Pillars

This morning arriving at work I saw a Chinese guy doing the old Jean-Claude Van Damme deal on one of the pillars in the passageway which leads into the site. Hitting the pillar with his bare hands. No thin wooden spar this either, we're talking solid concrete. I wonder how long it would take to wear it down and break the pillar? And then how many pillars would you have to break before the roof fell in? Samson would have the place down in a jiffy. This passageway seems to attract a lot of eccentrics - guys juggling balls (narrow passageway with a low roof, ideal place to juggle, but the guy was getting round this by bouncing them off the ground) or girls' dance groups (I think they make use of a big mirror at one end of the passageway). Then there's the rest of use, just trudging in to work.

24 hours of book offers!! Free delivery worldwide!!

Tahir Shah's wikipedia page in French

I helped translate this (from English into French):
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahir_Shah

Timbuctoo: After Tahir Shah's amazing alternative travel books, his first novel is also an excellent read

I received a free copy of this ebook from the "Cave ab homine unius libri (Beware the man who owns just one book)" web-site: http://www.caveab.com (and I also bought the hard-back edition).
I have read most of Tahir Shah's alternative travel books and enjoyed them very much, so I was very much looking forward to this book - his first novel. It definitely lived up to my expectations.
Here Shah succeeds in transporting the reader back to this interesting period in history (the British Regency era, 1811—1820, where the Prince of Wales - or the Prince Regent as he was known - ruled in place of his father King George III who was deemed mentally unfit to carry out his role).
It tells the tale (based on a true story) of Robert Adams, an American who was taken slave by Moors after a shipwreck off the coast of Africa, how he reached the mythical city of Timbuctoo, and then managed to escape his captors and come to London where he recounts his story to the corrupt Royal African Committee who have just sent out an expedition in the hope of seizing the legendary gold of Timbuctoo.
Shah uses short 2/3 page chapters (very cunningly for the current generation's short attention span) to gradually build up the suspense, describe a range of colourful characters and paint an interesting picture of this period of British history: its customs, obsessions, persecutions and inequalities.
Highly recommended.

Favourite quotes from "Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru" by Tahir Shah

"By making subtle changes, the old ways collapse, like a house of cards." 

(Talking about how the people of the Shuar tribe in the Amazon region of Peru are losing their culture and medicinal plant knowledge due to the influence of outsiders - notably evangelists).

"Plotkin (in Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice) says that of the world's 250,000 or so plant species, only about 5000 have been screened in the laboratory to determine their therapeutic potential. There are, he says, 120 plant-based prescription drugs currently on the market. They are derived from only 95 species."

Another great book from the most original of travelers. Shah goes deep into the Amazonian jungle in search of the head-shrinking Shuar tribe who - legend has it - are able to fly like birds over the jungle. Another brilliant epic voyage full of fascinating information, bizarre situations and amazing characters. 

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Trail-Feathers-Tahir-Shah/9781611455090/?a_aid=ajcairns

Have also started on "Timbuctoo" - Shah's first novel (it takes places during the Regency period and is based on the true story of an American who was taken slave after a shipwreck on the coast of Africa and ended up in the legendary city of Timbuctoo). Good read so far.

Documentaire sur un des aspects du 'evil empire of Nestlé'

Nestlé et le business de l'eau en bouteille - videos.arte.tv


ps - Plus disponible sur le site Arte, mais toujours sur Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6wfcW-kPew

Sinon aussi intéressant - GOLDMAN SACHS ARTE DOC - LA BANQUE QUI DIRIGE LE MONDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpitBlsdAYY

The Blank Page 2

The blank page 2 / ... (infinity)

I see the thumb from the office window. Giving all us office-workers a big thumbs up - maybe that was the idea behind it.

We probably need more than a 40 foot high sculpture of a thumb to get us motivated.

How come you don't have motivational coaches in most jobs. Anything outside of sports?

If we did have motivators how much better would we perform?

What would be the increase in 'productivity'? The ROI (return on investment) - of paying the coaches and the time spent getting coached?

Would such a method be more or less effective than other methods such as:

- more pay

- more breaks

- more perks (better / free coffee)

If you could change one thing (with the aim of the highest increase in productivity) what would you change?

I think for me it would have to be outsourcing all the boring, repetitive, administrative, secretarial-type tasks (getting someone less qualified and more interested in that kind of thing to do them) and to leave me free to concentrate on the more interesting, strategic, reflective, problem-solving parts of the job.

