One of the few people in Hollywood that was very much liked by everyone and who built himself a company outside the movie business by producing a nice brand of sauces and giving loads of money to charities.
Bye Paul, I really liked your work – movie, sauces and all …
More? BBC Obituary
Since it’s a stormy today – I have to post this fitting image.
It is amazing how early we started to use colors in our human culture. We don’t know when we started painting our bodies, but we have some old cave paintings that date back 32.000 years! I am pretty sure we experimented before that with smearing mud and charcoal into our faces.
Already in the bronze and iron ages we had mastered creating most colors and coloring our cloths and daily items. Items found in the fertile crescent showed an early love for making stuff more colorful. Greeks and Roman actually went color crazy.
Ranging from simple fashion statements to political or religious affiliation – color is more important then ever.
Since I work in design myself I can only applaud the statement above. Too many times I have met and worked with pretentious designers, who really think design can change the world.
But usually they never lift a finger to help other people – they are just obsessed with “pretty” or “cool” stuff.
Bah!
Size matters. Learning matters. Learning in small steps can be as effective and giant leaps.
It doesn’t matter if you are young or old – learning new stuff is always hard. The main difference is that a younger brain is better wired for learning – but this doesn’t mean you can’t learn just because you are older. With more experience in learning new stuff and knowing yourself learning should be easier.
I had many bedrooms like this: simple, humble, practical and most of all quiet. I like the clarity it has – so my mind it not distracted.
Too many times woman lick or hold ice cream cones or stick other stuff down their throats. Sex sells – and oral sex or symbolism sells even more.
Yes, you are young and yummy. Yes, you are sexy. Yes, we guys want to inseminate you – but I still won’t buy your crappy product.
Isn’t it odd: sometimes our self doesn’t feel like itself. Our mind perceives itself as splintered or disconnected.
The mind has the great ability to put itself into different internal “sections” or “boxes” – for example it can put “pain” and “bad memories” away so the mind can cope with daily life without going insane.
But this also a problem – we sometimes feel disconnected from all our parts. The expression “pulling yourself together” is an universal expression and a state of mind experienced by everyone.
But where is that lever or what’s the trick to pull yourself together? By relaxing in a hot tube? Doing something “nice”? Loosing yourself in mindless entertainment?
So – what’s your trick?
Browsing records in a store was simply more fun, than …
… flipping images on a tiny device.
Sure: covers have shrunk incredibly over the last 20 years. From record size to tiny pixels on your iPod or MP3 player.
I always loved record sleeves – there was some great artwork on some of them. The CD was already too small for good design work and special covers (like foldouts or embossed covers).
These tiny images are just … too tiny and boring. And there is no haptics experience as well.
It is a shame: Obama should have wiped the floor with Grandpa McCain. Instead Obama was to stiff to get an advantage. Isn’t he supposed to such a brilliant speaker? Where was the passion? Where was his gut?!
A big chance missed to take the lead after McCain had such a bad week. He failed all week to show he is on top of current events like the banking crises.
So both have failed.
More? MSNBC article and videos
A brilliant minimalist poster for an excellent movie.
This is painful to watch. All I can say that these people are deluded and uninformed.
They only see what they want to see. And what do they want to see: the American Dream in action.
And what is the American Dream? We are #1! We are the chosen people (by the Lord)! And everybody can make it to the top (even idiots)!
Especially the last point of the American Delusion is the most important one. Modern American equality means that everybody is equally “low” – there is no more room for variety and differences. Brilliant people are immediately disliked and not “one of us”. The American voter insists on these “small town values” and a tight mental consensus. That is why they wanted a President they can have a beer with. And that is why they go for grandpa and the hockey mom, because they seem friendly, cuddly and very close to their own human potential.
People like Obama, John Kerry or Howard Dean seem too different, to challenging and alien to them.
Those old progressive Americans – the so called Founding Fathers – would scare these modern “real Americans” to death. The Founding Fathers where not “real” Christians, damn liberals and had tons of new ideas that were far ahead of their times mental and social consensus.
Why doesn’t the US media keep repeating that McCain’s health record has not been completely disclosed to the public? If his cancer come back he will be so sick that Sarah Palin has to take over.
Sometimes going for a cheap joke or laugh is worth all the bitching afterwards. She will forget someday, but you’ll remember that hilarious moment forever.
It’s not very often that I am impressed by anything that’s produced for television, but HBO’s ‘John Adams’ was simply brilliant.
Laura Linney’s and Paul Giamatti’s performance was especially heartwarming, touching and excellent. I am very happy they got each an award for their work.
This is just a preview – you can watch the whole interview here.
It is an illusion that there is such a thing as privacy on the Internet, since everything is based on “labeled” data packets that have your address on it.
And most people give away their privacy by shamelessly sharing and providing big companies (not just the Google) with personal information.
How can you force companies to protect your privacy if you don’t do it yourself?
Bill Maher has made a movie. I love the trailer!
“Ozapft is!!!” – the traditional deflowering of the first beer keg by Munich’s mayor.
The “Münchner Kindl” – the symbol of Munich in the opening parade. It used to stand for monks who founded the city – now it’s a bloody woman …
Try to find some “Gemütlichkeit” in that overcrowded beer hell!
Nah, not going. I am missing that old flair and Gemütlichkeit. Today the Oktoberfest is just an overcrowded theme party – everybody is wearing Dirndls and Lederhosen without honoring tradition or any sense of style.
And the “Kampfsaufen” (combat drinking) has become epidemic. In the good old days the tents closed around 23:00 – and everybody went home. But today people swarm to “afterparties” and other events to continue drinking until they drop. And I mean that literally: the number of death through alcohol has risen in recent years and medical help is more often needed to revive seriously intoxicated party animals.
This has nothing to do with a “family festival”.
Sarah Paling shopping at the local McDeer.
Women just want world peace, nice shoes and chocolate.
Yeah right …
Movie / 97 minutes / English
“Soylent Green is people!”
A great movie!
Since we are becoming the massively dominant species on this planet we should consider not just killing each other – but eating each other as well. Consider the rise in food prices and all these fat people around. They would serve other people as excellent meals!
More? Soylent Green @ Wikipedia
I once owned the first edition of the pen & paper Warhammer game. The game and it rules were oke, not breath taking nor brilliant. But the crazy Brit’s from Nottingham (Games Workshop) had created a unique remix of Tolkien & co that was fun, crazy and intriguing.
Today the Warhammer universe has spawned many successful ventures.
Warhammer online finally bring that universe to willing and paying masses. A bit too late – since EveryQuest and WarCraft online have already conquered that market.
To be honest all these games look the same – and are all centered around the same storyline: slaughter.
You can play an evil guy as well as a good dude …
The same kind of storytelling that made classical role playing games so appealing to me is not there. While battling the creatures from some server somewhere there is not benevolent Gamemaster to bend the rules to make the story better or ignore the rules if it would spoil the fun.
These are ’serious’ simulations that strictly follow the rules and the scripted story – if you fail you fail.
And it’s bloody expensive too.
You know the moment well – just before you drift of to sleep you are in a twilight zone: you normal ego is still there, but not as strong as during daytime. You haven’t drifted off into dreamland but your ego is weaker as usual.
What are you thinking at the moment? What kind of images are rushing through your weakened mind? What is it that you really want or think – now that your barriers are lowered or weaker? Can you peek behind your own mask and see your true self?
We are slowly entering the Age of Human-Machine-Symbiosis. Sure – it’s all very crude at the moment and we are still ’smarter’ then machines.
But …
Can you remember all the telephone numbers of your friends?
Would you socially disappear if you cell phone would be gone?
Do you mostly use computers as a bridge to communicate with others – or just your human ‘interface’?
Can you still perform easy calculations without a machine?
Can you write a perfect text without a keyboard and automatic spelling checker?
Can you entertain yourself without a digital machine delivering moving images, games or music to you?
Colors have also a natural functions – like indicating that certain creatures are poisonous or that a fruit is ripe and has reached the right ‘color’ to be eaten.
So some color combinations are more appealing or ’safer’ for us. So beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder, but also in our instincts what is ‘good’ and ’safe’ for us.
But the same color can have totally different meanings: you would eat a deep green Granny Smith apple, but you wouldn’t bite a green snake – would you?
Did I ever mention that I hate freezing, autumn, cold weather, snow and winter?
All phone sex operators are sexy super models just waiting FOR YOU to call them – and tell them all your secret perversions they have never heard before.
In the age of Internets pr0n who pays for that rip-off anyway?
Well, I have seen many strange and odd USB devices, but this one really takes the cake.
A finger skateboard? Dude, I just did a 360° just with my fat fingers!
Is this really the 21st century where all humans – no matter which sex or color – are treated as equals?
The good old sexist agenda is still with us – just in a different disguise – especially in the Presidential Elections in the US.
It’s seems like that an odd mutation of feminism, religion and sexism has created new barriers for women …
| 1. Click player below to start the music.
2. Click the photo to launch yourself into outer space. 3. Study for six minutes this great image of our cosmos and meditate on the vastness of space. |
Space is the final frontier. No more. No less.
I just love the Economist – and this cover was just brilliant!
Andrea Bocelli with Sarah Brightman …
… Christina Aguilera …
… and finally Elmo! 
Andrea Bocelli is one of these people that make mere mortal feel even smaller. Already as a youngster we was a gifted musician – playing the piano, saxophone and the flute. He lost his sight as a kid thanks to a football hit on the head.
As an adult he studied law and got his doctor degree. But to pay for his education he sang in piano bars (where he also met his future wife and mother of his two kids) – which also launched his singing career.
Today he is an international star and sold millions of CDs. Most of his albums are quite kitschie – but his success is nevertheless impressive.
Most environmentalism is only about us – and not the animals and not our planet. It’s a war of ideas and ideals – and not about our planet. One group of people trying to dictate how another group of people is supposed to behave.
But would you feed yourself to a polar bear to save him?
Would you kill yourself, when you are old and useless – just to reduce the human footprint?
Click illustration for a bigger rocket.
Call me old fashioned, but I still would like the promised space age to arrive in style and in my lifetime.
Just making a small atmospheric jump with Virgin Galactic is not my idea of the space age – I want aliens and rocket ships that fly to other galaxies …
Please!
The old problem: we males often don’t know if it’s gentle teasing or just a plain and straight invitation.
Especially in our modern society there are half-naked and highly-oversexed girlies and power woman everywhere.
Are they just showing off how pretty they are – or did they show their wares specifically to me?
I am really curious how the citizens of Beijing feel now that the 2008 Olympic Games and the Paralympics have ended – and the smog will be coming back.
All environmental actions have only been temporary – just for the games. That means all factories will be working again and the pollution is coming back.
Click image for a larger version.
Doubt will be an interesting movie – but I like to focus your attention on the great minimalist design: the cross and church merged into one element – and the word “Doubt” itself is a mixture of old and modern the very topic of the movie.
Excellent work!
(This is an update to Those evil European Ideas? What does Mike Huckabee really know about Europe?)
Brett Dobbs has send me this clip from McCain from the fabulous Big Think Blog praising Europe. Thanks a lot.
But McCain hardly represents his whole party in this. He certainly formed his ties with many European Leaders in the past. But not many Americans have been in Europe as often as McCain.
Hint: always check with a native speaker before you print huge posters with slogans that you translated with some Internet tool …
