Ramblings

Amazing Young Guitar Player

A lovely breeze in the carpark.

Managing different professional streams and the individuals within those streams or silos is a major challenge for all administrators. The notion of herding cats is an old one but now you can visualise it on YouTube.

It is clear that social networking is here and is ready to consume any lasting minutes of the day you might have had prior to Digg, My Space and Blogger appearing. The evolution of weblogs from cute little lists recording where you traveled on the World Wide Web has given way to gigantic networks of ‘in touch’ networks on Twitter, Facebook, Virb and many other sites. The old way of surfing the ‘net is now way behind ( and a lot of older surfers have been left there as well ).

If one is lost you should not feel alone. There are now two groups of individuals - those who follow and those who are followed. If you are “followed” then those who are not media celebrities will feel a brief surge of celebrity endorphines - and like a good addict will seek out more and more - but if you are a follower you are probably just as lonely as you were before encountering this new wave of innovation but now have the added joy(?) of watching the outspoken and the outlandish become celebs as a consequence of your interest.

Podcasts appear to be the new glue that brings these innovations to light. The worlds of Leo Laporte , Amber McCarthy , Jason Calacanis, John C. Dvorak intermingling with those of Dragon page, Farpoint Media and new comers such as the Virgin Worlds collective bring an expanding hive of commonality of thought and experiences. Listen to a Slice of SciFi podcast and you hear on one episode authors such as Scott Sigler speaking and then while listening to a ‘tech’ podcast on say Twit or NetatNight you bump into him again as he is a pioneer of book podcasting. Everyone starts to know everyone in this emerging nation. Some of these networks are actually bigger than many nations.

This world is exciting, dynamic and runs every hour of every day yet there is an ephemeral nature to it that is hard to describe. When you listen, twitter or ’readblog’ these sites you feel you get to know these individuals yet you never meet them. It can even be a little unsettling when you see them in videocasts as often audio lets your mind attach an image that is often way out of synch with the start video reality. Balding, obese, web geeks are more than often the reality yet their voices often raise images of young, vital and dynamic soles blasting their way through the internet universe. More power to them.

I will write more on these observations over time - that is assuming I get time as I need to feed the dozen or so webmouths that this Web2.0 world thrusts on to my screen. Damn you Leo!

Till next time.

Dajuroka Down Under.
 

GEN-CON Australia is coming to Brisbane!!!
03-06 July 2008
More Later.

- “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”
- “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
- “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
- “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
- “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
- “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
- “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
- “Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”
- “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z.
Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
- “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
- “Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical
equation stands forever.”
- “…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
- “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
THAT’S relativity.”

- “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
- “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
- “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
- “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
- “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
- “Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak
minds.”
- “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
- “No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to
explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a
biological phenomenon as first love?”
- “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable
superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we
are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
- “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way
of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of
mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
- “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from
mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does
not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly
and courageously uses his intelligence.”
- “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom
this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
- “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of
me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics,
know that the distinction between past, present, and future is
only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
- “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.
You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los
Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly
the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there.
The only difference is that there is no cat.”
- “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest…
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion
is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
the whole of nature in its beauty.”

- “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
- “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
- “I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.”
- “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”
- “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
- “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
- “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
understanding.”
- “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is
comprehensible.”
- “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and
I’m not sure about the the universe.”
- “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and
Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
- “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but
World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
- “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must,
above all, be a sheep.”
- “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can
be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)