The Fight | Dustin Curtis

It’s so easy to get stuck in the waiting place, putting things off until later, even when those things are vitally important to making your dreams come true. But the truth is that, in order to make progress, you need to physically and mentally fight against the momentum of ordinary events. The default state of any new idea is failure. It’s the execution–the fight against inertia–that matters. You have to remember to go against your instinct, to confront the ordinary, and to put up a fight.

This is, of course, mentally and physically taxing.

via dcurt.is

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Baz Luhrmann: Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Baz Luhrmann: Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 99.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. 

The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, 
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. 

I will dispense this advice now. 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. 
Oh, never mind. 
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. 
But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. 

You are not as fat as you imagine. 

Don’t worry about the future. 
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. 
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts.
Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. 
Sometimes you’re ahead, 
sometimes you’re behind. 
The race is long and, in the end, 
it’s only with yourself. 

Remember compliments you receive. 
Forget the insults. 
If you succeed in doing this, 
tell me how. 

Keep your old love letters. 
Throw away your old bank statements. 

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. 
The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. 
Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t. 

Get plenty of calcium. 

Be kind to your knees. 
You’ll miss them when they’re gone. 

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. 
Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. 
Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. 
Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. 
Your choices are half chance. 
So are everybody else’s. 

Enjoy your body. 
Use it every way you can. 
Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. 
It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. 

Dance. 
Even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. 
Read the directions, 
even if you don’t follow them. 

Do not read beauty magazines. 
They will only make you feel ugly. 

Get to know your parents. 
You never know when they’ll be gone for good. 

Be nice to your siblings. 
They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. 

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. 
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. 

Live in New York City once,
but leave before it makes you hard. 
Live in Northern California once, 
but leave before it makes you soft. 

Travel. 

Accept certain inalienable truths:
Prices will rise. 
Politicians will philander. 
You, too, will get old. 
And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. 

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. 
Maybe you have a trust fund. 
Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. 
But you never know when either one might run out. 

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. 
Advice is a form of nostalgia. 
Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. 

But trust me on the sunscreen…

via blog.benjamincano.com

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Disturb us, Lord - Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord,
when with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Sir Francis Drake

via blog.benjamincano.com

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Picturing Winter, a Solstice Celebration

via tor.com

Great collection of 70+ winter images, including the above, East by Stephen T. Johnson. A lovely contrast to the expected 40°C day here.

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

common book of prayer by Chris Clardy

common book of prayer
by Chris Clardy

all the ways which women pray
have yet to be forgotten—
the way you fold the shirt (between your hands)
        is a folding of your hands,
the way you bow your head over the head of the person
lying fever-small in your bed
        is a bowing of the head,
the way when that is done you listen with your eyes closed, wait for dawn,
        lift the latch, raise the shade, pour the tea,
        and, turning toward the mirror,
        see all things coming
because you
are willing to say all things can come and are coming
        is a willing of all things—
and all these ways
are pages in your book (your body is the book)
with no words or words inside it
is praying is your body is a book
written
every time you move—
all the ways which women pray with their bodies
have yet to be recalled—
        forget words—
this will happen (any way)
and your book of prayer will be praying,
praying in the way
women always
have prayed

~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted with permission of the poet.

via tabathayeatts.blogspot.com

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Continue to Share items from Google Reader in a way that bypasses Google+

A long time ago, I made a folder in my Google Reader called "Carissa Thorp - Scrapbook", added my Google Reader shared items feed and my Posterous blog feed to it, and made it public using Google Reader's Folders and Tags Settings tab. I used it to update a widget on my blog with items I shared in those places.

Then Google stopped the sharing features in Google Reader. Kind of. Because that "Carissa Thorp - Scrapbook" Public Page and RSS feed is still working. And there's the possibility that it might keep working.

See, I noticed that in their Google Reader Help documentation there's an entry under Organising called Tagging...

But first, an explanation of tagging in Google Reader. Using tagging you can add tags to individual items in a feed to "organise items of interest". Tag items with "favs" or "followup", as Google suggests, and you can revisit those items when you've finished ploughing through your feeds. Kind of like starring, but more customisable.

...So, it appears that Tagging is sticking around. My main evidence: it still has an entry in Google Reader Help, including a link to the now dead "Sharing" feature.

Now, Tagging and Folders are connected in some way I don't understand. So, I can tag an item with "Carissa Thorp - Scrapbook" and it will appear as an item on my "Carissa Thorp - Scrapbook" Public Page. It doesn't, however, appear in the "Carissa Thorp - Scrapbook" Folder in Google Reader. It seems that once you use a word or phrase to label a Folder, into which you've put feeds, you can no longer use that word or phrase as a tag to organise/revisit individual items within Google Reader*. You can, however, still tag items with that word or phrase, and they will appear on the Public Page and in its RSS feed.

Anyway, the point is that, on the proviso that Google doesn't pull these previously created Public Pages, you can still share items from Google Reader in a way that bypasses Google+...and here's the caveat...so long as you once-upon-a-time created a Public Folder in Google Reader.

See, they've pulled the ability to change a Folder's sharing settings; you can only rename or delete them now, no new Public Pages possible. Given this last point, it could be that Google will, in the future, shut down all current Public Pages, but they haven't yet. And as long as that's true, you can continue to use a Public Page to share items.

Hopefully, you bookmarked your Public Page, because that makes things a lot easier. Just let people know where to find it and you're done. They can visit the page and subscribe to your items using the RSS link.

If you didn't bookmark your Public Page, hopefully you remember which Folders you might have made public. Click on the small arrow that appears on the right when you hover over the folder name in Google Reader and choose "View details and statistics". A box will pop up with the Feed URL of that folder. Let people know that URL and they can subscribe directly with that link.

If you don't remember which folders you might have made public, you'll need to find out your Google User Number (hint: it's in that Feed URL mentioned above) and go through the following process to rediscover them:

• Log out of your Google Account or open another browser that isn't signed in to Google. This is because all Folder/Tags have their own page and RSS feed, but not all of them are public. You're looking for the public ones, but if you're logged into your own Google Account, all pages will be viewable, whether they're public or not.

• Update the following link to include your Google User Number where it says "yourusernumber".

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/yourusernumber/label/LabelName

• Copy the link and paste it into your browser address bar and then try out each Folder you think you might have made public by replacing "LabelName" in the link with the name of the Folder. If the page loads in the browser (you're logged out of your Google Account, right?) it's a Public Folder Page.

Why you might want to use this method rather than using another service like Tumblr or Posterous, I'll leave up to you to decide**. But the ability is there.

Note that this method doesn't bring back the ability to comment on items, something a lot of people miss. That's well and truly gone. (As is the feature I miss the most, the bookmarklet.)

Hope this helps someone with their Google Reader Sharing dilemma.

* If you subscribe to that Public Page in Google Reader, you can pull those items back in, even into the eponymous Folder itself.

** It's a slightly more private way to share items than a blog.

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Simple Google+ Bookmarklet by AJ Batac

via ajbatac.com

Can't select an excerpt and share that, nor even the entire article; it's just the link and nothing else. But at least it's something to, in some way, replace the Google Reader Share Bookmarklet I used to bits till they killed it this week.

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain...

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

- A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (via triadic)

via jeffreyoverstreet.tumblr.com

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

"E-ink feels peaceful to me" - John Gruber

John Gruber at Daring Fireball on e-ink (and the new Kindles):

"I got a Kindle about a year ago, and I use it much more than I expected to. I like reading on e-ink. I look at glowing backlit displays all day, every day. I’ve been obsessed with computers my whole life. I love glowing screens. When I’m away from my computer for days, I’m happy when I sit down in front of it. There’s a certain feeling I get when I use any computer — a Mac, an iPhone, an iPad, my TiVo, even an ATM or the credit card slider at the supermarket. Cool, a computer.

I read books on my iPad, too, but reading on the iPad doesn’t have the same mental-mode-switching effect. When I read with the iPad I feel like I’m doing the same basic thing I do as I read on my Mac all day long — just with a different device. It’s more pleasant, in many ways, and definitely more personal. But I’m still in the same mental mode — fully aware that anything and everything is just a few taps and few seconds away.

E-ink feels peaceful to me. The Kindle doesn’t feel like a computer. It feels — not to the touch but to the eyes and mind — like a crudely-typeset and slightly smudgily-printed paper book. That’s a good thing. Battery life is un-computer-like as well: Amazon measures e-ink Kindle battery life in months, and they’re not joking. It’s a surprise when the Kindle actually needs a charge. I was a doubter until I owned one, but now I’m convinced that e-ink readers have tremendous value even in the post-iPad world."

Pretty much my sentiments too. Doesn't feel at all superfluous to own both an iPad with the Kindle app and a Kindle. They're different beasts.

And yep: "Cool, a computer."

Writing & uncertainty: “I’ve got a high tolerance for not knowing…I can sit and not know the heck out of a thing…” Heather Sellers

The Gift Of Face Blindness

Sellers says that, in a strange way, her inability to remember faces served her well as a child, because it taught her to cope with uncertainty. That ability is still useful to her as an adult and a writer.

"I think a lot of brilliant, talented writers have a hard time staying in that chair long enough to get through the inevitable chaos that comes when you sit down to make a piece of art, and I've got a high tolerance for not knowing," she says.

"I can sit and not know the heck out of a thing; I've been doing it my whole life," she says. "And I've trained myself, when I don't know, to not freak out, to just keep looking closer."

For years, Sellers looked for a cure, an end to her face blindness. But now, she says, she would never give it up. "It's allowed me to engage with the world in a meaningful way, and to talk to people with depth and authenticity. I don't know that I would have come to that without this disorder."

Face blindness "forces me to say right away the most vulnerable thing I could say to someone: I may not know you, but I want to."

via "Living With Face Blindness: Who Are You, Again?" : NPR.org

 

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

'Seabiscuit' author Laura Hillenbrand talks about horse racing, writing - Tim Layden - Sports Illustrated

via sportsillustrated.cnn.com

SI.com: In that same vein, you said in a 2001 interview: "That's the story of the individuals I wrote about: They were successful in overcoming what they had to deal with. Stepping out of my body and into their lives -- they were vigorous men, who lived wild eventful lives that swung in gigantic parabolas -- was an escape for me.''

This was about Seabiscuit, but it could have been about Louis Zamperini, too. It seems like the same emotions might hold now, but is the work not only an escape, but also an athletic competition of sorts for you, as well?*

Hillenbrand: I love to write about individuals who lived lives full of motion, because [chronic fatigue syndrome] leaves me trapped in stillness. Creating a book is a very intense process for me; as I conduct research, or write, I imagine and reimagine the events, trying to feel the experience with my subjects. I try to gather every possible detail, so I can see and feel each event as vividly as possible. In my mind, I'm with my subjects, whether it is aboard Seabiscuit's back as he puts away War Admiral, or aboard a raft lost in the Pacific as a Japanese bomber strafes it with bullets and sharks circle alongside. Physically, I can't escape this illness, or even this house, but when I'm writing, I'm not here; I am in another place and time, in another body, living through someone else. The thing I yearn for the most in my life is to have a healthy body again, so I especially enjoy writing about supreme athletic moments.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tim_layden/12/15/hillenbrand.q.a/index.html#ixzz18j8NRPON

* Emphasis mine

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

An iPad keyboard tip I didn't know about >> "Yes, touch typing is possible on the iPad" | Practically Efficient

If you only need to type a single number, you can tap and hold the .?123 key at the bottom of the main keyboard, then drag your finger to the number key you desire. When you release that key, the number will be inserted, and the keyboard layout with instantly switch back to the main ABC layout. This eliminates the need to tap the ABC key again. The tap and drag trick always works with any other key in the .?123 layout.

via practicallyefficient.com

And yes, I'm able to touch type on my iPad too.

Posted via email from Carissa's Scrapbook

Writing & uncertainty: “I’ve got a high tolerance for not knowing…I can sit and not know the heck out of a thing…” Heather Sellers

The Gift Of Face Blindness

Sellers says that, in a strange way, her inability to remember faces served her well as a child, because it taught her to cope with uncertainty. That ability is still useful to her as an adult and a writer.

"I think a lot of brilliant, talented writers have a hard time staying in that chair long enough to get through the inevitable chaos that comes when you sit down to make a piece of art, and I've got a high tolerance for not knowing," she says.

