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The most beautiful death

The most beautiful death
Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with cancer in 1960, at which point his health slowly began to deteriorate. On his deathbed in November of 1963, just as he was passing away, Aldous — a man who for many years had been fascinated with the effects of psychedelic drugs since being introduced to mescaline in 1953 — asked his wife Laura to administer him with LSD. She agreed. The following letter — an incredibly moving, detailed account of Aldous's last days — was written by Laura just days after her husband's death and sent to his older brother Julian. Transcript follows. 6233 Mulholland Highway Los Angeles 28, California December 8, 1963Dearest Julian and Juliette:There is so much I want to tell you about the last week of Aldous' life and particularly the last day.

A Terrific 2012: Top 15 Inspirational Pictures to Start New Year on a Positive Note There are times when life punches down everybody. But Rocky isn’t the only one who can get back up again. With the right amount of inspiration, you can soldier on, no matter how tough things get. To help you out, we’re sharing 10 inspirational picture-quotes below. Check them out. We recommend drinking green tea simultaneously.

Fiction Truer Than Fact: A Haunting Autobiographical Novel Sarah Manguso's latest book is called The Guardians. I like autobiographies that approach their subjects insidiously. My favorite ones begin as a study of someone or something else. Sylvia grew from an autobiographical essay into a novella subtitled A Fictional Memoir. "The brush swept down and ripped free until, abruptly, she quit brushing, stepped into the living room, dropped onto the couch, leaned back against the brick wall, and went totally limp. The woman is Sylvia Bloch, indeed the name of the author's first wife, described in the book as "abnormally bright" but prone to violent rages, "like a madwoman imitating a college student." Leonard presents the compulsive love affair alongside his own compulsive record of it. hide captionSarah Manguso is also the author of The Two Kinds of Decay. Courtesy Farrar, Straus & Giroux Sarah Manguso is also the author of The Two Kinds of Decay. Though the book contains more rumination than plot, the ending is as shocking as that of any thriller.

64 Things Every Geek Should Know - laptoplogic.com The term ‘geek’, once used to label a circus freak, has morphed in meaning over the years. What was once an unusual profession transferred into a word indicating social awkwardness. As time has gone on, the word has yet again morphed to indicate a new type of individual: someone who is obsessive over one (or more) particular subjects, whether it be science, photography, electronics, computers, media, or any other field. A geek is one who isn’t satisfied knowing only the surface facts, but instead has a visceral desire to learn everything possible about a particular subject. A techie geek is usually one who knows a little about everything, and is thus the person family and friends turn to whenever they have a question. If you’re that type of person and are looking for a few extra skills to pick up, or if you’re a newbie aiming to get a handhold on the honor that is geekhood, read on to find out what skills you need to know. 1. USB – Universal Serial Bus GPU – Graphics Processing Unit 2. 3.

131 – US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs | Strange Maps by Frank Jacobs Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently: GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports) Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, according to this source. The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. This map was suggested by Morgan via strangemaps@gmail.com, and can be found here.

The 48 Laws of Power Background[edit] Greene initially formulated some of the ideas in The 48 Laws of Power while working as a writer in Hollywood and concluding that today's power elite shared similar traits with powerful figures throughout history.[5] In 1995, Greene worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers.[4][8] Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and six months later, Elffers requested that Greene write a treatment.[4] Although Greene was unhappy in his current job, he was comfortable and saw the time needed to write a proper book proposal as too risky.[10] However, at the time Greene was rereading his favorite biography about Julius Caesar and took inspiration from Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River and fight Pompey, thus inciting the Great Roman Civil War.[10] Greene would follow Caesar's example and write the treatment, which later became The 48 Laws of Power.[10] He would note this as the turning point of his life.[10]

The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written (book) The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today (1998) is a book of intellectual history written by Martin Seymour-Smith, a British poet, critic, and biographer.[1] The list included the books such as, Upanishads, Hebrew Bible, I Ching, Kabbalah, Candide, The World as Will and Idea, among others. See also[edit] References[edit] Jump up ^ Seymour-Smith, Martin (1998). External links[edit] The list The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s so easy to hide in your little bubble, typing your little words with your little fingers on your little laptop from the comfort of your tiny chair in your miniature little house. It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer. Available in print withThe Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

100 questions for a better conversation Have you ever been at a party or on a blind date only to find yourself with nothing to say? It’s an awkward feeling; still no one is stepping up to ride the room of silence. Thankfully, you’ll never have to experience that situation again. Next time, all you’ll have to do is ask a question. The fine folks at The School of Life have created One Hundred Questions as a kind of conversation starter-kit. Topics include: Personality & EmotionsSex & RelationshipsFamily & FriendshipWork & MoneyTravel, Culture & TasteLife & Death One Hundred Questions | School of Life Who said that there had to be an absolute answer for each and every question?

Stoicism Philosophical system Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve eudaimonia (happiness, lit. 'good spiritedness'): one flourishes by living an ethical life. Stoicism flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century CE, and among its adherents was Emperor Marcus Aurelius. History[edit] The name Stoicism derives from the Stoa Poikile (Ancient Greek: ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted porch", a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes on the north side of the Agora in Athens where Zeno of Citium and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas, near the end of the 4th century BCE.[4] Unlike the Epicureans, Zeno chose to teach his philosophy in a public space. Scholars[who?] Logic[edit]

Shakespeare Insult Kit Shakespeare Insult Kit Since 1996, the origin of this kit was listed as anonymous. It came to me on a piece of paper in the 90's with no attribution, and I thought it would make a cool web page. Though I searched for the origin, I could never find it. Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced with "Thou": My additions: cullionly whoreson knave fusty malmsey-nosed blind-worm caluminous rampallian popinjay wimpled lily-livered scullian burly-boned scurvy-valiant jolt-head misbegotten brazen-faced malcontent odiferous unwash'd devil-monk poisonous bunch-back'd toad fishified leaden-footed rascal Wart-necked muddy-mettled Basket-Cockle pigeon-liver'd scale-sided Back to the insulter. Chris Seidel

99 of the Best Windows Freeware Programs You May Not Know Of Due to the popularity of my previous article on Help Desk Geek entitled 99 ways to make your computer blazingly fast, I’ve decided to write another list post with 99 items, but this time on Windows freeware programs that you may have not heard of. If you search for “best freeware programs” or “top freeware apps”, you’ll get lots of lists, but mostly with programs everyone has already heard of: AVG anti-virus, 7-zip, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc., etc. That’s all nice and fine, but what about all those little gems programs that work great, but don’t get all the headlines? In this article, I will try my best to mention as many small name freeware programs as I can that can help make you more productive! It’s a long list, so feel free to bookmark it and refer to it later on. These are written in no particular order! Additionally, some of the programs I mention have free versions that have a few restrictions or are limited in some way. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

How I Outgrew Libertarianism I was a Libertarian in college. I even volunteered for the 1980 Ed Clark/David Koch (yes, that David Koch) Libertarian party presidential campaign. As promised, the following is the story of how I outgrew Libertarianism. 1. Furthermore, real Libertarianism isn't socio-economic Darwinism. "Let the most ruthless grab all the gold, and hope someone patches up the wounded later" didn't strike me as a cause I could get behind. 2. But every century or so eggheads proclaim some smug new utopian plan (which always sounds great on paper) destined to create a permanent steady state of prosperity and happiness. 3. I envisioned myself in such a scenario, making decisions, expending energy, and using my resourcefulness to compete. Here's the problem with "thinking it all through": You may have been following my series, "Bubbles, Slogs, and Selling Out", the story of how I sold Chowhound to CNET (now CBS). None of those things were true of the people around me.

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