Saturday, March 28, 2009

Headaches, Cure. Brilliant Ideas and Ketchup

As with all my blogs, they start all friendly and end up with the bigger thoughts and ideas. It gets you in the mood for thinking though so it's all good.

The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bee's... I want chicken. That's what I want.



There are few things as amazing as cooking for yourself, food your parents made as a treat when you were younger. This may sound a little trivial to some, but the sheer JOY I experienced cooking Birds Eye Crispy Chicken Dippers with Potato Waffles was only outdone by the JOY that followed when I ate them. I even used the spice mill thing to dip the chicken into ketchup. This is by no means the most nutritious or best meal ever... but it rocked my world.

Cream Eggs are nearly gone from our shelves for the rest of 2009. For some reason this year they got better than ever.

Now for the Brilliant bit
Thing's I've been thinking about that would have been nice to have been taught:

  • lifehacker.com allows you to upgrade bits of your life. Really. Really really.
  • Creativity if channeled right is the most valuable asset you have.
  • Managing your finances means you get MORE MONEY.
  • There is nothing you can't learn if you give it a shot at searching for it.
  • You're not the first to struggle with something, humans can find help.
  • Life is more wonderful than it is cruel, the mix of the two makes life art.
  • Perfection is boring, don't strive for it. Instead go for useful, or meaningful.
  • Humanity is broken and flawed, and that is precisely what makes it amazing.
  • There is no joy without failure.
Question: Would any of the above have meant so much to me if I HAD been taught them? Probably not. It is most likely the epic revelations I feel almost daily have been had by many, even hundreds of thousands, possibly a few million before me. I'm not special for finding out a litany of useful ways to get the best out of life. It does however feel like my goal is to somehow use it, and then spread it without sounding like the sources I learned from.

Lessons and learning has this whole dullness problem. Learning sounds like the most BORING use of a day ever. Yet how many people do you know who hated lessons in school who love a good nature documentary?
As another example, ever watched the tv shows you loved as a kid? Didn't you feel a bit cheated when you realized how much they were teaching you. Yet at the time you loved it? Why...

Well this is the key to the whole blog post so of course I'm going to pad this out, and tease you a little first... Why did we love learning as kids? Why don't we love learning now?

"Sy", you reply poetically, "it was fun when we were kids". Yes, yes it was. It also made you really happy. It was fun when you were younger because we as a species find joy in doing what is successful. It is at its very core a survival tool to enjoy what helps us survive. Dogs enjoy hunting training, cats too, hamsters really love running around a lot in a confined space...

How useful then; a species that finds joy in learning. Wouldn't they become smart quickly compared to competing animals?

If you take a look at Stephen Fry, David Attenborough or even Jonathan Ross. What do they have in common? Their unquenchable thirst for new knowledge, media or art. The act of learning both keeps them young, whilst making us wiser.

Learning has an image problem which comes from how bad we are as a species at teaching. Instead of inspiring people to learn, we force "correctness" on them from our ivory tower of adulthood. School never stops, kids have kids who have kids. You only feel old when you stop loving life.

Knowledge used to be power, but now power comes from sharing knowledge and being a conduit for it. The internet means it's getting harder and harder to hide, control and manage. Yet humanity left to its own devices with a big fat knowledge tool like the internet... Does pretty well. It was humanity that created Religion, then Governments, then The Slinky. Humanity left to its own devices elsewhere will create the most useful power structure for success in its environment. Not through individual intelligence, but through swarm intelligence.

The individual is smart, but it can be incorrect. An incorrect individual will eventually be exposed, and the swarm learns from it.

Making the internet the ultimate humanity swarm.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Stuff what has happen.

My blogging frequency dropped like the currency markets; despite knowing I'd be way tired and have way less free time it has still come as a shock. Not so much "Well isn't that novel", more "I actually have NO spare time to do nothing". Doing nothing is one of my favorite things!

I seem to be gaining a little ground at work, largely because my approach to learning just about any task is quite different to the norm. Given a rubix cube most people will twist for a while, get one or two sides right and then present it as "done-ish". I've never been one that could think inside the box, or out of the blue sky (for you cliche lovers out there).



There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Multiple ways to pluck a hedgehog...
and a Rubix cube can be broken and then put back together.

Faith in your ability to figure out new ways, different ways or easier ways of doing things is a skill. Confession: I don't have much of a clue about how to be an infrastructure project manager. BUT, I can project manage, I pick up stuff pretty quickly, and if I don't know I'll get a clue or pointer from google pretty quickly.

There is now no excuse for "I can't do that", only, "I've not done it before". <3 The internets.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Awesome²

I took a great deal of pride in the consistency and frequency of my blogging at the beginning of the year. It felt better to get some of those thoughts out there, into the world and just enjoy the regular expression of it all g^.




The good news is all is not lost, the note taking & reading is still going on behind the scenes. I also fully intend to finish this mini rant with an amusing picture that fits in with the current greenish blogger theme I got goin on. Those ideas are still in me, it's just taking a little time to adjust to the idea of listening to Chris Moyles in the morning. Talking about the football last night, and getting on with work.

