Michael’s posterous

Seems there is a whole lot of lyrics to the songs that most everyone have heard at some point (especially when young), but never really read them, or understood them. Or perhaps never went back to see if the understanding has chosen. Last time I posted such lyrics it was "Time" by Pink Floyd, I think. Today it's Jethro Tull.

Nothing To Say 

Everyday there's someone asking
what is there to do?
Should I love or should I fight
is it all the same to you?
No I say I have the answer
proven to be true,
But if I were to share it with you,
you would stand to gain
and I to lose.
Oh I couldn't bear it
so I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say.

Every morning pressure forming
all around my eyes.
Ceilings crash, the walls collapse,
broken by the lies
that your misfortune brought upon us
and I won't disguise them.
So don't ask me will I explain
I won't even begin to tell you why.
No, just because I have a name
well I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say.

Climb a tower of freedom,
paint your own deceiving sign.
It's not my power
to criticize or to ask you to be blind
To your own pressing problem
and the hate you must unwind.
So ask of me no answer
there is none that I could give
you wouldn't find.
I went your way ten years ago
and I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say.

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Here's a video for an (apparently) American citizen reporting initiative designed to instantly report anything suspicious. Nice pathos, etc. Note how easy it is now to report anything you don't like, or are afraid of, for whatever reason, as suspicious.

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Lately, I often think that most of the general inability of foreigners to comprehend contemporary Russia stems from a sort of cultural cognitive dissonance. Namely, Russia gets intellectually matched to Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and the like. Which is very nice if you are an academic, or if you want enrich your own cultural base - all worthy causes, no doubt there. But if you want to try and grasp the nature of what's going on now, think Vonnegut Jr. Or if you want a native, try Pelevin from contemporaries or Saltykov-Shchedrin for the more historical (but quite pertinent) view.

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Personally, I'm not really touched by this launch, as I never used the toolbar (neither Google's nor Yandex one, I just dislike the whole invasive concept). As the result, I only use SearchWiki sometimes, and won't be able to use SideWiki, except as a read-only data source, programmatically. However, there are some interesting points regarding the service as such:

• how are they going to combat inevitable massive spam?
• how will SideWiki entries coexist/intersect with SearchWiki entries, if at all?
• kudos for getting the API out on day 1 (gimme a Python library though :) )
• since there are no ads (yet?), I wonder a) when will they appear, if at all b) what can be the benefit to Google, besides potentially enriching the web content, making it more targeted while at the same time diverse

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Spotted an ad while enroute somewhere. Need to check who'll be playing this year, hoping for Jordi Savall

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Is it just me or is there a distinct nod to Tom Maddox' Snake Eyes in District 9?

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This is a song from 1969. 40 years ago. Has anything changed? The song is still beautiful. The lyrics still stand true.

===
Now when you climb, into your bed tonight.
And when you lock and bolt the door.
Just think of those, out in the cold and dark,
`cause there's not enough love to go `round.

And sympathy is what we need my friend,
and sympathy is what we need.
And sympathy is what we need my friend,
`cause there's not enough love to go `round,
no there's not enough love to go `round.

Now half the world, hates the other half.
And half the world, has all the food
And half the world, lies down and quietly starves,
`cause there's not enough love to go `round.

And sympathy is what we need my friend,
and sympathy is what we need.
And sympathy is what we need my friend,
`cause there's not enough love to go `round,
no there's not enough love to go `round.

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A couple local architects were presenting some ideas related to postmodern, alternative architecture at a lecture organized by St.Petersburg branch of Theory & Practice ( http://tandp.ru/ ). Here we go - two shots of the architects, and two - of a girl in audience :)

Also, continuing to test the Posterous kung-fu

       

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Ok, my name is Michael and I have a problem - I speak more than one language

My native tongue is Russian. However, I also speak fluent English and am quite in love with the language. I'm also trying to bring my Spanish up to speed. So here's the problem - how do I blog? I had this problem back in Livejournal, I have it here in Friendfeed and Twitter. It's obvious that I'm picking up readers and followers on my various digital streams that are primarily English-speaking. I also have a sizable Russian-speaking audience (most of which can read English, but not necessarily prefers doing that).

So, when I post in Russian, it's gibberish to everyone but russians. If I post in English, it's all right, but deflects (most) non-native speakers from the content. And whenever I will finally start posting in Spanish, things will grow even more complicated.

I hope to migrate at least most of my longer posts to a standalone blog platform, in none too distant future. When the dust settles, I might be able to work on customizing the blog engine to allow for parallel language versions of every post, through tags or otherwise (that sounds as double or triple work though, because automatic translations are not yet up to par for non-technical texts).

However, you, people who for some reason (I'm not really sure why, especialy for some of latest additions on Friendfeed and Twitter - but hello anyway!) read/follow me, are probably the smartest multi-cell organism I happen to know - so I request your opinions on the issue. How do you deal with this? Does following a multilanguage poster bother you? What could be done to ease ingestion of multilanguage content stream for a casual reader?

P.S. This post is also a kind of first attempt at "post once", see everywhere approach, so if you see this in Livejournal, know it's also in Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter, etc. But please do comment regardless, I'm grateful for your insight.

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Llorando
de cara a la pared
se apaga la ciudad

Llorando
Y no hay màs
muero quizas
Adonde estàs?

Soñando
de cara a la pared
se quema la ciudad

Soñando
sin respirar
te quiero amar
te quiero amar

Rezando
de cara a la pared
se hunde la ciudad

Rezando
Santa Maria
Santa Maria
Santa Maria

Moriendo

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