Man's Search for Meaning..

has never held much interest for me.

Since so much in the World seems strange and "other" I just take most phenomena with a pinch of salt and try not to delve too deeply.

However, anybody who has not tried Fractint, a magical system for making fractals, has simply not lived, in my book.
There is a blog in the Blogspot group called
"meme-evolution-and-culture".

Cellular automata rule?

Nous nous sommes mis d'accord...

The love-in between our European cousins continues. The hilarious news that "Lisbon" is still not up to scratch can only send some of us back to "le monde anglo-saxon" with a shrug of the shoulders.

A friend recently wondered if I should also post here in French. The nuisance of wrestling with umlauts and accent aigues is a deterrent.

More pertinently, I cannot think of anything to say, except perhaps in Middle High German. A passing moment of wicked schadenfreude at the antics of world leaders is flavour of today.

The temptation to run some thoughts by in Greek remains, however...

Nous nous sommes mis d'accord...

The love-in between our European cousins continues. The hilarious news that "Lisbon" is still not up to scratch can only send us back to "le monde anglo-saxon" with a shrug of the shoulders.

A friend recently wondered if I should also post here in French. The nuisance of wrestling with umlauts and accent aigues is a deterrent.

More pertinently, I cannot think of anything to say...

What the Market Will Bear

A search for this phrase linked to "Posner" and several days of lively reading appear.
There is a lot of aggression on radio here at the moment, those in the know complaining about retail rents bringing the economy down. Sensible people ignore the nay-sayers and try not to get involved with debates on who gets to drive in a limousine or have armed protection as they go into public places.

Most of us as still free to go shopping without intrusion on our personl space...

Writing a Negative Script

Yet more baloney arrived in the post today.

"When people are out of work for any length of time, their skills can become stale, they become less confident and their contacts diminish." This is proclaimed as some factual kiss of death by one of the foremost universities on the Planet. There may be a consoling corollary further down the page, but I'm too busy cropping a nice photo of a tattoo to take much more interest.

I'm beginning to understand my problem with all the herd thinking that is cluttering print and media at the moment. I was educated by a post WW2 generation to "stand on my own two feet". Even though I have never lived in Britain, Norman Tebbitt's father, who got up on his bike, psychologically and literally, until he found work, was one of my unsung heroes and I felt a sense of belonging to a long tradition when cycling to work with my spade run along the handlebars. Today such dangerous driving (and without a helmet) would ensure either death from impact with a large truck or being arrested for being a danger on the road. Sitting on a bus under a full grown tree, as I was once compelled to do, having dug it up several miles from home, would ensure a complete evacuation of the neighbourhood.

While signing on the unemployment with a two-year old by the hand I swore blind that I was "available for work", even though I was stuck in one of the most misogynistic societies since the time of Saint Paul. Nowadays people are told not to feel bad if they have to sign on. We used just pop into the local Jewish bakery and stuff ourselves with bagels until the economy picked up. I hated signing on because I hate being stuck in a queue, not because of feeling like a social pariah.

There's always "work", which is the curse of humanity, btw. The important thing is to find a position that is not run by nutters...

A Hungry Man is an Angry Man?

There is a lot of discussion lately about the lack of organised response by Irish citizens to the cutbacks and job losses of the day. I cannot speak for others, but having looked at the television coverage of street protests in France, it is probable that people here cannot afford any more loss and destruction. Friends who walked in protest against the various wars of the past ten years were insightful on the changed realities of peaceful civic protests. They have been taken over by "les casseurs" and are not safe.

The ridiculous phrase "taking the pain" is encouraging emigration. The increase in entreprenurial training should help change business practices in time, but everybody is not cut out for innovation. The rudeness that current television programmes encourages has a humourous side, but the tone set is usually counter-productive. Recently three grown men were hauled over the coals by a fourth with a face like a fiddle because their doughnuts were not fluffy enough or not filled with enough cream. I laughed and switched off.

In the meantime, life is good. It's actually not raining...

Lookback..

... definitely not in anger... as I face into the next series of hurdles set to become more computer-efficient.

At present there are some mean-spirited people on radio complaining about a course in Kerry where Facebook is presented to the uninitiated. Having been to Kerry (once) the price offered seems in keeping with the expectations of denizens of a Kingdom and the mockery poured out during the week has probably inspired much laughter in response.

Lack of funds that would allow for a quick submersion in the Facebook and its quirky ways meant spending the best part of a Summer plottting maps, avoiding ads and learning about why the contract there might put my intellectual property into the hands of people who were less respectful of its value than that set on it at my own kitchen table. A Summer spent in gainful employment would have easily covered a crash course in the mysteries of a system that has some of my friends so frightened that they still refuse to sign up.
From time to time I do wonder, however, what button I pushed that made a character called "Rapture Ponies" my friend.
I have absolutely no idea who Rapture Ponies is, but when they popped up again on Tumblr it seemed worthwhile linking there again.

In any case, I shan't be going to the film which exposes the horrors of setting up a business that has one hauled before enquiries and has one's exes prowling around complaining about the public complaints one has made about them.

I finally gave up on Boards.ie. Most of the posters there are on Twitter and Flickr, in any case, and it's easier to maintain a coherent series of contacts when egos are curtailed to 140 characters. However, it's worth reading Boards from time to time to keep up to date.
Techfocus the Lounge now requests that one signs in, as, on my computer at least, the pages are only available in cached form.
Life is short...