Cultural Oddity

Don't supersize me, exercise me

OK, I finally watched the documentary. I'm not going to wax poetic about what is overly obvious. Just some notes on what seemed "interesting".

The film is way too slow. I had to skip a lot of stuff to keep the minimal pace I was willing to tolerate.

It was highly important, I think, that in this experiment the amount of exercise was reduced to bare minimum. I suspect that was the key to ruining the guy's liver and kidney functions. He did not do it in two different ways, and I'm not going to experiment on myself. But there are many anekdotal evidences that people can tolerate junk food when exercising a lot.

I found it misleading that the movie focused on "fast food". I think "junk food" would be more appropriate. Fast food serves it's role in a fast pace society. It does not have to be junk though. If McDonalds and other Cos only serve junk food, well, here is your opportunity to change the world.

Finally, I was taken aback with the guy crying out loud about having gained 24 pounds. To my eye, he did not look all that different from before. It almost resembled a fatless model obsession with a quarter pound of gained weight which nobody can see.

The fact that he was breathing really hard after walking the stairs at the end of the month was highly significant though. Again, this might've been mostly because of lack of exercise rather than eating junk.

On Johnny Depp

"Still, Depp had no problem getting into proper bizzaro spirit." --Entertainment Weekly on shooting yet another version of Alice in the Wonderland.

This pretty much sums up Johnny Depp for me. In a good way. He is a professional, and this is his specialty, after all.

Refreshing new world

Apart from thew new ways of ugliness, the world of internet-based interconnectedness brings something real good and positive. This is when people speaking their mind can put up a commentary channel, which can exist and make a living. I'm speaking about Young Turks. The guys say as they see it. And that's refreshing.

Quite argumentatively, they can say and show that:

• The majority party in the US senate is corpo-rats (my copy-right), -- not democrats or republicans.
• That the majority literally takes their marching orders from their puppeteers.
• That the "golden bracelets" of election campaigns, and, more importantly, cushy "retirement jobs" will keep those corpo-rats in check no matter what the electorate things or does.

Really quite refreshing to see outspoken reasonable people!

Review: Zen Wrapped in Karma... (part 2 of review).

The is part 2 of review of Brad Warner's book "Zen Wrapped in Karma..." Part 1 can be found here.

Reading the last 60% of the book did no change my opinion of it. It is still readable, good book where Brad does his best to describe a tough year in his life from Zen perspective. He gives plenty of good tidbits about what Zen is:

"It may look like we're doing nothing when we sit zazen. But actually we are exposing ourselves to ourselves. Lots of us who do this don't like what we see. I don't like what I see a whole bunch of the time. Yet we persevere until no rock is unturned, and every squishy little bug underneath has seen the light of day."

There are some pretty strong words in the book about how progress in zen is not instant, and how it cannot be bought or achieved by using gizmos. This is entirely reasonable if one thinks about how much time is required to rewire those neurons in the brain :)

Some highly reasonable words on balance:

"When things are too exciting, that's a problem. Just because something is exposed to view doesn't mean you have to look at it. Just because some experience is available does not mean you need to have it... "

There are some very practical consideration against trying all possible experiences. Such as lack of time to try it all. But Brad gives here a different reason:

"Every high has a corresponding low. You don't believe that, I bet. Most of us don't. We think someday we'll find that one special high that lasts forever... Those who hope for purity and righteousness always toy and destroy that which disturbs them. They think the disturbance comes from outside themselves. This is a serious problem. Wars, suicide bombings, and all sort of other nasty things start from the premise that we can destroy "evil" outside ourselves without dealing with the evil within... Whenever I look carefully at the  things that disturbed me most deeply, I never found them outside me. They were always right there. And that's where they'll always be found."

There are quite a few interesting cultural notes. On LA culture:

"It's always really interesting to watch famous people trying to get noticed and then acting all annoyed when it happens."

On hard rock folks:

"... even metal musicians are essentially nerds in black leather."

The description of interactions with journalists is the best I've ever seen:

" I talk to them [journalists] for half an hour, and they distill what I've said down to three or four words that they get completely wrong. those sound bites live on, and months later someone gets up in my face and demands to know how I could have said such a thing."

One of the best parts of the book is a little culture clash between westerners in Japan and a Japanese host:

"At some point he told them, "Feel free to use the place as you like." This is a standard Japanese phrase that actually means something more like, "Don't f*ck with my place, or there'll be hell to pay.""

Given the subjects he's writing about and unconventional choice of words, it's easy to see how somebody would misconstrue his writing for an egotistical immature drivel. This kind of misunderstandings can easily happen when one focuses his/her attention on words and not the meaning. Granted that the meaning is somewhat "exotic", and the true understanding requires some thought and probably "mediation" practice.

The book ends with a twist:

"As for enlightenment, that's just for people who can't face reality."

Review: Zen Wrapped in Karma... (part 1 of review).

                                                            If you don't know where you are going,

                                                            you'll wind up somewhere else.

                                                            Yogi Berra

Brad Warner is an unusual guy. He was a punk rocker, and he was in the Godzilla-style movie maker. Now he's an ordained Zen priest, who also writes books. And the books are actually ok. They are about as readable as punk rock is un-listenable, in my view at least.

His recent book is "Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate". The Amazon shows mixed reviews. Some mention awful sins, such as "self-justification, ... obsession with celebrity" and what comes across as infantile immaturity. Some praise him for "clear and accessible" explanations of Zen and for "keeping it real".

