A brief status update

Inspiration Monday is on hiatus.


Leonard

Aphex Twin - "Avril 14th"

The link

Aphex Twin - "Avril 14th" on Youtube

As far as I know there is no Aphex Twin YouTube channel. Music videos of his on YouTube are rehosted. Even Aphex’ own website seems to have disappeared. 

What it is

“Avril 14th” is a short piano piece by Richard D. James, who is better known as “Aphex Twin”. It can be found on the 2001 album “Drukqs” and is, in one word, lovely.

Aphex Twin is one of the pioneers of, for lack of a better term ‘non dancefloor-oriented techno’. See the Wikipedia page linked above for Aphex’s opinion on the ‘Intelligent Dance Music’ genre he is often put in.

Please find the two minutes of time required to listen to this song.

What it means to me

For me, there are two levels to “Avril 14th”. On the surface, it’s just a well written piano melody. At second glance, it’s a well written piano melody composed by Aphex Twin.

Aphex Twin made a career out of music that is, shall we say, not easily digestible. Techno is not a friendly genre at the best of times, and Aphex delights in distorted ‘I want your soul’ samples, 5 minute video intros  (rather explicit) and powerful abstract soundscapes. While some people think this is great, many others just hear noise.

And then Richard turns around and gives us this. It’s a testament to the man’s genuine musical talent. Talent he usually expresses quite differently.

“Avril 14th” is also surprising difficult to play. I downloaded the sheet music from the Aphex Twin website back when it existed, and struggle to play it (*) – mainly because part of the actual recording’s charm turns out to be that the piece is very slightly off-meter. There’s a terrible hardcore remix of this song on YouTube (I won’t dignify it with a link), which uses an instrumental played from the score (probably by computer), and it just sounds mechanical.

This song is an excellent reminder that there is a difference between talent and its expression – it’s always worth investigating whether you don’t like an artist, or a genre.


Leonard

* I wouldn't claim to play the piano particularly well.

Priorities

The link

Akimbo Comics on priorities

What it is

Akimbo comics is a webcomic (or many?) I don’t regularly read, to be honest. I saw this particular comic linked somewhere on the internet, and it really hit a nerve.

This particular comic, while on the long side, is worth reading. I’ll assume you’ve red it from now on, so the text below may contain spoilers.

Akimbo seems to focus on personal and philosophical topics. I also liked this one I found poking around the site.

What it means to me

“Stop making excuses”.

This comic hammers home the point that you have room for choice everywhere in your life. Things you personally may not even consider to be choices are in fact completely open. As the comic says implies, it’s easy to become rich if you let go of being a ‘good person’. Where you draw the line is deeply personal, but you should draw it on purpose and stand by it. A decision can only be ethical once it’s a decision.

You can pick whatever you want out of life, and that’s okay. Just don’t lie to yourself.

How many people do you know who are unhappy at their job but stumble on anyway? When I switched jobs, I quit before having something new lined up. Reactions to this were hilarious, from blanket ‘congratulations’ to straight unbelief. What I remember most is the amount of colleagues who had trouble accepting mentally that this decision was even possible.

Other people go to this same priority process, consciously or unconsciously. They may come out of the same environments with radically different outlooks and priorities. Looking back, many of the conflicts I’ve had with people were a matter of perspective. Keeping contact with the other person might have helped to diffuse the situation. In fact, one of the most common mentoring conversations I have reverts around ‘the person you’re having difficulty with isn’t crazy or malicious; he or she just has different interests than you do’.

This realization came at the same time I started to appreciate official governance. Escalation of a conflict isn't necessarily an admittance of failure. Instead, it can force a decision on a conflict that is priority based.

Ultimately, the only thing that breaks through these situations is honest communication.


Leonard

Project Runway

The link

Project Runway official website (at Lifetime)

Project Runway on IMDB 

 

What it is

Project Runway is a reality TV series about fashion design. It’s set up in classic contest mode: 16 or so contestants enter, they perform a challenge per episode, one wins, one is sent home.

The show is currently in its 14th season, and has a few spin-offs (which I’ve never watched). There are international versions as well, although the only one I’ve seen (the Dutch one) was lower quality than the American one.

The Lifetime website mentions you can watch the episodes there, but I haven’t gotten that to work. There are DVD sets available, and individual episodes occasionally end up on YouTube. (YouTube seems limited to the international spin-offs). If that doesn’t work, you might actually have to consult your television schedule.

What it means to me

I don’t like reality TV. Reality TV tends to go for a lazy 'look at these people’ angle, which I just don’t find interesting. You can always get people to yell at each other if you lock them up long enough and put a camera on them.

Project Runway makes up for its occasional drama moments by spending the vast majority of time showing people who are really good at what they do. Which is interesting. The designers they get every season range from talented to amazing. The show has guaranteed ‘look at that!’ moments each episode.

