tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52647548985332701562023-11-15T22:16:05.082+07:00gibble-gabblogA potpourri of what goes through my mind about current and other issues and small texts I appreciate.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-79063891104285447012011-10-24T12:58:00.021+07:002013-05-23T21:14:40.210+07:00Questioning the notions of copyright and intellectual property - links.<i>When I first reflected on the foundations of intellectual property and copyright in the early nineties, when internet was in infancy, I felt quite lonely in believing they were not only illegitimate, but harmful to the process of creation. Since then, I felt comfort my viewpoint was not isolated and is gaining momentum.</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo">A Fair(y) Use Tale </a><br />
Disney Parody explanation of Copyright Law and Fair Use.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCkX0KcNwrI">Joss Stone "piracy is great"</a><br />
Fortune and fame, a by-product of talent, not the primary goal.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxxT8-jhbe4">Alternative Freedom (Trailer)</a><br />
Featuring interviews with Lawrence Lessig and more.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen">Eben Moglen - Wikipedia</a><br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 19px;">Moglen believes the idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software" style="background-image: none; color: black; text-decoration: none;" title="Proprietary software">proprietary software</a> is as ludicrous as having "proprietary mathematics" or "proprietary geometry". "Anything that is worth copying is worth sharing."</span></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html">The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?</a><br />
"Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/business/31every.html?sudsredirect=true">Innovation: It Isn’t a Matter of Left or Right</a><br />
Sharing is not communism. Stalin would have despised Wikipedia.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/opinion/07iht-edsmiers.html?pagewanted=2">Imagine a world without copyright</a><br />
"We must keep in mind, of course, that every artistic work - whether it is a soap opera, a composition by Luciano Berio, or a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger - derives the better part of its substance from the work of others, from the public domain. Originality is a relative concept; in no other culture around the globe, except for the contemporary Western one, can a person call himself the owner of a melody, an image, a word."<br />
"Cultural monopolists desperately want us to believe that without copyright we would have no artistic creations and therefore no entertainment. That is nonsense. We would have more, and more diverse ones."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2000/01/QUEAU/13278">A qui appartiennent les connaissances ?</a><br />
L’évolution du droit de la propriété intellectuelle est un enjeu politique. Tirant argument de la « révolution multimédia », certains groupes d’intérêts se sont en effet mobilisés pour demander et obtenir une révision du droit de la propriété intellectuelle allant dans le sens de son renforcement au profit des détenteurs de droits.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/04/28/who-deleted-the-song-in-my-profile/">Who stole my story? by Paulo Coelho</a><br />
How Coelho saw the sale of his book grow exponentially by allowing them to be downloaded for free.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #bf9000;">
<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/best-selling-author-turns-piracy-into-profit-080512/">Best-Selling Author Turns Piracy into Profit</a></div>
“Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to share – from food to art. Sharing is part of the human condition."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm">Against Intellectual Monopoly</a><br />
"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/dcm.html">The dotCommunist Manifesto. Eben Moglen</a><br />
"Where are the advocates of freedom in the new digital society who have not been decried as pirates, anarchists, communists? Have we not seen that many of those hurling the epithets were merely thieves in power, whose talk of ``intellectual property'' was nothing more than an attempt to retain unjustifiable privileges in a society irrevocably changing? But it is acknowledged by all the Powers of Globalism that the movement for freedom is itself a Power, and it is high time that we should publish our views in the face of the whole world, to meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Free Information with a Manifesto of our own."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://site-yoyo.pagesperso-orange.fr/leon.htm">L’invention suppose tout l’actif préalable au travail humain</a><br />
"Je suppose que, demain, un inventeur imagine quelque outillage nouveau qui bouleverse la technique d’une des grandes industries directrices,..."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Buying%20Copyrights,%20Then%20Patrolling%20the%20Web%20for%20Infringement&st=cse">Enforcing Copyrights Online, for a Profit</a><br />
