How to stay sane | Brain Pickings “I pray to Jesus to preserve my sanity,” Jack Kerouac professed in discussing his writing routine. But those of us who fall on the more secular end of the spectrum might need a slightly more potent sanity-preservation tool than prayer. That’s precisely what writer and psychotherapist Philippa Perry offers in How To Stay Sane (public library), part of The School of Life’s wonderful series reclaiming the traditional self-help genre as intelligent, non-self-helpy, yet immensely helpful guides to modern living. At the heart of Perry’s argument — in line with neurologist Oliver Sacks’s recent meditation on memory and how “narrative truth,” rather than “historical truth,” shapes our impression of the world — is the recognition that stories make us human and learning to reframe our interpretations of reality is key to our experience of life: Our stories give shape to our inchoate, disparate, fleeting impressions of everyday life. Perry concludes: Artwork by pennylrichardsca
The Pay Ethic We hear a lot about the work ethic, the notion that hard work is inherently virtuous. We don’t hear nearly so much about its dual, the Pay Ethic. The Pay Ethic is the idea that paying generously is a virtue. There’s no question that we practice it: we value peoples’ fashion, their taste in art, their furniture, based largely on how much they payed for it. Paying more for a work of art is more virtuous, and it imparts a higher value into the art itself. The two ethics really are dual of each other. When the two ethics fall out of balance, civilization is compromised. Libertarians and free-market advocates might call this heretical: Capitalism, they will claim, is built on greed, founded on squeezing every ounce of profit from people like cattle. The truth is this: if a business is in such straits that it can only survive by cutting corners from the payroll, then that business is not a productive asset. The Pay Ethic doesn’t just apply to employers or people who patronize art.
Rife Cancer Cure The Rife Microscope Cancer Cure Story Strange Beliefs: Cancer Cure Created 12/28/2001 - Updated 11/20/2007 a super microscope | seeing live viruses | glowing viruses | viruses cause cancer shattering germs with radio waves | cancer cure? | suppression or quackery | frequencies and how to get them | references The Reasonable Persons Guide to Strange Ideas next examines one of the most astounding claims on the net. Overview of Claims Some claim that Dr. The Rife Microscopes No one doubts that Royal Raymond Rife was a real individual who did indeed create several unique microscopes. One microscope expert reading this article wrote that Baush and Lomb offered Rife "a ton of money" in the late 1930's but B and L ran because the microscope was a fraud. Goal of This Article This author hopes to entice you to think, to learn and to explore science.
How To Stay Sane: The Art of Revising Your Inner Storytelling | Brain Picki “I pray to Jesus to preserve my sanity,” Jack Kerouac professed in discussing his writing routine. But those of us who fall on the more secular end of the spectrum might need a slightly more potent sanity-preservation tool than prayer. That’s precisely what writer and psychotherapist Philippa Perry offers in How To Stay Sane (public library), part of The School of Life’s wonderful series reclaiming the traditional self-help genre as intelligent, non-self-helpy, yet immensely helpful guides to modern living. At the heart of Perry’s argument — in line with neurologist Oliver Sacks’s recent meditation on memory and how “narrative truth,” rather than “historical truth,” shapes our impression of the world — is the recognition that stories make us human and learning to reframe our interpretations of reality is key to our experience of life: Our stories give shape to our inchoate, disparate, fleeting impressions of everyday life. Perry concludes: Artwork by pennylrichardsca
What Would It Take to Kill Hollywood? And Should We Try? By Alyssa Rosenberg on January 25, 2012 at 9:52 am "What Would It Take To Kill Hollywood? And Should We Try?" Paul Graham, the founder of start-up seeder Y Combinator has decided that the fight over SOPA and PIPA proves that Hollywood is a dying industry, and has issued calls for competitors to kill it: That’s one reason we want to fund startups that will compete with movies and TV, but not the main reason. That’s a big task, and one that comes with formidable obstacles. Second, and relatedly, knowing how to distribute content isn’t the same thing as knowing how to produce it, or to spot what’s good about a project, or to know how to make it work. Third, I don’t know that there’s good evidence that there will be a direct tradeoff between movie spending and other forms of entertaining.
