Surprise

Listening a lot at the moment to the new CD from Paul Simon. It's very good. Something great about the fact that someone older than me can still come up with the goods! Makes me feel things are still possible. Brings me back and forward too.

mistakes

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

macho greens

There was something a little bit creepy about Green Party TD John Gormley’s jeering about Bertie’s Ahern’s make up in the Dail today. His “queen of Drumcondra” jibe wasn’t one bit funny. He sounded like some sort of green macho boot boy, especially when he started on about DeValera turning in his grave at the thought of all this. For all their talk about equality there always was this ugly streak of machismo in the left. Their God is Castro. No make up there. I never really trusted anyone with a beard. Strangely, make up can be very revealing and truthful.

Good Advice

came across this list on Hugh Mcleod's site:

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

Better dead than............?

the arresting Damien Hirst designed front page of today's London Independent newspaper. Edited by Bono.

the minister for snow

Michael O Leary, former Irish government minister is dead at 70. “drowned in a swimming pool yesterday evening, and is to be buried in France” says the reports. Its strange , or maybe it isn’t, how certain politicians bring to mind stages in our lives. For me, Micheal O Leary is the early 1980s when I was a young man just about to move to Dublin. He is the “minister for snow” in the first months of 1982. Ireland had a rare prolonged snowfall and of course we were totally unprepared for it. A sort of a state of emergency was declared with Michael O Leary as the unofficial “minister for snow” I can still his face on the nine o clock news declaring that things were under control as the snow fell deep and crisp and even. He was a handsome man who obviously cared about his appearance in a time when most other Irish politicians looked like they fell into their clothes every morning.

Cybersexual Losers ?

a good piece in WIRED about The Myth of Cybersexual Losers