BANKSY
Which so much reminded me of the work of hugh
Then I stumbled across this...
"A guide to blagging things
One Never write a guide telling other people
how to blag things"
BRILLIANT!
Walk with me in Brooklyn after midnight
to the intersection of Old Fulton and Water streets
directly beneath the Brooklyn Bridge
walk with me half a block from the disaster relief kitchen
to Fulton's Ferry Landing
to look out across the East River
the smouldering Manhattan skyline
radiating the eerie stark white glare of
thousands of emergency lights
the remaining buildings silhouetted, standing
as silent sentinels around their fallen comrades
...
Our team is working the second shift - 6:PM to 6:AM
The midnight snack, hot hamburgers, have been cooked,
packaged, and shipped to the rescue workers
the night air is soft
with our chores done until breakfast a group
of us decide to go have a look at
ground zero
the silence of the Brooklyn Bridge is almost
deafening - the bridge is still closed - pedestrians only
from the height of the bridge span - there is a wonderful panoramic
view of New York City
bridge is closed because there is nowhere to
go on the Manhattan side - emergency vehicles only
but there are people out - walking, standing, red-eyed policemen,
exhausted national guard, fire men and women, rescue personnel,
red cross volunteers, news crews
spectators
and the displaced - New Yorkers, heart broken, hopeless and lost,
just wandering around...
...
Hastily erected cyclone fences keep all but
the authorized a full block away from
ground zero
everywhere there is a dull gray layer of
concrete dust - covering everything, plants,
window sills, cars, streets
I've never been to a war zone, but I have been to
ground zero
from our vantage point - a block away we
can see across an empty lot directly into the
smouldering remains of the World Trade
center
I've never been to a war zone, but I have been to
ground zero
I spent a number of years working the
ambulance as an emergency medical
technician - responding to horrendous
automobile accidents and all manner of
human insults and injuries
my heart has been broken many times
... and then I went to ground zero
with disaster relief I have responded to numerous
floods and tornadoes
my heart has been broken many times
...and then I went to ground zero
...
we returned to the disaster relief kitchen,
shaken and feeling empty
we sat silently on the sidewalk, outside the
kitchen compound in a semi-circle of street
light
she appeared out of the darkness, like an
apparition, standing just at the edge of the
light, smoking a cigarette
she was trying to decide if she would
approach or not
she sat stiffly, quietly chain smoking -
offering one and two word answers to our
initial questions
She said, "I've been having trouble sleeping..."
then she said
My land lady had called me from the
apartment downstairs, said something was
going on, something about the World Trade
Center, she said go down to the street - Old
Fulton street, to see
stepping from her apartment door and
turning right gave her a full view of both
towers - one already involved from the
impact of the first plane
then as if in a dream she watched the second
plane approach and slam into the
second tower
her description becomes vague - I assume that
she stood and watched in shock as the
situation unfolded before her very eyes
retreating to her apartment only when the
huge dust cloud crossed the East River and
swept into Brooklyn right past her door
...
sitting with us is the shell of a woman, a
woman who's heart is broken, a woman who is
lost, a woman with no hope
a woman who needs to tell and retell her
story - and we must listen
because listening is our only real ministry
listening is the only christian act of charity
available to us in the immediacy of this
catastrophe
As I was writing an apologetic sounding resolution that I would no longer dislike, criticize, haranguing, or otherwise dis Microsoft I came to this stunning realization... the Redmond giant occupies only a small niche market seat.
How many microprocessors are there out in the world?
How many microprocessors out in the world actually run a Microsoft OS?
Of the many choices available which microprocessor and OS is the next consumer going to run right out and buy?
My guess is it will be a Tweener or a Twenty-something buying either an music device or a cellular device. Priced in a range that is accessible to either of those target markets.
NOW HERE IS THE QUESTION WORTH SHOUTING ABOUT... How long will it be before PC manufactures realize that interfacing not with the device but with the device's OS will become paramount in the next big cyber-techno push? Wouldn't a PC running Symbian interface better with a phone running the same OS?
If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
[Borrowed from Slackware Linux|Fortune]
THINKING
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at cocktail parties. Now and then -- just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's. I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What exactly is it that we are doing here?"
One day the boss called me in to his office. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find employment elsewhere." This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking ..." "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" "But honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!" "That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door. I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors... They didn't open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground, clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "*Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?"* it asked.
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a Recovering Thinker.
I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I believe the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Today, I registered to vote as a Republican.
Scoble made the crashing declaration "I love the new MAX but..." citing several values that he found appealing in the new MAX. So I downloaded the beast to see it for my self. Very slick! Installed politely and started promptly -- indeed, wonderful graphics and very cool user interface.
And then the illusion began to crumble... Strange!!! None of the links worked. Mouse-over indicated that the system was 'alive' but nada, zip, zero, ziltch... yo no connecto [sorry, alliteration carried me away.] Seems that MAX suffers from a low level Microsoft condition: Proprietary-ism!
Yupper, just another example of Microsoft insisting, demanding, coercing, assimilating users into the Microsoft Blorg. Seems that MAX doesn't like to play nice when FireFox is designated as the default browser. I verified this by manually designating IE7 as the default and MAX started working like a charm[ing snake].
So, Microsoft has done it again. I will reset my browser default to FireFox and discard MAX. Simple as that. Seems like a HUGE amount of work on Microsoft's part, work well done to be simple shelved. But...I am just ambivalent about MAX.
