Native american joke

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”

“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. “Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?”

“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “it’s going to be a very cold winter.”

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again.

“Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”

“Absolutely,” the man replied. “It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”

“How can you be so sure?” the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.”

Tower Defense Games

I’m a big fan of tower defense games. I’m not particularly gifted on this chapter but I really enjoy trying different tower placement strategies and such. Anyway there’s two tower defense games that I like way more than any other.

Starcraft 2 Tower Defense is much like the real Starcraft, but without all the hassle of gathering resources. It offers lots of carnage, and is also graphically very advanced. For instance, the terrans burst into an explosion of blood just like they do in the real games. Watching an almost endless row of terrans blowing up as soon as they reach your laser turrets is a real delight.

There is no story to Starcraft 2 Tower Defense, no different maps, just endless waves of enemies.

I reached level 38.

Kingdom Rush is placed in fantasy environment with monsters and dark knights and many other such creatures that want to sneak past your defense towers. What makes this game interesting is the tower that slows down enemies. It is actually a garrison that spawns soldiers that block the way and fight the incoming monsters. More than this, every ten seconds you get a reinforcement consisting of two peasants that you can place anywhere on the map. Money are gathered rather slow in Kingdom Rush, and therefore there’s not so many upgrades to be done. What keeps the player busy is spawning those two peasants every ten seconds.  It may not sound like much but it really gives a whole different pace to the game.

Happiness

Unul zice ca fericirea e refugiul celor mediocrii, iar mie imi cad dintii de stres si sunt tot mediocru.

Împotriva interpretării

Pentru o posibilă (sau mai degrabă certă) referinţă ulterioară, voi posta un punct de vedere foarte interesant legat de interpretarea operelor artistice. E un eseu teoretizat, cu referinţe inclusiv la filozofi greci, care susţine că: “We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.” În esenţă un slogan pe care l-am putea auzi şi de la un star de Hollywood cu dinţii albiţi.

Against Interpretation

by Susan Sontag

“Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It’s very tiny – very tiny, content.”

– Willem De Kooning, in an interview

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

– Oscar Wilde, in a letter

1

The earliest experience of art must have been that it was incantatory, magical; art was an instrument of ritual. (Cf. the paintings in the caves at Lascaux, Altamira, Niaux, La Pasiega, etc.) The earliest theory of art, that of the Greek philosophers, proposed that art was mimesis, imitation of reality.

It is at this point that the peculiar question of the value of art arose. For the mimetic theory, by its very terms, challenges art to justify itself.

Plato, who proposed the theory, seems to have done so in order to rule that the value of art is dubious. Since he considered ordinary material things as themselves mimetic objects, imitations of transcendent forms or structures, even the best painting of a bed would be only an “imitation of an imitation.” For Plato, art is neither particularly useful (the painting of a bed is no good to sleep on), nor, in the strict sense, true. And Aristotle’s arguments in defense of art do not really challenge Plato’s view that all art is an elaborate trompe l’oeil, and therefore a lie. But he does dispute Plato’s idea that art is useless. Lie or no, art has a certain value according to Aristotle because it is a form of therapy. Art is useful, after all, Aristotle counters, medicinally useful in that it arouses and purges dangerous emotions.

In Plato and Aristotle, the mimetic theory of art goes hand in hand with the assumption that art is always figurative. But advocates of the mimetic theory need not close their eyes to decorative and abstract art. The fallacy that art is necessarily a “realism” can be modified or scrapped without ever moving outside the problems delimited by the mimetic theory.

The fact is, all Western consciousness of and reflection upon art have remained within the confines staked out by the Greek theory of art as mimesis or representation. It is through this theory that art as such – above and beyond given works of art – becomes problematic, in need of defense. And it is the defense of art which gives birth to the odd vision by which something we have learned to call “form” is separated off from something we have learned to call “content,” and to the well-intentioned move which makes content essential and form accessory.

