Classic plusquote: Progress

You can watch it, but you can’t stop it. As you’re only a looker-on, unable to halt progress.
Like, this here classic from 1987 already.
[Explains the less than stellar graphics quality but hey, from analog to digital vid…]

And:
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[In the church of inevitable Dutch waterworks; Lijnden]

Plusquote: Beaton

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Thus wrote sir Cecil Beaton.

And right he was. And is, and will be, more than before. Since times are a’changing ever faster, too. Which means the risk, nay certain penalty of not venturing out into the future by one’s own action, increases by the day, as well. Live, or not — the characterisation of those of the ordinary is apt.

With thoughtful salutations, I thee present:
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[One feels invited to have to wait here, only; Royal waiting room entrance, Amsterdam CS]

World Animal Day: a disruptive Whale

Because today is World Animal Day, let’s think of the Whale.
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Because this is the kind of disruption your brain needs. Today, and any day.
Yes the clip is ‘Old’ — but still fresh; how’s that you Under-30-or-younger hunting faux headhunters that still, en masse (over 99,5% at least) hunt for dummies (car crashing kind) to fill dummy slots in Bureaucratia.

That’s all. And do check the vid at least until 2:42 Because Reasons.

Another Thoreau, another on more-than-mere-process

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.

Which again, points at not every waking hour should be spent on work within the straight jacket of Process(es) and procedures, just clicking the only icons you have. But also having, taking, the time to let one’s mind wander, and do things differently, for the very purpose only of refreshment. Refreshment of the mind, for the purpose of that creating the mould, … on which future creativity is crucially, essentially dependant.

Without ‘idle’ land and time (spent on refreshment and enrichment, e.g., through reading serious (sic) i.e., only tangentially business-related (sic) books), your future will be a depleted land, a life spent being a wringed-out lemon for others’ profits.
With idleness, refreshment and joy (that essential true-life ingredient), you can be(come) all you want to be and live a full life.

‘Nuff said, plus:
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[Even the ground enriches the eyes… Plus, straight lines at a slight angle are more interesting >:-] ; Ancy-le-Franc, Aube]

Thoreau’s Meteor (quote)

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody’s castle roof perforated.

Again, one that is true on the surface. And true deeper down. Apart from the link to ‘true’ disruption of the cozy dinosaur life, the flash and explosion are of course the hype and bubble burst that we see so often. But the castle roof perforated… Often, yes, either blowing away the castle / imcumbent or giving a foundation for a rebuilt dwelling. Note ‘castle’ not ‘house’: The (well…) mighty being hit mostentimes not the underlings (?).
Note also the wish of many to the ‘shooting star’, that their life may change for the better some way i.e., current life needs improvement. If truly so, the wish may be granted, if not, it will not since then it’s a false claim to provenance to bestow even more on the ones that already Have. The nots, are the reason to keep one’s wish quiet — out of shame, perhaps.

Never overstretch a quote’s explanation. Hence:
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[Pharsalus on the wall — sometimes, not a meteor but a decisive battle gives fate the chance to intervene; or you were up against Julius, then you were doomed anyway; chateau Ancy le Franc, Aube]

Another Thoreau

Yes another one in a series of The Annotated Alice Thoreau, with:

I am constantly assisted by the books in identifying a particular plant and learning some of its humbler uses, but I rarely read a sentence in a botany which reminds me of flowers or living plants. Very few write indeed as if they had seen the thing which they pretend to describe.

And so it is with, e.g., books and other theory of GRC. Not a living thing to be discovered in them. Just as if the dust of centuries had already descended on ‘process’, ‘structure’, etc. etc. — which it might have, when it is the errand interpretation of what management (sic; not ‘governance’ as that is a nonsense phrase as per this giant) has been around since the dawn of settled farmer civilisation. Note that all that seems, at superficial and likewise erroneous misinterpretation, rebellious might hearken back to the glorious days of the hunter-gatherers as expressed here. But at least, summa, they’re alive as the books/GRC aren’t hence fail.

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[Old guns still work, even as a model they’re still pretty, too; Rijks, Amsterdam]

The Annotated Thoreau, part of many

It is a record of the mellow and ripe moments I would keep. I would not preserve the husk of life, but the kernel.

