A while ago I was asked this question on Formspring: “Which people inspire(d) you? (name a few if there are too many) Explain how they inspired you.” I ended up writing a pretty lengthy answer to it… and I was planning on turning it into a blog post, but hadn’t gotten around to doing so yet. Interestingly enough though, I’ve been receiving the same question from various people in different contexts all over the place, so I guess it’s best to write it down here and refer everyone to it. So, below is the answer to the question, and here is a link to the original question.
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Hmm. This is an interesting question with a pretty huge answer. =) Yes, there are indeed too many people who inspire me. It may be that I get inspired easily, by many things, ranging from very simple to very sophisticated. It could be a single sentence that someone says, or the simplest act, and what I get out of it could be massive.
Ok, lets name a few, more or less randomly and off the top of my head.
– My mom. Mahroo Araeenejad. =) She’s the strongest person I know, with a pretty much unbreakable spirit. She’s the power house, the one to rely on. And not just for me, for everyone around her. She has a heart bigger than this universe and a soul purer than sunshine. She inspires me in more ways than I can count.
– My uncle. Dr. Mehdi Ghalibafian, also known as “the father of Iranian concrete science”. His wisdom, his dedication, his courage, his knowledge, his resourcefulness, his intelligence, his fantastic sense of humor, his kindness and his amazing personality will always be a source of inspiration to me.
– Isaac Asimov. His books, specially the robot series, were among my main reasons for getting interested in robotics, AI and futuristic technology as a child, and later on choosing that as my main field of study and research.
– Frank Herbert. The author of the Dune series. His books are life changing. Food for mind and soul.
– The Little Prince. The adorable fictional character of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s legendary book of the same name. This book is like a road guide to life for me.
– Mike Oldfield. His music speaks to me, very often saying that not even the sky is a limit.
– Albert Einstein. I don’t think I need to explain this one. 😉
– Thomas Edison. The God of “if at first you don’t succeed, try try try again”.
– My friend TanTan. She has many many amazing qualities, but something about her that really inspires me is how truly fantastic a friend she is. I mean really, there’s being friends and then there’s being her…. <3
– Vincent van Gogh. Hard to explain. There’s something I see / feel in his paintings that is very difficult to put into words, but it’s quite inspiring. I read his biography as a kid and it had a great effect on me somehow.
This list could go on forever. Really, for EVER. It would include friends, musicians, scientists, engineers, writers, artists [and certain demoscene artists / musicians / coders would have their special place!]. But time is limited, and as I said, this is just a few, off the top of my head. This turned into an essay. Perhaps I’m going to make it into a blog post. And add it to Verse, so I can add people to it in time. Thanks for the idea. =)
Cheers!
October 29th is a very special day. It’s ASIMO’s birthday! Yes, ASIMO turned 10 years old a few days ago! Below is an awesome video by Honda, showing a timeline of the development of ASIMO. 
supposedly stuck in an underground bunker in Iran, and the mistakes that were made in this episode regarding the Persian [aka Farsi] language made me think of a rather lengthy list of similar mistakes in other motion picture productions. So, here I’m going to write up a a few tips / common follies that you could pay attention to, if you’re going to use Farsi in your production…
because René Steinke is in it… ehm… *cough* *cough* 😉 Either way, the DVD came with a warning attached. Apparently my very much German friend who’s never had anything to do with Persian [except for the existence of me] could actually tell that there was something severely wrong with that supposed Persian text used in the movie. So how come the producers of the movie can’t figure as much? =P Come on!