The challenges Project Runway gives its contenstants range from quite classic to off-the wall: in a memorable episode in season 7, contestants had to buy their materials at a hardware store. The winner spent days weaving garbage bags to look like this. The fun is in seeing what everyone will come up with (and, admittedly, in a tiny bit of schadenfreude at people who botch it up completely). For someone who likes to sew, the creativity on display is great input.

I appreciate Project Runway for taking its contestants seriously. The jury consists of professionals, and is tough but honest. The ever-lovable Tim Gunn provides mentorship and hugs to designers. Focus is on the work people are doing and the challenges they meet (and overcome) along the way. People who have to leave are treated respectfully, particularly later in the season. ‘Project Runway’ gives off the vibe that is wants to showcase and promote great fashion designers, and that the race is to be better, rather than less awful.

Finally, Project Runway helps my understanding of fashion. High fashion is notoriously hard to decode: witness all the “you would never wear that in pubic” reactions to every fashion show ever. The jury consists of designers, magazine editors and label owners. Each episode, they give no-holds-barred commentary on everything that they see. This helps you understand their thought process, which is most interesting when the opinions differ.

Project Runway has actually influenced my wardrobe. It has also led me to label almost anything I do as ‘Project ’, because it somehow sounds cooler.

If you like snazzy outfits or just like to look at pretty things, give Project Runway a try for your next binge watch. At 14 seasons and counting, it’ll last you a while


Leonard

"12 Angry Men"

The link

12 Angry Men on IMDB

 

What it is

“12 angry men” is a 1957 film starring Henry Fonda. It was nominated for three Oscars.

The “12 angry men” in question are a court jury, and have to decide whether a defendant is guilty of murder. What follows is a tense character piece, as individual jurors come to terms with the biases they base their verdict on. The film was originally a stage play, and the film keeps those trappings. Barring an opening and an ending scene, the whole film takes place inside a single room.

There’s a 1997 remake made for television, but the 1957 version is the classic. It has dated supremely well. The film is available on DVD, often in the bargain or ‘classics’ section.

What it means to me

Believe it or not, I first saw this film in a communications class. After the viewing, we discussed how the various jurors try to influence each other, and which ways to persuade did and didn’t work. You can take a variety of lessons from the way Henry Fonda’s character behaves, from making room for the opinions of quieter people, to physically walking over to show his support of someone. (Although I try to keep this post as spoiler free as possible, it should come as no surprise that Henry Fonda plays the good guy).

Where I think the film shines, though, is as a masterpiece of storytelling with minimal means. All the action is in a single room, no-one enters or leaves, and the biggest props are a table and a piece of evidence. Everything hinges on the performance of the actors, and they deliver in spades.

The filming is clever too: the beginning is mostly distant shots showing the entire room. As the debate gets heated and the stakes get higher, more and more shots are in close-up, bringing the emotion near to the viewer. At the end, you feel the same claustrophobia as the jurors. Sidney Lumet earned his Oscar nomination for best director (Lumet would later receive the 2005 Lifetime Achievement award).

The strength of the narrative comes through in how much the film can disregard: we don’t know the names of the jurors, the proceedings of the trial, or even what happens after the jurors decide. We are never shown whether or not their decision is right. “12 angry men” is all about the events in one room, on their own merit.

If you want suspense without violence or creepy music, and enjoy good acting, give “12 angry men” a watch. And always try to be more like Henry Fonda.




Leonard

xkcd

The link

xkcd main page

xkcd: Did you know you can just buy lab coats?

xkcd: Map of the internet

xkcd: Tech support flow chart

xkcd: Christmas Carols

 

What it is

‘xkcd’ is a self-described ‘webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language’ written by Randall Munroe. It updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. After years of reading it, I still don't know whether xkcd was ever supposed to stand for anything (it doesn't, according to the FAQ).

The comics are usually in black and white, with stick figures for people. Randall himself has admitted he’s not much of an artist. The quality of xkcd is in the text, and in the research behind it.

Comic topics tend towards science, wordplay, computer related things, and absurd humor. If you feel that you don’t ‘get’ a particular comic, it’s probably a reference to something.

After reading a comic, make sure move your mouse over it and wait for the pop-up text box. There’s an extra joke there.

What it means to me

xkcd is comfortable being itself. 

I understand a large number of the references, and share xkcd’s love of irreverent and of-the-wall humor. What I like about the comic the most is how deep it is willing to go, an how it xkcd assumes its readers are smart enough to figure out what it references. There’s no hand-holding or demographic research: the comic is just ‘I’m Randall and I like this’. That approach has directly influenced this blog.

Speaking of deep: every once in a while the comic will give a gigantic graphical breakdown of some subject. Randall has a knack for juxtaposing things you wouldn’t normally compare, like animal diving depths and pressure effects on household objects. Even the research comics still have funny Easter eggs to find!

