The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered …

“Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

-Dalai Lama

There is really something seriously wrong with this picture…do they really think that all the time wasting threats are going to stop people from copying a DVD?

It’s been a while since I’ve read Don Norman’s work. Here is his insightful and down to earth lecture that touches on the ways that good design makes you happy.

Ok here it is, the latest waste of time online. This movie by Casey Neistat explains what Chat Roulette is all about. So instead of wasting time doing it you can just spend a couple of minutes watching other waste time. oohh the irony!

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

And if you want to waste a few more minutes it’s worth checking out this one which BenFolds 5 flatteringly imitated at one of his recent concerts.

I’m really lovin Hungry Beast on the ABC. I particularly love the awesome typographic animations that always illustrate mega interesting facts. In this animation The Beast File looks at Australias Big Two supermarket chains. Woolworths & Coles are a $100 billion a year duopoly with a retail market share unmatched in the developed world. And they have their fingers in a lot of other pies too.

Meet Google. The noun that became a verb. The world’s favourite search engine, and the company whose motto is “Don’t be evil…” Graphics by Patrick Clair, written by Elmo Keep.

And this one… It’s gratifying to know that my hard earned tax dollars are going to good use…NOT!!!!!

We are all inclined to accept conventional forms or colours as the only correct ones. Children sometimes think that stars must be star shaped, though naturally they are not.

The people who insist that in a picture the sky must be blue, and the grass green, are not very different from these children. They get indignant if they see other colours in a picture, but if we try to forget all we have heard about green grass and blue skies, and look at the world as if we had just arrived from another planet on a voyage of discovery and were seeing it for the fist time, we may find that things are apt to have the most surprising colours.

~ Extract from The Story of Art by E.H.Gombrich PG26

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
— Dr. Seuss

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
— Maya Angelou

I love this quote from a book that I just finished reading..

” It strikes me as a particularly American paradox: a nation with so many great athletes and a fascination for sports and such a mania for exercise technology, and they somehow avoid the easy, unheroic path to fitness. Sometimes I believe all these machines are a vestige of Puritanism: instruments of public self-flagellation to make up for private sins of couch sitting and overeating. “

PG 225 Mireille Guilian “French Women Don’t Get Fat”

I’m loving this song ever since I heard Lily Allen’s live version in the triple J studios. There is something really beautiful and raw about a voice and a couple of instruments, without the over-processing that can sometimes occur in the editing room.

But then again everything seems over processed these days; films, our food and hey even people as they cling to the notion of everlasting youth whist pumping themselves full of botox or worse. Anyway enough ranting, enjoy the song….

Interesting website that features personality tests. The results are very well presented in colourful bubbles that you can roll over for more info.

And the music test is quite insightly also….