See, this is why I hate my job. We start out doing some magical end-all solution for a may be customer, the "XML Engine" hazily devised by IT iliterate decision makers without a clue what it's should do or who wants it. Ignore that the codebase as is needs refactoring and fixing, let's ignore that we have a todo list a mile long, let's make up requirements on top of that! Then, when reality kicks in and the may be customer isn't, we have semi-finished shit clogging up all code arteries with poison. But noooo, don't clean it up, let's hack something else together like this cover control thing, sort of based on what would have been the "XML Engine" (TM) with no clear requirements. Then, let's not do anything about it for a year, and when another customer wants something similar, let's make someone else program something from scratch, and hey, could we also make sure not to have this programmer coordinate with the other programmer? Just to make sure that we don't do anything right? And, when the time comes that a third client wants something in-between what these two programmers were forced to crap out, could we ask them to hack something different together real quick to make absolutely sure that we're living on a pile of code shit, and also top it off by "agreeing" to do that on a meeting that's supposedly "Scrum" planning, except we skip each and every bit that would actually make it scrum and instead have the überboss jot in "agreements" and "deadlines" in an Excel sheet?
Sure thing, that's how we roll, baby! Let's do the third thing, unless custId is 1521. DB is in another script altogether, so we don't need to worry about that.
(unknown coder)
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and of the Rights of Man to His Own Madness
WHEN, IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN CULTURE IT BECOMES NECESSARY FOR A PEOPLE TO DESTROY THE INTELLECTUAL BONDS THAT UNITE THEM WITH THE LOGICAL SYSTEMS OF THE PAST, IN ORDER TO CREATE FOR THEMSELVES AN ORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY WHICH, CORRESPONDING TO THE VERY ESSENCE AND TOTAL EXPRESSION OF THEIR BIOLOGICAL REALITY, WILL BE RECOGNIZED BY THE CHOICE SPIRITS OF OTHER PEOPLES - THEN THE RESPECT THAT IS DUE PUBLIC OPINION MAKES IT NECESSARY TO LAY BARE THE CAUSES THAT HAVE FORCED THE BREAK WITH THE OUTWORN AND CONVENTIONAL FORMULAS OF A PRAGMATIC SOCIETY.
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Some instructors of martial art favor forms, the more complex and fancy the better. Some, on the other hand, are obsessed with super mental power (like Captain Marvel or Superman). Still some favor deformed hands and legs, and devote their time to fighting bricks, stones, boards, etc.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of gung fu lies in its simplicity. Gung fu is simply the direct expression of one’s feeling with the minimum of movements and energy. Every movement is being so of itself without the artificiality's with which people tend to complicate it. The easy way is always the right way, and gung fu is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of gung fu, the less wastage of expression there is.
Instead of facing combat in it’s suchness, quite a few systems of martial art accumulate "fanciness" that distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual reality of combat, which is simple and direct and non-classical. Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial techniques (organized despair!) are ritually practiced to simulate actual combat. Thus, instead of being in combat, these practitioners are idealistically doing something about combat.
Worse still, "super mental this" and "spiritual that" are ignorantly incorporated until these practitioners are drifting so much further and further into the distance of abstraction and mystery that what they’re doing resembles anything (from acrobatics to modern dance) but the actual reality of combat.
All these complexities are actually futile attempts to arrest and fix the ever-changing movements in combat and to dissect and analyze them like a corpse. Real combat is not fixed and is very much alive. Such means practice (a form of paralysis) will only solidify and condition what was once fluid and alive. When you get off sophistication and whatnot, and look at it realistically, these robots (practitioners, that is) are blindly devoted to the systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.
Gung fu is to be looked at without fancy suits and matching ties, and it will remain a secret when we anxiously look for sophistication and "deadly" techniques. If there are really any secrets at all, they must have been missed by the seeking and striving of its practitioners (after all, how many ways are there to come in on an opponent without deviating too much from the natural course?). True gung fu is not daily increase, but daily decrease. Bring wise in gung fu does not mean adding more, but to be able to get off with ornamentation and be simply simple – like a sculptor building a statue, not by adding but by hacking away the unessential so that the truth will be revealed unobstructed. In short, gung fu is satisfied with one’s bare hand without the fancy decoration of colorful gloves which tend to hinder the natural function of the hand.
Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restrictive a method is, the lesser the opportunity for the expression of one’s original sense of freedom! The techniques, though they play an important role in the early stage, should not be too restrictive, complex, or mechanical. If we cling to them we will become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the technique and not doing the technique. When someone attacks you it is not technique number one (or is it technique number two, stance two, section four?) that you are doing, but the moment you become aware of his attacks you simply move in like sound and echo without any deliberation. It is as though when I call you, you answer me or when I throw something to you, you catch it, that all.
(Bruce Lee)
To me, the extraordinary aspect of gung fu lies in its simplicity. Gung fu is simply the direct expression of one’s feeling with the minimum of movements and energy. Every movement is being so of itself without the artificiality's with which people tend to complicate it. The easy way is always the right way, and gung fu is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of gung fu, the less wastage of expression there is.
Instead of facing combat in it’s suchness, quite a few systems of martial art accumulate "fanciness" that distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual reality of combat, which is simple and direct and non-classical. Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial techniques (organized despair!) are ritually practiced to simulate actual combat. Thus, instead of being in combat, these practitioners are idealistically doing something about combat.
Worse still, "super mental this" and "spiritual that" are ignorantly incorporated until these practitioners are drifting so much further and further into the distance of abstraction and mystery that what they’re doing resembles anything (from acrobatics to modern dance) but the actual reality of combat.
All these complexities are actually futile attempts to arrest and fix the ever-changing movements in combat and to dissect and analyze them like a corpse. Real combat is not fixed and is very much alive. Such means practice (a form of paralysis) will only solidify and condition what was once fluid and alive. When you get off sophistication and whatnot, and look at it realistically, these robots (practitioners, that is) are blindly devoted to the systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.
Gung fu is to be looked at without fancy suits and matching ties, and it will remain a secret when we anxiously look for sophistication and "deadly" techniques. If there are really any secrets at all, they must have been missed by the seeking and striving of its practitioners (after all, how many ways are there to come in on an opponent without deviating too much from the natural course?). True gung fu is not daily increase, but daily decrease. Bring wise in gung fu does not mean adding more, but to be able to get off with ornamentation and be simply simple – like a sculptor building a statue, not by adding but by hacking away the unessential so that the truth will be revealed unobstructed. In short, gung fu is satisfied with one’s bare hand without the fancy decoration of colorful gloves which tend to hinder the natural function of the hand.
Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restrictive a method is, the lesser the opportunity for the expression of one’s original sense of freedom! The techniques, though they play an important role in the early stage, should not be too restrictive, complex, or mechanical. If we cling to them we will become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the technique and not doing the technique. When someone attacks you it is not technique number one (or is it technique number two, stance two, section four?) that you are doing, but the moment you become aware of his attacks you simply move in like sound and echo without any deliberation. It is as though when I call you, you answer me or when I throw something to you, you catch it, that all.
(Bruce Lee)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Walking on water...
“Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.“ - Edward V. Berard
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Scientific Programming Toolbox
Finally I have found a suitable home for my scientific software toolbox at origo (ETH Zürich). If Kenai is ever going to finish migrating (the oracle guys have not been very communicative so no one knows sh.t) you may tell them that I'm not coming back.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Finster war’s, der Mond schien helle
Schnee lag auf der grünen Flur,
als ein Wagen blitzesschnelle
langsam um die Ecke fuhr.
Drinnen sass ein stehend Männchen,
stumm in ein Gespräch vertieft,
während draussen auf den Eise
ein toter Hase Schlittschuh lief.
Und ein blondgelockter Jüngling
mit kohlrabenschwarzem Haar,
auf die grüne Bank sich setzte,
Die rot angestrichen war.
Monday, January 11, 2010
True Terror
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. (Kurt Vonnegut)
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