Mar

21

Third annual “Bring your Daughter to War” Day

Filed under Politics, Video | 2 Comments

The Onion News Network (ONN) has the following report.

And some good news out of Iraq.

US mititary commanders have announced that the third annual “Bring your daughter to war” day was a great success. Over fifteen thousand daughters to see first hand what goes into fighting a war. From rading homes in Basra to enforcing the am/pm curfew in Mosuul to interrogating prisoners in Tekreet.

(soldier) “So glad she came out here to see what I’m doing here all the time.”
(daughter) “There were lots of explosions, and uh, and uh, I saw a leg.”

……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CqpEacxdS0&rel=0

Posted by Merlin Silk - March 21st, 2008

Mar

18

The value of service to others

Filed under Philosophical | Leave a Comment

“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country.” (John F. Kennedy)

And he is not the only one who tries to pass on the idea that a person’s value is measured by the service he can give others. When looking into the world around me I can not help asking, if this is really correct.

Let’s first look at the money side. In this arena this certainly does not seem to be true. Here we often see the brutal and ruthless with the most wealth. I’m thinking about your local drug dealer, who certainly delivers a service, but it is not really a service that serves the recipient well in the long run. The boss of the that local drug dealer is the one that has the big car, and maybe the yacht in the next harbor down at the beach.

So, here we have monetary reward for rather destructive activity.

Next we can look at politics. Which is the most successful politician - the one who works for self determination of the people or the one who makes promises that he could never keep in order to gain personal power? Looking at the current situation where Ron Paul was the only voice that tried to get us back to some sanity and who was boycotted by the media urges me to assume that also in this arena the good service to the fellow man is not the one that’s rewarded.

Last point I want to look at is wooing. Yes, I know, it’s a bit weird, but I think it’s interesting to investigate this. Take two guys, one is the really nice guy, polite, considerate, opening-the-door kind of guy. The other is the athlete, totally in love with himself, self-centered and usually not very smart. Which one of those two gets the girl?

Do I come to the conclusion that the idea that serving others is of greatest value is plain wrong and only perpetrated by those who want to leech on those that believe this story?

No, I don’t think so. Despite all the examples I can observe outside of me, when I look inside and observe my feeling when I have done something nice for another person without any hidden agenda, it is no question where the real values are. Furthermore, it is often that we miss doing the good deed because of consideration that others might view us as week, opportunistic or worse. Once we get over that and really enjoy the true reward of the good deed, all that does not matter.

What we have gained, and that is the most valuable, is our freedom to choose, independent of the opinion of others, critical as well as supportive.

An in this spirit I present a picture showing service that is reward in itself, no need for an external gratification.

Serving the Princess

(Thanks, HD, for a little view into your daily life!)

Posted by Merlin Silk - March 18th, 2008

Mar

12

Embarrassing Election Spoiler from Diebold

Filed under Fun Stuff, Politics, Video | Leave a Comment

This one does not really need a comment…

Found at BrassCheckTV.

Posted by Merlin Silk - March 12th, 2008

Mar

12

Alfred Korzybski with eyes of Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler

Filed under Art, Thoughts, Video | 1 Comment

Bruce Kodish is writing the first full-length biography of Alfred Korzybski, author of “Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.”

He directed my attention to a post in his blog in which Korzybski contemplates the relative size of a city (Manhattan) and us puny humans. It is indeed fascinating that we with our small human bodies move so much mass - look at the immense masses of the whole of Manhattan that was piled up by these little ants that fill it’s street now with life.

In his post Bruce shows the following 1921 film Manhatta created by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler. I just love the work of Paul Strand and so I just had to post that video here as well…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NePhRIwzkfA&rel=0

One scene really drove it home for me how small we are really in relationship to the things we construct, and that was one worker swinging a sledge hammer and chipping off minor pieces of concrete. So little effect, but still, after many of these hammer swings - and some other actions I have to admit, a much bigger goal is reached. For me that was a great lesson what you can accomplish with perseverance.

I am still struggling with sizes changing with the distance - I had thoughts about this a few times when watching a big plane fly by. There are, from my vantage point, these very small units of life in this metal tube high up in the air. I am sure that they are not really aware how small they are, but they probably still take themselves very seriously.

No, I actually don’t have a point here, it’s just something I have not really understood yet - maybe you have an idea…

Posted by Merlin Silk - March 12th, 2008

Mar

4

Finally an explanantion of Starwars that makes sense

Filed under Fun Stuff, Video | Leave a Comment

This is one of these amazing black holes for time…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0&rel=0

so, let’s see - one and a half minutes times 4.1 million makes about 102,500 hours, which at 8 hour per working day comes to 13,000 workdays (calculating in some sick time), which at 210 working days per year (weekends, vacation, holidays) comes to about 60 man-years.

Quite some mayor project, wondering how this compares this to Microsoft Vista. Anybody with an idea how many man-hours went into Vista?

But if we really want to see those two side by side, then Vista is probably a much bigger time black hole in terms of wasted time.

To save you some time in watching the clip a few more times to get all the girl had explained to us, here is a transcript by SuperTrekNerd:

“Well. Well. Okay. The sand people capture robots and drive, and sell ‘em in a garage sale - kinda like a garage sale but except they’re selling robots. And no one’s gonna buy R2 and the shiny guy - the shiny guy always worries - Luke’s gonna buy those. And Obi Kenobi’s a kinda teacher. He’s teaching Luke how to learn how do to his little light-up-sword. He has to try to block the little pokie ball. He tried to do it without seeing. Obi Kenobi sometimes move things around, sometimes he disappears. Princess Leia got out a jail and out in the spaceship. And they got the big thing that blown up stuff, we blown it up together. It blown up Princess Leia’s planet. But don’t talk back to Darth Vader - he’ll get ya. It’s an exciting movie.”

And here somebody who really wanted to know and made it easier for all of us to remember what the girl was lecturing  on…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVyNnyLbcXM&rel=0

Now - how much time did I waste writing this blog post?

Huh, waste, schmaste - I had fun!

Posted by Merlin Silk - March 4th, 2008