Feynman notebook

I'm tackling calculus, with Silvanus Thompson's Calculus Made Easy. A subject that I entirely detested, but have since found beauty in. But learning is hard.

Cal Newport has a blog post about a study hack method called Feynman's notebook. The idea is simple: translate your growing knowledge of something hard into a concrete form and you’re more likely to keep investing the mental energy needed to keep learning

A notebook with handwritten notes has sprung up. THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT. Indeed.

Weekends & mindfulness

This weekend, for the first time in a while, we spent the time doing family things - binge watching some shows, eating, teasing one another, laughing, catching up on sleep, reading and enjoying one another's company (until we got on one another's nerves!). The weekend still has an hour or so left in it, and the house is calm.

I also did something that seems terrifying - I uninstalled most social media apps from my phone. Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn (why do I still have that?). Given that I seem to be checking one or the other for unmentionable periods of time, including as soon as I wake up, or just before falling asleep, this purge is well warranted.  I'm going to give it a shot, anyways. Given my experience (& failure) with these sort of experiments, I'm trying it out one day at a time.

Being mindful.

Creaking bones

Last week, my wife insisted that I spend 45 minutes with her at the community exercise program on Monday morning. She's been going a few weeks now, & says it's been awesome, so why don't I give it a try?

I get lot of exercise - focused very much around my fingers: scrolling across the screen on my mobile or typing on a keyboard, for most of the day. This year, as I slide into an age demographic that's properly considered middle aged, the disconnect between how my mind feels about my body, & how my body responds to such feelings couldn't be more clear.

I work from home on Mondays, so I could manage this time. I let my wife convince me that going to this was a good idea. Many people come along, she said. Most of them are like you & me, have had no proper exercise, or the time to get any of it either - children, partners, dogs & life in general tend to get in the way. My wife, the rock upon which our family's structure rests, has for the first time in over a decade been able to actually get some time to herself, after both kids get bundled off to school.

Trusting as I am of my wife, I signed up for this last week. The sign-up page required my physical metrics, & in the 'why' section, I selected "would like to get a few kilos off my frame".

Nothing could prepare me for this morning though. My wife was right. There were many people, sure. Young, old, shapely, shapeless. Something seemed a bit out of place though: THERE WERE NO MEN! When the session finally began, one other male, a retired gent who looked about 65, joined the group.

Everything after that was a blur. We warmed up, did several reps of exercises, cooled down, & got home. As I'm typing this out, even the bones on my fingers are hurting.

BUT:
The 45 minutes of exercise went by quickly.
I've been exceptionally productive all day today, getting through most of the tasks I'd set out for myself.
And for the first time, I'm actually feeling good after having done some exercise that wasn't something other than walking.

Will do this again next week.

Learning anew

How much I hated the rote learning of formulas, especially when it came to trigonometry & calculus!

For one, I didn't understand why it was remotely useful for those of us who'd taken up accounting / commerce as our primary learning area (no, we couldn't do double degrees - one was bad enough!) Worse still, was the (now apparent) lack of understanding of some teachers themselves, in so far as being unable to explicitly tie the things we were learning to something in the visible world.
There was neither the intrinsic motivation to learn, nor did it seem relevant or important to just get on with it, & get an intuition for it.

There may have been a few of my fellow students who innately understood it in relation to their technical interests, but I strongly suspect they cared about as much as I did, which was very little.

A couple of weeks ago, Rasmus Baath, a researcher, tweeted a link to a 100+ year old Calculus text book, which he followed up by tweeting that his one post that went viral was a book on maths, not cats! I was curious why that may have been so, & spent a little time looking for the pdf of the book that is now clearly out of copyright, & therefore freely available.

Two pages in, & I was hooked. I mean, how could you not be, when the book is titled: "Being a very simple-est introduction to those beautiful methods of reckoning which are generally called by the terrifying names of the differential calculus and the integral calculus by the RFS".

The quote on the next page simply states: "What one fool can do, another can" (Ancient Simian proverb)

The prologue is even more relevant: "To deliver you from the preliminary terrors, which chokes off most (kids) from even attempting to learn how to calculate", with a lucid explanations about the dreadful symbols for differentiating & integrating!

I've now spent at least a good few hours of my time learning about the fascinating teaching style of the author, a man named Silvanus Thompson! I know he'd have gotten an incredible amount of needling from the boys he'd have taught (if my classmates were any reflection of the cruelty reserved for teachers). I'm grateful that he took the time to write as he has, & that the book is still available.  I know it is, because I bought a used copy off one of my favourite online bookseller.

Learning

My 10 year old taught me to do somersaults in the pool today. She was chuffed I could do it after drinking the pool a few times :)
And then she taught me how to do back-flips.  I learnt that too. Much harder than the somersaults. I'm sore, and tired. And pleased. And very happy.

She was a good teacher. I may have been an okay student. Should ask her when she wakes up in the morning.

Stuff

Your house is a just a pile of stuff with a cover over it - George Carlin

A google search for decluttering brought up 1.9m results.  There's links to creative ways to declutter your home, decluttering secrets from professional organisers, what not to do when decluttering, how to cut clutter from your home, decluttering your home AND your head & even questions whether the cult-like rise of decluttering is even healthy!  

Turns out that simply buying less shit (stuff?) isn't an option even worth considering. And lest I sound like I'm on some moral high ground, here's an inventory of the stuff that's on my desk alone!

• Two monitors
• A wireless modem
• A webcam
• Three speakers
• Two camera battery chargers 
• A laser pointer
• 5 USB sticks
• 11 Calligraphy pen holders
• 15 bottles of ink
• 12 bottles of gouache colors
•  A lamp
• A clock
• 3 Photoframes
• A mug full of pens (20?)
• Lens cleaning liquid
• A laptop
• Headphones
• Toastmaster magazines
• A dictionary
• A thesaurus
• 6 other books
• A remote
• A mobile phone
• An in-tray with stuff I don't want to look at just yet
• A keyboard
• A mouse
• A mousepad

When I tell my kids they have far too many toys (or anything else), I'm reminded that I can't preach what i don't practice. 

The last few days have been spent cleaning out stuff that was most likely a spontaneous purchase. Three garbage bin pickups, a council cleanout booking, two recycle bin pickups, & some stuff we'll never use given away to friends who have some use for it- all in the last three weeks. There's still an enormous amount of stuff that will continue to depart our household over the course of the year, but I have no doubt other stuff will take its place.

Memorial

Time flies.

It's two weeks into the New Year. That means enough time has passed for a large number of New Year Resolutions to have been broken.

Late nights, broken internet connections & general busyness around the house has been my excuse for the last week.

But it's no longer last week.

**********************

15 years ago this day, my grandpa passed away.
I loved him dearly.
A kind man. He made my childhood memorable.
With stories of his childhood. Tales of tigers & elephants where he grew up.
Taught me how to enjoy a coffee. To this day, dipping a rusk into a hot mug of coffee is still the best for me.

I miss you Aba.

Breakthrough

The sun's out today. After four days of incessant rain.

As I ran up the stairs to the train station, I stopped in my tracks (pun intended).  A magical sight - a rainbow that suddenly became two rainbows. I pulled out my phone & snapped this picture up, just as it started to drizzle again.

By the time I got to the platform, it was already beginning to fade away. Moments later, it was gone.
For those three minutes, it was a surreal view.

The day's been much brighter today.
The world looks much greener.
Challenges that were insurmountable seem to have been washed away..

Pendulum waves

An old video of pendulum waves - Randomness still shows some pattern.

"Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion."

Pick any one pendulum & try to focus on just its movement.

Soliloquy

How do we know when we're having a conversation?
Does it require the presence of another person?
Does it require them to actively participate? To speak? and/or listen?
How do we know they're listening? That what we've said has been heard?

Trying to get the kids out of bed this morning (the dreary weather continues) got me thinking about this.
I knew they were awake because I could hear them whispering amongst themselves.
Singing out a cheery "good-morning kids" got me no respnose.
Calling out each one by name from the hall got me no response.
Raising my voice got no response.

Make a blog entry online is a similar challenge.
The motivation to write is so I can get these thoughts out of my head & into the ether.
However, rarely (never) has anyone replied to anything I've written.

The kids spoke to me when they were ready.
I guess the same is true here too.

Nostalgia

Always take the weather with you.. - Crowded House

It's been bucketing down for the last 24 hours. The forecast says two more days of this. There have been flash floods reported, and half the extended holiday period for some people is now guaranteed to be spent indoors.

The weather is making me nostalgic about my pre-teen years. 

The smell of freshly deep fried jackfruit papads.

The sound of rain lashing on clay tile roof. 

The mesmerising patterns of water flowing off the roof onto the ground, leaving tiny conical impressions on the soft red soil.

Card & board games with my sister.

Curling up on a bench with a rug & a hot cup of milk.

More often with a grown-up kind of book that would take days to read at regular pace.

The nights would be spent in the light of a flickering candle or a kerosene lamp, hearing stories from our parents about their childhood.

Occasionally having my grandparents would be over. Grandma would tell us tales about the house she grew up in, which was the house we were living in at the time. Pets around the house. A mini dairy farm. Wild animals roaming freely at the periphery of the compound. A tiger or leopard occasionally making off with one of the animals.   Stories about lightning strikes as we looked out at the not yet dead coconut tree in the front yard. And stories about the tenants who lived in the now damaged huts.

Exploring the rooms in the (what seemed like) enormous house, a portion of which were strictly off-limits to us children.

Off-limits not because of the treasures they contained (they did), but because of structural damage to the walls.

It was a magical time because there was so much to do even when you were stuck indoors, without a radio, or a TV or an internet connection.

Somehow, as we grow older, that magic is lost.

The rains become an inconvenience.

We get drenched. Roofs leak. Things get wet. Sometimes to the point of being unusable.

Transport services are delayed.

We can't get to our important / urgent meetings on time. Or without looking like we just got out of the shower.

Clothes don’t dry as fast. And perfume can't / won't suppress the smell of damp clothes.

Some type of screens provide a distraction. Rarely does the power go out.

Sometimes, we are reminded that we aren't in control.

All those memories came flooding as I watched Mother Nature showering (or drowning) her children with unrequited liquid love. 

Renewal

There's something about the change of one (or perhaps two, & once in my lifetime, 4) digits of the calendar that urges most of us to make promises to ourselves.  They tend to be well intentioned promises - lose weight, eat better, love more, live more, do something crazy ad infinitum.

I've done this for as many years as I can consciously remember. It seems like a peer-pressure thing - I'd get asked what my new year resolutions were. The person doing the questioning would usually have a dozen of his/her own that they wanted to share. Not to be outdone, I'd make up a bunch of my own, with about as much hope of achievement as a wisp of smoke in a hurricane.

As I grow older though, I find myself making tweaks to my ongoing plans & systems.  As Scott Adams says, a system is better than a goal  - it's more likely that I will achieve what motivated me to set the system in place in the first place.

My routine changed in the last two weeks of 2015 - I switched off my computers for most of the waking day, focusing on doing physical things. Helping my wife with her garden. Repairing & restoring stuff. Reading a book. Talking to the kids. Playing games. Reading an occasional blog on my phone. Restricting the intake of food & drink during a season devoted to excesses. Sleeping longer (& not wearing a fitbit to monitor it). Noticing my thoughts. Writing longer entries in my journal. Reading old journal entries. Rearranging. Cleaning. Discarding. Rearranging. Redecorating. Reliving old memories.

