Chalk Photo of the Day
Elephant Brand Chalk. Seen in Robinson’s Department Store in Udon Thani.
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Got lost in Google+
Haven’t done much of anything since getting my Google+ invite. It’s a huge time sink. But the reason isn’t obvious, because it isn’t obvious what Google+ is, or will be used for or how it will fit into the larger social networking landscape.
Google+ is not a Facebook, or Twitter or even Tumblr killer. It’s an entirely different beast altogether, and I don’t even think Google knows what they have unleashed.
A Modicum of Otium
I just posted this to my circles on Google +:
For those who haven’t seen it, this is a very good video for any developer (not just clojure/lisp folken). It is a perfect fit with the concept of Otium, a word used to describe periods of quiet solitary contemplation in order to solve problems.
The opposite of Otium, is Negotium, where we get the word negotiation from, which literally means ‘not otium’ which is work done in a shared or public sphere.
It’s fitting that now that we are being submerged in the negotium of Google+, that we try to find balance and step away from our streams and feeds and find a modicum of otium now and again.Hammock Driven Development (video)
If meaning is not in the bits, it’s in the context…
Chalk Basket
Making Chalkhall’s first chalkboards
I have never liked whiteboards. They just feel wrong and unnatural. So last month I embarked on a foolish project to make a 16’ x 4’ chalkboard that would take up one entire wall of my room.
The first step was to buy two 8’ x 4’ pieces of hardwood plywood, which my landlord was able to sell me from his furniture making shop next door.
Cleaning and sanding the boards smooth
Primer coat of paint
Four coats of matte black acrylic paint, with 4-8 hours drying time between coats.
Seasoning the boards, by rubbing the boards with chalk and wiping off with a dry cloth.
Finished!
Chalk comes in colors too…
The whole project took the better part of 4 days and made a complete mess of my flat.
I was at first dissapointed with the results, these boards aren’t anywhere nearly as smooth as the chalkboards I remembered from school. But the more I use the boards, the more I’ve gotten used to them and all in all they have worked out okay.
When my landlord’s furniture shop starts up again after the rice planting season is over, he will make me some beautiful hardwood frames for the boards.
I’m an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git.
Keyboard flip flops! Not sure how comfortable they would be. Seen at Makro in Udon Thani.
The Classics provide something smaller but rarer—a humanistic appreciation of science. They bring to life a period when science was still, in William Harvey’s phrase, a “department of the republic of letters.” In our own time, we see science victorious, the acknowledged ruler of human destiny; in the Harvard Classics we find the more inspiring spectacle of science militant, the proud, embattled rationality that fought against ignorance and superstition for centuries.
In remembrance of Priyut Jakson, who died ten years ago today, at 11:32am in Ban Nahai, Ubon Ratchanthani Province. Rest in Peace Yut, you are loved, you are missed, you are rememered…..