Even in modern times, when most artists and critics have discarded the theory of art as representation of an outer reality in favor of the theory of art as subjective expression, the main feature of the mimetic theory persists. Whether we conceive of the work of art on the model of a picture (art as a picture of reality) or on the model of a statement (art as the statement of the artist), content still comes first. The content may have changed. It may now be less figurative, less lucidly realistic. But it is still assumed that a work of art is its content. Or, as it’s usually put today, that a work of art by definition says something. (“What X is saying is . . . ,” “What X is trying to say is . . .,” “What X said is . . .” etc., etc.)

2

None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew (or thought one knew) what it did. From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art. We can only quarrel with one or another means of defense. Indeed, we have an obligation to overthrow any means of defending and justifying art which becomes particularly obtuse or onerous or insensitive to contemporary needs and practice.

Bucuresti – New York

1h la check in

1:45 pana la Varsovia

2:05 in Varsovia

9:25 pana in New York

1/2 h la check out

Si totul se repeta la intoarcere

TOTAL: 27 ore si 15 minute in care nu am voie sa spun nicio gluma cu bombe sau teroristi.

Update:  se pare ca niciodata nu e un moment bun pentru glume cu bombe si teroristi.

First Face Models

Ieri am intalnit o noua specie din categoria “indivizi care misuna prin piata romana”. E vorba de niste tigani care fac recrutari pentru  sesiuni foto platite cu cel putin 50 EURO pe ora. Stiu, nu e bine sa ai idei preconcepute de tipul “tiganii sunt hoti”, dar e bine sa casti ochii si urechile cand niste oameni umili si prost imbrcati iti promit castiguri mari fara munca. Daca aceasta specie va starneste curiozitatea si ii urmati pana in garsoniera agentiei First Face Models, veti putea casca ochii la o domnisoara inalta, blonda si cu ochi verzi. Domnisoară care (urmeaza un cliseu) vă vrea doar banii. Dupa spusele ei, fraierii care vor sa se umple de bani din promotii, sedinte foto, etc, trebuie intai sa cotizeze 50 de lei. Suma care constituie doar o prima taxa, si dupa care urmeaza altele. Eu i-am zis ca as vrea  sa ma informez intai cu privire la prestigioasa lor agentie de modele. Mi-a zis ca ori platesc pe loc, ori ii da locul altcuiva. Ca urmare eu i-am multumit frmos pentru sansa acordata, iar ea a plecat vijelios inainte sa apuc sa ma ridic. Nu-i nimic, am gasit si singur iesirea.

Robinetii functioneaza pe senzori

Asta imi aduce aminte de bancul ala:
Intr-o unitate de tancuri, unei grupe de proaspeti recruti li se prezinta pentru prima oara un tanc. Plutonierul comandant de grupa incepe sa le explice:
– Tancul este de tip T-55, fabricat in URSS, dotat cu un tun de 340 de mm. Are cineva vreo intrebare?
Nimeni nu intreaba nimic.

– Pe tanc se afla instalata o mitraliera, calibrul 20, rata de foc de 300 de gloante pe minut. Are cineva vreo intrebare?
Nimeni nu intreaba nimic.

– Tot pe tanc avem o statie de comunicatii radio, functioneaza in toate frecventele standard ale armatei romane. Are cineva vreo intrebare?

Un soldat ridica mina timid.
– Da, soldat, spune!
– Tovarase plutonier, statia radio e pe lampi sau pe tranzistori?
– Bai, pentru timpiti ca tine o sa repet: este pe tanc!

Pamflet politic

Mircea Geoană şi Traian Băsescu închină un pahar pentru alegătorii lor. Geoană pentru cei care depind de pomana electorală şi cei care au impresia că PSD-ul le dă căldură la bloc, iar Băse pentru cei care doresc un preşedinte necioplit, pentru că e mai “din popor”.

Dacă vă place posterul, va rog să comentati sau să va dati cu parerea. Daca ma injurati promit să nu va cenzurez.

