Walmart musings

 

Jeffrey Flynn

  · 

During long periods of being alone, I guess facebook has become my psychological/emotional release or something, I dunno. So tonight I needed to go to Walmart to get a few things. After I got what I came for, I headed for the perishables. But right before grabbing some eggs, I realized that I was in no hurry to get home, so I decided to start doing laps thru the store for some exercise. I started really looking at people in the store. On my second lap I was looking at the young lady stationed at the self-checkout area. I stopped near her (strange haircut, lots of tats, lots of piercings, overweight, bad teeth), she looked at me, I smiled and asked if she recognized the music playing on the overhead. She thought a moment, and asked if it was the Beatles. I gave a big smile, pointed at her, and said "well done!" Her face lit up and she smiled big. We had a moment! I did a few more laps, grabbed eggs, and headed out.

While loading the van, I paused and looked at the sky over Walmart. It...was...glorious! As I gazed on the heavens above, I found myself reciting the second and third stanzas of "Each in His Own Tongue" by Carruth. For whatever reason, the third has always been my favorite.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in —

Come from the mystic ocean,

Whose rim no foot has trod, —

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

Paul Harvey on America

 

illuminatibot

@iluminatibot

·

7h

It’s not easy to shock Joe Rogan but that’s exactly what happened when they played this eerily accurate prediction from 1965 on how to destroy the fabric of society. It’s all been planned.

https://twitter.com/iluminatibot/status/1778309081721078163

when faced with a challenge, get smarter.

 

Billy Oppenheimer

@bpoppenheimer

Early in his pro tennis career, Andre Agassi couldn’t beat a player named Boris Becker. Agassi particularly struggled with Becker’s serve. “His serve was something the game had never seen before,” Agassi explained. Studying film of Becker, “I started to realize,” Agassi said, “He had this weird tick with his tongue. I’m not kidding. He would go into his rocking motion, and just as he was about to toss the ball, he would stick his tongue out. It would either be right in the middle of his lip or to the left corner of his lip.” If in the middle of his lip, Becker would serve the ball up the middle. If to the side, he would serve the ball to the side. After he learned the way Becker revealed himself with a tongue tick, Agassi said, “The hardest part wasn’t returning his serve. The hardest part was not letting him know that I knew this. I had to resist the temptation of reading his serve for the majority of the match, and instead, choose the moments when I was going to use that information on a given point to execute a shot that would allow me to break the match open.” Agassi won 9 out of the next 11 matches against Becker. After Becker retired in 1999, over a beer, Agassi said to Becker, “By the way, did you know you used to do this with your serve?” Agassi said, “He about fell off the chair. And then he said, ‘I used to go home all the time and tell my wife, it’s like he reads my mind! Little did I know you were just reading my tongue.’” Takeaway 1: In a collection of biographies of prominent Greeks and Romans, the ancient historian Plutarch writes, “In the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice…Indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes the greatest revelation.” Similarly, in the Acknowledgments at the end of his book, “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz,” Erik Larson writes that when he began his research for the book, “I set out to hunt for the stories that often get left out of the massive biographies of Churchill [because] they seem too frivolous. But it is in frivolity, in the little moments, that Churchill often revealed himself.” In the frivolity, in the little moments, in a small thing like a phrase, a jest, or a tongue tick—often, much is revealed. Takeaway 2: In his book, “Creativity, Inc.,” Pixar co-founder writes about one of the principles that guided him in life and in business: “When faced with a challenge, get smarter.” Agassi began to study Becker because, after yet another loss to him in the semifinals of the 1988 Indian Wells Open, Agassi writes, “I promise myself I won’t lose to him the next time we meet.” To make good on that promise, he knew he didn't need to get better. He needed to get smarter. “Tennis is about problem-solving,” Agassi says after telling the Becker story. “And the more you understand...the more problems you can solve—in life and in business.” In sports, in business, in life—when faced with a challenge, get smarter. - - - “Knowledge [is] like gold—a currency you will transform into something more valuable than you can imagine.” — Robert Greene

Bukowski's rules

 

Charles Bukowski's work will change your life forever.

His work takes 100s of hours to read. I've gone through it so you don't have to.

11 ideas. 11 opportunities to upgrade your mind.

https://twitter.com/Tim_Denning/status/1771478010094321974

Unroll:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1771478010094321974.html

_____

“Find what you love and let it kill you."

I gave up my corporate career to let online writing kill me.

Find the thing you want to kill you. Take the subject you’re crazy about & make it your entire life.

Work on it after hours. Then have this wild task take over your career. 

“People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things,

But on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.”

The biggest debate we should have is with ourselves. What the heck are you doing in life?

Stop majoring in minor things. 

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way”

The smartest people talk simply

This is why online writers are becoming so stupidly wealthy.

Cheat code to the universe: simplicity

Take complexity. Make it simple. 

“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it –

Basically because you feel good when you are near or with them”

Most people aren’t free. They hate their life, desperate for an escape.

But fear stops them from finding one.

Find free souls and ask them questions. 

“People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water”

Life is a paradox.

We say we don’t want one thing but then secretly let it into our lives in other forms.

When you realize how conflicted the average person is you understand why we suffer. 

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live”

If life were a video game played on a phone, you wouldn’t play it safe.

Nope.

You’d push the limits, step on landmines, blow stuff up, enter cheat codes, and have fun.

What the hell have you got to lose?

“They disgust me, the way they wait for death with as much passion as a traffic signal”

Cruising through life is effectively waiting for death.

Obsession is the compass to the good life. It starts with not giving a f*ck. 

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence”

Once you learn the power of confidence, you can use it to get unfair results you haven’t even earned yet.

To get there, understand all obstacles are good

“The 9-5 is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn’t interest you”

• No transparency

• Overworked

• Incentives/bonuses subject to interpretation

• The value created earns you a tiny bit back (salary)

"How the hell could a person enjoy being

awakened at 6:30 AM

leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss

brush teeth & hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money

for somebody else & were asked to be grateful for the opportunity?"

“You have to die a few times before you can really live”

Dying is:

Divorce

Rejection

Getting fired

Going bankrupt

Facing public humiliation

Watching someone you love die

They can make or break you. When you die inside a few times, you become braver.

That's really living. 

If you love this post, then you’ll love my free eBook that’ll help you reach personal freedom faster:

Are You Operating With Maximum Energy?https://timdenning.com/tb/

Huawei HQ like Europe

 

Huawei HQ like Europe: https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1769904859455623449

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1769904859455623449.html

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

14h • 25 tweets • 9 min read •  Read on X

 Scrolly

This city is not in Italy, France, or Germany.

It's in China and it's less than ten years old.

This is Huawei's R&D Headquarters, where 25,000 people work, and it might just be the most interesting office building(s) in the world...

Officially called the "Huawei Ox Horn Campus", this vast complex — essentially a small city — was built between 2015 and 2022 to the cost of $1.5 billion in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, southern China.

It covers 1.4 million square metres and accommodates 25,000+ employees.

The Campus is divided into twelve sections inspired by cities or regions in Europe, plus 1-1 replicas of famous buildings.

They are: Paris, Oxford, Bruges, Burgundy, Fribourg, Luxembourg, Windermere, Granada, Verona, Český Krumlov, Heidelberg, and Bologna (pictured below).

Here we see the famous Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University, built in the 18th century, and its replica at Ox Horn Campus:

And here is the star of the show — a reinterpretation of Heidelberg Castle in Germany, which stands at the heart of the Campus.

The lake below and the meadows and forests around it are the "Windermere" section, named after England's largest lake.

The Old Bridge in Heidelberg, with its distinctive gateway at one end, has also been rebuilt by Huawei:

There is also a reinterpretation of Versailles in France.

Remember: these buildings are brand new, and in many cases filled with high-tech equipment and research facilities.

It may look like a museum or palace, but this is a state of the art workplace.

Inside is a replica of the Reading Room at France's National Library, complete with a colossal stained glass ceiling.

You can see how Huawei's versions are less lavish, slightly less detailed than the originals.

Still, it's hard to argue they did a bad job.

And in the Bruges section there is even a replica of Bruges' famous Belfry.

You also get a sense of how Ox Horn Campus has streets, alleys, and squares, just like any real city.

Rather than going up elevators you walk through narrow lanes — a novel approach to office design?

Large parts of Verona in northern Italy have been rebuilt by Huawei.

Including the great Castelvecchio on the banks of the Adige, built during the reign of the Scaliger Dynasty in Verona.

Notice, to the left of Huawei's version, the towers of Czechia's Český Krumlov.

And the Torre dei Lamberti, the tallest building in Verona, constructed between the 12th and 15th centuries:

Even the building adjacent to the Torre dei Lamberti, the Palazzo della Ragione, has been built by Huawei, along with the so-called "Staircase of Reason" in its courtyard.

Plus the distinctive red and white stripes of brick and tufa used in Medieval Veronese architecture.

Not to forget Verona's main square, the Piazza Erbe, with the Baroque Palazzo Maffei at its head:

In the section inspired by Burgundy there is a replica of Fontenay Abbey, a miracle of Romanesque architecture, along with the walls and towers of the town of Semur-en-Auxois:

There is also a version of Budapest's Freedom Bridge:

And in the section inspired by Fribourg, Switzerland, there is a version of the Berntor Clocktower in Murton.

The whole campus is on a much more human scale than most modern office buildings; is there something to be learned here?

The examples go on and on — there are more than one hundred buildings at Ox Horn.

And, it seems, they were chosen tastefully: these may be famous buildings, but they are hardly "iconic" structures like the Eiffel Tower.

A genuinely broad and interesting choice of architectures.

The whole campus is linked by an electric tram system nearly 8km in length — each of the twelve "towns" has at least one tram station.

The idea was to make it a car-free town.

The trams themselves were modelled on the carriages of Switzerland's legendary Jungfrau Railway:

Each section also has cafes, restaurants, shops, gyms, and other amenities — including rather grand dining halls like this one in the Bologna section.

This probably isn't what you associate with the world's largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment.

All in all, then, Ox Horn Campus is quite the project.

It has been criticised within China for borrowing foreign styles rather than being based on traditional Chinese architecture — meanwhile critics abroad have called it kitsch, vulgar, and even "fake".

"Fake" is surely a snobbish criticism; what's wrong with recreating beloved architecture from the past?

And, besides, not everybody can travel around the world — why shouldn't architecture do the travelling instead?

Like Prague's Charles Bridge:

And, in a world where the vast majority of offices are identical skyscrapers, and most of them extremely boring, Huawei's traditionally-inspired campus is actually a rather bold and imaginative decision.

Is this really "fake"? Or is it more appealing than most office spaces?

And, most interesting of all, it flies in the face of the argument that older architectural styles are no longer practical, affordable, or possible.

Huawei built Ox Horn using modern construction methods without compromising the styles they sought to evoke — even lamp posts.

Huawei borrowed European architecture for Ox Horn Campus — could Europe borrow something in return?

This project shows what is possible with just a little bit of imagination and desire.

Would people be happier if they worked in places like this?

So... is it fake or is it charming? Is it old-fashioned or is it forwards-thinking?

At the very least, Ox Horn Campus shows that not all offices have to look the same, that glass boxes are not our only option.

Would you want to work in an office like this, or not?

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread?