Posts Tagged reflection
Beauty unrecognized
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on February 23rd, 2009
Ever wonder what would happen if you took a renowned artist and put him to work an environment where he’s least expected? Would this artist still be the recipient of the recognition that society bestows him when put in the proper limelight? These are some of the questions that reporters at the Washington Post asked themselves almost two years ago when they devised a little experiment to test what would happen in such a case. The results were, unfortunately, not surprising. Read the rest of this entry »
Bettering…
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on January 3rd, 2007
OK so that previous post was a bit laim. I admit it, I just had a brain fart and felt the urge to post something - anything really - just so that I could say : “I’ve posted something”. I’ll better myself. Starting right now.
Although I have not taken to any New Year resolutions - whatever my better half may have hoped for - I do feel the need to better myself a little in regards to this blog. Besides my wife, family and 1 or 2 other people this blog has been the longest standing relationship I’ve had with anything in my life. Lately, and the measure is broad, my relationship with it has been shaky to say the least.
If postings were a measure of the health of my relation with the blog we’d be in real trouble. Postings have become few and far between dropping to an all time low of less than a dozen over the past year. Driven by a general reluctance to posting anything which could make a blimp on my ego-meter, an all too busy work and home schedule and you’ve got yourself the desert of thought this space has been over the last year or two. Perhaps these are just excuses though – it might very well be that I just had nothing to report which I though was share-with-the-world worthy.
Perhaps the right question to ask is who I believe the target audience for this blog to be. Mulling this over I have to admit that there have been a number of times in the past when I’ve started writing and simply aborted. Concern for who might actually read the post-to-be was a killer: “Would a colleague read it? Some have my personal email address and thus might stumble across the domain! What about family? do I want them to read my deep dark thoughts? Etc. etc.” Solving the audience question appears to be part of the solution for my relationship with this blog. Being true to my audience, not caving in to the influence of others – perceived or otherwise – will also have an enormous bearing on the quality of the relation.
So there we have it. A start of a new year. Who are you?
The blogging thing
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on September 16th, 2005
The Register, a respected if sometimes satirical news site for the IT world, recently ran a story covering Google’s specific search tools for Blogs. Most of the article was quite informative - as one would expect. Its coverage of indexing issues in a blog infested world was to the point and even enlighting. Reporting on the outrage of some bloggers at being given a specific subset of Google may even have been appropriate. Yet in the midst of the article I stumbled upon this:
“… There’s a case to be made for Weblogs as the most anti-social software yet devised. No wonder they’re so popular with egotists, as the right to speech without consequences reaches its apogee on the web soap box. Compared to bulletin boards, or group discussions, there’s no one to temper the conversation, or steer it to more useful outcomes. There is a lot of posturing, however, in this fragmented world of a Million Nation States of One. And as anyone who has tried to follow “the conversation” across dozens of fragments can confirm, it’s the antithesis of coherent discussion. So it’s revealing that one site which started as a weblog, and dropped the restrictive format in favor of editorial control and a Slashdot-style system, has become a runaway success: DailyKos” …
I do not disagree with the opinion set forth. Weblogs are inherently anti-social in nature. I do however object to foundation of the arguement - that a weblog should be social in nature and thefore bear the burden of checks-and-balances. In Freudian terms I do not believe that the Over-I (das Uberich) necessarily should be taken for granted, or even expected, in blogworld.
The very origin of a Blog is a extremely personal in nature. A Blog is in essence a public web site where a person posts informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies. If one accepts this to be true, then by definition this media is not meant to be sociable. A blog in this sense is a personal journal, in the traditional sense, but kept online, in publicly accessible space.
In my eyes the more interesing question then becomes: “why would one make publicly available private thoughts if not to undergo the scutiny of others?”
It has often been said that it is human nature to pry. In psychology, a parrallell can be laid with the “keyhole complex”, the need to know or assist what no one could ever assist, the moment of their own creation. That being said, perhaps it is not completely unthinkable that some of us like to be peeped in on - just look at the number of “stars” out there that tip off the papparazzi themselves.
Could it be that a good proportion of the blogs, at least at some level, exits to satisfy the need of some to be exposed and others to read the forbidden?
Big three oh
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on June 13th, 2005
So I’m 30 years old now. I suppose that makes me part of the “adult” crowd. Weepeee :-)
Seriously now. Today is a day of reflection of sorts. As I look back it does feel like I got my stuff together, the wife, the apartment, the kid, the car - albeit due for replacement but I’m working on that - and soon a new job….
While life at the moment is pretty stressful - I’ve got some big projects due soon - I can’t help but feel some sense of satisfaction with my current situation. Things feel like they’re falling into place. Such reflection also makes you think how you got where you are in the first place. For this I’d like to thank Maya, my wife. Without her I certainly would not be where I am today. Thank you honey.
O yeah the shameless plug: wanna buy my love?
BadSoda.com Anniversary
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on August 4th, 2003
I can’t believe it’s been a year already since this site was first launched. What has been going on all this time? It seems like a blur right now but lucky me: I’ve got a blog! Like a trusted friend it’ll tell me everything I already forgot by now.
Bagdad Cafe
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on July 16th, 2003
Here’s a little piece of interesting news. While channel surfing last night I paused on a documentary about Bagad Cafe, the coffieshop made famous by the movie of the same name.
To my astonishment the closing of the documentary said that the place was for sale, the owner being close to retirement. They apparently even took out an advert in “Le Monde” a French newspaper to give the sale international exposure. How about that. Anyone up for buying a shack in the middle of the desert?
Unfortunately I was unable to verify any of this through online sources.
Fiction at Kuro5hin
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on April 11th, 2003
I just came across a nice piece of fiction over at Kusro5hin. The storyline is set in a not so distant future relaying a “tranche de vie” of an undescript knowledge worker. We follow him as his daily routine suddenly gets jarred by events outside his control. It is well written and leaves much to the imagination. I especially like that, the author sets a framework but does not load you down with details leaving your imagination running wild.
Here’s a little taste:
T.E.U. (Fiction)
The bump was enough to spill a small quantity of his drink.
He reached over to the table, close at hand in such a confined space, and picked up a napkin. He carefully blotted up the spill, avoiding the printouts strewn across the desk.
As he opened the trash panel and threw the napkin in, it belatedly occurred to him that the bump had been unusually strong. He frowned, then checked his watch. Time for a break anyway. Time to play his favorite mental game–where, exactly, was he?
By adamba - read more…
Trouble
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on April 10th, 2003
You should know something is wrong when you stand outside a grocery store waiting for it to open in the hope of finding that latest chocolate-sprinkled dessert for which you saw an advertisement the night before.
Humor
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on March 23rd, 2003
Earlier this week I received a humorous mail from Tomas:
“You know the world is going crazy when:
- The best rapper is a white guy.
- The best golfer is a black guy.
- And Germany doesn’t want to go to war.”
And the world is going crazy. By all accounts. In a few days we will probably hear that the economies of the world are once again coming to a grinding halt as their populations sit at home, glued to their cathode tube, like mosquitos drawn to a blue night light on a hot summer’s eve .
Strip the news broadcasts, downplay the importance of the event and the world would continue to go round as if nothing happened.
… Wait a minute, isn’t that what happens most of the time? How many countries are currently at war? What atrocities do we simply not care about? What is the situation in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Columbia, ….