Yes it feels a bit routine already... but it won't for long. I have a few ideas on how to shake things up a bit.

Comic relief apprentice was amazing. Just as I typed that, D walks in and tells me about Cherly Cole being in tonights episode. Why not multiply the awesome by itself. So that it becomes awesome to the power of awesome... squared. Like so: Awesome²

Been thinking.

  • Macs offer the false utopia of a police state.
  • Linux is anarchy with pockets of good tyrannical socialism
  • Windows is democratic, flawed warts and all... but ultimatley more capeable and flexible for those who know how to rise above the crowd, and a good choice for those who don't.

Maybe you should have your Geek IQ measured. If it's low get a Mac because they are pretty and allow you to be iCool. If it's super high use Linux so you feel as superior as a Lion in a smokers jacket (how much would THAT rock). If you don't give a shit. Be like Pharell Williams. I'm a PC, because I like to tinker just when it's nessasary or feel like it... but have the rest done for me, because I'm a straight up pimp YA HERRRD?!

Doctor Doctor. I'm about to tell a formulaic joke.
Hatstand.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Finally - time to chill.


Yes that's a kung fu squirrel...

The cold is wearing off, the panic and shock to the system of having to be up at 7am, working like a dog all day, then hitting the gym, then trying to have an evening... is finally letting up.

When something is rare, we tend to value it more. Except steak, that always has to be medium rare to be perfect. My point is; I've been busy, its the weekend & by God am I glad that first week is out of the way. Why I had to have the worst cold in a long time, during my first week of work in a long time I'm still unsure. It is mighty cruel though.

Things I've noticed. Getting up early is as easy as putting on a pair of trousers. It's an old habit, that even if neglected for a little while just falls right back into place. Kudos to my Mum for making me go to school for all those years. Mad respek.

For the first few days I was in a virus and shock laden bubble. Nothing in the world seemed the same as before. It was always dark & I had way less energy. Which sucked, because I like being me. It's fun, you get to look at life from a funny angle and go "heh, that's weird" a lot. Which is just about my favourite thing outside Malteasers, and a good hips to waist ratio (you'd think those two are diametrically opposed, but no!).

Going into an office where everyone is overworked and super busy is a new experience. A growing company is a great place to be for your career & the kind of company that buys a Nintendo Wii as a raffle prize to raise money for comic relief... clearly is ahead of the curve. (Ohh, cliché, £1 in the cliché tin).

Which leads me to; it took THREE days before I heard a management cliché! No blue sky thinking, or outside the box crap. No synergy, very little touching base. It's a good sign because people are being direct. Not the kind of being direct that is a "core coporate value". The kind of direct where you ask someone to look at a database and they tell you "It's broken, I will when it's fixed". Respek nummer two.

Now for a little break in my rant. Breathe. Take a little look out of the window. Yeah go on, it's a nice enough day. Think about animals. I enjoy doing that.

So where do I go from here? Coventry? Alaska? The dark side of the moon?

Well promotion is earned not given. It takes daily effort & I'm more than happy to put that in. Can I? Will I? With every fibre in my body I'll push. If there's something to learn, google has the answers, the overviews & templates done by other people to steal. Living in the information age means knowing the question is now as important if not more so than knowing the answer. Fingers crossed. X marks the spot.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

New Job

So my blogs have gotten a little sparse lately, what with the new job and the worst cold ever. Out of guilt here are a few things going through my mind.

  • I want to know why this cold is haunting me, and whos leg I have to hump to make it go away
  • If you use the term "blue sky thinking" you just gave up your ability to speak, and replaced with with a cliché, and SUCK
  • Getting up for work in the morning stifles my creative tweeting skills
  • Why does my throat feel like I deep throated a cactus
  • I need a crackberry, but then Id never get any work done. Hmmm
  • I've noticed how little you miss the internet, and how much more quiet it seems when you don't use it as much
  • Karima Francis is amazing.
  • BT want to charge me £4.70 for each old bill I request a copy of, for proof of address. Annoying

Each of those has a paragraph of amusing Sy rant potential. Sadly, I must dash, pizza is ready.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

A New Dawn

Sundays should feel apocalyptic somehow, because work is the next day. I admit I'm nervous in that good excited kind of way. It feels like there is a big hill to attack and that excites me and makes adrenaline rush.

Last night was fun. Had one of those nights that don't really have a distinct plan. They always turn into the best nights out. Not sure why that happens, maybe its the Buddhist detachment from outcome, or just maybe it's doing something different. Either way, you end up in a bar you've never noticed before having a ton of fun with people you haven't seen in a while.

Just what the doctor ordered.


Why haven't I found this website before? It has Richard Branson giving an amazing interview about his life, and what inspires him. Bill Gates talking about how to solve some of the worlds biggest problems, and is possibly one of the few sites that will draw you in like wikipedia & youtube... but instead of being pure entertainment. It's inspiring too.