background preloader

The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget

The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget
“Great moments often catch us unawares….” By Kent Nerburn There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy’s life, a gambler’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab. What I didn’t count on when I took the job was that it was also a ministry. Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a rolling confessional. We were like strangers on a train, the passengers and I, hurtling through the night, revealing intimacies we would never have dreamed of sharing during the brighter light of day. And none of those lives touched me more than that of a woman I picked up late on a warm August night. I was responding to a call from a small brick fourplex in a quiet part of town. When I arrived at the address, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground-floor window. So I walked to the door and knocked. After a long pause, the door opened.

Telescopic Text & Joe Davis 2008 - StumbleUpon List of unsolved problems in philosophy This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Clearly, unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?", "What is reality?", etc.). Aesthetics[edit] Essentialism[edit] In art, essentialism is the idea that each medium has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, contingent on its mode of communication. Art objects[edit] This problem originally arose from the practice rather than theory of art. While it is easy to dismiss these assertions, further investigation[who?] Epistemology[edit] Epistemological problems are concerned with the nature, scope and limitations of knowledge. Gettier problem[edit] In 1963, however, Edmund Gettier published an article in the periodical Analysis entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" In response to Gettier's article, numerous philosophers have offered modified criteria for "knowledge." Infinite regression[edit] Molyneux problem[edit] Münchhausen trilemma[edit]

Creative Guest Books We’ve rounded up some more creative guest books that would be a little more interesting to read through later than your standard guestbook. If you’ve ever read through someone’s wedding guest book, you’ll notice that most of the entries are pretty repetitive: “Congrats, we’re so happy for you!” Add a bit of fun to your wedding day by coming up with a unique idea for a guestbook. #1. #2. #3. #4. #5. #6. #7. #8. Other ideas include dirty laundry, signed plates, quilts, and even surfboards! General Fiction Getting Around... Career Essentials Getting Started Queries & Manuscripts Market Research Classes & Conferences Critiquing Crafting Your Work Grammar Guides Research/Interviewing Writing Contests The Writing Business Income & Expenses Selling Reprints Collaboration Pseudonyms Negotiating Contracts Setting Fees/Getting Paid Rights & Copyright Tech Tools The Writing Life The Writing Life Rejection/Writer's Block Health & Safety Time ManagementColumn: Ramblings on the Writing Life Fiction Writing - General General Techniques Characters & Viewpoint Dialogue Setting & DescriptionColumn: Crafting Fabulous Fiction Fiction Writing - Genres Children's Writing Mystery Writing Romance Writing SF, Fantasy & Horror Flash Fiction & More Nonfiction Writing General Freelancing Columns & Syndication Newspapers/Journalism Topical Markets Travel Writing Photography Creative Nonfiction Memoirs/Biography International Freelancing Business/Tech Writing Other Topics Poetry & Greeting Cards Screenwriting

101 Short Stories that Will Leave You Smiling, Crying and Thinking - StumbleUpon post written by: Marc Chernoff Email Since its inception eighteen months ago, our sister site Makes Me Think (MMT) has truly evolved into a remarkable online community. As stated on the MMT About page, sometimes the most random everyday encounters force us to stop and rethink the truths and perceptions we have ingrained in our minds. I believe the 101 stories listed below perfectly fulfill that description. What do you think?

Awesome Trailer He lives in a trailer? ehhhhhh…. WHOA <——– To keep updated with my blog, take a minute and like me on Facebook! With the great response to my pirate ship bedroom blog, I searched the internet for an even more amazing bedroom and I found this guy’s trailer. Meet Matthew Hofmann. “Many of my clients are in Santa Barbara, so after looking at some tiny yet still expensive condos and lofts, I purchased and remodeled a 1978, 25-foot Airstream trailer on a whim on Craigslist.” “Material scraps from the Airstream, pictured above before the remodel, were sent to a recycling yard. My words: I think it’s great he made the trailer green. “For the new dining area, I replaced the existing tabletop with Cali Bamboo natural strand bamboo while reusing the table posts. “By removing the table posts and lowering the top to seat level, it also converts to what I call a media lounge where I can play movies on my 27-inch iMac. My words: Amazingly beautiful! My words: Excuse me, The Germans? Like this:

publish a book? If you've never truly considered writing a book, take another look at the rubbish filling bookshelves at airport kiosks. The "authors" of that stuff are laughing all the way to the bank. While English majors and real literary types are screaming at each other in the stuffy halls of academia or the pages of The New Yorker, these clowns are quietly rehashing tired plots and making millions for it. You're a smart person, so we see no reason you shouldn't take a crack at making bank as well. (Heck, even if you're a ding-bat, we think you should give it a try. Al Gore's books sold millions.) Here's how you too can tap into the wallets of all those gullible readers out there. 1. The first rule of getting a book published is to avoid writing a book. Agents -- what do they do, exactly? An agent is a separate individual who performs much of this filtering process. Agents, in turn, don't particularly like reading 300-page manuscripts either. But you say, "Wait.

An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It - StumbleUpon "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. "My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. "My political ideal is democracy. "This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. See also Einstein's Third Paradise, an essay by Gerald Holton

Online Speed Reading Simply start by clicking on the Play button on the left. Reading is that one activity that we do every day but we don't really practice. Most people learn the basics of reading in kindergarten and never graduate to the next levels. You are probably using the same basic rudimental tools and techniques that you learned when you were 6. The average American person reads at an average speed of 180 to 240 words per minute and has done so since he was 16 years old. Does it make sense that we hit our best performance at age 16 and that we don't improve much after that? Keep in mind less than 10% read at 400 words per minute and less than 1% faster than 600. Have you ever wished you could take one of those costly speed reading courses? The problem with those courses is that you have to keep practicing those techniques until they become second nature. That's the goal of this site. We are here to keep you focused and to help you improve your speed reading everyday. What is sub-vocalization?

One Sentence - True stories, told in one sentence. THE SECRET LIVES OF NUMBERS - StumbleUpon The authors conducted an exhaustive empirical study, with the aid of custom software, public search engines and powerful statistical techniques, in order to determine the relative popularity of every integer between 0 and one million. The resulting information exhibits an extraordinary variety of patterns which reflect and refract our culture, our minds, and our bodies. For example, certain numbers, such as 212, 486, 911, 1040, 1492, 1776, 68040, or 90210, occur more frequently than their neighbors because they are used to denominate the phone numbers, tax forms, computer chips, famous dates, or television programs that figure prominently in our culture. Regular periodicities in the data, located at multiples and powers of ten, mirror our cognitive preference for round numbers in our biologically-driven base-10 numbering system. Humanitys fascination with numbers is ancient and complex. We surmise that our dataset is a numeric snaphot of the collective consciousness.

Related: