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[转] How Can i Store photo (image) in column of table

derny — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:17:00 +0800

This assumes that the images in question currently reside on the database server. If you want to upload images into the database from a client machine, you will need an extra step where you move the files to the appropriate directory or directories on the server. This example will store the images in a BLOB column, rather than a much more flexible interMedia ORDImage column. A BLOB column is fine if you only want to store and retrieve the image, but interMedia gives you significantly more flexibility to manipulate the image, extract metadata, etc.

Create the directory

First, you will want to tell Oracle where it can find the images you want to insert into the database. The easiest way to do this is to create a directory object. In this case, I will be loading images from 'c:/temp/img/'.

CREATE DIRECTORY images AS 'c:/temp/img/'

If you don't have the CREATE DIRECTORY privilege, you will need to have someone else, like your DBA, create the directory and grant you READ access to it.

GRANT READ ON DIRECTORY images TO scott;

Create the Table to Hold the Images

CREATE TABLE images (
image_name VARCHAR2( 100 ),
mime_type VARCHAR2( 100 ),
content BLOB
)

Create a Stored Procedure to Load the Image

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE load_image( file_name VARCHAR2 )
AS
file_lob BFILE;
binary_lob BLOB;
mime_type images.mime_type%type;
extension_pos NUMBER;
BEGIN
-- Use the extension of the file name to determing the MIME-type
-- The MIME-type for a .JPG file will be image/jpg
extension_pos := INSTR( file_name, '.' );
mime_type := 'image/' || SUBSTR( file_name,
extension_pos + 1,
LENGTH( file_name ) );

-- Insert a new row into the images table. Get the LOB locator
-- for the newly inserted row-- we will be using that to insert
-- the content from the file.
INSERT INTO IMAGES( image_name, mime_type, content )
VALUES( file_name, mime_type, empty_blob() )
RETURNING content INTO binary_lob;

-- Open up the file in the IMAGES directory named file_name,
-- load that file into the newly created LOB locator, and
-- close the file
file_lob := BFILENAME( 'IMAGES', file_name );
dbms_lob.fileOpen ( file_lob, dbms_lob.file_readOnly );
dbms_lob.loadFromFile( binary_lob,
file_lob,
dbms_lob.getLength( file_lob ) );
dbms_lob.fileClose ( file_lob );
END;

Load the Image

scott@jcave > exec load_image( 'sample.jpg' );

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

scott@jcave > column image_name format a30;
scott@jcave > column mime_type format a15;
scott@jcave > column length format 999999;
scott@jcave >
1 SELECT image_name, mime_type,dbms_lob.getLength( content ) length
2 FROM images;

no rows selected

Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
scott@jcave > /

IMAGE_NAME MIME_TYPE LENGTH
------------------------------ --------------- -------
sample.jpg image/jpg 9894

Regards
Lakmal

作者：derny 发表于2006-8-23 19:17:00 原文链接

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[原]Tell you how to resolve Oracle 10g EM login problem: The database status is currently unavailable.

derny — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:54:00 +0800

Envirement: windows XP, oracle 10g

Problem: when I open the EM browser, it shows that: "The database status is currently unavailable. It is possible that the database is in mount or nomount state..." then I go to start up, I input the OS and database account and pw, but whatever what I input it always said my pw is wrong .

Solution: after some hours sad, I turn to goole's help. I found there were many users meeting the same problem with me.

First , I got the answer: Go to Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Local Security Policy-->Local Policies-->User Rights Assignment-->U will see in the policy as "Log on as a batch Job-->right click-->Properties-->add user or groups-->give your OS username.

after that, I wen to the EM console, now it didn't prompt the wrong password, but you still don't know how to login the EM console.

then I spent another time to find it out. Someone said , cann't use the number as the beginning of the sysman and dbsnmp's password, tis is unviarable. yeah, I remmembered of that when I create the database, it prompted me that the password is invalid, it prompted twice. So I draw this guy's lesson, I deleted the db and create it again. this time I use the character as the beginning of the password. ok, wait for the db's building. after that , then create listener and net serviece name. all done. I open the EM browser, yeah! it successes this time!!!

althougth it seems easy, but I really spend much to resolve this problem, anyway, I figure out it. I get . So , sometimes , diffculty is good for you.

作者：derny 发表于2006-8-23 16:54:00 原文链接

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[原]业务流程的明确

derny — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:30:00 +0800

晚上大家又碰头了一下，大致把整个的业务流程走了一遍，很多的细节其实还不是很确定。主要是大家对一些业务不是很了解，很多时候只能靠自己的设想和假设。

对于ERP和CRM之间的关系整合也大致更清晰化了。感觉整个的基本业务流程似乎有点过于简单，下一步考虑怎么进一步具体化和一些业务的扩展。

由于大家上次在建行的一起打拼的经验，这次又是我们几个在一起工作，我想大家应该有信心的！加油！

作者：derny 发表于2006-6-2 1:30:00 原文链接

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[原]初步探讨SOA

derny — Sun, 28 May 2006 14:39:00 +0800

自从上研究生后很少关注软件技术的新生事物了，天天除了应付考试外就是应付论文了。对于最近2年软件的发展可以说是一无所知。前阵子师妹叫我参加一个IBM的SOA比赛，当时也就答应下来了，可是SOA是啥？SOA怎么做？一头雾水！于是就上网查了些相关资料，才发现SOA几年前IBM就提出来了，只是在最近2年成为一个hot的topic！真是落伍了～～～

闲聊太多了，进入正题^_^

看了很多大师对SOA的阐释，大致有了个印象，大家都强调了一点，SOA不是一种技术一种框架一套标准而是一种软件构架的思想。个人直观上理解就是做好系统的连接，如何采用适当的粒度，才能使得即可重用性高又能不过于复杂利于可扩展性。在SOA中，强调的是面向服务。看到一个对SOA的定义“SOA is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents. A service is a unit of work done by a service provider to achieve desired end results for a service consumer. Both provider and consumer are roles played by software agents on behalf of their owners.”

IBM的SOA比赛是提供了一个虚拟的公司，随着该公司的逐渐发展壮大，越来越重视信息化的建设，于是他们构建了自己内部营运的ERP，为了提高客户管理购买了一套CRM系统，该系统不是由公司负责的，参赛组就是代表该虚拟的公司利用SOA的设计思想把ERP和CRM进行整合。

由于对SOA还没有非常深入的了解，所以目前我们组分兵各路对该公司的业务、SOA的技术等等进行研究。

大家如果对SOA有自己的什么想法和经验的话，可以说出来和大家一起分享一下～。这里我们不讨论比赛题目，只讨论SOA。^_^

作者：derny 发表于2006-5-28 14:39:00 原文链接

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[转]数据挖掘中聚类算法比较研究

derny — Mon, 22 May 2006 19:58:00 +0800

《计算机应用与软件》2003 Vol.20 No.2 : 5~6

数据挖掘中聚类算法比较研究
张红云　刘向东　段晓东　苗夺谦　马垣
(同济大学电子与信息工程学院　上海 200092)
(大连民族学院计算机系　大连 116600)
(鞍山科技大学计算机科学与工程学院　鞍山 114002)

　　摘　要：聚类算法是数据挖掘的核心技术，本文综合提出了评价聚类算法好坏的5个标准，基于这5个标准，对数据挖掘中常用聚类算法作了比较分析，以便于人们更容易、更快捷地找到一种适用于特定问题的聚类算法。
　　关键词：数据挖拥；平衡迭代削减聚类算法；代表点聚类算法；基于密度的聚类算法

THE COMPARISON OF CLUSTERING METHODS IN DATA MINING
　　Abstract: Clustering method is the core of data mining technology. In this paper, five standards were put forward which are used to evaluate these clustering methods. These clustering methods were compared and analyzed according to the standards so that people can easily and quickly find a clustering method that suit a special problem.
　　Keywords: Data Mining; BIRCH; DBSCAN; CURE

1 引言
　　把数据库中的对象分类是数据挖掘的基本操作，其准则是使属于同一类的个体间距离尽可能小，而不同类个体间距离尽可能大，为了找到效率高、通用性强的聚类方法人们从不同角度提出了近百种聚类方法，典型的有K-means方法、K-medoids方法、CLARANS方法,BIRCH方法等，这些算法适用于特定的问题及用户。本文综合提出了评价聚类算法好坏的5个标准，基于这5个标准，对数据挖掘中常用聚类方法作了比较分析，以便于人们更容易、更快捷地找到一种适用于特定问题及用户的聚类算法。