Well, I've only read 40 % of the book up to now. So far, I found the author to be honest and clear. It is very easy to read, and his Zen vewpoints and stories grow organically from the life episodes.

There is a good introduction into dichotomy of "expect nothing" (Zen) and necessity of planning (business-wise). I say "introduction" because I strongly suspect that this is a much-much deeper topic than the realm of the book. After all, it really helps business-wise to have good goal and to work toward them. Otherwise you might  "wind up somewhere else" according to Yogi Berra. That is, otherwise you are very inefficient. And yes, zen instills readiness for reality, which could be different from your goals. This brings about necessary flexibility. A match made in heaven :)

A few citations are strong:

"One of the basic human desires is the desire to be dominated. Dictatorships and cults arise from the desire of certain communities to be dominated by some powerful figures. Our primate relatives often live in small packs dominated by one unquestioned leader. Maybe this is how we're programmed to respond. In any case, a dictator doesn't come into power by his personal force alone. He comes into power when people want to be led, when people want to transfer responsibility onto some supposedly greater person.

It's very convenient to be told what to do. You no longer have to think for yourself. You no longer have to make your own decisions. This can be a tremendous relief. It's why some of the smartest people in the world ofter fall prey to the kookiest cults. They're just tired of t being responsible for themselves. "

This claim is very interesting. I've seen very similar considerations applied to women in the context of ethological musings.

An interesting cultural passage:

"Hey, America, stop with frikkin' excuses already! One of the most valuable things I learned while I was in Japan was how to stop making excuses. Over there, making excuses for anything at any time under any circumstances is seen as unacceptably childish for anyone above the age of three...

But here in America everybody's just full of excuses. Enough, already! Tell me you don't know the answer, and then go out and try to find the answer. I do not want to hear a bunch of lame-ass reasons why someone else made it impossible for you to do what you were supposed to be doing."

Seriously!

(More to follow once I finish the book.)

Review: Duplicity (Film)

I should've checked IMDB rating of the film before watching it. Rating below 7.0 is usually a cause for suspicions.

It's a well-crafted film with a big problem. Which is that I don't really care about the main characters. The dude-spy and dudette-spy with their cute retorts don't have any attraction. Romanticism of this comedy is forced as well.

The only good scene in the move is the opening, where two corporate CEOs are having a fun fist fight on the airport field. They don't fight very well, clearly not knowing how to physically hurt each other. And that's totally believable. The only real moment in really grotesque movie.

Verdict: A feeble attempt at romantic comedy, which got spiced up too much with the spy stuff.

Baggy Eyes

I visited Richard Avedon's exhibit in SF MOMA recently. It is a truely remarkable show. There were many pictures of people from 1950's and 60's, from the epoch when I was not alive.

What struck me is how many photographed folks had those bags under their eyes. Dorothy Parker, Tennessee Williams, Joseph McCarthy... Most famous (for whatever reason) persons of the day had this. "Nobody slept for 10 years back then", a friend of mine explained. Perhaps. Surely freeer drinking and smoking habits contributed as well.

Here is a picture of Bill Clinton on Jon Stewart's show, from 2009/09/17. Not terribly different, as far as those bags are concerned. Although he did have a touch job of course.

Review: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

The upshot: the book is skim-readable.

As in half-afternoon-in-Borders-with-a-cup-of-tea kind of readable. In fact, this is how I've read it, and I would not imagine reading it in any other way, or spending a real money on it, beyond the cost of the tea.

On the positive side, creation and origin of Facebook is an interesting modern phenomenon.

On the negative side, it feels as a readable story put together in a very fast-and-sloppy fashion. The countless references to mental abilities ("smart", "brainy") start to be very annoying without any supporting information, beyond "caustic sense of humor". I have a strong impression that the author, Ben Mezrich, has no idea of the modern software-based startups and their culture. The fact that the young Harvard-graduated author has published out about 10 books only adds to this impression. I'm sure he is very successful :)

Back to the book. Sure, Ben only got to interview only 1 or 2 of the multi-faceted story, and so a big part of the description is necessarily missing. Nonetheless, a sketchy description of Sean Parker (the guy is kind of famous), and some episodes (what was in Mark Zukergerg's Powerpoint slides for Sequoia?) are hardly excusable, and the author is obviously flailing with the conclusion. Validity of the title is arguable. Sure, there is a bit of luck in the story of the phenomenon. But there is also quite a bit of perseverance and animalistic go-gettiness on behalf of Mark which contributed.

Finally, on another positive side, the book does convey some aspects of a real-life "success story". The kind of aspects your well-intending mother did not tell you about. What matters for such global endeavors is market share, and that's the only thing which matters. Who was first with the idea? Was the original code stolen? Was the founder's behaviour unethical? Did he screw over another co-founder? Was some other social networking site better designed? All these questions are unimportant for the ultimate success, as expressed in the market share. There can be lawsuits, and they will be handled/settled. This is a pesky consideration for VCs or the founder, as long as these people have the power brought about by the money brought about by the market share.

"You can't argue with success."

go daddy

All right. We listened to typepad, and registered our domain with this pro-daddy titled provider. Their service works. It's a little slow to get going. On the plus or minus side, their advertisements are truly banal.

Question of the night: What is the cultural implications of a web host that's sexually affirming?

Reviewed by E.