Monday, May 26, 2014

20 awesomely untranslatable words from around the world

At No.3, an Indonesian word!  

Jayus : "A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh."

Also, Wabi-Sabi, from Japan “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

The rest of the words here

Sunday, May 25, 2014

The Mansion: A Subprime Parable by Michael Lewis

In all the public finger-pointing about the American real estate bust, surprisingly little attention has been paid to its origin. There’s obviously a long list of people and ideas that can share in the blame: ratings agencies, mortgage brokers, big Wall Street firms, small Wall Street firms, Angelo Mozilo, Alan Greenspan. Every few weeks, the New York Times runs a piece exposing some new way in which a big Wall Street firm has exploited some poor or middle-class family. The rich people on Wall Street blame their bosses. The brokers at Merrill Lynch blame Stan O’Neal; the traders at Bear Stearns blame Jimmy Cayne. Everyone blames Countrywide. But all of this misses the point: However terrible the sins of the financial markets, they’re merely a reflection of a cultural predisposition. To blame the people who lent the money for the real estate boom is like blaming the crack dealers for creating addicts. 
Americans feel a deep urge to live in houses that are bigger than they can afford. This desire cuts so cleanly through the population that it touches just about everyone. It’s the acceptable lust.
Rest at "The Mansion: A Subprime Parable by Michael Lewis"

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Socratic Vs. Sophists Model

"On the one side sits the Socratic and reactive model, which seeks the truth through debate and dialogue, and in order to get there, takes its stand against the various faces of ignorance, stupidity or bad faith. On the other side sits the model of the Sophists, which makes no attempt to seek the truth, but seeks merely to seduce, to persuade, to effect an audience with almost physical intensity, and win over by the words alone"
- Luc Ferry "A Brief History of Thought"

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

True Detective Quote(s)

"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
Rust, True Detective

Rust, Not True Detective


Saturday, March 1, 2014

We are like Sisyphus


"We modern people believe in absolute freedom. Many of us don’t believe in God at all. Many of us don’t believe in a God that you can know. Therefore, we believe in no God or no God you can really know because we believe in freedom. If there was a God we could know, who told us how we had to live, and who gave us the rules, and the regulations, well, then we wouldn’t be free but because we believe in freedom and because we don’t believe in the traditional view of God…we are free. But if we are free we are all like Sisyphus."

- Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Why we make bad decisions

"It is also crucial to ask probing questions not only of the experts but of ourselves. This is because we bring into our decision-making process flaws and errors of our own. All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want"
- from New York TimesNoreena Hertz is a professor of economics at University College London and the authorof “Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World.”

Friday, February 7, 2014

Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show - The Onion

"...“This show’s actually pretty fun and entertaining if you ignore how damaging it could be to our perceptions of gender in society." 
Jenkins also reportedly viewed roughly 10 minutes of advertisements throughout the show, during which time she reminded herself to actively tune out the numerous instances wherein feminine sexuality was used to sell products; the number of times advertisements preyed on female insecurity; and the sheer volume of bare female skin shown on screen. 
“Sure, I just watched several commercials that basically reduced women to explicitly sexualized objects whose sole purpose is to please men, but someone else can worry about that right now because I’m off the clock,” said Jenkins, following a succession of ads for vodka, shampoo, and the Fiat 500. “Honestly, I don’t even care that that yogurt commercial showed thin, beautiful women easily balancing home and work lives while eating 60-calorie packs of yogurt. Tonight, in my mind, they’re just selling Greek yogurt. That’s all...”
The rest at the Onion