Legacy of War - A five-year photographic project exploring the long-term effects of conflict globally. Stories and images by Giles Duley. : Legacy of War

Heartbreaking. My own minor injuries are nothing compared to this.

A five-year photographic project exploring the long-term effects of conflict globally. Stories and images by Giles Duley.
Legacy of War - A five-year photographic project exploring the long-term effects of conflict globally. Stories and images by Giles Duley. : Legacy of War : http://legacyofwar.com/

Tanzania orders all unregistered bloggers to take down their sites | Reuters

Do I take my freedom for granted ?

Tanzania ordered all unregistered bloggers and online forums on Monday to suspend their websites immediately or face criminal prosecution, as critics accuse the government of tightening control of internet content.

Tanzania orders all unregistered bloggers to take down their sites | Reuters : https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-internet/tanzania-orders-all-unregistered-bloggers-to-take-down-their-sites-idUSKBN1J71W6

I Am Not Well But Am Coping

I’m a cancer survivor. I had a ‘good kind’ of cancer and I survived with relatively little collateral damage given that oncology medicine in the 1980’s was rudimentary and somewhat brutal. Hey, I’m not dead.

Today, I’m left with regular episodes of being “in a bad way”. I’m not sick but I’m not well. Several parts of my body have some swelling or inflammation, my lymph glands are swollen suggesting a viral problem and I have minor headaches regularly. My muscles ache and are weak. I sleep ok but I’m tired from the moment I wake up. I mean, the exhausted of tired that I used to get at the end of a 16 hour day but at 8am in the morning after sleeping for ten hours. When you get tired you make bad decisions and I find it hard to maintain a healthy diet,

In a few weeks, I’ll be back to my ’normal’ self. Its ok. Its happened dozens of time before for the last 30 or so years and I just need to be patient.

Yes, I’ve been to doctor, several times. Blood tests show nothing and the symptoms are generic. Quite often, by the time I get to the doctor I’m getting better and the episode is over. Doctors surgeries are full of sick people and I’m concerned to catch something while I am in weakened state so I am always a bit slow to book a slot.

What This Means

Sometimes the exhaustion means I’m a bit testy and short tempered. I’m aware of it and conscious about keeping that out of my podcasts.

I’m struggling to find the focus to write more often. I’m able to keep up with podcasts with the support of the Packet Pushers team, and get articles written for the newsletter. I’m focusing on delivering the work that I must do including the Interop Future of Networking track in mid-May which I’m really looking forward to.

My long form writing has taken a hit because I’m struggling to find the necessary concentration. I’m up to date with stories for Human Infrastructure Magazine (subcribe)

I’m mostly keeping up with microblogging on EtherealMind and chatting on Packet Pushers slack, and other forums.

Steps

I’m taking steps to focus on eating better and making sure I get exercise which gets difficult when you are exhausted.

I will be back in a few days or weeks, just watch me.

Video: Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace

The challenges of younger people in the modern era are not the same as those I had. Simon Sinek has research this and summarise the impact of modern technology and societal norms are having on millennials.

Not unexpected, not shocking but sad nonetheless.

www.youtube.com/watch

Some Time Without Purpose

Yesterday was unusual. I had some time off.

First, my local hospital. I’m not sick but I have been delinquent in regular fleshy maintenance in meatspace and I’ve made it a priority to get these tasks done in 2016. I will have another minor surgery in a few months time (would have been better to do it over Christmas).

Good. Tick.

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The Ship House

This house, sometimes known as the “Ship House” makes me smile. I can imagine an wealthy-ships-captain-turned-merchant retiring from years of successful shipping to build this house in centre of Cheltenham but wanting some portholes to remind him of the sea. This whimsy appeals to my eccentricity.

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The New & the Old

English towns are full of casual agedness. The red brick wall is likely 17th century and built when buggies were common. Up close it has a beauteous patina of age and wear with a sense of forgotten purpose. Right next to it is a fully modern housing complex with steel, glass and rendered brick frontage that strikes me.

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Mansions

Throughout my home town are rows of mansions. These are centred on the town hall (left of shot) and encompass a large park.

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Its a bitter cold morning but the sun is out, if a bit pale and weak. There is frost on the grass but its peaceful even for a weekday.

To The Shops

When I get to the Town Centre I look for changes, new shops. I am way too fond of bread to be healthy. Pecan & Cranberry Loaf …. mmmmmimg_2439

Weird food.

