The Dark Underbelly

Potch Formal Diner

2005-05-17T10:55:00.000+02:00

The Gang
Originally uploaded by Mark H.

Fabulous evening, check out more of the pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_h/sets/346038/

The Independent Tree

2005-04-13T00:06:00.000+02:00

It was a lonely little road in a lonely little town. Those who walked the little road often would remember the beautiful majestic trees that grew by the wayside. So beautiful were the trees that many people made very sure their Sunday walkabouts would take them through the lonely little road.

One day, a particular young tree looked at the people walking past. "Do they even notice me", she thought to herself. "All they see are a bunch of trees lining a lonely little road". So the young tree began to think about ways to get the people to notice her as an individual. A scruffy looking dog approached her. He had been there before, and often snuggled up to her trunk to sleep through the day. She wished he would go away. It wasn't the attention of the dog she wanted. It was those people she wanted to impress. She wanted to be different. She wanted people to see her. Attracting attention occupied her days. So she tried and tried to look prouder and younger. She tried looking independent. But the more she tried, the more she realized that being a tree has it's limitations.

On one sunny day in the middle of a beautiful summer, a couple came walking along the lonely little road. They had a basket with them with a red and white checkered blanket on top. Slowly they sauntered down the road, idly coming to a halt under her magnificent shade. She watched as they unfolded the blanket and unpacked a lunch for two on the grass beneath her branches.
As the couple were talking, the man stood up and leaned against her. She could feel the warmth of his body, the caress of his skin against her bark. From deep inside her, she felt a strange overpowering feeling that gripped her soul. Her branches seemed to tighten and her leaves seemed to tingle. She shivered in extacy.

The man looked up at her as her branches trembled, watching as a whole bunch of leaves came tumbling down. He looked up at her in amazement. She looked down at him in awe. Before she could figure out exactly what had happened, he touched her bark again, caressing it with his soft hands. She shivered. More leaves came tumbling down. The man spoke to the woman in an urgent voice, and she got up from the blanket. Walking closer to the tree, she glanced up, dumbstruck. The woman took her hand and brushed against the bark. The tree bristled with excitement. This was a different feeling than she had when the man had touched her. No better and no worse. Just different. She shivered and the leaves came tumbling down.

A group of people came briskly walking down the road. They wore ski-pants and wore earphones and white socks and sneakers. It looked like they were in a hurry. The couple under the tree called out to them and the tree watched them switch off their music and walk towards her looking at her branches curiously. Finally she felt noticed. She felt independent and different to all the other trees lining the lonely little road. Someone from the group came up to her and stroked her bark. She shivered, and the falling leaves expressed her ecstacy. The tree was in heaven. More people touching. More shivers. More leaves tumbling down.

Before long, a whole crowd of people were surrounding her. She felt popular and in demand. The center of attention. In the spotlight. As long as she kept shedding leaves, she was the hot thing in town.

By the end of the day, she had half the town assembled around her. She was exhausted but content. Most of her leaves were already lying on the ground. But the people kept touching and she kept shivering. And the leaves kept coming down. They didn't stop. They kept touching until her very last leaf came slowly tumbling down, turning in the wind and settling on some guy's shoe. Looking up at her, the man kicked the leaf away, staring at her empty, spent branches. Shaking their heads in amazement, the people started to leave. The couple picked up their picnic, folded the blanket and looking back only once, walked away with their arms around eachother - the excitement behind them, they were once again a couple.

In the dusk of the late afternoon, it dawned on the independent tree: Her leaves were all gone, and so were the admirers. They had left her there alone and naked by the side of a lonely little road in a lonely little town. She had been noticed that day. She had been the talk of the town. And by the end of the day, she was exactly where she had been at the beginning. Except that she felt naked and exposed. And used.

The next morning, she woke up a little confused for a second. Remembering the previous day, she looked up at her naked, leaf-less branches. A couple of people came walking down the road. They pointed to her and talked among themselves. But nobody came to touch her that day.

The scruffy looking dog came trotting down the lonely little road about midday, just us he always did. Slowing down beside her, he walked up to her trunk. Suddenly, she felt thankful for the dog. She never had to shed her leaves for him, and he always came to cuddle up against her. But her joy soon turned to longing when the scruffy dog, finding no shade under her empty branches, turned his back on her and cuddled up against the ugly looking tree next to her.

