Raiding Windmills

A Rush of Blood to The Head

2006-04-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

Through the blinds. The glorious view from the 19^th floor.

Shrouded in the thick fog-like atmosphere ignited by the setting sun, the regular, canted tan-coloured units of Victoria Market's roofs.

And amidst the steaming evening mist, a view beyond: the barely glimpsed, barely remembered Cobden street.

Oh the sudden rush of gravity, of emotion, of experience --

Entire lifetimes lived and perished within that tiny house on that tiny street – Joy, Ecstasy, Sadness, Despair, Companionship, Loneliness, Fun, Listlessness, Hope, Loss, Lust – a previous incarnation now (almost) within line-of-sight!

My Favourite Delusion

2005-10-10T03:07:00.000-07:00

I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan.

Everytime I put on Mr Children's "And I Love You" or Rip Slyme's "Sunrise Surround", I'm drowned in the sense of solitary journeys, bittersweet loneliness, freedom, discovery, wonderful wierdness, sidewalk vending machines, linguistic confusion, train-life, getting lost in crowds, getting lost in bamboo forests, getting lost.

I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan.

ima, ai ni yukimasu

2005-08-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Don't know what kinda cheesy plot-device of a pseudo-afterlife the 'akaibu ten' is, but I cried like a baby got some dust in my eye anyway.

Oh My G'Earth

2005-08-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

the. most. insane. program. ever.
I have been using computers since 1988 or thereabouts, and this must be one of the only times I have felt "wow the future is here..."

For example, I've just returned from a trip to Japan, its mind-blowing being able to find and re-live so many parts of the trip through something like this (imagine this sequence smoothly zooming in):

Earth

Japan

Tokyo

Daitabashi Area

Where I Lived For A Week

Whats more, I can link photographs (or any media) taken "on the ground" & for me this really adds to the immediacy and sense of real-world-ness:

[mouseOver: click for Interface Img]

What about Melbourne? Bored and looking for a holiday project, I considered doing a pseudo Melboune walking tour, tracking all those lovely little side-streets and hidden cafes that I can never seem to find twice.

Unfortunately the datum on Melbourne is still pretty patchy, we can only get hi-rez images for about half of Melbourne City (eastwards from China Town and Lower Swanston it just looks like a *chunky* can of soup). Images are apparently updated continuously, so fingers crossed...

Layer & Texture

2005-06-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

What
about
monochrome
skin.

Pride. Too Much.

2005-06-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Written Circa 1998

Today I saw two adolescent males get into a disagreement. I did not understand what they were saying, but it started getting pretty heated. Soon enough, both turn apart and stared in opposite directions, faces black as thunder. It was getting seriously awkward.

This I can understand, this I have seen. There was nothing unusual about that.

And then here comes the amazing part:
Barely five minutes passed before one guy tentatively looked at his mate, sheepishly extended a hand and muttered something that probably passed for sorry. Within the next 2.37 seconds, expressions were changed and the tension slowly slipped away; each one seeming not too sure about reconciliation so quickly with the argument so fresh in their minds, but finding the grace to deal with it.

This I have rarely seen. This blew my mind.

I have seen arguments, fights, but how many young men have actually swallowed their pride and made the first step to restoring their friendship? Very few.
More often I see it ending in physical violence, or at the very least they don’t talk to each other for days, weeks, sometimes never again. The male ego is such that being wrong is a weakness. Is it not weaker to lose a friend just because your pride does not let you admit your faults?

These guys were not mushy, soft, poofs who sit around and “validate their feelings” . They were just like you and I, with equal egos, pride and desire for male credibility. They were in many ways the same as every other gangster-wannabe. But their actions showed that they were somehow different, somehow better.

Feral Cities

2005-06-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting paper by Richard Norton discussing the concept of "feral cities":
"The most notable difference is that where the police forces of the state have sometimes opted not to enforce the rule of law in certain urban localities, in a feral city these forces will not be able to do so."

First thoughts include the opening scenes from Appleseed (really, any apoclyptic future story would do, heh).

Real-world examples could perhaps include a very dystopian description of the immigrant slums in East? France, that I read a few years ago (this may not have been it, but is similar): "The cités are thus social marginalization made concrete: bureaucratically planned from their windows to their roofs, with no history of their own or organic connection to anything that previously existed on their sites, they convey the impression that, in the event of serious trouble, they could be cut off from the rest of the world by switching off the trains and by blockading with a tank or two the highways that pass through them, (usually with a concrete wall on either side), from the rest of France to the better parts of Paris."

In the context of modelling security / military deployment and the global connectivity model* I could see how this scenario might be worth considering, but beyond that more thoughts to follow only if I get the time...

* I'm thinking Thomas Barnett here, but thats a whole other thing I haven't gotten around to writing about.

My Secret Vice

2005-06-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Like sneaking chocolates from the pantry or those midnight sips of brandy, every now and then I look forward to a dose of my personal addiction, a fix of mellow-choly…

1) Get rather sleepy or rather drunk. Work hard or play hard ; )

2) Turn on slow, slow tracks from Martin Taylor, Keith Jarrett, Tsuji Ayano, or something like Spitz’s ‘Yasashiku Naritaina’.

3) Lazily read a few chapters of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou whilst half-blind with fatigue.

That last step is really the rare and special ingredient, a discovery, an acquired taste that has become precious upon discovery of its calming effects. Read it during the hustle and bustle of the day, and its just another comic, and a boring one at that - but try it when trying to unwind. Its more an experience then a story. Unconcerned with events nor progress, you simply savor the moments that weigh heavily like the nostalgic memories of a sunnier, happier past dragged up by the music.

Is it True Even If I Didn't Think So Beforehand?

2005-06-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

1 Timothy 6:20-21 (NIV)
20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,21 which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.

In reading this I was quite uncomfortable with the possibility that such a directive from Paul would require Christians to examine the world from a close-minded paradigm. The phrase “opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge” at worst seemed to be the kind of mental censorship that says “because it is an opposing idea, by definition it is not knowledge / the truth” – an attitude that is not willing to learn and does not accept that there is more to discover; and that by and large* beliefs and held truths about people, the physical world around us, and sometimes the intangible world, are open to revision.

I suspect the underlying the discomfort stems from my implicit convictions that discussion should be approached with the most neutral mindset possible** – presupposition as to the rightness or wrongness of something would be intellectually dishonest.

It may sound at this point that I’m indirectly speaking post-modernist-glish: “there is no absolute truth” – but to clarify, I do hold that truths are absolute***. Its just tempered with a deep suspicion and inability to accept that a single mortal person (or persons) has the audacity to lay claim to the whole and unassailable TRUTH.

More generally, I sometimes feel that one of the most difficult things about (trying to be) a serious Christian is the seeming requirement to view issues in a certain way - and these views are not always agreeable to myself nor others...

* I acknowledge that at some more basic point a ‘starting axiom’ must be taken on faith, ie. belief in the Existence of God, or The Bible is the TRUTH, is something experimentally ‘un-provable’ and is ultimately a result of choice.
** This is in practice of course very difficult to do, but at least that’s what seemed an ideal starting point.
*** at least in the natural and spiritual spheres, not so sure about human constructs

Here’s another perspective on this verse. By focusing on the aspects of ‘profane/godless’ and ‘idle discussion’ in the text (NKJV), Kevin Pierpont reaches the more bounded conclusion: “There’s a danger in getting caught up in useless arguments with those who only seek to oppose the truth.”

Thump, Thump.

2005-06-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I really wish I did not need prescription lenses.

Electronic Air Tickets

2005-06-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I purchased an SIA air ticket and was given a very retro-looking printout the travel agent deemed fit to call an "E-ticket". Like the counterfeit (or rather, duplicate) U2 e-tickets discussed here, it seems that all authentication has been pushed to the back-end.

What does this mean for the purchaser? Upon handing over my $1620 cash (to a small & relatively unknown travel agency) I was essentially taking a larger risk then with a typical airline ticket scenario. In itself, the physical object I held in my hand did not provide any independent degree of verification (assurance of legitimacy).

And this is the difference:
"If the computers crash while you're in the check-in line, holders of paper tickets may get boarding passes while e-ticket travelers are delayed. If a reservation agent finds that your booking has unaccountably vanished, an e-ticket traveler may have only a confirmation number, while a paper-ticket holder has a document that airlines are bound to honor." [source]

I had lost my authentication by possession in exchange for some variant of authentication by knowledge (the 6-digit reservation code).

This bothered me enough that I made the agent write all ticketing specifics on the cash receipt, and later called up SIA to verify the confirmation code, as well as to enquire whether SIA was really making e-tickets mandatory at certain locations (as my agent asserted). It is not the first time I've used an E-ticket and for interstate flights with Virgin Blue they were generally convenient*, but only time will soothe my paranoia enough to truly get comfortable using these.

* but with those new check-in kiosks there is no longer the ticket holder's identity is no longer verified, tsk tsk...

Good Weapons are Instruments of Fear

2005-05-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

Good weapons are instruments of fear;
all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.

Weapons are instruments of fear;
they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.

On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a
funeral.

Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching C.31

Flirting With Glass

2005-05-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

As I was waiting for the coffee to boil today, I got to thinking about how flirting with someone is always about skirting around, getting ever so close to coming out and saying something (relationally) meaningful or committed.

Whilst thinking this, I was looking out toward the backyard, and on the sliding glass door there were a couple of safety marks. My finger had been unconsciously drifting closer and closer to the mark, but ever so careful not to touch it. How close could I get?

Now intent, I stared at it and literally willed my finger to move slower and slower, waiting, bracing for the feeling of textured safety glass. (No! we�re not supposed to actually reach the mark!). The contact was a shock of cold, smooth glass however.

All this while the safety mark had been printed on the external side - it was never in danger of being touched by my finger.
Have I gone too far?