2 数据挖掘聚类算法研究及比较框架
　　聚类算法一般分为分割和分层两种。分割聚类算法通过优化评价函数把数据集分割为K个部分，它需要K作为输人参数。典型的分割聚类算法有K-means算法, K-medoids算法、CLARANS算法。分层聚类由不同层次的分割聚类组成，层次之间的分割具有嵌套的关系。它不需要输入参数，这是它优于分割聚类算法的一个明显的优点，其缺点是终止条件必须具体指定。典型的分层聚类算法有BIRCH算法、DBSCAN算法和CURE算法等。
　　本文对各聚类算法的比较研究基于以下5个标准：
　　① 是否适用于大数据量，算法的效率是否满足大数据量高复杂性的要求;
　　② 是否能应付不同的数据类型，能否处理符号属性;
　　③ 是否能发现不同类型的聚类;
　　④ 是否能应付脏数据或异常数据;
　　⑤ 是否对数据的输入顺序不敏感。
　　下面将在该框架下对各聚类算法作分析比较。

3 数据挖掘常用聚类算法比较分析
　　3.1 BIRCH算法
　　BIRCH算法即平衡迭代削减聚类法，其核心是用一个聚类特征3元组表示一个簇的有关信息，从而使一簇点的表示可用对应的聚类特征，而不必用具体的一组点来表示。它通过构造满足分支因子和簇直径限制的聚类特征树来求聚类。BIRCH算法通过聚类特征可以方便地进行中心、半径、直径及类内、类间距离的运算。算法的聚类特征树是一个具有两个参数分枝因子B和类直径T的高度平衡树。分枝因子规定了树的每个节点子女的最多个数，而类直径体现了对一类点的直径大小的限制即这些点在多大范围内可以聚为一类，非叶子结点为它的子女的最大关键字，可以根据这些关键字进行插人索引，它总结了其子女的信息。
　　聚类特征树可以动态构造，因此不要求所有数据读人内存，而可以在外存上逐个读人。新的数据项总是插人到树中与该数据距离最近的叶子中。如果插人后使得该叶子的直径大于类直径T，则把该叶子节点分裂。其它叶子结点也需要检查是否超过分枝因子来判断其分裂与否，直至该数据插入到叶子中，并且满足不超过类直径，而每个非叶子节点的子女个数不大于分枝因子。算法还可以通过改变类直径修改特征树大小，控制其占内存容量。
　　BIRCH算法通过一次扫描就可以进行较好的聚类，由此可见，该算法适合于大数据量。对于给定的M兆内存空间，其空间复杂度为O(M)，时间间复杂度为O(dNBlnB(M/P)).其中d为维数,N为节点数,P为内存页的大小，B为由P决定的分枝因子。I/O花费与数据量成线性关系。BIRCH算法只适用于类的分布呈凸形及球形的情况，并且由于BIRCH算法需提供正确的聚类个数和簇直径限制，对不可视的高维数据不可行。
　　3.2 CURE算法
　　CURE算法即使用代表点的聚类方法。该算法先把每个数据点看成一类，然后合并距离最近的类直至类个数为所要求的个数为止。CURE算法将传统对类的表示方法进行了改进，回避了用所有点或用中心和半径来表示一个类，而是从每一个类中抽取固定数量、分布较好的点作为描述此类的代表点，并将这些点乘以一个适当的收缩因子，使它们更靠近类的中心点。将一个类用代表点表示，使得类的外延可以向非球形的形状扩展，从而可调整类的形状以表达那些非球形的类。另外，收缩因子的使用减小了嗓音对聚类的影响。CURE算法采用随机抽样与分割相结合的办法来提高算法的空间和时间效率，并且在算法中用了堆和K-d树结构来提高算法效率。
　　3.3 DBSCAN算法
　　DBSCAN算法即基于密度的聚类算法。该算法利用类的密度连通性可以快速发现任意形状的类。其基本思想是：对于一个类中的每个对象，在其给定半径的领域中包含的对象不能少于某一给定的最小数目。在DBSCAN算法中，发现一个类的过程是基于这样的事实：一个类能够被其中的任意一个核心对象所确定。为了发现一个类，DBSCAN先从对象集D中找到任意一对象P，并查找D中关于关径Eps和最小对象数Minpts的从P密度可达的所有对象。如果P是核心对象，即半径为Eps的P的邻域中包含的对象不少于Minpts,则根据算法，可以找到一个关于参数Eps和Minpts的类。如果P是一个边界点，则半径为Eps的P邻域包含的对象少于Minpts，P被暂时标注为噪声点。然后，DBSCAN处理D中的下一个对象。
　　密度可达对象的获取是通过不断执行区域查询来实现的。一个区域查询返回指定区域中的所有对象。为了有效地执行区域查询，DBSCAN算法使用了空间查询R-树结构。在进行聚类前，必须建立针对所有数据的R*-树。另外，DBSCAN要求用户指定一个全局参数Eps(为了减少计算量，预先确定参数Minpts)。为了确定取值，DBSCAN计算任意对象与它的第k个最临近的对象之间的距离。然后，根据求得的距离由小到大排序，并绘出排序后的图，称做k-dist图。k-dist图中的横坐标表示数据对象与它的第k个最近的对象间的距离；纵坐标为对应于某一k-dist距离值的数据对象的个数。R*-树的建立和k-dist图的绘制非常消耗时间。此外，为了得到较好的聚类结果，用户必须根据k-dist图，通过试探选定一个比较合适的Eps值。DBSCAN算法不进行任何的预处理而直接对整个数据集进行聚类操作。当数据量非常大时，就必须有大内存量支持，I/O消耗也非常大。其时间复杂度为O(nlogn)(n为数据量)，聚类过程的大部分时间用在区域查询操作上。DBSCAN算法对参数Eps及Minpts非常敏感，且这两个参数很难确定。
　　3.4 K-pototypes算法
　　K-pototypes算法结合了K-means方法和根据K-means方法改进的能够处理符号属性的K-modes方法，同K-means方法相比，K-pototypes 算法能够处理符号属性。
　　3.5 CLARANS算法
　　CLARANS算法即随机搜索聚类算法，是一种分割聚类方法。它首先随机选择一个点作为当前点，然后随机检查它周围不超过参数Maxneighbor个的一些邻接点，假如找到一个比它更好的邻接点，则把它移人该邻接点，否则把该点作为局部最小量。然后再随机选择一个点来寻找另一个局部最小量，直至所找到的局部最小量数目达到用户要求为止。该算法要求聚类的对象必须都预先调人内存，并且需多次扫描数据集，这对大数据量而言，无论时间复杂度还是空间复杂度都相当大。虽通过引人R-树结构对其性能进行改善，使之能够处理基于磁盘的大型数据库，但R*-树的构造和维护代价太大。该算法对脏数据和异常数据不敏感，但对数据物人顺序异常敏感，且只能处理凸形或球形边界聚类。
　　3.6 CLIQUE算法
　　CLIQUE 9法即自动子空间聚类算法。该算法利用自顶向上方法求出各个子空间的聚类单元。CUQUE算法主要用于找出在高维数据空间中存在的低维聚类。为了求出d维空间聚类，必须组合给出所有d-1维子空间的聚类，导致其算法的空间和时间效率都较低，而且要求用户输入两个参数：数据取值空间等间隔距离和密度阔值。这2个参数与样木数据紧密相关，用户一般难以确定。CLIQUE算法对数据输人顺序不敏感。

4 总结
基于上述分析，我们得到各聚类算法的比较结果，结论如表1所示。
　　表1 聚类算法比较结果表
算法     算法效率   适合的数据类型   发现的聚类类型对脏数据或异常数据的敏感性   对数据输入顺序的敏感性
BIRCH  高                       数值                    凸形或球形                      不敏感                                  不太敏感
DBSCAN  一般              数值                      任意形状                        敏感                                          敏感
CURE  较高                    数值                     任意形状                    不敏感                                          不太敏感
K-poto  一般               数值和符号           凸形或球形                    敏感                                          一般
CLARANS 较低             数值                     凸形或球形                    不敏感                                          非常敏感
CUQUE  较低                 数值                     凸形或球形                    一般                                           不敏感

　　由于每个方法都有其特点和不同的适用领域，在数据挖掘中，用户应该根据实际需要选择恰当的聚类算法。

参考文献：[略]

作者：derny 发表于2006-5-22 19:58:00 原文链接

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[原]搜索引擎发展史[转摘]

derny — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:44:00 +0800

1990年以前，没有任何人能搜索互联网。

　　所有搜索引擎的祖先，是1990年由Montreal的McGill University学生Alan Emtage、Peter Deutsch、Bill Wheelan发明的Archie(Archie FAQ)。虽然当时World Wide Web还未出现，但网络中文件传输还是相当频繁的，由于大量的文件散布在各个分散的FTP主机中，查询起来非常不便，因此Alan Emtage等想到了开发一个可以用文件名查找文件的系统，于是便有了Archie。Archie是第一个自动索引互联网上匿名FTP网站文件的程序，但它还不是真正的搜索引擎。Archie是一个可搜索的FTP文件名列表，用户必须输入精确的文件名搜索，然后Archie会告诉用户哪一个FTP地址可以下载该文件。

　　由于Archie深受欢迎，受其启发，Nevada System Computing Services大学于1993年开发了一个Gopher（Gopher FAQ）搜索工具Veronica（Veronica FAQ）。Jughead是后来另一个Gopher搜索工具。

　　Robot（机器人）一词对编程者有特殊的意义。Computer Robot是指某个能以人类无法达到的速度不断重复执行某项任务的自动程序。由于专门用于检索信息的Robot程序象蜘蛛(spider)一样在网络间爬来爬去，因此，搜索引擎的Robot程序被称为spider(Spider FAQ)程序。世界上第一个Spider程序，是MIT Matthew Gray的World wide Web Wanderer，用于追踪互联网发展规模。刚开始它只用来统计互联网上的服务器数量，后来则发展为也能够捕获网址（URL）。

　　与Wanderer相对应，1993年10月Martijn Koster创建了ALIWEB（Martijn Koster Annouces the Availability of Aliweb），它相当于Archie的HTTP版本。ALIWEB不使用网络搜寻Robot，如果网站主管们希望自己的网页被ALIWEB收录，需要自己提交每一个网页的简介索引信息，类似于后来大家熟知的Yahoo。

　　随着互联网的迅速发展，使得检索所有新出现的网页变得越来越困难，因此，在Wanderer基础上，一些编程者将传统的Spider程序工作原理作了些改进。其设想是，既然所有网页都可能有连向其他网站的链接，那么从一个网站开始，跟踪所有网页上的所有链接，就有可能检索整个互联网。到1993 年底，一些基于此原理的搜索引擎开始纷纷涌现，其中最负盛名的三个是：Scotland的JumpStation、Colorado 大学Oliver McBryan的The World Wide Web Worm（First Mention of McBryan's World Wide Web Worm）、NASA的Repository-Based Software Engineering (RBSE) spider。JumpStation和WWW Worm只是以搜索工具在数据库中找到匹配信息的先后次序排列搜索结果，因此毫无信息关联度可言。而RBSE是第一个索引Html文件正文的搜索引擎，也是第一个在搜索结果排列中引入关键字串匹配程度概念的引擎。

　　Excite 的历史可以上溯到1993年2月，6个Stanford（斯坦福）大学生的想法是分析字词关系，以对互联网上的大量信息作更有效的检索。到1993年中，这已是一个完全投资项目Architext，他们还发布了一个供webmasters在自己网站上使用的搜索软件版本，后来被叫做Excite for Web Servers。（注：Excite后来曾以概念搜索闻名，2002年5月，被Infospace收购的Excite停止自己的搜索引擎，改用元搜索引擎Dogpile）

　　1994年1月，第一个既可搜索又可浏览的分类目录EINet Galaxy（Tradewave Galaxy）上线。除了网站搜索，它还支持Gopher和Telnet搜索。

　　1994年4月，Stanford University的两名博士生，美籍华人Jerry Yang（杨致远）和David Filo共同创办了Yahoo（Jerry Yang Alerts a Usenet group to the Yahoo Database ，1996年的Yahoo）。随着访问量和收录链接数的增长，Yahoo目录开始支持简单的数据库搜索。因为Yahoo!的数据是手工输入的，所以不能真正被归为搜索引擎，事实上只是一个可搜索的目录。Wanderer只抓取URL，但URL信息含量太小，很多信息难以单靠URL说清楚，搜索效率很低。Yahoo!中收录的网站，因为都附有简介信息，所以搜索效率明显提高。（注：Yahoo以后陆续使用Altavista、Inktomi、Google提供搜索引擎服务）

　　1994年初，Washington大学CS学生Brian Pinkerton开始了他的小项目WebCrawler（Brian Pinkerton Announces the Availability of Webcrawler）。 1994年4月20日，WebCrawler正式亮相时仅包含来自6000个服务器的内容。WebCrawler是互联网上第一个支持搜索文件全部文字的全文搜索引擎，在它之前，用户只能通过URL和摘要搜索，摘要一般来自人工评论或程序自动取正文的前100个字。（后来webcrawler陆续被AOL 和Excite收购，现在和excite一样改用元搜索引擎Dogpile）

　　Lycos（Carnegie Mellon University Center for Machine Translation Announces Lycos ）是搜索引擎史上又一个重要的进步。Carnegie Mellon University的Michael Mauldin将John Leavitt的spider程序接入到其索引程序中，创建了Lycos。1994年7月20日，数据量为54,000的Lycos正式发布。除了相关性排序外，Lycos还提供了前缀匹配和字符相近限制，Lycos第一个在搜索结果中使用了网页自动摘要，而最大的优势还是它远胜过其它搜索引擎的数据量： 1994年8月－－394,000 documents；1995年1月－－1.5 million documents；1996年11月－－over 60 million documents。（注：1999年4月，Lycos停止自己的Spider，改由Fast提供搜索引擎服务）

　　Infoseek（Steve Kirsch Announces Free Demos Of the Infoseek Search Engine）是另一个重要的搜索引擎，虽然公司声称1994年1月已创立，但直到年底它的搜索引擎才与公众见面。起初，Infoseek只是一个不起眼的搜索引擎，它沿袭Yahoo!和Lycos的概念，并没有什么独特的革新。但是它的发展史和后来受到的众口称赞证明，起初第一个登台并不总是很重要。Infoseek 友善的用户界面、大量附加服务（such as UPS tracking, News, a directory, and the like) 使它声望日隆。而1995年12月与Netscape的战略性协议，使它成为一个强势搜索引擎：当用户点击Netscape浏览器上的搜索按钮时，弹出 Infoseek的搜索服务，而此前由Yahoo!提供该服务。（注：Infoseek后来曾以相关性闻名，2001年2月，Infoseek停止了自己的搜索引擎，开始改用Overture的搜索结果）

　　1995年，一种新的搜索引擎形式出现了——元搜索引擎（A Meta Search Engine Roundup）。用户只需提交一次搜索请求，由元搜索引擎负责转换处理后提交给多个预先选定的独立搜索引擎，并将从各独立搜索引擎返回的所有查询结果，集中起来处理后再返回给用户。第一个元搜索引擎，是Washington大学硕士生 Eric Selberg 和 Oren Etzioni 的 Metacrawler。元搜索引擎概念上好听，但搜索效果始终不理想，所以没有哪个元搜索引擎有过强势地位。

　　DEC的AltaVista(2001年夏季起部分网友需通过p-roxy访问，无p-roxy可用qbseach单选altavista搜索，只能显示第一页搜索结果)是一个迟到者，1995年12月才登场亮相（AltaVista Public Beta Press Release ）。但是，大量的创新功能使它迅速到达当时搜索引擎的顶峰。Altavista最突出的优势是它的速度（搜索引擎9238：比较搞笑，设计altavista的目的，据说只是为了展示DEC Alpha芯片的强大运算能力）。
　　而Altavista的另一些新功能，则永远改变了搜索引擎的定义。
　　AltaVista是第一个支持自然语言搜索的搜索引擎，AltaVista是第一个实现高级搜索语法的搜索引擎（如AND, OR, NOT等)。用户可以用AltaVista搜索Newsgroups（新闻组）的内容并从互联网上获得文章，还可以搜索图片名称中的文字、搜索 Titles、搜索Java applets、搜索ActiveX objects。AltaVista也声称是第一个支持用户自己向网页索引库提交或删除URL的搜索引擎，并能在24小时内上线。AltaVista最有趣的新功能之一，是搜索有链接指向某个URL的所有网站。在面向用户的界面上，AltaVista也作了大量革新。它在搜索框区域下放了“tips”以帮助用户更好的表达搜索式，这些小tip经常更新，这样，在搜索过几次以后，用户会看到很多他们可能从来不知道的的有趣功能。这系列功能，逐渐被其它搜索引擎广泛采用。1997年，AltaVista发布了一个图形演示系统LiveTopics，帮助用户从成千上万的搜索结果中找到想要的。

　　然后到来的是HotBot。1995年9月26日，加州伯克利分校CS助教Eric Brewer、博士生Paul Gauthier创立了Inktomi（UC Berkeley Announces Inktomi），1996年5月20日，Inktomi公司成立，强大的HotBot出现在世人面前。声称每天能抓取索引1千万页以上，所以有远超过其它搜索引擎的新内容。HotBot也大量运用cookie储存用户的个人搜索喜好设置。（Hotbot曾是随后几年最受欢迎的搜索引擎之一，后被Lycos收购）

　　Northernlight 公司于1995年9月成立于马萨诸塞州剑桥，1997年8月，Northernlight搜索引擎正式现身。它曾是拥有最大数据库的搜索引擎之一，它没有Stop Words，它有出色的Current News、7,100多出版物组成的Special Collection、良好的高级搜索语法，第一个支持对搜索结果进行简单的自动分类。（2002年1月16日，Northernlight公共搜索引擎关闭，随后被divine收购，但在Nlresearch，选中"World Wide Web only"，仍可使用Northernlight搜索引擎）