XKCD’s popularity helped launch other projects – such as ‘Thing Explainer’, diagrams of complex things using only the thousand (‘ten hundred’) most common words in the English language. It started as a single comic and is now a book. “What if” is another project,  using real science to tackle strange hypothetical situations. For example, “what if everyone filled in multiple choice quizzes randomly”?

xkcd is the perfect one minute workday relief. Always good for a chuckle, sometimes a 'huh?', and sometimes a 'wow, that's cool!'.


Leonard

Kami

Kami

The link

Kami on the Google Play Store

Kami on iTunes

Kami on Steam

 

What it is

Kami is a puzzle game from State of Play games, designed to look like colored paper. The goal of the game is to change the field to single color in the fewest amount of moves. A move consists of coloring a field, joining it with any adjacent fields with the same color.

Kami is available on Android, iTunes and Steam. Android and iTunes have a free downloadable version (which you can upgrade to the full game), so you can see for yourself whether you like the game.

What it means to me

Kami has the most satisfying paper animations I have ever seen. The whole field is made of little paper squares; when you change a field the color change spread out with little flipping squares in a way that is just magical.

The sixty-odd puzzles you get sixty-odd in the full version are decent. The difficulty curve works well, and each section has a distinct theme. You could, however, make these puzzles in Microsoft Paint. Kami is first and foremost a triumph of aesthetics, with a consistent look that’s really well designed.

Kami serves as a reminder that good presentation can count for a lot. I’ve played games with similar mechanics that didn’t hold my interest, and still remember Kami years after I bought it.

Just download the trial version to your phone and try it in your next elevator wait. Don't let the pretty animations make you forget to get out of the elevator again, though!


Leonard

Yamamoto Tsunemoto - Hagakure

Yamamoto Tsunemoto - Hagakure

The link

Hagakure on Goodreads

 

What it is

“Hagakure”, which loosely translates to either “Hidden leaves” or “Hidden by Leaves”, is a treatise on bushido, the Japanese samurai code of honor. ‘Bushido’ literally translates as the way (‘do’) of the swordsman (‘bushi’). Incidentally, ‘do’ is the Japanese form of the Chinese word ‘tao’ for ‘the way’.

Yamamoto Tsunemoto was a samurai to a local lord at the end of the 17th century. Japan was modernizing: when Yamamoto’s lord died he forbade his retainers from committing the (previously common) ritual suicide. Yamamoto retired to be a monk instead. ‘Hagakure’ is the transcription of conversations with him later in life. It reads as a reflection on samurai ethos at the time when this ethos was losing relevance.

The most common English version is the translation by William Scott Wilson, which is still in print in various editions.

What it means to me

In one word, Sun Tzu is ‘tactical’. Miyamoto Mushashi is ‘focused’. Yamamoto Tsunemoto, to a Westerner, is ‘bleak’.

Hagakure is a thorough treatise on what it means to be a samurai. To be a samurai is not to be a bad-ass swordsman; it is a life of servitude to one’s master followed by inevitable death. To properly serve one’s master, Yamamoto argues, one should consider oneself ‘already dead’.

The book discussed the practices of and meditations on this ethos. To me, it is fascinating because it works logically from such an extreme standpoint. It comes to interesting conclusions. The actions of the 47 ronin, samurai who avenged their master after planning for a year, are described as (of all things) irresponsible. What if their target had died of natural causes in the meantime? The ronin's actions would have been meaningless! Better to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) immediately, in devotion to their lord.

With such a stark, black and white outlook, it’s interesting how poetic and serene Hagakure can be. Entire sections are treat on meditation, or on  appreciation of poetry. Yamamoto Tsunemoto's dedication of his life is intertwined with mental purity, focus, and self-discipline. 

At the time he wrote Hagakure, bushido was becoming old fashioned. Japan was at (relative) peace, and modernizing; the practice of ritual suicide had been outlawed. Hagakure is a look back at the ‘olden days’ of bushido, and what it had meant to Yamamoto. It is one man’s love letter to an ethos he wasn’t able to fulfill to his own satisfaction.

Perhaps ‘dutiful’ would be a better word than ‘bleak’.

My favorite anecdote from the book is a most surprising consequence of this devotion. A samurai had, by mistake, caused a financial loss to his lord while managing one of his holdings. He wrote: “It is wasteful to commit seppuku over a matter of money. Please send more funds.” Being the best possible servant of one’s your lord does allow for placing some value on one’s servitude, at least.


Leonard 

 (This is the third entry in a series of three reviews of famous works of Eastern Martial Philosophy. The first one is Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”; the second one is Miyamoto Mushashi's “The Book of Five Rings”.)

Dropbox

Dropbox

The link

Dropbox Main Website

I have a Dropbox referral link. If you sign up via this link, I receive a bit of extra storage at no cost to you. 
 

What it is

Dropbox is a cloud storage company. You can upload your files and access them anywhere you have an internet connection. Free accounts get 2 GB of space, with the possibility to unlock extra (such as by referrals). Paid users get up to a terabyte, and there’s a company plan as well. I know at least one consulting company that manages everything over Dropbox.

Dropbox provides a web interface, synchronization programs for all major PC platforms, and apps for mobile devices. I was even able to install a package for it on my Network Attached Storage!

As an aside, we now live in an age where even a NAS box has an app store.

What it means to me

Why would anyone bother to recommend a cloud storage company in 2015, let alone one that offers only 2GB of space? Because Dropbox is the only cloud service so far that I trust to actually sync properly. I put files on dropbox; I access them from anywhere. It works absolutely flawlessly, without me noticing.

My main use of Dropbox is file management for my phone. With a file manager, I can quickly move files to or from my phone, and ‘favorite’ them so they’re available offline. It’s a great way to move your photos to your main PC in one go. Note taking in .txt files in a Dropbox folder has lead me to abandon Evernote (which I dislikedfor the inability to get at the underlying files). 

The standard disclaimer applies: putting your files on a cloud service means that the service provider (and probably their government) can access them. I personaly don't put any financial or confidential information on cloud storage.



I’ve tried a bunch of cloud solutions, and found all the others lacking. I received massive amounts of Google storage from activating my Android phone, and was all set to make the switch – until the google drive executable grabbed all my computer resources and immediately crashed. Multiple times. My best guess is that it tried to DoS itself.

At the time I tried them, Amazon and Microsoft weren’t available on all platforms. They also had rudimentary web interfaces. This made file management from Linux a pain.

Finally, my NAS supports remote access, but it contains all my private data. Thus, I've put strict access requirements in place.
 
For pure convenience, there’s little that beats Dropbox. And honestly, convenience is 80% of the reason for these types of services anyway.


Leonard

Made to Measure

Made to Measure

The link

Pakkend Website

What it is

Pakkend is a tailoring company in Amsterdam, which makes made to measure suits. They also have a ready to wear collection.

‘Made to measure’ means a suit made from a pattern that has been fitted to the buyer. It’s a step up from ‘ready to wear’, which is buying an existing suit in a store. The final step up in quality (and price) is ‘bespoke’. A bespoke suit is created from a pattern drawn for the buyer from scratch.

Ordering a suit made to measure ensures a great fit, and you can customize it to your hearts content.

What it means to me

I am a consultant in financial services, which means I wear a lot of suits. I made the switch to 'suit and tie only' early in my career, after seeing the difference in image between people who did, and didn’t. It helps that I don’t mind looking a bit formal.

A man’s suit is about one thing, and one thing only: the silhouette. A well-fitting suit accentuates your shoulders and narrows you waist a bit. You don’t close the bottom jacket button to create a slimming shape.

Tailoring for this silhouette is especially important if you don’t have a standard size! Imagine you have broad shoulders and short arms. You can either feel cramped in your ready to wear jacket, or have sleeves that fall over your hands. Or you can just have the perfect jacket made for you, and look a million times better. 

The fun in buying made to measure is deciding all the little details. Do you want a flashy lining? Colored buttons? Flap pockets or slit pockets? There are lots of subtle (or unsubtle) places where you can let your taste show. Although the people at Pakkend refused my green on grey stitching idea. On second thought, that was probably for the better.


Costs for ‘made to measure’ compare quite favorably to name brand suits, and you get good fabric as well. If, like me, you are hard on your suits you can also order additional pants with one jacket. Do this immediately, as you don’t want the fabric to run out!



The final advantage of made to measure: you’ll notice immediately when you put on weight. And you’ll have excellent motivation to start dieting.

I am firmly of the opinion that every man should have at least one good suit for formal occasions. If you’re going to spend the money, why not have it made for you?


Leonard

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

The link

"Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!" on Goodreads 

What it is

Richard Feynman was a theoretical physicist and winner of the 1965 Nobel prize for physics. His legacy lives on in ‘Feynman diagrams’ used to describe particle behavior. Feynman also holds the patent for the nuclear power plant, among others.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” is a collection of Feynman stories, transcribed from tape interviews. It’s all anecdotes and no physics, on topics as diverse as flirting, safe cracking, art, and life at the Manhattan project. And yes, the story on the nuclear power plant patent is in there, too.

What it means to me

“Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman” is a great, light read. It’s also a unique look into the mind of a man who was very smart, but most of all very curious. It’s no accident that Feynman ‘best of’ book is titled “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”.

From the book, you get an impression of Feynman as a man who just wants to know and do more. A central theme in the book is the joy of finding out how and why things work. You see Feynman apply this to his main field, quantum mechanics, but also to art, and to samba drumming. This is a sentiment that really resonates with me.

Feynman had a low bullshit tolerance, and a reputation as a straight talker. After the failure of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 Feynman served on the Rogers Commission which investigated the incident. He then performed a live demonstration of the component that failed in a commission hearing, by submergng a rubber ring in ice water and shattering it, proving that it wasn’t resistant to cold.