"I can sit and not know the heck out of a thing; I've been doing it my whole life," she says. "And I've trained myself, when I don't know, to not freak out, to just keep looking closer."

For years, Sellers looked for a cure, an end to her face blindness. But now, she says, she would never give it up. "It's allowed me to engage with the world in a meaningful way, and to talk to people with depth and authenticity. I don't know that I would have come to that without this disorder."

Face blindness "forces me to say right away the most vulnerable thing I could say to someone: I may not know you, but I want to."

via "Living With Face Blindness: Who Are You, Again?" : NPR.org

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

An iPad trick to write "morning pages" style

For long typing sessions, I found myself putting the keyboard on my lap while placing the iPad off to the side—sometimes not even in direct eyeshot. For longer writing, there's a sort of freedom that comes from not even looking at the screen while you type. (My friend Quinn Norton said that on longer writing jags, she sometimes uses her wireless keyboard in a completely different room from her computer, a sort of modern twist on the big-keyboard-tiny-screen experience of early laptops like the Epson HX-20, which were for years favored by some journalists even as laptops with larger screens were commonplace.)

via m.gizmodo.com

I've read similar tips in the past where people suggested turning off your computer monitor.

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Well, Thor looks pretty good; and the movie should be awesome too :-)

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Classic Australian SF

The publishers of Aurealis (the magazine for whom I edit the subscribers newsletter and blog), Chimaera Publications, have released six Classic Australian SF Books. Features some great cover-art from Andrew McKiernan and "introductions from some of Australia's most notable writers and critics". Check them out if you like SF, especially of an older vintage.

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Handy post from Sarah Wilson about cooking from the freezer

tuesday eats: how to freeze things

I know this seems like a really daggy post. But stick with me, at least until the jump. It gets really interesting. See this quinoa recipe below, from 101 Cookbooks, an amazing resource for super healthy food ideas…I challenged myself to make it entirely from stuff pulled from my freezer. There are tricks and things to know…read on…

A full freezer is a green freezer

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman is a mad freezer nut. He wrote recently in Oprah magazine that storing food in the freezer is actually economical because freezers work more efficiently when they’re full…something to do with solids stay cold longer than gases, so keep the whole lot at a more consistent temperature. Rad. Mark pretty much stores everything in his – flour, lemons, fruit, bacon. I’m not far off.

Some stuff is better frozen

Frozen tofu, for instance, stirfries better. Also, many starchy vegetables, like corn and peas, are better frozen than “fresh”. Starch breaks down as soon as the veggie is picked. Freezing stalls enzyme break-down. So those peas? They’re frozen not long after they’re picked and are in better nick than those that travel to the markets than to your local shop and then sit in your fridge for a few days…

But bear this in mind…

Watch out for freezer burn – make sure everything is covered, filling containers to the top. Sauces and pesto can be stored with a layer of oil on top. Cooked beans and rice  can be topped off with water...

for more visit sarahwilson.com.au

More and more, I'm depending on my freezer when cooking. As a single person with a chronic illness it allows me to save precious money, time and energy.

Posted via email from FrucMal Miscellaneous

I'm going to try this: Heirloom Tomato, Rice and Almond Tart | Cannelle et Vanille: {Cooking for Friends}

{Cooking for Friends} Heirloom Tomato, Rice and Almond Tart

via cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com

I've avoided making pastry since being on the frucmal diet, but this tart looks so good, I'm going to bite the bullet and just do it.

Posted via email from FrucMal Miscellaneous

"Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things..." via @DanijShapiro

"Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger."

- Virginia Woolf

via danishapiro.com

Blog – Moments Of Being | Dani Shapiro

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Publication of XMRV papers should not be blocked

Blocking publication also sends the wrong message to CFS patients, to the public, and scientists. Not only does this action raise suspicions about their motives – are they trying to publish only the result they believe is correct? – but it ignores the very important fact that science is self correcting. Scientists are humans, and they make mistakes. But eventually the right answer will come to the surface. And that is why PNAS and Retrovirology should respect peer review, publish the XMRV papers, and let science correct itself.

via virology.ws

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous