Google’s ‘Zeitgeist 2012’

It’s that time of year again when we see retrospective pieces crop up here and there. Some are excellent, some are terrible, some are new and some are old cats to this business. The Google retrospective is one of my favourites.

I really love the way they used Felix and the Stratos mission as bookends to this piece. I mean that has got to be one of the most impressive feats of courage I’ve seen outside of a combat report ever. One crazy dude heads to the edge of space on his own and just jumps off. Balls bigger than my head. ‘Nuff said.

I enjoy reflecting on stuff at the end of a year. That cocktail of emotions that you dredge up and the re-firing of motivating ideas and aspirations you have when looking forward. For me it’s been an interesting one for sure. I’ve learned a lot, laughed a lot, cried some, drank probably too much if we’re honest, harvested some cool memories, and hung out with some cool people that I’m privileged to call my friends, but with that all behind I’m excited about what 2013 is going to bring and looking forward to making the most out of the opportunities that come with it.

And to our late friend Dan, we miss you buddy. Thank you for all the times we had together, hope your rocking it somewhere with fluffy white floors and real ale on tap x

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Tim Allen – Photographer, renegade, all round dude

I had the awesome opportunity to see an all too short talk from the awesome Tim Allen last week. I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of Tim before, but his talk focused around his life up until the point, during and after his work on Human Planet, the mental HD show the BBC produced that blew my mind.

Tim was a great talker and has a massive passion for what he does, and he also had some cool insight into his own journey on learning the power of the social web and hitting the ‘viral’ button.

Feeling motivated to get out and take more photos again!

Check him out on Twitter (@MrTimothyAllen), Facebook, or his site. Bit of an awesome dude.

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Kubla Khan

Heard Duncan Trussel recite part of this poem on the Joe Rogan podcast (number #291) and thought it was awesome and worth looking up… (40 minutes in on the audio version)

‘Kubla Khan’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 

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