True to his curious self to the end, his last words are recorded as "I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring."


Leonard

The Testimony of Dee Snider

The Testimony of Dee Snider

The link

The Dee Snider Testimony on Youtube

What it is

Dee Snider is the front man for Twisted Sister, a heavy metal band. In 1985, Snider was interviewed in a U.S. Senate hearing committee about labelling music albums that contained ‘offensive material’.

What followed was an articulate speech about art and interpretation, by a man in jeans with the waviest of eighties hair.

Full disclosure: I can’t recall ever having listened to Twisted Sister.

What it means to me

The whole video is thirty minutes, and the video quality is as eighties as the outfits. If you’re in a hurry, watch the opening (with signature denim jacket move) up to four minutes. The section from 2:55 to 4:01 is especially relevant.

“…the only sadomasochism, bondage and rape in this song is in the mind of miss Gore”.

Boom. Drop mic.

Dee Snider later commented in interviews that he purposefully played up his rocker image when he entered, to increase the contrast with his message. On a strategic level, this speech is pure Sun Tzu: be prepared and catch your enemy off guard. The corollary for the audience would have been to never underestimate the other side. Stereotypes can deceive.

The U.S. Senate hearing led to the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” label. This label came in place of the detailed ‘offensiveness’ labelling catalog proposed initially. I do recall this label serving as a marker for desirable content, rather than a means to scare me away. Teenagers don’t react to warning labels well.

Next time you buy an explicit album, you may have Dee Snider to thank. And next time someone comes to you in beat-up denim and sunglasses, you may want to hear him out for five minutes. Or thirty.


Leonard

Fragility

Fragility

The link

Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man.

~ Norman Cousins

What it is

Norman Cousins was a journalist, author, and medical researcher. He was editor in chief of the Saturday Review of Literature for thirty years.

Cousins was a well-known peace activist and an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He received the Albert Schweitzer prize for humanitarianism in 1990, months before his death.

What it means to me

This post isn’t about the quote.

Over the weekend, dear friends of mine gave birth to a daughter two months early. It’s a tiny miracle of a girl, weighing a kilogram. She is surrounded by wires and tubes and blankets that weigh a multitude of this, to keep her alive.

Newborns always look too good to be true to me: barely large enough to be functional, yet with a complete person inside. Equally humbling is the medical science required for this baby to be born, and to keep her alive. We are lucky to live in a time where she can grow up to become herself.

This is a good reminder that life throws curveballs, and doesn’t care about your plans. Career planning, personal development and literary criticism are noble pursuits. They are still insignificant when people close to you get hurt; let alone when the one hurt most doesn't know what 'hurt' is yet. I am all in favor of showing your scars - if you're strong enough to form them in the first place.

Money, science and technology are tools. Watching them work together to save someone beautifully fragile is awe-inspiring.

Thank you.


Leonard

Turia Gardens (Valencia)

Turia Gardens (Valencia)

The link

Turia Gardens official website 

Turia Gardens on Google maps. The bold green line is garden.

Turia river on Wikipedia

What it is

The Turia is a river which used to run through Valencia, Spain’s third largest city. It was prone to flooding. After ‘the great flood of Valencia’ in 1957 the city decided to divert the river, and repurpose the old riverbed.

The riverbed was made into a park, which follows the entire north side of the old city. It is 9 kilometers long, and house the Valencia museum of arts and sciences as well as Europe’s largest aquarium, L'Oceanogràfic.

What it means to me

My favorite memory of my vacation in Valencia is cycling up and down the Turia riverbed in summer weather. It’s spacious, green, and there’s things to do all over. Turia gardens is much lower than street level, and lush with green. It functions as a escape from city life – within the city itself.

The park was finished only in the 1980’s, after a public initiative to make the space a park instead of a highway or railway. The riverbed still functions for transportation: it’s often easier to walk across the park than to take a road bridge. The park connects the north side of the city quite well. It’s more functional for travel within the city than a highway would be!

If you find yourself in Valencia, you could do worse than spend a day in Turia gardens! I recommend renting a bike if you want to see the whole area.


Leonard

Hemingway App

Hemingway App

The link

Hemingway App

What it is

Ernst Hemingway is an American writer famous for, among others, "A Farewell to Arms". He also wrote a choice quote on emotional scars . Hemingway is famous for a short prose style which leaves key emotions unspoken.

Hemingway App is a text editor that enforces this writing style. It marks complex sentences, adverbs, and passive voice. In bright colors, it suggest that you get rid of these. Otherwise, it has moderate editing functionality: headers, links and bold/italics.

The regular app is online only. You can buy a Windows or Mac version for $9.99. There are no iOS or Android Apps yet.

What it means to me

Hi! I am Leonard, I write a blog, and I use too many abverbs. I also drop obscure words in my writing. This is a misguided attempt at 'precision' which just makes me sound pretentious.

