Ma surprind cum reusesc sa parcurg/ sa consum atat de multa informatie fara sa citesc prea mult. Scanez texte, poze in cateva minute si asta ma ingrijoreaza. Dupa ce parcurg mii de feeduri in cateva minute si imi dau seama ca nu am ramas cu nimic, decat cu niste idei superficiale despre probleme sau subiecte pe care ar fi fost foarte interesant sa le aprofundez, raman cu un gust amar in gura. Pe langa febra musculara a degetului care clickaie neincetat pentru ca eu sa descopar noi povesti. Pe care nu o sa le citesc oricum.
O sa incerc sa citesc mai mult. Poate si sa scriu mai putin.
Care e modul in care interactionati cu colegii vostri? Sunteti stimulati sa va auto-perfectionati? Raspundeti la cateva astfel de intrebari (dureaza cel mult 2 minute) pentru a ajuta la schitarea mediului de lucru din companiile romanesti. Linkul: http://www.hostedsurvey.com/takesurvey.asp?c=Climatcolaborare
Proeictul ii apartine Sarei Bocaneanu si rezultatele vor fi facute publice de indata ce vor fi procesate.
This is a fact I come to understand since I am in the Internet business. The web is so damn simple: links, graphics and interconnected systems that everyone thinks s/he can master. But simple doesn’t mean easy. On the contrary. Think of the evolution, the time-space continuum etc. The theories are so simple and effective but so damn hard to use effectively.
It might sound like such an easy to see statement….. a simple thing. But really making decisions based on this is not that easy.
A fellow blogger asked me some months ago about my views on the educational system. Long story short… I believe that today’s schools are almost useless and the whole system is rotten. Why?
Teaching facts is stupid nowadays. When each and every person has access to information. The Internet made this possible. I believe that you can find more about the history of ancient Greece from Wikipedia than from every textbook available in todays school. What should then teachers do in the classrooms? They should focus on teaching kids on how to organize information and how to consume the stuff that they are running across. I remember how my dad, a high school history teacher, once told me how a girl made an essay on the greatest savior in the history: Mao. She found a website about the this great leader.
It is not only about facts. Remember all those boring physics lessons? I totally hated them. And I bet that we own most of todays inventions to Star Trek influence. The same we own past innovations in physics, chemistry or geography to Jules Verne’s books. And I believe that what a teacher should do before assigning homeworks is to seed some dreams and inspiration. To incite the interest! How about watching “300” instead of teaching a boring greek-persian war?
Tests are useless. National test, school-leaving examinations etc. I am not saying that competition is not healthy but that all of these imposed standardized subjects are not helping anybody. All these tests have been adopted to benefit an early industrialized capitalist society in search for a standardized employes. But that is all gone now.
But competition is good. So a good idea is to have contest on a variety of niche subjects, where students should submit their projects. For example it would be very cool to have a computer games creation competition, where teams submit their electronic games creation in order to compete. I believe that the winners will need no high grades to get hired or to start a company and get seed funding.
But things will not change the way they should. It will probably be our generation to make these changes when they will be quite obsolete.
Great Obama speech after Super Tuesday primary elections! Check it out:
See how he speaks about his voters and not about him. Genius! My favorite quotes: We don’t need the final results to know that our time has come This time can be different. Because this campaign is different. Not because of me. But because of you. In the unlikely story of America, there has never been anything false about hope. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek!
E trist cand oameni pe care ii respecti te dezamagesc. Si astazi Andrei Plesu m-a dezamagit. Cu un articol care m-a lasat cu gura cascata. In Dilema Veche. Dee… Si monstrii sacri mai gresesc cateodata.
