Recently I’ve been in Harvard to listen to an Edward Tufte’s talk. Edward Tufte is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science, and Senior Critic in the School of Art at Yale (do you think it is enough?). I am writing here some quotes from the speech:

• I spent many years of my life willing to be a professor but I was wondering what the hell of professor I wanted to be
• every time I had the feeling that in the place I was working in I wasn’t able anymore to learn I moved
• probably I took more from other people than what I gave them
• if you want to play you have to play with the big guys, to play small doesn’t make any sense

All this made me thoughtful…

… you know that days you go out in the morning and the face becames immediatly painful and almost every breath is a bit painful too. Do you know what I am talking about?. And when the wind blows in the face ehm. It’s only -13° with some wind (one week ago it was -14° or 15°). Maybe it is normal for friends living here or in north Europe. But for me… damn… it’s coooold.

Ehm, I am not really sure on what to write about the movie Babel. It is interesting, well done but maybe I found it a bit too much. I mean, the story is complex enough to keep the mind always awake but they put together a bunch of really sad/crude stories. The mexican, the japanise girl, the african people. Small, almost insignificant, things that turned out in terrible consequences. And it’s like the poor people are always paying more.

Click to enlarge.