A funny thing happens when you type into an editor which you know filters your text. You start being much more conscious beforehand, to try and beat the filter. In my case, I stop using colons and semi-colons, and end sentences instead. It gives my text a different, shorter rhythm.

If the difference with my usual style isn't clear yet: I wrote this entire blog post on Hemingway app. I rewrote until I didn't see a single color marker anymore. I am surprised that 'makes me sound pretentious' got through the filter, actually! As an added benefit, this blog post is a lot shorter than the average ones.

Hemingway's style doesnt work for every subject. I would never use it for writing a manual, or for technical writing. In literature, flowery prose can be beautiful. It's good to train different styles, though.

When you want to go back to basics, type or copy/paste your text into Hemingway App, and start cutting!


Leonard

Miyamoto Musashi – A Book of Five Rings

Miyamoto Musashi – A Book of Five Rings

The link

"A Book of Five Rings" on Goodreads

What it is

“A Book of Five Rings” is the book of swordsmanship by Miyamoto Musashi, a 17th century Japanese swordsman. Unlike Sun Tzu , the existence of Miyamoto Musashi is historically confirmed: he lived in Japan from 1584 to 1645.

Musashi rose to fame as a duelist, winning over 60 duels while remaining undefeated. He roamed through Japan as a wandering duelist and military commander before settling down to teach later in life. In 1643, sixty years old Musashi retired to a cave to write “A Book of Five Rings”, which he finished in 1645. He died a few months after its completion.

Like “The Art of War”, the book is under 100 pages in translation. There are multiple translators available; the text is remarkably straightforward, so I doubt there will be large differences between them.

What it means to me

“A Book of Five Rings” boils dueling down to one concept, and repeats it often: “the only thing that matters in swordsmanship is to kill the opponent”. While this echoes Sun Tzu’s “Great Victory”, Miyamoto Musashi veers off into a different direction entirely: Sun Tzu looks at how to strategically and tactically move an army; Musashi looks at the kind of person you have to be to win a life-or-death duel.

Along the way, Musashi thoroughly destroys the notion that anything matters but the ultimate goal of killing ones opponent. When he describes weapons , specific situations, and defensive postures in detail they are always options to be considered, rather than ends to themselves.

The fourth book of the 'five rings', “Wind”, is dedicated to a critique of rival schools. Musashi considers their focusing on a single aspect a distraction from the true way, as it comes at the expense of flexibility and focus. Noteworthy is his dismissal of a school which teaches to fight with longer than average swords:

“Their preference is for the extra-long sword and relying on the virtue of this length, they think to defeat the enemy from a distance. […] It shows the inferior strategy of a weak spirit that men should be dependent on the length of their sword, fighting from a distance without the benefit of strategy.”

In short, a sixty year old swordmaster is telling a rival school to stop hiding behind their oversized swords and get good.

“A Book of Five Rings” frequently reminds the reader that reading is no substitute for practice. In fact, you almost get the sense that Musashi is frustrated at the inability of language to convey what he wants to say. Miyamoto Mushashi keeps on encouraging the reader to try, and master, all the swords, all the forms, and all the attacks. When you do so, break techniques down into how and why they work; incorporate their practical uses into your fighting style, rather than flashy displays. Ultimately, you will have all sorts of tools at your disposal, and will be able to use the right one at the right time.

No toolkit is ever big enough, and tools should remain tools instead of becoming crutches.


Leonard

(This is the second entry in a series of three reviews of famous works of Eastern Martial Philosophy. The first one is Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”; the third one is Yamamoto Tsunemoto’s “Hagakure”. )

Salvador Dali on Imitation

Salvador Dali on Imitation

The link

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." 
 
~ Salvador Dali

Found in the collection of Dali quotes on Goodreads.

What it is

The quote above is one of many from the ever-eccentric Salvador Dali. It stands out in the linked quote collection as the one appeal to humility in a sea of strangeness.

That said, the top quote on the page is pretty good too:

"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it."

What it means to me

I used to think that imitation was terrible. Whatever you do, you should always put you own spin on it, change it up, add to the world. This attitude was at the same time lofty and paralyzing: lofty, because the end goal of adding to the world is noble, and paralyzing because it meant I compulsively had to reinvent everything, even if doing myself made it worse. Reinvention is a lot of work; often it was easier to fantasize about a project instead of putting any work in. 

I have had to very consciously abandon perfectionism to get things done.

The quote above, to me, teaches humility. When you start with anything, you're not yet good enough to be original. Study, copy, and get good. When you know your subject, its basics, and its context, then you can develop you own style. A friend of mine paints and used to run an art gallery. He told me it’s easy to see which abstract artists have their (figurative) techniques down and which don't: well-trained abstract artists know what they are abstracting.

