PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS ANALOGOUS TO WARGAMING
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower
Meaning that the purpose of planning is to get you to think through the multitude of possibilities. Your purpose is to achieve one of the favorable outcomes, and none of the unfavorable outcomes.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 09:01:00 UTC
“Look weak when you are strong, and look strong when you are weak.”
We forget that our first philosopher advanced truth, and their first philosopher advanced deception. China is an enormous hegemony and a culture of deception, non-confrontation, and delay until no fight is necessary. Westerners are a heroic minority and settle problems quickly, before they cannot handle them. We live in different worlds. Truth vs Deception. Confrontation vs Delay. Eliminate risks early vs wait for opportunity.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 08:46:00 UTC
MAN: “Hey. There is a handsome man in my mirror. He keeps asking me if you’ll kiss him. I thought I would ask you for him.”
WOMAN: “First I’ll need to look upon this handsome man to know whether I want to kiss him. (laugh)(laugh)(laugh)”
Flirting is like flowers. It just makes the world a better place.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 08:42:00 UTC
(from elsewhere)
Constructive Advice:
When working with colored pencil from a photo, you may want to preserve the feeling of hand rendering by a simple technique of lightening the background shadows. Why? The eye does not see what the camera sees and it attempts to compensate for differences in light and shadow. The camera does not – we rely on post-processing (now photoshop) to reduce the contrasts. So if you want the ‘shock’ of the 80’s realists then you keep the strong shadows, and if you want to appeal to sensibilities of Durer then lighten them. Most line artists – Durer is my favorite example – will intensify shadow on the subject, and lighten shadows cast by it. Notice Chuck Close’s work, which is monumental – he ignores the background (largely). Or Robert Longo. But its better to just study the great masters. This technique allows you to combine the painterly feel with photorealistic rendering. On the other hand, maybe you want your work to scream “Photorealism”. But now that we know how Vermeer did his work there is no magic to photorealistic drawing and painting any longer.
Anyway. That’s how four years of art theory at an expensive private university will teach you how to critique art. lol
Cheers.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 08:19:00 UTC
Something substantial has changed in my thinking and I cannot put my finger on it other than world events appear to have almost caught up to me.
I have this deep feeling that the worm has turned.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 07:44:00 UTC
CRITICISMS/GOSSIP
Post from a friend on the destructive power of gossip really bothered me today. I sympathized.
I pretty much always have very good intentions. It’s just my nature from growing up in a hostile environment.
On the other hand, if I did not have good intentions, I would be a very scary person. And worse, I would be exceptionally good at it. “if I wanted to fuck you, then you’d never even know.”
Why? On the whole, people are not very smart.
So why not? On the whole, I want to protect them from evil.
What I have learned however, is that loyalty is rarely rewarded, and creativity is rarely acknowledge, and people universally give themselves disproportionate credit for group achievements.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 06:35:00 UTC
The rise of the west was caused by greek thought – we forget that hellenic philosophy began as an evolution of their pagan religion from a political to personal system of thought. Rome’s empiricism came from greek thought. The ‘golden age’ of islam was caused by the translation of greek works in bagdad during the Abbasid empire, and ended as soon as that translation effort failed, and, weakened by internal divisiveness (despite their book) the Mongols defeated them.
In addition, the religion spread to a majority. In order to prevent further ‘westernization’ and further factionalism, they denied science and demanded that the prophet’s work was complete. A fifth to a quarter of the population was of slaves, and the arabs bred and legitimized children with the slave women.
Now compare this with roman, post roman, common and continental law, as a basis for society, while at the same time, possessing a political semi-pagan religion, and a division of powers.
The west’s philosophy is the common law and natural law. It’s rational and evolves due to empirical observation of the resolution of disputes. Science is likewise empirical.
christianity is just a mask – a set of stories over the top of arianism. It gave the warriors an excuse. Just as islam gave her warriors an excuse.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 03:29:00 UTC
—“Spain is hardly an intellectual superpower, it translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years.”—
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 03:02:00 UTC
—“Anglos have different enough cognitive limitations compared to Germans, and … at least some of them cannot visualize as well as we do”— Johannes Meixner
This keeps rolling around in my head. There is some evidence that this is true – that german mentality is more visual and english more verbal, just as english are more visual than ashkenazis.
It’s certainly true that german literature is more visual. That the language is more descriptive. I wonder if german thought is more empirical, romantic, aesthetic, and ‘direct/factual’, and english more logico/legal and moral, utilitarian, and political.
I think there might be a tendency in english to favor that which is good and in german that which is true.
I bet that’s a testable hypothesis. Yes that’s probably testable.
Humans are endlessly fascinating.
Not that I have time to test it.
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 02:50:00 UTC
http://www.propertarianism.com/en_US/2016/01/14/rothbardians-are-to-the-commons-as-socialists-are-to-production/THE INFORMATIONAL COMMONS
(repost by request) h/t: Con Eli Khan
Source date (UTC): 2016-05-18 02:38:00 UTC