(no subject)

Talk about the future. But isn't talking about future roses at least an inappropriate occupation for someone lost in the highly inflammable forests of the present? And the investigation of the thorns of these roses, the search for the problems of our great-grandchildren, while we cannot even deal with today's abundance of problems, does such scholasticism not border absurdity? If only we had the justification of searching for means to strengthen our optimism or of doing it for the love of truth, clearly visible in a future without storms, even literally taken, after the possibility of climate control. The justification for these words, however, does not lie in any academic passion, nor in unshakable optimism which imposes the faith that, whatever may happen, the outcome will be favorable. The justification is at the same time simpler, more practical, and maybe more modest, since while I am preparing to write about the future, I am simply doing what I am able to do, no matter how good I am at this, since it is my only ability. But if this is true, then my work will be no less, no more dispensable than any other, because every work is based on the assumption that the world exists and that it will continue to exist.

Stanislaw Lem, SUMMA TECHNOLOGIAE (1967).

Падонкафский вариант на конкурс переводов хайку.

A pretty girl…
The palace guard,
noticeably unmoved.

Ken Stein, USA. http://community.livejournal.com/all_japan/262431.html

гламурная тёлка...
красавчег часовой
гатичьна не прёцца

(no subject)

Neuron from rat brain on a linear array of transistors. The ionic current in the cell interacts with the electronic current in the silicon.

(no subject)

The five steps of a typical creative process

1. Preparation: Becoming immersed into a problem/sitiation ( consciously or not)
2. Incubation : Solution develops below threshold of consciousness
3.Insight: The “Eureka!” moment.
4. Evaluation: Is it worth pursuing?

5. Elaboration: 99% perspiration <----------- you are here.

I hate this last stage of idea development, when a breakthrough has to be split into a multitude of repeatable steps so that even a 10-year old could follow your way from problem to solution.
No leaps of faith, no inspiration, just a long, tedious trek across a mental Lego desert.

--------

Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration

- Thomas Alva Edison.