The Library of Halexandriah This is Part 2. Part 1 is here. Part 2: Taming the Mammoth Some people are born with a reasonably tame mammoth or raised with parenting that helps keep the mammoth in check. Others die without ever reining their mammoth in at all, spending their whole lives at its whim. Most of us are somewhere in the middle—we’ve got control of our mammoth in certain areas of our lives while it wreaks havoc in others. Whatever your situation, there are three steps to getting your mammoth under your control: Step 1: Examine Yourself The first step to improving things is a clear and honest assessment of what’s going on in your head, and there are three parts of this: 1) Get to know your Authentic Voice This doesn’t sound that hard, but it is. There are cliché phrases for this process—”soul-searching” or “finding yourself”—but that’s exactly what needs to happen. 2) Figure out where the mammoth is hiding Most of the time a mammoth is in control of a person, the person’s not really aware of it. No. So like…
iPhone 5 details leaked by Foxconn employee? Another day, another iPhone 5 rumor. This time it’s supposedly from a Foxconn employee, claims 9to5mac. The website reported that the iPhone 5 is currently “geared for production”, with sample devices floating around. The sample devices reportedly feature a 4+ inch display (made by LG on at least one of them), will not have a teardrop-shaped body, have been longer/wider than the existing iPhone, and won’t have the same iPhone 4/4S form factor. There is no guarantee that the final iPhone 5 will feature any of the aforementioned details and again, there’s no way to tell if the reports are true either. .
By Maria Popova “In disputes upon moral or scientific points,” Arthur Martine counseled in his magnificent 1866 guide to the art of conversation, “let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.” Of course, this isn’t what happens most of the time when we argue, both online and off, but especially when we deploy the artillery of our righteousness from behind the comfortable shield of the keyboard. That form of “criticism” — which is really a menace of reacting rather than responding — is worthy of Mark Twain’s memorable remark that “the critic’s symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else’s dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.” Daniel Dennett (b. If only the same code of conduct could be applied to critical commentary online, particularly to the indelible inferno of comments.
State Of The Union Address Highlights The Dirty Trick Of Hiding More Draconian IP Rules In 'Trade Agreements' As we've been discussing, it's great that the anti-SOPA/PIPA protests have awakened many to the horrors of ACTA. It seems that this may also help people finally learn about the nefarious practice of industry trade groups and governments to sneak bad IP legislation through "international agreements." With President Obama mentioning the importance of trade agreements and dealing with infringement in his State of the Union address, many people were wondering if it was a signal about SOPA/PIPA. However, as Harold Feld explains, it's much more likely he's talking about these new international agreements and treaties, like ACTA and (the even worse) TPP agreement that's currently being negotiated (in secrecy, of course). Feld also highlights how these things always "ratchet up." He points to the infamous US-Korea Free Trade Agreement ("KOROUS").
Occupy protesters barred from camping in DC squares Oakland police fire tear gas, flash grenades on Occupy protesters Beck Diefenbach / AP Occupy Oakland protestors burn an American flag found inside Oakland City Hall on Saturday. By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services Story updated 12:30 p.m. Oakland officials on Sunday were inspecting damage inside City Hall that was caused by about 50 Occupy protesters who broke in and smashed glass display cases, spray-painted graffiti, and burned the U.S. and California flags. The break-in on Saturday was the culmination of a day of clashes between protesters and police. At least three officers and one protester were injured. Mayor Jean Quan said Occupy protesters have caused an estimated $2 million in damages from vandalism since October. Riot police fought running skirmishes with anti-Wall street protesters in Oakland. The scene around City Hall was mostly quiet Sunday morning. Story updated 6:00 a.m. A U.S. flag was burned by a group of protestors inside City Hall, according to City Council President Larry Reid. Story updated 3:15 a.m. Sgt. Related stories: