Nowadays we use big words as a way to add expression to our beliefs. For example, instead of saying “very good” we’ve resorted to making the words “amazing” and “awesome” part of our day to day interaction. I’m by no way immune to this, I use it probably as much as most and more than some. But less then a few.

We use these words in ways to make each other feel great (You are awesome), to pump each other up (Don’t forget to be Awesome (DFTBA)) and in many other social interactions that go down to saying whatever book you just read is “perfect“, the YouTuber you most watch is “amazing” or the band you most like at the moment is “pure genius“.

A genius is defined as:
1. exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability
2. a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect
3. the prevalent character or spirit of something such as a nation or age

But the actual use of the word normally inclines to something much greater than “exceptionality”. I at least couple it with words such as erudition or prodigious (depending on age), both of which aren’t to be used lightly. Still we do. And I have yet to decide if calling my sister a “G” for doing technically astute and artistically talented projects is good or bad.

Even if we diluted the language as we did, by fitting words with colossal meanings into descriptions worthy of big ones, is it really a bad thing? For me it comes down to two points.

Firstly there is a probable lack of honesty involved. By that I don’t mean that the person speaking the word doesn’t believe they mean it at 100%, but the person receiving it probably doesn’t perceive it in the same way. It blows descriptions out of proportion, it adds dishonesty in the way that the image you paint isn’t reality after the transmission. You say someone is a God of tennis, then you’re creating an undefeated picture, not one of a man who is danger of losing the second place of the ATP ranking to someone 5 years older than him. The only defence against this is that nothing you say is understood the exact same way by the person receiving the information. We owe that to the intricacies of our brains. All we can do is minimise the difference from sender to receiver.

The second issue I have with it is that these words like “genius” are many times used to replace description instead of enhance it. So if I claim to be an amazing writer, it would not only be a crass exaggeration, but it’d be a way for me to side-step the topic of describing why or how I am such. I could say that my stories are painted under a strange light where I allow the reader to imagine a world he/she wants by only giving the crucial an empiric description (The fact that I’m using out of proportion words again as metaphors instead of actually giving information can be ignored here). Or I could say that I just write the way I think, which is another lie because writing travels through the lens of reflection and the filter of editing (not done by me). So instead of finding an actual method to describe something like that, as it is obviously so difficult, we can always use unquestionable labels to propel our work.

In short, these exponentially imaginative words that create so much mess in our language and inequality in our minds’ eye are the stuff of laziness, which is why words like “indescribable” are used instead of “I can’t put what I think about this specific topic/person/band/etc into words not because I can’t, but because it’s easier just not to”.

So the question stays open, what is genius, and is it ok to use it in colloquial terms?

As such, I hope you read the strange (unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand) thing (an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to) that is my short story (a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel), because it’s a tale (1 a fictitious or true narrative or story, esp. one that is imaginatively recounted. -> a lie) highlighting (pick out and emphasise) the importance of the mind’s eye (The ability to imagine or remember images or scenes).

How had it come to a two-way bullfight between Tim, the bull and me? I mean it’s not a bull, it’s just some electrical current we have to go against, but that just means it’s faster. We called it a bullfight out of habit. Comes from a time before me anyway and I never thought to ask. It’s true that it shouldn’t kill us, since we helped make it, but this current had the sweat of all of us, it was damn powerful. It was what powered the city!

It all started this morning, or as “morning” as it can be considered with the same old 60 minutes rest. I got out of my bed, my hair buzzing about, and made my way to meet the aforementioned (double-crossing excuse for a friend called) Tim and my (debatable) girlfriend Yin. I’d woken with a feeling of grandeur and that the day ahead would be grabbed by the horns. No pun intended. Well, not much anyway since I did actually think that in the morning. Funny how that turned out. Of course, when I say funny I mean as funny as a diabetic at a pie-eating contest. The kind of funny that makes people want to punch walls.

But that is me getting side-tracked.

The point is, I went to meet these two ex-current-something-friends for breakfast like always.  We slowly made our way to the limits of the city in just under ten seconds and quickly started reaching out and consuming the darkness that enveloped the city. It’s quite a silent process, and we only get about 5 minutes every day to fuel up before we have a full day of sweaty activities. We have our pick, really, of any sport activity we can think of. Even if we simply want to run on a treadmill, we can, but in the case of static sport, we end up being the audience to the real stuff as well. Most Luminarians choose this option for that reason. And those were the ones surrounding the ‘Animal’, the Backstabber and I for the contest we found ourselves in later. I might have to change his title though, since backstabbing would be a useful technique to master in that arena.

Off track again. Like it’s said all the time, “the show must go on.” It’s the song we hear the most in this city, and we have no control over it at all. Not that I mind so much, since it’s by a great band, but even the most amazing songs can grow old when on constant repeat. I mean, if I ever see a yellow submarine, I swear I will sink it…whatever one of those is. We don’t really have sea here anyway. We do have the current, but our sweat produces that. And I don’t think anyone would consider that water, even though it is liquid.

As it flows from one side of the arena to the other at the speed of light (literally), it creates a mesmerising visual effect, one that can be felt deep in ones innards. It’s like a mirage that appears in ten places simultaneously, while being static. It is really surprising how a thing can move with such grace and speed, while still slithering up behind you. One moment distraction by an undeniable shiver going down your spine, and the current will force it back up. And with it, your body will flow to the bottom most edge of the city, just waiting to be released at night. It’s a release that will bring sleep to some restless kid, your soul lying there in the edge of his eye as he mistakes it for sand in the morning. It isn’t the only way of dying, but in the end we all become part of the current, the same substance that perspires out our bodies. It is a flickering form of a known future, as many a Luminarian have lost their lovely lives that way, dying while doing a physical activity that will normally entertain energetic people, which is the only life lived here.

Getting back to the story, for this day, we go play some squash. Yin goes with another friend for some racing. I give her a kiss before she goes. It’s the last kiss I gave her before the bullfight. We run to the court, competing is our natural instinct, and as our sweat drops towards the bottom of the city, we run, each needing to beat the other. This time I won. Actually, lately I have been winning a lot of these small competitions. But it’s the big ones that matter, and today is a day to make a record. If I win the squash match, I’ll have beaten his longest streak of winning against me. I’ll have won for the seventh time in a row. The other six times had been achieved the second half of yesterday.

We get ready. Rackets in hand, we look at each other. He has anger in his eyes, like he wants to send the ball flying right through me. I’m excited. Whenever his eyes gleam like that, it usually means he’s not thinking clearly enough to beat me. He puts up a good fight but becomes reckless, or how he is happy to remember it, courageous.

It’s his start. “How much are we playing to? Twenty-one like we usually do?” He looks at me expectantly.

“Let’s make this grander,” I reply. A gleam of excitement gets intermingled with the anger.

“Fifty-one?” He asks.

“One-o-one,” I reply steadfast.

The next sequence of events would nearly have been too fast, as before he even finished his nod, the ball was already bounding back one and a half metres to my right. I jumped as far and fast as I could and was just barely able to flick the ball into the opposite corner. The ball hit the wall quite low and bounced off the sidewall, coming back towards my side, the right side, of the court. It came back without much gusto, and Tim ran forward trying to hit it, but he just barely missed. It had been a great feat for me to score that point, but really, the advantage went to Tim. And it was then that I realised this was his plan all along. He didn’t really care about this first point.  To even touch the ball, I needed to jump in such a way that I probably would–and did–end up getting hurt.

I had landed right on my shoulder in a way that it took a huge toll. I was winning 1-0, but could hardly move my arm; it was stuck. I stood up slowly and looked him straight in the eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” I said, and he saw that I finally understood his intentions. He wanted to win this no matter what. I didn’t understand completely why yet, but he’d never cared this much about his streak.

“Alas, Henry, I do,” was his reply. A shiver ran down my spine. I put my racket in my left hand – I wasn’t as good with it, but it’d have to do – and we changed sides of the court. That was the only courtesy he gave me. I served short, which he wasn’t expecting for some reason, and he raced forward, again, to catch it. He got to it just in time to make the ball go very high, right over him. I ran, with much more time than he had, and as he saw me coming straight for him he rolled to the left. So I jumped, as a safety measure, and touched the ball slightly towards my right at the wall. It dropped like a rock, and the point was mine.

That was when he, regretfully, started to take the match–and me–more seriously. He won the next five points without even a flinch, shooting them all aggressively to places where I would have gotten had my right arm been functioning. Instead the ball was always just out of my reach, and my right arm started hurting more with all the brisk movements.

Despite the pain, I was able to keep up in a 10-15 point range, sometimes catching him off guard and using his carelessness against him. Then when the points were around the 80’s, I started being able to use my arm again slowly. I’m sure he initially expected this, but in the end he must have forgotten with my continuous use of the left arm. I started thus a recovery, using many two hand clutches without him noticing it consciously.

With the score at 89-93 I finally powered a shot with only my right as he just saw it pass by him, his centre of gravity floating to his right, and the ball on his left. He didn’t register my right hand, so I took that to my advantage as I served with the left, and after he gave me a shot to my right I sent it back with more strength, putting the ball at my left and giving him too much space to cover to give a strong reply, and my point. At 95-95 he suddenly understood what was happening and got scared. At that point it was all I needed to get a 4-point lead. With resolve, and my euphoria, he put himself a point from victory… but messed it up. I turned the tables and he turned them again until we were at 111-111.

I was tired; he was too. I said, “We can stop and call it a draw.” He shook his head. He served. I got the point. “The draw is still on the table.” He shook his head again. I served. He scrambled a point. “Last chance.” He shook his head once more and looked me in the eyes.

“I kissed Yin.” He served. The ball hit me in the chest. His point. I didn’t react; I couldn’t, didn’t know what to think. 112-113. He took the ball and served. After a moment’s hesitation, I moved as fast as I could and hit the ball with all my might. My point. He hadn’t moved. The ball was on the other end of the court. I served with some spin. He hit it badly. I crushed him. He saw the change in me. “Draw?” He asked finally scared.

I served while shaking my head. It caught him off guard, and he had to jump. Just like my first point, he reached and hit it like I had, but I was expecting it and got the ball. I scored… and won. I threw the racket at him, and it hit his arm. I turned to leave. I didn’t want to hear any more. I knew he wasn’t lying. The gleam in his eyes was envy. Envy because I had what he wanted and was embarrassing him on top of it. And there was a hint of guilt. Guilt that he could only suppress with anger.

I should have expected it when he ran towards me as I had my back turned. I should have expected him jumping on me and burying my face in the ground, but I didn’t. And he should have looked at the people around the exit before he jumped. He should have thought about the repercussions of a fight between two Luminarians. So it didn’t take long for bystanders to break the brawl between us and drag our dilapidated bodies down to the arena.

Not long after, we were the centres of the attention. I still didn’t know why we were here; he had given me no real reason for the fight, but here we would face off. Death could be a consequence. His or mine, or both of us. But the Bull had to be stopped. All they gave us was a shield, a pike, and a net, which hung on a wall.

The air was bristling with the energy of our sweat falling straight down over our heads to the collection points all over our city. The collection points aren’t really points, but a long wire above our heads underneath us all. The wire attracts every bit of sweat that flows from our skin, dripping drop by drop from our foreheads, bodies and clothes. Every drop is electric; it feels so at least when it drops off, with a buzz of goodbye left on the shoulder as it zaps towards the attractor. Every little bit falls down into the air over our heads as we continue our lives grounded with our feet held above us on the floor by the current.

The catcalls of exercising humanoid creatures came from all sides. The buzzing of our combined energy was flowing through the air as the reserves filled. The bull was zapping around for a while as it assessed the situation. It was fed information by one of the people who’d caught us and was thus aware that we were both criminals.

I looked at Tim. I dug into him with my eyes. “How could you?” He looked with the same ferocity into mine. He gave me no reply, just looked at me and finally the guilt settled. The anger was abating, and the bull was ready.

Yin had heard about our fight and, knowing the background, arrived at that moment in the stands. She caught my attention and gazed down at me. She was scared, worried. She unlocked my blind rage. I couldn’t let him die. I didn’t know what would happen, but death couldn’t be a part of it. I gave him one last look. I looked at the net. And, with the bull charging his way, our second match of the day began.

“HENRY! DINNER’S READY!” my mum shouted from downstairs.

“COMING!” I replied as I headed downstairs. I just hoped that his essence wouldn’t be one of the ones floating down from the bottom of the lamp to settle at my eyes and make me sleep. I didn’t want his core to be the sand in my eyes.

—

I’d like to start off by saying that I did enjoy the video, and that it is well done in the education and entertainment value, but there are some gaping problems in it in my view. Furthermore, just like in the video, I will be addressing only the Solar part, but that is only a section of all what renewable energies are and will be.

The first issue I would like to highlight is the most pressing. This video looks at solar energy with the eyes of “it should be a magic bullet”, but in the energy business we will never have a magic bullet, that is “one solution to replace them all”. Just like in marketing where you don’t look at only one aspect of the whole issue in the Marketing Mix, we will have an Energy Mix. It has been predicted by David MacKay that Solar Energy (farms, small home installations and solar heating) would to be able account for 68 kWh/d of energy in a mix of a total of 177.5 kWh/d. That is 38.3% of the mix, in his predictions for the UK.

So with that out of the way we can go back to the actual issue: why it isn’t being implemented. Most of it is really hot air. The main issue in all of this is money. How is that hot air? Well there are many stages where money is important in this line of work. So we’ll look at each of them.

1. Acquiring the raw material: In solar terms there is £/$/€0 cost here. In the fossil fuels there are 4 levels here. Level 1: finding the places where the raw material is hidden. Level 2: getting approvals to dig there, which can come in the form of wars, which are conveniently left out of the accounting of the energy cost. Level 3: getting the raw material from whatever cavern or crevice it has been ‘produced’ in. Level 4: Taking it to wherever it is then transformed into energy.
2. Transforming the raw material into usable energy: This is one reason why solar is so much more expensive, as there is currently little infrastructure of solar comparatively, so the initial cost is already high there. Then the actual panels aren’t cheap, with the cheapest (ThinFilm) only being comparatively efficient in climates with few hours of sun (Germany, for example). All this makes the up front cost very high comparing to all the infrastructure that already exists on the side of the fossil fuels.
3. ‘Transporting’ the energy to the consumer: As said in the video there are big losses in that for fossil fuels, but there are losses at every stage of transmission (which for fossil fuels are many more stages than solar). Solar only has this inefficiency in centralised production facilities, in decentralised facilities (or distributed as named in the video) it doesn’t have even that loss, an option that fossil fuels doesn’t allow.
4. Preparing for peaks: Fossil fuel plants have are expected have energy available for all circumstances, that means for when the need for it is very high and very low. They have to have that range available at all times, because they aren’t very reactive to trends (they can’t handle fluctuations), and if they don’t have enough available the whole city gets blacked out. This causes much of the energy to be wasted, and gives an even higher inefficiency rate. Solar power, and other renewables, would flatten those peaks with efficiency handling.

The next important part is efficiency, and to relate with the last point I’d like to talk about a South African example. As they have big problems with blackouts and dealing with the peaks there are many measures they take to make them as little as possible, such as when the grid can’t supply to meet the demand, an advice banner at the bottom of the TV screen appears to ask viewers to shut off superfluous electric appliances and thus avoid a blackout. They needed solutions, and that was one of their buffers. In countries without those problems we don’t need to do that, so most people don’t care about such things as efficient light bulbs, putting on washing/dishwashing machines on off peak times, having their own hot water storage, etc. Efficiency is something that needs to be drastically increased in the “1st world” because it’s the main reason we waste so much energy.

Another important solar point that was very much overlooked in the video is another financial one, as the long term cost wasn’t taken into account at all, as well as the environmental cost. Solar power may have a high up front cost, however it pays itself back over a period of time of between 4 and 7 years, depending on the conditions. It is true that a Feed In Tarif is still needed in most situations to make it viable, but one has to remember that there are big subsidies for fossil fuels every year. In the US in 2007 there was a total of $72 Billion in subsidies for fossil fuels, compared to $29 Billion given to renewables. That isn’t accounted for in the Levelised Cost of Energy, which is a formula that calculates if it makes financial sense to build a solar plant. The equalisation of energies on the grid is known as grid parity, and there are many experts who believe it has already been achieved, when all is taken into account. The environmental cost of not building the plant is also disregarded, as it isn’t easy to quantify.

An important question to ask at this point is: How much would I pay to have the same energy cost/kWh for the next 25 years? With fossil fuels’ prices fluctuating the way it does, receiving energy from a solar plant will make that a fixed cost over the lifespan of the panel, which is 25 years.

All in all, the financials of Solar, and other renewables, are a complicated issue, it’s true. There are many things that make people reluctant to go forward with it, but the approach taken in the video doesn’t show the true light of things, as solar, and other renewables, are more than ready to start being viable. It just depends on where and how you do it.

At last I’d just like to add a note. I am in no way an authority on the subject, but the fact is that neither is Hank Green, and the certainty with which he announced his claims gave me the ability to rebut with the same level of certainty. It is by no means a bad video, the Science part is well done and the few lacking details (such as which systems are more efficient where) are just the ones that can’t be given in a 10 minute video. What I don’t agree with are the financial and negative assertions he has made towards the viability of going forward with Solar Power. And it’s towards those, and only those, that I have written this post.

Who I am:
My name is Benjamin Tirone Nunes, and I presently work for E4SA, a company that’s looking to bring alternative energies as a source for South African electricity production. Furthermore I have been brought up in a family that has worked on sustainable construction and, to a lesser degree, renewable energies in Portugal for the the past 25 years. I am a business student at the University of Westminster. I am 20 years old.

Sources:
Sustainable Energy – Without all the Hot Air by David JC MacKay

Energy Subsidies Favor Fossil Fuels Over Renewables

So instead of one long review, here are 10 short ones of 10 Albums I could listen to over and over (excluding the above mentioned).

10 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
This is an impressive album, and even though I don’t like the band anymore (Stadium Arcadium was the last straw for me), this album takes me back.
In Short: Still strikes me as a true great.

9 – System of a Down – Toxicity
It’s their “go to” album, the peak of their time as a band, but not the peak of their cohesion. This album has some great songs, from ATWA to Arials to Chop Suey and Prison Song.
In Short: It really is an amazing album and won’t mind going back for a listen soon.

8 – Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
Even though they remind me of Queens of the Stone Age more than anything, they have more liberty in their creativity. Josh Homme dominates, but it seems like he uses this to really get out any kind of game he wanted to. Especially “Warsaw…” show how much they are enjoying themselves with the rifts.
In Short: It’s a fun album that makes me smile.

7 – Incubus – A Crow Left of the Murder
The album that made Incubus one of my all time favorites is definitely this one. Their strongest song (Megalomaniac) and some of their most fun ones (Zee Deveel and Priceless) got me to love this band. It’s one of the bands my sister ‘gave’ me, and it was this album that got me the first lyrics of theirs to sing at their concerts.
In Short: Great in the studio and great live.

6 – The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
My guilty pleasure. Pure weirdness from start to end, but a great construction with invigorating, playful, conceding and deep songs. Les Os is probably one of the only songs where I truly love keyboards (not piano or cembalo). It’s an up and down song, and so is this album.
In Short: It’s all over the place and just weird. I love it.

5 – Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
Musically brilliant, and very new in my favorites. It really is a great composition of music with everything from majestic to intimate songs. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! is a rare delicacy in music and really moves from a soft start to an orchestral middle and back to a soft end in the best way possible. The week I found this album though, it was Chicago that drove my girlfriend crazy because I was always listening to it. Beautiful song and album.
In Short: I’m still not sick of 3 months later and 50 listens (at least).

4 – Kele Okereke – The Boxer
My favorite study companion to date, helps me fully concentrate on my studies with songs that remind me of Bloc Party, but is just completely different. Electrically charged, it is powerful and personal and is just a great album. It never gets boring with a wide array of styles within the narrow window. For me Rise stands out as one of the most encouraging songs to date and just makes me excited for anything.
In Short: Thoroughly energetic, exciting and gripping.

3 – Kashmir – The Good Life
From all their albums, probably the deepest, but between all the messages inside there are some beautiful songs, some of which sound like a plea, others like an admonition and others just a frustration or reassurance. The best for me is Lampshade, one of the most stunningly written songs that spans from arresting calm to caution to bottled up fury.
In Short: Deep and expressive with superb lyrics.

2 – The Beatles – “White Album”
This is where visible change started to happen within the band. From the cuteness of Piggies to the emotion in While My Guitar Gently Weeps, this is an album I’ll always love and one that I grew up with, thanks to my dad. It has everything you could want from stories in Rocky Racoon, to utter (meticulously thought out) madness in Revolution 9. It’s a beacon to what the Beatles were and still are within the world, a work of art, maybe not their best, but a testament to them either way.
In Short: The essence of the Beatles, rock and roll and pop.

1 – Silverchair – Diorama
After an album of naivety, one of anger and just after one of depression (and right in the middle of lots of health problems for Daniel Johns) this album is pure escapism. It’s a great place just to hide away from everything else, their most orchestral album until then and a turning point. They were completely different by then, but still held everything that was great about them. The lyrics are beautiful and the music harmonious. Great album to fall back on when everything else fails.
In Short: Diversity, maturity and a roller coaster ride combined with their previous albums.

Post script
The order is what I felt like right now, without repeats (Neon Ballroom, Sgt. Peppers, Travelogue) and without my favorite band of all time the Arctic Monkeys. But great albums nonetheless and I recommend them all highly. What are your top 5-10 here?

Well, when you transpose this notion to the marketplace you’ll have people taking huge risks saying that they invested because of this and that and they knew they’d make all the money they did. Then you see men down millions of euros saying, well the market did this and it was unforeseeable. But why is it unforeseeable? Didn’t your statistician tell you yesterday that there was a 1% chance of that happening? The allocation of probability in this case always brings a skew that will inflate your confidence more than needed, because in the real world there are people. And those people are many times not rational. And those rationales that don’t follow a careful predictable pattern can’t be quantified, and thus can’t be put into the probability calculations. So how can anyone continue to measure probabilities in ways that can’t predict human behaviour? It’s simple really, as it would mean we’d have to admit that experience has no conceivable relevance.

To understand markets better we can look at Football just as easily, because as in markets, football has human decision making involved. Looking back at the recent match between Manchester United and Barcelona for the final of the Champions League one saw Man Utd’s coach benching one of the most valuable wingers on the squad and completely leaving out the forward with the most goals pocketed during the regular season. Now, following normal statistics, this simply doesn’t make sense, as the goal average of the forward would require him to start the match and the statistics behind the winger would put him on that strikers left. “It was a tactical decision” is mostly the reasoning behind it, and I think it was here too, but the fact remains, they lost.

Now when it comes to luck I can just look at myself and where I’ll be in September. In May 2010 I attended, by invitation of a friend, the London International Wine Fair – which I wrote about here – and there I met a very fun winemaker from southern France. We started talking, and at one point he tells me “If you see a guy with a ‘Naked Wines’ tag on his shirt, nudge me.” Later one passed, I saw him, but my friend didn’t so I nudged him. Because of that nudge I sat next to both of them at the Wine Bloggers dinner, and after they finished their matters, I got to talk with Naked Wines’ IT genius and left with his card in my hand after dinner and an offer to contact them if I wanted a place to work for my placement year. After that I felt like I could take advantage of this amazing opportunity “if [I] don’t fuck up” to quote Marissa Tomei in ‘My Cousin Vinny’. None of whatever I might be worth would have mattered if I weren’t lucky enough to host a friend, or see an ID tag, or talk about my university to a virtual stranger. I am lucky, and I know that it takes more than just hard work to get places, hard work is necessary, but using the luck one gets at every turn turns into the leading tune.

So it’s simple really, because it would be so much easier for me just to say, I am good, that is why they hired me. It’d be so easy just to say, Barcelona is the best team around and this was the team we could have stopped them with, but we just couldn’t. It’s so much easier to say, it was an unpredictable event. But isn’t it better to realize the events exist? I mean, if the probability of success of a company is as volatile as anything, what is the difference if you flip a coin or gather evidence? Because with evidence we feel safer, we have something to fall back on, we have something to blame. But is that really better?

OYES (that is the name), a chair. A huge 785 metre chair to define the skyline of South Africa’s second-most populous city. Apart from just being a huge chair, it will host restaurants, public housing, a cinema, a public park and a sport centre, amongst other things.
This is the project the Dutch architectural agency is looking to build to bring a chair to the Table Mountain.

Now, I really don’t know how to react to this, even though the things inside look to be very useful to the community, the sheer monstrosity of it is atrocious. It will be the second tallest “building” in the world with housing in the legs and back, many public activities on the seat. And apart from that, it will cast a shadow over – if I understood this correctly – the financial district of Cape Town, people who rarely see the light of day as it is. It will be able to host up to 50.000 people and eat the already unstable electricity away from this city.

But really, I am torn between how it looks and what it will mean and the industry it will create as well as it being considered an icon of charity, as it will house many homeless people of Cape Town and the usefulness of the actual “building”. But what this really is, is an interesting topic, so you can see what it looks like here and comment on what you think. Is it a great thing or a horrendous thing? I’m leaning towards the latter. Charity is a great thing, but there are examples of when charity also looks good. There must be something else that can be done instead of a chair. At least they will be seen as having a sense of humour.

I actually watched this on the YouTube channel Russia Today which is a very reliable source for good news, but that last sentence just went too far. I was thinking that this guy is sensible and then he goes a step too far, making himself seem paranoid and a little crazy. He was partially right, but the conclusions he drew were over the top. Sure, Libya was doing things that were not abiding to the human rights, but why hasn’t the US stepped into any of the other 18 Arab conflicts that have been happening? Maybe if they hadn’t stepped in it wouldn’t have escalated so much, but the fact remains that it’s an infringement on the sovereign rights of Libya. But off this and on to Real Madrid.

On a much lighter note to the previous one, I read a very interesting report today about how for the first time ever a boss was fired by one of his employees. Apart from disagreeing with that sentence I see what Ramon Calderon – the club’s previous president – was saying. It was basically because of the bad relations with Mourinho (the team’s coach) that Valdano (director of football) was exchanged for Zidane. And even though I’m a big fan of Mourinho, it is a disgrace somehow that this happened. In short, over the first weeks of Mourinho’s employment, he and Valdano started having a chilly relationship, and Mourinho stopped taking matters to him, instead going straight to the president (Florentino Perez). It still created a semi-hostile environment where they just said “hi” to each other in passing. But the president accepted it, and allowed it to continue in lieu of controversy.

One of them had to leave, that is true, and it wasn’t going to be Mourinho, but the fact of how Florentino Perez undermined the authority he gave Valdano simply to accommodate Mourinho baffles me. Here is the president of a club of the size of Real Madrid doing all he can to make the manager comfortable. I mean, he should, but not when it costs someone’s job, especially someone who was trying hard and was there before the manager. Now, even though I agree with Calderon when he says that it seem like Mourinho is the “president of Real Madrid”, he loses any validity to his words when he said that “We have to remember that lots of people also hailed Hitler.”

I mean seriously, there is a line that can’t be crossed, and even though I used examples from football, television and news to illustrate my point, I didn’t say that Barney is like Putin. Comparing Mourinho to Hitler in this situation is an over dramatisation to convince people of your words, and to make them fear what this all is coming to. Calderon loses his credibility with that slander as he’s badmouthing with no purpose apart from votes. And maybe to not be forgotten with a little bit of controversy.

All I’m saying really is that some people need better script writers, because a word too many can be the difference between ‘that guy is right’ and ‘what the hell is he yapping on about?’.

Well, except How I Met Your Mother, that episode was Legen-wait for it…

Point number one: Social Entrepreneurship stands between two parts of the economy, namely the public (commercial) sector and the social (not-for-profit) sector. What this means is that it takes attributes from both in the way that it is a company that to the core is in existence to help. This is the first place at which one notices the indefinability. It has the social cause at the heart, but this can be anything. The social cause can be, as in micro finance system, to have loans accessible to people underneath the poverty line. So there are banks like Comportamos in Mexico who are listed in the stock exchange, meaning they are a company with shareholders, and make a profit, yet they provide a service very rare and helpful to society. It can also be an environmental cause or health cause.

Point number two: This kind of system actually makes money, that’s the point of it really (in my eyes). It makes a profit, which it relocates back into the company (mostly) so as to further fight for the cause at the heart. This is a huge advantage it has to all social sector companies in my view. Charities are always dependent; they need donations and grants to live, breath and work. Social Entrepreneurships might need those to start their business, but in the long run they can (CAN) become financially independent. This allows them too much more effectively tackle their mission in the long run. The problem that arises is that many companies have tried to define set laws around this kind of firm that somehow hinder it from fulfilling the true objectives. Some countries limit their profits up to forbidding them; other countries limit their actions to being only of social solidarity. I mean, I understand the thoughts behind it, but really, the fact that this structure is so open is its biggest advantage. But there need to be laws to regulate it, so as that is the case the laws should all be dependent, if the company gets funds from one place, they have these laws, if they have this much income, other laws, if they have a greater amount of output, other laws, if they aim to do a different thing, other laws. It’d have to be more of a complex structure of laws to really fully take this system into account.

Point number three: The pinnacle of paradoxes lies here in this form of company. As the aim is to tackle a cause (instead of covering the results), the end aim of this kind of company is simple: to not exist. By addressing the cause it’s trying to exterminate, they will in the end make their company not being needed. So if a micro finance company is able to give so many successful loans that the people in the addressed area can get loans from ‘real’ banks (mostly at lower interest rates) they don’t need to exist anymore, as the ‘real’ banks can take care of these customers now. And this is the pureness of this structure for me, and a part of the definition. This structure prepares customers who don’t have access to a part of the market for some reason to get that access, thus making their value of life higher, many times making the economy stronger and raising the general contentedness of a nation.

Blabbidy blah blah. I think this is enough. If there is anything you’d like to discuss, point out as being wrong, agree with or just like, tell me, I’m more than happy to argue.
P.S.: Because I was cleaning my comment area, I basically deleted all the comments I’d approved up to now. So well done on my part.

I’ll start by talking about those annoying optimists, the idiots who live in the realm of possibility, believing that the glass is always half-full. I like to think myself as one of them. I am a sunny boy, mostly happy, liking to see the endless possibilities that there are, and wanting to pursue each and every one of them. Lots of people, let us call them pessimists, say that these optimists are just dreamers. Now why is that the case? “I have a Dream” one of the most beautiful speeches there ever was…it came true, right? It wasn’t just a dream; it was an inevitable reality that too many people took too long to adapt to.

So wait, if I’m saying that optimists aren’t seeing unreal fiction kind of realities that are impossible to reach, then what am I saying? Well there are a lot of optimists who are just that, dreamers, but the fact is you aren’t necessarily a dreamer if you’re an optimist. Actually, there is a big chance, depending on how you are, that you are a realist, who twists things into a positive light, but also sees the bad things.

Before I go into realists and cynics I want to talk about pessimists. The people who always see the glass half-empty, who say they just see things how they are. Now let us look into an aspect of theirs. They use a lot of words like ‘empty’ or ‘lack of’…can you point me either of those? These are words that exist in our language for us to understand more concepts (what would it be like without the word and number zero, but really there is no such thing) but they are just fictional fillers in language. The word full though is very real.

Now I’m just going into semantics, right? Well, partly yes, partly no. Pessimists always see walls in everything, they see the impossibilities, and they see a box they can’t look out of. An example that I witnessed yesterday: I’m attending this sustainable construction course my mum is hosting here in Lisbon and there was a professor in attendance who is a real pessimist. One of the speakers, a close friend of my mum, is a true cynic, on the other hand, and she was giving her presentation at the time. She talked about this condominium with 8 buildings or blocks or something like that, that had just made a huge investment in putting micro-generation PV cells on the roofs. When they calculated the pay back period they were amazed to see it would be of 4 short years, where 7 years would have been expected. The cynic at the front had researched it and made sure that it was right and was talking about it with enthusiasm, the pessimist on my side uttered one word under his breath: “impossible”. I’d hate to have him as my professor after seeing how brilliantly motivating he must be in his classes.

Pessimists see walls and difficulties everywhere and don’t act upon it to knock them down. Sure the biggest optimists are also annoying sometimes as they see very difficult things as easier than they actually are, they disregard the difficulties a little. But I prefer being surrounded by people who can be a little annoying, but live in the world of possibilities, and are always thinking about more, than ones who see things as hopeless or just a waste of time.

Last thing before I get onto realists and cynics is my flaw. One thing one really shouldn’t do, and I do a lot (and believe me, I do it quite proficiently by now) is attribute blame. It’s ‘never’ (or almost never) my fault, I will many times find an excuse, when I should just look for a reasoning, or not say anything at all on the matter. You get too defensive like that and are drifting away from the topic at hand. But mostly you just become negative about other things and/or people.

The best solution for that is realism, accept your surroundings, accept good and bad things. Don’t succumb to them, don’t think ‘damn I came on holiday to be at the beach and sunbathe, but now it’s raining.’ Think instead: ‘I came on holiday to sunbathe, and now it’s raining.’ with the second thought you’ll most likely think next, about the other possibilities of what you can do than spend countless hours in the hotel room damning your bad luck. Realists see the good, the bad and the ugly, but they see everything else as well, they see all the possibilities as well, not fantastical ones, real ones.

All about pessimists, optimists and realists (except my example) are deductions and reformulations of parts in the chapter ‘The Way Things Are’ in the book ‘The Art of Possibility’ by Roz and Ben Zander.

Now comes the ode to cynics. I actually enjoy talking to, spending time with and discussing with cynics a lot, because out of the bunch, they are by far the ones who will get your blood pumping the most. Why do I say this? Because of all the words to describe true cynics, I see as the most apt one doubters. That is what they do, they doubt, they question, they think. They don’t take opinions or ‘facts’ for granted, they think about what is said, and discuss on the point until they know it is actually true (when they think it might not be). This is my ode to them cynics out there, the ones who are dismissed as pessimists disguising as realists. No, cynics aren’t that, they don’t see the glass half-empty, they just doubt on the point that it’s half-full. They are often people who offer valid opinions that get you thinking, and thus are useful in day-to-day thought and especially discussions. They don’t leave stones unturned. That is why I believe each one of us should be part cynic, because with more doubters we would be better off.

You have to love the generalisations I have made today. So before the closing, I want to apologize, there are pessimists who have been shaped that way by experience, there are optimists who see the glass full when there is only a gulp left, there are cynics who doubt too much or just use the title as a cover for their pessimism and there are realists who couldn’t see a possibility if it danced naked in front of them with a parade behind him.

To close it off, I just want to say that I wrote this to provoke thought. With this text I am criticising every one a little, because there are times we fall under each of these tags. Just think about it, avoid blaming and fearing the unpredictable, take a leap of faith and courage towards innovation, towards real change, don’t just doubt, don’t just see, but don’t see only things to hinder you. See the possibilities and grasp them, because a realist or optimist who doesn’t act is a waste of breath and a cynic who doesn’t put the doubting to good use and researches properly is just annoying. A last sentence to think about is a quote from the film ‘Scoop’ said by the character of Ian McShane:
“Get the story first, but first, get it right.”
I interpret it as saying: Take a risk, act, but before you do, doubt and do your research. or Innovate, but be a cynic. P.S. the character was a journalist.

I would like to start this ‘article’ off by synthesising a story that I read in ‘The Art of Possibility’ by Roz and Ben Zander. The story tells how this man goes to a burger place to get something to eat, with a seemingly homeless man counting his coins next to him. When he was going to pay for his burger, the homeless man stops him and tells him that he’d be paying for the mans burger that day. He protested but the homeless man was resolute in buying him lunch. It came down to it being the best burger he ever had, not because it was that much better cooked or anything, but mostly because he was able to appreciate every bite on such a different level. The homeless man got out of the diner quite happy that day, even if he hadn’t eaten.

Even though positive pranking isn’t exactly the same thing, it does also rely on the humanity and kindness in a person’s heart. Putting time and some money into making other people happy. Is it really so hard to put some time out of your day making yourself happy by causing smiles? It should really be something we strive to do passively once a week in the least and actively once a month. On the day to day it doesn’t have to do with positive pranking, but more on the level of just simple giving. From giving attention, to a lunch, to information, to a laugh; all of those are good ways to make yourself happy by making others happy. A smile, a laugh and that feeling of receiving human kindness (and giving) are very infectious and uplifting.

But now on to the actual title. A way for you to start spreading the smiles and ideas of positive pranking is this: Go to a supermarket, buy a few bags of cheaper lollypops, chocolates, or other sweets/things you’d like to receive yourself by a complete stranger. After than get into your car, or however you’re moving around and choose your targets. You’ll have a positive prank letter prepared for this occasion with your signature. Then when you leave a bag of sweets with the letter at the doorstep of the target after ringing the bell while running away. The video underneath has a good example by Hank Green.

Of course, this is one of many ways you can do it, but the basic idea is getting some prank, any prank, you know from TV/youth/etc, and turning it into a positive action, something to get a smile on your and the target subjects face.

But the next step: get ideas, write them down, prepare them and execute them. Once a month get on the way of making people happy, you’ll have fun, you’ll be happy, and you only need to pay small amounts of money. Finally you have to (ok, should, i just say have to out of choice) film the exploits, and share them for more people to be affected by the phenomenon that should be positive pranking. Tell your friends, involve them and get them to do it as well. If everything goes well, one day you’ll be positive pranked as well.

To finish it off I’d like to leave you with the video that showcases a YouTuber (Hank Green from the Vlogbrothers) who has TP’ed people’s houses. This is the video that made me think about the ‘issue’.