The independent tree never shivered again. She never shed a leaf again. But the dog had found it's spot and never sought the coolenss of her shade again.

Hot Or Not - 15 Secrets to a good rating.

2005-03-29T21:37:00.000+02:00

Today I chose the most unlikely place to do some data mining on the Internet. The website is called AmIHotOrNot. It is a landmark website when one looks back on the last 5 years of the Internet's growth. The founders of the site played on a very popular yet trivial concept where one gets to upload your picture and watch other people rate it to see whether the world thinks you are hot or not.
Upon this very small but powerful foundation, they built a site that drew so much attention that it was featured in People Magazine, Time Magazine, Newsweek, NY Times, and USA Today amongst others. Read more about their history here.

What I found interresting though, was this: While I was voting for my taste in women, I discovered that it often differed quite drastically to the vote already established by the male population out there. That got me thinking. What do most men think are sexy? So I spent half a day going through pictures and trying to connect the dots. While it is gross generalization, my findings are both interresting and sortof obvious. Here are the do's and do nots of a sexy female picture:

The more skin, the better the rating. This reaches a cut-off point however, where too much skin isn't good either. And if the skin you show is flabby, rather cover up a little.
If there are other persons/objects/animals in the picture that are beautiful, your rating will be better.
An air of indifference makes for a better rating.
If you are sexually conscious but not overy aware of it, your rating will be better.
Tight clothing on a body that makes the clothes look good is a great plus point.
Have a little attitude. The "Hey, Big Boy" look does wonders for your rating.
Take a picture of yourself nude, behind something blocking most of your juicy bits.
Be confident. Looking down makes the ratings go down too.
Head slightly down and to the side, mouth slightly open and eyes looking sly-like at the camera is a great boost for your ratings.
Touching your body with spread fingers is a great plus. Especially spread your thumb away from your fingers. Thigh-touching this way seems a great boost in ratings.
If you don't opt for the 'sexy' look, remember to smile.
If you're on a photo with people more sexy than you, don't blot out their faces. Rather draw an arrow across their torso's to indicate yourself. If you standing more to the left of the picture, invert it. You'll get better ratings if you're standing to the right.
If you're on a photo with the opposite sex, don't pic a photo that makes you look smitten. Indifference is key here.
If you're thinking "this is me, take it or leave it," you're in for a surprise. Rather adopt a slight pose as opposed to a straight from the front, no-bullshit picture.
Don't pose too much. Just enough to look like you have attitude and mystery.

Well, that could have been a waste of half a day. Or it might turn out to be useful to someone out there. Have fun...

-The Dark Underbelly

Web Development

2005-03-26T08:51:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I really get sick of my job. Not that being a self-employed web developer doesn't have it's upside.
It is simply faboulous to be able to choose my own hours, and take my vacation whenever I want to. It's really great to be my own boss and to answer only to myself.
It's great. Or is it?

The trouble with being a web-developer is that my social skills are limited to typing and the occasional expressive grunt. Smoking is something that I have to yet again give up. And coke flows like water. Pizza is standard dinner.
This job really is a killer when it comes to health. Apart from my erratic eating habits, my eyes feel like red-hot coals by the time I get to bed at night. That is, if I get to bed...

Then there's the other bit. The fact that I am self-employed. And believe me, my boss is a nightmare!! He won't let me quit for the day if everything's not perfect yet. Every month when I get my salary, my employer reminds me of the company-expense budget and takes some of my salary back to put into the company.

You know, my friends ask me why I majored in computerscience as well as psychology. I tell them that I had the sneaky suspicion that either me or the machine was gonne need some serious help at some point.

I think I should've gone back to get my masters.

- The Dark Underbelly

Mind Over Matter

2005-03-24T11:33:00.000+02:00

I once attended a sermon where the preacher talked about "Ask and it shall be given". He proceeded to call a young man to the front and told him whether he believed it. The young man replied "Of Course!", being a good christian and all.
So the preacher told the boy to test the statement by asking for $100.
The young man was taken aback a bit. After some prompting, the young man kneeled and prayed, asking for the $100. Before he was even done praying, the preacher had pulled $100 from his pocket and gave it to the young man, asking the congregation what more proof they needed - the statement was true and it was indisputably proved right in front of their eyes.
The young man, holding the money in his hand, got up from his knees and told the preacher that it didn't quite work that way. One cannot make so general a statement and then attempt to
prove it true by fulfilling that statement yourself. The preacher replied "God works in mysterious ways". The young man rebutted, "This proves NOTHING".
Upon hearing that, the preacher snatched the money back from the boy, saying, "Your faith has evaporated, and so did the answer to your prayer. Just because you don't believe in the statement doesn't make it any less true. But disbelieving it, makes it a false statement to YOU."

The whole discussion over Mind over Matter brings up images of meditating guru's, religiously funny hairstyles and sometimes the image of a straight-jacket. While this topic has been the butt of many jokes, there is something about it's widespread unacknowledged and tentative survival in the minds of many people that calls for a more serious approach.

But how does one treat such a fantasy seriously. Seriously.
While much of the mind over matter concept is truly outside the sphere of standard human experience, and therefore beyond being taken seriously, I believe there are parts of it that are very common and so menial in nature that they often get taken for granted or are used to poke fun at the guys with the funny hairstyles.

For example: Some caveman sitting on a really uncomfortable rock have wished for years for a better seating accessory. One day he decides that enough is enough, and starts looking around for better things to sit on. After testing various objects, he finds that the fur from his recently slain mammoth is very soft on his behind, but he doesn't like staring at his guests from between his kneecaps. More of the same is always better, so he stacks a bunch of mammoth-fur patches on top of each other, and finally he has a very funky place to sit.
His cave-woman, however, now refuses to cook any food for him and throws all sorts of weird-shaped rocks (she likes to call them utensils) at him because it get's cold at night and he's sitting on all the mammoth-fur blankets.
Our caveman, being progressive in nature recognises a women's rights issue when he sees one, and gives up the extra blankets, keeping only one. He puts four sticks in the corners, but finds that it kinda sags in the middle. Finally it dawns on him, he sticks four sticks into a flat piece of driftwood, drapes the mammoth skin over it and eureka! The chair is born.

"Yea but that has nothing to do with mind over matter", you might want to say. It actually, has everything to do with mind over matter. To the one extreme, the guys with the funny hairstyles will tell you that when he desired a chair, all the elements of a chair miraculously appeared in his life, leading to the birth of the chair. To the other extreme, the guys with the straight-jackets will tell you that the chair always existed, floating around in the ether as an idea. Caveman only tuned into the idea and turned it into a tangible object.

Somewhere in the middle, you'll find people like me that will tell you: "Do you really give a rat's ass why all the stuff was around when they were needed to discover the chair? If it works, it works. Lets see what the guy did, and repeat it to try and build something that will help us fly to the moon and back." If one took a look at what the caveman had going for him, this is what you will discover:

1. Dissatisfaction with his existing seat.
2. Belief that there was definitely something better out there.
3. Desire to find a better solution.
4. Dedication that moved him to action- enough is enough.
5. Asking questions - would this work?
6. Exploration of resources.
7. Openness to critique and new ideas.

That is the formulae for mind over matter. Did God whisper in his ear? Did the floating idea of a chair hit him in the head? Did the universe magically provide the resources? Who knows? And if you really want to be a stickler, who the hell cares where it all came from! The fact is, mind over matter does exist. Believe that you can turn a lot of nothings into something valueable, follow the formulae and you will have stories to tell your grandchildren that will make their eyes grow wide!

-The Dark Underbelly

A Day at a Platinum Mine

2005-03-23T23:41:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine works for a Plant Hire company and they are continually on some or other site doing whatever they do. Just a couple of weeks back, he invited me to visit one of the local platinum mines they are busy excavating.

What impressed me more than the mine, were those machines. Dumpers that are two stories high, and diggers in which the counter-weight alone houses an entire three-story repair workshop fully equipped to do routine maintenance on the machine.
I was also quite impressed by the skill it obviously took for some of the drivers to manouvre the machines around. At some point it struck me that even though it was a human, pulling levers and stepping on pedals in a glorified tincan, driver and machine somehow became so at one that they acted together and the metal seemed to have a life of it's own.

Does this happen sometimes, or does it happen almost always? Where humans touch things, we live ourselves so completely into the new set of rules that it comes to define our existence while we are there. From inside the machine, all the driver knows is what to do and which lever to pull. From my perspective the driver gave something to the metal: Life. And the metal took something from the driver: freedom.

Makes one think. Maybe there are other "shells" that we get into from day to day that, although we lend it life, it steals from us our freedom.

-The Dark Underbelly