Sunday, March 11, 2012

Kabbalah vs. Freud (or the Kabbalah without God)


"Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; [...] According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role." (more)

From the Kabbalah (more):
  • Nefesh (נפש): the lower part, or "animal part", of the soul. It is linked to instincts and bodily cravings.
  • Ruach (רוח): the middle soul, the "spirit". It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
  • Neshamah (נשמה): the higher soul, or "super-soul". This separates man from all other life-forms. It is related to the intellect and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. This part of the soul is provided at birth and allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God.

μαϊττάππι

απο το βουλγαρικο Майтапи = αστείο, φάρσα.

κάφκα

"Σχετικά με την (πολύ αστεία) ομοηχία της κυπριακής λέξης καύκα για την ερωμένη και του συγγραφέως Φραντς Κάφκα, στο βιβλίο του επιφανούς Σλάνγκου Ν. Σαραντάκου Λέξεις που χάνονται (2011, σ.125) υπάρχει το ανέκδοτο (η ιστορική αλήθεια του οποίου δεν είναι απολύτως σίγουρη) ότι «στην δεκαετία του 1970, όταν έφτασαν από Ελλάδα στην Κύπρο αντίτυπα της Δίκης του Κάφκα, που είχε παραγγείλει ένα βιβλιοπωλείο, ο τελωνειακός υπάλληλος απαγόρευσε την εισαγωγή, διότι βλέποντας στο εξώφυλλο Κάφκα σκέφτηκε την καύκα και νόμισε ότι ήταν άσεμνο το περιεχόμενο».

Ως προς την ετυμολογία της λέξης, ο Ν.Σ. θεωρεί πιθανή την σύνδεσή της με το μεσαιωνικό καύκος= ποτήρι (βλ. το «πάλιν τον καύκον έπιας, πάλιν τον νουν απώλεσας» για τον μέθυσο αυτοκράτορα Φωκά)."


apo http://www.slang.gr/lemma/show/apanthisma_Kupriakon_limmatoudion_9270

Friday, March 09, 2012

This gives new meaning to 'reading from the belly'

"When reading something aloud, it is best to read from the belly. Reading from one's mouth, one's voice will not endure." - from Hagakure, the book of the Samurai


From Hagakure, on Mistakes

When I was young, I kept a "Dairy of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day when I didn't have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day's affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or in some activity. Living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Semantic satiation

"Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds."


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Astronomic Club

as a score by Air to the restored version of the 1902 film, Le voyage dans la lune.





Saturday, January 28, 2012

Kierkegaard and subjective time

In the ethical stage, repetition assumes the form of the universal norms of conduct: instead of chasing the elusive moments of esthetical pleasure, we rely upon the certitude of repetition. Repetition is a sign of maturity when the subject has learned to avoid the twin traps of impatient hope in the New and of nostalgic memory of the Old: we find satisfaction in the return of the Same, like the happy marital couple who has overcome the yearning for exotic adventures, yet is still able to avoid melancholic remembrance of past passions.

The deadlock which pushes Kierkegaard toward the next (religious) stage is of course the experience of how, at this stage too, repetition is impossible: the ideal point at which we overcome the futile yearning for the New without falling into a nostalgic backward-directed attitude, is never present as such. The structure of subjective time is such that, from hopeful expectations, from "too early," we are thrown all of a sudden into melancholic remembrance into "too late." In other words, the self-referential paradox consists in the fact that the ideal point between hope and memory is present precisely and only in the mode of hope or memory: in youthful zeal we hope to find peace in a beloved spouse one never gets tired of; in old age we remember the happy time fulfilled with the reliable rhythm of repetition.

from Zizek's Enjoy Your Symptom

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

a gentleman is

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't."
― Mark Twain

Friday, January 20, 2012

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Flirted with you all my life.



On December 25, 2009, Vic Chesnutt died from an overdose of muscle relaxants that had left him in a coma in an Athens hospital. In the 2009 interview with Terry Gross, while discussing the song "Flirted with You All My Life", he said, "You know, I've attempted suicide three or four times. It didn't take."

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Notable immortal species include the Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish which after becoming a sexually mature adult, can transform itself back into a polyp using the cell conversion process of transdifferentiation.

