Inario

Le blog de Keyvan Nilforoushan

Is Amazon a charitable organization?

This is absolutely great business irony:

That’s because Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers. The shareholders put up the equity, and instead of owning a claim on a steady stream of fat profits, they get a claim on a mighty engine of consumer surplus. Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way. And the competitive pressure of needing to square off against Amazon cuts profit margins at other companies, thus benefiting people who don’t even buy anything from Amazon.

viaAmazon Q4 profits fall 45 percent..

Derniers voeux de l’année?

Image

 

Voici donc à nouveau la saison des voeux.

Avec l’étrange soulagement du retardataire qui s’aperçoit qu’il ne sera pas en fait le dernier arrivé, j’espère que ces voeux bien tardifs signaleront peut-être le crépuscule mais pas pour autant la fin de la saison festive.

Le sapin n’est déjà qu’on lointain souvenir, le petit sourire né avec le premier flocon est reparti avec la dernière averse, et nous sommes désormais fermement installés dans cette partie de l’hiver qui ressemble furieusement à un automne sans fin. L’année passée est finie – notre terrible voyage achevé – mais la suivante semble avoir commencé plus tôt que prévu.

Bref: il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles – en quelques mots que j’espère plus poétiques que kilométriques.

Je vous souhaite donc une année sans demi-mesure, de joie et de bonheur, d’espérance et d’insouciance, de santé et d’accomplissements. Beaucoup d’enthousiasme aussi, et tout autant d’innocence. Je nous souhaite avant tout, si d’aventure nous venions à croiser l’enfant que nous avons été un jour, qu’il veuille bien nous honorer encore de son amitié.

Et la chanson continue, belle.

* J’ai omis les marques de citation pour ne pas alourdir le texte, mais j’ai librement emprunté à Blake, Whitman, Apollinaire, Whyte et Rilke. En espérant qu’ils ne m’en voudront pas trop!

Ukraine’s got talent (too)

Well worth the watch.

 

Kseniya Simonova – Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine’s Got Talent) – YouTube.

New York – 2012 in photos

 

 

From Une année à New York à travers ma caméra « MJ ♥ NY – Chroniques new-yorkaises.

Superstition? It keeps the elephants away

A man boards a train, and finds himself sitting in a compartment opposite another passenger who is reading The Times. Every time the other finishes a page, he tears it from the paper, rolls it into a ball and throws it from the train. Perplexed, the man asks what he is doing.

“Ah,” says the man with the newspaper. “A trick I learned in Africa. Keeps the elephants away, don’t you know.”

“But there aren’t any elephants around here!”

“Yes. Works well, doesn’t it!”

viaElephant.

Vendor client relationship – in the real world

 

via Producer Posts: vendor client relations.

 

Bob Dylan – Street Poetry

Perhaps this was its plan. Perhaps there is no plan.

“One always dies too soon—or too late,” I told him. “And yet one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are—your life, and nothing else.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I’m just the UPS guy.”

via Jean-Paul Sartres Blog : The New Yorker.

Color photography of Paris from 1914

This made my day!

Entrance to Passage du Caire

Color photography of Paris from 1914.

Mercenaries vs. Missionaries

“Mercenaries are driven by paranoia; missionaries are driven by passion,” he says. “Mercenaries think opportunistically; missionaries think strategically. Mercenaries go for the sprint; missionaries go for the marathon. Mercenaries focus on their competitors and financial statements; missionaries focus on their customers and value statements. Mercenaries are bosses of wolf packs; missionaries are mentors or coaches of teams. Mercenaries worry about entitlements; missionaries are obsessed with making a contribution. Mercenaries are motivated by the lust for making money; missionaries, while recognizing the importance of money, are fundamentally driven by the desire to make meaning.” — John Doerr

Mercenaries vs. Missionaries: John Doerr Sees Two Kinds of Internet Entrepreneurs – Knowledge@Wharton.

The New Yorker on Christian Tetzlaff

Once again, the New Yorker exceeds all expectations with its piece on Christian Tetzlaff — and keep in mind I’m very far from being a classical music buff:

[Performing music] is the job that has the most to do with the belief in the existence of a soul. I deal in Berg’s soul, in Brahms’s soul — that’s my job. […] Trying to turn lead into gold is nothing compared to taking something mechanical like an instrument — a string and a bow — and using it to evoke a human soul, preserved through the century. – Christian Tetzlaff

This I think embodies the whole reason for the uncommon attraction some New Yorker pieces exert. I know of no other periodical that so consistently exposes its readers to some of the best writing on fields that are definitely not germane to their daily hopes and preoccupations, while convincingly making the case that these alternate world-views are all part of the same reality anyway.

Link: Christian Tetzlaff Rethinks How a Violin Should Sound : The New Yorker.

invado:

Literally my childhood in street art.

A friend of mine went to college at MIT.

“One of my professors repeated himself,” she said. “Every lecture was the same.” The class was introductory physics.

“You mean he gave the same lecture year after year?” I said. “No. Every lecture.”

Seth’s Blog » Blog Archive » MIT Professor Reenacts the Movie Groundhog Day

Sens dessus dessous (Pris avec Instagram)

Vous avez mis les voiles sur un autre océan
sans étoile ni boussole
allant où mène la discussion
brisant les certitudes des siècles.

Janet Kalven

Je me suis désintoxiqué de Twitter chez les moines – Par Cyrille de Lasteyrie

Je me suis désintoxiqué de Twitter chez les moines – Par Cyrille de Lasteyrie

Quel genre de Bouddhiste était vraiment Steve Jobs ?

Je m’attendais au pire, mais c’est un très bel article faisant le lien entre la réalité et les apparences, les convictions et les actions, d’un homme qui aura marqué son époque : comment être dans le monde et être dans sa tête ?  

Quel genre de Bouddhiste était vraiment Steve Jobs ?

If you want to know what I think, just look at our products.

Steve Jobs – What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really? | NeuroTribes

Telfezion : pour revivre la télévision libanaise des années 90 !

Telfezion : pour revivre la télévision libanaise des années 90 !

You would wrap a tree trunk with ropes, and keep punching it. You throw 5000 punches day and night — do that for a month, the inside of your fist swells up until you can barely curl your fingers. Then you open a tin can and set it up on a stand. You keep punching the sharp part. When your hand turns into mush with blood and pus, you start punching a pile of salt. Repeat it, and your hands become like a stone.

L’entraînement des forces spéciales en Corée du Nord.

Ask a Korean!: Ask a Korean! News: North Korean Special Forces

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