Sole Surfer is a tumblelog.

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It goes by like dust of dawn
Isn’t that the way
Everybody got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know, nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know, it’s everybody’s sin
We got to lose to know how to win

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it’s true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away

Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to ‘do’ death in the active and not the passive sense,” Hitchens wrote in his final column for Vanity Fair. “However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that ‘Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’.

Понадобилось мне тут что-то спросить на одном форуме. С замиранием сердца создала тему, мол, не подскажете ли, уважаемые, что мне сделать, чтобы достичь желаемой цели? И начала ждать, в каком направлении меня пошлют местные специалисты и насколько быстро я туда побегу…

Первый ответ пришел буквально через пять минут. Модератор подраздела, в котором я задавала вопрос, быстро, вежливо и четко объяснил, что нужно сделать и отмахнулся от благодарностей. Что, скажете, не бывает?

Бывает. Только большинство волшебных мест, где такое случается, расположено почему-то не в рунете, а где-то на просторах прогнившего запада.

С некоторых пор я как-то стала больше общаться с обитателями США и прочих англоязычных стран. Не то, чтобы они знали намного больше, но в их сегменте интернет-общение похоже именно на общение, а не сборник цитат с Луркмора, в который неизменно скатывается любая попытка узнать что-то у сограждан. У нас же сейчас почти любой вопрос воспринимается как повод для того, чтобы остроумно процитировать признанных троллей. Попробуйте запостить какой-нибудь вопрос на профильный форум - что будет в первых пяти комментариях? Даже гадать не надо.

“Оооспаде, кто тебя в интернеты-то пустил? Гугл - это там”.
“Не знают, как пропатчить KDE2 под FreeBSD, а туда же, смотрите-ка”
“СРИ @ СЛИВАЙ”
“А по форуму искать не пробовали? Я помню, что этот вопрос лет шесть назад обсуждался, там все было. Что, так сложно поисковой запрос вбить, а?”
“Не шесть, а пять, а у тебя, админ, поиск вообще не работает”

Bringing the concepts of a $100,000 networked workstation to a $2500 standalone mass market personal computer is, I say, radically innovative. The Macintosh was no “tweak”. Pixar was no “tweak”. The iPod is maybe the closest thing among Jobs’s career highlights that one could call a “tweak” of that which preceded it — but it’s hard to separate the iPod, the device, from the entire iTunes ecosystem in terms of measuring its effect on our culture and the way everyone today listens to music. Does anyone really think Apple’s entry into the music industry was a “tweak”? A “large-scale visionary” is precisely what Steve Jobs was.

Gladwell continues:

“The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft, who was married to a friend of the Jobs family, and who invited Jobs to his fiftieth-birthday party. As Jobs tells Isaacson:

This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as you have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

How is that “the idea for the iPad”? The motivation to make the iPad, perhaps. The extra nudge to pluck the idea of “a tablet” from the idea pile and move it to the let’s get to work on it pile, more likely. But how can anyone read the above paragraph and come away with “The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft”? (And even with regard to motivation, if you really think the iPad would not exist if not for that one blowhard tablet PC engineer from Microsoft, you’re nuts.)

What if some seemingly obvious bit of conventional wisdom is not only completely wrong, but, in fact, it turns out that the opposite is true? That’s the Malcolm Gladwell formula. It does not fit here.

If anyone is the “tweaker” in the PC industry, a la Gladwell’s 18th century steam engine inventors, clearly it’s Bill Gates, not Steve Jobs. There was BASIC before Microsoft’s BASIC. Microsoft didn’t invent DOS. Windows followed the Mac. Word followed WordPerfect, Excel followed 1-2-3 (which followed VisiCalc), the Xbox followed the PlayStation.

I don’t even think it’s fair to call Gates merely a “tweaker”, though. Gates was (and remains) a large-scale visionary in his own right. He was simply never a product visionary. But the whole idea that software in general could be more valuable than hardware — or even just valuable, period? Gates. The man pioneered the concept of selling software. The idea that a software platform could be created that ran everywhere, on almost all hardware? Gates. And he built a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars from those ideas. So please don’t get me wrong and think I’m trying to belittle or diminish Bill Gates’s accomplishments. Gladwell’s entire premise here is fundamentally flawed; I’m just saying that given that faulty premise, Steve Jobs isn’t the one who fits the description.

Part of what makes Gladwell’s premise so wrong is that Jobs, clearly, was a tweaker too. Iteration — steady incremental improvements, prototype after prototype, design after design, year after year, release after release — that process is ingrained in Apple’s (and I think Pixar’s) culture. But Gladwell writes:

The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. The tweaker inherits things as they are, and has to push and pull them toward some more nearly perfect solution.

Steve Jobs really did re-imagine the world. The thing is, he actually made it happen, too.

— Ну, есть такой тип девушек. ну, возможно, их даже довольно много. чем они тебе так мешают? им нравится так жить, они никому не вредят. те, у кого есть лишние деньги - тратятся на них. почему ты с этим явлением так пытаешься бороться?