  

And in the midst of all this, I remembered a decision I made a while ago to stop posting to this blog. I had forced myself to post every day, & did so meticulously for a year. Then ennui set in. It seemed like a pointless exercise. So I stopped. The posts were links to stuff I read & found interesting. But there wasn't much I had written.

Writing is cathartic for me. I write in my journals, or on blank sheets of paper. I use a fountain pen. There's an element of control. My arm moves. The ink flows out. Words are formed. Ideas come to life. Or die.  Resolutions happen at that moment for me. The act of writing things down.

Different context, but "Stop writing everything down" are among the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song that's playing in the background as I wrote those last six words. 

Human? Or Chimpanzee?

Five judges in a New York court rule chimpanzees don't fit definition of a "legal person" http://t.co/lfYsJjWBw5 pic.twitter.com/9Sk7a8Di34
— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) December 5, 2014

The events occurring (as they have been since whenever) across the supposed "developed"  or "first world" countries give sufficient cause to think that the judges are mistaken.
After all, chimpanzees do kill their own species. Not very different in that sense, are we?

Everything's amazing, and yet everything's mundane

Progress is how the miraculous becomes mundane. Many of our ancestors would have given limbs for the privilege of seeing what’s on the other side of our window shades in the sky. Glad all we need is to give up our cynicism about flying.

from a blog post by the inimitable Doc Searls. 

Very often, I forget that if only I stop staring at some screen or book I'm engrossed in & look up, something fascinating is happening all around me. Whether it is people's conversations, or Nature's thandava, something always is happening. The mere fact that I can type this on some plastic-y object, & things magically appear on a screen that's glowing, & with the push of a button, all 12 of my blog readers can see my thoughts - isn't that miraculous?  

What other miracles have I missed today because I'm so busy pretending to be the center of the universe? What have you missed?

Bonus link: Everything's amazing, but nobody's happy

Finding a voice in public

I've never forgotten the first time I did it.

I was in in year 3, & apparently the teacher thought me the brightest kid in class. I'd changed schools that year (& had failed in at least two subjects in the previous class, so how that happened remains a mystery to me).

Being the 'brightest' automatically meant that you were selected for any competitions - debates, speech contests, sports etc. I was terrible at sports and not much better at anything else, although I loved reading & math.  I got selected for a speech contest. I don't remember what my subject was. But I do remember standing on a stage that seemed twenty feet above the ground, looking at an ocean of people I did not know, freezing up, forgetting every word of what my mom had helped me prepare & rehearse. The worst part was being booed off the stage by a sea of cruel faces, most of who were just as old as I was.

I remember my fateful decision that day to never, ever get in front of a crowd to speak again.  It has had nearly catastrophic consequences.

Fast forward to the 2000's. I discovered Toastmasters through a series of co-incidences, found the love of my life who was the daughter of my mentor, gave up Toastmasters for half a decade as life got in the way, rejoined it when I moved countries, & have nearly gotten over the fear of talking to most crowds, however big or small.

Nearly, I said.

I've been reading/ listening to a lot of blog posts & podcasts of late, & have been wondering why I've not really done things that I'm rather reluctant to do because of those voices in my head.  One of them is doing presentations/ public speaking at work. Talk (pun intended) of coincidences  - an opportunity arose to host the monthly team meeting, & I found myself thinking about a particular podcast, & volunteering when no one else in the room wanted to. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.

I'm fortunate that I have built some really strong relationships at my workplace. As soon as I told them what foolhardiness I had embarked upon, I had some incredible support from my friends at work. I came up with a few of my own ideas & my colleagues were happy to suggest theirs too. The leaders were also really supportive, despite my reservations about doing this.

One of those podcasters / blog posters that have really kicked my ass into gear has been James Altucher. I messaged James on Twitter, telling him just that.

I was awestruck when James replied back, asking how the event went, & reminding me to breathe from my diaphragm, not my chest! He probably has already forgotten his simple act, but that did incredible things to my confidence when I was beginning to think that I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

The meeting went well, & while I was still nervous & a bit out of sorts, I've been getting feedback from a few who attended the meeting about how fresh it was, & that it was the first time they thought it was a worthwhile use of their time. Wow!

And thank you again, James.  I think I've found some courage to raise my voice in public again.

Not tongue tied: An elevator experience

What do you do when you get into an elevator at work, & don't really know who the one other person in there is?

My usual reaction (and one that I've been consciously trying to overcome) is to whip out the phone, & stare at the screen (I've done it even when I've run out of battery).

For the last few weeks, I've made a conscious effort to talk, even if it is something mundane like the weather (and the weather has been anything but mundane lately).

Happened again, yesterday.   He was responsive, had no phone in his hand either! We chatted and got out the same floor. 

And only when we parted did I realise that the reason he looked so familiar was because I'd seen his picture so many times. 

I hope to be as calm when conversing with anyone as I was yesterday when chatting away with the CEO.

A good reminder. Again.

I wrote this quote out this morning. A quick check on my favourite quote researcher  and it appears that this quote has been wrongly attributed to several other people, most prominently Maya Angelou. Documentary evidence unearthed by the Quote Investigator identifies Carl W. Bruehner as the originator in 1971.

I also did something quite out of the ordinary for me. I made a few copies of this & shared it with a few senior leaders at work that I was in a meeting with. Who knows what impact it may have? Regardless, I think as a communicator (aren't we all??), it is important to remember the emotional valence of our words & actions.

 photo posted by Neil (@pointedpen) on Nov 11, 2014 at 11:39am PST

What does "focus" really mean?

I regularly have days that I can't seem to find focus. 

It is a struggle because my day job requires me to complete certain tasks whether I am focused or not.  

It's on days like these that motivation levels drop off a cliff. 

It seemed like today was one of those days.  To make things worse, I had a lunch that didn't do any help for my energy levels.

So I did what I'd not done in a long time. Took my laptop & notebook, walked outside the building I normally work in, & sat outside. Took a deep breath. Actually, quite a few. Took in the view. Of people smoking in a corner, chatting away over coffee. Eating solitary late lunches, hunched over their phones. The weather looking ominous, the dark clouds gathering to drop their heavy load any minute now. 

And in the next 30 minutes, I got done the three crucial things I was unable to focus on since the morning. 

Leo Babauta had a blog post a while ago on this subject a few months a year ago. About Finding Focus.  If you'd rather not click that link, here's a summary:

Now sit there with your task. Dive in. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted.
You’ll have the urge to go check something. That’s a nice urge — just watch it and smile. Don’t act on the urge. Just smile. Now go back to what you chose to do.
Do it for 10 minutes, however long you feel is pushing the boundaries of what’s comfortable for a little bit.
Then give yourself a nice reward: ...
Now go back.
Repeat. With a smile.

 It worked.

Energy levels & food: an observation

Aaargh... 

The joy of being aware of something is that it also brings silly things in sharp focus. 

Rice, mongolian beef curry & schezwan chicken for lunch. 

A great recipe for drowsiness. 

And also an opportunity to sit outside & enjoy the weather while working on an important task. 

Back to work. 

Revival: My recollection of the year gone by since the last active post.

It began with a long-awaited holiday. Going away from life as usual. Seeing family. Meeting friends, at least the ones interested enough to catch up for a coffee.  Lots of dental visits. And little, if any, "online" activities. And a conscious choice to not post anything for a while. 

That "while" has turned out to be a year. A whole year. 

In the meanwhile, not posting as much meant I had the time to pursue other things I wished I had the time for. 

Calligraphy. Using the traditional dip pen & ink kind. After a bit of mucking around with various styles, I chose to go with copperplate calligraphy. Bought a few nibs. Brought out the fountain pen inks that I'd never used in a while. Quickly realized I had an awful lot to learn. How to hold the penholder. That nibs are called pens. The right way to draw guide lines. Or where to find & print them. Angles, ovals, flourishes, majuscules, base lines & headerlines.  Learning to make sense of the jargon. 
And more importantly, where to look for help. Iampeth (that site is under renewal right now). Zanerian. A whole host of penmen (and women) around the world who were as fascinated with the simple art of writing letters using, not a keyboard, but an old-fashioned pen. A whole host of brilliantly talented people who make their own pens & penholders. Even a TEDx talk devoted to calligraphy!  I've made some progress on this, & have begun using Instagram to hold myself to account, writing a quote a day for practice (and to lurk around those other awesome inspirational penmen around the world for eg Dr. Joe Vitolo, the insanely talented Schin Loong & the very generous Leenah. 

Python. Not the snake. The programming language.  A couple of reference books to teach myself basic stuff. Install. Search for help. Write some basic programs. And how to learn code the hard way.  
R. Not the letter, but the Statistical programming language. Again, not big progress but enough to understand the language.  This book has been my reference.

Helped write a training handbook for Tableau users.

Physical activity. Simply walking around the block. Walking longer distances to & from public transport. Short & long bushwalks. Never boring when the kids are with me, and great practice of motivating very tired young legs. 

Time with the kids. Amazing how quickly they grow up. Stellar how they bond when I have undisturbed time with them. Quantity is important, & "total attention" is the quality. Both are crucial, imho. 

Lots of reading. That addiction didn't really go away. Began with one published in 1940, called "How to read a book" by Mortimer Adler. The most useful so far: How to fail at almost everything and still win big by Scott Adams. Fiction:  So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. Reference (mostly unsuccessful attempts at disciplined effort): Norman Lewis' Word Power Made Easy. Incessant references to Reddit & my Feedly subscriptions (not sure how I can share that OPML link). 

Gazillion music videos on YouTube. Favorite subscription find so far - Josh Turner, NPR's Tiny Desk Concert, & Candy Rat Records. Shout out to the World Music subreddit. Beth Hart. I probably have a whole post devoted to the process of discovering music this year. Maybe I will. A fantastic performance by L Subramaniam, Jean Luc Ponty & Billy Cobham from a while ago. 

I even watched a movie with my wife. Lunch Box. Probably a few others without me really noticing, which is a very common occurrence since I don't really care for them. 

Podcasts, starting just a few weeks ago. A friend commented "Welcome to 2007" when I said I'd finally got a few subscriptions. Thanks to Ken Black who blogs at 3danim8, I decided to listen to this podcast interview with Slomo by Rich Roll. James Altucher, the idea machine, has my vote for his no-nonsense, sometimes quite brusque interviews that are always fantastic value for time invested. I am hooked on the weekly releases of Serial.

Work kept me preoccupied & out of trouble most days. Appreciation of the beauty of nature along my daily journey helps keeps my sanity. As does the daily practice of meditation, which of late has taken the form of my daily habit of writing quotes in a calligraphic hand. 

This post began with me tearing the last few strands of my hair off my balding pate, wondering how on earth was I going to rekindle my blog with. I think I've done enough for a first sitting. Hopefully, I will have more to share in the days ahead. 

If you really took the time to read this far, thank you. 

My experience as a nurse on Christmas Island [Article]

Worth a read  - the viciousness of recent developments from a country that ought to be magnanimous, as seen through the eyes of a nurse looking after the victims..

Mark Twain's aim at some literary greats [Article]

"Mark Twain’s Viciously Funny Marginalia Took Aim at Some Literary Greats" - notes from the margins.

How the US media would cover Thanksgiving if it happened elsewhere [Article]

The language of news when its "them".

