Weary climber

Der Chasseur im Walde
Caspar David Friedrich

On a steep mountain slope, 

Lone climber struggles to the peak

He's holding to his rope, 

But his grip begins to creak.

Strained by its barbed rock

Worn by whips and scorns

His rope now nothing but a stalk 

that’s bearing piercing thorns.

Lost and without hope

To conquer this perilous wall

He’s ready to uncoil his rope

And let the abyss take control.

It never was his intention

To leave this world like this

But if this means redemption,

Temptation is too hard to resist. 

His life shall be forgotten

His name ceasing to exist

His flesh and bones rotten

Soul dissolved in the mist.

He takes his final breath

Slowly unclenching both fists

But doubting this precipitous death

Does not cease to persist.

He looks up to the stars—

Why not climb out of this deadly pit?

Though he might not move very far

He might move at least a bit.

How much work it took,

Those that are already gone?

How would the world look

If they too, chose not to carry on?

Oasis of peace

Claude Monet
Canal in Amsterdam

Right inside in the middle

Of the oasis of peace

Where even the hardest riddle

Feels like a goodbye with a kiss

In a kaleidoscope of yellow

Sweet bitter tastes of gold

Where every goodbye leads to a new hello

Where you feel young even when you're old.

Here I float without end

In the glow of green serpentines

And every moment here that I spend

Feels like in the middle of my dreams. 

Courtesy is King

In times of the “customer is king” mantra we, the customers, tend to look down on those who serve us. Customer service clerks, phone operators, cabin crew, bus drivers all get paid for serving us and ought to put up with all we say and do. We complain, therefore, frequently and vociferously, presumably to get better service next time. But ironically, it’s positive reinforcement that tends to produce the most improvements, not negative one. Yet giving compliments each time we are happy with the product / service that we receive is often overlooked. If we really feel so strong about helping shape a better experience for ourselves, courteousness and gratitude should be the order of the day. Not criticisms and complaints. And not via a survey, but personal, face-to-face “thank you" each time we feel delighted. Customer may be king, but courteous customer is a happy one.

40 Words You Will Never Use vol. 3

The latest batch of words that on a daily basis only crazy people dare to use. My favourite one must be “elision” which refers to "the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking” — never thought there was a word for it! Now for the ultimate challenge: use as many of these as possible in one game of Scrabble! Ha!

Elision ● Amalgamation ● Abhorrence ● Transgress ● Epithalamium ● Crevasse ● Tenacious ● Veridical ● Vociferous ● Vehement ● Avarice ● Fecundity ● Obfuscate ● Incorrigible ● Scurrilous ● Inoculation ● Quagmire ● Corollary ● Portent ● Effervescent ● Mendacious ● Prolegomenon ● Excise ● Prolegomenous ● Preposterous ● Inculcation ● Virulence ● Rapacious ● Opprobrium ● Surreptitious ● Palatable ● Excoriate ● Raucous ● Equanimity ● Adventitious ● Reticent ● Viscous ● Impunity ● Obdurate ● Desideratum

 Meanings after the break.

Read more »

Right Place, Right Time

Blogging That Works

Blogging that works has five components:

1. Logic. Rock solid reasoning and supersonic argumentation. No room left for lost track. 

2. Clarity. Arguments built and developed until crystal clear. Anticipating what the reader knows and doesn’t know about the subject and responding accordingly. 

3. Length. Blog posts aren’t essays. 

4. Illustration. Visuals are an integral part of each post, perfected to the same extent as the writing. 

5. Aesthetics. Posts crafted with a sense of style: immaculate grammar and punctuation, rich vocabulary, bespoke artwork. 

What’s new with CooCoolu

CooCoolu got a few neat updates in the last couple of weeks. First, the new landing page fitted with a carousel of concept arts went live. Second, we started a blog on Tumblr with behind the scenes footage. Peek the screenshots below or hit the links to see the new stuff. 

No Balls No Glory

Say Hello to CooCoolu

Explaining something to someone is often easier with a drawing of the concept, idea, issue etc. than just talking about it. A chalkboard used to be a great way of doing that but with the advent of new technologies and the Internet it has been gradually wandering into obscurity. Tools used today are mainly presentation software, drawing and diagramming applications, or infographics apps. Technologically advanced and feature packed but performing tasks that should at most take us a few minutes usually requires more time than we would have wanted it to.

We started working on CooCoolu to solve this problem. By offering a simple, social and fun product we aim to make it a one stop solution to graphically explaining stuff online. But CooCoolu won’t be just a fancy version of PowerPoint with sharing features. Similar to web mapping applications such as Google Maps, CooCoolu's canvas will an interactive matrix revealing more detailed information only when needed, using size, distance, colour and simple illustrations of key concepts to guide the understanding of the viewer. 

See CooCoolu as a one-slide interactive presentation that you can create and publish online in minutes for anyone to play with.

Get your invite for the beta at coocoo.lu

Create

Most art comes from other art: a reaction, 

a development, an improvement. Nigel Holmes