Be like water

Some days, are just blah. There are so many things that need to be done and no time to do it. There are people, objects and circumstances that restrict us from doing what we really want to do. Why can't I just say "no, I don't want to do that" and just be free. It's like being in a fight... with yourself. I must follow these words...

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.

- Bruce Lee

Autotune... it's gone too far

Daft Punk used Autotune in the 1996 release "Around the World" which I love. Then Cher, yes, Cher used Autotune in the catchy "Believe" in 1997. T Pain, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and other hip hop artists use the heck out of Autotune. You'll never know when you'll hear that distinct Autotune sound next.... country music maybe? Or worse ...

*** on a side note... where can I get a job as just a "home page guy"?

Visualizations Show What Twitter Can Do

Twitter is the Matrix ... it's not about YOU

Most people think Twitter is useless noise and a soapbox for the self-centered web kiddie generation. Well, what it really is... is voluntary disclosure of personal information and thoughts... not to anyone specific but to the whole world. It is not about YOU. It is bigger than you and you are just participating in this big pool of information that, believe it or not can be deciphered and read by some really cool applications being developed.

Just like in the movie, the Matrix, the dude watching the stream of code on the screen, these aggregators/ bots/ apps are reading and storing all this information at a rate no human could. But tap into the Twitter API and you convert this raw data into usable information and even better if it's in visual form. It is not about conversing with each other... it is not about what happened last week... it is not about ME as a little human in a world of billions... it is about NOW and what people are doing, thinking, and wishing for..... right NOW! look deeply into the Twitter/Matrix streams and you can almost predict the future :)

now... if only plants and animals could Twitter. hmmmmm.

Check these out:

• Twistori I love this one. Click on the words love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish and see a real-time stream of posts that contain these words in the tweet.
• WeFeelFine is a visualization of not just tweets, but blog posts and images as well. Explore Murmurs and see a flood of tweets with the words “I feel” in them.
• Twittervision shows tweets from around the world, overlaid on a world map so you know where the tweet are coming from. Twittervision is even available in 3D.
• TweetStats lets you enter your Twitter username and see a bunch of statistics about your tweets, including when you tweet, average daily tweets, who you tend to retweet, etc.. Did you know all this about yourself?
• Twitter Friends Network Browser lets you see your Twitter network and click and drag to do fun things.
• Hashtags shows you the top hash tags on Twitter right now.
• MyTweetMap lets you see tweets from the people you are following, overlaid on a map.
• Dipity lets you explore tweets in a timeline format.

*links courtesy of thematrixfiles.net

Rotofugi

I dont wanna grow up. Yeah, I still love toys and the idea of playing. Sometimes, my kids are the ones begging to go home already when we visit Toys R Us. It is the idea of being a kid and being free ... that's the reason why I have never outgrown toys and games. It's just fun and I like fun!

Unfortunately the older you get, the more expensive your "toys" are. I love this store Rotofugi on the near west side of Chicago. They have lots of figurines and stuff that to me, is art. I brought Bella to the store the other day. We had a great time looking at everything. It's like being in a candy store. :)

Go visit when you have a chance.
Rotofugi

1953 W. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

Hey! The image below is a slideshow! Play with it! :)

That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do

Death, life, the material and the spirit, and the effects of time ...

10

A decade has passed. Time keeps ticking. I have noticed the decadence in life hidden by societies measure of "progress". Sometimes we look at something for so long and we think we know it... and that we have conquered it, but the reality is that we have never fully known it... or owned it... and our perception of it changes because of what's in our heart at the moment. You cannot turn back or undo the effects of time... but realizing the slow decay of a life that is yours is the only way towards self actualization and living in the now. We all think we are living... but many of us are just slowly dying.

This is one of my all time favorite paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is dark and mysterious in all of it's 8 feet height of fine detail. Ivan Albright, a Chicagoan, took years to complete a painting and it shows in the details. The Door took him 10 years to complete. We think 10 years in our life is such a long time, but it really is not. 10 years of sweat, love, sacrifice, and life was dedicated in the meticulously executed details of the Door. I used to stare at this painting and try to look at every single detail of it. I could see 10 years of life in this painting.

Time... time... time... the most precious thing we have. Time is relative.... time is relative. I love the title of one of his other paintings, one that is owned by the Art Institute but I have never seen it on display - Poor Room - There is No Time, No End, No Today, No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Only the Forever, and Forever and Forever Without End (The Window).

by Ivan Albright
That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)
1931-41
Oil on canvas; 97 x 36 in.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Mary and Leigh Block Charitable Fund (1955)

Detail of painting. Photos by neoplatonistking on Flickr