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Spent 5.5 hours yesterday fixing a stupid Wix page on our web site. God, I hate Wix.
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"Art is what gets away with you"
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“What can I tell you that I haven’t already told you?”
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House Burping
A good idea — open windows and patio door once a day for 5 mins or so to bring in fresh air — given …
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Haiku tu
I sent the previous haiku to my haiku-loving friend, Rani. This is her favorite: Haikus are easy But …
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Haiku time!
This is the first line. This is the one after that. Here is the last one. (from a recent Durham …
:
iOS app: Weather Strip
I’ve tried Carrot Weather and a few other third-party weather apps, but the recent Mac Power …
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You Belong
Captured this sidewalk inscription on a walk through the Old West Durham neighborhood
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Hats and fountain pens
Two things that, in my mind’s eye, are perfect for me, yet that I can never seem to pull off: …
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Carbesity - a short report from Duke University journalism students
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Doomsday for 2026 is ... SATURDAY
Knowing this can give you the day of the week for any date in 2026. For the details:
:
What we've been watching and reading - July 21, 2015
Reprinting a “lost” post that somehow got dropped during migration to Micro.blog many …
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Currently reading: WE ALL HEAR STORIES IN THE DARK by ROBERT SHEARMAN 📚 Knowing that I’d take …
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Reading in 2026 📚
I’ve always tended to follow the poet and critic Randall Jarrell’s advice – …
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Finished reading: New Bern History 101 by Edward Barnes Ellis 📚 Purchased from Mitchell Hardware …
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Finished reading: Where Do Comedians Go When They Die? by Milton Jones 📚 A fictionalized memoir of …
:
Cicadas on a Southern Summer Night
A recording from my iPhone’s Voice app from an after-supper walk in June. Rosehill Avenue …
:
Delphi Christmas Collection, Volume III 📚
I have all three of the collections, but Volume III 📚 is the first I (mostly) read most of. I read …
:
"Maplewashing"
From the New York Times article “Canadian Linguists Rise Up Against the Letter ‘S’”: In …
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Putting my Kindle back in jail
I was bored one evening and applied the Adbreak mod to my Kindle Oasis (10th generation). I was …
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Books: Canoe Lake, Tom Thomson: On the Threshold of Magic 📚
Our summer trip to Toronto included a stop at the wonderful McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which …
:
Closing the niceness loop
Note: I found this draft in a folder of old documents I’m clearing out. I have no idea when I …
:
Our State magazine, December 2025
Every Christmas, my mother gives me a subscription to Our State magazine, which, as the subtitle …
:
No Kings Rally
We attended the No Kings rally yesterday at Durham’s Central Park, along with 5,000 to 7,000 …
:
A friend told me of the “Drunk Trump Game”, which is to find on YouTube a speech by the …
:
Review: An Old Woman's Reflections by Peig Sayers 📚
Finished reading: An Old Woman’s Reflections by Peig Sayers 📚 Life on Great Blasket island, …
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The Irish Writers: Wilde, Yeats, Shaw 📚
Finished:
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Finished reading: Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan 📚 One of the blurbs says “ice cool, self …
:
The Chris Ware-designed stamps arrived today! I bought two; one to use, one to keep. Typical Ware …
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Just discovered via the New York Times that although I’ve considered myself a Libra all these …
:
Took the morning deliberately slowly, let myself go down various online rabbit holes, and then BAM …
:
2025-09-06
Did my ankle and knee PT this morning, read another story in the latest First Line literary magazine …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 8 📚
Note: Found this draft in my Marsedit folder – yipes! Must be over a year old by the time it …
:
A Year's Turning by Michael Viney 📚
Finished reading: A Year’s Turning by Michael Viney 📚 Purchased in a bookshop in Galway …
:
Viceroy Manufacturing Company’s 1956 toy catalog One of Liz’s uncles in Toronto used to …
:
It's time for me to say goodnight to Doctor Who
I saw my first new-Who David Tennant episodes on Netflix while trying to write papers for my …
:
"We proceeded on."
Finished reading: Scenes of Visionary Enchantment: Reflections on Lewis and Clark by Dayton Duncan …
:
Was downloading my Amazon books worth the trouble?
So, I finally finished downloading hundreds of Amazon ebooks and comics after the announcement that …
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Had to skip coffee yesterday so it would not interfere with this morning’s MRI. When we got …
:
Respond to what shows up
A weird occurrence illustrating “respond to what shows up” and “why the hell does …
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bumf
I learned a new word: bumf, meaning “reading materials (documents, written information) that …
:
Is Physics out of ideas? The Nobel Committee just gave a Physics award to a COMPUTER SCIENTIST! …
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Listening to: Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman 📚 Starting from a few …
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Finished listening: Sense of Wonder by Bill Schelly 📚 Mainly for comics enthusiasts, a memoir of …
:
The PhD Paradox
Daniel Lemire on how the current system of producing PhDs is backward and unsustainable. As he says, …
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Most of what I write about here is minutia about me. So … me-nutia?
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Across these differences, their food and service are so dependable that the Federal Emergency …
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“It is a most wonderful comfort…”
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Found by Liz: Lake Street Dive Plays “I Want You Back” On a Boston Sidewalk …
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The unchosen thing is what causes the trouble …
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"It wasn't much of a game plan..."
I had no job. I was about to have no house, I still hadn’t found a boat. I had jumped into …
:
Currently reading: My Father, the Pornographer by Chris Offutt 📚. Well-told, great details, and he …
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These are not serious people, and their proud and weaponized indifference is another reflection of …
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Finished audiobook: I Must Say by Martin Short 📚 We’d started listening to this last year and …
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A local online news service staffed by Duke journalism students recently started using AI to …
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Good Lord… Local exposure to poor individuals reduces support for redistribution among the …
:
When does vacation start?
For my wife, the vacation starts when we’re on the way to the airport. For me, vacation starts …
:
The Paris Review - Inscrutable, But Beautiful—Walter Russell’s New Age Diagrams
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My Nova Scotia Books 7
📚 Purchased in Annapolis Royal, NS From Joann’s Chocolate Shop & Cafe: A charming little …
:
If grapes are nature’s candy, then dates are nature’s chocolate caramels.
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To the dentist early on a dark, cold, rainy morning for a crown. They did a great job but lots of …
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Running the Light by Sam Tallent
Finished audiobook of Running the Light by Sam Tallent 📚 Really enjoyed this story focused on a …
:
“Think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the …
:
Our local Little Waves Coffee Roasters used ChatGPT to help them brainstorm names for their new …
:
Currently listening via Audible to Running the Light by Sam Tallent 📚 I like the way we’re in …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 6
📚 Purchased from the Strange Adventures Comics & Curiosities shop in beautiful downtown Halifax, …
:
Where does the phrase ‘cold turkey’ come from? | Merriam-Webster It may be that the …
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Signed up with a dietician to try to lose that last stubborn 20-30lbs. Spent a week keeping a food …
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3 Places to Discover North Carolina’s Moonshining Past | Our State - As housing estates and …
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My Nova Scotia Books 5
📚 Purchased from a gift/souvenir shop in Chester, N.S. Sadly, I cannot recall the name and cannot …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 4
📚 Purchased from the Grand-Pré National Historic Site Visitors Center. The Center has lots of CDs of …
:
Finished reading: Growing Pains by Emily Carr 📚 The bedtime book I read to Liz before lights out. …
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Magic Eight Ball Answers | All About Responses of The Magic 8 Ball - Magic 8 Ball - Plus, …
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FInished: "The Cursed Hermit"
Finished reading: The Cursed Hermit by Kris Bertin (Writer), Alexander Forbes (Artist) 📚 A sequel …
:
Tarot Reading, January 19, 2024
I did a three-card reading using the World Spirit Tarot deck (1st edition). Instead of the usual …
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Spent all day turning the apartment and yesterday’s clothes inside out looking for my airpods …
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Focus is my natural state
I had a productivity insight recently. Namely, that if my natural state is peace, and I’m the one …
:
Clearing out my "-later" pages
With the turnover of a new year, I did not want to carry the burden of imaginary work into 2024. I …
:
Finished reading: Old Christmas by Washington Irving 📚
Finished reading: Old Christmas by Washington Irving 📚 A classic set of stories that invigorated …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 3
📚 Purchased from Block Shop Books on a day-trip to Lunenberg, whose picture-postcard downtown area …
:
The Brown M&Ms
Found myself today repeating the “brown M&Ms” story about Van Halen and thought to …
:
In praise of NaNoWriMo
I participated in NaNoWriMo three times in the past, all before 2006, I think. I “won” …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 2
Purchased from The Odd Book, a really terrific used bookstore two streets back off the main drag of …
:
Not a flurry of emails … a drama of emails.
:
Review: Al Jaffee's Mad Life
Finished reading: Al Jaffee’s Mad Life by Mary-Lou Weisman 📚 One of the first Kindle books I …
:
My Nova Scotia Books 1
We spent a wonderful June in Nova Scotia and my new favorite hometown, Wolfville. One of the things …
:
Finished reading: The Para Method by Tiago Forte 📚 I have used this mostly for several years now; …
:
Finished reading: The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler 📚 Fantastic collection of …
:
Now reading: Al Jaffee’s Mad Life 📚
:
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not enough time.” Leonard …
:
Finished reading: Early Autumn - A Story of a Lady (Read & Co. Classics Edition) by Louis …
:
Finished reading: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi 📚 on Derek Sivers recommendation. …
:
More than a guidebook for aspiring wizards, Magic is also a veiled theory of religion. According to …
:
Gelatin as a "power flex"
Another important part of the Candlelight story line is the culinary tradition. Servants worked …
:
One of my favorite Kliban drawings: Barf Bold, a Decorative Typeface
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The Daily Heller: The Newly Inflated Career of Tony Sarg – PRINT Magazine
:
Before humans stored memories as zeroes and ones, we turned to digital devices of another kind — …
:
From today’s Pome poetry mailing list – “short modern poems for your inbox” …
:
Big data in the age of the telegraph | McKinsey - from the age of the Big Railroads, the first …
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When Connie Converse, the ‘Female Bob Dylan,’ Lived in N.Y.C. - The New York Times: an archeological …
:
Using ChatGPT to refactor a web site's manu structure
I used ChatGPT last weekend to help us revise the menu structures on our coho’s internal web …
:
Drool over the personal bookplates of 18 famous writers. ‹ Literary Hub
:
Abigail Pogrebin was one of the young adults who performed in the first production of Stephen …
:
Saying good-bye to my five-lines-a-day diaries
I recently skimmed two five-line-a-day diaries I kept; one spanned the years 2002-2012 and the other …
:
A quote that arose during my daily Evernote weeding routing, and relating directly to my previous …
:
Oliver Burkeman: How to choose sanity now
Today’s email from Oliver Burkeman was on a topic that walloped me upside the head: How to …
:
"The Only Five Email Folders Your Inbox Will Ever Need"
Rediscovered this article in Evernote during my daily notes-weeding practice. I’m sure I must …
:
The Power of Five Minutes: The Condensed Version | Samurai Mind Online
:
Elephants Can Remember was cited in a study done in 2009 using computer science to compare …
:
🎵 Current listening: ▶︎ Ver Sacrum | Bruno Sanfilippo
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What Is It That Makes Used Bookstores So Wonderful? ‹ CrimeReads
:
Ostentatio genitalium
Ostentatio genitalium (the display of the genitals) refers to disparate traditions in Renaissance …
:
A tip I picked up from an INTJ forum on Facebook: Find 3 hobbies: one to make some money one to …
:
Poirot 3
In what has unexpectedly turned into a quest, I’m watching the David Suchet Poirot series via …
:
I love these concise summaries of recent research by Montreal Computer Scientist/Professor Daniel …
:
Inbox: 37 Today: BCC Plenary meeting Atmospherics: cold and rainy and grey all day, so huddling …
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Durham artist V. Cullum Roger’s web site supporting research for his book on 225 Years of …
:
Fewer podcasts, more quiet
I remember way back in the ’90s, meeting with a great nutritionist who was also a great …
:
While following up on a movie about the Mercury Theatre’s “voodoo Macbeth” …
:
Poirot 2
Follow-up to my 2023-01-29 diary post on Hercule Poirot. From reading Poirot’s Wikipedia page, …
:
Diary
:
In addition to small errands, today’s main event is picking our green burial plot at Bluestem …
:
Now reading Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie 📚 I felt the need for some light and easy short …
:
Stopped reading The Gigging Life: Lessons Learned on the Literary Road by Matt Love 📚 Some …
:
The only commitment today is a Chili Cook-off in the Common Dining Room. We just put the white …
:
A great hypertext novel from the early days of the web: Geoff Ryman’s 253. It exists as a …
:
Adults don’t want to be caught listening to lullabies.
:
Booknotes: Christmas Stories by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Finished reading Christmas Stories by Lucy Maud Montgomery 📚 A light-hearted book of stories from …
:
Booknotes: Life Admin by Elizabeth Emens
Finished reading: Life Admin: How I Learned to Do Less, Do Better, and Live More by Elizabeth Emens …
:
Now reading: The Gigging Life: Lessons Learned on the Literary Road by Matt Love 📚
:
Alan Jacobs writes a bit about his read-it-later strategy, one I also subscribe to. I throw things …
:
Last night we saw “The Man Who Invented Christmas”, which was a pleasant fantasy of how …
:
Finished reading Aya: Love in Yop City 📚
:
Lessons Learned on Maintaining our Cohousing Community’s Newsletter
We got several compliments on the Dec 2022 newsletter I did for our Bull City Commons Cohousing …
:
Timecube
When I’m actively working heads-down on a project, such as writing a newsletter or doing some …
:
Autocorrect hates you - The Oatmeal Today’s autocorrect failure: “confirming …
:
Other miscellaneous reading this holiday season includes 📚:
:
Skimming: Life Admin by Elizabeth Emens 📚
:
Todays definition of bliss: cold and overcast rainy day, drinking coffee while reading my Sunday …
:
Against all odds, a really interesting profile of the poet whose books I always saw in used …
:
Now reading: Aya: Love in Yop City 📚
:
Lessons Learned: Creating a slideshow in iMovie
Our community held an appreciation evening for our architects and Durham Central Park …Background
:
Finished reading Early Autumn 📚
:
William Preston's The Old Man stories
I spent most of the pandemic reading comics. For whatever reasons, my mind and mood preferred the …
:
From Launchbar to Alfred
I had a long and happy partnership with Launchbar on my iMac. But when I started using my MacBook …
:
Digital declutter
In searching the web for tips and clues on how others organize their digital files, I ran across …
:
Poetry gives us the news we did not know we needed
The world’s first known author is widely considered to be Enheduanna, a woman who lived in the 23rd …
:
How I’m reading books these days
Firefox remains my browser of …
Library Extension for Firefox/Chrome/Edge
:
Merge All Windows – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US) This is one of those extensions I use …
:
New Project
An unusual project: compile, sift, and present several years of photos taken over the course of our …
:
Ciders
North Carolina Cideries Are Seeing a Gentle New Craft Cider Renaissance - INDY Week I’ve never …
:
Is there a German word for being surrounded by stacks of once-feted, now forgotten novels piled in …
:
Lovely, lovely illustrations: Maira Kalman’s Illustrations of Women Holding Things ‹ Literary Hub
:
Currently reading: The Complete Works: The Journal of a Disappointed Man; A Last Diary; Enjoying …
:
Currently reading: Early Autumn - A Story of a Lady (Read & Co. Classics Edition) by Louis …
:
Zine Machine Fest, Durham NC, 2022-10-16 One of my favorite happy-making, …
:
(Relatively) Recent reading
Arnold Bennett: Lost Icon by Patrick Donovan. 📚 An excellent biography of the phenomenally famous …
:
Of interest to postcard fans: The mystery of the 'same sky' postcards
:
Notes from a lecture given by Walter Derby Bannard at UNC-CH on November 14, 1984
:
Stoppard on fiddling
At a Tom Stoppard Q&A session at Duke University, a professor noted that Stoppard has said he …
:
Japanese Advice for the Elderly
Japanese Advice for the Elderly
Aging Hints from Hinohara Shigeaki
Born 1911 in Yamaguchi …
:
New Words
voluntold – Directed by others to do work that needs doing but that no one else wants to do …
:
King of Country? Queen of Soul? Empress of the Danzonete? Honorific nicknames in popular music - …
:
"A sort of lovely tension"
“It’s fantastically exciting to discover something that’s been lost all this time, but I do think …
:
Is plain text best?
CJ Chilvers gently disputes the claim of text files as the best future-proof archival medium. …
:
Ostentatio genitalium
Ostentatio genitalium (the display of the genitals) refers to disparate traditions in Renaissance …
:
Rediscovered a great Evernote keyboard combo that v10 recently added back in: press Ctrl+Alt+v to …
:
Whenever I read a sentence that begins “Don’t get me wrong…” I want to scream and …
:
Oscar Levant
Good overview of Oscar Levant, one of those minor performers of a Time Gone By who appealed to what …
:
The Strange Things I’ve Found Inside Books
i.e., [Confessions of a Basement Book Cleaner] ( …
:
I remember seeing these “Fear of God” cards now and then growing up in a Southern …
:
A fun article: We Almost Forgot About the Moon Trees - The Atlantic via today’s Recomendo …
:
Some days, my banjo lesson feels like I’m playing music. Other days (like this morning), it …
:
Weird Old Book Finder
From today’s Recomendo newsletter: Clive Thompson created this search …Weird Old Book Finder
:
Vampire Noir
The Night Stalker movies and TV series aired during my junior high school years. Not ashamed to say …
:
Today’s Pome was too good not to share: Pattern Your dress waving in the wind.
This
is the …
:
Career Advice to My Younger Self
:
Etaoin Shrdlu
Etaoin Shrdlu is a somewhat infamous phrase among language enthusiasts. It is pronounced …
:
"All hoping to become swans"
We are all outcasts; that is what drives advertising. All hoping to become swans, not knowing that …
:
"We have so little time for the mending we must do"
My heart was broken recently and I keep the pieces on the back step in a bucket. A heart can mend …
:
Airbnb outsourced a shoddy background check on my account using only two pieces of data – my …
:
Sunday is for Introverting
Friday was spent running errands, Friday night was caroling in Mary Fran and Stefan’s …
:
Creating a PDF with clickable hyperlinks from a Word 365 file
We’re having trouble creating a PDF with clickable hyperlinks from a Word 365 file. We want to …
:
"And they cannot stay"
In downsizing my paper files, I’ve run across pages I’ve saved from various writing …
:
Haunted art
From an old notebook I found, from a News & Observer article on a portrait that had slipped out …
:
Secrets of a professional ghostwriter
Secrets of a professional ghostwriter, from a 1997 editors forum post. I can’t imagine the …
:
Puttering on the blog
Spent a couple of hours using MarsEdit to do a long-overdue cleaning up of old posts from the …
:
"How I Experience the Web Today" - an interactive example
Click the first link to be taken on a journey of the modern web.
:
Culling and ripping stacks of old CDs is turning out to be – along with reacquainting myself …
:
Alan Moore on who will never be elected
I understand that it may not be considered good form to suggest that class issues are as important …
:
The clever folds that kept letters secret - BBC Future
The clever folds that kept letters secret - BBC Future: How do you keep snoops from reading your …
:
The Symphonies of the Planets | Daniel Karo
The Symphonies of the Planets | Daniel Karo:While on their missions Voyager 1 and 2 recorded the …
:
Doug's AppleScripts: Preserve a Genius Shuffle Playlist
My Apple Music app 1 has 12,000+ tracks, many of which I’ll bet I’ve not heard in a long …
:
“Hell is where time has stopped”
:
"Probably not for the last time"
She opened her eyes. She was on her knees in a sea of weeds: in love with every drop and twig of …
:
Update on my Libib.com graphic novels library
I have been using Libib.com intensively the last several weeks to scan in my graphic novels. I have …
:
"They kill you with encouragement"
:
Replacing Otter transcription with Word 365 Online
When I was a reporter, one of the most tedious jobs I had was transcribing my interviews from a …
:
Rethinking Your Personal Library: An Introduction To Quantum And Antilibrary
A fun post by Mumbai-based writer Phorum Dalal. The Quantum library holds the books you love …
:
Using DVD Player to play ripped .dvdmedia contents
I use RipIt to rip DVDs to my hard drive. Depending on the DVD, I will tell RipIt to create an MP4 …
:
Update Microsoft apps using the Mac App Store
I have been using Microsoft Word since the early ’90s when it was a DOS-based application. …
:
Johnny Decimal
For you file management and organization nerds, a decimal-based categorization system for projects …
:
I just added my name to Duke Health’s COVID-19 vaccination distribution waiting list. Hurry up …
:
Two minutes of delight from Ariel Avissar: The Typewriter (supercut). via Sameer Vasta’s newsletter …
:
On downsizing our DVD collection
In our house, we have embraced streaming video. It’s convenient and mostly reliable. So, as …
:
My latest post to the Bull City Commons blog: What Can You Do with a Durham County Library Card? …
:
Libib for cataloging books, DVDs, and CDs
As part of my downsizing, I’ve looked at the shelves of graphic novels and wondered how I …
:
Puzzle Montage Art by Tim Klein
Puzzle Montage Art by Tim Klein A typical jigsaw puzzle manufacturer uses the same die-cut pattern …
:
Extraterrestrial Abductions Day
I just discovered this morning that there is an Extraterrestrial Abductions Day on March 20. When I …
:
INTJ catchphrase
I remember once reading through descriptions of MBTI personality types. For each type, they included …
:
Sherlock Holmes: observations and deductions
I have been listening to the Sherlock Holmes stories read by Stephen Fry. As one would expect, Fry …
:
"Hope is like honey"
A passage from the actor Terence Stamp’s memoir, Rare Stamps. There are the usual ups and …
:
"Patient disappointment"
The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals Dorothy Wordsworth and Pamela Woof &c—The old woman was very …
:
On hearing "Carmina Burana" this afternoon
Many years ago, we had a work friend who was a member of a community chorus; they usually performed …
:
Mongols
For Orange Crate Art’s pencils tag: Discoveries made in the back of an old filing cabinet. Ten …
:
Loose verse
Loose verse written sitting in an outdoor chair, under an awning of the car repair place, during a …
:
On today's agenda
Liz just finished weeding a section of the front yard; we’ll see if Home Depot has mulch …
:
Plausible Reality
Liz just came in to tell me today’s Cryptoquote (she does the crypto and Jumble puzzles …
:
At 59, do you start counting up or start counting down?
:
Mark Evanier’s perhaps never-to-be-quite-exhaustive “List of Things I’ve Learned …
:
Sunday's Readwise quotes
The Relationship Handbook by George Pransky Emotions are never a statement about the world around …
:
Today's Readwise quotes
The Relationship Handbook by George Pransky Michael. We wouldn’t have lasted ten years if our …
:
Today's quotes from my Kindle
These are the highlighted Kindle passages sent to me today by Readwise.
:
I compile the monthly newsletter for our cohousing project, Bull City Commons Cohousing in Durham, …
:
An animated graph showing causes of death since March 2020; note COVID-19’s rise from the …
:
Today's Readwise quotes
To make two paintings, this much of a plan had come to her quickly, her …
:
Latest issue of newsletter I send to friends and fam: update on stay-at-home, donating blood, jigsaw …
:
Ghost town photos of normally bustling public places in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill
:
Discovered a most oddball Windows 10 feature through finger fumbling on the keyboard. I cannot …
:
Flyer posted at our co-op’s community bulletin board.
:
Sent the second of my bimonthly letters last weekend. In this installment: snowflakes, Lenten …
:
Because since when has liking Doctor Who been a prerequisite of being a Doctor Who fan?
:
Quick-elets? (No)
Used the new silicone muffin pan Liz bought me for Xmas to make some quiche muffins (although …
:
My latest newsletter to friends and family went out this past Monday. This particular issue I …
:
Clone wars
While spending a few evenings this week diagnosing the problem with Disk Utility not erasing my …
:
Fixing Disk Utility error -69877
Carbon Copy Cloner’s weekly backup task broke after my iMac’s upgrade to Catalina …
:
A good question to ask to start off the New Year.
:
Syncing third-party calendars from Google to iOS
I center my email and calendar activities around Gmail and Google Calendar. They feed the Mail and …
:
WEIRD - An acronym used in academic literature to identify possibly biased results: Western, …
:
Evernote "dashboard" gallery
A boggling collection of different startup ‘dashboards’ for Evernote users on …
:
John Simon, R.I.P.
John Simon was a critic I read voraciously for many years, mainly in my 20s when I reviewed movies …
:
I needed a keyboard shortcut in Evernote to duplicate a note. I was about to load Keyboard Maestro …
:
Forbes's "Should You Upgrade iOS" column
If one lesson can be learnt by all this it is to stop blindly leaping to every new iOS release. …
:
Dr. Drang tells us about a triffic iPhone setting to Silence Unknown Callers. New in iOS 13. …
:
Bull Moon Rising festival in Durham tonight.
:
Best fun Halloween movie for all ages has to be Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein: a great …
:
CriticalMAS: “The lesson I want to share here is that the tape measure is a super powerful …
:
Overcast’s File Uploads came back online, all of a sudden. The file I’d been in the …
:
One advantage of getting a new credit card: getting reminders of all the services I subscribe to …
:
"Art is what gets away with you"
Art isn’t what you can get away with … Art is what gets away with you. Every encounter with …
:
"Individually tailored care"
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, Hendrik Groen, Hester Velmans (Translator)After a while, the …
:
From Overcast to Castro
Overcast’s Upload Files function was removed with the most recent update to iOS 13, I think; …
:
A software engineer posted all the Google searches she made during a week of work:What I’m trying …
:
From smallest to largest
Orange Crate Art:So from small to large: nonpareil, minion, brevier, bourgeois, long primer, small …
:
The latest in midway fun foods at the NC State Fair.
My stomach hurts just looking at the pictures. …
:
Currently reading: Outside the Gates of Eden by Lewis Shiner 📚
:
A stupid text message I got today from a stupid spammer.
:
Birthday breakfast at Hope Valley Diner
:
Uncle Terrance | Eruditorum Press There are countless figures who made Doctor Who what it is. …
:
And the latest update. I have Downlink set to update my desktop every 20 minutes today. Not sure of …
:
Working at home today, awaiting the rains from Hurricane Dorian here in central NC. The coast has …
:
Where supper and the toasted butter coconut pie cannot be improved on.
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Removed the On This Day page since it was not updating in the two themes I tried. I may try again …
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Samuel Butler on life
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. Samuel Butler
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I will often fight drowsiness or boredom or even needing to pee if I’m committed to what …
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Currently reading: Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey 📚
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Settling into Micro.blog
Over the weekend, I imported 1,902 blog posts written since 2005 in Bloggr, Tumblr, Wordpress, and …
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"It goes s-l-o-w-l-y"
So I left non-duality and left Facebook and that left me a good deal of free time. Time does not …
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Currently reading: Aug 9 - Fog by Kathryn Scanlan 📚
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Kill Sticky bookmarklet
A bookmarklet that always finds its way to all of my browser toolbars is [Alisdair McDiarmid’s Kill …
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RIP, Leon Redbone
Variety published a wonderful, respectful, and damn interesting obituary on the mystery man of 20th …
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Is Mercury in Retrograde?
I was swimming upstream most of the day, having trouble with all my tech (software, phone) and …
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Recent Enjoyments
An acquaintance asked for recent books or movies I liked. This is what I wrote. We enjoyed watching …
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Shopper's Dilemma: Technology
Daniel Lemire ponders whether to take advantage of today’s technology or wait till the technology …
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"Nasty character traits need an outlet"
Time passes slowly at the old folks home in Amsterdam. If you don’t have anything special to do all …
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Hunger or Craving?
Michael Graziano rather persuasively argues that the body’s mechanisms for managing hunger work just …
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The Magic of Utility, the Utility of Magic
Wonderful summing-up final paragraph from Stefany Anne Golberg’s essay on The Long Lost Friend …
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"A colossal self-satisfaction"
It does a man good to turn himself inside out once in a while: to sort of turn the …
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"Dream-child"
Walt Whitman tells a story: A woman I knew once asked a man to give her a child: she was greatly in …
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My Overcast Settings & Smart Playlists
Back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, I used to listen to Audible.com pre-podcast-era “podcasts” …
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Wound-Up Opera
In sorting through the old vinyl, I run across several “what was I thinking??” purchases. …
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The Ubiquity of Smartphones, as Captured by Photographers
The first image in this collection of pictures of smartphone users around the world reminds me of …
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Reminding You Who's In Charge
From ProPublica: the number of IRS audits of a poor county in Mississippi makes it the most heavily …
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Who is our Community?
Brilliant, tough, compassionate story from Buzzfeed’s Joe Bernstein on the Baraboo photo: The culture …
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My paper on Anton Chekhov's story, "On Official Business"
During the last semester of my master’s program, I was crunching the numbers on my survey and …
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Because They're There
From Robin Sloan’s latest newsletter: Beware, anytime you hear anybody talking about reading novels …
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78Prof's YouTube Channel
For the last few decades, I’ve loved listening to popular music of the 1910s, ‘20s, and ‘30s. They …
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Critical MAS: Tips on Quitting Facebook
Michael Allen Smith’s nine tips for getting out of Facebook (see his post for details): Define the …
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Dracula as Hero of His Own Story
The latest production from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss is a revamping of Bram Stoker's venerable …
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Ambling Through the Ambience
A great find, via the ever-essential Open Culture: For those who think 50 minutes is too short and …
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iPad Pro Observations
I subscribe to Daniel Lemire’s blog. He is a computer science professor at the University of Quebec. …
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"Dearest Liz"
Here, I am shamelessly aping Michael Leddy’s post, which should come as no surprise as I shamelessly …
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Jeanette Winterson on broken hearts and time
My heart was broken recently and I keep the pieces on the back step in a …
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Do I Need to Digitize This Album? Or Can I Download it Instead?
I could take the time to record both sides of an album, edit those recordings, create metadata, find …
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Is This an Album Worth Keeping?
After I finish digitizing a record and putting it in the Donate box, I pluck the next one from the …
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Lovers of Art?
From The Decatur Review, February 24, 1961: Art lovers are purging the nudes from the Decatur Public …
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Fasting February
Search this blog for "diet" and you'll find many posts on various strategies I've tried. After many …
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Art is What Gets Away With You
Jeanette Winterson, one of my favorite writers on the meaning, experience, and vitalness of art: Art …
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The Tomb and the Telephone Box
From The Public Domain Review: Though Nikolaus Pevsner wrote that the nineteenth century “forgot …
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R.I.P., Super Dave Osborn
The passing of Bob Einstein also brought the passing of his alter-ego, the heroically ill-fated …
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Everyone Except Me
From Oliver Burkeman’s latest column, “Sexist? Bigoted? Aren’t we all?”: The safest working …
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The Power of Now
CJ Chilvers’ latest newsletter featured a blog post he wrote on creating a Now page. (Here’s CJ’s …
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Lady Posing Naked Behind a Guitar
The Guardian justifiably criticizes Avril Lavigne’s promo shot for her new album (while linking out …
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Dangerous Songs?
Pete Seeger wrote the liner notes to his 1966 release Dangerous Songs?, a collection rather loosely …
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Learning from Flawed Teachers
Austin Kleon remembers great advice from Jeffrey Tambor (“Worrying is not preparation”) and wonders …
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Lawns Are an Ecological Disaster
I’ve always hated cutting grass, from my teenage years when it was my only source of income to being …
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Reading for Information vs Transformation vs ...?
Steve Edwards reads a lot into his bookstore visits: In my twenties the question was never “What do I …
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And Yet It Fools Everybody
Callow American reporter — and skeptic — Jack Walser ponders “half-woman, half-swan” Sophie Fevvers’ …
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Tech Ailments in America
Just what tech-induced ailments do we suffer from, and how do we describe them? To …
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Batched Delivery of Gmails to my Inbox
I am always and forever tweaking how I use Gmail.
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macOS: Ignore Ownership on an External Drive
I bought a 4TB external drive last year. I created two partitions: one to hold a Carbon Copy Cloner …
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Clearing Automatic Album Ratings in iTunes
I tend to rate songs or tracks in iTunes or iOS Music with stars, as I’ve written about before. As …
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On Throwing Out My Old Memorabilia
Tonight, as part of our attic cleanup, I processed a box that I’ve probably not seen since I put it …
:
"Funemployment" During a Government Shutdown
As of this writing, we are in Day 19 of Dunning K. Trump’s shutdown of the government. I’ve worked …
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Clearing Out Those "Someday" Projects
We’re downsizing in preparation for moving house in a couple of years. To that end, all those boxes …
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Burkeman's New Year's Resolution
I love Oliver Burkeman’s weekly look at what’s trending in the self-help world. His New Year’s …
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The Dumbest Publishing Platform on the Web
Write something, hit publish, and it's live. There's no tracking, ad-tech, webfonts, …
:
Fill Every Single Empty Moment
Nielsen-Norman Group UX study conclusion: This compulsion to fill the silence is related to the …
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Final Thoughts on Montaigne
From the final pages of Michael Perry’s Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through …
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Amateurs Amble Through Montaigne
The only thing more fun than reading Montaigne, it seems, is reading what others say about …
:
More of, Less of
My typical New Year’s Day tool for many years has been selecting a Word of the Year, most often …
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"Vulnerability is the key to longevity"
Eddie Smith, from 2016: Modern survival is antithetical to everything evolution programmed us for. …
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On keeping a one-line-a-day diary
There is no space for unnecessary detail. It also takes only a few minutes to …
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Graveyard vs Cemetery
Driving down backroads from the Jordan Lake Christmas Tree Farm, we passed a white clapboard church …
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What I believe, for now
I believe in going to the funeral. I believe in going to the wedding. I believe some occasions, though …
:
Audiobook: Mrs. Dalloway
My only experience with Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is the exquisite 1997 movie. I'd tried …
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Mom's Day Memory
At breakfast yesterday with my parents, my brother and his family, I asked about the first home we …
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Photo: Lone Peony
Taken by Liz with her iPhone 7, Sunday afternoon, on the kitchen counter. The only peony this year. …
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In So Many Words
Richard Dalloway leaves his pompous colleague Hugh as they exit a jewelry store. Richard is struck …
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5 Updates and 1 Swivel
The Time Machine backups to the Time Capsule are running flawlessly. I …The Updates
Backups Update
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David L. Ulin on Tristram Shandy, Zadie Smith, and the Fiction of Apocalypse | Book Marks
They [Tristram Shandy and The Anatomy of Melancholy] are reminders that weirdness, …
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In Praise of the Small Town Library | Literary Hub
If you don’t happen to live near a college or a bookstore, if your relatives aren’t bookish, the …
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This headless robotic cat pillow will wag its way into your heart - The Verge
Susan Weinschenk's talk at TriUXPA the other night on the future of human-technology interaction …
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A short new movie of a comet’s surface is pretty incredible | Ars Technica
Ars Technica displays an animated GIF composed of still images collected from the Rosetta's orbit …
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Photo: Cafeteria Menu Board
On my way to tonight's TriUXPA event, I grabbed an early supper at my favorite place to eat in …
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Backups update
With the network problems seemingly taken care, we were still plagued with occasional, maddening …
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If you move a meeting forward, what does that really mean? | Oliver Burkeman | The Guardian
All of which is a reminder of how odd it is that we think of time using spatial metaphors at all – …
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Emergency funds
The Two Cents column on emergency funds has the good, standard advice offered by financial planners …
:
"I need to figure that out..."
Over the years, I have set a few mental triggers for myself that let me know my thinking is revved …
:
Can a Male Artist Still Paint a Female Nude? | The Cut
While feminist art critics have for decades pointed out the shortcomings of the “male gaze,” the …
:
The Guiding Greene Light of Harry Crews
“Graham Greene—you’ve probably heard me quote before, because god knows, it’s true—'The writer is …
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Sometimes the Best Way to Read is to Mark Up the Book | Literary Hub
In order to understand writing, I have to annotate it. I started with Hopkins. I bought a used …
:
Nancy for a new age
Orange Crate Art's ongoing coverage of the Nancy comic strip -- from the acclaimed Fantagraphics …
:
Soviet film posters of the '50s and '60s
The Guardian web site runs an online gallery of pictures or images on a theme. The movie posters …
:
More on passwords
CriticalMAS read my post on creating Diceware passwords and in response posted a very cool Mad Libs …
:
Don't fight the system -- create a new one
“You never change anything by fighting the existing. To change something, build a new …
:
DSL woes v -- The End (...for now?...)
I made a few changes a week ago when the connectivity was poor. I basically reset everything to zero …
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Alan Ayckbourn: Advice from Harold Pinter
I think Norman's background is deliberately sketchy - I'm less interested in his genesis than his …
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How to Clean Your Gmail Autocomplete List • Productivity Portfolio
When I was at UNC for a couple years I sent and received emails from my Gmail account to lots and …
:
Today’s goodies
Liz gifted us with flourless peanut butter cookies, with fresh ground peanut butter from the co-op. …
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Creating random passphrases for stronger passwords
At home on my iMac, when I need to create a strong password, I use 1Password's generator, …
:
Windows: My startup.bat file
Situation
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Surviving the Ordinary: Why We Need Memoirs of Regular Lives | Literary Hub
So why do we need this book? Mary Laura Philpott’s article looks at books of the ordinary …
:
DSL woes iv
Still getting frequent, brief DNS outages. The speed is noticeably slower for long periods, but with …
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How To Access The WiFi Scanner In macOS Sierra - Let's Talk Tech
I was looking for a wifi scanner to check whether there were less cluttered wifi channels in our …
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Self-Improvement's ultimate goal? Creating James Bond villains
One of my first coaches observed that the end result of …](http://tempblogfood.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/2145b-bond-villians.jpg)
Credit:filmonic.com/top-10-ep…
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DSL woes iii
Every couple of years something goes wonky with our DSL connection and it requires major …
:
Jessica Hische on procrastination
The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of …
:
For further reading
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I ended up being nothing that I can currently identify
I decided at one point in my life that I never wanted to be anything that would not allow me to be …
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DSL woes ii
Last night, I purchased and installed from the Mac App Store the program Network Logger Pro …
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Lenten learnings and Eastertide challenge
For Lent, I gave up listening to podcasts and adopted Mark Forster's Fast FVP at work.
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DSL woes
We've had very patchy Frontier DSL connectivity for over a week now. It's uncanny that the DSL …
:
Pervasive language
We saw a trailer for an R-rated movie, and one of the rating justifications was for "pervasive …
:
Two demotivational quotes
Build a man a fire, he stays warm for an hour. Set a man on fire, he stays warm for the rest of his …
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Creating a recurring email message in Windows Outlook 2016
At my day job, there's an email I need to send every week. Same subject, same …The Situation
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Avoid The "Just One More Thing" Impulse
I have been posting a business/productivity/mastermindish type article every Sunday on LinkedIn for …
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Jimmy Dean on luck
A great reminder to stay a little bit awake as I move through the day.
“You gotta try …
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Outage breaks posting streak! (The March 27 post)
Frontier DSL experienced a mass outage in Durham, NC, last night, before I was able to make …
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Jacques Barzun on True Work
I cannot remember where I got this quote, but it impressed itself on me so much that I had it posted …
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AI's intelligence and stupidity in one photo stitch fail | Engadget
My friend Bob told me about Google Photos’ capability to automatically stitch together a …
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Shook | Austin Kleon
A bomb exploded in my neighborhood last night on a sidewalk I walk every morning with my wife and …
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What Exactly Does a Librarian Do? Everything. | Literary Hub
Lots of different types of library work happens everywhere—new jobs crop up daily, thanks to …
:
The Portlandia Effect: How Did the Show Change Portland?
After hundreds of voters weighed in, the results came back. Old Portland died on January 21, 2011 — …
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Hold On to the Badge
This is a rather silly little hack but when I do it, it solves lots of little problems. The …
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Teaching the New Testament – A Jewish Professor Looks Back
By 1992, as I approached my 20th year of university teaching, I’d evolved the philosophy that we …
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Productivity Update
I have noticed an interesting change in my attitude about Inbox Zero -- basically, I've stopped …
:
Boiling Ourselves to Death
These panels are talking to me about politics, the workplace, life, lots of things. Laugh or get out …
:
For Further Reading
Stuff I wanted to read but didn't get to. Maybe this weekend...?
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Search for: "The Untold Story of *"
In writing yesterday's post, I did one of my cheeky searches in the Audible catalog for "The Untold …
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Do Audio Books Count As Reading? | Literary Hub
James Tate Hill's essay is a fascinating memoir of how he went from sighted, sporadic reader to …
:
Tom Hardy on The Sanity of Actors
“A performer is asked to do two things,” [the actor Tom Hardy] tells me. “To be disciplined and …
:
International Eye Test Chart (1907)
Another wonderful discovery from the Public Domain Review: an eye test chart from a 1907 San …
:
Lower your voice to calm down
This is a useful tip I've handed out since it was given to me years ago. At the time, in my 20s, I …
:
Notes to Myself
I stand 6'3" (1.91 meters) and wear size 15 shoes. At the movies today, as I stood to move into the …
:
Eight Books, Audiobooks, Comics
Encounters With an Enlightened Man by Linda Quiring. Of the three books written by Quiring about …
:
David Halperin on God and Mystery
“It’s within mystery—real or invented—that the human spirit thrives. (“I don’t …
:
For Further Reading
Stuff I wanted to read but didn't get to. Maybe this weekend...?
:
Show Your Work
Inspired by Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work, and my wholesome need to generate a new blog post …
:
Software: Leech, Amphetamine
Leech and Amphetamine are specialized Mac utilities that, when I need them, perform so dependably I …
:
An Empty Cup
What I have found in the last few years of reading and soaking in The Three Principles -- and it's …
:
Diet Update
I have described the type of weight tracking chart I'm using. Here's my chart with measurements that …
:
Civilian Tech Support
Two incidents yesterday consumed lots of investigation and research time. Then, with the right …
:
Emptying My Cup
I have been posting lots of stuff since December 25, 2017. Not as much as Seth Godin, of course, but …
:
Zero Grief Policy
I evaluated lots of Windows help authoring tools for one of my early freelancing jobs. As I searched …
:
The Malpass Brothers
We spent last evening at Blue Note Grill to watch The Malpass Brothers, a home-grown band from …
:
Diarizing Update
Of the three diarizing methods I have been experimenting with:
:
I Got Through Today
I got very little sleep, about 5 hours. My fourth or fifth night of poor sleep. This usually puts me …
:
App: Plants vs. Zombies 2
I experienced the original PopCap Plants vs Zombies game on my MacBook in 2009, coinciding with my …
:
Software: Fluid for macOS
Fluid is an app to (kind of) create apps: Fluid lets you create a Real Mac App (or "Fluid App") …
:
The Most Important Thing I've Ever Written? - Blog - Get Everything Done
Mark Forster's ideas, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, have been very influential on my thinking …
:
Maybe, instead..."Crosswalk"?
The local arts council holds "progressive" dinners, where you start in one location for appetizers, …
:
Five Pots
I am working with a wonderful Three Principles coach, with a specific focus of starting a side …
:
Carolina Parakeet, RIP
From today's Public Domain Review newsletter: 100 years ago today, the very last Carolina …
:
Fat Loss Cheatsheet: What Works and What Doesn't (for me) - Critical MAS
There are many health and fitness blogs and sites out there, but I enjoy most the blog of a serious …
:
Research: Removing Yahoo Search Malware from Chrome Browser on Mac
Problem: On my iMac, I'd type search keywords into the Chrome browser's address bar. Google is my …
:
Who Will You Be The Day After Achieving Your Goal?
As my first coach told us, you can have anything you want as long as you're willing to pay the …
:
Five TV Shows
Cinderella (1965). The color version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein piece, with Lesley Ann Warren. …
:
Kate Bowler on Her Cancer Diagnosis and Her Faith | Time
I became less invested in milestones and also those lovely …How did you change as a parent?
:
Getting Things Done For Lent
If you search this blog, you'll find UK time management coach and author Mark Forster's name pop up …
:
Brad Pilon: Getting Shredded
Brad Pilon writes about the goal some men have of being "shredded": getting their body fat to such a …
:
Pinkcast 2.14. This is the best time of day to exercise | Daniel H. Pink
For a few years, I used to do a dumbbell routine in the mornings, rising at about 530 or 6am to do …
:
Maxims and Mottoes
Indecision causes suffering. A line my first coach used a lot and that explains a lot of suffering I …
:
Dream
Liz and I are sitting in a church, in the front row of the wooden pews. There is a brick wall about …
:
Fortunes
Two fortunes from last night's Neo-China takeout:
“Storms make oaks take deeper root. …
:
Austin Kleon: Feeling blocked? Play with blocks!
One of my Friday joys is writer and artist Austin Kleon's newsletter of 10 items he thinks worth …
:
Leon Redbone
I first became acquainted with Mr. Redbone, not through his Saturday Night Live appearance, but when …
:
Fast Company: "This Is What It’s Like To Not Own A Smartphone In 2018"
Kathleen Davis' "think piece" -- you can read it in under four minutes -- briskly surveys the …
:
Six Movies
Darkest Hour (2017). Gary Oldman, unrecognizable as usual, as Churchill. I’m unclear, in these …
:
Gmail Delay Send
An advantage of some desktop or third-party email clients is their ability to schedule sending an …
:
Digital Sabbath
I spend my working days at a computer and sometimes whole evenings too. And bits of the weekend. For …
:
Three Use Cases
I am debating what I want in a protective case for my iPad Pro. A luxury problem, to be sure. There …
:
Leaving My Email Alone
The @SaneLater folder in my Gmail account bulges with links to pages, or the text of pages saved via …
:
Diet Update & Fasting
I weighed 211.0 lbs. a couple days ago, way over the control line. So I did a 22-hour or so fast. I …
:
GOOGLE SITE SEARCH BOOKMARKLET
I install a consistent set of bookmarklets across all the browsers I use at work and home. (Except …
:
INSTANT WATCHER, FIXABLE
Flixable is a search engine for Netflix-specific streaming video. It features a more open design …
:
BACKUPS UPDATE
Well, blow me down. I ran a manual Time Machine backup on Sunday – about 16GB – and it ran without a …
:
TECH OVERLOAD
What began last year as “modernizing” has turned into a bit of a tech tsunami at our house:
:
TOUCH ID TIP: ADD YOUR PINKY FINGERS
Liz bought her first smartphone today, an iPhone 7. The Apple customer support person we spoke to …
:
Diet update
Yesterday, I weighed 210.2, about a pound under my control line. This morning, I weighed 211.8, …
:
BLOGTROTTR
Ever since the death of Google Reader, I have avoided finding another RSS reader. I already have …
:
Ursula K. Le Guin
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all …
:
LIBRARY SCIENCE
She'd gone to school for years to study library science. He didn't see how it could be so …
:
BACKUPS (CONT’D)
Well, that was interesting. I logged in to Liz’s account to back up her home directory to my Lacie …
:
LOGITECH K811 KEYBOARD
I had a full-sized wired aluminum Mac keyboard for years. I used it with the MacBook and later with …
:
BACKUPS (cont'd)
So, backups.
