The Sunday Struggle #12

I've bookmarked enough links the last couple of weeks to compile a reasonably worthy Sunday Struggle, should you be in need of one. Here goes:

1. Free Implants:

This link works only intermittently, and is highly controversial. Women who want cosmetic surgery but don't have the financial means to get them, post their pleas (often with suggestive pictures) online. Other visitors (mostly men) can donate money to the causes they deem most worthy. While I don't condone the use of such sites or what they represent, it's an interesting example of how the web is used to serve just about any purpose these days.

2. Visuals of the World

It is the longest visual website in the world. Last I checked it was up at 22541.97 cm. You can create your own visual and upload it to their site, so that you too become part of this intercultural, creative, worldwide visual project! Click ENTER and scroll down the page to see the visuals. Inspirational to say the least

3. Similar Diversity

If you happen to be in Salzburg, you may want to check out this exhibition: Similar Diversity is an information graphic which opens up a new perspective at the topics religion and faith by visualizing the Holy Books of five world religions. The viewers should be inspired to think about own prejudices and current religious conflicts.

4. For the Geeks (Thx Disco!)

5. For Dutch/Flemish readers: BomVol: A new digital magazine. Clicking through the pages demonstrates a new non-hierarchical, non-linear structure of a magazine. Creative visualisations. Takes some getting used to, but is definitely an interesting new concept.

6. More stencils & wall-art: I just bought myself this one. (Thx Mimusic!)


7. Another one for the geeks: "Is there an association between the use of heeled shoes and schizophrenia?" (Thx again, putmy)

8. Fix your language: Common errors in the English Language. I'm always shocked to find how many words I still misuse/abuse.


9. Display clothing. Visual displays on clothing. Everyone that was with me on the Physics trip to Cambridge a couple of years ago, knew this was coming (CDT)... I guess it's finally here.


10. If you're looking for a good Sunday film, I'd highly recommend getting one of these out on DVD:

- Igby goes Down

- The Laramie Project
- Stranger than Fiction

- Thank you for Smoking

- Goodbye Lenin
- Garden State

Hierarchy on its way out

A friend introduced me to del.icio.us a few weeks back and while I was initially a bit hesitant to use it (unlike her I'm not an early adaptor), I am now absolutely besotted by the concept.

Del.icio.us is a webbased feature which lets you store you favorite links and bookmarks online on the basis of semantic categories. Most of us organise our computer files and links in a hierarchical manner: we create files and subfiles to store them under.

For instance, if I am trying to hunt down a picture of a friend's party a while back, I would open a file called "LePew" then "Pictures" then "Olympus Camera" and then I need to rack my brains to remember when exactly this party took place, because I have stored all my private pictures by month. So if the party was in August 2005 I'd have to click on a file called "08-2005" to locate it. It's a bit of an effort, to say the least.

My weblinks were stored in a comparable manner. But del.icio.us now allows you to tag your links. For instance, if I was to store my own blog as a favorite, it would first of all be stored under its own name "Ubiquitous" and then instead of placing it in a file or subfile, I would simply attach tags to it: "blog, Pew, science, entertainment, ubiquitous, lesbian, Ghent, physics, life" etc... whichever term I would associate with this link. When I next try to find the link, I merely need to type in a few key-words to hunt it down, instead of trawling through a hierarchically structured directory.

What makes it easy, is that this type of storage is based on semantic and associative thinking. You don't need to remember dates or filenames. You simply think of keywords that naturally spring to mind when you yourself think of that file. And I'm becoming increasingly aware of just how associative my brain thinks. I rarely remember exact facts (which can be frustrating at times). But I do remember concepts, ideas, keywords,... that link into and out of others to connect the general dots and to see connections between otherwise unrelated or distantiated topics. I guess this is a common characteristic for people used to interdisciplinary environments and for conceptual thinkers. But what strikes me, is how different my keyword structures are from other people's.

Del.icio.us allows one to make "Tag Clouds" which is a visual representation of all your keywords. I've browsed the del.icio.us pages of several friends and they are generally very succinct and logical it seems, with keywords such as "blog", "music" or "fun". Whereas my tag cloud... well... see for yourself:

Too Much of a Good Thing?

I've just had a browse through my external HD and it seems I have managed to collect 9,493 mp3 files these last 3 years. That is almost 650 CDs or enough to listen for 27 days straight without having to hear the same song twice. Question is... when will I EVER do that?!? Hmmmm... I feel a challenge coming on.

Wish List

*Thanks to MaTuVu for so graciously letting me nick her idea


01. A cat without halitosis
02. To shadow polar bears on the Artic (not the other way around)
03. Complete the next step of my Mountain Leadership Training
04. Meet Noam Chomsky, Karl Popper and/or Richard Dawkins
05. Spend a week at the Santa Fe Institute to pick their brains
06. To spend a christmas somewhere snowy with lots of fairy lights
07. My own Carvers (skis)
08. A Star Trek suit (red for “command”, of course ;-)
09. To swim in the Dead Sea
10. To climb Mauna Loa (world’s largest volcano)
11. To re-visit the Yellowstone Caldera
12. To travel through Africa, Russia, South America and Alaska
13. Go to Roskilde Festival in Denmark with Val
14. To build up the nerve to sing something on a big stage
15. To write a few really good film-scripts
16. To ski on every continent, at least once.
17. To have my own house
18. To visit the Pyramids
19. An entire wall of books (+ swooshy library rail-ladder)
20. To make some local spanish friends to refresh/improve my Spanish
21. To find a job I’m passionate about
22. To see the red square (Moscow)
23. To fall in love, over and over again, with the right person
24. Participate in a research project on the Antartic
25. To travel 2-3 months each year (weekendtrips, long trips)
26. To be able to raise my kids bilingual
27. To set up a few projects I have in mind
28. An Audi
29. A weekly massage
30. To learn how to do parcour
31. To learn how to Kite-Surf (somewhere warm)
32. More friendships, as pure and exciting as the ones I've already built up
33. To shove my PhD certificate in the face of my old maths' teacher
34. To make a difference in someone's life
35. To grow old and be perfectly entertained when looking back on my life
36. (Not publishable)
37. (Not publishable)
38. To take a crash-course in stunt-driving (excuse the pun)
39. Wireless headphones
40. A pair of reading glasses with correct focus
41. To be able to use my reevu cycle-helmet without people taking the piss
42. To fix my rollerblades
43. To decorate a place entirely to my liking (blank cheque would help)
44. To always make time to just lie around putting the world to rights
45. Lots of summery nights in the Park with a bunch of good friends (pool welcome)
46. To always be able to challenge my own fears without being forced to
47. To one day be able to wrestle my brother to the floor again, for old time's sake
48. To not forget what being a teenager was about
49. To never tire of surprises
50. To spend my Sunday mornings with a nice cup of coffee in my hand, a lazy book or newspaper, an egg, a croissant, and a another warm hand that slips into mine every now and then out of sheer love and contentment.

Favorite Quotations

It's somewhat ironic for me to be blogging this, considering my title-quote. But meh... Enjoy.

1.

The report of my death was an exaggeration
- Mark Twain -

2.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast
- Oscar Wilde -

3.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it

- Winston Churchill -

4.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love

- Charlie Brown -

5.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French;
I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language
- Mark Twain -

6.

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune;
to lose both looks like carelessness
- Oscar Wilde -

7.

Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl
- Evan Esar -

8.

Those who live on hope, die fasting
- Benjamin Franklin -

9.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint
- Mark Twain -

10.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
- Oscar Wilde -

11.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one
- Einstein -

12.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity
- Oscar Wilde -

13.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence
- HL Mencken -

14.

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters
- Alice Ellis -

15.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray,
and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional
- Oscar Wilde -

16.

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland
- Woody Allen -

17.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be
- Douglas Adams -

18.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times
- Rita Rudner -