with blue skies and fluffy white clouds.
What will we leave behind? Men inherited paradise and by the time he was done with it, it turned into hell. Or, if ever in the long distant future intelligent life will evolve once more, what will they learn about us? The dinosaurs went extinct because of an asteroid, the mammals went extinct because of the human species.
Anyway, turning back to my own little life, I find it very bothering that all traces of my existence are online; and that will not last long without electricity. Maybe I should go back to writing my thoughts on stone plates, history shows they preserve much better.
Human kind has many addictions. Some of us, as individuals, could fight with different addictions and few win. But we as a specie, can we win over our multiple addictions in such a short time?
And if the climate change has been underestimated, which is most certainly true, mostly because scientists function the same way as doctors: "it's not as bad as it seems, it will be fine"; and if I run the worst case scenario in my mind, what scares me more than my individual survival or even that of the human species is the survival of the memory of our existence on Earth and of the Earth itself as we know it: a nice green planet with blue skies and fluffy white clouds.
What will we leave behind? Men inherited paradise and by the time he was done with it, it turned into hell. Or, if ever in the long distant future intelligent life will evolve once more, what will they learn about us? The dinosaurs went extinct because of an asteroid, the mammals went extinct because of the human species.
Anyway, turning back to my own little life, I find it very bothering that all traces of my existence are online; and that will not last long without electricity. Maybe I should go back to writing my thoughts on stone plates, history shows they preserve much better.
Human kind has many addictions. Some of us, as individuals, could fight with different addictions and few win. But we as a specie, can we win over our multiple addictions in such a short time?
things happen
All over the world things happen... all the time. And this blog is where I will write down my thoughts about things that happen in my contemporary world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)