:
EVERYTHING IS A MESS AND ALL IS WELL
At the start of Awareness, Anthony deMello shares the secret divulged by all mystics of all faiths, …
:
Snowscapes -- day and night
Durham NC got about 8-11 inches of snow today. Here’s a shot from our backyard (taken by Liz) …
:
FROM CRASHPLAN TO BACKBLAZE
After I renewed my Crashplan subscription last August, they announced, bless their hearts, they were …
:
COFFEENOMICS
Liz and I have an informal tradition of going to a local bakery/deli place for
breakfast when there’s …
:
Restarting my diet, such as it is - 2
The key tool for me will be a weight-tracking chart made with pen and graph paper. The chart format …
:
Graham Linehan on Sitcom Geek podcast
James Cary, writer of numerous UK radio and TV sitcoms and of the excellent Sitcom Geek blog and of …
:
RESTARTING MY DIET, SUCH AS IT IS - 1
I have paid for Herbalife, Diet Center (where I had to weigh in weekly and eat at least one large …
:
RESTARTING MY EXERCISE PROGRAM, SUCH AS IT IS
I went to the Y and aerobics classes in the ’80s, used the weight machines with my gym memberships …
:
From Safari Back to Chrome
On my iMac, I’ve used the Chrome browser for many many years. This was an artifact of my using a …
:
On Making the “Teacher” Video
The course was titled “Make A 5-Minute Documentary in 7 Weeks” but it was almost seven months before …
:
TEECCINO
I did not start drinking coffee till my mid to late 20s at my first job. My bad nightowl habits, …
:
Diarizing my life
Sorry for the horrible "diarizing" in the title, but the word fits for now. In addition to this …
:
Four-Quadrant Movies
In the world's neverending quest to quantify, there is the concept of the "four-quadrant movie." I'm …
:
Sofia Bonati's Amazing Ladies
Quietly beautiful portraits of women against a backdrop of mazes, flowers, and William …
:
Sleepytime
I have tried various technological or mental gizmos over the years to help me fall and stay …
:
The Potato Hack
I just finished boiling about 5 lbs. of red potatoes, eyes and blemishes removed but much of the …
:
Word of the Year: TRUST
I quit adopting New Year's Resolutions some years ago. But I liked the idea of an official "fresh …
:
Reformatting Time Capsule
Backups via Time Machine to our 2TB Time Capsule have not gone smoothly the last several months, …
:
Amazon Live Chat Support = Refund
Liz wanted to return one of the gifts I'd purchased for her from her Amazon wishlist. She tries to …
:
Two Very Different Travel Days
Instead of driving 13 or more hours from Durham, NC, to Lakeland, FL, for Christmas, we decided this …
:
What Did Jesus Look Like?
The 2015 BBC News article What Did Jesus Really Look Like? is still interesting, even in the …
:
Traveling with my iPad Pro 10.5
One of my reasons for purchasing the iPad Pro was to replace my Chromebook as a travel computing …
:
Six More Little Words
The same coach I mentioned in the previous post asked me in a later session to sum up a motto or …
:
Three Little Words
I worked with a coach one time who asked me a question that I regret I can't recall. Something about …
:
Still running Sierra and iOS 10.3
Computers -- or playing with them -- has been a hobby, pastime, and necessity for the last couple of …
:
How I'm Learning Now
My day job for the last two or so decades has been as a software technical writer. Basically, I …
:
My New iPad
New and first iPad ever, actually, only a few weeks old. It's the 10.5-inch iPad Pro and it is a …
:
"Teacher" -A Short Documentary
In the spring of 2017, I was searching for a new creative project to take my mind off of work …
:
The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something …
: And Yet - Los Angeles Review of Books
:
Domestic Comedy
Liz: "Thank you for doing the dishes and bringing home all these library books! This is an …
:
Some Lesser-Known Truths About Academe
One thing my professors told me early in graduate school: You absolutely must condition yourself to …
:
The very beginnings of both technologies, however, could be found at an institution that had been …
:
James Baldwin’s FBI file contains 1,884 pages of documents, collected from 1960 until the early …
:
If you could give a piece of advice to a young person starting out, what would you say? I would …
:
(via jla67.jpg (400×601)) 
:
The skin of some of the men developed a coarse, rough appearance, as a result of the hardening of …
:
Sometimes we are so confused and sad that all we can do is glue one thing to …
:
Another thought comes quickly, particularly when I think about all these people here searching for …
P.T. Barnum, The Art Of Money Getting (1880)
“Golden rules for making money.” The …
:
My haul from the April '16 Zine Machine Printed Matter Festival
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My zine …
:
"Presto!" by Penn Jillette
Presto! is Penn Jillette’s memoir of losing 100 pounds in 3 months – how he did it, why …
:
(via aquaman66.jpg (564×842)) 
:
(via The Strange Art of the Posthumous Portrait | New Republic) 
:
To start with, the Second Law implies that misfortune may be no one’s fault. The biggest …
:
The tipoff for me is somatic. Whenever a project comes to me, one that is right, that is genuine, I …
:
In a 2004 New Yorker feature on the Farrelly Brothers’s attempt to write a script for a new …
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11 favorite Christmas albums
We have a strict rule: no playing of Christmas music until we're driving back from my Aunt Carolyn's …
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(via What can people do better than machines? The view from 1951 – Clive Thompson) 
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There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that …
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My quixotic smart Christmas playlist
In iTunes, I have assigned the genre “Christmas” to all my Yuletide music, albums and …
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The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what …
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No compromises. No accommodation. No surrender. Be everything that Donald Trump and his supporters …
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Wearing a bolo tie and his trademark fedora, Mr. Cohen dryly made light in his acceptance speech of …
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It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar …
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Globe Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"
We saw the theatrical streaming of the Globe Theatre's The Merchant of Venice recently, as that's …
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She once said Picasso gave her the “best lesson in composition” she ever received when he told her …
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"More Fool Me" by Stephen Fry (audiobook)
More Fool Me is Fry’s third book of memoirs, and covers roughly the years 1986-2001, when he …
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Denver, October 2016
Liz presented at the AMWA conference, so I tagged along and cavorted at will. From the mental …
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Who's Working for Who?
I traveled with Liz to Denver CO for a few days while she attended a conference while I cavorted. …
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Google Me This: "The Lost Art of *"
I was cleaning out my Evernote inbox and saw two topics side by side: "The Lost Art of Memorizing …
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From the NC State Fair Food Labs
From a AAA.com GO magazine article on what to expect at this year's state fairs in the Carolinas: …
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Two people with languages unknown to each other met, and tried to communicate. One said, “I …
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In 1911, Delafield was accepted as a postulant by a French religious order established in Belgium. …
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I grow old ever learning many things.
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Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is …
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Another
Another death.
Another killing. Another explosion. Another shooting. Another outrage perpetrated by …
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"Priory of Sion" in Portland OR
In Portland OR, I saw the following chalked on sidewalks in different parts of the city:
In …
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(via Wonder Woman’s Wintry Foe: The Blue Snowman - The Devil’s Tale) 
Things to live by.
: Penny dreadfuls: the Victorian equivalent of video games
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The Case of the Two-Headed Author | The Smart Set
The feuding duo behind one of America’s greatest (fictional) detectives Source: The Case of the …
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Non Finito | The Smart Set
The Metropolitan Museum Breuer on 75th Street and Madison Avenue (the former site of the Whitney …
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(via My hero: WNP Barbellion by William Atkins | Books | The Guardian) 
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Maintaining the Technical Status Quo (For Now)
I spent the last week doing some intensive research on two potential tech purchases: an iPhone for …
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If I had a really concrete professional fear, it would be that I would wake up in the morning and …
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(via Raunchy, Raucous Coney Island by J. Hoberman | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books) …
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Real empowerment and respect is to see our fellow citizens—victims and privileged, religious and …
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What We've Been Watching - January '16
Youth (Dir: Paolo Sorrentino, 2015) I like a slow, meandering, plotless movie more than the next guy …
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(via Adam Gopnik — Practicing Doubt, Redrawing Faith | On Being) 
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I am never worried about my kids lacking intelligence, but I am often concerned when I see that they …
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Playmakers Rep's "Three Sisters"
In their ads read during the local morning NPR news, Playmakers Rep touted its “new take” on …
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Mark Forster's Book Challenge
UK time management coach and author Mark Forster has set himself the challenge to read only one book …
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(via Leslie Stein’s Comic Book School for Little Girls | VICE | United States) 
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As Rocky got back to his feet, Ali broke the spell. “The most scary moment in a …
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Rather than demanding authenticity, which is inherently paradoxical–trying to be real is …
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Jon Benjamin Tries Jazz
Best known as the lead voice on Bob's Burgers and Archer, Benjamin has no expertise in jazz music. …
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Inbox by Google
I switched from Yahoo Mail to Gmail back in 2006 or 2007; it took awhile to come to grips with it, …
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He was always around, and for most of the time, putting out material, appearing in movies, being …
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I once heard a philosopher tell a story about a student who asked him what he ought to do with his …
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My vision of retirement has always been to move someplace hot, and sit out on a patio reading (or …
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The two saddest words in the English language: “What party?”
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A good life is not a life without problems. A good life is a life with good problems.
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Green Eggs and Ham Tom has finally made his peace with this book, but it took a while. …
by Dr. Seuss
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Friday Links
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What their return to health will look like: As the INTJ returns to health, they will shift their …
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There’s this book club phenomenon — my mother-in-law is in a book club and now my wife is in a book …
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What appears at first to be an absence of emotion then appears to be a need to control overwhelming …
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“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the …
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'Don't Be a Moron'
I was having lunch with a friend who’d survived a heart attack a couple of years ago. When I …
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(via May 30 Memorial Day Event at Fitzgerald Family Cemetery | Pauli Murray Project) 
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(via We Have a Copy of Patricia Highsmith’s Unpublished Essay on Green-Wood Cemetery | Atlas Obscura …
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The next time you meet some person who is utterly captivated by some undertaking that completely …
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I noticed that touring — which is wonderful in some ways — is absolutely confining in other ways. …
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Monday Assorted Links
When Procrastination doesn’t keep me from doing what I should be doing, I fall back on …
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1. You are already perfect, whole, and mentally healthy exactly as you are. 2. You are always …
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Pre-Med: Preparing the Instruments
It’s worth stopping to consider what the Doc Martin creators did next. One thing we know they did …
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A Facelift for Shakespeare
A new translation effort aims to make all of Shakespeare’s plays comprehensible to today’s audiences …
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The Price We Pay for Sitting Too Much
For every half-hour working in an office, people should sit for 20 minutes, stand for eight minutes …
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Pre-Med: The Doc Martin Movies
Telling the story of Doc Martin is a complicated business from the start: do we begin with the first …
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Entitled
From Elisa Gabbert's Title TK:
Another quality I dislike in titles: a rhythmic sing-songiness, as in …
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Another quality I dislike in titles: a rhythmic sing-songiness, as in Then We Came to the End. All …
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(via Writing in Cafés: A Personal History - The Los Angeles Review of Books) 
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(via The ‘Product of Its Time’ Defense: No Excuse for Sexism and Racism - The Atlantic) 
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Weasel syntax
Uncertain Terms | The Smart Set The British technology journalist Ian Betteridge is credited with …
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Jonathan Williams on brevity
Around the time of QUANTULUMCUMQUE, he summed it up to me thus: ‘Francis Bacon the painter said, …
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(via (no title)) 
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(via Book review of Jon Morris’s The League of Regrettable Superheroes | Open Letters Monthly - an …
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Once you grasp this, the modern mantra of “no regrets” begins to look not courageous but fear-based: …
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The conclusion of the book provides advice on avoiding blunders. …make a realistic effort to slow …
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As children, we harbor ideals for how the world and our lives could be; as adults, we gain bitter …
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Links: Standing Desks
We had a discussion at work recently about how much we sit, standing desks, treadmill desks, etc. So …
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I’m a writer but I’m also a teacher and having been successful at both I can tell you that people …
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Here’s a polite person’s trick, one that has never failed me. I will share it with you because I …
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Institutions – from national newspapers to governments and political parties – invest an enormous …
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“We live by slowing down and saying with our lives that the world will not be saved by frantic …
Edward Tufte on how to have better mornings, from his next book, The Thinking Eye
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Documentaries: "Dreams of a Life", "Finding Vivian Maier"
We had an unintended, somewhat depressing, Netflix theme going recently: documentaries of forgotten …
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I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. …
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"When you lie down with the National Review"
Rosen says the book is written with “scholarly care and memoirist’s flair,” and that it’s “a brisk, …
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If you want to learn to use implementation intentions, I recommend you set this goal intention and …
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Goodbyes: Irish and Serbian
This is something I used to do more in my 20s but never knew there was a name for: the "Irish …
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Movie: "Wild"
I've not read Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild, on which the movie is based. And I've seen only a few …
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For now, I’ve limited my storage to a 16GB SD card. The small amount of space forces me to dump …
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Anyways, if you make a New Year’s resolution, make it this: something small, every day.
: Most questions can be boiled down
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A woman in Sri Lanka once told me a story. She said that the rate of malaria among the British in …
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I think the only reason I’ve had the career life that I’ve had is that someone told me some secrets …
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In Impro, Keith Johnstone writes that when improvisers try to be original, they fail. “Don’t be …
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“Maybe the human condition is best summarized as the constant and spectacular battle to veto …
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The whole process of getting old—it could have been better arranged. But you do learn some things …
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(via Alan Moore: I am in charge of this universe – Tim Martin – Aeon)
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"I’ve always thought most book reviews are too long,” he says, explaining his truncated reviews. …
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How Valuable Were Your Last 40 Minutes? : The Art of Non-Conformity
Regarding my personal time management, I also try to live by the philosophy that focuses on: ‘What …
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We hear “do what you love” so often from those few people who it did work for, for whom the stars …
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(via Seven lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr — Medium)
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Mixed [martial] artist Ronda Rousey was overseeing a group of fighters during a training session. …
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A physical book is difficult. If you haven’t made one, it’s tough to imagine just how difficult it …
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A book with proper margins says a number of things. It says, we care about the page. It says, we …
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(via How To Bulletproof Yourself from McDonalds & The Fast-Food Temptation)
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(via The woman who went to the library and read every book on the shelf | Books | The Observer) …
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(via Thinking Inside the Box)
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“Among the creative professions, it’s very, very common,” says comedy producer and …
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And for me, at this point, I think it much more interesting for me to look at something and know …
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“I once read about a scientific institute which had studied the male erection,” Davies …
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The novelist Robin Sloan offers a wise middle way, borrowing a concept from share trading, which he …
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The biggest mistake we make is trying to square the way we feel about something today with the way …
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The famous basketball coach John Wooden used to always say: “Be quick but don’t hurry.” Which is …
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Kindle links: Kindle Unlimited, reading experience
The new Kindle Unlimited campaign is smoking out new opinions on Amazon's strategy [1]. I liked this …
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Once upon a time, 12 years ago to be precise, David Bowie said something very perceptive. …
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I’ve begun reading Kenny Moore’s biography Bowerman and the Men of Oregon and have …
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Miss Marple
Before we left on our England trip, I loaded up the Kindle with a few hundredweight of e-books …
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I once made a TV show about an installation by the artist Spencer Tunick, who makes his work out of …
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Reading Proust in prison
Daniel Genis spent ten years in prison and read over one thousand books: He read “In …
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(via Fantagraphics Books | Comics and Graphic Novels - Eleanor Davis and Esther Pearl Watson Book …
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(via New Submission from Eric Knisley | Durham Comics Project)
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(via New Submission from Eric Knisley | Durham Comics Project)
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On a good day, you look at yourself like, I’m preserving American history: I’m an archeologist. But …
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(via Book review of Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell At Any Price | Open Letters Monthly - an Arts and …
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Any of the better anthologies of 78s – Revenant’s “American Primitive” volumes, Old Hat Records’ …
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After initially breaking my ssh-agent because I copy/pasted commands that I didn’t really …
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“One thing I came to realize after college was that the search for purpose is really a search for a …
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It is still the place where risks can be taken. When on Earth did the West End ever do a new play …
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(via Paper Pushers - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education)
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Stevereads on BookTube
Steve Donoghue at Stevereads writes about BookTube, a YouTube community devoted to booklovers. …
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(via This column will change your life: stop being busy | Life and style | The Guardian)
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(via This column will change your life: the case against hope | Life and style | The Guardian) …
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Blogs I Like: Sitcom Geek
As Stephen Fry said once upon a time: when I was young, comedy albums were my rock albums.
The first …
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(via Odd Job Man and Language! by Jonathon Green, review - Telegraph)
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“We cannot think if we have no time to read, nor feel if we are emotionally exhausted, nor out …
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One of my favorite quotes of all time, probably my very favorite, is this one from Stanley Kubrick: …
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Review: "In Our Time" podcast and newsletter
One of my long-term listening pleasures is BBC4's In Our Time podcast. The show is hosted by Melvyn …
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What would the 50-something you say to the 20-something you? You’re going to need reserves of …
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And then I realize: The way for me to be better than my parents isn’t to do my taxes on time. That …
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Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others. —Groucho Marx
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Review: Elf, a reminder service to avoid overdue library fees
The Durham Country Library -- which is a great organization I support with patronage and donations …
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(via Suman’s ad #1 (featuring the actual Suman Bhatia) - Painting By David Terry Art)
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The Conet Project
I must have heard about the shortwave numbers stations years ago on this Lost and Found Sound …
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Domestic Comedy
Exchange between me and Liz as we drove past Ravenscroft school.
ME. That's where Matthew did his …
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Software: Audiobook Builder
In 2001, I …
Back in the days of iron men and wooden computers, I listened to audiobooks on cassette.
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Current reading
The Relationship Handbook -- George Pransky. The focus is primarily spousal relationships, …
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True Work is that which occupies the mind and the heart, as well as the hands. It has a beginning …
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Serious reading, after all, should be active, focused, engaged—and Cooper suggested some ways to …
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A word fraught with meaning
I like embroidering my plainspoken, earthy, everyday, quotidian speech with particularly …
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Clifton StrengthsFinder
In December, following up on an offer by coach Dave Kaiser, I took the Clifton StrengthsFinder …
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In life, as in technical writing: you have to choose
One of the chief rules of tech writing -- or at least one of my chief rules -- is to not dump into …
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DOOMSDAY IS ... Friday (for 2014)
Which means that Friday falls on:
Faulker, FTW
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(via Happiness and Its Discontents - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education) …
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(via Ingredients of an All-Natural Banana | James’ reading list)
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As with all truly stupid things, there’s no responding to it, no engaging with it. Stupidity exists …
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Let the calendar decide
Oliver Burkeman writes the weekly This Column Will Change Your Life for the UK Guardian. The column …
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If you have concluded that “Ignorance is bliss” and prefer to cater to your perverted appetite with …
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(via This column will change your life: must a year last 52 weeks? | Life and style | The Guardian) …
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Via brickartist.com
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The great haiku artist Kobayashi Issa wrote this: New Year’s Day–
everything is in blossom!
I …
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Two or three things I know for sure, kinda sorta
In all the year-end roundups on the various blogs, I enjoyed David Cain's 16 things I know are true …
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I also find it sad that because his book is filled with a whole bunch of nonsense, that’s why it’s a …
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Unforeseen things will occur and you will inevitably deviate from your plan, this is organic, and it …
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[audio http://tempblogfood.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/tumblr_lxb1uvnmyj1qz6f4bo1.mp3] austinkleon: …
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I once heard a writer say that the only punctuation mark that we ever need is a period.
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When to give up on a book you're reading
From Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust, the Rule of 50 will change your life: Nobody is going …
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It’s a cycle. You start a story, and it’s stupid. You don’t have any ideas. You’re washed up. …
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One of the things I learned about the world of art,” Teller says, “is there are people who really …
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Do not mistake coincidence for fate. Also, never ignore a coincidence. Unless you’re busy, in …
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“Our whole life is an attempt to discover when our spontaneity is whimsical, sentimental …
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If I step back from it, then of course it’s complete nonsense. But I always think that …
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They say be careful what you wish for: no. Don’t be careful what you wish for. Absolutely wish …
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All of these conspiracy theories depend on the perpetrators being endlessly clever. I think you’ll …
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David Suchet likes to think of life as a spider’s web. The spider, you see, spins his web from …
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Is This God's Will?
… I learned a very simple way of keeping myself on the right path. That was to ask myself …
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I have no good advice, but here’s some I gleaned from a letter Benjamin Haydon, who rarely gave him …
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What we call progress is just screwing up in new and inventive ways.
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(via Halloween was so much WEIRDer back then: Creepy and disturbing vintage Halloween photos) …
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(via Halloween was so much WEIRDer back then: Creepy and disturbing vintage Halloween photos) …
Phenakistoscope
England, 1833
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(via These Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century Put Today’s GIFs to Shame - Megan Garber - The Atlantic) …
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(via These Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century Put Today’s GIFs to Shame - Megan Garber - The Atlantic) …
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(via These Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century Put Today’s GIFs to Shame - Megan Garber - The Atlantic) …
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(via These Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century Put Today’s GIFs to Shame - Megan Garber - The Atlantic) …
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(via These Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century Put Today’s GIFs to Shame - Megan Garber - The Atlantic) …
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Wisdom is for statues. Humor uncaps our inhibitions, unleashes our energies, seals friendships, …
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Furlough Diary - Day 10
I work for a government contractor, and we were sent home at 11:30am on Tuesday, Oct. 1. The company …
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Movie: "Enough Said"
Warning - Mild spoiler alert. I don’t reveal plot points, but if you read this post, …
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Ebooks—What We Gain, What We Lose
Link: Ebooks—What We Gain, What We Lose | doug toft (Web Archive link) Writer Doug Toft finished …
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Each of us has a different capacity to give to others without losing ourselves. Some of us can give …
the psychopathology of everyday life (1951 ed.)
The Nightmare.
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Dimon keeps track of his bank’s business by scribbling on a sheet of paper in his coat’s …
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On one of my last visits, even as my father was in severe pain, he asked me the same question he …
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More and more I feel that, just as all art aspires to the condition of music, all humour should …
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WordPress or SquareSpace?
I've been contemplating a new blog project to keep myself busy and out of mischief. Instead of just …
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(via Philip Sandifer: Writer: There’s Another Way: Throw Away Your Guns (The Family of Blood)) …
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(via ‘How Dare It Make Me Feel So Much’: The Spell of F. Scott Fitzgerald - Joe Fassler - The …
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(via All LinkedIn with Nowhere to Go | Ann Friedman | The Baffler)
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(via Facebook Feminism, Like It or Not | Susan Faludi | The Baffler)
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(via Famous Authors’ Handwritten Outlines for Great Works of Literature – Flavorwire)
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(via World’s Largest Cave, Son Doong, Prepping For First Public Tours)
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(via World’s Largest Cave, Son Doong, Prepping For First Public Tours)
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(via World’s Largest Cave, Son Doong, Prepping For First Public Tours)
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You can easily go too far with all this talk of meaningfulness: that way lies acres of self-help …
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Movie: "Blue Jasmine"
To get this out of the way as quickly as possible: Cate Blanchett clocks an amazing performance as …
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“Fuckin’ endings, man,” Get Shorty concludes. “They weren’t as easy as …
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Have less to do
A quote from the Mark Forster forum: My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less …
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The first book ends where I’m like, this fucking sucks. And I wanted – it’s like, for …
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(via The Tyee – The East Van Artist Behind a Cult Cartoon Milkman)
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(via The Tyee – The East Van Artist Behind a Cult Cartoon Milkman)
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Krishnamurti went on to give countless talks at which he frequently implied that his audience …
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Movie: "20 Feet From Stardom"
When Tom Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he said, "We all love music and we …
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When teaching a class and opening it up for discussion:
What the instructor hopes will happen: What actually happens:
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(via The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine) …
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(via Flight Paths of Fireflies Are Made Visible in Beautiful Long Exposure Photo Series)
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(via Flight Paths of Fireflies Are Made Visible in Beautiful Long Exposure Photo Series)
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Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing …
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The moral: You gain more by not being stupid than you do by being smart. Smart gets neutralized by …
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Tonight, for whatever reason, a little Laurel & Hardy was indicated...
Because, some nights, I just need an earworm that will put a smile on my face.... …
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Book: "Slowing Down to the Speed of Life"
I picked up this book in Kenosha on my vacation, and it jibes well with Michael Neill's The Inside …
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Movie: "The Way Way Back"
Jim Rash, Charlotte NC-native and UNC-CH alum -- best known to the world as Dean Pelton on Community …
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From J. L. Carr’s 1980 novella “A Month in the Country" : We can ask and ask but we …
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“One, don’t wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing. Two, once you begin, keep on until …
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So why do it? The answer is that it’s a drug – and once it gets in your system, it’s …
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Her gentle chiding curbed any chance that Mr. Seeger’s ego would balloon. “I hate it when people …
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Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
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Hence my official position: it’s fine to abandon books or other projects – but you’ve …
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Tumblr reminds me that Commonplace turned 6 today!
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The Rise and Fall of Mr. Zip
Informative and fun little article on the US Postal Service's push to get Americans to add a 5-digit …
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Your reading style needs to go from “reading with some skipping” to “skipping with some reading”. …
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From the Postsecret blog site
:
Before Sunrise” imagined romantic love as yours for the taking. “Before Sunset” …
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(via Dürer’s Devil Within by Andrew Butterfield | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books)
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(via Dürer’s Devil Within by Andrew Butterfield | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books)
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(via Dürer’s Devil Within by Andrew Butterfield | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books)
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“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little. Do what you can.” …
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Occasionally, just writing without a plan is a worthwhile exercise, especially early in the …
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Pretty much a perfick day
Up early and walked down to Patti's house, where we carpooled to the Creative Entrepreneur Expo …
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And this is basically the viewpoint underlying Miles’s criticism: it doesn’t matter what Gatiss …
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The best advice I ever got about reading came from the critic and scholar Louis Menand. Back in …
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There’s a character in the film who, in passing, mentions that “talent plus persistence …
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The writ of this collection of letters runs from about 1950 until 2007, the year of Vonnegut’s …
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Tom Waits on habits
“It’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle …
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Wipe the slate clean every day. You don’t need to worry about your reading lists. Mark them all as …
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Here’s what I’ve learned from not writing about my life because I was scared you wouldn’t like it: …
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After attending the Green Vale School in Old Brookville, N.Y., where her classmates included Gloria …
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Information is weird like that. It is its own ailment, its own deficiency, its own excess, its own …
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(via PostSecret)
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We never see how the Doctor began his journey, we will probably never see how he ends it, we’ll …
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(via The ‘70s Were Awkward for Superman - Glen Weldon - The Atlantic)
Metropolis, Fritz Lang 1927
via coxno
The craft.
:
What a great poster. (via The First Annual Carrboro Block Party)
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(via Pisces Rising)
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What is the most important lesson life has taught you? You are never first choice.
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(via Jon Crispin: Suitcases from the Willard Asylum for the Insane (PHOTOS).) 
Beautiful patent drawing for R. J. Spalding’s Flying Machine, 1889. Complement with …
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"My whole life is a coping strategy."
While seeing my physical therapist the other night, he asked if I liked my eating habits (an odd way …
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Social behavior boils down to the “Morris Theorem”: “Change is caused by lazy, …
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I recently said to a director, ‘Audiences are like furtive strangers standing outside school …
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I see time as sailors see wind, or photographers see light, as something to use, manage, and shape, …
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(via Yin and Yang: Man Feeding Swans and Ducks in Krakow | Bored Panda)
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Annie Dillard observed that “Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers …
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Few writers have managed more fully than Stacton to bear out Gore Vidal’s maxim that writers …
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(via Los Angeles Review of Books - The Voice Of The Sea: Hurricanes In Life & Literature) …
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IN THE SUMMER OF 1999, the Holy Spirit directed Rick Karr, a 51-year-old Texan, to answer the calls …
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(via Study Hacks » Blog Archive » “Write Every Day” is Bad Advice: Hacking the Psychology of Big …
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(via PostSecret)
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No one can accuse me of pandering or writing purely in the hopes of having a commercial hit. I doubt …
for ivaplays
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But the hallmark of a good writer is not avoiding script calamities. They are unavoidable. …
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Story-surgery is required at a number of stages - and is more easily done early on in the process. …
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On realizing when my vacation started
December has been an unusually stressful month this year, what with jury duty, a rather punishing …
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How would you like to be remembered? I would like to be forgotten. What’s so good about being …
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"Merry Christmas from the Kensingtons"
My friend, the novelist Lewis Shiner, has a new Christmas short story up on the Subterranean Press …
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Artists don’t talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young …
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Shadows of things that Will be, or shadows of things that May be?
(via The Smart Set: Marley and Me …
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Then Scrooge has some bad gravy, a nightmare about three ghosts, and he spends Christmas Day in a …
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Later in life [Anthony Burgess] asked an American conductor to explain what makes English music …
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We Humans Can Never be Satisfied - Art De Vany on Line
We humans can never be satisfied. Nor could satisfaction rest on a specific accomplishment or …
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Source: http://sharpsuits.net/Home
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(via John Craig -)
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One of the great strengths of the English language is the number of ways it provides to describe …
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I think an awful lot of what passes for political discourse in this country these days works off …
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Pedagogy
When Julia was in 2nd grade, I taught poetry to her class, using Kenneth Koch’s Wishes, Lies, …
FRANK SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE for COMIC BOOK MAKERS. NEW COURSE STARTS JANUARY …
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5 Open Supersecrets About Bloggers
The “five open supersecrets” about bloggers, as Lee Siegel says in Against the Machine (quoted in …
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The search for meaning is not man’s search. The real question is how to do any good, or as Etty …
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Or, as some wag once said, “in the most carefully constructed experiment under the most …
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Yoga is not about doing…it is about being. The most important thing to remember is that you have …
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Everything you need to know about the connections between humans and demi-gods is down there in the …
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We know the past from literature only the way astronomers know distant galaxies: not directly, but …
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(via How does the human mind handle conflicts of interest? | Barking Up The Wrong Tree)
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Restored Radios exhibit
Durham is growing its own crop of local businesses -- not just local artists and boutique eateries, …
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Forty years after Alvin Toffler popularised the term “information overload”, we might as …
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(via Video Game Review of Slender: The Eight Pages | Open Letters Monthly - an Arts and Literature …
vampira
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You can’t change anything by fighting or resisting it. You change something by making it obsolete …
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Unpacking my library - FT.com
James Wood: “I deface nearly all my books, with both annotations in ink, and lots of …
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Plus, the more I talk to animators the better I realize that each movie is like a whole new software …
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When my grandmother—whose reading was limited to the Bible and Guideposts, and whose life was …
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You don’t get to be a good screenwriter unless you do 20, 30 drafts: fact. I know this because …
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Larry Niven on writing …If you’re going to invent the car, then you’ve got to invent the traffic jam.
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Do you accept the love people have for you? Do you celebrate your successes and see yourself in your …
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On hitting 50 (blog posts, that is)
Inspired by Shannon's example, I decided to forge ahead and write M-F blog posts for 10 weeks. And …
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Remembering Harvey Pekar on his birthday
Hat tip to Southern Folklife Collection’s Facebook feed
See also these Orange …
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Ten years ago, people kept their mobile phone in their pockets. Now, they hold them permanently in …
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Remembering to remember (practice)
The previous post talked about prospective memory (PM) research. Today's post is about learning to …
What role will our hands play in the future? Will we still write by hand?
Thomas Cooper Gotch (English, 1854–1931), The Lantern Parade, c. 1918. Oil on …
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Remembering to remember (theory)
One of the sweet ironies of my time at SILS was that I entered with a long-term interest in personal …
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Science must leave beauty at the margins of experience as it pursues truth. Art must leave truth at …
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Review: "The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter"
Over the 2010 Christmas vac, I took six books with me but read only one: the 700-page The Writer's …
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This is why my favorite quote on writing comes not from a book about writing but from a book about …
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Panhandlers
On my old blog, I devoted a long post to thinking about moral and ethical responses to panhandling. …
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Review: Doctor Who, S7, Eps. 1-5
I have thoroughly enjoyed showrunner/head writer Steven Moffat's fresh take on Doctor Who, and I've …
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Having fun with Wikipedia
Wikipedia has become such a daily part of my online life (like email -- remember life before email? …
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A shortcut for Googling the current web site
I use a lot of bookmarklets to make my browsing faster and more convenient. I use them to stop …
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Assorted links
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If you were born on this day...