This is Chicken Liver Paté but taken to another level with weird flavours

“Vodka & Cranberry”

“Blue Cheese & Fig Chutney”

Ugh.

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Pop up Japanese

What a delight! A popup Japanese restaurant serving a fixed menu. Fried Kale, Pork Ramen with  Toffee Pudding dessert.

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A Break

I often forget to take time off because I work from home, my work is always with me and I enjoy it. I read a lot, chat to people a lot, and try to think clearly about what I’m learning. So taking time to walk, listen and see the world around me sometimes comes as a surprise.

At one point in my life, I spent 3 years backpacking. Many times I would stay in single place for days on end, just to look around. Maybe to sit still, maybe to find more things to see. Or some random combination of people was creating some fun.

I miss that. I wonder if I can find that casualness again.

Dragonfruit

Dragonfruit is a real thing.

I wonder why I’m eating it. Tastes like looks, cross between a kiwi fruit and crocodile steaks.

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Things Are Making Me Stupid

Everywhere I turn the INTERNET OF THINGS is headline news. Lightbulbs, activity monitoring, hours sleep, hours awake and hours spent “in the zone”.

The first tier is quasi-rabid neo-capitalists of silicon valley who are working on guaranteeing their privilege by controlling the message of the techno-utopians in silicon valley. The second tier is middle class software developers who have reached new levels of self-delusion that their technology startups will actually change the 7 Billion in the world who don’t give a flying fart about technology. If only they reach the “zone” for more hours a day, the software that will be deleted next year might change the world this year.

Connecting cars to the Internet means that we can deliver more content to people who have nothing to do. Its not enough to put billboards on the side of the highway, lets get an ad-tech algorithm INSIDE THE CAR so they can’t possibly ignore the money we are going to make.

The INTERNET OF THINGS is about the quantified self. Because the number of times you have sex matters. Or say burgers. Or cups of coffee. The selfless act of self-awareness is going to save people from their own ignorance.

Maybe we are so frightened of the uncertain world around is that a techno-fetish can make it less strange ? If only you could count everything and place it on a chart, then the world wouldn’t seem so strange. The random variable would be taken out.

Lets not forget the instant and instinctual vanity of messaging platforms. Any thought can be spat out for an audience to witness. Any experience can be reduced to filtered photograph with pouty lips. The sensual slick sense of DOING slides up your fingers and into your lizard brain with every photo, message and chat session. Your life is enhanced when messaged into an Internet where no one is actually listening.

Efficient lightbulbs, doors that know you are coming, and room temperature thats just right for you because you live alone in IOT-driven world.

We use tools like IFTTT in vain attempt to weld different brands into a useable solution.

As I sit in my car glaring at my SatNav which is taking the long way to my destination, I get the feeling that technology is making me stupid. I can feel my common sense sliding away from me. The jibber jabber of tweets and the mindless “happy stuff” on LinkedIn isn’t fulfilling, its just fart-smells turned into web content.

And I’m also reminded that I shouldn’t write blog posts after a bottle of wine. But the voice of good sense isn’t winning as I press publish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Having Favourites and Location Beers

I don’t really have a favourite coffee shop. For me, a coffee shop is a place to rest, a place to wait between meetings, a place to have meetings, to meet friends. The best coffee shop is one that is in the right location  (except for Starbucks, which has the same atmosphere as a production line in a factory). But this coffee shop is my “location coffee shop” when there are events at my daughters school.

Many years ago, my brother & I spent a few years wandering around Southern Europe and Eastern Africa. You couldn’t call it travelling, really, since we rarely planned where we going. One day we woke up in Cairo, fresh off sailing a felucca down the Nile for a week or so. We had seen as much of the pyramids, souks, markets and sights as we really needed and it was time to move on. At breakfast we met some other guys who had just arrived from Jordan, simply bursting to tell us how fantastic Petra was with its amazing buildings carved into living rock (as seen on Raiders of the Lost Ark).

We decided to go there. Packed up and headed to the bus station without giving any further thought to it. The bus station was busy, and we had to wait 10 hours to catch a bus and it wasn’t until we got Al Ismailiyah that we realised our mistake. It was Ramadan when many people would visit their families and celebrate the festival together. The passenger queue for a ferry across the Suez Canal has several thousand people after a breakdown at the start of the busiest period of the year.

It was the second day of patiently sitting in the heat that the drink seller came around.In the 45ºC heat, this man was walking around with a insulated box, filled with ice, soft drinks and water. We started bantering with him in broken english and our few arabic phrases, and joked that what we really needed was beer. How I remember this next moment.

He broke into a beatific smile, spat out a laugh and string of arabic words before diving into his coolbox and fishing around before holding out two bottles of ice-cold, frosty, luscious beer.

I swear that the choirs of heaven were singing songs from the vestibule at this moment. My mouth watered to touch the cold liquid, to feel those little angels of beery goodness dancing across my tongue. Mouths watering, my brother and I dove for our dinars to buy his entire stock. We drank the first beer while standing there, surrounded by thousands of people who had queued for two days to catch the boat to Jordan. In those days, Egyptian pilsener was quite awful but amid the smell of sweat, desert heat, open fires, overflowing toilets and endless impatience, I had the best beer I’ve ever had.

What I learned was that it is not the beer that matters, its the context. This matters more than anything. Its about why you had the beer ? What led up to the moment ?

Thats why I don’t really have favourites.  Everything is relative.

Thats why I don’t have a favourite coffee shop. But I do have my location coffee shops.


 

Note: This article was first published in the Human Infrastructure Magazine Issue 10. You can subscribe free at http://etherealmind.com/magazine-human-infrastructure-newsletter/

The Last Time I Knew Everything

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There have been times in my life  when I was arrogant enough to think that I knew most everything. As I get older, I don’t regret being stupid because that’s just life.

What I regret is not learning this lesson when I was younger.

Which, of course, is pointless. You have to get older to have made mistakes.

I Beat Cancer at 19 But I'm Still Fighting To Be Healthy

I beat cancer when I was 19. Well, I say “beat” but you don’t really win against cancer, it leaves all sorts of mental and physical scars. Thirty or so years later its easy to forget how my life changed and  my legacy of small health issues.

I got early treatment from a progressive surgeon who was willing to share some risk with me. We took some difficult decisions to avoid the more damaging choices and take some calculated risks about the spread of the cancer. In hindsight, they were the right choices and I avoided surgery that would have nearly crippled me and negative impacts on my life today. Compared to some people, I had what medical people call “a good outcome”.

A “good outcome” doesn’t mean fully healthy. I developed a few secondary medical problems around that time. Nothing too serious (compared to dying, at least).

One that took 10 years to diagnose is a viral infection that gets grouped into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. If I work too hard, expend too much energy, too much stress and don’t get enough sleep then my body isn’t able to cope. Sometimes I miss the warning signs, I get fevers, exhaustion, lack of concentration.

I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful to not die a truly awful death through cancer eating me alive from the inside. But I’m still fighting to stay healthy, to keep living. These viral relapses remind me that I’m not dead and that science is a wonder.

I’ve had several bad weeks with exhaustion which is longer than usual recovery period. I’m not able to concentrate fully. I’m not keeping up with my schedule and commitments. I need to sleep 12 hours a day to return to health.

But I’m not dead so it’s a good outcome. I’ll keep telling myself that until I’m back to full power.

My Choice for Consistent Charity

Charity. Hard to talk about and hard to do. My principles are:

  1. Give consistently. One off donations do not sustain business models.
  2. Be Quietly Public. I would prefer to keep my donations private but there are two counter-aspects. First, public giving inspires other giving. Second, too much publicity about donations provides egotists opportunities for grandstanding. So, I aim for quietly public.
  3. Business Models. Look for charities that are run well and can deliver big results.

Here is how I do it.

For the last 4 years, I’ve been donating at Kiva to support people in some of poorest countries in the world. Kiva is about micro finance where sums as low as USD$75 can fund a startup business. In rural Kenya, a loan of $500 can transform the business of shopkeeper or farmer.

  1. Kiva lets me donate consistently using PayPal. I donate a portion of profits from my e-books and banner advertising on my blogs.
  2. I can do this quietly. The information is available at Kiva if it is important to you.
  3. I have travelled through Eastern Africa and seen the damage and waste caused by well meaning but misguided charity. Church-related charities especially have delivered poor quality outcomes. Supporting business people and stimulating the economy is a lasting change and let the community decide their own futures.

I would hope that you will join me at Kiva - http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/etherealmind and give consistently to charity and support long lasting change through supporting local entrepreneurs.

 

These amounts of money are too small for traditional banking. The cost of simple administration plus shareholder mean that these business struggle to grow and people remain in poverty no matter how hard they tried.

