Problems with photorealism

http://blackhole12.blogspot.nl/2014/03/the-problem-with-photorealism.html

"Things look real because they have a history behind them, a reason for their current state of being."

Parkinson's law of triviality

The concept was first presented as a corollary of his broader "Parkinson's law" spoof of management. He dramatizes this "law of triviality" with the example of a committee's deliberations on an atomic reactor, contrasting it to deliberations on a bicycle shed. As he put it: "The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved." A reactor is used because it is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot understand it, so one assumes that those that work on it understand it. On the other hand, everyone can visualize a cheap, simple bicycle shed, so planning one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to add a touch and show personal contribution

How to be a sane programmer

http://www.nicholascloud.com/2014/03/how-to-be-a-sane-programmer/

But here’s the rub. Programming, like writing, painting, and music, is chiefly a creative endeavor not a technical one. Practice with any technology or language is useful as a means of learning tools and techniques, but it will not make you a substantially better programmer. It will just make you more efficient with your tools. What makes you a better programmer is learning how to think about problems, since you are ultimately encoding your own thought process into a series of instructions the computer will follow in an attempt to solve problems. And learning to think properly–about abstractions, about composition, about information, about thinking itself–can come from many sources other than programming. Paul Graham observed this in his amazing essay Hackers and Painters:

I’ve found that the best sources of ideas are not the other fields that have the word “computer” in their names, but the other fields inhabited by makers. Painting has been a much richer source of ideas than the theory of computation.

Branching out into other fields, having hobbies other than programming can be a tremendous benefit to your day job. You don’t need to burn a bazillion hours writing code. Burn that time writing, or reading, or arguing with someone over coffee (or your favorite scotch!). Burn that time running, or lifting, or both. Physical activity pumps oxygen to the brain, nurturing that wonderful organ that is you. I started running 3 years ago. Actually getting fresh air and sunlight makes me a healthier person, and also gives me time to bounce around ideas in my head while I’m passing the miles to dropped beats and house vocals.

Sanne Terlingen - "Kameroen"

Overzicht van Kameroen, geen verhaal. Aardig. Kon meer detail gebruiken.

Paul Auster - "Report from the interior"

The "sequel" to Winter Journal, supposedly a more mental oriented autobiography. Perhaps I read it too soon after Winter Journal, but it was too much of the same. Not boring, but lots of the interesting bits - the details of the how & why he felt - left out.

One interesting quote about himself, feeling more and more distant, which seemed quite a parallel with his New York Trilogy kind of writing.

word: Txotx (Basque)

It means literally toothpick, but it’s also said when you tip cider out of a barrel to anounce to everybody the barrel is open and they ought to fill their glasses.

word: وش (Arabic)

وش (Arabic)

This word is from Egyptian Arabic and is pronounced like the English word “wish”.
It means the frothy head on a Turkish-style coffee.