Tackle Any Issue With a List of 100
The List of 100 is a powerful technique you can use to generate ideas, clarify your thoughts, uncover hidden problems or get solutions to any specific questions you’re interested in. The technique is very simple in principle: state your issue or question in the top of a blank sheet of paper and come up with a list of one hundred answers or solutions about it. “100 Ways to Generate Income”, “100 Ways to be More Creative” or “100 Ways to Improve my Relationships” are some examples. “One hundred entries? Isn’t that way too many?” Bear with me: it’s exactly this exaggeration that makes the technique powerful. When starting your list you may believe that there’s no way to get it done. Unlike the related Idea Quota tool — whose primary goal is to acquire the habit of coming up with ideas — the goal of a List of 100 is to take your mind by surprise. Ground Rules There are only two simple principles to keep in mind when making Lists of 100: 1. 2. The Dynamics of Making Lists of 100 1. 2. 3.
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The Daily Routines of Famous Writers
By Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity. Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Ray Bradbury, a lifelong proponent of working with joy and an avid champion of public libraries, playfully defies the question of routines in this 2010 interview: My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. Joan Didion creates for herself a kind of incubation period for ideas, articulated in this 1968 interview: I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. E. I never listen to music when I’m working. Photograph by Tom Palumbo, 1956
Build A Curved-Wall Glass-Block Shower
This beautiful bath-improvement project is dedicated to the millions of do-it-yourselfers who've always dreamed of building with glass block, but didn't have the foggiest idea of where to start. That's right. You can build a gorgeous glass-block shower even if you've never laid a single block. Three kit styles are available. Preparing The Pan For our project, we hired a plumber to relocate the shower drain, run new water-supply lines and install the shower pan. Install the shower pan before the finished wall material (i.e., ceramic tile, solid-surface material, stone). Once the pan is in place, prepare it for the first course of block by roughening the top surface of the curb with 80-grit sandpaper (Photo 1). The shower kit comes with slotted metal straps, called panel anchors. Bend three anchors to form L-shaped brackets. Stand the anchors back into position and secure each with a single 2-in. screw and washer (Photo 2), but don't tighten the screws all the way just yet. Finishing Up
basic stitches
Stitching or sewing has a history dating back to the prehistoric times. It is believed, with archaeological evidences, that sewing must have come into being since the stone ages, when people had begun to sew to attach pieces of animal skin using needles made of bones, antlers and ivory. They probably must have used threads made of animal parts like veins. As the times progressed and sewing started to become an integral part of life, not only newer methods of sewing styles developed, but many other materials were tried as needles and threads. Although sewing or stitching is commonly associated with clothing and fabrics, it must not be forgotten that this skill is used in many other craft areas like making shoes, bags, sporting goods and all those things associated with attaching pieces of fabric. This tutorial will deal with one of such arts: hand embroidery, which is very much practiced even today in spite of all the invasion of machine-made,‘perfect’ sewn objects. 80 Comments »
New Year's Resolution Reading List: 9 Essential Books on Reading and Writing
by Maria Popova Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolism has to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure. Hardly anything does one’s mental, spiritual, and creative health more good than resolving to read more and write better. Today’s reading list addresses these parallel aspirations. If anyone can make grammar fun, it’s Maira Kalman — The Elements of Style Illustrated marries Kalman’s signature whimsy with Strunk and White’s indispensable style guide to create an instant classic. The original Elements of Style was published in 1919 in-house at Cornell University for teaching use and reprinted in 1959 to become cultural canon, and Kalman’s inimitable version is one of our 10 favorite masterpieces of graphic nonfiction. On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day. Anne Lamott might be best known as a nonfiction writer, but Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life affirms her as a formidable modern philosopher as well. On open-endedness:
Do-It-Yourself Wi-Fi Antennas Update and Wi-Fi Resource Center | How To Build A Wi-Fi Antenna Without Spending Much Money
Looking for an affordable way to increase the range of your wireless network? Trying to reach dead spots inside or outside a home, sharing a signal with your neighbors, or maybe for a point-to-point link with another network? Are you suffering from weak cell phone (photo) reception? You have come to the right place to extend the range of your wireless device, wireless gaming console, wireless network or connect to other wireless networks in your neighborhood. We look at hacking and modding a variety of wireless antennas and related hardware. Make your own wireless antenna! We discuss the Pringles Cantenna, Coffee Can Antenna, Parabolic Reflector and Antenna Designs.
Kapanyél - Sünlak a kertben
Ma van az Állatok Világnapja, amire napok óta tanultuk a kisebbik csemetével a Sün Balázst, és felmerült a kérdés, miért is nincs nekünk egy sünink. Mármint a kertben. Nálunk érthető a dolog: belvárosi társasház, az utca felől lépcsőznie kellene a téglafallal körülvett kerthez, a falon meg nem talál rést, úgyhogy ide sajnos nem tud bejönni, hiába is akarna. Aki viszont olyan szerencsés, hogy a kerítése gyárilag hézagos, vagy saját maga tette valahol szabaddá az utat, előbb-utóbb bizonyosan „saját” sünre és családjára tehet szert. Főleg, ha nem használ túl sok kemikáliát, mert azok elpusztítják a sünök táplálékait is, így az ilyen portákat inkább elkerüli. Ha kertünkben sűrű bokrok vannak, akkor nem is kell különösebben építkezni, a kis állat szívesen vackolja be magát alájuk. Ha nincs alkalmas búvóhely a kertben, vagy csak szeretünk barkácsolni, készíthetünk magunk is sünlakot (de készen is vehetünk), melyet egy félreeső, esőtől, széltől védett helyre állítsunk fel.
How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love
“Find something more important than you are,” philosopher Dan Dennett once said in discussing the secret of happiness, “and dedicate your life to it.” But how, exactly, do we find that? Surely, it isn’t by luck. I myself am a firm believer in the power of curiosity and choice as the engine of fulfillment, but precisely how you arrive at your true calling is an intricate and highly individual dance of discovery. Still, there are certain factors — certain choices — that make it easier. Every few months, I rediscover and redevour Y-Combinator founder Paul Graham’s fantastic 2006 article, How to Do What You Love. What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. More of Graham’s wisdom on how to find meaning and make wealth can be found in Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. Alain de Botton, modern philosopher and creator of the “literary self-help genre”, is a keen observer of the paradoxes and delusions of our cultural conceits.
