Wednesday 31 March 2010

Gluma de 1 Aprilie...



[Post publicat de Liviu, pe Liviu's [Personal] Blog]




Să trăiți bine!

Hă! Hă! Hă!




^ ok, asta a fost glumea mea de 1 Aprilie...

Sunday 28 March 2010

Proverbe populare aiurea: Nu haina face pe om, ci omul face haina.



[Post publicat de Liviu, pe Liviu's [Personal] Blog]


Mai țin minte și acum interpretările tâmpite ale proverbelor populare din școala generală.*

Unul dintre aceste proverbe populare: Nu haina face pe om, ci omul face haina.

Interpretarea oficială era cam așa: Nu** contează cum te îmbraci, ci ceea ce ești cu adevărat.
Poetic? Da.
Util sau eficient? Absolut deloc.
O prostie? Evident, întrucât:
  1. Elevul învăța că devine inutil să se chinuie să se îmbrace, iar prin extensie i se anula respectul de sine, dorința de a visa etc. Poate merg prea departe, dar în esența cam la așa ceva se ajungea la nivel interior.
  2. Adevărat ori nu era definit, ori era idealizat total aiurea, pregătind interpretarea personajelor din literatura de liceu. (vezi *)
  3. Se concluziona mereu victorios și cu înverșunare că omul face haina. Ok, what's the point? Cu ce o să mă ajute asta să mă dezvolt/extind în viitor?

Acum, un post vesel de la Seth Godin, la care am vrut să ajung, deoarece mi-ar fi plăcut să dau următoarea replică atunci: Clothes don't make the man, the man makes the man. Clothes (and the brand) just amplify that.
Superb.
Prima parte păstrează sensul proverbului nostru popular.
A doua parte - the man makes the man. Clothes (and the brand) just amplify that. - extinde pentru viitor exact ce are nevoie copilul în formare să rețină. Bravo!

Înlocuiți-vă pe creier proverbul nostru popular cu citatul de la domnu' Godin: Clothes don't make the man, the man makes the man. Clothes (and the brand) just amplify that.
Bravo!



* În liceu nu s-au mai făcut astfel de analize tâmpite, ci am trecut la nivelul următor, i.e. o literatură tâmpită, cu personaje majoritar ratați și/sau sinucigași. Da, am sărit din lac în puț.

** Orice interpretare adevărată și scrisă în stilul școlăresc-românesc clasic trebuie să înceapă obligatoriu cu o negație. Nu cumva să uitați!

Thursday 25 March 2010

[not] placebo



[Post published by Liviu, on Liviu's [Personal] Blog]



Take something that's fake, but tell people it's real and they will act like it's real. That's placebo.

Take something that's real, but tell people it's fake and they will act like it's fake. Keep telling them it's fake and they will expect you to show them how you did it. But what if it all ends there?
Well, in that case we have a very good (in my opinion) TED MED Talk - Eric Mead: The magic of the placebo.

Let me detail my assumptions of the needle trick:
  1. It's irrelevant whether we see a trick there or not.
  2. Piercing oneself with a long (it doesn't even matter the length) needle is not that hard if one has studied extensively where major blood vessels are in a specific part of the body (e.g. in one's own left arm, at half the distance between elbow and wrist, in this case), therefore one has learned pretty well to avoid those blood vessels.
  3. Piercing becomes safe (it sounds weird, but I bet it's true) if the needle is extremely thin in order not to damage blood vessels in case one has pierced any - the thinner the hole in the blood vessel, the less damage - that's why there was no blood leaking at first.
  4. Now that we know the trick is safe for the magician, we need to have the drama of showing blood - the magician actually had to make the holes in the arm larger by aggressively moving the needle, didn't he, in order to get some blood out? - yes, blood scares people, therefore we have the drama...

Let me go further with my philosophy - Conclusions:

So:
  1. People believe what you tell them to believe.
  2. People hate to change their opinions because they would have to admit they were wrong.
Talking about placebo (i.e. the fake that is delivered as true) at first makes people assume everything will be fake.

Yet, when they are shown the real thing (indeed, the real thing was perfectly safe for the magician but that's not the point here), they shall assume they are still watching something fake - moreover they will anxiously wait to have that expectation confirmed...

Was the talk about placebo?
Only the first part to get you think everything will be about fake things.
What was it about?
Be ready to change the very basic opinions/assumptions you had when you started anything. Yes, you had to see a few drops of blood to reach that conclusion...


Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Andrei Olaru for pointing me to this video.

Friday 19 March 2010

Happy Fish TV: Gata, m-am dezabonat. De ce?



[Post published by Liviu, on Liviu's [Personal] Blog]

De mult vroiam sa ma dezabonez la HappyFishTV, dar azi chiar m-am dezabonat. De ce?
  1. H.F. trebuia sa fie (si a fost un timp) funny, dar s-au prostit intre timp.
  2. Au ca slogan Vrem alta Romanie!, dar au intrat in acelasi jeg / monotonie / glume proaste si rasuflate / pesimism / haz de necaz tampit.
  3. Cand au oferit ultima oara o idee buna, care sa ma relaxeze, o idee funny? Am uitat.
La revedere, HappyFish!

Monday 8 March 2010

Born Of Hope [Movie Review]



[Post published by Liviu, on Liviu's [Personal] Blog]

After reading the news on Cinemagia, on the launch of an online unofficial/private-funded prequel to the Lord of the Rings series, called Born of Hope, I decided to visit the official website of Born of Hope, to further investigate the matter.

The movie lasts for a bit over 1 hour and proves somewhat entertaining.

Disclaimer: Given that LotR overall impressed me to 50-60%, maybe I'm not the best to judge it.

My opinion:
  1. It appears to follow the same framework and story telling style as Lord of the Rings. The atmosphere overall resembles the one from LotR.
  2. For the incredibly small budget they had and given the actors played for free, it's a good movie.
  3. Compared to any interesting movie, it did no touch me.
  4. The movie mostly resembles a soap opera in my opinion, not some exciting / interesting / thriller-like / action-like movie.
  5. The story... well, I see no story.
  6. Watching it might be fun however - it's relaxing and might prove an enjoyable experience.

Conclusion:
The movie did not impress me. However, the fans of the series might enjoy it.
I do recommend you to watch it - it's relaxing and might prove an enjoyable experience.


Hint:
One might want to download the movie and watch it playing from one's computer instead of streaming from the Internet. A solution for downloading the movie might be using Fast Video Download or Flash Got. That's how I did it. Enjoy!