Author: Paweł Gościcki

Ruby/Rails programmer.

Bad artists copy. Great artists steal

This is another great quote by Pablo Picasso. And another one that is not easy to understand. This is just one possible explanation:

Picasso hardly meant that great artists steal popular designs whose original source is known to everyone. What Picasso did mean was that great artists rummage through the great junk heap of lost, bypassed, and forgotten ideas to find the rare jewels, and then incorporate such languishing gems into their own personal artistic legacy.

(via Joel On Software forum)

Picasso on painting fakes

Ed shares this story with us, via a friend of Pablo Picasso.

I was staying with Picasso in his studio. Every day, dealers would come by to authenticate paintings they were trying to sell… they would ask the painter if the painting was real or a fake.

A dealer came by one day, Picasso glanced at it and without hesitating said, “fake.” Later that day, two more were identified as fakes.

The second day, a different dealer came by. Picasso hardly looked up. “Fake!” he bellowed.

After the dealer left, I couldn’t help myself. “Picasso, why did you say that painting was a fake? I was here, in this studio, last year when I saw you paint it.”

Picasso didn’t hesitate. He turned to me and said, “I often paint fakes.”

(via Seth)

One possible explanation (via Rabbi David Gaffney):

The notion that a person is creating fakes when they fail to live up to their capacity has far-ranging artistic implications. The contention that the second-rate is second-rate, even when it is executed by first-rate people, is particularly worth proclaiming in an age when geniuses are discovered and proclaimed weekly. There is always room for the near-miss and for the clearly second-rate. But the standard for outstanding accomplishments must inevitably be lowered if no one bothers to distinguish the good from the not quite good enough.

TylkoZyczenia.pl – My third rails app available to the public

TylkoZyczenia.pl – my new Rails website is now live. It’s Polish language only and it will probably stay this way. Basically, it’s a site with collections of wishes for various occasions, like Christmas, New Year, birthdays and so on. At the moment it’s not very different from other, similar websites (and there are lots of them in Poland) apart from the fact that my design, in my humble opinion, is leaner and much more clearer/simple than the others (aka simplicity all the way). I have some ideas to make this site different (read: better) from the others, though. Stay tuned.

It took me about 2 months of intensive, after-hours work. It’s the first version, which is usable to be online (meaning that basic stuff, like registering and adding new wishes work. The TODO list is quite big…). Enjoy!

Tylko życzenia!

32nd Polish Film Festival Gdynia ‘2007

32. Polish Film Festival. 5 days of screenings. 18 movies seen. I had the chance to experience some of the best Polish cinema ever. I’m a big movie fan and as I’m from Poland I try to watch every possible Polish movie I can (and no, I’m not that patriotic, I was thinking about emigration many times…). Each year it’s different. There were better years, there were worse years. But this year the festival has surpassed my expectations by a very large margin. Most movies were outstanding. This was one of the best if not the best Polish Film Festival ever. Every Polish movie I have seen was either very good or great. There was only one bad movie in the whole main competition, namely Braciszek, so there is no usual Top 5 of the worst festival movies. Here are the best ones:

The best movies of the festival (TOP 5):

  1. Katyń (2007)
  2. Korowód (2007)
  3. Sztuczki (2007)
  4. Aleja gówniarzy (2007)
  5. Pora umierać (2007)

I miss those festival days so much…

During the festival I was also a photographer (or rather a photo reporter). Here are the links to my work:

And since I could not decide which pictures to put up here, I’m presenting you the best three of the many I took:

Agnieszka Warchulska

Agnieszka Warchulska

Julia Pietrucha

Julia Pietrucha

Damian Ul

Damian Ul

The three pictures above are Copyright © 2007 Onet.pl

7th International Film Festival Era New Horizons ‘2007

It’s been over a week since the 7th Era New Horizons Film Festival has ended. Same as last year, I’ve spent 11 days in the cinema. As always, the time has passed quicker that I could imagine. And as always, it was worth every second of it! Although I must say that the movies selection was not as good as that in 2006.

I’ve watched 51 movies. It was as much as one could watch as there were 10 regular festival days with 5 screenings a day plus the opening day with only one screening. I’ve spent about 1150 zł (circa 420$) on the whole festival (accreditation, accommodation, meals, etc.).

The best movies of the festival (TOP 10):

  1. Ostrov (2006)
  2. Gwoemul (2006)
  3. Niwemang (2006)
  4. Beneath Clouds (2002)
  5. Persepolis (2007)
  6. Sutra ujutru (2006)
  7. Look Both Ways (2005)
  8. Nuovomondo (2006)
  9. Walking on Water (2002)
  10. Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (2006)

The worst movies of the festival (TOP 5):

  1. Nue propriété (2006)
  2. Kurz davor ist es passiert (2006)
  3. Hamlet (2007/III)
  4. Hei yan quan (2006)
  5. Extranjera (2007)

See you next year? Oh, and say no to French cinema! ;)

There is a meaning, after all?

Steve Paulson:

All my career, I’ve been fascinated by the fact that the universe looks not just beautiful but in some sense deeply ingenious. It looks like it’s been put together in a way that makes it work exceptionally well. I suppose the most striking example is that the laws of physics and the various parameters that go into those laws seem to be just right for life. If they were even slightly different, it’s quite likely there would be no life, no observers, and no people like you and me having this conversation.

Excellent read.

Intel Core 2 Duo power consumption

During the recent move of my development machine to the basement I’ve conducted a test telling me what is the actual power consumption of my new Core 2 Duo powered server. Basically, it is a normal PC: Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz, 2 x 512MB DDR2, 2 x 250GB SATA 7200rpm (RAID 1), old PCI graphic card and a 350W power supply. All running latest Ubuntu (currently 7.04 Feisty Fawn, server edition). Since it is a development machine, it’s idle most of the time (98% or even more). And this is the state I was making my measurements in. So what are the results? Well, I was quite surprised how low my power consumption actually is. I took three tests, which indicated basically the same: about 77 Watts. Even taking into the account temporary power usage spikes (when I’m actually using the machine…) it shouldn’t cost me more than 4$ per month to keep it running 24/7. Isn’t that sweet? ;)