Voteaza, ‘tu-ti categoria sociala!

Ce injuratura tampita, una de mama nu mergea? Nu, ca maica-ta are alte interese decat tine.

Nu ma refer la treburile cu blonda de la ASE sau cu tovarasu’ care face rost de iarba. Ai niste interese comune cu multi alti oameni – care fac parte din aceasi categorie sociala ca si tine. Ca student vreau un sistem de educatie performant, un camin calumea, burse (in strainatate) si sa-mi pot gasi un job dupa ce termin facultatea. Cam astea sunt interesele tuturor studentilor.

Teorie multa, plictiseala cititorului. Sa luam un caz nasol care se intampla in Romania. Avem:
1. Clasa de mijloc a bugetarilor: doctori, profesori, functionari publici, etc. Studii superioare, veninturi medii dar mai degraba mici, activi politic. Adica voteaza.
2. Clasa de mijloc a celor din sectorul privat. Adevarata clasa de mijloc, lucreaza in diverse companii sau multinationale – IT, advertising, banci, etc. Studii superioare si ei, venituri medii – pe bune medii, la nivel european. Bine informati si conectati cu realitatea de cacat, s-au scarbit repede de clasa politica pe care au “pedepsit-o” prin absenta la vot. Adica inactivi politic.

Acum, de bine de rau, bugetarii o duc bine . Guvernul s-a dat peste cap si a obtinut imprumuturi de la FMI ca sa le plateasca salariile (si pensiile, ca si batranii se duc la vot mai ceva ca la biserica). Asta e o m**e pentru cei din sectorul privat, ca ei o sa trebuiasca sa plateasca datoria externa. Asta cu datoria e deja horror, sa nu ne bagam acum.

Trecem la ceva mai chill, o sodomizare . A clasei de mijloc din sectorul privat. Cand guvernul trebuia sa duduie cu solutii anti-criza n-a facut nimic. Sau nimic bun, oricum. Dupa aia nici n-am mai avut guvern, dar nici ca a interesat pe cineva. Politicienii nostrii si-au vazut de combinatiile si invartelile lor, intarziind aiurea formarea unui guvern.

De ce si-au permis base si ceilalti sa le-o traga in chec celor din sectorul privat. Pentru ca acestia sunt, cum ziceam, inactivi politic. E ca si cum nu exista. Politicienii pot sa le-o traga oricum pentru ca nu se schimba cu nimic numarul lor de voturi.

Dar urmarile sodomizarii sectorului privat exista, o sa le simtit cu totii. Si asta pentru ca o categorie sociala nu voteaza. E vina lor, a celor care nu voteaza.

Vre-o 60% din populatie nu voteaza, ca “n-are cu cine”. Deci 60% din populatie are un interes comun: vor o noua clasa politica. De ce dracu nu-si sustin astia 60% interesul!? Mergeti si votati unu mic si necunoscut. Asta n-o sa schimbe cu nimic faptul ca un ‘DL’ist sau NL’ist sau SD’ist o sa iasa presedinte.

Dar mesajul vostru – ca vreti alti oameni – o sa fie clar. Nu o sa mai puteti fi ignorati. Votul vostru o sa incurajeze aparitia unei noi clase politice. Iar cacatii astia vechi o sa fie mai putin cacati ca sa va castige votul.

Deci mergeti si votati! Ce dracu, 60% pot sa faca legea.

Articol postat de fratele meu in simulatorul social eRepublik

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/voteaza-tu-ti-categoria-sociala-rl–1041469/1/20

Stephen Fry e comic si pe twitter

Stephen Fry este nebun. Doua dintre posturile lui pe twitter:

Preparing to fly back home. Do hope the BA cabin staff aren’t going to kick up a fuss again about my preference for sleeping in the nude.

 

Socks for specific feet. But I am SUCH a rebel. And there’s nothing Nike can do about it. Muahaha! http://twitpic.com/ororj