　　1998年10月之前，Google只是Stanford大学的一个小项目BackRub。1995年博士生Larry Page开始学习搜索引擎设计，于1997年9月15日注册了google.com的域名，1997年底，在Sergey Brin和Scott Hassan、Alan Steremberg的共同参与下，BachRub开始提供Demo。1999年2月，Google完成了从Alpha版到Beta版的蜕变。Google公司则把1998年9月27日认作自己的生日。
　　Google在Pagerank、动态摘要、网页快照、DailyRefresh、多文档格式支持、地图股票词典寻人等集成搜索、多语言支持、用户界面等功能上的革新，象Altavista一样，再一次永远改变了搜索引擎的定义。
　　在2000年中以前，Google虽然以搜索准确性备受赞誉，但因为数据库不如其它搜索引擎大，缺乏高级搜索语法，所以使用价值不是很高，推广并不快。直到2000年中数据库升级后，又借被Yahoo选作搜索引擎的东风，才一飞冲天。

　　Fast（Alltheweb）公司创立于1997年，是挪威科技大学(NTNU)学术研究的副产品。1999年5月，发布了自己的搜索引擎AllTheWeb。Fast创立的目标是做世界上最大和最快的搜索引擎，几年来庶几近之。Fast（Alltheweb）的网页搜索可利用ODP自动分类，支持Flash和pdf搜索，支持多语言搜索，还提供新闻搜索、图像搜索、视频、MP3、和FTP搜索，拥有极其强大的高级搜索功能。

　　Teoma 起源于1998年Rutgers大学的一个项目。Apostolos Gerasoulis教授带领华裔Tao Yang教授等人创立Teoma于新泽西Piscataway，2001年春初次登场，2001年9月被提问式搜索引擎Ask Jeeves收购，2002年4月再次发布。Teoma的数据库目前仍偏小，但有两个出彩的功能：支持类似自动分类的Refine；同时提供专业链接目录的Resources。

　　Wisenut 由韩裔Yeogirl Yun创立。2001年春季发布Beta版，2001年9月5日发布正式版，2002年4月被分类目录提供商looksmart收购。wisenut也有两个出彩的功能：包含类似自动分类和相关检索词的WiseGuide；预览搜索结果的Sneak-a-Peek。

　　Gigablast 由前Infoseek工程师Matt Wells创立，2002年3月展示pre-beta版，2002年7月21日发布Beta版。Gigablast的数据库目前仍偏小，但也提供网页快照，一个特色功能是即时索引网页，你的网页刚提交它就能搜索（注：这个spammers的肉包子功能暂已关闭）。

　　Openfind 创立于1998年1月，其技术源自台湾中正大学吴升教授所领导的GAIS实验室。Openfind起先只做中文搜索引擎，曾经是最好的中文搜索引擎，鼎盛时期同时为三大著名门户新浪、奇摩、雅虎提供中文搜索引擎，但2000年后市场逐渐被Baidu和Google瓜分。2002年6月，Openfind重新发布基于GAIS30 Project的Openfind搜索引擎Beta版，推出多元排序(PolyRankTM)，宣布累计抓取网页35亿，开始进入英文搜索领域，此后技术升级明显加快。

　　北大天网是国家"九五"重点科技攻关项目"中文编码和分布式中英文信息发现"的研究成果，由北大计算机系网络与分布式系统研究室开发，于1997年10月29日正式在CERNET上提供服务。2000年初成立天网搜索引擎新课题组，由国家973重点基础研究发展规划项目基金资助开发，收录网页约6000万，利用教育网优势，有强大的ftp搜索功能。

　　Baidu 2000年1月，超链分析专利发明人、前Infoseek资深工程师李彦宏与好友徐勇（加州伯克利分校博士）在北京中关村创立了百度（Baidu）公司。2001年8月发布 Baidu.com搜索引擎Beta版（此前Baidu只为其它门户网站搜狐新浪Tom等提供搜索引擎），2001年10月22日正式发布Baidu搜索引擎。Baidu虽然只提供中文搜索，但目前收录中文网页超过9000万，可能是最大的的中文数据库。Baidu搜索引擎的其它特色包括：网页快照、网页预览/预览全部网页、相关搜索词、错别字纠正提示、新闻搜索、Flash搜索、信息快递搜索。2002年3月闪电计划（Blitzen Project）开始后，技术升级明显加快。　　

作者：derny 发表于2006-4-12 12:44:00 原文链接

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[原]管理者

derny — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 14:11:00 +0800

管理者要有

1、博大的心胸

2、懂得用人

3、和员工沟通

4、从员工的利益出发

5、有气魄

6、。。。

作者：derny 发表于2005-11-12 14:11:00 原文链接

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[原]How to be creative (A good article)

derny — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 21:12:00 +0800

It is long, but I think it is really useful! So keep you on your seat for some times, and have a coffee.

Let's gooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

How To Be Creative: Long Version

(NB: The original shorter version is here.)

(NB: The Book Proposal/Outline is here)

(NB: Chapters 1-26: Download the free PDF version here)

(NB: The Book Proposal/Outline is here)

(NB: Chapters 1-26: Download the free PDF version here)

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

MORE:

1. Ignore everybody.

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the cartoon-on-back-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn't I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?

You don't know if your idea is any good the moment it's created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There's a reason why feelings scare us.

And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It's not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. It's just they don't know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.

Plus a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don't want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are, that's how they love you- the way you are, not the way you may become.

Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. And they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. That's human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe was on the other foot.

With business colleagues it's even worse. They're used to dealing with you in a certain way. They're used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that's not their top priority.

If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.

Again, that's human nature.

GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.

Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

The two are not the same thing.

We all spend a lot of time being impressed by folk we've never met. Somebody featured in the media who's got a big company, a big product, a big movie, a big bestseller. Whatever.

And we spend even more time trying unsuccessfully to keep up with them. Trying to start up our own companies, our own products, our own film projects, books and whatnot.

I'm as guilty as anyone. I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to pry my career out of the jaws of mediocrity. Some to do with business, some to do with art etc.

One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit burned out by work and life in general, I just started drawing on the back of business cards for no reason. I didn't really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.

Of course it was stupid. Of course it was uncommercial. Of course it wasn't going to go anywhere. Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time. But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the "Big Plans" my peers and I were used to making. It was so liberating not to have to be thinking about all that, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that didn't have to impress anybody, for a change.

It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.

It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change. To feel complete freedom, for a change.

And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention.

The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. How your own sovereignty inspires other people to find their own sovereignty, their own sense of freedom and possibility, will change the world far more than the the work's objective merits ever will.

Your idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing.

The more amazing, the more people will click with your idea. The more people click with your idea, the more it will change the world.

That's what doodling on business cards taught me.

3. Put the hours in.

Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina.

I get asked a lot, "Your business card format is very simple. Aren't you worried about somebody ripping it off?"

Standard Answer: Only if they can draw more of them than me, better than me.

What gives the work its edge is the simple fact that I've spent years drawing them. I've drawn thousands. Tens of thousands of man hours.

So if somebody wants to rip my idea off, go ahead. If somebody wants to overtake me in the business card doodle wars, go ahead. You've got many long years in front of you. And unlike me, you won't be doing it for the joy of it. You'll be doing it for some self-loathing, ill-informed, lame-ass mercenary reason. So the years will be even longer and far, far more painful. Lucky you.

If somebody in your industry is more successful than you, it's probably because he works harder at it than you do. Sure, maybe he's more inherently talented, more adept at networking etc, but I don't consider that an excuse. Over time, that advantage counts for less and less. Which is why the world is full of highly talented, network-savvy, failed mediocrities.

So yeah, success means you've got a long road ahead of you, regardless. How do you best manage it?

Well, as I've written elsewhere, don't quit your day job. I didn't. I work every day at the office, same as any other regular schmoe. I have a long commute on the train, ergo that's when I do most of my drawing. When I was younger I drew mostly while sitting at a bar, but that got old.

The point is; an hour or two on the train is very managable for me. The fact I have a job means I don't feel pressured to do something market-friendly. Instead, I get to do whatever the hell I want. I get to do it for my own satisfaction. And I think that makes the work more powerful in the long run. It also makes it easier to carry on with it in a calm fashion, day-in-day out, and not go crazy in insane creative bursts brought on by money worries.

The day job, which I really like, gives me something productive and interesting to do among fellow adults. It gets me out of the house in the day time. If I were a professional cartoonist I'd just be chained to a drawing table at home all day, scribbling out a living in silence, interrupted only by freqent trips to the coffee shop. No, thank you.

Simply put, my method allows me to pace myself over the long haul, which is important.

Stamina is utterly important. And stamina is only possible if it's managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, intense, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are stupidly wrong.

Being good at anything is like figure skating- the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy. But it never is easy. Ever. That's what the stupidly wrong people coveniently forget.

If I was just starting out writing, say, a novel or a screenplay, or maybe starting up a new software company, I wouldn't try to quit my job in order to make this big, dramatic heroic-quest thing about it.

I would do something far simpler: I would find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but me, and I would make it productive. Put the hours in, do it for long enough and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually. Sure, that means less time watching TV, internet surfing, going out or whatever.

But who cares?

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

I was offered a quite substantial publishing deal a year or two ago. Turned it down. The company sent me a contract. I looked it over. Hmmmm...

Called the company back. Asked for some clarifications on some points in the contract. Never heard back from them. The deal died.

This was a very respected company. You may have even heard of it.

They just assumed I must be just like all the other people they represent- hungry and desperate and willing to sign anything.

They wanted to own me, regardless of how good a job they did.

That's the thing about some big publishers. They want 110% from you, but they don't offer to do likewise in return. To them, the artist is just one more noodle in a big bowl of pasta.

Their business model is to basically throw the pasta against the wall, and see which one sticks. The ones that fall to the floor are just forgotten.

Publishers are just middlemen. That's all. If artists could remember that more often, they'd save themselves a lot of aggrevation.

Anyway, yeah, I can see gapingvoid being a 'product' one day. Books, T-shirts and whatnot. I think it could make a lot of money, if handled correctly. But I'm not afraid to walk away if I think the person offering it is full of hot air. I've already got my groove etc. Not to mention another career that's doing quite well, thank you.

I think "gapingvoid as product line" idea is pretty inevitable, down the road. Watch this space.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

Every creative person is looking for "The Big Idea". You know, the one that is going to catapult them out from the murky depths of obscurity and on to the highest planes of incandescent ludicity.

The one that's all love-at-first-sight with the Zeitgeist.

The one that's going to get them invited to all the right parties, metaphorical or otherwise.

So naturally you ask yourself, if and when you finally come up with The Big Idea, after years of toil, struggle and doubt, how do you know whether or not it is "The One"?

Answer: You don't.

There's no glorious swelling of existential triumph.

That's not what happens.

All you get is this rather kvetchy voice inside you that seems to say, "This is totally stupid.This is utterly moronic. This is a complete waste of time. I'm going to do it anyway."

And you go do it anyway.

Second-rate ideas like glorious swellings far more. Keeps them alive longer.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

So you've got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don't know where the itch came from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...

Until now.

You don't know if you're any good or not, but you'd think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don't know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. You have a friend who's got a cousin in California who's into this kind of stuff, but you haven't talked to your friend for over two years...

Besides, if you write a book, what if you can't find a publisher? If you write a screenplay, what if you can't find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook? You've always worked hard your whole life, you'll be damned if you'll put all that effort into something if there ain't no pot of gold at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow...

Heh. That's not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. That's your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring & tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up.

Your wee voice doesn't want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. There's a big difference. Your wee voice doesn't give a damn about publishers or Hollywood producers.

Go ahead and make something. Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.

The wee voice didn't show up because it decided you need more money or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. There's something you haven't said, something you haven't done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.

So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die... taking a big chunk of you along with it.

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

7. Keep your day job.
I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call "The Sex & Cash Theory".

THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

A good example is Phil, a NY photographer friend of mine. He does really wild stuff for the indie magazines- it pays nothing, but it allows him to build his portfolio. Then he'll go off and shoot some catalogues for a while. Nothing too exciting, but it pays the bills.

Another example is somebody like Martin Amis. He writes "serious" novels, but he has to supplement his income by writing the occasional newspaper article for the London papers (novel royalties are bloody pathetic- even bestsellers like Amis aren't immune).

Or actors. One year Travolta will be in an ultra-hip flick like Pulp Fiction ("Sex"), the next he'll be in some dumb spy thriller ("Cash").

Or painters. You spend one month painting blue pictures because that's the color the celebrity collectors are buying this season ("Cash"), you spend the next month painting red pictures because secretly you despise the color blue and love the color red ("Sex").

Or geeks. You spend you weekdays writing code for a faceless corporation ("Cash"), then you spend your evening and weekends writing anarchic, weird computer games to amuse your techie friends with ("Sex").

It's balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one's creative sovereignty. My M.O. is gapingvoid ("Sex"), coupled with my day job ("Cash").

I'm thinking about the young writer who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her writing appearing in all the cool and hip magazines.... who dreams of one day of not having her life divided so harshly.

Well, over time the 'harshly' bit might go away, but not the 'divided'.

"This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don't know why this happens. It's the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way- who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to best-selling author... Well, they never make it.

Anyway, it's called "The Sex & Cash Theory". Keep it under your pillow.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the "Team Player".

Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that's why they did it.

There's only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.

So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.

"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"

And so on.

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that's exactly what's been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?

The ecology dies.

If you're creative, if you can think independantly, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn't the case.

So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.

However if you're not paricularly creative, then you're in real trouble. And there's no buzzword or "new paradigm" that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but... people like watching dinosaurs die.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

This metaphorical Mount Everest doesn't have to manifest itself as "Art". For some people, yes, it might be a novel or a painting. But Art is just one path up the mountain, one of many. With others the path may be something more prosaic. Making a million dollars, raising a family, owning the most Burger King franchises in the Tri-State area, building some crazy oversized model airplane, the list has no end.

Whatever. Let's talk about you now. Your mountain. Your private Mount Everest. Yes, that one. Exactly.

Let's say you never climb it. Do you have a problem witb that? Can you just say to yourself, "Never mind, I never really wanted it anyway" and take up stamp collecting instead?

Well, you could try. But I wouldn't believe you. I think it's not OK for you never to try to climb it. And I think you agree with me. Otherwise you wouldn't have read this far.

So it looks like you're going to have to climb the frickin' mountain. Deal with it.

My advice? You don't need my advice. You really don't. The biggest piece of advice I could give anyone would be this:

"Admit that your own private Mount Everest exists. That is half the battle."

And you've already done that. You really have. Otherwise, again, you wouldn't have read this far.

Rock on.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

Abraham Lincoln wrote The Gettysberg Address on a piece of ordinary stationery that he had borrowed from the friend whose house he was staying at.

James Joyce wrote with a simple pencil and notebook. Somebody else did the typing, but only much later.

Van Gough rarely painted with more than six colors on his palette.

I draw on the back of wee biz cards. Whatever.

There's no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada.

Actually, as the artist gets more into his thing, and as he gets more successful, his number of tools tends to go down. He knows what works for him. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time. He's a man on a mission. He's got a deadline. He's got some rich client breathing down his neck. The last thing he wants is to spend 3 weeks learning how to use a router drill if he doesn't need to.

A fancy tool just gives the second-rater one more pillar to hide behind.

Which is why there are so many second-rate art directors with state-of-the-art Macinotsh computers.

Which is why there are so many hack writers with state-of-the-art laptops.

Which is why there are so many crappy photographers with state-of-the-art digital cameras.

Which is why there are so many unremarkable painters with expensive studios in trendy neighborhoods.

Hiding behind pillars, all of them.

Pillars do not help; they hinder. The more mighty the pillar, the more you end up relying on it psychologically, the more it gets in your way.

And this applies to business, as well.

Which is why there are so many failing businesses with fancy offices.

Which is why there's so many failing businessmen spending a fortune on fancy suits and expensive yacht club memberships.

Again, hiding behind pillars.

Successful people, artists and non-artists alike, are very good at spotting pillars. They're very good at doing without them. Even more importantly, once they've spotted a pillar, they're very good at quickly getting rid of it.

Good pillar management is one of the most valuable talents you can have on the planet. If you have it, I envy you. If you don't, I pity you.

Sure, nobody's perfect. We all have our pillars. We seem to need them. You are never going to live a pillar-free existence. Neither am I.

All we can do is keep asking the question, "Is this a pillar" about every aspect of our business, our craft, our reason for being alive etc and go from there. The more we ask, the better we get at spotting pillars, the more quickly the pillars vanish.

Ask. Keep asking. And then ask again. Stop asking and you're dead.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

I've seen it so many times. Call him Ted. A young kid in the big city, just off the bus, wanting to be a famous something: artist, writer, musician, film director, whatever. He's full of fire, full of passion, full of ideas. And you meet Ted again five or ten years later, and he's still tending bar at the same restaurant. He's not a kid anymore. But he's still no closer to his dream.

His voice is still as defiant as ever, certainly, but there's an emptiness to his words that wasn't there before.

Yeah, well, Ted probably chose a very well-trodden path. Write novel, be discovered, publish bestseller, sell movie rights, retire rich in 5 years. Or whatever.

