Microwavable Ideas

Braingasms or brainfarts... A stream of ideas, notes & drafts. Visit Ctrl+Alt+J for polished gems. Follow me on Twitter @jhayrocas.

[jrocas]

One of my favorite songs from the Naruto anime soundtrack. This version is just beautiful.

[jrocas]

Greedy man-child

If a corporation could afford to pay its CEO a trillion dollars, surely society can afford free health care, free education, funding for science and the arts. There are plenty of more useful things we could spend a trillion dollars on than stroking a man-child's ego.

[jrocas]

BARTLET I have something to do in the next room, but lemme just tell you that I need a favor. MITCHEL Of course, sir. BARTLET I need you to hire a guy. MITCHEL Who, sir? BARTLET The former Ambassador to Bulgaria. MITCHEL Who's that, sir? BARTLET Ken Cochran. MITCHEL Isn't Ken Cochran the current Ambassador to Bulgaria? BARTLET Not for long. Look, he's a good man, a smart man, I think he'd make a very good corporate officer. MITCHEL Why's he being fired? BARTLET Gross incompetence. I'll be right back.

The West Wing. Season 1 Episode 21: Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

[jrocas]

My father told me something when I was very small to instill confidence in me: “Nobody in the world is worth more than you, but nobody’s worth less.” It is an egalitarian view that I’ve carried around in my life. That’s why I am for free schools, free universities, free health care, and free babysitting. Because our society could afford it. In America, people think social democracy is some kind of communism. They think capitalism is freedom. It’s not. It’s only freedom to exploit people.

Stellan Skarsgård, In Coversation – Vulture

[jrocas]

It's my 17 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

we'll keep going...

[jrocas]

[scavengedluxury]

I don't know, how about switching it off?

[wilwheaton]

Have you tried turning it off, and not turning it back on again?

[jrocas]

Obviously, we learned nothing from the days of crypto currency mining

[jrocas]

Philippine Taliban

"Pre-dominantly Catholic" is just a fancy term for imposing one's religious beliefs on others. That makes the Philippine government no different from the Taliban which is now imposing its interpretation of Sharia law in Afghanistan to oppress and marginalize women.

[jrocas]

No more spoons #gunpla #hobby

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil,

I hope you’re well! I really enjoy your work (though I confess I haven’t read quite enough of it yet to really justify that claim. Trying to fix that, though)!

I was wondering if you have any advice for getting attention as an aspiring author. I’ve almost finished writing my first book (young adult fantasy) and I’m afraid of being rejected. Besides making the story as polished as I can, how can I increase my chances of getting published? Should I try to get a lot of beta readers? Should I be making a website and/or blog (tumblr side blog maybe?) dedicated to my writing, or would that come after I get published? Would it help if I get on other social media sites, since tumblr is really the only one I have? Is there anything else I might not be thinking of that you would suggest?

Thank you so much!

The most important thing you can do is finish the book and start writing the next one. Most first novels aren't publishable. You're learning your craft and you're at the start of learning your craft. Hope that yours is one of the good ones, expect that it's one of the ones that are your first step on the road to being a published author. But if it is good, and the publisher has any doubts about whether to take you on as an author, the fact that you've already got most of the next book written might be the thing that sways them into accepting your book and you.

So yes, you can and probably should do all the things you suggest, but the biggest step on the way to becoming published is to write the next book.

[jrocas]

"We usually take memory for granted, seldom realizing how important and indispensable it is in our lives. I often imagine this morbid scenario. I walk out of a building; I step out into a busy street, and am run over by a jeepney with a reckless driver. I bump my head on the pavement and am rushed, unconscious, to a hospital. From the ID cards that the hospital staff find in my wallet (granting that it hasn't been stolen yet!) they are able to inform my immediate family. The problem arises when I finally regain consciousness. What if my memory has been erased, like a valuable computer file damaged by a virus? The only clue to my identity are the ID cards in my wallet. I am confronted by the worried faces of people who claim to be my loved ones, but I do not recognize them. Worse, I do not even know who I am. Can you imagine how painful this would be for both sides?

It is memory that has made the person I am today. Without memory we cannot form relationships, we cannot know who we are, we cannot forge our identities. The same is true for history. History is not just memorizing forgettable dates, unpronounceable names, and strange places. History is not just telling our students funny stories. History is making people see their past, thereby giving them a sense of being Filipinos. If memory gives us our individual identities, then history will contribute to a national identity. History gives us a way of looking at the world and dealing with it and its problems. History contributes to our being Filipino, whatever that is."

Ambeth Ocampo's lecture at the National Seminar on Social Sciences Teaching at Philippine Normal University on May 1, 1993, entitled "Meaning and History".

[jrocas]

[jrocas]

Presidential and whiners

Easter Sunday presented us with two greatly contrasting images:

On one hand, a group of grown-ass men have come together in a posh hotel in Makati, sourgraping and whining about being beaten in the surveys by a woman. Then called on her to withdraw from the Presidential race so that they could take over even though their chances of beating the former dictator's son is close to nill.

On the other, hundreds of miles away, the lone woman they are ganging up on has met and shared a meal with the Sumilao farmers who once more walked all the way to Naga to show support for someone who has been with them in their struggles for land, justice & a decent means of putting food on the table.

The electorate knows who is Presidential and who deserves not a single ounce of its attention or consideration come election day.

[jrocas]

"The rebuilding of our democratic institutions from the ruins of the dictatorship proved to be a long, excruciating process. But even more tough was the achievement of social justice for the landless, the jobless, the homeless, and the excluded among our people.

Post-Edsa leaders made the mistake of believing that the primary function of government in the modern era was to promote development by making the country attractive to global capital. They thought that people would be able to take care of themselves as long as they were given equal opportunity to do so. They turned to private capital to provide essential public services, content to play the role of regulators. They trusted in the rationality of the market so much that they paid scarce attention to the needs of those the system precisely excluded because it had no use for them.

We could think of many other reasons. But, none of these would ever justify the belief that what the country needs are bold and willful strongmen to shepherd us and take charge of our problems. For, that would be tantamount to losing faith in ourselves as political subjects." - Randy David, Getting Past EDSA, Philippine Daily Inquirer

[jrocas]

[jrocas]

Pork sinigang https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_ZY1oBCUV/?igshid=nixyx0o8lh64

[jrocas]

Time to re-read this classic, in an effort to reboot my blogging/writing.