"When Brian Hill, a 20-year-old blogger from North Carolina, posted on his Web site last December a photograph of an airport security officer conducting a pat-down, a legal battle was the last thing he imagined."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://zenhabits.net/open-source-blogging-feel-free-to-steal-my-content/">Feel Free to Steal My Content</a><br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it." Richard Stallman</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-72110624358642947002011-10-24T12:13:00.002+07:002011-10-24T18:54:35.330+07:00Texte fondateur du Droit d'Auteur.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2ucgs-MhU4/TqTzUpZ3yLI/AAAAAAAAAJE/8Wh1hAix9Vk/s1600/Droit_d%2527auteur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2ucgs-MhU4/TqTzUpZ3yLI/AAAAAAAAAJE/8Wh1hAix9Vk/s320/Droit_d%2527auteur.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><h6 style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: normal;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ce n'est pas fortuit qu'il fut redige pendant le regime de la Terreur de la France Revolutionaire, pratiquement en meme temps que la loi du partage égalitaire immédiat dans les successions, le décret sur le tutoiement obligatoire, l'institution de la loi martiale (donnant lieu a la fusillade du Champ-de-Mars), la loi de Ventose an 2 (le séquestre des biens des suspects reconnus ennemis de la République), et autre mesures dites "sociales".<br />
Certains de mes amis republicains (a la sauce Francaise) me retorqueront que c’est un argument a contrario de mes theses sur la propriete intellectuelle. ;-)</span></span></h6><h6 style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mais il est en realite bien dans mon optique: le monopole intellectuel est une notion communiste qui va a l'encontre de la creativite necessaire a la liberte d'entreptrendre.<br />
Le communisme tel qu'il s'est manifeste n'a rien a voir avec le partage.<br />
S'il est une chose qu'il est necessaire de partager, c'est le savoir universel. Imaginez ou l'on en serait si un malin profiteur de la betise ambiante avait eu avant l'heure l'idee saugrenue de patenter l'alphabet.</span></h6>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-66440922975214514292011-03-15T03:57:00.001+07:002011-03-15T03:59:03.626+07:00Daylight "Saving" Time?<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" id="title_stream_story_4d7e80ebc52451a79897852"><span class="messageBody" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The so called Daylight Saving Time: yet another cretin decision imposed upon us.<br />
"You can’t save daylight by moving around the hands on your clock, of course. So daylight saving time remains as absurdly named as it ever was.”<br />
May I suggest a Google search on "The true cost of daylight saving". You'd be surprised of your findings.</span></span></h6>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-5760707677952982372011-01-23T13:12:00.007+07:002011-01-23T13:54:52.926+07:00Android emulation on your PC<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">F</span></span><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">rom my facebook post on the topic...</span></i></div><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Ha! (and hi) to all you guy's already converted to Android:</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">You can dump your gimmick smartphone and have your beloved android apps right on your pc, which has the added benefit of a proper screen, proper keyboard.<br />
The only thing you'd be losing is the ability to call someone, but who cares? Isn't it degrading for a smartphone to be a mere phone?<br />
With all the functions and Android phone distracts you with, you haven't got the time to make phone calls anyway.<br />
It might even be an advantage not to receive calls at all:-D<br />
And if you insist to be able to phone, you can always get the cheapest of Nokias, which is the best phone on Earth, which has the most useful function of all: a flashlight!</span></div><div><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><i>I hadn't actually tried when</i></span><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><i> I posted the above, so my first self comment 30 min later was:</i></span></div><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div><div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Amazing! It actually works.<br />
I still have to learn how to install my favourite apps, since the dedicated "Market" icon I've got on my Streak is absent.<br />
There is even a Galaxy Tab and Android 2.3 virtual devices!<br />
The only quirks I experienced so far, are some Korean characters on the pop-up keyboard (but using my pc keyboard, or the side keyboardd is fine), and it's slow to load and react.<br />
I wonder it would take advantage of 3g (and make calls) and GPS if the PC (such as the bModo mentioned earlier) had an integrated SIM...<br />
Can you imagine the possibilities? Merging the best Windows and Android Tab (some truly amazing) apps in a single slate? All I can say is wow!</span></div><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html">http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html</a></span><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://androidforums.com/android-applications/19118-windows-emulator-using-android-os.html">http://androidforums.com/android-applications/19118-windows-emulator-using-android-os.html</a> </span><br />
<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.blogsdna.com/10400/android-2-2-froyo-emulator-for-pc-and-mac-os-x.htm">http://www.blogsdna.com/10400/android-2-2-froyo-emulator-for-pc-and-mac-os-x.htm</a> </span></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-52130330259600165922011-01-20T09:52:00.005+07:002011-10-24T12:16:15.002+07:00The dotCommunist Manifesto<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Quote:</div><div style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">"Music, for example, throughout previous human history was an acutely perishable non-commodity, a social process, occurring in a place and at a time, consumed where it was made, by people who were indistinctly differentiated as consumers and as makers. After the adoption of recording, music was a non-persishable commodity that could be moved long distances and was necessarily alienated from those who made it. Music became, as an article of consumption, an opportunity for its new "owners'' to direct additional consumption, to create wants on the part of the new mass consuming class, and to drive its demand in directions profitable to ownership."</span></div><div><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-18647327733389430132010-10-21T00:57:00.001+07:002010-10-21T00:58:41.632+07:00Claiming the right to smash their birdbrains against the wall of reality<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/10/16/france.strikes/?hpt=T2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Protesters rally across France over pension reforms</b></span></span></a><br />
