Free hugs campaign

Free hugs campaign.

Right here, right now

Early this year I pronounced the year 2006 to be my Big Self-Improvement Year.
It is really paying off, I could write a book if it all wasn't so complex.

Yesterday after going to bed, I had an extraordinary experience. Like I have sometimes suspected, and like some philosophers have told us, I rather suddenly got a perception that:

Everything I ever desired or longed for is present right here, right now.

Any happiness, any pleasure, and riches, any love, any joy, any excitement... it is all with me right now. I just have to be willing to touch it, and there it is.

I've sometimes known and learned this, but this is the strongest subjective perception of it I have ever had. It was very wonderful and very remarkable.

Old editorial about revenge

John just reminded me of an old editorial of mine I had completely forgotten (I had to google it).
This was posted on the day after 9/11.
I remember walking home ten minutes after seeing the second tower fall, and I suddenly thought: my god, this is the least of it, they are going to use this to try to create a police state, and war, aren't they.

Absolute Sandman

If you've been wondering if there was any truth to the claims that "comics are not just for kids anymore", I recommend Absolute Sandman. The price may seem excessive, but it really isn't. This is a really, really big book, in terms of size, in terms of page count, and in terms of amount of creativity and intellect in it. And also in terms of the care put into its production, from all accounts.

More about YouTube

Remember I said there's no way YouTube is making money with only advertising? Providing free video downloading to the whole world is EXpensive. (When I am right, I'm right, see this TidBITS article.)

... So they ended up solving it in the traditional way. No, I don't mean producing something and selling it, I meant the traditional DOTCOM way: selling an insolvent company for millions of dollars to a bigger company. Makes sense. For the seller at least. In this case 1.6 Billion dollars of sense! Holy mama.

Ease of installation

The world could learn something from Apple. I've just installed Photoshop CS2 (don't get me started on their new naming "conventions"). Why doesn't the installer suggest and allow importing tool presets and Actions from the previous version?
Worse than that, I've tried for half an hour doing it manually by copying the old files with the settings. No go. How idiotic is that? You'd think that by version 9 of a major app, they would have learned to make an (expensive) paid upgrade easy for their customers.
Pro Photoshop users are well-paid people, often. If 100,000 people each waste half an hour fiddling with this unnecessary BS, you figure out how much money that wastes. Not to mention ulcer medication. C'mon Adobe, wake up.

Laurie feedback

Laurie Jeffery would like some feedback. (Nudity alert.)

Shock hypnosis

Go here to listen to a free five-minute tutorial about how a sudden change or shock can induce a hypnotic state and how this relates to learning and REM states. Like Silvia Hartmann said to me, we all should know a lot more about hypnosis, because a lot of social indoctrination is happening by implanting ideas in people's minds without them knowing about it or agreeing to it.

Bourgeois

From the movie Vincent and Theo:

Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh are in the French landscape, both painting. Gauguin goes to Vincent and asks him about his paints, which Vincent reveals are premium brands. Gauguin says "I always use only the cheapest brands. The premium ones are too bourgeuis."

A little later, Gauguin runs out of yellow and goes and nicks some from Vincent.

Yet a bit later, Vincent takes a break and goes to look at how Gauguin's painting is progressing. He comments: "the yellow is a bit bourgeois."

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Here's a tip: I didn't remember how to spell Gauguin, so I went to Google and typed in "gaugin". And Google, due to its huge database of searches, guessed that I wanted the famous painter, and suggested "Gauguin". Presto. Instant spelling suggestions, works better than any spell checker I know.

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For the first time in over a dozen years, I am looking into painting again, I've bought acrylic colors. I am a bit hesitant, though, for geez, what an emotional roller-coaster art is!