"If you have never failed, you have never tried anything new" (often attributed to Albert Einstein, to such a degree that I can't verify it's origin with a google search). This quote is plastered all over social media, but that doesn't make it less true. Reality is messy. Abandon your hope for perfection, abandon the illusion that you’ll get it right the first time, and get your hands dirty (or get them on a keyboard, if you will).

Get over yourself and create, just for five minutes. Even if that means, that you create a blog, then find out half a year later that the sidebar you built never shows up, and that half the tags only link to a single page. Then you have to swallow your pride, redo the lay-out and congratulate yourself on another small improvement.

I hope you like the new theme; browsing the blog archive should be easier now. If you greatly like or dislike it please do let me know. 

And feel free to steal it for your own blog.


Leonard

Rands in Repose

Rands in Repose

The link

Rands in Repose website

"Bored people quit", self-explanatory

"Meeting creatures", on meeting stereotypes

A surprisingly humane presentation on firing people at the 2013 CTO summit

What it is

“Rands in Repose” is the blog of Michael Lopp, or “Rands”. Rands writes about management, IT and general ‘tech life’, with a focus on leading teams and on team interactions. Lopp is currently Head of Engineering at Pinterest. When not writing on management, he obsesses over pens, bags and Instagram filters. Rands himself has an excellent introduction to his blog called “Don’t skip this”, which also indexes his 10+ years of content. I fully plan to steal that idea if I make it that far.

What it means to me

Rands never stopped being an engineer when he joined management, and his body of work is the chronicle of his attempt to find out how to make groups of people write software. Rands in Repose doesn’t update very often, and each post has a definite “I’ve found out something new” quality about it. I think he’s at his best when he describes office dynamics, within teams and between teams, because he lays bare processes that take place everywhere, but that are difficult to pinpoint exactly.

I appreciate Rands for being to able to perfectly write down things I have a vague feeling about. Like Information Dashboard Design, his blog has a very high ‘nod along’ factor, in the sense that the situations he sketches are recognizable.

Rands’ quests for perfect tooling are equal parts thorough and hilarious. Thorough because they are meticularly researched, and because the selection criteria ar provided in great detail. Hilarious because Rands is well-aware of how obsessive he is.

There's not much more to be said really, an a lot of material to read - go read some Rands in Repose!


Leonard

Grow

Grow

                   

The link

The Original Grow

Grow Cube, my personal favorite

Grow Valley, made for university

Eyezmaze, the site of the Grow developer

Eyezmaze on Android

What it is

'Grow' is a series of flash-based computer games by a one-man Japanese developer. In each game, you are presented with a mostly empty screen as well as 6-10 buttons with objects you can add (each can be pressed once). When you drop an object, the earlier objects get a chance to interact with it and with each other.

If, for example, you select a little man first, and a ball second, the man might kick the ball. If instead you select the man, then water and then a plant, the man might water the plant, making it grow larger.

When you have pressed all the buttons, the game scores how well you did in terms of how many objects you upgraded to their maximum level of uses. There’s an optimal selection order where all the objects end at maximum level and you get an impressive ending for your efforts. Recent versions can also have a secret ‘I give up’ ending where everything goes wrong and the world is subsequently rescued by aliens.

Grow is easier to experience than explain. Just follow any of the link and click around in one of the games. You’ll quickly discover how Grow works, and whether it’s something for you or not. All the games are in the left sidebar, the top section are the most polished ones.

All online versions of Grow require Adobe flash. Eyezmaze has also release  unique Android versions.

 

What it means to me

The Grow games are high quality little time wasters. Apart from the fact that I have a soft spot for anything weird and Japanese, I really admire the creativity that goes into these games, as well as the strangely satisfying internal logic.

Each game has up to ten buttons to press, and a lot of interactions between the various objects. Not only are the ‘right’ steps animated, but many of the ‘wrong’ steps are as well, making it difficult to gauge progress just by the animation you get: what you’re seeing may just be an elaborate dead end. I’m impressed not just by the amount of animation, but the amount of planning required to make such a game work.

The beauty of the whimsical animations is that they convey the logic of the game world very well. Many of the interactions that happen make no objective sense (watering plants to turn them into a satellite dish, fish that turn into dragons by eating flowers, a night/day on/off switch), but after a few minutes your brain not only accepts them, but it wants to go deeper and solve the game.

A Grow game with ten buttons has 10! (“ten factorial”) or 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 = 3628800 possible combinations. If you do one combination a minute and don’t sleep that’s 7 years of clicking to try them all. Luckily, you’ll have found the optimal one by 3.5 years on average.

The fact that you can instead solve these games in a few hours is a testament to how consistent the bizarre logic of Grow is. The fact that you keep going, to find out what happens, is due to great the animations.

Next time you have spare 15 minutes, fire up a Grow game and see how you like it!

Leonard

Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou

                   

The link

Centre Pompidou on Wikipedia

Centre Pompidou official website

Centre Pompidou on Google Maps

What it is

Centre Pompidou, formally named “Centre Georges Pompidou”, after a French president, is a building complex in Paris. It houses, among others, a public library, a center for acoustics research, and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, a large modern art museum.

None of these are as famous as the building itself (although the modern arts museum comes close). Designed in the seventies by architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, it completely does away with any kind of surface covering and wears all its infrastructure on the outside.

Much like the Eiffel tower (with which it shares its ‘naked steel beams’ aesthetic), the building was reviled at first only to be embraced later on.

What it means to me

The first time I visited the Centre Pompidou, I was around eight years old. I decided I liked the building because it had lots of colored tubes and a big transparent escalator, and then went back to watching the portrait artists on the adjoining square.

I really want to write something cute, like “twenty-five years later I still love the building for its tubes and escalator”, but I would be lying. That said, the color coding of the tubes for different functions is really neat (yellow for electricity, green for water, blue for climate control and red for everything safety-related), and the escalator is a prominent part of the Aaron Draplin-like building logo.

What I love about Centre Pompidou these days is the way it shows that reality is messy. A big building complex needs a lot of wiring, control logic and disposal systems, which are usually hidden away as much as possible. Centre Pompidou peels away its skin instead, to force you to recognize how complicated it actually is.

In a way, I am a permanently recovering engineer. I used to have worldview that things around us were perfectly implemented by Adults Who Knew What They Were Doing. The truth is that the vast majority of the world is held together with duct tape, Microsoft Excel and last minute phone calls to the right people. Centre Pompidou is a testament that modern things, be they buildings or iPads, are a complicated mess inside. Their design cost a lot of people a lot of time to figure out, and this is by necessity an exercise in compromises.

Nowhere does this become more obvious than with the previous owners of my house, who seem to think that shoddy, temporarily fixtures are a solution for everything. I have since come to accept that some installation jobs can’t be done cleanly, and that even plumbers make up the piping as they go along.

Final thought for the day: how many wires are hidden behind the screen you’re reading this blog post on?

Leonard

Sun Tzu - The Art of War

Sun Tzu - The Art of War

The link

The Art of War on Goodreads

What it is

“The Art of War” is an ancient Chinese text on military strategy written by Sun Tzu. Sun Wu, a Chinese general of renown from the 6^th century B.C., is often credited as the man behind ‘Sun Tzu’, but the exact origin of the text is stilldebated. It is entirely plausible that the text evolved over a period of time; the earliest version of the full text we now know as the “The Art of War” has been dated to 200-100 B.C.

Inannotated translation, the book is less than 100 pages. I reread it in an hour before writing this blog post (full disclosure: I did skip some of the anecdotes).

There are many English translations available; I haven’t made a study of which is best (my own copy was a gift). Just keep in mind the text is two thousand years old, and that Sun Tzu uses the occasional metaphor or exaggeration to make his point.

What it means to me

What can we learn from an ancient text on warfare, which dedicates separate chapters to terrain, to using fire, and to spies? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Early on, Sun Tzu writes that “If you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles”. He contrasts this with only knowing yourself, in which case “you will suffer a defeat for every victory”. Needless to mention, not knowing either is a sure way to ruin. A large part of Sun Tzu's philosophy (explicitly outlined in the chapter on logistics) is that war is costly, draining, and fundamentally wasteful. This is why he advocates foreknowledge and striking only when you need to.

In fact, Sun Tzu wants to be so prepared that he doesn’t need to do battle, but that his superior position convinces his enemy to surrender instead: “the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won” (emphasis mine).

Sun Tzu really doesn’t like a fair fight, and advocates strongly against (literally) straightforward clashes of armies, because there’s no advantage to be gained anymore once you commit to such a battle. Better to bluff, to maneuver and to ambush; that gives you control over your fate. To quote the master: “All warfare is based on deception”. This includes disobedience of your own sovereign – “The Art of War” is adamant on splitting civil and military command.

Sun Tzu really teaches two things:

1. Be prepared
2. Break the rules

These fundamentals can be applied to anything. “The Art of War” saw a resurgence in popularity in 1980’s corporate boardrooms, where the military metaphors held up quite well to beating the competition. Most of us, however, lead a life without a single large enemy to focus our attention on. Sun Tzu can teach us that conflict is costly, and that decisions need to be committed to fully. Like G.Richard Shell, Sun Tzu emphasizes preparation, and critical thinking: never come to the field of battle on anyone’s terms but your own.

In a recent work related conversation, I was discussing whether to choose one thing or another. My counterpart told me I was looking at it wrong: the full set of options was much larger than just two. Why was I deliberately constraining myself? What could I find outside of the ‘conventional’ rules?

Sun Tzu is still very relevant, two thousand year later.


Leonard

(This is the first entry in a series of three reviews of famous works of Eastern Martial Philosophy. The second is Miyamoto Musashi – A Book of Five Rings ; the third one is Yamamoto Tsunemoto’s “Hagakure”.