My Big 10 inch..record of the band that played the blues [Music]

Time for unwinding - Bull Moose Jackson

Kurt Vonnegut's first public reading "Breakfast of Champions" [Audio, LInk]

This is the very first public reading by Kurt Vonnegut of the classic Breakfast of Champions, three years before it was published. Vonnegut appeared at 92Y a total of seven times and he had much admiration for the audience at the corner of 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue.  Add 92Y to your list of sites if you're interested in literature/ poetry/ biography etc.

Wheelchair inspiration [Video]

When falling off a wheelchair feels pretty good, like a cup of good coffee

A Thanksgiving letter to the family [Letters]

Margaret & Helen's blog is always full of interesting views on life. I guess it helps that in your eighties, you've seen it all before. Every year, Margaret writes a letter to the family - and is happy for the interested parties in the rest of the world to read it too. Here's the 2013 version.

For the mathematically inclined: Stop and smell the factors [Video]

A lovely explanation called "How I feel about algorithms". Even if you hate math, watch this video to see beauty in numbers.

Latest Revelations concerning the NSA, a division of the Claus Industries [Humor]

T Rob has the scoop:

It was revealed today in secret documents leaked to this reporter that the US National Security Agency (NSA) is actually a division of Claus Industries, LLC, a company synonymous with its eponymous founder and CEO, Santa Claus....Years ago, as world population rose beyond Santa’s ability to personally keep track of all of us, he first subcontracted, then eventually built his own surveillance teams.  Over the last decade, dedicated Claus Industries surveillance teams have been deployed to every country around the globe, all of them posing as government spy agencies.

The Shepherd who Twittered - [Article]

Herdy Shepherd who is a shepherd, & a late Twitter adopter, writes about his experiences with the technology. An engaging read:

If you spend your life working with sheep in the fells (what you’d call mountains) you perhaps don't really need to be 'connected' and you probably don't have time for, or need to have, fancy techno gadgets in your pocket. Our world is one of mountains, meadows, dry-stone-walls, sheep, sheepdogs and managing the landscape much as our ancestors have done over many centuries (it’s being nominated for World Heritage status because of its unique landscape culture).

Predictably Irrational: Dan Ariely [Article]

Dan Ariely sheds some great insights into what drives our irrationally rational behavior. Mr. Money Moustache links to this article from the good professor. If you have the time or inclination, I highly recommend this course, titled Introduction to Behavioral Economics

on Training [Image]

On the subject of to-do-lists [Article]

Bob Fulghum has his say:

Like most people I maintain an active Things-To-Do list.
But that’s not my only list – there are others.
Like The Things-I-Will- Do-Tomorrow-Whenever-Tomorrow-Comes list.
And the Things-I-Should-Have-Done-By-Now-But-Don’t-Want-To-Do list.
Plus the list of things I actually did, but in a half-assed way, knowing I should have got somebody who knows what they’re doing to do it.
There’s also a reality list of Things-I-Know-I’m-Never-Going-To-Do.

Conductor Erich Leinsdorf breaks the news of Kennedy's assassination [Audio]

A recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s live reaction (and audience reaction) to JFK’s assassination:

 “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a press report over the wireless. We hope that it is unconfirmed, but we have to doubt it. That the president of the United States has been the victim of an assassination. We will play the funeral march from Beethoven’s Third Symphony.”

This is how you die [Video]

Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable MACHINE OF DEATH edited by Matthew Bennardo, Ryan North, and David Malki

The necessary art of subtraction [Article]

Leo Babuata asks what can you let go of in your present circumstances?

The tendency of our lives, businesses, art, is to keep adding: more furniture, clothes, gadgets, tasks, appointments, features to websites and apps, words to our writing.

I have a list of things I'd like to stop doing, and I keep adding to it :)

Rejection letters sent to three famous artists [Article]

From Open Culture: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut & Andy Warhol all received multiple rejection letters throughout their careers, and here are those that each one received.

The importance of education [Letters of note]

Alexander Coward's email to his students insisting that they turn up to class despite his colleagues going on strike has gone viral.

...do not fall into the trap of thinking that you focusing on your education is a selfish thing. It’s not a selfish thing. It’s the most noble thing you could do.
Society is investing in you so that you can help solve the many challenges we are going to face in the coming decades, from profound technological challenges to helping people with the age old search for human happiness and meaning.
That is why I am not canceling class tomorrow. Your education is really really important, not just to you, but in a far broader and wider reaching way than I think any of you have yet to fully appreciate. 

Voltaire on the Perils of Censorship, the Freedom of the Press, and the Rewards of Reading [Article]

Voltaire's birthday occurs around this time (Nov 21), & is as good a reason as any to read this.

Doris Lessing in conversation with Bill Moyers [Interview]

I'm fascinated with this lady who I'd never heard of until she passed. Listen to this interview with Bill Moyers. & her reaction to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature

Reading to kids: how not to, unless you want to terrify them [Audio]

Benjamin Percy (author of the werewolf thriller Red Moon) takes the sweet children’s bedtime story, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and turns it into a story that will keep kids (and maybe adults) awake for days on end

Henry David Thoreau's Natural Law [Article]

A reminder to myself to read Thoreau on Natural Law again.

Who said seniors can't dance hip hop? [Video]

Grandpa can dance. and how!

The new Simon & Garfunkel? Milk Carton Kids again [Video]

Beautifully blending voices & some immaculate guitar-ing has got me hooked on to this music. Hope of a lifetime and Snake Eyes on the ABC National Radio. Snake Eyes will make your hair stand on end. Mine did.

Replacing goals with systems more effective for personal development [Article]

Scott Adams believes the research that says everyone has a limited supply of willpower. And when you use it for one goal, you have less left for the other. Goals are good, but for most of us,

we have no idea where we'll be in five years, what opportunities will arise, or what we'll want or need by then. So our best bet is to move from a place of low odds to a place of better odds. That means living someplace that has opportunities, paying attention to your health, continuously upgrading your skills, networking, and perhaps dabbling in lots of different areas.... Systems simply move you from a game with low odds to a game with better odds. With a system you are less likely to miss one opportunity because you were too focused on another. With a system, you are always scanning for any opportunity.

Scott's new book "How to fail at almost everything & still win big: kind of the story of my life" is now available.

A Nobel Prize winner's letter to the British empire [Letters of note]

Nobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing passed earlier this week. In 1992, when offered a chance to become a Dame by the British monarchy, she wrote this letter back. Doris wasn't  one to mince words.

Dame of what?

3D printing clothes: The next revolution will not be hand-stitched [Article\]

Charlie Stross's vision of the printed clothing future:

You go in, go to the scanning booth, and do the airport-equivalent thing in a variety of positions—stretch and bend as well as hands-up. You then look at the styles on display on the shop floor, pick out what you like, and see it as it will appear on your own body on an avatar on a computer screen. You buy it, and a machine in the back of the store (or an out-of-town lights out 24x7 robotic garment factory) begins to print it. Some time later—maybe minutes, maybe hours or a day or two—the outfit you ordered comes to you. And it fits perfectly, every time. Some items are probably still off-the-shelf (socks, hosiery, maybe even those cheap tee shirts), but anything major is printed, unless you can afford to go to the really high end and pay a human being to make it for you out of natural fibres. Oh, and the printed stuff doesn't have seams in places that chafe or bind.

But it isn't all good. Read on.

The Milk Carton Kids: the NPR Tiny Desk Concert [Video]

Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale are the Milk Carton Kids. I've been hooked since I heard the first song.

Accept it, whether you can change it or not [Article]

David shares his thoughts on acceptance, which to him does not mean agreeing or resigning to an outcome. It is simply the letting go of the emotional demand for something to be different.

The Robots are here: and they're taking more than just jobs [Article]

A very interesting article by Tyler Cowen in the Politico titled "The robots are here"

“A modern textile mill employs only a man and a dog—the man to feed the dog, and the dog to keep the man away from the machines.” That is the world in which we now live.

Against Efficiency Machines | thread & circuits [Article]

Ian Bogost's essay on Hyperemployment  has inspired a few more on the subject. Read this one by Mimi Thi Nyugen about how blogging & tweeting are turning academics into the machines that Frederick Taylor described. Against Efficiency Machines. [Could be a hard read]

Renaud Garcia Fons on the double bass [Video]

Sixteen minutes of bliss for a few lucky NPR staffers, provided by double bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons.  From NPR Tiny Desk concerts.

Self-discipline in 5 sentences [Article]

From Leo Babauta:

Have a powerful reason — when things get difficult, “because it sounds nice” or “to look good” aren’t going to cut it.

Start tiny, with a simple but unbreakable promise to yourself to do one small thing every single day.

Watch your urges, and learn not to act on childish whims.

Listen to your self-rationalizations, and don’t believe their lying ways.

Enjoy the habit, or you won’t stay with it longer than a week’s worth of sunrises.

Dance. It's good for the soul. [Video]

Now if only I could heed that advice. Watch this sgt. do some groovy moo-ves at a Marine Corps Ball

The resentment machine: The immiseration of the digital creative class [Essay]

Freddie deBoer's calls the Internet the resentment machine in his scathing essay.

The role of the resentment machine: to amplify meaningless differences and assign to them vast importance for the quality of individuals. For those who are writing the most prominent parts of the internet—the bloggers, the trendsetters, the über-Tweeters, the tastemakers, the linkers, the creators of memes and online norms—online life is taking the place of the creation of the self, and doing so poorly.

Not entirely untrue, although blaming the tool for lack of discipline seems to be the choice of every generation.

Senegalese music: Orchestra Baobab [Music]

Soulful - like most African music. Listen to Orchestra Baobab from 1982, performing Coumba.

Letter to the Telegraph, 1913, on women's voting rights [Letters]

"Sir,
Everyone seems to agree upon the necessity of putting a stop to Suffragist outrages; but no one seems certain how to do so. There are two, and only two, ways in which this can be done. Both will be effectual:
1. Kill every woman in the United Kingdom.
2. Give women the vote.

Yours truly,
Bertha Brewster.
"
the original Tweet here via @LettersOfNote

A tool to ease birth. Designed by a car mechanic [Article]

The idea came to Jorge Odón, an Argentine car mechanic, as he slept. Somehow, he said, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the same parlor trick could save a baby stuck in the birth canal.

As one of the comments on this article says, it is a good reminder that  truly revolutionary breakthroughs rarely, if ever, come from someone immersed in the field and practicing the discipline. It's always an outsider, unfettered by the beliefs and paradigms of the present state that can think clearly and see what is really needed.

The Act by Adam Haslett [Short story]

Grandfather. Father. Son. Three men. And the act that binds them all together.

Abdel Wright: Quicksand [Music]

Check out Abdel Wright's songs "Quicksand" & "For the Poor"

Thirty thousand words. In Pictures.

Found this link to 30 pictures on Reddit - and they are very powerful images - they speak more than a thousand words each.

On shooting an elephant. George Orwell [Story]

My younger self had read Orwell's "On Shooting an Elephant" (when maybe 11 or 12?)- and it did not make much of an impression at the time. Re-read the story last night. Wow, is all I could muster.  
As an aside, "The Literature Network" has some great stuff, which I hope remains in the public domain.

