Best Read – Page 9 – On The 8 Spot

April 7, 2009

rePost:Fashionably Skeptical:Seth's Blog: Poisoning the well

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I couldn’t agree more. People are just so fucking annoyed with two bit, multi faced interactions that it is personally dragging to interact with people. I remember this scene from “The Office” probably season4. Where Kelly kapoor and Darryl from the warehouse fights and kelly says. “I don’t understand him who says exactly what he means!” can’t help but feel this when talking to people I interact with hesistantly. What I mean is I tend to hang with simple people , people like darryl. Call shit on me when I am shitting them, tear me a new one when I am getting too arrogant and all in all telling me when; Incidentally If i had only listened to them a couple of weeks ago, I probably would not be depressed and extremely fragile right now. I am like a tinderbox ready to explode any second. Well to sum up, try to minimize the fog, speak simply and clearly, tell it to me straight and we will get along fine! In some ways I don’t like erecting walls that separate , but this is very important to me. Enough of the lies, enough of the deception tell it straight!

Which means that even if you have a really good reason, no, you can’t call me on the phone. Which means that even if it’s really important, no, I’m not going to read the instructions. Which means that god forbid you try to email me something I didn’t ask for… you’re trashed. It’s so fashionable to be skeptical now that no one believes you if you attempt to do something for the right reasons.
Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.
via Seth’s Blog: Poisoning the well.

March 22, 2009

Best Read::Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: More present than the present

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Read the whole thing, this is but half of it (but of course the good parts here)

Take the following passage from a series of lectures he gave, in California, in May of 1999 (collected in the book The Vital Illusion), in which he limns our era:

Ecstasy of the social: the masses. More social than the social.
Ecstasy of information: simulation. Truer than true.
Ecstasy of time: real time, instantaneity. More present than the present.
Ecstasy of the real: the hyperreal. More real than the real.
Ecstasy of sex: porn. More sexual than sex …
Thus, freedom has been obliterated, liquidated by liberation; truth has been supplanted by verification; the community has been liquidated and absorbed by communication … Everywhere we see a paradoxical logic: the idea is destroyed by its own realization, by its own excess. And in this way history itself comes to an end, finds itself obliterated by the instantaneity and omnipresence of the event.

If a clearer depiction of realtime exists, I have not come upon it in my inchworm meanderings.
The fact that Baudrillard could so clearly describe the twitterification phenomenon ten years before it became a phenomenon reveals that the phrase “new media,” when used to describe the exchange of digital messages over the Internet, is a coinage of the fabulist. What we see today is not discontinuity but continuity. Mass media reaches its natural end-state when we broadcast our lives rather than live them. <Emphasis Mine>
via Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: More present than the present.

March 19, 2009

Best Read: Why Pay For The Sins Of The Past:Stumbling and Mumbling: The legacy of slavery

One might ask: why should I pay for the sins of my countrymen’s ancestors? Simple. We are rich for the same reason Africans are poor. They are poor because they were born into a poor continent. We are rich because we were born into a rich one. I’m one of the richest 1% of people on the planet. This is not because I’m smart, or hard-working or charming. It’s because I was born in the right place. Any individual who thinks their wealth is the result of their own effort is just an idiot.
Of course, this argument has no weight whatsoever. But this is because empirical evidence and ethical considerations have no role in politics, except as thin veils for ego and self-interest.
via Stumbling and Mumbling: The legacy of slavery.

March 16, 2009

Best Read:Kutiman, Big Media, and the Future of Creative Entrepreneurship | 43 Folders

Because, even in the face of bullying, obfuscating, and throat-clearing from corporations with a homemade timetable for evolution, more and more folks like Kutiman will just keep making and releasing stuff. Cool stuff, “illegal” stuff, niche stuff, and stuff that doesn’t require the benediction of a middle-aged executive in order to reach its precise audience with almost zero friction or overhead.
And, that prospect should buoy and energize anybody with a scintilla of artistic entrepreneurship or the drive to just try making and offering their own stuff in their own way.
Man. What an exciting time this is. Seriously. We may not each have Kutiman-level talent and vision, but there’s absolutely never been a better time to at least give it a throw.
Remember: the only person who can sit on your ass is you.
via Kutiman, Big Media, and the Future of Creative Entrepreneurship | 43 Folders.

