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 8 Oct 2005 @ 05:58, by judih. Ideas, Creativity
small warehouse
suddenly inside-out
voices that squirm within
shout without
abandon!
abundance dance dance in aisles and chairs
folding and unfolding
original origami - paper revealing new truths
howl going round the crowd More >
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8 Oct 2005 @ 01:13, by uncleremus. Altered States
Are you naturally amazing?
Have you been sent here from a distant dying solar system? More >
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7 Oct 2005 @ 17:37, by ming. Entrepreneurs, Money Making
Seems like Google didn't want to hire me after all. Well, it was a fun thought, and I wish I at least had gotten to the point where they'd fly me somewhere to see their operation. Or to where they gave me an offer I could or couldn't refuse.
I suppose, like most big companies, they have different people who look for candidates than who actually make the decisions. The first guy who called me was super positive, and seemed to be ecstatic about my background. They had basically a whole bunch of jobs of various kinds, in various locations, and I could pretty much pick. But then again, that was probably just the headhunter guy, who didn't decide anything.
Anyway, their approach is a series of interviews, which also are tests. I.e. they ask you lots of hard technical questions within what is supposed to be your area of expertise. And if that works out, they'd fly you to one of their headquarters, to spend a day talking to people and seeing what they're doing. And then they'd give you some kind of offer, if you survived the process.
So, I've spent several hours on the phone with them. Last call was a 45 minute interview on systems, with one of their systems managers of some kind. I'm pretty sure I aced that.
But then, a couple of weeks later, I just get a brief, one paragraph form letter e-mail from some different person than the guys I had been dealing with. Essentially: "Thank you for your interest in Google. After carefully reviewing your experience and qualifications, we have determined that there is not a fit."
I suppose they passed it on to the actual decision maker, who didn't like my resume. Or maybe he took one look at my blog, and decided, no way. Or he did a search on my name in Google, and found all sorts of weird stuff. I don't know.
Well, good, I can go on bitching about big corporations without having to censor myself because I work for one.
I would really have liked to figure out Google's well-guarded secrets, though.
And, curiously, a couple of hours after getting the e-mail from the guy, my one website I was having trouble with suddenly re-appeared in the Google index. Bing, traffic suddenly doubled. Makes me wonder if the guys at Google sit there with a whole picture of my Internet life on their screen while I'm talking with them. My gMail account, my Orkut friends list, my Blogger comments, my browsing patterns, my desperate pleas to Google support. Nah, probably just a coincidence. More >
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7 Oct 2005 @ 13:36, by swanny. Energy Sources
Well after 5 years without a car
I finally broke down and purchased
a "semi-solar car" .
It a conversion model and converts
some sunlight into 12 volt battery power
so I guess I'm doing my bit.
Its not much true but I had to wait quite
awhile until the technology came out.
I didn't really want to get back into that
scene without seein some constructive change.
I suppose I built my first solar log cabin
back in 1978 and then in about 2000
I bought my first solar watch and walla
now my first solar car....
well steady as she goes I suppose
carry on...
alfie More >
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5 Oct 2005 @ 14:13, by vector8. Spirituality
Last night on a bus ride home, this woman got on. She was carrying this long and flat package, at least it looked that way to me. The bus driver asked her whether it was a mirror and she said yes. He told her to be careful. She and her friend sat a few seats in front of me. At one point the driver stopped the bus and asked the lady to swap seats. He said "The mirror could fall on someone's head and injure someone." The woman stood for the rest of the journey. More >
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5 Oct 2005 @ 13:54, by poopac2222. Communities
Poor AmericaÂ… Let us not right it off as left behind a dead and backward placeÂ… It doesnÂ’t have to be a dustbin or should I say trash can a dumping ground for the spiritually impoverished the blind the sick of mind the apathetic; the patheticÂ…
I once envisaged a future where there were vast networks of communities: The Pockets Progression prevalent throughout rampant EuropeÂ… Like a beautiful cancerÂ… There were no laws only unspoken rules; few would break because to break was to cheat and to cheat the universe is to murder yourself to not play the game extracts you from the pact the intrinsic pact without which nothing is reversible without which we devoid ourselves of seduction; seduction of the universeÂ… This was happening in the future and the whole world was lapping it up they were all brimming and trusting and merging and free from fervent judgement of petty differenceÂ… all except America.
Poor America! I envisaged America to be the place where the dwellers consisted not souly but solely of those (anti-freaks) who refused to play the game: the ones still insisting on the value money the lost siblings the unshameless ones who cling whingeing to ornate stagnancy who bear the futile burden of judgement fervent disastrously disastrously disastrously free; free from the illusion of loveÂ…
I once envisaged a future where there were vast pockets of progression: Reality is a consequence of imaginationÂ…
More >
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 4 Oct 2005 @ 01:33, by ming. Business
I finally saw the movie The Corporation. I mentioned it previously here. It is a documentary about, well, corporations. Very well researched, about the history of the concept of the corporation, and about how (badly) corporations often end up behaving, following quite naturally from their foundation, from what they're defined as. In brief, a corporation is a legal person, but a person with often huge amounts of resources, and no need to answer to the same standards as regular humans. The obligation of the people who run a corporation is to make large and increasing amounts of money for the people who own it. They might be nice enough people on their own, but their job is simply to acquire as large profits as possible. It is quite harmonious with that aim to use child slave labor in foreign countries, or to let foreign armies eliminate protesters who object to the environmental record of their factories. Maybe not right, maybe not moral, but a corporation has no conscience. It luckily has some people running it, who sometimes have a conscience. But in itself it doesn't. So, if we evaluate a typical multi-national corporation as if it were a person, it would fit every criterion for being a psychopath. It can continously get away with all sorts of irresponsible and destructive behavior. Yes, it might get fined, somebody might get fired, somebody might even go to jail, but those are just expenses and minor inconveniences. The corporation itself typically goes on. Unless it somehow fails to make profits.
Another enlightening aspect is the economic concept of externality. It is basically when a business makes a decision that causes costs (or possibly benefits) to be incurred outside that particular organization. You make it somebody else's problem, essentially. For example, a corporation might cause heavy wear and tear on certain public roads, but might let the local city government bear the costs of that. Or it might pollute, and let somebody else worry about that. Or it might let some army clear the way for its oil business, or remove people who were standing in the way of their business. Externalities can be great for a company's bottom line, making great profits, but at high costs elsewhere. So that when we add up the total accounting, it is anything but a beneficial and profitable activity. I.e. it causes much more damange or uses many more resources than what good comes out of it.
It doesn't have to be that way. The movie provided some bright spots, although not all that many. Business leaders might start thinking differently, and some do. Thinking about how to run a sustainable business, where what they do actually is beneficial, also when we count the external influences.
Interestingly I saw the movie in a local business college. One of the professors had persuaded the school to purchase the movie, so she could show it to students. Which obviously would be rather controversial, as that's a place where students are taught to do exactly the kinds of things the movie warns against. But change starts by being conscious of what is going on, of course. And, most likely, corporations will change to the degree that somebody figures out a way for it to be profitable to be sustainable and ethical. More >
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3 Oct 2005 @ 11:00, by swanny. Recreation, Fun
Are we just a bunch of gutless mixed up kids,
or are we mice?
Being Civilizied pretty much means you try
to hit the hole when you pee. More >
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 3 Oct 2005 @ 08:18, by jazzolog. Ideas, Creativity
Everything you learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe; not even the suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.
---R. Buckminster Fuller
People born into this floating world
Quickly become like roadside dust:
At dawn, little children,
By sunset, white-haired and old,
With no inner understanding
They struggle without cease.
I ask the children of the universe,
Why do you bother to pass this way?
---Ryokan
We are all many persons. Some of these people we know and others we don't---only someone else knows them. Some of these people we like and some of them we don't like....All of this is music; it is the music of our lives if we could only stop and listen. Music doesn't have any meaning; you can't explain it. Eating a meal doesn't have any meaning, either, but if there's no eating there's no life, and if we don't hear music we can't dance. This is our practice---to eat our meals and clean up; to dance to the music of our lives, each one in our own way, and then die when it's time.
---Norman Fischer
The painting by Marshall Arisman was done for an issue of Time magazine on violent crime, and can be seen online here [link]
What follows are some accompanying notes to a CD I've been assembling and creating essentially as a gift for an old friend whose birthday is fast approaching. Now I think I'll make a few more copies to send out to friends who might be interested. (Let me know if you'd like one.) The reason I decided to publish the notes like this is Mr. Arisman, whom you'll meet, is being honored with a retrospective of recent paintings later this month and continuing through December at the Brooklyn Lyceum (details at his website the link to which is in the text below). I didn't know that when I wrote this, but it does seem like a good opportunity to advertise the exhibition as repayment of the many gifts of his friendship. It looks as if the opening will be October 22nd, and I certainly wish I could be there. If you'll be in the New York area the next few months, you may want to get down to Brooklyn. And if you see Marshall, tell him "Philly Joe says Hello."
************************************************************** More >
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2 Oct 2005 @ 19:08, by ming. Recreation, Fun
I'm tired of writing postings about how difficult it is to blog when I haven't done it a while, so I'll try to refrain from that.
In the meantime, my blog is still the command center for a bunch of Philippine treasure hunters, it seems. More than 30 comments a day on that one post. They seem to be busy. If they'd just give me a percentage of all the gold they seem to be close to digging up, I'd be fine.
Anyway, I've just been busy. And a bit more introverted, I suppose.
One thing that has happened since last post is that Google seems to want to give me a job. Which is sort of unexpected, and a bit ironic, after I had a bit of problem with one of my sites disappearing from Google recently. So, getting a job in the Google engineering department that handles that kind of thing would be intriguing. I don't know. A Google headhunter guy contacted me out of the blue, and they seemed to like my broad background. I'm going through their series of interviews and tests, etc, and we'll see what happens. I didn't really have in mind having a job job, but if it should be, then Google certainly wouldn't be the worst place to work. Except for that they don't exactly have an office in Toulouse. Dublin or Zürich are their EU locations. None of which are places I particularly was attracted to.
Otherwise life is pretty normal. My daughter Nadia started in first grade. CP, Cours Préparatoire, it is called here. She already knew most of the kids and speaks fluent French, so no problem there. My son Zachery has started in a new high school, geared towards civil engineering, which is 100km from here, so he stays there during the week, and comes back in the weekend. Which was a bit traumatic for him at first, but it seems it will work out well for him. My daughter Marie-Therese starts on the second year of her cooking school education this week. More >
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