From today's News & Observer's Horoscopes by Jeradine Saunders:
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You …
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Pay the writer
A glorious rant from one of the keystone authors of my first couple of decades on this spinning …
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In moments of great emotional stress, we revert to our worst habits: we dig in and fight harder. The …
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8 Inspirational Screensavers for your Kindle
After discovering the world of custom screensavers I couldn’t find anything …
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Someone famous (Samuel Johnson? Aristotle?) said that in writing (and here I paraphrase because …
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On unfriending or unfollowing people
Oliver Burkeman writes about a woman who actually visits all of her Facebook friends to see if …
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Dear Ones, it’s beautifully simple. Surrender. Go with the flow. Spend time doing what brings you …
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Progress Report: But is it fun?
At a recent mastermind meeting, my fellow blogger Mike Uhl asked what I felt about having crossed …
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52 Killer Tricks for Your Kindle
Of the 52 Killer Tricks for Your Kindle, some are useful only for the first 3 series (#'s 2, 3, 5, …
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Temptatious articles to read
This is why the potential is always there for me to get nothing done. Here are some of the top links …
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Sad necessities and the comfort zone
For many years, I've taken shameful (or shameless) advantage of Top Shelf's annual $3 web sale of …
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Map of Rain Hitting Water by Mara Gibson Treat your ears right. Listen to this hypnotic piece from …
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Mara Gibson, Teacher & Composer
In the late ’90s, I decided I wanted to take piano lessons. By chance, a flyer at the …
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[O Fortune, changing and unstable, your tribunal and judges are also unstable. 
You prepare huge …
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Progress Report: Content and Themes
Without the topic of school to provide a throughline or readymade theme for the blog – which was the …
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Progress Report: Routines
I started out writing my blog posts every morning for about 15-30 minutes, but now I may write …
Sweeney Todd on Flickr.
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Mallarme: “My dear Degas, poems are not made out of ideas. They’re made out of …
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Progress report: Epic or epigrammatic?
I started the Monday-Friday blogging cycle on July 30 and am surprised to find myself still here and …
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Real creativity is the dull and failure-fraught art of giving people things they never asked for. …
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Soft animal
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the …
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Many people wait, wanting to be certain before they step into the flow, not realizing the flow is …
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Claude Shannon, father of information theory, separated information from meaning. His central dogma, …
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Inspire yourself
In my PhD methods class, our professor asked us to pick something that inspired us -- it could be a …
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This, then, may be the one great secret that keeps the uninitiated out of the “inner …
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My first year in graduate school, I took a course in structural mechanics taught by Bob Eubanks, a …
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Try this meditation: Imagine that you are the wood and the fire that consumes the wood. First, focus …
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How I rate songs in iTunes
I never fiddled with iTunes before I bought my iPod 5G in 2010 as my birthday present to myself. I …
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“Complexity is a chronic infection. Once you’ve got it you spend lots of time managing it. It almost …
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"Asylum of the Daleks"
Oh dear, my carefully crafted image as a man of the book and too clever by half will now fall to the …
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Moffat, Davies, and the New Who
Ross Ruediger had a rather sour take on season 6 of Doctor Who. He had problems with Matt Smith's …
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Assorted links
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Dear Ones, the ego self, that part of you that wishes to keep you small and separate in order to …
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Yet another password creation rule
I ran across the following rule many years ago in what looks like a student paper (PDF link) by a …
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(via Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns for the Information Age | Brain Pickings)
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Drought on the Mississippi
After several years of drought in North Carolina, we've enjoyed a relatively mild and wet summer …
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One definition of stress is not accepting that things are the way they are. In other words, wishing …
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The Old Adventures of Superman
Apart from Stevereads and the Ihnatko Alamanac have to say on the matter, I have paid no attention …
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Pop Songs are Sad Songs
My key pop music memories primarily imprinted themselves on my trembling consciousness at after-show …
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How to unwrap a CD
When I first saw an Asheville CD store saleskid flip open the hinges of a CD case to remove that …
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If we really want to understand our fellow human beings accurately, we must allow them to surprise …
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Jailbreaking my Kindle Touch
To get screensaver images of my choice onto the Kindle Touch (the one without the special offers) …
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Kindle Touch screensavers
The Kindle Touch (non-ad supported) comes with 20 attractive gray-scale screensaver/wallpaper …
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Muleteer, Occultist, Whitesmith
The Bureau of Labor's Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system maintains a set of job and …
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“Time” is related to how much information you are taking in – information stretches time. A child’s …
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Many people understand movement is required to get them where they wish to be, yet they hesitate to …
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Memotome.com
I've mentioned Memotome.com in previous posts and it's an essential part of my productivity toolkit. …
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The Splurge List
I don't remember where I got this idea, but it's one I've been using more lately.
The idea uses …
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Procrastination
pjeby: “the problem in procrastination is we resist concrete [thoughts] while engaging in …
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Robert Hughes (1938-2012)
Like many other Americans, I became aware of Hughes through his "Shock of the New" documentary and …
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pjeby: If you aren't at least a little grateful for what you have *now*, what makes you think you'll be any *more* grateful when you have more?
pjeby: If you aren’t at least a little grateful for what you have now, what makes you think …
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If everything seems under control,” said auto racer Mario Andretti, “you’re …
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Libra Horoscope for week of August 16, 2012 The Hubble Space Telescope has taken 700,000 photos of …
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My event planning template
In 2009, I was recruited by The Ineluctable Cassidy to be an event planner for the local …
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On being an information packrat -- Part IV
One of the great things about a good productivity system is that it contains decision points where …
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Depression frequently occurs as resistance to the flow. Anxiety can come from focusing too much on …
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Robertson Davies on Useful Knowledge
On my 1998 "sabbatical," I read about 25 or so books. Among them were the collected works of the …
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On being an information packrat - Part III
The first post in this series looked at information hoarding, and the second looked at mindsets …
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An improv principle and event planning
In the winter of aught-six, I took a beginning improv class at DSI Comedy Theatre and learned a …
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National Night Out
I am taking a break from blog posts of ghastly length and inordinate self-absorption because today …
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On being an information packrat - Part II
Knowing that I have a tendency to hoard information, what can I do to help myself? This post will …
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Many of you are doing a splendid job getting clear on what you wish to create. You are stepping into …
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On being an information packrat
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Gore Vidal (1925-2012)
Steve Donoghue wrote what I thought was the best tribute to Vidal; it was graceful, heartfelt, …
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On starting before you're ready
When I first got the idea to restart the blogging, my first thought was: "No, don't start this …
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Do not mold yourself to fit any idea I put forward. Mold the idea to fit you. This is a blog, not a …
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On using timers and timeboxing
Mark Forster recommended the use of timers in his book Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to …
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Reboot at the OK Plateau
I have been inspired to restart blogging by, as usual, several seemingly random prompts that …
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Libra Horoscope for week of July 26, 2012 Philosopher William Irwin Thompson says that we humans …
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pjeby: RT @guy_finley: No intention, regardless of how high, how noble, can be any stronger for you than your ability to remember it. #fb
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pjeby: We learn more from our mistakes than our successes: that's why they don't call it "trial-and-succeed" learning.
pjeby: We learn more from our mistakes than our successes: that’s why they don’t call it …
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Stop stopping. Stopping is the worst thing. Stopping breaks your momentum. Stopping is …
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What I’m setting up for myself to successfully train for the marathon …
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Consultant vs. contractor
Alan Weiss, of whom I am a groupie, just published a quote that rocks my world. The full …
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What is the most important lesson life has taught you? There is always another game on Saturday. …
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Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, a Unitarian minister, summed it up decades ago: The master in the art of …
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Fritz on happiness
What is more important than happiness is involvement. We want to be involved with our lives, other …
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Many pro authors say you should try a dumb trick if your writing is moving frustratingly slowly: …
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Nietzsche on the dangers of waiting
In nooks all over the earth sit men who are waiting, scarcely knowing in what way they are waiting, …
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Writing Is a Business
“Writing is a business and should be practiced as such. On days when you think you can’t possibly …
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Self-Denial
“A character who needs the accoutrements of worldly success will never be seen by the audience as …
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His advice to would-be scriptwriters is “just write. The big break is easy if you’re good enough. I …
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Computer programmer Garry Hamilton articulated the following “Game Rules.” Give examples …
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So my point is that you can learn about yourself by seeing what you focus on day to day. That’s what …
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n an excerpted interview published in The News & Observer in 1994, Betts talked about her book …
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Annie-Proulx/Paris-Review/Intv
“There is difficulty involved in going from the basic sentence that’s headed in the right …
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We think in generalities, but we...
“We think in generalities, but we live in detail.”
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Find Your True Subject
Any writer who has difficulty in writing is probably not onto his true subject, but wasting time …
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There’d Better Be Trouble Brewing Somewhere
Whether a story is told on the page or on the screen, the same elements are required. You’ve got …
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Sometimes you have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting. Have faith that things will work out, maybe not how you planned, but just how it’s meant to be.
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The hardest part about growing is letting go of what you were used to, and moving on with something you're not.
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You don’t really need to worry about concentrating per se. As long as you put in the time, you …
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The most useful advice on writing I’ve ever received comes from Gil Rogin, who told me that he …
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You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter …
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Two things
About a third of the self-help books that cross my desk could be distilled to two things: first, if …
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Christine Kane, Upleveling, and an updated seminar
In July 2010, I’d made the big decision to leave the PhD program. I was back working part-time at my …
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"It's no good having one without the other"
In September of 1968, in what he jokingly termed “E. Gorey’s Great Simple Theory About Art,” Gorey …
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The Shadow - 4CP | Four Color Process
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When I teach literature I always tell them, these would-be writers (we don’t do workshops, we just …
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You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter …
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Character is the very life of fiction. Setting exists so that the character has someplace to stand. …
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You can’t wait to write until you’re in the mood. My God, if you waited until you were in the mood, … PANIQUE Board Game - Black & White Line Art
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From the RIP card set of strange phenomena ~ (1) Rain of fish (2) Psychic detective …
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Something Should Remain Unsaid
Narrative art must be clear, but it must also be mysterious. Something should remain unsaid, …
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In order to move up the scale of emotions and become more
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“Everyone thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head—they somehow formed …
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Be Daring
Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor over little cameo works in which every word is to be …
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After suggesting [that young writers] look into The Writer’s Chapbook I recommend they keep a …
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"Books I could get along without"
“We moved today to 415 Central Park West. Enormous business of packing and unpacking my books, …
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Most people quit. If you don’t quit, if you rewrite, if you keep publishing in fancier places, you …
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Winterson on the importance of books
I heard today that one in three kids in the UK does not own a book. I would be dead if I had never …
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The Guardian: Why do you think you inspire enmity? Bernard-Henri Lévy: Number one, I don’t know. …
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Do dialogue-let’s say-between a hobo and a high-class hooker, then between an ambulance … ~ Originally published by Drawn & Quarterly in 1990(!) in their self-titled … Need relief from all Christmassy stuff? Need some extra chills (and thrills) this …
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Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were …
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From today’s Postsecret blog
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Other parts of Again to Carthage offer a bit of marathon training advice: focus on building …
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“Your complete literary man writes all the time. It wakes him in the morning to write, it exercises …
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“For years, far too many years, I fell into the dangerous trap of being determined to finish a book …
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A quote from Josh Kaufman’s new book “The Personal MBA”: To keep yourself from feeling overwhelmed, …
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It is helpful to write always at the same time of day. Scheduled obligations often raise problems, …
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From James Webb Young, The Diary of an Ad Man: The War Years, June 1, 1942-December 31, 1943 …
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"No birdsong in the hedgerow"
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"Boots and hats and pocketknives"
“How do you and your wife split songwriting chores?“ It’s an adventure. You’ve got a … Some more EVIL EYE covers
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Seth Godin: "A great way to give thanks"
A great way to give thanks… for the privileges we’ve got is to do important work. …
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Richard Sala: "Thirteen O'clock"
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"Elephant time"
“What you newspaper and magazine writers, who work in rabbit time, don’t understand is that the …
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A good magazine article doesn’t need an introduction, so don’t begin with the background …
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"Balance is boring"
Before the crisis years of the AIDS epidemic I had that sense that one does of a long, expansive …
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7 Rules for Dialogue
1. Dialogue should be brief. 2. It should add to the reader’s present knowledge. 3. It should …
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Lyanda Lynn Haupt / Crow Planet / household spiders
“Claire knows our household spiders freakishly well. She names them all: currently we have Abigail …
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Richard Sala: Colleen's Dream
“Colleen’s Dream” (An outtake from my book THE HIDDEN). To read the story behind it, …
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Carve Out Time for What’s Important
This is one of the rules that has served me well, as a Program Manager at Microsoft: Carve out time …
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Variations on "Give a person a fish..."
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Go Where Your Characters Lead You
Trollope said, “On the last day of each month recorded, every person in a work of fiction should be …
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Three physical words for mental health
If you acknowledge all this resistance and act on your plan anyway, you will make one of the most …
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(via Day In and Day Out)
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Using Keyboard Maestro to fix Safari 5.1 keyboard dumbnesses
The MikeBook has been receiving tons of app upgrades due to Lion (haven't upgraded yet; waiting a …
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Vivian Maier
In 2007, John Maloof ran across a storage locker at a thrift auction house that contained over …
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Everything You Want, You Already Have « Books for Behavior Change
Hoffman explains the nature of his work by offering an extended analogy. In the process, he deftly …
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Wednesday Workout: Testing your assumptions | I Will Teach You To Be Rich
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. — Mike Tyson
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A Flapper's Dictionary
Ran across this delightful post from a used bookseller in Pennsylvania. He acquired the July 1922 …
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Why goal setting doesn't work | Psychology Today
L.A. King and C.M. Burton in an article entitled, The Hazards of Goal Pursuit, for the American …
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Sitcom Geek: Script Competitions
If you can write - and you also write a superb script (not the same thing) - producers will want to …
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Fibonacci sonnets
I have lately been enjoying a blog by Austin, TX artist/writer Austin Kleon, and have been happily …
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via s3.amazonaws.com
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A student or a scholar
One of the things I discovered about myself during the past year is that I'm a student, not a …
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The end is nigh...
Of my master's degree progress, that is. I took my comprehensive exam on Friday. At SILS, that is …
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Libra Horoscope for week of February 24, 2011 An interviewer asked me, “What is the most …
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Don't overthink it (Installment #247)
I volunteered to do a tedious job at work -- copy/paste about maybe 200-400 parameters scattered …
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Writing in the library
I had an excellent ~6 hours of solid writing/wrestling with my master's paper one day last week. At …
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Little steps
In trying to implement some new behaviors, I'm finally listening to advice and looking at how to …
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Libra Horoscope for week of December 30, 2010 In 2011, I believe you will have the chance to weave …
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2010 leaving, 2011 rushing forward
2011 begins much better, in many ways, than did 2010. At this time last year, I was involved in …
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Two views of boredom
The first, from an emotional, Buddhist perspective, and the second, from the productive academic's …
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>> Later on the same shoot, Blake and I were sitting on the beach at his estate in Malibu (for …
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So what does work? Here are some techniques Professor Wiseman has found in his study that are …
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Writing lessons learned (yet again)
I'm currently writing a final paper for my Chekhov class (which has been WONDERFUL). My teacher and …
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Examining the unlived life
Alex has a wonderful essay up this week on the unexamined life vs the unlived life. I recognized so …
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The Best Article Every day - Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
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"The enemy"
Here’s a quote from Stephen Fry’s novel Making History, one of the few passages that …
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Career Fare
Attended a career fair for master's and PhD students yesterday. I haven't been to such a thing in a …
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More on panic and discomfort
Mark Z at ZhurnalyWiki paid me the great honor of referring to my panic post. He ended with this …
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I remember some years ago someone (unfortunately I can’t remember who) wrote to me to describe …
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Toecovers
The latest memoir we've been reading is Betty MacDonald's "The Plague and I," the 1948 follow-up to …
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Panic
Alex Lickerman is a physician and practices Nichiren Buddhism, and he writes a weekly blog titled …
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The Suck Fairy
From Jo Walton at Tor.com comes the idea of The Suck Fairy, that scourge of re-reading that somehow …
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My nephew's philosophy
My brother's oldest son, Stuart, was asked by his teacher what he liked about school. He answered, …
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If you were born on this day...
Here's what the local newspaper's horoscope had to say for those lucky enough to be born today, …
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Stevereads
Stevereads tackles the history of the first Star Trek books, which were collections of stories from …
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Assorted links
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Lewis Shiner and the Fiction Liberation Front
Friend and colleague Lewis Shiner is a writer and novelist who has been releasing his fiction on the …
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Summarizing the past year
Sorry to disappoint my skeptically inquiring readers, but I love reading my weekly Freewill …
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David Markson
I can’t remember how I ran across Markson’s novel This Is Not A Novel, but I found it so …
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Assorted links
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From dr to mr
Over the July 4 weekend, I faced the fact that I was not enjoying the PhD experience. I discovered …
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Science is boring!
Interesting confluence of views from today's feeds:
Let's face it, science is boring - …
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Fall 2009 chicken
Taking a leaf from Havi’s Friday Chicken, this post will review the semester just past, but with a …
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Terry Teachout on the Mystery of Music and Great Art
It won’t surprise me if neuroscientists eventually succeed in unlocking the mystery of music. …
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Today in History
Wikipedia about today. Here's what the BBC and NY Times have to say. A …
Mr. Vidal himself never had much use for religion, Christianity especially, which he once called …
Libra Horoscope for week of July 5, 2012 Goldfish that are confined in small aquariums stay small. …
I heard someone say once that “I guess I’m just not one of those job people you hear so much about,” …
Stop stopping
Basic things to keep in mind
Be honest with yourself about how hard you’re willing to work. One thing I noticed as a trainer and …
Kato Lomb explained that your micro-environment (the bubble in which you live) is more important …
Don’t read a book once carefully. Read it 10 times, 100 times, sloppily.
All stories, no matter how fanciful, consist of information, and it behooves a serious young writer …
Actually, I’m pretty much of an independent, thinking that the chief error of Republicans is the …
If the sad truth be known, writers, being the misfits we are, probably ought not to belong to …
The world of orderly decency, harmless ceremonies and modest expectations, i.e., family life, is not …
It’s no accident that election races and and military battles are both called campaigns. …
I asked if there were any photographs of my father as a boy because I’ve never seen one, but …
It’s important to feel I’m running my work instead of letting it run me; so I’ve …
Mastery is Well-Informed Improvisation
A cleareyed Malcolm Gladwell discusses the American penchant for reducing all activity to a moral …
It is so hard to change behavior and to face oneself honestly. This author has my total admiration. …
Plato could have warned me. In “The Republic,” he advises “temperance” in physical training, …
Hospital managers at Gloucestershire NHS Trust (in 2001) and the catering staff at Flintshire County …
Doris Betts cut to the chase. To those of us engaged in writing the Great American Novel, she would …
In the overworld, the elements are: Talk to people, wander around, try new things, listen, and …
Read voraciously, many books at a time. Only then will you hear the conversation taking place among …
Red carpets, interviews and social networking are all alien to him. When a friend told him that he …
If you use willpower only to deny yourself pleasures, it becomes a grim, thankless form of defense. …
attractive to the things you want in life, …The second secret, what they never tell you, is that yes, anyone can become a writer. Merely …
Shirley is a frequent political commentator of the conservative Republican stripe (a biographer of …
The problem with trying to escape from decision-making is that that’s a decision, too. Or as …
How hard you’re working is a good indicator of whether you’re doing the right or wrong …
Every comedian is Marmite. You have that reflex action whereby you laugh or you don’t. You …
It’s wonderful to get an award, but as John Gielgud once said, the next day you’ve got …
I didn’t have any vices before the internet. There are a lot of cracks in the day, moments …
My advice is to do what you can this second. Big plans that rely on other people, new equipment, …
In an essay written last year for the SMiLE tour booklet, Van Dyke professes still not to know what …
“The need for success and the fear of failure are two aspects of the same inner attitude. For it …
Kahneman never grapples philosophically with the nature of rationality. He does, however, supply a …
People who fracture their time putting out fires seem more productive, or at least more responsive, …
Coleridge demurred only partly because he was afraid of the enormous outlay of energy it takes to …
Libra Horoscope for week of November 10, 2011 During the reign of President George W. Bush, many …
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t …
Sometimes we do find the words to express an idea, and only then realize what a stupid idea it is. …
Working from home means you can work any 18 hours of the day that you choose.
Wednesday Workout: Testing your …
My favorite instructional books acknowledge our psychic complexity. Rather than offering a …
Compulsively, we compare ourselves with those around us and find our lives wanting: other people …
The New Yorker has suffocated at times beneath a mask of wry gentility. For all its glossy …
I went to a “mindfulness” group at the psychological clinic here. I don’t know …
This may seem ironic, given that last point, but one of my favorite articles I’ve read this year: 10 …
I happened to like Paul Houser’s work in Abigail Norris and Jerry Rothwell’s The …
I think of negative thoughts and emotions, rather, as signals telling you to make adjustments to …
Not that quasi-friends are entirely bad. Sociologists have shown that “weak ties” are as …
That’s the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing …
The real trick isn’t to solve the problem, it’s to find out what problem you’re …
“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing …
Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be …
When actresses like Hathaway (and, to a lesser degree, actors like Gyllenhaal) decide to bare all, …
In fact, study after study has shown that simply monitoring your behavior is a powerful intervention …
Last month, husband was in a grumpy mood. We have a rule for those moods: Accomplish something! Pick …
You are young, and have not met the big disasters of life yet, like a divorce with children, the …
Brooks applies chaos theory in an interesting way, too, by boiling its lessons down to three …
Two experiments revealed that (i) people can more accurately predict their affective reactions to a …
The “I am doing” mind hack: Being present is important, but I find it hard to be mindful …
[R]eminiscent of John Cleese’s sharp observation (cf. Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind): …
Before the fact, wise people often look like fools. In contrast, experts often look like fools …
“Our whole life is an attempt to discover when our spontaneity is whimsical, sentimental …
:
The bones beneath the skin
A few months ago, I was struck by this tweet from HiroBoga. For whatever reason, a circuit snapped …
:
Downstream, Upstream
One of the ways to make sure a change in your life sticks is to make what you want to do so easy to …
:
Links harvest
:
This wonderful but cruel game never stops testing or teaching you. “The only comment I can make,” …
:
Dahl on travel and civilization
In this excerpt from Roald Dahl's Boy, his mother asks if he wants to go to Oxford or Cambridge. …
:
Dahl on the life of businessmen and writers
In the following excerpt from Roald Dahl's Boy, he's left public school at 18 to take a job with …
:
Roald Dahl's "Boy"
A very nice habit we picked up from Liz's parents was her dad reading to her mom. We've adapted that …
:
"Dreams with Sharp Teeth"
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE&hl=en&fs=1&w=300&h=242] Thanks …
:
Link harvest
:
Harlan Ellison:There are times when I am terribly presumptuous, to visit my personal feelings on …
:
"Keep working"
Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If …
:
I do know what the deal on the comic is: It’s $2.99 for 23 pages of story and art (the first …
:
Genuine self-confidence exists in a vacuum, requiring no one of lesser worth to be near it to …
:
Old-world skillz
I do not know how Michael Leddy finds so many great items for his Orange …
:
Like baby rats
stevereads: The Queen Victoria Series! Jean Plaidy wasn’t the only pen-name she used, far …
:
Momentum, Inertia
My loyal fanbase (Rani and Cassidy) have asked when I would start posting again, after a pause of …
:
Good fiction
stevereads: the New Yorker Fiction Issue in the Penny Press! I have a dear friend who sometimes …
:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to …
:
“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). …
:
Sleep, tossing of mind, attachment to objects, subtle desires and cravings, laziness, lack of …
:
If I hear one more person pontificate on how diabetes is TOTALLY avoidable, I will rip their living …
:
Who needs alcohol and drugs when you have Tom Waits?
:
"What is the world's story about?"
In East of Eden, John Steinbeck writes: ‘A child may ask, “What is the world’s …
:
"Informal set of rules"
By then, the veterans had developed an informal set of rules for themselves: Take the craft …
:
Writing the Lit Review for Research Methods
I recently finished a pretty big, for me, literature review that totaled about 17 pages, including …
:
We tend to think of the task of regulation as one of making systems hard to break. An alternative …
:
“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind …
:
You will need to divide your current possessions into four major categories. 1. Beautiful things. …
:
Typology of New Yorker cartoons
Given the diversity of talents who over the years contributed cartoons to The New Yorker, it may be …
:
Two projects, two fuzzy ideas, two lit review processes
The 696 independent study is starting out as a literature review of risk in institutional …
:
It always amazes me how few people go to graduate school, who actually enjoy studying.
:
The day I got no research done
:
Assorted links
Why I don't use "lol" in emails. Example 2 is the killer. Have you ever wondered what would happen …
:
Lavers on The Simple Life
The May/August 2000 issue of the North American Review contained an essay that I ripped out, kept in …
:
Unit Structures
Fred Stutzman is a PhD student at SILS and the creator of numerous good things, among them ClaimID …
:
Annie Dillard: How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
:
Is grad school a good idea?
Penelope Trunk trots out one of her regularly visited themes: why grad school is a bad idea. It …
:
Financiers tell their not-for-attribution account of the mortgage crisis like this: Americans …
:
Research Journal for my 780 class
Since our 780 Research Methods class doesn’t have a Blackboard site for the …
:
Those whom history has judged as great often came from less and strived for more than wealth. High …
:
Owl and Cat calligraphy (via peacay)
:
But forced idleness is a good thing, especially for a workaholic like I, and while I feel as if the …
:
Annoying Firefox problem fixed
For the last couple of months, I've had an incredibly annoying problem in Firefox, when entering …
:
And yet even though this Christian nonviolence is in many ways the most mainstream aspect of this …
:
Craft is something you can do until you fall into senility, but art is what you cannot do. —Robert …
:
Assorted links
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Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls,” he wrote in “The Summer of a Dormouse: A Year of …
:
Lecturing in 26-100, she said, she could only look out at the sea of faces and hope the students …
:
What I learned when working in the White House decades ago is that blunder, misunderstanding, or …
:
What's ahead for ol' Mikey?
Inspired by Rani’s post about her upcoming work (hope that’s going well for you, Rani), it’s …
:
While browsing around the site, I found that the Milk and Cheese vinyl toy set has been knocked down …
:
via nyrb.typepad.com
:
Good taste is really just a kind of aesthetic vegetarianism. -Robertson Davies
:
Paul Graham:I think the way to “solve” the problem of procrastination is to let delight …
:
On specifying your terms
One of the books I read over the Christmas vacation was Writing the Mind Alive, which one Amazon …
:
What I'm doing on my Christmas vacation
:
Spring 2009 - Independent Study
I was not terribly interested in the spring courses being offered, and The Ineluctable Cassidy …
:
Status of the Ph.D.
:
2008 Fall Semester Wrap-up
Follow-up to my fall break posting.
:
Moyra Davey on Random Reading
Moyra Davey on Random Reading “So how are we to draw up those reading lists finally? I have …
:
Lindsay Marshall on serendipity: We are not, I believe, looking for tools to record our thoughts …
:
"We are an exceptional model of the human race"
From Charles Bowden in Blood Orchid:“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no …
:
"The result is the same after all"
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry: A strange obsession, mine. But better to be addicted to …
:
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thoughts
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thoughts
:
So which is it: job or calling? You can answer the question directly, or allow time to answer it for …
:
via www.creativereview.co.uk (404)
:
Client begins first meeting by making a big show of telling you that you …
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Daniel Lemire:Highly productive people do not have more time, but they may have more energy, more …
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That’s what most people do. They keep waiting and waiting until they have enough saved …
:
The phrase “especially in this economy” is the new black.
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Maeda’s SIMPLICITY (404):It’s not for others to recognize the fruits of your work; …
:
Casting the Runes
via nyrb.typepad.com
:
"A reasonable first step"
Scott Aaronson: I see a world that really did change dramatically over the last century, but where …
:
"The most important reward of all"
Judson Jerome:Like virtue, poetry is its own reward. … The immortality game, like that of …
:
"A really simple question"
We all know the one about the Emperor walking around with nothing on, while …
:
"The foxes, the badgers and the stars"
Then, the best thing of all – coming home in the dead of night to this beautiful …
:
"And what happened then?"
It isn’t an inquisition; it’s an exploration, usually an exploration into the past,” he once said, …
:
God's Trombones
James Weldon Johnson, 1871-1938, Aaron Douglas, Illustrated by, and C. B. Falls (Charles Buckles), …
:
"Structures that are human-shaped, not idea-shaped"
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry: In the end I like structures that are human-shaped, not …
:
"As barmy as the rest"
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry: I forebear telling him that the reason I do not find …
:
Late night thoughts on getting a Ph.D.
Anthonio. In sooth I know not why I am so sad,
It wearies me: you say it wearies you;
But how I …
:
No Heroic Efforts
I meant to add this time management rule to my previous Fall Review post. I can't remember whether …
:
"Buffer zones"
I’ve never been able to grow a thicker skin, so instead I create buffer zones.
:
Fall Review
During 2007's fall break, I took a breather and penned (odd word for a blog post, but I'll use it) …
:
"Reminding him with a tap"
Anton Chekhov:There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing …
:
Writing research papers
First in a (no doubt about it) ongoing series.
When I had to do my first literature review, and my …
:
"The Midnight Disease" by Alice W. Flaherty
A few years ago, I read and enjoyed Alice W. Flaherty's memoir, The Midnight Disease. Suffering from …
:
"The price of being a visionary"
When it …
:
"Lost is okay"
People use books like …
:
Birthday horoscope for Sept. 24
Here's the regular daily 'scope:
People are more impressed by your efficiency than by your …
:
Nirvana, or something like it
My friend Rani left me the following intriguing comment:
Mike - would love to know how the …
:
On being a professional
I don't take many notes in my 500 class, but I wanted to get this down from the professor, Dr. …
:
Storing Nuggets of Information
The following are comments I left on the high-fun personal blog PigPog. Back in 2005, Michael wrote …
:
"Giant hammer"
By improbably (and I’ve often thought, mistakenly) landing a …
:
"Rickety towers of ad hoc solutions to unforeseen problems"
In a recent critical essay about economist-philosopher …
:
And when the interchangeable young man says, after the cricket game on the lawn, “Ripping …
:
Advice to a 40-odder on re-entering school
When I let it be known around the office back in 2006 that I was interested in going back to school, …
:
Hallway conversations
Rachael in the elevator: "So, Mike, are you going to do a doctorate?"
Dr. Tibbo as she was leaving …
:
Digital History Hacks
William Turkel, an assistant professor of history at the University of Western Ontario, runs a great …
:
You will have to understand that the logic of success is radically different from the logic of …
:
You will be told also – ignoring our permanent dependence on food, clothing, and shelter – that you …
:
OK - message received
Thanks for showing you gave the matter some thought by starting your email with "hmm."
:
Notes - The Book, The Internet, Literature
First heard of the "Is Google Making Us Stupid/Killing Literature" foomfahrah via this Mark Hurst …
:
The only thing you get to do in this world is choose what a good life is and then aim for it. But …
:
“There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.” -Lon Chaney
:
Got that? They’ll be a quiz. Originally from Little Pet’s Picture Alphabet, 1850’s. (via Nonist …
:
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death …
:
Here’s some advice for successfully reading a book: You need to stay focused, so try to avoid …
:
Declining books sales have led some publishers into thinking that the way to revive books is to make …
:
Stephen Fry on arguments between cousins
My previous post on winning arguments unfairly reminded me of a blog posting by the actor, writer, …
:
Don’t pack for the worst scenario. Pack for the best scenario and simply buy yourself out of …
:
Look for kindred souls. They are few and far between, and nothing is more precious.
