28-12-2002 18:40
Take Finnish lessons in the art of disco!

27-12-2002 15:07
"Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free who cannot control himself."
--Pythagoras

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength ...

25-12-2002 17:22
”If we were all suddenly somebody else.”
-- Joyce

23-12-2002 13:59
Why Read the Classics

The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, "I am rereading . . . " and never "I am reading . . . "

We use the words "classics" for books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them; but they are treasured no less by those who have the luck to read them for the first time in the best conditions to enjoy them

The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.

Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading.

Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

The classics are the books that come down to us bearing the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through (or, more simply, on language and customs).

A classic does not necessarily teach us anything we did not know before. In a classic we sometimes discover something we have always known (or thought we knew), but without knowing that this author said it first, or at least is associated with it in a special way. And this, too, is a surprise that gives much pleasure, such as we always gain from the discovery of an origin, a relationship, an affinity.

The classics are books which, upon reading, we find even fresher, more unexpected, and more marvelous than we had thought from hearing about them.

We use the word "classic" of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the "total book," as Mallarmé conceived of it.

Your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.

A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others first, and then reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree.

A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.

A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation.

Italo Calvino

22-12-2002 14:44
It is always pleasant to be urged to do something on the ground that one can do it well. Unless one was supposed to be on vacation these days ...

21-12-2002 17:07
All the presents bought and wrapped - mission accomplished!

18-12-2002 21:13
If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice.

16-12-2002 20:44
G. F. Händel, "Messiah", the buildup in intension in the 'Hallelujah' chorus
in the 'king of kings and lord of lords'/Forever, forever, hallelujah'
dialogue.

Sometimes it's just a single note, signaling the resolution of a tension that has been building up, that sends that sudden shiver, but often it's a phrase or even a slightly longer unit, because the moving movement signals the beginning of your realization that the composer is going to, or has just done something totally unexpected with the material he is using.

15-12-2002 20:34
Aestethics is ethic, representation is process, criticism is selfreflection ...

14-12-2002 17:54
Ah! My new gadget! :)
iPAQ 5450

13-12-2002 20:58

Daily Fortune

Your fortune for today...   You are demonstrative with those you love.

- why is this fortune generator so obsessed with my love life!

12-12-2002 20:45
When does the concept make contact with the condition of objects? The condition, not the object or set.

Ontological Impossibility ...

11-12-2002 18:44
The art of screensaving is far too unnoticed. Rewob!

09-12-2002 19:49
It is tact that is golden, not silence.

07-12-2002 12:49
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if we succeed in loving the distance between us.

05-12-2002 18:12
"To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
-Carl Sagan

21-11-2002 12:42
Motto of today:

"There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow."
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

20-11-2002 11:01
Dialogue cannot create the need to change, but it certainly facilitates the process of change!

17-10-2002 08:54
California Dreaming ...
    

15-10-2002 16:15
Decency - no law or rule reaches it, but all right-minded people observe it.

08-10-2002 08:51
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.

02-10-2002 16:08
Lesson of today: Knowledge, without common sense is folly!

27-09-2002 15:39
Eight symptoms of groupthink:
1. Illusion of invulnerability
2. Stereotyping outsiders
3. Bounded rationality and tethered assumptions
4. Belief in inherent morality
5. Self-censorship
6. Direct pressure on dissenters
7. Mindguards
8. Unanimity

Symptoms of "defective decision making" in executive groups associated with problems and mistakes in policy decisions include:

::.. the group fails to explore alternatives. Maybe one idea only is focused on with scant attention to other ideas. Rejected alternatives are seldom re-examined and go unheeded.

::.. the group fails to consider all available objectives. The best may not be chosen.
Insufficient exploration of costs and risks of options. Assumptions are made and negative outcomes too readily discounted or overlooked.

::.. information searches are superficial. All possible data for the decision area is not gathered. There is also selective/biased filtering and communicating of results to others. The group tends to exclude valuable items of information which "do not fit their picture".

::.. the "groupthink" group fails to work out the detail of implementation, monitoring, and contingency plan and worst case scenarios etc. They overassume what is or is not possible. Consequences and risks are ignored or glossed over.

27-09-2003 12:53
This optical illusion is amazing.

17-09-2002 09:19
In doing your work, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don't flinch, don't fall; hit the line hard.

16-09-2002 10:58
The shortest distance between two points is under construction it seems ...

06-09-2002 11:27
Check your Daily Fortune before going out shopping!

05-09-2002 15:41
Today I was greeted by this at my excite.com

Daily Fortune   Your fortune for today...   Someone wants your body.

The return of the body snatcthers!

03-09-2002 12:50
Anger is a prelude to courage and the most impotent of passions.

29-08-2002 12:52
To strive to be what you wish to be thought to be - how is that for a strategy?