I can’t go back to Africa to help them myself (although I wish I could and one day I hope to do more),

5 Job Interview Tactics With Startups That Piss Me Off

Working for a startup looks exciting and enticing. Interviewing for a startup job  is hugely annoying. Let me run through a list of “piss me off” things. Multiple Interviews: I’m willing to have a couple of telephone interviews and maybe two face to face interviews. The current Silicon Valley method of ten interviews with lunch and dinner is a massive time waster, a stupid way to hire and sure sign that you are hopeless at hiring people. If you don’t know what you want, I don’t want to work for you.

No wonder CEOs of startup complain and whine about recruiting - they waste so much time and the method is a mess.

Kool-aid victim: Working for a startup is a pretty big gamble and you probably need to have some passion for what the company does to take the risk. But don’t bring the attitude to an interview. The interview is chance for me to see if your company has a real vision and whether I can realise the financial reward. If I want to clap hands and sing songs about an unknowable vision I can visit a pentecostal church to do that. I want facts and numbers about your business.

job-interview-tactics-opt Weakness:  Do not lie about your SWAT. If I ask where the business could go wrong, competitors and exit strategy then tell me straight. If I’m smart enough to ask, you need to be smart enough to answer. If the person doesn’t ask this question, then you are hiring someone who doesn’t understand business. That might be fine for a programmer or someone who lacks a business focus but it doesn’t cut cake for me.

Risk and Opportunity Cuts Both Ways: I have an especial loathing for interviewers who think they are taking all the risk in hiring me and treat me like some kind of alien. This misguided attitude will have me walking out the door in mid-interview. This demonstrates self-centred and obsessive behaviour of the worst kind. If you lack empathy for the risks I’m taking, losses I will sustain in making a transition and my personal situation then you aren’t someone I want to work with.

Don’t Lie, Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver:  The worst of all is telling me how much money you will make, or how large you might be, or how your technology is …. much great, so something and big awesome. That’s all lies until proven otherwise. If you live in a make-believe land of fairy technology and princesses that will purchase your product/service/company then I’m not working with you because you are clearly an idiot.

Solutions

Make it easy for me to join you then make it easy for you to get rid of me. This put risk on the job applicant who knows that you will be invoking the 4 week exit clause. Be brutal and tell them that you will ditch them out the door if the applicant doesn’t fit it, make the grade, demonstrate the technical knowledge. Now the applicant has to make a serious commitment.

The current method wastes time, money and effort for negative gain. You have invested so much time and money in the interview process that you are highly unlikely to get rid of me. Which is stupid.

Yes, interviewing for startups pisses me off and I won’t be rushing to do it again.

I want is an interesting job that pays fair money, interesting work and nice people. You want someone smart, motivated and team player. Have you got that ? It’s all you need to attract the right person.

Three Things I Wish I Was Better At

One: I wish I could concentrate better on a single task so that the task gets done. There is value in distractions, creative activity and exploring news things but the core activity needs total concentration.

Two: Listening is getting harder. I always thought that listening would get easier as I got older but that isn’t happening.

Three: Life balance. I’m not spending enough time on external activities. Possibly because I’m not concentrating. I need to do spend more time on social activities.

I could also wish to be writing three really cool things that I wish I was better at.

Flipboard acquires Zite and be more mediocre than ever.

Zite-capI use Zite. I like a whole lot. It’s lean, useful and very good at surfacing new content. Did I mention that it is really really good.

Flipboard is bloated rotten apple that run slow, gives you nothing new and shows you tedious repetitive content that everyone else is reading.

Nothing good will come of this.

Anyone know of alternatives to Zite ?

Yes, I’m pissy. Zite was truly a great product.

 

Why Do I Blog ?

Obviously I love writing and sharing that writing in public. Pressing the publish button has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Fear and uncertainty compete with the desire to stay hidden from view.

But ultimately, blogging is all about people.

Brian wrote to me after a chance meeting when we shared a taxi cab to Cisco Live in San Diego in 2013:

I am sure that you don't remember me, but we shared a cab ride back from Cisco Live in San Diego several years back. In that car ride, you introduced yourself and we briefly discussed the CCIE and what it meant for you and how I was aspiring to achieve it. During this conversation, we briefly discussed some of the technologies that exist in the lab, and how I felt they were not relevant in todays world (for example: frame-relay). When you explained your thoughts on this and how its not just the technologies that are being tested, but how they interact in the real world and a candidates knowledge should be as broad; things just "clicked for me". With this insight, I was just recently able to pass my CCIE R&S lab and I wanted to thank you for your kind advice. It is truly appreciated.

