Guesses At Nothing

I'd like to wish you all well for the coming new year.  I don't think I can say it any better than Neil Gaiman said it in 2007:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

or 2008:

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be,  be wise, and that you will always be kind.

This site is now officially http://www.guessesatnothing.com. The old domain will resolve here for a while, but please take the time to update your bookmarks and whatnot.  Also clear your memory cache on your local machine (your brain) and start to think of this as guesses at nothing (like shots in the dark) – random projectiles at unknown targets.  In the words of the great John Hodgman, THAT IS ALL. 

Merry Christmas everybody.  May your new year be filled with warmth and love. God bless.

From Bear

This photo is the modern take on the iconic photo shown below.

I wish I knew where it was taken.

...then surely we can agree that this is a good thing

[via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com]

This commercial is apparently pretty popular.  It even has its own facebook group.  What strikes me most about it is the stereotypes in the video.  

Car #1, a pickup truck piloted by a male with a beard and a mesh-back baseball cap. What's swishing around the cab?  Schwilly beer.

Car #2 -- piloted by a olive toned man who is coincidentally eating an olive out of the martini swishing around his car.

 And car #3, a sports car piloted by a young upstart (aka yuppy) whose car is filled with red wine.

 The producers of this commercial really nailed it.  Oh yeah, and they are all males for what it is worth.  

As ministers, representatives, and journalists from around the world gather in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, rental car firms are having difficulty providing enough limos to meet the demand:

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. “We haven’t got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand,” she says. “We’re having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden.”

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? “Five,” says Ms Jorgensen.

The local airport is expecting so many private jets that there will be no room to park them; the jets will ha

[via neatorama.com]

Especially with the ability to teleconference, the irony is thick that a climate change summit is leaving a pretty big carbon footprint.

I am at war every waking second of every day of my life.  Against racism.  Stupidity.  Hate. Greed. Lies. And Ignorance.

This war doesn't involve rifles or bombs AND THOUGH YOU MAY NOT REALIZE IT,  you are at war too.

I've been contemplating a new name for this blog -- one that reflected the spirit of the writing as opposed to the intentions of the writer.  Jim's Notes was relatively narcissistic and to me implied a sort of authority held be me, of which there is none. 

The name I first thought of was 'Shots in the Dark' as in the writing on this website is really no more than shots in the dark, random projectiles at unknown targets.  Unfortunately, shotsinthedark.com would have set me back around $3,000 -- not a possibility for a site that brings in no money and never will, written only for the love of writing and creation.  So as I listed the closest synonyms to 'shots in the dark' that I could think of, one jumped out at me... 'guesses at nothing'.  It tickled my mind in the spirit of a koan as a sort of loose double entendre consisting of the meaning I originally intended, a compound noun meaning something similar to 'shots in the dark', and also more of a cock-sure-unwavering-declarative-statement, as in 'he guesses at nothing'.  The writings here are sure to fall somewhere in between.

So, I bought the domain name and soon jimsnotes.net will become guessesatnothing.com.  The site is also undergoing a redesign that will (I hope) represent the spirit behind the name 'guesses at nothing'.  I'd like to thank all of the readers who've been here since day one.   I hope that the quality of this blog has grown over the years and that you'll stick around for many more.

[via yankodesign.com]

There has been a lot of talk of the benefits behind this design concept, but personally I think it would lead to frustrated drivers and road rage. Nothing I can think of would make a long traffic light longer than watching it as if it were a clock. As millions of teenagers in study hall and millions of Windows sys admins can tell you the worst way to slow down time is to watch the clock, or the progress bar as it were.

Let's get this straight, Tiger Woods having an affair is not news.  It really isn't, but it seems to have captured the popular imagination beyond the subset of people who will follow which celebrity does what to whom fueling the entire paper killing industry of grocery-store-checkout-tabloid-rags.

Why?  I think it is because Tiger Woods is the definition of poise and composure.  He is supposed to be unflappable.  Beyond human. Maybe it is some strange comfort to find out he is human after all.