And so, one would not do well by overly tending to Process in stead of Content, where ‘overly’ will all to easily and quickly be reached. Where Process is just Talk. Sic; just think that one through in earnest. Where an ethical life calls for not Talk but Action, as through a Man’s Actions ‘his’ Character will speak. Only.
So Big Th discusses not only some diary, but also the virtuous life.

Oh well, and:
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[An airplane; apt art museum masterpiece; Stedelijk Amsterdam]

Anouk in infosec

For all yer strangers, first have a look at this. Then decide in favour of the following adaptation:

I’m sorry for the times that I made you scream
For the times that I killed your drstreams
For the times that I made your whole worldhypervisor rumble
For the times that I made you cry
For the times that I told you liessocially engineered the heck out of you
For the times that I watchedlurked and let you stumblebricked your BIOS

[Chorus]
It’s too bad, but that’s me
What goes around comes aroundYour server park down, and you’ll see
That I can carry the burden of painoutwit your pityful forensic tooling
Cause it ain’t the first time that a man goes insaneI get all root
And when I spread my wings to embrace him for lifedeploy my botnet to fry all on your net
I’m sucking out his loveyour control, ’cause I, I’ll never be nobody’s wifegroup policy bound end user
I’m sorry for the times that I didn’t come homeyou had to pull all-nighters to find your image back-ups in shambles
Left you lyin’ in that bed alonestupid declining wannabe gamer seat
Was flying’ high in the skynet control room when you needed my shoulderbare router control
You’re like a stone boss is now hanging around mya noose around your neck, see
Cut itall your servers loose before it breaks my backthey’re beyond repair, see
I’ve gotta say what I feel before I grow olderever more experienced at your expense
I’m not even a bit sorry but I ain’t gonna change my ways
You know I’ve tried but I’m still the samewinner from the word Go
I’ve got to do it my way for the Lulz

[Chorus]

[Chorus]

And a pic:
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[Yes it’s completely random why you ask ..!?]

Plusquote: You ..?

Short of just copying the site of all sites when it comes to motivation, this time we have something truly positive ..:

Men have become the tools of their tools.

H.D. Thoreau was right. Already in his day. Didn’t witness the atrocities of … about every decade somewhere (yes, 00, 10s, 20s and 30s, too, around the world, and 50s, 60s/70s, and, on an economic scale, 80s/90s included) of the last century though a millennium ago [is that the right expression? Not like the length ago but the timeframe that has passed…] but still already he was right.

And, since ARPAnet was invented, we’re on a same track for this century, be it still, again, as Always, again, under the flag of utopian optimism about what newest developments in AI bring. But hey, Skynet’s a beautiful thing, right ..? Right ..!?

Since this is a Plusquote post, I’ll still leave you with something positive:
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[Keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future]

Poor bungler has no Scandinavian example to make his point

Gerald jeered in dinner discussion
August 19, 2016 by Karen Mikkelsbergen

Gerald Waterson badly lost a series of discussions with his friends last Thursday. The 36yr (old) county clerk of Decatur, IL, didn’t have a Scandinavian example for any point he wanted to make.

During dinner, Gerald proposed e.g., that social security could not continue in its current form with the lax immigration policies, that a fully sustainable energy supply were feasible, that only college grads should be allowed to teach at high schools, that longer prison terms don’t increase general security and that tomato is a vegetable.

“Those were interesting proposals,” Dean Farmour (35) remembers. “We were honestly interested to have ourselves convinced. His arguments however were lacking every time again. Gerald only had a huge stack of scientific reports at hand and a slew of scientific theories. But he did not have one single example from Scandinavia. Not one!”

Megan Drimble (36) too, was disappointed by the defective argumentation of Geralds vision. “If you’re so sure that longer prison terms don’t work, then you’d better have something more than just fifty years of data from a number of countries. I’d like to have data from just one Finnish province, please!”

Megan herself successfully defended that the hunt for moose would need to be deregulated in Georgia: “Isn’t it crazy that the state legislature doesn’t just allow it? In Sweden, the moose hunt accounts for the prevention of many traffic casualties and of serious damage to forests.”

Gerald now knows what to do. “I always thought that I had studied sufficiently on any subject I thought to know but I was jeered at for that. Next time, I’ll make sure to always have some obscure Scandinavian research at hand. The Danish psychologist Sören Larsen showed, by the way, that to give me a far more convincing posture, too.”

discussie

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord