KARANLIK VE AYDINLIK “Nathanael, sana an’lardan söz edeceğim. Varlıkları ne güçlüdür, anladın mı?” Anlar… An içinde anıya dönüşen. Anlar varoluşun tam tamına kendisiyken, ne kadar da narin, bir saniye içinde tuz buz olan, ne kadar da parmakların arasından akan kum misali küçük, kırık ve savruk… Anlar çocuk. Anlar ancak çocuk olduğun kadar anlamlı. Büyüdüğünde bunu anlamalı,ve ağlamalısın büyüdüğün için. Ya da içindeki çocuğu bulup hayallerini yeniden inşa etmelisin bir yerlerde;okyanus kıyısında, ormanın derinliklerinde, Antarktika’da,ya da şehirdederme çatma. Ne kadar da küçüksün içinde bir yerlerde,evrende… Elinden tutan yok. Kararların ve karın ağrılarınla,daima tek başına, sevdiklerinin yanında bile. Ve çoklar arasında akarken bir yönden bir yöne, sana çizilmiş yoldaanların sendir; sen az öncede kaldı. Bak, çocuktum. Bak, mutluydum anladın mı? O anı hatırlıyorum şimdi.Bu, demiştim kendi kendime, hiç bitmeyecek. Bu, demiştim kendi kendime, kendi dünyam, mutluyum ve hiç değişmeyecek. Sonra büyüdüm.
The Science of "Chunking," Working Memory, and How Pattern Recognition Fuels Creativity by Maria Popova “Generating interesting connections between disparate subjects is what makes art so fascinating to create and to view… We are forced to contemplate a new, higher pattern that binds lower ones together.” It seems to be the season for fascinating meditations on consciousness, exploring such questions as what happens while we sleep, how complex cognition evolved, and why the world exists. Joining them and prior explorations of what it means to be human is The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning (public library) by Cambridge neuroscientist Daniel Bor in which, among other things, he sheds light on how our species’ penchant for pattern-recognition is essential to consciousness and our entire experience of life. To illustrate the power of chunking, Bor gives an astounding example of how one man was able to use this mental mechanism in greatly expanding the capacity of his working memory. Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … …he admonished gravely. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. Which Steinbeck covered.
Nerdcore › This Blog about Beauty and Brains. How to Change Your Life: A User’s Guide ‘You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.’ ~Mike Murdock By Leo Babauta Start with a simple statement: what do you want to be? Are you hoping to someday be a writer, a musician, a designer, a programmer, a polyglot, a carpenter, a manga artist, an entrepreneur, an expert at something? How do you get there? Do you set yourself a big goal to complete by the end of the year, or in three months? I’m going to lay down the law here, based on many many experiments I’ve done in the last 7 years: nothing will change unless you make a daily change. I’ve tried weekly action steps, things that I do every other day, big bold monthly goals, lots of other permutations. If you’re not willing to make it a daily change, you don’t really want to change your life in this way. So make a daily change. How to Turn an Aspiration Into a Daily Change Let’s name a few aspirations: How do you turn those lofty ideas into daily changes? You get the idea. How to Implement Daily Changes
Collection History The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 25 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America, although it also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, wall maps, globes, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children's, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from about 1700 to 1950s. Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 55,000 items online, with new additions added regularly. Maps are uniquely suited to high-resolution scanning because of the large amount of detailed information they contain. With Luna Imaging's Insight® software, the maps are experienced in a revolutionary way. Materials created in America and that illustrate the evolution of the country's history, culture, and population distinguish the collection.
Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck By Maria Popova If this is indeed the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve been right on course with David Ogilvy’s 10 no-nonsense tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) with six tips on writing, originally set down in a 1962 letter to the actor and writer Robert Wallsten included in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (public library) — the same magnificent volume that gave us Steinbeck’s advice on falling in love. Steinbeck counsels: Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. But perhaps most paradoxically yet poetically, twelve years prior — in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception” — Steinbeck issued a thoughtful disclaimer to all such advice: ↬ Open Culture
Aaron Horkeys The Two Towers-Poster Mondo haut zum Jahresende Aaron Horkeys zweites Lord of the Rings-Poster raus. Look at this. LOOK AT THIS! Das erste geht auf Ebay mittlerweile für über 1800 Dollar über den Tisch, nach dem Klick nochmal das Poster zum ersten Teil sowie seine Arbeiten zu There Will Be Blood, True Grit und ein Plakat für Flight of the Conchords.
9 best sites with free ebooks for Google Play In this post you’ll learn about best websites with free ebooks that you will be able to add to your Google Play Books library. In June 2012 Google revealed that Gmail had over 400 million active users worldwide. If you own Gmail account, you don’t have to sign up to any other site to start collecting your own library of ebooks. These books will be stored “in the cloud”. That means you will be able to access them from any device, not only from your own computer. When we add ease of use and simplicity, Google Play Books may the a first choice for anyone who gets interested in ebooks. Obviously, there are enough free books in Google Play, and in this post you’ll find tips and tricks to effectively browse for them. However, Google Play Books is a pretty closed ecosystem, very much relying on Google’s scan book project. That’s why this list will be the opportunity to find other sources of free ebooks compatible with Google Play, including the ones from contemporary authors. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1.
OATD – Open Access Theses and Dissertations Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from the prolific writer and painter Henry Miller (December 26, 1891–June 7, 1980) COMMANDMENTSWork on one thing at a time until finished.Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! Under a part titled Daily Program, his routine also featured the following wonderful blueprint for productivity, inspiration, and mental health: MORNINGS: If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.If in fine fettle, write.AFTERNOONS:Work of section in hand, following plan of section scrupulously. Complement Henry Miller on Writing with the beloved author on the meaning of life and the secret to remaining young at heart, then revisit great writers’ collected wisdom on the craft. HT Lists of Note