What No One Tells You About Losing Lots of Weight - The Cut [Article]

[Not for the easily offended]
Just after her wedding in 2009, when she weighed 338 pounds and became determined to lose much of it, photographer Julia Kozerski embarked on a new art project. She took photos of herself in department-store dressing rooms, documenting her body's transformation as she lost what would end up being 160 pounds. [NSFW]

Your loving mother (Letters of note)

On January 22nd of 1919, during her freshman year at college, 19-year-old Margaret Mitchell (the author of Gone with the Wind) received word that her mother had fallen ill as a result of a deadly flu pandemic that was sweeping the globe, along with instructions from her father to return home. A few days later, she did just that, only to be greeted at the train station by her brother with the tragic news that their mother had succumbed to pneumonia the day before. As they travelled home from the station, he passed her this beautiful letter.

PS: I missed out posting the link to the domino's video yesterday. Here it is

How Gardening Enables Interdisciplinary Learning [Article, Video]

High school student Pierre combined biology, math, economics, and more to transform his campus greenhouse into a sustainable aquaponic system that provides fresh vegetables for the cafeteria. Listen to his inspirational story here.

The rise of the reader: journalism in the age of the open web [Article]

Katherine Viner is the editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia. This is the text of her AN Smith lecture in Melbourne during October. Or you can watch the hour-long video here.

A newspaper is complete. It is finished, sure of itself, certain. By contrast, digital news is constantly updated, improved upon, changed, moved, developed, an ongoing conversation and collaboration. It is living, evolving, limitless, relentless.

Newer tools are overwhelming established industries - and journalism is no different. A more recent story here.

Chet Atkins & Paul Yandell: Black Mountain Rag [Music]

Two great guitarists do their thing.  And here's another from 1988, "I'll Say She Does"

Don't fear the reaper: Mike Masse & Jeff Hall [Video]

Mike Masse & Jeff Hall cover popular songs with just two guitars & incredibly blending vocals. I've linked to their music before (hear their version of Toto's Africa) and a more recent upload cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper). And doesn't their version of Simon & Garfunkel's Sound of Silence sound as good as, if not better, than the original?

Insane domino tricks [Video]

Two videos in one day - and this one was awesomely cool. There are between 20,000-25,000 dominoes. A collaborative video - half shot in the US & the other in Germany, according to the uploader.

This style of domino video is called a "screenlink." Each clip is separate then edited together to make it look like one long setup. The first half are my clips (built in USA) then at 1:35 it switches to millionendollarboy's (built in Germany.) This was a collab video so it was impossible to do one take, not to mention how much floor space and dominoes would be needed.

This I Believe: A manifesto for a magnificent career [Article]

Avinash Kaushik writes a blog called Occam's Razor, mostly digital marketing stuff. In this post, however, he shares his personal philosophy. Worth a read.

You are a true man [Letters of note]

Correspondence between people, whether they know one another or not, is always fascinating to me.  And reading this exchange between poet Walt Whitman & Abraham Stoker (the author of Dracula), was another highlight for me.

Memento Mori: Men die not because they are sick but because they are alive. [Article]

Lapham's Quarterly always has some exceptionally good reads, like this essay by editor Lewis Lapham in the Fall 2013 edition, called Death.

The question “Why must I die?” and its implied follow-up, “How then do I live my life?”, both admit of an answer by and for and of oneself. Learning how to die, as Montaigne goes on to rightly say, is unlearning how to be a slave. 

Check out more about LQ' here 

The Bailsmen performing in Central Park [Video]

A very talented bunch of Gypsy Jazz musicians doing their gig from a park bench in Central Park. Here's another of them performing at a swing festival. A search for "The Bailsmen" on You Tube got me fabulous music from these guys.

How to build a country from the ground up [Article]

A controversial topic, and some interesting ideas, from the creator of Dilbert. And if it interested you enough, read the follow up post too.

Leonard Cohen has some wisdom to share before his performance [Video]

Before he performed a duet with Anjani Thomas - "If it Be Your Will" in Warsaw, Poland (1985), Leonard Cohen had some wisdom to share

Hyperemployment, or the exhausting work of the technology user [Article]

Ian Bogost suggests that we have turned Keynes' idea of leisure replacing work into a parody

If you’re like many people, you’ve started using your smartphone as an alarm clock. Now it’s the first thing you see and hear in the morning. And touch, before your spouse or your crusty eyes. Then the ritual begins. Overnight, twenty or forty new emails: spam, solicitations, invitations or requests from those whose days pass during your nights, mailing list reminders, bill pay notices. A quick triage, only to be undone while you shower and breakfast.

The Idan Raichel Project: Beyom Sabat [Music]

Idan Raichel is an Israeli singer-songwriter and a musician, known for his Idan Raichel Project, distinctive for its fusion of electronics, traditional Hebrew texts, Arab and Ethiopian music. Here are a few videos - Mon Amour, Hakol Over (This too shall pass) & Beyom Sabat.

Incredibly good juggling skills [Video]

The ball never touches the ground. Incredibly good skills, has this boy.

If you must measure, measure how grateful you are every day [Article]

Excerpts from a freewheeling Twitter conversation with James Altucher. There are a few gems there.

Discovery of a new element: CERN makes an announcement [Humor]

Scientists at CERN in Geneva have announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons which are surrounded by vast quantities of right-on-like particles called peons.

I embrace you with all my heart: Albert Camus [Letters of note]

A Nobel Prize winner's letter of gratitude to his teacher.

..when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.

