Daily life of Arsy

Things about software design, music, art, life in France, and the other good things in the world. http://arsy.org

[arsy]

"Real eyes realize real lies" (à Le Marais, Paris IV)

[arsy]

Atelier Meraki - to do something with soul, creativity and love; when you leave a piece of yourself in your work. (à Atelier Meraki)

[arsy]

Plan de Paris published in 1567

[purplebuddhaproject]

As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.

Suzuki Roshi (via purplebuddhaproject)

[arsy]

A wood sandal sitting on the side of the tracks at the station. Just one. Not two. (à Parc des Expositions de Villepinte)

[panatmansam]

Today is Good Friday, the day Christians all over the world commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross upon the hill of Calvary the day before Passover by the Roman state some two millennia ago. Jesus would have been scourged with a leather whip with lead weights on the end before his...

[arsy]

Big lizard outside our door in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica... Species? (à Playa Santa Teresa, Costa Rica)

[arsy]

What happens when a child joins the adults for meditation?

Last night, my neighbor and his 3 year old son joined our small weekly meditation group.  

I spent a few minutes when his son on how to sit like a mountain and to feel the tickling at the tip of his nose when breathing.  

I asked him to feel where the air goes when he breaths in, starting from the tip of his nose, underneath his eyeballs, down his throat, past his heart and down to his belly.  I explained how to connect the breath from his nose to his belly.  

In... pause... out... pause..

Then we all sat down and meditated together for 30 minutes.

To all of our surprise, he sat through the whole session and at the end was still sitting with his eyes closed... breathing, in... out... in... out..

We all looked at each other amazed!

Bravo Théo, bravo!

[panatmansam]

[panatmansam]

All cats are pretty much the same from your lil’ tabby to a Bengal tiger.

You are a night hunter. Your eyes are especially adapted to the dark. You have a huge field of vision and can see color quite well. You have a third eyelid and never need to blink. Your whiskers also provide information in the dark. You have a special sense for the little lives in your backyard and you are their terror. Your spine is a coiled spring and gives you the ability to climb, pounce and survive falls from great heights. You have patience and can sit immobile for hours waiting for prey.

In the backyard, to the mice, rats, birds and bugs you are a holy terror. You are death in the night. You are fang and claw. You hunt because it is instinct. You do not have to be hungry. You will kill just for the sheer bloodlust of killing. You sit in the grass. Scenting and listening for movement. Your ears can pivot independently nearly 360 ° to hear your prey. 

You are cautious and prefer the ambush and quick bite to the neck for the kill. You like tight spaces where you can be protected but ready to pounce. You never like to sit in the same place twice where prey animals might pick up your scent and instead prefer to sit in a different spot every time if possible. Your home, your human home, is an extension of the out of doors, to your senses it is a jungle primeval. You sleep eighteen hours a day. Your humans are, to you, just big clumsy cats who cannot hunt very well no matter how many times you try and show them.

You are a killer. A serial killer on the loose. You kill for the love of killing. 

[indypendent-thinking]

[theniftyfifties]

Thelonious Monk rehearsing in a New York loft with saxophonists Phil Woods and Charlie Rouse, 1959.

[arsy]

Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day's work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations. … It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Albert Einstein

Speech to students at the California Institute of Technology, in "Einstein Sees Lack in Applying Science", The New York Times (16 February 1931)

[nevver]

2014: Earth’s warmest year on record

[arsy]

Warms colors on the bed for a new year (à Chez Arsy)

[thehipperelement]

The UI designer’s superpower is being able to take any form. The UX designer’s superpower is invisibility.

And together, they make a very powerful team. (via thehipperelement)

[mstrkrftz]

Yosemite Haze by Darvin Atkeson on Flickr.

[arsy]

Such a majestic shot...

[lysergicfunk]

[arsy]

The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

Obi Wan Kenobi