Care e problema? Domul Plesu porneste articolul amintind la randu-i de un om pe care il respecta si care l-a dezamagit, Helmut Schmidt, fostul cancelar al Germaniei Federale. Este dezamagit ca un om de calibrul lui Schmidt are un discurs care demasca religia ca un factor principal al rasismului, razboaielor si al incalcarii drepturilor omului. Afirmatii cu care eu sunt intru-totul de acord dar care domnului Plesu i se par in cel mai bun caz “colecţie de platitudini, simplificări şi falsuri”. OK zic! Sa vezi acum argumentatie de la maestrul Plesu!
Si cand colo ce sa vezi! Domnul Plesu invoca, ce-i drept in cuvinte cat se poate de frumos inchegate, valorile crestine. Valorile crestine? Acesta este un termen pe cat de folosit pe atat de prost definit? Ce este morala crestina? Cu ce e mai moral un crestin decat un budist sau un ateu ca mine? Am fost curios de meandrele ascunse ale acestui termen inca din liceu, cand imi facea o mare placere sa-mi tachinez profesorii de religie cu intrebari dificile. Raspunsurile erau de o mediocritate si o stupizenie infantila: dragostea de aproape, mantuirea, cele 10 porunci sau iubirea dusmanului, invocata si de Andrei Plesu! Am o veste pentru toti iubitorii valorilor crestine: si eu imi iubesc aproapele, si eu incerc sa respect cele 10 porunci sau sa fiu un om bun, atat cat ma duce capul. Cat despre iubirea dusmanului: nu o sa-mi iubesc dusmanul sau o sa-i intorc si celalat obraz pentru ca …. e o idiotenie. Cata falsitate si perversitate poate sa fie in aceasta bruma de filozofie “mioritica” (as in Miorita). Ma apuca rasul cand aud aceasta pilda spusa de Papa in conditiile in care atunci cand cineva spune ceva de Isus (tineti minte “Viata lui Brian”) sare cu fundul in sus si cere cenzurare/ razbunare/ daune morale etc. Orice numai sange sa fie! Dar ce? Musulmanii nu sunt si ei niste dusmani pe care trebuie sa-i iubim? Ne arunca un turn in aer… sa le mai dam inca unul ca sa fie 2 ca in povestea cu Isus. Ce zici Bush? Te bagi? ….Ca te vad mare credincios!
Inca o veste pentru domnul Plesu. Confucius, Budha si restul chiar nu pot fi considerati religiosi. Dovada: cultele infintate de ei sunt mai mult niste sisteme de valori etice decat religii. Iar in majoritatea cartilor si definitiilor noi, budismul ,spre exemplu, apare definit ca “o colectie de invataturi care e clasificata de unii ca religie”. Ca Budha sau Confucius au avut experiente mistice nu poate fi negat. Dar nu confundati religia si credinta intr-o fiinta superioara cu misticismul!
Si de ce darwinismul nu e corect politic? Spune domnul Plesu : “Cum să pui omul la rînd cu maimuţele?” Oh my God! Asta e argument de 2008? Parca ar fi un citat din pledoaria preotului din “Procesul maimutelor”, nu din Andrei Plesu.
Have you read Freakonomics? If you didn’t ….you should. It is a fascinating book especially if you consider yourself to be a rational person. Here is my favorite quote from the book:
Emotion is the enemy of rational argument. And as emotions go, one of them – fear – is more potent than the rest.
If is kinda true and I bet you find it rather obvious. But I am still fascinated how people make decisions based on emotions…. and how fear is the basis of so many actions. Actually the fascinating part is how people are afraid of the wrong things. People were more more afraid of Earth being hit by a big meteorite but not really interested in global warming. Although the chance of being hit by a meteorite vs global warming is insignificantly small. And after a movie and some well crafted articles they are now afraid of the global warming. Which is again an emotional behavior because ranking our toughest problems not on any moral scale but simply by how effectively they can be solved, climate change doesn’t rank to well (TED video on this subject).
Freakonomics authors have some explanations on why this happens:
Lack of control is what makes people scared or stressed. People are petrified of dying from bird flu but not o much on heart strikes caused by obesity…. because “you can always loose some weight and be fine”.