27-08-2002 12:39
      
Support Amina Lawal

22-08-2002 16:21
Genius is eternal patience.
-- Michelangelo

21-08 2002 10:53
The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are; first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common sense. The latter often proves difficult to adhere.

20-08-2002 13:15
There are ten kinds of people in the world: those who think binary and those who don't.

19-08-2002 14:29
Happy birthday - the best of days to you!

16-08-2002 15:05
Room With A View (or Two)
The web is full of tiny, unobtrusive art gems just waiting to be discovered.

15-08-2002 12:32
We are watching you, Neo!

26-07-2002 13:20
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

A short absence is the safest.

18-07-2002 16:54
Business is business, regardless of cats.

17-07-2002 11:06
Do not surf, but walk the net.

15-07-2002 10:53
There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
-- Charles Dickens

12-07-2002 08:25
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

09-07-2002 08:51
Why can't "silence" be met with silence? Because of the titular quotation marks, copyrighted or not, that put language there before us as an appearance. In the ensuing history about those who claimed it with a noise and those who experienced something in response to its presence we all turned to yakking fools.

08-07-2002 09:13
Silence - as a note - is the only musical term referable to the Epimenide's paradox
Silence exist only when a noise occurs.

05-07-2002 08:51
Slight not what is near though aiming at what is far.
- Euripides

28-06-2002 14:44
The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which comes with a sort of mastery.

27-06-2002 13:36
The basic principle of turning ideas into big money is to seize every money building idea and work with it until the idea fits your purpose, decide on the steps needed to make it work, and then proceed to do it as soon as possible.

26-06-2002 16:08
Capital can do nothing without brains to direct it.

25-06-2002 15:32
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going ...

10-06-2002 17:11
The Sanctity of Elements, or Why You Shouldn't be Double-clicking in a <textarea>

04-06-2002 14:10
Bureaucracy has a tendency towards creating monstrous incestuously growing systems completely derived any practical logic or use.

31-05-2002 08:02
"Number 6. Style is not to be trusted

I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvelous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It's absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. Incidentally, it's popular for designers to claim they have no style but this is generally not true. Most good designers have developed a vocabulary, a form that is their own. It is one of the ways that they distinguish themselves from their peers, and establish their identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. As a career progresses the question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn't make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide. But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn't want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn't change your sense of integrity and purpose."

Read all of Milton Glaser's comments at the AIGA website.

30-05-2002 09:15
"Number 5. Less is not necessarily more.

Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. 'Just enough is more.' "

28-05-2002 09:48
"Number 4. Professionalism is not enough or the good is the enemy of the great.

Early in my career I couldn't wait to become a professional. That was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything - not to mention they got paid well for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is limiting risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn't want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please doc, do it in the way that has worked in the past. Unfortunately in our field, in a so-called creative activity - I've begun to hate that word. I especially hate when it is used as a noun. I shudder when I hear can someone called a creative. Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is desirable in our field, is continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. Professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal."

24-05-2002 10:05
"Number 3. Some people are toxic avoid them.
This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties an old geezer named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the 'whole' before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn't matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life."

23-05-2002 16:55
"Number 2. If you have a choice never have a job.
One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask 'Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?' An irritated voice said 'Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?' I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was - the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. 'You know, I do know how to prepare for old age' he said. 'Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceeding well prepared for my old age' he said."

21-05-2002 11:23
I have recently become aware of this great site kottke.org. Learn what Milton Glaser learned:

"Number 1. You can only work for people that you like.

It took me a long time to learn this rule because at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism inferred that you didn't necessarily have to like the people that you worked for, and should maintain an arms length relationship to them. As a result, I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Some years ago I realised that I was deluded. In looking back, I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work can be achieved. Otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle."

17-05-2002 14:13
I try to leave out the parts that people skip.

15-05-2002 16:11
The Bureaucratic Blender - a deadly instrument ...

10-05-2002 09:10
The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.

08-05-2002 14:57
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

07-05-2002 16:23
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point.
- Harold B. Melchart

... bullshit ...

06-05-2002 10:47
It is not the position, but the disposition.

05-05-2002 22:51
One can alter one's life simply by altering one's attitude of mind.

02-05-2002 18:18
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.

25-04-2002 09:22
Jeg har tabt verden,
men fundet min havn.

-- Gustav Mahler

22-04-2002 12:51
Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

-- Emily Dickinson

13-04-2002 21:49
Boston, MA
Mostly Cloudy 23°C
13°...23° 

10-04-2002 18:54
Reboot Denmark!

08-04-2002 20:01
Mean to be something with all your might. And the winner is ...

05-04-2002 15:30
It is the business of little minds to shrink.

04-04-2002 17:29
Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Still hope I guess ...

03-04-2002 18:34
Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration. 
-- Sigmund Freud

... how true. I refrain ...