<br />
They are not faces of angry Muslims.<br />
Nor are they faces of tennis players after a winner.<br />
They are faces of French morons claiming the right to smash their birdbrains against the wall of reality!<br />
It also shows the height of their aspirations.<br />
These kids are already longing to twiddle their thumbs for the rest of their lives, 40 years ahead of time, when life expectancy will be such that retirement years will far exceed working years. Off course, they'd never consider the prospect of having a job that could provide satisfaction and that they'd insist to hold on as long as possible.<br />
"Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite"? Fraternity, equality with all the countries whose retirement age is above theirs, in Europe (let's not talk about the rest of the world, where they haven't a clue of what social security means)?<br />
Holding on to "acquired" benefits will come at a great cost.<br />
After that they will be complaining that China and other Indias are overtaking them.<br />
UTTER MORONS!<br />
<div><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-39820287623614858662010-10-08T18:27:00.006+07:002011-10-24T12:16:46.679+07:00ACTA, a cause worth fighting against<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"></span><br />
<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><a href="http://www.laquadrature.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">www.laquadrature.net</span></span></a></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><br />
</span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="UIStory_Message">ACTA stands for Anti-Counterfeinting Trade Agreement. It is aimed at enforcing copyright and tackling counterfeited goods and it has been secretly negotiated since 2008 by the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as a few other countries.</span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><br />
This aggreement would bypass democrat<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ic processes in order to enforce a fundamentally irrelevant regulatory regime, that would put an end to Net neutrality.</span></span></h3>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-68834620266950890722010-09-27T02:36:00.001+07:002010-09-27T02:41:22.065+07:00Selected from <a href="http://www.best-quotes-poems.com/common-sense-quotes.html">common-sense-quotes</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Common sense is what tells us the Earth is flat and the Sun goes around it."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Anon</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Matthew Arnold</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Common sense ain't common."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Will Rogers</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Albert Einstein</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>"The two World Wars came in part, like much modern literature and art, because men, whose nature is to tire of everything in turn, ... tired of common sense and civilization."<br />
F. L. Lucas<br />
<br />
"If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice."<br />
Tom Stoppard<br />
<br />
"Common sense is very uncommon."<br />
Horace Greeley<br />
<br />
"Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education."<br />
Victor Hugo<br />
<br />
"The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next."<br />
Henry Ward Beecher<br />
<br />
"Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius."<br />
Josh Billings<br />
<br />
"Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed."<br />
Don Wood<br />
<br />
"Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has."<br />
Descartes<br />
<br />
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."<br />
Oscar WildeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-6456426296916896522010-09-20T07:29:00.003+07:002010-09-27T02:25:41.981+07:00Funny quotes, or paraprosdokians for the pedant.<b>Those are some favourites. More will follow. Contributions welcome.</b><br />
<br />
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.<br />
<br />
If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.<br />
<br />
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you will be a mile away and he won’t have any shoes.<br />
<br />
The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.<br />
<br />
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.<br />
<br />
I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.<br />
<br />
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.<br />
<br />
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.<br />
<br />
Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.<br />
<br />
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.<br />
<br />
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.<br />
<br />
Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.<br />
<br />
A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don't need it.<br />
<br />
Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?<br />
<br />
Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.<br />
<br />
Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America ?<br />
<br />
Behind every successful man is a woman and behind his downfall is another woman"<br />
<br />
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.<br />
<br />
You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.<br />
<br />
Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.<br />
<br />
I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.<br />
<br />
You're never too old to learn something stupid.<br />
<br />
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.<br />
<br />
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.<br />
<br />
Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.<br />
<br />
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.<br />
<br />
A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.<br />
<br />
If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some people have more than one child?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-89628593153814803612010-09-11T20:17:00.010+07:002010-09-20T07:23:59.622+07:00What are worthwhile problems? "The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to."<br />
Richard Feynman<br />
<br />
That's the very reason the fashionable atheist debate is futile and does more harm than good. It can't bring about peace. It potentially creates a far greater divide than the ones we have endured so far throughout our history (Catholics/Protestants, Christian/Muslims, Sunni/Shiites, the list is long...), since an explanation for our presence here is beyond our comprehension, a transcendental or symbolic substitute for it will never be stamped out IMHO; it's in our nature, it's what made us humans, since the remote times of the awakening of consciousness and symbolic communication (with the sense of social norms, realization of "self" and concept of continuity) when we started to adopt non-utilitarian customs, rituals such as burying our dead, painting on cave walls, chanting, dancing and making use of gradually more abstract references.<br />
<br />
Rational explanation for existence such as the latest well publicised solution suggested by Hawking "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing will leave even the staunchest atheists quite dissatisfied they expose further and more arduous problems. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist". This claim presumes pre-exiting laws of nature and gravity, before even nature was there to obey them. I confess however that the scientific methods to come to that conclusion are beyond my comprehension.<br />
<br />
However, in spite of my unfathomable ignorance, I can reasonably suggest that atheists are intelligent enough to realise that it is not the worldview a person adheres to that makes him/her right or righteous, and that the heart has other and better criteria than belief or doubt in the supernatural to discern what's right or wrong in human deeds.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-43374407557396622092010-08-17T10:30:00.010+07:002011-10-24T18:52:44.679+07:00Simone Weil. Selected quotes.<div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;">I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">n Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is anonymous about it.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat. (premonitory!)</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The future is made of the same stuff as the present.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">La beauté séduit la chair pour obtenir la permission de passer jusqu'à l'âme.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">La religion en tant que source de consolation est un obstacle à la véritable foi, et en ce sens l'athéisme est une purification.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Le mot de révolution est un mot pour lequel on tue, pour lequel on meurt, pour lequel on envoie les masses populaires à la mort, mais qui n'a aucun contenu.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dieu ne juge pas : par lui les êtres se jugent.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Le chrétien est un mauvais païen, converti par un mauvais juif.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Accepter le mal qu'on nous fait comme remède à celui que nous avons fait.</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">La politique m'apparaît comme une sinistre rigolade.</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Impossible de pardonner à qui nous a fait du mal, si ce mal nous abaisse. Il faut penser qu'il ne nous a pas abaissé, mais a révélé notre vrai niveau.</span></div><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-17944844490061708552010-08-03T20:10:00.012+07:002010-10-08T19:18:28.594+07:00Why Are French Women Killing Their Babies?Check it there:<br />
<a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007359,00.html"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Why Are French Women Killing Their Babies</span></span>?</span></b></a><br />
<br />
The obvious answer to the enigma: motherhood is seen as a stigma in our so called culture where professional "career" is the ultimate goal, as if giving life wasn't the very finest destiny one could aspire to. Being inescapable does not make it less valuable.<br />
As a lady very dear to me said to her daughter, when she was, or rather, felt confronted with the motherhood/career dilemma "by definition, the exercise of freedom requires you to abandon all of possible choices offered to you but the one". Coelho made a very similar comment recently.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-35314351810296092252010-08-02T18:48:00.001+07:002010-09-18T07:25:49.492+07:00Internet prefiguring the global brain, as the ant colony does.The first thing I was taught when I went to studies, was how to find information on any particular topic. It was time consuming and arduous, but certainly the most useful thing I ever learned.<br />
We are in now in 2010. Gone with the library indexed references and cards. Type a few words, click and you get all the information you ever want about any subject of interest. All the knowledge amassed through the centuries is available there on the net. Very nearly...<br />
The next logical step is the direct connection with the universal knowledge. Gone will be the typing and the click that follows. Our brain will somehow be interfaced with the "next" internet.<br />
What a perspective! Each of us will have instant access the hence implanted world knowledge, and merge with a super being which will surpass our individual capacities as much as the colony is with respect to the individual ant.<br />
What will individuality mean then, is left to yet another speculation..Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-85425603294352392052010-08-01T23:27:00.010+07:002011-03-15T04:04:42.538+07:00Les peuples ont les regimes qu'ils meritentConcernant les OGM, le rechauffement climatique et autres atteintes a notre environnement, n'est-il pas frappant de constater que en depit d'un consensus qui semble total sur facebook et sans doute dans tous les autres espaces sociaux, aucun resultat concret n'en ressort? En effet, cela ne semble pas inquietier outre mesure les responsables de tous ces maux, qui non seulement continuent de deverser leurs poisons comme si de rien n'etait, mais ne se donnent pas la peine de justifier ou expliquer la necessite de leurs actions aupres des mecontents affectes, autrement que par les trois mots qui legitimisent tout: croissance, croissance, croissance.<br />
De deux chose l'une: soit ils ne lisent pas ce qui ce dit sur eux sur FB et ailleurs (auquel cas ces complaintes ne servent a rien et on ferait mieux de la boucler), soit ils s'en moquent, se sachant proteges par les gens en haut lieu. Comment, afin de remedier a cette situation, ne pas entre tente par les ideologies anarchistes ou extremistes quand l'etat et les lois protegent des interests particuliers nefastes a la communaute?<br />
Les peuples ont, apres tout, les regimes qu'ils meritent, par manque de raison ou plus probablement par simple veulerie.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-34139804585243300782010-07-20T22:07:00.014+07:002010-10-08T19:24:12.223+07:00Large Hadron Collider. Big Bang's Lab.<a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/large-hadron-collider-is-being-sabotaged-from-the-future/story-e6frfro0-1225788270808"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">LHC is being sabotaged from the future</span></span></b></a><br />
<br />
For my part, I know our Big Bang was the consequence of the last successful large hadron collider experiment !<br />
Nature didn't manage to sabotage the LHC of the previous world.<br />
Why should she manage to save our world this time?<br />
You are sceptic? Just wait and see. It's going to be Grand.;-)<br />
What is so particular about this world that would make it last more than any other?<br />
Men are incorrigible anthropocentrists who are forced to reinvent the big Wheel every time.<br />
Isn't this reminiscent of some ancient myth?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bEJqorzt8JQ/TEW-8Dkb6GI/AAAAAAAAAAM/U9ED-esAE9g/s1600/270800-large-hadron-collider.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bEJqorzt8JQ/TEW-8Dkb6GI/AAAAAAAAAAM/U9ED-esAE9g/s200/270800-large-hadron-collider.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-77732752675153337472010-07-18T22:16:00.006+07:002011-01-23T13:40:46.852+07:00A dream. An uneducated conjecture about perception of time on waking up.I'd like to share a few reflections that followed the weird experience I went through a year ago.<br />
In the dream I then had, I was observing an aeroplane doing aerobatics, and just as I was worrying about the loads it was subjected to, it broke in flight and went spiraling down to crash on the ground, with bang that coincided with the real one of a car crash (minor one) outside my house. This briefly woke me up, just enough to realise that a real crash occurred, then in no time I was fast asleep again, the dream resumed at the crash scene towards which people were running; I looked towards the sky to see if by chance the pilot managed to parachute himself out of trouble. He had; and as soon as he touched the ground he ran away from us and the scene, apparently to look for a phone booth. But the second part of the dream is irrelevant to the questions the first bit raised in my mind.<br />
When eventually I woke up, the question that made me wonder about the mechanics of a dream, was "how on earth my dream could have known in advance that the real world crash would occur precisely at the moment the unreal plane would hit the ground?"<br />
I can imagine only two hypothesis:<br />
- a coincidence of extreme low probability<br />
- that the whole sequence of the dream that appeared to last a minute or more, was made up in the instant my ears heard the real crash<br />
And one speculation, in the latter case:<br />
Couldn't time, as we perceive it in the "awakened" world, be of a similar nature as the time of the dream, i.e. actually just an instant in which the perceived "time" is compressed, and that time is actually without dimension, timeless. Everything is happening, has happened, will happen at once, and that by a magical trick, or more likely by some law of nature it appears as a long sequence of events, within which our conscience has evolved to perceive time as we do? Life is perception, and a dream is a perception within.<br />
Perhaps all this is plain commonsense to the dream scholars?<br />
<br />
A year later, I read the following quote in an article about the LHC (large hadron collider):<br />
“For those of us who believe in physics,” Einstein once wrote to a friend, “this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion.”<br />
<div><br />
</div><div activeid="-1" expanded="0" id="divCleekiAttrib" menubottom="0" menuleft="0" menuright="0" menutop="0" style="display: none;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-82466240623073878732010-07-09T17:00:00.011+07:002010-09-18T07:35:25.846+07:00Structured ProcrastinationA fine analysis of human nature as well as a doctrine I fully conform to, and that explains my erratically timed postings.<br />
<br />
Structured Procrastination<br />
by John Perry<br />
Version of April 25, 1995<br />
<br />
I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you.<br />
<br />
The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.<br />
<br />
Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.<br />
<br />
The most perfect situation for structured procrastination that I ever had was when my wife and I served as Resident Fellows in Soto House, a Stanford dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare, committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and go over to the lounge and play ping-pong with the residents, or talk over things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the paper. I got a reputation for being a terrific Resident Fellow, and one of the rare profs on campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a set up: play ping pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get a reputation as Mr. Chips.<br />
<br />
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.<br />
<br />
At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here. The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions.<br />
<br />
Take for example the item right at the top of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.<br />
<br />
Another example is book order forms. I write this in June. In October, I will teach a class on Epistemology. The book order forms are already overdue at the book store. It is easy to take this as an important task with a pressing deadline (for you non-procrastinators, I will observe that deadlines really start to press a week or two after they pass.) I get almost daily reminders from the department secretary, students sometimes ask me what we will be reading, and the unfilled order form sits right in the middle of my desk, right under the wrapping from the sandwich I ate last Wednesday. This task is near the top of my list; it bothers me, and motivates me to do other useful but superficially less important things.<br />
<br />
But in fact, the book store is plenty busy with forms already filed by non-procrastinators. I can get mine in mid-Summer and things will be fine. I just need to order popular well-known books from efficient publishers. I will accept some other, apparently more important, task sometime between now and, say, August 1st. Then my psyche will feel comfortable about filling out the order forms as a way of not doing this new task.<br />
<br />
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?<br />
<br />
Gibble-gabblog's NB:<br />
With special thank to my old friend Professor Olivier Van Reeth who kindly forwarded me this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5264754898533270156.post-50432100386920084282010-06-28T20:16:00.008+07:002010-09-22T09:46:30.984+07:00Very first gibble-gabble blog entry<div>Why this blog, when I already have three websites, one blog and Facebook?</div><div>My other websites have more specific purposes. So has the nauti-blog. See the latter below...</div><div>Facebook is ok, but imposing too much of my presence is not necessarily welcome and can be confusing, as there is no way to distinguish between the silly day-to-day diary and posts meaning to convey something on the news feed. This space has no other purpose than to share what I wouldn't on Facebook, writing down whatever comes through my mind, in particular things that would less likely to be appreciated by the community.</div><div>Here, friends, and friends of friends and so on, are welcome, free to come in, take a peek, give a poke and go.</div><div>This entry is a test to see if everything works ok. I have no idea how the prototype will look.</div><div>What was the most time consuming was to decide for a name I would not regret for this blog. The choice narrowed down in the end between blog-note, gibble-gabblog, jabberwocky, amongst names provided by searches for "nonsense". I hope you acquiesce with the final pick.</div><div>Some of my posts here will be mirrored from Facebook for those who, for very good reasons, don't want to get into the social network game. As as side benefit, it will serve as a back-up for some of the stuff I've got elsewhere.</div><div>The appearance is not finalised and don't know what tools are available with blogger.com in order to shape gibble-gabblog the way I want.</div><div>All the best to all,</div><div>Sacha</div><div><br />
</div><div>PS: the next and 2nd blog will be a brief intro of myself for the aliens amongst you, just for the form.</div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="http://www.nautikites.net/">http://www.nautikites.net/</a> : dedicated to kitesurfing of the other kind</div><div><a href="http://www.nautikites.net/blog/">http://www.nautikites.net/blog/</a> : kitesufing blog and loosely related topics</div><div><a href="http://www.facebook.com/sachaderidder">http://www.facebook.com/sachaderidder</a> : the space I love to hate</div><div>My other website is not much interest for anyone comfortable here.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1