Playing for change: Love is all you need [Video]

Another great video by Playing for Change - this time sung by kids around the world. "Love is all you need"

How Twitter hijacked my mind [Article] @KathrynSchulz

Money quote for me from Kathyrn Schulz's article about Twitter:

Collectively, the people I follow on Twitter — book nerds, science nerds, journalists, the uncategorizably interesting — come pretty close to my dream community. They also function as by far the best news source I’ve ever used

Lest you think it's all good - it's not -

I sometimes think that Twitter is such a parasite, and that I am one of its hosts, so effectively has it hacked my brain. Ask me what I love most in my life, and how I want to spend what limited allotment of it I have, and I will tell you that I want to be around friends and family, or reading, or writing, or in the outdoors, body and mind at play in the world. Ask me what I did today, where all the hours went, and — well, check out that chart.

10 figures of speech illustrated by Monty Python [Video]

Paradiastole, Epanorthosis, Syncatabasis, Grandiloquence, Pleonasm, Synonymia, Auxesis & Meiosis, Paralipsis, Paraprosdokian, and Apheresis/Apocope/Syncope - if you can't pronounce any of them, let alone know what it means, you ought to watch this video! Enjoy the weekend with some Monty Python and learn about the ancient Greek & Roman art of rhetoric.

A short history of the high-rise [Link]

A superb interactive guide from the New York Times on the history of high-rise buildings. The kids will enjoy this.

A weeding announcement to the family: Mark Twain [Letters]

Mark Twain wrote this letter to his "mother & brother & sisters & nephew & niece & Margaret", announcing his engagement to Olivia Langdon, who was to remain his wife for the next 34 years.

Tim Buckley: Down by the borderline [Video]

Although he wasn't as famous as his son Jeff, Tim Buckley experimented with lots of musical styles before his early death at the age of 28. Check out Down by the borderline and Sweet Surrender have a distinct 60's sound.  Jeff, at age 25, performed a tribute to his father, "I never asked to be your mountain", a song Tim wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother.

Richard Pryor sings the blues [Video]

He was a singer before he rocked as a stand-up comedian. Richard Pryor sings the blues - Nobody loves you when you're down & out.

Atoning for 20,000 war crimes [Article]

The horrifying story of Joshua Milto Blahyi of Liberia, better known as General Butt Naked, who is now a pastor who visits his victims & begs for their forgiveness. When asked "How many victims were there?" during a hearing, his chilling response:

"I don't know the entire… the entire… the entire number… but if I… if I… were to calculate it… everything I have done… it would be… it shouldn't be fewer than 20,000."

Read on to contemplate the depths to which the only species can do so can sink to.

Jan Grüter on the lute: Kapsberger's Piccinini Chiaconna [Video]

Jan Gruter interprets, & brings Johannes H Kapsberger's composition, Piccinini Chiaconna, to life on the lute. (and go here if you'd like to find out more about Kaspberger)

The Power of Patience: the value of deceleration & immersive attention [Article]

Professor of history of art & architecture, Jennifer L Roberts describes the experience that her students go through when required to write an intensive research paper based on a single work of art of their own choosing.

Before doing any research in books or online, the student would first be expected to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, where it hangs, and spend three full hours looking at the painting, noting down his or her evolving observations as well as the questions and speculations that arise from those observations. The time span is explicitly designed to seem excessive. 

Procurement advice if you need to get a new e-book or whatever gadget [Humor]

T Rob Wyatt dispenses some advice on how to get yourself a new e-book or gadget. Married men, young or old, heed his advice.

If thirty years of marriage have taught me anything, it is that any good idea is her idea.  

The bittersweet fruit of Adversity -[Article]

Norman Rosenthal does not enjoy adversity but, as he discovered a while ago, the trick was in moving beyond the initial feelings of pain & displeasure and to find something of value in the experience. Worth a read.

Lyrical learning, & why we learn habits wrong [Article]

This is the second Leo Babauta link this week - and there is reason enough.  Using the analogy of learning the lyrics to a favourite song to building new habits is something I've not considered before, & Leo does a great job in this post.

Eric Andersen: My land is a good land [Video]

Eric Andersen is an Amercian folk singer-songwriter. Born in 1943, his music is covered by lots of artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins Here's one called "My land is a good land" and another live performance, a duet with Roger McCuinn, of one his more famous hits "Thirsty boots"

Need more reasons to read? Or just some recommendations? [Article]

Leo Babauta has a few suggestions, as well as a link to this Quartz article about a study which concludes that folks who read literary fiction are more empathetic.

"I get lost in worlds wholly created by an author, imagined but containing truths about life, incisively commenting about life, reproducing it in beautiful new ways, putting me in the mind of another human being, grabbing my heart and dragging it through the thrill of falling in love or the dull numbness of divorce or the fear of being found out, giving me the power of flight or omniscience or magic, confessing about guilty deeds and crimes and affairs, taking me into richly re-imagined periods of history, helping me time travel and space travel and regular travel into new lands, showing me how other people live in helplessness, in slavery, in squalor, in power and luxury, in prostitution and presidency, making the mundane seem magical and the magical seem possible."

Far from the madding crowd: A tale of living away from the busy-ness of cities [Article]

A bunch of idealistic friends got together, decided they wanted out of the madness of city life, and confident in their abilities to survive on almost nothing, & bought themselves a large block of land. Did they survive their idealism? Is it worth the challenges?  Michelle Nijhuis writes about her experience. Worth a read for at least some folks.

RL Burnside: See my jumper hanging on the line [Video]

R.L. Burnside performing "See my jumper hanging on the line" at home in Independence, Mississippi, shot by Alan Lomax, Worth Long, and John Bishop in August, 1978.

Dealing with the commodity of time - the Randy Pausch lecture on Time Management [Video]

This talk is fairly long (90 mins). What perspective can a chap who knows his life is limited bring to time management? A talk worth listening to if you're struggling to manage the activities that cause time famine.

How economic growth has become anti-life [Article]

Vandana Shiva posits that the fallacy of economic growth (called GDP) promoted since World War II, has caused immense harm to nature & majority of households, while concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. [via Guardian]