Links and comments week 2013.33

How a big idea solved Seoul's parking problem
A smart answer to a seemingly big problem solved by thinking in three dimentions: Large amounts of gasoline spent every day just looking for a parking spot are now saved by making free parking spots more easily visible.

It only takes a spark
Touching story of a child who sees bullying in a completely different way than the parent. Or in other words, this kid has understood it. The answer to the bullying problem is not to avoid things that can get you bullied, but to stand your ground and love the bully anyway. Avoidance means you have already let the bully win. Which brings us to this article in Norway:

The cross is being removed from prayer houses
Being a right wing monocultural paper, I take some of the contents with a pinch of salt, though one can not get away from the basic fact: Public prayer houses, chappels and grave yards (formerly known as "church yards") have their crosses removed to make them "religion neutral". Since the places are public, there is also room for buddhists, muslims, etc. And while the extremists cry foul about the removal of "Norwegian culture", my observation is this: You do not build a tolerant society by hiding the diversity under a white cloth. That's like obtaining gender equality by forcing everyone to wear a burka, so you don't know who is man and who is woman. And you don't force a shopping mall to take down the advertising signs of the businesses inside to make the mall "business neutral". Nay, you do it the other way. Keep the cross and add the crecent, the wheel and Tha. Show off the diversity and be proud of it. Anything less is to cater for the intolerant.

Platform cut down while demonstrators are chained to the top
People demonstrating against exploitation of Sámi land in Northern Sweden built a platform, climbed to the top and chained themselves up. Police started to cut down the feet of the platform with the demonstrators still on board. In the Swedish police's defence, certain other nations would just run over everyone with a bulldozer, saying that "hey, they were in the way."

Letters of Note: People Simply Empty Out
A great letter from Charles Bukowski to his publisher, celebrating his own departure from his mindless post office job before he turned postal. Others who might go either postal or waitral are waiters, so also read this great article:
Observations from a tipless restaurant

Interesting links week 2013.32

So you want to pick someone's brains? Do it right!
While one would think that these rules should be obvious, it has become obvious that it is not obvious to a lot of people. And even if it is obvious, it is nice to have a checklist.

5 ways to lead no matter your title
Again, obvious things for leadership attributes. And with a five point checklist, you can make a daily reminder producing a week long cycle.

Songcycles
My good friend Ken McCracken found a tape with the Stuffy Rabbit song. Songcycles are coming back online. I hereby pledge that next time I'm in Toronto, I'll join them for a song or ten.

Adyghe Habze
The Adyghe People had a Pagan ethnic religion, philosophy and world view known as Habze. Combined with megalithic culture makes for a very interesting study, which I hereby have put in my list of future deeper dive studies.

Gabriele D'Annunzio
Before fascism, there was a poet from Pescara known by the name Gabriele. While he is thought to be the precursor to fascism and a source of inspiration for Mussolini, he was also a poet and writer. His books supposedly have nothing to do with fascism, and are considered to be unparallelled works of art.

And finally... for something completely different from Abruzzo