Where the heru did this come from?!
Author: Cubilone
LINK: CAPTAIN AWKWARD
I keep thinking of Captain Awkward as Captain Awesome by The Animation Workshop (I even subconsciously wrote one instead of the other a couple of times while writing this post!) If you remove the hilarious scatological humour of the latter, I don’t think that the association is any kind of accident: she really is awesome.
Captain Awkward is basically an online advice column on love, relationships, friendships, social interaction etc, only Captain Awesome is also a scriptwriter. It’s similar to what you would expect to find in a magazine, but apart from it being some of the best advice in the world, from getting rid of the Darth Vader Boyfriends/Girlfriends and dealing with Geek Social Fallacies, to approaching shy guys (Captain Awekward is a feminist and writes predominantly, but obviously not exclusively, for women), it makes for some very entertaining reading indeed.
Yesterday I stayed glued to my monitor reading till some even wee-er hours of the morning and even closer to sunrise than usual, which is of course my true proof-of-the-pudding process, as it is for many others I’m sure. Check it out.
EARWORM GARDEN // SANTA ESMERALDA – DON’T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΥΜΕΝΟΣ
Ερωτησευμένος: από το ερώτηση + ερωτευμένος.
Συχνά ακούμε ιστορίες τις οποίες δεν πιστεύουμε και λέμε ότι ο δημιουργός τους έχει ζωηρή φαντασία.
Αντίστροφα, μερικές φορές δεν πιστεύουμε ιστορίες λόγω δικού μας ζωηρού σκεπτικισμού.
Γενικά ο σκεπτικισμός θεωρείται μάλλον θετικός και η φαντασία μάλλον αρνητική, αλλά εγώ προσωπικά δεν βρίσκω μεγάλη διαφορά μεταξύ ζωηρής φαντασίας και ζωηρού σκεπτικισμού.
Είναι κοινά αποδεκτό ότι σε κάποιον που εχει ζωηρή φαντασία λείπει η επαφή με την πραγματικότητα.
Τι λείπει σε κάποιον με ζωηρό σκεπτικισμό;
REVIEW: THE TRANSANTLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership by John Hilary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another of my “cheat” books to complete my 2015 Reading Challenge. That said, I wish all cheats and tricks the world over were this beneficial and had this positive a net value as the existence of this little book and me taking the (little) time required to read it in order to complete my Goodreads challenge.
I did so in physical form but you can easily get this booklet in.pdf in various languages, including Greek, from this page. And here’s another quick summary from the Stop TTIP website of what the problem actually is.
What I have to say about TTIP and all agreements similar to it (CETA, TPP, whatever) is that in all the wickedness of the masterminds behind it, they envision a future that’s so unsustainable, so unnatural, so anti-everything that’s good, just or progressive in this world, that my hope is that these abominations, even in the event they come to pass—which, in one form or another, they probably will—will collapse under the weight of their own profound and inexcusable arbitrariness.
Good thing the mega-corporations, the only ones who will benefit from these deals and have lobbied sufficiently to have infiltrated various administrative and legislative national and international bodies, such as the European Commission itself (one wonders if that really did need any lobbying at all), are becoming more and more blatant with all this; unbeknownst(?) to them, they are giving us a blessing in disguise: in these times of widespread uncertainty, passivity and double-think, having a deal such as this where there are zero benefits for the common people, for Europe, for democracy, all those things we’ve come to think are sacrosanct (no matter if they really are), having a deal which pulls the curtains like this in the name of profit, control and inequality… it all leaves very little room for doubt and alternative readings: TTIP is corporate greed in paper form, no questions asked. It really is that simple.
It is precisely for that reason it looks like it’s serving as a call for action to people of all kinds of political beliefs. It’s working similar to how “We are the 99%” could have worked and is absolutely in the same spirit of mass participation. One look at the Stop TTIP petition, which gathered more than 3.3 million signatures, should convince you. Us. Them. Everybody.
Is that a record, Ben? It must be a record.
LINK: A QUICK PUZZLE TO TEST YOUR PROBLEM SOLVING
Try it and go think what it means.
Also apparently I’m in the 9%. Does that mean I’m a good problem solver? Can’t be.
REVIEW: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Cultural Anthropology by William A. Haviland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Phew! Finally done with this 500-page+ undertaking of a textbook. Reviewing textbooks is kind of weird, but I have to say that staying with this book and reading it bit by bit over almost a period of two years has made me seriously consider studying (cultural) anthropology more formally. I mean I already have a BA in Cultural Technology, why not add some cultural anthropology in there?
Seriously, after reading this book, my official position is that anthropology is for the humanities what physics is to the hard sciences—psychology would be mathematics and sociology would be chemistry. Just like studying physics, studying anthropology (especially combined with cultural studies) you can’t help but look at reality and your circumstances from a more detached standpoint, more objectively as it were. You get to see that your life is the result of the mixture of an endless array of possible sets of circumstances. It teaches humility, it teaches tolerance, curiosity, it awakens a deeper awareness of what being a human person in a world of human and non-human persons is all about.
I still think it’s about laughing, cooking and listening to/ playing music, but that’s just me.
My favourite chapters were on sex and marriage, art, patterns of subsistence food, language, cultural change and the anthropology of futurology. Any overlap with any of my more general interests, including what I believe to be the fundamentals of human culture as exposed above, is purely coincidental, I swear.
THE RAINBOW
I just love this piece of album art. Here it is in high resolution.
Three years ago tonight, Beduin had been open — more than open.
Last time I checked, it had a “for rent” sign hanging on the metal shutters there to stop any curious passer-by from taking a look inside.
It was one of my favourite places in Athens, but I don’t feel as sad to see it go as I thought I would be. I recognize it all for what it is: something dying to give its place to something that’s just been conceived. I’m happy I crossed paths with it, that I experienced it. But I would have taken it in a bit more consciously last time I was there if I had known I would never get to smell it, taste it or see it again. As Beduin, that is, for who knows what might take its place.
EARWORM GARDEN // TANGERINE DREAM — FORCE MAJEURE
Two separate earworms this time from two different tracks. Good thing they’re on the same album.
One from the title track (around 13:40), the other from Cloudburst Flight, the whole of it.
Is that right? I’d never posted Tangerine Dream on here before?
FEZ OST VINYL
I have no intention of buying it. It still looks beautiful though (as well as sounds beautiful of course)