No worries that there's probably 3 million other novelists/actors/musicians/painters etc with the same plan. But of course, Ted's special. Of course his fortune will defy the odds eventually. Of course. That's what he keeps telling you, as he refills your glass.

Is your plan of a similar ilk? If it is, then I'd be concerned.

When I started the business card cartoons I was lucky; at the time I had a pretty well-paid corporate job in New York that I liked. The idea of quitting it in order to join the ranks of Bohemia didn't even occur to me. What, leave Manhattan for Brooklyn? Ha. Not bloody likely. I was just doing it to amuse myself in the evenings, to give me something to do at the bar while I waited for my date to show up or whatever.

There was no commerical incentive or larger agenda governing my actions. If I wanted to draw on the back of a business card instead of a "proper" medium, I could. If I wanted to use a four letter word, I could. If I wanted to ditch the standard figurative format and draw psychotic abstractions instead, I could. There was no flashy media or publishing executive to keep happy. And even better, there was no artist-lifestyle archetype to conform to.

It gave me a lot of freedom. That freedom paid off in spades later.

Question how much freedom your path affords you. Be utterly ruthless about it.

It's your freedom that will get you to where you want to go. Blind faith in an over-subscribed, vainglorious myth will only hinder you.

Is you plan unique? Is there nobody else doing it? Then I'd be excited. A little scared, maybe, but excited.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.

Frankly, I think you're better off doing something on the assumption that you will NOT be rewarded for it, that it will NOT receive the recognition it deserves, that it will NOT be worth the time and effort invested in it.

The obvious advantage to this angle is, of course, if anything good comes of it, then it's an added bonus.

The second, more subtle and profound advantage is: that by scuppering all hope of worldly and social betterment from the creative act, you are finally left with only one question to answer:

Do you make this damn thing exist or not?

And once you can answer that truthfully to yourself, the rest is easy.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

The more you practice your craft, the less you confuse worldly rewards with spiritual rewards, and vice versa. Even if your path never makes any money or furthers your career, that's still worth a TON.

When I was 16 or 17 in Edinburgh I vaguely knew this guy who owned a shop called "Cinders", on St. Stephen's Street. It specialized in restoring antique fireplaces.

Cinders' modus operandi was very simple. Buy original Georgian and Victorian chimneypieces from old, dilapidated houses for 10 cents on the dollar, give them a loving but expedient makeover in the workshop, sell them at vast profit to yuppies.

Back then I was insatiably curious about how people made a living (I still am). So one-day, while sitting on his stoop I chatted with the fireplace guy about it.

He told me about the finer points of his trade- the hunting through old houses, the craftsmanship, the customer relations, and of course the profit.

The fellow seemed quite proud of his job. From how he described it he seemed to like his trade and be making a decent living. Scotland was going through a bit of a recession at the time; unemployment was high, money was tight; I guess for an ageing hippie things could've been a lot worse.

Very few kids ever said, "Gosh, when I grow up I'm going to be a fireplace guy!" It's not the most obvious trade in the world. I asked him about how he fell into it.

"I used to be an antiques dealer," he said. "People who spend a lot of money on antiques also seem to spend a lot of money restoring their houses. So I sort of got the whiff of opportunity just by talking to people in my antiques shop. Also, there are too many antique dealers in Edinburgh crowding the market, so I was looking for an easier way to make a living."

Like the best jobs in the world, it just kindasorta happened.

"Well, some of the fireplaces are real beauties," I said. "It must be hard parting with them."

"No it isn't," he said (and this is the part I remember most). "I mean, I like them, but because they take up so much room- they're so big and bulky- I'm relieved to be rid of them once they're sold. I just want them out of the shop ASAP and the cash in my pocket. Selling them is easy for me. Unlike antiques. I always loved antiques, so I was always falling in love with the inventory, I always wanted to hang on to my best stuff. I'd always subconsciously price them too high in order to keep them from leaving the shop."

Being young and idealistic, I told him I thought that was quite sad. Why choose to sell a "mere product" (i.e. chimneypieces) when instead you could make your living selling something you really care about (i.e. anitques)? Surely the latter would be a preferable way to work?

"The first rule of business," he said, chuckling at my naïveté, "is never sell something you love. Otherwise, you may as well be selling your children."

15 years later I'm at a bar in New York. Some friend-of-a-friend is looking at my cartoons. He asks me if I publish. I tell him I don't. Tell him it's just a hobby. Tell him about my advertising job.

"Man, why the hell are you in advertising?" he says, pointing to my portfolio. "You should be doing this. Galleries and shit."

"Advertising's just chimneypieces," I say, speaking into my glass.

"What the fuck?"

"Never mind."

14. Dying young is overrated.

I've seen so many young people take the "Gotta do the drugs & booze thing to make me a better artist" route over the years. A choice that wasn't smart, original, effective, healthy, or ended happily.

It's a familiar story: a kid reads about Charlie Parker or Jimi Hendrix or Charles Bukowski and somehow decides that their poetic but flawed example somehow gives him permission and/or absolution to spend the next decade or two drowning in his own metaphorical vomit.

Of course, the older you get, the more casualties of this foolishness you meet. The more time has had to ravage their lives. The more pathetic they seem. And the less remarkable work they seem to have to show for it, for all their "amazing experiences" and "special insights".

The smarter and more talented the artist is, the less likely he will choose this route. Sure, he might screw around a wee bit while he's young and stupid, but he will move on quicker than most.

But the kid thinks it's all about talent; he thinks it's all about 'potential'. He underestimates how much time, discipline and stamina also play their part. Sure, like Bukowski et al, there are exceptions. But that is why we like their stories when we're young. Because they are exceptional stories. And every kid with a guitar or a pen or a paintbrush or an idea for a new business wants to be exceptional. Every kid underestimates his competition, and overestimates his chances. Every kid is a sucker for the idea that there's a way to make it without having to do the actual hard work.

So the bars of West Hollywood and New York are awash with people thowing their lives away in the desperate hope of finding a shortcut, any shortcut. And a lot of them aren't even young anymore; their B-plans having been washed away by Vodka & Tonics years ago.

Meanwhile their competition is at home, working their asses off.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.

Recently I heard Chris Ware, currently one of the top 2 or 3 most critically acclaimed cartoonists on the planet, describe his profession as “unrewarding”.

When the guy at the top of the ladder you’re climbing describes the view from the top as “unrewarding”, be concerned. Heh.

I knew Chris back in college, at The University of Texas. Later, in the early 1990’s I knew him hanging around Wicker Park in Chicago, that famous arty neighbourhood, while he was getting his Masters from The School of The Art Institute, and I was working as a junior copywriter at Leo Burnett. We weren’t that close, but we had mutual friends. He’s a nice guy. Smart as hell.

So I’ve watched him over the years go from talented undergraduate to famous rockstar comic strip guy. Nice to see, certainly- it’s encouraging when people you know get deservedly famous. But also it was really helpful for me to see first-hand the realities of being a professional cartoonist, both good and bad. It’s nice to get a snapshot of reality.

His example really clarified a lot for me about 5-10 years ago when I got to the point where my cartoons got good enough to where I could actually consider doing it professionally. I looked at the market, saw the kind of life Chris and others like him had, saw the people in the business calling the shots, saw the kind of deluded planet most cartoon publishers were living on, and went “Naaaah.”

Thinking about it some more, I think one of the main reasons I stayed in advertising is simply because hearing “change that ad” pisses me off a lot less than “change that cartoon”. Though the compromises one has to make writing ads can often be tremendous, there’s only so much you have to take personally. It’s their product, it’s their money, so it’s easier to maintain healthy boundaries. With cartooning, I invariably found this impossible.

The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not. It is this red line that demarcates your sovereignty; that defines your own private creative domain. What shit you are willing to take, and what shit you’re not. What you are willing to relinquish control over, and what you aren’t. What price you are willing to pay, and what price you aren’t. Everybody is different; everybody has their own red line. Everybody has their own “Sex & Cash Theory”.

When I see somebody “suffering for their art”, it’s usually a case of them not knowing where that red line is, not knowing where the sovereignty lies.

Somehow he thought that sleazy producer wouldn’t make him butcher his film with pointless rewrites, but Alas! Somehow he thought that gallery owner would turn out to be a competent businessman, but Alas! Somehow he thought that publisher would promote his new novel properly, but Alas! Somehow he thought that Venture Capitalist would be less of an asshole about the start-up’s cash flow, but Alas! Somehow he thought that CEO would support his new marketing initiative, but Alas!

Knowing where to draw the red line is like knowing yourself, like knowing who your real friends are. Some are better at it than others. Life is unfair.

16. The world is changing.

Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I'd recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents.

Your job is probably worth 50% what it was in real terms 10 years ago. And who knows? It may very well not exist in 5-10 years.

We all saw the traditional biz model in my industry, advertising, start going down the tubes 10 years or so ago. Our first reaction was "work harder".

It didn't work. People got shafted in their thousands. It's a cold world out there.

We thought being talented would save our asses. We thought working late and weekends would save our asses. Nope.

We thought the internet and all that Next Big Thing, new media and new technology stuff would save our asses. We thought it would fill in the holes in our ever more intellectually bankrupt solutions we were offering our clients. Nope.

Whatever. Regardless of how the world changes, regardless of what new technologies, business models and social architectures are coming down the pike, the one thing "The New Realities" cannot take away from you is trust.

The people you trust and vice versa, this is what will feed you and pay for your kids' college. Nothing else.

This is true if you're an artist, writer, doctor, techie, lawyer, banker, or bartender.

i.e. Stop worrying about technology. Start worrying about people who trust you.

In order to navigate The New Realities you have to be creative- not just within your particular profession, but in EVERYTHING. Your way of looking at the world will need to become ever more fertile and original. And this isn't just true for artists, writers, techies, Creative Directors and CEOs; this is true for EVERYBODY. Janitors, receptionists and bus drivers, too. The game has just been ratcheted up a notch.

The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur.

That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. It doesn't matter what industry we're talking about- architecture, advertising, petrochemicals- they're around, they're easy enough to find if you make the effort, if you've got something worthwhile to offer in return. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you any more. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.

Human beings have this thing I call the "Pissed Off Gene". It's that bit of our psyche that makes us utterly dissatisfied with our lot, no matter how kindly fortune smiles upon us.

It's there for a reason. Back in our early caveman days being pissed off made us more likely to get off our butt, get out of the cave and into the tundra hunting wooly mammoth, so we'd have something to eat for supper. It's a survival mechanism. Damn useful then, damn useful now.

It's this same Pissed Off Gene that makes us want to create anything in the first place- drawings, violin sonatas, meat packing companies, websites. This same gene drove us to discover how to make a fire, the wheel, the bow and arrow, indoor plumbing, the personal computer, the list is endless.

Part of understanding the creative urge is understanding that it's primal. Wanting to change the world is not a noble calling, it's a primal calling.

We think we're "providing a superior integrated logistic system" or "helping America to really taste freshness". In fact we're just pissed off and want to get the hell out of the cave and kill the woolly mammoth.

Your business either lets you go hunt the woolly mammoth or it doesn't. Of course, like so many white-collar jobs these days, you might very well be offered a ton of money to sit in the corner-office cave and pretend that you're hunting. That is sad. What's even sadder is if you agree to take the money.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

They’re a well-meaning bunch, but they get in the way eventually.

Back when I worked for a large advertising agency as a young rookie, it used to just bother me how much the "Watercooler Gang" just kvetched all the time. The "Watercooler Gang" was my term for what was still allowed to exist in the industry back then. Packs of second-rate creatives, many years passed their sell-by date, being squeezed by the Creative Directors for every last ounce of juice they had, till it came time to firing them on the cheap. Taking too many trips to the watercooler and coming back drunk from lunch far too often. Working late nights and weekends on all the boring-but-profitable accounts. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze…

I remember some weeks where one could easily spend half an hour a day, listening to Ted complain.

Ted used to have a window office but now had a cube ever since that one disastrous meeting with Client X. He would come visit me in my cube at least once a day and start his thing. Complain, complain, complain... about whatever… how Josh-The-Golden-Boy was a shit writer and a complete phoney... or how they bought Little-Miss-Hot-Pant's ad instead of his, "even though mine was the best in the room and every bastard there knew it."

Like I said, whatever.

It was endless...Yak Yak Yak… Oi vey! Ted I love ya, you're a great guy but shut the hell up…

In retrospect it was Ted's example that taught me a very poignant lesson- back then I was still too young and naïve to have learned it by that point- that your office could be awash with Clio's and One Show awards, yet your career could still be down the sink-hole.

Don't get me wrong- my career there was a complete disaster. This is not a case of one of the Alpha's mocking the Beta's. This is a Gamma mocking the Betas.

I'm having lunch with my associate, John, who's about the same age as me. Cheap and cheerful Thai food, just down the road from the agency.

"I gotta get out of this company," I say.

"I thought you liked your job," says John.

"I do," I say. "But the only reason they like having me around is because I'm still young and cheap. The minute I am no longer either… I'm dead meat."

"Like Ted," says John.

"Yeah… him and the rest of The Watercooler Gang."

"The Watercoolies," laughs John.

So we had a good chuckle about our poor, hapless elders. We weren't that sympathetic, frankly. Their lives might have been hell then, but they had already had their glory moments. They had won their awards, flown off to The Bahamas to shoot toilet paper ads with famous movie stars and all that. Unlike us young'uns. John and I had only been out of college a couple of years and had still yet to make our mark on the industry we had entered with about as much passion and hope as anybody alive.

We had sold a few newspaper ads now and then, some magazine spreads, but the TV stuff was still well beyond reach. So far the agency we had worked for had yet to allow us to shine. Was this our fault or theirs? Maybe a little bit of both, but back then it was all "their fault, dammit!" Of course, everything is "their fault, dammit" when you're 24.

I quit my job about a year later. John stayed on with the agency for whatever reason, then about 5 years ago got married, with his first kid following soon after. Suddenly with a family to support he couldn't afford to get fired. The Creative Director knew this and started to squeeze.

"You don't mind working this weekend, John, do you? Good. I knew you wouldn't. We all know how much the team relies on you to deliver at crunch time- that's why we value you so highly, John, wouldn't you say?"

Last time I saw John he was working at this horrible little agency for a fraction of his former salary. Turns out the big agency had tossed him out about a week after his kid's second birthday.

We're sitting there at the Thai restaurant again, having lunch for old time's sake. We're having a good time, talking about the usual artsy-fartsy stuff we always do. It's a great conversation, marred only by the fact that I can't get the word "watercooler" out of my goddamn head…

19. Sing in your own voice.
Piccasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn't paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg's formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can't sing or play guitar.

But that didn't stop them, right?

So I guess the next question is, "Why not?"

I have no idea. Why should it?

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

Every media's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a set of fundematal compromises, one is not "higher" than the other. A painting doesn't do much, it just sits there on a wall. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Film combines sound, movent, photography, music, acting. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Prose just uses words arranged in linear form to get its point across. That's the best and worst thing thing about it etc.

Back in college I was an English Major. I had no aspirations for teaching, writing or academe, it was just a subject I could get consistently high grades in. Plus I liked to read books and write papers, so it worked well enough for me.

Most of my friends were Liberal Arts Majors, but there the similarity ended. We never really went to class together. I dunno, we'd meet up in the evenings and weekends, but I never really socialized with people in my classes that much.

So it was always surprising to me to meet the Art Majors: fine arts, film, drama, architecture etc. They seemed to live in each other's pockets. They all seemed to work, eat and sleep together. Lots of bonding going on. Lots of collaboration. Lots of incestuousness. Lots of speeches about the sanctity of their craft.

Well, a cartoon only needs one person to make it. Same with a piece of writing. No Big Group Hug required. So all this sex-fuelled socialism was rather alien to me, even if parts of it seemed very appealing.

During my second year at college I started getting my cartoons published, and not just the school paper. Suddenly I found meeting girls easy. I was very happy about that, I can assure you, but life carried on pretty much the same.

I suppose my friends thought the cartooning gigs were neat or whatever, but it wasn't really anything that affected our friendship. It was just something I did on the side, the way other people restored old cars or or kept a darkroom for their camera.

My M.O. was and still is to just have a normal life, be a regular schmoe, with a terrific hobby on the side. It's not exactly rocket science.

This attitude seemed kinda alien to the Art Majors I met. Their chosen art form seemed more like a religion to them. It was serious. It was important. It was a big part of their identity, and it almost seemed to them that humanity's very existence totally depended on them being able to pursue their dream as a handsomely rewarded profession etc.

Don't get me wrong, I knew some Art Majors who were absolutely brilliant. One or two of them are famous now. And I can see if you've got a special talent, how the need to seriously pursue it becomes important.

But looking back, I also see a lot of screwy kids who married themselves to their medium of choice for the wrong reasons. Not because they had anything particularly unique of visionary to say, but because it was cool. Because it was sexy. Because it was hip. Because it gave them something to talk about at parties. Because it was easier than thinking about getting a real job after graduation.

I'm in two minds about this. One part of me thinks it's good for kids to mess around with insanely high ambitions, and maybe one or two of them will make it, maybe one or two will survive the cull. That's what's being young is all about, and I think it's wonderful.

The other side of me wants to tell these kids to beware of choosing difficult art forms for the wrong reasons. You can wing it while you're young, but it's not till your youth is over that The Devil starts seeking out his due. And that's never pretty. I've seen it happen more than once to some very dear, sweet people, and it's really heartbreaking to watch.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

Diluting your product to make it more "commercial" will just make people like it less.

Many years ago, barely out of college, I started schlepping around the ad agencies, looking for my first job.

One fine day a Creative Director kindly agreed for me to come show him my portfolio. Hooray!

So I came to his office and showed him my work. My work was bloody awful. All of it.

Imagine the worst, cheesiest "I used to wash with Sudso but now I wash with Lemon-Fresh Rinso Extreme" vapid housewife crap. Only far worse than that.

The CD was a nice guy. You could tell he didn't think much of my work, though he was far too polite to blurt it out. Finally he quietly confessed that it wasn't doing much for him.

"Well, the target market are middle class houswives," I rambled. "They're quite conservative, so I thought I'd better tone it down..."

"You can tone it down once you've gotten the job and once the client comes after your ass with a red hot poker and tells you to tone it down," he laughed. "Till then, show me the toned-up version."

This story doesn't just happen in advertising. It happens everywhere.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay etc, especially if you haven't sold it yet. And the ones that aren't, you don't want in your life anyway.

Making a big deal over your creative schtick is the kiss of death. That's all I have to say on the subject.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

You can argue about "the shameful state of American Letters" till the cows come home. They were kvetching about it in 1950, they'll be kvetching about it in 2050.

It's a path well-trodden, and not a place where one is going to come up with many new, earth-shattering insights.

But a lot of people like to dwell on it because it keeps them from having to ever journey into unknown territory. It's safe. It allows you to have strong emotions and opinions without witout any real risk to yourself. Without you having to do any of the actual hard work involved in the making and selling of something you believe in.

To me, it's not about whether Tom Clancy sells truckloads of books or a Nobel Prize Winner sells didly-squat. Those are just ciphers, a distraction. To me, it's about what YOU are going to do with the short time you have left on this earth. Different criteria altogether.

Frankly, how a person nurtures and develeps his or her own "creative sovereignty", with or without the help of the world at large, is in my opinion a much more interesting subject.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

One of the reasons I got into drawing cartoons on the back of business cards was I could carry them around with me. Living downtown, you spend a lot of time walking around the place. I wanted an art form that was perfect for that.

So if I was walking down the street and I suddenly got hit with the itch to draw something, I could just nip over to the nearest park bench or coffee shop, pull out a blank card from my bag and get busy doing my thing. Seamless. Effortless. No fuss. I like it.

Before, when I was doing larger works, every time I got an idea while walking down the street I’d have to quit what I was doing and schlep back to my studio while the inspiration was still buzzing around in my head. Nine times out of ten the inspired moment would have past by the time I got back, rendering the whole exercise futile. Sure, I’d get drawing anyway, but it always seemed I was drawing a memory, not something happening at that very moment.

If you’re arranging your life in such a way that you need to make a lot of fuss between feeling the itch and getting to work, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You’re probably creating a lot of counterproductive “Me, The Artist, I must create, I must leave something to posterity” melodrama. Not interesting for you or for anyone else.

You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.

Conversely, neither should you fret too much about “writer’s block”, “artist’s block” or whatever. If you’re looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then go do something else. Writer’s block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.

Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. I the meantime, you’re better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don’t feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation. It’s not really connecting, it’s just droning on like an old, drunken barfly.

More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":

25. You have to find your own schtick.

A Picasso always looks like Piccasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven's Syynphony. Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.

Every artist is looking for their big, definitive "Ah-Ha!" moment, whether they're a Master or not.

That moment where they finally find their true voice, once and for all.

For me, it was when I discovered drawing on the back of business cards.

Other, more famous and notable examples would be Jackson Pollack discovering splatter paint. Or Robert Ryman discovering all-white canvases. Andy Warhol discovering silkscreen. Hunter S Thompsonn discovering Gonzo Journalism. Duchamp discovering the Found Object. Jasper Johns discovering the American Flag. Hemingway discovering brevity. James Joyce discovering stream-of-conciousness prose.

Was it luck? Perhaps a little bit.

But it wasn't the format that made the art great. It was the fact that somehow while playing around with something new, suddenly they found themselves able to put their entire selves into it.

Only then did it become their 'schtick', their true voice etc.

That's what people responded to. The humanity, not the form. The voice, not the form.

Put your whole self into it, and you will find your true voice. Hold back and you won't. It's that simple.

26. Write from the heart.
There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you.

As a professional writer, I am interested in how conversation scales.

How communication scales, x to the power of n etc etc.

Ideally, if you’re in the communication business, you want to say the same thing, the same way to an audience of millions that you would to an audience of one. Imagine the power you’d have if you could pull it off.

But sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

You can’t love a crowd the same way you can love a person.

And a crowd can’t love you the way a single person can love you.

Intimacy doesn’t scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon.

It's not a big deal. Whether you’re writing to an audience of one, five, a thousand, a million, ten million, there’s really only one way to really connect. One way that actually works:

Write from the heart.

There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
This is equally true in art and business. And love. And sex. And just about everything else worth having.

About 15 years ago I was hanging out in the offices of Punch, the famous London humor magazine. I was just a kid at the time, for some reason the cartoon editor (who was a famous cartoonist in his own right) was tolerating having me around that day.

I was asking him questions about the biz. He was answering them as best he could while he sorted through a large stack of mail.

"Take a look at this, Sunshine," he said, handing a piece of paper over to me.

I gave it a look. Some cartoonist whose name I recognised had written him a rather sad and desperate letter, begging to be published.

"Another whiney letter from another whiney cartoonist who used to be famous 20 years ago," he said, rolling his eyeballs. "I get at least fifty of them a week from other whiney formerly-famous cartoonists."

He paused. Then he smiled an wicked grin.

"How not to get published," he said. "Write me a frickin' letter like that one."

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.
People who are "ready" give off a different vibe than people who aren't. Animals can smell fear; maybe that's it.

The minute you become ready is the the minute you stop dreaming. Suddenly it's no longer about "becoming". Suddenly it's about "doing".

You don't get the dream job because you walk into the editor's office for the first time and go, "Hi, I would really love to be a sports writer one day, please."

You get the job because you walk into the editor's office and go, "Hi, I'm the best frickin' sports writer on the planet." And somehow the editor can tell you aren't lying, either.

You didn't go in there, asking the editor to give you power. You went in there and politely informed the editor that you already have the power. That's what being "ready" means. That's what "taking power" means.

Not needing anything from another person in order to be the best in the world.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
Selling out to Hollywood comes with a price. So does not selling out. Either way, you pay in full, and yes, it invariably hurts like hell.

People are fond of spouting out the old cliché about how Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. Somehow his example serves to justify to us, decades later, that there is somehow merit in utter failure.

Perhaps, but the man did commit suicide. The market for his work took off big-time shortly after his death. Had he decided to stick around another few decades he most likely would’ve entered old age quite prosperous. And sadly for failures everywhere, the cliché would have lost a lot of its power.

The fact is, the old clichés work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clichés are clean and tidy.

Of course, there is no one “true way”. Whether you follow the example of fame-and-glamor Warhol or poor-and-miserable Van Gogh doesn’t matter in absolute terms. Either extreme may raise you to the highest heights or utterly destroy you. I don’t know the answer, nor does anybody else. Nobody but you and God knows why you were put on this Earth, and even then…

So when a young person asks me whether it’s better to sell out or stick to one’s guns, I never know what to answer. Warhol sold out shamelessly after 1968 (the year he was wounded by the gunshot of a would-be assassin) and did OK by it. I know some great artists who stuck to their guns, and all it did was make them seem more and more pathetic.

Anyone can be an idealist. Anyone can be a cynic. The hard part lies somewhere in the middle i.e. being human.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.If you have the creative urge, it isn't going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact.

Back in 1989, I was in West London, house-sitting a family member's lovely little flat over the summer. In the flat above lived the film director, Tim Burton who was in town for a couple of months, while he was filming "Batman, The Movie".

We got to know each other on-and-off quite well that year. We weren't that close or anything, but we saw each other around a lot. He was a pretty good neighbor, I tried to be the same.

At the time I was in my last year of college, studying to go into advertising as a copywriter. One night he and his then wife came over for dinner.

Somewhere along the line the subject of my careeer choice came up. Back then I was a bit apprehensive about doing the "creative" thing for a living... in my family people always had "real" jobs in corporations and banks etc, and the idea of breaking with tradition made me pretty nervous.

"Well," said Tim, "if you have the creative bug, it isn't ever going to go away. I'd just get used to the idea of dealing with it."

作者：derny 发表于2005-9-27 21:12:00 原文链接

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[原]中秋节快乐

derny — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 23:05:00 +0800

中秋节快乐！

希望在厦门的都能博到状元！

加油！

作者：derny 发表于2005-9-16 23:05:00 原文链接

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[原]冒泡。^_^ 。

derny — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 22:16:00 +0800

起起落落的生活

千变万化的天气

作者：derny 发表于2005-7-6 22:16:00 原文链接

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