This is why I keep blogging. Because once in a while I get something right and really help someone.

 

A Pinch Of Salt In My Porridge

A pinch of salt is my porridge is healthier than the alternatives. And I’m less certain that I know everything now.

I eat porridge. Oats. And not namby-pamby milled oats, big hairy extra thick rolled oats that cost pennies per serve. Most people like “creamy” oats which have been milled like flour.

I take a not-big glass and fill it with oats, then 2 cups of water in the same glass. Then a two small pinches of salt and a grab of dark sugar. The magic of salt and sugar makes my oats wonderful breakfast.

Oats salt sugar 595 opt

My teenage daughters who, naturally know everything now that they are getting some education ), tell me that salt is bad for me. Which, of course, it is. So I point at their cereal bowls with corn flakes or sweety-chunks or chocolate-grubs and ask, “How much salt is in that ? “.

They are nonplussed at this. They can’t taste the salt they say.

“But its there, read the label. Do the math”. 1

One 50 gram serving has 2 grams of salt.

Or about two pinches.

Plus, it tastes good.

Ah, I remember being a teenager. Some 30 years later I’m not nearly so sure that I’m certain that I know everything that I knew then.


  1. They hate that I'm just good enough at math to make them guilty that they aren't good at math. I like being good at math. Its a thing.  ↩

One of the Hardest Things I've Ever Done ?

There are lots of things I’ve done in my modest life. But there is one thing that still haunts me more than most of them.

My eldest daughter had a febrile convulsion at about 3 years of age. I found out later that a young human body isn’t developed enough to cope properly with high temperatures and in a hot country (we lived in tropical part of Australia, which is hot and wet). If a baby overheats through a fever or exertion they could have convulsions. It roughly like a “fit” or “fainting”.

Naturally, as young parents, my wife rushed off to hospital and I was called at work for an emergency. So far, normal enough for any parent.

While there they wanted to take a blood test which required a needle which needed someone to hold my daughters arm still. My wife wasn’t able to even handle the idea,  hurting our baby was too much to handle. So it was up to me.

As I took my daughters arm, she looked into my eyes with complete trust and then the nurse pushed the needle in and went looking for the vein. Finding a vein in a baby isn’t easy, they aren’t very large and not visible through the layers of baby fat.

As my daughter reflexively pulled her arm away from the pain she didn’t take her eyes off mine and her face clearly showed the utter sense of betrayal while I held her arm still. As she burst into tears, her face showed the complete breach of trust was to her young mind. Her other arm was reaching out to touch me.

It was over quickly enough. The nurse did her best and I stood holding my daughters arm with tears streaming down my face. My wife, of course, was also weeping. As a young father, it was a moment I’ll never forget. I’m torn between  caring for her welfare and providing the best care for her on one hand. The other hand is that I’m forcing her into pain and betraying her trust. Even today, that look on her face is crystal clear as she realised that I was hurting her.

Holding that arm still while the nurse pushed that needle in and betrayed my daughters trust was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Made you Smile

It made me smile.

IOS7 Feels Like My Old Disco Outfit

Naturally I’ve upgraded my iDevices to iOS 7. Summary: It’s all seems nice if a bit confusing. And gaudy.

ios7-logoThe fonts are weird and I find them much harder to read. I’m also middle-aged and need glasses to read. I guess that people who have better vision might find them easier to use. That is not nice.

The colours are distracting. I’m sure that “phone as entertainment” is something that a lot of people want but I would really like to have a colour scheme for “I would like to check my RSS feed, read emails and send messages” instead of luscious candy tones that you can lick.

Although I can sense the intention of play and creative expression in the colourful scheme,  I would like to recommend a “grumpy old man” theme / scheme that would have readable fonts, practical colours to match my elasticated pants and comfortable slippers. People who want the “California chinos, open collar polo and double chai decaffe soy latte” look can have theirs.

I’m sue that I will get used to the new magic hand waving eventually and generally figure that some of the new gestures will be a step forward. I like the one finger ‘upswipe’ that brings up the handy actions menu.

I miss the four finger upswipe to switch between apps.

My overall feeling of the aesthetic reminds me of a time I went through my wardrobe and found my old disco outfit crumpled into a corner. Bright, bold and redolent with memories of a headier time. I looked wistfully at that outfit and felt very, very uncool.

I had this crazy idea that I could put them on to see if they still fit. They didn’t. OF COURSE THEY DIDN’T WHAT WAS I THINKING. FFS.

Thanks for reading my review of iOS7. I’m off for a cup of tea and biscuit in my comfortable trousers and comfy lounge chair.

PS: The outfit went to charity. I needed the space for my burgeoning beige cardigan collection.

Tears in Rain Soliloquy - Wikipedia

I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears… in… rain. Time… to die…*

via Tears in rain soliloquy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

BBC World Service - Your World, No Greater Love

Remembering heroism of an ordinary kind is powerful testimonial to everyday life. I found this podcast a powerful reminder of the fragility of life and the complex risks of the everyday and tells the story of the " Memorial of Heroic Self Sacrifice:

Leigh Pitt was an ordinary man. One summer evening in June 2007, he jumped into a London canal to save a nine-year-old boy. The boy survived; Leigh drowned.

Two years later he became the first person in 78 years to be commemorated on the Memorial of Heroic Self Sacrifice - one of Londons least-known monuments. Hidden in Postmans Park - a patch of green behind St Pauls Cathedral - the Memorial was established in 1900 by the artist George Frederic Watts.

It recognises the bravery of individuals who die rescuing others, each of its plaques offering an insight into the dangers of Victorian life. Those remembered include Sarah Smith, the pantomime artiste whose dress caught fire as she saved her friend and Frederick Croft, who rescued a lunatic woman from suicide but was himself run over by the train.

Time has distanced us from these tragedies. But as we hear more about Leighs death every sacrifice commemorated in the park becomes more poignant.A documentary-memorial to an ordinary mans bravery, exploring the gap between the words on a plaque and the immensity of a life loved, lived and lost.

via BBC World Service - Your World, No Greater Love.

9 Rules for Success by British Novelist Amelia E. Barr, 1901 | Brain Pickings

I found these inspirational and life affirming:

  1. Men and women succeed because they take pains to succeed. Industry and patience are almost genius; and successful people are often more distinguished for resolution and perseverance than for unusual gifts. They make determination and unity of purpose supply the place of ability.
  2. Success is the reward of those who “spurn delights and live laborious days.” We learn to do things by doing them. One of the great secrets of success is “pegging away.” No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.
  3. No opposition must be taken to heart. Our enemies often help us more than our friends. Besides, a head-wind is better than no wind. Who ever got anywhere in a dead calm?
  4. A fatal mistake is to imagine that success is some stroke of luck. This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.
  5. We have been told, for centuries, to watch for opportunities, and to strike while the iron is hot. Very good; but I think better of Oliver Cromwell’s amendment — “make the iron hot by striking it.”
  6. Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.
  7. Be orderly. Slatternly work is never good work. It is either affectation, or there is some radical defect in the intellect. I would distrust even the spiritual life of one whose methods and work were dirty, untidy, and without clearness and order.
  8. Never be above your profession. I have had many letters from people who wanted all the emoluments and honors of literature, and who yet said, “Literature is the accident of my life; I am a lawyer, or a doctor, or a lady, or a gentleman.” Literature is no accident. She is a mistress who demands the whole heart, the whole intellect, and the whole time of a devotee.
  9. Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.
via 9 Rules for Success by British Novelist Amelia E. Barr, 1901 | Brain Pickings.

How to Live with Introverts by =SVeidt on deviantART

How to Live with Introverts by =SVeidt on deviantART.

Want Coffee, May Cut You

Armchair Lust & Desire

I’m middleaged, middle class male with long term first wife, daughters, and certain distinguished air. As I walk the furniture shops, I find that I no longer look longingly at bean bags and sofas. No, the inner man now looks longingly at the Reclining Armchair.

I’m sure my father is laughing at me now.

But, I don’t want some overstuffed lounge chair like my grandfather had. I’ve got standards for seating that have been set by my Herman Miller Aeron chair which has completely changed the way I look at seating. From now on, it’s quality seating all the way.

But where can one find a quality armchair ? Surely that’s an oxymoron ? NO. Herewith is my personal shortlist for armchairs (that I cannot, in all probability, ever afford).

This is my current favourite for all round minimalist look and choices. I could build an entire room around this chair.

But this Varier Gravity chair is a perfect nerd’s chair. It’s got a modal user interface with extensive interaction choices. Oh my, this is a place where I could study and read all day…..

Sigh. One day, maybe one day.