March 13, 2009

Best Read:Better Man:The everyday Masters – Part 4 at Paulo Coelho’s Blog

Image by superciliousness via Flickr

The harder thing is to try to be the bigger/better man/woman and in a sense this is about knowing yourself, being true to who you are, and trying to best your thoughts on who you are.

Cliche is cliche for a reason, it is the low resistance path, and as stated below, It is a choice. We must be mindful that we choose to get irritated, we choose to be disrespectful, we choose to be humiliated, we choose to be mean, we choose to be impolite. I’ve been thinking about this while going to work. I saw three people at Philcoa near UP trying to find a jeep that would take them to Nepa Q Mart. I have nothing against rural folks but I suspect that someone cheated them recently because the driver of the jeepney I was riding, was telling them that if they wanted to go to Nepa Q Mart the only way was to take a bus and they were at the farthest lane, the lane which no buses enter. Here was this jeepney driver trying to tell them something true and in a way did not even benefit him, because he was telling them to ride the bus, and here was these people telling him off. What he did was simple to say “Okay I don’t care anymore (“Bahala Ka Na” <in tagalog>)” and he drove away. I’ve been in similar situations where I tried helping someone and was rudely treated and I have to say there are a few times I wasn’t able to contain my irritation and probably insulted/cursed a few people. “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;”(line from If by Rudyard Kipling). I forgot that I know who I am , and the opinion of others are to be considered but far from something to be mad about. In most things and situations I believe we should try to be a better man than we think we are.

If I react the way that people expect me to, I become a slave to them – and that is a lesson that applies both to love and work. It is very difficult to prevent this from happening, because we are always ready to please somebody, or to start a war when we are provoked, but people and situations are the consequences of the life that I have chosen, not the other way around.
via The everyday Masters – Part 4 at Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

March 11, 2009

Best Read:Delaying Adulthood:Chris Blattman's Blog: Beware graduate school?

: Cover of Born Yesterday

From Chris Blattman’s blog post on Penelope Trunks post on avoiding grad school here.

These arguments seem to better reflect people who get a PhD when they have little chance of getting a faculty position (sorry, humanities) and professional school for the sake of professional school. But sometimes professional school gives you technical skills needed for a job (accounting, tropical medicine, law…) and PhDs are a must for professional researchers. Without those caveats, the advice reads more like a rant.
Besides, who says delaying adulthood is pointless?
Chris Blattman’s Blog: Beware graduate school?.

Both post have their points but I’d like to focus on Chris’s last point( The one I emphasized) which is incidentally Penelope’s first point. The thing is that most people I meet outside of hobby groups/programming user groups/clubs tend to have less time (if at all) to study and learn new stuff. Its like you have to ram something through their throats before they learn it. I think this stems from the fact that studying for a lot of people becomes chore like, not a lot of people study for fun (I remember a friend who actually reads TC7[The Calculus 7th Edition by Leithold] while he eats and he looks like he is having fun), Or another friend who seems to have so much time to create creative stuff that really amaze me both for how time consuming they are and for how much he seems to get done, Or another friend who seems to write academic paper with ease in between teaching full loads and managing an indie rock band. Suffice to say they aren’t the norm.
The norm is half baked blog post(ehem ehem). Dozens of friendster/facebook/multiply comments. Probably 2-4 non-fiction book a year if at all.
If I had to pick one attribute to take out of school with me it is the capability to learn stuff, but the capability is simply potential if not applied. A lot of people who go to school do not go to school to learn or at least to learn how to learn (loved writing this sentence).
That’s why I think getting an MS and delaying adulthood is good for a lot of people. I remember the remake of Born Yesterday starring Melanie Griffith and her character is a small town gal that is being tutored by a professor so she would no longer embarass her husband. Don Johnson say: Howd you know a mink fur is good? Melani Griffith says because I used to wear rabbit fur. (I watch this film more than 10 years ago forgive me if I’ve forgotten the words , the gist is that the professor was asking how did she know what was good and she in essence said because I had worse.)
If you watched that scene (personally I found the remake more of a gimmick when compared to the original film, I love old films and used to watch fox classic movies more than hbo) it showed two things. It is a triumph to surpass ourselves (that was the dignity of Melanie’s reply) while we know how well we have done only if we know it in relation to the whole or at least to a bigger sample (what don jonson was doing was somewhat trying to shame melanie into submission whilst her reaction showed she got what he was saying but also declaring that “you may look down on me but What I did was no easy matter”).
That being said 25 is the new 18 (Probably saying this because I’m 25) and if we try to stay healthy we could live as long as our parents and probably be more productive (if we try to stay fit, the world is beginning to be more accommodating to old people). When do we take charge of our lives? it easy to make mistakes early on, but whose mistake do we want to commit our own mistakes or the misconceptions our elders have of this world. Call me naive but my actions prove my resolve. I’d rather make my own mistakes than walk the same old tired paths. I don’t know , but doing this is hard but this is something I’d probably not change my mind about. Just as Chris Blattman said “who says delaying adulthood is pointless?”
John Mayer‘s Stop This Train from here

no i’m not color blind
i know the world is black and white
i try to keep an open mind
but i just can’t sleep on this tonight
stop this train i want to get off and go home again
i can’t take the speed it’s moving in
i know i can’t
but honestly, won’t someone stop this train
don’t know how else to say it,
i don’t want to see my parents go
one generation’s length away
from fighting life out on my own
stop this train
i want to get off and go home again
i can’t take the speed it’s moving in
i know i can’t
but honestly won’t someone stop this train
so scared of getting older
i’m only good at being young
so i play the numbers game
to find away to say that life has just begun
had a talk with my old man
said “help me understand”
he said “turn sixty-eight”
“you’ll renegotiate”
“don’t stop this train
don’t for a minute change the place you’re in
and don’t think i couldn’t ever understand
i tried my hand
john, honestly we’ll never stop this train”
once in a while, when it’s good
it’ll feel like it should
when you’re all still around
and you’re still safe and sound
and you don’t miss a thing
till you cry when you’re driving away in the dark.
singing stop this train i want to get out and go home again
i can’t take this speed it’s moving in
i know i can’t
cause now i see i’ll never stop this train

March 8, 2009

Had To Share:Good Ideas Need To Be Nurtured Not Shoved Into Anybody's Throat!:Big Tent Atheism – Boing Boing

: Image by buckofive via Flickr

I come from a very religous family , I have friends from both spectrum of religousity /belief . What I find that is grating me personally is that need by a lot of people to assert their correctness by tearing the other guy a new one. I used to feel that need when I was younger , but with age comes nonchalance, you just realize that people live within their own worlds and the true miracle is that any group of people exists as a group.
What helped me get to this is the realization that although “Good Ideas Need To Be Nurtured, They Don’t Need Anyone Trying To Shove Them In Anybody’s Throat”.
Although, based on what little I pretend to understand of the mathematics of evolution, the goodness/fitness of an attribute over that of the norm does not mean it would be carried over in successive generations, it depends on how well it helps the species survive. Which I interpret to mean in the case of ideas : How right an idea is does not mean that an idea would survive, it is how well an idea gives rise to other people believing in the idea. In some ways what my analysis is pointing me towards the feeling that their strategy is counter productive; as I believe the quoted article is saying.

With religion, I think atheists have the same dissonance going on. If they really think the world would be better off without religion, they shouldn’t hate religion and call believers fools. Any successful new belief system must appreciate the beauty of what it’s replacing and strive for backwards-compatibility. If Matthew 1:1-16 hadn’t explained how Jesus’ lineage fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah 1:1-5, it wouldn’t have gotten where it is today.
So I put it to declared atheists– the ones who fly the flag about it, not the ones who are quiet or closeted: Do you think that most of humanity is A) hopeless and doomed to kill each other because of their stupid religious beliefs, or B) capable of coming to and benefiting from your views?
I think closeted atheists who participate in other religious activities are the future of atheism. They know that prayer feels good without a needing brain scientist to tell them, and they know you don’t need God to want to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and provide homes for the orphaned. What if they simply stopped reciting the words that they didn’t agree with during religious services, without calling attention to it? In many places I don’t think they would be kicked out or turned upon and beaten just for that.
Big Tent Atheism – Boing Boing.

March 5, 2009

rePost:Finding Your Thing:Stumbling and Mumbling: Consumption deskilling & utility

: Image by madaboutasia via Flickr

I am proud to say that i see this in a few of my friends, where other people might ask why? they just do!
Why is this? Based on my all too biased personal experience I find that the majority of people I know are like this, consumption maximisers and probably all that I can blame is probably environment. TV is the national obssession.
I remember a local rock legend ranting about how the kids nowadays just buy off the rack punks wear, etc. Things like this are akin to exercise , you need to get to form a habit of doing, creating and when you are you probably just can’t stop.
But how?
-Find what you enjoy by doing a multitude of things and try to do it till you feel at least two levels of pay-offs, so you can evaluate if something is “your thing!” Why two levels? Well most experiences either have different pay-offs and different level of pay-off per skill level, you may not get to evaluate how much you would value something if you quit to quickly!
-Just like the previous post try to incorporate it to your life/habit. Remember how Randy Paush, when he is thinking always had a football in his hands, you could do this with guitar playing whilst watching tv play the guitar, or while walking think of poems if you’re into poetry, think of blogposts while waiting for your train, you have the time, you are just not using it wisely.
-Find a friend to help you with your hobbies. Remember its always fun to do something with someone.
-When something is beginning to define you step back and think if this is really something you want to be defined by.
-Evaluate the effort you put in to your thing. You must always strive to improve because you might end up just with another reflex action.
-Evaluate you thing. Sometimes doing your thing would hold you back on some important parts of life, Like how my Internet addiction is slowly making me more socially inept than I already am.
Read the whole post its packed with information.

I suspect something else is going on. That something is the spread of purely instrumental rationality – the idea that utility maximization consists solely in maximizing consumption for minimal expenditure of time and money. Many of us take it for granted that it’s rational to spend as little time cooking as possible, and that music should only be a consumption good.
What this ignores is that many things are worth doing for their own sake. I’ll never play the guitar as well as Martin Simpson, or cook as well as Gordon Ramsey, or grow enough vegetables to be self-sufficient. But I play the guitar, cook and grow my own because these things are worth doing for their own sake.
Labour is not just a cost, to minimized. It is – or can be – a form of satisfaction in itself – a way of asserting who we are.
Stumbling and Mumbling: Consumption deskilling & utility.

March 3, 2009

Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

This is the final lesson of the late bloomer: his or her success is highly contingent on the efforts of others. In biographies of Cézanne, Louis-Auguste invariably comes across as a kind of grumpy philistine, who didn’t appreciate his son’s genius. But Louis-Auguste didn’t have to support Cézanne all those years. He would have been within his rights to make his son get a real job, just as Sharie might well have said no to her husband’s repeated trips to the chaos of Haiti. She could have argued that she had some right to the life style of her profession and status—that she deserved to drive a BMW, which is what power couples in North Dallas drive, instead of a Honda Accord, which is what she settled for.
But she believed in her husband’s art, or perhaps, more simply, she believed in her husband, the same way Zola and Pissarro and Vollard and—in his own, querulous way—Louis-Auguste must have believed in Cézanne. Late bloomers’ stories are invariably love stories, and this may be why we have such difficulty with them. We’d like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.
“Sharie never once brought up money, not once—never,” Fountain said. She was sitting next to him, and he looked at her in a way that made it plain that he understood how much of the credit for “Brief Encounters” belonged to his wife. His eyes welled up with tears. “I never felt any pressure from her,” he said. “Not even covert, not even implied.” ♦

Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.

March 3, 2009

One Word Mood Changer Of The Day

: Image via Wikipedia

A Thank You To Kottke here:
Mamihlapinatapai, a most succinct word.

It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as “eye-contact implying ‘after you…'”. A more literal approximation is “ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other”.

Heartbreaking. I wish we had an English word for that feeling. (via cyn-c)