Minmaxing Life

Garrett Lisi simply rocks. He might very well turn out to be the guy who cracked the Theory of Everything with his - tongue in cheek - Exceptionally Simple Theory. But whether he’s right or not, the simple fact that he managed to have a shot at this after having spent the last 10 years surfing around is nothing short of amazing. Not everyone has been zombified by teevee after all!

As if that wasn’t cool enough, the slashdot reading, self-declared “contemplative hedonist”, says stuff like:

“I want intense pleasures from life. This means not spending too much time in a lab but finding balance between thinking and having fun”.

(loosely translated back to english from an interview in Le Monde)

and

“The best thing there is to do on this planet is surf. There’s just nothing else that even comes close to generating the feeling you experience as you paddle like crazy to catch a wave, drop down the face, crank a hard bottom turn in the pit, and pull into the barrel as the lip throws out over your head. The desire for those perfect waves wreaks holy hell with the rest of your life. It makes you spend all your dough on plane tickets to crazy places just so you can risk your butt paddling over jagged reef and camping out on lonely beaches.”

All that and he doesn’t believe in string theory. And he hangs out at Burning Man. And he still finds time to teach. So yeah, I’m a total fanboi but seriously: how much cooler can you be and what more do you need to revive your faith in humanity? Now if only kids would pick him up as a role model instead of the usual cretinous MTV celebs…

Live long, Garrett Lisi and keep catching those waves!

EDIT: another nice interview he gave, complete with a Douglas Adams reference and a picture of E8.

Although it was quite tiring, I’m really glad I attended Project Horseshoe.
Brian Moriarty gave a soulful, very personal speech that hit me hard and would by itself have been worth the trip. But Horseshoe was a lot more than that. Without disclosing any secret, I learned many things, met interesting people and made lots of new friends while having loads of fun.

I am very grateful.

“Project Horseshoe is a safe place for the discussion of radical concepts and the combination of efforts by employees of rival companies. The safety of these activities depends upon the Project Horseshoe’s brothers’ and sisters’ having confidence in each other’s discretion when relating in any manner Horseshoe’s content and events outside of the Horseshoe group.
(…)
On the other hand, any Horseshoe group member is entitled to invoke the “Horseshoe Code of Blabbing” in order to spread beneficial information outside of Horseshoe.”

Basically, we have to clear any information before it’s aired. Which is why it might take a while before I post anything substantial about what’s happening here - if ever. Sorry!

Believe it or not (I still don’t) but I actually squeezed myself into Project Horsheshoe this year!
I arrived at Canyon of the Eagles early this afternoon and all I can say is the place is unbelievable. My room is a beautiful little cabin facing the lake and right now I’m sitting in the main hall listening to George Sanger, Brian Moriarty and Bob Bates and every few minutes some amazing game person is walking through the doors.

I can tell this is going to be great… :)