Ideally I would just spend time thinking about stuff and then communicating my thoughts / conclusions to other people in the organisation who would then act upon them.

Taking that to the extreme, I'd never have to do the same thing twice because that would be repetitive and hence boring. I would always be working on new challenges; new problems; new theories to propose and test out; new conclusions to reach; new actions / improvements based on those conclusions.

The Blank Page 1

The Blank Page 1 by Andrew Cairns

The page is blank but I will endeavour to fill it with writing.

How blank is a page really? Is it predestined to be written on, drawn on, destroyed or recycled? Or does the writer have total control

How blank is a new born baby (or earlier stage embryo)? Do the environment and genetic inheritance totally determine his personality, his actions, his thoughts? 

Do you have freedom of thought? What are the limits?  

100 billion neurons (give or take). 100 trillion synapses. At any one time, only about 10% of the neurons are actually "firing". [cf. 10⁸⁰ atoms in the universe].

10¹⁶ operations per second (10¹⁵ synapses operating at about 10 impulses/second)

60*60*24*365*80 = 2 522 880 000 seconds in a lifetime

=> 2.5 * 10²⁵ operations per lifetime (or thoughts)

Scraped from the net:

Massive oversimplification:

Consider that there are approximately 1 trillion neural connections in the human brain. For simplicity sake, assume that any given instant, each connection is either "on" or "off" (firing or not firing). Then the number of possible states is two raised the power of one trillion. That's a finite number, but even if humanity survived until the heat death of the universe, we couldn't exhaust a measurable fraction of the possible mental states.
posted by justkevin at 8:11 AM on January 23, 2006

Based on this simplification, possible thoughts (mental states for 1 human) : 2 to the power of 100 000 000 000 000 = approx 10⁴² operations

Implies 10¹⁷ lifetimes required to exhaust all possible thoughts.

i.e. 10⁵ trillion humans over the total lifespan of humanity (estimates are only 1.2 trillion Doomsday argument (DA)). Scraped from Wikipedia.

Assuming that the world population stabilizes at 10 billion and a life expectancy of 80 years, it can be estimated that the remaining 1140 billion humans will be born in 9120 years. cf 60 billion born so far.

If we survive another 5 billion years (estimated time left before the sun burns out) => approx 5 * 100 000 * 1000 billion humans = 5 * 10⁵ trillion humans would be able to exhaust 5 * the possible thoughts

Bit of a digression.

You would need to live 10⁵ trillion lifetimes to exhaust all possible thoughts (mental states).

So we can safely say - the limits are only imposed by the physical synapse limits of the brain, but within your lifetime you are free to have about 10²⁵ thoughts out of a possible 10⁴² - leaves a lot of scope.

So your brain offers you the possibility of freedom of thought, but your genetics and environment are heavily pounding the brain into certain thought patterns. 

If you could but for a few minutes escape all environmental and genetic restraints, then what would your brain be capable of? Huge originality. Perhaps this is why the most original thinkers / people who put their brains to the most original use have strange or 'damaged' brains - e.g. Einstein, people with Autism).

Book Depository 24 hour offer

New 24 hour offers on Book Depository
(starts tomorrow - June 20th, 2012 (7 a.m. EDT, 12 noon BST, 9 p.m. AEST)


In the meantime have you read this yet ?



Favourite quote from this book:
"Soon all that would remain of Vishram Society would be the old banyan; and each time there was a wind, its leaves brushed against the abandoned guard's booth like a child trying to stir a dead thing to life." - Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga.

The desert 

"The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That’s the way it will be with our love for each other." from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Chinese

A very Chinese day.
Went for a light chinky at lunchtime (spring roll and jasmine tea), then for a T'ai chi course. Supposedly T'ai chi is good for both physical and mental health (and can also be applied to other areas of life - deflecting aggressive emails...).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%27ai_chi_ch%27uan#Stress_and_mental_health

Headhunters

Am reading "Headhunters" by Jo Nesbo (norwegian) - it's a great thriller.

The river of life

"Sometimes it is impossible to stop the river of life." from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

This is your life

holstee.com/manifesto

24h discount offers on books - free worldwide delivery (from 2 February 12 noon GMT)

Pick up a good cheap book during this 24h discount offer. Running for 24 hours from 2 February 12 noon GMT (7 a.m. EST / 11 p.m. AEDT). Don't miss it!!