:
Studying for the GRE
I've stopped updating my previous blog, Oddments of High Unimportance, after Google's Blogger-bots …
:
Winning Arguments (Unfairly)
The following notes are from a 1982 book by Daniel Cohen called "Re:thinking: How to Succeed by …
:
Sometimes I get emails that are more than two pages long, attempting to explain a problem. I’m going …
:
Write what you feel
Advice for the creative writer, yes. But the student? My manager is taking a summer class and his …
:
Links 18-Jul-08
:
The bottom line is that you should never spend more than $1500 on art unless you know at least …
:
Mark Hurst's "Bit Literacy"
Mark Hurst’s book Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload attacks a …
:
Nowadays, instead of saying, “He’s a prick,” I’ll say, “He’s …
:
"Why you should throw books out"
That's the title of today's post from Tyler Cowen both at his blog and as a guest blogger at Penguin …
:
Do you read a lot of contemporary fiction these days? Like everyone else, no, I don’t.
:
There is a kind of heroic pessimism running through this work, and one is inclined to appropriate …
:
Links 25-May-2008
:
Links 22-May-08
:
As within, so without
When my mind and life get cluttered, so do my physical environments. When I lived on my own, it was …
:
Too soon old, too late shmart...
...goes the old Yiddish proverb. And it works for the spring semester as well as for real life. …
:
Running...out...of...gas...
Is it me, or should the spring semester have ended a week ago? Why are we dragging it out for …
:
From MFA to MSIS
In talking to a friend, he remembered that this graduate school adventure started in early 2005, …
:
Halving, doubling, and Virginia Woolf
When I am asked, "Why did you decide to go back to school?" or "How in the world can you work a …
:
Speed Networking
The SILS Alumni Association held a speed networking event earlier this week. It's the second one I …
:
Prototyping; GUIdebook
Found some interesting or otherwise time-passable things on the web related to prototyping and our …
:
Links: file-naming conventions
I remember reading a columnist in one of the Ziff-Davis mags, back in the mid-90s, lamenting the …
:
Jumping the gun on a MacBook?
Although UNC requires incoming freshmen to buy a laptop computer, and although some SILS classes …
:
Drafting scenarios and stories
This post discusses the following readings:
:
Article critiques: scenarios, stories
This post discusses the following readings:
:
Keeping Found Things Found
A web site focused on collecting and managing personal information, from the U of Washington …
:
How is it possible? More on email
The readings that prompted these postings were:
Lehikoinen, Juha, Antti Aaltonen, Pertti Huuskonen, …
:
Systemantics
I'm starting my third official semester as a graduate student but there are still a few nuts I …
:
More on email overload
Yet more reaction to this article:
Whittaker, Steve, and Candace Sidner. "Email Overload: …
:
Email overload, content management
As verbose as I am in class, you should read my postings on the Blackboard discussion boards. Oh …
:
Early in my writing career, I had an assignment to follow around a mohel–the guy who does …
:
"No Links Please" drains HREFs, discourages web fiddling
James Clarke – No Links Please! Here’s a fun one. Our old pal (and the coiner of “life hacks”), …
:
Emails as a Game of Life?
Academic Productivity has another great post, this time on the work of Carolin Horn at the Dynamic …
:
Building models (info or economic) in your spare time
I enjoyed reading Hal Varian's paper How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time. It …
:
"More regrettable incidents in a life filled with bitter remorse"
A Flickr set of scans of artist David Fullarton’s wonderfully odd sketchbook.
:
Doomsday is Friday
For 2008, that is. Here's Wikipedia on the Doomsday rule:
The Doomsday rule or Doomsday algorithm is …
![[Tales of the Unexpected #93]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/ce0d1a4f56.jpg)
:
End o' the semester cleanup
After the Spring 2007 semester, I asked Marilyn what she did with all of her notes, drafts of papers …
:
Done, done, and done
For the last month, just as I thought I was nearing the finish line or reaching a milestone where I …
:
Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a …
:
Mike Shea:Audiobooks are my e-books. ... Audiobooks take the content from a novel and turn it into …
:
Generalisstimo
Rebecca at ProtoScholar has been on a tear of great posts lately. Her musings on being a generalist …
:
"As always in the movies"
But in the movie, as always in the movies, writing flows easily and life is hard, when in reality …
:
On actual Halloween night I didn’t even dress up, me and a group of friends just went to Keagan’s …
:
"I pretended I did"
What I found out on set on other films is, what makes a crew really roll is when the director makes …
:
My big fat learning experience
I started the fall semester a younger and more idealistic man than I am here at the halfway point …
:
Charcoal Drawing from Rushlight Literary Magazine (Wheaton College) via dspace.nitle.org
:
Charles Schultz on Peanuts
All the loves in the strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test scores are …
![[Superman #203]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/4947c3bdbd.jpg)
:
Overreactions and decisions
The SILS MSIS curriculum requires a master's paper or project and the professors of even the core …
:
“I was like: Get me out of here.”
As a child, Mr. Newman decided to pursue a career in bio-technology. This vision lasted until he …
:
So now listen up. We need to get these boxes the hell out of the warehouse. Meaning, if you are …
![[Dreaming #27]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/f4f28b0967.jpg)
![[Girls' Love Stories #148]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/4cb42f507f.jpg)
:
Advice for a Forty-Odder from a Twenty-Something
At the Kilgour lectures, OCLC President Robert Jordan said some rather challenging things to the …
![[Die Spinne #78]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/b4dec627a0.jpg)
:
"Yes. I am a sucker."
I give money to beggars. Am I a sucker? Probably. Yes. I am a sucker. I’m proud to think that …
![[Batman #23]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/7369f8be19.jpg)
:
Bestselling Comics (2006) #1205
![[Bestselling Comics (2006) #1205]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/0435b84251.jpg)
Bestselling Comics (2006) #1205
Bestselling Comics (2006) #1205
:
A Vegan/Aerobicizer Hits the Wall
From Art de Vany’s web site, ca. 2007: I ran into a guy at the gym whom I had not seen for a …
:
Bestselling Comics (2006) #3696
![[Bestselling Comics (2006) #3696]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/46a3183c52.jpg)
Bestselling Comics (2006) #3696
Bestselling Comics (2006) #3696
:
Information Architect
Web Worker Daily posts a mini-profile of Dayna Bateman, an information architect for Fry Inc. …
![[Conan the Barbarian #10]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/51d6c602cf.jpg)
:
Ontology Links
I recently had to make a presentation at work on ontologies--the basics, really, of what they are, …
:
"Every poem"
From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journal, dated October 1848: Every poem must be made up of lines …
:
Incidentally, it’s always seemed a bit curious to me that given what the Americans say they owe to …
![[Girls' Love Stories #99]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/72b9092e0e.jpg)
![[Die Spinne #119]](http://brownstudy.micro.blog/uploads/2019/0055ed1839.jpg)
:
Advice for economics grad students
Because, for whatever reason, I'm nervous about entering a world that plays according to different …
:
"Did Jesus complain? Did Jesus complain?"
Overheard at the bagel store, when the sassy counter gal was teasing her male co-worker
:
Liz-icism
“I don’t need an A-plus. I’m happy with an A.”
:
"Callous Complacence"
Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time newsletter reproduced this fascinating document from WWI war hero …
:
The Bandwidth of Books
This Design Observer post about who is reading all those books went over some familiar ground …
:
The Sociology of Suicide Notes
From the newsletter that accompanies BBC4 Radio’s Thinking Allowed program, hosted by the …
:
The Hands of an Artist
The Illustration Art blog has two wonderful posts on the great Mort Drucker. This one focuses on how …
:
Artists in Love
David Apatoff has a lovely, heartbreaking post on his Illustration Art blog about a Polish student …
:
Godamighty, but can Winterson write!
The British novelist Jeanette Winterson has maintained a web presence for many years. (She even went …
:
Don't Fear The Creeper
Datajunkie runs a great series of scans on Steve Ditko’s “Beware the Creeper!” …
:
Organizing my books
We’re studying classification in my Organization of Information class. One of my classmates …
:
Jeanette Winterson - We Need Poetry
From one of Jeanette Winterson’s latest columns, this one on why we need poetry:And in the way …
:
NaNoWriMo '06 - Lessons Learned
The blog went quiet in November because I decided to once again compete in the National Novel …
:
"Monday-morning lines"
John Sutherland’s Guardian article on the contention that some of Shakespeare’s worst …
:
Liz cracks me up
We were driving through the miles ’n’ miles of shopping center near the 70 and 540 …
:
Al & Mel's "Lost Girls"
For a man widely described as a recluse and rarely given to interviews, Alan Moore is all over the …
:
Phillips on death
The world without the people who matter to us is not the same world and so not the world at all. …
:
Doppelganger
I blogged about my new Honda Fit earlier this summer. Given that I’ve seen so few Fits in the …
:
Rating my GRE study materials
Part I dealt with how I prepared for the GRE. This is Part II.
:
V:800 Q:640
Tremble before my mighty godlike intellect, puny humans….
Atlastatlastatlastatlastatlast …
:
Rules for Computer Use
Mike Shea’s latest essay in another in the trend of many of us who are sticking our heads up …
:
Stephen Colbert Commencement Address
Stephen Colbert’s 2006 Commencement Address at Knox College
In addition to very good advice I …
:
Links 2006-05-30
Core Dump
“At first glance, technical writing and Disney don’t seem to have much of a …
:
In Our TIme - Faeries
From Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time newsletter on the Mythology of Faeries:Two of the things we …
:
Links 2006-05-27
Tricks of the Trade: Dishwasher
Microsoft W3rd. Gangsta version of Microsoft Word
Spelling poems. …
:
Preach it, sister
First Draft - If You Are Looking For A Way To Be Against Gay Marriage: “Because while I love …
:
Don't believe in God? To hell with ye
Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minorityFrom a telephone sampling of more than …
:
Fit
Since 1994 when I bought it used, I’ve driven a 1992 Chevy Lumina. I got it with about 78,000 …
:
Best paragraph I've read today
At the end of Sam Jardison's list of Top 10 books on cults and religious extremists comes this …
:
Superman
Full-page scans of Superman’s first appearance in th 1938 Action Comics
via Robot Wisdom
:
Poetry Daily: From "Epitaphs"
I like reading Poetry Daily (wish it had a proper RSS feed). I’ll sometimes print out poems I …
:
Links - 28 Apr 2006
…accumulated since Easter…
…compiled over the last few weeks, as you can tell …
:
Le Petomane
Wikipedia’s entry on Le Petomane includes this wonderful paragraph:In the following decade …
:
Alan Moore interviews
For a man described in many articles about him as a recluse, Uncle Alan sure granted lots of …
:
Goethe
From the In Our Time newsletter on the Goethe discussion:The talk in the Green Room went on for …
:
Orson Welles on art & remembrance
Courtesy Netflix, I saw Orson Welles’ F for Fake, a fascinating document. I saw it, listened …
:
Where do your taxes go?
Enter the amount of tax you paid into the National Priorities Project’s interactive tax chart …
:
Links: Power and cyborgs
“Power reveals. When a leader gets enough power, when he …
:
tinfoil.com - Early Recorded Sounds & Wax Cylinders
tinfoil.com: Dedicated to the preservation of early recorded sounds: You are about to enter the …
:
Don Quixote
Another In Our Time newsletter, this one on Don Quixote (a book I’ve tried reading a couple of …
:
Charlemagne and writing
Some of the scholarly chat programs on BBC4 radio have their own newsletters, as most media do …
:
Linksalot
Damn Interesting » Tin Foil Hats Proven Ineffective
Shakespearean Insult Generator
Creating Feeds from …
:
Creating Feeds from Feedless Web Pages
Here’s my first Backpack page that I created for a SIG meeting today. It describes how to …
:
Advertising and its Discontented
Danny Gregory is running a great series on his site called Advertising and its Discontents. This …
:
"A common destination with room for all"
Scott’s friend Chrystal has a nicearticle on religious choices. My family is a perfect example …
:
Modest Change 3: Exercise
For the past decade or more, I’ve fumbled around for an exercise program I could stick with. …
:
Modest Change 2: Keeping time
I was, for some reason, totally taken by Thomas Limoncelli’s book Time Management for System …
:
Modest Change 1: Early to Rise
Earlier this year, Merlin suggested that, instead of resolutions and big efforts, people implement …
:
Wikipedia:Unusual articles
This page has been making the rounds of the blogosphere. I like the made-up Simpsons words and many …
:
Best Desktop Pictures Ever
In my humble opinion, of course. These are from Zeldman’s old site, courtesy the Wayback …
:
The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters
Perhaps a case of the web answering a question that no one had asked, still, that’s a lot of …
:
"The most painful coincidence in recorded history"
From NY Times’ William Grimes review of the book Beyond Coincidence:
The award for the most …
:
Panhandling
Walking along Ninth Street in Durham, or Queen Street in Toronto, or anywhere, we’ve been …
:
Yet a further reason to join the ACLU
This has convinced me it’s time to join the ACLU. The security paranoia has to stop.
via
Update …
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Back in the Nanowrimo game
Well, sort of. I wrote earlier about retiring from the field when I found the story I was working on …
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Retiring from the Nanowrimo field
I was looking forward to it this year, but hit the sand early and never recovered. I started out as …
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The Revenge of the Novelist
From the NY Times obit of John Fowles.As much as it frustrated some of his readers, Mr. Fowles …
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"Due to..."
From Melvyn Bragg’s latest In Our Time newsletter:Monica Grady’s other mission seems to …
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NaNoWriMo: The Adventure Begins
Yes, I’m one of the hairpins doing the NaNoWriMo challenge, though I will only use lowercase …
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10+ year old files
During the New PC Blues upgrade process, I ran across a 5.25" floppy disk Liz had used to store …
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Links: Writing tips for academic papers
I compiled the following quickie list of paper-writing tips for a co-worker who is taking online …
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True Work
I had this on my office wall many many years ago, and can’t find the source again. But I think …
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Phrases and misspellings to expunge forever
Mike Shea has a nice list of phrases to be avoided (as well as writing rules from Orwell and Struck …
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Nice phrases
These are some phrases that have passed my way that have struck me, for whatever reason.
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Personal Inventories and Piggy Banks
Whilst reading through some collections of old David Allen essays I’ve culled from his …
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In case you needed another reason to join the ACLU
The Transportation Security Administration maintains “no-fly lists” of people whose …
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The Dalai Lama Shower
I saw the following originally in Thirty Thousand Days, the newsletter for The To Do Institute. …
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Doomsday Algorithm
I’ve loved this little trick for years: the Doomsday Algorithm, a creation of Dr. John Conway, …
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Checklist for fiction writing
Back in the days of iron men and wooden computers, I was a denizen of Compuserve. I remember in the …
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"Those were softer days"
I read to Liz before she goes to bed, and lately, we’ve settled on memoirs. The first was a …
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"Making commodes and dining tables"
From Essays in Love by Alain de Botton: It is hard to imagine Christianity having achieved such …
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Arnold Bennett quotes
Quotes from Journal Of Things New and Old by Arnold Bennett (about 1923) All political parties in …
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Moleskine harvesting
I recently finished off one of my little squared Moleskine buddies. I don’t number the pages, …
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Stoicism
I was just listening to a BBC Radio4 discussion on Stoicism and thinking how that and the Tao te …
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The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
This post has been making the rounds of late, but it’s especially interesting to me now as 1) …
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The Limits of Reading
Anthony Lane, in an excellent appraisal of PG Wodehouse in The New Yorker (April 19 & 26, 2004 - …
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The Warden and Barchester Towers
After listening to Trollope’s Autobiography via Audible.com, I got a Bantam paperback edition …
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Monthly splurge list
I copied this tip from some money-management page online:Impulse purchases are always the things …
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New Vocabulary
Some of the words Liz and I have invented because there was a need:
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On Arnold Bennett
This blog’s subtitle, “Oddments of High Unimportance,” comes from Arnold …
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I fell into a brown study
From “The Resident Patient” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Finding that Holmes was too absorbed …