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

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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