Japan, ahead of the curve
There’s a saying, a Japanese person starts life as a Shintoist, marries as a Christian and dies as a Buddhist. Religion doesn’t seem to be as important as it is for us. They’re only a collective of traditions and rituals performed just for the mere act of ‘celebration’.
Discussing all the differences that the lack of fundamentalism creates between Japan and west would take me a book, but I think this quirky story will do for now.
A man married a video game character.
Leave children out of religion
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 18.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Marina Hyde interviews Charlie Brooker
You can find here a 33 minutes video of Marina Hyde interviewing Charlie Brooker.
It’s definitely worth watching and gives a funny look into how people from the entertainment industry, interact with public’s criticism thanks to the internet.
Some people think we’re now more rude and stupid, but to be honest I think the internet is only doing what medicine has done for us.
Years ago you would have died of anything. Now thanks to medicine we can live longer, but that highlights problems that normally would have killed people without the treatment. So are we more sick? No, the people who get sick live to tell us about it, that’s all (probably, perhaps, maybe)
The same thing with stupidity, are we more stupid? No, the people who are stupid can demonstrate it on the internet.
Referendum or death
With the Czechs signing the Lisbon treaty, it appears a new era of Political relationships between countries from the European Union will start.
I for one salute the idea of living in Europe instead of Spain or the UK, but I do agree that democracy should always be taken into account.
Do you believe in God?
That’s quite a big question.
What do we mean by God?
We have all been confronted with this question a few times, or maybe we’ve made the question to someone else. We use language to communicate and language is what defines what we are, so let’s be really clear about this.
Life is what happens between loading screens
Someone once claimed we wouldn’t celebrate happiness if we didn’t know what sadness was. The same way monotheistic religion needs Satan or any other form of ‘dark side‘ to justify what otherwise would be an unfair deity, we celebrate the little joys, the packaged excitement.
A loading screen is a way of disguising the preparation of a program to execute content. The user, waiting for something to happen while staring at beautiful art or sometimes a black screen. We wait for the world of excitement, or knowledge to be ready for us to use.
Video games are an essential part of our lives now, from the leaps in technology harnessed by other industries to a way of meeting and socializing people. We are the last generation who played on the streets, and the first one to use interactive technology to expand our culture.
Charlie Brooker’s shotgun of truth
This morning’s column by Charlie Brooker exposes one of the most feared concepts we can think of.
Fear of what we don’t know.
The ‘rant’ explains the oil-trading company Trafigura attempt to silent the newspaper Guardian and stop them from talking about Trafigura’s toxic waste dumping methods.
It is an excellent reading and a herculean effort of a column for a Monday morning.
I would like to thank holdingonfortomorrow for the great concept that is a ‘Shotgun of Truth’
Japanese Cinema
I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived in Japan for two years.
During that time I watched many movies, I am not talking about the classics like the Kurosawa’s and such, I’m talking about going to the local rental video store and start picking movies without knowing anything about them. Just judging by the cover.
Find out some of my favourites after the jump.
Discovering stuff
There’s a vehement stigma towards TV.
People call it the stupid box, the brain washer, the source of idiocy and all that’s wrong with our society. When they think about TV, they think of Big Brother, Strictly come Dancing or East Enders. Nothing that comes from the same platform could be remotely interesting they say. You can expect to find anything culturally interesting from the TV.
I disagree.
Apathy, biggest thread to Democracy?
Apathy:
- absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
- lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
- freedom from emotion of any kind.
From the Greek: apátheia insensibility to suffering
Democracy:
- government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
The Political system in the UK (among many other European countries) is suffering. Apathy is destroying any sense of democracy left in the country.
