Symmetry is magical, so 19-4-19 might make sense to dip back into the water. At least for a short swim and some thoughts littering an assortment of apps and inboxes.

Six Pixels is still going strong, and the talk with Paul on non-growth focus was sort of the tipping point to get back to journal mode. Because introspection sometimes needs verbalized ideas - the act of ordering words helps to map out the actual ideas.

Side hustle as a small thing, do it in between- a little at a time

Use it to test the waters, to learn and develop yourself. And maybe as a springboard — but don’t do it just to get somewhere else.

Makes a lot more sense than ruthlessly burning the midnight oil, at least if the goals isn’t to go all exponential growth, but to find a better you in a happy mindset.

That is all for now, as this is Safari doing the desktop editor - need to app it or perhaps stick with the alternative WP site, or make a new one to mirror automatically.

- ...and the sun is really back for summer...or at least spring 

Conan strikes is silence

Sitting on the lakeside. Sun glinting in the water and shining from a clear blue sky. It is suddenly summer, at least for a few days.

Soundtrack: podcastle and Conan the thief. Magical and intense. Perfect supplement to the sounds of nature in motion. A few birds. A light breeze in the pines. And water gently lapping at the shore.

Time for the yearly blog season? And a bit more Zen.

Ph34r th3 Riot and Women

"Pussy Riot aren't just on tour. They're on the run. When we meet in a secret location in central London, they make it clear that this interview is on condition of anonymity." Pussy Riot: "People fear us because we're feminists"

This is not a joke, not a game, it is deadly serious, and in many ways a "crime".

We should be 7 billion (and counting) working together to make a world for all, and lay the foundations for expanding off it.

Not be spending our time trying to put half or more on the bench.

Too young, too old, female, gay, colored, atheist, anarchist, 99%, lowlife, wasted youth or unemployed.
What ever the label, it serves to divide us, keep our minds in the mud of the past.

Just to put it into context, another piece by Penny red at the New Statesman; Emily Wilding Davison made the only choice she could bear

In old footage of the suffragettes, they look like a gang of angry bantams, flapping about in their outsized hats and ridiculous full skirts. The very word “suffragettes” sounds like the kind of fusty, village-hall girl band your auntie might sing in at weekends, rather than a revolutionary organisation whose members were prepared to die so that others might live free

This is the world we live in. Where everyday millions have to fight for what we took for granted. What should have been won generations ago, paid in blood and suffering, is still contested. Be it in the squares and mosques of Cairo, or on the sporting stage in Russia.

So why SHOULD you vote?

take a trip, down mystery lane

Large version

Or Diagon Alley at any rate. It certainly feels a bit like magic to use Street view at normal locations. But then they go and get something like this. From Warner Bros studios, so obviously they love the exposure. The details are amazing, guess you can really zoom in on the HD copy of the movies and read the book covers and more.

Hatussa, I barely knew thee

I was under the impression that I had a decent overview of history, at least as it pertained to the Nordic region and before that the Ancient civilzations of Rome, Greece and Egypt. Been to Rome, to Knossos and the Valley of Kings.

Then I caught a show on the secrets of Hattusa and had to reboot that a little bit.

As the germans put it;

Besides Egypt and Assyria/Babylonia the Hittites were the third superpower of the Ancient Near East

For a great detailed account of the 2005 project, head over and read about the reconstructed (1% of) wall - staggering to think how they got the whole site built in ancient times.

Not to mention the cost of lives - like the Great Wall - working high walls and heavy bricks with very limited supporting structures.


It is a world heritage site, and apparently the peace treaty they made with Ramses II of Egypt is now in the UN;

comprehensively excavated ...1906, which was the memorable date of the discovery of a copy of a peace treaty between Hattushili III and the Pharaoh Ramses II, which made possible the identification of Hattusha.

So, another site to add to the travel list when I get back on the road (figuratively speaking) - provided things settle down or clear up a bit first.

Dig in, or skim along?

Snippets from Seth - on the willingness to go the distance, to read the whole story and understand the issues:

No need to read the whole book, I can just glance over the Cliffs Notes... I get it. No, I already heard about your vacation... remember, I saw the Instagram feed.

[via Pocket, "I get it"]

Are we going more shallow by having the fire-hose available and on at all times?

Does 200 or 500 friends mean you don't need to really pay attention to any single one?
When the book title is a story in itself, do we need to have it hammered in repeatedly over hundreds of pages?
With over 200 dimensions and metrics - does it make any sense to look at more than pageviews?

Simplification due to sheer volume and complexity - since we can't do it all, it is easier to cut corners?

It that why the allure of "BIG DATA" is so strong? Sure, there is to much to make sense of, so we'll just slap an algorithm on top, do some correlation and there you are!

imagine images everyday

I currently have some 200 images on my phone. That I have yet to sync, duplicate and sort on the laptop. That is just from a short period of time, and I've deleted a bunch along the way as well - keeping only those that are good enough.

Back when using film it was 24 at a time. Maybe for some trips you would do two or three rolls. Now that is a trip to the playground, or a long walk when the weather has changed. 

Just knowing they are there, that I can have a look is (so far) more rewarding than looking at a lot of them. They are a gift to my future self. For remembering days, weeks and months now gone. For inspiration, and joy. And for limited curation, in terms of prints, books and magnets.

The reading that inspired this little tangent on volume and remembrance by camera;

"All of this is closer to the now than to the future. We've already seen tagged photos streaming forth from a billion networked smartphones, broadcasting the Arab Spring to Twitter and police brutality at Occupy to YouTube."

[clayton cubitt  blog post - on the constant moment]

How will you deal with everything seen being stored? 

What could you do with it? Make art? Explore your life?


- ...and the sun was here every day in July - bringing monthly rainfall below 10% of normal... but as we entered August the backlog came back, and so did the scheduled buffer for a bit - 

It's not madness if you have a chart

This entry was posted in philosophy, sickness.

[You never know. Or do you?] Dilbert is great, but when it comes to pure brain teasers and real laugh out loud, Indexed is having a good run this summer.

This one takes a nice twist on one of my favorite quotes - the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and expecting different results - by adding chaos theory.

As Nate Silver pointed out in Signal and Noise - sometimes the changes are so small that you think you're doing the same thing, but it is just enough to give a different outcome (page 118 paper version, since that is searchable on amz but the kindle isn't...). Because chaos theory isn't about chaos as we normally think about it - it is not really random, it is just that there are some many things involved that we are unable to map them and model it all. And it all ties into the flow and effect. 

Make mistakes. All the time.

Quote and image from Chris Brogan this time around - on the willingness to be wrong;

"The amount of mental energy we expend by trying to be right all the time is a waste. I have come to learn that it’s a lot easier to be wrong from time to time, and that the process of being wrong can certainly speed up the finding of what it is that ends up being right."

[Be Willing to Be Wrong]

Part of a recurring theme here - failure is not a bad thing. Failure is bad if you don't use it for something. And it is better to "fail fast", than to drag your feet - or keep pouring resources onto sunk costs.

As long as you are open about it in the process as well; our best estimate is that.... based on what we can find today it .....

Decide how much time you have to make sure, then use your best judgement, launch, measure, change and do it again.

Don't go for perfect track records.
Go for always trying.
And always improving - if only by a little bit each time. It adds up.