29-03-2002 09:38
The certainty of ideas is not the foundation of the certainty of perception but is, rather based on it - in that the perceptual
experience which gives us the passage from one moment to the next and thus realizes the unity of time ... in this sense all consciousness is perceptual, even the consciousness of ourselves.

In a maggi-cube Maurice Merleau-Ponty's contribution to postmodern philosophy.

Derrida wrote: reading is writing.

[Actually I am addressing you] 

28-03-2002 10:25

27-03-2002 18:02
Space folds onto itself.
Love does as well.

26-03-2002 20:16
It's happening - but too slowly for my taste.

19-03-2002 17:57
Being ambiguous, we are deemed confused, 
rather than praised for the complexity of the order in our minds.

17-03-2002 19:37
Most fish are unconscious ...

14-03-2002 22:08
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

13-03-2002 18:42
C:\>ping www.pica10.net

Pinging web-is-s002.activeisp.com [213.188.129.72] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 213.188.129.72: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=11
Reply from 213.188.129.72: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=11
Reply from 213.188.129.72: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=11
Reply from 213.188.129.72: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=11

Ping statistics for 213.188.129.72:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 50ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 52ms

12-03-2002 19:07
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is surprising how much can be done if we are always doing.

11-03-2002 23:20
.. :::...:: ::.:::...:..:.:: .. .. ::..::: .. ::.:: ..

.plan as a mission

08-03-2002 17:44
Beware if a bureaucrat says he'll meet you halfway. Usually he's already standing on the dividing line.

07-03-2002 17:05
"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."
- Abraham Lincoln

An attitude to be inspired by these days ...

06-03-2002 22:27
"Let us love nobly, and live, and add again years and years unto years, till we attain to write threescore: this is the second of our reign."
-- John Donne

Happy anniversary! ;-)

05-03-2002 07:35
20) Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic. 

04-03-2002 19:08
19) Your friends love you anyway. 

03-03-2002 19:46
18) A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.) 

01-03-2002 07:05
17) The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them. 

28-02-2002 00:12
16) There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven. 

27-02-2002 07:56
15) The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. 

26-02-2002 17:54
14) You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment. 

25-02-2002 16:51
13) You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time. 

24-02-2002 15:23
12) The most powerful force in the universe is gossip. 

23-02-2002 00:02
11) Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

22-02-2002 16:35
10) Never lick a steak knife.

21-02-2002 09:24
9) Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. 

13-02-2002 18:08
8) When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy. 

12-02-2002 16:40
7) No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. 

11-02-2002 20:16
6) You should not confuse your career with your life.

09-02-2002 13:32
5) And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

08-02-2002 19:00
4) People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. 

07-02-2002 18:48
3) There is a very fine line between "hobby" and 'mental illness.'

06-02-2002 19:02
2) If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

05-02-2002 14:57
1) Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

03-02-2002 10:31
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit. Hopefully that goes for politicians as well.

02-02-2002 09:38
What a peculiar date ...

The greatest discovery of my generation - I think - is that one can alter one's life simply by altering one's attitude of mind.

29-01-2002 07:44
sero.org: Dump your trash

28-01-2002 15:32
Suser min lind, synger min nattergal ...

28-01-2002 08:37
Don’t hesitate or shrink; just think out your work, and just work out your thinking.

24-01-2002 16:11
January brings silent nights. Toil begins tomorrow. It's going to rain today.

23-01-2002 17:46
 ... hi. Surprised? ;-)

22-01-2002 08:06
You have to hatch ideas -- and then hitch them.

20-01-2002 09:46
Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.

19-01-2002 11:15
When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
-- William Shakespeare

18-01-2002 22:45
The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
-- Jean Paul Sartre

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment - something Denmark is now refraining from. How sad and shameful ...

16-01-2002 18:11
A city walked among men - what does it mean?

12-01-2002 20:20
Control how the chaos of the universe works for you.

12-01-2002 18:20
Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
-- Leonard Cohen

09-01-2002 17:50
A STORY:
A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau takes an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looks out, she sees an old Jewish man praying vigorously.
So the journalist goes down and introduces herself to the old man. She asks:
"You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that and what are you praying for?"
The old man replies, "I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home have a cup of tea and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth."
The journalist is amazed. "How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?" she asks.
The old man looks at her sadly. "Like I'm talking to a wall."

08-01-2002 18:45
A Danish proverb says: Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well.
The hand certainly is poor.
In 5 years Denmark will wake up - as a mind-numbingly stupid and brainless nation. The brains all went to Sweden ...

07-01-2001 18:36
The thought which should be trained on big things is cluttered up with the burdensome detail of little things. How tedious! The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right.

03-01-2002 12:08
My new year promise: To aim at the best and to remain essentially myself. It is one and the same thing. But not easy ...

02-01-2002 22:47
Not at all the same time.
Not all at the same time.

31-12-2001 13:51
Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer, with never a thought of sorrow; the old goes out, but the glad young year comes merrily in tomorrow.
-- Emily Miller.