Turritopsis nutricula repeats this cycle, meaning that it may have an indefinite lifespan.

more

Saturday, September 03, 2011

William Klein

"A picture is taken at 125th of a second. [...] The life of a photographer, even of a great photographer as they say: 2 seconds"





Thursday, September 01, 2011

Martin Parr - The Magic Moment

"I believe it is the increasing wealth of the western world, which is fundamentally my main subject, is in the end the thing which will do as all in. I ‘m no exception; i live in a beautiful house, I have lots of things, I buy everything I want, I’m a big hypocrite. I’m not going to sacrifice my wealth for the sake of the planet as indeed anyone wealthy is not prepared to do. [...] The greed of you, me and the viewers of this program."

(The Magic Moment/2003, by Hank Onrust for VPRO, Netherlands)







Monday, August 15, 2011

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Dead Man

- "Wanted: William Blake."
- Huh?
"In the amount of $ . "
Shit.
Hell, ain't we about more fucked than a whore at closin' time, huh?


transcript here.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every involuntary repulsion that arises in your mind, give heed unto. It is the surface of a central truth."




Thursday, July 21, 2011

Garry Winogrand ~ Class Time with Garry

You have a lifetime to learn technique, he seemed to be saying, but I can teach you what is more important than technique, how to see; learn that and all you have to do afterwards is press the shutter.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

the gaze of the Other

20100823-DSC_0796

Jean Paul Sartre saw the gaze as the battleground for the self to define and redefine itself; we become aware of our self as subject only when confronted with the gaze of the Other and become aware of our self as object. The gaze of the Other is outside our immediate control and the way the gaze objectifies us robs us of our freedom as a subject: "insofar as I am the object of values which come to qualify me without my being able to act on this qualification or even to know it, I am enslaved. (more)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

To loose the memory of the take

Winogrand almost never developed his film immediately. He said he deliberately waited a year or two in order to lose the memory of the take.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The guy who didn't move in Istanbul

Confirmed by sampling at regular intervals throughout the day. The results are statistically significant.

don't move

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Mingus on Academia?

"Making the simple complicated*1 is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple**2, that's creativity." ~ Charles Mingus

Recipe for:
*1 Publishing scientific papers
**2 Being a good teacher

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Why my desktop is never tidy

"My problem with classifications is that they don’t last; hardly have I finished putting things into an order before that order is obsolete. Like everyone else, I presume, I am sometimes seized by a mania for arranging things. The sheer number of the things needing to be arranged and the near-impossibility of distributing them according to any truly satisfactory criteria means that I never finally manage it, that the arrangements I end up with are temporary and vague, and hardly any more effective that the original anarchy"

- George Perec, How I Classify

Friday, October 23, 2009

Σώτη Τριανταφύλλου στο Orient Express



Download

It works this way as well

"What makes me sad is my creeping awareness that, sooner or later - sooner that I am ready to admit - I will integrate myself into a new community, forgetting and forgotten by the place that now means so much to me. In short , what makes me sad is the awareness that I will lose my desire for (what is now) my home."
-SZ

What makes me sad is my creeping awareness that, sooner or later - sooner that I am ready to admit - I will integrate myself into a new relationship, forgetting and forgotten by the woman that has ment so much to me. In short, what makes me sad is the awareness that I will lose my desire for (whom is now) my woman.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Between

Sex between a man and a woman can be wonderful, provided you can get between the right man and the right woman
- Woody Allen

There is no direct, unmediated relation between the male and female sexual position, because the Other of language stands between them as a third party
- Jacques Lacan

Friday, September 25, 2009

Playing the Building (by David Byrne) @ Roundhouse, 31 August 2009



White rim with Warsaw theme (beamer ~ latex)

Problem:

Notice the white rim appearing on the left. A quick (but not the most elegant) solution to this is to edit the theme file used by Warsaw.

Open the tex\latex\beamer\themes\outer directory and (after backing up), edit:

beamerouterthemeshadow.sty

In the

\defbeamertemplate*{frametitle}{shadow theme}

block, find the following line:

\hskip-\Gm@lmargin\hbox{%

and add an hskip, for me -0.05ex worked:

\hskip-\Gm@lmargin\hskip-0.05ex\hbox{%

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Philip Glass @ BBC Proms (8/2009)




http://rapidshare.com/files/268039581/BBC_Proms_2009_Prom_37_Philip_Glass_-_Copy.part1.rar


http://rapidshare.com/files/268043149/BBC_Proms_2009_Prom_37_Philip_Glass_-_Copy.part2.rar


Philip Glass
* Violin Concerto (23 mins)
* Symphony No.7 'A Toltec Symphony' (UK premiere) (36 mins)

* Gidon Kremer violin

* BBC Symphony Chorus
* BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
* Dennis Russell Davies conductor

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Clint Mansell and The Sonus Quartet @ Union Chapel, London (July 2009)

"The live line-up is a nine-piece band featuring the Sonus Quartet from Los Angeles and also piano, guitars ,bass and drums. We will play music from Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler as well as some new material, yet to be released."




From The Fountain:



From Requiem:



Monday, June 29, 2009

Evangelical (A)theism



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6591231.ece

http://lucidsawndream.blogspot.com/2009/06/atheist-summer-camp.html


"On the one hand we have this so called rise of fundamentalism and so on, but something very interesting started to happen in the last years. Did you notice how a certain very vulgar direct materialism, attacking religion as stupidity, immoral laws, is gaining also at the same time extreme popularity. The three big stars even for, of course us, are originally Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and now also Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Its kind of an extremely vulgur reductionist materialism claiming religion is basically stupid, ethically hurtfull and so on. I think more and more that these are in a way two sides of the same coin, that we don't have to choose between these two." - SZ

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Two tD Points: A few years ago, around gardens & Grapevines. Now.


(1)


[...]

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

[...]

How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

[...]

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

[...]

//


(2)

According to the “Mosquitoes” chapter in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), mosquitoes are seen as reincarnations of the dead, condemned by the errors of their former lives to the condition of Jiki-ketsu-gaki, or "blood-drinking pretas".

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Includegraphics causes entire page to turn bold (LaTeX)

This happens when you 're including a .pdf image, which contains text in latin modern fonts. Found no other solution except turning into a .jpg (and missing the vector graphics pros) or changing the font type.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Thursday, January 22, 2009

We have a deficit of wonder right now

Tom Waits: "This is what's wrong with the world. Everything is explained now. We live in an age when you say casually to somebody 'What's the story on that?' and they can run to the computer and tell you within five seconds. That's fine, but sometimes I'd just as soon continue wondering. We have a deficit of wonder right now."

(Source: "Tom Waits: Dancing In" The Dark Harp Magazine (USA), by Tom Moon. December, 2004), taken from here

Thursday, January 01, 2009

metamorphosis

ρέ φίλε, άκου μουσικήν ρε φίλε (forgive my drunken words)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

LaTeX Template για Πτυχιακή Εργασία

LaTeX template πτυχιακής εργασίας για το Τμήμα Πληροφορικής και Τηλεπικοινωνιών του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών.


download templUoA

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Hmmmmm

Από cosmo.gr:
"Εντυπωσίασε η Madonna στην πρεμιέρα της περιοδείας της [...] Καθισμένη σε ένα διαμαντένιο θρόνο που είχε έμβλημα το «M» [...] έκανε την εμφάνισή της η Madonna στη σκηνή του Millenium Stadium του Κάρντιφ

[...]

Για μια ακόμα φορά, χρησιμοποιεί τη σκηνή για να περάσει πολιτικά μηνύματα, καθώς προβάλλονταν βίντεο με τις μορφές ανθρώπων που εργάζονται για παγκόσμιους σκοπούς όπως ο Bono και ο Al Gore να εναλλάσσονται με εικόνες από χώρες που σπαράσσονται από πόλεμο και πείνα."

Hm.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Leonard Cohen - Who by Fire (Athens, July 2008)




Sunday, June 22, 2008

tab2win firefox add-on


Tab2Win is a new firefox extension that allows the user to move a tab to a new window. Click to get it.

Comments are enabled for support / questions








Friday, June 06, 2008

Ελληνικό Spell Checker για LaTeX editor (LEd)

Για όσους γράφουμε σε LaTeX σε περιβάλλον windows και με τον LEd, πλέον υπάρχει ελληνικό spell checker διαθέσιμο από τα add-ons. Βασίζεται σε wordlist από το ελληνικό aspell και περιλαμβάνει κάποιους βασικούς κανόνες διόρθωσης.