Long term danger vs short term dangers. Smoking will clearly kill you … but it will take many years. However dying in a airplane crash I bet horrifies you. But if you look at this fear statistically you will discover that millions are dying from lung cancer vs a few hundreds from plane crashes.
Familiarity counts also. How can you be afraid from a burger, or a cigaret? What about a gun ….. different story.
Same topic different song. Faithless with Mass Distruction:
Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you’re Soaraway Sun or BBC 1
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruct
You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization Fear is a weapon of mass destruction
The blog had no sex appeal to me anymore. I didn’t know what to write any more. That’s not because I didn’t had things to report but because I found that most of my experiences are not holding any value for you, my reader. So I didn’t write for a long period of time.
But a week ago, in one of my quiet moments I was thinking about ways to organize all the information that I am coming across. I read a lot lately. And not only business books. And I am coming across fascinating ideas each day, whether I find them in a book or see interesting events on the street. And the problem is I forget most of these things…. which makes me very very angry. I also started to dismiss all the means of hierarchical categorization: folders, files, electronic storage etc….. I find it pretty lame to make a note and add it to a folder hoping I will read it again later. I never will because more interesting things come along every day.
By why not blog about it? Blog seems to me a good way to think even deeply about a subject that caught my interest. And sharing thoughts seems to me more important than sharing events. Not to mention I get your input whenever you agree or disagree with what I am saying. Pretty cool: blog about my meaningful discoveries.
Some days ago I watched a very interesting movie called Peaceful Warrior, an adaptation after a book by Dan Millman. A scene of the movie really made me push pause and think about it for a few seconds. Dan, the main character, walks into a a car-service station where he meets the man who will change his life. He calls him “Socrates”. After some cheap talk Socrates cautions Dan: “You fail to understand the subtle difference between knowledge and wisdom”. Dan responds very arrogantly: “I know more than you think. And I will prove it to you….Ask me anything!”. After a few seconds Socrates pops up the question: “Are you happy? ….. You told me I could ask you anything.”
This brings me to my question: What makes you happy? Is it a new car, the race to the million dollar fortune, a beautiful woman/man, a bigger house…. ? If you do… you can not be happy. And I am not the one to say that. Check out this video from TED, where Dan Gilbert pretty much proves in a very scientific way how choice is the primary source of sadness, or the nemesis of happiness.
The main thing I discovered lately and the thing that influenced the way I behave lately is that beauty is all around you…. and you have so many reasons to be happy every day…. Remember the ending scene of American Beauty (YouTube Video)? The main character reflects on the overwhelming beauty in the world while a plastic bag dances in the wind: “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”
But can you and I be happy without 1 million dollars? Can you stay in line bearing the horrible Bucharest traffic and be truly thankful about it? I believe we can all be. And it doesn’t involve crack
I try being a perfectionist. Not only in my job related task. How many times did you took pleasure in preparing your morning coffee? Coffee is more than just mixing some coffee with hot water. I wash the cup carefully, pour the coffee slowly and then perfectly place the cup on the plate. Sounds like cheap Japanese philosophy (remember Mr. Miyagi) but…… it isn’t (That’s the type of argument than you can only find on a blog).
I take a few minutes off every day. How many minutes a day do you reserve for thinking? Or how some put it ….. without doing anything? Just you and your thoughts. No TV permanently turned on, no RSS feeds, no iPod music when you are commuting from point A to point B. And no Tweeter! Just you and yourself! I try it every day and it is mind blowing. Next step for me is to figure out the meditation thing.
Let go of God. I don’t want to offend anybody but here is how I see it: You don’t need an imaginary friend to make your life meaningful. Without God you will see “a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of “humility.” This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.” (Einstein)
Kmbio is a little app that lets you see the euro-dollar-leu exchange rate … in REAL TIME. Kmbio is open for exchange offices that want to show their rates in the system. Little useful app. My review on DGeneration blog.
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