— Они рожают детей — маленьких упырят, паразитов с рождения. Которые будут сосать кровушку ваших внучков, а вы в это время будете подыхать в общей больничной палате, не имея возможности купить себе даже сырок творожный, потому что пенсии таких как вы толерастов пошли на покупку силиконовых сисек и оплату отдыха на островах одной из блядешек.

Запомните, уважаемый, разница между мной и вами в том, что вы не видите даже последствия своего пукиша. Такие как вы пердят себе под нос, а потом удивляются чего это вдруг завоняло. А я вижу последствия того скотоблядства, которое сейчас творится в стране. Когда в 90-х гнид не задавили, проявили малодушие и толеразм, сейчас эти гниды выросли в огромных мохнатых вшей, которые сосут кровь целой страны.

I left college to help my alcoholic mother after she called me constantly telling me how broke she was and that she and my little brother were going to be kicked out of their home. I went home, got a job, and guess what….I spent 20 more years getting the same phone calls. I never got my degree, and it’s one of the biggest regrets of my life. She’s still an alcoholic, my little brother is now a violent alcoholic, and as far as I know, living in a shelter. Me….I’m still dealing with the fricking trauma of it all.

I know you think that not being there to “help” your mom is going to be your biggest regret. But let me tell you, it won’t be. You can pull the bottle out of her hand 100 times, and the 101st time might be the one that gets her. It’s not your battle. IT’S NOT YOUR BATTLE! One life is already being destroyed. Don’t make it two.

He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

To me a brand is one simple thing — and that is trust.

Most partnerships don’t end up in court.

Most friendships don’t end in a fight.

Most customers don’t leave in a huff.

Instead, when one party feels underappreciated, or perhaps taken advantage of, she stops showing up as often. Stops investing. Begins to move on.

No, I’m not going to sue you. Yes, I’ll probably put my best efforts somewhere else.

Just because there are no firestorms on the porch doesn’t mean you’re doing okay. More likely, there are relationships out there that need more investment, quiet customers who are unhappy but not making a big deal out of it. They’re worth a lot more than the angry ones.

(via urbansheep)

Steve (or someone close to him) spotted a loophole in the California vehicle laws. Anyone with a brand new car had a maximum of six months to affix the issued number plate to the vehicle.

So Jobs made an arrangement with the leasing company; he would always change cars during the sixth month of the lease, exchanging one silver Mercedes SL55 AMG for another identical one. At no time would he ever be in a car as old as six months; and thus there was no legal requirement to have the number plates fitted.

One might also assume that the leasing company was happy — they had an endless supply of luxury cars to on-sell with the previous driver being none-other that Steve Jobs. That would be a win-win-win situation for Steve, the leasing company and for the subsequent buyer.

(via urbansheep)

Один человек спросил у Сократа:
— Знаешь, что мне сказал о тебе твой друг?
— Подожди, — остановил его Сократ, — просей сначала то, что собираешься сказать, через три сита.
— Три сита?
— Прежде чем что-нибудь говорить, нужно это трижды просеять. Сначала через сито правды. Ты уверен, что это правда?
— Нет, я просто слышал это.
— Значит, ты не знаешь, это правда или нет. Тогда просеем через второе сито — сито доброты. Ты хочешь сказать о моем друге что-то хорошее?
— Нет, напротив.
— Значит, — продолжал Сократ, — ты собираешься сказать о нем что-то плохое, но даже не уверен в том, что это правда. Попробуем третье сито — сито пользы. Так ли уж необходимо мне услышать то, что ты хочешь рассказать?
— Нет, в этом нет необходимости.
— Итак, — заключил Сократ, — в том, что ты хочешь сказать, нет ни правды, ни доброты, ни пользы. Зачем тогда говорить?

(via r8)

While some may convince themselves that it’s a good idea to pay more attention to suffering, I shall continue to focus my attention upon the expansion of yumminess, and I’ll leave the committed sufferers to their own preferences. If you think it’s better to focus on suffering, I suggest you welcome the frustration I cause you as part of the expansion of suffering that you’re inviting. Happy to help out!

If on the other hand you wish to help me co-create the further expansion of yumminess, then let’s pour our collective energy into what we want to see more of in the world, and withdraw our attention from what doesn’t inspire us.

What inspires you? What would you like to increase and expand in this reality?

— What happens when you’re being yourself, and the girl seems really nice… you get together, have a romance but then you fall in love and are naturally inclined to want to be more ‘soft’ with her (because you love her) and then she turns into a bitch once she realises that you are being ‘too nice’? Did that ever happen to you? Because it sort of makes you feel jaded that you have to keep up with some ‘rule’ about ‘being yourself’ that doesn’t involve being sensitive. Any thoughts?

— The problem here is that because a lot of girls have experience with complete doormats they might equate being nice as being a doormat sometimes, simply because experience tells them that’s what’s going on. They’re not wrong per se, but it’s subconsciously generalizing. If you get beat up by a dude of the same ethnicity 20 times in a row, you might start avoiding guys of that ethnicity in back alleys; doesn’t mean you’re a racist, but experience ‘is’ programming your behavior.